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SEVEN

The Vote of the Club of Appreciation for

the Most Beautiful Woman in New Landern

11:30 PM, Saturday 7 May 1544 A.F.

Mr Berg Irving was enjoying being in the spotlight so he took his time, withdrawing a folded sheet of paper from his robes and unfolding it with great care. He was reporting to The Gang on the vote of the Club of Appreciation that had just taken place earlier that evening.

The Club of Appreciation had been formed thirty-one years ago during an all-night drinking session between nineteen of the more dissolute gentlemen of New Landern society. Membership was by invitation only. There were currently one hundred and eighty-seven members of the Club of Appreciation, who met once a year to perform the solemn and sacred duty of selecting the most beautiful woman in New Landern. The meeting was top-secret and the results known only to the members of the Club of Appreciation, so it followed that the whole of New Landern knew those results within hours. The results were awaited with a mixture of interest, apprehension, amusement, scorn and lustful anticipation, so it can be fairly said that the results were eagerly awaited.

The entrants had only to have set foot in New Landern during the year in question to be candidates for selection and to be at least eighteen years old. The foreign minister of Yelyntrade’s wife had been a past winner, for example, even though she had only been in New Landern for one week, but she had been a woman in New Landern and seven months later the hands of many of the members of the Club of Appreciation still shook as they voted for her.

The members of the Club of Appreciation began their meeting by following the sacred rituals as established and honoured by their heritage. They walked around the room, their elbows stuck out and waggling, cackling like geese. They then crawled about the room on their hands and knees barking like dogs. Finally, they stood on their right leg, raised their left leg to one side and mooed like a cow. The members of the Club of Appreciation performed these rituals with greatly varying degrees of enthusiasm.

Then came the business of voting. Names were called out by those present and recorded by the Scribe of Scribes sitting at a desk wearing a hat with a bunch of daffodils stuck to it. Once all the names had been recorded, everyone gathered themselves on one side of the large ballroom their meetings took place in on that one evening of the year. The Scribe of Scribes called out the names one by one; as each name was called out, those who wished to vote for the woman in question walked out into the middle of the ballroom and stood with their hands raised in the air. The Scribe of Scribes counted the votes, called out the total number of votes for everyone to hear and check for themselves, then wrote the number down while two Inspectors of the Count wearing masks peered over his shoulder to verify that he wasn’t cheating. The Scribe of Scribes then loudly proclaimed the name and the vote, and the devotees of the beauty in question lowered their hands and walked across to the other side of the ballroom. This process was repeated until all the names had been assigned the value of their vote. The penalty for not voting was immediate expulsion, so everyone always voted. The Inspectors then one after the other from left to right held up their hand and called out the name of their choice, which was noted by the Scribe of Scribes. The Scribe of Scribes had a casting vote in the event of a tie but otherwise did not vote.

The Scribe of Scribes, monitored by the Inspectors of the Count, drew up a List of Ten that was written backwards, with the tenth last name at the top, and the winner at the bottom. He then read out the names and the votes in this sequence, while everyone busily copied down what he was saying.

The name of the winner was then written down onto the Roll of Honour with the date of the year next to it by the Scribe of Scribes, still closely monitored by the Inspectors of the Count to check that even at the very last minute he wasn’t cheating, and then the evening was done. The members of the Club of Appreciation went their various ways: some for a drink and a gentle game of billiards, others returned home, while others went and partied with prostitutes. The excitement was over for another year.

This was the event on which Berg, as a member of the Club of Appreciation, had now to make his report to The Gang. He read out the ten names, starting with the tenth beauty of New Landern for that year (Miss Odilia Fabel). The third-last name was Lady Arabella Montlait, four times a past winner, and still a strong competitor despite her advanced age of twenty seven; the second-last name was Lady Isabel Grangeshield, which made everyone look at Isabel with a sympathy she affected not to notice, because of course if she was the second-last name that meant that she had not won, and then with a dramatic pause, during which time everyone’s mind was racing trying to figure out who the winner could possibly be, Berg read out the name of the most beautiful woman in New Landern of 1544: Miss Angela Ashton. The unexpected result made everyone gasp and then declare that they had known it all along.

