Page 56 of An Invitation to the Kennedys
‘I had the headache.All that sun … the ambassador’s film.’
‘Dreadful, wasn’t it?’
‘I quite thought Duff would murder him.’
‘He has some other plan in mind.And indeed, hard to know what to do after that.But all the same, Honor, disappearing like that with all those guests?Really, I don’t know why you invite people if you don’t know how to treat them.At Clandeboye, I am always last to bed.’
Goodness, she was cross, Honor thought.‘What’s in all those jars and bottles?’
‘The only good piece of advice Mummie ever gave me:Care for your face the way Lapham cares for the silver.’
‘Really?The only piece of good advice?’
‘That, andGive your husband everything he wants,’ Maureen said.Then added, ‘Yes, Honor,everything,’ grinning maliciously.
‘I’m going to check on Elizabeth,’ Honor said, in order to escape.
‘Nowyou play hostess …’ Maureen got up, jumping from bed to ground in one quick movement.She was still, Honor saw with a mean kind of relief, stout around the waist since Sheridan.And her legs were plumper than they had been.She could imagine the expression of distaste on Aunt Cloé’s face if she were to see her daughter like that.But somehow, with Maureen, it didn’t much matter.Not when her face glowed with life and mischief the way it did.Not when you saw the energy of her.She went to the window and pulled the sash up, standing in full view so that anyone who looked up could have seen her there in her night clothes.
‘Maureen!’Honor said.
Her cousin looked at her, head to one side, and said nothing.Then she untied the belt of her silk dressing gown, letting it fall to the ground so that now she stood in only her slip, short and strappy so her arms and shoulders emerged, white and soft like cream from the coffee-coloured silk.
Honor took a step backwards, away from the brazenness of Maureen’s exposure.‘I’m going to check on Elizabeth,’ she said again.
‘Send Duff up if you see him,’ Maureen said.‘And tell the maid not to disturb us.’
Honor, shutting the door behind her, found her heart was thumping as if she had just climbed a long flight of stairs.What was Maureen about?She certainly wouldn’t tell Duff anything.She couldn’t imagine herself saying the words – knew her face would betray her should she even try to, flushing red and swelling up like a hot cross bun.Was that what she had gone looking for with the baron?she wondered.Or was it proof she looked for that it wasn’t ever to be for her?Whatever she sought, she hadn’t found it, she thought, remembering the strange, brief, unexceptional nature of the affair.
She followed the hallway down past the bit where it turned at an angle and faded to something more spartan, rich Persian rugs replaced with simple woven affairs, down towards the nursery and the Yellow Room.‘Elizabeth?’She tapped at the door.Nothing.‘Elizabeth?’She knocked, loudly now, and again.
‘What is it?’The voice was thick with sleep.
‘May I come in?’
‘If you must.’
The room was dark, curtains closed, and the air was thick and sweetish-smelling: last night’s cocktails, cigarette smoke; sour reminders of the night’s exertions.One of her dresses lay in a crumpled heap on the floor.She bent to pick it up, shook it out and draped it over the back of a chair.
‘What do you want?’Elizabeth asked.
‘To see if you need anything.’
‘How insincere you are.But while you’re here, pass me a glass of water.’
Honor poured a glass from the jug that stood by the dressing table.It was yesterday’s water, but it would do.She held the glass out to Elizabeth, who slowly pushed herself up to a seated position, took it and drank it down in one go, so fast that a trickle spilled from the corners of her mouth and ran down her chin.She appeared to be naked under the sheet, and Honor hoped the hand holding it wouldn’t let slip.The heavy linen looked the colour of oatmeal against her skin: white, traced with blue where her veins showed through, twisting a map of roads and byways down her thin arms.She had a rash on the inside of one elbow, a red patch turned raw at the edges.
‘Another.’Elizabeth held the empty glass out.Honor refilled it and Elizabeth drank half before putting the glass on the table beside the bed.
‘May I open the curtains?’
‘Oh go on.’She winced at the sunlight that poured into the room, and Honor remembered that was another reason why they had decided this would be an unimportant sort of a bedroom – the morning sun was too direct and unkind.Looking back at Elizabeth, tangled up in the sheets and counterpane, she asked, ‘How did you sleep?’
‘Badly.But I usually do, so don’t start to fuss.’
‘I do too,’ Honor said in a rush.‘I heard you coming up.’
‘Did you now?’Elizabeth gave her a look.Her face was blotchy, with smudges of black around the eyes where last night’s make-up hadn’t been removed.She must have fallen into bed the minute she got her clothes off.Honor’s clothes.
