In a Gilded Cage

by Rhys Bowen

  “All right. I suppose I could cook dinner again,” I agreed.

  “Wonderful. I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

  “Give my regards to your mother,” I remembered to say as I left.

  Nine

  On Sunday afternoon I made my way to Emily’s room on the Upper West Side. It was a delightful spring day and people were out in their Sunday best, strolling in squares amid the bright green of new leaves, or just sitting on stoops, their faces upturned to the warmth of the April sun. I rather wished that I had taken Daniel up on his invitation and gone with him to Westchester to see his mother. It would have been a delightful train ride, and we could have strolled in her large back yard or sat on her lawn drinking lemonade. But I was a professional woman and I’d made an appointment with a client. A man wouldn’t have broken it because of the weather, so why should I?

  The twin spires of St. Patrick’s Cathedral glowed bright in the clear air, and I experienced that twinge of guilt that I had missed mass that morning. Even though I had not been to church in years and felt little love for the Catholic religion, those of us brought up as Catholics have been indoctrinated to believe that you go to hell if you miss mass. I don’t suppose I’ll ever be able to really shake it off.

  Emily lived on the third floor of a rooming house. I suppose if it had been the Ansonia, around the corner, one would have described it as an apartment hotel, but this warranted no more than the rooming house description: tired brown linoleum, creaky stairs, that lingering smell of drains and an old woman’s face that peeped out of a door on the second-floor landing. I knocked and the door was opened by a rather flustered-looking Emily, with her hat in one hand and a hat pin in the other.

  “Molly!” She sounded surprised.

  “Hello. I promised I’d call ’round with news on Sunday afternoon for you.”

  “Oh mercy me. So you did. I was so upset at the thought of going to Mrs. Hartmann’s funeral that I didn’t properly take it in. And frankly I never expected you to have anything by this Sunday. You must be a miracle worker. Come on in, do.”

  She led me into what could only be described as a depressing room. Every attempt had been made to brighten it up. There were net curtains at the window, rugs on the floor, pillows on the daybed, but they couldn’t hide the brownish wallpaper, the dark wood trim, and the window that faced the back of another equally dreary building. Emily must have read my thoughts. “Pretty dismal, isn’t it?” she said. “But then I’m hardly ever here during the daytime, and it’s so convenient and cheap, too. I’m trying to save every penny I can.”

  “You’ve made it very nice,” I said, trying to sound more enthusiastic than I felt. “Very homey.”

  “Do take a seat,” she said, indicating her one upholstered chair. “Can I make you a cup of tea?”

  “No, thank you. I just ate luncheon,” I said.

  She perched on the daybed, opposite me. “I had been living in a ladies’ residential club until recently, but it was expensive, and I tired of all the chatter and gossip and pettiness. You can imagine, can’t you, all those unmarried ladies living under one roof? Little notes saying, ‘Please make sure you dispose of tea leaves properly. Tea cups belong on the left of the cabinet. Do not hang stockings to dry in the bathroom.’”

  “I can imagine,” I agreed.

  She was looking at me, her face alight with expectancy. “So you’ve something to tell me already?”

  “I don’t want to raise your hopes too much,” I said. “I’ve no answers for you yet, but I have located a man who wrote a book on missionaries in China. It seems that they were all massacred during the uprising three years ago.”

  “Ah yes,” she said. “The Boxer Rebellion. We read about it. I paid particular interest because of my parents. When the horrific tales trickled in, I kept thinking that it could have been me.”

  “The writer lives in Pennsylvania,” I said. “I’m not sure if he was a missionary himself, but I have written to him and he will definitely be able to put me in touch with other missionaries. I expect a reply any moment. And I have found where your Aunt Lydia was born.”

  “Excellent. You have been busy,” she said.

  Then I became aware of the hat she still held in her hands. “You were on your way out,” I said. “I shouldn’t keep you.”

  She blushed. “Yes, as a matter of fact, I was.”

  “Ned decided to forgo the weekly visit to his mother?”

  “Oh no.” She smiled. “He’d never do that. He idolizes that woman. She is in poor health, you see, and she relies on him for everything. They are particularly close.”

