Murder at Beechwood (14 page)

She scowled, or tried to. Mostly her lips fell open and one eye closed, leaving the other glaring vaguely somewhere over my shoulder. I braced for her demand that I find her more alcohol from somewhere in the house.

“Oh, Miss Cross, it's my fault. All of it.”

Startled, I circled the chair and sat. “What's your fault, Mrs. Monroe?”

She waved a hand in the air and then let it flop to her lap. “Virgil. He's dead because of me.”

I stifled a gasp and struggled to appear calm. “What makes you say that, ma'am?”

She clutched the chair's arms and leaned forward. I leaned, too, until our faces were mere inches apart. The sweet, fiery scent of brandy threatened to make me sneeze, but I wrinkled my nose and stifled that as well.

“I wished it on him,” she said, and fell back against her chair like a tossed rag doll.

I blew out a breath. Very gently, as if speaking to Robbie, I said, “Mrs. Monroe, one cannot cause someone's death by wishing.”

“Oh, yes, one can.” To me it sounded like “Oooh, 'essun can.” She tapped her bosom twice. “I did.”

“No, Mrs. Monroe. I'm happy to say you are innocent of blame.” Was she? I was less than confident of that assertion, and now that I had her talking I intended to take advantage of the fact. Coaxing information out of a tipsy widow might not have been my most honorable act, but when it came to investigating murder, no methods were off-limits. Besides, for some reason she
had
asked to speak to me. “Surely you never truly meant to wish your husband ill.”

“Oh, but I did. Trust me. Scoundrel. Thought he was clever, but I knew what he was up to. Knew all along.”

“And that was?” I believed I already knew the answer: the divorce and her resulting poverty if he had gotten his way.

“Unfaithful lout. Been cheating—for years. 'Course, they
all
cheat. But this time . . . ah, this time . . .” She lifted her hand, pointing a shaky forefinger in the air. “That's why he was leaving me, for this one. With all the rest, I never worried. I knew he'd come back to me. But
this
one . . .” Her face reddened and she trembled, not in fear or from cold, but pure rage, as Judith Kingsley had trembled yesterday.

I reached over to pat her hand and said some calming words to soothe her. Then I asked, “Who was she?”

Instead of answering, she said, “He'd been meeting with her right here on the island. Thought I didn't know. Why else had he arrived before me? Weeks before. He didn't stay here, oh, no. He stayed . . . I don't know where. Somewhere secluded, I'd wager. Somewhere even his closest friends didn't know about. Carrying on like the junkyard mongrel he is. Was.”

“Are you certain he arrived on the island weeks ago?”

“What?” She seemed to have drifted off, and my question startled her awake. “Oh. Where else would he have been?”

So she wasn't certain. She was merely guessing. Still, it sounded like an educated guess to me. “Think, Mrs. Monroe. Who could this woman have been?”

“How should I know? I searched through his things . . . couldn't find anything. Oh, so clever, that one. Always so discreet.” She spat that last word like a blasphemy.

I needed to pose my next question carefully. “What about your children? Were they with you while your husband was away?”

“Nate was at school. Where else would a boy of sixteen be? Lawrence . . . where was Lawrence?” She snapped her fingers. “Oh, yes. Europe. With
him.
”

She was losing focus, confusing one period of time with another. “Yes, but after that, when you believed your husband was in Newport.”

She dismissed the question with a shrug, and I began to wonder if her present condition was not so much a result of recent events but . . . well . . . habitual. Especially considering how unhappy her marriage had been.

“What about Daphne, then? Was she in New York with you all spring?”

“Daphne . . .” She frowned as though struggling to remember her own ward. “Oh, yes, she is the reason I wished to see you, Miss Cross. She needs a friend, someone her own age. . . .”

“Yes, I'd be happy to be Daphne's friend, Mrs. Monroe. But returning to the events of last spring. Was Daphne in New York with you the entire time prior to your trip to Newport?”

“No, she left to visit other relatives.” Her features became pinched and she slumped deeper into her chair. “Virgil insisted she go, but I didn't approve. They all fought over her when her parents died. Wasn't about the child, though. No, indeed. It was about her father's money—all that lumber money—and who got to control it. Greedy vipers. That's why the court gave her to us. . . .”

