Lawless Page 24

  Chapter V

  “The Lucy Stone Brothel, West”

  i

  JULIA TUCKED HER hand around Gideon’s arm. “Do come along. I’ll finish with Mr. Robbins and then we can have a good chat. I’m curious to know why you’re in Chicago.”

  He felt the firm pressure of her breast against his forearm as she swept him into the library. She introduced him to the portly representative of the investment banking house.

  “Pleasure, I’m sure,” the Cooke’s man said, looking vaguely disapproving of the tall and rather raffish young man who compressed Robbins’ limp hand in a much stronger one.

  “What remains to be done, Mr. Robbins?” Julia asked.

  “Very little, madam. I need your initials on the list of issues which we recommend you buy and sell.”

  Robbins extended the sheet of paper. Julia released Gideon’s arm and signed quickly. “Don’t forget the additional five hundred thousand in Northern Pacific bonds,” she said.

  “Naturally not. I shall telegraph the purchase order before I leave the city.”

  “And I’ll see you again next quarter.”

  Gideon watched with some astonishment as she took Robbins’ arm as commandingly as she’d taken his. She ushered the bank representative toward the door. Just as he left, the soberly dressed banker looked at Gideon with unconcealed envy. As if he thought the younger man was in for an evening of licentious revelry.

  Julia shut the library doors. The windows were open. They faced north, to the mansion where the party was in progress. Julia walked to the cold hearth, discarded the stub of her cheroot and took another from a blue and white porcelain jar on the mantel.

  “I have precious little time for financial matters,” she said. “And not much head for them, either. I let Cooke’s handle everything. They’re the most solid banking house in the nation, everyone says.” Her blue eyes sparkled as she struck a match and lifted it to her cigar. “Does it shock you to see a woman smoking?”

  “No, not at all,” he lied. “Would you stop if it did?”

  She laughed, genuinely amused. “I doubt it. Perhaps I’d honor another woman’s request. But never a man’s.”

  He’d never been much good at banter, and he wasn’t now. He remained silent as she dropped the match into the fireplace and sat down amid a roiling cloud of smoke. She pointed to a chair opposite hers.

  “Do sit down. Tell me how you’ve been.”

  “Well enough, thanks.” He sat, beginning to wonder why he’d come here—and why he was staying. Dealing with Julia’s quick mind and strong will wasn’t easy or especially comfortable.

  “And how is your very nice wife?”

  “Oh”—unconsciously, his voice grew muted—“busy attending to domestic matters. As usual. We have a second child now.”

  “Do you! That’s grand. A boy or another girl?”

  “A boy.” Briefly, he described Will’s birth and some of Eleanor’s activities. Julia was smiling in a relaxed, interested way. It put him more at ease. “Margaret does have a terrible fear that Eleanor’s outgoing disposition will drive her into something altogether unsuitable for girls.”

  With a tart smile, she said, “Such as marriage?”

  Gideon laughed. “I think it’s the theater Margaret fears most.”

  “Well, I can understand why your wife might believe the theater isn’t a proper career for a respectable girl. On the other hand, we live in a changing world. Every woman must be given the right to do what she wants, not merely what she’s ordered to do by a parent or a husband—or by custom. I came to that realization a trifle belatedly, I’m afraid. I was dreadfully ignorant when I married Louis. Ignorant and spoiled. I got the first of a series of very bad jolts when I consulted a lawyer about divorcing your late cousin. New York State was and is far more liberal than most. But I discovered that even under New York law, my rights pertaining to property and to custody of Carter were severely limited—and that I only had any rights at all because Susan Anthony and Elizabeth Stanton had worked so hard, and endured so much humiliation, to get amendments passed to the 1848 Woman’s Property Bill. I wonder, Gideon”—a slow puff on the little cigar; then a note of seriousness in her mildly sardonic tone—“I do wonder if you or any man can appreciate the profound shock a woman feels when she is first told that, in most states, marriage renders her a nonperson. With no rights to possession of the children she suffered to bear. No voice in the disposition of her own property which became her husband’s the moment they spoke the marriage vows. I got a great shock when I began to learn those things. In fact, after I left Louis in ’62, what I discovered about the status of women gradually changed my whole existence.”

