In the Company of Thieves

by Kage Baker

  “Are those the whores?” cried an impatient voice. Arthur Rawdon, Lord Basmond, entered the room.

  “None other,” said Mrs. Corvey. Lord Basmond halted involuntarily, with a gasp of astonishment upon seeing them.

  “By God! I’m getting my money’s worth, at least!”

  “I should hope so. My girls are very much in demand, you know,” said Mrs. Corvey. “And they don’t do the commoner sort of customer.”

  “Ah.” Lord Basmond gawked at her. “Blind. And you would be their...”

  “Procuress, my lord.”

  “Yes.” Lord Basmond rubbed his hands together as he walked slowly round the ladies, who obligingly struck attitudes of refined invitation. “Yes, well. They’re not poxed, I hope?”

  “If you was at all familiar with my establishment, sir, you would know how baseless any allegations of the sort must be,” said Mrs. Corvey. “Only look, my lord! Bloom of youth, pink of health, and not so much as a crablouse between the four of ’em.”

  “We’d be happy to give his lordship a closer look at the goods,” said Dora, fingering her buttons suggestively. “What about a nice roll between the sheets before tea, dear, eh?” But Lord Basmond backed away from her.

  “No! No thank you. Y-you must be fresh for my guests. Have they been told about the banquet?”

  “Not yet, my lord,” said Pilkins, blotting sweat from his face with a handkerchief.

  “Well, tell them! Get them into their costumes and rehearse them! The business must proceed perfectly, do you understand?”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “And where are my girls to lodge, your lordship?” Mrs. Corvey inquired. Lord Basmond, who had turned as though to depart, halted with an air of astonishment.

  “Lodge? Er—I assume they will lie with the guests.”

  “I ain’t, however,” said Mrs. Corvey. “And do require a decent place to sleep and wash, you know.”

  “I suppose so,” said Lord Basmond. “Well then. Hem. We’ll just have a bed made up for you in...erm...” He turned his back on the ladies and gestured wildly at Pilkins, mouthing in silence, The closet behind the stables, and pointed across the yard to be sure Pilkins got the point. “A nice little room below the coachman’s, quite cozy.”

  “How very kind,” said Mrs. Corvey.

  But the window looks out on the—mouthed Pilkins, with an alarmed gesture. Lord Basmond grimaced and, with his index finger, drew Xs in the air before his eyes.

  She won’t see anything, you idiot, he mouthed. Pilkins looked affronted, but subsided.

  “Certainly, my lord. I’ll have Daisy see to it at once,” he replied.

  “See that you do.” Lord Basmond turned and strode from the room.

  EIGHT: IN WHICH PROPER HISTORICAL COSTUMING IS DISCUSSED

  They were grudgingly served tea in the pantry, and then ushered into another low, dark room wherein were a great number of florist’s boxes and a neatly folded stack of bedsheets.

  “Those are your costumes,” said Pilkins, with a sniff.

  “Rather too modest, aren’t they?” remarked Lady Beatrice. “Or not modest enough. What are we intended to do with them?”

  Pilkins studied the floor. “His lordship wishes you to fashion them into, er, togas. The entertainment planned is to resemble, as closely as possible, a—hem—bacchanal of the ancient Romans. And he wishes you to resemble, ah, nymphs dressed in togas.”

  “But the toga was worn by men,” Lady Beatrice informed him. Pilkins looked up, panic-stricken, and gently Lady Beatrice pressed on: “I suspect that what his lordship requires is the chiton, as worn by the ancient hetaerae.”

  “If you say so,” stammered Pilkins. “With laurel wreaths and all.”

  “But the laurel wreath was rather worn by—”

  “Bless your heart, dear, if his lordship wishes the girls to wear laurel wreaths on their heads, I’m sure they shall,” said Mrs. Corvey. “And what must they do, besides the obvious? Dance, or something?”

  “In fact, they are to bear in the dessert,” said Pilkins, resorting to his handkerchief once more. “Rather a large and elaborate refreshment on a pallet between two poles. And if they could somehow contrive to dance whilst bringing it in, his lordship would prefer it.”

  “We’ll do our best, ducks,” said Maude dubiously.

  “And there are some finger-cymbals in that red morocco case, and his lordship wishes that they might be played upon as you enter.”

  “In addition to dancing and carrying in the dessert,” said Lady Beatrice.

  “Perhaps you might practice,” said Pilkins. “It is now half-past noon and the dinner will be served at eight o’clock precisely.”

