The Kennedy Debutante

by Kerri Maher

“The famous Kick optimism.”

  “Speaking of which, I want you to know it’s my New Year’s resolution to find a solution to our dilemma as soon as possible. That word, wife, you said on the phone, is still ringing in my ears.”

  Billy smiled and kissed her. “Good.” He kissed her again. “And I love your gift this year,” he said, patting the pocket where he kept his new handkerchiefs, one embroidered with his initials, the other with hers. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get you more than stationery,” he said, “but there’s hardly any shopping by the base, and I like to be able to pick things out myself. And anyway, Mum was so excited about her gift, I wanted to let it have center stage.”

  “I love your gift,” she said, because she did—the paper was so luxurious and velvety, with her name embossed at the top in a rich burgundy. “Paper like that is impossible to come by. Who’d you kill to get it?”

  Billy waggled his eyebrows like a matinee movie villain, then put his hand behind her head and pulled her in for a long kiss that ended all conversation for the evening.

  WINTER 1944

  Two things. All life—a life rich with laughter, tradition, conversation, celebrations, and even grief that made joy all the sweeter—now balanced precariously on the twin heads of two spinning tops.

  War and love.

  Love and war.

  England was nearly ready for the promised invasion of France. Revenge. He couldn’t wait, and he was ready. Gruelingly, his body had changed for it. His mind, too. In his dreams, he still heard the screams and saw the limbs in the matted leaves. Heard the tanks. Sometimes he’d wake up sweating but cold. Sometimes, still dreaming, he’d feel the Baby Austin roar to life beneath him and carry him away. Sometimes it flew, carried on the wind by winged horses.

  Had we but world enough, and time . . .

  He would never try to bed his love like Andrew Marvell, but he felt the poet’s urgency. He couldn’t help but feel selfish in this regard. He had pined for her so long, eschewing others. If he was going to war, he wanted to go to it a man, knowing what men knew of love. Real love. Since he’d become an adult in name only, there had been a few girls (fewer than he could count on one hand) who’d offered themselves to him, but he hadn’t found true pleasure with them. The release was purely physical and left him empty. Like Marvell, he wanted to be the wooer. That was part of Kick’s appeal. She didn’t need him, or want him because he was William John Robert Cavendish, Marquess of Hartington. Unlike any other woman he knew, she could have anyone. There was real accomplishment in winning Kick. And there was love and backbone, too. He believed in his soul that if she loved him in return, if she agreed to be his, her vitality would make him keener, braver, tougher.

  Love and war. War and love. If he could master them both, he could die complete. And if he didn’t die . . . well, then, who knew what else was possible? He thought of his niece’s tiny fingers coiled around his, the way her touch had sent an unexpected tremor through his chest. He’d never thought of himself much as a father, but his brother’s child made him picture it. Made him want ten of her wrapping their fingers around his. He’d allowed himself to think enough about life after the war to know that he’d need something to replace the war in his heart and mind. Children. The smiling faces on the next generation of Cavendishes (and Kennedys, since God must be a comedian as much as a righter of wrongs) were the only images that could replace the one of him marching into enemy camps and enjoying their sniveling surrender.

  But first there was love. No small task. He wanted Kick, and she would not simply give him what he wanted. He would have to be careful. Play his cards right.

  But at my back I always hear

  Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near;

  And yonder all before us lie

  Deserts of vast eternity.

  PART 5

  WINTER 1944

  CHAPTER 30

  Kick prayed every night that the promising start of 1944 was a sign of more good things to come. Before the end of January she was ensconced in a London flat of her very own. After much convincing, her mother and father had finally agreed that sharing a room with strangers was not the best arrangement, and they would make a small contribution to help with rent, enough so that she could secure a lovely little place right near Marie Bruce’s apartment. And Billy’s mother had offered to equip it with napkins and tablecloths and sheets from Chatsworth. Imagine!

