Snobbery With Violence (23 page)

“Just you, Becket, Daisy and Rose. Oh, and Rose’s parents. A couple of footmen. Do you know Lady Polly’s reaction? She said, ‘Do you mean that maid saved my daughter’s life? Oh, dear, we’ll need to keep her now. She knows too much and she knows about the other business.’ What other business, Captain Cathcart?”

“Haven’t the faintest,” lied Harry, for he knew Rose’s mother had been referring to the bombing at Stacey Magna. “How is Lady Rose? I haven’t been allowed to see her.”

“Remarkably well, considering everything. She’s a brave girl. If it hadn’t been for her we’d probably never have found out.”

“If it hadn’t been for Daisy, she’d probably be dead. How is Daisy?”

“Chirpy as a Cockney sparrow. The doctor says she has a huge bruise under where the bullet hit the steel. Oh, that was something else Lady Polly found to complain about. She asked Lady Rose, ‘What were you doing giving an expensive corset to your maid?’

“So Lady Rose starts to complain that she cannot abide the constriction of that sort of stays and they end up having an argument about dress.”

“How’s Hedley?”

“He’s trying to look shocked, but you can see it’s dawning on him that he gets all her money. He’ll be able to buy his virgins, now. What a world. I suppose you’ve turned out not to be any use to Hedley.”

“On the contrary, I am employed to go about the sordid business of making sure the footmen on the scene keep their
mouths shut. I suggested it might be a good idea to bribe Daisy. No one apart from Rose is thanking her and I feel she deserves a reward.”

“What will you do with your life now?” asked Kerridge.

“I’m not quite sure,” said Harry, bending down and rubbing his bad leg. “But next time, I will be sure that the people I work for are decent and honourable.”

“Captain, if they were decent and honourable, they would not require your services. You’ve heard of Pinkerton’s National Detective Agency, haven’t you?”

“Of course.”

“You might try something like that. Get something maybe a bit more meaty than blowing up railways stations all because some earl doesn’t want to entertain the king.”

“I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about. There’s the dressing gong.” Harry held out his hand. “It’s been a pleasure meeting you. I don’t suppose we’ll meet again.”

Kerridge shook his hand. “I’m sure we will, Captain. I’m sure we will.”

Harry had assumed that Lord Hedley would not be present at the dinner table, but there he was at the head as usual. He was wearing a black armband, as were the other men there. The ladies had all found something black to wear.

To his surprise, Rose was there as well, her face looking pale and almost translucent above the black of her dress.

Conversation was muted, but as the wine circulated, voices began to rise. “So awful,” said Maisie Chatterton to Harry. Harry was amused to notice that all the drama had made Maisie forget to lisp. “But I always thought there was something a little bit mad about her. I never want to come here again.”

“I think we’ll all be glad to leave in the morning,” said Harry.

Miss Fairfax’s voice boomed out, “I think it’s all very fishy. No one will tell me quite what happened. I was talking to Lady Hedley the other day and she seemed happy and well.”

There was a shocked silence. Then Sir Gerald said, “Now, my precious, you mustn’t be so tactless. It makes your eyes narrow, and we don’t want that, now do we?”

To Harry’s amazement, Miss Fairfax gave a giggle and rapped Gerald on the arm with her fan. “Naughty,
naughty
boy.”

She really must have an awful lot of money, thought Harry cynically. He glanced again at Rose, who was Ustlessly picking at her food. Did she feel like him, a misfit? He had been more comfortable in the company of Kerridge than in the fellowship of his peers.

Upstairs, Becket knocked at the door of Daisy’s room and crept in. He glanced at the inner door which connected Daisy’s room with Rose’s and whispered, “Is she in there?”

“Gone down to dinner.” Daisy was lying propped up against the pillows, a bound copy of
Young England
on her lap and a box of chocolates on the table beside the bed.

Becket drew up a chair and sat down next to her. “Did you get your pay-off?”

“One hundred guineas. Did you get the same?”

Becket nodded.

“Going to leave the captain?”

“Never. What about you? You could buy a shop.”

“No, I’ll stick with Lady Rose. She needs me. If we’re going to run away to London, she’ll need some money and so will I.”

“Thank goodness you had those corsets on.”

