Lawless (30 page)

Mr. Train had stopped in Paris during the last days of the Commune. He was en route from Britain, where he’d done a jail term for espousing Irish independence, to Japan, where he proposed to sample the pleasures of mixed bathing in the nude. He loved traveling, and wherever he went, he promoted the unbelievable idea that, thanks to modern steam transportation, a man could circle the globe in eighty days or even less. So far no one had.

In Paris, Train enthusiastically endorsed the Commune—a position of which the Versailles troops sternly disapproved. When they closed in on Train at his hotel, he fled to the balcony, draped himself in American and French flags presumably obtained for the occasion, and shrieked at the soldiers to fire if they dared. They hadn’t dared, and so Train had returned to the States, where he rushed to the defense of Victoria Claflin Woodhull. Victoria and her sister, Tennessee Claflin, were two of the more flamboyant members of the suffrage movement.
Woodhull & Claflin’s Weekly,
which they edited, spoke out for free love—which Victoria cheerfully admitted practicing. When this caused her to be charged with obscenity, Train took up the cudgels so vigorously, he was arrested for obscenity too.

Lucy Stone wanted no financing from anyone that disreputable. Susan Anthony and Elizabeth Stanton were willing to take the needed money almost anywhere they found it. An argument ensued; the ranks were sundered.

The scuff of a shoe brought Gideon’s head around. From a rear hallway, a boy of about nine had appeared, holding a toy locomotive in swarthy hands. For a moment Gideon experienced the eerie sensation of gazing at Louis Kent reborn.

But there were differences, as he recalled from the previous occasion on which he’d met the boy. Julia’s son was a handsome youngster with dark hair, olive skin and intense dark eyes. His mouth was less petulant than his father’s and his demeanor was vigorous and cheerful rather than arrogant.

Gideon strode forward and extended his hand. “Hello, Carter. You don’t remember me.”

Carter Kent’s gaze lingered on the eye patch. “I believe I should, but—”

“It was Boston, after your father passed away. I’m his second cousin once removed—”

“That’s right! Gideon Kent.”

“Good for you.” They clasped hands.

“Of course I remember now,” Carter said with enthusiasm. “You’re from the Virginia side of the family. You sang all those cavalry songs for me.”

“Exactly.” Gideon smiled. “‘Jine the Cavalry’ and the rest. I’m happy to see you looking so well.”

“Gideon Kent?” said a lilting female voice. He turned and his mouth dropped open, and for a moment he was totally unable to utter a word.

Julia Sedgwick was almost as he remembered her: two or three years older than Gideon, tiny, no more than five feet, but beautifully proportioned with well-rounded hips and small, high breasts. What caused him to be so astonished was her costume. She wore pale green slippers and a robe de chambre of emerald silk with collar and cuffs trimmed in white fur.

As she walked forward to greet him, the robe grew taut over her hip. He saw a hint of a whaleboned corset. The throat of the gown was discreetly tied, and the sleeves reached to her wrist. But he could only think of the costume as “advanced.” Although it was undoubtedly cooler than a regular dress, proper women simply did not greet callers in attire designed for the bedchamber.

Julia’s son probably didn’t realize his mother was being unconventional, Gideon thought. From the glow in Carter’s dark eyes, it was obvious that he’d have worshiped her if she’d been clothed in rags. Still, Gideon could understand why Julia was something of a celebrity among hack drivers at the city’s best hotel—and why one particular driver had classed her with society’s withered rose petals, as prostitutes were called in sensational newspapers which dared mention them at all.

Julia glided up to him, glossy dark hair trailing around her shoulders. He sniffed and got another shock. The stubby cylinder trailing smoke from her left hand was a cheroot!

“Gideon, what a happy surprise!” She shook his hand, man fashion.

“Yes—yes—” Somehow her appearance made him tongue-tied. It didn’t help to remind himself that suffragists often preferred avant-garde fashions such as Mrs. Bloomer’s trouser outfit. It didn’t help at all; he felt like he’d wandered into a bordello.

She noticed his discomfort. “Oh dear! I am sorry if the robe puts you off. Poor Mr. Robbins who handles my account with Cooke and Company almost fainted when he first saw it. But I just despise being uncomfortable around home. And life’s too short to spend it fretting about outdated conventions.” She put her arm around her son and hugged him with obvious affection. “As long as the only man in my life thinks I’m respectable, what do I care about the rest?”

