Louisa and the Missing Heiress (16 page)

Sarah started, as if the thought hadn’t occurred to her.

“Dorothy had grown apart from us,” Edith explained in her strange, booming voice. “We hardly thought of her as a sister anymore.”

Alfreda Thorney stared into the flames, a dreamy expression on her face, and said nothing.

“Because of her marriage to Mr. Wortham?” I asked, again studying the vase of roses.

“Oh, ever so long before that, when . . .” Sarah bubbled, but did not continue. A look from Edith made her clamp her lips in a thin, tight line.

“She was an unsatisfactory sister,” Edith said.

“And an unsatisfactory niece,” Alfreda Thorney added. “I do not believe in harsh punishment, but . . .” And she, too, finished in midsentence. “Well, some girls mature too soon for their own good. Are you sure you will not take tea, Miss Alcott? Will you be staying long?”

“No tea, thank you. I’ll not stay long.” When had this cold distance between Dorothy and her siblings begun? Why? Could I discover the roots of this enmity in the ten remaining minutes allowed for this very formal visit? Oh, the deviousness of society’s ridiculous rules on paying afternoon calls! A day, a week, a month would not be long enough to reveal the heart of this bizarre family. I tried to imagine my beloved Anna, so far away in Syracuse, saying of me, “She is unsatisfactory.” No. God willing such enmity would never exist among the Alcott brood.

Edith put down one boot, now polished to a high sheen, and picked up its mate. I was now used to the heat of the room, and the clutter, and noted with surprise that the sole of that just-polished boot was quite worn. Surely Edith would want new boots?

With that thought came other perceptions about Edith. Her gown was quite out of fashion, and while Edith was not the kind of woman to pay undue attention to the mode of ribbons and frills, surely she knew that her black crepe was moth-eaten in the sleeves? For a woman of great wealth, she was, when closely examined, rather shabby.

“And now Dorothy’s quarterly funds will be divided among you, I understand?” I kept my voice low. “I suspect that will add to your funds for a trip abroad.” I knew I had broken one of the cardinal rules of society, which was never to mention income, bank accounts, or family finances, but the circumstances of my visit and the need to investigate Dot’s death surely trumped the artificial code of the drawing room. Yet, even as I thought this, I realized that about the only people who would agree were my parents—the Brownlys had always acted as if they believed the rules of politesse superseded in moral importance the Ten Commandments and indeed the golden rule as well.

“Considerably,” Edith admitted, so unused to hearing this question that she answered without thinking.

Sarah, for the first time, blushed and looked startled. “Why, Edith, I never thought . . . Are we to travel on poor Dorothy’s allowance?”

Edith impatiently threw down the rag she had been using on her boots. “Yes. Don’t you think we are entitled?” She grew silent again, casting an evil glance at me.

I stared into the flames of the hearth, holding my breath, waiting.

“Well, there will be so much gossip about us now that Dorothy has gotten herself murdered, I’m sure this will be brought up, too,” Edith continued. “Several years ago, when Dorothy turned eighteen, she inherited an uncle’s share of the Colby Company, as well as a landholding. In the South. That stupid man left a most curious and inconvenient will, indicating that . . .” Edith faltered.

“He did not believe Edgar would provide suitably for Dorothy, after Father passed on,” Sarah said. “Isn’t that strange?”

“Sarah!” exclaimed Aunt Alfreda, shocked to the core by this most unsuitable path the conversation had taken.

The Colby Company, as I and most of the country knew, was one of the largest cotton mills in New England, and the managers of it were famous for their proslavery position. It was not uncommon for Northerners to own Southern property and the slaves that accompanied such property. But that information, along with insane aunts kept in the attic, uncles with gambling debts, and the first child that arrived five months after the honeymoon, was never, ever spoken of in polite society.

“Dorothy became the major shareholder.” Edith picked up an already shining boot and began polishing again with such vigor that I feared the leather might disintegrate.

“Then Dorothy would also have insisted on rearranging the management of your Southern property,” I said quietly.

Of course Dorothy would do that. Of course the sisters would resent her, I realized.

The room grew so still I was sure the three women had stopped breathing and were about to swoon.

