Hasty Death (2 page)

‘Very well.’

Rose was summoned to the drawing-room. She stood in the doorway and surveyed the captain. Lady Polly thought for one moment that the very air seemed to crackle between them,
but put it down to the cold working on her imagination.

‘The captain has something to say to you,’ said the earl. ‘He has my blessing.’

A faint blush suffused Rose’s beautiful face. So Harry had asked for her hand in marriage! Well, she wouldn’t accept, but still . . .

Her parents left the room. ‘Pray be seated,’ said Harry.

Rose sank down gracefully into an armchair by the fire. He sat down opposite and a little frown creased her brow. Shouldn’t he be getting down on one knee?

‘I have come up with a solution to your problem,’ began Harry.

‘I do not wish to marry,’ said Rose, but she gave him a little smile and her long eyelashes fluttered.

‘Of course you don’t,’ said Harry cheerfully. ‘You want to be a working woman and I am here to help you.’

Rose’s face hardened with disappointment. ‘What is your plan?’ she asked.

Harry outlined his idea but without saying that the merchant banker would be paid to employ her, merely saying he knew of two typing vacancies at the bank.

‘And my parents agreed to this?’ asked Rose faintly.

‘Yes, they are anxious to leave for Nice.’

‘I suppose I must thank you,’ said Rose, feeling depressed. It was one thing to dream, another to face going out in the cold winter to work.

‘Very well. If you come across any difficulties, please let me know. My card.’

Rose felt an odd impulse to burst into tears as she took his card.

‘Remember, you must be sure not to betray your real rank. You must wear ordinary clothes and be known simply as Miss Summer. And modify your accent. I am sure Daisy will tell you how. I
suggest you buy cheap clothes. I am sure that even your oldest ones will betray your rank. No furs.’

‘And if I refuse?’

‘Then you will be a good daughter and go with your parents to Nice, and then, I suppose, to India, which is the destination these days of all failed débutantes. Your parents do not
seem too anxious to pay for another season.’

‘You are blunt, too blunt.’

‘I call a spade a spade.’

‘Indeed! Are you usually so cliché-ridden?’

‘Good day to you, Lady Rose.’

‘Infuriating woman!’ said Harry to his manservant, Becket, when he returned to his Chelsea home that evening.

‘Do you think Lady Rose will actually go ahead with it, sir?’ asked Becket, placing a decanter of sherry and a glass on the table next to Harry.

‘Oh, I’m sure she will. Stubborn as a mule!’

Daisy chewed her thumbnail and glanced nervously at her mistress. If the weather hadn’t been so cold! Also, she had become used to lavish meals and pretty clothes. And to
think that she had almost persuaded Rose to go to Nice after she had learned that Captain Cathcart intended to holiday there. But the captain had cancelled his plans for a vacation, becoming
embroiled in setting up his new business. Daisy thought the captain would make Rose a very suitable husband, and she herself was fond of the captain’s servant, Becket. Her face lit up as an
idea struck her.

‘I saw the captain’s advertisement in
The Tatler
the other day. He’s just started that detective agency. Maybe he needs a secretary. Be more exciting than working in a
bank.’

‘What a good idea!’ exclaimed Rose. ‘And I could help him to detect like I did last year. We will go out tomorrow to say we are looking for working clothes and we will go there
instead.’

On the following day, Miss Jubbles looked up from her typewriter at the beautiful creature facing her flanked by her maid. ‘May I help you?’ she asked.

‘I am Lady Rose Summer. I wish to speak to Captain Cathcart.’

‘I am afraid Captain Cathcart is not here. What is it about, my lady? I can take notes.’

‘That will not be necessary. I am here to offer my services as a secretary.’

Miss Jubbles looked at her in horror. Then her sheeplike face hardened and the two hairs sticking out of a large mole on her chin bristled.

‘But he does not need a secretary. I am his secretary.’

‘But the captain and I are friends,’ said Rose.

Miss Jubbles rose to her feet. This spoilt beauty was trying to take her job away from her.

‘I work here,’ she said, ‘because I need to work for money, not on a whim. You should be ashamed of yourself, trying to take the bread out of my mouth. Get out before I throw
you out!’

Daisy moved forward, her eyes blazing. ‘You and who else?’

Rose strove for some dignity. She put a restraining hand on Daisy’s arm. ‘I made a mistake,’ she said. ‘Come, Daisy.’

