by Susan Wiggs
“Trust me,” Rand assured them, “my wife’s conduct and her business will be discreet. People will take no more note of Lucy than they do of a matron at a church social.”
When he arrived home that afternoon, he was greeted by a huge political banner spread across the driveway, a pack of mismatched children racing around the lawn and his nosiest neighbor lying in wait.
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Wallace,” he said, pretending not to notice the red-and-white banner with the paint still wet. The slogan Votes For Women shouted in bright block letters. “And how are y—”
“What in heaven’s name is going on, Mr. Higgins?” Mrs. Wallace demanded, gesturing at the carriages parked at the curb. “It’s practically a mob scene, and I heard them singing the most dreadful protest songs. I was about to send for the police.”
“I’m sure there’s no need,” he said. The barefoot children stampeded across the yard with Maggie in the lead, whooping like a wild Indian. “If you’ll excuse me, Mrs. Wallace, I must be going.”
He left her sputtering in outrage on the sidewalk, pretending to be unperturbed by the uncontrolled mayhem. As he walked up to the front door, his daughter ambushed him.
“You’re a prisoner,” Maggie screamed, tightening a rope around his middle. In addition to loose dungarees, she wore streaks of warpaint on her face and a crooked feather in her hair. “You’ll never get out of here alive!” A few other children leaped from the gooseberry bushes flanking the front walk and ran in circles around Rand. Barking his foolish head off, Ivan added to the noise. Rand counted at least eight youngsters, ranging from about Maggie’s age to toddlers with sagging drawers. And in spite of his irritation, he couldn’t help laughing.
“I surrender.” He turned his hands up in capitulation. “Here, I’ll pay you a ransom.” Reaching into his pocket, he took out a handful of peppermint drops. Having learned that first day that Maggie loved peppermints, he always carried a supply.
Instantly diverted, they ran off with their booty, leaving Rand to make his way into the house. Stepping over buckets and brushes in the foyer, he recalled leaving an orderly household that morning. What greeted him this afternoon was chaos.
Placards and banners in various stages of completion covered every surface of the downstairs. They bore slogans like All Men And Women Are Created Equal, I Will Vote, and Give The Vote To The Woman Who Gave You Life.
“How do you spell despot?” someone asked from the parlor.
“L-a-m-o-t-t,” another woman answered. “Chief of the Brethren of Orderly Righteousness. Have you ever noticed the initials of that moniker? BOOR.”
“Highly appropriate. Did you see in the paper where his group wants to revive coverture restrictions for women?”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake, really?” Lucy’s voice was sharp with annoyance. “I thought such restrictions ended in the Middle Ages. I shall have to register myself as a femme sole trader so I can conduct business on my own. Honestly, I think men who make the laws must leave their brains at the hatcheck.”
“Actually,” someone said, “a man’s brains are—” Her voice dropped to a whisper and was followed by a chorus of female laughter.
Rand took a deep breath and headed for the parlor.
Miss Lowell waylaid him in the vestibule, her carpetbag in one hand and a piece of paper in the other.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“My letter of resignation.” Her mouth was so pinched he was surprised she could speak. “My services are clearly not appreciated here. Your wife has excused Maggie from needlework and deportment. She allows the child to chase balls in the alley with the children of laborers, and now the little hoyden is racing around out of control with her visitors.”
“I believe that’s called playing,” he said politely, thinking how agreeable it had been to return home to a yard full of laughing children. “At Maggie’s age, it’s permissible.”
“At the expense of learning?” She sniffed. “And good manners? I cannot abide the disorder. Good day, Mr. Higgins.”
She was gone before he had a chance to respond. Out in the yard, two women he’d never seen before shooed the children away from Miss Lowell as she marched down the gravel driveway, veering around the painted banner.
It was just as well. Judging by the noise from the parlor, Rand had other matters to worry about. Unnoticed, he stood in the doorway. Viola sat in a draped window seat, contentedly sewing a sash in patriotic colors. Wearing a paint-smeared smock and her hair pulled away from her face, Lucy discussed the design of the placards with Deborah and Kathleen.
Pushing aside a curl that strayed over her brow, she said, “Perhaps the banner should read, ‘All men are despots.’”
“But all of them are not,” said Mrs. Silver.
“Just most of them,” Mrs. Kennedy pointed out.
“Our claim is—” Lucy spied Rand and stopped abruptly. “Oh, hello,” she said. “You’re home.”
He had an instant and unexpected reaction to seeing her again. She was disheveled, her face flushed, eyes bright and hair in charming disarray, and he found her appearance uniquely unsettling. There was a peculiar quality to the lust she inspired in him. It had a way of undermining his every thought and intention. He meant to yell at her for running off the governess, but instead he simply stood there, the letter forgotten in his hand.
Wiping her fingers on her smock, she gestured at her friends. “Deborah and Kathleen have come to help. You met them at the wedding, remember? Miss Landauer and Mrs. Boggs are working on the banners in the yard and keeping an eye on the children.”
