The Importance of Being Kennedy (26 page)

I managed to finish a striped muffler for him on the ride north, white and black, until I ran out of the black yarn. I had to do the last few stripes in blue. It wasn’t my best effort, but there was no heating on the train and you can’t knit well when you’ve lost the feeling in your fingers. I quite thought he’d be there to meet us when we got to Bakewell. My guts were all churned up and I don’t know for why, because he was only my husband. But they’d sent old Barker from the stables to pick us up and not even in livery.

He said, “I’m sorry it’s the shooting brake, my lady, but we can’t get the parts for the sedan.”

Kick sat up front with him. She never played the ladyship, I will say.

I said, “The last time I was up here we had a driver called Wildgoose. A young lad.”

He said, “That must have been before the war. He were a POW with the Japs. Come home looking like a skellington.”

I said, “Will he be all right?”

“Who can say?” he said. “He’s gone for a lathe operator at a factory in Chesterfield. There’s a lot of them not coming back to the estate, one way or another. Bloody war. Things’ll never be the same.”

The big house had been used for a school while the war was on, and they were still putting it to rights. There were rooms where everything was still under dust sheets and rooms that stood empty, ready to be cleaned and painted, but there was a Christmas tree dressed in the front hall and a small fire burning. Kick could have been at Palm Beach, warm enough to go swimming and drive around in an open-top car, but I could see why she was happier to be at Lord Billy’s home. She could have his sisters for company and mull over her memories. I even thought it might bring her to her senses about that chancer Fitzwilliam before it was the scandal of the year. I’m sure if Their Graces had had wind of what had been going on they never would have made her so welcome.

I was nervous as a housemaid starting on her first day. Every corner I turned I expected to bump into Walter. I didn’t go down to the servants’ hall till the very last minute and when I did walk in, everything went quiet. Hope saw me and turned her back, banging her saucepans and chivvying the girl to get the plates out of the warmer. There were a lot of new faces, but it was obvious they knew all about me.

I said, “Hello, Hope. How are you? I’ve a Christmas card for you, from Vincent’s Dairy.”

“Oh aye?” she said.

One of the maids said, “Walter not in tonight, Mrs. Stallybrass?” and that fool footman Cleaver said, “Which Mrs. Stal
lybrass are you addressing, Florrie?” and the others all started tittering.

I said, “If that’s me you’re hinting at, I’ll be known as Hartington while I’m here, as you should know. I believe that’s how things are done.”

Hope said, “He’ll come in when he can. He’s got a lot on, bringing in the blooms for the dining room. You know Walter. He doesn’t desert his post till his duty’s done.”

She whacked out a ladleful of soup so hard it spilled over the side of the plate. I got all broth and no leeks.

There was an empty place at Hope’s end of the table, far away from where I was told to sit. She intended keeping him out of my way. She was carving the silverside when he walked in. I got a nod and then down went his eyes and he didn’t look up again until he’d finished his sago pudding and pushed his dish away.

He said, “There’s snow forecast. Boiler in the lily house is playing up. Well, I’d best press on.”

And he scraped back his chair and walked out without giving me another glance. Everybody had been watching us.

I said, “I brought a few bonbons for you, Hope. It’s funny, we still can’t get bananas for love nor money, but I managed to get you some of those violet creams you like.”

She said, “We make our own bonbons up here, thank you very much. Walnut brittle, peppermint creams. We don’t need shop-bought bonbons nor anything else from down south.”

The scullery maid said, “If they’re going spare I’ll have them. I’ve never had anything from down south.”

Footman Cleaver said, “That’s not what I heard. How about that sapper from the Royal Engineers?”

I said, “You’ve changed your tune, Hope Stallybrass. I remember when you’d have done anything for a violet cream. Well, I’ll bring them to the table tomorrow and anyone who likes to can
help themselves. And don’t feel obliged to make my life a misery. I’m only here as Lady Hartington’s maid. Anything else is between me and Walter.”

She said, “Just don’t think you can waltz back in, that’s all. He’s nicely settled now so don’t go causing upset. He’s nothing to say to you.”

But when I went upstairs there was one of those striped camellias floating in a saucer on my washstand and a note. It said,
There’s no juice to spare for a motor but I’ll gladly walk you to Hassop in the morning if you want to go to your Mass. As you may recall, this one’s called Yours Truly.

I could smell the snow before I opened my eyes. Before I lived in Boston I’d never seen the stuff, but we had plenty my first winter there and I’ve had a nose for it ever since. I went in to Kick, to see if she intended coming to Mass.

