Georgie opened the rabbit’s cage. The rabbit remained still; his ears were flat on his back and he crouched, poised for nothing very much. Only his nose was quivering. Georgie stroked his thick chestnut fur.
‘Couldn’t we give him some food?’
Georgie put his hand into one of his deep pockets. ‘Ow! I forgot Rivers was there. He’s in a bad temper because I’ve had a lot to do settling the python, as well as Morris, of course.’
‘Who’s Morris?’
‘This rabbit. His name is Morris – it’s just come to me. Rivers will have eaten all the best food.’ Georgie pulled the rat out of his pocket, its jaws firmly clenched round a carrot. Laura admired the way he calmly detached the carrot and gave it to her. ‘You can feed him if you’d like.’
‘Oh, thank you, Georgie.’
But when she pushed the carrot up Morris’s nose, he remained motionless, was not interested either in carrots, or anything very much. The Zoo Room, as Georgie called it, was really one of the icy cold ex-sculleries that were stuck onto the house like limpets. They were mostly unused, and Georgie had taken the largest to keep most of his animals and all their clobber. Tortoises were hibernating in an old wine crate. Rivers had a cage where he lived when Georgie was at school. Morris and the python had new cages hastily built yesterday after Georgie had been warned of the zoo’s two new inmates.
At that moment the twins burst into the room, shouting about tea being ready.
Rivers, meanwhile, had climbed onto Georgie’s neck, and remained there, nibbling his ear very delicately.
‘He’s apologising,’ Georgie said.
‘It was all most agreeable,’ Miss Milliment said, once she had been levered into Villy’s car. ‘There was only one thing that mystified me, that I didn’t quite understand.’ She was sitting in front beside Villy, with Roland silent in the back.
‘What was that?’
‘Well – I could not understand why neither Jessica nor dear Viola was there. It seemed so strange that they were not.’
‘Perhaps I didn’t tell you but Jessica is having a lovely hot holiday in the Bahamas.’
‘How nice for her. Did Viola go with her?’
There was a pause, then Villy said, ‘I think you will find Viola at home.’
Roland was still silent in the back.
To change the subject, Villy said, ‘I hear you beat both the twins at Scrabble.’
‘Oh, well. As we grow older, we know more words than the young. They were very good about it, I must say. Roland and I should have a match.’
And Roland, bless his heart, said, ‘No one could beat you, Miss Milliment.’ Villy glanced at Miss M and saw that she was smiling gently into her pale chins. The compliment had pleased her.
They had all gone, except for Laura, who had pleaded to stay the night to help Georgie with his Zoo Room. She had wept, and implored and cajoled until, with Zoë’s agreement, she was allowed to stay. ‘But,’ Hugh had said, ‘you have got to do every single thing that Aunt Zoë and Uncle Rupert tell you to. If you don’t they will report it to me, and then you will never be allowed to stay with them again. Is that understood?’
Yes, it was.
‘No horribleness, no ghastliness.’
‘And, darling, you will clean your teeth and let Aunt Zoë plait your hair and stay in bed till you are told to get up? Aunt Zoë’s got a spare toothbrush.’
‘I promise. I deadly promise.’ The prospect of getting what she wanted was so dazzling that Laura would have promised anything. ‘And I’m known for keeping my promises,’ she added.
The other unexpected guest was Neville, but he had been so charming and helpful that Zoë did not at all mind his staying on. He seemed to have transformed Juliet from a sulky uncooperative teenager to an animated, charming young woman. Neville had made her take off her absurd make-up, and wear the green silk dress that had been Zoë’s Christmas present to her, which she had refused, initially, even to try on. ‘She looks like I did when I first met Rupe. And I was just as awful with my mother, even then.’
When she and Rupert were, thankfully, tucked up in bed, Zoë said, ‘I think she has rather a crush on Neville.’
‘Well, that can’t do any harm. She’s quite safe with him. Remember that wonderful sketch Joyce Grenfell did of the mother trying to persuade her daughter that getting engaged to a middle-aged Italian conjuror with two marriages behind him would not be the happiest situation in the world?’
She did.
