‘I suppose you could. I saw a ferret eating a bit of a rabbit with its fur on.’
‘If it was only a bit of a rabbit, it must have been dead.’
‘It might have been a whole rabbit and that was the last bit that it was eating.’
‘I’d wish I’d seen it. Where was it?’
‘In the potting shed. In a cage – it belongs to Mr McAlpine. It had little red eyes. I think it was mad.’
‘How many ferrets have you seen in your life?’
‘Not many. Only a few.’
‘All ferrets eat things, you know.’ He was trying to imagine what a ferret looked like; he’d never seen an animal with red eyes.
‘I’ll come and see it with you tomorrow,’ he offered. ‘I’m used to that kind of thing.’
‘All right.’
‘What will we get for supper? I’m ‘stremely hungry.’
‘You wasted your raspberries,’ Lydia reminded him.
‘Only about the last fourteen. I ate some of them up. Mind your own business,’ he added. ‘Shut up, blast you.’
Villy came into the bathroom before Lydia could say anything back. ‘Hurry up, children. Lots of people want baths.’ She held out a towel and Lydia climbed out and into her arms. ‘What about you, Neville?’
‘Ellen will get me,’ he answered, but Villy got another towel and helped him out.
‘He swore, Mummy! Do you know what he just said?’
‘No, and I don’t want to hear. You must stop telling tales, Lydia – it’s not nice at all.’
‘No, it isn’t,’ Lydia agreed. ‘In spite of the awful things he said I won’t tell you what they are. Will you read to me, Mummy? While I’m having my boring old supper?’
‘Not tonight, darling. People are coming for drinks and I haven’t changed. Tomorrow. I’ll come and say goodnight to you, though.’
‘I should jolly well hope you will.’
‘She jolly well hopes you will,’ said Neville, mimicking her. ‘She thinks it’s the least you can do.’ He grinned at Villy, showing the pink gaps where the tips of much larger teeth were just showing.
Edward decided to go and have a whisky and soda with the Old Man while he was waiting for his bath. There was a problem at one of the wharfs that he particularly wanted to discuss without Hugh being there. And this seemed a good chance as he’d seen Hugh being taken around the garden by the Duchy. Accordingly, he put his head round the door of the study and his father, who was sitting at his desk cutting a cigar, welcomed him.
‘Help yourself to a whisky, old boy, and give me one.’
Edward did as he was told, and settled himself in one of the large chairs opposite his father. William pushed the cigar box across to his son and then handed him the cutter. ‘So. What’s on your mind?’
Wondering at the way he always knew, Edward said, ‘Well, actually, sir, Richards is rather on my mind.’
‘He’s on all of our minds. He’s going to have to go, you know.’
‘That’s what I wanted to talk about. I don’t think we should be too hasty.’
‘Can’t have a wharf manager who’s practically never there! Never there when you want him, at any rate.’
‘Richards had a rotten war, you know. Got a chest wound he’s never got over.’
‘That’s why we employed him in the first place. Wanted to give him a fair chance. But you can’t run a business by looking after crocks.’
‘I absolutely agree. But after all, Hugh—’ He had been going to say that Hugh’s health wasn’t too good and they wouldn’t dream of sacking him, when the Old Man interrupted.
‘Hugh agrees with me. He thinks that perhaps we needn’t get rid of him altogether but could give him some easier job – less responsibility and all that.’
‘And less pay?’
‘Well, might have to adjust his salary. Depends what we can find for him.’
There was a silence. Edward knew that if the Old Man dug his toes in nothing would move him. He felt momentarily angry with Hugh for discussing this with their father behind his, Edward’s, back, but then he reflected that that was exactly what he was doing himself. He tried again.
‘Richards is a good chap, you know. He’s intensely loyal; he cares about the firm.’
‘I should damn well hope so! I should damn well hope that everybody we employ is loyal – poor look-out if they weren’t.’ Then he relented a bit, and said, ‘We could find him something. Put him on to managing the lorries. I’ve never thought much of Lawson. Or give him a job in the office.’
‘We can’t pay him six hundred a year for a job in the office!’
