La Petite dame en gris

9

La Petite dame en gris

    It was hot. Very hot. Gilles was very, very glad he’d stood firm and refused to let his mother accompany him to Adelaide. Certainly the hotel was air-conditioned, but outside—! It was only early November, surely it shouldn’t be this hot?

    Outside the Hilton the doorman whistled him up a taxi immediately. And accepted a large tip, even though Gilles’s mother had informed him that Cousin Betty’s information was that Australians didn’t like it if you tipped them—times had changed since Cousin Betty’s day, very evidently. The Comte carefully gave the driver the address.

    During the ride the driver ascertained he was a stranger in these parts, accepted with mild interest the information that he was French and asked him if he’d come out here for the Cup—combining business with pleasure, was it? He then attempted to explain to the ignorant foreigner what the Melbourne Cup was but Gilles de Bellecourt said: “Oh, of course. Your big horse race. No, I don’t race in this part of the world. So tell me, was this year’s winner the favourite?” The driver expanded happily on this topic for some time and the Comte had leisure to look around him.

    The site of the Hilton itself was quite pretty: on a tree-filled square. Many of the buildings which ringed it were newish and hideous, not least the hotel, but there were some interesting older buildings: further round the square, an elegant Victorian edifice, presumably holding offices of some sort, painted a hideous yellow ochre, but an almost Georgian restraint as to its lines, though its decorations were later. Further round still there was an even prettier old building, of a little later vintage, in what must be the natural pale stone of the place, tout à fait charmant. The Comte had speculated idly, as he strolled round the square on a broiling evening yesterday, why the handsomest building had been favoured with the awful yellow paint and not its prettier brother. –No, sister: the unpainted building was definitely feminine. Just before they turned out of the square there were some handsome pillared structures: he would have guessed, perhaps the opera house? No: courthouses.

    But once they were away from the central city the Victoriana vanished entirely and the Comte now found himself driving along very flat, very wide, ugly roads through a maze of ugly commercial buildings and uglier bungalows, variously of wood, stone or brick, many of the last-named a nasty yellowish shade. Some attempt had been made to plant roadside trees, French-fashion, but in spite of this effort and in spite of the fact that it was a glorious blue day, the flatness and ugliness had it all their own way.

    He ventured a remark on the heat and was told it was thirdy-eight terdayee, but it would only last a day or two. Then what could they expect? The driver thought it would probably drop right back. Be twenny-eight in a day or two, mate; could drop right back to low twennies, say? The Comte received this news with relief.

    The man then told him a great deal about the ozone layer. And skin cancer. Concluding: “You wanna watch it. ’Specially if it’s ya first time out.”

    “Yes; thank you; I shall wear my hat.”

    “Good one,” he said.

    Gilles puzzled over that for some time. He could see what it was intended to convey in this specific instance, but how, in general, would one use it? And was it a usage of polite persons, in Australia?

    The man then talked on general topics, ranging over the iniquities of the government (after quite some time it dawned that he meant the Federal government), the mess the state’s finances were in (he meant the State of South Australia, not what Gilles de Bellecourt thought of as l’État, and the government he was blaming in this instance was the state government), and the mysteries of one of the Australian national pastimes.

    “Yes. My grandfather was English—my mother’s mother: he played cricket. As an amateur, you understand,” he said feebly. “It is not a game that is played in France.”

    “You wanna give it a go: it’s a great game when ya get to know it.”

    Gilles opened his mouth tell him that he had learned, he had played with the village eleven at Grandfather John’s home, but realized in time that the man was talking of it as a spectator sport. The merits of one-day versus Test cricket were then examined in depth. The roadside trees began to thin out, and then disappeared altogether, the houses, still all bungalows, got visibly newer though not visibly more attractive, the gardens got barer, the roads got, incredibly, wider, and finally the driver said on a proud note: “It’ll be along here somewhere, mate.”

    “Eugh—I am sure you are right. Do you have a map?”

    He had a map and after some grunting over it ascertained they’d come too far and had better go back a bit. They went back a considerable way, and turned left; and the driver said, as the houses got larger and marginally more attractive, the gardens began to green, and some stunted roadside trees appeared: “Aw, yeah: I know where it is, now. Quite nice round here, isn’t it? Me cousin was thinking of moving here. Pricey, though.—See, they got a McDonald’s and everythink.—Bus route’s not bad, takes ya straight inna town—uh—fordy minutes? Bit more, in the rush-hour.”

    “Indeed? That is good.”

    “Be along here,” he decided as they turned into another street just like the rest. “This’ll be it!” he decided, taking yet another turn into yet another identical street. Gilles had been wishing for some time he’d hired a car; but he hated driving on the wrong side of the road. Now he reflected it was just as well: he’d have got hopelessly lost in this wilderness of suburbia.

    Linnet and Fergie had spent some time that morning in the patio pool—at the shallow end, which was not only safer for both of them, but shaded by the house. Then they had a shower together and Linnet ventured back onto the patio—still in the shade, it was too hot for people with her skin tones to sit in the sun—to dry her hair. Fergie’s short red curls dried in no time but she accompanied her aunt in order to do Barbie’s hair. Barbie’s hair got a small, hard brush tugged ruthlessly through it so often that the creature was half bald, but Fergie loved it anyway. Then they went back into the air-conditioned lounge-room. Jimmy had said they wouldn’t have the air-con on unless it hit thirty-six but it had hit thirty-six yesterday. And anyway he didn’t have to put up with it, he was in at uni. Admittedly sitting an exam, poor Jimmy, but it was his last, and to celebrate it he was taking them to McDonald’s tonight. –Not Rose, the cold she’d caught off Linnet back in September had been followed in short succession by a second cold and now a tremendous dose of hay fever. She was lying down, zonked out on antihistamines.

    Fergie had just looked wistfully over at the TV and said: “C’n I watch Sesame Street?” and Linnet had just tried to explain for the umpteenth time that she couldn’t watch Sesame Street until it was due to be on, which wasn’t until after lunch, when the doorbell rang. They both jumped.

    “Mrs Gree-een,” whimpered Fergie.

    “Don’t be silly, it won’t be her.” –There was nothing wrong with Mrs Green, she was a grandmotherly person from down the road, but during the winter she’d worn a huge fur coat and Fergie was terrified of it. Jimmy’s declaring it was made of dead koalas (the ones that had croaked of the chlamydia) hadn’t helped. True, it had got called “k’ala coat” but Fergie was still terrified both of the coat and of Mrs Green, as the episode with Linnet at the airport had borne witness. She didn’t like Mr Green, either, he had a funny hat and a funny car. Mr Green was a grandfatherly taxi driver, he drove a perfectly ordinary taxi. The hat was an ordinary gent’s panama: he didn’t wear it when he drove his taxi, he wore it to bowls.

    Linnet got up from the rug, sighing. She was only wearing an old terry-cloth robe of Kyle’s. It had been a shortie robe on Kyle but it was a respectable length on her. It was a dingy, washed-out pale grey: originally it had been white but he’d come home from the gym in an exuberant mood and flung it, together with his white sports socks, his white sports singlet and his new black satin sports shorts into the washing machine and turned it on. He hadn’t noticed that Rose had left it on “hot”: she didn’t usually use the hot cycle but she’d been doing some feeders of Fergie’s and some grimy tea-towels—they hadn’t yet managed a dishwasher. His trendy gear had of course turned grey and Rose had been so cross with him that she’d ordained he could wear the blimmin’ things until they wore out: too bad if he was the only bloke at Squash Club or the gym in pale grey!

    Muttering: “It had better not be those ghouls about Rose’s life insurance again, and if it’s that lawn-sprinkler man I’m gonna tell him where to put it,” Linnet went off to the front door, clutching the robe, which was more than twice as wide as she was, tightly to her slender person. Fergie accompanied her as a matter of course, even though she had only a pair of pink panties on.

    Gilles had stepped back politely from the narrow front step after ringing the bell. Into the sun, so he’d left his smart new cream panama on. He was very nervous: with that and the thirty-eight degree heat which seemed to be pounding up from the ground as well as blazing down from that incredibly clear sky, he could feel himself breaking out in a sweat. He was wearing his coolest clothes, a pair of lightweight cream silk slacks and a very thin pale cream silk shirt; but he’d been forced to roll the sleeves of the shirt up by the time he’d stepped from the air-conditioned taxi to the front gate. And he’d loosened his tie. He was aware he must look a mess, and felt all the more nervous on account of it.

    The door was opened by la petite dame en gris with attendant cherub! The cloud of pale bronze hair was pushed back behind her ears and the pale, delicate shoulders rose out of the smoke-grey garment just as they did in the picture. Gilles de Bellecourt actually felt the colour drain from his cheeks. He swayed a little where he stood.

    Linnet clutched at the slipping robe and opened her mouth.

    “Mr Gree-een!” wailed Fergie in horror, shrinking against her legs.

    “It’s not— Fergie, STOP IT! It’s not Mr Green! It’s just a man with a hat!” The man had gone green enough: Linnet said shyly: “Are you all right?” –Even if he was a life-insurance salesman he didn’t deserve to flake in thirty-eight degrees on Rose’s front path.

    “No— Yes— It’s so hot!” he stuttered.

    “You’d better come in,” said Linnet. “Through here.” She stood back, detaching Fergie’s iron grip with a wince from her shin as she did so.

    Gilles came in, automatically taking off his hat, hoping he wasn’t going to disgrace himself by passing out.

    “Sit down,” she said, indicating the room to the right of the door.

    Limply he sank into a huge modern pale green armchair. The furniture was all like that: huge and puffy and pale green. Pale green Michelin men, he thought dazedly.

    “Um—are you all right?” said la petite dame en gris nervously, standing on one leg. “Would you like a glass of water?”

    “Yes—” He cleared his throat. “Yes: thank you very much.” His eyes followed the pale, slender legs and the little pale bare feet as she and the attendant cherub exited, the child still wailing about “Mees-ter Gree-een!” and the little lady still trying to shush it.

    Gilles sagged in the embrace of the pale green Michelin man and passed a hand over his forehead. His heart was thumping like a pile-driver and he was very sure it wasn’t just the heat. Now that he wasn’t half-dazzled by the sun he could see that this girl was a little older than his petite dame, and she was taller than he’d imagined Adélaïde to have been, but otherwise... It was exact! Uncanny. He shivered a little, not realizing that it was the sudden drop in temperature that was making his flesh creep as much as the eeriness of finding his petite dame en gris alive and well a hundred and forty years after her time on the other side of the world. Ah—merde: Adélaïde à Adélaïde, he thought dizzily.

    “Here,” said Linnet anxiously, handing him a tumbler. “It isn’t spring water, I’m afraid.”

    “Thank you.” He drank thirstily.

    Linnet watched uneasily as an expression of startled distaste overtook the stunned-mullet expression on their unexpected guest’s face. “Um—I’m sorry. Jimmy—that’s my brother—he reckons that chilling it, um, takes the taste away.”

    “Yes. Ah—thank you,” he said limply, putting the glass down on an occasional table to his left.

