The Importance of Being Kennedy (11 page)

Mr. and Mrs. K went to Windsor Castle, weekend guests of the King and Queen. I thought we should never hear the end of that.

“The Ambassador sat next to Her Majesty,” she must have told me a hundred times, “and I sat beside the King, and there was an orchestra playing through dinner, all tricked out in scarlet jackets. They made such a gay picture. We met the little Princesses, of course, after church on Sunday. Adorable. Princess Margaret Rose would make such a perfect playmate for Jean. We went to their private quarters on Sunday afternoon and one of
the guests had a seizure, right in the middle of tea, but you should have seen how the Queen reacted. She set the most wonderful example. She remained perfectly calm and just carried on passing the cups. It prevented an embarrassing atmosphere while the woman was being helped from the room. One could learn a great deal by studying Her Majesty.”

They’d had sheets of the headed royal notepaper provided in their accommodations and Mrs. K wrote a special keepsake letter to each of the children, and probably to every Tom, Dick and Harry she ever met, so the whole world would know she’d been to Windsor Castle. It was funny to see how thrilled she was to be mixing with royalty. I’d have thought it would take more than that to impress Mayor Fitzgerald’s daughter, but her head was turned.

“His Majesty has so taken to the Ambassador,” she said. “They’re firm friends already. And the Queen loves to talk about the children. She can’t wait to meet them.”

Well, she was about to meet Kick and Rosie, or at least see them in a sea of other girls with feathers in their hair.

It was a big production, getting two girls ready to be presented at Buckingham Palace. Mrs. K was to go with them in the limousine and she had to wear a diamond tiara and white kid gloves with twenty-one buttons, no more, no less. She said you could be turned away if your gloves weren’t right. The things the English dream up to keep you in your place. The main worry though was the curtseying. The girls had to go to special lessons. They’d to practice walking up the red carpet until they had it off pat. Curtsey, step to the side, then glide away.

We all went downstairs to see them off. Herself was in a gown made by Mr. Molyneux, white satin with tiny gold beads stitched all over it, and a tiara borrowed from Lady Bessborough. Kick and Rosie had white tulle with a silver thread, Prince of
Wales feathers pinned to their veils, and lily-of-the-valley nose-gays. Kick looked pretty, though we’d had to wrestle with her hair, and Mrs. K looked a million dollars, but it was Rosie who stole the show, with her beautiful creamy shoulders and her dimples when she smiled. As Danny Walsh said, she was a grand doorful of a girl.

It was after midnight when they got home, because the limousines had been backed up along Constitution Hill. I took them hot milk and bread after they’d put on their pajamas, and there sat Rosie in tears.

She said, “I tumbled, Nora. I didn’t do the curtsey thing right.”

Kick said, “You didn’t tumble, you noodle. You stumbled. And absolutely nobody noticed. Gracious, the King and Queen had probably nodded off, sitting there for hours just being curtseyed to. And you looked ravishing.”

“Thank you, Kick,” she said. “You looked nice too. But I think I dipsapointed Mother.”

Kick swore it had only been the tiniest stumble, at the end, when she was meant to glide away.

She said, “Know what, Nora? It was all a big zzzzz anyhow. The best bit was waiting in line to get in. There were all these people peering into the car. They wait for hours, apparently, to see if they can spot any really famous debs. Just think, there are people going to bed happy tonight because they saw Kick and Rosie Kennedy.”

Their pictures were in the papers the next day, along with Minnie Stubbs and Debo Mitford and Cynthia Brough. And then we had Kick’s ball to get ready. She had eighty coming to dinner and three hundred more for the dancing afterwards, with Ambrose’s Band brought in for the evening and all the help invited to the buffet supper later on. I don’t know if Billy Hartington was there that night. Kick danced every dance with
a different beau and there was nothing about Billy that would make you remember him. He was just a tall, soft-faced English boy. But she did meet him that summer. He was the Duke of Devonshire’s eldest boy and Kick was invited to their house in Sussex, Compton Place. There was going to be a big house party for the horse racing at Goodwood and I was sent along as chaperone. Kick had never been interested in horse racing before, in fact she only had to look at a horse for her wheezing to start up, but she was very keen to go.

She said, “Billy’s a Marquess. Isn’t that a scream? Doesn’t it sound like an old guy in a velvet cloak and a wig?”

I wasn’t sure what a Marquess was, but Lord Billy certainly had a big name for one so young. He was Lord William Cavendish, Marquess of Hartington and heir to the Duke of Devonshire. I’ve never understood the Devonshire bit either. They none of them live in Devonshire. They live in Derbyshire.

