Death and the Courtesan (3 page)

“What are you doing?”

“Drawing up a list of persons with whom I should like to speak.”

She replaced the pencil, folded the letter into quarters, and thrust it into her bosom.

“Where do we start?” asked Belinda.

“Domestics.”

“Come again?”

“Domestic servants,” Arabella explained, ringing the bell. “We have already seen how swiftly they acquire and relay information, and I’ve a notion that my own staff may prove invaluable in this matter. Oh, there you are, Mrs. Janks, dear. Would you assemble the staff in the drawing room, please? I wish to make an announcement.”

The housekeeper’s summons threw the staff into a mild panic.

“What’s this all about, then?” whispered Doyle. “Are we to be dismissed? Is she closing up the house?”

“I dunno,” muttered Fielding, “but there was p’licemen ’ere this morning, wantin’ to take ’er away. The duke wouldn’t let them, but maybe . . . D’ye think she’s . . . ?”

“Shh! Here they come!”

The Misses Beaumont entered the room, with their arms twined round each other’s waists, and faced the line of servants. Nobody curtsied, though; Arabella despised that sort of thing and wouldn’t allow it.

“Well, you may as well know, if you don’t already, that I stand accused of murdering Euphemia Ramsey on the night before last, or thereabouts.”

The staff broke into indignant expostulations.

“But you was
here,
ma’am! And the duke was here with you!” Doyle cried. “Why, everyone knows you has breakfast in bed after you been workin’, and hasn’t it been myself bringin’ it in t’ you these past three days?”

There was general assent at this, and emphatic nodding of heads.

“Quite,” said Arabella. “But for reasons which I cannot go into, that fact is not to be made public.”

“Are you geeving us notice, madam?” asked the cook.

“No, I’m not, Mrs. Moly. Not yet, at any rate! I’ve called you all together to ask for your help; I have been given leave to conduct the murder investigation myself. I only have till the end of the month, though, and as much as I’d like to, I can’t be everywhere at once. So I’m counting on all of you to be my extra eyes and ears. Miss Ramsey was killed with that paper knife that went missing from the library a week ago. Try to discover, if you can, who took it. I give all of you leave to quit the house whenever you wish to follow up on any ideas you may have on this matter, and if you find anything out, please report it to me at once, whether I’m dining, or having a conversation, or sleeping or anything. I shall need to know immediately.”

“What if you’re . . . working, ma’am?” asked the housekeeper.

“Oh! Good point! In that case, you must knock thrice, and rattle the knob. Are there any further questions?”

“Does this mean we won’t be going to Bath, miss?” asked the cook’s helper.

“Yes, Crouch. I’m afraid that it does.”

T
he sisters were taking their ease in the aviatory temple—Arabella tuning her lute, Belinda sewing—when Mrs. Janks arrived unexpectedly with a newspaper draped over her head, and a tray, a carefully covered tray, of strawberries and cream.

“ ‘Nobs and genteels . . . Do not sup between meals,’ ” quoted Arabella piously, setting her instrument down.

The housekeeper’s face was expressionless.

“Is that right, miss? I shall just take this away then.”

But as she bent to retrieve the tray, Arabella grabbed on to one end of it.

“
Don’t
. . . touch that, Mrs. Janks!” she said, her tone low, her expression threatening. “Not if you value your life!”

“You’ll get fat, Bell,” chided Belinda, who wasn’t permitting herself to have any. “And then we’ll have to start calling you ‘Ara-belly.’ ”

Her sister appropriated the tray, snarling at Mrs. Janks like a hungry jaguar. The housekeeper gave a triumphant, “I-thought-as-much” kind of noise and left them, winding her way through the giant bromeliads and clutching the newspaper tightly over her head.

“Why is that a bad thing?” asked Arabella, lining a bowl with sugar biscuits and spooning strawberries into the middle of it. “I don’t know what your lovers are telling
you,
Belinda, but
mine
always encourage me to put on flesh. They like to know whether they’re sleeping with a man or a woman, you see, and a bony woman might easily be a boy; it’s hard to tell, in the dark. Besides,” she added, liberally sprinkling her bowl with sugar and drenching the contents with cream, “strawberries are good for you, and when you’ve got what I’ve got, it doesn’t matter if you’re fat or old.”

“No? Not even old?”

“Well, old, perhaps,” said Arabella, as she thought of Euphemia, “but not fat. Anyway, I should think you would be happy to see me eat like this. Most women, faced with the gallows, would not be able to choke down more than a few spoonfuls of broth.”

“Does this mean that you’re confident of a positive outcome?”

“Possibly. On the other hand, it might mean that I’m storing up memories—”

“—and fat.”

“Yes, and fat, to sustain me during my coming incarceration, where I expect to be manacled so closely to the wall that I shan’t be able to reach the stale bread and tainted water placed for me on top of a large rock.”

