‘Beg pardon, Mr Meyer, I didn’t see you there,’ said Louisa, feeling uncomfortable for reasons she couldn’t quite discern.
Luke took his hands out of his pockets and laughed. ‘That was funny, giving you a shock like that.’
Was he mocking her? ‘Have a good evening, sir,’ she said and made to leave the room.
‘No, Louisa, don’t.’ He had grabbed her by the elbow and his hold was firm, a little too much so. She shook him off. She was finding all this very bewildering, he didn’t seem the same as when they had met at the wedding.
He dropped her arm and flushed. ‘I’m sorry. I wasn’t laughing at you, it’s just your face—’ But he saw Louisa’s hackles rise again and held his hands up in surrender. ‘Please. Can we start again? And call me Luke. That is, if I may call you Louisa?’
Louisa dropped her defences. For the moment. ‘Yes, you may call me Louisa.’
‘Thank you. I say, do you know how to get a drink around here? It’s six o’clock somewhere in the world, after all.’
Louisa went to the drinks cabinet and opened it – there were crystal decanters of every spirit, from the clear waters of gin and vodka to the varied ambers of malt whisky. Engraved silver labels hung on delicate chains around the necks of each one. ‘Would you mind if you helped yourself? I’m afraid I don’t know how to pour these.’
Luke carried on talking as he clinked the ice cubes into the shaker. ‘What’s the news, then?’
Louisa had half an ear out for noises beyond the drawing room door. As nice as Mr Guinness was, she didn’t think she should be found chatting with one of their guests. ‘Oh, nothing much. They are on honeymoon.’ She felt she should emphasise this, even though the last time she had seen Luke had been at the wedding. It wasn’t as if he wouldn’t know.
‘True, true. What about you, then? Have they let you out to see the sights of Paris?’ Luke had poured himself a generous gin martini by the looks of it and was taking his first sip.
‘I’m here to work,’ Louisa said proudly then wondered why she was taking the moral high ground. She exhaled as she thought about the pleasures of the last few days. ‘It’s … well, it’s wonderful,’ she said. ‘When did you get here?’
‘This afternoon. But I’m not staying here, I’m in a hotel nearby. They’re not expecting me.’ The look on her face must have alarmed him. ‘Don’t worry – I’ve got a letter of introduction to keep it all quite proper, from my aunt.’ Luke indicated to the low table in front of the fireplace, where a letter addressed to The Hon. Mrs Guinness lay on top of a black box, with a silk purple ribbon tied around it. ‘I’ve come with some chocolates, too,’ he said. ‘A sort of bribe, I suppose.’
‘I see,’ said Louisa, though she didn’t really. Diana would never eat the chocolates at any rate; she’d already learned that her mistress’s narrow figure was carefully maintained. She might try to sample one herself at some point, Diana almost certainly wouldn’t notice it. In any case, what was Luke bribing Diana for? Except – he worked for a newspaper, didn’t he? Would Diana not mind a diary writer on her honeymoon?
There were footsteps coming along the hall. ‘I’d better go,’ said Louisa. ‘Have a nice evening.’
‘Perhaps I’ll see you later?’
‘Perhaps.’
The next day, when Louisa took Diana her tray at noon, she found her mistress in a chatty mood. Bryan always left the bedroom well before Louisa’s arrival, to have his breakfast downstairs. Setting the tray on a table, she drew the curtains to reveal the bright winter sunshine, the sort that could fool you into thinking that spring was round the corner, though the snowdrops had barely begun to push through.
‘Good morning, Lou-Lou,’ said Diana. She was sitting up in bed, her blonde hair pushed back off her face, as she reached for an emerald satin dressing gown that had been dropped by the side of the bed. She wrapped it around herself before adjusting her position, ready to take her breakfast. ‘Oh, goody. Boiled egg. Though I’m never quite sure these French chefs can do it as well as Mrs Stobie at home. No soldiers, for a start.’
‘What shall I get ready for you today, ma’am?’ This had become their routine.
