Debutantes by Cora Harrison

Author:Cora Harrison [Harrison, Cora]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Juvenile Fiction, Historical, General, Mysteries & Detective Stories
ISBN: 9781447205944
Google: 4VfXnpW6GY0C
Amazon: B008I3420U
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Published: 2012-08-01T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

Once dinner was over, Daisy escaped upstairs to her temporary darkroom. Everything was just perfect there. Sir Guy had sent over just what she needed. There was even a red light so that she did not have to work in darkness once she loaded the film into the developing tank. There were a few interesting shots, she thought, as she hung the film on the little line to drip-dry. Two in particular, of Catherine looking jealously at Violet who was standing chatting to a group of men, Justin in the foreground, and then turning to whisper something to her neighbour, would have made a very good sequence in a film.

‘If I were you, Vi,’ she said when they were all getting ready for bed, ‘I wouldn’t try to outshine Catherine tomorrow. After all, it is her ball and her season and—’

‘When I want your advice I’ll ask for it.’ Violet’s bright, chatty facade seemed to disappear once the door was closed behind them. ‘Run my bath, please, Maud.’ Her tone was abrupt.

‘Have it your own way,’ said Daisy. ‘You always do,’ she couldn’t help adding.

Violet’s only answer to that was to go into the far bedroom and slam the door behind her.

‘Spoilt by success,’ quoted Rose sadly and Maud’s lips twitched as she went in to run the bath.

‘What are they like downstairs, Maud?’ Daisy followed her into the bathroom.

Maud considered this question gravely. ‘Not very friendly, my lady,’ she said after a while. ‘Of course, I’m not used to a big staff like that. Back home it’s just myself and Nora and the cook mainly. Mrs Pearson and Mr Bateman are not too bad either. That MacDonald is very haughty. I think she guesses that I’m not really a lady’s maid.’

‘Thank you, Maud.’ Violet came out of her room wrapped in her dressing gown. ‘Could you kindly get out of the bathroom while I bathe, Daisy, if it’s not too much trouble?’

‘Very haughty,’ said Rose with a grin as the bathroom door lock clicked.

‘Hope she leaves us some hot water,’ said Poppy. She took out her clarinet and blew softly into it and Daisy couldn’t be bothered stopping her. She was too tired of Violet’s moods.

‘Hope tomorrow is more fun than today,’ she said as she began to undress. Violet, she noticed, had left her clothes on the floor – and Maud was busy picking things up and hanging them in the wardrobe. Mrs Pearson had given her a package of washing soap so that the girls’ underclothes and blouses could be laundered by her. Privately, Daisy guessed, Great-Aunt Lizzie was ashamed of their shabbiness and Daisy had decided that the money Sir Guy had given her was better spent on shoes, which would be seen, than on knickers and liberty bodices which would not be seen.

Daisy was first up in the morning. She had slept with the little alarm clock beneath her pillow and roused herself at its first chime. She got sleepily out of bed, noticing that someone had been into the bedroom and had seen to the fire.

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