House of Bliss

by T T Thomas

  Chapter 19

  May 1906

  They’d had no plans to dine together until fate intervened. Hugh Glyver and George Markham happened to walk into the club at the same time, so there was no avoiding it, for either of them.

  “What’s new in your world of old money and prestige, George?” They had been served cocktails.

  Markham swatted away Glyver’s tease. “Frankly, Glyver, there are times I’d rather have your money, but I daresay, it’s not often,” he thrust back.

  Glyver laughed. They drank in companionable silence, each looking around the room at the other members. A nod here, a wave of acknowledgement there.

  “Did you know, George, that the solicitor who handled my divorce has a daughter who runs a bespoke corset house?”

  Markham froze, drink midway between his mouth and the table. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  The icy tone of his dinner mate took Glyver aback. “Nothing, nothing at all, thought it was quite the coincidence. All the society women wear her brand. House of Bliss she calls it. Blissdon is her surname.”

  Markham regained his composure and shrugged. “I know the ones—yes the ladies of my acquaintance seem to possess at least one or two.”

  “One or two? I do wish it were true. Glynnis has nearly five. It’s almost as if I’m still paying the son of a bitch who set up this stipend racket that I’m paying Bel, except it’s one removed as it’s my wife paying House of Bliss. Still my money, though. Still Blissdon’s daughter.”

  An elderly man in a modified tuxedo brought their dinner to the table. He was more crusty than genial, more familiar than intrusive. “Another round, sirs?”

  They both nodded assent and began to eat.

  “So, does that mean you’re about to resume her payments? I’ve heard she’s not well, Glyver.”

  “Yes, so you said last time. Have you seen her, again, Markham?”

  George looked up. “I have, by accident and briefly. On the street one day. We stopped for a small chat. I could tell she was unwell. Her color, you know.”

  Glyver made a guttural sound of acknowledgement. They finished dinner. “A quick brandy, Glyver?”

  “Hmm, not tonight, George. I’ve got a hell of a day tomorrow. Say, by the way, remember that private investigator you sent over?”

  Markham nodded.

  “Well, she’s been working out fine on the assignment I gave her. So, I thought I’d have her deliver the stipend to the former Mrs. Glyver. Let me know if you come across Bel’s address, will you?”

  Markham cleared his throat. “Of course, Hugh. I’ll try to get it if I run into her again.”

  “Ah, well no worries. My girl will find her soon enough. But if you do happen to ‘run into’ her again, you can, with confidence, let her know that a payment will be forthcoming soon.”

  “Why the change of mind, Glyver? I thought you were determined not to pay another dime.”

  Glyver stood. “Sorry to leave you here, old boy, but my man is waiting with my carriage. As for the other?” He shrugged. “I’m happy with Glynnis, and life is too short for grudges, George. I’m not thrilled to be paying it, but maybe she’ll marry someday soon and save me the expense. Goodnight, Markham.”

  George Markham rubbed his chin. He didn’t trust Glyver. The man was up to something. That made Markham irritable. He signed for the check and walked outside in time to see Hugh’s carriage pull away. Markham looked around the busy street. Maybe he’d take a little walk. Expunge the angst. Clear his mind.

  Lena Thornbrook looked at herself in the mirror. She wasn’t old. Not young, either. Maybe not as stunning as she once was but certainly better dressed. She poured herself a glass of wine and took it out to the back veranda. The sun, setting below the gray clouds, gave off a brilliant burgundy glow as the last rays sank behind the horizon.

  Sitting in the dark, Lena wondered about Sabrina and herself. Would she need to return to work? No. Would Sabrina allow her to continue living in the flat?—Lena knew she would. She sipped her wine and shook her head. And thank God, because she couldn’t imagine ever going back to her prostitution life. She had not been in it long, but long enough to know that she never wanted to return. And yet, she had not spent much time planning for an independent life. She loved to read, loved to draw and paint, fond of history and enjoyed cooking. How does one make an income from that?

