Abdication: A Novel

by Juliet Nicolson

  “I have been trying to telephone you,” she began, holding up her hand in an attempt to get him to slow down. “I have got some tickets for the ballet at Covent Garden next week. Just for the two of us to celebrate the end of your exams.”

  “Can’t stop now, I’m afraid,” Julian shouted out as they sped past her. “We’re off to swim.”

  And Miss Nettlefold found herself forced to step so quickly to the side of the path in order to avoid being run over that she did not have time to notice the fresh-smelling cowpat into which her beautiful new walking shoe plunged with slippery ease.

  Following the curves of the sharp bank where the small water lilies sucked up the marshy water and produced their sharp butter-yellow flowers, the smell of wild peppermint in the air, May and Julian made their way to the mouth of the river. Lying the bikes on their side they skipped over a thick black cable that emerged from beneath the seabed and slithered reptile-like across the pebbles before disappearing through the wall of a hut set twenty-five yards above the sea line.

  “Philip told me about this place,” Julian said. “Even so, I find it hard to believe that a telephone line runs all the way under the sea from Dieppe to us over here at Cuckmere. Such a small piece of kit for all those voluble French! Shall we leave our towels here by the hut?”

  That morning, in anticipation of what she had thought would be a solitary swim, May had put on her old faded bathing suit beneath her summer dress. Julian was less prepared, but several terms of plunging naked into the Isis near Magdalen College had dissipated his inhibitions. And then he remembered the unusual item of clothing he was wearing beneath his shorts. A few weeks after that appalling dinner party at Bryanston Court, during one of the snatched moments when Evangeline attempted to advance her futile suit, she had slipped a parcel out of her bag and placed it gently in Julian’s lap.

  “I hope you won’t mind such a, well, shall I say personal gift, but my brother found his life transformed by this garment so I asked him to go to our local department store and buy one for you.”

  “What a surprise,” was all Julian could think of to say, as he removed the wrapping paper to reveal a pair of elasticated swimming trunks with a horizontal vent and a sort of pocket that resembled a kangaroo pouch at the front.

  “No time for preparing for summer fun like the ‘present,’ excuse the pun!” said Evangeline, moving her cheek near Julian’s mouth, undeterred by the delay she was forced to endure before receiving a perfunctory kiss of thanks.

  Evangeline’s present had lain untouched, shoved at the back of a drawer but that morning, searching for a clean item of underwear, Julian had come across the unwelcome gift. He hoped May was not looking too closely as he steadied himself, preparing to make a deep dive into the final stretch of the River Cuckmere before it merged with the sea half a mile further on. A few hundred yards from where they stood a sequence of white chalk cliffs undulated above the coast in a pattern of seven graceful rises, before culminating at Beachy Head. There, at the highest point, where the drop down to the thunderous crashing of the water against the rocks was over five hundred feet, the sea appeared at its most beautiful and its most threatening.

  Standing above the swift-flowing river, Julian and May were alone except for a tall, elegant woman sitting on the grass on the opposite bank and looking out to sea, an open book in her lap. She was wearing a long pale blue linen jacket, her hands thrust deep within its pockets. Suddenly she looked up and across at May and Julian. May waved to Mrs. Woolf in greeting, who immediately waved back.

  Julian stared, first in recognition at the woman and then back at May. Allowing himself to take in the long legs and brown body in its pretty, flower-patterned suit beside him, he felt suddenly and intensely exhilarated.

  “You are one of the most surprising people I have ever come across,” he declared. “Ready?” he asked, taking off his glasses and putting them carefully on the grassy bank. “Let’s jump now!”

  A moment later the water enveloped them. The current was travelling at speed and they found themselves spinning round in circles as the rush of water pulled them towards the river mouth. In less than a minute they reached the open sea, whooping and shouting to one another at the top of their voices above the noise of the waves.

