He took her hand and dropped a low bow over it, but he didn’t press his lips to the back of it. He straightened, offering a flash of the serious chap who’d faced her at the club, before he let go and walked off into the crowd.
People pressed in around her, the strings of the violin smooth after the frenzied tempo of the Tango Club. No one had noticed she was missing and no one cared that she’d returned, her head spinning at how different everything had been for a brief time.
“Valerie, where have you been?” Dinah was at her side, her dance card wrinkled about the edges.
She was wrong, people did care. “With Elm.”
“You cheeky little devil. I want to hear all about it.” Dinah grabbed her by the hand and dragged her to a quiet corner beneath the main staircase where they could chat while people went up and down the stairs. In quick words, Valerie told her about the club, the dance, and the near-kiss. Dinah listened, as enraptured as when Valerie had told them about Diana Mitford and Sir Oswald. “That is serious.”
“I’ll say. I wish he would’ve kissed me.” Her first kiss from a viscount. That’d really be something for the scrapbook.
“He couldn’t. Kiss in a taxi and you might as well consider yourself engaged. You remember what I told you about him?”
“Of course.” At least she did now. She’d quite forgotten it when Elm had caressed her shoulder. Her skin still tingled from his touch.
“Speaking of gentlemen, Mr. Chaplin keeps asking about you. Find him and dance with him, and let’s write names in your card so your cousin won’t be suspicious.” Dinah snatched up the card and pencil and began scribbling in names. She tucked the pencil in its elastic holder when she was done and clasped Valerie’s hands in hers. “I hope it works out for you and Elm, I sincerely do, but until you’re certain, be careful.”
“I will be.” The fantasy was over, it was time to return to reality. She’d believed in Father’s empty promises until his passing had crushed them. She couldn’t be fooled by a gentleman’s illusions again. Difficult to do with the faint smell of Elm’s aftershave still clinging to her dress.
Chapter Thirteen
Mr. Mason, what does this mean for Valerie’s future?” Aunt Anne asked.
They sat in matching leather chairs before the portly Bank of England trustee’s mahogany desk. The ring of a telephone and the secretary’s voice filtered in through the closed door, and the smell of cigars and wood polish mixed with the heat coming in the open sashes. The unexpected May warmth had made the last week of events, including the Docklands Settlement Ball, stifling affairs, forcing guests outside onto the pavement and balconies of the Savoy and Claridge’s. Even Dinah’s coming-out ball had been an exercise in patience. Lady Astor’s elaborate decorations hadn’t been enough to tempt everyone to spend the entire evening inside, as the two thousand guests had crowded 4 St. James’s Square’s terrace or crossed into the grassy St. James’s Square. With any luck the weather would cool before the Queen Charlotte’s Birthday Ball next week and her coming-out dance at the end of June.
“The financial difficulties of the last few years haven’t been kind to many trusts. Assuming war doesn’t interfere with the markets, the value of the trust could recover by the time Miss de Vere Cole comes of age, but I shouldn’t count on more than two thousand pounds a year.”
“As much as that?” It was far more than Valerie had expected. She tugged a handkerchief out of her purse to dab her forehead. The fleeting thought that Elm and his mother might look at her differently if she had money shamed her. She shouldn’t care about Elm, but he was nearly all she’d thought about since the Tango Club. His having been conspicuously absent from recent events hadn’t helped.
“Not a substantial amount, but enough to keep her well settled and make her an attractive prospect,” Aunt Anne mused.
“You make me sound like a prized horse.”
“In the marriage market it never hurts to have a little something in your corner. This could be yours when you’re ready. Mr. Mason, can you ensure this information discreetly makes the rounds?”
“I will, although there’s still Mrs. Winterbotham’s portion of the trust to consider.”
Valerie paused in blotting her forehead. “Mrs. Winterbotham?”
“Your mother.”
Good heavens!
“She draws an annual income in accordance with the terms of the trust established by her father, Colonel Daley, before he died,” Mr. Mason explained. “The divorce court established your right to a share in it when you turn twenty-one. Your father petitioned the court for earlier payments, but the court denied his request, convinced he couldn’t correctly manage them on your behalf.”
