“I haven’t been to sleep.”
“Where is my statue?”
Charles ran his fingers repeatedly through his hair, a habit with him when he was distraught, and she noticed how red his eyes were.
“Don’t tell me you failed to win it!”
“Oh, I won it, all right! I won the whole bloody lot . . .”
“Thank goodness!”
“ . . . In the first game. By the fifth, I had lost everything! Don’t nag me; I am quite wretched enough!”
The long and short of it was, after losing everything, Charles had been expelled from Carlton House. His name had been struck from the guest list forever, and no less a personage than the regent’s own social secretary had warned him against ever attempting to return.
“I don’t mind that so much,” said Charles, “for I was never in my life invited to a more hideous building! What I do mind is losing my knack! I failed to win so much as a farthing after that first game! All my Italian winnings! Everything I have won since coming home! Gone! Finished! I shall never win again! And it’s all your fault!”
“My fault?”
“Fortuna only works for the benefit of her owner. When I gambled for someone else I broke the charm.”
“How do you know that?”
“Stands to reason: I’d never placed a bet for anyone else before. Then I did, and my luck evaporated! Do you see? It’s because I did you a favor, Bell! I shall never do anybody a favor again, so long as I live!”
Belinda’s fan lay on the floor where she had dropped it on coming in the previous evening. Arabella picked it up and began fanning herself, furiously, as she paced about the room.
“I have lost my house,” she said to herself. “Lustings. I have lost Lustings.” It was not registering, so she tried the next thing down. “My wonderful parchment ponies!” That she could comprehend. “A sad loss, indeed! Also a carriage. The regent did not specify which carriage, so I shall give him the least of those.”
“He did, actually,” said Charles.
“What?”
“The regent. He said he wanted the barouche.”
“Oh, damn, damn! Well, he banished you for life, anyway, and that is some comfort. Of course, you will be free to come back after the regent dies, and his present mode of living certainly augurs well for an early death. But I imagine I shall be free of you for at least another ten years.”
“Bell . . .”
“Don’t grumble, Toby; I can dispatch boxes of English comestibles to Marggrabowa, or wherever you will be staying, in the meantime, but perhaps you will not require it. Prussian food is reputed to be as bad as our own.”
“If you will let me get a word in? Banishment was a condition pertaining to the first game only. And, as I said, I won that one.”
“What? My one consolation is denied me, then? Bugger! To think that you should have lost everything but your right to remain in this country! It is too unfair!”
“Yes. Everything but that, and your blasted property!”
“What?”
“I am the one who suffers injustice from the fates, not you! You get everything you want, and I am left to make my way through life without Fortuna’s blessing!”
“What are you saying, Charles?”
“Oh! So now it’s ‘Charles,’ is it? Aye, you’ll keep your house and your horses, and have your statue, too! Not to mention the rest of the bloody regent’s bloody toss-off toys! They’ll be delivered sometime this bloody afternoon.”
“But . . . how... ?”
“Kendrick made me keep those things back after the first game. For all subsequent games, I had to put up my own collateral, and withdraw yours.”
“Kendrick? Was he there?”
“What are you playing at?” growled Charles, pouring another drink. “You were talking to him!”
“But I never saw him, I tell you!”
“Arabella. I saw him bringing you punch!”
She blinked. “Do you mean, he was the rajah?”
“How could you not have known him?” Charles’s mouth twisted in a sour grin. “But there, I am not surprised. You never have known him, have you?”
She simply gaped, for once at a loss.
“Kendrick had an invitation, too. Otherwise he would not have been there to look after your interests, because you never thought to invite him. I wish that he had not attended,” said Charles, crossing to the sideboard for another bottle. “It would have served you right!”
Arabella sat down abruptly, for all the strength had gone out of her knees. Charles, with a rare display of decency, handed her a drink.
“ ’S a shame,” he said quietly. “The poor chap bends over backwards to see that you have everything you want. Yet for all the attention you pay him, he might just as well be dead.”
By mid-morning, the snow had ceased to fall, and a watery winter sun shone out feebly through the leaden clouds as Reverend Kendrick dragged himself up his own front steps. He had paid an early call on the Bishop of Bramblehurst, and was now weary, as well as heartsick, for Kendrick, too, had forgone sleep following the revels at Carlton House.
His position was untenable. He saw that now. No matter what he said or did, Arabella would never think of him as he thought of her. He had forgone sleep, sacrificed solitary amusements, and devoted his heart and soul to procure for her the object that she currently prized above all others. She had never acknowledged it. Arabella shewed him less civility now than she had when they were children.
And following her indifference over the sword fight in which he might easily have lost his life, Kendrick’s hopelessness had turned to a positive dislike of Arabella. The very sound of her voice made him ill, for a time. He had soon sorted that out, though, realizing that it was himself he disliked, the way he had acted toward her. Arabella was merely being Arabella, but Kendrick had lost his self-respect, and he simply could not go on. There was but one way out.
The rector sat down and began a letter to Belinda, thinking it would be kinder if her sister broke the news. Even now, he was thinking of Arabella; trying to spare her pain. He would post-date the missive, leaving instructions for its delivery after he was . . . gone. For if she should learn of the desperate act he contemplated, she might attempt to stop him. Or, worse yet, she might not.
