Death and the Cyprian Society Read online

  She fell back against the carriage upholstery, like a puppet from which the animator has withdrawn his hand.

  “I see,” said Belinda. “And how are you now? All right?”

  “Somewhat faint,” Arabella replied. “But I shall be better presently.” She drank off her liquid restorative, right down to the bottom of the glass. “Poor Bunny,” she observed. “It must be so difficult for you, having to live with an artistic temperament!”

  “No, not really. I’m told I am rather good-natured.”

  “No, you goose! I was referring to me! I get these inspirations from French fare, you know—there is a type of small biscuit which affects me in a similar manner—and sometimes I am quite swept away!”

  “If only you would be!” Belinda grumbled. How was it, she wondered, that despite her own creative inventions—her billy-boxes and dish gardens, her crocheted dog outfits and the Birdwood-Fizzer commission—that Arabella always got to be “the artistic one”? Thereafter, Belinda maintained an implacable silence for some minutes, and her older sister assumed she was sulking.

  Arabella was wrong, though. For over a week, Belinda had been searching for a way to acquaint her sibling with a shocking piece of news, but the proper occasion had not as yet presented itself. First there was all the flurry over the club construction, and then this terrible financial setback had arisen. But time was growing short, and Arabella simply had to be told before the sisters parted company. Otherwise she would hear it from some other source, and accuse Bunny of deliberate duplicity.

  “Well,” said Belinda at last, “as distressing as the situation is, in a way it is good this has happened. Mysteries are the very thing to keep your mind off missing me. And you’re always so clever at solving them!”

  “Twice,” Arabella replied, replacing the decanter in its basket. “I have been presented with two mysteries to date, and have succeeded in solving them twice. With, I might add, massive amounts of assistance from other people.”

  “Right,” Belinda said. “Like Reverend Kendrick.”

  Arabella did not respond at once, as she had begun to study the blackmailer’s letter once again.

  “I’ll own that the rector has proven not unhelpful,” she said slowly.

  “Well, it’s odd that you should mention Mr. Kendrick,” said Belinda, “for I have recently had a letter from him.” There! It was out, at last!

  “Hum!” said Arabella. “If he is seeking a donation for his Effing parish church, I am afraid he will have to wait at the end of the queue, behind all the creditors who will shortly be gathering outside my door.”

  “No,” said Belinda. “This is something different. I am afraid . . . that is, I am sorry to tell you, that the Reverend Kendrick is . . . no longer with us.”

  “Do you know, Bunny, between you and Constance, I sometimes think I shall go mad? Constance always tells more than she means to, whereas you seldom come to the point without prodding! What, exactly, are you trying to say?”

  “Only that you should bid Mr. Kendrick adieu in whatever organ passes for your heart,” replied her sister grimly, “for he is gone.”

  “But, you had a letter from him, you said.”

  Belinda nodded. “Once he had made up his mind to leave this world for another, he thoughtfully found the time to write me before he . . . before he departed. I have been looking all this week for a way to break it to you.”

  “Break what? If Kendrick had the time to write, why didn’t he write to me?”

  “His heart was too full, he said.”

  Arabella snorted. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “I think you know what it means,” said Belinda, glaring at her, rather.

  “Well . . . what did he want you to tell me?”

  “That he has accepted a mission to . . . I don’t remember exactly. Pago Pago? Bora Bora? Some place like that, with a double name.”

  “Nonsense!” said Arabella. And reaching for the carriage vase, she plucked an apple blossom. “When is he leaving?” she asked, beginning to pull the petals off.

  “But I have just been telling you!” cried Belinda. “He has already gone!”

  “He . . . what?” The rest of the flower fell from Arabella’s hand. “He has gone? And you don’t know where? Think, Bunny, think!”

  Belinda bit her cuticle. “Well, it definitely wasn’t Baden-Baden,” she said. “It might have been Dum Dum. . . . Or was it Budge Budge? No, I don’t think so. Wagga Wagga, perhaps. Ngorongoro? Possibly Sing Sing?”

