The Adventures of Penny Dreadful

"Miss Dreadful?" said Violette Burlington faintly, and whilst she sounded many miles distant, she was merely south of the river in Dulwich.

"Indeed, Violetta, 'tis I. And pray, call me Penny."

"Thank you, Penny," said Miss Burlington, "I must inform you that there have been some serious developments in the matter we have been engaged in."

"Please tell me, I am all agog," said Penny, all thoughts of her uncle's disgusting letter now banished.

"I cannot relate my information over the public telephonic system. Would you be able to come to my lodgings in Dulwich post haste?"

"Why yes, if you think it necessary," said Penny.

"Very good. Miss Poule will escort you. She is well acquainted with the journey, having made it many times, morning, noon and night. There is a London, Chatham and Dover Railway service departing from Victoria Station in thirty minutes. You will catch it if you hurry."

At which the conversation concluded, and Penny and Roxanne bustled to catch the train, making it with but a moment to spare before it steamed out and over Grosvenor Bridge, and into the depths of south London. A short twenty minutes later Penny and Roxanne alighted at Dulwich, and took a cab through the late afternoon suburb to Miss Burlington's town house, a large detached structure located on the corner of Talavera Avenue.

Miss Burlington's aged butler showed Penny and Roxanne into a comfortable parlour, the setting sun shining through stained glass in the picture window and casting hypnotic shades over the soft furnishings. Commodore St George was present, as was Miss Burlington, a palpable tension animating them. With them was a stranger, a tall, broad man of noble countenance standing by the fireplace. Aged around forty, the lines on his weathered face told of active service around the globe, the cares of Empire very much to the fore.

"Miss Dreadful," said Commodore St George, "allow me to introduce Major John Virtue, late of the Nyasaland Rangers, and currently engaged in our present predicament."

"It is a pleasure to meet you," the Major managed, almost struck dumb at the sight of Penny. He rallied manfully, continuing, "I have heard of your most honourable and immediate participation in our joint venture, and I am sure that with your perspicacious assistance we will succeed."

"I am charmed to make your acquaintance," said Penny, and once more, unbidden, came the thought that here was a man who would look most dashing in uniform. And he was an officer, too.

"I must say, Miss Burlington did not do you justice when she described your... qualities, to me earlier today," said Major Virtue, his delivery becoming more natural now that the ice was broken.

"Oh, sir," laughed Penny, "you will make me blush!" And here she cast a slight glance, too, at Miss Burlington who seemed to find it hard to concentrate fully.

"I hate to interrupt," said Roxanne from the corner of the room, where she had been standing, somewhat forgotten, "but there is an urgent matter that called us together, is there not?"

An observer might have noted that, as the party readjusted and turned their minds to business, there were some unspoken emotional fluctuations present. Both the Commodore, and Major Virtue (who felt that a whirlwind had just entered his universe) seemed most attentive to Penny, to the extent that they viewed each other with a sudden suspicion. For their part, both Miss Burlington and Roxanne also seemed focussed on Penny, but here there were some nuances, with Miss Burlington apparently disturbed to see Penny's reaction to the major, and Roxanne a trifle irritated to see both that, and Miss Burlington's general interest in her mistress. It was, to be sure, a storm in the making, and had there not been dire matters of state at hand, it might have escalated on the emotional Beaufort Scale most rapidly.

"We have had information," began the Commodore, "regarding Count von Lipschitz."

"He hasn't put his plan into operation already, surely?" said Major Virtue.

"We think not," said Miss Burlington, "for even a customer as cool as he would surely not journey to the capital of his enemy after launching his attack."

"He is here?" said Roxanne, clearly surprised.

"We had news of his journey this morning," said Miss Burlington, "he is aboard the express airship from Cologne, and should be arriving at the Aeroport within the hour. He is to attend a grand reception at the Austro-Hungarian Embassy this evening, and our information suggests he will be staying several days in the capital before departing for Copenhagen."

"Then we may arrest him at once..." began Major Virtue.

"On what charge, Major?" said Penny thoughtfully, "we have no evidence of any malfeasance on his part."

"Of course, you are correct, Miss Dreadful," said Major Virtue, looking upright and virtuous, "I defer to your perspicacity."

"Penny is, indeed, right," said Miss Burlington, "but the question is, how to proceed?"

"Well," said the Commodore, "perhaps Major Virtue is part-right, too. We might detain him and thrash the information from him."

