Hasty Death by M. C. Beaton Read Free Book Online

coat and unpinned her large felt hat and stripped off her gloves. ‘Wait until Elsie brings the tea-things. I’ve ever so much to tell you.’
    From her daughter’s tales, Mrs Jubbles had gathered that Captain Cathcart, younger son of a baron, who had chosen to sink to trade, was enamoured of her daughter. Both dreamt rosy dreams
of being finally ensconced in some country mansion with a whole army of servants at their beck and call.
    Elsie panted in with a tray with the tea-things and a plate containing two small Eccles cakes. Mother and daughter lived thriftily. Mrs Jubbles’s husband had owned a butcher’s shop
in Camden Town and two houses other than the one the widow now lived in. She had sold all for a comfortable sum, but was keeping aside a substantial amount for her daughter’s wedding. The
fact that Dora was now thirty-eight years old had not dimmed her hopes. She saw Dora as elegant and distinguished.
    Dora told her mother all about Lady Rose, ending with, ‘She is very beautiful.’
    Mrs Jubbles sniffed. ‘You should tell the newspapers what this Lady Rose has been up to. They’d pay you and she’d be so socially ruined that he couldn’t possibly want to
marry her.’
    Dora was shocked. ‘I would be betraying the captain’s trust. Oh, if you could have seen the way he smiled at me. There is an intimacy there, Mother, a warmth. And to confide in me
the way he did? No, he seemed impatient with the adventures of this Lady Rose. He is never impatient with me.’
    A little doubt crept into Mrs Jubbles mind. ‘This Lady Rose is young?’
    ‘Yes, very. Barely twenty, I would say.’
    ‘And the captain is . . .?’
    ‘Nearly thirty. Yes, he is younger than I am, but I think I am young-looking for my age.’
    ‘Oh, yes, dear. Only the other day, the baker, Mr Jones said, “Where is your lovely daughter?” That’s just what he said. So you do not think it would be a good idea to
apprise the newspapers of what this Lady Rose is doing?’
    ‘No, Mother. I would not breathe a word to anyone apart from you. And you must swear you must not tell anyone either.’
    ‘There, there, girl. I swear,’ said Mrs Jubbles and crossed her fingers behind her back.
    Harry had forgotten to tell Mr Drevey about Daisy’s prowess, the sick secretary had come back, and so Rose and Daisy were once more closeted together, typing out from the
entries in the ledgers.
    Rose was becoming weary of her new life. All her initial enthusiasm had gone, bit by bit. She longed to have a bed of her own again and decent meals. Her pin-money had gone quickly on items
which Daisy had considered frivolous, such as an expensive vase for flowers and even more expensive flowers to put in it. Their wages had melted away on meals at Lyons, cosmetics, perfume that Rose
felt she must have and new gloves and various other little luxuries. The winter weather was horrible.
    The pin-money she had brought to her new life had run out and their combined wages did not allow them any luxuries. She was tired of cooking cheap meals on the gas ring in their room, tired of
saving pennies for the gas meters, weary of the biting cold in this seemingly endless winter. She found that although Daisy did not like to read, she loved being read to, and so that was the way
they passed most of their evenings.
    Her clothes were beginning to smell of cooking, and regular sponging down with benzene did not seem to help much. Their underclothes had to be washed out in the bathroom and then hung on a rack
before the gas fire. The sweat-pads from their blouses and dresses took ages to dry.
    One morning Rose discovered a spot on her forehead. She could never remember having any spots on her face before.
    She could only admire Daisy’s fortitude. Daisy never complained. Rose did not know that Daisy, after her initial rush of gratitude after their escape, was as miserable as she was.
    Daisy was every bit as conscious of the rigid English class distinctions as Rose and