The Light Years (The Cazalet Chronicle) by Elizabeth Jane Howard Page A

was so brave and uncomplaining about it, Edward because he was so wonderfully good-looking, like the Brig when he was young, she thought, and Rupert because he was a marvellous painter, and because he’d had such a tragic time when Isobel died, and because he was such a wonderful father, and sweet to Zoë who was . . . very young and chiefly because he made her laugh so much. But she loved them all equally, of course, just as – and also of course – she didn’t have a favourite with the children who were growing up so fast. She had loved them most when they were babies, but they were nice as children, and often said the most killing things. And she got on well with her sisters-in-law, except, perhaps, she didn’t feel she knew Zoë very well yet. It must be difficult for her coming late into such a large, close-knit family with all its customs and traditions and jokes that needed to be explained to her. She resolved to be particularly kind to Zoë – and also to Clary, who was turning into rather a dumpling, poor darling, although she had lovely eyes.
    By now she had put on her suspenders, her camisole, her petticoat, her lock-knit knickers and coffee-coloured openwork worsted brown stockings and her brown brogues that Tonbridge polished until they were like treacle toffee. She decided on the blue jersey suit today (blue was far and away her favourite colour) with her new Macclesfield silk shirt – blue with a darker blue stripe. She brushed out her hair and wound it into a loose bun which she pinned to the back of her head without looking in the glass. She strapped on the gold watch the Brig had given her when she was twenty-one, and pinned the garnet brooch that S had given her for a birthday, soon after they had met. She wore it every day – used no other jewellery. Eventually, she took a reluctant peep into the mirror. She had fine skin, eyes that were sharp with intelligence and humour; in fact, her nice, but not remarkable, face – a little like a pallid chimpanzee, she sometimes said – was utterly unselfconscious and entirely without vanity. She tucked a small white handkerchief into the gold chain of her wrist-watch, picked up the lists she had accumulated throughout the previous day and went down to breakfast.
    The house had originally been a small farmhouse, built towards the end of the seventeenth century in the typical Sussex manner, its front timber and plaster up to the first floor, which was faced with rose-coloured overlapping tiles. All that remained of it were two small rooms on the ground floor, between which was a steep little staircase that faced the front door that led to three bedrooms linked by two closets. At some time, its owner had been a Mr Home, and it was known simply as Home’s Place. Somewhere in the 1800s this cottage had been transformed into a gentleman’s house. Two large wings had been built on either side of it to form three parts of a square, and here honey-coloured stone had been used with large sash windows and roofed with smooth blue slate. One wing added large dining and drawing rooms, and a third room whose purposes had varied – it was currently used for billiards; the other comprised kitchen, servants’ hall, scullery, pantry, larders, and wine cellar. This addition also provided eight more bedrooms on the first floor. The Victorians completed the north side of the square with a series of small dark rooms, which were used for servants’ quarters, a boot room, a gun room, a room for the vast and noisy boiler, an extra bathroom and a WC below, and nurseries above with the bathroom already mentioned. The result of these various architectural aspirations was a rambling muddle built round a hall with a staircase that led to an open gallery from which the bedrooms could be reached. This open well, with its ceiling just short of the roof, was lit from two glass domes that leaked freakishly in bad weather causing buckets and dogs’ bowls to be placed strategically. It was