The Light Years (The Cazalet Chronicle) (69 page)

‘Don’t let’s go to bed yet,’ he said. ‘I’m for a whisky and soda. What about you, darling?’

‘No, thanks,’ She walked back to the sofa and sat down.

‘I think Teddy enjoyed himself.’

‘Yes. He told me he had a lovely time.’

‘Jessica still here?’

‘Yes. She went to the funeral yesterday, Raymond’s been left a lovely lot of money – and a house.’

‘That’s good news. As long as he doesn’t blow it all.’ There was a pause; then he said, ‘At lunch today – I thought you were angry with me. You were, weren’t you? What’s it all about?’ She could tell he was nervous, because he’d begun picking his fingers, scraping the side with his nail – they often looked quite painful. He was always terrified of scenes.

‘I was – a bit – because I tried to tell you something on the telephone the day before, and you practically rang off on me, and then I realised that you hadn’t heard what I said.’

He’d become very quiet. ‘What was that?’

She took a deep breath. ‘I told you that I was practically certain I was having another baby.’

He stared at her for a moment, astonishment and almost a kind of
relief,
she thought, in his face, which then lightened. He smiled, got up and gave her a hug. ‘Good Lord! You told me that and I didn’t hear it? There was a road drill in the street, and Miss Seafang was telling me I was wanted on the other line. I’m sorry, darling, you must have thought me the most awful brute!’

‘You’re pleased?’

‘Of course I’m pleased,’ he said heartily. ‘Bit surprised, though. I thought, you know, you were taking precautions.’

‘I was. This one slipped through the net.’

‘Good Lord!’ he said again, and drained his glass and stood up. ‘Better go up, hadn’t we? I mean, you must be dead beat.’ He held out his hand and pulled her to her feet.

While they were undressing, she said, ‘I do feel a trifle
old
to start all this baby business again.’

‘Nonsense, darling. You’re not old at all!’ He kissed her fondly. ‘What you need is beauty sleep. I shall have to leave early. Don’t bother about me in the morning.’

Now, walking up the hill to Home Place and remembering all this, she thought that it had not occurred to him to ask whether
she
wanted another child. He’d simply assumed that she would. ‘What’s done is done,’ she said to herself, ‘and if there’s a war, we may all be blown up, anyway.’

It rained after lunch, which, Louise felt, would let them off their shift of digging. ‘Let’s wash our hair,’ she said. She had read that yolk of egg was supposed to be very good and was eager to try it. Nora, who did not care in the least about her hair, said that it was rather a waste of eggs, but Louise said they would make meringues of the whites, and then it wouldn’t be a waste at all. ‘Because if we were just going to make meringues, the yolk would be wasted,’ she said.

So then Louise washed them both: Nora’s was very dirty and she used water that was too hot so the egg scrambled rather and in the end she had to use another shampoo as well. There was nowhere to dry it, as the drawing-room fire hadn’t been lit yet; they lay on their beds with their bath towels and jerseys on so that they wouldn’t catch cold.

‘About the service,’ Louise said. ‘You know when you suggested that everybody should give something up in return for peace? Well, why do you think everybody didn’t seem to want to do that?’

‘I don’t know. Mummy said afterwards that it was each person’s own business, but I don’t see how one can tell whether they’re minding it. Anyway, she said it was bossy and interfering – two things which I often am.’

Louise looked at her with awe. Bossy and interfering weren’t romantic faults, like having hot temper or being too frank (tactless), and she knew she wouldn’t dream of publicly admitting to them.

‘Your hair’s looking super now,’ she said, ‘all shining and nice.’

‘Oh. Well, I don’t really care about it much, because when I’m a nun, they’ll cut it all off. You could give up vanity,’ she added.

‘Am I vain? I don’t like my face much.’ She spent hours in front of the mirror, changing her hair, trying make-up, making different faces to see which one looked best. Nora pointed some of this out and said she was pretty sure that it constituted vanity. ‘But, of course,’ she added, ‘you don’t necessarily have to give something up, you could do something instead.’

That was when Louise decided that an earlier decision, to get out of going to the finishing school with Nora because of the agony of homesickness that she knew would ensue, should be changed. If there was peace, she would go, if there was war she needn’t. She told Nora that she had decided on something, but didn’t want to say what it was.

‘You needn’t tell me,’ Nora replied. ‘Simply write it down on a piece of paper and put it in my pencil box. I’ve cleared it out for the purpose.’

‘Have you done it, then?’

‘Of course. And I’ve asked Polly and Clary. And Christopher, and even Angela. Not Teddy, though: he doesn’t seem to mind if there is a war or not.’

‘Simon?’

‘Forgot him. Now, you do yours. Oh, I asked Miss Milliment. I really like her, and she said of course she would – no stupid grown-up shilly shallying seeing-both-sides-of-the-question stuff for her.’

‘What about the children?’

‘Haven’t had a chance to ask them yet. We will after tea.’

Neville and Lydia and Judy, all secretly impressed to be called to a meeting even if it turned out to contain only Nora and Louise, stood in a row before Nora who was seated at the dining-room table, pencil box at the ready, papers and pencils to hand.

