The Light Years (The Cazalet Chronicle) (73 page)

‘Shall we tell each other?’ Louise was dying to know what Nora would do. What could be worse than planning to be a nun?

‘OK. You go first.’

‘No – you.’

‘I promised that if there wasn’t a war, I would be a nurse instead of being a nun.’ She looked expectantly at Louise. ‘You see, I don’t want to be a nurse and I do frightfully want to be a nun.’

‘I see.’ She didn’t really – they both seemed ghastly professions to her, but there you were.

‘What about you?’

‘I,’ she said, trying to sound modest. ‘I
swore
that, if there wasn’t a war, I’d come to the boarding school with you.’

Nora snorted. ‘I thought you were going to do that, anyway.’

‘I wasn’t. I get awfully homesick even if I stay a night away. So it may sound nothing to you but it’s jolly serious for me.’

‘I believe you.’ Nora looked at her kindly. ‘But you’ll soon get over it.’ A horrible grown-up remark which was most unlike her, Louise thought.

Angela waited by the gate at the bottom of the drive to Mill Farm to catch Christopher alone. She had returned to the house soon after Edward had rung Villy with the news about which she felt nothing beyond a second’s wan thankfulness that now he would not have to go and fight. She had gone up to her room and locked the door. But then she remembered Christopher, and had gone out again and waited. She saw him come running down the hill, when he reached her, he stopped and said, ‘Hallo,’ and was about to go again, but she said, ‘Don’t go. I’ve got something to say to you.’ And she began, but before she had finished the bit about not being able to say how she knew, he interrupted her.

‘Has there been any news about the war?’

‘Oh, yes. There isn’t going to be one.’

‘Phew!’ When he had let out the breath he said, ‘You needn’t go on. If there isn’t a war, I can’t run away. That was my promise. You know – for Nora’s box.’

‘Your promise?’

‘Of course. It was my promise,’ he said. ‘Didn’t you make one? I say, what’s the matter? Ange!’ For the tears that she thought had all been she’d for a lifetime had begun again. He put his arm round her giving her little shakes that were supposed to be comforting.

‘Ange! You poor old thing! Ange!’ he kept saying.

‘Oh, Chris. I’m so unhappy, you can’t imagine! I can’t tell you. I just am!’ and she clung to him.

‘I’ve never seen you like this,’ he said, ‘but it must be pretty terrible. Bad luck.’ Visions of going back to the day school and Dad being sarcastic and having rows with Mum about him drearily ranged before him. ‘At least there isn’t a war. That would be the worst thing,’ he said, as his new little camp by the pond receded to a mere holiday ploy. A thought occurred to him. ‘Was your promise a hard one when it comes to the point?’

‘Mine has come to nothing. There
is
no point,’ she answered, and the weary pain in her voice went to his heart. He took her hand.

‘We’ll just have to be kind to each other,’ he said and looking up at him, for he was taller than she, she saw tears in his eyes. It was the first, small comfort.

‘So now it’s back to the basic decision,’ Rupert said, as he and Zoë changed for dinner.

‘Is that what’s been on your mind? All day?’

‘Well, not all.’ He thought, as he had done frequently since the morning, of the difficult, embarrassing, worrying scene with that poor girl – feeling he hadn’t handled it right, somehow, but quite unable to see what would have been right. But he didn’t want to tell Zoë about that: it felt a kind of disloyalty to the poor girl – and, anyway, he was far from sure how Zoë would take it . . . Well, no need going into that . . .

‘I’d do what you want.’ She was kneeling in front of the wardrobe searching for a pair of shoes. She had said this before, but it sounded different now – as she had with Clary this morning. She was becoming someone to be reckoned with just as, in a way, he had stopped expecting or wanting to reckon with her.

‘You said that,’ he answered irritably and without thinking. But when she got up, he saw that she looked not sulky at the reproof, but stricken, and felt ashamed.

‘Sorry, darling.’

‘That’s all right.’ She went to the dressing-table and started to comb her hair.

‘Actually,’ he said feeling his way, ‘something did happen today that upset me. No, not Clary. Something else. But I don’t really want to tell you about it. Is that OK?’

She looked at him in the mirror without saying a word.

‘I mean,’ he said, ‘sometimes, even in a marriage, there can be things – quite harmless – to the marriage, I mean – that all the same don’t need to be talked about. Do you agree?’

‘You mean, that there can be secrets, but it’s all right to have them?’