Danny Walsh said, “Devonshire, Derbyshire, what’s the difference. It’s all robbed from the poor saps who work on it.”

He was just put out because he wasn’t the one going to Compton Place. He had to drive Herself to Hertfordshire instead, to see a special school she thought might be a suitable place to keep Rosie occupied, helping with a kindergarten class.

Kick was in a tizz, wondering what outfits to take. All she knew was there’d be tennis and drives out to the racetrack and dancing at night, to phonograph records. She didn’t think the Duke would be there. Lord Billy had told her his father didn’t care for the racetrack and parties. But she was worried about meeting the Duchess.

I said, “You’ve been presented to Their Majesties, so a Duchess can’t be anything to worry about.”

“No,” she said, “but what if I have to talk to her? Caro Leinster says I sound like Daffy Duck.”

I said, “Pay no attention. Most of those English girls sound like donkeys. Now what about this Lord Billy? When did he catch your fancy?”

“He didn’t,” she said. “I mean, he’s cute, but he’s just Billy. His sisters are fun though.”

We went on the train and a driver collected us from Eastbourne station. Middle-aged, with a dove-gray livery and a Clark Gable chin.

Kick started straight in, tried to sit up front alongside him but he wasn’t having that.

She said, “I’m Kathleen Kennedy.”

He said, “I’m relieved to hear it, Miss. I try not to make an error when I’m meeting guests.”

She said, “I guess you know the Duke and Duchess.”

He said, “I’ve worked for the Devonshires twenty-five years.”

She said, “So if I meet them, what do I have to do? Do I have to call them Your Graciousness or something?”

He said, “You call them ‘Your Grace,’ but you won’t meet them. They’re not here.”

She said, “But just say I did, do I have to curtsey or anything?”

“Nay,” he said. “No curtseying. But you won’t see them, because they’re at Chatsworth. I can vouch for that. You’re an American, if I’m not mistaken, Miss Kennedy.”

She said, “My Daddy’s the American Ambassador. His Excellency Joseph P. Kennedy.”

I could see him studying me in his driving mirror.

He said, “You from America too?”

Kick said, “Of course she is. She does that funny kind of Irish talk, but she’s American really. Nora’s been our nanny for centuries.”

He said, “Has she? She’s wearing well.”

Compton Place was a low, square house, covered with Virginia creeper. It had lawns and flower beds and a little kitchen garden but inside it was nothing grand. It was just a comfortable house, perfect for a crowd of youngsters on a summer weekend.

There were two other cars being unloaded as we pulled round onto the drive. Kick spotted a girl she knew and went running off, laughing and squealing.

Our driver said, “If you hop back in, Kennedy, I’ll run you round to the servants’ entrance.”

I said, “My name’s Nora Brennan.”

He was lifting the valises down off the dickey.

“Well, Nora Brennan,” he said, “you’ll find you’ll be known as Kennedy here. That’s the way we do things in Devonshire houses. Lady’s maids go by their lady’s name. But you weren’t to know that.”

He had a funny, flat way of talking.

I said, “Anything else I should know?”

“Yes,” he said. “Your Miss Kennedy. She’s a bit free and easy, you know, gabbing to a driver? Generally speaking, I drive people all day long and don’t get two words out of them.”

I said, “Then it must have made a pleasant change, to meet a natural, friendly American girl.”

“Aye,” he said. “A nice, natural young lady. But she’d like to fit in, I daresay? She’ll want to know the ropes.”

I said, “Anything else?”

“Yes,” he said. “You’ve very bonny hair, Kennedy. Very bonny indeed.”

And that was the start of me and Walter Stallybrass.

Billy Hartington’s people lived in a different world from Kick, even if her Daddy was a millionaire. They had the houses and the servants and ancestors hung on the walls in big gilt frames,
but they’d had it all so long they didn’t appear to notice. They carried it lightly, just nice, polite people who’d give you a “Good day” whoever you were.

I’d been so long around Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy I expected everybody to be like them, always calculating and maneuvering and expecting to be stabbed in the back. The Devonshires treated people right and so I don’t suppose it ever occurred to them that people wouldn’t treat them right in return. Good food, too. Me and Fidelma generally ate in the kitchen with the drivers, and the rations weren’t generous, everything counted out. One chop, two potatoes, one spoon of beans. But that weekend down at Compton Place we had big rib roasts and Yorkshire pudding, and pies filled with gooseberries fresh from the garden, with clotted cream.

The youngsters all motored across to another big house on Sunday evening, for a treasure trail, so I tagged along with the other lady’s maids, for a walk along to the bandstand and a glass of ginger beer.