  “Did his father die?”

  A troubled, almost embarrassed, look crossed her face. “Not as far as I know. He has no father—at least none that we know of. He was an illegitimate child and his mother will never speak of his father. She was cast out, you see, and reared him in terrible poverty. He’s done very well to educate himself. He’s remarkable, really.”

  “So you’ve mentioned before,” I teased.

  She blushed again. “Actually I’m on my way to take tea with a dear friend,” she said. “Fanny Poindexter. She and I were roommates in our freshman year at Vassar. She was Fanny Bradley then, of course. She married Anson Poindexter the moment we graduated and now she’s a respectable and rich married lady.” She looked up suddenly as the thought struck her. “Why don’t you come along?”

  “Oh, I couldn’t possibly,” I said. “I wouldn’t want to intrude in a meeting between old friends. I’d just be in the way.”

  “No, not at all. Fanny is having an afternoon “at home” at her place. Other young women will be there. You’d enjoy it, I’m sure. And Fanny would be tickled pink to meet a lady detective.”

  So I was to be brought along as a novelty! I was about to refuse, but then I decided that it might indeed be amusing to meet other women with lively minds. “Very well,” I said. “I accept your kind invitation.”

  “Splendid.” She jumped up. “Just wait until I can make this wretched hat sit straight on my head. Oh, why wasn’t I blessed with good hair?”

  “You have striking hair,” I said, and indeed she did. It was black and lustrous and today was worn in a thick, smooth roll around her face.

  Emily made a face. “But it’s so horribly straight and refuses to take a curl. I can have it in curling papers all night and in the morning it drops like a limp rag again.”

  “I suppose we’re never thankful for what we’ve got,” I said. “I just wish my own hair could be tamed and wasn’t this awful flaming red.”

  “Oh, but it’s such a magnificent color,” Emily said. “Quite startling.”

  ‘I’d rather be a little less startling sometimes,” I said. “It’s hard to blend into a crowd.”

  Emily stuck a last hat pin into her hair with a fierce jab. “There,” she said. “Now we can go.”

  We set off, arm in arm in the spring sunshine. “You’ll adore Fanny,” Emily said. “Everyone does. We had such a good time together at Vassar. I was the shy girl who had been raised by governesses and had no social graces, and she had traveled to Europe and knew how to dance and had the most fashionable wardrobe you could ever imagine. I was in awe of her but she took me under her wing.”

  “And now she lives close by?”

  “She has an apartment in the Dakota, but they are having a house built out on Long Island so they can be among the fashionable set.”

  “How nice to have money,” I said.

  “It is she who has the money,” Emily confided. “She is a Bradley, of Bradley Freight and Steamship. He has the name. He comes from a distinguished old family, you know. Came over on the Mayflower, I believe. But they must be happy about an infusion of Bradley cash. Anson is an ambitious young lawyer, so I expect he will do very well for himself. A good match all around.”

  We approached the park, which was glowing in leafy splendor. I looked at it longingly, wondering if it would be rude to leave Emily to her friend and g
o for a walk beside the boating lake. Emily held firmly to my arm as we turned onto Central Park West, and I couldn’t think of a polite way to extricate myself. A doorman in impressive livery opened the front door for us. An elevator page took us up to the ninth floor. I tried to remember if I had ever taken an elevator this high before. This was still a new experience for me and I still didn’t trust them completely. I’d observed the cable going up and down, and it seemed rather thin to be supporting a large iron cage.

  Anyway, such anxieties were put aside as we reached the ninth floor and the operator opened the door for us with a smart salute. We could hear laughter coming from behind the door at the end of the hallway. A maid let us in.

  “Madam is in the drawing room,” she said, unnecessarily, as a good deal of noise was coming from that direction, and led us in.

  “Miss Boswell and Miss Murphy, madam,” she said.