Carter gazed at her fondly. Julia squeezed him once more, then walked back to her guest.

“I’m delighted to see you. I’ve been home four days and won’t be going on another lecture tour for a week. Carter and I get very little company. Have you had dinner?”

“No, but I only planned a brief courtesy call—”

“Nonsense!” Though lightly spoken, the word carried an undertone of insistence. She was accustomed to having her way—with audiences and everyone else, he suspected. “Neither have we. You must join us. Carter—”

“What, Mother?”

“Please run to cook and tell her we’ll be wanting something good in about an hour.”

With a look at the tall, tawny-haired man who was beginning to recover his composure, the boy asked, “Three of us?”

Julia didn’t even bother to glance Gideon’s way. There was nothing overtly haughty about that, just a calm unspoken certainty that no one would deny her wants once she’d expressed them. A strong woman, Gideon thought. A mite too strong, perhaps. Yet he found himself fascinated.

“Yes,” she said, giving Gideon another warm smile. “Three of us.”

J
ULIA TUCKED HER
hand around Gideon’s arm. “Do come along. I’ll finish with Mr. Robbins and then we can have a good chat. I’m curious to know why you’re in Chicago.”

He felt the firm pressure of her breast against his forearm as she swept him into the library. She introduced him to the portly representative of the investment banking house.

“Pleasure, I’m sure,” the Cooke’s man said, looking vaguely disapproving of the tall and rather raffish young man who compressed Robbins’ limp hand in a much stronger one.

“What remains to be done, Mr. Robbins?” Julia asked.

“Very little, madam. I need your initials on the list of issues which we recommend you buy and sell.”

Robbins extended the sheet of paper. Julia released Gideon’s arm and signed quickly. “Don’t forget the additional five hundred thousand in Northern Pacific bonds,” she said.

“Naturally not. I shall telegraph the purchase order before I leave the city.”

“And I’ll see you again next quarter.”

Gideon watched with some astonishment as she took Robbins’ arm as commandingly as she’d taken his. She ushered the bank representative toward the door. Just as he left, the soberly dressed banker looked at Gideon with unconcealed envy. As if he thought the younger man was in for an evening of licentious revelry.

Julia shut the library doors. The windows were open. They faced north, to the mansion where the party was in progress. Julia walked to the cold hearth, discarded the stub of her cheroot and took another from a blue and white porcelain jar on the mantel.

“I have precious little time for financial matters,” she said. “And not much head for them, either. I let Cooke’s handle everything. They’re the most solid banking house in the nation, everyone says.” Her blue eyes sparkled as she struck a match and lifted it to her cigar. “Does it shock you to see a woman smoking?”

“No, not at all,” he lied. “Would you stop if it did?”

She laughed, genuinely amused. “I doubt it. Perhaps I’d honor another woman’s request. But never a man’s.”

He’d never been much good at banter, and he wasn’t now. He remained silent as she dropped the match into the fireplace and sat down amid a roiling cloud of smoke. She pointed to a chair opposite hers.

“Do sit down. Tell me how you’ve been.”

“Well enough, thanks.” He sat, beginning to wonder why he’d come here—and why he was staying. Dealing with Julia’s quick mind and strong will wasn’t easy or especially comfortable.

“And how is your very nice wife?”

“Oh”—unconsciously, his voice grew muted—“busy attending to domestic matters. As usual. We have a second child now.”

“Do you! That’s grand. A boy or another girl?”

“A boy.” Briefly, he described Will’s birth and some of Eleanor’s activities. Julia was smiling in a relaxed, interested way. It put him more at ease. “Margaret does have a terrible fear that Eleanor’s outgoing disposition will drive her into something altogether unsuitable for girls.”

With a tart smile, she said, “Such as marriage?”

Gideon laughed. “I think it’s the theater Margaret fears most.”

