Death and the Cyprian Society (2 page)

Belinda choked on her tea, and had to be thumped on the back for a bit. When she had recovered, Arabella addressed herself to Costanze once again.

“Do you really think I should use my head?” she asked. “Why is that?”

“Because,” replied Miss Worthington gravely, “our brains are like hedgehogs. Without regular exercise they simply go to sleep.”

Arabella and Belinda exchanged glances.

“Oh!” said Costanze “That is what I was going to tell you! Last night . . . I saw a hedgehog! No. No, I didn’t. Last night as my brain was going to sleep . . . Yes! That’s it! Last night as I was going to sleep I couldn’t. Not for the longest time. Because I was upset over that letter that came under the door but I’m all right now; I just had to get used to the idea.”

“What idea, Constance?”

“Well, someone knows a secret of mine that I never told anybody and
they
won’t tell anybody either as long as I pay them . . . pay them . . . I forget how much. It’s in the letter. So I won’t be able to pay you that forty-six thousand pounds because you see I need to pay it to this other person whoever he is because if I don’t pay him he will tell Pigeon what I’ve been getting up to lately with Lady Ribbonhat’s footman and then Pigeon will cast me off and I shall be a pauper again.”

“What . . . did you . . . say?”

“Don’t look at me like that, Bell! It isn’t
my
fault!”

“Not your
fault?
You’ve been having it off with Ribbonhat’s footman! How is that not your fault?”

“Oh!” Costanze squawked. “
You
know my secret, too! That must mean that
you
wrote that letter! You . . . you . . .”

“Shut your cock pocket
³
!” said Arabella sternly. “Here it is: Either you find a way to pay me back the entire forty-six thousand pounds by this time next year, and make me a substantial payment six weeks from today, or I will take you to court, and instruct the bailiffs to seize all your convertible property whatsoever. That means all your gowns, all your jewels—excepting that bracelet—the house Pigeon has made over to you, your carriage, and your horses. Do you understand? I have just bought an hotel, and I need that money. I need it soon, or I shall go to debtor’s prison. That is where you will be. And if I am there because of you, I will make it my business to pinch, scratch, slap, and cuff you every day, Constance. And when I cannot sleep at night, owing to the fleas, I will come over to your pile of straw and kick you all over, till you are as tender as a veal cutlet!”

Costanze was wailing by this time, and her persecutor suffered a momentary qualm, for society abhors the mistreatment of mental defectives, and regards such behavior as cruel and uncivilized. But Arabella was able to reassure herself that insofar as Constance was concerned, extreme measures were often necessary, in order to make the poor little moron understand that she had erred.

“I want my handkerchief!” sniffled the moron, fumbling amongst the bench cushions. “Where is it?”

“In that ridicule reticule, I expect,” grumbled Arabella.

“But where’s that?”

“You flung it through the moon window
⁴
when you barged in here.”

“What?
Why ever didn’t you tell me?! It will have landed in the brook and gone all the way to sea by now!”

And in the blink of an eye, Costanze had scrambled down the little hill and run off along the stream bank, shrieking as she went, as if the purse might hear her, answer her, and so be pulled out again.

Arabella, seething all to herself, plucked a lavender-tinted flower from one of the stems twined round a pergola column and proceeded, methodically, to tear it to fragments. A veritable study in anger, she might have sat for a portrait of Alecto, and Belinda almost fancied she could see the giant wings of vengeance sprouting from her sister’s shoulder blades.

“Do not think about this now, Bell,” she said quietly. “Let it settle for a bit. We can decide what is to be done after Costanze leaves.”

“
If
she leaves,” growled her sister.

In the distance they could see Miss Worthington returning, in her green-striped frock, bright red gloves, and blue bonnet with brown flowers.

“Why on Earth does she dress like that?” asked Arabella, in an effort to distract her thoughts. “Has she no maid to guide her sartorial choices? Does she never look into a mirror?”

“You know how Costanze is,” said Belinda, as she buttered a muffin. “Stubborn as an ox, and equally as intelligent.”

Cara followed the buttering activity with melting eyes. Her tail barely moved, and the rest of her stayed as still as a statue until at last her mistress fed her half.

“Hmm,” said Arabella. “That is interesting.”

“What is?”

“Your experiment. I presume you are trying to discover whether a miniature greyhound, grown fat enough, will snap its legs off with its own weight.”

