The Kennedy Debutante

by Kerri Maher

  Hail Mary, full of grace, please make me graceful today. Just for the next five minutes, at least. And Rosemary, too!

  To steady herself, she put her nose to her wrist and inhaled the Vol de Nuit, her first adult perfume, which her mother had bought for her on their last trip to Paris. After an exhausting day of fittings and painful facials, Rosemary had retired to the hotel for a nap, and Rose had strolled with Kick down the Champs-Élysées to the Guerlain store. “It’s time you had a woman’s scent,” she said, handing Kick a square bottle with a propeller design molded into the glass and VOL DE NUIT engraved in a circle at the center. “The name means ‘night flight.’ It’s popular, but not common, bold but still refined. I think it suits you.” Kick had lifted the stopper, which produced a pleasing ring as it scraped against the glass, and let a tiny golden drop fall on her wrist. It smelled surprisingly sophisticated, not at all flowery and girlie. “Wonderful, isn’t it?” Rose had prompted. Kick nodded eagerly and felt tears needle her eyes. For a moment, she believed her mother had seen her and loved what she saw. And though she didn’t say it, Kick relished the idea that night, with all its forbidden pleasures and promises, should be so featured on the bottle. Throwing her arms around her mother, she exclaimed, “I love it! Thank you.”

  Time to fly, she told herself now.

  It was almost her turn to curtsy before the king and queen, and her hands were so slick with sweat inside the white gloves, Kick thought for sure she’d lose her grip on the little bouquet she was holding. Meanwhile, Rosemary’s eyes were closed and Luella, the family nurse, was running her hand soothingly over Rosemary’s arm because Rose herself had to stand in the audience with Joe, the only man in the room not wearing the traditional knee britches because, with characteristic obstinacy, he’d refused on account of his knock-knees. Kick thought her father should have worn the ridiculous short pants anyway, out of respect for the country with which he was supposed to be forming close ties, especially with so many uncertainties brewing in Germany. But she wouldn’t have dared tell him so.

  Then it was time. As the king’s attendant called “Kathleen Agnes Kennedy” in his full-throated bass voice, Kick put one foot in front of the other. When she stood before the monarchs—King George, encrusted in medals, and Queen Elizabeth, encrusted in jewels—she lowered her eyes deferentially as she curtsied, then hurried on. Just as Kick completed her relieved escape, her stiff white gown rustling as if in genteel applause, she heard a thump and a gulp and a whispered, mortified “excuse me,” as stifled gasps rose up all around them.

  Kick turned back to see that Rosemary had tripped. In front of the king and queen.

  Her feet suddenly winged, Kick rushed to offer her arm to Rosemary, whose own white hand was on the velvet ground, her long body arched over like a giraffe in a wedding dress. Rosemary smiled gratefully at her sister and miraculously recovered her composure. Then, standing one more unplanned time before the king and queen, Kick lifted her eyes to them and nodded. King George nodded back, and Kick saw a glimmer of understanding in his eye. Well, why should that be so surprising? she asked herself. She began to relax, just a little.

  Reunited in the receiving room after all the debutantes had been presented, Rose bent over carefully under the weight of Lady Bessborough’s diamond-and-platinum tiara, kissed each daughter on the cheek, and simply said, “Marvelous, my darlings. I’m so proud of you both.” Their father stood between them and patted each girl on the back, beaming for the flashing cameras with that confidence he always exuded in public, as if he were Laurence Olivier or Errol Flynn. Rosemary appeared unperturbed by the incident, perhaps because their parents had chosen not to mention it and—as usual—to act as if she were nothing less than perfect. In fact, the conspiratorial silence about her sister’s fall was so absolute, Kick began to wonder if it had actually happened.

