The Gilded Hour

  “Extreme unction,” he supplied. “Last rites.”

  “So I was very glad of his help. But I first met Detective Sergeant Maroney at the Vanderbilts’ masked ball later that evening,” she added. “They were there on duty.”

  Sophie had been participating in the conversation with her usual good manners, but now she stiffened slightly. To Detective Maroney she said, “Did you meet our friend Cap?”

  “We didn’t have the pleasure,” he answered. “I was sorry to learn that he is so ill.” It was phrased in a way that could be taken as a question or an observation.

  “He is consumptive,” Aunt Quinlan said.

  Anna was glad of the change in topic, but it also confused her; it wasn’t like Aunt Quinlan to talk to strangers about Cap’s health. Something else was going on.

  She was saying, “Sophie has had a letter from a specialist in Switzerland—” She raised a brow in Anna’s direction. “We planned to tell you about it this evening.”

  “Hmmm,” Anna said, doubtfully. She wondered when exactly this letter had arrived. More important, she understood that she had been outmaneuvered. The subject of the letter had been brought up because the company at the table would force her to be patient and keep what would otherwise be sharp questions to herself. For the time being.

  “A specialist who can cure consumption?” Oscar Maroney looked both impressed and doubtful.

  “No,” Sophie said. “Not yet. But he is opening a clinic—too small to be called a sanatorium really—to launch a trial for a new therapy.”

  Anna said, “We’ll have to go over the details later. That is, if Cap indicates an interest.” And there, she thought. That should be enough to end the conversation, both at this table and at any other time. Cap would have nothing to do with such a scheme. Except now Aunt Quinlan was looking at her thoughtfully, with something in her expression Anna didn’t like at all.

  “But he is interested,” her aunt said. “He asked for you to come by on Sunday, to discuss it.”

  • • •

  JACK HAD BEEN watching the back-and-forth between the older women and the younger ones, seeing affection and respect in the way they talked to each other, but also challenges and long-held disagreements.

  “So may I ask, what do you plan to do about the Russo girls?”

  All eyes turned to him.

  “Would you like us to take them back to the asylum?”

  Beside him Maroney moved uneasily.

  “You would do that?” Sophie seemed genuinely surprised.

  “If you asked us to, we would have to take them.”

  “Where?” Aunt Quinlan wanted to know. “To Mott Street?”

  Margaret Cooper appeared in the doorway as if her name had been called. “You cannot be serious. We can’t send them back there,” she said. “Not in good conscience.”

  “Margaret,” Anna began, but her cousin had already walked away, her back stiff and straight.

  “She wants to take them in?” Oscar looked at each of the women in turn, one brow raised in polite surprise.

  “She is very maternal and misses having children to look after, but of course, this is something we need to think about and discuss at length before we undertake something so—important,” Mrs. Quinlan said.

  Then Margaret was back, a newspaper in her hands. “‘Chinese opium den raided,’” she read aloud. “‘Young girls living in the neighborhood have been decoyed for immoral purposes.’” Her eyes scanned the page. “‘A brawl outside Mayer’s tavern at Cherry and Water Streets ended in a fatal stabbing . . .’ And oh, yes, this: ‘The body of a young boy found in an outhouse on Prince Street, marks of violence.’ Shall I go on?”

  Oscar was clearly surprised and delighted at this unexpected source of information. “You subscribe to the Police Gazette?”

  “I do,” she said, as if she had been challenged.

  The old aunt shook her head. “Margaret, we are all aware of the dangers in that neighborhood, but that’s not the issue just now. We have to send word to the sisters that they can stop searching. It doesn’t mean we’ll send the girls away.”

  “We might not have a choice,” Sophie said. “The Church will have an opinion.”

  Margaret Cooper’s expression turned sour, but Anna got up from the table before the conversation could continue.

  “I’ll write that note now.”

