The Cazalet Chronicles Collection

by Elizabeth Jane Howard

  ‘Ouch! It’s not fair!’ she called after Teddy. ‘You squeezed me against the porch!’

  Angela looked at the large dirty graze that was beading with blood. ‘We’d better go and find your father. You ought to wash it.’

  ‘He’s out. He’s taken Zoë to the station ’cos her mother’s ill.’

  ‘Honestly, Clary, we’d better get some iodine. I’ll do it for you.’

  This was Polly, who had arrived on the scene. ‘It’s kind of you, but you wouldn’t know where the things were,’ she said to Angela, as she led Clary into the house.

  So Angela was free to leave. She started walking down the hill, past Mill Farm towards Battle. She walked slowly, as she didn’t want to get too hot and have a shiny nose. All the same, she was quite tired by the time Rupert’s car slowed up and he hailed her.

  ‘Where are you off to?’

  ‘Just going for a walk.’

  ‘Hop in. Have a drive instead.’ He pushed open the door, and she stepped demurely in. It’s easy! she thought that first morning.

  They drove back up the hill in silence, but when they reached the gates of Home Place he said, ‘I don’t feel like going back to the house now. Why don’t we go a bit further? But I’ll let you out if you have better things to do.’

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ she said, making it sound like a concession.

  He seemed to take it as such, because he said, ‘That’s good of you. Actually, I’ve a problem and I could do with someone to talk to.’

  This was so unexpected and so flattering to her that she could think of no answer mature and offhand enough. She gave him a sidelong glance: he was frowning lightly, eyes fixed on the road. He wore a dark blue flannel shirt open at the neck so that she could see his long, bony throat. She wondered when he would start to tell her whatever it was, and what on earth it might be that he and Zoë—

  ‘I’m taking you to see a cracking view,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, good,’ she answered, and smoothed her apple-green voile over her knees.

  When they got there, it was much what she had expected. She could never see the point of views: they simply seemed to mean an awful lot more of whatever you could see when there wasn’t one, in this case miles of hop fields, and ordinary fields and woods and a few old farmhouses. He parked the car on the verge, and they walked to a gate that had a stile beside it. He invited her to sit on the stile, and he leant on the gate beside her and stared and stared. She watched him staring.

  ‘Marvellous, isn’t it?’ he said at last.

  ‘Yes, marvellous.’

  ‘Want a cigarette?’

  ‘Please.’

  When he had lit them, he looked at her, and said, ‘You’re a very composed person, aren’t you? Very restful to be with.’

  ‘That depends,’ she answered. She did not wish to be restful to be with; yet she longed for him to go on talking about her – to discover the fascinating person she was planning to be for him.

  ‘The thing is, my father wants me to chuck teaching art and go into the firm. And, of course, if I do that, it would be rather burning my boats from the painting point of view. On the other hand, the teaching seems to take up so much time and energy that I don’t get much painting done anyway so it seems a bit unfair, to everybody, not to opt for a much more comfortable life. What do you think?’

  ‘Goodness!’ she said at last, after trying to think about it and utterly failing. ‘What does Zoë think?’

  ‘Oh, she’s all for it. Of course I can see her point of view. It’s certainly not much fun for her being the poor relation, and she’s never been particularly interested in painting. And then there are the children …’ His voice tailed off and he looked deeply uncertain.

  ‘But what about you? I mean, what do you want?’ Her self-possession had returned, and one thing was quite clear to her: she wasn’t going to be on Zoë’s side.

  ‘That’s it. I don’t seem to want anything very much – or, at least, not enough. That’s why I think I ought to—’

  ‘Do what other people want?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Then you’ll never find out, will you? And, anyway, how do you know you could keep it up?’

  ‘Wise girl! Of course, I don’t.’

  ‘Couldn’t you stop teaching and simply be a painter?’

  ‘No, not possible. I’ve sold precisely four pictures in my life and three of those were to the family. I couldn’t keep three people, not counting me, on that.’

  ‘And you couldn’t join the family firm and paint in your spare time?’

