Death Among the Ruins (26 page)

“That would be me, sir,” he said quickly. “Have I your permission to go out to him? And shall I escort the duke out as well? His Grace seems to be having some difficulty in locating the door.”

Clarence was indeed reeling about, and bumping his head repeatedly against the wall. There was a very real danger of his knocking over one or more of the pedestals and thereby smashing a number of irreplaceable objects.

“By all means,” muttered the regent. “Get him out of here.”

Elliot tucked a hand beneath the duke’s elbow and steered him toward the exit. As they passed Arabella, Elliot murmured, “You’re on your own, now,” for he had seen the regent looking at her in a particular way.

Here, the reader might think, Well, Arabella is a courtesan, after all! This is what she
does.
Yes, but courtesans also have feelings. And the feelings she entertained toward the regent were not cordial. Besides, she held to the tenet that no matter how low her
fortunes
might sink, she would never lower
herself
. Degradation of that sort would destroy all the pleasure Arabella had ever taken in her profession, and she would have to give it up to become a laundress or something. Should my gentleman readers fail to grasp this perspective, I must ask that they simply take it on faith. The ladies, I know, will readily comprehend it.

Given the choice between having it off with the regent and obtaining her bronze—if she thought she could get him to give it her, in other words—Arabella would have found herself in an agonizing quandary. But the problem facing her now was simply how to get out of the treasure cave without yielding up her person, and without insulting the temptingly insultable ruler of the realm.

“Thank you, Your Majesty, for allowing me to see this,” she said, turning from the statue. “I shall never forget it as long as I live.”

She put her mask back on and made for the door. He followed her, smiling.

“’Tis a lewd, crude cave of wonders, madam, is it not?”

“Yes, indeed! But what a shame that it all has to be kept locked away like this! The whole world should see it!”

“I beg to differ, madam. The subject material is far too shocking to be put on display to . . . just
anybody
.”

They were nearly out of the room now.

“That is what I meant,” said Arabella sadly. “It’s a shame that it is so, is it not?” And she stepped lightly over the threshold, into the corridor and out of danger, whilst the regent was still forming his response.

“I can’t agree with you there,” he said. “If salacious imagery were socially acceptable, it wouldn’t be any fun.”

He followed her past the gaming tables, where, as luck would have it, Charles was just sitting down to another game.

“Arabella!” he called to her. “I say, I’m a bit short of ready. Lots of coves in here owe me money, though. Would you lend me a fiver? Just till tomorrow?”

She scowled, shaking her head, and wouldn’t the odious Osvaldo just
have
to pick that moment to intercede?

“Here, Beaumont; I’ll stand you to a twenty, if you like. Miss Beaumont, I still have not discovered the whereabouts of your sister!”

The two names she had just been called buzzed around the regent’s bleary brain like a pair of randy wasps: Beaumont . . . Arabella . . . Arabella . . . Beaumont.

One of the chief perils of this prince was that with his legendary pride and selfishness, his childish outbursts of weeping when things failed to go his way, his ruinously expensive bad taste and his drunken default state, there was a tendency to think him stupid. Because intelligent persons do not generally behave in this fashion. But what people often failed to realize was that all this self-absorbed, self-indulgent behavior was mere padding for an icy core, consisting of an essentially suspicious nature, a steely refusal to be taken advantage of, and the determination to be revenged upon his enemies. Even at his most soused, the regent was able to retain a watchful cunning that, as Mrs. Janks liked to put it, “would do a viper proud.”

Now the two names by which his charming companion had been addressed continued to buzz: Miss Beaumont . . . Arabella . . . Miss Arabella Beaumont. He had it, at last. And then he turned toward her a look of sneering contempt.

“ ’Tis a pity,” he said in a voice that belied this sentiment. “I daresay I would not have slept with you, madam; no self-respecting man wants to go where dogs have been.” He looked meaningfully at Charles, who had the decency to blush. “But we might at least have been friends, had you not insulted me so coarsely in the street last year.”

From across the room, Cecil Elliot divined that something unpleasant was afoot, and unobtrusively rejoined them.

“Remove your mask!” snarled the regent. For truth to tell, though he’d connected Arabella with the shouted insult, he felt there was something more. If he could just . . . get his mind to focus.

She took it off.

