Peccadillo at the Palace

by Kari Bovee

  “As I live and breathe, Frank Butler. Can we please concentrate on the matter at hand? What about Satterlee, Mr. Herbert L.?” she asked, not waiting for a reply. “MacKenzie, Mr. Alston? Crabtree, Mr. G.W.? Madame Mattei. Why Madame?”

  “She must be of French origin,” Frank reasoned.

  “Oh. Name ring any bells?”

  “No.”

  Annie pulled the list closer to her face, trying to read her hasty scrawl. “Ah. Mr. Reginald Cleary, his wife, and two children. That’s all of them.” Annie glanced at Frank, who was staring at her with glassy eyes and disheveled hair. The fringe at his forehead stood straight up as it often did after he’d raked his fingers through his hair. She reached out and smoothed it, running her hand down his temple.

  “You feel warm. I hate to see you feeling so poorly.”

  “I’ll feel better soon, I promise.”

  “Shall I fetch Dr. Adams?”

  Frank shook his head. “No. Not necessary.”

  “If you’re not feeling better by tomorrow, will you see him?” She wished he would agree to let the doctor come now, but maybe Frank just needed some rest.

  “Yes, I promise. Will you stop nosing around the ship?”

  “Have you seen Hulda? Is she in her stateroom?” She wouldn’t be pulled into giving him a definitive answer.

  “Annie?”

  “I’m helping Emma,” she said, trying to deflect. “Breaking a story like this could change the world for women.”

  “You are already doing that, my dear.”

  “Yes, but I am helping her to make her mark in the world. Is Hulda in her room?”

  “I haven’t a clue.”

  Annie kissed Frank on the forehead and scooted off the bed. “I’ll check in on you later, dear heart. Try to sleep.”

  Chapter Ten

  Annie knocked on Hulda’s door. “Hulda? It’s me, Annie.”

  Loud, feminine laughter came from behind the door. Annie scowled. Lillie was in there with Hulda. For once, Annie wished Lillie would keep company with the cowboys as she usually did, instead of putting unseemly ideas into her sister’s mind.

  The door opened with a whoosh, sending Lillie’s dark curls fluttering around her pudgy face.

  “Oh, it’s the famous Miss Annie Oakley. Do come in.” Lillie gestured with a flourish of her arm for Annie to enter.

  “What are you doing here, Lillie?” Annie tried to keep the irritation out of her voice.

  “Visiting with your darling sister. She’s making me a new costume for Her Royal Highness’s jubilee performance.”

  Annie stepped into the room, casting a glance at Hulda, who sat at the desk surrounded by fabrics, and a pincushion fastened to her wrist. Her cheeks were flushed. At least she’d changed out of the crimson frock and got back into her more modest cotton dress. Lillie flounced back to Hulda’s bed, plopped down on it, and pulled out her tobacco pouch to roll a cigarette.

  “Lillie, what are you doing?” Annie asked. The woman really had no sense of propriety.

  “Having a smoke, doll. Want one?”

  “No, I don’t want a cigarette, and I don’t want you putting ideas into my sister’s head. She’s only thirteen.”

  “I’m sure she’s seen someone smoke before.” Lillie directed her gaze at Hulda and then pulled a matchbox out of her pocket. Annie glared daggers at her.

  Lillie rolled her eyes and looked over at Hulda. “Don’t smoke, kid. It’s unseemly for Annie Oakley’s younger sister to partake of the tobacco leaf.” She then addressed Annie. “There. Feel better?”

  Hulda stood up, the beaded suede fabric falling from her lap onto the table.

  “I’m almost fourteen and you are not my mother,” Hulda said, pointing at Annie. “It’s my room, and I want Lillie to stay.”

  Annie took in a deep breath, biting her lip to keep from shouting at her sister in front of Lillie. She could deal with this situation later, when Lillie wasn’t around. She had more important things to tend to at present, like trying to track down a murderer. She didn’t need any more senseless arguments with her sister—or Lillie—at the moment.

  “Fine, she can stay.” Annie said in a low voice. Hulda sat back down, took the piece of suede back in her lap, and began poking at the dish of red beads in front of her with a long, thin needle. Annie swallowed her impatience as Lillie lit her cigarette. The smell of the smoke assaulted Annie’s stomach, and she could feel the blood drain from her face and her knees weaken. As fast as the sensation took her, it went away.

