The Light Years (The Cazalet Chronicle) (26 page)

The evening settled into a hot still night. Delirious moths rammed the parchment lampshades again and again and silvery powder from their collisions fell from time to time onto Sybil’s sewing. She had been given the whole sofa so that she could put her feet up. The Brig and Edward were playing chess and smoking Havana cigars. They played very slowly, with occasional admiring grunts at the other’s skill. The Duchy was setting in the puff sleeves of the tussore frock for Clary. It was richly smocked in cherry silk: the Duchy was famous for her smocking. Zoë was curled in a battered armchair reading
Gone With The Wind.
Hugh, in charge of the gramophone, had chosen Schubert’s posthumous B flat sonata – known to be one of the Duchy’s favourites – and was listening with his eyes closed. Villy was embroidering one of her enormous set of table mats in fine black cross stitch on heavy linen. Rupert lay in a chair at the end of the room, legs stretched straight out, arms hanging over the chair arms, half listening to the music, half watching the others. How like Edward was to their father, he began. The same forehead, with the hair growing from a centre peak and receding – in Edward’s case far more than their father’s – each side of it. The same bushy eyebrows, the same blue-grey eyes (although Edward’s way of looking you straight in the eye came from the Duchy, one of whose chief charms it was. ‘I don’t agree with you at all,’ she would say, and you liked her for it), high cheekbones, military moustache. The Brig’s, apart from being white, was longer and more luxuriant; Edward kept his to a military bristle. Their hands were the same shape with long fingers and rather concave nails, the Brig’s speckled with liver spots, Edward’s with hair growing on the backs. The curious thing about moustaches was how you lost the mouth; it became an unconsidered feature, much as he supposed a chin would that sported a beard. Edward, though, had a glamour that seemed to come from neither parent; although undoubtedly he was the best looking of the three of them: the glamour came from his apparent unconsciousness of either his appearance or his effect upon other people. Clothes, for instance, became glamorous simply because he was wearing them – tonight a white silk shirt with a bottle green foulard silk scarf knotted round his throat and linen trousers of the same colour, but when you came to think about it, he must have
thought
about his outfit,
chosen
those things – so perhaps he wasn’t so unconscious, after all? He certainly knew that women found him attractive. Even those who did not were always immediately aware of him: Zoë, for instance, said that although he wasn’t her type, she could see that he might be very attractive to some. Part of it was the way in which Edward always seemed to be enjoying himself, to be living in the present – to be
engrossed
in it, never appearing to consider anything either side of it.

Rupert, being six and seven years younger than his brothers, had escaped the war – had been a schoolboy while his brothers were in France. Hugh had been the first to go – joined the Coldstream Guards – and Edward, unable to join him because of his age, got himself into the Machine Gun Corps a few months later. Edward soon had his first MC and was recommended for a Victoria Cross. But when Rupert had tried to question him about it, for the vicarious glory of being able to impress other boys at school, Edward had said, ‘For peeing on a machine gun, old boy – to cool it down a bit. It got too hot and jammed,’ and looked embarrassed. ‘Under fire?’ Yes, Edward had admitted that there had been quite a bit of firing. Then he changed the subject. By the time he was twenty-one he was a major with a bar to his MC, and Hugh was a captain and had won his cross and been wounded. When they had finally come home from the war neither of them talked about it; with Hugh, Rupert had felt that it was because he couldn’t bear to, whereas with Edward, it seemed more that he’d done with all that and was only interested in what was going to happen to him next – joining the firm and marrying Villy. But Hugh had never been the same. His head wound had left him with bad headaches, he’d lost a hand, his digestion wasn’t good and he sometimes had rotten dreams. But it wasn’t only that: Rupert had noticed, and he still noticed, that there was something about his expression, about his eyes, a haunted look of outrage, anguish, even. If you called his name and he looked at you straight – like Edward, like his mother – you caught this expression before it dissolved to the mildness of anxiety and thence to his habitual affectionate sweetness. He loved his family, never sought company outside it, never looked at another woman, and had particular affection for all children, particularly babies. It was when he looked at, or thought about, Hugh that Rupert felt irrational pangs of guilt that he had not shared the unknown hell.

The Schubert came to an end and Sybil, without raising her eyes from her sewing, said, ‘Bed, darling?’

‘If you’re ready.’ He put the record away, walked over to his mother and kissed her. She patted his cheek.

‘Sleep well, darling.’

‘I’ll sleep like a log. Always do, here.’ As he walked over to his wife, he gave Rupert a little smile and then, as though to snap any sentiment, winked. Rupert winked back: it was one of their old habits.

There was a general folding up of work and movement for bed. Rupert looked at Zoë, completely engrossed; he had never known her so caught by a book before.

‘Can I interest you in bed?’

She looked up. ‘Is it that late?’

‘Getting on. It must be a marvellous book.’

‘It’s quite good. All about the civil war in America,’ she added, as she marked her place. Villy’s lip curled and she met Sybil’s eye fleetingly. She had discussed the book with Sybil when it came out earlier in the year, having borrowed it from Hermione; she had glanced at it, she said, and it seemed to her that the heroine had a mind as shallow as a soup bowl, thinking of nothing but men, frocks and money. Sybil had suggested that the bits about the civil war were supposed to be rather good, and Villy, who had not glanced at those bits, said that they seemed to her to play a very minor part. Sybil had said that it didn’t sound her kind of book. Sybil had handed her sewing to Hugh to hold, had swung her legs over the side of the sofa, but could not rise unaided, and Rupert went to help her. Villy decided to go to bed also, and to be asleep before Edward had finished his game.

