‘Are you all right?’
‘Why shouldn’t I be?’
‘Zoë said you were sick in the car coming down. I thought perhaps you—’
‘That was ages ago. Which room am I in?’
‘The Pink. With Polly and Louise.’
‘Oh. Right.’ Her suitcase stood in the passage outside the lavatory. She picked it up. ‘Is there time to unpack before tea?’
‘I expect so. Anyway, you needn’t have tea if you don’t feel like it.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with me, Aunt Rachel – honestly. I’m perfectly all right.’
‘Good. I just wanted to be sure. Sometimes people feel awful after they’ve been sick.’
She took a hesitating step towards Rachel, put down the case, and then gave her a fierce and hurried hug. ‘I’m tough as old Wellingtons.’ A look of doubt crossed her face. ‘Dad says.’ She picked up the case again. ‘Thank you for worrying about me,’ she finished formally.
Rachel watched her stump upstairs. She felt sad. Her back ached, and that reminded her to take out a cushion for Sybil.
When she returned to the tea party, Zoë was telling Villy about seeing the men’s singles at Wimbledon, Sybil was telling the Duchy about the nanny she had found, Hugh and Edward were talking shop, and Rupert was a little apart, sitting on the lawn, hands round his knees, watching the scene. Everybody was smoking except for Sybil. The Duchy interrupted Sybil to say, ‘Pour away your tea, darling, it will be cold. I’ll give you another cup.’
Rachel proffered the cushion, and Sybil heaved herself up gratefully for it to be put in place.
Zoë, who observed this, gave Sybil a covert second glance and wondered how anybody could go about looking so monstrous. She could at least wear a smock, or something, instead of that awful green dress strained over her stomach. God! She hoped she’d never be pregnant.
Rachel took an Abdullah from the box on the tea table and looked about for a light. Villy waved her little sha-green lighter at her, and Rachel went over for it.
‘The court is all ready for tennis,’ she said, but before anybody could answer, they heard the car arrive. Doors slammed, and, seconds later, Lydia and Neville ran through the white gate. ‘We went over sixty miles an hour.’
‘Gracious!’ exclaimed the Duchy kissing him. Overexcited she thought. It will end in tears.
‘I betted Tonbridge he couldn’t go fast, so he went!’
‘He went how he would’ve went anyway,’ Lydia said primly, bending down to her grandmother. ‘Neville is rather young for his age,’ she whispered very loudly indeed.
Neville turned on her. ‘I’m not as young for my age as you are! How can you be young for your age? You couldn’t be your age if you were young for it!’
‘That’ll do, Neville,’ Rupert said with his hand over the lower part of his face. ‘Kiss your aunts and go and get ready for tea.’
‘I’ll kiss the nearest.’ He planted a smacking kiss on Sybil’s cheek.
‘And the others,’ ordered Rupert.
He sighed theatrically but did as he was told. Lydia, who had done her kissing, ended with Villy onto whom she flung herself.
‘Tonbridge has a very red neck. It goes dark red if you talk about him in the car,’ she said.
‘You shouldn’t talk about him. You should talk to him, or not at all.’
‘Oh, I didn’t. It was Neville. I simply noticed.’
‘We don’t want any tales,’ said the Duchy. ‘Run along how to Ellen and Nanny.’ They looked at her, but went at once.
‘Oh dear, aren’t they priceless? They do make me laugh.’ Rachel stubbed out her cigarette.
‘Now – what about your tennis?’ She wondered whether Villy minded her mother-in-law reprimanding Lydia, and she knew Villy loved to play.
‘I’m game,’ said Edward at once.
‘Hugh, do play. I’ll come and watch you.’ Sybil longed to have a little rest in the cool of their bedroom, but she didn’t want Hugh to be robbed of his tennis.
‘I’m happy to play if I’m wanted,’ but he didn’t want to. He wanted to lie in a deck-chair and read – have a peaceful time.
For once, however, they were cheated of sacrificing themselves to each other’s imagined requirements, as Zoë, leaping to her feet, proclaimed her interest in playing and said she’d pop up and change. Rupert immediately said, right, he’d play too, and there was the double. The Duchy was going to deadhead and pick her roses, and Rachel had just decided that as everybody seemed happy and occupied she could go to her room and read Sid’s letter, when her father emerged from the house.
