by Michelle Cox
“From Chicago, actually,” Elsie said, blushing.
“Chicago?”
“Yes, Palmer Square. Or Logan Square, really. That area, anyway,” Elsie murmured.
“Never heard of it. But that’s not saying much. I don’t really know my way around yet. Guess you don’t have far to go, then!” she laughed.
“No . . . no, not really. It was my sister’s idea that I stay here. If I’m admitted, that is.”
“Not admitted yet? That doesn’t make any sense. Why are you here, then?”
“I . . . I’m a bit behind, you might say. Sister Sebastian is tutoring me for now . . .” Elsie broke off here, not sure what else to say.
“Oh, you’ll get in,” Melody said cheerfully. “They need the tuition, you see. Not that it’s not a spiffing sort of place. Top-notch, my pops says.”
Elsie didn’t know what to say to this, so she merely nodded her head. “Where . . . where are you from?” she asked, trying to begin again at being sociable.
“Merriweather, Wisconsin. Same as my last name. They named the town after us. Well, not us, really, but my grandfather.”
“Oh! . . . Imagine that! . . . Is it far?”
“About two hundred miles. Near Mineral Point. Ever hear of it?
Elsie shook her head. “Sorry,” she murmured.
“Oh, don’t worry. It’s just a little place, really.”
“Was . . . was this your first term here?” Elsie asked, trying again.
“Oh, yeah. My first. Going home tomorrow, though, for break. Everyone else has already flown the coop,” she laughed.
“Oh, I see. Did you . . . like it?
“Like what?”
“Mundelein. Do you like it here?”
“Sure I do! I was awfully homesick at first, that’s the truth, but now it’s ever so much fun. Sister Bernard is a dream, and there’s loads of dances at Loyola! Tons of them, in fact! The boys there are dreamy, not like the farm boys in Merriweather.”
“What are you studying?”
“I’m not really sure. Home economics, I think. This is all my father’s idea. He wants all of his kids—there’s three of us—to be educated, you see. Not for any good reason, really. Just wants the prestige of it. Freddy’s off at Notre Dame, but he’s just going to be running the family business, so Mom says it’s a waste of money, but Pops says it’ll be good for him to learn whatever new business stuff is out there. I got sent here, as you see,” she said with a curtsey, “and Bunny’s still at home.”
“Bunny?”
“Bunny’s my kid sister. Her real name is Bonnie, but we call her Bunny or Bunny Bonnie or Bun Bon ’cause of all the pet rabbits she had as a kid. Pops finally made her get rid of them all. All but one, but then it died, too.”
“Oh . . .” was all Elsie could manage before Melody began speaking again.
“So we’re all getting educated, and we all get a brand-new car when we graduate.”
“Oh!” Elsie said again.
“I’m getting a Hudson 8; that’s my plan anyway,” she said, flopping on the bed.
“You must be very well off,” Elsie said and instantly regretted it, remembering too late the injunctions of both Mrs. Hutchings, her failed lady’s companion, and Aunt Agatha about proper topics of conversation—the source or amount of one’s financial resources being strictly off limits. Melody, however, did not seem to care or even notice her faux pas.
“Pops used to be a bootlegger,” Melody whispered with a giggle. “Though I’m not supposed to say that. But it’s true. That’s how he made his money. Well, sort of. My grandpa came over from Wales, I think, where they’re all miners. So he mined around in Wisconsin for a few years until he found a lead mine. Struck it big, you see, and became a mine owner. But then most of the money got lost in the Depression, so Pops started making and selling liquor to make the family money back. Now that it’s legal, it’s easier to do. I’m not supposed to tell anyone, though, so mum’s the word,” she said with a wink. “What’s your pops do?” she asked.
“He’s dead, I’m afraid. But he used to work in a motorcycle factory.”
“You don’t say! Freddy had a motorcycle for a while before Pops made him get rid of it. That’s where the car idea came in. It was really just a way to get Freddy to give up ‘that wild contraption,’ as Pops used to call it. But then I said, ‘Well, if he gets one, so should I!’ and Pops says, ‘You’re right, Mel. Fair is fair,’ and then he said that I would have one too if I graduated. So here I am.”