‘At least we don’t have any of that. Look how helpful she’s been today.’
‘It was Neville who made her. When he said, “Juliet and I will clear up supper and the Christmas tea”, she got up and started doing it at once.’
‘Yes, well, as an older brother one would expect to engender some respect.’
‘A half-brother.’
‘Sweetie, what difference does that make?’ He pulled her towards him. ‘You’ve done a marvellous job today. Even Villy enjoyed it all. And Georgie is thrilled with his baby python. I won’t have you worrying about Jules’s future. She’s so very pretty that there will be no shortage of suitors when the time comes. Then, like you, she will probably get snapped up by a lovely man like me.’ He gave her his usual three goodnight kisses – on her forehead, her mouth and her throat. He went to sleep holding her hand.
But before sleep engulfed her, Zoë reflected that the immediate future – whether or not they were going to be moved to Southampton – had not been mentioned by either of them.
HUGH, JEMIMA AND FAMILY
In spite of not having all the family together (no Edward, no Polly), Hugh felt it had been a very good Christmas. He was particularly pleased that Simon had turned up because Wills had announced that he was staying with a friend. He had recognised that Simon, when he stayed with Polly, seemed to be happy, and was glad that he had found a career that really interested him. He still felt sad that Simon had no interest in the firm, but there it was. When he marries, he thought, and has a family, he may well change his mind. Meanwhile, he had been the most charming asset: sweet with Laura, and very good with Jemima’s boys. After all, it was early days – look at Rupert! When he had got home after the war, he had been quite happy to relinquish his precarious life as a painter and a teacher to become a director of Cazalets’. The trouble was that he was not really cut out to be a businessman. Putting him in charge of the Southampton wharf might turn out to be another disaster. Everybody liked him – staff and customers all found him most agreeable – but he was not an administrator. He forgot things, mislaid papers, which infuriated the accountants, and seemed to find it almost impossible to take decisions. He was not lazy, but he spent too much time talking to a customer simply because he liked them. And often not about business. He had come across Rupert having a lengthy and animated discussion about the French Impressionists; another time it had been about Sibelius, who’d died recently. It might be better to keep Teddy on where he was, but under McIver who knew the business backwards and could teach him. The wharf had been steadily losing money, and after his last, difficult meeting with the bank, they had been very clear that this could not go on. They had even recommended selling off Southampton, which he felt was out of the question.
‘Darling, you’re worrying. You really mustn’t. This is your holiday.’
They were sitting amid the wreckage of breakfast. The twins and Simon had finished theirs. And Henry and Tom had been quite stern with Jemima. ‘Mum! We would like to point out that when we ask you what’s for breakfast, you say, “Boiled eggs.” You don’t say, “One boiled egg.” That means at least two eggs per person. We might as well be at school – starving.’
So she had boiled them more eggs. After cereal, the eggs, and six pieces of toast and marmalade, they announced that Simon was going to take them ice skating, then back for lunch.
‘It sounds like a threat,’ Hugh said, as they thundered up the stairs.
‘They’re bottomless pits, those boys. But at leas
t there’s far more food available now. It was much worse in the war, and just after it when we had bread rationing.’
She was clearing the table when the telephone rang.
‘I’ll answer it,’ Hugh said. ‘It’ll be about Laura. I’m not sure whether we’re collecting her, or whether they are bringing her home.’
‘I think they’re bringing her because Georgie wants to go to the zoo.’
But it wasn’t about Laura: it was Rachel.
‘Hugh – is that Hugh?’
He said, yes, it was, and he had been going to ring her today to see if she had had a nice quiet Christmas with Sid. There was a pause, and then she said, ‘I have to tell you that Sid died on Christmas Day.’ Her voice, calm, but with an uncharacteristic flatness.
‘Oh, darling! You should have rung me before!’ But as soon as he’d said it, he realised how futile it was to upbraid her for something that didn’t matter at all.
‘I couldn’t speak to anyone. Had to get a bit used to it first.’ And although he couldn’t hear it, Hugh knew she had begun to weep. ‘I wanted to tell you first, because of Sybil, because you would know what it feels like. I just wanted you to know.’
