“Dessert?” he asked.
“Black coffee,” Judy said.
“Chocolate cake and a glass of milk for me,” Maud said. As he retreated, she leaned toward Judy. “Hope you like chocolate cake,” she whispered.
The presence of a fat slice of cake and a tall glass of milk turned the mood cheerful. Maud gave the girl a moment to let her get a head start on her cake.
“Can I ask you a question?” Judy asked through a mouthful.
“Of course! Ask me anything.”
“Who was Dorothy? Was she your daughter?”
The question startled Maud, but she tried to keep her face composed. A vision of unkempt braids and faded gingham flashed before her eyes.
“No,” she said, her voice tight.
Maud noticed that the clinking of silverware and glasses seemed to have stopped, and the murmur of conversation lulled. She looked up to see Clark Gable, dapper in a hound’s-tooth jacket and black silk cravat, making his way across the crowded dining room, weaving among the tables with the occasional wave of his hand or nod of his head.
Maud leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially, “He’s just as good-looking in person. Maybe even better!”
Judy washed down the last trace of her cake with the dregs of her milk, then wiped her face with the back of her hand.
“He’s dreamy,” she said.
“I’ve always been partial to a man with a moustache,” Maud said. “But make no mistake, he’s much too old for you!”
Clark Gable was about halfway across the commissary now, and as he reached their secluded corner, he popped his head behind the potted plant, winked at Judy, and gave a jaunty half salute to Maud before continuing on his way.
“I wish he were playing the Wizard,” Maud said.
Judy laughed. “Me, too….But I heard he got loaned out to David O. Selznick to play in Gone with the Wind.” She polished off the cake, and Maud again switched the plates back.
Half a second later, Judy’s mother appeared next to their table. Without saying hello, she tapped on her watch. “Judy, you’re needed on the set. Everyone is waiting. You haven’t been eating too much?”
Judy’s jaw clenched and her eyes flashed black at her mother. She jumped up rapidly, dropping her napkin on the floor.
“Absolutely not!” Maud said, flashing a charming smile at Ethel. “Diet plates for both of us. I need to keep my figure trim.”
Ethel did not acknowledge Maud at all. She tugged on Judy’s skirt, brushed a few imaginary crumbs from it, and hurried her out the door.
Maud could plainly see the truth of the matter. Judy Garland didn’t need to lose weight—she needed to stop growing up, and that was something that all the cottage cheese and lettuce leaves in the world could not change.
CHAPTER
9
ITHACA, NEW YORK
1881
Six weeks after Maud’s return to Cornell, winter had settled over Ithaca like a block of ice. Bodies hurried past each other so wrapped up in overcoats and scarves that it was often difficult to tell people apart. Maud found this an improvement over the warmer weather of fall, when walking across campus had made her feel so conspicuous.
That evening, a thin, gray sleet was falling as she picked her way across the campus from Sage. Maud was hoping that the dispiriting weather would keep most students in tonight. The fewer classmates who attended this lecture, the less unwanted attention would accrue to herself in the following days. Loyal Josie had promised to accompany her, but she was coming down with a cold, and Maud had insisted that she stay in. The other girls, Maud knew, did not want to attract attention to themselves by attending a lecture on such a radical topic as women’s suffrage. While some young women participated in the scholarly clubs, only a few of the most resolute older girls showed interest in the controversial subject of the vote for women.
Inside Association Hall, a small knot of people, professors in their dark suits and vests, some seated next to their wives, were clustered in the first few rows, talking in low murmurs. About an equal number of male students were scattered in groups of four or five, islands in a sea of empty seats. Maud estimated the total number of attendees in the hall to be under thirty.
Making her way into one of the back rows, she slid into a seat, shivering. She pulled her shawl tighter around herself. Each time the doors opened, a blast of cold air sent a chill down her back.