Her slurring words continued, but my mind had seized on one thought: Daphne had gone away last spring, and Lawrence had traveled to Europe. A new scenario formed in my mind, and I marveled that I hadn't considered it before. Perhaps Virgil hadn't violated his ward. Perhaps Daphne and Lawrence had succumbed to the temptation to which so many of their age secretly fell prey, especially when forces were at work to keep them apart. Oh, it happened more often than anyone would admit, and families “took care” of the matter just as discreetly as it occurred.

Daphne had been miserable at the ball, and bitterly resentful of the control the Monroes held over her life. She indicated they were eager to marry her off—thus forever preventing a liaison between her and Lawrence. Could it be their child even now cuddled in Nanny's protective embrace at Gull Manor?

I had one more question for Mrs. Monroe. “When did Daphne arrive in Newport?”

Her gaze narrowed and she wriggled to a more upright position. “You're asking an awful lot of questions, Miss Cross.”

“Am I? I'm sorry. I thought it might help to talk and, well, I suppose it's in my nature to be curious.” I gave a weak chuckle, at the same time lamenting my poor luck that Mrs. Monroe would choose that moment, when I was so close to finding out pertinent information about Daphne, to become lucid enough to recognize my snooping for what it was.

“You're a reporter, aren't you?” She said
reporter
as she might scullery maid or laundress.

A knock at the door forestalled my reply. Miss Prewitt entered with the promised coffee, with a covered platter beside it. Only one cup and saucer occupied the tray. Since I doubted I'd glean any further details from Eudora Monroe, I stood.

“I'll leave you now, ma'am. I hope you'll soon be feeling better. If there is anything I can do for you or your family, please call on me at Gull Manor. It's on Ocean Avenue.”

The woman waved away my offer as though fanning at an unwelcomely hot breeze. I didn't mind; I couldn't leave the room fast enough. I wanted to find Daphne before my courage failed me. Whether Robbie's father was Virgil or Lawrence, I was almost certain now that Daphne was his mother.

After the bright bedroom, the dimness of the corridor half blinded me and I nearly walked face-first into a wall.

A wall of a chest, that is.

I pulled back just before the moment of impact and looked up—and up—to discover the owner of the beige linen suit coat and checked waistcoat with which I'd nearly collided.

“Here again, Miss Cross?” Wyatt Monroe gazed down the length of his nose at me, his steely-eyed scrutiny raising the hairs at my nape.

I schooled my features to as neutral an expression as I could muster. “I was just visiting with Mrs. Monroe.” Should I mention her compromised condition, suggest she might need her brother-in-law's support? Nothing in his cold eyes encouraged me to do so. I backed up another step. “If you'll excuse me. I'm hoping to visit with Daphne before I leave.”

He made a sound somewhere between a
hmm
and a
humph
. My gaze fell to his hands, curled lightly into fists at his sides. Even in the wide corridor, he seemed too big, too powerful for my comfort. I could easily imagine those hands wrapped around a ship's rigging....

And the rigging wrapped around my neck. Goose bumps showered my shoulders. I darted around him too quickly to appear casual. “Good day, sir.”

“Miss Cross,” he called before I'd gone far.

I turned.

“Incessant questions very quickly become tiresome. And you have been asking incessant questions, haven't you?” He turned his back to me and continued down the corridor in the opposite direction.

The words
what do you mean by that
leaped to my tongue but went no farther. I hadn't asked Wyatt Monroe any questions since seeing him at the police station the day of the murder. Someone must have told him I'd been making inquiries.

Who? And why?

Saving that for later, I hurried down to the drawing room hoping to find Daphne there, or to come upon Mrs. Astor, who could direct me to the girl's whereabouts. I ran into Nate Monroe instead.

“Back again, Miss Cross?” Nate's question echoed the one his uncle had just asked me, and with as accusatory a tone. The boy sat with a book near the empty fireplace, away from the sunlit windows. I walked closer, trying to make out his features. Why would someone sit in the shadows if one wanted to read? Was he hiding there in the drawing room?

“I'm looking for Miss Gordon, actually. Have you seen her?”

His gaze remained on his book. “I believe she's with your Miss Wilson. Outside.” He jerked his chin toward the windows that overlooked the rear lawns.

I should have left then to go find them, yet something in Nate's bearing raised my curiosity. I moved closer still, stopping at the end of the sofa that faced Nate's chair. “You don't like her much, do you?”

“Is it obvious?” he asked, without looking up from his book. He shrugged. “The truth is, I find her behavior appalling.”