  She thought of her former lover, Jean. Lena had thought her life path was set, and she had been happy about it. But she had been wrong. Jean needed a commitment Lena couldn’t give…and then it was too late. Yes, she understood Sabrina’s near obsession with Annabel more than she cared to recall right now.

  She was angry with Sabrina and hurt by her, but she was not dense. She knew this day would come. She had felt Sabrina slipping away almost from the day they got together. Sabrina Blissdon had a restlessness about her, a drive to keep moving, a desire to answer to no one.

  Lena reminded herself that she suspected from the beginning their relationship wouldn’t be forever. Still, she loved her. A lot. For her part, Sabrina was loving, and generous. But could she ever be in love with Lena? Not deeply enough. Not yet, anyway. Or maybe never.

  Sabrina loved her work. Her employees. Her clients. And strange women with babies who showed up on the doorstep. Lena had already shed tears for Sabrina, but now she worried.

  Something didn’t make sense. Sabrina expressed a deep love for only one other woman, the opium addict Annabel who disappeared some years back. Lena knew Annabel, briefly, when they worked together at Mrs. Tornage’s house, and she liked her. Lena always admired how Annabel, a society wife turned out by a ruthless husband, managed to survive in spite of her bad luck and circumstance.

  She saw Annabel only once since those days, but she never mentioned it to Sabrina. Frankly, she feared losing Sabrina to the former lover.

  It was recently, a few weeks earlier, from the distance of a few feet, so she had a clear view. The woman, though drawn and pale, was a born beauty. Lena, shopping with another working girl, her friend, Daisy Bowker, tried to remain discreet as she watched Annabel.

  “Remember when we all got corsets while Annabel was catering to that wealthy corset woman?” she whispered.

  Bel turned to them as they were staring at her, then quickly turned away. Lena did not tell Daisy that the “wealthy corset woman” was her current lover, Sabrina Blissdon. She wondered if Annabel knew about her and Sabrina, but she doubted it.

  And oh, what a lover Sabrina was. She showered Lena with little gifts, new clothes, the flat, the furnishings and spending money. Sabrina said Lena must not work any more. She was free to pursue her love of drawing and the history volumes that led to her genealogy hobby. And for the past three years that was their arrangement. Created by Sabrina with minimal discussion, Lena saw it as a mutually pleasing arrangement, or so she had thought.

  She finished her wine and, realizing she was not tired, switched to whiskey. She returned to the veranda but lit a small candle. Even as she fretted and worried her options, she knew she would wait for Sabrina to return. Lena wanted to contact Jeremy to see if he could shed any light on things, but as he was Sabrina’s closest friend, that might seem intrusive.

  She felt her heart drop as she confronted, again, the possibility that Sabrina might not return as her lover, but something told her not to give up yet. Sabrina might return, and Lena hoped that if it happened, it would not be the result of misfortune. Was Sabrina back to her old ways with the opium?

  No, Sabrina was under a spell, yes, but not from the glorious poppy plant. It was a spell from a woman, and Lena aimed to find out how and why. She thought she already knew who. She might be able to accept losing Sabrina as a lover, but she could not bear to lose her as a friend. Well, she was not keen to lose her as a lover either.

  Lena drank up her whiskey and hatched a plan to contact her old friend Daisy the next day.

  Chapter 20

  The ladies of the night were out in ab
undance. Rent was coming due on the first of the month, and that gave them all a scant few days to earn the payment.

  A woman with dirty-blonde hair leaned up against the sharp corner of the building. She was half in the shadow of the alley, the rest of her revealed in the light from the streetlamp.

  Bloody, stifling hot, hard night to work.

  She loosened the top two front buttons of her tight dress to expose her corset and fanned the dead air to stir a breeze.

  The temperature was unseasonably high and the air heavy with humidity, with nary a whiff of wind coming off the Thames. But it was cooler close to the river, so she started off in that direction. Too much competition tonight, anyway.

