Her life was full, her love filled her heart. Despite their differences, she and Lawrence were working together in a common cause: they were comrades. With the coal fire warming her feet and Lawrence studying across the room, she felt that her life was at last complete.
Except for one thing. “Lawrence,” she said, looking up, “I really must tell Columbine about us. She should know. And it would make things so much easier for us. You could come to the house and not be afraid you’ll betray us.”
“She will try and break us up Bell, I know it. She’s a jealous woman. She’s never forgiven me for spurning her.”
“She’ll understand. She’s with Mr. Reed now.” Lawrence said nothing, and Bell returned to her book. She read slowly, translating as she went. When he said her name, she was concentrating so hard it took her a moment to realize it.
Lawrence spoke again. “Bell?”
She put a finger in her book to mark her place and looked up. His head thrown back, his legs sprawled in front of him, he was watching her. His blond hair fell on his forehead, and his blue eyes were piercing. A pulse beat deep inside her, as it always did when his beauty struck her afresh.
“Yes, dear?” she asked affectionately.
“You must talk to Columbine tomorrow.”
“You think I should tell her about us, then.”
“You must talk to her,” he said deliberately, “and tell her that you are leaving. You will not participate in Safe Passage House.”
“But my darling, I can’t do that. We’re moving in a few weeks. Columbine can’t run that house alone.”
“She’ll find someone else. You have better things to do.”
“I don’t think so. I’m needed there.”
She expected him to be angry, but he shook his head sadly. “I understand. When it comes down to a question of loyalties, I see now who wins. Not your cause, not your lover. That woman.”
“That’s not true. But I have work there. And a paycheck,” she added dryly. “Don’t forget that.”
“I can get you a job with Jacob Schimmer’s wife.”
“In a factory?” Bell couldn’t believe her ears. “I did that work once, Lawrence. I swore I would never return.”
“It’s more fitting for an anarchist. Do you know how you’ll embarrass me if you work at a settlement house?”
“It’s not a settlement house,” she argued. “It’s a place of refuge. No, I cannot work in a factory again. I cannot go back to that life.”
His hands tightened, but he crossed his legs indolently. “As you wish,” he said.
Bell felt her blood run out of her face. Her hands began to tremble. She knew that look. His face was closed to her, indifferent; he looked back at his papers. He would not speak to her for the rest of the night, or tomorrow, or the next day. It could last a week. She could come to his door, and he would let her in, let her cook for him, but he would not speak to her, no matter how she begged.
“Please don’t punish me like this,” she said. “Please, Lawrence.”
But she got no answer. Her nerves screaming now, she returned her unseeing eyes to her book.
After Bell left that night, Lawrence saw his mistake. If Bell backed out of Safe Passage House, she would have to tell Columbine why. And if Columbine knew Bell had been converted to anarchism, she would naturally make the connection to him. Bell wouldn’t be able to lie, damn her.
He should have kept his mouth shut, for a few more weeks at least. Lawrence wanted to kick himself. But as he drifted off to sleep he told himself that Columbine was bound to find out sooner or later. He’d have to face her wrath, and if Bell wasn’t tied to him enough by now, she never would be.
He rose early the next morning and scrawled a quick note to Bell, telling her that he would prefer they both tell Columbine about their love. It was more honest that way, he wrote, and Columbine deserved that respect. He would be there at four o’clock, and they would tell her together. Frowning, he dispatched the note by messenger. Better he would be there to deflect any accusations. But it would still be a rocky meeting. Everything would depend on which way Bell jumped.
Columbine was just pouring her first cup of tea when Bell knocked on the parlor door. Bell opened the door and hesitated on the threshold.
“Bell, why did you knock? You’re just in time for tea. Elijah was supposed to join me, but he had business to take care of. Well, come in for heaven’s sake. Mrs. Brodge made a seed cake.”
Columbine nattered on while she poured milk in another cup and added hot tea. When she looked up, Lawrence Birch was there, standing next to Bell.
