‘You can’t buy people hats, Poll. They only like the awful ones they choose themselves. Isn’t it odd?’ she continued as they wandered back from the front towards the shops again, ‘When you see people in shops choosing their clothes and shoes and stuff, they take ages – as though each thing they choose will be amazing and perfect. And then, look at them. They mostly look simply terrible – or just ordinary. They might just as well have chosen their clothes out of a bran tub.’
‘Everyone will be wearing uniforms of one kind or another any minute,’ Polly said sadly: she was beginning to feel rotten again.
‘I think it’s an interesting observation,’ Clary said, rather hurt. ‘I expect it could be applied to other things about people – and turn out to be a serious reflection on human nature.’
‘Human nature’s not much cop, if you ask me. We wouldn’t be in such danger of having a war if it was. Let’s get the wool and things and go home.’
So they bought their things: a box of Morny Rose Geranium soap for Zoë, and the exercise books, and Polly bought some hyacinth-blue wool to make herself a jersey. Then they went to wait for the bus.
After lunch that Saturday, Hugh and Rupert had gone on an expedition to Battle armed with a formidable list of shopping. Rupert had volunteered for the job and then Hugh, who had had what nearly amounted to a quarrel with Sybil, offered to accompany his brother. Lists were collected from all three houses of the many and varied requirements and they set off, with Rupert driving the Vauxhall that he had acquired since joining the firm the previous January.
‘We shall look pretty bloody silly if it’s peace after all,’ he said.
After a short silence, he looked at his brother, and Hugh caught his eye. ‘We shan’t look silly,’ he said.
‘You got one of your heads?’
‘I have not. I was just wondering …’
‘What?’
‘What you had in mind.’
‘Oh. Oh – well, I thought I’d try for the Navy.’
‘I thought you might.’
‘It’ll leave you holding the fort on your own, though, won’t it?’
‘I’ll have the Old Man.’
There was a short silence; Rupert knew from his months in the firm that their father was both obstinate and autocratic. Edward was the one who could manage him; Hugh, when he disagreed with an edict, confronted his father with direct and dogged honesty: he had no capacity for manipulation, or tact, as it was sometimes called. They had rows that ended, as often as not, in an uneasy compromise that benefited no one – least of all the firm. Rupert, who was still learning the ropes, had not been able to be much more than an unwilling witness and this summer, when Edward had been away on a volunteer’s course, things had seemed much worse. Edward was back, temporarily, but he was simply waiting to be called up. Rupert, whose decision to go into the firm had been made just about the time that Zoë had become pregnant, still wondered whether it had been the right choice. Being an art master had always seemed a stopgap – a kind of apprenticeship to being a full-time painter; becoming a businessman had turned out to preclude his ever doing any painting at all. The imminent prospect of war, providing the opportunity for escape, excited him, although he could hardly admit that – even to himself.
‘But of course I’ll miss you, old boy,’ Hugh was saying, with a studied casualness that suddenly touched him: Hugh, like their sister Rachel, always became casual when he was most moved.
‘Of course, they might not take me,’ Rupert said. He did not believe this, but it was the nearest he could get to comfort.
‘Of course they will. I wish I could be more use. Those poor bloody Poles. If the Russians hadn’t signed that pact, I don’t think he’d dare to be where he is.’
‘Hitler?’
‘Of course Hitler. Well, we’ve had a year’s grace. I hope we’ve made good use of it.’
They had reached Battle and Rupert said, ‘I’ll park outside Till’s, shall I? We seem to have a hell of a lot to get there.’
They spent the next hour buying four dozen Kilner jars, Jeyes Fluid, paraffin, twenty-four small torches with spare batteries, three zinc buckets, enormous quantities of green soap and Lux, four Primus stoves, a quart of methylated spirit, six hot-water bottles, two dozen light bulbs, a pound of half-inch nails and two pounds of tin tacks. They tried to buy another bale of blackout material, but the shop had only three yards left. ‘Better buy it,’ Hugh said to Rupert. They bought six reels of black thread and a packet of sewing-machine needles. At the chemist they bought gripe water, Milk of Magnesia, baby oil, Vinolia soap, Amami shampoo, arrowroot and Andrews’ Liver Salts and Rupert got a tortoiseshell slide for Clary, who was growing out her fringe and spent much of her time looking like a faithful dog, he said. They picked up two boxes of groceries, ordered by the Duchy and Villy respectively that morning. They bought Goldflake and Passing Cloud cigarettes – for Villy, again, and Rachel. Rupert bought the Tatler for Zoë, and Hugh bought a copy of How Green Was My Valley for Sybil – she loved reading the latest books and it had been well reviewed. Then they consulted the list again, and realised that the shop hadn’t included the order for Malvern water for the Duchy.
