Bright Young Dead

by Jessica Fellowes

  Pamela gave an approving nod. ‘That was kind of you.’

  ‘But that’s not it,’ said Louisa. ‘Mrs Brewster had told me that she wasn’t related to the boy, only looking after him to earn some extra money. This morning, she said that the boy’s mother was in prison, unable to send any money and she can’t afford to feed him. She may have to send him to the workhouse.’

  ‘Oh dear, that is terribly sad.’ Pamela poured the milk into their cups, already full of stewed tea. Louisa could never quite get used to putting the milk in second.

  ‘The thing is…’ Louisa took a moment, hoping she was doing the right thing. ‘The boy is Dulcie Long’s son.’

  Pamela put the jug down and stared at her. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘That’s what Mrs Brewster said and I can’t see that she’s got any reason to lie.’

  ‘How extraordinary. The poor boy. I don’t suppose he’ll ever see his mother again.’

  ‘No, nor his father.’ In saying this, Louisa hoped her tactic would work.

  ‘How do you know? Who is he?’

  ‘I can’t be absolutely certain but he very strongly reminds me of Adrian Curtis.’ Louisa kept Pamela in her sights, reading her reaction.

  ‘Oh, really,’ said Pamela, ‘that’s too far-fetched.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because … well, it can’t be proved. And you’re just saying that because what? The boy has dark hair?’

  ‘It’s more about the eyes, I think. But it would make sense, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Make sense of what? You’ve lost me now.’ Pamela drank some tea and sat up straighter, like a headmistress putting a pupil in her place.

  ‘Miss Charlotte told the police that her brother and their maid had had…’

  ‘What the newspapers call “an understanding”,’ helped Pamela.

  ‘Yes. And perhaps the boy was something to do with the row they had that night. Even perhaps of her motive.’

  ‘I thought you thought she was innocent?’

  Louisa sighed and put her hands in her lap. ‘I did. I don’t know what to think now.’

  ‘I don’t know that it’s really for you to think anything. Shouldn’t all this go to the police? Although I can’t see what good it could do.’ Pamela looked stern, as if she was annoyed that Louisa had put this burden upon her, and perhaps she was right to be.

  But Louisa couldn’t drop the matter. ‘There are other things that aren’t making sense,’ she began.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I don’t think everyone is telling the truth about what happened that night.’

  ‘And by everyone…?’

  ‘The players of the treasure hunt,’ said Louisa, hardly daring to look Pamela in the eye.

  ‘Be careful, Lou-Lou.’

  It came out in a rush, then. ‘I overheard Lord De Clifford talking to Miss Clara at the inquest, asking her not to spill the beans about where she was that night. And Miss Phoebe admitted to me that she hadn’t sprained her ankle.’

  ‘What?’ Pamela was shocked.

  ‘She said that she had pretended, so that she could be left alone with Mr Atlas.’ Right or wrong, Louisa felt relieved to have got it out in the open.

  ‘There you are, then. I admit it’s not good but it’s a reason.’ Pamela pushed her cup away. ‘I think you had better trust in the police. They did take statements that night, I’m sure they’ve investigated properly. If you are concerned, perhaps you had better go through the proper channels.’

  ‘You’re right, I’ll talk to Guy Sullivan. He’ll know what to do.’

  ‘Good,’ said Pamela, ‘I can’t help feeling this would all be best left in the hands of the professionals.’ Louisa had been reprimanded, she knew. Whatever happened next, she mustn’t involve the Mitfords any further. The only problem was, she didn’t think this was possible.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  After a telephone message had been left for him, Guy came to meet Louisa that evening at the corner of Elvaston Place. She had stolen out while the girls had supper with their aunt, and he had clocked off work for the day. She stood, waiting under a lamp post, hoping she didn’t look like a working girl, her coat buttoned up, her hat pulled down and her hands jammed into her pockets. Her breath steamed in front of her and she stamped her feet but it was only a few minutes after she got there that she saw him coming down the road. Out of uniform, he still struck a fine figure, tall and lean, with a long overcoat and a brown felt Homburg hat. He had what looked like a home-made knitted scarf wrapped around his neck and chin, and something about that was rather touching. His glasses glinted and, as always, he came quite near before he realised she was standing there waiting for him, with a grin that showed the gap between his teeth. Oh, the relief of his smile – she had been sure he would have nothing more do with her after her revelation last time that she had allowed Dulcie into Asthall Manor, despite knowing of her history.

