Death Among the Ruins Read Online Free PDF Page A

farthings to rub together. He mustn’t marry Bunny, and now it’s fairly certain that he won’t.”
    “But have you given any thought,” said Arabella, making an effort to govern her temper, “any at all, to the damage your story will do to our demi-reputations?”
    “Rubbish! You’re courtesans! My colorful tale will merely enhance your already potent mystique.”
    “No,” she said. “A lot of people who are otherwise broad-minded draw the line at incest. None of our wealthy clients will have us with that taint on our records! And if we fail, dear brother, you fail, as well.”
    Charles went as white and as crumbly as a good Caerphilly.
    “Oh,” he said faintly. “I hadn’t quite thought of it in that light, you know. Um . . . what shall we do now?”
    “I have no idea what you will do,” Arabella retorted. “A good brother would go out and explain to the world that he was only having his little joke.”
    “But I am not a good brother.”
    “Precisely, Toby .”
    Arabella had coined this cognomen when they were children, because her brother’s ears stuck out from his head like the handles on a Toby mug. The defect having happily resolved itself with time, the nickname proved indelible, as nicknames often will, and resurfaced whenever Charles had occasion to vex his sisters. Hence, the air at Lustings fairly rang with “Toby!” for I am sorry to say that the fellow fretted them constantly.
    On this particular evening, Belinda and Arabella had been seated before the fire in the drawing room, their slippered feet propped on footstools, where, until Charles’s entry and electrifying anecdote, Belinda had been engaged in making a needlepoint of Europa consummating her affair with the bull, and Arabella had been copying a sketch of Rowlandson’s, depicting a trio of decrepit old men examining the business end of a happy, naked young woman.
    “Bunny and I will shortly be leaving for the Continent, in connection with a private matter,” said Arabella, “and now that you have seen fit to blacken our reputations, I propose to remain abroad unless and until this thing shall have run its course. Whilst we are gone, I shall write to every important friend of our acquaintance, explaining your conduct, reviling you, and begging assistance in clearing our names. You may stew in your own juices until we return—I do not mind what you do—but you will have to find somewhere else to live, for you cannot stay at Lustings.”
    “No, indeed,” Belinda chimed in. “If we left you here alone, we should come back to find the house empty of furniture, and yourself skinned and on the point of gambling away the doorknobs.”
    An ordinary person, confronted with such an uncomfortable truth, would have hung his head for shame. But this bothered Charles not a whit. For he had spoken truly: He was not a good brother.
    “Bell,” Belinda continued, “do you not think we should call at Ackermann’s in a few days, in order to assess the actual damage?”
    “Indubitably. It is impossible that this ‘revelation’ will escape the notice of the gossip hounds. Charles, get your things together and get out.”
    “But . . . I’ve nowhere to go!” he protested. “No one will have me to stay with them, if what you say is true!”
    “You will just have to find some way to cope, then, won’t you?”
    “I won’t, Bell. You know I could not survive without you and my friends, which, according to you, I no longer possess. How will you feel when you return to find me dead and buried in Potter’s Field? For the rest of your own life, which I hope may be long and wretched, you will suffer from the knowledge that I died because of your neglect.”
    “Oh, shut up, Charles.”
    Belinda was beginning to waver. “The nights are awfully cold just now, Bell,” she said, with a beseeching sort of look at her sister.
    “I realize that. Which is why he needn’t be buried until we come home. They can preserve him quite nicely for us in