by Rhys Bowen
“Dinner is in the evening, Queenie,” I said. “Remember what I told you. Only the lower classes call their midday meal dinner. To us it is lunch. But the answer is that I think it unlikely that we’ll get anything to eat until the family returns.”
“We could go and stay in one of them hotels. A darned sight friendlier than that old woman.”
“I agree,” I said, “but I don’t have the money for hotels. We’ll just have to wait.”
“I got a bar of chocolate we can share,” she said generously and broke a Cadbury’s in half for us.
At about three o’clock there were voices and footsteps on the gravel. I went to the door of the salon just as the front door burst open and Podge rushed in ahead of the grownups. He jumped in surprise when he saw me then his face lit up with recognition.
“Auntie Georgie! You came after all.” He turned back. “Mama. Papa. Auntie Georgie came.”
I looked up to see four adults looking at me with a mixture of surprise and horror.
“What on earth are you doing here?” Fig demanded.
“Good to see you, old bean,” Binky said. “So glad you could make it, but you might have warned us.”
“I sent a telegram, two days ago,” I said.
“We received no telegram.” The woman who spoke looked like an older, haughtier and grumpier version of Fig. “To what address did you send it?”
“The Villa Gloriosa,” I said.
The large red-faced man with an impressive handlebar mustache sniffed. “Damned Frenchies got it wrong again, I suppose. Hopeless—foreigners don’t have a clue, do they? There’s a Villa Glorieux as well and they’ve mixed us up before.” He came toward me, hand extended. “I’m Foggy Farquar. So you’re Georgiana. Good to meet you at last. Welcome to the humble abode.”
At least the males in the party were pleased to see me. “Thank you.”
“And this is my wife, Ducky.”
“My sister, Matilda,” Fig corrected. “Matilda, this is Binky’s sister, Georgiana.”
Matilda? I tried not to grin. A Hilda and Matilda in one family. I could see that nicknames like Ducky and Fig were preferable. We shook hands. Hers was bony, like clutching a claw.
“I’m sorry I gave you a shock,” I said, “but I really did send the telegram.”
“How did you get here?” Fig asked. “I didn’t think you had money for the fare. Did you come second class on ordinary trains?”
“No. The Blue Train like you.” It gave me great satisfaction to say the words. “The queen paid for my ticket. She thought I looked too pale and needed sunshine.”
“The queen?” Ducky Farquar said. “She paid for your ticket?” She glanced at Fig.
“The queen seems to have a soft spot for Georgiana,” Fig said icily.
“She’s very kind to her relatives,” I added, just to remind them that I was related to royalty and they weren’t. “And since Binky and Fig had said I was welcome anytime at the villa . . .” I left the rest of that sentence hanging.
Ducky shot Fig a look of pure venom. “Of course you are welcome,” she said, “but the question is—where are we going to put you? The house is not at all large. Much smaller than described in the advertisement. Quite poky, in fact.”
“You don’t have any spare bedrooms?”
“Not on the main floor. There may be rooms up in the servants’ quarter in the attic. But we couldn’t put you up there with the maids. It wouldn’t be the done thing, would it?”
“She could bunk in with Maude, couldn’t she?” Foggy suggested.
“Maude?” I asked.
“Our daughter. Yes, I suppose Maude does have a large room. But it would be up to her. You know how sensitive she is, and how particular.”
“Well, ask her, Ducky,” Foggy said impatiently. “Where has the child got to now? Maude?” he called.
A face poked around the front door. A sullen face, a plain face with pigtails. She was a girl of about ten and she stood eyeing her parents defiantly.
“Maude, this is Georgiana, Binky’s sister. Is it all right if she bunks in with you?”
Maude looked at me with pure distaste. “I need space for my dolls,” she said.
“There are no other rooms, dearest,” Ducky said. “And she is your aunt, sort of. And she has come a long way. And it might be nice for you to have a chum to talk to.”
“I don’t like talking,” Maude said. If ever a child had been well named, it was this one. She looked just like a Maude.
