Rather than staying in a hotel, the Guinnesses were spending their honeymoon in the family appartement, an understated name for the colony of rooms that centred around a courtyard, albeit hidden modestly from the view of rue de Poitiers. Louisa knew that Diana was ecstatic to return to Paris, a place in which she had spent three months alone the year before she married. She had boarded in a house run by two elderly sisters who were not so severe that she couldn’t walk down the road by herself to visit the painter Helleu or go for violin lessons, a blissful freedom that had made her quite giddy. Diana had been sent by her mother to learn the language and culture. ‘Learn seduction more like,’ Nancy had teased. Diana had hit her on the arm for that but the truth was that Diana had been banned from returning to Paris after she had come home for Easter, when she left her diary open in the drawing room while she was out on a walk. When Lady Redesdale discovered the entry recounting her trip to the cinema alone with a young man, all hell had broken loose. The other sisters, naturally, had been furious. ‘How could you be so idiotic as to leave a diary out?’ they had cried, for Diana’s punishment meant they would all be under suspicion.
To return as a married woman was quite a coup. Not only that, but she was rich. Louisa wasn’t sure that Diana understood how rich she was. She’d hardly been poor, after all, living in the beauty of Asthall Manor in the Cotswolds. But while Lord Redesdale and his wife were thrifty rather than mean, Louisa knew the wages of the governesses were paid for out of eggs sold each week, and the girls’ clothes were all home-made by their own dressmaker, who was a competent seamstress but hardly Coco Chanel. Louisa knew how rich Mr Guinness was because that was the stuff servants’ gossip was made of. ‘Mr Guinness’s father is only the third son of the Earl of Iveagh,’ a maid had whispered to her in the kitchens at Grosvenor Place, ‘but he was the richest man in Ireland. Just think of all the black stuff they drink over there, and himself’s earning a pretty penny each time!’ Rumours abounded about castles in Ireland and how much money the couple had been endowed as a wedding present, let alone the small fortune their new house must have cost. Yet Louisa was sure that none of this was why Diana had married her husband. For while the Mitford girls had often complained about their parents’ parsimony – Nancy, particularly, griped about her annual stipend and how she had to pay for dressmakers, birthday presents and taxis out of it – they none of them truly cared about money, certainly not enough to try and go out to earn it. And talk of husbands was always focused on falling in love with ‘the one’, whether he be a prince or a pauper; there was never an idea of marrying for money. She supposed they assumed whatever they needed would always be there in some fashion, with all the confidence their class gave them. Unlike Louisa, they had never experienced true poverty.
On the other hand, Louisa wasn’t entirely convinced that Diana had married in order to be with her husband either.
Once they had settled in, Diana summoned Louisa to her in the pretty morning room. The house, though it had been decorated by Diana’s mother-in-law, thankfully bore none of the hallmarks of Lady Evelyn’s medieval mania. Instead, the interiors were light, with dove-grey satin curtains and pale yellow walls. Louisa came through the door and observed Diana adjusting her position as she sat at the bureau, smoothing out her skirt and pushing her shoulders back. She looked graceful and confident, as she always did, if also a touch self-conscious. But, then, she was only eighteen years old.
‘Oh, there you are!’ Diana said with relief, though Louisa had only been rung for minutes earlier. ‘How was your journey?’
‘Very pleasant, thank you, ma’am,’ said Louisa. She may have been several years older but she was determined to do things absolutely by the book now that her mistress was married.
‘Oh, you needn’t—’ Diana started, and then broke off, as if reviewing this. She abandoned the sentence. ‘I just thought I’d let you know that I’ll be spending the day with Mr Guinness, and we’re going out tonight. I’ll wear the black and white skirt and jacket, if you could iron the pink shirt?’
‘Of course.’
‘Tomorrow I’m going to go shopping, and I’d like you to come with me. Mr Guinness will stay here.’
Louisa nodded. Abruptly, a formality between them had sprung up, as if something in the wedding vows had changed the terms of their relationship too, and she wasn’t sure if she could, or should, dispel it. It was probably only down to nerves on either side but if they didn’t get rid of it now they’d be stuck with it for ever. Louisa decided to take a risk.
