The Gilded Cage

by Susannah Bamford

  Toby looked at her, and there was something in his gaze that made her uneasy. He looked almost as if he pitied her.

  “Well?” she demanded. “Tell me.”

  Toby sighed. He wiped his nose. He put the toddy on the small table at his elbow. He did anything he could to delay speaking, for he did not wish to tell Marguerite the truth. The truth was too abstract for her, too slippery, too complicated, and that was the awful thing. Marguerite liked things simple; she could fight a simple truth, but she would struggle with a complicated one.

  But maybe he was underestimating her. Maybe she really was changing.

  “No, I don’t think Willie’s in love with her,” he said slowly.

  Marguerite leaned back against the chair and closed her eyes. “Thank God. Oh, Toby, thank you.”

  “Wait a minute,” he said sharply. “I’m not finished. Marguerite, I think it would be easier if he was.”

  “Easier?” she asked blankly.

  “He’s still in love with you, I think,” Toby went on, struggling to find the right words. “Not that it helps you. It’s depleted him, this love. It’s worn him out. And Mollie understands that. She gives him something you can’t, Marguerite. Peace. And that’s all he wants, I think.”

  Marguerite wanted to laugh. “Willie want peace? That’s so silly, Toby. He likes drama and excitement and risk. If he still loves me, everything will be fine. I can win him back. Oh, I can give him peace and quiet, if he wants it, too,” she said, shrugging. “I was thinking it would be fun to buy a house. I’d sit by the fire with him. I used to embroider, I can do that.”

  “Marguerite, it’s not that kind of peace I mean. I mean—”

  She stood up excitedly. “Oh, Toby, you don’t know him. I know him. I’ll buy all new gowns. I’ll start at the Bradley-Martin ball—I’ll wear such a gown! When he sees that everyone still stares at me, still wants me, he’ll want me again!”

  “No!” Toby shouted. “Listen to me. That’s not the way, Marguerite. Why do you think that only jealousy excites love? Even if every man in the world wanted you, it wouldn’t bring Willie back.”

  “That’s an awful thing to say.”

  “Remember how you caught him the first time,” Toby said impatiently. “Remember?”

  “Yes, of course I remember,” she said, matching his impatience with her own. “The play opened, and I was a hit. He bought me diamonds and roses, and we had champagne—”

  “No,” Toby was shaking his head, and he winced, for he had an awful headache that was getting worse. “That’s not when you captured him. Didn’t he ever tell you when he fell in love with you? Don’t you remember?”

  “I just told you. It was opening night, when I became a star. He—”

  “No, it was the day you sang for him in the blue velvet gown. That day.”

  “That day …” Marguerite frowned. Why had Willie told Toby that, and not her? Why was he always confiding in Toby, and not her? But maybe Toby was making it up. He had a terribly romantic imagination, just like a woman’s.

  “That day you were yourself, Marguerite. Not Daisy.”

  She stared at him a long time. Then she said, her voice shaking, “You don’t want me to get him back.”

  Toby reared back; he hadn’t expected this. “What are you saying? What do you think I’m trying to do?”

  “You love him. You love him better than me. You’re jealous of me, and I never saw it.” Hot fury bubbled in Marguerite, and she felt deliciously self-righteous. Toby wouldn’t be telling her these stupid things unless he wanted her to lose. “Don’t bother to deny it, I should have seen it. You were always hanging around us. You probably wormed his affection away from me!”

  She had expected Toby to leap up from the couch, furious. But he only looked at her pityingly. “What are you so afraid of?” he asked, shaking his head.

  “What are you talking about?” she demanded hotly. “Don’t change the subject. We’re talking about your treachery—”

  “It can’t just be Edwin,” he said. “It must be something before. I know everything you’ve told me about your past is lies.”

  “It is not—”

  “So what was it? What marked you? What makes you hurt the people who love you, the people that you love?”

  “Nobody loves me!” Marguerite screamed. Her voice was the shriek of a wild creature; it seemed to come out from a deep place she hadn’t known existed, someplace savage and frightening. Her mouth was open, and a deep sob rose up from that place inside.

