Death Among the Ruins (Arabella Beaumont Mystery)

by Christie, Pamela

  “I repeat,” said Belinda. “We are in a foreign country. The ways of these people are not our ways, and religion is very important here. In fact, it is more important than anything else. You are a woman, with no husband or father standing behind you, and you are a foreigner. The Italians have actually shown great forbearance toward you—toward us, coming to their country, or whatever this is, and demanding our ‘rights.’ We have no rights, here. John Locke’s idea is merely a relic we have brought with us. Can you not see how absurd we must look to them?”

  Arabella plumped down on the bed. “I suppose I had not thought of it in that light,” she admitted.

  “Besides,” said Belinda, pursuing her advantage. “If we leave now, where shall we go? Home? Without what we came for? You will make us all unhappy if you do that. You will not have your statue, Charles has not finished fleecing the local populace, and Mr. Kendrick . . . oh. He will be happy enough, I suppose.”

  “But you hate it here, Bunny! Only this morning you were trying to convince me to take you home!”

  “I know I was,” said Belinda. “But that was this morning. I want to stay . . . now.”

  Is it possible, dear reader, that a single amorous encounter in a lightless, underground vault can awaken a young woman to love? Love with an elderly man, whom she has held in abhorrence up to the hour preceding her sublime moment?

  The subject of improbable attachment is truly one that requires meditation—not on the grounds of possibility, for such things frequently happen, and Belinda was genuinely in love with Professor Bergamini—but for the sheer strangeness of it. Such a pointless expenditure of emotion, veering wide of any clear biological objective! Yet, people do not always fall in love with viable procreational partners. They may fall in love with pug dogs, or ships, or even statues. As for Belinda, she had learnt an important lesson: Love is not necessarily blind, but it does, sometimes, wear dark spectacles.

  “You are perfectly right, Bunny,” said Arabella, coming over to kiss the top of her head. “I have been foolish. But at least I appreciate good sense when I hear it. And you are the most sensible little person that ever was!”

  “Miss Beaumont,” called Kendrick from without. “I have brought you a tray. Will you not try to take a little something?”

  “By all means!” she cried, throwing open the door. “I am quite ravenous! How very good of you, Mr. Kendrick!”

  “Oh!” said he. “I thought that you were . . . were . . .”

  “I was. But I am over it now.”

  “You mean, we are not going to leave?” he asked.

  “Why, no. I have not got my statue, have I?”

  “This is splendid, Mr. Kendrick!” cried Belinda, inspecting the tray. “An extra-large helping of pudding! Bell, do you really want it? Because I was obliged to leave my own downstairs, and I’m sure they’ll have given it to the goat by now.”

  At this point, Kendrick would have left the tray and retired to some place of seclusion, to ponder the changeability of the feminine temperament. But the sisters insisted that he stay. They fed him titbits from the plate and draped him with laces and ribbons, laughing uproariously the meanwhile, as they unpacked Arabella’s things again.

  “Miss Beaumont,” said Kendrick, looking perfectly darling in a mohair shawl, which Belinda had thrown over his head and shoulders. And a bonnet, which Arabella had jammed over the top of it. And a golden tiara, set with amber stones and lapis lazuli, which Belinda had added as a whimsical afterthought. “I have formed a theory about what occurred here today.”

  “Please! Let us speak no more about it!”

  “But this might have some bearing on the mystery! Well, it is highly mysterious, at any rate.”

  She made an exasperated noise, signifying at once her frustration with his obstinacy and her consent that he should proceed.

  “Before your arrival, I was watching Father Terranova give the blessing.”

  “You were! Yet you made no attempt to evict him from our rooms?!”

  “The crowd about the hotel was too dense to break through. It would not have been possible. But even supposing it were, what would you have had me do, then? Force the priest from your balcony, in full sight of a thousand people who wished to hear him? I am devoted to your service, madam, but I hope I am not stupid. Besides, he did not appear to be giving a blessing.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There was no holy water; no aspergillum. It appeared that he was merely delivering a speech to the crowd.”

