The Gilded Cage

by Susannah Bamford

  “I should have horsewhipped him,” he said for the tenth time while he fixed her toast.

  “Toby,” Marguerite said weakly, “I don’t think you realize how much pain you give me by mentioning his name. I never want to hear it again, all right? It’s all over with now. I have to think about the future, not the past.”

  Toby was instantly contrite. “Of course, petal, I’m terribly sorry. It’s just the thought of all those beautiful clothes… and the jewelry! It’s just so déclassé, to say the least. A woman should always keep the jewelry and the clothes. And you’d think he would have offered to pay for the—”

  “Toby! Please! Shut up!” Marguerite turned her face to the wall.

  Toby wasn’t hurt in the least by her sharpness. He set the toast aside and went to sit by her on the bed, stroking her hair until she fell asleep.

  Toby was playing a Confederate soldier in a bad play that was in the final weeks of its run, so he was away every evening. Marguerite came to enjoy her solitary evenings, even as she looked forward to when Toby would arrive at one or two that morning, fresh from a dinner at Rectors or drinks at the Hoffman House, and full of jokes and stories. She would wait up for him, and then they would sleep into the late hours of the morning, Toby on the couch in the parlor. They knew the situation could not last, but Toby didn’t dare ask Marguerite her plans, for fear she would think he wanted her to leave.

  One evening, Marguerite sat, in Toby’s silk paisley dressing gown, by the window, the latest issue of the Century open on her lap. Her gaze was unfocused as she flipped the pages. She was planning. Could one have a comeback if one had never been a success? she wondered with a thin smile.

  A knock at the door surprised her, and the magazine slid from her lap. Marguerite debated whether to answer the door. It was a tiresome friend of Toby’s, most likely. There was a sharper rapping on the door now, and, sighing, Marguerite got up to answer it. She padded across the floor in her bare feet, and opened the door to find Bell there.

  Marguerite didn’t say anything for a moment. She had been dreading this moment, and it was here. Bell had come for information, of course; it had only been a matter of time.

  “Hello, Bell.”

  “Good evening. I hope I’m not disturbing you.”

  “Not at all. Do come in.”

  Bell looked strained and pale, Marguerite noted. Her usually rosy complexion had changed to a pallor with a sallow tinge. Her hair was swept up any old way into a bun at the back of her head. But she was still beautiful, Marguerite thought with the same old envy, as Bell turned and looked at her. There would always be that surprising impact of her beauty that struck one at the heart.

  “Please sit down,” Marguerite said. “I’m sorry I’m not dressed, I wasn’t expecting anyone. If you’ll excuse me, I can change.”

  Bell gave a thin smile. “Please don’t on my account. I’ve certainly seen you in a dressing gown before. No, I won’t be staying long.”

  “How did you know where I was?” Marguerite asked curiously.

  “I asked Horatio. He said the only friend he knew you had was a man named Toby Wells. I came here expecting to ask him how I could find you.”

  “Yes,” Marguerite said, embarrassed under the compassionate gaze of those amber eyes, “Mr. Wells has graciously allowed me to trespass on his kindness. I lost my home, you see.” She added briskly, before Bell could feel any sorrier for her, “What brings you here, Bell? Can I help you?”

  Bell hesitated, and for the first time Marguerite realized what really was different about her. It wasn’t the paleness, or the slightly shabbier clothes. The calmness was missing, the serenity in those wide, long-lashed eyes. What would being with a wolf like Lawrence Birch mean to a doe like Bell?

  “I need to ask you something,” Bell said awkwardly. “It’s about a night about six weeks ago or more, I’m not sure. You interrupted Mr. Birch and Columbine in the parlor.”

  “Yes,” Marguerite said neutrally.