“Oh, yes.” It was all coming back to him now. “The murderess. Had a clever lawyer get you off. In more ways than one, I’ll be bound!”

Arabella curtseyed. “Actually, they found the real murderer, Your Majesty.”

“Ha! Some poor blighter unable to prove where he was on the night in question.”

“Well, he actually confessed.”

“People will say anything under torture. Guards, throw her out.”

“Sir!” called Charles, who for a wonder was not in his cups. “Might I ask you to join me in a game of whist? I thought perhaps we could play for your entire Roman antiquities collection.”

Quite on the spur of the moment, Charles had seen his chance to do something helpful for somebody else, and so relive the agreeable feeling of being adored and appreciated.

The regent turned to Elliot. “Who is this dog?” For although he’d been able to identify Charles with the incest scandal a moment ago, Prinny had already forgotten who he was, or wished it to appear that way for reasons of his own.

“Charles Beaumont, Majesty,” Elliot replied, and then whispered in the royal ear: “Addicted to gaming. Always loses.”

His information was woefully out of date for once.

“Does the fellow have anything worth staking, then?”

“No, sire, but his sister does.”

The palace guard arrived, to usher Arabella out and away.

“Wait,” said Prinny. “On second thought, leave her here a moment.... Madam, your brother wishes to play for high stakes, indeed. But he has no collateral, it seems, and I believe that you do.”

It took Arabella a few moments to find her voice, astonished as she was by her brother’s sudden and highly uncharacteristic act of selflessness. Nor did she stop to consider that Charles, now, had plenty of his own money to put up if he chose. But it is quite possible, reader, that the regent would still have insisted on shifting the risk to Arabella. In fact, I am almost certain that he would have.

“Ask what you will of me, sir,” she said.

“Very well; you have a handsome barouche, with six magnificent horses. I’ll have those, before witnesses. Also . . . your pretty little manor house, which I shall have gutted and re-fitted. And . . . if Beaumont loses, he is banished for life.”

At last, Arabella found that she had reached the limit of what she was willing to sacrifice for the statue. She did not want to risk losing her home, even though it meant not having to see Charles again for a very long time. But to back out would be poor showmanship. Besides, she had not been given the opportunity to do so.

“Get her out of here, Elliot. And, madam, if you dare to gate crash one of my parties again, or to so much as set foot in this house, I shall have you disposed of. Quietly, efficiently, and permanently.”

This was the closest Arabella had yet come to getting her bronze. She might actually achieve it at last. But it went deeply against the grain to meekly allow someone to insult her and to offer no reply.

“You need have no worries on
that
account!”

“Oh, I’m not worried. I’m the king, or as good as. You’re a whore.”

“ . . . Or as good as,” she replied as she was being led away, “and what I was going to say before you interrupted me, was that your house is the ugliest, most ostentatious monument to bad taste as ever was seen, and the sooner it is torn down the better!”

 

As they proceeded to Lustings in the hired carriage, Arabella thanked Elliot a thousand times for his intercession and assistance.

“Am I forgiven, then?”

“Oh, no! I am still angry about your shipboard behavior. But as I promised to give you a full hearing, you shall have a chance to exonerate yourself.”

“Well, you see—”

“Not here. Wait until we reach Lustings, and are comfortable before a fire, with liquid encouragement close at hand.”

The hour was late, or rather, early, and the servants were all fast asleep. It would have been most cruel to rouse anyone to build a fire at that hour. But such a dank chill permeated the downstairs apartments that there could be no question of holding a tête-à-tête there. So Arabella took Elliot up to her room, where Doyle, she knew, had lit a fire before retiring. The embers still glowed faintly in the grate, and the room was still warm.

“I hope you do not mind the informality,” said Arabella, pouring out two generous glasses of brandy. “But this really is the most comfortable place in the house at the moment, and we shan’t be disturbed here.”

They sat before the embers, in Arabella’s blue and gold armchairs, and Mr. Elliot told her the circumstances under which he had been obliged to leave her so suddenly. Originally, he had been bound for Naples as the Herculaneum collection’s London escort. One attempt to steal it having been made already, it was Elliot’s job to ensure that the valuable gift arrived safely at its intended destination.

“But I made rather a late start. The regent had a thousand little things that wanted doing, and I, apparently, was the only one who could do them to his satisfaction.”

