All Change: Cazalet Chronicles (51 page)

In spite of the war it had been a happy time; she loved her brothers and their wives, and adored the children, and the house had welcomed them all. It had been easier then, because only one brother, Rupert, had been the right age for combat. There had not been the constant agony that they had endured about Hugh and Edward although there were losses enough: Sybil dying, Hugh’s anguish, the destruction of the London sawmill and wharf, her growing fears for Sid who had driven an ambulance all over London, it seemed, but certainly where the Blitz was worst. The Duchy’s three heroes – Toscanini, Mr Churchill and Gregory Peck – had sustained her serenity and teasing her about them was a merciful way of lightening the atmosphere. The Brig had given her the latest gramophone, the one with the enormous horn and wooden needles that could be reused if you pared them with a knife. The Duchy had immediately asked the young Jewish girls, training to be nurses, whom Myra had somehow got out of Germany to come for evenings of Toscanini, Beethoven symphonies and piano concerti. They would have tea and Marie biscuits for refreshment. They made good nurses, Matron had said, but the Duchy felt that they must be homesick. Rachel had tried asking one girl – Helga – if she missed her home and how she had got here. ‘A man came one morning very early to our apartment and spoke to my mother when I was in bed. She came and made me put on two sets of clothes, vests, shirts, sweaters and my winter coat. Then she put her arms round me and said it wasn’t safe for me there any more, and that a kind friend was going to put me on a train, that I was to say nothing and do everything he told me. I am lucky to be here,’ she’d finished, as her tears fell. Rachel had hugged her and tried to find comforting things to say, but she could not think of any. There had been rumours of terrible and widespread ill-treatment of Jews but, to her, being torn from your family and not knowing when you might see them again was horrible enough. The remembrance of that time pricked her already painful conscience. What she had to bear now was nothing to what those poor girls and, no doubt, countless others had gone through.

For the first few days Rachel had been so stunned at the thought of abandoning the house where she had lived for so long, where her mother and then her dearest Sid had died, that she had not begun to consider what was to become of her. She was naturally frugal, for years had spent her money on other people, and she had never given money a thought. But now she might have to. She had no idea what Sid’s house (if she sold it) would bring her. She had no idea what was in her bank account. She had not even a very clear idea of what it cost to run Home Place, since Hugh paid all the expenses from the fund provided in equal shares by him, Rupert and herself. Now she might have to take paid work. When Sid had told her to find some work to fill her life, she had naturally thought of a charity she could support. But what could she do that anyone would pay her for? She could type with one finger – nobody would be interested in that. She could not cook, she could not drive; she had absolutely no qualifications, and this made her feel really frightened . . .

Just then, Hugh rang from London, which was a welcome relief. But her relief didn’t last long. He had rung to say that the receivers had given them a month to get out of Home Place. He hated saying it, but she had to know. In fact, he’d managed to get them to agree to the 2nd of January, because he’d thought it would be good if they could have one last family Christmas there, but he wanted to know whether that was something she would like, or whether she felt it would be too much for her. If they came for about a week, it would enable him to discuss her future, which he particularly didn’t want her to worry about. She did not hesitate. Of course she would love them to come for Christmas – all of them.

The moment he rang off, she remembered that she had meant to ask Hugh what would happen to Eileen and the Tonbridges. This had been worrying her ever since the bombshell had fallen. They were too old to get new jobs and as Eileen slept in the house, and the Tonbridges had the cottage above the stables, she was afraid that they would be not allowed to stay there. After their years of service to the family, she felt responsible for them. Eileen had a younger sister, a retired lady’s maid, who lived in a flat in Hastings, and they occasionally had holidays together. But the Tonbridges! She wanted to buy them a cottage and she had already pledged to pay for Mrs Tonbridge’s operation. She must find out how much money she had in her account.

