“So, who was that gentleman who tipped his cap?” Yardley asked. “Another of your admirers, Miss Ella?”
I should have known he’d see that. Here be dragons. “Close enough.”
Hetty glanced at me and let it pass.
“So tell us about the baseball game.” Tommy must have really wanted to change topic. He is probably the only man in New York who is not a passionate baseball fancier–and the game was more than a week away still. Even Father Michael follows the unfortunate Giants. Not just men: my singing partner Marie and her family, as proud Brooklynites, are fans of the Superbas, who had at least a reasonable chance of a championship.
“Well, I’m writing an article about lady baseball fanciers.”
“Of which there are many.” I smiled. Even I have been known to join Hetty for a Giants game on occasion. “It is a relatively genteel game, compared to some of men’s contests.”
“Yes, and played by men in such sharp clothes.” A wicked gleam came into my reporter friend’s eye.
“And such strong men,” I added, playing along. “Mostly, very tall and muscular.”
Yardley scowled at his crumb cake. “If you like sturdy, empty-headed brutes, ladies. Baseball players aren’t known for their intelligence.”
Hetty and I shared a tiny grin as Yardley warmed to his subject. He continued: “It’s not like the sweet science of boxing, after all, with the history of gentleman champs. Baseball is just a bunch of boys swinging a stick at a ball. I can’t imagine why it’s caught on.”
“I agree with you,” Tommy said, even as he cut his eyes to us. “I can’t imagine it’ll stay around for long.”
“Preston would disagree,” I pointed out, invoking Yardley’s editor, Preston Dare, who was an eloquent chronicler of baseball.
Tommy laughed. “Preston just left for a road trip with the Superbas. By the time he gets back, he will be ready to take up boxing himself.”
“I don’t know.” Yardley suddenly had a naughty little smile. “Preston is awfully fond of the pleasures of the road.”
Tommy shot him a glare. Hetty and I exchanged glances and very carefully didn’t acknowledge. Obviously, we are both aware of the existence of the pleasures of the road, if not the exact details of the said pleasures, but it would not do for the menfolk to discuss them in our presence.
“In the meantime,” Hetty said, firmly changing topic, “this story gives me a chance to write some sports and impress my editor.”
“Absolutely,” I agreed.
“Her editor is already impressed,” Yardley said coolly. “The problem is, he doesn’t know what to do with a terrific writer in a skirt.”
Hetty sighed. “Also true.”
“And far too common.” I shook my head. “Men don’t know what to do with smart and competent women.”
“Most men, Heller. Perhaps they’ll learn in our new century.”
Hetty and I laughed.
Yardley and Tommy did, too.
I reached for the coffeepot. “We won’t solve the problems of the world today, but at least there’s good coffee.”
“Some days, that’s all we get.” Hetty held out her cup.
Chapter 8
In Which Dr. Silver Offers a Second Opinion
Dr. Edith Silver’s clinic is a reasonable walk from the town house, unless one is suffering from a nasty throat infection, in which case one will do well to wrap up and take a hansom cab. But in good health on a relatively nice spring day, there was no excuse not to walk, and many good reasons, in fact, to get some air.
After Hetty and Yardley headed off to prepare for the night at the Beacon, arguing about something to do with baseball and hats, or possibly baseball hats, I changed into respectable clothes for my own grimmer errand, permitting myself a somewhat fanciful hat piled with mauve flowers to balance out the dull plaid day dress.
One of the amazing things about New York is how close the rich and poor, ruffian and respectable, live. Our town house is in Washington Square, a good, but not overly tony, neighborhood favored by artists and writers, among others. Fifth Avenue and some of the homes of the Four Hundred are but a short walk away, across Washington Square Park.
Many of the wealthiest are moving farther uptown, all the way to the northern end of Fifth, on Central Park, but there are still plenty of grand homes down our way. The Ladies’ Mile, home of the finest stores, is also less than a dozen blocks north, well within a reasonable walk. It’s not unusual for me to step into one of my favorite shopping palaces past a shiny carriage with a footman handing down some society mama and her flock of misses.
It’s all miles and a lifetime away from the Lower East Side, where Tommy and I grew up, in conditions ranging from desperate poverty to making ends meet with luck and a daily struggle. And while you won’t find beggars in the fanciest real estate on Fifth Avenue, because the rich have them moved along, just about anywhere else in the city, a bedraggled hungry child, a limping old woman or a man who lost his legs in the Civil War might ask you for a penny. I always give, unless the unfortunate truly scares me, because I know how lucky I am. I should add here that I also do my best to help orphanages, the settlement house, and other places, in the hope that someday people won’t have to beg.
As a grocery wagon veered close to the curb while I waited to cross, I shook my head at the idea that Saint Aubyn and I had both come perilously close to disaster within a day this week. A less than amusing coincidence, but, truly, something that could happen to anyone at any time in the City.
Dr. Silver’s clinic is on the bottom floor of her town house, which is still in the Village. But since she’s known to treat charity cases when she can, all manner of people straggle in. On this particular afternoon, the waiting room was not yet full. I knew that would change, and quickly, as the day wore into night. The only other person there was a very young mother with a coughing baby. The cough, mercifully, wasn’t the strangling hack of diphtheria or the bark of whooping cough, so it was possible that the poor little kiddy would recover. The nurse, Irma Dos Santos, led them to the examining room and then returned to me.