“No,” she said, “I think I’ll sleep in a bit longer. I’ll just say my rosary later.”

I said, “Well, I’m going.”

“Are you?” she said. “I wonder who’ll drive you to Hassop?” and she gave me such a cheeky grin.

I said, “Did you put him up to this?”

“Me?” she said. “Gosh, no, I haven’t even seen him.”

The kitchens had been humming since seven, getting the Christmas dinner ready, but everywhere else was quiet. There was only one set of footprints that had broken the snow down to the kitchen gardens.

He started singing “In Her Master’s Steps She Trod” when he saw me picking my way. I gave him his muffler.

I said, “Black and white’s not very cheery, I know. I’d have done red but I couldn’t get the yarn.”

“Red?” he said. “Nay, Nora, I wouldn’t wear red. Black and white’s Derby County colors. Just the ticket.”

I said, “And then I ran out of the black, that’s why the last stripe’s blue but if you tuck it inside your jacket it’ll never be noticed.”

“Even better,” he said. “Blue for Chesterfield. A scarf for all footballing occasions. Now take my arm. I don’t want you taking a tumble. If you break your leg we could be stuck with you up here while Easter. You don’t want that.”

We never got as far as the church. It was hard enough getting to Baslow, and we saw an old boy at the crossroads who said the snow had drifted three feet deep on the lane to Hassop and we’d be fools to try and get through. Walter knocked on the side door of the Square and Compasses and they opened up and we sat in the snug and had two ginger wines apiece. Then we trudged to his cottage and he ended up getting a kiss and a cuddle for Christmas, as well as his scarf, so that’s alcohol for you.

He said, “I’m fifty-five, Nora. And I didn’t wait all them years to let go of you five minutes after I found you. So I’ve been thinking.”

It wasn’t a bad little place he had. The ceilings were low but the fireplace didn’t smoke and he’d been promised piped water in the near future.

I said, “Walter, I don’t want another fight. I know this is home to you. But there’d be nothing for me to do here all the day long and I’m not cut out for idleness.”

He said, “I know that and I know you don’t want to let Her Ladyship down. Of course, whether she feels the same way is another matter. She could get her mind changed for her and you’ll be left in the lurch. But here’s the thing. We’ve been talked about, you and me.”

I said, “That was pretty clear when I walked into the lion’s den last night. All those kitchen maids giggling. Hope giving me the evil eye.”

“Nay,” he said, “I don’t mean that. I mean we’ve been talked about Upstairs. Her Grace came to the glasshouse, said she wanted to talk about camellias but she never did. She said she knew how well the Stallybrasses had served the Devonshires over the years and Her and His Grace didn’t like to think of a man parted from his wife in the line of duty, not when there wasn’t a war on. She said they want me to come to London, Nora, to drive for Lady Kathleen and be with my wife, and not to worry about losing my place up here. She said when the time comes as Her Ladyship remarries and we’re not required, which you can bet we won’t be, there’ll be a place found for us back here, and work for you, if that’s what you want. That’s what I’d call a compromise, Nora, and I don’t think you’ll get a better offer if you live to be ninety.”

I said, “What did Her Grace say exactly? Did she actually mention Kick getting married again?”

It wouldn’t have surprised me if they’d heard about Blood Fitzwilliam, even in Derbyshire. There was plenty of talk in London.

“No,” he said. “She just said that the time would come. It stands to reason. She’s a bonny young lass. Why? Is she courting?”

I said, “She’s very popular. You know Kick.”

“That’s right,” he said. “She’s too young for widow’s weeds. And Their Graces’d be happy to see her settled again, I’m sure.”

Indeed. Settled the other side of the ocean with a nice quiet millionaire, not running around England with another woman’s husband.

He said, “So what do you think? Shall I come? Do you want me back? Or have you got yourself a fancy man?”

I said, “Nobody’s interested in me, at my time of life.”

“I’m interested in you,” he said. “I’m so interested in you I’m willing to leave my camellias in the horny hands of Tommy Marstin. I’ve missed you, Nora.”

I said, “You’ll never hear the end of it from Hope. I’ve not had a civil word out of her since I got here.”

He said, “Bugger Hope. She’s never happier than when she’s got something to moan about.”

The sun was shining when we came out, so bright the snow dazzled the eyes.

He said, “Before we go up to dinner, come round the back. There’s somebody I want you to meet.”

