by Jen Turano
Blowing out a breath, Mrs. Davenport tilted her head. “Perhaps, or it’s more likely I was hoping God would be a touch more forgiving of the careless disregard I’ve had for the life I’ve been given if I began trying to be less selfish.” She folded her hands in her lap. “I’ve never once considered doing a menial task, and while I know that polishing a pane of glass seems like an absolutely ridiculous way for me to earn some forgiveness, it was the only gesture I could think of after I arrived here today.” She nodded Gertrude’s way. “I was a little distraught, you see, after learning my demands had finally seen you arrested, but I wasn’t brave enough to come after you—yet another flaw in my character I’m certainly going to need to address.”
Reverend Perry smiled. “I doubt you’re as flawed as you’ve come to believe, Mrs. Davenport. And since it does seem as if you’ve missed a good majority of the messages we address here on any given Sunday, even while you’ve attended services frequently, do know that God forgives easily. All you need to do is ask Him for that forgiveness.”
“You’re a good man, Reverend Perry,” Mrs. Davenport said. “But I’m afraid I don’t believe God forgives that easily, which means I need to make amends for the many, many grievances I’ve caused over the decades, brought about because of my spoiled and willful attitude.”
“Admitting one’s faults is said to be the first step into accepting responsibility for them,” Reverend Perry said with a small smile. “As for God’s forgiveness, that’s a subject we’ll certainly return to when you’re in a different frame of mind, but do know that He’ll forgive you anything.”
“Will He forgive me for ruining my marriage even if the man I married was not the man he projected himself to be before I agreed to marry him?”
Reverend Perry nodded. “He will.”
Instead of seeming relieved about that, Mrs. Davenport turned her gaze to the stained-glass window, pursed her lips, then nodded, just once. “Since this does seem to be the time to disclose my many past misdeeds, allow me to begin by saying that while my husband was a dictatorial beast, it was my choice to pursue him and convince him to marry me. Roy, that’s my husband’s name, was a very handsome gentleman. And after I noticed him at a ball, and arranged to become introduced to him, I then pursued him somewhat determinedly, allowing him no room to misinterpret my desire to become his wife.”
Mrs. Davenport’s eyes turned distant. “I didn’t know for quite some time that he was more interested in my father’s money than he was in me. I was blinded by first love, and because my father never refused me anything, he offered Roy a proposal he couldn’t refuse. Before I knew it, I was married to the gentleman of my dreams, or so I thought, looking forward to a lovely life, one where my husband and I would, of course, rule society one day and enjoy a romance that would earn me the envy of all my peers.”
A distinct rustle of paper from behind them drew Gertrude’s attention. Turning, she found that while she’d been listening to Mrs. Davenport, Agent McParland had stolen closer and was now sitting directly behind them, eavesdropping on their conversation no less while he perused the small notepad balanced on his knees, pen in hand. Lifting his head, he looked unconcerned that he’d been caught in the act, as he sent the briefest of nods Gertrude’s way.
“At least we know where she came by her money” was all he said before he bent his head to his notes again and added something to the page.
Not wanting to distract Mrs. Davenport, who didn’t appear to realize Agent McParland was listening, Gertrude sent the detective a narrowing of her eyes, an action he missed because he was still looking through his notes. Returning her attention to Mrs. Davenport, Gertrude cleared her throat.
“Did your husband have any type of fortune to speak of?” she asked.
Mrs. Davenport released an unladylike snort. “Roy barely had two pennies to rub together, although no one knew that at the time. The Davenport family was well respected in New York and had some tenuous ties to wealthy relatives in England. But I later learned the New York Davenports were always short on cash, which meant they were always on the lookout for ways to plump up the family coffers.”
She picked a small piece of lint off her sleeve. “I was exactly the plump pigeon Roy was looking for: a woman from a society family, although not one of the more established society families since our money was relatively new due to the ingenuity of my father, who married my society mother to become respectable. Roy was perfectly happy to help himself to that new money, though, even if he was disappointed to discover my father made the bulk of his fortune through trade.”
