Murder at Marble House (4 page)

“Madame Eleanora Devereaux,” he droned with the slightest curl of his lip, and then stepped aside.

A woman came forward, her jeweled turban, beaded necklaces, and countless bangles glittering in the sunlight. Clattering as she moved, she bobbed a little curtsy, holding both arms out with a theatrical flourish. She wore a shapeless frock with arm slits rather than sleeves, and the sides of the garment caught the breeze like violet sails. Her eyes were lined with kohl, her skin powdered, her lips and cheeks rouged—almost shockingly so. She reminded me of a tropical bird, from her flashy attire to the penetrating look in her eye as she surveyed us without blinking.

From across the table came a breathless murmur, almost too low to be heard. “Ellen Deere.”

I peered over at Mrs. Stanford, but her face was a blank, her lips the same thin line as usual. I swung back toward the newly arrived guest to find her staring daggers across the table, straight at Hope Stanford. But only for the briefest moment. Then her expression cleared, became serene and cordial.

Aunt Alva came to her feet. “Consuelo, darling. This is your surprise!”

“C
ome, Consuelo!” Aunt Alva held out a hand as she urged her daughter to stand. “Come meet Madame Devereaux. She is here to read your fortune. Isn’t that exciting?” She turned her attention to the rest of us. “Madame Devereaux will read all of our fortunes in the garden pavilion just as soon as she has set up for us.” She gestured to the bit of curving roof just visible above the tall hedges lining the garden path. “Her instruments for divining the future were delivered earlier, and in a little while we’ll all head across the garden to hear what life holds in store for us. Remember, ladies, choose your questions wisely!” She ended on a note of laughter, but the women around the table traded wary looks, myself and Consuelo included.

My better sense proclaimed the medium a charlatan. Such individuals typically preyed upon the elderly, the bereaved, and the desperate. But even if the woman could genuinely divine the future, did I really want to glimpse what lay in store for me? An uneasy sensation told me I didn’t, that such things were best allowed to unfold as they would. Consuelo’s troubled expression mirrored my sentiments.

But her mother wasn’t about to let her daughter demur. “Come
here,
dear,” she said with barely suppressed impatience.

Consuelo stood and approached the medium. Though Madame Devereaux had seemed tall standing beside Grafton, I realized now that was merely an illusion conjured by the height of her turban. Her dress consisted of layers of draped fabric in shades of amethyst, violet, lavender, and lilac, flowing unbelted from her shoulders to the floor, essentially hiding her figure and making it impossible to determine if she were slim or stout.

Her numerous bracelets jangled as she held out her hand to Consuelo. “Miss Vanderbilt, a great pleasure.” Her voice was deep, throaty, and held a hint of an accent that wanted to be French, but wasn’t quite. At least, not the French accent I’d learned at school.

My cousin hesitated. The tension had returned to her neck and shoulders, and I guessed Consuelo wanted no part of the afternoon’s entertainments. Yet after a pause, she grasped the medium’s hand and gave it a single, cordial shake. “How do you do?”

Madame Devereaux gasped. Snatching her hand back as if Consuelo had placed an ember in her palm, she staggered backward. Her eyes shot wide open, then glazed over as she stared at Consuelo. Her mouth gaped like that of a beached fish.

“You’ll never be happy. Never be happy with
him,
” she intoned in a strained voice. “Oh, child . . . you poor child . . . stay away from him. Never, never trust him. Consuelo Vanderbilt . . . hear me. You’ll never know happiness with a scoundrel such as he. . . .”

“Whatever do you mean?” Consuelo demanded when the woman trailed off, her voice fading like the lingering note of a plucked harp.

Her mother hurried forward and sandwiched herself between Consuelo and the medium. “There, there, now, Consuelo, dear—”

Before Alva could say another word, Consuelo snapped, “Let her speak, Mother. What does she mean?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Alva whirled about to face the medium. “You didn’t mean anything, did you? Just a little joke, although not a particularly funny one, to be sure.”

Madame Devereaux blinked several times and gave her head a little shake. “I . . . I’m sorry, Mrs. Vanderbilt. Yes, just a joke to . . . to break the ice. I’m sorry if . . .”

“That was no joke.” Consuelo’s voice trembled. “And I insist—”

“Consuelo,” her mother said through gritted teeth, “we have guests.”

“I don’t care. I—”

“Emmaline,” my aunt called to me, “please take my daughter into the house. Up to her room, in fact, until she calms herself.”

“I
am
calm, Mother.”

Alva’s voice plunged to a whisper. “Do as I say, Consuelo. Madame Devereaux didn’t mean anything, so do stop making a scene. Go upstairs. Now.”

Side by side, Consuelo and I climbed the stairs with a good deal less spirit than when we’d descended them.

“She makes me want to run away.”