He’d got a young Berkshire, rooting around in a pen next to the privy, black with three white socks.

“Not so much a pig,” he said, “as a machine for turning Jerusalem artichokes into sausages. Nora, meet Emperor Hirohito.”

We hadn’t been back at Smith Square five minutes before Blood Fitzwilliam was on the doorstep wanting to take her to lunch. Walter had been expecting to drive her to Lady Balderston’s to see the new baby but that was all out the window as soon as she saw His Lordship standing there, trilby hat tipped forward over his eyes. They went roaring off in his little two-seater.

Walter said, “No need to tell me who that was. Flash Harry. Did you see how fast he pulled away? Never checked his mirror, never signaled. I wouldn’t want any daughter of mine riding with him.”

But Kick loved it. All the Kennedys drove like crazies, except for Mrs. K, and when she took the wheel, which she did once in a blue moon, she took it steady, because she could hardly see over the steering wheel.

I said, “She reckons he’s the one for her. Can you believe it? The only thing is, I’m sure he’s the restless type. It’s a terrible
thing to say, but I hope he hurries up and breaks her heart, then we can all get back on track.”

Most of her old friends had faded from the scene because of Lord Fitzwilliam. Cynthia Brough had told her to her face she was a fool. Ginny Balderston and Sissy Ormsby-Gore were the only ones who persevered, and there were times I thought she’d lose them too. His Lordship only had to snap his fingers and off she’d go, didn’t matter if she’d arranged to go shopping or visiting with somebody else. There were his friends, of course, hard-drinking types they knew from the racetrack, but they didn’t come to Smith Square so much, especially after Walter was back on the scene.

She said, “Why does Walter have to look so fierce? He frightens people off.”

I said, “He’s doing no more than your Daddy would do if he could see you. He wouldn’t allow carousing and carrying on till three in the morning. He’d send them packing. Wouldn’t he tell them to do something gainful with their lives?”

“Uh-oh,” she said. “If I wanted a lecture I’d apply to Mother.”

The one comfort I took was that His Lordship seemed to like going around with a crowd, so at least he didn’t have an opportunity to take advantage of her. But then came the night when she didn’t come home. I didn’t get a minute’s sleep and when I heard the milk cart at five and she still wasn’t in, I woke Walter.

He said, “I’ll drive around Grosvenor Square. See what’s what.”

Grosvenor Square was where Blood Fitzwilliam’s mother had a house. He stayed there when he was in town. Walter wasn’t gone half an hour.

He said, “His Nibs’s motorcar’s parked outside the house and the curtains are all shut tight, so I’d say he’s took her home and had his way with her.”

It was nearly eleven when she showed her face, hair not brushed, bags under her eyes.

She said, “I am wrecked. I’m going to soak in the tub and then sleep, sleep, sleep.”

I said, “Have you not been to bed? Well, no more have I. I was out of my wits thinking you’d met with an accident.”

“Oh Nora,” she said, “I’m sorry. But I’ve told you not to wait up. We closed Frisco’s and a party sort of happened at Blood’s and I just kind of stayed.”

I said, “Oh well then. And was old Lady Fitzwilliam at home? Or Lady Obby?”

“No,” she said. “But so what?”

A fine thing.

I said, “So you’re sleeping with him now, is it?”

She laughed. Not a happy laugh though.

She said, “What if I did? I’m going to marry him, Nora, just as soon as he’s free, and what’s a few months? I don’t believe in all that stuff the nuns say anymore. Obby doesn’t love him and I do, so there’s nothing wrong in it.”

All those years I’d looked after her, it was the first time we’d ever talked without her looking me in the eye.

It was just before Easter when she received a letter from Mrs. K, asking had she made a retreat for Lent like she was expected to and to say that Lady Dellie Cavendish had invited the family to Lismore during the summer. Mr. K wasn’t feeling up to traveling, but Mrs. K was going to bring Pat and Jean and Jack hoped to go too, if he could get away.

Kick said, “See? I knew Mother would come round. I’ll bet Jack’s been putting in a good word for me.”

I said, “If it’s an olive branch, take it. And don’t go spoiling everything, bringing up Lord Fitzwilliam’s name.”

“’Course not,” she said. “Not till the time is right. I’m gonna get Jack on my side first. They’ll hit it off, both being war heroes and everything. Then Jack can work on Daddy and Daddy can work on Mother.”

