The Perfect Crimes of Marian Hayes (London Highwaymen, #2)(5)
Yours,
R
P.S. Anna Gentry, The Angel, Islington
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Dear R,
The original Latin, and emphatically yes.
There’s something infinitely comforting in reading about the misadventures of people who have managed to ruin their lives even more comprehensively than one has done oneself. Naturally, I’m speaking of Dido, whose principal problem is Aeneas but whose secondary problem is a stunning lack of perspective. When she fails to fortify the walls of Carthage (it’s been a while, so please forgive my poor memory) in favor of dallying with Aeneas I want to shake her; things, of course, only get worse from there.
M
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Dear Marian,
I can’t believe I’m about to write a defense of Aeneas and Dido, and that entirely based on seeing Purcell’s opera some years ago and a copy of Dryden’s translation that I skimmed this evening. First, you really can’t fault Dido for neglecting her duties in favor of Aeneas when she was quite literally made to do so by the gods. She didn’t stand a chance. You can see her poor mind start to go, which seems like precisely what would become of anyone who was pushed around by no fewer than three gods.
This is probably a regrettable example of my modern sensibilities failing to grasp the nuances of the classical mind, but honestly I do not give a fig and feel nothing but compassion for all the poor fools in all those tiresome epics.
Furthermore, I take issue with your statement that you ruined your life. One, it isn’t ruined. Two, you didn’t do anything wrong.
Yours in ignorance,
R
P.S. Samuel McAllister, The George and Dragon, near Billingsgate Fish Market
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Dear R,
Forgive me, but I’ll be the judge as to whether my own life is ruined. Rest assured I’m not going to throw myself on any funeral pyres, though.
I believe it’s a total of five gods who conspire to bedevil poor Dido, and when you think of it like that, it’s most unfair that Dante has her in hell (albeit one of the outermost circles) for her lust. If she were to be punished for anything, it ought to be poor management of Carthage’s building projects.
Have you reconciled with your friends? It’s probably terribly indelicate of me to allude to things I learn in the course of following you about, but I have seen you lingering in the vicinity of a certain coffeehouse even though that establishment is closed for the night. You look very sad, and sometimes you even forget to keep to the darkest shadows, which I can only interpret as a sign of great distress and distraction, as you ordinarily have no trouble at all evading me. Screw your courage to the sticking place (whatever that means). Just get it over with. Go inside.
M
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Dear Marian,
I took your advice. I was slapped, scolded, and otherwise abused but I think they’re more or less at peace with my being, as you once put it, an utter lunatic. For reasons that are too complicated to put on paper, I can’t give them the reason for my deception. But, as fate would have it, they seem to understand that for me to have done what I did, I must have had a compelling cause. I’m relieved that they seem more pleased by my existence than dismayed by my dishonesty.
Now it’s my turn to be indelicate. Trust me that I’d have been done away with years ago if I wasn’t able to keep track of when I am and am not in the shadows; if you can see me, it’s because I’m letting you see me. You didn’t think I’d let you wander about town without being on hand to offer you aid in the event you came to grief, did you?
R
P.S. Theodore Pike, The Saracen’s Head, near Smithfield Market
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Dear R,
Of course they’re glad you’re alive. I hope you don’t need me to point out that this is what makes them your friends.
As for the rest of your letter, I won’t even do you the courtesy of a response. Perhaps tonight I’ll sneak up on you and steal your hat.
Yours,
Marian
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Dearest Marian,
May I suggest that tonight, instead of stealing my hat, you talk to me? It’s come to my attention that our social spheres overlap somewhat, and also that we are each in possession of information that might do the other some good.
If that doesn’t suit, we could meet in daylight, if you can contrive it.
Your obedient servant,
R
P.S. Adam Clark, The Bull and Bush, Kensington
Chapter 1
December 1751
The day before the incident
As soon as the man passed out—very anticlimactically, Marian was disappointed to note, just like falling asleep—Marian pulled the silk cord from her pocket and set to work binding his wrists. Things were going remarkably well, for once; perhaps she was finally reaping the benefits of meticulous planning. Downstairs in the decidedly seedy public house that the man was wont to frequent, she had slipped the laudanum in his drink and then lured him upstairs before he showed signs of being the worse for wear. When she suggested a hand of cards, he had very obligingly collapsed before she had even finished dealing them out.
“He didn’t even finish his beer,” Dinah observed when she entered the hired room, bolting the door behind her. “How much did you put in there?”