by Marlowe Benn
Alice Clintock hadn’t been in the basement apartment since Naomi’s service on Sunday, Glennis said, and she was dying to hear what she had to say. Julia gladly agreed to visit the Union with her. They met at a stationer’s shop on lower Fifth Avenue a few hours later. Glennis said she’d met Naomi at that very shop last winter because it was near Mrs. Sanger’s clinical research bureau, where Naomi had seen to it that Dr. Bocker fitted Glennis with a “thing.” Apparently the business required much winking and dissembling because she wasn’t married. It was all Glennis could bring herself to say on the subject.
Mourning did not become her. Glennis was dressed in a gray wool suit with fussy bands of black satin across the cuffs and pockets. Its ashy color drained the warmth from her complexion, and wispy hair escaped from all the wrong places beneath a too-large black straw toque. At Julia’s glance she prodded it into place and grumbled of Nolda’s taste in hats.
“Miss Clintock will meet us there,” Glennis said as they walked the short distance to the Union offices. “She wouldn’t say a word on the telephone.”
Their pace slowed as they neared the address. Each step took them farther from the Manhattan either of them knew. Julia had grown accustomed to the infernal noise of the city—motorcars and taxicabs tangling at every intersection, engines and laborers hammering together ever-taller buildings, voices bargaining and complaining in a dozen languages, children squalling, mothers bawling. Here, however, was another layer of commotion: a fog of smells, some enticing, some revolting. One moment they passed a bakery’s cardamom and anise and the next a grocer’s spoiled refuse dripping from boxes on the pavement. Glennis clung to Julia’s elbow, chattering nervously.
They nearly walked past the Union, a small storefront between a kosher butcher’s stall and a barbershop reeking of peppermint and alcohol. The Union’s front window had been boarded over for some time, judging from the layers of white paint obscuring vandals’ ire, likely as vulgar as the large candle-bashers scrawled in fresh paint across the lost messages below it. Julia pushed open the door and saw three women bent over papers spread across a table.
Alice Clintock greeted them while her companions hung back. It took Julia a moment to understand why they had retreated, and she cursed her thoughtlessness. Her frock—though one of last year’s, a simple day dress of aqua wool jersey with a narrow front placard of mother of pearl buttons—was finer than anything these women could ever hope to own. The sheer French silk on her legs would cost them a week’s wages at least; their dark cotton stockings sagged thread thin at the ankles. Julia pulled off her gloves when introduced and reached to find each woman’s hand, hiding in the folds of drab serge skirts. Glennis fumbled to do the same.
“It’s an awful honor, Miss Rankin,” said the worker named Fern Gillespie, a short, round woman with pocked skin and appalling teeth, caramel colored and fissured. “Naomi was a saint to us, a saint. We adored her like our very own sister, and now here you are. Her real sister, I mean. It’s just too horrible she’s gone.”
Both women’s unpowdered, unplucked faces shone with grief. Clearly they loved Naomi. Glennis swallowed. After Winterjay’s remarks and the family’s open disdain for Naomi, talk of saintliness was a jarring shift. “I miss her too,” Glennis said, a beat late.
“And her with her greatest glory still ahead,” Fern said. “It’s just tragic, that’s what it is.”
Glennis looked lost. She seemed to still be fathoming saint.
“Maybe you didn’t know, miss. She didn’t tell many. Soon as this election’s over, she was going to announce herself a candidate for US senator. Wadsworth is up for reelection in ’26, and we’d love nothing more than to give him the boot he deserves. He’s no friend to women, that’s for sure. Sooner or later there’ll be a woman elected to the Senate, and no one deserved that glorious place in history more than our Naomi.”
Glennis gave no immediate reaction to this news—things took time to sink in—but Julia couldn’t check her surprise. Perhaps a woman senator was inevitable but surely a long, long way in the future. Agitating for the vote took boldness enough, but campaigning for office, and at such an ambitious level, would require herculean confidence and courage.
