Williams father took his spectacles off and grinned broadly at him. “Precisely. That’s my vision as well. I’d like to see it built in my lifetime.”
Representative Kent sat back with a snifter of expensive brandy in his hand. “Do you have plans drawn up? Sketches?”
“We need to know we have an advocate in Washington, and in Sacramento, before we begin material work on the project. If you’re ready to take on the legislative hurdles, then we’re ready to take on the design.”
“I’ve only been in Washington six weeks. As a freshman representative, my pull is limited. But I’m very interested in the project. You know I campaigned on it.”
“And you know the Frazier family gave handsomely to your campaign because you want to build this bridge.”
Kent gave him a politician’s smile. “And here I thought you were just being neighborly.”
William laughed as if he thought Kent had been funny. “That too, of course.”
“Well, we need the senators on board, too. Perkins and Works won’t be easy sells. Perkins is a crusty old bastard, and Works just got to the Senate in March. He won’t want to rock the boat just yet.” Kent leaned forward and set his empty snifter down. “It would help if your father would get your mother in hand.”
Bristling with sudden anger, William let his hands become fists on his thighs, under the tablecloth, and smiled calmly. “Women’s suffrage is polling well. It has an excellent chance.” That was true, in statewide polls. But in the cities, the places where wealth and power congregated, the measure was deadly unpopular. William held back a vexing truth—opposition to the proposition was strongest in the San Francisco Bay area. His mother’s home base.
Kent knew that, of course, but he was gentleman enough not to point it out. “Here in California, possibly. But Mrs. Frazier’s on the national stage, agitating for suffrage in every state, and the movement is anathema elsewhere. In Washington, they speak of your mother almost as often as they speak of Mrs. Catt, and they don’t do it kindly. As long as she’s standing at podiums raising her fist, as she’s doing upstairs right now, the Frazier name will be political poison, I’m sorry to say.”
His mother’s speech before the Capital Women’s Club was scheduled in a meeting room of the same hotel. She’d been disappointed that he wouldn’t be there, but she’d understood. William had actually thought he might invite Mr. Kent to step in and listen to the end of her remarks. Clearly, that wasn’t a good idea.
Now he was angry, nearly violently so, and he called on all of his conversational skill to hide the fact from this politician, whom he needed, despite his cavalier attitude about William’s mother.
They ended the dinner with outward cordiality. Kent invited him to keep him apprised of developments and prepare sketches, but the underlying word was that he wouldn’t work with the Fraziers until the lady of the house ‘sat down and stayed down’—and he doubted anyone else would, either.
William walked him to the main door of the hotel, and let him go with a smile and a wave. As soon as the coast was clear, he wheeled around and stomped to the elevator, letting his ire flow through his veins. The elevator operator flinched when he stormed onto the car. “Second floor.”
“Y-yes sir.” He closed the heavy doors, and the elevator started up. The operator stood stiff as iron and didn’t try to make small talk. Wise man.
On the second floor, William went to the meeting room which a tasteful, discreet placard identified as the April 1911 meeting of the Capital Women’s Club, and their featured guest, Mrs. Henry Frazier, speaking on the topic of ‘The Proper Tone for a Woman’s Voice.”
Despite his anger, William smiled at the placard and its frilly lettering. There were three kinds of speeches or talks his mother and women like her gave. The first was meant to cause a loud ruckus on a wide stage. Those speeches had titles like ’The Time for Women in Politics Is NOW!’ and named her as Angelica Frazier. They were for the public attention as much as they were for persuasion, and her intended audience was mixed. The second was businesslike and direct, and had no title at all. She addressed men in board rooms and state halls, and she laid out the political benefits of the women’s vote. It was men who would decide the question, and she showed them their own interest in the answer. The last was more intimate—in small hotel meeting rooms, or elegant parlors in private homes, or church basements. They had titles like ‘The Proper Tone for a Woman’s Voice’ and identified her as her husband’s wife—signifiers that obscured her true purpose, and thus gave her audience some protection from reprisal from the men in their lives. When his mother gave a talk like this, it wasn’t for the attention or publicity, or even votes. She meant to inspire women and win sisters to the cause.