We went to Lismore towards the end of June. Herself was already installed by the time we got there, holding court, especially with the pols. She monopolized that handsome Mr. Eden something terrible. The Duchess of Kent was there and Fred Astaire, visiting with his sister. There was a real jolly houseful and there was nothing grand about Lismore. If you’re obliged to keep a castle in the family you couldn’t ask for a more comfortable little place. Pat and Jean and Kick went horseback riding every day with Lady Anne and Lady Elizabeth, and Mrs. K played a bit of golf, but it was the fishing Jack loved. He went out in a boat from Dungarvan, hoping to catch blue shark and came back empty-handed, but then he took two beautiful salmon the day he fished on the Blackwater, fifteen-pounders. One was sent up to the kitchens for baking and the other went to the smokehouse. Jack was looking fitter than I’d seen him in years.

I said, “The politicking suits you.”

“Yes,” he said, “I like it better than I thought I would. Mother says I was fed on it. She reckons it was in that Fitzgerald gold-top mother’s milk she gave me.”

I said, “And are you really going for president?”

“That’s the plan,” he said. “Eventually. Senator first. Then the White House. And you’ll come to my inauguration, of course. Guest of honor.”

I said, “But I don’t need to pick out my hat just yet?”

“No,” he said, “I’d say you have fifteen years at least.”

I said, “And do you have a sweetheart?”

He laughed. “You know me,” he said.

I said, “Well, you may as well enjoy your oats. You won’t be
able to chase after girls once you’re a senator. You’ll need a nice, suitable wife.”

“I guess,” he said. “We’re thinking about that. She’s got to be somebody the ladies’ll like. You know? Somebody they’ll feel like they could chat to about the drapes and the baby’s new tooth. Nice-looking, for the cameras, but not stacked or anything common. Dad’s working on it.”

I said, “So your Daddy’s running the show? What does His Honor think about that?”

He said, “He’s okay. I probably wouldn’t have won that primary without him. He worked so damned hard. The only thing with Grandpa is he’s a bit behind the times. He thinks I should play the Irish card, but voters aren’t like that anymore. They want to know what you’ll do about the Communists, not whether you can play a tin whistle. I’m going to humor him though. I’m going to go over into Wexford, see if I can rustle up a few Kennedy cousins. Get some photos. You never know when they might be useful.”

He quite thought Kick and Pat would go with him, but they weren’t interested. They’d got up a tennis tournament.

I said to Kick, “Why ever don’t you go? Spend a bit of time with your brother. You haven’t seen him in long enough.”

There was a time when Kick would have done anything for Jack, and if she didn’t do it willingly Mrs. K would have made her do it anyway, but at Lismore Mrs. K was minding her Ps and Qs. As long as she had the Devonshires watching her she played at Happy Families.

Kick said, “It’ll be boring. It’s the kind of thing Jack has to do these days but that’s his hard cheese. Anyway, I don’t need any more relations. And the tennis is all arranged. You go if you think it’ll be so fascinating.”

So I did. I sat up front, beside Walter, and Pamela Digby
Churchill rode in the back with Jack. She’d been married to Mr. Churchill’s boy, Randolph, but it hadn’t lasted. The ink was still wet on her divorce papers, but she was back on the prowl already. Always a Jezebel, that one. I remember how she used to flirt with Mr. K when we were at Prince’s Gate, and she couldn’t have been more than nineteen at the time. I think she’d been hoping for a romantic ride out into the countryside, but Jack wasn’t interested in her. His mind was on finding the place his granduncles had farmed.

He had an address from his aunt Loretta Kennedy, who’d visited years back and found some cousins in a house near Dunganstown. We stopped and asked directions of a red-faced old boy. He had his pants held up with string.

He said, “Well now, let me think. It must be Jimmy Kennedy’s you want. You go away down here and then left, only not left where you might think. After the turn you don’t want there’s another bit of a lane. It’s a pity you’ve come this way. It would have been easier to tell you if you’d been coming from New Ross.”

He was peering into our beautiful shiny motor. He must have thought we had Mr. de Valera himself in the back.

We found the house belonging to James and Kitty Kennedy, and they had us all in for a cup of tea and a photograph, but they must have wondered what in the world was going on, because they were no more related to Jack than they were to the King of Siam. In the end it was their wee lad who piped up.

He said, “You got the wrong house, mister. It’s Mr. Ryan’s you want only Mammy doesn’t like to say so.”

Mrs. Mary Ryan was a Kennedy by birth, they said.