“You know how little patience she had for might-have-beens, Fern,” said Miss Clintock, or simply Alice, as she insisted Glennis and Julia address her. “Naomi would rather we focus on the important victories she did achieve.”
Fern scowled at this mild rebuke. Beatha, the more bashful colleague, asked if they’d like a cup of tea. Both women retreated to a sideboard at the back of the room, where a kettle simmered on a gas ring. Over the rustle of tea making, Alice thanked Glennis for coming. “Many ladies of your set won’t give us the time of day,” she said. “Fern’s right. Naomi was a saint here. She never took on airs. She always did what she could to make things better, for all of us.”
Glennis glanced at Julia. “I didn’t know Naomi very well. I’m sorry about that, especially”—her voice trailed—“now.”
“I regret I didn’t know her at all,” Julia said. It was true. She was more intrigued than ever by the woman who could somehow provoke both her family’s picture of a tiresome shrew and this portrait of exemplary kindness. “I understand Naomi was a suffragist, of course, but what did she do, exactly, to be so admired?”
If Alice was surprised or offended at this ignorance, she did not show it. Her plain face, younger than Julia had first judged, sparked with pride. “I hope history will make that better known, Miss Kydd. Naomi was a great champion of women’s suffrage, as you say. Since that glorious victory, she’s worked with Miss Paul to promote the new amendment for equal rights of every kind.” She pointed to three framed photographs, slightly askew and filmed with dust, on the wall. “We call those our trophies. They remind us of Naomi’s finest hours.”
Glennis touched one of the pictures. “That’s her.”
Julia stepped close for a better look. Beneath Glennis’s finger stood a woman little different from the dozen or so others lined along a pavement, all wearing sashes and flanking a tall banner that read Mr. President How Much Longer Must Women Wait For Liberty. A wintry White House loomed in the background. Someone had written in spidery white ink Alice Paul and NWP picket, 1917. It was the sort of lifeless photograph that made newspapers so dull. Julia pulled the acronym out of her memory: National Woman’s Party, the organization planning to form some alliance with the Union. Naomi was to meet their representatives to discuss it the night of her death.
Julia studied the photograph, but it was too grainy to gain much sense of Naomi. She was tall. Even beneath a heavy skirt and lumpy coat trimmed with fur, probably squirrel, she looked thin. She stood with chin up, mouth firm, eyes fixed on the camera, unsmiling. Beneath a cumbersome wide-brimmed hat, her fair features marked her as a Rankin. She was fortunate to have shared Vivian’s more regular features rather than Glennis’s and Chester’s sparse hair and wide-spaced eyes and teeth. “She seems a strong, determined sort of person,” Julia remarked.
“Oh, miss, come see this one.” Glancing at Alice for permission, Fern led Julia into a windowless office at the back. Glennis and the others followed. Against one wall stood a mammoth wooden desk, its legs dented from decades of heavy use. On it lay a large sheet of paper labeled Sept across the top and hand ruled into an appointment calendar filled with scribbled notes, numbers, and other jottings. It was the desk of someone hard at work, who’d perhaps stepped away to find a file or greet a visitor. One expected a cooling cup of tea or half-smoked cigarette nearby.
“I haven’t had the heart to touch her desk,” Alice said. She trailed a finger through the week’s dust.
“Here.” Fern handed Julia a photograph. It was smaller and cleaner than the others, more candid than the “trophies” in the outer room.
“That’s the two of them, Naomi and Miss Paul. It was taken some time after the strike,” Alice said.
“Force fed,” Fern said. “Knobsticked.”
“Naomi?” Glennis’s voice crawled with dread, either from fear of the answer or shame at the widening scope of her ignorance.
Alice nodded. “That fall in Washington they were arrested for obstructing traffic. False charges, of course. They were beaten and humiliated—oh, in dreadful ways.” She folded her arms. “So they refused to eat. When they were too weak to resist, those jailers forced tubes through their noses and down their throats. They poured raw eggs into them each day.”
