Bandit Queen Read online

  “You’re more beautiful than any flower,” he said, leaning down and taking my hand. “You know that?”

  Struck dumb, I shook my head.

  “You will.” He stared at my mouth with those wild eyes of his, as if he couldn’t get enough of looking. “I’ll keep telling you until you believe it.”

  I wanted to touch him. I wanted him to touch me, so that it would be his hands that burned, not the petals of flowers. All I wanted was to be alone with him.

  Of course, he knew what he was doing, knew his effect on women. I couldn’t know then that, behind the silken words, the promises, the wonder of it all, was a man unsure of himself, a human without respect or caring for others, one to whom women were simply objects to be used and discarded like broken toys. At sixteen I was restless, tired of the rules and wrappings of middle-class society. In short, I was an easy mark.

  Chapter Four

  I was born in Ontario, Canada. My father, James Taylor, was a civil engineer who moved his family to Toledo in 1878 when I was seven, in the hope of finding a better job. This he did, but his work kept him away from home and left my mother to deal with the house hold and the raising of two daughters. My sister, Maude, was quiet and biddable from the first. Uprooted, torn away from the security of my childhood home, I let out my misery like the little savage I was, always running away to the docks and the train station in futile attempts to go back to the past.

  I hated the new house, the Catholic school that Maude and I attended, the rules and regulations. I missed my dog, Duke, whom we’d left behind, detested the scrawny kittens Maude kept bringing home to take his place. Some day, I vowed to myself, I’d be free, grown up, and could go where I wanted, act as I pleased.

  In desperation, my parents sent me to boarding school in Cleveland where they hoped the nuns would achieve what they couldn’t. To an extent, the nuns succeeded. At least in appearance, I was a lady with proper manners and the ability to converse politely. Though I wore these habits lightly, like a cloak I could take off at will, my parents, on the whole, were satisfied. I wasn’t. Nor was I enchanted at the idea of going back once Christmas vacation was over.

  Locked up in the convent, I’d never see Frank again. The very thought was agony. At night, sleepless, I imagined a thousand scenes in which I escaped and was welcomed into his arms with tender passion.

  Oh, he’d been clever! In the week following my accident he came with all my friends to the house. Often by three in the afternoon ten or more of us would be in our parlor, laughing, talking, playing the silly games that were in vogue, and even dancing. Although I was unable to dance, I played the piano and led the singing. Music was my one pleasure. I let out my feelings in song, taking comfort in the thought that no one could recognize them.

  “You’re very good.” Frank stood beside me, turning the pages.

  I blushed and stumbled over a piece I’d perfected several years before.

  “Tell me something,” he went on, perfectly aware that he could not be heard by anyone but me. “What in hell are you doing here? You don’t belong with these children. Look at them!” He gestured at the room, then turned back to me. “Singing away like a bunch of baby birds in a nest and pretending to have fun.”

  “Maybe they are,” I murmured.

  “Ha! I could show you fun. Places like you’ve never dreamed, music like you’ve never heard before. Don’t tell me you enjoy this…this kindergarten.”

  What I enjoyed was having him beside me, showering compliments, telling me that I didn’t belong. That I was destined for better things than parlor games, marriage to a dull husband, and the motherhood that mysteriously seemed to follow.

  “I don’t know how to answer you,” I said.

  He laughed and bent close, so close I could feel his breath. “With the truth,” he whispered. “You don’t have to lie to me. I know you. I knew you the minute I saw you, skating away like the devil was after you.”

  I smiled. “Maybe he was.”

  “And maybe you wanted it,” he countered.

  Once again my fingers tangled over a chord. “Please.”

  “I don’t please. I’m telling you what you ought to know. You’re different. You don’t belong here with these biddies.”

  “And where should I be, Mister Hart?”

  “Waltzing with kings,” came the response. “In a red velvet gown with rubies in your hair and a gardenia between those pretty breasts.”

