The Jewel Cage

by Jane Steen

  “Teddy agrees that I can take you to the store tomorrow,” I hastened to tell her. “For clothes.”

  The long lashes swept down in acknowledgment. “I would hate to make you look bad in front of your fine friends.” And then, as if it had been forced out of her: “I didn’t realize you lived like this.”

  “Our house in Aldine Square was a little less—lavish.” I sounded defensive. “Mr. Palmer loves ornamentation.”

  “Well.” Thea looked at the bed piled high with soft pillows, a down comforter, and a beautifully embroidered counterpane I’d found for her in preference to the Palmer House’s version, which I’d thought too staid. Her face was now quite white. “May I please be left on my own for a while?”

  “Come on, Teddy.” Sarah’s joy in displaying our hospitality to Thea had deflated. “Let’s go sit with Tess for a spell.”

  I did my best to keep up a cheerful demeanor as we gathered around the empty fireplace in the parlor, but I kept glancing toward the closed door that led to Thea’s room. I had fulfilled my duty to Catherine—but just how much trouble was this new responsibility about to bring down on the heads of all those I held dear to my heart?

  “We’ll have this run up for you by this afternoon.” I handed Thea the rapid sketch I’d made while two assistants were measuring her. “It’s based on standard pattern pieces, and for a little decoration I’ve added the ribbon fob, which we’ll pin with a silver clasp. Do you have it, Miss Chocomowski?”

  “Right here, Mrs. Rutherford.” Miss Chocomowski, a rather shy girl but an excellent and promising apprentice, blushed as she handed me two boxes. “Mr. McCombs picked out the little brooch to match it.”

  “How kind of him,” I said, opening the second box. Thea had her arms in the air as the two ladies passed the tape measure around her tiny waist, so I merely tipped the boxes toward her. “They’re pretty, aren’t they?”

  Thea stared at the matching set of pins, small flowers on an incised background. “It’s been a long time since I wore any jewelry.”

  “Don’t you have any from Kansas?”

  “None worth keeping.” She looked as if she were about to say more but then remembered the assistants and reddened.

  “When you’re done,” I told my ladies, “please make a copy and take it to Miss O’Regan. Tell her we need a complete set of all the necessaries—corsets, combinations, stockings, nightclothes, and everything else a young lady might require. The petticoats with black ribbons for mourning, of course.”

  I seated myself again, watching in silence as the ladies finished the measurements and helped Thea back into her shabby black dress.

  “We’ll have you dressed from the skin out by the end of the day. The boots will take a little longer, of course.” I watched the young girl’s face for a moment. “We’re quite used to ladies coming from the frontier or newly come into wealth or working girls who have saved for a special ensemble. You mustn’t think all our customers are wealthy.” I smiled. “We will dress anyone who can afford to pay us. Some young ladies bring us a little money every week till they have enough—we enjoy surprising them by showing them we can stretch their dollars farther than they imagined.”

  Thea nodded. She had been quiet since her arrival at the hotel; she had eaten with us and then retired to her room again. I had arranged with her to come to the store early.

  “I think coffee and a pastry would be in order, don’t you?” I consulted my timepiece. “We’ve been hard at work for two hours, and neither of us had breakfast. We don’t have a restaurant in this temporary store, but I can send down to the staff canteen for something—let’s eat in my room as a treat.”

  Thea looked at me from under her eyelashes. “Are you ashamed of being seen with me?”

  “You must know I’m not.” I felt my shoulders slump in dismay. “I just understand what it’s like to be in a new place and not feel you belong. We came straight from Kansas to the Palmer House—I’d been a working seamstress, and suddenly I was a lady of leisure, and I didn’t entirely enjoy it. You’ve had responsibilities and hardships, and now you’re torn away from everything you’ve known and thrown on what must seem like our charity.”

  “Seem like?” The derision in Thea’s tone spoke volumes.

  “I don’t see it that way. I view it as repayment of a debt to your mother—for everything she did for me.” I took a deep breath before continuing. “At the Poor Farm. She was gracious and kind at a time when I had no reason to expect grace and kindness.”