The crates arrived at last, and Arabella knew a few hours of genuine joy, as she unwrapped, admired, and stroked the former contents of the royal masturbatory. Was there ever such beauty? Such life in mineral form? But in the end she was obliged to totter off early to bed, utterly exhausted from a lack of sleep and too much heartfelt excitement. And on the following day, she bid adieu to it all, when a team of specialists came to the house, to carefully pack up the artifacts once again. Arabella observed from her window as the crates were loaded onto carts, pressing a handkerchief to her face to staunch the tears. Her heart began to beat wildly as she watched the carts pass down the drive; she nearly ran out and stopped them. But in the end, she controlled her impulse, and allowed the precious cargo to proceed back to Naples, where Prince Palmadessola waited to receive it.
She obtained some pious satisfaction from having included the entire masturbatory collection, including pieces that had been in England for more than a century. Not all of it had come from Herculaneum, but it was all Italian, and Arabella had wanted to do the right thing.
Snow had started to fall again. Rooney, who had been gazing at it out one of the other windows, looked round when he heard Arabella sniffling, and leapt to the floor, that he might rub himself against her ankles. She scooped him up and sat down at her desk, simultaneously stroking his fur and composing a letter to Lady Ribbonhat:
Dearest Madam,
Thank you so much for the gift of this wonderful cat, who makes himself more useful and agreeable with every day that passes. I must confess I have grown quite attached to Rooney, as we call him, and he has grown quite inordinately fond of us! How you were ever able to part with him is beyond my comprehension, but I
am very glad that you managed to find a way to do so.
Thank you, also, for sending along a ream of your personal stationery, which, you may have noticed, I have used to write you this letter. The duke keeps your family’s seal in my library desk, for any chance correspondence he happens to write while staying here, so I have everything ready to hand. What fun I shall have, writing to the various people you know, and pretending to be you!
“Hello!” Belinda put her head round the open door, setting off, as she did so, the sweet tintinnabulation of little bells. Glancing swiftly up, she was amazed to see one of the ancient Roman, poly-phallused ringers looking for all the world as though it had never hung anywhere else.
“Bell! You pledged to return everything!”
“I also promised Mr. Soane that he should have his marbles,” said Arabella. “And I had to keep something for myself, Bunny. With over two dozen tintinnabula in the collection, I scarcely think that one will be missed. What may I do for you?”
“Well,” said Belinda. “I was only looking in to see if I might cheer you up, but you don’t appear to require my help.”
“Oh, but I do, though!” cried Arabella, rising to draw her into the room. “I am very much in the doldrums today, thinking of all the trouble I took over nothing! The truth is, I am not a very good sleuth, Bunny. Everything had to be explained to me by people who had known what was happening all along.”
“Only because the thieves had a head start,” said Belinda. “I am certain that you would have found the statue, right enough, had we already been in Italy when it first went missing. I don’t know why you are being so hard on yourself; you went in search of your bronze, and you found it! Despite the fact that the whole affair was wrapped up in politics, you found it. You won!”
“Yes,” said Arabella. “Yes, I did, didn’t I?”
“And it was very good of you to go and see about the smuggler’s widow.”
“Well, I didn’t. When I went out to the house to give her some money, I found her in the midst of an enormous celebration. It seems the entire community had hated her husband, and now they were helping her enjoy her new freedom. She didn’t require any help, as far as I could see.”
“But you made an attempt,” said her sister, “and that was a kindly gesture. Now, come and see how I have been spending the morning.”
Accordingly, Belinda led the way to the breakfast room table, where, in an enormous bowl of Venetian glass, she had re-created the ruins of an ancient Pompeian garden, in miniature.
“Look!” she said, handing Arabella a tiny figure. “I have made the Pan statue in modeling clay!”
Arabella smiled. “Oh, Bunny, this is exquisite!”
“It makes a nice souvenir of our trip, since we were never able to paint any pictures. This is even better, I think. Look at the tiny cypresses!”
“Won’t they outgrow the bowl?”
“Eventually. But cypresses grow very slowly. Do you know what I think?” she asked, turning to Arabella. “I think that for a foreigner who didn’t speak the language, you did a jolly good job of sleuthing! In fact . . . you were superb!”
“Was I?”
“Oh! but-a yes!” cried Belinda, kissing her fingertips in the Italian manner.
“Even though I was not able to solve the mystery using my brains?”
“What does that matter? You got your statue in the end, restored it to the rightful owner, ate delicious food, rode out a scandal, experienced the past in a way very few people ever have, saw beautiful things, and nearly got yourself killed! I would call that a very grand adventure indeed!”
“Thank you, Bunny!” said Arabella, embracing her. “You are better than a tonic! . . . And what of you?”
“Well,” she said softly. “I had an adventure, too. I fell in love with an old man, who turned into a handsome prince, who turned out to be not so much in love with me as I thought he was.”
