Read The Blessing for Free Online

Charles-Edouard, and would only let herself go, Grace knew, when alone with her. The words ‘unbearably close, here’ were just distinguishable, a look of terrifying malice flashed in the direction of Charles-Edouard, and she was gone. Grace absolutely dreaded the day when she would be obliged to have it out with him about Nanny. She had known, as a child, that her father and mother used to have it out at intervals, until her mother, by dying, had saddled Sir Conrad with Nanny for ever. She gave Charles-Edouard a nervous, laughing look, but he did not notice it; he put his arm round her waist, and they went slowly up the stairs.
    Then she went back to what she had been wondering as they came out of the drawing-room. ‘But why didn’t you tell me about your grandmother – well, really, all these people?’
    ‘I have one very firm rule in life,’ he said, ‘which is never to talk to people about other people they have never seen. It is very dull, since people are only interesting when you know them, and furthermore it can lead to misunderstandings. You and my grandmother, having no preconceived ideas about each other –’
    ‘You haven’t got a wife hidden away in some other room, I hope?’
    ‘No wife.’
    ‘Oh good. But of course it’s just like in Rebecca . By degrees I shall find out all about your past.’
    ‘Oh my past! It’s such a long time ago now.’
    ‘So tell me more, now I’ve seen them. Who is the old man?’
    ‘M. de la Bourlie? He is my grandmother’s lover.’
    ‘Her lover?’ Grace was very much startled. ‘Isn’t she rather old to have a lover?’
    ‘Has age to do with love?’ Charles-Edouard looked so much surprised that Grace said,
    ‘Oh well – I only thought. Anyway, perhaps there’s nothing in it.’
    He roared with laughter, saying, ‘How English you are. But M. de la Bourlie has visited my grandmother every single day for forty-six years, and in such a case you may be sure that there is always love.’
    ‘He doesn’t live here, too?’
    ‘No. He has a beautiful house in Aix. He generally comes over in the afternoon, but today, of course, he has come early, dying of curiosity to see l’Anglaise. They all must be, we shall have the whole neighbourhood over. It will be very dull. Never mind.’
    ‘Why don’t they marry?’ said Grace.
    ‘Who? Oh my grandmother. Well, but poor Madame de la Bourlie.’
    ‘Poor her anyway. In England, when there is a long love affair like that people always end by marrying.’
    ‘And in America if you hold a woman’s hand you are expected to go round next day with the divorce papers. The Anglo-Saxons are very fond of marriage, it is very strange.’
    ‘I’ve never seen a pale green wig before.’
    ‘He’s worn that wig ever since I was a little boy. He has been a tremendous lady-killer in his time, wig and all.’
    ‘And when I am old like your grandmother, will you love me still?’
    ‘It depends.’
    ‘How horrid. Depends on what?’
    ‘It all depends, entirely, on you.’
    ‘Charles-Edouard, was the reason you didn’t tell me about your grandmother because you thought I wouldn’t like the idea of sharing my house with another woman?’
    Charles-Edouard looked immensely surprised. ‘It never occurred to me for a single minute,’ he said. ‘It’s not your house, exactly, but a family house, you know. But we shall hardly ever be here.’
    ‘Oh! I thought it was my new home?’
    ‘One of them. Our real home is in Paris, and there my grandmother, though she lives in the house, has a separate establishment. You will love her, you know. For one thing, French people (and you are French now) always love their relations, and then my grandmother is a saint.’
    ‘Yes,’ said Grace, ‘I see that. I know I shall. It was so charming the way she gave those chocolates to Sigi when she saw he didn’t want to kiss her hand. But how sad, Charles-Edouard, to have this lovely house and not to live in it?’
    ‘Oh dearest Grace, for