A sixteen-year-old disapproving of another young person's behavior? I studied him, trying to read the lines of unease around his eyes and mouth. On the surface he was a slighter, more youthful version of his brother, Lawrence, yet with a significant difference. Though Lawrence exhibited few outward signs of aggression or assertiveness, he held himself with the quiet confidence of an elder son, with that innate sense of knowing one's place in the world and being comfortable with it. Nate, on the other hand, exuded a tension that suggested he was unsure of the space he occupied, as if he hadn't yet discovered where he fit while at the same time trying his utmost not to show his uncertainties.

“What has Daphne done to earn your disfavor?”

His book landed on the table beside him with a startling thwack. Nate came to his feet. “She has dishonored my father's memory. She and my brother, Miss Cross. They're secretly engaged—did you know that?”

I shook my head, too disconcerted to speak.

“My father isn't even in his grave yet. He might never lie in a grave because his body may never be found. Yet Daphne and my brother couldn't wait to defy his wishes in this disgustingly blatant way.”

“That's a harsh assessment. If they care about each other—”

“I couldn't give a dog's bone what they care about, Miss Cross. It isn't right. My father had his reasons for refusing to let them marry.”

“Such as?”

Would he have answered? A footman entered the room, first apologizing to Nate for the interruption and then addressing me. “Miss Cross, I have an urgent message for you from The Breakers. . . .”

M
y anxiety must have shown on my face, for the moment Grace saw me she offered to leave Beechwood with me. She quietly withdrew the suggestion when I told her where I was going. One of Uncle Cornelius's own carriages awaited me on Beechwood's drive to whisk me the few streets over to The Breakers on Ochre Point. Aunt Alice herself ran out to the drive and opened the carriage door when I arrived.

“Hurry. Cornelius isn't home at the moment, but we mightn't have much time.”

Once the footman helped me down she took my hand and hurried me inside. Together we scurried across the Great Hall with its ceiling that soared three stories high to painted clouds above our heads as if on a perpetual summer's day. I detected nothing sunny about Aunt Alice's disposition today. She brought me into the music room, which I knew to be her favorite in the house.

I understood why the beautiful room brought her both pride and pleasure. Gilded pilasters traveled up soft gray walls to a dramatically coffered ceiling dominated by a tremendous oval medallion and two enormous crystal chandeliers. Softening the effect of all that gilt and carving were rich wooden floors, intimate groupings of crimson velvet furnishings, and sweeping golden draperies. Red roses burst in a tumble of color from the marble fireplace at one side of the room, while the grand piano stood framed by a rotunda of arched windows.

I didn't understand, however, why she had chosen this room in particular, until she spoke next. “If Cornelius happens to come home, we'll simply say I asked your opinion about setting up for next week's concert and dance. He knows I value your eye for detail.”

“Aunt Alice, what is this all about? Is Uncle Cornelius ill?”

“No, nothing like that. Sit down.” She gestured to the chairs and sofa that graced an Oriental rug before the fireplace.

I sat, but Aunt Alice remained standing, her arms folded across her bosom. “I lunched with some of the ladies while Gertrude played tennis at the Casino today. Mamie Fish was among them, and she told me . . .” She brought her stout, sturdy frame up taller, which admittedly wasn't very tall. “She told me Neily and that Wilson woman have been carrying on in the most disgraceful way for months in Europe and now here, under our very noses.”

“Mamie Fish said they're carrying on disgracefully?”

“Not in so many words, not exactly that. In fact, she didn't realize she was telling me anything I didn't already know.” She began to pace, her afternoon gown swishing over the diamond-patterned parquet floor. “She was merely commenting on what a lovely couple she thought they made. Lovely—bah!”

“Aunt Alice—”

“I won't have it, Emmaline. I won't! And I won't have you helping them.”

Oh, dear. I felt myself shrinking into the cushions behind me and made an effort to sit up straighter. “I haven't been helping them,” I lied, and rather smoothly I must say. “I am Neily's friend as well as his cousin. I've merely lent him a sympathetic ear when he needed it.” I decided not to mention my growing friendship with Grace.

“Well, don't!” Her barked command made me jump.

“Aunt Alice, be reasonable. Neily and Grace have a lot in common, and they truly care for one another.”

“Don't be ridiculous. Neily has things in common with every debutant among the Four Hundred. He can just as easily bestow his affections on one of them. But this Wilson woman . . . that Wilson
family.
” She had paced until her back was to me, and now she whirled about, her hands clenched at her sides and her figure a dark silhouette against the brightness of the windows behind her. “Do you know that during the Civil War her father ran blankets past the stockades to supply them to the Rebel armies?”

