The Light Years (The Cazalet Chronicle) by Elizabeth Jane Howard
Authors: Elizabeth Jane Howard
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sleep, would you? Be reasonable.’
‘Zoë, I’m tired, I don’t feel like wrangling about Ellen.’
‘I’m not wrangling. I’m just pointing out that if you can’t ever have a single evening to yourself – and whenever we go out something like this always seems mysteriously to happen – she can’t be as marvellously competent as you seem to think!’
‘I’ve told you, I really don’t want to talk about this now – in the middle of the night. We’re both tired—’
‘Speak for yourself!’
‘All right, then. I’m tired—’
But it was too late: she was hell bent on a scene. He tried silence, she simply repeated that perhaps he had never thought what it was like for her – never feeling she had him to herself, not for a single minute. He argued and she sulked. He shouted at her and she burst into tears, sobbing until he couldn’t bear it and had to take her in his arms and soothe, and apologise, until, her green eyes swimming, she cried that he had no idea how much she loved him and held up her mouth – free now of the scarlet lipstick he never liked – to be kissed. ‘Oh, darling Rupert! Oh!’ and recognising her desire he felt his own, and kissed her and then couldn’t stop. Even after three years of marriage to her he was in awe of her beauty and paid tribute by pushing aside what else she was. She was very young, he would think again and again at the many times like this one: she would grow up, and he would refuse to consider what that might mean. It was only after he had made love to her, when she was tender and affectionate and altogether adorable, that he could say, ‘You’re a selfish little thing, you know,’ or, ‘You’re an irresponsible child. Life isn’t all beer and skittles.’ And she would look at him obediently and answer contritely, ‘I know I am. I know it isn’t.’ It was four o’clock when she turned on her side and he was free to sleep.
HOME PLACE 1937
Rachel Cazalet always woke early, but in summer, in the country, she woke with the dawn chorus. Then, in the silence that followed, she drank a cup of tea from the Thermos by her bed, ate a Marie biscuit, read another chapter of Sparkenbroke , which was all rather intense, she thought, though well written, and then, as the bright grey light began to fill the room (she slept with her curtains undrawn to get the maximum fresh air) making the light from her bedside seem a dirty yellow – almost squalid – she switched it off, got out of bed, put on her woolly dressing gown and her shapeless slippers (extraordinary the way in which they ended up looking the shape of broad beans) and crept along the wide silent passages and down three steps to the bathroom. This room, facing north, had walls in tongue-and-groove pitch pine painted a dark green. It was always, even in summer, as cold as a larder, and it looked like a privileged horse’s loose box. The bath standing on its cast-iron lion’s feet had a viridian-coloured stain from water that dripped from ancient brass and china taps whose washers were never quite right. She ran a bath, placed the cork mat in position, and bolted the door. The mat had warped so that it wobbled when she stood on it; still, it was to be the children’s bathroom and that wasn’t the kind of thing they’d mind. The Duchy said it was still a perfectly good mat. The Duchy did not believe that baths were meant to be pleasant: the water should be tepid, ‘Much better for you, darling,’ the soap was Lifebuoy, just as the lavatory paper was Izal, ‘More hygienic, darling.’ At thirty-eight Rachel felt that she could have her bath unsuitably hot, and use a cake of Pears’ transparent soap that she kept in her sponge bag. It was the grandchildren who bore the brunt of health and hygiene. It was lovely that they were all coming; it meant that there was masses to do. She adored her three brothers equally, but for different reasons – Hugh because he had been knocked up in the war and
‘Zoë, I’m tired, I don’t feel like wrangling about Ellen.’
‘I’m not wrangling. I’m just pointing out that if you can’t ever have a single evening to yourself – and whenever we go out something like this always seems mysteriously to happen – she can’t be as marvellously competent as you seem to think!’
‘I’ve told you, I really don’t want to talk about this now – in the middle of the night. We’re both tired—’
‘Speak for yourself!’
‘All right, then. I’m tired—’
But it was too late: she was hell bent on a scene. He tried silence, she simply repeated that perhaps he had never thought what it was like for her – never feeling she had him to herself, not for a single minute. He argued and she sulked. He shouted at her and she burst into tears, sobbing until he couldn’t bear it and had to take her in his arms and soothe, and apologise, until, her green eyes swimming, she cried that he had no idea how much she loved him and held up her mouth – free now of the scarlet lipstick he never liked – to be kissed. ‘Oh, darling Rupert! Oh!’ and recognising her desire he felt his own, and kissed her and then couldn’t stop. Even after three years of marriage to her he was in awe of her beauty and paid tribute by pushing aside what else she was. She was very young, he would think again and again at the many times like this one: she would grow up, and he would refuse to consider what that might mean. It was only after he had made love to her, when she was tender and affectionate and altogether adorable, that he could say, ‘You’re a selfish little thing, you know,’ or, ‘You’re an irresponsible child. Life isn’t all beer and skittles.’ And she would look at him obediently and answer contritely, ‘I know I am. I know it isn’t.’ It was four o’clock when she turned on her side and he was free to sleep.
HOME PLACE 1937
Rachel Cazalet always woke early, but in summer, in the country, she woke with the dawn chorus. Then, in the silence that followed, she drank a cup of tea from the Thermos by her bed, ate a Marie biscuit, read another chapter of Sparkenbroke , which was all rather intense, she thought, though well written, and then, as the bright grey light began to fill the room (she slept with her curtains undrawn to get the maximum fresh air) making the light from her bedside seem a dirty yellow – almost squalid – she switched it off, got out of bed, put on her woolly dressing gown and her shapeless slippers (extraordinary the way in which they ended up looking the shape of broad beans) and crept along the wide silent passages and down three steps to the bathroom. This room, facing north, had walls in tongue-and-groove pitch pine painted a dark green. It was always, even in summer, as cold as a larder, and it looked like a privileged horse’s loose box. The bath standing on its cast-iron lion’s feet had a viridian-coloured stain from water that dripped from ancient brass and china taps whose washers were never quite right. She ran a bath, placed the cork mat in position, and bolted the door. The mat had warped so that it wobbled when she stood on it; still, it was to be the children’s bathroom and that wasn’t the kind of thing they’d mind. The Duchy said it was still a perfectly good mat. The Duchy did not believe that baths were meant to be pleasant: the water should be tepid, ‘Much better for you, darling,’ the soap was Lifebuoy, just as the lavatory paper was Izal, ‘More hygienic, darling.’ At thirty-eight Rachel felt that she could have her bath unsuitably hot, and use a cake of Pears’ transparent soap that she kept in her sponge bag. It was the grandchildren who bore the brunt of health and hygiene. It was lovely that they were all coming; it meant that there was masses to do. She adored her three brothers equally, but for different reasons – Hugh because he had been knocked up in the war and
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