Another Scandal in Bohemia (2 page)

OSCAR WILDE
:
 
friend of Irene Adler; a literary wit and man of fashion about London

PRELUDE

How seldom
the dedicated editor celebrates a revised edition of a previous publication! More often the popular interest (or, more accurately, the utter lack of it) permits most products of scholarship to appear, wither, and die in rapid succession.

However, the encouraging public reception of my latest excerpts from the Penelope Huxleigh diaries and related materials, a two-volume set titled
Chapel Noir
and
Castle Rouge
, required updating earlier works from the same autobiographical source.

With some regret, I speculate that the sensational subject matter of the two latest volumes, (a hunt for Jack the Ripper across Europe following the Whitechapel atrocities in London during the autumn of 1888, a hunt involving the peripatetic sleuth Sherlock Holmes, among others) has led to revived interest in the earlier excerpts from Miss Huxleigh’s Victorian memoirs.

However, what editor can afford to quibble about the reasons for renewed popularity? This reissue has allowed me to tidy the timeline of the Huxleigh diaries—which has always been chaotic, for these dozens of volumes are all written in the convoluted spidery penmanship (and narrative style) of the late nineteenth century.

It has also occasioned a title change for this volume that more directly relates to "A Scandal in Bohemia,” the first Sherlock Holmes short story to see print, which introduced the subject of Miss Huxleigh’s diaries,
“the
woman” in Holmes’s universe ever after, Irene Adler. And it permits consistency in publication style as well, which is extremely satisfying to the academic soul.

(It may also be that the revised title,
Another Scandal in Bohemia,
will have more appeal to the reading public, the word “scandal” being as attractive to readers now as it was in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s day.)

Fiona Witherspoon, Ph.D., AIA*

Nov. 5, 2001

*Advocates of Irene Adler

Chapter One

G
IVE
H
ER
L
IBERTY OR
G
IVE
H
ER
D
EATH

Irene lifted
the cream parchment envelope on her joined, open palms like an offering to a pagan god.

“It has arrived!” she declared rapturously. “I have obtained at last one of my dearest ambitions.”

I tilted my head to better survey the missive. “No doubt another scandalous invitation from that Bernhardt woman.”

“Better!” she answered without hesitation.

I was not optimistic. In certain matters, Irene’s and my estimation of worthiness were worlds apart.

“But I am being selfish,” she admonished herself, glancing from the hypnotic envelope to the stitchery work dropped onto my lap. The cat, Lucifer, had already pawed my ball of thread to the ground and was proceeding to claw it into a snarl. “We must open the package, of course, first.”

The same post had also brought to our rural cottage at Neuilly, near Paris, a massive parcel wrapped in brown paper that now squatted on our parlor carpet. I had noticed the letter’s Paris postmark, but the parcel bore London markings. Given our recent adventures in that city, I was far more curious about its contents.

With great care, Irene laid the unopened envelope on the marble-topped occasional table, then rushed over to seize my small embroidery scissors. She cast herself at once onto the carpet to worry the parcel wrappings with a savagery as intense as Lucifer’s attacks on my hapless ball of thread.

“Irene!” I remonstrated. “You will dull my finest German embroidery scissors.”

“Oh.” She eyed their dainty, curved gold tips before casting them down. “No wonder they’re so ineffective!” She began tearing away great ragged swathes of wrapping paper with her bare fingers.

“What can have you in such a frenzy to unveil it?” I wondered aloud.

“Liberty silk! Our Liberty silk gowns have arrived.”

“Our?”

She threw me a quick glance. “Of course ‘our.’ You don’t imagine for a moment that I would indulge myself without ordering something for you.”

“But you refused my company to Liberty’s when we were in London. I remember most clearly. You said that I abhorred the fashion for aesthetic dress, and furthermore that we were incompatible shopping partners. You planned to order some gowns for yourself and a... gift for Sarah Bernhardt.”

“And so I did.” Irene frowned cheerfully as she struggled to untie lengths of string. “And two for you as well.”

“For me!?”

“Indeed.”

“I cannot see why, since I am such an unpleasant shopping companion.”

“Nell, don’t be such a goose. Of course I didn’t
mean
any of those things I said. At the time, I needed to discourage your company, since I planned to follow my visit to Liberty’s with activities that you could not know about.”

“Then you lied.”

“Exaggerated for good cause.”

“Lied.”

“Embroidered for effect.”

“Lied.”

“Evaded for your own good.”

“I can consult my diaries for your exact words.”

“Oh, a pox on your diaries!”

“At times you find them useful,” I pointed out.

Irene sat back upon her heels, no very fine way to treat a pleated silk morning costume. Huge leaves of brown paper surrounded her like jungle foliage, and made her resemble an elegant fashion doll abandoned among the fish-and-chip wrappings.

“A small deception,” she conceded at last, “necessary for the greater good.”

“The ‘greater good’ being that you and Quentin deceived me so that you could have a personal look at the lodgings of that dreadful detective.”

“Quentin had no choice, since I insisted, and I only deceived you because you might have given away the game. Whatever you may think of Sherlock Holmes, I should not like to be caught by him in a deception.”

“I am not so sure that you
did
deceive him.”

“What?”

I shrugged and contested Lucifer for my poor mangled ball of thread. “Mr. Holmes, however odious, is clever enough to have
appeared
to accept you in the ludicrous role of Quentin’s aged mama. It was not one of your more likely impersonations.”

“Ah. So acting criticism is the thanks I get for rushing to Liberty’s to purchase gowns for my friends when I had weightier matters on my mind.”

Despite myself, my severe expression lapsed into a smile. “Only think how critical the Divine Sarah would have been had she witnessed the scene instead of me.”

