Something Dangerous (Spoils of Time 02) (56 page)

‘Of course you can’t,’ said Sebastian, ‘it’s an absurd notion, and besides it’s a boys’ school, they wouldn’t have you. Now, it’s time you were doing your piano practice, and you must do an extra five minutes, what’s more. I timed you yesterday and you stopped too soon. You thought I wouldn’t notice, didn’t you?’

‘No, Father,’ said Izzie with a weary sigh; but she smiled at him as she got up. ‘Goodbye, Barty, it was lovely to see you. I think it’s a very good idea for you to join the army or something. You’d be marvellous.’

‘I didn’t think she was even listening,’ said Barty, looking after her. ‘Certainly not taking it in.’

‘She takes everything in,’ said Sebastian, with a note of grudging pride in his voice.

Inside the house, the sound of scales flowing rather gracefully up and down the piano was interrupted by the telephone; after a few moments, Mrs Conley appeared on the terrace.

‘It’s Lady Celia, Mr Brooke. She wants to speak to you urgently.’

Sebastian looked at Barty and raised his eyebrows. ‘Proofs full of mistakes, I expect,’ he said, and disappeared into the house. After quite a long time – the proofs must have been very bad, Barty thought – he reappeared, walking heavily, his face carved with unhappiness. He sat down and stared at the garden, then took her hand, started playing with her fingers, ticking them off rather distractedly one by one. After a while, he sighed, and said, ‘Barty, don’t you go off for a while, there’s a good girl. We need you too much here.’ He was silent again, then fished in his pocket for his handkerchief, blew his nose hard; when he looked at her, his eyes were full of tears.

‘Kit’s just got his papers. He’s – he’s off in a week to do his flying training, up in Scotland. Oh, Barty, I’m terribly frightened for him.’

She was too distressed by his grief even to wonder why he should have felt more for Kit than for Giles or Jay.

CHAPTER 26

It was a dreadful noise, a man crying. Helena had never heard it before; she listened in horror, horror and dread. Horror because she knew what it must mean, dread because she knew she must confront it.

She waited for another moment, then handed the children over to their nanny, took a deep breath and walked into the study where Giles sat with his head buried in his arms on the desk, a brown envelope beside him, marked ‘The War Office’.

She put her arm round his shoulders, let him weep for a while; then finally she said, ‘Giles, what is it? Whatever it is, you must tell me.’

He sat up, blew his nose, stared at her, his eyes red-rimmed in his white face; he looked like a small boy, afraid of some kind of retribution.

‘I’ve failed my commission,’ he said finally, as she had been so afraid he would. ‘Failed again, Helena. My whole life is a bloody fucking failure.’

She looked at him steadily, ignoring the obscenity, aware only of the violence of emotion that must lie behind it.

‘Go on,’ she said gently.

‘There’s nothing more to say. I failed my WOSB. Not officer material. Not material for anything, Helena, am I? Lousy publisher, disappointment to my parents, useless provider, oh don’t look like that, I know what you think of me and how you’d like more money and why not, for God’s sake, what kind of a husband can’t give his wife her own clothes allowance, has to worry about finding enough money to run a decent household. And now, I’m not even deemed capable of leading my men into battle.’

‘But Giles—’

‘Don’t “But Giles” me. Whatever you say, you can’t alter the facts. There were a whole crowd of chaps there, lots of them with only half my advantages in life, all passed.’

‘You can’t have been the only one who failed,’ said Helena.

‘No, of course I wasn’t. I’m telling you that people who’d been to grammar school, for God’s sake, from very ordinary families, they were obviously going to pass, and I – product of Eton and then Oxford, having spent the last ten years or whatever training to run Lyttons, or so I am occasionally led to believe, I didn’t. I must be bloody useless, Helena, absolutely bloody useless.’

‘Tell me about it,’ she said. ‘All you said was that it was all right. Come on, Giles, I want to know what happened.’

‘Oh – it’s all so humiliating.’ He wiped his eyes again, sat back, lit a cigarette with a shaking hand. ‘There were three parts to it, a physical test, well I did all right on that, not frightfully fit, but I can still thrash young Kit on the squash court, anyway, I passed that. And then there was a sort of psychological bit, had a kind of – oh, I don’t know, an IQ test I suppose, had to do a presentation about myself in the mess, I think that was all right, I’m used to that after all.’

‘So—’

‘I’m pretty sure it was the leadership skills, the command task as they call it, that did for me, Helena. Not so surprising, is it? The most crucial qualities, after all, in an officer; and I just don’t have them. It seems.’

‘What – what did you have to do?’

‘Oh, they give you a test, you know, you have to get your men across a minefield. An imaginary one that is, three planks and an oil drum sort of stuff. The irony is I think I might have passed it, I had quite a good scheme, but then there was another chap and he was so bloody persuasive, I gave in to his ideas. Which weren’t as good as mine, they said at the time they lacked proper forethought, but I’d bet my life on him getting his commission.’

