Yes, she had, he thought. She had more than once suggested that it might be kinder to leave Roland to his mother, and at the beginning, after he had left Villy and before she’d consented to a divorce, Villy had said that Roland was not to meet Diana, and he, at the time, had been in anything-for-a-quiet-life mode, and had simply gone along with whatever either Villy or Diana wanted …
‘Edward! Wake up! I’m talking to you! I said, what did you think of Villy?’
‘What do you mean what did I think of her?’
‘Oh – you know. Did she look much older? Does she still care about you? That sort of thing.’
He thought for a moment, and spoke very deliberately: ‘No, she didn’t look older – younger, I’d say. She looked better than she’s done for years. And, no, I don’t think she is still carrying a torch for me.’
‘What were you laughing about, you and Villy and the girls?’
‘We were reminiscing about earlier Christmases, actually.’
He was thinking of them again now: so many since the twenties, when the house had been spanking new, painted and papered, the Duchy machining curtains from morning till night. Hardly anything had been changed since then. Even the claw marks that Bruce, the Brig’s Labrador, had made on the doors were still there. And this was the last of them and, now, the last of the house for him: he would never see Home Place again.
‘I suppose Rachel is selling the house. It’s far too big for her alone.’
‘It is being sold, but since it belongs to the firm, Rachel will get nothing out of it.’
‘Oh. Poor her.’ Her indifference maddened him – a new and horrible feeling.
‘Could we please stop talking about my family? I know you don’t like them much, but I do. I’m very much attached to every single one of them.’
‘Even Villy? You’re still attached to her?’
‘For God’s sake, Diana, will you stop? Of course I have affectionate feelings for Villy. She’s had four of my children. I was glad to see her this morning. And apart from being glad, of course I feel guilty about what I’ve done to her and Roland. So do me the kindness and shut up.’
And Diana was so surprised – shocked – by his outburst that she remained silent for the rest of the drive.
Lunch was followed by an extremely cold game of Ogres, where the old outdoor kennel was the prison in which the captured were put to wait for someone to rescue them. The trouble was that the youngest always got captured first and the adults got tired of rescuing them. Jemima, who had been worried about Laura, went out to find her sobbing in the kennel. ‘Oh, Mummy, let me out. I hate this game and want to not play it.’
Jemima took her back to the house. She was blue with cold. ‘There’s even snow in my Wellingtons.’
‘I’m going to pop you into a hot bath and then you can have tea in your dressing gown. Special treat.’
‘I can stay up while all the others are having theirs.’ The idea pleased her enormously.
Much later, when the children had had their high tea, and had finally been coaxed to bed, it was discovered that they all wanted Uncle Rupert to continue his story about a bear and a tiger who start by fighting but become friends and decide to steal a small aeroplane and fly to England. Tonight he described how they came down in the gardens of Buckingham Palace where the Queen was very kind to them and offered them tea and sausage rolls – the tiger ate twenty-four – and Mars Bars – the bear ate sixteen but then he felt a bit sick …
‘No more tonight,’ Rupert said firmly. ‘And you all go to your beds at once or there won’t be any more adventures tomorrow.’ So they went.
‘Although, you know,’ Georgie said to Laura, ‘the whole thing is most improbable. Bears and tigers wouldn’t get on at all, in real life. They would avoid each other.’
‘It’s not meant to be real life. It’s a story. Stories are better than real life. In my opinion.’
‘I prefer real life.’
There was a coldness in the room, until Laura said, ‘I’ve had an idea. I bet you Rivers would simply love a Mars Bar.’
‘Yes! I think he might. Good idea, Laura. Just a small bit, though – we don’t want him feeling sick …’
‘All done,’ said Rupert, rather smugly. ‘I could do with a strong drink.’
