“Miss Holmes, we need those files,” Mr. Colville snapped, leaning out of the Cabinet Anteroom door, his small round face drawn into a tighter scowl than usual.
“Yes, sir. Good day, Miss de Vere Cole.” Miss Holmes snatched up the files and scurried off as fast as her sensible brown shoes could carry her.
A cadre of secretaries smelling of cigarettes and hair pomade hurried past Valerie on ministerial errands. She stepped aside to allow them to pass and bumped into the chair behind her, dislodging Uncle Neville’s black silk umbrella from where it rested across the arms. She caught it before it tumbled to the floor, the initialed gold band fixed to the Malacca wood handle glinting in the morning light. Her aunt had given it to him years ago and it’d been recovered by Thomas Brigg and Sons many times since. He never left No. 10 without it, not even when he’d flown to Munich to negotiate with Herr Hitler last September. Once, she’d asked him why he carried it. He’d rested it on his shoulder and told her it reminded him to always be grateful to Annie. Without her he wouldn’t have become Prime Minister, a position his father and half brother had aspired to but had never reached.
No one had ever thought so highly of Valerie. That would change this Season. She’d see to it.
She set the umbrella back across the chair’s arms and hurried down the long corridor to the entrance hall, thankful Miss Holmes had stopped her from taking the bus. Arriving on Mavis’s front walk in a Rolls-Royce instead of red-faced from hoofing it down the street would be far more impressive. The car would show the jumped-up tart that Valerie wasn’t the unwanted stepdaughter she’d looked down on in France. What she wouldn’t give for all those tormenting snots from the convent school to see it too, but Mavis would have to do for today.
“A fine morning, Miss de Vere Cole, isn’t it?” Henry, the guard, rose from the black leather porter’s chair in the entrance hall, his medals bright against his dark wool uniform. A cheerful fire burned in the fireplace and the grandfather clock ticked quietly against the wall.
“It is.” At least it had been when she’d awakened this morning still alight from last night. It’d grown progressively more vexing since, and it wasn’t even noon. Heaven knows what the rest of the day would bring.
“Mr. May hasn’t brought the car around yet. Would you like to wait inside?”
Even Henry expected her to take the Rolls and not the bus. Maybe she was as ignorant as Dorothy feared. “No, I’ll wait out front.”
“Very well, miss.” He opened the black-lacquered door and she stepped onto the pavement beneath the wrought-iron lamp.
Valerie’s appearance sent a ripple through the small crowd standing at the entrance to Downing Street from Whitehall. They were held back by a line of policemen, and it left her as exposed as a mannequin in the window of Selfridges. It was a minuscule gathering compared to the one that had greeted Uncle Neville after his meeting with Herr Hitler in Munich last September. She hadn’t been here to watch his triumphant wave from the upper floor but she’d seen the pictures in the newspapers and sat with Great-Aunt Lillian in front of the wireless to listen to him speak. The crowds in the background had drowned him out so many times with their cheers that it’d been difficult to hear his speech. He’d come home a hero, having secured peace in our time.
“Miss de Vere Cole, ya ’ave any news for us?” one man shouted. “We’ve been waiting to ’ear somethin’.”
“Will he give us peace again?” an old woman in a squirrel stole shouted.
“I don’t know. I’m sorry.” She wished she could assure them that they wouldn’t be bombed to rubble the way Mr. Churchill thundered on about, but for all the prestige of her new address, she knew little more than they did. Aunt Anne rarely discussed the goings-on downstairs, and even if she did she couldn’t tell them anything. Valerie was simply the Prime Minister’s niece, not the Foreign Secretary.
The guards ushered the people aside to allow Uncle Neville’s Rolls-Royce to drive through. It stopped at the curb and Valerie started for the door before she caught herself and waited patiently for Mr. May to come around and open it for her. She settled in against the leather seat, resting her purse on her lap while Mr. May slipped behind the wheel.
“Where to, Miss de Vere Cole?” he asked.
“Here, please.” She handed the paper with Mr. R. E. Mortimer Wheeler’s address written on it over the seat. The London Museum assistant had been kind enough to provide it after the No. 10 switchboard operator had informed him that someone from Downing Street had requested it. That was certainly a perk of living in No. 10.