Elsie smiled at her. She liked her already.
“Have a beau?” Melody asked.
“Well, not really,” Elsie said, blushing, simultaneously shocked and amused by Melody’s boldness.
“Aha! But I can see you’re not a stranger to love, are you?” she teased. “I myself—” She broke off at an unexpected sound coming from the hallway. “Who could that be?” she mumbled and quickly got up off the bed and strode to where the door still stood slightly ajar, Sr. Sebastian not having closed it all the way. She thrust her head out and peered down the hallway.
“Oh, it’s just you,” she said.
A man appeared in the doorway, carrying some short boards under one arm and a bag of tools in the other.
“It’s just Gunther,” Melody said, turning to where Elsie still sat. “Hey, Gunther, this here’s a new girl. Name’s Elsie.”
Gunther nodded in her direction. “Hello,” he said politely.
Elsie was surprised to see a man on the upper floors, but as she studied him from where she stood behind Melody, she found him quite unthreatening. He was of average height with a shock of thick blond hair that didn’t seem to have been combed in a while and a blond mustache across his upper lip. It was hard to guess his age. His eyes had tiny creases in the corners, but they were bright despite the gold-rimmed glasses he wore, and he seemed boyish and young. He turned his eyes from her back to Melody. “I am here to fix back landing,” he explained. “The top step wobbles. Unless I will be disturbing you. Should I come back?”
Elsie had suspected from his name that he might be German, and his accent now confirmed it.
“Oh, you’re all right,” Melody said. “Won’t bother us none, will he, Els?”
“No, but I should get going back downstairs, anyway,” Elsie said with a faint smile at Gunther. “Sister Sebastian will be waiting.”
Gunther nodded and continued on his way, and Melody popped her head back into the room. “He’s the custodian,” she explained to Elsie. “You don’t have to worry about him. He’s really quiet. Keeps to himself. Nice enough, though. If you need anything, just ask him. He can fix or find anything you might need.”
“Well, it was nice meeting you, Melody,” Elsie said, not sure if she should shake her hand again. “Hopefully, we’ll be roommates,” she said, venturing a shy smile.
“Roommates? Best friends, I’d say!” she said as Elsie stepped out into the hall. “See you in 1936!” she laughed. “Watch your step there!” she said and then popped back into her room, leaving Elsie to make her way toward where Gunther was already working, laying out his tools.
“Sorry,” she said, gingerly stepping over his project.
“It is all right,” he said, rising quickly and taking her hand to help her past. His hand was very calloused, something she hadn’t felt since she had held her father’s hand as a little girl.
“Thank you,” she said as she stepped across.
“You are new?” he asked, his eyes kind.
“I . . . well, I’m hoping to be. I’m . . . I have to pass the test first.”
“Ah. Good luck to you, then. But I feel you will,” he said, bending over to continue arranging his tools.
Why did everyone have more confidence in her than she did herself? Elsie wondered, as she stood watching him. And why did Gunther seem so familiar?
He looked up at her again. “So I will say ‘welcome’ to you now. You will like it here,” he said, giving her another smile, though it
oddly seemed a little sad. “The Sisters are kind. The girls, too.”
“Thank you,” she said and felt a lightness well up inside of her as she made her way down the staircase, so much so that she was tempted to skip down them, but she made herself refrain, of course.
She could not help feeling a little like Alice must have when she tumbled down the rabbit hole into the strange new world of Wonderland. But rather than wanting to get back home, which had been the unfortunate preoccupation of poor Alice, Elsie found herself never wanting to leave. And unlike Alice’s experience, this new world was not one of nonsense, but instead made perfect sense and put her at her ease, for once. It was her other reality, the one filled with Ma and Grandfather and Aunt Agatha, that had her racing about amongst the mad hatters and the awful Queen of Hearts, playing games she knew she could never win. Elsie hoped that this was not really a dream, as poor Alice’s adventure had been. But if it did indeed prove to be, she hoped it was one from which she would never awake.