‘I’m going to meet Mr Meyer this afternoon. He’s promised to show me the most filthy pictures in the Louvre,’ she said in a kidding tone, and Louisa was reminded again how young she was and how little of the world she had seen. ‘So I think perhaps the yellow dress, with the matching coat.’
Louisa went to the wardrobe – or armoire as she had been told by Diana it was called in France – and started to pull out the newly acquired clothes, together with the stockings and biscuit-coloured shoes that Diana wore with nearly all her day outfits.
‘Bryan’s spending the day with his grandfather, the Pocket Adonis. Everyone calls him that because he’s achingly good looking but tiny,’ she carried on, her happy chatter and excitement at what lay ahead perhaps making her forget her usual form of only calling her husband ‘Mr Guinness’ in front of the servants. Or perhaps they had started to blur the lines of servitude and friendship again, reverting to their previous relationship as nursery maid and child. ‘I think you should come with us, Lou-Lou. No one could be safer than Luke. But for appearance’s sake, you know how these gossips are.’
‘Of course, ma’am. I’d be happy to.’ And she would. Louisa had not managed to see inside the Louvre yet and she had heard the Mona Lisa was hanging there. Would she be able to tell if the young woman in the painting was smiling or not? Still, she felt she had better check something.
‘Mrs Guinness?’
‘Oh, I do feel a thousand years old when you call me that. Yes, what is it?’ Diana scooped up a mouthful of egg yolk with a silver spoon.
‘It’s not for me to say perhaps but you do know that Mr Meyer is a writer for the Daily Sketch?’
‘Yes, but you don’t need to worry about anything. His aunt is a friend of Muv’s, he showed me a letter from her last night. He’s perfectly safe, in every way. Besides, I’m not sure I mind too much if he does write anything, there’s nothing terribly terrible to report.’
Louisa wasn’t particularly assuaged by this but she nodded as if she was and went back to fidgeting with a loose thread on Diana’s coat.
Diana gave a yelp. ‘Look at the time! Run my bath, Lou-Lou, we should push on. I said I would meet him at two o’clock.’ And so it was they hurried to meet Luke who would, it turned out, soon have something ‘terribly terrible’ to report.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The Louvre was miles and miles of oil paintings and statues, and after they had seen the Mona Lisa – ‘She’s definitely wretched,’ declared Diana, ‘how could anyone doubt it?’ – and Luke had taken them around the Renaissance galleries, they could only muster half-hearted giggles at the nudity on display. Louisa suspected that Diana was already too sophisticated for this kind of joke in any case. She had followed a few steps behind them, not joining in their conversation, though Luke was kind enough to throw some sympathetic glances her way and even pointed out one or two particularly well-known pieces of art. Louisa was grateful for the visit but she’d rather have been alone, sitting on a bench before the Mona Lisa and spending at least an hour or two trying to work out what the secret was that the Italian beauty was hiding from everyone who looked at her. When they turned a corner and saw another long avenue of partially robed statues with various missing arms and legs, Diana gave a sigh.
‘This has all been simply divine, darling. But I think now I’d better go back to the house. Bryan will be wondering where I am and I haven’t even found out yet what we’re doing this evening.’ She signalled to Louisa that they would be off. ‘Thank you, Luke. It’s been … enlightening.’
Luke looked crestfallen. ‘Wait,’ he said. ‘There’s a bar, not far from here. It’s not the usual sort but I promise you’ll love it.’
Diana hesitated.
‘Just a minuscule cocktail?’ he pleaded. ‘Go on. We can always telephone up Bryan from th
ere, see if he’d join us.’
‘Just one drink, then.’
Luke was true to his word – the bar was very close, on a narrow street and hidden behind an innocuous-seeming door that displayed neither sign nor doorbell. Luke pushed it open and they found themselves in a narrow hallway, with a bored-looking girl behind a counter who took some money from him and offered to hang their coats.
‘Do you think I should be here?’ Louisa whispered to Diana.
