Mistress Suffragette

by Diana Forbes

  Mistress Suffragette by Diana Forbes

  Copyright © 2017 Vicky Oliver

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotation embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-946409-06-5(Paperback)

  ISBN:978-1-946409-07-2(e-book)

  BISAC Subject Headings:

  FIC037000 FICTION / Political

  BIO006000 BIOGRAPHY /Historical

  FIC027170 FICTION / Romance / Historical / Victorian

  New York Gilded Age Historical Fiction

  Cover Illustration by Christine Horner

  Address all correspondence to:

  Penmore Press LLC

  920 N Javelina Pl

  Tucson AZ 85748

  Corsets have filled as many graves as whisky.

  Mary Livermore, Suffragist Leader, 1892 “

  Dedication

  Thanks to my husband, an ardent reader and steadfast champion of this project from page one.

  Acknowledgments

  Seeing a debut novel through to publication takes a village. The mayor of my village is Susan Breen, without whose mentorship and gentle guidance this story would have languished. I would also like to thank my village’s aldermen, even if they are women: Sonia Pilcer and Thais Miller. Every village needs a Town Crier to bring forth the message: thank you, John Willig.

  The residents of my village who read this novel during its many revisions include: Bruce Bowman, Adeli Brito, Elizabeth Fausalino, Lizzie Fetterman, Fran Green, Mary Hoffman, Alexis Jacobs, David Kozatch, Sheri Lane, Vicky Mendal, Ginny Poleman, David Rothman, Norm Scott, Phyllis Smith, Kara Westerman, plus the hundreds of writers I met in over a dozen writing classes at NYU, the West Side Y, and the Gotham Writing Program.

  Some writers helped me defend my work against marauders who would raze it to the ground. Others provided pep talks and companionship as I vowed to cut the page length to a publishable form. Thank you, Elizabeth Robertson Laytin.

  Some friends who are not writers endured numerous updates on the progress of this novel with a smile and a Jack Daniels Whiskey Sour. Thank you, Pam Arya and Bob Lupone. Once the architecture of this novel was put in place, Michael James, Christine Paige, and Midori Snyder of Penmore Press helped me shape the story and publicize it.

  Chapter 1

  Country Rules

  Tuesday, May 30, 1893, Newport, Rhode Island

  Imagine being sent to a party with a gun pointed at your head. You might look bewitching; you might wear a proper pale blue gown, with its gathered skirt and off-the-shoulder neckline. You might sport the perfect pair of ivory silk ballroom slippers. Your fiery hair might be dressed in coils and feminine curls.

  But inside, underneath the pleats and the padding, knowing about your father’s possible ruin, I bet you’d feel frightened.

  You might believe this to be your last party. You might sense your short life flash before your eyes—the leisurely days of riding horses till your thighs ached, the long nights of preparing French verb conjugations till your fingers cramped up, or helping the Ladies Auxiliary return stray cats to their owners.

  Try as you might to shut your eyes to the hard facts, to the sudden unmooring of your destiny, you’d know that when friends asked how you were faring, you wouldn’t say much, hoping you might get by with some idle pleasantries or banalities about the weather.

  So you can imagine how it was for me as our carriage crunched up the driveway to the first party of the season: the Memorial Day Ball.

  Lamplighters hurried to spark the gas jets atop cast iron poles. The sky turned from bright pink to burnt orange.

  We looked resplendent in spite of everything that had happened.

  Our dressmaker had outfitted me in three different dresses before we’d decided on the pale blue one. My mother shone in a pearlescent evening gown that lit every curve. Svelte Father sported a waistcoat and tails. Even my younger sister had dressed appropriately for once. Tonight she resembled a prim schoolmistress, having donned a pink chiffon gown with a jewel neckline that exposed only her collarbone. Her Marie-Antoinette curls were brushed up and away from her face, lending Lydia an angelic innocence that hid her true personality.

