The Importance of Being Kennedy (15 page)

I said, “You’re too old for the forces.”

“Plenty else I can do,” he said. “You too. It’s called the home front.”

Then Fidelma put her head out the door.

“Inside, Brennan,” she said. “Excuse me for interrupting. We’ve got a situation on our hands. And you’d better get round the front, Romeo, fast as you like. Lord Billy’s sitting in his car wondering what happened to his driver.”

I said, “It’s all too rushed.”

He started to walk away.

I said, “We can’t leave it like this.”

“Up to you,” he said. “I’m at the Devonshires’ house in Carlton Gardens. Don’t know how long for though. We could all be dead by morning.”

There was a shouting match going on between Mrs. Kennedy and Kick.

“But I love him” was all we could hear from Kick. Mrs. K was doing most of the talking, rapping out the words she wanted to drive home.

“Be
still
, Kathleen. You must
master
your feelings. No more
foolish
threats. You’ll
do as you are told
and not cause your poor father further anxiety. On this horrid day of all days. Remember what the Sisters taught you. Bear the small trials of
daily discipline
. Develop fortitude. Now be
silent
, Kathleen. I won’t listen to another word. Go and contemplate the Sacred Heart.”

Kick went to her room and Mrs. K went back to her lists and the whole house tiptoed around them, waiting till Mr. K drove home and they came out of their corners for round two. I was darning socks, trying to think straight. Danny Walsh was cutting out pictures of German bombers and English bombers, making a chart so we’d know the difference.

Fidelma said, “Well? Spit it out, Brennan. That driver you’ve been pretending not to like comes looking for you, you must have something to tell us.”

I’d practically never mentioned him.

I said, “We were just talking. Wondering how long this’ll go on.”

She said, “Poor bugger looked like you were making him sweat. What’s up?”

Gertie Ambler said, “You’re not in the family way, are you?”

Danny said, “She’s too old for the pudding club.”

I said, “No, Danny. Too smart.”

Fidelma said, “Did he propose?”

I said, “Sort of. He wants me to stay on. Volunteer for war work.”

She said, “What is he? A recruiting sergeant?”

I said, “Well, he did tell me he liked me before. He said they’d probably find something for me at Chatsworth. If we got married.”

She said, “That’s a proposal, you chump. What do you expect at forty-five, a moonlight serenade?”

Danny said, “Mrs. K won’t like it if you give your notice. She’s having a very bad day.”

I said, “I’m not giving my notice.”

Fidelma said, “Mrs. K doesn’t need to hear about anything, Danny Walsh, and if she does we’ll know which blabbermouth told her. Now why don’t you go out and scan the skies for Stukas. This is girl talk.”

He went.

“Well,” she said. “Are you going to accept him?”

I said, “I hardly know him.”

She said, “That’s not such a bad thing. My cousin Tula’s been engaged nineteen years to Declan Mulherne. She knows every last thing about him, so it doesn’t seem worth the bother of a wedding now. And he’ll be nicely fixed, this Walter. He’ll have a job for life up there. Does he live in?”

I said, “He said there might be a cottage.”

“Well, there you are then,” she said. “And he’s not bad-looking, Brennan. I’ll have him if you won’t.”

I said, “This is a good position to give up.”

“It is,” she said. “There’s fools lined up all the way down the road, waiting to jump into your shoes.”

I said, “And Danny’s right. Herself ’ll have a fit if I give my notice at a time like this.”

Fidelma said, “She will not. All she’s interested in is getting her gowns home safe and keeping Kick from running off with Lord Billy. And she’s in a better mood now than she’ll be once she gets back home. God in Heaven, Bronxville’s going to feel like a comedown after London. One minute she’s getting her photograph in the dailies and having dinner with the King and Queen of England, the next she’s back on Pondfield Road playing bridge with Joey Timilty. She’s not going to like that. You’ll be well out of it. And you don’t have to give your notice now. Wait till we see who’s traveling when. She might go on the first sailing. Then it’d just be Mr. K. I’d sooner face him any day.”

Mr. K didn’t get home till gone eleven that night and he looked all in, but Mrs. K insisted he speak to Kick.

She said, “I want to stay here and do my bit, Daddy.”