“Did my mother have a say in the court’s decision?” Had she, in this small way, shown some concern for her daughter?
Mr. Mason shifted in his chair, glancing uneasily at Aunt Anne before answering. “Mrs. Winterbotham never responded to the inquiries. Mr. Winterbotham objected to his wife corresponding in any manner with her former husband, even through solicitors, and he was quite vocal in matters pertaining to the trust until she divorced him.”
“Is she in London?”
“At present. She divides her time between London and Ireland.”
“Best to leave that alone,” Aunt Anne softly suggested. “Mr. Mason, what are the figures as they currently stand?”
Mr. Mason and Aunt Anne continued to discuss the trust, but Valerie barely heard a word of it. Her mother was here and she must have seen Valerie’s pictures in the papers, but there hadn’t been so much as a calling card from her. She wasn’t entirely surprised, especially with Aunt Anne warning Valerie off of her. The divorce had darkened Father’s social standing. It must have made her mother a pariah. For all Mavis’s bad behavior, marriage and widowhood had at least given her a thin sheen of respectability. Valerie’s mother hadn’t enjoyed that luxury.
“Thank you once again, Mr. Mason, for all your help.” Aunt Anne shook the banker’s hand and allowed him to escort them out of his office.
Valerie walked with her aunt through the Bank of England’s seemingly endless marble corridors. Despite the news of the inheritance, all she could think about was her mother and why she hadn’t tried to contact her. Given Father’s reluctance to leave her with Aunt Anne, he might have forbidden her mother from seeing her, or perhaps Mr. Winterbotham had been the difficult one. Maybe her mother hadn’t abandoned her at all but had been too weak to stand up to her second husband, although she’d had the fortitude to leave him. Perhaps she was too ashamed after all this time to approach Valerie, leaving it to Valerie to break the silence.
Don’t be a silly child. She’d visited Mavis, and that’d been a disaster. She should listen to Aunt Anne and let it be, but she couldn’t. Even if Valerie never did anything with her mother’s address, simply having it meant she could reach out to her if she chose. It was more than she could hope to do with Father. If she didn’t act today, she’d have to return with the chauffer and everyone would know what she’d been up to.
“I forgot my handkerchief in Mr. Mason’s office.” Valerie brought them to a halt in the center of one of the numerous hallways. “I’ll run back and fetch it.”
Aunt Anne studied her with her usual languid expression. Valerie gripped her purse, expecting to be challenged about the lie, but Aunt Anne simply nodded. “Very well. I’ll see you at the car.”
Aunt Anne carried on, passing various men with files.
She knows what I’m doing. But she couldn’t back out and blatantly admit she’d disobeyed her. With quick steps she returned to the office, losing her way twice before a helpful young clerk led her to it.
Mr. Mason’s secretary looked up from his work. “What can I do for you, Miss de Vere Cole?”
“I’d like Mrs. Winterbotham’s address, please.” She was ready with a reason for why she needed it but he never asked. He simply removed a black book from his drawer, flipped it open to the appropriate page, and copied t
he address on a small slip of paper and handed it to Valerie.
Mrs. Winterbotham, Hotel Meurice, Bury Street, London SW1. Whitehall 6767
All this time she’d been in London and her mother lived only a few streets away. Valerie could’ve strolled across St. James’s Park and met her for tea or walked past her in Fortnum & Mason and she never would’ve known it. They might have been on different continents, for all the difference it’d made. “Thank you.”
She stuffed the paper in her purse and made her way back through the labyrinth of hallways, asking directions three more times before reaching the massive twisting staircase leading to the bank’s mausoleum-like lobby. Long lines of tellers standing behind the stretching mahogany counter helped various customers. The tellers didn’t wear their usual dark suits but special constable uniforms, all of them trained to help in case of an air raid. It was as ominous a sight as her mother’s name and address on the paper inside her purse.
Nodding to the gatekeeper in his salmon coat and red waistcoat, she hurried out of the bank entrance and down the stairs to the waiting car.
