The room was quiet when we entered, the only sound the frantic chirps of Lady Cordelia’s lovebirds from their cage in the corner. Thinking myself unobserved, I put my hand to my hair, tucking in an errant lock with a hairpin.
“Young woman, you look like a bacchante. Have you been getting up to mischief in the bushes?” An elderly woman advanced from the shadows behind the birdcage. She came forward slowly, an ebony walking stick clutched in a gnarled hand, but I had the oddest sensation that she used it more to claim her territory than to support enfeebled legs.
The question was clearly rhetorical, so I made no effort to answer it, merely standing with my hands still as she drew near, looking me up and down, running her gaze slowly from hem to head and back again.
I took the opportunity to scrutinize her in return. She was taller than most of the Beauclerks, with a back that would have put a ramrod to shame for its straightness. She carried her chin high, and if age and a tendency to embonpoint had softened her features, it had not obscured her eyes. They were black and beautiful still, but as a hawk’s are beautiful—watchful and unforgiving. The nose, too, was beakish, and the chin a trifle too sharp for handsomeness. She had clearly never been a beauty, but I could easily imagine her as a belle laide, demanding attention for her vitality alone.
“You have good posture,” she said finally. “That speaks to a sturdy constitution. Whoever brought you up knew what they were about.”
“I was reared by my aunts,” I told her, opting for the simpler, “official” version of the truth. “One of them was kind. One was not. The one who was not fixed holly leaves to my collar to make me keep my chin up.”
She nodded. “I was strapped to a board for my lessons every day. My father believed letting girls study would lead to a crooked back, so a brace was the only way he would permit me to have lessons. That’s how I learnt Horace,” she said grimly. “You’re the Speedwell child, I take it? I am Lady Wellingtonia Beauclerk. You may address me as Lady Wellie. I do not care for ceremony, as you have no doubt observed.”
“You were admiring the birds,” I said by way of a conversational gambit. I nodded towards the cage where the lovebirds, Crates and Hipparchia, were wittering darkly as they looked at her.
“Pretty creatures,” Lady Wellingtonia said. “But they never stop that infernal noise. I was just about to open the cage to let the cat in. Or is that cruel? Ought I to drown them straight off and have done with it?”
Before I could form a reply, Stoker came forward. “Good evening, Lady Wellie,” he said, bending over her hand in a courtly gesture. He brushed his lips across the back of it and she simpered a little.
She offered him a powdered cheek. “Hello, dear boy. Give us a kiss. Now the other cheek and squeeze my hand like you mean it.”
Stoker did as he was bade and stood back, grinning. “It is good to see you again, Lady Wellie.”
“You’re a rogue,” she told him, rapping his knuckles lightly with a fan. “I have not seen you in more than six months. I like your new pet,” she added with a nod towards me.
Stoker snorted, and I poked him sharply in the ribs. “That will do,” I said. I turned to Lady Wellingtonia.
“Stoker and I are partners in his lordship’s scheme to open the Belvedere as a public museum,” I told her.
She rolled her eyes heavenwards. “A disgraceful notion. Who wants the public trampling through the gardens, leaving sweet papers and empty bottles and God only knows what other rubbish behind?”
“You don’t believe the public should have access to the accumulation of human knowledge? To the accomplishment of art and exploration?”
A small smile played about her mouth. “You think the common man cares about such things? No, child. The common man cares about a full belly, warm feet, and a sound roof. But I like your idealism. It’s charming, as long as you promise to lose it before you turn thirty. A woman past thirty cannot afford ideals.”
“A cynical view, I think,” I told her.
She pulled a face. “Stoker, the child thinks me a cynic.”
Stoker gave her a bland look. “The child will think worse of you when she gets to know you.”
