A Veil Removed

by Michelle Cox

  Antonia? Was he in the habit of calling his mother by her Christian name? he wondered before he swatted this away to concentrate on the bigger question, namely Bennett’s possible involvement in the murder. So far everything he had said was flimsy, to be sure, but remotely plausible, he supposed. Damn it! he fumed. There was more to this. Something he wasn’t seeing . . .

  “All right,” Clive continued evenly, “let’s say you really were in shock initially, which prevented you from telling the police that your business partner had just been murdered. Let’s go with that for a moment. But then what? Why not go the next day, or the day after that? Why keep quiet?”

  Bennett sighed. “I meant to. But I . . . I was afraid,” he said quietly. “Terrified, actually. They must have seen me there at the station. Someone must have followed me, or they somehow knew who I was . . .” Bennet drifted off here, as if thinking.

  “Yes? And?”

  Bennett looked back at him and then continued. “While I was still trying to figure out what to do, I came home the next night and found a rock through my window. I wanted to think it was just an accident or that it had just been some kids. I convinced myself of this eventually, but then about a week later, my tires were slashed. And then last night . . . the night you called, I came home and found my dog dead. His throat had been cut,” he said quietly. Bennett looked up at him now, his normally placid eyes containing a hint of fear for the first time in this conversation. “They’re obviously watching me, and they want me to know it. Though if they want me dead, why don’t they just do it?” he asked hoarsely. Awkwardly, he cleared his throat. “Whoever these men are, Clive,” he went on, dryly, “they’re very dangerous. And I don’t think they’re through yet.”

  Clive’s mind immediately went to Henrietta, even at this moment roaming somewhere around the city with Julia and Elsie, with only the somewhat elderly Fritz to watch over them. He felt a sudden, desperate urge to dash out of the office and find her, but he refrained, trying to convince himself that he was overreacting, though he was aware of the fact that he had already broken into a thin sweat. He looked at Bennett, standing before him with his hands thrust awkwardly in his pockets. His mind was lingering on the brink of fear. He tried to bring it back and instead concentrate on what was before him.

  “Listen, Bennett,” he said, clearing his throat. “You’re right. If they meant to kill you, you’d probably be dead by now.”

  “That’s hardly comforting.”

  Clive let this pass. “They want something else.”

  “The missing cash?” Bennett offered.

  “Probably. Any idea where it is?”

  Bennett looked at him, puzzled. “You haven’t found it?”

  Clive shook his head, studying him. Something still wasn’t sitting well. “Maybe he never had it,” he said, deciding to test him.

  “But I know he did. He sold that painting.”

  So he knew about the painting, too.

  “It’s not in the safe behind his desk?” Bennett suggested.

  Did everyone know about his father’s blasted “secret” safe? Clive thought disgustedly. “No, it’s not,” he answered. Again he considered Bennett’s story. A rock through the window, tires slashed? Come on! he thought suspiciously, this was the stuff of comic books. But what reason would Bennett have to lie? The man seemed genuinely upset, truly frightened. And yet . . .

  “Have you ever been in the house before? I mean, without my father being there?” Clive asked.

  Bennett’s previously distraught face became rigid now, clearly angered again. Slowly he removed his hands from his pockets, gathered up his black portfolio, and stiffly slung it under his arm. “You have nothing to gain by following that line of thought, Clive,” he said finally. “But if you persist in distrusting me, then so be it. I was your father’s closest business associate—nay, friend—and I remain so, despite what you might think. We are not enemies in unraveling the mess we find your father’s affairs in. You can disparage me all you want, but I warn you, you should tread lightly. You’re probably being watched as well.”

  Without waiting for Clive’s response, Bennett turned and walked out of the room. Clive thought of calling him back, but there was nothing left to say. Angrily, he pounded the table with his fist, which served, if nothing else, to hide his trembling.