‘Where’s Rachel?’ someone asked, and the Duchy, putting her steel-rimmed spectacles into their needleworked case, answered, ‘She went to bed early, had rather a head.’

In fact, Rachel had gone to the Brig’s study after dinner to telephone Sid with whom she had a delightful – and extravagant – conversation lasting six minutes, about the arrangements for Sid to come down to lunch. Monday had been fixed as a good day, as most of the family would be going to the beach. ‘Won’t they want all the cars, then?’ S had said. But Rachel didn’t think so, and if they did, she would bicycle to Battle to meet the train. Sid had been enchanted by the idea of Rachel on a bicycle, and had been difficult to cut short, but, after all, it was her parents’ telephone, though when she said this, Sid simply replied, ‘Yes, my angel,’ and went on talking. That was why it had been six minutes instead of the statutory three that was thought proper in the family for a long-distance call. After it, and, of course, unable to share her excitement and joy with the family, Rachel had decided to read in bed and have an early night, and meeting Eileen with the coffee tray in the hall, had asked her to tell Mrs Cazalet that she had a headache and would not be down again. But on her way up she thought she would look in on the girls and be sure that Clary was settling in. Louise and Polly were in their beds – Louise was reading, Polly was knitting – and Clary lay on her stomach on the floor writing in an exercise book. They were all flatteringly pleased to see her. ‘Sit on
my
bed, Aunt Rach. I’m reading a frightfully sad book – it’s full of God and people bursting into tears. It’s in Canada with a nasty aunt in it. Not at all like you, she added. Rachel sat on Louise’s bed. And what’s Polly making?’

‘A jersey. For Mum. For Christmas. It was for her birthday but it’s a secret so it’s very hard to knit it for long. Don’t tell her.’

‘It looks very difficult.’ It did: some lacy pale pink stitch with bobbles on it. ‘It’s a good thing that it’s called dirty pink,’ said Polly. ‘It’s got far less pink than when I started.’

‘Dirty pink was in last year,’ said Louise. ‘By the time you’ve finished it, it’ll be terrifically out. But as your mother’s not very fashionable, she probably won’t mind.’

‘People wear colours that suit them any time,’ said Polly.

‘People with auburn hair are supposed to wear green all the time. And blue.’

‘What an authority you are upon fashion, Louise.’ She needed a mild snub. She turned to Clary, who had been writing steadily. ‘And what are you up to?’

‘Nothing much.’

‘What are you writing? A journal?’

‘Just a book.’

‘How exciting! What’s it about?’

‘Nothing much. It’s the life story of a cat who can understand everything in English. He was born in Australia but he’s come to England for some adventures.’

‘Quarantine,’ said Louise. ‘He couldn’t.’

‘How do you mean he couldn’t? He just has.’

‘He’d have to spend six months in quarantine.’

‘I expect you could put that in, and then have him in England,’ said Polly kindly.

Clary shut her book and got into her bed without another word.

‘She’s sulking now.’

Rachel was distressed.

‘You’re being very unpleasant, Louise.’

‘I didn’t mean it.’

‘That’s not good enough. You can’t say unpleasant things and then pretend you didn’t mean them.’

‘No, you can’t,’ said Polly. ‘It just makes your character worse in the long run. What it
is
is that you wish
you
’d thought of writing a book.’

This shaft went home, Rachel noticed. Louise blushed and then she told Clary she was sorry, and Clary said all right.

Rachel kissed them all in turn: they all smelled sweetly of damp hair, toothpaste and Vinolia soap. Clary hugged her and whispered that she had a surprise to show in the morning. Louise apologised again in a whisper; Polly just giggled and said she had nothing worth whispering.

‘Be nice to one another and lights out in ten minutes.’

‘How
arbitrary
!
’
she heard Louise exclaim after she had left. ‘How too, too arbitrary! If she’d said half past nine or
ten
, I could understand it, but just ten minutes after whenever she leaves . . . ’ The small grudge would unite them, anyway.

On Monday, Hugh left Sybil in bed, ate a hurried breakfast with the Duchy, who had risen early for the purpose, and left the house by seven thirty for London. He didn’t think that Sybil should go to the beach and begged his mother to dissuade her. The Duchy agreed; the day promised to be a scorcher, there were plenty of uncles and aunts to look after Polly and Simon, and sitting on hot pebbles in blazing sun when you were unable to bathe (which, of course, was out of the question for Sybil in her condition) was agreed to be unsuitable. Hugh, who resisted an impulse to say goodbye to his wife after breakfast – not wishing to wake her again – felt relief. Sybil, lying in bed and longing for him to come up, listened to his car starting, got out of bed in time to see it disappearing down the drive. She was thoroughly awake by now, and decided to have a long, luxurious bath before anybody else wanted the bathroom.

It was after ten before they were ready to go. They went in three cars, crammed with towels, bathing suits, picnic baskets, rugs and whatever personal equipment each one thought necessary for their pleasure. The younger children had buckets and spades and a shrimping net, ‘Which is very silly, Neville, because there’s not a single shrimp there.’ The nurses took knitting and
Nursery World
, Edward his camera. Zoë took
Gone With The Wind
, her new halter-necked bathing costume – navy blue with white piqué bows at neck and back of waist – and some dark glasses; Rupert took a sketch pad and some charcoal; Clary took a biscuit tin for collecting shells or anything; Simon and Teddy took two packs of cards – they had recently learned bezique; Louise took
The Wide Wide World
and a jar of Wonder Cream (it wasn’t lasting well – had gone all watery at the bottom with a kind of greenish scum on top, but she felt it had to be used up), and Polly took her Brownie box camera – her best present from her last birthday.