A Veil Removed

by Michelle Cox

  As the waltz began, neither of them spoke, which increased Elsie’s agitation immensely.

  “I haven’t seen you in quite some time,” he said finally, peering down at her.

  “No . . . I’ve not been well.”

  “Yes, I heard something along those lines,” he said with a sly grin.

  Elsie felt her stomach clench. Did everyone on the North Shore know of her stupidity?

  “Oh, you’ve nothing to worry about with me,” he said, obviously sensing her discomfort, as his hand moved down just a fraction of an inch on her back. “I like a girl with a bit of spunk,” he said into her ear.

  “I . . . I think you are mistaken, Mr. Aston,” Elsie said quietly, not looking at him and instead staring straight ahead at the other couples swirling about them.

  Lloyd Aston chuckled. “Oh, I think not. I’m a pretty good judge of character. And I think I’ve got you pretty well pegged, Elsie . . . am I allowed to call you Elsie?”

  Elsie’s face grew very warm at his suggestiveness. It didn’t really matter to her if he called her Elsie, but she was conscious of the lack of respect it implied. Not only that, but she knew Aunt Agatha would highly disapprove. Before she could answer, however, he went on.

  “The truth is, I think we could be rather good together. Have a spot of fun and all that. Away from all of this malarkey,” he said, nodding his head toward the opulence of the room. “You’re quite pretty, in your own way, do you know that?” he asked, looking into her eyes in a way that disturbingly called up Harrison to her mind. Hadn’t he said something just like that?

  “I . . . I think you must be teasing me, Mr. Aston. And it’s very unkind,” Elsie said, forcing herself to look at him for a moment before averting her eyes again.

  “Well, perhaps I am,” he chuckled. “Thought you wouldn’t mind a bit of teasing, you being that sort of girl,” he said wickedly.

  Stunned, Elsie made a move to break away from him, but he held her tight.

  “Oh, no you don’t. No escaping just yet.”

  “I’m feeling ill,” Elsie insisted. “I’d like to sit down now, if you don’t mind.”

  “Come, come. You and I have a lot in common,” he said, spinning her.

  Elsie found herself getting angry. “Please stop, Mr. Aston. Stop toying with me. It’s cruel.”

  “Oh, I’m not toying with you, Elsie. I’m very much in earnest.”

  “And please don’t . . . don’t call me Elsie. It’s . . . it’s presumptuous,” she managed to say boldly.

  Lloyd let out a little laugh. “As you wish, then, Miss Von Harmon,” he said finally as he gave her hand a tight squeeze. “But you can’t fool me. I know all about girls like you.”

  “Ow! You’re hurting me!” she exclaimed, though she was careful to keep her tone hushed.

  “Oh, I am sorry,” he said, though he waited a few moments before relaxing his grip.

  Elsie did not look at him.

  “Let me make it up to you,” he said, grinning. The dance had ended then, and he began to lead her back to her party. “Tell you what, how about tomorrow? The aquarium? Are you free?”

  “No, I’m not,” she said crisply. “Thank you, anyway.”

  They had reached Aunt Agatha now, who stood watching hopefully, a full glass of champagne in her hand.

  “I was just asking Miss Von Harmon if she would like to accompany me to the aquarium tomorrow, Mrs. Exley,” Lloyd said loudly.

  “Oh! What a splendid idea!” Agatha exclaimed. “Elsie would love to go, wouldn’t you, Elsie?”

  “Well, I . . . no, I have some studying to do, Aunt Agatha . . . my test is the very next day.” Elsie tried to plead with her eyes, but Agatha seemed determined to ignore her.

  “Nonsense!” Agatha exclaimed, frowning at Elsie. “She’d be happy to, Mr. Aston,” she said, smiling up at Lloyd sweetly.

  “Excellent. One o’clock?”

  “Certainly!” Agatha twittered, smiling broadly.

  “Until then, Miss Von Harmon,” he said, bowing slightly to her and giving her an obnoxious wink before sauntering away. Elsie watched him wander toward another group of young people and join them. He said something to all of them, and they responded with laughter, one or two of them looking over at her now. Humiliated, Elsie turned her back to them.

