Casting Off: Cazalet Chronicles Book 4 (23 page)

‘I think you’ve had enough for today,’ he said. ‘I know how tiring it is sitting.’

‘I’m afraid I’m not a very good sitter,’ she said as, hitching her pale blue satin skirts, she climbed down from the dais. ‘May I come and look?’

‘If you like. It isn’t finished yet.’

‘Goodness! My dress looks wonderful. And you’ve painted Mummy’s necklace marvellously. I should think diamonds are quite difficult to paint, aren’t they?’

‘You’re very modest,’ he said. ‘What about
you
? Do you think it’s a good likeness of you?’

She looked again at the picture. He could see that she was fascinated by it. ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I don’t know that sort of thing. I should think my parents will be pleased.’

Which is the main thing, he thought, while she was changing in a curtained-off end of the studio. He was charging two hundred guineas, and for that it was necessary to please. There were three daughters and so far only the pretty one had married. He had hopes of painting the other two. Mummy had helped him buy the house in Edwardes Square on the understanding that he paid her back, but the household cost quite a lot: Sebastian’s nannie and a cook and the daily woman, not to speak of the girl he employed to act as a part-time secretary, coffee-maker and general factotum at the studio, which he rented. And, until recently, there had been the fees to pay to the psychiatrist Louise had been going to. But only last week she had stopped, said it was pointless, and she was never going to him again. He sighed. She was actually being quite difficult and he was afraid that Mummy was beginning to notice this and would ask awkward questions about her.

Lady Alathea emerged in her twinset and flannel skirt. He was glad that he had not been called upon to paint her legs, he thought, as he put her into a taxi, kissing her hand and saying, ‘By the way, you’re a
wonderful
sitter,’ as the right kind of parting shot.

Outside it was freezing and dirty snow lay in ruts and ridges on the pavement. It had been filthy weather, either fog or rain or frost, and keeping the studio warm enough for sitters had cost a fortune. The stove that he had had installed was virtually useless since it was impossible to get enough coal for it. At least he’d get a better lunch with Mummy than at home. Mrs Alsop was a dreadful cook – the meals were all grey mince and boiled cabbage and potatoes filled with intractable grey lumps. Louise didn’t seem to care. Oh, well, he supposed it was good for his figure as he had an unfortunate tendency to put on weight far too easily.

His mother was lying on her usual sofa by the window that looked on to the small formal garden. She was wearing what she called her Russian jacket – dark red velvet with black fur round the high collar and cuffs of the loose sleeves. ‘How nice!’ she exclaimed, as he leaned down to kiss her. ‘What a lovely treat to have you all to myself! Give yourself a drink, darling, and then come and tell me what you’ve been up to.’

There were decanters of sherry and gin on the table with a small silver jug of water. He helped himself to a gin and pulled up a stool near her sofa. ‘I’ve spent the morning painting Alathea Creighton-Green,’ he said. ‘Rather hard going.’

His mother smiled with sympathy. ‘Poor Ione! To have
three
daughters and
no
son! And only one daughter was presentable. Is Alathea so very plain?’

‘Yes. So very.’

They smiled at each other. Occasionally, he went to bed with his sitters; somehow, he knew that she knew this although it was never mentioned. Her enquiry about Alathea’s plainness was her way of asking about that and his answer the denial.

‘Any minute now, one of us will say that beauty is not everything.’

He sensed that this was the most delicate probe towards discussing Louise and headed her off. ‘How’s the Judge?’

‘Embroiled in his committees. And as if they were not enough, in other people’s committees. Horder came to dinner last week. The British Medical Council want to launch a fund to fight the proposed National Health Bill. They want Peter to back them. And there’s another committee that wants MPs’ salaries to be increased to a thousand a year. Quite a step up from four hundred. Perhaps you should think again, darling. I’m sure I could get you a nice safe seat to nurse.’

‘Luncheon is served, my lady.’

‘Good morning, Sarah.’

He smiled at the solemn old parlourmaid, who smiled discreetly back. ‘Good morning, sir.’

As he helped his mother off the sofa, she said, ‘One thing I can promise you: we are not having squirrel pie.’