  Our carriage joined a long line of broughams and coaches filled with party guests. Snatches of laughter rippled through the air. I glanced out the window at the imposing Chateau-sur-Mer. While its granite exterior gave it the severe look of an army fortress, the inside of the mansion featured a small but exquisite ballroom.

  Ever since the Breakers Estate had burned down in a horrific fire the year before, balls in Newport had been rare indeed. Rumors swirled. And as the weather warmed, gossips placed wagers. Two months, claimed one dowager. Others guessed six months. But the general consensus was longer. Due to Cornelius Vanderbilt’s insistence on making the replacement building fireproof, the new mansion on the Breakers’s property wouldn’t be ready for two more years.

  To those of us reaching our season, two years felt like a life sentence.

  As our carriage completed the last stretch of the pea-gravel driveway, we gaped at exotic trees. They looked like upside-down, green hoop skirts waving on top of spindly torsos.

  Mother touched her pomaded chignon. “I’m sure the Wetmores have their reasons for choosing such unusual-looking trees,” she murmured between tight lips.

  “It’s to keep out the riffraff,” Lydia chimed, blonde curls a-bounce. “Riffraff like Penelope.”

  “Now, Lydia,” Mother chided, petting my nemesis’s small back, “your sister doesn’t have many balls to look forward to, dear. You must leave her alone so she can concentrate on meeting a nice, eligible man.”

  And there it was—the invisible gun in my mother’s hand. Please find someone fast, Penelope. We are so disappointed in you. Other women your age seem to manage it just fine.

  But there was a flaw in my mother’s logic: I had never met anyone at these balls whom I didn’t already know. If these potential suitors hadn’t deemed me worthy of courtship before, why would they now?

  Eligible men preferred women with dowries, did they not?

  We arrived at the porte-cochère. My father descended from the carriage, then extended his hand to help Mother first and then me. Lydia scrambled out of the cabin without any assistance, an etiquette gaffe the size of Europe. But for some reason the footmen who whisked away our carriage barely blinked.

  As we entered the imposing façade, more footmen took our wraps, and I stole a quick look at myself in the mirror. Long, white, buttoned evening gloves hid fingernails bitten down to the quick. A beaded purse dangled from my wrist like an empty dance card. I knew that I was supposed to toss back my red coils, smile, and behave as if there was nothing more significant in my life than my being at this party. Instead, the festivities unfurled around me, and I felt like I was wearing an expressionless mask, though this was not the Masquerade Ball.

  Still, if I could just survive this one night with my head held high then I imagined that the following morning would go a little smoother, and the day after, perhaps even a little better. And maybe a week hence I could look back and say, well, at least I survived. I might not be able to feign happiness, but I could work through my humiliation one day at a time.

  Everything was handled with a sublime, syncopated orchestration. A portly, rabbit-toothed footman sporting a monocle with a diamond chain announced us: “Mr. and Mrs. Phillip P. Stanton of Newport, Rhode Island.”

  My parents approached the party hosts. Practically overnight, my father’s spry gait had turned into that of an old man’s. My mother, tenacious and plump (it was a matter of conjecture whether she was ple
asantly so), marched forward to greet the Wetmores, her flair for keeping up appearances holding up to perfection.

  George Peabody Wetmore and his wife, Edith, stood under the chandelier in the anteroom. Father, looking rail-thin in a waistcoat that had just been taken in days earlier, bowed to George and then took Edith’s outstretched hand. Mother dropped her lowest curtsey.

  The footman peered at me through his jeweled eyepiece and continued: “Miss Penelope L. Stanton of Newport, Rhode Island. And Miss Lydia P. Stanton of Newport, Rhode Island.”

  Slowly I walked toward the Wetmores, taking care to emulate Mother’s low, deferential curtsey, but Lydia improvised. She short-curtseyed to both of the Wetmores, another faux pas, which they had the good manners to ignore.