    The child was again whimpering: “Mr Gree-een! Mr Gree-een!”

    “I’m sorry,” said Linnet, going very red. “Mr Green lives down the road. I don’t know why she doesn’t like him, he’s a perfectly nice man.”

    “Funny ha-at,” she whined.

    “It isn’t a funny hat, it’s an ordinary bowls hat, Fergie!”

    “Mr Gree-een: don’ like him,” she whined, clinging to Linnet’s leg.

    Sighing heavily, Linnet said: “It’s not Mr Green. You’d better watch TV, Fergie. Come on.”

    “Sesame Street!” she cried.

    “It’s not Sesame Street, Fergie, how many times do I have to tell you?” said Linnet heavily. “Sesame Street doesn’t come on till after lunch. It’s—um—pretty ladies,” she said weakly, turning on Channel 10. “Um—I’m sorry,” she said awkwardly to the man. “She has it on very low. Are you feeling better now?”

    “Oh! Yes, thank you very much!” he said, jumping. “It was just the heat, and—and you remind me of someone whom I—I know... It was a little shock to me.”

    Linnet had now registered the very slight foreign accent and the occasional stiffness of phrase. Adelaide had a fair proportion of immigrants, so she didn’t immediately think he must be a visitor to the city, but sat down on the couch facing him, with her knees very tightly together, as the robe was a bit short when she sat, and said: “Is it about the insurance?”

    “The insurance? Ah—no, not at all. If I could just—”

    “If it’s about the lawn,” said Linnet, swallowing loudly, “I’m sorry, but we honestly can’t afford to have anything done to it. I know that coring and stuff’s awfully good for it, but we haven’t got any money to spare. –And we’ve got a sprinkler system, thanks; I told the other man that last week,” she added hurriedly.

    “I’m sorry, but I think you are making a mistake. I am not—”

    “It’s not about a boat, is it?” said Linnet in horror. “Because my brother-in-law’s dead, he was the one that liked boats. We sent the boat back. We can’t possibly afford a b—”

    Gilles got up. “No,” he said very firmly. “I am not a horrible person come to make you buy nasty consumables which you do not desire. I’m very sorry: I should have made that clear at the outset. Please—allow me to introduce myself,” he said, holding out his hand and suppressing a desire to rub it down the side of his cream slacks.

    Linnet got up looking both wary and bewildered. She put her hand in his.

    Swallowing, the Comte said in a low voice: “I am Gilles de Bellecourt.”

    “You can’t be!” she gasped, clutching his hand convulsively.

    “Yes. Which sister are you?”

    “Linnet,” said Linnet weakly. “You can’t be— I only wrote to you a couple of weeks back— I told you we didn’t want your money!” she cried, trying to pull her hand out of his.

    “Yes. Linnet,” he said, holding tightly to her hand: “you completely misunderstood my letter to you. I was trying to say that honour would only allow me to agree that you must have the full eighty percent of the tontine investment that is rightly yours, not that we—we would fight you in the courts, as—as you seem to have assumed,”

    Linnet looked up into his face in bewilderment. “I said we only wanted forty percent. Of the shares. Only the ones held by your family, of course—”

    “Yes, I understood every word that you wrote to me. I also understood that you were very insulted and very angry—non?”

    “Um—yes,” she said, looking at him warily.

    He sighed, and released her hand. “Please: if you still have the letter I wrote, I would like to—to explain it to you. My mother assures me that I must have been so stiff and formal that I—I left myself open to misinterpretation. I— Do you still have it?” he ended lamely.

    “Yes, it’s in the desk.” Linnet went and got it. “Here.”

    “If—if I may?” He indicated the sofa.

    Linnet sat down obediently and looked up at him nervously.

    Gilles sat down next to her, biting his lip. “Yes. I start ‘My dear Miss Lynette Müller’ rather than ‘Dear Miss Müller’ because I want to indicate to you that—that I wish to be on a friendly footing—you see?”

    “I see,” said Linnet limply. “I thought you were being patronising.”

    “Eugh—yes. And I apologise for getting your name wrong. I had been saying it in my head as ‘Lynette’ and—well, my mother, who is English, says I have no ear for languages, and she’s right. And at that stage she had not explained to me that your name is not a variant on ‘Lynette’ at all, but the name of a little bird; that is correct?”

    “Yes. I’m sorry I was so rude,” said Linnet, going a fiery red. “And you don’t have to explain about the umlaut, I understand now: you pronounce it ‘Mü-laire’, don’t you?” she said, pronouncing it with the closed French U.

    “Yes; in France that is how it is pronounced. There are many Müller in France. How do you pronounce it in Australia?”

    “Well, we pronounce it ‘Mooller’,” said Linnet, rhyming the first syllable with “wool.”

    “I see,” he said limply. “That is quite different. An open vowel. Indeed, a back vowel, I think?”

    “I don’t know, I don’t know anything technical about languages. Go on: what about the rest?”

    “Yes. Eugh... ‘After much thought I have taken the decision to write to you...’ This is clear, yes?”

    “Yes— No,” said Linnet, reddening. “What did you mean when you said you in person?”

    He stared at her helplessly. “But—I myself,” he said feebly. “What did you think?”

    “I wasn’t sure, I thought it might be a threat, meaning next time it’d be your lawyers, or—um—something like that.”

    “I wanted to explain why I was writing a business letter by hand on my personal stationery and to reassure you that I wished to be friendly. To contact you on a—a person-to-person basis, is that what one says?”

    “Mm,” she said, gnawing at her lip. “I should have seen that. I’m sorry, I think the paper put me off, I didn’t understand...”

    “No, I see. I have made some assumptions here—cultural assumptions, I think— which it was stupid of me to make. Yes. Shall we continue? ...Well, this is unambiguous, about the signatories, I think? Yes,” he said with a little sigh as she nodded. “Good.” He read through the paragraph in which he expressed his sympathy for the deaths of her relatives, swallowed, and passed on. “Yes. ‘The existence of the agreement of tontine was drawn to my attention only very recently...’ et tout et tout.” He looked up at her with a puzzled frown.

    “You tell me,” said Linnet, swallowing, “and—and I’ll tell you what I thought.”

    “I meant exactly what I wrote.”

    Linnet read the paragraph through again.

    “Is it unclear?” he said hoarsely.

    She gulped. “No, it’s very clear, now that I come to read it again. I thought it was lies. All that about ‘circumstances’, I thought you’d had your copy of the agreement of tontine in your family vaults for seventy-odd years and—and—um—that next bit about Mémé’s connection with Touques le Minard, I thought it was a threat! Showing us how much you’d been able to find out about us.”

    “I see…” he said slowly. He read it through again. “Yes. Well, it says exactly what I wished it to say. But I do see why you did not believe it: I haven’t said enough. Eugh—do I have that tense right? Should it be ‘I did not say enough?’”

    “Um—‘I didn’t say enough’, I think,” said Linnet shyly. “I can’t tell you why, though.”

    “Thank you. I didn’t say enough,” he said. “Ah… This is very embarrassing for me, Linnet. –Should I call you Miss Muller?” he added in dismay. “I’ve been thinking of you as Linnet ever since Maman explained about the little bird— I’m very sorry: am I being rude?”

    “No,” said Linnet, smiling timidly. “That’s okay. Everyone calls me Linnet. Um—what do I call you?” she added gruffly, blushing. “I’ve never met a person with a title before.”

    The Comte’s long mouth twitched into a tender little smile. “Gilles,” he said, looking into her wide hazel eyes.

    Linnet swallowed. “All right.”

    He waited for her to add his name, but she didn’t. At about this point it dawned on him forcibly that not only was she a total innocent about matters financial, as her letter had indicated, but also a total innocent about men and women. It would not have been true to say that this discovery disappointed Gilles de Bellecourt, forty-nine and experienced man of the world or not. His heart pounded harder than ever.

    “Eugh... the Gilles de Bellecourt who signed the agreement—of course we have the same name,” he said, smiling at her again, “but my other names are not the same as his—eugh—yes: he was my great-uncle, and therefore not my direct ancestor. My grandfather’s brother.”

    “Um—yes,” agreed Linnet uncertainly.

    “That is why I had no knowledge of it,” he said, flushing darkly.

    “I—I don’t understand,” she said timidly.

    “No. Well, Gilles, let us call him, signed the agreement and very shortly afterwards he and my grandfather bought between them a small factory in the district which spun linen flax. –We grow flax in our district,” he said.

    “Yes, I see.”

    “When I say here that I have no proof of its being the tontine money that started the factories, of course I mean written proof: legal proof. I am morally certain that it was the tontine money: the family certainly had no other source of capital at the time.”

    “Yes. We’ve got a letter somewhere that mentions that. The Frois—do you know who—?” He was nodding. “Yes. Hubert and Madeleine Frois knew the family was broke at the end of the First World War.”

    “Yes. I personally have searched through all the documents relating to the purchase of the first factory, but there is no record at all pertaining to the source of that money. It—it wasn’t a lie,” he said anxiously.

    “No, I see now.”

    “Yes.” His fists clenched. “Ah... I—I must explain everything. Why I did not know about the tontine agreement until just recently. You see—”

    He explained, in a very low voice. So low that Linnet had to tilt her head to hear him. She listened without interrupting. By the end of the speech she could see that it must be true: the embarrassment of having to tell her all that about his family was torturing the man.

    “I see now,” she said.

    “I would not have believed—” He broke off, clenching his fists again, his mouth very tight. “Well, Ferry has had my opinion of his behaviour in the matter,” he said grimly.

    “Ferry? Your lawyer?”

    He nodded.

    “Perhaps he was scared of M. Bertrand de Bellecourt,” she said timidly.

    “Yes. But now he has learned his error,” he said grimly.

    “He was only trying to help. But I can see why you’re angry with him. It was... not just dishonest,” said Linnet slowly. “Dishonourable.”

    “Oui, c’est ça,” he said with a great sigh. “C’est ça.”

    She touched his hand gently: he jumped.

    “You’re crushing it,” she said.

    “Hein? Oh—yes; I’m sorry.” Automatically he gave her the letter: Linnet smoothed it carefully.

    “You told us all this about not being able to find out that Joe Sneed was dead because you were trying to help us, didn’t you?” she said.

    He nodded mutely.

    “He is dead, poor Joe: he was killed in the bombing in Southampton. Uncle Jim’s lawyers found his wife’s daughter by her second marriage: she signed an affidavit.”

    “I see. Well, that is good: it certainly proves that you are the legal heirs to the tontine.”

    “Mm,” said Linnet, looking at him dubiously.

    “But I was never in any doubt. There, you see: I say,” he said, pointing to the place: “‘Dear Miss Muller, it does not seem to me that there are any two ways about it.’”

    “I thought that was a threat,” said Linnet simply. “I thought the others must want to settle out of court and that you were going to—to try and disprove our claim. Well, actually, I thought you might have found documentary proof that Gilles’s tontine money did found the factory and had torn it up.”

    “But it is just the opposite!” he cried in agony.

