Mary nodded. ‘I think that’s our most likely scenario.’
‘Unless, Miss White, you could be persuaded to give us a little bit of help as to the whereabouts of some of your esteemed colleagues?’ Guy wanted to put his hands under the table so he could cross his fingers.
‘I ain’t no grass,’ she said stoutly.
‘You don’t have to give us names,’ said Guy. He was thinking quickly. He needed to be sure of getting a result and he had to go for whatever she would give him. There wasn’t a lot to bargain with here. A woman like Elsie wouldn’t be too afraid of prison. ‘What I want to know is where I can find some of those men who are the go-betweens for you and your like.’
Elsie shook her head. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. If you’re going to charge me, get on with it. I could do with getting my head down in a cell for a bit.’
‘We’ll stay here as long as it takes,’ said Mary. Guy was struck by her cool.
‘You know what I mean,’ said Guy. ‘Fences. Men who take your stolen goods and sell it on. Where do they sell it?’
Elsie pursed her lips together in a thin, pale line and shook her head.
‘If you give me a name,’ said Guy, ‘we can bring that nasty eighteen-month sentence down to six. If you give me several names, we can make it disappear altogether.’
Elsie’s lips remained a slash but her eyes moved uncertainly. It was the tiniest wobble but it was all that Guy needed.
‘One name, Elsie.’
‘I ain’t giving you no names, not for nothing,’ she said, less sure of herself than before.
‘Then give us a place, somewhere to find them. Perhaps somewhere that all kinds of people go, that we could easily stumble across. Then no one would know you’d told,’ Guy persisted. ‘A pub, or working men’s club. Something like that.’
Mary leaned forward. ‘Elsie, have you got a child?’
Elsie started at this and screamed, ‘You ain’t touching my Charlie!’
Mary smiled reassuringly. ‘We’re not going to do anything to Charlie. But don’t you think eighteen months would be a long time to be apart from him?’
‘One name,’ repeated Guy.
‘The 43 Club,’ said Elsie. ‘That’s all you’re getting from me. Now let me go.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Back at the house, Louisa curled up on the armchair by the fire in the nursery. Nanny Blor had fetched her a cup of tea and two crumpets, and Unity and Decca brought her a blanket. The young girls did not know why Louisa was in need of comfort but they seemed to be enjoying the turned tables. Even Debo had pattered down to her bedroom to fetch a favourite toy rabbit, one ear long gone, and when she brought it back Louisa heaved Debo on to her lap. The baby of the six children had blonde curls as plump and round as her tummy and a nature as sweet as honey – unless you tried to stop her sucking her thumb and then the dam would burst, said Nanny Blor. Louisa wasn’t sure why she needed the children close by her except that somewhere between the house and the courtroom she had lost any feeling of her feet hitting the hard ground, as if it were something spongy instead, like moss. Coupled with this was an overwhelming desire to crawl into a small, dark box and stay there for hours. Of course, she wouldn’t, there was work to do and soon the unerring routine of bathing the children and putting them to bed provided its own soothing oil on her troubled waters.
Pamela had not come up to the nursery when they had returned but stayed below, in the drawing room with her parents. Charlotte had returned to London with Sebastian, Ted, Phoebe and Clara, as planned, and was expected to go and see her mother. There was the funeral to prepare for. Nancy was also downstairs, or so Louisa thought. Sometime after she and Nanny Blor had had their supper, sitting opposite each other in the nursery rather more quietly than usual, Nancy had appeared at the doorway. She was in jodhpurs and an old blue jumper with a hole in one elbow, her hair looked unbrushed, pushed back with her fingers, and though she had the white skin of the classic English rose, she had flushed cheeks for the first time in days and glittering eyes.
‘I thought I’d come up and see you both,’ she said. ‘It’s been an age and everyone is in a filthy mood downstairs. Have you had pudding yet? I could fancy a bit of something sweet.’
Semolina with a generous pouring of cream and a dollop of raspberry jam had just been put in front of Louisa but she hadn’t had a mouthful yet. She’d been wondering how she could eat it, and gratefully pushed it across the table.
‘Here,’ she said, ‘have mine. I’m not hungry for any more supper.’
