The Penguin Complete Novels of Nancy Mitford

by Nancy Mitford

  ‘You ought to be flattered,’ said Alfred. ‘The publishers know they can sell any amount of books about France – in fact France, like Love, is a certain winner on a title-page.’

  ‘Ah! So Mees Nortee is to learn about France and Love. I shall teach her, I know more than the English experts.’

  ‘You are kind,’ said Northey, ‘because I can see that these books are a bore. No pictures, no talk and such terribly long sentences.’

  ‘You told me you could read,’ said Alfred.

  ‘Like all of us she can read what interests her. When you have been here for a year, Mees, you will probably find yourself enjoying books about the state of France – though what this state will be by then, who can say?’ He sighed deeply. ‘Now, we will begin our lesson. Your uncle, the Ambassador here, has two bones to pick over with the French government, whenever there is a government. There are Les Îles Minquiers, a very nice point. You will hear more of them in due course – hats off to the Intelligence Service! And there is the European Army, known as C.E.D. or E.D.C., nobody can ever remember why. One of your uncle’s assignments is to persuade us to merge our army, which is overseas, fighting, with that of the Germans which is non-existent. This merging is desired by the Americans who see everything in black and white – with a strong preference for black.’

  ‘M. le Ministre –’ said Alfred sharply.

  ‘Your protest is registered, M. l’Ambassadeur. The English are really indifferent, they don’t care, but whenever they can please the Americans without it costing anything they like to do so. Armies have never meant much to them in times of peace – one army – another army – zero they think, anyhow, in the face of the Bomb. At the same time they have never been averse from weakening the Continental powers. All their Generals and Field-Marshals tell them that a European force would be quite unworkable so they say come on, the Americans want it, it rather suits us, let’s have it. Now, if it were a question of commerce, M. l’Ambassadeur, I believe the nation of shopkeepers would sing a very different song? Suppose we wanted a European market, Excellency, what would you say to that?’

  This lesson seemed to be more for the benefit of Alfred than of Northey who, crumpled forehead, looked extremely puzzled.

  Alfred said, ‘My American colleague tells me that you are going to accept the European Army, however.’

  ‘Your American colleague has a beautiful wife whom everybody wants to please. No Frenchman can bear to see somebody so exquisite looking sad for a single moment. So wherever she goes, in Paris or the provinces, the deputies and mayors and ministers and IGAMEs say “of course” to whatever she tells them. And she tells them, most beguilingly, that they are going to accept the European Army. We shall never accept. This government, as you see, is tottering. It will fall during the night, no doubt. But no French government could pass such a measure. We may be weak – nobody can say we are very strong at present – but we have an instinct for self-preservation. We shall appear to be about to give way, over and over again, but in the end we shall resist.’

  ‘And over the Minquiers,’ said Alfred, ‘you will appear to resist, but in the end you will give way?’

  ‘You have said it, M. l’Ambassadeur, not I.’

  ‘And then what about Europe? If the C.E.D. fails?’

  ‘It will be built up on a more peaceful and workable foundation. My great hope is, that when the time comes, you will not oppose it.’

  After luncheon M. Bouche-Bontemps said, ‘Shall I take Mees to the Chambre? She could then see the state of France in action.’

  ‘Oh, you are kind. The only thing is, M. Cruas said he would come at five.’

  ‘Who is M. Cruas?’

  ‘He teaches me French.’

  ‘Ring him up. Say you have another lesson today.’

  ‘He’s poor. He hasn’t got a telephone.’

  ‘Send a pneumatique,’ said the Minister, impatiently.

  He had a word on the staircase with Alfred and then left the house accompanied by Northey, who hopped, skipped and jumped across the marble paving of the hall, Alfred said, like a child going to a pantomime. I saw no more of her that day. Philip, in and out of the Chambre, reported during the evening that she seemed perfectly entranced, determined to stay to the end. The government fell in the early hours and Northey slept until luncheon-time.

  ‘So what was it like?’ I said, when she finally appeared.

