Our Lady of Pain

∨ Our Lady of Pain ∧

Five

Alas! If women are going to motor, and motor seriously – that is to say, use it as a means of locomotion – they must relinquish the hope of keeping their peach-like bloom. The best remedy is cold water and a rough towel, and that not used sparingly, in the morning before they start. There is one other, the last, but perhaps the hardest concession a woman can make if she is going to motor, and that is she must wear glasses – not small dainty glasses, but veritable goggles. They are absolutely necessary both for comfort and for the preservation of the eyesight; they are not becoming, but then, as I have tried to point out, appearance must be sacrificed.

– Lady Jeune,

Motors and Motor Driving 1902

Daisy was overwhelmed by the grandeur of Claridge’s. Lord and Lady Hadshire’s homes in London and the country, magnificent as they were, did not have the same modem luxuries as the hotel, which boasted electric light, lifts and en suite bathrooms. At the Hadshires’, when she wanted a bath, footmen had to carry a coffin-shaped bath up the stairs and then fill it with water brought up from the kitchens.

“It’s a world away from the convent,” she said. Daisy, brought up in poverty in the East End of London, could never get over marvelling at the vast gulf between rich and poor.

Rose was at that moment allowing the duchess’s lady’s maid, Benton, to strap her into the long corset which was considered necessary to produce the fashionable S-figure. She was still upset with Harry. She felt sure he had enjoyed a liaison with Dolores Duval. “What would my lady like to wear tonight?” asked Benton.

“You choose something,” said Rose.

Benton went to the tall wardrobe and selected a blue chiffon gown embroidered with tiny rosebuds. It was low-cut and the layered chiffon sleeves covered the tops of her arms. All Rose’s jewels had been brought over from the town house. “I think the rope of pearls, my lady,” said Benson, “Now, the hair.”

Rose’s long brown hair was piled up on top of her head, pouffed out, and ornamented with little silk rosebuds.

“You look like another girl,” said Daisy, who was already dressed and was watching the toilette. “Sister Agnes wouldn’t recognize you now.”

Rose normally detested wearing a long corset, but for once she did not mind. She felt she needed to be armoured in fashion before she saw Harry again.

“This is a very beautiful gown,” said Benton. “Is it one of Mr Worth’s?”

“No, my seamstress, Miss Friendly, designed it and made it for me.”

“Then this lady is more than a seamstress!”

Daisy scowled. She was still furious at Becket for having turned down her idea of setting up a salon with Miss Friendly.

At last Rose was ready. She and Daisy descended to the dining room to join the others. Daisy thought it was a shame that Becket could not join them, but in the duchess’s eyes he was nothing more than a gentleman’s gentleman.

The duchess, already seated at a dining table, flashed and glittered under the weight of diamonds. She had a large diamond tiara on her head, a collar of diamonds around her neck, and diamond brooches pinned haphazardly on her dark blue velvet gown.

“My dear Rose,” she said, “how beautiful you look. Don’t you think so, Captain?”

“Very fine,” said Harry.

“We will have you married off to some dashing French comte, you’ll see. Can’t you just see our dear Rose on the arm of some handsome Frenchman, Captain?” The duchess’s eyes twinkled like her diamonds.

“Alas,” said Harry, “I have no imagination.”

Had it been left to Harry and Rose, it would have been a silent dinner, but various aristocrats kept interrupting their meal to chat to the duchess.

At last, when the duchess was engaged in another animated conversation with an old friend, Harry whispered to Rose, “Truce.”

“What truce?”

“Between us. We cannot go to Paris glaring and staring silently at each other. If it makes you feel any better, I did not have an affair with Miss Duval.”

“That means nothing to me!”

“Oh, Rose, please.”

Rose sat with her head bowed for a moment. Then she raised her blue eyes and looked into his black ones. “Very well,” she said with a little smile. “Truce.”

“Thank God for that,” chirped Daisy. “All this heavy silence. It was like being back in the convent.”

