Death and the Courtesan

by Pamela Christie

  “I shall miss your company, and your boxes, when you’re married, Bunny,” said Arabella gently.

  “Oh, so shall I!” Belinda had wailed, and thereupon commenced a fresh round of weeping.

  But that had been nearly two weeks ago, and now she had a new nightdress, which would invariably require a male admirer. Her broken heart was on the mend.

  “Listen, Bell,” she said. “This investigation of yours is terribly important to both of us. So perhaps we should cancel my birthday party.”

  Arabella was horrified. “Heavens no! With Uncle Selwyn coming? I couldn’t think of it! Neddy and Eddie would be crushed if their first-ever grown-up party were canceled, to say nothing of you, darling . . . twenty years old and no party? Life mustn’t come to a standstill, you know, merely because I have been inconvenienced!”

  After Belinda had gone happily off to bed, Arabella went into her own bedroom, opened the drawer of her night table, and stood for some moments, holding the little bottle that she kept there. It had been immensely helpful, especially on nights like this one when she was too wound up to sleep. But she recalled Euphemia’s neighbor with the itchy arms and the lice-ridden room. A woman who, though not old, had used up her life and would in all probability be as dead as Euphemia in a short time. Of course, Arabella might be, too. But if so, at least she would go to her grave as handsome and proud as she was at this moment.

  She hurled the bottle from her window and watched it vanish into the darkness.

  Chapter 8

  A CASE OF NERVES

  In which the thief is discovered, Arabella briefly loses

  her temper, a proposed dish is rejected, the servants

  are revealed as real people, Mr. Kendrick brings

  disappointing news, and Belinda proves incapable

  of telling one end of a horse from the other.

  “Miss Beaumont! Madam! Some information for you, at last!” cried the chambermaid, sweeping into the bedroom and placing her mistress’s tea tray on the nightstand.

  Arabella was fully awake in an instant.

  “Excellent, Doyle! What have you found out?”

  “I wouldn’t be knowin’, ma’am, but Cook said I was to tell you it’s important!”

  Arabella hurried into her dressing gown. “Has my sister been informed?”

  “Yes!” shrieked Belinda, bursting into the bedroom. “Here I am, Bell! Come quickly! Hurry! Hurry!”

  But Arabella had to dash to the boudoir first, to retrieve her notebook. Then the Beaumont sisters flew down the stairs and tumbled into the kitchen.

  Mrs. Molyneux, who had been rolling out a pastry crust, wiped her hands upon her apron and sat down at the big table, opposite her avid audience. The story, which concerned a sailor who’d stolen the paper knife (so there had been a sailor!), was actually quite sensational stuff. But to spare my readers from the tedium of Mrs. Moly’s accent, the following précis is provided:

  Cook’s friend, a poulterer, told her of an occurrence recently related to him by his brother, who kept a tavern. Early in the previous week, a sailor who usually had no money had swaggered in, and before the tavern keeper could throw him out again the man had suddenly produced a wad of cash the size of a sandwich.

  The sailor explained that he’d done an “inside job” for a gentleman who paid him a handsome price to obtain a trifling object. He’d been told to get one of her knives. “Which type?” the sailor had asked. “A carving knife? Bread knife? Cleaver?” “It doesn’t matter which kind,” came the reply, “just make sure it’s sharp, and has her initials on it.”

  “I ask heem wheech night thees was, whan thee sailor cam into hees brother’s tavern,” said the cook, “and I mad heem work it out. Eet was the night after your own knife was stolen!”

  Arabella fell back against her chair with relief, for now she knew that it had definitely not been her brother: Charles would not have had the money to bribe the sailor. Or, if Charles had, he would have figured out a way to not pay it. She fetched a quill and a bottle of ink from the breakfast room.

  “So,” she concluded, opening her notebook, and dipping her quill, “it was someone who knew me well enough to know that my silver is monogrammed!”

  “Not necessarily,” said Belinda. “Remember that article that ran about you in La Belle Assemblée? The one describing your daily life at Lustings? That mentioned the monogrammed silver.”