“Sudden throat trouble, Miss Shane?” she asked. Irma’s husband died in a factory accident years ago, and after a long struggle, with the help of Dr. Silver and the settlement house, she managed to complete a course as a trained nurse. She is one of the most cheerful people I know, and no doubt needs every ounce of that natural happiness in her work.
“No, thank goodness. I just want to have a word with Dr. Silver when I can. Nothing serious about me, just her medical expertise in the case of a former employee.”
Irma looked puzzled, and no wonder, with my convoluted explanation. “I’ll see if she has a minute after she sees the baby.”
“Thanks.”
Sure enough, after the mother left, looking much reassured with orders to give the little creature honey—and nothing else—for his cough, Irma guided me back to the doctor’s private office.
Dr. Silver wears her dark, curly hair in a simple low knot, and inevitably a few strands escape to soften her face. Her eyes are hazel, and among the kindest I’ve ever seen. At that moment, she had a faint wrinkle between her brows, either concern or annoyance. “Ella. What on earth did you tell Irma?”
I took the report out of my bag. “I’m hoping you can take a look at this and tell me if you see anything.”
“What is it?”
“The autopsy report on the soprano who died in New Haven.”
Her eyes widened. “Poor girl. I read about that in the papers.”
“There’s a great deal more to it.”
“Isn’t there always?” She nodded and took the papers. “All right, let’s see what we can see.”
As she riffled through them, she smiled at me. “This is not a happy task, but I’m glad to see you’re doing well.”
“Thanks.” I nodded. “It did take me far too long to get over my last throat infection before the tour.”
She looked hard at me over
her reading glasses, her eyes stern. “That, it did. You devote all of your energies to performing, and don’t rest nearly enough.”
I shrugged. “It’s what I do.”
“It does not have to be the only thing you do.”
Dr. Silver is a widow with a teenage daughter, and she’s a strong advocate for women managing both work and family. This was not the first time we’d had this conversation.
“Unless you can wave a magic wand and create a suitable husband, I’m afraid it does.”
She smiled again, warming her serious features. “Well, you still do have some time if your fairy godmother sends one your way. But the older you get, the more dangerous that first childbed is.”
“Childbed!”
“Well, yes. If you trouble to marry, I doubt you’ll want to miss out on the pleasure of family life.”
“I’m not troubling to do any such thing at the moment.”
“I know.” She shrugged. “I’m becoming a matchmaker in my old age. Let’s have a look at this report.”
Her brows drew together as she read. “Ella, does Romeo manhandle Juliet at all?”
“What? Of course not.” I stared at her. “Hard to believe it as the great love of all time if he knocked her around.”
“True.” She smiled ruefully. “Now, if only I could get some of the women in this neighborhood to understand that.”
“Some women everywhere, I’m afraid.”
“Too true. At any rate, your poor Juliet had an ugly bruise on her upper arm, clearly a handprint, probably from someone grabbing her very hard.”
“Very hard, indeed. I’ve had my share of rough-and-tumble in the street and on the stage, and no one’s ever left a print on me.”
“I imagine Toms would leave a print on them if they did.” The doctor glared at the report. “It was quite recent. Probably within a few hours of death.”
I shook my head. “None of the possibilities here are good. Either she was attacked on the way to the theater and didn’t feel able to tell me for reasons of her own . . .”
“Or it was someone in the theater. In your company.”
I bit my lip. While we were truly awful at choosing sopranos, I couldn’t believe we would have hired anyone who would turn on his fellow performers. “I truly hope not.”
She gave a faint nod and returned to the report. “Did she seem healthy to you, Ella?”
“Until that last scene, yes.”
“Hmmm.” Dr. Silver contemplated the papers. “Well, her stomach showed signs of irritation. And she was a bit underweight.”
“Oh?” I had no idea what that might mean.
The doctor explained. “Now, considering everything, I’d be worried that she might have harmed herself because she was in a delicate condition—”
“Oh no!” And after I’d assured Saint Aubyn that she was virtuous.
“Don’t worry. You didn’t fail in your duty to protect her.”
“No?”
“No. She was not with child, and was, in fact, virgo intacta. So that was not the problem.”
“Then what?”
“I suspect something rather unusual.” She contemplated for a measure. “I’ve had a few young lady patients who stop eating during times of stress, and one or two who actually vomit up what they eat.”
“‘Vomit up what they eat’?” To a girl who grew up on the Lower East Side, where each meal was greeted with gratitude, it was inconceivable. I had heard of society women starving themselves because of some mental sickness, but never this.
Dr. Silver knew exactly what I was thinking. “Hard to imagine, I know, but it does happen.”
“Why?”
“They tell me the vomiting purges whatever bad feelings they have. That it’s relaxing, the way you and I might feel after a medicinal glass of sherry, say.”
“Strange.”
“To us. Not to them.” She smiled a little. “Many people might find your fondness for fencing and the velocipede strange.”
