Death at Daisy's Folly (31 page)

“Because I am the mistress of the Prince of Wales?” Daisy's laugh was gently mocking. “Do you think I
chose
that distinction?”

“Well, yes, I suppose I did,” Kate admitted. “Didn't you?”

Daisy pulled her dressing gown closer around her, her face half in firelight, half in shadow. “I admit to a certain scheming for Royal attention,” she said slowly, “but at the time, it was Bertie's help I needed, not his romantic attentions. I was involved in a rather messy disagreement with Lady Beresford over a letter I had written to her husband, and Bertie was the only one who could intervene to save me from scandal.” She looked pained at the recollection. “But that's beside the point. The truth is that once His Royal Highness has decided he wants a particular woman, it is utterly impossible for her to refuse him, however
she
may feel.”

“Oh,” Kate said, suddenly seeing through the romantic veil she and Beryl Bardwell had thrown over the affair.

“And once he has preferred a woman,” Daisy went on, “she is his alone—except, of course, that her husband may also enjoy her. But in many ways, the Prince is like a spoiled child, extraordinarily demanding of time and attention and fearful of spending an evening without some amusement. If there is a gap of even one hour in his engagement book, he looks at it with a sinking heart.” Her sigh held a bitter irony. “I should have had a great deal more freedom if His Highness had preferred someone else.”

“You don't love him, then?” Kate asked. “Pardon me if the question is presumptuous,” she added hurriedly, but Daisy did not seem to mind.

“I am rather fond of him,” Daisy said, “and he is foolishly affectionate toward me. He is infatuated, I suppose, which is not at all the same thing as love.” She waved her hand as if she were dismissing the idea. “It is so hard to say what love is, don't you find?”

“Well ...” Kate said. For her, love was an emotion not easily confused with any other. But perhaps that was because she had loved only one man in her life—Charles. What's more, she had naively imagined that Daisy and the Prince must love one another deeply and romantically, else why take so many risks? Why engage in an affair, if not for love? Was it simply for the sake of passion? Or was one partner using the other for his—or her—own ends? Why indeed? The question required a great deal more thought.

“It is not just the time and the attention the Prince requires that makes my life difficult.” Daisy shifted in her chair, her pretty mouth tightening. “It is the extraordinary expenditure of money. To be painfully honest, Kate, the expense of entertaining Royalty is beyond imagination. The weekend's entertainment—I could have fed all the poor in the workhouse for six months with what I've spent. And every time Bertie comes to visit, as he does quite often, his rooms must be redecorated and new entertainments prepared.”

“It must be quite costly,” Kate murmured, thinking that the price of a princely lover was much higher than she had imagined.

Daisy continued, almost as if she were talking to herself. “Brooke and I have already spent the whole of next year's income, and we owe almost seventy-five thousand pounds, with little expectation of repaying. Reggie held one of my notes,” she added reflectively. “Perhaps, now that he is dead, I shan't have to pay it. If that is true, Brooke will be very relieved. He is so anxious about money these days. If he could find some way to put an end to our dreadful expenditures, I'm sure he would seize it.”

Kate hoped that Daisy realized that she had not solicited this confidence about the Warwicks' financial situation and would not come to regret speaking so openly. But everything Daisy said, especially her admission of the Warwicks' extraordinary debt, pointed to Lord Warwick's guilt. What if he had killed Wallace and implicated his wife in order to convince the Prince to find another mistress? Of course, the money Daisy owed Wallace would have provided an additional motive. Kate made a mental note to tell Charles what she had learned.

There was a long silence, broken only by the loud ticking of the clock on the writing table. After a time, Daisy spoke again. “Another great difficulty,” she said sadly, “is that having been preferred by Bertie, I find myself cut off from all other friends. There is no one to whom I may speak, no one whom I trust enough to unburden myself.” There was an unutterable sadness on her face. “Not even my poor husband, who long ago lost all love for me. Not that I blame him, of course. The Warwicks are a conservative family. They have been much embarrassed by the notoriety that attends my situation.”