  I should have been shocked. I should have gotten up then and there and never spoken to him again. But the picture he’d painted was so close to those I’d dreamed that I stayed and kept on playing though my heart beat so fast I was sure he could see it, fluttering under my bodice.

  “I do hate it here,” I muttered. What I meant was that I wished he’d take me away. Anywhere.

  “Of course, you do,” he said. “Lovely Pearl.”

  The song I was playing came to an end, but suddenly he began another, unaccompanied. “Beautiful dreamer…awake unto me…”

  Listening to his sweet tenor voice, seeing how his eyes gleamed when he looked at me, I knew that I loved him with all my heart.

  Chapter Five

  We were packing my trunk for my return to school when my mother suddenly sank down on the bed. Although her face was flushed, she was shivering.

  “What is it?” I was frightened, for, in spite of her limited views on life, I cared for her—more than I was able to admit.

  “I’m coming down with something,” she whispered, her voice a croak.

  I hobbled on my still-weakened ankle to the top of the stairs and called for Annie, the maid. Together we got my mother into bed, then Annie motioned me out into the hall.

  “You best plan on stayin’ home a while,” she told me. “ ’Least till that fever breaks.”

  “Of course,” I said.

  Later, sitting beside my mother’s bed, I realized that her illness was a reprieve and perhaps a blessing in disguise. Always in the past she had gone with me on the train to school, suspecting that I’d somehow disgrace myself or attempt to run away. Now what I had to do was convince her that I was grown up enough to travel alone.

  I thought of freedom, and of Frank. The two words were like wine, making me giddy. When, later that afternoon, the knock came on the door, I was breathless with excitement. Surely, alone with him, something would happen, at the very least that promise of a kiss.

  “Mother’s sick!” I announced as Frank and Lizzie came in.

  As usual, Lizzie was quick. “Would she like some company?”

  “You could see if she needs anything,” I told her. “I still can’t go up and down stairs too well.”

  Frank followed me into the parlor. “What game shall we play now that we’re alone?” he asked, smiling wickedly.

  I looked up at him, trying to gauge his intentions and perceiving they were the same as mine. Still, all that early training, the voices of the nuns, intervened. Never show a man you’re interested! Keep yourself pure. Men don’t marry tarnished goods! I hesitated. Was a kiss enough to tarnish me forever? I decided to find out.

  “Whatever you choose,” I said, and blushed much to my disgust.

  He laughed at that and raised an eyebrow. I thought he looked like a pirate or the hero of one of my romance novels.

  “Will you sing for me?”

  That was the last thing I wanted, singing songs about love instead of doing something about it.

  “If you want.” Purposely I sounded ungracious.

  He laughed again, and I wondered if he was teasing me and, if so, what I should do about it.

  “Ah, Pearl,” he said at last. “Don’t you know what I want? And don’t you think I’ve heard all the old ladies’ advice? And do you think for a minute I give a damn about any of it?”

  I stared at him. “You don’t?”

  “No. And neither should you. They only want to keep you from having fun.”

  Since he was saying exactly what I thought, I said: �
�They treat me like I’m a baby, and I’m not.”

  The glint went out of his eyes and was replaced by a darkness I couldn’t read. “No,” he said. “You’re not. You’re only asleep, like the princess in the fairy tale. Like the poet wrote once.”

  “Poetry,” I said scornfully, dreading the moment when he’d start reciting some saccharine rhyme of the type that I’d been forced to memorize, when all I wanted was to be kissed.

  “Not the kind you’re thinking about.” He put his hands on my shoulders and drew me close, so close I could feel his breath on my face. “ ‘Asleep or waking is it?’ ” he murmured. “ ‘For her neck, kissed over close, wears yet a purple speck wherein the pained blood falters and goes out; soft and stung softly, fairer for a fleck.’ ” And then he bent his head and found my lips.

  I should have been shocked, shamed by the insistence of his tongue against mine, by the way his hands slid down to my hips and stayed there, but instead I was swept by a longing so huge I put my arms around his neck and pressed my body into his.

