Snobbery With Violence - M. C. Beaton [30]
He opened the door gently and they both approached the bed on which a silent figure lay asleep.
Freddy lay down on one side of the figure and Tristram on the other.
“Now,” whispered Freddy. He grabbed the sleeping figure.
Which shot up and screamed and screamed. A shaft of moonlight fell on the terrified features of Mrs. Jerry Trumpington.
“Sorry,” babbled Freddy. “Thought it was my room.”
Mrs. Trumpington’s lady’s maid rushed in and began to scream as well. Sir Gerald Burke appeared in the doorway. Freddy and Tristram tried to get past him but he blocked the way. More guests began to appear carrying bed candles.
Daisy joined the crowd. When all attention was focused on the guilty pair, she slid Rose’s card neatly out of the holder and put back Mrs. Trumpington’s card.
“What is going on here?” demanded the Lord Hedley.
“Frightfully sorry, wrong room,” pleaded Freddy.
But Mrs. Trumpington had recovered from her fright. As her maid lit the gaslight, a distinctly salacious look began to appear in her small eyes.
“Two of you got into my bed. Why was that?”
“Too much to drink,” said Tristram desperately.
“Oh, you naughty, naughty boys,” said Mrs. Trumpington.
“What’s the matter?” Mr. Trumpington, a small man with a beaten air, shuffled to the front of the crowd wrapped in a violently coloured silk dressing-gown.
Mrs. Trumpington laughed. “I do believe these wicked, wicked boys were trying to seduce me.”
“Can’t be true,” said her husband. “I mean, why?”
“Downstairs, you two,” said the marquess to Freddy and Tristram. “The rest of you go to bed.”
Daisy slipped quietly back up to Rose’s room. Rose was fast asleep. She had not awakened during the whole commotion.
Rose entered the breakfast room the following morning still blissfully unaware of the happenings of the night before. One long sideboard was laden with a row of silver dishes kept hot by spirit lamps. There was a choice of poached or scrambled eggs, bacon, ham, sausages, devilled kidneys, haddock and kedgeree. An even larger sideboard offered pressed beef, ham, tongue, galantines, cold roast pheasant, grouse, partridge and ptarmigan. A side table was heaped with fruit: melons, peaches, nectarines and raspberries. And in case anyone should prove to be still hungry—scones and toast and marmalade and honey and specially imported jams.
Rose, an early riser, was relieved to see there was only one other guest in the breakfast room, Margaret Bryce-Cuddlestone.
“You look very bright and fresh,” commented Margaret. “Never tell me you slept through the whole thing.”
“What whole thing?”
So Margaret told her. “This is outrageous,” exclaimed Rose when she had finished. “I’d better go home.”
“These things happen. No one else will mention it to you and the two culprits will never dare even approach you again. It is my belief that someone took the card from your door and put it on Mrs. Trumpington’s door. Mr. Pomfret and Tristram Baker-Willis were so ruddled with drink that they had lost their minds.”
Rose still looked distressed, so Margaret said, “Just think of it. The awful Mrs. Trumpington remains convinced it was her favours they were after.”
Rose began to laugh. “That’s better,” said Margaret. “Let’s go for a walk after breakfast.”
“I suppose I’d better get Daisy to accompany me.”
“Daisy?”
“My lady’s maid.”
“You call her Daisy?”
“Her surname is Levine and my mother wanted me to rename her Baxter, but I didn’t like that so I compromise by using her Christian name.”
“Yes, bring her along, I call mine by her first name. She is Colette Bougier and she complained that the English servants called her Booger. As she is a very good lady’s maid I capitulated and now I call her Colette.”
The castle gardens lay outside the walls. The lady’s maids walked behind their mistresses, who had both changed into walking clothes after breakfast.
Colette put her hand on Daisy’s arm, causing her to stop until Margaret and Rose had moved out of earshot. “Terrible last night, was it not?” she whispered. “The way