Chapter 8
Clive sat stiffly at the head of the board room table, listening to each of his father’s—now his—department heads report on the state of Linley Standard.
It was enormously grueling, not only because it was painfully dull, but also because his mind was absorbed with thinking about his father’s affairs and the cryptic conversation he had had with Bennett on the telephone. It was Clive’s first day reporting for duty at the office, and as much as he was looking for an opportunity to corner Bennett, he was thwarted in this scheme by a steady stream of employees and staff coming to express their condolences and to offer any help in his transition to the helm. Clive, though genuinely touched by their efforts, tried to rush through their sentiments as best he could without seeming obvious, but to no avail. He had thus been occupied all the way up until this current late morning meeting, which had been called to order expressly for Clive’s benefit so that he might have a clear picture of where the company stood.
Linley Standard had begun humbly enough as a supplier of auto parts for the emerging Detroit and Chicago automakers that had sprung up about thirty years ago. Their biggest clients were Checker Motors, the Woods Motor Vehicle Company, Thomas B. Jeffery and Co. and, of course, the Cunningham Car Company, which is where Randolph Cunningham had entered the scene and been introduced to the lovely, young Julia. Alcott had expanded into some of the foreign markets as well, Mercedes Benz and Daimler, to name a couple. Alcott, as Oldrich Exley had stated at his funeral, had proved himself at least a decent man of business, but his true passion, those closest to him knew, lay in the importing and selling of luxury cars, which made the company some money, but not as much as did the efforts of men like Sidney Bennett, installed early on by Mr. Hewitt, who wisely diversified early into steel, railroads, and even loans, which consequently had grown the company threefold and had allowed them to weather the Depression, if not easily, than certainly ably.
Indeed, Sidney Bennett was really the brains behind Linley Standard and had had a major role in running much of it through the years, allowing Alcott to remain as its figurehead leader in the eyes of Wall Street and the world beyond, though the board had always suspected the truth. The two men had been happy with the arrangement and had actually become quite close over the years, though they were of different backgrounds and temperaments completely.
Sidney Bennett had been born into poverty but had graduated from Harvard Law School and was noticed by Theodore Hewitt early in his career. Bennett had a razor-sharp mind for the law and for business it turned out, though he alternatively had a quiet disposition and was a man of few words. Shortly after Alcott’s wedding to Hewitt’s daughter and their installment in Chicago, Hewitt had hired Bennett to help run Linley Standard, as he had promised Alcott he would do. Roughly the same age, the two men had worked out any class prejudices they might have had for each other and very quickly settled into a routine, deciding early on upon a façade to put forward to the stockholders.
So earlier this year when Alcott announced the subject of retiring, though he was only sixty-two, the board, fearing what an announcement of that sort would do to the stock price, was thrown into a panic and insisted that Clive be named Alcott’s successor when the time came. Knowing Clive as he did, Alcott seemed reluctant to enforce this condition, but when the board pressed, he argued duty and responsibility until he wrested the required promise from Clive, which satisfied the board for the time being. Most of them were privately skeptical about Clive’s ability to run the company, but they knew that naming him as president would quell any jitters the stockholders might have. Anyway, it was a problem they assumed they would not have to deal with for quite some time, especially if they could keep Alcott from retiring.
And then Alcott tragically died.
“Wasn’t it damned odd?” many on the board had asked. It was as if Alcott had known of his impending death, they mused, and there was more than one whisper of scandal subsequently floating through the halls of Linley Standard immediately following the “accident.” “Could Mr. Howard have taken his own life?” some postulated in hushed tones. Most of the staff could not, would not, believe this, however. “Why, Mr. Howard had everything to live for, hadn’t he? No sign of any outward trouble at home or otherwise! No, it was simply the way of life, wasn’t it?” they reasoned, commenting that life was often stranger than fiction, was it not? No one, however, was fiercer in the squashing of said rumors than Bennett himself, who perhaps alone knew the truth.
