Read Online The Blessing by Nancy Mitford - Free Book Online Page B

situation. M. Mignon, he said, was a Radical Socialist. If Grace had not spent the years of the war so idly, stitching dreams into an ugly carpet or leading goats to browse on blackberries, if she had taken the advice of her father and concentrated instead upon Messrs Bodley and Brogan, whose works lay among a huge heap of unopened books behind the back stairs, these words would have meant something to her, and what was to follow would have been avoided. But as she looked completely blank Charles-Edouard began to explain.
    ‘Not only is M. Mignon, père , a Radical Socialist of the deepest dye – Canari doesn’t go to our school, I would have you observe, but to the Instituteur – but he is actually a Freemason.’
    ‘Well, in that case, it’s a pity my father’s not here to have a word with him. They could wear their aprons, and do whatever it is together.’
    Charles-Edouard tried to kick Grace under the table, but she was too far for him to reach her. She went blandly on.
    ‘Papa is one of the top Freemasons, at home, you know. Couldn’t we tell M. Mignon that? It might help.’
    Silence fell, so petrifyingly cold that she realized something was very wrong, but couldn’t imagine what.
    Madame de Valhubert’s black eyes went with a question mark to Charles-Edouard. Madame Rocher and M. de la Bourlie exchanged glances of mournful significance; M. le Curé and M. l’Abbé gazed at their plates and Charles-Edouard looked extremely put out, as Grace had never seen him look before. At last he said to his grandmother, ‘Freemasons are quite different in England, you know.’
    ‘Oh! Indeed?’
    ‘The Grand Master, there, is a member of the Royal Family – is that not so, Grace?’
    ‘I don’t know,’ said Grace. ‘I don’t really know much about them.’
    ‘With the English anything is possible,’ said Madame Rocher. ‘What did I tell you, Sosthène?’
    ‘Oh no, but all the same,’ muttered the old man, ‘this is too much.’
    There was another long silence, at the end of which Madame deValhubert rose from the table, and they all went into the little salon. The evening dragged much worse than usual, and the party dispersed for the night very early indeed.
    ‘What have I done?’ said Grace in her bedroom.
    ‘It’s not your fault,’ said Charles-Edouard, crossly, for him, not knowing that it was entirely her fault for neglecting the information Sir Conrad had put at her disposal, ‘but I must beg you never again to speak of Freemasons before French people. Take a lover – take two – turn Lesbian – steal valuable boxes off your friends’ tables – anything, anything, but don’t say that your father is a Freemason. It will need ten years of virtuous life before this is forgiven, and it will never be forgotten. La fille du francmaçon! Well, I’ll see my grandmother in the morning and try to explain –’ He was laughing again now, but Grace saw that he was really very much embarrassed by what she had done.
    Madame de Valhubert having rushed to the chapel, Madame Rocher went down with M. de la Bourlie to his motor, and they stood for a moment on the terrace together.
    ‘You see!’ she said, ‘daughter of Freemasons! What did I tell you? No wonder she was married by a mayor, all is now plain as daylight. Can they, I wonder, really be considered decent people in England? I must find out. Poor Charles-Edouard, I see his path beset by thorns. Terrible for the Valhuberts, especially as they have had this sort of trouble in the family once – well not freemasonry, of course, but that dreadful Marshal. All so carefully lived down ever since. No wonder Françoise is upset – she will be on her knees all night, I feel sure.’
    M. de la Bourlie was greatly shocked at the whole affair. Even were he not over eighty, even were Madame de la Bourlie not still alive, a beautiful English wife now ceased to be any temptation to him. He had learnt his lesson.
    Grace’s blunder had one good result however.