City of Ash Read online

  Then … then there came Marat.

  Jean-Claude Marat. It was a Thursday in January when he first entered my parlor with Ambrose Rivers. I knew who Marat was only because Ambrose had told me the famous French sculptor would be coming. But for that, I never would have recognized him; he was young to have garnered such a reputation for genius. I’d expected a bearded man in middle age. Vivacious, yes; brilliant, of course, but tested. The man who came to the salon that night was not that, and it was not just the fact that he could be no older than my own age of twenty-eight. Though snow fell in great drifts outside my door, his dark blond hair was gold streaked, as if he’d been in the sun, and he was, frankly, beautiful. There wasn’t a woman there who didn’t notice him. His smile took me aback—of all the men I’d met, I’d only been so affected by a personality one other time, when I’d first seen Nathan.

  Marat reminded me of everything I’d once had, everything I’d lost. He made me realize what a prisoner I’d become, how unhappy I was. Nathan ignored me—even worse, he was contemptuous of everything I believed in. Marat had that combination of intellect and poetry and passion that had once been my husband, and he was taken with me. I had missed that kind of admiration. I began to feel alive again. He made me see that there were other men, men who accepted me as I was, who wanted me as I was.

  Jean-Claude Marat was in truth everything that Nathan had pretended to be. When my father asked me whom he should commission to sculpt a bust of himself for the newly built Harriet Stratford Wing of Mercy Hospital—my father’s endowment in my late mother’s name—I didn’t hesitate to give him Claude’s name.

  I went to every sitting. I sat quietly and watched as Claude sketched and chatted amiably with Papa. Soon I was bending over his shoulder as he sculpted Papa’s head in clay, his fingers working so quickly I could barely grasp the movements, forming a nose where before there had been only a lump; a bold, quick thumb drag, and suddenly there was an eyebrow. When the sittings were done, Papa would have luncheon served, and often he would be too busy to stay, and so Claude and I lingered over duck or lobster salad and wine and talked.

  I was starved for the passion Nathan had kindled and withheld. When Claude said to me one day, half drunk, at my salon, “I would like to sculpt you, my sweet Ginny,” I saw the opportunity I hadn’t realized I’d been waiting for.

  A scandal. The one thing Nathan would never tolerate.

  I knew it would work. I wanted to end my marriage. Divorce was not a choice; it was nearly impossible to attain, and Nathan would surely fight it. My father would be devastated, my grandmother horrified. Most important, I had no cause to offer any judge. Unhappiness was not an acceptable reason. Women in many marriages were unhappy; should the world set them all free?

  Marriage had taken from me what control I had over my own life. My only choice now was to try to control Nathan, and Marat presented me with the one thing I knew my husband could never ignore. To pose for a statue meant for a very public display—the exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago—would be so scandalous Nathan would never forgive it. He would leave me. I would be free. My father would understand in time, as would the rest of society. I had done worse things, after all, and been forgiven. Someday I would tell my father the truth. He might even admire my cunning, particularly when I told him how cruel Nathan could be.

  So I agreed to pose. I met Claude each afternoon in his rooms, sitting for hours while he sketched me. It was to be Andromeda on the rocks awaiting the sea serpent, just at the moment when she saw Perseus for the first time, and I knew it would be brilliant. I must pose from life for it, of course, but Claude and I were friends and nothing more, though I did not miss the way his eyes burned when he looked at me. I even encouraged it, stretching and preening upon the fur rug he’d spread on the floor for me to lie upon. I liked the attention; it felt forever since I’d had it. He called me ma muse américaine, and I liked that name. I liked it very much.

  The room was scented with absinthe and the metallic earthy tang of clay and the perfume of our bodies in sun and close quarters. He moved from sketching to clay, his fingers covered in slurry, white where it dried at his knuckles, smeared upon his cheek. Clay gave way to marble. I began to take form beneath his hands, a reverse Galatea, Pygmalion turning me from flesh into stone. I began to feel a growing excitement. Soon. Soon it would be displayed, and I would be free.

