Sick of Shadows - M. C. Beaton [14]
The earl made up his mind. He rang the bell. “Get Mr. Jarvis here.” When the secretary entered, he told him to take the superintendent to the telephone.
Rose hoped against hope that the policeman would refuse. How could she help Harry with the case if she was stuck up in the wilds of Yorkshire?
But Kerridge was soon back. “He says he’ll be delighted. I assume, my lord, you will be paying him something towards their keep?”
“Yes, yes, Matthew will see to it.”
“And,” put in Harry, “I think Lady Rose and Miss Levine should only take a few plain clothes. They must also use public transport. I suggest a discreet police guard until they are on the train and I would suggest the night train to York. There is bound to be a connecting train to Scarborough in the morning. Where is the nearest station to Drifton?”
“A market town called Plomley.”
“Right. They can get off at Plomley, and Kerridge will instruct this Shufflebottom to meet them there. None of the servants must know about this. Tell them they are leaving for Stacey Court. I think Mr. Jarvis can be trusted?”
“Yes,” said the earl. “About the only one.”
“Then he must look up timetables and make the arrangements. Shufflebottom must tell the locals that Lady Rose and Miss Levine are remote relatives from an until recently rich family now fallen on hard times.”
“I do not want to go to Yorkshire,” said Rose in a thin voice.
The earl rounded on her. “You’ll do what you’re told, my girl.”
THREE
The two divinest things this world has got,
A lovely woman in a rural spot.
—JAMES HENRY LEIGH HUNT
Despite her loudly proclaimed distaste at being sent off to live with a rural policeman, Rose began to feel a certain amount of excitement as they were smuggled out through the garden door of the town house and over a ladder placed on a wall at the back and so into the mews, where a closed carriage was waiting for them.
They were taken to Paddington Station to catch the midnight North Eastern Railway train to York. Because of the innovation of Pullman coaches in first class, there were now three classes: first, second and third.
Rose had been given first-class tickets to York but it had been suggested they travel second class to Plomley on the Scarborough line.
Daisy kept looking nervously over her shoulder, seeing assassins behind every station pillar. Smoke billowed out from the steam engines up to Brunel’s high arched roof.
A porter loaded their luggage on board. No footmen had been allowed to accompany them. The servants would be told in the morning that Rose and Daisy had left during the night for Stacey Court.
They had the luxury of a sleeping compartment thanks to Mr. George Pullman’s invention. When a Pullman car was attached to the funeral train carrying Abraham Lincoln’s body, the demand for Pullman’s product swiftly grew. Pullman died so hated by his employees in 1897 that his heirs feared his body would be stolen and so the coffin was covered in tar-paper and enclosed in the centre of a room-sized block of concrete, reinforced with railroad ties. Ambrose Bierce said, “It is clear the family in their bereavement was making sure the sonofabitch wasn’t going to get up and come back.”
Rose was beginning to feel that life might not be so bad after all. It was exciting to go to sleep over the chattering wheels. Only Daisy felt torn away from London, and the wheels sang a dirge on her ears: “Can’t go back. Never go back. Can’t go back.” She peered out of the window and saw only her own reflection as the night-time countryside went flying past. The east coast line was in competition with the west coast line and the great steam engine could reach up to a hundred miles per hour. Daisy shuddered. They were flying into foreign territory. Yorkshire.
They tumbled out sleepily at York station at seven in the morning. They had arrived an hour earlier, but first-class passengers were allowed to stay on for breakfast.
Rose commanded a porter to take their luggage to the Scarborough train. Daisy followed behind, feeling once more like