Elizabeth sighed. The latest information she’d read about hospital births didn’t bode well. More women died of fever there than at home. She’d noted a chapter in her book on home delivery versus hospital, but she hadn’t had time to read it yet.
By the time they arrived at their hotel, Elizabeth had caught a bad case of Columbian World’s Fair fever. No matter that her mother had drilled into her that eavesdropping was improper and unladylike, Elizabeth’s ears burned from the strain of listening in on others’ conversations.
One couple rhapsodized over the Ferris Wheel, he bragging, she simpering. “If only there hadn’t been all those people in the bucket. That fat man nearly crushed me into the corner.”
“But think of all you could see, all of Chicago laid out around us. I’d go again in a minute.”
Two men talked about Little Cairo but dropped their voices when they got to the part about the dancing girls.
Elizabeth was sure her mother would not allow a trek through such sin. Showing female skin was next to murder in her list of proprieties.
A dairy farmer from Wisconsin kept shaking his head as he told his friend about the seven-hundred-pound block of cheese in the Agriculture Building.
Elizabeth gaped at the huge posters along the streets until her mother poked her with an impatient elbow. Wishing she were a little girl again who could get away with such things, Elizabeth bit back a retort that surprised her with its audacity. One did not say to her mother, “Whyever not? There’s so much to see. I don’t care if the whole thing is gaudy or not.” At the same time her fingers ached to find a piano and try out the new music she heard coming from a hotel. Different from any of the classics she played, the music the “hootchy-kootchy” was danced to sure set her toes to tapping.
When her mother insisted they take baths and lie down for a nap before supper, Elizabeth did so, hiding her mutinous spirit with difficulty. The last thing she wanted was to waste her precious freedom on a nap.
Once her mother was breathing the even rhythm of sleep, Elizabeth rose, careful not to let the bed squeak, and tiptoed into the parlor, where she dressed with nary a rustle of her bustle. The mauve upper drape on her skirt of darker burgundy settled with a whisper, the cream fringe swirling into decorous place. With the fitted bodice buttoned, she pinned a wisp of a hat forward so the froth of a veil covered her eyebrows. With a matching parasol to shade her face, she left the room, pausing in the entry. She couldn’t leave without writing a note. Causing her mother undue worry would not bode well for a harmonious vacation.
“Gone for a walk. Will not be far. Back in time for supper.”
The heavy oak door closed behind her with barely a click. The thrill of adventure made her wet her lips and smile a secret smile, almost giving in to skipping down the hall. She was alone in a bustling city with myriad sights to explore, and that without even venturing near to the fair. She stopped at the concierge’s desk and smiled at the whitehaired man in the gold-trimmed burgundy suit.
“Could you tell me please how to find the Morganstein Women’s Hospital?”
“Are you ill, miss?” Ambrose McKnight’s forehead wrinkled in concern.
“No, not at all.” Her tone and gentle laughter smoothed the deeper wrinkles away and brought an answering smile in return.
“Oh, for that I am grateful.” His blue eyes twinkled, and by the fine lines radiating from the edges, she guessed a smile to be his habitual demeanor.
She leaned slightly forward. “Me too. But I am interested in medicine as a career, and this woman is doing so much to help women and the downtrodden. I read about her in a magazine, and since I am here in Chicago, I would love to call on her.” Elizabeth could hardly believe she’d told this man so much. How unlike her. But his smile and nodding head invited confidences. “You must be a wonderful grandfather.” She could already hear her mother scolding her for such audacity, but then her mother would never know of this conversation if there were anything she could do about it. At his deep chuckle, she couldn’t resist joining him.
“Ah, miss, you do not know the half of it. I love my grandbabies, and they love me. Nothing in this world is finer than little ones. God’s gift, for sure.” He drew himself back to the matter at hand with a slight straightening of his shoulders. “And now as to the Morganstein woman. I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but that place of hers is not in a very good part of the city. I would not advise a young woman of your, your . . . ah, sensibilities to go there without an escort.” He shook his head, his eyes darkening like a cloud covering the sun. “No, miss, I cannot in all good conscience do that.”