‘All this is rather breathtaking, isn’t it?’ she stage-whispered, with a wave at their surroundings and a smile. Lady Redesdale would never have stood for it, Nanny Blor would be shocked and Louisa’s heart stopped briefly while she waited for Diana’s response. There was silence while Diana looked at her without expression, and then she suddenly laughed and clapped her hands once. She was the cat who hadn’t got the cream so much as the entire dairy.
‘I know, Lou-Lou! Isn’t it? It’s all perfectly divine.’
Something Louisa hadn’t quite accounted for was the respect she would be shown by other servants as Mrs Guinness’s lady’s maid. She was addressed by them as Mademoiselle Cannon, which she found she rather liked. Otherwise, it was a little lonely in the house, as Louisa spoke no French and the other servants seemed reluctant to speak to her beyond showing her where she could hand-wash her mistress’s underclothes, and signalling that it was time for breakfast. Perhaps they spoke no English. In light of this and in spite of the rather bitter wind outside, after luncheon and having ironed the shirt, she decided to go for a walk. After all, she was in Paris! She must make the most of it.
Only a couple of streets away was the embankment of the River Seine and Louisa walked along there for a while admiring the chic of the French women with tiny shorn poodles at the end of long leads, the funny flat hats of the policemen and the cafés full of men smoking and arguing. In the sky, from practically any angle it seemed, was the Eiffel Tower, the tallest and most impressive structure Louisa had ever seen. She wasn’t sure she’d dare to go to the very top – wouldn’t it be very cold? Down on the ground, every little thing felt different, from the texture of the pavement to the air itself, an intoxicating blend of Gauloises cigarettes and freshly baked baguettes. Even the horns that blasted from the traffic seemed to play a different note. Being so far from anyone she knew emboldened Louisa, and she turned away from the river when she saw a sign for the rue des Beaux Arts, which Nancy had told her was the heart of the Left Bank. This, Nancy had added, was the preserve of the artists, musicians and jazz singers; the very thought of it excited Louisa. Even though it was the afternoon everything seemed shut, so there were no shops to browse in. Instead she watched the young men and women who walked by, bearing the look of bohemians; at least she supposed that was what they were. She hadn’t seen so many of them grouped together in London, not even in Chelsea. The men wore jaunty hats and long silk scarves, the women were draped in velvet coats and had wide patterned headbands that knotted at the side, with dark made-up eyes. Louisa could never be one of them quite but she had always enjoyed the brief freedom that jazz gave her when she danced to a band in a nightclub, allowing her to throw off the inhibition that she carried too heavily elsewhere. This glimpse gave her, she felt, a certain understanding of who these people were. And she certainly felt closer to them than to the stuffy enclaves of the very rich and grand. Paris felt like a place where she might have an adventure.
She was right.
CHAPTER NINE
‘Just telephone and ask them where she is.’
The voice was fractionally impatient but also, Guy knew, full of warmth towards him. He was sitting with his friend Mary Moon, now Mary Conlon and married to his best friend, Harry, but Guy could never think of Mary as anything other than by the name she’d had when they had first worked together three years ago. The two of them were in a café in Sloane Street, catching a cup of tea before they both went back on shi
ft. Mary was still a constable, while Guy had been promoted to the CID. He sometimes felt a pang of guilt about that but she’d kindly told him she was grateful to hang on to her job at all. A new rule had just come in saying that policewomen must resign on marriage, but because she was already married she had narrowly escaped it. ‘Thank goodness. We can’t live on Harry’s practically non-existent wages, I’ve got to work,’ she’d laughed at the time.
‘Where’s Harry playing now?’ asked Guy.
‘At the Hundred Club most nights, he’s with a decent band there but they don’t get enough bookings. He’s just auditioned for Hutch though, so fingers crossed for that.’ She gave him a cool look. ‘Don’t change the subject.’
‘I haven’t, but I’m not going to telephone. If Louisa wanted to see me, she’d have let me know by now.’
