In a Gilded Cage

by Rhys Bowen

“I’m sorry to hear you are unwell. I’ll go away and come back on another occasion then, shall I? Or is there something I could do for you? Let me at least help you back to bed.”

  She came in. The house was in no state to admit strangers but I was beyond caring. She took me upstairs and tucked me back in my bed. “You’re feverish,” she said, feeling my brow.

  “Yes, I had almost recovered from a nasty bout of influenza and I’m afraid that yesterday’s little antics have brought a relapse.”

  “Dear me. Are you taking anything to bring down that fever?”

  “I went to the dispensary and they gave me a tonic.”

  “Tonic?” she said scornfully. “A lot of good that will do.”

  “They said it contained iron and would be good to strengthen my blood.”

  “To build you up, yes, although there are plenty of quack tonics circulating at the moment that do nothing for you. But you should have been given aspirin. It does wonders in bringing down a fever. It’s only available with a doctor’s prescription, but I can go and bring you some from our pharmacy.”

  “Really, that’s too much trouble,” I protested, but she ignored me. “I’ll be back shortly,” she said, and she was. What’s more, she had brought chicken soup from the Jewish delicatessen as well as the aspirin. She mixed the powder with water and handed it to me. “Drink it right down,” she said. “It tastes horribly bitter but it really is a wonder drug.”

  I did as I was told, then sat up and sipped the chicken soup. It was delicious. “You are extremely good to go to all this trouble,” I said.

  “No trouble. We women must help each other whenever we can,” she said. “The Lord knows that any man will flee from you as fast as he can at the least hint of sickness. I notice that even my own Ned will take a couple of steps away from the counter when a sick person comes into our drugstore, or find some excuse to be busy so that I have to wait on that particular customer.” She laughed merrily.

  “I’m sorry, I never did find out why you came to see me in the first place,” I said. “Was it to bring me more information on our cause?”

  “No, it was more personal than that, I’m afraid,” she said. “I want to engage your services.”

  “Holy mother of God!” I couldn’t have been more surprised. “As a detective, you mean?”

  She nodded. “Look, if you don’t feel up to discussing it this evening, I quite understand. I should leave you to sleep and come back when you are well.”

  “Certainly not,” I said. “Now I’m intrigued. You should know that I was born curious and won’t rest until I know all the details.”

  “Very well.” She smiled. “But first I should say that I work for my living. I have saved a little but my funds are limited. I don’t know what your fees might be, but I fear I might not be able to pay them.”

  “My fees can be discussed when I hear the nature of your case and decide whether it is something within the scope of my agency,” I said. “I’m sure we can reach some kind of agreement that will not bankrupt you and will satisfy me.”

  “Very well.” She perched at the bottom of my bed, her hands folded primly on her lap. “Let me first give you my background. My parents were missionaries in China. They died in a cholera epidemic when I was a baby. I was miraculously spared and brought back to America, where I was raised by a couple called Lynch. One of them was a distant relative of my mother—a second cousin, I believe. Anyway, they were good enough to raise me, and I called them ‘Aunt’ and ‘Uncle.’”

  She paused and fiddled with the ribbon on her hat. “Aunt Lydia died when I was five. I remember her as pretty and gentle. She was much younger than Uncle Horace and was always of a sickly constitution. My image of her is lying in bed, propped up among pillows, her face as white as the pillows around her. After she died my uncle hired a series of governesses for me. He showed me no love or affection and actually went out of his way to avoid contact with me. Whether he blamed me in some way for his wife’s death, or whether his grief at her passing made him bitter, I can’t say. As I said, I was very young when she died.

  “When I was about sixteen he called me into his study and said that he was going to do his duty and abide by my parents’ wishes that I go to Vassar, but I was to understand that this concluded his obligation to me. When I graduated it was up to me to make my own way in the world and I could no longer consider his residence as my home, nor expect any future financial assistance.”

  “I suppose that seems fair enough,” I said.

