The Case of the Peculiar Pink Fan by Nancy; Springer Read Free Book Online

the Viscountess of Inglethorpe quite wanted to be included in the society papers with the same frequency and scope as, for instance, a duchess; the viscountess felt herself much neglected in the ladies’ press, and her household, naturally, shared this sentiment.
    I repressed a smile, feeling sure now that I would be admitted; such vanity could not turn me away.
    Indeed, even as the butler betook himself upstairs to consult with Lady Inglethorpe, already the housekeeper, an unexpectedly pleasant woman named Dawson, was showing me into the morning-room where the tea had taken place.
    “We’ve left it just so,” she was saying, “except for the flowers, of course, until the room is needed for something else, for my lady took great pains over the effect and likes to admire it.”
    Admire was perhaps not the word I would have used, for I felt as if I had stepped into a cow’s udder. Never before had I entertained any prejudice against the colour pink, but I began to loathe it in that moment as I stood beneath pink-draped windows with pink lambrequins, tables swaddled in pink, walls—
    Recollecting my guise, and also in order to hide my face in case it showed a touch of nausea, I flipped open a notebook and began feverishly to take notes: pink grosgrain ribbon swags on dado and pictures, pink net billowing down from the ceiling, pink Japanese lanterns dangling from pink crocheted strings.
    “We served coconut cakes iced pink and white, and we put pink ices shaped like cupids and swans on the tables. Her ladyship wore a pink tea-frock that come all the way from France, and us servants had pink caps and pink aprons made special for the occasion. Oh, with the pink candles and all, it was like a pink fairy-land in here!”
    Clenching my teeth against any heartfelt retort, scribbling, I muttered, “Flowers?”
    “Oh! The most lovely masses of pink cabbage roses, and for the gentlemen’s buttonholes, pinks, only they were white—the flowers might be any colour but they are called ‘pinks,’ you know.”
    “Yes, I see.” I forced a smile. “How witty.”
    “Her ladyship’s idea. And for favours, there were pink paper fans for the ladies, and pink paper top-hats for the gentlemen.”
    Hollowly I responded, “How very amusing.”
    “Yes, great fun they had with them.”
    Finally, a chance at the information I wanted. “And the guests were?”
    “Jacobs has gone to ask the viscountess whether he might give a copy of the guest list to you. Shall we go see whether he has come down?”
    “Please.” I am sure my tone sounded a bit too fervid; being in that room made me feel as if I had gorged upon sugar-plums. I drew a deep and thankful breath as we walked back into the more normally embellished hallway of the mansion.
    But as we passed the drawing-room door, which stood open, I jolted to an abrupt halt, staring.
    “Splendid, isn’t it?” the housekeeper remarked when she realised what had distracted my attention.
    At the far end of the formal room, in the place of honour over the mantel of the hearth, hung a large gold-framed oil portrait of a lady elegantly bestowed upon a fainting-sofa, a head-to-toe and nearly life-sized rendition of her carelessly holding a white Persian cat upon the most elaborate crimson figured-silk gown I had ever imagined or seen. Let me remark, as an aside, that the idea of keeping a house-cat in a mansion full of expensive china has always struck me as absurd, but it seems that the richer one is, the more one must show off such idiotic behaviour as endangering one’s Waterford crystal, or clutching to one’s bosom a creature guaranteed to rub white fur all over one’s sable ruche. However, it was not any of these considerations, nor yet the remarkably in-full-fig costume of the woman in the portrait, that stopped my steps.
    Rather, it was the dainty features of her fleshy face.
    “That’s my mistress, of course,” the housekeeper was saying.
    The viscountess: one of the matrons whom