  ‘You’re like the buses,’ he said. ‘I never see you and then you show up twice.’

  ‘Very funny,’ she said. ‘Shall we walk around the block? It’s too cold to stand still but I haven’t got enough time to get a cup of coffee.’

  They set off down the London pavements, clean slates of grey alongside the tall houses with their cream pillars lined along the street. Round the corner was the Natural History Museum, Louisa’s favourite building in her home city, with its red, blue and white bricks, gargoyles grinning down on the passers-by. As a child her annual treat had been a visit to see the dinosaurs, though what she had really loved were the vast glass cases of seashells with their delicate colours that her mother had told her held the sounds of the sea.

  They walked in silence for a minute or two, Louisa not knowing how to begin but Guy started first.

  ‘I can’t pretend I wasn’t shocked by what you said last time,’ he said. ‘To be honest, I’m not entirely sure what I’m doing here except that when you ask to see me, somehow I can’t refuse.’ He gave a rueful smile.

  ‘Thank you. I know it must be difficult. But you must believe me that it was the lesser of two evils. I did it because I believed her life would be in danger otherwise.’

  ‘I do know that,’ said Guy. ‘In fact, I thought about it – I haven’t been able to think of much else – and I wondered if it wasn’t Dulcie who was supposed to be pushed off the bell tower.’

  ‘That wouldn’t explain why Mr Curtis was there though.’

  ‘It could just have been a terrible coincidence.’

  ‘No.’ Louisa shook her head. ‘Anyway, there’s something else. The reason I wanted to speak to you. It’s nothing definite, it’s just a hunch, but I can’t do anything about it so I had to tell you.’ She told Guy of her visits to the dressmaker, the discovery of the boy and who his mother was and her suspicion that Adrian Curtis was the father.

  At the end of her tale, they had reached the Cromwell Road and were heading towards Knightsbridge, past the Victoria and Albert Museum. Guy was deep in thought.

  ‘We’d better turn round,’ she said, and pulled on his elbow. After a few minutes she couldn’t stand it any longer. ‘Well? What do you think?’

  ‘There are so many things to think and none of them certain,’ said Guy, ‘that’s the difficulty. Will Dulcie admit to the child?’

  ‘I don’t know. She didn’t tell me about him but Mrs Brewster knew her name, so that must count for something.’

  ‘If the child is hers, surely she wouldn’t commit murder and risk imprisonment?’

  ‘That’s what I think,’ said Louisa. ‘She hasn’t abandoned the boy, she’s made sure he’s looked after. But he must be a secret from her family as no one is sending Mrs Brewster any money.’

  ‘If Adrian Curtis was the father, I wonder if he knew.’

  ‘I think he must have.’ Louisa was animated now, almost walking sideways in a bid to look at Guy as they spoke, his face coming in and out of the shadows as they walked under the yellow light of the street lamps. ‘I
f it happened when Dulcie was working there as a maid, then he must have been complicit in her having the baby and then coming back to work. She could hardly have hidden her condition.’

  ‘That’s true,’ said Guy. ‘He wasn’t sympathetic enough to marry her though.’

  ‘No,’ said Louisa, ‘but he’d hardly be the first.’

  ‘Are you saying you think she’s innocent?’ asked Guy. ‘What of the fence you thought she was meeting that night?’

  ‘We don’t know that for certain. And there are other things I’ve found out that make me question it.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Dulcie isn’t the only one with a connection to the Forty who was there that night. Lord De Clifford was at the party – in fact, the treasure hunt was his idea, Nancy said – and his fiancée—’

  ‘Is Dolly Meyrick, who runs the 43, where the Forty go,’ finished Guy.

  ‘I also heard Lord De Clifford and Clara have a strange conversation where he was asking her not to reveal where she really was that night and she promised not to “spill the beans”.’

