The Gilded Cage

by Susannah Bamford

  As they walked down the front stairs, Olive asked, “Do you want to say good night to Ned? I’ll wait in the carriage.”

  “Yes, I should do that,” Columbine agreed, though she would prefer not to. Ned had been so angry earlier this evening when she’d left him to dress. She suspected that he’d read in the paper that Elijah Reed was the featured speaker at the preceding dinner. They had not mentioned Elijah’s name since their wedding day.

  She entered his room hesitantly. He was sitting up in bed, a copy of the McClure’s open on his lap. He barely took in her dress before he looked away.

  “I’ve come to say good night, Ned.”

  “How kind of you,” he said sarcastically, “to make my evening.”

  “Ned,” Columbine said helplessly, “Olive insisted on my going to this.”

  He nodded shortly.

  “I’ll be home early.”

  “Don’t bother,” he said, turning away to lie on his side. “I’ll be asleep.”

  Columbine stood for another moment, but Ned kept his back to her. Her silk skirts rustling, she turned away.

  “Enjoy the dancing,” he flung after her as she closed the door. Columbine leaned her forehead against it for an instant.

  When she turned, she saw Fiona standing in the hall. The maid had heard everything, that was obvious. But Fiona didn’t lower her eyes and scurry past Columbine. Some spark of empathy, some flashing accord, woman to woman, leaped from Fiona’s eyes to hers. In that instant, Columbine remembered what she too often forgot—that Fiona’s husband, too, had been injured in an awful blast, that he had remained an invalid for months before the attempt on Ned. James Devlin had died in prison within nine months of entering it. She wondered what Fiona’s feelings were about her husband, though of course Columbine could not ask. Fiona had let her know years ago how painful it was for her to discuss James Devlin. It had taken the combined efforts of Columbine, Olive, and Ned to persuade Fiona that she was welcome to remain in the house, that they did not hold her in any way responsible for what her husband had done.

  All of this went through Columbine’s mind as she exchanged that short look with Fiona. She knew that Fiona had known guilt and suffering and how inextricably the two could be linked to make a particularly anguishing chain. She had heard the querulous voice, the jealous rage, the anguish of the bedridden, once vital man. She had known all of these things, her extraordinary green eyes told Columbine, and she understood.

  He hoped she would be there, and yet he did not want to see her. Elijah straightened his tie for the thousandth time that evening, cleared his throat, and looked toward the door. He was supposed to be carrying on a conversation with Horatio Jones, but his responses were purely automatic. He was thinking of Columbine. Of course she must come, Columbine Nash belonged here tonight. Columbine Van Cormandt, he corrected himself hastily. He had never seen her, talked to her, as a married woman, and he did not think he particularly wanted to.

  Not that he still thought about her in that way. The years had managed to reduce Columbine Nash to a burnished might-have-been studded with ifs. If he hadn’t been the kind of man he was, if she’d hadn’t been pregnant with Lawrence Birch’s child, if he had had the courage at the end to beg her not to marry Van Cormandt, then, well, things would have been different, Elijah supposed. But he’d never spent time worrying about ifs and buts. He had devoted himself to his writing in a way he hadn’t since he was twenty-three, writing Look Away in a fever. He had been heartsick and lonely and raging, and it had taken a while before those feelings dropped away, but they had. Paris seemed to intensify his feelings, but Elijah knew Paris, in all its melancholy, splendid beauty, was still a better place for him than New York. It had taken him six years to feel ready to return.

  He looked over the head of Horatio Jones and there she was. Elijah’s heart squeezed with pain, a pain so shockingly fresh he turned away for a moment to catch his breath. Columbine had been immediately surrounded by several women—he’d heard she did not go out much in society anymore—and she was flushed and laughing, kissing one woman after the other, squeezing their hands, and laughing again, somewhat taken aback at their pleasure at seeing her.

  She looked exactly the same to him, not a whit older from across a room hung with rosy-globed chandeliers. Her blond hair was still that golden honey color, her skin still shone, and, if Horatio Jones would keep his damn mouth shut, Elijah might be able to hear that same, throaty laugh.

