Death and the Cyprian Society (26 page)

In the sudden silence that followed this statement, Lady Ribbonhat turned toward Arabella, with the stricken gaze that is sometimes seen in the eyes of an animal when it realizes that it is about to be slaughtered.

“That is . . . I didn’t kill her, you know,” she faltered, “though I often wish I had. But precisely speaking, I suppose I may have manipulated certain circumstances to the point where Zhenay’s death was facilitated through actions taken by myself to encourage certain developments.”

“I am sorry, Lady Ribbonhat,” said Arabella. “Your meaning escapes me.”

But the dowager’s face wore a closed-up look now. She did not offer to elucidate.

Arabella cleared her throat. “I think we are both agreed that the woman is better dead, and I repeat, I have no wish to see you swing for her murder, as you are far too enjoyable an adversary. Therefore, if you will vouchsafe to tell me what really happened, I shall leave this letter with you. Otherwise, I shall read it, turn it over to my lawyers, and instruct them to denounce you publicly as the principal suspect in this case.”

Lady Ribbonhat tugged on the bell pull again. “Where the devil is Piston? I shall require some tea if I am to tell the whole story!”

“Piston!” cried Arabella. “Your butler’s name is Piston? What is his Christian name? Don’t tell me it’s Harry, for I shan’t believe you!”

“It
is
hairy, as a matter of fact. But his first name is Richard.”

All things considered, it was just as well that tea
hadn’t
arrived yet, for Arabella would have choked, had she been swallowing. How the deuce would Lady Ribbonhat have such intimate knowledge of her servant’s anatomy? How, indeed?

“No, of course,” said Arabella, making a fair recovery. “Harry is your footman’s name, is it not?”

“What is that to you?” asked the duchess suspiciously. “Piston!” she bellowed.

Arabella opened the door, that her ladyship’s voice might carry farther. The enjoyable adversary got up from her chair and crossed to the threshold.

“My Lady?”

“We want some tea! Are you deaf, man? I rang the bell some time ago!”

“His Grace told me—”

“I do not care what His Grace told you! Does he pay your wages? I am mistress here! You will do well to remember that!”

The butler bowed, and Lady Ribbonhat slammed the door before he’d straightened up again.

“Many years ago,” she said, returning to her chair, “when Henry was a young man, he struck up an unfortunate liaison with a low type of woman, and the connexion seemed quite serious. I was worried. Any mother would have been. The girl was greedy, spiteful, and determined to marry into my family. So, whilst Henry was away, I arranged to have her deported to France. She was English, as it happened, but according to my research, one of her grandparents had been an Alsatian. On that basis, I represented her to the authorities as an undesirable alien.”

“When was this?”

“A while ago.”

“No, but
when?”

“Oh, twenty, twenty-five years.”

“You sent her to France during the Terror.” Arabella had already known this, of course, via her uncle. But she wanted to stress it to Lady Ribbonhat; to make Lady Ribbonhat say it and feel it, because it had been such a horrible thing to do.

“Yes, I suppose so,” said the dowager, with a dismissive wave of her hand, “but she survived, and returned after some years, having re-styled herself ‘Madame Zhenay.’ You know the rest: She set herself up in business and made a fortune, but having already made her fortune in Paris, she might just as well have stayed over there. Paris is cheaper than London, and her money would have gone further. Do you know why she didn’t, though? Because she wanted revenge! All those years, she told me, she had dreamt of only two things: Marrying Henry, and making me suffer!

“Well, she nearly got Henry, and she certainly succeeded in making my life a living hell! I was forced to introduce that . . . that . . . commoner into society, to take her with me everywhere I went; to seem as though I doted upon her! And when we were alone, she forced me to be her slave!”

Lady Ribbonhat poured herself a glass of sherry from a decanter with golden lion’s paws. But she didn’t offer one to her guest. “I’d taken lodgings at the Tiger, so that Zhenay and I could watch Henry’s ship come in.”

“There is no dock at Eastbourne.”

“No,” said Lady Ribbonhat, after a pause. “There isn’t. But Zhenay didn’t know that. She was ignorant of geography; monstrous ignorant. She was ignorant of everything in the world except business. So I knew I could entice her out there with little trouble, and I promised that she and Henry should be married as soon as his ship docked.”

“You planned the whole thing in advance, did you? The murder, I mean?”

