CHAPTER
1
SATURDAY, JANUARY 18, 1902—8 P.M.
There was a soft rapping upon her door. Francesca Cahill recognized the knock and she froze, hunched over her desk, a Waterman fountain pen in hand. Electric lighting, installed when the house was first built eight years earlier, spilled over the vellum she was writing upon. She felt like a crook caught with his hand in the bank safe.
Her sister did not wait for her to answer, and she entered Francesca’s large, beautifully appointed bedroom. Outside, it was snowing heavily; inside, a fire roared in the dark green marble hearth. “You’re not even dressed!” Connie cried, eyes widening so vastly that the effect was almost comical.
Francesca forced herself to smile as she jumped to her feet, effectively blocking Connie’s view of the desk. She stole a guilty glance at the grandfather clock standing in the corner of her room. Eight o’clock already? Guests would be arriving at any moment, if they hadn’t begun to arrive already. “I’m sorry,” Francesca said, unable to breathe properly. Darnation! She had an examination in biology on Monday morning, and she had yet to even begin studying for it. She had been too busy organizing this latest endeavor of hers, and now time had run out.
But then, there was never enough time in the day for her to do all that she had to do. It was so frustrating.
Her sister faced her with exasperation, clad in a pale pink evening gown, her throat encircled with diamonds, her pale blond hair pulled loosely back and piled on top of her head. Diamonds fell from her ears and a diamond and ruby necklace decorated the expanse of bare skin between her shoulders and her bosom. She was a very beautiful woman. “Fran, how could you do this?” Connie implored. “You know what Mama has in mind for you tonight. She begged you not to be late and you promised. I know. I was there.” Connie shook her head.
Francesca did feel a bit guilty, because she most certainly had promised their mother, Julia, that she would not be late, that she would be well dressed and on her best behavior. Francesca remained standing in front of her desk. On occasion, Connie was the biggest snoop. Francesca did not want to get into an argument now, even if her older sister did mean well. She smiled, far too brightly. “I was writing letters, the time escaped me,” she said, crossing the fingers of her right hand behind her back and silently apologizing for the very small white lie.
“I don’t believe you,” Connie said, and she marched right past Francesca and lifted the sheet of parchment that Francesca had been working on, ignoring Francesca’s exclamation of protest. “What is this?” she cried. And while she read, Francesca silently recited the words she had written, over a hundred painstaking times.
Next Meeting of the Ladies Society for
the Eradication of Tenements
Time: Saturday, January 25 at 3 o’clock P.M.
Place: The Library at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel
For further information, please contact
Miss Francesca Cahill at No. 810 Fifth Avenue
Francesca folded her arms. “Connie, you know as well as I that the tenements are a disgrace to this city—a disgrace to you and me,” Francesca said fervently.
Connie’s brows arched impossibly—and it did not detract from her stunning beauty. “What I know is that you are an eccentric, Francesca Cahill. And what I also know is that you are late and that no matter how you think to try, eventually, Mama will have her way.” She gripped Francesca by the arm and dragged her to the window. “Look!” she cried.
Through the velvet draperies, which were open, snow could be seen dancing through the night in tiny swirling points of brilliant white light. Francesca’s bedroom was on the second story of the family’s five-floor, Fifth Avenue mansion. The snow had already blanketed the front lawns and the poplar trees, as well as what could be seen of the sidewalk and street, which lay just beyond the wrought-iron front gates.
Francesca looked down on the circular front driveway, the lawns, and Fifth Avenue. Had the evening been clear, she would have been able to make out the tall iron street lamps with their double-headed white bulbs and the even taller trees of Central Park. Already two four-in-hands, a hansom, and a very dashing motorcar were coming up the driveway, the effect almost magical, the vehicles spookily emerging from the mistlike clouds of snow and electric lights. Beyond the drive, the lamplit street was eerily deserted. Because the Metropolitan Club was two blocks down, there was usually a high degree of traffic on the avenue. Tonight the weather was causing most of the city to stay home.
“Francesca, don’t you belong to enough societies?” Connie’s hands found her slim hips.
