At Newhaven, he took the Pullman: he was tired from sitting up all night and had gone without breakfast. He was served an execrable lunch by the impeccable steward who behaved like an old family retainer.
‘Nice to see you, sir. I hope you had a good holiday,’ he said, as he tenderly placed a plate of brown Windsor soup before Archie. He drank the soup and ate some of the rugged little fillets of plaice that followed, but then he gave up and fell asleep.
The steward waited until they were drawing into Victoria before giving him his bill. ‘Didn’t like to wake you, sir.’
He had debated whether to go home first and telephone from there, but he didn’t. He took a cab straight to Blandford Street. It was just under eighteen hours since he had got the telegram. He rang the bell, waited, rang again, and eventually, she came down to let him in.
‘I thought you were in France!’
‘I was. Let me in, Clary.’
She had been standing, indeterminate in the gloom.
‘Oh – all right.’
She led the way upstairs to her room, which was in its usual state of chaos. The relief he had felt at seeing her, at her being there, ebbed to a different anxiety. She looked dreadful. Her face, devoid of the absurd make-up in which he had last seen her, was puffy and grey with bruising circles under her eyes. She was wearing a ragged, peach-coloured kimono that he recollected Zoë had used to wear. Something to do with Noël, he thought. She would take that very hard.
‘I was in bed, actually,’ she said. Her voice was lifeless and carefully non-committal. All the same, some relief returned.
‘What made you come back?’
‘Poll sent me a telegram. She said you were in trouble.’
‘Did she say what kind?’
‘The line was too bad. I couldn’t hear.’
‘You said a telegram.’
‘Yes, and as a result of it I rang up.’
‘Oh.’
There was a silence. She stood facing him, and he saw that she was trembling.
‘What’s up?’
‘I might as well tell you. It seems that I’m pregnant. Pretty corny of me, isn’t it?’
‘You know that you are?’
‘Yep. I’d been worrying a bit – and I found out for sure last week.’
It was the last thing he had expected.
‘Nobody else knows,’ she said, ‘except Poll.’ After a pause, she added in the same lifeless voice, ‘And Noël, of course. And Fenella.’ She frowned, as though she was trying to hold her face together. ‘Oh, Archie! They’re so angry about it! As though I meant to be! It was just an awful mistake – I really don’t know how it happened at all. I don’t!’ And she collapsed on to the floor hugging her knees and began a painful, dry sobbing.
He knelt beside her and she clung to him. He stroked her head, put his arms round her and let her sob. There were no tears.
‘I can’t even cry properly any more,’ she said. ‘I seem to have used up all the usual ways of doing it.’
‘Darling Clary. Of course it’s not your fault. Of course it isn’t.’ After a bit, he said, ‘Why is Noël so angry?’
‘Because he hates the idea of children. He says it would drive him mad. And she says – Fenella says – that it’s true. He made her promise never to have one and she did, and she says I’ve betrayed them both. I didn’t mean to! It was just an awful accident!’
‘Do you want to have it?’
‘How can I? He would never speak to me again – or see me. I love him and I couldn’t be so selfish and wicked as that.’ A moment later, she said. ‘It’s all over anyway. They told me yesterday – at least she did. He can’t even bear to see me. Oh, Archie, I don’t know what to do! I don’t know how to – how to – have an abortion, and anyway, they cost hundreds of pounds.’
‘If he doesn’t want you to have it, he might ante up for that.’
But she looked at him with speechless denial. Then she said, ‘I thought he loved me. I really believed that. Sorry, Archie, I’ve got to go and be sick.’
While she was gone, he removed books, papers and some clothes from the only easy chair for her return. A sheet of writing paper floated to the floor. He picked it up. ‘My darling Noël,’ he read, and read no more. The line between what was his business and what was not had suddenly become very tenuous. It was his business to help her now. He must not lose his temper in front of her about that bastard: indeed, he hoped that Noël would stick to severing all connection with her, as it might shorten her misery about him. He must be careful to say nothing that would provoke her into defending him.