‘Hallo, hallo, everybody. Kitty, it’s quite all right, because I’ve remembered now that the Whatsisnames couldn’t dine with us, so they are just coming for a drink.’
‘Who, dear?’
‘Chap I met in the train. Can’t for the life of me remember his name, but he was a very nice chap and, of course, I asked his wife as well. Pity I got up the port, but I expect we’ll manage to drink it.’
‘What time did you ask them, because dinner is at eight?’
‘Oh, I didn’t fuss about the time. They’ll come about six, I should think. Ewhurst they’re coming from – that’s where the chap said he lived. Rachel, can you spare a minute? I want to read you the end of the British Honduras chapter before I start to compare their mahogany with the West African variety.’
‘You read that bit to me, darling.’
‘Did I? Well, never mind, I’ll read it again,’ and taking her by the arm he marched her firmly into the house.
‘Why do you let him go in trains?’ Hugh said to his mother as she went in search of her secateurs and trug. ‘If he drove with Tonbridge, he wouldn’t meet nearly so many people.’
‘If he goes with Tonbridge, he insists on driving. And as nothing will stop him driving on the right-hand side of the road, Tonbridge is refusing to be driven by him. If he goes by train, then neither of them has to give way.’
‘Don’t the police have something to say about the right-hand side of the road?’
‘They do, of course. But the last time he was stopped, he got very slowly out of the car, and explained that he’d always ridden that side of the road and he wasn’t going to stop now just because he was motoring, and they ended up apologising to him. He’ll have to stop soon: his eyesight is really quite bad. You have a word with him, dear, I expect he’ll listen to you.’
‘I doubt it.’
They parted, and Hugh went upstairs to be sure that Sybil was all right. He went up the cottage stairs, avoiding the children who were all having tea in the hall.
Tea was nearly over, and the older children were panting to be allowed to get down. They had all had the statutory piece of plain bread and butter, followed by as many pieces of bread and jam as they pleased (the Duchy did not approve of butter and jam – ‘a bit rich’, her uttermost condemnation) and then there were flapjacks and cake, and then there were raspberries and cream – all washed down by mugs of creamy milk that Mr York had delivered from the farm that morning. Ellen and Nanny presided, careful of each other’s status, and more watchful and firm with their own charges than they were at home. Polly and Simon, unaccompanied, were no-man’s land, which curiously subdued them. Manners seemed to make most people dull, Louise thought. She kicked Polly under the table, who, taking the cue, asked, ‘Please, may we get down?’
‘When everyone has finished,’ Nanny said.
Neville hadn’t. They all looked at him. When he realised this he started shovelling in his raspberries very fast, until his cheeks bulged.
‘Stop that!’ said Ellen sharply, whereupon he choked, opened his mouth and a messy slide of raspberries dropped onto the table.
‘You others may get down.’ This they thankfully did, just as the scene was starting.
‘Where are you going?’ Clary called to Polly and Louise. She knew they were trying to leave her out.
