Page 7 of The Gathering Storm (Morland Dynasty #36)
‘Corfu. Marina Kent knows someone who has a villa there with kumquat trees. An elderly grand duchess, I believe – some half-Russian second-cousin in exile. She makes it to earn pocket-money. Or possibly gin-money. You know what these exiled royalties are. Anyway, strings have to be pulled to get it to me via Athens. They smuggle it in the diplomatic bag.’
‘I had no idea it was a politically sensitive preserve. Naturally I shall stop eating it forthwith.’
‘Oh, you know I can’t deny you anything,’ he said, but all the same, he took the toast from her and began to crunch it himself.
Philosophically Emma selected another slice from the toast rack, buttered it, and reached for the honey. ‘You were late last night,’ she observed. ‘Good dinner?’
‘Rather,’ Kit said automatically, but then his eyes flew open.
‘Yes, actually, I have things to tell you. Tremendous goings-on – prepare to be amazed! Dinner at Quaglino’s, and Belmont and I had just tottered round to the club for a settler when in came Eddie Vibart.
He’d been equerrying at York House and he was simply bursting with news.
It seems Ernest Simpson went there for dinner with the King.
He took his pal Rickatson-Hatt with him—’
‘The Reuters man?’
‘The very same – and when they’d finished, Simpson says he wants a serious word with HM. So Rickatson-Hatt says, “Point taken, old horse, I’ll stagger off and leave you to it.”’
‘I’m sure he didn’t say it like that. He picked up frightful American slang when he worked in New York, so he’d have been more likely to say—’
‘Hush, don’t interrupt. This is my story!
Where was I? Oh, yes – Hattie proposes to imitate a hoop and bowl away, but Simpson says, “Hold on, old thing, I’d rather you stayed,” and gives him a look that says as clear as day, I need a witness .
Naturally, Eddie is all agog, thinking the Simp is going to slap the King’s face with a glove and challenge him to defend his honour. ’
Emma, who always enjoyed his style, said, ‘He didn’t, of course?’
‘Well, naturally not, but it wasn’t far short.
You see – I have to backtrack a bit – Simpson recently applied to join the same Masonic lodge as the King, and Sir Maurice Jenks, who’s the lodge president, turned him down.
When the King – who had rather encouraged Simpson to apply in the first place, d’you see?
– demanded to know why, Jenks said it was against Masonic law to have a cuckolded husband as a member. ’
‘Oh dear.’
‘Yes, rather an “off with his head” moment! But the King then told him – Jenks – that his relationship with Mrs S is purely platonic, so Jenks had to let Simpson in. A mason can’t call a fellow mason a liar.
Of course, the story’s got about and no-one believes a word of it, and now it’s got back to Simpson that everyone in London is sniggering about the whole thing. ’
‘One can’t but feel sorry for him,’ Emma said. ‘Go on.’
‘Hence the little tête-à-tête,’ Kit continued.
‘Simpson feels things have come to a head. It’s bad enough that the King is openly running around London with a fellow’s wife and lavishing her with jewels, but when people start mocking a fellow on that account, he can’t ignore it any longer.
He tells HM, man to man, that dear Wally will have to choose between them, and asks what his intentions are: does he mean to marry her? ’
‘ He didn’t! ’ Emma was appalled.
‘But he did! And here’s the thing, Oh best beloved – you’d think the King would um and er about it and generally look a bit shifty, but in fact he stares Simpson straight in the eye and says he wouldn’t dream of being crowned without Mrs S being crowned beside him as his wife and queen!
Says it right out, with Rickatson-Hatt as an independent witness – and him a pressman into the bargain!
Poor Eddie almost choked on his own tongue, trying not to intervene. ’
‘My God! But David can’t be serious,’ Emma said.
‘I’m rather afraid he might be. He’s absolutely obsessed with her.’
‘But surely he can’t imagine it could ever happen? What did Simpson say?’
‘He said in that case, he would do the decent thing and let Mrs S divorce him, provided the King swore to take care of her. What d’you think of that?’
‘I’m aghast. It’s going cause terrible complications if the King really starts talking about marriage.’
‘Delicious, isn’t it? Just like a penny novelette.’
‘Except that it’s really rather serious,’ Emma said reprovingly.
Kit took her hand and kissed it. ‘I know, darling. But one can’t help seeing the funny side as well. The Hardinges and Wigrams and Halseys at the Palace – all the old guard – are going to be so very, very upset! They’re unhappy with the King already.’
‘Because he’s difficult and stubborn and rude?’
