I said, “No she’s not. She’s small and slender.”
“Well,” she said, “Mummy told Aunt Elspeth the Wally was as vast and bushy as ever.”
Extraordinary.
I pumped Rory for information about this Viscount Minskip Violet has lined up for me.
He said, “I don’t know really. He always comes to Drumcanna, but he never asks me or Ulick to play with him. Uncle George Lightfoot says he doesn’t have both oars in the water.”
I’m surprised to hear he rows. Violet gave me the impression he’s more of a drawing-room man.
18th July 1932
Wally gave up my portable gramophone very reluctantly, but she and Ernest leave tomorrow, so she can’t have any possible use for it. I also had to ask for my tango record, and she wouldn’t let me borrow the two she bought. She said Ernest is very particular about lending things.
21st July 1932
The car, the luggage, and the butler have left for the long drive north, and what remains of the staff seems to be in premature holiday mood. Bells go unanswered, baths are run late, and dinner has been pared down to soup, an entrée, and a dessert composed from stale cake and canned fruits. Violet says we’ll be glutted with good food once we get to Drumcanna. I suppose that means more salmon.
27th July 1932, Drumcanna, Aberdeenshire
We are at Melhuish’s Scottish seat, by some miracle. Now I know how our great pioneers lived as they forged west. We had to change trains at Edinburgh and again at Aberdeen, into ever more spartan carriages, so that we arrived at Aboyne with every tooth shaken loose. There we were met by cars for another bone-rattling ride. Fifteen miles on rutted tracks and in unaccountably sweltering heat.
Drumcanna towers above the Burn of Skelpie, a big granite house with towers at the two front corners, complete with battlements and arrow holes. The chair covers are worn, the drapes are faded, and the principal decorative motif is animal parts. Ink wells, coat hooks, objets d’art, all seem once to have gamboled across Drumcanna Moor.
I’ve been put in a turret room below the nursery, pleasantly furnished but one can only reach it by way of a perilous staircase, one narrow, winding climb for everyone, people and servants alike. In the mornings, when the night potties are being taken down and the breakfast trays are being brought up, it must be like Oxford Street.
Melhuish is in a jovial mood and has been very attentive to me, teaching me a dance called the strathspey and savoring those moments when the lurching of the train threw us into each other’s arms. I wonder if he has regrets about Violet? She’s become so stout and plain.
The first guests arrive tomorrow, Ralph and Jane Habberley and Fergus and Penelope Blythe. The shooting doesn’t start till August 12th, but they’re coming to fish for brown trout. George Lightfoot is expected at the weekend, and Queen Ena on Monday. There’ll also be some local people, the Anstruther-Brodies, but they only come for the start of the shooting. Violet says it’s impossible to predict when Tommy Minskip may arrive, as he’s a law unto himself. I begin to like him already.
28th July 1932
No breakfast trays allowed. Violet says it’s too much for the help when they have to get luncheon ready, and anyway it’s nicer if everyone comes down and starts the day sociably over a kippered herring. But nobody’s here yet, and anyway, what is help for if not to help? We’ll be expected to carry up our own hot water next.
I hardly slept. When Violet enthused about the cornucopia of wildlife in the Highlands, she omitted to mention the miniature mosquitoes that have eaten me to the bone.
Rory says they’re called midges. He and Flora have been running wild all morning, building a camp in a coppice beyond the vegetable garden. I’m to be invited to view it the moment it’s fixed up. Violet doesn’t seem to care what they drag outside—pillows, tea cups, a meat safe.
I said, “Do you realize Doopie’s allowed them to take a good coverlet?”
“Not now, Maybell,” she said. “I must catch our Consumptives secretary before she leaves for Glendochrie.”
The Habberleys and the Blythes have just arrived. Lady Habberley dresses like a stablehand, but the Hon. Mrs. Blythe, much to Violet’s disgust, is wearing nail polish. Flora’s eyes lit up. She adores nail polish. She always rushes to see what color I’ve chosen when I come home from a manicure.
