The Golden Cage Read online

  As he was incapable of giving it, it was obvious that Crisa had no say in anything. Every night when she went to bed alone in the huge, over-furnished, over-decorated bedroom she would cry, because she was so homesick and lonely and with a passionate longing that was like a physical pain to be with her father.

  She wrote to him every day and told him what was happening, but she deliberately did not ask him to come to her, feeling that even if he did so, there would be very little he could do,

  She was certain that he would hate the big ugly house and the domineering Vanderhaults, and that would only make things worse than they were already.

  Because she had so much freedom living at home and had been used to making her own decisions, at least about herself, she had to fight back the protests that came to her lips as every moment of the day she was instructed to do this or that.

  She was taken to meet people, to see sights, to shop, whether she wished to do so or not, and she soon realised that Matilda and Anna had disliked their brother’s first two wives and their feelings where she was concerned were very much the same.

  They resented her because she was English, because she was young and because she was very much prettier than either of them or any of the other Vanderhault relations.

  ‘How can I go on living like this?’ Crisa asked herself a million times and found no answer to her question.

  Then, after she had been in New York for eight months, she learned that her father had been killed in a riding accident.

  She could hardly believe it was true and that she would never see him again and she wished despairingly that she had been brave enough to refuse to marry Silas Vanderhault and had stayed with her father to the end.

  It was one of the new horses, which, as he told her in his letters, was giving him so much pleasure, that had thrown him unexpectedly when he was jumping a brick wall and he had fallen awkwardly and broken his neck.

  At the same time she knew from her father’s letters that he had enjoyed being able to spend money on restoring the house and refurnishing many of the rooms. There was also no doubt that he was enjoying himself in London.

  When they heard of her father’s death, the Vanderhaults commiserated with her, but when she said that she wished to return to England, they made it impossible for her to do so.

  They pointed out that she would be too late anyway to attend his funeral and that her place, although she could not communicate with him in any way, was at her husband’s side.

  Everything had been arranged, of course, by Mr. Krissam, with a smooth-running perfection that nobody could find fault with.

  Nurses came in shifts and Mr. Vanderhault was never alone at any time. Doctors visited him daily to go away saying that there was nothing they could do, but obviously charging a huge fee for saying it.

  His rooms, like the rest of the house, were filled with exotic hothouse flowers and Crisa knew when she visited him that there was nothing she could do for his comfort and nothing he could do for her.

  The clothes, and there were a great number of them by this time, which she had bought because she had nothing else to do and the Vanderhault women enjoyed going shopping with her.

  Instead she bought an entirely new wardrobe of black, more because it was expected of her than because her father would have approved.

  “If there is one thing I dislike,” he had often said, “it is seeing women looking like crows. At the same time, dearest, with your white skin and fair hair, black makes you look very theatrical.”

  He had said this to her after her mother’s death and, because it was therefore unnecessary to keep wearing black at home at The Manor, she had after a month discarded her black gowns and worn ordinary clothes.

  As she had spent most of the day in her riding habit, which was an indeterminate grey, it was quiet enough if she was seen by their neighbours for them not to think it peculiar.

  In New York, however, the Vanderhaults insisted on her purchasing black day gowns trimmed with crêpe and black lace dresses for the evening ornamented with jet.

  Because it was easier to agree than disagree, Crisa did what was required and, because she was so desperately unhappy about her father, thought it really of very little consequence how she looked.

  Then a month after her father’s death, Silas died in his sleep.

  He had never regained consciousness and in consequence, as he had been an almost impersonal figure for so long, Crisa found the weeping and mourning amongst his family somewhat inappropriate.

  There was now beneath the dramatic behaviour of the crowds of relatives who came to the house before the funeral an undercurrent of, Crisa thought, anxiety and a quite obvious suspicion of her.

  It took her a little time to understand what she felt perceptively rather than from anything they said.

  Then she realised that they were all apprehensive about Silas’s will.

  It was only after a very elaborate funeral, attended by everyone of any importance in New York, with a cortège of carriages stretching for over half a mile, that Crisa knew that the day of reckoning had to be postponed before they would learn how Silas had distributed his money.

  She was vaguely aware at the back of her mind that he had made a new will when he married her.

  This was confirmed when Matilda told her with a harsh note in her voice that, unlike what was traditional, her brother’s will would not be read after the funeral because they were awaiting the arrival of his Solicitor from England.

  “Why do we have to wait for him?” Crisa asked.

  Matilda had given a laugh that Crisa thought was one of distinct enmity before she replied,

  “As if you did not know!”

  “Know what?”

  “That we have learnt that my brother made certain arrangements for you when he married you in a hurried manner and the documents have to be brought to New York.”

  “I had no idea that you would want them brought here,” Crisa said simply, “but I do know that there were some documents that he signed with Papa and his Solicitor after we had returned from the Church.”

  She saw by the expression on Matilda’s face that she thought, and it was understandable, that Crisa had deliberately married her brother for his money and would have extracted from him everything she possibly could.

