Death and the Courtesan (22 page)

“W
ell,” said Belinda, “I think he would look remarkably fearsome emerging from the shrubbery, all hard and excited. From that vantage point, anyone sitting in the pergola might imagine herself about to be ravished!”

“Perhaps,” Arabella replied. “All the same, I believe I shall place him on a pedestal, in the center of the reflecting pool.”

The Beaumont sisters were huddled over the desk in the library, admiring a sketch of a large bronze statue from the buried city of Herculaneum, which Arabella had recently purchased, sight unseen, from a dealer in plundered antiquities.

“The workmen will have to tunnel in, you see,” she explained. “And the removal will be extremely dangerous, because of cave-ins and poisonous gas pockets. I expect that is why I am being charged so much for it.”

“Well, for that; and for the extra bit.”

They studied the picture again. Arabella, who always liked to examine certain features in the best possible light, was using the magnifier.

“Yes,” she said. “I have seen hundreds, if not thousands, of statues depicting naked manhood, Bunny, but this is the first I have ever beheld with
two
manhoods.”

“Hmm . . .” mused Belinda. “That short, slender one on top, and then the longer, thicker one beneath it . . . Whatever must the sculptor have been thinking?”

“Oh, come now; you know very well what he was thinking! And once I install this piece in my garden, everyone else will be thinking it, too. Yes,” she said with a sigh, “you are probably right; I expect I
am
being charged extra for the extra bit. And because the piece is so old,” she added, “and extremely beautiful.”

“. . . and because you are rich,” finished Belinda. “All the same, though, something about this does not feel quite right. Oughtn’t the statue to stay in the ground, with its dead owner? I mean, it is a kind of memorial now, is it not?”

Arabella put down the magnifier. “I wish you would not be so morbid, Bunny. The owner may very well have escaped the cataclysm, you know, and died years later, in Tarraconen-sis or some place. Besides, this is
Pan!
Pan, in an amorous attitude! A
doubly
amorous attitude! Even if the owner
did
die when the house fell on him, what sort of memorial would that be?”

“I don’t know—a memorial to the perpetually stiff, perhaps.”

Peals of girlish laughter flowed out through the door and along the passage, where the peerless Doyle was headed upstairs with an arm full of freshly ironed flannel nightgowns, and the incomparable Fielding was toting a cord of wood to the drawing room fireplace. It was autumn, Arabella’s favorite season, and the nights were chilly now. So were the days, for the matter of that, and the one currently drawing to its close had pulled a thick mist over Brompton Park like a new shroud; all-of-a-piece, without any holes, yet fitting so closely as to reveal the sharper angles of the trees and houses beneath it.

In the countryside, such mists are Mother Nature’s diaphanous veils, like transitional curtains between this world and the next. Not in London, though. The rivers here form foul repositories for those substances which man flings away from him in disgust, and when the mist rises off the water, collecting to itself all the available moisture, this filthy residue is condensed and distilled into poison. Most Londoners are hardy enough to survive such miasmas, but even the fittest are often subject to chronic coughs and sick headaches in the autumn.

Arabella loved this season, nevertheless. The rich smell of the woods in Regent’s Park gladdened her heart when she took her walks there, the flame-colored leaves bringing out the deep auburn tones of her hair. She enjoyed reading by the fire, with a quilt thrown over her legs, and bowls of hot negus enjoyed in the company of convivial persons. No sensation could compare with slipping between flannel sheets heated with the warming pan on a chilly night, and few events could so reliably elevate her spirits like donning a fur-lined, fur-trimmed pelisse before stepping into her carriage on her way to the theater.

Most of all, though, she loved what autumn did to men—the way it made them want to snuggle up next to some warm female body and reward the owner of said body for favors bestowed. Gentlemen of her acquaintance were apt to be especially generous in the autumn. The Duke of Glen
deen
, for example, her own particular protector when he wasn’t off fighting naval battles, had just presented her with six magnificent horses of a most unusual color. Hides like golden toast they had, with black manes and tails. Three of them, anyway. The other three were cream-colored, but they, too, had the dark manes and tails. Arabella had started a regular trend in carriage horses with these beauties: three each of two complementary colors, as opposed to the more traditional, perfectly matched sets. The idea was very new and widely imitated. And all she had done was to murmur one morning, as she and the duke lay together after a particularly vigorous quarter of an hour, that her carriage horses were tiring more easily, now they were older. Puddles was always a generous patron—Arabella never wanted for anything—but
six
horses! And it wasn’t even her birthday! Yes, she adored the autumn.

Belinda did, too. But then, Belinda loved all the seasons, as she loved the whole world, being by nature a happy, tender, appreciative creature. The poor child was a trifle morose this evening, however, for the capricious princess regent had abruptly terminated their friendship without giving a reason, and Arabella had shewn her sister the sketch of the naughty statue to cheer her up. It had worked for a few minutes, but now that Belinda had seen it, enjoyed a laugh over it and offered her opinion on where it should be placed, she was pensive again.

“I should be glad this has happened, I know; the woman is selfish and vulgar, and I am well rid of her.”

“Yes, you are! Only consider,” said Arabella, “what was the princess wearing, the last time that you saw her?”

“Oh! A profusion of colors, which jumped and clashed together like I-do-not-know-what, covered by an ill-fitting spencer of lilac satin! Her gown was cut so low that the tops of her nipples were exposed! I cannot recall the rest.”

“Not even her shoes?”

“Oh, yes! Half-boots! Primrose-yellow ones, with the flesh of her fat legs hanging over the tops, and a cap like a pudding bag—with the pudding still in it!”

Belinda was giggling now.