  Until later, when her mother clutched the ungloved part of Kick’s upper arm a bit too tightly and whispered in her ear without looking her in the eye, “Thank you, Kathleen.” Kick blushed hot and red at her mother’s gratitude, then saw that her father was there, too, giving Kick a similarly grateful look from behind his round spectacles. She wasn’t sure why she felt so much like she wanted to cry, but with the stiff mask of mascara and rouge on her face, there would be no crying that night, that was for sure. She sniffled back the collecting phlegm and coughed out a “You’re welcome” just before Lady Astor charged toward her, hands in the air, saying, “There you are!” She was wearing pearls and a green gown, and her copious chestnut mane—which was fading to gray, Kick couldn’t help but notice—was pulled gently off her face and secured with pearl combs. She greeted Rose and Joe with kisses on the cheeks, then turned to Kick with a warm smile and effused in her bizarre Anglo-American accent, “Well, if it isn’t the most talked-about debutante in London! I am so glad your father did away with that absurd practice of allowing every American tramp with some money to come to court.”

  Kick glanced at her father, who threw his head back and guffawed at Lady Astor’s crass comment. One of his most controversial decisions in office thus far had been to allow only American girls currently living in England to be presented at court. No more could families sail their daughters across the Atlantic for a season of parties and prestige in London.

  Suddenly it was Kick’s turn to enter into the conversation, and something inside her shifted. She had logged many years practicing the alchemy of spinning nerves into confidence, and pressure—the uncomfortable kind that she’d been feeling for weeks—was a key component of the transformation. How else had she charmed the friends of her whip-smart older brothers? Her parents were depending on her.

  Giving Lady Astor’s hands a strong clasp, Kick cleared her throat and replied with a conspiratorial smile, “Well. You might not say that if you were his daughter.”

  “Is it as bad as all that?”

  “Let’s just say the English press has nothing on the spurned friends from home who’ve written me infuriated letters,” Kick replied.

  “Oh, Kathleen, people will be jealous of you your whole life. It’s about time you get used to it.”

  “That would be a welcome state of being,” Kick replied. “But I wouldn’t want to forget myself or my friends.”

  Lady Astor laughed. “Oh, my dear, you are so young.” Then, turning to Joe and Rose: “Let me have the honor of showing off your lovely daughter.”

  “Of course,” Joe agreed with a generous nod to Lady Astor, and a whispered “Well done” in Kick’s ear. Kick knew she would vanish before his very eyes as soon as Joe Jr. and Jack arrived on break from Harvard, so she savored this warm, rare moment with her father, leaning against his broad chest and inhaling his clean scent, the sandalwood notes in his aftershave.

  With that, Lady Astor steered Kick away from her parents and deeper into the buzzing room. She patted Kick on the forearm and whispered, “By all accounts, you are a success, my dear, but be on your guard always. The serpents lie in wait.” Just as she’d been starting to relax, here was another warning to put the nerves back in her belly. Serpents liked to hide.

  As the evening went on, Nancy, as she instructed Kick to call her, laughed and confided benign secrets about this viscount or that duchess, and Kick imparted a few about her debutante friends. Shortly before dinner, Lady Astor released her into the company of Kick’s favorite of the other debutantes that year. The youngest of the five Mitford sisters to be presented at court, Deborah—or Debo, as everyone called her—had a relaxed, often hilarious attitude toward the whole procedure. The two had become fast friends, trading quips about the ugly hats worn by ancient matrons at a luncheon weeks before, and they’d been seeing a great deal of each other ever since. Lucky for them, the Mitfords’ London house was just around the corner from 14 Prince’s Gate. Kick just wished she didn’t envy her friend’s tiny bones, the delicate arc of her eyebrows, her little nose, and her glistening blond hair, all of whic
h were magnified by the ethereal white dress and dewy makeup she wore that night. Kick knew her own nose was a bit too large and her eyes too deeply set for her to ever be called a great beauty.

  “Having a good time in the lion’s cage?” Debo inquired.

  “The best,” Kick replied. “I feel as though I’ve met the entire cast of Miss Sketch’s column. And now I’m famished.”

  “Only about half of the column,” Debo judged. “Here, have a canapé.” She flagged down a footman with a silver tray of some sort of mousse on crackers, and Kick wolfed down two, then took a third.

  “Is Andrew here?” Kick asked, referring to Andrew Cavendish, the second son of the Duke of Devonshire and their friend Jean Ogilvy’s cousin. Debo had liked him as soon as she’d clapped eyes on him at a party in Cambridge. He was handsome and blond and a bit of a gadabout.