Half an hour later, Harry came back. ‘Fog’s coming down, Miss Jubbles. Anyone call?’

Miss Jubbles gave him an adoring smile. ‘No one at all, sir.’

‘Right.’ Harry went into his office.

Miss Jubbles looked possessively around her little empire: her meticulous files, her kettle with the bone-china cups arranged beside it, the tall grimy windows, the battered leather sofa and the
presence of the adored boss behind the frosted-glass inner door. All hers. And no one was going to take it away from her.

Rose would not admit to Daisy or even to herself that she was frightened. Pride would not let her back down. After the disastrous visit to Harry’s office, of which she
was now thoroughly ashamed, they went to Bourne & Hollingsworth in Lower Oxford Street and Rose began to choose suitable ready-to-wear clothes for both of them. Rose had never worn
ready-to-wear clothes in all her young life. Ladies did not.

Daisy advised her that they should limit their wardrobes to two tweed costumes for winter and two serviceable lightweight dresses for summer. ‘Well, we don’t need to buy new
underwear,’ said Rose. ‘We can wear what we’ve got. No one’s going to see that!’

‘Unless whoever runs the business women’s hostel decides to snoop in our rooms,’ pointed out Daisy.

‘We’ll take one of the old steamer trunks, one with a good lock on it,’ said Rose, ‘and use that for underwear. Surely I can take one fur coat?’

Daisy shook her head. ‘Tweed with a bit of fur at the neck is all we can get. Two pairs of boots and two pairs of shoes. Two felt hats and two straw.’

At last all their purchases were wrapped and ready. ‘Send them to . . .’ Rose was beginning when Daisy screamed. ‘What is it?’ demanded Rose.

‘I’ve lost my bracelet. I think it’s over there.’

Rose made a noise of impatience and followed her across the shop. ‘You can’t have them sent to Eaton Square,’ hissed Daisy.

‘Oh, yes I can,’ said Rose and marched back. ‘Send my maid’s clothes to this address,’ she said, producing her card.

‘You are too cautious,’ she admonished Daisy when one of the earl’s carriages was bearing them home.

‘You can’t be too careful, my lady,’ said Daisy.

‘And you had better begin by practising
not
to call me my lady.’

‘I think I’d better find that business women’s hostel for us myself,’ said Daisy.

‘Why? I think I should decide on our accommodation.’

‘You’re still too grand. You can’t go arriving anywhere in a carriage with the earl’s crest on the panels and dressed in furs. Let me do it.’

‘Very well,’ said Rose after a show of reluctance to hide the fact that she was relieved. A weak little Rose Summer, deep inside her, was beginning to wish she had never wanted to be
a working woman.

Miss Harringey, proprietor of the Bryant’s Court Hostel for Businesswomen, ushered Daisy into what she described as her ‘sanctum’, an overcrowded parlour on
the ground floor, stuffed with furniture and framed photos, and where a small yellow canary in a cage looked out dismally through the barred windows at the London fog which was beginning to veil
the streets.

Daisy was wearing one of the tweed suits purchased that day under a tweed coat with a beaver-fur trim. She was aware of Miss Harringey’s small black eyes studying her and wished she had
bought second-hand clothes instead. Daisy’s own clothes back at Eaton square
were
mostly second-hand, but they were clothes that her mistress had usually worn only once and had taken a
dislike to. She was sharply aware that what to Rose had been cheap clothes might look rather new and expensive to Miss Harringey.

Miss Harringey was a very solid woman, so corseted that she appeared to be wearing armour under her jet-covered woollen gown. Her face was large and heavy and her eyes disproportionately small.
Her hair, an improbable shade of auburn, was worn in an Alexandria fringe.

‘I would like to make it plain, Miss . . . er . . .’

‘Levine.’

‘Miss Levine. We only take ladies of impeccable reputation here.’

The clothes, thought Daisy – she thinks I might be a kept woman, as if a kept woman would want to live here!

‘I can assure you,’ said Daisy primly, ‘that me and my friend, Miss Summer, lead very hard-working lives. No gentlemen callers, I can assure you.’

‘And where do you work?’

‘At Drevey’s Merchant Bank in the City. We’re office workers.’

‘I expect payment in advance.’

‘How much in advance?’

Miss Harringey said, ‘Three months.’

‘All right,’ said Daisy.

‘I have one double room available at the top of the house.’