  “Do you have any paint, Hulda?” Annie asked, determined to focus on her task.

  “Yes, some. Why?”

  “Uh. Emma needs it. She’s conducting an experiment. Where do you keep your costuming and make-up supplies?”

  “Check in there.” Hulda nodded to a basket sitting on the floor.

  Annie walked over to the basket. Kneeling down, she opened the lid and started to search inside. She pulled out a jar labeled “beeswax.”

  “What is this for?” Annie asked.

  Hulda looked up from her sewing. “To adhere wigs to the scalp.”

  “Adhesive. That might be helpful.” Annie muttered under her breath. “May I take the whole basket? Do you need any of the items in here?”

  “Not right now.” Hulda went back to her sewing. “What does she plan to do with them?”

  “I’m not sure.” Annie didn’t want Hulda knowing that she, not Emma, would be conducting the experiment. She didn’t want any questions.

  “Emma doesn’t wear a wig, does she?” Lillie asked from the bed. She blew smoke rings into the air.

  “No, Emma does not wear a wig. Like I said, I’m not sure what she wants with these things. She just asked for my help.” It was all Annie could do to keep the exasperation out of her voice.

  “Speaking of hair, did you see the bird’s nest on that woman with the red coat? She could use a wig. And a new coat,” Lillie said.

  Annie, squatting on the ground, spun on her toes to face Lillie, her hand on the floor for balance. “Are you referring to Gail Tessen? You shouldn’t make fun of people like that, Lillie. You don’t know people’s circumstances. You were taken in by people when you had nothing.”

  Lillie’s eyes hardened and she blew smoke out of her nostrils in two determined streams, like a dragon in a fairytale picture book. “I wasn’t making fun of her, just commenting on her hair. Could use a brushing.”

  “I like Becky Brady’s hair,” Hulda said with a dreamy voice. “It’s so rich in color, and I like the way it curls.”

  “Becky Brady? Have you spoken to her, Hulda?” Annie stood, picking the basket up from the floor.

  “Yes, when I was strolling the deck with Mr. Everett.” Hulda sighed. “He’s so handsome, don’t you think, Lillie?”

  Lillie let out a lascivious chortle. “And how. I wouldn’t mind a roll in the hay with him.”

  “Lillie,” Annie approached the bed. “I’m not going to tell you again. Stop your brazen talk right now or I’ll—” Annie’s limbs trembled with anger. She stepped over to Lillie, chest out, shoulders back, ready to slap Lillie’s face if she needed to. She’d gone too far this time. Her sister was just a child and didn’t need to hear this kind of talk. It was challenging enough to keep Hulda away from the cowboys with their loose tongues—and loose morals.

  Lillie leaned back against the pillows with a smirk on her face. “All right, all right.” She raised her hand in surrender, and blew smoke into Annie’s face, Annie could practically feel the smoke burning her nostrils. She closed her eyes and swallowed down the nausea. “No need to get upset, Annie.”

  “I’ve asked you before to temper your words, Lillie. I mean it.”

  “Message received.” Lillie took another long drag on her cigarette, her eyes narrowing at Annie. Annie ignored Lillie’s surliness and turned back to her sister.

  “What did you and Miss Brady talk about?”

  “Oh, you know, the weather, the ocean. Nothing r
eally.”

  “Did she say anything about her employer? Miss Parsons?”

  “Her employer?” Lillie snorted. “She ain’t no employer.”

  “But Miss Brady is her companion, isn’t she?” Annie asked.

  “Not the way they were arguing in the hallway outside my stateroom,” said Lillie. “I heard the girl call her ‘Mother.’ I don’t think they get on too well.”

  Annie remembered the terseness between the two earlier, when they all had left the dining room together. Why was Miss Brady noted as Miss Parsons’s companion in the manifest? Why did Miss Parsons introduce the girl as her companion?

  “Thank you, Lillie. I can scarcely believe I’m saying this, but you’ve been extremely helpful,” Annie said, her voice wafting on the air, her mind preoccupied with this new information. Lillie’s face contorted in confusion, her brows pressed downward toward the cigarette balancing in her mouth.

  “Hulda, may I borrow this?” Annie said, holding the basket in the air. Hulda shrugged her shoulders, and bent her head low over her bead-work. Annie needed to talk to Emma right away.

  “Thanks, dear. I’ll return it quickly. I’m off then.” Annie spun around to face Lillie again. “No more brazen talk. I mean it, Lillie.”