  Kick wrote her mother about those, and the necklace she’d received for Christmas, then held her breath—so far, her mother hadn’t said much about Billy, though Kick had been dropping hints all along, wondering each time what her mother would say. Finally, in reply to Kick’s description of the Cavendishes’ generosity, Rose had written, “It sounds as though Billy’s family has embraced you with open arms, and I’m glad of that. Everyone needs a surrogate family while living abroad. But do be careful, Kathleen. I know how fond you are of Billy, and I don’t want you to get hurt.” Kick decided that this response was progress—no longer was Mother actively trying to keep her away from Billy. She appeared to be trusting Kick to make her own choices.

  Perhaps best of all were the festive rendezvous that were becoming regular events at Pat Wilson’s cottage at Crastock Farm. Kick, Joe Jr., and their friends congregated there on their days off, bringing with them whatever surprise goodies they could lay their hands on before catching the train: cured ham, a bottle of wine, bars of chocolate. Thanks to Pat’s green thumb and excellent kitchen skills, even in the winter there were jars of pickled and preserved vegetables from her garden. One weekend, Debo impressed everyone with a spaghetti marinara made from Pat’s jarred tomatoes. Kick consoled herself that even if she could barely boil an egg, at least she could keep everyone in candy bars sent from the States. (The box of sweets Joe had brought with him was long since devoured, but they were still working their way through a giant one Eunice and Pat had sent for Christmas.)

  Since the house was just southwest of London, it was a perfect midpoint for many of her friends, with Billy stationed a little farther west in Alton, and Joe farther south in Dunkeswell. Kick called it Crash-Bang, because it quickly became the place where all her favorite people liked to crash—even more so than the nightclubs these days. There was a slightly different mix each time, and Kick enjoyed them all, though whenever Billy wasn’t there, she always wished he was. Such was the case one cold day in January, when Bertrand and Kick lazed about with Sissy and David, who were visiting for the day with little Julian and Jane. The children chased a red rubber ball through the house while it drizzled outside.

  “I fear Julian’s tastes run more toward football than rugby,” observed David.

  “Don’t be a snob, darling,” said Sissy. “Rugby may be played by gentlemen, but it’s a thug’s sport. Football’s a far more genteel game. No hands. No tackling.”

  “But it’s actually played by thugs,” David pointed out.

  “Hence the snobbery,” concluded Sissy.

  “At least he’s not waving a bat and declaring his interest in cricket,” put in Kick. “Dullest game in the universe.”

  “No worse than American baseball,” said Bertrand.

  “Talk to me after you’ve seen the Red Sox play the Yankees,” she replied.

  The four of them had their feet up on ottomans and on each other, while Joe and Pat were “resting” and her children napped. The living room of the cottage was homey and well lit, with soft, comfortable sofas and shelves full of books and bric-a-brac from Pat’s and Robin’s travels. There were no portraits of imposing ancestors, but there were two small Picasso drawings hanging above an armchair.

  “I fancy a cup of tea,” said Sissy. “Anyone else?”

  Everyone did, and Kick got up to help her. She’d been wanting to get Sissy alone. While her friend set the kettle on the hulking blue Aga, and Kick measured tea into the pot, she ventured, “Can I bend your ear about something?”
<
br />   “Finally,” said Sissy.

  “Pardon?”

  “This is about Billy, right?”

  “You’re not surprised.”

  “Kick, you’re not fooling anyone. Not anymore.”

  “Well, I’m glad. Finally.”

  “Wonderful! Have you two set a date?” Sissy was excited, but Kick could also hear the slight note of misgiving in her voice.

  “I wish it were that simple,” Kick sighed. “We seem to be at an impasse on the religion question.”

  “What question?” Sissy said, genuinely surprised.

  “He’s not asking me to convert,” began Kick, “though I know that’s what his parents would like.”

  “Out of the question,” Sissy agreed with a firm shake of her head.

  “But he’s also made it clear that the children would have to be raised Protestant.”

  “Even the girls?” Sissy was incredulous, eyebrows raised. The kettle screeched, and she used a towel to hold the hot metal handle as she poured steaming water into the pot.

  “Even the girls,” Kick confirmed. “He said, what if we don’t have boys? Or what if they die in another war? Then the estate would fall to the Catholic girls.”

