The Cazalet Chronicles Collection

by Elizabeth Jane Howard

  Park House was not easy to find, and they lost their way – had to stop and ask a farmer, whose tractor was towing a cart loaded with bales of hay. Eventually they found the narrow turning that led up the drive to the house.

  ‘It looks very imposing,’ she had said, but Rachel had replied, ‘Oh, Ed has always liked large houses.’

  They were greeted in the hall with varying degrees of enthusiasm by Edward, Diana and a yellow Labrador.

  ‘It’s so lovely to see you, darling – down, Honey, DOWN! This is Diana.’

  ‘And this is Sid,’ Rachel said.

  ‘Lovely to see you, Sid.’ She found herself briefly enveloped in lavender water and then the Lebanon cedar that scented all of Edward’s clothes as he propelled them to the drawing room.

  It was close-carpeted in a brilliant yellow, and had one window that looked onto the drive, and two that looked onto a garden, which had lawn, a cedar, and was bounded by three walls edged with wide beds of herbaceous plants.

  While she was taking all this in, and Edward was opening a bottle of champagne, she heard the following exchange.

  Rachel: ‘I’ve brought a little bunch of my mother’s violets. They’re the old-fashioned kind, because she always thought they smelt the best.’

  Diana: ‘How sweet of you. It’s such a pity that they don’t really last when they’ve been picked, isn’t it?’

  Sid turned from the window to see Diana put the flowers on the nearest table. She wore a crêpe dress of emphatic purple with a row of black sequins round the low-cut neck. I’m never going to like her, Sid thought then.

  Edward had poured the champagne into four glasses and was now handing it round. ‘Here’s to all of us.’ He lifted his glass, and they all drank – in Rachel’s case, sipped. She drank very little, but her family had always taken wine seriously and, naturally, she did not want to hurt Edward’s feelings. Sid took an unthinking gulp; she used to love champagne, but the last two or three times it had given her violent indigestion. Oh, well, I won’t have to drink any more because I’m driving, she thought. This excuse cheered her, and she wondered how much longer Diana would continue to avoid speaking to her.

  By the time the champagne was finished, it was time to go into dinner. The dining room was dark red – damask paper made to look like rich material, crimson velvet curtains of a darker colour, and three pairs of sconces that produced a subdued electric light. The table was round, made of rosewood, and laid for what looked like an elaborate dinner. She had time to notice all this because Diana was arranging ‘the placement’, as she put it.

  ‘Oh, come on, darling! It’s quite simple. You sit in your usual place with me opposite and the girls between us. This is a family dinner – the Lord Mayor unfortunately couldn’t make it.’

  So they all sat as told.

  ‘I think you forget, darling, that I don’t know your family. Of course I’ve heard a lot about you – may I call you Rachel? – but I hardly know your name. Miss Sidney, isn’t it? Like the Australian town. Do you by any chance come from there?’

  ‘I don’t. I’m strictly European. Jewish, actually.’

  At this moment the soufflé arrived.

  ‘I think I’d better serve it, Amy. You bring the plates quickly, and make sure they’re hot. It’s crab,’ she explained.

  While Sid was thinking wildly of how she could get out of eating any, Rachel was asking to be given very little, as she could not eat much. ‘And I can see that there is more to come.’

  ‘I’m rather like Rachel in that respect,’ she said.

  But Diana simply behaved as though neither of them had spoken, doling out mountainous spoonfuls of an equal size for all of them. Meanwhile, Edward was pouring a white wine into their glasses, telling them it was a special sauvignon in their honour. ‘It’s especially good with crab!’ She had to eat some of the soufflé, and found that washing it down with wine was a help.

  The conversation was clinging rather limply to the problems of the Suez Canal. Edward said that he could not imagine Nasser would accept an international body administering the canal. He must be stopped – indeed should have been opposed with force from the moment he seized it. Rachel deplored the way in which politicians regarded force as the best way of dealing with anything. Diana said that she entirely agreed with Edward, but it was a comfort that we had the French on our side.

