Curses and Confetti

by Jenny Schwartz

  “Leave it, Caroline. Please.” Mrs. Vernon stood, clutching her shawl. “Miss Smith is correct. This is a private matter.” She drew a deep breath. “I can’t discuss it, here. I share a room and the walls are thin.”

  “We can talk at my house,” Esme began. These women, this ramshackle excuse for a home, they were the reasons she fought for her Institute and for women’s rights generally. Women had pitifully few options. Unexpected pity stabbed her. When Mrs. Vernon lost her husband she lost more than the love of her life. She lost respectability and comfort, her place in the world.

  A shiver coursed through Esme. When a woman married, for better or worse, her husband’s fate became hers.

  “No. She’s not coming to your home.” Jed stared at Mrs. Vernon. “She’s not welcome there. We’ll talk in my workshop.”

  The footpath was only wide enough for two people to walk comfortably side by side. Jed kept Esme’s hand tucked into the crook of his elbow and set off without another word. The rudeness of his behavior showed how deeply he resented the scandal Mrs. Vernon had ignited.

  A man’s honor was a wife’s protection—until women were granted equal rights in the law.

  Esme flushed and angled her chin higher as they entered busier streets and Fremantle residents looked with growing curiosity from she and Jed to the woman who trailed them. Mr. Newtown, the blacksmith, stared in outright dismay.

  Jed unlocked his workshop and opened wide the main doors, letting in sunshine and fresh air. He seated Esme in the armchair, indicated the desk chair for Mrs. Vernon, and for himself, remained standing.

  “We know you are Mrs. Vernon.” Esme opened the discussion. “We know of your husband’s involvement with Mr. Pond, of the dirigible disaster and your personal loss.”

  Mrs. Vernon wrenched at her ringless fingers. “The villain killed my husband. Not directly, but morally. Robert was a genius. Give him an engineering problem and he’d solve it. But he had no head for business. William Pond approached him about dirigibles. He got Robert hooked on the design challenges, while he looked after the finances. It was Pond who oversaw the construction of the dirigible. Robert had moved on to studying periscopes. All Pond cared about was the money he could skim off the consortium. So he cut corners. He didn’t build the dirigible to Robert’s design. I know he didn’t. It wouldn’t have exploded as it did if he had.” Her fists clenched and drummed on the arms of her chair, life returning to her voice. “But Robert took the blame.”

  Her face twisted in grief. “Robert couldn’t bear the shame. Financially, he was ruined. Pond’s schemes had seen to that. But what hurt him was the knowledge of people’s deaths and his friends’ reactions. Everyone turned their backs.”

  “I’m very sorry,” Esme said quietly.

  Mrs. Vernon didn’t seem to hear her. “I got the boys—I have two sons, eight and eleven, settled in a school where the headmaster was willing to overlook Robert’s suicide. The stigma…” She pressed her locked hands to her lips. “We suffered so much, but Pond, the true villain, escaped everything. The more I thought on what he’d done, the less I could stand it.”

  “So you plotted revenge,” Jed said.

  She stared at him with tragic eyes. “I’d only met him once. You know how men do their business away from home. However, Robert had told me one idiosyncrasy of Pond’s. He was superstitious. Robert laughed at how the man consulted psychics and charlatans. Pond took advantage of Robert’s weakness, it was only justice that I do the same.”

  She neither sought nor received understanding for her self-chosen role as Nemesis.

  “Everything else had to be sold to pay Robert’s debts, but I kept our house in the London suburbs and the toys he’d built for James and Ian. Robert made the ‘gypsy oracle’ for Ian’s seventh birthday. He made it to stamp the children’s hands. Pink ink for girls, blue ink for boys. It did other things, too, but the stamps were what mattered. I knew how to choose which ink was used.

  “So I mixed my own inks. The black ink is sepia. Perfectly safe. Painters use it all the time. But I had another ink and for that…” She looked up with sudden defiance. “I used nicotine mixed in with sepia. It would kill quickly, silently, without suspicion.”

  “Except Alfred Brixton died from a blow to the head,” Jed said.

