Mollie’s bright hair shone even in the dark theater, gleaming against her white face. She dropped her summer furs off the shoulders of her silk ensemble. “Don’t tell me any more lies, Willie,” she spat out. Her voice, that cooing, seductive instrument, was hoarse with rage. “By God, you’d think I would have learned the first time.”
Willie leaned negligently against a theater seat. “Really, Mollie? But you know how long it takes for things to penetrate that beautiful head of yours. Think, for example, of how long it takes for you to learn your lines.”
Marguerite could hear the sharp, indrawn breath. She inched slowly backward until she was underneath the shadow of the balcony.
“So you’re not going to deny it?” Mollie demanded.
“Why should I, when you have obviously appointed yourself judge and jury? Why don’t you just tell me my punishment? A diamond necklace this time? Another fur piece?”
Mollie seemed to wilt. Her voice was barely audible now, low with sorrow. “You really are a bastard, Willie. You think that’s what I wanted all along.”
“Well, you seem too well-outfitted to deny it, dear,” Willie answered in the same murmuring, bland tone.
In one stride she was on him, and she cracked her hand across his face. Then, Mollie burst into tears. “Damn you, Willie! I hate you so!”
“Mollie, this is tedious—”
“Damn you! It’s the humiliation that’s so unfair. Everyone knows. You took her to Rector’s, to Tony Pastor’s. You took her to my own dressmaker, for God’s sake!” Mollie broke out into fresh sobs. Her furs fell off her shoulders and landed on the carpet. She buried her face in her hands.
“So it’s that, then. You’re embarrassed by Miss LeClerc. It’s not the loss of my love, I fear.”
Mollie didn’t answer. She was trying to regain control of herself now. Willie held out a handkerchief, but she ignored it and took out her own. Marguerite could see at least two inches of embroidered lace on the border.
“Well,” Willie continued, his voice lower now, but still perfectly audible to Marguerite, “perhaps now we should discuss the show. I don’t want this to interfere with your performance, Mollie. You are still my star, you know. You’re on the threshold of becoming great. Why should we spoil that part of our partnership?”
Mollie Todd raised her head. Her wide cat eyes glinted. “What partnership?”
Willie waited a beat. “You have a contract,” he said evenly.
“And you have a new mistress,” Mollie said with a toss of her head, fully in control now. She picked up her furs from where they lay and smoothed them over her shoulders. “I think she’ll be perfect in the role. She sings like a banshee, I hear.” She flung one end of the fur around her throat and headed down the front toward the side door of the theater. She pushed the curtains aside in a grand gesture, and the door shut with a muffled thud.
Willie P.’s sigh was audible. He sank down in a front row seat with a groan and lit a cigar. Marguerite hesitated, wondering if he would hear her if she went out and came in again. Or perhaps she should come back tomorrow. This was not Willie P.’s day.
“Miss Corbeau?” The voice drifted back to her with cigar smoke. A hand lifted, beckoned her forward. A diamond ring caught the faint light and winked at her. She had never seen a diamond ring on a man before and she was fascinated.
Marguerite headed for Willie P.’s back in the front row seat. Her knees were trembling with fear. Now that she was here, she forgot all her rehearsed words, her sallies, her smiles. She stood in front of him and he squinted at her through the smoke.
“Well?” he said.
Her chance. Her last chance. He was sitting there, still simmering with barely-concealed anger, now doubly annoyed by her presence. Looking at her with cool hazel eyes. Almost laughing at her.
And suddenly, Marguerite lost her nervousness. It was simply gone, without any effort on her part. She unbuttoned her coat with sure fingers and lifted off her hat. She tossed them both on a chair. She didn’t flinch or smile prettily as his gaze moved over her professionally.
“You want to audition again,” Willie said with another deep sigh. “God help me. Tell me, Miss Corbeau, why should I listen?”
“Last time I was Toby’s creation,” Marguerite said. “Today I am only myself.” She gestured to her gown, her hair. “You see how simple I am. You can create me, Mr. Paradise.”
