‘Because we need to know about him.’
‘Know what about him?’
‘What he is about.Who he stands for.’
‘Princes usually stand for themselves, I should think,’ Kick said.She expected a laugh, from her father at least, but didn’t get one.God, this car journey was long, and hot, she thought.She tried to open the window, just a crack.Her mother reached a hand out and stopped her.Rose’s hair didn’t stand for sharp breezes.
‘Know what about him?’Rose persisted.
But the ambassador didn’t answer that.
‘Anyway, what do you mean by “nice”?’Kick asked.
‘I want you to listen to what he has to say.’
‘OK, I’ll listen,’ she said cheerfully.
‘And remember.’
She knew what the remembering meant.It meant that he would quiz her later – what had the prince said?What did she think he meant by it?Half, Kick was flattered by these questions – that her father should ask them of her and listen to the answers – but she found herself more and more confused about how to answer.
Through Billy, Andrew, their other friends, she now understood that many saw her father not as she always had – a hero, a peacemaker – but as a coward; as ‘yellow’, as Randolph Churchill had dubbed him.Someone concerned for his money if stability should be disrupted.Concerned for the safety of his own sons if America should decide to join England and go to war with Germany.Ready to sacrifice dignity, honour, what was right, for safety and prosperity.She didn’t believe it of him, but who really knew what her father thought?Or rather, when he clearly thought so many things, who could be sure these weren’t among them?
She must ask Jack, she decided.He seemed to understand the many tight compartments of their father’s mind, far better than she did.She wasn’t used to questioning anything the ambassador thought or said.How uncomfortable it was to feel new thoughts growing in her, pushing up through tightly packed ground and into the light; spikey and insistent.Especially when these thoughts brought her into conflict with what Billy said to her.Recently, he had told her more than he used to of what he felt – his shame that Chamberlain tried always to appease, to placate – ‘rolling over like a puppy, to show his stomach’ – and how he refused to believe that peace at any price was worth having.
Kick listened and said little, but she thought about what he said.She had tried to ask her father – ‘Maybe resisting Hitler is right after all?’– but he dismissed her: ‘War is a terrible thing, and must be avoided.’They couldn’t both be right.And yet, how could she decide who was wrong?
They swept through a pair of gate lodges that arched above them, as though linking arms, and up a broad driveway far better surfaced than the road they had just left.Kick rolled her window down.Now that they were moving slowly, her mother allowed it.She wanted to hear the sounds of this place.Above the crunching of tyres on gravel, there was the swelling of evening birdsong and the scraping rattle of someone pushing a lawn-mower, along with a throaty clicking noise that made her think of crickets.Did they have crickets here?The house came into view, square and neat and red, like the doll’s house back home in the nursery.Beside her, her mother sat up a little straighter and dug an elbow into Kick to do the same.
At the house was the usual receiving line of servants, spreading out in a fan shape from the front door.The first such country-house visit, Kick had said hullo, warmly, to the young man at the end of the line, only to have Debo squeeze her arm tight and whisper, ‘No.’Later, Debo had explained that if she must say hullo, ‘at least say it to the butler, darling.Not the lowliest footman who’s probably just a boot boy in a borrowed uniform, put there to make the family look good.’
‘WhatwouldI do without you?’Kick had responded with a laugh.
The motorcar drew to a gradual halt, stopping exactly opposite the open front door.‘Dear friends!’That was Chips, she assumed, coming down the front steps towards them, arms spread theatrically wide.‘Welcome.’
He was unexpectedly handsome.Blond, well-made.With the skill given her by her drawing teacher, Kick noted the even proportions of his face, all his features held in perfect balance.Looking a little closer, when he took her hand in his and shook it vigorously, she saw the beginnings of pouches under his eyes, a network of tiny red veins across his cheeks, a softening of jawline that hinted at disappointment.He made her think of that curious book she had read the summer before at Hyannis Port,The Picture of Dorian Gray.She had never finished it – her mother had come upon her reading it and immediately taken it away – but she remembered it well enough that now, looking at Chips, she thought immediately of the painting starting to corrupt, leaking signs of dissolution into the perfect beauty of its subject.
‘Let me show you to your rooms,’ he was saying, leading them in through the door to the hallway.He paused a moment, the better that they might admire, Kick thought, looking dutifully around.It was a hallway thick with things.Why, it would take a whole day to look at everything he had crowded in there – paintings, lamps, vases, china and glass objects, a tiny gold clock – all proudly craning forwards to be admired.Above them was a white marble chandelier with carved fruit and flowers so thick upon it that they looked, she thought, like clusters of insects.Fat beetles or moth chrysalises.She imagined them all hatching at the same moment, swarming out of their cocoons and drying themselves on the light.She shuddered.
‘Some of the others are down at the pool,’ Chips continued.‘You’ll meet them when the bell goes.How well you will all get on, you’ll see!’His enthusiasm was either infectious or excessive, she couldn’t decide which.She was too tired after the journey.
‘There’s a pool?’she said.‘May I swim?’
‘Now?’
‘Yes.Please.’She stood on one leg, eager for him to say yes.‘It is so hot and the drive was so stuffy.Mother didn’t want the windows down for fear of flies.’
‘The bell is about to go,’ Chips said.‘It is nearly time to dress.’
‘Really, Kathleen!’Her mother.Then, with a gracious smile, ‘My daughter is impatient.’
‘Oh, let her swim, Chips.There’s time.’That was a tall man with a heavy, dark face, wearing creased linen trousers and a white shirt.He came through the hallway from the back of the house and passed them, going upstairs.
‘Well, alright,’ Chips said.‘I will have someone show you to your room.’
‘Honestly, you need only tell me and I will find it.No need to show me.’Barely waiting for instructions – ‘around the bend in the landing, third door on the right, the Mauve Room’ – Kick dashed upstairs, hoping that the mysterious alchemy of English country houses would mean her trunk was already there.
It was.And her little portable gramophone.She put the needle on the record, thrilling as always to the loud crackle that seemed to demand quiet and attention.Cole Porter’s voice filled the air: ‘It’s delightful …’ She changed quickly into her bathing costume and took a towel that lay folded neatly at the end of the bed.Shoving her feet into sandals, she went back the way she had come and out towards what Chips had proudly called ‘the pavilion’.She met no one, but everywhere there was a sense of waiting – of doors about to burst open and send forth beautifully dressed men and women, of plans set in motion that needed only a signal to begin to play themselves out.