  After several minutes, Julian, who, unlike May, had been deprived of a childhood in which swimming was as much part of the daily routine as the brushing of teeth, suggested they turn back to the shore.

  Afterwards May was not quite sure how it had all happened. Julian had returned to the bank to get his glasses before they climbed together up the pebbly shore towards the little telephone exchange to retrieve their towels. Shivering from the temperature of the water as well as the intoxicating swim, May pushed at the door of the hut and to her surprise it gave way. A broken down armchair, so large that it was almost the size of a sofa, was wedged in a corner. Julian’s teeth were chattering.

  “Shall we go in and get warm?” May said. “I’m sure no one will mind.”

  Inside the hut, sitting on the chair big enough for two, May began to rub her hair dry with the towel.

  “Let me help you,” Julian said quietly, sitting down and taking the towel from her. Several minutes elapsed during which he kissed every part of her face, even her eyelids, before he slid the straps of her costume off her shoulders. Gradually he eased the flowery suit down the length of her body, until she was completely naked. For May this long-anticipated moment had become one of imagined resistance. And yet the dreadful memories of Duncan’s sustained abuse now vanished in the presence of the warm, patient, loving touch of a man whose uninhibited desire for her was suddenly impossible to resist. The lightness of Julian’s fingertips, stroking her back and running at first all the way to the base of her spine, and then, cautiously, slowly, round to the curve of her breast, made her want the feelings he was awakening in her to last forever. As he gathered May towards him she felt his arms gently circle her waist. Leaning into the cool smoothness of his bare skin she allowed herself to sink deep, deep into a previously unimaginable state where nothing at all mattered, nor would ever matter again. For what seemed like a lifetime, May remained inside that small wooden hut on the pebble beach wrapped in Julian’s arms. As he kissed her at first with such tenderness, and then with a reciprocated passion as powerful as the motion of the sea itself, she thought she might dissolve with happiness.

  Later that evening Mr. Hooch arrived back at the garage after leaving Mr. Julian at the station. The trip had been his second to Polegate that day. He had already taken an unusually taciturn Miss Nettlefold to the train, remarking to himself that not only here was a woman decidedly out of sorts but also one who, judging by the pungency that still lurked in the back of the Talbot, had taken to economising on baths.

  May was inside the Rolls-Royce, oiling the partition window that divided the driver from her passengers when Mr. Hooch walked in.

  “Mr. Julian’s visit has certainly put a big smile on your face, young lady,” Mr. Hooch remarked as he shut the door of the Talbot. “He seems to think he will be back here soon. To see her ladyship, I expect,” he added, a smile detectable in his voice.

  Mr. Hooch found himself unexpectedly moved by the sight of this beautiful young woman unable to stop herself from grinning. And yet at the same time he feared for her.

  “Mind you, I imagine he will have to tear himself away from the charms of Miss Bellowes if he is to have time to come down here on any sort of regular basis.” There was a note of caution in his voice that May was in no mood to be troubled by.

  “I am sure Mr. Julian will manage somehow,” she said gaily. “And now I must be off to London to see my brother. Would you mind dropping me at the station, Mr. Hooch?”

  Mr. Hooch and May stood together on the platform as they had done on the day they had first met. He shook her hand, his glove leaving a small oily mark on her palm although no blemish could dampen May’s elated mood.

  “Here we are then, and cheer-oh
, as we soldiers used to say in the old days. Stay safe, my dear. I don’t mind telling you I am already looking forward to your return on Monday.”

  As the train rumbled towards London May briefly considered her feelings of relief that Duncan had always just stopped himself from advancing his foul interest in his daughter to its horrible conclusion. Whatever he had done to her, he had left her essential purity intact for another to discover. Mr. Hooch’s mention of Lottie had made no impact on her that afternoon and it was not long before she drifted back to the memory of Julian’s parting kiss and his promise that he would be back with her at Cuckmere soon.