  “Elsie! What do you think you’re doing! Saying that you’d rather stay home and study than entertain Lloyd Aston? Have I not taught you better than that?” she hissed. “Fine and good if you were trying to be coy, but use some other excuse—you had a recital to attend or some such thing. Men don’t want wives who are educated. Or clever, for that matter. You can be clever, of course, but the trick is to not let them know that. They need to feel they are superior, you see.”

  Elsie was rather sure Lloyd Aston did not need any help in that department. “But I don’t like him,” Elsie complained.

  “Why ever not? He’s polite, handsome, and very wealthy. He was at Harvard with my Clifton, who tells me he wouldn’t be surprised if he became a senator one day. He’s apparently a very brilliant lawyer. You should feel flattered by his attention, Elsie! What’s wrong with you, girl?”

  Elsie sighed. She supposed Aunt Agatha would never really understand her. She hardly did herself. She had tried to tell Aunt Agatha about her studies and about all of the rich girls at Mundelein, thinking that would impress her, but she merely poo-pooed it as a passing . . . what would you call it? she asked—a hobby, until she was suitably married. But why did she have to get married? Elsie wondered for the hundredth time. While it had certainly always been her most cherished dream to fall in love and belong to someone, to be someone’s wife, her dalliances with love had twice gone rather badly, and she couldn’t help but think that the ship of love had sailed without her. Besides, who would want her now? Only the worst sort of men; men like Lloyd Aston who perhaps knew of her disgrace and sought to use it against her for their pleasure. It made her feel sick inside.

  She tightly gripped the champagne glass that Agatha had thrust at her and thought about what her future really held. Despite Henrietta’s disparaging comments about being a teacher, she had begun to think that she might actually be happy in that. Indeed, the thought that she could be looked up to and respected in that way was almost dizzying to her and filled her with a deep sort of longing, almost an ache. She longed to be truly useful, and what better way than to teach others what she so enjoyed learning herself?

  She had tentatively mentioned this notion to Sr. Bernard one afternoon after she had finished with her lessons, and not only had Sr. Bernard not laughed, but she had been very encouraging and had urged Elsie to pray about it. Elsie had taken Sr. Bernard’s advice to heart and had indeed begun praying more intently about her future and about possibly becoming a teacher. And so it was that as she knelt with the sisters in their chapel, her mind had sometimes even gone one step further. An idea had come upon her which she had hardly dared to look at first, but one which was nonetheless gaining a hold on her heart. It was the realization that perhaps she had a vocation, a calling to take Holy Orders and become a nun. It had seemed outrageous at first, ludicrous, even loathsome in a way, but then it had changed. Then it became an intriguing thought, an interesting one, and then a very desirable one. And just lately she was beginning to feel that it was perfect, actually, and when she allowed herself to pull it out and examine it, it made her tremble now at the beauty of it. Yes, she would have to give up a husband and a family, but a marriage born of true love and not convenience—nay opportunity—seemed impossible anyway. And she correspondingly saw, with shocking clarity, that it was a perfect way to escape having to marry someone like Lloyd or Garfield or any of the others the Exley’s flung at her. Instead, she would be allowed to gloriously spend her life studying and teaching, maybe even tending a garden somewhere. What more could she ask for? And as for children, why—she would be surrounded by children as a teacher. She would try to see them as her own. The idea had definitely gained on
her these last few weeks, seeming to be the perfect solution to all of her woes, but which made evenings such as tonight and dates to the aquarium not only ridiculous, but likewise a colossal waste of time.

  But she didn’t dare tell anyone. No one, she knew, would understand her in this, even and especially Henrietta. No, it was a secret that she must keep to herself, at least for now. Sr. Bernard had advised her to pray, and so she did. Her quiet presence among the sisters had not gone unnoticed, it seemed, as Sr. Bernard had just recently kindly invited her to attend evening vespers with them after her studies were finished, and she sometimes even stayed to say the rosary with them, which gave her much comfort.

