by Radha Vatsal
When she finished working at lunchtime, Kitty asked Rao to take her to the East Side, where her friend Amanda Vanderwell lived. While Amanda was away in Europe working as a nurse’s aide, her snooty mother had warmed toward Kitty, and from time to time, Kitty liked to pay her a visit. But today, she had an ulterior motive. Mrs. Vanderwell knew everyone in society, and Kitty suspected she might know the Brights and be able to provide more color—or gossip—on what had happened.
Gilbert, the Vanderwells’ wizened old maid, opened the front door to the narrow brownstone building. She was such a fixture in the household that she was only known by the nickname that Amanda had given her as child, its origins lost in the hazy mists of time. Strains of triumphant music came from the parlor as Kitty entered. Amanda’s portly mother sat on a bench, eyes closed, chubby fingers flying up and down the baby grand. Amanda had told Kitty that Mrs. Vanderwell aspired to become a concert pianist in her youth, but her grandparents had discouraged their daughter’s ambition. Now, Mrs. V. played for her own pleasure, to calm her nerves, and—Kitty recalled Amanda whispering mischievously—to make everyone else feel hopelessly untalented in comparison.
The final notes of the piece died down, and Delphy Vanderwell opened her eyes. “Ah, it’s you, Capability. I thought I heard someone… Turn on the light, Gilbert.”
Gilbert doddered over to a table lamp. The Vanderwells were old money, but there wasn’t much of that left, so they took pains to keep costs low wherever possible, especially when it came to newfangled luxuries like electrical expenditures.
Mrs. Vanderwell picked up her rings from the top of the piano and coaxed them back on. “So nice of you to visit, my dear. I have wonderful news; Amanda says she might be back in January. About time too. I think all this tending to the wounded has made her pretty melancholy.”
“I can’t imagine her like that.” In fact, it was Amanda who loved to tease Kitty for being too serious.
“Well, that’s what she sounds like in all of her letters.” Mrs. Vanderwell moved over to the couch. “And as it is, she won’t make any promises. She says she will come home only if replacements arrive to take her place. And how are you?”
Kitty sat back. “To be honest, Mrs. Vanderwell, I need your help.”
Gilbert shuffled in with tea and toast on a tray, and Mrs. Vanderwell gestured for Kitty to pour for them both.
“A girl I met passed away,” Kitty said. “I thought you might know the family. Her name was Bright.”
“Elspeth Bright.”
Kitty put down her cup. “So you do know her.”
“I know her mother. At least, we were great friends until Ephigenia took up the suffrage cause. Ever since then, she’s neglected anyone who doesn’t attend all those tiresome meetings. She certainly neglected Elspeth. Why else send her away to school? We have plenty of perfectly fine schools in the city.”
“Did you know Miss Bright was a somnambulist?”
“I recall Ephigenia mentioning something of the sort when Elspeth was a child. I thought she’d grown out of it.”
“I’m sorry,” Kitty burst out. “I just don’t believe she would die—and to freeze to death all of a sudden. It’s too grotesque. Like a story pulled from a dime novel.”
“Well, it certainly happened,” Mrs. Vanderwell replied without losing her composure. “The funeral service is this evening.”
“Will you go?”
“I haven’t been invited. They want to keep it private. Understandably so. A child’s death…” Mrs. Vanderwell sighed. “I don’t know what I would do if anything ever happened to my Amanda. Did you know Elspeth well? Are you quite cut up about it?”
“It bothers me.” Kitty picked up her tea again. “Miss Bright was just an acquaintance, but I find what happened to her troubling. She gave no sign of being someone who might die at any minute. And if something like that could happen to her, well then, why not to any one of us? Why not to me?”
“Do you suffer from somnambulism as well?” Mrs. Vanderwell’s motherly features creased with worry.
“Fortunately not. What I mean to say is that Miss Bright seemed perfectly healthy, and she was young and in good spirits.”
