The Jewel Cage

by Jane Steen

  “But Thea hated having to work at the mission, didn’t she? And she didn’t want to do volunteer work when you suggested it.”

  “I don’t think she hated the actual work as much as she makes out. In fact, when I saw her at the mission, she seemed to enjoy being in charge. Biggest toad in the puddle, as Teddy said. And she was always a hard worker, even as a child. Good with her needle too.” I raised my eyebrows at Martin. “Do you see what I’m aiming at?”

  “It almost sounds like you’re going to offer her a job.” Martin steered me around some horse apples as we crossed Adams Street.

  “Precisely.”

  “But you saved her from having to look for employment by deciding she would move in with us.” Martin looked even more puzzled.

  “And I concede I was wrong,” I admitted. “At least I imagined she would love living as we do, and in many ways she does. She doesn’t like the Palmer House as much as I’d hoped, but that’s because she imagines the other guests are looking down on her.”

  “Whereas in fact they’re gawping at her for her pretty face and fine clothes. When she comes out of mourning, she’ll be the loveliest young lady in the entire place.” Martin winked at me. “Except you.”

  “Flatterer. It’s true that Thea doesn’t seem to mind wearing pretty clothes, but she’s finding it hard to settle down into society. She’s had too many years out in the wilds of Kansas while the other girls have had gossip and piano lessons.”

  “And giving her employment would solve this?”

  “It’s worth asking her if it might. We will lose nothing by asking, and this is the ideal time since we’re hiring more people for the new store. Including very young ladies as apprentices.”

  Martin, who had been watching the carriages on State Street, decided the opportune moment to cross had come and grasped my elbow. We moved as rapidly as we were able across the wide street toward the cliff-like façade of the Palmer House.

  “Just consider,” I pointed out once we were back on the sidewalk, “with Thea’s looks, she could easily become a shopgirl. She’s neat and clean and speaks well. We must try her out in a few departments—”

  “You’re building castles in the air.” Martin made a dismissive gesture. “She’ll never agree to it. I still reckon we should offer to send her to a young ladies’ finishing academy somewhere out east.”

  “Well, we’ll put that idea to her as an alternative. That will make it seem less like we want to send her away.”

  “Brace yourself if you want to talk to her.” Martin made a pantomime of squaring his shoulders as we headed toward the entrance door. “Either she’ll throw something again or she’ll show polite interest and you’ll faint from surprise. But I don’t think you have a hope of success.”

  “There’s no harm in trying.” The thought of taking action had put a spring in my step.

  “There’s no harm in shooting an arrow into the air above an empty field either.” Martin shivered as a gust of wind hit us, and he towed me through the door, smiling a greeting to the doorman. “You have a faint chance of hitting the right blade of grass.”

  18

  Forever more

  “No.” Teddy half rose from his chair as Thea finished speaking.

  “That wasn’t what we agreed.” Martin was also staring at Thea. “We offered you a position as an apprentice, nothing more.”

  “But I want to be a house model.” Thea held Teddy’s gaze, her tone one of utmost reasonableness, but my eyes narrowed. She was making mischief, I was sure.

  To Martin’s complete astonishment—and mine, if I were to be honest—Thea had not met my proposal of employment with derision. She had listened carefully and asked some rather intelligent questions about the work involved. Our stipulation that we must consult Teddy before we made any change produced a black scowl, but she had agreed.

  Now we sat in the parlor at the Palmer House, engaged in negotiations, and I was wondering what Thea was up to.

  “You don’t even know what a house model is,” Thea said to Teddy.

  “It’s like an artist’s model, isn’t it?” Teddy looked at me, radiating disapproval.

  “You see, you have no idea.” Thea’s grin was faintly malevolent. “I’m quite surprised you’ve even heard of artist’s models, Teddy.”

  “It’s not a bit like an art model,” I said hastily. “House models wear clothes. The clothes I design, in fact. The point is to show the gowns to potential customers more effectively. It’s done in the House of Worth and a few other dressmakers’ establishments in Paris. It’s perfectly respectable.”