The car slid past the crowd, and the old woman in her squirrel stole peered in enviously at Valerie. Valerie didn’t blame her. She used to be jealous of Dorothy every time she and Aunt Anne had left her at the train station to return to boarding school, or at the port to sail to that god-awful hellhole in France.
She took a deep breath. Those days were behind her, thank heavens, but it wasn’t hard to imagine her present good fortune meeting the same inglorious fate. This time it might be Herr Hitler who ruined it instead of Father’s or Mavis’s reputations or her own rotten luck.
The car glided past the Palace of Westminster with its Gothic spires and sandstone façade. Big Ben tolled ten o’clock and men streamed in and out of the two Houses of Parliament past the mounds of sandbags piled there after the Anschluss, the German invasion of Austria last year. Uncle Neville’s success with the Munich Agreement had staved off the threat of war but the sandbags had been left in place, the situation in Europe still too precarious for anyone to breathe easy.
The driver guided the car down Millbank to Grosvenor Road. The streets followed the curve of the River Thames, where ships cruised the murky water. The tone of the neighborhood changed from the government buildings of Westminster to the houses and squares of Pimlico. Across the river, the tall smokestacks of Battersea Power Station came into view before another bend in the embankment brought them into Chelsea. Mr. May guided the Rolls to the curb of tree-lined Chelsea Embankment, stopping at No. 10, with its black front door and iron railings.
How ironic that Mavis should also end up in a No. 10 in a respectable neighborhood. It was too good for the whore.
The click of the car door as Mr. May stepped out made Valerie jump, and she wished he weren’t so efficient about coming around to hand her out. This idea had been all well and good at Downing Street, but it seemed a terrible mistake in front of the red-brick town house with a view of the Thames from its bow front windows.
The damp of the river across the street filled the air when Mr. May opened her door. She hesitated, debating whether or not to get out. She could change her mind and let it alone, but of all the things and people that might rise up to ruin her Season, she wasn’t about to allow Mavis to be one of them. She had no control over Herr Hitler or Father’s old pranks, but she could tell her stepmother a thing or two and show her she wasn’t someone to be derided and scorned.
“Please wait for me, Mr. May.” She wouldn’t stay longer than necessary but she had no idea how long that might be.
“Yes, Miss de Vere Cole.”
He stood beside the car while Valerie approached the house, the brisk wind off the river cutting through her fine wool coat. A boat on the Thames sounded its horn and she flexed her fingers to shake out the tremors before reaching up to ring the front bell.
The chill deepened while she waited for someone to answer but no one hurried to the door. Mavis was probably out spending her new husband’s money. He must have some means, if she married him. She’d probably investigated his finances this time instead of trusting his word like she had with Father.
Valerie glanced at Mr. May, who remained plain-faced in his forest-green livery. She was about to leave when the lock clicked and the door swung open.
“Yes?” a battle-ax of a day maid growled, put out at having left whatever she’d been doing to answer the bell.
“I’m here to see Mrs. Wheeler.”
“Who’s a
sking for her?”
“Miss Valerie de Vere Cole.” She stepped aside to give the impertinent woman a good look at the Rolls-Royce. The sight of it wiped the sneer off her bulldog face.
“Come in.”
That’s more like it. Valerie entered the narrow front hall cluttered with old statues and curiosities. Despite the spattering of antiquities on the entryway side table and the coats and umbrellas hanging on the coatrack, the entrance was tidy except for the small pair of white leather boots tossed in the corner.
Tristan’s.
She didn’t see or hear the little boy. He was probably upstairs with his nursemaid, tucked out of sight up under the eaves. Mavis wasn’t likely to lift a finger to raise him. She hadn’t done much for Valerie in Ascain, tossing magazines and run stockings about without a care for whether Valerie had spent the entire afternoon tidying up. Neither of them had ever thanked her, but she’d still done it. Pride hadn’t allowed her to live in filth, but poverty had nearly beat that pride out of her.