Mary thought about this for a bit. She’d known Louisa a little, when the three of them had become caught up in a case involving the gangleader Alice Diamond and her Forty Thieves. They’d been on edge around each other at first, vying for Guy’s attention, but this had soon changed to mutual respect. ‘She’s proud, Guy,’ said Mary. ‘If she was in trouble, I have a feeling she wouldn’t want you to know. The last thing a girl like Louisa wants is to be rescued.’
‘No, no, of course not. The thing is, I was hoping that she could rescue me. For this missing maid case, that’s all.’
‘Why don’t you tell me about it? Lord knows I’d like to think about something other than my usual cases.’
‘Missing cats?’
‘Sometimes yes, but it’s been rather more grim than that lately. There’s a new school of thought that women who have been assaulted should have a policewoman in the room, while they’re questioned. I don’t do more than hold their hands but you hear such awful things.’ She gave a shudder. ‘So, go on then. What’s this one?’
Guy pulled out his notebook and read out the vital statistics, such as they were. ‘Not much to go on,’ he said. ‘Average height and looks, no distinguishing marks. Aside from the fact that she was last seen on the night of the maid’s death – which the inquest concluded was nothing more than an accident – then there was no apparent reason to leave, no apparent person to meet. Left her bank book behind. Hasn’t been in touch with her family.’
‘A kidnapping isn’t likely.’
‘Exactly,’ said Guy. ‘Everyone thinks she’ll turn up in a hotel room, having run off for an affair. And maybe they’re right. But there’s something about it that makes me want to dig a bit deeper.’
‘Can you say what that something is?’
‘A policeman’s hunch,’ shrugged Guy. ‘One maid who worked with her, Lucy, talked about her learning French in a very secretive way.’
‘Perhaps she was on her way to meet a Frenchman in Paris. She’s probably having a jolly old time with onions round her neck, cycling along the banks of the Seine.’
‘Yes, perhaps. That’s the trouble with missing persons. They don’t always think of themselves as missing.’ Guy gave a sigh and pushed his chair back. They’d finished their tea. ‘I need to do something though. I want a case of my own.’
‘Can I ask who interviewed Lucy?’
‘I did,’ said Guy.
‘Was she young?’
‘Yes, fifteen or sixteen years old I should think.’
Mary put her hands in her lap. ‘I hope you don’t mind me saying this but sometimes a young girl will find it difficult to talk to a grown-up man from the police. However nice they are,’ she said hurriedly, as she saw Guy take offence. ‘Why don’t I talk to her? See if she says anything else. If the two of them worked together closely enough for Lucy to hear her muttering in French, I wouldn’t be surprised if they had confided in each other.’
‘I agree with you, as it happens.’
‘So may I be your official uniform assistant for a CID case?’
Guy was amused by her eagerness. ‘Yes, you may.’
‘Good, now we’ve arranged that, ring Lord Whatsisname and find out where Louisa is. Whatever you say, I know that’s what you want. I’m going now, got to get back to the beat.’ Mary got up and touched him affectionately on the arm as she left, letting in a blast of wintry air when she pushed the door open.
CHAPTER TEN
Paris was less of a whirlwind than a typhoon. During the day, Diana had been encouraged by Bryan to shop for her new life as Mrs Guinness; Louisa realized that the shortcomings of her mistress’s previously home-made clothes were made all too abundantly clear when set against the haute couture of Paris. And just as one can never paint one room in a house because it makes all the others look instantly shabby, one new dress led to new shoes, new bags, new evening coats, new scarves and then on to new day dresses, new nightclothes, new underclothes and ever further on into the depths of the wardrobe. Diana’s much-admired slender figure was eagerly robed by even the haughtiest of ateliers and Louisa soon began to enjoy sitting beside her as the mannequins walked up and down before them, displaying every angle of the latest fashions. Diana also appreciated Louisa’s inside knowledge on seams and darts from her work in the Mayfair shop, checking the quality of the lining or the firmness of a button-stitch.