‘How – terribly unfair,’ said Helena. Thinking that that was precisely why Giles hadn’t got his commission, because he was too weak, too easily persuadable, too lacking in confidence.

‘Yes. Well, that’s life. Or my life anyway. Anyway, they’ve said they’re sorry, they can’t accept me as a commissioned officer, but if I’d like to come back and try again—’

‘Well – you could—’

‘No Helena, I bloody well couldn’t.’ He slammed his fist down on the desk, glaring at her. ‘I’m not subjecting myself to that again, to yet another failure. By that well-known, ongoing, outstanding failure Giles Lytton. God, it’s so humiliating. What on earth will my father say? There were quite a few references to him, by the older chaps, him and his Military Cross, what a marvellous soldier he’d been, how brave, how – oh, Jesus, it hurts. As for my mother—’ He stared at her, his eyes blank, almost fearful. ‘Meanwhile, there’s bloody Boy, straight into the Grenadier Guards as Captain, poncing round London on ceremonial duties; and young Jay, he’s got his in a few weeks, no chance he won’t pass.’

‘So – ’ Helena hesitated. ‘So what will you do? Have you been able to think yet?’

‘Oh yes,’ he said, lighting another cigarette, sighing heavily. ‘Yes, I’ve been able to think. I’m going to go in through the ranks. I’ve decided. It’s the only thing I can do, as far as I can see. Short of not going in at all, which isn’t an option. What do you think about that, Helena? Married to a private, to one of the men, how does that make you feel? Pretty bloody proud, I daresay.’

‘Actually,’ said Helena quietly, taking his hand and kissing it, ‘yes, actually it does.’

‘You must be very – proud of him,’ said Celia. She brought the words out clearly with an effort.

‘I – I’m trying to be,’ said LM.

‘A commission in the Ox and Bucks,’ said Oliver, smiling at her gently, ‘jolly well done.’

‘Yes. Yes, of course.’

‘When does he go?’

‘I don’t know.’ Her voice was flat, devoid of expression; her eyes dull and heavy. ‘He’s doing his basic training now.’

‘LM,’ Celia went forwards, put her arm round her. ‘LM, I know how awful you must feel. But—’

‘No,’ said LM almost coldly, ‘no you don’t. Not quite. Of course you’re worried about Kit going into the air force. I appreciate that. But for me it’s like some dreadful déjà vu. A film replaying. He even used the same words as Jago you know, about joining up. “Just try and stop me,” he said. Extraordinary. And he says how he’s always been lucky. Jago used to say that. I – I just don’t think I can bear it, I’m afraid. I want to die myself.’

‘LM! You can’t talk like that. What would Gordon feel, if he heard you? Or Jay himself for that matter. We have to be brave for them, that’s the one thing we can do.’

‘I – can’t be,’ said LM, her voice low and shaky, ‘I simply can’t. I don’t know what to do, Celia, I feel like screaming, begging him not to go.’

‘LM, you were brave before. Terribly brave,’ said Celia, remembering LM’s steely courage as she endured the news of Jago’s death, her long, lonely pregnancy, her fierce stoicism in facing Jay’s adoption.

‘I – may have been.’

‘You were.’

‘But – I can’t do that again. I can’t find the courage again. I’m not naturally brave like you, Celia, or not any more, I’m finding this literally sickening—’

‘It must be a family trait,’ said Oliver cheerfully. LM stared at him.

‘But Oliver—’

‘Oh, I know, I know. The Military Cross and all that. My liver is as lily-coloured as it could be. Celia would have been too loyal to tell you, but I felt the most primitive dreadful fear, every day in those trenches. Once – well, we need not go into details. But I lack Celia’s lioness-like qualities. I’m just rather good at hiding it. Which you are too, I have to say, I have seen no demonstration of any fear from you, ever.’

‘But Oliver I’m tired,’ said LM, ‘tired and growing old. One has to dig deeper and deeper to find any strength, and I simply can’t do that. It just seems like so much stupidity, the waste of yet another young life. I love him so much, so very, very much. And all I can imagine is getting the telegram, standing there as I did last time, opening it, reading it, reading that Jay is – is – oh God, help me.’ She dropped her head into her hands, began to weep; Celia put her arms round her, stood looking down at her helplessly, biting her lip.

‘LM, the best, indeed the only, thing we can do for the young is set an example,’ said Oliver slowly. ‘I discovered that long ago. They don’t listen to us, they find most of what we have to say at best tedious and at worst inane. We can influence them simply by what we do and how we do it. Now think about that. You can’t send young Jay off to fight with an image of you crying helplessly, begging him not to go. He needs fine pictures, happy memories to carry with him, they are of immeasurable value. I should know.’ He smiled suddenly at Celia; the old sweet smile. She smiled back, her face softening as she looked at him.