  ‘No. You see, the trouble about being a Sunday painter is that Sundays are for the children – and Zoë, of course.’

  ‘If I was Zoë,’ she began carefully, ‘I’d look after the children on Sundays. I’d want you to paint. If you love somebody, you want them to do what they want.’ As she heard herself saying that, she felt that it was probably true.

  But he simply threw away his cigarette stub and laughed. Then, when he saw those enormous blue eyes turning reproachful, he said, ‘You’re a perfect sweetie, and I’m sure you mean it, but it isn’t as easy as that.’

  ‘I never said it was easy,’ she retorted; she did not like being called a sweetie.

  But Rupert, in a situation more familiar to him than she could possibly know, felt he must make amends.

  ‘I’m sorry. I really didn’t mean to sound patronising. I think you are a wonderfully clear-headed person, wise beyond your years, and on top of that,’ he touched her face lightly, ‘you are remarkably beautiful. Will that do?’ He looked searchingly at her with a small apologetic smile.

  It was like a thunderbolt – she felt literally struck by love. Her heart jolted, and stopped, then made some wild, irregular rapid movements; she was breathless, dizzy, unable to see, and when his face became clear again, she felt a sense of unutterable weakness – as though her limbs were dissolving and she would fall from the stile and melt into the grass and never be able to stand at all again.

  ‘… don’t you think we should?’

  ‘Yes. What?’

  ‘Go back to lunch. You didn’t hear me, did you? You were miles away.’

  She got carefully, clumsily, off the stile and followed him to the car. Her face, where his fingers had touched it, burned.

  Driving home, he remarked that it had been jolly nice of her to listen to his boring old problems and what about her? What was she planning to do? It was the opening that earlier she had craved, in order that she might fascinate and impress and entrap him. Now it was too late: she was unable to be anything but her new self, about which there seemed to be nothing she could, or ever would, dare to say.

  ‘Let me see … it’s the fifteenth; you were due on the first?’

  ‘On the second, actually. But, of course, I missed the one before. And honestly, Bob, I really don’t feel that I can—’

  ‘Now, now, we don’t want to cross that bridge till we get to it. You pop behind the screen and divest yourself of your nether garments and we’ll have a look at you. Mark you, it’s probably too early to be sure.’

  But I am sure, Villy thought, as she did as Dr Ballater had suggested. The family joke among the sisters-in-law that if they were in doubt about being pregnant a drive with Tonbridge would settle the matter, since he invariably drove them at twelve miles an hour approximately five weeks after conception, proved not to be a joke to her that morning. Tonbridge had driven her with such a lugubrious slowness that she had been afraid of missing the train. All the same, she lay down on the hard little high bed with feverish hope. And if the worst came to the worst, Bob was not only a very good GP, who had delivered both Louise and Lydia, but a friend: Edward and he played golf in the winter on Sundays, and they dined regularly in each other’s houses. If anyone would help, surely he would?

  ‘Well,’ he said some uncomfortable minutes later, ‘I cannot be sure, of course, but I think it’s very likely you’re right.’

  Villy, with
a suddenness that confounded her, burst into tears. She had meant to be calm and rationally persuasive, now she found herself sobbing, ridiculously half-clothed with her bag and a handkerchief left on the chair by his desk. But he brought her the bag without being asked and told her to get dressed and they would have a chat. When she joined him, he had mysteriously produced cups of tea and gave her a cigarette.

  ‘Now,’ he said. ‘Let us suppose that you are pregnant. Is it your age that’s worrying you?’

  ‘Well – yes, that among other things.’

  ‘Because I’m not in the least worried about that. You’re a healthy woman and you’ve had three healthy children. It isn’t as though you’re starting at … forty, is it?’

  ‘Forty-two. But it isn’t just that, I feel too old to start all over again – besides it wouldn’t be much fun for it, it would be like an only child.’ She wanted to say, ‘I simply don’t want another baby at any price, but he was a man as well as her doctor and would be most unlikely to understand. ‘I’m sure Edward doesn’t want any more children,’ she added.

