City of Ash (51 page)

Jack frowned at me, and Brody said, “Well, it ain’t just that, you know. To hear some of them tell it, she was a wild one. They say her daddy sent her to Seattle to learn how to behave.”

“So what if he did?” I asked.

“Children,” Lucius admonished, but not as if he cared overly much whether we stopped or not.

“I wonder how tightly her husband held the reins,” Jack said thoughtfully, and I felt his gaze on me. “There was a time or two when she looked at DeWitt that—”

“That
what
?” I asked—too sharply, but I was irritated and I meant for him to hear it.

Jack shrugged. “Only that I thought there was a … flirtation … between them. I suppose it’s a good thing she’s gone, eh, Bea? Or you might have a rival for your playwright’s affections. Ah well, perhaps the two of you could have traded off. One night her husband, the next DeWitt.…”

He said it casually, teasingly, but I heard his meanness beneath it, his little revenge for the way I’d snapped at him, and it only reminded me of the truth we all knew, the thing that lay just beneath the surface of our affection and civility—that we weren’t the family we pretended to be; that loyalty to one another was a road we traveled only as long as it was going our way.

And, you know, that bothered me suddenly, for no reason I could say. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t always known it, or used it when I needed. It wasn’t as if I wasn’t planning to leave them all the first chance I got to start my own company. It wasn’t as if I cared. So why did it trouble me now?

“It hardly matters now, does it?” Aloys soothed. “They say she was mad herself. Not that I saw it, you understand, but one wonders if her husband isn’t following in her footsteps.”

The others laughed, and the conversation changed, and when we reached the road I was to turn on to go back to the camp, they said good-bye and blew me kisses as if our pretenses hadn’t cracked open, as if the mend we’d made was solid, and continued
their way back to the tent that served as the Phoenix, and I went on alone.

But I was suddenly desperate for some company, for conversations that didn’t have hidden meanings or ones whose sole purpose was to veil little barbs and hurts. And there was Sebastian’s tent, the only one still lit from within, though it must be nearly 2:00
A.M
. I knew he waited for me, and there at least was a way to lose myself, to keep from thinking about the things I wanted and conversations without pretense and what the hell was wrong with me that I felt so damned weary of a sudden?

I already knew the answer. I knew I had to go to Sebastian to discover the next part in the play he was revising, the next step in the plan. There was a part of me that was using him, and so it couldn’t be simple fucking, or solace, or any of the things I wanted tonight. There were too many things I couldn’t tell him, too many lies.…

And suddenly I wasn’t moving toward his tent, but toward Mrs. Langley’s. I slipped inside. And once I was there, I saw she’d been waiting for me too, just as he was, and she said in this tight, terse little voice, “What happened?”

My whole body went limp, as if I’d been waiting for just those words all night, and with a little start I realized that she—
Geneva Langley
, for God’s sake—was the only person I knew who didn’t require pretense, the only one I didn’t need to lie to.

Geneva

H
er response to my words was to sag onto the floor near my bedroll. “Nothing happened. At least nothing we hadn’t planned. It worked. It all worked perfectly.”

“If everything went well, then why do you seem … distraught?”

“Do I? I’m tired, that’s all. It was a long night.”

“Yes, it must have been,” I said. “A party and a tableau and then Nathan’s bed after. It’s no wonder you’re exhausted.”

“I didn’t go to Nathan’s bed,” she snapped. “He was overset. He didn’t want me after all.”

“Well, that’s good, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Perfect.”

I wasn’t imagining the sarcasm in her voice. “What’s wrong, Mrs. Wilkes?”

“There’s nothing wrong. Nothing that concerns you, in any case.”

“I would say everything about you concerns me now. You must know that I don’t wish that to be true. But I also realize that I am”—oh, I hated to say it—“dependent upon you.”

“We’re dependent upon each other,” she said roughly. “Don’t think I don’t see it. Do you know, Mrs. Langley, it occurred to me tonight that you might be the only person in the world I can be honest with.”

“That would be disturbing if it were true.”

“What makes you think it’s not?”

“We hardly know each other.”

“Well, that’s the sad part, isn’t it? But who else can I trust? Not Lucius or Jack or Aloys. Not even Brody, really. No one in the company.”

“I think perhaps you underestimate them.”

“Don’t believe it.”

“Well, then … what about Mr. DeWitt?”

“I’m not telling him the truth about what we’re doing, am I? Nathan is his patron too. I don’t know that Sebastian wouldn’t tell him what we’re up to if he knew. Hell, I would. And … he thinks Penelope’s a
villain
. He won’t like our plans. He would hate what we mean to do. He might even decide.…” She made a sound like a laugh, half-aborted, humorless. “No, I can’t trust him. Only you. I would hate it if it wasn’t for the fact that I think it’s the same for you.”

“Don’t be absurd. We only trust each other because we must. There are others I trust. Of course there are.”

“Really? Have you told someone else you’re alive?”

“No, but I
do
have friends—”

“Here in Seattle? Or perhaps you left them behind in Chicago? I suppose there are people there you still write to? Perhaps someone who might come visit you in exile?”

My throat tightened. I could say nothing.

She went on, “Well, I suppose that might be so. But I confess I didn’t see any friends of yours among those at the ball tonight. At least, if they were your friends, you might want to think about getting new ones. You should have heard Jack and Brody talking about the rumors they’d heard. Now that you’re missing, it seems you’re quite the topic of conversation. And they’re not speaking of you with admiration.”

“I don’t imagine so,” I said quietly.