“Is everything all right?” Aunt Anne asked when she slid in beside her, flustered from the long walk and her clandestine errand.
“It’s a great deal to take in, the trust and all.” Never mind her mother. Until today the future had been a hazy image of bouncing from house to house like a spinster aunt supported by others’ generosity, always leaving before the hosts tired of her. In one meeting, at least that worry had been relieved.
“It’ll make a great difference to your future, give you a touch of security.”
It was hard to believe one of her parents had finally offered her that. “What will I do until then or after? I haven’t noticed being a lady of leisure has done many in society much good.”
“There’s still the Personal Service League. I spoke with Lady Bridgeman and she said you could easily join now and take up a position when the Season ends.”
She had no idea what she might do to help the Personal Service League, but she longed to make decisions about her own life instead of others doing it for her. This could be her chance. “All right, I’ll do it.”
“Good. Now I have some news that isn’t nearly as pleasant as Mr. Mason’s. Prepare to be quite shocked when we visit the Royal Academy of Arts opening.”
The Exhibition of the Royal Academy of Arts 1939
The One Hundred and Seventy-First
It was like viewing two trains colliding, and Valerie couldn’t look away. Hanging on the wall of the Drawing and Etching Gallery of the Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition was a pencil portrait of Mavis by Augustus John. Mavis lay with one hand behind her loose hair, the other off to the side, the rest of her displayed without a stitch of clothing.
“At least they had the decency not to hang her near your aunt or uncle’s portraits,” Dinah whispered from beside her, as stunned by Mavis in all her glory as Valerie and Christian. Behind them, two mustached gentlemen waited at a respectable distance for the debutantes to clear off so they could have a crack at the drawing.
“I suppose there’s that to be grateful for.” Nothing Aunt Anne had told her in the car about the submission, or No. 10’s failed effort to have it removed, had prepared her for the reality of it. Aunt Anne was in another gallery with Uncle Neville, refusing to give it any attention. Valerie had been too curious to ignore it.
“Why would your stepmother do such a thing?” Christian asked.
“To teach me a lesson for flaunting my new situation in her face, and having the temerity to demand she behave with some decency.” Valerie adjusted the veil on her cocked astrakhan, pushing it farther up over the high brim but it kept slipping down to tickle her forehead. To see her dressed in the smart pale green Molyneux frock, her hair perfectly curled and arranged, no one might guess she was fuming. “I’m sure she told Augustus John to submit it.”
“Poor Valerie, you must be mortified.”
“Not as much as I should be.” Or would have been in March. For all the awful spectacle, Valerie stood beside friends who weren’t ashamed to be seen with her in front of this masterpiece, and she had the weight of No. 10 Downing Street behind her. “Mavis thinks she’s knocked me down a peg or two, but she’s the one who looks dreadful, and I’ll show her. I’ll face this little stunt of hers with far more dignity than she’s ever shown.”
“Well done, old girl,” Dinah congratulated as they turned away from the lurid drawing, leaving the mustached gentlemen to it. They passed through the interconnected galleries of Burghley House in search of the portraits of her aunt and uncle. “You’re learning how it’s done.”
“I don’t have the hide of a rhinoceros yet, but I’ve gained a few calluses.” Aunt Anne had said the Season was about dealing with difficult people and situations with grace and poise, and she hadn’t been lying.
“Your stepmother isn’t the only one creating a spectacle. It seems the Royal Academy is determined to be saucy this year, hanging the Premier’s portrait across from”—Dinah checked her program as they entered Gallery IV and crossed the room to view Uncle Neville’s portrait—“Models for Goddesses by Sir William Russell Flint. Rather cheeky placement.”
“I’ll say.” Mavis’s image couldn’t compete with the painting of the three nude women in an artist’s studio bending over a draped fabric box. It hung opposite her uncle’s portrait and was drawing quite a bit of attention. Any debs who lingered too long in front of it were quickly pulled away to view more respectable works.
