Don't Tell Alfred Read online

  Perhaps unwisely, we had given Northcy the entresol recently vacated by Lady Leone, with its own entrance to the courtyard. At all hours of the day and night one was apt to see French government or CD. motors there whose owners were not transacting business with Alfred, while motor-bicyclists dressed like Martians continually roared up the Faubourg to stop at our concierge’s lodge with notes or flowers or chocolates for Northey. She had taken to the social and political life of Paris with an ease more often exhibited nowadays by pretty boys than by pretty girls. Philip, who knew that esoteric world better than anybody else in the Embassy, said it was almost incredible how quickly she was picking up its jargon and manners. While I was still feeling my way through a thick fog, not knowing who anybody was, summoning small talk with the greatest difficulty, Northey seemed completely at home with the different groups which make up French society.

  In one respect, however, she remained the same little Scotch girl who had arrived oh the cattle boat. Her passion for animals was in no way modified and, as might have been foreseen, she began to accumulate pets which she had rescued from some misfortune.

  ‘Yes, I saw this group of children in the Tuileries. Now I’ve always noticed that if you see children clustered round something and looking down at it fixedly it’s going to be a creature and they are going to be cruel to it. Sure enough, they had got hold of this sweet torty. They kept picking her up and waving her about and putting her down again. You know how it’s dread for a tortoise to be waved because she naturally thinks she is in the dutches of an eagle. So cruel, to bring them here from Greece – thousands of them – and wave them about all the summer and then leave them to die in the winter. Ninety per cent die, I read. Oh Fanny, the world! Anyway I bought her from those ghastly children for 1,000 francs, which I luckily had on me (we must have a little talk about money) and now she can be happy until the cold weather. Just look at the way she walks though, anybody can see her nerves are in ribbons.’

  ‘Would you like to see my cat? She’s old. She’s bandaged up like this because her abscesses keep breaking out. The Duke’s vet comes every morning when he has finished with the pugs and gives her penicillin. How d’you mean, kinder? Can’t you see she’s enjoying her life? She lies there purring, quite happy. Could I borrow a little money? Yes, well, penicillin is expensive, you know. You are kind – I’m keeping a strict account.’

  Then she went for a walk on the quays and saw a badger asleep in a cage on the pavement outside an animal shop. ‘The cruelty – they hate daylight – they live all day in a sett and only come out when it’s dark. Imagine keeping it like that – why bring it here from its wood, poor little creature? So I came back for Jer6me and the Rolls-Royce and borrowed some money from Mrs Trott (darling, could you pay her for me if I promise to keep a strict account?) and together we lugged Mr Brock into the motor, huge and heavy he is, and brought him to the Avenue Gabriel, through that gate, and he’s in the garden now. Do come and look –’

  ‘Oh Northey, was that a good idea? As it’s broad daylight in the garden – I don’t see much difference.’

  ‘Oh, the dear fellow will manage somehow.’

  He did. The next morning there was an enormous, banked-up hole like an air-raid shelter in the middle of the lawn.

  She was wildly unrealistic about money; each for each, her favourite adage, was evidently the keynote of her faith in such matters. She borrowed from any and everybody out of whom she could wheedle the stuff and then made Alfred or me pay them back, saying, ‘I’m keeping a strict account. I’ve had my wages now until June of next year.’

  ‘Dearest,’I said one day, ‘what about M. Cruas? Ought we not to pay him for his lessons?’ He came every afternoon fot at least an hour, so Northey told me; he was evidently a good teacher as her French progressed amazingly.

  ‘No, Fanny, it’s not necessary, he comes for love. But if you have got a few thousand francs to spare, Phyllis McFee and me did a little recce in Main Street and saw un cocktail, prix shock, which is just my affair. Sharpen your wits, darling, it’s French for a cheap afternoon dress.’

  This Phyllis McFee was a Scotch friend of Northey’s, from Argyllshire, who also had a job in Paris. So far I had not met her. I was glad that Northey had somebody to run round with, other than elderly cabinet ministers.