  Now Toby did struggle to rise. “Marguerite, it’s all right, I didn’t mean to upset you—”

  “I hate you,” she shouted with a face livid with rage. “I never, ever want to see you again, Toby Wells. I’ve shared everything with you—my money, my fame. And you never were a friend to me, never, never. You wanted my husband in your sick way, and you turned him against me out of spite.” She gathered her things jerkily.

  “Marguerite!” he cried. He pushed away the blanket and stood, weaving slightly from brandy, sickness, and confusion. “I’ve always loved you.”

  She stomped to the door, her arms full of coat and hat and scarf. “You’re a liar,” she said cruelly, and she slammed the door on his gaping face. Just like Edwin, she thought as she ran down the stairs, triumph in her heart, tears streaming down her face. Just like Edwin.

  Once Bell had decided, she began to make arrangements. Within a few days she had investigated fares, given her notice to Lev, and received lists of people to look up in Italy, comrades in the movement, socialists, writers, kind people who would help them get settled. It really seemed as though it would work. They could do it. They were doing it.

  Lawrence spent much of his time making more abstract plans. Every day he decided a different city would be better than another. He argued with Bell about how much money to ask from Columbine, for Bell had made the mistake of telling him the loan was open-ended.

  Lawrence had made the suggestion that morning off the top of his head, and he was surprised to find events rushing out of his control. Bell was full of purpose, and he knew that she saw this move as her salvation. Lawrence both resented and admired this; he had always looked to Fiona for purpose, but he saw that Bell could be just as fierce. But he was irritated at her officiousness, so he gave up his plans and retreated behind his newspaper whenever she went over her endless lists in that new brisk voice he’d begun to hate.

  “We really should be married here, before we go,” Bell said, consulting her list. “At the end of this week, I should think.”

  Lawrence ignored her. “Listen to this,” he said contemptuously. “These Bradley-Martins should be strung up. They’re claiming they’re doing the poor a favor by putting their money into circulation. Here’s the latest—for the coachmen of the city, they’re supplying four hundred carriages to bring their guests home. For the coachmen, they say. And now they’re running lists of which decadent exploiter of the French peasants some fat American capitalist is going to portray, of how many diamond buttons will be on their coats and how much they will cost.” He read from the paper in a disgusted voice. “‘The beauteous Mollie Todd, who once graced the Broadway stage with that glorious presence that Titian would have begged on his knees to capture, will be appearing as Madame DuBarry in a gown of gold and a necklace of diamonds said to be a gift from an admirer of her great talent.’ And people starving in the streets with this depression!” The paper crackled. “It’s good we’re leaving this place.”

  “Yes,” Bell said. She hadn’t told Lawrence, but Lev had asked her to participate in a protest line in front of the Waldorf that night. A coalition of anarchists and socialists would be there. Lev had asked her as a last gesture before she left, and she wanted to participate. But Lawrence, she knew, would not approve, mostly because he had not been invited to attend and would not want to go even if he had been.

  But soon these kinds of petty problems would be over. Bell sighed and looked at her list again. She read over he
r tasks mechanically, and she remembered that there was one important task she had not committed to pen and paper. And since Lawrence seemed lost in the World she might as well take the opportunity now.

  She rose and went for her coat. “I have to go out for a few minutes, Lawrence. Some errands. I’ll bring back supper, all right?”

  “All right.” Lawrence didn’t drop the newspaper, and his voice was abstracted as he concentrated on the paper.

  Good, Bell thought as she tied a scarf around her neck. He didn’t ask any questions.

  Lawrence was oblivious to Bell as she slipped into her coat, laced her walking boots, and put on her hat. He was reading over the account of the Bradley-Martin ball, and he was thinking hard. Again and again he read the same paragraph, then returned to the detailed engraving of the beautiful Mollie Todd. And as he looked he whispered the words which had first set his heart and mind aflame with purpose, a purpose the women in his life had leached out of him with the endless, yawning cavern of their needs.

  The Propaganda of the Deed.

  It was so much the same situation of almost seven years before that they both must have thought of it, but if Elijah Reed did, he gave no indication. He was all politeness as he ushered Bell into his parlor like an honored guest, and he swept aside a pile of books to offer her the best place by the fire.

