But suddenly I felt his attention melt away—Venetia was approaching. Her dress fluttered as she twirled from one man to the next, like a dazzling dragonfly soaring around in search of prey. Her blond hair hung low over her pearly white shoulders, while a stream of pungent perfume oozed from her soft, white neck. Henry’s hand lost contact with my arm, which suddenly felt cold and lost, and when I looked up at him, he had turned to face her.
“Come and sit down with me, Henry darling, and tell me all about your bombing raids,” she chanted loudly, scrolling her fingertips under his chin and softly directing his mouth toward her carefully painted lips. “I hear you’ve been fighting over Norway.”
“I thought you were busy with the other men,” he said under his breath.
“They don’t mean a thing to me,” she said, pouting. Then she leaned her head to one side, her thick blond hair forming a shimmering curtain to conceal her from the rest of the room, and she whispered something into his ear, her long red fingernails barely touching the other side of his neck.
He responded by whispering something back, his hand moving her hair back as his lips hovered closely to her ear.
A man’s voice called her from the other side of the room, and she pulled away.
“I’ll have to think it over,” she said, a menacing gleam in her eyes, and spun off into the throng. Henry followed briskly, calling her name. “Venetia!”
And me? I was abandoned, alone, in the middle of the room, mutely holding the plate of cheese straws in my hand. How could she do this to me? And why did he follow her? Doesn’t he know that she’s using him, that she says he’s boring and his nose is like a giant wart? Doesn’t he know she doesn’t care a toss about anyone except herself, lining up the men to prove she’s top? But worst of all, knowing how I love him, she revels in keeping him away from me, another of her little tricks at keeping everyone else beneath her, preening over us like she’s some kind of vicious queen. It’s not fair.
She snaked her way through the throng to Mr. Slater, who was looking as impeccable as ever, his dark hair smoothed, a detached manliness about him making David and his friends look like half-wit schoolboys. Venetia’s been fanatically trying to get his attention, but he seems immune to her charms—possibly the first man ever. She’s stepping up her game, or else she’ll lose her bet with Angela. And Venetia always has to win. She calls herself the empress of this little place, and she is determined to keep it that way.
I wandered over to Daddy, who had dragged himself away from his office and was looking ferociously at Venetia, with Mrs. B. prattling away beside him. He wants Venetia to marry Henry and inherit Brampton Hall, which is just plain ridiculous. I simply can’t imagine them together, and even more horrible is the thought of Henry being my brother-in-law. Whenever we’d see each other, the tension would be insurmountable. But we would never give way to our secret passions, holding them inside like tragic lovers. Perhaps there’d be the occasional moment when we’d meet on the veranda. “Oh, Kitty,” he’d say, surprised to see me. “Henry, I didn’t think you’d be here—” I’d reply, looking at the ground, then back toward the open French door, a white drape spilling out in the soft summer breeze. “Nor I. I just have to say—” “No, don’t, Henry. Don’t make things harder.” “But Kitty, darling,…” and so forth, until one of us dies.
Daddy was muttering about Mr. Slater again. “That Slater’s a worthless coward for sitting out the war.”
“Mr. Slater is exempt from fighting as he is flat-footed,” Mrs. B. told him pointedly. She’s taken a fancy to Mr. Slater, imagining him a great artist ready for her to discover. Trying to prove herself frightfully cultured, she’s attempting to take him under her wing, Heaven help him. Although I have no idea whether he’s any good. I don’t think Mrs. B. has the ability to discern a masterpiece from a school art project.
“Slater’s a down-and-out skiver shirking his responsibilities.” Daddy gulped down his sherry. “Cowardly laziness, that’s what it’s all about. He doesn’t realize that it’s fighting that makes a real man.”
I thought of Edmund blown to bits in the North Sea, and poor David on the brink of a bullet in France, and couldn’t help wondering if it had less to do with courage and more to do with common sense. Sending people off to their deaths seems completely ludicrous. I’ve begun imagining what it’s like being blown up in a submarine, the radar blipping warning signals of one’s approaching death, everyone saluting and singing the national anthem, “God save our gracious King.” Then boom. Nothing. Only gnawed pieces of fingers and ears washing up on unsuspecting beaches.