Gone With the Windsors. Laurie Graham
had to get elected to his seat, whereas Melhuish has one simply because he’s Lord Melhuish. It has been warmed by Melhuish b-t-ms through the centuries.
Pips and Freddie seem to see quite a bit of Judson Erlanger.
She said, “As I recall, you had quite a pash for him.”
Pips is misremembering. Judson was the one who pursued me.
Another name from the past. Ida Coote is in town, living some kind of artistic life in a rooming house full of White Russians. Extraordinary. I hadn’t realized Russians came in any other color.
I don’t believe I’ve seen Ida since Gunpowder River Summer Camp. It must be twenty years. She was another unusual girl. I can’t wait.
Wally is now married to someone called Simpson, and I have her address from Pips. George Street. All I’ve been able to discover is that it’s in some kind of backwater north of Marble Arch and absolutely nobody lives there. Poor Wally.
Pips says they’ve seen each other in passing at several receptions, but so far they haven’t managed to get together for lunch. I sense Pips dragging her heels. She said, “I don’t know. Maybe the years have improved her, but didn’t you always find her rather mouthy?”
Actually, I liked that in her. I had the face and the figure, but Wally had the patter. We’d take a slow walk down to the Chesapeake tea rooms on a Sunday and collect ourselves quite an escort of good-looking Navy boys, in from Annapolis for the afternoon. We made a good team. Perhaps we will again. Me, Wally, Pips, Ida. At this rate, we belles of Baltimore will be taking over London.
Violet says Ida’s address is in West Kensington, which hardly counts as London. Also that she’d hesitate to classify Wally Warfield as a belle.
Tomorrow to Swan & Edgar for woolen camisoles.
18th May 1932
Swan & Edgar’s store knows nothing of customer service. They told me there was no demand for woolen camisoles at this time of year, when only two minutes earlier I had demanded them. They advised me that their next supply will arrive toward the end of August and asked would I care to leave my name and number. I said, “I see no point. I shall be dead of the cold.”
A long wait while Ida was fetched to the telephone by one of her Russians. She screamed for joy when she heard my voice. Lunch tomorrow.
19th May 1932
Treated Ida to the Dorchester. She has dyed her hair black and wears costume jewelry, having lost everything in the Crash, but seems very gay. She said, “Money’s a curse, Maybell. I’m a free spirit these days.”
Of course, I don’t know that Ida ever had that much money.
She’s taking me to the Argentine Embassy on Monday. She says attendance at one cocktail party begets invitations to ten more, so there’s no faster way to meet people and canapés also solve the question of dinner.
No call from Wally.
21st May 1932
To the Crosbies. Freddie Crosbie is very sweet in that dithering English way. He has no chin and makes only four hundred a year as Member of Parliament, but Pips obviously adores him. They must be very glad of her money.
The house is all beige and cream, what Pips calls “neutrals,” and is run in the modern style. There’s no withdrawing after dinner, which I very much applaud. I’ve never liked all that sitting around drinking tea, waiting for the men to finish their cigars.
The great shock of the evening was seeing Judson Erlanger after all these years. He never had what one could call chiseled features, but he did once have a certain amount of dash. Now he looks like a big, pink man in the moon and is married to Hattie, formerly Chandos, who has crooked teeth and a permanent wave and dukes in the family. Pips says Hattie’s people go back years. But surely everybody’s people go back years?
Still nothing from Wally. I begin to wonder whether Pips copied down the address correctly.
24th May 1932
How I missed Danforth Brumby last evening. Ida and I had no sooner arrived at the Argentines than she set off across the room in search of potato chips and left me at the mercy of a Latin with shiny hair and built-up shoes. What is one supposed to say to these people? Brumby would have struck up a conversation about silver mines or the price of beef, but I felt quite at a loss. Was finally rescued by an American press attaché called Whitlow Trilling, also married to an English girl. He knows Judson and Pips, but Wally’s name meant nothing to him. Perhaps this whole Wally business is a red herring.
Violet came in before I was dressed, wanting to discuss something called Royal Ascot. Ascot is a race track, and there’s a week of races there next month. I wouldn’t mind going. Brumby and I went to Saratoga once and it was quite fun.
Violet said, “Oh I’m afraid it’s not that simple, Maybell. Melhuish and I will be in the Royal party, you see? And I’m just not sure what best to do with you.”
I said, “You make me sound like a surplus chair. It’s very simple. I’ll join the Royal party, too.”
But she says that’s out of the question. That one cannot invite oneself along, nor even propose that one’s dearest sister, recently bereaved and newly arrived in a foreign land, be added to the invitation list.
She said, “Let me have a word with Lady Desborough. She’s always very sweet about accommodating an extra.”
That word “extra” again.
I said, “As a matter of fact, now I reconsider. I expect to be rather busy that week, so don’t give it another thought.”
She said, “Will you? Nobody’ll be in town, you know? But it’ll be a great weight off my mind. Their Majesties absolutely depend on us for Ascot, you see. Well, Melhuish has known them all his life.”
Violet never tires of displaying her tired old stock of claims to grandeur. How she met Melhuish when he was traveling with the Prince of Wales. How Melhuish’s father was equerry to two Kings, which as I understand it amounts to nothing more than being a royal errand boy. How Melhuish has known the Duchess of York since she was a baby in her bassinet.
She forgets how differently things might have turned out. If I hadn’t stayed home to represent us at Lucie Mallett’s wedding shower, I’d have been at Sulphur Springs myself. Who knows, I might have caught the Royal eye, never mind Donald Melhuish’s. Not that I’d have wanted either of them. They say that crowns are unbearably heavy to wear.
I notice anyway that the Prince of Wales seems to have dropped Melhuish. Violet says it’s not a question of “dropping.” She says friends grow apart when one of them becomes a family man and the other continues to run with a fast set.
I said, “I assume you’ll leave me with a cook at least, and a maid while you’re being indispensable to Their Majesties?”
She said, “I’ll leave you with everything but a driver. And you’ll have Flora and Doopie for company.”
So there it is. It doesn’t bother me. I’m sure Royalties must be death to the natural gaiety of friendship. Better to stay at home and be one’s true self, even if it does mean being left with a child to supervise, and an imbecile, and a staff of Bolshevik insurgents.
25th May 1932
Minnehaha at last! She said, “Maybell, you must think me such a slouch, but I’ve been sick. This is my first good day for a week.”
Stomach ulcers, apparently. I didn’t think she looked too bad, though. Still skinny, still parting her hair in the middle, still as tidy as a tinker. Little gray suit, white shirtwaist, good shoes.