Bright Young Dead

by Jessica Fellowes

  ‘Then there has to be a way of proving it.’

  ‘There isn’t,’ said Dulcie. ‘I’m done for in here, and I’m done for outside. And if they don’t get me they’ll get my—’

  She broke off abruptly. ‘Your what?’ asked Louisa.

  ‘My sister, Marie. It would be better if you just forgot about me altogether.’

  Louisa turned her head slightly but the nearest guard’s attention was on a woman two tables down who looked to be in danger of kissing the prisoner she was visiting.

  ‘But you could hang for this,’ said Louisa.

  ‘Please, drop it.’

  Louisa tried to smile. As if either of them could talk about the weather or the latest Mary Pickford picture. ‘Of course.’

  ‘What are you doing in London anyway?’

  ‘Acting as chaperone. Miss Nancy and Miss Pamela have a dance tonight, somewhere in Chelsea.’

  ‘Do you think Miss Charlotte will be there?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Louisa truthfully. ‘Maybe. She was at the theatre last night.’

  Dulcie grimaced. ‘All that lot do is go to parties. If she’s there, will you give her a message from me?’

  ‘I don’t know, Dulcie.’

  Dulcie’s shoulders sagged. ‘No, you’re right. You can’t do that. It was only a small thing – I don’t even know why I thought of it.’

  ‘What was it?’ Louisa tried to give Dulcie an encouraging look. ‘In case the right moment does come up, I might as well know.’

  ‘It’s just that her dressmaker will be waiting for Miss Charlotte to collect her dress and be paid and she’s one of us, you know. She needs the money. Mrs Brewster, at 92 Pendon Road in Earl’s Court.’

  Louisa hesitated, far from certain that she’d do this favour. ‘Fine. Dulcie, who do you think did it? It has to be someone who was at the party, doesn’t it?’

  Dulcie’s face closed. ‘I know you mean to help but leave it alone. I tell you, it’s hopeless. The trial’s after Christmas and then that’ll be me done for. There’s nothing anyone can do. Forget it.’

  Louisa was flooded with the memory of her uncle Stephen, of everything she had done and got away with. Dulcie was no better and no worse than her, and she’d been trying to get herself on the right track. It was sheer bloody bad luck. The kind of luck their sort always got doled out because no one else could understand how impossible it was to change it. If you lived amongst thieves, you were treated like one, and in the end, desperate, hungry, you thought you might as well become one, too. That’s bad enough but then try and change your spots and see how no one lets you. Almost no one, that is. Louisa had been given another chance – it was hard but it wasn’t impossible. She couldn’t give up on Dulcie, not yet.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  When Louisa arrived back at Iris Mitford’s flat, she felt ready for bed again but it wasn’t yet even noon. She found Pamela and Nancy in the drawing room with their aunt, a lean woman in her mid-forties, handsome and wild for her generation, with red lipstick. (Her sister-in-law would sooner be dead than be seen with cosmetics on her skin.) Mischief and steel shone in her grey eyes. Iris adored the young, by which she did not mean children, and was apt to emphasise the need to be beautifully dressed and entertaining in life. When Iris had heard about Pamela’s fancy dress party for her eighteenth, she had warned the sisters to ‘win the man, not the prize’. (‘Yet Iris never has,’ Nancy said, earning her a slap on the arm from Pamela.)

  Pamela leapt up when Louisa came in, and the nursery maid guessed that she had interrupted one of Iris’s spicier stories about Edwardian life, one that Lady Redesdale might not have approved of. It was Iris who had told Nancy of the well-known trick of ‘corridor creepers’, to walk on the edge of staircases so as to avoid making a giveaway creaking noise. ‘Even so,’ Nancy had explained on the train down, ‘it’s rather funny, because Iris was always known for being a bit of a do-gooder. I suppose now she’s in a flat with some money, she can do what she likes.’ The envy in Nancy’s voice was ill disguised.

  ‘But she loves animals, like I do,’ chimed in Pamela. ‘Once, she wrote a letter to The Times agreeing with the Duchess of Hamilton’s claim that goat’s milk was “highly palatable” and that people should be encouraged to drink it. And she looked after all the chickens at Batsford, Grandpa’s place, collecting the eggs and so on.’ When Louisa had met Iris Mitford, she had found this bit the hardest to believe, but Pamela swore upon its truth.

