Chapter Three
THREE
Bea sat at her dressing table, her feet up on the chair and her chin resting on her knees. Her eyes were squeezed shut, her arms clasped around her legs. Vivian had tried to talk to her and had been told in no uncertain terms that her friend needed her to be quiet.
Vivian didn’t press; grief hit everyone different, and Bea would talk when she was ready. But Vivian couldn’t stay seated herself. She paced from one end of the dressing room to the other.
The room was set aside for the use of the female staff—there was another one for the men, at the other end of the bar.
It wasn’t large, but there were sofas pushed against two walls for the waitresses to put their feet up when they were on their breaks and a washroom off one end so they didn’t have to use the same one as the club’s patrons.
Bea was the only one who got her own dressing table, brought in special by Honor when Bea was promoted from waitress to chanteuse and needed to look a touch fancier than the rest of them.
It wasn’t even two feet across, squeezed into one corner next to a sofa, and half the time the other girls needed to use her mirror.
But the gesture had almost brought Bea to tears, and she was as unlikely to cry in public as anyone Vivian knew.
The rest of the staff had taken note: Bea was someone who mattered to the success of the Nightingale.
Now, Vivian checked her friend’s reflection in the dressing table’s mirror every few minutes, but Bea didn’t lift her head until the door opened and the Nightingale’s owner walked in.
Even in the world of hidden dance halls and illegal liquor, Honor Huxley could stand out in a crowd of thousands.
She was dressed as she was every night, in sharply tailored trousers, a crisp white shirt, and black suspenders.
But with her curly blond hair pinned back and her lips painted deep red, she didn’t just look masculine.
She didn’t just look feminine either. Honor was her own person in every way, as comfortable on the dance floor, where she danced almost exclusively with women, as she was behind the heavy wood desk in her office, doling out bribe money to cops so they’d look the other way while she kept her operation running.
She was beautiful and unreadable, ruthless and secretive, untrustworthy and loyal in equal measures.
As always when she saw Honor, Vivian’s heart did a little flip in her chest. Her feelings toward Honor were unendingly complicated.
She had once thought that working at the Nightingale would sort those feelings out, either through constant exposure or clear boundaries.
She had learned pretty quickly that wasn’t going to happen.
There was no getting complacent about Honor Huxley, and no way to ignore her when she walked in a room.
Honor let the door swing shut behind her, eyeing the two of them. Her lips were drawn into a tight line. “You okay, Beatrice?”
“Yeah,” Bea whispered, her feet sliding down to the floor. For a moment, she straightened her spine, trying to pull herself together. Then her face crumpled. “No.”
Honor nodded. Pulling a chair over, she sat next to Bea, her legs planted firmly apart, her elbows resting on her knees and her hands clasped together. She leaned forward. “Tell me what happened to Pearlie.”
Vivian made herself sit quietly on one of the sofas while they talked, though she wanted to jump out of her skin with nerves. The sound of a waltz drifted in through the closed door, the sweet, romantic sound an unnerving contrast to Bea’s description of her uncle’s suicide.
“They said he dosed himself with arsenic, which I guess is easy enough for someone to do, it’s in half the boxes on any hardware store’s shelves,” Bea concluded.
Her voice had gotten more brittle, more angry, as she spoke, and her hands were clenched in her lap.
“And sure, I hadn’t seen him for years before he turned up here.
But don’t you think—” She broke off, taking a deep, shaky breath through her nose.
“He didn’t tell you anything, did he? About why he left Baltimore? ”
Honor shook her head slowly. “Pearlie had troubles, I know that much. He kept his mouth shut about what they were. But Beatrice … he wouldn’t be the first.”
“I know.” Bea dropped her head into her arms, her forehead resting on the dressing table. Her voice was muffled. “But he was my uncle. I don’t think it was that simple. It can’t have been. And the doc just looked around, they didn’t call the police or nothing…”
“Beatrice.” Honor’s cool voice cut through the increasingly frantic rush of words. Bea lifted her head, and Honor’s expression softened. “Go home tonight. Go home for the week. Be with your family. Bury your uncle.”
“But who’s gonna sing?”