He opened the door and peeked in. The talk was over, and women stood around the podium, waiting for their chance to talk personally with their guest. William had been present at many such talks—the presence of a sympathetic man often assuaged some of the broader concerns of the hesitant—and he could tell by the mood of the room that this one had gone well.
He stepped out and let the door close, then found a settee nearby where he could sit and think. Would his father ask his mother to ‘sit down and stay down,’ as Kent had so inelegantly put it? William didn’t know. He hoped not. If he did, William would stand in his way.
A bridge across the Bay was a big dream for a far future. Women’s suffrage in California was on the ballot now. The issue was part of the national conversation now. What happened in California could shift the balance.
The time for women in politics was now.
THIRTEEN
Nora’s second Season opened with a spectacular wedding.
Not hers, of course. Richard Jameson, the Duke of Chalford, married the Lady Beatrix Boltborne in a lavish, nearly regal ceremony at St. George’s. Nora sat in the pews, enclosed between her father and her brother, and wished the blessed couple all the happiness they deserved. The new duchess was sure to breed her duke a herd of fat, ginger heirs.
Two such beautiful, elegant, socially perfect people coming together was like a star exploding over the season and showering sparks of grandeur throughout Westminster. Everything Nora had experienced the year before had doubled in intensity. The balls were more extravagant, the dinners more lavish, the competition among the ladies more fierce. The Duke’s wedding had reminded them all what they strove for, and they’d tightened their corsets a bit more snugly, styled their hair a bit more elaborately, shown their shoulders a bit more cheekily.
Into this fashionable coliseum, Nora had wandered unarmed and unshielded, and caring even less than the year before about any of it. And for that, she was, in her family’s estimation, having a much better outing this year. In four weeks, she hadn’t ruffled a single feather or raised a single eyebrow. She sat at tables and stood in ballrooms. She danced when she was asked and smiled when she was addressed, and she let it all pass by her without more interaction than that.
She’d turned herself into a mannequin, and eligible young lords were paying attention to her again.
Not the most eligible young lords, of course. Now, instead of scandalous, she was dull. She wasn’t trying to dazzle them, and so they weren’t. But she had become acceptable and respectable. Several times, she’d heard mutters at her back that she’d been ‘broken.’ And perhaps that was true.
Her father was thrilled. He and her aunt were both sure she’d have at least one offer of marriage before the summer was up. Perhaps she would. It didn’t matter.
She sat at her writing desk and stared out the window, forgetting the pen in her hand and the sentence she’d started, thanking last night’s hostess for the lovely dinner. On a branch of the stately oak not far from the window, a turtle dove perched on her nest, feeding her single chick. Her mate was perched on the branch above, standing watch over his family.
Maybe it wasn’t so terrible, the role women were supposed to play. The whole animal kingdom seemed to agree—females made
babies, and males sheltered them.
Then why had God seen fit to give human females philosophical brains? Why torture them so if they weren’t to be allowed to use their minds? If she’d been a turtle dove, she’d have lived on instinct and not questioned her lot.
“Nora.”
Nora sighed and swiveled in her seat, away from the window, to her brother, standing just at the library door, as if he needed permission to enter. It was she who’d had to be granted permission to enter the library again—one of the boons her father had bestowed on her in his pleasure at her behavior. She wasn’t allowed to touch the books, of course. She couldn’t be trusted with their contents.
“Christopher. What are you doing here?”
He stepped into the room. “I’m free this afternoon. I was wondering if you’d like some fresh air. We could drive out of the city for an hour or two.”
She had no intention of willingly spending time with her brother ever again in her life. “Thank you for the offer, but I’m sorry. My schedule is full today.”
