Finding Dorothy

by Elizabeth Letts

  “He’s very handsome, don’t you think?”

  Maud was mystified that her sister could be smitten with this young man—still wet behind his ears, and not at all pleasant in his manner. But she did not want to hurt her feelings, so she simply murmured her assent.

  Maud soon grew weary of the visitors and wished nothing more than to go upstairs to her room, change into a loose house dress, and read a book. At least in the henhouse she could retreat into the solitude of the library. Here at home, she was constantly forced to dress up and chatter with people who seemed dreadfully dull to her. From time to time, her thoughts floated to the strange young man with the gray eyes.

  He must be waiting to see if he would receive an invitation to call at the Gage home. Maud knew that he could not come to visit unless invited—and if Matilda invited him, Maud would be signaling her interest in him. But Maud had not yet figured out a way to speak to Matilda about this. If she told her mother that she wished to receive a visit from Frank Baum, then her mother would no doubt besiege her with a lecture about focusing on her studies instead of on young men. She was so fixated on Maud’s diploma that sometimes it seemed as if she wanted it for herself.

  Maud was so lost in her thoughts that she barely registered that her mother had approached her.

  “Maud?” she said. “Can you please help me out for a moment?” She held a piece of twine with a large iron key suspended on it.

  “Of course, Mother.”

  “Would you fetch a gallon of cider from the cool storeroom? Cook is busy stirring the custard and can’t leave the stove.”

  Maud nodded, pleased to have something to do besides sit like a lump in the middle of the convivial guests.

  James Carpenter was leaning up against the wall near the window, speaking with Julia, but Maud had the uncomfortable sensation that his eyes were upon her as she passed.

  Maud entered the kitchen, where Mary O’Meara, the Irish cook, was standing in front of the stove. Maud passed out of the kitchen and into the hallway that connected to the back storeroom. The iron key was tricky to insert into the lock; Maud was fiddling with it when she felt a presence.

  “Can I give you a hand, Miss Gage?”

  Startled, she dropped the key, which clattered on the brick floor. She turned to see James Carpenter standing directly behind her.

  He bent down and scooped up the iron key, bending uncomfortably close as he inserted it into the lock. With a click, the door swung open, releasing a puff of colder air scented with potatoes, carrots, and straw.

  “I heard your mother say that you needed to retrieve something for her, and I thought I could help you carry it.” His tone was ingratiating, but his fleshy pink lips hung slack, and she could not bring herself to meet his eyes. Just inside the hallway, she was only steps away from the cozy kitchen filled with the warm scents of vanilla, sugar, and scalding milk, but she had closed the door behind herself to keep the chill from the kitchen, and she saw that in following her, he had done the same. Hadn’t anyone noticed? Certainly someone would have thought that it was odd and overly familiar for a guest to follow her into the narrow hallway. But as Maud had passed through the kitchen, Mary had been concentrating on her stirring.

  “Thank you kindly, Mr. Carpenter, but I’m not in the least in need of assistance,” Maud said, her voice firm. “I suggest that you return to the party. Everyone will be wondering where you have gotten to.”

  Keeping her eyes averted, she turned and walked through the open door into the cold storage room, passing quickly across the small dark space to the shelf where the fresh jugs of cider were kept. Behind her, the storeroom door clicked shut. The room plunged into total blackness. Inside the confined space, Maud heard breathing, and she realized he had entered behind her. She turned to face toward him, backing up slowly as her eyes adjusted to the darkness.

  “I am not in need of your assistance.” Maud couldn’t hide a slight quaver in her voice.

  “I’m just here to help a pretty girl.” He took a step forward.

  “Please leave!”

  He barked a laugh. “I would think you are used to being alone with men, as a coed…”

  Maud’s eyes had adjusted to the dim light leaking in around the hallway door. She picked up the heavy earthenware jug and assessed the distance she had to cross to reach the exit. The room was narrow, and she wasn’t sure she could dart to either side of him. She took a small step forward, hoping that he would move aside, but instead he stepped toward her.

  “Pray, Mr. Carpenter, leave me alone and return to the house,” Maud said. “I do not need your assistance.”

  His laugh had an edge of rum punch in it. “Ah, Miss Maud Gage, daughter of the famous suffragette. Perhaps I’d prefer to stay and enjoy your company!” He lurched toward her.

