Chapter 9
Morning dawned, and with it, my exhaustion.
I’d spent the rest of the day and the better part of the evening working on Rosalee’s necklace and had made excellent headway.
It would be done in a week rather than three at this pace, which was precisely what I was aiming to do.
The more I thought about the exchange with Rosalee, the more I realized her purchase had been an act of kindness.
She’d sensed my desperation, seen how I had changed since Julien’s death, and she had the kind of wealth that could buy a hundred necklaces without feeling a strain on her budget.
I was still in the midst of shaking off my fatigue as I made my way to Evalyn’s.
Though I wanted to set a proper schedule for cleaning her collection, I’d also settle for connecting with more of her friends.
I only hoped she wouldn’t notice my red eyes and my disquiet.
I needed to be fresh, bright, ready to charm everyone and ingratiate myself to anyone who might be at Evalyn’s that day.
Though she included me in her gatherings with her friends, I knew gaining their trust—and their willingness to confide in me about Julien—wouldn’t be easy.
And now that I was more desperate than ever for income, I really needed to secure them as clients, too.
A task that was never as simple as an introduction or a glass of champagne over lunch.
I had to woo them, make them feel special wearing Beaumont jewelry, and assure them the purchase was worth it.
I might also have to use the Beaumont Jewelers’ strongest tactic that rarely failed: create a story about a particular piece to make it more alluring, its beauty more tempting—a skill I lacked entirely.
It was always Julien who’d crafted fanciful tales that charmed our buyers, but I would have to learn how, too, should I truly want to keep the business afloat and, more importantly, a roof over our heads.
Jerry greeted me with a smile. “Miss Beaumont, how nice to see you. You’ll join the others in the drawing room.”
I followed him inside, a spring breeze rushing in behind me as strains of music from the piano floated through the hall.
In the parlor, a musician sat rigidly at the beautiful Steinway, lush sounds pouring from the instrument.
Several women were scattered throughout the room upon the various sofas and chairs as usual.
I couldn’t help but search for her face—for Carrie Wellington—and was instantly disappointed to find her absent from the day’s party.
Now that I knew she’d put in a good word for me with Evalyn and that her husband had hoped to go into business with Julien, I felt indebted to her, which left me unsettled.
And there was also the gnawing sensation that I knew her somehow, from somewhere else.
The others regarded me as I was announced, their thinly veiled surprise I should again return to their company reflected in their eyes.
I didn’t belong there, they said with their gazes that raked my form from head to toe.
I was nothing but a temporary distraction, a pet project for their friend.
I tried not to let it bother me; they would never understand me—what it meant to work for a living, or, God forbid, wish to—but I would come to understand them in time.
It was an important part of the job. Luckily, they didn’t appear to be the most complicated of subjects.
“Oh good, you’re here,” Evalyn said, waving me over to her and a woman I didn’t recognize. “Come, Lizzie, meet Florence Harding. Flo, this is my new friend, Lizzie. She’s also my jeweler.”
At once my tongue tied into knots. Florence “Flo” Harding was the wife of a former United States senator serving for Ohio.
Warren G. Harding was a popular Republican running for president in the next election.
I had never given politics much thought until recently.
I’d been following the coverage of the Nineteenth Amendment—the women’s right to vote—which was rumored to be going to the House of Representatives the following month for review and a vote.
If it passed, it would go on to the Senate, and finally, individual states would be able to ratify the amendment.
Suddenly I had a big reason to pay attention to politics, and I couldn’t help but be curious as to what Flo Harding’s stance would be—or Evalyn’s for that matter.
Would they vote, given the chance, or were their lives far too busy with other things?
I couldn’t imagine what other things could be more important.
Still, I didn’t bother to pose the question; I had a feeling it wasn’t the right time and that Evalyn would scold me for being too serious.
“How do you do, ma’am,” I said, taking a seat in the chair opposite them.
