Page 72 of An Invitation to the Kennedys

‘You will if you think about it,’ Doris insisted, almost kindly.‘For you are not at all stupid.Everything starts somewhere.Bad deeds begin with vicious thoughts and foolish words.’

‘But …’ Duff was still wrestling with the implications when the ambassador interrupted.

‘It is not at all the same thing.’He looked appalled.

‘It is exactly the same thing,’ Doris said, giving him a level look.

As though released from a binding spell, Chips swept in then, quickly, with something soothing: ‘Honor, didn’t you say that you didn’t think much ofThese Foolish Things, at the Palladium?’

‘Indeed,’ Honor said quickly.‘For all that the reviews were good, I didn’t care for it at all …’

‘How disappointing,’ Maureen said.‘We also heard good things.’Conversation was eagerly joined as everyone threw themselves into discussing shows they’d seen – which had been good, which poor.Even Elizabeth ventured an opinion that was neither confrontational nor inflammatory.The girls, Brigid and Kick, looked upset; both their faces were stiff, even as they tried to join in, keep the conversation moving, all to try and cover the bare spot where Duff’s remark and Doris’ response still lingered.

We are like cats, carefully kicking dirt over a mess, Maureen thought.Only it is not fastidiousness that makes us, but fear.‘If only this infernal rain would stop,’ she said.

But it was worth it, she told herself, watching Rose sit close beside her husband.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Kick

‘How I wish we’d never started that.’Kick was in the hallway.She pulled open the side door and looked out.The garden smelled of earth and wet grass and the scent of flowers dragged down to the ground rather than released upon the air.Heavy and dense.

‘It did rather backfire,’ Brigid agreed.‘I thought we’d play a trick on them, scare them a little bit …’

Kick thought about their feeble efforts to set the scene for a haunting, how eagerly everyone had joined in, and the horrid turn it had taken.‘If ever a plan misfired …’ she agreed.

‘I never imagined there would be anything so awful as actual dead schoolgirls.’

‘How quickly it turned nasty.And only Doris was brave enough to speak out.’

‘She made it worse,’ Brigid said.

‘Not for me, she didn’t.It is hard to be despised, not for anything you’ve done, but merely for what youare.’

‘No one could despise you,’ Brigid said.She said it vaguely, the way one might reach out and pet a cat or dog, because it was there.

‘Diana Mitford said she admired the way I was so open about my religion,’ Kick said.

‘Did she?She can’t possibly have meant it.’

‘Why not?’Kick was inclined to bristle.

‘Darling, it’s simply impossible, that’s all.Diana, of all people …’ Brigid laughed.‘But you must be very flattered that she bothered to say anything of the sort.’

‘Must I?’Kick asked shortly.

‘Why do grown-ups dislike and disapprove of so very many things?’Brigid asked thoughtfully.‘I can’t think of a thing I dislike – except for tapioca, and it really isn’t the same.Do you think you gather hatred as you age, the way a rose grows hard, gnarled thorns so that you can tell how old a bush is by the viciousness of the thorns?’

‘Let’s never be like that.’

‘I should think not!’Brigid said with energy.

‘Like what?’It was Fritzi, who had come up behind them in the hallway.

‘Like them.’Kick jerked her head back towards the drawing room.‘Like our parents.’

‘My parents aren’t here.’