29th July 1932
The men and Ulick went out to fish at five, banging doors, crunching on the gravel, and generally wakening the dead. I ventured down at nine, hoping to organize a little tea and toast and tiptoe back to my room, but Doopie saw me pass the door and cried out “Bayba!” so I had no choice but to go in and join the ladies.
Jane Habberley is a drab creature. Violet described her as “the backbone of our Highland Crafts Association” and certainly, everything she wears appears to be hand-knitted. Penelope Blythe is definitely more promising. She’d already spotted my gramophone and suggested to Violet that we have dancing after dinner this evening.
Violet said she had no objection, but we might find ourselves short of men. She said Melhuish doesn’t do that kind of dancing. We’ll see about that.
Penelope said, “Who’s at Balmoral? If Prince George is there, I’m sure he’d adore to come over and dance.”
Violet says Prince George isn’t there, nor the Prince of Wales. Only Prince Harry, and Bertie York and his little family at Birkhall.
Penelope said, “Well, neither of them is any use. They only dance reels. Do you know them, Maybell? Violet won’t like my saying it, but they’re such a dull bunch.”
I said, “No, I don’t. But I do know Lady Furness.”
“Do you!” she said. “How thrilling! Well, of course, Thelma Furness is the plat du jour, but she’s only the latest in a long line, and Wales still keeps up with some of his old sweethearts, you know? He visits Freda Dudley Ward all the time.”
Violet sliced the top off her egg with a fearsome swipe.
She said, “I hope you’re coming out for a walk this morning, Maybell? I very much hope you’re not going to sit around gossiping.”
She knows darned well I don’t go for walks. One of my conditions of coming here was that I be left in peace to write my diary and peruse the great works of Sir Walter Scott and Rabbi Burns.
Penelope Blythe describes Viscount Minskip as chetif. Unfortunately, the library here is not equipped with foreign dictionaries.
30th July 1932
George Lightfoot arrived at tea time and was pleased to find I’d set up my gramophone in the Long Gallery. Penelope and I took turns with him, then Ralph Habberley appeared, drawn by the sound of the music, as did Doopie, Rory, Flora, and several spaniels. I think we’ve managed to give them all the rudiments, except for Flora, who won’t apply herself to anything and made up her own wild Scottish steps. Ralph has more enthusiasm than ability, but George moves rather well, for an Englishman. The help were so fascinated, peering around the door at us, that the dinner bell was late.
31st July 1932
Jane Habberley stood on my tango record and destroyed it.
1st August 1932
There is no store in either Aboyne or Ballater that sells gramophone records.
2nd August 1932
I now know the meaning of chetif. Tommy Minskip is insane. He drives himself in a Bentley motor car, and travels without even a valet. He arrived yesterday with one small valise and a trunk containing dozens of toy soldiers which he has now laid out in the Smoking Room, ready to re-enact the Battle of Waterloo. George Lightfoot has explained it all to me. Every afternoon, as close to two p.m. as social obligations allow, the Royal Scots Greys charge the French infantry, with sound effects, Minskip captures the enemy’s eagle standard and then falls, mortally wounded.
“Still a boy at heart,” was George’s explanation. I think he’s too generous. If he were still a boy at heart, he wouldn’t have disappointed Rory and Flora by omitting to visit their sodden camp.
3rd August 1932
Penelope and
I have taken up watercolor painting. We find we can run off half a dozen before luncheon and smudges don’t at all matter; indeed, they add to a picture’s talking points. Rain kept us indoors today, but one doesn’t need to be looking at a moor in order to paint an “impression” of it. Penelope tosses hers away at the end of the day, but mine might make interesting gifts for Christmas.
George Lightfoot is very amiable, playing at Dolls’ Shooting Lunches with Rory and Flora in their hideaway and holding Doopie’s skeins of knitting yarn while she winds them into balls.
He’s been teasing Melhuish about his stags, keeps asking when he’s going to “do a Sassoon” on them? Sir Philip Sassoon, apparently, has had his stags’ antlers gilded so they catch the sun. Shudders from Melhuish. I think it a rather wonderful idea.
