Sick of Shadows Read online

  Dolly complied and took Rose’s arm, a gesture Rose felt was a trifle over-familiar. She drew her arm away. Dolly began to cry again. “I’ve offended you!”

  “No, no. Please sit down on this bench. Do compose yourself. Why are you so distressed?”

  “I don’t know the rules,” sniffed Dolly. “So many rules. We were taking tea yesterday at Mrs. Barrington-Bruce’s place in Kensington. Such a splendid tea and I have a healthy appetite. I ate an awful lot and then I found the other ladies were looking at me in horror. Worse than that, I’d taken off my gloves. I did not know one was supposed to eat with gloves on.”

  “Usually the form is to eat only a little thin bread and butter,” said Rose. “It is rolled, you see, so that one does not get butter on one’s gloves.”

  “I talk an awful lot about the country because I do miss it so,” said Dolly, “and Mother says they are all laughing at me and calling me the Milkmaid.”

  “I think it would be a good ploy if you were to say as little as possible. Just look enigmatic.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Mysterious. Hidden depths.”

  “But the gentlemen can sometimes make very warm remarks and I am fearful of offending them.”

  “Let me see. You rap the offender lightly on the arm with your fan and lower your eyes and say something like, ‘Oh, sir, I fear you are too wicked for me. But perhaps I am naïve. I shall tell Mama exactly what you have just said.’ Believe me, that will cool their ardour.”

  “You are so, so clever! Tell me more.”

  Flattered and feeling she was finally being of use to someone, Rose went on to help her pupil further.

  But the morning was rather spoilt for her when, just before she left, Dolly said, “I would like to meet your fiancé. He seems to be a most fascinating man. But people do say he is never at your side.”

  “People talk a lot of nonsense,” retorted Rose angrily.

  Daisy was waiting for Rose when she returned. “You look cross,” commented Daisy. “What did she do to upset you?”

  “Nothing. She is a delightful and charming innocent. I was able to give her some tips as to how to go on in society. We shall meet again. She does cry a lot. She is very sensitive.”

  “Probably acting,” sniffed the jealous Daisy. “Well, if she didn’t make you cross, who did?”

  “It’s just that people are constantly harping on about my supposed fiancé and wondering why he is never with me. I really did think the captain would keep up some sort of pretence.”

  “Then let’s go and see him,” said Daisy eagerly. “There’s no harm in calling on a fellow in his office.”

  “I would not lower myself to go and beg him.”

  “But—”

  “No more, Daisy.”

  I’m supposed to be her companion and friend, thought Daisy sulkily, but she still talks down to me. Then her face brightened. She had a soft spot for the captain’s manservant, Becket. She would call on Becket. He would know what to do.

  “Do you need me for anything?” asked Daisy.

  “I don’t know. What appointments do we have for today?”

  “This afternoon you’ve to make calls with your mother. You won’t need me.”

  “I suppose not. What will you do?”

  “Dunno. Look at the shops.”

  “Don’t say dunno,” admonished Rose, but Daisy affected not to hear her and left the room.

  As the day was fine, Daisy walked from Belgravia to Chelsea and to Water Street, where the captain had his home. Her heart beat a little more quickly under her stays as she turned the corner of Water Street. It seemed ages since she had last seen Becket. She imagined his surprise when he opened the door and saw her standing there.

  But to her dismay, it was Captain Harry Cathcart himself who answered the door. Daisy always found him rather intimidating. He was a tall man in his late twenties with black hair already greying at the temples and a hard handsome face with deep black eyes under heavy lids.

  “Where’s Becket?” asked Daisy.

  “I am afraid Becket is not well. He has a severe cold and I have sent him to bed. Is that why you came? Do come in.”

  Daisy followed him into the book-lined front parlour. “Do sit down, Daisy.”

  “You’ve to call me Miss Levine,” said Daisy with a show of spirit. “I’m a companion now. I’m worried about Rose.”

  “Why? What’s the matter?”

  “You’re supposed to be her fiancé, but you’re never seen with her and people are sniggering and talking. She goes everywhere with that Sir Peter Petrey and people are thinking she might ditch you for him.”

