I wasn't going to share the discovery of Eleanor and especially our communication with Edith or Elizabeth, as that would definitely raise questions that I didn't want to provide answers to.
Paula spent each night with me and in my bed... that week. I don't know if she was 'Marking her territory' by driving home the point that I was hers. It didn't matter. We had fun ... alone as much as we could tell.
We kept up our communications with Eleanor. However, with our crude and slow method, it took quite some time. We wanted to know, the true details of her life, however short and tragic as it was. To learn about her childhood in the City, how Rudolph came into her life, and then afterward to the night of her death... her murder... and it wasn't a pretty picture.
Before the depression, her dad worked as a factory worker. When the depression hit the country, the company pretty much shut down. Just getting food was an everyday struggle.
During the war, and with her dad overseas, Eleanor worked alongside her mom on the assembly lines supporting the war effort even though she was barely a teenager with 10 to 12-hour work days. With the two of them working they survived even to the point of slowly building some savings, meager as it was.
When she and her mom received word of her dad's death toward the end of the war, things went downhill and then the recession hit. Eleanor, being a very beautiful young single woman attracted the eyes of many in management as someone who they thought would make the company stand out at trade shows and business social gatherings.
Eleanor had been at a trade show that catered to industrialist types when her's and Rudolph's paths crossed one afternoon. Given his stature in the business world, he was able to find out who she was. He started to see her. Treating her to his side of society: business and social gatherings, plays, and restaurants.
Eleanor was not enamored with the man. To her, he was arrogant and domineering. It was either his way or the highway. She reluctantly went along with it, as her mother pushed her, telling her that it would guarantee a secure future for her to raise her children, even though, the thought of having sex with the man turned her stomach. But more importantly, Eleanor's mother looked at it as a way out of her own financial problems and never cared about the feelings or desires of her daughter.
Their engagement and wedding made all of the High Society papers and throughout the business world.
Eleanor desperately wanted out of the whole arrangement. There was no love on either side... she would be his young 'trophy' wife to accompany him on his many business social affairs. Every time she brought up that she wanted out of the arrangement to her mother, she was severely chastised and made to feel that 'here was a man who would grant her every desire like no other man ever could', adding that a lot of young women would welcome such an opportunity. Eleanor's answer was always simple and the same... 'Except love', which fell on deaf ears. She was doomed to be his plaything, an ornament on his arm, and a receptacle for the man's physical sexual release. Her only hope was that some way... somehow his remaining days on the earth were numbered and that his sexual needs would dwindle as he aged.
Eleanor knew nothing of the mechanics of sex, other than what her mother described as being her duty. She had figured that over the years Rudolph had his share of sexual partners and would make her at ease and as comfortable as could be expected. She hoped for the best.
Instead, her wedding night was a disaster ... painful, and uncaring. When it was over she was left feeling used; felt like nothing more than an object that Rudolph had purchased. The only saving grace that first night was that the act was completed in less than a minute and only one time that night.
Eleanor desperately wanted children. A child that she could pour her heart into. Devote her life to... someone to love and someone to return the love that she so desperately craved. To that end, Eleanor submitted to Rudolph's every sexual demand and at times initiated things, figuring that the sooner she became pregnant, the sooner she could rebuff his demands and plan the rest of her life with her child.
Unknown to Eleanor... Rudolph had had a vasectomy shortly after he decided to make Eleanor his wife. At his age, he had no desire to father a child.
One month led to two months. Eleanor cried at the start of each of her periods.
'That was impossible,' she thought as they had been having sex almost constantly except for the reprieve during her periods. She was a young fertile woman in her prime to conceive. It had to be something on his side.
Eleanor confronted Rudolph one evening about her not becoming pregnant in the last two months, given the amount of sexual activity that had been going on... that she had endured. He just laughed at her and coldly stated that he had been made sterile before they were even married. That he had no desire to father any children.
Eleanor was devastated. She locked herself in the massive bathroom and cried. All of her dreams smashed into a million pieces. She even contemplated slashing her wrists on many occasions. She was truly doomed to be his slave.
Over the next few weeks, Eleanor was drowned in a sea of depression as she was dragged along to smile and look pretty for Rudolph's business associates. It was at one of those social business gatherings that a young man, who was a bit older than she was by just a few years, caught her eye. As Eleanor held her gaze on the young man, he looked over, saw her looking at him, and smiled.
His name was Samuel Jennings. He was a junior partner in one of the businesses that was attending the banquet. During the evening, they would discreetly find each other's eyes and trade smiles. A couple of times Eleanor made an excuse to use the lady's powder room and was pleasantly pleased to find Samuel waiting outside the door when she came out. And then even more pleased when one time he guided her into the nearby coat room. At that moment Eleanor knew she had found the answer to her prayers.
Rudolph regularly took business trips lasting anywhere between two to five days, leaving Eleanor alone in the house with the maid. She had given Samuel the phone number for the house and told him to call the next week as Rudolph would be out of town.
The first phone call set things in motion down a path that would be her demise.
Eleanor swore the maid, Mary, to secrecy. Mary was totally aware of Eleanor's situation as Eleanor had confided in her about everything in her life including her being 'sold' to Rudolph by her mother and Rudolph's blunt statement on having made himself sterile. Eleanor had always felt comfortable with Mary, who was only five years older than she was and had lived under similar circumstances through the depression. She was Eleanor's only real friend who she treated as an equal and not as a servant.
When Eleanor told Mary of her plan to use Samuel to get herself pregnant, Mary first hugged her in delight, and kissed her cheek, but warned Eleanor of the repercussions with Rudolph. Mary knew Rudolph well enough that he would insist... no, demand, and if necessary, force her to get an abortion as he would have no 'bastard child' living under his roof.
Eleanor was undeterred. She figured, that if she had to she would simply run away when Rudolph was off on one of his extended business trips.
Rudolph was not high on Mary's most likable-people list. While he was polite to her in their daily dealings with each other, she was just a maid to him. To cook, clean, do laundry, and other lowly household tasks.
Eleanor was almost giddy after the phone call and then while she awaited the arrival of Samuel. Making no pretense on what was going to transpire that afternoon and well into the night, Eleanor immediately locked her lips around his, led him up to the master bedroom, and stripped.