“I suppose even the Rebels had a right to keep warm,” I murmured. Thankfully, she didn't hear or I'd surely have been admonished for my impertinence.

“That was the beginning of his fortune, and the rest came from speculating once the war was done. He puts on airs of being a New York banker, but those Wilsons are a common sort, lower than low.”

I refrained from pointing out that the first Cornelius, the Commodore, came from a modest Staten Island family and had built his fortune by ferrying dry goods along the Hudson and East rivers in New York. Hardly illustrious beginnings.

Aunt Alice wasn't finished. “He's been lying to us, Emmaline. Keeping us in the dark while he dallied with that woman, only to return to New York a few months ago with talk of marrying her. He upset his father terribly.”

“I'm sorry to hear that, Aunt Alice.” This was no lie. It grieved me to see such discord in the family.

“I need your help, Emmaline.”

“But what can I do?”

“You can talk sense into Neily. Help convince him of the very real consequences he'll face if he marries that Wilson woman—”

“Mother!”

Aunt Alice and I both jumped. Neily stood in the doorway, shaking with anger.

For a moment Aunt Alice wavered. She emitted a little “oh” at the sight of her son and seemed tongue-tied and uncertain what to do next.

Neily strode toward her, stopping a yard or so away. “I won't have you speaking of Grace that way. She is Miss Wilson, or Grace to those who feel any affection for her. Otherwise you are not to speak of her at all.”

“Oh,” Aunt Alice repeated, this time with the full force of her indignation. “How dare you speak to me that way?”

Neily plowed a hand through his hair. “Mother, I have tried being civil. I've tried waiting, hoping you and Father would eventually see reason. It's clear to me now that will never happen.” He glanced over at me, where I sat half cowering behind the satin pillow I held like a shield in my lap. “I'm sorry you have to hear this, Emmaline. Sorry Mother saw fit to put you in the middle of a family feud.”

While I struggled for something appropriate to say, he turned back to Aunt Alice. “But know this. Grace and I plan to marry before the summer is out. With or without Father's and your blessing. We certainly aren't going to wait for your permission.”

“Good God.”

All three of us turned as if yanked by puppet strings toward the figure in the doorway.

Aunt Alice gasped. “Cornelius!”

He shook a fist in the air. “You
will not
marry her! I will not allow it, Neily!”

“You have no choice, Father.”

“Don't I? We'll see who has choices when you are cut off.” He pressed a fist to his breastbone. “And we'll see if that woman will still have you when you're penniless.”

“I'll never be penniless, Father. I have an education. I'm perfectly willing to earn my way in the world.”

“Is that so? Then we'll see who will be willing to cross me by hiring you.”

In a burst of motion Neily bore down on his father. I sprang up from the sofa, alarmed, not knowing what to expect or how I might intervene. The tension between the two men stretched to breaking.

“This is not about Grace,” Neily said in a dangerous murmur. “This is about control. About you finally understanding that you can no longer command me as you'd like.”

“Be careful what you say to me, Neily.” Cornelius's voice rose in warning.

His son took no heed. “This not only enrages you, Father, I believe it terrifies you. The great Cornelius Vanderbilt finally coming up against someone who has decided to push back, who cannot be persuaded or bullied or bought. How's that, Father, something all your millions cannot buy—my obedience. My life.
Me.
Oh, how that must truly stick in your craw.”

“Neily!” Aunt Alice swept to his side and attempted to grasp his arm. He pulled away, half turning, and I saw his profile, taut like a bull goaded to charging. His arm came up—I thought only to hold it out of his mother's reach—but she flinched and drew back as if he'd been about to strike her. Cornelius lunged.

“Uncle Cornelius, no!” I screamed, or perhaps I merely whispered, for no one seemed to hear. With both hands Cornelius shoved at Neily's chest, sending him stumbling backward with a clack of his teeth as his head snapped forward. Neily caught his balance and then his whole body coiled. For a terrible moment I thought he'd rush headlong into the attack.

But he only stood there, glaring at his father, his breath heaving in and out. Aunt Alice's features contorted with horror and helplessness. She held herself utterly still, as though afraid if she budged, she'd unleash some terrible reaction.

Uncle Cornelius was the first to move. He stepped toward Neily, paused, then took another step that wobbled. In the next seconds I realized how old he suddenly appeared, how the pouches of fatigue beneath his eyes robbed them of their hawk-like clarity, how his skin had lost its luster and stretched thinly across his cheeks and nose, making him seem frail, infirm.

