by M C Beaton
“Nonetheless, to be thorough, we will take a copy of milady’s handwriting.”
“I have a note Lady Rose wrote to me,” said Daisy. “I’ll get it. No need to bother my poor lady at the moment. You can see she is not well.”
Daisy went to her room and found a list of things to be packed Rose had given to Daisy in London and brought it back.
Lemonier read it carefully and compared it with the note. “I have my police combing every hotel and lodging house in Paris, although we have only a vague description. Police are interviewing everyone who was on the quay. Can you remember seeing anyone, milady?”
Rose shook her head. “Funnily enough, just before I was pushed I began to feel afraid and realized how stupid I had been to go out on my own. I did not see anyone. There was no one on the quay when I went down the steps.”
♦
Benton, the duchess’s lady’s maid, came in to see her mistress in a high state of excitement. “You will never believe what has just happened, Your Grace. Lady Rose went out walking beside the Seine and somebody pushed her in! The police are here.”
“Will this never end?” demanded the duchess crossly. “I am no longer amused. We will leave tomorrow, Benton.”
“But Your Grace, the police said –”
“Do you think I care what a lot of frog policemen say? My orders are to pack. Fetch Kemp.”
When her butler arrived, the duchess said, “Take a telegram. Right. Got paper and pen? Good. ‘Dear Polly. Daughter involved in murder and mayhem and whole business is too vulgar for words and can no longer chaperone her so suggest you catch train to Paris and get to the Crillon toute suite and take her away because I have had enough of it. Effie.’ Send that right off, Kemp.”
But when the telegram arrived at the Palace Hotel in Monte Carlo, Lord and Lady Hadshire were on their way to Cairo and had left no forwarding address.
♦
Daisy rapped on Harry’s door during the night and when he answered, she whispered urgently, “Oh, Captain, Rose has a bad fever. She needs a doctor.”
“I’ll see to it right away.”
Harry ordered a doctor to be sent immediately and told the hotel manager also to hire a trained nurse. Then he quietly entered Rose’s room. She was tossing and turning and her face was flushed.
Daisy began to cry softly. “I should never have left her.”
Harry sat down beside the bed and took Rose’s hot hand in his own and held it tightly until the doctor arrived.
Dr Maurey was an elderly gentleman with silver hair and a gold pince-nez. He sent Harry out of the room while he examined Rose. Harry paced up and down the corridor wondering whether he should wake the duchess. When the doctor called him in, he said he thought Lady Rose was suffering from a severe chill and shock. He had prescribed powders which Miss Levine was to dissolve in water and get the patient to drink every four hours. He would call again in the morning. Harry told him a nurse had been ordered and if the doctor waited a few more minutes, he was sure the nurse would arrive. Rose needed expert care.
Daisy felt useless after the nurse arrived and took over. She wished they were all back in England. The nurse was middle-aged and appeared efficient but could not speak a word of English. Daisy felt so far from home, lost in an alien land. She began to wonder whether God was punishing her for having slept with Becket. What if Becket should decide not to marry her? Daisy had remained a virgin until her affair with Becket, having heard too many stories of girls being seduced and then abandoned.
♦
At nine in the morning, Harry walked along to the duchess’s suite to tell her about Rose’s illness. The doors were all standing open and he could see hotel servants inside, clearing and cleaning.
“Where is Madame la Duchesse?” he asked.
When he was told she had left early that morning, he muttered, “Selfish old toad.”
He went down to see the manager and explained that he would need a lady of reputable standing to act as a chaperone. The manager appeared to find his request as simple as if he had ordered flowers.
Later that afternoon, he introduced Harry to a lady called Madame Bailloux. Madame Bailloux was a small, dainty Frenchwoman in her fifties with small sparkling black eyes. She said she had previously been employed as a companion to the Marquise de Graimont, who had recently died. She had excellent references. Harry told her all about Rose’s situation and said that madame would be expected to travel with them to London.
“I know London well,” she said in prettily accented English.
“Lady Rose does have a companion, a Miss Levine, but Miss Levine is young and I need someone older to act as chaperone,” said Harry.
“I will do my best. I remember seeing Dolores Duval driving her carriage in the Bois,” said Madame Bailloux. “Could she not have been the victim of some enraged lover?”
“Then why murder Madame de Peurey?”
“Because Madame de Peurey may have known the identity of this murderer. A time ago, I remember, Dolores Duval was under the protection of a certain Monsieur Thierry Clement. He manufactures cardboard boxes and things. Very rich. I am sure this hotel can furnish you with his direction. Hotels are a mine of information.”
Harry made a note of the name, thanked her and said he would arrange accommodation at the hotel for her if she could move in as soon as possible.
♦
He obtained the name of Monsieur Clement’s factory and went off with Becket, driving out through the outskirts of Paris towards Roissey. He realized as Becket drove up to the factory that possibly someone as rich as this Monsieur Clement might very well not visit his own factory but leave it all to a manager. So he was pleasantly surprised to be told that Monsieur Clement was in his office.
