“I don’t understand,” said Daisy.
“Oh, I do,” Rose put in quickly. “This is fascinating. Is your son a vegetarian as well?”
“Alas, no. But he will come round. We females mature very quickly and can grasp metaphysical concepts much better than gentlemen can. May I hope you will join our society?”
“I should like that very much.”
“The subscription fee is two guineas.”
“I will get my father’s secretary to send you the money,” said Rose.
♦
“You want Jarvis to do what?” roared the earl at dinner that night.
“It’s a very interesting concept, Pa. I think we would all be better off eating vegetables.”
“If you are interested in her son, I would drop that interest now,” said Lady Polly. “Mrs Barrington-Bruce telephoned me to ask how you were and I told her you were visiting Mrs Stockton. ‘Keep her away from that place’ is what she said. ‘The son is not to be trusted.’”
“But I promised!”
“Then un-promise.”
The earl glared at his daughter. He felt he was almost beginning to dislike her. She was so beautiful and yet all she did was run around behaving in a weird way and putting her reputation at risk. He signalled to the butler. “Nothing but vegetables for Lady Rose and Miss Levine from now on.”
“Very good, my lord.”
∨ Hasty Death ∧
Six
Mad, bad, and dangerous to know
Lady Caroline Lamb
Three weeks went past without Harry finding a single clue. Rose went to parties and the theatre, wondering all the time what Harry was doing and why he had not tried to contact her.
Lady Polly had not hired a lady’s maid for her, saying that Humphrey would help out. Everywhere that Rose and Daisy went, Humphrey went too, watching, always watching.
It was useless to complain. Lady Polly was delighted that her daughter was at last behaving like a débutante, and as Humphrey was quick to claim the credit for this, she praised her lady’s maid and urged her on to further effort.
She did not know that Humphrey had a sinister reason for watching her daughter closely.
Humphrey had been attending the consulting rooms of Dr Thomas McWhirter in Harley Street. He was a handsome middle-aged man with thick white hair and a square, tanned face. He had very piercing blue eyes which Humphrey felt could look into her very soul. She had poured out all her resentment against Daisy and the ‘strain’ of keeping an eye on Rose. She was encouraged to talk about Rose.
At her last consultation, Dr McWhirter had said in that deep, attractive voice of his, “I think Lady Rose may be insane, cleverly insane. I think she needs treatment.”
“Do you mean Lady Rose should consult you?”
“No, she would be too cunning. I have an asylum, more a refuge, for members of society. It is more like a country house. Lady Polly should be persuaded that it would help her daughter immensely to be confined for, say, a few months. After that, I promise you, she would be a model of society.”
“If I suggest such a thing to her ladyship, I think she would fire me,” said Humphrey.
“But you say your charge gets into serious trouble. Wait for the next episode and seize the chance.”
♦
Rose was not aware she was being courted. A baronet, Sir Richard Devizes, was frequently at her side. As Sir Richard was nearly fifty, the nearly twenty-year-old Rose never for one moment considered his attention to be other than fatherly. And so she allowed him to escort her to his box at the opera and sat with him at soirées and parties.
Daisy tried to caution her but Rose only laughed and said he kept the other men away and he was too old to be romantically interested in her.
It came as a shock to her on the fourth week since Angela Stockton’s lecture when her mother and Humphrey burst into her room where she was reading and told her she must put on her best gown because Sir Richard had something important to say to her.
Lady Polly was elated. Sir Richard had asked to pay his addresses to Rose. He was handsome and fabulously wealthy. Certainly he was a bit old, but the guidance of an older man was just what Rose needed. It would also mean that she and the earl could stop worrying about their wayward daughter.
“Why does he want to see me?” asked Rose as Lady Polly and Humphrey fussed over her.
“It’s a surprise,” said Lady Polly.
With a sinking feeling in her heart, Rose went downstairs, her silk petticoats rustling beneath a gown of blue taffeta. She missed Daisy, but Daisy had gone to Hatchards to buy her some more books.
Lady Polly pushed her daughter into the drawing-room and left her to face Sir Richard alone.
“Sir Richard,” said Rose nervously, “why have you called?”
He pulled out a large handkerchief and placed it on the floor and then knelt on it. “Come here,” he said.
“Why are you kneeling on the floor?”
“Because I am going to propose marriage to you, you lucky, lucky child.”
“Please rise, Sir Richard. I do not wish to get married.”
He struggled to his feet and looked at her in amazement. Then he smiled. “Ah, you are teasing me. Your sex was always wilful.”
“Sir Richard, I have enjoyed our friendship, that I admit, but I did not think for a moment that your feelings were of a warmer nature.”
He looked at her in amazement. “Do you mean you are actually refusing me? It would restore your damaged reputation.”
“I do not have a damaged reputation.”
“Anyone who has supported the suffragettes has a damaged reputation.”
The previous year, Rose’s photograph, taken at a suffragette rally, had appeared in the Daily Mail.
“Sir Richard, I do not wish to be unkind. I find your proposal flattering. But there is a great difference in age.”
“What do you mean? I look like a man in his thirties.”
“It is pointless to stand here arguing,” said Rose. “I am so very sorry, but I must refuse.” She dropped him a curtsy and hurried out of the room.
Lady Polly and the earl and Humphrey were standing outside the door. Rose rushed past them and up the stairs.
Sir Richard emerged. “Your daughter is mad,” he pronounced. And Humphrey saw her chance.
♦
“No, no, my dear Lord and Lady Hadshire,” said Dr McWhirter later that day. “It is not an asylum. It is for people with nervous disorders. Two months under my care and your daughter would be restored to obedience and sanity. The place is called The Grange, just outside Barnet. Like a country house.”
The earl and countess faced him, each thinking that two months without worrying about Rose would be a treat. They could get rid of Daisy Levine, of whom they had never approved.
The earl cleared his throat. “We could have her back for the beginning of the season, hey?”
“Of course.”
“But she would never go.”
“You do not tell her where she is going. Simply tell her you want her to make a call on an old friend of yours. Shall we say tomorrow morning? I shall be there personally to receive her.”
♦
“I’d feel better if we told Cathcart what was happening,” said the earl.
“We’ll phone him when we get home.”
So the earl phoned but Miss Jubbles said that Captain Cathcart was not in his office but she would tell him as soon as he returned.