Louisa picked up her knife and fork, only it seemed her appetite had deserted her completely. She tried a mouthful and gave up.
‘Could you let me know what this is about? Otherwise, I’d better get back to my classes.’
‘You’re not needed back for forty minutes. Your routine is predictable, apart from last night when you stopped off at the grocer’s on the way home. And you were surprised to find the butcher’s shut.’
That startled her. ‘You were following me?’
Again, Iain didn’t answer the question, instead continuing to smoke his cigarette. When the waitress brought his coffee, he put in three spoonfuls of sugar and said: ‘Too long spent in foreign climes has given me a sweet tooth.’ It was to be the only time he explained himself about anything. ‘Mrs Sullivan, are you aware that there are serious threats to the security of our country right now?’
This was an unexpected question.
‘No, I can’t say I am aware.’
‘You should be. A bright woman like you, don’t you read the newspapers?’
Louisa decided this was rhetorical.
He carried on. ‘Hitler’s Nazi Party has been in power for four months. In that time Herr Hitler has threatened to reject the Disarmament Conference, withdraw from the League of Nations and has publicly disavowed the Treaty of Versailles. He has opened a concentration camp for political prisoners, which appears to be a fairly loose term. They have also taken over Bavaria.’ All the while Iain spoke softly, yet she was in no doubt that he spoke with authority. ‘Be in no doubt: Germany is preparing for war.’
Louisa picked up her mug to take a sip of tea, but she was trembling and she thought she might drop it.
‘When a country is preparing for war, they will do their best to infiltrate the political systems of others around them. Perhaps to convert them to their cause and avert war, perhaps to pretend that they are for peace, perhaps to weaken their potential enemy’s armies. Whatever it is, we have to be on alert and guard ourselves against it.’
Louisa felt her legs shiver. Iain leaned a little towards her.
‘Mrs Sullivan, I fought in the last war. The last thing that I want is for any of our young men today to fight in another. Everything that we can do to avert this must be done. The question is: are you in?’
‘Am I in what?’
‘Are you willing to help our country avoid war?’
Louisa had been at a distance from the Great War. She’d been a young girl in London, at school, then working with her mother, a laundress. They’d worked for families who had lost sons, she’d seen their grief. There had been rations, and she knew Guy had lost a brother, but it was the officers she’d seen begging in the streets that was the most distressing. Wounded, sometimes blind, sometimes missing a limb, they’d sit with their pitiful signs asking politely for food and money as people rushed past them. Everyone wanted nothing more than to get back to normal, they hadn’t wanted to be reminded of the catastrophic error their country had made in getting involved in what, so she understood, began as hardly more than a minor skirmish in Austria. No, she didn’t want another war.
‘What exactly are you asking of me?’
Iain’s voice took on a brisker rhythm. ‘I believe you have been asked to accompany Lady Redesdale and her daughters on a cruise.’
She almost burst out laughing. ‘Yes, but what’s that got to do with anything?’
‘We need you to go on that cruise.’
We? Who was we?
‘The British government, Mrs Sullivan.’
She hadn’t even asked the question out loud.
‘We need you to keep a close eye on Mrs Guinness and her younger sister, Miss Unity Mitford. Take note of any unusual movements, any meetings they have, that sort of thing. The details will be forthcoming nearer the time.’
‘But that’s ridiculous. What on earth have they got to do with war?’
Iain signalled to Kay for the bill. ‘I’ll get this,’ he said, gesturing to Louisa’s uneaten lunch. ‘They are members of the British Union of Fascists. That’s not the whole explanation, but that will do for now. In the meantime, please accept the position and I will meet you again.’ He had said this almost as an aside, concentrating more on pulling a money clip out of his pocket and peeling off a pound note.
‘But I don’t want to work for them again. I’m training as—’
‘Yes, yes, we know. You can pick that up later. This is more important. Far more important, Mrs Sullivan.’ He got up and left the money on the table. ‘She can keep the change. I’ll see you in a few days’ time. Oh, and one thing – you cannot tell anyone about our meeting or your reasons for accepting the position, not even your husband. Especially not your husband. I’ll know if you do.’