  She shuddered. “He recognized me. I don’t know how. Perhaps because he was the sort of man who watched women. He came back to the tent after the final performance that night. He greeted me by name, said a woman such as me couldn’t afford to be finicky. He wanted what he called ‘rumpy pumpy’. Vulgar, disgusting creature. I said no and left the tent, but he followed me. In the shadows he put a hand over my face. I could hear the crowd, but he was all I could see. His coarse face and his foul breath. I struggled and kicked. He was strong, but he was drunk, too. He lost his balance and fell. His head hit the tent peg. I watched him die, the light fading from his eyes, and his disbelief that a mere woman could have done this to him.”

  “Is this true?” Jed demanded. “You were defending yourself and the man’s death was an accident?”

  “It is true enough. Alf Brixton was no more than Pond’s hired muscle. I’d no intention of killing him.”

  Esme studied her sharply, then nodded. “But even watching a man die didn’t put you off your plans to murder another man.”

  “Pond is no man,” Mrs. Vernon declared. “He is a glistening fat leech, swollen on the misery of people he has destroyed.”

  Jed intervened. “You planned to use your husband’s machine to kill Pond. What would Vernon have thought of that?”

  “He…” Mrs. Vernon grimaced. “He was weak, but I shall avenge him. I will punish Pond. There will be justice.”

  “But Robert Vernon didn’t believe in vengeance, did he?” Esme was quietly relentless. “He believed in reparation and honor. To use his invention to commit murder dishonors his memory.”

  “What honor? He left me.”

  “As you left your sons.”

  “No!” She glared at Esme, half rising from her chair.

  Esme shook her head slowly, sympathetically. “You say your sons are safe in their boarding school, but they need their mother. Families should be there for one another. What would they do if you were caught and convicted for killing Pond? They’d have lost one parent to suicide and the other to the hangman’s noose.” Despite her steady tone, her hands curled tightly into the arms of her chair as she uttered the harsh challenge.

  “I wouldn’t have been caught,” Mrs. Vernon panted. “If you hadn’t visited, hadn’t looked beneath the surface. No one else did. They were content to be entertained and walk away.”

  “My fiancée doesn’t walk away from anything.” Jed crossed the space and stood behind Esme’s chair, putting a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

  She covered it with her own.

  Mrs. Vernon looked at them with great bitterness. “Your fiancée doesn’t have to walk away from anything because you’re there, supporting her. She has money and family. Friends. Robert only had me to avenge Pond’s betrayal.”

  “It seems to me you’ve gotten your priorities mixed,” Jed said. “It is your sons you should be looking after. The dead are gone. It is the living who need our love.”

  “You’re so smug.” Mrs. Vernon huddled in her chair, her face sharper, lips thinner as the passion of her revenge and her self-pity consumed her. “You have one another and your wealth. What do I have? Shame and debts.”

  “And your sons.” Esme refused to buy into the woman’s revenge fantasy. “I understand your grief.” Her heart ached at the thought of losing Jed. “But this melodrama is more fit for the stage than real life. You are not the first woman to lose a husband, a fortune, a respected place in society. You ran away from your problems. Enough. We’re not going to hand you over to the authorities, but you have to leave. Return to your sons. Build a new life. Do you have money for your fare to England?”

  “No.”

  Jed took out his wallet
and unpeeled bank notes. “Then book your passage. The Letitia sails, tomorrow. I will disarm your husband’s machine.”

  “You may keep it,” she spat. “You seemed so interested in it.”

  “No. It is part of your sons’ inheritance, part of their good memories of their father. I’ll make it safe and ensure it returns with you to England.”

  “So I am to be packed back home in disgrace. What of Pond? What happens to him?”

  “Karma,” Esme said. She had absorbed enough philosophy from her Indian friends to believe in a cosmic balance.

  Mrs. Vernon stared at her blankly.

  “A person can’t do evil without the consequences catching up with him at some point. There will be justice.”

  “And that’s it? You’re going to lecture me like a parson and let that b-bastard go free?” Mrs. Vernon exploded from her chair. She stalked to the door. “I’m glad I started a scandal for you.”

  “Mrs. Vernon.”

  She halted at the command in Jed’s voice, but kept her back to them.

