Part 1 (1/2)
Sick of Shadows.
by M. C. Beaton.
ONE.
”I am half sick of shadows,” said The Lady of Shalott.
-ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON
The aristocracy lived in a closed world protected by a sh.e.l.l of wealth and t.i.tle, as hard and as glittering as a Faberge egg. The vast outside world of England where people could die of starvation barely caused a ripple in their complacency.
Then, horror upon horrors, the unthinkable happened. A Liberal government was elected, proposing old-age pensions and health insurance and other benefits for the lower cla.s.ses. They further proposed eight-hour days, workers' compensation, free school meals and free medical services. Even that aristocrat, young Churchill, had turned Liberal and was saying, ”We want to draw the line below which we will not allow persons to live and labour.”
With a few exceptions, the aristocracy closed ranks as never before. The old idea that the House of Commons was an a.s.sembly of gentlemen had pa.s.sed.
Admittedly these winds of change were at first regarded as irritating draughts, such as were caused when a lazy footman had left the door of the drawing-room open. But with the newspapers heralding the reforms every morning, high cultured voices could be heard exclaiming over the grilled kidneys at breakfast tables. ”Who is going to pay for all this? Us, of course.”
Many blamed the fact that free elementary education had been introduced in 1870. The lower cla.s.ses should not have been taught to think for themselves.
So the aristocracy hung grimly onto the sn.o.bberies and rules of society which kept the hoi polloi outside.
But the Earl and Countess of Hadfield felt that the enemy was within the gates in the form of their daughter, Lady Rose Summer, who had cheered the result of the election. At first they thought she had reformed. She had become engaged to Captain Harry Cathcart. Admittedly it could be said that the captain was in trade because he ran his own detective agency, but he came from a good family and had enough money to support their daughter in the style to which she was accustomed.
Nonetheless the couple showed no sign of setting a date for the wedding, nor, for that matter, did they see much of each other.
Rose's parents did not know that her engagement was one of convenience, thought up by the captain to prevent Rose being s.h.i.+pped off to India with the other failed debutantes.
Then Rose had made a companion out of Daisy Levine, a former chorus girl whom she had first elevated to the position of maid and then to that of companion.
Rose, with her thick brown hair, delicate complexion and large blue eyes, was still considered a great beauty, but she repelled men with her encyclopaedic knowledge and radical ideas.
Her parents would have been amazed, however, if they had guessed that Rose went to considerable pains to please them. She suffered seemingly endless days of parties and teas and calls and b.a.l.l.s, all of which bored her, but she felt she owed her parents some dutiful behaviour for having failed at her first Season and cost them a great deal of money.
One evening in late spring, Rose and Daisy were preparing to attend yet another ball. Rose was relieved because on this one rare occasion the captain had promised to escort her. This would be at least one evening free from the pitying looks and sn.i.g.g.e.rs of the debutantes who kept asking slyly where her fiance was.
It was an even more boring life for her companion, Daisy. Daisy, like Rose, was barely twenty, and yet she was not expected to dance and was condemned to sit and watch with the other companions.
And then, half an hour before they were all due to depart for the Duke of Freemount's ball, Harry Cathcart telephoned to say that an urgent case had come up and he could not be there. Folding her lips into a thin line, Lady Polly, Rose's mother, asked the earl's secretary to telephone Sir Peter Petrey to come immediately and escort Rose. Peter was a willowy effete young man who specialized in filling in at dinner parties when someone had cancelled at the last minute and escorting ladies to b.a.l.l.s whose escorts had failed to turn up. He was handsome with thick fair hair and a lightly tanned face.
Lady Polly suppressed a sigh when she saw him. Why couldn't Rose have picked someone like that? The unworldly Lady Polly did not know that Peter had no s.e.xual interest in women at all, her lack of knowledge in s.e.xual matters being hardly surprising in this Edwardian era where an eminent surgeon had declared that no lady should ever enjoy s.e.x-only s.l.u.ts did that.
”Where is the wretched man?” asked Peter as he led Rose up the grand staircase at the Freemounts' town house.
”Working, I suppose,” said Rose.
”My dear, a beauty like you should never have involved yourself with a chap in trade. There, now. That was too, too wicked of me. But were you mine, I would never leave your side.”
Rose's companion had put her mistress wise to Sir Peter and so Rose smiled amiably and accepted the compliment. She often toyed with the idea of marrying Peter. It would be an arranged marriage, of course, but that way she would have her own household and be spared the labour of producing a child every year.
Rose curtsied to her hosts and entered the ballroom. ”With Peter again,” she heard the d.u.c.h.ess say loudly. ”Too sad.”
Her voice carried. With so many of the aristocracy hard of hearing because of blasting away at birds and beasts with their shotguns, the d.u.c.h.ess, like so many, spoke in a high clipped staccato voice which carried right cross the ballroom.
Rose usually derived some comfort from being the most beautiful lady in the ballroom. But that evening, she was eclipsed.
A new arrival to society was pirouetting around the floor on the arm of a besotted guardsman. She had ma.s.ses of thick blonde hair woven with tiny white roses. Unlike Rose's slim figure, hers was of the fas.h.i.+onable hourgla.s.s variety, with a generous white bosom displayed by the low cut of her evening gown. Her eyes were enormous in her heart-shaped face and of a deep brown, which contrasted seductively with her fair hair and perfect skin.
Daisy, sitting next to an elderly dowager, Countess Slerely, whispered, ”Who's the new beauty?”
The countess raised her lorgnette and then lowered it. ”Oh, that. That is Miss Dolly Tremaine. Her father is only a rector. She really has nothing more than her looks to recommend her. I'm afraid she'll have to marry someone very old. All the young men want money. Where is Lady Rose's fiance?”
”Coming later,” lied Daisy.
”Most odd. For her sake he should really stop being a tradesman.”
”Being a detective isn't really trade,” said Daisy defensively.
”The only trades that are acceptable,” declaimed the countess, ”are tea and beer. Nothing else.”
Daisy sighed. Her stays were digging into her and the ballroom was too hot.
She rose and curtsied to the countess and made her way to the long windows which overlooked Green Park, slid behind the curtains, opened the window and let herself out onto the terrace and took a deep breath of sooty air. She wondered if she and Rose would ever have any adventures again.
Rose was making her way to the cloakroom. One of her partners had trodden on her train and ripped the edge of it. The maid on duty in the cloakroom set to work to repair the train. The door opened and Dolly Tremaine came in, tears pouring from her eyes.
”My dear,” exclaimed Rose. ”May I help you? What is the matter?”
”Nothing,” sobbed Dolly, sitting down on a chair next to Rose. ”I'm tired, that's all. So many b.a.l.l.s and parties. I never seem to get any rest. The Season begins next week and things will be worse.”
”If I can be of any help ...”
”I need a friend,” said Dolly, scrubbing at her eyes with a lace handkerchief. Rose noticed with surprise that her beautiful face now bore no mark of tears.
”Perhaps I may be your friend. I am Rose Summer.”
”I'm Dolly Tremaine. You see, I'm a country girl and everything in London is so big and noisy and frightening.”
”I get away from it in the mornings,” said Rose. ”I go out early and cycle in Hyde Park.”
”I would love to do that,” said Dolly, ”but I don't think my parents-”
She broke off as the door opened and a squat woman entered. She was wearing a purple silk gown trimmed with purple fringe. Rose thought she looked like a sofa.
”Dolly, what are you doing here?” she demanded.