A Golden Cage Read online

  They were interrupted by the entrance of a male chorus of approximately the same number as the girls’, costumed as bedouins, spinning and leaping onto the stage. They were dressed in colorful robes and held scimitars over their heads, and they quickly subdued the girls with the power of their love.

  Deanna peered more closely at the women on stage. “Which one is Amabelle?” she whispered to Laurette.

  “I’m not sure. Maybe . . .” She lifted a finger toward one. “Or . . .” She shook her head. “We’ll have to wait until the play is over to find out.”

  Deanna hoped that “we” meant Laurette was including her in the meeting. She’d never even been close to a real actor or actress. Her mama considered them unprincipled, immoral, and a few other things Deanna didn’t remember.

  Deanna thought they were fascinating. And to think actresses made just as much money as the men.

  The play proceeded with a Professor Papyrus giving the schoolgirls a book that held the answers to the Sphinx’s questions each one must answer in order to marry her bedouin.

  Deanna wished they would make plays of some of the stories from the dime novels she and her maid, Elspeth, read together each night. They were much more exciting than most plays she’d seen. They told of dangerous adventures and female detectives who did a lot more than worry about marrying some bedouin.

  She was startled from her wandering attention by a cymbal crash. Several members of the audience started. The orchestra swelled, and a panel that looked just like stone, rose, exposing a golden room inside the pyramid. Light shone from it like rays of the sun, glinting on the golden walls and pouring out onto the stage. And from this stepped Hathor, the embodiment of the great stone Sphinx, dressed in shining gold.

  The goddess stretched her arms forward, and she seemed to rise from the floor.

  “Hydraulic lift,” Joe whispered.

  Deanna ignored him. Hathor stepped out of the chamber and walked forward almost as if she were standing on air—not the wooden stage. The audience applauded her appreciatively.

  The young girls returned, now dressed all in white for their weddings. Only, these wedding dresses looked more like the drapery one saw on Greek statues. They were made of some filmy see-through material, but were completely respectable since they were draped over a satin underdress.

  One by one they answered the Sphinx’s questions correctly. The action became a little tedious, and by the time the maids had married their bedouins and Professor Papyrus and Hathor had fallen in love, Deanna was thankful the play had been only an hour.

  And then in the final chorus, the Sphinx broke apart, and the first young couple stepped back into the golden space. Before everyone’s eyes, they rose up and out of sight. The second couple did the same and the next, until all had ascended in heavenly wedded bliss, and only the professor and Hathor remained on stage.

  The orchestra swelled and the lights rose to reveal the couples standing above the audience, raining rose petals down on the solitary couple below them.

  “How did they do that?” Deanna asked Joe.

  “Some kind of wheel, probably a modified Ferris wheel. With platforms instead of baskets.”

  “But where did they go and how did they get all the way up there?”

  “I imagine they stepped off the platforms and onto a catwalk that spans the stage. Hmmm.” Joe leaned forward. “Interesting. Yes.”

  The curtain fell to enthusiastic applause, and thoughts turned to dinner being served on the terrazzo. But Joe just sat there looking at the closed curtain.

  Deanna recognized that look. He was getting an idea.

  “Did you enjoy the play?” Mr. Ballard asked her.

  “Immensely. Though there could have been a little more adventure.”

  “A band of bedouins isn’t enough for you?”

  “He’s teasing you, Deanna.” Laurette gathered them up. “Lionel, you and Joseph go on up to supper. I must say hello to Rosalie’s daughter, and then I’ll join you. Deanna, would you like to come with me?”

  Joe started to protest, but Laurette cut him short. “It’s all well and good for you to turn your back on society and go off to do what interests you, but should not Deanna have the same choice?”

  Joe’s mouth tightened.

  Laurette patted his arm. “Don’t sulk. It’s only a handful of actors in Mrs. Grantham’s garden, not suffragettes on a hunger strike.” And with a trill of laughter, she spirited Deanna away.

