A Question of Upbringing (14 page)

Two boys, perhaps great-nephews, followed, somewhere between nine and twelve years of age, with strongly marked features, broadly ironical like Madame Leroy’s, to whose side of the family they belonged. Heavy black eyebrows were grafted on to white faces, as if to offset the pattern of dark blue socks against sallow, skinny legs. Both were hard at work with lexicons and notebooks; and, after shaking hands very formally, they returned to work, without looking up again as we passed on from their table. Their names were Paul-Marie and Jean-Népomuène.

Leaving these ramifications of the Leroy household, we approached the outskirts of a Scandinavian pocket in the local community, first represented in the person of a tall young man—in size about six foot three or four—wearing a black suit, light grey cap, and white canvas shoes, who was reading
Les Misérables
with the help of a dictionary. This figure, explained Madame Leroy, as I escaped from his iron grip, was Monsieur Örn—so, at least, after many changes of mind, I decided his name, variously pronounced by his fellow boarders, must be spelt, for during the whole of my stay at La Grenadière I never saw it written down—who was a Norwegian, now learning French, though in principle studying in his own country to be an engineer. From Monsieur Örn’s vacant blue eyes a perplexed tangle of marked reactions seemed to signal uncertainly for a second or two, and then die down. I had seen a provincial company perform
The Doll’s House
not many months before, and felt, with what I now see to have been quite inadmissible complacency, that I knew all about Ibsen’s countrymen.

As Monsieur Örn seemed to be at a loss for words, we proceeded to Monsieur Lundquist, a Swede in dark grey knickerbockers, mending a bicycle. Monsieur Lundquist, although formality itself—he was almost as formal as Paul
Marie and Jean-Népomucène had been—was much more forthcoming than Monsieur Örn. He repeated several times:
‘Enchanté, Monsieur Yenkins,’
putting his heels together, and holding his bicycle-pump as if it were a sword and he were about to march past in review, while he smiled and took Madame Leroy’s hand in his after he had let go of my own. His dark curly hair and round chubby face gleamed in the sun, seeming to express outwardly Monsieur Lundquist’s complete confidence in his own powers of pleasing.

As we strolled on towards the summer-house, built with its entrance facing obliquely from the centre of the lawn—if the central part of the garden could really be so called—Madame Leroy explained that within this precinct would be found Monsieur and Madame Dubuisson, who had been married only a short time. Having called this fact to mind, she tapped loudly on one of the supports of the arbour before venturing to escort me through its arch. After taking this precaution, she advanced in front of me, and peeped through one of the embrasures in the wall, pausing for a moment, then beckoning me on, until at last we entered the heart of the retreat in which the Dubuissons were sitting side by side.

Afterwards I discovered that Monsieur Dubuisson was only about forty. At first sight he struck me as much older, since the skin of his face fell in diamond-shaped pouches which appeared quite bloodless. Like Monsieur Örn, he wore a cap, a very flat, very large, check cap, with a long peak, like that in which
apaches
used to be portrayed in French comic papers or on the stage. Under this headgear, rank and greying, almost lavender-coloured hair bunched out. He held a book on his knee, but was not reading. Instead he sat gazing with a look of immense and ineradicable scepticism on his face, towards what could be seen of
the garden. His long upper lip and general carriage made me think of a French version of the Mad Hatter. His bride, a stocky little woman, younger than her husband, was dressed in white from head to foot: looking as if she had prepared herself for an afternoon’s shopping in Paris, but had decided instead to spend her time knitting in the summer-house. This very domestic occupation seemed scarcely to harmonise with the suggestion—conveyed in some manner by her face, even more than her clothes—that she was not, temperamentally, a domestic person: not, at any rate, in the usual meaning of that term. As Stringham had said of Peter Templer, she did not appear to be intended by nature for ‘home life’. Whatever domesticity she might possess seemed superimposed on other, and perhaps more predatory, characteristics.

