Читать книгу Gone With the Windsors - Laurie Graham - Страница 50

Even Ida seems to be fixed up for summer, care-taking someone’s house in Gloucestershire. When I asked Violet if she planned to remain in London, she looked at me as though I’d asked whether she intended jumping into the Thames.

“Maybell,” she said, “no one stays in London in August. We go to Drumcanna, of course, and this year you’ll come with us.”

We’ll see about that. It’s so typical of Melhuish’s family to have their castle practically at the North Pole. All that way, and for what? To catch a few fish when one could so easily have them delivered by a good fishmonger? To crawl across Scottish moors in pursuit of some kind of elk? Knowing Violet’s culinary repertoire, we’ll be dining on poached elk till Thanksgiving. No. I shall make other arrangements.

Wally and Ernest are dining with Boss and Ethel Croker before they leave London.

I said, “You and Ethel must have so much to catch up on.”

“Not really,” she said. “We were never close. But Ernest and Boss will find lots to talk about. They have a house on Long Island, you know? And they travel all over, first class. Ethel’s certainly landed on her feet. Traded in a midshipman for a multimillionaire.”

Hardly “traded in.” Ethel’s husband was killed in Canton, friendly fire.