I gaped at the rudeness, but Lady Wellingtonia threw her head back and cackled. “We shall go into dinner now because if I sit down in one of those ludicrous chairs, I might never get up again,” she said with a dark glance at the low armchairs. She turned to me. “In my day, chairs were not for comfort. They were to keep your bottom from touching the floor and that is all. And be glad Cordelia is not here. She is a lovely girl, but she would swoon straightaway if she heard me use the word ‘bottom’ in polite company. It is the greatest advantage of getting old, you know. I can say precisely what I like and everyone excuses it because I knew Moses from his bulrush days.” She took Stoker by the arm. “Take me in to dinner, boy. Miss Speedwell, you will have to walk alone, I am afraid.”
Stoker obediently escorted her to the small Rosemorran supper room instead of the grand dining room. The table had been laid for four, and I raised a brow as we settled ourselves. “Is his lordship coming down? Or Lady Cordelia?”
Lady Wellingtonia paused to inspect the cold salmon mayonnaise that had been laid on the sideboard before replying. “No, child. Rosemorran is feeling feverish this evening, and I’ve told Cook to send him up some calf’s-foot jelly and a nice blancmange. Cordelia and the children have already left.” She nodded towards the extra place setting. “That is for my shadow, should he ever bestir himself to appear. He is always late.”
I had just begun to wonder if the old woman’s wits were wandering when the door opened and a clergyman entered, clucking apologies and tugging at his dog collar as he took his chair.
He nodded to Lady Wellie as he lifted an ear trumpet into place. “I am sorry, Wellie, but his lordship’s library will keep me so diverted, I quite lose track of the time.”
Lady Wellie sighed and spoke to him, raising her voice and speaking distinctly. “Cecil, I have seen you lose track of time by comparing the length of your shoelaces. His lordship’s library has nothing to do with it. You have no discipline,” she chided. But there was a note of fondness in her voice. She waved her fork. “Introduce yourself to Miss Speedwell.”
The clergyman turned to me. “I am the Reverend Cecil Baring-Ponsonby. Not a connection to the Bessborough Ponsonbys,” he added firmly. I cudgeled my brain a moment before recalling that Ponsonby was the surname of the Earl of Bessborough’s family, a clan noted for its eccentricity since the beginning of the century when one of their young ladies became the mistress of Lord Byron and sent him her nether hairs in the post.
“Cecil, you’ve been saying that since Lady Caroline Lamb was alive. No one cares,” the lady told him firmly as she forked up a fresh bit of salmon. “Stoker, you remember Mr. Baring-Ponsonby. He’s still alive, as you can see. Cecil,” she called, raising her voice as he lifted his ear trumpet again. “This is Revelstoke Templeton-Vane. You’ve met before but you won’t remember, so just nod to be polite. He’s an Honourable, you know. Son of a viscount I never liked.”
The gentlemen exchanged cordial greetings and Stoker turned to our hostess. “What brings you to Bishop’s Folly this time, Lady Wellie?”
“We are supposed to be keeping Rosemorran entertained, poor lad. Although between us, it takes an uncommonly stupid man to trip over his own tortoise. Bizarre creature. So ponderous and such a curious face—the tortoise, not Rosemorran. I say, Cecil, it’s only just occurred to me, you look rather like Patricia.”
“What’s that?” he asked, cupping his ear.
“I said you look like Patricia! His lordship’s tortoise!” she shouted back. Now that she had said it, I could not stop seeing the resemblance. I half expected Mr. Baring-Ponsonby to take offense, but he merely shrugged and applied himself to his salmon mayonnaise.
Lady Wellingtonia turned to me. “I must make
a point of visiting the Belvedere whilst I am here. I haven’t seen this place in forty years. Still full of rubbish, I expect.”
“The collection also boasts some extremely fine examples of art and natural history,” I said stoutly. The collection might have been a combination of rubbish heap and treasure trove, but I would permit no one else to think poorly of it.
“What ho! Did you hear that, Cecil? I am reproached. Never mind, my dear. You mustn’t pay attention to my whims. I am glad you were free to dine with me tonight. I so wanted to meet you and put a face with a name.” She gave me a long, measured look. “Miss Veronica Speedwell indeed.”
