Blind Trust (18 page)

A train came almost immediately, and she made it downtown easily. The streets were unfamiliar, but she found the Pinkney Building near the post office easily; it was enormous. She found everything in fact, except Tavish Finn. A stone-faced federal employee told her that yes, there were some federal offices in the building, but no, there was no Interstate Commerce Commission office, and yes, he was quite sure of that. Try Washington, he said.

“The street?” Darcy asked.

“The capital, ma'am,” he answered laconically, and tipped his cap and headed back up the stairs.

Darcy found herself back on the street. The information slowly filtered through her brain. He had lied to her. It seemed silly that it was all it could take, a lie. But the world she had constructed over the past few days cracked and smashed in an instant with the infusion of doubt. She kicked through the debris of her hopes and headed back toward the El. She was so tired. There was nothing to do but go home.

C
LAUDE WAS UNEXPECTEDLY SO
kind. He interpreted her mood as exhaustion and sent her immediately to bed. He spoke to poor Adelle sharply and came close to forbidding her the house completely. Adelle left in a huff, but Darcy was too tired to care. She swallowed Dr. Arbuthnot's tonic and fell asleep, wonderfully warm, wonderfully oblivious.

The next day, Claude came to her bedside. “I'd like to cancel our engagements for the rest of the week. If you agree.”

When had Claude ever asked for her agreement? He seemed uncertain, almost shy. “Yes, Claude. I think it would be best.”

“The doctor is coming tomorrow to see you again.” He paused. “I'll leave you alone now, Darcy.” He started toward the door, then turned back. “I
am
concerned about you, my dear. I know you think me harsh at times. But it's the way I've learned to be, had to be.”

“I know, Claude.”

“I never wanted you to be unhappy.”

Tears began to roll down her face. She nodded.

Without another word, he went out. Darcy turned her face against the pillows. Claude's stiff words seemed to have been torn from him with reluctance and made her remember his courtship. At first she had refused to consider him, despite Edward's steady pressure. She had suffered his calls with the minimum of politeness, just to keep her father happy. But one day he had come in the rain, a hard, driving January rain that had kept all other callers inside.

She had been feeling so melancholy. Edward had recovered from his breakdown enough to entertain new fears. They were close to ruin, and he knew it. Darcy had kept things going as long as she could. She'd slowly learned about finances and taken over completely, giving orders under Edward's name so that no one would suspect he was in his bed, his face to the wall. But she could hold out no longer. There was a note coming due that she could not pay.

And then Claude had arrived. But this time he did not sit, haughty and proper. He had seemed suddenly shy and yet angered at his own shyness. It was customary for him to take a great deal of care with his appearance every time he called, but that day even his care had been defeated by the wind and rain. His thinning hair was plastered to his skull, and he did not look his best.

Something that day had made them talk like never before. Claude had told her a story of his childhood in California, of when his beautiful mother, highly born, had succumbed to an illness. His father, a drunkard, had sold him. And in that story, Darcy had seen the fear of her own ruin, sitting in her comfortable house, as nothing next to the privations others could suffer. She'd known that before, of course, but never had it struck her as it had that day, looking at the damp man sitting across from her who had endured a past she could not begin to fathom for its cruelty and brutality. That day she had begun to respect Claude. That had been her undoing. Respect had led her to some small understanding, and that was enough to tip the balance in his favor. A week later, she had accepted him.

And after she married him she never saw Claude Statton vulnerable or ill at ease again.

Why today? Darcy thought, turning in bed. Had he heard the rumors, did he know that he was close to losing her? Or did he just sense her misery, and did it spark some small humanity still left in him?

She wondered where her brazen confidence had gone. Yesterday morning she had felt so sure of Tavish. It had taken so little for her faith to be shaken, but she had to be honest and admit that it was. It made her wonder how strong her faith had been in the first place, and it made her wonder if Claude was perhaps right about her strength in general.

If she weren't so dreadfully tired, she would demand an explanation, she supposed, and guard herself against that quicksilver Irish tongue. But perhaps it was better this way. Hazily, she shifted position. Everything she believed in told her that redemption was possible. Was it right for her to turn her back on Claude if he sincerely wished to change? She couldn't seem to concentrate on the question, though she knew it was important. She would think of it later. As soon as she had rested, just a bit more.

