Mistress Suffragette

by Diana Forbes

  She leaned over me to examine my black eye and bruised face, clucking her tongue. “Sam telegraphed me.” She fidgeted with her blonde chignon, although each hair was pomaded in place. “Giving up your family and a life of respectability to go traipsing about the country with Verbosa, and—”

  “Her name is Verdana.” Ignoring the screaming pain in my arm, I sat up to take in my mother.

  “Dreadful name,” Mother said. “I’ve heard of Two Gentlemen of Verona, but—”

  “Verdana’s nice, but a bit unusual.”

  “Unusual?” Mother asked, piercing me with her violet eyes. “How so?”

  “She’s uh—mannish.”

  “Mannish?” Mother repeated, as if learning a new word in a foreign language, one ill-suited for American usage. She seemed to roll the word around a few times on her tongue. “And yet Sam decided to marry her?”

  I looked away. With Sam off the market, what new plans would she try to inflict on me?

  “I can’t understand why he’d marry anyone with an impossible-to-pronounce name. ‘Virtua’ sounds vaguely Latin.” Mother curled up her lip in disdain.

  “She’s amazing,” I said, my voice weakened by medication.

  “Be that as it may…” She glanced around the dimly lit parlor and frowned at the peeling wallpaper. “You’ve made a horrible mistake following her around.” She stared at the stain on the wall. “Just look at the way you’re living. When was the last time you had your clothes washed?”

  I wrapped the blanket around the small chocolate stain on my nightdress. A sharp pang rippled through my shoulder.

  “I’m not following her. She wants to pay me to promote the Suffrage Movement. It’s a chance to have a real career—one that I enjoy—expand my sights, and help other women who want careers too. It’s exciting, and it’s just starting.”

  I stopped, surprised that I could muster this much enthusiasm for a cause I’d been only lukewarm about before the accident.

  “This had better be the fever talking,” she said.

  I hugged the blanket tighter around me, trying to block out the throb in my shoulder. I whispered, “fevers don’t speak.”

  Her eyes welled. “Join the suffragettes? If you do that, you’ll never find a man to marry you. It’s the worst mistake you could possibly make. Ever, ever, ever.” She pounded her plump hand against the thin wall for emphasis. “Not to mention the shame it will cast on us. You’ll be a rabble rouser.”

  She’d always warned me that rabble-rousers were the lowest possible stratum of the human race, several rungs below criminals. Let others do the rousing, she’d said. She absently picked up Lucinda’s teak box from the breakfront and shoved it into the sideboard.

  Please, dear God, don’t let the gun go off by mistake.

  “Penelope, life comes down to a few key decisions we make.”

  “It’s my life to choose.”

  “The only women who’d choose your life,” she said, casting the parlor a disapproving glance, “are those who have no choice.”

  “And if you disagree, what will you do? Pack me off to reform school?”

  “Reform school?” Mother snorted. “Your father’s idea. He’s been quite mad lately. But don’t worry. We can’t afford it.”

  Pulling a linen handkerchief out of her dress pocket, she proceeded to mop her brow, although she wasn’t perspiring. “Better that I stay here with you and find some nice, eligible men.” Like a preacher at his pulpit, she sermonized, urging me to turn away from this suffrage nonsense, as she called it, and pursue a more traditional path.

  “Why? Marriage is not my primary aim in life. Oops,” I covered my mouth with my hand. “Sorry.” I felt badly, as if I had insulted her religion.

  Mother poked her head into Lucinda’s bedchamber. “Kempt,” she said. “I like that.” She marched into the kitchen and returned with the black leather riding crop. She lovingly stroked the object as if it were a small pet, then tucked it under her elbow. “So, you’ve given up on marriage now, have you?” she asked, pacing the tiny room. Through little snorts (as well as big ones), she expressed skepticism—asking why I had been so keen to marry Sam Haven.

  I considered his behavior since my arrival in Boston. He hadn’t lifted a finger to help Verdana. Could he even fry an egg? I tried to recall the younger version of him that had once comforted me for three days when my first horse had crashed into a carriage.