  I knew there was gossip, of course, but I ignored it. Claude and I must spend a great deal of time together, and people noticed. It was part of my plan. I waited for Nathan to notice too, to say something. He did not. And I was so absorbed by my own intentions that I was blind to all else.

  I was naive, and so I misjudged everything.

  The sculpture Andromeda Chained to the Rocks was taken to the Art Institute of Chicago. The opening night, Nathan and I arrived fashionably late, and I was nervous with excitement and anticipation.

  The electric lights blared, from somewhere came the sound of a small orchestra, talk, laughter. The first of my set that I came upon was Mrs. Steven Bentham—I smiled at her, and her expression froze; she turned away from me so violently I was startled. I looked at Nathan, whose own expression had gone grim. “Shall we see what you’ve done this time?”

  I had never been cut like this before. Not one after another, cut after cut. My closest friend, Anna Lowe, widened her eyes in horror when she saw me and moved swiftly away. I had not expected this, and I faltered, uncertain. Nathan put his hand over mine, his fingers squeezing cruelly tight as he led me steadily into the main gallery. There was a crowd gathered at the center, a scandalized silence around one sculpture. They looked up as we approached. I felt their disapproval and anger as I took in Claude’s masterpiece. Scaled to life, every sinew and muscle delineated, every curve and curl, in the expression desire and longing. I had not expected it to look so much like me, and yet it was me made divine, manacles about the wrists, staked out in chains, the arch of a back, breasts thrust, hair curling about a nipple, a raised knee, the splash of waves upon the rocks. It was a beautiful thing—but no one could see how beautiful it was.

  Nathan simmered in a way I recognized too well. My father was there, but as I went to him, he made a gesture, and suddenly Nathan was hurrying me out of the gallery. The whispers vibrated in the air. Nathan bundled me into the carriage and stared out the window at the falling snow. I was unsettled. I began to feel sick. This had not turned out as I’d hoped. I’d meant only to alienate Nathan, not my friends. But they had turned from me, and Nathan was still here—why was he still here? Why did he say nothing? I couldn’t bear his silence. I forced myself to say, “Nathan—”

  He slammed his fist against the carriage wall so violently I jumped and shrank back. When we pulled to a stop before my father’s house, my childhood home, I was grateful. My father would understand. He would soothe society and help me with Nathan. This could still end as I’d intended.

  We had just hurried up the snow-slicked walk when there came the sound of my father’s carriage. He and my grandmother got out, and then they were in the foyer beside us, and we gave up our cloaks and scarves and hats in silence. My grandmother’s face was drawn and white—she’d aged ten years in an hour. But it was the disappointment on Papa’s face that startled me. It was unexpected and impossible. I realized suddenly what they believed, what everyone must believe. I’d thought only of the scandal of posing, not of what an unclothed sculpture said about me and Claude. They thought there’d been an affair.

  “Oh no,” I began. “You don’t understand—”

  My father pointed to the parlor. “Wait in there, Geneva, while your husband and I discuss what is to be done.” The forbidding cast of his face made me swallow my objection; with the habit of obedience and adoration, I went into the darkened parlor while the three of them went down the hall to Papa’s study.

  When they finally sent for me, what felt like hours later, I was stiff with dread. The study was too bright after the parlor and the dim h
allway, electric light illuminating everything too well: my grandmother’s pink scalp beneath her thinning white hair, the fleshiness beginning to show on my husband’s face, the brown age spots at my father’s temples. My grandmother sat in a burgundy-striped chair by the fire, erect and regal. Nathan sat on the matching settee, elbows on his knees, hands clasped between them. Handsome Nathan, his uninjured fingers flexing and unflexing while the other hand was wrapped in a bandage. He looked up at me with reddened eyes—no anger now, but a calculation that made me even more anxious.

  My father stood, half leaning against the expanse of his polished rosewood desk. His eyes, so often laughing, were not laughing now but inestimably sad, as if he’d borne a mortal hurt. “Sit down, Geneva,” he said tiredly.