Louisa remained in her chair for several minutes until she glanced at the clock on the wall and realised she needed to hurry back to her class. It felt ridiculous enough to question whether it had even happened, but the pound note was on the table and it definitely didn’t belong to her. That was that, then. She had a few days and then she’d meet Iain again, at some time and place of his choosing, no doubt. Could she do this? It would mean keeping a secret from Guy, something she’d never wanted to do. But this request – command? – was bigger than either of them. She was being asked to serve her country. If she was ever forced to lie to Guy, she would do so only if it was to protect him. Maybe she wasn’t the same kind of wife that their mothers had been, nor did she regret that, but she had to believe she could love him, yet still do the things she wanted to do. Because she had to admit this: she did want to do it.
CHAPTER SIX
Having sent a note to Nancy to say that she had reconsidered the offer and would like to accept if it still stood, Louisa was quickly summoned back to Rutland Gate. As she had been asked to arrive at eleven o’clock in the morning, she had given up the idea of attending her training that day and sent in a note warning them of her absence. She didn’t need to lie and say she was ill, as after all she was a paying client, not a schoolgirl. But she felt the weight of guilt lie heavy on her chest nonetheless. Unless it was weight for a different reason: apprehension at immersing herself back in the Mitford world when she had – foolishly – congratulated herself on leaving them for a life of marriage and a career, a life she had thought would put them if not quite on an equal footing, then no longer that of master and servant. Yet here she was, metaphorical mob-cap on her head. Resolutely, as if not to undo the good work of her previous exit, Louisa knocked this time on the front door. The maid who opened it betrayed no judgement but took her into the morning room, where Louisa was greeted by a formidable line-up: Lady Redesdale, Nancy, Unity and Tom.
Louisa was no longer the trembling nineteen-year-old in a scrappy dress and hastily polished boots that she had been when she first met the matriarch of the Mitford family, but in the presence of her former employer she sometimes found that hard to remember. Lady Redesdale was not an unkind woman, but she kept her distance in all senses of the phrase, and her Victorian manner was deliberately designed to keep the likes of Louisa in the dark as to what made her blue blood pump through her veins. Whether Lady Redesdale liked Louisa was, at best, not any of Louisa’s business, at worst, irrelevant. What Louisa did know, which her daughters often did not affect to know, was that Lady Redesdale cared for them a great deal. She had never demonstrated this through anything so common as kisses and cuddles when they were babies (they got these, in spades, from Nanny Blor) but through her attentiveness to their development. Lord Redesdale had objected to his daughters going to school, but the governesses his wife hired were engaged to teach a progressive system, and this only after Lady Redesdale had herself taught the girls how to read, as well as the basics of English history. As her children had grown older, Lady Redesdale held dances for them and managed house parties, sometimes in the teeth of her husband’s short-tempered objections, and even sat up until the small hours waiting for them to climb back in through the ballroom win
dows when they eventually returned from whichever nightclub they had escaped to earlier on. (Not that she knew that last part.)
‘Lady Redesdale, Miss Nancy, Miss Unity,’ said Louisa, acknowledging each in turn with a nod.
None of them stood when she entered the room and she waited now for one of them to beckon her to a chair. It didn’t happen. Tom was already standing, leaning on a mantelpiece, the other hand in his pocket. He nodded when Louisa looked towards him. Nancy had told Louisa that Tom had half the princesses of Europe trailing after him. Even given the exaggeration, it was believable.
Nancy broke the icy smiles. ‘Lou-Lou, it’s divinely kind of you to help us in this way.’
Lady Redesdale sat up a fraction straighter. ‘Cannon—’ she began, but Nancy immediately interrupted.
‘It’s Sullivan now, if we’re to use surnames at all. Don’t you remember? Lou-Lou is married.’
‘I can’t call her Sullivan,’ said Lady Redesdale. ‘I’ll never remember it.’
Louisa wondered if she should wave helpfully, remind them that she was in the room.
