Blind Trust (22 page)

“If you will excuse me,” Columbine said, “I have some business to attend to.”

“Of course, Columbine,” Darcy said, and Adelle nodded stiffly.

Darcy turned to Adelle. “I'm so glad you came,” she said. “I—”

“Darcy, really,” Adelle burst out. “You didn't have to introduce me.”

“May I remind you,” Darcy said in a stilted tone, “that you are sitting in Mrs. Nash's front parlor at the moment. And she is my friend.” Relenting, Darcy patted Adelle's gloved hand. “I know that a woman like Columbine is not found in your usual circle, Adelle. But I have grown to care for her. She has been so kind, and I honestly think you would like her.”

Adelle stared at her. “Perhaps you
are
mad,” she said.

Darcy drew her hand back as though it had been burned. “Excuse me?”

“Of course I didn't believe the rumors, not for a moment. And they're so contradictory, how could one know what to believe? One minute you're quite mad, and the next you're off with an Irishman at a house of assignation on the Central Park.”

Darcy felt faint. “Is this what has been said?”

“Yes, of course. Darcy, I must say I'm shocked. If the second is true, the first must be, as well.”

Darcy tried to remember what order her transgressions had come in and gave up. “But that day,” she protested. “That day we went to see Julia Hinkle, and you drove me to Twenty-third Street. You knew I was meeting Tavish Finn. Not only did you condone it, you seemed almost to approve.”

“I didn't know you were planning to leave Claude for him,” Adelle said matter-of-factly. “There is a difference, Darcy, between an indiscretion and a scandal. Don't you understand? Your husband has turned you out. You're no longer received.”

“Claude didn't turn me out. I left.”

“All the worse, then. And you compound the problem by seeking refuge in the home of a woman like Columbine Nash. You don't even take yourself off to Europe, like our mother had the decency to do, at least. Darcy, Columbine Nash was one of those Fabian socialists in England during her so-called rest cure! I heard it on good authority.”

Darcy smiled. “Oh, in that case I shall leave today.” Adelle bristled, and Darcy said in a conciliatory tone, “Adelle, truly, I don't understand. I could see your objection if it was based on the fact that Columbine is a single woman and isn't family, but you see, that night, everything was very confusing. Perhaps I should have gone to Father's. But he is away just now, and besides, I wasn't able to think properly. Claude had—”

Adelle rose. “Darcy, I'm sorry. But I must go. I cannot see you while you are under this roof. I thought it right to come and tell you that. I'm … I'm sorry. Be well, dear.”

“You're saying good-bye to me?” Darcy asked, incredulous. “You don't want to hear my side?”

Adelle settled her veil back over her face. “Oh, Darcy. If I were married … perhaps I could help you. But I'm a single woman. Aunt Catherine quite agrees. I cannot support you in this. I cannot risk my reputation as long as you continue to associate with such people as this Mrs. Nash and her confederate Mr. Finn. Are you certain you know what their relations truly are?” Adelle shuddered. “An Irishman and a freethinker! Who knows what relations they enjoy.”

Icily calm, Darcy stood. “You're quite right, Adelle. It is better that you go.”

Adelle hesitated. “I wish I could have that day over again,” she burst out. “I wish I had not driven you to Twenty-third Street, or indeed had spirited you from your husband's house at all. Perhaps none of this would have happened.”

Darcy felt a wave of fury shake her. Only Adelle could dare to turn her back on her, and then see Darcy's troubles as so trifling that Adelle herself could have prevented them.

“Do you really believe that we were such intimates that you had a hand in events, Adelle? You who would turn the subject if I dared to hint at my unhappiness? Is that what you want to believe? If it gives you some small sense of importance, if it gives you something to gossip about to those ladies you think so much finer than Mrs. Nash, then I hereby give you permission to believe it. It may give you pleasure on one of your many idle afternoons.”

“There's no need to be cruel,” Adelle said, turning toward the door.

“You're quite right, Adelle. There was no need to be cruel. No need at all.” She watched her cousin, whom she'd known all her life, walk out the door. So this was what Columbine had meant when she told her to escape the four hundred. But the four hundred was more than a generalized block of society: it was individuals, it was people she'd grown up with. People she had loved, people who could break her heart.

