The Blessing Read online

  Nanny came in. ‘Good gracious! The room looks like a jumble sale.’

  ‘Run me a bath, darling. I’m going out to dinner with that Frenchman.’

  ‘Are you, dear? And what’s his name?’

  ‘Bother. I never asked him.’

  ‘Oh well,’ said Nanny, ‘one French name is very much like another, I dare say.’

  2

  His name was Charles-Edouard de Valhubert. About a month later he said to Grace, ‘Perhaps I will marry you.’

  Grace, in love as never before, tried to keep her head and not to look as if about to faint with happiness.

  ‘Will you?’ she said. ‘Why?’

  ‘In ten days I go back to the Middle East. The war will begin soon, anything may happen, and I need a son.’

  ‘How practical you are.’

  ‘Yes. I am French. Mais après le mariage – mince de – nettoyage, – La belle-mère! – on s’assied dessus!’ he sang. He was for ever singing little snatches of songs like that. ‘But you won’t have a belle-mère, unfortunately, since she died, poor dear, many years ago.’

  ‘I must remind you,’ said Grace, ‘that I am engaged to somebody else.’

  ‘I must remind you that your behaviour lately has not been the behaviour of a faithful fiancée.’

  ‘A little flirtation means nothing at all. I am engaged, and that’s that.’

  ‘Engaged. But not married and not in love.’

  ‘Fond.’

  ‘Indeed?’

  ‘You really did see Hughie in Cairo?’

  ‘I saw him plain. He said, “Going to London are you? Do look up Grace.” Not very clever of him. So I looked up. He is very dull.’

  ‘Very handsome.’

  ‘Yes. So perhaps on Wednesday?’

  ‘Wednesday what?’

  ‘The marriage? I will now go and call on your father – where can I find him?’

  ‘At this time of day he’ll be at the House.’

  ‘How little did I ever think I should end up as the son-in-law of the Allingham Commission. How strange is one’s fate. Then I’ll come back and take you out to dinner.’

  The next day Sir Conrad Allingham went to see Mrs O’Donovan, a widow with whom he had had for many years a loving friendship. Sir Conrad preferred actually making love, a pastime to which he devoted a good deal of energy, with those whose profession it is, finding it embarrassing, never really able to let himself go, with women whom he met in other circumstances. But he liked the company of woman to an extent rare among Englishmen, and often went to chat for an hour or so with Mrs O’Donovan in her light sunny little house which looked over Chelsea Hospital. She was always at home, always glad to receive a visitor, and had a large following among the more intellectual of the right-wing politicians. Her regard for Sir Conrad was special; she spoke of him as ‘my Conrad’ and was out to other callers when he came to see her. It was said that he never took a step without asking her advice first.

  He said, without preamble, ‘Have you seen Charles-Edouard de Valhubert?’

  ‘Priscilla’s son?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is he in London?’

  ‘He’s been in London several weeks, courting Grace so it seems.’

  ‘Conrad! How extraordinary! What’s he like?’

  ‘Really, you know, irresistible. Came to see me at the House yesterday – wants to marry her. I knew nothing – but nothing. I thought Grace was buried in that First Aid Post, and, of course, I’ve been busy myself. Rather too bad of her really – here I am presented with this fait accompli.’

  ‘Well, but what about Hughie?’

  ‘What indeed? Mind you, my sympathies with Hughie are limited – he ought to have married her before he went away.’

  ‘Poor Hughie, he was longing to. He thought it wouldn’t be fair.’

  ‘What rubbish though. He leaves a position utterly undefended, he can’t be surprised if it falls into – well, Allied hands. I never cared for him, as you know, quite half-baked and tells no jokes. However, she didn’t ask my advice when she became engaged to him, nor did she ask it before breaking the engagement (if, indeed, she has remembered to do so). Clearly it doesn’t matter what I think. So much for Hughie. He has made his exit all right.’

  ‘I can see that you’re pleased, really.’

  ‘Yes and no. Valhubert is quite a chap I will say, tall, attractive (very much like his father to look at, much better dressed). He is clearly great fun. But I don’t like the idea of Grace marrying a frog, to tell the truth.’