‘Thanks, Lou-Lou,’ said Nancy, tucking herself into the table, as if she was still six.
Nanny Blor had been leaning forward a touch anxiously, her spoon hovering halfway between bowl and mouth, but when Nancy took Louisa’s semolina her shoulders relaxed. They ate in a comfortable silence until the last mouthful had been chased around the bowl. Nancy sat back and looked as if she was about to say something, then thought better of it.
‘Cat got your tongue?’ said Nanny.
‘Something like that.’
‘I’m off to sit by the fire then.’ Nanny heaved herself up and looked fondly at Louisa and Nancy. ‘I’ve got a rather good mystery on the boil and I wouldn’t mind getting back to it.’
Louisa stood and started to clear the plates to put on the tray for the maid but Nancy wanted to talk. ‘Poor Charlotte. Her own maid. What do you think made her do it?’
Louisa lifted the tray and held it against her, resting slightly on a hip. ‘I don’t think she did do it.’
‘What do you mean? There was no one else there. She was found by his body, Pam heard them arguing beforehand. What more do you need?’
The tray felt heavy. ‘What if there was someone else there?’
Nancy stood. She took the tray from Louisa and put it on the table. ‘What are you talking about? Who?’
‘I don’t know…’ Louisa put her hand across her eyes, like a child, pretending that no one was there to hear what she was about to say out loud. All day she had been thinking about the woman who sat in the court throughout the inquest, as if reminding Dulcie to stay silent about her connections with the Forty. Why was she doing that if not to protect Alice Diamond? Did this mean Dulcie was protecting someone by admitting to the theft? And what of that conversation between Ted and Clara? But Louisa could not voice any of this without revealing her own betrayal of the very house she was in. She realised that she resented Nancy and the freedoms she had, that she, Louisa, could not have. What was there between them except the sheer luck of the families they were born into? That resentment had been building – for years? – and it fused now in a white hot fury that throbbed behind her eyes.
‘It just none of it makes sense,’ she burst out. ‘Why would they row and then meet again? And how could she have the strength to do it? It must have been someone else.’
‘What are you going to do about it?’ Nancy’s face was flushed.
Louisa hadn’t known this before but she knew it now. ‘I’m going to prove it. I’ll find whoever it was and prove she didn’t do it.’
‘Be careful, Lou-Lou,’ said Nancy. ‘You may have to decide whose side you’re on. Dulcie’s – or ours.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Lady Redesdale had, unusually, chosen to spend the morning in the library, sitting in the bay window where the sun streamed in. She kept having to shift a little along the window seat as the rays moved to keep the warmth on her back while she leaned over a stack of Christmas cards. Louisa was sitting by her sewing basket on a wooden chair close to the fire – despite the sunshine it was a cold December day – as Decca and Unity played with the doll’s house and Debo tried to join in, her clumsy attempts to move miniature furniture always interrupted by a bossy order to do it differently. The cumbersome toy had been carried down from the nursery by Lord Redesdale and Tom, home for the holidays, much to everyone’s delight and certainly the reason they had all gathered together, though they
were presently waiting for father and son to come back from a walk. Diana was in the schoolroom with the governess but only after she had raged during breakfast that she saw no need to learn ‘stupid French’ and Nanny Blor had agreed that the people on the Continent couldn’t make as nice a cup of tea but their language did sound so nice, which had made Louisa smile.
Pamela and Nancy sat on either side of their mother, helping with the Christmas cards – Nancy choosing names out of the address book, Pamela licking envelopes and stamps. Everyone had been in a companionable silence for almost an hour and Louisa was just beginning to think that boredom would settle in soon when she heard Nancy start to talk in a pleading tone that threatened to turn quickly into a whine.
‘… more than a month since I’ve been to London. I’ve been invited to the theatre on Thursday night and then there’s a dance on Friday, a fundraiser for widowed mothers and simply everyone will be there. Even Lord De Clifford has a ticket and he might be a match for our old Pam.’
Nancy leaned over and winked at her sister who yelped and cried that she cared nothing for Ted, but it was too late – her cheeks were already aflame.
Lady Redesdale stayed bent over a card until it was signed and handed over to Pamela. Then she sat up and turned to her eldest daughter.
