Blythewood (4 page)

Dr. Pritchard’s light green eyes bulged and a vein at his temple throbbed. “In my expert medical opinion it is dangerous to
remove this patient from care at this time—”
“Oh,” Miss Moorhen chirped. “Is that the same medical
opinion that kept a sixteen-year-old girl drugged and bound for
five months? No, I don’t believe we will be requiring
your
medical advice anymore, Dr. Pritchard. Now, if you will please step
out of the way, Miss Hall and I will be going.”
Dr. Pritchard’s hands curled into fists. The bass bell inside
my head rang once. I got ready to hurl myself at him should he
attempt to throttle Miss Moorhen, but then his hands went
limp and he let out a breath. He smiled and stepped to one
side, bowing and waving his arm in the air toward the door. He
looked at me.
“You are, of course, free to go, Miss Hall. I wish you luck in
your new home. But remember, if you ever require my services
again, I will be here waiting for you.”
He smiled at me, and a thin wisp of smoke dribbled out of
his mouth. I shuddered at the sight, but forced my eyes away
from him and focused on Miss Moorhen.
“I’m ready to go,” I said. She linked her arm through mine
and together we walked out of the Bellevue Pavilion for the Insane.

AS MISS MOORHEN had promised, there was an automobile waiting for us just outside the massive iron gates of Bellevue—a long sleek silvery automobile with a figure of a winged
woman at its prow—but it wasn’t full of Pinkerton detectives. A
uniformed driver sat at the wheel and a nervous-looking young
man in a rumpled linen suit paced in front of the car, raking his
hands through his hair and muttering to himself.

When he saw us coming out of the gates he rushed toward
us, looking as though he were going to fling his arms around
Miss Moorhen, but then satisfied his urges by flapping his arms
up in the air once and grabbing the ends of his hair. The hair
and plain, homely face looked familiar. It was the law student
who had flirted with Tillie the morning of the fire.

“Another thirty seconds and I was going to call the police,”
he told Miss Moorhen. “I thought you’d been swallowed up by
that damned place.”

“We very nearly were, Mr. Greenfeder,” Miss Moorhen
said, casting a look back over her shoulder and shuddering.
It was the first sign she’d shown that she was afraid, and it
made me afraid, too. I looked back at the great hulking mass
of the hospital and noticed that the sky above it was filled with
crows. One landed on the iron gates and cawed at us.

“Let’s get going before they change their minds and come
after us,” Miss Moorhen said.
Mr. Greenfeder opened the door for us and we climbed
into the plush interior of the automobile—the first one I’d ever
been inside. Mr. Greenfeder sat on a jump seat across from us
and spent the first few minutes of the drive anxiously peering
out the back window. As did Miss Moorhen. I looked back and
saw the lone crow on the gate flap back toward the hospital.
After we’d turned east on Twenty-Ninth Street, Miss
Moorhen and Mr. Greenfeder settled back in their seats and
switched their attentive gazes to me.
“Well!” Mr. Greenfeder slapped his knees with his hands.
“We found you at last! It’s been quite the Herculean task!”
“Yes,” Miss Moorhen agreed. “I’d never have succeeded
without your help, Mr. Greenfeder, and without your assurances that she was alive.” Turning to me, she said, “You see,
your name was listed with the dead. That is how it first came
to your grandmother’s attention that you were at the Triangle
Waist factory on the day of the fire. Imagine our grief, to be
looking for you for so long only to think we had lost you in such
a horrible tragedy. Mrs. Hall sent me down to the piers where
the bodies had been laid out for identification.”
Miss Moorhen shuddered, the feather on her hat trembling.
“If I live to be a hundred I will never forget what I saw there. All
those poor souls burnt or smashed to death—some no more
than children! All victims to the rapacious greed and neglect of
Misters Blanck and Harris.”
“You blame the owners for the fire?” I asked.

“Not for starting it. They think it was a cutter carelessly
tossing a cigarette into the scrap pile, but if there’d been an
alarm system and the new water sprinklers the fire would have
been put out. If the door hadn’t been locked and there had been
an adequate fire escape most of the victims would have lived.”
Miss Moorhen shook her head again.

“They will stand trial for their conduct,” Mr. Greenfeder
assured her. “They have been arraigned and charged with six
counts of manslaughter.”

