Abdication A Novel

Chapter FOUR





A day or two later, slipped within the final late post of the Christmas season, another letter bearing an English stamp arrived for Evangeline. Helping herself to a handful of the sugar-covered almonds from the glass bowl on the hall table, she examined the envelope carefully before inserting into one corner the silver, flower-engraved knife that she used for opening letters. The flourishing loop that finished off the first letter of each word took her back to those Baltimore boarding-school days at Oldfields where the teachers often quoted the school motto to them: “Gentleness and courtesy are expected of girls at all times.”

As ever, the circled, underlined and hyphenated code word was reliably in place in the top left-hand corner of the envelope, the word she and Wallis had used in all correspondence with each other since their teenage years. At school, the custom had been for best friends to merge part of their own first names into one, and the middle part of Evangeline and the last part of Wallis had formed Gel-Lis. The two of them had always laughed when saying the made-up word out loud because although it sounded like “jealous,” that particular emotion played no part in their friendship. The other girls thought they made an incongruous pair as the stooped, cumbersome figure of Evangeline towered over her shorter, skinnier friend. Wallis had another soulmate, the pretty Mary Kirk, with whom she was almost as close, and Evangeline, while grateful for her primary position in Wallis’s life, wondered if Wallis chose the company of herself over Mary solely for the shiny glamour bestowed on her by Evangeline’s contrasting dowdiness.

During school holidays, Wallis and Evangeline would go shopping in downtown Baltimore. The girls were just turning sixteen and the new department store, Hochschild’s, was a favourite place to meet. Evangeline would arrive early and spend stolen time in the store’s tempting hat department, swaddling her poor bald head in the latest velvet and silk models, her appearance in the mirror briefly confusable with a sophisticated young woman of fashion like Mary Kirk instead of the plain-faced egghead that usually stared back at her. It was in the coffee shop at Hochschild’s that Wallis confided to Evangeline that she had “done it.” The boy in question was the son of a friend of her parents, although much more beyond that Wallis was not prepared to divulge. It was clear from Wallis’s satisfied expression that Evangeline had reacted to her shared confidence with awe. In fact, Evangeline had found the information almost impossible to comprehend. When had it happened? How had it begun? How long did it go on for? Were they wearing clothes all the way through? Who unhooked the hooks? Was there any sound involved? Words? Shrieks? Many other mysteries demanded answers but Evangeline had not the courage to ask them. Evangeline was further perplexed when, having settled their check with the waitress and returned to the street, she noticed that Wallis had no trouble at all swinging herself onto her bicycle and pedalling off at speed. A hard bicycle seat that tapered to a point? Surely after such an “interference” it must now hurt? Nonetheless, Evangeline left the department store that day feeling as if life had lurched forward a notch or two. If Evangeline herself remained innocent of the interlocking physical jigsaw that two human bodies were evidently capable of, she could at least glow in the reflected smugness of her newly worldly friend.



Two decades ago Wallis had returned to Baltimore from China, where she had been living for two years with her first husband, Earl Winfield Spencer, a naval pilot known by everyone as Win. Evangeline had been looking forward to their reunion in Wallis’s old family home but had spoken little during the meeting as Wallis described the drama of the Orient and the horror of dealing with her husband’s alcoholic temper. After more than two hours of chat Wallis gave Evangeline a silver Chinese paperknife, engraved with flowers and sheathed in its own silver holder.

“I bought it in a bazaar in Peking,” Wallis told her. “I thought you might like it.”

Evangeline was moved by such thoughtfulness. Friendship was everything, she thought contentedly, as she put the knife in her bag and Wallis announced she had an even more special present to show her in the bedroom.

“What do you think of this?” Wallis asked, her usual macaw-like voice suddenly unnaturally soft. In her hand was a flesh-coloured metal cylinder about four inches long and a generous inch in diameter. “We could have some fun with this, Vangey. I learned how in China. I could show you if you like.”

Evangeline could smell Wallis’s spice-scented breath as her provocative expression was accompanied by the slow unbuttoning of Wallis’s beautiful silk blouse. Before Evangeline could move out of the way, Wallis had reached for the p-ssycat bow at the neck of Evangeline’s dress and loosened it with one short tug.

“What in the world do you think you’re doing?” Evangeline cried, sending Wallis stumbling backwards with a forceful shove, the stifling intimacy of the bedroom suddenly intolerable as she made a rush for the front door.

