The car straightened out and proceeded down the hill. The duchess dragged on her cigarette. I stared at the snap, snap of the Chinese fan, the whiteness of her knuckles beneath her scarlet nails.

“It’s so lovely,” I said. “Your fan.”

Wallis stopped the waving and spread it out. “Isn’t it? A gift from an admirer. I like this fellow here the best.” She pointed to a chubby, smiling, naked man hiding behind a tree. “Look carefully and you’ll see that’s not a branch.”

“Dear me.”

She snapped it closed. “But we mustn’t shock Miss Drewes. Eh, Miss Drewes? Not until you’re married. You know, I gave one of my Chinese screens to Sir Harry, to thank him for his hospitality when poor old Government House was being redone. I believe he’s put it in his bedroom.”

“If it’s anything like this one, I don’t blame him.”

She laughed. “You haven’t been to the Orient, have you, Lulu?”

“Never. Although I’d like to go, one day.”

“You should. It changes your life.” She opened the fan and resumed waving. “I sometimes wish . . .”

“Wish what?”

“Nothing. Here we are at last. Look at them, poor dears.”

By poor dears, she meant the Negro women lined up outside the entrance of the small white building to which we had just pulled up, in our giant Government House limousine with its little Union Jacks fluttering from the wheel wells. Each one bore a baby in her arms, or in a cloth sling against her body, newborns and bruisers, squallers and sleepers, in various states of dress and fretfulness.

“Frightful, isn’t it?” said Wallis. “You see, they breed like rabbits.”

As we prepared to climb out of the limousine, I thought that possibly some of these babies were the children of the men who had rioted three weeks ago, seeking twelve shillings a day and getting—after a soothing radio address from the Duke of Windsor to calm everybody’s nerves, after newspaper pontification by the column mile, after days of fractious negotiation—five shillings a day plus lunch. Five shillings a day on which to raise a family. The duchess and I both wore our Red Cross uniforms, white and crisp, and our spectator shoes of polished brown and white leather. We hurried through the entrance, dogged by Miss Drewes and her satchel of careful records. Once the photography was out of the way, Wallis and Miss Drewes headed for the business side of things—taking down weights, recording vaccinations, that kind of thing—while I messed about in the waiting room, played with the babies and chatted with the mothers.