Annabel Fielding - A Pearl for My Mistress

‘Well, this shouldn’t be a problem!’ Nora exclaimed, making the couple at the nearest table turn in her direction. ‘Our holiday home in Lido stands empty for most of the year. It isn’t in Venice proper, of course, but it’s close enough. Twenty minutes by boat, I think. Perhaps, thirty, if you are unlucky. No one is going to be using it for several months. Although, if I were you, I’d wait until autumn,’ she added. ‘Italy in summer feels like a local branch of hell.’

‘You are going to give me the keys to your holiday home?’ Charity asked with disbelief ringing in her voice. Lucy shared her perplexity.

‘Why not?’ Nora shrugged. ‘As I’ve said, no one is going to live there for some time. Father and Lady Isabelle are planning to spend this autumn in France.’

Eleanor almost never spoke of anyone with open bitterness. However, Sir Frederick Palmer’s second wife was never a ‘mother’ or even a ‘stepmother’ – always ‘Lady Isabelle’.

‘If you are sure that it will cause you no trouble …’ Charity still sounded doubtful.

‘Absolutely not!’ Nora reached across the table to squeeze her hand. Charity flinched almost imperceptibly. Lucy could understand that – Nora was charming, but her propensity for touching people like that always came across as a little startling.

‘You are an angel. I only hope the new government won’t take offence at my visit.’

‘Oh, that’s probably the last thing you should worry about.’

‘Well, people are telling all sorts of stories.’

‘Believe me: I go to Venice every year, and I haven’t noticed anything sinister so far.’

‘It’s not just Venice,’ Charity remarked. ‘The Continent as a whole is going a little wild lately. Have you heard of what happened in Germany?’

‘You mean the appointment of this new Reich Chancellor? Oh, of course. I’m afraid I missed the first flurry of gossip, though,’ Eleanor confessed. ‘I’ve spent almost the whole winter on that safari, and it’s not easy to keep track of Kenyan rhinoceroses and European politics at the same time. But everyone enlightened me once I came back. Some people thought it to be a great joke, and, to be honest, I agree. Wasn’t he a common soldier?’

‘I’ve heard he was a painter.’

‘Even better!’

‘I thought you’d always supported the arts,’ Charity teased.

‘But not quite to that extent!’ Nora rolled her eyes. ‘We have our own fair share of lunatics, though. Look at Sir Oswald Mosley and his boys, for instance. If anything, they resemble overgrown Boy Scouts.’

Lucy sat still, barely daring to breathe. What if one of the ladies turned and asked her opinion on the subject? She didn’t hold an opinion on the subject. She simply knew nothing about the subject.

What would they think of her then?

They didn’t ask her, though. Nor did they throw a single glance at her.

‘Mosley is still bitter because the Labour Party didn’t want to listen to his proposals,’ Charity observed. ‘To be honest, I thought he would have calmed down by now. All these marches and chants won’t get him back into power – they simply make him look ridiculous. If he was impressed by the Italians so much, he could have just taken up fresco painting.’

Breathe deeper, Lucy told herself. It isn’t the end of the world. If you don’t know it, you can always read about it.

‘Do you know, though, that even his mistress calls him The Leader?’

‘Alexandra Metcalfe?’ Charity frowned. ‘I thought better of her.’

‘No, the Mitford girl.’

‘Diana? The one who took to wearing her tiara on her neck?’

‘That one.’

‘Oh, heavens. She doesn’t call him that to his face, I hope? Otherwise their nights together must be the stuff of nightmares.’

‘Diana herself clearly doesn’t think so. I’ve heard, he is quite … Oh, Charity, look! We are making poor Lucy blush!’

Never did Lucy hate her fair skin as fiercely as she did at that moment. Her fingers squeezed the dainty porcelain cup with unnatural rigidity.

How she loathed her innocence. Her inexperience. Her diffidence.

She didn’t want to play the part of a timid, ignorant country girl – the role that seemed to have been assigned to her the moment she stepped into her first ballroom.

But what could she do?

‘Let’s not be cruel.’ Charity smiled. ‘We don’t want the poor girl to spontaneously combust, do we? Better tell me now about your champagne safari, Nora. I’ve always wanted to learn about it.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t go quite so far as to call it a champagne safari, but it was comfortable enough. I was fortunate to find a good hunter, though. You wouldn’t believe what an exhausting enterprise it all is! He helped me to manage that army of porters, servants, and gunbearers, not to mention the actual hunt, of course …’

At any other time, Lucy would’ve been delighted to hear the story of Nora’s adventures in the African wilderness. However, now she felt a strange uneasiness, as if the sunlit brilliance of her surroundings had diminished somehow. The thoughts of Italians and Blackshirts, and Oswald Mosley with his dark uniforms and radical ideas refused to leave her mind.

I will find it all out by the time of our next meeting, Lucy promised herself. If only to understand their jokes.

Chapter One

County of Northumberland, February 1934

Hester immediately braced herself for the furious wind as she stepped out of the car. As usual, the expectation didn’t fail her; it seemed to be cutting through her coat, through her jumper, through her skin, and chilling her straight to the bone.

Perhaps, though, car was too elegant a name for that vehicle. More than anything, it resembled the small blue vans that butchers in her hometown used for deliveries.

It also smelled oddly of hounds.

Instinctively, Hester reached for her suitcase; however, the chauffeur clearly intended to carry it for her all the way to the house. Not that she minded the courtesy too much; her hands ached after clutching the suitcase during the day-long journey, and having help made a pleasant change. However, seeing her belongings in someone else’s hands made Hester feel somehow vulnerable, almost naked.

Trotting along the gravel path, Hester raised her eyes. There it was, her home for the next several years: the massive stone bulk of Hebden Hall.

There were plenty of things one could say about this house. You could accuse it of being unwelcoming, forbidding, old-fashioned, or even eerie. But no one – at least, no one Hester knew – could level against it the charge of being unimpressive.

Like a medieval cathedral, this stately home must have been designed to inspire awe and a little fear in the hearts of visitors. If that was the case, Hester couldn’t help but give the unknown architect his due. He had clearly succeeded.

The oldest part of the building, where the walls were dark with age and tinged with green, was crawling with strange creatures. They leered at Hester from above, the eternal captives of stone. Some of them resembled cruel dogs; some seemed closer to hungry lions.

Gargoyles , Hester remembered. They are called gargoyles.

The main entrance glared at her, impossibly grand and preceded by a tall staircase. For a single wild moment, Hester thought that she would have to come through these forbidding doors.

But no, of course not. The fear was unfounded; furthermore, it was silly. The chauffeur, whose name she was too shy to ask, was already turning to an obscure door covered with green baize.

‘The servants always come in here,’ he explained, giving her the suitcase back. Hester took it with an ill-concealed relief. ‘Don’t you worry. We are almost there.’