  We entered a large, light room with windows looking out over the park and beyond. A group of young women was assembled around a brocade chaise on which a gorgeous creature reclined. She looked like a china doll, dressed in delicate baby blue, flaxen curls framing her face. It was almost as if the young women had posed in that grouping for a picture, or rather an advertisement for some kind of cosmetic product in the Ladies’ Home Journal. They looked up at the maid’s announcement, making me instantly aware of the plainness of the outfit I was wearing and the unruly state of my hair.

  The gorgeous creature swung herself upright and came toward Emily, arms open wide. “Emily, my dear. You came! I can’t tell you how delighted I am. It’s been an age.”

  They embraced. “And how well you look,” Fanny went on. “I think that young man must be good for you. You are positively glowing.”

  “That is from the brisk walk, Fanny,” Emily said. “And I’ve brought a friend along to meet you. Miss Molly Murphy, from Ireland, also a working woman like myself, but with a far more interesting job, as you will hear.”

  “Miss Murphy?” Fanny stretched out a delicate white hand to me. “I am delighted you could come. Any friend of Emily’s has to be a friend of mine. May I call you Molly?”

  “Please do,” I said as she gave me a most charming smile.

  “Do take a seat and let me complete the introductions: Alice, Minnie, Bella, and Dorcas.”

  A healthy-looking woman with light ginger hair moved over to make room for me on an ottoman, giving me a wary smile. I sat and Fanny continued, pointing at my benchmate. “Alice is an old school friend, now also married and living in the city, Minnie and I were in Europe together. We attended a dreadful academy in Paris for a summer, didn’t we, Minnie, my sweet?”

  Minnie was more angular, with a long nose. “We did. There were cockroaches and the Mamselle was a regular tartar.”

  “But we endured and survived,” Fanny said. She put a hand on the shoulder of a worldly looking young woman with red lips and circles of rouge on her cheeks. “Bella is a new friend I have met through Anson’s business partners and Dorcas needs no introduction to you, does she, Emily?” Fanny turned to me. “Dorcas shared a suite of rooms with us at Vassar.”

  “And helped us with our Latin translation,” Emily added. “So what are you doing now, Dorcas? Were you at that recent reunion that everybody is raving about?”

  “Alas, no.” Dorcas looked up with a serene smile. “I couldn’t leave my darling Toodles.”

  “Toodles?” Emily asked.

  “Actually, his official name is Thomas Hochstetter the Third, but Toodles he seems to be at the moment, and he is only two months old.”

  “You’re a mother. How wonderful.” Emily beamed at her.

  “Yes, it is wonderful, but I suspect my reading will be limited to Peter Rabbit for the next decade or so.”

  “And to think that we always expected you to wind up as a professor and write brilliant articles,” Emily said.

  “I’ve done the next best thing,” Dorcas answered serenely. “I’ve married a professor at NYU. He’s a brilliant man.”

  The maid returned, pushing a trolley that contained a silver tea service, delicate china cups, and a splendid cake stand of various cakes.

  “So now we are all happily married,” Fanny said. “Except you, Emily. You have to hurry up and join the club. How is this young man of yours progressing?”

  “He’s doing really well,” Emily said. “He’s an absolute whiz when it comes to inventing new preparations.”

  “Preparations?” Alice asked.

  “Emily’s young man is a druggist,” Fanny explained.

  “Just an apprentice at the moment,” Emily cut in. “I work for the same apothecary, behind the counter. Mr. McPherson wouldn’t let a woman near the actual drugs.”

  The group chuckled.

  “I’ve popped in there a couple of times and they made me a marvelous mixture for my stomach. Wonderfully calming,” Fanny said.

  “Do tell where it is,” Minnie said. “I am in desperate need of a calming mixture. My nerves are really quite upset since we moved to that big new house. And Frank is so often away that I find it hard to sleep.”

  “Oh, I’m sure we could make you a great sleeping powder,” Emily said. “We’re on Columbus, not far from Fanny’s.”

  “Then I must pay you a visit next time I come into the city,” Minnie said.

  “Oh but girls, I use the absolute best of calming tinctures,” Bella said. “My dears, it’s almost pure opium. The joy of it! A few drops in water and the world simply melts away.”