  ‘Hello, Louisa,’ said Pamela, ‘I was just telling Iris about the supper we had last night.’ A lie, but a good one. Pamela’s ability to recount the detail of every morsel she’d eaten was renowned. Iris didn’t stir at Louisa’s entrance; her legs were crossed and she was smoking a cigarette in a long holder.

  ‘Good morning,’ said Louisa, careful to avoid saying ‘Iris’, which would have been quite wrong, or ‘Miss Mitford’, which would have displeased her. Although her formal address was, strictly speaking, ‘Miss Mitford’, she preferred to be known by her first and last names with no prefix. ‘I just wanted to let you know I was back and ready to take Miss Nancy and Miss Pamela on their errands.’

  Iris gave her a lazy look. ‘Very well, off you go, girls. Come down and see me before you go out tonight. I want to check on what you’re wearing.’ The sisters giggled and gave their aunt a kiss on the cheek goodbye.

  * * *

  At six o’clock, after a day agreeably spent shopping and successfully completing their small jobs, as well as sneaking in a pot of hot chocolate in the café at Peter Jones, the girls were back at the house, changed and in the drawing room ready for inspection. Iris, too, was dressed for dinner, in a black crêpe de Chine dress that fell only a few inches below her knees, with an Egyptian-style pendant on a gold chain that looped well below her waist. Standing by the chimneypiece like a soldier on parade was Pamela, straight-backed in sufferance against the curves that prevented her dress from hanging fashionably but at least the marmalade colour suited her well. Nancy was wearing her beaded dress again, only this time she had a new pair of rather dashing long gloves with tiny purple buttons all along the side, from wrist to elbow.

  ‘I shall be out with Colonel Maltravers tonight,’ Iris was saying, ‘and I don’t know what time I shall return. Don’t disturb me in the morning, girls. Gracie will see to everything.’ There was a pause and a wolfish flash of teeth as she smiled. ‘You look ravishing. Don’t let the side down, will you?’ The spell between them was broken, and in a flurry of kisses and goodbyes the girls ran out to pull Louisa with them and into a waiting taxi outside.

  There was a dinner first, a small one that a friend of Lady Redesdale’s had arranged, which Louisa sat out, awkwardly waiting alone in the hall while the clink of cutlery and polite murmur of conversation could be heard from the dining room. When that was finally over, they took a second taxi although the dance was not far away, in Lower Sloane Street. Nancy and Pamela had chattered excitedly on the way but almost before they had walked in, Louisa could sense it was going to be a disappointment. Though there was a sprinkling of men, these were outnumbered by women of Nancy’s age, though they were none of them good-looking, and most appeared to be squired by elderly aunts. Louisa stifled her laugh when she saw an elderly gentleman in a top hat leaning on a walking stick, who screwed his face up in displeasure each time he went to sip his drink and the sprig of mint tickled his nose.

  Pamela spotted two girlfriends and went over to them, while Nancy swiped a glass from a passing waiter and pouted. A band played a desultory waltz, though it was too early for anybody to be dancing, and the aunts began to sit down in clusters along the edges of the room like territorial ravens. Louisa stood beside Nancy for the moment, not yet quite able to face the stark fact that she belonged with the dusty chaperones.

  ‘This is going to be deathly,’ said Nancy, and Louisa pulled a sympathetic face. Nanny Blor had taught her that their duty was to remind the girls how lucky they were in even the m
ost desperate of circumstances but even Nanny couldn’t have pretended that Nancy was going to have fun tonight. A stout woman with a broad neck and an equine profile bore down upon them and Louisa stepped back quickly.

  ‘Nancy, my dear,’ she boomed, ‘so delightful you came, especially after all that ghastly business with the Curtis death.’ This last was said in a stage whisper which only someone standing outside the room could have failed to hear.

  ‘Mrs Bright,’ said Nancy in icy tones, ‘my mother sends her regards to you and your husband. We were so sorry to hear about Paul’s expulsion from Oxford.’

  Mrs Bright reared back. ‘It was a voluntary departure after a misunderstanding,’ she muttered, but the knife had gone in. ‘Do send my regards in return.’ She cantered off.

  Pamela rejoined them and her face looked drained. ‘It’s all anyone’s talking about,’ she whispered to Nancy. Neither of them needed to ask what she meant.

  Nancy drained her drink. ‘Look, we have to stay for a bit because Muv’s got her spies here, reporting on our movements. She’s worse than the bloody Reds. Don’t look so surprised, Woman. You know how she is. But we can sneak out and go to a nightclub.’

