The Gilded Cage

by Susannah Bamford

  “When did you first meet Mr. Birch?”

  Her nostrils flared. “And what business is it of yours?” she asked tightly.

  “Was he there that night, at the New Year’s Eve party, to see you?”

  Fiona met his gaze squarely. Her green eyes glittered. “No,” she said, and walked out.

  Bell was packing china from the breakfront when Columbine burst into the dining room.

  “Bell, I must talk to you.”

  Bell put down a handful of straw. “For heaven’s sake, Columbine, I almost dropped the good teapot. What is it?”

  Weakly, Columbine collapsed on a chair. “You didn’t take any cash from the Emergency Fund without entering it into the ledger, did you?”

  Bell shook her head. “Of course not. Why?”

  Columbine’s brown eyes were full of panic. “Because there’s money missing. Quite a bit of money. I was hoping that you took it.”

  Bell slid into the chair across from Columbine’s. “Did you ask Rosa? She has a key to the drawer.”

  Columbine shook her head. “No, I wanted to talk to you first. Bell, it’s all gone. And since I received those funds from England it was more than usual. It was over a thousand dollars, Bell! I was going to put it in the bank today. I knew I shouldn’t have left it in the drawer.”

  “But the drawer is locked. We’re very careful.”

  “And only three of us have the key. You, me, and Rosa.”

  “And Marguerite. I gave her one when she started to work on the fund with me.” Bell’s eyes widened as speculation entered her mind. “But this is terrible.”

  Columbine moved the toe of her shoe over the carpet. “I can’t imagine Marguerite doing such a thing.”

  “Nor can I.”

  “Rosa has had trouble at home. Her mother has a problem in her lungs, and can’t work. They’re behind on the rent.”

  “You think Rosa—”

  Columbine stood up, agitated. “No, I don’t think Rosa, and no, I don’t think Marguerite, either. But I would rather think that someone who needed money took it.”

  “Marguerite had all those pretty clothes before she left,” Bell said musingly. “Those gloves, the lavender dress—”

  Columbine shook her head fiercely. “I don’t believe it. Someone else could have gotten the key somehow.”

  “You have to talk to them, at least,” Bell said. “Do you know where Marguerite is living?”

  Columbine nodded. She sat down, then stood up again. She walked to the window and looked out into the back yard, lost in thought.

  Bell, too, was thinking. Suddenly, she was remembering last night. She had remained after the others had left, waiting for Lawrence to pick her up. Her keys had been on top of her desk when she went out to the hallway to the water closet to wash her hands. Lawrence had stayed in her office.

  No, she told herself. It was Marguerite, it had to be. Those fine dresses, those fur-lined boots. And that casual, conniving heart. Lawrence would never steal from the New Women Society. No matter that he didn’t believe in it. And when she had returned, had he had any consciousness, any guilt on his face? Not at all. They had gone out to dinner—and she had paid! Bell had a gust of pleasant relief at the thought. Surely the man could not be so black-hearted to let the woman he stole from pay for his dinner.

  Columbine was shaking her head. “No,” she said decidedly. “I’ll not talk to Rosa or Marguerite or anyone at the office. If someone took the money, they must have had very good reason for it. We’ll just have to put our energy into replacing it, God knows how.” She sighed. “Let’s just hope it went for a good cause.”

  “It’s very simple,” Lawrence said again to Fiona. He was beginning to lose his patience. “There is no danger, I assure you. As soon as I get my materials, I can construct the device. But first you have to practice with the fuse. You’ll have to do it in the morning, when the cleaning women are in the offices. No one will suspect anything.”

  “Device?” Fiona laughed. “Why are you always trying to talk like a gentleman, Lawrence? Call it a bomb, like a good anarchist should.”

  “The bomb, then,” Lawrence snapped. “What is the matter with you today?”.

  Fiona turned her head to look out at the harbor. They were standing on the Battery, and the wind was fierce. The sky wrapped around them, aggressively blue. The water was the color of steel with an edging of lace where whitecaps foamed. “It’s a dancing day,” she said. “My ma would call it a dancing day.”

