Free Death and the Cyprian Society by Pamela Christie Page B

lovely virtue, and it gives us an excuse to cry. You must admit that it feels good to cry sometimes.”
    Arabella looked at her niece with doubtful regard: Was the girl turning into a Catholic? It was possible. Though barely eleven, she frequently came out with mature pronouncements and shrewd observations, and Edwardina behaved more like a wife toward Frank than her mother ever had: mending his stockings, boiling his eggs, and seeing that he wrapped up warmly before going out in the cold. Now that Sarah Jane had left, it would not surprise Arabella very much if the pair were to marry when the girl came of age. But there was very little that would surprise her, insofar as Eddie was concerned. The child might grow up to be a saint, or a scientist, or the Northwest Passage’s discoverer. And, if she did decide to become a Catholic, she might conceivably become the second female pope.
    “I thought I heard a gentleman’s voice just before you came in,” Eddie said.
    “Yes, I expect it was Glen deen .”
    “Had he come to see me?”
    “Why . . . no, dear. You’ve never met the duke, have you?”
    “No,” she replied drowsily. “But I thought he might have come to see me, all the same.”
    “You old silly!” said Arabella affectionately. “Why should a complete stranger come here especially to see you?”
    “From curiosity,” said Eddie. “Because I am your niece, and I am a virgin. Soon I shall be old enough to do what you do.” She sighed and smiled. “I should think they will be coming to see me, you know,” she said, “sooner or later.”
    Well, perhaps Eddie would not be ascending to heaven after all. But the idea that Arabella’s admirers might start coming to her house in order to visit her niece was not an agreeable one. The old making way for the new was one of Arabella’s least favorite themes, especially where it concerned her personally, and particularly especially when she herself was relegated to the role of “the old.”
    She opened the drawer in the bedside table and removed Frank’s little black bottle. Eddie watched her pull the stopper and sniff the contents.
    “Faugh!” cried Arabella. “How say you, niece? Do you feel restored after taking this?”
    The child shook her head feebly but emphatically on the pillow.
    “I thought not,” said Arabella. “Let’s leave it up to Mrs. Moly to bring you round with nourishing food. I always prefer meals to medicines, don’t you? Besides,” she said as she emptied the bottle’s contents into the bedpan, “pot liquor and beef tea are much better restoratives than mercury.”
    “But Frank and the doctor want me to take it,” whispered Eddie.
    “They want you to get well,” said Arabella. “And I rather think, my dear, that the proof is in the pudding.”

Chapter 5
    T he din was unbearable. Plasterers, carpenters, and pipe fitters overran the place, all sawing away, hammering, shouting, and dropping things from heights. Only the Cyprian Society’s tiny reception room, located just inside the front door and designed for a single occupant, was sufficiently removed from the chaos to allow for anything approaching normal conversation. But it was not very comfortable. The yellow chamber was intended as a holding area, where outsiders (preferably one at a time) were kept until they could be properly vetted and/or met by the member they had come to see. It wasn’t really large enough for two persons, but the alternative was unacceptable: Arabella was not about to entertain Charles’s disreputable friends at her house.
    Owing to Glen deen ’s unexpected visit and the prolonged leave she had subsequently taken of Eddie, Arabella arrived late to find that her first witness had disappeared. The idea of a drunken sot wandering around loose did not sit well. Mr. Tilbury was supposed to prevent this kind of thing from happening. But the porter had been obliged to vacate his booth in order to rescue a plasterer who’d slipped from a scaffold. The