That horrible misunderstanding had reverberated in Evangeline’s thoughts during all the intervening years, and at first Evangeline had vowed privately to have nothing more to do with her old schoolfriend. She had learned through the Baltimore grapevine that Wallis and Win had been divorced and that Wallis had gone on to marry an English shipping executive named Ernest Simpson was already known to her. Evangeline and Wallis had not met since the unfortunate incident in Wallis’s bedroom and no reference had ever been made to the occasion in their infrequent letters.

Maybe that was all about to change, Evangeline wondered as she removed several folded pages from the envelope. The letterhead was unknown to her. Had Wallis and her new husband made friends with some sort of military family? What sort of people lived in a fort? There was no accounting for the English and their old-fashioned ways. Despite the incident in the bedroom Evangeline could not help looking forward to Wallis’s letters. They were always so amusing. Wallis had made Evangeline laugh at her aversion to Britain’s lumpy pillows and her unease with the complex etiquette at table. Why for example did the British fall upon their food as soon as it was placed in front of them, as if they had not eaten for months, instead of an hour or so earlier?

“Do start, oh do,” a hostess would apparently call down the table even though the butler had not yet completed his rounds and half the guests still had nothing to start on.

Wallis had also written of her relief at finding a new husband, half English to boot, with whom she got on so well. Their relocation to Ernest’s mother’s home country and the fun they had been having over choosing antique furniture for their small flat had confirmed for Evangeline that this second marriage had been a good decision.

Wallis had also described the filth of the capital city and how the sulphurous-smelling pea soupers, the greenish fog that Londoners called the “London particular,” restricted the visibility in the city streets making it impossible to tell the house numbers without peering right up against the door. She told of how the smoggy dirt from coal fires that belched night and day from the city’s chimneys was intensified by the diesel fumes from the increasing number of cars on the road. What is more, Wallis could not abide the dust and grime that had found its way inside the houses.

Dirt and chaos did not suit Wallis. The photographs of herself that she sometimes enclosed always confirmed that everything about Wallis was clean and tidy; she was as assured as a flamingo on one leg. The attractive waviness of her youthful hairstyle had long since disappeared. Instead she had become streamlined in every detail from the fine symmetry of the parting of her hair right down the middle, to the precise manner in which she posed for the camera in her chic and cinched dresses. Even the pencilled-in shape of the upended smile of her eyebrows that brought some relief to the otherwise empty expanse of her broad forehead had apparently been subjected to the same strict dietary regime. Some of the girls at school had nicknamed her “Skellis.” Evangeline tried not to dwell on the name they might have called her when she was out of the room, but skeletal she was certainly not.

Evangeline settled herself further into the faded blue velvet chair next to the fire, the silver paper knife as always on the table beside her. Realising from the startled yelp beneath her that she had sat on top of the new kitten, she extracted the tiny animal from underneath the cushion, relieved when it shook itself out and headed unruffled for the door. Smoothing out the folded pages of blue stationery, she began to read. Wallis wished to ask Evangeline a favour. Mentioning the dinner party at which she had chatted with the “charming Lady Joan Blunt,” Wallis expressed her sadness in discovering so late in the day that Mrs. Nettlefold had passed away. Wallis had heard that Lady Joan was encouraging her goddaughter to take a trip across the ocean and expressed the hope that a word from Wallis, her “oldest friend,” might help to convince Vangey to come.

“I would love to show you how life is so different over here,” Wallis had cajoled. “It might amuse you to know that this democrat has been taking dancing and curtseying lessons, though my curtsey is more of a mop than a floor sweeper!”

Given that her aunt Bessie was now too elderly to cross the Atlantic more than once a year, Wallis was missing the company of someone to talk to about the way they did things back home. She was not sure if Evangeline was acquainted with a fellow compatriot, Thelma Furness, with whom Wallis had previously spent a good deal of time. Sadly Wallis saw little of her these days, and if Evangeline could keep this one confidence to herself for now, the truth was that Wallis was beginning to feel a little overwhelmed by the British. Sometimes she did not know which nationality she belonged to. She loved the British dignity and their wide outlook but she preferred the American sense of humour and its peculiar brand of pep. Sometimes, despite the social swirl around her, Wallis felt a little out of things. Even the friendship of one or two special individuals (other than that of her dear husband, of course) did not wholly eradicate her sense of homesickness. She wanted to discuss all this and much more with Evangeline in person.

“Do come! Oh do!” she had written, underlining the words three times for emphasis. “We might even find you that elusive beau over here! He is bound to be waiting for you somewhere.”