‘Can’t we have separate rooms?’

‘None are available.’

‘I’d better see this room.’

‘Follow me.’

And so Daisy followed Miss Harringey up a narrow flight of stairs to the top of the house. There was a mixture of odours: gas, disinfectant, dry rot, baked potatoes, baked beans, and sour milk.
And the all-pervasive smell of cabbage. ‘No cooking in the rooms,’ said Miss Harringey as she reached the top of the stairs. Daisy sniffed the air and wondered how many of the tenants
obeyed that law.

‘This is it.’ Miss Harringey threw open the door.

In the middle of the room stood an iron bedstead covered in thin, worn blankets. There was a rickety dressing-table by the window with a chipped marble top which held a china ewer and basin
decorated in fat roses and a mirror. The ‘wardrobe’ was simply a recess with a curtain over it. A table and two chairs stood by the grimy window. There was a small gas fire.

‘The bathroom is two floors down at the end of the passage,’ said Miss Harringey. ‘You will need two pennies for the meter, and the bathroom is not to be used after ten at
night.’

Daisy walked into the room. She crouched down before the mirror and adjusted her hat. Her rather protruding green eyes in her small face stared back at her.

Rose will hate this, she thought. Good, it might bring her to her senses.

‘I’ll take it.’

‘In that case, we shall descend to my sanctum and I will give you a receipt.’

‘Oh, good work,’ said Rose when Daisy returned with the news of the room.

‘It means we’ll need to sleep together,’ warned Daisy.

‘Oh, things will be fine.’ Rose had overcome her fears and was now looking forward to the new adventure. ‘I have received a letter from Mr Drevey. We are both to start work
next Monday. Eight in the morning until five-thirty in the evening. We are each to receive fifteen shillings a week.’

‘Won’t go far,’ cautioned Daisy. ‘Not after what you’ve been used to.’

‘You have paid three months’ rent in advance, have you not? So we will have thirty shillings a week between us. We have our clothes. We can eat cheap food.’

‘That Miss Harringey said there was to be no cooking in the rooms, but from the smell of the place, I don’t think anybody pays any attention to that.’

‘The smell?’

‘Well, it does smell a bit. But that’s life on the lower side. I mean, it isn’t as if we have to stick at it, now does it?’

‘We must stick at it. I’ll wager that horrible Captain Cathcart is laying bets at the moment that we won’t be able to last the pace.’

‘He wouldn’t do that. I don’t know why you are so agin him.’

‘Against,’ corrected Rose. ‘He did not even have the courtesy to acknowledge our visit.’

‘Stands to reason. That old frump of a secretary doesn’t want to lose her job. She probably never even told him.’

‘Oh . . . well, no matter. We’ll probably be very happy in our new life at Drevey’s bank.’

Rose had expected her parents to be worried, but they seemed quite cheerful as she and Daisy packed up what they would need that weekend. She did not know that the earl had
already called on Harry and had given him the address of Rose’s hostel or that Peter Drevey had promised to give Harry weekly reports of their daughter’s well-being. They were also
cheered by the captain’s belief that Rose would not last very long in her new life. But mindful of the fact that they did not want Rose returning to Eaton Square in their absence, to be
minded only by a maid whom both the earl and countess distrusted, they refused to give her a set of keys to the town house.

Mildly hurt, Rose said loftily that she would not need them.

The weekend finally arrived. Lord and Lady Hadshire seemed indecently cheerful as they supervised arrangements for their journey to Nice. Rose was feeling even more uneasy
about her new venture. She had rather hoped that her parents might shed a few tears and beg her not to go ahead with the scheme so that she could capitulate gracefully.

But at last her luggage, along with Daisy’s, was placed on the outside steps – two suitcases and one large steamer trunk – while a footman fetched a hack.

If this were a novel, thought Rose sadly, as the hack jerked forward, my parents would be waving a tearful farewell from the steps. The farewell had taken place half an hour earlier in the
drawing-room and had taken the form of a stern lecture.

At last the hack turned down a narrow back street in Bloomsbury, Bryant’s Court.

‘Is this it?’ asked Rose nervously.

‘This is it,’ said Daisy. ‘I hope they gave you money to pay for this hack.’

‘I still have some of my pin-money left,’ said Rose.

The cabbie thanked her so effusively and said, ‘Good day, my lady,’ that Rose was alarmed.