‘Well – send him out to sell. Put him on commission. Then it’s up to him.’
Edward thought of Richards with his weedy frame and his apologetic brown eyes. ‘That wouldn’t do. It wouldn’t do at all.’
‘What do you suggest?’
‘I’d like to think it over.’
William drained his whisky. ‘Married, isn’t he? With children?’
‘Three, and one on the way.’
‘We’ll find something. What you and Hugh should do is concentrate on who is to take his place. It’s vital that we get a good man.’ He looked at Edward with his piercing blue eyes. ‘You should know that by now.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Are you off?’
‘I’m going to have a bath.’
When he had gone, William thought that he had never tried to say that Richards was any good at his job, so Hugh had been quite right.
Rachel, in her bedroom, could see that the mystery guests had arrived. They came through the white gate from the drive in that uncertain wandering way that people employ when they approach a strange house whose front door is not immediately visible. She put Sid’s letter back into her cardigan pocket; no good to read it now, she would waste it by hurrying. All day, she had been trying to find a quiet, uninterrupted time for it, and been defeated, by her senses of kindness and duty, and by the sheer number of people everywhere. She must now go and help the Duchy find out what on earth the newcomers were called. This difficulty was overcome by her hearing her father emerge from his study, shouting his greeting, ‘Hallo, hallo, hallo. Delighted you’ve come. Clean forgotten your name, I’m afraid, but it happens to all of us sooner or later. Pickthorne! Of course! Kitty! The Pickthornes are here! Now what can I get you to drink, Mrs Pickthorne? A spot of gin? All my daughters-in-law drink gin; filthy drink, but the ladies seem to like it.’
Rachel heard the chink of the drinks trolley being wheeled out of the house, by Hugh, she saw. Perhaps she could just read her letter before she went down? At that moment there was a knock on her door – a timid, rather inexperienced knock.
‘Come in!’
It was Clary; she stood with one hand clutching the other, round which was tied a whitish bandage.
‘What is it, Clary?’
‘Nothing much. Only I think I might have rabies.’
‘What on earth makes you think that, my duck?’
‘I took Lydia to see Mr McAlpine’s ferret in the potting shed. And then Nan came out for her and she went, and then I went back to look at the ferret, and he’d stopped eating the rabbit because it was nearly all finished and he looked so lonely in his cage so I let him out and then he bit me – a bit – not much but he drew blood and you have to take a hot iron or something and burn the place, and I’m not brave enough and I don’t know where the irons are in this house, anyway. That’s what they say in a Louisa Alcott book and Dad’s in the bath and he didn’t hear me, so I thought you could take me to the vet or something—’ She gulped and added, ‘Mr McAlpine will be furious and cross so could you tell him?’
‘Let’s look at your hand.’
Rachel unwrapped what turned out to be one of Clary’s socks from her hot grey little hand. The bite was on her forefinger and did not look deep. While she washed it with water from her ewer, and got iodine and plaster from her medicine chest, Rachel explained that rabies had
been stamped out in England so burning was not in order. Clary was brave about the iodine, but something was still worrying her.
‘Aunt Rach! Could you come with me to help get him back into his cage? So that Mr McAlpine won’t know?’
‘I don’t think either of us would be much good at that. Now you must go and see Mr McAlpine and apologise to him. He’ll get it back.’
‘Oh, no, Aunt Rach! He’ll be so awfully angry.’
‘I’ll come with you, but you must do the apologising. And promise never to do anything like that again. It was a very naughty thing to do.’
‘I didn’t mean it to be. And I’m sorry.’
‘Yes, well you must tell him that. Off we go.’
So her letter was postponed again.
The Pickthornes stayed until twenty past eight, by which time some chance remark made by their host finally convinced Mrs Pickthorne that they had not, after all, been asked to dinner. ‘We really must be going,’ she said twice – tentatively, and then with desperation. Her husband, who had heard her the first time, had pretended not to – staving off until the last possible moment the confrontation with her in the car. But it was no use. William got heartily to his feet and, grasping her forearm quite painfully, escorted Mrs Pickthorne to the gate, so that her farewells had to be strewn over her shoulder en route. Mr Pickthorne had to follow: he managed to forget his hat – a Panama – but the child who had been handing round little biscuits fetched it for him as Uncle Edward told her to. ‘You must come again soon,’ William shouted when they were safely in the car. Mr Pickthorne gave a glassy smile, and clashed his gears before rumbling off down the drive. Mrs Pickthorne pretended not to hear.
