Death and the Cyprian Society Read Online Free

said Lady Ribbonhat. “And did your husband manage to convert those godless savages to the true path?”
    “Alas, no! Not as many as we had hoped! The stubborn natives have their own god, you see, and being by nature a congenitally stupid race, they are not able to see that their beliefs are wrong.”
    “I sympathize,” said the duchess, who in fact did nothing of the kind. “Communication must have been extremely difficult, and naturally I am speaking not only of language, but of spiritual conceptions.”
    “Oh, my goodness,” replied Mrs. Drain, fanning herself for all she was worth. “You can have no idea of the primitive superstitions, the backward viewpoints, with which we have had to contend!”
    “Where were you posted, again?” asked the duchess. “Raritonga, was it?”
    “Boston.”
    “Ah! Well, at least the Almighty has spared you long enough to bring you home. So many missionaries are taken unto death’s eternal embrace without seeing England more, Mrs. Drain! You must treat every return as though it were your last, because it very well might be!”
    “Yes,” nodded the other, “and speaking of eternal embraces, whatever became of that hussy who ensnared your boy just before we left? I hope by now she has given way to someone more suitable.”
    “No,” sighed Lady Ribbonhat, with genuine regret. “I am afraid there is nothing new under the son.”
    And she started thinking, rancorously, of Arabella. Of the insufferable injustice of it, the outrageous effrontery, and the very real danger that the “hussy” might one day become the next duchess of Glen deen . Probably things would never go that far, but it scarcely mattered, for however close they might remain, Lady Ribbonhat should nevermore have Lustings for her own. The duke had effectively ceded the place to Arabella for all time.
    Mrs. Drain pretended to commiserate, but found a secret satisfaction in the other’s distress. According to her lights, Lady Ribbonhat was a godless, worldly woman whom the Almighty in His wisdom had punished in accordance with her deserts. And so, having heard the doleful tale with immense satisfaction, Mrs. Drain wished her acquaintance a brisk good morning, and went her way with a spring in her step and a glint in her eye.
    But Lady Ribbonhat was working up to a state of perfect rage, which required that she remain stationary for a few moments whilst the fury spread itself through her veins, like sap through a leaf when the sun falls upon it. Once the process was complete, she went storming off in the opposite direction. As the dowager walked, her jowls trembled with passion, and her old-fashioned crinoline (a style affectation to which she stubbornly clung, whatever current fashion might dictate) bobbed in time with each angry step.
    That thorn! That damned thorn, forever pricking her in the side! Something would have to be done about Arabella!
    Deep in furious thought, Lady Ribbonhat went fuming round the corner, heedless of either her speed or direction, and collided headlong with the very thorn itself.
    “God’s teeth, madam!” cried Arabella, who, as we know, was seething also. “Mind what you are about!”
    The fault had been all the dowager’s, but she did not apologize, as it was not in her nature to own her mistakes. “How dare you, you . . . damned hedge whore!” she cried. “May your entrails be roasted like sausages in the flaming bowels of hell!”
    The realization that her adversary was also caught in the throes of emotional turmoil, and therefore ripe for exploitation by a cooler head, broke upon Arabella like the dawn, and her own raging heart was soothed at once.
    “I daresay they will be,” she said, smiling. “And I suppose that you will be the one to greet me and show me the way to the disemboweling salon upon my arrival there.”
    “Not I!” cried the dowager. “My rightful place is in paradise!”
    “Is it?” asked Arabella mildly. “That is somewhat problematical, then,