  “Petrey? He has no interest in women.”

  “You know that, I know that, Rose knows that, but look at it from her point of view. She could marry him and have her own household and not have to worry about producing children. Why should she stick with you?”

  “Daisy—Miss Levine—you know very well that our engagement is merely an arrangement. I have been very busy. Well, I suppose I have been remiss. Where does she go this evening?”

  “Another ball. The Barrington-Bruces.”

  “Tell her I will escort her.”

  “Tell her yourself. She don’t know I’m here and she would be furious if she found out. May I see Becket?”

  “He has a bad cold and you should not be visiting gentlemen in their bedchambers.”

  “Just a quick word,” pleaded Daisy.

  She expected Becket’s room to be in the basement, but the captain led her up the stairs to a door on the second landing. “Visitor for you, Becket,” he said and ushered Daisy into the room.

  His manservant struggled up against the pillows. “Why, Daisy! You shouldn’t be seeing me like this.”

  Harry retreated but left the door open. Becket’s brown hair, which was normally neatly plastered down on his head above his thin white face, was sticking up all over his head. Daisy sat down beside the bed. “Has the doctor seen you?”

  “Yes, but he says it’s a feverish cold. I’ll be right as rain in a few days.”

  “Captain does you proud,” said Daisy, looking around the sunny room. The walls were lined with bookshelves. There was a leather armchair in front of the fireplace, and by the window, a handsome desk.

  “Why did you come?” asked Becket.

  Daisy told him about the captain’s neglect and Rose’s anger. “I think my master’s really in love with her,” said Becket, “and that’s why he keeps clear of her because she can hurt him and he doesn’t like being hurt.”

  “I think they love each other,” said Daisy. “I think that’s why she’s so unhappy. She’s treating me more like a servant than she’s done in ages. But he said he’d take her to the ball tonight.”

  Becket sighed. “Let’s just hope they see sense.”

  An hour later, Harry went to his office in Buckingham Palace Road. His secretary, Ailsa Bridge, was typing busily. The window behind her was wide open, but the air still smelt of peppermints. Harry believed his secretary was fond of peppermints, not realizing that Ailsa was fond of gin and drank peppermint cordial to disguise the smell.

  “How are things?” he asked.

  “Various cases have come in. The most immediate is from Mrs. Barrington-Bruce. She will be wearing her diamonds tonight and fears jewel thieves and wants you to be on duty at her ball.”

  “I’ll cancel that one. I’m escorting my fiancée and I do not think she would be pleased if I were there in the capacity of policeman. I will phone Mrs. Barrington-Bruce shortly.” Harry went into his inner office and phoned Rose, only to be told that she was taking tea at Mrs. Barrington-Bruce’s. He phoned Mrs. Barrington-Bruce’s residence and asked the butler if he might speak to Lady Rose Summer.

  Rose’s heart gave a jolt when she heard his voice on the phone. “I just wanted to let you know that I shall be escorting you this evening,” said Harry.

  Her voice sounded cool and distant. “Alas, you are too late. I
have already asked Sir Peter Petrey to escort me. How was I to know that you might remember at the last minute to honour our arrangement?”

  “Look here—”

  “Goodbye.”

  Harry glared at the phone. How dare she? He phoned again and this time asked for Mrs. Barrington-Bruce and said he would be there to guard her jewels.

  Mrs. Barrington-Bruce was an indefatigable hostess. Because her entertainments were always lavish, she could attract the cream of society, people who would not normally take the trouble to travel as far as Kensington.

  Daisy was becoming increasingly depressed. On the journey there, Rose had confided her worries about Dolly, saying that she thought the girl had some deep sorrow and was not just worried about the rules of society. Peter, an inveterate gossip, encouraged Rose to talk on and on about Dolly. Daisy was really beginning to fear that Rose was considering Peter as a marriage partner and furthermore she was jealous of Dolly. Somehow Daisy felt the class lines were so rigid that she could never be a real friend to Rose, whereas Dolly, who was acceptable in the eyes of society, had all the advantages.