  He waited for a break in Horatio’s conversation and politely excused himself. Coughing again nervously, he headed across the room toward her, threading through the bright dresses and the perfume and the mustachioed men, seeing only Columbine.

  Across the room, Columbine saw him. Her hands fell to her sides, and she stared, not caring, not knowing if anyone noticed. He was heading for her, and she didn’t know what to do. She didn’t think it would be like this. She hadn’t thought about how it would be, but she hadn’t thought it would be this awful.

  He came up and nodded. “Hello.” He wanted to say her name, but he couldn’t quite get the words Mrs. Van Cormandt out. And it seemed, suddenly, just too intimate to call her Columbine.

  “Hello,” Columbine said.

  He took her hand, but instead of shaking it, he merely held it for a moment and then let it go. He opened his mouth, but he didn’t know what to say. If her eyes weren’t telling him so much, he would have made small talk, or asked about Ned. But he knew that words would be inadequate, for her manner told him that she was just as affected at seeing him as he was by seeing her.

  He could see now that she had changed, and he didn’t care. She was still absolutely lovely. He saw that care and time had marked her, and that she was unhappy, and he wanted to pick her up and crush her against him. Unbidden, a thought of Columbine naked came to him, her skin damp, her hair wild down her back, looking up at him with that slow, drowsy smile she had after hours of love.

  “Oh, Elijah,” she said. The word came out slowly and softly, like a distant plash of oars on a still lake. E-li-jah. She might have added “my love,” the tone was so intimate.

  They were back in the bedroom of the West Tenth Street house, sure, at last, of what was between them. He was afraid to believe, longing to have, amazed at his luck. He was all of those things again, fresher and sharper than before. He had had six years of hunger in between.

  “Columbine,” he said. He reached for her hand again, and he brushed against her fingertips with his own. Even through her glove, she could feel the heat.

  After Marguerite became a star, it was harder for her to meet her mother in secret. Once, at a restaurant on Second Avenue, she had been recognized. Marguerite scaled back her visits to one every few months and decided to risk coming to her mother’s apartment, veiled and dressed in her oldest black coat. Jacob had moved up from the peddler cart and was keeping the books for a local butcher, and Sophie was able to arrange Marguerite’s visits when he was out. Her mother was always so glad to see her that Marguerite usually spent the first half-hour trying to get over the guilt of not seeing her more often.

  On a cold day in early December, Marguerite watched with relief as Willie went off to a luncheon with Maude Adams. Her suspicions had been allayed somewhat during the past weeks; Willie was as gay and offhand as ever. He was solicitious of her comfort, praised her new dresses, fetched her coffee in the mornings. The only thing that gave her pause was that they had not made love in awhile, she wasn’t sure how long. Though the door between their adjoining suites remained unlocked, Willie had remained in his own bedroom. She would have to do something about that. Perhaps a new negligee from Paris, or a late supper in her room. She’d have to plan something, sometime.

  Marguerite hired a hack on Broadway, relieved that she wasn’t recognized. She got off on Canal Street and walked quickly through dark Ludlow Street to her mother’s address. She was carrying a few presents, nothing that Jacob would notice, or, at least, what he would notice but not feel suf
ficiently enraged to throw away. Marguerite and Sophie had learned by trial and error what they could get away with to maintain the fiction that Marguerite was not contributing to the household in any way. A little bit of money, a cheese, some material for a winter coat. Once, she’d brought Sophie a new hat, and he’d thrown it out into the street.

  She tiptoed past Mrs. Schneiderman’s door, then ran up the last steps quickly. Two light knocks, and Sophie opened the door and held out her arms. Marguerite ran into them.

  “I missed you, little one,” her mother whispered. Tears were in her lashes as she held Marguerite at arm’s length. “You get prettier every time I see you,” she declared. “Come in, I made some cakes for us.”

  “Where’s Papa?” Marguerite asked as she sat down at the kitchen table.

  “Working. He won’t be back until seven. And our new boarder is home at six.” Sophie seemed happy as she bustled around the kitchen, warming the teapot, setting cakes out on a precious plate she’d brought from France.

  “It seems as though he might keep this job,” Marguerite observed idly.

