‘Oh, good.’ Sybil did not say that Rupert had asked Hugh what he thought, and that Hugh had advised a six months’ gap to give Zoë time to get over her loss, and that Rupert had seemed to think that this was a capital idea.
But Villy caught her eye and said, ‘I expect he asked Hugh, who told him exactly the opposite?’
‘How did you guess?’
‘Darling old Rupe,’ said Villy as she collected the tea things.
‘All the same, I think it would be better if he simply asked Zoë,’ Sybil said.
Zoë had been given the task of picking the quantities of ripe Victoria plums of which there was a glut, ‘But they mustn’t be wasted,’ the Duchy had said that morning. ‘So, Zoë dear, if you strip the kitchen garden trees, we can have plum tarts and bottle the rest. Do mind the wasps.’ She had found the largest trug there was in the greenhouse, and the small ladder which she had lugged to the kitchen garden wall and methodically stripped each espaliered tree. It was better than sewing with the aunts, and better than trying to write her weekly meaningless letter to her mother who was paying a visit of indefinite duration to her friend in the Isle of Wight. Since last year, Zoë had tried to be kinder to her mother, to pay her more attention, but the most she seemed able to manage was not to be unkind. Ever since June when she had lost the baby she had been sunk in an apathy so entire that she found it easier to be alone. Alone, she did not have to make any effort to be ‘bright’ as she called it; she did not have to contend with sympathy or kindness that either made her feel irritable or want to cry. It seemed to her as though for the rest of her life she was going to have to endure undeserved attentions, to attempt insincere responses, to be seen continuously in the wrong light and also, she could foresee, be expected to ‘recover’ from what everybody excepting herself perceived as a natural tragedy. Pregnancy had been quite as arduous as she had imagined; nothing they predicted happened as they said it would. The morning sickness that was supposed to last only three months, persisted throughout, and did not confine itself to the mornings. Her back ached for the last four months so that no position was ever comfortable, and her nights were broken every two or three hours by trips to the lavatory. Her ankles swelled and her teeth developed endless cavities, and for the first time in her life she experienced both boredom and anxiety in equal proportions. Whenever she was feeling really bored, not well enough to do anything that interested her, the anxiety began. If it was Philip’s child, would it look like him? Would everybody immediately see that it was not Rupert’s child? How would she feel about a child whom she would have to pretend was Rupert’s if she knew that it wasn’t? At those times, the desire to tell somebody, to confess and be berated, even not to be forgiven, but simply to tell someone, became overwhelming, but she managed never to do that. She was so depressed that the notion that it could as well be Rupert’s child hardly ever struck her. And Rupert had been so sweet to her! His tenderness, his patience and affection had continued throughout her sickness, her frequent tears, her withdrawals into sullen bouts of self-pity, her irritability (how could he understand her when he knew nothing?), her reiterated apology for being so hopeless at the whole thing (this when her guilt was its most oppressive) – he seemed willing to contain anything that she was through all those months, until at last she’d had the baby, at home with the midwife that the family always used for their births. Hours and hours of agony, and then Rupert, who had stayed with her, had brought the bathed and wrapped bundle to lay in her arms. ‘There, my darling girl. Isn’t he beautiful?’ She had looked down at the small head with its shock of black hair, at the tiny wizened yellow face – he was born badly jaundiced – framed by the lacy white shawl the Duchy had made. She had stared at the high forehead, the long upper lip and known. She had looked up at Rupert, whose face was grey with fatigue: and unable to bear the innocence of his anxiety, and concern, and love, had shut her eyes as scalding tears forced their way out. That had been the worst moment of all: she had not imagined having to accept his pride and joy. ‘I’m dreadfully tired,’ she had said. It had come out like a whine. The midwife had taken the baby away and said that she must have a nice rest, and Rupert had kissed her and she was alone. She had lain, rigid, unable to sleep at the thought that she would never now be free of this consuming lie: that little, alien creature would grow and grow, and become more and more like Philip, whom by then she had begun to hate, and the thought that only its death would have released her had horribly occurred. Or mine, she had thought: it had felt slightly better to wish for one’s own death rather than someone else’s. And then, in less than a week the baby was dead. It had always been sickly, had never thrived, either would not feed from her abundance of milk, or if it did, threw up, hardly slept because it was always crying weakly – from colic, they said – but afterwards the midwife had said something about a twisted intestine, and that it had never had a chance. It had been Rupert who had told her that it had died (she had refused to think of a name for it): his distress for her had been the last piercing thing before a great bleak calm descended upon her. It was over. A terrible thirst and pain for days until the milk went, leaving her with stripes all over the beautiful breasts she had once prized so much. She had not even cared about that: she had not cared about anything at all. Her relief was too dangerous for her to accept it – had she not wished it to die? – and so she remained in the isolation of withholding the only things that she wanted to say to the only person who loved her. She took a long time to recover – was tired all the time, slept long nights and heavily in the afternoons, waking exhausted by her stupor. She was surrounded by kindness from the whole family, but curiously it had only been Clary who had reached her. She had woken from a sleep on the sofa one afternoon in their drawing room to find Clary carefully setting a tray of tea on the table beside her. She had made some scones, she said, her first scones actually, she wasn’t sure that they were much good. They hadn’t been: rock hard and surprisingly heavy. ‘It’s the thought that counts,’ she had said mechanically.
The atmosphere had been full of rather watery good will, but Clary had answered, ‘Yes, but it only counts for the person who thinks it, doesn’t it? I mean, it’s a good thing other people don’t know a lot of one’s thoughts. I used to wish you were dead, for instance. It’s quite all right, I don’t any more. It was pretty bad for me thinking that – just sometimes, of course – but it would have been worse for you if you’d known. I hated you for not being my mother, you see. But now I’m awfully glad you never tried to be her. I can think of you as a friend.’
Her eyes had filled with tears – and she hadn’t cried for weeks – and Clary had sat quite still on the stool by the low table, and the silent warmth and steadiness of her gaze were a wonderful relief. There was no need to try to stop crying, nor to explain or apologise or lie about it. When she had finished, she couldn’t find a handkerchief, and Clary slid the tray cloth from under the tea things, spilling the milk a bit, and handed it to her. Then, she said, ‘The thing is that with mothers and babies, they can go on having them, but with children and mothers they only get one.’ She put a finger on one of the beads of milk on the table and licked it. ‘I hope you don’t think I’m trying to minimise your bereavement. All I mean really is that one can get better from almost anything. It’s just one of those amazing things. That’s why people like Hamlet were so frightened of hell. It not stopping, and personally, that’s why I don’t believe in it. I think everything changes while you’re alive, and simply stops when you’re dead. Of course I may change my mind in the years to come, but there’s plenty of time. Even you have quite a lot of time, because if you really are only twenty-four, you’re only ten years older than me.’
She got called by Ellen soon after that, who told her to come and clear up the mess she’d made in the kitchen.
‘Sorry about the scones,’ she said, as she collected the tray. ‘They tasted quite nice before I cooked them. The metamorphosis was unsatisfactory, I can’t think why.’
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br /> After Clary had gone she lay thinking about what had been said – and not said – but when she reached the point where Clary had said, ‘I can think of you as a friend’, she found she was crying again. She had no experience of friends.