  “It did?”

  “Yes,” said Belinda.

  “Hmm. What else do we have?”

  “The sailor said it was harder than he’d expected, because there were always people in the dining room,” Belinda quoted, catching the cook’s nod of approval. For Mrs. Molyneux’s story had included more details than I have paraphrased above.

  “Yes,” said Arabella. “But then . . .”

  “. . . he found a paper knife on the desk in the library,” Belinda repeated, “so he took that.”

  “But this is our man, surely!” cried Arabella. “Where is the sailor now, Mrs. Moly? Did the poulterer say?”

  “Non, madame. But the tavern keeper might know.”

  “Good. I shall send a note to Mr. Kendrick, asking him to call upon this tavern keeper. He will be delighted at my assigning him a task. Come on, Bunny; let us have something to eat.”

  In the breakfast room, Arabella opened her secretary, for she planned to sit at the desk and write whilst she ate, but a ridiculous number of tiny, gaily wrapped packages spilled out onto the carpet.

  “Goodness! I nearly forgot! Happy birthday, Belinda, dear! Here are some small gifts you may open now. There are more, upstairs, but I think that we shall save those for the party.” (The princess having already laid claim to Belinda that night, the party would not be held for another two days.) “One would think she might have allowed you to spend your birthday with your family!” grumbled Arabella.

  “Yes, but this way I get two parties,” said Belinda. “Besides, you will have two more days in which to work up your case whilst it’s fresh.”

  And as her sister happily unwrapped and exclaimed over each little bauble, Arabella simultaneously drank her coffee, penned a note to the Reverend Kendrick, and read the newspaper.

  “Ha! Listen to this, Bunny:

  “Durwent Frobisher, better known to his friends as ‘The Beast,’ has sired a child and married its mother, in that order. His bride, the former Harriet ‘Heart of Stone’ Hartley, has decided to name their daughter Lettice. Thus, into the annals of natural science are new inroads paved: the animal has married the mineral and quickly produced a vegetable.

  “Do you not find that excessively diverting?”

  “Who wrote it?” asked Belinda, holding out her arm to admire the new jonquil-colored glove with which she had just adorned it.

  “Oliver Wedge. You remember—the editor we met at the auction.”

  “Mmm,” said Belinda, removing the glove and reaching for another present. “Are you in love with him?”

  When Belinda asked her this, Arabella had only just set down her coffee cup. Otherwise, she might have spluttered it all over the table. As it was, she only made a kind of protesting noise, there being nothing in her mouth to splutter.

  “I cannot afford to fall in love, Bunny. It would be fatal to my business.”

  “Oho! It’s the people who say they cannot fall in love who fall hardest of all!”

  “I have not said that I cannot fall in love, only that I cannot afford to. I never have, though.”

  “I wonder why?”

  “You see . . .” (And Arabella, having entered her instructional frame of mind, began waving her finger about in what Belinda privately held to be a most comical manner.) “It does not take very much to fetch most women. The majority of our sex are satisfied with good looks, political power, money, a title, or stamina, perhaps. But I require something more.”

  “And what is that?”

  “I haven’t the faintest idea. But in the meantime, I am perfectly happy to indulge i
n dalliances.”

  Arabella picked up the paper again.

  “Is that The Tattle-Tale?” asked Belinda.

  “It is.”

  “You have never wanted to read that one before. What was it you called it? ‘A scurrilous rag’? Why have you suddenly begun to take it?”

  Arabella blushed. “Well, I . . .” She cleared her throat. “Mr. Wedge has promised to help clear my name, if he can. It . . . they . . . his articles, I mean . . . will shortly be about me, once I grant him an interview. And I wanted to see what sort of writer he is.”

  “An interview? Bell, are you certain that this idea is a sound one? You know what journalists are like! Remember that cove from The Daily Dispatch, who nearly got you transported?”

  Arabella had returned to her paper. “Pray, do not exaggerate, Bunny dear,” she murmured. “Your integrity will develop premature wrinkles.” A few moments passed. Then . . . “Oh! Of all the underhanded, inexcusable, dastardly tricks!”