A small, portly man rose to meet him. “A private investigator,” he said in French.
“I am investigating the death of Dolores Duval,” began Harry. He told him the whole story and said he was searching into Dolores’s background to try to find out who might have wished to kill her.
Monsieur Clement sighed. “Poor Dolores. I was her first. I’ll never forget that day. I was walking along the ramparts of Saint Malo and there was this vision coming towards me. She was dressed like a peasant, clogs and Breton coif, but nothing could hide that beauty. I took off my hat and asked, ‘What is an angel like you doing here?’ She said she was working on a farm. I said such beauty should not be labouring. It sounds very trite now, but her beauty struck me like a thunder-bolt. I said, ‘Come away with me and you will never have to work again. You will have your own apartment in Paris.’
“She grinned like an urchin and said, ‘Very well, I will meet you here in an hour.’
“We had a happy time. Madame de Peurey got her claws into her and the next thing I knew, I had to go to a lawyer’s office and sign papers, promising all sorts of things – jewels, a carriage, a better apartment. But a year later, she left me for another wealthy manufacturer, and so it went on. I think Baron Chevenix was the last.”
“When you met her in Saint Malo, what name did she give you?”
“Dolores Duval, of course.”
“At the farm where she worked, she was known as Betty.”
“They have terribly strong accents in Brittany, not to mention their own patois. But once when we were talking of London, she seemed to know it very well. I asked if she was English and she looked alarmed and said she was French.”
“Did she have any particular friends?”
“Apart from the terrible Madame de Peurey, no, not while she was with me.”
Harry asked him to telephone the Crillon if he could think of anything else.
♦
When he arrived back and went to Rose’s room it was to find that her fever had broken and she was asleep. He drew Daisy out of the room and told her about the chaperone.
“I am going to see Lemonier,” he said. “I feel the answer to Dolores’s murder lies in England.”
∨ Our Lady of Pain
∧
Seven
And (when so sad thou canst not sadder)
Cry; – and upon thy sore loss
Shall shine the traffic of Jacob’s ladder
Pitched betwixt Heaven and Charing Cross.
– Francis Thompson
Daisy began to feel better as the days passed and Rose regained her strength. Madame Bailloux turned out not to be the formidable dragon that Daisy had feared, but light-hearted and amusing. She set to teaching Daisy to speak French. She told Rose that the very thing to complete her recovery would be a gown made by the famous French couturier Paul Poiret. Paul Poiret, she said, despised the fashion for light colours. He damned them as “nuances of nymphs’ thighs, lilacs, swooning mauves, tender blue hortensias, niles, maizes, straws: all that was soft, washed-out and insipid.”
Daisy’s romance with Becket had come to an abrupt halt. Harry was out frequently with Becket, travelling to and from police headquarters, hoping all the while that Rose’s attacker had been found.
In the evening, Harry and Becket walked up and down outside the front of the hotel, watching the passers-by, looking all the while for anyone sinister. One evening a young man in a tweed jacket, knickerbockers and goggles cycled slowly past, staring at the hotel. Harry and Becket gave chase, halting the cyclist and demanding to know who he was.
He told them rudely to mind their own business. He was English. Harry summoned a policeman and the unfortunate young man was dragged off for interrogation. He turned out to be an Oxford student, with impeccable credentials, on a cycling holiday.
Lemonier suggested curtly to Harry that he should leave investigating to the French police in future.
As soon as Rose was fully recovered, Harry said they must leave for London. He turned down Madame Bailloux’s suggestion that they should wait a further few days until Rose had ordered a Paris gown. The bags, trunks, and hatboxes were all packed. The French lady’s maid who had been hired by the duchess had disappeared as soon as the duchess had left.
They took the train to Calais and then embarked on the steamer. Daisy was relieved that the Channel was calm. Then at Dover, another train and carriages to the Earl of Hadshire’s town house.
Fortunately, Matthew Jarvis was in residence, along with the housekeeper and staff; Brum, the butler, had gone abroad with the earl and countess. A guest room was prepared for Madame Bailloux.
The first thing Daisy did as soon as she was settled was to go upstairs to Miss Friendly’s workroom. It was empty of work basket and material. Only the sewing machine remained.
She rushed to Miss Friendly’s bedroom to find it bare, with the bed stripped. Alarmed, Daisy sought out Matthew and demanded to know what had happened to Miss Friendly.
“Miss Friendly resigned while you were away,” said Matthew. “She came into an inheritance and has left to set up a dress salon with Mr Marshall, who worked for the captain.”
Daisy felt her dreams collapse. What on earth were she and Becket to do now? But there was worse to come.
♦
“I feel we should call a doctor for Miss Levine,” said Rose to Madame Bailloux. “She was very sick this morning.”
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.
