Despite the fact that Jo’s newspaper clipping had not ceased to haunt Sophronia’s waking thoughts—and her nightly dreams, too—Sophronia still clung to her suspicion of the suffragists. Jo, for her part, delighted that Dovey was now living under Sophronia’s roof, had come to visit several times. The woman was positively bursting with enthusiasm for the suffrage movement, and her certainty that women needed the vote had rubbed off on Dovey.
But Sophronia was not so easily convinced. She had spent her whole life yearning for what, she now understood, she could never obtain: a happy marriage, a home and hearth of her own—and a husband’s love. Any woman who fought so assiduously against Sophronia’s ideal of feminine occupation seemed untrustworthy—even dangerous.
“Common wisdom and the law may say so,” Dovey went on, “but it’s not as simple as that. Family is one great entanglement. Father is planning to bring Mother out to Seattle one of these days—just as soon as he can get a trade running smoothly and put a few dollars in the bank. I’m sure he’ll convince my brothers to come to Seattle, too, if they’re not too much in love with Massachusetts. I want to enjoy their company when they arrive. I want us all to get along. I can’t make too many waves with Father; it would break Mother’s heart. If I want to keep my money and my freedom, I’ve got to go about it delicately.”
Sophronia held her silence and swept the floor more vigorously.
“If we could change the laws themselves, then Father couldn’t blame the whole scenario on me. He wouldn’t be able to get his hands on my money, but it wouldn’t seem to be my doing—can’t you understand? I’d be innocent of thwarting his plans, and I could enjoy my family in peace, without Father’s ambitions plaguing me. If we could change the law, my money would remain my own no matter who I married—or if I married. And when Mother comes from Boston, we could all be happy together. That’s all that matters to me now.”
“Do you still plan to open your cathouse?” Sophronia sniffed.
Dovey drew herself up and squinted across the kitchen at Sophronia. “Darn right I do.”
“I’ll thank you not to use such coarse language in this house, Dovey.”
Dovey shrugged and wrung the dishrag over the slop bucket. “I’ve saved up a good sum, and I’m going to put it to good use.”
“I can think of better uses for your money,” Sophronia countered. “I’ve collected respectable sums myself, in the name of the Women’s League. We’ll use the money to expand this operation—to open more homes for the rehabilitation of fallen women.”
Dovey snorted in rough amusement. “Good luck with that. There are more women happily working in Seattle than you’ll ever be able to save. It doesn’t matter how many homes you open. Except for the few old girls who find their way here to this shelter, they don’t want to be rehabilitated.”
“Of course they do! Why, prostitutes make some of the largest and most regular contributions to the League!”
Dovey looked up from the slop bucket, her brow furrowed in surprise. “They do?”
“Certainly. Hardly a week goes by that I don’t collect a handful of silver dollars from the women over at that ugly, bright-green bawdy house on First Avenue or from the Lily Mansion down by the docks. Why, it seems very fashionable indeed for the working girls to donate a silver dollar to the cause, whenever they’re able.”
Dovey dropped the rag in the bucket. The resulting splash left a splatter of greasy water on her skirt, but she seemed not to notice. She slapped her thigh and hooted with laughter. “Silver dollars!”
“It’s very generous,” Sophronia said defensively.
“Lord, Sophie—don’t you know? The girls are only cocking their snoots at you—and how!”
Sophronia felt herself blanch. She laid aside her broom and said slowly, cautiously, “I don’t know what you mean.”
Dovey rolled her eyes. “They use those silver dollars to keep from getting pregnant.”
Sophronia stared in silent, horrified consternation—and not only at Dovey’s appallingly frank speech about the delicate matter of motherly expectation. A singularly ill feeling crept over her as sweat beaded on her back.
“Don’t look so shocked,” Dovey chided. “Didn’t you know that’s why the seamstresses always keep a dollar coin handy? They stuff those silver pieces right up into their boots!”
“Their boots?” Sophronia gripped the edge of the kitchen table, unaccountably dizzy.
“Their monosyllables,” Dovey said with brutal emphasis, “their long eyes, their Irish fortunes, their pokehole prannies!”
