by Michelle Cox
“Herbie’s right, Jim,” she tried to say sternly now. “You’ve got to be a big boy. Show Donny how it’s done.”
“I’ll go, Jimmy! I want to go where Gene is!” Donny said, looking up from where he was meticulously arranging his lead soldiers on the wood floor. Doris sat beside him, patiently handing him new recruits, one by one, to line up.
“Eugene isn’t at Phillips, you dunce,” chided Eddie. “He’s at military school, remember?”
“Why can’t I go, Hen?” Donny pleaded, ignoring his brother. “I don’t wanna stay here with Nanny! She’s mean, and she’s fat!”
“Donny!” Elsie exclaimed. “For shame!”
“Well, she is!” Donny rebutted. “Ain’t she, Dowis?”
Doris did not respond, but merely nodded, her thumb in her mouth. “Can’t you come with us to Phillips Ex-ter, Elsie?” Jimmy squeaked from his cave between his two sisters.
“I’m afraid not, Jimbo,” Elsie said, shifting so that she could tousle his hair.
“Why?”
“Yeah, why don’t you have to go to school?” Eddie asked.
Henrietta saw Elsie’s face blanch now that the attention was on her and the corresponding look of panic she shot at her.
“As a matter of fact,” Henrietta said evenly, “Elsie’s thinking of going to school, too, to college.”
Ma seemed finally to rouse from the apparent stupor that she had been in and looked at the two of them sharply. “College? What nonsense is this now, Elsie? You go to college?”
“I know, Ma. I . . . I probably won’t even get in,” Elsie said, again shifting and this time absently taking one of Jimmy’s hands in hers as she did so.
“I suppose this was your idea, wasn’t it?” Ma accused Henrietta. “Well, you can put such silly thoughts out of your head right now, girl,” she said to Elsie bitterly. “Your grandfather will never go for that, believe me. Women are only good for one thing in his eyes.”
“I’m sure you’re right, Ma,” Elsie said, rubbing Jimmy’s hand. “I . . . I didn’t think it would work out. It was just a stupid thought.”
“No, it isn’t!” Henrietta exclaimed. “As a matter of fact, Elsie’s already applied. She will probably need some tutoring, but we’ll find out next week.”
“Applied? Applied where?” Ma asked. Her eyes narrowed. “That’s where you’ve been all afternoon isn’t it?” she snapped. “Told me you were shopping!”
“Well, I didn’t exactly say that, Ma . . .” Elsie murmured.
“It’s Mundelein College. It’s a new women’s school. It’s Catholic, very respectable,” Henrietta answered.
Ma snorted. “A women’s college?! For what? So you can become a secretary or a teacher? You’re not smart enough for that.”
“Ow!” Jimmy cried out. “You’re hurting me, Els!” Jimmy said, pulling his hand from Elsie’s.
“Well, I probably won’t go anyway, Ma,” Elsie repeated, her voice shaky. “It’s not worth making a fuss.”
“Elsie!” Henrietta exclaimed. How could she so quickly give in? “She’s going, Ma, and that’s that. How dare you say that about Elsie? Don’t you remember what Pa always said? That Elsie got the brains? Well, it’s true! She’s the smartest one of us, and she’s going!”
“Don’t speak of him!” Ma roared. “And that goes for you too,” she said, pointing a finger at Herbie, who cowered in response.
“Henrietta,” Elsie said pleadingly. “You . . . you can’t say for sure that I’ll get in, so let’s just leave it for now . . .”
“Elsie! I can’t understand you! Don’t listen to Ma!” Henrietta retorted.
“No, of course not. Why would anyone listen to me?” Ma shouted. “Well, it doesn’t matter. Your grandfather will be livid. You haven’t got a chance in hell of getting around the likes of him.”
“As a matter of fact, I’ve already spoken with him,” Henrietta said pertly.
“And?”
“He was against the idea, of course, but he doesn’t own Elsie. I informed him that I will fund her education if he won’t.”