She had made various resolutions after that: to look for a new house (they had not moved after all, partly because of her pregnancy and partly because although Rupert was paid more by the family firm than he had earned as a schoolmaster, it was not yet enough to finance a move), to entertain for Rupert, but here she ran into the difficulty that Ellen, who had taken over the cooking since the children were now both at school all day, was not really up to more than plain nursery food, ill-suited to the sophisticated occasions she had in mind. Somehow, nothing came of any idea or plan and it did not seem to matter very much that it didn’t. She sometimes thought that perhaps there were other more serious or difficult resolutions to be made, but they seemed at once so far-reaching and amorphous – intangible to her mind – that she was afraid that if she even understood them they would turn out to be possible only for someone quite different from herself. Some things were better. She no longer resented Clary and Neville, who in any case seemed to need less of Rupert’s time and attention. Neville, who was now at a day school, kept her at courteous, breezy arm’s length – it was Ellen he talked to or his father. With Clary it was different. She sensed that Clary did try, had good intentions, never failing to notice and admire any new clothes that she wore. She responded by trying to help Clary with her appearance, but, except for one party dress that she made herself for her, Clary had no interest. When she took her shopping, Clary never wanted the things she chose: ‘I just feel silly in it,’ she said when Zoë had found her a perfectly sweet serge sailor suit with brass buttons. In any case, she tore, split, got ink on and outgrew everything. She was hard on her clothes, Ellen said, as she endlessly washed and ironed and mended them.
With Rupert, she was in limbo. All the feelings that he had had for her, she had accepted without question. He thought she was beautiful and desirable, so of course he loved her. But all last year she had been neither of those things and, humiliated by her gross appearance and the nauseating symptoms that had gone with that, she also felt humiliated by his kindness. She wanted him to adore her, but this – no one knew it better than she – was impossible: nobody who was pregnant could be adorable. She had not even wanted him to make love to her, and as soon as he realised this he had desisted: ‘It does not matter in the least,’ he had said. In the least?
She had agreed to come to Sussex for the children’s holidays, had not even minded very much that Rupert, due to his new job, no longer had the same free time but, like his brothers, was only able to take two weeks off and come down at weekends. It was easier to be alone. She read a great deal; mostly novels – G.B. Stern, Ethyl Mannin, Howard Spring, Angela Thirkell, Mary Webb, Mazo de la Roche, and some biographies chiefly, when she could find them, of kings’ mistresses. She read Agatha Christie, but could not get on with Dorothy Sayers. She read Jane Eyre and quite enjoyed it, tried Wuthering Heights but could not understand it at all. Since being in the country, the person she found it easiest to be with had surprisingly turned out to be the Duchy, who asked her one day whether she would do the flowers. Up until then, her relationship with her mother-in-law had consisted of calm courtesy and her own slightly over-careful politeness, but this summer she had sometimes found the Duchy’s eye upon her with a look of reflective kindness that was not in the least intrusive since it seemed to need no response. She had recognised that the offer for her to do the flowers was a gesture, she tried very hard and found that she enjoyed doing them and was actually good at it. From there, she picked with the Duchy and began to learn the names of different roses and so forth, and later, at her request, the Duchy taught her how to smock – another skill which she acquired. The Duchy never mentioned the baby – Zoë had been afraid that their increased intimacy might lead to that, and that she would have to say things she did not feel or mean under that direct and honest gaze, but this never happened – nor did the Duchy, by any remote implication, suggest that she should have another baby. Because the thought of this, which sometimes seemed her only future, hung heavily over her, unmentioned but somehow implicit. In the Cazalet family, wives had children – several of them – it was normal and expected. Neither Sybil nor Villy appeared to have the horror that she felt about the whole business; they seemed to her blessed with the full set of maternal feelings, disregard for their own bodies or discomfort or pain and, what was more, they seemed invariably delighted by the results, whereas she found babies mildly disgusting, and most children, at least until they reached Clary’s age, a nuisance. It was these feelings that held her in thrall; she was not like them, and while a year ago she had felt superior, more beautiful and therefore interesting, now she felt inferior – a coward, a freak, somebody they would all be horrified to have in their midst if they knew. So she clung to her convalescence, her lack of energy and the attenuated relationship with Rupert, whom she was alternately afraid of loving her too much or not at all. At least so far he had not asked her whether she wanted another baby.
By lunchtime (on Saturday), Neville and Lydia had both become bored with watching the squash court roof painted and had given up being messengers. ‘They don’t give us anything to messenge,’ Neville complained. They decided that when they went to Pear Tree Cottage for lunch, they simply wouldn’t go back. ‘That means getting well out of reach of all of them,’ Lydia remarked as they trudged homewards for their meal, ‘they’re in a very bossy frame of mind.’
