Maman had been cheered by the note from Sir Angus but she feared that Anisette was being awfully forward in telling him to meet her at the carousel. Was she suddenly a barefoot farm girl, meeting some local swain at the county fair out of sight of her ma and pa? She was to remember herself, her mother said. She was to remember what Sir Angus might perceive as proper or improper behavior for a suitable match. Anisette had blanched at the words. Of course she had thought about it, and so, clearly, had her mother, but they hadn’t spoken a word of it.
Anisette wouldn’t say it directly to her mother but she wanted to see Angus on her own, and that couldn’t happen in the house. Father was likely to bustle in early from whatever it was he did all day long—shouting into the faces of men who worked for him; shouting into the telephone at far-off men who worked for him. And there was Félicité, angry and angular and ready to bring out the worst in Anisette just to show her up in front of Angus. But what she really couldn’t say was that she wanted to be away from Maman herself. Maman was so sweet, but she had been hovering every moment that Anisette had spent with Angus—except for her sudden, secret visit to Angus on the ship (Maman would have three heart attacks and a stroke if she ever heard about that). More than anything, Anisette wanted to see if Angus was interested in her alone or if it was everything else that had caught his eye: the Britannic dining room, the Binghams’ house, Father and his copper-mine stories, and Maman, who always knew the right thing to say, to do, to wear. Not that she suspected he was a bad man or a—what did Papa call him? A treasure hunter? Not that he was any of those things, but she wanted to see him for herself and she wanted him to see her as just her.
ANGUS ARRIVED AT the carousel with his brother Malcolm and, far from being disappointed that he had brought a chaperone, Anisette was elated. Touched, even. He had held his brother back from the rest of her family and on the ship had kept him hidden from the other passengers while he convalesced. That Angus would want his closest relative to meet Anisette had to be proof of his trust in her, and perhaps of some deeper emotion as well. As he made the introductions, Anisette held out a slender hand, which Malcolm pumped rather vigorously. Angus had described his brother’s condition in such dire terms, but here he seemed restored. Perhaps Dr. Van Hooten had found a cure?
“The poor dear,” she said.
“He’s a fighter,” Angus said. “And you wouldn’t believe how much he’s improved since our arrival. America agrees with him.”
Anisette suggested a stroll. In one direction the whoops of children at the playground filled the air. The other way a canopy of trees lolled in the pale breeze. Vendors hawking lemonade and shaved ice did a brisk business. Angus bought three lemonades and offered an arm to Anisette, which she gladly accepted.
They wound through the paths, Francis and Anisette in front and Michael trailing behind, grateful for the lemonade. It hadn’t occurred to Francis until they met at the carousel, but this was Michael’s first look at Anisette. He seemed pleased to meet her, but what could Francis really decode from a smile and a handshake? And what could he tell Michael anyway? Best behavior with this one—I’m trying to impress her? He couldn’t ask his brother a single thing.
Francis was aware that all of the inventing he had done on Monday night at the Binghams’ dinner table had almost sunk the whole enterprise. Today, he barraged Anisette with questions about herself. In response, he began to hear about nannies and tutors and girls’ schools where the students wore white dresses with bright red sashes. Most surprising was the story of her mother, the erstwhile nurse from Montreal. Francis couldn’t help wondering what Mrs. B would say if she knew that her daughter had just admitted to His Lordship that Maman was an even commoner commoner than he was. Anisette didn’t seem to care a whit. She read romance into the story, the phoenix of love rising from the ashes of the first Mrs. Bingham. Francis saw that he wasn’t the first to gate-crash Bingham Castle, but he did not know whether this would help or hurt him with Mrs. B if the news of his own true nature ever came to light. His estimation of Mrs. B, however, increased.
The trio reached a broad paved lane picketed with street lamps and tall trees. Park benches stretched like ribbons the length of the promenade. Children hooted and squeaked through games of tag while mothers tended to a flotilla of carriages, like ships tied up at a marina. Farther down, a man in a squashed top hat played an accordion, clowning for the attention and pennies of passersby. Here and there young couples sat together. A man no older than Francis had his arms outstretched along the top rail of the bench, affecting a pose of leisure in the hope that the woman next to him would sink back just enough for him to draw her in, hand to shoulder. But the benches weren’t a spot only for lovers, lovers-to-be, lovers-in-waiting. An old man gripped the edges of a newspaper, holding it inches from his face, as if scanning the pages for hidden messages. A woman in a shabby frock sat farther down the bench, her purse on her knees and her hands folded over the clasp. She seemed to be waiting for a bus that would never arrive.
“This must remind you of home.” Anisette pointed to the lampposts: from each one a Union Jack hung lank in the breezeless heat. A sea of red, white, and blue and stripes—nothing but stripes—in every direction. If there was one thing you could say about the Brits, it was that they didn’t shy away from excess. Would you care for some horizontal? Yes, please. Vertical? Of course. And would you fancy some diagonal? Corner to corner, please, and twice over.
“Well, it does and it doesn’t,” Francis-as-Angus said. “But I don’t think I’ve ever seen quite so many at one time.”
“Not even for the coronation?”
“Of course,” he said, with a dry laugh, “the coronation.” Yes, the bloody coronation! He had almost Cawdor-and-Glamis’d himself with that slipup. “There is something to be said for all of this enthusiasm. I do think Their Royal Highnesses will appreciate the gesture.”
“Oh, you think we’re silly. Trying too hard to impress.” She was looking up at him from under the brim of her hat, her front teeth sunk into the pillow of her lower lip. Anisette’s air of innocence made those lips, so full and swollen, seem almost wanton.
“Not at all.” Francis stopped and cocked his head to see beneath her hat. He wanted to see her eyes, wanted her to know that he was being sincere. “It’s quite charming, really. You care. You—all of you, the whole city—you want the king and queen, Their Majesties, to feel wanted, admired, welcome. What could be wrong with that?” He really did need to brush up on his forms of address before Saturday: Highness, Royal Highness, Majesty. There were rules for this sort of thing, and Sir Angus MacFarquhar would have known them since the cradle.
“So they’re not going to think that we’re… overeager?” Anisette blinked. She might have even batted her lashes, or perhaps that was the sunlight filtering through the leaves, or because Francis had seen too many films where Myrna Loy or Carole Lombard had batted her lashes in a moment much like this one.