That thought gave Irene pause; the Divine One tolerated no rivals in her art. Finally Irene smiled in turn and flourished the cover free of the box. “At least no poisonous serpents inhabit this case, only silks. Do stop pouting and come see!”

Of course I was too curious to hold back any longer, especially when a riot of rich colors foamed over the carton’s edge. I joined Irene’s undignified seat on the carpeting as she rooted among pale tissues, throwing them hither and yon to the great entertainment of Lucifer.

The huge black Persian cat pounced with serial crackling sounds, while, from his cage, the parrot Casanova urged the cat on with hoarse cries of
“Avanti! Avanti! ”

I was distressed by the bird’s apparent ease in yet another language, Italian—no doubt due to Irene’s operatic origins—but forewent responding with my one Italian word, “
Basta!”
Enough.

Lengths of patterned silk spilled over the cardboard rim, a shimmering, exotic, rainbow river on which a Marco Polo might have sailed to China.

“Here. This one is yours, Nell. The Wedgwood blue and ivory.”

“How could you order for others? The size—”

“Size does not matter in this uncorseted, loose-flowing style. You must think of these as draperies.”

Indeed, when I had untangled the roil of color and sheen that Irene had called mine, I held a high-waisted gown of a celestial shade of blue. A darker blue silk over-gown was also high-waisted, with huge cuffs and collar of ivory and blue brocade in sinuous pattern.

“This is a... nightgown,” I murmured, pressing the voluminous, soft folds to my well-corseted bodice. “Not for public wear.”

“But that is the point: the more public the better. No more whale-ribbed corsets, simply the soft fall of fabric. And the hair must be styled more loosely as well.” Irene eyed me critically. “Perhaps half-down.”

“I have not worn my hair down since a girl of sixteen!” I protested.

“
Hmm
,” Irene agreed with absent disapproval. She continued drawing lengths of silk from the box, a magician concentrating on an endless illusion.

I could not see how these untucked, unstitched, unberibboned lengths could pass as afternoon gowns, but Irene was untroubled by their unconstructed grace.

“Green for Sarah, naturally, given that incendiary hair of hers, with touches of imperial purple and red. Gold and crimson for me, and the silver and black. How do you like your blue?”

“Very... discreet.” I eyed the clashing colors that bedecked the other gowns. “I suppose that items Moorish and Saracen are in fashion these days, though I shall likely never wear mine.”

“Oh, everything from the exotic East is most á la mode nowadays,” Irene assured me, adding, “as are personages from the same quarter.” A wicked gleam warmed her tiger-brown eyes.

I knew precisely to whom she referred and blanched to think of Quentin Stanhope seeing me in such unconventional garb, even as I wondered if my wearing it might surprise, or intrigue, him. I found my fingers clutching the smooth silk as if it were a blanket and I was cold.

“What is this?” came Godfrey’s liquid baritone from the threshold. “Have you two curiosity-seekers discovered a body in a box? Or rather, a missing person represented only by yards of silk? Some sybaritic mummy, perhaps, Irene, that you have unwound to nothingness?”

“Darling!” she cried, springing up to greet him, her arms full of Liberty silk gowns. Godfrey was used to saluting her over such fashionable barriers, and managed to brush her cheek with his lips. “You are just in time for a celebration,” Irene went on. “Do pour something amusing before I open the letter that arrived today.”

Godfrey had divested himself of stick and top hat in the hall, but he still looked very much the British gentleman abroad in his black frock coat and pin-stripped gray trousers as he crossed the threshold into our furbelow-occupied lair. He edged around the paper-trouncing Lucifer to the wine decanter.

“Liberty silks,” I explained.

He nodded cautiously, as incurious as only men can be about the mysteries of female fripperies. "Most colorful and... prolific. Will sherry do?” he asked Irene.

“Whatever,” she said, draping her booty over the bergère and reverently lifting the envelope from the tabletop. “I have been awaiting this for... months.”

Godfrey brought me a dainty-stemmed glass of Vichy water, which I accepted the better to quiet my thoughts of Quentin and the cruel manner of our parting only weeks before, when I thought him dead from a fatal plunge into the Thames in the murderous grasp of the villainous Colonel Moran. Oddly, I found the thought that Quentin might still live even more disquieting.

Godfrey handed Irene her glass, and gently abstracted the precious envelope from her other hand before she could object, just as she was about to tear it open.

He stepped into the hall, leaving her open-mouthed, and returned a moment later bearing the console table’s gilt letter-opener with the dolphin’s head handle.

“If you have been waiting that long,” he said, slitting the creamy parchment, “you can wait a bit longer to open it neatly.”

Reproved, Irene demurely sipped her sherry, then handed him the glass in exchange for the envelope. Her husband’s calming presence had quieted her immoderate spirits, for she drew the folded paper from its sheath as delicately as a wine steward decanting a rare vintage.

I held my breath. Irene adored dramatic moments, but she also had a genius for attracting to herself the outré, the deadly, and the puzzling. Perhaps the missive held some news of Quentin’s survival, his whereabouts.... It would be like Irene to inquire into the matter privately, and surprise me—us—with the results.

Her face was study in perfect beauty poised upon the brink of expression as her eyes darted back and forth to read, or, rather, consume in quick visual gulps, the contents of the page. Joy dawned on that still perfection, and flooded it with bright relief.

“As I thought,” she announced. “My carefully laid plans have come to fruition. My dears”—her triumphant eyes sparkled in each of our directions in turn, indeed, encompassed even cat and parrot, both of whom grew eerily quiet—“I have an appointment on twelve September on the rue de la Paix with the maestro himself.”