All Change: Cazalet Chronicles by Elizabeth Jane Howard Page B

was expected of her, on and on like that; it had been pathetic and sometimes irritating. Sid had been brought up virtually as head of her small family: a father dead when she was still a child, a mother wanting all the time to be told what to do, and a younger sister envious of her talent as a musician, and heartless with their mother. Money had always been short; she had always had to supplement her mother’s pension, to try to find her sister jobs, to live with her and deal with her day-to-day jealousies. It was because of all this that Sid had had to renounce playing in an orchestra for a regular job teaching in a girls’ school, supplemented by private lessons. All this had lent authority of a certain kind so she had taken to wearing mannish versions of women’s clothes: the tweed skirts, the thick woollen stockings, the shirt with a tie, hair cut as short as a man’s.
    Her face, which had never known any emollient, had settled to a weatherbeaten uniformity: she looked as though she had spent much of her life in a high wind, or at sea. Only her lively pale brown eyes had never changed, and when she smiled, she charmed.
    ‘It would be so sad for the children if we gave up the house.’ This was the kind of thing Rachel said when she wanted to stop talking about it.
    They had finished lunch, and Sid had lit their cigarettes with the pretty tortoiseshell lighter that Rachel had given her for her last birthday. ‘You know what I’d like, darling.’
    Rachel had been lying back in her basket chair, but now sat up. ‘What?’
    ‘I’d like to take you away somewhere for a quiet holiday. The Lake District, or anywhere you would like to go.’ Then she added, with some cunning, ‘I feel the need for something of the sort. To throw off this bug for good and all.’
    She saw that this was having some effect. A flurry of little frowns puckered Rachel’s face; she bit her lip and looked at her anxiously. ‘How awful! Of course we must have a holiday – you need one. It really is bad to have a reputation for thinking of others and then not doing anything about it.’ She actually nearly smiled as she said that. ‘Where would you like to go, my darling?’
    Sid wanted to get up and throw her arms round Rachel, but at that moment Eileen appeared with the trolley to remove the lunch.
    ‘That was delicious,’ Rachel said. ‘Will you tell Mrs Tonbridge?’ And Eileen said that she would. ‘I ought to find out when the children want to come before we make any plans.’
    Oh, Lord! Sid thought. If I’m not careful she’ll say she can’t go because of the family. ‘They always come with parents,’ she said carefully, ‘and they know the whole place inside and out. I’m sure you could leave it to them to sort things out.’
    ‘Well, I’ll have to ask them.’
    ‘Of course you will. And now, my dearest, it’s time for you to have a snooze. Do you want it out here, or do you want to go to bed?’
    ‘I think out here.’
    When Sid had fetched the rug and tucked her up, Rachel said, ‘We need to pick the sweet peas. You haven’t forgotten?’ Every evening, since her mother’s burial, Rachel had picked a fresh bunch of the Duchy’s favourite flowers and taken them to her grave.
    ‘Of course I haven’t. We’ll pick them after tea and I’ll come with you.’ She stooped to kiss Rachel’s forehead. ‘I’m for my bed. I’ll wake you at teatime.’

    I’m almost back to square one, Sid thought sadly. She had spent one night in bed with Rachel during the last week, and Rachel had clung to her and wept and sobbed in her arms, until, eventually, she had cried herself out and fallen asleep. Physical contact of any other kind had been clearly out of the question.
    When we go away, she thought, if we go away, things will get back to how they were before. It is simply a question of patience and love. Although why either of those things should be regarded as simple was not clear to her at all.

POLLY AND GERALD
    ‘If