Our Lady of Pain (24 page)

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 there any chance you could meet me for a cup of tea?”

She waited anxiously. “There’s a Lyon’s tea shop at Victoria, near the station. Know it?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll meet you there in an hour.”

“Who was that?” asked Becket, who was sitting in a chair in the outer office.

“Just my sister,” said Bernie.

“I wonder what your husband would make of this,” said Bernie, as he and Daisy sat over muffins and tea in Lyon’s tea shop.

“I’m not doing anything wrong,” said Daisy. She wondered if Bernie had noticed her hat, a straw cartwheel embellished with fat pink and yellow pansies. “My husband is working all day and I felt I had to get out.”

“When do you leave for the country?”

“Next week.”

“Are you looking forward to it?”

“I’m a city girl. Stacey Court is very quiet.”

“How long will you be away?”

“Just a couple of weeks. It was Lady Polly’s idea. She thinks fresh air would be good for me.”

“Two weeks isn’t a long time. It’ll go quickly.”

“May I see you from time to time when I get back?”

“I don’t know, Daisy, I like you lots, but it doesn’t seem right.”

“I’m allowed friends,” exclaimed Daisy.

“Of course, friends.” Bernie gave Daisy’s hand a little squeeze. “What else?”

Daisy prepared lamb chops for Becket’s supper. She looked around the large high-ceilinged kitchen and reflected that soon she would at least be occupied in cleaning the flat. Her husband had said nothing about hiring help, and anyway, Daisy was sure they could not afford it.

When Becket came home, she served supper in their dining room. Becket looked about him with pride. “I say, Daisy, isn’t this marvellous? Our new home at last.”

“You know,” said Daisy cautiously, “I am trained to type and take shorthand. It will be very dull for me, being here on my own all day. I could find a job and hire someone to clean.”

“Nonsense. You’re my wife and a lady, and ladies don’t work.”

“I ain’t no lady.”

Becket gave an indulgent laugh. “If Lady Rose could hear you now! You’re slipping back into your old speech.”

“I mean it. Why can’t I work?”

“Because,” said Becket severely, “you’ll be too busy being a wife and mother.”

“Mother,” echoed Daisy faintly.

“As soon as I get round to it, I’m going to fix up one of the spare bedrooms as a nursery.”

A scream rose up inside Daisy, but she fought it down and said, “I’ll need to go to bed. I’m still not feeling well.”

“You go ahead. I’ll clean up here.”

I’m trapped, thought Daisy miserably as she crawled into bed, and I don’t know what to do about it.

The exodus to Stacey Court took place the following week. Masters and servants and mountains of luggage made their stately procession out of London. It was one of those grey weeping British days with a fine drizzle falling from the sky.

Daisy would have liked to travel with Rose, but in her new diminished status, she and Becket had to travel with the upper servants.

Stacey Court was a Tudor building, its rose-red walls covered in creepers and with many mullioned windows. In Tudor times, the more windows, the higher the status of the owner.

It was dark and damp inside. The earl ordered fires to be lit in all the rooms although it was warm outside. He had a fear of rheumatism and blamed his secretary for not having had the foresight to air and warm the place before they arrived, unaware that Matthew had suggested it to Lady Polly and had been told that as it was summer, such preparations were not necessary.

Daisy and Becket were given a room on a half landing below the servants’ quarters in the attics.

Another dark place, thought Daisy miserably as she unpacked. In the servants’ hall that evening, she and Becket received a warm welcome from the other servants. Brum smiled and suggested that after dinner, perhaps Mr. and Mrs. Becket could entertain them as they had done before, Becket playing his concertina and Daisy singing music hall songs.

Daisy was about to agree but Becket said severely, “I do not like my wife performing in public.”

“It’s not public,” protested Daisy. “We’re with friends.” Becket shook his head and said firmly, “I’m sorry. It would not be suitable.”

A vision of the chirpy, cheery Bernie rose in Daisy’s mind and again she felt that suffocating feeling of being trapped.