Pretending the circumstances were not completely absurd, he said the usual how-do-you-dos. He wondered why a woman like Deborah Silver would involve herself in politics. She was well-known as the wealthiest heiress in the city. After losing her father in a scandal-laden tragedy, she’d married Tom Silver, turned her efforts to philanthropy and was much in demand by the leading hostesses of Chicago. He knew less about Mrs. Kennedy, though like everyone else he’d heard the gossip: She was the daughter of Mrs. O’Leary, in whose barn the Great Fire had started.
He glanced at the sign Deborah was lettering. “I am no man’s chattel.” Odd that such a seemingly agreeable, refined woman could be a radical.
“Thank you,” said Mrs. Kennedy, “for the use of your home for our work. It’s ever so much more spacious than Lucy’s apartment over the shop.”
“To be honest, I had no idea any ‘work’ would be taking place here.”
“We meet once a month to work on the campaign for the vote,” Lucy said, not even pretending to be contrite. “We shall have to meet more often to prepare for the Centennial on July Fourth.”
Something in his expression must have alerted Mrs. Silver, for she stood quickly. “Kathleen, we really must be going. The children will be as wild as coyotes if we don’t round them up soon.”
“But—”
“Now, Kathleen.” Mrs. Silver spoke sweetly, but eyed the other with steely determination.
“I’ll see you ladies out,” Viola said.
After the four women had left with their children in tow, Rand surveyed the house. “I don’t suppose you’d be interested in explaining yourself to me.”
“I explain myself to no one,” Lucy said.
“As my wife, you have a duty to—”
“I told you I wouldn’t be good at being a wife.”
“Suppose I were to ask out of simple, polite interest?”
“In that case, I would be happy to enlighten you.”
“I’m interested,” he said.
“But you’re not very polite. You practically ran my friends off. It was rude.”
“I’m not accustomed to coming home to chaos.” Stalking to the window, he glared out to see the four women herding the children into the waiting coaches. “Who the devil are they?”
“I told you—”
“Their names.” He turned back to face her. “But that’s not what I’m asking.”
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She planted her hands on her hips and thrust up her chin. On her, the defiant stance merely looked charming. “Deborah and Kathleen are two of my dearest friends. Lila Landauer came to the shop, hoping to improve her English, which I’m happy to say she has. Sarah Boggs and her two children visited the shop, too, when she—”
He didn’t like the way she hesitated. “When she what?”
“She never learned to read, and her husband forbade her to pursue it. So she comes in secret.” Lucy dropped her hands and clenched them into fists at her side. “She tried to divorce him once, but her suit was denied. All she got for her troubles was a beating from her husband and another baby on the way. This is the sort of injustice I’m fighting. Don’t try to stop me.”
“Is painting provocative slogans on banners going to change things for the woman?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “Perhaps not today or tomorrow, but one day it will. Not just for her, but for all women.” Agitated, she began tidying up the room, stacking pamphlets and closing the lids on the paint jars. “There is to be a significant march on the Fourth of July,” she announced, “and we intend to be prepared.”
“A march,” he said, picturing a line of wild-eyed, chanting women surging through the streets of Chicago.
“Indeed. The Centennial of our nation’s birth provides the perfect occasion to make a plea for our cause. A hundred years ago, Americans protested taxation without representation and declared that all men were created equal.”
“I’m well aware of that.”
“Women pay taxes,” she explained. “Yet we are not permitted to vote for representation. It’s a travesty, and I will not rest until it changes.”
Her pale face lit with determination, Rand realized then that, in arranging to marry her, he’d overlooked a key element. Simply marrying Lucy Hathaway was not going to make her a biddable wife.
He had a sudden thought of his mother, lurking deep in the shadows of memory. She hadn’t been biddable, either. Her independent spirit had left the broken wreckage of her family in its wake, and years later, he was still finding jagged shards of betrayal in his heart.
“You’re not to do any more of your organizing under my roof,” he snapped. “I won’t tolerate it.”
Her brown eyes widened with amazement. “I beg your pardon?”
“I said—”
“I heard what you said. I simply can’t imagine why you’d think I would do as you say.”
“Because this is my house. Maggie is my daughter, and you are my wife.”
“I’m not an idiot, Mr. Higgins. Was I foolish to believe you’re not, either? Because truly, only an idiot would oppose equal rights and universal suffrage.”
He clenched his teeth, holding in his anger. “I don’t give a damn who gets the vote. But if equality means women will turn their backs on their families, then I have a problem with that.”
“I haven’t turned my back on my family,” she said heatedly. “If anything, I’ve been even more attentive to the needs of my daughter.”
“So attentive that you’ve driven away the governess.”
She formed her mouth into a round O of surprise. “Really? What a pity.” She made a bouquet of paintbrushes in a jar of water.
“Miss Lowell is one of the most reputable educators in Chicago.” He took out the letter, which he’d stuffed into his pocket. “She has resigned, citing your lack of cooperation with her educational program.”
“Her educational program consisted of trussing my child into a corset and forcing her to recite meaningless phrases, memorize pointless rules of etiquette and stay inside on a perfectly beautiful day.”
“She has worked for some of the best families in Chicago. Clearly she knows what she’s about.”
“As I know what I am about.” Lucy rolled up a large banner and aligned it on the table with several others. “I’m about justice and commitment and change for the better.”