‘Rach, I’m coming down to you—’ But she had rung off and he didn’t know whether she had heard him say that.
When he told Jemima, she agreed at once. ‘Oh, darling, you must go to her. Bring her back here, if you think it would help. Poor Rachel! She shouldn’t be alone.’ When he kissed her, she said, ‘Do you want me to pack your bag?’
‘I’ll do it. But you ring Rupe and ask him if he’s going to bring Laura back. And tell him why I’ve gone.’
As he packed enough for a night or two, the memory of Sybil’s dying came back to him as freshly, as painfully, as if it were yesterday: her agony, until the doctor relieved it, and holding her hand when she became unconscious, then left him – became nothing at all. Tears pricked his eyes and he had to sit on the bed for a few moments, overcome.
Jemima met him in the hall. ‘I’ve made you a turkey sandwich to eat in the car.’
‘Sure you can manage the troops?’
‘Quite sure. Call me if there’s anything I can do.’
As she helped him into his overcoat, she said, ‘Darling Hugh. You’ll be a comfort to her. You’re her favourite brother.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘I just do.’
She saw him into his car and waved him goodbye from the front door. The snow on the streets was already turning into grey slush. She remembered then the morning when the telegram had arrived telling her that Ken was dead, and how it had seemed as though the earth had opened up where she stood in her parents’ narrow hall – nothing was solid, nothing safe except the baby inside her; she had then been too frightened for grief. It wasn’t until she had received a letter from his wing commander containing a eulogy about Ken’s courage, his popularity with his crew, his devotion to his duty, that mourning had enveloped her. For weeks she went for solitary walks, sat silent during the anxious meals her mother urged her to eat, and wept most of the nights alone in her single bed in her parents’ spare room. Then the news that she was to have twins was broken to her on one of her monthly visits to the doctor, and the reality of her situation began to impinge. She would have to earn at least some of her living, and how was she to do that with two children to bring up? Her parents, who, she knew, had next to no money to spare, none the less paid for her to do a shorthand and typing course. She found a cheap flat in Maida Vale and got spasmodic work typing manuscripts for an agency. It was not well paid, but it meant she could work at home, and as the children grew old enough to go to school, she ventured upon an office job with a firm called Cazalets’ and then … Hugh. She was the luckiest person in the world, she thought, as she so frequently did, and she had everything she could possibly want; her only anxiety was Hugh’s health. The disagreement between him and Edward was exhausting him, and he was working and worrying far more than he should. His headaches had become more frequent and he came home every night grey with fatigue. I might try talking to Edward, she thought. If I knew more about his side of it, I might find a way of getting them to talk reasonably to each other without being so angry.
She thought of poor Rachel; her losing Sid meant her losing everything; with her parents gone and with Sid gone, she was left with nobody to love and need her, and living alone at Home Place seemed a desolate future. She rang Rupert’s house and got Zoë, who said that Rupert was on his way to drop Laura off before taking Georgie to the zoo.
She set about making the turkey sandwiches for lunch, wondering how to explain Hugh’s absence to the children. He had been due to take the twins and Simon to The Bridge on the River Kwai, but Simon could perfectly well do that on his own while she dealt with Laura, who would almost certainly be tired from excitement and Georgie’s company. The turkey sat before her looking like some architectural ruin; Hugh was not a brilliant carver, and had been hacking so much with the carving knife that it was now blunt. She had barely detached one of the immense haunches when the doorbell rang and Laura was back with Rupert.
‘Mummy, Georgie’s going to the zoo and I so awfully want to go with him.’
She said no.
‘Uncle Rupert doesn’t mind. He said I could.’
‘I didn’t, Laura. I said you had to ask your mother.’
‘Well, I am asking you.’ She was all set for a big scene.
‘And I have said no, and I mean it.’
Laura gave her a belligerent glare and burst into tears. ‘You’ve ruined my whole day. I hate you. Georgie was going to show me really poisonous snakes that you can’t see anywhere else.’
‘That’s enough. Go up to your room. Thank Uncle Rupert for having you and then go. At once.’
