Death and the Courtesan (10 page)

 

That night, over a game of whist with Constance, Belinda, and Mrs. Janks, Arabella, who couldn’t keep her mind on the game, suddenly said, “The murderer
paid
a man to steal my paper knife. Then he used it to kill Euphemia. So he planned the whole thing out in advance. I think it is logical to assume that the murderer is someone known both to me and to Euphemia.”

“Yes,” murmured Belinda wearily. “So you’ve said.”

“Arabella,” said Constance slowly, and with the infinite patience of a madhouse attendant, “how can he possibly be known to Euphemia? She’s dead.”

“It might have been Puddles,” said Arabella suddenly, turning from Constance and addressing herself exclusively to Belinda and Mrs. Janks. “With me out of the way, he could get his mother off his back, and reassure his fiancée. And there’s that naval connection: The sailor might have been someone he knew from a previous voyage.”

“But why should the duke want to murder Euphemia?” asked Mrs. Janks.

“Why should anyone? Maybe it was just so that he could frame me for it.”

“No, Bell,” said Belinda. “It cannot be the duke. He interceded to keep you out of gaol, after all.”

“Well, that wasn’t difficult to do; maybe it eased his conscience, which never pricks him very deeply in any case.”

“But why should he hire someone to steal your paper knife,” asked Constance, in a rare fit of common sense, “when he could have taken it himself during the party, or any time he was over here?”

“She’s right, y’know,” said Mrs. Janks. “It wouldn’t make sense, involvin’ a third party when he didn’t have to. Besides, he was here with you on the night of the murder.”

“If he paid someone to steal a knife, he might just as easily pay someone to do the killing.”

“But why should he even
want
to?” Constance asked.

“Perhaps . . . his mother put him up to it.”

“And why should she do that?” asked Belinda.

“This is what I have to find out.”

Arabella got up from the table, picked up her volume of Lucretius, and settled herself in the window seat. “Just now,” she added, “I am afraid that my own darling duke is the principal suspect.”

 

Arabella’s library was widely reputed to be one of the finest private collections of printed matter in the English-speaking world, but it certainly was not one of the largest. At a mere three thousand volumes or thereabouts, the books scarcely filled the room designated for the purpose of displaying and housing them. But each one had been especially chosen for its superior content, and each was an undisputed masterpiece of important ideas, of brilliant wit, of exceptional artwork, or of various combinations of these qualities.

She went through fads with her books. Just now, her favorite was
On the Nature of Things,
a poem in six volumes by Titus Lucretius Carus, a third-century Roman, whose work was widely credited with having inspired the Renaissance. Arabella had recently decided that Lucretius’s philosophy was the one she herself had been living for most of her life, i.e., that existence is transitory and therefore the only course that makes sense is the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain. This wasn’t as selfish as it sounded, she argued, for it is not possible to live pleasurably without also being honorable, generous, kind, and courageous and without a genuine love for the other creatures that inhabit the earth. She thought it would be nice if everybody in the world read this poem or had it read to them. Failing that, she felt it her bounden duty to enlighten everyone whom she knew personally.

Nevertheless, when Arabella suddenly broke up the whist game in order to read Lucretius (to herself) yet again, Belinda was heard to remark that when the pursuit of one’s own pleasure resulted in the termination of pleasure for others it was time to find a new book.

Belinda never was much of a scholar.

W
hen Arabella arrived at the agreed-upon rendezvous point in the formerly elegant section of Hyde Park known as Vauxhall Gardens, she found Oliver Wedge there, waiting for her. Of course she did; Arabella had arrived a full quarter of an hour later than the time she herself had specified, for she intended to be the controlling force in this unacknowledged struggle that now existed between them. Wedge wanted things from her, including information, and yet he had printed an insulting, if not libelous, personal attack in his newspaper, which more than hinted at her guilt. It seemed to Arabella a most peculiar start to his promised assistance, and she was angry . . . but also curious.

Wedge sat with one elegant leg thrown carelessly over the other, his hat resting on his knee, with his gloves inside it, and for a moment she imagined that he was not going to bother standing up at all. He did, though, and made her a courtly bow, which she returned with a cold nod.

“Miss Beaumont!” cried he, presumptuously taking her hand and kissing it. “I was beginning to despair of you! I am most awfully glad that you came!”

“I nearly didn’t, you know,” she replied icily. “After all your flattery and promises, to write such a thing in your paper . . . I must confess, I fail to understand your design.”

“I am sincerely sorry, if I have given you pain—”

“Yes, you see, the inspiration came to me in the wee hours, and there was no time to notify you of my idea before the morning edition. Not without sending an express post and waking you from your slumbers, which are surely of the utmost importance to your fresh-looking complexion and ethereal beauty.”

“Enough of that, if you please. I find you both despicable and undeserving, Mr. Wedge, but should you care to oblige me with a recitation of this plan, I should be willing to listen to you for exactly five minutes.”

“Shall we walk?”

