Kick Kennedy: The Charmed Life and Tragic Death of the Favorite Kennedy Daughter by Barbara Leaming Page A
Authors: Barbara Leaming
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he was later heard to grumble, that these young fools might soon find themselves on an actual battlefield for which they were in no way prepared.
On Sunday the twenty-fifth of September, the day after Chamberlain returned to London with Hitler’s ultimatum, the young people at Cortachy drove some eight miles to Airlie Castle, the home of Jean’s grandmother, the Dowager Countess of Airlie, who was a sister of Lady Alice Salisbury. Accompanying them now were Robert Cecil and Debo Mitford, who had joined the party in the meantime, and whose presence in the group highlighted how very divided the country in general, and the upper class in particular, remained with regard to the policy of appeasement.
Robert’s father, Lord Cranborne, was an outspoken antagonist of the European dictators on the one hand and of the British appeasers on the other. By contrast, two of Debo’s sisters were fanatical supporters of the Reich. Unity Mitford, a close personal friend of Hitler’s, had been a member of the dictator’s entourage at the Nuremberg party rally. In Germany, Unity was threatening to take her own life in the event that the country of her birth went to war against her beloved Fuehrer. Another Mitford sister, Diana, had secretly married the founder of the British Union of Fascists, Sir Oswald Mosley, at the home of Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels, where the wedding guests had included Hitler himself. Not all of the Mitford sisters, however, favored the Nazis. Two, Nancy and Jessica, embraced socialism and communism, respectively. Debo, the youngest Mitford girl, professed to be uninterested in the politics of the day. Other patrician families were divided as well, though none perhaps as spectacularly as the Mitfords. In Billy’s household, for instance, the Duke of Devonshire, who served as Chamberlain’s Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, supported appeasement. The duchess privately preferred the views of her brother Lord Cranborne, though publicly she deferred to her husband’s opinion on the matter.
Centuries-old Airlie Castle was said to be haunted, and Granny Airlie, a dramatic figure who favored outdated ankle-length skirts and elaborate, wide-brimmed “picture hats,” did her best to encourage her young visitors’ talk of ghosts. She was full of stories of young people’s hair having suddenly turned gray on the premises and of the appalling fate that had befallen past visitors who dared walk down to the river at night. But, as Debo would point out many years afterward, even in this romantic setting, where history and legend were so deeply woven into the fabric of daily life, some of the young people could not help but act out the acute anxieties connected with the threat of imminent war. The determined silliness and laughter appeared to go too far at times. Once, swaying jerkily and erratically as they crossed the river on a suspension bridge, the merrymakers succeeded in accidentally catapulting Jean into the rushing waters, so that she had to spend the rest of the day in one of the dowager countess’s kilts while her own garments dried.
That evening at Cortachy, where the radio reports from London were nothing if not alarming, the boys seemed to reach an apex of wildness. Ivar Colquhoun sprayed the drawing room with a fire extinguisher, and Jakie Astor, who had now joined the party, insisted very late at night on going downstairs to fetch some more alcohol. Drunkenly gathering not just a bottle or two, but rather Lord Airlie’s entire drinks tray in his arms, Jakie headed up the wide wooden staircase—whereupon he slipped, loudly smashing every item on the tray to pieces.
On Kick’s final day at Cortachy Castle, the twenty-sixth of September, she and Billy attended the races in Hamilton, where they had a few last hours together. The couple made a date to see a play in London on the thirtieth, the day she was scheduled to return from Scotland. Still, as she and Billy parted, Hitler’s
On Sunday the twenty-fifth of September, the day after Chamberlain returned to London with Hitler’s ultimatum, the young people at Cortachy drove some eight miles to Airlie Castle, the home of Jean’s grandmother, the Dowager Countess of Airlie, who was a sister of Lady Alice Salisbury. Accompanying them now were Robert Cecil and Debo Mitford, who had joined the party in the meantime, and whose presence in the group highlighted how very divided the country in general, and the upper class in particular, remained with regard to the policy of appeasement.
Robert’s father, Lord Cranborne, was an outspoken antagonist of the European dictators on the one hand and of the British appeasers on the other. By contrast, two of Debo’s sisters were fanatical supporters of the Reich. Unity Mitford, a close personal friend of Hitler’s, had been a member of the dictator’s entourage at the Nuremberg party rally. In Germany, Unity was threatening to take her own life in the event that the country of her birth went to war against her beloved Fuehrer. Another Mitford sister, Diana, had secretly married the founder of the British Union of Fascists, Sir Oswald Mosley, at the home of Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels, where the wedding guests had included Hitler himself. Not all of the Mitford sisters, however, favored the Nazis. Two, Nancy and Jessica, embraced socialism and communism, respectively. Debo, the youngest Mitford girl, professed to be uninterested in the politics of the day. Other patrician families were divided as well, though none perhaps as spectacularly as the Mitfords. In Billy’s household, for instance, the Duke of Devonshire, who served as Chamberlain’s Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, supported appeasement. The duchess privately preferred the views of her brother Lord Cranborne, though publicly she deferred to her husband’s opinion on the matter.
Centuries-old Airlie Castle was said to be haunted, and Granny Airlie, a dramatic figure who favored outdated ankle-length skirts and elaborate, wide-brimmed “picture hats,” did her best to encourage her young visitors’ talk of ghosts. She was full of stories of young people’s hair having suddenly turned gray on the premises and of the appalling fate that had befallen past visitors who dared walk down to the river at night. But, as Debo would point out many years afterward, even in this romantic setting, where history and legend were so deeply woven into the fabric of daily life, some of the young people could not help but act out the acute anxieties connected with the threat of imminent war. The determined silliness and laughter appeared to go too far at times. Once, swaying jerkily and erratically as they crossed the river on a suspension bridge, the merrymakers succeeded in accidentally catapulting Jean into the rushing waters, so that she had to spend the rest of the day in one of the dowager countess’s kilts while her own garments dried.
That evening at Cortachy, where the radio reports from London were nothing if not alarming, the boys seemed to reach an apex of wildness. Ivar Colquhoun sprayed the drawing room with a fire extinguisher, and Jakie Astor, who had now joined the party, insisted very late at night on going downstairs to fetch some more alcohol. Drunkenly gathering not just a bottle or two, but rather Lord Airlie’s entire drinks tray in his arms, Jakie headed up the wide wooden staircase—whereupon he slipped, loudly smashing every item on the tray to pieces.
On Kick’s final day at Cortachy Castle, the twenty-sixth of September, she and Billy attended the races in Hamilton, where they had a few last hours together. The couple made a date to see a play in London on the thirtieth, the day she was scheduled to return from Scotland. Still, as she and Billy parted, Hitler’s
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