‘That will do, Louise.’
‘Mummy, I’m Simpson.’
‘Then run Mr Cazalet’s bath at once, or I shall get my own garnets.’
‘Oh, all right, madam.’
‘What was all that about?’
‘I have a new dress.’ She stood up to show him. ‘Do you like it?’
‘Lovely. Very nice indeed. Suits you.’ Actually, he thought it rather dull. ‘Hermione make it for you?’
‘Oh, no, darling. It was just in her sale. Actually, I bought three. I feel rather guilty.’
‘Nonsense.’ He suddenly felt light-hearted. ‘You know I like you to have nice clothes.’
When he had gone to his dressing room, Villy stood in front of her large looking glass. He had not been very keen on the dress. But then men didn’t really know: it was a useful dress – perfect for going to the theatre – and fitted well, the bertha round the scooped neckline concealing her rather small and sagging breasts. That dreadful fashion for binding them in the twenties, when everyone was mad about having a boyish figure, seemed to have destroyed her muscles. Unknown to Edward, she did exercises every morning in an attempt to restore them, but they did not seem to improve. The rest of her was in good shape. She sat down again at her dressing table and carefully applied two little dabs of rouge: Mummy had always told her that make-up was vulgar and Edward professed not to like it, but she noticed that the women he seemed to find most entertaining wore a good deal. Hermione, for instance. Scarlet lipstick, painted nails and midnight blue mascara … She got her lipstick out of the drawer and applied the merest touch. As the colour was a dark carmine, this looked rather odd, and she rubbed her lips together to spread it. A touch of Coty’s Ormande behind the ears and she was done.
Louise returned and the garnets were taken out of their flat and rather battered leather case: flat-cut eighteenth-century garnets, a necklace and drop earrings to match. She screwed on the earrings while Simpson struggled with the necklace clasp.
‘You may put out my stamped velvet and the brown bead purse while I go and say goodnight to Miss Lydia.’
‘All right, madam. Madam, Mummy, need I have supper with Nanny? Could I just have it in my room?’
‘Why ever do you want to do that?’
‘She’s terrifically boring at meals. Well, all the time, really, but you notice it more at meals.’
‘Don’t you think it might hurt her feelings rather?’
‘I could say I had a headache.’
‘All right, then. Just for tonight.’
Lydia was already in bed in the night nursery. Her hair was still in pigtails with little damp tendrils escaping round her ears. She was wearing a blue flannel nightie. Her riding jacket was draped over a chair by her bed. The curtains were drawn, but the summer evening light seeped through chinks between the curtain rings and the stripe where they did not quite meet in the middle. She sat up at once when Villy came into the room, and cried, ‘Oh, you elegant fowl!’
Villy was irresistibly touched. ‘But I can’t sing to you charmingly and sweetly like the Pussycat.’
‘You are charming and sweet. Louise said you were going to the theatre. When can I go to one?’
‘When you are older. At Christmas, perhaps.’
‘Louise said if there were fires in theatres, people couldn’t get out. You won’t have a fire in your theatre, will you?’
‘Of course not. And people can get out.’
‘You might have a car accident.’
‘Darling, I shan’t. Why are you worrying?’
‘I don’t want anything – ever – to happen to you.’
‘Darling, it won’t,’ and then she wondered why it made her sad to say that.
‘I love my riding jacket. Would you undo my pigtails, please? They are much too tight for night. Nan always makes things all right for tomorrow; she never thinks about now. They strain me! They make all my hair straining to be longer.’
Villy undid the elastic bands and unthreaded the tight plaits. Lydia shook her head. ‘Much better, Mummy. Do be careful to come back. You’re quite old, and old people do have to be careful. You don’t look old,’ she added loyally, ‘but I know you are. After all, I’ve known you all my life.’
Villy’s mouth twitched, but she said, ‘I do see. Now I must go, my duck.’ She bent down. When Lydia hugged her, she held her breath with the fierce effort, so the hugs couldn’t last very long. ‘Please tell Nan you undid my pigtails.’
‘Yes. Sleep tight. See you in the morning.’