  Rachel had managed to move most of her crab onto Edward’s plate and was now having a conversation with him, conducted so quietly that Sid could not hear it.

  Diana rang a little hand-bell for the plates to be changed. She looked pointedly at Sid’s, but said nothing. Indeed, Sid thought, they clearly had very little to say to one another, but she knew that Rachel needed to talk to Edward about Hugh, so she must somehow distract Diana. The new house might be the most promising subject.

  ‘It is a beautiful house. Did it take you a long time to find it?’

  ‘Ages. Edward, darling, how long did it take us to find Park House?’

  ‘Darling, I’ve no idea. Diana did all the work – she looked at dozens of places and sorted out three for me to view.’

  ‘It had to be within commuting distance of London because Edward seems to have more and more work these days, since they sent Teddy to Southampton. The poor old boy comes home exhausted, and we both look forward to Friday night.’

  The next course arrived. A venison stew, Diana explained, done in wine and brandy. Edward got up to collect a bottle of burgundy from the sideboard.

  The casserole stood steaming in front of Diana; the smell made Sid feel queasy, and her back was starting to ache. She asked for a very small helping, and this time she put her hand on Diana’s arm to emphasise her request. ‘Rachel and I are used to a very light supper at home – an omelette or a bowl of soup.’

  ‘Oh, Edward! Why didn’t you tell me? You said you wanted an especially nice dinner for Rachel so, of course, I planned a bit of a feast. Pointless, as it turns out. You might have warned me!’

  Rachel, who looked really distressed, said, ‘Oh, Diana, don’t take any notice of Sid. She’s always worrying about food – particularly where I’m concerned. The venison smells simply delicious – I’m longing to try it.’

  This mollified Diana somewhat, and she ladled a large amount onto a plate and handed it over the table to her sister-in-law. The maid had brought in two vegetable dishes that turned out to contain new potatoes and peas. ‘Do help yourself,’ she said.

  Edward, who had finished pouring the burgundy, turned to Rachel. ‘This was the Brig’s favourite burgundy. It was left to me, and this is the last bottle.’

  ‘Oh, darling Edward, how very sweet of you.’

  When it came to serving Sid, Diana, underlining every movement, as it were, picked half a carrot and two very small cubes of meat. She then poured from the jug so much sauce that nothing on the plate could be seen and handed the plate to her. ‘I hope you’re hungry,’ she said to Edward, in a threateningly quiet voice.

  ‘Of course I am.’ He was angry: things didn’t seem to be going at all as he had expected, and he couldn’t understand why.

  Rachel made a desperate effort. Having taken a cautious sip of the wine, she said how good it was, stared at her plate, then resolutely began to eat. She shot a glance at Sid, which clearly meant ‘do the same’, but the fumes rising from the sauce were making Sid afraid that she might actually be sick, and after the terrible débâcle at Home Place, this paralysed her with terror. Here she did not even know where the nearest lavatory was … So, in the end, she simply did not eat.

  From that moment Diana ignored her.

  ‘What are you two talking about?’ she called across the table.

  ‘Oh – just family matters,’ Edward answered.

  ‘Well, I suppose I’m family now, so could I please join in?’

  ‘Well, it’s a bit complicated,’ Rachel said. ‘I was hoping to get Edward to have lunch with me and Hugh.’ She was blushing. ‘To sort something out. It�
�s more to do with the firm than the family, really.’

  She had stopped eating her venison, but had almost finished her wine.

  Sid said, ‘Anything to do with the firm is to do with the family.’

  Edward, refilling her glass, said, ‘It’s no good, Rachel, old dear. Hugh’s not going to change his mind, and he is the chairman, after all.’

  There was a brief silence during which they all disliked one another. Then everything seemed to happen at once. Diana announced the pudding, which was to be a crème brûlée, Rachel wiped her tears with her napkin and seized Edward’s hand, and Sid, draining her glass (for courage), said, ‘It’s getting late. I really think we should be going home.’ Then, turning to Diana, she said, ‘You shouldn’t try to bully people about food. Leave it to them. Would someone please show me to a lavatory?’

