ship is the monarchy, mine is the Church. And before you say that we are venal and stay with you because we need your money, remember
why
we do. We need to fund independent schools because of the Republic’s
lois scolaires
for which ...’
‘... you blame us. When we enrage the Republicans and they strike back, you get caught in the middle. Let’s admit that we are in your debt! Money can settle that. So pour me more Marsala and I shall propose my own toast. The Auteuil toast! Are we in Auteuil here?’
‘Passy, but we’re smack on the border!’
‘Border people! How fitting.’ Sauvigny raised his glass. ‘I drink to the French monarchist clergy. And,’ teasingly, ‘to the temporal goods we plan to provide for them.’
***
‘Well,’ François Tassart turned his back on the departing carriage. ‘They’ve gone!’
Adam locked the gate, and the two walked quickly back to the house. It had started to freeze.
‘Good riddance!’ Tassart stamped cold feet. ‘That countess wanted me to tell her how to get my master to recognize the Litzelmann children. She cornered me. Did you hear her mention paternity suits?’ As he smiled, his teeth slid over his lower lip as though cancelling the smile. ‘My master used to say of young women like her that they’re brought up in convents, then never learn how to live in the world. Mind, I should not have let my feelings run away with me earlier. Perhaps that encouraged her? Speaking with respect, she’s a child herself. Pretty, though. My master would have had an eye for her in his day.’
Adam swung the key-ring on his finger. ‘And would it have been right,’ he queried, ‘if
he
let his feelings run away with him?’ They had reached the hall where their ways divided.
‘It’s not ...’
‘... your place to say! But?’
Hearing themselves laugh at the same moment, both men paused, then laughed at their laughter.
‘I have no place now!’
‘I have never quite known mine.’
‘Because you’re a foreigner?’
‘Perhaps.’
That wasn’t why, though. Adam never had known it. Place in his Ireland had been a slippery notion; in the seminary it had been provisional, and here – ah well, in Dr Blanche’s establishment, the only one worrying about such things might be Tassart. Adam was amused by the manservant’s attempts to hold on to notions of hierarchy while enjoying its occasional collapse. Tassart’s stock phrase – the one which had made them laugh – was ‘It is not my place to say,
but
...’ There were a great many ‘buts’, for the valet’s position with Maupassant must have been like that of a dumb-waiter: that small domestic hoist which glides between kitchen and dining room, servant’s sphere and master’s, and belongs in both. As though acknowledging this, Tassart, when remembering those days, always spoke of ‘our’ flat. Even his readings from Guy’s stories staked a claim. Perhaps he planned to write himself? Adam had seen pencillings on his cuffs. Notes? For a memoir? Maupassant had written about servants. Could he have guessed that one might turn the tables? What, after all, could be more just than such an appropriation of the reflective, upper world which servants enabled and often saw from closer than the upper folk guessed? One of the male nurses here had worked in a house where concealed corridors, running parallel to the visible ones, allowed chamberpots and the like to be discreetly spirited away. Bandages, blood, clysters ... Unseen, behind panelling, tiptoeing servants bore off evidence as alertly as mice or spies or – come to think of it – writers. So why should Tassart not change trades? According to Baron, he had told the kitchen that, though he had always refused to wear livery, he felt a bond with fellow-servants and was indignant when they were misrepresented in books.
‘He’d have us believe,’ had been Baron’s half-incredulous comment, ‘that he and his master talked about this. Well, maybe they
why
we do. We need to fund independent schools because of the Republic’s
lois scolaires
for which ...’
‘... you blame us. When we enrage the Republicans and they strike back, you get caught in the middle. Let’s admit that we are in your debt! Money can settle that. So pour me more Marsala and I shall propose my own toast. The Auteuil toast! Are we in Auteuil here?’
‘Passy, but we’re smack on the border!’
‘Border people! How fitting.’ Sauvigny raised his glass. ‘I drink to the French monarchist clergy. And,’ teasingly, ‘to the temporal goods we plan to provide for them.’
***
‘Well,’ François Tassart turned his back on the departing carriage. ‘They’ve gone!’
Adam locked the gate, and the two walked quickly back to the house. It had started to freeze.
‘Good riddance!’ Tassart stamped cold feet. ‘That countess wanted me to tell her how to get my master to recognize the Litzelmann children. She cornered me. Did you hear her mention paternity suits?’ As he smiled, his teeth slid over his lower lip as though cancelling the smile. ‘My master used to say of young women like her that they’re brought up in convents, then never learn how to live in the world. Mind, I should not have let my feelings run away with me earlier. Perhaps that encouraged her? Speaking with respect, she’s a child herself. Pretty, though. My master would have had an eye for her in his day.’
Adam swung the key-ring on his finger. ‘And would it have been right,’ he queried, ‘if
he
let his feelings run away with him?’ They had reached the hall where their ways divided.
‘It’s not ...’
‘... your place to say! But?’
Hearing themselves laugh at the same moment, both men paused, then laughed at their laughter.
‘I have no place now!’
‘I have never quite known mine.’
‘Because you’re a foreigner?’
‘Perhaps.’
That wasn’t why, though. Adam never had known it. Place in his Ireland had been a slippery notion; in the seminary it had been provisional, and here – ah well, in Dr Blanche’s establishment, the only one worrying about such things might be Tassart. Adam was amused by the manservant’s attempts to hold on to notions of hierarchy while enjoying its occasional collapse. Tassart’s stock phrase – the one which had made them laugh – was ‘It is not my place to say,
but
...’ There were a great many ‘buts’, for the valet’s position with Maupassant must have been like that of a dumb-waiter: that small domestic hoist which glides between kitchen and dining room, servant’s sphere and master’s, and belongs in both. As though acknowledging this, Tassart, when remembering those days, always spoke of ‘our’ flat. Even his readings from Guy’s stories staked a claim. Perhaps he planned to write himself? Adam had seen pencillings on his cuffs. Notes? For a memoir? Maupassant had written about servants. Could he have guessed that one might turn the tables? What, after all, could be more just than such an appropriation of the reflective, upper world which servants enabled and often saw from closer than the upper folk guessed? One of the male nurses here had worked in a house where concealed corridors, running parallel to the visible ones, allowed chamberpots and the like to be discreetly spirited away. Bandages, blood, clysters ... Unseen, behind panelling, tiptoeing servants bore off evidence as alertly as mice or spies or – come to think of it – writers. So why should Tassart not change trades? According to Baron, he had told the kitchen that, though he had always refused to wear livery, he felt a bond with fellow-servants and was indignant when they were misrepresented in books.
‘He’d have us believe,’ had been Baron’s half-incredulous comment, ‘that he and his master talked about this. Well, maybe they
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