  Rolling off the couch I reached for some Bayer Heroin pills that Lucinda must have purchased for me during the last few days. A glass of water beckoned to me. I swallowed two pills, hoping for speedy relief. I explained to my mother that with Sam, I thought I could see the life ahead of me, but how that vision, and even Sam himself, had turned out to be a mirage. “I didn’t know Sam—not really—and marrying in the abstract isn’t something I’m eager to do.” There, I’d said it. A huge weight lifted from inside my chest.

  She touched her chignon several times as she continued to pace the room, still holding the crop under her elbow. Her eyelashes batted. This was an unforeseen development, and she detested surprises the way military generals hate ambushes.

  “Everyone your age gets married,” she said through drawn lips.

  “That’s true back home. But here I haven’t met one person yet who’s married.”

  “Then we must get you away from here.” She snapped her fingers. “Come. Pack your bags.”

  The luggage stayed put.

  She put down the crop, bent over the couch, and pushed back a lock of hair that had fallen in my eyes. Tucking the wayward lock behind my ear, she reminded me that she and Father had bona fide Panic experience. They’d honed their survival skills back in the Panic of ’73 and were experts at bouncing back from adversity. Lydia needed no special instruction: she’d never lack for suitors. Only my future was murky.

  “If you don’t marry, then you’ll likely have to work. But you should do so for respectable people, and the Daggers—”

  “They are not as respectable as you think.”

  “I telegraphed them of your accident—immediately—and apologized that you never bothered to show up.” She looked at me accusingly. “What they must think of us.”

  “Whatever they think of us,” I said, “cannot be as low as what I think of—”

  “And I expect a response from them any day,” she sang out.

  A response?

  “I gave them your address here, of course. What? Stop looking at me like that. Revolting against the norm is so very…” she stared up at the ceiling, “revolting.” She wagged her finger at me. “It never pays to disappear from Society.”

  She glanced around the room and shook her head. “The Daggerses are a hundred times more respectable than this strange Verdita. Pushing the Suffragette Movement, and on a bicycle of all things. It’s as if you’re all part of a circus. It’s horrible.”

  My mother’s face turned florid. I thought she might actually faint this time. But she stood fast, a mighty fortress, as her daughter’s social status crashed down around her. I scrambled off the couch and stood up to open the window to let some air into the apartment. It was only then that I spotted three large suitcases deposited near her feet.

  I heard the front door slam.

  “It’s not nearly so bad as you make it out to be, Lila.” Verdana’s booming voice filled the scanty parlor. She tromped into the room wearing her billowing bloomers.

  Mother spun around abruptly. “Call me Mrs. Stanton,” she said, brusquely shaking Verdana’s hand. “And you must be Vertigo.”

  Monday, June 19, 1893

  Mother fed me Bayer’s Heroin. Verdana plied me with laudanum, a syrupy drink containing alcohol and opium. And in four days time, my shoulder distress was but a memory. Verdana, who believed in the healing properties of exercise, declared me well enough to leave the flat. She found a strange ally in my mother, who had never seemed so eager to escape from the parlor. I wondered if she felt penned in. Mother, always portly, look
ed heavier than ever.

  “It’s time to get on the quadracycle,” Verdana announced, holding the front door wide to usher me through. She assured me it would be easy to manage, even in my long, flowing dress. As usual, she sported harem-styled trousers featuring a pattern of giant yellow sunflowers curling up wide legs, something my mother was doing her best to politely ignore.

  I objected, observing that wheeled conveyances didn’t agree with me. I paused just inside the door.

  “Anyone can ride a quadracycle,” said Verdana, “even you.” We both laughed.

  “I’ll accompany you,” Mother declared, “to see what the fuss is about.” She pushed me to the side and strode through the door.

  I grabbed onto her peach silk purse to reel her back in.

  “No, Mother. I’d thought while we were gone perhaps you could pack up.”

  Her purse snapped open.

