Curses and Confetti

by Jenny Schwartz

  “You should have much in common—two dauntless ladies.”

  “Hmm.”

  The noncommittal noise clearly caught his attention. He glanced at her blank face and ventured a cautious comment. “Grandma can be a bit…difficult.”

  “HmmMmm.”

  He hurriedly opened the door—only for his grandmother to prove his point scant seconds after they were reseated in the library.

  “I don’t hold with this suffragette nonsense.”

  “A lot of old people struggle with new concepts,” Esme said calmly.

  Her father choked on the cookie he was eating. Uncle Henry’s cough failed to disguise his laughter.

  Mrs. Reeve’s eyes gleamed. “Us old folks have the wisdom of our years. It wouldn’t hurt you youngsters to listen to us.”

  “Oh, I listen,” Esme said, bright and polite, but she held the old lady’s sharp gaze; indicating that whilst she listened, she also reserved the right to disagree. If this was a fight, Esme intended to win.

  Mrs. Reeve had her own agenda. “Take marriage, for example.”

  Jed stood. “Grandma, you must be tired after your long journey.”

  “No. Captain Fellowes and his crew looked after me excellently.”

  “Nonetheless.”

  “Oh stop looming.” She swatted at her grandson’s hand. “If your girl can’t stand a few questions, what good is she?”

  “Children get fractious when they’re over-tired,” Esme announced to the world.

  Jed glared at her, a silent message of you’re not helping.

  She sighed and put aside her cup of tea. “Mrs. Reeve, may I show you your room?”

  The three men beamed approval.

  Cowards! Mrs. Reeve had that part right, Esme though indignantly.

  The old lady’s hand tightened on her walking stick and she heaved herself up, disdaining Jed’s assistance. She stomped upstairs.

  Esme glanced down at her and realized that whatever she said to the contrary, she was tired. The realization smothered her annoyance. It was unfair to judge the woman and her intentions when she was probably feeling crotchety from the long journey.

  Besides…Esme winced as she caught sight of the clock. This was not the time to start something she couldn’t finish. She had thirty minutes till her eleven o’clock appointment with Mr. Loonar, the town planner. If she hurried, she could make it to the council offices in seven minutes. Bless Francis, who would have ordered a carriage to be waiting.

  “I hope you’ll be comfortable, here.” She showed Mrs. Reeve into the guest suite that overlooked the gardens, relieved to see Maud had added flowers to the bedside table and desk, and turned down the bed covers invitingly. If Mrs. Reeve was looking to find fault, she’d have to imagine it.

  “Hmph. Nice room.”

  The room was fitted with a local carpenter’s interpretation of the Arts and Craft movement and the furniture had the beauty of simple lines and the warm, polished glow of local wood. The color scheme was a soft green with white and pink accents. A small painting of an orchard in spring by the French artist, Claude Monet, hung above the desk.

  “I’ll be fine, now.” Mrs. Reeve stood near the bed.

  Esme nodded, part of her respecting the elderly lady’s determination not to show weakness to strangers. It really hadn’t been the easiest of meetings, but blaming Mrs. Reeve wasn’t completely fair. She was understandably concerned for her grandson. “There is a button near the right hand side of the bed if you need to call a maid.” Esme pulled the door shut quietly behind her and turned her attention to her second problem.

  It had rattled her more than she liked to admit to see Jed escorting the gypsy, Anabel Lee. Of course she trusted her betrothed. He had never indulged in anything more than courtesy with other women here in Swan River, but Miss Lee was clever. She had adroitly engaged his interest by using her machine. Jed’s inventor’s soul couldn’t resist its lure.

  There was no knowing what a scheming woman might achieve—which brought Esme back to the problem of Mrs. Reeve. If Jed’s grandmother had undertaken the long journey to prevent their marriage, rather than simply inspect Esme’s suitability, then sparks would fly.

  “He’s mine.”

  Except nothing was that simple. She didn’t want to alienate Jed from his family or, for herself, live with their disapproval.

  She ran down the stairs, trying to out distance her thoughts.

  Darn it all. If only Jed had been with her to meet Mrs. Reeve and not traipsing around with that gypsy woman, he might have been able to stop them getting off on the wrong foot. As it was…Esme looked down and saw him waiting for her. She slowed her pace.