“So high-and-mighty, aren’t you? You love lording it over us, don’t you? Well, you do what you want, but you’ll be wasting your time,” she said to Elsie. “You’ll just have to get married in the end, and that will be the end of that. And speaking of . . . why haven’t I seen Stanley around lately? Answer me that. Hope you don’t mean to put on airs like this one,” she said, nodding toward Henrietta.
Henrietta slowly extricated herself from beside Jimmy’s warm little body and stood up. “I should be going, actually,” she said, which resulted in various moans of disappointment.
“Oh, Hen!” exclaimed Jimmy, pulling on her dress from where he still sat. “Don’t go! Can’t you stay overnight? You can share my bed!”
“No, I’m afraid not!” she said, trying to muster up a cheerful smile for him that she certainly didn’t feel. “What would Nanny say?”
“Prol-ally something not nice,” Jimmy said with a small voice, which made Henrietta chuckle dispite the situation.
“No, I imagine not.”
Doris got up from her perch on the floor and came to her, her hands outstretched. She was too old to be picked up, but Henrietta did anyway. The little girl laid her head on Henrietta’s shoulder and wrapped her arms around her neck. Henrietta felt close to tears, but she pushed them down. Donny followed his twin over and stood in front of her.
“Don’t go, Hen!” he said, looking up at her.
“Well, of course she’s going to go,” Ma said bitterly, interrupting the tender scene. “She always does. Don’t you all see that pattern by now? Soon as anything gets too uncomfortable, up she gets and goes.”
“Yes, Ma. That’s me. Always running away from my troubles,” Henrietta retorted bitterly. She had managed to keep her patience all night, but she knew she was near her limit. And Elsie’s maddening behavior threatened to push her over the edge. She set Doris down. “Good-bye, you lot,” she said looking at all of her siblings in turn and flashing them what she hoped was a convincing smile.
“I suspect that Antonia might ask you for Thanksgiving, so you can start thinking up an excuse now,” Henrietta said to Ma, throwing her a glance. “But if you won’t come, maybe you’ll let these.”
Not waiting for a reply, Henrietta turned and walked into the front hall, where no servant was waiting for her with her hat and coat. Where was Karl? Henrietta wondered in exasperation and after waiting several moments, went into the cloak room herself to extract her things. Elsie followed her and stood silently in the doorway.
“You really should speak to Karl or Mrs. Schmidt,” Henrietta said, irritated, as she pinned on her hat. “Grandfather would be furious if he saw this laxness. What are you paying them for? You’re too soft!”
“You’ve changed,” Elsie said quietly, watching her older sister.
“Well, I had to, Elsie. We all have to change!”
“Hen, don’t be mad at me!” Elsie whispered.
Henrietta let out a deep sigh, sympathy taking the place of her peaking frustration. “I’m not mad, Els, but you can’t always let Ma treat you like that. You’ve got to stand up for yourself more. Don’t let her bully you!”
“I know. But I don’t let her bully me, usually. Honest.”
“It doesn’t seem like that to me,” Henrietta said, slipping into her coat now.
“You don’t have to live here day in and day out, like you said before,” Elsie said feebly.
“Well, I used to, and I never put up with that.”
“And look where that got you,” Elsie said quietly. “In a perpetual fight with Ma, lying and sneaking around the city? I don’t like ill feelings, Hen. Sometimes there’s another way to deal with Ma.”
“Like just giving in to her?” Henrietta said, brushing past her en route to the front hall.
“No . . .” Elsie said, following her. “It’s just that . . . half the time she doesn’t mean what she says, anyway,” she s
aid in a low voice. “Or remember, for that matter. She’s getting worse, you know, Hen, about remembering things—”
“Look, Elsie,” Henrietta said, pausing by the front door. “Can’t you see what Ma is doing? And she’s just as prejudiced as Grandfather, which is so maddening since she claims to hate him so much. A secretary or a teacher? It’s infuriating!”
“I don’t know, Hen. What . . . what do you want me to be?”
“It’s not about what I want!” Henrietta whispered fiercely. “It’s what you want. Don’t you see that?” she said, her hand on the doorknob.