  “Oh, stop,” groaned Arabella, “before I Puka-Puka!”

  “That’s the one!” cried Belinda.

  “The Disappointment Islands? But we don’t even own those!”

  “Well, I don’t know the first thing about it! Mr. Kendrick did not supply particulars. He just said he was going there, and asked me to inform you of it.”

  “Silly man!” said Arabella half-angrily. “What did he want to go and do a thing like that for? It was rude of him not to inform me that he was contemplating such a rash act! I shall not even write to him!”

  “Well, just as you like,” said Belinda. “He has left a parcel for you at the rectory, though.”

  “A parcel?”

  “Yes. But he asked me to make it clear that you are under no obligation to collect it. He only left it in case you should be interested.”

  “Did he say what it was?”

  “No.”

  “Then how could I know whether I would be interested? I cannot imagine why he . . . no. No, I am not interested! Reverend Kendrick could not possibly have left me anything I could actually want!”

  “I see,” said Belinda, firmly. “It is all for the best, then, isn’t it? This affords the perfect opportunity to sever that irksome tie for good.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that it must have been troubling your conscience, the way Mr. Kendrick always cared so deeply for you, whilst you never gave a fig for him.”

  The fig grudger mulled this over. But Arabella could never be happy until she’d had the last word.

  “Quite,” she said finally. “I was on the point of making that very observation!”

  And oddly enough, she still was not happy.

  Chapter 4

  The sisters slept but fitfully that night, despite the deep comfort of their bed at the Cocks. At their final parting the next morning, Arabella had a sudden presentiment, but she kept quiet about it, and upbraided herself all the way home for being so daft. Of course Bunny would be all right! She would be fine!

  And in a few days, Arabella’s stern self-discipline was rewarded with a letter.

  Dear Bell,

  Cara and I are safely arrived. Mr. Gentry kept me entertained with wonderful stories for the whole of the journey, so that I scarcely noticed the time passing. Did you know that the Gentrys claim direct descent from Lady Godiva’s husband, Leofric? Mr. Gentry says that all the while Godiva was riding through the streets wearing nothing but her own skin and hair, her infamous husband was pleasuring one of the servants, upon whom he begat Mr. Gentry’s many-times great-grandfather. In fact, that was the reason Leofric made his wife take her naked ride in the first place: He wanted her out of the way, as she appears to have been of the same disposition as Mrs. Pepys, and used to watch her husband “like a hawk that has nothing else to do but watch, and is concentrating.” (That is a quote from Mr. Gentry, not from Pepys.)

  Speaking of hawks, Sir Birdwood-Fizzer keeps a number of trained ones, and has promised to get up a hunting party for his guests next week. I am glad, for though I do not approve of blood sports, and plan to remain in the house, it will be a relief to be quit of Sir Birdwood’s guests, who are very queer indeed!

  My work here proceeds apace. I have not yet made up my mind whether to stay indoors and devote myself to the model today, or to take Cara for a walk in the park. Actually, if I take Cara, I shall wind up alone, for she runs right away as soon as I let her off the lead, returning hours later, all mu
ddy, with her pads torn and bleeding. I think I shall go out, though. It is so quiet here in the highlands, and so very beautiful. I have been told that I must not wander the woods alone, but no one will tell me why I mustn’t.

  How does your mystery progress? Have you found out the blackmailer’s identity? You know, you might ask the Cyprian Society for assistance with your sleuthing. I am certain that your sister courtesans would be delighted to help you, and they all seem so clever! I shall be extremely sorry to miss the first officers’ meeting at the new club, but perhaps I shall dream about it.

  Ever your

  Bunny

  As a matter of fact, the first CS meeting could not be held at the club, owing to the construction chaos which reigned there. Moreover, the noise served as a reminder that the fellows responsible for making it had not yet been paid, so Arabella decided to hold the initial conclave at Lustings.