“She said that tube was worse than anything,” Fern said. “But she weren’t about to knuckle under. Wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. It killed a lady in England!”
Alice frowned at her colleague’s enthusiasm. “They were tortured for three weeks, and every day our support grew stronger.”
“Naomi was tortured?” Glennis dragged the brutal word into her vocabulary, a word as alien there as dungeons or martyrs or knobsticks.
“They endured and they won. They showed the nation we would not be bullied or silenced. Wilson announced he would support us after all, and Congress finally voted our way.”
Julia gazed at the photo. Two women in white cotton shirtwaists, sleeves rolled to the elbows, and long dark skirts stood close together, arms around each other’s waists. Neither wore a hat. A few loose strands of hair blew across Naomi’s face. Both were caught in unguarded smiles, bright with some pleasure or amusement shared with the photographer. Across Naomi’s skirt was inscribed To Naomi, sister, friend. The signature was large and clear. There was no date, but the clothing was several years out of fashion.
All her life Julia had heard the jokes about suffragists. At smart parties everywhere they were easy targets of ribald mockery. They were called failed women, or thwarted men, or even some unnatural third sex. But to Julia’s eye the two in this photograph had a new and enviable kind of feminine beauty. One dark and the other fair, they glowed with confidence and strength. Passion shone in Naomi’s eyes, reminding Julia of a scandal-be-damned Sargent portrait of a disgraced countess or adored courtesan. Naomi’s defiant gaze would be impossible to forget once you had seen it. Julia regretted that she’d never get the chance.
Alice added, “You probably know the rest.”
Glennis nodded vaguely. Julia doubted her friend knew and was certain she herself did not, but neither was inclined to reveal how blind she’d been to the whole business of women’s suffrage.
Alice took the photograph and replaced it carefully on the desk. “You must be wondering why I invited you here. We ought not keep you waiting.” After gesturing for Glennis and Julia to pull nearby chairs up to the desk, she instructed Beatha and Fern to go whitewash the front window boards. “We’re a favorite target for the local ruffians,” she said, “though fortunately it’s only a nuisance. We’re accustomed to the language by now, and the girls are dab hands with a paintbrush.”
She closed the door and dragged over a third chair to sit beside Glennis. When Alice bent to unlock the desk’s bottom drawer, Julia saw a faint scar through the corner of her lower lip and another behind her left ear, disappearing under the coil of her braids.
Alice pulled out a brown envelope. “It may be foolish, but I’m worried about these. They started coming about six months ago.”
She upended the envelope, and several pieces of folded paper tumbled out. A few had been crumpled and resmoothed. Glennis unfolded one foolscap sheet. A short message read, Watch your wicked tongue, Naomi Rankin. Your in for worse trouble if your not careful. Not surprisingly, there was no signature.
Typed on what looked to be identical sheets of cheap paper, each made a similar blustery threat. The notes’ very ordinariness made them seem more sinister, as if the trouble they promised were all in a day’s work. Julia wondered at the mind that would harbor such animosity and then coolly go to the effort to announce it. Pure malice? On a second reading she noticed that none of the notes were specific about either Naomi’s offense or her punishment. Perhaps the author intended simply to frighten her, not actually cause harm. More bark than bite?
Alice pressed both index fingers against her lips as she watched Glennis read. Her legs were tightly crossed, right foot bouncing in the air.
“She must have been terrified,” Glennis said shakily.
Alice made a face. “Naomi? She laughed and threw them in the rubbish. I pulled them out and saved them, though, because I was afraid for her. I wanted to show them to someone in case something happened.” Alice leaned closer and dropped her voice. “Maybe something did happen.”
Julia shot her a sharp glance. Was Alice suggesting the notes had driven Naomi to take her own life? That Naomi knew the author and secretly feared whatever “trouble” they promised? This would mean Naomi’s death had been deliberately provoked, orchestrated to drive her to administer her own fatal overdose. If so, the author was both cunning and exceptionally cruel. Julia hoped Glennis wouldn’t think of any of this.