Columbine counted off a few slow seconds. She told herself to keep her voice level. “What is that man doing here?” she asked Bell, her tone low and vibrant. “He’s not welcome in this house.”
“I’m in love with him, Columbine,” Bell said quietly. “That’s what we came to tell you.”
She couldn’t absorb the information at first; it was too enormous. “That’s impossible,” she said numbly. “I don’t … How could you—?”
“Columbine,” Lawrence said, “we don’t know how ourselves.” He shrugged; the tenderness in his blue eyes nearly made Columbine gag. “I’m inclined to think I fell in love with her from the first moment she opened the door to me.” He glanced at Bell with a smile. “Who would not?”
Columbine’s rage was a small, hard thing in the very center of her. It burned. Her voice shook with fury as she leveled her gaze on Lawrence. “How dare you come to this house. How dare you expect me to accept this? Bell,” she said, rising and coming toward her anxiously, “I didn’t tell you this before. But—”
“Don’t listen to her, Bell—”
“He tried to attack me, Bell He would have raped me I think. Right here, in this parlor, a month or so ago.”
Bell backed away. “I don’t believe you.”
“Bell,” Columbine said desperately, “have I ever lied to you? Why would I lie to you?”
“I don’t know myself,” Lawrence said sorrowfully. “I cannot believe that you, no matter how bereft or angry you might feel from my rejection, would invent such a story.”
“Rejection? My God.” Her hand to her mouth, Columbine saw that Lawrence was prepared for this, and that she was not. He was as cool as a cucumber, and the pitying look in his eyes was frightening to see.
Tearing her gaze away from him, she took Bell’s icy hands in hers. Bell tore them away. “You must listen, Bell,” she said rapidly. “He is lying. He lost control one evening, right at this time it was, at teatime. Something happened to him, some violent streak was unloosed. Surely you must have seen intimations of this in him. Think, Bell.”
Bell cried out and dropped her face in her hands. She couldn’t think of such a thing. Of any of it. Of Lawrence lying, of Columbine lying. Of Lawrence forcing Columbine… It was impossible. She loved him so much.
“No,” she sobbed. She looked at Lawrence beseechingly. “Please. Tell me the truth.
“All right,” Lawrence said quietly. “I’ll tell you the truth. I’ve already told you that we were friends, Columbine and I. I didn’t tell you the whole truth because I didn’t want to hurt you. Columbine and I were lovers, for a very short time.”
“Bell, he’s lying. We were not, you know we were not!”
“I saw you kissing,” Bell whispered.
“It was only one time—”
“No,” Lawrence said quickly. “It was more than once.” He rode over Columbine’s denial; she did not seem to be aware that Bell had interpreted her words to mean that they had only been to bed once. Bell gave a low moan, as if she were in pain.
Lawrence went on hurriedly. “It was for a very short time, darling. I realized that it could not go on, and I told her that as gently as I could. But I suppose her nerves were strained, for she exploded with rage. I didn’t know what to do, Bell! She tried to hit me—she scratched my cheek, remember that scratch?—and I pinned her arms at her sides. That is all, I swear it!�
��
“No, Bell!” Columbine cried. But her desperate hope died when she saw the look on Bell’s face. She would lose her. She would lose her friend. Lawrence had gotten hold of her somehow. Even the closest woman friend could not compete with the mystery that lies between a woman and a man.
Then Columbine remembered. “Marguerite!” she said aloud, shooting a triumphant glance at Lawrence. “She saw! She helped me kick him out of the house. You can ask Marguerite, Bell.”
Bell looked at Lawrence. He nodded slowly, wanting to kick himself for telling her it had been Columbine who scratched him. That could trip him up. But he’d figure that out later. “Marguerite was there. If you feel you need confirmation of my story, you can ask her everything,” he said. “As a matter of fact, I insist on it.” Lord knew Marguerite would back him up. She was an opportunitistic little bitch, and scruples would not get in her way.
