The Kennedy Debutante

by Kerri Maher

  “Love, dear brother?”

  “And I don’t care who knows it,” he said. “I even love her little monkeys.”

  “I’m glad,” she said. And she was. Now was not the time to bring up husbands at war, or different religions. Now was the time for Sancerre and more of the delicious cheese they’d brought with them from Churchdale Hall. Now was not even the time for her birthday present from Billy, it appeared, since he’d already begun on the first bottle of wine. Well, this is what we came for. I can be invisible a little longer.

  CHAPTER 32

  While Billy was sleeping in the next morning, Kick woke much earlier than she would have liked, her mind reeling with questions and doubts about everything that had happened in the past five days. At last, her desperation to pee drove her out from beneath the pile of blankets and duvets on her bed. Then, needing coffee or tea, she padded down into the kitchen in wool stockings, with two wool sweaters over her wool dress. She was still cold and saw her breath as little puffs of smoke in the damp morning air. She was surprised to find her brother already sitting at the rough kitchen table with a steaming cup of coffee and yesterday’s newspaper.

  He looked up and his face brightened. “My little sister, the birthday girl? Up before the birds?”

  “I couldn’t sleep,” she muttered. Peering down at the hot milky liquid in his cup, she observed, “You know how to make coffee? I’m impressed.”

  “You don’t?”

  “On an American stove I do, but those things are terrifying,” she said, gesturing with an accusatory finger at the Aga.

  Joe chuckled and stood up, and went to work filling a metal espresso maker with fresh water and coffee grounds, then setting it on one of the large flat rings. “See? Simple,” he said.

  “Let’s see if it tastes good,” she said.

  “Always the challenger,” said Joe with a smile. “How’s Billy? You came down here to rescue him from the vagaries of the election?”

  Kick shook her head. “It was terrible, Joe. Charlie White was a bully and a beast. The voters deserve what they get from him.”

  “That doesn’t sound like my charitable little sister.”

  “Charitable?” Kick laughed. “You have me confused with Eunice.”

  “All right, ‘charitable’ wasn’t the right word.” He searched for the right one. “Optimistic, then. Positive. Upbeat.”

  Kick looked down at her small hands and felt her eyes go hot with tears. “Yeah, well, that girl’s done a lot of growing up.”

  “Maybe,” Joe said slowly, “but I’d hate to see her lost altogether.” The coffeemaker whistled its finish, and he combined it with some milk in her cup, then handed it to her.

  She took her first sip as they sat down and exclaimed, “You make excellent coffee, Brother Joe. I had no idea.”

  “Yeah, well, some of us have grown up in other ways.”

  “You’re practically a father,” she observed, recalling the sweet way he’d wrestled and kicked balls with Pat’s three children, then carted them off to bed over his shoulders, to their shrieking amusement.

  “I always liked being the oldest brother,” he said, “so being a father feels kind of natural.”

  “You do seem like a natural,” she agreed.

  He let a few quiet seconds go by, and then he asked, “What’s bugging you, sis?”

  Recalling Bertrand’s words from five years before, If there was ever a time for bald honesty, this is it, Kick asked Joe, “Would it trouble you greatly if I married Billy? I mean, what would you think of me? Would you hate me forever for hurting your political career, betraying the family name, and raising Protestant children?”

  “Oh, is that all?” he asked jokingly. When she didn’t laugh, he gave her a little punch on the arm and said, “Need some whiskey in that coffee?”

  “You were the one who asked me what’s wrong.”

  “I did. Okay, I’ll be serious. Because this is serious, you’re right.” He paused, then said, “So, it sounds like Billy’s told you his terms? He won’t convert or agree to raise the children Catholic?”

  Kick nodded. “But he isn’t asking me to convert.”

  “That’s something,” Joe agreed.

  “Daddy said he’d check for a loophole, but . . .”

  “You’re not optimistic?”