  “Men,” she said as soon as they’d rounded the back of the theater. “You know I would never do anything to put you in harm’s way. And if any of your mother’s friends objects to your visit backstage, tell them I made you do it.”

  She led the way, humming one of the tunes from the show.

  They passed a tent set up for dining.

  “So society won’t have to interact with the hoi polloi, though, mark my words they’ll be sauntering down to get a close-up view before the night is over.”

  Ahead of them a wide wooden walkway ran between the back wall of the stage and a row of tents. They made their way down the path avoiding the large chunks of pyramid, which was being dismantled and carried into one of the tents. It had looked so real onstage, but now Deanna saw that it was made mostly of thin wood and cardboard.

  There was a costume tent and an equipment tent, and two additional tents on the end.

  “See? Separate dressing areas for males and females. Perfectly respectable.”

  As if to prove her wrong, a commotion burst out ahead of them, and a woman carrying a heavy bundle of gowns out of the women’s changing tent backed out with a final battery of French. As she was turning to go, two beefy workers careered around the corner, carrying a length of footlights between them.

  “Watch yer back.”

  The costumière let out a squeal. At the last second, they managed to slide past one another and detour around Laurette and Deanna so smoothly that if it had appeared onstage, a choreographer would have been employed to ensure there would be no mishap.

  But once disaster had been evaded, the accusations and insults blossomed into a bouquet of harsh words—with sneers from the stagehands and fiery insults delivered in perfect French from the wardrobe lady—catapulting over Deanna’s head.

  Laurette pulled Deanna aside. “Perhaps not totally respectable. But energetic. Yes, real energy. If it could only be reined in and used for . . .”

  Laurette’s words trailed off as she saw a handsome middle-aged man in an exquisite dressing gown striding toward them. He was still wearing full makeup; his hair was parted in the middle and winged back from a long face and patrician nose.

  “Mon Dieu, if it isn’t the lovely Laurette.” He bowed low over her hand, then still holding that hand, he looked up. “And where is the honorable Lionel this evening?”

  “Waiting for his dinner up at the terrazzo.”

  “But of course.” He let go of her hand. “And how did you enjoy our little show?”

  “Well, actually—”

  “Yes, a butchery of a play that wasn’t that meaty to begin with.” He glanced at Deanna and tilted his head.

  “Edwin. May I introduce my friend Deanna Randolph? Deanna, Edwin Stevens, our star of the evening. And manager of the acting troupe.”

  Deanna curtseyed, trying to take in this debonair, refined gentleman who had just spent the last hour playing the ridiculously comic Professor Papyrus. She wondered which one was the real Edwin Stevens.

  “Edwin. I’ve come to say hello to Amabelle Deeks. Is she in the ladies’ tent?”

  Edwin’s eyebrows winged slightly upward, making his expression more humorous than he obviously intended. “She is in the last tent with the other chorus ladies.” He nodded toward the end of the row of tents, moved closer to Laurette, and said so quietly that Deanna almost didn’t hear him, “If she has a friend, t
hat friend should take her away . . . now.” He lifted his head. “Ah, Theo. I was just coming to talk to you. If you will pardon me, ladies. Delightful to see you again.” He tipped his chin and strode away.

  Deanna peered at Laurette in the uneven lighting of the backstage area, but she couldn’t gauge her expression. She wondered how she knew Edwin Stevens, and if Mr. Ballard knew or minded.

  “Yes, Deanna?”

  Deanna blushed at what she had been wondering, and answered with the other thing on her mind. “Do you think he doesn’t like your friend’s daughter? Why would he say you should take her away?”

  Laurette sighed. “You know these actors. Always onstage. I’m sure he was just being dramatic.”

  Deanna nodded but noticed that Laurette walked a little more quickly toward the last tent.

  “Ladies?” Laurette called when they stood at the opening of the women’s dressing room tent.

  “Who is it?”

  “A friend of Amabelle’s.”

  There was silence, then a young woman opened the flap and peered out. She was blonde and pretty even with the dark kohl encircling her eyes and the rouged cheeks and her red-painted lips.