The duchess finished speaking to her friend and turned her attention on Daisy. “Do I detect a certain Cockney accent there, Miss Levine?”

Daisy looked wildly at Rose. “Miss Levine,” said Rose repressively, “is a distant relative of mine from a branch of the family which fell on hard times. She has not had my advantages.”

“Really?” said the duchess, unabashed. “I had such a business ages ago when Warnford fell for a chorus girl at Daley’s. He even had her invited to a house party where she pretended to be a lady. I saw through her little act and sent her packing.”

“I do not see what your husband’s amours have to do with my companion,” said Rose angrily. “Pray talk of something else.”

The duchess raised her lorgnette. “You know, animation suits you. You should cultivate it.”

The duchess turned her attention to her dinner. She was a messy eater and the front of her gown was soon decorated with the detritus of her meal. Rose, who had been taught to eat ortolans by dissecting them with a sharp knife, wondered what her mother would make of the duchess’s table manners as the little duchess picked up the small bird and crammed it in her mouth and then began to pick out the bones.

The pudding was a meringue confection and soon the duchess’s gown was liberally sparkling with meringue dust.

“Where shall we stay in Paris?” asked Rose.

“I have reserved a floor at the Crillon. We could have stayed with an old friend of mine, but I decided it would be as well to keep our mission discreet. Society does gossip so. We should retire now because we need to make an early start.”

“How early?”

“We catch the nine-o’clock to Dover. Ladies, wear your motoring gear when we set out.”

♦

A Daily Mail reporter lurked outside Claridge’s the next morning, hoping for some news about celebrities. He saw that someone very important was about to depart. There was the duchess’s Daimler and behind it, Harry’s Rolls, and behind that, a carriage for the servants. The duchess was travelling accompanied by her lady’s maid, two footmen and her butler. The reporter watched as those huge trunks called Noah’s Arks were loaded into the back of the motors and into the rumble of the servants’ carriage.

He went up to the doorman. “Who’s leaving?”

The doorman stared impassively ahead. The reporter pressed a guinea into his hand.

“The Duchess of Warnford,” said the doorman. “Her Grace is going to Paris.”

“Who goes with her?”

Again that impassive stare. The reporter sighed and fished out another guinea.

“Captain Cathcart, Lady Rose Summer and Miss Levine.”

The reporter grinned. Lady Summer was news. Nobody had heard of her since that murder. He retreated a little way down the street, waited for the party to emerge and began to make notes.

♦

It was an uncomfortable journey to the station. A gale tore at the ladies’ hats and plastered their thick veils against their faces.

At the station, the footmen ran off and returned with porters. They followed their luggage to where it was being loaded onto a private carriage on the train. Daisy was enchanted by the duchess’s private carriage, which was like a drawing room on wheels, complete with comfortable armchairs, the latest magazines and vases of fresh flowers.

The servants were told to make their way to a third-class carriage farther down the train, but as Benton, the lady’s maid, was to stay with them in the duchess’s carriage, Harry requested the company of Becket as well.

Becket tentatively sat down next to Daisy. He felt he could not bear her coldness a moment longer.

“Daisy,” he whispered.

“Ye-es?” drawled Daisy in a good imitation of a haughty Mayfair hostess.

“I’ve been thinking,” said Becket. “I was too hasty in turning down your idea of setting up a dress salon.”

“You mean it?” said Daisy.

“I’ll do the business end, but I don’t want to have to serve ladies.”

“No, you won’t,” said Daisy eagerly. “Oh, I’m so glad we’re friends again. Miss Friendly will be thrilled. We’ll have the most successful dress salon in London.”

♦

At that moment, Miss Friendly had just left a lawyer’s office in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. She stood on the pavement dazed. She had just been informed that her Aunt Harriet, her mother’s sister, who had vowed to have nothing to do with her father ever again because of his drinking and gambling, had died and had left her a house in Sussex, jewellery and ten thousand pounds.