“I planned it, yes, but my plan was not realized. The night before she died, Zhenay arrived at my rooms very late. She had come down from town in my private carriage, so I knew that no one had seen her all day except for my coachman.”

“Your
private
carriage,” murmured Arabella. “I did not think of that. We were only checking commercial concerns.”

“And Zhenay told me when she came in that no one at the Tiger could be roused to take the horses, so my coachman had dropped her off and driven on to another inn, where he was personally acquainted with the owners.

“Thus far, everything was going better than I had hoped: no one was aware of Zhenay’s arrival but me and my coachman. I had two plans in place, in case the first should fail. The first involved poison, and a glass of poisoned claret stood at the ready. But it was essential that she die in bed, and Zhenay was not in the least bit tired. In fact, she was more animated than I had ever known her. I presume she must have taken something to prevent her from sleeping on the way. (The woman took care never to sleep whilst traveling, for fear she should be robbed unawares.)

“As it was then close to dawn, she said she wouldn’t go to bed at all, and she bade me get up and dress myself—for I had not brought my maid. Thus, I resolved to implement Plan B. At first light, we walked out to the cliff.”

“However did you get her to do that?” asked Arabella. “Even Zhenay must have known there was no harbor in
that
direction.”

“I told her I always waved to Henry’s ship from there as it sailed past, and that he would be searching us out with his spyglass.”

“Good Lord.”

“I don’t care whether
you
believe it. The fact is,
she
did. The fog was very thick. There was no one about. At least, I did not see anyone. Zhenay complained that we shouldn’t be able to see the ship in such weather, but I told her the fog would soon lift. Then I glanced down and said, ‘Your shoe ribbon is untied, madam.’ It wasn’t true, but the woman can’t see a thing without her spectacles, and the vain cow refuses to wear them in public.
Used
to refuse, I mean. She was forever misplacing them, too.”

“But in any event, Zhenay could not have worn her spectacles that day, even if she had wanted to,” said Arabella. “Because you had hidden them.”

Lady Ribbonhat jumped as though bitten.

“What do you mean?”

“You
did
hide them, didn’t you? Wasn’t that part of your plan?”

“How could you possibly have known that?”

“Because you made such a point of telling everyone how Zhenay was always misplacing her spectacles, and how blind she was without them. You did it again, just now. You were planning to suggest her handicap as the probable cause of her accidental death, were you not?”

“What if I was?” cried Lady Ribbonhat. “Wait till you hear the whole story, before you judge me! ‘Your shoe ribbon is untied,’ I said. And do you know what answer she made me? ‘Tie it up then, you hideous old crone!’ The confounded impudence! I planned to push her off the cliff as soon as she bent over to do up her shoe. But she was spoiling my plans! She had no intention of bending over, and her personal insult had enraged me to the point of attacking her with my fingernails, then and there. Fortunately, I—

“Well, it’s high time you got here!” Lady Ribbonhat broke off, as tea was brought in. The steeping process had been effected during the long journey from the kitchen, but now the business of pouring it out, adding the milk and sugar, and stirring it all up required additional time, during which Arabella was feverishly taking mental notes. Her reluctant hostess would never have permitted her to write things down, of course, so the transcribing would have to wait till she got home.

“I did as I was bid,” Lady Ribbonhat continued. “I tied Madame’s shoe . . . to the other shoe! Then, happening to glance up, I noticed a flock of low-flying gulls headed our way. I warned her, and she attempted to step aside. But the tethered shoes caused her to lurch forward instead, and she fell over the cliff.”

Arabella gazed at the duchess in thoughtful speculation. “Were there actually gulls in the vicinity,” she asked, “or did you simply invent them?”

“We were at the seacoast!” cried Lady Ribbonhat. “Of
course
there were gulls in the vicinity!”

Her visitor reflected on the coincidence that both Constance’s alibi and Lady Ribbonhat’s ruse should involve the ubiquitous sea bird.

“Anyway, that is all there was to it,” said Lady Ribbonhat. “But no one else was up there, and no one saw us. Of that, I am certain.”

“You may be right,” said Arabella. “At least,
I
never found any witnesses. You see, you are not the only person to use your imagination in a tight spot.”

“Hmm! I thought as much,” said the dowager grimly. “I might have known better than to trust you!”

“I feel the same way about trusting you, dear enemy.”