All that passed through my mind in the time it took Uncle Cornelius to take a third step, for his knees to buckle, for him to topple over backward, and for the leader of the railroad industry—one of the richest and most powerful men in America—to collapse in a heap on the floor.

“Cornelius!” Aunt Alice fell to her knees beside him. She seized his hand, held it to her lips. She slapped his cheek lightly, pressed her ear to his chest. “I can't hear his heart. Oh, good Lord, I can't hear his heartbeat!”

I hurried over and sank to the floor at his other side. “Unbutton his coat.” As I gave the order I held my fingers in front of his nose and detected a faint stirring of breath. “He's breathing.” Once Aunt Alice fumbled his coat and waistcoat open I pressed my ear to his shirtfront. What I perceived alarmed me so much I sat immediately upright. “Mason!” I cried out. As I did, a sobbing Aunt Alice let her head fall to her husband's shoulder.

My voice echoed across the house, reverberating in the vacuous space of the Great Hall. Seconds later, the butler who had been fired a year ago, but who in the interim had been persuaded by Uncle Cornelius to resume his post, ran into the room with two footmen in his wake. “Good heavens!” he said as he lurched to a halt and balanced on the balls of his feet.

“Call the hospital,” I ordered. “Tell them we're coming, and have a carriage readied. We'll use the brougham, so we can lay him across the seat.” I looked down at my uncle. His face had drained of color. His mouth was open and slack, his eyes closed, his breathing frighteningly shallow. “We need something to carry him on. A thick blanket, perhaps, anything that can be used as a stretcher.” When no one moved, I came up onto my knees and reared my head. “Go!”

I retrieved a pillow from the sofa and placed it beneath Uncle Cornelius's head. Aunt Alice's weeping filled the room. Neily stood off to one side, looking dazed and nearly as pale as his father. Now, without a sound, he came closer and knelt beside his mother. Gently he reached out to place his hand over hers.

“Mother, I'm sorry.”

She snapped upright, her face tearstained and her eyes blazing. “Get out!”

“Mother?”

“Get out. Go.” She shoved at him as her husband had done. “Leave this house and never come back.”

“Aunt Alice,” I cried out, “you don't mean that.”

“Indeed, I do! If you don't leave this instant, Neily, so help me I'll send for the police.” She reached for my arm and struggled to her feet. “I'll—”

I moved between them, facing Aunt Alice and essentially blocking Neily from her view. “There's no need for that.” I glanced over my shoulder. “Neily, you'd better go. Please. There'll be time later to sort this out.”

“But . . .” He rose but hovered, his uncertainty written in the pain of his expression.

“For now, Neily,” I said firmly. From the Great Hall came voices and the bustle of the butler and footmen returning. “I'll keep you informed, I promise.”

He hesitated for a moment more, then with his head down walked from the room. My heart broke for him.

 

Some two hours passed while I waited with the family at Newport Hospital. A Mr. Bryant, the hospital's chief administrator, had met us at the street door and led us to a downstairs room used for meetings.

A rectangular table dominated the center of the space, while a well-worn, camel-colored sofa and four serviceable wooden chairs stood crowded together at the end farthest from the door. What the room lacked in comfort it made up for in privacy, being out of the way of the main lobby and common waiting room.

Our arrival had stirred up a frenzy of activity as doctors and nurses scrambled to prepare everything needed to examine and care for Cornelius Vanderbilt. Though muted by the walls, their voices remained a constant presence none of us could ignore. Orders, directions, questions, and occasionally the urgent ring of the main telephone disturbed our own somber vigil as we waited for what felt like an eternity. It was as if we had mobilized an army and in a way we had. I entertained no doubts that these people would fight to save my uncle's life.

Aunt Alice sat in the middle of the sofa, flanked on either side by Gertrude and her young sister, Gladys. In their bright summer frocks the three of them looked hopelessly, almost comically, out of place in the utilitarian room. Reggie, seventeen and all arms and legs now, sprawled in one of the stiff-looking chairs beside Alfred, his studious, eighteen-year-old brother. Uncle Cornelius's two brothers, William and Frederick, sat at the table leaning close together and speaking in hushed tones.

I spared a moment to study my youngest male cousin. Haggard shadows dragged at Reggie's eyes, suggesting a sleepless night, but I suspected another culprit. Puffy cheeks and the bloated skin across his nose spoke of the bourbon for which Reggie had developed a taste at far too young an age. Did his family not see what was so obvious to me? Did they choose not to see?