‘After his death, you mean?’ she said. ‘It’s far from certain. Goldsmith doesn’t say and everyone since has either ducked the issue or admitted it’s a mystery.’
‘You must have researched it.’
She smiled. ‘Tell me about it! As you probably know, he lay in state for four days and then there was a funeral fit for the King of Bath, with a procession through the streets from his house to the Abbey. It’s been assumed by some, including the Dictionary of Welsh Biography and the Oxford DNB, that he was buried there, but like most of his biographers I’m unconvinced. There’s a persistent story that he was buried in a pauper’s grave.’
‘That’s the one we heard.’
She nodded. ‘He was, of course, massively overspent. Debts of over £1200. Let’s say £200,000 in modern currency. So technically, yes, he was a pauper. We know the name of his would-be heir and executor, his nephew, Charles Young, but the disposal of the estate was handled by an agent called Scott.’
‘Who wanted paying, presumably?’
‘Without a doubt. Goldsmith’s book tells us the few pathetic items that were left to dispose of: a few books, some family pictures and miniatures, two gold snuffboxes, one presented to him by the Prince of Wales and the other by the dowager princess. They didn’t fetch much. The pictures were advertised for sale at five pounds each but finally went for half that amount, and the miniatures as a job lot for three guineas. I’m not sure about the snuffboxes. And of course there were papers, a number of letters and his unfinished manuscript.’
‘A book?’ Paloma said.
‘Some pages of a book. A money-making venture that he used to attract subscribers at two guineas a time. The title was A History of Bath and Tunbridge for these last forty years by Richard Nash, Esquire, with an apology for the Author’s Life. It was nowhere near written. A sprat to catch a mackerel. While he was still alive he hinted that all sorts of secrets would come out — more about other people’s private lives than his own. It brought in some funds. Even the city corporation coughed up for twenty-five copies.’
‘All on spec?’ Diamond said.
‘A few ineptly written sheets were found after his death and Goldsmith made the best use he could of them. The nephew wasn’t happy and complained that Scott had hatched some kind of underhand deal in return for a cut of the profits in Goldsmith’s Life of Beau Nash.’
‘Was he right?’
‘He probably was. Nash’s scribblings had some value and should have formed part of the estate.’
‘Did the book sell well?’ Diamond asked.
‘Goldsmith’s? Spectacularly well.’
‘To all the people fearful of how much would be revealed?’
‘Let’s be generous. Nash’s fame was huge. The first printing sold out in four days.’
Paloma said, ‘Top of the Sunday Times bestseller list?’
‘Easily. You have to know that Goldsmith was an unknown Irish writer at the start of his career — a hack, really — who in time became one of the greats of English literature, so they did well to get him. It’s a fine book and the prime source for us biographers, but Nash’s name sold it. A lot of people made themselves rich out of the Beau after his death, selling portraits and poems and tributes, but I don’t think his creditors got much.’
‘Wasn’t the house sold?’
‘That isn’t mentioned in Scott’s papers. Almost certainly he’d mortgaged it before his death to offset his debts. He’d sold his coach, his horses, his rings, his watches. He was living off the ten guineas a month voted by the corporation in recognition of his services in better times.’
Diamond steered the conversation back towards the matter that interested him most. ‘But at least he wasn’t living alone in those last years.’
‘No, he had a companion.’
‘Juliana Popjoy?’ A chance to show he’d done his homework.
‘Papjoy.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Papjoy was the name she used. Victorian prudes altered it, thinking it was vulgar.’
‘Why?’
‘Pap,’ she said. ‘You wouldn’t be asking if you lived in those times. It was a word for a breast, like boob, or tit.’
‘Got you,’ he said, trying to think in historical terms. ‘Papjoy.’
‘Well’ — Estella spread her hands — ‘I may be out on a limb here, but I’m of the opinion it was a name she took on. She was a courtesan when he first met her and slept with her. To me, Papjoy is just too suggestive to be real. It’s in keeping with the names the Restoration comedy writers were using, like Lady Wishfort.’
He had to think for a moment. She’d tossed in the name as a scholarly point without a hint of a smile. ‘Right. Understood.’
‘And the men’s names were just as suggestive,’ Estella added. ‘Horner, Pinchwife.’
‘Coupler,’ Paloma put in.
‘Really?’
‘You’ve heard of The Country Wife?’ Paloma said to help him out. ‘The Relapse? The National brought The Beaux’ Stratagem to Bath a year or two ago.’
He shook his head. He knew as much about drama as he did about knitting socks.
‘Lady Fidget?’ Estella said.
‘Mrs. Friendall,’ Paloma said.
‘Lovemore? Lady Teazle?’
The two women were definitely enjoying this now.
Estella made an effort to be serious. ‘It doesn’t really matter to you if it wasn’t the name she was born with, does it?’
‘I suppose not.’
‘In fact, it matters even less than you think.’
‘Why?’
‘You were saying Juliana was with the Beau at the end but I have to tell you this is untrue.’
Frowning, he said, ‘The books I’ve been reading claim she was there for him, nursing him through his last illness.’
‘I know,’ Estella said. ‘I’ve read them. They’re wrong.’
‘Really?’ Paloma said. ‘It’s such a nice rounding off, back with his old love.’
‘Cue the violins,’ Estella said. ‘Sorry, guys, but Goldsmith says nothing about Juliana. I don’t think he mentions her anywhere in his book, and he’s the prime source.’
Diamond’s best theory about the skeleton and how it came to be hidden in Twerton had just been blown away.
There was a short hiatus while the tapas were put in front of them. Paloma and Estella made noises of appreciation, but Diamond couldn’t raise any enthusiasm, even after taking his first bite.
‘Are you telling us Juliana Papjoy didn’t exist?’ he said to Estella, beginning to feel this meeting had been a waste of time. She didn’t seem as charming as he’d first thought.
‘Not at all. She existed. She was one of a string of mistresses. He was an old goat if you ask me. He once said that wit, flattery and fine clothes were enough to debauch a nunnery. There’s independent evidence that Juliana lived with him for some years when they were younger. He bought her a dapple-grey horse and allowed her to have a personal servant and dress in all the latest fashions. She was often seen riding about the streets of Bath and using a distinctive whip like a birch. In fact she was jokingly known as Lady Betty Besom.’
Diamond missed the point again. ‘Besom — another word for breast?’
Paloma laughed. ‘Who’s got a one-track mind round here? It’s one of those brooms made of twigs.’
Estella said, ‘In the year of her death a rather cruel cartoon appeared of her on horseback brandishing a besom and wearing one of those enormous Marie-Antoinette-style wigs as she jumps the horse over a barrier labelled the Sacred Boundary of Discretion.’
The satire was lost on Diamond. He was trying to pin down the facts that mattered. ‘If the books have got it wrong about Miss Papjoy, what’s the true story?’