  She shook her head miserably. “And yesterday, the duchess suggested I talk to an Anglican monk. She means well, but . . . what could he possibly tell me to set my mind at ease? That God still loves me? I’m not worried about God, I’m worried about Mother!”

  “You know, I have to admit I’m impressed that Billy’s sticking to his guns. He’s a lot less of a namby-pamby than he was before the war.”

  “Joe!”

  “Well, he is.”

  “This is not helpful.”

  “And I’ve seen the way he is with you. He’s crazy about you, sis. That’s not easy to come by, especially when you’re a man who could marry the future queen of England. He could have anyone, and he wants you.”

  “That is flattering, I must admit.”

  “But the same’s true for you, kid. You could’ve had Peter Grace or any one of Jack’s or my rich Catholic friends that would make Mom and Dad happy. But you want Billy. That says something about how much you two love each other.”

  “I’ve never heard you sound so wise, and . . . sentimental,” Kick said.

  “You can thank our hostess for that,” he said, his eyes traveling up the stairs to where Pat was still asleep. “And getting stuck in Jack’s big black shadow has mangled my manhood, which might explain why I’m going all girlie on you.”

  “I like this girlier Joe,” she said, holding up her cup and taking an appreciative sip. “He makes great coffee.”

  He shrugged. “There has to be a benefit somewhere.”

  “So . . . you don’t sound mad at the prospect of my marrying Billy on those terms.”

  “It wouldn’t be my first choice for you,” he admitted. “But when have any of us gotten to choose a fate for anyone but ourselves? And even then, the road’s a long and hard one.”

  She didn’t feel like pointing out that their father had chosen Rosemary’s fate—and that if she was being completely honest, she didn’t want to suffer a similar future: the thwarted, dutiful life. And maybe a tiny part of her, too, wanted to show her parents that they couldn’t control all nine of them.

  “And,” Joe went on, “I’m thinking about asking Pat to divorce Robin and marry me, so I’m hardly one to talk, am I?”

  “You are?!”

  “I’ve been with countless women in my life, and not one has ever made me feel the way Pat does. That has to mean something.”

  “It does.” Kick nodded vigorously. “It absolutely does.”

  “In short, I’ll stand by you, especially if it means I can get my charitable sister back,” he said with a smirk.

  Kick threw her arms around her brother and nearly knocked over her coffee. “I love you, Joe.”

  Hugging her tightly in return, Joe said, “So do I, little sister. And if we can’t stand by each other, who the heck will?”

  * * *

  Billy gave her his birthday gift in the afternoon. They were alone for once in the living room, sitting shoulder to shoulder on the floor with a fire going and one of her new records on the gramophone. Without any ceremony, he pulled a small black box out of his pocket and set it gently on her lap. “Happy birthday,” he said.

  Inside the box was a glittering eternity ring with small diamonds that went all the way around in a golden channel setting. “Billy,” she breathed, “it’s beautiful.”

  “The election at least afforded me a few minutes to shop,” he said, plucking the ring out of its velvet slot and holding it between him and Kick.

  She offered him her right hand, but h
e took her left and slid the band on her ring finger. “I hope,” he said in a low voice, “that this ring can be more than a birthday present.”

  “Billy, I . . .” she began, but he put his index finger on her lips to stop her.

  “I know you have more to think about, and I respect that,” he said. “But as you think, I want you to consider the fact that I’ll be rejoining the guards this week, and the invasion of France is coming soon. We don’t have much time, and what I want more than anything on this earth is to be your husband.”

  “Whatever happened to not wanting me to give everything up in case you die?” she asked, referring to that long-ago conversation at Blenheim.

  “That was rubbish, I realize now,” he said. “I was afraid then, of so many things. Maybe it’s selfishness, or growing up. I’m not sure it matters.”

  Kick thought of Gabrielle and Pedro, and the Spanish girl’s wish that her fiancé would make her pregnant before he went off to fight. Kick was stunned to realize she wanted precisely the same thing.

  She kissed Billy, then said, “My father said he would ask about loopholes that might allow me to stay in the good graces of the church if I marry you.”