  ‘Oh you are kind, now I can go and buy it. So I’ve had my wages until August I think – anyway I keep a strict account you know, it’s all written carefully down.’

  It could not exactly be said that Northey’s work suffered from all these distractions, she had such a genius for delegating it. ‘Each for each is what we teach’ meant that Alfred and I, Mrs Trott the housekeeper, Jérôme the chauffeur, Major Jarvis and Philip did practically all her various jobs for her. Our reward was ‘You are kind, oh the kindness of you.’ But quite apart from extraneous calls on her time and attention, she was not cut out to be a secretary, nobody has ever been less of a career woman. She lived, quite frankly, for pleasure.

  ‘I see what my boys mean when they say she is old-fashioned,’ I observed to Philip, ‘she is as frivolous as a figure of die twenties.’

  ‘Thank goodness for that anyway. These new ones make me despair of the female sex. I belong to the old world, that’s what it is, I talk its language – I’d sooner marry a Zulu woman of my own age than one of these gloomy beauties in red stockings.’

  Quite good, I thought, as far as it went, but I was sorry to see that Philip showed no sign of falling in love with Northey. He burned for Grace and I feared that when that flame died down for want of fuel it would never be relit by Northey whom he regarded as a charming, funny little sister. I told her so. She had discovered that Grace was his love (enlightened, probably, by one of the followers, hoping to further his own suit) and came, eyes like diamonds, to communicate her dismay.

  ‘Horrible, horrible Grace, how could he?’

  I thought it better to be astringent, not too sympathetic. ‘Last time we talked about her you said she was so fascinating.’

  ‘Never! Idiot, rolling her r’s and dressing up French. Besides, she’s as old as Time.’

  ‘As old as Philip.’

  ‘It’s different for a man as you know very welL Fanny, I can’t understand it.’

  ‘I’m afraid we never understand that others may be preferred to ourselves.’

  ‘Has Alfred ever preferred anyone to you?’

  ‘Yes, and very boring it was.’

  ‘But you managed?’

  ‘As you see. I think it’s a good thing, really, that you know about Philip and Grace.’

  ‘Why is it? I was much happier before.’

  ‘Because now you won’t go on harbouring dangerous illusions.’

  ‘More dangerous for me – to despair.’

  ‘Don’t despair, but don’t be too hopeful, either. Remember that it would be a miracle if Philip fell in love with you, under the circumstances.’

  ‘Well, there are miracles. Why shouldn’t God do something forme?’

  ‘Yes, I only say don’t count on it.’

  Philip, overhearing these words as he came into the Salon Vert, said, ‘If you’re after a miracle St Expedite is your boy. He’s a dear little Roman saint who deals with lost causes and he hangs out at St Roch. Only he doesn’t like it if you begin asking before the cause is really lost; you must be quite sure before you bother him. I thought we might get him on to the European Army soon. What do you want a miracle for, Mees?’

  ‘It was love and love alone that made King Edward leave his throne.’

  ‘Oh, love! Don’t tell me you’re keenly running after Bouche-Bontemps?’

  ‘You know I’m not, you brute.’ Brimming. ‘You know quite well who it is.’

  ‘By the way, I’d forgotten! That is a lost cause, I can tell you and I should know. There, there, mop them up. Are you going to the Chambre to see the old boy present his ministry?’

  ‘Of course. I’m his Egeria.’

  ‘Don’t be up u
ntil five again,’ I said.

  ‘No. He’s going to make one of his nutshell speeches – not more than two hours – he says they’ll have thrown him out by midnight.’

  ‘Oh, that’s how it is?’ said Philip. ‘I wasn’t sure. Excellent. Then we can get on with the Îles Minquiers.’

  ‘I wish I understood about these islands,’ said Northey.

  ‘So do I,’said Philip.

  ‘Why do our papers keep saying the French should be urged to give them up for their own sake?’

  ‘Because we want them.’

  ‘If it’s good for us to have them, why is it good for the French to get rid of them?’