    “Yes: I see that now, it’s all right,” said Linnet, looking at him anxiously. “Are you feeling all right?”

    “What? Oh: yes, thank you. It was the heat; I think; and—and I was very nervous. And... the resemblance of which I spoke. I—well, if I tell you what are these suggestions that Bertrand and Guy have made— Ah: this is the present Guy, he is Bertrand’s grandson and as scoundrelly as he is,” he said, scowling.

    “Help,” said Linnet limply.

    “You will not be angry?”

    “No,” she said feebly. “Go on.”

    “Guy proposes to keep the tontine money in the family by marrying you, you see,” he said. Linnet gaped at him. “Well, it’s simple,” he said with a little shrug: “you will be under the delusion that he is irresistible and that the prospect of becoming Mme la Comtesse de Bellecourt is also irresistible—whereupon you will sign a document forfeiting all rights to the tontine property in favour of its all eventually going to your son—”

    “Stop!” said Linnet with a laugh. “It’s a joke, isn’t it?”

    “No. Guy has always believed himself irresistible. And you see, there are three brothers: his next brother, Jean-Paul, would take your middle sister, and the youngest, Fabien, would marry your little sister, and so three-quarters of the tontine money would be kept in the Bellecourt family. Well, I suppose it is the—eugh—the French ethic: that nothing can be so desirable as becoming a French citizen and living in France? At all events, Guy and Jean-Paul do not appear to be able to see past it. Nor do my daughters: neither of them showed the slightest interest in a trip to Australia,” he added with a little frown.

    Linnet looked at him with shy sympathy. He smiled wryly, shrugged a little and said: “But out here, under your harsh, clean Australian sun, it certainly begins to seem like a joke, yes. A bad joke.”

    “Not bad: mad!” said Linnet, half laughing. “How could marrying him— I’d have to marry you to become Mme la Comtesse de Bellecourt!”

    “Yes,” he said, with a strange little smile. “Most certainly you would.”

    For some reason Linnet, who rarely asked people personal questions and never hinted, and certainly didn’t ask men personal questions, said airily at this point: “Your wife’d be pleased, I’m sure!”

    “Well, no, because she divorced me quite some time ago. I am not a pleasant person to live with, because I am intractably stubborn,” he said with a twinkle in his eye, “I am incredibly mean, also incredibly boring, I think that goes without saying, and too... prim and proper, I think is the English expression. Also addicted to living in my own house. Further faults are that I spend my evenings reading or listening to music instead of taking Isabelle to very boring parties where she will meet the same very boring people night after night—”

    “Stop!” said Linnet with a laugh.

    “Well, there’s a lot more, but I can’t recall it, just for the moment,” he said apologetically.

    “I’m quite sure,” said Linnet, trying not to laugh, “that there must have been faults on both sides.”

    “No, no: Isabelle is perfect.”

    “That must have been very hard to live up to,” she said primly, eyes dancing.

    “Yes!” he agreed with a laugh.

    Their eyes met; Linnet blushed and looked away.

    “So you are not angry with me any more?” he said.

    “Um—no. Um—I wish you’d said what you meant, I would never have written what I— I’m awfully sorry I was so rude, Gilles, I think I said your family was rotten,” said Linnet, going bright pink and looking earnestly at him.

    He smiled and reached into his hip pocket. “Here it is,” he murmured, taking the letter out of his wallet. “Maman counted five ‘rottens’.”

    Linnet gulped.

    “And six ‘fairs’: which certainly said something to me about your psychological make-up.”

    “Did it?” she said feebly.

    “Yes. Maman and I agreed that you must have written it in a state of righteous indignation. –You are the only person, save myself, who appears to consider Maître Ferry’s conduct dishonourable,” he said on a grim note.

    “Oh,” said Linnet weakly.

    “As for my family... Yes,” he said with a sigh. “No-one except Maman has at all understood that it is a matter of honour and that we cannot do otherwise except give back what is rightfully yours. Even Maman suggested that fifty percent rather than eighty would be a more reasonable figure,” he said, sighing again.

    “I thought forty,” Linnet reminded him anxiously.

    “Yes,” he said, gently smoothing her letter on his knee. ‘‘I have not counted how many times you say forty.”

    “You—you could leave out my share, if you like,” she said timidly. “If Rose gets hers, that would be all right: it would come to Fergie in the end.”

    “I shall do no such thing: I thought you understood that l had not come to make you accept less than is due to you?”

    “Ye-es... You didn’t have to come all this way.”

    “Yes,” he said, frowning. “Of course I did. How could I let you continue under the impression that my whole family was lined up against you in order to defraud you of your inheritance?”

    Linnet swallowed. “Um—you could have written.”

    “Well, writing did not seem to work, when I tried it!” he said with a tiny laugh. “No, it was a matter of honour,” he said, putting his hand over hers. ‘‘Don’t you see?”

    “Mm,” said Linnet, chewing on her lip.

    The Comte swallowed. “Does that sound absurd in English?”

    “Mm,” she admitted, nodding.

    “Alas, it is also beginning to sound absurd in French,” he noted grimly.

    “I—I think I would have done the same, in your place,” she said timidly, “even if I wouldn’t have called it a matter of honour, exactly.”

    “I am sure you would,” he said, squeezing her hand hard. “Your letter was all that is honourable. –Well, shall we see whether you have actually called my rotten family ‘rotten’?” he added with a twinkle in his eyes.

    “No! Um—it’s not nearly as bad as ‘pourri’,” she said uneasily.

    “No? Well, it should be. –I’m sorry,” he said, flushing, as she tried to pull her hand away. He released her.

    Linnet was covered in confusion: she blushed and obviously didn’t know where to look. The Comte looked at her bent head with a little smile. After a moment he said: “Is this hair very common in your family?”

    “What?” she said in bewilderment.

    He touched the curly pale bronze mass gently with one finger.

    “Oh! Um—no, I’m the only one that’s got it. Well, Mémé said her mother had it,” she recalled.

    “Oh, dear,” he said in the accents of Roma de Bellecourt herself, looking at her with an expression of comical dismay.

    “What?”

    “Your mémé came from Touques le Minard, didn’t she? “

    Linnet nodded, looking puzzled: she knew he knew that, it was in his letter.

    “Well,” said the Comte, folding up Linnet’s letter and putting it this time in the breast-pocket of his pale cream silk shirt and not in his wallet: “you look very like—in fact exactly like—a portrait of one of my ancestors. Not just the hair, though the shade is exact: the colouring, the features—everything. The little lady in question,” he said with a twinkle, “was the last of the La Rances: the family which originally owned the château. One of my Bellecourt ancestors married her and brought the property into the family.”

    “I see,” said Linnet, beginning to smile. “Well, I don’t mind if Mémé was descended from some distant La Rance on the wrong side of the blanket. We knew a family of Jewish Mullers when I was at school who were incredibly Prussian-looking: tall and pale and heavy, you know? With pale blue eyes. Their family came from a small village in Prussia.”

    “I see.” Privately he thought the La Rance blood might not have been so distant as all that: the gentleman who had gambled away the family fortunes at the turn of the century had been addicted to the fair sex as well as to gambling. And he had—alas—been la petite dame en gris’s eldest son. “Well, I’m glad you don’t mind, Linnet.”

    “No!” she said, laughing a little. “Of course not!”

    “So,” he said, leaning back into the pudgy embrace of the pale green Michelin-man sofa: “it is all cleared up between us, then?”

    “Yes,” said Linnet, nodding. “I’m sorry that I—I doubted your word,” she said, blushing fierily once more.

    “No,” he said, holding out his hand. “It was my fault. Please?”

    Linnet put her hand into his. He squeezed it very gently and looked into her eyes. His heart raced; he opened his mouth to speak, but at that moment a shrill little voice cried: “Aunty Linnet! I’m hung-gree-ee!”

    “Oh! Yes! Fergie’s lunch!” gasped Linnet in confusion, hurriedly pulling her hand away.

    The little girl had come over to the couch and was looking up at them pleadingly.

    “What does she have?” he said with a smile.

    “French toast!” she piped.

    Linnet gulped. “Um—yes— I don’t think it is French, Mémé never made it!” she gasped.

    “French toa-oast!” she cried.

    “Yes, I said you could have French toast, Fergie,” admitted Linnet. “Um—would you like to stay, Gilles?” she added, blushing shyly.

    Wild horses wouldn’t have dragged him away, actually. He accepted eagerly, and asked if he could use the bathroom.

    Linnet showed him where the guest bathroom was—interrupting herself at intervals to assure Fergie that she was going to make the French toast in a minute—gave him a clean towel, and tottered into her sister’s bedroom, perforce dragging Fergie, who had clung onto her hand like a little limpet, with her.

    She shut the bedroom door and sagged against it.

    Rose peered at her groggily. “Who were you talkigg to?” she asked thickly. “Thadd wasn’t the televisiodd, was it?”

    “Sesame Street!” cried Fergie.

    “No! Just because it’s the first programme on, doesn’t mean it’s— Um, forget it,” said Linnet limply.

    “Was it the TV?” said Rose blearily.

    “Um—no,” gulped Linnet.

    “French toast!” cried Fergie aggrievedly.

    “Yes! Be quiet!” said Linnet

    “Liddet, idd wasn’t addother flabigg salesmadd, was idd?” asked Rose anxiously. She endeavoured to blow her nose but the antihistamines had worked, and she couldn’t. She sank back on her pillows, sighing. “I’bb so stuffed ubb,” she muttered.

    “Um—no, it wasn’t a salesman, it—it was him,” gulped Linnet.

    Rose peered at her blearily. “Who?”

    “Mr Green!” wailed Fergie. “Don’ like him!”

    “NO!” shouted Linnet.

    The room rang with silence.

    “Well, who odd earth was idd?” said Rose in bewilderment.

    “Him!” Linnet gave a strangled laugh and put her hand over mouth. Her eyes goggled at her sister above the hand.

    “Eh?”

    “Him!” repeated Linnet, now very pink. “The—the Comte de Bellecourt!” she gulped.

    Rose’s mouth sagged open but no sound came out.

    “Mr Green,” said Fergie, pouting. “Fozzie Bear and me’s gonna eat him all up.”

    “Shudd ubb, you silly,” said her mother tersely. “Fozzie Bear doesn’t do thiggs like that. –Linnet, you don’t mean it?”

    “Mm!” said Linnet, nodding frantically. “In person! –Rose, it was all a mistake! He’s awfully nice! He told me to call him Gilles!” she gasped.

    Rose looked at her sister’s pink, excited face. She struggled upright on her pillows. “Pull that blimmin’ curtain,” she ordered.

    Limply Linnet opened the curtains.

    “That’s better,” said Rose grimly. “Are you telligg be thadd the Comte de Bellecourt idd person is idd our loundge-roob?”

    “Yes! Large as life and twice as natural!” said Linnet with a mad giggle.

    “Is he fat?” asked Rose tensely.

    “No! He’s got a lovely figure!” she cried indignantly. Then she went very red.

    “Is he still here?” demanded Rose tensely.

