‘What did you do then?’
Louisa was grateful to Diana for her questions, while she herself stood motionless in the shadows, her martini barely touched.
Ella looked around, checking perhaps that Joseph was not in earshot. ‘I worked as a pianist and a songwriter, but I had my boy to look after. Eventually, I made my way back to British Columbia, hoping for some help from my family. Huh. Some hope. Then I met Joseph. You know the rest, or can guess it. And now, here I am. On a ship somewhere in Europe, pathetically longing for a crumb of affection from a cabin b—’ She stopped and put her hand to her mouth. ‘Oh. I’ve said too much.’
Unity’s face was disapproving. ‘I think everyone has gone into dinner.’ They looked around and saw the room was almost empty.
Louisa stepped forward, a jolt registering with Ella as she did so. She spoke as if she hadn’t heard a word, in her role as the perfect maid. ‘We’d better go through. Are you ready, Miss Unity?’
‘Yes, we’re ready.’ Diana had taken Ella’s arm, like a gentleman chaperone. ‘You stay with us, Mrs Fowler. I think there’s more to hear.’
Louisa did not believe that Lady Redesdale would approve of Unity hearing more about Mrs Fowler’s desire for affection from someone who was not her current husband, but, as ever, she was helpless in the face of Diana’s determination.
Joseph Fowler, however, was not.
As they walked out of the room, Louisa became aware of movement at the periphery of her vision. She thought at first it was the moonlight reflecting off the glass of the French windows that led out to the deck.
‘Ella,’ Joseph called out without shouting. His wife turned around, her arm still hooked through Diana’s. ‘Were you about to go into dinner without me?’
‘Mr Fowler, it’s entirely my fault, I was practically forcing your wife—’ But Diana was not able to go on. Joseph had walked over to them at speed and, with a smack of his hand, propelled his wife’s arm away before he grabbed it, his fingers pressing hard into her soft skin.
Louisa felt the anger rise in her faster than the bubbles in a soda syphon. Diana and Unity had been silenced; Ella was apologising in gulps that could have been either fury or shame, or a messy mixture of both.
‘Let her go.’
Louisa spun around and saw Jim, the cabin steward she’d served the drinks with only a few nights ago. Jim, the cabin steward she’d seen dressed in a smart linen suit and carrying several shopping bags for Ella.
Joseph dropped Ella’s arm and she started to rub it, not looking at either her husband or Jim but at some vague spot on the carpet.
‘How dare you tell me what to do.’
‘Mr Fowler, I only ask that everyone is calm.’ Jim held his palms out in a placatory manner, but Louisa saw the determination in his face.
‘I’ll do what I want. I’m the first-class passenger here. You are merely our cabin boy and you need reminding of the fact.’
With that, he leaped forward and threw a punch at Jim, landing on his jaw, but the sound was dull, rather than a crack. They banged into the side of the bar, knocking off several glasses that had been left behind by the guests going into dinner, which fell and smashed into one another, shattering into tiny pieces that flew around the floor like a galaxy of distant stars.
By this time, Diana and Unity had backed away until they were almost at the door, and Louisa had moved to Ella’s side, ready to protect her.
Jim wrestled Joseph to the ground, where they struggled on the broken glass and spilled dregs, and all the women could see was a flailing of arms and legs, with each one either crying out or grunting, until someone – a man, thought Louisa briefly – ran in and pulled Joseph off, leaving Jim on the floor, bloody scratches on his hands and one on his face. Everyone was behaving hysterically now, but Louisa had been stilled by something else altogether. She knew the man who had rushed in.
It was her husband, Guy.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
‘Guy.’ Louisa stared at him. ‘What are you doing here?’
He was panting slightly, gripping Joseph in a policeman’s hold, both hands behind his back. Jim was picking himself up off the floor, brushing off the broken glass and gingerly inspecting his hands, the blood streaking. No one dared even to whisper. Unity and Diana watched it all with the wide eyes of children in the front row of a pantomime.
‘I wanted to surprise you.’
‘You certainly did that.’ She tried to rearrange her face, not look as if she was displeased, because she wasn’t, but she had been caught completely off guard.
