Page 4 of An Invitation to the Kennedys
‘I feel certain you will come around eventually,’ he responded, so that Honor thought she would scream at the endless mannered duplicity of their conversations, the way everything they said meant something else.
‘I can’t stay long at lunch,’ she said.‘I have Brigid coming to tea.’
‘How is my sweetest and most adorable sister-in-law?The best of the bunnies, is she not?’
‘If by “the bunnies” you mean me and Patsy, then how can I say yes?’Honor said.And how can I not, she thought, when it was so obvious.At least as the world must judge them.Where she and Patsy had their father’s shape of face – ‘potato-shaped’, as Patsy said wryly – Brigid with her far-apart eyes and elegantly straight nose – a neat, triangular face like a cat – had the effortless glamour of their Ernest Guinness cousins, particularly Oonagh.Which was funny, because, like Oonagh, she really cared very little for appearances, or society, or ‘any kind of fuss, really’, as she said.And, Honor thought, like Oonagh, Brigid didn’t have the same firmness of personality that she and Patsy shared.She was far more vague and suggestible, and far less proof against the influence of others, including Chips.
‘I will leave early with you,’ he said then.‘I must say, since her coming-out, Brigid has passed even my expectations.’
‘I hate the way you talk about her,’ Honor snapped.‘As though she were a clutch of eggs and you are waiting to see what will hatch.’
‘May I not take pleasure in the success of my sister-in-law?Surely any success of hers belongs also to her family?To you.To Lady Iveagh.To your excellent father.’
‘Not everything is yours,’ she said.He pretended not to understand, looked blankly at her.‘You think it’s all yours,’ she continued, ‘to do with what you wish.But it’s not.’
‘Perhaps I will see if Fritzi can join us.’He ignored her.‘We could have tea in the larger drawing room.’
‘We’ll have tea where I always have tea,’ Honor said reprovingly.‘And please do not go to the bother of inviting Fritzi.’
‘Oh but it’s no bother,’ Chips assured her, opening his eyes very round and wide.‘He is a dear boy, and may one day be emperor of Germany.His grandfather, Kaiser Wilhelm, has every hope of it, you know.Inviting him is no bother at all.’
‘Germany doesn’t have an emperor,’ Honor said as though to a child, ‘hasn’t since they got rid of all that twenty years ago.And even if they were to go back, Fritzi is a fourth son.Handsome, I grant you, but he has never struck me as particularly bright.’
‘He is King George’s godson.’As though that answered everything.‘And has been quite a favourite ever since he moved here last year.He and Brigid danced at her coming-out ball.I watched them.’
‘Made them, more like.Chips, do not plot.’
‘Why should I not, just a little, for everyone’s sakes?I know you Guinnesses; so magnificently unworldly’ – he sounded torn between admiration and irritation – ‘you will never do it yourselves.But a girl such as Brigid, so vivacious, such beauty and charm, so quaint and unspoiled …’ Honor rolled her eyes.‘Why should she not have the highest success?Why should she not be empress of Germany?’
Honor started to laugh.‘And you, therefore, brother to an emperor?’
‘And why not?’
‘Except there is no empire.Germany has a Führer, Herr Hitler, a man you clearly admire although half the country hates him.How can you square that with a return of the emperors?No, the scheme is absurd, even for you.’
‘Nothing is impossible,’ he said cosily.‘Hitler is a realist who understands the value of tradition, particularlyroyaltradition.And the kaiser—’
‘Former kaiser.’
‘—is an expedient man who knows that compromise is the way to survive.’
‘An emperoranda Führer?’
‘Maybe.And if not both, as well to have a horse in each race, is it not?’
‘You’re more foolish – or maybe just more greedy – than I thought.’
‘I can see all around a problem.’
‘You look for an awful lot from Fritzi, and poor Brigid.’
‘Nothing that wouldn’t be of benefit to either, or both, of them.’
Almost, she wanted to laugh.Only Chips could imagine that Germany could be peacefully arranged in a way that particularly suited him, even while all around was talk of war.‘Do go away, Chips, I cannot take your plotting at this hour.’
Even after he was gone, Honor didn’t get up.She was afraid that if he heard her moving about he would track her, and pick up again with his talking and planning.She lay in bed until she was certain he had left the house.
His words from last night came back to choke her:I know it is difficult to resume marital relations once they have been allowed to lapse, but Dr Low is certain this can only be of benefit to you …Worse, even, was the way he had spoken them.She pulled the covers higher about her shoulders, as though to shield herself from the idea that her husband and this doctor she barely knew had discussed her so intimately.So openly.That neither had thought anything wrong with this.And that her husband had laid her out for discussion as though she were a new toy he had acquired and now wished to seek opinion on.And that they had come to a conclusion that was humiliating to her.These things made her feel there was something small and hollow inside her, an empty space the size of her fist, that might open and expand.She turned over in bed, hunching her shoulder to the door, and stared at the window beyond which lay the outside world she was too weary for.
