All Change: Cazalet Chronicles (49 page)

He woke late – after nine – with a raging thirst and a headache, the signs of a hangover. He ran himself a very hot bath, rummaged in the bathroom cupboard and found some Alka Seltzer. The bath, followed by a cold shower, made him feel much better, but it also came to him that, of course, he was going to have to put up with another evening: it was only Saturday. He had to stick it out, if only for Sabrina’s sake . . . During those hours: a hearty breakfast, a walk in the park – it was a bright shiny day and there had been a frost, a few disconsolate deer picking at the crunchy grass, and loudly complaining crows – coming back for his solitary lunch, game pie and Stilton, nothing to drink, thank you, and an impressive array of Saturday newspapers that he skimmed in the library.

He thought about Sabrina lustfully – he had never seen her wonderful breasts naked – her silky hair, strands of which kept falling over her face, her long white neck, her tiny waist, elegant knees and pretty ankles; and then, protectively, of the way she swung from a childish cockiness when she landed a job to bewilderment when she lost it. She did not understand advice – seemed to regard it as something critical that people said to her – but she was far from stupid. She read voraciously and kept a notebook, which she had once let him look at. It was full of essays and criticism: ‘A comparison of the strengths and weaknesses of Trollope and Dickens’; ‘The Brontë sisters: a reappraisal of Anne – too long demoted to third place’; ‘The genius of Evelyn Waugh – virtuoso of inference through pure dialogue’, and so on. She’d snatched it away at this point and said sadly, ‘It’s all about novels. It wouldn’t interest you.’

He remembered yet again how much he had loved her then. How angry he had felt that her wretched parents had prevented her going to university, which was the only thing she had wanted; he found now that he was even forgiving her for leaving him to ride with her parents. She had said that her father might cut her off, and that she needed money to ‘pay things’. He wondered for a moment whether she would elope with him, then realised that this was out of the question if things were going wrong with the firm and that, therefore, he might lose his job. To take his mind off this, he resorted to the newspapers, and read about Donald Campbell breaking his own speed record on water by achieving 248.62 miles per hour . . .

And then they were back, cold, rosy (in the case of Mrs F’s nose unfortunately so) and, after a good deal of stamping about in the hall, they streamed into the library where an enormous tea appeared like magic. Crumpets, boiled eggs, scones, hot chocolate, several cakes, coffee éclairs and, of course, tea. Perhaps this meal was intended to replace dinner, Teddy thought with some hope, but that was dashed when Pearl announced that she had asked Lord Ilchester to dine. Sabrina rolled her eyes at him, and Reggie didn’t seem pleased either, but this, of course, made no difference, and Teddy resigned himself to a different sort of awful evening.

Ilchester was tall, with not very much blond hair, rather bulbous pale blue eyes and a falsetto laugh, which erupted after almost anything he said. He asked Teddy why he had not been hunting, and before he could answer, Mrs F replied that Mr Cazalet did not ride. ‘Oh, I say, hard luck! What do you do in winter, then? I must say I’d be totally lost without something to do.’ He laughed at such an idea.

‘Teddy works, Ticky,’ Sabrina said, with emphasis. ‘He has a job – he earns his living.’

But her mother cut in sharply: ‘Of course, some people have to do that. It takes all sorts to make a world.’

Reggie, who had been refilling glasses, stood up for him, too: ‘He prefers shooting, and I bet he’s a damn good shot.’

‘Really? I’d no idea you’d brought your guns with you, Mr Cazalet.’

At that moment dinner was announced.

While they ate potted shrimps, roast pheasant and a cold lemon soufflé, it was Mrs F who dominated the conversation: she praised her daughter’s horsemanship, said how exhausting it must be to manage the Ilchester estates – ‘Two thousand acres, isn’t it, Ticky?’ – to which he replied that it was nearly three, actually, and laughed at the idea, and she proceeded to commiserate with him about the difficulty of getting landsmen and tenant farmers. ‘By Jove! It’s certainly that! Servants of any kind! I had a devil of a job to find a person to look after my aunt Agatha – she lives at Ilchester Court. I had to interview three women before I found someone suitable. Frightful problem! Quite difficult to please an aunt, don’t you know.’

By now Teddy was wishing he possessed the wit of Oscar Wilde, but he couldn’t think of any ripostes that would fit. ‘Some aunts are tall, some aunts are small; it is surely a matter for an aunt to decide for herself,’ cruised through his head. Better just eat and be careful not to drink too much . . .

Fortunately for him, Mrs F was determined to thwart Reggie in any attempt at a serious port-drinking session. ‘Reggie, darling, I’ve arranged for the gentlemen to join us in the drawing room for port and coffee. We don’t see Ticky very often and don’t want to waste him.’ She smiled at Ticky, who laughed (brayed, really, Teddy thought).