“She’s very sensitive,” Ducky repeated. “She’ll need time to come around.”
“If there’s nowhere for me here, I shall have to go home, I suppose,” I said. “The queen will be disappointed.”
That was my trump card, as I knew it would be.
“We can’t let the queen think that we gave Georgiana the cold shoulder,” Fig said. “We’ll have to make room for her somehow.”
“I suppose we could put a camp bed for her in the library,” Foggy suggested. “Nobody ever goes in there, do they?”
“It’s a rum do, Georgie,” Binky said. “This house has a library, a smoking room, a music room, a billiard room, but a distinct lack of bedrooms and bathrooms.”
“Auntie Georgie can sleep with me and Nanny,” Podge said, moving to my side in a display of solidarity.
I thought that would be an admirable solution. “Nanny and me,” Fig corrected. “Please make sure you get your grammar correct, Podge. And it wouldn’t be healthy to have three people in one bedroom. Not enough fresh air.”
“And my maid?” I asked.
Fig noticed Queenie for the first time. “You brought that person with you? What on earth possessed you, Georgiana?”
“One does need a maid, and she’s the only one I have.”
Fig turned to Ducky. “She is the dreadful girl I told you about. Absolutely from the gutter. Hasn’t the slightest idea how to behave in polite society.”
“Nevertheless, she needs somewhere to sleep,” I insisted.
“She’ll have to share with your girl, Fig,” Ducky said with a sigh. She turned to Queenie. “Take your mistress’s things upstairs, girl.”
“It shall be done as you desire, madam,” Queenie said with her mock posh accent.
“How dare you try to imitate your betters,” Fig snapped. “Honestly, Georgiana, she’ll have to go. Start looking for a French maid immediately.”
At that moment the gargoyle in black stepped from the shadows and rattled off a string of French at us. I think I was the only one who understood. “She says she had no idea that I was coming because nobody told her and where do they think I am going to sleep?” I translated. It was clear they were all terrified of her. “Who is she, anyway?”
“Madame Lapiss. She’s the housekeeper. She’s frightful,” Foggy said.
“She’s going to sleep in the library,” Fig said in very bad French.
“Impossible! Valuable books will be ruined!” The gargoyle waved her arms and flashed her eyes, glaring at me as if I might be capable of any kind of vandalism.
“Only temporarily,” Fig explained.
The gargoyle gave a large and dramatic sigh, grabbed my heaviest suitcase and stomped upstairs with it to a large gloomy library. The walls were lined, floor to ceiling, with old musty books. Most of the floor space was taken up with a mahogany map table. We managed to push this against a wall and there was just room for a camp bed. Nowhere to hang my clothes. No mirror. Clearly they didn’t want me to stay long.
I felt tears of anger and frustration as I unpacked some of my toiletries and put them on the table. I should never have come. If the queen had wanted me here, she should have given me money for a hotel. She should have known that any relative of Fig’s would be stingy in the extreme.
I freshened up and came downstairs to see if tea might be imminent. Through an open door I heard Fig’s voice, or was it Ducky’s? “At least she can keep an eye on the children, can’t she? And she could give Maude some lessons; t
hen you wouldn’t have to look for a tutor.”
“Maude’s a particularly bright child. I’m not sure your sister-in-law would be up to the task. But I suppose we could try. It would save considerable expense.”
I coughed as I entered the room. “Is it teatime?” I asked.
“We’re not having tea while we’re here,” Ducky said. “We’re dining early so that Maude can join us, as we are on holiday. It’s good for her to learn to participate in adult conversation.”
“We’ve had nothing to eat all day,” I pointed out. “You don’t mind if I ask your cook to make us sandwiches, do you?”
“I suppose not,” Ducky said grudgingly.
“And Georgiana,” Fig added, “we thought you might help out with the children. Give them some lessons, you know. Otherwise they’ll just run wild.”
I managed to obtain a cheese sandwich for Queenie and myself, but my stomach was growling by the time the dinner gong went and I went down in anticipation to find that dinner was cold ham and a couple of lettuce leaves with boiled potatoes. It was served by the gargoyle, with the occasional sigh and groan as she walked behind us.
