‘You mean things like buyingobjets, filling the house with silly bits and pieces, and scheming to advance yourself ever further?’
He sat back in his chair, right away from Honor.‘I mean men and women going about their daily lives as they wish without fear that those lives will be plucked from them by a row they do not want over far-away territories they do not care about.’
He succeeded, Brigid thought, in sounding grand and stiff and also sorrowful.
‘So much to accomplish in one afternoon,’ Honor said, indifferent to his grand sorrowfulness.
‘Indeed.You see now why I have invited that dear boy Fritzi?So that he might be company for our young guest while we elders talk politics.’
Brigid rolled her eyes.‘Such a fun time as I am to have.’
‘And I,’ Honor added.
When Fritzi was shown in some moments later by Andrews – who announced ‘Prince Frederick George William Christopher of Prussia’ in a way that caused Chips to smile approvingly, and Honor to mutter ‘good God’ under her breath – he stood in the doorway and clicked his heels smartly together, bowing slightly from the waist.Now that she saw him, Brigid did indeed remember him from her party.Even amidst that whirl of dazzling creatures, the boys and girls equally beautiful, and beautifully dressed, so that they had seemed like the shiny floating ribbons on a maypole, Fritzi had stood out for his unruffled beauty.He was like the surface of a lake, Brigid had thought then, as he whirled her into a waltz that had seemed to perfectly fit his solemn grace.His was not a charming beauty nor a lively beauty.He might have been a marble statue from classical times, except for the rosy glow that lit him to the tips of his perfect ears.But it was a beauty as undeniable as the blue of her own eyes or the fact that she was left-handed.
When he finished bowing, he crossed towards the fireplace and bent over Honor’s hand.Only that Honor snatched her hand back, he would have kissed it, Brigid thought with an inward laugh.
‘Fritzi, darling boy.’Chips clasped his hand warmly.‘You know my sister-in-law, Lady Brigid Guinness.’
‘Of course.’Fritzi bent over Brigid’s hand.‘How could I possibly forget?’His English was faultless, in a way that said immediately that he wasn’t English.She caught Honor’s eye over the top of his head and thought she was about to laugh outright.Luckily, behind her, Andrews announced, ‘Ambassador Kennedy.’
The ambassador did not pause in the doorway.He came straight in with a smile that lifted his top lip high above big white teeth but didn’t reach his eyes, shrewd and veiled behind spectacles.He walked like a man swimming, Brigid thought.Or at least a man smoothly moving a weightless force out of his way.‘Good to see you again,’ he said to Chips, shaking his hand vigorously.He did the same with Honor and with Fritzi, although he seemed to pause slightly as Chips reeled off the boy’s title and give a sharper look from behind the steel-rimmed spectacles.When it came to Brigid’s turn, he asked her, ‘How old are you?’without any kind of ‘How do you do?’
‘I am eighteen,’ she said.
‘Are you indeed?Well.’He paused and contemplated her.Then, ‘I have a daughter.Kathleen.Also eighteen.’
‘Ambassador Kennedy is here with quite the retinue,’ Chips said gayly.‘His wife, Rose, and seven of their nine children.’
‘Nine!’Honor said.An expression of distaste crossed her face.
‘Indeed.Is he not blessed?’Chips said, and managed to look both approvingly at Ambassador Kennedy and pointedly at Honor, in some way that Brigid didn’t understand.
‘My daughter Kathleen,’ the ambassador showed no sign of allowing himself to be distracted by niceties, ‘she’d be mighty pleased to meet you.’
‘I’m sure that would be delightful,’ Brigid said, turning vague and charming.Any English person would immediately have taken the hint.But Ambassador Kennedy was American.
‘That’s settled then,’ he said.‘You’ll like her.Everybody does.’
Brigid stifled a groan.Must she now be responsible for some poor little fish-out-of-water?Anyone who ‘everybody’ liked could only be impossibly dreary.
Emerald arrived, wearing a hat trimmed with so many feathers that she looked, more than ever, like an ancient exotic bird, all beaky nose, deep wrinkles and bright jewel colours.She and the ambassador greeted one another cordially, and soon they were deep in conversation about something called the Imperial Policy Group.‘Chamberlain understands,’ Chips said.‘As long as he keeps far away from that old warmonger, Churchill, it’ll be alright …’
He might have been talking about horses sharing a stable, Brigid thought; which animals did well together and which ones didn’t.
‘From what I hear, Churchill wants war and will say anything to get it,’ Ambassador Kennedy said bluntly.‘All his talk of England’s duty, the need to resist Hitler, is nothing more than the empty words of a man who has made up his mind to brawl.You can see them in any dive bar in Hell’s Kitchen on a Friday after payday.’
‘We think so too,’ Emerald said soothingly.‘Most of the country thinks so.There is no appetite for war among the people.’
Honor, after ringing for tea and passing cups around when it arrived, followed by plates of tiny sandwiches and two kinds of cake, picked up her book again –Rebeccathe title said in bold black letters – and buried herself in it.Bundi lay at her feet, drowsing happily in the warmth of the fire.
Fritzi turned to Brigid.‘Lady Brigid, how much do you enjoy opera?’
‘As much as the average English person,’ Brigid said cautiously.
He wagged a finger at her.‘I see what it is you are trying to do.You are trying to dissemble in that charming way you English have.But I can’t allow it.’He wagged the finger again.‘Because, you see, I intend to invite you to the opera, and so I must know how much you care for it.That way I will know whether to get tickets for Puccini, say – something easy,comfortable– or if you might be able for our Germans, Wagner or Albert Lortzing.’
Why did men always treat one as though one were a fire made with damp wood?Brigid thought.A feeble flame that must be coaxed and gentled?Fritzi was sort of hearty in his coaxing, but in a way that felt fake.