  “No,” Debo lamented and then, deftly shifting the topic, asked, “Did Grande Dame Astor introduce you to anyone fun?”

  “The Duke and Duchess of Kent, the Lancasters, the Grotons . . .”

  “Oh, Kent’s fun, I’ve heard,” Debo said in a warning tone.

  “N-sit?” Kick asked, using one of her favorite London terms, short for “not safe in taxis.” It was almost as fabulous as bloody.

  “Worse,” said Debo.

  Kick was about to ask for clarification when they were approached by a darkly handsome young man of about Jack’s age, who looked like he hadn’t smiled all night. He looked familiar, though, and it drove Kick crazy that she couldn’t immediately put a name to his face.

  “David!” cried Debo warmly, exchanging kisses on each cheek.

  Ah yes, David Ormsby-Gore, thought Kick. Sissy’s boyfriend! She kept a picture of him in a locket in her handbag. You should have remembered something so simple, she told herself, hearing her mother’s voice.

  “David,” said Debo, “I’m sure Sissy’s told you about our friend Kick Kennedy. Kick, this is David Ormsby-Gore.”

  Son of the Baron of Harlech, Kick recited to herself, just to prove she wasn’t a complete failure.

  With a raise of his thick black eyebrows and the twitch of a smile on his lips, David shook Kick’s outstretched hand and said, “Miss Kennedy, it’s a pleasure to meet you at last. What a relief to see that our press has left you in one piece.”

  “In dancing shape, in fact,” she said, determined to find a way to get this dour young man to laugh. “And please, call me Kick. All my friends call me Kick.”

  “Does that mean we are friends . . . Kick?”

  “I don’t see why not,” she said. “Sissy and I are.” And Sissy’s a Catholic, too, so you won’t hold that against me, she didn’t add. She countered David’s stern gaze and held it. A dare.

  Then David Ormsby-Gore shook his head and burst out laughing. “I don’t, either, Kick. Is it really Kick, as in ‘to kick a football’?”

  “Or even a soccer ball,” she replied.

  “Not on our turf,” he replied, faking a terrible American accent. Then, back in his normal voice, he asked, “But seriously. How the deuce did you come by such a nickname?”

  “None of my younger siblings could say ‘Kathleen’,” she told him, not even sure if this was the truth or some sort of Kennedy apocrypha, for she couldn’t remember Pat or Jean trying to say “Kathleen” and failing. She’d just always been Kick. Only her mother and the nuns called her Kathleen.

  It seemed to satisfy David, though. “Charming,” he said, shaking his head in amazement.

  Now that the whole coming-out business was done, Kick could admit that she relished conversations like these. Until England, she’d thought only Jack and Joe Jr. and a few of their friends from Choate and then Harvard treated conversation like a blood sport. But it appeared that everyone in society here did, and as she collected laughs and approving nods, she put them down in her mind as points she was scoring in a new and exhilarating game.

  They were soon joined by Jane and Sissy, then Robert Cecil and Robin Baring, and it was such a relief to finally talk about Cary Grant and Errol Flynn, and Cole Porter records and dancing the Big Apple at the upcoming balls. She saw that David was something of a leader in this set; his opinion mattered just slightly more than anyone else’s. She wondered what it would feel like to be in a position like that, to be more than a middle child in a large family, a Catholic among Protestants, and now an American among the English gentry. To be her own person, worthy of respect on her own terms.

  Close to midnight, when the older guests and dignitaries were starting to drift out of the palace, Debo slid her arm around Kick and leaned in close to breathlessly say, “David’s offered to give us a lift to the 400 tonight. He said to tell our parents there’s a party at Adele Cavendish’s. She’s agreed to be our cover.”

  The 400—at last! Kick and Debo had been trying to go there for weeks, but with chaperones and matronly aunts and worried mothers watching the debutantes so closely, neither of them had been able to figure out how to get there.

  In fact, when Kick scanned the crowd to find her parents, she saw Adele’s husband Charles already chatting with her father. Kick wondered how Charles, not the most handsome or charming of men, had come to marry Fred Astaire’s gorgeous and talented sister Adele, who used to perform with Fred until she became a Cavendish.

