‘Why?’ said Louisa.
‘Oh, don’t ask me,’ scoffed Mrs Stobie. ‘Apparently you should never have soup for luncheon, though I don’t see why not. And this is vichyssoise anyway – nice and cold on a day like this.’
‘Why don’t I help you?’ said Louisa.
‘That would be handy, I admit, but you’d better check with Nanny. I don’t need her on my back as well as Mrs Windsor too.’
So it was, slightly to everyone’s bewilderment, that Louisa was in the dining room ladling out the vichyssoise as Mrs Windsor poured the Sancerre. Lady Redesdale raised an eyebrow but said nothing. She was, in any case, clearly much absorbed by their guest, seated on her left.
‘Tell me, Mr Lucknor,’ she said, ‘what have you been doing since the war?’
Roland took a sip of wine and cleared his throat before answering. ‘To tell you the truth, Lady Redesdale, it’s been a little tricky. I’m not long out. I was only demobilised at the end of last year. But there have been one or two business ventures—’
‘Don’t bother my head with those,’ said Lady Redesdale sharply.
Nancy, watching from the other side of the table, showed a pained expression at her mother’s abruptness. She looked at Mrs Windsor hopefully as she came around with the wine, only to receive a tight-lipped shake of the head in reply. Destined to remain a child at the dining table.
‘What I mean is,’ Lady Redesdale continued, more softly this time, ‘what are you interested in?’
‘Aside from business, politics, I think,’ said Roland carefully. ‘These are interesting times for us, aren’t they? A new decade, no more war …’
A man with a young face but grey hair parted severely in the middle lifted his head up from sniffing the soup and said brightly, ‘That’s heartening to hear. Lady Redesdale is kindly hosting the Conservative Party fundraiser this summer. I’m the candidate hopeful.’ Nodding to himself, as if to assert the truth of what he had just said, he tucked the bottom of his tie into his shirt and lifted the soup spoon.
‘Hopeful?’ roared Lord Redesdale from the other end of the table. ‘If this isn’t a safe seat then my name’s Lloyd George!’
Mrs Goad, a familiar stalwart of the WI committee, spluttered on her wine at this, which prompted Lord Redesdale to laugh even more. He was silenced by a sharp look from his wife. Nancy, Louisa could see, was for once rather intimidated by the situation. None of her sisters were at the luncheon and she had only secured a place at the table by promising that she would help at the fundraising party, but she knew that the slightest foot wrong would mean an instant chucking out.
Ignoring the kerfuffle, Lady Redesdale turned back to Roland, who had started to eat delicately. Louisa fiddled with the soup dish and ladles on the service board – she had to be sure that he didn’t say anything that would give her away.
‘I agree,’ Lady Redesdale said, as if nothing had intervened. ‘These are very interesting times. Do you hope to go into politics yourself?’
‘Never say never, Lady Redesdale. But I do sometimes wonder if more good isn’t done on the ground, as it were?’
Lady Redesdale was responsive to the young man’s modest manner and good looks – no one could deny those. ‘Yes, you’re quite right. We can’t all get involved in running the country.’ She gave a tinkling laugh and Lord Redesdale looked up at her from the other end of the table, nonplussed.
Louisa couldn’t delay any longer; Mrs Windsor was giving her strange looks. So she went back downstairs to the kitchen, where Mrs Stobie was fussing over the roast beef, which was sure to be overdone before the potatoes were ready. While they wrapped the beef in a square of linen to rest, Louisa hopped from foot to foot, prompting Mrs Stobie to ask her tetchily if she needed to be excused to go to the bathroom.
Back in the dining room, as she cleared the soup dishes, then handed around the carved slices of beef with potatoes dauphinoise and buttered carrots, Louisa could hear that the conversation was flowing easily. Roland had clearly perfected the art of drawing giggles from Lady Redesdale, the sound of which no one at Asthall Manor could surely quite recall having heard before.
Mrs Goad steadily worked her way through each platter, readily accepting seconds and saying little until after the raspberries and clotted cream were put down before her, at which she emitted a happy wheeze and said, ‘You do such good luncheon, Lady Redesdale.’
