The FitzOsbornes in Exile (22 page)

“He claims to be working
very
hard,” I said.

“Burning the midnight oil, I’m sure,” said the Colonel. “But do you hear that? Tea approaches! Such a civilized custom, I do miss it whenever I’m away from England. But first, tell me—I’ve been absent such a long while—what is happening with Montmaray?”

I gave him a summary of our campaign activities thus far. “And the Foreign Office wanted to sweep the whole thing under the carpet!” I finished with great indignation.

He nodded thoughtfully. “And you wrote directly to Alexander Cadogan?”

“Well … I’m not
entirely
sure he received those letters,” I admitted. “They may have been lost.”

“I think
he’ll
be amenable,” said the Colonel, gazing into the fire and tapping one long finger against his lips. “Of course, it’s the job of the Foreign Office to carry out government policy—which happens to include appeasement of Germany, at the moment—but there
are
a few dissenters … By the way, would that have been your cousin I saw in the music room, talking to Julius Pemberton’s son?”

I said glumly that it was very likely.

“She’s probably wasting her time with Sir Julius, although I’ve heard your cousin has exceptional debating skills. And the Pemberton men
do
have a well-known weakness for statuesque beauties …”

I gave the Colonel my Appalled Look, and he chuckled. “Well, I won’t encourage her. Have you approached any Defence people?”

“Simon Chester’s just starting on that,” I said. I assumed the Colonel had met Simon at some stage, and he had.

“I can give him some names,” the Colonel said. “I’ve already had a word with a couple of colleagues. Tiny cogs in the depths of Whitehall are being oiled as we speak, and soon they will begin to turn, and who knows what might happen … But where is Simon now? Oh, London. I’m driving up there myself this evening.”

The Colonel seemed to lead an extraordinarily busy life. I wondered why he’d chosen to stop off at Lady Bosworth’s for tea. Surely it couldn’t have just been to deliver Rupert’s letter and have a chat with me? But as soon as we arrived in the drawing room, he sauntered over to Kick and casually engaged her in a conversation that resulted in him being invited to the American Embassy for drinks the next week.
Mission accomplished
, I thought. He went over to have a brief talk with Veronica, nodded goodbye to me from the doorway, then clapped his trilby on his head and departed. It was odd, I realized, that I’d spoken with him so easily. I’d never even met him before. But then, he looked so much like Rupert. They both have very trustworthy faces.

Speaking of Rupert, I ought to copy in his letter—but that will have to wait. It is nearly one in the morning, and my fingers are too cold to move anymore.

7th June 1938

One would think that Aunt Charlotte would have been
impressed
with Veronica’s and my behavior at the Bosworth house party. Veronica had captured the heart (or something) of a titled gentleman’s eldest son; I’d made friends with the daughter of the American Ambassador; neither of us had mortally offended anyone, as far as we knew. But
still
Aunt Charlotte grumbled.

“A baronet’s son!” she said. “When I keep introducing you to the heirs of dukes and marquesses! Well, I suppose Sir Julius is respectable enough, but they’ve such a tiny little place, barely a hundred acres. And really, Sophia, of all the ambassadors for you to get mixed up with!
Kennedy
—what sort of a name is that? Irish, I suppose,
and
Catholic! All those dozens of children, they sound
most
unsuitable.”

The newspapers don’t agree. They can’t get enough of the Kennedys, especially Kick, whom they’ve now labeled “Most Exciting Debutante of 1938.” And even Aunt Charlotte acknowledged it was a social triumph for us to be invited to the Kennedy girls’ debutante dance, held at the American Embassy. I thought I’d become jaded about fancy balls, but my goodness!
Such
luxury! I’d never experienced anything like it. Flowers and food and entertainers flown in from around the world—and enough crown princes, dukes, and counts to satisfy even Aunt Charlotte.

“If only Tobias could have been there,” she sighed afterwards. “Lord Dorset’s niece looked
most
disappointed when she realized he wasn’t with us—and was that the Spanish Infanta I saw talking to the Ambassador? What a missed opportunity for Tobias! Of course, I’m pleased he’s taken my advice to settle down, but I do hope he isn’t working
too
hard.”

Well, that’s one thing she doesn’t have to worry about. He isn’t. Rupert wrote and told me so. I shan’t copy out all his letter, but here’s the relevant bit:

As for Toby, he’s doing no work whatsoever and is drinking too much, which isn’t unusual—however, he’s also stopped going out, appears to have given up eating, and seems completely miserable. I’m sure you know what (that is, who) is causing all this. Is there any chance you could come up to luncheon one day and talk some sense into him? Of course, I know how difficult it would be for you to get away. Please don’t mention anything about this to your aunt—Toby said her last lecture was dreadful, and he really thinks she might take away his allowance if he gets into any more trouble
.

Of course, you are very welcome to come to luncheon
any day, regardless of whether your brother comes to his senses or not …

Then the rest of the letter was about how Rupert had released the dormouse back into the woods where he’d found her as an orphaned baby, and how he hoped she was managing to gather enough food and keep out of the way of owls.