The memory of Mr. Shoedelin, the British Consul in Bayonne’s disbelief when she’d told him how awful things with Father were in that last miserable hotel, made her dig her nails into her palms. She’d begged for his help and he’d scoffed at her, accusing her of exaggerating how little food and how many rats there were until she’d put her pleas into terms he could no longer ignore. It’d wiped the doubt off his bored expression and replaced it with a repulsion that still made her cringe in shame.
I can’t think of that now. There was a more immediate demon to face.
“I’ll tell her you’re here,” the maid said.
“No need, Mrs. Parker,” a familiar voice called from the top of the stairs. Valerie winced at the sound. Father’s efforts to erase Mavis’s low-class accent had worked, and she must have taken more elocution lessons since. Valerie could hardly hear the peasant in her pronunciation.
Mavis descended the stairs, eyeing Valerie with the same disdain she used to fling at the Ascain creditors. “Well, look who decided to pay me a call.”
The nerve of this tart, sneering at her and making her wait like a tradesman. She’d probably been upstairs watching from one of the windows while deciding when to come down. Valerie was about to tell her what she thought of this little ploy but she bit it back, forcing a pleasant smile to her lips. Civil. She had to be civil. “I saw your marriage announcement in the newspaper.”
“So you decided to rush over here and wish me good luck.” Mavis marched into the sitting room, not asking Valerie to join her but expecting it.
Valerie grudgingly followed, noticing the numerous curiosities crowding every table in the surprisingly tidy room. The bulldog must see to the dust. Valerie couldn’t imagine Mavis getting off her back long enough to maintain her husband’s home. “I’ve come to have a chat.”
Mavis didn’t invite Valerie to sit but remained standing across the large and faded Persian carpet, the two of them eyeing one another like fighting dogs, each waiting for the other to lunge first. It wouldn’t be her, but she’d certainly snap back if provoked. “I’m sure you’ve heard, Aunt Anne is bringing me out this Season from Number Ten.”
“I heard. What’s it to me?”
Valerie trilled her gloved fingers on her purse handle, trying to think of a polite way to tell Mavis to bugger off, quite proud of her control over her tongue. “Since we’re both in London, I thought it best if, for the duration of the Season, we’re civil to one another and forget our time in France. We wouldn’t want anything to arise that might cause us or the Chamberlains any embarrassment.”
Mavis crossed her arms, trilling her red nails on her forearms. “You think I give a fig about the Chamberlains, who never did anything for me except lie about Horace’s money and lands in Canada, both of which were a fraud?”
“If you two hadn’t frittered away what little he had, we might’ve lived better.” Her hold on graciousness was slipping as fast as Mavis’s pretension to a posh accent.
“I kept us from starving while your father played the gentleman, never doing anything except wasting money on wine, books, and you.”
“Father gave you more than you deserved, and you betrayed him with that painter, and half the men in the village.” So much for civility. “You did everything you could in France to pull us down. Don’t you dare do anything here to embarrass me or my aunt and uncle.”
Mavis opened the pewter cigarette box on the table beside her and plucked one out. She selected a match from the attached holder and struck it on the brick fireplace. The smell of sulfur filled the air before she touched it to the tip of the cigarette, then flicked it out and tossed it in an ashtray. “How surprised you’ll be when you discover that everything you’re hungering after is as common as what you left behind.”
“You’re the only one who’s common.”
Mavis sauntered up to Valerie, who stepped back, her cheek stinging with the memory of the sharp slap Mavis had meted out after Valerie had stumbled in on her and the grocer’s son and threatened to tell Father. Now Mavis didn’t do more than blow a long line of smoke out of the side of her mouth. “The only difference between me and those hoity-toity types you’re so desperate to impress is their money. Ancestry, fancy clothes, and jewels cover up so much coarseness. You hope it’ll conceal yours, but it won’t. The second you walk into a ballroom, those society biddies will sniff you out for the poor country cousin you are. Then that high-and-mighty aunt of yours who didn’t get off her perch to come to my and Horace’s wedding because I wasn’t good enough for her dear brother won’t want anything more to do with you than your father or mother did. I don’t suppose your mother has rushed to congratulate you on your grand Season, has she? No, she never wanted you. She still doesn’t, and I don’t blame her. Who’d want such a pathetic creature?”