  Most elderly women disapproved of her suffragette activities. Why would Mrs. Reeve be any different?

  Chapter Six

  “Grandma means well, Esme.” Jed tugged at his collar, his mental unease manifesting itself physically. He felt strangled.

  Aaron Smith and Captain Fellowes had quietly faded away when the women departed upstairs, leaving Jed alone in the hallway to await Esme’s return. Prudent men.

  There was no denying Esme and Grandma had struck sparks. They were both strong women. Grandma had always had definite opinions. His own mother got along with her by amused detachment. No matter what dogmatic statement Grandma made, Mother agreed, then quietly set about getting her own way.

  Take Charlotte’s debutante year, for example. Grandma had snorted at the idea of her granddaughter wasting time in the ballrooms and salons of the rich and powerful. She’d suggested a year in Alaska—where men, by golly and the news reports, were still men. Mother had agreed that Charlotte would indeed look charming with a red nose and chilblained fingers—but three days later, Charlotte had been on the train to Washington DC along with Mother and Father, and her enthusiastic letters floated back filled with talk of dances, tea parties and theatre visits. Father’s secretary included snippets from the social pages of the newspapers—and Grandma kept them all and showed them to her cronies.

  Now, he wondered just how long it had taken Mother to learn how to handle Grandma.

  Esme straightened his necktie. “Your grandmother obviously loves you. It’s a long journey for an elderly woman. She wanted to be sure you’ll be happy with me.”

  He caught her hands. “And now she can see I will be—I am.”

  “Hmm.”

  He really didn’t like her “hmm’s”. They indicated significant doubt. She drew back and unwillingly he released her, watching as she picked up gloves from the hall table and eased them on, tugging them along her slim fingers.

  Then she put his ring on again.

  He breathed again, his concern irrational and yet…the Grandma-factor couldn’t be underestimated. “You’ll like Mother and Father,” he said somewhat desperately. “And you know from their letters how much they’re looking forward to meeting you. I know Charlotte sounds a bit of a scatterbrain, but she’ll make you a good sister. Even Ben and David aren’t so bad as brothers go. Remind me, though, to hit them when we do see them.”

  “Why?” She glanced up at him.

  “Because Grandma is clearly the surprise the family were sending us to celebrate our engagement. They could have warned me!”

  “Oh.” A small smile curved her generous mouth. “From what I’ve observed, that’s typical sibling behavior. I’m sure you’ll have your revenge.”

  “We can plot it together.” He slid an arm around her waist and sighed deeply when she relaxed against him. Some cuddles were permitted an engaged couple and he needed this one. “You don’t have to meet Miss Lee this afternoon.”

  “I do. I thought of offering her assistance this morning when I read the newspaper coverage of that awful man’s death. Talk of a gypsy curse, indeed.” She snorted. “Miss Lee is a stranger in the colony and she might be pushy and annoying, but who knows what crazy ideas people will get about gypsy curses. I want her to know there is someone she can call on if needs be—and that someone is not yo
u.”

  He grimaced. “I didn’t intend to bring her to your home. She attached herself like a burr.”

  “A burr?” Esme laughed.

  He squeezed her waist. “I’ll escort you to the fair.”

  “I thought you might.” Her blue eyes reflected her laughter. “You’d like the chance to study her Oracle machine some more. Was it very interesting?”

  He kissed her nose. “You’re cute when you’re being smart.”

  His suffragette had her own unique way of dealing with that sort of condescension. She gave his hair a warning tug and kissed him on the mouth before whirling away. She was teasing, but the surge of desire that tightened his muscles was all too real.

  “Sweetheart. Nothing Grandma says, nothing anyone does, will stop me marrying you. You’re my life.”

  “Jed, darling.” She brushed his mouth with hers. “No.” When he would have deepened the kiss, the proprieties be damned. “I have an appointment with Mr. Loonar, and I can’t be late.”

  “I’ll come with you.”

  She laughed and warded him off with one hand. “This is women’s business. And you know what happened the last time you accompanied me to the council offices.”

