by Beth Byers
“How horribly Victorian,” Lila said, glancing at the others before she drained her glass. “I’ve never met this sister of yours, darling, but she sounds a bit dim.”
“She’s not dim,” Gwennie said, to Violet’s surprise. “She’s young. I’d have succumbed to the right fairytale at the same age, especially with my aunt’s pressure, if not for my elder sister who took me aside and told me to buck up and stand firm.”
“You’re all young,” Jack said, swirling his drink in his glass, “but this is not a fate for your little sister.”
“Tell us, Methuselah,” Victor countered, as he handed Jack another drink. “What shall we do?”
“Come now,” Denny interrupted, tapping off his cigarette. “Vi has a plan. Haven’t you, darling?”
Violet shrugged and outlined her thoughts, glancing at Jack when she said they’d need the name of Danvers’s mistress. Jack paused, thinking the request over, and then said, “Yes, I should be able to find that out.”
“What else do we do?” Victor asked.
“Our time is so limited,” Violet said, feeling the worry of it. The wedding was a mere week away. They should have hurried home after they’d gotten their letter. Both Victor and Violet had assumed that Isolde had succumbed to the love-making of some young fellow like herself. Too young to be wed, perhaps, but a story like Denny and Lila’s could be happy.
“Our best chance is to convince her, only we haven’t been close. Why would she let us sway her against her own mother? If we can pick Danvers apart…that might be the surest course. We’ve already set our man of business to investigating his financials. I have no doubt that his instincts are right. I’m just concerned there isn’t time enough.”
“Then what shall you do?” Lila asked gently.
“I don’t know,” Violet admitted. “I don’t want to face Isolde a decade from now and admit I knew her life would be terrible. It’s never the cads like Danvers who die young. They linger on, tormenting those saddled with their connection.”
A luncheon of vichyssoise, fish, and small chocolate cakes followed. It was served as they debated other options, but none of them were quite sure what to do.
“This isn’t a problem for our era,” Gwennie declared. “That’s the issue here. We never expected to face this kind of thing. It was a problem for our grandmothers with their uptight mothers who cared more for money and being settled than they did for happiness.”
“Too true, love,” Lila said with a sigh. If anything, Lila’s family objected for her wishing to marry so young to poor Denny. His good connections and prospects hadn’t been enough to sway her mother’s worries, and Lila had been forced to throw epic tantrums to get her way. Her parents’ concerns had been that she was too young. It was because of those objections that Lila and Denny had waited until after college to wed.
Vi’s two female friends swore to drop casual asides to Isolde, making her aware of what Danvers was like, while Jack promised to see if there was anything to be found about Danvers that might scuttle the marriage before it took off.
After the others had left, Jack invited Violet to the Criterion and a play for later that week. She accepted with the blush she’d been fighting off all afternoon. “I’ll stop by or call if I find anything about Danvers,” he said to both Victor and Violet.
Victor stepped away, and Jack’s gaze flicked over Violet.
“You can only do what you can, Violet. You might not be able to save your sister if she doesn’t wish it.”
Violet nodded and let Jack take her hand. He turned her palm over and seemed fascinated by the size of her small white hand against his larger tanned one.
“What happened to your arm?”
The question was so out of the blue that Violet didn’t know to what he referred. Jack gently touched her bicep and she glanced at it, noting for the first time the finger-shaped bruises on her skin.
“Ahhh.” She looked back to Jack and saw the fire in his gaze. Carefully, she licked her lips.
“Victor?”
She laughed. “Never. I doubt he’s noticed yet, or he’d be next to you demanding answers.”
“Who?”
“I think…”
“Please?”
The question was so gentle, Violet couldn’t deny answer.
“Danvers and I had a rather heated exchange.”
Jack nodded, jaw flexing. “I’ll be back tomorrow with what I’m able to discover.”
Violet nodded. He made his goodbyes and left. The moment the door closed after him, Victor returned.
