The Golden Cage Read online

  “And there is no doubt,” Mr. Dougall came in, “that your fortune will multiply, year by year.”

  ‘I must go home,’ Crisa thought when they had left her. ‘I have no wish to stay here being resented by them all and at home I should find plenty to do at The Manor. Moreover I can now afford to start new schemes on the estate for those who need work and perhaps, because I can afford to entertain, I can make new friends.’

  It was a cheering thought, which sent her to bed that night feeling happier.

  *

  It took her nearly a week to realise that it was just an illusion, just a dream that could not come true.

  She had expected to come downstairs the day after the reading of the will to face black looks and barbed innuendoes if not open rudeness, because the Vanderhaults resented her taking away from them that which they firmly believed was theirs.

  To her astonishment, however, she was greeted with smiles and compliments and a friendliness that had not been offered her since her arrival in America.

  The house seemed to be filled day after day with not only the Vanderhaults she had met from the start, but with distant cousins and other relatives of every age who had appeared at the funeral and apparently had not returned to where they had come from.

  It took Crisa a little time to understand that her wealth made her powerful and important and, to those who were lucky, a cornucopia of all the good things they wanted in life.

  There was always someone to ask her to patronise their favourite charities, their friendly Church or to tell her whose birthday would occur in two days’ time.

  They also told her who should have a present on their Silver Wedding day and whose child, having won a prize at school, should be rewarded with a sum of money that would enable everybody to celebrate such an auspicious occasion.

  The requests were endless and, while at first Crisa did exactly what was asked of her, she finally suggested that Mr. Dougall should work out what was an appropriate sum for her to subscribe to the various charities, to finance new enterprises and to provide her husband’s grandsons with motor cars, which were the latest fad amongst the youth of New York.

  “I know that as soon as you are out of mourning you will give a ball for Sadie, who will be seventeen next year,” her husband’s oldest daughter said. “We must make it the most exciting and most exotic ball that New York has ever seen!”

  She went into a long description of what she envisaged, but the two words ‘next year’ had stuck in Crisa’s mind. She was thinking that she could not bear to stay on or live in this enormous house where she had no authority and where she was overwhelmed by the Vanderhaults.

  That night while she lay in bed she began to think it out seriously and realised that she had been too miserable after her father’s death and too bemused after her husband’s to understand fully what had happened to her.

  Now she was aware that she was a prisoner – a prisoner in a gilded cage, whose bars kept her captive and from which it seemed impossible for her to escape.

  She had said to Matilda,

  “I think I would like to go back to England to visit my father’s grave.”

  The older woman had given a cry of horror.

  “How can you think of such a thing when there is so much to do here? As soon as you are not in such deep mourning, there are a thousand and one duties that as dear Silas’s widow you must undertake.”

  She had then reeled off a list of the committees on which Crisa was expected to sit, a longer list of charities of which she must be a patron and a formidable number of family occasions in which she would be expected to play a leading part.

  Crisa sat stunned. Not only at how much was expected of her, but that Matilda had it all worked out in her mind, making it clear that it would be impossible for her to avoid doing any of the things that were asked of her.

  ‘I have to escape,’ she told herself firmly.

  But she knew, although it seemed ridiculous, that she would be obstructed in attempting to do so to the point where they would even use physical force to keep her in New York or in what she thought of as Vanderhault territory.

  There was a cousin whose estate was in California and whom it had been suggested that she should visit accompanied, of course, by at least half-a-dozen Vanderhaults.

  There was a ranch in Texas that they were sure would interest her and they even suggested a trip to the Rocky Mountains, which would amuse the younger members of the family.

  They could travel in Silas’s private train and over his railroad, ending up in a house that stood on acres of extremely valuable land that he owned in San Francisco.

  It seemed to Crisa that the whole of her life was laid out in front of her like a map and she would be ready for the grave before she had any chance of getting away.

  If it was not Matilda and Anna running her life, then it would be Silas’s daughters and their husbands, who were, Crisa thought, also living on Silas’s money.

  They had a glint in their eye when they looked at her that told her they would do everything possible in their power to prevent her from escaping from the fold.

  She felt a sense of panic sweep over her. It made her want to scream, to run away from the house and never come back. She even contemplated for one crazy moment going to the Police and asking for their protection.

  Then she told herself that she had to be intelligent about the situation and in some clever way, once she returned to England, she could arrange things as she pleased and ask her father’s friends to help her.

  Strangely enough, although she had lived quietly in the country, she had been well educated. Her mother had insisted on that and Crisa had a good brain.

  What was more she had been given a Greek name because, as her mother had said,

  “It was the Greeks who taught the civilised world to think and that is something we must never lose.”

  When Crisa had been very little, she had been told why she had been given such an odd name.

  “When I went to Greece with your father,” her mother had said, “we went by ship to Crisa, where Apollo first sprang ashore disguised as a star at high noon.”

