Edwardian Murder Mystery 02; Hasty Death

“Come, Daisy.”

¦

Half an hour later, Harry came back. “Fog’s coming down, Miss Jubbles. Anyone call?”

Miss Jubbles gave him an adoring smile. “No one at all, sir.”

“Right.” Harry went into his office.

Miss Jubbles looked possessively around her little empire: her meticulous files, her kettle with the bone-china cups arranged beside it, the tall grimy windows, the battered leather sofa and the presence of the adored boss behind the frosted-glass inner door. All hers. And no one was going to take it away from her.

¦

Rose would not admit to Daisy or even to herself that she was frightened. Pride would not let her back down. After the disastrous visit to Harry’s office, of which she was now thoroughly ashamed, they went to Bourne & Hollingsworth in Lower Oxford Street and Rose began to choose suitable ready-to-wear clothes for both of them. Rose had never worn ready-to-wear clothes in all her young life. Ladies did not.

Daisy advised her that they should limit their wardrobes to two tweed costumes for winter and two serviceable lightweight dresses for summer. “Well, we don’t need to buy new underwear,” said Rose. “We can wear what we’ve got. No one’s going to see that!”

“Unless whoever runs the business women’s hostel decides to snoop in our rooms,” pointed out Daisy.

“We’ll take one of the old steamer trunks, one with a good lock on it,” said Rose, “and use that for underwear. Surely I can take one fur coat?”

Daisy shook her head. “Tweed with a bit of fur at the neck is all we can get. Two pairs of boots and two pairs of shoes. Two felt hats and two straw.”

At last all their purchases were wrapped and ready. “Send them to…” Rose was beginning when Daisy screamed. “What is it?” demanded Rose.

“I’ve lost my bracelet. I think it’s over there.”

Rose made a noise of impatience and followed her across the shop. “You can’t have them sent to Eaton Square,” hissed Daisy.

“Oh, yes I can,” said Rose and marched back. “Send my maid’s clothes to this address,” she said, producing her card.

“You are too cautious,” she admonished Daisy when one of the earl’s carriages was bearing them home.

“You can’t be too careful, my lady,” said Daisy.

“And you had better begin by practising not to call me my lady.”

“I think I’d better find that business women’s hostel for us myself,” said Daisy.

“Why? I think I should decide on our accommodation.”

“You’re still too grand. You can’t go arriving anywhere in a carriage with the earl’s crest on the panels and dressed in furs. Let me do it.”

“Very well,” said Rose after a show of reluctance to hide the fact that she was relieved. A weak little Rose Summer, deep inside her, was beginning to wish she had never wanted to be a working woman.

¦

Miss Harringey, proprietor of the Bryant’s Court Hostel for Businesswomen, ushered Daisy into what she described as her ‘sanctum’, an overcrowded parlour on the ground floor, stuffed with furniture and framed photos, and where a small yellow canary in a cage looked out dismally through the barred windows at the London fog which was beginning to veil the streets.

Daisy was wearing one of the tweed suits purchased that day under a tweed coat with a beaver-fur trim. She was aware of Miss Harringey’s small black eyes studying her and wished she had bought second-hand clothes instead. Daisy’s own clothes back at Eaton square were mostly second-hand, but they were clothes that her mistress had usually worn only once and had taken a dislike to. She was sharply aware that what to Rose had been cheap clothes might look rather new and expensive to Miss Harringey.

Miss Harringey was a very solid woman, so corseted that she appeared to be wearing armour under her jet- covered woollen gown. Her face was large and heavy and her eyes disproportionately small. Her hair, an improbable shade of auburn, was worn in an Alexandria fringe.

“I would like to make it plain, Miss…er…”

“Levine.”

“Miss Levine. We only take ladies of impeccable reputation here.”

The clothes, thought Daisy – she thinks I might be a kept woman, as if a kept woman would want to live here!

“I can assure you,” said Daisy primly, “that me and my friend, Miss Summer, lead very hard-working lives. No gentlemen callers, I can assure you.”

“And where do you work?”

“At Drevey’s Merchant Bank in the City. We’re office workers.”

“I expect payment in advance.”

“How much in advance?”

Miss Harringey said, “Three months.”

“All right,” said Daisy.

“I have one double room available at the top of the house.”

“Can’t we have separate rooms?”

“None are available.”

“I’d better see this room.”

“Follow me.”

And so Daisy followed Miss Harringey up a narrow flight of stairs to the top of the house. There was a mixture of odours: gas, disinfectant, dry rot, baked potatoes, baked beans, and sour milk. And the all-pervasive smell of cabbage. “No cooking in the rooms,” said Miss Harringey as she reached the top of the stairs. Daisy sniffed the air and wondered how many of the tenants obeyed that law.

“This is it.” Miss Harringey threw open the door.

In the middle of the room stood an iron bedstead covered in thin, worn blankets. There was a rickety dressing-table by the window with a chipped marble top which held a china ewer and basin decorated in fat roses and a mirror. The ‘wardrobe’ was simply a recess with a curtain over it. A table and two chairs stood by the grimy window. There was a small gas fire.

“The bathroom is two floors down at the end of the passage,” said Miss Harringey. “You will need two pennies for the meter, and the bathroom is not to be used after ten at night.”

Daisy walked into the room. She crouched down before the mirror and adjusted her hat. Her rather protruding green eyes in her small face stared back at her.

Rose will hate this, she thought. Good, it might bring her to her senses.

“I’ll take it.”

“In that case, we shall descend to my sanctum and I will give you a receipt.”

¦

“Oh, good work,” said Rose when Daisy returned with the news of the room.

“It means we’ll need to sleep together,” warned Daisy.

“Oh, things will be fine.” Rose had overcome her fears and was now looking forward to the new adventure. “I have received a letter from Mr Drevey. We are both to start work next Monday. Eight in the morning until five-thirty in the evening. We are each to receive fifteen shillings a week.”

“Won’t go far,” cautioned Daisy. “Not after what you’ve been used to.”

“You have paid three months’ rent in advance, have you not? So we will have thirty shillings a week between us. We have our clothes. We can eat cheap food.”

“That Miss Harringey said there was to be no cooking in the rooms, but from the smell of the place, I don’t think anybody pays any attention to that.”

“The smell?”

“Well, it does smell a bit. But that’s life on the lower side. I mean, it isn’t as if we have to stick at it, now does it?”