Snobbery with Violence (2 page)

The earl was ushered into a room on the ground floor. He was announced, and a tall saturnine man who had been sitting in a chair by the window rose to meet him.

‘May we offer you something?’ asked Captain Cathcart. ‘Sherry?’

‘Fine, fine,’ mumbled the earl, taken aback by the amount of books in the shelves lining the room. His Majesty, King Edward, set such a good example by not opening a book from one year’s end to another. Why couldn’t everyone follow such a fine example?

‘Sherry, Becket,’ said the captain to his manservant. And to the earl, ‘Do sit down, sir. I see the sun has come out at last.’

‘So it has,’ said the earl, who hadn’t noticed. ‘I come on a delicate matter.’ He handed over the brigadier’s card.

‘What matter?’

‘Well, y’see–’ The earl broke off as the manservant re-entered the room with glasses and decanter on a tray. He poured two glasses and handed one to the captain and one to the earl.

‘That will be all,’ said the captain and Becket noiselessly retreated.

The captain turned his fathomless black gaze on the earl, wondering why he had come. The earl was a small round man dressed in a frock-coat and grey trousers. He had a round, reddish face and blue eyes which had a childlike look about them.

‘It’s like this,’ said the earl, feeling awkward and embarrassed. ‘I have a daughter, Rose . . .’

‘Ah, the suffragette.’

‘I thought people had forgotten about that,’ said the earl. ‘Anyway, Rose is being courted by Sir Geoffrey Blandon. He’s not an adventurer. Good family. Nothing wrong there.’

‘And the problem?’

‘He hasn’t proposed. Rose is my only child. Would like some discreet chap to check up on Blandon. Find out if he’s the thing. I mean, does he have a mistress who might turn awkward? That sort of business.’

Having got it out, the little earl turned scarlet with embarrassment and took a gulp of sherry.

‘I am not much out in the world these days,’ said the captain, ‘but knowing how gossip flies about, I would have thought if there was anything unsavoury about the man, you’d have heard it.’

‘Blandon’s been in America for the past four years; came back in time for this season. Might be something nobody knows about. Handy says he’s a gambler.’

Captain Cathcart studied him for a long moment and then said, ‘A thousand pounds.’

‘What, what?’ gabbled the earl.

‘That is my fee for research and discretion.’

The earl was shocked. This captain was a baron’s son and yet here he was asking for money like a tradesman. And yet, why hadn’t Blandon declared his intentions? He was spoiling Rose’s chances of finding another suitor.

The captain let the silence last. A carriage rattled over the cobbles on the street outside and a small fire crackled on the hearth. A clock on the mantel ticked away the minutes.

‘Very well,’ said the earl with a cold stare.

‘In advance,’ said the captain mildly.

The earl goggled at him. ‘You have my word.’

The captain smiled and said nothing.

The earl capitulated. ‘I’ll give you a draft on my bank.’

‘You may use my desk.’

The earl went over to a desk at the window and scribbled busily. He handed the draft to the captain and said angrily, ‘If there’s nothing wrong, it’ll be a waste of money.’

‘I should think to be reassured on the subject of your only daughter would be worth anything.’

‘Harrumph. I’m going. Report to me as soon as you can,’ snapped the earl.

The captain waited until Becket had ushered the earl out and then smiled at his manservant. ‘My coat and hat, Becket. I am going to the bank. I will have your overdue wages when I get back.’

‘That is most gratifying, sir.’

At that moment, Rose was taking tea at the home of her mother’s friend, Mrs Cummings, in Belgrave Square. She looked dismally at the small butter stain on one of her kid gloves, and, for seemingly the hundredth time, damned the mad rules of society, one of which was that a lady should not remove her gloves when taking tea. Although the bread and butter had been carefully rolled, a spot had got onto one of her gloves. Most ladies avoided the problem by simply not eating. What insanity, thought Rose bitterly. She had a healthy appetite and the spread before her was of the usual staggering proportions. Apart from the bread and butter, there were ham, tongue, anchovy, egg-and-cress and foie gras sandwiches; chicken cutlets and oyster canapés. And then the cakes: Savoy, Madeira, Victoria and Genoa, along with French pastries, to be followed by petits fours, banana cream, chocolate cream and strawberry ice cream. And all of it sitting there mostly untouched so that the ladies would not soil their gloves.