“Hen! Don’t go away mad!”
“I’m not mad, Elsie,” she sighed. “Listen, I’m willing to help you with this new plan, but maybe this isn’t what you really want, and that’s perfectly agreeable to me. Please don’t do this to please me. I was just trying to help you, trying to give you some choices.”
“Elsie!” came Ma’s shout from the parlor. She obviously thought Henrietta had already gone. “Where are you? I need the pills!”
Elsie looked at Henrietta then with such a sad, defeated countenance that Henrietta’s annoyance with her melted away completely. She reached out and embraced her sister tightly. She could never stay mad with Elsie for long, even when they were little girls; she always felt too sorry for her in the end. “I’m sorry, Elsie,” she said, letting out a deep breath. “You’re right, of course. I’m too hotheaded for my own good at times.”
“Elsie! Where are you!” Ma shouted, louder this time.
“You’d better go,” Henrietta whispered and planted a quick kiss on Elsie’s cheek. Elsie squeezed her hand and, after hesitating a few moments, turned back toward the front parlor. Henrietta watched her go and slipped out the door, all the more determined to get Elsie out of that house.
Chapter 6
By the time the Daimler rolled up in front of Highbury, it was well past nine o’clock. Surely Clive would still be up, Henrietta assumed, but she wondered what mood she would find him in. While she was eager to tell him all about Mundelein, she knew he had planned to spend the day going through his father’s study, which might have been difficult for him. She tried, on the long drive home from the city, to concentrate on how she might help him, but in truth her mind kept wandering back to Elsie, preoccupied with her frustration with her. She could be so maddeningly submissive! It made perfect sense why she had been seduced by the likes of Lieutenant Barnes-Smith. She wondered why Stanley had not found this particular feature of Elsie’s attractive, since he was ordinarily so bossy, but perhaps his new relationship with Rose was telling. Rose was anything but submissive, so maybe that’s what he preferred—to be led about. But why go over all that again in her mind? Clearly, Stanley was out of the picture now. Henrietta could feel it in her bones that Mundelein was the perfect place for Elsie to be, if she would only make even the slightest effort toward it, and she desperately hoped that all the work and trouble she had gone through to get her there was not going to be sabotaged by Elsie herself!
As he took her hat and coat, Billings informed her that Mr. Howard and Mrs. Howard were in the drawing room and awaited her presence, if quite convenient.
“Thank you, Billings,” she said as she patted her hair into place, thinking about how strange it was to hear Clive referred to as “Mr. Howard” rather than Mister Clive or even Inspector Howard. She would have liked to have gone upstairs to change, but not wishing to delay any longer, she instead made her way into the drawing room.
Clive rose to greet her. It was so lovely to see him, and she could not help feeling a fresh surge of love for him. They had rarely been apart since their wedding day, but she knew that would come to an end soon, if indeed it hadn’t already.
“You’re quite late,” Clive said abruptly, a cognac in hand and his face troubled.
“Yes, I know, darling; forgive me,” she said as she approached the two of them and sat beside Antonia on the settee. Clive sat down again as well, and Henrietta noted with sadness that he sat in the chair normally occupied by his mother, leaving Alcott’s vacant.
“Hello, Antonia,” she said, leaning over and giving her a quick kiss, smelling her familiar Chanel perfume as she did so. “It’s been rather a long day. The tour of Mundelein took longer than expected, and then they wanted Elsie to take a test. It’s a lovely campus—you should both see it. It was . . .” She broke off here, realizing that she was talking too fast and that neither of them seemed particularly interested. “Well, we can save that for another time,” she said more slowly. “It’s just that once I got back to Palmer Square, they all wanted me to stay, of course. And I haven’t really had much of a chance to catch up since the wedding, just that one day last week when I went to drop off the souvenirs and to have a chat with Elsie.” She glanced at Antonia, hoping for some sort of show of support, but Antonia was looking at the fire. “So I thought I should stay. I hope I haven’t worried you,” she said, looking up at Clive.
