All Change: Cazalet Chronicles (43 page)

She had been sitting with her hand clenched round the empty brandy glass, which she now held out to him.

He took it from her. ‘I think we’ve both had enough of that.’ He took her other hand, pulled her to her feet and put her glass on the coffee tray. He knew what he had to say next to move things on. ‘I love you. And all married couples have rows from time to time. I’m really sorry to have upset you so much, darling’

She smiled then – a watery smile but still a smile. ‘As long as you love me, I can bear anything.’ And she put her arms round his neck and gave him a kiss.

He wished he could say the same to her, but he knew that he couldn’t.

RUPERT AND NEVILLE

‘So, perhaps you would explain to me what on earth has been going on.’

After what Zoë had told him, Rupert had sent for Neville and had taken him up to the vast drawing room that ran the whole length of the house with a fireplace at each end. Even when lit, they only provided warmth in their immediate vicinity, and they were not lit now. The room was remarkably cold, its four beautiful windows letting in streams of icy air that only the most extravagant central heating could have vanquished, and they had long ceased to afford it. It was a room for summer – for large parties – and now it was November. Rupert had chosen it because he knew they would not be interrupted.

Rupert looked at Neville now, lounging on the worn velvet chesterfield. He was wearing his usual threadbare black corduroy trousers and a rather Byronic white shirt, with a dramatic collar and wide sleeves. He had slung his jacket over one shoulder. Now he felt in a pocket and produced a battered packet of cigarettes. ‘Want one, Dad?’

Rupert refused, then changed his mind. He couldn’t stop Neville smoking, and in view of the general discomfort he felt at having this showdown, a smoke would help. When their cigarettes were lit, he said, ‘You haven’t answered my question, Neville.’

‘I don’t know what you mean. Nothing’s going on.’

‘You know perfectly well what I mean. What is all this nonsense about you and Juliet?’

‘Oh, that! Well, I’ve told her I love her, and I do.’

‘And, according to her, you’ve told her you’re going to marry her.’

‘When she’s old enough, yes, I probably shall.’

‘You must know that’s out of the question. She’s your sister!’

‘My half-sister. And Cleopatra was the result of six generations of incest.’

‘Neville, this is no laughing matter.’

‘Good Lord! I wouldn’t dream of laughing at Cleopatra – I should think hardly anyone ever did that.’

‘Juliet is just a schoolgirl—’

‘Don’t I know it!’ Neville interrupted him. ‘But she’s seventeen – she’s growing up. Please don’t think I’ve done anything vulgar. I haven’t “interfered with her”, as they say in Victorian novels. I only kiss her, and she loves it. We both do.’

For some reason – relief at hearing it – this made Rupert angrier. ‘You must see, Neville, that your behaviour is completely irresponsible, and you should be ashamed to have given the poor child such idiotic ideas. I sent for you to tell you that you are not to communicate with her in any way from now onwards. You are not to come here, or write to her, or try to telephone her—’

‘She’ll be extremely unhappy—’

‘Yes. That ought to show you the damage you’ve already done. But she will get over it, and so will you. Although that shouldn’t take you long from what I hear. Reports of your passing affairs with some of your models get around.’

For the first time Neville looked a bit shaken. ‘Oh, them! They don’t mean anything.’

‘They certainly would to Juliet.’

‘Dad! Please don’t tell her about any of that. She’ll think I’ve been lying to her.’

‘Well, you have, haven’t you?’

‘Not exactly. I didn’t want to upset her – that’s all.’

‘But not telling someone something is a kind of lying. And it’s not her you don’t want to upset – it’s yourself.’

There was a long silence. Then Rupert said, ‘I’ll have a pact with you. If you will do as I say about Juliet, I’ll do my best to see that she doesn’t hear about your affairs.’

And, to Rupert’s surprise (the pact on his side was on pretty rocky ground), Neville agreed to it. For one year anyway.

They both stood up at the same time: there was a mutual desire to finish this uncomfortable meeting.

‘I’ll be off,’ Neville said. He had been hoping to be asked to stay to lunch, but now he just wanted to get away, and Rupert wanted him gone before he wavered.

‘It’s bloody cold in your grand room,’ Neville said, as they left it. ‘My teeth are chattering, but not because I feel cowed. I wouldn’t want you to think that.’

Rupert replied that of course he didn’t as he – rather thankfully – saw his son to the car. The morning ended with a kind of pallid courtesy.

‘He’s gone?’ Zoë was ironing and the kitchen felt remarkably cosy.

‘Yep. God! It’s cold up there. I need a strong alcoholic drink.’ He walked to the stove, rubbing his hands. ‘I think there’s some left in the cooking-drinks cupboard. Join me?’

‘No, thanks. I’m longing to hear how it went, though. I hope he was very contrite, as he jolly well should be.’

‘Not exactly. He has a hell of a nerve – I almost couldn’t help admiring him for it.’

‘Oh, Rupe! Don’t tell me you could see his point of view! You’re always doing that with people.’

‘Well, they do have them, you know. Anyway, I read him the Riot Act – told him he was not to have anything more to do with Jules. In the end I blackmailed him with threatening to tell her about his various affairs. He didn’t like that, agreed to keep away for at least a year. He said he “might” marry her when she was old enough.’ He took another swig of his whisky. ‘I suppose it means that there’s something to be said for us moving to Southampton for a bit.’ He added, rather carefully, ‘Help her get over it.’

‘Is it settled, then? Is Hugh determined to send you? Please tell me, Rupert. I’d much rather know.’

‘It’s not settled or of course I would have told you. Hugh has decided to go down there himself twice a week to see if he can sort things out.’

‘Well, that’s something. He is head of the firm.’