Rachel, who had been toying with a dry sherry that she did not really want, straightened herself in her chair. ‘Listen, all of you. I want to be practical this evening. This house is full of family furniture. I shall not need very much of it, so I want you all to choose what you would like to have. Please stick a label on it with a name and address so that the carriers can deliver everything correctly. I expect you know that I’ve given the Duchy’s piano to Simon as he’s the musical one, and Gerald has kindly said that he can house it. I have sorted out some linen and kitchen things that I shall need, otherwise it’s a free-for-all. I’m telling you now because you may need time to make your choices. I should like to keep some of your pictures, Rupert, and the drawing you made of the Duchy playing the piano, Archie. In fact, I’ve already put labels on those. And, finally, don’t any of you thank me, because I don’t want to burst into tears. The labels are on the desk.’ She took a swig of her sherry – too much – and it made her choke.
It was Hugh who patted her on the back, and Clary who said, ‘You are the most thoughtful person in the world.’
Then Juliet said, ‘Do I count, Aunt Rachel? And if I do, could I have the beautiful little silver teapot?’
‘You do, and you may.’
A new poker game was ongoing, and as soon as supper was over, Louise, Teddy, Simon, Roland, Henry and Tom and Juliet went off to the boys’ room to resume it.
Until now everybody had refrained from talking about Edward’s visit, with the dreaded Diana. But now, because they were not talking about what was going to happen to them any more, they fell upon the gossip. Archie said he thought that Edward had looked awful, grey and as if he’d shrunk.
Zoë said she didn’t think Edward loved Diana, but was frightened of her, whereupon Rupert observed, unsurprisingly, that one had to look at the other person’s point of view. Clary told Villy that she thought she had been wonderful, so calm and dignified. Villy apologised that Roland had been so hostile, and Hugh said that he rather admired him for it and, anyway, Edward had earned it. Rachel pointed out that he had married Diana, and this had to be accepted. ‘Let’s face it,’ Jemima countered, ‘she doesn’t like women very much. They seem to bring out the worst in her.’
Whereupon Polly bitchily observed that all that meant was that the worst of her was usually out. Gerald said that he didn’t think Diana was actually very happy.
‘I bet she’s not!’ Hugh exclaimed. ‘She thought she was marrying a rich man, and there he is, out of a job, and he told me he’d spent everything he’d saved on her. He’s even sold his guns and some cufflinks to buy them Christmas presents.’
‘Oh, poor Uncle Edward! No wonder he looked so awful!’
Clary’s eyes filled with tears and Archie put his arm round her. ‘She cries for England,’ he said.
Zoë began to say how stupid Diana had looked, bulging out of that dress … but Rupert intervened: ‘I think we’ve all been unpleasant enough for one evening, and I, for one, am longing to be in bed with my vituperative wife.’
That was Boxing Day over. Rachel was glad. It had been a long day for her, starting at seven when she had gone up to the churchyard with the snowdrops. She had been appalled at how much she didn’t like Diana. And she’d had no idea that Edward was so poor. If only he’d told me when he came for a drink, I could have given him something. But she knew she couldn’t have given him much. There were the servants to think of. As she was unable to give them large retiring presents, she must find them somewhere to live. And there was Mrs Tonbridge’s operation. I shall be gone in a few weeks now, Rachel admitted to herself. I shan’t be able to look after Sid’s grave. That seemed like yet another parting from her. But that is what I ha
ve to do, somehow. And find some work that will pay me money. I’m glad I told everyone to choose things. I’ve got that bit over at least.
It was a small congratulation, but it would have to do.
The next two days – the last two days – were occupied by the family making their choices. The linen, for instance: the wives all wanted some. A great deal of it was threadbare, very fine linen, marked in Indian ink that registered its date of birth, so to speak. In the end, it was divided between Zoë and Clary, as Jemima said she didn’t really need it. Polly, after consultation with Gerald, asked if they might have the hall table, four of the single beds and two chests of drawers. None of the others wanted these things. Teddy said he would like the Brig’s desk. He had nowhere to put it yet, but he suddenly very much wanted something of his grandfather’s. Georgie wanted the cabinet that contained the Brig’s collection of beetles. (This had been Rupert’s suggestion, and had deflected Georgie from wanting to unscrew the mangers in the horseboxes in case he ever got a horse.) Louise chose a very pretty set of Wedgwood coffee cups while Rachel urged Simon to take all the sheet music to go with the piano. Clary asked Mrs Tonbridge’s advice on kitchen equipment for the new flat at Mortlake: she had a small batterie de cuisine at home, but most of it was in a poor state.