The auditorium was still mostly empty when the soft murmur of conversation hushed as a small group of people mounted the stairs next to the auditorium stage. Maud recognized Henry Sage, the benefactor of Sage College, two faculty members, and a Unitarian pastor.
Mr. Henry Sage gave a lengthy speech about the coeducational experiment and the civilizing influence of education for women, before at last he announced, “Please welcome our distinguished speaker, Mrs. Matilda Joslyn Gage.”
Her mother was not tall. Only her head and shoulders appeared over the large oak podium, her elegant face framed by soft waves of silver hair. Maud remembered the story, oft retold, of the time her mother, just twenty-one years old, asked permission to address the women’s conference in Seneca Falls. Struck by stage fright, she spoke so softly that some of the women demanded that she leave the stage. But Mother wouldn’t be deterred.
Maud saw none of that shy twenty-one-year-old now. At fifty-four, her mother was formidable in manner and address, her voice clear and true, her manner confident. That she believed entirely in her cause was evident, and coming from a woman of petite stature and calm, feminine ways, this resoluteness carried especial force.
Although the audience seemed generally respectful, Maud did not let down her guard. Her mother was no stranger to heckling, but Maud herself had never grown used to it. She was fiercely proud of her mother, who could stand before men and women and speak without fear. If she had been given the chance to study at Cornell, Maud didn’t doubt she’d have made a brilliant career of it. But Maud’s surge of filial love was tempered, as always, with a wish that she could have gone about her business on campus without her mother’s notoriety following her everywhere.
She began to lose interest in her mother’s speech—as much as she believed in the cause, all of this was as familiar to her as her own face in the looking glass—and soon drifted off into her own thoughts. The Navy Ball, the winter’s biggest social event, was to take place in just three days and the girls had all been swept up with fittings for their gowns. Maud was thinking about her dress—white dotted Swiss with a demi-train and pink sash—but while she was looking forward to the dance, she still felt a sense of unease about it. All of her friends were now sweet on someone, except for Catherine Reid, who was interested in nothing but the study of the natural sciences and showed an innate disinclination to any sort of merriment. Maud had dreamed twice now that she was at the ball—once she awoke with a start after imagining herself waltzing in the arms of Teddy Swain, but the second time, she dreamed that she was dancing with a tall stranger with bright gray eyes.
Maud had not had a word of communication with Mr. Baum since she’d last seen him in the foyer of Josie’s home on Christmas Eve. Returning to school, Josie had been all aquiver, wanting to hear news, and wondering why they had not asked Frank to come and call. She even read aloud parts of Frank’s letter saying how much he had enjoyed meeting her. Maud had wanted to die inside. She was not accustomed to keeping secrets from Josie—her dearest friend—but she could think of no suitable way to address the subject. If Maud explained that Matilda would not even consider a call from the young gentleman due to his line of employment, it would seem insulting to Josie’s entire family. So, instead, Maud pretended that she was not interested in suitors as she was wholly devoted to one thing, and one thing only: obtaining her diploma. Josie had taken to calling her “schoolmarm,” as that is where they both knew Maud would be headed if she obtained a diplo
ma but no husband. In dedicating Sage College, Henry Sage himself had specified that his goal in facilitating female education was to create a fallback position in case a woman found herself in a circumstance of want. A widow with a diploma could teach school, but nobody thought teaching school would be better for a woman than having her own household.
Maud was so deep in her reverie that she scarcely noticed when another cold blast of air blew down her back. She pulled her shawl tighter, unaware that someone had just opened the doors and entered the hall. But as she heard footsteps coming down the aisle behind her, she turned her head, wondering who would be arriving so late.
A figure in a dark overcoat with flecks of sleet still clinging to it was shuffling sideways into the row of seats behind her. His face was obscured by a heavy wool muffler. Something about the gentleman struck her as familiar, but she couldn’t place him, and not wanting to appear to be staring, Maud quickly averted her gaze. After a few minutes, however, she started to feel as if he was looking at her.
