They went back to chewing bacon and mushrooms for a while. This breakfast was as good as any they’d tried in Bath.
Finally, Diamond said, “I’m not lonely. I’ve got a cat who keeps me sane.”
4
Paloma had called Diamond and set up a lunch meeting with a Miss Estella Rockingham, who was researching Beau Nash for a biography.
“Old-fashioned name,” he said, picturing a silver-haired lady with half-glasses.
“She’s a young and extremely clever West Indian who won an award to fund the project. I’m sure the book will win more prizes.”
“Is it written?”
“In outline, I believe. She’s constantly going back to original sources. Her research is amazing. She came to me looking for portraits that haven’t been used and her knowledge about eighteenth-century costume is awesome.”
“Were you able to help?”
Paloma nodded. Her collection of historic illustrations was the best outside the V&A and the British Library.
“Pictures of Beau Nash?”
“And that was a challenge. She wanted him young. The ones you see most often are of a pudgy-faced guy in middle age. Calling him ‘Beau’ is laughable. But the early ones—drawings, mostly—give some idea why so many women adored him. It takes an exceptional man to look sexy in lace.”
“You found what Estella wanted, then?”
“Yes, and she knew exactly which magazines to search. That was over a year ago. Since then she’s been admitted to the Beau Nash Society.”
“There’s a society?”
“Here in Bath. Haven’t you heard of it? Everyone who is anyone is a member. They meet in rooms in the Circus and you can only join by invitation. Estella gave a talk last winter and got the nod—which is more than I did. I talked to them about eighteenth-century costume and all I got for my troubles was a bottle of plonk.”
“She probably knows more than they do.”
“So do I, but not about Mr. Nash. To be serious, Estella will get invitations from across the world when she publishes her book. She must have found out heaps more about him since. But your discovery is going to amaze her, him being hidden in some attic all these years.”
“I don’t want to start with that stuff,” Diamond said. “We don’t know for certain if it’s him. You haven’t told her what this is about, I hope.”
“All she knows is that you’re a detective on some kind of investigation that touches on Beau Nash. She’ll be so excited.”
“Let’s soft-pedal on the skeleton in the loft,” he said. “Before we reveal any of that I’d rather get her take on where he ended up.”
“Do it your way, then. I’ll never understand the finer points of interviewing witnesses.”
Estella liked Mexican, so the meeting had been set up for Las Iguanas in the courtyard in Seven Dials, reached through a passageway from Westgate Street. Paloma and Diamond got there early and found a table close to the window.
“Are you okay with Mexican food?” Paloma said.
“Now you ask.”
“Actually I asked Estella and she suggested here. It’s not exclusively Mexican. I’d call it Latin American really.”
“Fair enough.” Diamond was more of a pub food man: pie and chips. “I’m sure I’ll survive. What’s that monstrosity in the yard?”
“The fountain?”
Whether the rather odd cast-iron structure they could see from the window deserved to be called a fountain any longer was arguable. There was no water spurting from it. The top tier had been adapted for growing plants that overhung three sad black wading birds standing in a stone surround with more vegetation.
“Little egrets?” Diamond said from his limited knowledge of ornithology.
“Glossy ibises, I was told.”
“Do they have some significance here?”
“Not to my knowledge. I believe when the developers were creating the yard in the late 1980s they found the piece at Walcot Reclamation and decided it would make a centrepiece. A talking point, if nothing else.”
“Why—because it ain’t a fountain any longer?”
“Because of all the actors.”
“I see no actors.”
“Come outside and I’ll show you.”
They got up from the table with their wine glasses and he was shown a feature he’d never noticed before, Bath’s mini version of the forecourt of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood—sixteen sets of handprints and signatures cast in bronze and cemented to the top of the low wall around the fountain.
“They all appeared at the Theatre Royal,” Paloma said.
He circled it slowly. Derek Jacobi, Peter Ustinov, Susan Hampshire, Edward Fox and twelve others were immortalised there. “Joan Collins—what was she in?”
“Private Lives. They all had to press their palms into some orange gunk to make the moulds. It must have seemed a good idea at the time.”
“It’s a bit lost here.”
Paloma’s eyes were elsewhere. A young black woman in a pale blue coat with silver frogging had clattered into the yard on the highest heels Diamond had seen in years. “Here’s someone who certainly isn’t lost. Estella, meet my friend, Peter.”
It was the kind of meeting that made him wish he’d chosen a better tie, and, on second thoughts, a better shirt, suit and shoes as well. She was immaculate. They shook hands and she said, “I’m extremely curious to know what you want from me.”
“It’s no great mystery,” he said.
“I thought mystery was your thing. Aren’t you in criminal investigation?”
Paloma said, “Peter’s head of the murder squad.”
Estella’s eyes widened. “Murder?”
“And other local pastimes like armed robbery and abduction,” he added.
“And you think I can help?”
“Shall we go inside and get you a drink first?”
“A strong one, I think.”
In the restaurant, Diamond tried to lower expectations. He hadn’t planned to start like this. “You’re writing a book about Beau Nash, I’m told.”