By the time she had dealt with Nanny and come down from the top floor, Edward was emerging from his dressing room, smelling of lavender water and looking wonderfully handsome in his dinner jacket; Louise was kicking the skirting board by the open door to her bedroom.
‘Did you tell her?’ she immediately demanded.
‘Nan? Yes, yes, I did. Where’s my coat, Simpson?’
‘On your bed. And I’m not Simpson any more: I’ve taken off my apron. You haven’t seen my new catfish, Mummy,’ she added, following her into the bedroom.
‘I’ll have to see him tomorrow.’
‘Oh no, have a look at him now. He won’t be new tomorrow.’
‘Louise, we really have to go—’
Edward, who had gone down to the hall now called, ‘Villy! Chop chop! We’re going to be late.’
‘Oh, Mummy! It’s not fair! It wouldn’t take you a second!’
‘Don’t be tiresome, Louise.’ As she passed Louise’s room on her way downstairs, she added, ‘It looks a terrible mess in there. How many times have I told you that it’s not fair on the maids if you keep it like that?’
Louise trailing sulkily down behind her muttered, ‘I don’t know.’ At the bottom, Villy turned. ‘Well, clear it up, darling, there’s a good girl. Goodnight, now.’ She bent to kiss her daughter, who held up her face in mute sacrifice.
‘Goodnight, Lou,’ called Edward. The front door slammed and they were gone. Three things on the floor! As if that was a terrible mess! If things were on the floor you could see them and that meant that you knew where they were. Grown-ups were the limit, sometimes. Children had a rotten time of it. At least Teddy would be home tomorrow and she would have someone decent to talk to. One of these days she would be in a play in London, and her parents – frightfully old by then – would come to see her, and beg her to go out to supper with them afterwards, but she and John Gielgud would be going to some terrifically glamorous party. ‘I’m afraid you are too old,’ she would have to tell them. ‘You really ought to be in bed and just having Grape Nuts on a tray.’ This made her feel better, and she wandered into the drawing room and got The Painted Veil by Somerset Maugham out of the locked bookcase and took it upstairs. She went into her parents’ bedroom and tried on some of Mummy’s rouge and in the middle of that Edna came in to turn the beds down.
‘You didn’t ought to do that, Miss Louise.’
‘I know,’ she said loftily. ‘But I thought I ought to know what it felt like since eventually I shall be covered with the stuff. You won’t tell, will you?’
‘I may and I may not.’ She was laying out Mr Edward’s pyjamas – a lovely wine silk they were – enjoying doing Phyllis’s job for once.
In the end, and to be on the safe side, Louise had to give her a pot – the smallest – of Wonder Cream in return for her silence.
One of the things that Hugh most disliked about the maid was the way in which she always seemed to belying in wait for his return in the evenings. This evening he hardly had time to take the key out of the front door before she was there. She tried to seize his hat as he was putting it on the hall table, with the result that it fell to the floor.
‘I came your coat to take,’ she said, as she retrieved the hat. It sounded like a kind of sexy accusation, he thought, telling himself for the millionth time not to be prejudiced about Germans.
‘I haven’t got a coat,’ he said. ‘Where is Mrs Cazalet?’
Inge shrugged. �
��Up she went some time.’ Still standing far too close to him, she added, ‘You want a drink of whisky I make?’
‘No, thank you.’ He had actually to brush past her to get up the stairs. The movement made his head throb; he realised that he was dreading the Queen’s Hall, but he hated disappointing Sybil so much that nothing would induce him to tell her.
She lay on her side, half wrapped in the green silk kimono that the Old Man had brought back from Singapore (each daughter-in-law had been given one, but the Duchy had chosen the colours – green for Sybil, blue for Viola and peach for Zoë), her narrow feet bare and touchingly white – one arm flung out with a cluster of delicate veins running from the inside of her wrist into the palm of her pretty hand. When he leant over her, a breast, hard as marble and white and veined, moved him: her extremities seemed too fragile to support the great bulk of her body.
‘Hallo there.’ She patted the bed. ‘Tell me about your day.’