In the past, Maud would have simply spun around and looked again, but her months at Cornell had improved her in the matter of self-regulation, and so she sat with the uncomfortable, prickly feeling, while restraining herself from further investigation. A moment later, a loud bang sounded from the back of the hall, along with a freezing gust of wind as the double doors swung open.
Into the hall and down the aisle strode a group of six Cornell men. Each had a colorful lady’s skirt tied around his waist, and each had his face powdered and lips rouged. To make matters worse, each carried a broom. Matilda, seemingly unfazed, paused, and then continued. But her mother’s words were soon drowned out by the loud chanting of the men, who now held their brooms aloft and began to chant in unison, “In hoc signo vinces”—in this sign, we conquer. The group made the circuit of the room, down the left aisle, across in front of the rostrum, and back up the right aisle. Maud, her face flaming, turned to watch, and as she spun in her seat, she turned far enough around to catch sight of the figure who had come in late. Now that he had unwrapped his muffler and removed his cap, she could see his gray eyes clearly. She was staring directly into the face of Mr. Frank Baum, who seemed to have found the embarrassing spectacle most amusing, as there was a giant grin on his face.
Matilda, without missing a beat, looked up at the departing rioters and said, “I suppose you all believe that all witches are wicked, and that they are long since dead, but that is simply not true. Wise women have long been accused of witchcraft! To be called a witch is a high form of compliment.” And then she continued with the speech, as if the intruders were nothing but recalcitrant children who had failed to provoke their mother.
Maud sat frozen, her jaw locked. How could it be that the men had imitated her own speech and actions with the broom so precisely? Could it be that one of her own dear friends had been gossiping about her behind her back? As an insult to her mother, this was bad enough, but that it should seem to point so directly to Maud’s own private mischief was troubling in the extreme. And of all the disarray that now entered Maud’s mind, the worst of it was the appearance of Mr. Frank Baum in the middle of this. Maud, so startled to see him under such appalling circumstances, had whirled around to face forward without so much as acknowledging him, though she knew that he still sat almost directly behind her.
Now, overcome with emotion, Maud did the one thing that was most likely to call attention to herself: she jumped up and ran up the aisle to the back doors, from which the broom-wielding boys had so recently exited.
She swung one open and slipped into the blasting cold of the anteroom, taking care not to slam the door behind her, then looked around nervously. The costumed pranksters had already made their exit; one of the outer doors stood open, as if left ajar in haste. Maud pulled it closed and tried to compose herself. Through the hall’s inner doors, she could still hear her mother’s voice, now muffled.
Maud smoothed her skirts, patted her hair. But her mind’s eye was still spinning in a crazy circle, one minute seeing the dressed-up boys holding the brooms, the next minute imagining the gray eyes of Frank Baum and the giant grin of mockery upon his face. Why on earth was he here in Ithaca and not on the road with his theater company in Pennsylvania? Maud could simply not think of what to do next. If she reentered the hall, she’d have to pass him; if she did not reenter, she’d have to tell her mother that she’d been overtaken by nerves and had to leave, not a story for which her mother would show much sympathy.
But before Maud had even managed to stop her mind from spinning, her speculation was cut off by the emergence of Mr. Frank Baum himself through the doorway. She found herself face-to-face with the man who had preoccupied her thoughts for so many weeks. Now in the flesh, he was so much more vividly real than the way she had imagined, that it was all she could do not to reach out and touch his cheek.
“Come with me,” he whispered, nodding toward the cloakroom door.
Maud knew that the correct response to this suggestion was to refuse, but instead she allowed him to take her arm and usher her into the confined space of the cloakroom. Inside, in the semidarkness, the scent of damp wool filled her nostrils.
“What are you doing here?” she whispered.
“I came to hear Mrs. Gage’s speech,” he answered. His manner was easy and friendly, as if they weren’t standing close to each other in a cloakroom—as if they weren’t near strangers. “I’m most interested in the topic of women’s suffrage.”
