Martha in Paris (15 page)

Certainly Mrs. Taylor didn't
hope
Martha was dead, even though she'd never really liked the girl. (In any case, as she'd learned from Madame Leclerc, Martha was obviously alive that morning. It would have had to be a very
sudden
accident.) Mrs. Taylor simply forgot Martha: indeed, so all-absorbing was the sheer physical pleasure of holding a baby again, her thoughts had scarcely room for even such future delights as the transition from formula to sieved spinach, from sieved spinach to the first rusk. The minutes passed in a blissful, shared stupor; thirty at least, before there drifted across Mrs. Taylor's inward eye any image to distract; and then only of a matinée-jacket.

“I must begin knitting!” Mrs. Taylor told herself.

The carry-cot actually contained a fairly complete layette—of no superfine quality, unembroidered, uninitialled, but at least, also, new, and like the feeding-formula a point in Martha's favour. Mrs. Taylor sketchily admitted it—but preferred to visualize garments suited to the riper age of three or four months. A certain matinée-jacket knitted for Eric had been the admiration of every Streatham neighbour; as for bootees, she could toss off a pair a day. Happy, new-old, new-found employment! “I'll run round to the English Wool Shop to-morrow,” meditated Mrs. Taylor; and still hadn't settled the point of cap versus bonnet when the telephone rang.

Fortunately it stood close by her elbow; she hadn't to move. She lifted the receiver with precaution; it was Eric.

“Mother.”

“Yes, dear?” whispered Mrs. Taylor.

“I can't hear you, Mother. Can you hear me?”

“Of course, dear, but I don't want to wake him. He's taken his bottle so beautifully!”

“What did you say?”

“He's taken his bottle beautifully!” repeated Mrs. Taylor, slightly raising her voice.

So, quite unnecessarily, did Eric.

“Listen, Mother: how old would you say he was? More than three days?”

“Good gracious, what a question!” exclaimed Mrs. Taylor indignantly—but pleased nonetheless that Eric was at last showing a proper interest. His tone was quite laughably urgent! “Three days? More like three weeks!” exclaimed Mrs. Taylor.

“Then it's probably prison,” said Eric—urgently.

2

As though quicker in the uptake than its grandmother, the infant roused. A hand pushed forth, vaguely signalled …

“He's trying to get at the telephone!” reported Mrs. Taylor delightedly.—“Now I can't seem to hear
you
, dear. What did you say?”

“Article 55—”

“I'm sure you didn't!” objected Mrs. Taylor. “I'm not as deaf as all that!”

At the other end of the line there was a slight pause before Eric, in all senses of the phrase, began again.

“Mother.”

“Well, dear, what
is
it?”

“I've been talking to a man at the Bank, Mother, actually our legal expert. Of course I put it as a hypothetical case, and it's not exactly his field, but he looked up the Civil Code. Article 55, failure to register a birth within three days, says not less than ten days imprisonment and fine of not less than four hundred francs. Or either.”

Le flegme britannique
is no myth. If Mrs. Taylor, in the rue d'Antibes, momentarily dropped the receiver, the reaction was physical rather than mental: thus abruptly haled, so to speak, from a wool-shop into the dock, she took but a moment more to reorientate, also defend herself.

“Nonsense,” said Mrs. Taylor. “We couldn't register him. We didn't know in time—did we, Poppitypin?”

“Mother.”

“Well, dear?—How I wish you could see him!” exclaimed Mrs. Taylor. “He
wants
the telephone!”

“Article 173, failure to notify the appropriate Mairie, gives up to eight days imprisonment or fine of up to three hundred and sixty francs. Or both.”

“Well, of course I'll notify the Mairie,” agreed Mrs. Taylor. “I'll pop round first thing in the morning. You must just find out where it is for me.”

“Mother.”

“Dear, I'm sure he ought to go to sleep again!” protested Mrs. Taylor. “His little eyes—”

“Mother, you still haven't realized,” interrupted Eric desperately. “The fact is, so far as I can make out, and in the circumstances, he's
French
.”

3

Le flegme britannique
is no myth; but there are limits. Now indeed was all Mrs. Taylor's composure—all her happiness, all her peace of mind—shattered; as the fearful sentence slowly penetrated only hysteria could have expressed her emotion.
French?
Against all the laws of nature, her grandson
French?
Subject not of proper Royalty but of a mere faceless Republic?—His anthem, instead of “God Save,” the wild revolutionary “Marseillaise”? “Never!” cried Mrs. Taylor aloud—clutching her grandson to her bosom. “Never!” cried Mrs. Taylor into the telephone …

But Eric, presumably already too long absent from his desk, had rung off. She was a grandmother alone, unsupported; alone save for the hapless infant in her arms, alone to fend, from that innocent head, the wing-beat of Napoleonic eagles.—Mrs. Taylor wasn't a normally imaginative woman, but as she now suddenly remembered Military Service, the image was as precise as in a Tenniel cartoon: both birds (there were two of them) wore small Imperial crowns. With equal precision (now in a sort of cinema-montage) she visualized death from frost-bite outside Moscow, and from thirst in some Saharan outpost of the Foreign Legion …

She snatched at the receiver again.—It was a measure of her disarray: trained originally by her husband, then re-trained by Eric, never to telephone a man at his office, Mrs. Taylor availed herself of the instrument without a second thought.

“Mr. Taylor? Who wishes to speak to him, please?” fluted a feminine voice from the Bank's switchboard.

“His mother!” cried Mrs. Taylor recklessly.

—Did she or didn't she hear a giggle, from the switchboard? In any case, there ensued a considerable pause before the voice fluted back.

“I'm so sorry, Mrs. Taylor, we don't seem able to
find
him. Will you leave a message?”

Mrs. Taylor took a grip on herself. She was belatedly aware of its being a moment for discretion. But how to frame, in any unsuspicious terms, what was practically a shout in the dark? It was like trying to shriek in a low voice, to fend a blow in slow motion … However, by drawing on a long experience as secretary to the Judges' Committee of the Streatham Flower Show, she succeeded.

“Please,” said Mrs. Taylor. “Please say I'd like him to bring his friend back this evening for a little game of bridge—and to tell him it
isn't
hypothetical.”

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About the Author

Margery Sharp (1905–1991) is renowned for her sparkling wit and insight into human nature, which are liberally displayed in her critically acclaimed social comedies of class and manners. Born in Yorkshire, England, she wrote pieces for
Punch
magazine after attending college and art school. In 1930, she published her first novel,
Rhododendron Pie
, and in 1938, she married Maj. Geoffrey Castle. Sharp wrote twenty-six novels, three of which,
Britannia Mews
,
Cluny Brown
, and
The Nutmeg Tree
, were made into feature films, and fourteen children's books, including
The Rescuers
, which was adapted into two Disney animated films.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1962 by Margery Sharp

Cover design by Mimi Bark

ISBN: 978-1-5040-3427-2

This edition published in 2016 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

180 Maiden Lane

New York, NY 10038

www.openroadmedia.com

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