Free Woman

by Marion Meade

Some people welcomed her new image. One newspaper noted that her lectures "could be heard without shame by every woman, man and child in the city."

  Nevertheless, readers of the Weekly were puzzled at this new turn of events. They wanted to read about social revolution, not religion. "Has Mrs. Woodhull gone over to the Roman Catholic Church?" demanded one irate subscriber. Some readers canceled their subscriptions, others simply never renewed them. James, who had been left behind in New York to work on the paper, saw what was happening and tried to warn Vicky. Closing her eyes, she continued to send him articles on the meaning of the book of Genesis and the Revelations of Saint John the Divine.

  On June 10, 1876, Woodhull and Claflin's Weekly was forced to suspend publication. With the exception of six months in 1872, when Vicky had gone broke and then to jail, the Weekly had run for over six years. By this time, practically nobody remembered its original purpose: to promote Victoria Woodhull for President.

  In the final issue Vicky fervently denied that she had ever supported "free love." She insisted that she had always advocated "the sanctity of marriage."

  "Nor do I believe," she added, "in the loose system of divorces now so much in vogue. To me, this business is as reprehensible as the promiscuousness that runs riot in the land."

  She had lived hard, but now her body and spirit failed her. Unlike other despondent women, she disdained ordinary methods of escape such as alcohol, drugs, or suicide. Instead, unconsciously perhaps, she destroyed herself in a far more dramatic way. She systematically denied all she had ever been.

  Almost viciously, she slashed her ties with everything she had once held dear. Some said she had been a fake all along. Others found her actions a mystery. But there really was no mystery. And it wasn't a matter of suddenly abandoning her beliefs in sexual freedom or divorce or women's rights. The truth was, she didn't believe in anything anymore.

  Despite her new defense of marriage, she no longer believed in it either. At least not with James. She no longer loved him. For that matter, the very thought of him infuriated her. He didn't know how to make money and he could not offer her the emotional security she needed.

  While seriously ill, she had practically crawled from city to city just to earn money for them. James, sitting comfortably in New York, wrote a few articles each week and waited for her to mail him money. It was intolerable, she fumed.

  Month after month in her mother's company only reinforced her rage. Roxanna had always hated James. She talked endlessly and obsessively about his shortcomings as a husband.

  During their entire marriage, James had never earned money to support Vicky. Quite the opposite. He had allowed Vicky to support him. Was that manly, Roxanna demanded? Was it right for Vicky to work and slave while James sat in New York like a prince?

  Sometimes Vicky tried not to listen to Roxanna, but eventually she was forced to agree. In the fall of 1876, without emotion or regret, she sued James for divorce. She had divorced him once before, shortly after their marriage, to prove their love would be free. By now, however, the law apparently recognized her as a common-law wife since they had lived together for ten years. This divorce marked the end of their once-loving friendship.

  Abandoning her past was one thing; burying it proved far more difficult. She wanted a new life, but people had good memories. Everywhere she went, there were constant reminders. Every newspaper had a library full of clippings to document what she had once said.

  Slowly a plan began to take shape within her tired mind. It was the old Claflin cure for trouble. Moving. Going someplace new where nobody knows you. Except this time, where could she move? It would have to be someplace far away.

  In August 1877 Vicky sailed for England. With her went Roxanna and Buck, Tennie, Byron, and Zulu Maud. There was nothing left for her in America, she thought. Perhaps life in England would be better. She would lecture. She might even start another newspaper. Maybe she could find a cottage with a garden in some quiet, restful village. She didn't know. But, for better or worse, she had made her decision.

  Her departure did not pass unnoticed. In fact, a fresh batch of rumors started to circulate immediately. Earlier in the year, Commodore Vanderbilt had died. He left a fortune of over $100 million, most of which he willed to his son William. His other children, determined to break the will, said that their father had not been in his right mind for years. To prove his eccentricity, they pointed to his association with Victoria Woodhull and Tennie Claflin.

