Chapter 43: Polly - The Golden Hours

Across the Knot Garden, down the overgrown old linden avenue, across the hummocky park where the oak leaves were beginning to turn, and the cedars just grew darker and more intense, the family gathered in the lichened grey church. Polly couldn’t see who had come. She was sitting on the north side of the nave, in the big seventeenth-century oak box pew with the family crest carved and painted and almost worn away on its door. At a wedding you can turn around; at a funeral, no. Not that she wanted to. She felt herself wrapped in light, floating. To her left was Gerald, his warm dry hand on hers, keeping her steady. Beyond him, the small pile of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century prayerbooks, fine-leaved, sweet-smelling, inscribed by his ancestors: Henrietta Lisle, Jane Lisle, Spencer Lisle, and many Gerald Lisles. At her feet were the hassocks, needle-pointed so beautifully by generations of village ladies with birds and flowers of the region: bittern, heron, marsh warbler, campion red and white, valerian, wild strawberry, lady’s bedstraw. The first time they came here he had told her how when he was tiny Old Nanny had let him make forts with the hassocks during long services. Nobody was religious, but all must go to church, because that is how England holds together. To her right was Jemima, delicately swathed in black, the height of the panelled sides preserving her from public gaze and sympathy. Polly knew that Jemima didn’t want to be seen.

Polly herself didn’t care who saw her. She was an orphan now, pale and tear-brimming. The echoes of her mother’s death tormented her – half-informed medical mysteries, people wanting to protect you from things it would be better that you were prepared for. Exhaustion. She’d never been alone in her life. Straight from Dad to Gerald.

Well, this time it had been clear what was coming. She’d spent lots of time with him, reading to him even after he fell unconscious – after all, she thought, who genuinely knows what’s going on inside their heads? All his life, since the Great War, he’d been carrying burdens that none of them could really understand. Except Uncle Edward . . . oh God, Edward. She’d never been especially fond of him as an individual; she’d picked up something of Louise’s antipathy to him, she knew that. But she’d loved him for Dad’s sake. He’d always been at Hugh’s side, the two of them arguing, making up, joshing, competing. All her life, Daddy and Edward, and Rupert. Daddy and Edward, the heroes of the War, Rupert tagging along. But despite that gap, they had always been The Three Musketeers. One for all, and all that. Like her and Clary and Louise. She glanced around: yes, there they were, her sister cousins, buttresses of wisdom and shared experience. And Laura, her actual sister . . . oh, she couldn’t think about Laura now. Oh, but she must.

And if one more person said something about a good innings . . . It wasn’t a good innings. People lived to a hundred these days!

Gerald’s hand on hers. And the children, sitting behind her now, upright, embarrassed, not knowing what to do. Best behaviour. Agog somehow. Oh Dad . . .

Then all the talk about where he was to be buried! Rachel suggesting Sussex with the Brig and the Duchy – but why, when they had a perfectly good church of their own here? Everybody loves coming to Fakenham after all, she didn’t say, they’re perfectly happy to accept our hospitality while they’re alive – she’d stopped that sudden, ungenerous thought. Everybody was welcome, especially dear Rachel. But she’d been firm. Fakenham was home now. He was being buried here.

The church looked beautiful, its high uncoloured windows allowing it to fill with an almost underwater kind of light which seemed to lift it above the flatlands. Otherworldly. Rachel had brought in scarlet rosehips and flaming maple leaves, the last dahlias fiery against grey stone. The chill seeped into the bones; people shifted in their seats. All that ancient Norfolk damp rising up. It had been difficult getting Jemima down from her room. Edward, Rupert, Simon, Gerald, Wills (on compassionate leave), and Andrew (so proud to be deemed old enough and tall enough) had carried the coffin. Edward read from Ecclesiastes. Rupert had broken down trying to read ‘For the sword outwears its sheath, And the soul wears out the breast, And the heart must pause to breathe, And love itself have rest.’ Everybody tried to sing. ‘Jerusalem the Golden’: quavery English voices, full of withheld tears. For God’s sake, thought Polly, if we can’t cry today, when can we?

Wills was in uniform; dry-eyed, upright, dutiful. She wanted to hug him but everything in his bearing said to leave him alone. Laura sat crying, the other side of Rachel, whose hand never left her heaving shoulder. Jemima, Polly noticed, could still hardly look at her daughter. Had they talked at all? If ever there was sorrow to be shared, it was this, between those two. Or permanent damage would result. Polly resolved to talk to Rachel about it, and soon.

When the time came for the family to progress from the church to the gaping grave, they fell into the required, and somehow natural, hierarchy. Polly could not bear the sight of Jemima’s narrow shoulders up ahead, where she walked alone as tradition required. She quivered at the impossibility of running up and walking with her stepmother, taking her arm.

