Chapter 174: Confidential Conversations in a Girlfriend’s Room

Chapter 173: Secret Words in the Boudoir
Under the night, the stars filled the sky.

At General Codrington’s mansion, it was time for the banquet to break up.

Mrs. Cowper, wearing her lace wide-brimmed hat diagonally, dealt with the compliments of the other ladies while walking out of the black iron courtyard gate with the support of her servants.

She was about to board the carriage that had been waiting for her for a long time, but before she could get into position, she saw a middle-aged butler with a moustache, white gloves, and short blonde hair take three or two steps in front of her.

With one hand on his chest, the butler bowed slightly and said, “Mrs. Cowper, our lady has been waiting for you for a long time. It is still early, if you are not busy, would you like to go and have a drink with her?”

Hearing this, Mrs. Cowper couldn’t help but look in the direction of the butler, the luxurious carriage parked on the opposite side of the road had raised the curtains, the breeze whipped through the street, bringing up the black hair of the lady behind the curtains that was resting on her ear, the hazy night color and the dim street lights but more and more reflected the beautiful smiling face that made countless big shots stirring up the winds and clouds of the continent intoxicated.

“Dorothea?”

Mrs. Cowper was slightly surprised, but she didn’t say much, instead, she smiled and nodded at the butler, and then followed him into that carriage.

As she boarded the carriage, the male butler quickly and gently closed the door for the two ladies from the outside that was adorned with the double-headed eagle coat of arms that symbolized Tsarist Russia’s royal family.

The horseman, who sat at the front of the carriage with a straight back, shook the reins, and the low-profile and luxurious black carriage soon drove slowly.

Mrs. Cowper sat on the deep red velvet seat, looking at the opposite side of Mrs. Levine fell on the white chest decorated with turquoise blue topaz and emerald green malachite composed of leaf-shaped necklace, can not help but light up.

“What a beautiful piece of jewelry! What master craftsman did this come from?”

Mrs. Levine just smiled faintly, “The exact master is no longer clear, but when His Majesty the Tsar graced me with this item last month, he said that it was one of the ornaments collected by Ekaterina the Great back then, so it probably came from the hand of a royal artisan at that time, right?”

“Ekaterina the Great?”

Mrs. Cowper sniffed, she couldn’t help but gently lift up the pendant hanging in front of Mrs. Levine’s chest and looked at it a few more times, “Upon closer inspection, the style of this piece is really similar to the one handed down by Mrs. Castlereagh’s family, so maybe it really did come from the same royal artisan’s hand.”

Mrs. Levine heard, smiled and winked: “I remembered when you said that, Mrs. Castlereagh’s father, John Hobart, Earl of Buckinghamshire, seemed to have once served as Britain’s ambassador to Russia, didn’t he?”

Mrs. Cowper smiled and nodded, “That’s right, the old Earl of Buckinghamshire stayed in St. Petersburg from 1762 to 1765, and he happened to participate in Ekaterina II’s enthronement ceremony, and that emerald necklace of the Hobart’s was gifted by Ekaterina II at that time.

I had the honor of seeing that necklace set once when I was a guest at her home from the past. If I remember correctly, that set consisted of an octagonal cut emerald plus a teardrop emerald as the centerpiece, alternating around 14 cushion shaped diamonds and 13 rectangular emeralds. In addition to that, there was a pair of emerald teardrop earrings.

The old Earl of Buckinghamshire had left that set of jewelry to Lady Castlereagh when she married. But perhaps because it was too expensive, Mrs. Castlereagh would only wear that set of jewelry on extremely important occasions. I have to say, that set of necklace and earrings paired with a low-necked evening gown is simply a masterpiece!”

As soon as Mrs. Cowper chatted about jewelry, it was instantly as if she had opened her box of words, and even her tone of voice was quite a bit livelier than it had been at today’s dinner party.

The two ladies chatted from jewelry to wearing, and from wearing to the recent fashion trend.

Speaking of which, Mrs. Levine took out the red wine that was placed in the car’s wine cooler and slightly added some to the goblet in front of her.

“It’s a rarity though, the club obviously had a dinner hosted by Henry today, but not only did you not attend, but you ran off to General Codrington’s house for a Blue Stocking Society party. Could it be because something interesting caught your eye here today?”

Mrs. Cowper laughed helplessly, “Mrs. Codrington has invited me many times before, and it would be rude of me to always excuse myself. And earlier I had some unpleasantness with the ladies of the Bluestocking Society due to the complicated feelings of my trouble-making sister-in-law, who is a member of the society, and Lord Byron.

This time I came over specially to kind of ease some relations with them. After all, we all live in London, we don’t see each other’s heads, and those two have passed away, so let bygones be bygones.”

“So it’s …… like this,” Mrs. Levine gently covered her mouth, “but you didn’t come this time, Henry’s side is a bit unhappy. Without you, he is like a lost soul, doing everything absent-minded. Tonight when playing cards, he also lost a lot of money.”

Mrs. Cowper couldn’t help but blush as she pretended to be angry, “Henry is always like this, he’s forty-six years old, and he’s always playing with his temper. Besides, if I am not there, aren’t you and Mrs. Jersey still there to accompany him?”

Mrs. Levine took a sip of red wine, and in the bleak carriage, her red lips were made more and more vivid by the wine.

“Emily, the big guys know that he’s yours. He and I are just playing along, and as for Mrs. Jersey, with all due respect, where does she catch up to your charms? You must not disappoint Henry.”

