Page 100 of An Invitation to the Kennedys
‘You do?’Kick looked gratefully at her.
‘Oh yes.’Diana squeezed her hand.‘How I should like to tell him so.’
‘Come with me, then you can tell him.’
But it wasn’t that easy.The ambassador moved smoothly away as Kick and Diana approached him, apparently deep in conversation with Duff.And when they went to him again, a few moments later, it was Elizabeth – to whom he had barely spoken, Kick thought – who claimed his attention.In fact, he proved astonishingly skilful in his evasions, managing to be always elsewhere, always on the move and just out of reach.If he heard Kick’s requests – ‘Pa, can I—’ – he ignored them.Even Mosley, moving with elegant determination as though choreographed, was no match for Kennedy’s determination not to be met.
It was like having a pair of panthers in a room of deer, Kick thought eventually, with a laugh that she tried to hide.Everywhere Diana and Mosley moved caused a ripple through the group as her father and mother, Duff too, made sure to move as well, always in the opposite direction, always newly out of reach.It seemed they worked together, her parents, Duff, even Elizabeth and Maureen; an unexpected alliance.
‘We must get on,’ Mosley said at last, with barely concealed irritation.‘We’re expected for dinner.’
‘See you very soon, darling,’ Diana said loudly to Kick, leaning in to embrace her on both cheeks.‘You must come to Eaton Square again when we’re all back in London.’
Kick looked up and found Doris watching her with an un-usually serious expression.
Chapter Fifty-One
Honor
When Honor came back after seeing Diana and Mosley off, Chips’ mood had switched to a curious, un-focused gaiety.At first she thought it was simply relief – the same relief she felt – at dispatching their unexpected guests, but soon she realised he had been at his powders – his ‘dynamite’.She saw all the signs.He proposed cocktails outside, on the terrace.‘There won’t be much more of this weather,’ he said.‘I believe it breaks tomorrow.We may as well enjoy the last of it.’It was true, Honor thought.There was a dampness in the air, an underlying coolness that was nothing like the sudden explosion of the storm – was it really only two days ago?– but instead a reminder of a bill past due: the usual disappointments of an English summer.
‘I can bring my gramophone,’ Kick said excitedly.‘It winds up.’
‘As long as you don’t play it too loudly,’ her mother said.
Outside, the birds, perhaps stirred to competition by the sounds of Duke Ellington’s ‘Prelude to a Kiss’, sang their own evening songs louder, more aggressively.Albert was brushing leaves from the tiles around the pool into neat piles.There was a feeling of tidying up, of setting things back into place that had been disrupted by their coming.But it wasn’t his job to sweep up, and Honor felt irritated by what felt like presumption.Why couldn’t he leave the gardeners to do that?Why was he suddenly diligent?Was it to distract from the fact he’d been skulking around the village all day?
Fritzi and Brigid danced a few steps, cheered on by Chips who called ‘Exquisite!’from over by a small table that had been set up, where he was mixing drinks.
‘If only Billy were here to dance with you, Kick,’ Brigid said.There was a sharp little pause, and then she blurted out, ‘I say, sorry!’which only made everything worse.
‘I always said we needed more men,’ Elizabeth drawled.‘The poor prince will be worn out.’
‘Fritzi is equal to anything,’ Chips said, and for a minute Honor was grateful that he had turned the conversation from Billy; she could see the way Rose was looking at her daughter, and how carefully Kick avoided her mother’s gaze.But only for a minute.
‘I’ve always said it, dear boy,’ Chips continued, ‘and your grandfather has too.You are the very person to succeed him, and to restore the position of the family.Not your father, not any longer’ – he shook his head sadly – ‘and not your brothers.You, Fritzi.’He stirred the cocktail jug with a long glass stick that had a silver pineapple in place of a handle.He held it up like a baton, for silence.
‘We have discussed it many times, your grandfather and I.’He twinkled at them all.‘There could be no one better suited than you to be emperor.Play your cards right, my boy, continue as you are – be careful, be discreet, say nothing bad about the Nazis, but watch them—’
‘Channon, this is not the time or place for this conversation.’Duff stood up so abruptly, spoke so loudly, that everyone turned to stare at him, even, Honor saw, Albert, who was now gathering various discarded items from the chairs by the pool – towels, an inflatable ball, a shirt that had been draped over the back of a chair.
‘Oh, nonsense,’ Chips said, waving him away.His eyes were like saucers, big and black.‘We are among friends.Anyway, I have long said it.You remember, Fritzi, when we first had this conversation, a year ago?And you were not at all against the idea then?’
‘Yes, but so much has changed since …’ the prince began.
‘Not so very much,’ Chips said.‘Not so much at all.When one considers the thousand years the Hohenzollern family have ruled.’He looked gayly around at them all.‘Why, this last decade is a blink of an eye.’His powders always gave him a rolling, roiling confidence beyond even what he usually had.There was a sheen of sweat across his top lip that he dabbed at with a handkerchief.‘We have talked about it, a great deal, your grandfather and I.How you, of all your brothers, are the most possessed of the personality, thetemperamentshall we say, for the job.’
‘Hardly ajob,’ Elizabeth muttered.
‘You have the élan, the brio—’ Chips had his arms spread wide now.
‘Is he just going to keep saying made-up foreign words?’Elizabeth asked no one in particular.
‘—thecomme-il-faut—’
Elizabeth giggled loudly.She was clearly a little high too.
‘Channon,’ Duff spoke louder.‘Hush!It is not the time.’He dropped his voice, almost to a whisper.‘It is not the time,’ he repeated.
