A Murder in Mayfair (15 page)

I found out that for the last ten years of her working life she had been in partnership with a friend running a catering service that threw high-class parties for well-heeled clients.

“We did very well,” she said, in her cool and careful way, “but I sometimes think I was
too
particular. I had to have everything just as I was used to at the best places, and it was thrown away on some of our clients. But then, that was my training . . .”

“Your training?” I asked. By the way, the rest of this conversation is taken verbatim from my tape, which I had switched on without, so far as I could see, Mrs. Gould noticing.

“Not training in the modern sense, but it
was
training, and the best possible sort. I went into service as a girl—at Chatsworth, just before the war. Of course the war virtually put an end to domestic service as a way of life, so that after it was over I was much in demand, getting high salaries and great responsibilities, even though I was still quite young. I
should
have joined up, or joined the Land Army, done my patriotic duty. But I loved what I did so much, and strings were pulled, and I got out of it.”

“I suppose you worked for some very influential families?” I
asked, trying not to vary my manner from the earlier interview.

“Oh, I did. The Wriothesleys, the Herberts, the Revills—”

“Oh really?” I said brightly. “My mother used to work at a high-class couturier's in London” (truth) “and Lady Revill was one of their customers” (lie, or so far as I know it was).

“Lady
John
was her real title.”

“Of course,” I said hastily. “That's what my mother said they all had to call her. It's rather confusing, isn't it, in spite of Princess Michael of Kent.”

“Lord John always referred to her as Veronica, so it was definitely confusing for us at first. But I've always liked to get things right.”

“I do, too. There's so much slovenliness around. So you were actually housekeeper to
that
part of the family?”

“Oh yes. The old Earl had moved abroad for tax reasons, and the eldest son . . . had an unusual lifestyle. Lord and Lady John were the only ones who could be said to have a household to run. Since he was in politics that was almost a necessity.”

“That must have made an interesting life for you. And of course when the murder took place”—I caught myself up, since I'd been about to link that in as one of the interesting things about the job—“that must have meant things turned very unpleasant.”

“Very.” Her lips set in disapproval, which was clearly something one went to great lengths not to encounter. “It was partly because of that that I later set up the party business with my friend. Subsequent employers always knew about what they called the Revill affair, and were curious.
It was unpleasant—a distasteful intrusion into what didn't concern them. I told them nothing, of course, beyond that the whole thing had been totally unexpected.”

“That's what my mother said. She'd talked to Lord John sometimes in the showrooms when he came to collect his wife after a fitting, and she thought he was such a lovely man.”

“Everyone did. I think he was the best employer I ever had. I always felt guilty I couldn't help the police more, but you see when I got to be able to pick and choose my jobs, I always insisted on a flat to myself—somewhere where I was completely independent and could lead my own life.”

I nodded sagely at this, and I really did sympathize with her point of view.

“Otherwise I suppose, if you became part of the family, you might never have had a moment to yourself.”

“That's exactly it. Especially as the children of the aristocracy often have . . . difficult upbringings. Or unusual ones, at any rate. I'm not criticizing, of course—”

“Of course not.”

“—but the parents are often so busy they have very little time for them, so someone else has to step in—nanny, housekeeper, scullery maid, whatever. If I'd wanted a family I would have married.”

“I thought—”

“Mrs.
Gould is a courtesy title.” The old woman's eyes sparkled. “I was very young when I got my first job as housekeeper, so I made believe I'd been widowed in the war, to give myself a bit of dignity and experience.”

“How clever.”

“It served its purpose. What I really wanted was not a husband and children but my independence. That would
have been impossible in the big houses in the old days, but it wasn't after the war. I wanted to be alone, even lonely if necessary. I've always found loneliness rather a positive thing. But it meant I knew very little about what happened above stairs. Caroline and Matthew were terribly cut off from children of their own age, but they had their nanny. I might arrange special treats for them now and then, but that would be all I'd do.”