  ‘It’s nothing concrete but I agree, it does sound rum. Well, Dulcie needs to prove she’s innocent, if she is.’

  ‘How can she do that?’ Louisa was willing to do anything. If Dulcie was in the clear, then so was she.

  ‘If we could prove there was a relationship between Adrian Curtis and Dulcie that was a sympathetic one, it might help her case.’

  ‘How could it be proved?’

  ‘Letters, or some token of affection that passed between them. I don’t know.’ Guy suddenly looked exasperated. ‘It’s very frustrating because sometimes two people might be really very fond of one another and yet there is nothing to show for it.’ He had raised his voice without meaning to do so, then turned away from her abruptly, pretending to study a doorway.

  Louisa touched his sleeve and he turned back, an apologetic look on his face that matched hers. ‘I’ll go and see her,’ she said. ‘Dulcie will have to provide the key to prove she’s not guilty.’

  ‘But she hasn’t yet,’ said Guy. ‘Is she really prepared to take the fall rather than admit that someone from the Forty did it?’

  ‘It seems so,’ said Louisa. ‘But I’m not and I’m going to do what I can to save her. It could have been me, Guy.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ He was puzzled.

  ‘If I hadn’t been saved by you and the Mitfords, I could have been like her, driven to crime because there was nothing else.’ She wasn’t going to admit how close she had come to returning to that life again but she knew it. ‘I owe it to everyone to solve this.’

  CHAPTER FORTY

  When Louisa returned to the flat, supper had not yet been cleared from the dining room. Quickly, she went to her room, which was really a storage room with a camp bed set up in it, took off her hat and coat, then returned to the kitchen. With any luck, the cook would have left something for her to eat. Gracie the maid who came in daily was much older and they had yet to manage a conversation beyond pleasantries. Usually Louisa would have welcomed the company but she was grateful now that she wouldn’t be expected to make small talk. She found a plate in the lower oven of the range with some slices of warmed, rather dry ham and boiled carrots and potatoes. It would do.

  She’d only managed a mouthful or two when Nancy came in. ‘There you are!’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Louisa, trying to chew down the ham. ‘Were you looking for me?’

  ‘Only just now,’ said Nancy, pulling up a chair. ‘Don’t stop eating, carry on.’

  Louisa speared a few soft slices of carrot but felt self-conscious.

  ‘Pam’s been telling me about this child at Mrs Brewster’s.’

  Louisa nearly choked and took a drink of water. ‘What?’

  Nancy laughed. ‘Don’t look so serious, I’m perfectly safe. But do you really think the child is Adrian’s?’

  ‘I don’t know. They share a likeness but I couldn’t swear to it.’

  ‘Who can? Will you ask Dulcie?’

  ‘I had thought of it. I’m not sure what good it would do except that I’m sure she’s innocent and perhaps this would prove that she had no intention of murdering the father of her child.’

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ said Nancy. She looked gleeful, and so much more grown up than Louisa felt, in a black London coat and skirt with a silk shirt. ‘So, I want to come to the prison with you.’

  Thankfully Louisa had swallowed her food now and the danger of choking had passed. ‘I don’t know that that’s a very good idea.’

  ‘What on earth is wrong with it? Woman can come too. It’d do her good. She could do with being a bit more worldly.’

  ‘Lord and Lady Redesdale would have an absolute fit.’

  ‘They don’t need to find out. Let’s go in the morning, before we get the train back.’

  ‘I’m not sure it’s possible. You have to get permission to visit in advance.’

  ‘Have you been to see her before?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Louisa, unsure where this was going but feeling certain she wouldn’t like to find out.

  ‘Then you’ll be on the approved list and when it comes to me…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I can soft-soap a prison guard, you’ll see.’

  * * *

  The following morning, after a sleepless night, Louisa and the two sisters left the flat, having told Iris Mitford that they were off to the Army and Navy stores for last-minute Christmas shopping. She had expressed surprise that so many presents were being bought by them this year but didn’t stop them from leaving. As before, Louisa walked to South Kensington station and took the Piccadilly line all the way to Holloway Road station. With fourteen stops, it felt like a long journey and was not helped by Pamela, who kept her head stuck in the fashionable novel Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, yet almost never turned a page. Nancy chattered on but Louisa felt she hadn’t the stomach for it this morning. What if they were turned away at the gates? It would all be to nothing and the risk would still be there that one of them would let something slip to their parents and she’d be out of a job immediately. Aristocratic families did not like their daughters visiting convicts, she was sure of that.