  She passed a few women she knew, and though they didn’t speak, a knowing look confirmed the uneasy alliance among them. They were all here for the same reason. Despite the tourist traffic on the main streets, apparently business had stalled out in the smells of spent sex, tobacco and wine in air already over-ripe with garbage and the smell of dead things. The heatwave drove Daisy further than she had previously traveled down this particular path, but it led to the promenade along the water like so many similar alleys. She’d been on most of those narrow passages in her line of work.

  She could feel the temperature drop as she neared the water. It may have been only a degree or two, but it was better than the bustling streets. Small groups of people returning from the waterfront passed her. A few gentlemen strolled toward it ahead of her.

  The last block of the alley crested a slight hill and descended onto the riverfront where entire families relaxed and slept on the thick, grassy banks. Couples ambled and men alone hurried to find the overly made-up, familiar faces of the working girls who walked alone or in pairs along the waterfront. It wasn’t an ideal family place, but for the poor with small children, it was a chance to get a few hours sleep on the cool grasses above the mooring docks of the smaller fishing boats.

  She heard something behind her and turned to see the source of the noise. Someone tall grabbed her from deep within a darkened doorway of an abandoned building. He held his hand over her mouth and searched her cleavage area with his torch, which he quickly extinguished.

  “No harm intended, Miss, didn’t want you to be startled and cry out.” He removed his hand from her face.

  “Well, an ye’ve damn startled me now, ‘aven’t ye?”

  “I apologize…I thought you might…would two pounds be enough?”

  Daisy couldn’t see his face, but she heard the upper class accent. And he was polite, not counting the grab. And the rent was due in three days. Two pounds was a fortune.

  “’alf up front,” she said.

  He handed her a pound note, and she turned around. She knew this kind liked to do it from behind, no looking at faces.

  While he fumbled with his trousers, she hiked up her dress and bent over. She slipped the pound note into the secret pocket of her corset. He finished, and she was about to turn around to claim the rest of her money when something sharp scored the skin on her throat. A sticky, warm and wet fluid ran down the front of her chest and onto her corset. Her eyes got wide and her mouth twisted into a grimace as she comprehended the pain and recognized the approach of her own death.

  Chapter 21

  Felicity left the house before Sabrina awakened. She told Cath she had errands to run and would return in time for lunch. As she opened the front door, she came face-to-face with Jeremy and Chief Inspector Mendicott.

  “Oh, I didn’t expect we’d have callers this early,” she said. “I was leaving, unless...did you need to speak with me?”

  Both men shook their heads in a silent ‘No.’ She stepped back to allow them entry. Cath materialized from the kitchen, and Felicity slipped out the front door, a frown on her face. Those two looked solemn.

  When Felicity arrived at Glyver’s office, she sensed new warmth from him.

  “Good morning, Miss West. Bright and early I see. May I offer you a coffee?”

  “That would be lovely, Mr. Glyver.”

  After pouring a cup for each of them, Glyver sat in a chair next to her, instead of behind his desk.

  “So what is new on the Sabrina Blissdon front?”

  Felicity thumbed through a notebook. Then, as if finding her place amidst the notes, she said, “Amazingly, she is quite boring.”

  “Do say?” Glyver said. “How do you mean that?”

  Felicity looked up. “Well, she goes about each day in a duplicate of the day before that. No visitors except Dr. Wintermere.”

  “And why does he come? Is she ill?”

  Felicity demurred. “Hmm…I’ve not been able to verify it, but I suspect she might once have had an opium addiction. He treats her, and they seem to be good friends.”

  “Interesting,” Glyver mused. “One has to wonder how she acquired that nasty habit.”

  “I’ve no idea, and it’s nothing she discusses. Not a subject one can broach casually.”

  “No, no, I suppose not. What else?”

  “Well, I doubt this has any interest to you, but there were several prostitutes murdered recently—”

  “No, I daresay I can’t imagine why on earth it would.”

  “Indeed,” Felicity said, “but there seems to be a connection to Miss Blissdon.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “Apparently, each woman was killed while wearing a House of Bliss corset.”