  “And I was wondering,” Bell said, stammering slightly, “if you could tell me about that.” She twisted her hands together in her lap and wished passionately that she had not come. Aside from humiliating herself in front of Marguerite, she was committing the worse sin in Lawrence’s view—she was questioning him. She wasn’t believing in him. But she couldn’t help it! She was tortured. Her bed was like a rack, as she lay next to Lawrence and imagined him attacking Columbine. To make things worse, she’d begun to suspect that he was seeing another woman. If he hadn’t attacked Columbine, could he still be her lover? Bell knew the thought was insane, but stranger things had happened. Remembering her last meeting with Columbine, she could conjure up the disturbing sense that there was something running between Columbine and Lawrence, something obscure and dark. It wasn’t attempted rape; it was passion.

  Watching her, Marguerite pitied her. She could see the struggle and the desperate need to know. But that desperation was not for the truth, Marguerite saw, but only for confirmation. Despite her intelligence, her good judgment, Bell would stay with Lawrence. Even if Marguerite told her the truth, Bell wouldn’t believe it. She would find some excuse not to. That made it so much easier to lie.

  “Columbine told me that you and Mr. Birch are together now,” Marguerite said with the proper amount of hesitation. “I would hate to tell you anything that would cause you pain.”

  “It’s all right,” Bell said eagerly. “Pray, go on.”

  “Columbine and Lawrence Birch were lovers for a short time. I gather that on that night he broke things off. You remember that Columbine was troubled during that period, often unhappy. I suppose she reacted badly, and when I walked in Mr. Birch was trying to restrain her. Columbine was hysterical,” Marguerite said calmly, watching the greedy relief in Bell’s eyes. Yes, she was telling her what she wanted to hear. “He left. That is all I know.”

  Her hands clasped at her breast, Bell closed her eyes. She wasn’t even angry at Columbine for lying. If another woman had stolen Lawrence from her, Bell would have lied or cheated, too.

  She stood. “Thank you,” she said quietly. Then she remembered her manners. “Are you well, Marguerite?”

  Marguerite almost snorted. As if Bell cared. “I’m very well, thank you.”

  Bell nodded and started toward the door. Halfway there she paused and turned back again. “And how is Columbine?” she asked shyly.

  Anger filled Marguerite’s heart. She hated Bell for her weakness, for her illusions, believing a bad story full of holes in order to clear a man who was obviously no good. “She’s blooming,” she answered. “Extremely happy in Safe Passage House. And she’s going to have a baby,” she added. Let Bell wonder.

  Bell’s face changed abruptly. “A baby? I didn’t know.”

  “She only just found out herself,” Marguerite said. “It’s not very far along,” she added cruelly.

  “I see.” Bell’s steps faltered as she went to the door. Without another word, she opened it and went out.

  A baby. Columbine was pregnant. Columbine was going to have Lawrence’s child. With every step, the baby grew in Bell’s mind into a monster. A living, growing thing, a fungus. Even as she walked home, the baby was getting bigger. It was growing inside Columbine.

  And Columbine would tell Lawrence, and he would want her again. Or at least he would want the child. Lawrence wanted children. He said it was the highest role for women. Bell had secretly hoped to get pregnant herself, but nothing had happened yet. Columbine had beaten her to it.

  She couldn’t let it happen, couldn’t let it happen. They were probably already seeing each other again, perhaps having relations again. Planning how to tell Bell. How to break it to her.

  But she would forestall them. She would fight for Lawrence. Bell’s steps slowed. And she had an ally she was just desperate enough to use. She had Elijah Reed.

  Eighteen

  THE NEXT DAY was Sunday, and Bell left Lawrence sleeping and eased her way out of their rooms at eight o
’clock. It was a short few blocks west from Tompkins Square to Elijah Reed’s house on East Eleventh Street.

  He was in his shirtsleeves and wearing his reading glasses when he opened the door, and he blinked at her in surprise for a split second before welcoming her inside. She saw that she had interrupted his breakfast. A small table was set up in the parlor, and newspapers were strewn about on the floor. She thought of what a perfect match Columbine and Elijah would be; the parlor looked very much like Columbine’s on a Sunday morning. Lawrence would have a fit at the mess.

  “Forgive the appearance of the room,” Elijah said comfortably, making no attempt to clear up any of the papers. “I’m slow to get started on Sundays.”