  Kick wandered over to them as casually as she could and said hello, though her heart was hammering holes in her ears. She was used to her brothers doing this sort of thing for her at home. Time to take care of yourself.

  “Well, well, if it isn’t my daughter, the star debutante of the evening, if I do say so myself,” said her father.

  “You may always speak the truth, sir,” said Charles generously, sliding an easy arm around Adele as she joined them.

  “You are too kind,” Kick said to Charles; then, turning to her father, she teased, “But you are ridiculous to make such a claim with all these beautiful and clearly superior ladies present.”

  “Such modesty,” Joe marveled, still jesting. Then he clapped his hands together and said, “So! I’ve heard a party is forming.”

  “Adele and I would be honored to have your daughter back to our house for a late supper and some charades, with some of the other young ladies and gentlemen. I know how difficult it is to wind down after a night like tonight, and we’d be very glad of the opportunity to help her settle.”

  “May I, Father?” Kick asked, on her tiptoes to meet his eyes as well as she could. She hoped he couldn’t tell how flushed she was with anticipation.

  “I don’t see why not. You’ve earned some fun,” he said, pressing a meaningful look into her eyes—another reference to helping Rosemary earlier, Kick assumed. Was this the way things worked when you became an older Kennedy? Tit for tat? “And,” Joe went on, “your mother’s already gone home with Rosemary, so she isn’t here to disagree.”

  Kick threw her arms around him. “Thank you, Daddy!”

  And as simple as that, she was in a taxi with Debo, Jane, and Jean heading for the storied nightclub as Big Ben tolled one. The first hour of a new day, Kick thought to herself. And I’m wide-awake to greet it.

  CHAPTER 2

  The roar of jazz and tobacco smoke that hit her when she entered the 400 was so powerful, she nearly fell over in her poufy frock. Seeing the slinky, sparkly gowns of the other women, she wished desperately for a different ensemble, but she supposed that her white dress marked her and her friends as special that night. She would only be a debutante once, and this was a night she intended to remember.

  David led them to a table with Andrew Cavendish—Lucky for Debo!—and three others she’d not yet met. Adele and Charles immediately joined the Duke and Duchess of Kent at another table and blew kisses to Kick and her friends, wishing them a lovely evening and saying they’d see them on the dance floor.

  With its shimmering, low light and smooth s
urfaces, the 400 was the most modern place Kick had been in since leaving New York, and she felt right at home. It reminded her of the clubs Jack and Joe Jr. had smuggled her into uptown in New York, where they would dance well into the night to all the latest tunes by Duke Ellington and their other favorite swing bands.

  The men all stood up when the ladies approached the table encircled by a creamy leather booth, and introductions were made: Bertrand Lewis, James Harris, and Billy Hartington, Andrew’s older brother, who was also the heir of the Duke of Devonshire and one of London’s most eligible bachelors. She’d read in one column that he was on the list of marriage possibilities for the king’s eldest daughter, Elizabeth. Kick had expected him to be more like his brother Andrew, whom she’d met a few times with Debo—outgoing, brash, and entertainingly vulgar at times. But Billy only gave the ladies a half smile as he reclined in the booth.

  Though she’d never met most of this group before, everyone already knew who Kick was, and when Bertrand aggressively slurred, “Of course, Kathleen Kennedy! Bringer of biscuits to orphans and American style to stodgy British tea parties,” Andrew clapped him on the back and said to Kick, “Don’t mind him. His uncle ran off with an American heiress and took the family estate, too.”

  “It’s all the rage,” Bertrand ranted. “Even King Edward was not immune to the charms of your kind.” He puffed on his cigarette and stared Kick down.

  She laughed it off. She was no Wallis Simpson, and no spoiled English undergrad was going to ruin her evening. For the first time since arriving in England—since graduating from Sacred Heart, in fact—she felt completely unshackled. Swiping a full flute of champagne off the table, she raised it at Bertrand and said, “You forget I’m a papist, too. And Irish. A triple threat.” Then she took a long and satisfying drink of champagne.