“Cold ham, old thing?” Foggy asked. “Didn’t we just have ham sandwiches for lunch?”
“Last-minute substitution, I’m afraid,” Ducky said. “I told her to make beef casserole and I discovered it was swimming with garlic and onions. I couldn’t serve that to Maude. Really, these people have no idea.” She turned to me. “Couldn’t even make a steak and kidney pudding, can you believe? And breakfast—had never heard of kidneys for breakfast.”
“And eggplant,” Foggy added. “Will keep trying to serve us something called eggplant. Doesn’t taste anything like an egg.”
“And she can’t make proper puddings, can she, Mummy?” Maude chimed in. “I wanted rice pudding but all I got was silly fruit.”
I finished my one slice of ham in silence. Then I remembered why I was here.
“Tell me,” I said, “do you know Sir Toby Groper?”
“Know of the bounder, but don’t know the man personally,” Foggy said. “Not really one of us, you know.”
“N.O.C.D. Made his money in trade,” Ducky added. The former meaning “not our class, dear.”
Everyone at the table shuddered.
“And not just trade,” Foggy went on, warming to his subject. “Armaments. I mean, our ancestors were involved in the East India Company, but that was decent trade. Respectable. Bringing civilization to the natives at the same time. His family supplied guns to both sides in every damned war.”
“Really? I thought he made his money from motorcars,” Ducky said.
“Since the war, yes,” Foggy said.
“I heard there was some scandal about that too,” Binky chimed in. “Didn’t he swindle his partner or something?”
“Did he?” Fig asked.
“Maybe not swindle, but there was some question about who actually invented that bally motor of his. Some kind of lawsuit. Didn’t the other chap kill himself?”
“Horrible little man,” Ducky said. “I understand he swans it down here on the Riviera. Ostentatious great yacht and a villa full of artworks. No taste at all, of course.”
“Where is his villa?” I asked.
“No idea.”
“So you don’t ever meet him at parties?”
“We don’t go in for parties,” Ducky said. “All that loud music and people getting drunk. We don’t drink.”
Of course I realized then that there was no wine on the table.
“A quiet game of bridge or whist is more our style,” Foggy added. “And Ducky does jigsaw puzzles.”
Oh, Lord, how was I ever going to meet Sir Toby if I was stuck at Villa Gloriosa drinking water, tutoring children and doing jigsaw puzzles?
Dinner ended and we went through to the gloomy salon where the others played whist. It was played in silence apart from Ducky occasionally accusing her husband of cheating. They went to bed before ten, so I made my way to the library and changed into my nightclothes. I was just coming back from the bathroom, which was up another flight of stairs, when a figure loomed out in front of me. It was Foggy, in an awful red-and-white-striped dressing gown looking like a human barber’s pole.
“Awfully glad you’re here, young lady,” he said. His face looked particularly red in the dim light, and his eyes a little bleary. “Liven things up a little, what?” He moved out to block the way in front of me. “I must say, I’m looking forward to getting to know you better.” He was looking down at me with what can only be described as a lecherous leer. I, with my limited experience of Life and Men, nevertheless knew lechery when I saw it. I also realized something else. He was blowing alcohol-laden breath at me. Ducky might not approve of drink, but Foggy had certainly been knocking it back in private.
“It must be frightfully lonely down in that library,” he went on, while I stared at him in horror. “So completely cut off from the rest of us. I’d better check on you from time to time to see that you’re all right.”
“Don’t worry about me,” I said. “I shall be perfectly safe. I’ll lock my door.”
“Foggy? Who are you talking to?” came Ducky’s strident voice from the end of the hall.
“Just coming, old thing. Wanted to make sure our new arrival had everything she needed.” He loaded those last words with double meaning. And to my horror, he reached out to touch me. I wasn’t sure which part of me he was aiming for, but I didn’t wait to find out. I pushed past him and fled down the stairs. Then I locked the library door. “Oh, golly,” I muttered. This was an added complication I didn’t need. If Ducky found out that Foggy was chasing me, she’d probably think I was encouraging him. Why did men have to be so bloody stupid? (I know a lady never says “bloody.”)