“Well. If you’ve quite finished your tea, I must attend to other matters. My letter, please.” The dowager held out an imperious hand.

“But I have
not
finished,” said Arabella, taking the envelope from underneath her saucer and holding it back out of reach. “How did this come to be in Zhenay’s possession?”

“I refuse to discuss that subject!” said her hostess. “I agreed only to speak with you about the circumstances pertaining to the death of a parasite!”

“Very well,” said Arabella, drinking down the last of her tea and handing the letter over. “I would like to both thank you for your help, and offer my congratulations.”

“On what cause?”

“Your narrow escape from the gallows.”

Chapter 20

F
or those readers unfamiliar with Rotten Row, the author begs to inform them that there is nothing “rotten” about it. It is a wide bridle path (and for some, I have heard, a
bridal
path) skirting Hyde Park’s south side. The path’s actual name was “the King’s Road,” for it was made by order of some monarch or other, and a prevailing fashion for all things French led people to call it
Route du Roi
. But the trouble with fashions is that they don’t last long. Before long, England was at war with France again, and some wag coined the nickname “Rotten Row,” fancying himself clever, I daresay. But it’s really rather feeble, if you think about it.

Anyway, the name caught on, despite everything, and the place
itself
was all the rage, because rich and famous persons, along with the merely well-bred, rode there twice a day in their carriages or on horseback. It was
the
place to show off one’s riding habit, or seat on a horse, or new barouche, or simply oneself. Naturally, it was popular with London’s courtesans—Arabella simply doted on the place.

“So, what I am going to do,” she told Belinda, as they cantered side by side, superbly mounted on two of Arabella’s parchment ponies
⁹
, “is to instruct counsel to tell the story as it was told to me, as a reasonable hypothesis, omitting all mention of Lady Ribbonhat. Let’s walk them for a bit, Bunny.”

“Were you finding it hard to talk and canter at the same time?” Belinda asked, once the pace had slackened.

“Somewhat,” her sister replied, “but chiefly, I wanted to see who that lady is in Cecil Elliot’s curricle . . . hmm, Caroline Lamb. I should have thought he’d have better taste.

“Anyway, Corydon-Figge will posit that Madame Zhenay was alone when, having lost her spectacles (which she was always doing), she mistakenly tied her own shoe ribbons together, whilst wearing the shoes. Then she may have been startled by a gull, tried to step back, started to lose her balance, tried to step forward to prevent herself from falling, and gone over the cliff, where, once in the turbulent sea, her shoes came off and wrapped themselves around her forearm, seaweed fashion. Then the body was borne off to Brighton by the current.”

Belinda was horrified. “But that is twisting the truth!” she protested. “Why not say it was Lady Ribbonhat?”

“Bunny, don’t be tiresome. It is not ‘twisting the truth,’ as you call it, to state a hypothesis.”

“It is if you know the truth, and withhold it.”

“But this
is
the truth, essentially, and I am determined to leave Lady Ribbonhat out of it. Besides, we should never be able to
prove
any of this. The important thing is to win an acquittal. Zhenay was a vicious, vengeful woman, who must not be allowed to claim this last victim from beyond the grave.”

“Lady Ribbonhat, do you mean? For she killed Zhenay. The detail about not having pushed her is unimportant.”

“I know that. No, I was not referring to Lady Ribbonhat.”

“Oh. I suppose you meant Constance.”

“Well, Constance, also, but I was mainly referring to myself. And yet, for all Zhenay’s wickedness, I freely acknowledge that I am indebted to the woman for one truly excellent idea. Oh, look! It is Egerton, the publisher! Scrope Davies suggested I speak to him with regard to publishing my Palomina adventures!”

“Oh, but not
here,
Bell, surely! Call upon him at his place of business!”

“I suppose you are right.”

“Perhaps I should speak with him, also, about publishing my play. Anyway, what is this excellent idea you had from Madame Zhenay?”

“You will hear all about it at the Cyprian Society meeting tomorrow.”

“Very well,” said Belinda. “But I thought you said the House of Lords would condemn Constance no matter what. Why have you changed your mind?”

“I haven’t. I expect her to be acquitted before she ever gets to the House of Lords, by the grand jury, which will hear the evidence in order to determine whether there will even
be
a trial. I don’t think there will be, now.”