Columbine had started pacing long ago. Every now and again she would attempt to sit, do some work, pick up her book. But agitation would send her fingers tapping and her mind racing, and up she would pop again.

Where was Darcy? She should have been here an hour ago. She was beginning to suspect that she would not turn up at all. And Tavish was late as well. Could they have met somewhere else? She had to talk to Darcy. And where was Tavish?

It hadn't taken her very long to find out about the illustrious Dr. Arbuthnot. Darcy could be in great danger if she continued under that man's treatment. If she couldn't tell Darcy, she would have to tell Tavish what she'd discovered.

This failure of both of them to come seemed ominous. She had to talk to Darcy. Columbine twisted her hands together. She peered out from behind the faded velvet curtains. Where was Tavish?

Tavish smiled pleasantly and sipped his tea. He nibbled at a cake. He wanted to throw the whole mess on the floor and stamp his feet like a child, but he didn't. He was late. He only hoped Darcy could wait. He'd give Mrs. Irene Trimble's establishment five more minutes, and if something didn't happen, he'd leave. He'd been waiting for a messenger boy to pick up an envelope of money, and then he could follow the boy back downtown. Simpie. except the delivery boy, who Fleur Ganay told him came every Wednesday at one, didn't come. Tavish had figured that the boy would stop by Irene Trimble's as well, since the two houses were three blocks from each other, Trimble's on Sixth Avenue. But he was wrong, obviously.

Irene Trimble's house was very different from Fleur Ganay's. The lighthearted sophistication, the cosmopolitan atmosphere, the overdone lushness of the decor of Fleur's house that winked at the visitor with a knowing good humor was here exaggerated into what Tavish thought of as the worst excesses of the times. Every square inch of the parlor was awash in crimson hangings and little gold tassels. Everything that could be gilded was gilt. There were bronze statuary and cupids galore. And Mrs. Irene Trimble herself presided over it with mountainous vulgarity.

She was a large woman, double-chinned, with skin that looked so white and baby soft that Tavish wondered when the last time was she'd been outdoors. He'd been told that she always dressed in white. Perhaps as a young girl she'd been told that she looked well in it, for the day had long gone where it had flattered. Now her elaborate white satin dress, inappropriate for midday, billowed around her short little legs and strained across her expanse of bosom. She resembled a large, tiered cake slowly melting in a heatwave. For the house was impossibly hot; if the business failed, Jay Gould could raise his famous orchids here in the parlor.

Her “little girls,” as she called them, must have ranged in age from fifteen to thirty, though they all appeared to hover in that age when the hair is not yet up and the skirts are not yet down. Their manner leaned heavily on giggles and wide-eyed stares. They sat in laps and squirmed; they wore bright satin bows. They played childish pieces on the piano. Here was one brothel where a woman did not have to be accomplished in order to charm. Tavish found them sad. How could their customers miss the hard knowledge in their eyes? He also noted that, though in Fleur's house she chatted and laughed with the girls, here not one girl looked at Irene Trimble.

Here, there was only one public sitting room, where Irene Trimble presided. This was not a house where men came to socialize, to be entertained, like Fleur Ganay's. Here, men did not use their names, only their initials. They drank their brandies quickly and eyed the girls, making their choices and disappearing. Tavish was beginning to be noticeable by lingering with Mrs. Trimble, although at least that lady seemed flattered by the attention. He had already been able to discern, by rising to walk to the mantel in order to see the hall stairs, that there were other entrances to the house. He'd heard that many men had private keys, Claude Statton among them.

Irene Trimble remained unmovable as ever on her red damask sofa. Whenever he tried to steer the conversation toward her business, she stolidly returned to the topic of weather and fashions. He would get nothing here. Tavish was bored, he was desperate to see Darcy again, and he decided it was time to shake the trees here.

He stood.

“Leaving so soon, sir?” Irene Trimble asked. “My other little girls will be down directly. They take their lessons at this time, you see.”

