April 1903: Emma and Derrick Andrews
have been invited to the wedding of her cousin Reggie Vanderbilt and heiress
Cathleen Neilson at the Bellevue Avenue Mansion, Arleigh. Their hosts are a
popular young couple who are leasing the home for the summer—Harry and
Elizabeth “Bessie” Lehr. Known for his practical jokes, Harry is the toast of
parties, earning a reputation as the court jester of the Gilded Age. However,
as Emma soon learns, behind closed doors he is dead serious.
Following the wedding, Bessie comes to Emma for help, insisting that her
husband is cruel to her in private, telling her outright he married her only
for her money and finds her repulsive. Divorce is unthinkable. Now she believes
he is plotting to murder her and make it look like an accident: a broken
balcony railing she might have leaned on, a loose stair runner that could have
sent her tumbling down a staircase, faulty brakes in the car she uses . . .
Some would say being trapped in a loveless marriage is a fate worse than death.
Not Bessie—she wants to live! Unsure if these situations are mere coincidences
or add up to premeditated sabotage, Emma agrees to investigate and determine if
Newport’s merry prankster is engaged in a cold-blooded game of life or death. .
.
Amazon.com
I can’t believe
Murder At Arleigh is Alyssa
Maxwell’s thirteenth book in the Gilded Newport Mystery series. In this book,
Alyssa explores the changing ideas concerning women’s legal rights and the
social stigmas that still dominated at the time, 1903, the year her story takes
place. Although I loved the story, it is Alyssa’s historian notes at the end
that really fascinated me. I’ll get to that later.
Bessie Lehr (who really existed), one of The Four
Hundred—a social standing still prevailing at the turn of the century—comes to
Emma for her investigative prowess. She claims her husband is trying to kill
her and there are past incidents that seem to substantiate her claim. Having
witnessed a conversation that proved Bessie and Harry Lehr’s fairy-tale
marriage a falsehood and since Bessie doesn’t want the police involved, Emma
agrees to investigate.
Please welcome Alyssa Maxwell back to WWK! E. B. Davis
The automobile is taking over in 1903, and opening
up whole new industries. Why does Emma have a problem with cars? Will she get a
driver’s license?
While Emma accepts that automobiles are here to stay, she would
prefer not to have them overrun Aquidneck Island. Life there, in her view, has
always been influenced by the tides, with a certain rhythm and a methodic ebb
and flow. Cars were noisy and smelly. Rules of the road were still being
established, and fast, reckless driving wasn’t uncommon. Her own cousin,
Reggie, exemplifies the problems cars brought to the island. It’s said
pedestrians and livestock alike were in danger whenever he got behind the wheel.
Emma would like to preserve the tranquility of island life – that is, when
murders aren’t being committed!
Because of automation, mankind’s relationship with
animals also changed. (I always feel sorry for horses and donkeys.) Automation
usurped their function in our society. Did Emma feel indulgent keeping her
horses when she no longer had to rely on them?
In 1903 we’re still a couple of decades away from automobiles completely
replacing horses. There were basically three types of cars at the time –
electric, gas-powered, and steam-powered. None of them were particularly
reliable, were prone to breaking down, and most people considered them a
luxury, not a necessity. So no, Emma doesn’t at all feel frivolous about
keeping her horses or continuing to use her carriage. One of the horses,
Barney, is too old now to pull a gig, so keeping him might be somewhat indulgent,
but she feels she owes her old carriage horse a happy retirement.
Emma and Derrick attend the wedding of her cousin
Reginald (Reggie) Vanderbilt that was weirdly located at Arleigh House, which
was being rented that summer by Bessie and Harry Lehr. Reggie was on the outs
with his family, although he had already inherited. So, it seems plausible to
have the wedding at Arleigh House rather than at The Breakers. They later find
out the why, but how did the Lehrs come to lend their albeit temporary home to
Reggie?