Clive had spent the whole of the morning’s meeting thus watching Bennett, hoping to catch his eye and wondering just how much he really knew.
The morning after his cryptic midnight call, Clive attempted to telephone Bennett again, but Bennett had not answered, nor had any servant. Clive tried to remember what Bennett’s living situation was, whether he was married or not, whether he maintained a house in the city with staff or if he managed on his own. Annoyingly, he realized he knew very little of Bennett’s personal life, only that he was his father’s right-hand man at the firm.
Not being able to reach him by telephone, Clive contemplated driving to his address to confront him. It was a Saturday, and Henrietta had planned a day-long shopping trip in the city with Julia and Elsie, saying that besides the veritable mountain of Christmas gifts that had to be procured, Elsie needed to be fitted for a new wardrobe before going off to school, that is if he could bear to be parted from her, considering how upset he had been last night. Privately, Clive was of the opinion that a shopping trip for a new college wardrobe for Elsie was a bit pre-mature, not to say optimistic, but he encouraged Henrietta to go, nonetheless. After all, he had some investigation of his own to do. Therefore, he had kissed her good-bye with only the faintest of reservations, reminding her to be careful.
Just to be on the safe side, however, he had a private word with Fritz before they left, instructing him to keep his eyes open and to never be too far from them. Fritz manfully accepted this injunction, though afterward Clive wondered just how much protection Fritz, in his advanced years, could realistically offer. Still, he consoled himself with the fact that he would at least be watching and could call for help if needed. Henrietta, for her part, laughed at Clive’s warnings to be careful and playfully kissed him on the cheek, saying that she could take care of herself. Clive was not so sure, but he forced his anxiety into the background, reminding himself of his earlier promises to her.
As soon as she was out of sight, his mind eagerly returned to the question of Bennett, and whether or not it would be wise to drive to his house in the city and try to confront him. He would much rather speak with him privately, rather than at the office, but before he could completely decide on the logistics of such a move, Antonia suddenly burst into the study, saying that his attention was needed immediately in the upstairs gallery.
Clive put down the telephone receiver he had just picked up and sighed. His mother had not been at breakfast, and he knew what he now had to do. He had behaved very badly to h
er last night, and he was anxious to apologize. “Mother,” he said, rising from where he sat behind his father’s desk. “I need to beg your pardon for last night. I . . . I wasn’t myself. I’m sorry for all those things I said. I was shamefully wrong, of course. Can you forgive me?”
Antonia merely stared at him, unmoving.
“Mother, please,” he said.
“Very well, Clive,” she said crisply. “Let’s speak no more of it, but you hurt me very deeply. You’ve much to learn if you’re truly to be the ‘master’ here.”
“Mother, forget I said that,” he said with a groan. “I didn’t mean it.”
“Well, you can come be master of the house just now upstairs. Your attention is required urgently in the gallery!”
Clive sighed. “Are you sure it’s not something Billings can sort out?” he asked tentatively. “It’s just that I’m rather busy going through Father’s things,” he said, gesturing at the stacks of papers in front of him. “As you asked me to.”
“No, Clive! It’s not something Billings can sort out. Would I be here if it was? Stop treating me like a child!”
Clive could tell by the lines on her face that she was very near some sort of hysterics and that he was treading on thin ice. He had seen her get this way with his father at times, and he had no wish to repeat last night’s folly.
“Very well. Of course I’ll come with you, Mother,” he said, stifling another groan. He made his way out from behind the desk and followed her across the room. As they climbed the staircase in silence, he wondered what it could possibly be. “Can’t you just tell me what the matter is?” he asked. “Why the mystery?”
“No, you have to see for yourself.”
The “back gallery” was more a long, low hallway than a room. It boasted an intricately coiffed plaster ceiling and walls done up in a rich red flock, upon which hung an extraordinary number of master works of art—another of Alcott’s passions—many of which had been pilfered from Linley Castle over the years. Antonia marched swiftly to the very end of the gallery.