‘Squirrel
pie
?’

‘Darling! Do you never read the newspapers? The Ministry of Food has decreed that we should eat squirrels and to this end has issued a recipe for squirrel pie. Doesn’t it sound horrid?’

During their cheese soufflé she asked him about his future commissions for portraits and what arrangements he was making for an exhibition, and he felt himself expanding, basking in her lively, detailed interest, her assumption that he was a highly gifted painter with an important future ahead of him. Outside, enormous white flakes fell slowly from a darkened sky, but in the dining room she created another climate, both cosy and exciting; her obvious pride in him, her certainty of his worth, rekindled his assurance – he caught self-satisfaction from her like a delightful fever.

She had provided a bottle of hock for him, although she drank only barley water, and by the time they reached the pudding, he discovered that he had drunk most of it. It was arranged that she should come to his studio to help him pick the pictures for a show, or in some cases to look at photographs of them. ‘It doesn’t matter if up to a quarter of the pictures are already sold,’ she said. ‘The point of the show is to get more commissions.’

‘We shall have to offer the gallery a cut on
them
.’

‘We shall have to negotiate that. Now for a treat!’ Sarah had cleared the plates and returned with a silver platter on which something mysterious steamed.

‘It smells of bananas!’

‘It
is
bananas. Our very first. I kept them for you. And Peter was given a lemon from the Admiralty.’ She said this as though that was where one would naturally acquire such a thing.

‘Darling Bubbles James gave it to him. Wasn’t that sweet? So we have fried bananas with
brown
sugar and lemon!’

They were delicious. She ate very little, which meant that there were two helpings for him.

But when they returned to the drawing room for coffee before the fire and she was installed again upon her sofa, the atmosphere changed. She began by asking about her grandson, ‘whom I have not seen for far too long’.

‘Sebastian? He’s fine. Talking quite a lot now. Which I suppose he should be – he’s nearly three. Shall I get Nannie to bring him to tea with you?’

‘Do, darling.’ She picked up her embroidery. After a moment, she asked lightly, ‘And how is Louise?’

‘She’s all right. She read some poetry for the BBC last week, which thrilled her.’

‘And what else is she doing?’

‘How do you mean, darling?’

‘Well, I don’t imagine that reading some poems on a single occasion can have occupied her entire time for the last two months. I haven’t set eyes on her since Christmas.’

‘You frighten her, you know.’

‘I do
not
know. Oh no! I don’t frighten her, she dislikes me.’ And before he could protest, she added. ‘She dislikes me because I can see through her.’

‘Mummy darling, what do you mean by that?’

She put down her sewing and looked at him steadily. ‘I have been trying to make up my mind whether to talk to you about this or not. But we have never had any secrets from each other, have we?’

‘Of course not,’ he said untruthfully, and with haste.

‘Of course not.’ The only secrets she had had about him had been concealed entirely for his own good.

There was another silence crowded with things unsaid.

‘I’m afraid – how can I put this? – that Louise has been a very naughty little girl.’

‘Oh, Mummy, I know you don’t think she’s a good mother, but she’s still very young—’

‘Old enough to behave unforgivably.’

‘What are you trying to say?’

So then it all came out. Louise had been unfaithful to him. When he protested that he was certain that she had not been to bed with poor Hugo – his death had somehow softened the anger that he had felt about that affair – she said no, no, it was
after
Hugo, when he had taken her to Holyhead, some naval officer she had encountered there and subsequently met in London. She mentioned his name and he recognised it.

‘But how do you know that she—’

‘Had an affair with him? My dearest boy, they were seen going into a flat late one evening and then leaving it – separately – the following morning.’

Then she said, ‘For all I know, it may still be going on.’

‘I know that isn’t so. Rory got married about eight months ago. We were asked to the wedding.’ But she had shaken him badly. It was another shock – something that he had thought would never happen after the miserable business with Hugo.

‘Oh, darling. I can see it’s a shock to you. I am so very sorry. And angry as well. What have
you
done to deserve it?’

‘God knows.
I
don’t.’