  “I said all right.” Lillie took a small silver ashtray from her pocket. She pulled the butt of the cigarette out of her mouth and smashed the smoldering tip into the center of the small tray.

  Annie stood her ground, her gaze fixed on Lillie’s face. She needed Lillie to know she meant what she said.

  Lillie raised her eyes to Annie’s, her eyebrows arching in annoyance. “I got it.”

  Satisfied, Annie turned to leave the room.

  “Your sister is a battle axe,” Lillie said, loud enough for Annie to hear. “She means well,” said Hulda.

  Annie bit her lip again but did not turn around, determined not to let Lillie get under her skin.

  Annie headed up on deck to check on her horse. She climbed the stairs from the dark, over-paneled large foyer into the bright sunshine and squinted against the brilliance of the sun’s rays as they touched the water, highlighting the small whitecaps dancing on the surface.

  The sea was calm despite the brisk breeze. The air smelled of brine, and Annie couldn’t help but tilt her head back and breathe deeply. She put her worries about Hulda and Lillie out of her mind and cleared her thoughts in preparation to see Buck. She liked to be completely present in his company, without any unpleasant thoughts or emotions playing their tune of anxious melodies in her head.

  When she arrived at Buck’s stall, she could see some of the other passengers milling about the deck. A couple stood in front of Isham’s stall. The woman, clad in a day dress of sky blue with white lace trim, and matching blue, kid leather gloves, was stroking the white Arabian’s forehead. Her ensemble, though beautiful, had a cheapness that Annie couldn’t make sense of. Perhaps it was the bright white lace. The woman also wore too much rouge, and her lips were smeared with cherry-red lipstick. She was obviously many years her husband’s junior.

  Isham, his eyes closed, was basking in the attention. The man next to her, a corpulent fellow with a protruding belly, made even larger by the enormous fur-lined coat he wore, stood with his hands behind his back, smiling at his wife’s attentions to the horse. Annie didn’t know as much about clothing and fashion as her sister or Emma, but she knew garishness when she saw it.

  “Hello,” Annie said, leaning against Buck’s stall door, her elbow propped on the top of the wooden railing.

  “Good day,” the gentleman said. “How are you, Miss Oakley? It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I am Lilford Arthur, and this is my wife.”

  Ah. The nameless wife.

  “Mr. Arthur. Mrs. Arthur. It’s nice to meet you.”

  “Fine piece of horseflesh here,” he said, indicating Isham. Annie cringed at his demeaning use of the term “horseflesh.” Isham, like Buck, was so much more than just a horse. He was the colonel’s favorite companion.

  “Yours is pretty nice, too,” said Mr. Arthur.

  Pretty nice? Annie attempted to smile through closed lips.

  “Although he clearly doesn’t have the breeding of Isham here,” Mr. Arthur concluded, adding insult to injury.

  Annie again forced a smile at the backward compliment. His taste in clothing matched his skill in social discourse.

  “I love all horses,” Wife said.

  “How could anyone not,” Annie agreed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear your name?”

  The woman’s eyes shifted from Annie to her husband.

  “Mrs. Arthur,” he answered for her.

  “Of course. Well, Mrs. Arthur. What takes you to England?” Annie couldn’t help herself.

  “Horses,” said Mr. Arthur.

  “My husband breeds racehorses,” Mrs. Arthur finally spoke up. Annie could hear the distinct drawl of Brooklyn in the woman’s accent. She leaned into her husband’s bulk. “We have dozens of them. I can’t seem to get enough of them, and my husband indulges me.” She looked sweetly into her husband’s face and he gazed back into her eyes with what could have passed for affection. He then turned to Annie.

  “Good sport. Good business. Fine horseflesh is hard to come by, but when you find it, there’s lots of money to be made.” Mr. Arthur rolled back onto his heels in a matter-of-fact way. He did not share the same drawl as his wife. His voice resonated as one of the aristocracy. Annie hadn’t met many people of nobility, but a few of America’s rich and famous had attended her performances in New York.

  “We have an appointment with the Duke of Portland, the queen’s master of horse, once we get to England. We hope to make some purchases there.” Mrs. Arthur’s hazel eyes lit up and her nasal twang became exaggerated in her excitement. “I want to see some of the queen’s ponies. They must be so adorable.”

  “Have you traveled to visit the queen’s stables before? Did you know Her Majesty’s servant, the late Mr. Bhakta?”