  She nodded. “Although he is a rich man and a small allowance would hardly make a dent in his cigar budget, and one might have thought that he would welcome some companionship in that big, empty house. He has a mansion on Seventy-ninth Street, just off Fifth Avenue, you know.”

  “My, then he is wealthy.”

  “Oh, indeed. He owns mills in Massachusetts as well as various other commercial enterprises.”

  “I am told that it is not uncommon for rich men to have become rich because they don’t like to part with their money.”

  “That’s true enough.” She laughed. “My uncle is a regular penny-pincher. I remember getting a severe dressing-down as a small child because I had scuffed the toes of my shoes by dragging my feet on a swing. ‘Do you think shoes grow on trees?’ he demanded. And I am stuck with Mr. McPherson at the drugstore—another skinflint. It is lucky that Ned is employed there too, or I’d never have been able to obtain the aspirin for you. Old McPherson would never give anything away.”

  “Really, I have no wish to get you into trouble at work,” I said, attempting to sit up.

  “Honestly, Molly. A packet of aspirin powder costs pennies. And Mr. McPherson can dock it from my wages if he so chooses. God knows he pays me little enough. If I had been a male assistant, he would have had to cough up at least five more dollars a week.”

  “To continue with your story,” I reminded her. “You have told me that you are an orphan and have been raised by distant relatives who felt they were doing their duty but showed you little affection.”

  She nodded. “So now I am alone in the world. I had accepted that and was prepared to make the best of my situation when a strange thing happened. A few weeks ago I served a couple at the drugstore. The wife’s face was badly scarred, poor thing, and she wondered if there was some kind of cream or preparation that would make the scars fade. Well, it happens that Ned has been experimenting with ladies’ cosmetics. He’s been copying some of the recipes from Paris and he’s actually getting rather good at it. In fact he plans to open his own business someday, if he can save up enough money for capital.”

  “An ambitious young man then,” I commented.

  She nodded. “He is. Very ambitious. Anyway, I called Ned out of the dispensary and while we were chatting it transpired that the cause of the wife’s disfiguration was smallpox that she had contracted while they were serving as missionaries in China. They had only recently returned home.” She looked up at me. “Of course, when I heard that, I asked them immediately if they had been in China long and had known my parents. They had, indeed, been in China for twenty years but could not recall meeting a Mr. and Mrs. Boswell.”

  She paused, studying her hands for a moment before continuing, “Naturally I was disappointed at the time, but China is a big country and I expect that missionaries work in comparative isolation. So I thought no more about it. Afterward, however, I began to wonder: had I been told the truth about my parents? I recalled that even my sweet Aunt Lydia had changed the subject when I wanted to know details about my mother and father. And why had there been no photographs, no mementos, even from frugal missionaries? Was there in fact some kind of scandal about them—had they somehow disgraced the family name, which was why Uncle Horace wanted nothing to do with me? And then an even more disturbing thought crept into my mind—was it possible that I had been left money and Uncle Horace had cheated me out of my inheritance?” She looked up at me with that keen, fierce gaze. “So you see Miss Murph
y, Molly, I have to know the truth, however unpleasant it is.”

  “Could you not approach your uncle and demand to be told?”

  “My uncle refuses to see me again. I have been to the house a couple of times but on each occasion I was informed that he was away from home, seeing to his business affairs. I left him notes on both occasions but received no reply.”

  “Which only reinforced your suspicions that all was not right,” I suggested.

  She nodded vehemently. “So now I have to know. Can you help me, Molly? Can you tell me who I am?”

  “I’ll do my best,” I said. “Although I have to say that I don’t have the resources to go to China on your behalf.”

  “I wouldn’t expect you to,” she said. “But there are missionary societies headquartered here in the United States.”

  “Of course,” I said. “I will certainly approach them. I know little of Protestants or missionaries but I am willing to learn.”

  “Thank you. Thank you.” She reached forward and clasped my hands in hers. “I can’t tell you what this will mean to me to finally know the truth.”

  “I can’t guarantee that I will come to the truth,” I said, “and I can’t guarantee that you will be happy with the news.”

