The Kennedy Debutante

by Kerri Maher

  Everyone howled with laughter, even Billy and Bertrand himself. Sissy was so surprised by Kick’s boldness, she covered her mouth and nose to avoid losing her drink in a most unladylike manner.

  David stood and held out his hand with an admiring and amused expression. “May I have this first dance, Kick?”

  Resting her hand gratefully in his, she said, “Thank heaven there are none of those beastly dance cards here! I hate the falseness of it all.”

  They shimmied onto the dance floor to an up-tempo “Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen” sung by a sultry blonde with a big voice. To Kick’s delight, the band never let up. “Nice Work If You Can Get It,” “Goodnight, My Love,” and “Sing, Sing, Sing.” She danced to every song. Unexpectedly, Bertrand was the best dancer of all the men in their party, and he lifted and twisted her almost as well as if he’d taken lessons at the Cotton Club.

  The last to ask her was Billy Hartington. Since she hadn’t returned to the table where he’d been sitting for more than an hour, she’d forgotten that he was one of their company altogether. Then suddenly he was there for “Thanks for the Memory,” standing an arm’s width from her and silently offering his upturned hand, with his other arm genteelly behind his back. She hadn’t been able to tell from his posture at the table, but Billy was enormously tall. At least a foot taller than she was, even at a stoop. As soon as he straightened up, she found herself with her face in his chest—and she was wearing her highest-heeled shoes!

  It was a slower number, so they moved over the dance floor close together, though Billy kept a firm and respectful three inches between their bodies at all times, which was a good thing because it was already hard enough to crane her neck back in order to look at his face and make small talk. If they’d been any closer, she’d have constantly bumped his chin with the crown of her head. She laughed to herself—they must look absurd together. A few bars of music floated by before he said in a low voice that was almost a hum, “You’re a wonderful dancer, Kathleen.” He had to drop his head down to say it.

  “Kick, please. Call me Kick.”

  “Ah yes, your nickname. It suits you. And you certainly gave a firm kick to Bertrand.”

  “It doesn’t seem to have done him any harm.”

  “To the contrary. I think he needs many firm kicks a day.”

  “Are you usually the one to deliver them?”

  “I don’t see much of him, really. He’s more Andrew’s friend.”

  Recalling what she’d read about Billy, and what Debo had gushed about Andrew’s family, Kick asked, “You’re all at Cambridge together?”

  Billy nodded, then said, “We’re both at Trinity, though we generally run in different circles. Andrew is more . . .” She could tell he was searching for a way to phrase something that wouldn’t offend her, so she helped him out.

  “He has more friends who need a good kick?”

  He laughed. “That’s one way to put it.”

  “Why are you out tonight with them, then?”

  “Sheer boredom,” he said, though it sounded a little like a joke. She couldn’t quite tell, and that intrigued her. Then he went on, “And my father encouraged me to get out and ‘have a look at the debs, William.’”

  Kick laughed at his gruff impersonation of his father, the Duke of Devonshire, who she happened to know was one of the few important men in London who had not yet invited her father for any social event, as he was infamously anti-Catholic. She took a private pleasure in knowing how such a father might feel if he knew his son was dancing with a Kennedy.

  “Well, I hope no one had to suggest you ask me to dance,” said Kick.

  “No, no,” he replied. “No one would have to do that.”

  At that, he pulled her the tiniest bit closer, so that she might have rested her cheek on the lapel of his black dinner jacket, had she been so inclined. He smelled of cedar and mint, mixed with a faint yeastiness from the champagne. She was starting to like his height; though it made for somewhat awkward dancing, she felt well supported.

  When the song ended he released her, and the bandleader said to the crowd, “I think it’s about time for a Big Apple!” There were whoops and crows of appreciation, none louder than Kick’s, for the Big Apple was her favorite dance. With everyone in a circle going round and round and in and out, it was easy and buoyant like ring-around-the-rosy, but with a jive. A childhood favorite made adult but without any of adulthood’s complications.

