“I wish you would not come with me to Paris,” said Harry.
“Why?”
“If you remember, some man put those letters in your luggage to incriminate you in a murder. He may appear again.”
“If you think he is the culprit, what has it to do with this Madame de Peurey?”
“Miss Duval owned two houses in France. It is possible that Madame de Peurey may have hired someone to kill Dolores, but I will be able to tell better when I meet her.”
“I must go with you,” said Rose firmly. “The duchess wants to go and I do not want to be returned to the convent.”
“I am sure your parents will not approve.”
“Is my company so repugnant to you that you will do anything and hope for anything to stop me going?”
“I am only thinking of your safety.”
Rose got to her feet. “It is a pity you were not thinking of my safety before you chose to consort with a French whore!”
“I was merely working for her!”
“Pah!”
Rose strode off to the house.
♦
At breakfast the following morning, the butler handed the duchess a telegram. “What now?” she asked. “Oh, it’s from Polly. She says, ‘Do not approve. Stop. Convent respectable. Stop. Return my daughter immediately. Stop. How are you? Stop. Polly.’”
“Oh, no!” wailed Daisy.
The duchess turned her shrewd little eyes on Rose.
“Is your father High?”
“You mean, High Church?”
“Yes.”
“No, the church at our country home, Stacey Court, is Low.”
“And does he know these Anglican convents were founded by Edward Bouverie Pusey?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
Edward Pusey had founded the Anglican convents in the middle of the last century. He was under criticism for being too close to the Catholic Church.
“Good. Kemp, a telegram.” She waited until the butler had fetched paper and pen and then she began. “‘Dear Polly. Did you know the sisters were a bunch of Puseyites, all bells and smells and don’t think you want Rose there so think it best she comes with me and what were you thinking of to turn her into scrubbing woman really not suitable I am well, Effie.’”
“Do you wish me to insert punctuation, Your Grace?” asked Kemp.
“Send it!”
“My parents may still protest,” said Rose uneasily.
“Oh, I think that’ll do the trick.”
♦
Rose waited uneasily all day. At afternoon tea, she found the duchess in high spirits. “Got a telegram from your ma,” she said gleefully. “She says, ‘Dear Effie, Had no idea. Stop. Grateful to you. Stop. Daughter unruly so keep tight rein. Stop. Yours Polly.’
“Paris, here we come!”
∨ Our Lady of Pain ∧
Five
Alas! If women are going to motor, and motor seriously – that is to say, use it as a means of locomotion – they must relinquish the hope of keeping their peach-like bloom. The best remedy is cold water and a rough towel, and that not used sparingly, in the morning before they start. There is one other, the last, but perhaps the hardest concession a woman can make if she is going to motor, and that is she must wear glasses – not small dainty glasses, but veritable goggles. They are absolutely necessary both for comfort and for the preservation of the eyesight; they are not becoming, but then, as I have tried to point out, appearance must be sacrificed.
– Lady Jeune,
Motors and Motor Driving 1902
Daisy was overwhelmed by the grandeur of Claridge’s. Lord and Lady Hadshire’s homes in London and the country, magnificent as they were, did not have the same modem luxuries as the hotel, which boasted electric light, lifts and en suite bathrooms. At the Hadshires’, when she wanted a bath, footmen had to carry a coffin-shaped bath up the stairs and then fill it with water brought up from the kitchens.
“It’s a world away from the convent,” she said. Daisy, brought up in poverty in the East End of London, could never get over marvelling at the vast gulf between rich and poor.
Rose was at that moment allowing the duchess’s lady’s maid, Benton, to strap her into the long corset which was considered necessary to produce the fashionable S-figure. She was still upset with Harry. She felt sure he had enjoyed a liaison with Dolores Duval. “What would my lady like to wear tonight?” asked Benton.
“You choose something,” said Rose.
Benton went to the tall wardrobe and selected a blue chiffon gown embroidered with tiny rosebuds. It was low-cut and the layered chiffon sleeves covered the tops of her arms. All Rose’s jewels had been brought over from the town house. “I think the rope of pearls, my lady,” said Benson, “Now, the hair.”
Rose’s long brown hair was piled up on top of her head, pouffed out, and ornamented with little silk rosebuds.
“You look like another girl,” said Daisy, who was already dressed and was watching the toilette. “Sister Agnes wouldn’t recognize you now.”
Rose normally detested wearing a long corset, but for once she did not mind. She felt she needed to be armoured in fashion before she saw Harry again.
“This is a very beautiful gown,” said Benton. “Is it one of Mr Worth’s?”
“No, my seamstress, Miss Friendly, designed it and made it for me.”
“Then this lady is more than a seamstress!”
Daisy scowled. She was still furious at Becket for having turned down her idea of setting up a salon with Miss Friendly.
At last Rose was ready. She and Daisy descended to the dining room to join the others. Daisy thought it was a shame that Becket could not join them, but in the duchess’s eyes he was nothing more than a gentleman’s gentleman.
The duchess, already seated at a dining table, flashed and glittered under the weight of diamonds. She had a large diamond tiara on her head, a collar of diamonds around her neck, and diamond brooches pinned haphazardly on her dark blue velvet gown.
“My dear Rose,” she said, “how beautiful you look. Don’t you think so, Captain?”
“Very fine,” said Harry.
“We will have you married off to some dashing French comte, you’ll see. Can’t you just see our dear Rose on the arm of some handsome Frenchman, Captain?” The duchess’s eyes twinkled like her diamonds.
“Alas,” said Harry, “I have no imagination.”
Had it been left to Harry and Rose, it would have been a silent dinner, but various aristocrats kept interrupting their meal to chat to the duchess.
At last, when the duchess was engaged in another animated conversation with an old friend, Harry whispered to Rose, “Truce.”
“What truce?”
“Between us. We cannot go to Paris glaring and staring silently at each other. If it makes you feel any better, I did not have an affair with Miss Duval.”
“That means nothing to me!”
“Oh, Rose, please.”
Rose sat with her head bowed for a moment. Then she raised her blue eyes and looked into his black ones. “Very well,” she said with a little smile. “Truce.”
“Thank God for that,” chirped Daisy. “All this heavy silence. It was like being back in the convent.”
The duchess finished speaking to her friend and turned her attention on Daisy. “Do I detect a certain Cockney accent there, Miss Levine?”
Daisy looked wildly at Rose. “Miss Levine,” said Rose repressively, “is a distant relative of mine from a branch of the family which fell on hard times. She has not had my advantages.”
“Really?” said the duchess, unabashed. “I had such a business ages ago when Warnford fell for a chorus girl at Daley’s. He even had her invited to a house party where she pretended to be a lady. I saw through her little act and sent her packing.”