for you? Shouldn’t you like a chaperone?”
But Minskip is on his way home and anyway, I believe I’d have been safe in his company. The only way to get Tommy Minskip’s attention is to disarrange his cavalry. And as for Penelope, I want nothing of her complications. I think a little of Penelope Blythe goes a long way.
17th August 1932
Violet, Melhuish, and Ulick have gone to stay with Bertie and Elizabeth York for three days at Birkhall, on the Balmoral estate. Which leaves me in charge at Drumcanna.
I’ve explained to the help how to make French toast, and it will now be served instead of oatmeal in the morning. Rory requested sausages for dinner, and Flora has asked for “gake with lots of jam” and varnish on her stubby little fingernails. It’s so easy to make them happy. They’re now skipping up and down the gravel sweep, crying “Hurrah! Hurrah!”
A wire from Fishbone and Strong. They have people from Kentucky keen to take Sweet Air but they’d want it by October. Can I have it ready so soon? I most certainly can. As soon as ever I’m released from duties as Favorite Aunt, I shall go to London and book my passage.
18th August 1932
A little girl called Ellen MacNab, daughter of the head-keeper, overcame her shyness and ventured up the drive to play with Flora. They are much of an age. We’ve had great fun, dancing tangos and reels and strathspeys, all without the benefit of phonograph music.
Rory asked to speak to me privately when it was time for Ellen to leave.
He said, “Should I walk her home?”
I said, “Would you like to?”
“Oh yes,” he said, “but it’s rather tricky. Daddy says one should always take care of ladies, but MacNab works for us, and Daddy also says one should be mindful of familiarity with servants.”
I said, “We could get one of the maids to take her.”
But he did it himself, with Flora tagging along.
He said, “I think it was the right thing, Aunt Maybell. I was very mindful.”
20th August 1932
Violet returned from Birkhall, bringing with her Duchess Bertie York and her elder daughter. They stayed to tea. Princess Lilibet is two years younger than Flora, but very pink-and-white and refined. She sat neatly beside her mother for the entire visit and ate her scone without dropping a crumb. Flora, wearing Rory’s kilt and an ecru lace runner from the dining-room sideboard, and for whose benefit I’m sure the call was made, glowered at her little playmate and then hid behind a curtain. The Duchess and Violet are great friends and I can see why. They’re both so homely.
21st August 1932
Tomorrow to London and a midge-free suite at Claridge’s. Violet is raising objections right and left. Why the haste? Why spend money on accommodations when I could wait only two more weeks and travel back with her to Carlton Gardens? Isn’t it a rash move, giving up my home and plunging into the unknown?
It says everything about the differences between us. She clings to her lists and timetables and routines, whereas I’m not afraid to seize the moment. Why the haste? Because prospective tenants with good references and no children don’t grow on trees, and the Lancastria sails on August 30th. And a rash move? Well, a two-year lease hardly amounts to burning my boats, and Belgravia isn’t exactly darkest Africa.
I’ve reminded her it was her idea I should come to London in the first place. Gay diversions and eligible beaux were the inducements, as I remember it, neither of which Violet is in any position to provide, I now realize. She thought I’d be one of those wallflower widows, eager to meet a titled simpleton, grateful to be squeezed into Lady Desborough’s guest attic. Now she knows better. I shall have my own coterie before Violet can say “agenda.”
“Well, if you’re absolutely sure it’s what you want, Maybell,” she keeps saying.
I am.
25th August 1932, Claridge’s Hotel, London
Violet was right about one thing. London is dead. I woke a realtor from his August slumbers and have appointments to view three houses tomorrow, one of them catty-corner from Penelope and Fergus Blythe. What a surprise Pips and Wally are going to get when they come back and find me with my own establishment.
26th August 1932
I am taking a house on Wilton Place. It’s light and very prettily done out in the palest greens and blues. More important, the owners are Americans, so it has a good, efficient furnace and a Kelvinator icebox. I didn’t like the aspect of the Cadogan Square property. It was convenient for Harrold’s department store, but the drawing room was full west, which can be very bothersome on summer evenings, and the house in Eaton Mews was too close for comfort to Melhuish’s sister Elspeth and her husband. The last thing I need is her training the Rear-Admiral’s telescope on my front door.
Wilton Place is exactly right for me. Pips and I will be neighbors almost, and when Doopie and Flora tire of feeding the ducks in St. James’s Park, they can come and visit Hyde Park instead.
2nd September 1932, RMS Lancastria
The ocean is as calm as a soup dish, and I have unexpected company. Judson and Hattie Erlanger came on board at the very last moment. I bumped into Hattie as I was taking a turn on deck this morning. She had a friend with her, Daisy Fellowes, and they were on their way to the gymnasium. They begged me to join them, but I preferred to sit with a cup of bouillon and my own thoughts. They said they were going to bicycle all the way to New York, and went off shrieking with laughter. It seemed too early in the day for them to be tight.
3rd September 1932
Judson tells me Hattie’s friend Daisy Fellowes is immensely rich. From what I saw of her at dinner last evening, she’s certainly made inroads into the world’s supply of pink diamonds. He’s in a nice, gossipy mood. He thinks Wally must have stampeded Ernest into marriage, because he has the look of a man who’s not quite sure where he is or what he’s doing there.
I said, “I think the appeal of Ernest was he was effectively a free ticket to London and a fresh start.”
He said, “Yes, that makes sense. She’d fouled the nest too much to stay in Baltimore.”
Judson does rather go on about what a great girl Hattie is. I wonder if he feels under some kind of obligation to try making love to me again? I pray not. Our paths diverged in 1917, and if he has made a happy match with Hattie, I can only be pleased for him. Personally, I find her gratingly tall.
8th September 1932, Sweet Air, Baltimore
Sweet Air was bathed in sunlight as I arrived, and it feels so roomy and bright after those London houses with their rooms stacked higgledy-piggledy four and five floors high. I almost picked up the telephone and told Fishbone to call everything