‘To see Joey,’ they called, running to the north doo
r. They did not want her, she thought. She decided to go for an explore by herself. At first, she did not notice where she was going, was too engaged in hating everyone; Louise and Polly always ganged up – like the girls at school. If she had gone with them to see Joey they wouldn’t have let her ride him, or they would just have let her have one small turn on him at the end. Anyway, she was wearing her shorts and the stirrup leathers would have pinched her knees awfully. She could hear Neville’s wails coming from an upstairs open window: serve him right, the silly fool. She kicked a stone with her foot and it hurt her toe—
‘Look out!’ It was horrible Teddy and Simon on their bicycles. What was horrible about them was that they simply wouldn’t talk to her at all. They only talked to each other and grown-ups – but usually they got a bit nicer when the holidays had been going for a bit. She was at the corner of the house now, where to the left she could see the tennis court and hear them calling, ‘Love fifteen,’ and, ‘Yours, partner!’ She could offer to be a ball-boy, but she didn’t want even to see Zoë, thank you very much. She heard Dad give his hooting laugh when he missed a ball. He didn’t take games very seriously – unlike the others. To the right she could see the large part of the garden and in the distance, the beginnings of the kitchen garden. That’s where she would go. She walked along the cinder path by the greenhouses, whose glass was painted a smeary white. She could see the Duchy in her large hat, snipping and bending over her roses, and decided to go through the greenhouses to avoid being seen. The first one smelled of nectarines that were fan-trained up the wall. Overhead was an enormous vine, the grapes like small, clouded, green glass beads. They wouldn’t be at all ripe, but they looked very pretty, she thought. She felt one or two of the nectarines, and one fell off into her hand. It wasn’t her fault, it simply toppled. She put it in her shorts pocket to eat somewhere secret. There were masses of pots of geraniums and chrysanthemums that were hardly in bud; the gardener showed them at the Flower Show. The last greenhouse was full of tomatoes, the yellow and the red; the smell of them was delicious and so overpowering it tickled her nose. She picked a tiny one to eat; it was as sweet as a sweet. She picked three more and stuffed them in her other pocket. She shut the last greenhouse door and stepped into the cooler, but still golden, air. The sky was pale blue with a drift of little clouds like feathers. By the kitchen-garden gate there was a huge bush with purplish flowers like lilac only pointed; it was littered with butterflies – white ones, orange ones with black and white on them, small blue ones and one lemon with tiny dark veins on it, the most beautiful of all, she thought. She watched them for a bit and wished she knew their names. Sometimes they were restless and went from flower to flower with hardly a pause. I suppose the honey gets used up out of each little flower, she thought. They have to go on until they find a full one.
She decided to come and see them often: in the end they might get to know her, but they seemed a bit unearthly for people – more like ghosts or fairies – they didn’t need people, lucky things.
The kitchen garden, with walls all round it, was very hot and still. There was one long bed of flowers for picking, and the rest was vegetables. Plum and greengage trees were grown against the walls and a huge fig tree, whose leaves were quite rough to touch and smelled of slightly warm mackintosh. It had a lot of figs, and some had fallen to the ground, but they were still green and hard and shiny.
’Come and see what I’ve got!’
She hadn’t noticed Lydia, who was squatting on the ground in the middle of two rows of cabbages.
‘What have you got?’ she said, copying a grown-up voice – not really wanting to know.
‘Caterpillars. I’m collecting them for pets. This is my box for them. I’m going to make holes in the lid with Nan’s smallest knitting needle ’cos they need some air, but they won’t be able to escape. You can have some if you like.’
Lydia was nice. Clary didn’t actually want any caterpillars, she was too old for them, but she felt pleased to be asked.
‘I’ll help you if you like,’ she said.
‘You can tell where they are because of the eaten bits of leaves. Only please pick them up carefully. As they haven’t got any bones you can’t tell what would hurt.’
‘All right.’
‘Do you want the very small ones?’ Clary asked, after finding a whole lot on one leaf.
‘Some, because they’ll last longer. The big ones will go into cocoons and stop being pets.’
‘Except for size they do look the same, though,’ she said after a bit. ‘Their little black faces are just the same: it’s no good giving them names. I’ll just have to call them them.’
‘Like sheep. Only not awfully like sheep.’
This made Lydia laugh and she said, ‘You don’t have caterpillar shepherds. Shepherds know sheep quite well. Mr York told me. He knows his pigs and they all have names.’
When Clary thought they’d got too many, and Lydia said there were enough, they went to see if there were any strawberries left because Lydia said she was thirsty and if she went into the house for some water, Nan would find her and make her have a bath. But the only strawberries they found were all half eaten by things. Clary told Lydia about wanting a cat, and how her dad had said they’d have to think about it.
‘What does your mother say?’
‘She’s not my mother.’
‘Oh!’ Then she said, ‘I know she’s not, really. Sorry.’
Clary said, ‘It’s all right,’ but it wasn’t.
‘Do you like her? Aunt Zoë, I mean?’
‘I don’t have any feelings about her.’
‘But even if you did, it couldn’t be the same, could it? I mean, nobody could be like a real mother. Oh, Clary, I feel awfully sad for you! You’re a tragic person, aren’t you? I think you’re terrifically brave!’