  Mr. and Mrs. Arthur exchanged a glance.

  “No, we never met him, not until we boarded the ship,” said Mr. Arthur. “He was very gracious in greeting us and wanted to make us feel welcome.”

  “I think he thought we might be uncomfortable traveling with all the animals and cowboys and—well, you know, the red men and women.” Mrs. Arthur scrunched up her face.

  “You mean the Sioux and the members of other American tribes?” Annie felt her ire come up. She felt the term “red” was insulting when referring to her American Indian friends. “I’m sure you will find them to be very kind and abiding. They are essential to our show, and we treat them with the greatest respect.” She hoped they picked up on her not-so-subtle hint.

  “Oh. Well—I meant no disrespect.” Mrs. Arthur’s cheeks flushed pink again, but not out of excitement this time, Annie guessed. She may have gone too far in chastising the woman.

  She heard the tapping of heels behind her and turned to see Emma marching toward them, newspapers folded in her gloved hand.

  “Annie, there you are.”

  Annie made the introductions and explained Mr. and Mrs. Arthur’s visit to England.

  “Oh, so you are the man who purchased War Hero,” Emma said. “Nicely done. I bet the queen hated to see him go.”

  The jovial, self-satisfied expression on Mr. Arthur’s face melted into a frown.

  “Ah, well, yes. I did, too,” he said. “The horse died right after he won the race. Turns out he had an undisclosed injury. Cost me thousands of dollars in future revenues. I had plans to use the horse for stud fees.”

  An uncomfortable silence sliced the air. Emma glanced sideways at Annie.

  “That must have made you very angry,” Emma said to Mr. Arthur. Mr. Arthur shrugged. “All is fair in love and horse racing. Of course, the press hid the story. Didn’t want to taint the queen’s name. They never get anything right.”

  Emma let out an uncomfortable bellow. “Oh, indeed. It does happen, doesn’t it,
Annie? Miss Oakley here knows all about that.”

  “It was a pleasure to make your acquaintance.” Mr. Arthur bowed, placing Mrs. Arthur’s arm in the crook of his elbow. “But we must go. Mrs. Arthur needs to take her beauty rest, don’t you darling?” The last few words came out under Mr. Arthur’s breath in such a way that Mrs. Arthur could not protest.

  “Strange couple.” Annie watched the Arthurs go and then opened the door to Buck’s stall to step inside and greet him.

  She stuck her hand out for him to sniff, and he responded by moving into her space and wrapping his neck around her body. She breathed deeply the earthy smell of horse and pine shavings.

  “Do you think Mr. Arthur would be angry enough about War Hero to threaten the queen?” she asked Emma. “Kill Mr. Bhakta to send a message?” Annie ran her fingers through Buck’s mane.

  “Could be. Money and revenge are definitely motives for murder.” Emma stepped into the stall and closed the door.

  “They are an odd match,” Annie said. “He seems much more refined than she. In speech, anyway.”

  “Huh. That fur-lined coat of his is an abomination,” Emma said, reaching out to touch Buck’s nose. “Hello there, gorgeous. Feeling better?”

  “Emma, I have some interesting news. It’s about Miss Parsons and her ‘companion’ Miss Brady.”

  “I have news, too. Miss Parsons is not Miss Parsons.”

  “What?”

  Emma held the paper out for Annie to see. “I knew I’d seen her somewhere before. Look.”

  Annie let go of Buck and took the paper. Her eyes scanned a photo of Miss Parsons standing with her arms resting on an elaborately carved bureau, her voluminous skirts standing out stiffly behind her. The face was younger, the hair pulled up in braids rolled elegantly at the sides of her head. A hat rested on the bureau. The inscription below read, “Anna Parnell, sister of Fanny and Charles Parnell, leader of the Ladies Irish Land League.”

  “Who is she, and what is the Ladies Irish Land League?” Annie asked.

  “Anna—Miss Parnell—is the sister of Charles. Charles was formerly the president of the Irish National Land League, started by a Michael Davitt, a known Fenian. In 1880, Anna and her sister, Fanny, started the New York Ladies League in New York, with the help of Davitt, to seek Irish American Funds to help support the men’s league—Charles’s Irish National Land League. Later that year, Anna returned to Ireland, and at Davitt’s encouragement, they established the Ladies Irish National Land League, with Anna as president.”