Chapter 9
“She had a womanly instinct that clothes possess an influence more powerful over many than the worth of character or the magic of manners.”
Louisa May Alcott
“Miss Manners? Miss Manners!” Miss Burke scurried out of the reception room and all but accosted Marigold as she tried to pass through the soaring Center hall on her way to her advanced Latin translation class the next morning. “If you please!”
Lucretius’s De Rerum Natura would have to wait.
Despite being weary from burning the midnight oil in preparing her translation—classes had resumed in an effort at “normality”—Marigold found just enough patience to address the president’s assistant politely. One had one’s standards. “Yes, Miss Burke? How might I be of assistance?”
“You have a visitor.” The woman lofted her eyebrows as she said it, in some sort of emphasis which Marigold could not readily interpret.
“If you will attend them in the reception room, please?” Miss Burke added with what seemed to Marigold some unnecessary asperity.
As if Marigold had kept them waiting on purpose instead of being wholly uninformed about their presence, whoever they were.
“If I must,” Marigold muttered under her breath. For some inane reason, her brain could supply only one suggestion for the identity of a visitor who might send Miss Burke into such a tizzy. But Cab Cox could have no reason for coming to call on her at the college on a Wednesday morning.
“You must,” Burke snapped under her own breath. “Or be accounted extraordinarily rude.”
Marigold’s eyebrows rose of their own accord at the rebuke. “And we can’t have that.”
“No, we cannot,” the sharp little woman sniffed. “We have standards of polite conduct at Wellesley College, Miss Manners. Perhaps you have forgotten that while you were away.”
The rebuff, though certainly unearned from Marigold’s point of view, stung.
“So noted, Miss Burke. But I hope you will forgive me for being more concerned about being rude to Professor Lord, since she will be expecting me for my advanced Latin translation class, and I do not wish to be tardy or, worse, counted absent.” She had spent far too many hours last night working diligently through the translation of Lucretius’s masterwork to miss the class now.
“That can’t be helped.” Miss Burke drew herself up like an aggrieved squirrel, tiny, tense, and agitated. “If you will have callers, you need to attend to them. Promptly.”
“Yes, ma’am, with all due haste.” Marigold set herself to soothe—anything else would continue to be counterproductive.
It was the last person Marigold might have expected and the first person she should have anticipated—Isabella in all her fur-trimmed glory, holding court in the reception area as if it were her drawing room on Park Drive. “Ah, there you are Marigold, darling.”
“Isabella!”
“You’re looking well.” Her ever-elegant friend ran a benign eye over Marigold’s ensemble of a green and gray striped athletic sweater over a long linen split skirt of subdued gray wool. “Not exactly mourning attire, but very sporty.”
Marigold kissed her cheek with both delight and consternation. “One does one’s best. As do you look very well, naturally.” Isabella’s tweed suit of amber wool was in the height of fall fashion, dripping with an autumnally hued foxtail stole. “But what on earth are you doing here?”
“Taking an excellent cup of tea from your redoubtable Miss Burke. Thank you, my dear Miss Burke, but could you be so kind as to fetch a fresh cup?” She smiled warmly at the woman, who scurried out immediately to do her bidding.
Trust Isabella to tame the squirrel with soothing attention. Marigold made a mental note to learn from her example.
“Now,” Isabella turned her attention fully to Marigold.
“You didn’t think I was going to send a tame wire after you oh-so-casually mentioned murder, did you?
Not after I left you alone far too long last spring.
I’ve decided murder is like tea—best when hot and shared.
Now—” Isabella patted the upholstered settee.
“I’ve ordered a fresh cup—that wee benighted mole of a woman must have brewed it from her own brow hair, so strong and dark is it!
But it will sharpen our minds while we ponder your dilemma. ”
“Not now, I’m afraid” was Marigold’s apologetic answer. “Tempting as tea with you might be, I’m late for a very important class. Lucretius,” she added, as if that explained everything—because to a Classics scholar, it did. “Can we meet after? Where are you staying?”
“If we must.” Isabella gave in with good grace. “The Wellesley Inn. Most of what I have to say can wait. Come to me for dinner. I’ll send my driver.”
“I’ll cycle. Six o’clock?”
“Marigold!” Isabella’s tone was chiding.
“Have you mistaken me for a country bumpkin, or worse, a savage? Eight o’clock, not a moment sooner—civilized Boston hours.
Though you should certainly come earlier for cocktails—seven-ish.
