The Granville Sisters Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  Recent Titles from Una-Mary Parker

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Prologue

  Part One: Aspects of Revelry–1935

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Part Two: Far-Reaching Consequences–1936–1939

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Part Three: As Darkness Closes In–1939

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Recent Titles from Una-Mary Parker

  ALEXIA’S SECRETS *

  BROKEN TRUST

  DARK PASSIONS

  ECHOES OF BETRAYAL *

  ENTICEMENTS

  FALSE PROMISES

  THE FAIRBAIRN GIRLS *

  THE GRANVILLE AFFAIRE *

  THE GRANVILLE LEGACY *

  THE PALACE AFFAIR

  RICHES

  SCANDALS

  TAKING CONTROL

  VEIL OF SECRETS

  *Available from Severn House

  THE GRANVILLE SISTERS

  Una-Mary Parker

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  First published in Great Britain and the USA 2005 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  9–15 High Street, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM1 1DF.

  This eBook edition first published in 2014 by Severn House Digital an imprint

  of Severn House Publishers Limited

  Copyright © 2005 by Una-Mary Parker.

  The right of Una-Mary Parker to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  Parker, Una-Mary

  The Granville sisters

  1. Sisters–Fiction 2. London (England)–Fiction 3. Domestic fiction

  I. Title

  823.9’14 [F]

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-6258-7 (cased)

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-9145-7 (paper)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-624-3 (ePub)

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

  This ebook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

  Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland

  Prologue

  The five legendary Granville sisters first became famous for their beauty in the mid-thirties. The daughters of banker Henry Granville and his wife, Liza, they cut a swathe through high society, with the debut of Rosie and Juliet in 1935.

  Photographs of them appeared in magazines and newspapers. They were the talk of the town for their stylish fashions, fabulous jewels and extravagant parties.

  But they also attracted gossip as they became embroiled in scandals that included deception, betrayal, illegitimacy, adultery, divorce and suicide, which even their rich and influential parents were unable to cover up.

  Then World War II began and nothing would ever be the same again for a family who believed they were indestructible.

  Extract from the Bystander, May 1956

  By Richard Warwick

  PART ONE

  Aspects of Revelry

  1935

  One

  The rivalry between the two elder Granville sisters had started when they were small, but had escalated into open hostility by the time Rosie turned eighteen, when Juliet was nearly seventeen. Whilst Louise, Amanda and Charlotte, who were much younger, lived in harmony up on the third floor with Nanny, a battle of wills was being faught in the large first-floor drawing room, driving their mother to distraction and their father to say he’d call off their coming out altogether if ‘things went on like this’.

  ‘But it’s so unfair,’ Rosie raged, eyes blue like dew-drenched hyacinths, blonde curls quivering. ‘I should be coming out by myself. Juliet’s far too young.’

  ‘You’re afraid I’ll outshine you,’ Juliet protested, knowing that she would, without even trying. She was also tall, slender, with blonde hair and pale skin, but her eyes were the shade of aquamarines, and very slightly slanting, and someone had remarked to her father that she had a mouth that would launch a thousand cheque books.

  ‘Seventeen really is rather young to be a débutante,’ their mother, Liza Granville, demurred. She was slightly scared of them both, with their natural assurance and self-confidence.

  ‘Think how much money it’ll save,’ Juliet said swiftly. ‘We can share one coming-out ball, instead of giving two.’

  But money, as they all knew, didn’t really come into it. They lived in one of the grandest houses in Mayfair, had a large Georgian house in Surrey set in twenty acres, and Henry Granville was chairman of Hammerton’s Bank.

  What mattered to Rosie was that Juliet possessed what everyone was calling S.A. Even she could see that sex appeal emanated from her sister like exotic perfume from a lily. It was there in the way she smiled, the look in her eyes, and the natural sway of her hips when she walked, especially in high heels. Men turned to look at her in the street, and her father’s male friends raised their eyebrows and said she’d ‘go far’. Nobody had ever said Rosie was going anywhere.

  ‘Mummy, you can’t bring Juliet out. Who ever heard of sisters, a year apart, coming out together? It’ll look so twee!’ Rosie said, a note of panic in her voice.

  ‘It won’t look twee at all,’ Juliet said disdainfully. ‘It’s not as if we look alike, and I certainly don’t intend to dress like you.’

  ‘What’s wrong with my clothes?’

  ‘Boring! You dress like everyone else. I intend to be different.’

  ‘Listen, girls,’ Liza cut in anxiously. ‘This quarreling has got to stop. Daddy’s already threatened to cancel any of us doing the season this year if you go on like this.’

  Juliet smiled, realizing at that moment that ‘doing the season’ and presenting her daughters at court meant much more to her mother than it did to either of them. In fact, this was a moment Liza Granville had been secretly looking forward to for years, and Juliet knew it.

  ‘Mummy,’ she said sweetly, ‘I’ll never say a cross word to Rosie again if you’ll let me come out. I’ll be as good as gold, and do whatever you say, but please, please let me go to all the parties too.’