Sophronia heard her own shriek of dismay before she even felt it in her throat. It echoed from the tiles of the kitchen, and in the dining hall the clinking of cutlery stilled for a moment as the residents of the house paused over their lunches to snicker at their hostess’s distress.
So! The prostitutes’ donations had been meant as insults all along—and Sophronia could scarcely conceive of a more shocking insult than to be handed a coin that had been so evilly contaminated. She pressed her hand to her fluttering heart as a swoon threatened to overtake her.
“I … I cannot countenance such talk,” Sophronia said weakly. “And in any case, silver dollars used for such a … a purpose? What nonsense!”
“It isn’t nonsense. I can attest to their usefulness myself.”
The implications of Dovey’s words hit Sophronia like a hammer’s blow to the chest. “Dovey! You can’t … You aren’t … You never … !”
The girl showed her dimples in an infuriating smirk. “I can, I am, and I certainly have. How do you think I’ve kept my corset laced tight all these years? Though I know a few other tricks, beside the silver dollar.”
“You’re unmarried,” Sophronia cried in a pleading tone.
“And if the Lord is good to me, I’ll stay that way.”
“I would have hoped you’d kept out of … that sort of trouble by avoiding sin!”
Dovey shrugged and wiped the splash of filthy water from her skirt with a clean cloth. “My business is God’s business, not your own. In any case, you can see you’ll have a rough time of it, if you aim to rehabilitate the women of Seattle. Why, they make enough scratch lying on their backs that they can cast off a dollar just to get your goat, whenever it tickles them to do so.”
The threat of the swoon passed. Sophronia balled up her fists and advanced on Dovey. “You awful, filthy creature! Bringing such language and such … such tales into my home! I’ve a mind to kick you out on your bustle, Miss—into the streets for your father to do with as he pleases!”
Now it was Dovey’s turn to go pale. “I’m sorry,” she said at once, and to Sophronia’s surprise, her contrition seemed real. “I shouldn’t have laughed at you. It’s true, what I said about the silver dollars—but I only wanted you to understand what the women mean by their ‘donations.’ I didn’t intend to hurt you, Sophronia.”
Sophronia said nothing, only looked Dovey up and down with dry assessment.
“We must stick together now,” Dovey said. “We can’t be each other’s enemies—not you and I, nor any other woman in Washington. We must pull in the same direction now—we have a common goal.”
Sophronia lifted her chin haughtily. “You’re speaking of suffrage, I assume.”
“You really don’t approve of it, Sophie?”
“Of course not. It’s not a woman’s place, to vote—to meddle in politics and laws. God has decreed that place the realm of men, and we ought to have no use for it.”
“But we do have use for it!” Dovey’s voice quavered with the force of her plea. “Don’t you see? We’re helpless without the vote, Sophronia. Think of Jo, waiting on freedom her husband will never agree to. And me—all the money I’ve saved, ready to be swept off into some man’s pocket the moment I marry. And you, Sophie—you work so hard to reform Seattle. Think of the changes you could effect if you had the power to make laws. Just think of it!”
Sophronia had thought of it—indeed, since readin
g Jo’s stealthily deployed clipping, she had thought of little else. She saw the sense in Dovey’s argument—and Jo’s. But still, Sophronia told herself stubbornly, right was right, and wrong was wrong. Whatever else might be counted against her in the final judgment, at least the angels in Heaven would say that Sophronia Brandt knew righteousness from sin.
“Jo is going to Olympia the day after tomorrow, you know,” Dovey continued. “Miss Susan B. Anthony will be there. She’s a great heroine of the movement, and Jo and I want to hear her speak.”
“What nonsense,” Sophronia muttered. But even to herself, she sounded as though she wanted to be convinced to come along on the trip.
“It’s not nonsense. Miss Anthony is dedicated to the betterment of the women of Seattle. That is your goal, too. You simply have to come and see her, Sophie!”
“My goal and Miss Anthony’s are not the same. I aim to make the women of Seattle more ladylike, not less.”
“But still and all, it can’t hurt you any to see Miss Anthony speak—merely to hear her words.”
The words from Jo’s scrap of newspaper rattled about Sophronia’s mind once more. These houses of ill fame will languish and die for want of support. Sophronia admitted to herself, so quietly she almost couldn’t hear the thought, that it might be edifying to see this Miss Anthony speak after all. There was no harm in merely gazing at the woman, listening casually to her words.
