Laurie Graham - Gone With the Windsors

Minnehaha Warfield lecturing me on protocol!

Lunch with George Lightfoot, who didn’t seem at all interested in the Simpsons and the Prince. He said, “It’s no great coup, Maybell. I could introduce you to any number of people who spend their lives avoiding royalties. They’re costly to maintain and have the habit of encouraging familiarity, then suddenly frowning on it. Befriending them is like venturing onto creaking ice.”

Flora is in trouble again. Violet took her to an outfitters to buy her clothes for starting at Miss Hildred’s Day School after Easter, and when they got home with their purchases, Flora hacked her new straw hat to pieces with Doopie’s sewing scissors.

Lightfoot said, “I’m afraid it won’t save her from Miss Hildred’s, though. She’s going, bonnet or no bonnet. It’s a shame really. I shall miss her singular ways. It’s not often a child reaches the age of nine without being tamed.”

Disappointed to find he’s not coming to Philip Sassoon’s at Easter. We could have traveled together. He was invited but had already accepted for something in Gloucestershire. The girl named Belinda with the jutting jaw.

I said, “Are you in love with her?”

“No,” he said, “not noticeably.”

To Carlton Gardens. The boys are home from school. I’d promised Rory we’d go to a cartoon theater this vacation, but now we have the complication of Flora, who was supposed to come with us but is in the doghouse. He was pleading Flora’s case with Violet, and Flora was doing nothing to help herself, sitting on the stairs, shouting, “I’m not going to Miss Dread’s and I’m not wearing a banama hat.”

Ulick said, “It seems very clear to me that she hasn’t yet learned her lesson. It’ll do her no good at all to be let off scot-free. Melhuishes know how to take their punishment like a man.”

Rory said, “But she’s a girl. And if she can’t come to see The Three Little Pigs , I shan’t feel decent about going.”

To be resolved.

Saw Lightfoot on my way to Monsieur Jules. He says Rory took his appeal to the House of Lords, but Melhuish told him he never overturns Violet’s decisions.

He said, “The only thing I can suggest is that I play the Christian mercy card. I am her gobfather, after all. I’ll see what I can do.”

Violet has agreed to a compromise. Flora will be allowed to come out with Rory for a high tea, but there will be no cartoons until she has behaved herself for a full term at school. Lightfoot said, “There are conditions, of course. We’re not to indulge her too much, or in any way let her forget her misdemeanors. Doopie said, ‘Bedda nod smile doo mudge, Dordie. Bedda pud on gumby vayzes.’”

I don’t see why Doopie always has to tag along on these occasions. And I wish she could be trained to say “George” instead of “Dordie.”

To Ruddle’s for a fried-fish supper. Flora behaved impeccably. I don’t know why Violet has such problems with her.

Rory asked about Wally. There’s obviously been talk in the drawing room at Carlton Gardens.

I said, “You may very well see her yourself at Easter. You’ll be at Windsor, and she’ll be just along the road, at Fort Belvedere with the Prince of Wales.”

“Gosh,” he said, “even though she’s poor? Are you going, too?”

I said, “No, I’m going to Kent to stay with Sir Philip Sassoon.”

“Oh,” he said, “the gaudy Semite.”

Lightfoot said, “I say, Rory! Where did that come from?”

“Ulick,” he said, “after Aunt Maybell told us he gave her luncheon on a lapis lazuli table. Ulick said he’s a gaudy Semite and not our kind of person.”

Doopie not following things at all, looking perplexed, asking Lightfoot over and over, “Who Horty Zeemide?”

We should leave her at home really. She never does well in restaurants.

Flora said, “Gaudy Semite is a nice name.”

A wire from Randolph Putnam. Franklin Roosevelt has announced that in the future, only the government may own gold bullion, and those of us who thought to put our hard-earned dollars into gold are going to have to sell it to the Federal Reserve. At a very poor price, you may be sure. How sound Brumby’s judgment was. Never trust a lawyer.

Two days to reach Randolph by telephone, then, when I did get through, he did nothing to put my mind at rest. If I don’t turn in my gold, I can be prosecuted for hoarding and, as if that isn’t bad enough, he’s coming to England in June. I said, “I shall be at Royal Ascot.”

“So will I,” he said. “I’ll be staying in a town called Maidenhead. I have a Putnam cousin there, twice removed. Now Mother has passed over I’m going to start seeing the world and I’m holding you to dinner, Maybell. We have a lot to catch up on.”

I doubt that anything of interest to me has ever happened to Randolph Putnam.

If Trent Park was a dream, Port Lympne is paradise. Terrace gives onto terrace, vista onto vista, and the lawns are carpeted with daffodils. Dickie and Edwina Mountbatten are here, he being a nephew of Ena Spain and brother-in-law of the betrousered Nada Milford Haven. Everyone in this tiny country is connected to somebody. Alex and Nelly Hardinge are also guests. He’s the King’s private secretary, but I don’t suppose His Majesty dictates letters on a holiday weekend. So far I haven’t found out who they’re related to.

Others present: Tom Mitford, just back from Munich, Germany, where he and his sister Unity met Mr. Hitler and judge him to be the coming man, Sir Philip’s cousin Hannah, a Frenchman called Hippolyte, who plays tennis, and Marthe Bibesco, who is personally acquainted with Mr. Mussolini. She says he has a magnificent, manly jaw. Arriving tomorrow, the Winston Churchills—he’s something in politics—an actor called Gielgud, and a coal porter! Sir Philip certainly doesn’t give a damn for class distinctions.

This morning, a treasure hunt for eggs, each couple being provided with a list of clues written in aquamarine ink. I was paired with young Tom Mitford, who’s just back from Heidelberg and speaks very highly of the German nation. Our clues led us to the orangerie, where, hanging from a tree, we found a perfect little egg-shaped crystal pendant for me and a tiny basket with a plover’s egg for Tom.

A simple, rustic luncheon was served on the lawn: spit-roasted kid and pineapple ice. Then Philip took us up in his airplane, one at a time, for an aerial view of the estate. What an accomplished man! He makes one feel nothing is too much trouble, and he’s tireless. Everything must be perfect. Last evening, he had the Union flag hauled down, because the red in it clashed so violently with the orange sunset.

Musical diversions after dinner. Philip’s wonderful dusky servants brought in thimbles of coffee, which they somehow set ablaze, and then the coal porter, who, I must say, is very well-scrubbed considering his trade, claimed the piano and played and sang for quite an hour. He was really rather good. I’ve advised him to think of taking it up professionally. There must be a great many people in London who’d be willing to pay him, and it would surely be more agreeable than portering coal.

Philip said, “Maybell, you’re a rrriot!” He’s so easy to amuse. I think I could very happily be Lady Sassoon.