A Favourite of the Gods and a Compass Error

by Sybille Bedford

  “The Loulou gang.”

  Therese said, “Life is not going to be easy for them, an artist’s sons. They are giving Loulou the Légion d’Honneur, you haven’t heard? It’s going to be announced in the autumn.”

  “May I congratulate him now? Tiens, Monsieur est décoré! He’ll have a red ribbon to his buttonhole—but he doesn’t wear a coat, what will he do? Can you wear le ruban on a shirt? But I do say good for France to honour artists.”

  “Loulou has a dress-coat,” Therese said in an expressionless tone.

  “Therese——” Flavia had been exercised by this. “You believe you never tell me what to do, and then you are suddenly shocked. Like by my going to the Fourniers. I think you are right. I’ve never felt . . . comfortable with them, and I think I had a kind of lesson, I’m going to stop going to their house. Oh, not rudely suddenly, just less often, tapering off.”

  Therese thought, then committed herself, “That would be my instinct.”

  “Agreed then, no more soirées. Yet I still don’t understand you—remember when you put a stop to my having dinner Chez Auguste?”

  “Oh, that.”

  “You mean it didn’t matter? It mattered less than the Fourniers?”

  “It wasn’t suitable.”

  “That’s exactly what you said. Now you tell me that the Fourniers are bourgeois, well, Chez Auguste wasn’t that.”

  “Nothing to do with it,” Therese said. “It wasn’t right because of what people might say—seeing you there night after night eating alone, they might have said you had been abandoned.”

  “What people might say—from you? Now isn’t that bourgeois?”

  Therese said, “Mon petit, the people who talk don’t matter, I wasn’t thinking of them, I was thinking of your mother, of what they might be saying about her.”

  “Isn’t that precisely what the bourgeois do—thinking of their mothers?”

  Therese said with some ferocity, “They think of themselves.”

  5. FRIDAY SATURDAY SUNDAY

  1.

  THE CAR that drew up outside the villa at sunset was of an obsolete make, long in the bonnet, high on the wheels, cared for, faintly absurd, the kind of car that nowadays would be called vintage. Flavia, looking from an upper window, saw it, saw it on the exact spot where she had first seen Michel, experienced confusion, incredulous joy, a pang. Then she perceived Rosette Fournier, who normally drove a Peugeot saloon, in the passenger seat.

  Flavia pulled on the clothes she had been about to change into and ran downstairs. Mme Fournier was still in the car, she called out that she had only come to deliver a message. Flavia approached.

  Rosette Fournier was not alone, next to her at the wheel Flavia saw the clear-cut profile of another woman. It was a classic profile, with the smooth texture, the pure line, of an artifact, finished, perfect, austere. Set against the high side-window of the open car and the evening sky, the effect was extraordinary, the portrait, Flavia thought she saw, of Isabella d’Este.

  Ought to be scolding you, Rosette was saying, the way you’ve forgotten us—well, here I am with an olive branch——

  The stranger at the wheel turned her face, Flavia saw grey eyes, deep-set and large, the small full mouth boldly designed, the helmet of burnished curls.

  Rosette Fournier in unwontedly off-hand style said, “Flavia—Andrée.”

  The stranger directed a look of open interest upon her. Flavia gravely bowed.

  —A little party—just a few friends—we are counting on you—tomorrow——

  They were gone. Flavia managed to recall that she had been asked to dinner and that the time was eight. She believed that she had accepted.

  Several times that evening at Therese’s house, Flavia was on the point of saying, Rosette Fournier turned up with an apparition—who can she be? Or, The Fourniers have got hold of a rare bird, you know. Each time she felt that she could not say it.

  2.

  The stranger stood in the Fournier’s drawing-room in a simple white dress and some jewellery. Practically a tennis dress, Flavia noted with approval, having no idea who had made it, nor indeed that it was made, nor how much it must have cost. The stranger was neither short nor tall, and very thin, with a figure of the Twenties, slightly spidery, ineluctably elegant. Her skin was honey-coloured and, except for having probably retraced her mouth and eyebrows, she wore very little make-up for the time. The age that Flavia gave her was Constanza’s, perhaps a few years more.