Valerie, Dinah, and Christian kept their attention on Uncle Neville’s portrait by Sir James Gunn. The likeness of him in his pinstripe suit and wing-collared shirt was good, but the portrait didn’t reflect how much more gaunt and drawn he’d become since sitting for it. Ever since the King and Queen’s dinner, it’d been nothing but bad news from Europe, and here was the Royal Academy heaping on more difficulties. They must not be great supporters of Uncle Neville, to be so insulting with their arrangement and submissions. “Uncle Neville and his staff don’t need headaches from Mavis or the Royal Academy, not on top of everything else they’re facing.”
“One of the chaps I danced with last night said he and his friends are all rushing to their Seville Row tailors.” Christian’s low tones mingled with those of the other guests passing through the Royal Academy’s cavernous galleries. “They’re afraid of war rationing and think if they don’t get their summer whites they’ll have to go without.”
“One bloke said all the regiments are being fitted for new uniforms,” Dinah added.
“I’m not surprised, given the government’s pledge to defend Poland. Why do we have to protect them anyway?” Christian asked.
“It’s the only way to stop Germany’s warmongering, especially now they’ve ended the Anglo-German Naval Agreement,” Valerie said, explaining what Marian had told her while waiting for the car that morning. “Despite everything Uncle Neville is trying to do, things are getting worse.”
Although one wouldn’t know it from looking around at the people milling about the galleries in their morning suits and day dresses. They carried on murmuring over this artist or that landscape as if nothing were wrong with the world. She wondered how many of them had appointments with their tailors or seamstresses, quietly collecting things that might soon be in short supply. She thought of the ten pounds she’d won at the horse race and wondered what she should buy with it. She hoped Marian and her father were continuing to set aside tinned food.
“What an interesting portrait of an undertaker.” Vivien’s voice carried over from behind them.
Their Excellencies turned together, standing side by side to face Vivien. She wore a pale pink frock with a rose pattern. It suited her dark hair and eyes and her enviously smooth complexion. One would think a sour disposition was better for the skin than the ladies’ magazines suggested.
“Good morning, Vivien, what a pretty dress,” Valerie complimented, refusing to take the chit’s bait.
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Vivien was struck silent by the unexpected compliment. Valerie remained as friendly as she could while inwardly gloating. Despite Dorothy’s fears, she could be quite composed when necessary.
“Vivien, introduce me to your friends.” Lady Ravensdale, a stately woman of mature years, and the aunt bringing Vivien out, appeared at her niece’s side. She wore an expensive mink stole and a Vionnet dress of dove-gray silk with a matching cape held in place by a large diamond broach. A velvet pillbox hat was pinned over gray hair brushed back from her temples. A well-practiced social smile softened the severe lines of her face, but it was full of condescending judgment covered by manners, the same look nearly every titled matron had perfected.
“Lady Ravensdale, may I introduce Miss Valerie de Vere Cole, Miss Christian Grant, and Miss Dinah Brand.”
“A pleasure, I’m sure.” Lady Ravensdale examined each of them the way the Mother Superior used to do during morning uniform inspections. She was no more impressed by what she saw than the old nun had ever been. They were being judged, and harshly, but it was thinly camouflaged by silk and Joy perfume. “That’s a fine likeness of Mr. Chamberlain, Miss de Vere Cole. I had the pleasure of meeting the Prime Minister last summer during a lovely weekend at Cliveden with Lord and Lady Astor. He and Mrs. Chamberlain were quite the charade players, although one was surprised to find him engaged in such trivial activities during a European crisis. I hope he’s far more serious this year.”
Valerie bristled at the thinly veiled insult but she’d be damned if she’d show it. The Season had taught her that much. “He and Admiral of the Fleet Lord Chatfield discussed rearmament at the King and Queen’s dinner. They and Lord Fallington are convinced that Herr Hitler will be checked. Lord Elmswood is quite certain of it too.” It wasn’t exactly the truth, but it was enough to remind Lady Ravensdale that she was talking to the Prime Minister’s niece, a young woman who had dined with the monarchs, not some scullery maid. “He’s my escort for the Queen Charlotte’s Birthday Ball.”
The Last Debutantes Page 19