    “Yes, he’s staying for lunch,” said Linnet, still very red.

    “Right!” Rose blew her nose grimly, not that it needed blowing, but more as preparation for battle. “Get out of that thigg,” she ordered, unaware that it was la petite dame’s grey cloud, “and put on one of my dresses. Something pretty. Um: that one with the white broderie Anglaise top and the flowery skirt. We’re about the same round the bust, even if my back’s wider than yours. You can pull it in at the waist with a belt.”

    “Rose, I can’t, I haven’t got a bra on!” she hissed.

    “So mudge the bedder. Go odd!”

    Limply Linnet searched in her sister’s wardrobe. “This?”

    “Yeah.”

    Linnet put the dress on.

    Rose scrambled out of bed. “Fergie, bring Mummy her hairbrush.” She searched in a drawer. “Yeah: wear this.” She handed Linnet a wide, squashy, pale pink belt.

    Linnet put it round her waist. “It’s too big.”

    “We’ll make another hole.” Rose produced an instrument from her nail case and operated fiercely. “There!” she panted. “Do it up!”

    Linnet did it up.

    “That looks good. I wish I had your waist,” said Rose on a wistful note. “—Ta, good girl,” she added, taking the brush off Fergie. “Siddown,” she ordered her sister.

    Linnet sank onto the edge of the bed. Rose brushed her hair fiercely, ignoring Fergie’s wails of: “Lemme! Wanna brush hair! Lemme! I wanna do it!”

    “There!” she said with a sigh. “I wish you’d use coddishder.”

    “It costs more than the shampoo.”

    Rose sniffed slightly—not the hay fever. “Yeah. Stand up.” She saw the bare feet and winced. “You can wear those pink sandals of mine: they’re flat enough.”

    Meekly Linnet put on Rose’s sandals. They were a little wide for her, but the right length.

    “I suppose thadd’ll have to do,” Rose admitted. “Where is he?” she added in a lowered voice.

    “He went to the bathroom.”

    “Good. What’s he like?”

    “Very nice,” said Linnet, blushing. “I misread that silly letter. I sort of didn’t think that he wasn’t writing in his own language. Um—he wants us to have the eighty percent,” she explained, going fiery red again.

    “You said thadd wouldn’t be fair,” Rose reminded her.

    “No. Um—well, he’s—he’s being very nice about it; he—he said it was a matter of honour.”

    “Good.” Rose got back into bed. “Just don’t sign anythigg until Jibby gedds hobe,” she ordered with a grin. “Otherwise, don’dd do anythigg I wouldn’t do!” She gave a loud giggle.

    “Yes. I mean, no. –Rose, are you feeling better?” asked Linnet.

    Rose nodded. “Lots. Well, I was before, really, only thedd I godd this stupidd hay fever.”

    “Oh; good,” said Linnet, going all saggy.

    “Could I have some bore Lucozade?”

    With part of the five thousand dollars from Mr Morpeth Linnet had bought, without revealing it to Jimmy, a dozen large bottles of Lucozade, which she had hidden at the back of the walk-in pantry which was a feature of Rose’s customized kitchen. Plus a dozen large bottles of Ribena for Fergie. Whatever the fate of the tontine inheritance might be, Rose and Fergie weren’t going to be deprived for some time to come.

    “Yes, sure. Feel like lunch?” she asked.

    “French toast!” cried Fergie.

    “Yes, it is, actually,” admitted Linnet.

    “Ubb—well, I might as well. I don’d thigg I’ll be able to taste it, though. –And listedd!” she hissed as Linnet opened the door. “Be sure and come back and tell be whadd else he says!”

    “Righto,” said Linnet feebly, nodding. She and Fergie went out, closing the door after them.

    Rose sank back on her pillows. “Well!” she said to herself, eyes sparkling. “—Shit: I wonder if he’s barried? ...Oh, well,” she decided cheerfully: “id’ll do her good, eddyway!”

    Gilles had offered to accompany Linnet to the kitchen in case she needed help—in reality, because he couldn’t bear the thought of being out of her company for as much as ten minutes. He looked around numbly and said: “But my dear: where is the stove?”

    Linnet blushed fierily: more because of the term of endearment than because of the absence of this necessary piece of culinary equipment. “Me and Jimmy sold it. We never used it, you see. And it was in excellent condition, Rose had hardly ever used it.”

    “But you must have a stove!”

    “Well, we’ve got the microwave. It can do soups and stuff,” she assured him.

    The Frenchman looked at her limply.

    “And just a little while ago,” said Linnet, beaming at him: “we went to a car-boot sale and got this camping-gas burner—didn’t we, Fergie?”

    “’Es! Make French toast!” she cried.

    “Yes. We use it for French toast. Me and Fergie like that, don’t we? And Jimmy uses it for bacon and eggs, he hates the way the microwave does bacon.”

    Gilles looked at her limply. “I see, my dear.”

    Linnet blushed again and became very busy getting out eggs, milk, and a small pan.

    “Teffon pan!” cried Fergie. “Me do it!”

    “No. The Teflon pan gets hot,” said Linnet grimly. “Huh-hot!”

    “Hot,” she said, pouting.

    “Mais elle est mignonne!” he discovered with a laugh, looking down very kindly at the little pink, pouting figure. “Linnet, would she let me carry her?”

    “You mean pick her up? Um... I think she still thinks you’re Mr—uh—G,R,E,E,N,” she spelled out, gulping, and eyeing Fergie warily. “I don’t know why: he’s absolutely ancient!” she added in despair.

    “Well, I am glad to hear I am not absolutely ancient,” said the Comte, smiling. “Come, Fergie, will you come to me? Shall I pick you up? Then you will be able to see what Aunty Linnet does with the Teflon pan!” he said, smiling.

    “Yes, go on, Fergie, let the nice man pick you up,” agreed Linnet. “His name’s Gilles,” she added without hope.

    “Gi’,” she said.

    “Gilles,” said Linnet carefully, stressing the L.

    “Gi’,” agreed Fergie.

    “Go on, try,” said Linnet to the Comte.

    He held out his arms. Fergie graciously allowed herself to be picked up.

    “Sit on that funny stool,” said Linnet.

    Smiling, the Comte sat on the bar stool and perched Fergie on his knee.

    “Gi’,” she said to him.

    “Yes, I am Gilles,” he agreed, smiling, “and you are Fergie, aren’t you?”

    “’Course!” she retorted, pouting.

    “Fergie, don’t be rude,” said Linnet firmly.

    “Can she understand the concept of rude?” he asked, smiling a little. “How old is she?”

    “She’s three—”

    “I’m FREE!” she shouted.

    “Yes, that’s right, Fergie,” said Linnet placidly while Gilles’s ears were still ringing. “You’re three. –Too right she can understand, she understands a lot of things,” she said to him with feeling. “She’d get away with murder if you let her!”

    “I see!” he said with a startled laugh. “T’es rusée, avec ça?” he said to her, smiling. “Hein? T’es rusée, toi?”

    “I don’t think she’ll understand, no-one’s talked French to her since Mémé died,” said Linnet dubiously.

    “No? You do not use it at home?”

    “No. Mum never would. We always talked it at Mémé’s, of course.”

    “Ah. –So; there are no flies on you, Fergie?” he said.

    Linnet choked.

    “Was that wrong?”

    “No—sorry!” she gasped. “It just sounded funny in your accent!”

    “But I have been told I have very little accent,” he said plaintively.

    “By a Po— an English person, I’ll bet.”

    “Ye-es… Oh, dear, so I have an English accent, do I?”

    “Very,” said Linnet, biting her lip.

    “Posh?” he asked.

    “Yes! Stop it!” she squeaked, going into a giggling fit.

    The Comte smiled slowly. He bounced Fergie gently on his knee.

    Linnet had warned him she was no cook. As she made the French toast he began to see that this had not been a polite disclaimer .Eventually he got up, setting Fergie on her feet despite her roars of protest, and took over operations himself. First turning the gas down firmly.

    “I’m scared of it,” said Linnet simply.

    “Yes, I thought you might be. It is a matter of not turning it up so much to begin with, and then giving the pan time to heat up. –We have also le camping gaz in France, you know.”

    “Really? I thought it was Australian.”

    “No,” he said definitely. “Eugh—I think I have had something like these French toasts before. Pain perdu, I think. One adds sugar or a little sauce of jam—no?”

    “No. Salt and pepper,” said Linnet weakly.

    “Indeed?” he said, raising his eyebrows. “—Is that right, my dear? You have put out three large plates,” he noticed.

    “Yes. One’s for Rose. She’s starting to eat again, thank God,” said Linnet.

    “Rose? Mrs Bayley? She is at home, then?” he said, thunderstruck.

    “Mummy having a lie-down,” explained Fergie.

    “Mm. Well, this time it’s hay fever, Fergie,” said Linnet with a smothered sigh. “She’s really feeling much, much better. –She is: she made me get changed into these,” she explained to the Comte.

    “I see. You look very pretty,” he said slyly.

    Linnet went very pink and looked confused.

    “I think you said in your letter she had not been well?” he murmured kindly.

    “Mm. She’s been very depressed since Kyle died. She can’t seem to—well, to do anything without him here. But the funny thing is, it was always her that made the decisions and so forth. Well, he bought the boat,” said Linnet fairly. “But she chose everything else they bought.”

    “Mey’card,” agreed Fergie.

    “Yes, Mummy put everything on her Meyercard, didn’t she?” she agreed.

    “And you have had a doctor to her, my dear?” he asked.

    “Um—no. You mean a psychiatrist or something? No. Well, we took her to her G.P., but he said she had to want it for herself. And she didn’t. And—um, well, the lady next-door, her sister went to one of those therapy things they have at the hospital and she said it was awful, they make you sit around in a big group and—and tell everybody everything.”

    “Group therapy—yes,” he said with a moue.

    “So we thought it would just be better to let her get over it in her own time. And she was getting better, wasn’t she, Fergie? Last time she came to the shops with us, she bought Fergie a yellow bunny, didn’t she, Fergie?”

    “’Es. Get ’Ellow Bunny,” she decided, staggering out.

    “Only then she came down with this awful hay fever,” explained Linnet.

    “I see, my dear.” –The sooner he got the whole family off to La Rance, the better. Obviously they weren’t coping at all. Well, for God’s sake: selling the stove? Yes, get Rose to a psychiatrist in Paris: that would be the thing; and Maman could feed her up and spoil her at La Rance!

    He finished making the French toasts and divided them carefully amongst the plates, Linnet stopping him forcibly from giving Fergie two slices.

    “Well, there is one left over,” he said.

    “You have it: you’re the biggest,” she said, smiling at him.

    For some reason Gilles de Bellecourt blushed like a teenager at this remark. “Thank you,” he said weakly, putting the spare French toast blindly on the nearest plate. The crockery was very pretty, he registered dazedly—English, he thought—and clearly not inexpensive, and the Michelin men in the sitting-room could not have been inexpensive either; and in fact the whole house was quite luxuriously appointed: not the same style, but the sort of modern, middle-class comfort many of Marie-Claire’s married friends lived in. After a moment he said: “If you would not mind, Linnet, tell me why you sold the stove?”