“I like him,” Victor declared.
“It’s moving too fast in my mind,” Violet said. “A house party, one casual meeting on a train, and one evening out does not add up to all the places my mind is going.”
Victor wrapped his arm around her shoulder. “Oh, darling one, trust me. You’ve got him well-trapped in your web.”
“I don’t wish to trap anyone,” she said, elbowing him a little.
“It’s the only way to catch someone these days, darling. Marriage is for old-fashioned types. If you want to follow the well-trodden path of our ancestors, then you need to lasso your man, or is it hogtie? Is that what those American cowboys do?”
Violet scowled at him and elbowed him once again. “Whatever that is, it sounds quite distasteful. Do not forget, brother of mine, that I am a….what did you call me? A pearl of great price? One such as me does not hogtie a man. We simply flutter our lashes and beckon with our gaze.”
Victor’s laugh warmed her. “Darling, I was referring to your new, bulging pocketbook, not your intrinsic value.”
Violet elbowed her brother a third time before returning to her bedroom and her stolen typewriter. Her story of the ingénue took a sour turn, and Violet knew that it would be a darker tale than she usually wrote. The outcome for the little woman who looked remarkably like their sister, Isolde, was fraught with danger and looked very poor indeed.
Chapter 6
The next morning Violet rang up her sister and invited her on a spur of the moment shopping trip. She made a last-minute appointment at the new fashion salon owned by the squire’s daughter she’d learned about just before she had left London the last time.
Before long, Violet was gathering up her sister. Isolde gasped when she saw Violet had driven herself.
“You drive?”
“Of course,” Violet said. “Victor doesn’t let me get away with womanly wiles when he wants to sleep the drive away. I learned quite some time ago, I’m afraid.”
“Oh my.” Isolde’s bright eyes fixed on the car and she mused, “Perhaps I shall learn to drive.”
“You should, darling. There’s a wonderful freedom in it.”
They made their way to the fashion salon and found gowns to stop a clothes monger in her tracks.
“It must be lovely,” Isolde said, “to shop without Mother making your choices.”
“Dear,” Violet said gently, “you can do the same.”
“Well, it’s important to select the right look to marry Mr. Danvers. He needs a sophisticated woman.”
Violet had to hold back a tirade before she brightly replied, “Sweet sister, you are the catch here. He is the lucky one.”
“Oh no,” Isolde said, shaking her head. “No. Not me.”
“Of course you. You’re beautiful. You’re rich. Your father is an earl. Mr. Danvers is none of those things.”
“I’m not nearly as lovely as you,” Isolde said, without even an ounce of irony.
“Yes, darling, you are. Of course, you are.”
“And I’m not clever like you,” Isolde said. She said it with such utter surety that Violet wanted to scream. Just how many times had Lady Eleanor praised Violet to Isolde’s detriment?
“Darling, darling, you just left school. You haven’t had a chance to study your own interests or discover your passions. It is far too soon to make such judgments.”
Isolde smiled at Violet as though she were blind to the obvi
ous and only being kind.
“Why don’t you give yourself some more time before you make such big decisions? Push back the wedding date. Travel some with Victor and me. We’d love to take you somewhere exciting and new.”
Isolde tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “Did you discover upon cutting your hair that it was so much less weight?”
Violet stared at her sister, who avoided Vi’s gaze. “Are you sure you don’t wish to push back the date?”
Isolde tucked a lock of hair behind her ear on the opposite side. “It’s so much less weight, isn’t it? After shearing one’s head.”
“Yes,” Violet said. “It’s wonderful to cut off your hair. Perhaps college? I would be happy to pay for you like my aunt paid for me. You don’t have to jump into this wedding.”
Isolde smiled at Violet, such a sad little expression for what should be a happy movement, and then said, “Isn’t that dress just lovely?”
Violet blinked rapidly. “I missed your birthday. Let’s try it on you and get it for you. Or something else if we find something that flatters you better.”