  “I understand that. But I have to know. It is even more important right now. If Ned asks me to marry him, as I suspect he soon will, then I need to accept with no reservations. I can’t have him marrying someone whose parent committed some kind of crime, for example.”

  “Oh come on, Emily,” I said. “I’m sure Ned loves you for yourself, and you are not responsible for the behavior of your parents.”

  “But what about the sins of the fathers being visited on the children? If, for example, I had a murderer for a father? Would that trait not have a chance of coming out in me someday?”

  “Then perhaps I should have tested the chicken soup first,” I said, and we both laughed.

  “Really, Emily, I think you are worrying too much about this,” I said. “I’m sure the explanation will be a simple one—most likely your Uncle Horace taking your inheritance for himself, by the sound of it.”

  Emily got to her feet. “I should leave you now. I have taken too much of your time when you should be resting. Let us talk again when you are fully recovered.”

  “Where can I contact you?” I asked.

  “Here is my address.” She handed me a card on which her name and address were written in a neat, sloping hand, as well as the name and address of her drugstore.

  “My room is on West Seventy-seventh,” she said, as I examined it. “It is around the corner from my place of employment on Columbus Avenue. Highly convenient, as Mr. McPherson can’t abide tardiness. He docks money from our pay packets if we are but one minute late.”

  “He sounds like a regular old tartar,” I said. “Why don’t you leave and find employment somewhere else?”

  She blushed. “Because of Ned, of course. And one day if we are married, then I won’t have to work.”

  “You want to stop working when you marry?” I asked in surprise.

  “I have no wish to go on working behind a counter,” she said. “My dream, before I knew of my situation, was to go to medical school and become a physician. Of course, that is no longer possible. However, if our plans come to fruition, then Ned will have his own cosmetics and perfume company and I can help him in his laboratory.”

  “I hope it all works out for you,” I said.

  She patted my hand. “And I hope you recover swiftly. I look forward to your visit. Come to the store at one o’clock. I am given half an hour for lunch. I am only here this morning because Mr. McPherson did grudgingly admit that we could come in late on the day after Easter. Or you could come to my lodgings if you like, although I have to admit it’s a rather dreary little room, not fit for entertaining. I am usually home in the evenings by seven-thirty. Now sleep. Doctor’s orders. I can let myself out.”

  With that she tiptoed down the stairs and I fell asleep, clutching her card.

  Six

  The chicken soup and the aspirin together must have worked wonders because I awoke in the morning feeling more like my old self. I placed Emily’s card on the table as I had breakfast and jotted down thoughts as they came to me. Obviously the place to start would be her birth certificate. Then the various missionary societies and maybe even the state department. Would an entry permit of some kind be needed for a closed and dangerous country like China? And then Vassar, of course. Her personal details would have been recorded on her admission form.

  I bathed, dressed, and tried to tame my hair into submission under a hat. It needed washing badly but I’d have to wait until the weather was warm enough so that I didn’t risk catching another chill. It looked like the proverbial haystack. I needed a barrage of hat pins to hold the hat in place but at last I was ready to go out and face the world.

  I opened my front door and found a scene of commotion going on outside. A window cleaner was on his ladder, cleaning the top-floor windows at number 9, and Sid was standing outside, hands on hips, giving him directions. “You’ve missed that corner again,” I heard her saying. “There. To the right.” She saw me and sighed. “It’s no use. The wretched man doesn’t speak English and my Italian is limited to chianti and gorgonzola. Our experiences on Sunday have inspired Gus to paint again and the windows of her studio were positively filthy. Sì. Bene.” She nodded violently as the man slopped water on the window. “Much better. Molto better. Benissimo. Bravo.” She turned back to me. “At least my visits to the opera have proved useful,” she said. “Where are you off to?”

  “I’m going to visit a client,” I said.

  “My, aren’t we all little busy bees today?” Sid smiled. “Gus painting away feverishly, you with your client, and I am writing an article on our experiences for a rather radical magazine. And most men think that we women languish at home sipping tea and playing patience.”