“Well, I can understand why your wife might believe the theater isn’t a proper career for a respectable girl. On the other hand, we live in a changing world. Every woman must be given the right to do what she wants, not merely what she’s ordered to do by a parent or a husband—or by custom. I came to that realization a trifle belatedly, I’m afraid. I was dreadfully ignorant when I married Louis. Ignorant and spoiled. I got the first of a series of very bad jolts when I consulted a lawyer about divorcing your late cousin. New York State was and is far more liberal than most. But I discovered that even under New York law, my rights pertaining to property and to custody of Carter were severely limited—and that I only had any rights at all because Susan Anthony and Elizabeth Stanton had worked so hard, and endured so much humiliation, to get amendments passed to the 1848 Woman’s Property Bill. I wonder, Gideon”—a slow puff on the little cigar; then a note of seriousness in her mildly sardonic tone—“I do wonder if you or any man can appreciate the profound shock a woman feels when she is first told that, in most states, marriage renders her a nonperson. With no rights to possession of the children she suffered to bear. No voice in the disposition of her own property which became her husband’s the moment they spoke the marriage vows. I got a great shock when I began to learn those things. In fact, after I left Louis in ’62, what I discovered about the status of women gradually changed my whole existence.”

He nodded. “I’ve always been curious as to how you became a suffragist.”

“To really explain it, I have to admit some very unflattering things about myself. And I have to go back to the days when I was still married to your cousin. At that time I divided people into two groups. Those few—a very few!—whom my wretchedly spoiled upbringing led me to believe were my equals, and all the rest—the great majority—who weren’t. Let me give you an example of which I’m truly ashamed. My attitude toward black people. Do you know that as a child, I hardly even realized they existed, except in a peripheral way? They existed to wait on me. Hold carriage doors. Fetch and carry my wraps. Then, early in the war I began to grow disenchanted with your cousin. I think it started when I realized Louis could philander without drawing criticism. But his wife? Never!”

Gideon withheld an ungentlemanly question about whether she had wanted to philander and with whom.

“Anyway, when my—devotion to dear Louis began to waver, I started doing things I’d never done previously, including paying attention to the outside world. Just a little at first, but even that was enough to make me aware of the tremendous outcry from the abolitionists. Late in 1861 I consulted an attorney about my rights if I should decide to leave Louis. I got absolutely furious when the lawyer told me I had next to none. Then I thought of the abolitionists. Here were hundreds, even thousands of reformers arguing and propagandizing about setting blacks free—and properly so, I’ve come to realize—but who was writing and speaking about liberating women? Well, of course there
were
people doing that—and had been for several decades—but it took me a few more years and a great deal of study and soul searching to decide I wanted to join them.”

She’d started her journey out of bondage by reading a book, she said. “Margaret Fuller’s
Great Law Suit.
Do you know it?” He did, but only by name. “Just what I’d expect from a man! There’s never been a greater statement of the conditions forced upon women in this country. Next I went back to old newspapers. I read some of Fanny Wright’s lectures—that is, the sections male editors would deign to print! Wright and Fuller were the two who spearheaded the movement in the first half of the century. They were both dead by the mid-fifties, but they’d laid the groundwork. By the time I’d gone through the horrible wrangle of a divorce—and those devastating discoveries about women’s property rights—I was leaning toward conversion to the cause. My God, Gideon, do you realize it’s barely been ten years since women were acknowledged to be
equal
with their husbands as guardians of their children? And that’s only in New York. If Louis had cared the first thing about Carter, I’d never have gotten custody of my son. But Louis never really wanted a family. Children were a bother. In any case, it wasn’t until 1866 that I really got over the divorce. It’s another shock to the system—and I trust you know it does stigmatize a woman. In any case, five years ago I took another major step. I went to one of Lucy Stone’s lectures.”

Her blue eyes looked through the smoke, and through Gideon, into the past.

“Such a small, petite lady. But a powerful speaker with that lovely voice of hers. The crowd was typical, I’ve learned. Mostly men. Mostly rowdy. Lucy shamed them into silence when she gazed right into the auditorium—right into their faces, one by one—and talked about the night she was born. Her mother described it when Lucy was growing up. If ever there was a story that damns men as unthinking practitioners of slavery, Lucy’s birth is it. The night she came into the world, her mother was already in labor when she had to fix supper for a haying crew that was working on the family farm. Lucy’s father couldn’t lower himself to cook a meal—that was women’s work. Then, before she could get on with the business of lying down by herself to deliver a baby, Mrs. Stone had to milk eight cows. But Lucy’s mother
accepted
all that. She said it was a woman’s duty to submit! Lucy was horrified. From that moment on, she knew she’d spend her life trying to change such stupid ideas.”