Читать книгу Gone With the Windsors - Laurie Graham - Страница 15

Another letter from Violet. The most extraordinary thing, she wrote. You’ll never guess who has appeared on the scene. She then digresses, recounting in unnecessary detail various antics of the brood. Ulick won a trophy for shooting. Flora wet her drawers at Lady Londonderry’s. Rory fell off his new pony and knocked out two teeth. On and on it went without at all getting to the point. Violet’s meanderings are so fatiguing. I had to turn two pages before I learned who it was who had so extraordinarily appeared on the scene. Minnehaha, no less. Wally Warfield! Well!

I ran into Pips Waldo, she writes, who told me all she knew. Apparently, she’s married to someone who was in the Guards but is now in business. They have a little place somewhere north of Marble Arch, and from what Pips has heard, she’s quite on the make.

I can imagine. Her mother didn’t have a dime, but Wally never allowed that to hold her back. She had sharp elbows and a calculating mind, and she didn’t miss a trick. Great fun though. School was much more interesting once Wally was around.

She came to Oldfields in 1911 and only because an uncle was paying for her. One didn’t expect a new girl to start throwing her weight around, especially a girl who was a charity case, but on her first day she warned everyone that although her given name was Bessie Wallis, she only answered to Wallis or Wally. I could see her point. Bessie’s more a name for a cow or a mammy.

But more often than not, we called her Minnehaha, because of her cheekbones and the way she braided her hair, and she quite liked it. She reckoned she was descended from Pocahontas, but then so do a lot of people. Pips Waldo and Mary Kirk and I were her main friends. Lucie Mallett was a hanger-on, but she never invited Wally to her home, because Mrs. Mallett knew all the dirt about Wally’s mother taking in boarders and wearing lip rouge, and the Malletts had very closed minds. But we Pattersons were raised differently.

‘Let me not judge my brother,’ Father always said.

Anyway, it was Lucie Mallett’s loss. Wally and I used to have such fun. Inventing pains so we could stay in and read fashion tips instead of playing basketball. Drinking ginger ale and eating butter cookies after lights out. I was always sorry we drifted out of touch. So, now she’s in London. Perhaps I’ll reconsider. It would be nice to see Pips. It might be interesting to pick up the threads with Judson Erlanger. And with Wally around livening things up, I think I could even endure a few weeks of dull old Violet.