“Oh, don’t, Bell! I can’t bear it! You know that your friends and I will all come to visit you often, laden with food baskets—
Wait!
Don’t eat my strawberries, I’ve decided I want them, after all.”

“Fine,” said Arabella. “I’ll ring for more, then.”

The aviatory at Lustings may have been the only room of its kind in existence. For Arabella, wanting both a large aviary and a sizable conservatory, yet not wishing to alter the symmetry of Lustings’s architectural lines, had combined two purposes in one. She had had to borrow space from the drawing room to achieve it, but the final result seemed well worth the sacrifice; Arabella’s aviatory was a tropical Eden, a lush wilderness of rubber plants, banana trees, orchids, and lianas, populated with a profusion of jewel-bright birds. The remarkable room was accessed from the passage via a tiny antechamber, with a tile floor of pseudo-Pompeian design and a stand full of gray umbrellas. The hazards of walking beneath avian fauna being clearly understood, these useful articles served to protect visitors from droppings after they passed through the revolving door into the aviatory direct. But once the center of the room was gained, these were no longer needed. For Arabella had thoughtfully installed a little round temple there, with four pillars and a domed roof of opaque blue glass, where guests might read or play cards without fearing for their apparel. Indeed, on one famous occasion, a game of whist took place here, with the players devoid of garments whatsoever. But clothing aside, which is where it was placed on that occasion, it cannot be a pleasant task to remove digestive residue from one’s hair.

Before we return to the Beaumonts, I beg that the reader will allow me to say a word on the subject of the aviatory’s fauna. Here one might encounter species found nowhere else in the British Isles, all the birds having been either sent or brought to Arabella in person from her world-traveling admirers, and all thriving happily in the enormous glass room with the sixteen-foot ceiling. I shall simply list a few of them, for their names are as evocative as any close description that I could devise: emerald toucanets, coppersmiths, and fire finches; violet ears, paradise whydahs, nutmeg mannikins, and Peking nightingales; diamond doves, hoopoes, blue-chinned flowerpeckers, golden-fronted fruit suckers, and cocks of the rock.

There were no parrots, though, for parrots squawk so loudly and incessantly that one cannot have a conversation, and conversation was the one thing without which Arabella could not do.

“You seem to be spending more and more of your time with the princess, nowadays,” she said, biting into a biscuit and talking with her mouth full. “I miss you dreadfully when you’re away, Bunny. The house seems so empty.”

“I miss you, too,” Belinda admitted, spooning up the last of the cream in her bowl, “but the princess is so demanding. She has me going out to see her nearly every day, and Montagu House feels so queer now.”

“I imagine it is much changed?” asked Arabella.

“Yes and no. They have cleared out all the specimens and antiquities, and replaced them with hideous furnishings, but the rooms themselves still have a museum-like feel about them. And of course, entry is still free to ‘Curious Persons.’
Very
curious persons, some of them are. It is odd, though, to sit in the dining room and remember when it used to be the hall of mammals. Or to recall those rainy afternoons when Nurse used to take us to see Egyptian mummies in the room that is now Caroline’s library. I don’t even know why she bothers to have one.”

“An Egyptian mummy?”

“A library. The woman
never
reads, and her ignorance is apparent every time she opens her mouth.”

“Well, perhaps she isn’t comfortable reading in English. I know I shouldn’t like living in Brunswick and being forced to read German.”

“Don’t be contrary, Bell! Caroline could have German books, if she wanted them.”

“What sort of books
does
she have, then?”

“What would you guess?”

Arabella smiled as her eyes roamed the ceiling. “Oh, multiple-volume sets of the history of dentistry, bound in calf with gilt edges. Something which looks very grand upon the shelf, that nobody in his right mind would ever think of cracking.”

“You have got it, exactly! Actually, it’s a history of engineering, but the concept is correct. It’s a shame; all those lovely walnut bookcases, being put to such a pointless use. She might at least keep her naughty picture books in them. She is quite partial to those.”

The young ladies having stuffed themselves, Belinda opened her workbasket once again, extracted a chemise from the interior, and applied herself to her latest project. The sly little puss had recently created a curious device: thin, Capiz shell disks, one inch in diameter, pierced along the rims at regular intervals to admit the insertion of a needle and thread. On the top of each disk, a length of satin piping described a circle, with a glass bead fixed inside it. When two of these were sewn to the front of a chemise and worn beneath a gown, the effect was highly provocative.

Belinda had used an experimental pair to good effect the last time she attended the opera and was now embarked on a program to attach them to all of her undergarments. She had proposed to do the same for her sister, but the offer was graciously declined, for Arabella was averse to advertising and regarded all such blatant displays as vulgar.

“Do you think
me
vulgar, then?” Belinda had asked.

“I do not judge others.”

“Yes, you do! You do it all the time!”

“Yes, I suppose I do.”

“And
do
you think me vulgar?”

“No. I think you . . . young. And absolutely delightful!”