“Appearances can be misleading, Capability. But I can tell it’s been a shock for you. Why don’t you see my nerve man? He may be able to help.”
Kitty shrank back. “I don’t want to take any medicines.”
Amanda’s mother smiled. “You young girls are all the same. You think you can manage everything by yourselves. In my day, we never hesitated to say yes to a little pick-me-up. There’s no harm in taking some tonic or pills just to tide one over.”
“I’d rather not, Mrs. Vanderwell.” That was how too many ladies became addicted to one kind of medication or another.
“He may be able to explain to you how it happened. The causes behind somnambulism and that sort of disease.”
“He would do that?”
Amanda’s mother brightened. “He will if I ask.” She patted Kitty on the knee. “He’s terribly busy, but he owes me a favor. You’ll see, my dear. You won’t regret it.”
Chapter Five
A bust of bearded, bald Hippocrates sat near a malachite pen holder and vellum-paged notepad. Volumes with titles beginning Disorders of…, Disturbances to…, and Abnormalities in… covered the shelves to the right of the physician’s desk.
“Please have a seat,” Dr. Flagg said in a surprisingly thin, high-pitched voice. “I’m glad to be able to squeeze you in.”
His office reeked of rubbing alcohol and—or so Kitty fancied—the fears and hopes of his patients. She shot a glance at the glass-fronted cabinet arrayed with shining metal instruments, the padded leather examination chair with its leather straps and metal buckles.
“I hope Mrs. Vanderwell informed you that I begin all consultations with a physical exam. Of course, we will have a nurse present.”
“No,” Kitty squeaked. She patted her forehead with a handkerchief. “I’m here on behalf of someone else.”
“I beg your pardon. I wasn’t aware of that.”
“My friend is a somnambulist, or, rather, was a somnambulist. And as a nerve specialist, Mrs. Vanderwell said you would be able to help me understand her condition.”
Dr. Flagg scowled, evidently displeased.
“Mrs. Vanderwell told me you were an expert,” Kitty went on. “I wouldn’t have troubled you, but I work for the New York Sentinel, and my editor thought I should write a story about the disease. We would quote you as a source.” In many cases, Kitty found, the newspaper angle made a difference. It stoked people’s vanities to think they might be mentioned in an article.
Dr. Flagg removed his gold pen from its holder and held it loosely between his fingers. He blinked once or twice. “I don’t care for publicity myself…but my patients do like to feel that they’re being treated by the best. Seeing my name in print might boost their confidence.”
“Absolutely, Dr. Flagg.”
“And you will be charged for the consultation.”
“I’m prepared to pay, Doctor.” Thank goodness, Kitty thought, that she could afford it and that she had brought along some extra money.
“All right then.” He put down the pen. “Let’s begin. So where were we? Ah, yes. Somnambulism.” He leaned back in his chair. “It’s one of the phases of grand hypnotism, along with catalepsy and lethargy—”
“I’ve been told that my friend walked out into the cold while she was asleep,” Kitty broke in to avoid a long, technical lecture. “And she then died of exposure. Does that seem plausible to you?”
Dr. Flagg didn’t miss a beat. “Absolutely.”
“Oh.” Kitty had hoped he would contradict her and tell her that it was impossible, that something less extraordinary had caused Elspeth’s death. It wasn’t dying from exposure that Kitty objected to; it was the sleepwalking,
the idea that she could have been cold enough to die and yet not wake up and run home to safety.
“Tell me more about this young person,” the doctor said. “I assume she was young?”
“She was a student at Westfield Hall.”
“I see.” Dr. Flagg rose. “Of course, that explains it.” He pulled a book from his shelf and showed it to Kitty. “Are you familiar with this?” It was called Sex in Education; or, A Fair Chance for the Girls. “It’s written by Dr. Edward Clarke, who was a Harvard man. Some of his ideas have been contested, but the main ones hold. Would you care for me to explain them to you? They will help you make sense of what happened to your friend.”