Flo greeted me politely but made no effort to speak with me after the introduction.
While they continued their conversation, I studied her; she wore tiny spectacles and a plain dress, and her frizzy hair was pinned tightly to her head.
She was stalwart, passionate, but generous with her smiles for Evalyn.
For the others, she wore a pinched expression, her lips pressed together and her forehead drawn as if in constant pain.
Like me, she clearly didn’t fit well with the other women, who were as tidy and beautiful as the pages of a fashion review.
As I took in Flo’s mannerisms, her appearance, I felt less conspicuous in my plain skirt and blouse, despite the fact that my skirt was several inches longer than those of the other ladies.
No one else was bothered by their lower calves showing.
I was critically out of fashion—that much was clear—and I knew better than to assume this crowd wouldn’t notice.
As I listened to the women catch up with one another, I noticed Evalyn’s voice sounded strained, her laughter bordered on shrill, and her shoulders were set too high.
I wondered what had put her on the edge.
Despite her obvious disquiet, she chattered on as if nothing were wrong, inserting little details about each of her friends as she introduced them to me, how she came to know them, and where they lived in the city.
I nodded politely, trying to file their names away for later by pairing them with their most prominent piece of jewelry.
Pearl brooch: Jane. Ruby ring: Marjorie.
Teardrop diamond necklace: Marcie. Spectacles and absolutely no other adornment: Flo.
“Let’s start our game, shall we?” Evalyn said, eliciting a smattering of claps. “We have one extra player we can rotate in as needed.”
“Which game are we to play?” I asked. It seemed there was little chance Evalyn would discuss business with me, so I might as well play along.
“Bridge, of course,” Evalyn said, as if I’d asked the most absurd question in the world. “Do you know the rules?”
I shook my head. “I’ve always played poker.”
She laughed. “For such a quiet little thing, you do surprise me. Don’t you worry. We’ll play poker one night after we’ve gotten into the whiskey. It would be horribly uncouth at this hour.” She dropped her voice. “Or ever, really, but we don’t have to tell anyone, now do we?”
The others joined in her laughter. Clearly poker wasn’t considered a ladies’ game, but how was I to know?
The men in my life had always treated me as their equal, and I was beginning to realize how much that set me apart from other women.
My lack of fashion sense, my complete ignorance of town gossip, and the fact that I’d prefer traipsing along a riverbank in muddy boots collecting rocks than doing just about anything else made me alien to these women in nearly every way.
With each additional day I spent with Evalyn, the more I realized how much I had to learn about her society and the rules applying to upper-crust women.
I wasn’t certain I cared for any of it, and yet I knew how important it was to mimic them as best I could to garner their business—and hopefully to mine their secrets.
“Pardon me, Mrs. McLean, but you have another guest.” Jerry swept into the room, escorting a woman who looked to be around thirty-five years of age. “Mrs. Alice Roosevelt Longworth.”
“Alice! Why, I didn’t think you were coming today,” Evalyn cooed. She kissed Alice on her left cheek and motioned to an open chair. “I’m glad you’re here. We were just about to play bridge.”
I felt my mouth fall open and quickly closed it again, hoping no one had noticed.
The Alice Roosevelt had quite a reputation in Washington.
She was unconventional, known to be overly bold in her directness, and even a bit raucous as my father would say.
She’d smoked in the White House, created a new fashion trend with her “Alice Blue” gowns, and served as an adviser to her president father.
She’d also remained in the political sphere after her father had left it.
Most scandalous of all, it was rumored she had a string of lovers despite her marriage to Representative Longworth.
I had never cared about such matters much, but Julien had followed all the goings-on in Washington.
He’d always tried to be close to the powerful, or at the very least, be in the know, which was a large part of why Beaumont Jewelers had done so well.
While he followed the tabloids and gossip columns, I’d been too busy with my nose in a book or talking with Henry about some fascinating new artifact from a burial site somewhere in the world I’d always longed to visit.