Simple Sarah was the first to break the silence. “She would have, I’m sure, except . . . well, there was the accident. She died. We had kept the Colby secret so long. Edgar kept saying, ‘Don’t tell Dorothy, don’t tell Dorothy’. So we didn’t.” Sarah, with an additional rose petal now clinging to the other cheek, smiled disingenuously. “I wonder how she ever found out.”

“It was Wortham, of course.” Edith glowered. “Sniffing around the lawyers and bankers. He found out and told Dorothy. Just as he has apparently thought fit to speak of family business with Miss Alcott.”

“Surely Louisa isn’t interested in all this,” Alfreda bristled. “No young woman should be. Really. Most inappropriate. Louisa, I see you no longer wear a wide-brimmed hat but a cloche. Do tell me . . .”

The three younger women ignored Alfreda’s attempt to steer the conversation into more genteel waters.

“But really, I never thought we were to travel on Dorothy’s allowance; it seems . . . ghoulish.” Sarah, still pouting, shivered, and the two rose petals fell from her cheeks to her lap, where they joined the strewn violets. She brushed them away, onto the carpet, and I watched them fall onto a bare patch where years of footsteps had obliterated both pattern and texture.

“It is only fair that we use whatever was left of Dorothy’s income,” Edith insisted coolly. “Unless you would prefer to give the money to a charity. The Charles Street Home for Unwed Girls, perhaps?”

“Edith!” Sarah exclaimed. “Wicked women should be punished, not aided. Yes, perhaps Dorothy would want us to have her allowance, to see all those cities and sights in Europe she saw with . . .”

“With Mr. Wortham,” I finished, deciding to do away with any further subtlety and get to the point. “Tell me, Sarah, do you think Mr. Wortham could have murdered Dorothy?”

“Well, the police certainly think so. I’m sure they are ever so much cleverer than I. Close the curtain, Aunt Alfreda, will you? Those gloomy clouds are upsetting,” Sarah complained.

Alfreda Thorney rose and did as she was bidden.

“But do you think so?” I persisted, leaning forward now that the Brownly sisters’ faces were partially obscured. Indeed, most of the room was now obscured.

“No. He is foolish and greedy, certainly, but I never saw him as a violent man,” Sarah said, gently closing her scrapbook and brushing the leftover leaves and flowers onto the carpet for the maid to sweep up. “He could be sweet sometimes.”

“Be quiet, you foolish girl,” Edith muttered.

“I will not, Edith.” Sarah sat up straighter, pleased with herself. “I am free to speak, am I not? No, Louisa, Dorothy sent us letters and cards when she was traveling and she never complained that Mr. Wortham was cruel. Just the opposite, I would say. She complained that he would not leave her alone with her thoughts, that he wanted to know all her emotions, all her reflections, all the stories of her girlhood. He was jealous that she had been to Rome before he could take her there. No, she never complained that he was violent toward her; just the opposite.”

“Dorothy wrote all that to you?” Edith looked devastated. “I did not know about this correspondence. She never wrote to me. . . .”

“I suspect she knew you would not write back, Edith,” Sarah said in a small voice.

“I understand husbands can be quite possessive in that way.” Alfreda Thorney clasped her thin hands together in her lap. “I once considered—”

But she was cut short by Edith, who said darkly, “Mr. Wortham had a different method of showing his cruelty.”

“And how was that, Edith?” I asked.

“Ask his mistress, Miss Katya Mendosa.”

“Oh, my, my . . .” squealed Alfreda, now fanning herself vigorously. I imagined her thinking:
Marriages and husbands, yes. Mistresses, no. Do these young women know nothing about propriety?

My allotted time had expired, and just when the conversation was going somewhere. A mistress! I rose to leave but at the arched doorway turned to ask one final question.

“You are certain about Katya Mendosa and Mr. Wortham?”

“Absolutely,” Edith said.

 

 

“OH, MY.” Sylvia sighed when I reported the conversation to her. “I wonder if Edgar Brownly knows about this. Isn’t Katya Mendosa the young woman who stormed up and down his stairs, cursing us the day we visited Mr. Brownly’s studio?”

“The same,” I said, linking arms with my friend.

“How does Miss Mendosa find time for all these activities, and still appear onstage? She must be a woman of uncommon energy,” Sylvia mused.