Miss Friendly felt bewildered and alone. She wished she could talk to Rose and Daisy. Then she remembered Phil Marshall, who worked for the captain. She had met him at a dinner the year before and he had seemed such an easy-going, sensible man.

She hailed a hack and directed the cabbie to the captain’s Chelsea address. Phil stared down at the little figure of the seamstress on the doorstep. He was practising a haughty air for the day when he hoped to take over Becket’s duties.

“It is I, Miss Friendly,” she said timidly.

Phil suddenly smiled. “I didn’t recognize you at first. Come in. You look worried. Is everything all right?” He led the way into the front parlour.

“Everything is very much all right,” said Miss Friendly, “but I need some advice.”

“We’ll have a glass of sherry and you can tell me all about it,” said Phil. He poked the fire into a blaze and then fetched a sherry decanter and two glasses. “Sit by the fire,” he said. “What’s happened?”

Miss Friendly took a nervous sip of sherry and told him about her inheritance.

“You have no more worries,” said Phil. “You move into your aunt’s house and you’ll never have to work again.”

“It’s just that I have this rather terrifying idea. Daisy – Miss Levine – once suggested that Becket, Miss Levine and myself should set up a dress salon. I have a talent for designing and making clothes. Then Becket said he did not like the idea and I am too timid to take on such an undertaking myself.”

Phil sat deep in thought. He was a changed man from the poverty-stricken wreck the captain had rescued. He had thick white hair and a rosy face and kept his figure trim with frequent walks. He admired Miss Friendly. He thought she was all that a lady should be: genteel and shy.

Then he began to wonder and not for the first time if Becket would ever leave the captain. There were times when Phil felt superfluous. He did a certain amount of housekeeping, but there was a woman who came round to do the rough work and it was Becket who answered the door to callers and who drove the captain.

“What we should do,” he began and Miss Friendly gave him a shy smile, liking the sound of that precious little word ‘we’. “What we should do is make an appointment with those lawyers and put your proposition to them. You could sell your aunt’s house, and with the money buy premises in London. Then you would need to employ, say, two seamstresses to begin with. You’ll need a classy name.”

Miss Friendly took a sudden gulp of sherry. “It could be an English name,” she said in a rush. “Like Marshall and Friendly.”

“You mean I could be a partner?”

“You could, couldn’t you, Mr Marshall?”

“I don’t really have any money, just a little bit of savings.”

“But I have. I would need a manager.”

“Bless me!” Phil grinned. “This is so sudden.”

“I’ve thought about it a lot,” said Miss Friendly. “It would be a great deal of initial expense because we would need to have an opening fashion show.”

“Tell you what,” said Phil, “give me the name of those lawyers and I’ll make an appointment.”

♦

Seagulls wheeled and screamed overheard as the duchess and her party boarded the Queen, which was to cross the Channel to Calais. “Going to be rough,” said Harry, looking out at the whitecaps of the waves.

The duchess retired to a cabin as soon as they were on hoard. Daisy and Rose stood at the rail and watched the white cliffs of Dover until a screaming gale and a bucketing sea drove them back to the shelter of the lounge. Daisy’s head ached because the wind had torn at her large round motoring hat, which was secured by two large hatpins, and had nearly dragged it off her head.

Becket and Harry had disappeared somewhere. Daisy looked at Rose uneasily. “I’ve never been in foreign parts before. What are they like, them Frenchies?”

“Very like us.”

“Have you been to France before?”

“Yes, I went to Deauville once with my parents. Although I must admit all we really met were other English families.”

Daisy lowered her voice. “They eat frogs.”

“I am sure that’s just a story, Daisy.”

“I mean, we’ve been at war with them.”

“That was a long time ago. I believe French ladies are the epitome of chic.”

The ferry lurched up one wave and down the next. “I’m going to be sick,” moaned Daisy.

“Then we’ll need to go out to the rail. Let’s get on the leeward side,” said Rose. “That is, if there is one.”

