Winter, for Kitty Moncrief and Lotte Bonnington, meant St Moritz and the lure of brandy-laced hot chocolate and politically immune Swiss millionaires. Le tout London would be there in their glory and the ladies had received a personal invite from the banking heir Friedrich Hottinger.
So it was on a biting January morning that Kitty and Lotte arrived at the Gare du Nord in Paris. Only vast swathes of ermine and mink could keep them from the great chill. That and the little hip flask of gin that Kitty always carried about her person in cases of emergency.
‘I do think we did frightfully well to only take five trunks each’ said Lotte gazing at their hand-initialed Hermes leather luggage. Van Cleef and Arpels had also been very kind to make them both a set of mother of pearl and tortoise shell minaudieres for the journey. Kitty lit up her first cigarette of the day and surveyed the scene. Burgundy clad porters with peaked caps ran along the station as steam plumed forth from the mighty engines. Towers of valises trundled past them along with the busy chatter of the other passengers.
‘All this toing and froing is making me rather tired old girl, shall we go to our cabin?’. Without further ado the two boarded the train and made their way along the train to their first class quarters. Not very long afterwards the train pulled out of the station.
~
At midday, having spent the morning playing cribbage and looking at cows through the window, it was decided that luncheon was very much in order. Once they had changed into more suitable clothing it was nearer 1pm and they were given the very last table in the dining carriage. Lotte wore a cerulian kimono adorned with a large diamond brooch in the shape of a flamingo. It suited her newly bobbed hair and lacquered nails. Kitty wore tweed knickerbockers with a teal silk blouse and her new Christian Dior laced boots. Heads, as ever turned.
‘Champagne, ladies?’ proffered the waiter in what was evidently a rhetorical question. Crystal coupes clinked and the ladies settled into a feast of oysters, lobster, guinea fowl and syllabub. As they ate the attracted the gaze of a terribly dashing young man in dinner suit and bow tie. He waited until they were enjoying their cognacs before he made his way over. He proferred a silver cigarette case engraved with the initials ‘I. F.’ along with an unnerving stare of his dark dark eyes.
‘Cigarette, ladies?’ asked the gentleman. Quite used to such interruptions Kitty and Lotte cooly accepted and were not surprised when their new acquaintance sat down. He really was desperately attractive with his almost black hair and easy manner.
‘And where are you headed, young man?’ asked Lotte. The chap raised his eyebrows and laughed. ‘Young man?’ he asked, ‘I shouldn’t think I am any younger than the two of you.’ Kitty giggled at his insolence. They were, after all, women of the world and here was some green upstart trying to find his place in it. Still, they were on a long train journey and needed something to amuse them so they let him tell them his stories of studying in Moscow and joining the Foreign Office. Lotte, naturally, was rather taken with this confident fellow and swirled her cognac lasciviously with dreams of troikas and log fires.
~
Much later that afternoon Kitty retired to her cabin for a post prandial nap and to make inroads into her latest novel. Kitty had found that she had a knack for colourful prose, and in fact not much of it need be considered fiction. She had recently begun a story of lust and betrayal in Pondicherry but the hypnotic chug of the train and the rhythmic music of the typewriter soon lulled her into a cosy sleep at her desk.
‘Wake up, wake!’ Kitty’s velvet smoking gown was being tugged urgently by a rather dishevelled Lotte. She looked up, emerging through a dreamy fog of sultry Maharajas and rubies. ‘What on earth is the matter?’ she asked her companion, whose rosy glow could surely not be contributed merely to an afternoon of passion with the mysterious young civil servant with whom Lotte had absconded from the lunch table. Lotte, all a-flush with excitement, could hardly contain herself.
‘Well, we were just smoking a most delightful post-coital cigarette when there was a sudden knock on the door. I thought it rather odd, it being mid afternoon and surely not quite time for tea yet. Well, my young lothario jumped out of bed and told me to hide under the covers. What a giggle, I thought! What larks! But then there was a smash of glass and some sort of rumpus and rough exchanges in what I could only imagine was Russian. And then more glass was broken and there was a sudden rush of arctic air through the cabin. And then the covers were drawn back and my dear boy was standing there, not a hair out of place. No sign of the other chap, but the cabin window was smashed to bits! My companion calmly informed me that there had been some sort of misunderstanding and he was going to see if the porter could do something about the window. And then he left. And, well, I waited a bit but he never came back.’
Kitty eyed Lotte suspiciously ‘and what, dear, do you possibly imagine that was all about?’