  Then, as a family, we entered the beautiful ballroom. Around us, pale gray walls and giant gilt-framed mirrors reflected the twinkling lights from the overhead chandeliers almost like a second set of constellations especially arranged for Society’s most illustrious citizens. But a drop of moisture brought in from the lawn on the sole of a slipper could turn the parquet floors into a sheet of ice, and I’d seen more than one dowager take a spill, heralding her social downfall for the rest of the season.

  Tonight, however, no one needed to fear a social mishap: the skies were clear, the ground, dry.

  And there by the gilded mirrors he stood. The very last person I cared to see in the universe, let alone at this party. How much had changed in a month! My thoughts returned to that devastating afternoon when I first started to learn how my life was about to change.

  I was cantering down Bellevue Avenue toward home, the sound of my horse’s hooves punctuating the carpet of thick fog rolling in from the ocean. Around the corner, Sam’s buggy appeared, heading full speed in my direction.

  “Sam Haven!” I shouted from atop my horse. “Sam Haven, Sam Haven, Sam Haven, stop the carriage!”

  But my fiancé’s black buggy flew past me and thundered down the road. As the horses pulling his transport kicked up dirt into my face, even his driver failed to look my way.

  Sam had deliberately ignored me that afternoon, and I’d be sure to return the favor now. Turning away from him, I noticed the wallflowers gathered in one corner of the room. I longed to head toward them—who better than this scorned group to sympathize? But then I remembered the invisible gun pointing in my direction, and stayed where I was—nearer the men.

  The ballroom was small, but the Wetmores refused to be daunted by the logic of scale and capacity. They were famous for hiring the world’s largest orchestras and coercing them to perform outside. All windows and doors were left open and guests milled freely inside and out, with the effect that the party was in two rooms: the ballroom and the lawn.

  Outside on the back lawn, a fourteen-piece orchestra took the stage while inside the Society matrons held court. The bigger the jewels, the newer the money, Mother always said, and tonight I spotted rubies and emeralds actually embedded in some of the women’s ball gowns.

  I only hoped Mother wouldn’t have to sell off her jewelry.

  Selling me off was the aim. Not an easy feat—considering that I was too tall, too red-haired, a bit gangling, and as bruised on the inside as a bad apple. (Just don’t let them see those bruises, dear, Mother had advised me a few days earlier in her ever-upbeat way.)

  Mother’s first stop was the group of formidable ladies who were married to the founders of the Newport Country Club, due to open late in summer. The wives seemed content to gossip about this party. I heard murmurs of relief that this was not one of the themed balls for which the Wetmores were famous. An ebony-haired matron with a lorgnette quirked an eyebrow.

  “The Turkish party was wonderful,” she rasped, “until the genies came out of their giant bottles to mingle with the guests.”

  “Oh yes,” Mother agreed, joining ranks with her social superiors. “Once a genie escapes from his bottle, it’s almost impossible to get him back inside.”

  Polite laughter rewarded Mother’s jest.

  “Genies grant wishes, don’t they?” I asked to stunned silence.

  I wished Father’s business had survived. I wished we could stay in Newport forever. I wished Sam had loved me. I couldn’t bear how he stood by the golden mirrors, genteelly waving his hand at Mother as if he were the Prince of England and our engagement had been nothing more than a casual misunderstanding among bridge players over a matter of bidding. As though his callous words hadn’t jabbed, like so many corset stays lodged into my torso.

  “Please know that I’m devastated, too. “Your father represented my best business contact. Without him vouching for me, I may not be able to get a job at a bank. Indeed, all banks may go under, and perhaps no bank will hire. We’re in a Panic, Penelope. Do you have any idea what that word means?”

  The musicians outside struck up a sprightly version of Handel’s “Love’s but the Frailty of the Mind,” a signal that dancing would begin soon. Famished, I ignored my corset’s unforgiving pinch and edged toward the buffet table. Mother yanked me back.

  “Penelope, the foie gras is for the matrons,” she reminded me. “They don’t need to watch their figures. You do. Instead of eating, dance! You should be dancing.”

  She turned around to see if there were any eligible bachelors for me.

