‘Well, how would I know I do?I barely know him.’
‘Why don’t you find out?’Elizabeth had said lazily.
‘Find what out?’
‘How well you do together?There’s only one way to know.And really, one must know.Otherwise, all that fuss of a wedding, and then’ – she shuddered – ‘the disappointment of the wedding night.Too crushing.No, by far the best thing is slip into his room one night and make sure.’
That was when Brigid had announced the headache and said she would go to her room.She was shocked by the casual way Elizabeth had said what she did – imagine if Lady Iveagh, or even Honor, had heard?– but even more than that, she was simply sick of being the focus of everyone’s interest.Was that what it was to be young and a girl?she wondered.To be the draw for so many eyes, the source of so much speculation, simply because one was not yet married?She was sick of having to give an account of herself.Of featuring in other people’s plans, as though they all played a game with rules she didn’t understand.It was like being a servant, she thought.Others made plans, and she was somehow required to carry them out.
She sighed and turned her face to a cool patch of the pillow.‘This bed is simply heavenly,’ she said to Minnie, who came in then with an armful of clothes to put away.‘And look, short-bread!’She pointed to a plate of biscuits by the bed.‘Not just the usual digestives.’
‘I’ve ironed your dress for dinner,’ Minnie said.‘And you’ve had too much sun.’
‘I know I have.How I wish I could have supper on a tray and go to bed.What a long day it has been already, and the Americans haven’t even arrived yet.’She sighed.
‘I saw them, pulling up just now in a car as long as a horsebox.’
‘I would get up to look, but my head aches so.’
‘Let me fix you something.It tastes nasty, but will do the trick.’
‘I wish you would.I am glad Mamma lent you to me for the week.’
‘I am not a hat, Lady Brigid.I cannot be lent.’She put the last of the clothes away and laid a cool hand on Brigid’s forehead.
‘Hat or not, you are jolly kind.And I do wish you would call me Biddy.Doris still does, you know.’She held a wan hand out and Minnie clasped it quickly.
When Minnie had gone, she pulled the pink silk curtain of the bed over, so it blocked the last rays of sun, and closed her eyes.The window was open and she listened gratefully to the jaunty sounds of early evening.A breeze had started up and the trees were set rustling by it.Birds went about their bedtime rituals, singing out a last sleepy chorus to let the world know it was time to fold itself away.Below the birds was a steady rhythmic throaty chirp that said there were frogs by the river.She was almost asleep when another sound joined what was there.Music.Loud music, somethingdelightful… delicious …rang out from nearby.It was jarring, injecting a spikey energy where there had been drowsy harmony.
‘What’s that?’she asked, sitting up, when Minnie returned.
‘The American girl brought a gramophone.Here, drink.’She handed Brigid a glass half full with cloudy liquid.Brigid sniffed at it.
‘Lemon juice?’
‘With salt.Drink it.’Brigid screwed up her face, but she did as Minnie told her, throwing back the foul-tasting liquid.
‘Now, drink some water.I’ll draw you a bath and by the time it’s ready, you’ll feel better.’
‘I doubt it,’ Brigid muttered, sinking back onto the bed.The sound of the gramophone was irritating, she decided.How dare this American girl clatter in and break the peace of their English country house?‘Boor,’ she muttered, pulling the pillow over her head.After a little while, the music stopped and she heard splashes and laughs coming from the swimming pool.The Americans must be having an evening swim.The idea annoyed her somehow.
Chapter Nineteen
Kick
The drive down to Essex had reminded Kick why she disliked being alone with her parents.It was that they so patently disliked being alone with one another.If Jack or Joe Jnr had been there, the conversation would have been assured; their father would have questioned them closely on everything they saw, demanding their opinions on the size of English farms, crop production, cattle.And Joe and Jack would have done what they always did – answered to the best of their ability, while also teasing him gently, but only ever as much as he would take.They all knew the line.And what happened to those who crossed it.
The little boys, Bobby and Teddy, would have distracted everyone with their chatter had they been there.Rosemary too brought distraction – not to their father, who tended to ignore her, but to their mother, who watched her so carefully that she had no attention left.But alone, there was not enough conversation after the first half hour, and they lapsed into silence.Her father read the newspaper.A different newspaper to the one he had read that morning.Rose looked out her window, occasionally touching her hair with a gloved hand when they rattled over a bump or hole in the road.Kick tried to play silent games with herself – she awarded herself a point for every horse (two for a grey) she saw, and took a point away for every field of cows.It had to be a field, she reflected; individual cows were too many.
Even so, she was well into minus numbers when they drove over a particularly deep pothole and the car bounced high, jolting them all out of their silence.
‘You will come and say your prayers with me before bed each evening,’ Rose said, turning to Kick.‘It won’t be possible to attend mass.I imagine there isn’t even a church, so that will have to do.’
‘Of course, Mother.’Kick spoke eagerly.That was the time she and her mother were most in harmony – at mass or saying prayers together.Kick, of all her brothers and sisters, was the most conscious of her faith.In her trunk, packed into a silk purse stitched in the papal colours of yellow and white, were the rosary beads and holy picture she never went anywhere without.Each night they sat beside her bed and were the last thing she laid eyes on before she turned off the lamp.The times she spent on her knees in silent contemplation, either in church or at the little Prie-dieu in her bedroom, were some of her happiest.The repetition of words known so much by heart – ‘Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee …’ – and the way in which her mind, anchored by the familiarity, was set free to roam by those words, given structure by their rhythm; the sound of her mother’s voice alongside hers; the way their two voices, together, became something greater, swelling into a broader chorus – all these things were, not a comfort, as others called them, but to her, a delight.
And then her father surprised her.‘I want you to be nice to the German prince, Kick,’ he said, folding the newspaper in that deliberate way of his.
‘Why?’Rose demanded, head whipping up like a bird that sees something move on the lawn below.