‘Not a clue, my darling, not a clue.’ But both women had moved in enough circles to have more than just the faintest inkling.
‘I’m sure we will hear more of your young man one day.’ smiled Kitty.
~
It was 9pm and somewhere near the Swiss Alps. Or maybe French. Kitty and Lotte were caught up in a pleasant blur of digestifs and stirring violin concertos, courtesy of the gramophone, and hadn’t really paid much attention to the scenery. Both, tonight, were dressed in black silk gowns. Lotte wore a magnificent diamond tiara that she had been given by an Italian automobile heir, much to the chagrin of his mother. Kitty wore an exotic bracelet in the form of a snake that wrapped around her slender arm in a dazzle of jet and emeralds. They had dined on veal with morels and were just ruminating on the the possibility of ordering a bottle of Dom Ruinart Rose before dessert when there was suddenly a commotion at the entrance to the car.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, I must ask that you vacate the dining car immediately, we have the most important of guests aboard who demand absolute privacy.’ The poor man dabbed at his brow furiously and urged his guests to leave. Most acquiesced and began to depart with a modest sigh and the promise of complementary champagne in their cabins. When, however, he reached Kitty and Lotte they were steadfast in the refusal to leave.
‘I think not,’ retorted Kitty incredulously, ‘if they wish to dine they can jolly well dine with us. Or retire to their cabin.’ Kitty Moncrief was not a woman to rile, at anyone’s behest.
Much tumult ensued. Porters and flunkeys rushed around and the maitre d’ was quite beside himself. After an absolute age there was a hushed reverence as none other than the Prince of Wales and his consort entered the dining cabin.
‘Gosh, she looks terribly thin,’ breathed Lotte on her first view of Wallis Simpson, ‘what a pinched little mouth she has.’ Kitty couldn’t help but agree. Here was the woman who had said one could never be too thin and there she was, living proof of the contrary.
‘You would think that the Prince would rather a more, well, womanly woman’ said Lotte, unable to hide her contempt. Kitty was staring with her beguiling eyes straight at the aforementioned Prince. And he was smiling right back. ‘Oh, my dear,’ she laughed quietly, ‘I think he does.’
Quite unexpectedly to all except Kitty, the Prince and Wallis made their way down the cabin and stopped at the very table where the ladies were enjoying their dinner. Wallis Simpson, prune-faced and ghastly white, did little to hide her contempt at the sight of such lovely creatures holding her David in thrall.
‘May we join you?‘ asked the Prince nonchalantly. Wallis’s mouth fell upon like a dumb goldfish and fury burned in her eyes but she could do very little as the Prince slide down next to Kitty on the banquet seating. ‘Waiter!’ he barked, ‘a bottle of Dom Perignon 1921’, looking at Kitty’s dark eyes he added ‘and some Osetra caviar!’
~
‘So,’ squealed Lotte the moment they entered Kitty’s cabin, ‘are you the mistress of the Prince of Wales?’ Kitty looked at her friend incredulously and took a sip of the Napoleon Brandy that she had procured from the bar on their way.
‘Don’t don’t be utterly ridiculous! Of course I am not, I would never associate myself with someone so interested in the politics of the fascists or in pseudo-masochistic relationships with older women. And in case you hadn’t noticed, he already has a mistress. I am not interested in being merely one plaything in a coterie of women.’
‘But they way he looked at you!’ exclaimed Lotte, ‘the way he talked to you! I thought that Simpson woman was going to spontaneously combust all over the velour banquets!’
Kitty sighed and sat down. ‘I was acquainted with him once, yes, years ago. When he was young and I was foolish. Mentioned marriage but I was never going to be tied down to such a ridiculous establishment as the monarchy. Or indeed, to such a silly man. He really is quite peculiar. Did give me an awful lot of diamonds though darling.’
‘Do you think he still loves you?‘ asked Lotte, hardly daring to breathe in her excitement at such a revelation.’
‘Don’t be daft, of course he does. Many a man will spend years trying to convince himself that he doesn’t care one jot about lost love but somewhere very hidden away they always do.’
~
The following morning the Orient Express pulled into Innsbruck and the ladies adjourned to the awaiting Bentley that would take them on to the snowy hills of St. Moritz. As they drove high into the mountains the journey that had taken place seemed more and more like a fanciful dream. Kitty and Lotte were the most discreet ladies in London and therein lay much of their appeal. For who would believe the stories that had befallen them?
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