  Although hailed as a beauty, Rose, since her engagement, was no longer in such demand, and to her fury she had to sit out a whole three dances while watching her fiancé prowling around the place. She did not know he was working and assumed he was deliberately snubbing her. Her anger was so great that when Peter came up for his second dance she flirted outrageously, and the shrewd Peter, who knew exactly why she was doing it, played up to her.

  Harry was furious. How dare she show him up like this? Mrs. Barrington-Bruce approached him. “I think you should dance with your fiancée,” she said severely. “People do not know you are working for me and it looks as if you are deliberately cutting her dead.”

  He had not seen things from this angle but by the time he approached Rose, her flirtatious display on the dance floor had attracted many admirers and her dance card was full. He bowed instead before Daisy. “Miss Levine, will you do me the honour?”

  Rose started to protest. “Miss Levine does not dance . . .” But her new partner had come to claim her and Harry was already leading Daisy onto the dance floor.

  Daisy’s little face, which still held a bit of her old pinched Cockney look, turned up to the captain’s brooding one. “You asked for it,” she whispered as they circulated in a waltz.

  “I’m working,” he hissed. “I’m supposed to be watching Mrs. Barrington-Bruce at all times in case someone steals her jewels.”

  “But she’s wearing ’em. Looks like a Christmas tree.”

  “Mrs. Barrington-Bruce fears some villain will rush across the ballroom and assault her.”

  “She’s so corseted tonight in whalebone, it must be like armour,” giggled Daisy. “But you are causing a lot of gossip, sir.”

  “I feel like asking Lady Rose to end this stupid farce of an engagement.”

  “You can’t do that!” exclaimed Daisy. “She’ll be shipped off to India and I’ll have to go with her. Oh, do make a push to behave like a gentleman.”

  Her rather prominent green eyes were filled with worry. Harry gave a reluctant laugh. “I’ll try.”

  But Rose’s thoughts had been distracted from Harry. Dolly had slipped a note into her hand. Rose read it at the first opportunity. It said: “You are my only Frend. I am Running Away. Meet me at the Serpent at six tomorrow and I will tell all. Come Alone. Yr. Loveing Dolly.”

  “You’re not really going, are you?” asked Peter on the road home. “Six o’clock! It’s nearly two in the morning now.”

  “Dolly needs my help,” said Rose firmly. “I will go.”

  “I’ll come with you,” said Daisy.

  “No, she said to come alone and that’s what I’m going to do. Ma won’t miss me. She won’t expect me to rise until one in the afternoon.”

  Rose let herself out of the family’s town house at quarter to six in the morning and hurried in the direction of Hyde Park, unaware that Daisy was following her at a distance.

  She assumed that Dolly would be waiting for her on the bridge over the Serpentine, where she had met her before. Rose shivered a little as she stood on the bridge. The weather had turned chilly. A duck squawked on the water below and Rose leaned on the bridge and looked over.

  Then she let out a scream of fright, and Daisy, who had been hiding behind a nearby tree, scampered up to join her. Too upset to ask Daisy why she had followed her, Rose pointed downwards.

  A rowing-boat was moored in the water by the bridge. In it lay Dolly dressed like the Lady of Shalott in the pre-Raphaelite illustration to Tennyson’s famous poem by John Atkinson Grimshaw. Her filmy draperies floated out from the boat and trailed in the water. Flowers were woven in her hair. Her hands were crossed on her breast. Her beautiful face was clay-white.

  “Is it a joke?” asked Daisy.

  “No, look, there’s blood on her dress.”

  Daisy looked wildly round the park. “Come away,” she begged. “The murderer could still be hiding somewhere close.”

  “We must tell the police,” said Rose.

  And as if by some miracle she suddenly saw a policeman on his bike cycling through the park.

  “Help!” screamed Rose. “Over here!”

  Rose and Daisy clutched each other as the policeman cycled up.

  “Miss Dolly Tremaine is down there,” gasped Rose. “She’s been murdered.”