  There was some truth in that, Crisa thought miserably, but there was nothing she could do about it, nor could she say honestly, as she would have liked to do, that she had loved her husband for himself.

  She could recall all too easily hearing herself pleading with her father not to have to marry ‘that old man’ and she could remember her feelings of relief on the Liner when he was incapable of making her his wife and giving her, as he had hoped, a son to inherit his vast millions.

  ‘What is the use of the money now that Papa is dead?’ she asked herself unhappily when she was alone in her room.

  She had already received a letter from her father’s Solicitor, Mr. Smithson, telling her that he had left her everything he possessed, including The Manor. Mr. Smithson had also opened an account for her with a considerable sum of money in the Bank her father had always used.

  It was there waiting for her any time she required it.

  ‘If only I could go home,’ she thought fervently.

  She told herself that now Silas was dead there was nothing to stop her, although it was obvious that she could not announce immediately after his death that she intended to leave.

  Then, eight days later, Matilda told her that the Solicitor had arrived and there would be a meeting held in the library, where her husband’s will would be read.

  “Then,” Matilda said sharply, “we shall all know where we stand.”

  It was on the tip of Crisa’s tongue to say that, as far as she was concerned, she did not want his money and all she required was a ticket back to England, where she would be able to look after herself.

  Then, because she had worried over her father’s finances, she remembered that no
w he was dead he would obviously not receive the three thousand pounds a year that Silas had promised him.

  She would, therefore, be wise to keep some money, at any rate, for herself – enough to ensure that The Manor did not again fall into disrepair and that she would never be in debt as her father had to the point where he was, if it was true, threatened with imprisonment.

  One thing she thought the Vanderhaults could certainly keep when she went home was this house with its appalling collection of what Silas had called treasures, overcrowded and jostling against each other until they made her feel as if she had eaten too much pâté de foie gras or had a mental indigestion from contemplating so many masterpieces packed like sardines into the velvet-curtained over-decorated rooms.

  Wearing one of her black gowns, which Silas’s oldest daughter had helped her choose, she went to the meeting in the library, hoping, because she knew how much they would resent it, that Silas had not left her too much.

  She could remember her father saying that he had made a promise of what he would leave her after he was dead, but because then she had been so much concerned with living with him, she had not listened, even though she recognised that he was an old man.

  As she expected, the room was packed with Vanderhault relatives and she thought as she entered that they all eyed her in a hostile manner that made her feel uncomfortable.

  Only Anna’s son, a young man called Dale, who was twenty-two, rose to meet her at the door. Crisa guessed that it was on his mother’s instructions that he took her along the room to where, seated at a table facing the throng of relatives, was Mr. Vanderhault’s Solicitor from London, besides three Partners from the firm who represented him in New York.

  The four men rose as Crisa joined them and Dale took it upon himself to introduce them by name before, having shaken their hands, she sat down in a chair allotted to her beside the Solicitors at the table where they sat.

  She thought it was a strange arrangement, but was not prepared to argue about it.

  She did, however, feel uncomfortable because she was facing all her husband’s relatives and she thought that now she was seated they deliberately looked away from her, as if they did not wish to be accused of being too inquisitively avaricious.

  There was a pencil and a small pad in front of her on which she supposed she was expected to make notes.

  Instead, as the Solicitor started speaking, she began to doodle, conscious that it gave her an excuse for bending her head and not looking at the relatives listening attentively to every word.

  “I much regret,” the Solicitor was saying in his crisp English voice, “that I was unable to be here for the funeral of my most respected client, Mr. Silas P. Vanderhault, and I can only regret his untimely demise. When I last saw him so happy and apparently so well, it was on the occasion of his marriage to Miss Crisa Royden.”

  As he spoke her name, everybody in the room looked at Crisa, who, anticipating that was what they would do, bent her head a little lower, still apparently writing on the pad in front of her.

  “I will now read the last will and testament of Mr. Silas P. Vanderhault,” the English Solicitor went on, “which was signed by him on his Wedding day, July 8th, I895.”

  He then began to read in a dull unemotional voice,

  “I, Silas P. Vanderhault, being of sound mind, do hereby declare that this is my last will and testament – ”

  His voice seemed to recede into the background as Crisa was thinking that while Silas was writing this she had gone upstairs to change from her Wedding gown into her going-away clothes.

  Nanny, who had been waiting for her, had exclaimed as she entered the room,

  “You make a beautiful bride!”

  It was then that the composure that Crisa had managed to assume during the Ceremony and the luncheon that followed at last cracked.

  She gave a little cry and putting her hands to her eyes had wailed,

  “I cannot do it, Nanny – I cannot! I wish I was dead – I would drown myself – anything rather than – go away with h-him!”

  She felt Nanny’s arms go around her as she had said quietly,

  “It’s no use, dearie, as you well know. You’ve saved your father and you can’t let him down now.”

  Her words made Crisa check her tears.

  “He is – horrible, Nanny – and very old,” she had whispered.