  “Kick, I want you to know that I do realize what I’m asking of you,” Billy said.

  This time, Kick put her finger to his lips, and said, “Let’s not talk more about it now. I promise to think and pray about nothing else. I even agreed to meet with your mother’s friend, this Father Talbot.”

  Billy smiled. “He’s a good man.”

  “So I’ve been told,” she replied.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  They kissed again, the delicate ring making it newly awkward for them to interlace their fingers as they usually did when they lost themselves in the little bit of passion they were allowed.

  * * *

  Patsy White’s reply letter came to her the morning she was set to meet Father Talbot, and she read one section many times on her train north to Yorkshire:

  I always thought you were too good for my lout of a brother, so I’m glad you’ve followed your true heart and found love with Billy. What a shame it would be to extinguish that flame, when you’ve both burned for each other so long. As far as advice from a “mature married woman whose opinion I trust” (Was that just a kind way of saying I’m old?) what I’ll say is this: When you’re married, your husband becomes your world. You won’t depend on your childhood family in the same way. So it’s essential that you feel that the life he offers you, in all regards, is what you want. You are strong and independent, Kick. Even rebellious, when you want to be. If any woman is brave enough to follow her heart, it’s you.

  She recited that last line like an incantation when she met Father Talbot at the Community of the Resurrection monastery, which was a large, stone Victorian building with Tudor details, like its peaked roof. It was surrounded by that lush English grass that felt pillowy soft under her feet and never seemed to get brown. When she knocked on the rectory door as instructed, she was shown into a simple, oak-paneled office by a very young monk with a limping, jerky way of walking that make Kick wonder if he’d seen battle, or if his disability had kept him from having to fight. He asked her to sit and said that Father Talbot would be with her very soon.

  She sat in a large wooden chair and looked around at the sparsely decorated room. On the wall to the left of the large desk was a simple bronze cross and a calendar, and a small unframed canvas with a still life of some apples sitting on a shiny, dark table. As she waited, Kick wondered whether she was following her heart or betraying her family. Then she wondered whether there was a difference. Running her right index finger over her lower lip, she felt how ragged it had become from the biting she hadn’t even realized she was doing.

  Soon Father Talbot arrived, followed by a teenage girl in a long-sleeved, floor-length maid’s uniform, carrying a tray with a pot of tea and two cups.

  “I’m terribly sorry to have made you wait, Miss Kennedy,” said Father Talbot, and she stood and the two of them shook hands.

  “I’ve hardly waited at all,” Kick reassured him as she tried to figure out what sort of man and priest he would be. She’d been able to tell right away that Father O’Flaherty was kind and generous. Father Talbot, considerably shorter and balder, and a bit plump beneath his black robes, had a ready smile that crinkled the skin around his eyes. But there was something rigid about him, his firm handshake and the way he held his robes as he sat and then smoothed them out and allowed the maid to serve him his tea, reminding her, “No sugar, Agatha.”

  “Yes, sir,” the girl said, and Kick got the feeling that Agatha knew perfectly well how he took his tea, and yet he likely told her every time as if he doubted she’d get it right. “Miss, how do you like yours?”

  “Just milk, Agatha. Thank you so much,” Kick replied.

  Once the tea had been served and pleasantries about the weather and her train ride north were exchanged, Father Talbot set his cup in front of him on the saucer with a resolute clink, and said to Kick, “Now, Miss Kennedy, Moucher Cavendish tells me we have serious matters to discuss.”

  Kick still couldn’t believe she was doing this. She tried to think of Billy’s face in the hopes it might relax her, but nothing could undo her knotted stomach now. “I’m not entirely sure how much the duchess explained,” Kick began, “but I suppose the matter is rather simple, even though it’s causing me great distress. I am, as you know, an American and Catholic. Of Irish descent. And Billy is what he is. And he also would prefer that all our children, even the girls, be raised in the Church of England.”