It was only another mile down the track, a muddy yard and a little crouched-down cottage. Jimmy Kennedy followed behind us on a bicycle, with his boy on the crossbar, to make sure we found it. There were three children ran squealing into the house
when they saw our motor stop at the gate, but Mrs. Ryan, née Kennedy, didn’t look so thrilled to see us. She came out wiping her hands on her apron.

Mrs. Churchill said, “Heavens, Jack! They got these people from Central Casting. I’m sorry. This isn’t really my kind of thing. I’ll just stay in the car.”

Jack was already out, trying to give Mrs. Ryan the Congressman’s big handshake.

“Jack Kennedy,” he said, “Boston, Massachusetts. I think we’re family.”

“Are we so?” she said. “Mary Ann, run and fetch your Dadda.”

She had that washed-out look of a woman who’s on the go from dawn till late, and up from her childbed after three days. My own Mammy looked just the same, and all her sisters.

Walter said, “This gentleman’s come all the way from America.”

She said, “I suppose I’ll make a pot of tea.”

I heard Mrs. Churchill say, “Please, no more tea. I could use a whiskey but then where would one go to tinkle?”

James Kennedy said, “Your man here’s a politico, Mary, in the United States of America.”

She said, “He looks like he’s only just out of short trousers.”

I said, “He’s old enough to have won a medal in the war.”

But she was already on her way into the house.

Walter shouted, “He’s drove all the way from Lismore Castle to see you. He’s the guest of the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire.”

Jimmy Kennedy cut right across him.

He said, “I’d pipe down about dukes and duchesses in front of Mary Ryan if I was you, driver. She’s a fearsome Fenian, that one. She’s like one of the lads.”

A lot of the Nationalist women were. Our Aunt Flighty was
married to a Home Ruler, and she always said if there were guns to be moved the women would do it because they weren’t so likely to get searched.

Mammy used to say, “I don’t want to hear about it, Flighty. Children getting their schooling is what’ll change Ireland, not women hiding guns under the eiderdown so one mother’s son can shoot another.”

That’s why we were never kept out of school, no matter how much work there was to do at home, and Edmond was made to stay on till he was fully fourteen, though God knows there wasn’t much inside his skull for the masters to work on.

I went into the Ryan cottage with Jack. Walter stayed outside with Mrs. Churchill. The children all sat around and studied us and then Mr. Ryan came in from the field. He said he recalled hearing something about Kennedys in America. Jack loved it. He doesn’t have the same patter Joseph Patrick had, or Mr. K’s way of bowling you over, but he’s more natural. He was teasing the little ones how they’d the same freckles he did, telling them the names of his brothers and sisters. All except Rosie. He didn’t say anything about her even after I reminded him. They’ve everything worked out, my Kennedys, except what story to tell about what’s become of Rosie.

Jack took a snapshot before we left, but first the Ryan girls wanted their Sunday ribbons put in their hair and then the neighbors came nosing, to see who belonged to the limousine. Half of Dunganstown was in that picture before we were finished.

I felt sorry for Jack. He was so thrilled to have found his folks, but all Mrs. Churchill would say was that she had flea bites. They would have been from the cat she’d picked up and dandled.

He kept saying, “If Great-grandpa hadn’t left, that’s where I’d have been born. Except I wouldn’t have been. I just wouldn’t exist. You realize they don’t have a telephone? They don’t even have electricity.”

I said, “We none of us had the electric light. Now I think back, it’s a wonder we’re not half blind the way we used to knit by candlelight.”

He said, “Nora, I always thought you were from Boston.”

He had no idea.

I said, “I came from Westmeath, you noodle, eighteen years old with nothing but a cardboard valise and two sisters waiting for me. Fidelma Clery the same, she was from Tralee, Danny Walsh was from Limerick, Gabe Nolan was from Kerry.”

He didn’t remember Gabe Nolan.

I said, “He used to drive your Daddy, way back, before we went to England. We were all from the Old Country in those days, apart from Mrs. Ambler. All from wee houses like the ones you were in today.”

He said, “Well, let’s go see yours. Where’s Westmeath? Let’s go tomorrow.”

I said it was likely too far. Walter said he didn’t mind an early start. I said I hadn’t been back in thirty-five years, had never wanted to, and I didn’t even know if the house was still standing. Jack said all the more reason to go find out.

Mrs. Churchill said, “Count me out. It’s all been just too Tobacco Road for me.”