‘I can see it might for writing books,’ Polly said. She began to feel sad, as she often did these days when confronted with her lack of vocation. ‘Did you ask Miss Milliment? She’s usually quite good about information.’
‘Miss Milliment doesn’t know the first thing about rape,’ Clary said contemptuously. ‘I asked her, and I could tell at once.’
‘How? She’s so old, I bet she does. How could you tell?’
‘You know how her face is that very pale lemony grey? Well, it started going the colour of dead leaves.’
‘Embarrassment,’ Polly said promptly. ‘I should have thought that showed she did know, but didn’t want to tell you.’
‘No. She knew it was something awful, of course, but she didn’t want to discuss it. And she didn’t really know. Of course that must be embarrassing for an older person.’
‘Look it up in the dictionary.’
‘Good idea, Poll!’
The conversation came to an end then, because Clary picked a plum with a wasp in it and got stung.
As Polly wheeled the barrow back to the house to hand over the greengages to Mrs Cripps (Clary had gone back to the house to put vinegar onto her wasp sting), she thought how odd it was that ordinary things had started to feel unreal. This must be because what she didn’t know – that hung over them, that they almost seemed to be waiting for – had begun to seem … not only bizarre and melodramatic, but more real than what was actually going on. It’s all this waiting, she thought, to grow up, for the war to get worse or better, or be over.
The next morning, Teddy said that a German bomber had dropped bombs over London, ‘It got shot down though,’ he added. He and Simon had made a noticeboard in the hall on which they pinned the latest bulletins. Dad rang up Home Place and had a long talk with the Duchy, at the end of which she said that it had been decided that everybody in Pear Tree Cottage should move into Home Place. This turned out to be partly because Emily, the cook at Pear Tree Cottage, had decided to go back to Northumberland to live with her sisters, but it was also, the Duchy said, because it was thought better for everybody to be in one place. Feelings about this were mixed.
‘We’ve got to move!’ Clary cried. ‘We’ve got to give up our nice friendly room we’ve always had and move into that horrible little room with the jiggly wallpaper.’
‘Really?’
‘Really. They’re going to turn our room into the night nursery for Roland and Wills. I can’t see why they couldn’t have the smaller room: they’re smaller and they’re too young to care about wallpaper.’
But during lunch, Aunt Rach reminded the Duchy that Villy had said that Edward had said that Louise must stop staying with her friend in London and come home. ‘So you may stay in your room and Louise will join you.’
‘We’d much rather move into the little room,’ Clary said at once.
‘I’m afraid you can’t. Neville and Lydia will be having that room.’
There was nothing to be done but grumble. ‘She’ll keep us up all night, painting her nails and talking about acting,’ Clary said despairingly, as they shifted their beds to make room for a third and an extra chest of drawers.
‘It’s worse for me,’ Neville said. He had very quietly stood on his head to surprise them in the doorway. ‘I have to sleep with a girl!’ he went on as his face slowly became scarlet. ‘I’ve marked the room in half with blackboard chalk and I’m going to charge her if she enters my territory.’
‘Neville, it is extremely rude to listen to other people’s private conversations.’
He eyed Clary unblinkingly. ‘I am extremely rude,’ he said.
She pushed him, and he collapsed easily on the landing against Lydia, who had just arrived from trudging upstairs with an armful of her possessions. This made a terrible mess, and Lydia cried as boxes of chalks, weak envelopes filled with beads that she strung into endless necklaces as presents for everyone, her shell collection, two bears and the skin of a grass snake pinned to a piece of balsa wood tumbled and rolled all over the place. Clary scolded Neville, who instantly disappeared, and Polly started to help her collect her things. ‘Put all the beads in my hat,’ she said, as she retrieved the snakeskin, hoping that Lydia wouldn’t notice that it was damaged but, of course, she did. ‘My most unusual thing!’ she wailed. ‘It might take me the whole of my life to find another one!’
‘It isn’t too bad, but I bet you, Christopher could find you another.’
‘I want to find it myself! I don’t want anyone else’s findings.’