  “You will go with Lloyd Aston tomorrow, Elsie,” Aunt Agatha sniffed. “There is no reason not to.”

  “Yes, Aunt Agatha,” Elsie agreed reluctantly, knowing there was no way out of it, and quickly gulped the rest of her champagne, likewise knowing, hoping, actually, that her days of drinking something so luxurious were limited indeed.

  Chapter 10

  Henrietta stood at a low table in the library at Highbury wrapping gifts. She had finished all of her shopping, or hoped she had, anyway, just yesterday with Julia. They had made a last trip downtown to Marshall Fields and had luncheoned at the Walnut Room. Henrietta already knew what she wanted to get Clive, delighting in the fact that she had money to spend on real Christmas gifts for the first time in her life, but she had needed help when it came to selecting something for Antonia. In the end, she had selected a beautiful Cartier broach, which Julia said her mother would be sure to love. Henrietta hoped so.

  She had always known that living at Highbury was going to take some getting used to after they returned from their honeymoon, but Alcott’s death had made it all the more difficult and confusing. As the unfortunate incident in the drawing room the other night with James indicated, no one was sure of their roles now, and the three of them were almost daily trying to balance the power between them. And to add to this, in the last week or so, Antonia’s previously subdued, grieving manner had given way to a sullen irritability that at times reminded Henrietta of Ma, actually. Antonia, when she was with them, usually sat quietly, her lips drawn together tightly, but every so often a fierceness burst forth from her, revealing the stillraw wound beneath.

  The turning point in her behavior seemed to have been the discovery of the missing painting, the story of which Clive had, of course, already shared with Henrietta. Since then, Antonia had become critical in the extreme of everyone around her, especially Clive, whom she saw as not acting fast enough in regard to the whereabouts of the painting and the subsequent apprehension of a culprit. It was the fixation point upon which her grief seemed to gather. Henrietta had suggested to Clive that it might be best simply to tell Antonia what he had discovered, that Alcott had sold the painting for the needed cash and leave it at that. But Clive was of the opinion that his mother would persist further and that it would open a whole barrage of questions, most of which he wasn’t in a position to answer at this point. Better to keep her in the dark, he had said, at least for now, but that meant he had to endure constant hints as to his incompetence as well as threats of calling the police herself.

  But if she was critical of Clive for his slowness in this matter, she was equally critical of his haste in others, at least as she saw it. When he had recently, for example, brought up the topic of making some much-needed changes to Highbury over breakfast with her one morning, Antonia had balked, saying that there was certainly no need to change anything at all. Clive had then gone on to point out that, among other things, the servants’ rooms above the auto-garage had not been updated in years, describing to her the squalid details that he and Henrietta had observed when questioning Virgil about old Helen’s missing ring this past summer. Reluctantly, Antonia had agreed that, yes, something must be done there, if that’s what he meant by changes, but she had then infuriatingly circled back to his previous, idiotic declaration of wanting to be master of the house. It was all he could do, he later told Henrietta, to remain calm at that point, but he had done it, reminding his mother that the whole reason he had agreed to give up being a detective was to devote himself to Highbury, as both she and his father had so desperately wanted. Updating the servants’ quarters was hardly playing “master of the house,” he had allowed himself to retort, to which she had advised him to watch his tone. Rather than continue this line of discussion, Clive had shifted subjects to one he assumed would breach no arguments, that being the obvious dismissal of his father’s valet, Carter, who had been in Alcott’s employ since he had arrived in America to wed Antonia. Indeed, he had brought Carter with him from Castle Linley.

  “I’ll speak to Carter this week,” Clive had said. “Make sure his references are in order and get him sorted.”

  “What are you talking about?” Antonia had asked with such acrimony that it caused Clive to look up at her over the newspaper he had casually picked up. “You can’t do that, Clive!”

  “Why not?” he said, refolding the newspaper now. “You don’t mean to keep him on, do you?”

  “Of course, I do!”

  “As what?” Clive asked, truly puzzled. “We can’t demote him to footman, and we can’t give him Billings’s job—”

  “I assumed he would become your valet,” Antonia said crisply.