Sod it, she thought. She squeezed Gerald’s hand, and broke ranks. She almost ran up to Jemima, whose smooth little head swung round in shock as Polly took her hand, then her arm, and held tight. Polly didn’t try to catch her eye, just held on. Her whole body, so slight, so alone, seemed electric to Polly’s touch. She needed Jemima, she realised, just as much as Jemima needed her.

Afterwards, sherry was served in the hall. Jemima went to her room and didn’t reappear; Rachel went with her but was dismissed. The children ate the sausage rolls and talked, hushed, in a circle. Laura, sitting next to Nanny, was still crying. Polly shoved her handkerchief at her; Laura took it and dropped it and tried to smile. Nanny picked it up, and wiped Laura’s face carefully, as if she were a five-year-old who had fallen over. Laura smiled at her, watery and helpless. ‘Shall I brush your hair for you tonight?’ Nanny was saying, and Laura nodded.

Polly leaned over and squeezed Laura’s hand tight.

Then, ‘The furniture is too far apart!’ she cried, and tried uselessly to move a heavy gothic chair. She hated this room. So tall, so hard! So dark!

‘Let’s go into the drawing room,’ said Gerald. ‘There’s a fire.’

There, Polly sat with Rachel on the sofa. A silk cushion; a soft rug. The dogs hopped up, and she didn’t send them down – their hearts beating away, tight as little drums. Villy came in; then Edward, Rupert and Zoë, who had lost weight that she didn’t have to spare, and looked worse than Polly had ever seen her, even during the war. Mrs Tonbridge, red-eyed, carried in the tea tray herself. Polly had tried to make her sit down, today of all days. Tonbridge stood by the door in a black armband, staring straight ahead. Gerald poured him a sherry, and for the first time since the Duchy’s funeral Polly saw Tonbridge accept something from a member of the family. Clary and Archie brought in the teacups and saucers, pale green and white with the little rosebuds around the rim, so familiar, so delicate, so old. Louise carried the biscuits. She had sat bolt upright between her parents during the service and was still half trying to hide from them both. Meanwhile Villy was avoiding Edward, and Edward was seeking them both out. Harriet bore the big teapot.

‘Here we are again!’ said Edward heartily, heaving into an overstuffed chair.

It was unbearable.

For a long moment, everybody was silent.

Villy, conceding defeat, deigned to respond to Edward’s polite enquiries about her job.

Talk about Dad, Polly thought. Then: Oh well, life goes on and it’s probably a miracle that it does.

This room was now somehow too small. There was not enough space in the inner circle by the fireplace, nowhere for people to sit. Rachel called various children to give up the comfortable spots they’d taken, and offer them to the aunts and uncles.

‘Yes,’ Villy was saying to Edward. ‘I’m a jewellery dealer. Dear Hermione recognised that I knew about it, so I’m specialising.’ Edward, Polly thought, was no doubt pondering all the beautiful jewellery he had given Villy all those years ago. Something hesitant but greedy appeared in Villy’s expression. ‘You’ll never guess who came in,’ she said.

Edward guessed all right.

‘No,’ he said.

‘Oh yes!’ Villy said. ‘Diana!’ There was something both hilarious and triumphant in the way she said it. ‘Trying to sell a pair of rather unmistakable paste earrings,’ she continued, staring at Edward. ‘Of course I knew immediately where they’d come from. Her face when I was called to deal with her!’

Edward was gazing at his feet.

‘What did you do?’ he said.

‘I bought them,’ Villy said.

‘Ouch,’ he said, humbly.

‘I thought of wearing them today,’ Villy continued, pressing, ‘but of course it would have been terribly inappropriate.’

Rachel coughed.

‘Exactly,’ said Villy, glancing at her. ‘Edward, would you be a darling and get me some tea?’

How apologetic he looks, Polly thought. Perhaps he’ll be next. They will all die. Even Rachel.

Edward tiptoed back with Villy’s cup. ‘Something awfully funny about it, though,’ he said. ‘One shouldn’t laugh.’

Villy snorted. Their eyes met.

‘Where’s Simon?’ Rachel asked.

‘Smoking, in the glasshouse,’ said Andrew.

‘Go and get him,’ Rachel said. She squeezed Polly’s hand. Polly knew Rachel didn’t want anybody to be alone.

Later, Simon, rather wild-eyed, was saying to Tonbridge, ‘He loved you, man. My dad loved you.’

The next morning at breakfast, over toast with Gentleman’s Relish, Jemima announced that she had made arrangements, and would be grateful to be allowed to stay till the weekend.

‘Good Lord,’ Gerald said. ‘Jemima, my dear. Premature. I mean! Unnecessary. Totally.’

She was looking very proud, her little white face and tear-stained eyes, but they managed to talk her out of it. Rachel’s special line of reassurance was heartfelt – ‘Of course everybody loves you and wants you, dear Jemima!’ – no doubt because of being in a similar position herself, Polly thought. She knew that Rachel never forgot her own position in the household: maiden aunt, there on charity. Of course, neither Polly nor Gerald thought of it that way at all. Rachel was indispensable. But Polly knew Rachel would be thinking, even as she reassured Jemima, that it was not her place to do so.