Glennis bit her lip. “What do you mean?”
Alice swallowed. “She’s dead, isn’t she?”
CHAPTER 10
“Oh!” Glennis’s comprehension came as a small explosion. “You think she was murdered?”
The word shimmered, released like a malevolent genie. Julia couldn’t suppress a sigh. She’d barely tamped back the sensational notion the other day in Glennis’s bedroom; now it would hover and beckon each time they spoke about Naomi’s fate. She wished she could have warned Alice of Glennis’s eager suspicions, steered her from that needless touch of drama.
“What?” Alice reared back. “Oh no. She took those tablets herself. I only mean she didn’t take them by accident. These notes show the kind of hatred she faced every day, enough to crush even a spirit as strong as Naomi’s. It’s a marvel she carried on as long as she did.”
“Did you show them to the police?” Julia asked.
Alice shook her head. “Naomi would never allow it. The police are no help anyway. They blame us for any trouble. They call us hysteric crones or say it’s our own fault for not behaving sensibly.”
“And we can’t talk to them now,” Glennis said, “or Chester would boil me alive.”
“There’s more too,” Alice said, “though it’s only a feeling, a bad feeling.”
Glennis cringed. “What?”
“Earlier that day we were here, alone, when a telephone call came in. Naomi answered it here in the office—I was in the outer room, repairing our placards, which get terribly battered, you know—and right away she got up and closed the door. I couldn’t make out the words, though her tone was agitated. A few minutes later she came out with her hat on, saying she’d meet me at home later. And before I could say half a word, she was gone, with a sharp scold that her private business didn’t concern me. That alone was mighty odd. But then she could sometimes be rude like that when things weighed on her mind. I forgave her and didn’t think of it again until . . . after.”
“You think the call was related to these threats?” Julia said.
“I don’t know. She was upset. Like she was bracing for something bad.”
“What time was this?”
“Morning. Before ten.” Alice turned toward Glennis. “The more I think about those last hours, the more I believe she was planning it. And I was too thick to see the signs.”
She thumped her palm on the desk, steadied a rolling pencil. “When I came home, she was curled up on the sofa, saying she didn’t feel right. She asked me to bring her those tablets and a glass of water, and like a fool I did. But she took only two—I’m certain it was just two—then got up to dress and repin her hair. I assumed it meant she was feeling better and would go to the meeting. But at the last moment she lay down again and insisted I go instead. By then there was no time to argue, and I had to leave right away, or I’d be late.
“If I had any inkling that Naomi intended to take her own life, wild horses could not have dragged me away. You must believe that, Miss Rankin. I’d have borne any burden for her, any trouble, if she’d let me. I loved her, you know. Loved her dearly.”
Glennis fumbled needlessly in her bag at this talk of love for Naomi. Fern and now Alice, more ardently. Julia had never heard Glennis use the word, and Winterjay’s homily had mentioned nothing more than the astringent love of Christian duty. Glennis must have wondered, as Julia did, if Naomi and Alice had shared what Americans called a Boston marriage, though Julia doubted Glennis would have the composure, much less the words, to speak of it. Most likely it was of no consequence, except to make Alice’s grief more poignant.
“You say she was ill later that day?” Julia said. “In what way, exactly?”
“Indigestion. Stomach pain something fierce. She looked feverish too, though she dismissed it as bad plums.”
“Why didn’t you call for a doctor?”
“She insisted it was nothing. Doctors cost money, you see.”
“But surely—” Glennis began. To one who’d never had a fleeting care about money, forgoing the comforts of an attentive doctor made no sense.
“Did you describe these symptoms to Dr. Perry?” Julia said quickly.
“Maybe I should have, but there seemed no point. It was plain to see what she’d done. That she’d been indisposed didn’t seem relevant anymore. Naomi’s trouble was in her heart and mind, not her stomach. That’s what killed her, Miss Kydd, the constant worry. That’s what drove her to do this terrible thing.”