A Corpse in Shining Armour (5 page)

Her laugh brought people looking towards us again.

‘Oh, how convenient if one could.’

‘Celia, you married for love. My mother and father married for love. If I can’t do the same, then I shan’t marry at all.’

‘Nonsense. You’re far too pretty and agreeable to be an old maid. But one really can’t be too fussy.’

I finished my salmon, remembering that with Celia the impulses to hug her and hit her with a heavy object were never far apart.
What I couldn’t explain to her, because there was nothing in her life that would help her understand, was the delight that
I was beginning to take in my independence. I’d fallen into it by accident, and the shock had been like a plunge into cold
water, but now I’d learned to swim in it and the water didn’t seem so cold after all. It would take a more remarkable man
than any I was likely to meet on the social circuit to understand that.

Luckily, something had happened to change the subject. Two women had arrived late and, instead of being annoyed because they’d
missed her performance, our hostess was fawning over them like royalty. The older one was tall and middle-aged, the younger
one in her early twenties. Celia caught her breath.

‘Look, it’s Rosa Fitzwilliam.’

She was staring at the younger woman like an astronomer seeing a comet. Rosa Fitzwilliam was a little above average height,
slimly built but with a good bust and beautiful sloping shoulders. Her face was a perfect oval, complexion like alabaster
with moonlight on it. Her chestnut brown hair, swept up into elaborate spirals, was pinned with a diamond aigrette that caught
the light from the chandeliers as she graciously nodded at her hostess’s words. Celia wasn’t the only one looking at her.
A hush had fallen on the room. Some people were staring at her openly, others trying to carry on their conversations while
looking at her sidelong.

‘Who is she?’ I said.

‘Oh, my dear, where have you been? She’s positively the Beauty of the season. Just come over from Dublin, or everyone would
have known about her long before. Just look at those eyebrows. Do you suppose she plucks them?’

They were two flawless arches; her lips, equally flawless, could have come from a classical statue. I looked and puzzled about
this question of beauty. In my opinion, Celia was at least equally beautiful, and there were several other women in the room
of whom you could say the same. And yet they were staring at Rosa Fitzwilliam without envy, as if she came from another planet
and they could not be expected to compete. For some reason, every now and then, society chooses to pick out a lovely woman
and raise her to the status of the Beauty. There was no arguing with it.

Rosa Fitzwilliam graciously accepted a glass of champagne and moved across the room to talk to a group of people she obviously
knew. Conversation swelled again, but there was an excitement in the room that hadn’t been there before she arrived, the way
the air quivers after lightning strikes.

‘I suppose they’ll have to put off the marriage if his father dies,’ Celia said.

‘Whose father?’

‘The whole thing is terribly hard for her, although you’d never guess it to look at her. After all, she couldn’t possibly
have known when she accepted him at Christmas time. Nobody had the least idea then.’

‘Least idea about what?’

‘If it came to it, I suppose he’d have to release her from the engagement. It would be the only honourable thing to do, don’t
you think?’

‘Celia, I haven’t the slightest notion what you’re talking about.’

She stared at me.

‘Surely you’ve heard about the Brinkburns? Everybody’s known for weeks.’

I bit my tongue. Even if everybody had known for weeks, my promise to Disraeli of secrecy still held.

‘Known what?’

She handed her empty plate to a passing servant and brought her head closer to mine.

‘Rosa’s engaged to Stephen Brinkburn. His father’s madder than poor old King George was, and he’s going to die any day now.
Only there’s some doubt about Stephen’s right to inherit…apparently his father wasn’t…well, you know.’

If I hadn’t heard the story already from a more coherent source, no, I shouldn’t have known. But one thing was clear. However
hard Disraeli and his friends were trying to keep the scandal within a small circle, it was already the talk of the London
drawing rooms.

‘But she’s still engaged to him whatever happens, isn’t she?’ I said. ‘She can’t just send him back like a pair of gloves
that aren’t the right colour.’

