Free All Change: Cazalet Chronicles by Elizabeth Jane Howard

had taken more to Home Place, they could have had it and, of course, the family could have stayed whenever they liked.
    But she was determined on her own house, and he couldn’t see her wanting much of the family in it. Though Louise and Teddy, and Lydia if she was ever available, must be able to come there – he would insist on that -but vaguely, in the back of his mind, it occurred to him that surely he shouldn’t be put into the position of having to insist. He had done a lot for her boys, after all, particularly the youngest, who he was now pretty sure was not his.
    He shook a couple of Alka Seltzer into his tooth glass, filled it with water and knocked it back. It usually did the trick or, at any rate, half the trick. This bloody dock problem. Time was that when their men had wanted to come out on strike, he had gone down to the wharf and talked to them, and resolved it. No chance of that now. The firm had grown since those days. Before the war, if he’d felt like a day off shooting or playing golf or being with Diana, he’d simply taken it. Hugh could always be relied upon to hold the fort or, when the Old Man had been in control, to cover for him. And he and Hugh had been so close: regular games of squash, chess on winter evenings, sharing out the work. He had been the best at selling, and the Brig had taught him to buy the timber, both here and in the Far East. Hugh was meticulous about dispatches, and ran their fleet of blue lorries (an uneconomic colour since it faded so fast but which distinguished them from all other heavy transport on the road). It was simply that while he could clearly see they were over-extended in terms of property, and that eventually the bank would not wear their steadily increasing overdraft, Hugh seemed utterly oblivious to the financial dangers, and since his elevation to chairman, his obstinacy – always a key factor – had worsened.
    He went to the window overlooking the front garden and opened it; immediately, the night air, gentle and warm, assailed him. It was heavily scented with all the flowers the Duchy had planted for that purpose. Moths flew at random from the dark into the light of his room. As he got into bed and turned off his bedside lamp, the Duchy filled his mind. He had gone with Hugh to her room to say goodbye. She was lying there, with white roses in her hands, her face as smooth and pale as alabaster. She looked as young as when he had been her child. ‘You were always my naughtiest son,’ he remembered her saying, when he had become engaged to Villy and had taken her to meet his parents. When Villy had pressed the Duchy to elaborate, she had looked directly at him: ‘You tried once to bite your sister. And whenever you were naughty and punished, you simply did whatever it was again. You used to spit,’ she finished, and smiled at him with frank serenity. That tranquil, direct gaze! He knew no one who was as simply direct as she. Even Rachel, who was certainly frank, was not tranquil. ‘And I shall never see her again.’ His eyes filled with unbearably hot tears. Without anyone – without Diana -he was able to mourn her.

    Archie was the last to go upstairs. This was because, after that odd and difficult evening, he felt a great need to be alone. He slipped out of the front door and into the garden. The air was like warm velvet, the sky trembling with many stars. In beds at this side of the house there were white tobacco and night-scented stocks; a jasmine, whose delicate starry flowers were belied by its extravagant vigour, hung onto a climbing rose.
    To the left of the lawn, in the corner, the monkey puzzle stood dark and stark against the softer sky. It was a kind of Victorian joke, but the Duchy was immune to the family’s teasing about it. ‘It was here when we came,’ was all she would say in its defence, but she had once confided in him that she loved it. ‘It reminds me of home at Stanmore,’ she’d said. ‘My father loved strange trees. We