She rang her bank, and found that she had nearly fifteen thousand pounds. Greatly cheered – it seemed an enormous amount – she rang Villy and asked if, sent a key, she would be kind enough to get a house agent round to value the Abbey Road house. As she lived so near, she might know which agent to go to, but not if it was too much trouble. Villy sounded so low, so unhappy, and at the same time so grateful to be asked that Rachel changed her mind, and ventured to wonder whether Villy could put her up for a night. ‘Of course! Oh, Rachel, I’d simply love to see you!’

And so, dreading more bitter recriminations about Edward and ‘That Woman’, she went.

Villy looked awful. She wore cyclamen lipstick that made her complexion seem sallow and the dark circles under her swollen eyes look worse. They kissed warmly, and Villy led the way into the sitting room, which had a fireplace and drinks on a table in front of it.

‘Something’s the matter?’ Rachel said, accepting a large drink.

‘Yes. Miss Milliment has died.’

‘Oh dear! I’m so sorry.’

‘It’s much worse than that. She died in a nursing home – I had to put her there because it got too dangerous to leave her on her own in this house, even for half an hour. She was demented, you see, hardly knowing me in the end. But she loathed it in the home, and she blamed me – my cruelty, my being uncaring for putting her there. Every time I visited, she cried and railed at me for my wickedness. The last time I saw her she recognised me and said, “Viola, you have betrayed me. I have loved you all my life, and I was wrong. You have never loved me. I do not know how to bear it. I cannot bear it.” She was sobbing, and when I tried to hold her in my arms, she tore herself away. “Don’t touch me – you devil. No love – no love at all. Go away, don’t ever come back!”’

Tears were streaming down Villy’s face, and Rachel knelt before her and held her shaking shoulders. ‘She was demented, darling. You said that. And you were angelic to her. You gave her a home and looked after her. Of course she didn’t mean all those horrible things she said. Of course you loved her and somewhere inside her she knew that. Oh, darling Villy, how awful for you!’ And then, somehow, the thought flashed across her mind: supposing Sid had been demented, had said such things to her? Poor Villy, to be rejected for the second time in her life! And she was not bitter – she was only sad. How much easier that made it to try to comfort her. But where was the comfort? Miss Milliment was dead; there could be no reconciling conversation – and, in any case, if someone was out of their mind, it was almost impossible to get them back into it. However, she tried to make Villy feel better, and in some part succeeded.

‘Oh, Rachel! You’re such a tower of strength! Enough about me. Tell me your news.’ She had taken a paper handkerchief out of a box lying beside her chair and Rachel noticed that the wastepaper basket was already full of them. Villy offered her a cigarette, and she took it, in spite of only liking her Passing Clouds. ‘You’ve decided to sell Sid’s house.’

‘Yes. As you know, I went back, and I discovered that I could not bear to live there. It was too full of sad things – the beginning of Sid being so ill and the time when we weren’t talking about it. I don’t know – I found that I just wanted to escape from it.’

‘I do understand, darling. You want to stay in Home Place where you have always been happiest—’

‘It seems that I cannot do that. I suppose you haven’t heard what is happening with Cazalets’?’

A trace of the old bitterness: ‘I have absolutely no idea,’ she said coldly.

So Rachel told her. And Villy, always practical and intelligent, seemed to understand at once. ‘Are they all losing their houses?’

‘No. Luckily some lawyer or accountant advised my brothers to put their houses in their wives’ names. But Home Place was bought by the Brig in the firm’s name. I have to get out in the New Year.’ Her voice was trembling as she tried to smile.

‘Well, darling, I really do see how awful that is for you, but if you sell Abbey Road you’ll be able to buy a little house in Sussex, and with all your shares you’ll be able to live comfortably.’

‘There won’t be any shares. The firm is bankrupt. I shan’t have an income from it – I’ll have to get a job of some sort. But who is going to employ a woman of nearly sixty, who can’t drive, or cook, or type?’ She was silent for a moment, trying to quell the panic she always felt when she thought about it – which was almost always now.

Villy reached out and took her hand. ‘Well, we must see how much you can get for the house. And you know you can always stay here as long as you want.’