Though still feeling decidedly bilious, I had done my best to make myself agreeable to each of the persons in turn produced by Madame Leroy; and, such is the extraordinary power of sentiment at that age, the impact of Suzette’s personality, with its reminder of Jean, had made me forget for a while the consequences of the hors d’œuvres. However, when Monsieur Dubuisson held out to me the book lying on his knee, and said dryly, in excellent English: ‘I should be interested to hear your opinion on this rendering,’ my head began to go round again. The title on the cover,
Simples Contes des Collines
, for the moment conveyed nothing to me. Fortunately Monsieur Dubuisson did not consider it necessary to receive an answer to his question, because, almost immediately, he went on to remark: ‘I read the stories in French merely as—as a matter of interest. For you see I find no—no difficulty at all in expressing myself in the language of the writer.’

The pauses were evidently to emphasise the ease with which he spoke English, and his desire to use the absolutely
appropriate word, rather than on account of ignorance of phrasing. He went on: ‘I like Kipling. That is, I like him up to a point. Naturally one finds annoying this—this stress on nationalism. Almost blatant nationalism, I should say.’

All this conversation was now becoming a little overwhelming. Madame Leroy, engaged with Madame Dubuisson on some debate regarding
en pension
terms, would in any case, I think, have cut short the development of a serious literary discussion, because she was already showing indications of restlessness at Monsieur Dubuisson’s continued demonstration of his command of English. However, a new—and for me almost startling—element at that moment altered the temper of the party. There was the sound of a step behind us, and an additional personage came under the rustic arch of the entrance, refocusing everyone’s attention. I turned, prepared for yet another introduction, and found myself face to face with Widmerpool.

Monsieur Dubuisson, quite shrewd in his way, as I learnt later, must have realised at once that he would have to wait for another occasion to make his speech about Kipling, because he stopped short and joined his wife in her investigation of the
en pension
terms. Possibly he may even have felt that his support was required in order that the case for a reduction might be adequately presented. It was evidently a matter that had been discussed between the three of them on a number of earlier occasions, and, so soon as Madame Leroy had spoken of the surprise and pleasure that she felt on finding that Widmerpool and I were already acquainted, she returned vigorously to her contest with the Dubuissons.

Widmerpool said in his thick, flat voice: ‘I thought it might be you, Jenkins. Only yours is such a common name that I could not be sure.’

We shook hands, rather awkwardly. Widmerpool had tidied himself up a little since leaving school, though there was still a kind of exotic drabness about his appearance that seemed to mark him out from the rest of mankind. At a later stage of our sojourn at La Grenadière, he confided to me that he had purchased several ties during an afternoon spent in Blois. He was wearing one of these cravats of the country when he came into the summer-house, and its embroidered stripes insinuated that he might not be English, without adding to his appearance the least suggestion of French origins. His familiar air of uneasiness remained with him, and he still spoke as if holding a piece of india-rubber against the roof of his mouth. He also retained his accusing manner, which seemed to suggest that he suspected people of trying to worm out of him important information which he was not, on the whole, prepared to divulge at so cheap a price as that offered. All this uncomfortable side of him came into my mind, and I could think of nothing to say. Madame Leroy was now deeply involved with the Dubuissons regarding the subject of some proposed financial readjustment, and it looked as if the matter was going to come to a head, one way or the other. At last the three of them went off together, talking hard. I was left alone with Widmerpool. He did not speak.

‘How long have you been here?’ I asked.

He stared hard at me from the solid glass windows through which he observed the world; frowning as if some important canon of decency had already been violated by my ineptitude: and that this solecism, whatever it was, grieved rather than surprised him. Then he said: ‘You know we are supposed to talk
French
here, Jenkins.’

It was hard to guess how best to reply to this admonition. To say:
‘Oui
, Widmerpool,’ would sound silly, even a trifle
flippant; on the other hand, to answer in English would be to aggravate my incorrect employment of the language; and might at the same time give the appearance of trying to increase the temptation for Widmerpool to relapse into his native tongue, with which my arrival now threatened to compromise him. In spite of his insignificance at school, I still felt that he might possess claims to that kind of outward deference one would pay to the opinion of a boy higher up in the house, even when there was no other reason specially to respect his views. In any case the sensation of nausea from which I had once more begun to suffer seemed to be increasing in volume, adding to the difficulty of taking quick decisions in so complicated a question of the use of language. After a long pause, during which he appeared to be thinking things over, Widmerpool spoke again.