‘His father was all those things. They rather expect it of a monarch. No, what they can’t stand is the absence of any sense of duty.
Obstinacy without a purpose. I must say,’ he added, ‘that with all her faults, Wally gets more out of him than anyone else. If she were allowed to stay in the background and pull his strings, we might get a better king for it.’
‘But this talk of marriage has got to stop,’ Emma said firmly.
‘Obviously. Eddie will say something to HM when the opportunity arises, for what good that will do. Everything goes in one ear and out the other – there being so little in between to stop it. But it’s going to complicate things considerably if Simpson goes ahead with the divorce and Wally becomes available.
Our best defence will be gone.’ He glanced at the clock on the overmantel.
‘Talking of being gone, I must get dressed. Are you in for dinner tonight?’
‘I am – are you?’
‘I shall make a point of it. Isn’t it wonderful that court mourning means there are no heavy engagements?
We can have a comfortable coze together – and I’d like to go over your plans for Macklin Street with you.
I’ve had a very clever idea for how to arrange the kitchen, bathroom and coal bunker. Come, dogs!’
And he was gone in a swirl of colour.
As it happened, Kitsy Brownlow chucked at the last moment, so Emma lunched with Mipsy Oglander alone.
Mipsy was another Baltimore Belle and had known Wally Simpson all her life, but she seemed not to have heard the latest story – at least, she never mentioned it, and Mipsy was in the habit of mentioning everything – so Emma avoided the subject altogether and talked, when she could get a word in, only about Macklin Street.
Mipsy seemed quite receptive, and Emma was quite hopeful of getting a commitment from her, when Mipsy suddenly noticed the time and exclaimed that she had a ‘facial’ appointment and would have to dash.
Emma said lunch was on her (it never hurt to impose a small obligation) and was waiting for the bill to arrive when her name was called in a loud, harsh voice, and Mrs Simpson came striding towards her, trailing restaurant staff like a magnet trailing pins.
‘Emma, just the person I wanted to see!’ she exclaimed.
She snapped her fingers without looking and one of the waiters darted in to pull out a chair for her.
‘Bring me a ham omelette and a salad. And a glass of seltzer. No, make it a glass of champagne,’ she said.
‘Put it on Lady Westerham’s check.’ She met Emma’s eye, raised an eyebrow, and said, ‘I left my pocket-book at the flat. I figured a friend could sock a girl a lunch once in a while.’
Emma nodded assent to the waiter and he went away.
Mrs Simpson loosened her fur, emitting a waft of expensive perfume, and said, ‘I’m beat.
David’s been taking me over Buckingham Palace all morning.
’ Her hard eyes raked Emma as she spoke, cataloguing her looks and her clothes.
Emma knew herself pretty in a fresh-faced, curly-haired way, and young for her years – she had just turned forty.
Wally had never had beauty, making up for it with style and vivacity, but she looked her age.
There were diamonds at her ears and wrists, and her small, close hat was secured by an amusing diamond arrow, but despite their sparkle, Emma thought she looked tired, and not at all well, her skin pouchy and a bad colour.
Her red lipstick only emphasised her pallor.
‘You’re not lunching alone?’ Wally demanded.
‘I’ve just finished,’ said Emma. ‘Mipsy was here – she had to dash away.’
‘Oh, Mipsy. Haven’t seen her in a while,’ Wally said dismissively, and reverted to her own affairs.
‘Buckingham Palace is simply ghastly. It’s a mausoleum.
Dusty crimson velvet, gloomy old paintings and heavy furniture.
David and I agreed there’s nothing worth saving.
We’re going to strip everything out and do it up from top to bottom.
Light colours, modern furniture, bright drapes, new carpets, everything.
Open the place up and blow some fresh air through it.
And here’s the thing,’ She leaned forward slightly. ‘I’d like to offer you the job.’
Emma was shocked, not so much that Wally had no taste for Victorian interiors, but at her use of the word ‘I’ in that sentence. She thought for an instant of what Kit would say. ‘It’s kind of you to ask me,’ she said, ‘but—’
‘Now, Emma, at least think about it before you say no. I liked what you did with Veronica’s house. Very fresh. And didn’t you do the Talbot-Manners place as well? You have just the sort of light, modern touch we want. And this will be a major, major project.’
Now Emma laughed. ‘I don’t want a major, major project, thank you. I haven’t time.’
‘Your name would be associated with the interior, right down through history, like all those Nashes and Adamses and Scotts. It would absolutely make you!’
‘I don’t want to be made. I’m quite happy – and very busy – with my Weston Trust buildings.’