Читать книгу Gone With the Windsors - Laurie Graham - Страница 115

Violet says the Prince of Wales can never marry Thelma Furness, or any other divorced person. Neither can he change the rules when he becomes king. Only Parliament can do that. I begin to wonder if there are any advantages at all to being king.

I said, “Well, it seems hard cheese for Thelma when her husband has gone off on tiger shoots and left the door very obviously ajar.”

Violet said Melhuish enjoys a good duck-hunt when he can get it, but they’ve never allowed his absences to lead to moral laxity.

Flora is to be tried at Hope House School as a weekly boarder after Christmas, to see if she’s suited. She’s not supposed to know till nearer the time, but she does know. It was the first thing she told me when I went up to the nursery.

She said, “I won’t be suited. I’ll kick someone and then they’ll send me home.”

Doopie trying to explain to me about the business with the smell in the drawing room. She kept saying, “Vora but a gibba unna share.”

That’s the thing about the deaf. Insist as Violet may that Doopie isn’t backward, she certainly can’t get the difference between “kipper” and “gibba,” and, I’m afraid to say, it has rubbed off seriously on Flora.

School can only be a good idea.

Melhuish said, “Peculiar thing to do. Waste of a fine smokie, too. Damned if I understand it. Never had any of that kind of carry-on with the boys.”