‘If you sit still, I’ll put some lipstick on you.’
That worked. Lydia sat on the floor holding up her face, rapt, as Polly dabbed her moist cherry mouth with the hard dry Tangee she hadn’t used for ages.
‘What’s unfair,’ said Lydia, ‘is that they make all of us share with whoever they like – they even said that if ghastly Judy comes to stay they’ll put her in the room with Neville and me – but they don’t share. I mean, they could easily put Uncle Hugh in with Mummy when Aunt Syb goes for her exploration.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘She’s going for an operation so that they can explore her. I heard Mummy talking to her about it, and then when they saw me they said that French remark that means they don’t want you to know what they are talking about.’
… ‘Poll! For the third time! Do you want the bed by the window or not?’
‘I don’t mind,’ she said, lurched to her feet, and went blindly in search of her mother.
THE FAMILY
Autumn – Winter, 1940
‘Of course I’ll drive you,’ Edward said, ‘don’t be silly. But we ought to get a move on if you’re to catch your train.’
She smiled bravely at him: she’d done her make-up in the bathroom while he was dressing, and one looked terrible if one’s mascara ran.
‘I’ll pop down and pay the bill,’ he said. ‘Give me your case.’
He stood in front of her, a case in each hand and his hat tucked under one arm.
‘I wish I’d seen you without your uniform,’ she said without meaning to.
‘Darling, you have. I couldn’t have been more without it last night. I’ll meet you at the car.’ The reception desk had embarrassed her so much when they had checked in – Squadron Leader and Mrs Johnson-Smythe – that he didn’t want to repeat the experience. ‘Don’t be long,’ he said and went.
She looked round the room. Last night, it had seemed so romantic: the large double bed, the little pink silk bedside lights, the heavy silky curtains drawn and the dressing-table with three mirrors and a brocade-covered stool in front of it. Now, it looked desolate – untidy, even squalid. The bedclothes pulled back from the dented pillows, the wreck of their breakfast tray on the end of the bed – all crumbs and greasy plates and coffee rings on the tray cloth, the powder she had spilled on the dressing-table and the wet bath towels, one on the floor – Edward’s – and hers on the stool. The curtains were drawn to show a clear but uninviting view of the car park, and she could see that the thick carpet she had enjoyed walking upon with bare feet last night, was not, in fact, very clean. She knew he was married, he had been frightfully honest about that: she thought he was the most honest man she had ever met in her life; his blue eyes looked at one so seriously when he said things, even when he found some of them – like being married – difficult to say. Just the thought of him looking at her made her shiver. ‘Sure you want to do this?’ he’d said as they drove to the hotel after dinner. Of course she had wanted to. She hadn’t told him that she’d never done it before: she’d always thought she wouldn’t do it until she was married – that the first time would be her wedding night; she would wait for what the other girls in her company called Squadron Leader Right. Now she could see that all she’d been waiting for was to be in love – nothing else really mattered. He’d been a bit shattered when he found it was her first time: ‘Oh, darling, I don’t want to hurt you,’ he had said, but he had. She had loved hi
m kissing her, and his touching her breasts had been really exciting, but the rest of it had been quite different from what she had imagined. The third time it hadn’t hurt in the same way. She could see that in the end it wouldn’t hurt at all. It was being wanted that was so amazingly exciting – or, at least, being wanted by someone as attractive as Edward.
She had been standing by the window with her compact mirror, trying to make a hard line of her mouth with lipstick, but she was so sore from his moustache that it was all red round her mouth and that made the lipstick look blurred. She smeared round her upper lip and chin with the very white powder she used. That was the best she could do. Now: leave the room, go down in the lift, walk firmly across the reception hall – no need to look at anybody – and out to the car. She twitched her tie, put on her cap, hung her bag over her shoulder and walked stiffly out of the room.
He was putting their cases in the back of the car when she reached it.
‘Well done, sweetie,’ he said, and she thought how sensitive he was to realise that leaving the hotel was an ordeal for her.
‘Now, ma’am. Where to?’
‘Paddington.’
