The Cazalet Chronicles Collection

by Elizabeth Jane Howard

  By now, she had checked up on the girls’ room. Except for getting flowers, Louise had at last – at least – done what she had been told. The room was as tidy as a small dormitory in a school, the beds made up and clean towels on the towel-horse, the dressing table now bare and Louise’s books stacked along the mantelpiece. She looked out of the window just at the moment her sister’s car turned into the drive and went down to meet them.

  After she had tidied the room, Louise had taken her book to the hammock, but could not settle down to reading it. This was yet another new, odd and uncomfortable feature of her life: last summer her only worries would have been sharing something like a hammock fairly with Polly, but when it came to her turn for whatever it was, she would, at once plunge into it as though she had not any other existence. Now, her existence seemed always to be intruding upon any activity; she seemed to herself a larger, more disparate person, who was never wholeheartedly engaged – whatever she did, some bit of her sat on the sideline, jeering, making insidious alternative suggestions: ‘You’re far too old for that book – anyway, you’ve read it before.’ Age came into it a great deal; she seemed to be too young or too old for most things.

  Last summer it hadn’t felt at all like that. Then, she had believed in the Wonder Cream she and Polly had made. Then, she had been seriously involved in Pompey’s funeral, had organised the whole thing – even the Duchy playing the Funeral March with the drawing-room windows wide open. She had made a wreath of deadly nightshade; Pompey had been wrapped in an old black velvet jacket belonging to Aunt Rachel and the funeral tea had consisted of blackberries and Marmite sandwiches which, Polly had agreed, showed more respect than strawberry jam. Then, she and Polly had spent hours in their apple tree and lying on their beds dying with laughter over their ‘Knock, knock, who’s there?’ jokes, and playing bicycle polo with the boys, and Ogres and the Seeing Game with all the others. Now, when these ploys were suggested – by Lydia and Neville, and often Polly and Clary – she never really wanted to play them. She did sometimes, because she had wanted to, but then she often left in the middle because she wasn’t honestly enjoying it. She still liked going to the beach and playing tennis, but she wanted to play with the grown-ups and they usually expected her to play with the children.

