‘That looks marvellous,’ she said. ‘Where’s Angie?’
‘Waiting upstairs. She didn’t want to hang about in the heat,’ said Nora.
‘Well, get her. I thought you were supposed to tell both girls to come down.’
‘I’m sure he did, darling, but you know Angie. Call her, Nora.’
Judy, the youngest, emerged from the house. She went up to Jessica and indicated that she wanted to whisper. Jessica bent down.
‘I tried, Mummy, but not a drop came out.’
‘Never mind.’
Angela, wearing a blue Moygashel suit that she had made herself, came slowly down the path. She wore her white shoes and carried a pair of white cotton gloves; she looked as though she was going to a wedding. Jessica, who knew that this was to impress her Aunt Villy, said nothing. Angela was just nineteen, and had recently become both dreamy and demanding. ‘Why don’t we have more money?’ she would wail, when she wanted more pocket money – she called it dress allowance – and Jessica had to refuse her. ‘Money isn’t everything,’ she had once said in Nora’s hearing, who had immediately shot back at her, ‘No, but it’s something, isn’t it? I mean, its not nothing.’
Raymond was now saying goodbye to them. He kissed Angela’s pale and passive cheek – Dad was sweating, and she simply loathed sweat – and Nora, who hugged him so fiercely that he was pleased. ‘Steady on,’ he said. He clapped Christopher painfully on the shoulder, and Christopher muttered something and got quickly into the back of the car.
‘Goodbye, Dad,’ Judy said. ‘I expect you’ll have a spiffing time with Aunt Lena. Give Trottie my love.’ Trottie was Aunt Lena’s pug; a rotten name, as Nora had remarked, as he was so fat he could never have trotted in his life.
Angela got carefully into the passenger seat in front.
‘You might have asked,’ said Nora.
‘I’m the oldest. I don’t have to ask.’
‘Oh, so you are, I can’t think how I can have forgotten that.’ This was a painfully accurate imitation of her father when he was doing his schoolmaster sarcastic act, Jessica thought. She kissed his hot, damp face and gave him the little mechanically intimate smile that secretly so enraged him.
‘Well, I hope you all enjoy yourselves more than I shall,’ he said.
‘There are more of us so we ought to,’ Nora replied cheerfully. She had a gift for the amiable last word.
Then they were off.
These days, it seemed to Louise that whatever she was doing her mother stopped her and made her do something else that she would never want to do, anyway, and particularly not if she was already doing something. This morning she was stopped from going to the beach with Uncle Rupert, Clary and Polly because Mother told her that her cousins were coming and it would be rude not to be there to greet them.
‘They wouldn’t think it in the least rude.’
‘I’m not interested in what you think they’d think,’ said Villy sharply. ‘In any case, I’m sure you haven’t tidied your bedroom.’
‘It doesn’t need tidying.’
Villy’s answer to this was to take her daughter by the arm and march her upstairs to the large back attic that Louise was being made to share with Nora and Angela.
‘I thought so,’ she said. ‘The proverbial pigsty.’ She twitched open a drawer that was bulging with Louise’s half-worn clothes and other things.
‘How many times have I told you that it is disgusting to keep your knickers in with your other clothes?’ She managed to make it sound disgusting, Louise thought. She’s always managing to make me sound like that, as though she sort of hates me. For answer, she pulled the drawer right out and tipped its contents onto her bed.
‘And books as well! Really, Louise! What is this book?’
‘It’s called Chin Ping Mei. It’s about sixteenth-century China,’ she said sulkily, but she was alarmed.
‘Oh.’ Villy knew that the girls were doing China with Miss Milliment and that they had all become passionate about anything Chinese – Sybil had told her about Polly’s growing collection of soapstones and Louise’s room at home was full of little shattered pieces of embroidery. ‘Well, put all your books on the mantelpiece. Get everything looking nice, there’s a good girl, and you might pick some roses to put on the dressing table which, incidentally you will also have to clear to make room for Angela’s things. Do it quickly, because Phyllis will be wanting to make up their beds.’ And she went, leaving Louise considerably relieved. She decided to tidy everything perfectly, and then go and read in the hammock by the duck pond. Although she did not understand the Chinese book much, she knew that it contained a good deal of stuff of which her mother would deeply disapprove. It was nearly all about sex, but of such mysterious kinds that Louise, who began reading it for information, felt more at sea than ever. But the food and clothes and other things that happened fascinated her, and it was jolly long, which was the chief criterion by which she bought second-hand books, because she still only got sixpence a week pocket money and was constantly short of reading matter.