“Very well,” she finally said, blushing, wondering what on Earth she was getting herself into. “I’ll go. But only because I’m curious what kind of devilry this Miss Anthony is trying to teach to our women. If I hear her speak, perhaps I’ll know how best to fight against the suffragists’ audacities.”
“That’s the spirit,” Dovey said with a wry, crooked smile. “We leave in two days.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
BREAK NEW GROUND
The Wild Wood cut through the white-capped swells of Puget Sound, speeding south toward Tacoma. Dovey flung her arms wide on the deck of the stylish boat, breathing deep the crisp air of a seaborne autumn. The morning was bright through a layer of misty cloud, and seemed to hint at a sunny, optimistic day ahead. The salt-laden breeze that cooled her face and tangled her hair felt like imminent freedom.
Astern, Seattle dwindled to a dot on the horizon, its hilltop houses, crowded docks, and banners of gray smoke from the sawmill fading into the deep, uniform green of the shore. The Wild Wood’s first stop was the railroad city of Tacoma. There, the boat would retrieve Miss Susan B. Anthony, who had ported up by train from Oregon Territory. Dovey had spent her weeks in Sophronia’s care reading Jo’s copies of the New Northwest. Miss Anthony was a great favorite of the paper’s editor; her exploits in the name of suffrage had been thoroughly detailed in the columns of the New Northwest, and Dovey’s heart leapt with anticipation. She felt as if she were about to meet a great hero of legend—Davy Crockett, perhaps, or Daniel Boone.
Jo and Sophronia emerged from the Wild Wood’s luxurious cabin, tugging their shawls close as they joined Dovey on the deck. The wind tossed Dovey’s curls, and Jo clutched protectively at her hat, though it was pinned quite securely to her bun. The three women stood in silence for a long moment, watching Tacoma draw near. A haze of black smoke hung over the city, the permanent coal-dust smudge from its many rail lines.
Dovey turned to her friends with a cheery comment about the journey ready on her lips, but she fell silent at sight of Sophronia’s face. The pale woman’s scowl was deeper and more determined than usual.
“Whatever is the matter?” Dovey asked her. “Are you seasick?”
“I never get seasick. You of all people should know that.” Sophronia thrust a newspaper into Dovey’s hands. “I told you this Susan Anthony was a crude character. I found this paper in the cabin. Just look at what it has to say about her behavior!”
Dovey took the wind-ruffled paper from Sophronia’s hands. Titled the Regional Crier, its front-and-center column featured a prominent headline in bold, forceful type:
WOMEN’S VOTE CAMPAIGN A PLAGUE OF IMMORALITY
Dovey scanned the column quickly. It told of Susan B. Anthony’s recent eviction from the orchard town of Walla Walla, a day’s stagecoach ride across the mountain passes from Seattle. It seemed Miss Anthony had been tossed out of Walla Walla on charges of drunkenness. “This virulent plague of the campaign for a woman’s vote,” the editor concluded, “may be properly summed up with but one description: worse than the smallpox and chills and fever combined.”
Dovey raised her brows appreciatively. “Kicked out of Walla Walla for inebriation? I think I’ll get on well with Miss Anthony.”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” Sophronia snatched the Regional Crier away from Dovey. “This column describes shameful behavior for a woman—utterly shameful! It curdles my blood to think of how many ladies have come to exalt this Susan Anthony. And you two, Dovey and Jo, are the worst idolaters of them all!”
Dovey laughed off Sophronia’s caterwauling and clutched Jo’s hand. She could feel Jo’s excitement trembling in her palm, a perfect reflection of the quivery, hopeful anticipation Dovey felt bubbling in her chest.
At last, the Wild Wood pulled into port. As the sailors made off the lines and positioned the ramp for boarding, Dovey pulled Jo to the rail and gazed down at a small crowd gathered on the pier. The Wild Wood was to take on some dozen passengers, all bound for Olympia. They stood waiting with bags in hand, several smartly dressed women mixed among the gentlemen in their travel jackets and John Bull hats. Dovey eyed each woman carefully from her vantage. She felt the smallest flush of disappointment. None of the women on the pier had the countenance she had dreamed up for Susan B. Anthony—the queenly bearing, the forbidding stare. All the potential candidates for the famous suffragist looked quite ordinary, even approachable.