  ‘Show her, Edward. We don’t want her throwing up on our new carpet.’

  He took her and she was able to be sick in peace. Then, rather shaky, but relieved, she returned to find Edward in the hall, helping Rachel into her coat. She put on her own, and felt for the keys.

  ‘Darling Ed, I’m so sorry we’ve been such a nuisance about food – and everything. I didn’t mean to worry you about Hugh – and since Sid hasn’t apologised about being so rude to Diana, after she had taken so much trouble, please tell Diana, please tell her now from me. And remember that you do love your brother, and everyone has disagreements from time to time.’

  ‘It would help if he would be civil to my wife.’

  ‘Of course it would, and I shall tell him.’ She laid a caressing hand on his shoulder and kissed him goodbye. ‘Come on, Sid.’

  Sid started the car and drove it to the lane before stopping. For a moment she was speechless with rage.

  ‘Why have you stopped?’

  ‘Why did you betray me like that? Putting it all on me. Yes, I was rude to Diana, but she had been getting at me all evening. Did you know that she didn’t condescend to acknowledge my presence until we got to the dining room and she started sniping about my origins? And when I asked if I could have a small helping of the crab – which you know I can’t bear – she simply piled it on my plate.’

  ‘She did that to both of us.’

  ‘And when that nauseating stew arrived, she pretended to make a small helping for me, then deluged it with that rich sauce. She didn’t do that to you because you sucked up to her, which simply made me look worse. I knew if I tried to eat any of that stew, I’d be sick. As for being rude, I thought a little plain speaking would do her good.’

  ‘It’s funny how people who are rude call it honesty or plain speaking. It’s only other people who are rude. Do you think that I wanted a rich meal like that? You might have had the manners to put up with it. I’m sure she was trying to be kind, making all those complicated things. As it is, you’ve made the whole evening a fiasco.’

  ‘There you are! Putting it all on me! It was all very well for you. You had Edward to talk to. I was stuck with her and she didn’t in the least want to talk to me.’

  There was a silence during which she realised that she had a pounding headache and her back was throbbing with small dagger-like stabs.

  Rachel said, ‘I think you’d better get on with driving us home. I’m tired, and I don’t want to discuss this any more. At least Diana didn’t say anything horrid when you told her you were Jewish.’

  ‘That was good of her, wasn’t it? Really wonderfully good!’

  Rachel did not answer. Nor did she reply to any of Sid’s increasingly desperate attempts to engage her. In the end, Sid stopped trying, concentrated on her driving (she had an uneasy feeling that she might be a bit drunk), but she was also confounded by this very different Rachel, who, until now, she had never encountered. The remark – no, the gibe, surely – that Rachel had made about Diana’s non-reaction to Sid’s saying she was Jewish, with its hostile inference, had really hurt her to the quick. Curiously, it had wounded her far more than the allegations about manners and rudeness. Rachel, who had once said, ‘I would rather be with you than anyone in the world,’ had painfully turned into the world. Tears stung her eyes, and as she covertly brushed them away, she glanced at Rachel, but she was leaning back in her seat, her eyes closed.

  Back at Home Place, she parked the car, woke Rachel, who said she had not been asleep, and unlocked the front door. Rachel went ahead of her. ‘I’m going to sleep in the Blue Room,’ was all she said, and Sid followed her up the front stairs where they parted without touching each other and in silence, Sid going towards the room they usually shared, and Rachel to the opposite passage.

  Sid took a painkiller, ate a water biscuit to allay her stomach, undressed and got into bed. She fully expected to lie awake all night, but in fact she was so exhausted that she fell almost at once into a deep, dreamless sleep.