  She’d thought at first that the trouble was being at Mill Farm instead of Home Place. She didn’t like Mill Farm. It seemed poky and rather dark after the other house. But it wasn’t just that. It wasn’t just the summer holidays, either. It might have begun last autumn term when Clary had started having lessons with her and Polly. She had quickly realised that Miss Milliment especially liked Clary. Clary worked hard, and was surprisingly good at writing things. She’d written a long poem and nearly a whole play, which was very funny and a good idea – about grown-ups having to spend a whole day as children whether they liked it or not. Louise had pointed out that it wasn’t an original idea – look at Vice Versa – but Miss Milliment had said that originality did not depend upon an idea so much as it depended upon treatment, and Louise, not for the first time, had felt snubbed. She also quickly recognised that Polly and Clary were becoming best friends and had half minded this and half felt relieved by it. Polly didn’t seem to be getting older at the same speed she was. This was partly because of her getting the Curse, which had been a horrible shock because nobody had said one word about it until one day when she had an unusual pain and gone to the lavatory and thought she might be bleeding to death. Mummy had been having tea with a Red Cross person in the drawing room, and Louise had had to find Phyllis to go and ask her to come. And then although, of course, it was a great relief when Mummy said that she wasn’t going to die, it somehow wasn’t all right in any other way. Mummy said it was a horrid thing that happened to girls once a month for years and years; it was a disgusting, but quite ordinary, thing to do with having babies, but when Louise tried to find out some more about it (how could a quite ordinary thing be disgusting?) her mother, who certainly looked disgusted, said that she did not wish to discuss it now and would Louise please take her knickers off the floor and go and wash them? And put on a clean pair, she had added, as though Louise was so disgusting she wouldn’t do that unless she was told. Thereafter, when she had a headache and stomach cramps, her mother would ask, in a particular way that she came to hate, whether she was unwell. Which is what it came to be called. She had discovered that it was called the Curse at Christmas when she had suddenly got it and had to ask Aunt Zoë for a napkin and Aunt Zoë had given her an extraordinarily neat thing out of a box which, it turned out, you could throw away instead of having to keep in an awful bag for the laundry. ‘You mean to say you have those ghastly bits of cloth you have to fold up with cotton wool like one had at school? That’s positively Victorian! It’s not so awful – you poor old thing! It’s just the Curse! We all get it,’ she said in a friendly, light-hearted way that made Louise feel much better. ‘I get spots,’ Louise had said, longing to talk about it. ‘That’s bad luck, but you probably won’t go on getting them. Just leave them alone, don’t do anything to them,’ and she had given Louise some marvellous expensive cream out of a little pot for a Christmas present and Louise felt tremendously grateful to her – not so much for the cream as for talking about it. It seemed very strange that nobody ever did. The only thing her mother had said was that one never, never talked about it – particularly not to the boys, or even Polly. But the next time she asked whether Louise was unwell, Louise said, ‘I’m not unwell, I’ve simply got the Curse. Aunt Zoë calls it that, and I’m going to.’ Watching her mother, she knew she was annoyed but couldn’t say anything back. But when she told Polly about it, because she didn’t see why Polly should be as frightened as she had been, Polly simply said, ‘I know. Mummy told me. I just hope I won’t get it for ages and ages.’ This had made her mother not warning her about it worse – very nearly, Louise thought, as though she had meant her to be frightened. From then on, she watched her mother for signs of affection and the opposite, wrote them down in her secret diary and added them up each month. So far the opposite was winning easily, except in March, when she had come home from Polly’s house and found her mother on the sofa in the drawing room, crying, something that she had never seen before in her life. She had rushed to the sofa, knelt by it, asked her again and again what was the matter. Her mother took her hands away from her face, and Louise saw that it was all puffy and bruised and she had wet, frightened eyes. ‘They’ve taken out all my teeth,’ she said. She touched the sides of her face and began to cry again.

  ‘Oh, darling Mummy—’ She felt overwhelmed with pity – and love. Tears rushed to her eyes, and she wanted to hold her mother, to take the pain away, have it herself instead, only she was afraid that hugging her might make it hurt more, but her mother was treating her as an equal, something that she recognised as never having happened before, and she wanted passionately to be the right friend.

  Her mother was searching in her pocket for a handkerchief and trying to smile. ‘Darling, I don’t want to worry you …’ she seemed to have teeth, after all. Her mother saw Louise seeing this, and said, ‘He made me put them in at once. But oh, Louise! They do hurt! Rather.’

  ‘Would it be better if you took them out. Just for a little while?’

  ‘He said to keep them in.’

  ‘Shall I get you some aspirin?’

  ‘I’ve taken some, but it doesn’t seem to have done much good.’ After a moment she added, ‘Do you think it would be all right if I took some more?’ Again, it was the appeal to an equal.

  ‘Yes, I do. And I think it would be better if I put you to bed with a hot-water bottle.’ She sprang to her feet to ring the bell. ‘I’ll tell Phyllis to bring up two bottles.’

  ‘I don’t want the servants to see me like this.’

  ‘No, of course not, darling. I’ll look after you. I’ll see to everything.’

  And she had. She had helped Villy upstairs, helped her to undress, found bedsocks and her lacy jack
et: her mother was very cold. She had lit the gas fire, drawn the curtains, rushed to the door when Phyllis knocked and taken the hot-water bottles, blocking her view of the invalid. She had administered the aspirin and arranged the pillows, drawn up the eiderdown and throughout her mother had seemed acquiescent and grateful.

  ‘You’re a good little nurse,’ she said; she was obviously in pain.

  ‘Would you like me to stay with you?’

  ‘No, darling. I’ll try and sleep. Tell Daddy, will you? When he gets back?’

  ‘Of course I will.’ She stooped, and kissed Villy’s soft, clammy forehead. ‘I’ll leave your door ajar, and then you can call if you want anything.’