  ‘Conrad! With your love for the French?’ Mrs O’Donovan loved the French too. She had once spent several months in Paris as a child; it had touched her imagination in some way, and she had hankered to live there ever since. This love was one of the strongest links between her and Sir Conrad. They both belonged to the category of English person, not rare among the cultivated classes, and not the least respectable of their race, who can find almost literally nothing to criticize where the French are concerned.

  ‘Only because of Grace’s special character,’ he said. ‘Try and picture her mooning about in Paris society. She would be a lamb among wolves; it makes me shudder to think of it.’

  ‘I’m not sure – after all she’s a beauty, and that means a great deal more in France than it does here.’

  ‘Yes, with the men. I’m thinking of the women. They’ll make short work of our poor Grace, always in the clouds.’

  ‘Perhaps her clouds will protect her.’

  ‘In a way, but I’m afraid she’s deeply romantic, and Valhubert has a roving eye if ever there was one. Don’t I remember that Priscilla was very unhappy? There used to be rumours –’

  Mrs O’Donovan delved in her mind for everything she had known, long ago now and buried away, about Priscilla de Valhubert. Among other things she brought to the surface was the memory that when she had first heard of Priscilla’s engagement she had felt exactly what she was feeling now, that it was really rather unfair. Mrs O’Donovan was as much like a Frenchwoman as it is possible for any Anglo-Saxon to be. She spoke the language faultlessly. Her clothes, her scent, the food she ate, the wine she drank, all, in fact, that makes life agreeable, came from France. There was a bidet in her bathroom; she had her afternoon rest on a chaise-longue; she hardly read a word of anything but French; her house was a centre for visiting Frenchmen; the cheese appeared before the pudding at her table, and her dog, a poodle, was called Blum.

  In London she was considered the great authority on everything French, to all intents and purposes a Frenchwoman, and she had therefore, quite naturally, come to have a proprietary feeling with regard to France. So it had seemd unfair then that Priscilla, just as it seemed unfair now that Grace, ordinary, rather dull English girls, should marry these fascinating men and sink back with no further effort to the enjoyment of all the delights of French civilization.

  Mrs O’Donovan had never wanted to marry any particular Frenchman, and had been exceedingly happy with her own husband, so that this feeling was nothing if not irrational. All the same, as jealousy does, it stung.

  ‘Yes, very unhappy,’ she said, ‘partly because she never felt comfortable in Paris society (she never quite learnt French) but chiefly, as you say, owing to the terrible unfaithfulness of Charles-René, which really, I believe, killed her in the end.’

  ‘Oh – killed her,’ said Sir Conrad. ‘I don’t suppose she died of love all the same. French doctors, more likely. When did Charles-René die?’

  ‘Years ago. Fifteen years I should think – very soon after Priscilla. Is old Madame de Valhubert still alive? And Madame Rocher?’

  ‘No idea – never knew them.’

  ‘Madame Rocher des Innouïs is, or was, Madame de Valhubert’s sister. Madame de Valhubert herself was always a kind of saint, as far as I can remember, and Madame Rocher was not. I knew them when I was a child, they were friends of my mother.’

  ‘Oh well,’ said Sir Conrad testily, ‘nobody tells me anythin
g. Nothing was said about any relations. I just talked with the chap for half an hour, mostly about my Drouais, which, according to him, is by some pupil of Nattier. Terrible rot. I did ask him why he wanted to marry her. They won’t have many interests in common, unless Grace makes an effort to educate herself at last.’ Grace’s dreamy illiteracy always exasperated her father.

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘He said she is so beautiful and so good.’

  ‘And so rich,’ said Mrs O’Donovan.

  ‘It can’t be that, my dear Meg. The Valhuberts have always been immensely rich.’

  ‘Yes, but nobody, and especially no French person, ever minds having a bit more, you know.’

  ‘I don’t somehow feel it’s that. Wants a son before he gets killed, more likely. The marriage, if you please, is tomorrow.’

  ‘Tomorrow?’

  ‘Yes, well, what can I do? Grace is of age – 23, time she did marry, in fact – and in love, radiant with love, I must say. Valhubert is more than old enough to know his own mind, 28 it appears, and is off to the war. They have decided, without asking me, that they will marry tomorrow. It remains for me to make a settlement and look pleasant.’