‘Anything else?’
‘Something that looks like ships bras?’
‘Sheep’s brains,’ Hugh said knowledgeably. ‘For Wills. Sybil thinks he’ll die if he doesn’t have them once a week.’ So they went to the butcher, who said that Mrs Cazalet Senior had just rung and wanted an ox tongue of which he happened to have one left and he’d only just put it in the brine so it wouldn’t need much soaking, tell the cook. ‘If you don’t mind, sir,’ he added. He was used to Mr Tonbridge coming in for the meat if the ladies didn’t come themselves, which was seldom. If anything was needed to make him feel that things were in a funny old state, it was gentlemen doing the shopping, he thought as he wrapped the brains in greaseproof paper and then brown. The boy was sweeping the floor – they’d be closing soon – and he had to speak sharply to him not to get sawdust on the gentlemen’s trousers.
Outside, the street was fuller than usual: several pregnant mothers with pasty-faced children in tow were wandering up and down, staring disconsolately into the shop windows, and then moving on a few yards.
‘Evacuees,’ Rupert said. ‘I suppose we’re lucky not to have any of them. The Babies’ Hotel is a much easier bet. At least babies don’t have nits and lice, and don’t complain about it being too quiet and not being able to eat the food.’
‘Is that what they do?’
‘That’s what Sybil says Mrs Cripps says that Mr York says Miss Boot says.’
‘Good Lord!’
When they got into their laden car, Hugh said, ‘What do you think about the children staying where they are?’
Slightly startled, Rupert said, ‘You mean our lot?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, where else can they go? They certainly can’t be in London.’
‘We could send them further into the country. Away from the coast. Suppose there’s an invasion?’
‘Oh, honestly, I don’t think we can look that far ahead. Light me a cigarette, would you? What does Sybil think?’ he went on when Hugh had done so.
‘She’s being a bit awkward about it all. Wants to come to London herself to look after me. I can’t have that, of course. We nearly had a row,’ he added, surprised again by the awful, unusual fact. ‘In the end, I shut her up by saying I’d live with you. I never meant it,’ he said, ‘I knew you wouldn’t be in London anyway. But she didn’t. She’s just a bit on edge. Much better for the family to stay together. And I can get down at weekends, after all.’
‘Will you keep your house open?’
‘Have to see. It depends whether. I can get anyone to look after me. If not, I can always stay at my club.’ Visions occurred of endless dreary evenings eating with chaps he didn’t really want to spend the evening with.
But Rupert, who knew his brother’s home-loving habits, and briefly
imagined poor old Hugh on his own in a club, said, ‘You could always come up and down in the train with the Old Man.’
Hugh shook his head. ‘Someone’s got to be in London at night. That’s when they’ll drop their bombs. Can’t leave the blokes to cope with the wharf by themselves.’
‘You’ll miss Edward, won’t you?’
‘I’ll miss both of you. Still, old crocks can’t be choosers.’
‘Someone has to keep the home fire burning.’
‘Actually, old boy, I think people will be keener on me putting them out.’
A moment later, he added, ‘You’re the only person I’ve ever met who actually hoots when he laughs.’
‘It’s awful, isn’t it? I was called Factory at school.’
‘Never knew that.’
‘You were away most of the time.’
‘Oh, well, the position is shortly to be reversed.’
Hugh’s tone, both bitter and humble, touched Rupert, who instinctively glanced at the black stump that rested on his brother’s knee. God! Think of going through life with no left hand because someone else had blown it off. Still it is his left hand. But I’m left-handed – it would have been worse for me. Slightly ashamed of his egocentricity, and wanting Hugh to feel better he said, ‘Your Polly is a pearl. And she’s getting prettier every day.’