  ‘Terribly like that dread school I went to. Desks with inkpots and a locker. From where I sat you could see there are lollipops in the lockers and when they are pretending to listen to the lecturer or read lesson books they are really having a go at the illustrated mags. All the same they do half-listen because suddenly all the Madames get up and stamp and roar and shout and the master has to ring a bell and shout back at them.’

  I had a vision of ghastly women, Erinyes, tricoteuses, obstructing the business of the Chambre. ‘Madames? Women deputies?’

  ‘No, Fanny,’ said Northey as one explaining a well-known fact to a child. ‘Madames are the Social Republicans, so called because their party head-quarters are in the rue Madame. The Republican Socialists, whose H.Q. is in the rue Monsieur, are called les Monsieurs. They are each other’s worst enemies. You see how sweet M. Bouche-Bontemps was quite right and going is better than reading.’

  ‘What was the debate about?’

  ‘Really, Fanny, I’m surprised that you should ask me that. Have you not seen your Figaro this morning? I hear that it is very well reported. Pensions for remarried war widows, of course.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Quite sure. There was a nice person in the box called Mrs Jungfleisch who told me all about it. And an Englishwoman married to one of the deputies – a marquis I suppose because when he got up to speak the Communists chanted “imbécile de Marquis” and he became quite giggly and lost his place.’

  ‘That must be Grace de Valhubert,’ I said, pleased to think that she was back in Paris.

  ‘Yes. She knows Fabrice and Charlie and she sent you her love. She talks with such a pretty French accent and Fanny! her clothes! Sweet M. Bouche-Bontemps came and took me out to dinner. He said if he fell he would be able to devote himself to my education. Well, he has fallen, so – Philip brought me home,’ she added, nonchalantly.

  I thought I understood now why she had stayed so late.

  7

  Now that the French were comfortably without a government, Alfred received instructions from the Foreign Office to make strong representations at the Quai d’Orsay about Les Îles Minquiers. These islands, which were to occupy his waking thoughts for many a long month to come, are described in Larousse as dangerous rocks near St Malo and given no independent notice in the Encyclopaedia Britannica. There are three of them and at high tide they are completely submerged. During the liberation of France, General de Gaulle found time to have a tricolour run up, at low tide, on the Île Maîtresse or middle island. Never has the adage ‘let sleeping dogs lie’ been more justified. This flag was immediately spotted by the Argus-eyed Intelligence Service and the Admiralty found time to send a frogman, at high tide, to haul it down again. Now that the attention of Whitehall was drawn to the existence of the Minquiers, some busybody with a turn for international law began to study the complicated question of their ownership. It transpired that the Traité de Brétigny (1360) which gave Normandy to the Kings of France, and Calais, le Quercy, le Ponthieu, Gascony, etc., to the English crown, made no allocation of the Minquiers. They were not covered by the various Channel Island treaties and have existed throughout history as a no-man’s-land. As they are within sight, when they can be seen at all, of the French coast, no doubt they were always assumed to be part of France, but nobody seems to have minded one way or the other. It was bad luck for Alfred that the government which appointed him to Paris should be determined to paint the Minquiers pink on the map; nothing could have been more calculated to annoy the Fre
nch at that particular juncture.

  ‘But what is the point of these islands?’ I asked as Alfred was about to leave for the Quai d’Orsay.

  ‘Islands are always rather desirable – the Royal Yacht Squadron would like them to be English; our fishermen could use them, I suppose. The Foreign Secretary says the question must be settled now in the interests of Western solidarity. I must say, I’m not delighted to have to make a nuisance of myself at such a time.’

  The President of the Republic, M. Béguin the outgoing Prime Minister, and the heads of the parties, one of whom was M. Bouche-Bontemps, had been up for several nights trying to resolve the crisis; tempers were beginning to be frayed. The English newspapers were pointing out the impossibility of relying on an ally who never seems to have a government. In decidedly gloating tones they inquired: will France be represented at the Foreign Ministers’ Conference next week or shall we, as usual, see an empty seat? Can the Western Alliance afford these continual tergiversations? The people of England look on with dismay; they have but one desire, to see our French friends strong, prosperous and united.

  The French papers urged the political parties to settle their differences with the least possible delay since ‘nos amis britanniques’ were clearly about to make use of the situation to further their own sinister schemes. The two old neighbours are not always displeased by each other’s misfortunes, nor do they trust each other not to take advantage of them.