  ‘Oh, I can’t see Edward kicking up a fuss. He can afford it, which is the main thing. I take it you haven’t talked to him, but I’ll bet you he’ll be pleased as punch when you do.’ There was a short silence, while both of them separately wondered what on earth to say next.

  ‘I suppose I couldn’t be – starting on the change – could I?’

  ‘No hot flushes? Night sweats?’ She shook her head, blushing at the disgusting notions.

  ‘Not feeling depressed?’

  ‘Well, yes – I am about this. I really and truly don’t feel up to another baby.’

  ‘Well, we can’t always choose these things. And I’ve known many women who thought they didn’t want another and discovered how wrong they were when it arrived.’

  ‘So you don’t think that there is anything – at all – that I could do?’

  ‘I do not,’ he said sharply, ‘and I hope I’m not reading your mind, my dear, but just in case I am let me tell you two things. I would do a great deal for you, but I would never even contemplate helping you get rid of a baby. I’ve had women in this room who would have given everything they possess to be in your position. And I’m also telling you not to try and find some other means. I’ve also had women in here wrecked by backstreet abortions. I want you to promise me to do nothing at all, to come back here in six weeks when we shall be able to confirm your condition or not as the case may be.’ He leant over the desk and took one of her hands. ‘Villy. I’ll see you through this, I promise you. Now, will you promise me?’

  So she had to, really.

  Seeing her out and feeling the need to neutralise the slight feeling of tension, he asked her whether Edward was worried about the crisis and she told him that she didn’t think so, ‘Although I haven’t seen him because I’m in Sussex with the children, and he couldn’t come down last weekend.’

  ‘Is that so? Well, you keep the children there – far the best place for them. Mary has my two in Scotland, and it has crossed my mind to leave them there for a few weeks, till we know where we stand.’

  ‘Are you worried, then?’

  ‘No, no. I’m sure our unflappable Prime Minister will sort things out. I have to admire him taking his first flight at sixty-nine. And I don’t suppose he speaks a word of German. It’s quite impressive. Look after yourself, my dear. And mind what I’ve said.’

  Outside, she stood irresolute: she had told Jessica and her mother that she would be catching the four-twenty back to Battle, but she was a short walk from Lansdowne Road, and she felt a sudden craving for her own house, blessedly empty of relations, with the prospect of tea and a rest, and then a quiet evening with Edward, to whom, she felt, she might even be able to talk about the whole thing. So she walked through the large Ladbroke Square, empty now of its perambulators and nannies and children for the summer, to Ladbroke Grove, where she had seen straw laid across the wide road because an old gentleman had been dying at the large house on the corner. She walked past Hugh and Sybil’s house, shuttered and looking very closed up, although she knew Hugh used it in the week, and then turned right down Ladbroke Road. As the back of her home came into view, she experienced a surge of relief: the country was all very well, but really she adored London, and particularly this house. Edna would be there, if it was not her afternoon off, and she could have her tea and a bath. It had been an oppressive, sunless day, and she felt hot and sticky.