  She was woken in the early hours by a tearful, contrite Rachel kneeling by the bed and imploring forgiveness. ‘Darling, I was so horrible to you. I’m so sorry – must have been a bit drunk. I had far more than I’m used to. But I’m not excusing myself. I was an absolute beast. I knew Diana was being awful to you and it was cowardly of me not to stand up for you – I was so disappointed in Edward being so obstinate about Hugh – no, I wasn’t just – I was angry. I was actually furious with him about everything, and then I thought, Whatever Diana is like he has married her, and I must try to see the best in her because of him. But you, my poor darling, you had the worst of it. You didn’t want to come anyway – only did it to drive me. Please, please, forgive me!’

  ‘Get into bed or you’ll freeze.

  ‘And of course I forgive you,’ she said a minute later.

  After they had kissed and Rachel lay in Sid’s arms, she said, ‘The worst thing I did was that monstrous gibe about it being a good thing that Diana hadn’t gone for you being Jewish. I said that to hurt you. I think when people are angry they pick on anything that will hurt, and that’s what I did. I take it all back, of course.’

  ‘You’re not very good at anger, my treasure. It’s never been your strong suit.’

  And so they made it up.

  It was some weeks before she could bring herself to ask (casually) whether Rachel actually minded her being Jewish, and was blessedly assured that of course she did not.

  LOUISE, JOSEPH AND EDWARD

  She felt very grown-up in her new black corded silk dress that Mrs Milic had made her, the bodice cut low with a deep, rounded neckline that showed off the gold chain Edward had given her for her birthday. She also felt a sense of triumph: although it had proved surprisingly easy to get her father and her lover to dine together, it was more fun to feel it had required intense diplomacy. Her father had fetched her from Blandford Street and they had arrived at L’Étoile before Joseph, were shown to their table by the patron himself and presented with glasses of champagne.

  ‘Darling, you do look wonderful. You get less and less plain by the week.’

  He was looking rather haggard – poor Dad – and she bet that living with Diana was no bed of roses. ‘How is your new house?’

  ‘Oh, splendid. You must come and visit us – we’d love to have you.’ But he said it without much conviction, and they smiled at each other to cover the insincerity.

  ‘Here’s Joseph,’ she said, with some relief.

  And Edward saw a tall, dark-haired man, impeccably dressed, with an Old Etonian tie, moving gracefully towards them. He shook hands with Edward and picked up Louise’s hand to kiss it. ‘How good of you to come.’ A glass was produced for him at once, with menus for them all.

  The menus were the kind that omitted prices on those given to the guests, and just as they were settling down to choose, the oldest waiter, with white hair and a tragic expression, wheeled a trolley up to them that contained a magnificent fish salad and they all decided that they would start with it. ‘It’s absolutely delicious,’ Louise told her father. She was famished – hadn’t eaten properly since her dinner with Joseph the night
before.

  Joseph, who had been studying the wine list, said, ‘How would you all feel about a rack of lamb to follow?’

  Louise said good, and Edward said perfect.

  ‘I must say you are the perfect guests: no fussing and changing your minds.’ He ordered two bottles of wine. ‘The red may be a bit of a gamble. It’s a 1934 Mouton Rothschild, and it may not have come round. I keep trying it every six months or so because it’s such a great wine, and last time it was so nearly there that tonight I feel we might just have hit the jackpot. Meanwhile I thought we’d start with a Pouilly Fumé. Your daughter told me that you feel about wine much as I do.’

  The white napery and sparkling glasses made for an atmosphere both festive and cosy, and the mirror glass in the back wall reflected an infinity of little red lamps around them.

  ‘Well, now. Louise has told me that you have a family business selling timber, and that you own three wharves, two in London and one in Southampton. Plus a London office in a pretty posh part of Westminster.’

  ‘Yes. But in the last few years we haven’t been making enough money.’

  ‘Ah.’

  There was a pause as they each started on their meal, and then Edward continued, ‘We specialise in unusual hardwoods – my father was the first timber merchant to import them. We used to do quite a lot of business with private railway companies, but since nationalisation that’s got much harder because there aren’t the number of buyers there used to be.’ Something about Joseph’s attentive and intelligent expression gave him confidence: he looked the sort of chap who’d understand.