The door was opened by a young kitchen maid Louisa didn’t recognise, who admitted her readily. On asking, it turned out Nanny Blor was out with Debo, the youngest sister, and wouldn’t be back for an hour. Instead, after a few minutes Louisa was summoned up the stairs to the library. As she came in, she saw that Nancy was sitting on a comfortably stuffed sofa, a tray of tea things before her already. The room was generously named: only one wall was lined with books, as Lord Redesdale was known in the family to have no interest in them. The story was that he had read one book before the war and thought it perfect, giving him no reason to make the attempt again.
It was warm, even for the month of May, yet Louisa knew the windows would have remained open by six inches even if a storm were blowing outside. It was the Mitford way. She had been connected to this family for such a long time now in one fashion or another, since 1920, and had known Nancy since she was a young girl of seventeen, barely emerging out of the nursery. Louisa herself had been but three years older, escaping a rogue uncle and a life in London that she had no longer wanted. Working as a nursery maid for Lord and Lady Redesdale had been more than a refuge: it had been her salvation. Through them, and their seven children, she had been witness to a world beyond the one her parents had decreed she should remain in. She knew now she had ambition, education and a social standing that while still firmly working class, allowed her and Guy to imagine a future that was different to that of their parents. Their children, should they be lucky enough to have any, would probably have a life even brighter and better.
All this, nonetheless, did not stop Louisa from feeling a certain habitual servitude around any of the Mitfords and she caught herself hesitating a fraction when Nancy asked her to sit down. Of all the sisters, Nancy was the one Louisa knew best. The eldest of the seven siblings was an astute observer of those around her – as Louisa had realised after reading her first novel, Christmas Pudding – but less inclined to give away her own intimate feelings. She was perhaps the most fun of them all, the most daring and the most gregarious, but she could be spiky, and Louisa had developed a thick skin against Nancy’s infamous teases. Yet there was an ease between the two of them, too. After all, she and Nancy practically found their way into adulthood together and there wasn’t much she didn’t know about her, even if Nancy knew less about Louisa. They hadn’t seen much of each other since Louisa’s wedding more than six months before, and she had no idea what this summons was about.
‘Lady Mosley has died,’ said Nancy, after she had poured out the tea and given Louisa a slice of fruitcake.
‘Oh,’ was all Louisa could think to reply. She wasn’t sure what response Nancy was hoping for.
‘Naturally, Diana is devastated.’
Louisa tried to work this one out. Lady Mosley was either Sir Oswald’s mother or his wife. Would either one’s death devastate Diana?
She must have shown her bewilderment on her face because Nancy put her cup and saucer down and said, with some impatience: ‘Diana’s divorce is about to go through. The last thing she wants is anyone thinking she is pleased about this.’
‘Yes, I see,’ said Louisa. She wasn’t sure she did.
‘And between you, me and the doorpost, I expect she worries about Sir O’s attention wandering. Now she’s no longer his mistress, he may find her less of a thrilling conquest.’
How repulsive, thought Louisa. ‘Mmm,’ was all she could manage, taking a bite of the cake to distract from her inability to say anything to this.
‘Anyway, the point is, Sir Ogre will have to be the grieving widower for a while, even if I admit he does seem genuinely upset. He and Diana have to be kept apart while her divorce goes through, so Lady Redesdale has suggested taking her away on a cruise for a few weeks.’
‘That’ll be lovely for them.’
Nancy gave a mock shudder. ‘Beastly things, being on a ship all day, no land in sight, unable to get away from ghastly Mr and Mrs Frightful-Bores as you walk around and around the deck. No, thank you. But it seems a good solution to the current predicament. Lady R wants to take Unity too. Unity is begging to go to a finishing school in Munich and they can deposit Decca in Paris on the way, as she’ll be there for a year. In short, the old Heart-of-Stone is having an about-turn and giving them a fond farewell.’ She picked up her cup again. ‘Not that the thought ever occurred to her about me. I was practically pushed out of the door at the first chance.’
It hadn’t been like that, but Louisa gave her a sympathetic look. Louisa had lost her closeness with her own mother after she left home. She knew her ma had been happy to see her daughter moving on in the world, yet it had separated them, too: Mrs Cannon felt unable to ask her daughter about the new things that preoccupied her, and Louisa worried that her decision to do things differently had been hurtful towards her parents’ own choices. It meant that they spoke about little beyond the weather and some shared memories.
‘I can’t go on the cruise because someone has to stay behind to keep an eye on things. Lord Redesdale spends almost no time at Swinebrook any more but is here in London, snoozing in a leather armchair in his club the whole day long.’
Swinebrook was Nancy’s name for the house that Lord Redesdale had built. They had all loved Asthall Manor, the place where Louisa had first gone to work for them, and she couldn’t blame them for missing it. The new place was, by all accounts, as aesthetically pleasing as a dog kennel, and as hospitable. Nanny Blor had told Louisa that her jug of water for washing in the bedroom often froze overnight in the winter.
‘Which means someone had better go down there now and then to check Nanny Blor and Debo aren’t languishing alone,’ continued Nancy. ‘Besides, I can’t go swanning off, I have to earn my living these days. I’m still writing dross for The Lady, but they do pay and allow one to have more than two evening dresses in the wardrobe. And I can’t leave Hamish behind.’
Nancy’s five-year engagement to Hamish St Clair Erskine showed no sign yet of coming to its natural conclusion. Whether that was marriage or a break-up was anyone’s guess. Louisa knew what the family wanted for Nancy – and it wasn’t to see her walk down the aisle towards him.
Louisa had eaten all her cake some time ago and was appalled to feel her stomach rumble. She’d worked through her lunch hour in order to leave early to make this appointment with Nancy. She thought perhaps she would stop off at the butcher’s on the way home and surprise Mrs Sullivan by cooking everyone’s supper that evening.
‘Lou-Lou?’ Nancy clicked her fingers. ‘You went off somewhere else there.’
Louisa snapped into focus. ‘Sorry. You were saying?’
‘I think you should accompany my mother on the cruise. I know you’re not Diana’s lady’s maid any more, but perhaps as a sort of paid holiday you could be one for Lady R for a few weeks? It’s simply too much to ask for her to manage Diana, Unity and Decca. You know how they can be.’
Louisa looked out of the window; the sky was overcast and people walked past pulling their collars up against a wind that appeared to have got up.
‘I believe they’re taking the train from Victoria to Paris, then on again to Venice, where they’ll meet the boat. It stops at various places in Italy and Greece before it comes back to Venice three weeks later for the Orient Express home. What do you say?’