Rose held Daisy at the rail as her companion was violently ill. Black smoke swirled down from the funnel, enveloping them in a sort of soot-laden fog. Rose tried to persuade Daisy to go back inside, but she held grimly on to the rail, staring down dismally at the heaving grey-green breakers.

Harry appeared behind Rose. “Trouble?”

“Yes, Daisy is seasick.”

“She needs brandy. Daisy, for heaven’s sake, get out of this gale. I’ll fetch you a brandy.”

At that moment, the ferry crashed down into the trough of a wave and a great stream of spray dashed into their faces and their feet were soaked because the decks were beginning to run with water.

Rose had always considered herself a new woman, courageous and independent, but she had to admit weakly that it was pleasant to let Harry take over. He fetched brandy for Daisy and then went off, and in a very short time had ordered two cabins for them and had the duchess’s footmen bring part of their luggage so that they could change.

All Daisy wanted to do was fall on the bunk and go to sleep, but to Rose’s relief, Benton, the lady’s maid, arrived and took over. Daisy was put into dry clothes and her forehead was bathed with cologne. Then Rose went to her cabin next door and allowed herself to be changed into dry clothes as well. Benton went off to complain to the duchess that two extra ladies to look after was too much and the duchess said sleepily she would hire a lady’s maid for them when they got to Paris.

Daisy fell asleep and awoke just as the Queen was docking at Calais. She quickly took a small bottle of belladonna out of her case and applied drops to each eye. She had read that belladonna enlarged the pupils and made the eyes look brilliant.

She hurriedly put the bottle away as Rose knocked at the door. “Come along, Daisy. The servants will see to the luggage.”

Beautiful words, thought Daisy, thinking of her impoverished upbringing in the East End. Had she ever dreamed that one day she would have ducal servants to look after her?

But as she left the cabin, she found to her horror that she could barely see.

♦

“Where’s Daisy?” asked Harry, holding out a hand to help Rose alight from the gangplank. “Oh, there she is. What’s up with the girl?”

Daisy was stumbling down the gangplank, weaving from side to side, gazing blindly about her.

The ship gave a huge lurch and Daisy went straight over the gangplank and into the water.

“She’s being crushed between the ship and the dock,” screamed Rose.

But Becket was already running down stone steps cut into the dock. As Daisy surfaced, he leaned out over the water and grabbed a handful of her clothes and dragged her onto the lower steps.

The duchess’s footmen nipped down the stairs and helped Becket carry Daisy up.

On the quay, Daisy was promptly sick again, throwing up what looked like a gallon of salt water. The duchess joined Rose. “Drunk, I suppose,” she said crossly. “We’ll need to stay at the Calais Hotel for the night. What a bore.”

♦

Daisy was in disgrace. She was told to stay in her bedroom that evening while the rest had dinner. A tray would be sent up to her.

She picked miserably at her food. She could tell somehow that the duchess felt she had behaved like some low-class creature.

There was a soft knock at the door and she called, “Come in.”

Becket entered. “What happened?” he asked.

“If I tell you, promise you won’t say anything.”

Daisy told him about the belladonna and Becket laughed and laughed until Daisy began to laugh as well.

Finally Becket said, “Were you able to eat anything?”

“Yes, I made a good meal. I like those little birds’ legs in garlic butter.”

“Those would be frogs’ legs.”

“What? I’ve eaten frogs’ legs!” Daisy put a handkerchief to her mouth.

“You are not going to be sick,” said Becket severely. “There’s nothing up with frogs’ legs. I had some in the kitchen. You’ll need to act like a cosmopolitan lady if we’re going to run this salon.”

“Oh, Becket,” sighed Daisy, lowering the handkerchief. “We’re really going to be free at last.”

“It’s going to be a funny sort of freedom,” said Becket. “We’ll need to be responsible for our heating and lighting bills, the rent, our food, our clothes – all those things that servants don’t need to worry about.”

“But we’ll be able to get married.”