‘Something of the sort.’

‘Oh, yes!’ she said. ‘I’m so glad you think that. I’m sure you’re right.’ She got to her feet and picking up the pink woollen dress off the back of the chair slipped it over her head, and turned for him to do it up. ‘The point isn’t other people,’ she said, ‘it’s us.’ When he turned round for a kiss, she gave him one, very nicely, but there was nothing either sexual or childish about it, and he thought fleetingly that he used to be sick of the wanton child that once she had seemed composed of and now, perversely, he missed it.

‘I want you to be all things to one man,’ he said suddenly. Once she would have looked at him from below her lashes and said, ‘Who?’ and he would have said, ‘Me’, and swept her off to bed.

Now, looking sincerely concerned she said, ‘But, Rupert, I’m not sure that I know how!’

‘Never mind. I’ve just decided to be a businessman.’

And she answered almost primly, ‘Your father will be very pleased.’ She gave him a little push. ‘Go and tell him!’

William sat in his study with his evening whisky to hand. He was by himself, and for once quite glad of it. His door, as always, was open and he could hear the comforting sounds of the household going on: baths being run, doors slammed, children’s voices, the chink of cutlery being carried on a tray to the dining room, the sound of violin and piano – Sid and Kitty, no doubt. He had listened to the six o’clock news with Rachel and Sid, then sent them away. He was very tired. The immense sense of relief that he had felt when Hugh had rung from London had been succeeded by doubts of a kind he did not want to communicate to the family. There was something about the whole business – one could almost call it a transaction – that he distrusted, although he couldn’t say why. The Prime Minister’s motives were impeccable, he was a sincere and decent man. But that in itself was no bloody good unless he was dealing with another sincere and decent man. At the worst some time had been bought. Softwoods would be needed on an unprecedented scale and hardwoods as well, if they started building ships, as they should. He’d turn Sampson off the shelter and sanitary arrangements and get him on to those cottages. York’s letter had amused him. The old boy thought he’d fooled him into paying too much – that was why he’d had the cheek to ask him for another tenner for the land: he hadn’t realised what they were worth to him, William, who would have paid another £250 for them if asked. Well, they were both satisfied. He knew he’d upset Kitty with his plans for the evacuees – not necessary now – but he’d make it up to her. He’d buy her a new gramophone one of those damn great machines with a horn for playing records and all the Beethoven Symphonies done by Toscanini – that would please her. And Rupert had popped in and said that he would join the firm. So why didn’t he feel jollier? ‘I don’t like my sight failing,’ he said to himself, reaching for the decanter and pouring more whisky. He’d got up some decent port this evening – Taylor ’21. He hadn’t got much of that left. Everything came to an end. Have to stop riding if his eyes got worse. He’d get used to it. He remembered the last time he’d spent a couple of hours with – what was her name – Millicent Greenway – no, Green
croft
, that was it, in her flat in Maida Vale. She had been a thoroughly good sort. ‘Never mind,’ she’d said that last time, ‘it’s just not one of your days.’ He’d sent her a case of champagne as well as the usual twenty-five quid. He’d got used to there being no more of
that.
Kitty had never liked it, which was natural for a decently brought-up gal. He could go on going to the office, even if they did stay in the country and get rid of Chester Terrace. He needn’t give up
work
yet. And there wasn’t going to be a war.

‘When my father comes to see me, would you mind if I see him alone?’

‘Not at all,’ Clary said. She felt quite awed by Polly, never having met anyone who had fainted and in any case Polly had a temperature and was thought to be starting chicken pox. So she went off to see Simon when Hugh arrived.

‘What ho, my pet. I hear you’re under the weather.’ He came and sat on her bed. ‘I’ve had chicken pox, so I’ll kiss you,’ he said. Her face felt very hot. Oscar lay beside her.

‘Well, Poll, it’s good news, isn’t it?’

‘Amazing,’ she said. ‘Do you know, Oscar got lost today? We found him up a tree and me and Clary held Teddy’s bicycle . . . ’ and then she went into the whole thing.

‘Anyway, you got him back.’ Hugh stroked Oscar’s head and he sneezed.

‘All’s well now, then,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ she said listlessly, ‘in a way, of course, it is. In another way, of course, it isn’t.’

‘What isn’t?’

‘There was this box that Nora made us put promises in, you see, for if there wasn’t a war and now there isn’t so we have to do them. At least I feel I have to. That’s what it is.’