Louisa regarded Nancy’s pleading expression, her well-coiffed curls that framed a heart-shaped face, her silk shirt and light woollen skirt, her fashionable square heels. She thought of her own shabby coat hanging in the hall and a hat that hadn’t been replaced for three years (she couldn’t wear her wedding hat every day). Louisa had avidly pored over books of maps and paintings in the Asthall library when she first went to work for the Mitfords, dreaming of what she would do before she began to think of settling down with a family of her own. The fact was, for all of the changes in the world in the last decade alone – the Amy Johnsons who co-piloted planes and Roald Amundsens who explored the Arctic – the chance to go abroad for any length of time, in a degree of comfort, was beyond reach for the likes of her. The Mitfords had taken her to Dieppe, and she had been to Paris and Venice when Diana’s lady’s maid. She yearned to feel the warmth of the Mediterranean sun on her face again but she bore the guilt of Guy’s salary reduced by the cost of her training.
‘Thank you, Miss Nancy, it’s kind of you to think of me,’ said Louisa carefully. ‘But no, I’m afraid I can’t. It would be a wonderful opportunity for someone but not, this time, for me.’
She was as polite as she could be, but she had to be firm. Louisa wouldn’t ever be a servant again. Never, not for a thousand pounds a day, not for all the olives in Italy.
CHAPTER FOUR
After Louisa had turned down Nancy’s request, there had been an awkwardness between them that could not be quickly resolved, and Louisa made her excuses. She left through the front door, the same maid showing her out, and as Louisa descended the steps she saw a maroon-coloured motor car pull up. A Jaguar? She was never too sure of cars, but it was what she knew anyone would call ‘a beauty’. Diana was in the passenger seat, dressed in black, a black slouch hat pulled down to shield most of her face, but there was no disguising her now-famed beauty. The driver was a man Louisa recognised as Diana’s friend Cecil Beaton, a raffish type who took endless photographs of their crowd, often printed alongside Nancy’s anonymous party reports for the Tatler. Not wishing to see Diana today, given the conversation with Nancy, Louisa hurried off down the street. As she did so, she noticed another car pull up a hundred yards on. This driver looked familiar too, but she couldn’t be sure if she knew him or if he had the sort of face that could have belonged to a number of men. He returned her glance, but he did not show that he knew her and she thought she must have been mistaken as she hurried down to her bus stop at Scotch Corner.
At Hammersmith, Louisa got off earlier than usual, making a detour to the butcher’s only to find that it was shut. Early closing on a Wednesday. She hadn’t realised. The thought flashed through her mind that her mother-in-law wouldn’t have been caught out in the same way. Perhaps Mrs Sullivan had been doing more than her fair share of the cooking. After all, she spent her days looking after her fading husband, an exhausting and never-ending task. Louisa sympathised. In spite of her training and the licence it gave her to get out of the house, there was a monotony to the family’s routine that she wanted to interrupt. Determined to see the thing through, Louisa went into the grocer’s instead and picked up two tins of corned beef, potatoes, carrots, a cauliflower and half a pound of Cheddar cheese. A treat. Mrs Sullivan might have some of these ingredients at home already, but she wanted Guy to know that she had planned and prepared the supper herself to give him something special. Or as special as she could make it, anyway. Half the problem was that all those years with the Mitfords had eroded what little ability she’d had to cook, what with Mrs Stobie sending up every meal to the nursery. Diana always hired extremely competent cooks too, giving the servants a taste for fine food. When living alone, Louisa had subsisted off toast and tinned soup.
But opening the door of the brick terrace, Louisa heard shouting from the front room and stopped. Something told her that she should interrupt, before she heard something she wouldn’t want to hear. Still, she hesitated, her ear at the door.
Mrs Sullivan’s voice was shrill. ‘I notice she’s quite happy to call herself your wife when it suits her. Not so much when it comes to her duties.’
Guy’s reply was quieter, firmer, nevertheless edged with exasperation. ‘It’s 1933, Ma. Wives don’t have duties.’
‘I don’t see why not,’ his mother fired back. ‘When I married your father, I was happy to cook and clean. I was proud to be Mrs Sullivan.’
‘Louisa is proud.’
‘Oh no, it’s not good enough for her, the honest work of a housewife. She has to go out to work, doesn’t she?’
‘Ma…’
‘Even then’ – Louisa could picture her mother-in-law wagging her finger at her son, a good six inches taller than her – ‘she says she’s going out to work, but she’s not bringing any money in! She’s training. You, poor boy, must support all four of us—’
‘That’s enough…’
Louisa decided she agreed, and pushed the door open.
Mrs Sullivan glared at Louisa and, without saying hello, walked into the kitchen, where she could soon be heard banging pots and pans as she took them out of the cupboard. Guy, flushed, looked at Louisa sorrowfully.
‘Why are you home early?’ She was annoyed to have been caught with her bag of shopping, as if he’d see how the magic trick worked.
Guy looked in the direction of the kitchen, where the sound of the tap running at full steam could be heard. ‘I got a telephone call from Ma.’
‘A telephone call?’ The house didn’t have a telephone. It would have meant Mrs Sullivan going to the post office or walking three streets away to use the phone box. Neither of which seemed likely unless it had been a dire emergency. Louisa almost dropped the shopping as a thought occurred to her.
‘Your father? Where is he?’
‘He’s fine. At least, he is now.’ The last of the fight puffed out of Guy and he slumped into the chair by the fire, swept clean of its ashes, the grating efficiently blacked. ‘He’s upstairs now, but he went missing earlier. Ma had gone next door to talk to Mrs Ratchett and she thinks she must not have closed the door properly. She was going frantic looking for him and telephoned me rather than calling the police.’
‘You are the police.’
Guy took his glasses off to clean them. ‘Yes, I was able to tell Stiles what had happened and he was most understanding.’
‘Where was he, then? Your dad?’
‘In the pub, nursing a pint of bitter. An old pal of his recognised him and stood him the drink. If you ask me, he was enjoying feeling like his old self again. But it rattled Mother, she was frightened by it and…’
‘What?’ Louisa kneeled down beside Guy and put her hand on his arm. ‘I heard something when I came in. You can tell me.’
‘No, I shan’t. Fear makes people angry. Whatever you heard, she didn’t mean it.’
At that second, there was a loud crash that sounded like a wrecking ball coming through the kitchen window but was probably only a roasting tray dropping on the tiled floor.
‘I see.’ Louisa leaned back slightly on her heels. Her thighs were aching and the room was too warm. She thought of the cheese sweating in its brown paper wrapping.