Confusion: Cazalet Chronicles Book 3 (44 page)

She glowed at the notion of delightful, and smiled inside at the idea of it being a surprise.

When they had walked from the station to the river and chosen a punt, ‘but we certainly want paddles as well, I’m not up to much punting’, they set off up river. Archie said that he would do a bit of poling until his leg got tired.

‘I suggest we just go and find a really pretty place to tie up and then we can have our picnic and draw.’ She agreed with all of that.

They found the perfect place, a little grassy promontory, the willow’s fresh green leaves dripping down to the olive-coloured water.

It was not until they had nearly finished lunch that she brought the conversation round to what he would do after the war. He had been talking about Neville, now in his third term at Stowe, and saying how interesting it was that in less than a year somebody could change so much as there now seemed to be so many things he liked doing.

‘He does go through interests rather quickly,’ she said. ‘I know Clary is worried about that. She’s afraid he will have tried everything by the time he is twenty, and there won’t be anything left. The first holidays he came back it was playing the trumpet. He wanted to do it most of the time, and the Duchy had to make him do it in the squash court. Now it’s the piano, but he’ll only play by ear, he won’t learn to read music.
And
he’s mad about buildings. And says he wants to be an actor when he’s not exploring. And he brought a friend back last holidays who
only
thinks about Bach, just when he’d begun on moths, so they did Bach all day and moths in the evening. Lydia’s very hurt. Since his voice broke he hardly takes any notice of her.’

‘They’ll get back together when he is a bit older. And it’s a good thing he is exploring so much. I think that means that by the time he is twenty, he
will
know what he wants to do.’

There was a pause, and then she said, ‘He loves you very much. He told Clary. In case you didn’t know.’

He was refilling their glasses with cider. Now, as he handed her her glass, he said easily, ‘Well, I’ve become a sort of stand-in for his father.’

When he had lit his cigarette, he leaned back on the battered plush cushions. They were opposite one another with the remains of the picnic between them.

‘And what are you going to do with your life?’

‘I’m not sure. I get rather confused about that.’

‘Well, you shouldn’t worry, my pretty Poll. Sir Right will come along and sweep you off on a white horse.’

‘Will he? How do you know?’

‘I don’t absolutely
know
. And you may not want simply to get married. You may want to do something on your own.
Until
Mr Right turns up.’

Her heart was thudding; she sat up; it felt like now – or never.

‘Well, I would quite like to get married.’

‘Aha! And have you chosen the lucky chap?’

‘Yes.’ She fixed her eyes just to the right of the top of his head. ‘It’s you. The only person I should like to marry is you.’ Anxious to prevent any response, she began speaking rapidly: ‘I’ve honestly thought a great deal about it. I’m completely serious. I know I’m quite a bit younger than you are, but people of different ages do get married and I’m sure it works out all right. I’m only twenty years younger and by the time I’m forty and you’re sixty, it will be nothing – nothing at all. But I wouldn’t consider marrying anyone else and you know me quite well, and you’ve said you like my appearance. I’ve been practising cooking and I wouldn’t mind if it was France or where we lived – I wouldn’t mind anything . . .’ Then she couldn’t think of any more to say, and made herself look at him.

He wasn’t laughing, which was something. But by the way in which he picked up her hand and kissed it, she knew it was no go.

‘Oh, Poll,’ he said. ‘What a compliment. I’ve never had such a great and serious compliment paid me in my life. And I’m not going to hide behind all that crap about me being too old for you, although in some ways it may be true. I love you very much, I regard you as a serious friend, but you are not my love, and the awful thing is that unless you were, the whole thing wouldn’t stand a chance.’

‘And you don’t think I ever could be?’

He shook his head. ‘It
is
the kind of thing one knows, you know.’

‘Yes.’

‘Dear Poll. You have your whole life before you.’

‘That is what I was thinking,’ she answered; it seemed interminable, but she did not say so.

‘I suppose you think I shouldn’t have told you,’ she said.

‘I don’t think that at all. I
do
think it was extremely brave of you.’