Columbine looked at Lawrence. What did he have up his sleeve? she wondered. Marguerite wouldn’t lie to Bell. Or was his power strong enough that he knew Bell wouldn’t approach her? Had he bound Bell to him that tightly, so tightly she could not step away and see him clearly?
“Bell, you have to believe me,” she repeated. She didn’t know what else to say.
And then Bell smiled. The smile, so passive, so accepting, and so sorry for Columbine, struck her at the heart.
“Oh, Bell,” Columbine whispered. “No.”
Bell wanted to collapse with the joy of relief. The scene was over; it was all over. And she would never have to see Columbine again. The thought of Lawrence touching another woman made her want to scream. But she would never have to see Columbine again.
“I don’t need to talk to Marguerite,” she said, turning to her lover. She knew she was saved now. For the first time in her life, she was able to trust completely. She felt exalted now, looking into Lawrence’s blazing blue eyes. She was his forever.
With that new found strength, she was able to turn to Columbine without emotion. Her calmness was born of the shield that was her love. She felt enormously protected, for the first time in her life, standing next to her love.
“I’m sorry if Lawrence hurt you,” she said. “I assure you it was not deliberate on his part. And I also must tell you that I cannot go forward with the plans for Safe Passage House. I have more important work in the movement. I’m sorry; I know it will inconvenience you. I’m sure you can find someone else to take over my duties at the New Women Society. Ivy Moffat is a good worker, you might want to approach her.”
Columbine was frantic. She knew if Bell walked out the door she would never see her again. “All right, Bell. Whatever you want. But we have to stay friends. Promise me we’ll still be friends.”
Bell’s beautiful mouth curved in a gentle smile. “But Columbine, my life will be so different now. I don’t think it’s realistic for us to expect to go on as we were.”
Lawrence held out Bell’s coat, and she slipped into it. She smiled over her shoulder at him and took her muff from his hands.
“Bell,” Columbine said desperately, “Please wait. You can’t go with him. He’ll destroy you.”
Bell put her hand on Lawrence’s sleeve. Her smile was placid, benign. “Destroy me? Oh, Columbine. You always had a taste for melodrama. Don’t you see?” she said in a such a bland, rational tone Columbine wondered if she was quite sane. “Lawrence has saved me.”
Elijah found her sitting with the lights out, the tea cold, at six o’clock. He slid into the armchair across from Columbine’s and looked at her. She smiled wanly. The firelight flickered across her still face.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Bell’s left,” she said, turning away to look at the fire. “We’ve been together for more than ten years.”
Cautiously, afraid of prodding her, he asked, “Why did she leave?”
“She’s in love with Lawrence Birch. And she’s an anarchist. She’s given up reform.”
“She’s in love with Birch?” he asked incredulously.
Columbine nodded. She wanted to confess everything to him; what Lawrence had said, what she had said, what Bell believed. But something stopped her. She loved Elijah with all her heart, but it was a careful love. If she confided all her hurts and joys to him, it would be harder to go on after he’d left. So she gave herself to him physically and she loved him without regrets, but she kept the everyday cares to herself. She would not grow to depend on him more than she could help.
Sensing that he’d heard half the story, Elijah looked away and stared at the fire. He wanted to press her, but he didn’t. He wanted to ask why she seemed angry as well as sad, but he didn’t. He sensed the deep, roiling emotion Bell’s departure had stirred up, but if Columbine did not wish to tell him, he would not ask. In his experience with women, some had wound him into the fabric of their lives. Some had kept themselves aloof and mysterious, from the fear that if he knew them completely he would grow bored. And some were merely private, like Columbine. He wished, for a moment, staring at her brooding profile, that Columbine was not one of those women, for her life was varied and complex and interesting, and he would like to share it.
He wanted to share her sorrow, he realized. Her slant on her friendships. Her irritation and her amusement at the minutiae of her life. Everything.
He almost sat up with the enormity of the jolt this revelation gave him. Instead, he stretched out his legs. He was a slow thinker, and even slower to act. He wanted to chew on this new feeling for awhile, figure it out. Did he want something different from this, after all?