  Her mother had paused for a moment.

  Then she said,

  “Your father was telling me the story when we were in Crisa and were looking up at the Shining Cliffs of Delphi. As he did so, I felt my baby, which was you, darling, move inside me. I knew then that you would be a very special person endowed with the spirit of Greece and I would call you Crisa.”

  Crisa could hear her mother’s voice, so soft and musical, telling her this and, as she had grown older, her mother had talked about Greece to her and the characteristics of the Ancient Greeks.

  There was especially the light that not only enriched Greece itself, but which illuminated those who were blessed with the Divine Light of the Gods.

  “It is that light,” her mother had said, “which you must look for and follow all your life and which I pray, my darling, you will find with the man you love and whom you will marry. Remember it is always there to help us and, if we are in difficulties or in danger, we can always call on it and it never fails.”

  Standing now in the window of her sitting room, Crisa felt as if her mother was talking to her and bringing her the Divine Light to show her what she should do and how she should escape.

  She realised that if she was to return to England the first thing she would need would be her passport.

  Then she remembered that it was attached to her husband’s. That meant she would have to retrieve it from Mr. Krissam and she supposed that he would feel bound to inform her whole family that she was intending to leave.

  She therefore ruminated for a long time, then, ringing the bell, she asked a servant to tell Mr. Krissam that she wished to speak to him.

  He came from his office immediately and, as he joined her, Crisa wondered for a moment if she should dare to be honest with him and tell him what she wished to do.

  Then, as she looked at hi
s thin lips, his sharp features and his dark shrewd eyes, she told herself that it would be to his advantage, as well as that of the Vanderhaults, to keep her in New York and under his personal surveillance.

  She therefore forced a smile to her lips as she said,

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Krissam. It seems a long time since we have had a talk together.”

  “I hope you are better, Mrs. Vanderhault,” Mr. Krissam replied. “I know what a terrible strain these past few weeks must have been.”

  “They have indeed,” Crisa said, “and now I need your help.”

  “You know I am only too willing to do anything I can for you,” Mr. Krissam replied.

  “I don’t think you will find it very difficult,” Crisa replied. “I have had a letter from an English friend working here as a secretary to an author. She has been travelling about and it appears that she has inadvertently mislaid her English passport, which, although she has reported it to the proper authorities, has not turned up.”

  Crisa paused before she added,

  “I feel sure, Mr. Krissam, that to help my friend you would be able to obtain a new passport for her from the British Embassy. She is worried that she will not have time herself when her employer returns to New York and it would be very awkward if she could not travel with him, as he expects her to, on the same Liner.”

  “Of course, Mrs. Vanderhault,” Mr. Krissam said. “I quite understand and I am certain that there will be no difficulty, none at all. Through Mr. Vanderhault I have always been on friendly terms with the British Ambassador and I have spoken many times to him on his behalf.”

  “That is splendid!” Crisa exclaimed. “It would be very kind of you to arrange it and I will write to my friend to tell her not to worry.”

  Mr. Krissam brought a small notepad from his pocket and asked her,

  “Now, if I could just have a few particulars, Mrs. Vanderhault, which, of course, will be required. What is your friend’s name?”

  Crisa drew in her breath.

  “Her name,” she said, “is Miss Christina Wayne.”

  “And her age?”

  Again there was a little hesitation before Crisa replied,

  “She is twenty-three.”

  “And you say Miss Wayne is a secretary?”

  “That is right.”

  Mr. Krissam thought for a moment and then he said,

  “As you say, she is travelling about. I think, with your permission, I could give this house as her address in New York and, of course, they may need an address in England.”

  “The Vicarage, Little Royden, Huntingdonshire,” Crisa told him.

  Mr. Krissam put his notepad back into his pocket and after a few pleasantries left Crisa alone.

  She heard the door shut behind him and, drawing in a deep breath, told herself that she had taken the first step – her first step to freedom.

  The question was would she be clever enough to get away without being stopped?

  chapter three

  Realising that it would take Mr. Krissam a few days to obtain the passport for ‘Miss Wayne’, Crisa concentrated on thinking out what else she must do.

  Everywhere she went, somebody went with her.

  It was usually one of Silas’s daughters who suggested shopping because it was something she herself enjoyed more than anything else.

  But even if Crisa wished to go for a walk, it was expected that she should be accompanied if not by one of the Vanderhaults who were always willing to go with her, then by her lady’s maid.

  She had disliked her lady’s maid as soon as she had been engaged by Matilda to look after her.

  She was a gaunt, middle-aged woman who Crisa was quite certain was in the pay of the Vanderhaults, so that everything she did or said was reported back to Matilda or Anna.

  She could hardly prove this, but once or twice things that she had said or done were known to Matilda before she herself had mentioned them to her and she was sure that the informant was her maid Abigail.