Tavish smiled to cover his involuntary grimace. He reached in his pocket for his card case. “I've enjoyed your excellent hospitality, Mrs. Trimble. And I shall return. My card.”

“Oh.” This was obviously not a custom at Irene Trimble's, but she recovered quickly. Her tiny fat fingers reached out to grasp the square of white pasteboard.

Tavish bowed. “Good day, Mrs. Trimble.”

“Good day, Mr.—” She squinted at the lettering. Tavish was almost to the door before she got it out. “Mr. Dargent?”

Columbine took him by the wrist and almost dragged him into the sitting room.

“You're late.”

“Darcy isn't here?”

“Where
were
you?”

Tavish eyed her warily. “I don't think I'd better tell you, Columbine. I'm sorry I'm late, it was unavoidable. Did Darcy come at all?”

“No, she did not.” Columbine moved across the carpet and sat down purposefully in her favorite armchair. “Tavish, I need to tell you something.”

“All right.” Tavish sat across from her. “Did she send a note?”

“No. Tavish, are you aware that Darcy has been seeing a doctor?”

His distracted attention immediately focused on Columbine. She knew that look in the green eyes, precise, alert, watchful.

“No,” he said.

“Yesterday she seemed fatigued and pale, and somewhatunfocused, I suppose is the only word I can come up with. There was something about her voice, her movements—I thought she might be in pain. Then last night I realized why Fd thought so. I remembered when my mother was in so much pain during her illness—”

His face was frozen, a mask. “You think she's in pain?”

“No! No, I think that there's something that's making her seem that way—”

“You think Darcy was drugged? My God, Columbine, that's impossible!”

“She said this doctor gave her a tonic. I don't think she knows, Tavish. Anyway, I—”

He got up and went to the fireplace. “It's Claude Statton, I'm sure. I'll have to warn her. She'll just have to stop taking it, that's all. You think it contains laudanum, Columbine?”

“I don't know. Tavish, listen—”

“For God's sake!” Tavish exploded. “What will that man not resort to!”

She rose swiftly and took him by the arm. “Will you listen to me! I'm not finished. This is important.”

“What more?” he asked impatiently.

“She told me the name of the doctor. I wrote it down so I would remember. And this morning I paid a call on Dr. Meredith Dana, you remember my friend who just began her practice?”

“Yes, yes.”

“I thought the name sounded familiar, and it was. Dr. Francis Arbuthnot is well-known for his treatment of neuranthenics. Women, primarily. And his treatment for extreme cases is …” Columbine hesitated.

“Columbine, for God's sake, what is it?”

“Removal of the womb.”

The color drained from Tavish's face. He gripped her arm. “Columbine, you don't think …”

Columbine went on rapidly; she had to get it out, he had to know. “And sometimes, Meredith told me, sometimes, he does an additional procedure, for women who have shown what is thought of as unnatural passions. Tavish, I don't know how to say this, it's quite dreadfully embarrassing, but—”

Now he gripped both her elbows, forcing her to look at him. “You can tell me, Columbine. Tell me.
I must know.”

“Meredith called it female castration,” she whispered. “It is thought to have a calming effect. He calls it a cure.”

Now he actually reeled. He felt the walnut mantel hit his back, and he threw out a hand to steady himself. Columbine's bowl in robin's-egg blue crashed to the floor. Neither took note of it.

Then he was moving across the floor, grabbing his hat on his way. He didn't say a word; he didn't have to.

Columbine ran after him. She grabbed his arm and pulled hard, jerking him to a stop.

His voice was expressionless. “Let me go, Columbine. I don't want to hurt you.”

“Listen to me, Tavish,” Columbine said rapidly. “We have to do this intelligently. You cannot run up there and expect Claude Statton to receive you.”

“I'll break down his door, by God—”

“And he will send his servants and his strongmen at you, as many as it takes, and you will be vanquished. They will take you to Five Points or Hell's Kitchen and beat you senseless and leave you for dead with no one the wiser,” Columbine said quietly. “But if we are smart, if we think, if we act wisely, we can reach her. I will go.”