In a Gilded Cage (5 page)

“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

T
he 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.

“Uh—I came to meet Emily,” I stammered. “She told me she has her lunch break at one. I hope I haven’t missed her.”

“No, she should be back any second now. She was sent out on a delivery.”

“You must be Ned,” I said, although I knew quite well who he was. “Emily’s told me about you.”

“You’re a friend of hers then?” he asked, eyeing me with interest. “From Vassar?”

“No such luck. I met her through mutual friends. She’s a grand girl, isn’t she?”

“Oh yes,” he said. “A grand girl. Very smart.”

“She’s very proud of you. She tells me you’ve a promising career ahead of you.”

He made a face and I couldn’t tell whether it was one of embarrassment or annoyance. “Someday, maybe. Right now I’m only an apprentice.” He glanced over his shoulder and lowered his voice. “And the old man doesn’t let me do much more than make up liniments for old men’s rheumatics. But I’m studying in my spare time and I hope to make something of myself someday.”

“Ned—I don’t pay you to gossip,” came the sharp voice from the back room. “If the young lady hasn’t come to purchase something then I suggest she wait outside.”

“You see what it’s like,” Ned muttered to me. “Never a moment to myself. Ah, here’s Emily now.”

Emily burst in through the front door, her cheeks glowing from having hurried. “Sorry I’m late,” she gasped, “But I decided to stop in on Mrs. Hartmann, since she lives just across the street from the delivery.”

“I don’t pay you to dillydally and gossip,” Mr. McPherson snapped. “Next time you want to go visiting, do it during your lunch break.”

“Oh, but Mr. McPherson, she’s your own valued employee. I’d have thought you’d want an update on her condition,” Emily said.

Mr. McPherson merely grunted.

“Well, how is she?” Ned asked.

“A little better,” Emily said. “Starting to sit up and take solid food again.”

“Well, that’s good news. I must go and see her myself,” Ned said. “In my own time, of course,” he added, glancing back at his boss, then touched Emily’s arm. “And you have a visitor.”

Her face lit up. “Molly. You’re better. How splendid.”

“Your ministrations obviously did the trick,” I said. “I woke this morning feeling my old self again. So I’m anxious to get to work.”

“Work? What work?” Ned asked.

“Molly is a real live detective,” Emily said. “Have you two been introduced?”

“Not exactly,” I said. “Being a detective, I deduced that this young man might be Ned but he doesn’t know my name.”

“Oh, then let me introduce you now. Molly Murphy, this is Ned Tate.”

We shook hands. His hand was slim and elegant, with well-manicured fingernails. Obviously a young man who thought a lot of himself, I decided.

“Are you lunching with any of your other friends?” Ned asked. “Or is Molly not part of your rich socialite set?”

Emily laughed. “My rich socialite set? Just because some of my Vassar friends have married well doesn’t mean that I’m part of any rich set.”

“I only thought that your bosom pal Fanny whatever-her-name-is lived nearby and that you saw her frequently.”

“Fanny does live in the Dakota,” Emily said, “but I hardly see her frequently anymore. Our lives are so different now. She has all the time in the world and I have none. Speaking of which, my precious half hour is rapidly disappearing. Come, Molly, we must away. If you’ll excuse us, Ned.”

“I’ll leave you ladies to your luncheon then,” he said, with a polite bow. “I have to get back to work,” he added loudly for Mr. McPherson’s benefit.

“Too right you do,” Mr. McPherson said, looking up from his table. “Does Mrs. Hartmann require any more of the stomach powders?”

“No, she said she didn’t need anything,” Emily said. “She said she was on the mend.”

“Well, let’s hope she’ll be back at work soon. You young slackers don’t know the meaning of work.”

I followed Emily out of the shop.

“So what did you think of Ned?” Emily asked. Her eyes were shining.

“He is very handsome,” I said.

“Isn’t he just? And so smart too. It was my lucky day when I answered that advertisement in McPherson’s window.”

I couldn’t help wondering what it was about Emily that had caught Ned’s eye. Maybe I had misjudged him and he was more impressed with her intellect than her looks. He had certainly given me a once-over all right.

“I usually just go to the café across the street,” Emily said. “They have a ten-cent daily special that is sometimes quite good. And I only have one gas ring in my room so it’s hard to cook at home.”

“Fine with me,” I said. “As long as it’s quiet enough to talk.”

We dodged the traffic and went inside a pleasant little tea room called the Black Cat. I could see why Emily came here. The other occupants were women and the tables had white cloths on them—overall an air of gentility. The waitress greeted Emily and two plates of the special were brought. It was some kind of meat pie and cabbage, mainly hot and filling but with little flavor. Maybe I had become used to good meals with Sid and Gus.

After we had satisfied our immediate hunger I took out my little notebook. “So I’m anxious to get started on your case,” I said. “Let us begin with your parents’ full names.”

“I believe they were William and Mary,” she said. “I think that’s what Aunt Lydia told me.”

“And where in China were you born?”

“I have no idea. In the interior, that’s all I know.”

“What about your birth certificate? Doesn’t that give all those details?”

“I have no birth certificate,” she said. “That’s the problem. As I understand it, a cholera epidemic was raging when I was born. My parents died when I was only a few days old and a devoted servant whisked me away to safety. I was deposited at the nearest mission and eventually brought back to America.”

“What a romantic story,” I said. “Tragic, of course, but the fact that you survived against all odds is amazing.”