‘My dear, what pictures you’re painting. It seems quite clear to me. If it turns out that he isn’t and the younger brother
is, then strictly speaking it’s the younger brother she should be engaged to, and since he’s supposed to be in love with her
too, like all the other young men, it wouldn’t make a lot of difference. Except to poor Stephen, of course, but then…’

She stopped talking because another of those sudden silences had just fallen on the assembly. Celia turned towards the door.

‘Oh look, it’s him.’

A young man was standing just inside the doorway, his posture stiff and his face serious. He was in correct gentleman’s evening
wear of black and white. The last time I’d seen him he’d just rolled down a flight of steps in full armour and was trying
to do serious harm to his brother. From the silence, and the set expression on his face, many of the people in the room had
heard about it already and he was all too aware of that.

Everybody seemed to have noticed his entrance except Rosa Fitzwilliam. She had her back to the door and was talking to one
of her group. Stephen started walking towards her, like a man who expected to come under fire. One of her companions must
have said something, because she turned and smiled at him. To me, there seemed a hint of strain in her smile, but it must
have been good enough for him because he smiled back and relaxed a little, as if the other people didn’t matter so much after
all. He walked up to her, took her hand and raised it to his lips. Celia caught my eye and gave an upward jerk of her chin.

‘Still on, then,’ she murmured to me.

It was safe to say it now, because people were talking again and pretending to disregard the couple. From Rosa’s gestures,
it looked as if she was rebuking Stephen playfully for being late, tapping his coat sleeve with her fan. The gesture was charming,
vivacious, just a little too stagey, as if she knew very well that everybody’s attention was on them. A footman had appeared
at our side and was waiting for Celia to notice him.

‘Your carriage is outside, ma’am.’

Celia stood up.

‘Darling Philip is so concerned I shouldn’t stay out late. Do let me drop you off.’

We said our goodbyes. Her own footman helped us into their comfortable carriage, upholstered in pink. When Celia asked where
I lived I suggested that she should put me down at the corner of Mount Street. I had no shame about living among the artisans
and animals, but I knew it would puzzle her terribly. On the short journey she chattered on about the endless good qualities
of her Philip, so there was no opportunity to get back to the problems of the Brinkburn family. As I was getting down, she
kissed me.

‘Oh, it’s been so pleasant. Let’s meet again soon. You must come and see me. Do say yes.’

‘Yes, but I don’t even know where you live,’ I said.

She produced a tiny pink notebook from the pocket of her evening cloak and a silver pencil as thin as a flower stem.

‘You’ll come tomorrow, or the day after, promise? The doctor says I must rest in the afternoons and you’ve no idea how achingly
dull it is, Elizabeth.’

Clearly my name was a lost cause with her. She tore the page with her address out of the book and pressed it into my hand.
I watched as her coach pulled away, pleased things had turned out well for her. Also, I was glad to have set eyes on the possibly
transferable fiancée. Altogether, it had turned out to be a more instructive evening than I’d expected.

You can buy anything in Bond Street. Anything, that is, except what a person might need in everyday life. Ironmongers, cobblers
or grocers have no place on these elegant pavements. But if you want, say, a painting reliably attributed to Fra Lippo Lippi,
a marble Aphrodite from Delos, a sacred scarab once owned by an Egyptian pharaoh, you may stroll up and down Bond Street and
take your choice from several of each. You could also equip yourself with a full suit of armour, a crested helmet, sword,
battle-axe and caparisons for your war horse.

I’d walked past Samuel Pratt’s shop at number 47, on the corner of Maddox Street, almost every day, stopping now and then
for a glance when he had some particularly elaborate suit of armour or flamboyant banner in his window.

His customers, I’d assumed, were people who wanted these things to add historical tone to the halls of their newly built gothic
castles. The knowledge that he was now supplying them to men who intended to wear and use them gave the place a new interest
for everybody. When I walked down Bond Street on a sunny morning to keep my appointment with the younger Mr Brinkburn, there
were so many people looking in Pratt’s window that they blocked the pavement, and two carriages were waiting outside. I pushed
my way through and went into the shop. The high walls of its salesroom were hung with banners, shields, battle-axes and dozens
of swords and daggers arranged in symmetrical patterns. Suits of armour on dummies flanked a door to an inner room. Two gentlemen
and a black-coated salesman wearing white gloves were standing at a table gravely examining gauntlets. There was no sign of
Miles Brinkburn.