  People said that William Vanderbilt feared the sisters might be called as witnesses in the trial to contest the Commodore's will. They said he paid them a handsome sum of money to leave the country for a while. People wondered how Vicky, recently so penniless, could suddenly uproot and move her whole family to England. Vicky, however, always denied that she had been paid off.

  "William H. Vanderbilt had no more to do with my departure than did the youngest child in San Francisco," she stated flatly.

  In England she felt as if her life were starting all over again. After a two-month rest, her health improved and some of her old energy returned. The violet circles around her eyes began to fade.

  Already she had made inquiries about appearing in English lecture halls. Now Tennie acted as her manager by going around with a scrapbook full of newspaper clippings to show that Vicky was a well-known speaker in America. Only the complimentary reviews were selected; any which smacked of notoriety was discarded.

  Vicky made her debut in the provinces, first in Nottingham, then in Liverpool and Manchester. From the radical title of her speech, "The Human Body, the Temple of God," her audiences expected to be shocked. What they got was a conservative lecture on physical hygiene and religion. She advised English mothers to inform their children about sex.

  Although one newspaper said that "no man would dare discuss such subjects as Mrs. Woodhull is ready to discuss anywhere," her notices were generally favorable. "Mrs. Woodhull is unquestionably a great orator," reported the Nottingham Guardian, "and it is not difficult to understand how she has gained so remarkable a hold upon the people of her own country."

  In many ways, Vicky felt at home with the English. They were a gracious, cheerful people, she decided; but English high society appeared much too snobbish to suit her taste. They didn't respect anyone except those of their own class and position. It seemed to Vicky that they were obsessed with what is "respectable" and what isn't. She quickly discovered that a divorced woman isn't. Since she had little contact with the upper class, however, none of this disturbed her.

  Shortly before Christmas, Vicky was scheduled to speak at St. James's Hall in London. Prior to the lecture, she managed to capture some publicity for herself. Announcements were sent to the press, and as a result, several papers interviewed her. To her dismay, she found that the papers investigated her background more thoroughly than she expected. Her connection with "free love" was mentioned, as well as the rumors about her supposed involvement with William Vanderbilt in the contested will case.

  Despite these unpleasant moments, she felt a sense of joy about her new life. How thankful she was to feel well again. How thrilling to be speaking in a famous hall like St. James's! In fact, the entire city of London delighted her. It was the biggest place she had ever seen. There were rows of little houses, all looking very much alike, next to great mansions and palaces. She loved the labyrinth of streets, some narrow and winding, others wide promenades, and she delighted in the lush green parks punctuated by soaring church spires.

  On the evening of her lecture at St. James's, she had never looked more ravishing. Dressed in an elegant black silk dress trimmed with bands of velvet, a pink rose with a geranium leaf at her neck, she looked like the old buoyant Vicky. During her first moments on the platform, she shivered from uncustomary nerves. But soon her eloquence returned. The excitement she felt at being there must have been contagious because, afterward, there were waves of applause.

  Among the enthusiastic crowd, in a box near the platform, sat a stri
kingly handsome man with a beard and big childish eyes. He wore a frock coat and white kid gloves, and he clapped harder than anyone. John Martin, a banker, was thirty-six but looked younger than his age. His wealthy, aristocratic family owned Martin's Bank, an institution that dated back to the time of King Edward IV. It was older than the Bank of England.

  Throughout the lecture, John Martin stared at Vicky through opera glasses. Occasionally, he'd pass the glasses to the friend who had accompanied him. Martin remarked, "I am charmed by her high intellect and fascinated by her manner."

  His friend commented that Vicky was not entirely respectable.

  John Martin made no reply. When the applause had died and Vicky had left the stage, he hurried backstage to pay his respects.

  Vicky, her eyes still blazing with excitement, was surrounded by a crowd of admiring well-wishers. When John Martin came up to congratulate her, she noticed only that he was eager and very attractive.

  "May I have the pleasure of calling on you someday soon?" he asked politely.

