Laurie Graham - Gone With the Windsors

All the more reason to go to Claridge’s.

A greeting card from Randolph Putnam. His mother passed away. And I am missed in Baltimore. Of course.

The best-laid plans. Rory claimed Flora’s tea service and performed a very clever trick with overturned cups and disappearing sugar lumps, Flora was only interested in Rory’s Erector Set, and Ulick remained disappointingly aloof from his fort. It would have remained in its box if Lightfoot and Doopie hadn’t begun playing with it.

Violet gave me a calendar.

“So you can organize your time,” she said. “You’ll see the weeks laid out before you and be able to think how best to fill your days productively.”

Rory gave me a rough-hewn letter rack made in his handicrafts’ class, Lightfoot gave me a coffret of candy, and Flora gave me a pink satin letter M, stitched quite nicely and filled with padding.

Violet said, “How clever. Is it a scented sachet?”

“No,” said Flora, “it’s an em. We made it out of old ploomers.”

Melhuish’s sister Elspeth and the Rear Admiral Salty Laird looked in during the afternoon. Elspeth said, “Now Flora, are ye looking forward to being a big girl and going to Hope House?”

Flora closed her eyes. She does that when you say something she doesn’t want to hear. She gets that from Doopie.

Rory said, “You’ll like it when you get there, Flora. You’ll make friends. And have cocoa every night. I used not to want to go to school, but you get used to it, you see, and then it’s really good fun.”

She said, “Then I’ll come to your school.”

Ulick said, “You can’t. You’re a girl.”

She said, “Well I shan’t stay at Hope House. I shall run away.”

Elspeth said, “Do ye know what happens to girls who run away, Flora? The bogeyman comes after them and they’re never seen again.”

Doopie and Lightfoot both got her with the peashooter cannons.

Ulick said, “I really wonder why we’re bothering with all this. Why not have her taught at home until it’s time for her to be finished? That’s what they did with Pentlow’s sister and she’s now out and practically engaged to Gore-Cummings. Education seems to me to be quite wasted on girls.”

Gala night at the Savoy last night. Wore my aquamarine chiffon with the beaded shrug. Pips and Freddie came, also the Prosper Friths and Ida with an old Venezuelan flaneur. She said, “Oh Maybell, no date?” I said, “Oh Ida, no taste?” She was putting away Manhattans all night, so I guess she has tired of Mr. Acolyte and chamomile tea.

I may not have had a date but I danced Prosper Frith off his feet, not to mention a foxtrot with Billy Belchester and two rumbas with Benny Thaw whose party was at the next table, minus Connie. Apparently, she and Lady Thelma are at Lily Drax-Pfaffenhof’s, so won’t Wally be thrilled. I bet she’ll have been cultivating Thelma Furness like crazy.

Freddie stood us all champagne for midnight, which I’m sure he couldn’t really afford. I’d happily have paid for it.

Wally and Ernest are back from the Alps. She’s wearing a plummier lip color, in imitation of Lady Thelma, no doubt. Landgravine Lily’s house party had been quiet. Canasta, a treasure hunt, a little light shopping. Just Connie and Lady Thelma, a couple called Rothschild, and Crown Princess Cecilie, a sad remnant of German royalty.

Ernest has a carbuncle on his neck. Wally needs dental work. She said, “Don’t you hate January? Nothing ever happens.”

Lunch tomorrow.

I’d given up on Wally and was about to order, when she sauntered into the Fountain Room in that skimpy little mink of hers smiling like the cat that’s had the cream. She said she was sorry to be late but had been delayed by an important telephone call from Connie Thaw. “You see,” she said, taking forever to sit down and then starting to nibble on a celery stick in the most annoying way, “you see, Ernest and I are invited to Fort Belvedere for the weekend. By the Prince of Wales.”

I’m very happy for her, of course. This is something she’s worked for tirelessly. I just hope she understands that the invitation doesn’t spring from any desire on the part of the Prince of Wales. I’m sure he doesn’t even remember who they are. But I expect he allows Thelma a certain number of her own friends, and she and Wally seem to have hit it off. They’re always screaming with laughter about something.

I said, “But Ernest always seems to spend his weekends shuffling business papers. Are you sure he’ll be allowed to take time off?”

She said, “Of course he can. Ernest’s a director, not an employee.”

If that’s the case, I wonder he doesn’t open the safe and bring home a little more money. There are things she’s going to need, but she said she’d better wait till tomorrow, till Ernest has agreed to a budget. It only leaves her Wednesday and Thursday for all that shopping, not to mention hair, facials, and nails. What an impossible way to live. I offered her Kettle, to take them down to Windsor and bring them back on Sunday. It seemed the least I could do.

She said, “Maybell, you’re such a treasure. The thing about Ernest’s car is, his driver doesn’t like to work on Sundays.”

The thing about Ernest’s car is it isn’t a Bentley.

Dinner at the Crosbies. Whitlow and Gladys Trilling, Prosper and Daphne Frith, and young Freddie Birkenhead, who’s an earl. Everyone very exercised about what Roosevelt may be planning to do with the gold standard. When I asked Earl Birkenhead if I had any cause for concern, he said, “It rather depends how many double eagles you have under your mattress,” but gave no clue as to whether having them would be a good thing or bad. I may drop a line to Randolph Putnam.

Gladys Trilling said blizzards are forecast for tomorrow. Pips said, “Friends of ours are going to Fort Belvedere for the weekend. I hope they’ll be able to get through.”

Prosper said, “Fort Belvedere! They’d be better off staying at home. Wales invites all kinds of nonentities. Get snowed in there, one could be sorry. Mediocre little house, too. The kind of place someone who’d done well in trade might go for.”

Birkenhead said, “Well, that’s Wales really. Small and mediocre.”

Wally has borrowed a ruby choker from Pips. I’m not supposed to know. Cold, but no snow.

To the Fergus Blythes. George Lightfoot came with a girl with a jutting jaw called Belinda, not at all pretty. Penelope Blythe says the Prince of Wales generally wears a kilt in the evening and keeps his cigarette case in his sporran. Lightfoot says he likes to embroider after dinner and could bore for England. Well, I’m sure that after a week of ceremonial splendor, all he craves is the quiet life. I just hope Wally remembers not to try too hard. She does so love to outshine everyone.

Kettle had instructions to bring Wally and Ernest back here so I could hear all about their weekend, but he returned with an empty car, Ernest having business papers to attend to and Wally being in pain from her ulcers. That’s what comes of starving yourself into new dinner gowns.

I caught Ernest on the telephone. Wally was in bed and not to be disturbed.

He said, “We’ve had a thoroughly enjoyable time, but it would be indiscreet of me to say more.”

Pompous ass.

Wally recovered enough to be lunching with Thelma Furness and Connie Thaw, but not to have called me, and not a word of thanks for the use of my car and driver. She said, “Well, of course we’re grateful, Maybell, but we didn’t ask for your car. You almost insisted on our taking it. But do stop sulking. I want to tell you all about our weekend.”