  Chapter 9

  Elsie stood uncomfortably next to Aunt Agatha at the annual Exley winter ball, dressed in a beautiful blue silk evening dress. It was a Worth creation and flattered her shape as much as any dress could, but the fact that it stopped at the bust, leaving her shoulders and arms bare, unfortunately drew unwanted attention to Elsie’s propensity to stand with rounded posture unless perpetually reminded. Elsie couldn’t help it, however; she had never gone about in such a revealing dress before, and it made her feel decidedly risqué and self-conscious, causing her to try to compensate by hunching herself forward even more than she normally did. Despairingly, she wondered if Aunt Agatha had chosen this dress for a reason . . . an immodest dress for an immodest girl, or something like that, and her face burned doubly with shame.

  In fact, Agatha Exley had chosen Elsie’s gown for its color, hoping it would accent what she considered Elsie’s best feature, her very blue eyes, and for its obvious fashion statement. A Worth gown would be recognized by all the mamas in the room as an immediate mark of not just wealth, which they could all claim, but excessive wealth.

  Oldrich Exley, her father-in-law, had recently paid Agatha a visit in which he expressed to her the need to get Elsie married, and married well, and that she should step up her efforts. Agatha had then dared to bring up the current rather obvious obstacle to the plan, which was, of course, Elsie’s intent to become educated, saying that perhaps they should wait to see where that might lead, but Mr. Exely had snarled and said, “Certainly not!” He was allowing Henrietta and Elsie to briefly indulge in this fantasy, he had said, convinced that it would come to nothing; he was sure of it. Agatha had then timidly suggested that perhaps a bit of time was wanting, anyway, as she had heard unpleasant whisperings among the gilded set as to Elsie’s predilection for a certain lieutenant. Alice Stewart’s name was then usually also mentioned in these same whisperings, and the fact that their two names occupied the same conversation could not help but tarnish Elsie, even if just a little. Mr. Exely had emitted a type of frustrated growl, then, and told Agatha to “get on with it!”

  And so Agatha had dutifully tried to “get on with it.” Not only had she chosen a beautiful gown and an exquisite rope of diamonds to wind about Elsie’s neck, she had also had her dirty-blonde hair curled and twisted into the latest fashion and was determined to stick next to her for the whole of the evening, though she dearly would have rather spent it gossiping with her bosom friends from the club, particularly Antonia. But Antonia wasn’t there, anyway, having begged off this year, saying she just wasn’t up for it, and Agatha could understand why. They all missed Alcott terribly; their foursome was no more. John, her husband, felt his loss keenly and had been in an absolute slump since Alcott’s death.

  Still, this evening called for merriment and festivity, and Agatha, never one to shy from duty, bravely bucked herself up. She only wished they were standing closer to the food. When she had months ago agreed to take Elsie under her wing to introduce her to society, she had no idea that it would be so taxing! With two sons already satisfactorily married, it had been years since she had had to worry about all of these details.

  She looked over at Elsie now, unattractively shifting her weight and picking at the fabric of her velvet gloves. Her weight, Agatha noticed, was noticeably less these days, though she would still be considered a bit thickset. Perhaps Elsie had decided after all to employ the vigorous exercises illustrated in the Method of Calisthenics for Young Ladies booklet that Agatha had slid across the table toward her at tea one afternoon. Elsie’s face had turned beet-red as she had picked it up and looked it over, but she had not outright rejected it, just po
litely slipped it into her handbag. Neither of them had had the good manners to mention it again, but perhaps Elsie was employing its directives after all.

  Agatha positively quivered at the thought that Elsie had so nearly slipped from her fingers into the arms of Barnes-Smith. She had been as shocked as anyone; hadn’t she repeatedly warned her away from him? She had tried to question Elsie about it not long after she had returned from her respite at the Cunningham’s, but the girl had remained characteristically silent. Agatha had eventually given up trying to extract information about it and allowed herself to simply be glad that Elsie had so narrowly escaped a disaster, which Agatha felt sure she herself would have been blamed for, and to leave it at that.