  Fournier, having greeted Flavia, led her forward, his wife called out in her sharp way, “They have met.”

  The stranger held out her hand with a brief unseeing glance, then turned to resume a conversation.

  It was a formal French dinner-party: best china, a second maid to wait at table, three wines. The stranger sat at her host’s right. Flavia, from her distance among the hoi polloi, observed that only Mme Fournier used her Christian name, everybody else, including the host, addressed her as Madame. The atmosphere—at least until the second course got going—was stilted, the elder generation on their best behaviour, the younger, if a shade sceptically, following suit. The stranger was talking, the voice was metallic and occasionally high: the tone, Flavia thought she was able to discern, was worldly: a worldly French voice.

  Animation gained, everybody began to talk, Flavia could no longer hear; she only looked.

  Her neighbour, after helping himself well to leg of mutton as the vast dish had at last come round to him, said (confirming her), “Our guest of honour is a real femme du monde.”

  Flavia clamped down on herself. No pumping, no questions. Nevertheless it was not too dishonourable to keep this line of conversation from fading out, so she said, “You don’t like them?”

  “Frankly—no. I admit that Tante Rosette has produced a wonderfully decorative specimen.”

  “Decorative——?” said Flavia.

  “Precisely. The surface is all right. But you don’t want to have to look at a woman too much—it’s too romantic.”

  “Perhaps it is that,” said Flavia.

  The burgundy was going round.

  “Well at least we’ve got this beano thanks to her—Aunt’s been planning it for weeks, ever since she heard that this lady might be coming down here, you’d think she were dining the Prince des Galles.”

  “She is not staying at the house then?”

  “Gracious, no. At the hotel at Bandol. Aunt knew her at school; Aunt went to a posh boarding-school—only for a year or two—and she likes you to know it. It seems that this Andrée woman was the star turn there, won all the prizes, played all the parts, set the fashion or whatever it is they look up to at those girl schools, you should know.”

  “I do not,” Flavia said firmly.

  The stranger was talking with vivacity; she was eating little and without attention; her wine-glasses were untouched. The pomegranate mouth still glowed impeccably, the sculptured curls lay smooth; people were beginning to look flushed, she remained a fount of coolness.

  “Mademoiselle Flavia——” her neighbour said.

  “Flavia.”

  “Then you do like me well enough——?”

  “I loathe being called Mademoiselle.”

  “Because you can’t wait for the time when you’ll be a married woman?”

  Fournier, who was keeping an eye on their end of the table, called, “Look after young Flavia’s glass—she likes her tipple.”

  The young man complied.

  “I wonder why she came, though?” he said, “she doesn’t look as if she needed a free meal. It couldn’t be for my uncle’s charms, or could it? Aunt hasn’t let on much about her chum.”

  No questions. Not those sort of questions. Not like the Fourniers.

  “I gather though that she’s not exactly a woman without a history—I daresay Aunt exaggerates—and rather at a loose end at present.”

  There was champagne with the ice-pudding. Flavia and the young man gulped their first glass.

  “F
lavia,” he said, “I do like you—may I? I’ve been thinking of what you said the other night, about being friends first. It means you are not to use people, doesn’t it?”

  The stranger had not once glanced in their direction.

  “You think we could be friends? At least try to be friends——?”

  “What were you saying?”

  The men rose with the ladies. Coffee and liqueurs in the drawing-room.

  “I’ll have some brandy, please,” Flavia said.

  The stranger had been settled on the sofa. Glass in hand and very quickly Flavia walked across the room and took the still empty seat beside her.

  “Madame. . .”

  But it was the stranger after all who began the conversation.

  “Yes, do come and talk to me,” she said in English.

  “Strike me pink,” said Flavia.

  “I’ve heard so much about you.” She vaguely indicated the room at large.

  “Good, I hope?” said Flavia.

