by Jane Steen
The Jewel Cage
Jane Steen
Contents
I. 1877
1. Absent friends
2. Cage
3. Donny
4. Wedding
5. Loss
6. Strike
7. Heroes
8. Negotiations
9. Likes
10. Man and woman
11. Responsibility
12. Guest
13. The Jewel Box
14. Manners
15. Breakage
16. Search
17. Inspiration
18. Forever more
19. Robber barons
20. Complications
21. Shopgirl
22. Nice things
II. 1878
23. Diligent idleness
24. Travel plans
25. Jealousy
26. Baubles
27. Crossing
28. New ideas
29. Return
30. Charity
31. Game of life
III. 1879
32. Innovation
33. Love
34. Substitute
35. Incubus
36. Lighter
37. Recovery
38. Trouble
39. Story
40. Idiots
41. Wisconsin
42. A man's choice
43. Intentions
IV. 1880
44. Arrangements
45. Sons and daughters
46. Wives and mothers
47. The bride
48. Inevitable
49. Vault
50. Darkness
51. Light
52. Contentment
The Scott-De Quincy Mysteries
Books by Jane Steen
From the author
Author’s note
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Part I
1877
1
Absent friends
July 1877
Madame Arlette Belvoix, the head of dressmaking in Rutherford’s department store, rarely greeted anyone when she entered a room. She merely waited until the sheer force of her personality impinged upon those present. She never interrupted, creating for herself an opportunity to observe the workers unseen.
This procedure naturally struck terror into the dressmaking staff. Those of us who knew Madame well had developed a defensive reflex, an intuition that alerted us to her silent presence. Without interrupting us, she caused us to interrupt ourselves.
Even I, a senior couturière and partner in Rutherford’s—not to mention the wife of its senior partner—was not immune to the chilling effect of Madame’s noiseless arrivals. When it came to dressmaking, the small Frenchwoman had absolute power by reason of her genius, and I, like the other partners, submitted to her authority absolutely.
I’d been in fine verbal flow as I discussed my friend Elizabeth Parnell’s wedding dress with Magda, one of our best embroiderers. But when my words began to stumble over one another and my concentration wavered, I recognized the symptoms. I looked up and rose to my feet.
“How can I help you, Madame?”
I pulled out a chair for my mentor and nodded at Magda, who had also risen. Magda dipped a tiny curtsey—in Madame’s direction, not mine—and glided away toward her work bench.
Madame ignored the proffered seat, and my heart sank a little lower in my chest. She had to tip her head back to gaze at me; the light from the atelier’s large windows enhanced the effect of her steel-ball irises, already deepened in hue by the sober navy-blue dress she wore.
“Please do me the honor of stepping into my room, Mrs. Rutherford.”
A smile of grandmotherly aspect and an encouraging tilt of her head accompanied the request. Neither smile nor tilt fooled me for an instant. They didn’t fool the other women either. The muted hum of conversation sank to a hush. Every worker bent her head to look at her work, and only her work.
I followed Madame to the tiny cupboard of a room she had claimed as her own, my mind whirring. Avoiding the books, journals, drawings, and fabric samples that had accumulated since last year’s fire, I sat on the hard, narrow chair that occupied the remaining piece of floor. Dismay stole over me, although I couldn’t, at that moment, have said why.
Madame seated herself opposite me and rested her elbows on her desk, spreading the fingertips of her small, precise hands and tapping them together. She smiled. “Is Miss Parnell’s wedding gown finished? The nuptials are just eight days away, n’est-ce pas?”
Did she think I was spending too long on Elizabeth’s dress? Or had she seen some flaw I’d missed? I tried to smile back. “I must do another fitting. Miss Parnell has lost flesh.”
“Better that than the other way around.” Madame’s eyes glinted with what was perhaps humor.
There were no flaws in the dress, I would swear by it. I had cut it myself, and in my mind’s eye saw every inch of silk damask, every stitch of the embroidery, every flutter of satin as Elizabeth walked up the aisle in her Lake Forest church. It would be magnificent.
Madame made a small noise in her throat. “And it has been only—what? Nine or ten weeks since your own wedding?”
“About that.” I glanced down at my left hand, where the rose-gold band Martin had slipped on my finger in May sat against the bright constellation of diamonds with which he’d marked our engagement in April.
“You have much to occupy your mind.”
Here was the clue, and I decided to get the worst over. “Have I forgotten something? I have, haven’t I? Something important.”
“Or somebody.” Madame raised her eyebrows like a teacher encouraging a rather slow pupil.
A cold weight settled in my chest, and a prickling sensation ran down my spine. I clapped both hands over my mouth.
“Bertha Palmer. Oh, glory.” I spoke through my fingers.
Madame nodded. “She came to the store in person to inquire after the sketches you promised her. For Friday.”