Maud, rarely at a loss for words, felt as if her tongue were stuck to the roof of her mouth, and her heart was pounding so furiously that she was sure he must be able to hear it.
“If you are so interested in women’s suffrage, perhaps you should still be inside, listening to my mother, rather than here in the cloakroom with me!” Maud burst out, in spite of herself.
But Frank only smiled, and Maud’s breathing slowed. There was something about this man’s presence that she found calming, even in the current unnerving circumstances.
“Miss Gage, why didn’t you ask me to call? I waited and waited. Even cousin Josie couldn’t get a word out of you. If you truly detest me, just say so, and I promise I’ll molest you no further.”
“Tell me why you are here!”
Frank looked around the cloakroom as if seeing it for the first time. “I could have stormed the podium and demanded that you listen to me, but I was afraid that would not make a favorable first impression on your mother.” He said this so intently that Maud couldn’t tell if he was serious or joking, and she had to cover her mouth with her hand to repress a smile.
“No, I mean, why are you in Ithaca? I thought you were touring with your play in the oil country. I was so startled when I saw you, I couldn’t think straight. You gave me such a fright, I thought I would faint—except I’m not the fainting sort. I’m blessed—or cursed—with a strong constitution. Mother would say it’s a blessing, but sometimes I feel as if it’s a curse, because it’s quite difficult to get out of things when you are never ever ill…” Maud clapped her hand over her mouth again. “I’m babbling, aren’t I? See how flustered you’ve made me?”
Frank smiled even more broadly. “I should think that you would be more flustered by the spectacle of all the powdered and bewigged men brandishing broomsticks. Now, that was a sight to behold! Is that what Cornell gentlemen learn at college? If so, I feel quite relieved that I’ve not undertaken any further study.” Frank’s tone was light, but Maud’s eyebrows pinched together. Was he mocking her? Had Josie confided the story of their Society of the Broom? Did he know that their protest had surely been directed squarely toward Maud herself?
She tried to wrench her mind back into the present moment. From where they stood she could no longer hear her mother speaking, and she was unsure how much longer her speech would continue; and when the speech ended and the crowd was released, a horde of coat-seeking people would storm in u
pon them and find her alone with a gentleman.
“You must stop talking in circles and tell me why you have come,” Maud said, aware that her tone sounded severe.
“Miss Gage,” he said, leaning in close to her and speaking in an urgent whisper, “I could not stay away. I’ve thought of nothing but you since our meeting at Christmas. I waited in vain for a message before I had to depart to rejoin my troupe. Josie said you mention me not at all. But I most desperately wanted to see you. When she wrote to me that your mother was going to speak tonight, I hazarded a guess that you might attend, and I hoped I might catch a glimpse of you, but I dare not approach you until your mother has given me permission to call.”
“Mother said no!” Maud whispered, blurting out the truth. “She said it was because your profession was unstable, but I know the truth—she wants nothing to distract me from my pursuit of a diploma.”
“A diploma,” Frank repeated, as if bewildered. “But what need have you of a diploma—isn’t it possible to learn in any setting, and does the possession of a testimonial bearing a signature and seal make a man (or a woman, I should say) any better equipped with common sense?”
“I would say no, but that is immaterial,” Maud said. “I can’t disappoint Mother—she has sacrificed much for me to be here.”
Frank leaned even closer to her and again spoke in an urgent whisper: “But does it delight your heart?”
Maud looked straight into his gray eyes, bright even in the dim light. Did this man, almost a stranger, truly concern himself with her heart’s delight?
“What delights my heart is of little consequence,” Maud said. “I must return to the hall before the crowd lets out. I don’t want Mother to know I went missing. Nor do I wish that our presence here be discovered. It would be disastrous for my reputation, as I’m sure you can well imagine.”
Finding Dorothy Page 11