“Cara will have plenty of opportunities for exercise once we get to Scotland. The park at Redwelts is said to be enormous.”

“So I have heard. I shall miss you sorely, Bunny.”

“And I you! We must promise to write one another every—”

“Oh!” wailed Costanze, bursting into the pergola for the second time that morning and practically running into Fielding, who had just arrived to clear away the tea things, “it’s gone, it’s gone! I shall never see it more!”

“See
what
more?” asked Arabella testily.

“My reticule! My favorite one! Such a gay yellow silk! Such a profusion of maroon beads and gray rosettes! I’ll never find another like it! Never! Never!”

“Was there something important inside it?” asked Belinda.

“How should I know? You don’t suppose I go around remembering the contents of my reticule all day, do you? I shall simply have to stay here until the tide turns and brings it back in again which won’t be for some hours I suppose. Fledgling or whatever your name is,” said Costanze, addressing herself to the maid, “go and tell Cook that I am staying to supper.”

“Do no such thing, Fledgling!” Arabella commanded.

With a crisp nod to her mistress, Fielding gathered up the loaded tray and returned to the house.

“It isn’t a tidal creek, Costanze,” said Belinda, who had collected her knitting and was carrying on with the athletic supporter. “And even if it were, you could scarcely expect the return to bring your property back to you! The reticule will have been waterlogged and sunk long ago.”

Costanze looked blank, so Belinda tried again.

“It is a freshwater stream, you see.”

Still, nothing.

“In other words,” explained Arabella, “it flows in only one direction.”

“That is what
you
think,” said Costanze.

Arabella suddenly found that she had reached the end of her patience.

“No!” she cried. “That is what I
know!
Here!” Whereupon she withdrew the repulsive accessory from under the cushion where she’d hidden it, and hurled it at the owner. “Now, go home!”

“I’ll thank you not to speak to me in that tone!” said Costanze coldly.

“Consider yourself fortunate that I am speaking to you at all!” cried Arabella. “A person less able to govern her impulses would have kicked you! I am going for a walk, Bunny, because if I remain here any longer, I shall end by throttling this prittle-prattling numbskull!”

Whereupon, Arabella strode off to the house without taking leave of the company, determined to collect her hat and gloves and be gone.

Costanze leaned back against a pillar, smiling with satisfaction.

“Well,” she said, dangling her recovered reticule by the strings and holding it out to Belinda. “Here it is, if you wish to see what I keep in it.”

“Oh, don’t be silly, Costanze! Why should I care what you keep in your reticule? Can’t you see how you’ve upset Arabella?”

“
I’ve
upset
Arabella!?
When she tried to steal this bag? Surely, Belinda, it is I who should be upset and did you mark the harsh manner in which your sister spoke to me I am certain that you must have for how could you have missed it?”

Here Costanze paused to open the bag and ponder its innards, releasing, as she did so, the scent of vanilla toilet water in an aggressively concentrated form. She began to recite the contents aloud, whether her listener would hear her or no:

“A large pin in case I am ever accosted by someone I don’t fancy; a handkerchief with half a sandwich wrapped in it—it is hard as stone now but that is scarce to be wondered at as I placed it in here more than a week since; another handkerchief without a sandwich; the blackmailer’s letter; a throat lozenge that I barely sucked on as I did not fancy the taste . . .”

“What?” said Belinda, dropping a stitch.

“A throat lozenge. It is stuck to the handkerchief-without-a-sandwich-in-it now but I had to spit it out because it tasted of horehound which I simply cannot—”

“Have you got the blackmailer’s letter there?”

“Yes, that’s what I
said
Belinda I wish you would heed me when I—”

“May I have it, please?”

The letter was handed over.

“I need to borrow this,” said Belinda, tucking it into her bosom.

“You may keep it if you like; I was going to burn the horrid thing but I brought it over here to show to Arabella so that she could see for herself that I was telling the truth only I forgot that I had it about me. She is always accusing me of falsehoods and today she was especially abusive I thought; didn’t you think she was? What have I ever done to her that she should use me thus?”

“I’ll tell you what you have done,” said Belinda. “You have been indiscreet, and your foolish behavior has jeopardized Arabella’s financial standing.” She saw that this was not getting through. “By indulging in dangerous practices,” she said, “you have risked other people’s livelihoods for your own selfish pleasures.”