  Liza wavered, avoiding looking at Rosie.

  ‘I know Rosie’s your favourite daughter,’ Juliet continued wistfully, ‘and I promise you I won’t get in her way, but I would so love us to do it together, like a proper family.’

  Her mother flushed guiltily, because what Juliet said was partly true, but Rosie was only her favourite because she was docile and needed to be supported, whilst Juliet would always be able to look after herself.

  ‘I don’t have favourites, Juliet,’ she said, in a clipped voice. ‘All five of you are equal, to Daddy and me.’

  Rosie preened slightly. She was closest to their mother.

  ‘Then can we come out together?’ Juliet begged.

  Liza gave a heavy sigh. ‘Very well then. But no more fighting.’

  Juliet beamed and Rosie glowered, and neither of them looke
d at each other.

  ‘We’d better go to Norman Hartnell about your wardrobes,’ Liza remarked. ‘The season only lasts for three months, you know, from May to July, but there are up to five parties a night. You’re going to need ball gowns and cocktail dresses and outfits for Ascot, Henley and Wimbledon. Not to mention masses of shoes and hats and handbags.’

  The sisters’ smiles widened in proportion to the rise of enthusiasm in Liza’s voice, for they were also aware she’d need a new wardrobe too, even bigger and grander than theirs, and that was what she was finding so thrilling.

  ‘The only reason the London season is during May, June and July is because the men have nothing to kill during those months,’ Nanny Granville explained to the three younger sisters as they sat at a table in the middle of the day nursery having breakfast.

  There were bowls of porridge for the children, and they drank their milk from silver-crested mugs, while Nanny and Ruby, the nursery maid, tucked into cups of strong Indian tea, poured from a sturdy brown teapot, and gobbled up slices of toast and marmalade.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Charlotte asked, wide-eyed with horror at the mention of killing. She was five, and as pretty as a doll, with long blonde hair, and the same blue eyes as Rosie. ‘Killing what? What does Daddy kill?’

  ‘All the gentry go shooting and fishing and stalking,’ Nanny said in a reproving voice. The ways of the upper classes were dear to her heart. ‘From August until April they look after their country estates and shoot pheasants, partridges, quails, woodcock –’ she ticked them off on her plump fingers – ‘snipe, hares and rabbits.’

  ‘Like Peter Rabbit?’ Charlotte asked hollowly, turning pale.

  ‘I don’t think you should be telling her all this, Nanny. She’ll have nightmares,’ said Amanda disapprovingly. She was eight, rather prissy, and so short-sighted her eyes were permanently screwed up like a mole, because her mother refused to acknowledge she needed glasses. ‘When I grow up, I’m never going to shoot. Or fish, or hunt, either. It’s all terribly cruel.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Nanny retorted robustly. ‘How else do you think the gentlemen are going to amuse themselves? Why do you think your father keeps a gamekeeper?’

  Louise, as sweet and calm as a summer’s day and just turned ten, gazed at Charlotte with sympathetic eyes.

  ‘It’s all right, Charlotte. They’re not pets like the dogs at Hartley. Daddy would never hurt an animal. When they’re shot, it’s so quick they don’t feel anything.’

  Charlotte’s bottom lip quivered.

  ‘Now, come along girls,’ Nanny said briskly. ‘Ruby has to walk Louise and Amanda to school in ten minutes, and you’ve got to practise your reading, Charlotte.’

  On the floor below, Juliet let out a thin high-pitched scream, turned over violently in bed, and then awoke, trembling.

  She sat up slowly and covered her face with her hands. Would these nightmares never stop? It had been ages since she’d had one, and she’d hoped … but no, her dream had been so vivid, so terrifying, that it was going to take her hours to shake off the hideous images.

  Then she noticed her dress for her presentation tonight, hanging outside her wardrobe. It was oyster satin, cut on the cross, with shoulder straps encrusted with tiny pearls. There was also a velvet train that would trail behind her, and white kid gloves reaching to her upper arms.

  Her passport, she reflected, to creating another persona. An entry into a grown-up world, where she would be able to leave behind the person she’d been and become the person she wanted to be. A step towards freedom, and an ability to take control of her life from now on.

  She could hardly wait.

  Down the corridor, Liza was sitting up in bed, enjoying her morning cup of China tea, which Parsons, the butler, had brought her earlier, on a small lacquered tray.

  As she lay back against the downy pillows, in her glamorous pink bedroom with its antiques and rich pink brocade hangings, she wondered if she’d ever thought, as the only child of a badly paid teacher and his seamstress wife, now both dead, that she’d one day be married to a rich man who lived in a palatial house in the most fashionable part of London? That she’d have eight servants? A chauffeur and a Bentley at her disposal? And a safe stuffed with the Granville family jewels, and her own lady’s maid to take care of her clothes?

  Henry Granville had fallen deeply and passionately in love with her when she’d been a companion to an old lady back in 1913. She’d been eighteen and the old lady had turned out to be his great-aunt, whom he visited regularly. Liza simply couldn’t believe her luck when he’d proposed, and eventually whisked her away to a world she’d only ever dreamed about. But at first she’d refused him.