Lifting her head, Mrs. Davenport frowned. “Roy was very attentive at first, showering me with presents, although he always seemed to buy items for himself at the same time. But then, after we’d been married for about six months, he began to distance himself from me, spending his time at his gentlemen clubs, or sailing the boats he bought with the money my father settled on us after our vows were spoken.”
“I imagine his inattentive attitude didn’t sit well with you,” Gertrude said.
The barest hint of a smile flickered across Mrs. Davenport’s face. “Indeed, and I admit I began to act rather outlandishly to gain his attention, my bad behavior drawing him back to the city to save the good Davenport name time and time again. Roy eventually decided I needed a child to settle me down, and about a year after he made that decision, my darling daughter Jane entered the world.”
“But her birth didn’t save your marriage?” Gertrude asked when Mrs. Davenport stopped talking, obviously lost in memories as her eyes turned bright with unshed tears.
Blinking, and then blinking again, Mrs. Davenport shook her head. “I’m afraid not. Roy didn’t care for babies, finding the crying annoying, so even though we had nannies to attend to Jane whenever she turned fussy, he soon found excuses to quit our house whenever he could. Before too long, he’d returned to his neglectful ways, while picking up some unfortunate habits, most of those habits keeping him in the company of women who did not travel within society. Whispers soon began winding their way through town, and I decided that to draw him back to me, and have him abandon his many mistresses, I’d have to begin misbehaving again to attract his attention.”
She dashed a tear from her cheek. “I’d decided Roy was truly attracted to ladies who didn’t mind their manners, and because of that, I’m afraid I began to dress in unusual fashions, drank to excess, and adopted a flirtatious attitude with the gentlemen I encountered at society events. Unfortunately, none of that drew Roy’s attention, but unwilling to admit defeat even though I wasn’t certain I even wanted Roy back with me at that point, I turned to using Jane as a pawn in the game I was determined to win.”
“This game didn’t involve a murder, did it?” Agent McParland asked over the pew, his question causing dead silence to settle over the church as Gertrude, along with Mrs. Davenport, turned in the pew and found Agent McParland casting a hard look Mrs. Davenport’s way.
Before Mrs. Davenport could answer, though, Temperance, who’d somehow managed to take a seat right next to Agent McParland without Gertrude noticing, swatted him on the arm, and then swatted him again. “Honestly, Agent McParland, what in the world is the matter with you? Mrs. Davenport does not have the look of a murderer about her, and your question was completely beyond the pale. Why, if you ask me, I think the disappointment you’ve recently experienced over the Manhattan Beach Hotel being robbed while the Pinkerton Agency was on the case has clouded your common sense.”
Agent McParland turned the intensity of his glare on Temperance, who didn’t so much as flinch. “While I will admit the Pinkerton Agency has suffered embarrassment over allowing a thief to get the better of us that night, I’m not acting beyond the pale by questioning Mrs. Davenport in such a direct manner. She’s behaved suspiciously for years, and because of that, I feel justified in asking her what happened to her husband, and wondering if that husband could have come to a sticky end at the hands of his admittedly disillus
ioned wife.”
“Did I miss the explanation as to why we have a Pinkerton in our midst?” Mrs. Davenport suddenly asked.
“We’ll get to that later,” Harrison said as he stood, moved into the pew where Agent McParland was sitting, took a seat directly next to the man, then sent the agent a rather dangerous look. That look, unsurprisingly, didn’t appear to bother Agent McParland in the least, although he did settle into silence.
“I didn’t kill my husband,” Mrs. Davenport said, turning front and center again. “For all I know, he’s alive and well, living a life of leisure on the money he took from me.”
Gertrude leaned toward Mrs. Davenport. “I’m not certain I understand how it came to be that you lost track of your husband, and forgive me for being so forward, but did you lose track of Jane as well?”