Kate, hardly knowing what to say, remarked, “I suppose many of your friends are jealous.”

Daisy nodded. “They're convinced that I have power, and they're continually begging me to obtain Royal favors for them. Felicia Metcalf, for instance, wants a knighthood for her ne'er-do-well brother. She was furious with me when I told her yesterday that Bertie wouldn't even consider passing his name to the Queen.”

Kate was listening attentively. Lady Metcalf had certainly been angry enough to kill Wallace for his imagined perfidy. Had she been furious enough at Daisy to attempt to make her look a murderess? Struck by the double motive, Kate decided it, too, was worth mentioning to Charles.

Now that she had someone to talk to, Daisy did not seem to want to stop. “But the loss of friends and companionship isn't even the worst of it,” she said passionately. “There are so many things I wish to do and cannot. You saw my little needlework school, and you have heard me speak of the need to change the Poor Laws and encourage education and clean up the London slums. There are some things I am free to do, of course, but I must limit these activities, for everything I do reflects on the Prince.”

“Like this morning's expedition,” Kate said quietly.

“Exactly. It was hazardous to take the Prince to the workhouse. There are those at Buckingham Palace, friends of the Queen, who find Socialist uprisings and Anarchist plots behind every such innocent expedition. This makes it dangerous for Bertie to entertain any view, however inoffensive, that has the slightest tinge of liberalism. And Bertie himself suffers from a great ambivalence. He is perpetually torn between his apprehension of what must be done and his desire to conceal from himself that all is not well with the best of all possible worlds. Those who reveal unpleasant things are not liked the better for it.” She shook her head. “So you see that my position—which so many naively envy—even denies me the right to express my political views or lend my weight to causes that cry out for my help.”

“I do see,” Kate said sympathetically, feeling that the last few moments' conversation had altered forever her view of rank and privilege. “But surely you can look forward to a change, can you not? I mean—” She stopped, not quite sure what she meant.

Daisy's dark blue eyes were amused. “If you are asking whether I will be Bertie's mistress forever, the answer is no. I think, in fact, that my hour is about to come to an end. Until now, deserved or not, Bertie has bestowed utter confidence upon his ‘adored little Daisy wife.' But when he learns that others have seen his letter—that silly, indiscreet ‘Darling Daisy' letter—he will be frightfully embarrassed and angry.”

“Not angry at you, surely.”

“He will not express his indignation openly,” Daisy said. “But it will change things between us. I will be a woman who has put him into a difficult position, and he cannot tolerate that.”

“Then you shall be free.”

“Ah, yes,” Daisy sighed. “Like others of his ‘virgin band,' my hour shall be ended, and I shall be released from the Royal demands.” She was silent for a long moment, while the clock ticked and the fire crackled. When she spoke again, her voice was quietly desperate. “I shall be free, yes. But whatever else I achieve in my life, I will never be other than the once and former mistress of the Prince.”

“But that's not true!” Kate exclaimed. “There's your school, your political interests, your social concerns!”

Daisy shook her head. “I will not be taken seriously. Look at my predecessors—Lillie Langtry, for instance, whose achievements as an actress are quite overlooked. All that is said of her was that she was once an intimate of the Prince, and that it was his influence that ensured her success.”

Kate leaned forward urgently. “I am sure you can find ways to make your message heard. You could run for political office. Or you could write a book. Publishers are constantly looking for new material. If you have ideas, publishers will be glad to give you the opportunity to express them.” She smiled a little. “I myself am a writer, albeit of fictions. I know.”

Daisy gave her an odd look. “You?”

Kate nodded reluctantly, wishing she had not brought it up. But Daisy had confided so many secrets, it seemed only fair to share hers. “I am the author of ‘The Duchess's Dilemma,' ” she confessed, “which you read in
Blackwell's Monthly.
I am Beryl Bardwell.”

“You?” For a moment, Daisy looked at her, dumbfounded. Then she threw her head back and laughed. “Of course! I should have guessed! You watch us so closely and you see us all so clearly. What a remarkable gift!”