Adelle brushed by Columbine without a word. The front door closed. Columbine took one look at Darcy and came to her side.

“I'm so sorry,” she said.

“Tell me again of my courage,” Darcy said woodenly.

“I must say I was quite surprised to hear the hammering at the kitchen door and discover, not a tradesman, but a pretty little face glaring at me defiantly,” Columbine said, laughing. She poured a glass of wine for Darcy. They were having no guests for dinner, but they both had changed, Darcy into a lovely gold velvet dress of Columbine's. “I must confess I didn't recognize her for a moment. Then it hit me: Daisy! The maid I met in the kitchen at your house, Darcy.”

“Daisy! She helped us to escape. I'm afraid I didn't know the way out of my own kitchens,” Darcy said with a sheepish laugh.

“Oh, dear, of course not. So Daisy informed me that your husband promptly fired her for giving you directions. Apparently the chef informed Mr. Statton of this. So she said, ‘Do you remember me, Mrs. Nash?' and I said, ‘Of course, Daisy,' and she said rather fiercely, ‘My name is Marguerite, ma'am.'”

“Marguerite? That's pretty.”

“Apparently Mr. Statton, upon hearing her name, said it was a ridiculous one for a maid, and told her she'd be Daisy from that time on.”

“Isn't it just like him,” Darcy mused. “So what did Daisy—uh, Marguerite—want?”

“Help. A job. She's going to be a secretary at the New Women Society. I think she'll make a good one. She hated being a maid.”

“Oh, Columbine.” Darcy sank back against the pillows, almost upsetting her wine. “As long as I live, I'll never be as useful and good as you.”

She'd only been half-serious, but Columbine frowned. “Darcy, I am not terribly useful and good, not all of the time, and not nearly enough. I have a shocking penchant for idleness and luxury, which I still do indulge, I'm afraid to say.”

“Oh, yes, but—”

“Perhaps it's time I told you about my origins,” Columbine mused.

“I wish that you would. You seem to know things about me, about my marriage, without my having to say them.”

Columbine stared at the carpet. “That is because I was in a marriage such as yours. I don't like to think about it, talk about it. Oh, I was once a useless creature with barely a thought in my head. My father arranged a marriage with an ignorant lout with a large fortune, and when I protested, he locked me in my room for weeks. I married the man, and I was desperately unhappy. He beat me occasionally, and I did nothing. I did not tell my father, who surely would have done something if he'd known. Or perhaps not, I've never been able to decide, and I suppose it doesn't matter. In any case, when something happened that showed me that my father was mortal, that he was capable of a wickedness I hadn't dreamed of—that I had obeyed him out of blindness and continued to obey him, and my husband, out of weakness—I
still
did not leave. And I turned my brother out of my life because he dared to tell me the truth.”

Darcy slowly sat erect. “Tavish. You and Tavish are brother and sister.”

Columbine nodded. “Half brother and sister.”

“Why is it a secret?”

“Several reasons. One, because my mother is still alive and wishes it. It is her great humiliation. But also because Tavish does not wish to acknowledge the connection to my father, and I cannot blame him. He told you the story?”

“Yes. How did you find each other again?”

Columbine smiled. “I was on a lecture tour out West. He came to the hall. It was … oh, a bad time in his life. He had seen terrible things, injustices, with the railroad fight against the Grange laws. And then he was involved in the flight of the Cheyenne—are you familiar with that tragedy?”

“No, I'm sorry to say I am not.”

“He told me the story fairly recently—he couldn't speak of it for years. Tavish had several friends among the Cheyenne, and he was called in as a go-between when a group left the southern Indian Territory marked for them and traveled north. They'd been starving due to the sorry record of the Indian Bureau in sending supplies, and they'd been wracked with malaria because of the climate they were unaccustomed to. They were heading for their former hunting grounds. All they asked for was to be allowed to go to the Pine Ridge agency in the Dakota territory. It was a long, sad story, like so many others. The government refused, the Indians would not return south—they would rather die up north than in a strange land, they said—the army threw them in a fort, Camp Robinson, I think it was called, in Nebraska. Tavish was in the area, Lord only knows what he was doing then, and they called him in to ‘reason with' the Indians.”