She put out her hand and he grasped it. Memories of Louise’s unresponsiveness in bed, something he had never really thought about before, were filling his mind. ‘It’s over anyway, whatever it was,’ he said, with difficulty and at last.

‘What is over?’ There was a sharpness in her tone that made him look at her.

‘That – affair. With Rory. They’ve gone to live in Cornwall.’

‘Ah.’

‘What did you think I meant?’

‘I thought you were talking about something else. Never mind.’

‘She – she was going to this doctor. This psychiatrist chap.’

‘Was? She’s stopped?’

‘Last week. I don’t know why. But she says nothing would induce her to go back.’

‘Why don’t you have a word with him?’

‘I can’t see that that would do much good. I did meet him once and I must say I didn’t take to him.’ Something she had said earlier was worrying him. ‘Mummy, how on earth did
you
hear about Rory – the flat and all that?’

‘Oh, darling, someone told me. That doesn’t matter now. What matters is your happiness, your well-being.
And
Sebastian’s as well. I do worry about him. Louise isn’t simply a bad mother, she isn’t a mother at all.’

Then she suddenly burst out. ‘Oh, Mikey darling! I blame myself. I feel I am greatly at fault.’

‘Nonsense, Mummy. You didn’t
make
me marry Louise, I wanted to.’ But even as he said it, he realised that he had fallen into one of her little traps.

‘No, but I encouraged you. And it is you who have to suffer. I thought she was simply young and malleable. How could I know that she would turn out to be so utterly selfish and self-absorbed?’

‘Oh, come! It’s not as bad as that. You must remember that we had a rotten start. I was away nearly all the time and completely taken up by my ship. I do see now that she had a rather thin time of it.’

‘She had Sebastian.’

‘Yes, well, she didn’t want to have a baby quite so soon.’

‘How extraordinary! You might have been killed, and she with no son!’

‘Not everyone is a mother like you.’

The little carriage clock on the chimney piece struck a silvery three. ‘God! I must go, darling. I’ve another appointment.’

He bent over to kiss her and she folded him in her arms. ‘Mikey! I do want you to know one thing. Whatever you decide to do, I’ll back you all the way. And if that includes Sebastian, so much the better.’ She gazed at him with her penetrating eyes that he had once told her were the colour of aquamarines. ‘You won’t forget that, will you?’

‘No, of course I won’t.’ Again he felt at that moment comfortingly enfolded by her love.

But in the car outside and during his journey across London, he felt dispirited and confused. There were a number of things he had
not
told his mother, such as the fact that Louise refused to go to bed with him, something which had caused him to sulk and her to pretend not to notice that he was sulking. He still found her immensely attractive – in fact, she had grown during the last four years from being a rather gawky, leggy, charming young girl into someone whose glamour was wildly noticeable. If not exactly a classical beauty, she was someone who made people’s heads turn when she came into a room. She was an asset, and he felt aggrieved that she was not more, as he put it, on his side. If, for instance, he was invited to Sandringham, which was possibly on the cards (he had drawn one of the young princesses and had hopes of drawing their mother), she would not be simply thrilled and do everything in her power to help him, as most young women, he felt, would; she was just as likely to appear in the wrong clothes, say the wrong things and behave generally as though she was totally unaware of the importance of the occasion. And if he was to go there at all, he desperately wanted to make a success of it. Perhaps it would be better to go without her. He should have asked Mummy’s advice about that. It would certainly be
easier
. Another thing he had not told Mummy was that Rowena was back in his life. They had met some months before in the King’s Road, when he was coming out of his framers. She was walking along on the opposite side of the street, with a champagne-coloured poodle on a lead.

He called her name and she stopped. ‘Michael!’

He dodged a bus and crossed the road to her. She was wearing a short fur jacket over a black skirt and a black velvet beret over her blond hair. She looked very pretty.

‘How lovely to see you! What are you doing here?’ She blushed the palest pink. ‘I live round the corner. In Carlyle Square.’

‘It’s really nice to see you.’

Her pale, wide-apart eyes regarded him, then she bent down to the dog who was straining on his leash. ‘Shut up, Carlos! I saw you coming out of Green and Stone. I didn’t think you’d see me.’