  • • •

  ONCE THE DETECTIVE sergeants had gone off to the convent with the note and a message, Anna let herself be drawn into a fraught conversation about the little girls and what it would mean to keep them.

  “These are not stray cats,” she said aloud to no one in particular, and with that sparked a sputtering maternal declaration from Margaret: she, Margaret Quinlan Cooper, knew far better than Anna what it meant to raise children, the responsibilities, the work and effort and potential for heartbreak. If Anna didn’t like the idea of being tied down, well, then Anna should continue just as she was and leave the poor little girls to others, who knew the business best. Margaret’s two boys were evidence enough that she was equal to the task. Margaret glanced at Aunt Quinlan as she came to the end of this speech but didn’t get the agreement she sought.

  Instead, Aunt Quinlan said, “Margaret, do you sincerely want to dedicate the next twenty years to the raising of these two children?”

  “And the two brothers, if we should find them,” Sophie said, quietly.

  “Are we looking for them?” her aunt asked.

  Anna forced herself to take three deep breaths. She knew what she needed to say but not exactly why she needed to say it. “I will look for them,” she began slowly. “I intend to find them, if that is possible. I feel as though I owe Rosa that much. And please don’t ask me to explain myself, because I’m not sure I can.”

  “That’s quite clear, Anna,” her aunt said. “She reminds you of yourself.”

  Flushed with irritation Anna said, “My situation was nothing like hers. I had family. There was never any uncertainty about who would look after me.”

  She didn’t like the look on her aunt’s face, and so she went on. “Even if the girls go back to the orphan asylum, I will make an effort to locate the boys.”

  “The chances of finding them are very small,” her aunt said, gently.

  Sophie said, “But if we should somehow find them, we’d have four young children on our hands.” Her expression was calm but her tone was unmistakable: she would support Anna in her decision, but first she would be sure that the decision was not made rashly.

  “Whatever we decide to do, we have to tell the girls in the morning,” Aunt Quinlan said. “The uncertainty is too much for them.”

  It was another hour and a half before they had come to any kind of consensus, and still Anna lay awake once she finally found herself in bed. She got up and lit her desk lamp, got out paper and pen and inkpot. She had gone over the wording so many times in her head she wrote quickly and without pause.

  Detective Sergeant Mezzanotte,

  I write to thank you for your kind assistance to the Russo sisters, and for bringing them to us. After long discussion we have decided to ask the Sisters of Charity to give us custody of the girls while we apply for guardianship status. We will take full responsibility for them and agree to raise them as Catholics should that be required.

  If you are willing, we would like permission to use your name as a reference in writing our petition to the Church authorities. Please let us know if this is acceptable to you.

  We will also commit to taking in the two Russo boys, should we have success finding them. I recognize the difficulty of such an undertaking, but I feel an obligation to at least try.

  Thank you once again for your understanding and kindness.

  Sincerely yours,

  Anna Savard

  A half hour later, almost asleep, A
nna sat up suddenly in bed. The first shimmer of dawn was in the sky, but she lit the lamp once again, because she had made an error that had to be corrected. She began the letter once again: Detective Sergeants Mezzanotte and Maroney.

  The next morning Anna sat across from Sophie at the kitchen table studying a letter that had come with the first mail delivery. It was very brief and, unfortunately, not the first of its kind.

  Dear Dr. Savard,

  I know a number of ladies who have been treated by you, and who speak of your wide knowledge and consummate skill as a physician specializing in women’s health. Today I write in the hope that you might be able to provide me with that particular kind of sensitive information the mother of many children must sometimes have. I have recently seen one such pamphlet which I believe you supplied a friend, and I would gladly pay for my own copy. Indeed, I would like to buy any pamphlets you have on the restoration of menses and good health. Please write to me at Herald Square Post Box 886 with a list of available pamphlets and their cost. Thank you in advance for your kind assistance.

