Abdication: A Novel (14 page)

Despite the sadness of the funeral, May could not help thinking it was a bit of luck to be present at such an occasion so soon after her arrival in England. Never in all her wildest dreams had she expected to find herself so close to royalty. Judging by the sound of weeping all around her, she realised the old king must have been much loved. But instead of feeling tearful, May was exhilarated by it all.

Eventually the gun carriage arrived at the station, the coffin resplendent with its glinting crown, a giant sword of state and a large cross fashioned from white flowers all laid on the top. May found herself thrilling to the spectacle. The procession formed by sailors, so smart in their uniforms, who had been chosen to escort George V on his final journey was equally impressive, although May’s first glimpse of the new fair-haired king himself, so alone, his slight figure weighed down by a floor-length woollen overcoat, was definitely a letdown. He was so
small
. But the carriage bearing Queen Mary had an altogether different effect on her.

May watched the dowager queen, her peaked coif just visible through the window of her carriage. Her black clothes, elaborate, lacy, stifling, looked as if they should be on exhibit in a costume museum. They were the sort of clothes pictured in the piles of yellowing British magazines, their pages curling at the edges in the damp heat of the doctor’s surgery back home. Queen Mary’s face was almost entirely hidden from public view behind a thick crêpe veil but as the carriage passed by her May caught a sudden glimpse of the woman’s eyes. They were brimming with tears. May wondered if she herself would ever love a man enough to feel as sad as Queen Mary looked in that moment.

That night after a day of such excitement May found it difficult to sleep. She did not think she would ever get used to the passing traders who called by at all hours. There was the man who sold caustic stinking carbolic, the thick white liquid used for keeping everything in the bathroom and kitchen clean, and the old gent who pushed around a grubby supply of sticky tape in an old tin pram. Her favourite callers were Loafy, who brought the bread still warm from his oven at midnight, and the lavender lady, a clear, summery smell floating up from the purple-headed stalks in her wicker basket. Standing on her bed to peer through the skylight into the darkness, May could just make out the street’s human alarm clock, an elderly woman who earned her living by shooting dried peas at windows behind which men slumbered too deeply, anxious not to oversleep and miss the working day.

May rammed the window shut against the sound of pinging pulses. She was looking forward to catching the train to Cuckmere early the following morning, conscious of the contrast between her two lives. Nothing was ever hidden in Oak Street; people spoke their minds, wore their hearts on their sleeves. The Blunts’ way of doing things, however, was secretive. The glass dividing screen in the Rolls was perpetually sliding backwards and forwards; information was classified
into categories for those either permitted or prevented from hearing it; open doors were closed with confusing regularity. And yet May had begun to feel herself part of the Cuckmere community, enjoying the friendships she was making not only with Florence but also with Mr. Hooch, Cooky, the chatty cook, and the somewhat inscrutable Mrs. Cage. Even Vera Borchby, the gardener who kept to herself for much of the time, had responded with enthusiasm when May had asked if she may see the rose garden.

“My mother loves roses,” May had ventured one day when Vera came into the garage to ask Mr. Hooch for some poison for the pesky rabbits. “And I would love to be able to watch them come alive so I can tell my mother about them.”

“It would be a pleasure to show you, May,” the deep-voiced gardener had replied, as Mr. Hooch gave May a little wink of approval behind Vera’s back.

“Vera’s very choosy about who she shows her roses to,” he had told May later. “You should be honoured that she’s taken a liking to you.”

Sir Philip and Lady Joan had also treated May with the utmost consideration, and she was starting to derive equal enjoyment from her seat at the wheel of the Rolls-Royce as she did from her desk in Sir Philip’s study.

Above all, May was looking forward to seeing Mr. Richardson again. As a friend of the Blunts’ son, he had been staying at Cuckmere for much of the university holidays and had taken to popping in and out of Sir Philip’s office on a very regular basis. He was always asking questions. He was the most curious man she had ever met. On reflection, she liked almost everything about him. Perhaps it was his unusual honey-coloured hair that attracted her? Or maybe it was his long low laugh as he talked to Lady Joan at the breakfast table when May brought in the post in the mornings? Or was it simply that May was curious to see what he looked like without glasses?

When Mr. Hooch met May at the station he let slip that both the young men had already returned to Oxford for the new term. She tried not to betray her disappointment at this news, while Mr. Hooch passed on Sir Philip’s instructions for the following day. She was to pick up Miss Nettlefold in London and continue on to an address in Sunningdale. May could see the inkling of a conspiratorial smile form at the edges of Hooch’s twisted mouth and uncertain of its implication, she smiled straight back at him. She had grown accustomed to looking at his face and no longer flinched at the sight.

C
HAPTER
E
IGHT

E
vangeline had been resident in Joan’s comfortable St. John’s Wood townhouse for over ten days and had almost forgotten her previous urgency to see her school friend. She was enjoying herself walking Wiggle round the leafless but still elegant Georgian streets, despite the time when Wiggle had squirmed his way under the fence at the nearby lord’s cricket ground and felled a terrified rabbit right there on the famous pitch. In his excitement Wiggle had become caught in the netting. The daily newspaper, which was spread open to cover the guard’s face, had slipped to the floor as Evangeline’s sharp “
cooee
” woke him in his hut on the periphery of the grounds. His weary eyes reflected his alarm at seeing a double chin framed in fur peering at him through the window, mouthing some words he obviously could not identify.

“We gals stark?” he queried from behind the window.