“Are you interested in coming to a meeting on Saturday?” Francesca returned, as quickly as a shot. She saw that Connie was about to make an excuse in order to refuse. “Please, Connie, please, please come. And bring a dozen of your friends. You know the cause is a good one!”
“I will come if I can,” Connie said reluctantly, with resignation. “I must check with Neil to make sure we do not have plans for the day.”
Lord Neil Montrose was Connie’s husband; they had married four years ago. Although he had a home in Devon, they spent most of the year in the States, preferring to summer in Great Britain. Francesca knew she would have to press her sister to join her next Saturday even if she was free. Not that Connie was opposed to charity and good works; like their mother, she was quite active in such affairs. But her idea of active and Francesca’s varied dramatically. Connie preferred lavish balls, the tickets to which cost hundreds of dollars.
“Please try to come. If I give you a dozen flyers, could you hand them out this week at Montrose’s dinner party for Livingston?” She was prepared to beg if need be. “Please? I am desperate for attendees.” She smiled hopefully at her sister.
Connie merely gripped her arm again. “Can’t we discuss this another time? I will help you dress. Good God, look at this mess!”
Francesca glanced at the big four-poster bed in the middle of her room. Half a dozen evening gowns were strewn there amongst all the green, blue, and gold pillows and shams, along with the appropriate undergarments and accessories. “How about the black?” she suggested dryly.
Connie scowled. “Amusing. How about the pink?”
Francesca shrugged. “Why does she insist on tormenting me so?” she asked as she stepped out of her white shirtwaist and fitted dove-gray skirt.
“I doubt Mama thinks she is tormenting you,” Connie returned, while Francesca lifted a corset. “She has your welfare at heart. We all do, Fran.”
“If she truly had my happiness at heart, she would allow me to do as I please and I would not have to suffer through this kind of evening,” Francesca said grumpily. “I am not ready for a suitor.”
“I said ‘welfare,’ not ‘happiness.’ ” Connie began pulling on the ties. “And I do believe Mama has given up on the idea of a suitor. You are twenty years old, my dear. She is going directly for the husband.” Connie’s smile was serene.
Francesca scowled. “I am not getting married. Not at any time in the near future.”
Connie had to smile again. “You are so funny, Fran. Look at the bright side. Maybe your future husband will be a radical reformer with a capital R, like you yourself!” Connie started to giggle.
Francesca saw nothing amusing about the fact that her mother was determined to marry her off, sooner rather than later. “How can you make fun of reform? When there is so much poverty and injustice in our midst?”
Connie ceased pulling on the corset. She turned Francesca around. “I am not making fun of reform, Fran. I would never be so callous. But you are so serious! Study, reform, study, reform, study, reform. It is funny. You are funny!”
“I am thrilled to be such a source of entertainment,” Francesca grumbled.
“You do know that Mama suspects something?” Connie dropped the pink gown over Francesca’s head.
Francesca stiffened. And because she and her sister were so close, she knew exactly what it was that her sister was speaking about. “But how could she? I am so careful.”
“It is the hours you are keeping. Why don’t you just tell her the truth? That you are a bluestocking and that you have enrolled at Barnard College? It will make your life so much easier.”
“She will insist that I withdraw,” Francesca said, as her sister was buttoning up the back of the brilliantly pink dress. “I am not going to withdraw. I am going to attain my AB degree. I am determined.”
Connie finished and she smiled. “And God strike down whoever might dare stand in your way—unless it is Mama.”
“Ho, ho, ho,” Fran said sarcastically. But Connie was making a valid point. Julia Van Wyck Cahill was as determined as Francesca was—if not more so. It was a rare day indeed that Julia did not get her way.
“This color suits you, Fran, you will be ravishing tonight,” Connie said with admiration in her blue eyes. “Mr. Wiley will be smitten,” she added slyly.
Francesca groaned. “Onward, then, to my sordid fate.”
“Oh, no! You have no shoes, no rouge, and no jewelry.”
“Good! For then he will deem me madder than a hare.” Francesca grinned.
“No such luck,” Connie said cheerfully, producing a pair of beaded silver slippers.
“I have so much to do, and instead of being occupied in a useful endeavor, instead of being intelligent an...