Costanze blinked, and goggled at her hostess with blank, widened eyes. Like one in a trance, she plucked the lozenge from the handkerchief it was stuck to, popped it into her mouth, spat it into the handkerchief again, and dropped it back into her reticule.

Belinda was nearing the end of her patience. “You got laid by a servant,” she said crossly, “when you should have been faithful to Mr. Pollard. Now you are being blackmailed for it. The cash you are giving the blackmailer was supposed to have gone to Arabella, to repay her for all the loans she has made you over the years. She requires that money in order to pay the costs of her new club, and now that she may not get it, my sister stands to lose everything for which she has worked so hard: her home, her bank account, everything! She may even go to debtor’s prison! All because of you!”

“Oh,” replied Costanze vaguely. And after a moment, she said, “You know it’s a funny thing but I cannot abide the taste of horehound though I am told that many other people like it and it is supposed to be good for sore throats. Do you want this lozenge, Belinda? I have barely sucked upon it and I should welcome the excuse to give it to someone else for it is making the inside of my reticule sticky.”

Chapter 2

O
rdinarily, Arabella took one of the carriages when embarking upon her daily constitutional, in order to confine her exercise to one of the attractive public parks and avoid the filth of the streets. Today was not an ordinary day, however, and she felt much too agitated to sit still for the length of time it would take to drive there. So she stalked all the way to town, in order to dissipate, somewhat, her deep sense of outrage, mulling the problem over as she walked.

Just who was this blackmailer, and what proofs did he have? There was obviously no point in questioning Constance; Arabella would have to
stay
with her, in order to be on hand when the demands came in, or the payments went out, and so see who it was that delivered the former and collected the latter. But what should she do, then? Shoot him? What if he did not come himself? Supposing he sent a child? Arabella was not overly fond of children as a rule, but she didn’t think she could bring herself to shoot one.

This was probably the sort of situation where she would need to enlist the services of a man, and she immediately thought of Reverend Kendrick, who was always so useful. She would write and ask him to come see her. But then she realized that she had not heard from him for some time, and resolved to call on him in person, once she had seen Belinda off.

 

Springtime in the West End, before the summer stinks have a chance to really get going, is the pleasantest of seasons. The massive new mansions and public buildings quite overpower the delicate saplings recently planted in front of them, but these will one day grow large enough to shade the pavements
and
the buildings, or so we have been told. Meanwhile, the vast Portland stone façades sparkle in the sunlight like the sort of wedding cakes one sees in bakery windows: pretty enough to eat, but not actually real. Here and there, deep green parks rustle with the promise of shadowy glades and refreshing pools, and everywhere, in their light-colored summer finery, one sees the upper classes nodding and waving to one another, like field poppies in a light breeze.

Through the center of all this splendor, Lady Ribbonhat, dowager duchess of Glen
deen
, was on her way to perform some pompous little social errand when she was hailed by an acquaintance in a yellow dress with pale blue facings.

“And a good day to
you,
Mrs. Drain!” said the duchess, in response to this lady’s halloo. “I am pleased to see that God has once again delivered you safely home from the heathen lands.”

(Mr. Drain was a missionary, and his wife had once confided that she fully expected to die abroad.)

“Only just,” replied the other. “We nearly capsized coming across in a dreadful storm! Though I should never say so in Mr. Drain’s hearing, I find it a vast relief to be back amongst civilized persons!”

“Quite, my dear,” said Lady Ribbonhat. “And did your husband manage to convert those godless savages to the true path?”

“Alas, no! Not as many as we had hoped! The stubborn natives have their own god, you see, and being by nature a congenitally stupid race, they are not able to see that their beliefs are wrong.”

“I sympathize,” said the duchess, who in fact did nothing of the kind. “Communication must have been extremely difficult, and naturally I am speaking not only of language, but of spiritual conceptions.”

“Oh, my goodness,” replied Mrs. Drain, fanning herself for all she was worth. “You can have no idea of the primitive superstitions, the backward viewpoints, with which we have had to contend!”

“Where were you posted, again?” asked the duchess. “Raritonga, was it?”

“Boston.”

“Ah! Well, at least the Almighty has spared you long enough to bring you home. So many missionaries are taken unto death’s eternal embrace without seeing England more, Mrs. Drain! You must treat every return as though it were your last, because it very well might be!”

