The House of Vandekar (22 page)

Hugo had adjusted well to his disability. He had taken up shooting again, rough shooting only, because the great shoot at Ashton was a memory. There were no keepers; the woods had been cut down for fuel; there were no birds. But it would all come back in time. Alice was determined about that. Hugo travelled to the bank in London and stayed in a small flat he'd been able to buy in Eaton Square for a few thousand pounds. An ex-serviceman was engaged as a valet and Hugo was well looked after when he was away. Alice came up sometimes, bringing the little boy and Lily with her. She wouldn't give him up to anyone else's care now. The nursemaid stayed on but it was Alice who bathed him and supervised his food and took him with her wherever she went.

And at last, to her great relief, she was able to get Fern off to boarding school.

‘What is it,' she said to Lily once, ‘that maddens me so much about that child?'

‘She sets out to madden you, madam,' was the answer. ‘Everything she does is annoying on purpose. It's not your fault.'

‘I feel so mean sometimes. I know she's terribly jealous of Richard, and she drives me up the wall the way she simpers round her father … but I should be nicer to her, Lily.'

‘You can if you like,' Lily shrugged. ‘But you'll be wasting your time.'

Hugo missed his daughter. He was visibly depressed when they saw her off on the school train. ‘I hope she won't be too homesick,' he remarked.

‘I hope not,' Alice said. ‘But she'll get over it. I did – I cried for a bit but I was soon so caught up in what was going on at school I forgot all about home.'

‘No doubt, but Fern's not like you,' was all he said, and he remained silent for the rest of the journey back to Ashton.

It was a complete surprise to Alice when he announced that he was going into politics.

‘You mean you're going to stand for Parliament in the election?' She stared at him. ‘But how can you – Danbourne's held this seat for twenty years? Dynamite wouldn't shift him. They'd never choose another candidate to stand instead of him. Besides, there's no time.'

‘I'm not contesting this seat,' he retorted. ‘I've been selected for a marginal in South London. There's a strong Labour candidate there and the old Tory member is retiring. There's even a Communist candidate. It should be very interesting.'

‘You mean you've been selected and you never told me? Hugo – why not?'

He said quietly, ‘Because you would have been masterminding every move, my dear Alice. In the end, they'd have chosen you instead of me.'

‘That's very unkind,' she protested. ‘I'd have loved to help, you know that. I'm really hurt.' She pushed back her chair from the table.

‘Don't be silly.' He waved her to sit down again. ‘I didn't mean it like that. I was anxious to succeed on my own account. I didn't want you to know if I failed. Try to understand that.'

‘Well, I don't,' Alice answered. She didn't leave though. Politics. How amazing that he should decide to do that. ‘Haven't you enough to occupy you with the bank?'

‘Not really. I'm not so interested in making money as I was in the old days.'

‘You don't have to be,' she pointed out. ‘You've got so much it makes itself.'

‘That's just why I need something more. England is going to be a changed place from now on. So changed we won't recognize a lot of it. I believe we'll have a Labour government, for a start.' Alice stared at him, horrified. ‘We can't! That's impossible! You mean the people would throw Winston out, after all he's done!'

‘Yes. He stands for the old order. They don't want that. The men coming into civilian life have quite a different set of values now. I learned that in the army. They want what they fought for, and they don't think they're going to get it from people like us.'

‘Oh really? Then what are they going to get?' He was talking nonsense. ‘Rubbish,' she insisted angrily. ‘Throw Churchill out? Elect a Labour government?'

‘I don't know,' he answered. ‘That's why I'm not standing for Labour. I think they have a lot of good ideas and some very bad ones. One will have to wait and see. By the way, if you want to help me in the campaign, my constituency party will be only too delighted. It will mean your separating yourself from the boy. I don't know how you'll feel about that.'

‘I'll take him with me,' Alice announced. ‘He'll get votes, you see.'