I slung an arm about her waist but said nothing as we followed the graceful curve up to the second floor. I wasn’t about to speak in my aunt’s defense, not when she’d essentially humiliated Consuelo in front of the others, treating her like a naughty child when all Consuelo had wanted was some kind of reassurance after the medium’s odd, ominous prediction.

When we reached her bedroom, she opened the door. In a streak of gray, Muffy darted out past our ankles and barreled away down the hall.

“Oh!” Consuelo cried. “Stop her! Mother hates it when she gets downstairs.”

It was too late. Muffy had reached the staircase and galloped down. “I’ll go get her,” I said, fearing if Consuelo went her mother would think she was disobeying and scold her yet again.

Downstairs in the entry hall I glimpsed Muffy’s swishing tail darting toward the library, and when I entered the room she scampered beneath the desk. I bent down to coax her out, but she crept past my groping hand, shot out from under the desk chair, and leaped onto a glass-fronted cabinet. As soon as I came to my feet, Muffy dived onto a satin brocade sofa, sending a hiss through the down-filled cushions. That was her mistake, for there I had her, trapped between my open arms and the sofa’s high back.

“Got you, you imp. And not a moment too soon. Do you have any idea what Alva Vanderbilt would do to you if she caught you pawing her precious Italian brocade?” I scooped the furry being into my arms, and when I expected her to struggle against me, she instead went limp and rested her head against my shoulder. Her whiskers tickled my neck. “Oh, you just wanted to play, didn’t you, you naughty thing? Don’t like being cooped up in a bedroom all the time, do you?” Just like Consuelo, I thought sadly.

Before I could set out to return Muffy to her mistress, voices drifted through the open library windows—the ones that overlooked the terrace.

“You’ll do as I say.” My aunt’s hissing voice raised the hairs at my nape.

Curious, I moved to the window, standing where the curtain would hide me. The four houseguests were strolling in the gardens, and snippets of their conversation and laughter bounced on the breeze. Closer, Aunt Alva and Madame Devereaux stood together near the garden table. Those same breezes fluttered the edges of the medium’s frock and prompted Aunt Alva to grasp the brim of her silk-covered hat. Both were red-faced and gesturing angrily.

“I do not lie.” The medium’s lips curved disdainfully downward. “I am an ethical woman.”

“Whom do you think you’re dealing with? A fool? You’re a fortune-teller.” Aunt Alva’s eyes narrowed dangerously. She thrust a finger squarely at the woman’s chest, just as she had with me earlier. “That makes you a fraud, a con artist. And believe me when I say I can make your life exceedingly difficult. So difficult you’ll never practice your hokum anywhere again, except perhaps in a Providence prison cell.”

The medium blanched. “I am no fraud,” she said, but a good portion of her conviction had drained away, along with her almost-French accent.

“Here is what you are going to do.” Aunt Alva stepped toe-to-toe with the woman, and I pressed closer to the window so as not to miss a word. “You are going to go down to the pavilion and prepare to tell our fortunes. When it’s my daughter’s turn, you are going to spread your cards across the table, gaze into your crystal ball, and with every shred of false enthusiasm you can muster, you will convince her of the glorious, loving, successful future she’ll enjoy as the Duchess of Marlborough.”

I heard the warning as clear as day, though the words once again went unspoken.

Or so I thought. After a pause during which the tension shivered palpably in the air between the two women, Aunt Alva eased closer and brought her lips beside the medium’s ear. Madame Devereaux turned a shade of scarlet that sent my pulse leaping with alarm. Muffy twitched her tail as I squeezed her too hard, pressing forward as I was with my head nearly out the window in my attempt to hear what my aunt was saying.

My efforts proved unfruitful. But when Aunt Alva leaned away with a cunning smile, the medium’s features froze in dismay. “You will tell her the man you meant, the man who would only make her miserable, is Winthrop Rutherfurd,” Aunt Alva said, “or you will be very, very sorry.”

Madame Devereaux gave a wobbly nod.

 

“Have you all thought of what you wish to ask Madame Devereaux?” Aunt Alva led her guests along the garden path toward the pavilion. Her smiles and the carefree swinging of her arms belied the conversation I’d overheard no less than twenty minutes earlier. Now she seemed as cheerful as the summer sunlight glittering on the ocean beyond the cliffs at the rear of the property. The Spooner sisters trailed immediately behind her, the tiny blossoms on their wide hats rivaling Alva’s meticulously tended flowerbeds.

“I’d like to ask Madame Devereaux if dear Roberta will ever find a husband,” the sister who must be Edwina said, tittering into her hand.

“Me? What about you, sister? At forty-eight you remain as unmarried as I.”

“Quite true, Roberta, but I remain single by choice. Whereas we all know you have been pining over that Mr. Armandale for years now.”

