Chapter 46: Rachel - The Golden Hours

Dear Teddy,

I’m writing this in time, I hope, to reach you for Christmas. Thank you for your short letter telling me the long one had been eaten by giant snails in the letter box because the postman went on holiday. It’s the best excuse I’ve heard in years. Still, it would be lovely to have more news. I think of you crisscrossing African skies, of elephants and giraffes gazing up at you in amazement from deserts and oases and jungles. You will see my geography remains in poor shape.

Here we are still all pretty shaken by losing dear Hugh. Everybody’s being very kind to each other and not bringing it up, hoping everybody else may not be thinking about it, but he has been such a backbone for so long – the whole of my life, certainly. When I think about the times we have lived through! I do muse on the old days, perhaps too much. I think of you all as children! As if you were still at boarding school, not a grown man with an important exciting job in an ever-changing part of the world.

She longed to ask him if there was any nice girl on the horizon. It pained her that Edward had no grandchildren to charm and play with, perhaps to help him rebuild relationships with his children – except of course Sebastian, and then it pained her that Sebastian remained so exiled from them, and that it was still impossible to talk to Louise about him. It pained her to think that Teddy, like his father, might be failing to grow up.

Polly is taking it well, she continued. I think she was prepared, if one ever can be. Jemima is working directly for Gerald now, which is good in every way. Simon is a bit subdued. He and Hugh used to sit quietly together in the greenhouse, you know, in recent months – better friends I think than they’d ever had the chance to be when Simon was a boy.

Does that sound too like a hint about him and Edward? Well.

It was rather heartening to see your parents together at the funeral, being civil. Your father remains here at Fakenham; I think Polly thinks it is nice for Jemima.

She cast her mind about for a more cheerful subject, and reverted as usual to news about other people.

I do speak to your mother most weeks. She has transformed since returning to London. Or perhaps London has transformed her. She’s happy, I think. Louise is working hard; Roly is very quiet as usual – I do hope you write to each other, dear. You could tell me! Lydia is on top form, becoming a great expert, she tells me, on the history of Edinburgh, and goodness, there’s plenty of that so I should imagine it keeps her busy. I told you, didn’t I, how Archie had a most wonderful exhibition? I went to the opening; most of it was rather beyond me but some very well-dressed people seemed terribly impressed by it. Really, everybody seemed to be completely in love with Archie and his paintings, which even I could tell were jolly good and rather calming to gaze at. A lot of lines. All I really want from a painting is some beauty, and although Archie’s are definitely abstract, which I often find ugly, his colours and shapes somehow do evoke beautiful things for me . . . Anyway he got a terrifically good review in the Times. People were paying hundreds of pounds for the pictures too, even quite small ones. I would have loved to buy one but I think we’ve all missed our chance! Archie himself looked quite bemused about the whole thing. He sold lots! So it’s all going full steam ahead. Clary is delighted for him.

She absolutely was, and it was no surprise why. Money at last! Rachel was sure Clary was glad her husband was making as much as she was. It’s so unbalancing, Rachel felt, for a man, when a woman has more.

I’m not so sure Rupert’s happy about it though. He came to the opening but didn’t stay long. He and Zoë have grown so quiet. Hugh’s death has hit him hard.

The loss of her eldest brother had made her weep and yearn for her others, and she had truly hoped to find some comfort with Rupert, and to offer some to him. But he, her charming, garrulous, entertaining, indecisive brother, was just – unresponsive. How she missed his hooting laugh! And when she rang Zoë as usual during her Sunday afternoon round of calls, there was often no answer. Grief, Rachel thought. Grief. Of course, she understood why they’d decided to bury Hugh here but she really was sad that he wasn’t with their parents. Where Sid was. As soon as the weather improved she would make a trip, she decided. Visit the graves in Sussex; stop off in London to visit Rupert and Zoë.

What other news? Janie and Za are thoroughly bored with school and say they want to be Debs, which seems strange as they’ve never shown much interest in London, and what would happen about the horses? I don’t think Gerald knows much about it and of course it’s not something Cazalets have ever done. Apparently you need some kind of grand lady who is in Society to shepherd them through. He seems not to be against it, though. He’s become terribly traditional now he’s a Labour man. I think he wants to have his cake and eat it, and why not? It seems that in the New Year they’ll be spending much more time in London.

Her heart quivered a little. If they did do that, who would be here at Fakenham? Just her and Simon? And Edward? Yes, of course everyone would be back for holidays and vacs and recesses and half-terms and exeats and weekends but an empty house is an empty house and there’s no pretending otherwise. The thing is to actually live there, or at the least have staff to cover the sofas and unleash the chandeliers from their huge linen bags. Well, Polly and Gerald weren’t living like that – you had to be tremendously rich as well as tremendously grand to live like that nowadays. Polly would tease Gerald about how he should have married a Baked Bean heiress from Indiana . . . And the children are growing up. Would she be expected to hold the fort? Without Polly? Could she do it? Did she have enough character? A big house needs personality to keep it going. And not Edward’s!

