The Gilded Cage (2 page)

This is what I've become,
she thought grimly. A
radical pet
. Domesticated, de-clawed, her teeth filed down. She was no longer dangerous at all. She was coasting on her laurels at thirty-five. And it took a fool like Ambrose Hartley to tell her so.

“Actually, Mr. Hartley, I'm planning a new lecture tour,” she said demurely. “‘The Secret Life of the American Husband.' You know, of course, that my New Women Society has worked with the poor unfortunate girls of this city who sell their bodies, Mr. Hartley, to make a living. I've learned much from their… activities. Names, places … oh, it's shocking, I assure you, how the men of good society piously deplore the vice of the city in public while partaking of it so enthusiastically in private.” She widened her large, luminous eyes at him. “It is so necessary to expose hypocrisy wherever we might find it, don't you agree?” She smiled encouragingly at him.

Ambrose swallowed. He opened his mouth and closed it again. “What do you think of Maud's redecorating?” he finally squeaked. “She redid the salon from top to bottom.”

“Oh, it's lovely. Remarkable,” Columbine said virtuously. It was an appalling room. Maud's famous collection of chinoiserie perched perilously around them, a jumble of ginger jars and vases. The carpet was Turkish, and the furniture was all in the rococo extravagance of Louis XV Chocolate-colored woodwork and an assortment of gilt-framed mirrors completed the decor. There were a few bad paintings from the worst of the Barbizon school.

Columbine took a very unladylike gulp of champagne, but the room remained hideous. She smiled winningly at Ambrose.

“Mrs. Nash, you must come to the window,” Ambrose said, regaining his poise with a grand manner. “I'll find you a good place for the firework display.”

He held out his arm, but before she could take it, a butler appeared at Ambrose's elbow. He spoke quietly. “May I have a word, sir? It's about the fireworks.”

Annoyance deepened the crease on Ambrose's forehead. He drew the butler away from Columbine, but she could hear them clearly. “Yes, Howell? Not a problem, I hope.”

“Devlin needs to speak with you, sir. He's worried about the fireworks. They look damaged, he says. He won't set them off, sir.”

“Nonsense,” Ambrose said impatiently. “I'll talk to him. I promised my guests fireworks, and fireworks we shall have! Tell Devlin I'll be out in a moment.”

The butler nodded and turned away. Ambrose turned back to Columbine. “Just like the Irish to wait till the last minute to complain. Let me bring you to Ned and he'll find a place at the window.”

Columbine paused. “But did he say that there was some question of the fireworks being unsafe? If so, I hardly think—”

“Nonsense,” Ambrose repeated firmly. “It's only a snag, I assure you. It's almost eighteen-hundred and ninety, and I insist on the proper fanfare.”

In a moment, he had delivered her to Ned—like a package, Columbine thought, but then, men did not excuse themselves from ladies in drawing rooms without handing them off to another male—and rushed out.

Ned smiled at her. “What did you do to Ambrose?” he murmured. “He looked like he swallowed a live chicken.”

“Not a thing,” she said. “I was perfectly charming. He's worried about his fireworks.”

“Ah. He hasn't changed much since he was a boy. If it doesn't come off he'll sulk all evening. Come to the window anyway, there's a strange light tonight.”

She took his arm and they strolled to the French doors. Cool air emanated from the frosty windows, caressing Columbine's bare shoulders. The salon had been rather hot, and she pressed even closer to the glass. The guests were excited now, and they milled about, laughing about Ambrose and his eagerness. Letitia Garth, the most delicious young ingenue of the season, flirted with graying Converse Bowles behind a fan of white peacock feathers and diamonds. Clara Vandervoon narrowed her small black eyes and whispered to her cousin, Georgina Halstead, about the scandalous behavior. Would confirmed bachelor Converse Bowles fall at last?

“Perhaps we can leave early, as soon as the dancing starts,” Ned murmured.

Columbine didn't answer. Something about her conversation with Ambrose pricked at her, and she felt irritated with Ned as well as with herself. She would prefer to end the evening alone in her own room, where she could think.

Shortly after they'd become lovers three years before, Ned had leased a house in Greenwich Village. They met there as often as their schedules permitted, usually taking separate hansom cabs, with Columbine veiled for secrecy. A woman, Mrs. Haggerty, kept the house and her tongue.