“Mr. Armandale doesn’t appear to be the marrying kind,” Roberta replied wistfully.

Behind them, Hope Stanford and Lady Amelia seemed locked in a heated debate.

“You must take a stand, my dear. The property is yours by rights. Your grandfather left it to you in his will. Do not allow yourself to be swindled.”

“He may have done, Mrs. Stanhope, but the law in England supersedes a man’s last will and testament. I may have been Grandpapa’s favorite, but the title will go to my younger brother, and with it all the property. There is simply no way around it.”

“Bah!” Hope Stanford swatted her fingertips at a bush beside the path as if the branches had somehow offended her. “Such laws, that leave women destitute or dependent on the charity of their menfolk, need to be changed.”

“I agree wholeheartedly, ma’am. But that’s not likely to happen until women can vote.”

“Then we must be tireless in our efforts, on both sides of the ocean,” Mrs. Stanhope concluded in her no-nonsense way.

“Lady Amelia,” I said, gathering my hems and trotting a few steps to catch up to them, “are you from England, then?”

The emerald in her hat caught a sunbeam and momentarily blinded me as she turned toward me. Blinking, I saw that her smile held approval. “You’re very observant, Miss Cross. You noticed that I don’t sound particularly English, didn’t you?”

“If you’ll pardon my saying so, you sound more as though you’re from New York’s Fifth Avenue than London’s Mayfair. Am I wrong?”

“No, indeed. You see, my parents separated when I was sixteen. My mother is an American, a Wentworth as a matter of fact, and she brought me to New York to continue raising me among her family.”

“And your brother?” Mrs. Stanford asked, though the angle of her chin suggested she knew the answer.

“Father wouldn’t allow Mother to take him out of England. He stayed there and attended Eton, and then Oxford. We barely know each other.”

“How very sad.” This came from Consuelo, who had been in the rear but now moved up beside me.

“Sad my eye,” Mrs. Stanford all but spat. “It’s a travesty. He’ll inherit every bit of the English fortune while Lady Amelia gets nothing. Nothing at all.”

“I wouldn’t say nothing,” Lady Amelia corrected her. “I’ve gotten heaps from Mother’s side.”

“Still and all, it isn’t right.”

As the others strode on in Aunt Alva’s wake, Consuelo came to a halt beside a rosebush. I stopped beside her and waited for her to speak. She remained silent, however, staring at the scarlet blossoms but not seeming to see them; her eyes held a faraway, pensive look.

“Is something wrong?” I asked her gently.

“It’s what Lady Amelia just said about her parents separating, and her being taken far from home, from her brother and her father. It’s so sad, Emma. It’s . . . it’s exactly what’s happening to me. If I marry the Duke, I’ll leave this country. I won’t see you or my friends or my brothers anymore. Soon, we won’t even really know each other. We’ll be strangers.”

I slipped an arm around her waist. “You and I will never be strangers. I can promise you that.”

I reached out and plucked a rosebud, careful not to prick my thumb, and handed it to my cousin. She bowed her head to it, dabbed at a tear with her free hand, and inhaled deeply. Her lips parted as if she were about to say something more, words that never came.

In that instant, a scream ripped across the garden.

 

Gripping each other’s hands, Consuelo and I set off running down the path. Another scream filled the air and echoed off the rear of the house behind us. Up ahead, Mrs. Stanford and Lady Amelia came to sudden halts in front of the pavilion. Just inside the wide archway, the Misses Spooner stood clutching each other’s hands. Aunt Alva was lost in the shadows under the pavilion roof.

“Oh, good gracious, Emma, what can it be?” Consuelo squeezed my hand as we ran, her fingernails cutting into my flesh. Then we, too, reached the pavilion. My hand flew up to press my bosom. Consuelo cried out.

“Is she . . . is she . . .” Roberta Spooner—or was it Edwina? —craned her neck to see around Aunt Alva.

Aunt Alva didn’t utter a word. I pried Consuelo’s fingers from my hand and then pressed forward, placing a hand on Lady Amelia’s shoulder so I could squeeze between her and Mrs. Stanford and continue up the two steps into the pavilion. The aroma of some pungent incense tickled my nose and stung my eyes. I stepped around the Spooner sisters and came to Aunt Alva’s side. My breath froze in my throat.

I saw Clara first—Clara Parker, the young maid I’d spoken to outside Consuelo’s room that morning, who had fretted over how little Consuelo had eaten and who had hoped I might be able to cheer my cousin up. Clara, her severe black frock contrasting sharply with the white pinafore and starched cap she wore, stood facing us, the whites of her eyes gleaming in the shadows, her head moving side to side in a continual gesture of denial. The already-petite girl seemed further diminished by the fear magnifying her eyes, and by the incongruously cheerful yellows of the sunflowers, daisies, and black-eyed Susans that bedecked the pavilion.