A Corpse in Shining Armour. Caro Peacock
young man was standing just inside the doorway, his posture stiff and his face serious. He was in correct gentleman’s evening wear of black and white. The last time I’d seen him he’d just rolled down a flight of steps in full armour and was trying to do serious harm to his brother. From the silence, and the set expression on his face, many of the people in the room had heard about it already and he was all too aware of that.
Everybody seemed to have noticed his entrance except Rosa Fitzwilliam. She had her back to the door and was talking to one of her group. Stephen started walking towards her, like a man who expected to come under fire. One of her companions must have said something, because she turned and smiled at him. To me, there seemed a hint of strain in her smile, but it must have been good enough for him because he smiled back and relaxed a little, as if the other people didn’t matter so much after all. He walked up to her, took her hand and raised it to his lips. Celia caught my eye and gave an upward jerk of her chin.
‘Still on, then,’ she murmured to me.
It was safe to say it now, because people were talking again and pretending to disregard the couple. From Rosa’s gestures, it looked as if she was rebuking Stephen playfully for being late, tapping his coat sleeve with her fan. The gesture was charming, vivacious, just a little too stagey, as if she knew very well that everybody’s attention was on them. A footman had appeared at our side and was waiting for Celia to notice him.
‘Your carriage is outside, ma’am.’
Celia stood up.
‘Darling Philip is so concerned I shouldn’t stay out late. Do let me drop you off.’
We said our goodbyes. Her own footman helped us into their comfortable carriage, upholstered in pink. When Celia asked where I lived I suggested that she should put me down at the corner of Mount Street. I had no shame about living among the artisans and animals, but I knew it would puzzle her terribly. On the short journey she chattered on about the endless good qualities of her Philip, so there was no opportunity to get back to the problems of the Brinkburn family. As I was getting down, she kissed me.
‘Oh, it’s been so pleasant. Let’s meet again soon. You must come and see me. Do say yes.’
‘Yes, but I don’t even know where you live,’ I said.
She produced a tiny pink notebook from the pocket of her evening cloak and a silver pencil as thin as a flower stem.
‘You’ll come tomorrow, or the day after, promise? The doctor says I must rest in the afternoons and you’ve no idea how achingly dull it is, Elizabeth.’
Clearly my name was a lost cause with her. She tore the page with her address out of the book and pressed it into my hand. I watched as her coach pulled away, pleased things had turned out well for her. Also, I was glad to have set eyes on the possibly transferable fiancée. Altogether, it had turned out to be a more instructive evening than I’d expected.
You can buy anything in Bond Street. Anything, that is, except what a person might need in everyday life. Ironmongers, cobblers or grocers have no place on these elegant pavements. But if you want, say, a painting reliably attributed to Fra Lippo Lippi, a marble Aphrodite from Delos, a sacred scarab once owned by an Egyptian pharaoh, you may stroll up and down Bond Street and take your choice from several of each. You could also equip yourself with a full suit of armour, a crested helmet, sword, battle-axe and caparisons for your war horse.
I’d walked past Samuel Pratt’s shop at number 47, on the corner of Maddox Street, almost every day, stopping now and then for a glance when he had some particularly elaborate suit of armour or flamboyant banner in his window.
His customers, I’d assumed, were people who wanted these things to add historical tone to the halls of their newly built gothic castles. The knowledge that he was now supplying them to men who intended to wear and use them gave the place a new interest for everybody. When I walked down Bond Street on a sunny morning to keep my appointment with the younger Mr Brinkburn, there were so many people looking in Pratt’s window that they blocked the pavement, and two carriages were waiting outside. I pushed my way through and went into the shop. The high walls of its salesroom were hung with banners, shields, battle-axes and dozens of swords and daggers arranged in symmetrical patterns. Suits of armour on dummies flanked a door to an inner room. Two gentlemen and a black-coated salesman wearing white gloves were standing at a table gravely examining gauntlets. There was no sign of Miles Brinkburn.
‘Fifteenth-century German,’ the salesman was saying, ‘hardest steel that was ever made, but they’re supple as silk.’
A younger salesman came towards me and asked if he could help. I told him that I had an appointment with Mr Brinkburn.
‘He’s through there in our workshop, ma’am, seeing his armour unpacked. He said you were to be shown through.’
He opened the door between the two guardian suits of armour and stood back to let me pass.
Miles Brinkburn was down on his haunches beside a crate surrounded with wood-shavings, studying what looked like a piece of leg armour. He stood up when he saw me.
‘I’m so glad you could be here, Miss Lane. It arrived just before they closed last night and they haven’t had time to unpack it all yet.’
A well-dressed man in his mid thirties whom I took to be Mr Pratt himself was standing beside the crate, supervising an apprentice who was removing more wood-shavings. It struck me that Pratt looked worried. Miles, on the other hand, was glowing with enthusiasm. He showed me the piece of armour.
‘Just look at the great dent in this greave. Pratt thinks it’s old damage. It might have happened when my ancestor Sir Gilbert was wearing it in a tournament four hundred years ago.’
It struck me that it could have just as well resulted from some domestic accident twenty years ago, but I didn’t say so.
‘The armour’s been standing in our gallery all my life,’ Miles said. ‘I used to dream about it as a boy. I never imagined I’d be wearing it in action one day.’
Pratt looked even more worried. Miles pushed the apprentice aside and delved in the case like a child in a bran tub, bringing out another greave and two or three more pieces I couldn’t identify. Pratt took them and inspected them gravely, nodding his head.
‘Yes, they have every appearance of being authentic fifteenth century.’
‘Of course they’re authentic. They’ve never been out of the family. Now, where’s the main part of it, the what d’you call it?’
‘The cuirass,’ Pratt said. ‘It’s over there by the wall.’
He nodded towards the back and breastplate that would cover the upper part of the body.
‘It will have to be altered to fit me,’ Miles said. ‘Our noble ancestor must have been on the small side. I’ll need it done well before the tournament so that I can practise in it.’
Mr Pratt coughed.
‘When it comes to alterations, I think I should say that your brother may have…’
It sounded like the start of a speech he’d been preparing. Miles broke into it impatiently.
‘It’s nothing to do with my brother. I was the one who had the idea of sending for Sir Gilbert’s armour. He’ll just have to make other arrangements. Where are the spurs? They’ll need new straps.’
Mr Pratt looked anything but reassured, but must have realised he could take the subject no further at present, so signed to one of the apprentices to drag out another crate from where it was standing next to the cuirass. The lid was still nailed down and they had to use a crowbar to lever it off.
While the work