The Gilded Cage

by Susannah Bamford

  “Really?” she breathed by his ear. “Oh, Toby, you do love me.”

  “I do.” He patted her slender hand.

  “And you know me,” she went on. “You know how horrid I really am.”

  “I do.”

  “You know that I’m terribly selfish. That I can be cruel.”

  “I know you as well as I know myself, because you’re just like me,” he said, laughing in a rather constricted manner as she squeezed his neck. “Now don’t choke me, petal, I’m very fragile, you know.”

  Marguerite straightened suddenly. “But what about Edwin, Toby? I forgot all about him.”

  Toby slumped theatrically against the keys, making a dissonant chord. “Oh, please, don’t be tiresome. We were having such fun. Edwin’s not the man for you. I’ll tell you when you meet the right man.”

  “But I thought Edwin was perfect,” Marguerite said, perplexed. “I was so sure.”

  Toby twisted around on the piano stool. “I thought you wanted to sing.”

  “I do. But I want Edwin, too.”

  “You can’t have both. Look, William Paradise owes me one favor. Only one. I don’t want to waste it. So you’d better make up your mind, petal. Do you want to be a wife?” Toby pronounced the word in a flat, bored tone. He stood up and took her small, determined chin in his hands. Her dark blue eyes were blazing, and that gave him hope. Just a mention of Willie P. and she had gone into heat. He smiled. “Or do you want to be a star?”

  Columbine looked overhead at the multi-paned skylight. The sun was beginning to set, and the sky was shell pink with streaks of violet amid the gray. She’d had trouble, over the past weeks, when dusk fell. It never failed to bring back a wave of panic, when she’d felt trapped in her own parlor by a man she’d thought was a friend.

  But today, she felt no frightening flutters, and her palms were dry. This house on West 10th Street held no terrors. Ned had first taken her here three years before. It was a place in which she had loved and laughed; it held not one bad memory. Even the arguments she could recall had spice and affection underneath, and merely fueled the loving.

  She had forgiven Ned for warning her about Lawrence Birch, of course, although she could not tell him of what happened that day, could not bring herself to tell anyone. It was a secret between her and Marguerite. The truth was, she felt guilty. She felt she must have encouraged him in some way. Hadn’t she kissed him? Hadn’t she imagined what it would be like to be in bed with all that sleek energy?

  She didn’t know if Lawrence would have forced her, in the end. Something in his eyes told her that he would have. But only she knew that. He had sent her a letter the next day, which she had not opened. But he hadn’t tried to call, thank goodness.

  It had taken her a few weeks to recover. The next day, she’d gone to the office as usual, but she’d sat trembling in her office, expecting Lawrence any moment. How ridiculous, she’d told herself. Stop shaking. But she could not, and there it was. She went home that day and didn’t go out for a week. Her insomnia returned. For that alone she should kill him.

  Columbine laughed aloud for the first time in what felt like centuries. She felt the stirrings of her old self beginning to shake her up. So she had been wrong. And maybe she was guilty. She had misjudged someone, perhaps through her own vanity. But she had escaped, and she was about to embark on a good project. She had so much, and she had no time to lose. She thought of Elijah Reed’s impatience, and she decided she should adopt some of it. It would keep her vigorous.

  The pink glow of the sky was deepening to orange. It was time to go. There were no lights as of yet in the skylit studio so she had to arrange for gas. The room, she decided, would be used as a common one. For the children during the day, and for book readings at night or lessons. She’d written to Jane Addams, who was beginning, already, to have such a success with Hull House in Chicago, and received generous advice. A reading club was very popular, Jane had said.

  Columbine felt her way down the darkened stairs to the third floor, where the bedrooms were. The second floor held the drawing room, a wonderfully large dining room, the parlor, and a small study. The first floor, which was actually below ground in the front, held a large kitchen, two maids’ rooms, and a small room overlooking the garden either Columbine or Bell could use as an office. Ned had been right; the house was perfect.