Elizabeth sighed. Out of the frying pan and into the fire, as Cook always said. “Do you have any suggestions for me?” I know I can find the information other ways, but . . . Determined thoughts took a standoff against more compliant ones that suggested returning to her room until her mother awoke and they went to supper. However, her mother would want tea brought up, and then she’d take a leisurely bath before she dressed.
Elizabeth swallowed an unladylike snort. By then the day would be gone, and she would be deciding whether to have supper at the hotel or go out to a restaurant.
“Well . . .”
Elizabeth stopped her foot in midtap and smiled her most winsome smile instead. And waited.
“We could send someone from the hotel to accompany you. I get the feeling that if I didn’t help you, you’d find a way on your own.”
“You are most perceptive, sir.” Her wren-sized trill of laughter made his smile broaden along with hers.
“Ah, then, that is what we shall do. Wait here.” He indicated a leather winged chair near the desk.
Elizabeth was tempted to take her fan from her reticule but chose instead to use the time to watch people. A silver-haired woman, wearing navy moiré that looked more fit for winter, settled her pince-nez on her rather pointed nose and studied a program laid out on a carved walnut table on which was centered a stunning arrangement of white gladioli and pink cabbage roses. Feeling herself stared at, the woman glanced up, but Elizabeth managed not to be caught gawking, as her mother would say. It was just that the woman had walked to the table as if something were wrong with her leg or hip. It was not exactly a limp, for someone like the grande dame would never limp, but rather a slight favoring. Her eyes wore the taut look of chronic pain, and deep commas bracketed her thin lips.
Now, what else would Dr. Gaskin tell me to look for? Elizabeth closed her eyes, the better to focus on her mentor’s instructions. “The whole person, Elizabeth, always the whole person.” With the woman back to her program, Elizabeth noted the shaking hands, a sheen of perspiration on the broad forehead, and the age-rippled upper lip. Of course, warm as it was, everyone’s face shone to a degree, but did pain bring on more?
The woman beckoned to one of the staff, and a young man with the round pillbox hat of a bellhop strode to the woman’s side.
“Ah, I have found just the right escort for you.” The concierge broke Elizabeth’s line of vision and brought her back to the matter at hand. She shook her head the slightest to dislodge the idea that the woman should go with her, that she needed to see a doctor. But surely she has a physician of her own, one side of her mind argued against the invasive thought.
“Oh, thank you.”
When the woman turned, the slightest flinch marked her face.
“Mr. Jones will be right with us. Ah, is there something the matter, miss?” He turned to follow her line of vision. “Ah, Mrs. Josephson.” He pronounced the e long. “A longtime resident of our hotel and quite a benefactress to Chicago.”
Elizabeth knew better than to ask such a question, but it escaped before she could trap it. “Has she been injured recently?”
The concierge gave her a startled look. “How did you know?”
Elizabeth felt the heat creeping up her neck. “I . . . I observed her favoring her right side.”
The concierge nodded, his mouth pursed, his eyes studying her. “An
d you want to go call on Dr. Morganstein? I see.”
Elizabeth felt like a bug stared at by three small boys about to poke it with a stick. “My mother is always after me for staring.”
“Methinks you have a gift, young lady, a God-given one that should be nurtured.” He thought a moment. “Would you like to meet her?”
No, I want to go to the women’s hospital. Yes, I want to meet her. “If it wouldn’t be any bother.”
“None at all on my part. Let me go speak with her.”
Elizabeth watched the exchange and nodded when Mrs. Josephson glanced her way.
Ambrose returned. “She will meet with you in the dining room in a few minutes.” The right side of Ambrose’s mouth twitched in a smile. “Methinks this meeting was destined. I really do.”
“Do you go around doing things like this all the time?” Elizabeth crossed her hands over the reticule in her lap.