‘It hasn’t made any difference, though, has it?’

‘Well, at least you wanted to know something and you asked.’

And moved from hope to despair, she thought, but again she did not say so. She did not know how to be without him for the rest of her life, and she did not know how to be with him now – trapped in this wretched punt miles from anywhere.

She was saved by a sudden heavy shower. The sky had been becoming greyer, and – hours ago it now seemed to her – they had wondered whether it would rain. Now, she could be occupied in packing up the remains of lunch, getting into her duffel coat, and untying the painter from the willow, while Archie wielded the punting pole. All the same, by the time they reached the boatyard they were both soaked. The sun came out, but was intent upon its appearance rather than its warmth, and Archie wanted to go to a pub to get a whisky to warm them, but the pubs were closed. There was nothing for it but to go back to the station and wait for a train.

Standing on the platform, she said, ‘I haven’t told anyone – what I told you. Not even Clary.’

‘I wouldn’t dream of telling Clary – or anyone else,’ he replied.

They had a carriage to themselves on the slow Sunday train that stopped at every station. He talked to her – about her drawing, about painting in general, about life at Hamilton Terrace, about anything but her confidence or her feeling about it. She felt he was trying to prop up her dignity and did not like it: it prompted her to efforts of her own.

‘What I shall probably do,’ she said, ‘after the war, that is, is to find someone who is building houses and be the person who does the inside of them. I don’t mean just the paint or wallpaper, I mean the inside architecture – doors and floors and fireplaces—’ but then she found that she was starting to cry, so she pretended to sneeze and turned to the train window. ‘Oh dear! I bet I’ve caught a cold,’ she said.

At Paddington, he asked her what she wanted to do, and she said she thought she would just go home. ‘Would anyone be there?’ he asked, and she said yes, she was sure someone would.

In fact, she thought she knew that there would be no one, but she was wrong. She saw Louise’s coat flung on the hall table at the same moment as she heard her sobbing from above. Michael has been killed, she thought, as she ran up the stairs.

She found her in the small spare room lying face downwards on the bed.

At first Louise was incoherent with grief – or was it anger? She didn’t know which.

‘It slipped out!’ she said. ‘Someone who came to lunch just said it – in a sort of what-a-pity voice . . . no warning! And
they
all knew and they never told me.
She
must have known what a shock . . . I
couldn’t
stay after that. I just left the table and then I ran. Oh!
Polly!
How can I bear it! And it was supposed to be nearly the end of the war!’ A fresh paroxysm overwhelmed her.

She sat on the edge of the bed and put a timid hand upon Louise’s arm. Eventually Louise became quieter, rolled over and sat up, arms clasped round her knees.

‘It was ten days ago,’ she said. ‘It was in
The Times
, they said, but
she
knew I didn’t know.’

‘Who are you talking about?’ she asked, as gently as she could.

‘Zee! She hates me for it.’

She knew now that it wasn’t Michael.

‘Are you talking about Hugo?’

She flinched as though his name had struck her. ‘I loved him so much! With all my heart. And now I’ve got the whole of the rest of my life without him. I don’t know how to manage that at all.’ She looked up. ‘Oh, Poll! You are so comforting – to cry with me!’

THE FAMILY

April–May 1945

Tonbridge got back from fetching Mrs Rupert from the station in nice time for his elevenses with what he described to himself as ’my intended’. He had tried to pass a few interesting remarks to Mrs Rupert on their way back from Battle, but she hadn’t seemed interested. He’d mentioned the American President passing away and the Allies liberating Vienna – not that that could be expected to interest British people much, and he had added that it was his considered opinion that the war could not last very much longer, but Mrs Rupert hadn’t really
conversed
with him about any of it. She had been looking very pale lately – peaky, Mabel had said when they discussed it – and he wondered whether she was not feeling herself but naturally he passed no remark about that.

Anyway, when he had carried her case in for her, and put the car back in the garage, he walked across the courtyard to the back door and through the kitchen to the servants’ sitting room, but although there was a tray set with some drop scones and two pieces of gingerbread and the miniature toby jug full of top of the milk, she wasn’t there. That was funny, because she hadn’t been in the kitchen either when he passed through.