“I think you were wise. If you got attached to children in the households you worked for and then went on to a new job, it would be an awful wrench. And you might have continued in a job you didn't like for their sakes.”

She nodded, impressed by my sagacity.

“I've known domestic staff who did. As it was I simply ran the household, cooked when necessary, and retreated to my basement flat at night. That was my sanctuary, and I didn't even have to hang a
DO NOT DISTURB
notice on the door. It was understood: whatever went on in the rest of the house after my hours was nothing to do with me.”

I ventured on a new tack.

“My mother was always convinced Lady John had a new man in her life at the time she . . . when it all happened.” Mrs. Gould had blushed, and I went on hurriedly. “Of course she had nothing to base that on—just a sparkle in the eye, I expect, or a new taste for glamorous clothes.”

“No . . . no, I'm sure nothing like that was going on.”

“Obviously my mother got it wrong. You'd know, being in the house most of the day.”

Her face took on the pursed, disapproving look again.

“Inevitably people talked. Of course it wasn't my job to make beds, unless the maid failed to turn up, but she would have talked, and I would have seen signs. . . . We all knew about the problems in the marriage. It wasn't a
happy household toward the end, though that doesn't make it any less surprising.”

“So of course you knew about Lord John and the nanny.”

She paused before replying, as if wondering whether to cut the conversation short. I think it was the “fact” that my mother knew Lord John that made her talk more openly, perhaps, than she had in years about the case.

“Oh yes, I knew. If I didn't know from any other signs, she would have insisted on telling me herself. She often tried to talk about it. She'd come down into the kitchen or wherever I was, and she'd sit down and start skirting round the subject, and of course I could see through
her,
hardly more than a chit, and I'd say: ‘I'm very busy, so if you'll excuse me . . .' And she'd take herself off, smiling her catlike smile.”

“She sounds like a very unlikable young woman.”

“Oh, she was—not on the surface, but not very far underneath. Clever and cunning. Whatever happened, the only thing that mattered to her was that she got what she wanted—whatever it was at the time. Other people were only there for her benefit and convenience. I say she was clever, but she wasn't clever enough to hide the fact that she knew she was clever. Full of herself she was—and that's like a cat too, isn't it?”

“It is. And so is cunning.”

She nodded vigorously.

“That's right. Lovely creatures—I always had one as soon as I was independent—but I never trusted them. I got Lucy's measure as soon as she came. She went on and on about the research she was going to do—though she might have known that was of no interest to an ill-educated
woman like myself. ‘Professor Marryott thinks I ought to look at Arcadian themes in Shakespearean comedy,' she would say, or ‘Professor Frere thinks the Shakespeare Apocrypha is ripe for a new consideration.' Such nonsense, talk like that to me! Anyway there was less of that sort of thing once the . . . bed arrangements changed.”

My eyebrows raised.

“I didn't know it went as far as that. My mother always guessed they probably snatched opportunities when Lady John was busy with her social round.”

She hesitated, but eventually went on.

“Actually he'd moved out of the double bedroom and into the guest room even before Lucy Mariotti was given the nanny's job. Things weren't going well.”

“Obviously.”

“There was always a pretense made later on that the guest bed had been slept in, but we knew who was sleeping with whom. . . . It was a very tense household by the end.”

I shook my head wisely.

“It was surely asking for trouble to appoint a beautiful young girl on a live-in basis when they needed a new nanny.”

“I suppose it was, but it was only for a short time. She came in November, and she was intending to leave in June to travel round Europe.”

“Frankly, in sexual matters that is not a short time.”

Mrs. Gould shook herself. My words, I think, had been too explicit and too modern.

“I mustn't keep you. I've taken up a lot of your time.”

“Not at all,” I said, pressing the bell to summon Mrs. Walden. “I've taken up an awful lot of
yours.
”

“I have an awful lot of time begging to be taken, up,” she said, but without bitterness. She stood by her choices.