  How long did it last? Long enough to prove that my dreams were more than the stifled imaginings of a child.

  “For God’s sake!” Frank pulled away. “Not here! Not now!”

  But I had felt him throbbing against me with an insistence equal to my own, and I didn’t give up easily.

  “Where? When?”

  His eyes shone with that wolfish wildness I’d been attracted to from the first and with something that I now realize was recklessness, for Frank was, above all, reckless, living for the moment, uncaring about past or future. “Don’t go back to school. Come away with me. You’ll be dancing in your red dress before the month is out, and that’s a promise, darlin’.”

  It seemed that all the pieces of an impossible puzzle fell into place with his words. I’d pretend to leave for school, but instead I’d run away with Frank Hart.

  “Yes,” I whispered. “Yes, yes, yes!”

  He caught me up again and whispered into my hair. “We’ll go to New Orleans. By boat, if the river’s not iced up. Ah, darlin’, what a time we’ll have!”

  It was happening! Elated, I held onto him, blinking back tears of joy. Little did I know how soon those tears would turn to tears of heartbreak. His next words should have warned me.

  “I’ll meet you at the station. We’ll go from there to Cincinnati. And bring all the money you can get your hands on.”

  “Money!” I exclaimed, shocked. “Why do I need money?”

  He kissed me again—on my eyelids, the tip of my nose. “Because, darlin’, I’m a gambler, and I like to keep a stash.”

  Chapter Six

  Frank Hart and I were married a week later by Captain Robert Lassiter in his quarters on board the steamboat, The Golden Rule. The wedding night had come before the ceremony in the hotel where we registered as Mr. and Mrs. Frank Hart.

  A woman never forgets her awakening to love and passion, even when it turns to ashes, and Frank, with experienced fingers, with lips and tongue and murmured words, initiated me into the pleasures that can exist between a man and a woman.

  Time and time again he brought me to the point where nothing would satisfy but his maleness. Time and time again I screamed his name, not caring if anyone heard. In fact, I was beyond caring about anything other than what I felt.

  “You’re famous, darlin’!” Frank tossed a copy of The Golden Rule’s newspaper onto the bed.

  Mr. Frank Hart and Miss Pearl Taylor were married on board yesterday by Captain Lassiter. Mr. Hart is well known to us. The lovely bride is on her first trip to New Orleans.

  “My mother always said that a woman’s name should appear only when she was born, when she got married, and when she died,” I said, smoothing the paper with one finger.

  “What she knows, you could fit in a thimble.” He climbed in beside me. “Who knows how many times your name’ll be in the paper?”

  “Or for what?” I added, shivering a little.

  “Cold?” His arm tightened around me. “We’ll soon fix that.”

  “A goose on my grave,” I said, laughing, unable to explain the feeling of dread that had come out of nowhere.

  “An old wives’ tale.” He buried his face in my breasts. “I personally prefer young wives’ tails.”

  “Naughty,” I teased.

  “And you love it.”

  “I love you,” I said, and succumbed to bliss.

  But even before our trip was over, I had a glimpse of the dark side of Frank’s character.

  The salon of The Golden Rule had been cleared of tables and chairs for an evening dance. All the first-class passengers were there, and at first I was shy for I had only one gown, and that quite out of place I thought as I watched the women waltzing—their jewels glittering on bare shoulders and bosoms, their gowns of lace and tulle, flowers and ribbons putting me in the shade.

  “May I have the pleasure of this dance, Missus Hart?” Frank bowed in front of me, and, smiling, I gave him my hand.

  I loved dancing, and Frank was an excellent partner. We waltzed until I was hot and breathless.

  “Goodness! I haven’t ever had so much fun,” I said, as he danced me off the floor to a row of chairs against the wall. The older women sat there, fanning themselves and gossiping and keeping a close eye on their young daughters who watched the dancing with a longing I quite understood. Only a few weeks before I had been one of them.

  “I promise you’ll have more fun when we get to New Orleans and you’ve got your red dress,” Frank said.

