Casting Off (46 page)

‘Unless you want to stick to Miss Cazalet – or,’ she found she enjoyed saying this for the first time, ‘I suppose, in due course, Mrs Lisle.’

‘Well, actually, that’s another thing. I’m afraid you won’t be Mrs Lisle. You’ll be Polly Fakenham. Chronic association with me turns you into a lady.’

‘You mean when she said your lordship she meant it?’

‘We could be called Lisle if you prefer it. Being a lord usually turns out to be more expensive, and as you know, I’ve hardly got a bean. All I can offer you is the froglike devotion of a lifetime.’

‘No. I think I should enjoy being Lady Fakenham. It sounds like someone in an Oscar Wilde play.’

‘It goes with the house,’ he said. ‘And, after all, when we’re quite alone, you can always call me Gerald.’

Hours later she lay in a surprisingly comfortable bed in one of the many spare rooms, clutching a stone hot-water bottle to her and wearing an old white long-sleeved nightdress, procured for her by Nan, and thought about this amazing day during which so much had happened to change her life. She lay in the dark so crammed with memories that were randomly of this day and of days long gone before it – of lying on the grass at Lansdowne Road with Louise telling her she’d marry one of the people who proposed to her out of sheer kindness, and for years afterwards being afraid that that might actually happen . . . and here she was, with Gerald, and kindness didn’t come into it. And Dad, at his club when she was having dinner with him saying that one day she would fall in love and get married ‘but you have to meet people to find the right one’. And she had gone to that party that she hadn’t wanted to go to and met him. Tomorrow she would ring Dad and say that she wanted to bring someone to meet him and he would guess at once why, and then when he met Gerald, of course he’d be fearfully relieved at how wonderful Gerald actually was. Here, the thought intervened that her mother would never know that, and grief, which had seemed deeply buried, sprang freshly from its grave. I’ve simply got used to missing her, she thought, but I shall always miss her. I’m far luckier than poor Wills, because I have so much more of her to remember. Then she thought about Gerald again to comfort her. She thought how funny he was when he felt at ease. There had been no shortage of personal remarks that evening, either: he had never stopped making them – in fact, he thought she was much more beautiful, interesting and charming than she really was. What would Clary think of it all? She felt she knew now that Clary could not really have been in love with Noël: she had been far too anxious and unhappy throughout the whole affair to have been that, and the end of it had been awful for her. After the abortion, when she had seemed sunk in a kind of stupor, Archie had made her go and live in a cottage he had found for her and write her book. He went down at weekends to cheer her up and urge her on – at least, that was what she supposed, because when she had suggested going down, Clary hadn’t seemed to want her to come. They had grown apart, and she was afraid that the contrast now between their lots would make this worse. It won’t. It can’t. I really love her, she thought. She had told Gerald about Clary this evening – all of it – and he had listened properly and seemed really to mind. Clary would like Gerald and she would come and stay. The house would make her laugh, though: it was so unlike the house that Polly had so often carefully described to her that one day she was going to have, it was almost the opposite; rather a challenge, she thought slowly – she was getting rather drowsy. There were so many rooms, it would probably take her all her life . . . she thought about some of the new things she had learned about Gerald. He could play the piano and he rode very well. These pieces of information had come from Nan, and had been the only two occasions when he had reverted to blushing – something that had otherwise stopped. ‘I was so in awe of you,’ he had said, ‘you seemed such a marvel. You know, like looking closely at a butterfly’s wing – every detail is perfect.’

Tomorrow they were going to explore outside. There was a lake, choked with water-lilies and weed, he said, and a rose garden, but the roses hadn’t been pruned for years and it was full of weeds, and there were four glasshouses, falling to bits, and a walled garden for vegetables (this had been when they had discussed the possibility of growing asparagus as a way of making money). There was a bluebell wood, and other woods, but most of the farmland had been sold off. His mother had been a determined seller of anything that would raise money. This had come out when Nan, chatty from her glass of champagne, had arrived with a small brown-paper package that she had dumped before Gerald.

‘Twasn’t my business,’ she said, ‘but there’s such a thing as right and wrong, and some of us knows it and some don’t. When her ladyship sent all the family jewels up to London to some sale, I couldn’t stand the idea that this should go. It was your grandmother’s and, as you know, I first went into service with her when I was thirteen. Your grandmother gave it to your father to give to your mother when they were engaged, but it was too small for her ladyship’s finger and she never cared for it. It walked – and nothing was said. If you hadn’t married, Mr Gerald dear, I’d have given it to your lordship just the same, though the dear knows what you would have done with it.’