  "Certainly," she answered. As he left, he pressed an engraved card into her hand. Later, after nearly everyone had departed, she looked at the card. The name read John Biddulph Martin, Esq. When she asked a woman standing nearby who the young man was, she was told that Martin happened to be the most eligible bachelor in England.

  Vicky could not have known John Martin's enthralled mood as he left the lecture hall. "If Mrs. Woodhull would marry me," he confided to his friend, "I would certainly make her my wife."

  But perhaps her power of extrasensory perception was working that night, after all. For she felt hopelessly gay. When she left St. James's Hall, snow was falling gently. Halfway back to her lodgings, she asked the cabman to stop. Stepping out, she stood there dreamily for a moment and let the velvet flakes melt on her cheeks.

  Over the next few months, Vicky saw a great deal of John Martin. They dined on lobster salad and champagne at London's most fashionable restaurants. At Covent Garden, they were seen attending the opera. When spring arrived, they rode every afternoon along the gravel paths of Kensington Gardens.

  She found him kind, considerate, and almost fatherly despite the fact that he was three years her junior. From the beginning, one fact was clear. John adored her. He made no secret of his infatuation.

  The night he formally proposed, she burst into tears. If she didn't love him before, she did then. More than anything else in the world, she wanted someone to protect her. Never again did she want to worry about money or contemptuous people calling her names. By marrying John, a completely new life would be possible.

  That very first time they had met, John had declared that if she would marry him, he wanted her. Vicky was willing, but the Martin family was not. John's doting mother frowned upon her son's association with Vicky. She called her "an adventuress." When Mrs. Martin heard that John wanted to marry Vicky, she was appalled.

  "A divorced woman!" she exclaimed. "A woman divorced twice!"

  As time went by, Mrs. Martin became even more resistant. The longer Vicky remained in England, the more sensational information about her past was dug up by the press. Soon London's most fashionable drawing rooms began to buzz with unsavory gossip.

  "That woman," Mrs. Martin firmly told her son, "is not the sort of woman a man marries."

  Fortunately for Vicky, John did not believe the gossip. Rarely did he question her in any detail about her past. Whatever she told him, he accepted because he loved her. Still, he would not defy his mother's wishes; he refused to marry Vicky unless his family consented.

  Frantic at the prospect of losing John, Vicky embarked on a remarkable campaign of denial. Except for women's rights, she disavowed nearly everything she had ever said or done. Vicky knew what she wanted. To get it, she was willing to lie.

  "I'm nearly forty," she cried to Tennie. "This is my last chance."

  In the end, she did marry John Martin. But it took her six long years to become what she once despised: a "respectable" married lady.

  13

  End of the Dream

  The first winter of her marriage, she went to live at 17 Hyde Park Gate, the sumptuous Martin mansion with its blue-and-gold-ceilinged entranceway and its marble busts of Aphrodite and Hermes. In the drawing room, the parquet floors had been covered with bearskin rugs, and a Venetian wood chandelier was carved with little cupids. Most stunning was a silver statue of the goddess Nike against a background of black velvet.

  Despite its grandeur, Vicky found the mansion cold and lonely. None of John's snobbish friends visited her. Once her husband's club gave a dinner to which wives were invited. When John invited her and Tennie, the other wives boycotted the affair, saying they couldn't associate with them. In the end, she and Tennie had been the only women present at the dinner.

  Two years after Vicky had finally wed John Martin, Tennie married an elderly widower, Sir Francis Cook. The owner of an importing firm, Cook was even wealthier than Vicky's husband. He lived in a magnificent home on the Thames River, Doughty House. He also owned a large estate in Portugal where the king had granted him the title of Viscount de Montserrat.

  Despite Vicky and Tennie's high position, people continued to snub them. Tennie didn't seem to mind, but Vicky felt humiliated and constantly struggled so that John would not regret having married her. Yet her past haunted their marriage. People insisted on talking and writing about her— the Beecher scandal, "free love," her many husbands, her career as a fortune-teller.