“She’d just given them to me, too. She hates them, but I felt so grand even though they were uncomfortable. Choc?”

“Thanks,” said Becket, picking one out. “Someone’s coming
along the corridor. They’ve stopped outside the door.”

“Get into the bed,” said Daisy, whipping back the covers.

There was a knock at the door. “Come in,” called Daisy.

Curzon, the butler, walked in. “I know the true story of how you saved your mistress’s life. I have always said that breeding will out. I would like you to accept this as a token of my esteem.” He held out a carved cigarette-box.

“Thank you,” said Daisy in a weak voice because Becket’s body under the covers was crammed against her own and she wanted Curzon to go.

To her relief, the butler said, “I can see that you are still very shocked. Be always assured that your secret is safe with me.”

“Thank you.”

Daisy waited until she heard Curzon’s footsteps go along the corridor and down the steps and then she whipped back the covers. “Get out of here!”

“I wasn’t doing anything,” complained Becket. “I was suffocating. Any cigarettes in that box?”

Daisy opened the lid and sniffed. “Turkish. The best.”

“Let’s have one, then. Do you smoke?”

“Now and then.”

He lit cigarettes for both of them. “Will you write to me?” he asked.

“Yes, I can write now,” said Daisy proudly.

“Aren’t you going to give some of that money to your family?”

“Naw! Da would drink it all. So would Ma, come to think of it. Oh, maybe I’ll go down there and see if I can slip something to the children.”

“Daisy, do you diink that one day, maybe one day, we—”

The inner door opened and Rose walked in. “You should not be here, Becket,” she said. “I think Daisy deserves to enjoy your
company, but if my mother should find you here, I would be in more trouble than I am already. And smoking, as well!”

Becket left. Daisy began to get up. “No, stay where you are,” said Rose. “I can put myself to bed. My parents’ servants have packed most of our things, so you do not need to exert yourself.”

“You’ll be glad to get out of here,” said Daisy.

“Yes, of course I will. Good night.”

Rose trailed off to her own room and sat down at the dressing-table. Back to London tomorrow. No more frights and alarms, no more Kerridge and his policemen, no more Captain Harry Cathcart. Why did life suddenly feel so flat?

EPILOGUE

There’s something undoubtedly in a fine air,
To know how to smile and be able to stare,
High breeding is something, but well-bred or not,
In the end the one question is, what have you got.
So needful it is to have money, heigh-ho!
So needful it is to have money.

And the angels in pink and the angels in blue,
In muslins and moires so lovely and new,
What is it they want, and so wish you to guess,
But if you have money, the answer is Yes.
So needful, they tell you, is money, heigh-ho!
So needful it is to have money.

-A. H. CLOUGH

The next morning, everyone was up early. Everyone seemed so glad to get out of the castle at last.

Lady Polly was fussing about her daughter as a footman helped Rose into the carriage. Rose knew her parents were feeling extremely guilty at having sent her to the castle in the first place, and she hoped to work on that guilt when they got to London.

Rose looked out of the carriage window. Harry was just emerging from the castle, pulling on his driving gloves. Infuriating man. Perhaps if she went to some parties in London he might be there. It would be pleasant to let him know just how infuriating he was.

“What I don’t like,” grumbled the earl as the carriage jolted forwards, “is Hedley being so cheerful about getting his wife’s money.”

“He won’t live long to enjoy it,” said Rose. “The syphilis is already beginning to eat up his appearance.”

“That’s enough of that,” snapped the earl. “A young girl should not know of such things.”

“Maybe if Mary Gore-Desmond had known of such things she would still be alive,” retorted Rose.

“Don’t speak to your father like that,” said Lady Polly. “I know your poor nerves are overset by your dreadful experience, but there is no need for you to be so ... coarse.”

The Peterson sisters were driven off in their motor car while Miss Fairfax followed in her carriage, accompanied by Sir Gerald.

“Faster,” Harriet urged the chauffeur. “I want to leave her behind. We really need to write to Mother, Debs, and get her off our backs. She was bad enough before, but she’ll ruin our chances, twittering and ogling with that awful creature on her arm.”

“Goodbye, rotten castle,” said Deborah, as the car rolled over the drawbridge. “As I told you, there was something fishy about Lady Hedley shooting herself. Rose was there. I tried to ask her this morning but her mother interrupted and pulled her
away. Also, I sent my maid over to Creinton for some ribbons and she told me that Captain Harry, Rose and their servants were singing in the street. For money!”