  Lawrence stirred impatiently. “Fiona, are you listening to me?”

  For an answer, Fiona sighed and said something in Gaelic.

  Lawrence scowled. He had enough of trying to decipher the Yiddish and Russian at meetings without dealing with this. Why couldn’t they speak English, these immigrants? “What did you say?”

  “I said it’s a poor man who stares at the ground when there’s such a sky overhead,” Fiona answered with a shrug. “And why are we always meeting in the wind, Lawrence? There’s a danger your words will be snatched away completely. I can’t imagine you wordless, Lawrence. Would there be anything there, without the words?”

  Lawrence reached up to anchor his hat on his head, for the wind suddenly gusted and almost knocked it off. “I’ve had enough of this. I’m trying to tell you. I’m going to meet the man who’s getting the materials for me. I had to pay him a pretty penny, and I daren’t be late. So let’s pick a time to meet again.”

  She stepped closer to him. She tilted her head back and fixed him with her compelling eyes. “What if I don’t want to meet you again?”

  Lawrence hesitated, for at last he was able to ignore the bite of the wind and her mockery and see the distrustful anger in her eyes. Fear trickled in; he was in trouble. “What is it?” he asked, curbing his impatience under a concerned frown. He laid a hand on her arm. “Tell me. I’m sorry if I was sharp with you.”

  She looked at him searchingly, then turned away. “It’s nothing. Go, then.”

  But he had seen the need in her face, and he knew he hadn’t lost her completely. “Fiona. Tell me, dearest.”

  “Oh, am I your dearest now?”

  He shook his head slowly. “You always mock me. How do you expect me to be tender when you are so light with me?”

  She gripped his upper arms and he felt the strength of her hands through his coat. “I’m in this, Lawrence. I’m in this with you,” she rasped, shaking him with every utterance. “You have to be true to me. You’re my man, Lawrence. You’re not near as good as me, nor as good as I could get, but there it is.”

  So she loved him, after all. Bell flitted across his mind, her amber beauty, her wounded eyes. He needed them both, Lawrence knew, his eyes tearing from the wind. He needed the fierce, wild woman in front of him who he took like an animal outdoors in the cold, in the wind, in the wild winter. And he needed the passive creature who sprawled across his bed in her lace-edged drawers and let him do what he wanted to her.

  “Yes, Fiona, there it is. You’re my woman,” he told her.

  “Then why have you lied to me?” she asked impassively. She dropped her hands from him, flinging them off his coat as though he were diseased.

  “Lied to you? I haven’t—”

  “There, you’ve lied again,” she said calmly.

  Lawrence quickly catalogued his lies and desperately searched for the one she could know about. But he knew from experience that in a moment she would tell him which one it was. They always did.

  But he had underestimated her. “Are there so many, Lawrence?” she asked with a hollow laugh.

  He thought of Ned Van Cormandt and Elijah Reed. It had to be what they would know, he decided. He would have to risk it. “Mrs. Nash said all along she would testify for you,” he said. The words came out fast. Fiona looked at him, and he felt relief course through him. Perspiration had broken out on her accusal, and now the wind cooled it, making him shiver slightly. He jammed his hands in his pockets.

  “Why did yo
u tell me she wouldn’t?”

  “Because I knew the effort would be fruitless, first of all,” Lawrence answered. “People like us get no justice. I knew you’d want to get back at all of them a better way.”

  “How did you know that?”

  “Because that’s the kind of woman you are. Courageous.”

  She put out the flat of her hand to him, her gesture meaning, don’t flatter me Lawrence, get away with you. But he’d almost convinced her, he saw.

  “I shouldn’t have lied about it,” he added.

  Fiona met his pale, pale eyes. They were a dagger in her heart, those eyes, and they would hurt her someday, most likely. But they were hers. She was trapped in this, with him, her man. But he was trapped, too. At least she had satisfaction in that.

  “Lawrence,” she said slowly, “you can do anything else but lie. You can murder a man or steal from your mother or take another woman for your pleasure. But don’t lie to me again.”

  He knew better than to embrace her. Holding her gaze, he nodded.

