Free Our Lady of Pain by Marion Chesney

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 and 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