And Hugh, his face lighting up, said instantly, ‘Isn’t she just? For the Lord’s sake don’t tell her.’
‘I wasn’t thinking of doing that, but why not? I always tell Clary things like that.’
Hugh opened his mouth to say that was different, and shut it again. It was all right in his book to tell people they were beautiful when they weren’t; it was when they were that you had to shut up. ‘I don’t want her getting ideas,’ he said vaguely, and Rupert, knowing this was Cazalet for getting above oneself, the only-pebble-on-the-beach syndrome with which he too had been brought up, deemed it better, or easier, to agree.
‘Of course not,’ he said.
Marking Time
Elizabeth Jane Howard
For Dosia Verney
CONTENTS
The Cazalet Family Tree
The Cazalet Family and their Servants
Foreword
HOME PLACE: September, 1939
LOUISE: January, 1940
CLARY: May – June, 1940
POLLY: July, 1940
THE FAMILY: Autumn – Winter, 1940
LOUISE: Autumn – Winter, 1940
CLARY: Winter – Spring, 1941
POLLY: July – October, 1941
THE FAMILY: Autumn – Winter, 1941
THE CAZALET FAMILY TREE
THE CAZALET FAMILIES AND THEIR SERVANTS
William Cazalet (the Brig)
Kitty (the Duchy), his wife
Rachel, their unmarried daughter
Hugh Cazalet, eldest son
Sybil, his wife
Polly
Simon
William (Wills)
}
their
children
Edward Cazalet, second son
Villy, his wife
Louise
Teddy
Lydia
Roland (Roly)
}
their
children
Rupert Cazalet, third son
Zoë (second wife: Isobel died naving Neville)
Clarissa (Clary)
Neville
}
Rupert’s
children
by Isobel
Jessica Castle (Villy’s sister)
Raymond, her husband
Angela
Nora
Christopher
Judy
}
their
children
Mrs Cripps (cook)
Ellen (nurse)
Eileen (parlourmaid)
Peggy and Bertha (housemaids)
Dottie and Edie (kitchenmaids)
Tonbridge (chauffeur)
McAlpine (gardener)
Wren (groom)
Billy (gardener’s boy)
Emily (cook)
Bracken (Edward’s chauffeur)
FOREWORD
The following background to this novel is intended for those readers who are unfamiliar with The Light Years.
William and Kitty Cazalet, known to their family as the Brig and the Duchy, have shut their London house, and spend all their time in Sussex at Home Place. The Brig’s sight is failing, so he is less active in the family timber firm which he heads. They have three sons, Hugh, Edward and Rupert, and one unmarried daughter, Rachel.
Hugh is married to Sybil and they have three children. The eldest, Polly, does lessons at home with a cousin and is fourteen at the opening of this novel; Simon is thirteen and has joined his cousin at a public school; and William (Wills) has just had his second birthday. The middle son, Edward, is married to Villy (Viola Rydal, whose widowed mother, Lady Rydal, is something of a martinet). They have four children. Louise, aged sixteen, has ceased to do lessons at home with her cousins, and has spent one term at a domestic science school; her brother Teddy, who is very athletic, has been at a public school for two years now, while Lydia, who is eight, has been going to a small day school. Roland the baby is four months old.
The third son, Rupert, was married to Isobel by whom he had two children: Clary is the same age as Polly and is doing lessons with her, and Neville, now eight, has been attending a day school in London. Rupert’s second wife is Zoë who, at twenty-four, is twelve years younger than he. They have no children.
The unmarried daughter, Rachel, who occupies herself looking after her nearly blind father, also helps to run a charitable Babies’ Hotel that at the start of this novel has been evacuated for the second time to a nearby house owned by the Brig, her father. Her great friend is Margot Sidney, known as Sid, who teaches the violin and lives in London, but pays frequent visits to Home Place.
Edward’s wife, Villy, has a sister, Jessica, who is married to Raymond Castle. They have four children – more cousins for the Cazalets. Angela, whose first, hopeless love was for Rupert Cazalet, is now twenty, and works in London; Christopher at sixteen is passionately interested in nature and against war, and Nora, a year older than Christopher, has been at the domestic science school with Louise. The youngest, Judy, is nine and goes to a boarding school.