  Here, the Cyprians might loll about on her comfy chairs as much as they liked, laughing aloud, saying rude things, stretching out their legs, and even shouting or talking with their mouths full if they liked, for courtesans are inclined to be more informal in one another’s company than proper ladies are. Of course, they might have done all these things at the club, too, but there is something about grand architecture, with its lofty ceilings, which acts as a natural damper on relaxed social behavior. Besides, here at Lustings there were only three of them.

  The secretary, Feben Desta, was an enchanting creature of Abyssinian parentage and exquisite deportment. She was famous for her sumptuous parties and was always exquisitely turned out. The netela Feben wore today—a kind of Abyssinian shawl—was of finest voile, edged with a ribbon of shining silver and cobalt-blue embroidery. Though she often dressed in African garb, and loved regency turbans, nothing Feben wore ever looked like itself. To English Empire fashions she added such foreign touches as cowry shells and iridescent beetles’ wings, whilst her African robes frequently sounded such non-African notes as sable collars, or gold sailor buttons. On most people, such fanciful details would have seemed outlandish, but on Feben they always looked stunning.

  “I was blessed, at my christening, by my fairy godmother,” she explained, “who gave me the gift of good taste.”

  Feben not only dressed in a variety of different ways, but also spoke and acted according to her mood. She could easily slip from the beautifully modulated Abyssinian accent of her parents to vulgar London street vernacular, veering from delicate to crude in the blink of an eye. These quicksilver changes unnerved some of her friends, and she was frequently asked why she found it necessary to affect so many different disguises.

  “They are not disguises,” Feben explained. “They are panguises. None of us is really a single entity; every individual is a thousand different people. A mob can overthrow a king, repulse an invasion, or celebrate a holiday with universal abandon. Human beings may act as one, because we are one; we are all of us interchangeable with everybody else. So why do we limit ourselves to the same look, the same personality, day after day? If I dress like an aristocrat, it is because I am an aristocrat. When I talk like a fishwife, nothing could be more natural, for that is what I am. The truly strange thing for a human being, the real disguise, would be to suddenly start behaving like a canary, or a tomato worm.”

  There was something about Feben that implied that she dwelt on a higher plane than you did, in a place where the standards were much stricter than you could possibly imagine or live up to, and Arabella found her slightly intimidating. At finishing school, Feben had been elected the girl most likely to marry an ambassador.

  The treasurer, on the other hand, was a loafer and a sloucher, who, in repose, liked to prop her feet up on tables. But once Amy Golder-Green came out of doors, she was grace personified. Amy was an all-round athlete, who, with her lion’s mane of golden hair, rather put one in mind of the goddess Diana, except for the chastity part. Amy preferred to dress like a man, but could never be mistaken for one. In any event, it scarcely mattered, for this in no way diminished her attraction for the opposite sex. In some cases, it even enhanced it.

  “I would like to propose Lady Caroline Lamb for membership,” said Amy, resting one tasseled Hessian boot on the opposite buckskinned knee.

  “She isn’t a courtesan,” Arabella replied.

  “Well, not technically, perhaps, but she certainly behaves like one of us. So, what shall it be, ladies? Yea or nay?”

  “Oh, I don’t think so,” said Arabella. “She shares our glamour, but incurs none of our risks or disadvantages. Besides, the woman is tediously unstable. If we admit her, we shall be obliged to spend all our time in trying to soothe her frequent bouts of hysteria.”

  “Why not put it to a vote?” asked Feben diplomatically.

  “Why should we?” countered Arabella. “This is a courtesans’ club, and she is not a courtesan. Let us proceed to the next item.”

  Arabella was the CS president. No surprises there. But the secretary and treasurer glanced at one another sidelong: If she persisted with this high-handed, dictatorial attitude, the club was destined for failure. Arabella may have been queen of her own establishment, but she needed to realize that the other members were also monarchs in their own right.

  “I have here,” said the president, unrolling a print-sized version of her Birds of Paradise etching, “my design for the Cyprian Society’s calling cards. Subject to your approval, each of our members will initially receive a packet of three hundred.”