“And what is it that you are referring to as this, miss?”
“You know, fix things.”
“Well, miss, I am the concierge. That is my job, making things happen for our guests. As to your other errand . . .” He nodded again, the light from the chandeliers glinting in his hair, giving him the appearance of wearing a slightly skewed halo.
Mrs. Josephson crossed to the desk, spoke briefly with a man there, then made her way down the hall, which Elizabeth had already discovered led to the necessaries.
She sat back in her chair and gazed around the busy lobby again. Two small children, so closely resembling each other they might have been twins but for the two-or-so-inch difference in height, followed a young woman who most likely was their nanny. The boy dropped behind, lowered the hoop he had been carrying on his shoulder and, with a flick of the wrist, set it rolling across the polished floor. Before the young woman could stop him, he tapped it with his stick and trotted beside it.
“Tony! Anthony Martin, you stop that this instant.” The young woman grabbed for him, missed, and tripped on the front of her skirt.
The little girl, clad in a sailor dress matching her brother’s suit, giggled into hands splayed across her face, a cloth doll clutched in her arm.
The young woman valiantly tried to right herself but to no avail and ended up in a heap on the floor.
Ambrose snatched up boy and hoop and set both down with a stern look. “Now, Master Anthony, see what you’ve done.”
“I didn’t trip her.” Hoop back on shoulder and hands on hips, the boy glanced from the red-faced woman who, with the offered hand of a young man fighting to keep a solicitous look on his handsome face, was helped to her feet. Hat half over her ear, she shook her skirt into submission, grabbed the little girl, and headed for the boy like a galleon in full sail.
Elizabeth watched the boy, knowing exactly how he felt. Too many times she’d been in the same predicament.
“I just wanted to see if it would roll as well on a shiny floor as on the grass.” He shook his head and allowed her to take his hand, purposely hanging back just enough to cause her to pull him.
Elizabeth glanced up to see Ambrose fighting the smile that twinkled in his eyes. Was that a wink he sent the boy?
Ambrose turned to her. “If you will come with me, miss, I believe Mrs. Josephson is ready for you.”
What am I getting myself into now? But Elizabeth swallowed her question and stood to walk with her escort. Her knees had begun to shake.
CHAPTER TWENTY-One
Chicago, Illinois
“Mrs. Josephson, may I present Miss Rogers?”
“You most certainly may, you old reprobate.” The sparkling clip in her upswept and rolled hair caught the light and drew Elizabeth’s attention. Not a hair out of place, not a wrinkle in her clothing, everything perfect as perfect could be but for the sadness in eyes dimming from age. Was it sadness or pain? Elizabeth took the hand offered and felt the tremor.
“I am glad to meet you, ma’am. Mr. . . .” She stumbled to a stop. She didn’t know the man’s name. Turning to him, she caught the look that passed between the two, the kind of look that said in spite of the difference in their stations, they were friends of long standing. Friends who would do each other favors and depend on the judgment of the other in social situations.
“I think, Ambrose, you should tell her your name. I have a feeling . . .” She let her sentence trail off, but her eyes never left Elizabeth’s.
Scalpels could probe no deeper than that steady gaze, and scalpels could not penetrate a soul.
Elizabeth felt as though she’d met the sword of the spirit, that sharp, two-edged sword dividing asunder even soul and spirit. She swallowed, or tried to, an impossible task with no saliva left in her mouth.
“I am Ambrose McKnight, head concierge here at the hotel since as far back as I care to admit.”
“Th-thank you, Mr. McKnight.” Tearing her gaze away would be most rude, and impossible anyway.
“Sit down, please.” Whether an order or an invitation, Elizabeth did exactly that before her knees gave way. Meeting the queen of England could be no more harrowing.
“And you will order the tea?”
“Yes, ma’am, of course. Anything particular that would please you?”
“Hmm.”