  “Take off your coat, love. I added extra coal, so you won’t be cold. Yes, Mr. Cohen has turned out to be a gift from God. Even through these bad times, he hasn’t let more than one of his clerks go, and him a bad worker anyway, and not married.” Sophie set down the teapot in front of Marguerite. “And how is Mr. Paradise?” she asked.

  “He’s fine,” Marguerite said shortly. “He’s very busy.” She rarely talked about Willie with Sophie; this exchange was made for politeness sake on both sides. Sophie hadn’t disapproved of her marrying a Gentile, exactly. And she seemed to understand, or claimed to, why Marguerite wanted to keep her Jewishness a secret. Still, there was always a slight chill in the air when Willie’s name was mentioned. It was hard for Sophie, Marguerite knew, for what was the good of having a successful daughter if one couldn’t brag about her? So far, no one had connected Marguerite Blum with Daisy Corbeau. Marguerite had only lived on the East Side for a short time, and she’d been a rather nondescript, ungainly sort of child.

  Sophie let out a breath and leaned across the table to examine her dress. “What a beautiful gown,” she murmured in the respectful tone she reserved for clothes. “Such material. Is it from Paris?”

  Marguerite nodded, pleased under her mother’s scrutiny. It was getting harder and harder to come up with plain enough outfits for her trips down to the East Side. It was a delicate balance, finding a gown that would please Sophie without attracting too much notice on the street.

  “I like the beading on the sleeve,” Sophie said, nodding quickly as she scrutinized the garment. “I think I could copy it. Oh, you should have seen the fuss over the Levy girl’s wedding. I was busy day and night making dresses. Everyone wanted to outdo the mother of the bride,” Sophie said with a giggle. “That Mrs. Levy bragged so much about the groom I thought the neighborhood would hire one of those boys on Allen Street to hush her mouth.”

  Marguerite laughed and settled in for a good gossip. She nibbled at a seed cake. “Tell me about the dresses,” she said. “What did you make, and for who?”

  “Oh, for Mrs. Schneiderman I made a blouse, nothing fancy. They’re having hard times, you know, with David out of work. But for Mrs. Fein—oh, Marguerite, you should have seen it. I copied that deep plum velvet dress you wore last time, do you remember? I used insets of green silk and some passementerie instead of the crystal. Of course, it wasn’t as nice.”

  “I’ll bet it was beautiful,” Marguerite said. “What else?” she asked greedily. She loved to hear Sophie describe clothes in her sybaritic style; her mother was just warming up.

  But the door opened, and Jacob Blum walked in. His eyes were on the floor, and he didn’t see Marguerite at first. He set down his coat and hat on a chair.

  With an anxious glance at Marguerite, Sophie rose. “Jacob? Why are you home?”

  “Because Mr. Cohen has decided he no longer needs my services,” Jacob said. “What is that—” He turned and saw Marguerite. “I should have known. It smells like a bordello in here.”

  Marguerite rose and began to gather her things. “I’ll be going, Mama.” She refused to engage with Jacob; she closed her mind against him as though it was a heavy oak door. She shut him out as she mechanically began to put her coat back on. In her mind, she was already walking down Ludlow Street toward Canal, hoping for a hack. Usually she would have to walk all the way to the Bowery. She was already taking in gulps of fresh, cold air while she walked.

  Jacob sat down heavily at the kitchen table; he was too exhausted to yell. He put his face in his hands. “Don’t I live with enough shame?” he asked in a low voice. “My life, my life. It’s nothing. I have no homeland. No business. No family. What is a man without these things?”

  Sophie went to her husband. She put a hand on his back briefly, softly. “You have a wife,” she said.

  “My house is full of whores,” Jacob said, his face still hidden, and Sophie snatched her hand back and pressed it to her mouth.

  Marguerite had paused by the kitchen door. She heard these things, though she did not want to hear them. But as she saw Sophie’s humiliated face, black rage filled her heart. Jacob was turning on his wife now, without Marguerite there.

  “You are an evil man,” she said evenly to her father. “You are evil. You deserve nothing in your life, for you’ve made your women live a life of misery around you. Do you think God will forgive you?”

  “Marguerite, hush,” Sophie whispered, horrified.

