City of Ash (41 page)

Hold your tongue, Beatrice
. But I heard myself saying, “Maybe she doesn’t want to come home.”

His gaze sharpened, and I wished I’d kept quiet after all. “What are you saying?”

“I mean … was she happy?”

“She had everything. She should have been happy. But Ginny was
—is
—hard to satisfy. She’s always … tilting at windmills.” He laughed softly, as if at some small joke. “I think she no longer has any sense of what is real. Since that debacle in Chicago—”

“What happened in Chicago?”

“Surely you know. Everyone knows. It’s why we came here. She had an affair with Jean-Claude Marat.”

“Who is that?”

“Dear God, how ignorant you are.”

“I don’t move in your circles. How would I know him?”

“He’s a famous sculptor,” Nathan said. “Perhaps the most famous of the last ten years. Perhaps you should read a newspaper, my dear, and learn something besides the lines in a melodrama.”

“I wasn’t aware that reading was one of your requirements,” I said, no longer trying to keep my temper. I thought of Mrs. Langley escaping, money in hand. I thought of how little I needed her husband now. I started to get off the bed, but he grabbed my arm to stop me.

“Fortunately, you have other attributes,” he said.

I glared at him. “I saw your wife every day at rehearsal. She didn’t seem mad to me.”

“No offense, my dear, but how would you know? Those actors you work with … the entire company borders on insanity.”

I couldn’t argue with him there. But despite what he said, I did know the difference, and while Mrs. Langley was infuriating, she wasn’t insane. And I thought of the things Sebastian had said about her. Surely he would have noted if she’d been as mad as Nathan seemed to think.

I said, “She knew about us, you know. Perhaps that’s why she stays away. Maybe she’s angry.”

“It’s hardly unusual for husbands of our class to have mistresses. And if she’s angry about it, it’s her own fault.”

“Her fault?”

“She did it first.” He smiled meanly and rose. “It’s what she deserves, don’t you think?”

“What a wonderful marriage you have,” I said.

“You have no idea.” He went to the armoire in the corner, opening the door while I watched him. He reached inside, grabbing something, throwing it to me. A deep blue silk embroidered with butterflies in gold and red. It may have been the most beautiful gown I’d ever seen. “Here’s a little present.”

“Why?” I asked suspiciously.

“I can’t give my mistress a gift?”

“Of course you can. But why her dress?”

“Because it’s beautiful, and I want to see you in it. And I want to reward you.”

“For what?”

“I’d like you to do me a favor. If you see her, if she tries to return to the company, I want you to tell me. Before you do anything else. Immediately. Will you do that for me?”

The silk was smooth and cool against my hands. I wanted to say I couldn’t be bought with a pretty piece of fabric, but you know, the truth is that only people with money can afford to have scruples, and I wasn’t one of them. How easy it would be to just say:
she’s waiting behind the Boston block
. Six words, and she would be back in his hands and out of mine.

But then I thought of her saying,
“I need to get out of the city before Nathan finds me,”
as if she’d never meant anything so much. Uneasily I wondered just what had been Nathan’s relationship with his wife. I didn’t understand any of this, and the truth was that I wasn’t ready to hand her over to him, and it
didn’t have anything to do with the money she was holding for me. There was something more here, something I didn’t trust, something strange.

I gripped the gown in my hands and said hesitantly, “If she’s not dead, she won’t like this going missing.”

“If she’s not dead, a missing gown will be the last thing Ginny has to worry about,” he said. “Put it on.”

I did not refuse him. I knew that strange look in his eyes. So I put on my sweat-stained chemise, grayed with ash and stinking of smoke, and my corset, and he watched every movement. When I reached for my drawers, he shook his head. “Not those.” In dismay I saw he was hard again and I knew what he meant for me to do and I didn’t want to do it. I wanted to be out of this room, away from her smell, away from him.

But he played out the charade to the end, as I knew he would. He helped me with the many buttons up the back. The gown was made for a bustle, and all that fabric draped limply and heavily, so it didn’t sit correctly at my hips. It was so low cut my chemise and corset showed—what kind of underwear did one need to wear this dress? She was slightly bigger than I was; the neckline gaped because my breasts did not fill out the bodice as hers did, but either he didn’t notice or didn’t care. When I had it on, he told me to get on my hands and knees, which I did, and I was trembling and angry and humiliated. But mostly I was afraid of him. And when he came up behind me, pushing up all that skirt so it billowed over my shoulders, I closed my eyes and bore it as he grasped my hips and punished her through me.

