A Gilded Grave

by Shelley Freydont

  Madeline looked up, searched her face through her tears.

  “You should probably get some sleep. Things will look better in the morning,” Deanna said.

  Madeline stood slowly. “Thank you.” She took Deanna’s hand and pressed it, then hurried from the room.

  Deanna waited until the door closed before she wiped her hand on her skirt.

  Elspeth stuck her head out the half-closed dressing-room door. “Is she gone?”

  Deanna nodded.

  Elspeth stepped into the room. “I don’t like her.”

  “No. Nor do I trust her.” Deanna sank back on the bench. “But what are we going to do about her and Charles?”

  “I say good riddance. Maybe when the Manchesters go back to Barbados, they’ll take Mr. Charles with them.”

  “But just think of the humiliation to Adelaide.”

  “Women get over humiliation, if they’re smart. You don’t get over a loveless marriage.”

  “Elspeth, I had no idea you were so philosophical.”

  “It isn’t philosophy. All you have to do is look around. Hardly any woman in your class is happy.”

  Shocked, Deanna said, “My mother is.”

  “Because she always gets her way.”

  Deanna couldn’t deny that. “What about Mrs. Woodruff?”

  “Because what she don’t know don’t hurt her.”

  “What do mean?”

  “Sometimes I wonder about you, Miss Deanna. Because Mr. Woodruff’s quite a womanizer . . . among other things.”

  “No,” Deanna replied, shocked. “I know some men are, but not Mr. Woodrfuff.”

  Elspeth sighed. “Most of your menfolk are. Mr. Woodruff is no exception. You know all those trips he goes on?”

  “For business.”

  “Well, he’s not against mixing some pleasure with it.”

  “Mr. Woodruff? I don’t believe it.”

  “Well, the laundry maids know better than you or Mrs. Woodruff.”

  “The laundry maids? He wouldn’t.”

  “Wouldn’t he? Most of the men take advantage of the servants or keep a fancy lady in town. Then there’s the gambling.”

  “All men gamble a bit. It’s expected.”

  “And how many have blown their brains out because they lost their wives’ money?”

  Deanna blinked.

  “Maybe it’s best you don’t know about these things. We’re so busy reading about poor working girls and lady detectives . . . They oughta write books about poor rich women. They say Mr. Woodruff already spent his inheritance. All this house and stuff was paid for by Mrs. Woodruff’s money. And half this side of town laughs at her behind her back.”

  “How do you know these things?”

  Elspeth sighed. “Miss, if you want to know what really goes on in these fancy houses and these richer-than-anything families, just ask someone belowstairs. They hear and see it all, and they are not above talking about it. Heck, that Colonel Mann with his Town Topics will even pay for a good tidbit for his newspaper. The rich will pay him even more to keep it out of the paper.”

  “They do?”

  Elspeth nodded. “Where do you think he hears all that nonsense he writes about?”

  “Do you gossip?”

  “You gonna let me go if I do?”

  Deanna thought about it. She would have to tell her mother. “What do you say about us?”

  Elspeth smiled slyly. “Don’t you wish you knew?”

  “Elspeth!”

  “Oh, don’t be such a priss. I only tell enough to get by. Mainly about your mother and how she rules you girls with an iron glove. I make fun of her, just a little bit, so’s I’m one of them. Just enough so people will share what they know. You can’t survive in service if you don’t tell the others a little something. They won’t take to you. And that makes life miserable. But don’t you worry none. I don’t tell anything too bad.” She laughed. “Actually, they all think I have a dull time of it and feel sorry for me. I’ve never had anything that the newspaper would pay for.”

  Deanna just looked at Elspeth in bewilderment. She was Deanna’s best friend besides Cassie. Had she been wrong to trust her?

  “Oh, Miss Deanna, get rid of that puss. You know I’m true blue to you.” She grinned. “And a poet.”