  ‘In the first place they almost certainly belong to us. Then there’s our altruism. In our great, true, sincere love for the French, knowing they will be better without the islands (and a great many other places as well) we are willing to take the responsibility for them off their shoulders. Now, put that in your pipe and stop asking questions. I’m a civil servant, policy is nothing to do with me, I am there to obey orders. I may add that I wish to heaven the bloody thing could be settled and forgotten – it’s poisoning my existence.’

  The telephone bell rang. ‘Answer,’ I said to Northey, ‘and ask who it is.’

  ‘Hullo – oh – yes, he’s here – who is it? Quelle horrible surprise! It’s for you, an affected foreign voice,’ she said loudly, handing the receiver to Philip.

  ‘Grace? Oh, don’t pay any attention, she’s not quite all there, you know. The Times? No, I haven’t. There’s a leader? Well, it won’t be the last, they’ve got to fill that space every day – ghastly for them. And a letter from Spears? Not a bit surprised. But, Grace, I’ve told you it’s nothing to do with me. I don’t approve or disapprove, I’m not meant to have an opinion. No, I won’t resign, it never does any good and then one is unemployed. Do you want me to leave Paris? And all because of a few rocks which honestly don’t matter either way. We’ll talk about it presently. Yes, of course I will, I’d love to.’ He rang off and said to me, ‘We’re both dining there, aren’t we, Fanny? She wants me to take her to the Chambre later on.

  ‘You said you’d pick me up and take me,’ Northey brimmed.

  ‘But we will. Grace won’t mind a bit.’

  ‘Imind.’

  ‘Ah! Then you’d better tell them to send the Presidential motor, with its moon, for you.’

  ‘Very funny and witty.’

  ‘Jérôme can take you, darling. Send him on to the Valhuberts’, that’s all.’

  ‘It’s because – I don’t like going in there alone. I know.’ She took the telephone and said, ‘Katie, love, put me through to the Bureau of the Assemblée, will you? I’ll speak in my own room.’

  Chapter Eight

  ALFRED had gone to London for a day or two, so Philip took me to the Valhubert dinner. I was beginning to lose my fear of such social occasions now that I knew some of the people likely to be present. They were all very nice to me. I was dazzled by the French mode of life; they keep up a state in Paris which we English only compete with in country houses. A Paris dinner party, both from a material point of view and as regards conversation, is certainly the most civilized gathering that our age can produce, and while it may not be as brilliant as in the great days of the salons, it is unrivalled in the modern world.

  The Hôtel de Valhubert, like the Hôtel de Charost (the English Embassy), lies between a courtyard and a garden. It is built of the same sandy-coloured stone and, though smaller and of a later date, its ground plan is very similar. There the resemblance ends. The Embassy, having been bought lock, stock and barrel from Napoleon’s sister, is decorated and furnished throughout in a fine, pompous, Empire style very suitable to its present use. The Hôtel de Valhubert is a family house. The rooms still have their old panelling and are crammed with the acquisitions of successive Valhuberts since the French revolution (when the house was sacked and the original furnishings dispersed). Beautiful and ugly objects are jumbled up together, and fit in very well Grace’s flowers were perfection; no yards of velvet, no dead hares, not a hint of harvest home, pretty bouquets in Sevrès vases.

  After praising my dress, which was, I thought myself, quite lovely and which came from her dressmaker, Grace introduced me to various people I did not know already. ‘It’s pouring in London tonight,’ she said, ‘I’ve just had a word with Papa. He’d been to Eton and taken the boys out – you’ll be glad to hear they are all three alive. He says he never saw such rain!’

  Mrs Jungfleisch said the weather had been perfect when she was in London, much better than in Paris.

  ‘Come off it, Mildred. You see London through rose-coloured specs, though I notice you don’t go and live there.’

  I had not met Mrs Jungfleisch since she came down my staircase, in white linen, actively participating in the rapine of the gramophone. She showed no signs of embarrassment but said, ‘Nice to see you again.’ I felt as if I had behaved badly in some way and had now been forgiven.