Elliot’s face, turned toward Arabella, looked sculpted and beautifully noble in the pale light of early morning. His nose, particularly. “If you recall, Miss Beaumont, I was forever on deck, searching the sea with my spyglass.”

“Yes; I had supposed you to be indulging an idle curiosity.”

“That is what I wanted you to think. But I was looking for the
Sea Lion,
which carried the treasure, and I spotted her leaving at last, just as we were on the point of arriving. Apparently, she had made a late start, as well. So I had the captain signal the other ship, got my things together, and made my good-byes to you . . . I had to lie about who had signaled whom, for you’d have demanded an explanation had I told the truth, and the explanation at that time was not mine to give. Besides,” he added with a wicked smile, “I knew that you were chasing the statue, and naturally I would not want to assist a competitor!”

“But how did you know I wanted the statue? I never told you so!”

“No; Charles did. But do not be vexed with me, Miss Beaumont; I found you so charming that I took precautions to secure your safety, in order to ensure your safe return, and have the chance of meeting up with you again.”

“What do you mean?”

“I let it be known in certain circles that you were the regent’s mistress.”

The outer door creaked, faintly, and they both jumped as it began slowly to open. After a moment, a cat appeared, purring its approval at finding a bit of a fire and two warm and waiting laps.

“What a handsome animal,” said Elliot, scratching Rooney behind the ears. “I must confess myself very partial to cats.”

Arabella had known about the feline’s continued tenancy from Mrs. Janks’s letters, and was somewhat favorably disposed toward him, due to his reported interactions with Lady Ribbonhat. But she had informed the staff in no uncertain terms that the animal was to remain belowstairs at all times. Hence, she was on the point of throwing Rooney back out into the passage when she was checked by Elliot’s words. Nor did she display any negative reaction when the cat sprang onto her lap and made itself at home there.

“I wish you could see what I am seeing,” said Elliot with a smile. “‘Cat and Courtesan, by Firelight.’ The color of his fur complements your own hair most wonderfully! Is that why you got him?”

“No,” said Arabella truthfully. “No. It was a complete coincidence.”

The cock crowed from the top of the henhouse, and Elliot stood up, setting his glass on the mantel.

“Thank you for hearing me out, Miss Beaumont. I hope I am forgiven now?”

“Of course,” she replied, rising, too, and placing her hands in his. “And as for the gallant services you performed on my behalf tonight, or, I should say, last night, I shall be forever in your debt.”

“Is that so?” he asked, pulling her hands to his breast, so that the rest of her body was obliged to come, too. “An agreeable arrangement, indeed! This is one debt which I shall be most peremptory about collecting!”

She tilted her head slightly, so that Elliot could more easily reach her mouth and throat, and he inclined forward; was on the point of kissing her, in fact, when he evidently thought better of it and drew back.

“No,” he said. “Not now. Not until I have more time to spend with you. The regent is expecting my return, and as we know, he is a most exacting prince.”

“Do not you mean ‘exasperating’?” grumbled Arabella.

“Yes. That, too.”

 

 

T
here seemed little point now in going to bed, so Arabella changed her clothes and went downstairs, where she found Charles in the breakfast room, drinking brandy.

“You’re up early,” she observed.

“I haven’t been to sleep.”

“Where is my statue?”

Charles ran his fingers repeatedly through his hair, a habit with him when he was distraught, and she noticed how red his eyes were.

“Don’t tell me you failed to win it!”

“Oh, I won it, all right! I won the whole bloody lot . . .”

“Thank goodness!”

“ . . . In the
first
game. By the fifth, I had lost everything! Don’t nag me; I am quite wretched enough!”

The long and short of it was, after losing everything, Charles had been expelled from Carlton House. His name had been struck from the guest list forever, and no less a personage than the regent’s own social secretary had warned him against ever attempting to return.

“I don’t mind
that
so much,” said Charles, “for I was never in my life invited to a more hideous building! What I
do
mind is losing my knack! I failed to win so much as a farthing after that first game! All my Italian winnings! Everything I have won since coming home! Gone! Finished! I shall never win again! And it’s all your fault!”

“
My
fault?”

“Fortuna only works for the benefit of her owner. When I gambled for someone else I broke the charm.”

“How do you know that?”