I said, “I think I’d like to know Sir Philip Sassoon.”
George said, “You mean you haven’t met him? Violet, what are you thinking of?”
She said, “But we never see him. I see Sybil, of course. She’s on my Blood Bank committee, but Philip, almost never.”
George said, “Well, I shall introduce you, directly we get back to London.”
I said, “And where do Sir Philip and Lady Sybil live?”
“Oh no,” he said, “Syb’s not his wife. She’s his sister. She’s the Marchioness of Chumley, spelled Cholmondeley, nota bene Maybell. She’s married to Rocksavage, but Philip’s not married to anyone.”
So much the better. Sir Philip sounds much more to my taste than Viscount Minskip. Penelope says Minskip owns practically half of Yorkshire, but I don’t care. He’s welcome to it.
5th August 1932
Ena of Spain has arrived, wheezing and perspiring but all smiles. She has perfect English, being an actual granddaughter of Queen Victoria and almost raised by her. She’s an ex-queen though, so there’s no need for those time-consuming deep curtsies. A sincere bob is quite sufficient. The ex-King isn’t with her. They take separate vacations.
More thunder. More insects. Tonight’s much-trumpeted treat for dinner was sea trout caught by Melhuish and Ulick. “How wonderful,” Violet kept saying. “Only an hour out of the water!” Still a fish though, when all’s said and done. I long for a filet mignon.
Ena took my hand and said she hoped we’d be friends. She said, “Violet has been my rock and Doopie’s almost like a daughter to me, so I’m going to claim you, too. Then I’ll have the full set!”
6th August 1932
Ena Spain is quite gay, considering the circumstances of her life. Her children are all sickly, her husband goes with actresses, and last year, when the rebels drove them out of Spain, he left without her. Ran off to Paris and left her to take her chances and follow with the youngest of the brood once they were healthy enough to travel. She says there were rioters ramming the palace doors with trucks, and if it hadn’t been for two footmen helping them slip out the back way, they’d have been murdered in their beds. I wonder whether she lost her jewels. No one dresses here, so it’s impossible to know whether she’s been reduced to paste copies.
She’s especially attached to Doopie, because by an extraordinary coincidence, one of her sons is the same kind of dullard. His name is Hymie, but they spell it with a J in Spain. She said, “Hymie and Doopie get along so well. They understand each other perfectly. It’s a pity they’re not closer in age, because I think they’d have made a very happy couple.”
The very idea. I told her, they must never be allowed to breed.
She said, “I don’t see why. It’s not an inherited kind of deafness. And in every other respect, they’re just like you and me. The Greeces have an aunt with exactly the same problem and she’s led a very full life.”
Penelope Blythe agrees with me that Doopie doesn’t seem all there. George Lightfoot says she’s sharp as a tack but deaf as a post. I’m beginning to think information has been kept from me.
7th August 1932
It’s official. Doopie is deaf. I had it out with Violet while she was dressing.
I said, “Someone might have thought to mention it to me.”
She said, “Mother told you. I know she did. You just never listen. And anyway, it couldn’t matter less. Doopie manages very well and she’s perfectly happy.”
I’d just like to know when it was decided she’s not an idiot.
She said, “You’re the only one who ever said she was. Things take her longer, that’s all. Some things.”
I suppose now I’ll be expected to apologize. Violet says there’s nothing can be done about her ears. Apparently, Prince Hymie with a J tried a hearing aid, an electrical box that hung around his neck and plugged into his ears, for when he had to go to receptions, but it didn’t help him at all. I’m not surprised. No one at receptions can hear anything. The only thing to do is nod intelligently and move swiftly along.
Rory says Thomas Edison, inventor of the light bulb, was also deaf. Greek aunts, ex-Prince Hymie, Thomas Edison. Suddenly deafness is all the rage.