Did no one but herself notice the poor on the streets of London? she wondered. And again she felt that uncomfortable feeling of isolation as she assumed she was probably the only person in society who did notice. Geoffrey, dear Geoffrey, did have some idea. He had told her that only the other day the Duke of Devonshire had been visiting a bazaar with his agent; he had stopped at a stall displaying wooden napkin rings and had asked his agent what they were for.

‘Napkin rings,’ said the agent. ‘Middle-class people keep them on the table to put their table napkins in between meals.’

Said the astounded duke, ‘Do you mean that people actually wrap up their napkins and use them again for another meal?’

‘Certainly,’ said the agent.

The duke gasped as he looked at the stall, ‘Good God!’ he exclaimed. ‘I never knew such poverty existed.’

How Geoffrey had laughed at such idiocy. If only he would propose. She knew her parents were beginning to fret. She glanced at her mother, who was chatting amiably with her hostess. The countess had moaned before they had left for the tea party that she should never have allowed that ‘dreadful’ governess to over-educate her child. What a world where intelligence was regarded with such deep suspicion. Poor Miss Tremp. Such a fine governess. She had moved on to another household. When I am married, I will take her out of servitude and make her my companion, thought Rose. And I will be married, she told herself firmly. The Duke of Freemount’s ball was to take place the following week, the grandest affair of the season, and Geoffrey had whispered that he had something to ask her and he would put the question to her there. What else could he mean? But on the other hand, why had he not approached her father and asked permission to pay his addresses?

Harry Cathcart decided to start work right away. By dint of saying he had lost money to someone in a card game and he thought that someone might be Blandon, he managed to secure his address and a description of him. Blandon’s apartment was in St James’s Square. Harry hired a closed carriage and sat a little way across the square to get a sight of his quarry. After a long wait, Blandon emerged. Although he was a fine figure of a man, Harry disliked him on sight. His stare was too arrogant, his eyes too knowing and his mouth too fleshy. There certainly was an air of the gambler about him.

First, Harry went to The Club and checked the betting book. There was nothing there. He frowned down at it. For the next few days, Harry tailed Sir Geoffrey. He found the man kept a mistress in Pimlico, but in these loose days would anyone consider the presence of a mistress a scandal? Perhaps Sir Geoffrey was not as rich as he was reported to be. Perhaps he was after Lady Rose for her money.

Harry could only just afford to keep up his membership of The Club. He could not afford to belong to any of the other London clubs.

He went back to his home and asked Becket to look out his photographic equipment, a recent hobby. Then he ordered his manservant to find him his oldest, most-worn suit, and after being helped into it, he sat down at his dressing-table and studied his face. He put pads of cotton wool inside his cheeks to plump them out and then, by dint of sabotaging a shaving brush and with a tube of spirit gum, he made himself a false moustache. Pulling an old hat down on his head, he heaved up his camera equipment and took a hackney to Brooks’s and asked to see the club secretary. His voice distorted by the cotton-wool pads in his cheeks, Harry explained he was a photographer sent by the Duke of Freemount, who wanted to mount an exhibition of photographs of London clubs to show in a marquee at his annual fete. Permission was given. Harry carefully left a few bits and pieces of photographic equipment in the secretary’s office.

Then, when he gratefully saw the secretary had been buttonholed by a crusty old member, he murmured something about needing more magnesium for his flash and went back to the secretary’s office. He quickly searched around until he found the betting book. Quickly he scanned it and then on a page he saw that Sir Geoffrey Blandon had bet that he could obtain the favours of Lady Rose before the end of the season. Harry knew ‘favours’ meant seduction. The bets were running at forty to one.

‘Bastard,’ he muttered, and taking out a penknife, sliced out the page. He had meant to photograph it if he had found anything incriminating but realized it would take too long, and operating a plate camera in dim light might not produce any results at all. And the use of a magnesium flash in his office might bring the secretary running.

He went back and photographed several more of the main rooms before making his retreat.

Harry should have been happy at his success, but he wished he did not have to break such news to the earl. Lady Rose must indeed have ruined her reputation by being photographed supporting the suffragettes. She had become the subject of a common wager.