  Oak Street felt musty when May let herself in the front door. Despite the spic-and-span order of the house, the Castors and the Greenfelds rarely opened a window, even in the summer, and the small downstairs rooms could become clogged with smells of cooking and Simon’s pipe smoke. She was pleased to find Sam home on a day’s leave, making a cup of tea.

  “Let’s go outside to the park before dinner,” she urged, pulling him away from the teapot and handing him his overcoat. “I haven’t seen you for ages and I’ve got loads to talk to you about.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  There had been times recently when Evangeline had felt lonelier than at any moment since her arrival in England. With the absence of Wiggle and the incapacity of her godmother, the diversions that had previously filled her London days were becoming fewer. Walks in the park, visits to the dressmaker, outings to the cinema, and even treats to the outstanding patisserie department at Fortnum and Mason lost their appeal when there was no one to enjoy them with.

  The London house had developed a sense of abandonment. Philip often spent the night but left for work immediately after an early breakfast, returning only to change into his evening clothes before going out again until after dinner. Even Julian never dropped by anymore, although Evangeline knew from May how often he visited Cuckmere. She had no longer felt quite as well disposed towards May since noticing her inappropriate and frankly ridiculous need to follow Julian all over the place: up to the North, down to the South, over the fields and yonder. Poor Julian. That flat-chested young woman must be driving him mad. And May was certainly close to overstepping the limitations of professional relationships. Evangeline had even considered mentioning the matter to Philip but was not confident she would get the response she was seeking.

  Rupert and Bettina came and went as they wished but were as tedious as ever, obsessed by their own social engagements, arriving at all hours of the night with their loud-mouthed friends. An invitation to Evangeline to accompany Bettina and her friend Charlotte in loco parentis to their formal presentation to the king at the Buckingham Palace garden party had resulted in a washout. In truth, Evangeline had felt sorrier on that occasion for the girls than for herself. The presentation was to have been the high point of their debut year. Fittings for white silk dresses and discussions about the feathered headdresses had even begun to bore Evangeline. But the garden party had been rained off.

  Well over a hundred girls had been waiting for their big moment, running over the presentation curtsey in their heads, trying to ignore their mothers’ fussing while fluttering their fans and doing their best to keep their feathers dry. Suddenly it was announced that not only would there be no more presentations that day but that the king had decided that the curtsies of those debutantes who had been foiled by the rainstorm were to be “taken as made.” No alternative arrangements were to be scheduled, rendering entire outfits and the rest of the grand hullaballoo redundant.

  “I know Daddy hobnobs with HM day and night, but I call it extremement rude to treat us that way.” Bettina was close to tears. “And I have a good mind to say so to his face.”

  Even the invitations to dine with Wallis had dried up or become subject to last-minute cancellations. Evangeline tried to forgive Wallis’s erratic behaviour by reasoning that her increasing involvement with the king left little time to spare for old friends. Although Wallis’s presence at the Fort had been established since well before Evangeline’s arrival in England, Wallis was now running many other parts of the king’s life, including his London engagements. Evangeline was amazed that nothing about the romance had ever appeared in the British press. Wallis’s name had been published a couple of times next to Ernest’s in The Times Court Circular but that was the extent of it. What a difference between the newspapers here and those back home! Her brother had sent over a clipping from Ed Sullivan’s column in the New York Daily News, together with a couple of others from popular magazines. Headlines had included “Yankee at King Edward’s Court” and “Baltimore Girl Who Won Friendship of King.”

  Mostly the stories were anodyne and even friendly, except for a cartoon showing an old-world English pub in which the regulars, bucolic strings of straw hanging from their mouths, were enjoying a game of darts. The caption read, “We don’t want no Yanks upsetting things over here, do we?” The dartboard was covered with a picture of Wallis’s face. No one in Britain outside a charmed circle would have had any idea what the cartoon meant or recognised the face that had become the players’ target. Nevertheless, the published existence of anti-Wallis sentiment across the Atlantic was worrying. That nice Lord Rothermere, whom Evangeline had met briefly at a Sunday lunch at Cuckmere Park, was certainly most cooperative about the way he did not indulge in gossip in his pages. But how long could a good story be suppressed, Evangeline wondered? Did his newspaper, the Daily Mail, not honour the people’s democratic right to know what went on in their country? Perhaps Lord Rothermere was unaware of the full truth behind this woman who wielded such influence over the king?