‘Fifteenth-century German,’ the salesman was saying, ‘hardest steel that was ever made, but they’re supple as silk.’

A younger salesman came towards me and asked if he could help. I told him that I had an appointment with Mr Brinkburn.

‘He’s through there in our workshop, ma’am, seeing his armour unpacked. He said you were to be shown through.’

He opened the door between the two guardian suits of armour and stood back to let me pass.

Miles Brinkburn was down on his haunches beside a crate surrounded with wood-shavings, studying what looked like a piece of
leg armour. He stood up when he saw me.

‘I’m so glad you could be here, Miss Lane. It arrived just before they closed last night and they haven’t had time to unpack
it all yet.’

A well-dressed man in his mid thirties whom I took to be Mr Pratt himself was standing beside the crate, supervising an apprentice
who was removing more wood-shavings. It struck me that Pratt looked worried. Miles, on the other hand, was glowing with enthusiasm.
He showed me the piece of armour.

‘Just look at the great dent in this greave. Pratt thinks it’s old damage. It might have happened when my ancestor Sir Gilbert
was wearing it in a tournament four hundred years ago.’

It struck me that it could have just as well resulted from some domestic accident twenty years ago, but I didn’t say so.

‘The armour’s been standing in our gallery all my life,’ Miles said. ‘I used to dream about it as a boy. I never imagined
I’d be wearing it in action one day.’

Pratt looked even more worried. Miles pushed the apprentice aside and delved in the case like a child in a bran tub, bringing
out another greave and two or three more pieces I couldn’t identify. Pratt took them and inspected them gravely, nodding his
head.

‘Yes, they have every appearance of being authentic fifteenth century.’

‘Of course they’re authentic. They’ve never been out of the family. Now, where’s the main part of it, the what d’you call
it?’

‘The cuirass,’ Pratt said. ‘It’s over there by the wall.’

He nodded towards the back and breastplate that would cover the upper part of the body.

‘It will have to be altered to fit me,’ Miles said. ‘Our noble ancestor must have been on the small side. I’ll need it done
well before the tournament so that I can practise in it.’

Mr Pratt coughed.

‘When it comes to alterations, I think I should say that your brother may have…’

It sounded like the start of a speech he’d been preparing. Miles broke into it impatiently.

‘It’s nothing to do with my brother. I was the one who had the idea of sending for Sir Gilbert’s armour. He’ll just have to
make other arrangements. Where are the spurs? They’ll need new straps.’

Mr Pratt looked anything but reassured, but must have realised he could take the subject no further at present, so signed
to one of the apprentices to drag out another crate from where it was standing next to the cuirass. The lid was still nailed
down and they had to use a crowbar to lever it off.

While the work was going on, I had a chance to look round. A craftsman was hammering delicately on something at a bench by
the window. Wooden dummies stood along the walls, wearing various bits of armour. A full-size wax model of a leg dangled from
a peg. Other pegs held leather tunics that were presumably for wearing under the armour. It might have been ancient sweat
and blood from those that, in the heat, gave the workshop a pronounced animal smell. I noticed Mr Pratt looking round and
wrinkling his nose. Wood splintered. The apprentice wrenched off the lid of the case, disclosing a layer of wood-shavings.
Miles Brinkburn stepped forward eagerly, then fell back. The smell was suddenly much worse.

‘What the…? Have they gone and put a dead rat in with it?’

Mr Pratt took his place and scooped out double handfuls of wood-shavings, dumping them on the floor. Something rat-coloured,
but not as solid as a rat, appeared among the shavings in the crate. Wispy, like human hair.

I was only a few steps away at the time and my heart gave a thump. I don’t know why, but I think I guessed before anybody
else in the room what was happening, even before Pratt turned pale and drew his cupped hands back as if he’d been bitten.

‘No,’ he said, as if the thing could be made to go away.

As the shavings in the crate settled, a yellowish dome appeared as if it were rising by its own will. Pratt staggered back.
The apprentice screamed.