Isolde nodded in gratitude, but it wasn’t for the dress, it was for Violet dropping the subject. They both tried on a series of dresses and both left the shop laden with bags. As they approached the automobile and arranged their bags inside, Violet waited until Isolde was in the vehicle before she shut the door and then turned to her.
Vi had her sister trapped and needed to try one more time. “You are very young.”
“Violet…” Isolde’s attention was fixed outside the window, but Violet could see the tension through Isolde’s slender frame.
“You cannot possibly love Danvers.”
“I will come to love him,” Isolde said, almost desperately. “He is a good man.”
Violet was certain both of those things were untrue, but she could see that all she was doing was distancing herself from her little sister.
“Isolde, I will say this but once and leave you be…” Vi waited until Isolde’s gaze turned to hers. “We were never close, but we can be. Victor and I are here for you. Any time, any day. Come to me, and I will help you.”
Isolde swallowed and nodded rapidly.
“Before you are married or after, I promise. There are many, many paths before you. All of them can lead to happiness if you’re brave enough to follow your heart and trust in your strength.”
Isolde nodded again and looked back out the window. Vi took her sister home, consigning her stepmother to all the circles of hell and then returned home to Victor with less hope than she’d had before.
Violet dropped her bags in the entrance hall with Hargreaves, leaving him with her coat and hat, then fluffed her hair on the way to the dining room. Jack and Victor were sitting at the table. There was a simple tray of sandwiches, what looked like a carafe of coffee and another of lemonade.
They both stood as she entered, and she announced, “All is lost.”
“Lost, is it?”
Violet jumped and realized that her oldest brother had followed her into the dining room.
“Gerald!” Violet said with a gasp. “You startled whatever wits I have to the winds.”
He grinned at her and kissed her cheek before pulling out a chair. In his mid-thirties, their brother was a good ten years older than the twins. He managed the earl’s estates while spending a good amount of time in London. Like the twins, he had avoided being married thus far, but unlike the twins, Lady Eleanor had never harassed him about his state.
“All is lost?” Victor asked, pouring Violet a glass of lemonade. “How could it be, dear one? We’ve yet to enact our plan.”
“I went rogue,” she admitted. “I rang up Isolde and invited her shopping for her birthday. I think that might be the first time I’ve truly been around Isolde unaccompanied. I…forgive the dramatics, but Isolde is convinced that she has nothing to offer. She is convinced that despite the age difference and the lack of love, Danvers is the best she can attain.”
“The devil, you say.” Victor swore and cleared his throat. “It’s Lady Eleanor.”
“Oh certainly,” Gerald said. “I’m delighted you two are trying to stick your oar in, but I don’t see it being successful. I’ve tried to convince Isolde otherwise several times yet. She’s…intransigent.”
“Lady Eleanor has been very clearly tearing Isolde to pieces in order to get her to believe this nonsense.”
“It’s worse than that, Violet.” Jack cleared his throat and pulled out a small black notebook. “I sent my man over to the club this morning. The woman Mr. Danvers was with was Helen Mathers.”
“Mathers?” Gerald frowned and seated himself back at his plate. “Not Harry Mathers’s daughter? The flighty little blonde one?”
“Just so,” Jack stated. “It seems that there was talk for quite a while about them marrying.”
“Father can’t possibly know that,” Victor said.
“I have told Father time and again that this man is a snake in the grass,” Gerald stated. “The problem is that Eleanor’s brother says otherwise. Father thinks I’m starting at hares.”
Victor moaned. “I stopped by Fredericks’s again today. I had to sign a few more things about the house and while I was there, I asked about Danvers too. If he’d found out anything. It seems that no one who knows their business will deal with him.”
“So he isn’t even rich?”