She couldn’t be queen of Polly’s stately home.

And there was always the Threat, Gerald’s mother, Laetitia. She really shouldn’t call it a threat – rather rude! – but it had stuck and even the children used it, of their own grandmother! Really a recipe for disaster. Well, the dowager Lady Lisle did periodically suggest she might come back. But she hadn’t, not for years. Rachel put the thought behind her. Sufficient unto the day was the evil thereof. If it were an evil. She was rather awful. But who was Rachel to judge? But then, who was she to dismiss Gerald’s opinion?

She would do everything she could. That was all she could do. When she was a little girl, women of the age she was now were practically dead. But as long as she did her calisthenics for her back, and took her cod liver oil, she was healthy as a bean. But she was not Polly. She could never make decisions. Her job was, well, supporting. It always had been.

Harriet of course wants to go to university. She’s set her heart on Oxford – Somerville or St Hugh’s. She told me she had read one of her mother’s plays and did I know they were so shocking! Georgie is to go to Cambridge. He did the fourth-term entrance exam and has a place at Trinity for next year, to read Zoology, and is terribly happy, though sad of course about leaving the animals behind and goodness knows what Zoë will do with them when he leaves. He was talking about bringing them all to Fakenham, and threatened to get lions! Apparently there’s a chap in London persuading people to open safari parks in Gloucestershire and so forth, in their parks. For some reason if Harriet gets a place at the University, she will be a year or two behind him – it’s to do with the schools – well you remember – and boys being made to do things younger even though girls are clearly more mature and need to work harder to get in. Andrew is going to agricultural college at Cirencester, which may seem a bit of a comedown but everybody is being positive about it and it’s perfect as he’s the heir. There’s a lot going on, mostly to do with chemicals and hedgerows and labour-saving, which upsets Gerald. He doesn’t want to have to give men the sack. (Pen, when he heard this, said he’d quite like a sack if there was a spare one. I think he’s planning to run away from home.) But Andrew says it’s the future. He’s genuinely interested in it. Anyway, I won’t go on. Bertie of course wants to go to art school, run away with the circus, start work immediately with a man called Adam who he met at a party, who designs balls for film stars and can install fountains and fairy forests and illuminated Ottoman palaces in people’s drawing rooms. Bertie, one feels, will always be all right. Mrs Tonbridge’s feet have finally given out! They – she and Tonbridge, I mean, not her feet, though no doubt she will take her feet with her – are going to live at Cromer. Tonbridge so kindly says he will always come out and drive me whenever I need – though everybody seems to be able to drive now. Even the twins! You should see them careering about in the land rover or GUN 97 like a pair of motorised wood nymphs. Polly fears they will be stopped by the police but they say they stay on the estate so that makes it all right apparently. And Janie has bought a motorbike from Simon’s American friend! It’s not clear if she’s allowed to ride it yet as they’re only sixteen but she’s determined to learn and as it doesn’t go anyway, Simon’s teaching her about spark plugs and so forth. Gerald is not happy about it at all, but he had a motorbike during the War and there’s a photo of him on it looking pleased as Punch, so he hasn’t really a leg to stand on, or so Janie says. So you can see, not really a natural Deb.

Who else? I haven’t seen Juliet, or Laura for a while – Laura is at boarding school now so we look forward to seeing her at Christmas. And Neville is in America, I gather.

Oh, she found it so hard to write of Laura, or Neville. In his brief periods of lucidity after his collapse Hugh had been so upset. And nobody quite knew why – just that there’d been an outrageous party going on in the house, full of strangers, which Neville had apparently played down, but Hugh had been adamant – and Laura had been there. Hugh wouldn’t hear her name; just insisted she be brought back to Norfolk. And now Jemima had sort of frozen up. It was unbearable.

Oh, least said, soonest mended.

But how can you mend things when somebody is dead?

Poor dear Hugh. She missed him so much. And poor dear Jemima, trying to be practical, but just so sad. Then her mind of course slid to Sid – and then swiftly chided itself. This is not about you, Rachel.

Anyway that’s enough for now, she wrote. Do write back, dear boy, tell me all your news so I can pass it on at Christmas.

Your loving aunt,

Rachel

She started the next one:

Dear Roly,

Roly was, for some reason, much harder to write to.

Who else?

Juliet?

She had been writing to her, care of Louise’s office, as she seemed to move house all the time. Louise had sent a new address for her in Notting Hill of all places, poor girl. Perhaps she’d try to see Juliet too, when she went to London. Goodness, but Norfolk can be gloomy. Well, she knew that!

Outside the tall window of her bedroom, overlooking the Knot Garden and the park, the topiary stood black against mist, and the distant trees waved their naked branches like ghosts.