The matriarch turned to Louisa. ‘It’s quite wrong, but I shall have to call you either Louisa, which makes you sound like a kitchen maid, or Cannon, which is more correct but makes you sound unmarried. Which do you prefer?’
‘Louisa is fine, m’lady.’ Some might think she was an acquaintance if it was overheard on the ship, even though she knew she was kidding herself if she was already looking for ways not to be seen as a maid.
‘Louisa,’ Lady Redesdale began again. ‘Nancy is convinced that I cannot cope alone. I am not of the same opinion. Nevertheless, the fact remains that Mrs Guinness is now without a lady’s maid, having moved into her house in Eaton Square…’ She broke off and Louisa saw the faintest flicker of pain as she took in another breath. ‘There is an idea that with all three of us needing jewellery fetched from the safes in the evening, help with our luggage and tickets—’
Unity interrupted this time. ‘Don’t go on. Louisa knows perfectly well what to do. And besides, the lady doth protest too much.’ She turned to Louisa. ‘The real reason Lady Redesdale objects to you accompanying us is because she thinks every time you come near us, another murder happens.’
Lady Redesdale pinched her mouth, but her daughter ignored this and carried on. ‘It’s not true, is it, Louisa? There were years when you were with us when no one got murdered at all.’
Nancy and Tom burst into a fit of laughter at this, but Louisa was appalled. She opened her mouth to say something, though she wasn’t sure what she could say.
Nancy flapped her hand and, through her snorts, managed to get out a protest. ‘Honestly, Unity. You must learn some social graces.’
Unity looked perplexed. ‘What’s wrong with what I said? It’s true, and anyway, Louisa knows us well enough by now.’
‘Quite,’ said Lady Redesdale, doing her motherly best to restore order while managing to neither agree nor disagree with her children. It was a diplomatic skill necessary in a family of nine. Lord Redesdale’s tactic was simple: absolute authority. (Until ‘the thin end of the wedge’ was reintroduced and soon the situation would revert to whatever had prompted his fury in the first place.)
Louisa shifted on her feet and this brought Nancy’s attention back into focus. ‘I’ve told you the plan, the train to Venice and so forth—’
‘Are you not doing the river cruise through Germany?’ interrupted Tom.
Nancy held out a hand to silence him. ‘You’re not in court now. Don’t ask difficult questions.’ She explained to Louisa: ‘Tom’s been called to the bar. His chambers is Four Paper Buildings at Temple. Lord Redesdale can’t quite believe he’s got a son that works.’
Tom snorted at this and his mother gave him a sharp look.
Louisa tried to ignore the excitement she felt at the thought of this trip. She was going as a secret agent. She had to keep that uppermost in her mind. It was not a holiday; she did not want to be apart from Guy.
‘Yes, you did tell me,’ said Louisa, not involving herself in the argument with Tom. ‘The trip sounds wonderful.’
‘Oh, it will be,’ Unity started to say, her face, usually unreadable, now animated.
‘Have you got a passport?’ demanded Lady Redesdale.
‘Yes, m’lady. It was arranged when we went to Dieppe some time ago.’
‘That’s settled then. We’ll pay you six pounds a week and you may bring a suitcase and a vanity case for your own things. If you could come here on Sunday afternoon at half-past two, we will travel together to Victoria to catch the train for Paris. We’ll need two cars, and I’d like you to be in the taxi with Miss Unity and Miss Jessica.’
‘Will that be all, Lady Redesdale?’
‘That will be all, Louisa.’ She brushed something invisible off her skirt and the interview was over.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The following day, Louisa returned to the London School of Stenography. A part of her hoped she’d somehow been mistaken about what Iain had been asking her to do, or even that she’d dreamed him up entirely. Then she could tell the Mitfords she wouldn’t be travelling with them after all, and she could resume her normal life. Uneventful and safe. Guy was a policeman, that was enough drama for anyone.