“Wiggle … my little dog … he’s stuck. And I can’t unravel him!” Evangeline yelled back at him.

The guard had eventually untangled the trapped animal with the help of an old golf club he kept in the hut for such emergencies, and appeared mightily pleased to be allowed to get back to his midday nap.

There had been another mishap a few days later. Evangeline and Joan had been out to tea at The Grosvenor Hotel in Park Lane when Evangeline became caught in the revolving door at the entrance. A queue
of expensively dressed and impatient-looking women had formed on the other side of the glass and for a few minutes, despite the strenuous tugging of the doorman and a hastily summoned backup team of waiters, there was no budging the obstinate door. The claustrophobia was intense and Evangeline, in a flash of temper borne of exasperation, felt like smashing the glass if only she could. She reminded herself of Alice in Lewis Carroll’s story but without a magic biscuit to start the shrinking process. Only when a bowler-hatted gentleman went down on his knees, inserted his umbrella handle into the lower hinge, agitating it back and forth, did the glass door finally come loose. With no warning at all, Evangeline found herself whooshed round in a circle at an unseemly pace, while the previously stern-faced women laughed at her from behind their hands.

On the whole, however, Evangeline had settled down into a most agreeable way of life with the Blunts. They had taken her out to dine at Rules and at Wheelers, two of their favourite restaurants, and Evangeline was enjoying time spent with these two older people, their affectionate ease with one another evident as they lobbed and returned well-rehearsed teases nurtured during many years of contented marriage.

“I cannot think what Winston thinks of the length your hair has now reached, my darling. Does he imagine the government has appointed a rather dishevelled elk hound for a chief whip, I wonder?”

But Philip had long resisted his wife’s attempts to get him to cut his long and infrequently brushed hair. It was part of his identity.

The Blunts had embarked on the New Year with considerable energy for a couple in their sixties. They had begun by treating Evangeline to a performance of Noël Coward’s new play at the Phoenix Theatre,
Tonight at 8.30
, a sequence of one-act dramas Coward had written for himself and his favourite leading lady, Gertrude Lawrence. After the show the Blunt party met the playwright for a drink in the Café Royal. Evangeline could not help staring at the man whose work filled theatres
on both sides of the Atlantic and who had helped make Gertie Lawrence such a star. In Evangeline’s opinion, Coward’s looks just missed qualification for heartthrob status but he was so funny and warm, referring to Gertie as “Gert,” whom, he told them, he had loved ever since she was an unknown fourteen-year-old. Evangeline remembered her mother mentioning a scandal involving Coward and the Duke of Kent, the Prince of Wales’s younger brother, although the precise nature of that friendship had never been explained. To Mrs. Nettlefold’s frustration, British newspapers always maintained absolute discretion as far as stories about the royal family was concerned.

First nights at London theatres, especially a Noël Coward first night, were glamorous occasions, providing an opportunity for the stars of London society to dress up, turn out and show off to one another. But Evangeline preferred the evening parties at Hamilton Terrace. The Blunts’ guests tended to be older than herself and demonstrated a gratifying interest in life in America. They were curious about the racial tension that dominated so many cities, in the tallness of the new buildings, in the new museum that had opened just before Christmas at the New York home of art collector Mr. Henry Clay Frick, in the goings-on among the film stars in Hollywood and most particularly in Baltimore itself. Evangeline was enjoying the novel experience of being “interesting” and a little giddy with the notion that she was bringing “insights” into how American and British ways of life differed. Privately she felt a little deflated when the conversation turned to the two other insatiable topics of the early spring.

Speculation about the Prince of Wales and his relationship with Mrs. Simpson was rarely off the agenda. The British newspapers were silent on the subject and the couple in question moved easily and without inhibition within the upper circles of London society. They would regularly be seen in each other’s company at the theatre, at nightclubs, and
at dinner parties in the private houses of the rich and well connected. Mrs. Simpson’s husband was usually included in such expeditions and hostesses marvelled privately not only at Ernest’s tolerance of the Prince of Wales’s devotion to Mrs. Simpson but also at how Wallis herself seemed to manage the threesome with such dexterity. She seemed to feel genuine affection for both men. Nevertheless, London drawing rooms were fizzing with talk about how long this arrangement could last and also how long the story could remain out of the newspapers.

War was the other subject that monopolised conversation. Despite Philip Blunt’s insistence that some sort of martial conflict with Germany was inevitable, he often found himself to be a lone voice in the matter. There was indeed little evidence to convince anyone of the imminence of war. The Olympic Games the coming summer were to be held in Berlin and opened by the German chancellor himself, Adolf Hitler. According to the Blunts’ daughter, Bettina, “
le tout monde
,” by which she meant a large delegation from the upper ranks of British society, was planning to be in Germany in August for the many Olympic parties and balls in Berlin and Rupert Blunt was intending to go straight out there to celebrate the end of his final exams at Oxford. He and Bettina had accepted a stylish invitation to attend the games from the American
bon viveur
Chips Channon, a member of Parliament and friend of their father.

Scattered throughout the gaiety of Evangeline’s days there had been moments alone with her godmother that reminded her of the hidden challenges of life. Although nearly two decades had elapsed since the death of Joan’s sister, her grief was rarely far below the surface, evident when her eyes would suddenly lose their natural shine, as if shrouded by a layer of dust. One of Joan’s closest friends, Lady Cynthia Asquith, had spoken to Evangeline at dinner only the other night, expressing her pleasure at Evangeline’s extended visit.