  “And we are not proposing to employ Thea as a house model.” Martin gave Thea a severe look. “She’s far too young, and that work requires training in dancing, deportment, and so on.”

  “I knew it wasn’t respectable.” Teddy glowered. “Pa would have fifty fits if I let her dance around in front of people like a saloon girl.”

  “But Teddy,” I remonstrated, “if Thea continued to live with us, she’d have to attend a dance occasionally. It’s how young people get acquainted with one another.”

  “How do you know what a saloon girl does, Teddy?” Thea’s eyes were bright with malicious mischief. I was beginning to wonder if she’d agreed to consider our offer just so she could provoke Teddy.

  “I’ve spoken to soiled doves in Kansas.” Teddy’s cheeks flamed crimson. “I’ve tried to get them to see the error of their ways.”

  “Error?” Thea’s face hardened. “What’s so stupid about taking money out of the pockets of men who don’t deserve to have it? We all listened to the cowpokes—weeks on the trail earning money, and then they’d spend all of it on whiskey and girls. The girls were the smarter ones.”

  “How can you call them smart?” Teddy’s face was now entirely red. “Those girls were always in some man’s power. They got sick, and they got beat up, and they got landed with some man’s by-blow—” He stopped, chewing at the inside of his cheek. By his glance at me, I could tell he was thinking of Sarah.

  Martin used the pause to regain control of the conversation. “We did offer an alternative plan to Thea. A finishing school for young ladies—out east, probably.” He looked down at his fingers for a second before engaging Teddy’s gaze. “But that would involve dancing too. I’m sorry if you consider we’re being a bad influence.”

  “I don’t wish to go to a finishing school,” Thea stated flatly. “I’m done with school, and the girls will be silly and spoiled.”

  “She doesn’t get on too well with the daughters of our acquaintances,” I said to her brother. “It’s hard for her to find common ground with girls who’ve not experienced hardship and hard work. In our store, she would work as a junior—an apprentice—with other young ladies who have shown some talent or aptitude. They’re from modest families and need to earn a living, but they are a cut above the other girls their age. Like Thea, they’re intelligent and well-spoken. Becoming an apprentice is the first step on a path upward. Dressmaking is a respectable trade, and one of the few employments where a young woman can gain some refinement and acquire skills she can use after marriage. And if Thea wants to be a shopgirl instead of a dressmaker, she will learn poise and address.”

  “She needs to learn how to keep house.” Teddy folded his arms.

  “I know how to keep house,” Thea flashed back, spots of color appearing on her cheeks. “What do you imagine I was doing when I wasn’t teaching school? What I need is to learn to fit somewhere in this city you brought us to.”

  “But you’re proposing to fit in as a clothes-horse—”

  “Oh, Teddy.” Thea gave a deep sigh, and to my surprise she smiled. “You’re so easy to tease. I realize I can’t be a house model. But wouldn’t you let me be an apprentice? Just think, I will earn money I can put by.”

  I was immediately on the alert. What was the child up to? She had switched in an instant from provoking rudeness to sweet reasonableness, playing Teddy like a fish on a line. At her
age, I too imagined I could bend the world to suit me, but had I been this good at manipulating others?

  “Well . . .” Teddy appeared to soften. I realized that Thea’s strategy was carefully reckoned—first to anger her brother, then to appear to make a huge concession to his wishes. She must really want the job we’d offered her.

  “She’ll still live with you, won’t she?” Teddy looked at me.

  “I’d much rather live in the residence.” Thea smiled at Teddy again. “No offense to Mr. and Mrs. Rutherford, of course, but perhaps I can make friends better if I live with the other girls.”

  “We have more than one residence for single women now.” Martin smiled encouragingly at Teddy. “I’ve already told Thea how strictly run this one is—it’s for the youngest girls. She might wish she were at that school.”

  “Morning and evening prayers, of course, and mandatory attendance at a church of the girls’ choice,” I added. “The girls must only go out in pairs or more, and they all have to be back in the residence by sunset. Any infringement of the rules results in dismissal from Rutherford’s. And absolutely no gentleman visitors.”