LM sat in silence for a long time; her head bowed. Then she stood up. ‘Well I – I still don’t know how—’

There was a commotion along the corridor, shrieks and shouts of laughter; Venetia suddenly appeared in the doorway, her arm through Jay’s. He was in uniform.

‘Look what I just met in reception. Too thrilling. Home for forty-eight hours already. Our very own Lieutenant Lytton. Not even second lieutenant, isn’t that marvellous. So dashing, don’t you think? My God, Jay, if we weren’t related I could fancy you quite dreadfully. Well, I do fancy you quite dreadfully. LM, doesn’t your son look marvellous, aren’t you proud?’

LM looked at Jay for a long moment in silence; he looked older already, even taller, in his uniform, his face somehow thinner under his cropped hair. Then she smiled at him, the brilliant, rare smile that so transformed her plain face, and went over to him and hugged him.

‘You do look marvellous, Jay. And I am terribly proud of you. How would you like to take your old mother out to tea at the Savoy, tell her all about military life?’

He bent to kiss her, took her hand and tucked it through his arm.

‘Excuse us,’ he said to the others, ‘we’ve got a date.’ And together they walked out of the room, LM smiling at him, fiddling with the buttons on his jacket. If anyone deserved the Military Cross, Celia thought, looking at them through rather blurred eyes, it was LM.

‘Well done,’ she said apparently inconsequentially to Oliver.

Telling his parents that he had failed to get a commission was one of the hardest things Giles had ever done. They had been so confident about it, especially his mother; now he was going to have to tell them that he was going to enlist as Private Giles Lytton, the son of Colonel Oliver Lytton, MC, grandson of Brigadier Lord Beckenham, DSO and great grandson of Field Marshall Lord Beckenham VC DSO.

He did it in the only way possible, simply and without fuss, making no apologies, offering no excuses, his eyes fixed firmly on his father’s desk. But when he had finished, had said that in spite of it he felt he could still serve his country in as valuable a way as a private soldier, and looked up at them, he saw that his father was smiling at him, if rather sadly, and he reached out and patted Giles’s hand, and instead of the contempt and disapproval he had expected to see in his mother’s eyes, there was a certain softness and even pride.

‘I think that’s rather splendid of you, Giles,’ she said, ‘and in its own way extremely brave. Well done.’

She was nothing, Giles thought, smiling rather warily back at her, if not unpredictable.

It was terribly cold in Paris; it was cold everywhere, the coldest winter anyone could remember. The Channel had even frozen at Boulogne. There was ice inside the windows every morning in the apartment; Adele, struggling to keep the stove alight, fighting with the evil geyser, draping nappies over chairs, the window handles, anywhere they might dry, thought more longingly every moment of England, of Cheyne Walk, of warmth and comfort and – good temper. Luc was fearsomely bad-tempered; Adele was reminded every day of his warning that the cold made him miserable. She tried not to think of the warmth of his office at Constantine.

The children were miserable in the cold; little Noni had chilblains on her tiny fingers, and the daily trip out to the market had become a torment. Without Lady Beckenham’s pram, it would have been far worse; but she tucked them both up in it, one at each end, and put the quilts from their cots over them, as well as an old mink coat of her own. She looked at it now, that coat, tucked in beneath them, and thought of it as it had been, wrapped round her spoilt self as she went on those other shopping expeditions, to Bond Street, to Harvey Nichols, to Harrods, seeking out some new dress or hat or pair of shoes, filling in her mornings until it was time for lunch, when she would leave it in the cloakroom at the Caprice or the Park Lane or Claridges, while she sat gossiping, toying with food she had not cooked or bought or even thought about, and then she would collect it, pull it round her again, hailing a taxi (in which she really did not need it) and returning to Cheyne Walk with it, where her maid would hang it next to the other two, the silver fox and the chinchilla, in her wardrobe. She could have done with those two now, to wear herself; she had a wool coat, which was quite warm, but there really was nothing like fur.

Everybody was far more obsessed with the cold than with the war and any possible danger from the Germans; people still for the most part persisted in saying there was no danger. There was the Maginot Line (work on which had been suspended because of the cold) and where that stopped, there was the Ardennes, a forest so thick it was virtually impenetrable, with one tiny road running through it. And beyond that, even supposing the Germans managed to get through it, was the vast, uncrossable River Meuse. No, they were quite safe. Everyone said.

Luc became hugely irritated with her when she tried to discuss any danger, when she mooted, however gently, that she and the children might be safer in England.

‘You are safe here, Paris will never be invaded. And how will you get to England, Hitler will be bombing or torpedoeing the ships.’

Adele found this rather at odds with his insistence that they were in little danger and said so: ‘And anyway, no one’s bombing anyone, Luc, everyone says it’s a terrible anticlimax, the phony war, they’re calling it in England, same as the
drôle de guerre
here, everyone rushing into air-raid shelters and gas masks, and then nothing happening.’

But Luc refused even to concede that she might be safer in England; ‘This is your home, you have French children a French husband—’