“You are too kind,” I replied.
She laughed, a great booming sound that seemed oddly incongruous coming from so elderly a person. “I am not kind. Ask anyone.”
“No, I imagine you are not. I was merely being polite,” I told her.
To my astonishment, she broke into a smile—a rather hideous smile, for it revealed a number of bad teeth. She raised a glass to me. “I have decided we are going to be very great friends, Miss Speedwell.”
I lifted my glass in return and drank deeply, not certain if I was more gratified or alarmed by the prospect. Whatever peculiar fencing game she had been playing at before, she dropped it then, and we spoke of many things. Mr. Baring-Ponsonby made the occasional pithy remark, and Stoker was always good for a tale, but I was most intrigued when Lady Wellie held the floor. She was a fascinating woman, and the little glimpses I had of her past—the places she had been, the people she had known—made me all the more desirous to dig deeper.
“You have led a very interesting life,” I remarked after one particularly intriguing anecdote involving an Austrian archduke.
“Have I shocked you? Remember I was born in a different time, Miss Speedwell. Virginity is Queen Victoria’s legacy. The rest of us are not quite so blinkered,” she told me. “Take my advice and get rid of yours as fast as you can.”
I briefly toyed with the notion of telling her I had discarded mine on a hillside in Switzerland during a very pleasant interlude some seven years past.
“And if you’ve any sense, you will hand it to him,” she added with a meaningful glance down the table towards Stoker, who was shouting remarks into Mr. Baring-Ponsonby’s ear trumpet.
Just at that moment, Stoker turned, his gaze curious. “What are you two talking about? You look quite flushed.”
“We were discussing horseflesh,” Lady Wellingtonia said. “And how difficult it can be to find a good mount.”
His response was sweetly naïve. “If you need a recommendation, I know a fellow or two.”
I suppressed a laugh as Lady Wellingtonia gave him a smile that was purely feral. “I imagine you do, dear boy. I imagine you do.” She turned back to me as he resumed his conversation with the little clergyman.
We chatted aimlessly until the pudding was brought in, and Lady Wellie gave a frisking little shiver of delight. “Apple snowball!” she exclaimed. “My favorite.”
She glanced at Mr. Baring-Ponsonby, who had apparently drifted off to sleep sometime during the cheese course. Stoker was attacking his pudding with gusto, and an expression of pure affection gentled Lady Wellie’s harsh features. “I am fond of Stoker. If I had a son, I would have wanted one like that. But it is a wretched business, this birthing of children,” she added darkly. “Avoid it if you can.”
“I mean to,” I replied.
“That’s a smart girl.” She gave me a nod and a wink as I spooned up a bit of apple snowball. I did not generally care for sweets, but Cook had outdone herself with the crème anglaise accompaniment. Stoker, whose sweet tooth was legendary, had scraped his bowl clean and—I noticed with amusement—exchanged it for the slumbering Mr. Baring-Ponsonby’s full one.
I turned back to Lady Wellie.
“You ought to write a memoir,” I told her.
She made a dismissive gesture with her hand. “Live long enough and interesting things are bound to happen. I am older than the Nile, child. Speaking of which—” She paused and gave a quick order to Lumley, the butler. His expression faltered for an instant. “Don’t be tiresome, Lumley!” she said. “I am ready for my tea, and I’ve no interest in hauling myself and Miss Speedwell back to the drawing room and waiting for it there. We will have it here whilst the gentlemen have their port. I daresay Mr. Baring-Ponsonby will rouse himself for that.”
Lumley’s color had drained, but he bowed from the waist. “Of course, my lady.” Lumley, like all superior servants, was a greater stickler for conformity than the family he served. To have Lady Wellingtonia chuck the tradition of ladies withdrawing after dinner must have shocked him as deeply as if we had all begun to disrobe and dance on the tabletop.
But he was dutiful, and he appeared in due course with a decanter of port for the gentlemen and a tea service that I had never seen before. I caught my breath, and Lady Wellingtonia looked at me approvingly.