  ‘We can’t!’ gasped Pamela. ‘Muv will find out.’

  ‘There’s no reason why she should,’ said Nancy. ‘We can come back here, before the end, so that we’re seen saying goodbye to Mrs Bright and the rest of them.’

  Louisa started to speak but Nancy shushed her. ‘You don’t have to be a part of it, Lou. You stay here, and if any of it comes out later then I’ll just say you didn’t know.’

  ‘That’s all very well but I do know,’ said Louisa. More than that, she wanted to go to a nightclub too, much more than she wanted to stay and join the ravens, but she knew better than to give herself away. She had long since learned that any sign of eagerness before the upper classes was as bad as dousing yourself in cold soup; they would do their best to hold you at arm’s length. Affected nonchalance was the only way to get ahead. Unless you were American, of course, the exception that proved the rule as in so many other things. Clara Fischer was as eager as a Labrador puppy and her circle of friends were just as charmed. The knife in Clara’s bag appeared in Louisa’s mind again: had she used it before? Why on earth would she need to keep one with her? She pulled herself back: there wasn’t anything she could do about it now.

  The three of them stood and looked out at the room. Things hadn’t improved. If anything, even the waiters were beginning to take on a pall of despair.

  ‘There is nothing so depressing as a party that fails,’ said Nancy. ‘I’d rather be at a wake. At least then you’re allowed to sob all the way through it.’ Pamela laughed at this and Nancy looked gratified.

  ‘Then let’s talk to as many people as we can, so they’ll all report back favourably, if asked,’ said Pamela affably.

  The two sisters looked at Louisa expectantly. ‘Fine,’ she said, pretending to have been swayed. ‘But I’m coming with you because I need to know you’re safe, and that you come back here in good time.’

  ‘I knew it,’ said Nancy, as a hush fell and an announcer called for the lords, ladies and gentlemen to come through to the ballroom. ‘Meet me back here in twenty minutes,’ she whispered. ‘No one will notice if we slip away then.’

  Soon enough, Nancy was leading them out of a French window at the back of the ballroom. Without their coats they were freezing cold but walked quickly around the side of the building and on to the street, where Nancy hailed a taxi as if she’d been doing it all her life. She saw Louisa looking at her.

  ‘Sometimes I tell Muv I’m going to visit Tom at Eton and get the train to Oxford instead to spend the day. Don’t look so shocked, Lou, I’m twenty-one. It’s silly not to get out now and then.’ They clambered into the cab and Nancy directed the driver to 43 Gerrard Street, Soho.

  ‘Soho, Nancy? Is that wise?’ Louisa had never been there but, like everyone else, she’d read the articles in the Daily Sketch of prostitutes, pimps and hard drinking. Since the arrival of flappers, jazz musicians and the Black Bottom dance, not to mention the stories of cocaine overdoses and illegally sold alcohol, the picture painted was of an unusually sordid place.

  ‘They’ll all be there,’ Nancy replied confidently. Pamela stayed silent but strangely didn’t look too nervous.

  The taxi was speeding along now, approaching the harumscarum roundabout at Hyde Park, where cars zoomed in from four different points to join the spinning wheel and you could only hope to fly off at the right junction.

  ‘How do you know?’ asked Louisa.

  ‘Because Ted is engaged to Dolly Meyrick, and she’s running the place now her mother’s in Paris lying low for a few months. So all the gang go there.’ Nancy pulled a mock-sad face at Pamela. ‘Sorry to mention her again, darling.’ Pamela ignored this.

  ‘Dolly is Mrs Meyrick’s daughter?’ Louisa was amazed at this piece of news. The fact that she was engaged to Lord De Clifford was pretty extraordinary, too. Mrs Meyrick, as anyone who enjoyed a bit of society gossip knew well, was a cause célèbre for her infamous nightclubs and her frequent arrests.

  ‘Yes,’ said Nancy, eyebrow raised. ‘Mind you, it might not happen. Ted’s not yet twenty and he won’t get his mother’s permission. Mind you, she was an actress when she married his father and some might say – they certainly will say – Ted’s only marrying his mother like all men do.’

  ‘Naunce, you mustn’t be so naughty,’ chided Pamela, but they all exploded into a firework of giggles and nose snorts, a welcome relief that seemed to release weeks of anxiety, let alone that evening’s tension. As Piccadilly came into view, with Eros before a backdrop of vast signs of coloured bulbs advertising Army Club Cigarettes and ‘Cannes – the sea-side of flowers and sports’, resplendent with cascading lights for a pink and orange sunset on a blue sea, adrenalin surged through Louisa as if she, too, had been plugged into the generator.

