dinner last year had resulted in a family row and the heir to the throne had been seen banging his head against the lemon silk walls of his mother’s private sitting room.
Evangeline was aware of the constant reminders not to discuss any of this in front of the servants. “PD,” Joan would mutter, with a finger to her lips as Mrs. Cage carried the evening cocktail tray into the Cuckmere drawing room. There were other subjects that fell into the pas devant category. Sex was one. Money another. As both of these topics were of utmost concern to many of Joan’s friends there were frequent pauses in conversation as the time came for curtains to be drawn, plates to be cleared, or wood to be added to an already blazing fire. Sometimes guests, including Evangeline herself, would forget themselves and run on indiscriminately, in which case a servant would find themselves summoned to the study and told to forget everything they had heard.
As the Rolls-Royce travelled along the country roads towards Sunningdale, Evangeline tried to imagine how the woman at the heart of all this talk would be feeling and whether at their first meeting she would even raise the topic. Evangeline promised herself she would not touch it unless Wallis herself did first.
Although Joan had explained that Cropper’s affection for the whisky bottle had prompted Philip to replace him with a more levelheaded driver, Evangeline had uncharacteristically paid little attention to the new incumbent behind the steering wheel of the Blunts’ navy blue Rolls-Royce. Evangeline was always curious to meet someone new whether they were a king, a famous playwright or someone employed to make the wheels of life roll more smoothly. While motoring with Joan one day to fulfil her long-held ambition to visit the famous food halls in Harrods department store, she had learned a good deal from Joan about the sleek car in which they were travelling. Philip, a fan of the motorcar since before the war, would have far preferred the more racy Bentley but there was so little room in the backseat to spread out his work papers that they had opted several years ago for the more conventional Rolls.
But Joan’s explanation had somehow never proceeded beyond the vehicle itself to the person who sat at the controls. During theatre visits and the couple of shopping expeditions that Evangeline and Joan had made together in the car, and on the one occasion when they had been driven to lunch with Philip in the fashionable Ivy restaurant, they had sat together in the back, too full of their own conversation to have time to chat to the new driver. He appeared to be even more silent than Cropper, but his steady gloved hands had conducted them through the London traffic without a hitch.
Therefore, on the way to Sunningdale, it came as a surprise to Evangeline, deprived of Joan’s diverting chat, to find herself looking at the chauffeur’s hands resting un-gloved on the steering wheel, the delicacy of his olive-coloured fingers unexpected in such a profession. Examining the straight-backed figure in front of her a little more closely, and observing the slightness of the shoulders, Evangeline tried to catch the reflection of his face in the driving mirror. The leafless Berkshire lanes had offered little scenic beauty to comment on but Evangeline, always one for having a go at establishing intimacies, moved the dozing Wiggle from her lap onto the seat beside her and pushed back the glass dividing screen.
CHAPTER NINE
A week after Evangeline’s visit to the Fort, Wallis made one of her now daily telephone calls. She wanted to discuss the dinner party that she and Ernest were giving in honour of the Blunt family. It was to take place in their first-floor flat in Mayfair and, Wallis assured her, was to be a most informal event.
“I have had Mary Raffray on the horn this morning,” Wallis explained. “She cannot move without telephoning me it seems! Anyhow, I must say I am quite relieved to know that our old school friend is otherwise engaged for that night.”
Evangeline too felt some relief. The competitive spirit between the two scrawny Oldfields girls was not something she had ever enjoyed witnessing.
“Honestly, Vangey, I seem to have been entertaining that girl for days on end since her arrival in England. She is never out of the flat! I barely get a chance to have an appointment at Antoine’s and as a result my hair is a perfect fright! And