There was a pause that stretched out into an agonizing full minute. His eyes took her in, but gave no hint of what he thought. “Go ahead, Miss Corbeau,” he said finally. “But I’m afraid there is no accompanist for you today. I think I can manage the footlights.”
She nodded, knowing better than to show her fear when she heard she’d have to sing without a piano. She gathered her skirts and walked on stage. William Paradise disappeared and the lights flicked on.
Marguerite felt them again, those warming lights, like something physical, something sexual, moving inside her stomach, going lower, exciting her. Those lights. Taking his time, Willie P. walked down the side steps of the stage and headed down the side aisle. She lost sight of him in the dimness, with the lights in her eyes. She could not tell at first where in the theater he sat. She waited, standing there, until she felt the whole theater of empty seats looking at her. And then she sensed him. She knew somehow that he was in the middle of the theater, to her left.
Marguerite began, slowly, to hum the melody. Her voice came out sweet and low and perfectly on pitch. Encouraged, she began to vocalize, singing la, la, la, along the melody line instead of words. And then she began to sing.
She sang “A Bird in a Gilded Cage” again, and she sang it easily, letting her voice speak, leaving off the gestures Toby had planned for her. She had practiced night after night while Toby was at the theater, singing it her way. Toby had given her professionalism and strength, a knowledge of tricks other performers used, and breath control. Marguerite kept some of what he taught and threw away the rest. She gambled everything on being herself.
In the dark theater, William Paradise watched the girl sing. He’d been prepared for the same artificiality that had so bored him the time before. But this time the hairs on his arms rose, and he saw his future on the stage. The girl was an original, and she had something new. She was singing under the most difficult of circumstances, a cappella on a bare stage, and she was charming him.
As he usually did, he tried to get beyond his emotional response and analyze it. Somehow this girl managed to project a sense of youth and corruption at the same time. She sang of knowledge learned too early, of innocence forever gone, and yet one sensed she had relished every second of her slide into sin. She was half willing accomplice to her downfall, half innocent child. When she sang, he thought of desire and regret and innocence and sex all at once. Something about the combination of child and woman mixed in her to combust into fire. The sexuality was combined with just enough of the perverse, just a hint, so that the audience would not recognize it but know it was there. And there would be no threat in such sexuality, Willie saw, because she looked so sweetly childlike that it seemed indecent to look at her bosom and legs. But they would look.
The audience wouldn’t be able to put their finger on Marguerite’s attraction, and there would lie her power. They would take this slight girl to their hearts and make her a star, and countless words would be written trying to explain why. Women would seize on her sweetness, her boyishness; men on her suggestion of wantonness. The men would make her a star, Willie thought. Especially the men.
Marguerite lifted her childish arms and he nodded at the perfection of the gesture. Her quality murmured in his ear and sang in his blood and he knew he could take it and build a star around it.
He eased out of his seat and started down the aisle as she swung into the chorus. She was pretty, no doubt about that. And there was boldness in her as well as freshness. No virgin would wear a dress with that neckline. She had no bosom, but what she had was well shaped, the breast
a Frenchman would call perfect, one that would fit in a champagne glass. He would like to see her legs.
Quietly, Marguerite ended her song, the last note held until it was scarcely a whisper. She stood there, waiting. She did not peer out into the audience or duck her head shyly or take even one step backward. She didn’t do any of the obvious things. She would never be obvious.
Willie was reluctant to speak. As soon as he spoke, he would begin to lose her. She would begin to believe in her talent, and she would begin to change. She would begin to be corrupted. He would have to be careful. She couldn’t know yet. She had to be hungry enough to work.
Marguerite stood, waiting. She was totally at ease in the middle of the stage, underneath the lights. She looked enraptured, not bored, not nervous.
“Miss Corbeau,” Willie said brusquely, “raise your skirt, please.”
It was obvious that he shocked her, but she hesitated a bare fraction of a second. She lifted her skirt to her calves.
Good ankles, Willie thought. Not too skinny. Good. “Higher,” he ordered.