  After that, panting, she needed to rest.

  Around four in the morning, the boys ordered eggs and sausages and toast and coffee, and one final bottle of champagne to mix with orange juice, all of which was “to right the wrongs of the last hours,” as Andrew put it. It sounded heavenly to Kick, who’d worked up quite an appetite on the dance floor, but she knew she needed to get home soon. Her mother rarely rose before seven, but Kick didn’t want to risk coming in later than six and jeopardize the possibility of another evening like this. She would give herself twenty more minutes.

  Thankfully, the food arrived quickly. Their party set upon it like ravenous animals, even refined Jane, and no one said much of anything until Billy accepted a copy of the Times. Sissy asked for the society pages, then spread them out among the five girls. Kick flushed when she saw how much text was devoted to her—it was one thing to read these sorts of articles and make comparisons to what they said about your friends in the privacy of your own home, but quite another to do it with them. She felt flattered but embarrassed, and didn’t know what to say.

  But Jean, Debo, and Jane had the good grace not to mention how much of the column was devoted to Kick and Rosemary and their mother, the invading Irish American horde, as Kick sometimes liked to think of her little clan. Instead, she and her friends shared the glory, pointing out complimentary lines about each of them throughout the pages, laughing, and remembering the day before as if it had happened to them all exactly the same way, down to the details about misfastened trains and pinched toes, generous looks from the queen, and toasts made in their honor.

  But of course it hadn’t happened the same for all of them—Rosemary! Kick’s heart froze with fear when she remembered her sister’s stumble. She stopped twittering with her girlfriends long enough to scan everything for mentions of her sister’s blunder. Nothing, she thought, and sighed with enormous relief. It did pay to have a father who was a maestro with the press, and she felt so grateful for him in that moment, not just for protecting their family but also for allowing her to go out that evening. She didn’t want to disappoint him, and she’d already overstayed her planned twenty minutes by another ten.

  Standing up, she brushed a few crumbs from her white dress and said, “It’s time I hailed a taxi.”

  “Me, too,” said Debo, rising to join Kick.

  Jane, Sissy, and Jean also got up, and Jane said, “Let’s make it a fivesome. None of us are far from the others.”

  The boys looked up from their sport and political pages, and Bertrand said, “Tallyho, ladies. Congratulations on becoming the latest batch of royal leeches.”

  Kick curtsied low. “You are too kind, sir.”

  Billy smirked, and their eyes met briefly before she and her girlfriends got their coats and went out into the blinding London dawn.

  CHAPTER 3

  The more she thought about it, the more Bertrand’s comments about her bringing biscuits to orphans got under her skin. The season had made it impossible for Kick to do anything but the most cursory of charity work, and if there was one thing the nuns had instilled in her, it was that God loved those who were poor, or who helped the poor. Maybe she couldn’t solve any grand problems in the world like her father, but she could at least do her part.

  But even resolving to do more good works, and hitting on a possible location for such work after reading in the Catholic bulletin that St. Mary’s church near Sloane Square was in need of help, didn’t entir
ely salve the rash left by Bertrand’s remark. Of course, Kathleen Kennedy! Bringer of biscuits to orphans and American style to stodgy British tea parties . . .

  Rising early a few days after her debut, Kick dressed in a simple brown flannel skirt and jacket with a black cloche hat, and presented herself to her mother, who was sitting at her writing desk with a stack of letters to be answered on the fine stationery she’d ordered with the family name engraved at the top. Without her siblings’ usual noise, arguing over who got the last roll or whether the Red Sox would win, the house was so quiet, she could hear the tick of the grandfather clock in the hall. Bobby and Teddy had set off for school in a taxi early that morning, Rosemary was at her Montessori teacher academy, and Jean and Pat and Eunice were ensconced in the convent school at Roehampton, a few miles west of the city. Though Eunice was little more than a year younger than Kick, she was happy to be out of the social fray, her debutante season planned for the following year. We’re so different, Euny and I, thought Kick. At sixteen, she’d have been champing at the bit to get out of the convent and into a ball gown.