“Do you think that Lord John is still alive?” I asked her, as I stood waiting.

“I haven't the faintest idea, nor who might have helped him get away. It's as much a mystery to me as to other people and the police. It's what my later employers always asked, but I had no basis for an opinion, even if I'd cared to give them one. But I would have a guess on one thing.”

“What's that?”

“If he's still alive, the children will know. He loved them, and they loved him. If anyone in the house gave them time, it was Lord John. Once they grew up he will have made contact.”

“Even though he killed their mother?”

“Even though. I told you, it was only a guess. But the children felt nothing for their mother.”

“Well, you
have
had a long conversation!” said Mrs. Walden, bustling in and shepherding me into the corridor toward my next patient.

“Not about what we were supposed to be discussing,” I admitted. “She's a very interesting woman. She did make clear what a very high opinion she has of the arrangements and the staff here.”

“We're the family she never had,” said Mrs. Walden. “Mind you she's no more lonely than some of those that
did
have family.”

To sum up: my impressions of Mrs. Gould after our long talk were that she is truthful, clearheaded, and disinterested. I would trust anything she said, because her memory seemed remarkable. Lack of personal and emotional involvements for herself have meant, I suspect, that her memories of other people's lives are more vivid than most people's
would be. It's possible that, in spite of her apparent frankness (granted that that frankness was often expressed in a roundabout way, part of the discretion that went with her job), there were some things concealed—I couldn't make up my mind about this, but I think it's possible. Whether this was from discretion, unwillingness to indulge in conjecture, or simply embarrassment about some subjects I wouldn't like to guess.

Frieda Brewer

She had got far more out of her than I could have done, that was clear. Never in a million years, I was sure, would Mrs. Gould have talked in that unbuttoned way with a man. There were some interesting facts—the names of the academics, for example, and confirmation of the fact that the marriage was on the rocks even before Lucy arrived. But what was most valuable of all was that she had been the first to give me some idea of the atmosphere in the house, the feel and the mechanics of the household. And one could see that the arrival of Lucy served to light the fuse that slowly spluttered its way along to the dynamite. I was beginning to get the idea that Lucy was a young lady who relished blowups.

H
ow does one get the eerie sensation of being watched? Followed? I suppose the followed bit is easy. But in my case I got that sensation after a day or two in which I had a much more amorphous feeling of uneasiness, which crystallized itself into the idea that eyes were on me. It's difficult to explain that without recourse to the supernatural, but even at the time I tried to keep my feet on the ground, and resisted notions that would have the police at the Palace of Westminster grinning behind their hands. It is just possible that in a crowded street one registers a face, then registers it again, quite unconsciously of course, and eventually that eerie sensation starts building up. It's not at all a pleasant feeling, and it takes you over.

And that's the reason, I imagine, why I noticed the footsteps. I make a habit of getting out of the Ministry, either at lunchtime or for an hour or two at some point in the day. A minister who gets himself immersed in his meetings and his routine for the whole of the working day and beyond eventually gets swamped by it. Sometimes I go to Vitello d'Oro for a quick lunch of pasta or gnocchi, but mostly, if the weather is anything better than foul, I prefer to stay outside. Just the fresh air, the uncaring faces, the
feeling of being part of a big city, an ant in an anthill, is healthy—psychologically speaking.

It was a Tuesday in early October, an unusually bright day for that time of year. I'd worked through lunch time because I'd had a long meeting during the morning with a delegation concerned about education for the blind. But while I'd worked I'd stolen glances out of the window. About two o'clock I decided to take my hour off. I left the Department, crossed Victoria Street, and made for St. James's Park, pausing at the entrance to light a cigarette. That's when I became conscious—or
thought
I became conscious—of footsteps behind me, stopping when I stopped. I was in no hurry to light my cigarette, thinking what I should do. When I did start walking again the footsteps also started up again behind me.