In a Gilded Cage - By Rhys Bowen Page 0,13
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 Murphy, 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