  Deanna tried to smile, but her world had just shifted. Had her mother been right about her letting Elspeth take too many liberties? But she didn’t want some aloof companion who saved her from fashion faux pas, and even saw her naked, yet whom she couldn’t trust.

  Elspeth turned serious. “I shouldn’t’ve told you all these things. But it’s the way of the world. Servants talk. So does the butcher and the dressmaker, and sometimes you folks tell on each other. But don’t you worry none, Miss Deanna. I would never betray you. You should know that by now.”

  Deanna sighed with relief. “I believe you.”

  “You should. We got each other’s backs, and that’s the way it oughta be.”

  “That’s why I want you to sleep next door,” Deanna said, harking back to the conversation they were having before Madeline interrupted them.

  “And I told you—”

  “I know. But two maids tried to tell someone something. And both are dead.”

  “Everyone’s scared downstairs. But you should be careful, too.”

  “You think whoever it is will start murdering the cottagers?”

  “I don’t know about that. But I do know one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You’d better watch out for that Lady Madeline. I don’t trust her not to try to take Mr. Joseph, too. Some women just can’t help themselves.”

  “And some men can’t, either, as we’ve learned about Charles. Like father like son. And if Joe is one of those men, she can have him, too.”

  “Oh pshaw. Mr. Joseph ain’t like that at all. Orrin sa—”

  “Don’t.”

  “Sorry, but Mr. Joseph is a good man and my brother says so.” Elspeth grinned at Deanna and ducked as the hairbrush whizzed by her head. She picked it up. “You gotta aim better than that.” She placed the brush back on the table.

  Deanna fought a smile, lost the battle, and laughed. “You are so provoking.”

  Elspeth laughed, too. “I’ll go get your nightdress. You pick out what we’re going to read tonight.”

  Deanna knew what she wanted to read. She’d glanced through the coverless copy they’d found in Daisy’s room. But now that she had a copy with a cover on it, she would start at the beginning.

  She reached into the dresser drawer and lifted out the brown wrapper that held her two new magazines, slid them out on the bed, and saw the yellow paper sticking out of the top one.

  The telegram. She still had the telegram for her father. She pulled it out turned it over. She’d meant to give it to Mr. Woodruff as her father’s proxy, but after overhearing his conversation with Charles, and seeing the way Charles had been acting with Madeline, she was afraid to trust either of them with it.

  If Mr. Woodruff took advantage of the house servants, would he kill the girls to keep them quiet?

  Did her father expect as much? Surely he wouldn’t have left her here if it wasn’t safe. But it was becoming more obvious that her father didn’t trust Mr. Woodruff with their business.

  Maybe Deanna shouldn’t trust either of the Woodruffs with this telegram. The only person who had knowledge of the company business and whom she could truly trust was Joe.

  Or she could just open it herself.

  Joe paced along the brick floor of the shop. The machines were all shut down, and his footsteps echoed in the cavernous room.

  He hadn’t bothered to turn on the lights, and he could barely discern their shapes in the darkness. But these machines were his future—he hoped. And the fut
ure of R and W. Just because he didn’t enjoy the day-to-day running of the business didn’t mean he didn’t care about it. He cared a lot. And he had something concrete to offer.

  He’d asked his father to give him a year to try to increase efficiency in the refining and the delivery processes. Improving efficiency and producing at a higher volume was the only way they could compete against the giant Sugar Trust.

  And his machines would be safer for the workers.

  They would still have to buy sugar from growers who had no concern for the men and women who worked their plantations under hideously hot and dangerous conditions.

  Joe didn’t think things had to be like this just to get a profit. He was in the minority, of course. He’d been called an air dreamer, a nutcase, a communist, and a fool. Let them call him what they would. Soon they’d all be coming to him, or someone like him, to increase their profits, and Joe would make the life of the workers just a little better at the same time.