  “It’s a system we set up after the fire, when we didn’t have space in the temporary store for dormitories.” Martin grinned. “It’s worked so well that we only have two dormitories in the new store for special circumstances. It does no harm that all the properties I’ve bought are in good locations and are an excellent investment.”

  “We have so many young men and women working for us now that it’s practical,” I said. “Most of our ladies have their own homes, but there are always a few of the young ones who’d rather be in a residence with all their meals and laundry provided. We find a good housekeeper for each house, and they pretty much run themselves.”

  “You see? I’ll be safe and happy.” Thea rose, picking up the coffeepot that sat in the middle of the table. “Would you like some more coffee, Teddy?”

  “I’m still not quite sure how Thea got Teddy to agree. I was convinced at one point that he’d insist she be locked in a convent.”

  I ran my fingers through the curls that cascaded down over my shoulders and yawned behind my hand. We had retired early, fatigued from the strain of the meeting with Teddy. Martin was settled in an armchair in our bedroom, the light from the gas jet above him gleaming on the dark red silk of his paisley dressing gown as he perused a closely printed column in the Chicago Tribune.

  He looked up at me and smiled. “I would suggest that marriage would be Teddy’s idea of a suitable mode of confinement, but then you might get all prickly again.”

  “I refuse to be prickly tonight.” I sank into the depths of the matching armchair with a sigh of relief, comfortable in my nightgown and wrapper. “Somehow we’ve snatched victory from the jaws of defeat—am I saying that right? At least Thea has. I’m quite proud of her for not gloating. She seemed almost subdued at dinner, didn’t she?” I slipped my feet out of my slippers and drew them up onto the seat of the chair, looping my arms around my legs and burying my forehead in the silk of my wrapper. My hair fell forward in a heavy mass, smelling of lemon and herbs from the oil Alice combed through it.

  “We’re the biggest winners of all, if you ask me.” My husband’s voice rose above the sound of my own breath. I heard him stand and felt his fingers comb through my thick tangle of curls. “Just imagine being able to come home to smiles instead of tears and black looks. I’m not a praying man as a general rule, but I just sent a request upward that Thea be very happy in the residence.”

  I uncurled myself and leaned back, blinking at him. “I prayed fervently while I was bathing,” I admitted with a grin.

  “And now we can move into our own new home in peace. You’re a genius, Nellie. I can’t wait till we’re curled up together on our own Chesterfield settee in front of our own fire.”

  He stopped playing with my hair and stroked my face. “I want it to be a happy home, Nellie. For Tess and Sarah too, but especially for you. You’ve had far too much to do lately, and there are dark shadows under your eyes. You don’t have to feel under an obligation to hold a Thanksgiving dinner.”

  “But I want to, and besides, all I have to do is plan the meal and instruct the servants.” I put a hand on Martin’s. “Just a small dinner for a few friends, a token of the peace and harmony that will reign between us.”

  “Forever more.” Martin’s warm fingers curled around mine.

  “Forever more.” I closed my eyes, which were indeed weary. Let it be so, I whispered in my heart. If only Thea could be happy.

  19

  Robber barons

  Thea moved to the residence the following Wednesday; two weeks later, we were in our new house on Calumet Avenue.

  “The thing I like about Thanksgiving is that you don’t need to give presents to anyone.” Tess was pulling open the drawers of one of the three sideboards that graced our new dining room and shutting them again. She frowned. “Nell, I can’t find anything.”

  “Alice might know. Oh no—I expect we have to ask Mrs. Hartfield now.” Our new house contained a new housekeeper, a dignified, reserved Connecticut woman who, according to Martin, had come highly recommended.

  I crossed to the sideboard where Tess stood and ran a hand over the gleaming wood. “I suppose we don’t need to know where anything is.”

  Tess looked up at me, dismay on her face. “We’re awful grand now, aren’t we, Nell?”

