The Light Years (The Cazalet Chronicle) (67 page)

‘It doesn’t matter whether it’s Sunday or not. We must go on praying.’

‘But couldn’t we just do it in our own room?’

Nora shook her head. ‘I think it would count more if we had a service. Also, I think we should be as
many
as possible.’

‘Neville and Lydia and Judy will be having lessons.’

‘Yes, that can’t be helped. But Polly would come. And Clary, and Christopher. And Teddy, I suppose.’

‘He’s in London.’

‘Oh, so he is. Well, the maids.’

‘The maids?’

‘Everyone is the same in the sight of God,’ Nora said severely.

‘That must make things terribly boring for him.’

‘Louise, if you are going to be flippant about something as serious as this, I shall never speak to you again!’

‘I won’t be. I have a great many sides to my nature – it goes with being a serious actress – and you can’t expect them all to be acceptable.’

‘If we had the service after tea, then the children could come. And Miss Milliment.’

‘You’ll be asking the grandmothers next. And Bully and Cracks.’ These were the private names for the great aunts based upon their appearance – Dolly a bloodhound and Flo nutcrackers respectively.

‘Why not? I think everybody should be given the chance. Also, the Duchy might let us have the drawing room, and then we could use the piano for hymns.’

They spent the whole afternoon arranging things, roping in Polly and Clary to help. The Duchy said that of course they could have the drawing room, but they would have to collect chairs from the dining room and put them back afterwards. Polly wrote beautiful cards to invite people and Clary delivered them. ‘Does everybody include Mr Wren?’ she asked rather fearfully. There were stories about Mr Wren going bright red in the face and shouting if disturbed in the afternoon when he usually had a rest in the hayloft. ‘Leave it on top of the oats bin. He’s bound to see that,’ Louise advised.

‘But I do not believe in God,’ Evie said when Clary found her in the hammock.

‘Oh, well. I don’t think everybody who is coming does, but you believe in peace, don’t you?’ And as Evie looked uncertain of this, she added, ‘Anyway, you don’t like Hitler, do you? And he’s the person who wants there to be a war.’

‘No, I certainly don’t like Hitler. All right, you win. I will come.’

Mrs Cripps said, well she never, and she couldn’t leave her kitchen but thank you all the same, Clary reported. Aunt Jessica said she would bring Grania up in the car. Dad was giving Zoë a driving lesson but when she stopped in the drive he said yes, of course, they’d both come. Aunt Sybil said she’d love to, but she might have to bring William. The only people they couldn’t find were Aunt Rachel and Sid, who had gone to St Leonards to the swimming-bath – a bit mean, Clary thought, not even asking a single child whether they wanted to go, which of course, they would have – and Christopher, whom nobody had seen all day. McAlpine, who was planting leeks, stopped planting them to take his card which he looked at for some time with no expression, so Clary told him what it said, and he shook his head and handed it back to her, but he was smiling, so he didn’t mind being asked. On the whole, the idea seemed to be a success.

It rained a lot in the afternoon, which was awful for Christopher but good for the leeks. It spoiled the swim that the man in Tunbridge Wells had told Rachel would be good for her back, but it enabled Sid to spend a whole afternoon alone with her with no danger of Evie suddenly appearing. Sid drove Rupert’s car and, with Rachel beside her, she could have driven to Land’s End, as she said. ‘You are so good at it,’ Rachel said. ‘I do wish you’d let me give you a car,’ but she knew that Sid would not. ‘I’ll pick one up one day,’ she would say, her pride making her sound as though she could have done so already but had simply not had the time. I should have just given it to her – not talked about it, Rachel thought again, watching Sid’s earnest profile: the high, rather bulging forehead, her fine beaky nose (like a Red Indian, Sid had said when Rachel had first remarked upon it), the wide, narrow, well-delineated mouth, and her throat erect above her collar and tie. Sid drove carefully, trying not to jolt. There was a large open-air pool in St Leonards; Rachel did not want to stumble over cruel pebbles at Cooden. However, as they drove, the sky darkened from a cool soft grey to indigo and it suddenly poured. So in the end they went to
The Private Life of Henry VIII
and had tea in a tea shop – a lovely afternoon, Rachel had said, although she didn’t think much of the film, except for Merle Oberon as Anne Boleyn at the beginning, but Sid thought that Charles Laughton was pretty good.

‘Doesn’t it feel very odd to you? Every day we seem to be creeping, slipping into this ghastly nightmare, but we all go on as though nothing much is happening?’ She took the cigarette offered her and leant towards her for a light. ‘I mean a tea shop! Here we sit with toast and Banbury cakes . . . ’

‘Well, darling, what
else
can we do? It isn’t as though we any of us have the slightest power to do anything else.’

‘Do you mean we’ve never had it? Or that we had some, and simply elected the wrong people?’

‘I don’t think we’ve particularly elected the wrong people. I think the general climate is bad: opinion, ignorance, prejudice, complacency . . . ’

‘Us, or the Germans, or both?’

‘Oh, the Germans are in a different position. Things have been bad enough for them to want change at any price.’

‘You think they want a war?’

‘I think they
expect
it. I don’t think people leave their country and everything they have for nothing.’

‘What people?’ said Rachel, startled.

‘The Jews,’ Sid said, watching her intently for the faintest sign of dismissal or contempt and willing there to be none.

‘But they aren’t, are they? I’ve never heard that!’

‘They’ve been leaving since 1936 to come here, or to go to America.’

‘Just because you happen to know one or two—’

‘Oh, I agree, it’s a very small number in comparison to how many are left. But it’s a sign. If I had to worry about whether the balloon was going up, that’s the factor I should have taken most notice of.’