“Fredericks feels certain that much of his stated wealth is unlikely. He thought I was considering joining one of Danvers’s investment schemes despite your objections. He felt that I might be sidestepping you, so Mr. Fredericks did, in fact…”—Victor paused to scowl at Violet—“state I should follow your good advice.” Violet laughed at Victor, and he winked at her a moment later. “I was forced to assure Fredericks that I had every intention of letting you be in charge of all the details of my life.”
Gerald laughed uproariously at Victor’s scowl, but Jack leaned back, eyeing Violet with interest.
“I am letting Fredericks have his head. It’s why he wants you to follow my advice. That is beside the point as far as Isolde is concerned.” Violet tapped her cheek as she considered their options. “I’m concerned that there is little we can do.”
“We will be left with the option to support her once she finally leaves him,” Victor said. “I’m sure Lady Eleanor will try to stick her oar in when that day arrives as well.”
“She chose far better for herself than for her daughter,” Violet said. She rose to pace the dining room, ignoring the sandwiches while the gentlemen watched her.
“You have rather the best chance with her,” Gerald told Violet. “She always has looked up to you, you know?”
Violet shook her head and admitted, “I didn’t know.”
“Our stepmother used to compare Isolde to the ladies around Kennington House since they spent so much time there. But then Isolde would chatter on about you. How lovely you were. Your style. The way you did well in school and out-performed even Victor. Peter and Lionel told Isolde before they went off to war to pay attention to you. That you would look after her when they could not.”
Violet had to bite her lip to hold back her tears. She hadn’t expected her dead brothers to have said any such things. To refer to her as anything other than a silly school girl. Hearing such things made their loss all the more real. Victor cleared his throat, as touched by the sentiment as Violet.
“Yes,” Violet said, with a watery choking sound to her voice. “Well. Now I feel all the more that there must be some way to help Isolde. The poor thing.”
Violet listened as Jack recapped what he’d learned. The three men made a list of things to do about Danvers. As they did, Violet considered a course of action that was completely inappropriate. But when Jack and Gerald left, Jack confirming their next date, she escaped to her room. It would be better if no one knew what she was up to.
Violet wrote an anonymous letter to Harry Mathers and Helen Mathers. She then foll
owed those letters up by a letter to Fredericks to do what he could to pull apart the house of cards. She authorized him to spend some of her money without bankrupting her, and she told him to prod Danvers’s major investors.
She felt sick when she was done writing the series of instructions and letters, but she would do what was necessary to protect her sister. The biggest problem, she realized as she journaled that evening, wasn’t even her actions of the day and the things she’d done, but the fact that she’d allowed her relationship with Isolde to be determined by Vi’s stepmother.
What if she’d simply been a better sister? She was disappointed in herself to an extent that was difficult for her to formulate.
Repentance, Vi thought. Repentance and doing far, far better. She didn’t just owe it to herself or to Isolde. Vi owed it to the brothers who’d trusted her more than she’d realized. With a heavy heart, she turned to her story, and things continued to worsen for the poor ingénue.
Chapter 7
“How can it be the day of the wedding?” Violet demanded. “How can we have failed?”
“I don’t know,” Victor admitted. “Divorce. Annulment. Something will give eventually, and we’ll be at the ready.”
“I feel like I have been begging Isolde and begging her, and nothing gives. Did you know she was this stubborn?”
“I’m not surprised,” Victor told her as he handed her out of the Silver Ghost, leaving Giles with their bags. They’d stay at Kennington House that night since the wedding festivities would go deep into the evening. “You are stubborn and she aspires to be just like you.”
Violet scowled at her brother. “I feel as though it’s all my fault. She seems to look up to me, but why? I am such a failure.”
Victor kissed the side of her head and held out his arm. They had done everything they could, save kidnapping Isolde and escaping to Greece or America, and now Violet felt as though they certainly needed to do just that. She’d have considered trying it if she thought she could get Isolde away from her mother. But Lady Eleanor seemed to be aware of just how close Violet had come to succeeding time and again.