“Thought you would like that. Wedgwood,” she informed me. But it was no Wedgwood I had ever seen. Cast in a deep, dull crimson, the rosso antico set featured black scenes in stunning relief. And what scenes they were! Sphinxes alternated with stylized animals and great outspread wings in bands that circled each piece, the teapot crowned with a crocodile finial. “It was created to celebrate Nelson’s victory over Napoleon’s navy in Egypt. Rather fun, isn’t it?”
“It is splendid,” I told her.
We sipped at our tea and she began to reminisce about the people she had known, never boasting, simply telling stories of the foibles that had amused her. I did not know what prompted me, but I found myself wondering if she might be useful in our current investigation.
Mr. Baring-Ponsonby had wakened with the introduction of the port, and he and Stoker were applying themselves to the judicious appreciation of his lordship’s best tawny.
“I wonder, Lady Wellingtonia, if you ever had occasion to meet with Sir Frederick Havelock?”
“Freddie! I haven’t seen him in years,” she said with a faraway look in her eye. “He painted me twice, you know. The first was a lovely portrait for the Royal Academy before he got his Irish up and was thrown out for striking the president at the opening. The fellow made a cutting remark about the composition and Frederick never could take criticism. A bit like this one here,” she said, nodding at Stoker. “Tilting at windmills. That is how he got himself thrown out of the Royal Museum of Natural History last year.”
I stared at Stoker. “You hit someone?”
He shrugged and sipped at his wine. “No one who didn’t deserve it.”
Lady Wellie gave her cackling laugh. “I am a patroness of the place, which is a short way of saying I give them money so they invite me to all the openings. Stoker was already in disgrace, but I brought him with me as my escort and no one could say boo about it. And no one would have had Stoker not taken exception to one of the displays.”
“What was so objectionable?” I inquired.
Stoker’s mouth thinned with recollected fury. “The director had mounted a display of apes and fossils to demonstrate Darwinian evolution.”
“That sounds reasonable,” I said.
“He put a live African man in a loincloth at the end of it. In chains,” he said, fairly spitting the words.
“And for the director’s pains, he got a tooth knocked out,” Lady Wellie reminded him. She turned to me. “It took four men to pull Stoker off of him and throw him out. In the meantime, I discovered the African fellow was a qualified pastry cook without a place, so I took him off to my favorite hotel and found him employment. If you ever dine at the Sudbury, my dear, make very certain to order the croquembouche à la Beauclerk for dessert. It is his speciality,” she advised me.
I thought of Stoker thrashing the director and suppressed a smile. “You said Sir Frederick painted you twice,” I prompted Lady Wellie. “Did you enjoy
sitting for him?”
“Enjoy? Not a moment of it. He modeled himself after Caravaggio, you know. Nothing but wine breath and grasping hands. I spent more time fending him off than actually posing. But the second was a damned fine portrait,” she said, her expression dreamy. “I was quite nude. He painted me masked, of course, so no one would know. But it was a splendid portrait. Hangs over the bar at the Helicon Club.”
Stoker choked lavishly then, taking some moments to recover himself. “I’ve seen that,” he finally wheezed out.
“Rather good, isn’t it?” she asked, a twinkle in her eye.
“Spectacular,” he said with feeling as he raised his glass to her.
She sighed. “I was past forty when Frederick painted that. The last gasp of beauty.” She turned her gaze upon me. “You should have him paint you, child. You’ve a face like a minor Greek goddess now, but someday it will start to slide down into your décolletage and you’ll find your breasts at your waist.”
Mr. Baring-Ponsonby lifted his ear trumpet. “Eh, what’s that?”
Lady Wellie raised her voice. “We were talking about breasts, Cecil.”
“Lovely things, breasts,” he said, promptly nodding off into his port with a muffled snore. She gave him a fond look.
“He’s rather like a lapdog, the dear old thing. A sweet companion in my dotage. Appendage like a donkey’s, you know.”
A Perilous Undertaking Page 5