  Without thinking, Maud pitched the heavy jug as hard as she could. It caught him on the chin, sending him reeling a step back before it shattered on the bricks. Maud seized the opportunity, rushed past him, and pushed open the heavy door. She plunged with relief into the cool back hallway, and in moments she was standing in the kitchen, where she found Matilda gazing at her reproachfully.

  “It’s taken you so long, and you’ve come back empty-handed?” Matilda said.

  Maud was flustered, grasping for words to describe what had just happened.

  “Your dress is all wet!” Matilda said.

  “I’m sorry, Mother—I dropped the jug, and the cider splattered.”

  At that exact moment, James Carpenter stepped into the kitchen with a heavy jug of cider in each hand.

  “Here you go, Mrs. Gage,” he said. “I was just giving Miss Gage a hand.”

  Matilda looked mystified.

  “Why, Mr. Carpenter, I believe you’ve hurt yourself,” she said.

  He set the jugs on the counter, rubbed his chin with one hand, and looked startled to see the blood on his fingers.

  “I must have cut myself leaning over to pick up the jugs.” He caught Maud’s eye as he said this, as if daring her to call his bluff.

  Maud was gathering her wits to respond when Matilda said, “Maudie darling, why don’t you run along upstairs so you can change?”

  Maud narrowed her eyes and glared at James, hoping to communicate that her choice to say nothing would in no way let him off the hook. But James slunk out of the kitchen, avoiding her gaze. Blinking back tears, Maud cut through the crowded parlor and hurried up the stairs. In her bedroom, she took off her cider-stained dress, unlaced her corset, and threw herself on her bed. She had decided not to return to the party.

  After some time, she heard the tinkle of crockery and the tread of footsteps in the hallway, and Julia came in, carrying a tray of warm custard and chamomile tea. Afraid that her sister would subject her to an interrogation, Maud picked up her novel and began to read. She hoped that Julia would recognize that she was hiding something. She had yet to figure out a way to broach this painful subject with her sister.

  Julia sat on the edge of her bed, and when Maud looked up, a soft smile lit up her sister’s face. From beneath the fold of her skirt, she pulled out her left hand, revealing that a thin band of gold now crossed her fourth finger.

  Maud stared at the ring in horror.

  “Julia? What have you done?”

  “What have I done?” Julia blanched.

  “Have you thought this through? I’m not sure this is wise.”

  Her sister’s eyes glinted, now with an edge of defiance.

  “Your best wishes are welcome. I’m not interested in your opinions.”

  * * *

  —

  THE NEXT AFTERNOON, MAUD TRIED once again to speak to Julia, when she found her alone in the front parlor.

  “Sister, are you absolutely certain? Do you know enough about this young man’s character?”

  Julia sighed and cl
asped her hands in her lap, silently spinning the gold band around and around on her finger.

  “How can we know the future?” Julia said. “All I know is what my life is like now. I desire to escape it.” She looked Maud straight in the eye. “I’ve made up my mind, sister. I don’t wish to speak of this matter ever again.”

  Matilda sat in her study, facing away from Maud, her watercolors arrayed in a brilliant palette in front of her. A half-finished painting of a vase full of forget-me-nots stood before her.

  “Might I have a word with you, Mother?” Maud asked.

  Matilda turned around, greeting her with a distracted air.

  “What is it, Maud?”

  “In the matter of Mr. James Carpenter…do you not have any reservations?”

  “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “He is closer to my age than Julia’s,” Maud began, trying to decide how best to articulate her reservations. “He seems—”

  Matilda sighed, and Maud noticed the violet blotches that encircled her mother’s eyes. Matilda was tireless, indefatigable, the author of books and speeches, the ruler of the household, the person on whom all responsibilities lay, from watching over the cooking to educating her children to saving the fate of all womankind. Maud always thought of her mother as entirely invincible, but here, in this quiet moment, Maud got a glimpse of the fact that Mother needed a rest sometimes, too.

  “He has ambition, and he appears to be in good health. Would you really let the matter of age interfere in your sister’s happiness? Most women marry men old enough to be their own fathers and then end up caring for the cranky and querulous men in their old age, only to find themselves widowed and obliged to move in with their children for relief.”