‘Much as usual. Did you see the doc?’
She nodded, noticing the little tic above and to the side of his right eye. He’d had one of his heads, poor sweetie.
‘What did he say?’
‘Well, as a matter of fact he thinks – although he couldn’t actually hear both hearts – we’ve probably got Tweedledee as well.’
‘Good Lord!’ He wanted to say, ‘No wonder you’ve been done in,’ but it wasn’t what he meant, or only partly what he meant.
‘It doesn’t worry you?’ It worried her: whether Nanny Markby would cope with two; whether Hugh would consent to move house; whether it would actually hurt twice as much …
‘Of course not. It’s very exciting.’ He was wondering how on earth he would cope with the school fees if they turned out to be boys.
She heaved herself up so that she was sitting on the side of the bed. ‘It does slightly make up for being the size of a house. I haven’t told Polly, by the way.’
‘Do you think, in view of this, that perhaps you’d better not go to Sussex?’
‘Well, I won’t go for so long. Just a week. Otherwise I shall see next to nothing of Simon.’ Her back still ached – or perhaps it was aching from being in the same position.
‘Do you really want to go out tonight?’
‘Of course I do.’ She was determined not to disappoint him. ‘Unless, you don’t?’
‘Oh, no – I’m fine.’ He knew how much store she set by concerts. He’d take some more dope; it usually got him through. ‘Where’s Polly?’
‘Upstairs sulking, I’m afraid. I had to tell her about her move. She’s making a fuss about it.’
‘I’ll pop up and say goodnight to her.’
Polly lay on her stomach on the floor, tracing what looked like a map. Her straight silky hair – more golden and less red than her mother’s – hung down each side of the black velvet snood hiding her face.
‘It’s me.’
‘I know. I know your voice.’
‘What’s up, Poll?’
There was a pause, and then Polly said distantly, ‘You shouldn’t say “me”, you should say “I”. I should have thought you’d know.’
‘It is I.’
‘I know. I know your voice.’
‘What’s up, Poll?’
‘Nothing. I hate geography homework.’ She jabbed her pencil hard through the paper and made a hole. ‘Now you’ve made me spoil my map!’ She gave him an agonised frown and two tears shot out of her eyes.
He sat down on the floor and put his good arm round her.
‘Nothing’s fair! Simon has the best room! He gets a treat every time he comes back from school and I don’t! He gets a treat the night before his term starts and I don’t! You can’t move cats about, they just go back to the old room, and I hate that new nanny that’s coming – she smells of peardrops and she doesn’t like girls; she kept talking about my little brother. How does she know? If you aren’t any of you careful I’ll go and live with Louise only I don’t think Pompey would go in a wheelbarrow otherwise I would have gone!’ She took a gasping breath, but he could see that she felt better because she was watching for him to be shocked.
‘I couldn’t bear you to leave me and go and live with Louise,’ he said.
‘Would it really and truly horrify you?’
‘It certainly would.’
‘That’s something.’ She was trying to sound grudging, but he could see she was pleased.
He got to his feet. ‘Let’s go and look at your new room and see what we could do about it.’
‘All right, Dad.’ She felt for his hand, but it was the wrong arm; she gave the black silk sock that encased his stump a quick little stroke, then she said, ‘It’s nothing like as bad as a trench in the war: I expect I’ll get quite fond of it in the end.’
Her face was stern with the effort of concealing her concern for him.
The moment that her parents had gone, Polly rushed to the telephone which was in the back bit of the drawing room near the piano. She lifted the receiver and held it to her ear. In a moment the operator was saying, ‘Number, please.’
‘Park one seven eight nine.’ There was a click and then she heard the bell ringing and she started praying it wouldn’t be Aunt Villy the other end.
‘Hallo!’
‘Hallo! Lou! It’s me – Polly. Are you on your own?’
‘Yes. They’ve gone to the theatre. What about yours?’
‘A concert. What I’m ringing about is I’m having a new room. My father says I can have it painted whatever colour I like. What do you think about black? And he’s going to have shelves put all round the walls for my things – all round and all over so there will be room for everything! Black would be good for china, wouldn’t it?’