  “Really?” Arabella was intrigued. “What did he say?”

  “I’ve no idea. It was in Italian, of course.”

  Further discourse upon this subject was effectively curtailed by the arrival of Charles, bearing Arabella’s costume and Belinda’s greyhound, which he had previously secreted in his room. And to his delighted astonishment, he was fairly smothered in unaccustomed gratitude from his amazed and delighted sisters.

  Dear Mrs. Janks,

  I really am beginning to feel as though the whole world has shunned me! That my gentleman friends should cut me is not so much a surprise, but that you, who have always defended me, would now ignore my pleas for information, is hard indeed! Charles invented the story about the dancing lesson in a misguided attempt to save Belinda from an imprudent marriage. Why will you not believe that? Please, Mrs. Janks, dear Mrs. Janks, I implore you to tell me what is going on there with respect to my current standing in society! If it would be unwise for me to come home now, why will you not write and say so?

  “No post . . . no Pietro . . . I am becoming a regular nervous Nelly!” Arabella observed to Belinda, as the sisters posted handbills in the little town. These had been translated into Italian, and advertised a reward for any news leading to the statue’s recovery.

  “In that order?” Belinda asked.

  “What?”

  “Which worries you more, Pietro’s absence, or your lack of letters?”

  “What is the difference? Sometimes, Bunny, I cannot fathom you at all.”

  They finished their task, and were making their way back to the hotel, when a large bush growing beside the road suddenly and unaccountably sneezed. The sisters halted in their tracks, and regarded the shrub with grave uncertainty.

  “Signorina!” whispered the bush. “Come closer! It is Pietro! I cannot be seen talking to you!”

  “What . . . ?”

  “Ssshh! You are being watched, signorina! Pretend you are tired, and sit down in the shade.”

  She and Belinda sat upon the grass.

  “The smuggler is back,” he said quietly. “Meet me in town tomorrow, and I will fix a time to take you to his house. You will need to bring men with you.”

  “Will coachmen be all right?” she asked softly.

  “Yes. Get big ones.”

  “Very well. Where shall I meet you in Resina? And at what time?”

  “Non è importante. I will find you. Good-bye, signorina.”

  “Do you really think you’re being watched?” asked Belinda as they walked toward the hotel.

  “Of course not! Why should anyone want to watch me? Other than for business reasons, of course. I think Pietro is just attempting to inject a little mystery into an otherwise dull assignment.”

  In any case, the fellow who was following them was just an ordinary man, going about his ordinary business, which coincidentally happened to lie in the same direction.

  The following morning, Arabella and Mr. Kendrick went to Resina. Belinda had an assignation with her professor, and Charles, now that his luck had changed, was no longer in need of a minder.

  “Where should you like me to take you?” asked the rector.

  “I don’t care where I go or what I do, so long as I may bask in the sunshine!”

  “Then I think I know the very place! Your brother and I discovered a little taverna with outdoor tables, on that day you went to Pompeii with Miss Belinda. It was around . . . here, someplace . . . I cannot quite recall where, thoug
h . . . ah!” (He had spied a shop window with an ENGLISH SPOKEN HEAR sign.) “If you will wait just one moment, Miss Beaumont, I shall pop inside and enquire about it.”

  Arabella stood in the tender sunlight, idly humming, and swaying a little to her own music. It was a mild day, only slightly chilly, with the gush from the public fountain glistening in the sunshine, and the birds singing for all they were worth. She was feeling happy on the inside, and exquisite on the outside, dressed as she was in a soft gown of cream-colored wool, with Mameluke sleeves and gray ribbons, surmounted by a gray velvet spencer and a tippet of silver fox fur. In point of fact, the inner happiness was most probably occasioned by the outward display, and so engrossed was she in contemplation of this fact as to be not at all prepared when someone seized her roughly from behind and whipped a blindfold over her eyes.

  “Help!” Arabella screamed, or started to, but a hand was quickly and firmly clamped over her mouth. Then she struggled womanfully to free herself, but that was no good, either; her head and shoulders were the only parts of her anatomy she was able to move, and these are not very effective in amateur self-defense maneuvers.