‘Let go of me, I tell you,’ said Joseph, breaking the thin ice that was threatening to frost over them.
Guy kept hold of his senses as best he could. ‘Not until you have assured me that you won’t be throwing any more punches this evening.’
‘I’m an old man,’ Joseph said heavily. He did look old then, a greying face of disappointment, his moustache drooping. ‘I don’t want to fight.’
Jim, the comparison inevitable, looked young and fit, his white uniform stained with drink. He looked at them all, bewildered and afraid, and then ran off, pushing past Diana. A bartender had already begun to clear up the glass. Ella watched Jim go but remained where she was standing.
Diana and Unity loosened their stance, as if breaking from a game of musical statues. ‘I think we had better go into dinner ourselves. Louisa, we’ll call up later when we need you,’ Diana said quietly. ‘Mr Sullivan, it’s a pleasure to see you again.’
They would be disconcerted, Louisa knew. It was possible Lady Redesdale would disapprove. No. It was definite she’d disapprove. Oh, what did Louisa care anyway?
Guy had released his grip on Joseph and Ella had started to walk away with him.
‘Hello,’ Louisa said to her husband. ‘Shall we start this again?’
Guy let out the breath he’d been holding. ‘Yes please.’
Louisa took Guy’s hand and led him to the deck outside. There was nobody about, as everyone was at dinner, and the moon shone heavy and full above them. It was warm, yet Louisa shivered slightly. She moved close to her husband, who wrapped his arm around her as they leaned on the balcony, watching the phosphorescence on the waves that plumed out from the fast-moving ship. For a few minutes they did nothing more than enjoy the sensation of their bodies together, the sea air, the night.
Louisa’s curiosity punctured the stillness first. ‘Why are you here? When did you get here? And how?’
He kissed the top of her forehead. ‘I missed you. It’s as simple as that. It wasn’t difficult to find out where the ship was stopping, and I got the train down. Stiles was understanding and gave me the time off. It helped that we had arrested and charged the man we’d been looking for.’
‘Can you stay long?’
Guy shook his head. ‘Only two nights. I’ll have to leave at Rome, get the train back. But I thought it was worth it to see my girl.’
‘It is. Thank you,’ she said and leaned up for a proper kiss.
Reassured and settled, they went to supper. Louisa entertained Guy by describing the personalities she had come across on the ship. As well as Mr and Mrs Fowler, with their extraordinary history, there was the cabin steward, Jim.
‘Any idea why they had that fight?’ Guy asked.
She hesitated, wary of spreading rumours of immorality if they weren’t true. On the other hand, a case had to be examined from all angles.
‘I think Mrs Fowler is having an affair of some sort with Jim,’ she admitted. ‘In Livorno, when I was with the Mitfords, we saw her with him, and he was wearing clothes she’d clearly bought him. She tried to say he’d been helping her with finding the right size for her husband…’
Guy shook his head. ‘These people. But we don’t know that her husband knows.’
‘No. But it’s not a happy marriage, whether or not she’s cheating on him.’
‘Mr Fowler threw the first punch. Doesn’t that mean he suspects Jim of being his wife’s lover?
’
‘I’d say so,’ agreed Louisa.
‘What do you know of him?’
‘Jim? Not much. He works in the first-class cabins. We both handed out the drinks at one of Mrs Guinness’s parties. He’s a young lad, hoping to see the world by working on the ship.’ She pushed the somewhat tasteless chicken onto her fork. ‘He was polite enough. I was surprised when that fight started. I wouldn’t have said he was the type.’
Louisa told Guy that the Fowlers were far from the only oddities on the ship. There was Captain Schmitt, with his penchant for parrots.
Guy interrupted. ‘Don’t tease.’
‘I mean it,’ said Louisa, laughing. ‘You’ll see him later and know I’m right. He wears a parrot brooch next to his medals and I swear I saw him wearing a tie with parrots on it.’