  “Not this again. I told you, Mother, I don’t want a valet! And, anyway, isn’t he past sixty?”

  “Exactly why we can’t turn him out! How can you be so heartless?”

  Clive was taken aback by his mother’s strong reaction; he had not expected it at all. Indeed, he thought she might be grateful to be finally rid of the man, his dour countenance never very welcoming over the years. In truth, he had never understood his father’s continued employment and, worse, his over-reliance on Carter. In Clive’s mind, he was adequate at best and hopelessly dull—his thin graying hair greased and combed back neatly. Growing up, Clive had neither liked nor disliked Carter. He had always just been there, smelling faintly of camphor oil and always attempting to shoo him and Julia away when Father wasn’t looking.

  Before Clive could think of what exactly to say to his mother, she informed him coolly that she would not “turn Carter out of this house” and threatened to give him the cottage if Clive did not continue to employ him. Clive recognized this as a particularly low blow, as she knew how special the cottage was to Henrietta and him, having spent their first few nights of wedded bliss there. Also, Clive knew that Henrietta had some silly idea of giving the cottage to Edna and Virgil, should they ever get themselves engaged, though why a perfectly nice girl like Edna should ever cast her hat at the likes of Virgil was beyond him. But that was a different story. In the end, he had agreed to reconsider Carter’s position and had curtly excused himself from the breakfast table.

  When he related the whole of the story to Henrietta later in their private sitting room, she advised him to take on Carter. After all, she said, what harm would there be, really? Carter didn’t seem a bad sort, and, besides, it would be good to let Antonia busy herself somewhat with the servants to take her mind off her grief and possibly the missing painting, of which they never ceased to hear. Clive smiled at this and slyly accused her of selfishly wanting to keep Carter on so that she might have the cottage for her own devices. She laughed at this but added that perhaps keeping Carter served another purpose. Perhaps he knew more than he was saying about Alcott’s untimely end.

  “What I don’t understand is why your father would have entrusted the selling of the painting to Billings and not Carter. Don’t you think that odd?” Henrietta asked him.

  “I suppose because Billings might have more wherewithal in those types of matters.”

  “Did you at least question Carter?”

  “Of course, I’ve questioned Carter,” Clive said with a roll of his eyes. “He claims he knows nothing about the selling of any painting or Susan or any ‘disagreeable activities’ is what I think he said. Says Father seemed
a bit out of sorts the day he . . . was murdered, but nothing too unusual. Said that after he finished dressing him for the morning, Father wanted a minute or two to himself before going down, which was not his usual habit. Couldn’t tell me anything else, said he didn’t know what all of this signified, anyway.”

  “Do you think he’s holding back?”

  “No, I don’t think so. He’s a crotchety old git. A bit doddering, to be honest. I don’t know what the devil I’m going to do with him. Why on earth would Mother want to keep him on?”

  “Maybe it’s just familiarity? Maybe he reminds her of Alcott, makes him seem less gone somehow?” Henrietta offered.

  Clive inclined his head in thoughtful acknowledgment while he puffed his pipe, a cloud of smoke encircling him now.

  “Have you gotten any further with Bennett?” she asked. Clive had also told her all that Bennett had revealed to him that day in the boardroom and the fact that after going through the last of his father’s things in his study, he had indeed found his personal accounts drained these many years. He did not find any more incriminating letters, however, nor had he found the supposed missing money, the half of the ten thousand dollars from the sale of the painting that Alcott had not, according to Bennett, anyway, turned over to this Susan and his thugs.

  Henrietta had been initially prone to believe that perhaps it had been Bennett himself who had taken the money. Even after Alcott’s death, perhaps. After all, she suggested, hadn’t he admitted to being in the house?

  Clive looked at her, his eyes keen with pleasure. “Yes, actually, that crossed my mind too.” He grinned at her. “You’re becoming quite the detective, darling,” he said, and Henrietta blushed with pride. “We certainly can’t rule it out,” he went on, “but if that were true, why wouldn’t Bennett have lied and just said that Father gave Susan the whole of the money?”