  Oddly enough, her assailant was making no effort either to force her into a carriage or to cut her throat. He simply held her immobilized in the public square for a few moments, as she strove ineffectually within a pair of arms that embraced her like iron barrel staves.

  “Stubborn little idiot!” growled a voice in her ear. “You were warned, time and again, but you have failed to listen to reason!”

  It was an English voice, and Arabella wondered, in her panic, whether that was a good thing. Where was Kendrick? Would he find her in time?

  And then, as suddenly as she had been seized, she was released again, and the blindfold removed. (The reader may be interested to learn that it was a pocket handkerchief, tied into a loop so as to be easily dropped over her head.)

  Arabella spun round and furiously confronted her assailant. “Gordon!” she exclaimed with an admixture of relief and delight. “My God, you nearly gave me heart failure!”

  He laughed and kissed her.

  “Hello, my darling! What are you doing so far from home?”

  “It’s rather a long story. What are you doing out here?”

  “Searching for a decent cup of coffee, like everybody else.”

  “Look who I have got, Mr. Kendrick!” Arabella called as the rector emerged from the shop. “It’s Lord Byron!”

  The two men were not actually friends. One couldn’t be, with Byron. By his own admission, the poet’s only friend had been his dog, Boatswain. And Boatswain was dead. But Byron liked John Kendrick well enough for all that. They sat outside because Arabella wanted to admire the sky. She had to crane her neck a bit to actually see it above the sheer walls of the tenement buildings that hemmed them in, but it was better than nothing. Besides, craning shewed off her throat to its best advantage, and a couple of youngbloods on the other side of the street were making friendly kissing noises at her. Arabella smiled at them provocatively.

  “Any number of people love their work,” she preened, “but how many can claim that their work loves them back?”

  “I can,” said Kendrick. “My parishioners daily shew their gratitude for my presence in a thousand different ways.”

  “But that’s hardly the same sort of love,” Byron observed.

  “Good heavens, I should hope not!”

  Coffee was brought out to them in tiny cups, because it was so very strong.

  “Do tell us about your adventures, Gordon!” said Arabella. (Byron’s intimates all called him Gordon, as he had the misfortune to share his Christian name with the widely detested prince regent.) “When did you leave England?”

  “I don’t remember when,” he said. “Only why: I left in order to get away from Caroline for a bit. She’s a lovely woman, you know, but ever so slightly off-balance. I beg your pardon, that is most unfair . . . to all the slightly off-balanced persons in the world! Caroline is a raving lunatic. Usually I like that in a mistress, but not when it involves possessiveness.

  “Anyway, I went first to Greece, where Lord Elgin’s agent gave me a tour of the Parthenon. And when I saw the places where that bastard Elgin had ripped away the friezes and wrenched off the caryatids, I was blind with fury! That wasn’t the agent’s fault, of course, but it was his fault when he said, ‘Thank God for Lord Elgin! What a friend to antiquity!’ I nearly choked the life out of him.”

  Arabella shifted uncomfortably in her chair. Actually, the precise word for what she did is “squirmed.” For she had remembered her handbills. She could even see one of them from where she was sitting. Thankfully, they did not bear her name, but they did give the hotel’s address. And Byron was fluent in Italian.

  “Nothing provokes my rage like the arrogance of British despoilers,” he said. “The way they simply help themselves to the history of other cultures! What presumption! It is theft, pure and simple! If it were up to me, all such perpetrators would be hanged for the criminals they are! And one day,” he added, setting the tiny spoon onto his saucer, “it might very well be up to me.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Kendrick.

  “Oh, nothing, probably. But you see . . . well, there is talk. That is, some people are sort of suggesting that I shall end up as king of Greece.”

  “Crikey!” Kendrick exclaimed. “Wouldn’t that be remarkable!”

  “It would. Though I feel I can tell you that I do not believe myself worthy.”

  “Gordon,” said Arabella. “Do not insult us by feigning humility. It suits you exceedingly ill.”

