The Kennedy Debutante

by Kerri Maher

  She wanted so much to help Billy that she’d rung her father in New York to ask his advice. “Have you heard what’s happening to the Cavendish family, Daddy? It’s dreadful, and I just keep thinking that you’d have some ideas for how to help, so I had to call. The mail takes an age.”

  “Slow down, Kick,” her father had said. “I’m glad you called. How are you? We treasure every one of your letters, and Mother’s keeping them all, just as you asked.”

  “Is she there with you now?”

  “No, she’s out. Lunch, I think. Kick, it’s marvelous to hear your voice.”

  In her mind, she could see her father’s blue eyes smiling behind his glasses, and her heart was full of missing him. Even now? Despite everything?

  “It’s marvelous to hear yours, too, Daddy,” she said.

  Then, on the other end, he took a deep breath and said, “Well, your mother will have my head if I take too long on an international call, so let’s get down to it. I have indeed read about Billy’s battle with this man White. He sounds like a real piece of work.”

  “He’s wretched.”

  “The first thing is not to let the voters or the press see that anyone on your side feels that way. If you sink to his level, you’ll only get stuck in the quagmire.”

  “Oh, the Cavendishes are too proud to let it show that White’s getting to them. And Billy’s impatient with all the false accusations, but he calmly answers each one. I mean, really—the idea that he might be a Fascist, just because Debo’s sister is married to Oswald! It’s absurd.”

  “Politics is worse than absurd, darling; it’s unfair and soul crushing.”

  “Don’t say that, Daddy. Not you, of all people. Don’t you still want Joe to be president?”

  “Of course I do, but I also want him to know the risks. Kick, I’m afraid I can’t help much from where I’m sitting now. The best I can do is put in a few calls with my contacts in London, but Churchill’s already written a public letter supporting Billy. How much good would it do to have a lesser-known official do the same?”

  Kick sighed. “I suppose you’re right.”

  “The best thing you can do for Billy is support him.” Then, after a pause, he added, “You really do love him, don’t you?”

  The pure, tender kindness in his voice was so rare, she felt comfortable telling him the truth. “I’m afraid I do.”

  “Is he going to convert?”

  “No.”

  Joe was silent a moment, then he said, “Well now, this I can do some asking about. A few priests and even a cardinal owe me a favor or two, and of course the pope remembers us fondly. I can’t have my oldest girl so miserable, can I?”

  Oldest girl. So he was the one to say it first.

  “You think there might be some sort of loophole in the church?” she asked, her heart lurching with happiness.

  “If there is, darling girl, I’ll find it.”

  “I want to hug you right now!”

  Joe laughed. “So do I.”

  “And please don’t tell Mother.”

  “She’ll have to know at some point. And your mother’s not a fan of loopholes, you know.”

  “I know. But . . . one thing at a time.”

  “You’ve become very wise,” her father observed, and her heart once again pitched in her chest.

  * * *

  Ironically, she had Charlie White’s success to thank for securing a week off from work to help Billy in Derbyshire. Admiral Stark, Lady Astor, and the Duchess of Devonshire had all written Scroggins to explain how indispensable Kick would be to the Cavendish family in this trying time when the very future of England was in the balance. Plus, her twenty-fourth birthday was close to election day, and it was the informal policy at the Hans Crescent to let the girls have some extra time off around their birthdays. “No more days off for the rest of the month when you return,” her boss snarled when he agreed to give her the week. “And stay out of the papers.”

  Scroggins needn’t have worried. Billy’s parents asked that Kick go incognito, posing as a local girl. After some joking with Billy about what pseudonym she should choose—Elizabeth True Door? The Honorable Jane Grey? Mary Luther?—she chose the name Rosemary. It was strange even to her, but the name was a comfort. A reminder of what she’d lost, but also of the freedom she might still gain.

  Rosemary Tong wore a plain brown dress, old shoes, and a borrowed orange kerchief around her head. Her first day on the trail, she and Billy’s sister Elizabeth knocked on hundreds of doors and passed out countless flyers that read “A vote for Hartington is a vote for Churchill.” At the start, it had been thrilling to be so unrecognized, to be able to tell housewives and farmhands that Billy was the right choice for them and their country.

  But as the day wore on and she heard the same questions over and over—“Thanks, lass, but what can a dandy aristocrat do for me? What does he know of my troubles?” and “What’s a Yankee girl doing helping a Tory? You lot threw off the yoke hundreds of years ago”—she began to feel her feet ache and her spirit dampen. She got the sense that most of the people she answered viewed her words skeptically. No matter how much she assured people that Billy was a progressive Conservative who wanted to make real and tangible changes for the hardworking people in his county, who planned to go back and fight in the war as soon as the election was over, who was absolutely not a Nazi, she sensed that she was fighting a losing battle. Poor Billy, she thought. And Poor Daddy, was her immediate next thought, for he must have felt the same about those terrible late-summer days of 1939 when all that he deeply believed went on the chopping block.