“We had best go down and greet Miss Anthony,” Dovey told her friends.
Jo paled at the suggestion. “Now that the moment’s come, I find I can’t move! Oh, what if I make a fool of myself?”
“Come on,” Dovey said, shaking her head fondly.
Jo seized Sophronia’s elbow as if hoping she might anchor herself to the other woman and avoid the terror of confronting a celebrity.
“There’s no getting out of it,” Dovey said, and tugged her reluctant companions down the boat’s ramp. She marched into the waiting crowd and said loudly, “Miss Susan Anthony?”
One of the women stepped forward with a thin, rather wry-looking smile. Dovey eyed her appraisingly. In age, she was near to Jo—perhaps ten years the senior—and similar, too, in her plain style, free of frills and fripperies. She was dressed in a very smart skirt and blouse of rich brown wool, though a modest cascade of lace did spill from her high neckline—her only adornment, and a rather small and tidy one, at that. She wasn’t even wearing a hat; though her hair was rather thin, with a wide, pale part, it was still quite dark and free from silver threading. It slicked down tightly against her head to curl in two neat rolls over her ears. Her face showed ample signs of age, but combined with her long, thin nose and sharp chin, the years she wore only seemed to enhance her confident bearing. Confident was not to say haughty. She smiled at Dovey and her friends, her face beaming with a sudden homey comfort that made Dovey feel as easy in her presence as if she’d known Miss Anthony her whole life.
“You must be the women from Seattle,” she said. “I received your letter.”
“We are representatives of Seattle, yes,” Dovey said. But after that, words failed her. The New Northwest had recounted so many tales of Anthony’s heroics that Dovey’s nerves caught up with her all at once. She felt a bit jelly-kneed. Confronted by a Susan B. Anthony, who seemed just another friend from years past, Dovey couldn’t figure out what she ought to do. Her brains had fled.
Well, Dovey reasoned, it’s Jo’s fault I’m standing here now. I ought to let her do all the talking. She pulled Jo insistently forward. “This is our fearless leader, Miss Anthony: Josephine
Carey.”
Jo made a tiny gasping sound. Anthony took her hand.
“Pleased to meet you, Miss Carey. ‘Fearless leader’—so, then, I am to understand that you have formed a suffrage league in Seattle?”
For a moment, Jo stared at Susan’s eager, encouraging smile. Her eyes were as wide and blank as those of a dairy cow. Then she swallowed audibly and nodded. “Yes—yes, ma’am. A suffrage league … in Seattle … yes, certainly.”
Sophronia shifted on her feet and cut her eyes sharply toward Jo. She looked as if she might expose the fib; Dovey drifted close and kicked her ankle sharply.
“Well,” Susan said, “that’s fine to hear.”
She introduced her companion—none other than Abigail Scott Duniway, the editor of the New Northwest. Mrs. Duniway was a pattern of plucky cheer, with rosy cheeks and a robust, plump figure. Though she approached middle age, she had a charming light in her eye that struck Dovey as altogether girlish—as did Mrs. Duniway’s great, thick braid, which she wore coiled atop her head like a glorious, dark crown. She insisted the ladies from Seattle call her Abigail, and smiled broadly when they obliged. Dovey had read Abigail’s columns until she had all but memorized them; she could not entirely reconcile Abigail’s writerly voice—biting, acerbic, and even saucy—with this vision of ready smiles and airy delight.
“Shall we go aboard the ship?” Susan Anthony said. “I’m eager to speak to your legislators down in Olympia.”
Dovey led the way back up the ramp, and Jo settled Susan’s and Abigail’s fares with the purser. They found comfortable chairs around a small table inside the Wild Wood’s lush, mahogany-and velvet-clad cabin. A hostess brought them tea, which they sipped contentedly as the steamship left Tacoma’s port.
“Do tell us about your woman’s suffrage league, Josephine,” Abigail prompted. “We hadn’t yet heard that one existed in Seattle, but naturally, we are delighted.”
“We …” Jo glanced toward Dovey, glowering a little, but Dovey beamed innocently back at her. “Well, we’ve only very recently formed our league.”
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