  As she stood at the landing, she heard the front door open and shut. Masculine footsteps clicked along the polished wood of the entry hall. Panic sent Columbine bolting backward. She put a hand to her heart, which began to beat furiously. Trying to be quiet, she slid a hand along the wall to search for the gas jet she was sure was there. She wanted light, she needed light. But in her panic, she couldn’t find it. A small sound escaped her. She was trapped in this house, it was growing dark, and she was sure, oh, it must be him, it was Lawrence downstairs. It felt so terrifyingly familiar.

  “Mrs. Nash?”

  At first she couldn’t place the voice over the pounding in her ears. She waited, and the man spoke again.

  “Mrs. Nash?”

  Elijah Reed. Columbine leaned against the banister in relief. She took several deep breaths to compose herself. “Yes, I’m up here.” Her voice sounded shaky to her ears.

  She saw the gas go on downstairs at the next landing, and she started down. She paused at the bottom. Elijah Reed was waiting outside the dining room, his shadow looming toward her. “I hope I didn’t startle you,” he said.

  “Not at all.”

  She moved forward and took his hand while his dark eyes held hers questioningly, for he’d known as soon as he’d seen her that something was wrong. But at his touch, something peculiar moved inside Columbine. Ever since she’d seen him standing there in the dim shadows of the hall, she’d felt strange. It was as though she had suddenly been raised to a bird’s eye view of her life, and then dropped to earth again, leaving her a little breathless, a little bewildered. She stopped, her hand still in his, unable to place the feeling.

  They’d become friends, she and Elijah, since Lawrence’s attack on her. Though he had no knowledge of it, he had appeared at her door the next day at teatime and chased away her panic. There was something about his calmness that drew her. They talked about everything and nothing. They talked of books, and reform, and Teddy Roosevelt, and once, fleetingly, he’d mentioned his wife, who died of cancer at thirty-one. He’d seen so much suffering, she’d come to realize, all his life. And it hadn’t hardened him, but softened him, in a way she’d come to understand. She had misjudged his manner from the first. It wasn’t weariness; it was watchfulness. It wasn’t surrender; it was calm.

  The fine edge of his mind stimulated her and made her nervous, for she felt that she would know presently that she would not be able to keep up with him in a discussion. But that time had not come. And instead she had known humor, and slyness, and a man fond of jokes.

  She’d known all these things, over the past weeks, but she had not known, until this moment, standing in the hall of her new home, that she’d also known her future, and she had not realized it.

  “Oh,” she said, and she said the word aloud, without knowing it. Oh, she thought, oh, my. So this is it, at last. At long, long last.

  He was watching her. “Mrs. Nash?”

  “Don’t you think it’s time,” she said, smiling, for good cheer suddenly filled her chest with such lightness she thought she might rise above the carpet with it, “you called me Columbine?”

  “Columbine.” He said it gravely, as though the name were a gift.

  “Elijah,” she said, and she was smiling and laughing, for the sound of his Christian name, finally spoken aloud, was such pleasure.

  Lawrence waited in the dark outside the house. He was carrying flowers, and he was reviewing his apology. Columbine had a soft heart. He would twist the incident, make her think she had panicked and he was trying to subdue her, and she would listen, of course, she would have to listen. His plan included her; she was to be h
is convert.

  He saw, in the pools of lamplight across the street, a couple approach. They were walking, their steps perfectly matched, absorbed in each other and their conversation. A carriage rolled by, splashing the hem of the woman’s skirt with mud, but she did not notice. A boy dashed past them, jostling the arm of the man, but their conversation did not pause.

  Lawrence watched, half-envying the couple, half-despising them. It took him long seconds to realize that the couple was Columbine and Elijah Reed.

  He drew back into the shadows and watched them mount the stairs. He heard Columbine’s laugh as she fumbled for her keys. He saw Elijah take her arm as they passed inside. His enemy. She had gone over to his enemy, and he had lost.

  With a curse, Lawrence turned away. He crossed the street and strode down Twenty-third, going over and over in his mind the night he had Columbine at his mercy. How much gold would he give to live that moment again!