  While she waited for her mother’s attention, Kick again inspected Rose’s decor choices. In the two short months since their arrival, Rose had redecorated the drawing room, dining room, library, and several of the bedrooms, banishing the shabby drapes and frayed Queen Anne chairs and bringing in freshly upholstered and refinished antique tables and chairs, and brand-new curtains and works of art. Tactfully, she’d left a few of the paintings and sculptures that had been selected by previous ambassadors and the Morgan family, who’d occupied the house before the American government. Like the editors of Vogue and Harper’s who’d so often lauded her mother’s fashion sense in everything from shoes to sofas, Kick admired the chic patina Rose had given 14 Prince’s Gate, but occasionally she mourned the genuinely storied quality of the place as they’d found it back in March. She was completely happy for her father’s most modern of additions, however: a movie theater downstairs, where he planned to woo the aristocracy with the latest and greatest in Hollywood glamour. “Everyone wants to be in on the next big thing,” he’d said.

  Kick cleared her throat and waited for her mother to look up. At least a minute ticked by before Rose swiveled around in her seat. “Yes, Kathleen? You’re looking rather plain this morning.”

  Exactly, Kick wanted to reply, but thought better of it. “I’d like to do some volunteer work, Mother. Sister Agatha used to say that charity was our work for God on this earth, and I’ve been feeling . . . disconnected from him lately.”

  “That’s very noble, Kathleen,” said Rose approvingly. Kick felt her heart expand a bit in her chest. Her mother went on, “I’m sure I could arrange for you to take more of a role at Brompton Oratory, perhaps organizing a luncheon? Oh!” She snapped her fingers as she thought of it. “I know the perfect thing. Ann de Trafford’s mother was looking for someone to assemble an event for Cardinal . . .”

  As her mother went on, laying out yet another plan for inserting the Kennedy name into a grand event, Kick felt deflated. This wasn’t at all what she had in mind. And not just because hosting a luncheon for the cardinal wasn’t exactly good work, but because she could still hear Bertrand’s sarcasm echoing in her ears. Of course, Kathleen Kennedy! It was too true: Kathleen Kennedy would do her mother’s bidding and arrange lunch for the cardinal. Just as she had delivered those biscuits and posed for hundreds of cameras in outfits of her mother’s impeccable choosing. Kick wanted to see what she could do at St. Mary’s.

  When her mother finished, Kick said, “I had something a bit different in mind.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes . . . see,” she stammered. She never stammered. Don’t be ridiculous, she told herself, taking a breath and trying to go on with more confidence. “I read that St. Mary’s in Sloane Square needed some help, and I thought I’d offer my services.”

  “What do they need?”

  “I . . . I thought I’d go and find out.”

  Rose sighed heavily. “Kathleen.” She shook her head. “Your heart is in the right place, but organizing events for heads of state and heads of the church is really more your style, isn’t it? Go ahead and find out what St. Mary’s needs—write them a letter, and then I’ll send them whatever funds they require.”

  Kick opened her mouth and then closed it. She wasn’t even sure how to reply. Of course, Kathleen Kennedy!

  “Tell Ann’s mother I’d be happy to help with the lunch for the cardinal,” Kick said sweetly. As soon as the words were out, she ground her molars together.

  Rose smiled and nodded, then turned back to her letters.

  Kick grabbed her coat and quietly slipped out the front door. Everything she’d ever done was for the greater glory of God, Joseph and Rose Kennedy, and their sons. Even being a debutante, when it came right down to it. Oh, it was all well and good when something they wanted aligned with something she wanted; then at least she could enjoy the work more than those endless hours of prayer on her knees, or writing essays about the saints. Was it so wrong to want to do something by herself? Without their blessing?

  No, she told herself emphatically. But then she recalled her mother’s expression a few moments ago and felt a pang of guilt. Well, what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her, she resolved, tugging her gloves down on her hands.