‘Paddington it is.’
In the car, she thought fleetingly how lovely it would be if her weekend leave was going to be spent with him, instead of with her parents in Bath where there would be nothing whatever to do as all her friends were away at the war one way or another, with Mummy criticising her make-up and Daddy giving her patronisingly weak gin and limes.
On the Great West Road on their way into London, they got caught behind an immensely long army convoy and she lit them both cigarettes when he asked for one. ‘Happy?’ he asked her as she handed him his. She knew he wanted her to say yes she was, so she did, but really she was struggling with panic at the thought of parting and the anti-climactic hours to follow until they met at Hendon on Monday.
‘Have you just got the weekend, like me?’
‘That’s it. We just have to make the most of it.’
She wanted to ask him if he was going home, but there was no point because of course he would be. He had four children, she knew that, but when she had asked him their ages, the nearest she dared get to her curiosity about his wife, he’d smiled and said, awfully old – except for the youngest. ‘I’m old enough to be your father, you know,’ he said. That was another thing she admired about him: a great many men might have pretended they were younger than they were, but not Edward. In fact, when they reached Paddington, and he put her on the train, he said to the aged guard, ‘Look after my favourite daughter, won’t you, George?’ and the guard had smiled approvingly, and said of course he would. He put her in a corner seat. ‘Have you got anything to read?’ but she hadn’t, so he went away and came back with Lilliput, The Times (which she’d never read in her life) and Country Life. ‘That’ll keep you busy,’ he said; then he stooped down and whispered in her ear, ‘It was fun, wasn’t it, darling? The greatest possible fun?’
She felt her eyes grow hot with tears, and before she could even blink them back, he’d handed her his wonderful silk hanky that smelled so extraordinarily delicious. That was another thing she loved about him, his thoughtfulness, as well as his generosity.
‘I’ll give it back to you on Monday,’ she said, still trying not to cry.
‘You keep it, darling. There’s plenty more where that came from.’ He took off her cap and kissed her mouth – one quick kiss. ‘Bye, sweetheart, have a lovely leave.’ And he was gone. She dabbed her eyes and tried to open the window so that she could see him walking away down the platform, but by the time she got it open, she couldn’t see him. She settled back in her corner: it was really thoughtful of him to go quickly like that. She blew her nose repressively, and soon after the train started, she fell asleep.
‘Poor Mummy!’
‘Yes, indeed. Poor Mummy!’
‘I must say, it makes me see the point of voluntary euthanasia.’
‘Except that in Mummy’s case she’s not compos enough to make that sort of decision.’
Recognising the logic that all her life had irritated her about her sister, Villy remained silent.
They were sitting in a teashop, drinking grey coffee with a plate of Marie biscuits, untouched, between them. There had been an urgent summons from the nursing home, as Matron had thought that Lady Rydal was possibly on the way out, as she had put it on the telephone to Villy yesterday (Thursday) evening. But when they had arrived at the nursing home that morning – Jessica from Frensham, Villy from Sussex – Matron had met them with the, as it turned out rather distressing, news that Lady Rydal seemed a little better. ‘She’s holding her own,’ she had said, rustling down the passage before them. ‘Of course, she has a very strong heart, but I can’t hold out too many hopes.’
They had spent a miserable hour with their mother, who lay, flushed and somewhat shrunken on her pillows, her restlessness reduced to moth-like movements of her spectral fingers onto which the large diamond rings had been taped with Elastoplast. ‘She won’t be without them,’ Matron had said, ‘and they keep slipping off and getting lost in the bedclothes. Lady Rydal? Here are your daughters come to see you!’ But her cheery tones of one announcing a great treat were unheeded. She had not seemed to know them, or to care who they might be. Only once during the hour, when they had been conversing quietly and pointlessly to each other, she had suddenly said quite clearly, ‘After the fall, when my horse had refused, they came and cut my laces – and oh! the exquisite relief! But, of course, one needs the support, and quite soon my back began to ache.’
‘When was that, Mummy darling?’ But she had taken no notice of the question.
