Sir William (41 page)

The two women consoled each other.

“In Sir William I lost both a friend and a father,” wailed Emma, noble in grief, like Adrienne Le Couvreur, but showing no signs of having swallowed poison. “And how do you find England?”

“
Eh
bien
,” said Madame Lebrun—with a philosophical shrug—in that engaging way which so endears her countrymen to all. “
C’est
curieux
.
En
Angleterre
,
l
’
esprit
public
est
plus
sain;
en
France,
l’esprit
particulier
vaut
mieux;
de
sorte
qu’en
Angleterre
vous
trouverez
plutôt
un
meilleur
peu
ple,
et
en
France,
un
meilleur
homme.
Mais,”
she added graciously, if without conviction,
“c’est
toute
la
même
chose.”

Commissions were not going well.

Through the window, Emma glimpsed a white lilac nodding beyond the glass. Wishing to smell it, she went to the window to let the fragrance in, to refresh her. Unfortunately the window would not budge.

“It sticks,” said Madame Lebrun in flawless but contemptuous English. It was a word she had learned recently.

Emma was baffled. Was she supposed to weep again? she wondered.

She is playing a part, thought Madame Lebrun, beady-eyed as ever. The English
always
play a part.

“I too have lost my little all,” she said. “The house in Paris, you know. Confiscated.” Not a bacchante, she thought, a veritable Bacchus, like that horrid Italian one in the Boboli Gardens. Or is that a Silenus? However, she managed to look sympathetic. She wished to hear more.

“I can never be consoled,” said Emma experimentally.

“
Évidemment
,” said Madame Lebrun, watching Emma’s hands from force of habit as that so sad lady wandered around the room. Lady Hamilton she might be, but Madame Lebrun did not care for commoners.

At the piano, Emma’s eye was caught by a sheet of music, Richard Bloomfield’s “A Visit to Ranelagh.”
“‘As performed,’” she read, “‘by Miss Randles, aged three and a half, the Wonderful Musical Welsh Child.’”

“Whatever is this?” she asked, curious.

“Something a friend brought to amuse me,” said Madame Lebrun, and added kindly, “I have not heard it.
C’est
épatant,
elle
dit,
mais
ce
n’est
pas
le
tonnerre.”
She had the Gallic weakness for linguistic bead stringing, if not the ability. Her black little eyes clicked like an abacus.

But Emma sat down at the piano and rattled away.

“Oh I
like
it,” she said. And forgetting her costume, she was radiant and smiling.

Madame Lebrun was not impressed. “
On
ne
gagne
pas
plus
à
ennuyer
un
Francais
qu
’
à
divertir
un
Anglais
,” she said in her shrewd, kindly way, totaling up her mental sum.

“Oh but I
do
like it,” said Emma, for it had a cheerful ducking and bobbing rhythm. It had quite put her in spirits again. “May I have it?”

“Of course, dear child. Why not? If it suits you, take it,” said Madame Lebrun, who had never heard such a
vulgar low song in her life; so typically English, and besides, now curiosity was satisfied, it would be well to get rid of her. They are
canaille.

So out Emma sailed with it, into the bright, fresh, crisp spring air—feeling ever so much better for having done her duty and paid her respects—humming the tune happily, with an occasional glance at the words, and delighted, considering what the recent past had been, to be out in the present tense again, where the sun still shines. It was a lovely, lovely day, and off she drove, beguiled and beguiling.

Life is a dream.

Cranbrook—Paris—Walnut Creek

June—November 1962