  The policeman hurried down the river bank at the side of the bridge and bent over the body. Then he straightened up and came running back. He took out a notebook and wrote down their names. Then he said, “Wait here.”

  “Where’s he gone?” whispered Daisy through white lips.

  “There’s a police box on Park Lane. It won’t be long before he’s back.”

  The gas-lit police boxes for use by the police and the public had started off in Glasgow a bare four years after the telephone had been invented. The cast-iron boxes looked like men’s urinals.

  They did not have to wait long. The policeman came back and began to take further notes. Who was the dead girl? Where did she live? Soon more police arrived and then two detectives, followed closely by Detective Superintendent Kerridge in a police motor car.

  “Lady Rose!” he exclaimed, having dealt with two previous cases where Rose was involved. “What have you been up to now, my lady?”

  TWO

  Gorgonised me from head to foot,

  With a stony British stare.

  —ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON

  The earl’s town house was in an uproar. Lady Rose and Daisy had been escorted home by Detective Superintendent Kerridge and Inspector Judd. The earl and countess were awakened to this dire news. They were told that the superintendent would return as soon as possible to interview Rose. What on earth had their daughter been up to now?

  Kerridge had shrewdly guessed that he would be in deep trouble if he continued to interview Rose without her parents’ being present. Unmarried girls were not expected to have any freedom at all. Their letters were routinely read by their parents before being handed to them. And they were certainly not expected to venture outside without being chaperoned. Kerridge was sure the earl would not consider Daisy to be a suitable chaperone without the added guard of a maid and two footmen.

  Although it was noon before he arrived, having come straight from Dolly’s parents, he had to wait some time until the earl and countess were dressed.

  “You, again,” was the earl’s sour greeting. “What’s our Rose been up to, then? It’s those suffragettes, that’s what it is.”

  “No, my lord,” said Kerridge. “It is a case of murder.”

  “Where is my daughter?” shrieked Lady Polly.

  “Here, Ma,” said a calm voice from the doorway. Rose had gone to her rooms to get an hour’s sleep.

  “Who’s murdered?” asked the earl. He tugged the bell-rope furiously and ordered a footman to fetch his secretary, Matthew Jarvis.

  “A certain Miss Dolly Tremaine
.”

  “Oh, that beautiful girl,” wailed Lady Polly. “But what has all this to do with my daughter?”

  Matthew came in at that moment and the earl roared, “Get Cathcart. He’s got to come here now.”

  “Very good, my lord.”

  “Your daughter, Lady Rose Summer, had an appointment to meet Miss Tremaine at the Serpentine Bridge at six o’clock this morning.”

  “Why the deuce . . .?”

  “Miss Tremaine gave me a note at the ball last night,” said Rose. “She said she was running away. When I arrived at the bridge, I looked over and saw her lying dead in that rowing-boat dressed as the Lady of Shalott.”

  “Who’s she?” demanded the earl. “She ain’t in Debrett’s, I can tell you that. Foreigner, hey?”

  “The Lady of Shalott is the title of a poem by Lord Tennyson, Pa. I have a copy of his poems here. This is the famous illustration, Mr. Kerridge.”

  “Any idea why she was dressed like that?”

  “Miss Tremaine may have had the costume made to wear at a fancy dress ball next week.”

  “Have you any idea why she would want to run away?”

  “I do not know. I only know that she was bewildered and unhappy in society. Her father is a country rector and her parents would expect her to marry someone with money to offset the cost of a Season.”

  “Nothing wrong with that,” muttered the earl.

  “I assume you have interviewed her parents,” said Rose. “Have they any idea why she would want to run away?”

  “None whatsoever,” said Kerridge. “In fact, they say that she was about to be engaged before the Season even started. To a certain Lord Berrow.”

  “Lord Berrow is old,” said Rose. “That is probably the reason she wanted to run away.”

  “Fiddlesticks,” said Lady Polly. “The trouble is that girls these days will read cheap romances. One does not marry for love.”

  “Steady on, old girl,” protested the earl.

  “We were a rare exception,” said Lady Polly. “Where is this rector’s church?”