And she was right. Mrs Vandekar, her little son in her arms, became a national figure during the election campaign. She canvassed, she made speeches, she sat on platforms with Hugo and cuddled the boy for the voters to see. ‘I want a decent world for my boy to grow up in,' she declared at a meeting, and the press wrote down every word. ‘He won't get it with Labour.' It became Hugo's slogan. He won the seat by a tiny majority. He was marked out for future promotion from the back benches.

His enemies, and he'd made a number during the campaign inside his own party, went round saying that he owed his election to his wife. If he heard the comments, Hugo ignored them.

Richard Phillip had his seventh birthday before Alice could fulfil the promise made when he was still a very little boy. Now Ashton was restored to its old glory. The great gardens had been replanted, the splendid borders were ablaze with flowers, and the topiary garden was clipped into its ancient geometric pattern. The green lawns were mowed and cultivated until they looked like baize, and Alice persuaded Hugo to buy an entire collection of eighteenth-century garden statuary that came on the market when a famous estate was broken up to pay death duties. The house had been redecorated, and the last traces of its wartime role had disappeared. All that remained was the silver-framed photograph with its inscription ‘To Mrs Vandekar. From her boys. April 1942' that stood on her desk, as she had promised. Hugo bought pictures at her prompting. So many families were being forced to sell up by heavy taxes and a climate hostile to the old order of wealth and privilege. ‘That's your bloody Labour government for you!' Alice protested. ‘Some good things indeed! I'd like to know what they are.'

‘It hasn't stopped you doing your own bit of plundering,' was his reply. Their latest acquisition was a magnificent Van Dyck for the library.

‘What's wrong with us having them?' she demanded. ‘At least they stay in England.'

‘Yes, of course,' he mocked her gently. ‘I was sure patriotism was your motive. Don't forget to tell Winston when you get the chance.'

‘Don't worry, I won't,' Alice said over her shoulder. And she didn't. The next occasion he visited Ashton he was once more Prime Minister.

Her son's seventh birthday was as lavish in its way as anything given for Fern before the war. The same grand setting, two dozen girls and boys in pretty frilly party dresses and neat little suits, and a conjuror in the library after tea. Richard Phillip blew out his seven candles and showed what nice manners he had, thanking everyone politely, not fighting with any of the boys or teasing the girls. He was perfect, Alice thought proudly, and what a handsome boy he was growing up to be. Everyone said so. Such a pity Hugo couldn't have been there, but he had been made Parliamentary Private Secretary to the new Minister for Agriculture. He had bought his son a watch. Alice had given him a train set, a bicycle and a fishing rod. His father had promised to teach him to fish in the lake during the holidays. Alice was certain to remind him. Only one more precious year remained before he was banished to another English institution, the preparatory school. She would lose him after his eighth birthday. No pleas or arguments had moved Hugo. ‘All boys go away at that age, some at seven,' was his stock reply when Alice started protesting about its barbarity. ‘You sent Fern away, and it's not so traditional with girls. Richard is going and that's the end of it.'

She didn't want to think about that, not on such a happy day. When it was over, and they had shaken hands with everyone, she took her son into the library. She rang for a drink. There was an adequate staff at Ashton now, less than the full complement, but domestic service had acquired a stigma since the war. However, they had an old retired butler who was able to train up the raw material that came unwillingly from the employment agencies, and Lily was as much the housekeeper as anything since a girl had been taken on to look after Alice's clothes. Even so the delicate mending and care of her personal things still fell to Lily, who wouldn't give them up.

‘I'd like a drink, please, Thompson. Vodka and tonic. Richard darling, would you like something? Lemonade?'

‘Yes please, Mummy.'

‘Lemonade for Master Richard,' Alice confirmed. ‘Now, we can have a few minutes peace while I put my feet up. Did you have a nice party? Did you enjoy it?'

He smiled at her. He was a demonstrative little boy, and he liked it when she put her arm round him. ‘It was lovely. I got so many presents!'

Alice laughed. ‘I should say so – think of all the thank-you letters you'll have to write!'

He grimaced. ‘I forgot about that. Do I have to?'