  She pursed her lips into a pretty bow. “Mrs. Ballard. I suppose my mother sent you to beg me to come back to the fold.”

  “Oh, mainly just to see how you’re doing,” Laurette said lightly, and swept past her into the tent. Amabelle looked sourly at Deanna and said, “I suppose you might as well come in, too.”

  Deanna entered but stood just inside the door, taking it all in. It was a tent, but there was a wooden floor and a long dressing table where several of the chorus sat taking off their makeup in front of a mirror outlined in lights.

  Amabelle sat down at an empty chair and began to apply cold cream with a cotton pad. “Thank you for your trouble, but I’m very happy doing what I’m doing.”

  “Certainly,” Laurette said. “I shall tell your mother so. Are you staying long in Newport?”

  Amabelle looked in the mirror and spoke to Laurette’s reflection. “The company will stay until tomorrow night’s ferry, a morning off, and we’ll arrive in New York in time to open again on Tuesday.”

  “And you’re staying where?”

  Amabelle eyed her suspiciously. “At a local boardinghouse.”

  Her expression said she was used to finer accommodations, and Deanna wondered where and how she lived when in the city. Then something on the dressing table caught her eye. A magazine.

  Deanna stepped closer. “Is that Beadle’s Weekly?”

  Amabelle pulled the cotton away from her face and looked from Deanna to the magazine and back to Deanna.

  “The latest issue. I brought it from the city. Do you read Beadle’s?” she asked. “You look like someone who would consider it too trashy.” She pursed her lips. “Not edifying for a young lady.”

  “You sound like my mother.”

  “Mine, too,” Amabelle said. “And she lets you read them?”

  “I hide them under my bed. I read them with my maid every night, but I haven’t gotten the new issue yet.”

  “It’s delicious,” Amabelle said, warming slightly. “I’d loan it to you but I haven’t finished it yet.”

  “Oh, I’ll have to get a copy from the bookshop.”

  “And your mama—”

  “Is in Switzerland with my sister.”

  “Lucky you. And you’re staying with Mrs. Ballard?”

  Deanna nodded. “Well, really with Gran Gwen, Gwendolyn Manon, Mrs. Ballard’s mother. She stays in Newport for the full season. Laurette travels quite a bit.”

  “Ah. And what about her handsome son, what is his name?’

  “Joe—seph.”

  “He’s staying there also?”

  Deanna wasn’t sure she understood the look in Amabelle’s eye.

  “No. He lives . . . elsewhere.”

  Deanna glanced at Laurette, but she had wandered over to the other girls and was deep in conversation, probably talking to them about birth control or women’s suffrage.

  A man leaned into the tent opening. “Well, come on then. Chow’s on.” Behind him, several other male voices urged the girls to hurry up to dinner.

  “We won’t keep you,” Laurette said as she returned to them. “But if you need anything or decide you might want to stay for a night and have your own bath, you’re welcome at Bonheur. Just ask anyone the directions.”

  Amabelle nodded. “Thank you, but . . .”

  “Amabelle, hurry up,” called one of the girls as they bustled out of the tent.

  “Yes, do,” said the young man who held the flap open for them, then stepped inside. He was very handsome, with longish blond hair and sparkling eyes, and was dressed in the plaid leisure suit that actors seemed to be fond of. Deanna blushed as their eyes met. She had admired his calves in his Egyptian wedding kilt.

  “Excuse me,” Amabelle said.

  Laurette nodded and guided Deanna toward the door.

  “Nice to have met you,” Deanna said over her shoulder, just in time to see the young man move closer to Amabelle.

  “You, too,” Amabelle called. “You’ll have to button me up, Charlie. Everyone seems to have left me.” Then she giggled and the tent flap closed behind them.

  Chapter

  2

  Deanna didn’t break the silence as she and Laurette made their way to the terrace for dinner. It was obvious that Joe’s mother was deep in thought, and Deanna wondered if she was worried about the vivacious Amabelle.

