Laurie Graham - Gone With the Windsors

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 off. But it is too big for me in my present circumstances. Too big, too quiet, too remote from invigorating company. I’ve grown accustomed to nightlife and the rattle of London trams. Also, Missie says Junior’s wife stops her car outside every day and peers through the gates up to my pleasure porch. If I stayed, she and Junior would surely rob me of my peace of mind and destroy my health.

The last of my boxes has gone, and the ticker-tape machine has been removed, my final reminder of Brumby. Whatever Junior may say, we were contented. I didn’t bother him and he didn’t bother me, at least not in recent times.

I’ve put Nora Sedley Cordle out of her misery. She’s been making hay in my absence, hosting musical soirees and raising funds for the veterans’ hospital, and must have been anxious about my returning home, worried I’d confiscate her new little empire. By a great stroke of luck, she arrived at Klein’s just as my furs were being loaded into the car. A face like an anaemic chipmunk.

I said, “Hello Nora and good-bye. You know, I find Baltimore so narrow now I live in London. I wonder if we shall ever meet again.”

I’ve always made good exits, though I do say so myself.

Junior and that grasping creature he calls a wife had the nerve to send a basket of fruit to my stateroom. All poisoned, I’m sure. I’ve donated it to the stewards’ mess.

A squall is forecast for tonight.

More than a squall. The girl from the infirmary ministered to me like an angel, but there are no hair appointments until tomorrow afternoon.

Thelma Furness’s sister Connie is on board. She claimed me in the Palm Court as I was trying to regain my sea legs. We shared a pot of tea, and when she heard of my difficulties, she made a call and immediately, miraculously, a hair appointment opened up. She told me Thelma and her Prince have been summering secretly at Biarritz. No wonder he didn’t put in an appearance at Balmoral.

A wire from Violet. Melhuish is sending his car to meet me when we dock, and she insists on my going to Carlton Gardens until my own house is aired. How kind everyone is.

Ulick and Rory have returned to their schools, and the pace of London life is quickening again. Violet already has a number of invitations on her mantel. I predict that by this time next year, mine will make hers look sadly bare.

She said, “Well, now you’re here, what do you plan to do?”

My feet have hardly touched dry land. I said, “I’m going to make telephone calls, to see who’s back in town, and tomorrow night I’m going to Ciro’s with Pips and Freddie and the Whitlow Trillings.”

“No,” she said, “I mean what are you going to do ? There are more important things in life than going to niteries.”

She underestimates me. I’m perfectly aware I have to hire a cook and a driver. I also have to pick out new drapes for my dining room, something more confident than pastel stripes, something that says “Maybell Brumby lives here now.” But one can’t be slaving every hour of the day. Lunch with Ida.

Ida has a new beau, acquired in a lecture hall in Tewkesbury. He’s an Acolyte of the Seventh Ray, drinks only chamomile tea and is showing her the path to inner vitality. The people one meets in Gloucestershire!