He went back to the kitchen where Lizzie was up to her elbows washing spring greens in the sink. She was the kind of girl who always gave a start when you spoke to her and then you couldn’t hardly hear what she said.
She
didn’t know where Mrs Cripps was. This was annoying, because he had something very important to tell her and he’d been saving it up for the appropriate moment of peace and hot tea that they usually enjoyed in the morning. He went back to the sitting room and sat down in his usual chair to wait for her.

Mrs Cripps had been having a very unusual morning. Dr Carr, who was paying his weekly visit to poor Miss Barlow upstairs, had been taking a look at her legs. They had hurt her something awful lately, and matters had come to a head after one of the morning sessions with Miss Rachel, as Mrs Cazalet Senior was feeling a bit under the weather. She had stood, as she always stood with Mrs Senior, while the day’s meals were discussed – not that there was very much choice these days, but Madam had always ordered the food and there was such a thing as standards, so she had stood as usual – taking the weight off her feet by leaning one elbow on the back of a kitchen chair. But that morning, when she had shifted to give the other leg a rest, the chair back had given way, just splintered to the floor, and she had gone with it. This had hurt her so badly that she had not been able to help a shriek of pain, and what with that, and the fact that she couldn’t, at first, get
up
from the floor, she had altogether given way. She had
cried
, in front of Miss Rachel who had been ever so kind, as indeed she always was. She had helped her up and taken her into the sitting room, and made her sit down with her feet up and told Lizzie to make a cup of tea, and it was when her legs were up on a stool with the cushion on it that Miss Rachel had noticed them. She was ashamed for anyone to see them, and she was only too glad that Frank had had to take the car to the garage for the morning and was safely out of the way.

Anyway, the upshot was that Miss Rachel said Dr Carr must look at them, and meanwhile she had gone to Battle and bought her some heavy elasticated stockings that had been a great comfort. Dr Carr had seen her in her own bedroom, as she had told Miss Rachel that the men might come into the servants’ hall at any minute and it wouldn’t be right. Dr Carr had said that she should have come to him before, and she really needed an operation, and she hadn’t worried too much about that at first because, being on the Panel, she didn’t think they did them. But then, when Miss Rachel came in she had said that she would pay for it, and then she had felt really frightened, because the only time she had been to a hospital in her life had been when her father was dying. And then Dr Carr had asked her how old she was, and telling him – fifty-six in June, she would be – she was suddenly overcome with shame, with remorse, because she had not told Frank this at all. She had told him that she was forty-two when he asked, and she’d stuck to it. He’d believed her, of course, in spite of her saying she was over ten years younger than she really was. Naturally, she wouldn’t tell a lie to a
doctor
, but telling him the truth made her suddenly feel that it was very wrong to conceal it from Frank. She’d been afraid he wouldn’t want to marry her if he knew – hadn’t even been sure whether he envisaged children, but when she had told him forty-two, he had said, ‘Well, it doesn’t sound as though our troubles will be little ones,’ and he’d gone red when he said it, and they’d changed the subject. Well, she might have an operation in a hospital and die, but she did want to be married first, and she didn’t want to die with a lie on her lips to her husband. So she would have to tell him.

He was waiting for her in the servants’ hall – wondering where she had got to, he said. Then, just as she was going to tell him, Lizzie brought in the tea, and then, when she had let it stand and was pouring it out, he pulled a brown envelope out of his pocket and said that he had had a letter from the lawyers saying he had got a Decree Nice Eye, whatever that might mean. It was to do with the divorce, but it wasn’t the end of it, oh dear no. After the Nice Eye you had to wait for something called the Absolute.
Then
it was over. But that, he said, was only a matter of weeks . . .

She was opening her mouth to tell him, when he stopped her again, by producing a small box, pressing a little knob on the lid which flew open to expose a
ring
– two, what looked like diamonds, not large, of course, you wouldn’t expect it with diamonds, each side of a smaller dark stone.