A Sense of Entitlement (25 page)

“Because your suspicions aren’t worthy of you, my dear,” her husband replied as he strode down the hall. “Tell Davies I won’t be back for dinner.”

“H
ere’s your key, Miss Culver,” the desk clerk said. I’d been admiring the young woman’s hat, an ecru fancy braid with lace edge and a very high front brim, trimmed with matching ecru satin bow and feathers, as I waited for my turn to register.

When I left Rose Mont, reference in hand, I considered where to go. Lady Phillippa, without Sir Arthur’s influence, wouldn’t have me back. Miss Lizzie and Miss Lucy might oblige me, but I couldn’t fathom living under the same roof as Mrs. Grice. I’d decided to check into the Ocean House Hotel, where Walter was staying.

If I can’t be with Walter, at least I can be close,
I thought.

A young woman, very pretty with porcelain skin, wide blue eyes, and pale yellow hair, took the key. As she turned away, I noticed a single beggar’s-tick seed attached to the front brim of her bonnet.

“Excuse me,” I said. “Miss Culver?” Any other time, I would never have intruded into this stranger’s personal affairs, but I couldn’t ignore the coincidence.

“Yes?”

“I couldn’t help but admire your beautiful hat. I saw one like it in the latest edition of
La Mode Illustrée
.”

She put her hand to the side of the bonnet and stroked the plumes. “Yes, I got it at a Parisian shop at the World’s Fair. I arrived back a few days ago.”

“I also couldn’t help noticing that you have a beggar’s-tick seed stuck to the brim.”

“A what?” She sounded quite alarmed.

“May I?” I said as I reached to remove the offending seed. She nodded and I plucked off the seed, showing her.

“What is that?” she said, leaning over to get a closer look. Suddenly she scowled. “Nick!” she muttered, shaking her head. “I thought I got rid of all of those nasty things.”

“Excuse me?” I said, shocked at her utterance.

“Oh, it’s just that I had an incident that left me covered in these nasty, prickly things. My maid swore she’d removed them all.”

“An incident?” I said, well aware I was being nosy. “You’re not a plant collector or hiker then?”

She laughed. Instead of questioning my motives, she was clearly enjoying our conversation. “Me, a hiker, a plant collector? My word, no. I’m not one for the outdoors at all, actually. Only the thrill of it got me to go to Bailey’s Beach in the first place.” I raised my eyebrows at her. Going to Bailey’s Beach wasn’t what I would consider thrilling. She glanced around to see if anyone else was listening. “At midnight,” she said from behind her hand.

“Oh!” I said.

She grabbed my arm and pulled me to a corner of the lobby and set me down next to her on a settee. “Shocking, isn’t it?” she said, smiling.

“Yes, it is.”

“Well, what if I told you that we didn’t have bathing clothes with us?” She stared at me with wide-eyed anticipation, waiting for me to grasp her implication. She giggled and clapped her hands when my face betrayed my shock. “Needless to say, my wine that night wasn’t watered down.”

“Of course,” I said. “Now I see how a simple excursion to Bailey’s Beach could be quite a thrill of a lifetime.”

“Yes, quite,” she said, squealing with delight. Suddenly her smile disappeared. “And I thought the ride in his motorcar would be too.”

Motorcar? I knew of only one person in Newport with such a conveyance.

“You were with Nicholas Whitwell?” I said.

“Yes, can you believe it?” she said. “My mother would swoon knowing I was out at night alone with a Whitwell.”

“What happened in his motorcar?” I asked, remembering my experience in the contraption.

She scowled and started playing with the feather plumes on her hat. “It was dreadful, simply dreadful. We were having such fun, driving down sidewalks, spooking horses, stirring up birds, taking curves on Ocean Drive, and then he had to go and crash into the bushes. Tipped it right over! We had to walk all the way back.” I tried not to smile at her distaste for one of my favorite pastimes. “Dawn was breaking when I snuck into my room. Luckily Aunt Sarah is a deep sleeper.” I could only imagine what “Aunt Sarah” would say if she knew her niece was cavorting alone with a man in the early morning hours. Fortunately, Miss Culver’s impetuous and risky behavior and her aunt’s reaction wasn’t my concern. Her alibi for Nick Whitwell, on the other hand, was.