Her voice went equally quiet. “There’s more to it than that sculpture, isn’t there?”

I was like any other woman of my class, skilled at shutting doors I didn’t want opened, at discouraging intimacies with condescension and hauteur. I could have done so now. But I didn’t want to, and I didn’t know why that should be. Perhaps it was because she was right; she
was
the only person I could trust—the fact that she was tied to me only by necessity didn’t make that any less true. Perhaps it was because of what we’d put in motion tonight, what had left me too stirred to sleep, the risk, the danger. Or perhaps it was only that it was late, and the thrill of tonight had faded to a dull thrumming in my blood, and I wanted someone to share it with, to laugh with over what had been dared, and there hadn’t been someone like that in so very, very long.

“Posing wasn’t all of it,” I admitted. “I had a … reputation in Chicago. I—I’ve never had much patience with convention. Or for doing what was … expected. I was a bit notorious, I’m afraid.”

“Is that why your father sent you here?”

I took a deep breath and lay back, looking at the darkness above my head. The hurt was still there, no matter how I tried to erase it. “I thought my father admired my daring. I thought he was proud that I wasn’t like everyone else.”

“That must be the reason he wants to put you into an asylum.”

“Perhaps I wasn’t seeing things clearly.”

“Perhaps not.” There was compassion in her voice. “You wouldn’t be the first.”

“After I married, he expected me to be a respectable wife,” I went on. “He told me so more than once, but I didn’t allow myself to believe it. I should have known better. I think … I must have always known the truth, because when I think back on my girlhood, I realize I kept the worst of it from him.”

“Like what?”

“Shall I tell you the whole list?”

“One or two things would be enough, I think.”

“Well, let’s see. At fifteen I wagered with a friend that I could sneak into the bedroom of a boy we knew.”

“Did you?”

I smiled at the memory. “I masqueraded as a maid. And stole his shaving razor to prove I’d been there.”

She laughed. “You’ve been slumming for a long time then.”

“It was hardly the worst of it. The truth is that the risk was everything. I’ve always liked gambling. I won a hundred dollars on a race once. Papa didn’t know about that either.”

“You wouldn’t be the first woman to gamble.”

“No. And I suppose Papa might have laughed that one away. Until he found out I was the one racing the carriage.”

“You could drive?”

“I asked a friend of my father’s to teach me—in return for … well, a few kisses was all it took.”

“Really? I never would have expected it of you! How did your father not find out?”

She was impressed, and I basked in it. “I threatened to tell everyone he’d seduced me. My father would have destroyed him. I was only sixteen.”

“I’d fucked two managers by then. Not that it helped.”

“At eighteen, I lost my virtue to a writer visiting my father’s house. But he was the only one I … well, until Nathan.”

“But you loved them both.”

“Yes. You never loved any of your managers?”

I felt her hesitation. “I regretted it mostly, especially when it didn’t work out as I wanted. Which was often enough, I promise you. They’re all bastards, you know. What you were doing and what I did—they were different things. I wasn’t doing it because I liked them or because I liked fucking. Mostly I hated that they had power over me, and I had to do what they wanted. And then I felt like a fool when it didn’t make any difference. When I have my own company …”

“Your own company?”

“It’s what I mean to do when this is over. With the money. Start my own company where I’m not beholden to managers or other actors. And … I mean to ask Sebastian to be the playwright for it.”

I was surprised, though I supposed I shouldn’t have been, not now that I knew her passion for acting. The passion Sebastian DeWitt had once told me about, I remembered, the thing I hadn’t believed, and now I found myself saying, “What if I helped you finance it?”

A pause. “Why would you want to?”

“Because it’s what I do. It’s … well, Mr. DeWitt called it my gift, and I suppose it is. In Chicago, I introduced artists to the society that would fund them and make them famous. I was good at it too.” I tried to find the right words, to make her understand. “I had thought to do the same with Mr. DeWitt here, before all this with Nathan … and … well, it occurs to me that together, we could make him a star. You’re his muse, and I’m his patron. You could act in his plays, and I would provide the money for production. With your talent, and mine, we could become a force, Mrs. Wilkes. Mr. DeWitt is the key, but what you and I could do with him.…”

My words trailed off in the darkness. I could not think of what else to say.

“This is no passing fancy, is it?”

I shook my head. “There have been many of those, I’ll admit. But this isn’t one of them. As much as you love acting, I love this. I always have. Mr. DeWitt knows it too.” I hesitated. “So … do you think the idea has merit?”

“Yes,” she said softly. “Yes.”

I let out my breath in a little laugh.

She said, “You know, what we’re doing … what we’ve been through … it seems strange to have you keep calling me Mrs. Wilkes. My name’s Bea.”

“And I’m Ginny,” I told her.

“Ginny,” she said, as if she were trying out the taste. “Well, I should get to Sebastian. He’s waiting up.”

“Don’t worry. It won’t be long until we both have what we want.”

“Yes.” Nearly a whisper. She rose. “Good night, Ginny.”

“Good night, Bea,” I said, closing my eyes. For the first time since I’d left the Wilcox house, I felt I could sleep.

Beatrice

S
o there we were, making promises to each other, and the damn plan was as risky as ever. But now it was about more than money. It was about my company, about Sebastian, about the lives she and I meant to start, the lives we’d always wanted. I crept from the tent feeling as if I wasn’t so alone. And maybe I didn’t like her so much yet, but I was beginning to feel as if we were somehow … lashed together. That one of us couldn’t run without the other stumbling after. It was reassuring somehow. And my weariness was gone; in its place was this whirring little energy.