  “We are, rather.” My reflection stared at me from the mirror over the sideboard, pale-faced and blue-eyed. I put an arm around my friend’s shoulders and smiled at our mirror-selves. “We can still be us though. We needn’t put on airs and graces because we have a large residence. This is what Martin considers suitable for his family, and I’m determined to love it.”

  “Aileen says such a house is a wicked extravagance.” Tess turned away from our reflection and crossed to another sideboard. Aileen had been all smiles when we’d invited Tess’s family to see our home, but I might have known she wouldn’t spare Tess the benefit of her opinions even if she knew that Tess would repeat them to me.

  “Da says that if it’s honestly come by, wealth is no sin, and we should rejoice in the good fortune God has meted out to us.” Tess opened another drawer. “I reminded Aileen of what Jesus said in the seventh chapter of the book of Matthew about not judging others, and Aileen said Martin is a robber baron who drinks French brandy while the workers are starving. I said that Martin doesn’t drink brandy and—oh! Here are some knives and forks, but they’re not the pretty new silver ones.”

  “Those are probably in the silver safe.” I closed my eyes for a second, thanking Providence that Tess’s family had declined our invitation to Thanksgiving dinner.

  “We have a silver safe?” Tess turned to look at me, her eyes round. “Like the big safe Martin has in his office?”

  “Well, no, it’s a sort of large pantry with a big lock on the door. I’ll get Mrs. Hartfield to show it to you.”

  “We need an entire room for our flatware?”

  “And the punch bowls and the tea service and coffee service and finger bowls and sugar baskets and ice cream dishes and every imaginable kind of knife, fork, or spoon.” I pulled out one of the dining chairs and sat down, gazing up at the polished mahogany beams that crisscrossed the ceiling. “And more other items than I could count. Martin had it all sent from Tiffany in New York.”

  “Is that where the coffeepot disappeared to?” Tess asked. “I wondered about that. Nell, this house is very confusing.”

  “We’ll get used to it.” I pulled a list from my pocket and contemplated it. “Compared to Martin and Lucetta’s house on Prairie Avenue, this one’s quite restrained. Aileen should have seen that house.”

  “What does restrained mean?” Tess asked.

  “Not too big or extravagant. The Prairie Avenue building has seventeen different kinds of marble, I’ve heard. Of course I was only there once, and I didn’t pay overmuch attention to the marble.”r />
  “I do like my room.” Tess sat down too and clapped her hands at the notion of the pink-and-white bower that was now her domain. “When Martin uncovered my eyes and I saw it, I thought I would faint. My own bathroom and a sitting room! Aileen says it’s too big for one person, but I love it. Billy says it’s grand and I should be proud of it, so I should. Is Donny going to sit next to me at the Thanksgiving dinner?” She looked pointedly at my list.

  I bit my lip. “Donny says he’s eating downstairs with Alphonse Capell and the other household staff.”

  “But he’s not a servant.” Tess raised her chin and glared at me.

  “He’s not a family member either, and he seems to think his place is downstairs. He does work for us, after all.”

  “Who else is coming?”

  I looked down at my list, which did not have Donny’s name on it. “Apart from the four of us, there’s Joe and Leah Salazar and their three children, Madame Belvoix—I’m surprised she accepted—Elizabeth and David, and Mr. and Mrs. Parnell because their other children aren’t able to join them in Lake Forest this year.” I surveyed the twenty chairs ranged around the dining table, counting people in my head. “Oh, and Thea and Teddy, of course.”

  Tess’s glare intensified. “But Thea and Madame and Mr. Salazar work for you. Why are they invited and Donny is not?”

  A dull ache somewhere over my right cheekbone hinted at the beginning of a headache. The new store was to open on the twentieth of November, a mere week away, and Martin was so busy he was barely at home. Right now, I would have welcomed his presence.

  I drew a deep breath. “Joe Salazar is a partner, Tess, not an employee. And yes, theoretically Madame Belvoix is an employee, but Martin would make her a partner tomorrow if she’d let him. She prefers to stay exactly where she is. And as for Thea, we took her in to live with us—”

  I stopped, feeling the foundation of my argument crumble under my feet.