  Yours most sincerely

  Mrs. C. J. Latimer

  On the table between them was also a larger sheet of paper with a single line of writing at the top:

  Latimer == Campbell

  It was the way she and Sophie and Cap had always tackled a difficult problem in geometry or chemistry. She and Sophie continued the practice at college and in medical school studying pharmacology and physiology. And now they sometimes discussed a difficult case.

  The letter from the lady signing herself Mrs. Latimer was nothing out of the ordinary, but it had roused Sophie’s suspicions. Given the timing, she feared it was connected to the pamphlet she had sent Mrs. Campbell. If her husband had intercepted the envelope, this could be a trap, yet another effort to manipulate her into violating the Comstock Act.

  At Sophie’s elbow was a pile of newspaper clippings that dated back five years, all of which had to do with Comstock’s arrests of physicians, midwives, printers, and druggists for distribution of contraceptives or information about contraceptives. There was a handwritten chart attached, on which Anna had calculated the number of arrests according to the type of evidence, and the outcome of the case. Comstock was not terribly successful in prosecuting these cases, but he was persistent and sometimes, with the right judge, he got what he wanted.

  She recognized in herself a kind of compulsion to keep track of Comstock, and a general irritation that such a thing should be necessary. For all they knew other physicians all over the city were just as worried about the possibility of being entrapped, but they were all so afraid of Comstock that they didn’t raise the subject in company.

  “We don’t have enough information,” Anna said when they had been going over the facts available to them for ten minutes. “I don’t see any real connection to Mrs. Campbell.”

  “Maybe not, but I think we have to assume the worst,” Sophie said. “Mrs. Campbell would have received the pamphlet I sent on Wednesday, probably in the first mail delivery of the day. That was two days after I attended her delivery, and one day after her husband looked at me, directly at me, while he stood next to Comstock. At Clara Garrison’s trial. We have to warn the printer,” she said. “If the pamphlet was traced to me, it could be traced to him, and I will not take that chance.”

  “Think about it for one more day,” Anna said. “And think about this too: if Comstock does have someone watching you, that person could follow you to the printer they otherwise would have a difficult time locating and might never suspect.”

  Sophie gave her a pointed look. “Why do you want to talk me out of doing what I know is right?”

  Anna sat back, picked up her cup, and thought for a moment.

  “I don’t. Really, I don’t. But the thought of that man—my hackles rise.”

  “You can be sure I’ll take every precaution to avoid him.”

  Anna would have to be satisfied with that much.

  6

  EARLY SUNDAY MORNING Anna came in from checking post-op patients and stretched out on her favorite divan in the parlor, putting her head back to study the mural on the ceiling. It was the work of a visiting artist who had painted because he had no other way, he explained at length, of repaying Aunt Quinlan’s extraordinary hospitality.

  Aunt Quinlan was known as a gracious hostess, a supporter of young artists, and an easy touch. Any close friend could write a letter of introduction that would open her door, and she had many close friends. Over the years dozens of young artists had come to call, in need of encouragement and regular feeding and a bed. These young people would stay a few days or a few weeks, and almost all of them left behind a painting or drawing or sculpture of some kind.

  Mr. MacLeish had decided that nothing less than a mural would do, and banished them all from the parlor for a full month while he worked.

  “And ate,” Mrs. Lee pointed out at every opportunity. Mrs. Lee did not like being shut out of the parlor, and she liked even less that Hamish MacLeish wouldn’t allow her to supervise his progress. By the time the unveiling came around she was determined not to like whatever he had created, but she gave in with good grace as soon as she saw it.

  MacLeish won Mrs. Lee over by putting Aunt Quinlan—a much younger Aunt Quinlan, extracted from an early self-portrait—in the center of his mural as Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory.

  “Just so,” said Mrs. Lee. “Queens and goddesses forget nothing, except when it suits them.”

  “He was a student of Rossetti’s,” Aunt Quinlan reminded them. They were sitting in the parlor studying the mural after MacLeish had gone on to try his luck in the west. “Obsessed with hair, masses of it. All of Rossetti’s crowd were.”