But I will send my carriage—I heard the little mole say that there’s to be a curfew imposed.
If that’s true, I suppose I’ll have to come myself to sign you out, like a maiden auntie. ”
“Agreed. Thank you, Isabella.” Marigold stooped to kiss her cheek. “Must dash.”
“Yes, I don’t want to keep you a moment longer than necessary, Marigold darling, but there is something I think you ought to know.”
The quietly serious look on Isabella’s face gave Marigold pause. “Whatever can it be?”
Isabella drew a copy of one of the Boston tabloids from her carpetbag.
“I’m afraid you’ve made the front page.” She handed Marigold the newspaper bearing a photogravure of “Miss Marigold Manners, late of Great Misery Island, and Dr. Emilie Barker, female physician, resident at Wellesley College, tending to the dead body of the unfortunate suicide.”
“Damnation.” Of both Dr. Barker and her, it was an excellent likeness. Of the poor unfortunate girl, thankfully, little besides a heap of sodden clothing could be seen.
“Yes, damnation indeed,” Isabella agreed. “So I thought when I saw it. One doesn’t like to appear in print other than at birth, marriage, and death.” Isabella, despite being a rather modern widow, still held on to some of her early society teachings.
Marigold, as a New Woman, eschewed such things.
“Well, this is someone’s death,” she said with some heat. “How horribly irresponsible to label the poor girl a suicide when no such thing has been established—except for frankly the opposite.”
“Your wire said murder,” Isabella reminded her.
“Potential murder,” Marigold corrected in a quieter tone, remembering both President Irvine and Dr. Barker’s requests. “I’m not supposed to say.”
“Marigold,” Isabella’s tone was once again chiding. “I know you—I read every draft of your story about Great Misery Island. You wouldn’t have said murder unless you had reason to suspect murder. Now, tell me why.”
“I should very much like to,” Marigold agreed in a whisper.
“But I haven’t got time to go into all the particulars now.
” And certainly not in the public reception area where the little mole held sway—and might at that very moment be listening at the keyhole.
And although she trusted Isabella’s discretion on the matter, she had made a promise.
“Suffice it to say Dr. Barker and I have a number of reasons to suspect.”
“Then you intend to investigate? And solve the murder just like you did last time?”
“Perhaps.” Marigold likely needed permission from President Irvine, if no one else. But then again, the college president had already asked Marigold to assist Dr. Barker in her inquiries—and the so-called authorities had been no use. Perhaps that was all the permission she needed. “I suppose I do.”
“Excellent.” Isabella relaxed. “You come to dinner, and we’ll begin to get to the bottom of this.”
“Thank you,” Marigold said with some relief. It really was an excellent thing to have generous—and conveniently rich—friends. “You really are an absolute darling. Would you mind terribly, on your way through town, sending a wire for me?”
“Not at all, darling.” Isabella was all gracious accommodation. “Dare I ask who it might be to?”
Marigold could tell from Isabella’s nearly coquettish smile that she was thinking of Cab Cox, but Marigold was not about to admit that she too had been thinking of Cab not a few minutes ago.
“I am sorry to disappoint you, Isabella. But it is to Lucy Dove, who I think may also help us get to the bottom of this unfortunate event. Oh, and if you would also be so good as to deliver this copy of Lucy’s cookbook—”
“Ah, yes, I know it well. The Domestic Cook’s Book: Containing a Careful Selection of Useful Recipes for the Kitchen,” Isabella recited. “Very superior. My cook found it eminently useful.”
“Naturally.” Marigold wondered how many of Lucy’s recipes she had been served by Isabella’s French chef without knowing.
“I’m glad to find you think so! If you would be so kind as to deliver it to Mrs. Barnacle at Noanett House on Washington Street on your way to sending Lucy this wire?
And perhaps put in a good word for Lucy while you’re there? ”
“Anything to assist a friend—and any friend of yours is a friend of mine.”
“You are an absolute darling to think so. I must introduce you to some of my new friends here at college.” Isabella would no doubt love creating an elegant golfing ensemble for tall, trim Aggie Newton.
“But first—” Marigold paused to write out a very short plea begging Lucy’s assistance, which she passed to Isabella, who read it immediately.
“Seems an eminently sensible precaution” was her verdict.
“Excellent.” Marigold kissed her cheek once more. “Must dash, darling. Mind to expand, opinions to inform, ancient civilizations to explore!”
“Off you go!” Isabella waved her away. “Leave it all with me.”