  ‘And you will notice when you have lived here for a bit,’ said Grace de Valhubert, ‘that it is the English who are the more annoying. The French never sent arms to the Mau-Mau, that I heard of.’

  Grace counted herself as a sort of supernumerary English ambassadress; like most people who have been accredited for years to a foreign country she could only see one side of every question and that not the side of her own, her native land. Everything French was considered by her superior to its English equivalent. She was inclined to talk a sort of pidgin English, larded with French words; she slightly rolled her r’s; at the same time her compatriots in Paris noted with glee that her French was by no means perfect. She was a bit of a goose, but so good-natured, pretty and elegant that one could not help liking her. It was the fashion to say that she had a terrible time with her husband but when I saw them together they always seemed to be on very comfortable terms. She was evidently quite uninterested in Philip.

  She had come to call on me, sweet and affectionate, bringing me flowers. ‘So sorry not to have been here when you arrived but I always stay at Bellandargues as long as I can. It’s what I like best in the world. Anyway, who knows that I would have resisted the entresol? Too awful if you hadn’t been able to ask me when next there is a Visit!’

  ‘Oh Grace, the rules would be quite different for you!’

  I took her to my room to see the fashionable dress I hated so much. She transformed it instantly by putting a belt on it, after which it became the prettiest I had ever had. ‘Never believe that we have seen the last of the waist – the English have been saying it ever since the New Look went out – wishful thinking I suppose. An Englishwoman’s one idea is to get into something perfectly shapeless and leave it at that.’

  I thought of the Chinese robe.

  ‘As a matter of fact,’ she went on, ‘if you’re like me and get fond of your clothes and want to wear them for years the first rule is to stick to the female form. Everything that doesn’t is dated after one season. Perhaps I’d better take you to my dressmaker – he’s in the Faubourg – very nice and convenient for you – his clothes are more ordinary and far more wearable. I always think Dolcevita really wants to make one look a figure of fun.’

  I thanked her for this advice, on all of which I acted. ‘Come back to the Salon Vert and we’ll have some tea.’

  ‘You’ve moved the furniture about – it’s better like this,’ said Grace, looking round the room. ‘It never seemed very much lived in. Pauline used that gloomy bedroom more.’

  I poured out the tea and said I hoped the boys had behaved themselves at Bellandargues.

  ‘We never saw them except at meals. They were very polite. Do you know about Yanky Fonzy?’

  ‘I don’t think so – is he at school with them?’

  ‘He’s a jazz biggy,’ said Grace, ‘he sends them. All that lovely weather they were shut up with a gramophone in Sigi’s room being sent by Yanky. Haven’t you seen their shirts with Yank’s the Boy for Me printed on them? It’s a transfer from Disc.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘I don’t know, I’m quoting.’

  ‘How did your husband take it?’

  ‘Don’t ask,’ said Grace, shutting her eyes. ‘However, it’s entirely Charles-Edouard’s own fault for insisting on Eton instead of letting the child go to Louis-le-Grand like everybody else. Then he’d never have heard of this ghastly Yanky.’

  ‘Any news of him since they all arrived in Scotland?’

  ‘Silence de glace. But as a matter of fact I have never received a letter from Sigismond in my life – I wouldn’t know his writing on an envelope if I saw it. I pity the women who fall in love with him. When he first went to Eton I gave him those printed postcards: I am well, I am not well – you know, rayer la mention inutile. Of course he never put one in the box. Steamed off the stamps, no doubt. Afterwards he said the only thing he wanted to tell me was that his fag-master had stolen £5 from him and he couldn’t find that on the list. They went back yesterday, didn’t they?’

  ‘Day before, I think.’

  ‘I rang up my father in London this morning – thick fog over there, needless to say – look at the glorious sun here, it’s always the same story – yes, so I begged him to go down and see them. No good worrying, is it? Charles-Edouard doesn’t in the least. He says if Sigi is ill they’ll have to let one know and when he’s expelled he’ll come home. He’ll be obliged to, if only to worm some money out of us.’