  “Yes, my mother was a saint. As was my father. That’s what everyone said.” Thea stood up. “I think some coffee would be nice.”

  “Who are those women?” Thea flicked a finger toward a line of young ladies assembled at one end of the large room we were traversing.

  “Ah.” I felt a surge of interest. “Those must be the house models Madame hired.” I stopped to scrutinize them from a distance. “I’ve been away, you understand, because of Sarah having the mumps, so I haven’t met them yet. I see she’s had dresses made up for them.” The ladies were, from what I could observe from our vantage point, all handsome but of various types—tall and petite, dark and fair, softly rounded and willowy. I presumed Madame had selected the dresses. The choice was clever, showing the main lines of the fall offerings in day and evening wear. I was beginning to see the point of the scheme.

  “They work here?” It was the first time I’d seen Thea interested in something since we’d arrived at the store.

  “It’s an innovation based on the House of Worth in Paris,” I explained. “As well as displaying our dresses on dress forms on the sales floor, we will employ living models so that the gowns can be shown in movement. I presume they’re waiting there to start rehearsals. Madame says we are selling the dream of beauty, so they must learn to move like—what was it she said? Feathers, I think it was. No—swansdown. I pity them.”

  “Why?” Seeing that the models were beginning to notice us, Thea moved toward the door, and I followed.

  “Well, for having to parade up and down all day pretending to be swansdown. It sounds like hard work to me.”

  Thea turned toward me, and something like a smile curved her lips. “It’s hard work to lift or clean or chop or darn or hoe. How can it be hard to be paid to walk around in nice clothes? To not even speak? To be not there, not yourself, just a dream in somebody else’s head?”

  “To wait around for hours until called for, to be told where to go and what to do.” I laughed. “If you really want an easy life, I suppose you could do what the Prairie Avenue girls do.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “Be pretty, sing and draw well, speak nicely, and have perfect manners—and wait for a handsome young gentleman to propose to them. Or at least one with money.”

  “But then you have to be married.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “And you’re not interested in the married state?”

  “You have to do what your husband says—and wants.” Thea pursed her lips prettily. “And go where he goes. And bear his children.”

  “And you don’t want that.” I looked at Thea with renewed interest.

  “I don’t want to find myself trapped anyplace I don’t want to be. Never again.”

  13

  The Jewel Box

  Elizabeth Fletcher met Thea when she and David went with us to the theater to celebrate their return from their honeymoon tour.

  “She really is awfully pretty.” Elizabeth’s bright blue eyes fixed on Thea, to whom I had introduced her five minutes earlier. We had just entered the small auditorium of the Jewel Box Theater; Thea’s face, so often sullen, brightened as she studied the plum-colored velvet of the curtain, lit by a row of footlights.

  “She’s awfully hard to please.” I lowered my voice so that only Elizabeth would understand. “I hesitated over bringing her because she’s in mourning, but I was desperate to find something she might be interested in. Nothing’s worked so far.”

  “I declare
she’s interested now.” Elizabeth watched as Martin helped Thea into her seat. “Quite an inspiration of Tess’s to come to this new theater. And I’m so happy you asked us to accompany you.”

  “I wanted to see you.” I squeezed my friend’s arm. “You seem well—marriage suits you, then?”

  “Goose, you know it does. And I can detect the indelicate inference behind your carefully chosen words. It suits me just fine.”

  “I’m indelicate? What a confession.” I gave Elizabeth the tiniest poke with my fan. “Let’s stick to subjects suitable for polite company. How do you like housekeeping?”

  “Oh, Mother has taught me how to handle servants. The ones she hired for us are well-behaved. I seem to have little to do except look pretty for David. Which reminds me: I need some new gowns. That long bodice is so flattering. I declare Miss Thea looks much older than fifteen—when she remembers not to scowl or hunch her shoulders. I can almost hear Mother hissing ‘deportment’ at me at that age. You must cure her of that before you put her in a lower-cut gown.”