“You are about ineffective carping and agitation. If marches and demonstrations worked, then you’d already have the vote. What you’re doing isn’t just foolhardy, it’s dangerous.”
She planted her hands on the tabletop and leaned forward. He knew he shouldn’t be staring at her breasts, but he did, nearly forgetting the thread of their argument until she said, “You’re wrong. What could be dangerous about fighting for freedom?”
“Next time you see Robert Todd Lincoln, you could ask him,” Rand bit out.
She narrowed her eyes. “Your point is well taken. But if the people who fought to make this country free had accepted tyranny, we’d still be singing ‘Rule Brittania.’”
“You think I’m being an alarmist. You think I’m over-reacting.”
“For once we agree.”
“A public demonstration is tempting fate. You know as well as I do that there are those who will resort to violence in order to silence you.”
“Are you one of those?” she demanded.
“Of course not.”
“Then I have nothing to worry about, do I?”
God, but she was naive. Frustratingly so. He could see he was getting nowhere arguing with her, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself. He wondered why keeping her safe mattered so greatly. It was because he cared about her. As the woman Maggie called mother, of course, but there was something more. To his amazement, he realized he cared about Lucy as his wife.
“You have nothing to worry about,” he stated, shaken by the realization, “because there will be no more of your organizing under my roof.”
“We’ll just see about that.” Holding her rolled-up banners like a stack of battle lances, she spun around and marched out of the room.
Twenty
Lucy was a prisoner, trapped like a rodent. There was no other way to look at it. On the table in her bedroom lay a newspaper opened to an account of her wedding in the Chicago Tribune. “Mr. Randolph Higgins, President of the Union Trust Bank, was married to Miss Lucille Hathaway, daughter of the late Colonel Hiram and Viola Sherman Hathaway…” The article went on, but she could barely bring herself to read it.
She was accustomed to committing social blunders and inspiring gossip. And in a perverse way, she enjoyed being the subject of scandal. When she shocked people by hosting a rally or by getting arrested for voting, that meant she was pushing aside antiquated ways. Her reputation and her career depended on stepping outside the social norm. But deep down, it had always bothered her when people scorned her.
After the fiasco today, she realized that her husband’s career depended upon his avoiding scandal and exhibiting unimpeachable behavior.
Lucy put aside the paper and pressed her fingers to her temples. Dear Lord, she thought, what have I done? Rand had accomplished the one thing she’d dedicated her life to avoiding. He’d taken her freedom from her. She couldn’t stay here another instant.
As she paced her room, her gaze fell on a pair of carpetbags, and panic seized her. Could she simply walk away, as the governess had? She thought of Maggie and her heart constricted, but what sort of mother would she be if she were a miserable prisoner under the thumb of an autocratic husband?
This was all her own doing. She was the one who had insisted on taking the path of honor, bringing Maggie together with the father she didn’t know. Lucy had known there would be consequences, and she should have been better prepared for them.
Now she must do what she should have done in the first place. She must take her fight to the courts, even though she’d been advised that her cause was hopeless. If it took every last penny she had, she would win Maggie back again.
With chin held high, she began to pack the carpetbags.
“I very much doubt,” said a stern voice from the doorway, “that he explained the reason for his reluctance to allow subversive activities in his home.”
Lucy froze. Taking a deep breath, she turned to face Rand’s grandmother.
“I won’t pretend ignorance,” Grace said. “It’s quite clear that you’re leavi
ng because Randolph has forbidden you to do your organizing here.”
“It’s unreasonable. I cannot live like this.”
Leaning on her cane, Grace crossed the room and sat in a gilt chair upholstered in rose-colored damask. “Why do you suppose he disapproves of your suffrage work?”
Lucy tightened her grip on the handle of the bag. “Like all men, he’s uncomfortable admitting a woman can be his equal.”
“You’re oversimplifying the situation.”
“What do you mean?”
“You might claim your rights as an individual, but you have a blind spot when it comes to your husband. It’s not your fault, you married in haste, but now you must ask yourself, what do you really know about him?”
Lucy had picked up the box containing her favorite pen and inkwell, but the question made her pause. This was her husband’s grandmother, someone who had known him all his life. She rubbed her thumb over the lid of the olivewood box. “Only what little he’s chosen to share.”
“I thought so.” Behind the round, steel-rimmed spectacles, Grace’s eyes clouded with nostalgia. “He was a beautiful boy, always the best at sports and his studies. His father was so proud of him. He grew into a man whose looks exceeded his fortune, and believe you me, he used those looks to advantage.”
Recalling their first meeting five years ago, Lucy pictured the arrogant, flirtatious ladies’ man, so handsome that when he had walked through the salon of the hotel, people had stopped their conversations simply to stare. She was forced to remember her helpless attraction to him. “He did,” she said quietly.
“As you might imagine, he had his choice of brides, and was smart enough to choose one with a handsome dowry. I believe they would have settled into quite a conventional and pleasant life, except that a disaster occurred.”
“The fire.” Lucy would forever recall that night with mixed emotions. “I lost my beloved father that night, Grace. But I gained a precious daughter.”