  The officers inspected and approved the design, but voted two to one against Arabella’s motto, which Feben felt was too obscure. Instead, the secretary proposed Ut nos simus (“We are as we are”) and when she and Amy both elected to use it, Arabella gave in with good grace.

  “That concludes today’s agenda,” she said, smiling. “And now I beg your indulgence upon an unofficial matter. If either of you read Bell’s Weekly Messenger—(ahem!) whose title in no way implies that it is all about me, though it does, on occasion, print articles about my life—you know that I occasionally dabble in what, for want of a better term, I shall call ‘mysterious adventures.’ ”

  “Right you are!” Amy enthused. “It sounds ever so much fun!”

  “Though, of course, not everyone could do it,” said Feben. “I think one must have an inborn talent for detection, as Arabella does.”

  “Nonsense,” replied Arabella modestly. “It is a skill, like any other. I scarcely know what I am doing most of the time. But the fact is, I am working on a sort of case just now, and am curious as to whether you think anyone at the club should like to assist me with it.”

  Feben’s eyes sparkled with pleasure. “Speaking for myself, I should love to!”

  “Huzzah!” shouted Amy, leaping up from the sopha and tossing her beaver hat into the air. “A detectives’ club!”

  “Oh, no! Hardly that!” cried Arabella. “I merely wondered whether I might ask occasionally for your assistance, and whether . . .” She was interrupted by the sound of a carriage pulling into the drive. “Goodness!” she cried. “That will be my niece, Edwardina. But I was not expecting her till tomorrow!”

  “Perhaps it is somebody else, then,” said Amy.

  “No. It is Eddie and her stepfather. I would stake my life upon it.”

  Fielding settled the matter by putting her head through the doorway and saying, “Mr. Dysart has arrived with Miss Edwardina, miss.”

  Arabella’s fellow officers were thrilled.

  “How did you know who it was?” asked Feben.

  “Because carriages go round to the porte cochere, as a rule,” Arabella replied. “Edwardina, being an invalid, must be brought as close to the front door as possible.”

  Feben nodded at Amy as if to say, There! That is the mark of a great detective! Then they arose, for they were tactful, and understood that their hostess needed to attend to her family matters.

  “It’s really quite wonderful,” said Amy, picking up her hat again and wiping its crown with a circu
lar motion of her forearm, like a gentleman would, “how keenly perceptive you are, Arabella!”

  She placed the hat upon her head and rapped the crown smartly, to affix it more securely about her ears.

  “I thank you,” said the hostess, “but there’s really no secret to it, you know. In fact, it’s quite elementary.”

  She was all aglow from their compliments as she escorted her sister Cyprians to a side door. It was awfully good to have other women about, even though they would probably tear her character to pieces once they were out of earshot. After all, one can always ignore what one does not hear. Then she returned to welcome Constable Dysart as he came through the front door, hatless and distracted, with the fragile Edwardina in his arms.

  “Hello, Frank,” said Arabella. “Come this way, if you please.” She preceded him up the spiral stairwell, along the passage, and into the bedroom next her own. “You’ll have lots of sunshine in this room, Eddie,” she said, pulling back the bedcovers, “and a lovely view of the garden. The spires of the city are just visible beyond the trees.”

  The child slumped weakly against her stepfather’s chest, as though there were no bones to her body.

  “Thank you, Aunt Bell,” she whispered. “I am ever so grateful that you have let me come!”

  As Frank tucked her in, Eddie’s head fell back against the pillow and she was instantly asleep.

  “I’m afraid the journey has exhausted her,” said Dysart. “Poor little poppet.”

  “Well, she needs quiet, fresh air, and gentle amusements, I expect,” said Arabella. “She’ll get plenty of those things with me. Feel free to visit whenever you like, Frank, and tell Sarah Jane, when she returns, that she is welcome, also.”

  Frank shifted his gaze to the wall. “Eddie’s mother is gone to Canada,” he said.

  “To Canada? Surely she needn’t have gone as far away as that!”

  Frank persisted in not looking at her.