Well, of course, I had to go up to Oxford, but how was I to
get
there without attracting the notice of Aunt Charlotte? And should I ask Veronica to come with me or not? Because I wasn’t sure if she knew (or
wanted
to know) about Toby and Simon—or if she’d recovered from her intense envy of lady undergraduates.

Then, just as I was pondering this, Aunt Charlotte and Veronica were invited to luncheon at Sir Julius Pemberton’s, and he said he’d send his car for them. And Parker revealed that his cousin had recently taken over the lease on an Oxford pub and that he, Parker, wouldn’t be at all averse to catching up with his relative … It must have been Fate. At any rate, today Parker dropped me off outside Christ Church, where I found Rupert waiting with a stack of books and a one-eared cat.

“I hammered on Toby’s door when I went off to my morning lecture,” Rupert explained as the cat led us through a shadowed archway. “And then I asked his scout to make certain Toby was awake and dressed by luncheon, so it
should
be all right …”

We came out into a beautiful Gothic quadrangle with a sparkling fountain at the center. Veronica would have loved the architectural details, I thought—all the battlements, the turrets, the niches crammed with statues. She certainly wouldn’t have been troubled by the sight of lady undergraduates, because every single person I saw was male, from the young gentleman in white flannels striding past swinging his tennis racket to a pair of withered-looking dons in billowing black gowns. Even the servants were men. We came upon one of them as we emerged from a staircase into a dim corridor.

“Ah, Mr. Stanley-Ross,” he said. “Well then, you’ll find His Majesty dressed, as per orders, but don’t expect much more.” He gave me a disapproving look that seemed to extend to the whole of womankind, then clanked off downstairs with his bucket.

Rupert sighed, pushed open a door, and ushered me into a set of large, cheerful rooms. Mild sunlight filtered through the windows, casting a gentle glow upon the plaster walls, the dark leather armchair, the invitation cards propped along the chimneypiece, and the empty wine bottles on the desk. Toby himself lay flat on his back on the rug, looking like a martyred saint—Saint Lawrence, perhaps, but without the scorch marks.

“Don’t ask me to move yet,” he murmured, his eyes closed. “There’s an enormous lead ball inside my skull, and I’ve only just got it to stop rolling about.”

“Well, what do you expect when you drink an entire bottle of champagne?” said Rupert.

“It wasn’t the champagne,” said Toby. “I never get a sore head with champagne. It must have been the brandy. Or that bottle of crème de menthe someone gave me—awful stuff, tasted like toothpaste …”

“Aren’t you even going to say hello to your sister?”

“Oh! Sorry,” said Toby, turning his head a bit and squinting at me. “Hello, Soph. Veronica isn’t on her way up, is she? Please say she isn’t.”

Rupert offered me the armchair, having removed the cat from it, then leaned against the desk. We both crossed our arms and scrutinized Toby.

“You’re extremely fortunate,” I told Toby, “that Veronica had a prior luncheon engagement.”

“What, with Daniel?” asked Toby.

“No, Geoffrey Pemberton,” I said. “He invited her to meet his family.”

“Pemberton!” cried Toby, lurching up, then clutching his head. “Ow!” He hurriedly lay down again. “Soph, I
warned
you about him! How could you let her? He’s revolting!”

“Who’s Pemberton?” asked Rupert, so I related the story.

“Your uncle thought it would probably be a waste of time, though,” I said to Rupert. “Is he really in the Secret Service?”

“No one knows,” said Rupert. “Sometimes we wonder if he’s actually just a Foreign Office clerk with a vivid imagination. Toby,
do
get up.”

Toby opened his eyes cautiously. “I’m still a bit seasick, I think. And, ugh, Rupert, your cat is
staring
at me again.”

“ ‘A cat may look at a king,’ ” quoted Rupert, although she looked more like Grimalkin than the Cheshire cat as she crouched on the chimneypiece, flicking envelopes to the floor with her tail and keeping her eerie green eyes fixed upon Toby. I’d forgotten that Alice in Wonderland had lived at Christ Church. Her father had been the Dean, or something like that.

“Yes, and Lewis Carroll was a Mathematics don,” Rupert said when I asked. “We’ll take you to see the Alice window in the Hall after luncheon.
If
your brother ever deigns to get up, that is.”

“I think I prefer it down here,” said Toby. “It gives one a whole new perspective on life, looking at things upside down. The world’s far less cluttered. Soph, come and try it.”

“No thanks,” I said. “My life’s all right as it is.”

“Mine isn’t,” said Toby with an enormous sigh. “It’s full of sorrow and suffering.”

“Oh
God
,” muttered Rupert. “I’m going to see about luncheon. Sophie, if you lose all patience with him, my rooms are two doors down.”

“Dear old Rupert,” said Toby after Rupert had stalked off, the cat making her stiff-legged way after him. “He’s never been properly in love, that’s his problem.”

“
Rupert
doesn’t seem to be the one with the problem,” I retorted. “And if you are miserable, I don’t see how getting drunk would make things any better.”