Columbine looked at Elijah. His leonine head was sunk a bit on his chest, and his sturdy legs were extended toward the fire. He could be asleep. If she had been a different kind of woman, she would have imagined that her troubles bored him. But she knew it was not boredom that led him to withdraw from her. It was that sense of privacy in him; it was the last barrier to complete intimacy between them. And it would never be breached.
She had to keep loving him, though. She had to take the companionship and the hard loving between them, and leave the dissatisfactions behind, for as long as she possibly could.
“Shall we have a sherry?” she asked.
He looked at her, and he saw such sadness. Her deep brown eyes were bright; was she close to tears? Elijah couldn’t hold her gaze; he coughed and looked away. “Let’s,” he said.
Lawrence had no way of finding Marguerite—he could hardly ask Columbine—so he waited a week. He stood on the opposite corner of Hester and Ludlow at the same time he’d seen Marguerite before. She did not appear that week, but the following one he saw her walking to the corner with the older woman in black. He waited until they separated, then trailed down Hester after Marguerite.
She was walking quickly, her spring green skirt swishing behind her below the dark gray of her three-quarter length coat. They were fine clothes, he noticed. And if she wore these to the East Side, she must have even grander ones at home. Lawrence flirted with the idea of extorting money instead of promises, but decided the promise was too important to risk.
“Miss Corbeau?” he called, when he was just a few paces behind her.
She stopped, but she didn’t turn, not for a few slow seconds. Then she slowly twisted to look behind her. Her dark blue eyes were wary.
“Or should I say,” Lawrence said deliberately, “Miss Blum?”
Shock showed clearly in her face, but a moment later it was gone, replaced by a smooth, polite mask. She nodded shortly. “Mr. Birch.”
“May I walk with you?”
“I’m not going far, just a few blocks to the Bowery for a cab.”
“Perfect,” Lawrence said. “I’ll accompany you. Young ladies are not safe on the Bowery these days.”
“I assure you, I—”
“Come,” Lawrence said, interrupting her and taking her arm. “I won’t take no for an answer, Miss Blum.”
Marguerite extricated her arm and drew herself up. “I don’t know why you continue
to refer to me by that name.”
She started to walk again, at an even faster pace, and Lawrence swung into step beside her. Ignoring her last comment, he said in a conversational tone, “Such a fascinating neighborhood, don’t you agree? Squalid, certainly. But such energy! You feel it hum around you like a giant machine.”
“Really, Mr. Birch. How fascinating,” Marguerite said icily.
“But the thing that impresses me,” Lawrence went on, “is the friendliness of the people. Why, I was in one of the worst tenements on Ludlow Street the other day, and I met a woman who couldn’t have been nicer. Mrs. Schneiderman, her name was. She came right out to the stairwell as I came up, and we chatted for quite some time.”
Marguerite stopped. Her eyes flicked toward him. Her delicate upper lip curled slightly. “What do you want?” she asked.
“She told me about the Blum family upstairs. Russian Jews. The father is a peddler. He kicked the daughter out when she went bad. Mrs. Schneiderman had seen the daughter just the other day, all dressed to the nines, with fine boots.”
“Get to the point, Mr. Birch,” she said steadily.
He grasped her elbow and moved her forward, for people were beginning to notice them. “I do so admire the culture of the Jews,” he said, speaking in her ear. “It is a shame that they cannot mix in the best society. I think it terribly wrong. Of course, it’s whispered that August Belmont is a Jew. Jay Gould. Just think, Miss Corbeau, if those men admitted to their heritage! Perhaps attitudes would be changed. For who could shut their door against August Belmont? He is so charming. Who would refuse to do business with Mr. Gould?”
Now they had reached the bright lights of the Bowery. Marguerite stopped again and resolved not to budge. “Pray go on, Mr. Birch.”
“Ah, you become interested, Miss Corbeau.”
“I very much doubt I would be able to stop you. Please hurry, for I’m late.”
The Gilded Cage Page 24