The Gilded Cage (59 page)

But the exhilaration of the success of her costume wore off immediately, and she stared moodily at her reflection. She'd thought that her quarrel with Toby would help. She'd felt so self-righteous! But his words had filtered down as the days passed, and they had the uncomfortable ring of truth. She didn't understand her husband, she saw, and Toby was right—if she thought she could recapture him by wearing a pretty gown to a ball, she really was the child he thought her.

Willie knocked at her door and came in, looking handsome in his evening clothes and the ruby studs she'd given him for Christmas. Willie never dressed in a costume, no matter how much she cajoled him, and she'd given up years ago. Marguerite stood and twirled for him, the simple skirt whirling around her legs.

“Do you think it very shocking?” she asked.

“I would expect no less from you,” he said. He couldn't help smiling at her costume. It was perfect, a mixture of demure simplicity and a daring disregard for conventions. There was the suggestion of her legs moving in the skirt that no lady would have found acceptable outside of her boudoir. And her ankles were showing quite plainly. Nobody but Marguerite could get away with such a gown without being labelled a hoyden. “It's an excellent choice,” Willie said approvingly.

Marguerite beamed at his approval. “I've thought and thought for days what would be best. And wait until you see the gown I'm wearing for supper and dancing.”

“Did Toby help you?” he asked, fussing with a shirt cuff in a show of unconcern.

Marguerite's face darkened. “Only a bit,” she said, turning to adjust the jeweled wreath on her shining hair.

“He told me you had a falling out,” Willie said. “He's quite upset about it, Marguerite.”

She shrugged. “I suppose he told you all about it.”

“No, on the contrary, he wouldn't tell me a word. Just that you quarrelled.” Willie saw that underneath Marguerite's blitheness that she was upset. Toby was really her only friend. He touched her shoulder gently. “He'll be there tonight. You two can make it up.”

“He won't want to make it up,” Marguerite mumbled.

“Of course he will. Why not? You're his best friend. He loves you, Marguerite.”

“No, he doesn't. I don't deserve his love. I don't deserve anyone's love.” Marguerite turned her deep blue eyes up at him. “If I don't deserve yours, what can I expect? You know me better than anyone.”

Something moved inside Willie, and he was surprised to discover that it was his heart. It was impossible, for he thought that he'd managed to harden it against her. She was looking at him with such misery, but it wasn't the usual misery of a child who couldn't have what she wanted. There was sadness there, and resignation.

“I thought once that if everybody else loved me enough, wanted me enough, you'd stay with me. But that was foolish, wasn't it, Willie? It was the wish of a child,” Marguerite said, looking at him in the mirror. “And it took me so long to be able to realize it. I guess now that I think you're going to leave me it doesn't matter anymore, it doesn't matter what I do, so I can say it. I love you,” she said simply. Her heart was in her eyes, and for once she did not care. She felt as though she'd lost her best friend, and she had. Her husband was going to this ball to dance with his mistress, and as soon as she got to the ball she would become Daisy Corbeau, and no one would know she was miserable. Not even Willie. Not even Toby. Even with them, she had always acted her part too well.

Willie's hazel eyes met hers as he struggled to decipher her motives. He was used to motives with her. Why was she doing this when he'd had everything all figured out? In the simple gown, her hair down, she suddenly reminded him of when he'd fallen in love with her, standing on the stage in the shabby blue velvet gown, singing alone with such determination underneath the gaiety.

She saw the softening in his eyes, and hope flared in her heart. “Willie—”

“We'll be late for the ball,” he said brusquely, and turned away.

The anarchists had decided to dress as Paris Communards, that most exhilarating urban insurrection of 1871 which had inspired both Bakunin and Marx. The choice of the Communards had been easy; it was a show of defiance against the American upper classes' exaltation of the decadent French kings. The anarchists and socialists had ended up arguing about tactics, however, so a unified front would not be presented. But still, many were going dressed ostentatiously in rags and little peaked caps.