“Wait a bit,” cried Arabella. “Shakespeare has described that very thing!”

She opened
The Taming of the Shrew,
which she was reading for the fourth or fifth time, and leafed through it till she found Petruchio’s scene with the haberdasher.

“ ‘A custard coffin!’ she said triumphantly. “One would think the bard was describing modern apparel! How ever does he
do
that?”

But Belinda had grown listless again. “I was hoping that the princess would introduce me to someone I might marry—I do so hate being a burden on you, Bell!”

“You could not possibly be a burden, dear! You are a wonderful, darling companion, and the longer you stay with me, the better I shall be pleased.”

“Truly? Oh, I am glad
somebody
wants my company. Because it
is
humiliating to be dropped, even by a person as horrid as the Wolfen Buttock!”

(This was the Beaumonts’ private nickname for the princess, whose title before her marriage was Caroline of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel.)

“Of course it is humiliating, Bunny. But you must try to forget about it. Because Lord Carrington is on the brink of proposing to you, and you need to look as pink-cheeked and sparkling-eyed as you possibly can, for him.”

Belinda smiled at this, and there stole across her countenance such an expression of dreamy contentment that it did her sister’s heart good to see it. But Bunny’s heavenward gaze was interrupted in its journey up the library wall by the portrait of Oliver Wedge which hung there, and her smile faded.

“Bell,” she said. “I own I do not understand why you keep that thing!”

Arabella regarded the picture with wistful affection.

“For three good reasons and one foolish one: as the last bequest of a dying man, as a warning not to trust in surface appearances, and as a reminder to believe in myself—to recall that I may, with application, accomplish miracles.”

“With application . . . and
my
assistance, d’you mean?”

“Of course, Bunny! I should never have tried to save myself from the gallows, but for your urging!”

“And the fourth reason?”

Arabella rose and began to pace the room. “You have just had the three good ones. Can you not be satisfied with those?”

“No! I want the foolish one, as well!”

Arabella sighed with feigned reluctance—for, really, she was all eagerness to tell it. “Because,” said she, stopping beneath the portrait and gazing up at it. “He was the best lover I have ever had, or am ever likely to have.”

“Oh, Bell; how can you say so? With only one encounter, on an untidy desk top? It was probably just the danger that somebody might walk in upon you.”

“Pooh! I should not have cared if they had! But there is something in what you say: the danger.” She glanced out her window at the misty garden. “When . . . he was strangling me, I was certain I would die. But when he stopped, just for a moment, I felt . . . as though . . . I wanted to have his child.”

Belinda was shocked to the core. “That is the most perverted statement I have ever heard you utter!”

“I know. As I said, it was only for a moment. The feeling passed. But the memory of the feeling haunts me still.”

“Some people are addicted to danger,” said Belinda. “They seek it out because it gives them a kind of thrill not otherwise obtainable. I truly hope that you are not one of those people—they have a tendency to die years before their time.”

“Me? Heavens, Bunny; what nonsense! I am perfectly happy as I am. Home at Lustings, with my library and my cook, my trout stream, my parchment ponies and my aviatory. What more could I possibly want?”

“I’m sure
I
could not say, if
you
could not,” said Belinda, with an injured air.

“I shall tell you, then,” said Arabella, pulling her sister up from the chair and enfolding her in her arms. “The love and constant support of the best, the dearest little sister in all the world!”

Belinda, mollified, returned her embrace, glancing down over Arabella’s shoulder at the sketch of the statue.

“Perhaps,” she reflected, “we should place him in the aviatory.”

“Oh, no, dear; he would be coated with droppings inside of a week!”

“Birds fly over the garden, too.”

“Yes, but he stands more of a chance outside.” Arabella picked up the letter and gazed at the little sketch with fond affection. “Now, why could not
this
have been the deity who created man in His own image?”

“Because,” said Belinda, simply. “Life is not fair.”

I
t was too late in the year for crickets, even in Italy. But a threatening storm lent the proper atmospherics as a knot of men stood waiting beside an excavation in the cold wind. Around them, the ghostly ruins of a dead city bore mute witness to their activities, and one of the company gave a nervous start as a palm frond rattled in the night air. All eyes were fixed upon the tunnel entrance.

“Here they come,” said one of the men.

“Quiet!” hissed another.

(The reader may wonder at anyone hissing that word, since it contains no sibilants in English, but these men were speaking Italian, in which language I presume the word has an “s” in it.)

Dark lanterns were lifted as four members of the company emerged from the mouth of the tunnel, struggling and grunting with the effort of a heavy burden wrapped in rough sacking, borne amongst them. One of the men stumbled.

“Careful with that!” growled the fellow who seemed to be in charge. This might have been deduced from the thin piece of pressboard he carried, to which a large metal clip was attached and firmly clamped over a tablet of paper, for it is well-established that no other accessory conveys more authority to the mind of civilized man, except a row of medals on the breast of a uniform, or possibly, a crown.

Having set their bundle upright upon the ground, the men proceeded to pad it with more sacking, followed by a layer of canvas and a girdle of ropes. Then they wrestled it onto a small donkey cart standing ready nearby, to which other similarly wrapped items had already been consigned.

“That’s the last of them,” said the fellow with the clipboard. “Now, let’s get clear of this place before . . .”

But the man’s remark, like his life, was suddenly cut short by a shovel, the assailant coming down from behind with such force that the back of the victim’s skull was cleft nearly in twain. At the same moment, an earsplitting thunderclap broke directly overhead, followed immediately by a torrential downpour, which drenched the men to the skin. One of their number leapt into the cart and drove it off as the others seized their tools and melted into the darkness.