  “Yes, it’s as well the deep décolleté of our mothers’ youth isn’t modish right now.”

  I gazed at Thea, admiring my handiwork. In the days since her arrival, I’d provided her with two more dresses, including the evening gown she wore. Because of her youth, I’d lightened her mourning a little by adding small white frills to the heavily pleated cuffs that fell just below her elbow and to the deep, narrow V of the neckline. A short train gave the gown added dignity. Thea wore long white gloves and carried a white fan bordered in black ribbon. Alice had arranged her hair into a becomingly modest mass of shining auburn, tied with a broad band of black velvet.

  “Where’s Tess?” I looked around for my friend. “I must tell her what an excellent idea this was. Some ladies we call on told her about this theater.”

  “She’s over there with David.” Elizabeth agitated her fan. “I’ve been told about the Jewel Box too. Apparently, it’s quite the latest thing, and considered most cultured and respectable—for Chicago anyway. But there’s a rumor about—”

  A gong sounded somewhere in the vicinity to warn us to take our seats. I took my place next to Martin and smiled at Tess, whose pink gown made a pleasing contrast to my gray silk. Tess still wore mourning for Catherine in the daytime but refused my offer to make her a dark evening dress, saying dull colors aged her.

  “You see, Nell, I do have good ideas.” Tess looked pleased with herself. “Young girls need treats, don’t they?”

  “I suppose they do.”

  “The Prairie Avenue ladies said Mr. Canavan is a treat for the eyes.” Tess showed me where the name “Victor Canavan” was emblazoned across the bill of entertainment. “But he’s a most pure soul because he comes from Europe, and they’re much more refined there.”

  I doubted that, but I let the comment ride and settled myself back into my seat, grateful for the disappearance of the wretched bustle that used to make sitting such an awkward business.

  The play’s title was The Catch. Unlike the general practice in so many Chicago theaters, no singing acts, performing dogs, or acrobats preceded the main attraction. In addition, the tickets cost more than usual so that the audience mostly comprised the best society of Chicago. I even glimpsed one or two matrons known to disapprove of theatrical entertainments.

  The play was as airy as spun sugar, a confection of brilliant epigrams and humorous coincidences. It told the story of a young man pursued by half-a-dozen young women, all of them beauties, with a view to matrimony. Complication built upon complication, the man evading all the young ladies’ attempts to capture his heart until eventually—and by a series of clever twists—the young ladies met, realized they had all experienced the same lack of success, and found sympathy and friendship in their lamentations. At this point, the young man arrived, explained he had felt unable to bestow his heart on any of the ladies because he’d been affianced to a lady in another city, but she had jilted him, and he was now able to declare his choice.

  The young man, of course, was Victor Canavan, the actor whose name featured so prominently on the bill of entertainment. He had also written the play and was the manager of the theater. It didn’t take me long to realize he’d given himself most of the best lines, the rest of the good ones falling to a tall, blond, rather doll-like actress listed as Miss Paulina Dardenne. She, naturally, was Mr. Canavan’s ultimate choice, although why he should settle on the most vapid example of womanhood on the stage perplexed me. I said so to Elizabeth as the last of the applause faded away and the gaslights in the auditorium flared to life.

  “Because she was the sweetest and most admiring among them all, I suppose.” Elizabeth grinned up at her new husband. “Men love women who adore them without question.”

  “If I wanted slavish adoration, I would acquire a dog.” David Fletcher tucked Elizabeth’s hand under his arm with the pleasantly decided air that I had always liked about him. “I much preferred the women with opinions.”

  “They were all so beautiful.” Tess’s small teeth showed in an eager smile. “And everyone loved the play, didn’t they? People laughed so. I laughed and laughed when he said he wished he could divide himself into six and marry each one, but—what did he say, Nell?”

  “Something along the lines that no woman of worth would ever be satisfied with one-sixth of a man’s attention since no woman is ever satisfied with even seven-sixths,” I said. “I’m probably getting it wrong.”

