by Beth Byers
“I’d buy a yacht,” Denny said, loudly enough to catch Lila’s attention. “But my wife won’t let me.”
Lila shot Denny a barely concealed irritation. “While we were gone, Denny spent too much time with Tomas St. Marks, who went from Paris to a ship-builder in Scotland and then sailed home on some sleek beauty.”
“I thought you spent all your time eating your feelings, my friend?”
Denny snorted. “Well I did that too. Look at this?” He stood and pointed out the bulging buttons on his vest. “Lila is going to have to dance with me for nights on end until I can wear this suit and breathe easily.”
Violet rolled her eyes at him. “Tell Jack who you think killed Danvers.”
“If it wasn’t me? I was there you know, and the more I know of him, the more I hate him.” Denny gestured to the waiter and ordered another round of drinks. He added to the order a series of finger foods before Victor returned to the table. He’d brought his dance partner back to her friends and settled in with his sister and their friends.
“What are we talking about?” he asked.
“Murders,” Denny said. “So we’ve got more booze on the way. The jazz makes it seem less…real.”
“According to Vi, it was about as real as it gets, my friend. You can tell when Vi thinks about it because she changes colors.”
Denny and Victor turned to Jack, who was the only other one who’d actually seen the body. He sighed. “The killer seemed angry.”
Violet shuddered. “Can we not talk about that part of it?”
“Seconded,” Lila said.
“Where’s Gwennie?”
“Dinner with the aunt,” Denny said. “Who do you think did the deed, Victor?”
“My money is on Gulliver. He’s gonna lose everything, he was getting a bit physical with Danvers before the chappie died, and I didn’t like his expression when he was trying to trick Vi into throwing her fortune down the crapper after his.”
They all looked to Jack, who scowled at each of them in turn.
“Well?” Lila’s expression was an out and out dare.
Jack sighed. “I haven’t decided. I lean towards Gulliver myself. Barnes tracked down Mathers today, but he went straight home after, so I haven’t heard the details there. Higgins has an alibi. Norman Kennington will be more effected by the losses than Markus, but given his reaction to the blood today, it seems unlikely that he’d have been able to murder Danvers in the way he was killed.”
“What about Hugo?” Vi asked as she sipped her drink. Denny had ordered this round, and they’d all gotten flute of champagne.
“You just hate him,” Victor told Vi.
She considered and then nodded. “All the same…he’s got my vote for killer.”
They all glanced back to Jack.
“The motive for him is tenuous,” Jack told them. “Why would he kill his father? Why at that time? With so many people around?”
“Perhaps for just that reason,” Violet said. “If he killed his father at home, it narrows the pool considerably, doesn’t it?”
Jack grinned at Violet. “I need fresh air.”
“Shall we go back to the house? We can make 2:00am sandwiches. Ham, cheese, watercress.”
“Please, feed me,” Denny pled. “Lila has taken away all the good things.” He popped the last of the canapés in his mouth. “I need something more than mouthfuls.”
“It would cheer Isolde if we went back there for drinks. Assuming she isn’t already asleep. I had Giles get her some sleeping pills, so she’s starting to look a little better.”
“And yet she’s so pale and wan.” Victor sighed. “I wonder if Bruges will be enough.”
“She’s young,” Jack said. “She’ll recover. It’s been but days, my friends. She is lucky. She has you and your sister. And your oldest brother and your father are both more concerned for her than anything else. I’ve worked enough of these cases to know how lucky your sister is.”
Violet rode back to her house with Jack.
“I didn’t realize Victor hadn’t told you I was invited,” he confessed.
Violet laughed. “Victor approves of you. His machinations are his way of showing it.”
“I don’t want to suffocate you. If you’d like, we can adjust our plans for the Criterion and the play.”
Vi grinned at him. “You did, however, already buy play tickets?”
“Barnes would be happy enough to go in our place, if…”
“Jack, I am going to be very straightforward with you for a moment and set aside the games we ladies like to play with you gents.”
He glanced at her, his lips twitching. “I think I’m ready for this great revelation.”
“If I didn’t want to join you for dinner, I would tell you so. If I hadn’t wanted to ride with you in this car and to spend more time with you, I’d have gone with Victor.”
“Let me see if I can translate the female speak you just gave me.”
“Ah!” Violet said, “You fiend! Translate then—”
“You are, in fact, willing to go to dinner with me tomorrow and to the play?”
Violet nodded. “Did you wish to escape me? Perhaps you’re just trying to put the blame of canceling on me?”
“Indeed not,” Jack replied and somehow their fingers tangled together again.
When they reached Victor’s house, Vi found Isolde wearing her kimono and learning from Victor how to make drinks.
“Scandalous minx!” Vi scolded playfully. “I’d tell you to throw a dress on, but I suppose you are showing less skin than I.”
“I should have asked. I just wanted to see what it felt like.”
“Think nothing of it,” Violet told Isolde. “You look splendid in gold and black!”
