Gone With the Windsors. Laurie Graham

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ and the rattle of London trams. Also, Missie says Junior’s wife stops her car outside every day and peers through the gates up to my pleasure porch. If I stayed, she and Junior would surely rob me of my peace of mind and destroy my health.

      19th September 1932

      The last of my boxes has gone, and the ticker-tape machine has been removed, my final reminder of Brumby. Whatever Junior may say, we were contented. I didn’t bother him and he didn’t bother me, at least not in recent times.

      I’ve put Nora Sedley Cordle out of her misery. She’s been making hay in my absence, hosting musical soirees and raising funds for the veterans’ hospital, and must have been anxious about my returning home, worried I’d confiscate her new little empire. By a great stroke of luck, she arrived at Klein’s just as my furs were being loaded into the car. A face like an anaemic chipmunk.

      I said, “Hello Nora and good-bye. You know, I find Baltimore so narrow now I live in London. I wonder if we shall ever meet again.”

      I’ve always made good exits, though I do say so myself.

      24th September 1932, RMS Rex

      Junior and that grasping creature he calls a wife had the nerve to send a basket of fruit to my stateroom. All poisoned, I’m sure. I’ve donated it to the stewards’ mess.

      A squall is forecast for tonight.

      25th September 1932

      More than a squall. The girl from the infirmary ministered to me like an angel, but there are no hair appointments until tomorrow afternoon.

      26th September 1932

      Thelma Furness’s sister Connie is on board. She claimed me in the Palm Court as I was trying to regain my sea legs. We shared a pot of tea, and when she heard of my difficulties, she made a call and immediately, miraculously, a hair appointment opened up. She told me Thelma and her Prince have been summering secretly at Biarritz. No wonder he didn’t put in an appearance at Balmoral.

      A wire from Violet. Melhuish is sending his car to meet me when we dock, and she insists on my going to Carlton Gardens until my own house is aired. How kind everyone is.

      30th September 1932, Carlton Gardens, London

      Ulick and Rory have returned to their schools, and the pace of London life is quickening again. Violet already has a number of invitations on her mantel. I predict that by this time next year, mine will make hers look sadly bare.

      She said, “Well, now you’re here, what do you plan to do?”

      My feet have hardly touched dry land. I said, “I’m going to make telephone calls, to see who’s back in town, and tomorrow night I’m going to Ciro’s with Pips and Freddie and the Whitlow Trillings.”

      “No,” she said, “I mean what are you going to do? There are more important things in life than going to niteries.”

      She underestimates me. I’m perfectly aware I have to hire a cook and a driver. I also have to pick out new drapes for my dining room, something more confident than pastel stripes, something that says “Maybell Brumby lives here now.” But one can’t be slaving every hour of the day. Lunch with Ida.

      1st October 1932

      Ida has a new beau, acquired in a lecture hall in Tewkesbury. He’s an Acolyte of the Seventh Ray, drinks only chamomile tea and is showing her the path to inner vitality. The people one meets in Gloucestershire!

      Wally’s back. Shopping on Monday. Her friend with the castle, Lily Drax-Pfaffenhof, is coming to stay, so she’s splashing out on a new rug for the guest bedroom.

      3rd October 1932

      Heal’s had a selection of perfectly adequate rugs, but Wally insisted on going to a little Persian in Sackville Street, and once those people have you in their clutches, they won’t let go until you’ve seen their entire stock. Wally, of course, went to his most expensive item like a homing pigeon. “Oh,” he said, “a most discerning choice. A most unique rug made in a mountain village to a pattern known only to one old man.” They always say that, but Wally’s impossible to turn once she’s decided on a thing. She’s promised to get a check sent round to me first thing tomorrow. Another jolt to Ernest’s careful budget.

      She said, “Ernest will be fine about it. He’d rather stretch himself to buy something good than settle for mediocrity. We’re of one mind on that. And I won’t have Lily stepping out of bed onto the kind of thing a grocer’s wife might buy. Lily’s a landgravine, you know?”

      A landgravine! Further complications. No doubt there will be the expense of special dietary requirements in addition to outlay on hand-knotted rugs.

      4th October 1932

      I’ve engaged a butler, a cook, and two housemaids, but still no driver and no satisfactory lady’s maid. Penelope Blythe says there may be servants becoming available at the Orr-Tweedies’ since Mrs. O-T passed away. She’s going to inquire.

      Ructions in the nursery. It’s Melhuish’s birthday on Thursday, and Flora had the idea of giving him a party. She said, “We can make a gake and Daddy can blow out the gandles.”

      Violet said it was a sweet idea but out of the question, because he’s speaking on the Pheasant Bill that afternoon and then going on to a January Club dinner.

      Doopie said, “Bedvus dime?”

      Violet said, “No, Doopie. Mornings are far too hectic, especially when he’s working on a speech. Don’t pout, Flora. You can have a little party without him. I’ll ask Smith to find you something special. Now off you skip. Mummy has to look for some papers for Lady Strathnaver.”

      Doopie looked at me, but there was really nothing I could do. The poor child was clearly disappointed, and I’d have taken her out to Harrold’s and bought her a new dolly, but I was already committed to lunch with Pips and then a manicure. By the time I got back, it was too late to save Flora from herself. She’d gone into the writing room and created a snowstorm of papers, from Violet’s desk and from Melhuish’s, scrambling them up with her grubby little hands and tossing them in the air. The floor was still covered when I looked in, Fishermen’s Orphans mixed up with Unmarried Mothers and the Hedgerows Bill. Trotman had hauled her upstairs, and she’d been sent to bed without any tea.

      This must surely strengthen the case for sending her to school.

      5th October 1932

      Penelope Blythe has come up trumps. I’ve taken on Padmore, formerly lady’s maid to Mrs. Orr-Tweedie, and also Kettle, who was her driver for nineteen years.

      He drove me along Piccadilly and the Haymarket and then back by Pall Mall to Carlton Gardens, and he has a pleasingly smooth technique. He also carries a kind of Boy Scout emergency box, which he showed me before he stowed it in the trunk: flashlight, bandages, medicinal СКАЧАТЬ