  He nodded. “I’ve always been curious as to how you became a suffragist.”

  “To really explain it, I have to admit some very unflattering things about myself. And I have to go back to the days when I was still married to your cousin. At that time I divided people into two groups. Those few—a very few!—whom my wretchedly spoiled upbringing led me to believe were my equals, and all the rest—the great majority—who weren’t. Let me give you an example of which I’m truly ashamed. My attitude toward black people. Do you know that as a child, I hardly even realized they existed, except in a peripheral way? They existed to wait on me. Hold carriage doors. Fetch and carry my wraps. Then, early in the war I began to grow disenchanted with your cousin. I think it started when I realized Louis could philander without drawing criticism. But his wife? Never!”

  Gideon withheld an ungentlemanly question about whether she had wanted to philander and with whom.

  “Anyway, when my—devotion to dear Louis began to waver, I started doing things I’d never done previously, including paying attention to the outside world. Just a little at first, but even that was enough to make me aware of the tremendous outcry from the abolitionists. Late in 1861 I consulted an attorney about my rights if I should decide to leave Louis. I got absolutely furious when the lawyer told me I had next to none. Then I thought of the abolitionists. Here were hundreds, even thousands of reformers arguing and propagandizing about setting blacks free—and properly so, I’ve come to realize—but who was writing and speaking about liberating women? Well, of course there were people doing that—and had been for several decades—but it took me a few more years and a great deal of study and soul searching to decide I wanted to join them.”

  She’d started her journey out of bondage by reading a book, she said. “Margaret Fuller’s Great Law Suit. Do you know it?” He did, but only by name. “Just what I’d expect from a man! There’s never been a greater statement of the conditions forced upon women in this country. Next I went back to old newspapers. I read some of Fanny Wright’s lectures—that is, the sections male editors would deign to print! Wright and Fuller were the two who spearheaded the movement in the first half of the century. They were both dead by the mid-fifties, but they’d laid the groundwork. By the time I’d gone through the horrible wrangle of a divorce—and those devastating discoveries about women’s property rights—I was leaning toward conversion to the cause. My God, Gideon, do you realize it’s barely been ten years since women were acknowledged to be equal with their husbands as guardians of their children? And that’s only in New York. If Louis had cared the first thing about Carter, I’d never have gotten custody of my son. But Louis never really wanted a family. Children were a bother. In any case, it wasn’t until 1866 that I really got over the divorce. It’s another shock to the system—and I trust you know it does stigmatize a woman. In any case, five years ago I took another major step. I went to one of Lucy Stone’s lectures.”

  Her blue eyes looked through the smoke, and through Gideon, into the past.

  “Such a small, petite lady. But a powerful speaker with that lovely voice of hers. The crowd was typical, I’ve learned. Mostly men. Mostly rowdy. Lucy shamed them into silence when she gazed right into the auditorium—right into their faces, one by one—and talked about the night she was born.
Her mother described it when Lucy was growing up. If ever there was a story that damns men as unthinking practitioners of slavery, Lucy’s birth is it. The night she came into the world, her mother was already in labor when she had to fix supper for a haying crew that was working on the family farm. Lucy’s father couldn’t lower himself to cook a meal—that was women’s work. Then, before she could get on with the business of lying down by herself to deliver a baby, Mrs. Stone had to milk eight cows. But Lucy’s mother accepted all that. She said it was a woman’s duty to submit! Lucy was horrified. From that moment on, she knew she’d spend her life trying to change such stupid ideas.”

  Julia paused and drew a breath. “I sat in that lecture hall with my spine prickling and my head spinning—and I felt I had to have a part in changing such ideas, too. Because I had lived through a similar proof that a woman’s lot is still a pretty miserable one. We’re a long way from being as free as the black people, Gideon. At least there were a good many clergymen fighting for abolition. We have almost none on our side.”