  Her eyes lit on awkward Willard Clements. At his peril, he’d ignored the instruction of his private Dance Master and failed to practice any steps. By the age of thirteen, Willard’s clumsiness had reached epic proportions. He was now aged twenty-one with no improvement on the grace front. He half bowed to my mother but backed away from her. Waiters carrying trays balanced with champagne flutes dodged and scurried to avoid crashing into his rear end.

  At this ball, “country rules” prevailed, which meant that any man in the room could ask a lady to dance without an introduction. As the music changed to Mozart, three men approached to fill out the dance card dangling from my wrist while ten men approached my sister. One man from my circle left to join Lydia’s group before he’d even signed my card. Annoyed, I crossed my arms, but Mother shook her head at me. “Assets…display,” she mouthed.

  Mother clucked and bustled, doing her best to push certain eligible bachelors in my direction. I think she would have been happy to marry me off during the first dance if possible—before rumors as to why Sam pulled out of our engagement hardened into certainty. But in spite of the concerted efforts of my designated “ambassador,” my dance card remained only half full; and it was the later dances on the night’s program that were spoken for. This left me free for the first several dances, a fate that also left me vulnerable to the advances of any man at the party.

  A lady cannot refuse the invitation of a gentleman to dance unless she has already accepted that of another; so when that wilting wallflower of a man Willard Clements asked, I accepted. He waltzed as if he had bricks on his feet. The conversation, like poor Willard, hobbled along.

  “Waltzes are difficult,” Willard said, losing time. He stared down at his large feet.

  Looking up at his thinning, beige hair and sweat-streamed face, I leaned in to steer him. “It’s not hard if you keep count,” I said, trying to help him master his unfortunate feet. “It’s a box step, you see. One-two-three.”

  “Oh, capital,” he said. “One-two-three. One-two-three.”

  Mother had instructed me to talk about dance instead of the dreadful economy. But it was deadly to talk about dance, and deadlier still to dance while talking about it! In spite of that I kept on, because any discussions about the economy might lead to prying questions about my father’s business. I’d been told to behave as if all rumors about my father’s reversal of fortune were a mere inconvenience, a summer storm amid a series of sunny days.

  I had absolutely no idea how to do that. I had never been a convincing actress. I had always worn my feelings openly. Being told to contain them felt stressful, as if I were shutting myself off from my true nature.

  I spott
ed my father at the far end of the room. His gray eyes appeared hollowed out and the skin under his cheekbones hung like a sail flapping in the wind. He barely nodded as he turned away.

  I blinked back tears. “One-two-three,” I said.

  Lurking at the fringe of a small group of men, the Chicago solicitor George Setton craned his head toward me. I was surprised that a man like him would be welcome at the Wetmore’s ball. He had appeared in our parlor a few weeks earlier like a dark carrion bird, just after I had learned of my father’s distress.

  Now, watching Setton gaze at the turkey croquettes as if counting them up to include on a balance sheet, I recoiled. I looked away, hoping he wouldn’t see me.

  Too late.

  The hook-beaked solicitor cut in, so I had no choice but to latch onto him. I leaned forward, and narrowly avoided George Setton’s unfortunate nose. He edged away from me as we both eyed each other with distrust. Close proximity did not improve his other features: beady eyes, and thin lips that rested in a perpetual frown unless Lydia happened to be nearby. His hunched posture, possibly stooped from years of digging through people’s personal effects to appraise them, was not so easily remedied.

  “Tell me, Sir,” I said, “why do you insist on supplying my sister with news from the Chicago Tribune?”

  “I see no harm in letting Lydia learn the truth about the world, as well as her father’s business affairs,” Setton replied coldly.

  He turned his torso and feet toward her, which threw off our steps. I yanked him back into his proper position. “And how is it your decision to make when my mother is so opposed?” I still could not believe that I’d caught him and Lydia reading the paper together just a few weeks before, against my mother’s explicit instructions. Mother insisted that hard news of any kind was disruptive to all matters with which young ladies should concern themselves.