Nobody else smiled. Reggie’s face showed a conflict of emotion. He had been looking forward to a men’s drinking session but, on the other hand, it was clear that he had nothing at all to say to Ilchester. He shrugged the rich red-velvet shoulders of his smoking jacket and made some show of getting to his feet.

The library drum table was laid out with coffee and three tiny glasses of port; no sign of a bottle. Teddy saw Reggie shoot his wife a look of pure hatred, but he said nothing, busied himself offering gigantic cigars to Ilchester, who refused, choosing a herbal cigarette from a gold case. It smelt awful – rather like poor-quality hash.

‘Do, everybody, help yourselves to coffee.’ And Pearl took up her needlework. The coffee cups were tiny, like the port glasses – a doll’s set, Teddy thought – and while Pearl was bent over her awful cushion cover, he managed to slip Reggie his port – the eyebrows went ultra-benevolent then. Emboldened by a third glass – he had swiped Ilchester’s while he was lighting another herbal cigarette – he embarked upon a cross-examination of Ilchester about his politics. What did he think about all these cheap homes the government were planning to build?

Clearly taken aback, Ilchester said, ‘First I’ve heard about it. Are they really? Where’s the money to come from? Out of our pockets, you can be sure of that.’

‘My friend – he’s a junior minister in the government – takes a poor view of it all. What’s your view? I don’t see the House of Lords likely to welcome it.’

‘I don’t suppose they will much care for it, no. My chaps are all in tied cottages, you see, so the problem doesn’t arise. ’Fraid I don’t know much about that sort of thing.’

The rest of the evening was predictably awful. Ilchester went early, which should have been a relief but it allowed Reggie to take sweet revenge on his wife. ‘Where are you going, Reggie?’

‘None of your business, but as a matter of fact I’m off to my study. Goodnight, all.’ His eyebrows were in angry mode. She wasn’t going to stop him drinking – not she.

His behaviour clearly upset Mrs F. Shortly afterwards, she packed up her sewing and left them, telling Sabrina that she should go to bed after the early start that morning.

‘She’s gone to hunt him down. They’ll have a ghastly row.’

‘Oh, darling, do you mind?’

‘Not much. Only I don’t want Daddy to be in a bad temper tomorrow because I still haven’t asked him for the money I need. But if he goes shooting with you, he’ll probably get into a better temper.’

This was going to be difficult. ‘I haven’t had a chance to tell you, but I’m leaving tomorrow after breakfast. Of course you can come with me, darling.’

There was a silence. ‘Why?’ she said. ‘You never said you were going to do that! And you know I can’t!’

‘Why can’t you come back with me?’

‘Teddy, I’ve told you. I can’t go back to London until Daddy has given me some money. Anyway, why are you going?’

He decided to tell her: ‘Your mother’s been so offensive to me that I have to go.’

‘What did she say?’

‘She said, “If you think you can worm your way into this house in order to form some liaison with my daughter, you are very much mistaken.”’

‘When on earth did she manage to say that?’

‘She came to my room before dinner, knocked on the door, said it, and went. Satisfied?’

She burst into tears. ‘It’s not my fault they’re so awful!’ she sobbed. ‘It’s not my fault that they won’t let me do the only thing I might be good at – that they’ve brought me up to be useless, only good for marriage and breeding!’

Teddy took her in his arms (she always let him do that when she cried), and he did his best to soothe her. ‘As soon as you’re old enough we’ll get married, and if you still want to go to university, you shall.’

This prospect pleased her; when he pushed her hair out of her eyes and kissed her, she did not resist.

‘I think your father quite likes me. I told him I wanted to marry you, and he said that as long as I was earning enough to keep you in the manner to which you’re accustomed, he might consider it. But,’ he added quickly, ‘it might take me some time to do that.’

‘Oh, you mustn’t bother about it. I can cook eggs, and we could go to very cheap restaurants and we could do without a car and just take taxis.’

He let her chatter herself into some optimism about the future while revealing her frighteningly shaky grasp of reality and any of the practices it required.

He decided to leave before breakfast. It would mean that he need not see either of the Frankensteins again and go through the farce of thanking them for a lovely weekend.

He was so anxious to escape undetected that he rose at six thirty. He left a note under Sabrina’s door and slipped out of the house. It was almost dark when he left and extremely cold – the massive trees that lined the drive, still darker than the sky, dripped rain portentously on the roof of his car and a few reckless rabbits ran wildly across his headlights.

He had to stop for petrol, and it was then that he wondered where he was going – where he ought to go. He had been going to spend the evening with Sabrina in the Frankensteins’ flat, but that was out of the question now. All the same, he couldn’t face returning to his dismal flat in Southampton; he decided instead to go to Louise and tell her his troubles. She might know more than he about what was happening to Cazalets’. Anyway, she would cheer him up.