Casting Off: Cazalet Chronicles Book 4 (73 page)

‘Jemima will look after her,’ Hugh said.

Edward looked at his brother. He couldn’t help remembering that Villy had always been the one who had looked after everyone when they were ill, fell off a pony or got their fingers slammed in a car door. Of course, she knew about first aid because she’d gone in for it before the war, but she also had a most practical compassion for anyone in trouble. The thought that Diana was not like that crossed his mind: she certainly had not liked him being ill, but on the other hand she was good with her sons. She would certainly look after
them
.

Lately Diana had been suggesting that they should sell the house in West Hampstead and buy one in the country. A nice Georgian house within commuting distance of London. He had the feeling that she was pretty determined on this, in which case there would be absolutely no point in his taking a share in Home Place, where Diana, in spite of protestations to the contrary, had never felt comfortable. He would have to talk to Hugh about it. The trouble with the family was not property but lack of cash. Too much of the firm’s capital was tied up in property. They not only owned Home Place and his parents’ house in Regent’s Park, on a long and expensive lease, but two valuable wharves in London, one in Southampton and very expensive offices in Westminster. The overheads on all this were not being earned by the sale of enough timber. He had tried several times to discuss this with Hugh, but he had refused to consider selling off anything and, as head of the firm, he had the ultimate say. And Rupe, bless his heart, would always agree with the last person he’d talked to.

These thoughts now made him feel queasy. He was prone to indigestion these days, and the condition was not helped by the faint but unmistakable stench of vomit. He remembered a trick he had learned in the trenches in the first war, and picked up a box of matches lying on the table for lighting the candles, struck one and let it burn itself out. Hugh noticed this at once, and a small but infinitely comforting look passed between them. He handed the box to his brother who repeated the action. The air cleared, and some of those round the table set about the strawberry shortcake, and soon Zoë was explaining Juliet’s absence, staying with a best friend and shopping for jeans.

Clary said, ‘It’s funny, isn’t it? When I was Juliet’s age, I never minded what I wore.’

‘It’s a good thing you didn’t. Apart from clothes coupons, there weren’t any clothes.’

‘I remember you made me two frocks. You made them even after I was so horrible to you. It must have been awful being a stepmother.’

These remarks engendered a good deal of affection – from Rupert and Zoë and Archie, who said, ‘She still doesn’t mind much. So I choose her clothes.’

Rachel, making a valiant effort, said, ‘When I was young, the Duchy always made me wear pinafores. And if I was going to a party, and was dressed in lots of white petticoats under my party dress, she made me sit on a table until it was time to go.’

‘I remember you doing that,’ Hugh said. ‘But at least you weren’t dolled up in sailor suits, like Edward and me. Rupert escaped all that.’

Rupert, who immediately thought of what else he had escaped – the nightmare of trench warfare that his older brothers had endured – spoke quietly: ‘It’s a pity, really, because I simply loved dressing up. You remember that old black tin trunk we had full of dressing-up clothes? Well, once, when our parents were giving a garden party, I dressed up as a girl in a heavily beaded pink dress – you know, one of those tubes that flappers used to wear – with a silver lamé turban and an ostrich fan. I went out onto the lawn and the Brig was furious, but the Duchy simply laughed and told me to go back into the house, change, then come back and help hand round the cucumber sandwiches.’

There was a short silence before Rachel said that, if they would forgive her, she would see how Sid was, and then she would go to bed. The men all rose and Archie, who was nearest, opened the door for her, then closed it.

‘Ring for Eileen to fetch the plates, Rupe.’

‘Hugh, it’s nearest to you.’

Hugh fumbled under the table where Rachel had been sitting. Edward went to the sideboard to get the port. Clary said, ‘If the ladies are meant to withdraw at this point, I think I’ll withdraw to bed. Goodnight, all.’

Zoë said, ‘I’ll wait in the drawing room until Jemima returns and then I’ll be off as well.’

Eileen, having removed the pudding plates, asked if the gentlemen would like their coffee in the dining room.

‘Anyone for coffee?’ Hugh asked, but nobody seemed to want it. Eileen was told to take the tray to the drawing room and, yes, that would be all. There was a faint, but unmistakable feeling of tension in the air.

The port went round and all four men filled their glasses.

Hugh said: ‘Before we start on things that have to be done, I suggest we all drink a toast to our dear mother and,’ looking at Archie, ‘friend.’

So they all stood and did that.

This seemed to lighten things a little. When they sat down, cigarettes were lit, in Edward’s case a cigar.

‘With Rachel’s agreement,’ Hugh began, ‘I went to see the vicar to organise a date for the funeral, and we agreed on Monday week. I asked for next Saturday, but it was not convenient, so it will be at eleven thirty on the twenty-fifth. I have also drafted announcements for
The Times
and the
Telegraph
to appear this Monday. I have included the time and place of the funeral for people who may want to attend it. That’s as far as I got.’

Rupert said, ‘Did Rachel say anything about where she wants to live?’

‘Nothing. Only that she didn’t want to keep the London house.’

‘It belongs to the firm anyway,’ Edward said. ‘That’s something we can sell, at least.’

‘I can’t understand why you’re so keen on selling anything. The Brig always said that property was the best investment of capital and, as chairman of the firm, I have every intention of following his advice.’