He offered his arm, and Arabella hesitated a moment but took it.

“I think,” said he, “that I shall begin my campaign—the newspaper campaign, that is—by vilifying you, and then gradually shift over to championing your cause. In that way, the reading public will think that they, too, have slowly come to realize how innocent you are, and how corrupt and incompetent the constabulary is.”

“Really? Do you think it will work?”

“Madam, I
know
that it will. I have made it my life’s employment to study the tastes and attitudes of London’s citizens, and on your behalf I propose to cook up the public such a feast as it has never dreamt of. Am I forgiven?”

“I suppose so.”

“Good,” he said, and smiled. “We Catholics place a lot of importance upon that concept.”

“You’re a Catholic?” she asked.

“Is the Pope?” he rejoined. “I am
Irish.
I have no
choice
.”

Arabella was thrilled to her toes. An Irish Catholic! A punch in the eye of English respectability! The ultimate in rebel chic! Here was a bad boy to her bad girl. They were made for each other.

Wedge paused to remove a small pocket book and pencil from his jacket, and Arabella was obliged to let go his arm whilst he did this. It vexed her to let go of him, and she noticed she was vexed.

“Miss Beaumont,” said Wedge, “would you mind sharing with me your thoughts pertaining to society women—the so-called ‘respectable’ women—and how their position relates to that of courtesans like yourself?”

“I should be happy to, provided I have your assurance that you won’t be using the information to denounce me.”

“You have my word of honor upon it. I shall not be using this conversation at all until I have wholly taken up my stance in your favor. Publicly, that is. Privately, as I am sure you realize, you already have my complete and ardent admiration.”

“How nice. To answer your question, Mr. Wedge, there is no difference between the two types of women, except that the courtesan is honest about what she does, and the respectable lady is not. In our society, a wife is nothing but a sort of domestic pet, with whom one has sexual relations. That this fact should be the source of her claiming superiority over the ladies of the night, who are free to love where they will and who call no man master, is absurd. But I am not complaining; we courtesans owe our very existence to the prejudice and inhibitions of respectable ladies.”

“How so?” Wedge inquired, with genuine interest.

“It is their refusal to take pleasure in the gratification of their husbands’ needs that drives their men to seek our company. If
all
women acted like whores, Mr. Wedge, there wouldn’t be any.”

“Women?”

“Whores!”

“Trollop!”

Julia van Diggle had chosen that moment to pass by with her prospective mother-in-law and had drawn a personal and unflattering inference from this last remark of Arabella’s.

“Don’t lower yourself to her level, Julia,” admonished Lady Ribbonhat, staring straight ahead and slightly above the bridge of her own nose. “After all,
you
are about to become a duchess, and
I
am about to reclaim Lustings!”

“At your time of life, Lady Ribbonhat?” Wedge inquired severely. “I should be ashamed to own as much, were I in your place!”

“You should be ashamed in
any
case, sir, to be seen in company with that strumpet . . . !”

“I think I prefer ‘trollop,’ ” Arabella murmured.

“. . . and sitting by idly, whilst she insults her betters!”

“Her betters?” asked Wedge mildly. “Her betters do not live upon this earth, madam. Miss Beaumont is the most accomplished, the most brilliant, most wholly remarkable woman of her generation. But perhaps, not being a member of her generation yourself, you are unaware of this fact. If that is the case, I deem it an honor to have been the one to enlighten you.”

He tipped his hat, put away his pocket book, and turned to Arabella, once again offering his arm. “Come away, Miss Beaumont. I fear the air, here, will do you but little good.”

One may only imagine the state of high dudgeon in which they left the ladies, because at this point the two parties followed different paths, in opposite directions. And, since I have decided to follow Arabella and Mr. Wedge, I can tell you nothing of what was looked or done or said by the other pair.

 

The Tattle-Tale,
like most of London’s many periodicals, had its office situated on Fleet Street. The staff had recently removed to this location from a smaller office down the road, and the paper was doing very well here. For, as Oliver Wedge had more than once observed to his colleagues, “scandal sells.”

“Have you seen the inside of a printing office before?” asked Wedge.

“Never,” Arabella replied, gazing about her at the great presses and rollers and handsome copy boys, with sleeves rolled up over their well-turned, muscular forearms, “though I’ve been in print
shops
of course. I am one of Ackerman’s regular customers.”

“I am sure you are. Well, we don’t produce art prints here . . . yet, but we don’t just print newspapers, either. I also publish books. Only limited editions for now, but one day I hope to expand that side of things.” He took her arm protectively, conducting her past the leering copyists and typesetters and printers and journalists. “I expect this office will look very different in a couple of years, once they have perfected the steam printer.”

“Why?” asked Arabella. “What will those look like?”

“I don’t really know, but I intend to get one the moment they’re available. Supposedly, they will make it possible to increase our output tenfold. Right now, each of my presses prints two hundred sheets per hour. Imagine one that could turn out eleven hundred! This is my office,” he said, opening the door. “We shan’t be disturbed in here.”