  “He said it funnier,” Tess agreed. “He really was very funny, wasn’t he? Clever funny, I mean.”

  “Did you like the play, Miss Lombardi?” David, finding Thea standing next to him, addressed himself to her politely. “Did it compare well to others you have seen?”

  “We didn’t have such things in the wilds of Kansas.” Thea’s tone was quite neutral. I was glad it was David who had asked her opinion, as she generally responded more kindly to men and saved the sharp edge of her tongue for her female acquaintances. “Besides, my father didn’t approve of theatrical entertainments. So I can make no comparisons. I can only say that I could have happily left this real world behind and stepped into that artificial one.”

  “Is that a fact?” David, as was his wont, treated Thea’s words with serious gravity. “It was certainly artificial. Such a beautiful room could hardly exist in real life. Perhaps the Silk Room at the old Rutherford’s store came close.”

  “Ah, my new store will outdo even that fine creation.” Martin didn’t resist the lure of such a compliment. “Joe is a master at setting a stage too—you’ll see. But I have to admit I’ve never seen so harmonious a background. It was cleverly done, wasn’t it, Nell?”

  “I’ll admit I was studying the colors. I liked the way they used a restrained palette for the room and had all the young ladies in dresses of similar design, but each in a bright hue. The dresses weren’t well designed, but there was a clever concept behind them. They made me imagine gemstones on a necklace in that scene when they were all spread out across the stage.”

  “The jewels in the Jewel Box.” Martin moved toward the lobby. “With the hero in black velvet in the center, only the color of his cravat giving the clue as to which lady he would choose.”

  “I spotted that too.” Elizabeth looked pleased. “And such a handsome man.” Catching her husband’s swift glance, she included all the female contingent of our party in a sweeping gesture of inquiry. “Well, isn’t he?”

  “He’s beautiful,” Tess sighed.

  “You can’t call a man beautiful,” Thea said sharply. I imagined for a moment she was going to expand further on Tess’s error, but to my relief she continued: “He is handsome though. It’s so nice to see men dressed in fine clothes.” She smiled at Martin, batting her long eyelashes. “And I include present company in that remark.”

  With that sally, she turned and walked with stately steps toward the lobby. I had the distinct impression that she imagined herself on a stage.

  “You didn
’t find him handsome, did you, Nell?” Martin turned to me. “His hair is far too long.”

  “I believe that’s supposed to be artistic. I read something about it in one of my journals.” I had already decided that I absolutely refused to be bothered by Thea’s attempts at flirting with my husband.

  “Put him in buckskins and he’d be a frontiersman.” Martin rolled his eyes. “One who hadn’t seen a barber for weeks.”

  “Not with that exquisitely shaven chin.” I laughed at the exclamations of protest that Martin’s words had forced from Elizabeth and Tess. “It’s no good, Martin, you won’t persuade the ladies to think anything less of him.”

  “Hmph.” But Martin shrugged and smiled good-naturedly at me as we entered the lobby. Victor Canavan was, I supposed, superficially handsome—broad-shouldered, narrow-waisted, tall, with regular features. But weren’t those the typical attributes of a successful leading man? I had not been particularly struck by him.

  A squeak from Tess, quickly muffled, was followed by a tug on my free arm as we stepped into the lobby. Disengaging myself from Martin, I turned toward my friend.

  “He’s here.” Tess’s best attempt at a whisper was loud enough for all of us. “Over there!”

  I followed the direction of her finger and saw Mr. Canavan at the center of an adoring crowd. He was standing, I presumed, on a small platform built for the purpose, as his head and shoulders were quite visible. Beside him, in a similarly elevated position, stood Miss Dardenne, who on stage had been the fortunate recipient of Mr. Canavan’s eventual devotion. The faces of both actors showed traces of the hasty removal of stage cosmetics, but they did not fare too badly in ordinary gaslight. Mr. Canavan was animated, responding to the questions and remarks of his public in a way that appeared to delight them; Miss Dardenne’s expression, by contrast, remained somewhat impassive without any real spark in her large china-blue eyes.