Hugh, Rupert and Archie were all invited to share the silver – when Archie protested that he was not really family, Rupert and Hugh said he certainly was. Laura, unsupervised, rushed to the nursery with a sticky label, which she attached to the battered old rocking-horse. ‘I shall paint his face better and the spots on his back and ride him to do wicked deeds at night.’ Polly’s twins asked for the dressing-up box, which was stuffed with feather boas and beaded dresses, while Tom and Henry wanted all the tennis and squash racquets. Bertie mysteriously found a top hat in a cupboard that he said he’d need in case he was a magician when grown-up.
‘What can I have?’ Andrew wailed. ‘This house is full of things I simply don’t want.’
Rachel came to the rescue with The Times Atlas and a pair of binoculars. ‘Essential for an explorer,’ she said.
Bertie was easy. The only thing he longed for, apart from the top hat, was a very large stuffed pike in a glass case from the Brig’s study.
By the end of the second day everyone had chosen, excepting Villy, Roland and Harriet.
Rachel suggested that Villy have the set of garden tools that had been the Duchy’s. ‘I should love to think of you using them.’ Harriet finally admitted to wanting a patchwork quilt sewn in cotton of many different blues, some rather faded now from the sun. ‘Why didn’t you say so, darling?’
‘I thought it might be too precious for me. That you would want to keep it.’
‘No, I’d love you to have it. Here is a label for you. Put your name and address there. I’m glad you like it. This quilt was made by your great-grandmother during the war.’
‘Oh! So it’s very, very old!’ This seemed to add to its charms, so Rachel agreed on its advanced antiquity.
And so the only person left who had chosen nothing was Roland.
‘Surely there’s something you would like,’ Villy said. Roland said there was, but it would be inconvenient for Aunt Rachel if he took it. ‘It’s that marvellous old telephone in the study. I’ve never come across one like that before, only seen them in films.’
Rachel, on being asked, said that she certainly wouldn’t want to keep it, but that she might need it until she left.
‘Oh, good! And do you want the Remington typewriter, by any chance?’ Rachel, who could only type with one finger, didn’t. ‘And there’s a very early camera I’m rather keen on. Or is that too much?’
‘No, Roland, it’s helpful, thank you. Put your labels on everything.’
When word got round that Roland was getting several things, some of the others wanted more too. ‘We can’t just leave all those poor old bears and monkeys and golliwogs to be got rid of, Mummy. I could look after them,’ Harriet offered coaxingly.
‘It seems a bit silly to leave all the board games, Mum,’ Polly’s twins said. ‘Aunt Rachel is really too old to want to play them.’
‘You’ve got lots of games at home.’
‘Not all of these. And then supposing four people want to play a game that’s meant for two? They’d have to wait for hours.’
Georgie said, ‘I wonder if I could have those stuffed pheasants as well. The Lady Amhurst is quite rare and the Golden Pheasant is too. I could have them in the museum part of my zoo, with the beetles.’
Parents apologised profusely to Rachel for this surge of acquisitiveness, but Rachel said she found it priceless. In fact, she thought of more things they might like.
The Choosing Game, as the children got to call it, proved a blessing. It kept everybody active with things to do. ‘Oh dear!’ the children kept saying. ‘The last two days!’ But Georgie was longing to get home because his best Christmas present would already be there, while Bertie and Harriet were excited by their impending move, and Laura was pretty sure that the present held back for her in London would be either a bicycle or a cat, both of which she really needed.
No, it was the older ones who were stricken: too reliant on an effortful reminiscence, effortful because each memory too easily provoked grief and anxiety.
Rachel told stories of the Brig, which were safe to laugh at: ‘Do you remember the way in which he would ask you if you had heard the story about the elephant he was given in India, and you said – rather bravely – that you had, and he would simply say, never mind, he would tell you again?’