“Oh, but being drunk is lovely,” he said. “You’ve no idea. Everything turns fuzzy and golden.” He stretched his arms over his head. “It can be awful
afterwards
, of course,” he conceded. “Although, at least then my wretched physical self matches my wounded … What’s the inside bit called?”

“Your mind? Your soul?”

“My wounded soul, yes,” he said, clasping his hands upon his chest in a deliberately melodramatic gesture.

I huffed at him impatiently. Toby is so used to concealing his feelings under flippant remarks and frivolous pursuits that even now, in what I suspected was genuine pain, he had to make a joke of it. It was especially annoying that Toby’s good looks seemed quite unaffected by his recent bout of debauchery. Even the weight he’d lost merely served to accentuate his cheekbones. I thought of how
I
looked when I woke up the morning after a ball, purple smudges under my eyes and hair like a gorse bush (when I was never allowed so much as a
sip
of champagne). It was immensely unfair.

“Oh, stop wallowing, Toby!” I snapped. “Honestly! When I think of how hard Veronica and Simon are working to get Montmaray back—looking up law books, writing letters, trudging round Whitehall—and here you are, lying about, feeling sorry for yourself!”

He sat up then, wincing a bit, and frowned at me. “Well, what do you expect
me
to do?” he said peevishly. “It’s not as though they need me. Anyway, what are
you
doing, other than being driven round the countryside on outings—”

“Me!” I exclaimed, jumping up from the armchair. “When I’m not attempting to talk some sense into my
idiot
brother, I’m stopping Veronica and Simon from killing each other!
I’m
the one running messages between them, because they can’t even bear to work in the same room!
I’m
the one helping them write their letters and doing their typing!
I’m
the one trying to keep Aunt Charlotte off their backs—”

“Sorry!” said Toby, reaching out a hand and tugging me down beside him. “I
know
you are. I know
they
are. I’m sorry, Soph, I really am. I just—” He took a deep breath. “I just feel so
useless
!” he burst out. “I know I can’t do anything to help with the campaign, I’m too stupid and I’m stuck here, but at least I used to be able to … to entertain them. Make them laugh when things were getting too tense—”

“Them?”

“You know what I mean,” Toby said quietly, bringing his knees up under his chin and hugging his shins. “Tell me. How is he?”

“He’s fine,” I said. I didn’t need to ask whom Toby meant.

“He tells me not to come to London,” said Toby, not meeting my eyes. “He says that he’s busy working, but I
know
he goes off somewhere in the evenings. One of the footmen told me.”

“Oh, Toby,” I said, my voice softening. “It’s not what you think—”

“So, he confides in
you
,” said Toby bitterly.

I considered breaking my promise and explaining about Simon’s law classes, but it occurred to me that I had no idea what Simon did with his evenings. Perhaps his course had finished. Perhaps he
was
out with a girlfriend.

“Don’t you think you’re being a bit unreasonable?” I asked Toby as gently as I could. “I mean, do you really have any right to tell him what to do, or who to see, or—”

“Yes. I love him,” said Toby. They were the most heartfelt words I’d ever heard him utter. They silenced me. I put my arm round him, and he rested his head on my shoulder.

“And that’s all there is to it,” he said after a while, almost succeeding in adding a note of levity to his utterance.

“But how do you know?” I wondered aloud. I knew I felt
something
for Simon, even now. At one stage, I’d even thought it might be love, but how could one tell? Perhaps it was easier to understand when one had shared … well, whatever Toby and Simon had shared. I suddenly felt very unworldly and innocent.

“One just … knows,” said Toby. “It simply happens. Like being hit by a bolt of lightning, except more painful.” He turned to me, suddenly intense. “It was only a bit of fun at first, just … uncomplicated pleasure. And I’d always liked him—well, you know how likable he is. And then, all at once, I
loved
him. If
only
I’d been serious about him, right from the start … But now, the more I try to show him that I mean it, the more he hates me!”

“He doesn’t—”

“No, no, I know he doesn’t hate me. I’d almost prefer it if he did. No, he’s completely indifferent.”

“I don’t think that’s true, either, Toby. He’s very fond—”

“You know what?” said Toby, scrambling to his feet. “One of these days, he’ll fall in love with some woman. Oh, I’m sure
he’ll
be sensible about it. The one
he
chooses will be rich and well connected and beautiful, because that’s the only sort of woman he ever notices.”

My heart contracted, knowing this was true. So I wasn’t yet over whatever it was that I felt for Simon—although I was profoundly grateful I didn’t feel anything near as much as Toby did.

“And I’ll be watching,” Toby went on, “
praying
that she breaks his heart,
wanting
him to be as miserable as I am!” He loomed over me. “Soph, don’t you see what a horrible person I am? Do you really wonder why I drink? When I’m drunk, I don’t think those things. I don’t think—I don’t
feel
—anything at all. I’m
lovely
when I’m drunk.”

“You really
are
an idiot,” I sighed. “Don’t you know everyone has wicked thoughts, all the time? Do you honestly believe your feelings are any worse than anyone else’s? Why, I can think of at least one time when I wanted to—Well, never mind, but it was awful.”