A longing for her school days engulfed Evangeline. That long-gone sense of innocence and trust reminded her of the feeling she now had when about to put on a new dress, or when given a box of chocolates sealed up in its wrapper. Everything was lovely in the anticipation. There must have been a time, she though wistfully, when disappointment was an undiscovered emotion. The warmth and wit of her old school friend suddenly seemed deliciously tempting. The misunderstanding in the Baltimore bedroom with the “Chinese wand” was behind them and need never again be mentioned. Putting the letter back in the envelope, Evangeline made her mind up to go to England at once.


As the SS Thalassa switchbacked its way through the Atlantic waves in one of the worst crossings in memory, most of the passengers clutched their queasy stomachs in the privacy of their luxury staterooms. The outside temperatures dipped so low that the bottom of the empty swimming pool had cracked in the freezing winter weather. Evangeline counted her blessings that she was making this journey during the winter months so that one of her secret shames would remain undiscovered. Evangeline had a profound fear of water and had never learned to swim. Deck tennis and table tennis were also impossible activities in the heaving ship, but movies and bridge filled the hours between meals most satisfactorily. Evangeline found herself unaffected by the rocking motion of the waves, as long as she kept herself away from the terrifying sight of the rolling, cresting seascape. As a result she was often one of just a handful of diners in the restaurant and, lavished with the constant attention of dozens of under-occupied waiters, she felt the glee of a hippopotamus that had just landed on a thick and oozy mud bank.

With Wiggle in canine paradise, devouring as many sausages and biscuits as his small jaws could manage, Evangeline wished the voyage would take double the time. There had been cocktails and cigars, caviar and canapés, and she had enjoyed herself, the many invitations to dance with the perspiring assistant captain notwithstanding. Evangeline was not a gifted dancer despite the hours of lessons that she had undertaken at her mother’s insistence on the premise that you never knew when they might come in useful for “important society gatherings.” On the final evening on board Evangeline and her naval suitor stumbled their way through the Viennese waltz, his clammy hand suctioned to a small area of Evangeline’s exposed flesh. The cutaway lozenge on the back panel of her evening gown provided the impetus for a whisky-drenched suggestion that the assistant captain might introduce her to his widowed mother who lived in Liverpool and who would so enjoy hearing tales of the New World in Evangeline’s charming accent.

In more ways than one, Evangeline was looking forward to reaching Liverpool but above all she was excited about the reunion with her schoolfriend. She was particularly pleased to have found the perfect gift for Wallis, a belated Christmas present as well as something that would remind them both of the years of affection and of memories that still bound them together. A week before she sailed for Britain Evangeline paid a visit to Hochschild’s. The shop’s familiar yellow and black delivery vans still darted through the Baltimore streets, bringing a flash of colour to the grey asphalt. After much thought, nostalgia encircling her as she browsed through the departments she and Wallis had once known so well, Evangeline had stopped in the music department and come across a box of jazz records marked “old stock.” There, near the top of the pile, was a recording of W. C. Handy’s “Memphis Blues,” the band’s top hit in 1909 and re-released in the 1920s under Hochschild’s own label, Belvedere Records. The name was clearly imprinted on the yellow vinyl record. What a perfect present to take to Wallis at her new address at Fort Belvedere! The coincidence could not fail to delight her friend. How the gift would confirm to Wallis how much she had missed her teenage companion! She had made a couple of other purchases too. For Joan there was a stylish umbrella with the Hochschild logo stamped on the black and yellow waterproof. And for Philip there was a pair of loafers, the latest casual shoes all the rage amongst fashionable men, who had adopted the American variation on the Norwegian moccasin with gusto.

Even as she made her way down the gangplank at the crowded Liverpool docks, with Wiggle hidden underneath her coat, Evangeline was still trying to shake off the persistent assistant captain’s attentions. She was relieved to spot her name written in uneven script on the large piece of card held up high by a bulldog of a man in uniform. His cap was sitting slightly askew on his head as he waited for her beside a glistening blue Rolls-Royce on the quayside.

Philip’s chauffeur, Cropper, was to bring her straight to London and Evangeline’s luggage had been strapped to the back of the car by the taciturn driver, who was evidently reluctant to open his mouth even in cursory greeting. Not until she had settled herself and Wiggle on the leather seat beneath a thick, plaid rug did Evangeline detect a whiff of whisky in the air.

Deciding that the least confrontational and therefore most pleasurable way to spend the long journey was to remain silent, she gazed out of the window, relieved when they left the grim-looking streets of Liverpool behind them. As the car gathered speed along the monotonously grey roads of the North of England, Evangeline fell asleep. She only came to during brief stops at the side of the road when Cropper muttered that he needed to check that the luggage was still securely tied to the back of the car, but she soon dozed off again until they eventually arrived in London.