  “Pack?” Mother yanked the purse from my hand, shoving a sixpence, an eyeglass case, and the corner of a yellow envelope deeper inside and snapping the giant clasp closed. “Don’t be ludicrous. Without me, you fall.”

  “She won’t fall off a quadracycle, Mrs. Stanton,” said Verdana, raising her hand to her heart. “It’s impossible.”

  “Good. I’ll see to it that she doesn’t.”

  Two mothers: who could be so fortunate? Getting Mother to leave Boston might require more of a strategy than I’d thought.

  The sun burned off the fog. Pedestrians milled about the wide thoroughfare watching the horse-drawn carriages. The passengers inside waved to the pedestrians. An air of festivity presided, almost as if it were a holiday. Women wore hats, gloves, and (with the exception of Verdana) long silk dresses with puffed sleeves as big as balloons. Under the Boston chill lurked a veneer of cordiality that emerged when the weather was clement. It just didn’t happen often enough.

  Stepping into the middle of the busy thoroughfare, Mother waved her arms back and forth, trying to flag down a carriage. Gripping her arm, I asked her to conserve her money and walk, as the shop was only a few blocks away. “When in Boston…” she muttered, joining us back on the pavement.

  Verdana asked my mother if she cared to take a bicycle ride with us. Naturally Mother found the invitation objectionable. “I have more than enough trouble with horses,” she said.

  Memories of her falling on her side floated through my head. She’d be worse on a bicycle. Bikes weren’t as well balanced as horses and didn’t obey commands. You couldn’t feed bicycles sugar and get them to like you.

  I pressed Mother on how she’d entertain herself while Verdana and I cycled, but got little response except not to worry, that she could fend for herself very well, thank you kindly, and that she didn’t get bored or tire easily.

  That made me worry.

  Verdana and I returned to the rental shop on West Newton Street with my mother in tow. While Mother bustled around the shop, reading with exaggerated interest the yellowed notices and advertisements for tooth powder and hair pomade lining the walls, I pulled aside the tow-headed youth who worked behind the counter. I explained that under no circumstances was he to allow her to take out any of the machines in his shop. She fell easily, and her eyesight was poor. I stared into his innocent brown eyes to make sure he understood. They flashed with the sort of understanding that convinced me he had an impossible mother, too.

  “Do you have any copies of the Ladies Home Journal?” I asked brightly. “It’s the only way to keep her happy.”

  He scrunched up his shoulders as if he’d never heard of the publication but promised to keep a careful watch over her.

  Verdana paid him two dollars and chose a pink safety bicycle to ride. He then led me to a grassy patch behind the shop and showed me how to pedal a large, gray, four-wheeled machine that looked like a cross between a tractor and a bicycle.

  The quadracycle was surprisingly heavy; the muscles along my thighs screamed with each push. By contrast, directing the contraption was intuitive. It featured a steering wheel that turned, and moving it a few inches to the right or left would veer the machine in the same direction. Gradually, my leg muscles became so numb they could no longer feel any pain. This helped me relax into the pedaling, and before long I understood the machine well enough to take it out for a spin. It felt as if I were riding in a rickety carriage that was very low to the ground. But at least there wasn’t far to fall.

  Verdana and I rode, side by side, down the dirt roads. Above our heads horses neighed, some pulling rattling carriages behind them. Beside us, pedestrians strolled, several pointing at us as if we were a tourist sight. New rules of bicycling etiquette cycled through my head: Don’t make any sudden turns or the horses will get frightened. Don’t go too fast, or it will fluster the pedestrians.

  I feared we cut an odd portrait, two redheaded women, pedaling together—me with my black eye and bruises and ropey long hair, and bloomered Verdana with her short, boyish haircut. Everything Sam had warned about Boston marriages played through my head.

  This is not as it seems, I wanted to scream to the rooftops. Actually, my fiancé is hers now.

  When Verdana and I returned, Mother wasn’t in the shop.

  “Where is she?” I asked.

