CHAPTER 9
Finally—finally—she saw him at Cortachy Castle in September. She’d been standing on the front lawn talking to Jane Kenyon-Slaney, and he’d scared her to death by sneaking up on her and covering her eyes from behind.
“Good lord, Billy,” she said, panting with surprise as he smirked and Jane giggled.
“I do apologize, Kick, but I couldn’t resist.”
“Giving me a scare?”
“Raising your pulse.”
She blushed. “Surely there are better ways to accomplish that.”
“Perhaps,” he said, his voice mysterious. “Perhaps.”
Thumbing their noses at Hitler, Chamberlain, and the whole mess across the channel, Kick and her friends drank cocktails and danced to the phonograph well into the night. Since the house belonged to Jean Ogilvy’s family, cousins of the Cavendishes, all of Kick’s favorite people were there—Billy, Andrew, David, Debo, Sissy, Bertrand. Things took a raucous turn after midnight when someone set off the fire hydrant, Nancy Astor’s son Jakie spilled whiskey all over the Persian rug, and Bertrand nearly broke his leg during a game of blindfold tag in the damp grass. And still the boys managed to go grouse hunting the next day. “Onward, men!” Billy shouted at Andrew and Bertrand, who looked much the worse for wear.
The next night the world encroached. After a dinner presided over by Jean’s father Lord Airlie in his kilt, which he apparently never took off, everyone retired to the drawing room to listen to the news, play cards, and smoke. On the wireless was endless debate about what might and ought to happen. With Mussolini’s speech in Trieste officially declaring Italy’s support for Germany, and Hitler’s ever-tightening grip on Czechoslovakia, it was looking less and less likely that England, France, and the United States’ desire for peace would hold.
“Bloody criminal what Chamberlain’s allowing,” said David during an advertising break.
“Hear, hear,” said Billy. This was the first Kick had heard of his politics, and it sounded like he wouldn’t much agree with her father. She hadn’t fully committed her own opinion yet. On the one hand, she admired her father for wanting to spare her brothers and all the other young men in England and America another fatal war. But on the other hand—how could they not stand up to a man who just kept grabbing for land that wasn’t his, who was making it so difficult for peaceful Jews to live in his country that they were leaving in droves? She remembered, too, what Father O’Flaherty had said about Hitler not liking the Catholics much better than the Jews. What if people like her were next on the Führer’s list?
“Do you honestly want to go to war?” asked Debo, exasperated. Kick had a feeling she was getting an earful on this topic at home, what with her two Fascist-leaning sisters and brother, and Communist sister. Unity had recently joined Hitler himself in Munich.
“Of course not, but we wouldn’t have to if Chamberlain were to grow a backbone and tell Hitler where to stuff his sauerkraut,” said Bertrand.
Billy sat back in his chair and stared down his long legs, frowning and tapping his thumbs together.
“I’m with Chamberlain if it’ll keep you boys out of the trenches,” said Jean.
“Trenches?” laughed David. “My dear girl, this war will be fought from the sky. No more brutality in the trenches.”
“Ah yes, now there are bombs to pick off whole squadrons, not just a man’s legs,” said Bertrand.
“And they will drop from the sky like rain,” Billy added.
“How poetic,” muttered Bertrand. “You’ll be a regular Wilfred Owen.”
“I hope not,” said Billy. “As David said, we need to take a harder line with Hitler. He keeps asking for more and more. We can’t just give it to him.”
“And now we’re back to war,” said Bertrand.
“I still believe diplomacy is possible,” said David. “Kick, what does your father think?”
“He always speaks his mind in his speeches, so you know as much as I do. He still wants peace,” she said, though she wondered irritably what he might say privately to Joe Jr. or Jack.
“With due respect, Kick,” said Bertrand, “America is a long way from here. She can afford to plead for peace.”
“Maybe,” said Kick, feeling insulted, “but I am here. We are here. The Kennedys. We all want what’s best for England and America.”
Billy smiled at her, but it was a pensive smile, and maybe even a little patronizing. She couldn’t quite tell, which just went to show how little she really knew him, she supposed. She bit the inside of her cheek.
“I hope you’re right,” said David. “And I hope it matters.”