It was their first holiday at Mill Farm, bought and given by the Brig to his sons for their families. This time, because of Aunt Jessica and her cousins, it was their own family, plus Neville and Ellen as company for Lydia. The others were all up the road at Home Place, but they met every day. Mill Farm was white clinker-built weatherboarding with a tiled roof. It was approached by a drive edged with chestnuts and ending in a formal sweep before the front door. To the side of the drive and in front of the house was a paddock that had probably once been an orchard since it still contained a few very old cherry and pear trees, and in a little hollow near the road end of the paddock was the duck pond – out of bounds to the younger children as Neville had fallen into it on their first evening. He had come out all green with duckweed, like the Dragon King, Lydia remarked, from Where The Rainbow Ends, a play she had seen for her Christmas treat that had frightened her very much. The house had been a farm until shortly before the Brig bought it. It had only contained four bedrooms and a pair of attics above, a large kitchen and sitting room below, and so he had had a heady six months planning and building a wing on the back – four more bedrooms, and two bathrooms above, a large sitting room and dining room and a small, extremely dark study that looked onto the walls of the old cow shed. He had wired the house for electricity, but water was obtained from two wells, one of which had already run dry and rabbit’s fur was reputed to have come out of the kitchen cold tap. The Duchy had had a hand in the interior, so it was all white walls and coconut matting, indeterminate floral chintzes and large plain parchment lampshades. There were fireplaces in the sitting room and dining room, and a new range in the kitchen, and a small grate in the best (old) bedroom, but otherwise it was without heating. Not a house for winter, Villy had thought when she first saw it. It was furnished with whatever any of the families had to spare – iron bedsteads, one or two nice pieces that Edward had picked up from Mr Cracknell in Hastings, some of Rupert’s pictures and an extremely ancient gramophone in a laurelwood cabinet, with a horn and at the bottom a place for records, which the children played incessantly on rainy days: ‘The Teddy Bears’ Picnic’, ‘The Grasshoppers’ Dance’, ‘The Gold and ‘Silver Waltz’, and, Louise’s favourite, Noel Coward singing ‘Don’t Put Your Daughter On The Stage, Mrs Worthington’. This last they sang whenever the grown-ups made them do things they disliked; it had become, Villy remarked, a kind of ‘Marseillaise’. There were still a number of old farm buildings at the back, beyond which the hop fields stretched with luxuriant geometry.
Villy had brought down their cook, Emily, and Phyllis, who was helped out by a local woman called Edie who arrived on her bicycle each day and did most of the housework. Nanny had left in the spring when Lydia had begun going to Miss Puttick’s school in the mornings, and since it had been decided that Neville should stay at the farm to play with Lydia, Ellen had come with him, and was in charge of both of them. Which left Villy comparatively free,
she supposed, to ride, to play tennis, to practise the violin which she had worked hard at all year, to read Ouspensky and ponder on things like negative emotion – something to which she felt herself peculiarly prone – to do a little gardening, and the shopping in Battle for the endless meals. Today, Edward, who was taking a long weekend, had gone to Rye with Hugh to play golf. When he returned to London, she and Jessica were going to have their mother to stay for a week. That was an event, of a kind; at least, it was something which she felt she should do and it would enable Lady Rydal to see all of her grandchildren at once, but Villy, knowing how tired Jessica would be, had arranged that she should have a clear week before their mother arrived. She had worried about leaving Edward in London with only Edna to do for him, but he had said that he would use his club, and certainly he seemed to go out a good deal. She was looking forward to having Jessica to herself; although Raymond was supposed to be joining them at some point, there still would be plenty of time to talk about things. By things, she meant Jessica’s husband – and Louise, who had become quite trying lately. Villy was seriously beginning to wonder whether she should not have sent her to a boarding school – look at Teddy! After three terms he seemed to her much improved, was quiet, polite, rather silent, but that was better than being noisy, and nothing like as selfish and moody and wrapped up in himself as Louise. A year ago, Louise would have been so excited at the prospect of her cousins coming to stay that she would not have dreamed of wanting to go to the beach, and she was too old now to keep her things in such a squalid mess. If she was asked to do the least little thing, she sulked. Edward always took her part, treated her as though she was already grown up: he had bought her the most unsuitable nightgown for her last birthday and took her to the theatre and out to supper – just the two of them – and kept her out far too late so that she was like a bear with a sore head the next day. He introduced her to people as his eldest unmarried daughter, which irritated Villy profoundly although she did not quite know why. Well, perhaps fifteen was just a difficult age; she was still a child, really. If only Edward would treat her as one.