“Please.” The smell of the rubbing alcohol and sight of the instruments in the glass case no longer disturbed Kitty. She sat up straight, ready to hear everything.
The doctor returned to his chair and brought his fingertips together. “First, you must understand that three systems control every living body. These are?” He waited for Kitty to answer.
“Why don’t you tell me, Doctor?”
“The nutritive, which controls digestion; the nervous, which controls sensation; and the reproductive, which controls the sexual health of the organism.”
A splash of color appeared on Kitty’s cheeks. She reminded herself that Dr. Flagg was a medical man. There was no need to feel ashamed.
“The first two systems,” the doctor went on, “are identical in women and men. As for the third, the female has a set of organs particular to herself. If properly cared for, they bring vitality and power to her being. If neglected, however”—he paused, allowing the import of his words to sink in—“she is beset by disease and illness.”
Kitty had never heard human physiology described with such candor and in such stark detail, and she tried to conceal her embarrassment by staring intently at the marble statue of the Greek physician on his desk.
“You must understand,” Dr. Flagg continued, oblivious to her discomfort, “that there are three stages of life. The first extends from birth to maturity—from zero to about twelve or fifteen years. The second, mature phase extends from about fifteen years to forty-five years. And the final stage lasts from about forty-five years to death. It is the transition between these stages that is critical.
“Women’s organs exhibit a complexity, delicacy, and force, which are among the marvels of creation—but they can also be easily derailed. A habit of regular, healthy menstruation must be achieved during the first transitional phase, by the age of eighteen or twenty. If not”—he emphasized each word—“it will never be achieved in the future.”
It took a moment for the shocking conclusion to register. “Never?”
“I’m afraid so. The point that Dr. Clarke makes so eloquently is that girls between the ages of fourteen and twenty must have adequate time to rest and enough time to develop properly. But unfortunately, this is the exact juncture at which girls who attend academies or institutions of higher learning subject themselves to rigorous mental exertion, which diverts energy away from the reproductive system, and this, in turn, leads to hideous mental and physical consequences.” He looked at Kitty pointedly.
“Allow me to give you an example. A capable girl, let’s call her Miss A., entered a seminary at the age of fifteen. Always anxious, she practiced her recitations standing up for hours on end, which caused terrible effects. She began to hemorrhage monthly. Her skin turned pale, and she started to twitch involuntarily. Eventually, her parents removed her from school, but while the hemorrhages ceased, dysmenorrhea afflicted her for the remainder of her days.”
“But that’s terrible!”
“Nature is a stern master, Miss Weeks. Of course, Dr. Clarke doesn’t claim that education for girls is wrong. In fact, quite the opposite. He wants to make sure that young women have an equal chance for success in all aspects of life, which is why he maintains that most education takes place at the wrong time in a girl’s development. I believe that is what afflicted your friend and led to her somnambulism.”
“I see.” Could what he had said explain Elspeth’s malady?
“Do you have any questions?”
She thought for a moment. The Misses Dancey, who ran the boarding school that she had attended, enforced strict rules. They consulted What a Young Woman Ought to Know and instructed their charges to avoid tight clothing and corsets. The girls took adequate rest, light exercise during monthly periods, and bathed regularly. But Kitty herself wasn’t yet twenty, and she had been working at the Sentinel for almost a full year. “Dr. Flagg, would one know if one suffered from such ills?” She feared his response but couldn’t help herself from asking.
“You would feel it, Miss Weeks. You might not care to admit it to yourself, but you would know.”
“How?” Kitty persisted. “Are there any telltale signs?”
“Are we still talking about your friend?”
She shook her head.
“Well then. Do you suffer from monthly fatigue?”
“No, Doctor.”
“Regular dizziness or lethargy?”
“I’m safe in that regard.”
“Do you take care of yourself? Eat well, rest adequately?”
“I do, but I also work.”
“Oh yes. I forgot about that… For how long?”