  “I know it does!” he laughed. “I should love to be king of Greece! To what more could a man aspire? And then I’d give those English despoilers what-for!”

  Arabella avoided Kendrick’s eye.

  “But I want to know about you, Arabella! What has tempted you to leave fair Lustings and venture abroad?”

  She cleared her throat. “Well . . . I . . .” Her voice faltered.

  “You can tell Gordon, Arabella!” said Kendrick encouragingly.

  Confound the man! What was he doing?! She couldn’t tell Gordon about her quest for the statue! He’d—how had he put it?—“choke the life out of her!”

  “Come, come,” Kendrick urged. “Lord Byron is no stranger to scandal! Besides, it’s none of your doing; you are a victim of your brother’s poor judgment!”

  “Oh!” she said weakly. “Oh, yes. Well, you see, Gordon, my brother Charles told a silly story at his club, which started a rumor . . .”

  Byron slapped the table hard with his open hand. His listeners jumped, and the espresso cups rattled in their saucers.

  “I did hear about that! Incest, wasn’t it? Incest, amongst the three of you!”

  “You heard about it? In Greece?”

  “News travels fast, these days. So, you’re lying low out here till the scandal blows over, I take it. You could not have picked a nicer spot to do it in: Mediterranean vistas . . . Roman ruins . . . and all the beautiful artworks of antiquity, spread at your feet.”

  “Gordon,” she ventured, “have you heard anything? What are people saying?”

  “I shouldn’t worry about it,” he said kindly. “Incest is such a little thing. I practice it myself, you know. Though of course, Augusta is only my half sister . . .”

  “Tell us about Missolonghi,” said Kendrick quickly.

  “A beautiful spot! Savage! Raw! I ate with the Pallikar chieftains, and slept beneath the stars, wrapped in my cloak. It’s just skirmishes now. But there will be full-scale war, eventually, and then I shall return, to fight side-by-side with my Pallikar brethren! The Italians, on the other hand, are ready to commence their own rebellion against tyranny, now. That is why I am here, in fact. I have joined the Carbonari, to help advance their glorious cause!”

  “That sounds like a political organization,” said Arabella suspiciously.

  “It is . . . but,” he added, hastily, “it’s a secr
et society. You dote upon those.”

  “I do,” she admitted. “What are their aims? Please be brief, Gordon.”

  “Briefly, then, we are seeking Italy’s unification, under one government.”

  “That doesn’t sound like it need be kept secret!”

  “Oh, but it does! You see, the Austrians are dead against it, and the papal states are insisting . . .” but he saw her eyes glaze over. “You must just take my word that it is a noble cause. We are in deadly earnest.”

  “I believe you,” said Arabella, standing up and filling her lungs. “By heaven, what a morning! One could almost believe it was spring! Mr. K., might I prevail upon you to purchase a box of those exquisite little butter horns, and take them back to the hotel for me? Come along, Gordon! Let us go dabble our feet in some fountain!”

  If Byron was shocked at her blatant contempt of Kendrick, he masked it.

  “Another time, I should love to,” said he, consulting his watch. “But just now I have a pressing appointment.”

  “What?!” cried Arabella, only half in jest. “Forsaking me for another woman?”

  “No. I meant that literally. I am being honored this evening at a military dinner. Medals, you know, will only go so far in covering up the wrinkles on a man’s jacket, and I’m told they do absolutely nothing at all for crumpled trousers.”

  A child in a tattered shirt hastened up to them, and Arabella saw with dismay that it was Pietro. He was panting, like one who has been running for a long time, or someone who is badly frightened. Or both.

  “Signorina, I must speak quickly . . . !”

  What was she to do, now? If she discussed plans with the boy, Gordon was almost certain to ask questions. And if he should discover that she was proposing to deprive Italy of one of its national treasures . . . !

  “I am sorry, little fellow, but I have just spent the last of my lira on coffee,” said Arabella untruthfully, for Byron had paid for it. She turned away from Pietro, as though he no longer existed, and saw Byron across the street, tearing down her handbill.