Gone With the Windsors. Laurie Graham

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СКАЧАТЬ Ida and men. It’s all right for the occasional lunch, but a slumber party would be unendurable.

      More rain. To Gamages for overshoes, then home for a nursery tea. Jello, grilled cheese, and gingerbread. Afterwards, we played at Royal Ascot, with dolls strapped to Ulick’s spaniel and Melhuish’s little ratting dog.

      Gave Flora an almost, almost empty scent bottle. She wanted to know if I was going to live with them forever!

      14th June 1932

      I’m a great hit with my niece, not least because I’ve decreed no fish will be served as long as I’m in command. I told her she could choose her favorite dinner, and she came down in her nightgown to deliver her demands: LAB SHOPS. SIRUB TART. GUSTARD.

      I said, “Flora, wouldn’t you like to go to school?”

      “No thank you,” she said.

      I said, “Other little girls do.”

      She said, “Lilibet York doesn’t.”

      But Lilibet York is a princess. She’ll never need to use her brain the way we ordinary girls have to. At the very most, she might get called upon to be Queen, but only if they ran out of Kings. All highly unlikely.

      A lot of huffing and puffing from the housekeeper over my menus. Flora’s choice tonight, then tomorrow a rib roast and ice cream.

      She said, “I don’t know, madam. Her Ladyship didn’t say anything about specials. This kind of thing isn’t customary.”

      I said, “I know it isn’t customary. That’s precisely why I’m ordering it.”

      Such a fuss. All she has to do is telephone Harrold’s. They have everything.

      “Carry on like this,” she said, half out of the door, “Her Ladyship won’t know the place when she gets back. We shall be all upside down with bilious attacks and overspending.”

      I’ll deem it a failure if Violet doesn’t see a difference. I’ve already put a stop to the maid Trotman’s discussions. She now understands that if I say the tea is too strong I’m not inviting her to pour herself a cup to see whether she agrees. Give me a little longer and I’ll break that footman of breathing through his mouth.

      Tomorrow with Wally to the rolling hills of Cotswoldshire and all those darling cottages with hairy roofs.

      15th June 1932

      A profitable day in Chipping Norton, a most characteristic town, pretty little stone row houses with windows you can look right into from the sidewalk, ancient hostelries, all haunted, I’m sure, and such sweet, simple country folk. They seemed to find us quite fascinating.

      We got Wally a set of silver-plated vanity boxes, quite good enough for a guest room. Also a bone china compote dish, with the tiniest hairline crack, and a very pretty set of Victorian creamers. Bryanston Court is the kind of apartment that needs all the help it can get. It has no features. Wally’s done the best she can with her Chinese pieces, but the place still looks half-dressed. I suppose when Ernest got his divorce, the invalid wife was awarded all his good things.

      Wally’s going to give a dinner for the Benny Thaws and invite Thelma Furness, too.

      I can’t wait.

      Doopie was in good form last evening, chatting away in that funny, snuffly style of hers. Flora seems to understand all of it. We looked through Doopie’s albums, pictures I’d quite forgotten. Mother and Father with baby Violet, posed beside a potted palm. Me in a little cotton pinafore, with Doopie in her crib. That would have been before she lost her mind. Several photographs of our Season, too. Pips and Violet setting off for Mary Kirk’s tea dance. Me, Pips, Violet, and Wally in our finery before the Bachelors’ Cotillion. What a production that was. Wally and I used to practice our one-step together. “I’ll be the man,” she’d say. Homer Chute had taught her the tango, too, but that was far too racy for the Baltimore Bachelors’.

      It looked at first as though Wally wouldn’t be able to attend, because her uncle refused to help her out. He said it wasn’t seemly to be giving balls when young men were laying down their lives in Flanders. But then he relented and gave her a gown allowance, and she spent it all on one fabulous white satin. She reckoned she’d rather star at one important ball than blend with the masses at half a dozen.

      Flora wanted to know why there were no pictures of Doopie going to a ball. I told her there was a war, and left it at that. I supposed having been cooped up with Doopie in that nursery all her life, she thinks of her as normal. I must say though, they both sat up so nicely and ate so daintily I’ve ordered dinner served in the dining room tonight.

      16th June 1932

      Unexpected company last evening. We were about to go into dinner when Melhuish’s friend, George Lightfoot, called in on his way back from Windsor.

      He said, “I thought I’d look in on my favorite girls.” Flora clambered onto his knee immediately, so I offered him a sherry wine and he stayed to carve the beef. He’s a tall drink of water, rosy cheeks, tangled hair. He had a brother who was in the Grenadiers with Melhuish, lost at Passchendaele.

      He said, “I would never have taken you and Violet for sisters, but you and Doopie, yes. I see a definite resemblance.” I don’t think so.

      He said it was a criminal waste to eat such a fine-looking roast without a drop of wine, raced off to his cellars in South Audley Street, and came back with a bottle he described as “toothsome but sincere.” I don’t know that it was advisable to allow Doopie a glass, but afterwards she kept us quite entertained with her impersonations of Theda Bara and poor Fatty Arbuckle.

      17th June 1932

      Violet and Melhuish got back just as I was leaving to meet Pips for lunch. Flora came thundering down the stairs to greet them. “Mummy!” she said, “I’ve had a splendid time with Aunt Bayba. We had lab shops and ice cream and Doopie had red drink. Cook says she’s never seen such garryings-on in her life.”

      “Not now, darling,” Violet said. “I have to talk to Lady Habberley about raffle tickets.”

      Pips thinks Wally’s only inviting Thelma Furness to dinner in the hope she’ll bring the Prince of Wales, but I’m sure Wally knows that’s out of the question. Theirs is a very private affair.

      Pips said, “I suppose having the Prince’s sweetie to dinner is still more than a little Cinderella like Wally ever dreamed of.”

      Poor Wally, tarred for life, even by a friend like Pips. It’s not that there was anything particularly inferior about the Warfields. Her Uncle Sol had a very good house on Preston Street, and her Aunt Bessie is still well thought of. It was her mother who lowered the tone of things with one foolish marriage after another. Too many husbands and too much rouge. No wonder Wally’s so determined to start over and make something of herself.

      Tonight to the Embassy Club with the Benny Thaws.

      18th June 1932

      Violet СКАЧАТЬ