The ‘stay’ hit her: she would still have nowhere to live, which was entirely different. But she said thank you, it was really kind.

They sat for a while with a second gin, which Rachel did not want, and while compassionate for each other, their own plight seemed worse now to each of them. Villy was grieving about Miss Milliment and lonely: Lydia had left some weeks ago to tour in Clary’s play, so she was alone again, struggling to think how she might make Christmas less boring for Roland. And I’m sixty-two, she thought, too old for anything interesting to happen.

Rachel felt – although, of course, she was glad of it – that at least Villy had her own house and the income to live in it. And she had Roland, which must be lovely. She had lost the person she loved most in the world (and Sid had been only fifty when she died), whereas Villy’s anger and resentment about Edward leaving her seemed the result of pride, rather than love.

But these thoughts were entirely concealed. They ate macaroni cheese and stewed pears by the fire, and were kind to each other, as they smoked a last cigarette.

The next morning they went to Sid’s house, and Villy, appalled by its abandoned state, tactfully suggested that she should ask her daily, Mrs Jordan, to clean it before showing it to an agent. Meanwhile, she also thought that it might be a good idea for Rachel to clear the house of things that she wanted and that then they could decide what to do with the residue.

The rest of Sid’s clothes,’ Rachel said. ‘I’d be awfully grateful if you would stay with me while I do that. There’s one old suitcase upstairs and I’ll take it back to Home Place.’

So that happened. Villy asked her to stay another night, but Rachel said she had arranged to be met at Battle and so must catch the four thirty at Charing Cross. Villy said that she would deal with the house-cleaning and appoint an agent.

She could not have been kinder, Rachel thought, as she settled into her train. The main reason she wanted to get back was because she had the enormous Christmas party to deal with, and she felt very sad that Villy would be excluded from it.

Villy, emboldened by Rachel’s courage, spent an awful evening clearing out Miss Milliment’s clothes and few possessions: her lock-knit knickers, her woollen vests, washed until they were stiff and prickly, her battered egg-stained cardigans, her two smart outfits – bottle-green silk jersey and her fearful banana jacket and skirt. She packed her mac, which had not kept out rain for decades, and her pathetically jaunty hats adorned with pheasant’s feathers or artificial poppies, her sensible stockings that never stayed up, and her lace-up shoes, some with holes in their soles. Her possessions consisted of her wristwatch, an album full of photographs – there was a bearded tyrant who was clearly her father, her brothers, in sailor suits, in Oxford bags and V-necked pullovers, in army uniform; and then, by itself on a page, a tiny faded picture of a very small man with a fine head of hair and an anxious expression . . . She had no idea who he could have been. Then there were her books – poetry collections: Tennyson, Keats, Wordsworth, Walter Savage Landor, Blake and Housman. ‘Eleanor Milliment’ was written in each of them. Her prayer book contained notes of all the children she had taught, their birthdays and subsequent marriages, and sometimes their deaths, all written in a tiny black-ink hand.

It was dark by the time she finished, tired, dispirited, but also relieved; she would keep the books, and the album, but the rest had to go. The house was silent, so quiet that, from Miss Milliment’s room, she heard a log fall from the fireplace in the sitting room. She missed Lydia very much: her theatre gossip, her excitement about the success of Clary’s play. She had bought two chops for herself and Rachel, in case she had agreed to stay; she shut the door of Miss Milliment’s room, with its chilly stale air, and went to the kitchen to grill her chop, which she decided to eat with bread and butter, and turned on the wireless for company. They were talking about Britain’s first motorway, just opened by Mr Macmillan – an eight-mile bypass of Lancaster, ‘a token of what was to come’. And the Queen, in Bristol, made the first trunk call, to Edinburgh where the Lord Provost was waiting to speak to her. The weather was expected to get colder, with periods of light rain and frost in some areas. There was just enough gin left for one small drink and she improved it with some dry Martini.