The thought of men and their stupidity brought something rushing back that I had kept firmly from my conscious mind all day. There are other men called Darcy, I told myself over and over again. I was probably worrying over nothing.
Chapter 10
Villa Not Very Gloriosa, Nice
January 23, 1933
Help. Must escape immediately. Choice between dusty
musty library and sharing with the most unpleasant child
I’ve ever met. And nocturnal visits from the lecherous Foggy.
Not to mention serious lack of food and entertainment and
no chance to meet Sir Toby.
I rose early with one thought in mind. I had to find Belinda and somewhere else to stay.
I dressed and went down to breakfast. Queenie appeared from the kitchen, brushing crumbs from her front. “I was going to bring you tea, miss, but they didn’t have no tea, only coffee, and besides, your door was locked.”
“It’s all right. I’m up now and I don’t think I’d have dared to eat or drink anything in that library,” I said.
The gargoyle appeared, hands on hips. “Breakfast? They do not want breakfast until nine. They are very late risers.”
“How about some coffee and croissants now, to keep me going?” I asked.
“Maybe possible.” She shrugged and sniffed, went away and came back with a cup of strong black coffee and some of the previous day’s stale bread, sliced with a small dish of apricot jam.
I ate a couple of mouthfuls and had a swig of coffee, which was disgusting and tasted like liquid tar, then I left a note saying that I had gone out for a walk. A long walk preferably.
I stepped outside to a delightful day. The sun was shining. The sky was blue and the air was perfumed, just as I had imagined it when I stood in Victoria Station. All things considered it was better being here than serving soup. I followed the lane down into town and eventually came to the seafront, where I stood leaning against the railing, watching early risers take their morning constitutional. The sea sparkled in the morning sunshine. Farther down the Promenade there was an impressive-looking pier and behind the town green hills rose, dotted with villas—like the one in which I had expected to stay, no do
ubt.
I stood for a while, just drinking in the scene, breathing the fresh salty air. It would be no good looking for Belinda too early. She rarely rose before ten—and she probably wouldn’t be in her own bed anyway. But at least if she was staying at the Hotel Negresco, as she had mentioned, I could leave a note for her and meet her later.
The enticing smell of freshly baked bread reminded me that I needed breakfast. There were several little open-air cafés along the boulevard. I stopped at one and indulged in good coffee and a basket of croissants. Much later, feeling full and content, I followed the boulevard until I came to the Hotel Negresco, a glittering white building topped with pink Eastern-style domes. I went up the steps and into the marble foyer. A young man in blue and gold uniform leaped up immediately to ask how he could assist me. I asked for Miss Warburton-Stoke. The young man went to have a conversation with another man in a smart suit. The latter checked a ledger then came over to me. The young lady was not registered at the hotel. Had she not been there at all during the past week? I asked. Again he shook his head. He was not aware of a young lady of that name.
Now what on earth was I going to do? It looked as if I might be trapped sharing a room with an obnoxious child at the Villa Gloriosa, dying slowly of starvation while I dodged the attentions of Foggy and the awful Madame Lapiss. Not an enticing prospect. I supposed I could find the casino and camp out there later in the day in the hope that Belinda would show up. I was about to walk away when another thought occurred to me.
“Sir Toby Groper,” I said. “Does he come into the hotel much?”
“Sir Toby? Sometimes. But not at this time of day. A drink with friends late in the evening maybe.” And he shrugged in that particularly unhelpful Gallic way.
“Do you know where his villa is?”
“Of course. It is on the Petit Corniche in the direction of Monte Carlo. About one, two kilometers beyond the town. But you cannot see it from the road. It is hidden away in a little cove.”
At least I knew where to look now. And maybe I could enact the sort of drama Belinda was so good at—twisting my ankle outside the gate, or being almost knocked over by a speeding car—yes, that was a good one. I wasn’t sure I could carry it off as well as Belinda, but it was worth a try.