Nell Gwynne's On Land and At Sea (14 page)

They raced the waves in and out in a long loop down the beach, and then back up again. Domina was fairly dancing as they returned, her mask split in a wide terrier grin.

“Oh, that looks so jolly! Do give me a turn, Herbert,” begged Jane. When Herbertina gave her the ribbon leash, she handed off her bonnet to Dora, and the two of them took off at once in another dash along the beach.

Herbertina, hands in her pockets, strolled along following with the other two Deveres, all three of them watching the racing dog and Jane in amusement. Jane’s petticoat skirts frothed about her knees as she ran—Domina somehow contrived to run at full speed with her nose to the sand, lost in momentum and some canine nasal bliss.

“There is just nothing quite so happy as a dog at the seaside,” commented Herbertina. “Rather makes one wish there were something so overwhelmingly pleasant for us mere humans, eh?”

“There is chocolate,” said Dora thoughtfully.

“True, true.”

They walked slowly. It was a lovely morning, the sea placid as a baby’s bath. A good ways down the curve of the beach, Jane and Domina were playing tag with the waves, running down to them and then fleeing with loud barking and laughter. Suddenly, though, as they whirled to flee again, the others saw Domina dart to one side, pulling the wet ribbon right through Jane’s hands—Jane shrieked and sat down abruptly on the sand, her skirts blooming round her.

Herbertina went immediately to her aid while Dora and Maude made off after Domina, who was now pawing and barking at a tangle of old fishing net snagged on a bleached tree branch. Hauling Jane up and brushing sand off her skirts, Herbertina could hear the others chiding the dog as they tried to catch her trailing leash.

“I am so sorry. She was being perfectly well behaved on that ribbon, and then she just bolted!” exclaimed Jane.

“Well, she is doubtless not as well trained as we’d wish,” said Herbertina. “She’ll improve, now that she is in better society. Are you all right?”

“Oh, yes, just sandy. Do they have her?” Jane pointed.

Herbertina looked. While Maude had hold of Domina’s leash and was tugging at it, the dog was stubbornly refusing to leave the heaped nets. And then Dora knelt down and began to pull at them as well.

“Oh!” they heard her cry. “Oh, how horrid!”

Herbertina sprinted over, Jane following more carefully. The problem was immediately obvious, now—what had suggested tree limbs tangled in the nets were, in reality, the limbs of a man. A rather dead man.

Domina danced in triumph as Herbertina and Dora pulled the nets away to reveal the slack features of none other than Mr. Ponsonby. His clothes were battered and torn, as if he had been in the rough tide a while; it was his missing right sleeve that revealed the pallid flesh which had resembled a barkless branch. His boots were also gone, unveiling long bony white feet.

Ponsonby’s face was battered and torn as well, his nose visibly leaning to one side and both eyes swollen and blacked. There was no blood, due to his obvious immersion in the sea, but numerous pale cuts gaped all over his face and knuckles.

“Oh, poor man! He has been beaten and drowned!” exclaimed Maude.

“Could it not have been the waves beating him against the shore that have mauled him so?” asked Jane doubtfully.

“No. There are the marks of a ring,” Herbertina, crouching down, indicated the round tattoo-like bruises on Ponsonby’s face. “And see how his left eye has the worst of it, and his nose is broken to the right? He was struck repeatedly from the left side, by a right-handed man.”

They all looked solemnly at one another.

“Felan, probably,” said Maude. “Horrible man! Well, what do we do?”

“Cover him up and be about our errands,” said Dora practically. “What else? We don’t want to draw any attention to ourselves, and someone else will find him soon, when they come to use the bathing machines.”

Herbertina nodded. She helped Dora up, and then began to
kick the the net scraps and sand back over the unfortunate Ponsonby. “Sorry, old chap. But you won’t lie out here long, I am sure.”

A moment’s work and they were all walking briskly back up the beach. Herbertina had Domina’s leash firmly in hand again, but it was hardly necessary—she heeled sedately and trotted along with a satisfied air of duty done.

“You’re a good girl after all,” Herbertina told her. “You shall have a biscuit as soon as we are back in town.”

Back at the boarding house, the daily vase of flowers had arrived from Mr. Pickett; in fact, three of them had been delivered—lilies, roses, and one vase full of flowering boughs cunningly decorated with ripe cherries and entwined with golden ribbons.

They were all delivered to the front parlor by the odious Felan, who was sporting an even more-than-usually knowing grin. Miss Rendlesham had volunteered to go retrieve the flowers—the Ladies were taking it in turns so that no one had to put up with Felan two days running—and reported that he was also sporting scratches down one cheek and some noticeable bruises.

“Doubtless some unfortunate woman struck him,” she sniffed.

Mrs. Corvey looked at the three vases side by side: the demure maiden lilies, the full-blown scarlet roses, and then the cleverly contrived cherry boughs.

“He ain’t very subtle, but it’s striking,” she remarked.

“Yes, that is Mr. Pickett to the life,” said Lady Beatrice. She examined the golden ribbons pendent from the cherries, and teased one loose. She held it up to the light, where it was revealed as a gold chain with a cherry-red ruby ring in rose gold hung on it. “My engagement ring, I believe.”

“Not precisely your shade. But he must have been in quite a hurry,” said Mrs. Corvey. “Still, quite nice. Try it on, dear.”

Lady Beatrice obliged. Mr. Pickett’s engineering training must have served him well in approximating; it fit perfectly on the appropriate finger. Once on her ivory hand, the color looked richer and darker, more like the scarlet she favored and which she had been wearing at the ball where he had met her.

With a demure flourish, she then opened the card accompanying the flood of flowers. Reading it over, she raised a brow and looked up at the others.