  “Loonar shouldn’t have made that crack about disreputable suffragettes.” Any man worth his salt would have offered to punch the fellow in the nose.

  “Well, I intend to get my Institute for Modern Women approved without resorting to brute force. I shall be the acme of respectability and Mr. Loonar won’t have a leg to stand on.”

  “You should have let me punch Loonar,” Jed said four hours later as they strolled along.

  “It’s only one last hurdle, I hope.” Esme had hoped to have the town planner sign off permission for the Institute that morning, but he’d insisted on one final inspection.

  “With your good self, Miss Smith, and at least one of the women you intend to have teach at the school.”

  Esme grimaced. What a small-minded paper-pusher. He just had to try to take the joy out of life. But since he had the authority to do so, she’d dispatched a note requesting Miss Wilson to accompany them to the site of the Institute tomorrow at eleven o’clock.

  And I’d like to see Mr. Loonar get the better of her! Miss Wilson was a retired school mistress who’d maintained iron discipline in the classroom. No one, not even the highest stickler, could accuse her of lacking respectability.

  “Let’s forget Mr. Loonar.” Esme squeezed Jed’s arm. “We mightn’t have privacy.” A young boy went whooping past, imitating a steam whistle. “But we are together.”

  He smiled down at her.

  The funfair was as exuberantly joyful as yesterday, but their mood was different. As kids ran around them shrieking with excitement, he and Esme walked purposely to the Gypsy Oracle stall. It was more crowded than ever with people pressing in, making the canvas tent hot and humid with fevered anticipation.

  “The titillation of death,” Esme said.

  Men, women and cheeky young boys paid their tuppences and put their hands in the Oracle’s “mouth”. Not one received a vulture mark. Well, that was only sense. After the unfortunate coincidence of yesterday’s fatal accident involving the ill-omened bully in the green and yellow checked jacket, it would be tempting disaster to have the vulture turn up again.

  “Honestly,” Esme grumbled as the crowd pushed her into Jed. “You would think people would have more sense.”

  It wasn’t simply the young and uneducated filling the tent. Prosperous middle aged ladies and men were well to the forefront. A skinny, untidy man occupied a corner. He scribbled down every word the Anabel Lee said, clearly a journalist. Occasionally he scratched his head with a pencil, pushing back a tatty grey cap.

  Miss Lee looked tired and strained. She had to raise her voice to be heard over the large and conversational crowd. Finally, her voice gave out and, in between coughs, she called an end to the performance.

  “Honey and lemon, that’s what you need,” an elderly woman said. “When my voice gives out—”

  “Like that ever happens.” The stooped, balding man who hooked his hand under her elbow and pulled her out of the tent had to be her husband. “You’d talk the hind leg off a donkey, you would.”

  “I have lozenges.” Esme searched through her handbag and pulled out a tin of cough drops. She opened the tin and a powerful scent of menthol filled the air.

  “No, thank you,” the gypsy woman said hastily.

  “No.” Esme put the lid back on the tin and slipped it into her handbag. “I don’t know why I keep them. I prefer aniseed flavor.”

  “Miss Lee, do you have time to answer my questions, now?” The journalist pushed forward.

  “Can I avoid them?” Sharp impatience vanished the low-pitched huskiness of her stage voice. She had the tone of a middle class housewife interrupted by a door-to-door salesman.

  “Of course you can,” Esme said. “Miss Lee has no comment to make, Mr. Reynolds.”

  Trust Esme, with her political ambitions, to know every journalist by name—and trust her to come to the aid of a beleaguered woman.

  Reynolds, a lanky string bean, grinned at her. “Now, Miss Esme, ya knows I’ve a job to do.”

  “I appreciate the fact. But you must realize that Miss Lee has had a trying experience. No doubt the police have already questioned her?” The gypsy woman nodded. “And the police at least have a lawful right to do so. You must wait till she is recovered.”

  “Tomorrow,” Miss Lee said. “Tomorrow at nine o’clock you may interview me here before my ten o’clock performance.”

  “I reckon that’ll be okay, but you’ve got to promise there’ll be no interviews with anyone else.”

  “That I can promise.”