‘I think we’re in for another war.’ Hugh was not looking at him, and spoke in the quiet casual way that meant he was serious.
‘My dear old boy! What makes you say that?’
‘Well, look at it! The Germans have occupied Austria. That feller Hitler making speeches about the might and power of the Third Reich all over the place. That stuff about all those German girls sent over as servants having been on propaganda courses. All those military displays. You don’t go on and on increasing your army if you don’t mean to fight. All these Jews coming here, most of them with nothing.’
‘Why do you think they’re doing that?’
‘I suppose they know he doesn’t want them.’
‘Exactly.’
‘I don’t hold that against him. We could do with a few less of them in our business.’ Edward maintained some fixed notion that any success in the business was due to him and the Old Man, and any failure was due to the nefarious business virtuosity of the Jews. It was a notion, rather than a thought, one of those maxims that gain veracity from repetition by their owner. Hugh did not agree with this or, rather, he thought that their Jewish counterparts were better at it without seeing any reason why they shouldn’t be. He remained silent.
‘Anyway, all Jews are perfectly capable of looking after themselves,’ Edward concluded. ‘We really don’t have to bother about them. I like some Jews, anyway – Sid, for instance, she’s a bloody good sort.’
‘And when you said that, she said she supposed it was because she was only half Jewish.’
‘Exactly! She’s got a sense of humour about it.’
‘Would you have one about people getting at you because you were English?’
‘Of course I would. The best thing about the English is the way they can laugh at themselves.’
They choose what to laugh at, though, Hugh thought. They choose things like their understatements and lack of emotion in an emergency (courage) and—
‘Listen, old boy. I know you’re really worried. But the Boche won’t dare fight us. Not again – not after the last time. And a feller at the club told me that the stuff they’re producing, tanks and armoured cars and so forth, is as shoddy as hell. It’s all show.’
They were sitting in the clubhouse at Rye after their round. Hugh, although he loved the game, would not play often as due to his being one-handed, his form was not up to much. But Edward insisted on them playing together, and made careful efforts, missing putts and so on, not to win too easily. Now, he said, ‘Anyway, me dear old boy, you’ve done more than your share in the last show,’ and instantly realised that he couldn’t have said anything worse.
There was a pause, and then Hugh said, ‘You don’t seriously think I’m worrying about my own skin?’ He had gone white around the mouth, a sign that he was very angry.
‘I didn’t mean it like that. What I meant was that I don’t think there’s a ghost of a chance that we shall have a war, but if I’m wrong, then it’s the young blokes’ turn. You won’t catch me volunteering.’
‘Liar,’ said Hugh, but he gave a faint smile. ‘Let’s have a spot of lunch.’
They ate large plates of the excellent scrambled eggs for which the club was famous, followed by cheese and celery with a pint of beer. They talked about the business, and whether the Old Man’s idea of inviting Rupert into the firm was a good one. Hugh thought it might be, Edward thought not; their father, with his inexhaustible energy – he was writing a paper on the technique of classifying hardwoods by photographing the grain, and having finished the building of a squash court at Home Place for family use – was now contemplating a swimming pool, as well as travelling up to town every day to the office, although his sight was failing and Tonbridge refused to let him drive himself any more which was just as well, Edward said, since he drove, as he rode a horse, on the right-hand side of the road, ‘Although people hereabouts are pretty used to him doing that.’