8th August 1932
Flora is wearing an Atora suet carton hung on a string and is playing at Hearing Aids. George Lightfoot said there was no need to apologize to Doopie for thinking her an idiot all these years, because there have been many times when she’s thought the same of me. But I did apologize, because even deaf people may have feelings.
Doopie said, “Aw ride, Bayba. No needa shoud. Dudn’t mayg any divrent.”
She has such a cheerful disposition. Of course, being handicapped, she has never been subjected to the stresses and strains of life as we normal people are.
10th August 1932
Melhuish’s sisters motored over from Birkhall for luncheon. Jinty is even sourer than Elspeth, but she lives in the far, far north, so I’m unlikely to be troubled by her company again. Elspeth may be reconciled to the idea of a foreign sister-in-law; in fact, I think she’s rather fond of Violet, but Jinty doesn’t even approve of the English, so what hope for a patriotic American. The only time she addressed me was to ask me when I’d be returning to the United States. Worried I might stick around and bag one of those spare Scottish lords, I suppose. And she looked at the jug of iced water I requested as though I’d asked for a doggie woops to be brought to the table.
I said, “September. I’ll be going back in September.”
I hadn’t realized I’d decided until I’d said it.
Tears from Flora. She fled from the table, Doopie followed her, and Rory followed Doopie.
Penelope said, “Oh Maybell, don’t go. I rather thought we might be chums. You’ll find things much livelier after the summer. Balls, parties. Do stay. Violet has room for you.”
But I didn’t say I was going back for good. Not at all. I’ll simply settle my affairs, let it be known to provincialites like Nora Sedley Cordle that Maybell Brumby has gone international, and then return. And Violet’s having room or not won’t enter into it, because I shall take a house anyway. Somewhere I can have my bath run as deep and as hot as I please. And I won’t have to lose sleep over the price of a good rib roast.
I’ll be one of the Baltimore belles who are making their mark on London.
11th August 1932
A boot boy has gone by bicycle down to Aboyne with a wire to Fishbone and Strong. I’ve instructed them to find a good tenant for Sweet Air. Flora is happy. She’s been dancing up and down the Long Gallery, singing, “Aunt Bayba’s staying forever!”
Penelope seems very pleased, too. She says there’s a house that may be coming up across from them in Cadogan Square. I don’t know. I’ll have to see if it’s my kind of neighborhood.
The Anstruther-Brodies have arrived, which signals the start of the shooting party.
The quarry is a small bird called grice.
12th August 1932
The guns went out early, Ailsa Anstruther-Brodie among them. It was all too obvious at dinner last night that Melhuish is very smitten. He kept gushing about her being a first-rate shot, and bounding across the room to light her cigaret
te. It all seems to sail over Violet’s head.
Everything now revolves around the shooting, even luncheon, so one has the choice of piling into motors and joining the guns, or going hungry. Even Viscount Minskip has been forced to reschedule his daily battle. Two long tables had been taken up to the moor and set with china and flatware kept especially for these occasions. Shooting lunches, they’re called. The whole thing must be an enormous strain on Violet’s struggling staff, and it would be altogether simpler if sandwiches were sent up in a shooting brake and the rest of us were left in peace, but no. Ladies, children, and Minskip at one table; men, loaders, beaters, and Ailsa Anstruther-Brodie at the other. Stag pie and salad and a cake decorated with flaked almonds, which Rory calls Toenail Cake.
Jane Habberley is now sucking up to me, asking my advice about watercolor painting—feeling pangs of guilt about my tango record, I hope.
13th August 1932
I now know everything there is to know about shooting parties. The guns come in at five and talk of nothing but the day’s bag. More than sixty birds were taken today, which means we shall be eating them till kingdom come, but at least it will make a change from fish. The guns also dash away after one whiskey, help themselves to all the hot water, then commandeer the conversation at dinner. Weather prospects, heather bugs, gamekeepers droller than Beatrice Lillie, dogs smarter than Alfred Einstein.
Next year, I shall summer with my own kind of people. The raspberries here are delicious, however.
Gone With the Windsors Page 5