Lady Redesdale had had as much to do with the preparation of the food as she had had to do with the tiling of the roof, but she was nonetheless content to receive the compliment.
At the end of dessert she stood up, at which cue Nancy and Mrs Goad stood, too, and then she said, ‘I need Mr Coulson to join us for coffee in the drawing room. Strictly speaking, it’s a committee meeting today. Please forgive me, Mr Lucknor. I hope we see you again soon.’
Roland stood and nodded. ‘Of course, Lady Redesdale. It’s been a pleasure.’
Smiling, Mr Coulson took his tie out of his shirt and gave a little nod to Lord Redesdale and Roland, before following the ladies out.
‘There’s no port, old chap,’ said Lord Redesdale amiably. ‘Shall we go to my study? We can discuss this business proposition of yours. I’m most interested …’
An hour or so later, Louisa was walking down the hall, Decca holding tightly on to one hand, Unity trailing sullenly behind, on their way for a walk around the garden, when she spotted Nancy, completely still, her ear firmly pressed at Lord Redesdale’s study door. Before Louisa could say anything, Nancy put her finger to her lips. She stood up straight and came over to her.
‘I’ve been listening for ages,’ she whispered. ‘I keep waiting to hear my name being mentioned, but no, there’s absolutely nothing. Oh, Lou. Do you think he might not feel the same as I do? I shall pine!’ She made a show of clutching at her throat, but it was playful.
Louisa tried to look cross but she couldn’t help it, Nancy made her laugh more than anyone. ‘No mention of the ball either, then?’
‘No, they’ve been talking about the war and golf, as far as I can make out. It couldn’t be more dull.’
‘Are you sure that was all?’ Louisa knew she shouldn’t ask. It wasn’t any more her business what was going on behind that door than it was for her to sit under the prime minister’s chair, but she couldn’t help herself.
‘Yes, I think so. It was hard to hear, though. They do mumble so.’
‘Well, whatever their conversation is, it’s not for us to guess. Come away from that door now.’
‘Yes, yes, I will,’ said Nancy. ‘I only—’
She was startled by the door handle turning and almost leapt into Louisa’s arms, were it not for Decca still holding fast. Unity flattened herself against the wall at the sound of her father’s childproof door opening. Roland was saying goodbye to Lord Redesdale, who asked him to see himself out. Louisa knew the next thing they would hear would be the gramophone playing a record and faint snores between each song.
Frozen by the appearance of Roland, Louisa and Nancy said nothing, but fortunately he broke the spell first.
‘Miss Mitford, I was hoping to see you again.’
‘Oh,’ said Nancy loftily. ‘Were you?’
‘I see you’re about to take the little ones out for a walk,’ he said as Unity stuck out her head from behind Louisa, displaying a rather skew-whiff white cotton sunhat. ‘Perhaps I might join you all? My lift to the station is not for another half hour or so.’
Louisa spoke for Nancy. ‘Yes, that would be fine, sir,’ she said. ‘We’re just going once around the garden.’
As they walked out into the warm haze of the afternoon, Louisa heard Roland say to Nancy, ‘Miss Mitford, could it possibly be that I’ve seen you somewhere before?’ and Nancy arched an eyebrow in reply.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Louisa had a letter from Guy asking her if she would like to accompany him on a trip to Cornwall. ‘There’s some police work I need to do there,’ she read out.
Nancy had been unleashing her poetic feelings about Roland and something about the warm sun had encouraged Louisa to do the same about Guy. It felt harmless enough as they sat there together on the lawn, Debo lying on a rug beside them, Nanny Blor on the bench beneath the tree, knitting a tiny lemon-yellow cardigan.
‘Police work?’ said Nancy. ‘The Florence Shore case? You lucky thing.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ said Louisa, already feeling uncomfortable about reading it out loud. ‘He goes on to say: “I was planning to go during my holiday week later this month. There’s a train from Paddington to St Ives, where my aunt runs a small bed and breakfast. I wonder if you might care to accompany me? It’s very pretty there and you might enjoy watching the fishermen bringing their catch in.”‘
‘An aunt’s bed and breakfast,’ said Nancy. ‘Does that mean it’s all above board, then? It sounds terribly racy to me.’