  Meanwhile, he’d be damned if he’d let American Sugar take over R and W like it had so many other refineries. Bought them up or shut them down, paid them off, cheated them, sabotaged them, destroyed men’s livelihoods. Havemeyer, who controlled the trust, didn’t care. So far nothing had stopped him in his insatiable hunger to control all sugar refining in the country. Not strikes, not the courts, not his conscience.

  Havemeyer wasn’t alone; there were the Rockefellers and Vanderbilts, Carnegie, Gould, Fisk, Morgan. Lust for power and wealth was cutting out the middle class in every arena; it trounced the working class, took advantage of the poor.

  Joe supposed it had always been like that. And maybe he was a communist to think that people should live in harmony with one another. An attitude his father attributed to Grandmère and her freethinking ways.

  But tonight he wasn’t just thinking about sugar.

  He was trying to figure out why two maids in the same household had been killed. Was it coincidence that Cokey had run into Joe and Daisy on the street? Why had Joe been the one to find that second maid? Were they the victims of some madman? Could it be someone from the Woodruffs’ own household?

  Joe really needed to get Deanna out of Seacrest—the sooner the better.

  Deanna.

  He rested his elbow on the mechanical arm of the bagging machine. He loved machines, wanted to spend his entire life among them. But he would also like to go home to something—someone—warm and soft who would talk back to him, laugh with him, make love to him.

  But that would have to come later. How much later, he couldn’t pretend to know. It was imperative that they get this raw sugar deal and that he make machines that could help them compete in a shrinking market.

  R and W wouldn’t go down without a struggle. Not if he had anything to do with it.

  Chapter

  18

  Deanna ripped open the telegram. “This is from Joe’s father.”

  ANOTHER OFFER FR. H FOR MY SHARE OF R & W.

  IMPORTANT THAT WE TALK PLEASE RETURN TO CITY

  Deanna turned the telegram for Elspeth to see.

  “Who is H?”

  “It has to be Mr. Havemeyer. He’s the head of the Sugar Trust, and he’s been trying to buy R and W for years. Now he’s trying to get Joe’s papa to go against mine and Mr. Woodruff.”

  Elspeth shook her head. “I don’t know why they can’t leave each other’s businesses alone. I guess men are just plain greedy. Like boys and their marbles.”

  Deanna frowned. “I suppose so, but with a lot more at stake than some colorful glass.”

  Elspeth rested her chin on her fist. “But your papa is already in the city.”

  “I know. And surely Mr. Ballard has contacted him by now. But what if he hasn’t? What if he doesn’t expect him in the city until Monday? We’ll have to go to the telegraph office first thing Monday and send papa another telegram telling him to see Mr. Ballard first thing. I hope it isn’t too late.”

  “Well, it’s too late for you to still be awake. Now turn around or we won’t have time for any reading tonight.”

  Deanna changed into her nightdress, then sat down to have Elspeth comb out her hair. While Elspeth began pulling out pins, Deanna reached into the drawer.

  She didn’t open the magazine but spent a long time looking at its cover. “I think we need to turn this over to Will.” Deanna yawned. “But for tonight . . . I’ve had enough about poisoning and murder for this week. How about Loveday Brooke in The Ghost of Fountain Lane?”

  The breakfast room was empty when Deanna came down Sunday morning. She was relieved not to have to make conversation.

  She didn’t feel much like eating, but she also didn’t want to sit in her room like the others were doing if they weren’t still sleeping. She hadn’t slept well at all, and she knew her eyes were a little sunken and her cheeks were pale. The thought made her feel a little sad, because it made her think of her mother always telling Adelaide to pinch her cheeks.

  Deanna looked around to make sure she was alone, then pinched her own cheeks. Mama was right about some things, she conceded. And wondered what her mother would do if two of their maids had been murdered.

  Her lip trembled; she wasn’t exactly laughing and not exactly crying. But uncomfortable. Her mama would never allow murder in Randolph House.

  The baize door opened and Neville entered carrying a coffee tray.

  “Good morning, miss. Coffee?”