‘All the same, if his sight gets much worse, he oughtn’t to do that train journey alone.’
Hugh stopped lighting his cigarette and said, ‘But he could never retire, it’d kill him.’
‘I agree. But between us we can see that he never has to retire.’
On the way home, Hugh asked, ‘How’s Mill Farm?’
‘It seems fine to me. Villy says it will be freezing in winter but the children love it. Of course she has more to do than at Home Place. Housekeeping and so forth.’
‘I suppose so.’
‘She’s got Jessica and her brood coming today. And the old battleaxe some time next week. I think I shall absent myself for that.’
‘Do you want to stay with me? I’ll be on my own.’
‘Thanks, old boy, but I think I’ll stay put. Friday night’s Amami night, if you know what I mean. Not on Friday, of course.’
This – to some – mysterious reference to a well-known advertisement for shampoo meant that Edward was having an affair, never mentioned overtly between them, but known by Hugh as surely as if it was. Edward had always had affairs: when he married, Hugh had thought that that would be the end of them (he would not have dreamed of looking at another woman after he married Sybil) but not very long afterwards – perhaps a couple of years – he had noticed little things that had made him wonder. Edward would sometimes leave the office rather early, or Hugh would come into his room and find him telephoning and he would cut the call short in a clipped and businesslike voice, and once he had blown his nose on a handkerchief that had a large cyclamen smudge on it, and when Edward had seen him staring at it and noticed the smudge himself, he’d rolled the handkerchief into a small ball and dropped it into the wastepaper basket and made a self-consciously wry face. ‘Dear me, how careless,’ he had said. And Hugh, moving from anger on Villy’s behalf, felt sorry for both of them.
Now, he said, ‘Well, I’ll come up with you on Monday, if I may, then leave the car for
Sybil.’
‘Of course, old boy. I can give you a lift into the office in the mornings, anyway.’
Sybil and Hugh had moved, in the spring, to a larger house in Ladbroke Grove which was just around the corner from Edward and Villy. The new house had been rather an expense, cost nearly two thousand pounds and, of course, being larger, had required more furniture, so Hugh had not bought the little car for Sybil that they had once contemplated.
‘Do you remember when the Brig used to take us to Anglesey for our summer hols in that first motor he bought? And we used to sit in the back mending punctures the whole way?’
Edward laughed. ‘And we only just managed to keep up with them. Lucky there were two of us.’
‘And the Duchy always wore a green motoring veil.’
‘I love veils on women. Neat little hats with a veil tilted over their noses. Hermione used to wear them. It made her look so dazzling – and desirable. No wonder we all wanted to marry her. Did you ask her?’
Hugh smiled. ‘Of course I did. Did you?’
‘You bet. She said she married the twenty-first man who proposed. I’ve often wondered who the others were.’
‘I expect a good many of them are dead.’
Edward, who did not want the war to come back into their conversation making Hugh, as he described it, morbid, said quickly, ‘I shouldn’t think being married stopped people making propositions.’
‘Speak for yourself!’
‘Actually, I was, old boy. After she was divorced, of course.’ Hugh glanced at him ironically. ‘Of course.’
‘She could have come if she’d really wanted to.’
‘Do you think?’
‘I know so. Louise usually manages to do what she really wants. I’m afraid she’s just not … serious enough about the museum.’
Clary tried to look sorry about this but she wasn’t, really. Best of all she liked to have Polly to herself. Since she had been doing lessons with Miss Milliment, she spent nearly all her time with the other two, who had always been best friends, and she wanted Polly for her best friend, which meant, naturally, that Louise would have to stop being that. Now, she said, ‘She’s aged rapidly in the last year – getting all lumpy.’ She smoothed her own flat chest with pride.
The Cazalet Chronicles Collection Page 22