“I’m not. Not now. I feel unnatural. I feel the whole pregnancy was a dream and my marriage as well. I sometimes wake up and think I’m back in Belgrave Square with you. Then I realize I’m not and I cry.”
“I’m sure we are both suffering from shock.”
“Maybe. I had another visitor this morning. Bernie King. He works for the captain. He brought me some nice trashy books to read.” Daisy giggled. “Lady Polly took one away with her.”
“And what is this Bernie King like?”
“Ever so amusing. He comes from Whitechapel, same as me. Oh, Rose, what am I to do? I want a divorce.”
Rose looked alarmed. “Daisy, once you are out of here and established, you will feel better. Besides, we are moving to the country soon and Mama has already said that you and Becket can come with us so that you may have some fresh air. So we will be together like the old times.”
“Well, that’s at least something,” sighed Daisy. “But the old times will never come back now.”
♦
Harry and Kerridge had been told that Thomson was now conscious and they went to the prison hospital, where she was chained to the bed.
Her eyes glittered with fury as she looked at them. “How could you behave so wickedly?” asked Kerridge.
“What would you know about it?” she spat out. “You, the bourgeois and you, the slumming aristocrat, playing at being a detective. Do you know what it’s like to be brought up in poverty? Then have to work one’s way up through the ranks of servants to become a lady’s maid? Always having to smile and crawl and watch people stuffing themselves with mountains of food while there are people starving in this country? Pah. Jeffrey was an easy tool. He kept calling for money and she would only give him a little at a time. He grew discontented. Then this Dolores said she did not want him coming around any more. She was getting threatening letters and she did not want anyone to know of her previous existence down the East End.
“Then Jeffrey told me that she had left a will leaving everything to him. I worked on him. I persuaded him that if I could get his sister out of the way, then he would inherit everything and he could pay me half for my trouble.
“He hummed and hawed until the last day, when he tried to talk to her and she screamed she never wanted to see him again. I gave him some of her jewels and told him to leave it to me.
“I thought Lady Rose would be accused and we would be free from suspicion, but of course I should have known an aristocrat is never under suspicion. It’s one law for the rich and one for the poor.”
“It’s the same law for all,” said Kerridge. “You will be hanged by the neck until you are dead, and good riddance.”
♦
When they left the hospital, Harry asked Kerridge, “Did Jones write those letters?”
“Yes, he’s admitted to it.”
“I haven’t been pestered by the press,” said Harry.
“We’re keeping it quiet until the trial. Amazingly, none of the guests at the ball seems to have known what really went on. So what are your plans now?”
“More detective work,” said Harry. “Lost dogs, scandals to be covered up, that sort of thing.”
“What about Lady Rose?”
“I don’t understand you.”
“Are you getting married?”
“You’ll be the first to know.”
But Harry could not bear the idea of a rejection. He had a feeling that if Rose refused him, it would be final.
♦
Rose longed for the departure for the country. Her brief popularity had gone. It was put about that she had turned the catch of the season down. The Duchess of Warnford told everybody who would listen that she had discovered in Paris that Rose was seriously unconventional and would probably remain a spinster until the end of her days.
Daisy, too, longed for the day of departure. She was borne to her new home in Bloomsbury. Becket then had to go off immediately to chauffeur Harry.
The flat faced north. It was furnished in the heavy, oppressive furniture of the last century. The windows were shrouded in blinds, net curtains and heavy damask curtains and the rooms were dark.
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.