  “All right, then,” Fiona said, as if that settled the matter. “Let’s get out of this wind.”

  They struck out across the lonely park, empty in the bitter March cold. “Who told you?” he asked her.

  “Mr. Elijah Reed, the famous writer. Bought me a cup of coffee at least. Oh, and he had the nerve to offer me and Jimmy jobs in Mr. Van Cormandt’s house. As if Id wait on Neddie Van Cormandt, that blackguard. I’d as soon spit in his food as serve it.”

  Lawrence stopped in his tracks. “You have to take it.”

  “I don’t,” she answered indignantly.

  “Don’t you see?” he said, turning and grasping both her hands. “We wouldn’t have to go to his office. We could set the bomb in his house. It would be foolproof then.”

  She frowned fiercely, breathing hard. “Do you know what you’re asking, Lawrence? I could go to prison. I’d be the first one they’d suspect.”

  “We’ll find a way around it. I promise you, Fiona. But you have to take the job. Not Jimmy. Just you.”

  She stared out at the water again. “I don’t know about this.”

  “I’ll figure it all out,” he said, squeezing her gloved hand. “We don’t have to decide anything yet. But you have to take the job.” He smiled. “And you can spit in his food if you’d care to. Every morning.”

  She whipped her head around to look at him, saw the look in his eyes, and started to laugh. Lawrence laughed too, throwing his head back slightly, and the wind took his hat and sailed it down the Battery. Lawrence stopped laughing—the hat was a good one, and it was cold—and sprang after it. The hat leaped comically, precariously close to the railing, but he ran harder and snatched it back. He jammed it on his head and ran back to Fiona.

  She was laughing harder than ever now, tears springing to her brilliant eyes. “And to think I’ve never seen you dance before,” she said merrily, and when he scowled fresh laughter overtook her.

  She looked lovely, with the wind whipping her red-orange hair and bringing a rosy flush to her cheeks, and amusement smoothing out the lines of care around her mouth. She finally looked her age, twenty-four, young and playful for the first time since he’d known her. And Lawrence was struck with the depths of his hatred and his love, and how much he had, without knowing it until this moment, seeing her laughing at him, become so unwillingly at her mercy.

  Columbine sat at her dressing table, staring at herself in the mirror. She wished passionately that Bell were home. She needed her so badly. Never had an issue felt so crucial.

  Was this the right hat, or not?

  She was going to lunch with Elijah at Sherry’s today, and she had bought a new hat yesterday for the occasion. She turned her head this way and that, considering it. Oh, when would she grow too old to be so vain!

  She had never felt comfortable in those delicate bonnets that perched on the head and thrust feathers in the face of any who might lean forward in intent conversation. No, Columbine preferred a hat that proclaimed its function as well as its beauty. It must have a brim, to ward off the sun, and it must not be overly adorned with netting, in case of rain, and it must never, ever contain a small stuffed bird. But still, it must be cunningly aimed at the heart of a woman, and she must feel beautiful in it.

  This one was black felt, large brimmed, with a crown of dark green velvet. The netting was black, studded with tiny bits of jet, and a few dyed black and green ostrich feathers edged the crown. A thick black ribbon crossed the back and supported a cluster of small red roses, which looked rather nice, she thought, against her blond hair. But what would Elijah Reed think? Would he think the hat frivolous and her silly to wear it? Most likely the women he was interested in were serious creatures who would never think of wearing a hat with jet beads and roses and velvet ribbons. They were too busy reading to shop, and could discuss Zola’s latest novel with Elijah, which they’d read in the original French.

  The man was making her crazy, and she was late for lunch. Columbine made a face at herself, adjusted a curl, smoothed an eyebrow, and ran for her coat.

  He was waiting for her inside the door of Sherry’s, standing with his unlit cigar—he was trying to quit, he told her—as though he had all day to wait. They were ushered to a side table near the wall. Columbine sat down, feeling very conscious of her new hat.

  “Have you decided whether to partition that second bedroom?” Elijah asked as the waiter handed them their menus with a flourish.