  “Someone will check that you’re on the Letitia. If you’re not, we will denounce you to the authorities. They mightn’t be as sympathetic, particularly with regard to Alfred Brixton’s death.”

  Her shoulders twitched, but she stamped out without another word.

  “Darn woman.”

  “Jed?” It wasn’t like him to swear.

  “Everyone will think we paid her to leave the colony.”

  “We did. Oh.” She walked across to him, understanding but not liking the grim, frustrated expression on his face. “They’ll think we paid her to make the scandal go away.”

  He put an arm around her waist. “I want to give you the world, sweetheart, and instead…this mess is taking the joy out of your wedding preparations.”

  “The wedding hoo-ha isn’t important. It’s the many I’m marrying that I care about.” She traced the tense line of his jaw.

  He pressed a kiss into her palm.

  “Now, now, none of that.” Old Mr. Newton hobbled in from the blacksmith’s next door. “Though it’s better’n what I thought I might see. I saw that hussy running past.”

  “She’s leaving the colony,” Esme told him.

  “Is she, now?” His thick grey eyebrows rose. “Good on yer, missy.”

  “Yes, well.” Esme adjusted her cuffs. “I couldn’t have her telling lies about Jed.”

  “You didn’t seduce the gypsy, then?” Mr. Newton asked Jed, directly.

  “No.”

  Esme nudged him to say something more. Mr. Newton was on their side and they needed allies.

  Jed unhinged his jaw and added a few more words. “She tried to set me up.”

  “Money to hush it up, heh?” Mr. Newton rubbed his nose. “Designing hussy. Knew I couldn’t believe none of that gossip. I told Big Pete. I said, don’t you believe it. I’ve seen that American with Miss Esme and there ain’t no way he’d cheat on her. She has him fair bedazzled.”

  “She does.” Finally Jed relaxed into a smile.

  Esme stepped forward and kissed the old man’s cheek. “Thank you.”

  “Never mind kissing me.” Mr. Newton smiled broadly. “Save ’em for your young man.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Two hours later, Esme wasn’t so certain the scandal could be de-fanged. She walked into the house and wearily stripped off her hat. She dropped it on the hall table, not caring when one of the fashionable ostrich feather came free and floated down to the tiled floor. She massaged her forehead with her fingertips, unpleasantly aware of an incipient headache.

  The board meeting of the Institute of Modern Women had not gone well. Her fellow board members had dutifully expressed their confidence in her and in her trust in Jed, but they had deplored Jed’s vigorous actions in dealing with Mr. Loonar, and they’d heard the latest gossip of her and Jed’s dealings with “that gypsy creature”.

  “Esme, dear.” Mrs. Keppler had been as gentle as always. “We all know how brave you are, but it possibly wasn’t the wisest action to confront Miss Lee and withdraw with her to Mr. Reeve’s workshop. In the circumstances…”

  “In the circumstances, there wasn’t much else to do. The scandal is a complete fabrication and I—Jed and I—had to speak with Miss Lee on another matter. However, I understand your concern and I’m afraid the situation is likely to get worse, tomorrow. Miss Lee is due to depart on the Letitia and I imagine the gossips will say that we paid her to leave.”

  Esme winced as she recalled the shambles that had become of the meeting.

  “Miss Esme, the family are waiting luncheon for you in the dining room.” Maud regarded her anxiously. “Are you unwell?”

  “Tired perhaps.” Esme summoned a smile. “Give me five minutes to tidy up, please, then serve.”

  She climbed the stairs slowly. Quite apart from her own troubles, there was the nagging issue of Mr. Pond. She’d advised Mrs. Vernon to leave him to karma, but in truth, it irked her to have them man running free in the colony. She said as much to her father when she sat down at the dining table and he questioned her subdued manner.

  “Don’t worry about Pond.” Her father scowled. “I’ll have a word with Fenning, the banker. Pond will find his financial prospects dry up here in Swan River. Now, tell us what’s really wrong. How did your board meeting go?”

  “The board decided that in the interests of getting the Institute operational, we should scale back some of our plans for it. They want to confine it to educating orphan girls and girls from the poorest classes to work in service.”