  “You’re afraid of him, Mama,” Marguerite said. “I am not. He’s nothing but an old man. Dreaming of Odessa, not facing what he’s become. I could forgive him his incompetence, Mama, but not his cruelty.”

  Jacob had not raised his face from his hands. “Go away,” he said tiredly. His voice sounded unnatural. “Go away, both of you. Leave me.”

  Without a word, Sophie picked up her hat and coat. She followed Marguerite out the door and, putting a finger to her lips, led the way down the narrow stairway. She waited until they were out in the dark afternoon to speak.

  “I’ll walk you to the Bowery,” she said as she buttoned her top button.

  Marguerite nodded. She let the wind cool her hot cheeks. “Why don’t you leave him?” she asked soberly. She didn’t look at Sophie. “I could take care of you now. You wouldn’t have to live on the East Side. I have plenty of money.”

  Sophie didn’t speak for so long that Marguerite thought they would walk all the way to the Bowery and part in silence. She supposed that her mother was angry at such a suggestion. Leave her husband! Well, that was Sophie’s problem right there, unable to conceive of a life without pain and misery.

  When her mother finally spoke, it was in a meditative voice, and she said something that Marguerite had not expected at all. “There are things you don’t know,” Sophie said. “Things which might make it better for you or worse, I don’t know. But may God punish me for what I’m about to say, I think I should speak.”

  A dart of fear nestled somewhere in Marguerite’s ribs. “What is it, Maman?”

  “It has to do with the Easter riots in 1871,” Sophie said.

  “The year I was born.”

  “Yes, yes, the year you were born, exactly. In December.”

  “What are you saying?” Marguerite practically snapped the question, irritated at Sophie’s hesitation. “I’ve heard the story a million times. How you lived on pastries for two days. How Papa found you in the cellar.”

  “Jacob came home that day and found me in the cellar, yes. What I did not tell him was that the men upstairs had already found me. One of them had raped me. The others would have followed, but they were distracted. They were trying to push the piano off the balcony, and it proved difficult. That’s when I ran downstairs. I suppose they would have found me eventually, but Jacob got there first. He didn’t know what happened. Or what I mean to say is, he didn’t want to know. He didn’t ask what they did, and
I didn’t tell him. But I suppose he guessed. When you were born, nine months later, he talked so much about your inheriting his mother’s black hair. He talked too much about it.” Sophie ground to a halt.

  Cold seemed to seep through her veins, freezing her responses. “Are you saying that Jacob isn’t my father? Are you saying that some Russian drunkard—” Marguerite felt sick.

  “I don’t know, ma petite. Jacob could have been your father. We had made love the night before. That I remember clearly.”

  Her head down, Marguerite walked on, her skirt swishing above her boots. Why was Sophie telling her this? Why must she know? her heart cried. She didn’t want to know!

  “It wasn’t until he saw you again that he began to change,” Sophie went on. “When we arrived from France. I noticed it almost immediately. Perhaps he was wondering why you didn’t look more Jewish, I don’t know. Perhaps he was just defeated by his life, and the doubts began. But when you turned into a young woman, not a child, somehow that made him wonder and think. He confronted me, and I admitted the rape, finally. I could not hold out against him. He struck me, you see,” Sophie said mildly. “And then he blamed me. He said I had encouraged it. Oh, you can imagine. Later he apologized, but the damage was done. I saw into his mind. I saw how completely he had changed. The world changed him, Marguerite. Everything he had pride in as a man had turned to dust. His brain, his abilities, his homeland, his Jewishness, his daughter, his wife.”

  “And so he turned against me,” Marguerite said bitterly. “But aren’t I innocent, Mama?”

  “Of course you are. But,” Sophie said, shrugging, “something turned in his mind, and he could not see that.”

  “Are you asking me to understand this, to forgive him?” Marguerite burst out bitterly.

  “No. That’s your decision. I’m giving you information, that’s all.”

  “I don’t know why,” Marguerite said with a sob. “I don’t want to know this, I can’t know it—”

  “But you have to see that it’s not you. It was never you. It was me. It’s still me, no matter how it appears. He can’t do without me, and he hates me, but he can’t say the things to me he says to you. Until tonight.”