“And that’s how you encountered the beggar’s-tick seeds?”

“You can’t imagine how simply awful it was.” She shuddered. “My dress was dirty, my hands were scratched”—she showed me her hands, but any scratches were hidden by her gloves—“and I was covered with those nasty seeds, in my dress, my hair, and, as you noticed, my new bonnet.”

“And Mr. Whitwell?” I asked, remembering the bandage on his cheek.

“Oh, besides a scrape on his face, he wasn’t much worse for wear. He didn’t fall into those bushes like I did.”

“So you can say you were with Mr. Whitwell from around midnight until almost dawn?”

She frowned. The deep furrows between her brows weren’t becoming on her youthful face. She probably was no more than sixteen or seventeen years old. “Yes, why?” Before I could answer, she said, “By the way, I don’t think you introduced yourself, Miss . . . ?”

“Miss Davish,” I said. “Hattie Davish.”

“So why are you asking me all these questions, Miss Davish?”

Now you ask?
I thought. She had already told me far too much. “I’m an acquaintance of the Whitwell family,” I said.

“You are?” she said, slightly surprised.

I nodded.
That’s stretching the truth,
I thought to myself.
Shame on you, Hattie
.

But Miss Culver took reassurance from it. “Then you know what a scoundrel Nick can be.” Her beaming countenance belied her words. She didn’t mind this scoundrel at all.

“What I know, Miss Culver, is that you have been a good friend to Mr. Whitwell today.” Now I understood why Nick had been reticent about his injury and his whereabouts when Lester Sibley was killed. Nick hadn’t killed the labor man but had compromised his engagement to Cora Mayhew. If word of his escapades with Miss Culver became common knowledge, it might put his relationship with Cora, his social status, and his future in jeopardy.

“Why do you say that, Miss Davish?” the young woman said.

“Because you’ve given him an alibi for murder.” Her eyes widened and her hand flew to cover her gaping mouth. “But I would keep your midnight adventure to yourself. Rumors run rampant in Newport. You wouldn’t want your aunt to find out.”

She nodded. “No, I wouldn’t. She’d ship me back to Newark, and Mother, without blinking an eye!” She stood and looked around the lobby. An extremely rotund older woman in a black floppy straw hat too large for her head waddled toward us. Miss Culver’s reaction to seeing the old woman told me the woman’s identity before she called her by name.

“Aunt Sarah, over here.”

“Electra, where have you been? We’ll be late for the concert at the Casino. We must be seen. You’ll never marry well if you aren’t seen.”

“Oh, Aunt, you don’t have to worry about me being seen. It’s more a matter of who sees what.” Electra Culver turned and winked at me. I blushed. But despite our differences and her scandalous behavior, I couldn’t help but like her. I smiled back.

Her aunt glanced at me, squinting her eyes. She didn’t understand Miss Culver’s meaning and she didn’t know who I was. She hadn’t even asked. “Well, let’s go,” Aunt Sarah said.

“By all means,” Electra Culver said. She watched her aunt waddle toward the door. “I can rely on your discretion, Miss Davish?” she said, lowering her voice.

“Of course,” I said.

She smiled, stroked the plumes on her bonnet again, and followed her aunt out the door. I stared after her until a flash of gold in the street outside caught my attention.

If only I could sell the secrets I know,
I thought as I watched Gideon Mayhew’s trap, the family crest painted on the side in blazing gold leaf, go by.
I’d be as rich as Gideon Mayhew.

Dismissing that thought, I returned to the registration desk to get a room for the night.