Yet when she pushed open the door of Gerry’s Café at lunchtime, she was strangely relieved to see Iain sitting there. He gave her the briefest of glances she understood to mean she should sit at a separate table. Thankfully, she had put her class friends off again. She knew they were beginning to think her offish, but she reasoned she’d be able to explain eventually. After she had ordered her usual from Kay, keeping her eyes away from the ubiquitous filthy rag tucked into the waistband of the waitress’s apron, Iain stood up and Louisa saw he’d left the coins on the table to pay his bill. He put his hat on and walked towards the door, dropping a piece of folded paper onto her table as he walked past. Louisa quickly took it and opened it on her lap. No one was looking at her, but she felt nerves flutter in her stomach. All it said was: Hammersmith Bridge, 5 p.m.
Louisa tore the paper up into several pieces and put them into an almost empty coffee cup, where they quickly absorbed the remaining liquid. There was an insouciance to the way Iain simply assumed she would be available at that time that should have infuriated her. Supposing she had made other plans? But he knew she would cancel anything. The fact that she had returned his glance and gone to sit at another table, then passively waited and accepted his note meant she had already let him know that she was signed up to whatever he asked of her. It was arrogant and thrilling.
At five o’clock, Louisa was on Hammersmith Bridge, looking out over the river. It was a view that never failed to prompt her love of London. Though she had been entranced by the beauty of the countryside when she had first gone to work for the Mitfords, it was the vast anonymous scape of the city, and the river that wound through it, that lashed itself around her heart. The sun was not yet sinking but shone warm on her face, the deepening yellows a reminder of the summer that was not too far away now. She was on high alert, feeling like a cat on a brick wall, waiting for the mouse to come – or was it the other way around? – when she sensed Iain standing beside her.
‘Well done, Mrs Sullivan,’ he said. ‘You have already pleased us.’
‘I wasn’t trying to please you,’ Louisa replied. ‘I was merely carrying out what appeared to be orders.’
‘Even better.’
There was a brief silence while Iain seemed to take in the view and they both watched a narrowboat pass out from under the bridge. A woman sat on the deck and looked up at them. She waved, but neither of them waved back and Iain turned around.
‘What do you know so far?’ he asked.
Louisa told him of the travel plans, the time they would be departing and what she had been told of the route.
‘That aligns with the information I have,’ he said with satisfaction.
‘How do I know you are who you say y
ou are?’
‘You don’t,’ said Iain equably. ‘Truthfully, I’m not.’
‘What?’
‘Iain is not my real name. But that doesn’t need to concern you. You’ll simply have to take this on trust. All you need to know is that these orders come from the British government. We’re a small department but a vital one, and I expect we’ll grow in size. There will be further opportunities for ambitious women such as yourself. Our man at the top is particularly keen on women agents.’
‘Why?’ Louisa was intrigued by the phrase ‘our man at the top’. Who was that? The prime minister? The King?
Iain curled his top lip. ‘Who knows? Thinks they’re more reliable, sharper. I suggest you prove him right.’
‘How will I contact you?’
‘You won’t need to do so often, but I’ll give you an address to which you can send a telegram, if absolutely necessary. If we need to get hold of you on the ship while it’s at sea, we’ll find a way to do it. It’s not dangerous work. We simply need you to keep an eye on Mrs Guinness and her sister, then report back on your return. Mosley is a person of interest, as are the people close to him. We want to know what connections he’s making in Europe. It will probably all come to nothing, and that will be to the good, frankly. He’s a loathsome man with no commitment to any political ideas other than the ones that he thinks will put him into power.’
‘Will he get into power?’
‘I doubt it. Mosley’s an anti-Bolshie, he’s got that going for him, as do all the fascists. But he could feed Hitler’s chances of success and we don’t want dictators in Europe, especially not in Germany.’ He took out a cigarette but didn’t offer her one. ‘You don’t need all this detail. Keep an eye on those women and let me know if you see anything that raises your suspicions.’
‘This whole conversation is suspicious, if you ask me.’ Louisa tried a joking tone, but Iain didn’t smile. He only lit his Player’s and walked off, leaving her to watch his retreating back and the traffic as it poured over the bridge away from her.
The Mitford Trial Page 4