For a moment, Mrs. Davenport stiffened, but then released a sigh. “I vowed years ago that I would never speak of what happened to my family. However, because you’ve borne the brunt of my more than mercurial moods at times, moods that were a direct result of my past, I owe you an explanation. In sharing the pathetic reality of my past, I hope you’ll finally be able to understand that you were far more tolerant of me than you should have been, and far kinder than I deserve.”
“I have my reasons for being tolerant of you and your peculiar habits, Mrs. Davenport, not all of which are a result of my needing the wages you afford me.”
“And while I would love to distract everyone with questions about those reasons, I believe it’ll be for the best if I simply spit out the whole horrible truth, making a clean break of matters once and for all.”
Straightening her spine, Mrs. Davenport began to speak, her words tumbling out of her mouth one right after another.
“As I mentioned, I’d begun behaving badly to attract Roy’s attention, but what I have yet to disclose is I enjoyed behaving that way. I absolutely adored shocking the staid members of society and reveling in the attention the designs I created and then wore around society attracted. As Jane grew older, I turned my styling efforts in her direction, dressing her in clothing that mimicked mine, never noticing the poor child was miserable being trotted around to all my events, then put on display like a performing pony.”
“I imagine your daughter enjoyed the time she was able to spend with you,” Gertrude countered. “I was not fortunate enough to have a mother who wanted me around, and I’ve always been envious of the girls who were blessed with attentive mothers.”
“I don’t believe Jane considered me a blessing, dear. She hated the way I’d try to style her hair, hated all the ‘fussiness,’ as she called it, that I’d add to her gowns, and hated knowing her friends were whispering about the rumors swirling around town, especially regarding my drinking. I never paid her complaints any mind, though, probably because my drinking was increasing every day back then and my thoughts weren’t exactly clear.”
Mrs. Davenport looked up at the ceiling for a long moment, then turned her attention to the stained-glass window again. “Well, Roy got wind of what I’d been up to—he’d been off sailing, you see, with one of his many lady friends, and he wasn’t pleased with me when he returned home.” She shook her head and smiled rather sadly. “I can remember the exact day he returned—it was Jane’s tenth birthday, and because I’d invited numerous little girls to our home to celebrate, I insisted Jane wear one of my creations, one that exactly matched a dress I’d designed for myself.”
“Oh . . . dear” was all Gertrude could think of to say.
“Indeed, especially since our dresses were covered with rows of bows, and then I put more bows in our hair, lending both of us the appearance of tiered cakes. Jane tried to get me to relent, but I would hear none of her arguments.”
“You forced your daughter to attend her own party looking like a birthday cake?” Gertrude asked.
“That’s not the worst of it. Because I heard a few of the mothers mocking my outfit that day, I helped myself to all their pin money, and anything else of interest in the reticules those women had given over to our butler to store.”
“Good heavens.”
“Quite. Even though all those ladies believed the thefts had been perpetrated by someone on my staff, because that’s what I told them, and told them I’d dismissed that person, Roy knew exactly who the thief was when he showed up at the house after the party.” She shook her head. “We got into an enormous row, not helped by the fact that I’d been drinking steadily since morning, and at the very end of it, Roy told me he’d had enough. He also told me that since Jane was no longer a young child, it was time for him to take over raising her. And when I put up a loud fuss, he stalked out of the room, telling me I was an unfit mother and couldn’t be trusted with Jane another day.”
She shook her head sadly. “I didn’t realize how determined he was to get our daughter away from me. So, instead of immediately going to make certain Jane was fine, I helped myself to a bottle of wine first. By the time I finished that bottle and made my way up to her room, she was gone, as was Roy. All they’d left me was Jane’s horrid birthday dress and a Bible I have to imagine Jane purposely left for me to see, one with the ancestry pages shredded into a pile on the floor and a ribbon marking Scripture that implied I’d forsaken her.”
“It’s no wonder you looked like a ghost when I brought down that trunk,” Gertrude said.
Mrs. Davenport nodded. “I hadn’t seen that trunk since I threw the dress and Bible in it and had one of my footmen cart it up to the attic the very day Roy and Jane left.”
