A Widening Circle
Ward sits in his study with a pipe and a fresh glass of madeira. He tips his glass curiously at Alice.
She lingers in the doorway, taking in the morning light filtering through the bay windows with a troubled squint.
“Picked up a new friend at the party?” He nods vaguely in the direction of Thirty-First Street.
“She’d like to think so,” Alice groans, stepping inside. “Not just a stagehand, this one. I caught her trying to pilfer Mrs. Witt’s diamond hairpins. I think she’d have gotten away with it if we hadn’t been positioned to intercept her. Alas, she was even better positioned to eavesdrop on our conversation.”
Ward’s brow furrows. “How did you stop her? Heaven forbid it got physical.”
“I can assure you, I avoided a scrap.” Alice smiles wryly. “I told her they were fakes.”
Ward lets out a boom of a laugh, hands resting on his belly. “And she believed you? After walking through that party? Real zebras in the ballroom but fakes on the hostess’s head? She can’t be very bright.”
“Oh no, she’s a sharp one. Merely young.” Alice lounges against the arm of a leather sofa. “And eager. Followed ushere, didn’t waste a minute. She’s an admirer of mine, she says. Wants to learn from me.”
“Now that is smart.”
“But again, young,” Alice counters. “Naive. First rule of what we do is to keep the circle small.”
“I’m not sure I agree with you there.” Ward polishes off his wine. “Look at my Mystic Rose. Look at Alva Vanderbilt. Hell, look at all these captains of industry around us. They thrive on ever-widening circles, and make no mistake, they’re every bit the con artists we are.”
“I can’t argue that,” Alice says.
“And there is a certain danger in being seen to be isolated,” Ward goes on. “It begins to look like an illness that the members of society would be keen to avoid contracting. I fielded quite a few sentiments of concern for your well-being tonight, my dear duchess. People thought it was not quite right that you should be sent all the way out here on your lonesome. It wasn’t enough to make people question your story, but even so... something to consider.”
“What are you suggesting? I hire a theater troupe to pose as my royal retinue?” Alice gazes sidelong at Ward.
“Heavens, no. Actors are entirely too untrustworthy to make good criminals,” he quips. “But to build out our case a little further, just a touch of extra pathos—the brave resistance, the noble nationalists of Württemberg, giving their all for freedom from Austrian mistreatment and exploitation... I’m merely spitballin’ here, my dear. Feel free to shut me up.”
“I welcome your spitballs,” Alice says. “But you do understand there is an end goal to all this storytelling. And it is entirely personal for me.”
“I wish sometimes it weren’t.” Ward shakes his head, hissmirk dropping off. “It’s so much easier to achieve your goals when you don’t care one way or the other about the people involved.”
But Alice’s gaze has drifted out the window, her mind reciting those names again.Ogden. Vandemeer. Ames. Witt. Peyton.
“Now that I consider it,” Ward says, “there is another wrinkle that girl might be able to iron out for us.”
Alice turns to him, surprised. “Which? She’s skilled at sleight of hand; I noticed that.”
“Oh, that’s not exactly what I’m referring to.” Ward chuckles. “Along with being extremely young, she’s downright pretty, but not in the way of someone whose face will remain in your memory like a tintype. And you say she’s eager to learn?”
“Frothing at the bit.”
“So teach her,” Ward suggests, turning back to the house. “And then turn her on Mr. Peyton. The younger, I mean, not the old recluse. Just the thing we need to draw out the father.”
“Interesting,” Alice says, carefully noncommittal.
Ward sets down his pipe and rises from his chair. “The more the merrier is my conclusion. But now I’ll bid you good night, or rather, good morning. Sarah will be awake soon, and I must fall asleep before she catches me up or she’ll force me to describe the party to her in exhaustive detail over breakfast, a fate I’d much rather postpone. I’ll ring for my coach to see you home.”
As Alice rides the few blocks north to her apartments, she ponders Ward’s marriage dynamic with more befuddlement than ever. But then, she finds most relationships perplexing. There has been precious little intimacy in her life since leaving Manhattan under a cloud of tumult. Only wariness and trials.
The moment she decided not to let anyone divert her fromher course was the moment that course finally took a steadier bearing. Six years ago, during those months after Mama died, Alice continued her employment with an upright, moneyed local family, assisting in the education of their daughter, a dull but obedient girl who stared out the window through most of her lessons, especially when Alice would read aloud to her in French from novels likeLe Comte de Monte Cristo. Alice was never sure how much this listless girl only a few years younger than her was actually absorbing, but oh, what an education it afforded the teacher. When the girl made her debut, Alice was released with the gift of a cast-off day dress and a ten-dollar bonus.
It was enough. Enough for train fare to Montreal under an assumed name, wearing that secondhand dress, and the first of many nights in modest lodgings. Enough to make her look respectable, a necessity for pulling off her first and simplest deception—a tearful and shocked accusation of theft in a crowded area, in which kind souls were inclined to provide charity. Over the next several years, the sophistication grew. A bump into a gentleman, resulting in a broken vase—the very one she was supposed to sell for her employer. With the loss of the income to come out of her wages and Alice to be tossed out on her ear! “Oh, but how much were you expecting to receive for it? Here, I’ll give you the money and no harm done.”
From there, a dipping of Alice’s toes into the plan she’d forged back in Poughkeepsie during her teaching days. Just to see how far she could carry it in Canada where, if there were repercussions, they wouldn’t be felt beyond the border. A duchess from a European country who dared to defy the whims of the kaiser. The financial hardships facing the peopleof her homeland. “Oh, but that’s terrible. How can we help?” A donation to the national cause would not go amiss.