Her lips tightened, but she raised her skirts to her knees. Good calves as well, nicely rounded. Thank God she didn’t have skinny legs. Her stocking had a hole in it. He liked that. He could see her on stage as a waif, a naif, with a hole in her stocking. “Thank you,” he said, and she dropped her skirts.
“I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your first name,” he said.
“Marguerite,” she answered.
Not Marguerite, he thought. Daisy. She would be Daisy Corbeau. And he would always dress her in blue.
He returned his attention to her face. Pretty and impudent, and mysterious, too. Dark blue eyes, a slightly puffy upper lip, perfect skin, a dark, curling abundance of hair. He thought her perfect. He’d been waiting all his life for her. He wanted to fall on his knees before her, for he knew that at this moment she was an angel to him. It would not last. But the next important thing in his life had begun.
On Columbine’s wedding day, she woke and stared her mistake in the face. The amazing thing was that she rose anyway and dressed in her wedding dress, a two-piece suit of French faille in soft ivory with pink velvet bands running down the skirt and Irish guipure lace on the bodice and sleeves. Ivy Moffat helped her into it, cooing softly at how lovely it was, and Columbine saw dispassionately that it was true, and that she didn’t care.
The incredible thing was that with this heavy knowledge in her heart she still took up her small bouquet of pink and ivory roses and got in the Van Cormandt carriage with Olive, in her best navy silk, for the ride to the hospital. Olive, in a touching gesture that was quite unlike her, held Columbine’s icy hand all the way there.
In a dream, Columbine waited in the small anteroom off the chapel. She heard the noise of the small organ. Ned’s uncle Thomas arrived to give her away. She glanced at him as though he were a stranger, then took his arm.
She found herself walking down the aisle, thinking, this is so silly, I really should tell them I’ve changed my mind. She somehow managed to smile uncertainly at Ned, who looked horribly pale and ready to fall down. She wanted to laugh at her pathetic wedding, but Ned took her hand and she felt his desperate grasp and she didn’t. She turned toward the priest, and he began.
And the most unbelievable thing of all was that she found herself repeating vows for the second time in her life, vows that she wasn’t sure she could believe in. She felt a ring slipped on her finger. The priest said something, and Ned turned to her, and they kissed. And then they were turning, and Olive was crying, and she was heading down the aisle with Ned. It was as though there were cotton in her ears, for she could not hear what anyone was saying. There was something she was trying desperately to remember and could not. And then there was a noise like a ship’s horn, but it was the organ, not a ship, and she remembered, walking out of the chapel with Ned into the sunny side garden of the hospital, resplendent with roses, that Elijah was sailing that day.
Bell waited in her cell in the Tombs for a trial, and for Lawrence. She’d been waiting since she’d been arrested. He had not come, but she continued to wait confidently. He would know when it was safe.
Columbine had spoken up for her at the hearing. She did not believe that Bell could be involved in the bombing plot. Bell hadn’t quite been able to look at Columbine, for she could see that Columbine was putting on weight. Or maybe she imagined it. At any rate, the thought of Columbine pregnant while Bell was in jail was so awful she couldn’t face it, and she certainly couldn’t face Columbine. She had refused to allow Columbine to see her, and then, embarrassed, had sent word that she would receive no visitors at all, except Lawrence.
Jail wasn’t bad. Bell had met prostitutes before, since Columbine had helped a few through the New Women Society. But those were a higher class of prostitute, not these tough streetwalkers and pickpockets. They jeered at her, but one day she offered to sew one girl’s torn skirt, and another brought her a hem going down, and Bell demanded needle and thread and got it. She sewed and listened placidly to their troubles, and she was accepted.
Columbine had found a lawyer for her, a Mr. Chandler Ross. He was young and earnest and horribly worried about her situation. Her placidity annoyed him, she could tell. He was all on fire to defend an anarchist, and he’d expected more passion from her. Nellie Bly had asked for an interview, and when Bell refused Mr. Ross had been furious. What she needed was publicity, he said. This case, he said, would be tried on the streets of New York, and it was important for the public to like her. It was obvious that he didn’t believe her story and thought she was guilty; she knew he suspected Lawrence was her accomplice.