  “What?”

  “Listen! Just listen to what he has written!

  “ ’Tis a fine thing, indeed, when politicians turn deaf ears to desperately-needed social reform; when grave robbers, unchecked, tear our loved ones from their tombs, and when a murderess with high connections stalks the land, seeking her next victim!”

  “Are you quite certain that he is referring to you?”

  “Of course I am!”

  “But he paid you such courteous attentions yesterday! The fellow was all affability, I thought!”

  “I thought so, too,” said Arabella. She sighed. “Well, Mr. Kendrick did warn me. He said Mr. Wedge was only out for a sensational story.”

  “Yes, but that man was attracted to you, Bell. I can always tell these things.”

  “Attracted or not, he’s apparently out to crucify me.”

  “Well, perhaps it’s fortunate that you have discovered his actual intent before granting him an interview. Now you can forget about that.”

  “Not at all! I fully intend to keep my rendezvous with Mr. Wedge.”

  “Oh, no, Arabella! Please don’t! If there is anyone in the kingdom who can make your case weaker than it already is, Mr. Widgeon is that man. I fear it is his intention to render you a major disservice!”

  “Well, he is going to be surprised then, because I intend to make mincemeat of him!”

  Having thus dispensed with The Tattle-Tale, Arabella turned her attention to the post. There was an awful lot of it—condolences were pouring in from the members of her salon, and Belinda had to help her to open and read them all.

  “Goodness, Bell,” said she. “I believe this collection of letters from the great literary and scientific men of our time could form the basis of a book! It might be of great interest to posterity!”

  “You are so delightfully silly, Belinda! It is one of the many things that I love about you. Consider, dear, whether the descendants of . . . Louis Trilby, for example, should like it known that their mighty ancestor was close friends with a courtesan!”

  “I don’t see why not . . . you are just as famous as he is!”

  “Yes, but don’t you see? His descendants are very likely to be less so. And, being nobodies, they will elevate his stature in their own minds to be on par with God’s, in order that they may bask in his borrowed light. They would therefore suppress such a book as mine, with threats of lawsuits and I don’t know what all.”

  Arabella picked up an odd-looking envelope from the letter tray. It was addressed to her in an unfamiliar and childish hand, as though written by someone recovering from a stroke.

  “Well, they cannot suppress a book that was published before they were born,” said Belinda logically. “And you will have been dead for years before they would even be old enough to try it! That has to be one of the stupidest arguments I have ever heard you make, Bell. The truth is, you are just too lazy to gather these letters together and write the introduction!”

  “Too busy, more like,” said Arabella, absently slitting open the envelope. (She was using her new paper knife. On whose handle her initials did not appear.) “Besides,” she said, “has it ever occurred to you that some of our friends may not want . . .” She trailed off as her eye traveled down the page. “Hmm. Listen to this, Bunny:

  “Are you wurried about hangin’? Don’t be. You will never hang as I am going to kill you first and when I do you will wish you was hangin’ instede. I killed the first one fast, but you I shall kill slow. Your frend, anonimus for now.”

  Belinda was horrified. “How dreadful! You are in danger, Bell!”

  “Oh, I don’t think so. The constables are guarding me, after all. But it may be a clew, anyway.”

  “A clew! It’s a threat! We must get away from here!”

  “But where would we go? I am not allowed to leave London.”

  “Aren’t you even the least bit upset?”

  “Of course I am. I cannot make out this handwriting and it is obviously someone who knows me.”

  “If you knew them you would recognize the hand, surely.”

  “No, look,” said Arabella. She took her pencil in her left hand and wrote “Your frend, anonimus” on the envelope. Then she compared the scripts.

  “Why,” said Belinda, “that is . . . singular. If Constance were here, she would say that you had written the letter yourself!”

  Arabella smiled. “Do you see what it means, Bunny?”

  “I must confess that I do not.”

  “Our ‘anonimus frend’ was writing with its other hand.”