  In spite of all this peppery talk, Mrs O’Donovan, who knew him so well, could see that ‘her’ Conrad was not really displeased at the turn of events. He always rather liked the unexpected, so long as it did not interfere with his personal comfort, and was infinitely tolerant towards any manifestation of love. He had taken a fancy to Valhubert, who, since he was off to the war, would not be removing Sir Conrad’s housekeeper and companion for months, possibly years to come. He who was so fond of Paris would be glad to have a solid family foothold there when the war was over, while the incompatibility of the couple, as well as Grace’s broken heart, were, after all, only matters for speculation.

  ‘Where are they to be married?’ she asked. ‘Shall I come?’

  ‘I hope so indeed, and to luncheon afterwards. Twelve o’clock at the Caxton Hall.’

  Mrs O’Donovan, who was, of course, a Roman Catholic, was shocked and startled. ‘A civil marriage only? Conrad, is that wise? The Valhuberts are an intensely Catholic family, you know.’

  ‘I know. I did think it rather odd. But Grace is not a Catholic yet, though I suppose in time she will become one. Anyway,’ he said, getting up to go, ‘that’s what they’ve arranged. Nobody asked my advice about any of it, naturally. When I think how I used to turn to my dear old father – never moved a step without his approval –’

  ‘Are you sure?’ she said, laughing. ‘I seem to remember a river party – something about the Derby – a journey to Vienna –’

  ‘Yes, yes, I don’t say I was never young. I am speaking about broad outlines of policy –’

  Grace went out and bought a hat, and dressing for her wedding consisted in putting on this hat. As the occasion was so momentous she took a long time, trying it a little more to the right, to the left, to the back. While pretty in itself, a pretty little object, it was strangely unbecoming to her rather large, beautiful face. Nanny fussed about the room in a rustle of tissue paper.

  ‘Like this, Nan?’

  ‘Quite nice.’

  ‘Darling, you’re not looking. Or like this?’

  ‘I don’t see much difference.’ Deep sigh.

  ‘Darling! What a sigh!’

  ‘Yes, well I can’t say this is the sort of wedding I’d hoped for.’

  ‘I know. It’s a shame, but there you are. The war.’

  ‘A foreigner.’

  ‘But such a blissful one. Oh dear, oh dear, this hat. What is wrong with it d’you think?’

  ‘Very nice indeed, I expect, but then I always liked Mr Hugh.’

  ‘Hughie is bliss too, of course, but he went off.’

  ‘He went to fight for King and Country, dear.’

  ‘Well, Charles-Edouard is going to fight for President and Country. I don’t see much difference except that he is marrying me first. Oh darling, this hat. It’s not quite right, is it?’

  ‘Never mind, dear, nobody’s going to look at you.’

  ‘On my wedding day?’

  But when Charles-Edouard met them at the registry office he looked at her and said, ‘This hat is terrible, perhaps you’d better take it off.’

  Grace did so with some relief, shook out her pretty golden hair, and gave the hat to Nanny, who, since it was made of flowers, looked rather like a small, cross, elderly bridesmaid clasping a bouquet.

  They went for their honeymoon to Sir Conrad’s house, Bunbury Park, in Wiltshire, and were very happy. When, during the lonely years which followed, Grace tried to recall those ten short days, the picture that always came to her mind was of Charles-Edouard moving furniture. The central block of the house having been requisitioned by soldiers, he and Grace occupied three rooms in one of the wings, and Charles-Edouard now set himself the task of filling these rooms with objects of art. He seemed not to feel the piercing cold of the unheated hall, with its dome and marble floor, where most of the furniture had been put away, but bustled about in semi-darkness, lifting dust sheets, scrambling under pyramids of tables and chairs, opening cupboards and peering into packing cases, like a squirrel in search of nuts. From time to time, with a satisfied grunt, he would pounce upon some object and scurry off with it. If he could not move it alone he made the soldiers help him. It took eight of them to lug the marble bust of an Austrian archduke up the stairs into Grace’s bedroom. Nanny and the housekeeper clearly thought Charles-Edouard was out of his head, and exchanged very meaning looks and sniffs while the archduke was making his painful progress. One of Marie Antoinette’s brothers, bewigged and bemedalled, the Fleece upon his elaborately folded stock, he now entirely dominated the room with his calm, stupid, German face.