Over his dead body, he said.

She said, “But all my friends’ll be doing war work. I can’t just run out on them.”

He said, “It isn’t our war, nor ever will be if Roosevelt listens to me, and I didn’t raise this fine family to see the Luftwaffe use it for target practice. You’re going home, Kick, away from the damned stupid war.”

Mrs. K said, “And away from Billy Hartington.”

Kick said, “I won’t go. I just won’t. I love Billy and I’m staying where he is. We’re engaged.”

Well! Mrs. K wanted to telephone Their Graces, to get the
affair nipped in the bud from both sides, but it was nearly midnight, and anyway Mr. K said he didn’t need help from any Devonshires in taking care of his family. Truth be told, I don’t think he minded the idea of Kick being a Ladyship someday. It would have been quite a feather in his cap. But when it came to anything to do with the girls or the Church, he always allowed Mrs. K to have the last word.

He said, “Your mother’s upset by this, Kick, and if she’s upset, I’m upset. Now go to bed. I have graver things than this on my mind, young lady. We could wake up tomorrow to find Germans at our door.”

Mrs. K sent for me. I was in my nightgown and she was in hers.

She said, “Dear heart, I’m worried she’ll try to elope. When she’s gone to sleep, take her shoes and bag away.”

I said, “If she was set on doing that, she’d go whether she had her bag and shoes or not. But Lord Billy’s not that type. I’m sure Devonshires don’t run off to get hitched. They’ve their own chapel up there, you know? And he’d want everything done by the book, I’m sure.”

“Yes,” she said, “I expect you’re right. But then, it would be
their
idea of ‘by the book.’”

She looked so tiny and tired.

She said, “Kick can be so headstrong, but Billy must know his people would never agree to the match. The Devonshires have always been the most stubborn kind of Protestants. I’m just worried this declaration of war might have prompted him to suggest something crazy.”

I said, “I’ll sleep with my door open. I’ll hear her if she makes a move. But I doubt she will. We’re all worn out by what’s happened.”

“We are,” she said. “Oh Nora, what a long day it’s seemed.
All that effort Mr. Chamberlain put in and it’s still come to this. Everything’s changed, thanks to those Germans. And it was going so well for us here. The opportunity of a lifetime for the children, and now we won’t be able to stay on for Pat to have her debut.”

I said, “How soon do you think we’ll be going?”

She said, “The sooner the better. There could be gas attacks and bombs. The Ambassador has his people getting us onto the earliest possible sailings. We might not be able to get staterooms, of course. We’ll just have to take what we can get and consider it part of our war sacrifice. And I have to think of this setback as a blessing in disguise. I’ve been so busy and distracted while we’ve been Ambassador. I believe this may be God’s way of telling me to pay closer attention to my children. We have to keep Kick occupied. When we get home she must take some classes. And we’ll invite some nice Catholic boys down to Palm Beach for Christmas. She has to put this Billy Hartington episode right behind her.”

I looked in on Kick. She was still wide-awake.

I said, “Do you have your sneakers on under those covers? Are you thinking of running off?”

She laughed.

She said, “I’m not that dumb. It’s not fair though. I mean, Mother’s so upset about Billy, but he’s a good, sweet person. His folks are just in the wrong church, which is hardly his fault. And now he’ll have to go off and fight. I don’t know when I’ll ever see him again. It’s all so not fair.”

Yes, I thought, and if it’s anything like the last lot, there’ll be a lot more unfair things before we’re finished. Plans ruined. Lives snuffed out like candle ends.

I said, “Look at it this way, when the war’s ended you and Billy will be old enough to please yourselves, if that’s still what you want.”

She said, “When the war’s ended? It only started this morning. Daddy says it could last two or three years.”

I said, “So you’ll be ancient. You’ll go up the aisle in your bath chair.”

She said, “We’ll be older but nothing else will have changed. He’ll still be expected to do what Devonshires do and I’ll still be a Kennedy. We have talked about it, you know? The church thing? Billy thinks we can work something out. Like our boy babies could be brought up Protestant and our girl babies can be Catholic, or something like that. I don’t know. Sounds pretty weird to me. I’d sooner join his lot. How bad can they be? They say the Our Father. The only thing they don’t have is the Hail Mary, and I can always say that under my breath.”