‘Koko, after everything that has happened here, you cannot go out dancing. It wouldn’t be seemly.’ She picked up another card, indicating that the conversation was closed.
‘It was three weeks ago. What are we supposed to do, wear mourning for a year? We’re not Victorians.’
Lady Redesdale raised an eyebrow at this. ‘Maybe you are not but I was born under the good queen, you know.’
‘Well, things have changed, Muv.’ She lowered her voice, ‘I’m not going to get married at this rate. It’s going to be my third season next year…’
This, Louisa knew, was an embarrassment and the Mitfords’ Achilles heel. Diana’s presentation at court would be in less than three years’ time and she was already beautiful enough for it to be a concern that she would be ‘caught’ before Nancy. As difficult as Nancy could be, and as frequently as she declared that there was too much fun to be had to be in want of a husband (did she mean it? Louisa wasn’t sure), none of them wished that humiliation upon her: to be bridesmaid to her younger sister’s bride. ‘You might as well join the convent,’ Ada had snickered when they were gossiping in the kitchen.
Lady Redesdale’s pen halted and hovered above the card, a wasp in the flower bed.
‘And look at Woman,’ continued Nancy, her voice back to its normal level. ‘She’s being presented at Court next year and thanks to what’s happened she’s going to be terrified, thinking every party ends in murder.’
‘That’s enough!’ Lady Redesdale slammed down her pen and Pamela stood up, dropping the stamped envelopes onto the floor, and exclaiming at the same time: ‘I am not frightened! I’m not a baby!’
A slow smile spread across Nancy’s face, one Louisa knew well – it meant she had unsettled the object of her teasing and there was little she seemed to enjoy more. Even Decca, Unity and Debo had stopped mid-play to hear how this would end, Decca holding a tiny bed in the air.
Nancy neither moved nor altered her tone of voice. ‘Louisa can chaperone us. I think we could do with the change of scene, don’t you?’
As she finished speaking, there was a rush of cold air into the room and Lord Redesdale stepped inside with Tom close behind, bringing with them the scent of mulched leaves and woodsmoke. Lady Redesdale glanced their way, then sat down again smoothly.
‘I’ll discuss it with your father,’ she said, and that was the end of the conversation.
* * *
Of course, Nancy got her way and the following Wednesday she, Pamela and Louisa boarded the train from Shipton-under-Wychwood to Paddington, and then went on to stay with Iris Mitford at her flat in Elvaston Place. The first night was spent decorously, as if to prove their good intentions, with an early supper and bed. The morning was given to errands and a long walk through Hyde Park, with Nancy and Pamela in sympathy with one another for once, arm in arm on the path. Louisa walked beside them, unable to stop herself from catching their high spirits.
‘Oh, it’s such heaven to be away from the beasts,’ exclaimed Nancy.
Pamela squealed, ‘Don’t be so disloyal, Koko!’
‘I mean the hairy dogs, of course,’ Nancy said, eyes wide, and the two of them dissolved into giggles.
At six o’clock the sisters had changed into cocktail dresses, with low heels and long gloves. Their blonde and dark curls respectively made them an attractive pair alongside one another. Louisa, naturally, wore the same frock she had put on that morning: it had been explained that theatre tickets had been bought for them, ‘But not for you, darling – you’ll have to wait for us in the foyer until the show’s over.’ Louisa had tried to brush aside the humiliation and disappointment she felt. What? Had she really imagined she would be invited too?
‘Of course,’ she said, and Iris had nodded in approval.
The show was Hay Fever at the Criterion Theatre in Piccadilly and when they arrived all the glamour and lights of London were in their full blazing glory, casting a haze of white light on a sky that would be deep black above Asthall. They had got there early and stood by the programme stand admiring the painted tiles and vast stained glass windows while they waited. ‘I suppose the theatre is the new church,’ said Nancy and was given a reproving look by Pamela. Soon Clara came up to them, breathless with excitement and decked out in what Louisa privately thought was rather too much make-up and a golden dress that was cut dangerously low at the front and back, long pearls emphasising the depth. Instead of gloves, she wore a mass of thin metal bangles that covered each arm from wrist to elbow, a rather daring look. Perhaps she had got the idea from the pictures in the newspaper of Josephine Baker, the sensational dancer in Paris. Clara kissed Nancy and Pamela, then beckoned them in to her.
