Murder at Marble House(6)

“Emma, Emma, thank God you’re here!”

Simultaneously, the cat raised an indignant yowl, jumped down from the bed, and disappeared beneath the tiered lace spread. From over Consuelo’s muslin-clad shoulder I could see the bottle-brush tail swish once and thump against the Persian rug before vanishing along with the rest of its owner under the bed.

“She’s holding me prisoner, Emma. A virtual prisoner. She’s even sent my darling governess, my Miss Harper, back to the New York house. Mama means to deprive me of everything comfortable and cheerful. All because I refuse to marry that dry toast of a man. He’s horrid, just horrid, all stiff and proper and superior, but there are things going through his mind, Emma, especially when he looks at me. Like he’s tallying up his future stock earnings or pricing out a new racehorse. I hate him. And I don’t care if I have to scrub floors for the rest of my life—”

“Shh,” I said somewhat forcefully, before she made any further assertions we both knew she didn’t mean. I held her close and patted her back. “No one is scrubbing floors, Consuelo. It’s not as bad as all that.”

“Isn’t it?” She pulled slightly away to look at me. Tears magnified her dark eyes, and I could see now by the puffiness around them this wasn’t the first time she’d cried today. Angry red blotches mottled her cheeks, and the tip of her nose glowed pink. Her mouth was nearly colorless in comparison, except for a raw patch where her teeth had obviously been worrying her bottom lip. She gave another sniffle and shoved a dark, bedraggled curl away from her face.

“Of course not,” I tried to assure her, and drew her back into my embrace. It tugged my heartstrings to see her reduced to such a state; Consuelo, the young beauty of the Vanderbilt family. Yet to me, she remained my little cousin, three years younger than I, an introspective girl who feared the dark, hated to be sent up to bed before the rest of us, and who always hugged me longer than any of my other cousins each summer when we were reunited.

I had once believed it was simply in her nature to be affectionate. Only as I grew older did I realize that from the earliest age, Consuelo had felt deprived of the affection most of us took for granted in our lives.

No, not felt deprived. Was deprived.

“Did you see her when you arrived?” she asked me, her voice harsh with bitterness.

“Your mother? Yes.”

“Did you meet her guests? Did she parade you before them like you were the latest altruistic project to her credit?”

“Uh, no, not yet.”

“She will.”

“Yes, I know. But I’m not concerned with that right now. I’m concerned about you, dearest. Tell me what has been happening, but calmly, so I can understand you.”

I took her hand and led her back to the bed. As we settled ourselves, she gathered up the pen and the book she’d been writing in and set them on the bedside table. Before she’d closed the scarlet velvet cover, however, I’d glimpsed the watery ink splotches staining the page in several places.

She turned back to me, her eyes narrowing. Even in her distress, she held her back perfectly straight, and I remembered about the rod she was once forced to wear as a child during her lessons—a length of steel that ran along her spine, held in place by a strap at her waist and another around her forehead. I’d been horrified to learn of it years ago; now I was struck by the symbolism of it, of the complete control her mother wielded over Consuelo’s very existence.

“They’re all plotting, you know,” she said, breaking into my thoughts. “To get the vote.”

The abruptness of the statement confused me, and I blinked. “To what? Who’s plotting?”

“Mother and her houseguests. They want women to have the vote and they plan to start petitioning Congress. How can they, Emma? How can they do that while I am up here . . . trapped up here—” Her head went down and a tear splashed the flowered pattern of her skirt.

Still baffled, I shook my head, though she couldn’t see it, and reached out to stroke her hair. “Consuelo, I’m sorry, but I don’t follow. What has that to do with your engagement?”

Her head swung up, her moist eyes blazing with anger. “Don’t you understand? Mother is down there with her cronies planning ways to gain independence and political power for women, while at the same time she’s holding me prisoner and planning my life for me. Taking away all my choices. Telling me I’d better hold my tongue and do as she says . . .”

Or else. She didn’t say it. She didn’t have to. The same phrase still rang in my mind from downstairs, though Alva hadn’t come out and said it then either.