    Linnet led the way to the dining alcove. “Over here. –Hang on, I’ll put the mats round.” She distributed place mats round the smoky-glass table top and said: “Of course I don’t mind telling you. Rose and Kyle bought everything on credit. Even the air conditioning. Only without his salary coming in, there wasn’t enough money.”

    “But—but surely the man was insured?”

    “Yes. Only he’d taken out a second mortgage on the house. The insurance only paid the first one.”

    “And your Uncle Jim’s estate did not leave enough to make the payments?”

    “Um—well, we’re only just starting to get the money. If we put it all towards paying off their time payments and credit cards and things it would. Only that wouldn’t be fair to Jimmy and Buffy.”

    “No. –Buffy?”

    “That’s our youngest sister. She calls herself that. Her name’s Barbara.”

    “Ah. And she is still at school—yes?” he said, smiling at her.

    “No. She’s gone to Sydney to model school: you know: to learn to be a model. Clothes and make-up and stuff.”

    Gilles was frankly appalled. That wasn’t a nice occupation for a gently-bred young woman! Even Marie-Claire at her silliest had never expressed a desire to do that.

    “If she can make a go of it she’ll earn quite good money for a short time. It’ll set her up nicely,” explained Linnet dispassionately. “—Yes, come on, Fergie: bring Yellow Bunny—okay. Come on, you can go in your highchair.”

    “No, let me,” said Gilles hurriedly. He lifted the hot little body into its chair and Linnet put the tray down carefully over her head.

    “’Ellow Bunny!” she shouted.

    “Mm. –Let her have it, Gilles.”

    “But—but is it— Can it be washed?” he faltered.

    “It’s gonna be,” replied Linnet, grinning. “I’ll just take Rose hers. –Don’t start, Fergie, it’s too hot. Huh-hot,” she added, going out.

    “Huh-hot,” said Fergie to the Comte.

    “Yes, the French toast is very hot. Too hot for a little mouth. So this is Yellow Bunny, is it?”

    “’Es. He’s new. Mummy got him.”

    Suddenly his eyes filled with tears. She was so like Marie-Claire at the same age! “Did she, mignonne?” he croaked. “That is nice.”

    “Do you like French toast?” she piped.

    “Yes: I like French toast very much, Fergie.”

    “Do you like googgy-eggs?”

    That one had him stumped. “Eugh... Yes, I like eggs... What is a googgy-egg, Fergie, can you tell me?”

    “Great big googgy-egg,” she said.

    “Eugh... yes, certainly.”

    “I beena McDonald’s,” she offered.

    “You— Oh! You have been to McDonald’s, Fergie? What did you eat?’

    Fergie was looking vague.

    “Did you eat a big hamburger?” he asked kindly, carefully pronouncing the H.

    “Big Mac!” she said, beaming at him.

    “Eugh—yes, certainly: a Big Mac, yes. That was delicious, was it?”

    “Big Mac. ’Ellow Bunny can eat a Big Mac all up!”

    “Can he?” he said weakly. “He is a good boy, then. –Is he a boy?”

    “’Course!”

    The conversation, if such it could be called, continued in this vein for some time. Gilles very much wanted to take her out of her highchair and cuddle her, but didn’t dare: she had been put there for her lunch, her aunt might not care for him to upset her arrangements.

    Linnet carried Rose’s tray through and shut the door behind her.

    Rose sat up eagerly. “Well?”

    “Um—here’s your lunch,” she said weakly.

    “Lin-net! He is still here, isn’t he?”

    Linnet nodded.

    “I thought so. Who’s he talking to?” she asked, cocking her head on one side.

    “Fergie, I suppose.”

    “Cripes. I hope his Egglish is ubb to it,” said Rose limply.

    “Well, yes. It’s excellent. He sounds like a Pom, actually. A very, very up-market one,” admitted Linnet.

    “Oh. Not like Gabriel Gaté?” she said sadly.

    “Who?”

    Rose sighed. “Don’d you watch anythigg except Fergie’s blessed Sesame Street?”

    “Not really.”

    Rose took a deep breath. “Well, whadd’s he like?”

    “I said, he’s nice, he wants us to have the eighty per—”

    “No!” said the joint heir to the tontine fiercely. “Not that, ya nong! Whadd’s he like? Tall or short? Fat or— You said he wasn’t fat,” she recognized.

    “Um...”

    “Brigg that here,” ordered Rose resignedly.

    Linnet put the tray on her knees. “Um—actually...”

    “Yes?” she said eagerly.

    “Well, talking of Sesame Street reminded me. –No, not it,” she said quickly as Rose looked at her in horror. “Um... You know that thing Jimmy sometimes watches if he’s up late swotting? The science fiction one.”

    Rose goggled at her. “Star Trek The Next Gedderatiodd?”

    Linnet stood on one leg. “Um... I think that’s its name. It shows all these planets at the beginning, and—”

    “Yes! Well, which one does he loogg like?”

    “The nice one,” said Linnet, blushing fierily. “Um—Jean-Luc.” She swallowed hard.

    “Linnet! He looggs like Patrick Stewart? The Cabbtain?” she gasped.

    “Mm,” gulped Linnet, nodding.

    “But he’s bald!” gasped Rose, putting her hand over her mouth.

    “I like it,” said Linnet, turning puce.

    “Well—uh—well, yeah, he’s a real dish. Those other blokes in it are absolute puddiggs, aren’d they? Um, well, yeah, Patrick Stewart’s really sexy... Linnet, he can’t loogg like hibb! He’s Fredge!”

    “I know: his name’s Jean-Luc,” said Linnet, very puzzled.

    “No! Idiot!” she hissed. “The Comte! How can he loogg like Patrick Stewart: he’s English!”

    “Oh. Um—I dunno. But he looks a lot like him. Well, his hair’s very short at the sides and it isn’t as grey. More sort of... fawnish. Bristly. It’s sort of—um—military. Well, I think so,” she said, blushing terribly. “Masculine.”

    “Whadd’s his figure like? Is he tall?”

    “Um... Quite tall. I’m no good at things like that, Rose—”

    “Tall as Jimmy? Tall as Dad? Tall as Kyle?”

    “He’s not as tall as Kyle. Taller than me. I dunno if he’d be as tall as Jimmy. He’s not as skinny.”

    “Ya bean he’s got a figure like Patrick Stewart’s? He is a dish!” she discovered.

    Linnet swallowed painfully. “He’s quite old.”

    “How old?”

    “Um....” She looked at her plaintively. “Not nearly as old as Mr Green.”

    Rose reflected he must be young enough, if he’d got Linnet all stirred up, and didn’t pursue that line. “Whadd’s he got odd?”

    “Slacks. And a shirt.”

    “Lin-net!”

    “Sort of cream, only the shirt’s paler than the slacks. Very thin,” said Linnet, blushing. “And—and...”

    “What?”

    “Nothing.”

    “What?” she insisted.

    Linnet’s hands twisted together. “Nothing. Oh, dear.”

    “Sit down,” said Rose, patting her air-cell blanket. –The air conditioning was, of course, on in her room. So was the electric blanket, because the air conditioning made the room a little chilly.

    Linnet sat down. “He’s got a lovely belt, very thin. It might be lizard, I think. And—and his tummy’s very flat!” she added with a crazy laugh.

    “It is, eh?” said Rose, grinning all over her face.

    “Yes. I don’t know what made me notice... I think it was the pretty belt,” she whispered.

    “It was the dice flat tubby that bade ya notice the belt, ya silly twit,” she replied with affection.

    Linnet pressed her hands to her cheeks.

    Rose eyed her shrewdly. “Does he like you, do ya reckon?”

    “I don’t know... He says I look like a painting he’s got at home. A lady that was his ancestor. And—and he said I looked very pretty in your dress.”

    “Good!” Rose drank Lucozade thirstily. “Thadd’s better! –Go on, get back to hibb! This French toast looks good, you’re gettigg better at it.”

    “No,” she gulped. “He did it.”

    “Eh?” Rose paused with a forkful suspended.

    Linnet got up. “Gilles made the French toast. I was burning it.”

    “Ya don’t say!”

    Linnet just gulped.

    “I don’ shupposhe,” said Rose thickly—she swallowed French toast—“ya banaged to find out if ’e’s barried, didja?”

    “Mm!” she gulped, nodding.

    Rose’s eyes bulged. She was incapable of speech.

    “I—I sort of dropped a hint. A heavy hint—y’know?”

    Her sister nodded numbly.

    “And—and he told me he was divorced. He—he told me a lot about why she’d divorced him. Um—well, he wasn’t entirely serious, but—um… Well, I think he wanted to tell me.”

    Rose began to eat up her French toast hungrily. “Good. Push off, thedd,” she ordered.

    “Ye-es...”

    “Go od!” she hissed.

    Swallowing, Linnet went.

    Rose continued to eat hungrily, but her brain, antihistamined or not, was revolving at top speed.

    It was one of the oddest afternoons Gilles de Bellecourt had ever spent. Though certainly one of the nicest. They didn’t talk about the tontine, he didn’t feel up to arguing with her over it. There were a couple of bookcases in the sitting-room, crammed with elderly volumes, so he asked her about her tastes in literature, and Linnet told him a lot about Uncle Jim’s books and what she’d been reading. He was both amused and horrified to discover the gaps in her education. True, she had done a science degree, but in France you wouldn’t get as far as your bac without a pretty hefty grounding in the literature of your own country. Linnet’s acquaintance with English literature could fairly have been called sporadic; and she apparently had no knowledge of Australian literature other than an odd little book, one of Uncle Jim’s, which Fergie insisted she read out of after lunch.

    The Comte sat on one of the pale green Michelin men and listened dazedly to Linnet reading selections from Dot and the Kangaroo.

    Fergie then attacked her aunt’s hair—painfully, judging by Linnet’s gasps—with a small hairbrush. Then she played a game on the rug with Barbie, ’Ellow Bunny and a small plastic tea-set.

    During these activities Gilles asked what Linnet was reading now. She had evidently been working her way through old James Frazer’s collection of Dickens, and confided naïvely that she’d left the historical ones till last: they looked a bit hard. She’d finished A Tale Of Two Cities a little while ago, it was interesting, wasn’t it? A bit soppy, though. But he was clever at plots. It was rather like talking to one of Dickens’s first readers, and he was frankly fascinated. Then she’d read Hugo’s Quatrevingt-treize—the Comte gulped—because it was the same period. Only she hasn’t understood who all the people were.

    At this point he found himself forced to ask her if she’d seen the film Danton with Gérard Depardieu, but she said: “No, I don’t go to the pictures much. Well, never, really. Um… I did see a film about the French Revolution on TV not long ago. It was in French. Black and white. It was very old-fashioned. It was on SBS, they often have foreign films. I can’t remember anything else, really. Oh, yes: they sang a song.” Linnet smiled at him and in a small, clear soprano sang the Ça ira.

