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“At State dinners in those days the public came quickly in by one door, and were hustled out by the other, thus making a quarter circle round the royal table. We were seated on the right of the King, near the door the public was let in by. Madame d’Egmont was next me, and last in the row. That is to say she was nearest to the flow of people.

“The first thing I knew was a kind of awkward murmuring, which was kept low, no doubt out of respect. Then, when I looked up, I saw the officer in charge of the King’s Guard speak to a private soldier who was one of the public, but who kept on staring fixedly at Madame d’Egmont. He was a beautiful young man. His face and appearance, in spite of his rank, were brilliant, and would have graced anyone in the kingdom. Can you doubt who it was? But because I was not continually thinking about Monsieur de Gisors, and that I never wondered about Monsieur de Guys, I was not, at that instant minute, struck by how alike they were.

“I instinctively turned to Madame d’Egmont. I could not whisper on account of the hoops we were wearing, and the space, left in accordance with what was usual at Court, between the stools on which we were seated. Because the poor lady was so upset that it was plain for all to see. Her eyes were glazed, and she was even holding a fan half across her face (a thing which could not be done at Versailles in my day, for one never took the liberty of opening one’s fan before the Queen, except to use it as a salver if one had occasion to hand anything to her Majesty). Meantime the young man, not bothering about the King’s presence, and without paying the slightest attention to the officer in charge who was ordering him to move on, was frozen before the lovely Septimanie in her black Court dress. He was holding up the people behind by standing where he was, as well as getting in the way of the gentlemen waiting at table. He did not listen and knew nothing at all of it. In the end they were obliged to drag him from the room. Then it was that Madame
d’Egmont could control herself no longer. She moaned. I felt quite desperate for her.

“The King, who, through the secret police, always knew everything going on in Paris, even to love affairs, his Majesty, at this moment, acted with that instinct for the right thing which ever distinguished and honoured him. ‘Monsieur de Jouffroy,’ he said to the officer in charge loud enough to be heard by all, and turning his head in our direction without, however, looking at Madame d’Egmont, ‘Monsieur de Jouffroy it must be the style in which our meal is being served has surprised him,’ and then he added, bowing to the Queen, with an adorable smile, ‘or perhaps he was lost when he saw her Majesty. Leave the young man alone, run and tell them to let him go in peace. At the same time I thank you for what you have done.’

“Madame d’Egmont sighed. She seemed relieved. She began to look a little better. But people had started whispering, and the Marshal de Richelieu could not forbear to glance angrily at her once or twice.

“I felt most miserably sorry.

“Then, as we got into our carriage to go away I heard, over on the side she was sitting, a deep, trembling, man’s voice say, almost in terror, ‘it’s you – it’s truly you.’ I could not see who this might be, and I did not catch what Septimanie answered. All I know is she said no word on the drive back to Paris. In fact she did nothing but cry her eyes out the whole way.

“The next morning I was just going to the Richelieu’s to see Madame d’Egmont when they came to tell me her father was downstairs. He was a cunning old man. No doubt he counted on catching me unawares, to surprise me into telling what little I knew. But Marshal de Richelieu was not the sort of person with whom I cared to discuss anything of that kind. Dissolute men of his type are invariably wrong, on these occasions. They imagine that any sympathy, which may be expressed for a person in love, must include tolerance of what, in this instance, was something
unquestionably underhand. Then they cannot grasp ordinary, nice-natured good wishes. In fact they can never explain, to their own satisfaction, how there may be a halfway house between absolute austerity and open acquiescence. So they make the most abject mistakes about honest women.

“Accordingly, all I did was to tell him for quite half an hour about a tiresome law suit we had against the Lejeune de la Furjounières, at the end of which time he was driven away, as I had hoped he would be. It was a mistake on my part, as it turned out, because he became convinced that I had given his daughter up. And this at a time when everyone was beginning to talk, including the Grammonts!

“In the end it was Septimanie herself who came to ask if I would use my influence with her parent in favour of her Severin. What had happened was that his father, the Marquis de Bellisle, had had him thrown out of the army, and was proposing to have him sent for good to Senegal, where no member of the white races lives longer than twelve months.

“‘Come,’ Richelieu begged me maliciously when I sent for him, ‘tell me more about your case against the Lejeune de la Furjounières.’ I did not let him get away with that, and, once I had made him talk of Monsieur de Guys objectively, I soon saw, with his years old hatred of Marshal de Bellisle, to whom in any case he was senior, that he would not be averse to helping the young man. To cut a long story short he did what I asked, the boy stayed in France, and what is more I saw him myself. He could not have been more charming. Monsieur de Créquy came to love him like his own son, and my great aunts adored him. But, alas, one day, he mysteriously disappeared. There can be no doubt he was done away with. He was not heard of, or seen, again.

“Septimanie did not recover. She lingered a few months and then she died of a slow fever.

“All my life I shall never forget this twin attachment, these
two extraordinary passions she somehow found a way to lavish on two men who were entirely different and yet at the same time exactly similar, on the living and the dead, on the brilliant Count de Gisors, and an obscure young man. Nor can I ever forget her last moments when, with both lovers gone, she seemed, as she in her turn lay dying before my eyes, to fuse the memory of these two men into one, into one true lover.”

After he had read right through to the end, Charley said aloud, “Ridiculous story.” Nevertheless, when he switched out the light, he had his first good night’s rest for weeks.

That same day the following letter was in the post to Messrs. Mead, addressed “Attention Managing Director.” It was read by Corker first thing next morning.