I
was sore and angry as I left that house. The sun was setting, fiery gold and red, gilding the Olympics across the Sound, bruising what clouds there were, matching my temper. I had washed before I’d changed back into my calico, rubbing away every bit of Nathan Langley, but I carried the blue silk bundled in my arms.
“Your reward,”
Nathan had said mockingly, and I was damned if I’d give it back in any case. I deserved it, and I’d lost all my other costumes in the fire, and once I got another trunk, I’d put this gown away to wear when I played someone like Lady Macbeth. Someone bitter and angry.

I was anxious to get away from these well-kept homes and yards that seemed to hide some deeper discontent, and back among my own people—which would have made me laugh if I’d thought about it, because there wasn’t anyone there I trusted either—with the possible exception of one. But the thought of him filled me with shame and regret; I could not go to him tonight as I’d promised, not after spending the afternoon with Nathan Langley. Once again Mrs. Langley had tangled my life and I had no way to get loose. I was so angry when I approached the burned district that I knew if she wasn’t behind the Boston block I would hunt her down and deposit her on her husband’s doorstep myself.

That afternoon, the burned district had been full of men digging through the ruins, and the sounds of hammering and sawing and pounding. There had been militiamen everywhere, but now the day was shifting into evening, and most of those men had gone. There were still a few people about, soldiers mostly, getting ready to enforce the curfew, but it wasn’t eight o’clock yet, so I got to the Boston block without any trouble. The anger I’d been feeling since I’d gone into her bedroom with Nathan twisted like a live thing. I’d known not to trust her even as I’d gone up those stairs, and I’d done it anyway—

Someone came around the corner of the opposite wall. It was a moment before I realized it was her.

“Mrs. Wilkes,” she said breathlessly, rushing up to me, and then she stopped. Her glance went to the blue silk bundled in my arms, the golden embroidery of a butterfly glinting in the sun, and I saw shock in her eyes. And then, incredibly, she began to laugh.

It was the last straw. My temper surged; I slapped her as hard as I could, hard enough that she stumbled back, putting out a hand to the brick wall to keep from falling. When she caught her balance again, she touched her cheek where I’d left an angry red mark. Her eyes watered. I did not feel the least bit sorry.

“What was that for?” she gasped.

“For everything,” I snapped. “For making me fuck your husband, for being a goddamn Stratford, for involving me in … in any of this. Now if you don’t mind, I’ll take my money. If
we’re both lucky, I can still find someone to take you out of here tonight.”

Her expression hardened. “There is no money.”

“Don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not lying. The safe was empty.”

Now I laughed. “You can’t expect me to believe that.”

“Whether you believe it or not, it’s true.”

“You said there would be several hundred dollars in there.”

“I thought there would be.”

“Where is it then?”

“I don’t know.” She leaned back against the wall, looking up at the sky. “I don’t know. Nathan must have taken it for some reason. You said none of the banks were open. Perhaps he needed it.”

I peered at her, not wanting to believe her, searching for any lie. But either Mrs. Langley was a superb liar or she was telling the truth.

She said, “You can’t possibly think I’m happy about it. This ruins my plans as well.”

There was no money in the safe. The idea sank into me, along with a kind of desperation that was starting to feel a little too familiar. I sagged back against the wall beside her. “So I fucked him for nothing,” I said bitterly.

She glanced to the dress I held. “Not for nothing, I’d say. Apparently you have a new gown.”

“My reward.” And then, because I was angry, and I wanted to hurt her, I said, “He made me put it on. He wanted to pretend I was you.”

But once I said it, I was sorry. I took no satisfaction from her flush or her embarrassment.

“He chose that dress for it? Dear God. How … wretched.”

Now I felt worse. “What’s wrong with this dress?”

She shook her head. “Nothing. I … it’s nothing. I suppose I should thank you. For diverting him.”

“Yes, you should,” I said.

“It was best that he not discover me.”

“Then why did you go to the Regal today?”