“Well, that’s true. To each her own, I suppose. Surely, though, vomiting is a good deal more dangerous than a velocipede.”
“It is.” Dr. Silver’s eyes narrowed a little. “Over time, it’s really quite unhealthy. I don’t think she was that far into it. From the report, the damage doesn’t seem too serious. I suspect she’d only been purging for a short while.”
“I never saw any sign of trouble.”
“You probably wouldn’t. Girls who do this are very good at hiding it.”
“That’s something.” I shook my head. “I really feel that I failed her.”
“You shouldn’t. With all of our new science, we really have not learned much about the mind and its disorders. I can’t say any more clearly than you can why she drank that nicotine.”
“ ‘Nicotine’? For some reason, I thought it was strychnine.”
“No. Just as easy to get, of course, but less common.” She shook her head. “But there’s no doubt. She died of nicotine poisoning. There was nicotine residue in the vial, and as you know, she was the only one who touched it.”
“ ‘If all else fail, myself have power to die.’”
“Ah, poor Juliet. And poor Violette. She was only twenty-one, which seems almost as impossibly young as Juliet to me.”
“And everything hurts so much more when you’re very young.”
“Some things hurt a great deal when you’re an adult, actually.” Dr. Silver’s fingers strayed to her wedding ring. “But you’re right. The very young don’t understand that things will look different tomorrow—or have people depending on them to pull through.”
“Too true.” I knew she was thinking of her daughter. I was thinking of Tommy, and everyone else.
“However,” Dr. Silver said thoughtfully.
“What?”
“I had a patient a while ago who overused emetics and purgatives. If she was using some patent medicine—which might have had nicotine in it—and put a dose in the vial by some mistake . . .”
I nodded. “It really could have been an accident.”
“Yes. It’s at least theoretically possible. Without seeing her things and knowing if she had any patent nostrums, we can’t be sure.”
I’d never seen her with any such thing, but then she would not have been swigging from the bottle at rehearsal, after all. I nodded. “But the possibility might certainly give comfort to the family.”
“Perhaps.” Dr. Silver smiled faintly. She put the papers back together and handed them to me. “I hope I was of some help.”
“You were. I just wish I had been able to help her.” I sighed. Whether or not I had liked her, she was my employee—and to some degree, my responsibility.
“I doubt anyone could have.” She shook her head. “Don’t torture yourself. Doctor’s orders.”
“Thank you.”
“And make sure you get some rest before your next tour.”
“I will.”
The faint smile became wider. “Oh . . . and if you wanted to devote a little more energy to finding that suitable man, I wouldn’t argue with you.”
“Doctor!”
“Just an observation.”
Chapter 9
Candles for Remembrance
Technically, since my mother was Jewish, I am, too. I was also baptized Catholic and attend Mass. As I’ve said, I expect God will determine what I am when I meet Him. In the meantime, I do no harm observing both of my parents’ faiths, where I can. So I light my Sabbath candles in the drawing room every Friday night, and usually go to Sunday Mass at Holy Innocents with Toms.
The Sabbath candleholders were small, and pewter rather than silver, but the only thing of value we’d had left at the end. Mama had sewn piecework, and, of course, she hadn’t been able to work much. I’d taken up as much sewing as I could, but I was only eight. She’d sold the gold locket my father gave her, and pawned her wedding band, and the candleholders would have been next. Except that she just didn’t wake up one winter morning.
By then, we were scraping by in a freezing corner room in a tenement. Mama was always thin and pale; a light silvery blonde, with brown eyes that shimmered with joy at the sight of me or the memory of my father. But in those last weeks, the consumption had worn her almost to transparency—her hands skeletal, her face pared down to sharp cheekbones and huge, frightened eyes.
She never said a word to me about her fears. She just kept smiling, working as much as she could between the racking coughing fits, swallowing the blood and wiping her mouth quickly so I would not see, always pretending that everything was fine for my sake. For her, I pretended to believe it was, though I saw the blood and everything else. I didn’t want to add to her pain by letting her know I was frightened, too.
But I was. So scared, so cold and so hungry.
Mama did the best she could, but there was barely money for bread, never mind heat. What warmth we had usually seeped from the walls of the rooms around us; once in a while, when we’d been able to do a lot of work, we had a small fire in the stove. We knew we might be paying for that heavenly warmth with hunger later, but sometimes people will do anything to escape the cold for a little while. All I could do to help was take up the piecework, and I did as much as I could. I finally stopped going to the public school, telling Mama they were closed for some special American winter holiday. I know now she didn’t believe me, but I also know she wanted every second with me that she could steal from the disease before it killed her.
The last night, we curled up together in the pile of old blankets on the floor that passed for a bed, drawing what warmth we could from each other in the freezing room. Mama told me the same comforting stories she did every night.
She always began with her first day in America, waiting at immigration, when young Malka Steinmetz shared a smile with a beautiful redheaded Irishman named Frank O’Shaughnessy. Months later, they met again, rushing to work on the Lower East Side, and started a brief, secret courtship. They were bashert, she said, the Hebrew word for meant to be together, and they loved each other enough to defy their world.
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