“But they eventually came back, didn’t they?”
“No, I’ve never seen either of them again. Roy emptied our bank account, although I had several my father had set up for me he didn’t know about, and then he and Jane disappeared.” She nodded to the stained-glass window. “Jane used to be enraptured with that window, having been told her father purchased it to honor her birth. She idolized him and blamed me for his never being around, which only added to the fantasy she created about him being so perfect.” She dashed a tear from her cheek. “I imagine Roy turned her completely against me over the years, but I still hold out hope that Jane will someday want to come back to New York, if only to see her special window again.”
“Jane’s who you’ve been searching for all these years, isn’t she, and why you insist on attending so many services,” Gertrude said.
Mrs. Davenport nodded. “I know she’ll never forgive me for how I treated her all those years ago, but I would like to have an opportunity to tell her I’m sorry.” Tears sprang to her eyes again as she caught Gertrude’s gaze. “I need to tell you I’m sorry as well, my dear. I’ve behaved horribly with you over the years, what with the outfits I’ve made you wear, the hairstyle horrors, and the expectation that you’ll return all the items I pick up here and there that don’t belong to me. You’ve stuck by me no matter what, and because of that, I must beg your forgiveness and express how deeply sorry I am to have expected so very much from you while giving you nothing in return. I don’t expect you to forgive me. I do hope, however, that you’ll eventually understand that what I asked of you was done to see how far I could push you. I’ve recently realized I did that pushing because I didn’t believe I was worthy of your companionship. It’s a great testimony to your character that you took every push I aimed your way with such grace, never pushing back at me as I’m sure you wanted to do at times.”
Gertrude reached over and took hold of Mrs. Davenport’s hand. “Working for you was not always a trial, Mrs. Davenport. I enjoyed the attention you spent on me, which filled a part of the void my mother left when she died.”
Mrs. Davenport gave Gertrude’s hand a squeeze. “May I dare hope that you might be able to forgive me someday then?”
“Of course I forgive you, and you don’t have to wait for someday since I forgive you today.”
“And may I also dare hope that you’ll reconsider tendering your notice and continue working for me?”
“
Of course Gertrude isn’t going to continue working for you.”
Turning toward the voice, Gertrude blinked when she discovered Miss Henrietta Huxley standing directly beside the pew, in the company of her sister, Miss Mabel Huxley, along with Edwina, Harrison’s sister, peering over Miss Henrietta’s shoulder, her eyes alight with curiosity.
Before Gertrude could greet anyone, or Mrs. Davenport could raise the argument that was clearly on the tip of her tongue, Miss Henrietta held up a hand, effectively keeping everyone silent.
“You, Mrs. Davenport, have clearly been running amok for far too long, and while I have proclaimed myself interested in taking a few of the wallflowers in hand—” she shot a glance to Gertrude, then to Temperance, then returned it to Mrs. Davenport—“after hearing your confession, of which I’m not ashamed about listening to, if that was in question, I’ve decided that your needs are greater than theirs. That means Mabel and I are going to intervene in your life, and I’ll hear no arguments about that, if you please.”
Chapter
Twenty-One
Given how his day was unfolding, Harrison couldn’t claim to be surprised by the arrival of Miss Henrietta Huxley and her sister, Mabel, although why Edwina was accompanying those ladies, he couldn’t begin to hazard a guess.
Rising to his feet, he stepped out of the pew, contemplating how best to go about the tricky business of intervening in the argument that was now in full bloom between Miss Henrietta and Mrs. Davenport. Before he could get much further than that, he was distracted by the sight of Agent McParland, who was now also standing, looking somewhat dazed as he stared at Edwina, his mouth slightly agape.
To Harrison’s concern, his sister was looking somewhat dazed as well as she stared back at the Pinkerton detective, but then she smiled and took a step forward.
“I don’t believe I’ve been introduced to your friend, Harrison,” she all but purred, the purring taking Harrison so aback that he felt his mouth drop open as he simply stood there at a complete loss for words.