  When she had let herself into the quiet house, she remembered that it was Wednesday and that therefore Edna would almost certainly be out. I’ll have to make my own tea, she thought, and wondered if she’d be able to find everything. There were two stacks of letters on the hall table, but they all seemed to be for Edward: it was naughty of him to let them pile up like that. She decided to ring him up at once to tell him she was here, in case, on his own, he decided to play billiards at his club or something of the sort. The study, where the telephone was, was looking rather dusty and by the telephone there was a large ashtray, full of Edward’s cigarette stubs, which looked as though it hadn’t been emptied for days. She hoped the rest of the house hadn’t become like that or she would have to sack Edna. When she got through to the office and asked for Edward there was a pause, and then Miss Seafang answered his telephone, and said that Mr Edward had left at lunch-time saying he would not be back. She was ever so sorry, but she did not know where he had gone. She would tell him in the morning that Mrs Edward had called and get him to call Mill Farm first thing. Then she rang off before Villy could tell her that she was in London. Not that it matters, she thought. I might as well be there as here. Baulked of the evening she had just started looking forward to, she felt thoroughly cross about everything. She wandered into the drawing room where the blinds were down. It was incredibly stuffy and smelled of smoke and some other stale scent that when she drew up a blind, and saw a vase of half-dead carnations, she assumed came from them. Really, Edna was not doing her job at all: she clearly needed Phyllis to keep her up to the mark. She decided against tea, and then thought she would have a rather large gin and tonic and drink it in the bath. Then she thought she would ring Edward’s club, in case he was there. He wasn’t. The nicest bath was in Edward’s dressing room, which was in an awful mess. It had dawned on her that Edna must have left – possibly only that morning – or surely Edward would have told her, for even she would not have left damp bath towels all over the floor, the dressing-room bed unmade, and discarded shirts and pants and socks of Edward’s everywhere. The whole thing was shocking. Poor Edward, coming home after a hard day’s work to this! She would have to sack Edna supposing she materialised to be sacked, and send Phyllis up tomorrow to look after him. She picked up the towels and hung them on the towel-horse, but decided to leave the bed, as Edward would be sleeping in their bedroom. It seemed odd of him not to be sleeping there, anyway. She would have her bath and change, and then clear up his clothes.

  After a good soak, and her drink, she felt much better. Of course, gin and hot baths were supposed to be one of the good old-fashioned ways of bringing on a miscarriage, but she recognised that there was something half-hearted (or craven) about her attitude to that. Really, she simply wanted not to be pregnant; Dr Ballater had somehow made her feel uncomfortable about her wittingly achieving such a state. The thought of talking to Hermione about it now seemed insurmountably difficult. Hermione might easily recommend someone, but she would have no idea of how safe or discreet he might be. She wondered how many of the friends – well, people she and Edward dined, or went to the theatre or danced with – had ever been in this predicament? There must have been some, but the trouble was that it was a subject that absolutely none of them ever mentioned, let alone discussed. The assumption was that you had as many babies as you wanted and then used birth control and hoped for the best. She could think of several women who had had what were described as ‘afterthoughts’, and their friends always said how lovely, and how easy they wou
ld find it now they knew all the ropes.

  If she had stuck to her career, things would have been different. She knew, when she had been in the company, that girls had become pregnant, but such was the spirit of dedication – she remembered bleeding feet, the performances when you danced in agonising pain from torn muscles, the lying on your bed between rehearsals because Diaghilev hadn’t paid the company for the third week running and you were living on a pint of milk and two rolls a day – that a backstreet abortion would have been regarded as simply another hazard of the life. But when she married, she had left that society for one where women seemed not to be dedicated to anything but having children and dealing with the servants. Life was one great man trap, she thought, and sex, which obviously had to be pretty trapping for women to contemplate it at all considering what it actually came down to – hours and hours over the years of painful, unpleasant, and ultimately dull intimacies of an inexplicably unsatisfactory nature – was simply something that one exchanged for the comfort and security of being a couple and having in other ways a pleasant time … after all, look at the unmarried women she knew! She surely wouldn’t want to join that patronised, commiserated-over band! Even if she had continued with her dancing she would be past it now, or past her best at any rate. She thought of Miss Milliment. No one could ever have wanted to marry Miss Milliment, who had lived out her life ugly, alone and extremely poor, and when the children stopped having lessons with her she would be even poorer. She must do something about Miss Milliment. She could have her stay in Sussex in the holidays, which might be difficult as Edward was not keen on her and she would have to dine with them, but really she deserved a holiday without any expense. She would talk to Sybil and see whether she would help. The last time she had talked to Edward he had pointed out that Miss Milliment was earning seven pounds ten a week, three times the amount of a bus conductor who probably had a family to keep. ‘And she’s a woman,’ he had added, as though this made her a less expensive receptacle for shelter, food or clothing. ‘I’ll definitely do something,’ she told herself; she felt fortunate, guilty and a little frightened, as excursions beyond her own discontent so often made her.