  Glyver laughed, then coughed, then laughed more. “My, my, her clientele span the spectrum from society’s best to the worst. How on earth do the pleasure set come by these expensive garments?”

  Felicity looked at him, her face a mask of neutrality. “Well, I’ve heard that society’s best treat the corsets as hand-me-downs or charity fare after a season or two.”

  “That explains it,” he said, nodding.

  “Explains what, Mr. Glyver?”

  “Why my wife spends so much money for House of Bliss apparel—the styles change.”

  “Then, too,” offered Felicity, “some eat too many bonbons, so the size changes.”

  Glyver nodded, oblivious to her gilded arrow.

  “Anyway, I have a separate assignment for you, if you’d be willing,” he said.

  “Am I finished investigating Sabrina Blissdon?”

  “Oh, not at all. The other is a simple delivery. Well, simple is perhaps the wrong word.” He stood up and walked to the other side of his desk. He opened a middle drawer and took out an envelope. “There’s cash in this missive,” he said, “and I need it delivered to a woman whose address I don’t know.”

  “Do we have any ideas what area?”

  “Yes, the worst—Spitalfields, probably. Once delivered, I need a receipt. Then send her address to me.”

  He walked around and handed her the envelope.

  “And if I’m not able to locate her?”

  He also held out a check written for twice as much as she usually received. “I don’t expect a lady such as yourself to go hunting in that neighborhood, so I’ve added in liberal expense monies. You can hire someone to do the legwork for you.”

  Felicity took the check. “Someone?”

  “A friend of mine says the coppers are always looking for small side jobs. Go to the edge of the area and find a Bobby who wants a little extra cash. I’ve heard you can ask virtually any of them. Get two if you want. Usually the first one will have a friend available for the task. They’ll have better luck than you doing it alone, anyway. They know the area, they recognize the people, especially…well, I’ll admit it’s a long shot.”

  “I see,” Felicity said. “Well, I’ll certainly give it a try. Does she have any friends?”

  “Not really,” Glyver said. Glyver stood up to signal the end of the meeting. “Far as I know, she still uses the name I was unfortunate enough to give her. Her name is Bel Glyver, by the way. Good luck!”

  When she awoke that morning, Sabrina was lying on her side, fully dressed. This had been happening a lot lately. Fallin
g asleep deep in thought, waking up still dressed and confused. There were no sounds coming from Felicity’s room. The house was unusually warm. The London summer would soon begin early—short but decisive.

  After a quick bath which she ran herself, Sabrina dressed simply in a beige bifurcated linen skirt. A front panel of what she considered unnecessary fabric disguised the culotte pants, but it gave her the freedom of movement she needed this morning. She added a loose, white, cotton pirate shirt and a pair of sand-colored, light-weight espadrilles imported from Mauleon, France near the Basque country of the shoes’ origin and popularity.

  As she descended the stairs, she spotted Jeremy at the bottom.

  “What is it Jeremy? You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.” She picked up her pace and reached him before he could speak.

  When he did, he stammered. “Chief Inspector Mendicott. In the library…another murder.”

  Her hand flew to her mouth. “Who?”

  Jeremy took her other hand and shook his head. “Don’t recognize name, but…Mendicott thinks you might.”

  Chapter 22

  Later, same day

  After a brief, perfunctory questioning by Mendicott, Sabrina and Jeremy sat in the library alone.

  “I don’t know a Daisy,” she repeated.

  Jeremy nodded. “She was wearing a summer dress, yellow, cotton and a House of Bliss corset—only this time, I found the pound note in the secret pocket as soon as they brought her to the morgue.”

  “Who identified her?”

  “Apparently a few of the working ladies happened upon the scene after the police arrived, and two of them said ‘Daisy’ was her name. That’s all they knew.”

  “So, despite you having told Mendicott that you, Felicity and I were all here last night having dinner, he still insisted on that rather cursory interview?”