Actually, Reggie was his mother’s favorite – and always would be –
so it’s entirely plausible they could have held the wedding at The Breakers.
But traditionally it’s the bride’s family who makes the wedding arrangements,
and apparently Cathleen’s mother accepted the Lehrs’ offer. Why the Lehr’s
specifically? For whatever reason, they were able to be in Newport for the April
wedding, when most other members of the Four Hundred wouldn’t have opened up
their summer cottages yet. Most weddings of the Four Hundred would have taken
place in New York City, but as I’ll discuss farther on, Reggie had reasons to
avoid being in New York at this time.
Bessie has what today would be called a teacup dog.
Did tiny dogs exist at this time? Most dogs were “working” dogs. Why would they
name their dog Hippodale?
I don’t know the exact story behind the name Hippodale, other than
Harry Lehr named him, and that wealthy dog owners at the time often chose
fancy, unique-sounding names to lend their pets a certain cachet. It’s true
that so far in history most animals worked to earn their keep, especially in
rural areas. But with industrialization and automation, fewer working animals
were needed and the idea of keeping pets became ever more popular. However, lapdogs
have existed for centuries – we see them in portraits ranging from the Middle
Ages through the present day. Papillons are an old breed, as are Pekinese, Pugs,
and even Chihuahuas. Most small dogs weren’t bred for work, but rather to be cuddly
companions, as they are today. I was glad Bessie Lehr had such a companion;
Hippodale must have brought her comfort when she needed it. But since Harry
named the pooch and did take part in caring for the animal (as I read in
Elizabeth Lehr’s book, King Lehr), I surmised the two of them must have
had an affinity for each other.
Whereas Emma thought long and hard about marrying
Derrick, Bessie wasn’t a widow long before she married again. Why would she do
that, especially considering that she was in control of her own fortune? And in
real life, as per your author’s notes, after Harry dies, she marries again, and
again the marriage isn’t a joyful one. Did Bessie never learn?
Although Emma isn’t alone in her hesitation to marry (the
daughters of Senator George Wetmore of Chateau-sur-Mer, for example, never
married by choice), her attitude certainly wasn’t the norm at the time. Most
women were raised to be wives and mothers, and Elizabeth Lehr might simply have
felt at a loss as a single woman. She might also have been an optimist,
especially after her first, and quite happy marriage. Certainly she was
encouraged by Harry’s female friends, the very formidable Alva Belmont, Tessie
Oelrichs, and Mamie Fish, to marry him, and until their wedding night she had
no reason to expect their life together to be anything but happy. As for her
third marriage, she never consented to the divorce her husband, Lord Decies,
petitioned for, and died only months after he did.
Unlike England, in the US women had the legal right
to have their own money. Harry didn’t have any legal or ethical way to take
Bessie’s ownership away. Why did Alva Vanderbilt, Tessie Oelrichs and Mamie
Fish (all real people) encourage the match?
Those three ladies, as well as others, adored him. He was a
charmer, a flatterer, and the life of every party – a grifter by today’s
standards, actually – but Harry barely had a cent to his name and they were
determined to remedy that. They wanted the best for him, wanted to see him
maintain the extravagant lifestyle he had come to enjoy. Hence their enthusiasm
to see him married to a wealthy woman. Did they know Harry was gay? That’s hard
to say. It would never have been openly acknowledged, but it’s possible they
suspected and wanted to help him conceal the truth by seeing him safely married.
When Emma asks Bessie why she won’t divorce Harry,
Bessie says her mother would be heartbroken. But when we meet Bessie’s mom, it
seems she is more about power and control than religious beliefs. Why did
Victorian parents get so overly involved in their children’s lives?
In the story, Bessie’s mother declares that her daughter would
never find salvation if she divorced her husband. I have no doubt the real Lucy
Wharton Drexel, a staunch Catholic, firmly believed this to be true. But
parenting was different in those days. There was no democracy within the family
structure: parents commanded, and children, even adult children, were expected
to obey. So yes, power struggles did play into parent-child relationships,
sometimes to the point of nearly obscuring the true issue, in this case that of
religious conviction.