Dressed as Louise Michel, the heroine of the Communards, Bell got ready in the empty rooms she shared with Lawrence. Everything was packed and already down at the docks, held there to be loaded onto the ship they were taking tomorrow. In the end, Lawrence had been understanding about her inclination to take part in the protest, and Bell saw it as a harbinger of better relations between them, a true marriage of minds as well as bodies. And Lawrence had been so romantic, packing a small bag for both of them. He had suggested they take just a little money from their precious store and stay in a hotel tonight. Bell would attend the protest, then take the streetcar downtown to meet him at the small but, Lawrence assured her, respectable hotel downtown. Picking up the small grip he'd packed, Bell looked around at the bare rooms. She didn't feel very much, not sadness, or nostalgia. Her life was ahead. She left the rooms on Tompkins Square without a backward glance, the grip slapping against her skirts.

The director of the New York Police Board, Theodore Roosevelt, had commissioned a large platoon of police to set up barricades outside the Waldorf and watch for any signs or gestures of disapproval from the crowd that had gathered to watch the grand carriages roll up and the guests, in their powdered wigs and jewelencrusted costumes, alight from them. The street-level windows had been boarded up, in case of thrown incendiary devices, and detectives dressed in frock coats and jeweled-buckled shoes circulated among the crowd inside.

Guests entered in a bower of roses, with the falling petals soon making a carpet for elegant kid slippers. Overhead, the thousands of orchids were twined around chandeliers, and every pillar and mirror was festooned with more roses and orchids. Each guest and the historical personage they were portraying was announced to the Bradley-Martins, who sat on a dais on a pair of gold thrones. Three bands played continuous music, and the ball would begin with a complicated quadrille it had taken society folk weeks to rehearse.

Fiona knew all these things, and it did not help her nervousness. She sat in the fine carriage Lawrence had hired, nervously smoothing Columbine's gown over her knees. Her face felt set and tight with the white powder she'd used, and she kept checking the beauty spot on her cheek. She knew that as soon as she arrived she would be denounced as an impostor. Madame duBarry, indeed! She was a parlormaid, for heaven's sake. She had half a mind to jump out of the carriage.

Peeking out through the curtains, she saw that the carriage had crossed Thirty-Fourth Street and was pulling up in front of the hotel. There was a tremendous crowd outside the Waldorf. Fiona pressed a hand to her heart and ordered it to stop beating so fast. Just this one last thing she had to do, just this last thing. She could do it—Lawrence, that blackguard, had told her again and again she could do it. And she knew she could. She'd seen enough of fine ladies; she'd observed Columbine.

She flashed her invitation at the footman with powdered hair and knee breeches, then dropped her bouquet of flowers, as Lawrence had instructed. Then, as he bent to retrieve it, she dropped her glove. In the confusion of handing over the items, the next carriage drew up, and he gave her invitation a perfunctory glance and passed her on to the next footman. He missed the engraved name, Columbine Van Cormandt, and merely noted that she was, in fact, invited.

As she walked in, desperately trying to conceal her nervousness, she smelled roses and cologne and was momentarily dazzled by the light and luxury of her surroundings. Lawrence had told her to make every attempt to escape before being presented to the Bradley-Martins, but Fiona saw immediately and with horror that there was no way she could extricate herself without looking suspicious.

She whispered the name to the footman, and she swept up to the dais.

“Miss Mollie Todd,” the footman announced in a ringing voice, “as Madame duBarry.”

Everyone in New York had read of the beautiful Mollie Todd, even if they could not quite remember her brief stint on the stage, and heads swiveled to take in the elegant lady who was reputed to be the one woman who could steal Willie Paradise away from America's forget-me-not, Daisy Corbeau. And they looked and they whispered, for the papers had not exaggerated Mollie Todd's beauty. Her figure really was perfect, and her eyes glittered like emeralds. And who could miss that extravagant, blazing, red-gold hair?

Marguerite's back was to the dais when she heard Mollie Todd announced. She did not appear to have noticed, as she was engaged in charming a circle of men clustered around her. She waved her simple bouquet of wildflowers and wrinkled her nose and flashed her dimple, and not one of them had any idea that she was ready to stamp her foot and scream with rage.

As soon as she could extricate herself, she did. She turned just in time to see Mollie heading away across the ballroom. Rage filled Marguerite's heart, and she headed after her. She wouldn't lose Willie without telling that baggage just what she thought of her.