    “Stop,” said the Comte de Bellecourt faintly when she’d cheerfully sent his ancestors à la lanterne several times over.

    Linnet laughed. “It’s good, isn’t it? Catchy. Is it revolutionary song, do you know?”

    “It’s the Ça ira!” he gulped.

    She was looking at him expectantly.

    “There have been times in France when you would have been shot for singing it,” he said faintly.

    “So it’s genuine?” she cried delightedly.

    He nodded weakly.

    “I’m reading Barnaby Rudge now,” said Linnet, looking at him dubiously.

    “Ah! The Gordon riots!” He talked for some time about the Gordon riots, and English anti-Catholicism in general, and the interesting way the English managed to bury all trace of their own prejudices, not to say discriminatory practices, when they wrote their history books. Linnet listened intently and didn’t say very much.

    “I think I’m boring you,” he said at last.

    “No, it was interesting. I thought I knew quite a lot about history,” said Linnet in a small voice. “I suppose I’ve absorbed those prejudices without even realising I was doing it.” She hesitated. “I suppose I know a bit more about Australian history...”

    “Of course,” he agreed, smiling kindly at her. Linnet didn’t look much comforted.

    Hurriedly he asked her which was her favourite Dickens. Her face brightened and she confided that she couldn’t choose between Bleak House and Our Mutual Friend.

    “I see.. I think possibly I prefer Our Mutual Friend. The dark character of the schoolmaster lends it something that perhaps the other books don’t have.”

    Linnet shuddered. “Yes. I hated those bits.”

    He smiled, and nodded. “Indeed. His other villains tend to be caricatures, don’t you find? Our Mutual Friend has more depth.”

    “Yes,” she said with a sigh. “You’re right. –Have you read any Zola?”

    He agreed he had read Zola.

    “Which do you prefer, Zola or Dickens? I’ve been trying to decide, but I can’t. They do it differently, don’t they?”

    He got up and strolled over to the bookcases. Uncle Jim had had the whole set of the Rougon-Macquart novels in French, half-bound in calf which had never been cared for. “These bindings are not in a good condition,” he murmured. “—How do you mean, my dear?”

    “Well,” said Linnet cautiously, “at school they said Dickens was really sentimental.”

    “Mm? And Zola?”

    “They don’t do him at school!” said Linnet with an amazed laugh. “They don’t get past Les Contes de lundi! Um—well, Dickens is sentimental, of course. But Zola is, too. You don’t realize it if you only read the famous ones,” she said, eyeing him cautiously. “I mean, there’s nothing sentimental about L’Assommoir, is there? Uncle Jim said if I was going to read Zola I’d better start with that, it was the best. It was too hard for me at first, I think he’d forgotten how old I was. But this year I decided to read the whole set in chronological order,”—the Comte smiled a little, but as he also had an orderly mind, made no comment—“and I’ve been working my way through them. One of the short ones was incredibly sentimental: saccharine! I could hardly believe it was the same man writing it. But when you think about it... Well, I think the difference is that Dickens puts it all into the same book: the sentimental bits and the frightening bits and the grim realism and the humour, but Zola separates it out!” She was rather flushed and looked at him a little defiantly.

    “I think so, too,” he said, smiling at her. “Apart from the humour. There isn’t any in Zola, have you noticed?”

    “No, nor there is,” she realised. “You don’t miss it, though. I suppose he is more realistic than Dickens, really,” she said, smiling at him. “But I love the funny characters in Dickens. I think they’re what makes him.”

    “Indeed,” he agreed seriously: “he had a true gift for amusing caricature.”

    “That’s right,” said Linnet pleasedly. She got up, “Come on, Fergie, you can have a little lie-down, and then it’ll be time for Sesame Street.

    “Watch Sesame Street NOW!” she cried.

    “No, it isn’t on yet.”

    “It is!”

    “No, it isn’t. It won’t be on just because you want it to be on, Fergie, it can’t be on until the ABC puts it on.” She picked her up and said over her head to Gilles: “I think I’m making the ABC into some sort of boogie-man in her mind, but she just can’t seem to understand that when you turn the TV on, it isn’t automatically Sesame Street just because she wants it to be!”

    “Yes, it is one of the hardest lessons in life to learn: that we cannot steer the world in the way we wish it to go,” he agreed with a twinkle in his eye.

    “Yes; I often feel sorry for her,” said Linnet dispassionately, walking out with her.

    The Comte smiled, and went on looking at Uncle Jim’s books.

    When she came back he endeavoured to talk music but discovered to his horror that she knew nothing. Less than nothing. He returned to the topic of literature and they talked about drama for a while. He was pretty stunned, though it would not have been entirely true to say that he was surprized, to learn that Charley’s Aunt was the only stage production she’d ever seen. He listened to her earnest praise of the amazingly liberated minds of Mr Shaw and Mr Ibsen—back then!—without criticism, or mention of the Women’s Suffrage Movement.

    He began to ask her about her subject. Linnet was shy at first but as it gradually dawned on her that the person she was addressing was not completely ignorant nor unintelligent her eyes began to sparkle and she talked freely and fully. Some of it—but very little of it—was too technical for Gilles de Bellecourt.

    “I see. It must have been a wrench to give it up.”

    Linnet sighed. “Well, it was, in a way. The work I was doing at the Department wasn’t in quite the same area as my own research, but it was quite interesting.”

    He nodded, and would have introduced the topic of Semences ULR, but Linnet looked at her watch and said: “Ugh. Time for Sesame Street,” and went out to get Fergie.

    Gilles suggested they watch it with her. Linnet eyed him warily. “Haven’t you ever seen it before?”

    “No,” he said as the little red-headed figure took up its position on the carpet a metre from the television set—which explained what a small crocheted rug was doing on the floor a metre from the television set.

    “You won’t like it.”

    She was right, he didn’t like it, but he found it a fascinating sociological phenomenon, and Fergie’s absorbed interest an equally fascinating psychological phenomenon. The fact that in order to see the television set he had had to come over to Linnet’s sofa and sit beside her was not a disincentive, either.

    Eventually he murmured: “She does not repeat the—eugh—jingles.”

    “No. I’ve tried to get her to, but I think she must be a bit young. She likes the characters, though.”

    He nodded. When it was over he said to her: “Fergie, who do you like best, on Sesame Street?”

    “Big Bird. He’s my friend.”

    Linnet had expected this. She looked at him drily.

    “I see,” he said in a puzzled voice.

    Linnet smiled to herself. As Fergie then cried shrilly: “Ba’nas in jaa-mas!” she was able to inform him: “This’ll be good. The agony won’t last long, though.”

    He looked at her mutely when it was over.

    “Wait for it,” she warned.

    “It cannot get worse,” he murmured.

    “Play-ee Schoo-woo-ool!” cried Fergie ecstatically.

    He lasted less than two minutes.

    “Yes,” said Linnet, getting up and firmly turning the sound right down: “I think so, too. –Yes, you can watch it, Fergie, don’t be silly, I’m not turning it off!”

    “But it—it’s so patronising!” he gasped.

    “Good word for it,” she noted drily.

    “She does not appear to notice at all.”

    “No. I suppose she’s got no discrimination. Isn’t it interesting? But it’s not as if she hasn’t got likes and dislikes in real life. Look at Mrs and Mrs Gr— Uh—”

    Before she could spell it Fergie said without looking round: “Not Mr Green. Gi’.”

    “Yes, it’s Gilles!” he agreed with a pleased laugh. “Are these likes and dislikes rational, though?” he said to Linnet in a low voice.

    “Well, she seems to have decided to like you,” she noted drily.

    “Entirely rational, then!” he gasped, going into a sniggering fit.

    “Of course,” said Linnet, getting up, grinning. “Are you interested in botany?”

    “Well, yes, I suppose…”

    She fetched two large leather-bound volumes, and gave them to him, saying: “Have a look at these, then. I’ll just check on Rose.” And went out, smiling.

    Gilles was fascinated by James Frazer’s specimen albums and he and Linnet spent some time sitting on the couch, very close, with Black’s Flora of South Australia for reference, looking at them. He was intrigued to discover some beautiful hand-coloured botanical sketches slipped into the books, and surprized and pleased when Linnet admitted she was the artist. She’d always enjoyed botanical drawing at uni, and she’d gone back to it, this year. He murmured that she ought to publish them and Linnet blushed and shook her head and said she wasn’t nearly good enough. Gilles didn’t say he also thought the specimen albums ought to be published: he could see it would be a very expensive business: each page would have to be carefully photographed. But still—perhaps a private edition?

    Jimmy came home just as Fergie’s programme ended. He was very evidently stunned to find who it was sitting cosily with his sister over old James Frazer’s albums. Stunned and suspicious. Gilles stayed only to reassure him that he thought Linnet’s offer of forty percent was more than generous and that he’d come to urge them to accept more, not to take less. He arranged they would meet on the morrow and all dine with him, if Mrs Bayley felt up to it, and took his leave.

    Jimmy tottered into Rose’s room.

    “He’s gettigg into a taggsi,” she reported from the window.

    “’E’s not only getting into a taxi,” he replied in a shaken voice: “Guess Who rang for it!”

    “I know. I heard her.”

    They looked limply at each other.

    “She’s scared stiff of the ruddy taxi companies!” he said.

    “I know.”

    Jimmy sat down heavily on the end of her bed. “Rose, what the flaming Christ’s going on? Why’s he here? And—and—well, what’s come over her? I mean, blimey, she’s wearing a dress! She looks almost human!”

    “Whadda you thigg?”

    Jimmy swallowed hard and looked at her weakly.

    “Well, um, he looggs all right,” she conceded. “Well, she told be he looggs like Patrick Stewart.”

    “Eh?”

    “Idiot! Jean-Luc Picard!” she hissed.

    “Uh—cripes, ’e does a bit, too. Not as old, I wouldn’t think.”

    “Good. –Well?”

    “Well, what?”

    “Jibby! Has he falledd for her?”

    “Well—uh—well, heck, Rose; I only met the joker for— Um, well, yeah,” he said limply. “I reckon he has. Called her ‘my dear’ fifteen times in the space of five minutes, fell all over himself when she said we’d like to go to dinner with ’im tomorrow—you don’t have to come if ya don’t feel up to it,” he added quickly, “and—um— Well, yeah. Couldn’t take his eyes off her.” He hesitated. “All the symptoms, if ya know what I mean,” he added, going bright red.

    Rose looked at him blankly for a moment. “Oh!” she said, going off in a trill of laughter.

    “Proves ’e’s not past it, I s’pose,” he said, grinning sheepishly.

    Rose nodded violently, choking. She gulped down some Lucozade.

    “She won’t of noticed, though,” he added.

    “I don’t thigg she knows what it is!” she gasped.

    “No. –Uh, look, Rose, joking aside, if he’s got a wife and ten kids back in France, it won’t be too bloody funny. Well, I mean, Linnet’s struck all of a heap. Never seen anything like— What are ya shaking ya head for?”