Inside the brown paper was a dark blue leather box and inside that, wedged on its dirty white velvet, was a ring – an oval star sapphire surrounded by diamonds. She felt it with her fingers, remembering what he had said about her eyes after he had kissed her, and was beset by a surge of such pure happiness that she thought she loved not only Gerald, but everybody in the world.

Four

THE WIVES

December 1946 – January 1947

‘How was your Christmas? Really?’

‘Oh, darling! I don’t know where to begin.’ Jessica had come to tea, which had been taken with Miss Milliment, and therefore Christmas had been discussed with the stock cheerfulness that said nothing about emotional undercurrents. Jessica had described Nora’s Christmas tree with a present for every inmate, and how Father Lancing had brought some of his choir to sing carols, and how she, Jessica, had made four dozen mince pies that had been consumed on this single occasion, and how the pipes had frozen just before the holiday began, and burst just in time for Christmas Eve. Villy had told Jessica about cooking her first Christmas dinner (Miss Milliment had said how good it had been), and how the children had played Racing Demon all over the drawing-room floor and Lydia had accused Bernadine of cheating and Teddy had got very angry. ‘And I made a Christmas cake that was like a bomb shelter,’ she had said.

Now, Miss Milliment had tactfully retired to her room: Lydia and Roland were out having a Christmas treat with Rachel, and she had Jessica to herself. The room was reasonably warm since, although there was practically no coal to be had, Cazalets’ sent a lorryload of off-cuts, and the sisters sat each side of the log fire, Jessica lying on the sofa with her elegant shoes off and she, Villy, in the only comfortable armchair.

Seeing Jessica lying there, looking so well groomed in her beige and green tweed suit with a jumper exactly matching the green, their mother’s pearls round her neck and her newly set hair, she felt a pang of resentment. How the tables had turned! Now it was she whose hands were rough with kitchen work, who never seemed to have time to get her hair done, whose clothes each day were chosen for their suitability for housework and keeping warm. It was she who had Miss Milliment to look after, had young children unused to London, who had to be fed and entertained and looked after, and worse, she was having to do this all on her own, whereas Jessica, with her neat little Chelsea house, had a daily maid and a husband.

‘I don’t think I can begin to convey to you how awful it was,’ she said, and instantly, as she had known that she would, Jessica started upon a flurry of flimsy silver linings. ‘It must be nice to have Teddy home,’ she said.

‘Of course I’m glad he’s back. But I’m worried about him. Edward’ (she pronounced his name with a new, bitter clarity) ‘doesn’t pay him enough. He has the most awful struggle to make ends meet. And Bernadine – I have them to supper once a week – told me that
that
woman has a housekeeper, a daily woman and someone to look after her child! Something of a contrast to here.’

‘Well, darling, you did choose this house—’

‘When I thought I was going to live in it with my husband!’ There was a short silence, and when she had lit a cigarette, she said, ‘And he’s bought her a new car!’

‘He did give you one, didn’t he? The Vauxhall?’

‘It’s hardly the same, is it? I need one. She has someone to chauffeur her around.’ She smiled then, to show that however awful everything was, she could take it.

Wanting to give her something to smile at, Jessica said, ‘Judy says Lydia is tremendously popular at school. She said she was wonderful as Feste. Such a pretty voice. How pleased Daddy would have been.’

‘Yes, he would, wouldn’t he?’ For a moment they were amiably united by nostalgic affection. ‘But I expect Mummy would have been simply shocked at her playing a member of the opposite sex. Which would knock out Shakespeare completely for any girls’ school.’

‘Oh, it didn’t,’ Jessica said. ‘They simply cut out the rude bits and most of the men wear sort of robes anyway. I don’t think Shakespeare counted when it came to decorum – even with Mummy.’

‘How’s Judy?’

Jessica sighed. ‘Going through a difficult phase. She argues with Raymond, which he doesn’t like at all, and she somehow seems too big for the house. She’s always knocking things over and shouting when one can hear her perfectly well if she simply speaks. I think sixteen is almost the worst age.’

‘And Angela?’

‘Good news. She’s having a baby.’

