Death and the Cyprian Society

  2 Whenever this young woman spoke more than a single sentence, her words tended to come tumbling out like storm water from a sewer pipe, heedless of punctuation other than full stops, exclamations, and the occasional question mark. It was a style of speaking that found favor in certain masculine circles, where it was fondly and condescendingly referred to as “women’s chatter.”

  3 Both Beaumont sisters disliked indecorous language and, after a few early experiments, had dispensed with it nearly altogether, except when “exceeding vexed,” as Arabella now was. But being broad-minded, they were not offended when to coarse invective others had recourse, of course.

  4 The pergola did not have walls, of course, but its two benches were elegantly backed with wooden slats, in Japanese patterns. The bench facing away from the stream had a large, round opening cut into its back, so that persons seated opposite might have a frame from which to view the water.

  5 Which, in addition to referring to a family of birds of the order Passeriformes, is another term for courtesans.

  6 The silver rhino head had been a gift from Mungo Park, sent to Arabella from the Gambia, during the great explorer’s tragic final trip there. She had owned it for some years, but had just lately had the idea to fashion it into a knocker.

  “Why a rhinoceros?” the duke had asked her. “Why not a lion?”

  “Because I like rhinos,” Arabella had replied. “Besides, their heads make better door knockers. They are heavy, massive, fairly indestructible, and the longer of the horns is a convenient handle.”

  It wasn’t until later that the duke remembered “rhino’s” other meaning, and his noble heart had recoiled from the commercial sentiment implicit in such a device. But he was also wise enough to see that Arabella was entitled to have her little joke.

  7 One of Aesop’s fables tells of a mouse who cleverly talks a lion out of eating her by appealing to his honor, and hinting that she might one day be able to return the favor. The amused lion takes his paw off her tail and sets her free. Some time later, he finds himself ensnared in a net of ropes so cunningly woven that he is unable to move. The mouse gnaws through the ropes to free her lordly friend, proving, once again, that you should never eat any creature with both the ability to speak your language, and the wit to beg for its life.

  8 Her decadent style of living had so corrupted Arabella, that she had fallen into the disreputable habit of occasionally sharing meals with her servants. Forgive her, reader, for she was accustomed to living on her own, and had grown a stranger to propriety.

  9 Namely, Sippet and Miss Ferguson. The former had been named after a kind of crouton of roughly the same color as its hide; the latter for a horse-faced governess the sisters had shared as children.