    Rose gulped down more Lucozade. “Ndo!” she gasped. “Blow, I’bb all bugged up! Ndo, Liddett agshally asked hibb— Gibbee that inhaler, wouldja?”

    Jimmy fetched her the inhaler from the dressing table.

    Rose sniffed it vigorously. “They say dot to use it too buch,” she said. “Pudd it back over there. –That’s better,” she said, sighing. “No: what I was sayigg, Jimmy: he isn’t married, he’s divorced: Linnet asked him!”

    Jimmy’s jaw sagged.

    “Yeah!” she said, nodding. “And he’s been here since before lunch, and he helped her get it, and they’ve been talkigg all afternoon and watching Fergie’s TV programmes with her!”

    “Ugh! Is he barmy?”

    “Ndo: besotted!” she gasped with a loud giggle.

    “Uh—’e must be... Look, what’s he here for?”

    Rose blew her nose. “Well, as far as I can make out frobb what she told me—she was pretty excited, I don’t guaraddtee I’ve got it right—but frobb what she said, his letter didn’t mean what she thought.”

    “But—”

    “No, listen: you know she wrote to him sayigg we only wanted forty percent—”

    “Yeah. Ya shoulda heard ole George Morpeth on the subject! I tried to tell him I couldn’t stop her: ya know what she is. And anyway she’d posted the flamin’ thing by the time I got home—”

    “Yes, but Jimmy! That’s the point! He’s come out to tell her that he won’t let us take forty percent, and it’s gotta be eighty!”

    “Ye-ah... He did say something about wanting us to accept more,” he conceded.

    “He thinks she looggs like one of his ancestors—a lady in a paintigg! Isn’t that romantic! And—”

    “Shut up. I’m thinking.”

    Rose watched him doubtfully as he thought.

    “I dunno what he’s up to, but I’m gonna ring Peter Morpeth,” he decided. “If Linnet’s gone all starry-eyed, she’ll be worse than useless. Well, she’s pretty useless anyway. I mean! Forty percent of the flaming shares?”

    “It seebed fair to be.” Rose blew her nose hard.

    His eyes narrowed. “Yeah. Seems fair to His Highness le Comte de Bellecourt, too, by the looks of it. –Well, for Christ’s sake, Rose: no sooner does he hear the magic words ‘forty percent’ than he’s on a plane coming halfway round the world! Nope, I reckon there’s something fishy about it. I bet they did have proof the tontine money founded ULR, and he’s torn it up!” He got up. “She’s going to the shops: I’ll ring up while she’s out. And look: don’t encourage her about this French joker until we find out what the Hell ’e’s up to.” He strode out, frowning.

    Rose flopped back on her pillows with a pout. She was sure he was wrong. Positive! After a few moments’ pouting silence a determined look came over her face. She turned the electric blanket off and got out of bed.

    “I’bb coming to the shops with you,” she said to her sister, five minutes later.

    “Oh, good! Are you feeling better?” cried Linnet.

    “Yes, buch. Well, I’bb a bit stuffed ubb, that’s all. The fresh air’ll do me good. Come od, Fergie, you can go in your pusher. –Yeah, righto, you can bring Yellow Bunny,” she agreed. “Grab him, wouldja, Linnet?”

    In their wake Jimmy went out to the passage and picked up the phone, looking grim.

    “Yeah, gidday, Peter,” he said, as Peter’s secretary put him on. “It’s Jimmy Muller. –Bad news? Yeah, ya could fairly say that! Listen: did you have any idea that bloody Gilles de Bellecourt in person—”

    By the time Gilles reached his hotel in the thickening traffic it was around six. He had a shower and then sat down on the bed with the phone book. The overseas codes were all at the back— Ah. The time difference meant that Roma would have breakfasted and would probably be doing the flowers or walking the dogs.

    When he got through to the château the elderly Jacques informed Monsieur le Comte in some surprize that Madame la Comtesse was in Paris. At the George V, Monsieur le Comte; he believed she was looking at flats. Gilles swallowed. He’d only just signed the agreement to sell the house in town! He’d always known Maman hadn’t been fond of it: it was a hideous mausoleum featuring dark green marble pillars in the entrance hall, to mention but one of its excrescences, but— He assured Jacques that he’d try the hotel—yes, he would like the number, thank you, Jacques; assured Jacques that Australia was interesting but at the moment very hot, sent his love to Bernadette and Estelle—not without a fair idea that the little old maid was hovering at the man’s elbow—and rang off.

    The George V informed Monsieur le Comte that they thought Madame la Comtesse was breakfasting in the dining-room: one moment, please, monsieur.

    Then Roma came on, saying brightly: “Hullo, darling! Isn’t exciting!”

    “The fact that I’m calling you as I always do when I’m away from home?”

    “Silly! The fact that you’re calling all the way from Australia! It’s as clear as a bell!”

    “D’accord. There’s a funny echo on the line, though. Eugh—it’s eighteen hours, here.”

    “Is it? It’s morning, here, dear. I thought I’d look at one or two flats: Isabelle’s found me such a helpful agent, he—”

    “Good. Eugh—Maman, are you talking to me in the middle of the George V’s bloody dining-room?”

    “Eugh—oui, mon choux. We could speak English if you’d rather,” she offered in that language.

    “So as half of the French persons avidly listening to you will fail to understand you and all of the American persons avidly listening to you—oh, and half the rest of the tourists—would succeed in understanding you,” he agreed in French.

    Roma switched back. “Mais qu’est-ce qu’il y a?”

    He swallowed hard. “I’ve just met La petite dame en gris.”

    “What?”

    “She looks exactly like her; Maman!” he said with a crazy little laugh. “It’s incredible! The hair and the eyes are exact! And same sweet little mouth and delicate little hands! And even the colour of the skin! Wouldn’t you think an Australian girl would be as brown as a berry? But she’s not, she’s pale and slim and—and delicate!”

    “Gilles, have you run mad? What is all this about La petite dame en gris?”

    “She looks just like her: I’m trying to tell you! And—and now this, you won’t believe, but you know la petite dame’s dear little sketches?”

    “Gilles—”

    “She sketches, too! The most delightful botanical drawings. I told her she ought to get them published. she’s got such a flair! –Maman, you know that time Bertrand suggested we might invest in that small press that specializes in beautifully illustrated editions—”

    “Gilles!” cried his mother loudly in the middle of the George V’s dining-room. “Will you just stop for a minute!”

    “I’m sorry. But she—”

    “Just be quiet. Who—are you—talking about?” she said clearly.

    “Linnet, of course; haven’t you been listening?”

    Roma took a deep breath. “Are you trying to say that this dreaded paysanne australienne—the lady wrestler, if I mistake not—looks like our petite dame en gris?”

    “Mais oui! Exactly! You’ve never seen such hair! It comes to her waist and it’s like a great, soft, pale bronze cloud! You can’t tell from the picture how long Adélaïde’s is, can you? But shorter, I think. I don’t think those silly Second Empire ringlets suit her, really—”

    “For Heaven’s sake!” she cried in the middle of the George V’s dining room in English.

    “What?” he said in mild surprize.

    “Gilles, get a grip on yourself! What about the—the you-know-what?”

    “What?”

    “The ton—” Roma became aware of where she was. “The forty percent,” she said limply.

    “The forty— Oh! She’s the dearest little thing: you can’t imagine, Maman! The letter’s just so like her! And she agrees with me that Ferry’s conduct was dishonourable!”

    “Gilles!” she snapped. “The forty percent!”

    “She tried to persuade me that she didn’t need her share,” he said dreamily.

    His mother groaned.

    “And the little girl’s the sweetest thing! Like a little pink cherub! She’s only three. Maman, do you remember Marie-Claire at that age? Fergie is just as adorable!”

    His mother closed her eyes for a moment.

    “Roma, what is it?” said an anxious voice.

    Roma opened her eyes abruptly. She motioned Pauline to a chair. “Rien,” she mouthed. “C’est Gilles.”

    “Il appelle de l’Australie, non?” she murmured.

    Roma nodded. She put her hard over the receiver and said very quietly to Mathieu’s wife as her son rhapsodized over the scene that had met him at Mrs Bayley’s door: “He’s rhapsodizing over this Australian girl. He claims she looks like his petite dame en gris.”

    Pauline goggled at her. “Like Adélaïde de la Rance?” she hissed.

    Roma nodded grimly.

    Pauline continued to goggle at her.

    Roma took a deep breath. “Yes, very nice, dear,” she said firmly into the phone.

    “Nice! Maman, it’s more than nice, it’s—it’s incredible! It’s—it’s earth-shaking!”

    “Maintenant il dit que c’est foudroyant!” she said loudly to Pauline.

    “A qui tu parles?” he asked weakly.

    “To Pauline, she's just got here. We’re going to look at flats together—I said, dear. Gilles, what about the forty percent?” she said clearly.

    “Hein? Oh! I’ll make her take more: don’t worry!” he replied with a laugh. “Maman, she’s so intelligent! Very clear-minded! And obviously knows her subject very well. But her knowledge of literature is—eugh—sporadic is the only word! And she knows nothing about music—incroyable, n’est-ce pas? She’s never been to a concert in her life! I must ask at the desk if there’s anything on at the moment. –Darling, you should see the sister’s house. Full of pale green Michelin men!” He laughed.

    “Just repeat that, would you, dear?” said Roma clearly. She held out the receiver to Pauline and nodded significantly at her.

    “I said,” said Gilles, laughing, “that you should see the sister’s house. It’s full of pale green Michelin men!”

    Pauline goggled. “Is it the Australian heat?” she ventured.

    “No,” said Roma grimly: “it’s the girl. –Gilles!” she ordered loudly. “Will you please stop maundering and talk sense! What sort of offer have you made ces Frazer?”

    “Moollers’, Mother, ‘Moollers’!” he said in English, laughing. “Eugh—well, none, as yet, darling. I want to get to know her a little better... But you can see at a glance she’s transparently honest! She couldn’t tell a lie to save her life! She’s exactly like Adélaïde!”

    “So you say,” she agreed heavily.

    “Non, non: psychologiquement!” he cried. “Just like that sweet, dignified little person of the journals! And such a funny little dry sense of humour! She—”

    Roma held the receiver away from her ear. “I give up,” she said to Pauline: “he has gone mad. Whether it’s the heat plus the girl or just the girl. He’s maundering on about how she’s psychologically like Adélaïde de La Rance, now.”

    Pauline looked at her in horror.

    “Gilles— Gilles, tais-toi!” cried his mother in the middle of the George V’s dining-room. “Are you telling me you’re serious about this Australian girl after spending, if I’ve got it straight through all the unnecessary hyperbole, approximately one afternoon in her company?”

    “And lunch! ‘French toasts’!” he said in English, laughing. “Darling, would you believe she can’t cook! And she and the brother sold the stove, for God’s sake; Heaven knows what they’ve been living off!”

    “GILLES!”

    There was a pause.

    “Yes, I suppose I am serious,” he said. “I—I can’t think of her in any frivolous way: that’s true. I— Well, she’s not the sort of person one would ever—ever dream of making a pass at.”