“We shall see,” Miss Moorhen said. “Men like them often
manage to evade their fates because of their money and their
influence.”

“The law will hold them accountable,” Mr. Greenfeder
countered. “I’m sure of it.”
Miss Moorhen held up a gloved hand. “Dearest Samuel,
your faith in the law is admirable, exceeded only by your zeal
to discover the truth.” She turned to me. “It was his insistence
that the body identified as Avaline Hall was not yours that led
us here today. I found him mourning beside the body of your
friend, Miss Kupermann, which lay next to the poor unfortunate who had been identified as Avaline Hall. He told me that
he had seen you the morning of the fire and that you were wearing a navy skirt, not black, and that your hair was chestnut, not
brown. Remembering the color of your mother’s hair, I believed him.”
“
That’s
the reason you believed me?” Mr. Greenfeder asked,
aghast.
Miss Moorhen smiled. “That and your obvious powers of
observation. His description of the fire was so detailed and
thorough, despite the obvious emotional impact it had had on
him, that I felt sure he was right that the body in question had
been misidentified. Also, he said that he had seen you on the
pavement unconscious but unhurt after your fall. Though he
could not explain how you could have fallen ten stories without
injuring yourself.”
I swallowed and waited anxiously for what would surely
come next. Would they ask me to explain how I had survived?
How could I do that without mentioning the boy with the
wings?
“I do have a theory about that,” Mr. Greenfeder said, holding up one finger as if proving a point before a jury. “When the
ladder broke it swung against the side of the law building. The
last thing I saw before being overcome by a gust of smoke was
that young bloke who had saved so many girls making a mad
dash toward you through the air. I thought for sure he must have
died in his attempt, but I didn’t see him among the victims. I
believe that when the ladder swung down against the law building you were thrown into a window and that the young fellow
dived through that same window and then carried you down to
the pavement. From there you must have been transported to
the hospital—”
“Where of course we took up our inquiries right away. We
checked all the local hospitals, including Bellevue, but no patient fitting your description was listed among the wounded.”
“They kept me hidden,” I said, anger replacing the craven
fear I’d felt for so long. The thought that while Dr. Pritchard
had been telling me that I had no living family, Miss Moorhen and Mr. Greenfeder had been searching for me turned my
stomach. “But why?”
Miss Moorhen looked anxiously at Mr. Greenfeder and
sighed. “We don’t know,” she admitted, “but perhaps you witnessed something that would be incriminating to Misters
Blanck and Harris.”
“The scoundrels!” Mr. Greenfeder exclaimed. “You can be
sure that I will continue investigating the connections between
the owners of the Triangle Waist factory and Dr. Pritchard. I
won’t rest until I find out why they held you against your will
for so long.”
“Thank you, Mr. Greenfeder,” I said, tears springing to my
eyes at the unaccustomed kindness. “And thank you for all you
did the day of the fire. You and your friends were very brave.”
“I only wish I could have saved your friend Miss Kupermann. She was the one who was brave.” Mr. Greenfeder
blushed, making him look suddenly very young, and glanced
furtively at Miss Moorhen, who in turn blushed and looked out
the window. Then he looked out the window, too, and clapped
his hand to his forehead. “I forgot that I have to make an appearance in court. Could the driver let me off here?”
Miss Moorhen signaled to the driver to stop at the corner of
Twenty-Ninth Street and Madison Avenue. As he was getting
out I thought of a question.
“Mr. Greenfeder,” I called. “The boy who saved all those
girls—have you seen him since the fire?”
Mr. Greenfeder shook his head. “No, I’ve looked all over
for him—even advertised in the papers so he could testify at
the trial—but there’s been no sign of him.” He shook his head.
“It’s like he vanished into the smoke. Sometimes I think I imagined him.” Then, with another furtive look at Agnes, he left.
I watched Agnes watch him go, a faraway, dreamy look in
her eyes, which I suspected wasn’t her habitual expression.
“What a nice man,” I said as the car turned north on Madison Avenue.
“Oh! Mr. Greenfeder is a
fine
young man!” she declared as
adamantly as if I’d said the opposite. “In the months since the
fire he has been tireless in his efforts to promote regulations to