  “You should be the one to forgive me for intruding like this,” Bell said, pushing aside a book of poetry to sit down on the couch.

  “Not at all. Would you care for some coffee?”

  “No, thank you.”

  Elijah pulled up an armchair. He looked slightly quizzical, but amiable. A strong, intelligent man, Bell thought. He was older, settled, and famous. Good for Columbine, better than Lawrence would be. So it wasn’t really bad, what she was doing.

  “What can I do for you, Miss Huxton?” he asked politely.

  “I’ve come to you today because I believe we have an interest in common,” Bell began. “And I believe that you and I are the best people to work out a distressing situation. But it doesn’t have to be distressing. We can make it… comfortable for all of us.”

  “Miss Huxton, I must confess that you have me at a disadvantage. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “I’m talking about Columbine and Lawrence,” Bell said, aggrieved. “You know that she is pregnant with his child, don’t you?”

  Elijah’s knees jerked, and he rose and turned his back on Bell. He needed a moment of privacy to absorb this. Loss spilled in him, washed through him, loss and love, and unreasonable anger. He’d suspected the affair, knew it had been over for some time before he approached her. But a legacy from that affair—a child! It was monstrous.

  “I’m not certain what they want to do,” Bell said to his back. “But I am certain that Lawrence will do right by the child. That’s why I’m here. Why should we all be miserable because of this? I know Columbine never wanted children. Did you, Mr. Reed?”

  Startled at the effrontery of the question, Elijah didn’t answer, and after waiting a moment, Bell went on calmly. “But I do want children. So if I offer to take the child and raise it with Lawrence and myself, would you support me in this? You could persuade Columbine that it’s the best thing, you see. Because it is. And this way you’d still have her.”

  Bell’s voice went on, steaming onward with the stately logic of an oceangoing vessel. Elijah stopped listening and tried to think. Bell talked on, embroidering her arguments calmly. In the middle of a sentence, he turned.

  “How do you know the baby is his?”

  She shrugged. “Because I do. The timing, you see.” Of course the baby was Lawrence’s, the product of his virility. Elijah still looked doubtful, so she added, “Columbine told Marguerite that it was.” It was an exaggeration, but it didn’t matter.

  Elijah looked down. He nodded several times. He spoke without looking at her. “And why do you want to raise it?”

  “Because it is Lawrence’s,” she said serenely. “I could not bear that a child of his be raised by another woman. He is my husband, if not by law, then in fact.”

  Elijah wondered for a moment if she was a little off, a little deranged. Surely no normal woman would have such composure under the circumstances. But there she sat, as beautiful as ever, not a trace of misery in those serene eyes.

  “Well, Mr. Reed? Will you help me?”

  Elijah went back to the chair and sat across from her. He leaned on his knees and stared at his clasped hands. “Let me explain, Miss Huxton. I cannot interfere in this. It is up to Columbine what to do about her child.”

  “But you love her. So it’s your decision, too.”

  Annoyed, Elijah blew out an exasperated puff of air. “Miss Huxton, I don’t want to discuss my relations with Mrs. Nash with you. And I must say that I feel this entire conversation is an invasion of her privacy.” He spread his hands. “I can’t help you.”

  Feeling herself dismissed, Bell rose. She was furious. “It will serve you right to lose her, with such an attitude,” she said. And then she swept out the door.

  Elijah stood. He poured himself another cup of coffee but did not drink it. It sat cooling on the mantel while he stared at a letter on his desk, a letter he was going to answer today. Would this—should this—information change his decision? He didn’t even know if Bell was correct. He didn’t know anything.

  Love was beside the point. Of course he loved Columbine. But she stood apart from him, from his life, and he from hers. Despite his yearnings to share more of her life, he fought the inclination and won. Columbine seemed to want it that way.

  They had both led uncommon lives. He knew that she’d lived through hell. She’d been locked in an insane asylum for wanting to leave her husband. She’d been spat at in the streets. And he—well, he’d seen misery, too. For both of them, work was what had saved them. Work was what they clung to, work was what drove them, words on a page, ideas. Being wedded to ideas made them free and fluid in their personal lives. They could not, would not center their lives on the intransigence of flesh.