    “Gilles, you don’t know her! My dear boy, slow down!” –Pauline was looking at her in horror.

    “I don’t think I can slow down. And in any case I don’t want to. And I do know her: I said: her honesty and goodness shine out of her eyes!”

    Roma winced, and closed hers.

    “I’m going to bring them all back to France. The sister’s been very depressed since her husband was killed. Nobody seems to have offered the poor little things any advice or help. Maman, did you say Pauline was there? Can you ask her the name of that psychiatrist one of her friends recommended so highly—”

    “No!” she snapped.

    There was a surprized silence.

    “I’m sorry, dearest; of course I’ll ask Pauline if you truly— But Gilles, will they want to come?”

    “There’s nothing for them here. The poor little thing’s lost her job—I must introduce her to Jean-Louis Duvallier, she’ll enjoy talking to him about her subject—and as I say, the sister’s husband’s dead, and they seem from what I can make out to be terribly in debt—”

    “Gilles, that isn’t the point! The place is their home!”

    “It may be their home, but no-one’s taking care of them, Maman. God knows where all of those other relatives are: going about their business regardless, one presumes. The brother’s the merest boy, hasn’t even grown into his figure yet. Gangly, you know?”

    “Darling, they have their own lives to lead.” She swallowed. “And a little girl who doesn’t even know anything about music: at least consider, Gilles! What tastes would you have in common?”

    He laughed. “I’ll teach her to appreciate music, Maman! And she does read, you know! She’s been giving herself a course of the nineteenth-century novelists!”

    “The nineteenth-century novelists? English or French?” said Roma numbly.

    By this time Pauline was frankly gaping at her.

    “Both! We had a lovely time discussing Dickens and Zola!”

    “Dickens and Zola,” she echoed numbly.

    “With a slight excursion into Ibsen and Shaw. She’s never seen any theatre at all, would you believe?”

    “Those awful, artificial productions of Molière at the Comédie française will be a real treat for her, then,” she said politely.

    “It’s the tradition, Maman! –I wonder if she’s tried Racine,” he said thoughtfully.

    “Gilles, in God’s name!”

    “I’m sorry; was I maundering again?” he said with a laugh. “Oh, by the way, darling, you were so right about the little girl! The poor little cherub spends her afternoons watching the most ghastly tripe on television: artificial smiles and talking down to the kiddies—tu sais? And when it’s not that, it’s some damned American thing. The accents were so thick I could barely understand a word. And hideous! Puppets of some sort.”

    “Gilles, you know I’d be only too willing to do anything— But don’t rush into this, dear boy! And—and, well, watching American television shows may seem terrible to you, but that’s how they all live!”

    “Mais non! It isn’t! Linnet isn’t taken in by that sort of rubbish at all! She warned me it would be dreadful, and she was so right! She usually reads when the poor little cherub’s watching. –She’s actually addicted to it, you know. Cries her eyes out if it’s withheld, I’m told.”

    “Sans doute,” said Roma grimly.

    “We’ll send her to a lovely maternelle, shall we? The one we set up in Touques le Minard for the Semences ULR employees’ children is supposed to be quite nice, isn’t it?”

    Roma sighed. “Yes, it’s an excellent maternelle. It seems to follow all the modern practices. Plus inculcating some of the old-fashioned virtues. But just wait—”

    “Splendid! Darling, I’d better let you go, if Pauline’s come to drag you off to look at flats! But just remember what I said: no final decisions! And take care of yourself!”

    “Yes—Gilles—”

    “I’ll ring you again very soon!” he said laughing. “Grosses bises, Maman!” He rang off.

    “He said ‘Grosses bises’,” reported Roma limply. “I don’t think I’ve heard him say that since—heavens, since Marie-Claire was the age of this Australian infant! Oh, dear! I know I told the girls they’d be sorry if he came back married to this Australian girl, but...”

    “You can’t be serious, Roma!”

    “Gilles appears to be.”

    “But that’s ridiculous! When did he get there?”

    “Less than twenty-four hours ago,” said Roma heavily.

    Pauline goggled at her.

    “He—he was positively raving about this Australian girl—well, and the baby! I’ve never heard him so—so enthusiastic about anything since…” Her voice trailed off. “Oh, dear,” she said in English.

    “‘Since’?” prompted Pauline grimly.

    “You remember, Pauline: it was about... about three years before he married Isabelle. Gilles met her at university—”

    “My God: Françoise,” said Pauline in a hollow voice.

    Roma swallowed. “Yes. She was a scientist, too, remember?” she said in a hollow voice.

    “This Australian girl isn’t—”

    “Yes. Plant genetics,” said Roma in doomed tones.

    “What was Françoise’s subject, again?”

    “Eugh... Actually, I can’t remember,” she confessed. “But you remember how—how lit-up he was? For about two years, really: Bertrand was terrified he was going to chuck in his degree and go off to Africa with her, to start with, and then he was terrified he was going to fail in his final year...”

    “I remember! And then Françoise did go off to Africa: was it to the Sudan?”

    “Something like that. That was the year Gilles’s grandfather died, so of course he had to stay home and take up his responsibilities... Well, I think he and Françoise had an awful row about it, dear: she was terribly opposed to inherited wealth, I don’t know if you remem—?”—Pauline was nodding.—“Yes,” said Roma glumly. “I thought they might keep in touch, but he’s never mentioned her from that day to this.”

    Pauline sighed. “Oui… I remember her quite clearly now. She came to our wedding—of course it was a morning wedding, and I suppose, with the reception in the garden... But Maman was furious.”

    “Oh, of course!” said Roma, laughing suddenly. “How could I have forgotten! The men were in morning clothes and you and the bridesmaids—”

    “Courrèges,” said Pauline, biting her lip. “I can’t look at the photos without cringing!” she admitted with a laugh.

    “You did all look very smart, dear,” said Roma valiantly.

    “Nonsense. You and Maman were in ‘Jackie’ hats: remember those? And lovely suits—I think yours was Chanel, Roma, dear. Maman went to Givenchy, she always did in those days.”

    “Oh, yes: it was lovely, wasn’t it? Sort of a puce silk, very smart, with silk hyacinths round the hat.”

    “Yes. And yours was a wild silk, trimmed with a pale yellow and gold braid—well, Chanel!” she said, laughing a little. She nodded firmly at a waiter: he came over and she asked for coffees.

    “Yes,” said Roma, smiling. “I always liked that suit.”

    Pauline nodded in agreement. “Whereas Françoise—! It would have been bad enough if she’d got herself up like Cousine Simone—oh, and Delphine as well: English ‘Mods’, with awful white lipstick and their hair very straight; and very short skirts and the most extraordinary colour combinations: Maman nearly threw a fit! But that was before Françoise waltzed in!” She shuddered.

    “Black, wasn’t it?” said Roma, her eyes twinkling.

    “Yes. Black jeans, a black leather jacket—of course, you see them all the time these days, but back then wearing clothes like that labelled a girl! –Oui, merci,” she said as the waiter poured.

    “Mm, that’s right: with dead-straight long black hair half over her face and the dead-white face with all that heavy eye make-up,” admitted Roma.

    Pauline nodded. “And no lipstick.”

    “Dreadful!” said Roma with a trill of laughter. “Truly shocking!”

    Pauline smiled. “Well, my dear, it was, in 1964!”

    “Oh, certainly! And there was no excuse at all for her: her father was a judge,” said Roma with a sigh. “She was rebelling, I suppose...”

    Pauline stirred sugar slowly into her coffee. “Does this Australian girl sound like her?”

    “Eugh... Well, no. Though it was a bit hard to tell through the rhapsodizing. But I can’t recall he ever said that Françoise was ‘sweet’, even when he was craziest about her. And she certainly looked nothing like La petite dame en gris.”

    “No... Falling for a girl just because she looks like a portrait of one of his ancestors? Roma, my dear, I don’t like to say this, but—well, he is at the dangerous age!”

    “You’ve been saying it ever since the divorce,” responded Roma tranquilly, tasting her coffee.

    Pauline laughed a little, but continued to look at her anxiously.

    After a moment Roma put down her cup and sighed. “Oh, dear: it—it’s brought back that young, enthusiastic Gilles so vividly!”

    Pauline sniffed slightly. “Enthusiastic he may be, but he’s nearly fifty, my dear!”

    “En effet,” Roma agreed, surreptitiously blowing her nose. “As you say, the dangerous age. –And now that I come to think about it, he waxed just as lyrical over the little toddler as he did over this Linnet Muller...”

    “Well, he wouldn’t be the first man to start a second family at fifty,” she said grimly.

    “No, indeed… Oh, dear,” said Roma. “Pauline, my dear, if—if he really is serious about this girl— Well, we must just hope it all comes to nothing, and that when he gets over the resemblance he’ll come to his senses—but if he does marry her,” she said, looking guiltily at Pauline, “it—it’s possible—”

    “That they’ll have a son and cut Guy out,” said Guy’s mother grimly. “Yes. So much the better. He’s behaved disgracefully over this whole business. His father is most displeased with him.”

    Ten to one this meant that Pauline was most displeased with him and that Mathieu had merely agreed with her: nevertheless Roma nodded.

    “What did he say about the forty percent offer?” added Pauline.

    Roma jumped. “Oh! Well, the girl seems to be sticking to it, and Gilles seems determined to offer them more, but that’s as far as it’s got. Well, from what I could tell. Oh, dear, I’ve just remembered—” She gulped.

    “What?

    “He—he wasn’t serious, of course. But—when was it? Um, the lilacs were out: it was just after Easter: he said to me, if he could find a petite dame en gris, he’d marry her on the spot!” She smiled weakly.

    Pauline finished off her coffee grimly. “Did he, indeed? Well, if the girl isn’t a designing minx and isn’t a bossy-boots like Françoise, I suppose she may do well enough. –Shall we go, my dear?”

    “Oh! Yes, let’s go, Pauline.” They got up.

    “If only…” said Roma wistfully as Pauline shepherded her out of the dining-room.

    “Yes, my dear?”

    “If only she could be really nice and—and really love him and really be like our petite dame en gris,” said Roma with a wobble in her voice.

    Pauline hesitated. But after all, dear Roma was getting on. So she said kindly: “Well, my dear, it could be.” And patted her arm and changed the subject. To her relief Roma seemed to accept this, and chatted cheerfully enough about flats.

    But in the taxi, while Pauline was still happily discussing the shocking prices and what she was sure would be the shocking styles of any flat suggested by a real estate agent recommended by Isabelle Fleuriot du Hamel, Roma de Bellecourt looked bleakly out at a crisp November day and thought with a hollow feeling in her stomach that it was all too likely, what with his age and his fixation on Adélaïde de la Rance and his loneliness since the divorce, that her son had gone off the rails and fallen in love with some entirely unsuitable girl who would turn out to be nothing at all like what his imagination had created from a chance resemblance to his petite dame en gris.

    Oh, dear.

Next chapter:

https://frazerinheritance1-adelaidesdaughters.blogspot.com/2024/06/fire-fire.html