“Yes,” nodded the other, “and speaking of eternal embraces, whatever became of that hussy who ensnared your boy just before we left? I hope by now she has given way to someone more suitable.”

“No,” sighed Lady Ribbonhat, with genuine regret. “I am afraid there is nothing new under the son.”

And she started thinking, rancorously, of Arabella. Of the insufferable injustice of it, the outrageous effrontery, and the very real danger that the “hussy” might one day become the next duchess of Glen
deen
. Probably things would never go that far, but it scarcely mattered, for however close they might remain, Lady Ribbonhat should nevermore have Lustings for her own. The duke had effectively ceded the place to Arabella for all time.

Mrs. Drain pretended to commiserate, but found a secret satisfaction in the other’s distress. According to
her
lights, Lady Ribbonhat was a godless, worldly woman whom the Almighty in His wisdom had punished in accordance with her deserts. And so, having heard the doleful tale with immense satisfaction, Mrs. Drain wished her acquaintance a brisk good morning, and went her way with a spring in her step and a glint in her eye.

But Lady Ribbonhat was working up to a state of perfect rage, which required that she remain stationary for a few moments whilst the fury spread itself through her veins, like sap through a leaf when the sun falls upon it. Once the process was complete, she went storming off in the opposite direction. As the dowager walked, her jowls trembled with passion, and her old-fashioned crinoline (a style affectation to which she stubbornly clung, whatever current fashion might dictate) bobbed in time with each angry step.

That thorn! That damned thorn, forever pricking her in the side! Something would have to be done about Arabella!

Deep in furious thought, Lady Ribbonhat went fuming round the corner, heedless of either her speed or direction, and collided headlong with the very thorn itself.

“God’s teeth, madam!” cried Arabella, who, as we know, was seething also. “Mind what you are about!”

The fault had been all the dowager’s, but she did not apologize, as it was not in her nature to own her mistakes. “How dare you, you . . . damned hedge whore!” she cried. “May your entrails be roasted like sausages in the flaming bowels of hell!”

The realization that her adversary was also caught in the throes of emotional turmoil, and therefore ripe for exploitation by a cooler head, broke upon Arabella like the dawn, and her own raging heart was soothed at once.

“I daresay they will be,” she said, smiling. “And I suppose that you will be the one to greet me and show me the way to the disemboweling salon upon my arrival there.”

“Not I!” cried the dowager.
“My
rightful place is in paradise!”

“Is it?” asked Arabella mildly. “That is somewhat problematical, then, for I should call anyplace without you in it heaven, Lady Ribbonhat. Therefore, if I am bound for hell, you must come there, too, and we are almost certain to run into one another. Don’t you see? If God intends to punish
me,
He will have to send us
both
to Hades. I can only suppose that I deserve to go there on account of my pride and evil temper. But you merit admission just as much.”

“Nonsense,” spluttered her adversary. “
I
don’t belong in hell!”

“Oh yes, you
do,
Lady Ribbonhat! Surely you realize that your selfish arrogance, bull-headed inflexibility, and, above all, your cruelty, are guaranteed to earn you a seat of honor at Satan’s right hand? You doubtless have other qualities also, just as disagreeable, which it has not been my privilege to discover. In the meanwhile, may I suggest we spend no more time in one another’s company than we can help?
Vita brevis
, Lady R.! Let us both enjoy life whilst we can. Especially you, who have so little of it left.”

At this, the dowager duchess actually tried to strike Arabella with her faux-ruby-and-genuine-topaz-headed-vermeil-plated-coronation-walking-stick-with-concealed-perfume-vial, and that adroit young woman, leaping back, barely avoided being smacked across the shins with it. Then, affecting complete disdain, the grand dame swept off with her nose in the air, whilst our heroine, lighter of heart than heretofore, continued to make her way toward her latest money pit—and the reason she so urgently required that forty-six thousand pounds.

 

If we are to understand why this typically cautious courtesan decided to purchase an hotel before she received her money from Costanze, we must hearken back to the previous winter, when, virtually housebound by bad weather since her return from Italy, Arabella had fairly burst from her house upon seeing the sun for the first time in a week and had directly taken herself off to milk a cow.