“Can’t have been them. The Earl of Hadshire is most frightfully rich.”

“Ah, but the captain’s reported to have very little over his army pension,” said Deborah. “It must be so demeaning to be poor. He should marry Rose. I mean, her parents should be glad to get anyone for her now.”

“Oh, that scandal about Blandon will be over and forgotten. She’s got money and a title and looks. She won’t stay on the shelf for long,” said Harriet.

“You know what I think?” Deborah clutched her hat as the car swung out onto the main road. “I think Rose is the type to make things happen. Mark my words, she’ll be embroiled in another scandal before Christmas.”

“I hear her parents are shipping her off to India.”

“Well, all I can say is poor India,” said Deborah. “She’ll start another mutiny or something.”

Freddy Pomfret and Tristram Baker-Willis and their valets were deposited at Creinton Railway Station by one of the castle carriages.

“Absolutely poisonous visit,” complained Freddy, listlessly poking the fire in the first-class waiting-room. “Deaths and shootings. Boring melodrama. Like being trapped between the covers of one of Mrs. Henry Wood’s novels.”

“And that Rose creature,” said Tristram. “Getting us into trouble. That Trumpington woman was leering at us in the most horrible way. Turns my stomach to think of it.”

Freddy produced a silver flask. “Here. Have a swig of this. I filled it up with Hedley’s brandy.”

Tristam took the flask from him and downed a great swallow. “That’s better. We didn’t have a chance with the Peterson girls after that. Tell you what. Lady Rose is going to London. Let’s think up some way to get even.”

The waiting room began to shake under the thunder of the approaching train. “Here we go,” said Freddy. “London, here we come.”

Margaret Bryce-Cuddlestone, accompanied by the Trumping-tons, stared bleakly out of the window. The landscape was white, in the grip of a severe hoar-frost.

She could only be grateful that she had escaped with her reputation intact. She did not believe for a moment the reasons given for Lady Hedley’s taking her own life. Remembering her talk with Rose, she was sure that somehow Rose had found out that Lady Hedley was a murderess and had challenged her. Thank goodness it was being hushed up or she might have had to appear in the dock as a witness. The whole experience had shaken her. She could only pray that she was not pregnant. Her menstruation was not due until the following week.

In that moment, Margaret made up her mind. She would stop looking for love and this time she would accept the proposal of the first man who asked her to marry him.

Mrs. Trumpington nudged her husband awake. “I wonder if I should go to India with the Hadshires’ gel. There’s something
unstable about her. At first I thought, well, jolly good, free holiday and all that. Bit of travel. But the more I think about it, the less I like it. I mean, heat and flies and Rose likely to get embroiled in something awful. This suffragette business! She’s just the sort to go around campaigning for equal rights for the Indians and befriending the untouchables. Then one has to think of the distance and socializing with all those frightfully boring memsahibs. No, I won’t go. You’d miss me, wouldn’t you, dear?”

“What? What?”

“I said, you’d miss me.”

“Yes, yes,” grumbled Mr. Trumpington. “Now can I go back to sleep?”

Miss Fairfax and Gerald sat holding hands. “I am so glad I met you,” she said.

“I’m amazed a charming lady like yourself never married,” said Gerald, gazing into her eyes and mentally paying off his tailor’s bills.

“Oh, I had my chances. But would you believe it? The men in Virginia are every bit as mercenary as they are here. Not you, of course, dear heart.”

“You had to fight off adventurers?”

“On my poor little dowry?”

“My poppet, everyone knows your family is extremely rich.”

“That’s my sister, Clarrie. She did well. Married Burton, who is rolling in railroad money. She’s paying for my trip to London and all my expenses.”

Gerald felt as if a cold dark stone had settled in his stomach. He tried to pull his hand away but she held it in a firm grip.

Clive Fraser, Bertram Brookes, Harry Trenton and Neddie Fee-mantle had only journeyed as far as the village pub. Drawn together by a feeling of failure, they set about getting drunk. Each had hoped to become engaged to one of the American sisters and put the sisters’ obvious lack of interest in any of them down to the odd happenings at the castle.