‘Captain Cathcart,’ cried the footman, who recognized Harry from his visits to the earl’s home. ‘Your secretary said you had gone abroad.’
Miss Jubbles’s face was red with mortification. ‘I am sorry, sir,’ she said. ‘When I said abroad, I meant abroad in London.’
‘That’s all right,’ said Harry. ‘But the earl is a client and an important one. You knew I was due back here late afternoon because I told you.’
‘I am so sorry. I forgot.’ And with that, Miss Jubbles burst into tears.
‘Don’t take on so,’ said Harry. ‘I have to pick up some papers from my desk. There’s nothing else for you to do this afternoon.’
He went through to his office. On his desk was a small vase of freesias, imported from the Channel Islands. He scowled down at them. They were expensive. He took some papers off his desk and walked out.
‘Miss Jubbles,’ he said gently, ‘I appreciate the flowers but they are much too expensive a gift. Please extract the amount from petty cash.’
‘Oh, sir, they were only a little present.’
‘Please do as you are told,’ ordered Harry, ‘and enter the amount in the petty-cash book.’
Tears rolled down Miss Jubbles’s cheeks. ‘Here,’ said Harry, handing her a large handkerchief. ‘Now, I must go.’
He was beginning to suspect that his secretary’s feelings for him might be a trifle too warm, but never for a moment did Harry guess at the depth of the obsession that would cause her to sleep with the handkerchief against her cheek that night.
Harry turned in the doorway. ‘And do not accept any more cases. I am going to be tied up with one important one for the foreseeable future.’
‘Come in, Cathcart,’ cried the earl. ‘Tea?’
‘No, thank you. Do you have a problem?’
Rose had been sent to her room.
‘It’s Rose again. She wants to make that Cockney maid of hers a companion. She does give Daisy the credit, I gather, for having persuaded her to get back in society.’
‘I think it might be a very good idea,’ said Harry. ‘Daisy’s demeanour is suitable, and with the right clothes she would not occasion comment.’
‘But companions have
‘Then give her one. Any respectable recluse you know of in Hadshire who died recently?’
‘Well, let me see. There was Sir Percy Anstruther.’
‘Married?’
‘Married a girl half his age, who ran off and left him.’
‘Any surviving family?’
‘None as far as I know. I think the estate went to the Crown.’
‘Good. Daisy is his long-lost daughter. She fell on hard times. Her mother had reverted to her maiden name of Levine. You rescued her. All respectable. You discovered her true identity after she had been working as your daughter’s maid and promptly elevated her to companion in respect for your old friend, Sir Percy. She is a strong, moral girl and will keep a guard of Lady Rose.’
‘I sometimes think,’ put in Lady Polly, ‘that it might be an idea to give Rose just a taste of the asylum to discipline her.’
‘But think of the scandal,’ said Harry. ‘She would be lost to you and damned as mad for the rest of her life.’
‘Oh, very well,’ said Lady Polly. ‘But I will hire a lady’s maid for her and one that will keep a strict eye on her as well. Rose has some very odd ideas about going into society again. She insists on going to some boring lecture given by Mrs Angela Stockton.’
‘Mrs Stockton,’ said Harry, consulting the papers he had taken from his office, ‘is fabulously wealthy and of good family.’
‘But a lecture . . . !’
‘And has a son of Rose’s age.’
Both the earl and countess looked at Harry. ‘Now that’s different,’ said the earl. ‘Nothing up with money in the family, hey.’
CHAPTER FIVE
G. K. Chesterton
The fact that the earl and countess agreed to their daughter’s attending Angela Stockton’s lecture accompanied only by her new companion was prompted by parental weariness. Where had they gone wrong? They had supplied her with the best governess – or so they had believed – and the fact that they saw very little of her until she became of an age to be a debutante could not surely have created any problem, for she had been brought up as a lady of her class.
They had enjoyed their visit to Nice, the long miles separating them from their unruly daughter having largely served to put Rose out of their minds. Angela Stockton’s lecture seemed a safe enough place for her to be seen. Also, there was the carrot of Mrs Stockton’s marriageable son.
Luncheon was to be served before the lecture. Mrs Stockton’s impressive home was in Knightsbridge. Daisy, self-conscious in her new grand clothes supplied from Rose’s wardrobe, felt she would have enjoyed the outing better had not Lady Polly sent her lady’s maid, Humphrey, to keep an eye on them. Daisy was conscious the whole time of Humphrey’s hot and jealous eyes.
A fork luncheon was served in a long dining-room. The other guests were women of indeterminate age, some of them wearing very odd clothes, consisting of cotton embellished with cabalistic designs. There were a few men, mostly reedy and starved-looking.
Mrs Angela Stockton greeted them warmly. She was dressed in black velvet with stars and moons embroidered in silver around the hem of her gown. A heavy silver belt was around her waist and silver necklaces jangled from her thin neck. She had hair of an improbable shade of red, piled up and held in place with what looked like two ivory chopsticks. Her heavily rouged mouth was surrounded by a radius of wrinkles. Her eyes, outlined in kohl, were very large and pale blue.
‘I am flattered that one so young and beautiful should grace my humble home,’ she said. ‘May I introduce my son, Peregrine.’
Daisy reflected that Peregrine looked like a stage-door Johnny. He had thick black hair, well-oiled, and a thick luxuriant black moustache. His waistcoat was a violent affair of red and gold silk.
Rose and Daisy moved on into the dining-room. ‘Rabbit food,’ hissed Daisy.
They helped themselves to nut cutlets and salad. There was no wine, simply jugs of water.