‘Yes, you do. But not until tomorrow. Who did you like best at the party? James Howard seemed a nice boy; so did that other child, what's his name, you know darling, the one with glasses …'

‘Peter,' her son said. ‘He's all right. The conjuror was so clever, wasn't he? I tried and tried to see how he did that trick with the handkerchiefs but I couldn't.'

The drinks came. Alice needed hers. Children were more tiring to entertain than any group of adults. But it had been a success for him. He'd been so excited by the conjuror, jumping up and down and shouting out clues when he was asked. He was such a rewarding child; he was pleased with everything. Not at all spoiled, which was a miracle. No thanks to me, Alice said to herself, I've spoiled him to death, but it hasn't made any difference.

‘There was one little girl who couldn't come today,' she remarked, ‘Lady Brayley's child. She had a sore throat. I'll ask her another time. They've just come to live near here. It's a pity she missed the party. Now it's time you went up and had your bath. I'm going to finish my drink first and then I'll come up and kiss you good night. Off you go!'

He got up immediately. ‘Thanks for the party. It was super fun. Is Daddy coming home tonight?'

‘No, not tonight. He's so busy these days. But he'll be back on Friday.' If he doesn't go down to his damned constituency, she said to herself. I suppose I'll have to go with him.

‘I love my watch,' the little boy said. ‘And all my other things. I hope he comes home.'

‘He will,' she promised. She finished her drink and eased off one shoe that was pinching. Richard loved Hugo. He was always trying to please him. Sometimes it made Alice really angry when Hugo didn't respond. He much preferred that sullen daughter who was becoming adolescent and even less agreeable to have around. He had given her a real pearl necklace for her thirteenth birthday.

Then she stopped short, checked by her own guilty conscience from making too much of an issue. If all that stuff about blood being thicker than water was true, then perhaps that was the reason. Hugo had never mentioned Nick Armstrong again. Not for nearly seven years. And yet it hung between them, and it always would. She was sure he had a woman up in London, but she didn't care enough to try to find out who it was. She had Ashton and her son and a full life. That was enough.

‘I don't want to play with a girl,' Richard protested.

‘Nonsense,' Alice said. ‘I told you, she missed your birthday party because she was ill and I promised her mother I'd invite her. How would you like it if you'd just moved to a new house and didn't have anybody to play with?'

‘I wouldn't mind,' he insisted. ‘I don't like girls, Mummy.'

Alice didn't chide him because she knew why. Girls meant Fern, who was so much bigger and bullied him whenever she got the chance. From the day Alice caught her pinching him when he was a baby, she had kept a close watch on her daughter and the boy.

She said kindly, ‘Richard, you're not to say that. It's silly. Girls can be fun.'

He looked up at her with his big eyes and said with the devastating honesty of a child, ‘Fern's a girl and she's horrid. Lily says she's a pain in the arse.'

Alice gaped at him for a moment and then burst out laughing. ‘Well, Lily shouldn't say that. Fern's your sister. All girls aren't like her. Diana Brayley is only little, but I'm sure she's very nice. So you're not to be rough and push her over, because I'll be there and I'll be very angry with you. OK?'

He hung his head for a moment. She hated being firm with him. Then he brightened. ‘OK, Mummy. When's she coming?'

‘Teatime,' Alice said. ‘You can play afterwards while I talk to her mother.'

The Brayleys had moved into the country quite recently. It was an old and famous name, but denuded of estates and money over the last century, the family had moved out of their enormous house in Somerset when it was requisitioned by the army. At the end of the war it was a wreck, and they were only too pleased to take the miserly War Office compensation and sell it to a builder. Soon he had stripped it of lead, panelling, doors and fireplaces, and left the shell to fall down. They had bought a much smaller farmhouse not far from Ashton. Alice had called on them when they moved in. She found Lady Brayley a pleasant, rather gentle person, who was anxious to make friends and disarmingly honest about their circumstances. She hadn't seen the only child, although Anne Brayley talked about her and said she hoped she'd meet other children in the neighbourhood.

‘I can help there,' Alice had offered immediately. ‘My son's having a birthday party. I'll send you an invitation. You must bring her over.'