  She sat on the stairs for ages, on the curve so that she could hear if her mother called and see when her father returned, wondering whether perhaps she ought not to sacrifice her career to become a nurse. She was gliding about darkened wards at night with a lamp, relieving the agonised sufferings of wounded soldiers with a touch of her delicate but experienced hands, soothing their last moments with her gentle voice … ‘Given up everything – wanted in Hollywood – the Duke of Hungary mad for her …’

  ‘Lou? What on earth are you doing sitting there?’ She had rushed downstairs and told him. ‘Lord! Of course!’ It almost sounded as though he had forgotten. ‘Where is she?’ Louise explained what she had done, and her father had said jolly good, what a sensible girl she was, but he said it so admiringly that being sensible sounded almost glamorous. She followed him upstairs, warning him to be quiet.

  ‘I won’t wake her, just pop my head around the door.’

  She was asleep. He put a finger on his lips and went into his dressing room. Then he beckoned her.

  ‘I wonder whether you would care to dine with me tonight, Miss Cazalet? If you have no previous engagement?’

  ‘I do happen to be free.’

  ‘Run along and change, then. I’ll meet you in the drawing room in twenty minutes.’

  So she changed, into the dress that Hermione had suddenly given her for Christmas, that her mother disapproved of on the grounds that it was far too grown-up. It was a heavenly pale blue chiffon, and you couldn’t wear a bra or a vest or anything but a pair of knickers under it as it was backless, with tiny shoulder straps and a deep V neck – a totally grown-up dress. She had put up her hair with a lot of combs – it didn’t feel awfully safe, but as long as she didn’t shake her head or laugh too much it would probably stay up – and with it she wore her Christmas present jewellery, an opal and seed pearl necklace given to her by Uncle Hugh, her godfather. She had her Tangee lipstick and some whitish face powder and a tiny little bottle of scent called Evening in Paris that Aunt Zoë had given her. She put a good dab behind each ear, and then she longed to look at herself, but the only full-length mirror was in her mother’s bedroom. Oh, poor Mummy! she thought, but she couldn’t help rather hoping that her mother was asleep, because she somehow knew that her mother would not approve of this kind of changing. When she was ready, she listened outside the bedroom door and then peeped in; her mother was still asleep. So then she gathered up her skirts and sailed downstairs.

  Phyllis had brought in the drinks, and her father was making himself a cocktail.

  ‘I say! You do look smart!’

  ‘Do I?’ She felt smart wasn’t quite the right word but, after all, he was only her father. And then he made it all right by offering her a sherry, so he was taking her seriously, she felt.

  They had a lovely evening: a fish soufflé and roast pheasant and then angels on horseback, and her father gave her a glass of both wines – a hock and a claret – and afterwards he played the gramophone – Tchaikovsky, who was his favourite, and he told Louise about how he used to bicycle down to London from Hertfordshire to go to the Proms, which was when he had first heard that symphony, twenty miles of bicycling each way, but worth it. He played the gramophone rather quietly, because of the invalid, and when Phyllis brought the coffee, he ordered some consommé for her. ‘Bring it here and Miss Louise will take it up.’

  But she got him to take it, because she was afraid of what her mother would say about the dress. Then that seemed frivolous and hard-hearted, and she planned to go and say goodnight when she’d got into her dressing gown. When her father came down, he said, ‘She’s feeling better, and she says it’s time you went to bed, and she’d like to say goodnight to you.’

  ‘Oh, Dad! I’m not in the least bit tired!’

  ‘Of course not. But all the same.’

  She went to kiss him, and he put his arms round her and gave her one kiss on her cheek and then one, surprisingly, on her mouth, which he’d never done before. His moustache was bristly and for a second she felt something soft and wet and realised it was his tongue. It was horrible: she supposed it had somehow slipped out by mistake and felt embarrassed for him and wriggled out of his arms. ‘Goodnight, then,’ she said, not looking at his face, and ran out of the room. Upstairs she thought, poor old Dad; he had false teeth like Mummy did now, and it probably made kissing people quite difficult.