It felt good, being with her husband, eating and talking together. Why had she been so quick to accept the assignment from Iain? Louisa thought maybe she still had some growing up to do. She suspected that when things had become difficult at home, she had leaped at the first opportunity to get away. She wouldn’t do it again. Guy deserved better than that. She looked up at him, his open face, his round glasses on his fine nose. He’d looked almost boyish when she first knew him, but she liked the years that had settled on him since then.
‘What about the Mitfords? Have they been behaving themselves?’ asked Guy.
‘Yes,’ said Louisa, relaxing now. ‘Not too bad at all. I don’t pretend to understand them sometimes, but I know them so well they don’t surprise me too much.’
‘Has Mrs Guinness been in touch with Sir O?’
‘Why do you ask?’
Guy gave a small shrug, a forkful halfway to his mouth. ‘She’s divorcing. I suppose I’m just being a nosy policeman. I’m intrigued as to what’s going on there.’
Was Guy on the same mission as her, for Special Branch? Was that why Iain had instructed her not to talk to her own husband?
‘No. I don’t know. That is, she wouldn’t tell me even if she was.’
If the letter had been in her pocket, instead of her own bedside drawer, it might have set fire to her skirt. She knew she was being evasive, but she had to move Guy away from the subject.
‘What other people are staying on here? What sort are they?’ Guy was pressing the point. Or perhaps she was being paranoid.
‘A mixture, so far as I can tell. Not the sort that Lady Redesdale would usually sit at a table with, judging from some of the expressions on her face. She complained that everyone laughs too loudly on this ship.’
Guy’s eyebrows lifted above his specs. He didn’t understand snobbery. If he was going to make a distinction between people it was where their moral compass lay. His work gave him plenty of opportunities to judge that and Louisa knew there were times when he found it hard to maintain his general optimism about the human race.
She told him then about the others: Sir Clive Montague, who had lost a fortune with Joseph, how smitten Unity was with Wolfgang von Bohlen, a man who went everywhere with a silent companion, Herr Müller. The elderly woman whose name she didn’t know but who walked six dachshunds around the deck on a continuous loop for three hours either side of luncheon, every single day. Rumours of a famous ballerina on the ship, Daisy Lipstadt, as yet unseen. The mother, father and two young girls of ten or so, who always wore co-ordinating colours: that very day the mother and daughters had worn yellow dresses and he a yellow tie and socks. And then there was the waiter with shell shock, jumping out of his skin every time a cork was popped.
Guy listened to it all attentively. ‘You’ve been observing closely,’ he said. ‘Anyone would think you were a detective.’
‘There’s not been much else to do,’ she replied, conscious that she was being a little edgy.
‘Maybe. But I know you. You can’t help yourself.’ He smiled, then yawned. ‘Sorry, it’s been a long day.’
Louisa leaned over and touched his arm. They’d finished eating and the room was nearly empty, as the various workers had been called away to deal with the evening’s goings-on.
‘You’re tired. I still have to work. Why don’t you go to my cabin and sleep?’
‘Have you your own?’
‘Yes, it’s only got a bunk in it, but I have it all to myself. What did you book?’
‘The cheapest thing I could find – and there weren’t too many options in any case. Not much more than a notch above a hammock in the mess, I think.’
‘You’re practically a stowaway.’
‘So long as I can stow away with you, my darling, that’s fine with me.’
Guy stood up and Louisa followed suit. She gave him her cabin key from her pocket, together with directions, and promised she would be back with him as soon as she could be.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Having seen Guy off and had something to eat, Louisa faced the rest of the night renewed. She needed to get to the upper deck to see Lady Redesdale, a few flights away, but she made quick work of the dimly lit passage the crew and servants used to move speedily through the ship. At the last door, she came out right by an exit onto the deck and decided to take a final peek at the stars.
Almost as soon as she had pushed the heavy door open, she heard a woman sobbing. Electric light from the portholes and occasional bigger windows was thrown onto the deck in shafts, but in between was pitched into darkness. Louisa looked along, following the sound, and saw Ella, crouched down on the wooden boards, having pushed herself against a flat white wall. Her face was in her hands and the sobbing had not subsided. Hastily, Louisa went over to her and kneeled beside her, not daring to put her hand on Ella’s back but having her palm hover there instead.
