In a Gilded Cage - By Rhys Bowen Page 0,27

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