Sick of Shadows - M. C. Beaton [40]
Daisy slipped out the following day for a walk. She was very troubled. Peter and Rose had won first prize for their costumes. Everyone was talking about what a handsome pair they made.
She walked until she reached Piccadilly. Outside the new Ritz Hotel, a news-vendor was shouting, “Read all abaht it! Hero of train crash.”
Daisy was about to walk on when she recognized Harry’s face on the front page. She fumbled in her reticule for her change purse and bought a copy and went into Green Park where she could read it in peace.
The photograph of Harry had been taken a year before at a charity fund-raising garden party. Daisy read in growing horror about the train crash. Becket was referred to only as Harry’s manservant. He could have been killed, she thought, the newspaper trembling in her hands, oblivious to the black ink that was soiling her gloves.
Various friends telephoned the earl to exclaim over Harry’s bravery. He told his wife.
“Perhaps we will say nothing of this to Rose,” said Lady Polly. “It is better at the moment that she should think he did not care enough about her to attend last night.”
At that moment, Rose entered the drawing-room carrying a letter and a little jeweller’s box.
“I am returning Captain’s Cathcart’s ring,” she said. “I have written him a letter asking him to release me from the engagement.”
“It’s all for the best,” said Lady Polly. “I’ll get John footman to take it straight to him. Matthew shall send an announcement to the newspapers straight away.”
Harry had told Becket to take the day off. Phil, proud of his temporary position as butler, was answering the door and telling the press in strangulated tones of refinement that the captain was “not at home.”
Phil was unrecognizable as the wreck that Harry had first brought home. His skin was clear and healthy and his figure erect. He loved his room and his books. He wished he’d been on that train with the guv’nor and maybe had a chance to rescue him.
He answered the door again, prepared to send another reporter away, but it was the earl’s footman who stood there. He handed Phil the letter and the little jeweller’s box. “My Lady Rose requested me to give these to Captain Cathcart.”
Phil took the letter and box in to where Harry was sitting at his desk in the parlour.
“From Lady Rose,” said Phil.
Harry looked bleakly at the letter and then at the jeweller’s box. “Thank you, Phil, that will be all.”
“Right, guv.” Phil backed out of the room as if before royalty.
Harry opened the jeweller’s box. The ring he had given Rose sparkled up at him.
He broke open the seal on the letter. He read: “Dear Captain Cathcart, As you have once again shown your indifference to me by failing to escort me last night or even to send an apology, I am terminating our engagement. This will be best for both of us. Yours sincerely, Rose Summer.”
“The hell with her,” said Harry out loud. “Now I need never be hurt again!”
Daisy hurried upstairs, clutching the Evening News. She erupted into Rose’s sitting-room, crying, “You’ll never believe it!”
“What is it, Daisy?” Rose was slumped in an armchair by the fire.
“It’s about the captain. He’s a hero. Oh, if only they had got Becket’s name!”
“Let me see that newspaper.”
Daisy handed it over. Rose read the story of Harry’s bravery with increasing horror.
She turned a white face up to Daisy. “I have just written to him sending his ring back and Matthew has sent a notice to the Times cancelling our engagement.”
“Why?” shrieked Daisy.
“Because he did not attend me last night. I thought he was snubbing me.”
“Cancel the notice!”
“I can’t,” said Rose dismally. “It’s done. It’s for the best.”
“You fool,” said Daisy bitterly. “You bloody little fool.” She burst into tears and fled from the room.
Rose was in more disgrace than she had been when her photograph had appeared once on the front page of the Daily Mail showing her attending a suffragette rally. She had jilted England’s latest hero.