In a Gilded Cage - By Rhys Bowen Page 0,15

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