“I do not see what your husband’s amours have to do with my companion,” said Rose angrily. “Pray talk of something else.”
The duchess raised her lorgnette. “You know, animation suits you. You should cultivate it.”
The duchess turned her attention to her dinner. She was a messy eater and the front of her gown was soon decorated with the detritus of her meal. Rose, who had been taught to eat ortolans by dissecting them with a sharp knife, wondered what her mother would make of the duchess’s table manners as the little duchess picked up the small bird and crammed it in her mouth and then began to pick out the bones.
The pudding was a meringue confection and soon the duchess’s gown was liberally sparkling with meringue dust.
“Where shall we stay in Paris?” asked Rose.
“I have reserved a floor at the Crillon. We could have stayed with an old friend of mine, but I decided it would be as well to keep our mission discreet. Society does gossip so. We should retire now because we need to make an early start.”
“How early?”
“We catch the nine-o’clock to Dover. Ladies, wear your motoring gear when we set out.”
♦
A Daily Mail reporter lurked outside Claridge’s the next morning, hoping for some news about celebrities. He saw that someone very important was about to depart. There was the duchess’s Daimler and behind it, Harry’s Rolls, and behind that, a carriage for the servants. The duchess was travelling accompanied by her lady’s maid, two footmen and her butler. The reporter watched as those huge trunks called Noah’s Arks were loaded into the back of the motors and into the rumble of the servants’ carriage.
He went up to the doorman. “Who’s leaving?”
The doorman stared impassively ahead. The reporter pressed a guinea into his hand.
“The Duchess of Warnford,” said the doorman. “Her Grace is going to Paris.”
“Who goes with her?”
Again that impassive stare. The reporter sighed and fished out another guinea.
“Captain Cathcart, Lady Rose Summer and Miss Levine.”
The reporter grinned. Lady Summer was news. Nobody had heard of her since that murder. He retreated a little way down the street, waited for the party to emerge and began to make notes.
♦
It was an uncomfortable journey to the station. A gale tore at the ladies’ hats and plastered their thick veils against their faces.
At the station, the footmen ran off and returned with porters. They followed their luggage to where it was being loaded onto a private carriage on the train. Daisy was enchanted by the duchess’s private carriage, which was like a drawing room on wheels, complete with comfortable armchairs, the latest magazines and vases of fresh flowers.
The servants were told to make their way to a third-class carriage farther down the train, but as Benton, the lady’s maid, was to stay with them in the duchess’s carriage, Harry requested the company of Becket as well.
Becket tentatively sat down next to Daisy. He felt he could not bear her coldness a moment longer.
“Daisy,” he whispered.
“Ye-es?” drawled Daisy in a good imitation of a haughty Mayfair hostess.
“I’ve been thinking,” said Becket. “I was too hasty in turning down your idea of setting up a dress salon.”
“You mean it?” said Daisy.
“I’ll do the business end, but I don’t want to have to serve ladies.”
“No, you won’t,” said Daisy eagerly. “Oh, I’m so glad we’re friends again. Miss Friendly will be thrilled. We’ll have the most successful dress salon in London.”
♦
At that moment, Miss Friendly had just left a lawyer’s office in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. She stood on the pavement dazed. She had just been informed that her Aunt Harriet, her mother’s sister, who had vowed to have nothing to do with her father ever again because of his drinking and gambling, had died and had left her a house in Sussex, jewellery and ten thousand pounds.
Miss Friendly felt bewildered and alone. She wished she could talk to Rose and Daisy. Then she remembered Phil Marshall, who worked for the captain. She had met him at a dinner the year before and he had seemed such an easy-going, sensible man.
She hailed a hack and directed the cabbie to the captain’s Chelsea address. Phil stared down at the little figure of the seamstress on the doorstep. He was practising a haughty air for the day when he hoped to take over Becket’s duties.
“It is I, Miss Friendly,” she said timidly.
Phil suddenly smiled. “I didn’t recognize you at first. Come in. You look worried. Is everything all right?” He led the way into the front parlour.
“Everything is very much all right,” said Miss Friendly, “but I need some advice.”
“We’ll have a glass of sherry and you can tell me all about it,” said Phil. He poked the fire into a blaze and then fetched a sherry decanter and two glasses. “Sit by the fire,” he said. “What’s happened?”
Miss Friendly took a nervous sip of sherry and told him about her inheritance.
“You have no more worries,” said Phil. “You move into your aunt’s house and you’ll never have to work again.”
“It’s just that I have this rather terrifying idea. Daisy – Miss Levine – once suggested that Becket, Miss Levine and myself should set up a dress salon. I have a talent for designing and making clothes. Then Becket said he did not like the idea and I am too timid to take on such an undertaking myself.”
Phil sat deep in thought. He was a changed man from the poverty-stricken wreck the captain had rescued. He had thick white hair and a rosy face and kept his figure trim with frequent walks. He admired Miss Friendly. He thought she was all that a lady should be: genteel and shy.
Then he began to wonder and not for the first time if Becket would ever leave the captain. There were times when Phil felt superfluous. He did a certain amount of housekeeping, but there was a woman who came round to do the rough work and it was Becket who answered the door to callers and who drove the captain.
“What we should do,” he began and Miss Friendly gave him a shy smile, liking the sound of that precious little word ‘we’. “What we should do is make an appointment with those lawyers and put your proposition to them. You could sell your aunt’s house, and with the money buy premises in London. Then you would need to employ, say, two seamstresses to begin with. You’ll need a classy name.”
Miss Friendly took a sudden gulp of sherry. “It could be an English name,” she said in a rush. “Like Marshall and Friendly.”
“You mean I could be a partner?”
“You could, couldn’t you, Mr Marshall?”
“I don’t really have any money, just a little bit of savings.”
“But I have. I would need a manager.”
“Bless me!” Phil grinned. “This is so sudden.”
“I’ve thought about it a lot,” said Miss Friendly. “It would be a great deal of initial expense because we would need to have an opening fashion show.”
“Tell you what,” said Phil, “give me the name of those lawyers and I’ll make an appointment.”
♦
Seagulls wheeled and screamed overheard as the duchess and her party boarded the Queen, which was to cross the Channel to Calais. “Going to be rough,” said Harry, looking out at the whitecaps of the waves.
The duchess retired to a cabin as soon as they were on hoard. Daisy and Rose stood at the rail and watched the white cliffs of Dover until a screaming gale and a bucketing sea drove them back to the shelter of the lounge. Daisy’s head ached because the wind had torn at her large round motoring hat, which was secured by two large hatpins, and had nearly dragged it off her head.