It was the day after my visit to the Brownlys, and Sylvia and I were taking a constitutional on the Commons, near the Smokers’ Circle, so that I could surreptitiously study the men lingering there and take some notes on their posture, the smell of the smoke, and the gravelly sound of their voices.

“See that man nearest the lamppost?” I whispered. Sylvia turned and tried to look, without staring, by gazing crosseyed at the ducks on the pond immediately behind him. The man to whom I referred was middle-aged and of florid complexion, dressed in a somewhat battered beaver hat and fauncolored suit with a black cutaway coat. He looked as if he hadn’t seen his bed in several days, and the gentlemen in his group were guffawing in a somewhat uncouth manner, as if the news they exchanged should have been reported only in the privacy of a gentleman’s study, over a glass of port.

“He has an opera program in his pocket,” I whispered. “If only I could talk to him, and ask him if Katya Mendosa was in good voice last night and what she wore.”

“Louisa, you wouldn’t talk to a stranger on the street, would you?” Sylvia was often appalled at my boldness. I prided myself on schooling her in the freedoms given to women of spirit.

“Not if you’re going to carry on so. Quick, turn away. He caught me studying him.”

We hurriedly put our backs to him and walked in the opposite direction. He took a few steps after us and then thought better of it. We returned to our whispered conversation about my visit to the Brownly sisters.

“Wealth is a chimera, Sylvia,” I declared. “All my life I have thought the Brownlys to be wealthy. Perhaps because they are reputed to be wealthy, because they once were wealthy. But, Sylvia, I would swear they have fallen on hard times. The parlor curtains have been patched where the moths have gotten to them, and the wallpaper has faded with age, leaving brighter spots where pictures have been taken down, probably to sell.
The Madonna and Child in an Olive Grove
is gone, and other artworks as well. When Sarah saw me looking about, she had the curtains closed, and put the room in darkness.”

“No wonder there was such lack of affection between Dorothy and the rest of the family,” Sylvia said. “If they were already suffering financially and she was requiring them to sell off property at a loss. Isn’t that what they call it, Louisa, when one must sell too quickly and to cheap bidders? They must have bitterly resented her meddling in the family enterprises.”

“Yes,” I agreed, deep in thought. “Investigators look for motives, don’t they? We seem to have too many, Sylvia. Edith can now prove to Sarah that marriage is not a state to be considered, since husbands have a penchant for murdering their wives. That should keep Sarah unwed and by her side, an interesting if uncommon motive for murder. It would seem that the siblings also would want to prevent Dorothy’s meddling in the family banking affairs. And now they inherit her allowance, with which they can scrabble up the Matterhorn. I had no idea they wished to go mountaineering, had you?

“I had no idea Preston Wortham had a mistress,” I continued without waiting for Sylvia’s reply. “Or at least that he had managed the affair so miserably that everyone, including his wife’s family, knew about it. I wonder if Dorothy knew? How humiliating for her.”

“Perhaps that was why Dorothy grew silent and sad.” And at that,
we
grew silent and sad for a moment.

“It may be part of it,” I finally agreed. “But I keep going back to that change in Dorothy, trying to place when it happened so we might know why.” We walked on a bit, musing. “It was as if there had been, at some time, some kind of mortal blow to her very nature, to shake her to the core so that she could no longer be . . . why, be Dorothy, I suppose is what I mean. To change from simple to complex, from merry to sad.” We had passed the Smokers’ Circle and were now approaching the duck pond, where little children sailed paper boats and splashed each other. They seemed so gay. How could they know how short were childhood and innocence?

“Perhaps when she learned about the Southern property,” Sylvia suggested.

“That would not have changed her. It would only have made her more of what she already was: a kind, compassionate young woman of conscience. Besides, that occurred just two weeks ago, and the change we noticed and remarked upon occurred earlier. Something else happened, something before that.”

“Perhaps she wished to convert and the family wouldn’t let her.”

I smiled. “Dorothy was sensible rather than mystical. No, it was not a matter of religion.”

“Perhaps she had fallen in love.”

I paused in midstep. Since Sylvia’s arm was hooked through mine and we had walked in uniform pace, and since Sylvia did not know I was going to stop and Sylvia kept going, we almost tripped over each other.