I said, “Do you love him?”

She said, “I think so. I don’t know what being in love feels like. But I really, really like him. Isn’t that how it starts?”

I was a fine one to ask.

I didn’t sleep that night for thinking about Walter Stallybrass. I surely wasn’t in love with him. He was an oddity, old-fashioned in some respects, stuck in his Devonshire ways. But he made me laugh with his funny flat way of speaking, and he’d had some guts to stand on the doorstep and ask me like that. I like courage in a person.

The way I looked at it, there was going to be less and less for me to do with the Kennedys. Bobby was going to board at Portsmouth Abbey as soon as we got home. Then Jean would board at Noroton, and eventually Teddy would be sent to Choate, and where would that leave me? Mrs. K sometimes wondered aloud what she’d ever do without me, but her heart was really ruled by her billfold. She didn’t believe in keeping help on the payroll a minute longer than she had to. There was Rosie, of course, but she was doing so well. It looked like she’d be nicely set up to go to
a convent and teach kindergarten, and be safe from unscrupulous men.

I knew I could get another position, but it would be hard starting over with a new family. And then there was this new war. Nobody could say how that was going to pan out. Round and round it all went in my mind. I got up in the end and went down to the kitchen to make a pot of tea. Fidelma was down there, couldn’t sleep either.

She said, “I thought we were supposed to have had the war to end all wars?”

I said, “I feel too old for another one.”

“Me too,” she said, “and I’m only glad the wheel came off when I was expecting, because if I’d had that baby he’d be of age by now. He’d have been another one for the draft, because it’ll come to it, you see. America’ll have to go in before it’s over.”

I said, “I never knew you lost a baby.”

“Lost a baby, lost a husband,” she said. “Keeping going with a cheery smile, that was my war work the last time around. This time I reckon I’ll just roll a few bandages.”

Nearly twenty years I’d known her and she’d never spoken of Noel Clery before, nor ever spoke of him again. He was killed at Cantigny in May of 1918, six months before she came to Beals Street.

I said, “All those English boys are going off for training. Lord Billy and his pals. I suppose they think it’ll be a bit of an adventure.”

She said, “One thing, if America goes in, you can be sure there won’t be any Kennedy boys get drafted. Your Man’ll have them slipped into reserved occupations before you can say ‘Heil Hitler.’ Are you going to accept Walter then, Brennan? Is that why you’re pacing the floor? Are you thinking about wedding gowns?”

I said, “It seems like madness. I’ve never thought of mar
riage, not since Jimmy Swords let me down. It’s suited me, the way things turned out. I’ve had the joy of the babies without the bother of a husband. I mean, Walter’s all right. Quite nice, actually. But marriage. And I can’t face a scene with Mrs. K. She’s depending on me to keep Kick in order and help her get them all safe back to Bronxville.”

She said, “Will you listen to yourself. She’s depending on you till it suits her not to anymore. What do you think she’s going to keep us on for once Teddy’s away to the big school? Nothing, that’s what. We’ll be out on our ear. Unless His Honor’s moved in by then and he’s in diapers. Anyway, it’s Adolf Hitler you want to be scared of, not Mrs. Ambassador Kennedy. We’ll likely all end up bombed to kingdom come, so what are you worrying about? I know what I’d do. I’d get cuddled up to Walter, before them sirens start wailing.”

The sirens did keep sounding but there were never any bombers. Every time it was due to something different. Electrical malfunction. Testing the system. False alarm over friendly planes. But it got to your nerves just the same.

Mrs. K sent for me. She said, “Now, Nora, here’s the plan. I’ll be sailing on the
Washington
with Kick and Euny and Teddy and Cook. Fidelma will bring Pat and Jean and Bobby, with Danny Walsh to help her. I want you to stay here with Rosie until she gets her teaching certificate. The Ambassador will get you on the first sailing after that. You’ll still be home by Christmas. You do understand, dear? This is so important for Rosie. It’ll be her first big achievement.”

I said, “Does Rosie know the rest of you are leaving?”

She said, “I’ll see her if I have time before we go. But you know she doesn’t really pay attention. If I tell her we’re going she’ll have forgotten it five minutes later.”