“That’s a plus. What about a kiss, Daisy?”

They stood up and Daisy put her arms about him. Then they stiffened as they heard an autocratic voice coming along the corridor outside. “I’m just going to see if that tiresome companion of yours has recovered.”

“Her Grace!” hissed Daisy.

Becket dived under the bed, just as the door opened.

“So how are you?” demanded the duchess.

“Much better, Your Grace.”

“I was going to send you back, but Lady Rose told me how brave and courageous you’ve been in the past. I admire that in a girl. But do try to brace yourself. We leave tomorrow. Be down for breakfast at six. Good night.”

“Good night,” echoed Daisy.

As the door closed, Becket began to ease himself out from under the bed.

Then, as the door opened again, he slid himself back under the bed.

Harry walked in. He stood in the doorway. “Are you feeling better, Daisy?”

“Yes, thank you, Captain.”

“Then we shall see you at breakfast. I assume those are Becket’s boots sticking out from under your bed. Come along, Becket.”

Becket emerged again, looking sheepish. “We weren’t up to anything, sir. Honestly. I came to see if Miss Levine was all right and heard Her Grace approaching and knew it would look bad.”

“Don’t do it again. You should know better. Follow me.”

Daisy scowled when they had left. When she and Becket were married, they could do what they wanted and see each other as much as they wanted, and no amount of expensive meals and pretty clothes could compete with that.

♦

They arrived in Paris at the Gare du Nord the next day and got into carriages to bear them and their mountain of luggage to the Hotel de Crillon. The hotel had originally been the home of the Comte de Crillon and was built by the most famous architect of the day, commissioned by Louis XV. The hotel was seized during the French Revolution and the statue of Louis XV on the Place de la Concorde outside the hotel was pulled down and later replaced by a 3300 BC obelisk presented by Sultan Mehmet Ali in 1831.

As they were led up to their suite, Rose glanced in at the salons on the first floor and began to feel like a country cousin for the first time in her life. The ladies were so beautifully gowned and elegant.

Rose was tired after the train journey from Calais and Daisy was feeling exhausted after her adventures. They were both dismayed when the duchess visited them to say she had employed a maid for them and they were to be in their finest, for they were going to dine at Maxim’s.

“Why Maxim’s?” asked Rose plaintively. “We are tired and hoped to have a simple supper in the rooms.”

“Nonsense. Captain Cathcart says that the French lawyer won’t give us the direction of this Madame de Peurey. All the famous belles coquettes go to Maxim’s. Someone is bound to have heard of her.” She stood aside and ushered a petite little woman into the room. “This is your lady’s maid, Odette. We shall all meet in Le Salon des Aigles on the first floor in two hours. But not you, Miss Levine. After your recent adventures, I feel sure that you would be better remaining quietly here.”

“She means I’m not good enough,” said Daisy when the duchess had retired. “I may as well tell you, Rose, that I have spoken to Becket and we’re going to set up that dress salon with Miss Friendly. We’re going to get married and we’ll be our own bosses.”

Rose was dismayed. She realized in that moment how much she relied on Daisy’s chirpy company. “I shall miss you,” she said. Then she rallied. “Of course I shall buy all my gowns from you.”

Odette turned out to have some words of English and Rose had learned enough French from her governess to communicate with her. She felt lowered by the look of dismay on the maid’s face as she pulled out gown after gown. “What about the Worth gown?” she asked.

“Too, how you say, out of fashion. But I work quickly.” She pulled out a long white satin gown and then a blue one. She opened a large sewing box and got busily to work, cutting and pinning and sewing.

Daisy began to worry. Was Miss Friendly really that good?

As Rose and Daisy watched the little maid working away, they were unaware that Rose had been in the society pages of the Daily Mail in London that day, describing her trip to Paris with the duchess and also with her ex-fiancé.