  “Oh, only good.” The stranger’s smile was not easy to interpret. Contemptuous? plain cynical? cool, amused? “What else? You live alone, you are industrious, you are well-read, you are a gourmet—as I can see.” It was fluent educated English and the accent had only a trace of French as well as a trace of English nanny.

  Flavia took a swig from her balloon glass. “I am rather fond of decent brandy.” In point of fact she had hardly tasted any before.

  “Tell me about yourself,” the stranger said.

  Flavia did. “History is going to be my subject—modern history—Of course it’s a frightfully easy degree, but it happens to be what I’m most interested in” (even as she was uttering the words she was aghast), “that, and literature naturally, and political journalism.”

  “You are so right,” the stranger said, always with that look of persiflage upon her face, “there is nothing to a degree, unless you are a complete clod, I got mine for a bet——”

  “No——?”

  “At Aix university.”

  “You mean that you are . . . you are——?”

  “Nothing at all, thank God. I told you I did it for a bet.”

  “What was your subject?”

  “I’ve forgotten.”

  “But it is true?” Flavia said. “The degree?”

  “Yes, oh, yes. But you mustn’t be naïve. It doesn’t suit you. It doesn’t suit young people. Go on, tell me more.”

  “Well, you see, it is now more than ever that practicing politicians need the help of disinterested trained historians——”

  “My dear, not about your ideas, about your circumstances—they appear to be more unusual.”

  Flavia taking her own line said boldly, “I would like to talk about you.”

  “Have you anything original to add to the subject?”

  Her eyes on the stranger’s face, Flavia said, “Nothing original, I’m afraid. I could quote, though; there’s a choice of sonnets.”

  “No, thank you.”

  Flavia said, “You seem to enjoy neither poetry nor ideas.”

  “Oh, quite.”

  “What do you enjoy?”

  Again the stranger’s expression was not easy to interpret. “People,” she said.

  Presently one of the young men came to Flavia. “We want to dance, we need support, Aunt Rosette is against it, won’t you go and ask Uncle Albert?”

  Flavia looked helpless.

  “Don’t you see,” the stranger said, “she doesn’t want to wheedle your Uncle Albert into winding up the gramophone, she wants to sit and talk to me like a civilized person. Go away.”

  When the drink tray came round again she accepted a glass of fresh orangeade. Flavia had just sense enough to refuse to have her glass refilled.

  “Don’t you ever——?”

  “Drink? No. It makes one miss so much.” She looked about her. “This party.”

  “You mean that you . . . enjoy being the only sober person here tonight?”

  “The only entirely sober person. Oh, I think we ought to except our hostess,” she added with a curious air of satisfaction, “Rosette knows how to keep a clear head, a remarkably clear head.”

  Flavia managed to monopolize the guest of honour for the rest of the evening. When there were signs of breaking up, she said, “Let me take you home.”

  The stranger gave her a look. “Towing my car as well?”

  Flavia hung her head. “I meant in a taxi.”

  “Cruising in the olive groves, no doubt, at twenty-five minutes past midnight?” Flavia looked deflated. The stranger ceased to rub it in. “May I take you home?” she said.

  Flavia meekly followed. She sat wordlessly, gazing at the profile of the woman at the wheel. The drive lasted only a few minutes. Getting out, Flavia said dully, “Thank you very much for giving me a lift.”

  The stranger said, using French, “Merci pour la bonne soirée.”

  3.

  Next morning Flavia did not sleep late. She woke early stabbed by wretchedness. As the high points of last night’s blustering and boasting passed through her mind one by one, she groaned aloud. Oh, God. And sticking to that sofa! The Fourniers must have been mad—I have ruined their party. Why did they let me?

  Veritas? Another recollection—oh.

  She will never want to see me again. I cannot bear seeing her again.

  At the moment Flavia could not bear herself. She ate some breakfast. Work was out of the question, she could not think about it; she did not dare go to the tower, she felt she had damaged something: loose talk means hubris.

  She hung about the villa. The day being Sunday there was no femme de ménage; there was also nothing to do.