It was now Tuesday. Bertha Palmer was the queen of Chicago society—of all people to let down. But I was a member of Chicago society too, like her the wife of a wealthy merchant. I stiffened my spine and faced Madame squarely.
“Was she very cross?” I detected a trace of sardonic humor in my voice that would not have been there when I arrived in Chicago as an unknown dressmaker.
A little of the humor communicated itself to Madame’s expression, which softened a fraction. “Not very, and not at all after I finished talking to her. We should afford a new bride a little—what is the word?—leeway, especially a bride in your social position. Of course, it is a novel experience for these ladies to purchase gowns designed by someone on whom they pay calls.” She waved an expressive hand. “Although why it should be different when a woman has a profession . . .”
“It is though.” I felt the corners of my mouth turn down. “One lady I call on actually laughed out loud when she learned I would continue to work as a married woman.” I could hear her voice in my head: My dear, how democratic.
“And yet they have already solicited you to sit on their charitable committees?” This time Madame’s smile was genuine.
“Before we put away the wedding presents. I refused, of course. What with the new store still being built, and the new house, Martin’s so busy too. I must think of him now, as well as Sarah and Tess—”
“A woman carries many burdens.” Madame nodded, a trace of sympathy in her eyes. “Eh bien, I suppose I cannot fault your dedication to work since the two of you barely took time for a honeymoon. But you should make sure you do not forget your clients too often, Mrs. Rutherford.”
I rubbed my forehead with a hand that was a touch co
lder than usual. “You’re quite right. I’d better go home and send the sketches to Mrs. Palmer at once, with a note of apology. They’re on my desk. I was almost finished with them, but I kept worrying about the Lombardis. I’ve told you about my friends in Kansas, haven’t I? I put the drawings aside for a few minutes while I wrote another letter to Catherine, and I believe Martin came in and placed some architect’s drawings on top. I remember he wanted to talk to me about the new house.”
“The Lombardis—yes, the missionary family of whom you are so fond. You still have not heard from them?” A small frown appeared on Madame’s brow.
“No, and I’m dreadfully worried. If it weren’t for Elizabeth’s wedding, I’d be on my way to Kansas by now. I’ve received no communication from Catherine Lombardi for weeks—months—even when I wrote to her about our engagement. I’ve written to her four times since. I last heard from her in March, when she saw in the Chicago papers that the store burned down. Of course, I was ill then.” I touched the scar by my ear from where my hair had caught fire. “I waited to write back until I had some good news, but I’ve had no answer.”
“Could she be traveling?” Madame stood up, signaling that our meeting was drawing to an end, and I did the same.
“Perhaps,” I said. “If something had . . . happened to her, wouldn’t I have received word from Pastor Lombardi or Teddy? I can only hope they’re now on their way to Chicago after visiting elsewhere—maybe on the East Coast where their families are. I suppose I imagine that if I write enough letters, one will catch up with them. It’s more than a year since Catherine promised to come to Chicago for Lucy’s health.”
And the events of the last year had held me back from returning to Kansas. Only now, with Martin’s ordeal as a suspected murderer and the destruction of the store behind us, were my fears becoming difficult to live with. I regarded Catherine Lombardi as a second mother, and I wanted—needed—to be sure she and her family were safe.
I followed the small, plump figure of Madame Belvoix out into the corridor. As always, I felt the constriction of our temporary premises. Quite apart from the salespeople and clerks and maintenance people, we now had over three hundred employees on the dressmaking side. Seamstresses, cutters, toile makers, sewing machine operators, embroiderers, beaders, apprentices: they had shifts at different times, and the work Madame and I had done on simplifying and standardizing our pattern pieces had helped, but the demand for our dresses was immense and our staff growing apace.
We even employed dressmakers to work at night; it was surprising how many of Chicago’s wealthy women left important sartorial decisions till the last moment. We could produce a dinner gown in twenty-four hours—if the customer was ready to pay an outrageous price, and some were.
The gaslit corridor was overly warm, crammed with people rushing to their destination. Dark-clad shopgirls and male sales staff, clerks in sack coats and striped trousers, smartly dressed couturières and dressmaking assistants, embroiderers in light gray—it made it easier to see dropped needles and threads—and men in overalls jostled past one another with words of greeting, only to be swallowed by rooms or stairwells from which others were emerging. It wouldn’t be a moment too soon before the new store was ready.
It wasn’t until we were on the staircase and about to part company that a question occurred to me.
“Why didn’t you send someone to bring me downstairs when Mrs. Palmer arrived, Madame? I should have made my apologies in person.”
Madame halted, fixing me with a severe gaze.
“I will not countenance a partner in this store, a senior couturière, apologizing in front of our customers and staff. That would not do at all. We must protect your dignity, Mrs. Rutherford.”
“Good heavens.” I blinked. “Well, I owe you my thanks for that.”