‘Thought they’d never go!’ William exclaimed as he stumped back through the gate.
‘They thought you’d asked them to dinner,’ Rachel said.
‘Oh, I don’t think so. They can’t have. Did I?’
‘Of course you did,’ said the Duchy calmly. ‘It’s very tiresome of you, William. Most unfair on them.’
‘They’ll go sulking back to a quarrelsome tin of sardines,’ said Rupert. ‘I wouldn’t like to be Mr Pickthorne much. It’ll be all his fault.’
Eileen, who had been hovering for a good half hour, now came out to say that dinner was served.
‘What he said was,’ this was his fourth attempt, ‘“You must come over and dine.” And later, just when we were getting out of the train, he said, “Come about six and have a drink.”’
‘Exactly!’
‘Well, it’s all my fault as usual,’ he said, to break some minutes of uncompanionable silence.
‘Oh, that makes it all right, does it? It’s all your fault so we needn’t say any more?’
‘Mildred, you know I can’t stop you saying anything you like.’
‘I’ve no wish to continue the subject.’
‘There’s nothing to eat at home,’ she said very soon afterwards.
‘We could open a tin of sardines.’
‘Sardines! Sardines!’ she repeated, as though they were tinned mice, as though nobody would think of putting them in a tin unless they were mad. ‘You can have sardines if you’re so keen on them. You know perfectly well what they do to me.’
I know what I’d like to do to you, he thought. I’d like to throttle you quite slowly, and then chuck you down the well. The viciousness of this thought, and the ease and speed with which it occurred, appalled him. I’m as bad as Crippen, he thought. Evil beyond belief. He put a hand on her knee. ‘Sorry I spoilt your evening. It isn’t as though you get a great deal of fun, is it? I don’t mind what I have. Whatever you knock up will be very nice, like it always is.’ He glanced at her and saw he was on the right lines.
‘If only you’d listen to people,’ she said. ‘I expect we’ve got some eggs.’
Dinner seemed to take ages, Zoë thought. They had cold salmon and new potatoes and peas, and there was a rather delicious hock to drink (although William, who considered white wine to be a ladies’ drink, had a bottle of claret) and then chocolate soufflé and finally Stilton and port, but it took a long time because they were all talking so hard that they forgot to take vegetables when they were handed them, and the men had second helpings of salmon, and then, of course, all the vegetables – Rupert got up to hand them round and during all this they were talking about several things at once – the theatre – well, she was interested in that but not French plays and Shakespeare and plays in verse. But then Edward had turned to her and asked her what plays she liked and when she said she hadn’t seen any lately, he told her about a play called French Without Tears, and just as she was thinking that the title sounded pretty boring, he laughed and said, ‘Do you remember, Villy, that wonderful girl, Kay something-or-other, and one of the men said, “She gave me the old green light”, and the other one said he thought she’d be pretty stingy with her yellows and reds?’ And then when Villy had nodded and smiled as though she was humouring him, he’d turned again to Zoë, ‘I think you ought to see that some day, it would make you laugh.’ She liked Edward, and she felt he was attracted to her. Earlier, as they’d been going into the dining room, he’d said what a pretty dress she was wearing. It was a navy voile with large white yellow-centred daisies on it and rather a low V neck, and once she felt sure that Edward was looking down her dress and turned her head to look at him and he had been. He gave her a small smile and winked. She tried to frown but, actually, it was the best moment at dinner and she wondered whether he was falling in love with her. Of course, that would be terrible, but it wouldn’t be her fault. She’d be distant, but very understanding; she’d probably let him kiss her once, because once wouldn’t count; she would be taken by surprise, or he would think she had been. But she’d explain to him how it would all be no good because it would break Rupert’s heart, and, anyway, she loved Rupert. Which was true. They would be having lunch at the Ivy – this would be after the kiss; the lunch would be to explain everything. Now she was married she hardly ever got invited out to lunch, and as an art master Rupert was far too poor for her to take people. He would be pleading with her just to let him see her occasionally – she began to wonder whether perhaps he might not be allowed to do that …
‘Darling! Wasn’t he the man who kept staring at you at the Gargoyle?’