‘But, Sid darling, that’s because you—’ she searched for the best way of saying it, ‘because you—’

‘Because I’m half Jewish?’ Sid finished. ‘You’re probably right. It may not be my pure intelligence, it may simply be fear.’

‘Now I’ve lost you.’

‘Oh, well, never mind.’ She suddenly wished she had never started this; it felt a nervous, risky conversation that she might turn out not to be able to afford with this person she loved so much.

But Rachel leant forward, and took her hand. ‘Sid! I don’t understand, but I’m listening. I want to know what you – feel.’

Right, Sid thought, here goes. She took a deep breath.

‘The Germans had just as bad a war as we did. But after it they were weakened, humiliated, prevented from being able to defend themselves and endured an economy which resulted in hysterical inflation. Then along comes somebody who says he can give them back their national pride and sense of identity. He’s a leader, a power maniac as most leaders are, and he sets about constructing an autocracy. He rearms them, sets them to work, everything swings his way and his notions of what can be done enlarge. He is no longer just an inspired leader, he acquires absolute power, and the only way he can keep
that
is to make conquests, to bring home the bacon – Sudetenland, Austria. But another thing that tyrants usually need to keep their subjects united for them, is something for them to be against. And there’s always a convenient minority contained within the general population, defined by their race or their creed, Slavs, Catholics, you know what I mean. This time, I think it is the Jews – two birds with one stone you might say. The climate is just right for that.’

‘How do you mean, “just right”? How do you know what Germans feel about Jews?’

‘I don’t. But I know what people here feel about them, and this is a democracy without a power maniac in control. Anti-Semitism is rife here. It takes the form of jokes, patronage and exclusion and making exceptions to the rule. “I don’t usually like Jews, but you are an exception.” That’s what prejudice is made of. Oh, yes, and then accusing us of persecution mania when we notice and are hurt. We are the ideal scapegoats.’ She noticed that she had begun to say ‘we’ and felt better for it. ‘The views of a mongrel,’ she finished, ‘often noted for their acumen rather than their appearance.’

Rachel looked at her without speaking. In the end it was Sid who looked away, whereupon Rachel said, ‘I do love you. So very much.’

Sid brushed her fingers across her face. ‘I love you,’ she said, ‘among much else, for not arguing – protesting.’

‘I can’t. What you said is true. I can’t.’

When they left the tea shop and were out in the street Rachel put her arms round Sid and held her for a long time. People looked at them curiously – one couple nearly bumped into them – but Rachel did not relinquish her hold.

The Brig’s wireless had been moved from his study to the drawing room in order that there should be room for those who were to hear the Prime Minister’s broadcast. Opinion was divided about who they should be: the Duchy thought it might not be suitable for the children, Lady Rydal expressed the view that it might not be suitable for the girls. Neither grandmother considered it necessary for the servants to be present, but Rachel and Sid fetched the set that was at Mill Farm and connected it up in the servants’ hall at Home Place. Tonbridge was deputed to operate it, and dinner was arranged to suit the time for the broadcast. The chairs from the service (which had gone very well, until Nora had suggested that everybody present should pledge to give something they cared for in return for peace) were left in place in order that everybody, or nearly everybody, should have a seat. The children, except for the four youngest and, of course, Simon, were eventually allowed and sat on the floor, having been told by their mothers that they must be absolutely quiet and not talk at all while Mr Chamberlain was speaking. Everybody was quiet. Rupert – as concerned as any of them, he thought, since he was the only person in the room likely to have to go off and fight – found himself, none the less, so fascinated by seeing them all so quiet and so still that he could not help going from face to face, and wishing that they would not think it flippant of him to draw the scene. But they would: art had a strictly regulated place in the Cazalet scheme of things.

He looked first at his mother: the Duchy sat absolutely straight with her eyes fixed upon the radio as though Mr Chamberlain was in the room and speaking to her personally. ‘How horrible, fantastic, incredible it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas masks here because of a quarrel in a far-away country between people of whom we know nothing.’ He looked at his sister who was reclining on the sofa with Sid sitting on the arm at her feet. They seemed not to be looking at each other, but Sid suddenly handed an ash tray to Rachel to stub out her cigarette. ‘I would not hesitate to pay even a third visit to Germany if I thought it would do any good.’ He looked at Polly and Clary, side by side on the floor, arms around their knees: Polly was frowning and biting her bottom lip; Clary, his own daughter, was watching her and as he looked, she rocked her knees so that they touched Polly’s. Polly looked up and a tiny smile flitted across Clary’s face inhabiting it with such encouragement and love that he was struck by her beauty, felt dazzled and shut his eyes. When he opened them again, she was just his usual Clary staring at the floor. He’d missed the last bit of the speech. ‘I am myself a man of peace to the depths of my soul. Armed conflict between nations is a nightmare to me . . . ’ Lady Rydal, her aquiline nose thrown into sharp relief by the lamp, lay cast upon the best armchair, her right elbow upon its arm, her Elizabethan hand, studded with large and rather dirty diamond rings, resting upon her pale cheek. She wore an expression of tragedy that most people would be unable to sustain, but while he watched it remained unchanged. Villy, sitting on an uncomfortable dining-room chair beside her, had by contrast simply a natural look of utter exhaustion. She was like her mother only in the sense that a really bad portrait is like its subject, he thought – ‘life for people who believe in liberty would not be worth having . . . ’ (oh, so he does want war, does he?) ‘but war is a fearful thing and we must be very clear, before we embark on it, that it is really the great issues that are at stake.’ He looked across the room: Angela was staring at him. When she met his eye, she started to blush. Lord, he thought I wonder if Zoë was right after all! Zoë was sitting on the window-sill behind Angela. He blew her a kiss and her look of anxiety softened to unexpected gratitude – an expression he had only ever seen on her face when he gave her a present. He reached his father just as the broadcast came to an end.