  “She insisted on learning the quadracycle, too,” replied the straw-haired youth whose perennial smile had vanished.

  “And you let her out? By herself?”

  “Once she sets her mind on something…” he offered with a sympathetic gaze.

  I stepped backwards, inadvertently knocking over one of the safety bicycles in the shop, which landed with a loud crash. I pictured Mother running out the door, flagging down every eligible male between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five, and imploring them to call on me.

  Walking over to the table where cyclists registered their names, my eyes landed on hers. I perused the list of names there—mine, Verdana’s, my mother’s, about thirty other names going back a few days. Then I spotted a familiar looking name in the registry from several days beforehand—Edgar Daggers. The letters leaned left and looked as if they had been scrawled in haste.

  Perspiration collected on the back of my neck and trickled down my spine. How dare he follow me when I had come to Boston only to escape from him?

  “Is everything alright?” Verdana asked. “You look ashen.”

  “I-I’m fine,” I lied. One thing about long skirts: they hid legs that shook at the sight of his name. Oh, God, he was back in my life, just when I thought I’d gotten away.

  Verdana patted me on the arm. “She’ll be back soon.”

  I needed a moment—and a handkerchief. I noticed my mother’s peach purse on a table in the far corner of the room. I walked over and started searching through the handbag. Next to Mother’s linen handkerchief was a pale yellow envelope with handwriting I recognized. The letters were small but precise, except for the “o’s,” which looked flowery and ornate. The room went hazy around me, and I grabbed the table corner. I pulled out the letter. The envelope was addressed to me. It was from none other than Edgar Daggers.

  And the top of the envelope had been slit open.

  Verdana called to me from across the room. I clutched the letter to me, then slid it into my dress pocket. I quieted my breathing as we borrowed two chairs and set them out on the grassy knoll in front of the shop. The sun slipped behind the clouds and birds chirped in the trees. I tried to set my mind on anything other than the note in my pocket. But I couldn’t stop thinking about Edgar’s flowery o’s.

  Why had Mother intercepted the communiqué? Two elderly women wearing heavy woolen plaid shawls strolled by, shouting at each other in a foreign language. An artist in a purple beret, carrying a wooden easel and some paintbrushes, stopped and asked if he could paint us. Verdana blushed, as if considering it, but I waved him away, explaining that I needed to keep my eyes on the road.

  “The road is very lucky then,” he said, bowing to me with a flourish.

  Verdana plotted out our next speech an
d eventually dozed off to the sound of her own words. At her first snore, I snatched Mr. Daggers’s letter from my pocket.

  My dear Penelope,

  I was so saddened to hear about your recent bicycle mishap. Please let me know if there is anything that Evelyn or I can do to speed your recuperation. Your mother wrote us that you’ve decided to stay in Boston for a spell. Please know we have many friends there who can help you find a position, if you would find that beneficial. Our thoughts are with you during this difficult time.

  Kind regards,

  Edgar Daggers

  I reread the message. It couldn’t have been more respectable. Either his feelings toward me had cooled, or somehow he’d intuited that Mother would open the note and had written it for its real audience. I almost laughed the sixth time I perused the letter. There was no reason to worry. He might be in Boston, but he certainly hadn’t followed me here. The fear was all in my mind.

  At long last, rounding the dirt road to my left I spotted Mother, low to the ground in her too-tight white silk dress, driving a quadracycle all by herself. She exhibited enviable control. Her posture was correct, and she steered the machine with poise. I had underestimated her. She had mastered a difficult machine. I wasn’t sure if she could see me smiling at her, so I waved to cheer her on.

  She looked up at me, waved back, and in that split second must have taken her eye off the road. She never saw the young man on the safety bicycle riding toward her. The two collided, and the man, considerably lighter than she and balanced only on two wheels, crashed to the ground.

  Was he bleeding? Hurt? In pain? I craned my eyes, but from where we sat I couldn’t see much.

  “Quick. Get a doctor,” Mother screamed. “And bring water. And rags!”