  “That much I know,” he said, and added with a wry smile, “Book of Genesis, chapter three.”

  “Yes!” Julia cried, jumping up and pacing. “The weapon they use against us all the time. ‘And thy desire shall be thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.’ Lucy says she nearly fell into an apoplectic fit the first time she read that. The Scripture’s full of similar remarks. Lucy’s learned Greek and Hebrew just so she can examine the original texts and see whether the translators were faithful to them, or only to their male prejudices—oh, but here I am chattering on and on—”

  “I find it very interesting,” he told her, meaning it. “When did you move to Chicago?”

  “In the spring of 1868. I was happy to come. Lucy wanted me to cover the central part of the country, and the East Coast had a lot of unpleasant memories. The contractors finished this house exactly two weeks before Louis died—” With a pitying look, she gazed into the fireplace where she’d thrown the cheroot a bit earlier. “Poor Louis. In a topsy-turvy way, I owe him a great deal. I would never have found my real calling if he hadn’t been such a bastard.”

  She drew another deep breath, managed a smile. “But I’ve said entirely too much—and haven’t even had the courtesy to ask about your business in the city.”

  “Basically, it’s my little newspaper that brought me here.”

  “Labor’s Beacon.”

  He blinked his good right eye. “You know it?”

  “Certainly. The Association keeps track of all liberal-thinking publications. I never knew you had journalistic inclinations, Gideon.”

  “Inclinations, perhaps, but not much talent. I’ve had to teach myself to write. Hasn’t been easy—”

  “When Louis was buried, you were doing organizing work.”

  “I decided I could reach more workingmen, and do it more effectively, as a writer and editor. You know my father bought the Union from Louis’ estate—” She nodded. “I now have a quarter interest in it. I could join the staff tomorrow. But I don’t think the other three owners would care for me airing my views in the paper. You know how unpopular the movement is.”

  “Indeed I do. On a par with mine. Go on.”

  “The Union would lose circulation if it took labor’s part too openly or too often. I hate to see that kind of compromise, but I know it’s a fact of economic life. That’s why I’ve continued on my own. As to Chicago, I was invited to write up an organizational effort by men who work for one of the rail lines headquartered here.”

  She leaned forward, the green gown pulling taut across the bodice of her corset. “Which line?”

  “The Wisconsin and Prairie.”

  “What? Tom Courtleigh’s railroad?”

  “You sound surprised. Do you know him?”

  She walked to the window. “I most certainly do. He’s a dreadful prig, and a hypocrite as well. Prays at the Episcopal church on Sunday and steals right and left Monday through Saturday.” She pointed across to the huge mansion brilliant with light. “I have the misfortune to be his neighbor.”

  Gideon gaped. “That’s Courtleigh’s place?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  He rushed to her side so excitedly, he collided with her. His leg touched hers for an instant and he jumped back as if stung. He gazed down at the sweet-smelling luster of her dark hair, experiencing a sharp physical reaction. Julia was gracious enough to keep from looking at him, as if she sensed his embarrassment and didn’t want to add to it.

  “I really don’t know Courtleigh well,” she said. “Undoubtedly that’s a blessing. When I first moved into this house, I tried to call on him and his mother. She lives with him, you understand. I did the same with all my neighbors—a social courtesy—but Courtleigh’s was the only house in which my cards were returned without a reply. In other words, no one in there would speak to me. I understand it’s because Courtleigh and his mother are violently opposed to the movement, and consider me no better than a whore.”

  Gideon almost gasped aloud; the word was never spoken in polite mixed company. Julia went on.

  “I’ve even heard Courtleigh refers to this house as the Lucy Stone Brothel, West.” She laughed. “I’ve considered hanging red lanterns in the windows some evening, to convince Tom and his mama the joke’s come true.”

  Gideon chuckled. “You should hire some shopgirls to parade up and down in their shifts.”

