Confusion: Cazalet Chronicles Book 3 (19 page)

There he was – looking at her in her thoughts again, but this time was not like the other: this time his eyes, which seemed to see and to tell so much, were fixed upon her with an expression that she could not bear (for one awful second it had crossed her mind that he was sorry for her, an idea so humiliating and detestable to her that she had dismissed it utterly and at once without an alternative). What she said was: ‘You look extremely soppy to me. What on earth are you thinking?’

And he had answered at once, ‘I was trying not to laugh.’

She had been so grateful for this (people certainly weren’t
pitying
somebody while they were trying not to laugh at them) that she was able to change the subject without confusion. ‘Do tell me,’ she had said, ‘all that you know about
brothels
. They seem only to get mentioned in fairly old books. Are they still going on? You know what our family is like about things like that. They simply will not discuss them. So I go on being none the wiser.’

But sometimes, as now, sitting in bed with the eiderdown round her shoulders, what she had so briefly felt about that second expression of Archie’s recurred and the humiliation flooded her like a blush. If he ever started to feel
sorry
for her it would be the end of everything. ‘It would be an impertinence so profound that I should never recover from it,’ she wrote in her journal before she could stop herself, and then read it with dismay. She certainly didn’t want Dad to read that because it really didn’t go with anything else she had written; on the other hand, it did seem to her rather an interesting and
mature
remark and one that she did not feel should be lightly jettisoned. In the end, she rubbed and then crossed it out most thoroughly, and then wrote it in the notebook that Poll had given her for Christmas to write out ideas for books.

THE FAMILY

Summer 1943

Having something to look forward to only served to emphasise the featureless desert that she felt her life had become, and having lunch with her brother-in-law which would once have been nothing more than a mild – a very mild – diversion, now assumed the proportions of adventure. She decided that she would catch an early train and go to Mr Bayley in Brook Street to have her hair cut, then she would go to Liberty’s where Zoë had recently bought a very pretty striped cotton bedspread with which she had made both herself and Juliet frocks. No coupons were required for bed linen or furnishing materials, but it was not easy to find anything suitable. She had decided not to stay the night: ever since that ghastly dinner party with Hermione that Edward had clean forgotten about, she had hated his dreary little flat. She couldn’t think why
he
kept it. It was a mean, modern, cramped sort of place; its décor reminded her of the captain’s cabin in a battleship (although why on earth she should make that comparison she could not imagine – she had never been in any captain’s cabin anywhere). Anyway, the paint was all sleek greys, the carpets, fitted, were the colour and texture of porridge. The minimal furniture was ‘modern’, that is to say its designer had been keen on its looking unusual at all costs. The drawers had no handles, but declivities so shallow that it was nearly impossible to get the purchase to open them; the taps, likewise, had no graspable spigot, rather a moulded top that eluded spiral pressure. Although Edward had imported a larger bed in place of the single divan, it still wasn’t large enough for both of them; it meant that they had to sleep touching each other all night, something she had never liked very much. Anyway, Edward was away – on a visit to Southampton where they had recently bought a wharf – so there was not much point in her staying up. None the less, she had been, she was, looking forward to getting away from Home Place just for the inside of a day. Although the house was full of people she felt isolated. She missed Sybil far more than she had thought she would; she missed Rupert, who, like the rest of the family, she privately thought dead; she missed her pre-war London life, even though at the time she had thought it dull; she even missed her sister Jessica and the long summer visits she had made when she had been poorer and somehow more accessible than she ever seemed to be now.