“Come on, girls,” said Debo, rising from the chaise with sudden conviction. “Someone pick out a record and shut off all this nonsense.”
Let’s escape for lunch. Meet me by the great oak at one?
The handwritten note from Billy arrived on her breakfast tray the next morning, and she must have read it one hundred times as she sipped her tea. The hours couldn’t pass fast enough, and when the time came, it was drizzling. She found him under the protective cover of a navy mackintosh and umbrella.
The oak tree was locally famous, and with good reason. It towered over the entrance to the Cortachy estate, and the leaves were turning the loveliest orange color.
“You’re frozen,” he observed.
“I suppose I am,” she said through chattering teeth.
“Can’t have that,” he said, ushering her into a black Lagonda he’d parked a few yards down the road. As soon as he started the engine, the heavens opened.
“Are you sure you want to drive in this downpour?” asked Kick. The windshield wipers hardly cleared the water long enough to see the road.
“I haven’t seen you properly in more than a month, and I’m not going to let a little rain get in the way.”
Thankfully, he was a slow and careful driver even in this luxurious sports car that would have been much more fun to drive fast with the top down. They didn’t talk much as he drove, but Kick sent up a quick prayer of thanks, since she figured the timing of the rain would make it unlikely that anyone else would head into the village for lunch. The last thing she wanted was to have to welcome anyone else to their table.
By the time they sat, damp and chilled, in the warmest corner of the village pub, Kick was jittery with excitement and dread. Was he planning to bring up Peter Grace? Or would he kiss her? Both?
They ordered a ploughman’s lunch to share, along with two bowls of the onion soup, and two ales. It turned out Billy was something of an expert on beer, of all things. Kick was amazed to hear him wax on about the regional differences in ales, lagers, and stouts. He told her that the best ale he’d ever had came from the house of his family’s gardener at Churchdale Hall, where he’d grown up.
“You know, my grandfather also loves beer,” she told Billy, thinking fondly of Honey Fitz. “He loves nothing more than a stout and a bowl of chowdah”—she pronounced the word in her best Boston accent—“for lunch.”
“Sounds like my kind of man,” said Billy.
Kick laughed hard. “That’s difficult to imagine, I must say.”
“Why?”
“Grandpa is just so . . . rough around the edges. But don’t tell him I said that.”
“Your secret is safe with me,” Billy said. Then, after a quiet slurp of soup, avoiding her eyes, he said, “It would appear that you don’t go for men with rough edges.”
“Are . . .” Are you asking me about Peter? But her voice failed her.
Billy set down his spoon and looked her in the eye. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to be ridiculous. But I did hear about Mr. Grace,” he said. “I’ve noticed you haven’t worn the gift he gave you, here or in the few photos I happened to see of you in France.”
“You looked?” This revelation sent her heart straight into her throat.
Billy nodded. “Then I realized I was being absurd, and I should just ask you directly.”
“What are you asking, exactly?” There was her heart in her neck again, making it hard to speak normally.
“Are you engaged?”
At this, she had to laugh. “Far from it. As you guessed, the gift was unwanted.”
Billy looked relieved—she hadn’t realized how much tension he’d been storing in his shoulders until he let them down.
“But,” she began. This was a moment for honesty, after all.
“But?”
“My mother wished it wasn’t.”
“Is that all?”
“She is my mother.”
“I have one of those, too.”
“More to the point, I think, you have a father.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “We each have one difficult parent, haven’t we?”
“Mmmm.” Kick chased a ribbon of onion around her bowl with her spoon, feeling her pulse throbbing in her neck.
“Let’s not worry about them just yet,” said Billy. “Can we agree to do that?”
Kick looked up at him. He was so handsome, so . . . unexpected. “I’ll try,” she said.
Billy smiled and raised his hand to her face. His palm covered her entire cheek, and he cupped her jaw, just as he had at Goodwood. This time he used his thumb to gently stroke her temple.
To better absorb his warmth, the clean scent of his white shirtsleeve, she closed her eyes. It was little more than a blink, but in that fragment of a second he kissed her. His lips held to hers and at last she had confirmation that they were as gentle as she had imagined. Even better was the promise, the sensation as he pulled reluctantly away, that more of this exquisite closeness was in store.
