Snobbery With Violence - M. C. Beaton [58]
“Shouldn’t your parents be here?”
“I told them not to come as I shall be returning home very shortly. A word of advice, Lady Rose. Do not go around poking your nose into things that don’t concern you. If someone really did try to kill you, then they will try again.”
Rose felt a stab of fear but she said gamely, “I really don’t think anyone would dare to try anything with a castle full of police officers.”
“If you say so. Now, run along. You weary me.”
Rose returned to her own room to find her mother waiting for her. “Have you heard?” said Lady Polly. “We shall soon be allowed to leave.”
“So I understand.”
“But I have some good news for you, my dear. I have been talking to Mrs. Jerry Trumpington. She says she is amenable to taking you out to India next year.”
“I do not want to go to India.”
“Now, don’t be a silly billy, my dear. We cannot possibly launch you on another London season. India is just the place for you. All those officers! Your father will contact the Viceroy, and Mrs. Trumpington will be on hand at all times to make sure you don’t make some misalliance with a fortune-hunter.”
“I am not going to go, and that’s that.”
Lady Polly’s normally pleasant round face hardened. “You will do as you are told. You are going to India and that’s an end of it. And have a word with that so-called maid of yours. She was out walking in the grounds with Captain’s Cathcart’s manservant. As you should know, servants are not allowed followers.”
Rose paced up and down in a fury of frustration when her mother had left. The thought of being shipped out to India to be put on some foreign marriage market was abhorrent to her. And yet, what could she do?
She impatiently rang the bell for Daisy.
There was no reply, so she summoned a footman and told him to fetch her maid.
Daisy arrived, looking flustered. ‘Tm sorry,” she said, taking off her hat. “I didn’t think you’d be wanting me.”
“My mother tells me you were seen walking in the grounds with Becket.”
“I didn’t think you’d mind.”
Rose slumped down into a chair. “I am supposed to mind. Servants are not allowed followers or indeed any life of their own. Just like me.”
“Something bad’s happened. What is it?”
“My mother informs me that I am to go to India with Lady Trumpington next year.”
“With that horrible old cow!”
“Yes, Daisy. What am I to do?”
“Maybe we could do what you thought of. Become business women.”
“I am underage. They would simply come and fetch me, and if I persisted in staying, they would get some tame doctor to get me committed to an insane asylum.”
“You parents would never do that!”
“They might. A girl of my class working for her living would qualify as insanity in their minds. Oh, that reminds me. Margaret summoned Dr. Perriman. I asked if his predecessor would really have signed Mary Gore-Desmond’s death certificate. He said that old Dr. Jenner did a lot of research but when I asked on what subject, he said it was not suitable for my ears. What could it be?”
“Sexual problems, I suppose,” said Daisy. “Like gonorrhoea and syphilis.”
“How do you know such things?”
“A chorus girl down the East End has to know such things. Sometime we got some of the mashers from up west, trying their luck, particularly with the young ones like me.”
“Why was that? I mean, why the young ones?”
“They’d be hoping to find a virgin, like.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Well, they say that if a man with one of them diseases sleeps with a virgin, he’ll be cured. It happened to one of the girls, Ellie.”
“And what happened?”
“I don’t know what happened to him, the rat, but Ellie got syphilis.”
“Is there no cure?”
“I think you’re supposed to take mercury, but Ellie couldn’t afford doctor’s bills.”
“How awful. You didn’t ever ... I mean, you haven’t...”
Daisy gave a cheeky grin. “Not yet. I’ve got fourteen brothers and sisters, but like the song says, we was poor but we was honest.”
“Don’t you miss your family?”
“Not much. Da drinks something awful and is always out of work. I seem to have worked at one thing or another since I was out of the