Widowland by C J Carey

Author:C J Carey [Carey, C J]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Quercus
Published: 2021-06-09T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Thursday, 22nd April

The five sisters might have had their individual quirks, but the wide-set blue eyes, bobbed flaxen hair and porcelain complexions, not to mention their shared reputation for upper-class eccentricity, were recognized everywhere. They were said to have created their own private language, in which they planned practical jokes. Their exploits were faithfully followed by the newspapers’ society pages, and the eldest had already made a wealthy and advantageous engagement. The second sister had a penchant for wild parties that embarrassed her parents and often ended with the police being called. The middle sister was writing her first novel. Whenever they got into scrapes, or were seen out with unsuitable companions, or had to be rescued from rowing boats at dawn, the establishment chuckled and rolled its eyes. The sisters’ disdain for convention was the preserve of the elite, and it was also what made them household names.

Everyone had heard of the Goebbels girls.

The five daughters of Joseph Goebbels and his former wife Magda – Helga, Hildegarde, Holdine, Hedwig and Heidrun – had grown up in the bosom of the Party. As the First Family of the Reich, the image of them as children, outfitted in identical white smocked dresses and lined up in order of size, was seared on popular consciousness and reproduced in glossy magazines and propaganda posters everywhere. When they were younger, pictures of the Goebbels girls frolicking in the garden with the minister and his wife had been used in a sheaf of propaganda campaigns. Their suntanned bodies were juxtaposed with stark shots of mentally and physically handicapped children during a national drive to popularize the Elimination of the Weak. Once, there had been another VIP child to rival them: Edda Goering, who had grown up as a Princess of the Party, showered with gifts from crowned heads around the world. But Edda was now living in exile on a pig farm in Silesia, whereas the Goebbels girls were in England on a jaunt that had already taken in the best nightclubs, and several days’ hunting at their father’s country home.

That night, Rose observed them assume centre stage in the ballroom of the Grosvenor House Hotel where the reception for the delegation of American film-makers was being held. The walls billowed with cream satin lining, and on the dais, behind the band, a portrait of the King and Queen was propped – Edward small and crumpled in his regalia like a child in fancy dress, and Wallis a matchstick in taffeta with a helmet of raven hair.

The Party VIPs were out in force for the Coronation. They had flown over and block-booked the best hotels and their loud, well-fed, self-confident voices jingled through the ballroom, like a cash register of Alliance marks. Their hair was sleek and their complexions soft as butter. The light of the chandeliers reflected off a roomful of diamonds and jewels, not to mention the silver insignia of a hundred SS dress uniforms. All the visiting women wore couture. The

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