But tonight, Columbine's pulse did not race in anticipation. She was a mistress, but she might as well have been a wife, so stately and predictable her relations with Ned had become. What was the use of being a dangerous mistress if you no longer felt thrilled at the thought of your lover? What was the use of secrecy and denial if it didn't add spice to the proceedings? She was so comfortable she might as well be married.

Is that what had bothered her so about Ambrose's words? It wasn't Ned's fault that she had become so predictable, Columbine raged at herself. She was being unfair. She wished Ned would skip the carriage ride to the Village and seduce her on her own parlor sofa, as he once did. Perhaps passion could drive the restlessness from her soul.

“Why don't we leave now?” she asked impulsively. “We can take French leave.”

Ned smiled in an indulgent way that told her he didn't take her suggestion seriously for a moment. “Slip away early without saying good night? How wicked of us.”

Columbine touched him fleetingly with her fan. “Ah, but it's time you were wicked again, Ned Van Cormandt,” she chided. “You are definitely in danger of committing the worst sin of all, in my opinion—”

“And that is?”

“Predictability, of course.”

Columbine's tone was light, but there was a hint of asperity that Ned rarely heard. “I shall take that warning under advisement, madam,” he said, trying to match her lightness.

Columbine saw the hurt in his eyes and immediately felt guilty. “Don't mind me, tonight, Ned. A devil is on my tongue.”

Ned laughed in relief. “As long as you make it up to me later,” he murmured.

“Oh, is there any question of that?” she answered dryly. “By twoseventeen in the morning, two-thirty if there is traffic on Broadway on the way downtown, I'd wager you'll be quite satisified, sir.”

Ned looked at her sharply, and Columbine instantly felt guilty again. She looked away and fanned her warm cheeks.

“It appears the show is about to begin,” Ned said in a cool tone. He flipped open his gold dress watch. Around him, the other men did the same. “It's three minutes to midnight.”

Columbine looked out through the glass. A dark figure crossed Fifth Avenue and hurried toward a grassy spot underneath the bare trees.

Moments later, Ambrose rushed into the room. “It's almost time,” he said excitedly. He extinguished the gas jets, and the room was filled with moonlight. Some of the guests oohed, and they all pressed closer to the glass doors. Someone opened the latch, and the men and the more adventuresome ladies spilled out onto the terrace. Columbine heard Letitia's soprano laugh as the cold air hit them. Moonlight splashed on her white satin gown trimmed with crystals and pearls.

Columbine shivered, but she welcomed the frosty air. It was intoxicating to feel the fresh night air for a moment. She closed her eyes and breathed in the smell of New York in winter, frost and snow and the faint smell of horses, even here on upper Fifth Avenue, only beginning to attract a fashionable crowd, facing the long rectangle of the Central Park. She returned to London once a year, and sometimes even thought of living there again. But in the past few years she'd begun to realize that New York was her true home. Something about the rough vitality of the city kept her; somehow she could breathe here. There were no bad memories here. She did not have the weight of centuries of family on her back.

“Ten seconds to midnight,” Ambrose called. “Nine. Eight. Seven …”

He continued the countdown while waiters quickly circulated with thick cashmere shawls for the ladies. Columbine felt the involuntary shiver of excitement that comes with the dawn of a new year. Ned slipped a shawl around her shoulders and she brought her hand up under cover of darkness and placed it over his for a moment. Daringly, Ned leaned forward and kissed her fingers. A mute apology; a good start to the new year. She looked at him, and he smiled. Her heart squeezed with love and relief. She still loved him, of course, her Ned, with his boyish thick brown hair, his keen eyes, his ironic eyebrow that quirked at her with such quizzical intelligence. Even though the intellectual rebel she'd fallen for had evolved into a surprisingly clever financier on the death of his father, and become a member of the establishment she railed against. Even though she sensed they were growing apart, and it frightened her.

“Three. Two. One! It's Eighteen-Ninety!” Ambrose laughed aloud. Through the clear night air, the faint ringing of church bells could be heard.

Now they all looked expectantly down into the shadows of the park. Ambrose muttered underneath his breath, then said aloud, “Any moment, now!”