There was a silence the other end. Then Louise said, ‘People don’t have black walls, Polly, I should have thought you’d have known that.’
‘Why don’t they? People wear black clothes and there are black tulips.’
‘La tulipe noire was actually very dark red. I know – I’ve read the book. It’s by a man called Dumas. It’s actually a French book.’
‘You can’t read French.’
‘It’s so famous you can get it in English. I can read French,’ she added, ‘but not so that I can understand it properly. Of course I can read it.’
Louise seemed to be in a bate. So Polly asked about the catfish.
‘He’s all right, but he doesn’t seem to like the other fish much.’ Then while Polly was trying to think of another peace-making thing to say, she added, ‘I’m stupendously bored. I’ve put on a lot of rouge and I’m reading a book called The Painted Veil. It’s got sex in it. It’s nothing like as good as Persuasion.’
‘Do you think dark red would be good?’
‘You can get wallpaper like the sky and a sheet of different-sized seagulls that you can stick on. Why don’t you have that?’
‘There wouldn’t be room for them with all the shelves.’
‘Just don’t have boring cream. Everything’s cream here, as you know. It goes with everything, Mummy says, but in my view it just means you don’t notice anything. Have dark red,’ she added with a spurt of generosity. ‘Have you done your map?’
‘I did, but then I spoiled it. Have you?’
‘No. Whenever I think about it I can’t bear to begin. It’s pointless to make a map of somewhere that there is a map of already. I wouldn’t mind if it was an uncharted desert island. If you ask me, we are made to lead pointless lives – no wonder I’m bored to death.’
‘They don’t have to do it.’ Polly was entering the game. ‘I mean, they don’t have to settle down after dinner and learn dates of the kings of England, or exports of Australia or do awful long division about sacks of flour.’
‘I entirely agree with you. Of course they say they know it all but you can catch them out as easy as winking. The truth is they’re just hell-bent on pleasure.’ Ganging up about their parents had made her friendly at last.
‘They don’t even
let us break up in time to meet Teddy and Simon. They can go and we can’t. That’s not fair either.’
‘Well, actually, Polly, that cuts both ways. Teddy and Simon don’t like being met – except by Bracken.’
‘Why don’t they?’
‘The other boys. They don’t mind fathers, but mothers are an awful hazard – wearing silly clothes and showing their feelings.’
She didn’t say anything about sisters, and Polly didn’t want to ask. Simon’s good opinion of her was so important that she did not choose to discuss it.
‘This time tomorrow they’ll be back. Having their treat dinners.’
‘Well, we have them, too.’
‘But we don’t choose them. I say, Polly, that rouge. It won’t come off.’
‘Try licking your handkerchief and rubbing.’
‘Of course I’ve tried that. It comes off on the handkerchief and it seems to go on staying on my face. I don’t want it on all night.’
‘Try some Wonder Cream.’
‘I will. I gave Edna a jar. What’s Simon’s treat dinner?’
‘Roast chicken and meringues. What’s Teddy’s?’
‘Cold salmon and mayonnaise and hot chocolate soufflé. I loathe mayonnaise. I have my salmon dry.’
Their supper trays variously arrived, but they talked on and on, so in the end it was quite a nice evening.
‘Hey! I say! Are you awake?’
Simon didn’t answer. He was fed up with Clarkson. He lay rigidly still because the dormitory wasn’t really dark and Clarkson would be watching.
‘Listen, Cazalet Minor, I know you are awake. I only wanted to ask you something.’
It was jolly bad luck to be stuck in a dormitory of three, especially when Galbraith was the third. He was the senior, a sixth-form boy, but he was keen on owls and used to go off after lights out to watch them. Simon didn’t actually mind because he’d given them quite a decent bribe, not only the Crunchies but some wizard swaps for cigarette cards – Galbraith only collected the natural history ones. Still, it left him stuck with Clarkson who went on and on about things that Simon simply didn’t want to talk about.
‘I mean, how do they know that pee won’t come out – instead of the other stuff?’
The Cazalet Chronicles Collection Page 6