“I fear I have used it badly,” Kate said ruefully. “Believe me, I shall make a much greater effort from now on to disguise the characters I borrow from life.” She paused. “I wonder whether Lady Rochdale ever received an answer to her telegram.”

“I doubt that she ever sent it,” Daisy said. She shook her head. “You have a fine talent, Kate, but I could never write like you. Your stories—”

“My stories are simple stories of the dark side of human emotion,” Kate said. “You have a
cause
to speak for, Daisy. You may not see your opportunities now, perhaps, but over the next few years, I am sure you will. You have courage, and that's what's required.”

Daisy sighed and shook her head. “You make it sound so easy, Kate.
You
are the one with the courage.”

“I don't know about courage,” Kate said. “It was really quite simple. I was very poor. I had nothing to risk, nothing to lose, and everything to gain.”

“I have nothing to lose, either,” Daisy said. “And I suppose that's what gives one courage.”

So ‘ere's to you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, at your 'ome in the Soudan;
You're a pore benighted ‘eathen but a first-class fightin' man;
We sloshed you with Martinis, an' it wasn't 'ardly fair;
An' for all the odds agin' you, you broke a British square.

—After RUDYARD KIPLING
“Fuzzy-Wuzzy”

 

 

A
fter everyone else had gone to bed, Charles and Andrew Kirk-Smythe repaired to the gun room, where Kirk-Smythe augmented the derringer in his boot with a double-barreled shotgun from the rack. Charles selected a Webley revolver and a box of .476 cartridges. He released the catch at the rear of the frame and rotated the barrel downward, exposing the rear of the cylinder and the star extractor. Deftly, he slipped six bullets into the empty chambers, snapped the action shut, and put the cartridge box in his pocket. Then they separated, Kirk-Smythe going in one direction, Charles in another. For the next five hours, Charles moved stealthily around the great old house, outdoors and in, upstairs and down, listening for whispers or footfalls, watching for signs of movement, keeping a careful eye out for anything unusual or unexpected.

But nothing happened. At four a.m., by prearrangement, he met Kirk-Smythe and they established themselves in chairs in the curtained alcove at the end of the second-floor corridor, lit only by a pale rectangle of window high in the wall at the far end of the hall, where the setting moon cast a silvery gleam. They sat silent for a long time, as the tall, walnut-cased clock at the head of the stairs struck every quarter hour with a jarring metallic clang.

Finally, just before dawn, Charles turned to Kirk-Smythe and said, “It seems as if my apprehensions were unwarranted, Andrew.” He felt relieved and foolish at once. It was wise to take precautions, of course, but he might have gone too far.

Kirk-Smythe stretched his long legs out in front of him. His boyish face was tired, his blond hair tousled. “It's very well, sir, if you ask me. I certainly didn't relish a close-quarters, hand-to-hand engagement in one of these corridors. Someone could hear the commotion and pop out of one of those rooms, into the thick of things.”

“Right,” Charles said, leaning back in the chair and closing his eyes. “This is one time I am glad to have gone off the mark.” He opened one eye to find Kirk-Smythe studying him intently. “What is it, Andrew?”

“Sorry, sir,” the younger man said, somewhat abashed. He smoothed his small blond mustache. “Didn't mean to stare. But being responsible for His Highness, it's my job to size people up, as the Americans say. I'm not heavily armed so I have to see trouble on the horizon, as it were.” He cleared his throat. “Not meaning you, of course. It's just that I can't make you out.”

“You can't, eh?” Charles rubbed the back of his neck wearily. “What's there to make out?”

“His Highness's opinion of you, for one thing. His instructions regarding you were quite explicit.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, sir. The short of it is, when HRH instructed me to join you for tonight's watch, he placed me under your direct command.” Kirk-Smythe was watching him with an earnest, if puzzled, respect. “I must say, sir, His Highness holds you in high regard. If you'll forgive my taking a bit of a liberty, I doubt his esteem was earned with a camera or a magnifying glass. And you aren't regarded as much of a gun. In fact, I don't recall ever hearing of your joining a shoot.”