The Gilded Cage (48 page)

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Authors: Susannah Bamford

BOOK: The Gilded Cage
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“I suppose you're right.”

“Safe Passage would be a good place to start. And I've gotten you into a study group, I think you'll enjoy it. It's called the Social Reform Club. Lillian Wald is in it, and Felix Adler—they're reading Dante now. They'd be delighted to welcome you.”

“I couldn't—”

“Yes, you could.”

Columbine crossed to the sofa and sat down. Olive's brisk good sense was tiring. It just wasn't that easy, she knew. She rarely went out anymore; she couldn't bear social life and Olive was right, her intellectual life had narrowed to newspapers and Dickens. Could she really return to the world, just like that?

A newspaper was lying on the table in front of the sofa, and she absently placed her glass on it. “I don't know, Olive,” she said. “I don't have much energy these days.”

“Just go through the motions,” Olive said. “That's enough of a start.”

Idly, Columbine's gaze rested on the table while Olive's words revolved in her head. The bottom of her glass had magnified the print of the paper. In large and wavering print she saw the name
ELIJAH REED
.

A tiny jolt sent a rippling wave of anxiety through her body. She moved the glass and picked up the paper. The item said that Elijah Reed, whose most recent novel,
Spencer's
Man, a most eloquent attack on Social Darwinism, had swept the country, was returning to New York City from Paris, where he had lived for the past six years, with time out to walk with Coxey's army of the unemployed to the nation's capital last year.

Elijah was back. Color flooded her cheeks, and her hand shook when it placed the paper back on the table. He would be living in the same city again. If she'd had any inclination to follow Olive's advice, it was squashed. She knew she did not have the strength to face Elijah Reed again.

“You see?” Olive cried, crossing back and taking her hands, “I was right! You look better already!”

“Tell me, Miss Daisy Corbeau,” Edward Ferdinand Clinton said in his clipped British accent, “what is it like to be the most feted American musical star of your generation?”

“It is sometimes a trial, I must confess,” Marguerite sighed.

“You have such a reputation for the feminine virtues,” he said, “faithfulness to your husband, pureheartedness, modesty—”

Marguerite flipped over on the bed and pillowed her head on her naked arms. She raised one bare leg in the air. “All too true, Mr. Clinton. I'm afraid I'm an old-fashioned girl.” She ran her fingers along Teddy Clinton's muscular leg, with its golden hair and smooth muscles.

“And they tell me that the chef of Delmonico's named a dish for you, some sort of blueberry pastry—”

“He called it Daisy's Cobbler. Monsieur Gilot is terribly sweet.”

“And during the party that he presented it to you, I hear you pelted the streets below with the blueberries, isn't that so?” Teddy reached under a pillow to fondle a small breast.

“We were feeling so gay,” Marguerite said with a pout. “I thought it terribly unkind of the papers to suggest we were making light of the city's hungry souls. I donated baskets and baskets of food the very next day.”

He kissed the small of her back. “How wonderful you are, Miss Corbeau. A model of American womanhood,” he said with a lascivious grin. “A pearl.”

“And you, sir, are a positive swine,” she said, sticking out her little red tongue.

He slapped her on her bare backside lightly. “Come on, Miss Corbeau—”

“That's Mrs. Paradise to you, sir.”

“Mrs. Paradise, Miss Corbeau, Daisy, come over here. We have plenty of time for another go before we have to get to the theater.”

“No, we don't,” Marguerite said, avoiding his questing hand adroitly and rolling over to slip into a satin brocade dressing gown. “At least, I don't. I have an appointment, so you have to go, Teddy dear. I'll see you at the theater later.”

“You minx, you drive me mad. All right,” Teddy said with a sigh. “You've worn me out, anyway.” He wandered off to the adjoining dressing room to get his clothes. Teddy liked to dress in front of a full-length mirror so he could admire himself.

He was an awful bore, really, Marguerite thought as she knotted her dressing gown and applied cologne to disguise the smell of sex. But he was so terribly good in bed. And she had gotten into the habit of seducing her co-stars. The show was winding down; Willie was looking for another show for her. She'd make sure she picked the male star this time. She was sure Willie had picked Teddy for his dullness more than his singing voice.

Since her debut as the young cousin from Kansas City, Sally Perkins, in
Wait for Sally,
Marguerite had been in play after play, handpicked by Willie solely for the interest of the female lead. She'd been a cowgirl, a tomboy, a serving girl at the French court, an explorer, and a dance hall girl. She was currently a cabin boy on a pirate ship. In every play, she showed her legs, sang sweetly, and fell in love, and though some were hits and some were flops, she remained a star through them all. Daisy Corbeau, America's Forget-Me-Not, married to the flamboyant William Miles Paradise, the couple all New York panted to read about. Their rows were legendary, as were their elaborate makings up, the diamonds they exchanged, the second and third honeymoons, the time Willie had bought out all of Delmonico's for Daisy's twenty-third birthday. And within the closed circle of the New York theatrical community, their adulteries were the stuff of legends.

“I'm going, sweet,” Teddy said, coming back in the room and kissing her on the back of the neck. “My Daisy. Remember how I adore you.”

She kissed him a swift goodbye; they both knew their minds were on other things now. One good thing about Teddy was that she knew he would forget her as easily as she'd forget him. He was too wrapped up in himself to make a scene when she broke it off. And there was a line of girls anxious to take her place, for Teddy was discreet, and no one knew for sure that he was her lover. Discretion was Teddy's only virtue, but it was one that suited Marguerite perfectly.

Marguerite sighed and began to run a brush through her unruly hair. She had been shocked, at first, at how easy it was to commit adultery. God knew Willie had found it so. She had begun to flirt with other men just to rile him, make him jealous, and it had flowered into an indiscretion so easily! Willie hadn't seemed to mind. He had gone off with a chorus girl from
The Merry Monarch
. That had been within six months of their marriage.