  It had been a shock to see the backstage area. The magic and exoticism of the play seemed like a different world. The pyramid had become mere pieces of wood. The giant Sphinx head papier-mâché and plaster. Even the costumes so luminous and airy under the lights were mere piles of fabric in the costumer’s arms.

  With adventure novels, you merely came to the end. There was no seeing what happened next. The characters just disappeared, and you could imagine them off doing more daring deeds while you waited for the next installment. You didn’t see them wiping cold cream on their faces and acting like everyone else.

  Deanna didn’t think she’d ever look at theater the same way again.

  “The theater may be one of the few venues open to women, where they are as respected and well paid as men,” Laurette said out of the silence. “Though not necessarily a place for someone brought up in the lap of luxury and as silly as Amabelle Deeks.”

  “Do you mean she is in danger of becoming a fallen woman?” Deanna ventured.

  Laurette snapped her head around to look at her. “I think Amabelle has always been a somewhat flighty, shallow girl. Actors and actresses live by a different code than other people . . . well, maybe not all that different, but they live their lives fairly openly. I’m not sure Amabelle understands that difference.”

  She took Deanna’s arm in hers. “But let’s leave Amabelle to herself and to her Charlie. We have offered our hospitality. Our obligation is fulfilled. Now let us find the others. I’m quite famished.”

  As they reached the brick piazza, they were joined by Joe and his father.

  Lionel offered his arm to his wife. “Gwen is sitting with Quentin Asher. I told her we would join them.” They strode off together.

  After a moment of hesitation, Joe offered Deanna his arm.

  She looked at it.

  “Dee.”

  “Are you sure you want to be seen escorting me across the floor?”

  “Haven’t we gotten past that stupid engagement thing yet? I escorted you to the Wetmore ball the other night.”

  “And Olivia Merrick and that awful Ivy Bennett commented about it nonstop at the Casino the next day.”

  “Well, I can’t leave you standing here. Grandmère will have my head.”

  Deanna pursed her lips and primly took his ar
m and allowed him to escort her to the table. “But if I hear anything about it at the next get-together, I’m going to be really mad.”

  “Well, be mad at them, not me.”

  Deanna cut him a sideways glance, but didn’t comment. She wasn’t angry with Joe, she just didn’t understand what had happened.

  This wasn’t something she’d taken into consideration when she’d begged her father to let her stay with Gran Gwen while her mother took her sister to Switzerland.

  Her father and Joe’s had been the ones who made plans for Joe and Deanna to marry, but Joe had balked and left society to live in the working-class Fifth Ward.

  Which was fine by her; he’d rarely attended social events, was even looked down on by some families. She hadn’t worried about seeing him again. Now suddenly he seemed to be everywhere. Probably from some misplaced sense of gallantry. Or maybe because Lionel made him.

  Either way, it was more humiliating than flattering. She was perfectly capable of taking care of herself. And there was always some young man willing to escort her.

  Gwen was already seated next to Quentin Asher, whose name was often linked to Gran Gwen’s, though surely any kind of possible involvement was in the past. They both must have been in their sixties, maybe even seventy.

  He was still a very handsome man. Tall and straight, and not bent over at all. And he strode, not shuffled. He had thick white hair, sun-crinkled skin, and Deanna could imagine him at an earlier age, gracing the cover of one of her adventure stories.

  He stood and offered Deanna a seat between himself and Herbert Stanhope, a friend of Joe’s and someone of Deanna’s own set.

  “I thought you might like someone closer to your own age to entertain you,” Mr. Asher said as she sat. “Though I’m more than willing to give young Stanhope a run for his money.”

  Deanna smiled. “I’m sure Herbert couldn’t begin to keep up with you.”

  Mr. Asher broke into a charming smile. “I shall certainly try to stay apace.”

  Across the table, Joe’s parents sat down together, breaking the usual form of sitting at separate tables. Lionel had been adamant. “I see my wife so infrequently that I insist on keeping her to myself when we are together.”