She came back and he made her sit in the chair, drew up a kitchen stool and sat by her.
‘Better?’
‘I jolly well hope so. That’s the third time today. It usually stops by now.’
‘Do you want a cup of tea or anything?’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t particularly want one, but I’d better have a water biscuit. They’re supposed to be a good thing, Polly says. She’s been finding out things like that.’
‘What does Poll think about it all?’
‘It’s difficult, because she didn’t like Noël the one time she saw him. I don’t know why, she just didn’t, and I asked her and, of course, she told me. She’s extremely truthful, so she had to say.’
There was a pause, and then she added, ‘It was mutual, actually. Noël thought she was shallow.’
‘You don’t agree with that.’
‘No,’ she said wearily. ‘I sometimes don’t agree with him about things.’
‘Where are your water biscuits?’
‘I think under my bed – I think they must have got there.’
‘Did you have any lunch?’
‘There wasn’t much point. I usually have dinner. That seems to be okay.’
‘You mean you can fancy it and keep it down?’
It was an old family joke. She nearly smiled then. ‘That was one of Dad’s chars, wasn’t it? Dad did seem to have the most remarkable collection of them.’
‘Do you think it might be a good thing to tell him about this?’
‘Not if I can help it. I suppose if I have the baby, he’d have to know – everyone would …’
‘Well,’ he said, ‘you don’t have to think about that now, or make any decision. I think it might be a good idea if you had a little sleep. I can stay upstairs in Poll’s rooms and then I’ll take you out to dinner. Would that suit?’
‘What will you do?’
‘I’ll read, or I might have a short kip myself. Didn’t sleep much on the train.’
She agreed to this, although she said she wasn’t sleepy. ‘But I have got rather a headache.’
He got her some aspirin from the cupboard in the tiny little bathroom and a glass of water. When he returned, she’d got into bed. ‘Goodness! London water tastes so horrible! I’ve only just started noticing it.’
He drew her curtains. ‘I’ll be upstairs if you want me.’
‘Yes, you will. Archie! Did you come back specially for me?’
‘Yup. I’m very much attached to you, you know.’
‘I’m attached to you,’ she responded – more like the old Clary, he thought.
He waited fifteen minutes before going down to look at her: she was deeply asleep.
Away from her, he was able to think more clearly. She had three options: to have the baby and get it adopted, to have it and bring it up herself, or not to have it. It was essential that she should make this decision without his or anyone else’s influence. He knew nothing about abortion except that it was illegal, which must in turn mean that it might be difficult to find somebody who would do it, and even more difficult to check up on them. It occurred to him that Teresa, Louis Kutchinsky’s partner, might know somebody, and she had met Clary once when he had taken her to dinner there about three years ago. He rang them and made a plan to go and see them the following day. If she wanted that, he could pay for it, and he resolved upon telling her so
that that would not be an influence, but there was no point in an option that she thought was practically impossible. If she decided to have it, then Rupert would have to be told: he wondered why she had not told him already. But, then, Clary would not have told him, Archie, if Poll hadn’t got him back. What on earth would have happened if Poll hadn’t sent the telegram – if he hadn’t come back? Supposing Teresa didn’t know of anyone, how would he set about finding them? On the other hand, how could Clary have a baby and a job? He was too tired to contemplate these problems. He wrote a note to Polly saying that he was upstairs in her room and that Clary was asleep, and went down to put it on the stairs by the front door. Then he went back to Polly’s room and cast himself upon her divan.
When he woke Polly was putting a tea tray on her table. ‘Thought you might like some.’
‘Thanks. I would.’
‘You did get back fast. I couldn’t hear you properly on the telephone so I wasn’t sure if you’d come.’
‘I hope you didn’t mind me passing out on your bed.’
‘Of course not. You’ve got very brown.’