But Rosie knew all right. I took Teddy and Jean out to visit
with her before they all left and she was full of it. Proud as a princess.

“I’m staying on,” she kept saying, “because Daddy’s going to need help and I’m the oldest girl. I can make tea parties for him if he likes. I can come at weekends and play checkers with him. That’ll help him to relax.”

England and the war might have started the undoing of Kick, but I could see it might be the making of Rosie. The rest of the tribe was going to be out of her hair and she was going to have her Daddy to herself for five minutes.

Two days before the first sailing we drove to Prince’s Gate to finish up the packing.

Mrs. K said, “Nora, I want you to go to Rigby and Peller to collect my new brassieres.”

Kick said, “I’ll go.”

“No,” she said. “You’re to come with me to say good-bye to Lady Bessborough.”

Maybe she guessed what Kick had in mind. Billy Hartington was at the Devonshires’ town house in St. James’s, waiting on orders from his regiment. Kick came running after me with a letter for him.

“Please, darling Nora,” she said.

Ink on her fingers. Smudges all over the envelope.

I said, “You’ll get me shot.”

She said, “Please don’t tell. I’ve written Billy that I’m going to do everything I can to come back. I’ve asked him to wait for me. If he really loves me, he will, don’t you think?”

There was no arguing against that. If she’d been mine she’d have had my blessing anyway. I thought the likeliest thing was, when she got back to New York she’d fall back in with her old crowd and Billy Hartington would be forgot. It’s hard to keep love warm when you’re half a world apart. That was what I had
in mind to write to Walter Stallybrass. I’d promised Mrs. K to see Rosie safely home and that was that. But that note never got written. When I turned in to Carlton Gardens, Walter was there in the street, polishing the Daimler with a wash leather.

First thing he said was, “Where’s your gas mask?”

I’d forgotten it. It was such a damned nuisance to carry.

He said, “Nay, you must keep your mask handy. Gas is no joke. I’d hate for anything to happen to you.”

It was nice to have somebody looking out for me.

I said, “Is Lord Billy at home?”

He said, “I knew you’d come. I had a feeling today would be the day.”

I said, “I’ve a letter for him. Miss Kick sails on Thursday.”

He said, “Are you going with them?”

His face lit up when I told him I wasn’t sailing. He didn’t give me time to explain I would be going, just later.

He said, “You’ve made me a very happy man, Nora. And I promise you won’t regret it.”

They were grubbing out the railings across the street, taking them away to turn them into guns.

I said, “The thing is, Walter, if I leave the Kennedys all I’ll have is what I stand up in. Nowhere to live, nothing to live on. The mood Mrs. K’s in I might not even get a testimonial.”

“Oh well,” he said, “that changes everything. I thought you were a woman of means. I were looking forward to a life of leisure. Well. Cancel everything. The wedding’s off.”

I said, “I’m forty-five.”

“Aye,” he said, “and you’ve got the bonniest pair of lips on you. Anybody ever tell you?”

And he kissed me, right there in Carlton Gardens.

He said, “Stand here and don’t budge while I give Lord Billy his love letter.”

I said, “I can’t wait. I’ve to get along to South Molton Street for a parcel. If he wants me to take an answer he’ll have to write it quick.”

He said, “I’ll walk you. Never mind about His Lordship. He’s got all the time in the world. We’re the poor old buggers as haven’t got time to waste. I’m taking you round to the pop-shop in Whitcomb Street. I’m going to put a ring on your finger, Nora Brennan, before you change your mind.”

I was late getting back to Prince’s Gate but nobody noticed. Herself was still out doing the rounds with her good-byes and Fidelma had taken Teddy to get the retainer on his front teeth tightened. Lunch was sandwiches, left under a damp tea cloth, for people to help themselves.

I tucked Lord Billy’s letter under Kick’s pillow and went up to wash my face, to sit quiet for five minutes and look at my ring in private. A real diamond set in filigree gold, a bit worn on the band, but it was the prettiest thing anybody had ever given me. I put it on the chain with my crucifix, until the time was right. Teddy was the one who found it. He was sitting on my lap, big lump that he was, giving me farewell cuddles.