"No, that will not do, Commodore," said Roxanne, "he's a Winchester man. They thrashed him black and blue there, and surely, he learned to endure it."

"Or perhaps even enjoy it," muttered Miss Burlington, before continuing more brightly, "but I have the beginnings of a plan."

The others turned to her, eager to hear her formulation.

"Count von Lipschitz," began Miss Burlington, "only had one English acquaintance he counted a friend, Miss Dreadful's uncle, Lord Cornelius Dreadful, now departed."

"And not a moment too soon," the Commodore murmured under his breath, "dirty rotter."

"I may be able to gain an invitation for Miss Dreadful to the reception. The Count would surely wish to present his condolences to the niece of his departed friend..."

"And Penny," began Roxanne, "sorry... Miss Dreadful, will be able to make his acquaintance, and perhaps gain his confidence in some way."

"I don't like it," said Major Virtue, "the man is dangerous. And a foreigner."

"I concur," said the Commodore, "there is the risk to Miss Dreadful to consider."

"There is the risk to the Empire to consider!" exclaimed Penny, "I am up to the neck in this, and I will not back out now."

"I hoped you would see things my way," smiled Miss Burlington, and in the corner Roxanne's eyes were shining proudly at Penny's fortitude.

"But once I am introduced to him?" said Penny, "do you wish him to fall in love with me?"

"I am hoping he will fall in respect with you," said Miss Burlington, "and that having met such a noble and gracious Englishwoman as yourself, the Count could no longer conceive of assaulting our esteemed nation. He will, in short, put his plan aside, a reformed man, brought from his malice by your goodness."

They all nodded in agreement with Miss Burlington's assessment, only Roxanne looking doubtful.

"But there is a fly in our ointment," said Penny suddenly, "for if the reception is this evening, how I am to get ready? I cannot attend in my travelling attire, and there is no time for me to acquire a suitable gown."

"Here," said Miss Burlington, "I may come to the rescue. If you would accompany me? And you, too, Roxanne."

The ladies left the men glancing warily at each other in the parlour, both suspiciously watching the other watch Penny depart. Miss Burlington led Penny and Roxanne upstairs to the first floor, past her bedroom, and then flung open a door at the end of the hallway. It led on to a most marvellous dressing room, and Penny gasped at the sight of evening gown after evening gown, in pinks and sunset orange, in lavender and aquamarine, in cobalt and in brilliant white and every other conceivable colour, hanging from rails that lined the room. Roxanne, too, was dumbfounded, and both looked quizzically at Miss Burlington in her conservative attire.

"They are not mine," said Miss Burlington, "they belong to a... friend. She and I were close but then she... err... left to go to America with another acquaintance," and here a shadow seemed to pass across Miss Burlington's brow, "however, I agreed to look after her extensive wardrobe until she should send for them. Or perhaps, return."

"They are magnificent," breathed Penny, stepping into the room and letting her hand gently caress the silks and chiffons, the organzas and satins and tulles.

"She is of a size with you, Penny," said Miss Burlington, "and in this great endeavour I am sure my friend would not begrudge you the use of one. Please, choose a dress and Roxanne can set your hair. There are shoes a-plenty, too, and whilst you prepare, I will engage a carriage to take you to the embassy."

* * *

A few short hours later, as the clock struck nine, an exceedingly nervous, yet excited Penny was borne to the imposing Austro-Hungarian Embassy in Belgrave Square. The brilliant, whitewashed building gleamed in the electric streetlighting, and it dwarfed Penny's carriage as it drew to a halt, a uniformed flunkey leaping to open her door and another placing a set of steps to enable her to alight. As she set foot on the ground she gazed at the building, which occupied the entire south-western side of the square.

A crowd of lower-class locals had gathered and were gazing at their betters entering the embassy, and all of them drew in a breath of wonderment as they beheld Penny. And indeed, she was worth looking at. She had chosen a dove-grey evening gown of simple lines and no great ostentation, the effect of which was to make clear her well-proportioned figure whilst drawing the eye upwards to her astoundingly beautiful face. There, Roxanne and Penny herself had contrived, between them, to create more stunning simplicity, with Penny's hair piled high and set off with some unfussy opal earrings and a bracelet, with a velvet choker and opal cameo, all borrowed from Miss Burlington.