  “And what would be so terrible about that? David’s heir to the Harlech baronetcy, which is equally Protestant and frankly closed-minded about Catholics, and he’s raising both our boys and girls Catholic.”

  Kick hadn’t expected Sissy to be quite so vehement. Nor had she meant to question the arrangement Sissy and David had come to, but that was the way her friend seemed to be interpreting her queries. Eager to reassure her, Kick tried again. “David has been the utmost gentleman; I hope you don’t think I’m saying anything less than that. I just wonder . . . was there ever a time he was in doubt about your arrangement? Was there anything you said that helped to sway him?”

  Sissy shook her head. “He knew from the start that if he wanted me, those would be the terms. Plenty of dukes have done the same, you know. For heaven’s sake, the king of England relinquished his crown to be with a divorcee. I know it’s not exactly equivalent, but it’s close enough. What compromise is Billy willing to make?”

  “He’s already willing to marry an untitled American. Of Irish descent,” Kick said, appalled she was having to say the words out loud. Even Billy hadn’t said them, but their truth was always hanging in the room.

  “Et tu, Kick? You, of all people, are selling yourself short?”

  “It’s true, isn’t it?” She felt suddenly bereft, and her chin trembled.

  Sissy came to her side and put her arm around Kick’s shoulder. “Oh, Kick. This must be terrible for you. But don’t lose sight of what you are. You’re a Kennedy, for heaven’s sake! People all over the world know who you are. Who’s heard of Billy outside our little island? It’s not just because you’re a Kennedy, it’s because you’re you. And I hate to be the one to say it, but even though you don’t have a title, your millions are hardly worth nothing.”

  “Billy doesn’t need money.”

  “All the great estates will need money after this war is over,” Bertrand said. Suddenly, he was standing in the doorway to the kitchen. When the girls turned to look at him in surprise, he said with an incorrigible grin, “What? I was thirsty. And your lazy lout of a husband sent me down to see what was taking you so long.”

  “That’s because he knows what’s good for him,” said Sissy to Bertrand in a jesting tone, but Kick heard her friend’s double meaning, loud and clear.

  “For what it’s worth, Kick, I agree with Sissy. Why should you be the one to make all the sacrifices?”

  “If I’d listened to your advice from thirty-nine,” Kick said drily, “we wouldn’t be having this conversation at all.”

  “Kind of tells you something, doesn’t it?” Bertrand said, grinning again. Kick wanted to punch him. If he had been Jack, she would have.

  “Don’t listen to this sideshow Freud,” Sissy said, grabbing hold of the tray with all the tea accoutrements. “Talk to Billy again.”

  So much for promising starts.

  * * *

  Kick grieved the loss of Father O’Flaherty all the more in the following weeks. He would have known what she should do. When she prayed, she found herself praying directly to him instead of to God or the Virgin. Father, she’d address him from her knees at her bedside, or from a pew at St. Mary’s, where she felt closest to him, please guide me. Send me a sign, be my compass. Something, anything, that will show me the right course. I miss you so much.

  “You seem to lack the usual bounce in your step, Kick,” observed Lord Halifax at the Hans Crescent. He and Lady Halifax were in England for a few weeks, meeting with Churchill and other officials before taking fresh intelligence back to the embassy in Washington.

  “Have I?” Kick replied, bouncing a little jig in her worn brown work shoes. She was awaiting a new pair from her mother, who written that she’d seen some good ones at Bergdorf’s.

  Lord Halifax laughed and said, “Can you join me and Dorothy for lunch tomorrow?”

  “I’d love that,” she said, though she felt powerfully homesick at the sight of him. It was strange. Lord Halifax was English, but he reminded her of those days in Washington, DC, that had been far simpler than what she was facing in London. Thinking of Washington made her remember Patsy White—maybe she, an older, more experienced married woman who was totally removed from the situation with Billy, could offer some sage advice. She had once offered to act as a sounding board. Kick made a mental note to write to her American friend.

  Over roast venison and potatoes at the Savoy, after they’d caught up on the Washington gossip, Lady Halifax said, “Now, Kick, you must tell us what’s happening with Billy Hartington.”