  He was about to throw the flowers in the gutter when he saw Bell walking toward him. She recognized him, and her step slowed. He kept his eyes locked with hers as she walked, and she did not drop his gaze. He knew then that Columbine had not told her. Bell was afraid, but it was a different kind of fear. She walked toward him slowly, as if in a dream, and he saw that if there was one woman he had lost, there was another who he had only to lift his hand to capture.

  “Good evening, Miss Huxton.”

  “Good evening, Mr. Birch.”

  “I was coming to see you,” he said. He held out the flowers. “Then I felt foolish, and I went away.”

  She didn’t take the flowers, merely stared at them, saying nothing.

  “You told me not to ask you again, Miss Huxton. So I withdrew, as a gentleman should. But I find that when it comes to you, Miss Huxton, I am not such a gentleman.”

  She still stared at the flowers, saying nothing. Her struggle was visible on her face. She had grown thinner, he saw, and in the unflattering light, she was not beautiful. Her cheekbones looked too sharp, and the shadows on her face hollowed her cheeks in an unpleasant way. Some day, he realized, she could lose her beauty. He was glad.

  Her hand reached out and touched the flowers, a petal here, a petal there. And then, slowly, her fingers twined around the small bouquet. Her lips were trembling, and her eyes were full of tears as without a word, he took her arm, swiveled her around, and led her down the sidewalk the way she’d come, away from the house on Twenty-third Street.

  Twelve

  SWEPT INTO A maelstrom, Bell was barely functioning. She didn’t know how she got through the days. She felt doped, lodgy, inept. Luckily, Columbine didn’t seem to notice.

  “Of course she doesn’t notice,” Lawrence said. “She doesn’t notice you at all. You’re a servant to her.”

  “I’m her partner,” Bell said thickly. She sat on a hard chair in Lawrence’s cold room. She was wondering if Lawrence would want to have sex tonight. She thought the word now: Sex. It was for practice; Lawrence sometimes made her say such words aloud.

  He was shaking his head at her sadly. “You have so many illusions. That’s what I’m here for, love, to teach you. You’re her servant. You should see that.”

  “I don’t see it,” Bell said. She leaned back against the chair slightly so that her shirtwaist tightened over her breasts. Perhaps then Lawrence would want her. She never knew how to arouse him; something mysterious guided his urges that she could not track.

  Distaste crossed his face. “Don’t turn into a slut, Bell,” he said, turning away. He poured himself more coffee.

  She looked down penitently. He was right. He knew her. He saw into the bottom of her black soul, and he pointed out what was there. That was what she needed, he said, and she agreed. Only by facing her baseness could she conquer it. Jesus hadn’t helped her any. Lawrence had a better method; he was her teacher, and she was learning so much.

  “We were speaking of Columbine,” he continued. “She exploited you. She is a member of the ruling class, and she can never, ever, overcome that, Bell. No matter what nonsense she talks of Fabian socialism and uniting the classes for the common good. It’s rubbish. Do you see?”

  “I see,” Bell said. She did not agree, but she hadn’t the strength tonight to argue. She had only a few hours before she should get back to Twenty-third Street, and they had wasted so much time already. She’d had to wait for Lawrence to finish some work on a new article. Then he had to eat.

  He grasped her chin and forced her to look at him. “Don’t lie to me,” he rapped out. “Never lie to me, Bell. Don’t tell me you agree when you don’t.”

  Tears spurted in her eyes. “Please, Lawrence,” she whispered. “Not tonight.”

  His nostils flared, and she was afraid. She smelled coffee and rage on his breath. But as quickly as it was there, his anger was gone, and he smiled. His fingers stroked her now, her cheek, her ear. “I love you, my dearest,” he said, and the note in his voice made her want to squirm with the power of her lust. “Don’t you know that?”

  “Lawrence,” she breathed, and her head fell back.

  “Come to the bed.”

  Good, the bed. Sometimes, he liked to take her on the floor of the front room, and the wood was so hard. Her back would be bruised the next day, she would wince if she forgot and leaned against a chair.