It was the day before the duke’s ball when Harry Cathcart presented himself at the earl’s town house.

He waited patiently in the hall while the butler took his card. While he was waiting, Lady Rose came down the stairs. She was wearing an elaborate tea-gown but her long hair was brushed down her back. Her face glowed with happiness like a lantern in the gloom of the hall. She did not acknowledge Harry because he was a stranger and she hadn’t been introduced to him. Rose passed by him and disappeared through a door at the side of the hall.

Oh, dear, thought Harry. She is most definitely in love.

The butler came down the stairs and instructed Harry to follow him.

Rose picked up a book from a table in the library and made her way upstairs behind them. She wondered who the caller was. Her father was slightly deaf and his voice was loud. She was just passing the drawing-room when she heard him say, ‘That will be all, Brum. Leave us.’ As the butler reappeared and turned to close the double doors, Rose distinctly heard her father say, ‘Well, found out anything about Blandon?’

She stayed where she was, frozen to the spot. The butler looked at her curiously but went on down the stairs.

Rose heard the low voice of the caller and then her father’s outraged shout of, ‘The man should be horse-whipped. My daughter’s ruined.’ A frantic ringing of the bell was answered by a footman who leapt up the stairs, not even seeming to see Rose who stood there.

‘Get her ladyship. Fetch Lady Polly,’ roared the earl.

Rose went into the drawing-room. ‘What is wrong, Pa?’

The earl held out a sheet of paper with trembling fingers. ‘Wait until your mother gets here.’

Lady Polly, small and round like her husband, came into the room. ‘What is it, dear?’

‘Sit down, you and Rose,’ said the earl, all his bluster and rage evaporating. ‘Bad business. Bad, bad business. Ladies, may I present Captain Cathcart?’

The captain, who had risen to his feet at Rose’s entrance, bowed. ‘Captain, my wife, Lady Polly, and my daughter, Lady Rose. Now all sit down. Got your smelling-salts, Rose, hey?’

‘I never use smelling-salts.’

‘You might need them now. Go ahead, Cathcart. Tell them what you found out.’

Feeling rather grubby, wishing he could escape and leave the earl to break the news, Harry described what he had discovered. He started by saying, ‘Blandon keeps a mistress in Pimlico, a girl called Maisie Lewis.’

He saw the shock and dismay in Rose’s eyes, followed by a defiant anger. In that moment, he knew that Rose had immediately decided that the affair with Maisie was old history.

‘The affair continues,’ he said. ‘As Blandon had the appearance of a gambler, I decided to check the betting books. I thought I might find out something about financial difficulties, but instead found out that Blandon had bet that he could seduce Lady Rose before the end of the season.’

The countess let out a little scream and raised a handkerchief to her lips.

The earl held out the sheet from the betting book to Rose. She read it carefully and then said, ‘You must excuse me. I have things to attend to.’

‘We can’t go to the ball now!’ wailed Lady Polly.

‘Sir Geoffrey does not know what we now know,’ said Rose. ‘We should not give him that satisfaction.’

She rose and sailed from the room, back erect, and all the love light gone from her face.

Her mother hurried after her, leaving Harry and the earl alone.

‘Thank you,’ said the earl gruffly. ‘Do you mind leaving now?’

Harry rose and left the room and walked quickly down the staircase. The happiness he had felt in the success of his detective work had evaporated. He was haunted by the set, cold, bereft look in Lady Rose’s eyes.

Rose entered the ballroom at the Duke of Freemount’s town house the following evening, hearing the chatter of clipped voices threading through the jaunty strains of a waltz. She had artificial flowers in her hair and a white satin gown embellished with white lace and worn over silk petticoats that rustled as she walked.

She felt cold and dead. She allowed Sir Geoffrey to write his name in her dance card. He did not seem to notice any difference in her manner.

Although the ballroom was suffocatingly hot, Rose shivered in Geoffrey’s arms as he swept her into the waltz. Footmen began to open the long windows which looked out over the Green Park and a pleasant breeze blew in. Geoffrey manoeuvred her toward those windows and then danced her out onto the terrace.

‘I want to ask you something, my love,’ he whispered.

A little hope surged in Rose’s heart that it had all just been a joke, that ‘favours’ had meant her hand in marriage.