  “I don’t think that Anson would approve of that,” Fanny said with a frown. “He doesn’t like me taking things. He even disapproves of smelling salts. He says it should be mind over matter and that feeling faint is all in my head.”

  “Of course it’s not in your head,” I said, and all eyes turned on me. “If you will wear those ridiculously tight corsets, you’re going to feel faint any time you’re upset, because you start to breathe rapidly and your lungs won’t let you take in fresh air. You’re actually breathing in your own used breath.”

  They looked at me as if I was a strange animal. “But everybody wears corsets,” Dorcas said. “I’m back in mine already and little Toodles isn’t quite two months old.”

  “I was told one’s insides would rattle about if one didn’t hold them in place with a corset,” Minnie said.

  “Well, I’ve never worn one and never intend to,” I said. I could tell they thought I was remarkably odd.

  “But don’t you want to marry? What man would look twice at a woman with a large waist?” Fanny turned those doll-like blue eyes on me.

  “I have a young man and he seems to like me just fine the way I am,” I said. I didn’t add that he found it hard to keep his hands off me. They might have swooned on the spot.

  “So your young man is good at making concoctions, is he, Emily?” Dorcas chose tactfully to change the subject.

  “He is. He’s been trying his hand at ladies’ cosmetics,” Emily said. “I think they’re marvelous.”

  “They are,” Fanny agreed. “He’s absolutely as good as anything that comes from Paris. Emily, don’t forget you promised me another jar of that wonderful face cream he makes. I’m almost out of it.”

  “So I did. I’ll remind Ned to make you one.”

  Dorcas examined Emily’s face. “Your complexion is flawless, Emily, and Fanny’s is certainly perfection. I’d love to try it too.”

  “There. You’ve landed Ned his first order,” Fanny said. “And Bella, I wouldn’t say no if you brought a little of your magic calming tincture next time we meet. Anson need never know.”

  “How is Anson?” Emily asked.

  “Busy.” Fanny frowned. “What with working in the city and then going out to inspect the building of our new house, I hardly see him. If it weren’t for you dear friends, and shopping, of course, my life would be one of utter boredom.”

  “I’m so glad we live in the city,” Bella said. “The shopping is wonderful, don’t you think?”


  “Nothing like Paris,” Minnie said. “It’s impossible to buy a decent dress off the peg, and most of the dressmakers are so provincial in their taste. I had to tell mine quite firmly that I had a fine bust and I wanted more of it exposed on my evening dress.”

  “Minnie!” Alice exclaimed. “And you a married woman, too.”

  “What’s wrong with it?” Minnie said with a self-satisfied smile. “A bigger bust is the one advantage to giving birth to a baby. I had nothing to show off before.”

  “And what did your dressmaker say?” Fannie asked.

  “She turned quite pale and looked at me as if I were a brazen hussy.”

  We laughed.

  “I hope you fired her,” Bella said.

  “I did, but now I’m lost. What will I wear when the summer season starts out in Newport?”

  “You’ll be going there for the summer, will you?”

  “Oh, definitely. All of Jack’s business acquaintances will be there, so there’s no point in staying here, and he does enjoy the sailing so.”

  “I rather wish we were building a house in Newport,” Fanny said, “but Anson has insisted on Great Neck or Little Neck or somewhere with an equally silly name. He wants to be close enough to the city to go back and forth with ease. But then we shall move there and I shall know nobody.”

  “We’ll all come and visit you, Fanny dear,” Alice said, reaching across to pat her hand. “We’ll have such fun garden parties and play croquet.”

  “And you’ll have to come into the city to shop, of course,” Bella said firmly. “Speaking of which, did I tell you that I’ve discovered the most amazing fabric store? It’s in the most disreputable part of the city, on Canal Street, but they import silks from China. You have never seen anything like it. My eyes nearly popped out of my head. So I gave them my card and told them to bring me a selection to choose from and next time you see me at a ball, I’ll be dazzling in scarlet silk.”

  “We must all come to your place when the silk merchant is there,” Fanny said.

  “Oh no. This is my little find,” Bella said, laughing. “I have no wish to compete with a bevy of Chinese-clad beauties. You find your own little secret gems.”