“Since the beginning of the year, but I work half days.” Kitty and Miss Busby had agreed upon that arrangement, because Mr. Weeks didn’t want her working from nine to five. “Who knows?” he had said with a crooked smile. “It might look like we need the money, or even worse, that you’re serious about a career.”
Dr. Flagg considered what Kitty had told him. “How old are you?”
“I turn twenty in May.”
“You look perfectly healthy to me. But to be honest, any damage that could have occurred has already happened. Now it’s just a question of managing the consequences.” He checked his pocket watch. “Will that be all, Miss Weeks?”
“Thank you, Doctor.” Kitty stood and shook his hand.
“My pleasure. And if you have any other concerns, do feel free to come see me again.”
• • •
Kitty returned to work in a daze. She had always pooh-poohed girls who coddled themselves and spent a few days each month resting. If only the medical reason had been explained to her properly…
She paused at the entrance to the hen coop. The sore arms and wrists of the typists banging away at their machines for nine and ten hours a day were the least of their worries. She now understood that they might be setting themselves up for terrible futures—futures permanently marred by debilitating illness.
“Are you all right?” Jeannie stood and picked up her things. “You don’t look yourself.” Not wanting their editor to panic, Kitty had telephoned to say she would be late because of a doctor’s visit.
Kitty managed a smile. “Do you feel you work too hard, Jeannie?”
“I’d work less if I could,” Jeannie replied as they made their way down the corridor, “and spend more time gadding about and going to the movies. But then again, who wouldn’t?”
“Hello, girls.” Miss Busby set aside her papers. “Let’s discuss resolutions. Jeannie, what do you have for me?”
Kitty’s mind wandered. This summer, the editor had had a breakdown as the result of her many responsibilities. Whose turn would it be next? One of the other girls at the hen coop? Jeannie’s? Hers?
“Miss Weeks.” Miss Busby snapped her fingers. “Miss Weeks, may I have a moment of your attention? Miss Williams and I were talking about resolutions. Do you have anything you’d like to add to the list?”
Shaken from her reverie, Kitty replied without thinking. “I’d like to stay healthy.”
“Excellent. All the riches in the world are nothing compared to good health. Write that down, Jeannie.” Miss Busby beamed. “And do you kno
w what my resolution is, girls?” The opalescent earrings dangling from her earlobes swayed as Helena Busby nodded. “I have resolved to be more open to change. And so, Mademoiselles Weeks and Williams, I have decided that for our January 1 issue, the two of you will go to Times Square and cover our city’s New Year’s Eve celebrations.”
“The public celebrations?” Jeannie couldn’t keep the excitement from her voice.
“Yes.”
“At midnight, Miss Busby?” Kitty added.
“Yes.” The editor couldn’t stop smiling. “You must tell your father, of course, and, Miss Williams, you should ask your landlady’s permission.”
“You want us out among the crowds?” That didn’t sound at all like the Helena Busby Kitty knew, always concerned about appearances.
“Haven’t you always told me you want to be a real reporter, Miss Weeks?” Miss Busby replied. “Here’s your chance.”
Thousands of inebriated revelers thronged in Times Square to bring in the new year. It would be loud, crowded, and rowdy. Kitty did want to be a real reporter, out on assignment, but this wasn’t reporting. It was a recipe for being knocked about and manhandled. And the story wouldn’t do much for the Page or its readers. In the end, it would be so much more fluff, just another account of a festive evening, though on a far grander scale than she had ever witnessed.
• • •
“I’m finished.” Kitty rushed into the apartment and threw herself onto the couch in her father’s study.
He remained seated in his armchair. “Finished with what?”
“I don’t want to work anymore. I’ve made a New Year’s resolution to leave the Sentinel.”
“Don’t be silly.”
“I went to see a doctor.” Kitty hugged a pillow to her chest.
“What for?” Her father’s tone changed.
“I wanted to speak to him about the girl who died. I told you about her. Do you remember?”
“Of course, I remember.”