  “Okay.” Reynolds tucked his pencil behind his ear, stowed his notebook in his pocket and sauntered out.

  “Thank you.” Miss Lee’s gratitude was grudging and she half turned away. For a woman who’d insisted on pushing her way into the Smith mansion this morning to talk with Esme, she seemed strangely reluctant to do so, now that she had a chance. She picked up a cloth and ran it over the smudged fingerprints on the Gypsy Oracle’s brass nameplate.

  “I suspected the press and the public would be showing a particular interest in you after one of your…uh…clients met with a fatal accident last night,” Esme said. “The situation can’t be easy for a woman alone and newly arrived in the colony.”

  “I am hardly alone.” Head down, Miss Lee polished harder at the nameplate. “The fair is filled with fellow travelling entertainers.”

  “I am sure they are kind and supportive,” Esme said quietly. “But in the event of trouble, they are, like yourself, outsiders.”

  “And therefore, immediately suspect?” the gypsy woman challenged.

  “Sadly, yes. You must have realized this when you asked for my assistance this morning.” It was an invitation to share her troubles; more, to request specific help.

  Jed smiled. It was typical of his beloved. She would never be so busy or annoyed as to walk past someone in trouble.

  Miss Lee folded her arms. “Thank you for your concern, but I shall manage.”

  Esme frowned and persisted a moment longer. “I don’t like to believe people could be so silly, but there’s no denying the world is full of fools. The newspapers may yet work themselves into a frenzy on this ‘Gypsy Oracle curse’ nonsense.”

  “It was an accident! The police have said so.”

  “We know that,” Jed said calmly. The woman’s accent and language intrigued him. When she forgot herself, she had the voice and mannerisms of an educated woman. It made the machine she gripped so tightly all the more interesting. Chances were high it could do a lot more than merely stamp hands. From his limited inspection he suspected the secondary clockwork system could support any number of functions. “By the way, would you object to me taking another look at the machine? I wouldn’t give away any secrets of your performance but I am intrigued by—”


  “No. It is not convenient. I must prepare for my next show.”

  He inclined his head, took Esme’s elbow when she displayed a willingness to the debate the issue, and departed the tent.

  She was seething. “Did you hear her? She was rude to you. For all the world as if we were encroaching visitors in her parlor. ‘I would like you to leave.’ Bah. She’s hiding something.”

  Her indignation for his rebuff—not her own—amused him. Esme had forgotten her sympathy for the lonely Miss Lee in her loyalty to him. Nonetheless, “I believe you’re right. That machine is far more complicated and its workmanship too fine to be merely a stamping device.”

  “Do you think she stole it?” Esme stopped abruptly.

  “Here, watch it, missus,” a middle aged man carrying an unsteady pile of cheap rag dolls in his arms veered around her.

  “Sorry.” She stepped to the side of the walkway and pulled Jed with her.

  He thought about how Miss Lee had touched the Oracle machine, both seeking reassurance and hovering protectively. “I don’t think she stole it, but there is some sort of emotional connection.”

  Esme considered that as they resumed strolling toward the exit. “Oh well, I guess her secrets are hers to keep. Speaking of the wonders of mechanical marvels and keeping secrets.”

  “Yes?”

  “Isn’t it about time you showed me your bounding-vehicle?”

  Chapter Seven

  Esme smiled as Jed pushed open the large doors of the former soap factory that now served as his workshop. The doorway was wide and high enough to admit a horse and cart. Sunlight poured in the west-facing entrance. The scent of lye and tallow, grease, kerosene and coal, rushed out. She suspected he seldom opened these doors—using the ordinary side door for convenience—but for propriety’s sake, her visit had to be visible and respectable. She waved a good afternoon to old Mr. Newton who sat and rocked in the sunshine while his son ran the blacksmith’s next door. He beamed gummily and waved back. She walked into the workshop.

  Jed had an unexpected talent for making himself comfortable. A massive workbench loomed beside an old desk with a battered office chair drawn up to it. An armchair stood at right angles, leaking stuffing from rips in its worn leather. An upturned wastepaper basket served as a footstool. Papers were neatly stacked on the desk, held in place by gear pieces. A calendar was tacked to the wall above the desk along with a number of blueprints.