Did men still have the right to incarcerate their
wives in insane asylums? More than one woman says to Emma that Bessie is a
“flibbertigibbet.” Is this a code word for mentally unstable? Would this give
Harry the right to commandeer Bessie’s fortune?
By flibbertigibbet, Bessie’s friends were merely implying she
could at times be fretful and a bit flighty. But they would have gained this
impression from Harry himself, wouldn’t they? As for her fortune, the fact that
Bessie remained in control of the finances after remarrying suggests her
husband’s and father’s wills were written in such a way as to protect her interests,
along with those of her son by her first marriage. Having Bessie committed would
probably have left Harry worse off, because the money would have gone into a trust
for her son.
You mentioned that the city of Newport played a role
in slavery. Were slaves brought into the country via Newport? Was it an open
practice or were they smuggled in? Are there tunnels under other cottages?
First let me say the tunnel depicted beneath Arleigh is entirely
fictional. As for slavery, yes, Newport played a large role in slavery during
colonial times. Slaves were brought to the city and sold from there. Some
remained in Newport and the surrounding area, working on farms and in households,
while others were transported south. This was done openly, as at the time
slavery was legal and generally accepted. Many Newport sea merchants made their
fortunes in the Triangle Trade where slaves were transported from Africa to the
Caribbean to work on the sugar plantations and in the production of molasses.
The molasses was then distilled into rum and sold throughout the colonies. There
was an old rumor that tunnels existed below Touro Synagogue, used to smuggled
enslaved people out of Newport and to freedom, but it’s been proven that no
such tunnels ever existed there. Other tunnels may have been used to elude the
British tax collectors before and during the Revolution.
Was the Canfield case real? Was Reggie involved?
Yes, the Canfield Case involved illegal gambling practices and the
swindling of patrons at a casino in Saratoga Springs, NY, in 1903. Reggie was
involved and was subpoenaed to testify for the prosecution, but as a witness
and a victim, not as a culprit. Not wishing to become any more involved than he
already was and wanting to avoid the publicity of what was a very public trial,
he fled New York to avoid the summons. This is why he and his young bride,
Cathleen, married in Newport and not in New York City, as would have been more
fashionable.
There were two facts you presented in your notes
that brought this story full circle. The first was that Reggie was Gloria
Vanderbilt’s father, but the woman he marries in this book isn’t Gloria’s
mother. What happened?
Reggie and Cathleen, his first wife,
divorced in 1919. Apparently, in 1912 Reggie abandoned Cathleen and their
daughter in Paris without leaving them a dime to get by on. By then it would
have been quite clear to Cathleen that Reggie was a hopeless gambler and
alcoholic. That the couple had only one child is perhaps a hint that their
relationship had essentially fallen apart years earlier, and one can only
assume the lingering stigma over divorce is all that prevented Cathleen from
suing Reggie for divorce sooner than she did. It was four years after the
divorce, in 1923, that Reggie married the beautiful socialite, Gloria Morgan,
who was eighteen at the time, just as Cathleen had been at her wedding. Reggie
and Gloria would also have only one child, Gloria Vanderbilt. But their
marriage was short-lived. Reggie died in 1925 from advanced cirrhosis of the
liver, leaving his wife to battle the Vanderbilt family, and specifically
Reggie’s sister, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, over custody of Little Gloria.
The other fact, which I looked up in Kindle—Bessie
eventually wrote a book about Harry after he died in 1929. It also must have
been after her mother died, wasn’t it? I can’t imagine her outing so much
publicly, and yet she did. The book is titled, “King Lehr” and the Gilded
Age. Did she pose that Harry was homosexual? Do you know the public
reaction to the book?