“Well, how are they all, then?” Clive asked. He didn’t slur his words, but Henrietta wondered how many cognacs he had had. “Miserable as usual?”
Henrietta’s eyebrows shot up and then furrowed deeply. Something was obviously wrong. Clive would never stoop to disparaging her family, especially in front of his mother, who already needed little encouragement in that department.
“They’re fine, thank you,” Henrietta answered stiffly, both parts piqued and worried, as she carefully folded her hands in her lap.
An odd silence fell upon them, then, until Antonia finally stirred herself. “Shall I ring for some tea?” she asked without the whiff of delight Henrietta expected she might have heard in her voice after Clive’s comment. “It sounds positively beastly outside.”
In fact, just as Fritz was coming into Winnetka, the rain that had been threatening all day began to lash down, the wind howling beside it and turning it to sleet.
“Yes, that would be nice, thank you. I’m chilled through,” Henrietta answered gratefully.
“I’ll stick to cognac, if you don’t mind,” Clive said. Henrietta was about to suggest that perhaps he had had enough, but she refrained.
Without a sound, Antonia stood up to pull the servants’ cord, and when Billings dutifully appeared, she asked him to bring tea for two. The three of them again were left in silence, Henrietta feeling more and more uncomfortable by the minute, until she ventured to ask, “How has your day been, Antonia? Where is Aunt Lavinia?”
“She went up early. She’s departing at the end of the week, so she wanted some extra rest.”
“Oh, I see. Well, it was nice of her to come, wasn’t it? At a time like this? I mean, even though it’s a time like this.” She glanced over at Clive, but he seemed not to be listening. Now he was staring into the fire. Something was definitely wrong.
“How . . . how was your day, dearest?” she asked him. “Did you get much done?” she asked hesitantly.
“Yes, I suppose,” Clive answered irritably. “Enough, anyway.”
“Is . . . is everything all right, Clive?”
She wished they could be alone, so she could really get to the bottom of what was bothering him, but as it was, she would just have to speak in front of Antonia and get used to it. “You seem so . . . so upset . . .”
Clive’s head snapped up to look at her, and his eyes flashed. “Well, my father just died, so perhaps I might be excused!” he said angrily.
Henrietta was stunned. She had never heard him take that tone with her, even on the night they had argued at Castle Linley.
As if to conveniently break the tension, James entered the room, then, carrying a large tea tray. Carefully he approached the little group, the low table between them being his obvious destination. As it happened, however, his foot must have somehow caught on the edge of the thick rug, and without warning, he catapulted forward, causing both Henrietta and Antonia to call out in alarm. James somehow managed to right himself before he toppled to the ground, but he lost his grip on the tray, and
it came down with an enormous bang on the table, with much of the crockery flying from the tray and shattering on the hard floor beyond the rug. Both Henrietta and Antonia jumped, but Clive actually leaped from the chair, bracing his arms over his head for a moment and loudly crying out his alarm.
“Good God, man!” he shouted at the unfortunate James, who was himself scrambling to stand up properly.
Billings rushed in at the sound of the crash and hurried forward. “Has anyone been injured?” he asked, looking at the women quickly and then giving James a deep frown.
Antonia shook her head. “No, we’re quite all right, Billings.” “I’m very sorry, madam. Very sorry, indeed. Get yourself together, man,” he hissed at James. “Clean this up immediately. I’ll see to you later.”
James, who was probably not much older than her younger brother, Eugene, Henrietta guessed, looked as if he might cry, his face crimson now. James had never been a favorite of Henrietta’s, but she felt sorry for him just the same and had to resist the urge to help him as he quickly began collecting the shattered bits of china. “I’m very sorry. So sorry, madam . . .” he muttered to no one in particular.
“It’s all right, James. It was just an accident,” Antonia said stiffly, standing up and taking Billings’s hand to help her over the broken bits of glass.
“In case you may have forgotten, I am the master of this house now!” Clive snapped at James, giving his mother a snide look. Henrietta saw his jaw clench, and she could see that he was trembling, though he tried to hide it. “In which case, you may direct your apologies to me. And your wages will be docked.”