He waited until Jimmy was chatting to a pretty redhead and quietly made his way down the stairs. Someone on the stage was singing “She Was Only a Bird in a Gilded Cage.” Harry went on out into the street. A poster at the entrance was advertising the new attraction of The Singing Blacksmith. Harry paused for a moment. Could that possibly be Dolly’s blacksmith’s son? But the case was closed, so he went on his way.
He decided to walk home to clear his head and banish infuriating pictures of Rose which kept coming into his mind.
Then he remembered the seductive Mrs. Losse. He craved the company of a lady who would flirt with him and stir his senses.
Harry set out for Kensington. He was just approaching the pretty house in Launceston Place when he saw a very grand carriage coming down the street. He drew back into the shadows.
The carriage stopped outside Mrs. Losse’s door. Harry heard a voice say, “I won’t be needing you any more tonight,” and the carriage moved on. A portly figure moved up the front steps and then turned as if aware of being watched.
There was a lamp over the door. Harry recognized the heavy-lidded protruding eyes, the sensual mouth and the thick beard. He was smoking a cigar.
As Harry watched, the door opened. Mrs. Losse stood there.
King Edward turned back and entered the house.
Harry began to walk towards Chelsea. It struck him that he had been unkind to Becket. Just because he, Harry Cathcart, had been unlucky in love, there was no need to make Becket suffer. He would miss him, but Becket should have his chance to marry.
He would set Becket and Daisy up in some business and Phil could take over as manservant.
Rose did not hear anything from Harry and fretted, wondering what to do. She and her parents had been invited down to Mrs. Barrington-Bruce’s country home at the weekend. An invitation had been issued to Harry as well, but he had not telephoned to say he would be joining them or to make any apology.
As they travelled to Mrs. Barrington-Bruce’s, Rose was aware that Daisy was in a state of suppressed excitement. She kept taking out a letter and reading it over and over again.
“What’s in the letter?” asked Rose.
“Later,” said Daisy, flashing a warning look in the direction of Lady Polly.
Brum was the one who collected and delivered the servants’ mail. Daisy, although she had been elevated to the rank of companion, still qualified as a servant in Brum’s eyes, and so she received a letter from Becket unopened. Had it gone to the earl, he would most certainly have opened it and read it.
When they finally reached their destination and were shown to their rooms, Daisy waited until the maids had unpacked their clothes until she said to Rose, “I have the most wonderful news!”
“What’s that?”
“Becket has received permission from the captain to marry me. He is going to set us up in business.”
Rose looked at her in dismay. “You will be leaving me?”
“Yes, but you’ve got Turner,” said Daisy, made cheerfully selfish by the good news. “Aren’t you going to congratulate me?”
“Of course, Daisy. I am sad because I do not want to lose you.”
“I’ll be around. Oh, I did so hope the captain would come this weekend and bring Becket. What’s up with the man?”
“It’s my fault. He… he tried to kiss me and at that very moment a steel came loose in my corset and dug into me and I made a face and he stormed off in a temper.”
“Then write to him and tell him what happened!”
“I cannot. Ladies do not talk about stays.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sakes, tell him you had a bad twinge of indigestion.”
“He shouldn’t have tried to kiss me anyway. It is an engagement in name only.”
Daisy looked at her with concern. “If you go on the way you’re going, you’ll soon have no engagement at all. Off to India and without me. Don’t be so stubborn. Write to him. Tomorrow’s Saturday. You could catch the Saturday post.”
Rose smiled. “I’ll do it.”
Before dinner, she sat down and wrote a simple apology, making it as light-hearted as she could.
Then she called Turner and the long slow process of getting changed and dressed for dinner began.
There were various other guests at dinner and Rose was seated next to a Major Guy Alexander, who rattled away pleasantly about all sorts of society gossip. He turned out to know Harry but did not comment on his absence.
After dinner, the ladies retired to the drawing-room to leave the gentlemen to their port.
The drawing-room was overheated and Rose quietly opened the French windows and let herself out onto the terrace. The dining-room was next to the drawing-room and she could hear the sound of laughter. Then she thought she heard Harry’s name and moved along the terrace and stood listening. Major Alexander was talking.
“You were asking about Cathcart? I know why the sly dog isn’t here.”
“Why?” someone asked.
“Ran into Jimmy Frent-Winston this morning. Told me he and Cathcart had gone to The Empire to pick up some lovelies at the Promenade. He said when he turned round, Cathcart had obviously got himself a lady and cleared off. Fast worker, hey?”
Rose turned away and walked down the steps to the garden, her breathing shallow. She knew about the Promenade because the campaign to get it closed down had been in all the newspapers.
It struck her with more force than ever before that ladies such as herself were merely the toys of society and expected to behave as such and turn a blind eye when the men went philandering. They had to dress up in clothes as stiff, elaborate and formal as any Japanese geisha and sit around and look decorative. They were not supposed to have any strong views on anything. They certainly would never be allowed to vote.
And Harry Cathcart was just like other men. We read romances and dream of our knights in shining armour, she thought, and they don’t exist. She knew her own father would not be outraged to hear of Harry’s visit to the Promenade. It was something gentlemen did.
She went sadly back to the drawing-room and out and down to the hall, where her letter to Harry lay on a silver tray with others, waiting for the morning post. She had hidden it under the others in case her father saw it and decided to read it. She took it out and tore it into little pieces and put the pieces in her gold mesh reticule.
Rose felt very alone. Daisy would leave and all she would have was a fiancé who consorted with tarts.
As she walked slowly back up to the drawing-room, she felt she was moving alone in a world where there was no love.
In Nice, Peter Petrey lounged on the terrace of the Palace Hotel and looked dreamily out at the moon sending a silver path across the Mediterranean. He glanced fondly at Jonathan. He felt he had never been so happy and contented in all his life.
In his dressing-room at The Empire, Roger Dallow read the report of the arrest of Jeremy Tremaine over and over again. At last he put down the paper with a sigh, remembering running across the summer fields with Dolly. He was now married to a little chorus girl and he had put on weight.
Ailsa Bridge sat in an empty church and prayed. She had been beset by the horrors the night before where large spiders had come crawling out of the woodwork. She prayed and prayed and then rose stiffly to her knees and went back to her lodgings. She picked up two bottles of gin from the kitchen counter, opened them and poured them down the sink.
After the weekend, Harry received a curt summons to call on the earl. When he arrived, the wrathful earl demanded to know the reason for his behaviour. To fail to turn up at the weekend without an apology was a snub of the first order.
Harry pleaded sickness and apologized as best he could. The earl privately hoped the sickness was not caused by something nasty he had picked up at The Empire.