‘No, Ted, no!’ Foxy protested. ‘You’re interviewing me because I’m marrying Lord Sefton. You’re not interviewing me about my friends. If you were, we’d be here all day.’
They were drinking coffee and looking out of the window at the activity going on below in Hyde Park. The thick turf of Rotten Row had been dug up to make way for trenches, while further away a platoon of troops was hauling down a vast barrage balloon. The drab grey wasteland was dotted with khaki figures.
Ted Rochester took up his silver propelling pencil and dabbed again at his notebook. ‘Tell me about Paris, then.’
‘It was hilarious. In New York I won a competition to become a model for Jean Patou. I thought I was going to be in the movies, but then this came along. He whisked a bunch of us off to France on the Berengaria, we were an overnight sensation!’
‘No surprise, with those looks,’ said Ted. Like all gossip columnists, he could lay it on thick.
‘Well, we certainly put the local girls’ noses out of joint. But after all the press calls and the publicity and the photographers, it became rather boring. I was supposed to walk around Patou’s showroom modelling the gowns for his rich customers, but it was all rather demeaning – such vulgar women. So fat. And the hours, my dear, dawn till dusk – and beyond!’
‘So you became a painter.’
‘Doesn’t everyone in Paris? That’s when I met your friend Guy Harford. Only he’s a serious painter, Ted, a genius – have you seen his work? I’m going to try to get him an exhibition now I’m here in London.’
‘I gather he has his hands rather full at the moment,’ said Ted.
‘Does he?’ Each knew more about Guy than they were saying.
‘So you painted.’
‘And watched. All good painters watch as much as they paint. They sit outside cafés observing – looking inside people, searching inside them, to discover what lies behind the face, what’s hidden in the heart. It’s what makes Guy so good – he’s like a detective that way. If you haven’t seen his pictures, you must.’
‘I will. Get that exhibition going.’
‘We used to bump into all the greats – Derain, Max Ernst. At the Café de Flore we’d see Picasso, he always sat at the same table by the door. But then Guy inherited that little house in Tangier from an aunt, and off he went.’
‘That would have been when?’
‘Six or seven years ago. I think he’d be there still but for . . .’ Nobody talked about why Guy came home.
‘Then you married,’ continued Ted. His article was for The Tatler, whose readers would want to know about the Vanderbilt connection.
‘Yes, dear Erskine, the sweet boy. He was the brother of an old friend from the New York days – Kiki Preston, d’you know her? – but we were too young. Paris was brimming with Americans, I just picked the wrong one.’
‘So now you’re marrying an English lord.’
‘The dearest man alive.’
‘And very rich.’
‘Don’t be coarse!’ said Foxy, not displeased.
‘Who’s a close friend of the Duke and Duchess also.’
‘I really am NOT going to talk to you about the Windsors, Ted. You’re a snake, bringing the conversation back to them all the time.’
‘If it wasn’t for them, you and Hugh wouldn’t have met. Did you know the Germans have captured the Nahlin?’
‘Our love-boat, no doubt you would call it! Yes, I did, as a matter of fact.’
‘That does surprise me,’ said Rochester, not surprised at all. ‘It hasn’t been announced. I was keeping that as a special treat for you.’
‘There are ways,’ said Foxy, her red hair shining in the grey light. ‘The Nazis didn’t get the cocktail shaker, though. It’s in Nassau with the Dook.’
‘Our ex-king, rich as Croesus, pinching a trinket off someone else’s boat? Now that’s a good story, Foxy!’
‘Don’t you dare.’
‘You’re fond of them, aren’t you?’
‘Difficult people. But yes.’
Rochester got up and walked to the window. ‘Not everybody’s convinced we ended up with the right king. The present incumbent is doing his best, and of course she’s a pillar of strength, but . . .’
‘What are you saying, Ted? Kick old Bertie out of the Palace, bring back the Duke of Windsor?’
‘Well, he wouldn’t say no, would he?’
‘I have no idea. But in the middle of a war?’
‘War or no war, the old rivalries go on – think of the Tudors, Foxy. Harry Gloucester fancies his chances too, I hear.’
‘That’s absurd. The man’s a fool.’
‘It’s true, though. Another bomb drops on Buckingham Palace – pouf! – and King George VI is no more. Who’s going to pick up the crown from the rubble?’
‘Princess Elizabeth, of course!’
‘She’s fifteen. Overnight Harry will become Prince Regent – and once he sits on that throne there’ll be no budging him off it.’
‘In the middle of a war?’ Foxy repeated.
‘Who else? He’s the next in line, there’s no other choice. Let me ask you another thing – did you know Edgar Brampton?’
‘Adelaide’s husband? No, not particularly. I only met him a few times. I saw he’d died – you wrote something in the News Chronicle. Poor Adelaide – she was an old friend of Guy’s, you know.’
‘I know.’
‘I get the impression she was rather sweet on him.’
‘I heard Edgar was going to become Gloucester’s private secretary,’ said Ted, uninterested in Adelaide. He had a way of making a question sound like a statement.
‘Really?’
‘Hugh may have heard something.’
‘Well, I won’t ask him, if that’s what you’re after. You journalists are terrible rats – I thought this was supposed to be an article about a sweet old New York girl marrying an English lord whose family goes back – how d’you say? – to William the Conqueror. Instead you’re trying to squeeze private information out of me!’
‘We’re a nation at war,’ said Ted, turning to face Foxy. ‘We’re at war, we glean information where we can. This business at the Palace is unsettling, and the death of Edgar Brampton is a serious loss – he was probably the only one who could restrain Harry Gloucester.’
‘Well, you won’t get anything out of me. Back to asking me about Paris.’
But Ted Rochester’s mind was far from the City of Light.
CHAPTER FOUR
‘Better watch out,’ said Aggie, picking up some fallen petals, eyeing the wilting rose with disfavour. ‘Shall I throw this away? It’s past its best.’
‘No,’ said Guy, after a moment, ‘I think I’ll keep it. Watch out for what?’
‘Topsy. He’s a terror.’
‘Who?’
‘The Master of the Household, dear. You call him Sir Topham Dighton, I call him what I like. Of course, Topsy’s been up at Balmoral since you arrived, but now he’s back you’ll know it. He likes to stick his nose into everyone’s business, then he goes and whispers to the King. A sort of unofficial spy.’