An Austrian officer of dragoons descended the steps from the grand entrance and escorted Penny into the foyer, where she handed her invitation to another flunkey and awaited her turn to be formally announced. Her mind was awhirl at the liveliness around her, the ladies wearing exquisite gowns of every hue, the men dashing in their formal evening attire. Yet suddenly, a dark cloud thrust its way into her consciousness, for a stunning realisation had claimed her urgent attention -- in all the excitement and confusion of the preparations not one of her confederates had thought to provide her with one vital piece of intelligence: the appearance of Count von Lipschitz.

This percipience had only just been borne in on her when she became aware that she was the next in line to be announced. She stepped forward, a sudden apprehension seizing her, for this was, in actuality, something akin to her début. She had been shielded from society, and had little knowledge of the forms and behaviours expected from her at such an event. Added to which was the pressing knowledge of the weight of Empire, the hopes and dreams and livelihoods of hundreds of millions, all dependent on Miss Penelope Evelyn Dreadful who, just one week before, was a simply an ordinary young woman sequestered in an isolated farmhouse by an, unbeknownst to her, incestuously minded and now deceased uncle. As these thoughts rushed through her mind, she was announced.

Fortunately, Penny merely needed to play follow my leader to begin, working her way along a line of dignitaries, curtseying in return to the assorted bows from the Austro-Hungarian ambassador and his Chargé d'Affaires, and a series of attachés whose importance diminished the further they were placed from their chief. However, it soon became clear that there was a growing silence amongst the assembled luminaries, the previous echoing jollity seemingly swallowed anechoically by the very walls of the ballroom.

Penny looked around tentatively as she became aware of the all-consuming silence, only to realise with a mounting horror that she herself was the cause of it. All eyes were upon her, and she understood what poor Cinderella had felt as she stood in her glass slippers waiting to be introduced to the Prince. Any number of young diplomats from across the globe were gazing at her, a number of them seizing hold of columns and balustrades and random tables to prevent their knees buckling, whilst their wives and fiancées noted the men's reactions and tried but failed to hate Penny. For her beauty was simply too disarming, and she was yet too much a mystery -- none knew her, though many were now resolved to discover her.

Just as Penny was reaching the point of fleeing, and who wouldn't when faced with four hundred silent, staring eyes, an elderly gentleman in evening dress stepped forward from the crowd and approached Penny. A spell was broken at that, and the sound of conversation slowly resumed (though the conversation was solely about Penny -- her birth, her antecedents, her attire and her prospects) just as the man leant towards her and spoke in a low voice.

"Pray forgive me for not attending to you sooner," he said, "but I am your cousin, twice removed, and now the fifth Baron Dreadful."

"I am overjoyed to meet you," said Penny, in an equally low, yet relieved voice, her equilibrium shaken by her introduction to the diplomatic world.

"Please, call me John," he said, "I am acquainted with some friends of yours, to whit a Commodore St George and a Miss Burlington, and it was at that formidable lady's request that I procured your belated invitation to this event."

"Are you in the Diplomatic Service?"

"Indeed I am. And I am also acquainted with the delicate enterprise upon which you are engaged."

"Then, pray, you may be of immediate assistance to me, for none of our mutual friends thought to inform me of our quarry's appearance. I would not know the Count if I sat next to him at the opera. Perhaps you can help me."

"I think I will not need to," said John, Fifth Baron Dreadful, "for he approaches this very instant."

Penny turned and saw the people nearest part to allow a most singular man to come towards her. He was striking, despite being old enough to be her father and, excitingly, he was the only man in the room in military uniform. He appeared to be on the threshold of his exiting his fifth decade, but nevertheless he walked with a fencer's poise, his muscled legs graceful in scarlet breeches, which he wore with a white Hussar's dolman and a pelisse over his shoulder. His hair was dark, and there was the very devil lurking behind his eyes, an intriguing shade of what looked to be midnight purple.

Quite simply, he was the most dangerously handsome man Penny had laid eyes on, and she found him mesmerising as he stopped before her and gave a stiff bow, bending at the waist.

"Forgive the intrusion, Miss Dreadful," he said, "but I simply must make your acquaintance."

His English was flawless, a legacy of his English upbringing, with only the merest hint of Salzburg which, rather than marring his speech, gave it an alluring, exotic appeal.

"You have the advantage of me, sir," said Penny softly, boldly staring into his eyes and only then remembering that she needed to look down, demurely. Her cousin, meanwhile, withdrew without a word, leaving her to her mission.