  She saw the anger and pain in Jed’s eyes, and knew his fury was for the dream she’d lost. She hadn’t wanted the Institute to be yet another way to define these girls as “lesser”. She wanted it to be a way for them to build respected lives.

  “I would have argued…” Except that after the New Year, she wouldn’t be here to fight for the Institute. She would be sailing with Jed for San Francisco. “Miss Wilson agreed with me that we ought to defend our original vision, but the board voted otherwise.”

  “Excuse me.” The interruption of a maid was welcome. She carried an envelope. “This is for you, Miss Esme. It’s from Miss Ivers.” The awe in her last sentence said everything about Miss Ivers’ reputation.”

  Esme squared her shoulders and accepted the note. She asked permission of the table, and opened it.

  Dear Miss Smith

  My apologies for the brevity of this note. Would you do me the honor of calling on me this afternoon at two o’clock. I shall hold the hour open for you. It is a matter of some import.

  Yours sincerely

  Miss Claudine Ivers

  Esme blinked and read the note a second time, aloud.

  “I’ll accompany you,” Jed said instantly.

  “To call on a single lady?” Grandma snapped.

  “Grandma, she’s eighty if a day.”

  “Nonetheless, you weren’t invited.”

  “Well, I’m not letting Esme beard the dragon in her den alone.”

  “We’ll all go,” Aaron said.

  Grandma snorted. “You will not. Men! I will go with Esme.”

  Esme blinked.

  “That’s settled.” Grandma returned to her stewed chicken.

  “If Miss Ivers wishes to discuss the scandal, I intend to be there,” Jed said dangerously. “Esme shouldn’t be the one suffering for my idiocy in not turning Mrs. Vernon out of Mrs. Hall’s boarding house as soon as I heard she was there.”

  “You could hardly have guessed what she intended,” Esme said.

  “Esme and I will go alone. Jed, you may wait in the carriage if you’re that concerned.”

  He frowned ferociously at his grandmother.

  “Please, Jed. Miss Ivers is of the old school. She’ll be disinclined to discuss certain matters if a man is present…and this is the first communication I’ve ever had from her. If it is ‘a matter of some import’, I must hear of it.”

  There was a long moment o
f dangerous silence, before he capitulated. “Fine. I’ll wait in the carriage. But if she insults you, I want you to leave.”

  Miss Ivers showed no inclination to insult either Esme or her uninvited companion.

  “Mr. Reeve’s grandmother? Yes. No, I’m pleased you are here. I only wish we could have met on a more social occasion.” Miss Ivers rang a small brass bell and a short, plump maid brought in a tea tray. “Please close the door behind you, Minston.”

  The door closed with a snap.

  Miss Ivers poured tea with a steady hand from a heavy silver teapot. “I hesitate to open our discussion with unpleasant matters, but much as I deplore gossip, I believe we face a situation that must be revealed fully before we can proceed to unravel it.”

  Esme accepted her cup of tea and waited in silence.

  “There is an unpleasant rumor swirling—begun this morning, I believe—that Miss Lee is enceinte with Mr. Reeve’s child.”

  “That’s a lie.” Esme’s cup rattled precariously and she hastily placed it and its saucer on the table. “It doesn’t even make sense. Miss Lee is only just arrived in the colony. Even if it were true that…that Jed had…Miss Lee couldn’t possibly know that she was pregnant.”

  Miss Ivers nodded. “I agree with you. Nor is this item the only discrepancy in Miss Lee’s story.”

  Esme collapsed back against the sofa. “So you don’t believe the scandal?”

  “Scandal broth has never been my favorite dish.” Miss Ivers pursed her lips and sipped tea. Apparently refreshed, she set her tea cup down. “And in this instance I resent that we have all been manipulated and misled.”

  “You’ve discovered something,” Mrs. Reeve said shrewdly.

  “Indeed, I have. I had an interesting conversation with Mrs. Hanson and then I requested Mrs. Hall to call on me. Mrs. Hall is your grandson’s former landlady and Mrs. Hanson resides in the house across the street from her. We must all be thankful that Mrs. Hanson suffers insomnia.”

  Suffers insatiable curiosity, more like. Esme leaned forward intently.