On the whole there was not much time for nostalgia or introspection. McAlpine’s arthritis meant that not only was the garden far too much for him, but also that his temper had become such that no boy recruited from the dwindling supply available stayed longer than a few weeks. Last summer she had taught herself to use a scythe and cut all of the orchard, which had gained his grudging respect. ‘I’ve seen worse,’ he had remarked. After this, she spent at least two afternoons a week on outside maintenance: she had taught herself to prune the fruit trees; she sanded and repainted one of the greenhouses; and, of course, on wet days there was always wood to be sawn and stacked. ‘You must not exhaust yourself,’ the Duchy had said, but that was exactly what she had wanted to do, the whole of last year ever since last spring which now seemed such a very long time ago. But apart from –
that
(she now never allowed herself to mention his name), last year had been hard in other ways. After the row with Edward about his forgetting Hermione’s party, during which she had heard herself make the classic denunciation of his general lack of concern, he had spent an unusually long time making love to her, and she had been so wrought up and then exhausted by pretending to enjoy it that it was not until the next morning that she remembered she had taken no precautions. So when, the following month, she missed her period she naturally thought herself pregnant, and this time, unlike with Roly, she actually felt glad at the prospect. It would be her last baby, she would be able to share her pregnancy with Louise who was also in the family way. But when she told Edward she sensed that he was not wholly enthusiastic, although he wouldn’t voice any objection. ‘Good Lord!
I
don’t know . . . Do you really think you should . . .’ were some of the things he said. When pressed, he had eventually said that of course
he
was pleased, it was only that he wondered if perhaps she wasn’t getting on a bit for having another baby. Of course she would be if it was her first, she had answered, but she was perfectly healthy, there was really no reason why she shouldn’t . . . She toyed with the idea of going to London to see Dr Ballater, but in the end she went to Dr Carr. She went to his consulting room in his house, because she didn’t want to tell the family anything until she was
absolutely
sure, but by now it was the second month and she felt she knew. ‘I’m sure I
am
,’ she had said to Dr Carr, ‘I just wanted to confirm it with you.’

He had given her a sharp look from under his rather shaggy eyebrows and remarked that it was a bit early to be sure . . .

After he had examined her and asked her a good many questions, he had said that although it might not be to her liking, he thought it far more probable that she was embarking upon the menopause than that she was pregnant. He could be wrong, he added, but it was clear that he did not think so.

‘After all, Mrs Cazalet, you are forty-seven, you have four fine children as it is. Don’t you think, in any case, it’s a wee bit late to start again?’

‘Surely it’s too early for all that!’ She was aghast at the idea.

‘People vary about it. You tell me that you started menstruation late, and the later starters are usually earlier to finish.’

She felt herself flushing: she found it embarrassing even to hear any words connected with the whole revolting business. He mistook her revulsion for disappointment and talked encouragingly about her prospect of becoming a grandmother (Louise had twice been to see him). ‘You are young enough to get the full benefit of grandchildren,’ he had said, but Villy had always regarded comfort as a means of minimizing the authenticity of her distress in the first place and was therefore hostile, or at least impervious to it.

Of course, this visit was shortly followed by incontrovertible evidence that she was not pregnant, and she spent the rest of the winter much depressed. Edward’s relief at the news had irritated her and she had several times said how pleased he must be, but she did not mention the disgusting alternative.

One way and another it was good to have the small excursion to look forward to. She would go and see Louise too, of course, who was still in the nursing home where she had had her baby the previous week. Michael had telephoned the news – he had managed to get a few days’ leave – and she had offered to go up at once, but he had said much better to wait until his leave was up and Louise might be feeling lonely. And then Raymond had rung her. It was a very bad line and he sounded both portentous and faint. He would so very much like to see her, he said twice: she was the only person who, he felt, might be able to give him advice . . . This remark with its doubled-edged attractions – her vanity was soothed, her curiosity aroused – settled the matter: she had agreed to meet him at the Arts Theatre Club in Great Newport Street at a quarter to one. She put on last year’s blue suit with the chiffon blouse (it was quite sunny and warm) and caught the train.

She was early and he had not arrived, so she sat in the densely populated and very small dusky area that was half passage, half room on the ground floor and watched people booking theatre tickets and meeting each other for lunch, until Raymond suddenly loomed beside her, bending down to present her with his huge pale face that gleamed almost phosphorescent in the gloom.

