Death and the Cyprian Society Read Online Free PDF

tunnels lead, install sign posts and a directory, and I could design you a secret ingress panel. Because one never knows when one is going to need a sudden escape route.”
    Arabella approved the panel, but the exuberance which she should ordinarily have felt was checked by the realization that without the money from Constance, she would not be able to pay for it.

Chapter 3
    F ollowing her street encounter with Arabella, Lady Ribbonhat had spent a restless night. It had never before occurred to her that she might not be destined for a comfortable after-existence: The dowager duchess had never been denied admission to anything in her life, and she found the prospect of damnation extremely unpalatable.
    She had been good enough, hadn’t she? It wasn’t as though she had killed anyone! Admittedly, Lady Ribbonhat did feel a certain kinship with the Roman empress Livia, who became a goddess after murdering most of her family, but that was not the reason for the affinity. The dowager admired Livia’s inflexible will; her determination to succeed, whatever the odds. Added to this was the fact that Livia had gone to heaven despite her nefarious doings, through the intercession of her grandson, the emperor Claudius.
    Lady Ribbonhat’s son was not an emperor and, so far as she knew, he had no particular celestial connections. Still, she saw no reason why Henry should not relieve her mind on one or two points, and after eyeing him morosely for a time across the breakfast table, she asked him outright whether he thought her cruel.
    “With reference to what?” asked the duke, somewhat absently, for he was attempting to challenge himself by trying to read a letter and eat toast at the same time, and the unexpected addition of a question that required an answer was on the verge of overtaxing him.
    “Oh!” cried his mother. “Then I suppose you do think me cruel, sometimes?”
    Her tone warned him that he had better stop his other two activities and attend to this new one, so Henry put down the letter and swallowed his toast. Yet he was still uncertain how to respond, for all he had retained of his mother’s question was the word “sometimes.”
    “When?” he asked cautiously.
    “The time you brought home that mongrel, for instance, and I had the coachman dispose of it without telling you.”
    “A mongrel?”
    “Well . . . an Alsatian.”
    “How old was I?”
    “Twenty-six.”
    “I don’t recall ever bringing home a dog, Mama.”
    “Not a dog, dear . . . a bitch. I told you at the time that she’d run off with the postman.”
    “Oh . . .” said the duke. “So, that’s what happened to little Jeanette! You know, I never quite believed your story, Mama; our postman was nigh on eighty at the time, and he continued to deliver the post, the same as usual. But, hang it all, I was deuced fond of that girl!”
    “I was fully aware of your feelings, Henry; that’s why I had the creature removed. We cannot have Miss No-bodies from No-where aspiring to the peerage. If we admitted everyone, there would be no room left for us! You can hardly call it cruel; the girl wasn’t worthy of you.”
    Glen deen , who was chewing his toast again, made no immediate response.
    “Henry? It wasn’t cruel. Was it?”
    “I suppose not,” he said, swallowing. “Cruelty would imply that you took pleasure in it, and acted on purpose to hurt me. No, I think you are merely self-centered to the extent that you are unwilling to acknowledge the effects of your actions upon those around you.”
    “Oh,” said his mother, somewhat mollified. “Well, that’s not a sin, is it?”
    Henry had resumed reading his letter.
    “What?”
    “Self-centeredness is not a sin?”
    “Um,” he said, picking his teeth. “I rather think it is, Mama. Remember the time you came into the schoolroom when I was supposed to be studying Euclidean algorithms, and caught me reading The Governess, or The Little Female Academy, instead? Do you recall what you