Mrs. Cowper had thought that Mrs. Levine was joking with her, but when she heard this, she realized the seriousness of the matter.

She probed softly, “Has Henry really lost his temper?” Mrs. Levine nodded slightly, “It will be his birthday in two days, do you want to think about giving him some original little gifts to make him calm down? I don’t have much to do tomorrow, why don’t I accompany you down the street to pick something out?”

Mrs. Cowper sniffed and just mused, “Dorothea, what do you think about me giving him a gramophone? And a record of Paganini’s exercises adapted from La Campanella to go with it?”

“A phonograph? A record?” Mrs. Levine wondered, “What’s that?”

Mrs. Cowper saw that she did not understand, so she smiled and explained for Mrs. Levine what she had seen at the party today.

When Mrs. Levine heard this, she suddenly seemed to remember something, and she couldn’t help but speak, “Ah! I seem to have seen that Mr. Hastings you mentioned.”

“You have seen him?”

“Well, he was coming out before you.” Mrs. Levine winked at her friend and playfully teased, “Very tall, with a muscular looking chest, and a whole angular face that looks well-mannered, and a young man in his twenties ……”

Mrs. Cowper teased, “Dorothea, you’re not looking at him, are you? I seem to remember that you don’t like such tender ah.”

“Well ……”

Mrs. Levine ruffled the broken hair whacked on her ear behind her ear, “Wow, Emily, I always look at my feelings for people after I get in touch with them, whether they are tender or not is actually not the most important factor for me to consider. Besides, why do you think Mr. Hastings is young? Emily, young doesn’t mean tender, although that young gentleman seems to be very courteous and a distinguished scientist, holding his hands and feet like a standard English gentleman, but ……”

“But what?”

Mrs. Levine lowered her voice, covered her chest, and leaned forward as she mysteriously spoke in her friend’s ear, “I assure you that Mr. Hastings has killed someone, and definitely more than one person. You’re definitely in for a world of hurt later on if you fall for his Mr. Nice Guy appearance.”

“Killed someone?” Mrs. Cowper was surprised, “How do you see that?”

“Simple.” Mrs. Levine pursed her lips and smiled, “Because he has a temperament close to my father’s, no matter where he stands, he will always involuntarily stand like a straight sword, and his stern movements between walks are like wielding a blade.

Although he has tried his best to soften his temperament, if one were to glance at him without thinking, one could still detect the danger lurking in his eyes. If you hadn’t told me he was a scientist, I would have assumed he rolled out of a mountain of corpses from the Napoleonic Wars.”

Mrs. Cowper could not help covering her mouth when she heard this, “Dorothea, you are a good judge of men! Mr. Hastings is a Superintendent of Scotland Yard by trade, and a young Superintendent with quite an excellent work ethic; in case you didn’t know, he’s only twenty years old this year, and has climbed to this position entirely on his own. Only a short time ago he was involved in the rescue mission at sea of that Frenchman.

I heard today from Captain Fitzroy, captain of the Beagle, that he saw Mr. Hastings take out seventeen pirates at sea by himself. He also said that if Mr. Hastings was willing to do his job in the Royal Navy, he’d be able to work his way up to an admiral’s position sooner or later.”

“Ah …… so he’s a Scotland Yard officer too?” Mrs. Levine was slightly surprised.

Mrs. Cowper wondered, “What does that mean?”

Mrs. Levine spoke, “Nothing, in fact, at today’s dinner at the club, Henry brought two Scotland Yard officers as companions as well, one is the Commissioner of the Greater London Police, Army Colonel Charles Rowan, and the other is the Deputy Commissioner, Sir Richard Mayne.”

Mrs. Cowper could not help laughing at this, “What is going on here? Are these the senior officers of Scotland Yard taking advantage of their Sunday off, so they’re all out relaxing?”

Mrs. Levine didn’t answer positively when she heard this, but just smiled and said, “Who knows? But I think they do have to relax, especially Mr. Hastings. I just remembered, it seems like several big cases in Scotland Yard this year were supervised by Mr. Hastings under his command. With such a busy day at work, he finds time to be involved in Mr. Faraday’s scientific research, and even to help a friend market his new work.

By the way, is that Count of Monte Cristo you just mentioned really that good? And the phonograph thing, it makes me a little curious to hear about it. Why don’t we go to that Mr. Wheatstone’s musical instrument store together some day and buy a couple of them back?”

Mrs. Cowper heard this and then snapped to attention, “Dorothea, I had forgotten all about it if you hadn’t mentioned it! Almost all the guests at the party tonight want to get a phonograph back, and I’m afraid if we want to get something before Henry’s birthday, going straight over and ordering won’t work.”

Hearing this, Mrs. Levine also understood that the problem was a bit tricky: “Did you leave Mr. Hastings’ card? Why don’t you send someone to beg him directly, isn’t Mr. Wheatstone a friend of his? Let’s ask him to step in and help with the booking, so that Mr. Wheatstone can just get the next phonograph ready for us.”

Mrs. Cowper thought for a moment, and then suddenly spoke up, “It is better to be early than late in this matter; it so happens that my carriage is now empty, and I will send them at once with the money to Mr. Hastings to make a reservation. God! I hope the young Scotland Yard lad is not too regular in his routine; he had better not be asleep now.”

Mrs. Levine sniffed, and could not help pursing her lips, “It doesn’t matter if he sleeps; what we are afraid of now is that he has not slept in his own house to-night.”

Mrs. Cowper couldn’t help but lose her laughter at her words, “Dorothea, you ah ……”

(End of chapter)