‘Sorry about that, but the turkeys have arrived,’ grumbled Jess, interrupting my reverie as she sank down in her chair opposite me, arranging her skirt. ‘Ten of the buggers, far too early, so my chef is throwing things out of his pram.’
‘It’s no problem.’ I smiled at her. ‘It’s so nice here; I was enjoying just sitting and relaxing.’
‘Thank you.’ She looked gratified. ‘It’s very old-fashioned, not at allchic, chicas the French would say, and not everybody’s thing these days, but I like it.’ Then, topping up our glasses with red wine from the carafe she had ordered, she changed the subject. ‘So, Susan,’ she announced and took a swig. ‘Don’t let her get to you. In fact, do you mind if I give you a word of advice?’
‘Fill your boots,’ I said with a shrug. ‘Everybody else does.’
Jess drew back slightly.
‘Oh, sorry,’ I amended quickly. ‘I know you’re only trying to help.’
‘Well, my advice is simply to humour her.’
‘Strangely enough, somebody else has advised me to do almost exactly the same thing this very morning.’
‘Well, they’re right. She’s harmless, you know.’
Actually, Susan Mandeville struck me as about as harmless as a blunt-nosed viper, but I let this pass.
‘Is that what Luc does?’ I asked instead. ‘Humour her?’
Jess thought a second. ‘More or less.’ She took a sip of wine.
I hesitated. It occurred to me that Luc Mandeville would not in any way appreciate this sort of gossip about what amounted to his private life. Besides, in truth I really wasn’t that bothered about Susan Mandeville’s shenanigans. She was by no means the first picky person I’d cooked for. I’d only mentioned her earlier to Ros to deflect examination of my love life, or rather, what passes for my love life, which isn’t a lot. But I seemed to have painted myself into a bit of a corner. With Jess, however, it was immediately apparent she needed no encouragement to talk about Luc’s private life.
‘He feels sorry for her, you see,’ she said.
‘Is that so?’ I affected disinterest in the hope it would put her off. It didn’t. Instead, she eyed me consideringly for a moment, a look of determination coming over her face.
‘Well, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t know,’ she said.
I opened my mouth to say there was every reason, but Jess rushed on before I could speak.
‘You see, Luc thinks his father, Johnny –myJohnny – treated his mother very badly.’
I gave up. ‘And did he?’ I murmured.
‘Most emphaticallynot.’ Jess spoke with such force it gave me a jolt. Then, before I could stop her, she was off, plunging into a saga about the Mandeville marriage that would have put Catherine Cookson to shame.
You had to go back nearly fifty years, she said. Susan had been a sort ofdeb. Of course, debutantes had long been abolished by then, and good riddance to them – this was said with contempt – but Susan was the product of awealthy but middle-class couple who wanted to be upper class, and their way to achieve this was to launch their only child, their daughter, on society. Social climbers in effect, nouveau riche into the bargain. Jess paused at this point, as if marshalling her forces.
‘Was Johnny an aristocrat, then?’ I was intrigued despite my misgivings. ‘I thought all French aristos were guillotined in the Revolution.’
Jess scoffed. ‘No, of course he wasn’t. The Mandeville family were rich, certainly, but in no sense nobility. However, Johnny had one supreme advantage that set him above the other possibly aristocratic men in that milieu looking for a mate.’
‘And what was that?’
‘He was French.’
‘You’ve lost me.’
‘Okay.’ She frowned slightly as if irritated. ‘Okay, you would have been born too late to understand the social manoeuvrings of the 1960s and ’70s. By the late ’80s and 1990s, all people cared about was whether you’d got money –loadsamoney, as we used to say. But back in the day when Johnny married Susan, nearly half a century ago, where you came from, yourclassin effect, still mattered, mattered more than if you were penniless.’ She paused a second, thinking. ‘Jilly Cooper wrote a book about it.’
I nodded. ‘So she did. My mum lent me an old copy years ago. It’s very funny. Have you read it?’ But Jess was not interested in literary digressions, if you can call the immortal Jilly Cooper a literary digression.
‘Johnny was not upper class or anything like it,’ shesaid in her no-nonsense fashion. Then she gave one of her little snorts. ‘Although that’s not quite what he would have had you believe.’
‘How so?’