  Positioning her in front of him, he sat on the bed. “Take off your clothes, Bell,” he said in a flat voice. “But leave on your drawers only.”

  That voice excited her, and she obeyed him. When she was naked above the waist and stood in front of him wearing only her drawers, she waited, barely breathing. He touched her between her legs.

  “Tell me what I’m doing,” he said.

  “You’re touching me.”

  “Where am I touching you?”

  She closed her eyes and bit back a groan. Her cheeks were hot with embarrassment and desire.

  “Where, Bell?”

  She told him, using the word he taught her. He cupped her, grabbing her hard, and said the word.

  It started again like the motion of a wave, her revulsion and her attraction, beating her forward, beating her back.

  He never let her use her hands. He liked her passive. He liked her to keep her eyes closed, and to stand, or to lie, or to sit very still, while he did things to her. If she used her hands he would calmly or roughly return them to her side. When they did it lying down, he liked her to pretend she was sleeping.

  And he knew how she liked it, how he could make her come with a few chosen words, or cruel, cold hands on her nipples, or a bite on her behind. How did he know these things? she wondered during the day, pressing her legs together, remembering. Every day she would tell herself that she would not go back to him. And every evening she scratched pathetically at his door.

  She wished he would not say things about Columbine, but suddenly, Lawrence seemed to hate her. He pointed to ways Columbine had oppressed her, and Bell could not agree. Columbine could be impatient, sometimes thoughtless, yes. But Bell could not reconcile the Columbine of her own reality—the Columbine who had saved her, who laughed with her and loved her—with the Columbine of Lawrence’s imagination.

  Suddenly, he pushed her away. “I don’t want you tonight.”

  Her eyes flew open. “Why? Lawrence, what did I do?”

  He began to button his trousers. “You have contempt for me. My words mean nothing. How can I love a creature who treats me so cruelly?”

  “Lawrence, please. Of course I listen to you. Of course. I love you.”

  He whirled around as if he’d caught her. “Then why won’t you believe me about Columbine? You are her servant. You open her door, you take the coats of her guests, you fetch the tea. ‘Of course, Columbine,’” he mimicked cruelly, moving his hands in a mincing way. “‘I’d be happy to, Columbine.’” He glared at her. “Are you in love with that woman, or with me?”

  “With you!” she cried. She grabbed his hand and pressed it to her heart. His fingers against the
bare skin of her breast made her pulse begin to race again.

  His cold fingers moved slowly across her breast. “Then you must trust me,” he said. “We must trust each other. We must have ultimate trust in each other.” He kneaded her breast, squeezing her nipple, and she moaned. Her hand curled around his neck.

  “Put your hands down,” he ordered, and she did. He positioned her between his knees again. Bell nearly sobbed in relief as his hands began to explore her.

  “Tell me,” he said.

  She bit her lip as his hand cupped her again. “I am her servant,” she said.

  Columbine pushed down her spectacles to examine the posies on Bell’s desk. “Does your admirer own a flower shop?” she asked.

  Bell shook her head.

  “Then he is a solicitor—a lawyer.”

  Bell shook her head.

  “An opera singer.”

  Bell looked at Columbine passively; her eyes said that she did not find this game amusing.

  Columbine felt rather foolish. “He is very generous, I must say,” she said, fussing with the papers she held. “Flowers every day.”

  “Columbine,” Bell said, not looking up, but staring at the letter on her desk, “you can stop hinting. I’m not going to tell you. Not yet.”

  Columbine put a hand on her shoulder. “I didn’t mean to tease you. I’m just happy to see that you’ve let someone in at last. Good for you.”

  She’s patronizing me, Bell thought. That’s what Lawrence would say. She heard the swish of Columbine’s skirts as she went into her own office.

  Columbine closed the door behind her. She crossed to her desk but paused at the window. The branches of the trees around Union Square were still bare. Spring had not yet begun, but still, on some mornings she smelled the wet earth and knew the season was hovering, waiting for the moment when it could creep softly in. She was tired of winter. She couldn’t wait for spring.