‘And when rabbit’s fur came out of the well tap, he said we must not bother our pretty little heads about that.’ (This was Villy.)
‘And the terrifying way he would drive on the right-hand side of the road, and when the police stopped him, he said he had always ridden on that side and was too old to change now.’
There was a respectful silence after stories about the Brig seemed to have run out, and everyone reverted to private thoughts. Hugh was remembering Sybil – her giving birth to Simon; her terrible cancer, and how good Edward had been to him after her death. He had thought he would never get over it, but his darling Jemima had given him a whole new life. Villy thought of the good times she had had in this house, the days when Edward had seemed happy and devoted …
All over now. She had been shocked at the sight of him on Boxing Day. In some way, Diana’s brash uneasiness had confirmed the good realities of her own marriage to Edward. It had been happy; she knew now that sex had been the only problem. It had eventually occurred to her that pretending to like it was not good enough. It was a bit like what Miss Milliment had said about martyrs being dull to love; her distaste for sex must have communicated itself to Edward, who probably thought that ‘nice’ women were generally like her so went elsewhere for satisfaction. He had clearly married Diana for sex: she looked the sort of woman who might actually like that kind of thing. Villy wished – not for the first time – that Miss Milliment had not died, particularly had not died mistrusting her …
Clary looked round her. Anxiety, unhappiness, was like a fog in the room, slowly enveloping everybody. ‘I want to say something. I think it would be far better if we all expressed what we’re feeling. I know, Aunt Rachel, that you said not to talk about it during Christmas, but Christmas is over, and this is our last night here, and we’re all fearfully sad about that. But most of us are even more worried about what’s going to happen to us next. I think we ought to talk about that. And as I’ve introduced the subject, I think I’d better begin.’
In the short silence that followed, a log fell from the grate onto the hearth, and Rupert got up to retrieve it. Nobody took the slightest heed of this: everyone’s attention was on Clary.
‘This house,’ she began bravely. ‘I shall always love and remember it because this was my first home. And it was where I really got to know Polly. And you, Zoë, who I was determined to dislike because of my mother’s death and you marryin
g Dad. And you, darling Archie, most of all. All through the awful time when Dad was lost and I remained the only person who believed he was alive and would come back, you were here. You became my family, too. But the house stayed the same through that time. If I shut my eyes, I could still tell you the detail of any room, and outside, the orchard and the fields and the wood with the stream running through it. I could walk blindfold and still tell you where we were. What I’m trying to say is that this is the same for all of us. This house is inside us and we shall never forget it. I think we’re lucky to have somewhere so dear to remember in our hearts.’
A murmur of approval spread throughout the room. But that had been the easy part and Clary took a deep breath and began again: ‘The other thing we’re not talking about is what is going to happen to us when Cazalets’ has gone. I know you may think it’s all very well for Archie and Dad and Zoë and me, because we’ve decided to live together so Dad and Archie can start some art classes together. Archie and I are going to let our flat rather than sell it so that if the Mortlake idea doesn’t work we’ve at least got somewhere to live. Also, I hope I’ll be earning some money from writing. So, in a way, I feel we’re the luckiest people here. Gerald and Polly have their own problems, but luckily they’re not affected by Cazalets’ demise. But Uncle Hugh, you and Aunt Rachel are, and I suppose poor Uncle Edward too, but he’s not here.’ She looked expectantly at Hugh, who cleared his throat.
‘I don’t think any of you should worry about me. I have some money saved that should tide me over until I get some sort of job. Jemima has a small inheritance from her parents that should see the twins through university, and she owns our house. So you needn’t worry about me,’ he repeated, almost irritably this time.
All eyes then turned upon Rachel. She shrank from their gaze, but could not escape it. She had been sitting with her hands clenched round a small white handkerchief. She was incapable of lying, of dissembling at all, but she dreaded the prospect of exposing her real terror at the future now facing her.
The Cazalet Chronicles Collection Page 243