  Mummy was lying propped up with all the pillows. She’d had some soup, she said, it had been just what she wanted.

  ‘Did you have a nice evening with Daddy?’

  ‘Oh, yes. We played the gramophone.’

  ‘Good, darling. And thank you so much for being so sweet to me.’

  ‘Is it better? Is it hurting much less?’

  ‘I think it is.’ It clearly wasn’t. ‘I’m going to take some more aspirin and Daddy’s going to sleep in the dressing room tonight. Off you go, darling.’

  ‘Yes, I will.’ She realised that she wanted to get to her room and shut the door before he came up. This was funny – she’d never felt like that before. She’d not written about the evening with her dad in her diary.

  She heard her cousins’ car in the drive, and decided that she was pleased about them coming. Angela was probably already too old to be much fun, but she had always liked Nora who, though plain – a bit ugly, in fact – was nowhere as bad as Miss Milliment and Christopher was a far more interesting boy than Teddy or Simon: last year he had been mad about butterflies and they had gone off hunting with nets and a killing bottle, and then they had lain in a cornfield and eaten corn kernels, and he had told her how much he hated his school, and how being at home was pretty awful too because his father was always getting at him. Louise, who had been brought up on the family notion that Aunt Jessica’s husband was somehow not the sort of person she should have married, sympathised hotly – even invented things about her own father to make Christopher feel better. Only now I wouldn’t have to invent, she thought. But of course I couldn’t possibly tell him anything about that. For the first time since it had happened she thought about it. Because after the night when he had taken her out for her birthday treat, which had been completely lovely until they had got home, after supper at the Ivy restaurant, and he had driven them home, had let them quietly into the house (‘Mustn’t wake Mummy’) and she had thrown her arms round his neck to hug and thank him for her lovely treat – it had happened again, only worse. He’d kissed her in just the same horrible way, only this time he’d put his hand under her frock and hurt her breast, and his other arm was so tightly round her that she couldn’t stop it, although she did in the end because he took his mouth away and started to say something about her growing up, and she wrenched herself free. ‘I’m not!’ she began to say, thought she was going to be sick, and ran a few steps up the stairs, but she’d forgotten her long dress and caught her heel in her skirt and had to stop to free it, and as she straightened up she saw him standing there looking up at her – he had become an enemy – smiling.

  She had stood in the dark behind the closed door of her room, possessed by some nameless terror, like a terrible dream, only it wasn’t a dream. He would come up the stairs – any minute – he might come into her room – no key – how could she stop him? This thought occurred, recurred, recurred, recurred, but she could not resp
ond – she could not move at all. She heard his steps coming up and could only stand with her hands pressed over her mouth to keep everything from coming out. Only now she knew that the terror had consumed her voice, that her scream would be simply a louder silence.

  His steps – the only thing in the world – came nearer – reached the landing outside her door – a pause – then they went on to his dressing room, and there was an unknown amount of time before she heard him walk across the landing to the bedroom where her mother slept and shut the door. And then she heard a horrible sound, like a retching sob, and when she turned on the light it must have been her, because there was no one else in the room.

  She couldn’t remember much after that: could just recall hanging over her basin trying to be sick. Then she thought, why hadn’t she run upstairs and gone straight to Mother’s room and woken her and told her? But at once she knew that her mother would be very angry, would blame her for being dirty and disgusting, and he – the enemy – would agree and it would be far worse, and perhaps it was her fault because she now felt so ashamed. So she swallowed everything down and was not sick. And the next day, at breakfast, he had been exactly as he used to be, as though nothing had happened, as though the whole thing belonged to her and had had nothing to do with him at all. And her mother waited until he had gone to the office to say that if she was going to be so ungrateful and sulky after a treat, people would not want to give her any more of them. She found a key to one of the other bedrooms that fitted her door, and after that, she tried never to be alone with him. But there was no one she could tell. That was the worst thing.