  “Yes, please.” She felt embarrassed to be sitting here alone like the mistress of the house. It was a lonely feeling. Maybe it was because the Seacrest breakfast room was almost as large as Randolph House’s dining room.

  Neville poured coffee, moved the sugar and cream closer to her. “Do you care for toast? There are eggs and ham on the sideboard. As well as porridge. But if there is anything else you desire . . .”

  Deanna shook her head. “No, that will be all.”

  Neville bowed and left the room.

  Deanna quickly brushed a tear away. She was feeling a little homesick this morning. Which was silly. Still, she wished she were home. If she were at home, she would be going to church. She liked church, especially here in Newport. But of course she wouldn’t go by herself, and this morning, when she’d been told that the Woodruff family would not be attending, Deanna had actually felt relieved.

  She knew people would be paying more attention to the Woodruffs and whispering about their two murdered maids than attending the words of the sermon.

  She finished her coffee and went upstairs to get her sketchbook, then walked out to the cliffs to sit by the sea. There were several boulders perfect for sitting, so she didn’t bother to ask for a chair to be set out on the lawn.

  She skirted the topiary hedge and cut through the garden. The hydrangeas were in bloom, fat and delicate as glass that had been filled with the color of the sky.

  Deanna continued until she was at the walk. No one was about, so she sat down and opened her book. But she didn’t start drawing, just looked out to sea.

  Her world had shuddered this week. That two servants of a prominent family could be murdered here in Newport—or anywhere, for that matter—was just beyond comprehension.

  She didn’t believe the maids had done anything wrong, though both had worked for Mr. Woodruff, and if what Daisy said was true . . . But that just made no sense. If all gentleman carried on in such a way, there would be no reason to kill the objects of their . . . feelings.

  It must be something else that bound both girls together. Was it that Daisy and Claire were friends? Or that Claire had been teaching Daisy to read? Could it have been one of the other servants?

  That must be it. A jealous servant, or one who had interfered with both of them and killed them when they’d threatened to tell.

  But surely Daisy would have told Orrin or Elspeth if that was happening. Unless she’d been too ashamed.
It wasn’t fair that the maids were preyed upon and then brushed aside. Leaving them without reputations or references was bad enough. But to kill for that?

  Abominable.

  Someone must know something. Even if it was one of the guests, someone must have seen. Though she supposed that, from a distance, maid and killer would look like any other couple. No one would pay any attention. Might not have noticed if she suddenly disappeared.

  Vlady had discovered both bodies. Was that significant or just coincidence? Vlady was always doing adventurous things. It was reasonable that he would find something like that.

  She sighed. It was just as reasonable that he’d known where to find them. But why lead everyone there? To keep from being suspected? No one would think of accusing the person who’d pointed out the crime. But how many stories had she read where the villain appeared as a friendly, well-mannered gentleman who, after gaining the heroine’s trust, turned out to be a horrible monster?

  Herbert Stanhope was friendly and well-mannered, kept them all laughing. He’d also been at both discoveries. Now that she thought about it, he hadn’t stayed to wait for the police at Bailey’s. She’d looked for him and he’d been gone.

  But that didn’t make him the murderer.

  And then there was Joe . . .

  “Miss Deanna.”

  Deanna yelped and her sketchbook slid off her lap.

  “I beg your pardon,” Neville said as he stooped to collect her notebook and the pencil that had fallen with it.

  “You startled me.” She scrambled to her feet.

  “My apologies, miss.” He handed her book and pencil back. “Miss Cassie and Lady Madeline asked me to say they desired your presence in the morning room.”

  “Oh, is that all?” Deanna brushed off her skirt. “I’ll come at once.”

  He bowed, and she preceded him up the lawn to the house.

  Cassie and Madeline were sitting in the morning room, a carafe of coffee and tray of pastries between them.

  “We’re picnicking,” Cassie said, with what Deanna thought was forced enthusiasm. “To soothe our wounded souls,” she said, and sighed theatrically.