prevent such a tragedy from ever occurring again—motivated,
I believe, by his . . . er,
fondness
for your friend Tillie. She must
have been quite extraordinary.”
“Yes, she was . . .” I began. I wanted to tell her that while
Tillie
was
extraordinary, I wasn’t sure that she still held Mr.
Greenfeder’s heart—not after seeing the way he had looked at
Miss Moorhen. But I didn’t have a lot of experience telling girls
that boys liked them, and before I could try it, Miss Moorhen
shook herself briskly, like a bird shaking out wet feathers.
“But enough of Mr. Greenfeder! You’ll want to know more
about your situation, I imagine.”
“My situation?”
“Yes. I hope you’ll forgive me for speaking frankly, but I always find it’s best to lay all one’s cards on the table. Don’t you?”
I swallowed and glanced nervously out the window. As we
drove north the streets were decidedly less crowded than those
downtown. “Fashionable people,” I recalled my mother telling
me, “flee the city during the hot summer months.”
My mother had always known such things—what grand
hotels the rich visited in Europe, when the season began in
New York, and which families were from “old money” and
which were the nouveaux riches
.
I had always suspected that
she came from a wealthy family, but the reality of entering one
of the great mansions we were passing now on the wide deserted avenue—through the front door instead of the service
entrance—was suddenly terrifying. What if my grandmother
took one look at me and was so appalled by my disheveled appearance that she sent me back to the madhouse? It would be
better to wind up on the streets.
“I don’t expect anything from Mrs. Hall,” I said, squaring
my shoulders and lifting my chin. “Mother always said it was
better to be a pauper than a slave to money.”
“Evie was very proud,” Miss Moorhen said fondly. “A trait
she inherited from her mother, I’m afraid. The two of them
fought after your mother was expelled from Blythewood.”
“My mother was expelled?”
Miss Moorhen looked startled at my question. “I’m sorry.
I didn’t realize that you didn’t know. Yes, your mother was expelled from Blythewood a month before her graduation. We
were all shocked. No one ever knew why, but there were rumors that it had something to do with her going into the Blythe
Wood, which was strictly off-limits. But it never made much
sense to me that a girl of such accomplishments as Evangeline
Hall would be expelled for such a trifling matter. Later, when I
came to be employed by your grandmother and I learned that
you had been born that following autumn . . .”
Her voice trailed off and I realized she was leaving me to
reach my own conclusions. It took me a few moments to do so.
“Oh! You mean my mother was expelled because she was . . .”
I searched through all the euphemisms but then heard my
mother’s voice telling me it was always better to use the correct
word. “Pregnant with me?”
Miss Moorhen looked a little taken aback by my bluntness,
but then patted my hand. “I want you to know I never thought
any less of her for it. I’m sure she must have loved your father
very much—whoever he was—and that there must have been a
good reason why they couldn’t marry.” Her voice faltered when
she saw my face color. “Oh my land, I’m sorry. I thought you
knew. Evangeline was so forthright.”
“I knew that my father had vanished before I was born,
but I’d assumed . . .” My mother who had been so frank about
everything else had never told me that she was not married. I
wasn’t sure what was more shocking—the fact itself or that my
mother had kept it from me.
“Your mother was the most honorable woman I ever met,”
Miss Moorhen averred fiercely. “You must never be ashamed
of her.”
I shook my head, unable to explain that I wasn’t ashamed
of my mother. I was ashamed that I had been the cause of her
expulsion from her beloved Blythewood. “And that’s the reason
she has been estranged from her mother?” I asked.
“I suppose so. Mrs. Hall will never speak of it, but I have
watched her these last few years regret the pride that kept her
separated from her only daughter. She was devastated when
she heard of Evangeline’s death and became obsessed with
finding you. She’s not so bad, Mrs. Hall. Only a bit lonely rattling around in that drafty mausoleum.”
She gestured to a great glittering white sarcophagus that
we had just pulled up in front of. It was one my mother and I
had passed many times in the course of delivering hats to our
wealthy clients, I realized, but not once had my mother given
any hint that her own mother lived behind the spiked iron gate
and ornately carved façade.