‘Guy would never suggest anything that was racy,’ said Louisa, trying and failing to look indignant. ‘Besides, I am my own woman now. Who is to tell me whether I can go with a man to Cornwall or not?’
‘I suppose so,’ said Nancy. ‘I’m jealous, is all. Look at my eyes – greener than ever!’ She flashed them wickedly at Louisa and laughed. This summer was her last as a child, somehow; she told Louisa she could feel herself getting near to being the adult she so longed to be.
‘The thing is, I don’t think I do want to go,’ said Louisa sadly, reaching over to grab Debo, who was trying to roll over on to her tummy, without much success. She propped the baby up against her and gently stroked her soft head. ‘It’s not as if he knows me. Not really.’
‘He knows as much as he needs to, to know that he likes you,’ said Nancy.
‘Well, that’s not enough,’ said Louisa in a tone she hoped would make Nancy change the subject. While she liked Guy, the idea of spending time with a policeman was impossible. Around her way, the police were the enemy and she’d had one or two close encounters that had left her afraid and ashamed. Nor could she trust that someone he worked with might not recognise her.
No. It couldn’t happen.
Nancy, however, had not registered Louisa’s discomfort and was still babbling on. ‘I mean, we are helping him with the Shore case anyway, aren’t we? Speaking of which, the more I think about it, the more I’m certain it’s that cousin of hers, the artist. He needed the money, didn’t he? I tell you, it’s always about the money.’
‘What about the brother? He was inheriting money, too, and was angry that his cousin had a big share of it,’ pointed out Louisa.
‘Offley was in America; it must be Stuart,’ said Nancy, who rarely came unstuck from her guns.
‘What if her brother asked someone to do it for him?’ said Louisa.
Nancy dismissed this as too far-fetched.
‘Well, whatever it was, we don’t know,’ said Louisa and stood up. ‘I’m taking Miss Debo inside now; she needs a change.’
Louisa wrote back to Guy and told him that she wouldn’t be travelling to Cornwall with him. She felt a pang of regret as she wrote it but she knew it was the right thing to do. It wasn’t long before she received a despondent reply. Guy wasn’t sure he would go either, writing:
It’s hard to know whether or not to go on with this case at all. I’ve been making what investigations I can but my super won’t let me off duties to pursue leads any more – not that there have been any new leads to speak of. If he hears of my going to Cornwall, I think he might have something to say about it. All we know is that a man in a brown suit got on the train at Victoria and probably got off at Lewes. I’ve recently interviewed the train guard and his description of the man who got off doesn’t match that of Miss Shore’s friend – it might not have been the same man at all.
No weapon has been found, which is the real problem. Dr Spilsbury said she was hit with a large, blunt instrument, which could have been a revolver or an umbrella handle. And as for who that man in the brown suit is – assuming it was someone she knew, as we believe – the only suspects I’ve come up with are Stuart Hobkirk, her cousin, on the grounds that he stood to inherit some money and his alibi is weak, and her brother Offley Shore, who contested the will. But he lives in California and wasn’t even in England at the time. It’s not enough.
Louisa pictured Guy’s gentle face bent intently over the letter, frowning a little as he mustered the courage to tell her of his disappointment and frustration.
All at once she remembered something Nancy had said when they were on the train to stay with Rosa: that the doors didn’t open from the inside. To get out, a person had to open the window and lean out to turn the door handle on the outside. The train guard saw a man get down from the train at Lewes but there was no mention of him reaching back to close the window. Yet the railway workers said that when they got on at the next stop both the windows were closed.
What this added up to, she wasn’t sure. All she was certain of was that she didn’t like Guy feeling unhappy and wondered what she could do to help.
In the evening, when the little ones were tucked up in bed, Louisa and Nanny Blor were having a late supper together in the nursery sitting room – cocoa and slices of bread, thickly spread with salted butter.
‘Did you ever meet Florence Shore?’ Louisa asked in the silence as they sipped their hot drink.
‘Good heavens, my love. Whatever’s made you think of poor Miss Shore again?’ said Nanny Blor, putting her cocoa down and fidgeting in her apron for a spoon. All sorts of things seemed to emerge from her deep pockets. Louisa had seen her pull out a pair of false teeth once, to which Nanny had simply said, ‘Oh, how useful,’ and put them back. Nanny had never worn false teeth.