“Stands to reason: I’d never placed a bet for anyone else before. Then I did, and my luck evaporated! Do you see? It’s because I did you a favor, Bell! I shall never do anybody a favor again, so long as I live!”

Belinda’s fan lay on the floor where she had dropped it on coming in the previous evening. Arabella picked it up and began fanning herself, furiously, as she paced about the room.

“I have lost my house,” she said to herself. “Lustings. I have lost Lustings.” It was not registering, so she tried the next thing down. “My wonderful parchment ponies!” That she could comprehend. “A sad loss, indeed! Also a carriage. The regent did not specify
which
carriage, so I shall give him the least of those.”

“He did, actually,” said Charles.

“What?”

“The regent. He said he wanted the barouche.”

“Oh, damn, damn! Well, he banished you for life, anyway, and that is some comfort. Of course, you will be free to come back after the regent dies, and his present mode of living certainly augurs well for an early death. But I imagine I shall be free of you for at least another ten years.”

“Bell . . .”

“Don’t grumble, Toby; I can dispatch boxes of English comestibles to Marggrabowa, or wherever you will be staying, in the meantime, but perhaps you will not require it. Prussian food is reputed to be as bad as our own.”

“If you will let me get a word in? Banishment was a condition pertaining to the first game only. And, as I said, I
won
that one.”

“What? My one consolation is denied me, then? Bugger! To think that you should have lost everything
but
your right to remain in this country! It is
too
unfair!”

“Yes. Everything but that,
and
your blasted property!”

“What?”

“
I
am the one who suffers injustice from the fates, not you! You get everything you want, and I am left to make my way through life without Fortuna’s blessing!”

“What are you saying, Charles?”

“Oh! So now it’s ‘Charles,’ is it? Aye, you’ll keep your house and your horses, and have your statue, too! Not to mention the rest of the bloody regent’s bloody toss-off toys! They’ll be delivered sometime this bloody afternoon.”

“But . . . how... ?”

“Kendrick made me keep those things back after the first game. For all subsequent games, I had to put up my own collateral, and withdraw yours.”

“Kendrick? Was
he
there?”

“What are you playing at?” growled Charles, pouring another drink. “You were talking to him!”

“But I never saw him, I tell you!”

“Arabella.
I
saw him bringing you punch!”

She blinked. “Do you mean,
he
was the rajah?”

“How could you not have known him?” Charles’s mouth twisted in a sour grin. “But there, I am not surprised. You never have known him, have you?”

She simply gaped, for once at a loss.

“Kendrick had an invitation, too. Otherwise he would not have been there to look after your interests, because
you
never thought to invite him. I wish that he had not attended,” said Charles, crossing to the sideboard for another bottle. “It would have served you right!”

Arabella sat down abruptly, for all the strength had gone out of her knees. Charles, with a rare display of decency, handed her a drink.

“ ’S a shame,” he said quietly. “The poor chap bends over backwards to see that you have everything you want. Yet for all the attention you pay him, he might just as well be dead.”

 

By mid-morning, the snow had ceased to fall, and a watery winter sun shone out feebly through the leaden clouds as Reverend Kendrick dragged himself up his own front steps. He had paid an early call on the Bishop of Bramblehurst, and was now weary, as well as heartsick, for Kendrick, too, had forgone sleep following the revels at Carlton House.

His position was untenable. He saw that now. No matter what he said or did, Arabella would never think of him as he thought of her. He had forgone sleep, sacrificed solitary amusements, and devoted his heart and soul to procure for her the object that she currently prized above all others. She had never acknowledged it. Arabella shewed him less civility now than she had when they were children.

And following her indifference over the sword fight in which he might easily have lost his life, Kendrick’s hopelessness had turned to a positive dislike of Arabella. The very sound of her voice made him ill, for a time. He had soon sorted that out, though, realizing that it was himself he disliked, the way he had acted toward her. Arabella was merely being Arabella, but Kendrick had lost his self-respect, and he simply could not go on. There was but one way out.

The rector sat down and began a letter to Belinda, thinking it would be kinder if her sister broke the news. Even now, he was thinking of Arabella; trying to spare her pain. He would post-date the missive, leaving instructions for its delivery after he was . . . gone. For if she should learn of the desperate act he contemplated, she might attempt to stop him. Or, worse yet, she might not.