This was not as odd as it sounds, for there was a farmyard at Green Park, “got up special” for the benefit of urban dwellers with rustic yearnings. And
that,
reader, is every
bit
as odd as it sounds, for the gatekeeper was none other than Beau Brummell’s own aunt. The
haute ton
were welcome to stroll over, six days in the week, to see her brandishing a Bo Peep crook whilst tottering round the barnyard on pattens and trailing the hem of her crinoline-bolstered gown in the mud. Perhaps for this reason, the place was often referred to as an English Petit Trianon, and London’s high society loved it just as much as the Parisian aristocracy had once loved the original. Here, for little more than double what one might expect to pay elsewhere, the wealthy shopper could buy fresh roses and plums, as well as butter, duck eggs, and cream. If she were so inclined, she might even milk the beast herself, whilst enjoying bucolic views of a thatched cottage and a picturesque pond, complete with waterfowl. It was a neat little place, and people called it “a country idyll in the very heart of the city!” But they will generally say that of any open space in London where there is grass.

As the farm proved equally popular with exalted great ladies and notorious courtesans, the management had proclaimed alternate “doxie” and “dame” days, in order to avoid any impropriety. The two types were not permitted to mix socially. After all, many of them were sharing the same men, and you may imagine the disgraceful scenes
that
would have caused! On second thought, I pray that you will not imagine it, because that is precisely the sort of thing the owners of the farm are trying to avoid. The separation of good women from bad can be devilish tricky.

Fortunately, there is no parallel to be found in the world of men, for these creatures have extra bits, which, in addition to their natural purpose, function as universal passkeys to the sort of situations that women find socially inconvenient. The masculine sex might attend the farm any day in the week, regardless of the type of female company congregating in the cow byre. Hence, men did not attend the farm very often, because, for them, the place lacked the allure of exclusivity.

Fortunately for Arabella, that first sunny day was a Friday, one of the designated “doxie” days. There were only three cows, however, and many other would-be milkmaids ahead of her, so she passed the time in exchanging witty remarks with her fellow courtesans.

These ladies were naturally quite clever, because that is one of the requirements of the profession, and somewhere in the midst of it all, it suddenly dawned upon our heroine how much she missed the regular society of other women. Her domestic staff was composed of females, of course, and they were wonderfully loyal and supportive, but they shared few of Arabella’s interests. There was also Belinda, long accustomed to taking her lead from her older sister, and Constance, who was thick as a cow pat. It would be nice, Arabella thought, if she might mingle freely with women like herself; if there were someplace where demi-reps could gather without worrying what day of the week it was. Preferably some very pleasant indoor place that was permanently off-limits to respectable ladies, so that one should not have to worry about mud, weather, or having to clear out in order to make way for the socially unstained.

She dismissed the idea before fully considering it. But then, on her way home, Arabella had received an unmistakable sign—in this case, an
actual
sign—advertising a property for sale in St. James’s Place. Here was a chance not to be missed, for St. James’s Place is just off St. James’s Street, where gentlemen of wealth and renown have their social clubs. And what could be more practical than to open a courtesans’ club mere steps away from the clubs of the gentlemen who most admire courtesans?

Even thus was the seed of the Cyprian Society planted in Arabella’s imagination. And within a fortnight it had sprouted, blossomed, and borne fruit, when our heroine, possessed of a deed and a shiny brass key to the front door, had found herself the new owner of an old hotel.

That had been nearly six months ago. Now construction was well under way, and there was little for Arabella to do except pay the bills. The scope and grandeur of the plans were already in evidence: There was to be a picture gallery, a ballroom, a hall for concerts and lectures, several private meeting rooms, and a great restaurant, with space for a gift shop. Up on the skeletal stage of the club’s unfinished Bird o’ Paradise theater, Richard Brinsley Sheridan was already rehearsing his latest play, and the Great Sarah Siddons herself would be coming out of retirement to deliver the opening-night dedication. It was vital that the money to pay for all this be recovered, and sooner rather than later.

As Arabella turned off Piccadilly onto St. James’s Street, bucks and beaus of every description emerged from doorways, rushing out to the street to admire her. Because, as previously noted, this was club row, and the fashionable gentlemen who belonged to those clubs were a troop of roués on the rampage, a reprobate gang of rogering rogues. One of their establishments even had a sign in an upstairs window proclaiming to all and sundry that trespassers would be violated!