“I am invited to another evening picnic, in three days’ time,” she said. “On his yacht, this time. He says he has something important to show me.”

“A sinking French warship—what a unique betrothal present!” said Miss Rendlesham wryly.

“I suspect you are correct. He says we may be out quite late,” went on Lady Beatrice, “and therefore I must bring my dear Mamma along as a chaperone. He assures me you will be quite comfortable below decks, Mrs. Corvey, in his own cabin.”

“Thoughtful of him, to be sure. But I think I may prefer to take the air on deck,” said Mrs. Corvey. Her lenses whirred in and out thoughtfully.

“And he implores I will wear red,” finished Lady Beatrice, and sighed rather wearily.

She was just finishing her combined acceptance and thank you note to Mr. Pickett when the excursion party returned at last. Their first act was to immediately exclaim over the engagement ring and flowers, though these pleasant enthusiasms were perforce curtailed by the grim news of Mr. Ponsonby’s corpse discovered on the beach.

They gathered round the central table and traded the morning’s news. On comparison, it had been a revealing morning everywhere, and perhaps least of all because of Mr. Pickett’s love-gifts.

When Miss Rendlesham went over the injuries to Felan’s face she had seen that morning, it was even more obvious that he must be responsible for the unfortunate Ponsonby’s demise. Herbertina repeated her observations of ring marks on the dead man’s face, and Mrs. Corvey nodded grimly.

“He’s just the sort to beat a man to death,” she said. “I knew we should have trouble with that one before this little adventure was over. His master’s secrets may or or may not be dark enough to kill for, but a beast like Felan will kill happily enough for a lark.”

“The poor fellow seemed quite fragile,” said Miss Rendlesham regretfully. “Willowy, you know, and as easily frightened as a rabbit. No wonder I thought the blows to Felan’s face were made by a woman!”

“Fortunately, I don’t believe the late butler can be traced to us,” said Lady Beatrice. “Felan cannot know you saw the body, as he was delivering flowers here at that time—and someone else will report it. And you ladies said Ponsonby was unseen that evening, coming or going?”

“As far as I know,” confirmed Miss Rendlesham. “And surely it would have been mentioned to Mrs. Corvey, at least, if the staff here had seen a strange man.”

“Be on your guards, girls, regardless,” said Mrs. Corvey. “No one is to be alone outside our lodgings, nor speak to Felan if he can be avoided. And if he cannot be, none of you ever saw Ponsonby, is that clear? Send the bugger to dear old Mamma if he presses you.”

Glances were exchanged among the Ladies—hardly clandestine, as nothing was really unseen by Mrs. Corvey; not apprehensive, either.

“We shall have to deal with him on board the
Sceptre
, though,” observed Lady Beatrice.

“Well, not if I need to speak with him first. Though I can wait for the night,” said Mrs. Corvey reassuringly.

“Our holiday is not turning out at all as I had hoped,” said Mrs. Otley with a sigh.

“Well, we shall have a lovely sea excursion before we are done. We mailed your drawings to Mr. Darwin, too,” said Herbertina. “Cheer up! We’ll even have a few days afterward to catch our breath. And we did secure all the ironmongery you wanted, Mrs. C. Drills, chisels, awls and mallets. Just a pair of each, and we spread it out over four shops to disguise it—but they’ll all be delivered tomorrow.”

“Very good; well done, girls. Now—” (and Mrs. Corvey rubbed her eyes with genuine weariness, they all thought worriedly), “—I want the room here straightened up; and everyone is to wear her gayest gown for Mrs. Drumm this afternoon. Those flowers will brighten things up a treat, that’s for certain. And I need to make sure the tea things are nice, but
not
nicer than Mrs. Drumm’s own…”

Lady Beatrice rose to her feet and volunteered to go guide the landlady’s kitchen staff through this delicate process. The Deveres urged Mrs. Corvey to put her feet up a while everyone else tidied, and slowly persuaded her into her own bed chamber—just like any harried respectable matron endeavoring to juggle a new son-in-law, a new cook, and a marauding murderer all on one precarious social occasion.

Despite Mrs. Corvey’s worries, the sitting room was already in an advanced state of tidiness; the Ladies themselves were a fastidious group, and the staff of the lodging house was excellent. All the Ladies quite understood Mrs. Corvey’s nervousness, though—there were few things quite as nerve-wracking in a household’s life as the acquisition of a new cook. And of course, in the case of Nell Gwynne’s, the requirements were so much more involved on the parts of all parties involved. At least the initial security clearance was already under way despite the priority projects both in Torbay and back at the GSS headquarters. (Mr. Felmouth could be expected to have more than a vested interest in the quality of their cook, after all.)

Nonetheless, it was a matter of ordinary domestic theatre for each of them to make sure that the pastimes that showed in the sitting room were selected to impress. Mrs. Otley made certain her sketchbook was open to an especially fine study of a living hare rather than sub-human bones; Miss Rendlesham replaced her romantic novel with a volume of Ovid (the spicier
Amores
, but it was unlikely Mrs. Drumm would know that). All sewing projects left out were of a decorative and complex design, displaying fine lace, complicated cable work and delicate stitching. Mr. Pickett’s flowers were distributed about the room so that their symbolism was not so blatantly obvious.

Everyone was beautifully dressed and posed about the room when Mrs. Corvey emerged form her much-needed nap. Each of the Ladies looked supremely respectable and charming. Herbertina and the Deveres displayed a dewy youthfulness in perfect keeping with their characters. Miss Rendlesham and Mrs. Otley both looked suitably studious in their respective ways. Lady Beatrice was modestly stunning in grey silk. Even Domina, sedate in a basket by the window, wore a fresh bright bow.