  I perched myself on the very edge of the nearest chair and folded my hands in my lap. “It’s not what you think,” I said quickly. “I would never … Claude and I are friends and nothing more.”

  “Oh, please, Geneva,” my grandmother said sharply. “Surely you don’t think us fools.”

  “But it’s true. I only posed for him—” Her look made me swallow the rest. I felt guilty in the wake of it, and ashamed, and that made me angry. There had been no affair; there was no reason to feel guilty. “You must believe me.”

  “You’ve put us in an untenable position.” How stern my grandmother sounded.

  I felt the urge to comfort her, to comfort them all. “Yes, of course, but surely it can be mended? Once everyone knows the truth—”

  “Robert Montgomery withdrew his offer to partner with Stratford Mining tonight,” Papa broke in. “He said he does not wish his company to be associated with debauchery.”

  “Debauchery?” Suddenly I was afraid. If there was one thing my father valued above me, it was Stratford Mining. “You cannot be serious.”

  “This is no trifling matter, Geneva. Your behavior has affected my business. You’ve embarrassed your husband and your family. Your lack of discretion—”

  “I tell you there was no indiscretion. And you have a room full of nudes just like that one. You told me it was art. It is art.”

  “For God’s sake, Geneva, you’ve exposed yourself needlessly to ridicule and shame, and not just yourself, but your husband. How is Nathan to feel now that the whole world knows you were Marat’s … mistress?”

  My eyes filled with tears. I could not look at Nathan or my father. “I was not his mistress,” I insisted. “It was not an affair. We are friends only.”

  Papa said, “I need someone to oversee the acquisition of a coal mine in Seattle. Nathan has suggested he do so, and that the two of you go there. Which is very generous of him, considering. Therefore the two of you will be leaving for Washington Territory in the morning.”

  It took effort to understand him. I managed, “Washington Territory? I … forgive me, but I don’t understand.”

  “Marat has left the city,” Nathan said tonelessly. “He at least realizes how this looks.”

  Papa said, “I’ve told you this before: you’re a married woman, and it’s time you act like a wife. Your husband is good enough to forgive you and to sacrifice his own happiness on your behalf. You will go to Seattle with him until such time as things are forgotten and you can return.”

  Grandmother said, “It won’t be forever, you know. Something else will take the place of this scandal, and memories fade with time. I should say only two or three years.”

  This was not what I’d expected, not what I’d wanted at all. Why wasn’t Nathan threatening to leave me? “Two or three years? You must be joking. Why should I go? I’ve done nothing wrong!”

  Nathan sighed. “I’d hoped it wouldn’t come to this, but I’ve spoken to Dr. Robertson at Bloomfield Estates—”

  “The asylum?”

  “A place to rest,” he corrected, and there was that calculation again that frightened me. I remembered his mother. Of course he would know all about asylums. “We’ve all seen how unbalanced you’ve been recently. The doctor agrees … he is quite certain you will do very well at Bloomfield.”

  I could not believe the words. “Nathan, no. You know I’m not the least bit mad. I only posed. I meant to … it wasn’t what you think. It wasn’t what anyone thinks.”

  Nathan looked away. Desperately I looked to my father.

  “You’ve suffered a derangement of the senses, Ginny,” Papa said gently. “It’s affected us all. No one would say we were wrong to send you there.”

  Grandmother said, “You are not yourself, my dear.”

  “We can have you installed at Bloomfield within the hour,” Papa said, and this time it was his expression that shamed and frightened me. “Or will you choose Seattle?”

  They were silent. Watching me. Waiting.

  There was no choice, and I knew it. I had been naive and foolish. How had I not seen that the collusion of society and marriage and family would keep me firmly in my place?

  The answer came to me quickly. Because I’d been too self-assured. Because I’d thought I was invincible.

  I looked down at the floor, the convoluted pattern in the carpet, twisting vines and leaves, and said, “Yes. I’ll go to Seattle with Nathan.”

  My father let out his breath. “Very well.”