Valerie gripped the straps of her purse so tight she risked tearing them off in an effort not to wrap the patent leather across Mavis’s smug face. Calling on every ounce of poise Great-Aunt Lillian had drilled into her at West Woodhay House, and the patience she’d seen Aunt Anne exercise at No. 10, Valerie tucked her purse beneath her arm. “You’re the only one who’ll out yourself as the trash you are once you’re up the duff with some other man’s child. Mr. Wheeler won’t put up with it the way Father did, and you’ll find yourself back in the gutter where you belong.”
Valerie turned, head high, back straight, and marched to the front door. The bulldog maid leapt up from the stairs where she’d sat listening and pulled it open. The cold outside air cut against the tears welling at the corners of Valerie’s eyes.
“Tell yourself whatever you like to help you sleep through the night,” Mavis cackled before the bulldog closed the door and cut off the grating sound.
Valerie jerked up short on the pavement, nearly colliding with the nurse and the chubby, curly-haired boy clinging to her hand. She stared down at him, the resemblance between Augustus John and Tristan striking. Of course he wasn’t her brother, no matter how much Father had tried to cheer her with the promise of a sibling. She’d been too old to be fooled by that lie, but not his others. At sixteen, she’d believed him when he’d left her at the French convent school door, Mr. Shoedelin impatiently checking his watch while Father had promised to collect her as soon as possible or to send Aunt Anne to fetch her. She’d held on to that lie until the stretching months with no word from him or Aunt Anne had revealed the truth. Even in the end he hadn’t cared enough about her to help her.
She stepped around the old nurse and hurried to the car, refusing to wipe away a single tear in sight of the entire embankment and whatever window Mavis watched from. She wouldn’t give Mavis the satisfaction of seeing how deep her nasty comments had cut.
Mr. May ushered Valerie into the Rolls before taking his place behind the wheel. He said nothing as he guided the car away from the house.
In the quiet of the backseat, the tears fell fast, soaking the handkerchief she tugged out of her purse. She let out a very unla
dylike snort as she tried to hold in the sobs. I shouldn’t have gone to see her. It hadn’t settled anything, but dredged up the ugly awfulness of Ascain and every belittling she’d ever endured because of Mavis and Father.
The car stopped at a traffic signal and Mr. May handed a dry handkerchief over the seat.
“Thank you.” She took a ragged, steadying breath, but the tears continued to slide down her cheeks and stain her dress. Outside the window, the Thames flowed in dark ripples between the banks, not caring about her troubles any more than her father or mother ever had.
She never wanted you. She still doesn’t, and I don’t blame her. Who’d want such a pathetic creature? Mavis’s ugly words made Valerie want to retch.
It’s not true. It can’t be. Father had refused to discuss his first wife with Valerie, and he wasn’t likely to have told Mavis much . . . unless he had. There’d never been a rhyme or reason to anything he’d done with that slut.
Then I should be glad my mother bolted. She would’ve been more trouble than she was worth. A divorced woman couldn’t present a debutante at court, but she could’ve been there afterward to congratulate her or cherish her when no one else had, protected her, loved her, and kept her from falling into the near-ruin she’d skirted so close to in France. Instead, it’d been left to others and they’d done a rotten job of it, except for Aunt Anne. She’d been there for Valerie during every school holiday, and would’ve done more if Father hadn’t interfered, insisting he knew what was best for his daughter and certain this time he’d be the superb parent he longed to be. Selfishness and the bottle had quickly ruined that fantasy.
The spires of Parliament came into view. She slipped a compact out of her purse and tried to blot away the red streaking her cheeks. No one could see her like this, but even if she could stop the tears, she wasn’t likely to fool anyone at No. 10 any more than she was fooling society about who she really was. Mavis was right, they’d realize at once she was a sow’s ear parading as a silk purse and they’d scorn her for trying to push into their ranks. Last night, some of them already had. They would again if Mavis decided to smear her. After that little visit, Valerie wouldn’t put it past her to find some way to humiliate her, Aunt Anne, or Uncle Neville. Hopefully, Mr. Wheeler would force Mavis to show some restraint, but she doubted it, and Valerie would have yet another bad apple on the family tree to live down.
The Last Debutantes Page 4