“It’s not. I asked Gaines when I came in. You’re home tonight until dinner.” He crossed the room and sat on the chair nearest her desk. Setting his elbow on his knee and leaning toward her, his expression sad and beseeching, he said, “It’s been months since you’ve even smiled at me, Nono. I miss you.”
Nora’s eyes squeezed shut as the old nickname sliced through her heart and dragged all the years of her devotion to her brother with it, but she tried not to show any feeling otherwise. “I’m otherwise engaged today. Thank you for thinking of me.”
“Don’t treat me like an acquaintance you can’t tolerate. I’m your brother, and I’ve loved you best of everyone in the world since the day you were born. Fight with me. Yell and howl. Stomp your feet. Let’s have it out. Bring my wild little Nono back.”
She ignored him, finishing the thank you note and folding it neatly. When she looked up again, his features had hardened, and he sat straight up.
“No. Enough of this nonsense. It stops here.”
Her apparent lack of interest hurt him, as she wanted, and she should simply have repeated her politely lifeless refusal. She opened her mouth to do just that. But the turtle doves were on her mind, living their lives with thoughtless instinct, unaware that they were so much freer than she, beyond the walls that held her in. Instead, Nora said, “Because you say so? And if I say otherwise?”
“I don’t understand why you’re so angry, Nora. I’m on your side. I know what Frazier did.” Her brother cast a leery glance around the room, though their father was away for the afternoon, and they were alone. “He took your virtue and left you, and I’ve kept that secret. It’s not I who wronged you, except to have brought him into your life. For that, do I still deserve your scorn?”
“Why did he leave, Christopher?”
“Because he’s a cad. I misjudged him terribly, and for that I will always be sorry.”
“You’re a liar.” She lifted the papers from her box of stationery and pulled back the decorative lining. When she’d left Tarrindale, she’d found a new hiding place for William’s note, so she could keep it with her. With a delicate touch, she opened the treasured paper, careful of the softening frays at the folds. She spread it out on the desk so her brother could read it, but kept her hand on it, so he couldn’t steal it away from her.
He read it, then lifted his eyes to hers. She’d hoped to see shame in those eyes, their colour so much like her own, but his gaze was coolly resolute. “I did send him away, yes. That fact changes nothing of the truth. He used you, ruined you, and I sent him away for it. Moreover, he left.”
“How did he ruin me? He wanted to marry me. I wanted to marry him. He did nothing to me I didn’t want.”
Christopher’s cheeks washed out. “Don’t say that.”
“Don’t speak the truth? Or would you prefer another truth? I pursued him, you know. I dragged him into my bedroom and demanded he make love to me. For all the reasons you cite, he wanted to go, but I wouldn’t let him. He wanted to stop, but I wanted more. I wanted him to do everything to me.”
“Nora, enough!”
“Would you rather he’d forced me?”
His hands became fists and lifted to his chest. “If he’d forced you, I’d’ve killed him on the spot.”
“So, then, you know I wanted what we did. You merely don’t want me to talk about it. You don’t want me to say I wanted it, or asked for it, or enjoyed it.”
He leapt from the chair and stalked across the room, raking his hands through his blond hair. He closed the library door firmly and stalked back to hunker before her. “Nora, stop! Of course I don’t want you to say it. You’re my little sister! I don’t want such things known about you! Do you know what people would think of you? What they would say?”
“Is it what you think of the women you seduce?”
She’d expected that strike to hit a target, but he shook it away. “I don’t seduce virgins. The women I spend time with are women.”
“And what am I?”
He looked up at her so helplessly that Nora nearly felt compassion for him. “My sister. My little Nono.”
She set that compassion away, because there was one more truth to air. “You’re a hypocrite and a liar, Christopher. What’s more, I know exactly why William left. You threatened me, didn’t you? You told him you’d hurt me if he stayed. What was it—did you threaten to tell Father?”