Minnie Stubbs’s maid said, “You’ve not been a lady’s maid long, have you?”

I said, “I’m not a lady’s maid. The nursery’s my province. I’m just here to keep an eye on things, with all these young men around. Miss Kennedy’s only five minutes out of Sacred Heart.”

She said, “What’s Sacred Heart?”

Caro Leinster’s maid said, “A nunnery. They’re Catholics, Stubbs. American and Catholic.”

Stubbs said, “Well, you needn’t worry about any of the gentlemen. They’re all very high up. You won’t catch any of them getting serious about an American girl.”

Ginny Vigo’s maid said, “Can’t they afford a lady’s maid for her then, your people?”

I said, “Her Daddy’s one of the richest men in America.”

“Well then,” she said, “she ought to travel with somebody who knows to put her shoes on trees before they’re sent down for cleaning. That’s how we do things over here.”

I was getting tired of hearing how things were supposed to be done in a Devonshire house.

And on top of everything else, they didn’t believe I’d met Gloria Swanson.

That summer of ’38 Prince’s Gate was always full of young voices. Joe and Jack came over as soon as college was finished. Jack was as yellow as a ragweed and still getting his stomach attacks, but he wouldn’t slow down. Kick was the toast of the town, so they were all invited to half a dozen parties every night and they’d take Rosie with them too, as long as she promised not to get over-wrought when it was time to come home.

I told her she was lucky to have two handsome brothers willing to dance with her.

She said, “They don’t always. Sometimes they go off.”

I said, “You’re still lucky. My brother hardly danced a step in his life, only at his own wedding, and then he looked like he had concrete in his boots.”

She said, “Sometimes Joe and Jack don’t dance. They take girls in the dark and squeeze them. Squeeze them and squeeze
them to make them feel nice. They give them kisses and do things you’re not supposed.”

I said, “You’ll be for it if your Mammy hears you talking like that.”

“She won’t hear,” she said. “She’s gone to tea at Lady Bossyburgh’s.”

It was a good thing they were sending her to Belmont after the summer, to keep her mind occupied.

Fidelma said, “Do you know what I’d do with her if she was mine? I’d marry her off quick. Let her have what she’s longing for.”

I knew Mrs. K wouldn’t wear that. She’d always said Rosie mustn’t have babies, in case her slowness could be inherited, but I agreed with Fidelma. Rosie would have made a very contented wife. You don’t need to be a scholar to keep a man happy, and from some of the marriages I’ve seen maybe it’s better not to have too much going on up top. And as for babies, I never did believe Rosie’s funny little ways were the kind that could be passed on.

When Mrs. K was at home she’d come down and take tea with any of Kick’s friends who called by in the afternoon, but in the evenings she made herself scarce. If she wasn’t going off somewhere with the Ambassador, dressed up in her jewels and spangles like a circus pony, she’d have an early dinner with the children and then go up to her rooms to read. Conserving herself, I always thought, for when she was in the public eye.

So Mr. K was the one who did the evening socializing. He never touched liquor himself but he kept a very lavish bar and he liked to hold court. He loved showing off in front of all those pretty girls, and some of them encouraged him. Pamela Digby was the worst, cheeky little minx she was, the way she joshed him. If I’d been Kick I’d have dropped her. I wouldn’t have felt right watching my father making such a fool of himself, but Kick could
never see any fault in her Daddy. He liked to hear what the young men thought about the situation in Germany, too. The newspapers were saying Hitler might invade Czechoslovakia, the same way he’d helped himself to Austria, and then we’d be obliged to go to war again.

Mr. K didn’t think so. He said, “Nobody’s ready for another war, except Germany. Why would anyone in their right mind risk everything to save a few Czechs? And save them from what? They’d probably be better off under Germany anyway.”

But Kick’s friends thought there would be a war, and when it came they were ready to fight. I could see Kick didn’t know what to think. Usually whatever her Daddy said was holy writ, but she was impressed with those boys, not twenty years old, some of them, and talking about fighting, willing to risk their necks.

She said, “Gosh, Nora, they’re so gung ho. But Daddy says they only talk like that because they don’t remember how awful the Great War was.”

Of course Mr. K didn’t exactly have personal memories of the Great War himself. And a lot of those boys were in the Reserves already.

Mrs. K had rented a villa in the south of France for the month of August and we were all going, except for young Joe. His Daddy said it would be good for his future career to travel to places where history was being made and he sent him to see at first hand what was going on in Germany and in the war in Spain. I wasn’t sorry. Joseph Patrick had been a bit of a handful while he was in London. He’d turned out so tall and manly, a real lady-killer, but Kick had it from a couple of her friends that he was liable to forget himself, especially after a whiskey or two. NSIT was what they whispered about him. Not Safe in Taxis. Her friend Caro Leinster wouldn’t even come to tea, in case Joe was there.