She frowned. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Nathan said he saw you there. What the hell were you doing? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I wasn’t there. I don’t know what you’re talking about. I never left here, as you commanded. Whatever Nathan thought he saw, it wasn’t me.”

I believed her. Her bewilderment was no act, and to be honest, I couldn’t think what would have made her go down to the ruins. She was serious about wanting to stay hidden, and she wasn’t stupid.

But suddenly I was more than tired of all of it. “Listen, Mrs. Langley, there was no money in the safe. It looks to me as if you’re not going anywhere. I’ll tell you what: pay me my two hundred dollars and we’ll call it good.”

“Where am I to get two hundred dollars?”

“From your bank account,” I said sweetly. “The banks will open in another day or so.”

“I can’t do that. I told you, I can’t be seen. And I … I don’t think I can get the money in any case. Not from the bank.”

I frowned. “Why not?”

She didn’t answer. Instead, she reached into her pocket and pulled out that clock I’d seen on Nathan’s desk. “I did get this. If you know where we can pawn it—”

“Nowhere,” I said shortly. “The shops are burned. Maybe in a day or two.”

“I don’t have a day or two.”

I sighed. “Look, your plan didn’t work. There’s no money, and I want to get on with my life. You’ve got a comfortable bed, and I’ve been offered two places to sleep and I’m in no mood to turn them down to spend another night in a haystack. And I’m starving. That soup at the relief tent was good.”

“You’ve found a place to sleep? Where?”

“Lucius has a place for me.”

“You said two.”

Reluctantly, I said, “Mr. DeWitt has an army tent.”

“I see,” she said.

I didn’t like the way she said the words, or what she thought she knew about me. Angrily, I said, “Go on back to your society
parties and your money. Leave me alone. Your husband’s right. You’ve got everything; why the hell can’t you be happy?”

She jerked to look at me. “Nathan said that?”

“Among other things.”

Her face hardened. “What other things?”

“Oh, that you’re half mad and everyone knows it and I should take you to him the moment I see you. Believe me, I considered it. You’re lucky I didn’t. Now if you’ll excuse me—”

I took a step, but before I could take another, she held out her hand to stop me. “Please. Don’t go. Please. I need your help.”

“I think you’ll do just fine on your own.”

“Please.”

Her voice was calm and firm. She was used to giving orders, and before I knew it, I was obeying them. I stopped and turned to look at her.

Her face was strangely pale, her dark eyes glittering, her mouth set. “I need to tell you something: Nathan means to put me in an asylum.”

“I can’t say I blame him.”

“This isn’t a joke. You don’t understand. He and my father … I saw a letter the morning of the fire. Together they’ve been planning to have me committed. My father has already transferred control of my funds to Nathan. They’ve been”—she looked away, as if blinking back tears—“it’s all part of it. Everything. The stage. Mr. DeWitt. All of it. And I never suspected. I just followed the path they laid for me like some … dumb animal.”

She trembled as she spoke. All the supercilious posture was gone. If there’d been any chance that I would turn her in to Nathan—and there hadn’t been, not really—it would have disappeared then. Suddenly she was just a woman, helpless as we all were, as I was, and I felt sorry for her.

“What do you mean? What path?”

“I tried so hard to be what they wanted, but I just … couldn’t.” She gave me a look of pleading desperation. “No one in this city wanted to know me. My reputation … well, they’d made up their minds about me before we even arrived. I tried—I
did. But I was lonely. And then I met the Readings, and Nathan introduced me to Mr. DeWitt, and—”

“Who are the Readings?” I demanded. “And what has Sebastian to do with any of it?”

“James Reading is part of what passes for high society here. But he paid the troupe at the Palace to act with him in
Julius Caesar
. He’d said it was always a dream of his, and when I saw it, I realized it was a dream of mine too.” She looked off into the distance, and I saw a wistfulness in her expression that made her seem even more … well, human. “Nathan said he would consider it, and I should have known then. But I wanted it so much. And it was Nathan who brought Mr. DeWitt to dinner. He was the one who suggested that Mr. DeWitt escort me to the theater. He … encouraged our … friendship.” She made a sound, a little sob. “How stupid I was. I thought Nathan was becoming again the man I’d married, but he was only … he only meant to—”