“Good!” said Belinda, with satisfaction. “Because the sooner this is put in motion, the sooner poor Constance can be released from prison!”

“I think ‘poor Constance’ is better off where she is,” said Arabella
.
“After all, she’s quite safe in the Brighton lockup, where Mr. Pollard and our Cyprian sisters are kindly seeing to all her creature comforts.”

Belinda was dumbfounded. “But, Bell! Surely you cannot mean to keep her in gaol, when she might be free to come home?”

“Yes, I can,” replied her sister. “Constance cannot possibly get into any more trouble as long as she remains behind bars, and the silly chit is perfectly happy where she is. Besides, the woman has turned my life upside down! Can you really blame me, Bunny, for finding myself in need of a breather? At least now I shall be able to sleep soundly, knowing that I won’t have to run all over town attending to Constance’s problems!”

 

The Cyprian Society’s first general members’ meeting was a great success. Unlike gentlemen’s clubs, which rarely or never hold meetings, CS members were rather keen on gathering all together and having discussions. Evidently. For with the exception of Constance, who was still in gaol, all of them had come.

The new lecture saloon was roomy, yet intimate, painted robin’s egg blue and punctuated with comfortable chairs and intimate little divans. Many of the members had brought their pets with them, chiefly lapdogs, but Polonia Snow had brought a rabbit, and Alouette L’Etoille was accompanied by what she insisted on referring to as
le furet du bois jolie,
a red-eyed, ermine-furred, sharp-fanged little beast, which, despite being attached via a ribbon to the wrist of its owner, nevertheless contrived to escape, and attacked the rabbit. The lapdogs all went wild at this, except for Cara, and the ensuing pandemonium was greater than that produced from construction, by virtue of its closer proximity to the ears of its listeners.

Arabella made a rule right then and there that pets should henceforth be banned from the premises. The other pet owners glared at Miss L’Etoille, who was not really French at all, and whom most of the members presumed was a traitor.

“Have you no sense?” cried Miss Le Marchand. “Whoever heard of bringing a ferret to a meeting? You’ve spoilt it for the rest of us, now, you and your ferret ‘Napoleon’!”

“Her name is ‘Neigeux,’ said Miss L’Etoille loftily. And after handing her pet to a servant, to be kept until called for, she ostentatiously moved her chair as far as possible from Miss Le Marchand’s.

“Ribbons are such pretty things,” said Arabella, addressing her sister. “Yet they have been responsible for nearly two deaths in as many weeks. I think I shall avoid ribbons in the future.” But, of course, she did not mean that.

When everyone had settled down once again, soothed with wonderfully strong coffee, which was served in tiny-hand-painted-sky-blue-and-gold-Spode-demitasse-cups-decorated- with-the-double-bird-of-paradise-crest-on-one-side-and-the-CS-motto-on-the-other-and-a-single-bird-of-paradise-inside- below-the-rim, along with little sesame biscuits (because luncheon was still two hours away), Arabella formally addressed the gathering. In the interests of brevity, we shall skip over the welcoming speech and agenda items of lesser import, and go straight away to the object of this meeting.

“I don’t know whether many of you have considered it,” she began, “but, collectively, we have captured the attentions and affections of the most influential men in the most important city of the most powerful nation on Earth.”

Here the courtesans would have applauded, but their president checked them with an upraised hand.

“I mention this, not merely as an item of passing interest, nor a detail upon which we may preen ourselves: Consider, ladies, what it actually
means
.”

She paused, significantly, and surveyed the company with a bold, challenging look. “The twenty-eight of us—and I say twenty-eight with the tacit understanding that one of our number, who is not here today, is by nature incapable—can, if we choose, bring about the necessary changes to make this country, nay, to make the entire
world
a better place. Let us, then, in the months to come, decide how we can best use our power to promote the greatest good!”

Amidst thunderous applause, with Cyprians rising on every side to cheer Arabella and her great idea, she smiled and modestly made her way to a chair, where a freshly-poured-tiny-hand-painted-sky-blue-and-gold-Spode-demitasse-cup- decorated-with-the-double-bird-of-paradise-crest-on-one-sid e-and-the-CS-motto-on-the-other-and-a-single-bird-of-paradise-inside-below-the-rim awaited her.