“A letter to Mrs. Palmer accompanied by your excellent sketches will be thanks enough. A prompt letter,” Madame said with a regal air. “And you will kindly ask Mr. Rutherford to make himself available tomorrow at eight o’clock sharp. We must discuss the storage of the seed pearls, semi-precious stones, fine lace, and the like. It is imperative that we can get the dressmaking valuables out of the store next time there is a fire—it has been most inconvenient to rebuild my supplies.”
“Of course, Madame.”
“He will no doubt already be planning for the safekeeping of jewelry, with all the robberies this wicked town seems to suffer lately, but he must not neglect my stock.”
She resumed her descent to the sales floor, leaving me, as she often did, in some confusion as to who really ran the store that bore my married name.
It was late morning by the time I arrived in Aldine Square, so I wasn’t surprised to walk into a quiet house. The designs for Bertha Palmer were sitting on my workroom desk, now visible as Martin had taken away the architect’s plans. He too was busy; an observant man, he would normally notice my oversight.
Settling into my chair, I spared a glance at my cutting table, where the stacked pieces of a summer dress I was making for Sarah reproached me for my lack of attention to my daughter’s needs. Perhaps if I was very good and got the work for Bertha Palmer done quickly, I could treat myself to an hour with Sarah’s dress after luncheon? I presumed Tess and Sarah would return for the midday meal. We could eat together, and then maybe Tess would sit and talk to me as I sewed, perhaps help me by doing some basting, just like in the old days when we worked side by side, two friends as close as sisters . . .
I sighed as I pulled out my letter paper and searched for the pen with the best nib. The next hour flew by as I reviewed the sketches, added some finishing touches, and wrote an apologetic—but not groveling—note to Mrs. Palmer. After all, the Potter Palmers weren’t so very much wealthier than we were, and Madame was right: my dignity mattered too.
Having wrapped sketches and letter in brown paper tied up with string, I became far more cheerful. Especially when I heard the front door open below. Would it be Tess, returning from her outing to the market with our maid, Zofia? Or Sarah, back from her morning’s airing in the park with her governess, Miss Baker? I rose to my feet, parcel in hand, my step lightening and the corners of my mouth turning up as I almost ran onto the landing.
But it was neither Tess nor Sarah. Only one inhabitant of the house in Aldine Square took the stairs two at a time. Only one of us had long enough legs and the freedom from skirts that made such a speedy ascent possible. My smile widened into a grin.
“You needn’t run—I’m on my way down,” I said to the footsteps.
“Are you finished composing your craven apologies to Bertha Palmer?” came the amused voice of my husband from the floor below.
“Nothing craven is contained therein, thank you very much. If Bertha’s so eager to wear Lillington designs that she comes to the store in person, she’s hardly going to abandon the project. She told me my dresses are almost equal to Worth’s—and heaven knows they’re cheaper and don’t require to be shipped from Paris.”
“Almost equal?”
Another turn of the stairs brought Martin into view. He had stopped on the landing below, arms crossed as he contemplated my descent. I put an extra sway into my hips just to see the grin light up his face.
A pink line indented my husband’s forehead where he’d pushed his silk hat hard onto his head. I deduced he had been riding Gentleman, the gray horse that was his favorite mode of transport. He must have come from the store—from where else would he get the news that I’d returned home? Madame Belvoix might protect me from our customers, but she wouldn’t have kept the tale of my lapse from Martin.
“I don’t expect to equal Worth—not yet anyway.” I put the brown paper parcel down on the console table. “As Madame says, true mastery takes time.” Freed of my burden, I moved into the enfolding warmth of two long arms.
“Do you think Mrs. Power could rustle up some food straightaway?” asked Martin after greeting me with a prolonged, and most enjoyable, kiss. “I’m starving.�
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His stomach agreed with a sort of whine. I laughed and wriggled free of his embrace.
“You’ll have to wait until Tess and Sarah get home for luncheon.” I patted at my hair, which had become mussed, and picked up my parcel again, sniffing at the air. “I suspect Mrs. Power’s baking a meat pie.”
“That was my guess too, and that smell’s not helping. I feel like a famished wolf.” Martin gnashed his teeth in imitation of a hungry beast. I sighed.
“If you simply can’t wait five more seconds for food, I’ll see if Mrs. Power will spare a moment to put up a plate of cold beef and pickles.” I put my foot on the first stair downward. “I need to go down there anyway to give this parcel to Mr. Nutt—he should deliver it by hand.”
“O excellent wife, whose value is far greater than a whole heap of rubies.” Martin, moving toward his dressing room, blew a kiss at me.
“And never ask Mrs. Power to ‘rustle up’ food—you sound like a cowpoke asking for a plate of beans. Wherever do you get such dreadful slang?”
“Blame my ever-expanding frontier business. While I’m eating my pre-luncheon, would you look over the plans of the house with me? I’m considering adding a little annex; I have an idea for a billiard room . . .”