To her surprise, Mollie seemed to be heading away from the crowd, which tended to congregate near the dais while arrivals were announced. Probably too ashamed to show her face in such company, Marguerite sniffed, hurrying after her without seeming to hurry. She wanted to corner her quickly and return to the ball, since she'd hadn't yet fully enjoyed the sensation her gown had caused.

Mollie skirted an Indian with scalps dangling from his belt—apparently not everyone had taken the Versailles theme literally—and headed for a side door. Now Marguerite would not have stopped chasing her if someone had put a gun to her head. Undoubtedly, Mollie was headed for a secret rendezvous with Willie, who had disappeared immediately after they'd arrived.

She slipped through the door after Mollie just in time to see her run down the corridor and turn the corner. Marguerite sped after her, her feet noiseless in her soft kid slippers. She had no idea where she was now, for she was heading into the part of the huge hotel that would one day very soon connect with the Astoria next door. The Astoria had been built by John Jacob Astor, who had finally given in and razed his mother's home to make way for it, despite his irritation at his cousin, William Waldorf, who had built the towering Waldorf next door.

To Marguerite's surprise, Mollie disappeared behind a red velvet curtain that Marguerite had assumed was hung over the wall. She peeked behind it and discovered a long, dark corridor. It appeared unfinished, with none of the gilded opulence of the rest of the hotel. It was rather too late to turn back, but Marguerite wasn't thrilled with traversing such a dim, endless hall. But the thought of confronting both Willie and Mollie made her push the curtains aside and follow Mollie, now just a blur of satin in front of her.

She had guessed right; this corridor led into the unfinished Astoria. She was hurrying now, for Mollie was way ahead of her. A tiny beam of light showed as she opened a door. When Marguerite came to it, she reached out to gently turn the handle, but it was already moving, and she melted back against the wall. Mercifully, there was a curtained alcove there, and she quickly stepped behind the curtain, leaving only one eye peeking out.

But it wasn't Willie who opened the door again, and it wasn't Mollie Todd, either. It was an unfamiliar woman, with Mollie's titian hair, yes, but not her perfect face. But the real shock was the man. It was Lawrence Birch, looking rather silly in a brocade coat and knee breeches and white stockings, but it was Lawrence Birch nonetheless.

Something was not right. Not daring to breathe, Marguerite held herself still and listened. They were talking in low voices, and now that the door was closed she could hear them clearly.

“Why are you bringing this up now?” Lawrence was saying. “For God's sake, Fiona—”

“And when else can I? When you disappear off the face of the earth tomorrow, when you go to live in Italy?” The woman's voice was calm, but Marguerite knew a woman's fury when she heard it.

“I'm not going to Italy with her. Do you think I'm mad?” Lawrence grasped the woman called Fiona's arms. “I'm going with you. All you need is a passport. I have the money. Bell is meeting me tonight at a hotel downtown, only I'll never show up. She thinks we have tickets leaving from New York, but it's Boston. You and I will go to Boston tonight, after we're finished here. We'll sail from there.”

“Show me the tickets.”

“Fiona—”

“Show me the tickets.”

There was something in her voice that brooked no argument. A pause. A fumble. Then Lawrence held something out. Marguerite wondered how Fiona could make anything out in this light. She squinted at the tickets while Lawrence waited. His back was to Marguerite, and she could see his hands working; he was nervous. But Fiona merely handed him back the tickets.

“All right,”she said.

Marguerite could hear Lawrence's sigh. “All right,” he echoed with satisfaction.

“If you left me, I would have tracked you down and killed you,” she said flatly. “I've done enough sinning for you. When I took that oath that day three years ago, I was pledging to God that I would be your wife forever, and I meant it. We stood up before a priest, Lawrence!”

“I know. And I meant it, too. We're man and wife.”

“All right, then. Let's go.”

“You remember everything?”

“I remember.”

They moved away, down the long corridor, and Marguerite reached out, finally able to steady herself. Her heart was beating furiously. She had gotten more than she bargained for. So Lawrence would leave Bell flat, would he. Her old hatred of Lawrence Birch returned in force, and her eyes narrowed. He was not the type to smuggle himself into a party just for the fun of it. Something was going on all right, but it was hardly her business. And she could not forget that Lawrence still had something on her. She comforted herself with the thought that at least now she had something on him. What would make her fun absolutely complete would be to use it.