He said, “I wish you were coming with us on the boat. Why can’t you come with us?”

I said, “I’ve to wait behind while Rosie gets her certificate. She can’t stay all alone.”

“Pooh,” he said. “Rosie’s lucky. Why have you got a ring? Who gave you this ring?”

“Nobody you know,” I said.

He said, “Did you steal it? I’ll bet you did. Oh do come with us, Nora. Lovely, lovely Nora. We can play quoits on deck. I promise I won’t tell Mother you stole a ring.”

Covering me with his slobbery kisses.

Fidelma pulled his hair. She said, “It’s not the help that steal
around here. It’s little Kennedys that go into candy stores and forget to pay. Now you apologize to Nora.”

He said he was sorry. He said he just thought maids were too poor to buy rings.

He said, “How much do we pay you? How much did that ring cost?”

I gave him a cookie. A cookie was guaranteed to take Teddy’s mind off anything. Not Fidelma though.

“Out with it, Brennan,” she said the minute we were alone. “So you’ve accepted him. Let’s see the goods.”

I said, “But I’m not going to tell Mrs. K. I’ll stay and keep an eye on Rosie like I promised, but then somebody else’ll have to take her home. Mrs. Moore maybe. I’ll wait till you’re all gone, then I’ll tell Mr. K.”

“There you are,” she said. “Didn’t I tell you it’d be easy? But I’ll miss the wedding. Who will you have for your maid of honor if I’m not here?”

I hadn’t thought about anything like that. I couldn’t see any further than the day the last of them sailed. Everybody knew what they were going to be doing. Teddy to day school, Bobby to his new boarding school, Pat and Jean to Sacred Heart. Euny was going for a student, to Manhattanville College, and Kick had her name down for the Finch School the very minute she got home, to study fashion. I could see her coming bottom of that class. Kick would wear the first thing she picked up off her bedroom floor. She’d go out wearing one black shoe and one brown if you didn’t watch her. But the idea was to get her in with a nice crowd of girls and take her mind off Lord Billy and all the friends she’d left behind.

I waved them off at the station, first Kick, Euny, Teddy, and Herself, and then, a week later, Fidelma, with Jean and Pat and Bobby. Both times I felt full of dread. I was convinced they were going to get torpedoed and I’d never see any of them again.

Fidelma said, “All the best, you jammy beggar. When you get up to that Chatsworth House, won’t you see if you can’t find a man for me too? Not one of them pansified footmen, but an outdoors type. A stable hand would do me, or a carpenter. With a house, though. I wouldn’t want to live in. I’m a natural redhead, tell him, with collar and cuffs to match, and a very sweet nature. If you find me one I’ll be back like a shot, U-boats or no.”

I said, “Look after my Kennedys for me.”

“Brennan,” she said, “don’t you know the Kennedys will always look after themselves?”

Joseph Patrick went next, on the
Mauretania
, to get back in time for the start of law school, and then Jack, on the new Clipper flying boat. Which left me and Mr. and Mrs. Moore and Ambassador Kennedy rattling around in that great big place, with Rosie out at Belmont House and only home on the weekends. The Ambassador had been offered another house, at Sunningdale, near Windsor, not such a great barn as Wall Hall, but far enough out of London that it should be safe from bombs. Not that anyone had seen any bombs so far. The weeks went by and there was no sign of any Germans. It was a terrible letdown. A lot of people had had their little dogs put to sleep, thinking there wouldn’t be food for them. And the children had been sent out into the country, to be safe from the raids, but there weren’t any raids, so most of them came home again. They weren’t scared. Joe Kennedy was though. Worried about all the conniving and philandering he’d done in his life, maybe. Worried he might not make it through the Pearly Gates. According to Mrs. Moore, he needed a pill to make him sleep.

I liked Mrs. Moore. I believe she loved those children as much as I did, though she’d grown-up children of her own. She was a more motherly type than Mrs. K.

She said, “You don’t seem your usual self, Nora. Are you anxious to be getting home?”

I said, “No. It’s not that. Though I’m wondering what we’re supposed to do if there’s an invasion while Rosie’s still here. They say they do terrible things to the women.”