  He hadn’t forgotten! I wanted to throw my arms around him in gratitude, but the old dowagers were watching, and some restrictions of the past still controlled my actions.

  “I can’t wait!” I said, trying to get my breath, always difficult with corset stays digging into me.

  “Sit down and rest a minute,” Frank said. “There’s a man I want to see. And I’m sure Missus Chambers will be glad of your company.” He smiled at the lady next to me, who had taken a fancy to us earlier and who beamed up at him. All the old ladies loved Frank, knowing nothing of his reputation, only that he was young, handsome, and newly married, and that he flirted with them as if they were belles.

  “Your Pearl is safe with me, Mister Hart,” she said, and patted my hand with her withered old one. “Such a lovely bride.”

  “She is, indeed,” he said, and bowed to her, which caused her to fan herself more violently.

  “And such a lovely husband,” she murmured to me when he’d gone. “I remember when I was first married…”

  She began a long reminiscence I hardly listened to. I was watching the dancers and growing restless. I wanted to join them, to be moving in time to the music—the reels, schottisches, waltzes that I loved. And Frank had been gone a long time.

  My desire must have showed in my face—or in my feet that were keeping time beneath my skirt. And a man who had been standing by the piano met my eyes and understood.

  The next minute he was in front of me. “May I have the pleasure of this dance?”

  What to do? I looked for permission to Mrs. Chambers, who was smiling. “Go, my dear,” she urged. “And if your husband returns, I’ll tell him he shouldn’t have kept you waiting so long.”

  Then I was waltzing again, happily, and my partner was smiling down at me.

  “My name is Julian Plummer,” he said. “And you wanted to dance so badly I decided to rescue you.”

  “I’m Missus Pearl Hart.”

  “Our new bride.”

  I nodded.

  “How is it that you were sitting there alone?” he wanted to know.

  “My husband had some business to attend to.” I answered him firmly for it seemed he was criticizing Frank.

  But all he said was, “I see,” and swept me in a circle.

  “You’re a fine dancer.”

  “No finer than my partner.”

  It was polite conversation, no more, no less, but Frank, returning to the salon, misunderstood and c
ut in on us. He was angry. His eyes glittered, and his hand on my waist was cruel.

  “Must I watch you every second now that I’ve gotten you out of the coop?” he demanded. “Keep you locked up, so you don’t go running after every man you see?”

  Shocked, I stared at him. “It was only one dance,” I said. “And he…he was quite polite. Missus Chambers said…”

  “That old bat.” His fingers tightened around my wrist, and I flinched.

  “You’re hurting me.”

  “So you’ll remember you’re my wife and act like it next time.”

  He shifted his grip to my shoulders and stopped dancing. I’d have bruises in the morning, marks put on me by my husband.

  “Please!” I whispered, afraid to make a scene.

  “Stop whining. I hate women who whine.”

  He was so different from the Frank I thought I knew that I searched his face, trying to find an answer. What I saw frightened me. I saw a stranger with thin lips and unreadable eyes, a man possessed by something I couldn’t name. Around us the dancers danced, the music went on, and no one seemed to notice my terror except for Julian Plummer, who was once again leaning against the piano and watching us, one eyebrow raised at a slant.

  “Let’s go back to the room,” I said.

  Frank shook his head. “No, my dear. We’re going to dance every dance. That’s what you wanted. That’s what you’ll have.”

  He was as good as his word. While I danced, on sore feet and aching ankles, while my stays bit into me like knives and stole my breath, I remembered the story my mother used to read to me—about a girl who couldn’t stop dancing, who died from what had begun as a pleasure. It was a story that she always ended with the admonishment to be moderate and modest in all things. And, as my pleasure turned into pain, I pleaded. “Can we stop? Can we please?” But my husband, the man I adored, kept me dancing until the music ended and all the lights went out.

  In the morning he was apologetic, kissing my bruises as if to make them disappear. “You’re as fragile as a flower,” he whispered. “I couldn’t stand seeing you with him. Forgive me?”