Clary felt extraordinary. Nobody had ever said anything like that to her before. It was funny; she felt lighter, someone knowing made it less of a hard secret, because Ellen always changed the subject in a brisk horrible way, and Dad never mentioned her – never once even said ‘your mother’, let alone telling her all the things she wanted to know. He couldn’t help it, it was too awful for him to talk about, and she loved him far too much to want to make anything worse for him, and so there was nobody … Lydia was crying. She wasn’t making any noise, but her lip was trembling and tears spurted out onto the strawberry straw.
‘I’d hate my mother to die,’ she said. I’d hate it – too much.’
‘She’s not going to die,’ Clary said. ‘She’s the wellest person I’ve ever seen in my life!’
‘Is she? Really the wellest?’
‘Absolutely. You must believe me, Lyd – I’m far older than you and I know that sort of thing.’ She felt in her pocket for a handkerchief for Lydia, and remembered the tomatoes. ‘Look what I’ve got!’
Lydia ate the three tomatoes, and they cheered her up. Clary felt very old and kind. She offered Lydia the nectarine, and Lydia said, ‘No, you have it,’ and Clary said, ‘No, you’re to have it. You’ve got to.’ She wanted Lydia to have everything. Then they took the caterpillars and went to the potting shed to see if Mr McAlpine still had his ferrets.
Teddy and Simon rode their bicycles round the house and then round the stables, and finally down the road to Watlington and along the drive to the Mill House that their grandfather had bought and was rebuilding to be an extra holiday house for some of them. They did not talk much, both having to contend with the switch from Teddy being a prefect and Simon a junior at their school, to being ordinary holiday cousins who could rag each other. On the way back, Teddy said to Simon, ‘Shall we let them play Monopoly with us?’
And Simon, secretly pleased to have his opinion asked, answered as casually as he could, ‘We’d better, or they’ll make no end of a fuss.’
Sybil had a lovely peaceful time eating Marie biscuits – she kept feeling hungry in between meals – and reading The Citadel by A. J. Cronin, who had been a docto
r, like Somerset Maugham.
Usually she read more seriously: she was somebody who read more to be enlightened and educated than for pleasure, but now she felt incapable of mental effort. She had brought T. S. Eliot’s play Murder in the Cathedral with her, which she and Villy had seen at the Mercury, and Auden and Isherwood’s Ascent of F6, but she didn’t feel at all like reading them. It was lovely to be in the country. She really wished that Hugh could stay down for the week with her, but he and Edward had to take turns to be at the office, and Hugh wanted to be free when the baby was born. Or babies: she was practically sure there were two of them judging by the activity inside her. After this, they really must make sure that they didn’t have any more. The trouble was that Hugh hated all forms of contraception; after seventeen years, she wouldn’t actually have minded terribly if they stopped all that sort of thing altogether, but Hugh obviously didn’t feel like that. She wondered idly what Villy did about it, because Edward wouldn’t be a very easy person to say no to, not that one ought to do that, anyway. When Polly was born they had sort of decided that two was enough; they had been much poorer then and Hugh had worried about school fees if they had more sons, so they’d battled on with her Dutch cap, and douches, and Volpargels, and Hugh not coming inside her, until the whole business had seemed so worrying that she had completely stopped enjoying it although, of course, she never let him know that. But last year, early in December, they’d had a divine skiing holiday at St Moritz and after the first day when they were aching from exercise, Hugh had ordered a bottle of champagne for them to drink while they took turns to soak in a hot bath. She’d made him go first, because he’d hurt his ankle, and then he sat and watched her. When she was ready to come out, he’d held an enormous white bath towel out and wrapped it round her, and then held her, and then unpinned her hair and pulled her gently down onto the bathroom mat. She’d started to say something, but he’d put his hand over her mouth and shook his head and kissed her and it had been like it was when they first married. After that, they’d made love every night, and sometimes in the afternoons as well and Hugh did not have a single one of his heads. So her present state was hardly surprising and she was glad, because he was so pleased and always so sweet to her. I’m very lucky, she thought. Rupert’s the funniest, and Edward the most handsome, but I wouldn’t swap Hugh for either of them.
The Cazalet Chronicles Collection Page 11