Abdication: A Novel (15 page)

“You have brought a new purpose and an interest into her life,” Lady Cynthia told Evangeline. “We all worry about her so much as she still seems incapable of recovering fully from Grace’s dreadful sudden death. Grace was her favourite sister, you know.”

Evangeline nodded in sympathy.

“Every anniversary seems to be as bad as the one before,” Lady Cynthia continued. “We had all hoped that time would ease the pain, but it does not seem to be doing the trick. Men seem able to handle their grief better. They go to their clubs and talk about it there among themselves, if indeed they talk about it at all.”

“I heard there was another sister?” Evangeline asked.

“Oh yes, but Myrtle has never been a big part of Joan’s life. She is a good five years older and they are such different people. In fact, I cannot remember the last time I heard Joan even mention her.”

“Where is Myrtle now?”

“She lives on her own, I think, somewhere near Settle in Yorkshire,” Lady Cynthia replied. “A good safe distance from London and Cuckmere. So Joan relies on her friends mostly.” Lady Cynthia sighed and for a moment the two women were silent.

“The trouble is barely anyone escaped losing someone they loved in the war. And yet many of us who will never get over our own grief also know that unless we find a way of accommodating it we will go under.” Lady Cynthia’s expression of despair confirmed her own private feelings as she continued, and not without a hint of bitterness. “I am afraid Bettina and Rupert are too absorbed in their own young lives to think of sparing a moment to look after their mother, although of course Philip does all he can, but he is so busy with his parliamentary work. Rupert’s Oxford friend, Julian Richardson, has been lovely to her though. Have you met him?”

Evangeline nodded. “Oh yes. He’s rather a dish isn’t he?” she replied enthusiastically.

Lady Cynthia raised her eyebrows.

“Oh no, don’t get me wrong, Lady Cynthia! Of course he’s
far
too young for me to be paying him any attention! I was just remarking, in an objective way, you understand?”

Lady Cynthia continued, although a little chill had entered her voice.

“Well, you obviously know what I mean about him. And anyway, now you are here to help cheer Joan up as well. Forgive me saying so, but we all think it is an added bonus that you don’t have a demanding husband to take care of.”

Evangeline blushed, but this time said nothing. Lady Cynthia seemed to take her blush as a sign of pleasure at the compliment.

“What’s more,” the older woman continued, “I do believe that even those deep lines in Joan’s face, like swallows’ wings I always used to think, appear to be fading a little.”

For the time being Evangeline managed to dampen the prickles of resentment that the mention of her single status had ignited. Evangeline had been the recipient of her godmother’s full confession. No one else, not even Philip, knew that Joan sometimes felt trapped in a dark cave hung about with colourless cobwebs, great skeins of grief that waited to trip her up. Evangeline’s concern for Joan was empty of the hollow, bored pity with which the bereaved are so familiar and as a result Joan felt able to confide her feelings and to weep, even to laugh and especially to remember with an unprecedented freedom.

Joan acknowledged that there were so many things to be grateful for. She had a life that when viewed from the outside, appeared blessed. But the emotional tug that pulled her down when she was least expecting it was something that no husband, son, or daughter could truly understand, let alone eradicate. She had developed a habit of not talking about the events of nearly two decades ago. She was frightened of making a scene and yet this tendency to withdraw was beginning to affect her relationship with Philip.

Sometimes she would leave their bed in the middle of the night and creep into an empty guest room where she would muffle her sobs deep within a pillow, clutching at the hems of the sheets as if they were the tiller on a ship that might steady her. During the daytime she kept herself busy. But roaming the open-ended corridors of nighttime thoughts, she could find herself stuck in the dusty, neglected attics of childhood memories. Reliving those experiences, even the happy ones, was more painful than any physical experience, childbirth included, that she knew of. At least with childbirth there was a purpose to the suffering. The futile open-endedness of grief was sometimes impossible to accept. Sleep was elusive. Once, she confided to her goddaughter, she had woken from hard-won unconsciousness to see her husband holding a feather beneath her nose.

“I just came in to see you were all right, my darling,” he said, his overlong hair falling over his eyes as he reddened a little, clearly ashamed at being caught checking up on her.

Nearly a month had gone by since the docking of the
Thalassa
, and Evangeline had still neither seen nor heard from Wallis, even though Evangeline had given her the Blunts’ address and the date of her arrival. Just when Evangeline was steeling herself to lift the receiver to the school friend that she had not seen for so long, and who was the subject of so much discussion, George V had died. And then
everything
changed.

There had been little warning; the king had been out riding his horse only five days earlier. Philip told Evangeline about the exuberant jubilee street celebrations of the summer before, still talked of in pubs and clubs. On that day men had worn hats fashioned from Union flags, children had eaten chocolates wrapped in Union-flag-imprinted foil, women had flashed fingernails painted with miniature crowns, and red white and blue bunting had looped itself in gay abundance
through the city streets. Philip was clearly much saddened by the death of the old king, describing for his American visitor the level of affection most Britons felt for the king and a queen who had steadied the country through the Great War and out of the troubling times that followed it. With King George and Queen Mary at the helm it had almost been possible on that one jubilee day of pageantry and joy to forget the truth: that Britain was still a country struggling with poverty, unemployment and a persistent fear of the return of international conflict.