“And you think he might have murdered someone—my dear old Beau?”
“No, no, not at all. Can we rewind and delete all mention of murder?”
She flashed her small, neat teeth. “You’re saving that up for the climax, when you assemble us all in the library and tell us whodunit.”
She was being playful when he wanted to get serious. “It doesn’t work that way in CID. I borrowed a couple of books about Nash from Paloma. Nicely written, but thin on facts. I gather yours will be more substantial.”
“More words for sure. That isn’t always a recommendation.”
“New material?”
“Every bit I can find. I don’t want to pad it out.”
“How many biographies are there?”
“Of Beau Nash? I know of seven. The first, and most useful, appeared only a year after his death. That was by Oliver Goldsmith.”
“Seven is a lot, but Richard Nash is a fascinating subject, isn’t he?” Diamond said, wanting to let her know he’d mastered the basics. “Welsh boy comes from humble origins and survives a series of setbacks to conquer Bath by force of personality.”
“His family weren’t all that humble,” Estella said. “They could afford to send him to Oxford University.”
“But he ended up a pauper, didn’t he, after becoming one of the most famous men in the land? That’s the real fascination for me.” It wasn’t, but now that they’d started on Beau Nash he was keen to get to the topic of the funeral and what happened after.
Paloma said, “Peter’s getting hooked on eighteenth-century history. He’d be enrolling at the university if he wasn’t a policeman keeping us safe in our beds.”
“Your beds are outside my beat,” Diamond said
.
“Don’t disillusion us, or we won’t sleep at nights,” Estella said with a smile at Paloma.
The waitress arrived and the next minutes were taken up pointing at things on the menu. They agreed on tapas for starters but the two women’s choice of a dish called blazing bird flavoured with flaming hot habañero sauce was a step too far for Diamond. He settled for a Cuban sandwich and asked for a large jug of water and three glasses.
More smiles.
“I don’t suppose Beau Nash ever tasted Mexican,” he said.
“Boiled chicken and roast mutton were his favourites,” Estella said. “They ate mainly meat and not many vegetables. He was partial to potatoes and called them English pineapples and used to eat them on their own as a separate course. But please let’s get to the reason we’re here. What is it about the Beau? What do you want to ask me?”
Put suddenly on the spot, Diamond came out with the question he’d planned to slip into the conversation with more subtlety. “Where did he end up?”
“After his death, you mean?” she said. “It’s far from certain. Goldsmith doesn’t say and everyone since has either ducked the issue or admitted it’s a mystery.”
“You must have researched it.”
She smiled. “Tell me about it! As you probably know, he lay in state for four days and then there was a funeral fit for the King of Bath, with a procession through the streets from his house to the Abbey. It’s been assumed by some, including the Dictionary of Welsh Biography and the Oxford DNB, that he was buried there, but like most of his biographers I’m unconvinced. There’s a persistent story that he was buried in a pauper’s grave.”
“That’s the one we heard.”
She nodded. “He was, of course, massively overspent. Debts of over £1200. Let’s say £200,000 in modern currency. So technically, yes, he was a pauper. We know the name of his would-be heir and executor, his nephew, Charles Young, but the disposal of the estate was handled by an agent called Scott.”
“Who wanted paying, presumably?”
“Without a doubt. Goldsmith’s book tells us the few pathetic items that were left to dispose of: a few books, some family pictures and miniatures, two gold snuffboxes, one presented to him by the Prince of Wales and the other by the dowager princess. They didn’t fetch much. The pictures were advertised for sale at five pounds each but finally went for half that amount, and the miniatures as a job lot for three guineas. I’m not sure about the snuffboxes. And of course there were papers, a number of letters and his unfinished manuscript.”
“A book?” Paloma said.
“Some pages of a book. A money-making venture that he used to attract subscribers at two guineas a time. The title was A History of Bath and Tunbridge for these last forty years by Richard Nash, Esquire, with an apology for the Author’s Life. It was nowhere near written. A sprat to catch a mackerel. While he was still alive he hinted that all sorts of secrets would come out—more about other people’s private lives than his own. It brought in some funds. Even the city corporation coughed up for twenty-five copies.”
“All on spec?” Diamond said.
“A few ineptly written sheets were found after his death and Goldsmith made the best use he could of them. The nephew wasn’t happy and complained that Scott had hatched some kind of underhand deal in return for a cut of the profits in Goldsmith’s Life of Beau Nash.”
“Was he right?”
“He probably was. Nash’s scribblings had some value and should have formed part of the estate.”
“Did the book sell well?” Diamond asked.
“Goldsmith’s? Spectacularly well.”
“To all the people fearful of how much would be revealed?”
“Let’s be generous. Nash’s fame was huge. The first printing sold out in four days.”
Paloma said, “Top of the Sunday Times bestseller list?”
“Easily. You have to know that Goldsmith was an unknown Irish writer at the start of his career—a hack, really—who in time became one of the greats of English literature, so they did well to get him. It’s a fine book and the prime source for us biographers, but Nash’s name sold it. A lot of people made themselves rich out of the Beau after his death, selling portraits and poems and tributes, but I don’t think his creditors got much.”