"Ach, to my shame!" said the Count, "I forget my manners. I am Sebastian, Count von Lipschitz, at your service. You are, I believe, niece to my dear friend Lord Cornelius Dreadful, who was so unfortunately taken from us recently."

"I am, indeed, his niece, though I never had the pleasure of meeting him."

"I console you in that, Miss Dreadful, for you were robbed of the society of a most enigmatic man. His interests were wide-ranging, and not limited by narrow convention."

"So I have been led to believe, my lord..."

"No, please, Miss Dreadful, as niece of my dear friend, and even more pertinently, as the most beautiful woman in this room, or indeed in any other room in London, I insist that we dispense with stultifying formality. You will to address me as Sebastian, I beg of you."

"Very well... Sebastian... And I beg of you that you then address me as Penny," said Penny, essaying a tiny coquettish curtsey that did not fail to strike home.

"A pleasure, Penny," said the Count, his charisma slowly but surely enveloping her, "but you are without refreshment. I burn with shame at the poor service provided you in this, my country's embassy. Allow me to cuff a servant in recompense, and send him for champagne."

"Please," smiled Penny, "do not assault a minion on my behalf. The champagne will be sufficient."

Penny watched as the Count located a lackey and berated him, sending the chastened man reeling, seeking a glass for Penny with a greater urgency than he had displayed ever before in his life. The Count was a most interesting man, there was no denying it, and Penny could not help but feel somewhat bewitched by him, even as she knew she was bewitching him in turn. Clearly there were deep waters, here, and Penny was torn between the need to tread most carefully, and a natural wish to simply plunge headfirst in.

As Penny sipped her champagne, Count von Lipschitz then entertained with his appraisal of the other diplomats present, making her hide her smirk behind her hand as he regaled her with his reminiscences of the day the French Ambassador was kicked by a donkey. And she had to fight down a loud guffaw at the story of the Spanish Ambassador falling in the Grand Canal in Venice.

"I must confess," said the Count, as she recovered her equilibrium, "that I had no idea my friend had such a charming relative."

"And I had no idea," said Penny, feeling herself being drawn in a little further, "that my uncle had such a charming friend."

"It is a shame you knew so little of him. And furthermore, it is a shame that these events are so often brief," said the Count, as already the ambassador was beginning to bid the first guests farewell, almost as soon as he had welcomed the last of them.

"Why is that?" asked Penny.

"The ambassador has a cellar full of champagne to protect from the swarm of junior diplomats who descend like locusts at the sound of the first popping cork," smiled the Count.

"Surely not," giggled Penny.

"Ah yes, I am incorrigible," said the Count, "or so my governess told me. She was English, too, you understand, and giggled as pleasantly as you."

"I think you are flattering me too much," said Penny, and it was true, for she was being captured, forgetting herself.

"Not at all," said the Count, who was equally falling, "but I have been monopolising you, and no doubt I shall hear all about it tomorrow. But for tonight, I fear I must escort you to your carriage, the evening being, I regret, concluded."

The Count was as good as his word, offering Penny his arm and ensuring that she reached her coach without mishap.

"Farewell, Sebastian," Penny said as she stepped up and arranged herself on the padded seat.

"Farewell, Penny," said the Count, "it will always be a source of dissatisfaction to me that this magical evening could not have lasted longer, with perhaps a band and dancing. I bid you good night." And with that Count von Lipschitz closed Penny's door and her driver whipped up, the carriage springing forward, away into the London night.

* * *

It was late morning before Penny awoke, borne on a novel vestige of elation. She had hastened the enterprise forward with, she felt, no little aplomb, and what was more, if Miss Burlington was correct in her appraisal, it was not inconceivable that Sebastian von Lipschitz might come good. And if he did... she thought back on his masculine demeanour, and his dashing sangfroid, and smiled at the unaccustomed warmth the man inspired.

Reaching across the bedside table she pressed the button for Roxanne, who hustled into the room in her accustomed imitation of a force of nature, firmly opening the curtains and laying out clothes for Penny. She apprised Penny of the weather and the headlines (yet another anarchist had thrown a bomb at a head of state in an opera-house), and the comings and goings of the neighbours -- and how she had learnt the entire history of everyone on Berkeley Square in less than thirty-six hours was a mystery known only to her. She then called for Martin to make Penny tea, and certain that he was occupied in the kitchen, turned back to Penny.