Our Lady of Pain Read Online Free PDF Page A

dining room because you’d need to raise your veil to eat.”
    The train roared south, Rose lowering her veil every time it stopped at a station in case someone joined them in the compartment, but they were left alone until they reached Thurby-on-Sea.
    “Why Thurby-on-Sea?” asked Rose wearily as they finally stood on a small windswept platform.
    “I’ve never heard of it,” said Daisy cheerfully, “so I suppose most people haven’t either. Porter!”
    Once settled in a cab, they asked the driver to take them to a good hotel. He drove to the Thurby Palace, which was smaller than its grand name suggested. It was situated on a promenade along which a gale whipped with increasing ferocity.
    Daisy checked them in under the names of the Misses Callendar. “Why Callendar?” whispered Rose.
    “It just came to me,” Daisy whispered back. “I used to dance with a Scotch girl who came from there.” Daisy had once been a chorus girl.
    They were ushered into two bedchambers with a sitting room in between.
    Rose walked to the window of the sitting room and looked out at the plunging waves, which were now sending spray up over the promenade.
    “It’s cold in here,” complained Daisy. She pulled the bell rope beside the fireplace, and when the porter answered the summons asked him to light the fires.
    He looked curiously at the heavily veiled figure of Rose standing by the window.
    “Get on with it,” snapped Daisy.
    They waited until he had left. Rose unpinned her hat and veil and sat down by the sitting room fire, stretching her hands out to the blaze.
    “I brought some stuff from the masquerade box,” said Daisy. “I’ll disguise you so that we can go down to the dining room and get something to eat. It’s just noon.”
    Rose stifled a yawn. The train had taken four hours, stopping at innumerable tiny stations before creaking into Thurby-on-Sea on the Essex coast.
    Daisy was unlocking their luggage. “Here!” she said triumphantly. She held up a grey wig and a pair of spectacles. “Put these on. No one will recognize you from your photo in the newspapers.”
    “Is my photo in the newspapers?”
    “Bound to be, but I thought it would be best if you didn’t know what they were writing about you. I’ve got a wig for meself,” said Daisy. “The minute we’re found missing, the police’ll be looking for me as well.”
    What have I done? thought Rose, suddenly appalled. We have robbed my father and run away. I am a coward. What will Captain Cathcart think of me?
    She suddenly remembered Dolores Duval’s dead body and burst into overwrought tears.
    “There, there, I’m here,” cooed Daisy.
    “I-I am s-such a weakling,” sobbed Rose.
    “Now, then, it’s only for a few days, until those dreadful press people have given up.”
    Rose dried her eyes and turned a white face up to Daisy. “But I have just realized that in running away, I will now make Mr. Kerridge sure that I am guilty.”
    Daisy looked at her uneasily. Then she said bracingly, “Food is what we need. We didn’t have any breakfast. Let’s put on our disguises and go downstairs. Have you ever seen such an oldfashioned set of rooms? I don’t think they’ve been changed for half a century.”
    The sitting room was overfurnished. The mantel was draped with cloth and the chairs were also draped with long cloth covers to hide their embarrassing legs. The Victorians of the last century had even found the sight of naked chair legs slightly disreputable. A badly executed oil painting of Queen Victoria glared down at them accusingly.
    Rose went through to one of the bedrooms and sat down at the dressing table. She arranged the grey wig over her hair and put on the glasses, which had unmagnified lenses. Daisy came in carrying two hats. “I packed us two of the most dowdy ones. Don’t want to occasion comment by looking too smart.”
    They waited until they heard the luncheon gong sound and then went down the stairs and into the dining room. Rose