“Wasn’t the house sold?”
“That isn’t mentioned in Scott’s papers. Almost certainly he’d mortgaged it before his death to offset his debts. He’d sold his coach, his horses, his rings, his watches. He was living off the ten guineas a month voted by the corporation in recognition of his services in better times.”
Diamond steered the conversation back towards the matter that interested him most. “But at least he wasn’t living alone in those last years.”
“No, he had a companion.”
“Juliana Popjoy?” A chance to show he’d done his homework.
“Papjoy.”
“Excuse me?”
“Papjoy was the name she used. Victorian prudes altered it, thinking it was vulgar.”
“Why?”
“Pap,” she said. “You wouldn’t be asking if you lived in those times. It was a word for a breast, like boob, or tit.”
“Got you,” he said, trying to think in historical terms. “Papjoy.”
“Well”—Estella spread her hands—“I may be out on a limb here, but I’m of the opinion it was a name she took on. She was a courtesan when he first met her and slept with her. To me, Papjoy is just too suggestive to be real. It’s in keeping with the names the Restoration comedy writers were using, like Lady Wishfort.”
He had to think for a moment. She’d tossed in the name as a scholarly point without a hint of a smile. “Right. Understood.”
“And the men’s names were just as suggestive,” Estella added. “Horner, Pinchwife.”
“Coupler,” Paloma put in.
“Really?”
“You’ve heard of The Country Wife?” Paloma said to help him out. “The Relapse? The National brought The Beaux’ Stratagem to Bath a year or two ago.”
He shook his head. He knew as much about drama as he did about knitting socks.
“Lady Fidget?” Estella said.
“Mrs. Friendall,” Paloma said.
“Lovemore? Lady Teazle?”
The two women were definitely enjoying this now.
Estella made an effort to be serious. “It doesn’t really matter to you if it wasn’t the name she was born with, does it?”
“I suppose not.”
“In fact, it matters even less than you think.”
“Why?”
“You were saying Juliana was with the Beau at the end but I have to tell you this is untrue.”
Frowning, he said, “The books I’ve been reading claim she was there for him, nursing him through his last illness.”
“I know,” Estella said. “I’ve read them. They’re wrong.”
“Really?” Paloma said. “It’s such a nice rounding off, back with his old love.”
“Cue the violins,” Estella said. “Sorry, guys, but Goldsmith says nothing about Juliana. I don’t think he mentions her anywhere in his book, and he’s the prime source.”
Diamond’s best theory about the skeleton and how it came to be hidden in Twerton had just been blown away.
There was a short hiatus while the tapas were put in front of them. Paloma and Estella made noises of appreciation, but Diamond couldn’t raise any enthusiasm, even after taking his first bite.
“Are you telling us Juliana Papjoy didn’t exist?” he said to Estella, beginning to feel this meeting had been a waste of time. She didn’t seem as charming as he’d first thought.
“Not at all. She existed. She was one of a string of mistresses. He was an old goat if you ask me. He once said that wit, flattery and fine clothes were enough to d
ebauch a nunnery. There’s independent evidence that Juliana lived with him for some years when they were younger. He bought her a dapple-grey horse and allowed her to have a personal servant and dress in all the latest fashions. She was often seen riding about the streets of Bath and using a distinctive whip like a birch. In fact she was jokingly known as Lady Betty Besom.”
Diamond missed the point again. “Besom—another word for breast?”
Paloma laughed. “Who’s got a one-track mind round here? It’s one of those brooms made of twigs.”
Estella said, “In the year of her death a rather cruel cartoon appeared of her on horseback brandishing a besom and wearing one of those enormous Marie-Antoinette-style wigs as she jumps the horse over a barrier labelled the Sacred Boundary of Discretion.”
The satire was lost on Diamond. He was trying to pin down the facts that mattered. “If the books have got it wrong about Miss Papjoy, what’s the true story?”
“They parted,” she said. “Everyone agrees on that.”
“Because of the court case, when his income dried up?”
Paloma said, “He couldn’t keep her in the style he felt she was entitled to, so he asked her to leave, and she did, for a number of years.”
Estella smiled and shook her head. “And came back to nurse him when he was old? That’s a sentimental myth invented by the Victorians.”
Paloma said with a cry of disappointment. “Are you sure? You know it to be untrue?”
“I’ve gone into this as deeply as I can. None of the contemporary reports of her death say anything about a reconciliation. I’ve looked at them all, in the Gentleman’s Magazine, the Universal Magazine and the Annual Register, you name it. The break-up devastated her. She returned to her place of birth, a village called Bishopstrow, just outside Warminster, and vowed she would never again sleep in a bed. And she kept to it. That’s how bitter—or heartbroken—she was. She took up residence in the hollowed-out trunk of a huge oak tree and slept on a bale of straw until her death in 1777. Even when she ventured out and visited friends, she’d insist on sleeping rough in some outhouse on straw.”
“Poor soul,” Paloma murmured. “I did hear this story, but I thought there was a happier ending.”
Beau Death Page 5