  She sat, her gloved hands in her lap. “I’ll get straight to the point, Mr. Reed. I’ll be leaving for Europe for good next week. Before I go, there is something I must tell you. I’m afraid that I inadvertently gave you a false piece of information years ago, and I want to correct it.”

  Nervously, Elijah rummaged through his pockets for a nonexistent cigar, for he’d quit smoking in Paris. “Ah, yes, Mrs. Birch?”

  “My husband did not father Columbine’s child,” Bell said with equanimity. “I know this for certain now.”

  Elijah felt embarrassed, even more embarrassed than he’d been the first time a lady of short acquaintance discussed such a thing with him. “And why did you feel the need to come and tell me this?”

  “Because I think I might have … damaged your relations with Columbine in some way,” Bell said slowly. “And I did not want that result, because I knew how much she loved you.”

  “Mrs. Birch, really—”

  “I know this is dreadfully frank of me, and impolite. But I’m leaving, you see. I have to make things right. Please just let me finish.” At Elijah’s reluctant nod, Bell continued, “I think you should know that Hawthorn is your child, Mr. Reed.”

  Elijah stood up and sat down again. “Excuse me?”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to blurt it out like that. But I think you should know for certain. It would only take you a little while to start wondering, once I’ve left, who had fathered the child. And you would have to wonder if it were you, would you not? So I can’t help it; I think you deserve to know.” Bell stood. “That’s all.”

  For perhaps the first time in his life, Elijah forgot his manners. He sat in the chair, stunned, while Bell waited for a moment, then seeing he could not speak, simply took her umbrella and went out, closing the door behind her. She sent up a fervent prayer, the first she’d prayed in a long, long time, that she’d done the right thing at last.

  It had been Columbine and Olive’s custom for years now to take tea together up in Olive’s private sitting room. Ned usually napped at this time and Columbine later took a second cup with him. The two women cherished their time together, a time where they could speak quietly of books they were reading and dreams they’d had and observations about Hawthorn or Ned, or simply chat about nonsense or gossip.

  Today, as they waited for Fiona to bring the tea, they were talking of Bell. Without mentioning the loan, Columbine told Olive of her sad feeling after Bell’s departure. Bell had been so close to her for so long, and so wide a gulf separated them now.

  Fiona gave a short knock and came in with the tray as Columbine finished sadly.

  “So she has a—friend, then,” Olive said, catching herself from saying “lover” just in time, for though they spoke freely in front of Fiona, there still were limits.

  “Yes, I knew him quite well at one time. I don’t trust him, and I don’t believe he’s good to her, but,” Columbine said, sighing, “she is nonetheless fixed on him. She believes that living in Italy will start them on a whole new life. I do hope he marries her at last. She said that he would.”

  “This Mr. Birch, does he have a profession?”

  Fiona knocked over the sugar as she placed it on the tea table between them. Her cheeks were scarlet. “Beg your pardon, missus …”

  “It’s all right, Fiona,” Columbine said. “Just scrape it back in the bowl, no harm done. He’s a writer, Olive, though he doesn’t seem to get published. I don’t know how they live. Bell supports them, I suppose. But she says it’s Lawrence’s idea to move to Italy, so I suppose he’s also involved in this idea of a grand new start for them. They leave next week, on the eleventh.”

  Her hands shaking, Fiona scraped the sugar back in the bowl and replaced it on the table.

  “Thank you, Fiona, I’ll pour today,” Olive said, and Fiona walked out like a sleepwalker, unnoticed by the two women. The door closed softly behind her.

  Olive poured a cup for Columbine, and she leaned back with it in her chair. “I’ve been waiting for this all day,” Columbine said, sipping at it. “It’s been a horrendous week, hasn’t it?”

  “Yes, I’ve noticed the tension between you and Ned,” Olive said. She usually was not so bold, and Columbine looked over her teacup at her questioningly. “I don’t mean to intrude, Columbine. But I presume you’re still arguing about the Bradley-Martin ball.”