Kick brought it up with him and he turned on her, rapped her on the nose with his finger. “Keep it out, Little Sis,” he said. “Just keep it out.”

Kick would never tell on him. They all looked up to Joe, and they were raised not to tell tales. No snitching, no whining, no moping. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t say something. And anyway, Rosie was going around shouting, “I know what you did. You did a sin with a girl and that’s how you get babies.”

So I mentioned it to Herself. We were doing the school uniform lists for Bobby and Teddy.

She said, “I don’t want to hear servants’ gossip. My sons behave correctly, Joe especially. He knows he has to be an example to the others.”

I said, “He does. But there’s more than one story going round, so I thought you should be told. There’s too much smoke for there not to be a bit of a fire.”

She said, “And we both know what kind of girls allow stories like that to be spread. Girls that don’t deserve a man’s respect.”

I said, “Well, Caro Leinster’s highly respectable and she won’t come to the house anymore, in case she runs into him. And Minnie Stubbs seems like a very nice girl. She told Kick he tried to get into her drawers going home the other night.”

“Nora!” she said. “I don’t believe Kick said that.”

She hadn’t, not in so many words. Kick was a Sacred Heart girl through and through. No vulgarity.

I said, “She didn’t need to. I’m reading between the lines. The word’s getting round that Joe takes liberties.”

She laughed.

She said, “Do you think so? The scamp! And of course, these girls throw themselves at him. He’s so handsome and vital. You know, he looks very much like the Ambassador when he was a young buck.”

I said, “I love Joseph Patrick dearly, but if I had a daughter I’d be warning her off him. That’s the thing. I wouldn’t want Kick getting into the hands of a boy like that.”

But she wasn’t listening to me. She was off down memory lane.

She said, “It was love at first sight, you know? My father sent me away to Europe. He didn’t think a Kennedy was good enough for me, but I was determined. I knew Joe was the one for me. And he’s always treated me with respect, Nora, because I commanded respect. My husband has always been a perfect gentleman to me.”

See, it was all forgiven and forgotten about Miss Swanson and his other lady friends. I never met anyone quite like Rose Kennedy for ignoring an ache in her heart and soldiering on.

She said, “A man must do what men do, obviously, but he’ll only take liberties where he sees them on offer. Decent girls have nothing to fear. Certainly not from my son.”

I said, “Well, he likes to get his own way, that I do know, and he’s a powerful strong boy. They get a glass or two of whiskey inside them and who can say what might happen. It would be a terrible thing if there should be a misunderstanding. If the Kennedy name should get dragged in. It could ruin things for everyone.”

That made her think.

She said, “I won’t have anything spoil Euny’s debut. I think Kick should distance herself from these girls. She has plenty of other lovely friends. And I’ll get the Ambassador to have a word with Joseph Patrick.”

Well, there was a brilliant scheme. As well ask a fox to supervise the henhouse.

All the time we were in Cannes there were cablegrams being delivered and sent. Danny Walsh said they were likely about the
Herr Hitler situation. Neither Mr. Roosevelt nor Mr. Chamberlain wanted to get into a fight with him, but they didn’t want him thinking he could go around helping himself to countries either. Then there was Mr. K, who thought everybody should mind their own business, and Danny Walsh, who thought Mr. K should be sent to Germany to straighten things out.

He said, “I’m telling you, leave it to old man Kennedy. There won’t be a war if he has anything to do with it.”

Fidelma said, “And there we were thinking Danny Walsh was just Mrs. Kennedy’s pool attendant. Isn’t he the regular kingmaker!”

Danny said, “You can laugh, but I get to hear a lot of things.”

He did too.

“Danny, where’s my scarf? Danny, how much are we paying for gasoline? Danny, did you see those awful Reagans? They grab the front pew and throw dollar bills on the collection plate and they’re nothing but bog Irish when you look at their faces. They have no refinement. People like that quite ruin Mass.”

At the end of August Jack went back to Harvard to his studies and me and Fidelma and Mrs. Moore took the children back to London, ready for the new school year. Mary Moore was given the job of taking Rosie to the Belmont School, to start her teacher training. It wasn’t any old school. The children were allowed to pick and choose what they did and all in their own good time. It was called the Montessori method and it sounded right up Rosie’s alley. They said if she settled down and learned all about it she’d have a certificate at the end of it. She’d be able to go to a Montessori school anywhere in the world and teach kindergarten.