After unpacking a few things, I typed up a quick note to Chief Preble, informing him of what I’d learned from Electra Culver. Knowing the police weren’t seriously considering Nick Whitwell as a suspect, I felt justified in not revealing that young lady’s name. Let it be enough that Mr. Preble might have a clear conscience, knowing Nick Whitwell was innocent. I dropped the note into the hotel’s mailbox. That done, I fruitlessly knocked on the door of Walter’s room, two floors above mine. I longed for a sympathetic ear. His absence was fortunate. Instead of uselessly complaining to Walter, I focused on what I needed to do—get a new position. I returned to Peck’s Employment Agency, much to Mrs. Peck’s delight. With the inquiry made, I had nothing left to do but wait. I took advantage of the afternoon sunshine, returning to my room for a few specimen jars and heading back to the beach across from Gooseberry Island where I’d seen seabeach amaranth growing. After a couple of hours, and several plant specimens richer, I returned to the Ocean House Hotel via the harbor, drawn to the spot where Lester Sibley was killed. I looked around and noticed nothing new. Then I walked up the lane and found the path down to the water’s edge. I found a large, flat boulder with a view of the harbor, Fort Adams in the distance to the west, the Lime Rock Lighthouse and the
Invictus,
Mr. Mayhew’s yacht, just across. Without setting out to do so, I was in a prime location to notice who, if anyone, boarded the vessel.

Would I see the person who pushed me? I wondered. I set my bag of jars down, pulled out a pad and a pencil, and sat down.

Despite the leisure time, or maybe due to it, I felt restless. My abrupt departure from Rose Mont and my uncertain future were in part to blame. With Mrs. Mayhew’s reference and thus no black spot on my record I felt certain I would secure a decent position soon. Yet I couldn’t help wondering whether that position would take me away from Newport and Walter. And how would Sir Arthur react when he returned from England to learn the circumstances of my dismissal? But my restlessness was also in part due to the loose ends, the unanswered questions I still had. I made a list:

1. Who pushed me? Mr. Mayhew’s possible mistress? A crew member? Why?
   
2. Who set fire to the bank? Why?
   
3. Who killed Lester Sibley?
   
4. Where will I be this time tomorrow?
   
5. What am I going to tell Walter?
   
6. What am I going to tell Sir Arthur?
   

When I looked up, I noticed a rowboat tied up beside Mr. Mayhew’s yacht. Who was that? I wondered as I watched a person clamber over the side of the yacht, awkwardly carrying a large satchel tossed over their shoulder. And what was in the satchel?

I collected my things and sat watching and waiting as the dinghy made its slow progress toward the dock. I stood up as the person disembarked from the docked rowboat and lumbered closer.

It was Delia, the Mayhews’ laundress.

Was she Mr. Mayhew’s mistress? Could she have been the one who pushed me overboard?
Impossible,
I thought. Yet what was she doing here?

“Delia,” I called out to her.

“Hattie,” she said, smiling. “What are you doing here?”

“I could ask the same of you,” I said.

She pointed to the load on her back. “What else, laundry.”

“Of course,” I said, relieved. “But do you always collect laundry from the yacht?”

“No,” she said, laughing, “Mrs. Mayhew insisted I gather up anything that needed washing. We all know how Mrs. Mayhew’s been lately about her husband, if you get my meaning.”

“I certainly do. She insisted I take a look around twice.”

“Well, at least it wasn’t a completely wasted trip.” Delia indicated the laundry bag over her shoulder.

“So you don’t think he has a mistress?”

The laundress shook her head. “Maybe you saw signs of a woman being onboard, but I certainly didn’t.” I had to admit I hadn’t seen anything suspicious either. Except of course that someone had recently been aboard. It must’ve been a crew member returning early after all. But why would he push me overboard? I remembered Mack’s jokes about me being a landlubber. The crew member would have no way of knowing I couldn’t swim. Could it all have been a joke? If so, I wasn’t laughing.

“All I know is that the clothes I have in here are all Mr. Mayhew’s,” Delia said.

Mayhew’s?

“Why would Mr. Mayhew’s clothes be there? He’s in New York,” I wondered out loud.

Delia shrugged. “From the stink of these gym clothes, they may have been there for days.” But I hadn’t seen any dirty clothes onboard the first time. Where had they come from? And when? “Well, I better get these back,” she said.

“Before you go, may I ask a favor?”

“Sure, what?”

“Remember when I asked you about the beggar’s-tick seeds? If you had seen any on anyone’s clothes?”

She nodded and then her eyes widened. She threw the laundry satchel to the ground and ripped it open. She yanked out a jacket, waistcoat, and pants. They were covered in beggar’s-tick seeds. “Like this?”