‘I haven’t got anything to give up,’ Neville said at once.

‘Your train set,’ Lydia said.

‘I
need
that! You can’t give up the things you need.’

‘You don’t need it,’ Judy said. ‘I don’t have a train set and I get along perfectly well.’

Neville turned on her. ‘You’re only a girl,’ he said witheringly. They were all silenced for a moment. Then Nora said, ‘All right. If you don’t want to give something up, you could do something instead. Some job – some work thing.’

‘Help Tonbridge clean the cars,’ Neville said. ‘I’ll do that.’

‘You’re always asking him if you can do that,’ Lydia said reproachfully, ‘and you know he doesn’t want you. I’m afraid he hasn’t got the point at all,’ she said to the others.

‘Never mind about Neville. What are you going to do?’

‘I shall . . . ’ she shut her eyes tightly and rocked back and forth on her feet. ‘I shall . . . save up all my pocket money and give it to poor people. There!’ She opened her eyes and looked round to gauge the effect. ‘That’s a good give-up, isn’t it?’

‘Very good,’ Nora said. ‘Here’s your piece of paper. Only you must put how many weeks’ pocket money on it that you’re going to give up.’

‘Oh, a year, at least,’ said Lydia grandly. She was slightly drunk with her generosity. ‘I think a year,’ she said.

‘How will you know a poor person to give it to?’ Neville asked sulkily.

‘Easy. I shall just go up to people and ask them if they’re poor, and if they say yes, I shall give it to them.’

In the end, it was suggested to her that she could give it to the poor babies in Aunt Rach’s home.

Judy, who was a bit of a copycat, Lydia thought, said she would do the same. They were sat down at the table to write, and Nora turned her attention to Neville.

‘What I’ll do,’ he said at last, ‘is I’ll go up to the great aunts and I’ll kiss them twice a day – once on each cheek twice. For all the time they stay here.’

It wasn’t entirely satisfactory, but the older girls decided it was probably the best he could do.

Attired now for the journey, she lifted the large iron latch of the front door, but the rain seemed to have stopped, although it was still very wet underfoot. Carrying her umbrella, and the copy of
The Times
with which Lady Rydal had finished, she started to trot waveringly down the drive. It was a dark, still, starless night; every now and then a tree above her shivered and a shower of heavy raindrops descended. There were puddles as well, which, of course, she could not see. Dear Viola had offered to drive her home, but she had felt that this was an unnecessary imposition; she would soon have to get used to the way, which, was not far. The little talk, accompanied by a delicious glass of sherry, that she had had with Viola about her salary was over. She had been so utterly generous: had absolutely refused to let her pay anything at all for her keep, had realised that she already had one rent to pay, had also insisted that the charge of two pounds ten shillings per child per week should remain the same for the three younger children, who she knew were every bit as much trouble (perfectly true, but Miss Milliment had known many employers who would have refused to recognise this), and had also said that her travelling expenses would be included in the first month’s cheque. So she would now be earning seventeen pounds ten a week, ‘And therefore no excuse, Eleanor, for you not buying a new pair of shoes as well as galoshes.’

And, then, to be in the country again! She sniffed the delicious air that smelled of damp leaves: it did so remind her of home, of walking back in the dusk after she had decorated the church for special occasions like Harvest Festival – back to toast and dripping and reading to Papa, who liked his study to be rather dim because of his eyes, which always made reading to him a little difficult. Carlyle’s
French Revolution
had been one of his favourites; it had been an old edition that she had picked up at the church sale, but the print had been shockingly small, and Papa had always said that young people did not require spectacles, which in her case, had not turned out to be true. One of the first things she had done after he died was to have her eyes tested, and the spectacles had made an amazing – she felt miraculous – difference: she could see all kinds of things that she had not noticed before. That was when she had started to look at pictures, because she could see them. How wonderful that had been! And how fortunate she was now! She loved teaching, was fond of her three girls, and was delighted to include dear Jessica’s Nora as, clearly, Louise was very taken with her. And the three young ones: Neville constantly amused her, but naturally, he would be treated the same as the two girls – she would make no distinctions. It was pleasant to look forward to getting to her little bedroom in the cottage. The Brontës would be quite shocked at how much I am enjoying myself, she thought as she turned into the drive of Home Place. The Brontës came to mind because she had given
Villette
as one of their holiday tasks. Louise had already read it but Miss Milliment simply told her to read it again and also
The Professor
in order that she might compare the two. Polly did not read so much or so easily, but she had a good eye, and Clary – Clary was, she knew, the
one.
The stories that she had been given when she had visited Clary at the end of her chicken pox had really startled her. They had a dash, a drive, a precocity that was well beyond the usual twelve-year-old. Some of her subject-matter was undoubtedly beyond her, but Miss Milliment had been careful not to criticise that, had confined her remarks to grammar, punctuation and spelling, having first said how very much she enjoyed the stories. ‘One must not interfere,’ she told herself, having no intention of doing anything of the kind. The creative process, beyond her in all respects, was, none the less, something to reverence: many people had been spoiled by too much of the wrong kind of attention. It was a natural process for Clary, and natural it should remain. The lack of interest that the family displayed was probably a good thing.