‘Mrs Fowler? It’s Louisa Sullivan. Can I do something to help?’
Ella looked up at her. Tears had streaked her make-up and blotched her cheeks. It wasn’t all that easy to see the beauty that Louisa knew was there. More distressing than the streaks and the blotches was the pain and fury in her eyes.
‘That bastard.’
Louisa looked around but they were alone. It was cold outside, no hint of the warm currents that the earlier evening had carried on the air.
‘Let’s go inside, Mrs Fowler.’ Louisa spoke firmly.
Ella looked at her and there was a flash of fear, then she dropped her head down and pulled her knees in tighter. Louisa felt exasperated. The dramas of these people. They had money, houses, freedom. Why did they have to go and complicate things? She sighed and tried again. In spite of all that, she felt sorry for Ella too. Her husband was not a nice man and that couldn’t make up for any riches.
‘Come on.’ Louisa took one of Ella’s arms and started to stand, trying to pull her up at the same time. Ella was heavy and resisted at first, but then put a hand on the floor and weakly pushed herself up, mumbling under her breath as she did, swearing indiscriminately. Once she was standing she smoothed her palms across her face as if erasing the mess there. She closed her eyes briefly, which made her wobble slightly, and when she opened them again she looked at Louisa with intent.
‘I love him,’ she slurred. ‘I love him so much. No one understands it and no one will believe it. Not even him.’
‘Your husband?’ asked Louisa, knowing as she said it that that was not who Ella meant.
‘No, not that stupid man.’ Ella motioned with her hand as if he were crawling up to her at that second and she were swatting him away. ‘Jim. I love Jim. I love him. Ha.’ She started laughing in such a way that Louisa knew it threatened to turn to tears quickly.
Louisa dug in her pockets for the handkerchief she knew she must have somewhere – once a nursery maid, the habit was hard to lose – while Ella continued half-muttering, half-shouting through snot-nosed sobs about how much she loved Jim and hated her husband, how she was going to leave him and run away with the cabin boy. Louisa finally brought the hanky out and told Ella to be quiet, while she dabbed at her face with a corner of the white cloth.
‘S
hhh, Mrs Fowler,’ she said gently, soothingly. ‘It does no good to talk of things now. You’re tired and you need to rest.’
‘I can’t rest, he’ll do something to me in my sleep. He wants me – his wife – to go to bed with Sir Clive.’
That stopped Louisa. Her own uncle, Stephen, flashed into her mind, unbidden and unwanted. Dragging her from her bed in the middle of the night. A door closing. A belt unbuckled. She had escaped in time but the fear had driven her far from home. If this was what Ella was being put through, Louisa would not judge her actions.
‘He can’t pay that money and he wants me to go to … to go to…’ She hiccuped then and finally gave up. By this time, Louisa had wiped away the worst of the mess and had one arm around Ella’s waist, another gripping her shoulder, steering her back inside. It was a tricky manoeuvre with the heavy door, but they managed it eventually. Louisa decided they would use the crew’s corridors to get as close to Ella’s cabin as possible, in order to avoid the risk of bumping into anyone she knew.
Unfortunately, it didn’t work.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Guy was on his way to Louisa’s cabin, feeling light on his feet in spite of his long day, not to mention the nerves that fluttered in his chest ever since he boarded the first train at Victoria, which had been only three days ago but felt much longer. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Louisa, or that he didn’t have faith in their marriage, but he had been afraid of her reaction to his sudden appearance on the ship. He couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something she was hiding from him, but was at a complete loss to explain what it could be. Guy was confident the mystery wasn’t a lover – she wasn’t that kind of person and he knew the intimacy they shared was real. The only thing he could think was that the Mitfords had made a request of her that she was too embarrassed for some reason to confess to him. Which was absurd. Louisa should know he adored her, would forgive almost anything. Still, she had appeared happy to see him, once she’d got over the surprise, and he was looking forward to her coming back to the cabin later and the two of them being forced to share such a narrow bed. Yes, he was looking forward to that very much indeed.
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