Ambrose's exhortation was answered by a series of pops, followed by a tremendous explosion. It had force and weight, ripping through the air like an unnatural, deafening clap of thunder and rolling against their faces. The ladies screamed and shrank back, and the men and Columbine surged forward. A cloud of smoke billowed up from the ground below. A horrible scream pierced the clear night air. Shouts could be heard, along with running footsteps. A slight figure, a woman in the white apron of a kitchen worker, ran across Fifth Avenue toward the trees, disappearing in the smoke.

Ambrose pushed his way to the end of the terrace. He leaned over the terrace railing. “What happened?” he shouted frantically. “What is it?” He strained to hear over the sound of the guests' agitated murmurings and the shouts below.

Those in the front heard it, then: the sound of barely concealed panic in the voice of an unseen man below. “You'd better come down, sir. And send for a doctor. It looks bad, sir.”

Ambrose turned, his face white. He pushed back toward the French doors. There, Maud touched his arm, but he shook her off.

Ned spoke in Columbine's ear. “I'll go with him.”

Columbine watched Ned head quickly after Ambrose. She could hear a woman shrieking below, and she leaned over the terrace railing while the other guests headed back to the salon. She could see nothing except a tall man heading back across Fifth Avenue, walking quickly, almost running. Then burly Ambrose charged across the street, followed closely by Ned and some other servants. Chaos swirled below, and Columbine shivered.

She made her way over to Maud in the salon. “You'd better send for a doctor,” she told her. “Someone is injured.”

Maud stood frozen in the middle of her guests. “But the servants have their own doctor,” she said idiotically. “Howell knows him. I don't know his name …”

“Mrs. Hartley, you must send for your doctor,” Columbine repeated fiercely. “Immediately. If he has a telephone, call him.” Dropping the shawl and gathering up her full gold skirt, she pushed past Maud and ran down the hall toward the stairs, past the Corot and the suite of Goya drawings, past the medieval armor and the Ming vases.

They were carrying the man in when she reached the bottom of the stairs. The woman in the white apron stood near him; perhaps she was his wife, or his sweetheart. Strands of extravagant red hair were loose from her white cap and waved around her thin white face. Her green eyes were blazing, but they were dry. Columbine wondered at the woman's composure, but then she saw how her work-reddened hand shook as it fleetingly, uselessly, reached out to touch the heavy shoe of the groaning man.

The groans were awful to hear. Columbine felt the lightheadedness that comes with the shock of sudden accident, the smell of blood. Ned was supporting the man's head, black from gunpowder, and Ambrose trailed behind, wringing his hands. The usually imperturbable Howell, the butler, was in his shirtsleeves, frantically directing the bearers to lay the man gently on the carpet in the small salon to the left of the entrance hall.

Ambrose stumbled toward Columbine. He seemed not to see her. His hand flailed out and hit the marble banister.

“Who is it?” she asked him. “Who was hurt?”

“Devlin,” he said, his eyes on the salon as the man was lowered onto the rug. “The Aubusson,” he whispered. “Maud will be furious. They should have used the cloakroom.”

Disgusted with him, Columbine turned away. She sank down on a small tufted bench and clasped her cold hands together. She could see that one of the men, dressed in rough stable clothes, was gently cutting Devlin's sleeve away. What should have been a hand was a mass of blood and tissue. Columbine felt sick, and she looked away for a moment, took a deep breath, then looked back. Someone put a towel underneath the arm, causing Devlin to groan again. Fresh blood spurted out onto the carpet.

Then Ned looked up, caught sight of her, and frowned. He left the salon, closing the door behind him. “You shouldn't be down here,” he said. “You look pale as a ghost.”

“I'm fine,” Columbine said, though she did feel dizzy. She stood up again. “How is he?”

Ned shook his head. “I'm no doctor, but it looks bad. Where
is
the doctor? Has he been sent for?”

“Howell telephoned him,” Ambrose said wearily. He seemed to be coming out of his daze. “I'd better see to the guests. Maud will want to start the dancing, I'm sure.”

“Dancing?”
Columbine asked, incredulous. Surely Ambrose wouldn't continue the festivities after a man had been so badly injured. He must be in shock.