  In the afternoon, she went to hear the duchess speak at a church, before going to hear Billy and Charlie at the town hall. What should have been a little regional election had garnered so much attention that Time magazine and a few other American publications were covering all the final speeches. The duchess stood on the sparse altar with late-afternoon light raining down from the stained glass windows, wearing a simple gray suit and hat. Beaming a welcoming smile at the pews full of local women, she began, “And to think that when many of us were girls, we weren’t even allowed to vote. The women of West Derbyshire have come a long way in that time, in no small part because of meetings like this one, where concerned people come together to rationally discuss their differences. That is what I hope to offer you today. Calm, rational answers to your questions about this election.” Kick was impressed. With astounding grace given the circumstances, Billy’s mother delivered exactly what she promised, and Kick could feel the machinations of scores of female minds grinding over to her side.

  The men’s speeches were not so tame.

  The town hall was standing room only, and reporters and photographers jostled for the best shots of the two main candidates. Billy wore his Coldstream Guards uniform, and White wore an ill-fitting navy suit. First, Billy took the stage, to a respectable round of applause. Then, when it was White’s turn, the room filled with cheers and whistles. A few even chanted “Char-lie! Char-lie!” Billy towered over White, kept his hands behind his back, and wore a look of benign calm that Kick knew had taken herculean strength to plaster on.

  White spoke first, and began, “You’ve all noticed, I’m sure, that my esteemed rival is wearing his captain’s uniform tonight, no doubt to remind you all that no matter what happens on the seventeenth, he’ll go to the front. But I’d like to remind my friends here tonight that we don’t know what he’ll really do, because he’s a Cavendish. And Cavendishes have been breaking promises to the good people of West Derbyshire for generations.”

  Billy’s smile never faltered.

  If only Mother and Daddy could see him now, she thought. They’d know by his smile that he could be one of us.

  * * *

  “It’s criminal,” Kick said to Billy’s mother at the end of another long day, which had seen Billy standing for
hours upon hours in the back of an open lorry, waving at townspeople and stopping to speak and answer questions. Now it was late, and the family had gathered at Churchdale Hall, famished and exhausted, to eat a cold supper of sandwiches and preserved vegetables. “White is so full of empty promises and hot air, I keep wishing he’d just float away,” Kick added.

  The duchess shook her head and raised her eyes to heaven. “It’s tragic that people are so unhappy they actually believe him.”

  Kick felt an arm suddenly around her, and looked up to see Billy beside her. She’d never seen him look so pale, with purple shadows under his eyes. “Thank you for being here, darling,” he said. “Though I’d rather you see me on a winning streak.”

  Kick slid her arm around his waist and leaned on him sympathetically. “Would it be to hokey to say you’ll always be a winner to me?”

  “Yes,” he sighed. “But I’ll take it.”

  The duke joined them, brandishing a cheese and pickle sandwich. “I just don’t understand what the devil these people want.”

  Billy snapped. “Haven’t you been listening?” he yelled at his father. “They don’t want us, they don’t want the Cavendishes. They are done with lords and ladies having it all. I represent everything they want but can’t have in the system as they know it. So they’re going to elect change. And I can’t say I blame them, since it’s by and large their men who are in fact fighting and dying at the front. And our lot who got us into this mess in the first place.” There was a blaze in Billy’s eyes Kick had never seen before. Though his words were about the election, she could tell his mind was somewhere else.

  “They don’t see that the change will come at a great cost?” his father pressed. “To the dignity of them all? To have a man like White—”

  “I can’t talk more about this tonight,” Billy cut in, punctuating his words by slicing the air with his hands.

  The duke pursed his lips and stalked off to the library, and the duchess drew in a short, sharp breath. “Of course, Billy. You should rest.”

  The people of West Derbyshire did indeed elect change, by a landslide. Sixteen thousand votes to eleven thousand. In Billy’s concession speech, which he delivered in an even voice just barely tinged with the bitterness Kick knew burned in his heart, he told the voters, “I shall now return to the Coldstream Guards to fight—and perhaps die—for you.” He avoided eye contact with everyone, even Kick, and refused comments to the noisy reporters clamoring outside. Instead, he ducked into his family’s black Packard and receded into the night.

  The next morning at Churchdale Hall, he knocked on Kick’s door. The breakfast tray hadn’t yet arrived, and she thought it was the maid coming with it, so when Billy slipped in and shut the door gently behind him, she instinctively pulled the sheet up to her shoulders, though she was wearing a long-sleeved flannel nightgown.

  Billy sat on the edge of the bed, and Kick felt a tug of desire that began at the base of her body, close to the fine cotton sheets. “Surely we’re beyond that?” he asked with a smirk. So. He was returning to himself.

  Kick dropped the covers with a relieved sigh. “Especially since this nightdress is far more modest than all my ball gowns ever were,” she agreed.

  “How I miss those days of no obligations,” he said.

  Kick put her hand on Billy’s and said, “Let’s get away for a few days. Crash-Bang is exactly what you need. Friends, laughter, music. Would your parents let us abscond with a few bottles of the good stuff?”

  “I think my parents are planning something special for your birthday tomorrow.”

  “Could we celebrate it today, maybe at lunch? We could be at Pat’s for cocktails.”