‘When aren’t they?’
‘Of course, there’ll be Ellen trying to take us for a walk with boring Wills and Roland.’
‘We’ll tell her we’re wanted at Home Place. She won’t know.’
‘What shall we actually do?’
‘I’ll tell you after lunch. As soon as we can get down, say you’ll race me to Home Place.’
Later, and full of fish pie and marmalade pudding, they went through the act, but as soon as they were out of sight, Lydia wanted to know the plan. Neville hadn’t got one which annoyed him. ‘I was thinking of cutting your hair,’ he said.
Lydia clutched her pigtails. ‘No! I’m going to grow it to the ground.’
‘You’ll never reach that.’
‘Why not, pray?’ said Lydia, imitating her mother at her most formidable.
‘Because every time your hair gets longer, you’ll get taller. It’ll sap your strength,’ he warned. He had heard Ellen saying that. ‘Ladies have been known to die of having too long hair. They get weaker and weaker and on the fifth day they are dead.’
‘You didn’t make that up, I know where it comes from. It’s Augustus not eating in that frightening book. I know. Mr York has got evacuees. Why don’t we go and see them?’
‘We might as well. We can’t go back past the cottage. They might see us. We can go on our stomachs through the corn in front, or through the wood and round the back.’
‘Quicker round the back.’ Lydia knew that going through corn any old way made people cross.
‘What are evacuees?’ she asked, as they trotted through the small copse and into the field at the back of Pear Tree Cottage.
‘Children from London.’
‘But we’re children from London.’
‘I should think children from London whose parents can’t be bothered with them in a war.’
‘Poor them! You mean their mothers just – let them go?’
‘I don’t know. I should think policemen take them away,’ he added vaguely. He knew that Lydia could be boring on the subject of mothers. ‘I manage perfectly well without one,’ he offered. ‘I have all my life.’
There was a pause, and then Lydia said, ‘I don’t think I’d like to be looked after by Mr York. Or horrible housekeeping Miss Boot. Although they have got a sweet little outdoor lav.’
They climbed the five-barred gate that led into the farmyard. It
was very quiet excepting for two or three brown hens who were walking about eating very small things they suddenly found. A large tortoiseshell cat was crouched upon one of the posts of the smaller gate that led into the farmhouse garden. The gate was shut; they looked over it into the garden, which was full of cabbages and sunflowers and white butterflies and an apple tree so drooping with fruit that its branches were hunched like someone carrying heavy shopping. There was no sign of the evacuees.
‘They must be in the house.’
‘Go and knock on the door.’
‘You go.’ Lydia was rather frightened of Miss Boot, who always looked to her as though she might really be somebody else.
‘All right.’ Neville lifted the latch and walked softly up the narrow brick path to the white latticed porch. He knocked on the door. Nothing happened.
‘Knock louder,’ Lydia said from the other side of the gate.
He did; the door flew open and Miss Boot stood there – like a jack-in-a-box.
‘We heard you had some evacuees,’ Neville said politely, ‘and we’ve come to see them.’
‘They’re out. I told them to stay out till I call them to their tea.’
‘Do you know where they’ve gone?’
‘Gone? It won’t be far. They don’t go far. I shouldn’t go worrying after them. I’d go home to my mother if I was you.’
‘I don’t have one,’ Neville said gravely. He knew from experience that this always made a difference with ladies. It did: she suddenly looked much nicer, and went and fetched him a piece of cake.
‘But I can’t eat it,’ he said to Lydia, as they walked back into the yard. ‘It’s got seeds in it. And – she’s got a seed growing out of her face. It must have fallen onto her when she was making the cake.’
‘It can’t be a seed.’
‘Yes! It was a sort of brown blob with little sprouts. It was a seed, you bet. Want some?’
The Cazalet Chronicles Collection Page 55