  ‘I suppose so, at that age. Later on they don’t seem to need money and then they vanish completely.’ I was thinking of Basil.

  ‘What d’you hear of the crisis?’ said Grace.

  ‘Can you explain why the government fell at all? It seems so infinitely mysterious to me. War widows or something?’

  ‘They were already bled to death on foreign affairs. The pensions for remarried war widows only finished them off. It’s always the same here, they never actually fall on a big issue – school meals, subsidies for beetroot, private distilling, things of that sort bring them down. It’s more popular with the electorate (they like to feel the minorities are being looked after) and then the deputies don’t absolutely commit themselves to any major policy. C’est plus prudent.’

  ‘Does your husband like being in the Chambre?’

  ‘He gets dreadfully irritated. You see he’s a Gaullist; he can’t bear to think of all these precious years being wasted while the General is at Colombey.’

  ‘Nobody seems to think he’ll come back.’

  ‘Charles-Edouard does, but nobody else. I don’t think so, though I wouldn’t say it, except to you. Meanwhile all these wretched men are doing their best, one supposes. M. Queuille has failed – did you know? – it was on the luncheon-time news. Charles-Edouard thinks the President will send for M. Bouche-Bontemps now.’

  The telephone bell rang and Katie Freeman said, rather flustered, ‘I’ve got M. Bouche-Bontemps on the line.’

  ‘But the Ambassador is in the Chancery.’

  ‘Yes, I know that. It’s Northey he wants and I can’t find her – she’s not in her office and not in her room. He’s getting very impatient – he’s speaking from the Élysée.’

  ‘Let me think – oh I know, I believe she’s trying on something in my dressing-room.’ She had borrowed two months’ wages from me, bought a lot of stuff and had turned my maid, Claire, into her private dressmaker. ‘Just a moment,’ I said to Grace, ‘it’s M. Bouche-Bontemps.’ I went to lo
ok and sure enough, there was Northey being pinned into a large green velvet skirt. ‘Come quickly, you’re wanted on the telephone.’

  She gathered up the skirt and ran into the Salon Vert. ‘Hullo, oh, B.B.?’ she said. ‘Yes, I was working – not in my office – my work takes many different forms. That would be lovely. Ten o’clock would be best – I’m dining with Phyllis McFee but then I’ll say I must go to bed early. Ten, and you’ll pick me up? Oh, poor you, you must really? Never mind, soon be over.’ She rang off.

  Grace looked very surprised at this conversation.

  ‘B.B. has to see the President now, which is a bore he says. But when that’s over he’ll take me to Marilyn Monroe.’

  ‘That means he’s going to refuse,’ said Grace. ‘The crisis will go on and the English will bag the Îles Minquiers, you mark my words. It’s intolerable.’ She said to Northey, ‘You must come and dine one evening and we’ll go dancing. I’ll arrange something as soon as the household is a bit organized.’

  ‘The utter kindness of you,’ said Northey and trotted back to Claire.

  ‘What a darling!’

  ‘Oh, isn’t she! You can’t imagine how much I love her – so does Alfred.’

  ‘And Bouche-Bontemps, it seems.’

  ‘He’s very kind to her. Don’t look like that, Grace, he’s a grandfather.’

  ‘Mm,’ said Grace.

  ‘And she’s as good as gold.’

  ‘All right, I believe you.’

  ‘Yes, you must. I sometimes think I would swap all my naughty boys for one daughter like Northey.’

  ‘I’ve got three little girls, you know, but they are babies. The eldest is only six. I wonder – they are heavenly now, but people say girls can be so difficult.’

  These words of Grace’s soon came true. Adorable as she was, Northey was by no means an easy proposition. She was now in love, for the first time (or so she said, but is it not always the first time and, for that matter, the last?) and complained about it with the squeaks and yelps of a thwarted puppy. Her lack of reticence astounded me. When dealing with the children, I always tried to think back to when my cousins and I were little; any of us would have died sooner than admit to unrequited love, even in a whisper to each other, in the Hons’ cupboard, while the grown-ups never had the smallest idea of what went on in our hearts. But with Northey there was no question of concealing the worm, the canker and the grief; she displayed them. The loved one himself was not spared.