“And you’re bearing up remarkably well!” said Arabella, putting her arm round Belinda’s shoulders. “Now we can each of us boast of a great, lost love in our past, which is bound to strengthen our characters! Look at the snow! Let us go out of doors to admire it firsthand. I suddenly feel like ruminating on the successful conclusion of our great adventure, now that I at last know everything!”
But Arabella did not know everything, even then. For Belinda had a letter secreted in the bodice of her gown, and took great care that it should not crackle when she moved. Should you like to hear what it said? Some of you would, I know. And the rest of you, those who believe that mush belongs upon the breakfast table inside a bowl, rather than upon the pages of a letter inside a young lady’s gown, may disregard this next part. Please feel free to proceed into the garden with the Beaumont sisters. The rest of us will meet you out there.
My dearest Belinda,
I cannot blame you if you destroy this letter without reading it, but I hope—I pray—that you will not do that until you are apprised of my feelings. I have treated you unforgivably, I know. I am a dog! A villain! A monster! But I hope you will believe me when I tell you that I thought I was doing what was right for both of us. I felt certain of it, right up to the day you left. And then my carefully built card house came crashing down upon my head! You are gone! Gone from me! How shall I bear this? For I am certain you will have guessed by now, my darling, that I have fallen in love with you.
We have, true enough, many obstacles in our way. I am a married man, a father, a prince, and a Catholic. A vast ocean lies between our countries. But do you know what I am doing? Do you? In my mind I am standing just now upon one of those little tables out on the terrace at the villa, and I can see your darling head, far across the water, shining above all these problems. One day, cara mia, we shall be together. I feel this with my heart, and I believe it, in my soul.
I hope that you will write to me now and then, so that I may keep your letters in a secret place and from them draw the strength of your love, when I am close to despair. I say that without even knowing whether your feelings have survived my brutal, inexcusable behavior. But love has made me an optimist: I feel that you must love me again, if I prostrate myself before you and beseech your forgiveness. And I do. Please, Belinda, my darling, my life! Can you forgive me?
Yours alone,
Detto
P.S. I still have those bed socks which you knitted for me. I never wear them, because I never want to wear them out: They are the only things of yours which I have, hence they are very precious. Besides, they look like penises. How would I ever explain them to my wife?
So very touching. All right, now let us join the others, for I want to tell you about a thought that is going round and round inside Belinda’s head just now, like a song, while she is speaking and doing other things. It is not the least bit irritating, this thought, and were it a song indeed, one should be able to listen to it all day and never tire of it. Not if one were Belinda, anyway. Here it is, just as she conceived it:
“Yours alone!” He has underscored ‘alone’!”
The sisters sat opposite one another in the pergola, appropriately attired, breathing in the scents of snow and the slumbering garden. Cara the greyhound had accompanied them, wearing the bulky yellow shell that Belinda had crocheted for her. When Arabella glanced down at the long-nosed creature with the round, yellow body, the wind blowing her ears forward into stiff points, she could not help laughing.
“Cara looks like an anemic armadillo!”
“I do not know what that is, but you may laugh all you like,” said Belinda calmly. “She is warm and insulated, which is all that matters.”
“Do you know, I was instructed not to tell you this, Bunny, but I believe that I shall, anyway. Cara was not a gift from Charles, after all.”
“I know,” she said, straightening with pride. “My prince gave her to me.”
Arabella was astounded. “How did you guess?” she asked.
“Because of her name. ‘Cara’ was what he used to call me. Now, wh
enever I address my pet as ‘Beloved,’ I am really speaking to him.”
“Bunny, dearest, this man, formerly known as Bergamini, may be a prince, and patron of an important museum. He may be risking his life for his country, which is very brave and noble of him, and we both know that he possesses an exquisite sense of aesthetics. But insofar as you, personally, are concerned, he is nothing but a cad.”
“That is your opinion,” said Belinda. “It is not mine.”
“Hmm. In short, I suppose I dislike this . . . this ‘Prince Palma-desolate’ in much the same way that you dislike the late Oliver Wedge.”
“No,” said Belinda, wearing her serenity like a halo. “The prince has never tried to kill me. And he is still alive. It is not the same at all.”
Arabella was silent for so long that Belinda supposed her to be sulking.
“Do you know,” she said brightly, “this spot puts me in mind of the meditation grove at the Villa Belvedere. Do you remember? The vista from here is completely different, though, of course.”
Arabella made no reply.
“I am sorry that you were unable to keep your statue, Bell. But you have made a noble, selfless gesture in returning it to Professor Bergamini. I mean, to Detto—to Prince Palmadessola. He will know how to make it available to at least some of the public, until the rest of the public becomes sophisticated enough to look at art without feeling shocked. At least you got to see it, and we all enjoyed a splendid holiday.”
Arabella’s eyes were dreamy. Her thoughts seemed fixed elsewhere.
“Bell.”
“Hmmm? Sorry, dear. I’m just . . .”
“Are you fretting about the money you lost on the statue?”
“No, not really.”
“Then why are you so unfocused?”
“Perhaps it is because I am engaged to go riding with Mr. Elliot tomorrow.”
Death Among the Ruins (Arabella Beaumont Mystery) Page 26