  During the 1880s and '90s, she crossed the ocean countless times to answer her American critics in person. It never did a bit of good. Each time she appeared in her native country, there would be a fresh wave of sensational stories in the papers. Tennie said it was because she was rich now, and people enjoyed persecuting the rich. Perhaps, but she could never ignore an attack. Each time, she'd book passage and sail back to do battle.

  There were other trips, too. Several times she returned expressly to renew her campaign for President. These were merely gestures; futile ones, she had to admit. Mostly, she wanted to impress John's family and to show English society that she was an important person. But the English continued to ignore her, and the Americans laughed. A Chicago paper described her as a middle-aged woman with the sharp, eager look of an adventuress.

  In 1892 John rented a house in New York while Vicky tried to muster political support as a feminist candidate for President. Collecting fifty women, she formed the Humanitarian party to run her against Grover Cleveland. At once, she received a hailstorm of indignant protests from the feminists. How dare she, a foreigner, presume to speak for American women! Lucy Stone claimed that not one of the women supporting Vicky was a bona fide feminist. Frances Willard, speaking for the National Woman's Suffrage Association, warned that Vicky could run for President if she wanted, but she shouldn't link her name with such saints as Susan Anthony.

  The following year she returned to America for a lecture tour. In New York she spoke at Carnegie Hall on "The Scientific Propagation of the Human Race." A big crowd turned out to witness her comeback after seventeen years away from the lecture platform. She was dressed in violet with a bunch of violets at her throat. But people went away disappointed because she had lost her fire and fizz. Then in her mid-fifties, she wore glasses to read her speech. The evening fell flat; upset, she canceled the rest of her tour.

  The years before the turn of the century were stormy. One of Vicky's biggest troubles was learning to live with boredom. Much of her restless traveling across the Atlantic and her weak attempts at politics resulted from having nothing to do. As much as she loved her husband, the monotonous life of a wealthy English matron bored her to death, and she came to regard the Martin mansion as a mausoleum. Time hung heavily on her hands.

  Once, searching for distraction, she decided to write her autobiography. At a rosewood writing desk before a fire in her bedroom, she began:

  "Sitting here today in this north room of 17 Hyde Park Gate, London—dreary, smoky,
foggy, insulated as you are in the customs and prejudices of centuries—I am thinking with all the bitterness of my woman's nature how my life has been warped and twisted out of shape by this environment, until, as I catch a glimpse of my haggard face in the mirror opposite, I wonder whether I shall be able to pen the history of this stormy existence."

  As it turned out, she was not able to pen her history. She gave up after writing a dozen pages. Many of the memories that pleased her she had already denied; the rest were too sad to dwell upon. An autobiography should tell the truth. She couldn't.

  Besides, she knew that her story was badly written as well as bitter. Better that she stick to an impersonal medium like journalism. In the 1890s she launched a new journal, the Humanitarian. Instead of choosing Tennie as her associate, this time she selected her daughter. Zulu Maud had none of her mother's dashing qualities. Sweet and gentle, she seemed content to devote her life to Vicky. In truth, Vicky discouraged her from marrying, but Zulu did not appear to care. For a half dozen years, Zulu helped her edit the Humanitarian. It was a handsome publication which looked like Woodhull and Claflin's Weekly. But the resemblance ended there. The new journal dealt mildly with social themes but lacked the fire that had made the Weekly so memorable.

  After John Martin's death in 1897, Vicky made no more trips to America. Closing down the Humanitarian and the house at 17 Hyde Park Gate, she took the $850,000 he left her and, with Byron and Zulu Maud, moved to Norton Park, the Martin family estate in Worcestershire. It was hers now.

  All her life, happiness had been hard to find; in truth, it had always eluded her. The closest she came to peace were her years at Norton Park. There, on a small scale, she lived the life of a queen, or a president. Her constituency was the ancient village of Bredon's Norton. She repaired its roads, renovated its quaint thatched cottages, and installed electric street lighting. She educated the local farmers about new methods of agriculture. One year, she divided up a farm she owned and rented the land to women so that they might learn to farm.