The Gilded Cage (56 page)

When Toby asked her how things were with Willie these days, Marguerite could reply airily that all was well, and not be disturbed in the least by his worried nod.

Marguerite hummed her way to the theater one late January day. Her role in
The Lady Pirate
was becoming tedious, and she was looking forward to cajoling Willie into finding a new play for her. Her maid Celeste helped her into the satin dressing gown she wore while she put on her makeup, and she hummed the bars of the opening song as she reddened her lips and reached for her powder puff and Celeste laid out the ragged trousers which showed off her pretty calves.

There was a short knock at the door, and Teddy Clinton looked round. “You're here early,” he said.

“Mmmm, there wasn't much traffic on Broadway. And I've been cutting it too close lately.”

“I've finished with the paper, if you'd like it,” Teddy said casually. He tossed it on the sofa. “See you on stage. Good audience tonight, I hope.”

“See you later, Captain,” Marguerite called gaily. She was glad that Teddy had stopped by. He had been petulant when she'd ended their affair, but obviously he'd gotten over it. She finished her makeup and went to the sofa, where she idly picked up the evening paper. She settled back against the cushions. Teddy, of course, had been reading the society pages, and her eye ran down the columns, searching for an amusing bit she could tell Willie later. Ah, here was the latest news about the Bradley-Martin ball.

Slowly, Marguerite rose to an erect position as she read that Miss Mollie Todd, once the toast of Broadway, had accepted the invitation of Mrs. Bradley-Martin and would appear at the ball dressed as Madame DuBarry, with a diamond and emerald necklace designed by M. Gustave Carteret, who just happened to be Willie's favorite jeweler at the moment.

Through a fog of bewilderment, she heard Teddy's voice directly outside her door. Teddy's teasing of the chorus girls was legendary.

“If you're not careful, I won't take you to the Bradley-Martin fete,” Teddy said, as the girl laughed in a high-pitched squeal that got on Marguerite's nerves.

“Oh, and I'd wager you're not even invited,” she said. “It's hard to get an invitation, especially for the likes of you.” She laughed again as Teddy apparently made a face.

“It's not
that
hard to wrangle an invite,
if
you know the right people. Mollie Todd is going, and she's not even a star anymore. Maybe I'll get Willie Paradise to get me invited, too,” Teddy said, and with another high-pitched giggle, the couple moved away from the door.

Celeste was smoothing out her gown for the second act. Their eyes met across the bright blue cloth. Celeste's face was scarlet; she was fiercely protective of Marguerite.

“Never you mind them,” she said. “That Teddy Clinton doesn't know what he's talking about. He meant you to hear it, madam.”

Marguerite didn't answer. She looked down at her hands, smudged with newsprint, and, looking up, she caught sight of her face in the mirror, grotesquely bright in her theatrical makeup. She knew that Teddy had stood outside her door deliberately, that he had spoken those words just to hurt her. But she also knew that what he said was true.

L
AWRENCE HAD COME
home late the night after the argument. Bell had been in bed, but sleeping had proved impossible. She'd smelled brandy on his breath, and something else, something unfamiliar that she might have thought was sex but was more likely perspiration and the smells of a barroom on his clothes. He undressed sloppily and came to bed. She didn't speak, afraid of his reaction, but she was relieved when he reached for her. But his touch was rough, and she stiffened. He flipped her on her stomach and lifted her flannel shift and took her when she was still dry and closed to him, roughly, angrily. Her mouth opened with the pain, and she bit the pillow. Dry sobs shook her body, sobs of shame without tears. He fell immediately asleep.

Bell awakened early that morning, and with only a shawl around her thin flannel shift, she washed herself, shivering at the cold water on her thighs, wincing when it stung. She sat in a kitchen chair with an untouched mug of tea and thought for the first time in a long while about Columbine's accusations of six years before. For the very first time, she faced the fact that they might be true. Lawrence's brutality the night before had given her a window into his mind. There was an engine which drove him which she knew nothing about. The thought frightened her, and she didn't want to face it.