  At dinner I sat next to Valhubert and we talked about the children, a ready-made topic whenever he and I saw each other.

  ‘Poor Fabrice,’ he said, speaking of my Fabrice’s father.’ He was my hero when I was a little boy and as soon as I grew up we were more like brothers than cousins. I must say the child has a great look of him. I was telling my aunt – naturally she is anxious to see him – will you allow me to take him down there when he comes for Christmas? It could be to his advantage, she is rich and there is nobody left of the Sauveterre family. She might adopt him – no – you wouldn’t care for that?’

  ‘I don’t think I would mind. After all, she is his grandmother. In another five years I suppose he will have gone out of my life. These boys seem to vanish away as soon as they are grown up.’

  ‘And then what do they do?’

  ‘I wish I knew. Alfred and I have always acted on the principle with them of never asking questions.’

  ‘Like the Foreign Legion?’

  ‘Exactly. Now I sometimes wonder if it has been a good plan. We have no idea what goes on; the two elder sons might be dead for all we see or hear of them.’

  ‘Where are they – in diplomacy?’

  I began telling him about Beard and Ted, but I could see that he was not listening. He was interested in his own Sigi and in his cousin’s Fabrice while accepting our Charlie as inseparable from the others. Bearded professors, whiskered travel agents (if that was what Basil had become) were out of his ken. I knew that my encounter in the street with Basil’s accomplice would have seemed strange and dreadful to any man of my own generation; I had never told Alfred of it.

  ‘Aren’t you going down to the House?’ I said, to change the subject. I knew that the session began at nine o’clock.

  ‘My father-in-law.always says down to the House – I like it very much. Yes, presently I wilL There’s no hurry, we know to a minute what is happening. Jules Bouche-Bontemps at this moment is launching a pathetic appeal – no, pathetic is not the translation, it is one of those trap words which mean different things in the two languages. Rousing, perhaps, a rousing call, or a moving speech. (Nobody will be roused or moved by it, but let that pass.) I could make this speech for him if he fell ill in the middle, I know it as well as he does and so does the whole of his audience. He will begin by saying that our divisions suit nobody except certain allies who had better be nameless. Here we shall have a long digression on Les lies Minquiers, their history and moral attachment to France. (Those islands are a bore, I can’t listen to anything which concerns them, it is too dull.) This will be put in so that if we lose them – and who, except, of course, Grace, cares it we do? – he will be able to say that it is the fault of my party and les Madames who are all preparing, as he very well knows, to vote against him. He will pretend to be deeply shocked by the unholy alliance between les Madames and the Gaullists, all playing London’s game. Well, that’s a change from Moscow’s game, isn’t it, which he generally accuses us of playing? Then he
will move on to next week’s railway strike. The rotting vegetables and stranded tourists will also be the fault of ourselves and Mesdames. Of course all these gloomy prophecies and reproaches and upbraidings will have not the slightest effect and he knows it. He knows to a vote where he will be at the end of the session, that is to say out, not in, so he really might save himself the trouble of making this speech. But he is fond of speaking, it amuses him, and above all it amuses him to publish the iniquities of his fellow-countrymen. Do you like him?’

  ‘Oh yes – very much.’

  ‘I love him – I really love old Bouche-Bontemps.’

  Philip leant across the table and said to me, ‘All French politicians love each other, or so they say. You see, they never know when they may want to join each other’s governments.’

  Everybody laughed. Conversation became general, people shouting remarks at each other in all directions. I like this lively habit which enables one to listen without the effort of joining in, unless one has something to say. When the babel died down again I asked M. Hué, my other neighbour, what would happen if the crisis went on.

  ‘René’ Pléven, Jules Moch and Georges Bidault, in that order, will try and form governments and they will fail. Anglo-French relations will deteriorate; social troubles will multiply; North Africa will boil. In the end even the deputies will notice that what we chiefly need is a government. They will probably come back to Bouche-Bontemps who will get in with the same ministers and the same programme they will have rejected tonight. Is it true that Sir Harald Hardrada is coming over to give a lecture?’