Jessica sipped her coffee and made a face. ‘I suppose soon there won’t be any coffee at all. That will be particularly awful for you because you love it so much.’
This was an olive branch – or rather, twig: it had only been a minor irritation, and Villy was glad to take it. ‘You’ll come back with me, won’t you? I mean, it seems to me that anything might happen, and it’s such a long journey for you.’
‘Thank you, darling. Well, just for the weekend, anyway. Then I must go back to shut Frensham up. Store everything, and see if I can find a tenant.’
‘Really? What does Raymond say?’
‘He doesn’t seem to mind which is surprising, but he’s actually got this job at Blenheim and he’s so thrilled that he can’t think of anything else.’
‘Jess! How wonderful! What’s he doing?’
‘He says it’s terribly hush-hush and he can’t say. That friend of his mother’s – old Lord Carradine who was always nice to him when he was young – mentioned his name and, of course, being disabled, a desk job’s just right for him. He didn’t want me to tell anyone until he’d had his interview, which apparently he sailed through. It’s just so wonderful that he’s found a niche.’
‘So what will you do?’
‘Well. I was wondering whether Judy could join your lot with Miss Milliment. I don’t like her going to a boarding school and she does love being with Lydia.’
Remembering Lydia’s remarks about Judy, Villy replied, ‘It’s a lovely idea, but of course I’d have to talk to the Duchy. And Miss Milliment too, I suppose.’
‘She won’t mind. She was worrying in the summer about not being useful enough.’
‘Was she? When was that?’
‘When we came over at the beginning of the holidays. She said she felt she ought to take herself off for a few weeks, but she didn’t know where to go. I couldn’t offer to have her because Raymond finds her difficult.’
‘What will you do? Do you want to join the clan?’
‘It’s awfully sweet of you, darling, but I rather thought I’d perhaps take over Mummy’s house in London. We can’t just leave it closed down with everything in it.’
‘Bryant’s still there, isn’t she?’
‘Yes, but we ought to do something about that. I mean, with the nursing home, I don’t think Mummy can
afford to go on paying wages to servants whom she’s never going to need any more. I know it’s awful,’ she added as she saw Villy’s face, ‘but I thought we ought to agree what kind of settlement we could make, with Bryant particularly, who has been jolly faithful and is really too old to get another job.’
‘Yes, we should. But why London for you especially?’
Jessica answered vaguely that she was thinking of getting some job or other, ‘some kind of war work, even if it’s only cooking in a canteen’, but after that, there was constraint between them. Jessica knew, and Villy suspected, that war work was not the only reason. To change the subject Jessica said, ‘Any news of Edward?’
‘He’s coming tomorrow. He was coming tonight, but then he rang to say he couldn’t get leave until tomorrow.’
‘I suppose one must be grateful for small mercies.’
‘Oh, one must. Otherwise there would be nothing to be grateful for.’ Her tone was almost dramatically bitter, and Jessica decided not to reply.
In the car, when Jessica was driving them back, Villy said, ‘Isn’t it a bit unwise to set up in London just now? Won’t Raymond want you to be safer – to find somewhere near him? Oxford?’
‘Oh, no! He’s delighted to be away on his own. And I think it’s good for him to be with entirely new people, who don’t know a thing about the chicken farming or dog kennels or any of those things that didn’t work out. And, quite frankly, I’m glad to get him away from Frensham, because it proved to be in the most awful state – Aunt Lena had done nothing to it for years, and he was in a fair way to spending every penny we’d got repairing it. If I’m in London, it will be easy for him to pop up when he’s free …’ There was another silence while both of them thought about the same, quite different thing.
‘And how’s Sybil doing?’ Jessica asked with a kind of bright concern.
‘She’ll be home in about a week.’
‘Did she have to have—?’
‘Everything out? Yes, she did, poor dear. She’ll need a longish convalescence. But they said it was the only thing to do. Of course, we all thought she’d got cancer – including her. She was frightfully brave – just desperate that Hugh shouldn’t know.’
The Cazalet Chronicles Collection Page 75