She heard the outer door open and close, and there was a rhythmic knock at her bedroom door. “Is that you, Toby?” she called.

He stuck his head around the door. Toby was still handsome, beginning to gray a bit at the temples, but as gay as ever. “It's me, petal.”

“You know, I gave you that key for that one rainy afternoon so you could wait for me in comfort,” Marguerite said. “What thanks do I get? You keep the key and use it every time you visit me. And you're always early! One of these days you're going to embarrass me.

“Nonsense, you are absolutely incapable of being embarrassed,” Toby said, bending over and kissing the top of her head.

“Why are you early?” Marguerite asked crossly. “I thought you were having lunch with your latest conquest.”

“He was dreadfully dull, no fun at all.” It had only taken a few months in the theater for Marguerite to realize that Toby was that dreaded word,
homosexual,
like the notorious Oscar Wilde. Toby had been a little afraid of her reaction, but she had felt a mixture of fascination, relief, and pique that she no longer had to worry about breaking his heart.

“And how was your little escapade this afternoon?” Toby asked, waggling his eyebrows at her in the mirror.

Marguerite slapped down her hairbrush. “What escapade? I declare, Toby, you think I lead a much more exciting life than I do.”

Toby laughed. “Petal, really. The bed is mussed, you're reeking of cologne—you always put on too much cologne after an escapade—and I just saw Teddy Clinton in the lobby. Do you expect me to be blind?”

She met his eyes in the mirror. “Yes, Toby, I'd appreciate it,” she said dryly.

Toby's genial expression grew serious. “I wish I didn't see some of the things you do,” he said.

Marguerite began to pin up her hair. “Don't start, Toby.”

“You're absolutely miserable, and you expect me to say nothing.”

“Yes,” Marguerite said calmly, “because I'm not miserable.”

“Yes you are, you don't know it, that's all. And how you could do this to Willie. He loves you, you know.”

Marguerite sighed, exasperated. “Toby, do be quiet. Willie and I love each other, yes, but it's a different sort of thing.”

“You're just trying to hurt him.”

“Look, darling, I know you adore Willie, but he's quite content. As am I.”

“How do you know he's content?” Toby bent over to sniff one of the roses Willie still sent to Marguerite every morning. He took it out and broke off the stem to slip it through his buttonhole. “One day he'll be gone, and you'll realize how stupid you were, playing with fire like this.”

Marguerite ignored this. Toby had never been quite so blatant before, but she was in no mood to listen. “Toby, be a dear and order us some tea. I must eat a bit of something before I dress, and then come to the theater with me, will you?”

“Of course,” Toby said. Reluctantly, he decided to drop the subject. “And where are you getting these British affectations from, pray tell? It must be from that fop, Teddy Clinton. ‘Do be a dear,' indeed. I'll have you know that Edward Ferdinand Clinton, gentleman actor, was born right here in Brooklyn.”

“Oh, Toby, really? That's marvelous. He told me he was from some little town in England named Clinton Hall.”

And so the afternoon came to an end, as it usually did, with adultery, gossip, and tea. Marguerite hooted with laughter and teased Toby and put on her furs to sweep through the lobby tossing her head to the whispers and double takes. She sang and danced and received three standing ovations and an admirer sent an emerald necklace to her dressing room. But there was a shadow on Marguerite, a long shadow cast by Toby's question. Did he know something? Is that why he had asked her about Willie while he sniffed a rose and tried to look offhand?
How do you know he's content?

When was the last time Willie had made love to her? Marguerite wondered as she removed her stage makeup. Had her transitory lust for Teddy distracted her from the fact that Willie was feeling neglected? Perhaps she should look into it, Marguerite decided. Anyway, she thought, smiling at her pretty reflection in the glass, it only took her concentrated attention on him alone to make Willie come around. That would never change, she was certain.

“Mrs. Birch?”

Bell looked up. Lev Moiseev stood in front of her desk, holding a sheaf of papers. “I hate to disturb you,” he said.

“Lev, I told you to call me Bell,” she said. “And you're not disturbing me.” She smiled warmly at him; she was fond of Lev. Only twenty-three, brilliant and capable, an engineer by training, he was the editor of the monthly cultural and literary journal,
Die Fraye Gezelshaft
, or The Free Society. Her health nearly broken from her years in jail and the factory work she'd taken on after getting out, Bell considered Lev a savior for giving her a job as translator on the journal the year before. She'd spent her time on Blackwell's Island perfecting her Russian and Yiddish, and with two years in a sweatshop, surrounded by Jewish workers, she was now fluent.

“Bell,” he said, with an answering smile. “Would you mind looking at this? I needed to make some cuts, and it might have been too deep.”

“Of course.” Bell's position had expanded somewhat; occasionally, she did editorial work. They published the best of the Yiddish anarchist writers as well as Europeans such as Kropotkin and Sebastien Faure. She bent over the article Lev had asked her to look at and picked up her red pencil.

Lev broke into her concentration. “Bell, a group of us are going to Schwab's after work. There is talk that Kropotkin will come to America this next year. He's been invited to a conference in Canada. We must begin to plan. Will you join us?”

Bell hesitated. Lawrence would be furious if she was late again this week. Over the past year, Bell's involvement with the
Gezelshaft
had placed her among the premier anarchist and socialist intellects on the East Side. Even though anarchism had experienced a decline since a spate of violent activity, the core group still tried to keep the flame alive. She'd actually spoken at a few large meetings, and had written three articles which had been well received. She did this, however, in the face of Lawrence's growing opposition. Lately, he had been even more difficult than usual.

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