‘He might be able to deal with it. You know that I don’t want to go. I’m absolutely no good at managing things and I’ve told him so. But I’m beginning to wonder whether any of us are.’

She walked over to him and smoothed the lock of hair that kept falling over his forehead. ‘You need a haircut, darling. If you don’t go soon, I’ll do it for you.’

‘It was fine when we had the Brig,’ Rupert continued. ‘Our father was really good at it. But the three of us – we just got catapulted into the business because he expected us to join in. Edward was good at selling, and Hugh got caught up in the tradition and did everything the Brig told him to, and as for me, it’s true that I get on with the staff, but otherwise I think they only took me because I’m a Cazalet or out of sheer kindness. None of us – since the Brig – really understood the figures. We haven’t moved with the times. We haven’t got the capital or the structure to deal with expansion.’

Their conversation was unexpectedly interrupted by Georgie’s sudden appearance.

‘Why aren’t you at school?’

‘I said I had a sore throat. But, actually, I’m severely worried about Evelyn. He didn’t eat yesterday’s mouse and I left him another lovely one for breakfast and I had to come home and see if he’d eaten it, and he hadn’t. So I’m afraid we’ll have to take him to the vet. Mr Carmichael is the only one who understands snakes and he goes off at lunchtime on Mondays so could we go quickly now?’

‘I’ll take him,’ Rupert said. ‘But you shouldn’t just bunk off like that, Georgie. Did you tell the school?’

‘Of course not. They might have stopped me.’

‘I’ll ring them,’ Zoë said. ‘You get Evelyn.’

‘I’ve got him.’ Georgie removed his scarf, and revealed the python wound loosely round his neck.

‘Mum! You won’t forget to keep the bacon rinds for Rivers, will you?’ he called, as they left. ‘Dad, you will drive as fast as possible? It may be a matter of life and death.’

So Rupert increased his speed slightly and added to the sense of emergency by making very good ambulance noises that delighted Georgie.

Mr Carmichael was very fond of Georgie and always made time for him. His waiting room was full of resentful cats in cages and overweight dogs, but Evelyn was called in the minute he had finished with an otter, which lay on his table out for the count.

‘Thought you’d like to see him,’ he said, stripping off his heavy leather gloves.

Georgie gazed at the otter, absolutely entranced. ‘Can I stroke him?’

‘While he’s out, you can. But they’re nervous creatures, and they have a devil of a bite if you frighten them. The keepers of the otterhounds used to pipe clay round the dogs’ legs, because an otter will bite until he hears the bone snap. They thought the clay was the bone, you see.’

‘He’s got the most beautiful fur in the world. And his face! Those whiskers! Can you tame them?’

‘Some people have tried. But don’t think of having one, Georgie. Their digestion works through food in two hours so they cost a fortune in fish. And they need running water and space to swim. The wild is the place for them.’ He motioned the young girl attending him to take the otter away, having lifted it carefully into its cage. ‘Now, what is wrong with Evelyn?’

He unwound the python from Georgie’s neck, and felt along its body. ‘Hold his head, Georgie, while I have a feel . . . I think he must have a minor obstruction that’s preventing him swallowing. Better leave him with me for a day or two. He’ll be all right.’

‘Can’t I stay with him?’

‘You cannot. But if you leave him here until the weekend, you can help me with the patients on Saturday afternoon, if your father agrees.’ Rupert did agree and the nurse produced a cardboard box into which Evelyn was gently laid.

‘I’ve been thinking,’ Georgie said, on the way home. ‘I could dig a pond at the end of the garden, and if I went round all the fish-and-chip shops, they’d be bound to have old fish they’d be throwing away that I could get for hardly any money . . .’

‘No, Georgie, you are not going to have an otter. I’m not going to argue about it. You are
not
going to have an otter.’

‘Oh, Dad, don’t be so firm. You aren’t usually firm about things . . .’

‘Well, I am about this.’

There was a long silence. Then Georgie, rubbing tears out of his eyes, muttered, ‘It would be a good thing to have a pond to keep my newts in, and if Carter would swap some of his tadpoles I could have frogs as well.’

‘I see your point of view. I’ll think about it.’ And Georgie, who knew that the more his father thought about something, the less firm he got about it, felt that that was enough. He had wanted a pond for a very long time and, after all, having a pond didn’t exclude having an otter.

HUGH AND OTHERS

His decision to visit Southampton twice a week turned out to be far more taxing than he had thought it would be. To begin with, it forced him to recognise that times had indeed changed. His father had bought the site just before the war. It had been cheap, as the company that had owned it had gone bankrupt. He had built the sawmill, and it had thrived, until Southampton was badly bombed during the war, and a great many of the businesses round the mill had been razed to the ground. The docks were a sea of rubble, of broken glass, of burned-out buildings, of boarded-up shops and houses. Very little of the port remained intact, but the main hotel, the Polygon, had survived and so, miraculously, had the Cazalets’ wharf and sawmill. They had taken the precaution of putting the most valuable hardwoods into the river, and so, apart from one or two minor fires, the wharf had been able to continue trading. It had fared better than London, in fact, where the business had been badly damaged by the Blitz. Then – timber being regarded as an essential commodity – the War Damage Commission had coughed up, and they were able to rebuild. So, over the years, everyone had been preoccupied with London and had not paid much attention to Southampton. Much had changed there. Rebuilding the docks had gone ahead, and the Cazalets’ monopoly had dwindled. In particular, their arch rival, Penton and Ward, had started up after the war and taken a good deal of business off them. Added to that, it had proved disastrous putting Teddy in charge. He simply didn’t have the experience, although he had inherited Edward’s talent for selling.