‘Well, perhaps you’ve forgotten that the firm also owns Home Place. Rachel surely won’t want to live here on her own, and it’s worth a hell of a lot more than when the Brig bought it. If we sold that, we could buy Rachel a nice little house or flat in London.’

‘You surely don’t want to get rid of the place where we’ve all spent so much of our lives, where our children grew up, which was our home during the last war? You cannot want to do that!’

Oh dear, Archie thought, as he looked helplessly at Rupert. I feel just like Hugh, only I can’t do anything about it.

But Rupert came to the rescue. ‘I agree with Hugh,’ he said. ‘I feel that even if Rachel doesn’t want to live here we could all chip in and keep the house, for her, for the children and, speaking for myself, for me.’

At this point they all looked at Edward.

He stirred uncomfortably in his chair. ‘For goodness’ sake, don’t think that I don’t care about the house. The fact is that Diana wants to live in the country, and that will mean my selling the lease on Ranulf Road, for which I shan’t get much as it has only ten years to run, and buying somewhere. I’m fairly strapped for cash as it is, really not in a position to pay for a second property.’

Hugh began to say that that left three of them, and almost at the same time Archie, very tentatively, suggested that perhaps they should wait until Rachel had been consulted. And also, was it possible that the Duchy had expressed some wishes about it in her will?

This seemed to lower the temperature a bit. Rupert agreed that there was not much point in pursuing the subject any further, and they fell back on reminiscing about the early days of Home Place, the Brig facing the Duchy with all manner of stray and unknown guests, and how the Duchy had comforted the young Jewish nurses from the Babies’ Hotel when it was evacuated to Home Place during the war by inviting them in the evening for tea and biscuits and Beethoven on the gramophone. Affection slowly replaced sibling differences.

Then Jemima came down to tell them that Sid had settled for the night, and had been asleep when Rachel came to see her, and they all decided to call it a day.

Zoë undressed in the familiar room with its wallpaper of peacocks and chrysanthemums, then sat in front of her dressing-table mirror, cleansing her face and remembering the first time she had come here, how nervous she had felt. Her clothes had seemed all wrong, and though she had been welcomed as Rupert’s wife, she had felt that she would never fit in, would never withstand Clary’s hostility, could never be a stepmother. Well, to be honest, she had never wanted to be a mother at all, and was both bored and defeated at the prospect of Clary and Neville watching and criticizing her. And then that awful incident in London, when she had played – had overplayed – the flirt and paid the price of the disastrous sad child that had mercifully, from her point of view, died. What a heartless little bitch I was, she thought, thinking of nothing but my appearance and wanting Rupert to admire me from morning till night. But I did love him in the end.

She remembered now how incredibly tactful and kind the Duchy had been when she had fallen in love with Jack Greenfeldt, leaving them alone for what proved to be their last meeting. The anguish she had felt about him had changed her life entirely. She had believed that Rupert was dead, and when Jack, unable to bear what he had seen in the German camps, had shot himself, there seemed nothing to live for – excepting Juliet. She had been going to the small temporary hospital that had been set up for badly wounded men who were nursed between operations to repair what could be saved of their ravaged bodies. Most of them had faced a life of dependence, and most of them were under twenty-five, but it was only after Jack’s death that she had begun to imagine what it would be like to be another person, a person infinitely less fortunate than herself, and to take a great deal less for granted.

It had been a shaky start, as most beginnings are, but here she was now, with Rupert, whom she had come to recognise she loved, Juliet, who was as wilful and pretty and self-absorbed as she herself had been when she was that age, and the newest treasure, her zoophilic son, who had wept when, on his fourth birthday, they had given him a beautiful stuffed monkey, ‘He’s not real! I wanted a real monkey!’ and had had to make do with a guinea pig.

When Rupert came up he found her in tears. ‘Oh, sweetheart, what is it?’

‘Nothing really – everything. I’m so lucky – to be here with you. I love you so much.’ She was sitting up in bed and held out her bare arms.

‘How lucky that I feel just the same. Lovely creamy skin you’ve got.’ He wiped her eyes on a corner of the sheet. Years ago that sort of remark would have made her sulk (her awful sulks, how had he borne them?). Now the years, with the affection of intimacy, had overlaid such nonsense. They had grown into each other.

CASTING OFF

Elizabeth Jane Howard is the author of fourteen highly acclaimed novels. The Cazalet Chronicles –
The Light Years
,
Marking Time
,
Confusion
and
Casting Off
– have become established as modern classics and have been adapted for a major BBC television series and most recently for BBC Radio 4. In 2002 Macmillan published Elizabeth’s autobiography,
Slipstream
. In that same year she was awarded a CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List. The fifth novel in the Cazalet Chronicles,
All Change
, will be published in November 2013.

Praise for Elizabeth Jane Howard

‘She is one of those novelists who shows, through her work, what the novel is for . . . She helps us to do the necessary thing – open our eyes and our hearts’

Hilary Mantel

‘The Cazalets have earned an honoured place among the great saga families . . . rendered thrillingly three-dimensional by a master craftsman’

Sunday Telegraph

‘Charming, poignant and quite irresistible . . . to be cherished and shared’

The Times

‘Superb . . . hypnotic . . . very funny’

Spectator

‘A dazzling historical reconstruction’