  Despite her best efforts, Columbine felt the fizziness of her mood flatten instantly. Couldn’t he have at least noticed the hat? She had a sudden longing for Ned, who would have complimented her, told her she was beautiful and that waiting fifteen minutes for her had been extremely disagreeable for him, that he had been afraid she’d forgotten. She wanted to tell Elijah Reed this, that some men had actually found her beautiful. She wanted to tell him he was an oaf and a boor, and didn’t deserve her.

  Instead, she picked up her napkin. “Yes, we have,” she said. “I’ve talked with a carpenter, a handsome young man by the name of Frederic Hanning who has an attachment to tools that borders on the romantic. He measured and nodded and knocked on walls and looked at pipes and rubbed his hands together. He can make one big bedroom into two snug rooms with no trouble at all, he said.”

  “Good. Now, what should we eat today? Shall we start with oysters and champagne? This is a celebration, you know.”

  “I didn’t. Oysters and champagne would be delightful, but first, you must tell me what we’re celebrating.”

  “Oh, merely that the circulation of the Century has gone up since I started my series, so they’ve contracted for six more articles of my choosing.”

  “But that’s marvelous! I’m so glad, both as a reader and a friend.” Columbine was happy for Elijah. But she had also been thinking that he’d invited her to lunch because … well, because he wanted to invite her to lunch. Though it was a good sign that he chose her to celebrate with. Columbine stared at her menu and fussily begged herself to stop her questions and suppositions and be a gracious presence, not a lovesick adolescent. She thought of Bell’s serenity and decided to emulate it. She raised her chin and stared into the middle distance with what she hoped was a Giaconda smile.

  Elijah peered at her. “Is something wrong? You look rather ill.”

  Columbine snapped her menu on the table. “I’m fine. Just fine.”

  “If you grit your teeth like that you’ll never be able to eat.”

  “Maybe you should order soup, then,” Columbine suggested pleasantly. “That way I won’t have to chew.”

  Elijah grinned and ordered champagne and oysters to start. While they sipped their champagne, Columbine cast about for a topic. It felt very strange suddenly to be sitting here like this, in a public restaurant. Most of their conversations had taken place at the tea table, or in her office, or walking from one place to another.

  “I’m so happy about the series,” she said finally. “Bu
t tell me, Elijah, why don’t you write novels anymore?”

  He looked startled, then almost angry. So much for small talk; obviously she had touched on a sore point.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “I was only wondering,” she said gently. “I loved your novels.”

  He looked away, his mouth tight, and fiddled with his champagne glass. “Did you know I was at Andersonville?”

  Columbine nodded, surprised. It didn’t seem an answer to her question. She had known, of course, that Elijah Reed had, at the end of the war, spent time in the most notorious of Confederate prison camps. There had been no mention in Look Away of any of it, and Elijah had never written about his experience as far as she knew.

  “I started a novel based on it five years ago.” Elijah took a long sip of champagne. The vertical lines that ran down either side of his mouth deepened. “I haven’t been able to lick it, and I can’t seem to write anything else. So I went back to journalism.”

  “I see. But what was the problem?”

  His coal black eyes wandered around the room aimlessly. “I’ve seen much suffering in my life, Columbine,” he said finally. “I thought if I wrote about the beginnings of it, I could come to terms with it. You see, I went to war when I was fifteen. I went with all the ideals boys have at fifteen, maybe more. My house, growing up, was full of political activity. William Lloyd Garrison dropped over for dinner. Frederick Douglass came often for tea. I ran away so that I could live up to those men my mother worshipped. And I found, rather predictably, that war was not about ideals at all, but very much about realities. It was my first time away from home, away from Massachusetts, actually. I couldn’t get over the land. Cornfields, cotton fields, dense autumn woods, swamps that were as lush as any South American jungle—or what I’d read a South American jungle looked like. The only trouble was, all those places were battlefields. I suppose you’ve read about the battles.”

  “Yes, I know how horrendous they were, of course. I mean,” Columbine amended, feeling that she was saying all the wrong things, “I’ve read about them since. But I was still in England during the war, and quite young.”