  ‘If only Nanny was with me,’ she thought over and over again, knowing that things would be very much easier if she was there.

  However, she was determined that she would go home somehow and to be with Nanny would be like being a child again with no more problems or difficulties to solve.

  One of the most important things, she realised, was to have money and clothes.

  The money was going to be extremely difficult, because everything she bought was put on account and, when the bills came in, she did not see them and they were paid either by Mr. Krissam or the clerks in his office.

  She therefore said to Mr. Krissam when talking about something else,

  “Oh, by the way, I would like two hundred dollars to go shopping with tomorrow.”

  Mr. Krissam, as she expected, looked surprised.

  “You have only to put anything you purchase on account, Mrs. Vanderhault,” he replied.

  “I know that,” Crisa answered, “but I have some presents I wish to buy and I don’t want the person who receives them to know exactly how much they cost.”

  She thought that Mr. Krissam seemed about to argue with her, but in fact he came back ten minutes later with the two hundred dollars she had asked for in large notes.

  She put them away in her purse and the next day she went shopping with Anna, who was eager to see the latest gowns, which she had been told had just arrived from Paris.

  While they were in the store, Crisa bought an expensive present of a blotter with gold corners, a gold pen to match it and an inkwell, which made them all part of a set.

  Although the store offered to send them, Crisa took them back with her in the carriage, and, when she returned to the house, she gave the present to Mr. Krissam with a little speech she had prepared thanking him for all his kindness to her ever since she had met him in England.

  He was overcome by her generosity and, for the first time since she had known him, he looked quite human as he stammered his thanks and, she thought, went a little pink in the face.

  After that she asked every day for dollars to go shopping with, buying small presents for Matilda and Anna and the smaller of Silas’s grandchildren.

  Everybody was delighted with anything she gave them and she made sure that whatever she bought, some money was left over, which she hid away in a locked drawer of her desk, and always carried the key with her.

  She realised that she would need a great deal more than she could collect in such a small way, but at least it was a beginning, though she would have to find some means by which she could obtain a very much larger sum, enough to pay for her fare home to England.

  The next thing she needed was clothes.

  If she was to slip away as she intended, without anybody realising that she had left, she would have to have some clothes to wear aboard ship.

  It would, of course, be impossible for her to leave the house with a trunk without there being innumerable questions as to where she was going and at least one, if not more, of the Vanderhaults coming with her.

  While she was considering how she could obtain new clothes or else smuggle some of her own out without Abigail being aware of it, a new complication arose.

  This was that she suddenly knew perceptively that the Vanderhaults had chosen a husband for her.

  It seemed incredible when Silas had been dead for such a short time, but she was quite certain that the question of her enormous fortune was continually in their minds.

  They were, in fact, terrified in case being so young, she might fall in love with someone and wish to marry him.

  She became aware of this fear when, at a small and intimate dinner party given in her honour by one of the Vanderhaults’ closest friends, who also had a house on Fifth Avenue, she met an Englishman who was staying with her host and hostess.

  He was not a young man, but it was like meeting an old friend to find somebody who looked a little like her father, spoke the same language as she did, and with whom she could reminisce about Huntingdonshire,
which he knew well.

  She was so happy to meet him and they talked so animatedly that it was only when she had to return home that she realised from the expression on Matilda’s face that something was amiss.

  Then on the following day there appeared to be more Vanderhaults in the house than usual.

  It was quite obvious to Crisa that whatever was worrying them concerned herself, for whenever she went to a room and found them chatting in low voices with their heads together, the moment she appeared they lapsed into silence and then started up a conversation on quite trivial matters in such an artificial manner that it was obvious that they were concealing something.

  When two days later Thomas G. Bamburger arrived, she was quick-witted enough to understand that he had been chosen by the Vanderhaults as her future husband.

  He was a distant cousin and his mother had been a Vanderhault.

  He had been employed by Silas on his railroad and according to Matilda, who extolled his talents endlessly, he had already made a name for himself and was likely to end up as General Manager of the whole line.

  He was thirty-four years of age but looked older and Crisa knew as soon as she saw him that he was the type of American she did not like and with whom she had little in common.

  He talked a great deal, but he also sometimes lapsed into uncomfortable silences when he sat staring at her with cold eyes that told her without words that he was calculating exactly how much she was worth and how advantageous it would be for him to become her husband.

  She did not ask herself how she knew all this so quickly without anything being said.

  But ever since she had prayed to her mother for help to escape, she had felt the Light of Greece under which she had been born was helping and guiding her.

  She was certain that it was far too soon for Thomas Bamburger to say anything to her that might indicate his intentions.

  At the same time, because he was always in the house and Matilda had arranged things so that they sat next to each other at every meal, Crisa took good care never to be alone with him.