‘It would probably be simpler,’ he said, ‘if I showed you round first of all
in English.
Then we can talk French for the rest of the time you are here.’

‘All right,’

‘But tell me in the first place how you knew of La Grenadière?’

I explained about Commandant Leroy and my father. Widmerpool seemed disappointed at this answer. I added that my parents had thought the terms very reasonable. Widmerpool said: ‘My mother has always loved Touraine since she visited this country as a girl. And, of course, as you know, the best French is spoken in this part of France.’

I said I had heard a Frenchman question that opinion; but Widmerpool swept this doubt aside, and continued: ‘My mother was always determined that I should perfect my French among the châteaux of the Loire. She made enquiries and decided that Madame Leroy’s house was far
the best of the several establishments for paying-guests that exist in the neighbourhood. Far the best.’

Widmerpool sounded quite challenging; and I agreed that I had always heard well of the Leroys and their house. However, he would not allow that there was much to be said for the Commandant: Madame, on the other hand, he much admired. He said: ’I will take you round the garden first, and introduce you.’

‘No, for Heaven’s sake—Madame Leroy has already done that.’

Widmerpool looked offended at this speech, and seemed uncertain what should be the next move. He temporised by asking: What sort of a journey did you have?’

‘Hot.’

‘You look a bit green.’

‘Let’s go into the house.’

‘Did you have a change,’ he said. ‘I came straight through by a clever piece of railway management on my part.’

‘Where can I be sick?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Where can I be sick?’

At length he understood; and soon after this, with many expressions of sympathy from Madame Leroy, and some practical help from Rosalie, who unbent considerably now that I was established as a member of the household—and an indisposed one—I retired to bed: lying for a long time in a state of coma, thinking about Widmerpool and the other people in the garden. The images of Jean Templer and Suzette hovered in the shadows of the room, until they merged into one person as sleep descended.

How all the inhabitants of La Grenadière were accommodated in a house of that size was a social and mathematical problem, so far as I was concerned, never satisfactorily
elucidated during my stay there. I could only assume that there were more bedrooms than passage doors on the upper storeys, and that these rooms led one from another. The dining-room was on the left of the main entrance: the kitchen on the right. In the sunless and fetid segment between these two rooms, Rosalie presided during meals, eating her own portion from a console table that stood on one side of the hall, facing a massive buhl cabinet on the other: the glass doors of this cabinet revealed the ragged spines of a collection of paper-backed novels. This segregation in the hall symbolised Rosalie’s footing in the house, by imposing physical separation from her employers on the one hand, and, on the other, from Marthe, a girl of eighteen, showing signs of suffering from goitre, who did the cooking: and did it uncommonly well.

Two dogs—Charley and Bum—shared with Rosalie her pitchy vestibule: a state of perpetual war existing between the three of them. Charley was so named on account of the really astonishing presumption that he looked like an English dog: whereas his unnaturally long brown body, short black legs, and white curly tail, made it almost questionable whether he was indeed a dog at all, and not a survival of a low, and now forgotten, form of prehistoric life. Bum, a more conventional animal, was a white wire-haired terrier. He carried his name engraved on a wide leather collar studded with brass hob-nails. Every Monday he was placed on a table in the garden, and Madame Leroy would bathe him, until his crisp coat looked as if it were woven from a glistening thread of white pipe-cleaners. Charley was never washed, and resenting this attention to his fellow, would on this account pick a quarrel with Bum every seven days. Rosalie was for ever tripping over the dogs in the passage, and cursing them: the dogs squabbling with each other and with Rosalie: at times even stealing
food from her plate when she was handing on the next course into the dining-room: where we all sat at a large round table that nearly filled the room.