  “That isn’t true for most women,” I said. “They spend their days cooking, cleaning, beating carpets, scrubbing floors with a brood of children under their feet.”

  “You’re right,” Sid agreed. “Do you see that as your lot when you marry the famous Captain Sullivan?”

  “Most certainly not. For one thing, I’ll not be marrying him if he can’t furnish me with a servant. And I don’t know about the brood of children, either.”

  “You stick to your guns with him, Molly,” Sid said, “or he will bully you into submission. And saddle you with children, too. We saw his true colors on Sunday. Determined to keep us helpless females in our place. I hope you will consider carefully before agreeing to marry him.”

  “He hasn’t yet asked me officially.” I knew I was skirting the subject. “And I am quite aware than we will have to reach an understanding about my role in a marriage before I take that plunge.”

  “It’s just that I’ve seen so many of our Vassar friends—bright girls with good brains and bright futures ahead of them—turn into traditional simpering females the moment they marry, because this is what their husbands want.”

  I laughed. “Can you ever see me simpering?”

  She laughed too. “Frankly, no. I think Daniel Sullivan has met his match in you.” With that she happened to glance up at the ladder again as drops of water splashed down on her. “Watch what you’re doing, Mario. Attenzione!”

  I left them to it and walked to the Sixth Street El station, where I took the train all the way to Seventy-third. This neighborhood on the Upper West Side gave the feel of being part of a small town, not a giant city. Gardeners were tending early blooms in the strip of land between Broadway and Columbus Avenue. The small shops along Broadway had that Main Street feel. This wouldn’t last, however, as some impressive new apartment buildings were going up, complete with marble façades and turrets. The Dakota, which towered over everything like a great fortress on the park, had started a trend, and this would soon be a fashionable place to live.

  At the moment it
was one of the few neighborhoods I had been in that hadn’t obviously been settled by a single ethnic group. I saw Irish faces, and fair-haired northern Europeans and dark-haired Italians and Jews. I also, to my interest, saw a Negro woman, holding a delightful little girl with neatly braided hair by the hand as she emerged from the baker’s shop. Having grown up on the remote west coast of Ireland, Negroes and Chinese were still a novelty to me. Not here, however. Nobody gave her a second glance as she disappeared down Broadway.

  I made my way up Columbus looking for the drugstore. Drugstores were a new experience for me. I had come to associate the word with that delightful invention, the soda fountain, where I had had my first taste of milkshakes and sundaes. But McPherson’s Dispensatory was not like this: it was clearly an old-fashioned apothecary, what we in Ireland would call a chemist’s shop. In the window hung several large glass globes filled with colored liquid. Below them were displays of various patent remedies: Draper’s Toothache Remedy, Lydia Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound, and Wampole’s Preparation Tonic and Stimulant. In one corner was a small display of ladies’ face preparations, as used in Paris. A bell jangled as I pushed open the door. Inside was a high counter and behind it shelves containing an assortment of jars and bottles. In the middle of this wall was an opening through which I could see into a back room. Its walls were lined with cupboards, some glass-fronted, others tiny wooden squares. I caught sight of two men in white coats at work at a table, their backs to me.

  At the sound of the bell, the older one looked up, saw me, and barked, “Counter, Ned.”

  “Where’s Emily?” Ned asked.

  “Off delivering a package for me. She should have been back by now. Dawdling to look in shop windows, I shouldn’t wonder,” the older one snapped. The owner, Mr. McPherson, obviously.

  Ned pushed open a swing door and came through to the shop front, wiping his hands on his coat as he came toward me. “Can I help you, miss?” he asked.

  For once I was speechless. This was Emily’s young man and he was a veritable Adonis. She hadn’t mentioned his good looks and yet he would have been any girl’s dream. He was slim, with wavy black hair, dark flashing eyes, and a pencil mustache. I immediately thought of Mr. Darcy or Heathcliff, one of those brooding heroes in the romantic novels I had so loved as a young girl.