  If that was the case, he was certainly in the minority among the powerful and influential members of society who came in and out of Hamilton Terrace. The subject was rarely off the agenda. Evangeline had often heard Philip discussing the problem with Joan before she became ill. Members of the cabinet were becoming agitated about the deepening relationship between the king and a married (and divorced!) woman, while Winston Churchill reassured Philip that Mr. Simpson was still on the scene and was always included in the king’s invitations. There was still a hope within both the upper and lower house, Philip had said, that this current infatuation would “blow over,” just like the king’s other romances with married women, notably Mrs. Dudley Ward and Lady Furness. Certainly no one felt able to speak directly to the king about the matter. Queen Mary was thought to be hors de combat, and still fragile at the loss of her husband. And Mr. Baldwin had pointedly refused to interfere in the king’s private life. Many members of the cabinet felt that as long as the constitution remained intact, and the plans for next year’s coronation went ahead unchallenged, the matter of the royal love life should be left well alone.

  Neglect had a bad effect on Evangeline but Wallis would always come up with something at the last moment. Recently there had been the offer of several nearly new hats, which Evangeline had accepted with alacrity, especially as she was missing her expeditions to the millinery department at Hochschild’s. The choice, as well as the price range in the equivalent department in Harrods, was far too rarefied for Evangeline’s taste and purse except for very special occasions. There had also been some cast-off handbags and gifts of redundant dresses, although even the most resourceful seamstress had been defeated by the challenge of adapting any of Wallis’s diminutive frocks to fit Evangeline.

  One evening, knowing that Evangeline shared her love of music, especially jazz, Wallis had proposed dinner at Quaglino’s on a night when she could be sure the debonair singer Leslie Hutchinson, known to everyone as Hutch, would be playing a medley of romantic tunes.

  The candlelit nightclub, just off St. James’s, had been hazy with cigarette smoke. The king’s table was in the centre of the room, while the less exclusive clientele would be shown to tables placed at the outer edges, several yards from the intimacy of the dance floor itself, and fairly close to the gents’ and ladies’ facilities. The waiters never made this segr
egated positioning explicit but relegation to the second division was evident to those selected for such discrimination. The air around the outer tables was perfumed with Elizabeth Arden’s cloying Blue Grass, while the oxygen around the king’s table reeked of something far headier and more expensive. Women with money to burn on smelling good would anoint the shallow pearl-hung cleavage of an otherwise naked back with the pricey scent of Guerlain’s distillation of orange blossom, jasmine and sandalwood.

  When Evangeline accepted an offer to step onto the dance floor (in truth her only such invitation of the night) she was swept into the centre of the room in the arms of the king himself. His manners were so exquisite that he had danced in turn with each of the four ladies in the party, although Evangeline hoped that he had not asked her out of pity but more in genuine friendship. She liked him, this charm-full man who had taken such a shine to her old school friend. She was still not certain of his intentions towards Wallis but the fascination between the two of them was noticeably weighted on his side. At the Fort, only the other day, Wallis had snagged her fingernail. Although she had dismissed the break as mattering “not a jot,” the king had nonetheless dashed across the marble-floored hallway, returning a moment later with an emery board from his own dressing room.

  When Evangeline rose to dance with the king, finding her way through the cramped tables to the dance floor, she was determined to glide round the floor with the grace she had attempted to learn at school. Unfortunately her dress was a little long and as the pair lurched past the piano Evangeline felt a little squeeze of her red satin bottom. Letting out a squeal of surprise, every eye in the restaurant turned on her.