Read Casting Off: Cazalet Chronicles Book 4 for Free Online

both ways for years; it was high time he had to face the music, make a decision one way or the other. His life must, for years, have been a tissue of lies, evasions, a withholding of essential truths.
    He was no good at anger. Any resentment or disapproval he manufactured against Edward evaporated as fast as he put words to it; it wasn’t just a question of deciding, it was living afterwards, according to the decision, dealing with the lifelong consequences . . .
    His train had arrived; he did not know how long it had been there, and hurried to catch it. He found an empty compartment and settled himself in a corner of it to sleep. But the moment that he closed his eyes his head was full of familiar, silent images that seemed waiting to become animate in his dreams – to speak, to repeat themselves, to re-enact the key moments of the last three months: Michèle’s head, sinking back upon her pillow after he had kissed her, then (he imagined) lying motionless as she listened to his departing footsteps – he had looked back once at the house to see if she had come to the window but she had not; the interim in the boat, which had seemed so painful and now seemed an almost blessed interlude when that image of her recurred and he could indulge in pure grief. He had wanted to stay one night in London on his own before embarking upon the last leg of his journey home, but he had no money except for the rail fares borrowed from the captain of the boat. He had not thought to ask for more – as it was, he walked from Waterloo Station to Charing Cross. The shabby, battered appearance of London appalled him. So he had bought his ticket and watched the familiar countryside and smoked his last cigarette from the packet they had given him on the boat and tried to imagine meeting Zoë.
    He had not been able to imagine that. Nothing that came to his mind on the journey to Battle had any life, any credence at all. She might be disaffected, overjoyed, not even there : he knew nothing and, least of all, how he would feel at first sight. In fact, when he finally reached Home Place, in the middle of the afternoon, she was out. He walked through the old white gate that led to the front of the house, and there was his mother on her knees by her rock garden. Just as it occurred to him that his sudden appearance would be too much of a shock for her, she turned her head and saw him. He went quickly to her then, knelt down and put his arms round her; the expression on her face brought tears to his eyes. She clung to him, speechless, then put her hands on his shoulders to hold him away from her. ‘Let me look at you,’ she said, she was laughing – a little high-pitched gasping sound; tears were streaming down her face.
    ‘Oh, my darling boy!’
    ‘Now!’ she said later. ‘We must be sensible. Zoë’s taken Juliet to Washington to the shop. You will want a little peace and quiet together.’ She had taken the small white handkerchief from its place under her wristwatch to wipe her eyes, and he noticed with a pang of affection the strawberry mark on the back of that hand.
    ‘Is she all right?’
    She met his eye, and as he was rediscovering the familiar simple frankness of her gaze, it seemed to falter.
    ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It’s been a very hard time for her. I have become very fond of her. Your daughter is a pearl. Why don’t you walk to meet them?’
    So he had done that – had walked back down the drive and up the steep road and at the top of the hill he met them by a gate into their fields. Juliet was sitting on the gate, and Zoë stood beside her and before he could hear what they were saying he recognised an argument.
    ‘. . . always go back this way. Even Ellen knows it’s my best way . . .’
    He quickened his pace.
    ‘I just don’t feel like playing charabancs today.’
    ‘You never feel like it!’ She was wearing a scarlet beret but her head was turned away – he could not see her face.
    ‘Well, I—’ Zoë began, and