On one particular day, Diana and Louisa went to see someone Diana had been told about as being a very grand couturier, Louise Boulanger. She had a salon at 3 rue de Berri, just off the Champs-Elysées. Mme Boulanger had appraised Diana’s figure with narrowed eyes, before she stalked off and returned with a single dress on a hanger. ‘This one,’ she said in a thick accent. ‘A sample but it might fit you.’
Louisa and Diana went to the dressing room to try it on, with Diana giggling. ‘Just one dress? Normally everyone tries to offload half their wares on to me.’
‘I think that means this one dress might cost as much as half of all the wares of anywhere else,’ said Louisa. The two of them had never mentioned money but the heavily perfumed atmosphere and the sheer weight of the expectation had overcome her.
In a moment, her mistress emerged, a pleased smile on her face. The dress was short, stopping at Diana’s knees, closely fitted and made of a pure white, lightly ribbed taffeta. At the back an immense sky-blue bow hung down from the base of her spine to the ground. It would need to be fitted and ordered before it would be hers but there was no doubt: with this, Diana had discovered the power of clothes. It wasn’t long before Diana had joined the elevated ranks of the best-dressed women of the French capital.
After this encounter, Diana had the confidence to buy from the very best, one of whom was an Englishman with a French name, Mr Molyneux. He was in demand, however, so Diana asked her friend Kate Mulloney to pull some strings and get her an appointment more quickly. The three of them met at the salon, though Louisa quickly saw her role was to stand at the side while Kate bossed Diana around, pointing out the dresses she ought to order. It might have been rude except that Mrs Mulloney clearly had a style that was both chic and daring, with her own short black bob that shone like sealskin and usually wearing mannish trousers in bright colours. While Louisa was standing by the dressing room, waiting for Kate and Diana, a young assistant came through. She started to say something but then seemed to see something in Louisa’s face that startled her. Abruptly, she left the room and Louisa didn’t see her again.
When the appointment was over, they went outside and saw a handsome man standing on the pavement, smoking a cigarette, a wry smile on his face. ‘What are you looking at us like that for?’ said Kate.
‘Can’t a man wait for his wife without showing a little impatience? You said you would be out twenty minutes ago.’ But he didn’t look displeased.
‘I’m so sorry, Shaun,’ apologized Diana, and Louisa remembered seeing him talking to Clara and Nancy at the party last summer. She hadn’t thought about that night for some time and something else pulled at her mind but she couldn’t quite think what it was. Then again, he looked very like the actor Gary Cooper from the film she’d seen a few weeks ago. Perhaps
it was no more than that and she was almost cross with herself for even noticing.
As soon as the dress from Boulanger arrived, Diana wore it to a dinner and from the exclamations Louisa could hear as she walked into the drawing room, she knew it had electrified the small crowd that awaited her. Nor was it unusual for there to be an audience awaiting the star of the show to arrive. In the days since they had got to Paris, there had been little sign of the newlyweds spending time alone. Reams of people came to the house for cocktails at six o’clock, and they would leave in great gangs to go to dinner before taking in a show and then on to the clubs. Louisa was never quite certain of what time they came home – Diana had relieved her of the usual lady’s maid’s duty of undressing her and preparing her for bed – but her mistress did not like to be woken before noon, when Louisa would take her breakfast tray in bed. When Louisa did catch glimpses of her mistress and husband together, they were never less than affectionate – Mr Guinness, particularly, would look at his bride with love practically shining out of his eyes – but this was a honeymoon they appeared to be sharing with half of the city.
So perhaps, when Louisa saw him, she shouldn’t have been as surprised as she was.
It was their fourth afternoon in Paris, and Louisa had dropped into the drawing room, the one that overlooked the courtyard with silvery velvet sofas and a vast antique mirror that ran the length of one wall reflecting the windows. She had only intended to be there for a minute, looking for a pair of Diana’s evening gloves which had gone missing, when she happened to glance at the mirror and saw the image of Luke Meyer, standing very still by the window watching her, not looking at the view.
[Mitford Murders 03] - The Mitford Scandal Page 5