  Chaperoning Elsie and schooling her in the ways of higher society was certainly proving to be more intricate and time-consuming than she had first imagined, but it oddly gave Agatha a sense of purpose she hadn’t felt in quite some time. Like a shepherdess, perhaps, is how she saw herself, with Elsie being her flock of one. But for this one incident of wandering from the fold, Agatha reflected that Elsie was usually a rather easy sheep to tend, all things considered. That’s why it was hard to understand Elsie’s current desire to go to college, of all things. It was preposterous, to be sure; what would a girl need with an education? She had to admire the pluck it had taken Elsie to voice this, and yet it seemed so terribly out of character for the normally docile Elsie that Agatha had begun to suspect that perhaps it had never really been Elsie’s idea at all. This had more the flavor to it of the sister, Henrietta. And if that were true, perhaps Father Exley was right in that this was a fantasy that would soon fizzle out.

  At any rate, Agatha had seen the wisdom of Oldrich Exley’s desire for Elsie to be married sooner rather than later. She was already eighteen, certainly old enough. She herself had been only seventeen when she became engaged to John Exley, and it had not done her any harm. Therefore, she had stepped up her efforts. She had tried in the past to scold, and lately she had tried friendly persuasion, but nothing seemed to have the desired effect. What was wrong with the girl? she ruminated with a sigh. After all, she had been brought up from the dregs of society into a world of privilege and promise; what more could she want? Granted, she was not the beauty that Henrietta was, but she wasn’t bad. And she was quiet and reserved, obliging; that would go far. At least she had been, anyway, but lately Elsie did not respond to her in quite the same subservient way as she had previously done. She seemed different somehow after the incident with Barnes-Smith, more sullen and depressed, as if she carried around a heavy burden now. Only in the last couple of weeks, since she had begun her tutoring at that school, had she brightened.

  Agatha prided herself on her ability to recognize “affairs of the heart” as she called them. It was quite an extraordinary exception, really, that she had not earlier detected the extent of Elsie’s crush on either the lieutenant or on that Stanley Dubowski, for that matter, and put down this failure in her normally acute assessment of any persons around her that might think themselves or, in fact, to actually be in love, as a sort of bizarre aberration. Yes, she had begrudgingly admitted to herself, she had failed, nearly tragically, to realize the depth of Elsie’s attachment, but she happily knew the remedy for such angst—another love affair, of course!—which fit the current plan perfectly. Affairs of the heart such as Elsie had found herself embroiled in were fleeting at best, she knew, and easily mended. No harm done, or not much anyway. Surely Elsie had not been “interfered with” as the whisperings had hinted at, Agatha told herself, looking over at Elsie once again now and studying her carefully. A girl like Elsie would never submit to such advances, she was sure, though plenty of young women seemed to these days. What was the world coming to? she had exasperated more than once to the ladies of the club in hushed tones. Victoria Braithwaite blamed the war, and Agatha was inclined to agree. After that had come the flappers— women smoking, drinking openly, and engaging in sexual relations outside of marriage! Surely, she knew one or two women who had succumbed to their baser desires before their wedding night, but only when they were engaged, or very nearly so, anyway . . . No, not Elsie. She could not believe it of her. She would snap out of her malaise soon, she was sure of it.

  She looked distractedly around the room for Phoenicia Burnham, who had agreed to pressure her son, Garfield, to dance with Elsie for at least one dance. Where was he?!

  “Are you having a good time, dear?” Agatha asked Elsie sweetly, turning her attention back to her charge. “Perhaps you should not fidget with your gloves,” she added, knitting her own hands together. “That is what children do.”

  “Yes, Aunt Agatha,” Elsie said dully, standing up straight.

  Then, as if on cue, Garfield Burnham waddled up, puffing slightly, causing Agatha to breathe a sigh of relief—at last, he had appeared! She could have sworn she heard Elsie groan, but she ignored it.

  “May I have the next dance?” he asked Elsie breathlessly in a monotone voice, as if he had memorized this line.

  Elsie considered the man—a boy, really—before her, and knew he had of course been put up to asking her. She wanted nothing more but to run from the room, but she instead forced herself to put her hand in his and be led to the dance floor. Garfield Burnham was not much taller than she, and to say that he was merely “portly” would be a kindness. He had tight, curly black hair, heavily greased in an attempt to part it down the middle. He had tiny, black eyes set above puffy cheeks that peered at her from behind his spectacles. What was peculiar about him was not the fact that he lacked even a shred of conversational skills, but rather that his beefy fingers on her back had a way of indenting themselves into her flesh, even through the fabric of her dress. He appeared to be completely unconscious of this as he spoke blandly of the weather or what his mother thought of this or that. Was he really not aware of what he was doing or how distasteful it might be to her?