She said, “Well, Joe doesn’t think an invasion’s likely just yet. And it’d be such a shame to take Rosie away from school when she’s so close to finishing. My goodness, she’s done well. We’ll have her graduation and then we can all go home.”

I said, “The thing is, I don’t think I’ll be going. And I’m only wondering, should I tell Mr. Kennedy now when he has so much on his plate?”

She said, “Are you thinking of volunteering?”

I said, “I am.”

“Oh,” she said, “I should so love to volunteer, but I’m far too old.”

I said, “They say they’ll find something for everyone, even if it’s only making tea. I haven’t done anything about it yet, till I know what I’m doing. That’s the other thing. I had an offer. I’m getting married.”

I don’t know who was the more surprised, her or me, to hear myself say it out loud.

She said, “But why didn’t you tell Mrs. Kennedy?”

I said, “Because she wouldn’t have liked it. It would have been an inconvenience.”

“What nonsense,” she said. “She’d have been very happy for you. Rosa’s a real romantic.”

Well, Mrs. Moore saw Mrs. Kennedy from a different point of view than I did. We’d all heard the stories about her beaux. How Sir Thomas Lipton would have followed her to the ends of the earth. How she was determined to have Joe Kennedy whatever her Daddy thought. But Mrs. K didn’t think of nursery maids as having a life like that.

I said, “Do you think I should tell Mr. K?”

“Of course you should,” she said. “I’m sure he’ll wish you well. And there’ll probably be a little something for you too. Twenty-three years you’ve been with them. I’d say that’s worth a little wedding bonus.”

But I knew better than that.

“Married?” he said. “Nothing to do with me. Talk to Mrs. Kennedy when you get back.”

I said, “I’m not going back. That’s what I’m saying. I’m staying here and getting married.”

He said, “The hell you are. You came over single at my expense and you’ll go back single. You’ll take Rosie home.”

Mrs. Moore said, “Joe, I can take Rosie, when the time comes. Don’t be so hard on the girl.”

“Girl?” he said. “She’s no girl. She’s old enough to know when I pay people I expect the job done.”

I said, “I’m old enough to have seen all of your children into the world practically. Old enough to have been there for every tooth they’ve cut.”

He said, “Help are like those insurance shylocks. Always hanging around underfoot when you don’t need them and then gone the minute you do. Well, I’ll just look at it as a mouth less to feed. It’ll be a berth less to pay for.”

I’d guessed it would be like that. I had my bag packed, ready to go to Walter.

Mrs. Moore said, “Pay no attention, Nora.
I’m
glad you’ve found happiness. I think we must all grab our blessings while we may. And I’m sure Mr. Kennedy would have been more gracious if he didn’t have a hundred worries on his mind.”

She was a steadfast friend to the Kennedys, Mrs. Moore. I doubt they really appreciated her.

When I stepped out of Prince’s Gate for the last time I felt like I was walking naked down Knightsbridge. No children, no
lists, no timetable to stick to. Just my one valise and Walter’s ring on my finger for the first time. Stevens, the butler, saw me out.

He said, “All the very best, Miss Brennan. It’s going to be a desolate house now you’ve all gone. We’ve never had anything quite like the Kennedys here.”

I got a bus as far as Hyde Park Corner and then walked the rest of the way, up Piccadilly, to give myself time to think. Nora Brennan, spinster, lately of 14 Prince’s Gate, formerly nursery maid to the family of Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy. Future prospects, unknown.

The Devonshires’ house was going to be used as a billet for army officers, with Walter living in as caretaker. He’d tried to enlist again, in the Sherwood Foresters, but they wouldn’t have him because he was getting on for fifty and he had asthma brought on by mustard gas during the last lot. The Civil Defense had snapped him up though.

He said, “Civil Defense’ll take anybody. You should see us. Talk about the bottom of the barrel. Talk about the broken biscuits.”

They’d made him an Air Raid Precaution Warden, assigned to Lord Melhuish’s depot, just along the street.

When I got to Carlton Gardens there were two faces I hadn’t expected to see. Lord Billy’s brother, Lord Andrew, in town for a night or two before he went back to Cambridge University, and Hope Stallybrass, sent down from Chatsworth to be cook and housekeeper.