‘My dear! My train was late. Awfully sorry.’ His cheek was damp, his moustache like thistles. He took her arm. ‘Shall we go straight up? Have a drink and all that?’

He led the way to the large, pleasant dining room.

‘A table for two – name of Castle,’ he said in the tone of elaborate courtesy he reserved for what he considered to be his inferiors. It was one of the things she had not noticed before, but now recognised as his habit.

‘And we should like to order drinks immediately – if you would be so kind.’

The drinks arrived, he offered her a cigarette and began laboriously enquiring after the health of everyone in the family, receiving her answers as though they were exactly what he expected, and she began to see that he was nervous.

‘I suppose it is no use asking you anything about your work,’ she said.

‘ ’Fraid not. Of course one likes to feel useful – to have found some sort of niche. And I do feel that it is up to
somebody
in my family to make some contribution to the war effort.’

‘Oh, Raymond! Christopher is working for a farmer and, goodness knows, we need food grown here, and Nora, they say, is a simply wonderful nurse, and hasn’t Angela moved from the BBC to the Ministry of Information? And, after all, Judy is just a child. And—’ But here she came to an end. She could not honestly think of anything useful that Jessica was doing, or ever had done, and this was when she realised that she was not being mentioned.

‘And as for Jessica,’ he said as though he had heard her thoughts, ‘her contribution seems to be adultery.’ There was a short silence; the word lay like a scorpion on the table between them.

Then he said, ‘For one awful moment I thought that perhaps you might have known. That everyone knew excepting me. But you didn’t, did you?’

No, she said, she didn’t. She was so shocked – she had always assumed that she and Jessica felt the same about things like that – that although her mind seethed with questions, each one on its own seemed too trivial to voice.

‘Are you
sure
?’ she eventually managed to ask.

‘Dead sure.’ And then he began answering the questions without her having to ask a single one.

He’d known for nearly a month now. When he’d first found out, his instinct had been to go and confront her at once, but he’d not dared to do that. ‘I wanted to kill her,’ he said, ‘I was honestly afraid of what I might do. She’s been lying to me so much, you see. I felt such a fool. Also, there were some things I didn’t want to know. Supposing she thought she was in
love
with the bastard, for instance, or supposing she wasn’t – it had just been a roll in the hay – I didn’t know which would make me feel worse. Then I discovered that it had been going on for quite a long time—’

‘How long?’

‘Oh, well over a year.
I
don’t know – it could be much longer. She got to know him when we were still at Frensham. Of course, you know who it is by now, don’t you?’

She began to say no, she didn’t, but before the words were out of her mouth a horrible thought assailed her, a doubt, suspicion that in a second congealed to sickening certainty.

‘Oh,
no
!’

‘My dear! I’m sorry if I’ve shocked you, although I quite understand your feelings. It
is
shocking. A decently brought-up woman who has been married for twenty-seven years –
happily
married, I always thought . . .’

She drank some water while he droned on and his face, which had briefly obscured to a dizzy blur, slipped jerkily back into focus. So, too, did all kinds of small matters – things said, or not said, the way Jessica never asked her to stay, did not seem to want to come to Home Place, had not wanted Louise to stay with her and then that curious time when she had dropped in at St John’s Wood and Jessica had behaved so oddly . . .

He was on to what he thought of Clutterworth now – suddenly he seemed unable to stop repeating his name, ‘If
Mr
Clutterworth thinks that being a musician entitles him to behave in this manner . . . and, what is more, if Mr Clutterworth thinks he can get away with it, Mr Laurence Clutterworth is in for a serious shock. I’ve half a mind to get in touch with that wretched wife of his to see if she knows what is going on . . .’

If it has been going on for over a year, I was not even his first choice, she thought, as the humiliation she had thought buried from that ghastly evening in Mayfair came flooding back. Oh, God! Supposing he told
her
about it afterwards!