The Blessing Read Free Page B

Catholic family, you know.’
    ‘I know. I did think it rather odd. But Grace is not a Catholic yet, though I suppose in time she will become one. Anyway,’ he said, getting up to go, ‘that’s what they’ve arranged. Nobody asked my advice about any of it, naturally. When I think how I used to turn to my dear old father – never moved a step without his approval –’
    ‘Are you sure?’ she said, laughing. ‘I seem to remember a river party – something about the Derby – a journey to Vienna –’
    ‘Yes, yes, I don’t say I was never young. I am speaking about broad outlines of policy –’
    Grace went out and bought a hat, and dressing for her wedding consisted in putting on this hat. As the occasion was so momentous she took a long time, trying it a little more to the right, to the left, to the back. While pretty in itself, a pretty little object, it was strangely unbecoming to her rather large, beautiful face. Nanny fussed about the room in a rustle of tissue paper.
    ‘Like this, Nan?’
    ‘Quite nice.’
    ‘Darling, you’re not looking. Or like this?’
    ‘I don’t see much difference.’ Deep sigh.
    ‘Darling! What a sigh!’
    ‘Yes, well I can’t say this is the sort of wedding I’d hoped for.’
    ‘I know. It’s a shame, but there you are. The war.’
    ‘A foreigner.’
    ‘But such a blissful one. Oh dear, oh dear, this hat. What is wrong with it d’you think?’
    ‘Very nice indeed, I expect, but then I always liked Mr Hugh.’
    ‘Hughie is bliss too, of course, but he went off.’
    ‘He went to fight for King and Country, dear.’
    ‘Well, Charles-Edouard is going to fight for President and Country. I don’t see much difference except that he is marrying me first. Oh darling, this hat. It’s not quite right, is it?’
    ‘Never mind, dear, nobody’s going to look at you.’
    ‘On my wedding day?’
    But when Charles-Edouard met them at the registry office he looked at her and said, ‘This hat is terrible, perhaps you’d better take it off.’
    Grace did so with some relief, shook out her pretty golden hair, and gave the hat to Nanny, who, since it was made of flowers, looked rather like a small, cross, elderly bridesmaid clasping a bouquet.
    They went for their honeymoon to Sir Conrad’s house, Bunbury Park, in Wiltshire, and were very happy. When, during the lonely years which followed, Grace tried to recall those ten short days, the picture that always came to her mind was of Charles-Edouard moving furniture. The central block of the house having been requisitioned by soldiers, he and Grace occupied three rooms in one of the wings, and Charles-Edouard now set himself the task of filling these rooms with objects of art. He seemed not to feel the piercing cold of the unheated hall, with its dome and marble floor, where most of the furniture had been put away, but bustled about in semi-darkness, lifting dust sheets, scrambling under pyramids of tables and chairs, opening cupboards and peering into packing cases, like a squirrel in search of nuts. From time to time, with a satisfied grunt, he would pounce upon some object and scurry off with it. If he could not move it alone he made the soldiers help him. It took eight of them to lug the marble bust of an Austrian archduke up the stairs into Grace’s bedroom. Nanny and the housekeeper clearly thought Charles-Edouard was out of his head, and exchanged very meaning looks and sniffs while the archduke was making his painful progress. One of Marie Antoinette’s brothers, bewigged and bemedalled, the Fleece upon his elaborately folded stock, he now entirely dominated the room with his calm, stupid, German face.
    ‘He looks dull,’ said Grace.
    ‘But so beautiful. You look too much at the subject – can’t you see that it’s a wonderful piece of sculpture?’
    ‘Come for a walk, Charles-Edouard, the woods are heavenly today.’
    It was early spring, very fine and dry. The big beeches, not yet in leaf, stood naked on their