  “I know, I know,” Nanny replied. “But because you’ve married him, it means that your father won’t starve to death. He can live here and the people who love and trust you both will not be beggin’ in the streets.”

  Crisa had drawn in a deep breath.

  She knew that everything Nanny had said was true and she must therefore fulfil her part of the bargain, painful though it might be.

  She had looked very pale when she descended the stairs to find that the papers had been signed and the Solicitor, her father and her husband were once again drinking champagne.

  She could still remember the look in Silas Vanderhault’s eyes when he had seen her when she had first come into the room.

  He had raised his glass to her and crowed,

  “My wife! My very beautiful wife, God bless her!”

  He tossed the champagne down his throat as he spoke and Crisa had gone instinctively to her father’s side to slip her hand into his as if asking him to protect her.

  She could feel now the reassurance she had felt when his fingers had tightened over hers.

  Then she heard the Solicitor’s voice, still far away, as if he spoke through a fog,

  “‘ – I leave everything I possess, my houses, my land and my money to my wife, previously Miss Crisa Royden, and on her death to go to her son, if we have one or failing a son, any other child of the union. If there should not be one, then the money is to be divided amongst the charities listed below’.”

  For a moment there was a stunned silence.

  Then the whole room seemed to vibrate with first an angry growl, which gradually increased into furious outbursts of indignation.

  For a moment Crisa could hardly comprehend what she heard or realise the enormity of it all.

  Then, as the Vanderhault relations were shouting at the Solicitors, arguing with each other and demanding to have the will contested, her instinct and pride made her rise to her feet.

  Without speaking to anybody, she left and ran upstairs to her special sitting room, which had been allotted to her by Matilda on her arrival.

  It was there she wrote her letters and received any visitors whom she did not wish to entertain in the large overpowering drawing room.

  She shut herself in and sat down in a chair by the window, trying to think of what she should do and how she could explain to that angry mob downstairs that, as far as she was concerned, they could have the money.

  She made up her mind that she would just keep enough for herself to make sure that she would never again be in the same position of need as she had been when she married Silas P Vanderhault.

  It was then a servant knocked on her door to ask her if she would receive Mr. Metcalfe, the English Solicitor who wished to speak to her.

  She agreed and, when a few minutes later he appeared and the Chief Partner of Silas’s American Solicitors was with him.

  “I am sorry if this has upset you, Mrs. Vanderhault,” Mr. Metcalfe said as he joined her, “and I hope you don’t mind, but I have brought with me Mr. Alfred Dougall, who as you know represents your late husband in New York.”

  The two men sat down on Crisa’s invitation, but before they could speak, she said,

  “I have no wish to possess all that money and I would like you to arrange to hand it over to my husband’s relatives, leaving me just enough for my requirements, which are not large.”

  For a moment there was complete silence.

  Then Mr. Metcalfe said,

  “I am afraid, Mrs. Vanderhault, that is an impossible suggestion, though I can understand your kindness and generosity in making it.”

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p; “Why is it impossible?” Crisa asked.

  “Because,” Mr. Dougall said in a strong accent that was a sharp contrast to the way Mr. Metcalfe spoke, “your husband appointed, quite correctly, a number of Trustees to administer a fund with the object of ensuring that it was not frittered away or, in his own words, ‘given indiscriminately to those who will undoubtedly harass my wife with requests for money’.”

  “He – said that?” Crisa asked.

  “Your husband, Mrs. Vanderhault, was only too aware that you are very much younger than he was and, while he wished to leave you wealthy when he died, he knew the penalties of being rich and I think that he also suspected that his family might be incensed at his decision not to include them in his will.”

  “That is what I don’t understand,” Crisa objected. “Why should he have done such a thing? Why should he not have left them at least half of his fortune?”

  “Because he has already amply provided for them,” Mr. Dougall explained, “and he had thought for some time that they were shamelessly greedy and avaricious and continually begging him to give them more.”

  He smiled before he added,

  “I think you will understand, Mrs. Vanderhault, that since your husband made his money the hard way, coming as he did from a poor family, he believed that people should work for their livelihood instead of living like parasites on somebody cleverer than themselves.”

  “That is true,” Mr. Metcalfe agreed. “Mr. Vanderhault said very much the same thing to me when I was drawing up his will. In case you are worrying about his relatives, Mrs. Vanderhault, I can tell you that even by American standards they are all extremely well off and your husband has found lucrative places, should they wish to take them, in his many enterprises for the husbands of his daughters and for their children as well.”

  Crisa thought that this was reassuring. At the same time she could still hear the angry protests voiced by the Vanderhault relatives when they heard the terms of the will and she was well aware of how much they would resent her in the future.

  “What you have to do, Mrs. Vanderhault,” Mr. Metcalfe said soothingly, “is to leave everything in Mr. Dougall’s hands. He and his Partners spend almost their whole time on your late husband’s affairs and I can assure you that things will carry on very much the same as they did in his lifetime.”