  ‘He looks dull,’ said Grace.

  ‘But so beautiful. You look too much at the subject – can’t you see that it’s a wonderful piece of sculpture?’

  ‘Come for a walk, Charles-Edouard, the woods are heavenly today.’

  It was early spring, very fine and dry. The big beeches, not yet in leaf, stood naked on their copper carpet, while the other trees had petticoats of pale green. The birds were already tuning up an orchestra as if preparing to accompany those two stars of summer, the cuckoo and the nightingale, as soon as they should make their bow. It seemed a pity to spend such days creeping about under dust sheets.

  ‘Nature I hate,’ said Charles-Edouard, as he went on with his self-appointed task. So she walked in the sunny woods alone, until she discovered that if she could propose an 18th-century mausoleum, Siamese dairy, wishing well, hermit’s grotto or cottage orné as the object for a walk, he would accompany her. He strode along at an enormous speed, often breaking into a run, seizing her hand and dragging her with him. ‘Il neige des plumes de tourterelles’, he sang.

  Her father’s park abounded in follies, quite enough to last out their visit. What did they talk about all day? She never could remember. Charles-Edouard sang his little songs, made his little jokes, and told her a great deal about the objects he found under the dust sheets, so that names like Carlin, Cressent, Thomire, Reisener and Gouthière always thereafter reminded her of their honeymoon. Her room became transformed from a rather dull country house bedroom into a corner of the Wallace Collection. But he hardly talked about himself at all, or his family, or life in Paris, or what they would do after the war. A fortnight from their wedding day he left England and went back to Cairo.

  Grace soon realized that she was expecting a child. When the air raids began Sir Conrad sent her to live at Bunbury, and here, in a bedroom full of works of art collected by his father, Sigismond de Valhubert opened his eyes upon the calm, stupid face of an Austrian archduke.

  3

  ‘He is a little black boy – oh, he is black. I never expected you to have a baby with such eyes, it doesn’t seem natural or right.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Grace. ‘I think one gets tired of always gazing into t
hese blue eyes. I like this better.’

  ‘Such a funny sort of name, too,’ Nanny went on, ‘not like anything. If he’d had been called after his father he could have been Charlie, or Eddy, but Sigi –! Well, I don’t care to say it in the street, makes people look round.’

  ‘But you’re so seldom in streets, darling.’

  ‘Salisbury. People stop and look at him as it is.’

  ‘That’s because he’s such a love. Anyway, I think he’s a blessing.’

  And so of course did Nanny, though she would have thought him an even more blessed blessing had he resembled his mother more and his father less.

  Grace stayed on at Bunbury. She had not meant to, she had meant to go back to London and the A.R.P. as soon as Sigi was weaned, but somehow, in the end, she stayed on. She fell into various country jobs, ran a small holding, and looked after the baby as much as Nanny allowed. Sir Conrad went down to see her at week-ends, and sometimes she spent a few days with him in London. So the years of the war went by calmly and rather happily for Grace, who never much minded being alone. She had a placid, optimistic nature, and was never tortured by anxious thoughts about Charles-Edouard, or doubted that he would return safely in due course. Nor did she doubt that when, in due course, he had safely returned, their marriage would be one of Elysian happiness.

  Her father and Mrs O’Donovan selected many books for her to read, in preparation for a French life. They told her she ought to be studying the religious writings of the 17th, the drama and philosophy of the 18th, the prose and politics of the 19th centuries. They sent her, as well as quantities of classics and many novels and mémoires, Michelet in sixteen morocco volumes and Sainte-Beuve in sixteen paper ones; they sent her Bodley’s France and Brogan’s Third Republic, saying she would feel a fool if she did not understand the French electoral, judicial, and municipal systems. Grace did make spasmodic efforts to get on with all this homework, but she was too mentally lazy and untrained to do more than nibble at it. In the evenings she liked to turn on the wireless, think of Charles-Edouard, and stitch away at a carpet destined to be literally laid at his feet. It was squares of petit point, in a particularly crude Victorian design of roses and lilies of the valley and blue ribbons. Grace thought it too pretty for words.