Читать книгу Gone With the Windsors - Laurie Graham - Страница 20

Lunch with Pips Crosbie. She now has a red tint and bangs and looks adorably modern. She goes to Monsieur Jules in Bruton Street and is going to introduce me. Her husband, whom she can’t wait for me to meet, is in Parliament, a kind of congressman, I gather, but not in the same House as Melhuish. Freddie Crosbie had to get elected to his seat, whereas Melhuish has one simply because he’s Lord Melhuish. It has been warmed by Melhuish b-t-ms through the centuries.

Pips and Freddie seem to see quite a bit of Judson Erlanger.

She said, “As I recall, you had quite a pash for him.”

Pips is misremembering. Judson was the one who pursued me.

Another name from the past. Ida Coote is in town, living some kind of artistic life in a rooming house full of White Russians. Extraordinary. I hadn’t realized Russians came in any other color.

I don’t believe I’ve seen Ida since Gunpowder River Summer Camp. It must be twenty years. She was another unusual girl. I can’t wait.

Wally is now married to someone called Simpson, and I have her address from Pips. George Street. All I’ve been able to discover is that it’s in some kind of backwater north of Marble Arch and absolutely nobody lives there. Poor Wally.

Pips says they’ve seen each other in passing at several receptions, but so far they haven’t managed to get together for lunch. I sense Pips dragging her heels. She said, “I don’t know. Maybe the years have improved her, but didn’t you always find her rather mouthy?”

Actually, I liked that in her. I had the face and the figure, but Wally had the patter. We’d take a slow walk down to the Chesapeake tea rooms on a Sunday and collect ourselves quite an escort of good-looking Navy boys, in from Annapolis for the afternoon. We made a good team. Perhaps we will again. Me, Wally, Pips, Ida. At this rate, we belles of Baltimore will be taking over London.

Violet says Ida’s address is in West Kensington, which hardly counts as London. Also that she’d hesitate to classify Wally Warfield as a belle.

Tomorrow to Swan & Edgar for woolen camisoles.