‘Which man?’
‘You know who I mean. The small man with rather bulging eyes. The poet.’
‘I don’t know. I don’t say “What’s your name?” to people who stare at me!’
She felt she had scored, but there was a moment’s silence, and then Sybil said, ‘Dylan Thomas at a nightclub? How interesting!’
Rupert said, ‘That’s it.’
The Duchy said, ‘Poets used to be seen everywhere. It’s only nowadays that they seem to have gone underground. They were quite persona grata in my youth. One met them at luncheon and perfectly ordinary occasions like that.’
‘Darling Duchy, the Gargoyle is four floors up.’
‘Really? I thought all nightclubs were underground, I don’t know why. I’ve never been to one.’
William said, ‘Too late now.’
And she replied serenely, ‘Far too late,’ and rang for Eileen to clear the plates.
Edward further endeared himself to her by saying, ‘Never seen the point of poetry, can’t understand what the fellers are getting at.’
And Villy, who heard him, said, ‘But, darling, you never read anything. No use pretending it’s just poetry you don’t read.’
While Edward was saying good-humouredly that one highbrow member in the family was quite enough, Zoë eyed Villy appraisingly. She didn’t seem right for Edward, somehow. She was sort of – well, you couldn’t say she wasn’t attractive, but she wasn’t glamorous. She had a bony nose that was too big, a bony face but heavy eyebrows that were quite dark, not grey like her hair, and a boyish figure that was, none the less, lacking in allure. Her eyes were brown, and not bad, but her lips were too thin. Altogether, she was a surprising
person for handsome Edward to have married. Of course, she was terribly good at things – not just riding and tennis, but she played the piano, and some sort of pipe instrument, and read French books, and made real lace on a pillow and bound books in floppy soft leather, and wove table-mats and then embroidered them. There seemed to be nothing that she couldn’t do, and no particular reason why she should do any of it – Edward was far richer than Rupert. And she was also what Zoë’s mother (and consequently Zoë) called well connected, although Zoë now never actually said that sort of thing aloud. Villy’s father had been a baronet; Villy had a picture of him in a silver frame in their drawing room; he looked fearfully old-fashioned, with a drooping white walrus moustache, a wing collar with a tight tie, and large melancholy eyes. He’d been a composer – and quite well known, something she wished Rupert would become; there was a lot of money in portrait painting if you got to paint the right people. Lady Rydal, though, was a real battleaxe. Zoë had only met her once, here, soon after she was married. The Duchy had asked her to stay because they’d all been very fond of Sir Hubert and were sorry for her when he died. She’d made it clear that she disapproved of painted nails, and the girls wearing shorts and the cinema and women drinking spirits – a real kill-joy.
‘… What do you think, silent Zoë?’
‘Rupert says I’m no good at thinking about anything,’ she replied. She hadn’t been listening and hadn’t the faintest idea of what they had been talking about – not the faintest.
‘I never said that, darling. I said you operated on your intuition.’
The Duchy said, ‘Women are perfectly capable of thought. They simply have different things to think about.’
Edward said, ‘I really don’t see why Zoë should think about Mussolini.’
‘Of course not! The less she thinks about that sort of thing the better! Don’t you worry your pretty little head about that wop dictator,’ the Brig added kindly to his daughter-in-law. ‘Although I have to say that he’s made a good job of planting eucalyptus and draining all those swamps. I have to give him that.’
‘Brig, darling! You talk as though he planted them himself.’ Rachel’s face crumpled with amusement. ‘Imagine him! Every button doing overtime on his uniform when he bent down—’
The Cazalet Chronicles Collection Page 13