Chapter 12: Rachel - The Golden Hours

At the end of Christmas Day, Rachel pottered round her niece’s drawing room, the great hall and the kitchen, quietly putting things in their right places: an ashtray or two to be emptied into the fireplace and taken through to the scullery; the remains of the cake into the big tin; a stray wine glass from on top of the Duchy’s old Blüthner – Simon’s now, though he played it less than he used to. Mrs Dodds would be in to wash up in the morning. Everything that should be was in the larder or the fridge. She left the whisky out, as the men might reappear and stay up late, discussing the Company, she thought for a moment, but of course they wouldn’t be doing that. Old thoughts, like old habits, die hard. She hoped everybody was genuinely as cheerful as they had seemed during the long day. The young Queen’s words stuck in her mind: How is it, people wonder, that we are for ever seeking new worlds to conquer before we have properly put our own house in order?

Rachel poked the fire and slipped a last log on. Then another – if the fire were to last through the night, it would save someone the trouble of relighting it in the morning. Nobody wants to be cleaning out ash on Boxing Day. She gave herself the pleasure of sitting down for a moment on one of Polly’s big red Knole sofas, the back high enough to let you think you were in a little room of your own, and let out a long sigh. She was glad Polly hadn’t tried to introduce modern furniture with little metal legs. She was very tired.

It was quite wonderful to have almost everybody under one roof. A shame about Neville, Juliet, Jamie and Susan, Teddy, Wills and Roly. (She couldn’t leave anybody out.) Of course, it’s Tom and Henry’s own decision, but even so . . . She couldn’t say she missed Diana or her older boys, but it didn’t seem right even now for Villy not to be with the family at Christmas. Her mind strayed to Villy’s sister Jessica, and Jessica’s children. She had of course sent Christmas cards to them all: the lovely Filippo Lippi Madonna and Child. She had bought five boxes at the Medici Society off Bond Street on her last visit to London. And then Archie had told her that the painter was a monk, the Madonna was based on a nun he was in love with, and the Christ child was modelled by their illegitimate baby! She’d already sent it to some quite respectable people, including cousin Christopher in his monastery. She could only hope they didn’t know the history.

She thought of her mother and her father, dead and gone, and of dear Miss Milliment. She thought of Old Nan, who had become such a pal, even as she faded into immobility and dementia. She thought too, with the clandestine feeling his name always brought up, of Louise’s Sebastian, and wondered where he would be now.

And finally, as the fire settled and the snow continued falling, she allowed herself to think about Sid, the woman she loved. Five years ago today Sid had died, in Rachel’s arms, in bed, both of them asleep . . . Each Christmas Rachel held off the memory until everything was done – for the children, the family, the day. And then gave herself this moment of – of what, exactly? Of calm? Of grief? Of comparison with how she had felt the previous Christmas?

No, it hadn’t got better. Yes, it had changed. She believed that it was a blessing, really, that though people die, love never does. She no longer sank into the swirl of shame that used to encompass her when she thought of the years she had wasted in ignorance and naivety. In denying not just herself, but Sid too, the simple human right of loving, and being loved, as adults love. She had spent long enough in that swirl. It was just another waste of time. I’m sixty-three, she thought. I will never have that love again. I will never even talk about it to anybody. But I won’t waste what’s left of my life thinking about how much of my life I wasted. Oh God, she thought. Is everything over now?

‘I love her,’ she told the embers of the fire. Then: Sentimental! she chastised herself.

She was in danger of dropping off on the sofa and waking cold and stiff before the dawn. She pulled herself up. Going back to the kitchen to make up her hot-water bottle, she stooped to pick up a white napkin that had fallen in the hall, stained with red wine. Too late for salt. She took it through to the laundry room, and found the soda syphon, to give it a squirt. As she climbed the creaky oak back stairs, switching the lights off as she went, the silence of snowfall enveloped the house again.