  “Never you fear,” said Mrs. Corvey. “My girls is nothing if not versatile.”

  At that moment they heard the sound of a coach entering the courtyard. “The first of the guests,” exclaimed Pilkins, and bolted for the door, where he halted and called back, “Sort out the costumes for yourselves, please,” before closing the door on them.

  “Nice,” said Mrs. Corvey. “Jane, dear, just open the window for us?”

  Jane turned and obliged, exerting herself somewhat to pull the swollen wood of the casement free. The light so admitted was not much improved, for the window was tiny and blocked by a great deal of ivy. “Shall I try to pull a few leaves?” Jane asked.

  “Not necessary, dear.” Mrs. Corvey stepped close to the window and, removing her goggles, extended her optics through the cover of the vines.

  “What do you see?”

  “I expect this is the Russian,” said Mrs. Corvey. “At least, that’s a Russian crest on his coach. Prince Nakhimov, that was the name. Mother was Prussian; inherited businesses from her and invested, and it’s made him very rich indeed. Well! And there he is.”

  “What’s he look like?” asked Maude.

  “He’s quite large,” said Mrs. Corvey. “Has a beard. Well-dressed. Footman, coachman, valet. There they go—he’s been let off at the front door, I expect. Well, and who’s this? Another carriage! Ah, now that must be the Turk. Ali Pasha.”

  “Oh! Has he got a turban on?”

  “No, dear, one of those red sugar-loaf hats. And a military uniform with a lot of ornament. Some sort of official that’s made a fortune in the Sultan’s service.”

  “Has he got a carriage full of wives?”

  “If he had, I should hardly think he’d bring them to a party of this sort. No, same as the other fellow: footman, driver, valet. And here’s the next one! This would be the Frenchman, now. Count de Mortain, the brief said; I expect that’s his coat-of-arms. Millionaire like the others, because his family did some favors for Bonaparte, but mostly the wealth’s in his land. A bit cash-poor. Wonder if Lord Basmond knows?

  “And here’s the last one. Sir George Spiggott. No question he’s a millionaire; pots of money from mills in the north. Bad-tempered-looking man, I must say. Well, ladies, one for each of you; and I doubt you’ll get to choose.”

  “I suppose Lord Basmond is a bit of a fairy prince after all,” said Maude.

  “Might be, I suppose.” Mrs. Corvey turned away from the window. “Notwithstanding, if he does require your services in the customary way, any one of you, be sure to oblige and see if you can’t slip him something to make him talkative into the bargain.”

  Having been left to fend for themselves, the ladies spent an hour or two devising chitons out of the bed sheets. Fortunately Jane had a sewing kit in her reticule, and found moreover a spool of ten yards of peacock blue grosgrain ribbon in the bottom of her trunk, so a certain amount of tailoring was possible. The florist’s boxes proved to contain laurel leaves indeed, but also maidenhair fern and pink rosebuds, and Lady Beatrice was therefore able to produce chaplets that better suited her sense of historical accuracy.

  They were chatting pleasantly about the plot of Dickens’s latest literary effort when Mrs. Duncan opened the door and peered in at them.

  “I don’t suppose one of yo
u girls would consider doing a bit of honest work,” she said.

  “Really, madam, how much more honest could our profession be?” said Lady Beatrice. “We dissemble about nothing.”

  “What’s the job?” inquired Mrs. Corvey.

  Mrs. Duncan grimaced. “Churning the ice cream. The swan mold arrived by special post this morning, and it’s three times the size we thought it was to be, and the girls and I have about broke our arms trying to make enough ice cream to fill the damned thing.”

  “As it’s in aid of the general entertainment for which we was engaged, my girls will be happy to assist at no extra charge,” said Mrs. Corvey. “Our Maude does a lot of heavy lifting and is quite strong, ain’t you, dear?”

  “Yes, Ma’am,” replied Maude, dropping a curtsey. Mrs. Duncan, with hope dawning in her face, ventured further:

  “And, er, if some of you wouldn’t mind—there’s some smallwork with the sugar paste, and the jellied Cupids want a steady hand in turning out...”

  Aprons were found for them and the ladies ventured forth to assist with the Dessert.

  A grain-sack carrier had been set across a pair of trestles, with a vast pewter tray fastened atop it, and a massive edifice of cake set atop that. One of the maids was on a stepladder, crouched over the cake with a piping-bag full of icing, attempting to decorate it with a frieze of scallop shells. As they entered, she dropped the bag and burst into tears.

