“My officer there will take it down. Just begin at the beginning.”
Harry watched Rose anxiously as she began to speak. She described the events of the evening but without describing Roger’s cowardice.
When she had finished, Kerridge said in a fatherly voice, “Thank you. I’ll let the captain take you home now. You will need more rest.”
“Actually, I think I will go and see Daisy.”
“I’ll take you there,” said Harry quickly.
Rose gave him a small bleak smile. “I would rather see Daisy alone, if you don’t mind.”
“Then I shall drive you to the hospital. I suggest when you are ready to leave that you telephone Matthew Jarvis and get him to send a carriage for you.”
¦
Another silent journey while Harry tried to think of things to say while Rose sat beside him, her back ramrod-straight and her face shielded by the large umbrella.
At the hospital, Harry made to accompany her into the building, but Rose said, as if speaking to a stranger, “No, leave me. I shall do very well.”
And Harry sadly watched her go.
¦
Daisy smiled as Rose walked in. “Your mother has just left. Lady Polly has been so kind.”
Rose divested herself of her rain clothes and sat down wearily. “Tell me all about it,” said Daisy.
“I am tired of talking about it,” said Rose, but once more she described what had happened.
When she had finished, Daisy asked, “But did Roger, Mr Sinclair, not try to rescue you?”
“It was awful, Daisy. When we first went out on the terrace and he got down on one knee, I knew he was going to propose. And I would have accepted! But then he became so frightened he begged Thomson to let him go. He was prepared to run away and leave me to my fate. I thought he was so strong and adventurous and yet he just crumbled.”
“Not like the captain?”
“No, not like him.”
“Your parents must be very grateful to the captain. Before she left, Lady Polly said, ‘I’ll need to let them marry now’.”
“I don’t think I want to marry Harry.”
“Go on!”
“You know, Daisy, I am tired of being society’s rebel. When I was with Roger, things seemed so gay and easy. I began to see how happy I would be with someone cheery and undemanding. I do not want any more adventures. But don’t look at me like that. You have your Becket, and all’s well that ends well.”
“I don’t want to be married,” said Daisy in a small voice. “I want to go back to the way things were.”
“You are depressed because of the loss of your baby.”
“I’m not. Not now. I feel unnatural. I feel the whole pregnancy was a dream and my marriage as well. I sometimes wake up and think I’m back in Belgrave Square with you. Then I realize I’m not and I cry.”
“I’m sure we are both suffering from shock.”
“Maybe. I had another visitor this morning. Bernie King. He works for the captain. He brought me some nice trashy books to read.” Daisy giggled. “Lady Polly took one away with her.”
“And what is this Bernie King like?”
“Ever so amusing. He comes from Whitechapel, same as me. Oh, Rose, what am I to do? I want a divorce.”
Rose looked alarmed. “Daisy, once you are out of here and established, you will feel better. Besides, we are moving to the country soon and Mama has already said that you and Becket can come with us so that you may have some fresh air. So we will be together like the old times.”
“Well, that’s at least something,” sighed Daisy. “But the old times will never come back now.”
¦
Harry and Kerridge had been told that Thomson was now conscious and they went to the prison hospital, where she was chained to the bed.
Her eyes glittered with fury as she looked at them. “How could you behave so wickedly?” asked Kerridge.
“What would you know about it?” she spat out. “You, the bourgeois and you, the slumming aristocrat, playing at being a detective. Do you know what it’s like to be brought up in poverty? Then have to work one’s way up through the ranks of servants to become a lady’s maid? Always having to smile and crawl and watch people stuffing themselves with mountains of food while there are people starving in this country? Pah. Jeffrey was an easy tool. He kept calling for money and she would only give him a little at a time. He grew discontented. Then this Dolores said she did not want him coming around any more. She was getting threatening letters and she did not want anyone to know of her previous existence down the East End.
“Then Jeffrey told me that she had left a will leaving everything to him. I worked on him. I persuaded him that if I could get his sister out of the way, then he would inherit everything and he could pay me half for my trouble.
“He hummed and hawed until the last day, when he tried to talk to her and she screamed she never wanted to see him again. I gave him some of her jewels and told him to leave it to me.
“I thought Lady Rose would be accused and we would be free from suspicion, but of course I should have known an aristocrat is never under suspicion. It’s one law for the rich and one for the poor.”
“It’s the same law for all,” said Kerridge. “You will be hanged by the neck until you are dead, and good riddance.”
¦
When they left the hospital, Harry asked Kerridge, “Did Jones write those letters?”
“Yes, he’s admitted to it.”
“I haven’t been pestered by the press,” said Harry.
“We’re keeping it quiet until the trial. Amazingly, none of the guests at the ball seems to have known what really went on. So what are your plans now?”
“More detective work,” said Harry. “Lost dogs, scandals to be covered up, that sort of thing.”
“What about Lady Rose?”
“I don’t understand you.”
“Are you getting married?”
“You’ll be the first to know.”
But Harry could not bear the idea of a rejection. He had a feeling that if Rose refused him, it would be final.
¦
Rose longed for the departure for the country. Her brief popularity had gone. It was put about that she had turned the catch of the season down. The Duchess of Warnford told everybody who would listen that she had discovered in Paris that Rose was seriously unconventional and would probably remain a spinster until the end of her days.
Daisy, too, longed for the day of departure. She was borne to her new home in Bloomsbury. Becket then had to go off immediately to chauffeur Harry.
The flat faced north. It was furnished in the heavy, oppressive furniture of the last century. The windows were shrouded in blinds, net curtains and heavy damask curtains and the rooms were dark.
The flat consisted of a long corridor with the rooms leading off it. Daisy removed her hat and sat down in the parlour and stared bleakly around. She remembered how she had longed for a home of her own and wondered what had happened to her.
Harry had installed a telephone. Daisy eyed it. Then she picked up the receiver and asked to be connected to Harry’s office number. The secretary answered and Daisy, trying to disguise her voice, asked for Mr Bernie King. “Who is calling, please?”
“His sister,” said Daisy, hoping Bernie had one.
His cheery voice came on the phone. “Bernie, it’s me, Daisy,” she said. “I’m going mad with boredom. Is