  In the damp spring air, she headed for the Underground. She hadn’t ridden the tube yet, as her mother and father insisted on taxis, claiming they were far safer, but every time Kick heard the trains vibrate in her ears and chest, it was like they were calling to her. They were such an essential part of London, and she had fallen so hopelessly, madly in love with the city that she was determined to experience as much of it as she could.

  Since she’d never been in love before, she hadn’t immediately recognized the free-fall sensation whenever she found herself, say, at the base of Big Ben, following with her eyes its spiked, neo-Gothic ascent into a clear blue sky, as Parliament unfurled like a scroll to her left. Or chasing Bobby and Teddy through the Tower of London, occasionally feeling an amazed chill, as if the headless ghost of Anne Boleyn had just shivered through her. Then she began to recognize the way her heart filled with a wanton need for more, more, more of the dizzy— yes, even ardent—way the city made her feel.

  Despite the reporters that followed her around, jostling each other for the best shots of her and her siblings, it was an intimate romance. She found the accents irresistible, even though she knew Jack and Joe Jr. would tease her mercilessly if she ever admitted it. She might have tripped on the uneven cobblestones at Covent Garden and had to hold her purse close, but she laughed heartily at the ragged performers who entertained clutches of onlookers with scenes from Shakespeare or Cole Porter for a few shillings. And while New York and Boston offered similar distractions, she came to feel that so much of what she’d loved in those cities were mere facsimiles of what had long existed in London. Here was the original, the genuine article. Even what was new and innovative in the big cities of America, like the skyscrapers reaching ever upward, suddenly seemed as though they were trying too hard to compete with everything they could never have.

  Not wanting to appear helpless in the tube station, Kick had already studied a colorful Underground map she’d purchased at the newsagent the day before. St. Mary’s wasn’t far from Knightsbridge, but because of the way the train lines ran, she’d have to travel two sides of a triangle to get there, taking the Piccadilly line to South Kensington, then changing to the Circle or District line one stop to Sloane Square.

  As Kick descended the long staircase below the streets, her pulse quickened with excitement. Intermingling with the familiar sound of engines and brakes, male voices called out station names and the shuffle of hundreds of shoes hurried to and fro. The station smelled of damp wool and tobacco smoke. The streams of people thickened as she pressed deeper into the station, and she found she had to brace hersel
f against the rush in order to stand still and read the signs telling her which way to go. By the time she stood on the correct platform, she was out of breath. Gazing down into the wide trough where the tracks lay gave her a zingy thrill of vertigo.

  Unlike what her parents had led her to believe, most of her fellow passengers were neatly dressed in tweeds and overcoats, holding leather handbags or briefcases. Reading newspapers. A few schoolchildren ate apples or candy bars as they shuffled impatiently beside their mothers. This was a working crowd, Kick surmised, going about their daily business. As am I, she said to herself as she stepped onto the train. There wasn’t room to sit, so she grasped a cool metal pole, though she still lost her balance and nearly fell over when the train lurched to a start. She held on tighter, then found herself swaying with the other passengers as the train moved. It was the first time in ages she had felt carried away by something, part of something, that had nothing to do with her family, and she loved it.

  St. Mary’s was far smaller than Brompton Oratory, the grand, domed neoclassical church her parents favored. With its brick facade, peaked roof, and small turret, St. Mary’s looked like a chapel from the countryside plunked down in the city. She was too late for the morning mass, which was far earlier than the one offered at the Oratory, and when she arrived, people were filing out of the doors into the warm morning. She entered the cool interior and, after blessing herself with holy water, knelt on a wooden pew under an arch and said three Hail Marys, asking for strength in the back of her mind. By the time she finished, it was silent.

  To find someone to speak to, she had to exit the building and walk around the outside to find a door that looked promising. She knocked at a heavy wooden one labeled Rectory.

  A plump middle-aged woman with ruddy cheeks answered the door with a frown. “Hello,” said Kick. “I read in the bulletin that you’re looking for some help in the church?”

  The woman huffed and in an Irish accent asked, “Your name, miss?”