“The only thing you have going for you,” Mr. Ross said, “is that there is absolutely no evidence. But that’s not much at all. You must tell me everything, Miss Huxton. I’m very much afraid you’re going to jail.”
But Bell said nothing. She smiled her serene smile, and she waited for Lawrence to come.
When Fiona could stand Lawrence’s silence no longer, she sent him a note asking him to meet her. She waited in Central Park, in a wild stretch called The Ramble. Under the shelter of trees, it was quite cool, and Fiona tilted back her hat to feel the breeze against the drops of perspiration on her forehead. It had been a long, hot walk from the Van Cormandt house, but she could not think of a safe place to meet and could not risk asking Lawrence to send back a message with a meeting plan in it. So perhaps he would not be able to come.
She leaned against a tree tiredly. It felt good to be out, smelling God’s good earth again. The strain of the past weeks was getting to her. She didn’t realize how hard it would be. She was trapped in the Van Cormandt house with that awful old maid sister of Van Cormandt. Olive had moved in and taken over the running of the place. And Mr. Van Cormandt’s new wife, that baggage Columbine Nash, would be moving in when Ned got out of the hospital. Fiona was already looking for another place. That is, if she didn’t end up in jail.
She heard footsteps along the path coming toward her, and Lawrence strode into view around the bend. He looked extremely cross, and he did not even smile when he saw her.
“That was dangerous, sending me that note,” he burst out as soon as he was close enough. “I told you to let me make the arrangements.”
“I would have waited forever, then,” Fiona shot back tartly. “I have things to tell you, things you should know. And I can’t stand that house anymore, Lawrence. I’ve got to get away. Can you find me a place somewhere? You have to find me a place.”
“How can I find you a place?” he asked irritably. “I don’t know any swells, for God’s sake.” He did not like this new view of Fiona, vulnerable and demanding. She reminded him too much of Bell, and he did not like to be reminded of Bell these days.
Fiona saw the digust in his face. Her green eyes hardened. “To hell with you then,” she said. “It’s every man for himself, is it? Fine with me.” She turned in a whirl of black skirts, and Lawrence’s fingers were on her arm in a
moment.
“Don’t go,” he said. “I’m sorry. Tell me what you came to tell me.”
Still turned away from him, she relaxed against his body. “They’re asking questions,” she said in a rush, relieved to have someone to talk to at last. “They finally put my name together with what happened at the Hartleys. They’re asking how I came to work there and why. And they asked about when I cleaned the summer parlor. I’m scared out of my wits, Lawrence. And they’ve questioned Jimmy, too. They’ve been to my house, Lawrence!”
He waited, barely noticing the weight of her body against him. He had to think.
“Lawrence, what are we—”
“Shut your mouth!” he snapped. “I must think.”
Fiona stiffened and moved away, but she was quiet. Footsteps were heading toward them, and without another word, Lawrence took her arm and began to walk. “Turn your head as they come up,” he whispered. Within another second, a young man appeared. He was carrying binoculars and a notebook, and appeared to be just what he was, an eager bird watcher. But Lawrence had already turned slightly and was saying to Fiona, “Yes, I believe it’s a Siberian elm,” and she was looking at the trees blindly, nodding, so the friendly bird watcher did not bother saying good day.
As soon as he was past, Fiona tried to draw her arm away, but Lawrence held it against him. “Just let me think,” he murmured, and she looked into his set face and nodded.
It was five minutes or more before Lawrence felt ready to speak. He catalogued his thoughts and dealt with them one by one. First, he had to put away his anger at Fiona for disobeying him. Then, he had to subdue his panic at the knowledge that the police had put together the connection. Then, he had to wonder why they hadn’t been on him yet. They had questioned him a few times, but he knew it was merely for background information about Bell. They hadn’t linked him with Fiona, thank God. They weren’t looking at him as a suspect, for some reason. Suddenly, Lawrence’s steps slowed. He was not a suspect because they already thought they knew who did it, he realized.
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