But then Lawrence awakened, contrite, sick, his handsome face pale underneath its stubble. He shambled into the kitchen in his trousers, his suspenders trailing. He was so miserable, so like a child, and touched her hand so tenderly she was confused. Still angry, she made his breakfast in silence. He ate, drank an entire pot of tea, and then looked at her with those startling eyes, now cloudy with remorse.

“I've been thinking,” he said. “I think we should get out of New York. We could go to Europe. Italy.”

Too annoyed to speak, Bell sat quietly, hiding her impatience. She knew Lawrence was waiting for her usual immediate approving response, but she had to think.

At first the ridiculousness of it irritated her, but slowly, Bell began to consider it. Italy. It seemed so far away. That could be good, actually. But neither of them could speak Italian. She knew French and Russian and Yiddish—couldn't Lawrence pick a more convenient country? “Italy?” she asked.

“We could live cheaply there,” he said, encouraged by the fact that she was talking to him. “It's warm. And the movement is strong there, Bell. It's growing, it's open to new influences. I wouldn't run into the same prejudice I do here.” She made an impatient movement, and he saw that he'd taken the wrong tack. “But that's not important. We're important. We'd have sun and new hopes, not old influences. We'd marry, have a family.”

“Marry?” she echoed.

“We'd have to, it will be easier for emigration purposes. Besides, Italy is a damned papist country. Bell, it would be a new start for us, can't you see that?”

“But how could we afford it?”

“We could borrow the money,” he said.

“Borrow money?” she said, baffled. “But we don't know anyone with money.”

“We know Columbine Van Cormandt,” he answered.

Columbine asked the butler to repeat the name twice. Bell had rebuffed any attempt at meetings after she'd been released from prison. Columbine had been rather hurt at the time, but she supposed that as long as Bell continued to live with Lawrence Birch, relations between the two of them were impossible. But why had Bell shown up at her door?

“Show her in the morning room, please.” Columbine picked the small room for its cheerfulness and warmth. It was snowing today, and a bitter wind was shaking the bare branches of the trees across the way in Central Park.

When she walked into the room, Bell turned. Columbine saw the changes in her face and her heart constricted with a fine pain. Bell looked tired and too thin. Deep shadows were under her eyes, throwing her pallor into relief. But her amber hair and her lovely eyes were the same, now with a sad beauty instead of their former sheen. She was nervous, and ironically aware of her nervousness; one arched brow quirked at Columbine in the old way. It was her old friend, her very dear friend, and Columbine felt moved at the sight of her.

“I'm so very glad to see you,” Columbine said, and before Bell could draw back, she embraced her.

Something about the open friendliness, the familiarity of the hug made something break inside Bell. Tears welled in her throat and she leaned against Columbine's shoulder, feeling comfort there. A dry sob shook her body.

“What is it, dear?” Columbine murmured. “How can I help?”

Bell began to weep against Columbine's shoulder. She could not stop herself, and as she wept she realized how long it had been since she'd been able to cry. Was it since she'd met Lawrence? She didn't know.

Columbine patted her back like a child. Bell could feel that her old friend's body was rounder, and she suddenly remembered that Columbine was a mother, that she had borne Lawrence's child. Bell pushed away gently. “I'm so sorry,” she said.

Columbine took her hand and led her to the small sofa in front of the fire. She gave her a clean linen handkerchief and waited until Bell had dried her face and blown her nose a few times.

“Now,” Columbine said, “tell me how I can help you.”

“I need money,” Bell blurted out. “I'm so terribly sorry to come to you like this, but I don't know where else to go. I want to make a fresh start, Columbine. Everyone in New York knows me, knows my face—or maybe I just feel that they do. Everyone connects me to the bombing, even though I wasn't even tried.”

“Yes, memories are imperfect. Once you've been in the paper, they can say anything they want about you, and they usually do,” Columbine agreed. “I know that all too well. But what about Mr. Birch?” she asked hesitantly. She didn't even like to say his name.