‘I think I absolutely need you to be here,’ Diana whispered back. Her voice was low and urgent but her face remained as composed as ever. They followed Luke down a short flight of stairs and through a beaded curtain, out into a room that was no bigger than the library at Asthall, only with lower ceilings and black-painted walls. Though it was dusky outside, it was only four o’clock in the afternoon, so it was somewhat disconcerting to see a number of young women walking around in short evening dresses, their faces heavily made-up, sequinned headbands on brassy hair. There was a short bar along one wall and a few men leaned up against it, their backs to the barmaid. They were, thankfully, not old men but rather dapper young ones in wide-legged trousers and spats. ‘Dandyish, aren’t they?’ said Diana to Louisa, preferring to whisper to her, rather than to Luke, it seemed. He had pushed ahead and found a table for them to sit at, with a lamp on it that had a red shade. A piano played a jazzy tune in the background but there was a strangely heavy atmosphere, as if everyone was waiting for something to happen. Nobody was talking much, and Louisa realized there were no couples in the room – that is, the few women there were, were walking about and the men either stood or sat, watching them with lazy eyes.
She and Diana exchanged a look, which clearly showed they both wished to get out but Louisa also knew Diana wouldn’t want to lose face. If Luke was trying to shock her, or trip her up on her lack of worldliness, she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. Years of being goaded by Nancy had trained her to keep her mettle.
They ordered Old Fashioneds for Diana and Luke, and a coffee for Louisa (which came in the most miniature cup she’d ever seen outside of Debo’s dolls’ house and was thickly black). Plates of sandwiches were put down, which Luke and Diana didn’t touch; Louisa ate two to be polite, but they were fishpaste and not very nice. They were only there, explained Luke, because alcohol could only be served at that hour with food, something to do with the Parisian licensing laws.
None of them said much else but just as the silence had turned awkward, there was a sudden change in the piano’s tune, and a pair of red curtains were pulled back to reveal a round stage. A spotlight came on and there was a shuffle in the room as the men turned to face it, and the women sat down or melted away. To the piano’s honky-tonk notes a woman came into the light, shimmering in a cheap beaded dress and see-sawing a pink feather boa across her shoulders, tapping out a few jazzy steps with her feet. The make-up she wore was caked on so that the skin’s own texture couldn’t be detected, the mouth was strangely unsoft beneath the red lipstick and the eyes were dull beneath the heavily kohled rims and drawn-on eyebrows. After a minute or two of this, Louisa started to feel very uncomfortable. There was no microphone, so the woman wasn’t going to sing. What was she going to do? She caught Luke giving her and Diana sideways glances. He knew what was coming, she was sure of it, and she was pretty sure, too, that whatever it was, was designed to outrage them. Diana’s face remained admirably blank, though her cool blue eyes were fixed on the dancer.
The feather boa was dropped to the floor and a muted cheer went up from the men. The spotlight had thrown them all into deeper shadows – the red light from the lamps did nothing to illuminate the scene around them. Louisa felt a heightened frisson shiver through the audience and then she saw the woman had turned around and was dropping the straps of her dress.
‘Mrs Guinness,’ Louisa whispered. ‘I think we should go.’
‘Shh,’ said Diana.
Luke looked at them and smiled.
The dress had fallen to the floor now and the woman kicked it to the side. She was wearing stockings and a girdle that bound her tightly from chest to upper thighs. A man reached out and stroked one of her legs and she smacked him away playfully but when another man tried to do the same, a hulk in black tie came out of the shadows and pulled him away with force. It couldn’t be possible but the lights seemed to go lower, and Louisa watched the tips of cigarettes glow in the dark, hardly able to see the hands that held them. The music got faster and the men cheered again. This time, the girdle was being rolled down inch by inch, the dancer deliberately tantalising her audience. Louisa thought she was going to be sick but whether it was the show, the cigarette smoke or the fishpaste sandwiches, she didn’t know. Luke was excited now, leaning forward, grinning and clasping his hands as if to stop himself from jumping up and waving them in the air.
Further down the girdle rolled. Louisa looked – how could she help it? The chest was bare now, completely flat and pale, so thin the shadows of the ribs could be seen. Faster played the music, brighter glowed the tips and finally as the last of the girdle was rolled down the woman had her back to the audience, showing her naked white behind. Louisa looked at Diana, who gave nothing away but at least didn’t look frightened. Finally, there was a roar from the crowd and demands of ‘Montre nous!’