Upstairs, at the dinner table, the earl said to his daughter, “Captain Cathcart will be arriving tomorrow. He wanted to come and I could hardly refuse.”

Rose felt a jolt of fear. She knew Harry was probably going to propose marriage. This is what she had wanted. Why did she not want it now?

After dinner, she sent a footman with a note asking Daisy to join her.

When Daisy entered, Rose hugged her. “I miss you.”

“Me, too.”

“Captain Cathcart is calling tomorrow. I think he means to ask for my hand in marriage.”

“There you are,” said Daisy bracingly. “We’ll both be married ladies.”

“I don’t think I want to get married,” said Rose.

“Go on with you! The pair of you are so well suited.”

“I’m sick of danger, Daisy. I’m sick of being frightened. If I marry Harry, I will be drawn into his life.”

“You don’t need to be,” said Daisy.

“Then what if, after we get married, another Dolores comes along?”

“Or another Roger,” Daisy pointed out.

“Oh, that was such a mistake. But I would never have known how weak he was if that terrible woman hadn’t threatened to kill us.”

“How do you mean, ‘weak’?”

“He wanted to leave me with her to get shot as long as he could escape.”

“Well, they’re not all like the captain.”

“True. Or your Becket.”

Daisy leaned forward and poked the fire. A wind had risen and was howling in the chimney. “I’m in trouble, Rose, and I don’t know what to do.”

“Why? What is the matter?”

“I don’t love him any more. I’ll have to spend the rest of my days in the gloomy flat in Bloomsbury, having one baby after another, and that’s if I
can
have babies. Who knows? It might be one miscarriage after another. I’ll be an old woman before my time.”

“Daisy, dear Daisy. You’ve had a very bad shock. After a bit of rest and quiet, you’ll feel differently.”

“No, I won’t. I know I won’t. I’m frightened of beginning to hate him. Divorce isn’t for the likes of us. Unless he dies, I’m stuck with him.”

“You can hardly kill him,” said Rose.

“Can’t I?” howled Daisy. “Just you wait and see. And there’s worse.”

“Than wanting to kill your husband?”

“I’ve met someone else. It’s Bernie King who works for the captain.”

“His new servant?”

“No, his new detective. Oh, Rose, he’s light and easy and Cockney like myself. He’s fun. He makes me laugh.”

“Daisy, listen to me. It is all a reaction to what you have gone through.”

“Do you think you could ask the captain to suggest to Becket that I go out to work? I’m sure that would make all the difference.”

“Yes, of course I shall. Now, your husband will be wondering where you are.”

Rose waited anxiously the next day for Harry’s arrival. What should she say to him? If she refused his proposal now that he appeared to have her parents’ permission, he would never ask her again and she would probably never see him again.

The weather had cleared up and pale sunlight streamed in through all the windows.

She paced up and down the gardens, hoping to tire herself out so that she would feel calmer.

“Look at her!” said Lady Polly as she and her husband watched from the window as Rose paced up and down. “She’s got permission to marry the wretched man and she looks miserable. If we mention India to her again, she’ll accept him just to get out of it.”

“I’m weary of the whole business,” said the earl. “Rose has been such a disappointment. She’ll have her own money by the time she’s twenty-one. Perhaps we should accept the fact that she’s going to be an old maid.”

“But what a waste of all that beauty,” sighed Lady Polly.

“I hear that motor of his,” said the earl.

Rose had obviously heard the sound as well because she looked alarmed and then fled into the house.

“Better go and welcome him,” said the earl.

Harry took tea with the earl and countess, wondering all the time where Rose had got to. The murders were not referred to. Now that the case was over, the earl and countess considered talk of murder in their drawing room very bad form.

Putting his teacup down in the saucer with an impatient little click and wondering if Lady Polly meant to talk all day about the weather, Harry said, “May I see Lady Rose? You know why I have come.”

They both rose to their feet. “We’ll send her to you,” said the earl.

Harry waited, pacing up and down much as Rose had done in the garden.