 

By the time the Beaumonts got home, the sunlight had mellowed to a rich apricot, and the shadows had grown to ridiculous lengths. The sisters changed from their club clothes into much more comfortable chemises and dressing gowns, and dined alfresco, in the loggia, where they ate with their fingers. Bumper after bumper of sparkling wine was lifted high . . . laughed over . . . quaffed . . . to celebrate the very successful outcome of all their adventures.

“Bell,” said Belinda, sitting sideways in her chair and draping one lovely bare leg over the arm, “aren’t you simply aching to know what was in that letter you returned to Lady Ribbonhat?”

“No,” Arabella replied, with a smile. “Because I
do
know. And therefore have no need of aching.”

“You
do?
How? Did Lady Ribbonhat shew it to you at Charburn?”

“Good heavens,” said Arabella, carefully snipping a small cluster of grapes from a larger bunch in the bowl upon the table. “Lady Ribbonhat may be a clown, Belinda, but she’s no fool. Unless I miss my guess, she ordered a fire lit the instant I was out the door, and burnt that letter to cinders!”

“Then how can you be familiar with the contents?”

“Well, as you know, Lustings was formerly in the possession of the Seaholme family, to which Lady Ribbonhat belongs by marriage.”

“Yes?”

“The duke still uses my library from time to time, to write the sort of letters he does not wish his mother to know about.”

“But I still don’t . . .”

“He keeps his family seal in a drawer of my desk for that purpose. So, I simply broke the seal on Lady Ribbonhat’s envelope, removed the letter and perused the contents, re-folded it, dripped a new puddle of wax on the outside, and stamped it with the family crest again.”

“Oh, I say!” cried Belinda. “How
fiendishly
clever! And what did the letter reveal?”

“Only this,” replied Arabella gravely. “Lady Ribbonhat provided the financial backing for the prime minister’s assassination.”

Belinda recoiled, nearly toppling from her chair. “What?! She—how
could
she? And . . . you have known about it all this while . . . and kept it to yourself?”

“Quite. Just as
you
will keep it to
yourself.”

“Oh, no, Bell,” said Belinda, emphatically shaking her head. “We must go to the authorities at once!”

“And tell them what, exactly? That I am the only witness to a letter, now destroyed, that proves my enemy’s involvement in the Perceval affair? They would lock me up in the madhouse, but not before the duke and his mother sued me for every penny I have or ever shall have. There is not a single shred of evidence, now, that Lady Ribbonhat has ever done any such thing. And even if there were, I should never act against her on this. Because I respect her reasons.”

Belinda stared at her. “What do you mean? No one can have a good reason for murder! I feel as though I have never known you, Bell; that I am only now beginning to see who you really are!”

“Perhaps I expressed myself badly. I don’t approve of murder, Bunny, any more than you do. But under certain circumstances, I can sympathize with, or . . . let us say,
comprehend
someone’s state of mind, which causes that person to act out of character in a fit of outrage against an evil-doer.

“Lady Ribbonhat expressed her reasons in that letter: Spencer Perceval’s anti-Luddite, anti-Catholic policies had laid waste to her family. Her brother blew his brains out. Her nephews were hanged (“as an example”) after the Luddite riots. The wives and children of those nephews scattered in panic over the countryside, and Lady Ribbonhat was unable to discover where they’d gone, in order to send them financial assistance. At the time of her letter, she reported that she had been unable to locate a single relation.”

“How horrible!” said Belinda. “I never thought I should feel sorry for Lady Ribbonhat. I do, though.”

“As do I.”

“This letter she wrote, to whom was it addressed?”

“I did not recognize the name, and I have forgotten it now. Probably some Irish fomenter who had requested her assistance.”

“But, Bell; it’s important! The government will want to know!”

“I am not so certain that they will. They were in an awful hurry to hang Bellingham and close the book.” (She was not going to tell Belinda about Cecil Elliot’s investigation, for she had given her word that she wouldn’t.) “You see, Bunny? This is why I hate politics! Everything’s done below board. No one ever knows what is really going on! And the names of persons who planned the elimination of a smug, superior little second rater, a so-called gentleman who professed himself a great family man whilst he murdered the families of others, is of no interest to me. I am a great respecter of justified revenge. Poor Lady Ribbonhat has no one now, other than Puddles, and I cannot find it in my heart to blame her for having sought vengeance upon a man who was perfectly comfortable with causing such misery.”

“I never knew she was Irish,” said Belinda thoughtfully.