While they carried on a discussion of cream puffs and canapés, Elizabeth took the moments to regain her composure. She could remember no time in her life when meeting someone had affected her this way. What was it about Mrs. Josephson? The direct gaze? The regal manner? Or a combination of everything?
Their discussion finished, the man left with a slight bow, and Mrs.
Josephson turned her attention again to Elizabeth.
“Well, my dear, what do you have to say for yourself?” The eyes that peered over her half glasses now twinkled as if a child had come out to play.
Elizabeth could feel herself relax, the tension draining away like water from an unstoppered sink. “I believe I shall tell you two things—”
“Only two things?” Mrs. Josephson quirked an eyebrow. “We will have many hours to share secrets.”
Elizabeth swallowed and snatched the glass of water on the table in front of her to drown her dry throat. Instead of pussyfooting around, she made a decision. I will be as direct as she unless that offends her. Then I shall be more circumspect. Having comforted herself with the thought, she returned the twinkling smile.
“I asked Mr. McKnight if you had had an injury lately.”
“And the second?”
“I am studying to be a doctor, and therefore I watch people, trying to learn more about them through visual diagnoses.”
“And your diagnosis in my case brought you to the conclusion that I have had an injury. What made you think injury instead of chronic problem?”
Elizabeth stopped to think and review the picture she had seen. What made her think injury?
“You were refusing to limp.”
A chuckle greeted her statement.
“And I think if it were chronic, you would have no longer paid any attention to it.” Elizabeth waited for anything more, then added, “In spite of pain.”
Mrs. Josephson straightened her shoulders, if that were at all possible. “One must not give in to pain, or it will take over one’s life, especially as one ages. I refuse to let something so mundane take over my life.”
Elizabeth blinked and blinked again. If only more people had her strength of character. “So is this affliction recent or long term?”
“You were right about a recent injury, but it is only the aggravation of a chronic situation. And there, I refuse to spend more time discussing it. Either way, you would have been correct.” She stared over her glasses again. “Now tell me about your dream of becoming a doctor.”
“It is not a dream. I will become a physician. At the moment I attend St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, and take my science classes at Carleton in the same town. I live at home, and my father owns and publishes the Northfield News.” She wasn’t sure why she included that,
but for some reason it seemed important.
“What year are you?”
“I will be a junior in the fall.” Another sip of water. “Oh, and I work for the local doctor.”
“And what do you do for him?”
Elizabeth rolled her eyes. Other than hiring his help and keeping his accounts, you mean? “I assist in his surgery and accompany him on birthings. You see, I want to take care of women and newborns. There is no need for so many to die.” The last was said with a rush of passion.
“Ah. Has there been something in your life that causes such devotion?”
“Yes. My mother died in childbirth. I remember the day clearly even though I was only three.”
“So tragic for such a little one.” Mrs. Josephson paused with a minute shake of her head. “And you have really assisted at birthings?”
“Yes. Dr. Gaskin wants me to learn quickly and take over his practice.”
“Is that what you want?”
Elizabeth shook her head. “No, I want to work in a women’s hospital. That is why I was trying to find out the way to Dr. Morganstein’s hospital. Mr. McKnight was doing all he could to dissuade me.”
“Your tea, ladies.” The announcement came from the concierge, and the tray was carried by a white-clad waiter wearing a tall hat.
“Will this be acceptable, madam?”
Mrs. Josephson glanced over the tray and nodded. “You have outdone yourself, Monsieur Claude.”
“Mais bien sûr.” He pointed to each delicacy, his French fast and fluid.
Elizabeth listened hard and fast, catching some and totally missing others.
“Merci beaucoup.” Her smile held a note of propriety now, not the openness with which she’d greeted Elizabeth. And yet, they obviously knew each other, just on a more formal basis.
The chef, as Elizabeth now realized he was, withdrew, and Mr. McKnight fussed over setting things just right until Mrs. Josephson whispered, “Enough, Ambrose, let us enjoy ourselves undisturbed.”
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