  Belinda rubbed her thumb against her first two fingers to dislodge the crumbs and dabbed her lips with a flowered napkin.

  “Perhaps,” she said, “it’s just some madman or -woman, stirred up by the murder.”

  Arabella snorted.

  “Of course it isn’t! Madmen aren’t allowed to run about Brompton Park, threatening law-abiding citizens! They’re properly locked up, and looked after . . . more or less.”

  “Why, that’s so, isn’t it? Constance told me that she recently went out to Bedlam with a large party, where for tuppence a head they were allowed to teaze the inmates as much as they liked! What do you think of that?”

  “I think it is amazing that Constance, once admitted there, was ever allowed to come out again,” said Arabella, offering to pour Belinda another cup of tea and receiving a negative shake of the head. “My point, Bunny, is that no sane society permits its drunkards, drug addicts, and lunatics to wander about the streets, accosting decent citizens.”

  “I suppose that is true, at present,” she said doubtfully.

  “And so will it always be,” asserted Arabella, rising from the table. “Any society which would allow the mentally incapacitated to harass the competent would no longer retain the right to call itself civilized.”

  One of Lustings’s best features, according to its mistress, was a deep, first-floor loggia at the side of the house, walled in green granite and extending out over the ground floor. Three stone arches, supported on columns, lent it a distinctly monastic flavor, a theme that was borne out by the simple trestle table and low wooden chairs. Not much used in the colder seasons, the loggia made a cool haven in which to eat, or merely to sit, on very warm mornings and afternoons. Just now, Arabella and Mrs. Molyneux were having tea there, whilst reviewing the menu for Belinda’s birthday dinner, which was to take place the following evening.

  “It all sounds perfectly wonderful, Mrs. Moly,” said Arabella, casting an approving eye down the list. “But I wonder whether you could add a few curry dishes?”

  “Curries?”

  “Yes. Can you make them?”

  “I can. But you have nevair ask for thees before.”

  “And I probably never shall again. But Uncle Selwyn will be joining us, as you know, and I think he rather got to like the stuff in Ceylon.”

  “Oh!” exclaimed the cook, reaching for a cream bun. “So that ees why I nevaire ’eard of thees Selweens before. He leev far away.”

/>   “Yes. But his wife has died, and now he is returning to England. Uncle Selwyn wrote us often before you came to Lustings, and long ago he used to come for visits when home on leave. But my aunt never did; never wrote, never saw us. It was sad, you know, because she was probably the closest thing we had to a mother, growing up.”

  The cook clucked in disapproval and patted Arabella’s hand. “Because you and Mees Belinda make sex for money, and she was ashamed of that.”

  “I suppose so. But she never seemed that sort of person. She wasn’t judgmental in the least. Well. I shall never know, now.”

  Here the reader may be forgiven for feeling slightly at sea. It was not usual practice for mistress and servant to console each other over coffee and cream buns, but Lustings was run along somewhat original lines. And in order to understand the unique bond that Arabella shared with her servants, it is necessary that you know something of their histories.

  Charlotte Janks, the housekeeper, was comfortable, fortyish, plump, and gray haired. She was just one of many candidates who had answered Arabella’s advertisement, all of whom were attracted by the generous salary and not put off by the Misses Beaumont’s profession. But Mrs. Janks had arrived with a black eye—a good-luck gift from her husband—and with shoe soles worn right through from having walked the thirty miles to London.

  “Have you any housekeeping experience, Mrs. Janks?” Arabella had asked, on being informed that the woman had brought no references.

  “Bless you, miss! I’ve been keeping house these last thirty years—raising my children to grow up clean, kind, and honest, and giving them a warm and loving home.”

  “Well, that is commendable, but you haven’t had experience working for a master, have you?”

  “I should say I have! Harry Janks is the worst master in England, if not in Europe! I’ve been ill-used, cheated on, lied to, and shamed to my very bones. Yet I always kept the children safe from him, miss, that I did, and every one of them’s gone out and done good in the world.”