  Billy looked up at the ceiling, then at her, and said, “You’re right. I’ll see what I can do. I knew there was a good reason for me to disturb you this morning.”

  “Why did you disturb me?”

  “Because last night I didn’t want to see or talk to anyone, and when I woke up this morning, the first and only person I wanted to see was you.”

  Kick rocked forward onto her knees and kissed him on the lips. “I’m so glad,” she whispered.

  Billy must really have wanted to get out of Derbyshire, because in no time, a birthday lunch buffet had been arranged in the dining room, complete with fresh flowers and a banner that read “Happy Birthday Kick” in ribbon woven through burlap.

  “I’m sorry there’s no ice cream,” said the duchess to Kick as they all sipped champagne. “I know how much you love it. We were going to make it for tomorrow, but to be honest, I’m glad you thought to get Billy away for a few days.”

  “I’m so relieved you approve,” said Kick, realizing how relaxed and at home she’d begun to feel with Billy’s mother.

  The duchess glanced across the room, where the duke was frowning over his coupe by himself. “It will be good for everyone, I think,” added the duchess. Then, with a suddenly nervous expression, she said, “Kick, I hope you won’t feel I’m overstepping, but I have a suggestion.”

  Kick raised her eyebrows in anticipation.

  “We have an old family friend who is an Anglican monk. Ted Talbot. He’s a wonderful man, and he said he’d be very glad to speak with you about Anglicanism and Catholicism. I believe they have a great deal in common. I promise that he will not pressure you, but only . . . chat. Answer any questions you might have. I know how seriously you take your faith, and I want you to know I take it seriously as well.”

  Kick felt like she was standing on a rocking boat.

  The duchess went on, “Billy loves you, Kick. And we have all come to think of you as a member of the family. I just . . . want to help.”

  “Thank you,” said Kick. Taking a deep breath to steady herself, she said, “I think it is high time I do ask some questions.” But in her heart, she was hoping for the loophole her father had mentioned.

  “Marvelous,” said the duchess.

  At her birthday lunch, everyone stuffed themselves with a quintessentially English meal of roast lamb with mint sauce, potatoes, strawberry trifle, and a cheese course with the creamiest wedges Kick had ever sampled. “All from a farm up the road,” the duchess said with pride.

  “I milked the cow myself,” Billy said wryly, and everyone laughed, even his father. Kick loved him so much for that comment, the self-deprecating humor meant to set everyone at ease. He did drink too much of his favorite gardener’s ale, which the butler brought to him at lunch in a special pint glass while the rest of them drank Burgundy, but Kick didn’t mind—how could she? If anyone was entitled to a little oblivion that day, it was Billy Hartington.

  Then, Kick was thrilled and also embarrassed when a silver tray of wrapped presents was set before her. In her family, birthdays weren’t celebrated with such fanfare, likely because there were eleven of them in the family, and there always seemed to be some birthday or other to celebrate, and half of her siblings and often her parents weren’t in the same house on the day anyway.

  Anne and Elizabeth gave her a few of the latest swing records. Billy’s mother gave her pearl earrings (to match the cross from Christmas, Kick had to assume), and when it came time for Kick to open the duke’s heavy rectangular present, the duchess warned in a light tone, “I had nothing to do with this one.”

  Kick cocked an eyebrow and said, “Now I’m extremely curious.” She tried to look the duke in the eye, but he was taking advantage of the relaxed luncheon atmosphere to smoke a pipe, which absorbed his attention. Everyone else seemed to be a little nervous; the room was completely silent. She glanced at Billy, and he shrugged.

  She carefully peeled off the thick, crisp brown paper and saw a leather-bound Book of Common Prayer. There seemed to be no other appropriate response but laughter. “Thank you, Duke,” she chirped, springing up from her seat and bounding around the table to give Billy’s father a spontaneous kiss on the cheek, which produced
a brief round of applause.

  Billy’s father, now looking up at Kick because she was standing and he was still sitting, said with a levity that for the first time made her see the resemblance between him and his oldest son, “Have to start somewhere, Rosemary Tong.”

  “Indeed,” she said with a nod, feeling a chill at the duke’s use of her sister’s name to address her. She realized then that posing as a nobody, a nobody with her sister’s name, had been a test: Could she set aside her own identity for the sake of the Cavendish family? For the first time in her life, she felt queasy at having passed a social test with such flying colors. Tapping the heavy volume in her arms, she added, “I shall enjoy this light reading.”

  Billy took her hand and stopped her as she headed back to her own seat, and said quietly, “I’ll give you my gift later.”

  Billy leaned on Kick and slept the entire train ride to Crastock Farm and woke up in an excellent mood. The evening had the makings of a great night. Joe Jr. was already there, unshaven and unwound, as were Boofie and Fiona, and Sissy with her two children, who were playing with blocks and dolls in the nursery with Pat’s three. David was bringing Bertrand with him on the seven o’clock train.

  Kick hugged her brother and said, “What a wonderful surprise. How long have you been here?”

  “Since yesterday,” he replied with a toothy grin that bespoke a happiness she hadn’t seen in him for years.

  “You seem so . . . content,” she observed.

  “Love will do that to you,” he said. “I finally understand that.”