All Change: Cazalet Chronicles (62 page)

‘That would be marvellous, but we simply haven’t got room, have we?’

‘Yes, we have. I’ve thought it through. Laura goes into your dressing room, the boys go into Laura’s room, and Rachel can have the boys’ room. You would have to dress and undress in front of me but I’m sure we could get over our embarrassment in time.’

‘I’m afraid it might be followed by a frenzy of lust. Darling Jem, it would be a load off my mind. I’m sure we could find her some little job to do – working for a charity, perhaps – so she wouldn’t be in your hair all day. Do you mean all this, darling? Have you
really
thought about it?’

‘Yes,’ she replied patiently. ‘I’ve really thought about it. Rachel has always been so very kind to me and the boys. She’s treated us as family from the first time we came here, and now I want to treat her as family back. Let’s go to sleep.’

‘Not quite yet.’

Roland, who had had a smashing day, waited till the others were settled and lights were out before he smeared his face with camomile lotion. Mum had said it would help, and the spots certainly didn’t seem quite so noticeable. She had been wonderful. She had given him a cheque before Christmas so that he could buy the tools and equipment needed for an experiment he was doing with his friend. Others had given him book tokens, a squash racquet, and a very superior torch – and other things that he was too sleepy to remember. And tomorrow Dad was coming for a drink with That Woman, as Mum used to call her. He hated his father; he sometimes said this to himself to keep the hatred going. He’d ruined Mum’s life, and on the few occasions when they were together, they had nothing to say. The fatuous questions! ‘How are you getting on at school?’; ‘Looking forward to the holidays?’; ‘Made some good friends, have you?’ God! It made him sick. It was only for something to say – to get through the once-a-term hotel lunch he was taken out to. On one occasion he had brought Louise, the older sister he hardly knew, and she’d livened things up a bit, but she’d only come the once. Well, he was due to go up to Cambridge: he’d won a scholarship to Trinity next autumn, and he’d planned to get some sort of job before that to help Mum with the fees. The scholarship would only go so far, was not designed to cover everything, and his blasted father had indicated that he was unable to help. I really do hate him, Roland thought before he fell asleep. He’s not a proper father at all.

‘I think, after all, that I will come with you tomorrow. I don’t feel it’s fair for you to face them all on your own.’

‘Splendid.’ He spoke as heartily as he could manage. Far from being an escape, the drink at Home Place was going to be an ordeal. He had sold his guns and his cufflinks and this had provided him with some money to buy Christmas presents. Diana had done the rest. She had a small income of her own, derived from her Army widow’s pension, and the rent from a flat she’d inherited from her parents. She had jazzed up Christmas quite a bit on it, buying a large tree, and on Christmas Eve they had had a cocktail party for about twenty neighbours, who had drunk them clean out of vodka and gin. Edward hardly knew any of the guests, and spent most of what seemed a very long time going round and filling everyone’s glasses. He used to love parties and meeting people, but somehow he hadn’t the heart for it any more. The fact was that he’d got himself into a hell of a mess, and didn’t see how to get out of it. He had let it be known at his club that he was in the market for almost anything, but although several friends there had said they would bear him in mind, nothing had so far materialised. Early days, he said to himself, but his membership ran out in March and he would be unable to renew it.

Diana seemed to have put the future firmly out of her mind; she had been more upset when Jamie had said that he was going to spend the holiday with his grandparents and older brothers in Scotland. Comforting her about that had gone down very well – almost too well from his point of view as she had gone all out to seduce him in bed after the cocktail party. In the end, he’d managed to make enough love to satisfy her, and she’d whispered to him that, with their mutual love, nothing else mattered.

So when, on Boxing Day morning, she said she was coming with him, he wasn’t surprised but warned her that Home Place was freezing compared to their house, ‘So wrap up, darling.’ He was terrified that she would choose some revealing attire but, no, she put on a navy blue jersey dress with a polo collar, and a pair of sapphire and diamond earrings he had given her long before their marriage. This, with an old squirrel-fur jacket, completed her outfit.

‘How do I look?’

‘Perfect, as always.’

Hugh met them at the front door, and Diana presented her cheek to be kissed. ‘Such a long time since we met. Happy Christmas!’

Hugh touched his brother on the shoulder in greeting, then waited while Diana got out of her jacket.

Most of the family were already assembled in the drawing room, Villy on a sofa with Roland standing behind her. Rachel was sitting in an armchair near the fire, but got up to kiss Edward and then to greet Diana when they came in. Rupert and Teddy were serving drinks; Clary was on her knees helping Harriet transfer her half-done jigsaw to a large tray, ‘Then you can do it anywhere, but not here,’ she was saying. Simon was stoking the fire, and Gerald had been talking to Rachel. When Polly came in bearing a tray with canapes he introduced her proudly to Diana: ‘This is my wife, Polly.’

‘Yes,’ Harriet said crossly. ‘And they’ve got a boy called Lord Holt. He’s not very nice, actually.’

Clary said, ‘Shut up, Harriet! That’s not at all a kind thing to say.’

‘I only mean he’s very unpopular with us. There may be people in the world who would love him, but I doubt it.’

‘I love him,’ Gerald said.

‘That’s different. Fathers have to love their sons.’