This was true, Arabella told herself. She did
not
think Belinda vulgar; she merely thought that her invention was.

“Have you any ideas?” Belinda asked presently.

“About what?”

“Well, on how to go about this investigation, on what to do first.”

“I have already taken care of that.”

“You have?”

“Yes. First I gave way to despair—or, no, first I put my affairs in order and wrote to Charles. Then I said good-bye to the house and the garden, and
then
I gave way to despair. So all that is out of the way. And as you know, I have advised the servants to keep their ears open.”

“Be serious, Bell. What will you do next?”

“Go to bed, I suppose. Without the duke. I wonder whether I shall miss him?”

“. . . And then tomorrow, I thought we might take in the auction.”

“Auction?”

“Of Euphemia’s effects. The one her creditors are staging in Soho Square.”

Belinda was mystified. “How do you know that?”

“I saw it in
The Ragpicker
. Will you come with me?”

“Of course, but what good will it do?”

“It mightn’t do any. On the other hand, we may discover a clew, or meet the murderer, or . . . who knows? I might even get my elephant back.”

Arabella was, by and large, a practical person, but she was an avid art collector and occasionally became attached to certain pieces out of all proportion to their monetary value. One of these objects had been an elephant, fetchingly fashioned of heavy, dark-red glass, which she’d seen in a shop window and had teazed out of one of her earlier lovers—she no longer remembered which one—while they were strolling down Bond Street. Her brother, Charles, had subsequently lost the elephant in a game of piquet—to Euphemia Ramsey. When Arabella had offered to buy it back, Miss Ramsey refused to part with it. This, in fact, had been the unofficial cause of their original falling-out.

A Horny Pheasant had entered the temple with stately tread and now stood looking up at Arabella with an expectant expression. Tragopans were alpine, rather than tropical, and they did not, in their natural habitat, eat things like sugar biscuits. But this one had adapted wonderfully to life in the aviatory, ingesting whatever was on offer there.

Arabella smiled at him. “Hello, Randy,” she said affectionately. “Inflate your horns.” Two azure, horn-like feathers on the sides of his head sprang to prominence, and the terracotta-colored bird raised himself up to full height, showing off the rest of his brilliant blue mating equipment. He should have done this even if Arabella had
not
asked him to, but it delighted her to pretend that the bird was responding to her wishes, and she rewarded him with half a biscuit.

“Euphemia knew how much I doted upon that elephant,” said Arabella, “and of course, it meant nothing to
her
. She kept it just to vex me. But why should she want to do that? We were friends . . . in a way.”

“Maybe she was getting even with you for your having stolen the duke.”

“Nonsense. Women in our profession always share clients.”

“Perhaps this was different. Perhaps Euphemia felt the same way about the duke that you felt about your elephant.”

Belinda carefully kept her eyes on her sewing, for one never knew how her sister was liable to react to personal criticism. Sometimes she was perfectly reasonable about it. Other times . . . not so much.

“Well, if she did,” said Arabella, “it has served her right: Courtesans cannot afford to become attached to men. Anyway, I won in the end, didn’t I? I got the duke.”

“You haven’t got him now,” said Belinda quietly. “He’s going to be married to Julia van Diggle in October.”

Arabella was thunderstruck. “What! To van Diggle? I hadn’t heard that!”

“It was in
The Morning Post
. So you have neither the duke, nor the elephant, it would seem.”

Belinda was too kind to add, “And it looks as though Euphemia might be the winner,” but she thought it just the same.

“Come,” said Arabella, rising from the table and opening her umbrella. “It is time for our constitutional.”

Every day while the good weather held, the sisters were wont to walk or ride in the park for the good of their health. That was one reason, of course. The other was to show off to an admiring public. For successful courtesans want to keep themselves foremost in the hearts, the minds, and the wallets of all clients, actual and potential.

From the age of sixteen, Arabella had made her own way in the world as a highly paid woman of pleasure. She was not ashamed of it, for she loved her work and given different circumstances would doubtless have pursued the same course without charge to her partners. Hers had been a rich existence, full of glamour, excitement, and moments of pure happiness. Because Arabella wasn’t just a courtesan—she was
the
courtesan. When she went out, crowds parted to let her pass. On the nights she attended the theater or the opera, the quizzing glasses were all turned toward her box, rather than the stage. Newspapers reported on her activities, reprinted the menus for her parties, described the way she decorated her house. The fact that she could not be presented at court, or attend social functions where respectable ladies were gathered, or be friends with virtuous women bothered her not a whit—for the men of the
ton
knew no such social restrictions, and as far as
they
were concerned, Arabella was the most desirable creature on two legs . . . or off them, which was even better. England’s most amusing, talented, and intellectually gifted men had been proud to call her friend, and she in turn had been delighted, amused, and spoiled by them. Taken all round, it had been a most satisfactory arrangement. But those days, it seemed, were drawing to a close.