  ‘I’ll never be able to keep up with you and your family, Henry,’ she’d protested, sure she’d be out of her depth, especially after she’d met his mother, Lady Anne Granville, whose father had been the Earl of Hanley.

  ‘You’ll be fine, my darling,’ Henry promised. He was dashing, tall, with broad shoulderes, fair hair and a moustache, and the brilliant blue eyes their daughters had inherited. ‘I’ll look after you. I promise.’

  Although she was wildly in love, Liza had still been doubtful. ‘Suppose I say the wrong thing in front of your friends?’

  Henry told her to be herself. He’d also promised that their different backgrounds would never, ever, cause problems. ‘I love you and I want you as my wife,’ he’d said with sincerity.

  They’d been married the following year, just before the Great War started. Henry, who had joined the Guards, was sent to the front after the first few idyllic months, and Liza went to stay with Lady Anne, at Hartley Hall. Her mother-in-law had welcomed her warmly, taking her subtly under her wing, and Liza learned fast, desperate to make Henry proud of her.

  Never intellectual, nor over-bright, she nevertheless grew into a sweet and attractive woman of shallow depths and few persuasive abilities but great charm. As their five daughters were born, so also was her ambition that they should marry as well and as happily as she had.

  Henry realized this was what was behind her wanting the girls to make ‘good matches’. And if he secretly wished her ambition was less obvious, he said nothing, but took it as a compliment, for it meant she had found happiness with him.

  ‘I’d have gone to the loo before we left if I’d known we’d have to sit here for hours,’ Rosie grumbled.

  It was the 8th of June. The four of them had been sitting in the car for two hours, and they were still stuck in the Mall, several hundred yards from the gates of Buckingham Palace.

  ‘We should have left home earlier,’ Henry remarked heavily, looking distinguished in black knee breeches, stockings with buckled shoes, and his war medals. ‘All that fussing with your headdress, Rosie, has made us dreadfully late.’

  ‘It’s much more difficult to fix the feathers with this new short hairstyle, than it was when one’s hair was long,’ Liza said placatingly. Wearing a silver lamé dress, with a silver lace train, and a dazzling diamond tiara and necklace, her face glowed with happiness. ‘As long as we’re in the palace by eight o’clock, it’ll be all right,’ she added, smoothing her gloves.

  Juliet smiled smugly. Her long thick tresses, which she’d refused to have cut, had been arranged into a Grecian knot, so the hairdresser had had no problem in pinning the three white Prince of Wales feathers into her hair. She was just cross that she hadn’t been allowed to borrow one of her mother’s tiaras.

  ‘Only married ladies are allowed to wear them,’ Liza had explained.

  The long line of large black cars, like hearses on their way to a morticians’ convention, edged slowly forward. The route was lined by thousands of people, agog to see the ladies in their finery and blazing jewels.

  Juliet loved this attention, but Rosie looked embarrassed.

  ‘For goodness’ sake, don’t wave back, Juliet,’ Henry said at one point, as she raised a white gloved hand to acknowledge the crowds. ‘You’re not royalty.’ />
  Royalty. Juliet savoured the word and imagined she was some foreign princess, accepting the adulation of her subjects.

  Newspaper photographers had started taking their pictures now, through the car windows.

  ‘I didn’t know it would be like this,’ Rosie said, appalled, while Juliet smiled flirtatiously into the lenses.

  ‘The women come to see what people are wearing,’ Liza observed, blasé. ‘It’s like a fashion show to them. They haven’t come to see us.’

  Getting out of the car when they arrived was a hazard neither of the sisters had forseen. Trains had to be draped over their left arm, heads had to be ducked so they wouldn’t break their feathers, bouquets of gardenias and roses must be carefully clutched.

  When a liveried footman offered his white gloved hand to support Juliet, she grasped it with the fervour of someone thrown a lifeline as they are about to drown in a rip tide.

  ‘Gosh!’ she murmured, climbing up the steps that led into the palace.

  Once inside, Rosie and Juliet had never seen such a blinding mix of scarlet and gold in their lives, with a carpet that stretched ahead of them like a red ocean.

  ‘Golly!’ Rosie echoed, with awe.

  ‘What happens now?’ Juliet asked her mother.

  ‘Follow us,’ Liza whispered, leading the way with Henry up the grand sweeping staircase, past ranks of Yeomen of the Guards, until they reached the top, where powdered footmen collected Liza’s white fox cape and Juliet and Rosie’s ermine wraps.

  Whilst the men greeted their friends, gentle preening was going on amongst the mothers and daughters, like doves attending delicately to their toilette.

  Then they moved forward into the White Drawing Room, which was already crowded. To one side there were rows of gilt chairs.

  ‘Go and sit there,’ Liza told them. ‘You’ve got your cards of command, haven’t you?’

  They nodded, clutching the precious cards bearing their names, without which the court usher would not allow them to go forward to be presented.