‘Darling, how nice for you!’

‘If only she wasn’t thousands of miles away, it would be. I want to go over, of course, when it’s born, but Raymond won’t let me go by myself, and he hates the idea of the voyage. I must say I sometimes almost envy you being free to make your own decisions.’ Looking at her sister’s face, she retreated from this notion. ‘Of course I know it’s awful, darling, I really do. But Raymond doesn’t like to let me out of his sight, and honestly I do find it claustrophobic. He doesn’t like parties, or concerts, or any fun, really. All he wants to do is sit in that coach house he’s converting, grumbling about what Nora has done to his house, and bullying the builders.’

There was a silence during which Villy looked at Jessica and thought how astonishingly insensitive she really was. It was all part of what she now had to endure – passing sympathy of the kind one might proffer to someone who had mislaid something, and then reams of stuff about the petty inconveniences of
her
life.

‘How is Louise? Isn’t it about time—?’

‘She hardly comes near me. I think I told you that she was in cahoots with her father about the whole wretched business behind my back – he talked to her before me – and when I did see her she admitted that she’d met that woman, actually had dinner with them, so it’s quite clear to me which side she’s on.’

‘Have you seen him?’

She sensed sympathy. ‘Not since some time before Christmas. He asked me to lunch because he wanted me to divorce him.’

‘Are you going to?’

‘I don’t know. Why should I? I don’t want a divorce.’

When Jessica didn’t reply, she said, ‘You think I should?’

‘Well, it does sound as though you’re in rather a strong position. I mean, if he wants it and you don’t. You might get him to make rather more generous provision for you in return for agreeing.’

‘I’m not interested in money!’

‘Darling, if you don’t mind me saying so, that’s because you’ve always had enough of it. I haven’t, as you know, and it’s made me realize that being unhappy with not enough money is infinitely worse than being unhappy with more. That’s all I meant.’

She was trying to help. She was wrong, of course, but she meant well. ‘I’ll think about it,’ Villy said, to close the subject. ‘That’s a very pretty suit. Did you get it from Hermione?’

‘Yes. She’s got some very nice tweeds. And it’s bliss not to have to stick any more to the utility thing. I always loathed those frightfully short skirts. You should go and look.’

Villy offered a drink, and Jessica said one would be lovely, and then she must go. For the rest of her visit, they stuck to safe subjects . . . Christopher, who had spent Christmas with Nora to help, seemed to have become rather religious, and Father Lancing, who was very High Church, had taken rather a fancy to him, or he to Father Lancing – at any rate, Christopher was always doing things for the parish, running errands and so forth, ‘although I think that was partly to get away from Raymond’, she finished. Roland was having lessons with Miss Milliment, but of course next autumn he would really have to go to school, Villy said, although she was not going to send him away. Miss Milliment, apart from being a little deaf, was much the same, although her sight did seem to be worse. Jessica divulged the fact that Raymond and Richard had got rather drunk together on New Year’s Eve and that Nora had been outraged. ‘But for once I think Raymond was right, and it was good for poor Richard to have a little fun.’ Then she had added that it was rather awful to think that getting drunk with Raymond constituted fun, and they had both laughed.

They had become friends again. She felt quite sorry when Jessica left.

Armed with her own clothes coupons and some that the Duchy had given her at Christmas, she did go and see Hermione. She decided to ring up first to be sure that Hermione would be there. She was, and immediately asked her to lunch. She left lunch for Miss Milliment and the children, and promised to be back in time for tea. Lydia had protested, ‘Honestly, Mummy, it’s terrifically boring having lunch with nobody of my age,’ but she was placated by being allowed to make a cake. ‘Only you’ll have to use dried eggs.’

It was a raw, cold January day; there had been a heavy frost and the sky was dense with what looked like snow; there was ice on the lake in Regent’s Park and the grass was white with rime. People waiting for buses in Baker Street looked pinched with cold; it was even cold in the car, and Villy was glad when she reached the cosy shop in Curzon Street. Hermione, as usual, made her feel both distinguished and welcome. ‘How too, too lovely that you were able to come! And it’s so lucky because my divine chestnut has gone lame so no hunting this week. Miss MacDonald! Look who’s here!’ and Miss MacDonald, wearing the jacket that matched her pinstriped flannel skirt, appeared from the depth of the shop, and smiled and said how nice it was to see her.