“And set in her ways—the
old
ways.” Miss Moorhen’s ears
were twitching beneath the brim of her hat and her voice betrayed an edge of anger. I wondered what
the old ways
had ever
done to her. She tucked a stray curl under her hat and gave me
a level look.
“Part of the old ways is doing right by your blood relations.
She’ll do right by you . . . or she’ll have my resignation.”
I was so startled and touched by this fervid promise I wasn’t
sure what to say. “Thank you, Miss Moorhen . . .” I began.
“Call me Agnes,” she said, squeezing my hand. “We working girls have to stick together, don’t we?” Then she got out of
the car and led the way up the marble steps between two marble
bloodhounds. My skin prickled as I walked between them, as if
they might pounce on me if I made a wrong move.
At the top of the stairs a footman in black, red, and white
livery held the door for us. We crossed the threshold onto a
floor inlaid with black and white diamonds. A grand staircase
rose beyond to a landing with a stained-glass window depicting a classically robed woman drawing an arrow back in her
bow: Diana at the hunt.
Well, at least all the stories mother told
me will come in handy,
I thought, noticing two more mythologically themed works of art in the foyer. A sculpture of another
Diana—this one perfectly nude—stood at the center of a fountain. Her bow was aimed toward a second statue of a cowering boy being torn apart by wild dogs. The wild eyes of the boy
looked up at me with an imploring expression that reminded
me of someone. I stepped closer and saw that deer’s antlers
sprang from the boy’s head.
“Actaeon,” I said aloud, shocked by the brutality of the statue. “Diana punished him for seeing her naked and turned him
into a deer. His own hunting hounds tore him apart.” I recalled
now where I’d seen that expression before—on the face of the
dark-eyed boy when he looked up at the crows massing above
the roof of the Triangle Waist factory.
“I see you’ve learned your mythology.”
The voice, which came from beyond a set of open French
doors, interrupted my thoughts. At a nod from Miss Moorhen, I passed through the doors into a long dim room. After
the brightness of the foyer it took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the gloom, and then another moment to locate among
the tapestry-covered divans, purple satin chairs, tables covered
with bric-a-brac, statuary, stuffed birds, and enough palm trees
to shade a desert oasis, the woman who had spoken.
It didn’t help that she was entirely dressed in black, in a
dress so fitted that she appeared to be armored. Nor that she
was so still she might have been one of the ebony statues of
Moorish servants that knelt on either side of the fireplace before which she sat. Only the slight motion of her chin that made
her jet earrings tremble distinguished her from the décor.
“Here she is, Mrs. Hall,” Agnes said, giving me a little shove
with the tip of her umbrella. “Mr. Greenfeder was right. They
were keeping her at Bellevue in a private ward.”
I made my way toward Mrs. Hall—I couldn’t quite think
of her as my grandmother—my ankles wobbling on the thick
carpet. Her eyes, which glittered as darkly as her jet beads, remained fixed on me. When I was a few feet away she raised one
gloved hand, palm out, and motioned for me to stop. Then she
lifted a lorgnette, which was attached to a long chain around
her neck, to her eyes and looked me up and down.
“Are you sure you found the right girl, Miss Moorhen?”
she asked in a lofty, imperious voice. “This one doesn’t look a
bit like Evie.” At the mention of my mother’s name her chin
seemed to quiver the tiniest bit. “She’s so . . .
thin
.”
“I suspect they didn’t feed her very well at Bellevue,” Agnes,
who had crept up silently behind me, replied tartly. “But I’m
quite sure this is Evie’s daughter. Look at her hair, Mrs. Hall.
It’s just like Evie’s.”
Agnes gave me another little push and I found myself inches from Mrs. Hall. She lifted a trembling hand toward my hair
and fingered a lock that had come loose. Her mouth crumpled
for a moment, then she looked up into my eyes. “Hm . . . it’s duller than Evie’s, but yes, I see the resemblance now. She certainly
doesn’t have Evangeline’s figure. These clothes are hanging on
her like rags.”
“Do you want me to make an appointment with Miss
Janeway?”
Mrs. Hall sniffed. “You might as well. She’s too tall to fit
into Evie’s old things. Go on now,” she ordered Agnes, who
gave my hand a squeeze before she left the room. “Tell Carrie
she must be fit in
immediately
so as to have suitable clothing for
her interview.”