The next ten days were a bizarre mix of parties and races at which people were either looking for a radio to turn on or trying to avoid news altogether. Debo was firmly in the latter camp, as she didn’t want to be reminded of the trouble her older sisters might be getting into, and Kick followed her into it willingly to numb her own worry about what might be happening to Rudi and other innocent people in Hitler’s way. One piece of good news came in a letter from Father O’Flaherty: he and her father had convinced another orphanage in Ireland to open its doors to one hundred children. Billy headed back to Trinity for his final year of university while Kick went on to Frances Dawson’s house in Balado, where everyone drank too much to calm their nerves.
Since she was also in Scotland, Rose summoned Kick to a golf course clubhouse to have lunch and warn her that they might all have to go back to America if Chamberlain didn’t find a way to peace with Hitler. Joe was working around the clock to ensure that wasn’t the outcome, but there were no guarantees. Finally, on September 28, Lord Chamberlain took yet another flight to Munich. This time with France’s Daladier at his side, his purpose was to sit down with Hitler and Mussolini to sign an agreement that would keep Germany from expanding further. They could have Czechoslovakia, but no more. Like everyone else, Kick slept restlessly and felt jumpy all day long.
Two mornings later she woke in her bed at 14 Prince’s Gate for the first time in a month, to the rowdy whoops of her younger brothers downstairs. In her nightgown and robe, she stood at the entrance to the breakfast room. “Well?” she asked Bobby and Teddy.
“Dad and Chamberlain won!” shouted Bobby.
“Hitler signed the agreement?” she asked.
Teddy threw his stuffed bear in the air, and Bobby said, “Yes! There won’t be a war!”
“That’s wonderful news,” said Kick, heaving a long-held sigh of relief. Daddy must be so happy, she thought.
There was celebrating to be done. Even before she’d finished her egg and fruit, the phone rang and it was Debo saying everyone would be at the Café de Paris that night. Kick planned to go to St. Mary’s for a few hours in the afternoon, but at the moment she had the strongest urge to get outside. The sun was shining and there was officially no threat of bombs.
“Let’s go out,” she said to her brothers. “Get a little fresh air, maybe toss a ball around in the park.”
Bobby was all for it, but Teddy complained about his throat again. He was angling to get his tonsils out just so he could eat his weight in ice cream. So Teddy stayed with Luella while Kick and Bobby brought their pigskin football with them to Hyde Park.
Kensington Street was jammed with shoppers spending untold sums of money on all the things they had feared they wouldn’t be able to afford if wartime austerity had hit. Street vendors sold toys and balloons. Children ran and skipped and played tag, and it seemed that many people—usually so reserved in England—stopped to speak to one another, to shake hands and laugh and talk. Bobby spent some of his own pocket money on a honey cake, and Kick bought an apple, and they breathed in the crisp fall air even as they passed signs reading “Gas attack! How to put on your gas mask,” with greenish illustrations of parents and children hidden behind their masks, like actors in some gruesome Saturday matinee. The Kennedys’ own masks were ready and waiting in a closet; their father had seen to that. Bobby peeled off one such poster and balled it up. “No need for those now,” he said.
In the park, they passed air-raid trenches ringed by enormous piles of brown earth. No one was digging deeper that day, but the trenches were patrolled by armed guards in military uniforms carrying long firearms. They were a blight on Kick’s mood. Why were the trenches being protected? Why not let children climb the mounds of dirt, or throw pennies for wishes into the pits? Or fill them back up again? She wished they would just disappear and someone would plant more of that luscious English lawn on top. No one would even remember them come next spring.
Out of sight of the trenches and other signs of war, Kick and Bobby threw their American football back and forth. They were joined by some other boys about Bobby’s age who asked why their rugby ball was so large, and Bobby laughed and explained the sport to which their ball belonged. Then some other boys and even a few intrepid girls joined in, and soon a game had begun, a kind of rugby-football hybrid they invented as they went along. It felt good to exert herself, to get dirty and a little scuffed on the knees and elbows. For a moment, Kick almost felt transported to Hyannis Port, to summer, to a time before she knew rugby, knew England, before she’d fallen in love with London and had to fear losing it.