Death Among the Ruins Read Online Free Page A

you.”
    Belinda found her sister seated at the dressing table, fully clothed, each hair of her coiffure neatly in its place. But the wings of her triptych looking glass were folded about her, for she had been engaged in closely observing her face from every possible angle.
    “Practicing my vocals,” she explained. “Sir Birdwood-Fizzer will be dropping by later this evening, to pay his disrespects. Which look do you think better? This . . . ?” She threw her head back, opened her mouth, and half-closed her eyes. “Or this . . . ?” She opened her eyes wide, with a look of a fey woodland creature suddenly exposed to a bonfire in the dead of night.
    “They are both fetching,” said Belinda, with professional interest. “I suppose it really depends upon the particular tastes of Birdwood-Fizzer. You might try both of them on him, and see which he favors.”
    “Bunny,” said Arabella, abruptly changing the subject and spreading open the mirror panels, “how should you like to go to Italy?”
    “To search for your missing statue, do you mean?” asked Belinda.
    “Yes. I have made up my mind to see what can be done. But you know, I probably won’t go if you . . .”
    “When are we leaving?”
    “Ah! You take my point quite readily, dear! But I must warn you that the current climates, both natural and political, are unfavorable for continental travel just now. We shall be two women alone. And winter is nigh upon us—the crossing is apt to be rough. If you think the risks too high, I shall honor your fears and abandon the plan.”
    Belinda made a dismissive noise, akin to a spurt of steam escaping from under the lid of a pot in which Brussels sprouts are fulminating. “I shall be ready to go whenever you want me.”
    That was that, then. They would be risking their safety, nay, their very lives, in pursuit of a chunk of metal that Arabella had not actually seen.
    “Bell, what do you think of this reticule?” asked Belinda, holding up the item in question. “I think it may have looked prettier in the shop window than it does now I’ve brought it home.”
    “Not at all! It is quite the thing,” said Arabella. But she was actually thinking about her statue, and of all that lay ahead. “Have you reflected, sister mine,” she asked, “on the peculiar notion that the history of mankind is not, in fact, a record of our actual selves so much as it is a chronicle of our unappeasable desire for possessions?”
    “Oh, yes. Frequently,” Belinda replied, working out a snarl that had formed in the tassel of her latest acquisition. “Wars are nearly always fought in order to seize someone else’s territory or material wealth, aren’t they? Explorations are launched in search of shortcuts to overseas markets, or the discovery and exploitation of unknown resources, and monarchs are chiefly judged by the riches they bring to their respective nations.”
    “Even so,” said Arabella, beyond words irritated that her sister had pre-empted her plan for an impromptu history lesson, “the story of mankind, which sounds so noble, is really just the story of our stuffs.”
    “I should have said it was the story of our interactions with stuffs, rather than of the stuffs themselves. Inert as they are, they can scarcely be expected to generate a history on their own.”
    Arabella stood up. She was really annoyed now, for Belinda had actually corrected her. “I am going out,” she snapped. “To buy something frivolous!”
    “That hardly seems like a noble endeavor!”
    “No, indeed! It fairly smacks of the commercial! And, pray, do not ask to accompany me—I crave solitude, just now!” So saying, she swept from the room, shutting the door behind her rather emphatically.
     
    Despite recitations elsewhere in this narrative of autumn’s distinctive charms, it must also be admitted that the season possesses some serious drawbacks. There are the rivers, for one thing. London is full of rivers, and the rivers are full of all