One corner of Honor’s lips lifted. “We managed without a singer until a few months ago. We’ll manage for a week. You take care of yourself, and we’ll see you when you’re ready.”
Honor stood, about to leave, when Bea caught her wrist.
“Will you do something about it? Find out what happened?”
“Beatrice—”
“He worked for you, Honor. And you always say we can count on you. You know people who know things, right? Can’t you find out, I don’t know, something? Anything?”
“Only if there’s something to find. If there’s nothing there, there’s nothing I can do.”
“There’s something not right about it, Honor. I know he didn’t kill himself. Please. I can’t bear for another—” Bea broke off abruptly, swallowing back whatever she had been about to say, her expression shuttering.
But Vivian could guess what it was. Bea’s father had died a few years before, when influenza swept through the city.
When Pearlie, his brother, arrived, it had been like getting a piece of him back for the Henry family.
Pearlie and Bea had been instant buddies, and the younger children had adored his big laugh and tall tales.
For Pearlie to be gone now, another father lost, and so quickly after entering their lives … Vivian’s heart broke, listening to her friend grow more desperate. Grief could make anyone jump at shadows or look for a reason, for any kind of explanation, in the wildest places.
But Bea was practical to an infuriating degree.
She was the sort of girl who looked straight at her grim lot in life, accepted it, and did her best to come up with a plan to manage.
No matter how sad she was about her uncle’s death—and she was plainly heartbroken, even if she’d put on a good show up on that bandstand—she wouldn’t invent excuses for it.
If she said something wasn’t right … Vivian shivered.
But asking Honor for favors was always a risk, especially if you asked before you knew you absolutely needed it.
“I can help,” Vivian heard herself saying before she had time to think it through.
Honor and Bea both turned in her direction, startled, and Vivian swallowed nervously.
“If it’ll make you feel better, Bea, I can help.
What if a coroner took a second look, to see if they find anything unusual? Then you’d know, one way or another.”
“How would you do that?” Bea asked, weary and wary.
If she hadn’t been distracted by grief and worry, Bea would have remembered exactly how Vivian could get someone in the coroner’s office to help them out.
But if she wasn’t thinking about it, Vivian didn’t want to remind her.
It would only add to her friend’s unhappiness, and that was the last thing Bea needed.
“I’ll figure something out,” she said simply.
Honor was looking at her, her expression unreadable once more, and Vivian resisted the urge to fidget nervously again. She had a feeling Honor knew exactly what she was planning. And she wasn’t sure she wanted to know how Honor felt about that.
Luckily, at that moment, a knock at the door interrupted them.
Ellie poked her head in, glancing at all three of them before her gaze settled on Bea, her face falling in sympathy.
“Bea? I’m so sorry about your uncle. There’s someone here asking for you, though.
Fella named Abraham? He says your ma wants you to come home. ”
“That’s good,” Honor said briskly, standing. “You do what I said, Beatrice. Come back when you’re ready.”
Bea gathered her things in a daze while Vivian brought her coat and street shoes.
Bea had one pair of shoes that she wore when she was on stage, red velvet and tied with gold ribbons.
She never wore them anywhere else, wanting to make them last as long as possible.
When they were back in their box under the dressing table and she had her regular heels on once more, she glanced at Vivian.
“You sure you can find something out?” she whispered.
Vivian couldn’t help glancing at Honor out of the corner of her eye, but the club owner’s back was to them while she spoke with Ellie.
“I’m not sure, but I’ll give it a try.” Vivian wanted to give her friend a hug, but Bea’s stiff posture said clearly that she didn’t want one.
Vivian settled for holding the coat up while Bea slipped her arms in. “I’ll be by to see you tomorrow, okay?”
Once Bea was gone, following Ellie out the door, Vivian could feel Honor’s gaze on her like a hand on the back of her neck: warm, comforting, unsettling. They were alone—the first time that had been true in months. Vivian lifted her eyes, unsurprised to find Honor watching her.
“You all right, pet?” Honor asked quietly, not coming toward her, not moving at all. They could hear the music from the dance hall clearly, but inside the dressing room it faded into stillness as they stared at each other.