At the end of The Light Years the Castles came into a house and some money inherited from a great-aunt of Raymond’s, as a result of which they were able to move from mean accommodation in East Finchley to the great-aunt’s house in Frensham.
Miss Milliment is the very old family governess: she began with Villy and Jessica, and now teaches Clary and Polly.
Diana Mackintosh is the most serious of Edward’s many affairs. She is married with three sons.
Apart from the grandparents’ house Home Place, the Brig has bought and converted two other nearby houses: Mill Farm, which is now used by the Babies’ Hotel, and Pear Tree Cottage, which serves as an overflow for the Cazalet and Castle families. In addition they have a house in London, Chester Terrace, now more or less shut up.
The three Cazalet sons also have London houses. Hugh and Sybil’s is in Ladbroke Grove, which Hugh is still using during the week when he is working in London. Edward and Villy’s home in nearby Lansdowne Road has been used by them during the children’s term time. Rupert and Zoë have a small house in Brook Green.
There are a number of servants working for the Cazalets, but the principal ones in this novel are: Mrs Cripps the cook, Tonbridge the chauffeur, McAlpine the gardener and Billy the gardener’s boy, Wren the groom, Eileen the parlourmaid – all of Home Place.– and Ellen, Rupert’s nurse for Clary and Neville, who finds herself busier than ever after the late births of Wills and Roland.
The Light Years ended in 1938 with Chamberlain’s speech after Munich – ‘peace with honour’. Marking Time begins a year later, after the invasion of Poland when war is clearly immin
ent and unavoidable. Children are being evacuated from the cities and everybody is waiting for Chamberlain to announce the result of the British ultimatum.
HOME PLACE
September, 1939
Someone had turned off the wireless and, in spite of the room being full of people, there was a complete silence – in which Polly could feel, and almost hear, her own heart thudding. As long as nobody spoke, and no one moved, it was still the very end of peace …
The Brig, her grandfather, did move. She watched while – still in silence – he got slowly to his feet, stood for a moment, one hand trembling on the back of his chair as he passed the other slowly across his filmy eyes. Then he went across the room and, one by one, kissed his two elder sons, Polly’s father Hugh and Uncle Edward. She waited for him to kiss Uncle Rupe, but he did not. She had never seen him kiss another man before, but this seemed more of an apology and a salute. It’s for what they went through last time there was a war, and because it was for nothing, she thought.
Polly saw everything. She saw Uncle Edward catch her father’s eye, and then wink, and her father’s face contract as though he remembered something he could hardly bear to remember. She saw her grandmother, the Duchy, sitting bolt upright, staring at Uncle Rupert with a kind of bleak anger. She’s not angry with him, she’s afraid he will have to be in it. She’s so old-fashioned she thinks it’s simply men who have to fight and die; she doesn’t understand. Polly understood everything.
People were beginning to shift in their chairs, to murmur, to light cigarettes, to tell the children to go out and play. The worst had come to the worst, and they were all behaving in much the same way as they would have if it hadn’t. This was what her family did when things were bad. A year ago, when it had been peace with honour, they had all seemed different, but Polly had not had time to notice properly, because just as the amazement and joy hit her, it was as though she’d been shot. She’d fainted. ‘You went all white and sort of blind, and you passed out. It was terribly interesting,’ her cousin Clary had said. Clary had put it in her Book of Experiences that she was keeping for when she was a writer. Polly felt Clary looking at her now, and just as their eyes met and Polly gave a little nod of agreement about them both getting the hell out, a distant up and down wailing noise of a siren began and her cousin Teddy shouted, ‘It’s an air raid! Gosh! Already!’ and everybody got up, and the Brig told them to fetch their gas masks and wait in the hall to go to the air raid shelter. The Duchy went to tell the servants, and her mother Sybil and Aunt Villy said they must go to Pear Tree Cottage to fetch Wills and Roly, and Aunt Rach said she must pop down to Mill Farm to help Matron with the evacuated babies – in fact hardly anybody did what the Brig said.
The Cazalet Chronicles Collection Page 51