  Elsie gritted her teeth and resolved to endure the dance, though she desperately wanted to cry. Not because of Garfield’s thick fingers pressing into her, really, but because Aunt Agatha, and indeed all of the old biddies standing near her aunt now, seemed so approving and pleased for her that she had been asked to dance at all, even though it was only by the likes of someone such as Garfield Burnham. Is that all the better they thought she could do? Was a dolt such as Garfield really to be her destiny? She knew that it was wicked to judge him so quickly, but she couldn’t help it. And she could tell that neither was he particularly enamored of her. He was merely obliging his mother, she suspected, just as she was obliging Aunt Agatha.

  Never had she been so relieved for a dance to end. Garfield dutifully returned her to Aunt Agatha, who stood on the edge of the crowd looking out, probably wondering where all the men were that she had cajoled into dancing with her miserable self.

  Elsie hated these parties now. All those many years in which they had been poor, she had longed to live a fairy-tale life such as this. They had gone from poor to rich in the space of an instant, but like all fairy tales, there had been a price to pay. She felt fraudulent and almost immoral most of the time, as if they had somehow sold themselves to Rumpelstiltskin or to the devil himself. She hadn’t minded their old life, not really, though the times when Doris and Donny had cried themselves to sleep at night from hunger had been terrible, she had to admit. But to be put on display for any random man, rich enough to play the game, to pluck and do with her what he may, seemed repulsive—more than repulsive, actually. Why couldn’t she be left alone?

  Aunt Agatha had increased her attentions to her lately, taking her to more theater productions, operas, and ballets than she had ever done in the past. So many times, she had tried to beg off, saying that it was essential that she stay home and study for her upcoming entrance exam, but it had fallen on deaf ears. It was almost as if Aunt Agatha hoped she would fail. But that was ungenerous, thought Elsie. In truth, she knew that Aunt Agatha had been very kind to her. And she believed that her aunt actually d
id like her, but she couldn’t help but sometimes remember that she was merely following Grandfather’s commands.

  So it was that she was forced into attending many such galas as this one, the Christmas season bringing even more opportunities to mix with the gilded set, prompting her to get up very early in the morning each day, the only free time left to her to study. In this way, she tried to imagine she wasn’t too far from the life the Sisters at Mundelein themselves led, getting up early to pray and to work. Indeed, she had gotten the idea from them and took strength from their example. In fact, she was inspired by them to perhaps take a different step, and a radical one, at that.

  She looked up now and saw another man approaching her with a slow, confident pace that unnerved her. It was Lloyd Aston, whom she had met several times before at various gatherings. She never knew quite what to make of Mr. Aston, as he seemed aloof most of the time, usually greeting her, if not warmly, then at least politely. If they ever happened to be seated next to each other at a dinner, he seemed perfectly able to make charming small talk, but nothing more.

  Elsie supposed he could be called handsome. He was taller than most, with ginger hair and a sharp, angular face. His brown eyes looked her over, lingering just briefly on her very bare chest, before he then turned to Aunt Agatha and politely greeted her.

  “May I have this dance, Miss Von Harmon?” he asked casually, turning back to Elsie now, his voice rich with superiority. “Or are you engaged for this next one?” Elsie couldn’t be sure, but she thought he emphasized the word “engaged” a bit too heavily. Was it a reference to Harrison? She wanted to dash from the room, but she forced herself to count to five in her mind.

  “No, I’m not, Mr. Aston,” she made herself say. She desperately wanted to spurt out some witty retort, but she couldn’t think of anything. She felt Aunt Agatha’s hand on her back then, and she knew what she was supposed to say. “I’d be happy to dance with you,” she said in a low voice and placed her hand lightly in his. He gripped it with surprising strength for one who acted so languidly most of the time and led her to the dance floor.