  Recalling that in the past Lord and Lady Halifax had shown nothing but the utmost discretion, and also a philosophical approach to religion, Kick confessed the entire situation, trying to keep her voice as level and calm as possible. At the end, she said, “I just don’t know what to do. It’s all mixed up in my head—my mother, my father, his mother, his father, my religion, his religion, my heart. I don’t know what to listen to. None of them agree.”

  “I suspect your father will forgive anything,” offered Lord Halifax. “You are the absolute apple of his eye.”

  Kick blushed and felt tears rush to her eyes. “I hope so,” she whispered.

  “As for your mother,” Lady Halifax said, “I don’t know her very well, but I can’t imagine not loving you no matter what. That’s what a mother does—loves her children no matter what.”

  “I have no doubt of her love,” Kick said quickly, but her mind turned to the closets of her childhood, and to all Rose’s entreaties for Kick to remember who she was. “But she also believes very strongly in our family. And in the church. She would take it as the greatest insult and embarrassment if her . . .” Oldest daughter? Was that what she was now, with Rosemary gone? “. . . her first daughter to get married did so outside the church. And it could hurt Joe’s and Jack’s future careers as well.”

  At this, Lord Halifax laughed gently. “I think perhaps that might be a bit of Kennedy hubris, if you don’t mind my saying so. From what I’ve gathered, the American public is more independent minded than your parents give them credit for. And while having their daughter marry a Protestant might hurt them with a certain very small contingent of Catholic voters in Boston, I suspect your father could find a way to use it to win more votes with those Brahmins he’s been trying to best his whole life.”

  Kick hadn’t considered this before, and a cool breeze of relief prickled her skin. What he said made perfect sense. And Daddy was a maestro with the press.

  “And,” added Lady Halifax, “isn’t your oldest brother here in England? Why don’t you ask him what he thinks directly?”

  Kick nodded. “I will,” she said, rel
ieved to be taking advice like a dutiful child. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this. I’ve needed . . . help.”

  In a motherly gesture that left Kick wrecked with longing, Lady Halifax brushed a lock of hair out of Kick’s eyes and gently patted her cheek. “Of course you have, darling.”

  CHAPTER 31

  By early February, Billy’s race against Charlie White had become a national spectacle, with predictions that the decision of voters in West Derbyshire would shape future elections throughout England. Who would prevail? Billy Hartington, a Conservative who represented the old ways of landowners looking after their estates and people? Or White, a liberal who purported to represent change and greater independence for the workingman?

  A pugnacious cobbler’s son, White was to Kick a combative middle-aged man with small eyes and a perpetual snarl on his lips. Though the newspaper pictures were black and white, Kick could always make out the sunburnt ruddiness of his cheeks. His father had been the only non-Cavendish in hundreds of years to win the West Derbyshire seat, and Charlie had tried to reclaim it on the Labour ticket against Billy’s uncle Henry in 1938 and lost. He wasn’t even supposed to be running in this wartime by-election of 1944, but he had a big fat ax to grind, and he swung it at Billy and his family every chance he got. He regularly called Billy a deserter who wasn’t doing his patriotic duty, going so far as to insinuate that Billy might in fact be a Fascist since he was “vaguely related” to Oswald Mosley. He repeatedly said that at twenty-six, “Baby Billy” had never known a day’s honest work in his life. That last accusation had inspired Robert Goodall, a farmer who was also running, to proclaim that Billy surely didn’t know how to milk a cow, and how could a man who’d never milked a cow run a dairy county?

  Kick had been so proud of Billy when he replied, with his characteristic calm, “Actually, Mr. Goodall, one of my favorite escapes as a child was to a farm right here in Derbyshire, where I milked my share of cows. And I learned to spread muck. Nothing so cleansing to the soul as moving manure around a farm.” Kick was amazed at his wit and poise in front of the schoolrooms full of hostile mothers, fathers, and young wives whose sons and husbands were off dying abroad, and she loved him all the more in those moments. She wished she could be with him more on his campaign, but her duties at the Hans Crescent kept her frustratingly away.