The invitation for Evangeline to visit Fort Belvedere came by telephone two weeks after the old king’s death. Wallis apologised for the long delay in getting in touch. Life had been so busy. But she would almost certainly be alone for the next day or two. Ernest was delaying his return from a business trip to America, having met up with their old school chum, Mary Kirk. Although Mary had been married nearly twenty years ago to a Mr. Jacques Raffray, a French insurance broker, her husband rarely appeared in public with her, and Mary had obviously been delighted to run into Ernest and for a chance to catch up on news of Wallis. And anyway, wouldn’t it be fun for Wallis and Evangeline to spend time together without anyone much getting in the way of their long-awaited reunion?

“Oh, and just one last thing, before I hang up!” Wallis had concluded the call with an afterthought. “If you had been worrying about it, there is no question of you packing any mourning clothes. The prince, I mean the king, has expressly forbidden them to be worn at the Fort. He does not like us all going round looking like blackbirds! And I must say, Vangey, I am delighted at the rule as I haven’t worn black stockings since I gave up the cancan!”

Evangeline had been nervous on the drive to Fort Belvedere. Wiggle had been experiencing one of his dietary upsets and had looked so pathetic
in the hallway at 44 Hamilton Terrace that at the last moment Evangeline had scooped up his leash and whisked him into the car. She had been glad of his small comforting little body on her lap. Recently there had been more talk than ever around the St. John’s Wood dining table about Mrs. Simpson and the complications her relationship with the new king would inevitably cause. Queen Mary’s grief at the death of her husband was fully understood among those in the Blunts’ circle. Her dearest friend Lady Airlie had let it be known that the queen operated under “a façade of self-control” but that the romantic intentions of her eldest son were causing her dreadful anxiety. According to Joan’s own sources of information, George V had shared his wife’s concerns. His refusal of the Prince of Wales’s request that Mr. and Mrs. Simpson be invited to a state dinner last year had resulted in a family row and the heir to the throne had been seen banging his head against the lemon silk walls of his mother’s private sitting room.

Evangeline was aware of the constant reminders not to discuss any of this in front of the servants. “PD,” Joan would mutter, with a finger to her lips as Mrs. Cage carried the evening cocktail tray into the Cuckmere drawing room. There were other subjects that fell into the
pas devant
category. Sex was one. Money another. As both of these topics were of utmost concern to many of Joan’s friends there were frequent pauses in conversation as the time came for curtains to be drawn, plates to be cleared, or wood to be added to an already blazing fire. Sometimes guests, including Evangeline herself, would forget themselves and run on indiscriminately, in which case a servant would find themselves summoned to the study and told to forget everything they had heard.

As the Rolls-Royce travelled along the country roads towards Sunningdale, Evangeline tried to imagine how the woman at the heart of all
this talk would be feeling and whether at their first meeting she would even raise the topic. Evangeline promised herself she would not touch it unless Wallis herself did first.

Although Joan had explained that Cropper’s affection for the whisky bottle had prompted Philip to replace him with a more levelheaded driver, Evangeline had uncharacteristically paid little attention to the new incumbent behind the steering wheel of the Blunts’ navy blue Rolls-Royce. Evangeline was always curious to meet someone new whether they were a king, a famous playwright or someone employed to make the wheels of life roll more smoothly. While motoring with Joan one day to fulfil her long-held ambition to visit the famous food halls in Harrods department store, she had learned a good deal from Joan about the sleek car in which they were travelling. Philip, a fan of the motorcar since before the war, would have far preferred the more racy Bentley but there was so little room in the backseat to spread out his work papers that they had opted several years ago for the more conventional Rolls.

But Joan’s explanation had somehow never proceeded beyond the vehicle itself to the person who sat at the controls. During theatre visits and the couple of shopping expeditions that Evangeline and Joan had made together in the car, and on the one occasion when they had been driven to lunch with Philip in the fashionable Ivy restaurant, they had sat together in the back, too full of their own conversation to have time to chat to the new driver. He appeared to be even more silent than Cropper, but his steady gloved hands had conducted them through the London traffic without a hitch.

Therefore, on the way to Sunningdale, it came as a surprise to Evangeline, deprived of Joan’s diverting chat, to find herself looking at the chauffeur’s hands resting un-gloved on the steering wheel, the delicacy of his olive-coloured fingers unexpected in such a profession. Examining
the straight-backed figure in front of her a little more closely, and observing the slightness of the shoulders, Evangeline tried to catch the reflection of his face in the driving mirror. The leafless Berkshire lanes had offered little scenic beauty to comment on but Evangeline, always one for having a go at establishing intimacies, moved the dozing Wiggle from her lap onto the seat beside her and pushed back the glass dividing screen.

C
HAPTER
N
INE

A
week after Evangeline’s visit to the Fort, Wallis made one of her now daily telephone calls. She wanted to discuss the dinner party that she and Ernest were giving in honour of the Blunt family. It was to take place in their first-floor flat in Mayfair and, Wallis assured her, was to be a most informal event.

“I have had Mary Raffray on the horn this morning,” Wallis explained. “She cannot move without telephoning me it seems! Anyhow, I must say I am quite relieved to know that our old school friend is otherwise engaged for that night.”

Evangeline too felt some relief. The competitive spirit between the two scrawny Oldfields girls was not something she had ever enjoyed witnessing.

“Honestly, Vangey, I seem to have been entertaining that girl for days on end since her arrival in England. She is never out of the flat! I barely get a chance to have an appointment at Antoine’s and as a result my hair is a perfect fright! And my old digestive problems have been playing up again. Life is never quite simple, is it?”