‘Certainly not.I can’t abide her.Are you sure you didn’t?’
‘Perfectly sure.How would I, with the ambassador here?Really, this is damned awkward.’
Honor went to the window and stood beside Chips.Sure enough, below them Diana, dressed in a navy silk dress, stood beside Mosley, thin and dapper in a grey suit.She watched as Diana cast a look around at the house and grounds, then leaned in to say something to Mosley that made him laugh.Just as Honor was about to draw back, Diana turned slightly and looked up to the window.Seeing Honor, she waved at her.
‘If it’s only awkward, we’ll be doing well,’ Honor said, drawing back.‘What a cauldron you have assembled, Chips.I do hope it doesn’t all catch fire.’
‘I didn’t assemble it,’ he said.‘What can Diana be thinking?I do hope they don’t intend to stay to dinner.’
Chapter Forty-Nine
Honor
That you are an indifferent wife I can accept, but an indifferent mother I cannot.Was it true?Honor wondered when Chips had left, bustling down to greet Diana, furious and excited all at once.Was she an indifferent mother?She supposed she was.Once admitted, the thought was less terrible than she would have expected it to be.The realisation made her sad.But something else too.Something she didn’t quite understand yet.
She was on her way downstairs, past Rose Kennedy’s door, when it opened and Rose appeared.Honor felt awkward.She should say something genial.But what?
‘I do hope you’re having a nice time,’ was all she could come up with.
‘Thank you.’Rose inclined her head graciously.She didn’t say she was, Honor noted.‘May I ask you something?’
‘Of course.’Honor hoped it would be something quick – where might she get a darning needle or hair pins, perhaps – but Rose stepped back and held the bedroom door wide so that Honor found no way not to walk inside.Rose closed the door behind them.
‘Will you sit?’she asked.Quite as if it wasn’t Honor’s house, Honor thought.She perched at the edge of an armchair.Rose took the dressing-table stool, which meant Honor could see her elegant, bony face reflected three ways.‘I wanted to ask you if I have understood something correctly,’ she said, fixing Honor with unblinking eyes.‘Am I right to believe that Billy Cavendish’s parents would very much rather that my daughter and their son did not continue to be particularly friendly?’
Good Lord, Honor thought.Really?‘I’m sure it’s nothing to do with Kick—’ she began.
‘Kathleen.’
‘—Kathleen.Nothing to do with her personally.’
‘Indeed not.How could it possibly be?’Rose said sharply.
‘Of course.Only I imagine they don’t much want Billy to form a friendship with someone who isn’t, well, you know …’
‘English?’
‘Exactly.’That would have to do.
‘Thank you.That’s what I hoped you’d say.I can be easy in my mind now.It means we are as one on this, they and us.Usually, you know, it goes the other way.’She smiled thinly.‘The reluctance is very often all on our side.’
‘I’m sure the Devonshires must know just what you mean,’ Honor said, stifling a laugh.Really, Rose understood nothing about this country.She couldn’t wait to tell Maureen.She looked around the room then, wondering if she might now leave.Rose’s things were so neat as to be almost invisible.A hairbrush, a lipstick, a jar of cold cream and a can of hairspray were lined up on the dressing table.Other than that, there was no evidence of her at all.No shoes, no clothes, not even a scarf.Everything must be stowed away in the wardrobe.
Beside the bed stood a gold crucifix as tall as a lamp.Pinned to it, the figure of a man, face contorted in agony.At its base, two fat golden cherubs sat on either side of a little basin filled with water.Holy water, she assumed.It certainly hadn’t been in the room – anywhere in the house – before.Honor, fascinated and appalled, blurted out, ‘Your own?’
‘Yes, I bring it with me when I travel.’
‘Such a comfort …’ Honor tried, but couldn’t continue.‘You must be very virtuous,’ she finished vaguely.
‘I’m always astonished at the way people think Catholics are virtuous.’Rose sounded amused.Which was unlike her.
‘Well, aren’t they?Aren’t you?’
‘Not at all.If anything, that’s the point,’ Rose said.‘We aren’t.And we don’t expect to be.Or expect others to be.Not at all.You see’ – she held up a thin hand.How didactic she was, Honor thought; she never could seem to understand that she wasn’t talking to one of her nine children – ‘what we understand istrying, and trying again, even when you don’t at all wish to.’
‘So you think one should always try again?’
‘Oh yes.’Rose opened her ice-blue eyes very wide.‘I most certainly do.Especially at the important things.Like motherhood.And marriage.’She smiled a neat smile and folded her hands in a way that Honor suspected was meant to be inviting.Of confidences.Of burdens.