“Teaching college,” she called it. “I’m going to get a certificate like Jack and Joe. I’m going to be a Tessymori teacher.”

She went off in a new straw hat, all smiles. Rosie would do anything to please Mrs. Moore or Fidelma, but if her Mammy
tried to get her to do something we’d hear language and all sorts, so Herself stayed on at the villa for another month, with Kick and Euny for company. They missed all the excitement of war nearly breaking out.

While we’d been gone from Prince’s Gate there had been trenches dug in Hyde Park and gas masks issued. Mr. Stevens, the butler, said we should have a practice, in case of gas attacks. He pretended to be the siren and we all had to see how fast we could get our masks on. Teddy took his everywhere the first week, even into bed, but then he lost interest. We all did. We’d heard Herr Hitler on the wireless, railing and screeching at one of the big rallies, but he seemed a very long way off from London, SW1.

Bobby asked Mr. K if there was going to be a war.

He said, “If I thought that, son, you’d be on your way home to New York. All these preparations are just for appearance’s sake. They don’t want Hitler to get the impression he can help himself to any little country without anyone lifting a finger. They have to show a bit of solidarity with these Czechs. He’ll get what he wants in the end, but it’ll just look better this way.”

Bobby said, “Does that mean he wants this country?”

Mr. K said, “I guess he does, but there doesn’t have to be a war over it. Nobody wants a war.”

Gertie Ambler started stockpiling canned goods though, and then sandbags appeared around the embassy doors in Grosvenor Square. Anybody could get sandbags if they were willing to fill them. We took a walk one day, across the park towards the Bayswater Road to see a great pit they’d opened. There was a long line of trucks waiting to back up and take on a load of sand, and ordinary people too, come in from miles around with trailers hooked onto their little cars. The military were in Hyde Park that day, too, practicing raising a barrage balloon and getting in a
right old tangle, too many chiefs and nobody listening to orders. We had quite an entertaining afternoon out.

Mrs. K and the girls were supposed to be going to Paris on the way home, to shop for clothes, but Mr. K sent them a wire to come back to London directly, “because of the worsening situation,” he said. He was on the telephone to the President at all hours and round to Downing Street to see the Prime Minister at least once a day. Then Mr. Chamberlain went by airplane to meet Adolf Hitler face-to-face and we all held our breath.

Three times he went. “Like a poodle dog,” Danny Walsh said. “Adolf Hitler must be laughing up his sleeve.”

I just felt sorry for poor Mr. Chamberlain. Travel’s a curse and he didn’t look a well man. But just when things looked so bad Herself had ordered the trunks brought down from the attics ready for packing, he came back from Munich with an agreement that saved us from war. Hitler could have the bit of Czechoslovakia he wanted, which was only the part where a lot of German people lived anyway, and in exchange he’d leave the rest in peace. We could put our gas masks away and the trunks were to be hauled back upstairs.

Billy Hartington came round that evening, I remember, and Richard Wood and Tony Erskine, as well as Cynthia Brough and her crowd. As soon as the word was out that Kick was back in town, the boys were buzzing around. Mr. K came back from the House of Commons. The Prime Minister had just spoken about the agreement that had been reached with Germany. Mr. K said it had been a very stirring speech and when it was over everyone had stood on their seats and cheered enough to raise the roof. But it didn’t sit well with some of Kick’s young men and they told Mr. Kennedy so.

She said, “Things got a bit sticky last night. The boys were all saying Hitler should be taught a lesson, but Daddy said Mr.
Chamberlain’s done the right thing because England’s in no shape to teach anyone anything. Daddy says Germany would win a war in five minutes and he’s in a better position to know than someone like Harry Bagnell. Daddy had luncheon with Colonel Lindbergh so he knows how many bombers and things Germany has. Daddy has all the facts.”

And whatever the facts were, they seemed to be robbing Mr. K of his sleep. He was fifty years old and London had taken the bounce out of him. Mrs. K reckoned it was all the grand dinners he had to go to affecting his ulcers, and it was true all he took at home was warm milk or a bowl of chicken soup. But it wasn’t only his health. He wasn’t really suited to his position. Stevens had been butler to Mr. Bingham before him and to Mr. Mellon and Mr. Dawes before that and he said he’d never known an ambassador like Joe Kennedy. He spoke his mind instead of telling everybody what they wanted to hear. He didn’t know how to sweeten things and he didn’t have a lick of patience. He wanted things done his way and fast. Joe Kennedy wouldn’t have gone three times in an airplane for the sake of somebody else’s country. “Leave me and mine alone,” he’d have said, “and we’ll say no more about these other little places.” And then he’d have sent Adolf Hitler a case of whiskey.