  “The very thing! I can just see him contemplating a brothel next door. He’d think plunging property values and have a heart seizure—” She giggled uncontrollably for several moments. “Dear me, I haven’t laughed so hard in months.”

  “Nor I,” Gideon said, wiping his eye.

  She smoothed a palm over her bosom and drew a deep breath. “You say Courtleigh’s employees are trying to organize the line?”

  “That’s right, starting with the switchmen who work in the W and P yards.”

  She thought a moment, then clapped her hands together. “Do you know, Gideon—I’ve never attended a labor meeting. I think it would be fascinating. A furtherance of my education, you might say. You’ll take me to your meeting, won’t you?”

  Coming as it did on the heels of her use of a forbidden word, the new request left him speechless again. What an unsettling creature she was! Perhaps that was part of the suffragist strategy—to disarm opponents by addling them with behavior even the most liberal of men didn’t expect from a woman.

  His hesitation produced the same glint in her eye he’d seen when she got rid of banker Robbins.

  “Of course you will!”

  “No, I don’t believe I should.”

  She was a shade prickly when she said, “Pray tell me why not.”

  “Courtleigh has threatened trouble.”

  In a few brief sentences he described Florian’s warnings. He was again surprised by her reaction. He’d expected alarm at a mention of danger. It only seemed to exhilarate her.

  “I insist you take me. And no arguments. I assure you I’ll come to no harm. I can take care of myself—why, I’ve been mobbed off more platforms than I can remember. Hit with spoiled fruit and rocks a dozen times—it’s settled.”

  “Now just a damn—”

  The library doors opened. The butler looked in—but not at Gideon.

  “Dinner, madam.”

  “Thank you. We’ll be right along.” She smiled up at Gideon, slipped her arm in his and held it tight, as though they were longtime friends, even intimates. She was like some natural force, he thought with mingled irritation and amazement. She was like a hurricane that blew away whatever resistance it encountered. He’d never met a woman like her.

  She was laughing as she led him out of the library.

  “Yes, indeed, we shall go to that meeting. Two scandalous, outrageous, thoroughly immoral thorns in the side of Mr. Tom Courtleigh. We’re two of a kind, Gideon.”

  Her blue eyes shone as she looked up at him and squeezed his arm. “I’m so glad you came by
tonight!”

  ii

  They had a splendid dinner, and the longer he was in her presence, the easier it became to carry on a conversation. She had definite opinions on most issues of the day, from Grant’s abilities as a chief executive to the debate over greenbacks versus gold. But her willfulness showed only occasionally, and she could listen to conflicting opinions without interrupting—though not without demonstrating impatience with a definite pink cast in her cheeks. By the end of the meal, she’d so charmed him that, in spite of his better judgment, he agreed to take her to Ericsson’s the following evening. As she was showing him out, she said softly, “Thank you, Gideon. I knew you would.”

  He was able to laugh at his own expense. “You knew I would because I’m just a mere man, eh? No match for the Lucy Stoner juggernaut—”

  “Nonsense. That isn’t it at all.” She was smiling, but her eyes seemed full of a peculiarly intense emotion as she gazed at him. Then she glanced away and murmured, “It’s because you’re very nice.”

  She reddened again, realizing she’d grown too personal. He was flattered yet uncomfortable: glad to have spent such a delightful evening in the company of a woman who was bright yet feminine; glad at the same time to be starting for the door.

  Suddenly a sonorous ringing drifted through open windows. She frowned. “That’s the courthouse bell.”

  She listened to the tolling a moment longer. “It’s the fire signal again. I don’t know how many more days we can go without rain—well, good evening, Gideon.” For the second time she grasped his hand and shook it. “I’ll look forward to seeing you tomorrow.”

  Those frank blue eyes continued to disconcert him, and he knew why. Because she was lovely, and when they’d been talking, Margaret had been forgotten. All too easily.

  It made him feel guilty, made him let go of her hand very fast.

  “Yes, certainly. Good night.”

  Her coachman drove him downtown to the Dorset and let him off. The streets around the hotel were packed with people streaming toward the south branch of the river.