Chapter 18
Violet had a determined lie-in the next morning, but she wasn’t able to sleep as she’d planned. Instead she found herself flipping through her journal. First she wrote about Jack, and she had to admit she was looking forward to donning that black and gold evening gown and sitting in the theater with him. The sheer idea that he wanted to spend his time with her left her quite distracted.
Violet flipped from the history of her and Jack. Their interactions were so few that she had to remind herself that she didn’t have enough experience with him to be anything other than infatuated.
When she avoided the sections about Jack, the rest was about Isolde, both before and after the murder, and what Violet had found out about Danvers. She wanted, no needed, to hear a perspective of a woman who wanted to be around him. She could imagine how Isolde had tried to be blind to much of what occurred around Danvers, but would it be the same with Helen?
Margate wasn’t so far from London. If they took an early train, she and Victor could go down, see Helen and Mr. Mathers, and return in time for the late dinner and play.
Vi rang the bell for Beatrice.
“My lady?”
“Send Giles into Victor. Tell Victor to wake and dress. Wear a casual suit. We’re going to the sea.”
Beatrice’s brows rose and she asked, “Do you need me to pack you a trunk?”
“No, no, we’ll be back by the evening train. Hurry now.”
Violet washed quickly, dressed, and harassed the still-shaving Victor through finishing dressing. They ate a quick breakfast and had Giles drive them to the train station, just barely making the late morning train. The journey was quiet as Violet considered her notes again and again.
Mr. Gulliver, Mr. Mathers, and Hugo Danvers.
What was Jack doing to pursue Mr. Gulliver? Did he have anything that would provide the man an alibi or a reason to have killed? What about Hugo? People were there to celebrate his own father’s wedding. Surely someone had seen him during the window when the murder occurred?
Violet found herself distracted from her thoughts about the murder to consider the role of a female in all this. Vi pictured Helen, Isolde, and herself and the different lives they’d had already. Then Vi added in Gwen
nie and Lila. Each of the women lived in a time when women had more freedom than ever before. They were, however, facing the same issues that women had faced for generations.
Helen had been lied to and manipulated by a man who had claimed to love her. Lila had married her long-time love and found herself happiness that was fraught with frustration only because she and Denny insisted on going their own path while everyone around them were waiting to hear an announcement that included little bundles of joy and less jazz.
Gwennie was reliant on the generosity of her family but also controlled by their expectations. If Gwennie could have worked without causing a huge ruckus in her family, she would have. They wanted her, however, beholden to them and behaving as they chose.
Then there was Isolde, the long-time spoiled daughter of an earl who was manipulated and pushed into an engagement that was the antithesis of everything she’d ever wanted for herself. Pursing an education wasn’t necessary, nothing was but attaching herself to a rich man and letting him see to her needs.
And then there was Vi. She’d been able to have much more freedom than the rest, but mostly because her eccentricities always included Victor. Vi had the protection of a man with the assumption of others that he controlled her. If she hadn’t had Victor, would Violet have been treated as another carefree chit who’d thrown away the wisdom of the ages?
Yet here she was—with all this freedom—and still finding herself dreaming of love, a home, and marriage. Was it the feminine in her? Perhaps women were born desiring these things? Or perhaps it was simply the effect of Jack on her?
Vi laid her head on her brother’s shoulder and watched the country pass by, wondering about all of the women who were on the other side of the glass going about their lives. Just because the right to vote had been extended to women—and not even Violet yet—it didn’t mean that they’d truly found equality.
“You seem very serious,” Victor said.
“I…”
Victor waited, lips twitching, and she knew he was using her favorite interrogation technique on her. She scowled at him, and he grinned back.
“I find myself confused by my reaction to Jack.”
“Why?”
The best thing about having a twin brother who had always seen her as the better piece of himself was that she knew he’d understand.
“I feel like it’s going too fast between us.”
“Darling Vi,” Victor said, “realizing you enjoy Jack’s company and that you’re attracted to him does not mean that you have committed your days to him.”
“It’s going too fast inside my head,” she admitted. “It’s just that I find my mind wondering what that would be like. I go there again and again in my mind, and it’s driving me mad.”
Victor laughed. “You always were a planner. You think and examine and try things out with your imagination. What’s terrifying is not trying Jack out in your mind, silly girl. What’s terrifying you is that for the first time—when you imagine a future with someone else—you are not tempted to run away.”
Violet licked her lips. Was Victor right? He usually was when it came to understanding her. Perhaps the problem was that she was prepared to imagine a future with a man and feel that she could never abide it. She knew what to do with those feelings and how to handle that reaction. What did you do with something different? She hadn’t been prepared for that at all.
A ‘no’ was perhaps, far, far easier than a ‘yes.’ Yeses were less-safe. They required more work. More trust in yourself. Actually trusting, truly and completely, and that person being anyone other than Victor. Vi wasn’t all that sure she had that much capacity for faith in someone else.
“Vi,” Victor said gently. “Do you know why Denny and Lila work so perfectly?”
She shook her head.
“Because they got to the point where the image of a future without each other was untenable. They’d rather struggle together than apart. You’ll know when a future with Jack is the right thing when you want it more than you want your safety net. Until then? Have fun. You haven’t yet made promises nor are you being asked to do so.”
