Page 65 of An Invitation to the Kennedys
‘I suppose you can settle anywhere at this stage.’
‘I can,’ she agreed.‘Just as you can.What is it now?The last I saw of you, you were picking up the pieces following the abdication.What a blow that was to you.’She smiled again, not bothering to keep the mockery out of it.‘What have you been at since?What new plans and schemes for Chips?’
‘I hear you use my name all over Berlin,’ he said peevishly.‘Von Ribbentrop congratulated me just the other day on having sent such a charming emissary.’
‘Oh, you would be simply thrilled to see the doors it has opened for me.Old Göring himself told me to be sure to remember him to you.’
‘Dear fellow,’ Chips said warmly.‘So ostentatious, and yet disarming … Well, and what if I were to withdraw use of my name?Tell everyone what you really are?’He poked viciously at the fire.
‘Indeed.But you can’t, can you?’She laughed at him.‘And I know very well that you can’t.First, think what it would do to you, in the circles you care about, to have it known – your wife’s dearest friend, a Jew.’
‘Half a Jew,’ he corrected.
‘There are no halves,’ Doris said.‘Not anymore.Not now.’She felt her voice tremble and took a deep breath.She would not betray herself in front of Chips.Neither would she try to appeal to anything that might be decent in him.She would not tell him her stories of watching men and women hustled off the pavement and into filthy gutters, sometimes by children; the look on a young boy’s face as his mother stood in the baker’s while everyone around her was served first, until the shop was empty of all but them.These were things she hadn’t yet told Honor.She certainly wouldn’t tell him.
‘And, what’s more,’ she continued, ‘I know very well that you are under instruction that cannot be disobeyed to stay quiet.And so, I may do as I please.’
‘Well, I hope you are not making mischief,’ he said.‘We’ – he laid heavy emphasis on the word – ‘are working hard to bring this thing off.To cement the understanding between England and Germany, so that there will not be war.’
‘There is already war.’
‘War with England.You know that is what I mean.’
‘There is already war,’ Doris repeated.‘It is now just a question of degrees.’
‘You give up far too easily,’ he said.‘I’ – he paused, to thump a hand against his chest – ‘will never give up.I will keep fighting to prevent this.’
How to tell him that he had prevented nothing?Could prevent nothing.No one could.Oh, they might keep war out of England, and indeed England out of war, just as they wished, but the rage and cruelty were already happening where they couldn’t see it and didn’t wish to look.Someone needed to fight against that, even if men like Chips wouldn’t.
‘Your energy does you credit, Channon.’It was Ambassador Kennedy, standing in the doorway.‘If only more of your countrymen were of the same mind.’
‘There are enough of us,’ Chips said.‘Mostly, there is Chamberlain.And that will be enough.’He looked at Doris in a pleased way and she, because she didn’t want to impede whatever the ambassador might say next, ignored him.
‘I didn’t realise you had so recently come from Germany,’ Kennedy said to Doris, crossing the room.‘I would so like to hear your thoughts and impressions.’
‘Delighted,’ she said.‘Shall we sit?’And she deliberately led him to a sofa far from Chips, a small one, with room only for two.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Brigid
Brigid changed out of her wet clothes quickly, pulling on a clean skirt and, because she was chilly after being soaked, a long-sleeved blouse.
‘How clever you are,’ she called as Minnie came in.‘Always appearing exactly when you are needed.How do you do it?’
‘I heard you on the stairs,’ Minnie said.‘And it could be no one but you.Galloping along.’
‘Gliding,’ Brigid insisted.‘Like a swan.Will you button me up?They are so fiddly, and at the back.I cannot reach.’
Minnie pushed her hair away from her shoulders and began buttoning.‘Mrs Kennedy is having a bath drawn,’ she said.
‘Goodness!’Brigid was shocked.‘Another?And she hasn’t even been out hunting.’
‘Apparently being wet is reason enough.But I understand that Americans are like that.’Minnie had finished the buttons and was twitching Brigid’s skirt into place, smoothing the tweed over her hips.
‘Funny lot, aren’t they?’Brigid said thoughtfully.‘Kick is a dear, and jolly amusing.But so ruthless, Minnie, you cannot imagine.Beating me up and down the court until I quite felt I should like to beat her at something.Only I don’t know what.It won’t be swimming,’ she added gloomily, ‘not after watching her this morning.Poor Fritzi could barely keep pace.’
‘That young man does not know what to keep pace with,’ Minnie said wisely.