‘Not necessarily.’

Everybody looked at Roland then, who blushed scarlet but continued to stare pointedly at Edward. Villy put a hand on his elbow as though to check him, but he – gently – shook her off.

Edward and Diana, drinks in hand, now advanced towards Villy. Edward introduced them while everybody tried to take no notice. Diana saw a small, rather faded woman, unexpectedly well dressed, whose heavy dark eyebrows contrasted dramatically with her nearly white hair. It was pulled back severely from her face and secured with a large black bow.

‘Hello, Villy, my dear. You do look well. This is Diana.’

Villy saw a tall woman wearing a dress that was a size too small for her, and a great deal of make-up. She had large, rather ugly hands encrusted with rings. ‘How do you do? I believe we met once before – during the war.’

‘Oh, yes! Ages ago. I’d almost forgotten. And is this your son? He looks almost the age of my – our – Jamie.’

This was intended to wound, Villy knew, and the most irritating response was to show the opposite. So she smiled. ‘We all had babies in those days,’ she said. ‘I suppose it was to make up for all the poor young men who were getting killed. Don’t you think?’

‘Hello, Roland, old boy.’ Edward was getting unnerved by Roland’s stony stare.

‘Before you ask me some fatuous question about school, I’d like to tell you now that it was a beastly place. For the first year a gang of older boys used to bully me, tie me in a bath, turn on the cold tap and leave. And I never knew whether they’d come back before I drowned. One of their little escapades – just for the record,’ he ended bitterly.

‘How dreadful!’ Diana exclaimed. ‘I don’t think they did that sort of thing at Eton. Jamie went to Eton, like his brothers.’

Archie quickly came to the rescue: ‘You need a top-up, Diana, and you, too, Edward. Roland, get your mother a drink.’

Roland took his mother’s glass from her trembling hands (the bath story was news to her) and collided with Archie at the drinks table. ‘No more of that,’ Archie said to him sternly. ‘You’ll upset your mother. It’s only a drink, and they’ll be gone before lunch, so show a little more of the white flag. You could try feeling a bit sorry for your father, you know,’ he added gently.

‘Could I?’ The idea seemed incredible.

Gerald had diplomatically enticed Diana to the far side of the room to show her the snowmen and talk about gardens.

Louise and Juliet, who had decided to try the drinks on offer, eyed Diana with mild contempt. ‘I met her once before, at Dad’s club. I never for one moment thought he’d marry her.’

‘She doesn’t know the first thing about make-up,’ Juliet said. ‘Her face is like a dog biscuit, and look at that awful lipstick!’

‘Older women tend to overdo the make-up. It’s something to watch out for when you get older,’ Louise informed her. But Juliet felt she was unlikely to get as old as that and, anyway, she knew.

Sounds from outside indicated that the children were getting fretful and hungry; then Nan appeared in the doorway, clearly distressed.

‘Oh, your lordship, his lordship’s playing up something awful. He’s broken some of the twins’ toys and they went for him and that palaver upset everyone.’

Polly stopped talking to Clary and went over to comfort her. ‘Gerald, I think you’d better deal with Andrew.’

And Gerald, who had found in Diana’s remarks the all-too-usual blend of competitive showing off, was grateful for an excuse to go.

He left her triumphant: her garden was not only larger, but contained plants that he had either failed to grow or had never even heard of. She was on her third cocktail by now, and was taking in the shabbiness of the room; it really looked as though nothing had been done to it for years. She glanced about for Edward, and saw him talking to Villy (again!), standing next to two very pretty girls: Louise, whom he kept maddeningly describing as his second favourite woman, and a younger girl of startling beauty, who reminded her of Vivien Leigh.

She worked her way towards them, but her heel got caught in a rent in the carpet, and if Rupert hadn’t been close enough to seize her arm, she would have fallen over. Rachel rose from her chair to apologise.

‘Don’t bother. I’m sure it was my fault.’ She was seething with humiliation. As Diana reached them, she heard Villy saying, ‘Do you remember that Christmas when Edward put the wrong stockings on Teddy and Lydia’s beds? The outcry!’

‘Until you rushed in and put it right.’ Edward was smiling. ‘Always quick off the mark, your mother was.’

‘Edward, I’m afraid it’s time to go. Susan will be frantic for her lunch.’

‘Right you are.’ He picked up Louise’s hand and kissed it, then Juliet’s too. He saw Villy watching him, and smiled affectionately. ‘Goodbye, ol’ boy,’ he said to Roland, who made no response. Diana stopped at the open door of the drawing room, as Hugh and Jemima saw them out. ‘It’s been so nice to see you all.’

In the car, she exclaimed, ‘Phew! Glad that’s over! It’s a pity Roland was so rude to you. And that disgusting story about his school. Quite out of place, I thought. I suppose he’s spoilt.’

‘Poor chap, I haven’t been much of a father to him.’

‘I’ve never stopped you seeing him.’

Yes, she had, he thought. She had more than once suggested that it might be kinder to leave Roland to his mother, and at the beginning, after he had left Villy and before she’d consented to a divorce, Villy had said that Roland was not to meet Diana, and he, at the time, had been in anything-for-a-quiet-life mode, and had simply gone along with whatever either Villy or Diana wanted . . .