  “Oh! There’s another one crooked! Oh, I’ll lose my place for certain! Mrs. Duncan, I ain’t no pastry cook, and my arm hurts like anything. Why don’t I just go out and drown myself?”

  “No need for theatrics,” said Lady Beatrice, taking up the piping-bag. “Ladies? Forward!”

  There was, it seemed, a great deal more to be done on the Dessert. There was sugar paste to press into pastillage forms to make all manner of decorations, including a miniature Roman temple, doves, a chariot, and bows and arrows. There were indeed Cupids of rose-flavored jelly to be turned out of their molds, resulting in rather horrible-looking little things like pinkly transparent babies. They wobbled, heads drooping disconcertingly as real infants, once mounted at the four corners of the cake. There were pots and pots of muscadine-flavored cream to be poured into the sorbetiere and churned, with grinding effort, before scraping it into the capacious hollow of an immense swan mold. When it was filled at last it took both Maude and Dora to lift it into the ice locker.

  “And that goes on top of the cake?” Lady Beatrice asked.

  “It’s supposed to,” said Mrs. Duncan plaintively, avoiding her gaze.

  “And we’re to carry that in and dance too, are we?” said Jane, pointing with her thumb at the main mass of the Dessert, which was now creaking on its supports with the weight of all the temples, Cupids, doves and other decorations, to say nothing of the roses and ferns trimming its bearer-poles.

  “Well, that was what his lordship said,” Mrs. Duncan replied. “And I’m sure you’re all healthy young girls, ain’t you? And it ain’t like he ain’t paying you handsome.”

  NINE: IN WHICH THE OBJECT OF PARTICULAR INTEREST APPEARS

  Any further concerns were stilled, a half-hour into the dinner service, when Pilkins and Ralph entered the kitchen, bearing between them an object swathed in sacking. Ralph stopped short, gaping at the ladies in their chitons, and Pilkins swore as the object they carried fell to the kitchen flagstones with a clatter. Lady Beatrice glimpsed the corner of a long, flat box like a silverware case, before Pilkins hurriedly covered it over again with the sacking.

  “You great oaf! Mind what you’re about,” said Pilkins. “And you, you—girls, clear out of here. You too, Cook. Go wait in the pantry until I call.”

  “Well, I like that! This ain’t your kitchen, you know,” cried Mrs. Duncan.

  “Lordship’s orders,” said Pilkins. “And you can go with them, Ralph.”

  “Happy to oblige,” said Ralph, sidling up to Maude.

  “If you please,” said Mrs. Corvey, “My rheumatism is painful, now that night’s drawn on, and I find it troublesome to move. Mightn’t I just bide here by the fire?”

  Pilkins glanced at her. “I don’t suppose you’ll matter. Very well, stay there; but into the pantry with the rest of you, and be quick about it.”

  The ladies obeyed, with good grace, and Mrs. Duncan with markedly less enthusiasm. Ralph stepped after them and pulled the door shut.

  “Heigh-ho! ‘Here I stand like the Turk, with his doxies around,’” he chortled. “Saving your presence, Cook,” he added, but she slapped him anyway.

  Mrs. Corvey, meanwhile, watched with interest as Pilkins unwrapped the box—rather heavier, apparently, than its appearance indicated—and grunted with effort as he slid it across the floor to the creaking trestle that supported the Dessert. Mrs. Corvey saw what appeared to be a row of dials and levers along its nearer edge.

  Pilkins pushed it underneath the trestle and fumbled with it a moment. Mrs. Corvey heard a faint humming sound, then saw the box rise abruptly through the air, as though it fell upward. It struck the underside of the tray with a crash and remained there, apparently, while Pilkins crouched on the flagstones and massaged his wrists, muttering to himself.

  Then, almost imperceptively at first but with increasing violence, the Dessert began to tremble. The jellied Cupids shook their heads, as though in disbelief. As Mrs. Corvey watched in astonishment, the Dessert on its carrier lifted free of the trestles and rose jerkily through the air. It was within a hand’s breadth of the ceiling when Pilkins, having exclaimed an oath and scrambled to his feet, reached up frantically and made some sort of adjustment with the dials and levers. One end of the carrier dipped, then the other; the whole affair leveled itself, like a new-launched ship, and settled gently down until it bobbed no more than an inch above its former resting place on the trestles. The flat box was so well screened by drooping ferns and flowers as to be quite invisible.