King Lehr and the Gilded Age was published long after Bessie’s
mother had died. In it she implies that her husband was gay, but only in so
many words. But while it’s never clearly stated, the reader is left in little
doubt. I’ve read that at the time, the book was termed “devastating” in the
press, and that it “depicted the extravagances of a society which can now seem
only empty and a little vulgar.” But WWI and the Depression had changed society
drastically, chipping away the gilded veneer to show the scars and warts
beneath. Twenty or thirty years earlier, this book undoubtedly would have shocked,
scandalized, and enraged members of society. But by 1935, the year of
publication, people had become pretty disillusioned and world-weary.
The real Arleigh House no longer exists. Who was it
owned by and what happened to it? Are you running out of “cottages?”
Although Arleigh is a lesser known Newport Cottage, it has an
interesting history. Originally, a different house stood there and was known as
Parker Cottage. A Mrs. Mary Matthews (the longtime mistress of Isaac Singer of
the Singer Sewing Company) bought the property in 1893 and replaced the old
house with Arleigh, designed in the Queen Anne style. Unfortunately, she died
before the house was completed and her daughter, Florence Ruthven-Pratt,
inherited. She and her husband didn’t care for Newport society, however, and so
the house began a long history of being leased by a series of illustrious tenants,
including the Lehrs, until the early 1930s. At that time Mrs. Ruthven-Pratt simply
stopped paying the taxes on the property. The house was sold at auction and almost
immediately – and suspiciously – burned to the ground. Today, a nursing home
occupies the property. You ask if I’m running out of cottages. Not yet!
What’s next for Emma and Derrick?
Their adventures continue only several weeks later, in the summer
of 1903. Silver heiress Theresa Fair Oelrichs, or Tessie as she was known to
her friends (yes, there’s Bessie and Tessie), holds her glorious “White Ball,”
where not only are the elaborate floral decorations pure white, but the gowns
worn by the women guests as well, with most men sporting white vests and
bowties. This all-white theme – thought up by none other than Harry Lehr – included
swans in the fountain and white yachts floating offshore beyond the cliffs. The
evening is magical, until an uninvited guest makes an outrageous claim about
Tessie and threatens to topple her well-ordered world. Did I mention there’s a
fountain on the property? By the end of the evening, there’s more than swans
floating in its bubbling water.
As Emma investigates to find the culprit, she finds herself
struggling with the wealth she now enjoys as the result of an inheritance from
her Uncle Cornelius and her marrying Derrick. The events at Rosecliff lead her
to question whether wealth will change her values as it has for so many members
of the Four Hundred, who often seem shallow and insincere to her. It forces her
to look deeper at her own life and theirs, and perhaps draw some new
conclusions. She’s also running into resistance when it comes to the new school
for girls she and husband Derrick wish to build. Many in town oppose the idea
of teaching girls the same curriculum as boys; they also resist the idea of
Emma, a woman, taking the reins on the project rather than allowing Derrick to
handle things. How will she find an architect willing to work with her? Emma is
nothing if not resourceful, and she certainly never takes no for an answer!
Bio:
Alyssa Maxwell is the
author of The Gilded Newport Mysteries and A Lady and Lady’s Maid Mysteries,
with over twenty books in print. The Gilded Newport series was inspired by her
husband’s deep Newport roots, which go back numerous generations. Murder at The
Breakers, the first book in that series and a USA Bestseller, has been adapted
for television by the Hallmark Mystery Channel. Maxwell and her husband recently
moved across the country from Florida to California, where they continue to
enjoy their favorite activities: antiquing, bike riding, and hiking (sort of)
in nature preserves. She is a member of the Mystery Writers of America and
Sisters in Crime. For more about Alyssa and her books, please visit http://alyssamaxwell.com and the following links:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AlyssaMaxwellauthor
Instagram: http://instagram.com/alyssamaxwellauthor
Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/alyssa-maxwell
Threads: https://www.threads.net/@alyssamaxwellauthor
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7163135.Alyssa_Maxwell