‘I don’t know,’ Louisa lied, ‘she just popped into my mind. Did you, though – meet her?’
‘No,’ said Nanny. ‘She was Rosa’s friend and our visits never coincided. I’d heard about her from Rosa for so many years, ever since they met at nursing school. Her name, you know, the Nightingale bit, made her something of a curiosity from the start.’
‘What was she like?’ asked Louisa, tucking her legs up beneath her on the armchair, as if settling in for a bedtime story.
‘Oh, I don’t know that I could presume to say,’ said Nanny, a sniff threatening to come on, but she coughed instead. ‘I think she was like most of her kind – war nurses, that is. They don’t say much; they just get on with the job. Rosa was fond of her, though. I think she was a loyal sort, friendly enough. She kept herself to herself.’
‘She never married?’
‘Oh no, she was married to the job. There was a man, of sorts, I believe. A cousin of hers – an artist. But there was some reason why it couldn’t happen between them. Besides, she was very attached to her friend Mabel. Flo might have worried about her being alone if she went off to live with a husband. Poor Mabel, she will have taken the death very hard.’
‘What did she do when she wasn’t working, then?’
‘You should be careful – you remember what curiosity did to the cat,’ said Nanny sharply, but Louisa knew she liked a gossip; it was just a show of resistance. ‘She stayed with friends; she was always popular. And she had a bit of money – she came from a smart family and she’d inherited quite a bit – so I think she could always look after herself.’
‘Until the end,’ said Louisa.
‘Yes,’ said Nanny sadly, ‘until the end. Who knows what happened there? It seems a very mean ending for a life that was lived for others. She’ll have got her reward in heaven, I suppose. Now, there’ll be no reward for me if I stay up talking like this at all hours. I’m off to Bedfordshire. Will you turn off the lights?’
‘Of course,’ said Louisa. ‘Good night, Nanny.’
‘Good night, child.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
It wasn’t many days after that Nancy shyly took a letter out of her pocket to show Louisa. ‘He’s written to me,’ she said, triumph on her face.
And so he had. Roland – wh
o signed off ‘your obedient servant, Roland Lucknor’ – had written a short note to Nancy, thanking her for the ‘most pleasant’ walk around the garden, and hoping that they might meet again in London. He knew they weren’t to speak of it but he was glad of their chance introduction at the ball, as it had meant he was able to find Lord Redesdale. Those of us who were at Ypres find it hard to talk about those years, he wrote, so it means a great deal to find another who understands, even if the shared memories remain unspoken.
‘He’s a poet, isn’t he?’ said Nancy, dramatically pinning the note to her breast with both hands. ‘Oh, why must you look like that? Don’t spoil my fun.’
Louisa had paused her sewing and sat very still. Sunlight streamed on to the green-and-white-striped baby’s dress covering her lap. ‘I want to be happy for you,’ she said. ‘I just think you should be careful. He’s a lot older than you. You’re still a young girl.’
‘Catherine of Aragon was sixteen years old when she married Prince Arthur,’ said Nancy, defiant.
‘I don’t think that argument will wash with His Lordship,’ said Louisa. ‘And besides, I don’t think we should be leaping to the conclusion of marriage just yet.’
‘Why must you sound so suspicious? I can’t see that he’s done anything wrong except be completely charming.’
‘Perhaps that’s why I’m suspicious,’ said Louisa, and she lifted her hand holding the needle to indicate that she meant to get on with her work.
‘So you admit it,’ said Nancy. ‘Well, I shall prove you wrong. And I shall write to him now and suggest we meet in London. You shan’t stop me.’
‘Meet whom in London?’
Louisa stood immediately and Nancy turned around, startled to see Lady Redesdale in the doorway.
‘I’ve just come up to see Debo,’ she said. ‘Whom are you planning to meet, Koko?’
Nancy composed herself. ‘Marjorie Murray,’ she answered. ‘She’s suggesting I go to the Summer Exhibition with her.’
‘I hardly think you are going to go to London unaccompanied,’ said her mother severely. ‘Is that letter from her? May I see it, please?’
The Mitford Murders Page 17