Gerald was perfect: ‘We couldn’t even function without you, Jemima,’ he said. ‘The old pile would probably just fall down.’ A man’s home really is his castle, Polly thought. And his castle is his home. She wrapped around herself this blessing of being his wife.

‘I will never be able to divorce you,’ she said to Gerald, in bed that night. ‘What would I do with all my lady relatives?’

‘Oh Polly,’ he said, looking so emotional she thought he might be going to say something dreadful. But he just said, ‘Oh Polly,’ again. Then, after a pause, ‘Polly, I’m afraid I have an idea.’

‘Oh, please don’t,’ she said. ‘You know how I feel about ideas . . .’

‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s a good one. I’m sorry about the timing, today of all days. But I’ve been thinking about it. Listen: the house is kind of under control now, isn’t it?’

She admitted that it was.

‘And the finances. More or less.’

‘I think so,’ she said. ‘As long as Jemima stays.’

She was alert now, perhaps a tiny bit excited. Was he going to suggest some lovely treat? At the back of her mind, the word Italy fluttered.

‘Don’t laugh . . . I want . . . Well . . .’

He was so sweet when he was embarrassed.

‘Spit it out, old bean,’ she said.

‘Well, look. I have, through no good deed of my own, a seat in the bloody old House of Lords. And I want to take it up.’

Oh! This was new.

‘But you hate politics!’ she said. ‘Don’t you?’

‘I don’t. I was scared of it. But listen – I went in there the other day. I was stopped, but then Henry Anglesey – you remember him? – was coming in and he vouched for me, whereupon everybody was terrifically glad to see me, and then we had lunch, and I sat in on a debate, and heard a bit of what they do. And it’s awfully big, actually. It’s a big thing.’

She lay in his arms and said nothing.

‘And it’s just there. It’s about service, I think – I mean, to have this ridiculous opportunity to contribute. I know lots of chaps just ignore it, and some no doubt exploit it, but whoever wins the next election, it’s a new world, isn’t it? And there’s so many things I care about – we care about. The land. The buildings. The men. You know. Wages, combine harvesters and so on. So I want to take my seat.’

‘Too much change,’ she murmured.

‘Exactly! I do think Andrew’s wrong about a lot of things but change is real. And do you know, darling, I talked about it with Hugh?’

‘Did you?’

‘He thought it was a good idea. Suggested that Jemima be my secretary!’

‘Oh!’

Polly didn’t know if she thought it was a good idea or not. But if Dad thought so . . .

‘I’d need a place in London. You could come all the time. With the children all at school now –’

‘Pen is NOT going to boarding school,’ she said. She sat up, the sheets falling away. ‘He’s just not. Day school till at least thirteen, you promised.’

‘Then later we can find a prep school near here’ – they both knew there was no decent day prep school nearby – ‘or sort something out in London. And there’s plenty of recess. The hours aren’t bad at all . . .’

‘The children will all be in different places,’ she said, so forlornly that he hugged her. ‘Will we move back to London?’ she said.

‘Perhaps,’ he said. ‘A bit.’

‘Too much change,’ she said again, so he held her close, and said no more.

To everybody’s absolute surprise Gerald announced that he would be a Labour peer. ‘Well, they hardly have any,’ he said practically. ‘I’ve written to Mr Wilson and he’s delighted. And I think they’ll win the next election.’

‘But what would Hugh have thought?’ Jemima said.

‘Do you know,’ said Polly, ‘I wish my father had been in politics in the twenties and thirties. I think he would have been jolly good at it. And I think you will be too, Gerald. You’ll be wonderful on local issues, the countryside, planning. Just don’t make boring speeches.’

‘Certainly not,’ said Gerald. ‘I’ll influence from within! After all, they can’t get rid of me.’ It was a while, though, before he asked Jemima to be his secretary. When he did, she couldn’t say no.

‘Have you looked at their tax policies for big houses?’ Jemima asked. ‘Because I’m not sure it’s to your best advantage.’

‘Panta rhei, dear girl,’ said Gerald. ‘It’s written on the other end of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. Know Thyself on one end; Things Change on the other. I find that between them it covers almost everything.’

‘Just don’t tell Tonbridge we’re Labour now,’ said Polly. ‘I don’t think his heart could take it.’

Polly and Gerald hardly noticed that Edward stayed on after the funeral. Then one sunny afternoon, walking across the damp park to the village, Polly saw him, over in the churchyard. She thought she wouldn’t go over and greet him – but he seemed to be sitting on the grass, bent over. What was he doing?

As she came closer, she saw that his chessboard was balanced before him on the turf hump of his brother’s new grave, and he was deeply, quietly engaged in a game.

She didn’t disturb him – just wondered who he was playing. Himself, obviously.

Walking on, she pictured two little boys at Home Place; two young soldiers, two dads, two old men.

And thus another relative joined the ranks of those whom she would never turn away.