‘There’s a rumour that Noël Coward himself is going to be here tonight,’ she said gleefully. ‘It’s my big chance!’
‘What do you mean?’ said Pamela.
‘To be in his next play, of course. I’m an actress,’ said Clara with pride.
‘Are you?’ Nancy couldn’t keep the scorn out of her voice. ‘What have you been in?’
Clara tried to look casual. ‘Nothing, yet. But I’ve done several casting calls. Back in the States, you know.’
As Clara said this, Sebastian sidled up. No one had noticed him come in but he was suddenly at Clara’s shoulder, slickly suited, a sneer on his lips. ‘I’ll bet you have, Miss Fischer.’
Clara jumped and, rather than greet him, walked off to buy herself a programme. Nancy moved forward and gave him a light kiss on his cheekbone.
‘Hello, darling,’ she said, ‘you really mustn’t tease.’
‘That’s rich coming from you. Anyone else here yet?’
Pamela looked towards the door. ‘Here’s Ted, and someone I don’t know.’
‘Dolly,’ said Sebastian drily. ‘Is she your love rival?’
‘She’s nothing of the sort,’ said Pamela, and Louisa liked her mature defiance. She was learning how to handle Nancy’s friends and it would hold her in good stead.
Ted had his arm draped casually around Dolly’s shoulders. She was rather shorter than him and expensively decked out. She wore a long mink coat that must have cost more than all of Nancy and Pamela’s wardrobes put together but smiled nervously as they approached. Louisa saw Ted allow himself the briefest of glances to flicker in Clara’s direction before sweeping his dark eyes on to the Mitford sisters.
‘Kind of you all to show up,’ he said.
‘Oh, no, it’s really kind of you,’ said Pamela. ‘I’m awfully bucked to be here.’ Nancy gave her a withering look but held her tongue.
Finally, Charlotte came in, looking even more fashionably thin than before but without the haunting sadness that had clouded her during the inqu
est. She greeted everyone with cordiality, if not enthusiasm. ‘Am I late?’ she asked.
‘No,’ said Nancy. ‘They haven’t rung the bell yet but seeing as we’re all here, shall we take our seats?’
They headed towards the stalls, quickly lost in the throng of chattering theatregoers, none of them giving Louisa so much as a backward glance.
* * *
Twenty minutes later, the last of the audience had left the foyer, taking with them the buzz of anticipation for a show that had been the talking point of London’s theatreland for weeks. Louisa decided she’d rather not sit in the bar alone – it wasn’t as if she could order a drink without looking like a woman of the night – so she found a chair that presumably belonged to an usher, close to the programme stand. She had a book with her, a newish Agatha Christie she’d borrowed from the library in Burford, The Man in the Brown Suit, but her attention kept wandering – the noise of the London traffic outside and people walking past were too distracting. And her mind was on Dulcie: how was she coping? Here they all were, gallivanting at the theatre, not a worry between them, or so it seemed, while she languished in Holloway Prison. She knew Dulcie wasn’t a complete innocent, of course. But neither was she. Louisa knew how it felt to be driven by desperation and even if Dulcie had been a thief, she still earned the right to some protection. She had none from her former mistress, who had been as quick as the rest of them to believe that her maid was capable of such a violent and ugly act.
There was a creak behind her and Louisa saw Sebastian coming out of the side door, in that slightly catlike way he had. He didn’t appear to notice her but stepped outside. Louisa was intrigued, by his stealthy manner if nothing else, and slid to the theatre’s large front doors with its glass panes. She peered through and saw Sebastian standing close to a man, slightly shorter than him, in a dark hat and coat. Louisa thought she caught a flash of red at the collar. Their conversation was brief: Sebastian handed something over – money? – and received something in turn. She couldn’t see what it was but it was small because he slid it immediately into his jacket pocket. Quickly, she went back to her seat and picked up her book again, making sure that if he should notice her this time, she would look completely absorbed by the narrative.
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