 

The crates arrived at last, and Arabella knew a few hours of genuine joy, as she unwrapped, admired, and stroked the former contents of the royal masturbatory. Was there ever such beauty? Such life in mineral form? But in the end she was obliged to totter off early to bed, utterly exhausted from a lack of sleep and too much heartfelt excitement. And on the following day, she bid adieu to it all, when a team of specialists came to the house, to carefully pack up the artifacts once again. Arabella observed from her window as the crates were loaded onto carts, pressing a handkerchief to her face to staunch the tears. Her heart began to beat wildly as she watched the carts pass down the drive; she nearly ran out and stopped them. But in the end, she controlled her impulse, and allowed the precious cargo to proceed back to Naples, where Prince Palmadessola waited to receive it.

She obtained some pious satisfaction from having included the entire masturbatory collection, including pieces that had been in England for more than a century. Not all of it had come from Herculaneum, but it was all Italian, and Arabella had wanted to do the right thing.

Snow had started to fall again. Rooney, who had been gazing at it out one of the other windows, looked round when he heard Arabella sniffling, and leapt to the floor, that he might rub himself against her ankles. She scooped him up and sat down at her desk, simultaneously stroking his fur and composing a letter to Lady Ribbonhat:

 

“Hello!” Belinda put her head round the open door, setting off, as she did so, the sweet tintinnabulation of little bells. Glancing swiftly up, she was amazed to see one of the ancient Roman, poly-phallused ringers looking for all the world as though it had never hung anywhere else.

“Bell! You pledged to return everything!”

“I also promised Mr. Soane that he should have his marbles,” said Arabella. “And I
had
to keep
something
for myself, Bunny. With over two dozen
tintinnabula
in the collection, I scarcely think that one will be missed. What may I do for you?”

“Well,” said Belinda. “I was only looking in to see if I might cheer you up, but you don’t appear to require my help.”

“Oh, but I
do,
though!” cried Arabella, rising to draw her into the room. “I am very much in the doldrums today, thinking of all the trouble I took over nothing! The truth is, I am not a very good sleuth, Bunny. Everything had to be explained to me by people who had known what was happening all along.”

“Only because the thieves had a head start,” said Belinda. “I am certain that you would have found the statue, right enough, had we already been in Italy when it first went missing. I don’t know why you are being so hard on yourself; you went in search of your bronze, and you found it! Despite the fact that the whole affair was wrapped up in politics, you
found
it. You won!”

“Yes,” said Arabella. “Yes, I did, didn’t I?”

“And it was very good of you to go and see about the smuggler’s widow.”

“Well, I didn’t. When I went out to the house to give her some money, I found her in the midst of an enormous celebration. It seems the entire community had hated her husband, and now they were helping her enjoy her new freedom. She didn’t require any help, as far as I could see.”

“But you made an attempt,” said her sister, “and that was a kindly gesture. Now, come and see how I have been spending the morning.”

Accordingly, Belinda led the way to the breakfast room table, where, in an enormous bowl of Venetian glass, she had re-created the ruins of an ancient Pompeian garden, in miniature.

“Look!” she said, handing Arabella a tiny figure. “I have made the Pan statue in modeling clay!”

Arabella smiled. “Oh, Bunny, this is exquisite!”

“It makes a nice souvenir of our trip, since we were never able to paint any pictures. This is even better, I think. Look at the tiny cypresses!”

“Won’t they outgrow the bowl?”

“Eventually. But cypresses grow very slowly. Do you know what I think?” she asked, turning to Arabella. “I think that for a foreigner who didn’t speak the language, you did a jolly good job of sleuthing! In fact . . . you were superb!”

“Was I?”

“Oh! but-a yes!” cried Belinda, kissing her fingertips in the Italian manner.

“Even though I was not able to solve the mystery using my brains?”

“What does that matter? You got your statue in the end, restored it to the rightful owner, ate delicious food, rode out a scandal, experienced the past in a way very few people ever have, saw beautiful things, and nearly got yourself killed! I would call that a very grand adventure indeed!”

“Thank you, Bunny!” said Arabella, embracing her. “You are better than a tonic! . . . And what of you?”

“Well,” she said softly. “I had an adventure, too. I fell in love with an old man, who turned into a handsome prince, who turned out to be not so much in love with me as I thought he was.”