Rose came quietly into the room. She was wearing a white lace gown with a high, boned lace collar. Her brown hair was piled up on top of her head and her blue eyes looked larger than ever.

This is it, thought Rose. What am I to do? What am I to say?

Harry took one of her hands in his. “My darling Rose,” he said. “Would you—

Brum gave a loud cough. “What is it?” demanded Harry.

“There is a police inspector has called and insists on seeing you urgently.”

“Tell him to wait.”

“I fear he has come to arrest you, sir.”

“What nonsense. Wait here, Rose. I won’t be long.”

Harry followed the butler down the stairs.

“I have put the person in the study,” said Brum in lugubrious tones.

Harry opened the study door and walked in. A police inspector rose to meet him, flanked by two police officers.

“Captain Cathcart,” he said, “we must ask you to accompany us to the police station for questioning.”

“What is this about?”

“At the police station, sir. Come along. We don’t want to put the cuffs on you.”

Harry was taken to the market town of Hidwell and ushered into an interview room.

Daisy was sitting in the housekeeper, Mrs. Henry’s, parlour, having a cup of tea. She was privately hoping Rose would be successful in persuading Harry to talk to Becket and get permission to work. The news of Harry’s departure had not yet filtered below stairs.

“Must have been awful losing your baby,” said Mrs. Henry, a woman as fat and comfortable as a well-worn sofa.

“You know, I don’t want babies,” said Daisy. “Is that unnatural?”

“Not after all you’ve been through.”

“It’s all right for the men,” complained Daisy. “If they don’t want babies, they can wear a condom.”

The condom had been around since the time of the Egyptian pharaohs. Some say it was named after Dr. Condom, who supplied Charles II with animal-tissue sheaths.

“There is a country way for women,” said Mrs. Henry.

“What’s that?”

“You get a piece of green elm and stick it up your whatsit. The wood expands and blocks everything.”

“I wouldn’t know green elm. Can you get me some?”

“If you’re sure, m’dear. Seems bit hard on your man.”

“I would only use it for a little.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“I am Inspector Robinson,” said the inspector, facing Harry across a table scarred with cigarette burns and tea stains. “You visited Miss Thomson, the woman accused of the murders, last evening, did you not?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Why?”

“I was curious about her state of mind. I had begun to consider writing a book on the criminal mind.”

“And she was well when you saw her?”

“Spitting venom, but otherwise fairly well. What is this about?”

“Half an hour after you left her bedside, she was found stabbed to death.”

“Good heavens, man, that had nothing to do with me!”

“We checked with the prison hospital and you, sir, were the last to see her.”

The questioning went on and on and then finally Harry was told they would be holding him overnight. He was formally charged with the murder of Thomson. Before he was led off to the cells he called his lawyer, who promised to be there first thing in the morning.

One of the policemen told his wife that evening of the arrest and the gossip swirled out of the town and reached Stacey Court.

The earl and countess were alarmed. Rose was strictly forbidden to visit Harry.

“We must get her away from here,” said the earl, “or Rose will decide to elope with a jailbird.”

“She can’t elope with him if he’s locked up.”

“Superintendent Kerridge is a friend of Cathcart’s and will probably get him released. We must get her away. Let’s take her up to Tarrach as fast as possible.” Tarrach was the earl’s hunting lodge in Perthshire. “I’ll get Matthew to make all the arrangements.”

Daisy tried not to feel too selfishly upset when Rose told her that there had been no time to speak to Harry about Becket. “And you are going away tomorrow,” mourned Daisy.

She looked hopefully at Rose. “We could run away again.”

“I’m afraid I can’t face running away any more. The stay in Scotland will help me to make up my mind about Harry.”

Becket called early in the morning at the police station with a change of clothes for Harry.

“This is ridiculous,” raged Harry. “I am being moved to London. My lawyer couldn’t get hold of Kerridge. I thought Lady Rose might have tried to see me.”

“Lady Rose was refused permission and the family are leaving for Scotland today.”

Harry fretted all the way to London and when he found himself locked up in a police cell in Pentonville Prison, he felt he was moving through a nightmare.