  “Yes,” Columbine said. She took another sip of tea. “I don’t understand him, Olive. He’s become so hard. He’s obsessed with Hawthorn’s future. All the Christmas engagements I could normally refuse he was on me about. I had to go to this and that, and this again—oh, he’s driving me mad. But on this issue I don’t see how I can please him. I’m appalled by the waste, the indifference, the sheer amount of money it’s taking to put on this fete. I don’t care how many Astors and Rhinelanders and Van Cormandts are going.”

  “I know,” Olive said. Her face was set and grave. Her teacup sat at her elbow, untouched. “But I think you should go anyway.”

  Slowly, Columbine put down her teacup. “Oh, Olive. Not you, too. I could see your point about the Hartleys. But this?”

  “Columbine,” Olive said clearly, her eyes never leaving her sister-in-law’s face, “Ned is dying.”

  Columbine remembered a tumble from her horse when she was a girl, when the breath had left her body and she hadn’t been able to speak. She stared at Olive. “What are you saying?”

  “Dr. Temple didn’t want to tell you. But I’ve always thought him a fool. He’s silly when it comes to wives, he thinks they should remain in the dark or they’ll be hysterical. Ned has cancer. That’s why he’s been so bad lately. Dr. Temple says it has nothing to do with his injuries from the bomb.”

  Columbine swallowed painfully. “Does Ned know?”

  Olive nodded. “He knew without the doctor telling him. Dr. Temple confirmed his own suspicions.”

  “You’ve both known….” Columbine turned away, pressing her face into the soft material of Olive’s faded velvet armchair. “How long have you known?” she asked.

  “Since before Christmas. Ned didn’t want you to know, Columbine. He can’t know that you know. He couldn’t bear it, he said.”

  “How long—”

  “Does he have? A matter of months.”

  “And this time you believe Dr. Temple.”

  Olive nodded, her green eyes pained. “Yes, there’s no doubt this time. I feel it as well as know it.”

  Columbine nodded slowly. She wondered why she wasn’t crying. Now she thought of Ned’s increased use of drugs, his obvious pain, the slight grayish tinge to his skin, and she was ashamed. She should have known i
t went beyond his normal discomfort. She should have known! She thought of every careless remark she’d made over the past month, every argument, every small irritation, and nausea swept over her. “Oh, Olive, I’ve been so terrible to him,” she whispered.

  Olive leaned forward urgently. “Now don’t go feeling sorry for yourself. I didn’t tell you so that you’d feel guilty. I told you because first of all, I think you’ve a right to know, no matter what Ned or the hallowed Dr. Temple thinks. And I also told you because you need to understand about Hawthorn. Ned needs to feel that Hawthorn will be a Van Cormandt, Columbine, that she will continue the family line. All of these engagements he’s forcing on you are just a way for him to believe in that. He’s afraid of Elijah Reed.”

  Columbine started at the sound of the name. “Why would he fear Elijah Reed?”

  “Because he’s Hawthorn’s father. Ned told me. And even if he didn’t, I saw you and Mr. Reed at that gala and it was perfectly plain to me that you were in love with him.”

  “I haven’t—”

  “I know you haven’t. That’s not the point. I’m thinking of Ned now.” Olive reached out and grasped Columbine’s hand. “You’ve done so much for him. Can you do this last thing? Can you make him secure in the knowledge that he will leave something behind? Go to the ball, Columbine. Go late and leave early, I don’t care. Let him know that his position is important to you because it is Hawthorn’s position. I’m begging you,” she whispered, and there was a fine film of tears in her green eyes. Columbine hadn’t seen Olive cry since Dr. Temple described Ned’s injuries that first day in the hospital.

  “Of course I shall go,” Columbine said. “I’ll do the best I can, Olive, and I’ll keep the promise, too. Hawthorn will be raised a Van Cormandt.”

  Olive leaned forward and embraced her, and it was only then that Columbine began to weep.

  Twenty-Six

  OLIVE HAD ORDERED a costume for her, some sort of standard French royalty gown, all chiffon and velvet and a bodice encrusted with pearls. But the night of the Bradley-Martin ball Columbine looked at it laid out for her and knew she could not wear it. She took out her black silk instead.