Show them what?
As she turned around to cheers and the stamping of feet, Louisa and Diana finally understood. The woman was a man.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Guy tried to call Lord Redesdale at Swinbrook House, where according to the directory they now lived (they’d moved, then, since he’d last seen them all, and he was rather sorrowful for a second; Asthall Manor had been his idea of the perfect country house, all pale grey stones and rolling fields around). It was the housekeeper, Mrs Windsor, who answered. She recognized Guy, and hadn’t hesitated when he asked if there was a forwarding address for Louisa. So perhaps his letters had been forwarded on and Louisa hadn’t replied. He wasn’t sure if that made him feel better or worse.
‘She’s in Paris, accompanying Mr and Mrs Guinness on their honeymoon,’ said Mrs Windsor. ‘They’re expected to stay a few weeks. If you have a pencil, I can give you the address there?’ Guy took it down – 12 rue de Poitiers – and before he could finish thanking her, she had rung off. Guy tucked the piece of paper in his pocket and told himself to forget about it.
*
A few days after Mary had urged Guy on, and having made the necessary arrangements, the two of them went to 11 Wilton Crescent to interview Lucy, the maid who had worked with Rose Morgan. It was only a short walk from the station and the street was typically grand, with a wide curve of cream-painted houses, each front door glossy black, with perfectly polished and buffed Bentleys and Rolls-Royces parked outside. ‘I wouldn’t leave if this was where I was living,’ said Mary as they approached the front door.
‘Depends on the promise of what you thought you might get instead, doesn’t it?’ countered Guy.
They knocked and the door was answered quickly by a butler, keen to shoo them inside. He muttered something about the reputation of the house with the police turning up and hurried them below stairs to his office, where they waited while he looked for Lucy. Guy and Mary took in their surroundings but there was nothing out of the ordinary; a sparsely furnished room that somehow did not invite them to sit down on the two available chairs and make themselves feel at home. Before the butler had returned, however, a young girl of about twelve, with long hair tied back in a ribbon and wearing a dress with a sailor’s collar, came in unaccompanied. She greeted them with a handshake and a serious look on her face that made Guy feel rather sad for her somehow.
‘Hello,’ she said. ‘I’m Muriel Delaney. I know I ought to wait to be introduced but Jones is looking for Lucy and I know you’re looking for Rose. Have you found her? Have you good news?’
Mary stepped forward and shook her hand. ‘Hello, Miss Delaney. I’m Constable Conlon but you may call me Mary. I’m
very sorry to tell you that we have no news of Rose but we are still looking for her. That’s why we’re here to talk to Lucy, in case she might have remembered something that could be useful to us.’
Muriel nodded but her face dropped and tears welled in her eyes. She blinked them back. ‘I don’t understand why no one has talked to me,’ she burst out passionately. ‘Rose was my best friend.’
Mary and Guy exchanged a look. He took a step backwards.
‘You may talk to me now. We’d be very interested to know any thoughts you may have.’ Mary smiled at her warmly.
‘Are your parents here?’ Guy felt he ought to check that everything was in order; he had telephoned earlier to arrange the appointment with Lucy so the family should know the police were coming.
‘We lost Father last year,’ said Muriel. ‘Mother is resting upstairs. She often rests at this time. It’s quite all right, Jones will let her know you are here.’
She gave Guy a sidelong glance and edged closer to Mary. ‘You’re taking the female perspective, are you?’
Mary placed her hand on the girl’s shoulder. ‘Yes, you’re quite right. That’s exactly it.’
‘My governess was a suffragette,’ said Muriel. ‘She’s been teaching me all about it.’
‘Shall we sit down?’ said Mary, pulling a chair around from one side of the butler’s desk, so that they could sit together.
Guy took this as his cue to move to the window, where he stood looking out of it with his hands in his pockets, trying as much as possible not to appear to be listening in. Of course, he heard every word.
Mary took out her pocketbook and a pencil, and the girl looked pleased at this. She was being taken seriously.
[Mitford Murders 03] - The Mitford Scandal Page 6