‘It was hot.’
He sat up and she gave him some tea.
‘It’s pretty awful, isn’t it?’ she said.
‘Yes. Poor Clary. He does sound a perfect swine.’
‘He sounds like he is.’
‘She said you didn’t like him. What’s he actually like?’
He saw her small frowns come and go on her forehead – something that always happened when she was thinking hard.
‘Everything he is,’ she said slowly, ‘is about himself. He only came here once – for tea. Clary awfully wanted me to meet him. But he didn’t want to come, and he sat sort of slightly sneering if we talked, and otherwise he talked to Clary, mostly about things he wanted her to do for him. He won’t go into shops, for instance, so everything has to be bought for him. He was telling her how to get to some ghastly place in the East End to get him some kind of special socks because his feet are so sensitive and he does so much walking. It was going to take her a whole afternoon. Not one when she was working for him, she was to do it on her free Saturday. Clary keeps on about his having had such a frightful childhood, but it seems to me that he’s never stopped having one. Only now, he’s a completely spoilt child, getting the grown-ups to make it up to him all the time. Fenella, that’s his wife, doesn’t eat meat at all now, because she thinks he needs her meat ration for his energy. His blasted energy! He wears poor Clary out. Apart from what he’s done to her now.’ She looked at him, wrinkling her nose in disgust. ‘The thought of poor Clary having a ghastly miniature Noël is more than I can bear. You must stop her, Archie. Somehow.’
This last thought, he realized, was one that he had been suppressing all the afternoon.
‘That must be her choice,’ he said. ‘Although, if you really feel it would be such a disaster, I suppose there would be no harm in your saying so.’
‘I hoped you would be the person to do that.’ Then she added, ‘You must be right. It must be wrong to try and influence her, or we wouldn’t each be trying to get the other one to do it.’
Poll was different, he thought. She looked, as usual, elegant, wearing a grass-green sleeveless dress and bright blue sandals, with her hair tied back by a ribbon of the same colour. It was not her appearance that had changed, but her manner: she seemed more poised, more assured, and he realized then that she had never treated him as an equal before. It was over two months since he had seen her. She seemed cooler, and at the same time more open. Just as he was beginning to wonder whether she no longer thought she was in love with him, she said, ‘Archie. I feel I ought to tell you. I’ve got over you at last. Oh dear, it sounds rather rude, doesn’t it? But I mean you needn’t worry any more. Naturally, I’m extremely fond of you. But I do realize that the difference in our ages made the whole thing silly.’ She smiled charmingly.
‘There now,’ he said. ‘I’m glad you told me. Did it happen suddenly?’
‘I think it happened extremely slowly, but I noticed it suddenly. But I’m sorry about it. One of the things I discovered is that it must have been pretty awful for you. I thought it was only awful for me.’
‘No, no,’ he said. ‘In a way it was a good thing you started with a nice safe old buffer like me instead of some frightful cad.’
‘You’re not an old buffer! You know, Archie, I honestly think you should get married to someone. It’s what I keep telling Dad. I mean, there must be thousands of middle-aged ladies whose husbands were killed in the war who’d love to marry either of you.’
‘Oh, Poll!’ A queue of middle-aged women in black cardigans, all looking as though marriage was the least he could do for them, shuffled through his mind. ‘You really mustn’t patronize me. It will probably surprise you to know that I, too, have been hopelessly in love so I do know what it feels like, and although I’m over that now, I still have romantic notions of being thoroughly in love before I would think of marrying anyone. And I’m about seven years younger than your father. Not,’ he added, feeling this last to be rather petulant, ‘that that actually makes much difference. I expect your father feels much as I do.’
She had been confounded, had gone a dark pink with tears of chagrin in her eyes, as she apologized again and again. ‘It’s so difficult to see people one has known when one was young as people,’ she had said. ‘Particularly with parents. But you aren’t a parent, Archie, you’ve always been our friend, so there’s no excuse with you. Well,’ she had finished bravely, ‘I hope you find someone who you become terrifically in love with – if that is what you want. And not if you don’t, of course.’