  Pilkins sagged onto a stool and drew a flask from his pocket.

  “Are you quite all right, Mr. Pilkins?” said Mrs. Corvey.

  “Well enough,” said Pilkins, taking a drink and tucking the flask away.

  “I only wondered because I heard you lord mayoring there, in a temper.”

  “None of your concern if I was.”

  “I reckon his lordship must be a trial to work for, sometimes,” said Mrs. Corvey, in the meekest possible voice. Pilkins glared at her sidelong.

  “An old family, the Rawdons. If they’ve got strange ways about them, it’s not my place to talk about ’em with folk from outside.”

  “Well, I’m sure I meant no harm—” began Mrs. Corvey, as Mrs. Duncan threw the pantry door open with a crash.

  “I’ll see you get your notice, Ralph, you mark my words!” she cried. “I ain’t staying in there with him another minute. He’s a fornicating disgrace!”

  “Indeed, I think he does a very creditable job.” Maude’s voice drifted from the depths of the pantry. Ralph emerged from the pantry smirking, followed by the ladies. Upon seeing the floating Dessert, Ralph pointed and exclaimed:

  “Hi! That’s what it does, is it? I been going mad wondering—”

  Mrs. Duncan, noticing the Dessert’s new state, gave a little scream and backed away. “Marry! He’s done it again, hasn’t he? That unnatural—”

  “Hold your noise!” Pilkins told her.

  “Whatever’s the matter?” said Mrs. Corvey.

  “The Dessert appears to be levitating,” Lady Beatrice said.

  “Oh, stuff and nonsense! I’m sure it’s just a conjuror’s trick,” said Mrs. Corvey. Pilkins gave her a shrewd look.

  “That’s it, to be sure; nothing but a stage trick, as his lordship likes to impress people.”

  “So the Dessert isn’t really floating in midair?” Jane poked one of the Cupids with a fingertip, causing it to writhe. “Just as you say; I’m only grateful we shan’t kill ourselves carrying it in.”

  A bell rang then. Pilkins jumped to his fee
t. “That’s his lordship signaling for the next course! Get those finger cymbals on, you lot! Where’s the bloody swan?”

  The swan was heaved out in its mold and upended over the cake, and a screw turned to let air into its vacuum; the swan unmolded and plopped into its place on the cake with an audible thud, sending the Cupids into quivering agonies.

  “Right! Pick the damned thing up! He wants you smiling and, and exercising your wiles when you go out there!” cried Pilkins.

  “We strive to please, sir,” said Lady Beatrice, taking her place on one of the carrier poles. The Devere sisters took their places as well. They found that the Dessert lifted quite easily, for it now seemed to weigh scarcely more than a few ounces. Lady Beatrice struck up a rhythm on the finger cymbals, the Devere sisters cut a few experimental capers, and Pilkins ran before them up the stairs and so to the vast banqueting table of Basmond Hall.

  “I could do with a dram of gin, after all that,” said Mrs. Duncan, collapsing into her chair.

  “I could too,” said Ralph.

  “Well, you can just take yourself off to the stables!”

  “Perhaps you’d be so kind as to guide me to my room?” asked Mrs. Corvey. “I’m rather tired.”

  TEN: IN WHICH A PROPOSITION IS ADVANCED

  Lord Basmond had spared no expense in the pursuit of his chosen motif; an oilcloth had been laid down over the flagstones and painted with a design resembling a tiled mosaic on a villa floor. Hothouse palms had been carried about and placed in decorative profusion, as had an abundance of aspidistra. Five chaise-lounges had been set around the great central table on which Lady Beatrice spied the remains of the grand dishes that had preceded the Dessert from the kitchen: a roast suckling pig, a roast peacock with decorative tail, a dish of ortolans, a mullet in orange and lemon sauce.

  On the chaise-lounges reclined Lord Basmond and his four guests. The gentlemen were flushed, all, with repletion. Lord Basmond, alone pale and sweating, sat up as the ladies entered and flung out an arm.

  “Now, sirs! For your amusement, I present these lovely nymphs bearing a delectable and mysterious treat. The nymphs, being pagan spirits, have absolutely no morals whatsoever and will happily entertain your attentions in every respect. As for the other treat...you may have heard of a dish called ‘Floating Island.’ That is a mere metaphor. Behold the substance! Nymphs, free yourselves of your burden!”