“I will escort Lady Rose,” said Harry.
“Come back here when you’ve finished,” said Kerridge. “I want a word with you in private.”
Although he had not believed Rose guilty, Kerridge was shaken by the discovery of those letters. What if Rose really had the letters all along and, when Harry burst in on her, she had made up a story about just finding them?
¦
As they approached the earl’s town house, Harry said to Rose, “Ignore the press. Just walk past them with your head down.”
But there was not even one reporter outside. “That’s odd,” said Harry. “Let’s go in and face your parents.”
Rose suddenly clutched his arm and looked pleadingly up into his face. He patted her hand. “It will be all right,” he said.
¦
But it was worse than Rose could have imagined. Her father did not shout or bluster. His voice was quiet and decisive. “I have instructed my secretary to send a notice of the termination of your engagement to the newspapers. As for you, miss–”
“I am not going to India.”
“No, India will be spared a visit from you. You and Miss Levine are to leave tomorrow for Saint Mary’s Convent in Oxford. It is an Anglican convent and the mother superior, Lady Janus, has kindly agreed to take you both for a year and school you in humility and obedience.”
Rose looked desperately at Harry. He looked away. He thought that Rose would at least be safe until he solved this murder.
“What if I don’t go?” demanded Rose.
“You will obey me, your father, for once in your life.”
¦
Daisy slipped out of the room and ran downstairs and out to where Becket was sitting in the motor car. “The earl is sending me and Rose into a convent for a year,” said Daisy. “You’ve got to help me!”
“I didn’t know they were Catholics.”
“It’s an Anglican convent. Look, let’s just get married.”
“On what? I’m not ready yet, Daisy.”
Daisy turned on her heel and said over her shoulder, “I’ll never forgive you for this.”
¦
Rose pleaded throughout the rest of the day in vain. “We could run away again,” said Daisy that evening.
“Where to? Harry, Captain Cathcart, would find us and drag us back. I hate that man. He sat there and did nothing. Not one word of protest.”
¦
Along the corridor, the earl walked into his wife’s bedroom. “Thank God, that’s settled,” he said, rubbing his chubby little hands. “We won’t need to worry about her for a year. We’ve been too soft on her.”
Lady Polly was seated at her dressing table creaming her face. “I was thinking, my dear, that’s it’s very cold in London, and with Rose gone and in safe hands, we really do not want to stay here. What about Monte Carlo?”
“Great idea. I’ll get Jarvis to make the arrangements.”
¦
Rose, being undressed for bed by her maid, stiffened as she heard her father’s voice raised in song echoing along the corridor outside.
“
She had never felt so alone in all her life.
¦
Daisy read a great number of cheap romances. Unlike Rose, she had comforted herself with the thought that the captain would ride to the rescue. Even when their luggage was loaded into the carriage, even when the carriage moved off, she was sure they would be saved at the last minute.
It was only when the great iron gates of the convent were shut behind them and she saw the stern figure of the Mother Superior standing on the steps did she realize there was no hope at all and began to cry with noisy abandon.
“Pull yourself together,” hissed Rose.
“Welcome,” said the Mother Superior, Lady Janus. “What a great deal of luggage!”
Daisy scrubbed her eyes defiantly with a handkerchief and asked, “Will I have to dress like a bleedin’ penguin?”
“I will have to talk to you later, young lady, about your very bad manners. Follow me.”
The Mother Superior led the way along several dark corridors. It was evident to Rose, from what she could see of the architecture, that the convent had been built in the Gothic style in the middle of the last century. She remembered reading that there had been some opposition to Oxford Anglicanism, claiming it was too ‘high’ and drifting back to the Catholic Church.
“You will share a room,” said the Mother Superior, opening a heavy oak door. “As laywomen, you will not wear the habit, but you will select from your luggage your plainest clothes. I will leave you to unpack. Sister Agnes will be your mentor. She will be with you shortly to take you on a tour of the convent and explain your duties to you.”
She retreated. Rose and Daisy looked at each other and then around the narrow room. It was furnished with two hard narrow beds. Between the beds was a table on which lay a large Bible. The latticed window let in very little light. Against one wall was a tall narrow wardrobe. “No fireplace,” muttered Daisy miserably. “And it’s freezing.”
“We may as well sort out our clothes and pick out the warmest things we have,” said Rose. She looked gloomily at the trunks piled one on top of the other and the hatboxes lying on the floor.
The door opened and a nun stood surveying them. She was dressed in traditional robes. She had a long white face, pale eyes under heavy lids and her thin-lipped mouth was shadowed by a moustache.
“You have far too many clothes. I am Sister Agnes. I will fetch Sister Martha to help you.”
When she had closed the door behind her, Rose said urgently, “We must hurry. They may frown on furs, so we must take out two fur coats and hide them under our bedding. We will need them at night or we will freeze.”
Rose pulled out a sable coat and hid it under the thin blankets on one of the beds and Daisy put her precious squirrel coat under the blankets on the other one.
They had just finished when Sister Martha came in. She was small, plump and cheerful. She shook hands with both of them and then helped them pack away the fine dresses, blouses and hats that she considered unsuitable.
When they were finished at last, Sister Martha said, “We’ll drag the trunks outside and the oddman will take them down to the storage room in the cellar. We must hurry. We are to go along to dinner. You have missed Vespers but allowances must be made on your first day.” She looked uneasily at them. “Do you wish me to retire so that you may change into something more suitable?”
“We will wear what we have on,” said Rose firmly. “We are not yet accustomed to the cold of this place.”
Sister Agnes looked uneasily at Rose. Rose was wearing a coat trimmed with black Persian lamb and a black Persian lamb hat. Daisy had a frogged military-style coat also trimmed with fur and a sort of shako on her