  “Perhaps you could look at it as an opportunity to make a new start,” Grandmother suggested.

  I glanced at Nathan, and he met my gaze, and I thought of all the ways I’d loved him. A new start. Yes, perhaps that was what we both needed. To be away from all these things that had come between us. To somehow find each other again.

  Papa said, “In Seattle, you will do as Nathan directs, Geneva. I rely on him, as you know, and he has suffered much for you. I expect you to behave dutifully and honorably. I want them to view the Stratford name with respect. This is the only time I will suffer a business setback on your account. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Papa. I understand.”

  He said in a voice sadder than I’d ever heard, “I have never before been ashamed of you.”

  The next morning, my father directed our servants to pack up our things, to close up the house. By three that afternoon, Nathan and I were on our way to Seattle, Washington Territory, sitting together and silently on a train that whisked us away from Chicago and everything I knew.

  Chapter Two

  Beatrice

  SEATTLE, WASHINGTON TERRITORY, 1888

  There are three rules to remember in theater. Three rules you learn when you’re a nobody in the corps de ballet wearing flesh-colored stockings and not much else. Rule one: Don’t be late; Rule two: Know your lines; and Rule three: Never trust a manager or another actor.

  Sometimes it doesn’t matter how well you know something. Sometimes you can fool yourself into thinking the rules don’t apply to you—at least not then, not at that moment.

  I met Stella Bernardi on my one night off from performing at the Regal Theater. She was in Seattle as part of a touring company booked at the Palace, and I was only there because my company needed an actress to play the traveling lady line, and Lucius Greene, our manager, had said, “Go on over to Langford’s, my dear, and see if you can’t persuade some ambitious young lovely to join us.”

  I noticed Stella right away. She was playing a trouser part that night, but she did it with style, and Lucius had always liked style. So when the show was over, I went backstage and waited outside the dressing room door until she came out. She was pretty, which always helped, and blond. She would be a good foil for me, who was her opposite in coloring, and match our current leading lady, Arabella Smith, and I was certain Lucius would think so too. When I proposed that she come to the Regal to audition, she was smart enough to see that it was an upward move.

  Lucius liked her. After she won the line, he pulled me aside and stroked the waxed ends of his large brown mustache and said, “Well done, sweet Bea. I shall remember this,” and I was ambitious enough myself to be glad. There’s no better currency than a favor owed by a manager—if you cou
ld trust him to remember it, and with Lucius, you usually could.

  I’d been at the Regal three years. I’d come to Seattle with the rest of a touring company from New York, expecting to debut Rip van Winkle at a theater whose name I can’t remember now because the advance man had got into a fight with the theater manager, and we ended up stranded with no money and nowhere to play and no way to get back either. Two of us had got on with Lucius’s company at the Regal, myself and Brody Townshend, who was sixteen then and a pretty boy with almost no ambition. The only reason he was still onstage at all was that he’d discovered women liked an actor, and fucking was all he cared about. God knew I’d never met a man who didn’t practically live for sex, and Brody was the worst of them when it came to that. Some nights there was a crowd of girls waiting for him to come out the backstage door, and once or twice I’d seen him leave with two or three at a time. He was nineteen now, and he’d boasted to me that he’d probably had more than two hundred women, and I didn’t doubt it.

  The Regal Theater was one of the most popular houses in Seattle, although it wasn’t luxurious. There were ten boxes for society, and the parquet had been fitted with decent seats that had wire cages beneath to store your hat, but it was small, with maybe only four hundred seats, and it was built of green lumber, so it weathered badly. The narrow stairs to the gallery were crooked and pitched, and half the time someone up there was swooning from the heat or the gas fumes that settled up near the ceiling because there was no ventilation—which you might think would be a blessing in the winter, but it was only cold and damp and wet then, and no pleasanter. In fact, there was no time of the year when the Regal was comfortable, but people loved it just the same, as much because of its location—sited exactly between the St. Charles Hotel and the Occidental, so we got not just society but everyone else as well—as because of the bill of fare.