Until this moment, she’d only suspected as much, but she saw in his eyes—finally filled with the shame she sought—that it was true. There was relief, at least, in the knowing. So much relief that she actually laughed. The sound scraped at her throat. “No, Christopher, I don’t want to take a drive with you. I’m otherwise engaged. Thank you for thinking of me.”
She tried to turn in her chair and resume her correspondence, but he grabbed her legs and held her in place. “Nora, I wouldn’t have told him. I never will. I sent Frazier away to protect you, and I’m not sorry for it. He took something precious from you. A man who would do what he did has no honour.”
“What he did was respect me as a human being who knows her own mind. He let me choose for myself. He would have married me. I gave that precious gift you all go on so much about to the person I wanted to have it. If indeed I am ruined, it’s because he’s not here, and that’s your fault. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have correspondence to attend to. Father will be home for tea, if you’d like to wait.”
Nora yanked her legs from his hold and went back to her vacuous notes and her vacant demeanor. Eventually her brother stood and left the library, and then the house.
Nora’s father had given over the great bulk of the chaperoning duties to Aunt Martha. Except for their daily ride on the Ladies’ Mile, and those few functions at which his attendance was specifically requested, he’d stepped back from the Season. Though neither he nor Aunt Martha has said so expressly, Nora assumed that they’d agreed she required a feminine guide—and, despite her aunt’s secret affections, she was probably an apt guide. She had, after all, succumbed, just as Nora would.
They rode in the carriage—motorcars terrified her aunt—toward a house in St. James’s, for yet another stuffy dinner in yet another stuffy drawing room. This one would be doubly stuffy, because a dreary rain had held the city in its grip for days. Nora leaned on the wall of the carriage and peered out the rain-speckled window at the people scurrying out of the weather as quickly as they could. A wet, colourless world in black and grey.
Though the trip was barely a mile, progress on the street was slow. They’d been stopped for several minutes, sitting in the dark carriage in silence. Nora no longer spoke to anyone unless she had no choice. Her aunt had given up trying.
Other than Aunt Martha’s occasional sighs, loud and rhetorical, the only sounds were the patter of rain on the carriage roof and the strangely singular buzz of the world outside.
The carriage lurched forward for a minute or so, then stopped again. Nora could
tell that they were close enough to St. James’s that had they’d been in an open carriage, she’d have seen the iron fence surrounding the square.
“Perhaps we should just walk,” she muttered, still staring out the window.
“No, dove, we shouldn’t. You’ll ruin your pretty gown.”
A painful spasm of a laugh left Nora’s chest. Of course. The gown was the most important thing.
“Nora …” Aunt Martha began, but before she could say more, the window beside Nora’s head was struck with something wet and red, and she threw herself away from the glass in shock. A red smear oozed down the window, washing away in the rain. Was it blood?
Something else hit the carriage elsewhere with a thump. And another. Nora leaned to the window again, ignoring her aunt’s restraining grip on her arm. Another red thing hit the carriage, just beside the window—a tomato. Women were lined up on the street outside St. James’s Square, pelting rotten vegetables at the carriages on their way in. They stood silently in the rain, their hats drooping soggily, and pulled tomatoes, cabbages, turnips from sodden baskets.
Nora whipped around to see out the other side of the carriage—a line of women stood there, too. On that side, they held a long white banner, and she leaned over so she could read it. TO ASK FOR FREEDOM IS NOT A CRIME, it shouted in purple and green letters. FREE SUFFRAGE PRISONERS. At the bottom, in smaller letters, the sign identified the origin of the protest: The Women’s Social and Political Union. Mrs. Pankhurst’s organization.
They stood even as their missiles were thrown back at them, even as people on the street shoved them and hit them with umbrellas and fists. They didn’t fight back, except to save the banner when two men tried to yank it from their hands.
“Did you know about this?” Nora asked her aunt, who still held regular meetings of the Kensington Rose Club and funded their activities—not that she allowed Nora to attend, of course.
Nothing on Earth & Nothing in Heaven Page 19