Bell looked down. “We plan to go together. It was his idea, actually. But Columbine,” she said earnestly, looking up, “I've thought and thought about it, and I think he's right. Not just for the reasons he says. But for me. New York is so oppressive for us now. But perhaps in Italy things would change between us. Patterns would be broken and re-formed, and pressures would ease. We'll marry and have a family, like a real couple at last.”

Columbine stared down at the toes of her boots. She could not quite believe that Bell was coming to her for money to run away with the man who'd attacked her. But Bell had never believed that story. And she was in trouble.

“I don't think I understand,” Columbine said finally. “Wouldn't living in a foreign country cause more pressures between you? You'd be thrown upon each other for everything then.”

Bell leaned tiredly against the sofa back. “It's hard to explain, Columbine. I think I need to go to some strange place I've never been in order to find a new way to live. It's so hard to break out in the small cluttered rooms, among the same tired routines. I know it isn't… good, what we have. But it can change, anything can change.”

“Bell, forgive me if I offend you. But if you want me to help you leave Lawrence, you know that there's always a place for you here,” Columbine said, placing her hand over Bell's. “Or at Safe Passage House. Let me help you, Bell.”

Bell shook her head slowly. Her voice was wooden. “I can't leave him. He's part of me. The best way you can help me is to do what I ask. I know I have no right to come to you, no right at all, except that once we loved each other.”

“Then you have every right to come,” Columbine said quietly. “But Bell, I'm worried about you. I don't know if this is the right thing.” It was the most she could say. It felt like old times, to be sitting in front of a fire with Bell, discussing what should be done. Formerly, it had always been Columbine who was doing the confiding. But the same conversational rhythm was there, the same feeling, and though the circumstances were extraordinary, to say the least, Columbine drew a sense of comfort from the fact that Bell had come to her when in need. The friendship was a faint, flickering heartbeat, but it was there, alive between them.

Bell squeezed her hand. She hadn't expected to be so truthful with Columbine, but then, she hadn't expected so much open warmth from her old friend. “You must trust me when I tell you I don't know any other way,” Bell murmured. “I can't leave him.”

Suddenly, Columbine was afraid for Bell, and fear pushed her into irritation. “How do you know that?” she cried. “You speak as though you had no will, as though you were trapped. But nobody's trapped in anything, Bell.” A shuttered look came over Bell's face, and Columbine stopped. Though she'd like to say more, she had a feeling Bell would bolt if she did.

The shuttered look passed, and Bell looked merely sad. “I don't feel trapped,” she said slowly. “I don't know if you can understand this, Columbine. But I feel that the world is a world of strangers, and Lawrence is the only face that is familiar to me. That's how it's become. He
is
me. In all the world, I could never find a soul like his, so attuned to mine. He knows my baseness and my goodness, and he accepts all of it. I'd live for him and die for him, no matter what he does.”

Columbine wanted to shake her. “But these are abstractions, Bell. These are desperate, romantic dreams. You aren't looking at him, you aren't seeing him, you're seeing something you're projecting
onto
him. He's treating you badly, I can see it. Look at you! I can see your misery, even if you cannot.”

Bell stood and gathered her gloves. The intimacy that had sprung up between them again was gone now. Her face was stony. “Then you won't help me, after all?”

“Yes, I'll help you,” Columbine said wearily. “I'll give you whatever you need, and you don't have to worry about paying it back.”

“I'll pay it back.”

“Whatever you want, but please be assured I don't expect you to.”

“Thank you, Columbine,” Bell said stiffly. “I'll be in touch when I make arrangements.”

She held out her hand, and Columbine shook it. She would have liked to embrace her again, but she knew that Bell would not welcome such a gesture.

Bell turned to go, then hesitated. “There's one more thing,” she said. “It's awkward, but I must say it.”

“You can say anything to me, Bell.”

“It's about your child.”

“Hawthorn?” Columbine was puzzled. “What about her?”

“I know that it seems ridiculous, seeing how things are. But I want you to know that if anything happened, we would take her. I just wanted you to know that. And I'd be a good mother to her, Columbine.”