Gone With the Windsors. Laurie Graham
is dull, but says she endures her because the husband is always good for whiling away an evening with Ernest. They often have macaroni cheese and peruse the Greek ancients, leaving her free to come dancing. The Hatts’ little shop is called Reuters, but Wally has no idea where it is.
17th December 1932
A festive evening at the Benny Thaws. They had an adorable little chorale of children to sing us carols around the Christmas tree, American children from the compound, with proud deportment and straight teeth. It caused me a flicker of nostalgia for Sweet Air. Just a flicker.
Rory and Ulick are home from school.
23rd December 1932
Violet says luncheon will be served at twelve-thirty sharp on Christmas Day so the kitchen maids can get away to visit their mothers. It’s going to make for a very long afternoon, unless, of course, we’re expected to take our tea at three so the rest of the help can go gallivanting to Essex. I don’t know why I don’t just take us all to Claridge’s.
24th December 1932
Violet says they always do things this way, it suits them very well and this is how children learn about their responsibilities to servants. Before the family meal is served, Melhuish goes below stairs to say a few words and carve the first slice of the servants’ goose, and this year Ulick will go with him, to see how it’s done. She says we can have tea whenever we choose, because Doopie will have charge of it, so as to allow Smith the rest of the day off.
All the more reason to go to Claridge’s.
A greeting card from Randolph Putnam. His mother passed away. And I am missed in Baltimore. Of course.
26th December 1932
The best-laid plans. Rory claimed Flora’s tea service and performed a very clever trick with overturned cups and disappearing sugar lumps, Flora was only interested in Rory’s Erector Set, and Ulick remained disappointingly aloof from his fort. It would have remained in its box if Lightfoot and Doopie hadn’t begun playing with it.
Violet gave me a calendar.
“So you can organize your time,” she said. “You’ll see the weeks laid out before you and be able to think how best to fill your days productively.”
Rory gave me a rough-hewn letter rack made in his handicrafts’ class, Lightfoot gave me a coffret of candy, and Flora gave me a pink satin letter M, stitched quite nicely and filled with padding.
Violet said, “How clever. Is it a scented sachet?”
“No,” said Flora, “it’s an em. We made it out of old ploomers.”
Melhuish’s sister Elspeth and the Rear Admiral Salty Laird looked in during the afternoon. Elspeth said, “Now Flora, are ye looking forward to being a big girl and going to Hope House?”
Flora closed her eyes. She does that when you say something she doesn’t want to hear. She gets that from Doopie.
Rory said, “You’ll like it when you get there, Flora. You’ll make friends. And have cocoa every night. I used not to want to go to school, but you get used to it, you see, and then it’s really good fun.”
She said, “Then I’ll come to your school.”
Ulick said, “You can’t. You’re a girl.”
She said, “Well I shan’t stay at Hope House. I shall run away.”
Elspeth said, “Do ye know what happens to girls who run away, Flora? The bogeyman comes after them and they’re never seen again.”
Doopie and Lightfoot both got her with the peashooter cannons.
Ulick said, “I really wonder why we’re bothering with all this. Why not have her taught at home until it’s time for her to be finished? That’s what they did with Pentlow’s sister and she’s now out and practically engaged to Gore-Cummings. Education seems to me to be quite wasted on girls.”
Gala night at the Savoy last night. Wore my aquamarine chiffon with the beaded shrug. Pips and Freddie came, also the Prosper Friths and Ida with an old Venezuelan flaneur. She said, “Oh Maybell, no date?” I said, “Oh Ida, no taste?” She was putting away Manhattans all night, so I guess she has tired of Mr. Acolyte and chamomile tea.
I may not have had a date but I danced Prosper Frith off his feet, not to mention a foxtrot with Billy Belchester and two rumbas with Benny Thaw whose party was at the next table, minus Connie. Apparently, she and Lady Thelma are at Lily Drax-Pfaffenhof’s, so won’t Wally be thrilled. I bet she’ll have been cultivating Thelma Furness like crazy.
Freddie stood us all champagne for midnight, which I’m sure he couldn’t really afford. I’d happily have paid for it.
7th January 1933
Wally and Ernest are back from the Alps. She’s wearing a plummier lip color, in imitation of Lady Thelma, no doubt. Landgravine Lily’s house party had been quiet. Canasta, a treasure hunt, a little light shopping. Just Connie and Lady Thelma, a couple called Rothschild, and Crown Princess Cecilie, a sad remnant of German royalty.
Ernest has a carbuncle on his neck. Wally needs dental work. She said, “Don’t you hate January? Nothing ever happens.”
Lunch tomorrow.
9th January 1933
I’d given up on Wally and was about to order, when she sauntered into the Fountain Room in that skimpy little mink of hers smiling like the cat that’s had the cream. She said she was sorry to be late but had been delayed by an important telephone call from Connie Thaw. “You see,” she said, taking forever to sit down and then starting to nibble on a celery stick in the most annoying way, “you see, Ernest and I are invited to Fort Belvedere for the weekend. By the Prince of Wales.”
I’m very happy for her, of course. This is something she’s worked for tirelessly. I just hope she understands that the invitation doesn’t spring from any desire on the part of the Prince of Wales. I’m sure he doesn’t even remember who they are. But I expect he allows Thelma a certain number of her own friends, and she and Wally seem to have hit it off. They’re always screaming with laughter about something.
I said, “But Ernest always seems to spend his weekends shuffling business papers. Are you sure he’ll be allowed to take time off?”
She said, “Of course he can. Ernest’s a director, not an employee.”
If that’s the case, I wonder he doesn’t open the safe and bring home a little more money. There are things she’s going to need, but she said she’d better wait till tomorrow, till Ernest has agreed to a budget. It only leaves her Wednesday and Thursday for all that shopping, not to mention hair, facials, and nails. What an impossible way to live. I offered her Kettle, to take them down to Windsor and bring them back on Sunday. It seemed the least I could do.
She said, “Maybell, you’re such a treasure. The thing about Ernest’s car is, his driver doesn’t like to work on Sundays.”
The thing about Ernest’s car is it isn’t a Bentley.
11th January 1933
Dinner at the Crosbies. Whitlow and Gladys Trilling, Prosper and Daphne Frith, and young Freddie Birkenhead, who’s an earl. Everyone very exercised about what Roosevelt may be planning to do with the gold standard. When I asked Earl Birkenhead if I had any cause for concern, he