Part 7 (1/2)
”I see no reason to tell them of this.” Or poor Lady Rose really will be s.h.i.+pped out to India, he thought, ”With any luck we will have solved the case by the time they return. I suggest Lady Rose should return to London. My Aunt Phyllis will act as chaperone and I myself will move into the earl's town house.”
”If you gentlemen would like to discuss this over dinner,” said Bert. ”My Sally's just fed the children and they've gone back to school. Lady Rose will take dinner with you and you can tell her your plans.”
Harry was taken aback to find Rose standing over the cooking pots on the range, wrapped in a long white pinafore. Daisy was laying the table with the help of Sally.
Rose turned round as they entered. ”Please sit down,” she said. ”I am about to serve.”
She lifted a leg of lamb out of one oven and then a tray of roasted potatoes and vegetables out of the other. She put the potatoes and vegetables in a ca.s.serole and placed it on the table and then put the leg of lamb on a large dish and put it in front of Harry. ”Will you carve, please? I do not have the skill.”
I will never understand the upper cla.s.ses, thought Kerridge. Here is the captain, her fiance, and yet she goes on as if he's a stranger.
When they were all seated over plates of lamb, Rose asked, ”How are your investigations progressing?”
”Not well at all,” said Kerridge. ”By Jove, this lamb's delicious. You will make the captain a good wife. How are you coping with the shock, Lady Rose?”
”I am managing,” said Rose stiffly, remembering how, last night, she had clung on to Sally and wept.
”We have decided that you should return to London,” said Kerridge. ”We saw no reason to alarm your parents with news of this. The captain's Aunt Phyllis will chaperone you and the captain himself will move into the town house as well.”
Daisy brightened. Living with the captain meant living with Becket.
”May Daisy and I not stay here?” asked Rose. ”He will surely not try to come here again and it is easier to watch out for strangers in a small village than it is in London.”
”There's miles of places around this village where he could lie in wait,” said Kerridge. ”I will arrange for you to make a press statement saying that you only knew Miss Tremaine briefly and she never said anything about anyone. There was only that note about her running away.”
”Lady Rose's photograph was in the newspapers after the death of Dolly Tremaine,” said Harry. ”Maybe one of the locals recognized her and blabbed.”
”If one of the locals had recognized her and it had got about, the press would have been here,” said Kerridge. ”No, it was that doctor's photograph that did the damage. May I have some more lamb?”
Rose felt tearful the next day as she said goodbye to Sally, Bert and the children. Harry, waiting beside the closed carriage that was to take them to York, saw the way her lip trembled and was amazed that the usually haughty Lady Rose had formed such an affection for these people.
”I shall come back, I promise,” said Rose, hugging Sally.
The children began to cry. Daisy cried as well, although, unlike Rose, she was longing to get to London again and see Becket.
Rose was silent on the long journey. Harry made several attempts to engage her in conversation, but she only answered in dreary monosyllables.
But as the train from York was approaching Paddington, Rose suddenly asked him, ”What is this aunt of yours like? Who is she?”
”She is Lady Phyllis Derwent, widow of Lord Derwent. She is very kind.”
”It is nearly August,” remarked Rose. ”Lady Phyllis will not be obliged to do very much chaperoning. Everyone goes to Scotland in August to shoot things.”
”Then you will have time to rest after your horrible experience.”
Aunt Phyllis was waiting for them. Her butler answered the door to them, Brum having gone to Biarritz with the earl and countess. Unlike Brum, the butler, Dobson, was a small round genial man with mutton-chop whiskers and small twinkling eyes.
They followed him up to the drawing-room. Aunt Phyllis rose to meet them. She was a thin, languid lady, dressed in a sea-green tea-gown bedecked with many long necklaces of pearls mixed with arty lumps of decorated china beads strung with black thread. Her long face was highly painted. Her eyes were a pale washed-out blue under wrinkled lids. The hand she extended to Rose was covered in rings.
”Welcome,” she said. ”I trust you had a good journey?”
”Yes, I thank you.”
”Such a too, too sickening experience. I do not know what Harry was about, to billet you with the peasantry.”
”They were not peasants.” Rose fixed her with a hard stare. ”In fact they were decent charming people with no false airs or graces. I was happy there.”
”Dear me. How original.” Aunt Phyllis turned to Harry. ”Is Rose to be kept indoors?”
”No, through Superintendent Kerridge a statement is being issued to the press today to say that she knew very little about Dolly Tremaine.”
Becket entered the room and Daisy wished she could throw herself into his arms.
”Ah, Becket,” said Harry. ”Any news?”
”The Tremaine family departed for their home in the country some time ago. The son, Jeremy, is studying divinity at Oxford.”
”I would really like to talk to the Tremaines now that their grief will have subsided a bit. Where do they live?”
”Dr. Tremaine is rector of Saint Paul's in the village of Apton Magna in Gloucesters.h.i.+re.”
”I will go with you,” said Rose.
”That will not do at all,” said Aunt Phyllis. ”I forbid it.”
”You are a guest in my home,” said Rose coldly, ”so may I point out you are not in a position to forbid anything.”
”My sweet child! Do not be in such a taking. I was merely concerned for your welfare,” said Phyllis. She did not want to give up free accommodation and free meals for herself and her servants.
”As it is better I should be with my fiancee every time she ventures out of doors,” said Harry, ”then perhaps it would be a good idea if she accompanied me.”
Lord and Lady Hadfield were basking in the sun on the terrace of the Grand Hotel at Biarritz. The earl was asleep with a newspaper over his face.
His wife poked him awake with the point of her parasol.
”Brum says you received a telegraph this morning. What was it?”
”Hey, what? Oh, that? Simply Cathcart saying that all was well with Rose.”
”Such a relief,” sighed Lady Polly, looking out at an expanse of deep blue sea. ”It is so pleasant to be spared the worry of her.”