DEAR SIRS
,

When last autumn at the instance of the Ministry, Section S.E.C.O., we accepted your esteemed order no. 1526/2/5812 for 60 (sixty) size N.V. Rotary Extraction Pumps and 60 (sixty) size O.U. Centrifugal Feed Pumps, we pointed out both to your goodselves and to Mr Turner of S.E.C.O. that we could only undertake this contract on the clear understanding that you would be in a position to urge through sufficient quantities of the pump body castings, which are to be in the secret acid resisting metal to your special requirements.

If you will refer back to the letters which passed between us at the time this order was placed, you will see that we covered in the correspondence exactly the eventuality which has now arisen, namely the non-delivery of these parts, which is seriously impeding our production programme not only for the pumps in question, but for all the other work passing through the particular shop involved, and which is on S.E.V.B., S.E.P.Q., and S.O.M.F. priorities.

Repeated appeals to your office (ref. C.S./D.P.) having had no favourable outcome, we regret to inform you that we have today been instructed by the last-mentioned Ministry office, namely S.O.M.F. (ref. MIS/POM/1864), that we are to discontinue manufacture of your order until such time as we can be assured of sufficient supplies of the items in this special metal, so as to avoid setting up the lathes each time.

We are now seriously behind with our S.E.V.B., S.E.P.Q. and S.O.M.F. contracts, and unless we can get a clear run at these without, as at present, having to break off to machine the few castings we do receive from you, and we never know when these are coming in, we have today been warned that we shall seriously prejudice the war effort.

Regretting the real necessity we are under to write in such terms to so old and valued a connection as your goodselves, but the matter is right out of our hands.

Mr Mead sent for the files and for Pike, the chief draughtsman. Then he did some telephoning. After which he summoned Charley.

“Read this, Summers,” he said.

Charley had realized there was trouble when they came for the files. Nevertheless, when he went through the letter, word by word, it dazed him. After he had finished, he just sat on. Corker waited. At last Charley said,

“I can’t believe my eyes, sir.”

“I can. I have to.”

There was a pause.

“So do you,” Mr Mead went on. “Of course you do.”

“Not from Smiths,” Charley objected. He handed the letter back. His fingers were trembling. “It’s not true,” he added.

“Truth or lies, it’s written here, Summers.”

“Can’t believe that of Smiths,” Charley said. He felt betrayed on every side. “Not after what they promised.”

“Take a good look,” Mr Mead continued, passing the correspondence in its folder. “Turn up your letter of six weeks ago to the foundry.”

“Yes sir,” Charley said, when he had found the place.

“They couldn’t get those castings right. Had a lot of wasters.”

“What d’you want us to do? Kiss ’em?”

But, when this was suggested, such a look of distress passed over Charley’s face that Mr Mead tried another approach.

“Listen to me, lad,” he started. “After five years of war, and all the S.E. this and thats which the Ministry have created to their own ends, everyone in this game is case hardened, punch drunk if you prefer it.”

“That fourth paragraph of Smiths doesn’t seem to make sense, sir,” Charley broke in, misunderstanding the drift.

“What’s that got to do with it? I’ve known Rob Jordan all my life, haven’t I? We served our apprenticeship together. He thinks we don’t want this job, that’s all. And I must say, if I was in his shoes, I’d come to the same conclusion. What’s happened here? He’s got his own men chasing castings through the various foundries. And they’re doing it right, they’re going down themselves, not writing letters. One of ’em was shown this wet thing of yours. Rob told me so, I’ve just phoned him. Because it was wet what you wrote, sloppy. You don’t want to encourage people to turn out wasters. You have to threaten ’em, when we’ve the priorities we’ve got at the back of us. What firm’s supplying these castings?”

“Blundells.”

“Then they showed one of his snoopers your letter. Look, don’t worry too much,” Mr Mead said. “I fixed it with Rob just now. I gave him a ring. But do something for me, will you? Get back to your own room and write Blundells such a letter that will burn the fingers of whoever takes hold on it. Threaten them with the Minister in person if Smiths don’t receive the balance, and in a month. Then go down, for God’s sake see them. We shan’t be too late yet. And Charley?”

“Yes sir?”

“Don’t be in too much of a hurry to take things at face value. You were wrong about Jordan’s letter. He was only covering himself in case he got the blame. There’s just one other point. Keep lively. Don’t think that everything’s a try on because of this single instance.”

Summers collected the files and the letter, and went back to his room.

“Read this,” he said to Dot.

She skimmed through.

“Well, that’s that,” she said when she had finished.

“It’s not, then,” he replied, more violent than she had known him.

“If S.O.M.F. say so, I should think it was. We came up against them when I was on penicillin.”

“Nothing but a try on,” he announced.

“O.K.,” she said, pert.

“Turn me up the cards.”

On these cards were recorded actual deliveries of the parts from Blundells to Henry Smith and Co., together with brief particulars of the letters that had passed. He did not check the detail.

“I don’t know,” he muttered.

She stood there.

“Everything seems to come at once,” he added, riding his feelings on a loose rein.

She said, brightly, that it never rained but it poured.

“The lying bastard,” he cried, once more reading Mr Jordan’s letter, as if it had been a note from Mr Grant.

“Well we can’t expect the impossible, can we?” she asked.

“Look, Miss,” he said, and he had recently been calling her Dot, “this letter’s a try on, doesn’t mean what it says. I saw that the minute I set eyes on it. I’ve had some lately. There was a time I believed everything I had under my bloody nose, like you seem to, but I don’t now. Excuse me, of course.”

“This has got you upset, hasn’t it?” she said.

Then, without warning, he surprised himself by coming out with his own story.

“Well what would you say if a woman you’d known most of your days told you she wasn’t herself? Not sick or ill I mean, but another person all at once.” Because he had never before discussed anything outside the office, she was intensely curious.