The Cazalet Chronicles Collection

by Elizabeth Jane Howard

  ‘Get some exercise books and a present for Zoë’s birthday. And you said you wanted to buy some wool. We could have doughnuts for lunch. Or baked beans?’ They both loved baked beans because Simon and Teddy had them quite a lot at school, but they never got them at home, as they were regarded as rather common food.

  They had been walking towards the front. There were not many holidaymakers about although there were some on one bit of beach, sitting uncomfortably on the pebbles with their backs to silvery wood breakwaters, eating sandwiches and ice creams and staring out at the grey-green sea that heaved back and forth in an aimless surreptitious manner.

  ‘Do you want to bathe?’

  But Polly simply shrugged. ‘We didn’t bring our things, anyway,’ she said, although Clary knew that that wouldn’t have stopped her if she’d wanted to. Further along – past that bit of beach – some soldiers were hauling huge rolls of barbed wire out of a lorry, and positioning them at regular intervals along the shore where they could see that what looked like concrete posts were sunk in a line at intervals half way up the beach.

  ‘Let’s go and have lunch,’ Clary said quickly.

  They had baked beans and toast and lovely strong Indian tea (they didn’t get that at home either) and a jam doughnut and a cream horn each. This seemed to cheer Polly up, and they talked about quite ordinary things like the sort of person they would marry; Polly thought an explorer would be nice if he would explore hot parts of the earth as she loathed snow and ice and would naturally accompany him, and Clary said a painter because that would fit with writing books and she knew about painters because of her dad. ‘Also, painters don’t seem to mind so much what people look like; I mean they like people’s faces for quite different reasons, so he wouldn’t mind mine too much.’

  ‘You’re fine,’ Polly said. ‘You have beautiful eyes, and they are the most important feature.’

  ‘So have you.’

  ‘Oh, mine are far too small. Awful really. Little dark blue boot buttons.’

  ‘But you have a marvellous complexion – frightfully white and then pale pink, like a heroine in novels. Have you noticed’, she continued dreamily as she licked the last remnants of cream off her fingers, ‘how novelists go on and on about how their heroines look? It must be frightful for Miss Milliment when she reads them, knowing she could never have been one.’

  ‘They aren’t all beautiful as the day,’ Polly pointed out. ‘Think of Jane Eyre.’

  ‘And you’re tremendously lucky with your hair. Although coppery hair does seem to fade with age,’ she added, thinking of Polly’s mother. ‘It gets more like weakish marmalade. Oh, Jane Eyre! Mr Rochester goes on like anything about her being so fairylike and small. That’s an ingenious way of saying that she looked charming.’

  ‘People want to know that kind of thing. I do hope you aren’t going to get too modern in your writing, Clary. So that nobody knows what is going on.’ Polly had pinched Ulysses from her mother’s books and found it very hard going.

  ‘I shall write like me,’ said Clary. ‘It’s no good telling me what to write like.’

  ‘OK. Let’s get the rest of our things.’

  Lunch cost four and sixpence, which was more than they had bargained for, and Clary handsomely paid it all. ‘You can pay me back when it’s your birthday,’ she said.

  ‘I think Miss Milliment must be used to all that by now. Wanting to marry people wears off quite young, I think.’

  ‘Gosh! Does it? Well, I don’t suppose I shall marry, then. I don’t feel at all strongly about it now, and women over twenty age very rapidly. Look at Zoë.’

  ‘Grief ages people.’

  ‘Everything ages people. Do you know what that drawly lady, Lady Knebworth, Aunt Villy’s friend, said to Louise?’ When Polly was silent, she added, ‘She told her never to raise her eyebrows ’cos it would put lines on her forehead. Quite a good thing for you to know, Polly, you’re always frowning when you try to think.’

  They were outside the teashop by now, and Clary said, ‘What shall I get her for her birthday?’

  ‘Aunt Zoë? I don’t know. Soap, I should think, or bath salts, Or a hat,’ she added.

  ‘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 ha
d 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, also 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.

  Raymond Castle sat with his eldest daughter in Lyons Corner House at Tottenham Court Road.

  ‘Daddy, for the hundredth time, I’m perfectly OK. Honestly.’

  ‘I dare say you are, but your mother and I would prefer you to be in the country, with us and the rest of the family.’

  ‘I do wish you would stop treating me like a child. I’m twenty.’

  I know that, he thought. If he’d been treating her as a child, he’d simply have told her she was bloody well packing her bags and getting into the car with him and the old trout and the governess. Now he was reduced to preferring …

  ‘And anyway, I couldn’t possibly come today: I’ve got a party tonight.’

  There was a silence during which, in going through the familiar, and often unsuccessful, motions of not losing his temper, he recognised wearily that he had no temper to lose. She defeated him – by her appearance, a confusing blend of Jessica when he had married her but missing the romantic innocence and sheer untried youngness that had so enthralled him. Angela’s golden hair, that a year ago had hung so engagingly in a long page-boy bob, was now drawn back severely from her forehead, with a centre parting and secured by a narrow plait of her own hair (he assumed) exposing her face with its perfectly plucked eyebrows, smooth pale make-up and poppy red mouth. She wore a pale grey linen fitted coat, and a wisp of amber chiffon scarf at her white neck. She looked fashionable (he called it smart), but utterly remote. That was the other way in which she defeated him: by her manner of completely and indifferently withdrawing from any communication with him at all beyond the meaningless, well-worn clichés in response to any questions. ‘I’m fine’, ‘Nobody you’d know’, ‘I’m not a child’, ‘Nothing much’, ‘What does it matter?’

  ‘Good party?’

  ‘I don’t know. I haven’t been to
it yet.’ She replied without looking at him. She picked up her cup and finished her coffee, then looked pointedly at his. She wanted them to go – to put an end to what he felt she saw as merely idle curiosity. He called the nippie over and paid their bill.

  The idea of calling on her in the flat that she shared with an unknown girl friend and taking her out to lunch had occurred to him as he drove over Waterloo Bridge on his mission to collect Lady Rydal and the governess. ‘Your good deed for about a week I should think, old boy,’ Edward had said that morning, but he had been quite glad to take on the task: he did not like situations where he was not in control, and in Sussex it was the Old Man who ran the show. If he just turned up, he might find out what was going on because he could not see for the life of him why she would be so secretive unless there was something to be secretive about. He’d wondered whether he’d better telephone first, but decided that that would defeat the object. Which was …? Well, he was her father and really she shouldn’t be left in London on her own in the circumstances. He must try to get her to come down with him. That was why he was going to see her. He’d feel pretty bloody terrible if he’d come all this way, and then simply left her in town with the chance of getting blown up. Virtue succeeded the slightly uncomfortable feelings; he was somebody for whom self-righteousness was often a boon. He’d rung the top bell of the house in Percy Street and waited an age, but nobody came. He put his finger on the bell and kept it there. What the hell was going on? he kept asking himself as various hellish on-goings occurred to him. By the time a girl – not Angela – stuck her head out of an upper window and shouted ‘Who is it?’ he was feeling quite angry.

  ‘I’ve come to see Angela,’ he shouted back, as he limped down the steps in order to see the girl.

  ‘Yeah, but who is it?’ she replied.

  ‘Tell her it’s her father.’

  ‘Her father?’ An incredulous laugh. ‘OK. Whatever you say.’ He was just about to mount the steps again – trying, because of his leg – when he heard the girl’s voice again. ‘She’s asleep.’ She made it sound as though that was that.