  Presently she heard a klaxon, two slight short blasts like a morse signal—the stranger: Andrée, in person. For a moment Flavia believed that she had come to scold her and cringed. Pulling herself together she went out.

  “Hello, good morning, I’ve come to give you a driving lesson. Not an unuseful accomplishment for people who want to see ladies home.”

  Flavia said with a certain dignity, “I’m under age for driving. And I want to apologize for last night, I made an awful ass of myself, I am sorry.”

  “My dear, you made my evening—that ghastly gathering—don’t give it another thought.”

  Flavia said, “You are too kind.” In the disenchanted mood of that morning it went through her: She is not. Whatever she is, she is not that.

  Something made her say, “The Fourniers took a great deal of trouble.”

  “They certainly did.” She gave a hard look at Flavia and said in a hard tone, “Now you’re not going to break a lance for Rosette Fournier? You are not going to tell me that you like her? You know perfectly well that you don’t. It’s not your milieu, neither yours nor mine, so don’t let’s pretend.”

  “But you went there?”

  Andrée brushed it off. “As one does. I went. You went. We’re quits. Only don’t wax sentimental over their hospitality, just thinking of it gives me indigestion. And now aren’t you going to ask me in?”

  Flavia opened the gate. “It’s a beastly place.”

  “So I can see. You chose it, I presume?”

  Flavia did not answer.

  They went into the dining-room. Flavia saw Andrée glance at the square of oilcloth off which she ate her meals.

  “And you also pursue your studies in the salle à manger?”

  “I don’t work in the house, I don’t work here.”

  “Where do you work?”

  “In a place someone lent me,” Flavia said with a closed face.

  Andrée let it pass.

  Flavia took the chance of changing the conversation. “Are you going to stay here long?”

  “I don’t expect to.” Her voice had become fuller. “I’m here to do a job.”

  “Didn’t you say you did nothing?”

  “I do give that impression, don’t I? I turn my hand to a job now and then.” Again that elusive air of enjoyment. “
Call it a mission.”

  “A secret mission?”

  “Of course. I’m staying as long as it takes. I’d give it a week; the inside of a week.”

  Presently she said, “Now I mustn’t keep you, I only sought you out in your lair because this benighted village boasts no telephone, one has to be one’s own messenger—well, as they say, on est jamais mieux servi que par soi-même. Will you come and have dinner with me?”

  Flavia said, “If you really want me to——?”

  “Now you are forcing me into the most obvious remark of the week: I only do what I want—within our poor human limits. Tonight, then.”

  “Tonight?”

  “I told you there isn’t much time. Eight-fifteen, shall we say? At my hotel?”

  Andrée reversed the great car with a minimum of effort. “I have a suite, if it’s a fine night—it’s never anything else in these damned summers down here—we’ll dine upstairs on my balcony—much more romantic, don’t you agree?” That was her parting shot.

  •

  Flavia spent most of her day puzzling about the stranger.

  It crossed her mind that she might be a woman spy—like Mata Hari. She dismissed the thought as childish.

  4.

  There was a half-bottle of champagne in an ice-bucket and two glasses. Flavia, though glad to see it, felt obscurely affronted. Not as if it were Mr. James giving a treat. This is out of place, not a . . . true gesture.

  “Help yourself. Only one and a half drops for me.”

  Flavia did as she was told; then tried not to drink too fast.

  Andrée handed her the menu. “Order our dinner.”

  With a revival of pleasure, Flavia took it. “Now, then——” It was an international hotel menu of the kind Flavia was familiar with from her grandmother’s days, impressive enough though the variety of dishes would exceed the variety of tastes. Perhaps Andrée was not aware of that? Yes, of course she must be, only she didn’t care, she looked down on food: there was no fun in it.

  Flavia put the menu aside. “But you won’t enjoy it.”

  “Very likely not, but that doesn’t dispense me from taking nourishment at regular intervals, nor other people from cooking and serving and ordering it for me.” She refilled Flavia’s glass. “Now go and choose a dinner for someone who is not interested in food—it’s not the last time that is going to happen to you, my dear.”