“Did he have any success?”

Columbine shook her head. “No. Because, of course, he agreed with them. And they were determined. It was cold that winter—anywhere from ten to forty below. The captain ordered that no more firewood be sent to the rooms where the Cheyenne were held. Then no food. And finally, no water. Tavish said they scraped frost from the windows to give their thirsty children.”

Darcy was horrified. “There were children?”

She nodded. “Tavish went to the captain—he would do nothing. He went back and forth between them. And then the captain called a council. Tavish had hopes. He convinced two of the chiefs to go. And they went, and the captain put them in irons and would not let them return to their people. That was the final blow for the Cheyenne, who wanted to die like free people. They broke out of the fort and began their flight through the snow. The army pursued them. Out of one hundred and fifty that broke out, only half survived, and those wounded and crippled. They were sent to the Pine Ridge Agency, where they'd wanted to go all along. Tavish saw it all. He helped collect the bodies of the children. Of the women. Of the men he had known.” Columbine shook her head. “When he first went out West, he had seen many things, things he wouldn't tell me about. But this broke him. When I saw him in the audience, I barely recognized him.”

She'd always known, Darcy thought, that he was a man who had seen too much. There was that hard, flat look in his eyes at times, a look no woman could reach, no man. She opened her mouth to urge Columbine on, but Bell came in. “Mr. Lemuel Grace is here to see you, Mrs. Statton.”

Darcy rose nervously. “Oh, I see. Show him in, Bell.”

“Do you want me to stay?” Columbine asked her.

“No, it's all right, I should see him alone, I suppose.” She smiled unsteadily at Columbine. “I'll be all right.”

Lemuel entered and took Columbine's hand. He bent over it in the continental manner favored by August Belmont. “I am so grateful, Mrs. Nash. I owe you a great debt for your kindness to my niece.”

“I was happy to be of service, Mr. Grace. If you'll excuse me.”

He bowed. “Of course.” As soon as Columbine had left, he came to Darcy. He kissed her on the cheek and took her hand. “How are you, my dear?”

“I'm fine, Uncle.” Darcy wanted to believe in his kind tone, but she was wary after Adelle's visit.

“Please, let us sit down. First, I want to tell you that your father is in Boston but will return tomorrow.”

“I know. I sent a message to him this morning.”

“Good. Secondly, I want you to tell me everything that happened.”

“Adelle was here. She told me that apparently there are rumors questioning both my sanity and my virtue. That I am no longer welcome in many houses in New York. I must admit, I am surprised at such societal dispatch. It's only been a day.”

Lemuel's eyes were kind, and he pressed her hand. “I am on your side, Darcy. I know the manner of man you married.”

“If only I had heeded your warning about him before my marriage,” Darcy said.

He put a finger to her lips. “Don't waste time on ‘if onlys' now, Darcy. It is fruitless and will give you nothing but heartache.”

“You sound like Columbine.”

He grinned. “Ah. That must be good, for I've heard she is very wise. Now. If you'll be so kind as to pour me a glass of wine and start from the beginning.”

Lemuel's face went from shock to horror to gravity. When she finally finished her story, his face was almost expressionless, except for the cold, hard fury in his iron-gray eyes. He didn't say anything for long minutes.

“I blame myself,” he said finally, quietly.

“No, Uncle Lemuel. How could you know?”

“I should have done something. Edward was obviously not prepared to protect you. I know how you feel about your father, Darcy. Your loyalty is admirable, but he can be damned ineffectual, and that was dangerous in this case.”

“Please don't say that. There's something I didn't tell you.”

“Yes?”

“Claude was blackmailing Edward. I can't tell you why, but you should know that my father was trapped. He could do nothing.

Lemuel's face paled. He stood up and paced quickly for several moments. Darcy's hand went to her throat. Lemuel was not young anymore. Was all this too much of a shock to him? She shouldn't have said anything, she should have kept that to herself. It should have been enough to hint to Lemuel about Claude's treatment of her. He didn't need to know that she suspected him of being a criminal as well.