‘I knew it!’ declared Sophie, who had never mentioned this before. ‘She was kept out of sight by Hudson, Nieves and Zavanna but Foxley has taken her everywhere with him and she has been widely seen in his company over the past year. Yes, it is that exposure to the public eye which has brought her this success, I think.’

‘I said to Arnold just the other day, do you think it might be Miss Ashton this year and he said quite possibly,’ Kora added. (Arnold was her sweetheart.) She also had never mentioned this before.

Samantha revealed for the first time her own foresight in this matter, ‘Miss Ashton was so widely observed at the Mudfield Stakes that I thought then she might win this year, and I even asked Lane if he would vote for her and he said he might.’ (Lane was her brother.)

‘The fickleness of men!’ Uliana proclaimed as if she had never before suspected such a thing. ‘How could they? Isabel, it seems your time has already come and gone.’

Isabel had won the title of the most beautiful woman in New Landern for the past three years in a row, and had been a runner-up (to Arabella Montlait) in her first year of competition. Uliana was feeling spiteful — with her square, almost mannish face, a snub nose and a wide mouth with thick lips, she had never made it onto the List of Ten and never would.

‘Who is Miss Ashton?’ Isabel asked, as if she had forgotten.

Berg looked at her smiling, not fooled for a moment. ‘She is an actress who steps out onto the stage of the Emperor Theatre.’

‘Ah, an actress!’ Isabel observed disdainfully. ‘Yes, no doubt she can instruct the Club of Appreciation to cackle like geese better than they do already, if indeed they do need instruction in this matter. I am sure they are already perfect geese.’

‘Oooh, it’s very hard, Izzy,’ Penny consoled her. ‘But everyone’s talking about Miss Ashton these days. All the men go to the theatre just to ogle her.’

‘Men are simple creatures, are they not, Berg?’ Uliana asked Berg.

‘I assure you I voted for you, Isabel,’ Berg said.

‘And who else did?’ Isabel asked as if she really had very little interest in this matter but was only being polite.

Berg cast his mind back and started mentioning names.

‘You have not mentioned Brecky,’ Isabel pointed out after he had finished.

‘Brecky voted for Miss Ashton,’ Berg told her, as if apologetic to be the one to bring her such bad news but looking at her sideways as if eager to see how she took it.

Isabel slapped the table. ‘The lowness of that man! He proposes to me and then does not even vote for me.’

‘Izzy, you cast him aside like a dirty hat,’ Penelope pointed out. ‘He’s hardly going to vote for you now.’

‘That is not the point,’ Isabel said firmly. ‘Clearly his proposal did not come from the deepest least wayward impulses of his heart as he claimed. He was a charlatan and a fraud and I trust that no-one now will challenge the correctness of my decision when I told him that he was not a gentleman. A charlatan and a fraud cannot be a gentleman,’ Isabel continued, warming to her theme. ‘A gentleman will do what is right no matter what his personal feelings may be on the matter. Lord Breckenridge has failed to surmount the wound to his pride and voted against me out of a petty vindictiveness and spite that show the lowness of his character, the meanness of his mind and the shallowness of his morals. There is nothing to be said in his defence.’

‘Miss Ashton won by twenty eight votes,’ Sophie pointed out. ‘If she had been less Brecky’s vote, which had gone to you, the margin would still be twenty-six votes.’

‘Which are not yet the number of your rejected suitors,’ Uliana pointed out in her turn. ‘You have been beaten fair and square, Isabel. You may well wish to take your own advice about surmounting the wound to your pride.’

‘There is no wound to my pride,’ Isabel declared. ‘But I must confess a curiosity about this Miss Ashton. I propose that we attend a performance at the Emperor Theatre to see this Miss Ashton on the stage.’

‘Oh, she’s such a wonderful actress,’ Penny enthused. ‘They are performing The Lady in Peril at the moment. It is an interesting and curious play but everyone goes there just to see Miss Ashton.’

‘And so shall we,’ Isabel proclaimed. So Isabel made arrangements to take out a box but when the time came only Penny and Sophie could come with her, as the others were all unable to make it on the evening in question, and so it was that Isabel set out on Friday, 20 May 1544 A.F. to attend a performance of The Lady in Peril starring Miss Angela Ashton at the Emperor Theatre.