  He had painted the muses, too, in a circle around their mother, all draped in flowing jewel-colored robes and each of them with more hair than any human woman could possibly want.

  “The hair is well done, but he didn’t get your faces quite right.” This from Cousin Margaret to Anna and Sophie, delivered with a small sniff.

  “We didn’t know he was using us as models,” Sophie said, because it was clear now that Margaret felt ignored.

  Anna said to her, “I suppose we should be offended that he didn’t ask for permission.”

  “Or for forgiveness,” said Aunt Quinlan, dryly.

  Over the course of the year Anna had come to like the mural, though she had yet to admit as much to anyone. She liked it, she told herself, because MacLeish had cast her in the role of Euterpe, the muse of music. Anna had a tin ear, and a great appreciation for both irony and nonsense.

  She might have slipped back into sleep if not for a little hand that latched on to her wrist. Lia Russo staked her claim and then clambered like a monkey to tuck herself into the crook of Anna’s arm. She came straight from bed, a small bundle of flannel smelling of sleep and lavender talc and little girl.

  Lia put her head against Anna’s shoulder and joined her in her study of the mural.

  Not yet two full days in residence, and the Russo girls had taken over. Or better said, Lia had taken over; Rosa alternated between hanging back and trying to rein in her sister. When Anna left for the hospital the morning of their first full day on Waverly Place, the moving of furniture had already begun, and when she came home the discussion of redecorating, of what could be fetched from the attic, of shopping and dressmakers and shoes, was still in full voice. Anna had the sense that this unexpected upheaval in the household was going to suit all of them. Once the legalities were worked out.

  She had the first draft of a letter to the sisters in charge of the asylum sitting on her desk. The writing of letters was something she did a lot of, and easily, but not this time. This time she had to explain the unexplainable: why these two girls in particular, when she saw so many of them, day in and day out.

  To Lia she said, “Have you had your breakfast?”
>
  In response the five-year-old pointed at the ceiling. “Heaven,” she said. “Cielo.”

  “Very good,” Anna said, resisting the urge to correct the child’s misinterpretation. The scene above their heads had nothing to do with a Christian heaven, but she was not about to discuss schools of art, Greek mythology, or perspective, whether geometrical or philosophical, with this little girl. If Lia wanted to think of heaven as a place where young women took their ease in a meadow beside a brook, Anna would not try to dissuade her. She wondered if Lia imagined her mother in a heaven like the one overhead. Anna had only the vaguest memories of her own mother and couldn’t imagine her anywhere at all.

  “Cos’è?” Lia pointed again, and Anna realized she had learned her first sentence in Italian. Lia was asking the question young children never tired of: What’s that?

  “I’m not sure,” Anna said. “Do you mean the apple tree?” She pretended to bite into an apple, and got a nod.

  “Apple tree.” Lia pronounced it perfectly.

  “In Italiano?” Anna ventured. “Cos’è?”

  “Melo.”

  Anna repeated the word and Lia nodded her approval.

  “There you are.” Margaret swooped into the parlor, all bright energy. The little girls had given her purpose, something no one had realized she was missing, which struck Anna as a little sad.

  “Lia,” Margaret said. “Come now and have your breakfast. Eggs and bacon and toast and jam.” She repeated this in something that sounded vaguely like Italian and held out a hand.

  Lia climbed down willingly enough and let herself be steered away, looking over her shoulder at Anna as she disappeared. Sophie took her place, coming in with a breakfast tray.

  “Is this a bribe?” Anna turned onto her side to examine the offerings.

  “Do you need to be bribed?”

  Anna went back to studying the ceiling. “That depends.”

  Sophie was still firm in her intention to warn the printer, and Anna realized now that there was nothing that she could do to dissuade her. She wasn’t even sure that Sophie was incorrect.