Page 79 of An Invitation to the Kennedys

‘But why?’Elizabeth asked, opening her eyes wider than ever.‘Why?’

‘I don’t know.Because they like him?’

Elizabeth waved the idea away.‘Don’t be silly.He’s hardly the most fascinating company, is he?Hardly a wit.’

‘Well, then, because he is a prince?’

‘I thought of that.And it almost holds water – with Chips certainly, it could – but no.It’s not enough.He has something.Something they want.I feel it.I just don’t know what it could be …’

‘Well, do tell me if you find out,’ Honor said, deliberately sarcastic, and went back to her book.

‘I certainly will,’ Elizabeth said with dignity.‘It is the least I can do when you have been so kind as to invite me and lend me your clothes.’

Honor felt bad.Was she become so surly that even Elizabeth – careless, reckless Elizabeth – put her to shame?

Chapter Forty-One

Doris

The girls’ trick, their ghost story and its aftermath, had changed something, Doris could feel it.Something had shifted in the air between all of them.The ambassador and Rose had withdrawn.They were far too polished to make it obvious – indeed, were as polite as ever – but the willingness they had shown to be drawn into this group was gone.Both avoided Duff now, who allowed them to, making no effort to regain the ground he’d lost, while Chips flitted almost awkwardly between the two.He was like a bird building a nest, Doris thought, moving swiftly back and forth with a twig or piece of grass in its beak.

With Doris, however, they were a little more warm.After dinner, Rose patted the seat beside her and, when Doris had sat down, asked her a great many questions about Dorset, almost none of which Doris could answer because they were so precise: did the temperature differ from London, and how?How many men worked in her father’s quarries?When the men joined them, Rose got up to offer her place to her husband, saying she must ring for water: ‘It’s the only drink they don’t bring,’ she complained.

‘I hope you aren’t going to ask me about Dorset’s micro-climate,’ Doris said with a laugh, leaning back.‘Your wife knows far more about it than I do.’

‘I won’t,’ he assured her.‘I don’t imagine you came here to talk about that.’

‘We’re back to that, are we?’

‘Only if you wish to be,’ he said urbanely, settling his back against the sofa and swirling the ice cubes in his whiskey glass.

‘Well, perhaps you’re right … You know,’ she dropped her voice, ‘I was asked to come here.’

‘I thought you might have been.Who by?’

‘That I can’t tell you.’

‘Well then, why?’

‘I can’t tell you that either – or not much.I can tell you that you were one of the reasons.’

‘I thought that too.’How complacent he sounded.What was it his daughter called him, affectionately?The most popular girl at the dance.The man everyone needed.

‘I came because they asked me.But I came for my own reasons too.You have just been appointed as chairman of the Evian Commission, haven’t you?’

‘Vice chairman, but how did you know?The news is barely announced.’

‘Never mind that.’She put a hand on his arm.‘So now you are the man who decides which refugees will find new homes outside Germany, and which will not.’

‘I am part of a committee…’ he said evasively.

‘All the same.Vice chairman …’ She smiled.‘I hoped I could talk to you about it?’

‘What do you have in mind?’he asked cautiously.

‘Can I tell you about someone I met?A girl, and her family?’

‘In Berlin?’