Arabella took the proffered seat, and Wedge sat, not behind his desk but opposite her, placing his chair very close to her own. “The more London knows about Arabella the woman, as opposed to Arabella the courtesan,” he explained, “the more it will pity your plight, and fight to save you. Your salvation, Miss Beaumont, lies with
The Tattle-Tale’
s readers. Please, won’t you tell me your story?”

Arabella decided to oblige him, for she guessed that he would find it interesting. And doubtless the reader of this book will, too.

The Beaumont siblings—Arabella, her older brother, Charles, and her younger sister, Belinda—were the children of a baronet and his wife, a squabbling pair of Georgian roués and close friends of William Beckford’s, if not of each other. This precious pair gambled and gamboled, perpetrating scandals, staging monumental rows in public, losing prodigious sums at the gaming table, and ruining their constitutions, to say nothing of their bank account, until both were quite played out.

Before that happened, though, their relentless pursuits of pleasure leaving them time for little else, they left the raising of their three children to nursemaids. And if there is one thing that argues in favor of being brought up by nursemaids (though it is doubtful that there could be more than one thing) it is that it gives one the chance to be completely objective about one’s parents. Arabella soon found that she detested hers.

Lord, what
awful
people, she thought to herself when she was five. And inwardly she resolved to have as little to do with them as possible. But children do not grow up in vacuums, and Arabella had developed a passionate attachment to her nursemaid, Molly. So when that sweet-natured young woman died, suddenly, of an inflammation of the lungs, Arabella considered herself an orphan, even though both her parents were at that time still alive and kicking. And hitting. And, in at least one notable instance, biting.

When at long last they did die, they left nothing behind but the family manse. This went to Charles, of course, and he promptly lost it at cards.

Charles and Belinda were both uncommonly attractive specimens, but without the favor of fortune neither could hope to marry well. And Arabella, practical though she was, refused to entertain the thought of marrying at all. So when the cost of her parents’ funerals used up the money realized from the sale of the family carriage, the Beaumonts were faced with almost certain starvation.

Fortunately, Lady Beaumont’s funeral had been attended by the notorious Fortescue sisters, first cousins to the orphaned Beaumonts, and whilst the son used his mother’s death as an excuse for a drinking binge, Amber, Ivy, and Claire had whisked her daughters off to a party. The girls had a wonderful time and were eventually inducted into the family establishment, where they learnt all manner of pleasing arts. There they might have remained indefinitely, but for the lucky chance of Arabella’s capturing the heart of the Duke of Glen
deen
. She had toyed with it for a time, but now he had withdrawn that organ from her, in order to make a formal presentation of it to Julia van Diggle.

“. . . and that is my story, Mr. Wedge.”

“Very compelling, too,” he said, glancing up from his tablet and fixing her with his admiring and therefore seductive eyes. They were the color of malt whiskey. Rather than inspiring Arabella with Dutch courage, though, they filled her with a kind of panic. She held his gaze just long enough for convention’s sake, with slightly raised eyebrows and a cool, ironic smile. Then she shifted her eyes to the painting that hung on the wall behind him, Wedge’s own portrait.

“That’s a Thomas Lawrence, is it not?” she asked, being too far away to read the signature.

“It is,” said Wedge. “And it cost me a pretty penny! Or it will, when I’ve paid for it. But that doesn’t matter, because, you see, I am planning a newspaper empire that will eventually become powerful enough to change the course of world events. When that happens, years from now, this portrait will hang in the conference room of an enormous commercial building.”

“Hmm,” said Arabella. “It isn’t like you, somehow, and Lawrence is usually very true to his subjects.”

“His portraits of the Prince of Wales aren’t like
him,
either.”

“No—that’s flattery. This doesn’t make you look better. Just
different
. It’s crooked, too.”

She rose and crossed to the portrait, to straighten it.

“Be careful of the canvas,” cautioned Wedge. “The paint’s not dry yet.”

Arabella stood for a moment, gazing up at the picture that was and was not like Oliver Wedge. It was odd.

 

“Bell?” called Belinda up the stairwell. “Neddy and Eddie are here!”

Half siblings Edward and Edwardina, the unlawful progeny of Charles Edward Beaumont, stood in the foyer amidst a profusion of toys, portmanteaus, tennis racquets, and mothers. Arabella paused at the top of her curving staircase in order to fully appreciate the scene, which reminded her of a setting for one of Mr. Gillray’s cartoons.

The children looked nothing like their parents, yet both resembled each other a good deal: white skinned and rather sickly, with pale, flat hair and colorless eyes. Eddie had potential, though. Girls like this, provided they survived past adolescence, often grew into stunning beauties. Boys, on the other hand, tended to remain as they were, only larger.

Neddy was pink and swollen around the eyes and nose today and on this account looked something like a white rat—a white rat holding a large box in front of it and emitting loud, wet sniffles at regular intervals. Evidently, he had recently thrown one of his signature tantrums.