  The doorway to the 43 Club gave nothing away of what lay behind it. It may have been late at night on the long narrow street but it felt as busy as market day at Burford, with men and women crowding the pavement, as well as one or two drunks stumbling. Louisa thought she could see a fight starting out of the corner of her eye. When they got out, the taxi sped off, not wanting to pick up business there, and Nancy knocked on the closed door. It was opened by a huge man in black tie who gave them a quick appraising glance, if a slightly questioning one in Louisa’s direction, and waved them in.

  Just inside the hall was a window, behind which sat a pretty young girl with hair as bright as a new copper coin. She gave them a toothy smile and asked for ten shillings each – ‘membership fees’ – which Nancy handed over.

  ‘I raided the piggy bank before we came down,’ she explained.

  ‘Not Unity’s?’ said Pamela, but Nancy merely gave a wicked grin in reply. They could hear clearly the fast beat of a jazz band, with the high-pitched strains of a trumpet lilting across the top as they walked down the steep short staircase, the walls on either side painted nail-varnish red. At the bottom they came out into a semilit room and Louisa was hit by a wall of smoke, heat and noise that was as intoxicating as wine. Nancy gave a cry and stuck a hand up to wave to someone before she pushed into the moving crowd, the bodies forced apart and coming back together like water. Pamela put her arm through Louisa’s and shouted into her ear, ‘I don’t know anyone here, Lou.’

  ‘Follow Nancy,’ Louisa shouted back. And they dived into the sea together, Louisa almost hoping she’d never come back up for air again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  As Nancy had predicted, the circle of friends were at the club – Sebastian, Clara, Ted and Charlotte. Phoebe was there, too. They were spread across two tables, awash with half-empty and full glasses of champagne, at the edge of the dance floor. Others were with them, none of whom Louisa recognised but who bore the marks of their kind: kohl-lined eyes, lips the colour of bruised plums and sharply bobbed hair for the women; s
allow faces and evening dress for the men, with the occasional dandy. The whites of their eyes flashed through the cigarette smoke as they drank in Louisa and Pamela, and she felt as if she were walking towards a sacrificial altar. Clara came up to them and embraced Pamela in a hug, then pulled a face of secret apology. Their last sight of her hadn’t been picturesque.

  ‘Life goes on, doesn’t it, darlings?’ she said, then appraised Pamela. ‘You look simply marvellous. Yes, you will definitely do.’ Pamela’s pleasure was easy to see. Clara looked at Louisa then, and said quite seriously: ‘You know, you really are pretty. You should get your hair shingled. Then nobody will be able tell you’re a maid.’ Louisa wasn’t sure how to react to this but Clara wasn’t waiting for a reply – she had spun on her heels to face the band on their small raised stage with her hands thrown wide, like a music hall announcer.

  ‘You’re so lucky you came tonight, it’s Joe Katz’s spot.’ Her voice was unable to disguise the admiration, but Louisa couldn’t take it in at that moment – there was too much crowding in on her senses, the pounding music and the moving bodies, the smoke and the thrill of danger that was running a finger up and down her spine.

  ‘Here.’ A glass was thrust into Louisa’s hand, she didn’t see by whom. Her throat was parched and she drank it in one gulp, immediately feeling the lightness in her head. She hoped Pamela hadn’t seen her. Nancy was buried deep in the crowd, talking fast to Sebastian and Ted, who had his arm around Dolly’s waist. Dolly was less shy here it seemed for she would turn now and then to issue an order to a waitress, but otherwise she hung on to her beau’s every word. Charlotte sat by a table, alone and sullen, smoking with frequent, staccato inhalations. She looked as if she’d just had a row or was brewing to start one. Or perhaps she was just sad. Nancy had gossiped in the taxi that Charlotte’s mother had yet to emerge from her room, appearing no longer to care what happened to her daughter now that her son was gone. Clara had taken Pamela by the hand and led her to the dance floor, where they had both been taken up immediately by two young bucks with slicked-back hair and impish grins. Louisa could see Pamela’s head bobbing down to the young man’s – he was, unfortunately, an inch or two shorter – as she tried to ask polite questions over the music and invariably had to ask him to repeat the answer, which she couldn’t hear. Louisa ducked behind Clara and refilled her glass, then took a good long look at Joe Katz and his band.