Much later, long after he had got home from the evening with Clary, which, although it had had its ups and downs, he felt on balance had been a good thing, and when he had read his letters, unpacked and had a bath, he wondered briefly whether he ever would find anyone, or whether, in spite of what he had said to Polly, there was a kind of watershed that he had reached after which everything that he had taken for granted that he believed in and wanted was no longer possible. Lying in the dark he was able to acknowledge that he did not want to be alone for the rest of his life and wondered uneasily whether that might in the end make him settle – as he imagined poor Hugh might – for someone who would at least reliably be there.
PART THREE
One
EDWARD
1946
He sat in what he still thought of as the Brig’s office. He had not changed it at all: it still contained the vast desk, the laurelwood drinks cabinet stocked with beautiful decanters and cut-glass tumblers, the rows of yellowing framed photographs – various members of the firm standing beside vast logs, the earliest lorries, even one of a horse-drawn waggon that had carried timber, of various giant aged trees that had taken the Brig’s fancy at Kew or on some estate or arboretum, or himself mounted upon a variety of horses, and then the ones of the family, particularly two that Edward kept looking at of himself and Hugh in uniform taken just before they had gone to France in 1914. One of the many awful things about that war had been worrying whether Hugh was all right. He remembered that extraordinary meeting, after they had both been in France for months without being in touch at all, when their horses had neighed in recognition as they rode towards one another on that road into Amiens. And then, when he had heard that Hugh had copped it, was in hospital, he’d managed somehow to wangle the time to get there and see the poor old boy. He’d been so shocked at the sight of him – his head and arm bandaged, his face drawn and white and how even when he smiled the haunted expression in his eyes did not change. He’d felt such a surge of love for him that when he knew he had to go and, after all, might not see him again, he’d kissed the old boy. They’d neither of them mentioned then, or ever afterwards, what hell it was out there, but the knowledge that they both knew had been yet another private bond between them.
And now there was this awful rift. Hugh’s disapproval of his leaving Villy and goi
ng off with Diana made him angry; there seemed nothing he, Edward, could do about it. He wasn’t just angry, he was deeply hurt. He and Hugh had always stuck together; they had argued sometimes – Hugh was an obstinate old devil – but they had always come to some agreement. They had worked together, had holidays together, spent much time together playing chess and golf and squash. Hugh was, he now thought, probably the person he’d been closest to in his life.
He’d rung him a few minutes ago on the intercom, but they said he’d left, and Edward remembered that there was a party for Miss Pearson. He decided not to go to it. He won’t want me there, he thought miserably. Just as he got up from his desk there was a knock on the door and Teddy appeared. He was so pleased to see him that he suggested a drink. ‘Just a quick one, and then I must be on my way.’
Teddy said that would be fine.
While he was getting the whisky out he thought how extraordinarily like himself as a young man Teddy had become: the same crinkly, curly hair, the same blue eyes, even the same moustache. The boy looked tired, though, but he supposed that the combination of a long hard day’s work (he had told Hartley to put Teddy through it – not only not to spare him, but to work him harder than employees not called Cazalet) plus a wife whom he suspected of being pretty insatiable in bed was fairly taxing. He’d taken them both out to dinner with Diana the previous week: they’d gone dancing, and it had been clear to him, dancing with Bernadine, that she was fairly keen on men.
‘All well at home?’
‘Yes, thanks.’
‘And work? Getting on all right with the new boss?’ Hartley had left for Southampton that week.
‘I think so. But that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.’
‘Oh. Yes?’ He felt instantly wary.
‘The thing is – I was wondering when I was going to be paid a bit more …’ There was a short silence, during which Teddy met his eye, and then looked away.
The Cazalet Chronicles Collection Page 173