  Father Talbot nodded, and said, “I feel for you, my dear. Even five years ago, it was easier for our churches to find a middle ground for mixed marriages. But as I’m sure you know, the Vatican has made it increasingly difficult for Protestants to marry Catholics. They have made it an all-or-nothing proposition for the Catholic by demanding that he or she marry another Catholic or be excommunicated from the church.”

  “Only temporarily,” Kick pointed out drily. Until the Protestant spouse dies and the Catholic is free to rejoin the church.

  “You don’t want to live in an earthly limbo, I’m sure,” said Father Talbot. “No young wife wants to start her married life under a cloud like that.”

  Kick swallowed and nodded.

  “How do you feel about these restrictions?” he asked her. No one had asked her that before. How unexpected that Father Talbot should be the one to do it.

  “To be honest, I feel that no one is on the side of the couple. Both of us feel we must give up something essential in order to be together, and how is that a sunshiny way to start a life together?” Kick surprised herself with the vehemence of her own words.

  “I understand completely,” Father Talbot replied, and he really did seem to. His sympathetically wrinkled brows said it as much as his tone. “But, then, why are you here?”

  “Because I love him,” she said, her heart speeding up. “And I want to be with him. But . . . I don’t want to disappoint my parents.”

  “Ah,” said Father Talbot. “Are your parents the sticking point here, more so than your church?”

  “It’s not just my parents,” Kick said, the words tumbling out in a rush, “but everything my parents stand for. I’m not a Cavendish, but I’m a Kennedy. My father has worked so hard for everything he’s earned in his life, for the name he’s made for our family. He’s made mistakes, yes, and believe me, I understand those mistakes better than anyone might know, but I can’t help but feel real allegiance to our family. I don’t want to embarrass them.”

  “Of course you don’t,” the monk replied soothingly. He let a few seconds tick by before he said, “You say that both sides here are asking you to give up something essential in order to get married, but that isn’t strictly true. Your church and family would ask you to give up Billy. And that does seem unfa
ir. But the Church of England makes no demands on one of their flock marrying a Catholic. The Protestant is free to make their own decisions about their married life. Of course, we prefer that he or she marries and produces more Protestants, but that is not a requirement of our church as it is of yours. It may be a requirement of Billy’s family, but not of his church.”

  “Are you trying to make me angry with Billy and his family?”

  “Are you angry with Billy or his family?”

  She rotated the eternity ring, which she hadn’t worn to work or anywhere else public yet because she wasn’t ready for those questions, on her finger. “No,” she replied. “I don’t want to be angry with anyone. I want to be happy. I just want everyone to be happy.”

  “Sometimes that’s impossible,” he said with a sad smile.

  “Then why am I here?”

  “You tell me.”

  Kick drew in a long, deep breath. You are strong and independent, Kick. Even rebellious when you want to be. “What would conversion entail, exactly?” she finally asked.

  She and Father Talbot talked for three hours that day, and three more the following day. His parting words to her were, “Don’t decide anything now, Kathleen. Give everything we discussed some time to settle in your mind. Pray on it, and ask God for guidance. And remember that your job is to have your own relationship with God. Only your own. Your mother, father, and brothers and sisters have to find their own ways to be with God.”

  When Kick got on the train back to London, she clung to the hope that her father could find a loophole somewhere, anywhere, because all the options she had discussed with Father Talbot filled her with dread. She knew, in that same place she knew how fiercely she loved Billy, that she could not convert. Leaving the Catholic Church would be the worst possible thing she could do to her family. The best of the terrible choices was a registry wedding—if she could get Billy to agree to that. It wasn’t a grand way to get married, but who was having grand weddings these days anyway? She probably wouldn’t even be able to get enough material for a floor-length gown. And it would at least demonstrate to the world that she wasn’t willing to betray her family by pledging her life and children to Billy inside a Protestant church; it would be clear she had drawn some line, and he had made some compromise. As Father Talbot had said, “The symbolism of that gesture would be clear.” But still, a loophole in Catholic doctrine would be far better.