Laurie Graham - Gone With the Windsors

Ernest telephone while I was there. I heard her say, “Of course we must. First impressions! There’s nothing worse than being offered caviar and then needing a magnifying glass to see it on your plate.”

I must say, when it came to paying, I was rather shocked at her lavishness. Beluga, sevruga, and ossetra! She calls it an overture of caviars, but I could hear Ernest worrying away at the other end.

“Ernest,” she barked, “Think of it as an investment in our future. Do you want to meet the Prince of Wales or not?”

Pips says she doesn’t eat caviar anyway, so there’s one economy that could have been made.

Flora came hammering on my door at some unearthly hour, found me prostrated by migraine, and fetched Doopie to minister to me. Cold compresses and a draught of something pleasantly medicinal. Flora said it’s called Dog Hair.

Whatever it was, it made me sleep, and I woke restored. I think my headache must have been brought on by an unhappy mixture of beverages. A whiskey and soda with Violet and her guests, and then two deceptively strong Russian cocktails at Wally’s.

The dinner was a qualified success. I found the squab a little dry, but the sherbet was delicious and my linens and crystal looked superb. The German did speak English but seemed to find Thelma Furness so fascinating he omitted to turn between courses, and Freddie Crosbie became engrossed in conversation with Benny Thaw, which left me easy prey for Nada Milford Haven who was seated across the table. Wally says she’s not only a marchioness but also a Romanov. I can well believe it. She may have been wearing a gown but that didn’t prevent her foot from romanoving up and down between my knees.

Thelma Furness and her sister both have pale, pale complexions and wild black eyebrows. They’re exotic rather than pretty. The Prince of Wales can surely take his pick of the most beautiful women in the world, so he obviously has a taste for the unusual. They’re both very sweet though, and Thelma doesn’t at all trade on her special position. She has a child apparently. I wonder whose it is? Pips says Lord Furness stays in the south of France with a tootsie, so as to leave the field clear for the Prince.

Flora has been tiptoeing in and out, waiting for me to be awake enough to inspect a little story she wrote this morning. It was about a good aunt who buys candy and ice cream but then gets sent away by the bad aunts.

She said, “Daddy said you were a loose cannon. Why did he?”

That’s because I uttered the forbidden F word in the drawing room last evening.

Henry Harewood asked where I was off to in such a hurry, and I told him I was dining with Lady Furness. I only said it to provoke Violet. How was I to know Mary Harewood is the Prince of Wales’s sister? The Royalties can be so confusing with their multitude of names. She, being the daughter, the one and only, of the King and Queen, is the Princess Royal, but she married Lord Harewood and likes to use his name. Odd. I’m sure if I were the Princess Royal, nothing would part me from my title. She’s a homely little creature, too. Not my idea of a princess at all.

Rory and Ulick will be home from school on Friday.

To Fortnum’s, for a postmortem with Wally. She’s already had a warm note of thanks from Thelma, so she feels she’s established another useful friendship.

I said, “You’re very keen to meet the Prince of Wales.”

“Not especially,” she said. “I already met him. But Ernest would be very thrilled, and anyway, who ever knows where these things may lead?”

She claims she met His Royal Highness at a reception in Coronado in 1920, when he was on his way to Australia and his battleship refueled at San Diego. Strange she never mentioned it before. And she doesn’t remember what he said to her. I’ll bet she didn’t actually meet him at all.

I said, “So, what happens next?”

She said, “We wait and see. But I’ll be very surprised if we don’t get an invitation to Thelma’s country house in the fall.”

That’s where the royal affaire takes place, apparently.

I said, “Why the fall? That’s months away.”

“Well,” she said, “after the middle of July, nothing important happens till September. We’re going to the Tyrol.”

Pips wasn’t impressed by Thelma Furness. She found her doe-eyed and vapid.

I said, “What else would she need to be? The Prince of Wales is heir to the throne. He’s used to giving out edicts and laying down the law. He’d hardly choose a sweetie who answered back.”

She said, “Oh I don’t know. I’ve heard he’s pretty vapid himself.”

She and Freddie are going to Italy for the month of August.

Even Ida seems to be fixed up for summer, care-taking someone’s house in Gloucestershire. When I asked Violet if she planned to remain in London, she looked at me as though I’d asked whether she intended jumping into the Thames.

“Maybell,” she said, “ no one stays in London in August. We go to Drumcanna, of course, and this year you’ll come with us.”

We’ll see about that. It’s so typical of Melhuish’s family to have their castle practically at the North Pole. All that way, and for what? To catch a few fish when one could so easily have them delivered by a good fishmonger? To crawl across Scottish moors in pursuit of some kind of elk? Knowing Violet’s culinary repertoire, we’ll be dining on poached elk till Thanksgiving. No. I shall make other arrangements.

Wally and Ernest are dining with Boss and Ethel Croker before they leave London.

I said, “You and Ethel must have so much to catch up on.”

“Not really,” she said. “We were never close. But Ernest and Boss will find lots to talk about. They have a house on Long Island, you know? And they travel all over, first class. Ethel’s certainly landed on her feet. Traded in a midshipman for a multimillionaire.”

Hardly “traded in.” Ethel’s husband was killed in Canton, friendly fire.

Ulick and Rory are home. Doopie has been flapping around all morning, unpacking trunks and examining socks for holes and shirt collars for turning. After the summer, Ulick will be going to Melhuish’s old school, Eton College, and so has to have his name stitched into dozens of new garments. A simple, repetitive task that would drive a normal person insane, but Doopie is clearly in her element.

Violet says the entertainments at Drumcanna will be simple, outdoor pursuits. Fishing, deerstalking, shooting. She says they don’t keep late nights, because of making an early start, but they do play parlor games after dinner and they always give a ball, where the help and the guests mingle and dance. I told her I didn’t think it was for me.

“Nonsense,” she said. “You’ll have a wonderful time. The mountain air will do you good, and you’ll strike up new friendships. Jane Habberley is coming, and Penelope Blythe. Anyway, you can’t stay here. Smith and the maids go to their families for August.”

The butler and the driver go north with them, apparently, but Drumcanna is otherwise run by a staff of locals, even more wayward than the London tribe, no doubt, left to their own Scottish devices for months at a time.

I said, “Then I’ll go to a hotel.”

“You’ll come to Drumcanna, Maybell!” she said, “and do what normal people do.”

A note under my door at bedtime.

Dear Aunt Maybell ,

Please come to Scotland. Flora and I will be very sad if you do not .

Yours truly ,

Rory Melhuish .