‘I won’t thank him. He’s not having me. I’ve never been so sad in all my life.’
But she went. And as Jemima walked to the gate with Rupert, she told him about Rachel, and Hugh’s departure for Home Place. ‘He’s going to ring me this evening and will say if there’s anything we can do.’
‘I knew Sid wasn’t at all well, but I’d no idea it was as bad as that. Do you think I should go down?’
‘Better wait and see what Hugh says.’ She’d let him know. She hoped Laura had not been too much of a trial.
‘Good as gold,’ he replied. ‘They always behave better in other people’s houses, don’t they? Georgie had a whale of a time showing off to her.’ He bent to kiss her. ‘Must be off. There’s a tyrant in my car.’
Hugh rang her in the evening to say that he was going to stay two nights with Rachel to help her arrange the funeral, to provide general support, ‘And to try and persuade her to stay with us for a little while afterwards. She’s dead tired and in a state of shock. I don’t think she should be on her own here. She doesn’t want everybody to come to the funeral, just me and Rupert and Archie, the three of us whom Sid loved most.’
‘What about Edward?’
He snorted. ‘No. Ever since that disastrous evening, she hasn’t seen him at all. And in spite of living so near, it turns out he had no idea that Sid was so ill, and Rachel feels it would distress her if he came. She’s afraid that Diana might come with him, and she simply couldn’t cope with that. She wants the funeral to be very quiet, and she wants Sid to be buried next to the Duchy. She sends you her love, Jem, and to Zoë and Clary. Will you tell them that? I’ll ring you again tomorrow.’ And after some endearments, he rang off. She could tell that he was exhausted from his quiet, tired voice.
‘The funeral is next Wednesday,’ Archie said. ‘And Rupe is going to drive me down.’
‘Good,’ Clary said. It was the day that they were auditioning for the young girl’s part, and she desperately wanted to be there.
‘It’s all right about the children. I’ve fixed for them to go to Zoë.’
‘They’re meant to be at school.’
‘Well, they’ll just have to have a day off.’
/> ‘Oh, all right.’
‘Sometimes, my darling, I wish you could be a bit more gracious when things are arranged for you.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like saying, “Thank you, kind Archie,” and “Whatever would I do without you?” that sort of thing.’
‘Would you do that, if it was the other way round?’
He thought for a moment. ‘Possibly not. But it’s not quite the same, is it?’
‘It ought to be. Supposing I wanted to go on the Aldermaston march, which would take ages longer than a funeral, would I have to butter you up to be allowed to go?’
‘I’d hate it. Days of awful food for me and the children.’
‘So you’d rather have a hydrogen bomb.’
‘Of course not. Oh, Clary, don’t let’s quarrel. I feel too depressed – haven’t the heart for it. Think how lucky we are to have each other to talk to, or quarrel with, or bicker. Poor Rachel has no one.’
She ran to him so suddenly that she nearly knocked his jar of turps out of his hand. ‘You’re absolutely right. And I don’t know what I’d do without you, and we are lucky.’
‘Darling, you’re not a painter so how come you’ve got paint in your hair?’
‘I may not be a painter,’ she said, running her rather sticky hands round his neck, ‘but I have a close relationship with one.’
‘It sounds thoroughly unhealthy to me.’ He prised her arms off his shoulders. ‘And it is advisable to dry your hands before you assault strange men.’
‘They’re perfectly clean – it’s only soap. If you ask me, you’re not very good at intimacy.’
‘It’s all my English blood. Anyway, you’ve cheered me up. I promised Harriet I’d take her to Bumpus to choose a book from the token Polly gave her.’
‘Do ask whether she’s written to thank her for it. I told them four letters each before any more treats.’
The visit to Polly had been a real break for her, but she realised that it had been nothing of the sort for Polly: more like unremitting hard work and responsibility. Gerald, for all his sweetness and warmth, had to be monitored: he clearly had no idea about money or how to manage it, and was constantly thinking up wild schemes to improve his monstrous house; he seemed quite unaware of the perils surrounding Nan’s approaching senility.
The Cazalet Chronicles Collection Page 226