Violet nodded and then pulled her journal back out, writing out her thoughts about what Victor had suggested. That, she thought, she could do. She could wait until when she imagined a future without Jack in it—and it wasn’t one she could abide.
She didn’t have to decide if she was in love in that moment. Not this moment, this day or even this year. She didn’t have to decide if she was falling in love. She could, instead, try to figure out how she would know. It was enough to say she enjoyed his company. Vi liked how Jack made her feel, and she was happy to keep on considering him.
* * * * *
“There is something about the sea that makes the day seem brighter,” Violet told Victor as he put up the umbrella they’d purchased and placed it over the both of them.
He laughed at her but didn’t discount her theory. It was the same for him. It always had been. The sound of the sea, the call of the gulls, the scent of salt and wet in the air—they always made things better for the twins.
They had the name of the where Mr. Mathers and Helen were staying, but as they walked through the town. Violet nudged Victor. “There’s Helen.”
Helen had gone from pale and upset to death walking. The circles under her eyes were huge, and she sat in a tearoom with a pot of tea and a plate of biscuits in front of her, but they were untouched. She sat alone, and she was staring out the window of the tearoom but didn’t seem to be seeing the scene in front of her.
Violet knew without speaking to Helen that she’d never reveal a thing of the womanly nature with Victor present.
“Track down Mr. Mathers?” Vi suggested. “He’ll talk to you more frankly without me there, and I believe it’ll be the same with Helen.”
Victor nodded. “I’ll come find you here. Don’t go off without me.”
She agreed and he left her while she went into the tearoom and seated herself with Helen.
It took Helen a few moments to realize that she’d been invaded and when she did, she squeaked.
“I’m sorry,” Vi told her. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I just saw you sitting here…”
“Please don’t,” Helen said, holding up a hand. “I know you tracked me down. I got a letter from Anna. I know that you found out all my secrets.”
It hadn’t been well done of Vi to manipulate Anna as she had, but there was a murderer afoot and two of the main suspects had disappeared. There had to be a point where that was more important than what Helen preferred.
Violet crossed her fingers together in her lap. “The puzzle of who killed Danvers is occupying my thoughts and preventing my sister from moving on. It’s not only you who needs closure. We all do.”
Helen’s expression said she wasn't all that invested in what burden Isolde might be carrying or the turn of Violet’s thoughts.
“It’s not her fault, you know,” Violet tried. Maybe if she made Isolde human to Helen, the girl would realize that they were both victims.
“That she stole Carlton from me?”
“That Carlton and my stepmother determined the match and manipulated her into it.”
Helen scoffed and played with her teacup. “She knew of me,” Helen told Violet without an ounce of sympathy for Isolde. “I found your sister myself, told her that Carlton had promised to marry me, told her he convinced me to bed him based off of that promise.”
Violet played with her ring, wincing for both Helen and Isolde.
Helen sniffed, placing a hand over her stomach as she said, “If you are expecting me to set aside my own concerns to worry over your sister, I’m afraid I don’t have it in me.”
Violet realized that for Helen, Isolde would always be part of the reason of why Helen’s fate shifted. There wasn’t going to be some quick-witted comment or series of leading question that made Helen change her mind. So how to get her help? What did she need?
The answer came so suddenly
to Vi that she was speaking before she thought it through.
“What if I were to offer you a quiet villa by the sea on the Amalfi coast? It is private, far from here, has a wonderful view. It’s very sunny in Italy. It would be easy enough to bring a midwife masquerading as a maid and hide yourself away until a certain day arrives.”
Helen’s mouth twisted. “My secrets for a refuge?”
“The full use of the villa for a year in exchange for whatever you know about Danvers. You could bring your sister.”
“What do I do with the—” Helen struggled for a moment. “—bundle?”
That Violet wasn’t so sure of. Did Helen search for a good home? Did she try to find some childless couple that would take the babe in? Did she persuade her father to take on the child? Did she keep it herself and face being ostracized?
“What do you want to do?”
Helen’s laugh was humorless. “Go back in time and never go out of the house with Carlton Danvers. Scream and throw a fit when my father suggested it. I grabbed at the opportunity like a drowning person a life preserver.”
Violet winced. Not for what had happened so much as for the self-loathing in Helen’s voice. “I wish I could make that possible for you.”
Helen snorted in reply.
Violet considered. The question of the child’s fate was one that she didn’t feel qualified to comment on. But it wasn’t going to go away. “Do you feel love for the baby?”
Helen took in a slow breath “Yes and no. I see her in my mind. This little person. When I imagine her, she’s always a girl. My goodness, Violet, I hate her father. Despise him so much I wish I was the one who struck the killing blow. I hate that she exists. I hate myself for letting it come to this.”
“So you don’t want her?” Violet nudged Helen as the waitress approached and the conversation halted while Violet ordered tea and scones.
“Oh I want her.” Helen teared up. “But she deserves better than me. Yet I also don’t want her because of all she represents.”
“You could love her. You could raise her. You could take care of her. Find a little village. Be a widow.”