Madame Bailloux was crocheting a collar, the crochet hook flashing in and out as she worked steadily.
“That will be because of her pregnancy,” she said.
“Nonsense! She can’t be pregnant.”
“Miss Levine is showing all the signs. Young ladies when they lose their virginity have a certain air about them. The expression in the eyes is never the same.”
At that moment, Daisy walked in. She looked white-faced and tired.
“Do sit down, Daisy,” said Rose. “I have something of great importance to ask you.”
Daisy sank wearily into a chair. “Go on.”
“Are you pregnant?”
Daisy’s slightly protuberant green eyes opened to their widest in shock. “Of course not.”
“You are being sick in the mornings, are you not?” asked Madame Bailloux. “I noticed you have a certain tendre for Becket.”
“I can’t be!” wailed Daisy.
“Did you go to bed with him?” asked Madame Bailloux.
Daisy hung her head.
“Why?” asked Rose.
“Oh, why not,” said Daisy defiantly. “We were all ready to set up in business with Miss Friendly. We were to be married. Now we can’t. Servants don’t marry.” Then the burst of defiance left her and she burst into tears.
“Oh, don’t cry,” said Rose. “We’ll think of something.”
“I’ll have to go to one of those homes for fallen women,” sobbed Daisy.
“Nonsense,” said Rose. “Out of the question. You will have the baby here.”
“And what will my lord and lady say to that when they return?” asked Daisy.
Rose bit her lip.
“If I may make a suggestion,” said Madame Bailloux. “Captain Cathcart is not what I would call conventional. I think we must summon him here. It is no use crying again, Miss Levine. Your future must be resolved.” She rang the bell and when a footman answered its summons, told him to ask Mr Jarvis to telephone Captain Cathcart and tell him to come immediately.
While they waited, Rose tried to banish visions of Daisy and Becket from her brain. It was almost impossible for a young Edwardian lady like Rose to envisage such a coupling. Edwardian fashions were a sort of rococo art, shunning the simplicity of nature. Anything approaching nudity was regarded as indelicate. Edwardian décolletage in evening dress was far less daring than in Victorian times, the bosom being veiled with lace or chiffon.
She let out a little sigh of relief when she heard the downstairs door opening and then Harry’s tread on the stairs as he mounted them to the drawing room.
“Has anything happened?” he asked anxiously as he walked into the room.
“It has,” said Rose, “but nothing to do with the murders. Daisy is pregnant.”
“Ah.” He studied Daisy, who sat with her head bent for a long moment. “Becket?”
Daisy gulped and nodded.
“I’ll get him.”
Wicked Paris, thought Daisy, with its effervescent charm, its naughtiness, its seductive air that anything was permissible.
Harry returned, followed by Becket. “Sit down, Becket,” he said. “We have a problem. Miss Levine is pregnant.”
Becket’s normally bland white face went through a series of emotions all the way from shock and dismay to dawning delight. He went and knelt beside Daisy’s chair and took her cold hand in his. “We’ll find a way,” he said.
“As you know,” said Harry, “Philip Marshall has left.”
“He destroyed our dream,” said Daisy. “Becket and me were to start a salon with Miss Friendly. We’d be married and be proper business people.”
“That’s no longer on the cards,” said Harry brutally. “Couldn’t you have waited?”
“For how long?” demanded Daisy. “You said me and Becket could get married, but then nothing happened.”
“Let me think. You’d better get married as soon as possible. You and Becket can live with me as a married couple. Then we will try to find some sort of business for you.”
“After all Daisy has done for me,” said Rose, “I do not think she should have a hole-and-corner wedding. She needs a proper wedding.”
“Very well. I think you will find Mr Jarvis will help you with the arrangements. Tell him to get a special licence. I would suggest, Lady Rose, that it might be a good idea to get the wedding over with before your parents return.”
♦
Rose planned a really pretty wedding for Daisy. Miss Friendly was still busy setting up her salon but promised to work day and night to create a wedding gown.
There was the delicate question of whether Daisy should be married in white, but Rose thought the fewer people who knew of Daisy’s pregnancy, the better, Madame Bailloux pointing out with French cynicism that she was sure many of the society misses went to the altar already enceinte.
Matthew Jarvis had found a quiet City church. Then there was the thorny question of Daisy’s family. Daisy was nervous at the thought of her drunken father turning up, but Harry pointed out Daisy could hardly invite her mother and brothers and sisters and exclude her father. Matthew booked the upstairs reception room of a pub near the church.
Daisy’s emotions were see-sawing. One moment she was elated about the marriage and the next depressed that she and Becket would still be servants.
♦
Harry called on Kerridge one day before the wedding. He was touched to learn that Kerridge had received an invitation.
“I’ve had another communication from the French police today,” said Kerridge. “They’re no further forwards. Lemonier might be coming over. You see, he feels that Miss Levine may have invented that cyclist and that perhaps Lady Rose really meant to commit suicide.”
“Ridiculous!”
“I know, I know. But they are feeling frustrated. Madame de Peurey was in her day a very high-class tart with powerful lovers, and the press are calling the police incompetent.”
“I don’t really know what to do about Lady Rose,” said Harry. “There’s this wedding of Daisy’s. I kept the announcement out of the newspapers, not wanting to draw any attention to her. Lady Rose mostly keeps indoors. I must think of a way to protect her when this wretched wedding is over.”
“I thought you’d be happy about it. I thought you were quite fond of that man of yours.”
“Oh, Becket’s sterling stuff, but it means I have to give house room to both of them. I’d better find a way to set Becket up in some sort of business. But now that Phil Marshall has left, I’m going to find it very difficult to replace him.”
“I didn’t think servants were allowed to get married.”
“They’re not. But I suppose I am considered unconventional enough as it is. Once this wedding is over, I must think of someplace safe to put Lady Rose.”
“All this should be her parents’ problem, surely,” said Kerridge.
“Agreed. But I don’t know where they are. I sent a telegram to their hotel in Monte Carlo and paid for a reply. The manager replied saying that Lord and Lady Hadshire had left and he did not have a forwarding address. Where could they have gone?”
“The Cairo season is on,” said Kerridge.
“They wouldn’t go there. There’s a cholera scare.”
♦
In spite of the cholera scare, the Cairo season was a big success. No case of cholera had been reported since the beginning of November. Cairo had international hotels with modern luxury and sanitation, very different from the poor quarters of the city. The Delta Barrage, twenty miles from the town, was a popular place for excursions, and some point-to-point races were held there. Military bands played in all the big hotels, and there were dances and social functions every day. Lord and Lady Hadshire declared life in Cairo to be absolutely splendid and were comforted by the thought that Rose was being looked after by the duchess. They never read the newspapers, and their friends who had, did not feel it would be quite the thing to comment on their daughter’s exploits. They assumed they knew and pitied them for having such a wayward daughter. Better not to mention it, for having a daughter who had made herself unmarriageable was like – well – talking about cholera.