  But he was entangled in her life, for he loved her. If he stayed, he would be entangled even further. He could be a part of the upbringing of another man’s child. If the child was half Lawrence’s, a man he distrusted, it was also half Columbine’s.

  He could open his heart and engage with life, taking his courage and his love in each fist and striding forth to meet it. He could cleave to flesh, to blood, to human love. Or he could pack up his books and have none of it.

  Columbine had instructed Mrs. Haggerty to lay the good lace tablecloth down and set the table with the best china. She lit candles and put out the cut glass amethyst water glasses. She arranged violets in a crystal vase. Then she stepped back and surveyed the table. The table breathed of spring, she thought approvingly. What feeling could be more appropriate for this evening?

  She felt like a young girl as she ran, humming softly, to dress. As she pulled out a pale yellow gown of mousseline de soie, she reflected that she’d never really had that first romance in her life, never that budding, dizzy sense of possibility. Her father had arranged her marriage to a man she detested and locked her in her room when she refused to obey. She had married Charles Edward Nash with none of the illusions of youth. And after having gone through hell to leave him, she had never been young again.

  It was a miraculous rebirth, then, to feel this way, she thought, turning in front of the mirror. She fussed with the pale green velvet ribbons on the dress and adjusted the lace yoke. It was a pretty dress; Darcy had gone with her to the dressmaker for the fittings. And soon, Columbine thought with a grin, it would not fit.

  Elijah arrived promptly at seven. He seemed discomfitted by her appearance as he came into the parlor. “You look very beautiful,” he said gruffly.

  Columbine dimpled. “You seem to begrudge me my beauty this evening, Elijah.”

  He smiled slightly and bent over to kiss her cheek. “On the contrary.”

  When he was settled in his chair with a whiskey and Columbine had her glass of sherry, she realized nervously that for all her preparations, she had not prepared how to broach the subject of her pregnancy. It was hardly something she could tell him flat out, just like that. But how did one ease into such a topic?

  “So tell me,” Elijah said. “Did Mr. and Mrs. Finn get off with a minimum of trouble?”

  Relieved for the reprieve, Columbine smiled. “Oh, yes. They left yesterday. Perfect sailing weather, and they believe they’ll have a good crossing. Of course the boat is very crowded, since it’s the beginning of the season in Paris. All the crème de la
crème were there. It was highly amusing to all of us, since we could not decide which of us they were trying to snub—me, or Darcy.”

  Elijah smiled and took a large sip of whiskey. It wasn’t a very good opening, but it was an opening. And he had to tell her now, before he sat down and ate her dinner. “Perhaps I shall see them in Paris,” he said lightly.

  Columbine’s face changed, but so imperceptibly one who didn’t love her would not have noticed. “Oh, are you going abroad?”

  “I received a letter a couple of days ago. A friend of mine, a writer, is making an extended trip to the United States. He’s offered me his apartment in Paris for a year, possibly more if he decides to stay here. So I could book passage for next week, if I wanted to go. He’ll be traveling here.”

  “How amusing,” Columbine said brightly. “You could wave to each other across the Atlantic from your separate ships.”

  “I thought I would go, Columbine,” he said gently.

  “I can see that,” she said. A sob formed in her throat and she swallowed hard. It was plain that he was to go alone.

  So here it was. She was caught. She had no ties to this man other than those of love. He had warned her, she told herself desperately. He had told her, right at the beginning. She had listened. But she had not understood.

  “What about your articles for the Century ?” she asked. She would ask about details, because she could not ask about reasons.

  “They would be glad to take my last article for City of Souls, and then I could start a new series in Paris, if I wished,” Elijah answered. “But I think I will not. That’s what I wanted to tell you, that’s why I’m going. I have a place to stay for a year. I want to start the Andersonville novel, Columbine. You were right. I need to write it. I don’t know what form it will take. It won’t be strictly autobiographical. But I do know that somehow I’ll be writing about what happened to all of us. To Benjamin Pollard. It’s because of you.”