But Harry got the news from Becket and swore under his breath. Becket had found some English newspapers in the front hall of the hotel. Harry decided he would need to be sure that he was with Rose at all times and that she did not wander off. He knew she had bought a guidebook to Paris at the station and had voiced a desire to see Notre Dame, among other places.

When he entered Le Salon des Aigles later to meet the rest of the party, he decided not to tell Rose she had been featured in the newspaper. She would only worry. The salon got its name from the medallions depicting Fortitude, Truth, Wisdom and Abundance, each flanked by large eagles.

He stood up as Rose entered the room, thinking she had never looked so beautiful. Her white gown was cut low and clung to her figure in the new long, soft line. It was decorated round the neck and down the front with blue fleurs-de-lis. A collar of pearls set off the whiteness of her throat, and pearls were woven into her brown hair. Over one gloved arm, she carried a ruffled chiffon cape of the same blue as the fleurs-de-lis. She moved gracefully towards him over the Aubusson carpets.

He kissed her gloved hand. “I have never seen you look so fine,” he said.

Rose smiled but reflected she had never felt so uncomfortable. Odette had lashed her tightly into a long corset and she wished she could escape somewhere and loosen the ties.

The duchess made her entrance. She was wearing a grey silk gown laden down with jewels. Again, she had so many diamonds on her head, her neck and about her person that Rose wondered how she could even move. Her jewels sparked fire from the Bohemian crystal objects which decorated the room.

“So we are all present?” said the Duchess. “Good. We’re off to Maxim’s.”

♦

They could have walked because Maxim’s also fronted on the Place de la Concorde, but Becket was waiting for them in a newly hired Panhard.

The swing doors of the famous restaurant were held open for them. Hands relieved them of their wraps, although in the case of the duchess it took some time because her diamonds had become caught in her various scarves and stoles.

They made their way past the buffet with its elegant fringe of gilded youth, past the long line of tables to the end of the room, where there was an open space with more tables. A little farther and up two steps, and there was a section set about for dining with a view of the lower floor.

This was where they were to take supper. This is where the best-dressed and wittiest women dined with their male relatives and friends. Down below, a red-coated band was playing waltzes as couples whirled around. The whole restaurant seemed infused with a restless gaiety.

“I do not think any of the ladies dining around us are the type to know someone like Madame de Peurey,” said Rose.

“No, they’re not. But I see an old friend of mine. I shall wave. Ah, he’s coming over.”

An elderly roué bent over the duchess’s hand, his corsets creaking.

“You look ravishing,” he said. “You will take Paris by storm.”

The duchess introduced Harry and Rose, naming her elderly admirer as Lord Featherstone.

“Do sit for a minute, Jumbo,” she said. “Have some champagne.”

“Gladly. I shall feast my eyes on the divinity that is Lady Rose.”

“I wouldn’t do that, you naughty old thing. The captain here would call you out. I need to find a certain Madame de Peurey.”

“Zuzu? That takes me back. What a wonder she was. They fought duels over her.”

“And where is she now?”

He cast an anxious glance at a formidable matron at his table. The duchess followed his glance. “I did not know you were married.”

“I’m not, yet. Postage-stamp heiress. Widowed. Wants the title and I want her money. I’d better get back.”

“Madame de Peurey. She was one of yours for a bit. Where is she?”

“Have you a piece of paper?”

Harry produced a small notebook and pencil. Featherstone scribbled an address. “Right, I’m off. I can feel my postage stamps disappearing by the minute.”

“You see?” said the duchess triumphantly. “I knew it would be easy. Now, let’s eat.”

Rose began to feel light-headed towards the end of the meal. Parisian gaiety frothed around her. Down on the floor, couples swung around in the waltz. The duchess broke off eating to greet old friends who had come up to her table.

“I never thought I knew so many people in Paris,” she said cheerfully. “I was sure they must all be dead.”

The supper consisted of eight courses. By the time the brandies and petits fours were served, Rose glanced at an elegant bronze clock on the wall. Four in the morning! Lucky Daisy. She would have been asleep for hours.