  When they were finally walking towards the prison, Louisa felt the two of them suffer the same jolt of fear and surprise that she had experienced when the imposing building loomed into sight.

  Pamela tugged at Nancy. ‘Koko, I don’t think we should do this.’

  But saying something like that was to throw the gauntlet at Nancy’s feet: it served only to stiffen her resolve and provide another opportunity to belittle her younger sister. ‘Don’t be such a scaredy cat. We need to find out the truth about all this and we’re the ones to do it.’

  At the gates, the three of them waited in the long line of visitors. Nancy watched every person with her green eyes but Pamela looked fearful, her head bent towards the ground, avoiding the people around them and the prison itself. When they reached the visitors’ desk inside, Louisa gave her name and Dulcie’s, and was approved with a nod. The prison officer looked at Nancy and Pamela, who shrank back as if she hoped her coat would swallow her. He jerked his chin. ‘They with you?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Louisa, ‘Miss Nancy Mitford and Miss Pamela Mitford.’

  He looked down his list. ‘Their names aren’t down here. They can’t come in.’

  Pamela looked relieved and started to turn to leave, but Nancy pulled her back. ‘Oh dear, officer,’ she said. ‘Uncle Winston will be disappointed.’

  The officer paused writing. ‘Huh?’

  ‘Winston Churchill, the current chancellor of the exchequer?’ said Nancy, blamelessness painted on her face. ‘He’s our dear uncle and he asked us to tell him how we found the prison conditions today. It’s all part of being a cabinet minister, you know. Really understanding how everything is, from the grass roots up.’

  The officer’s nose twitched. ‘Your uncle, you say?’

  ‘Yes,’
said Nancy, sounding almost like Queen Mary in her aristocratic hauteur. ‘Our very dear uncle.’

  He looked from side to side. ‘Reckon it’ll be all right this once.’ He scratched their names into the logbook. ‘’S long as you put in a good word, eh?’

  ‘Of course I will, Mr…?’

  ‘Marsh,’ he said. ‘Mr Marsh. Been here thirty-eight years, not long off retirement.’

  ‘Congratulations, Mr Marsh,’ said Nancy, her smile on him now as bright as headlamps. ‘It’s this way we go, is it?’

  The three of them headed into the visitors’ room, Nancy joshing Louisa with her elbow. ‘Told you so, didn’t I?’

  ‘I don’t approve,’ said Louisa. ‘Winston Churchill is not even your uncle.’

  ‘Cousin by marriage. Close enough,’ said Nancy. ‘The point is – we’re in.’

  Pamela seemed to have relaxed now that they had got past the guard. ‘It’s ghastly in here,’ she whispered to no one in particular. ‘Awful smell of boiled cabbage.’

  ‘It’s not a hotel, is it?’ said Nancy patronisingly, and Pamela went quiet. Louisa was more concerned about how Dulcie would react to seeing all three of them on the other side of the grating, given that she had had no warning. They sat in wooden chairs tightly pushed together and Louisa saw fear on Dulcie’s face when she saw them but she didn’t get up and leave.

  ‘What’s going on?’ said Dulcie as she sat down. She looked thinner still, and waxen, like a nocturnal creature who never saw sunlight. Something lay behind her eyes that made her seem years older than the trio of young women who sat opposite her.

  ‘They want to help, Dulcie,’ Louisa said, as warmly as she could, though Dulcie was sitting as still and cold as ice. ‘There’s something I want to ask you, and please don’t be shocked.’

  Pamela, to Louisa’s surprise, spoke up. ‘We had better get on with this as we don’t have much time. Miss Long, we went to see Mrs Brewster.’

  Alarm registered on Dulcie’s face.

  ‘When we were there, Louisa met a small boy. Mrs Brewster told us that he is your son. Is that correct?’