  Maud had certainly observed that this was true, even in her own family. Papa’s bouts of fever confined him to bed more and more often, leaving Mother to shoulder the family’s burdens alone, and though she wrote her fingers to the bone, and talked often of royalties, money never seemed to follow. Her mother’s closest allies in the suffrage movement faced no such difficulties. Matilda, Auntie Susan, and Mrs. Stanton were writing a series of books together, a multivolume history of the women’s suffrage movement. They’d been working on it for years, and, frankly, Mother did most of the work. Auntie Susan said that she could think but she couldn’t write, and Mrs. Stanton was often too busy to help. Maud could not avoid noticing the differences in their circumstances. Auntie Susan, a single woman with no children, made large sums of money giving speeches, and Mrs. Stanton was a wealthy woman who traveled to and from the Continent without a care. But Mother had to manage the family and its finances, her own work, and all her work for the movement without much help.

  “I’m getting older,” Matilda said. “It would be a help if Julia were situated….I’m sure you realize that she has not had the prospects that you have had.”

  “It’s better for her to stay at home than to be married to the wrong man. How many times have you said that yourself?”

  “But what possible evidence do you have against this young man?” Matilda asked. “If you have something to say, please speak your piece now.”

  Maud opened her mouth, intending to tell her mother about the incident in the storeroom, but before she spoke, she thought of her sister’s face: her defiant expression, her certainty that she was making the right decision. What right had Maud to set Mother against Julia? Since the day Julia had quit her studies, Mother had never treated her the same. The great Matilda Joslyn Gage was impatient of weakness, intolerant of those who lacked resolve in the fight. Maud was certain that Matilda, had she been born a boy, would have taken up arms to fight for the Union, stood on the battlefield, faced down the cannons and artillery, and spurred on her comrades to fear not in the face of the fight. Alas, Mother had had to content herself handing out flags and giving speeches—cajoling the young men of her generation to fight against the evil scourge of slavery. Her battlefield was her own home, her daughters her soldiers. Julia, in Mother’s view, was a deserter to the great cause of women’s emancipation. And Maud knew that this was a heavy cross for her sister to bear. Maud balled her hands into fists in the folds of her skirt, blinked, swallowed, and decided, after all, to say nothing.

  “Speak up, Maud. Do you have something to say?”

  Instead of speaking of her sister’s situation, could she not be courageous on her own behalf?

  “Maudie?”

  “I do have something to say, Mother, but it’s on another matter.”

  “Your studies?” Matilda said, suddenly eager. “Have you chosen your field of concentration?”

  “Not my studies, Mother. Believe it or not, I do think of other things from time to time.”

  Matilda frowned, but then immediately softened. “Of course, my dear. What is it that you want?”

  “I’d like to receive Josie’s cousin Frank Baum. Can you please invite him?”

  Matilda’s forehead wrinkled slightly. “Josie’s cousin Frank Baum—is that Benjamin Baum’s son, the proprietor of the Rose Lawn estate in Mattydale?”

  Maud nodded encouragingly. “Yes, the very one. He’s Josie Baum’s first cousin.”

  “I understand that the Baums’ business concerns have considerably dwindled…”

  “I know nothing about that,” Maud said.

  “And what line of work is the young man in?”

  “He is an actor,” Maud said. “And a playwright.”

  Matilda paused reflectively.

  “You return to Cornell in two days. I think it would be best if you continue your studies for now without the distraction of a visit from a young man—especially one in such a flighty and unstable profession. First, for you, a diploma, and second, a learned man. You deserve no less.”

  Matilda, certain that their interview was finished, turned her back to Maud and dipped her paintbrush into the small pot of water, carefully dabbing it against the pot’s side.

  “But, Mother!” Maud said.

  “We’ll see about it later,” Matilda said. “Perhaps once the school year has ended.”

  “But, Mother!” Maud protested again. “That is months from now. Perhaps he will have forgotten me by then.”

  “And perhaps you will have forgotten him by then as well. I see little point in pursuing this. He seems like an entirely unsuitable match.”

  Maud could read the set of her mother’s shoulders. She would engage in no further discussion.

  Maud’s thoughts kept circling back to the rushed conversation in the hallway at Josie’s house—he had pleaded for an invitation. How would he respond to this silence? Most likely, he would simply move on, and their brief meeting would be forgotten.

  By the time her school vacation had come to an end, Maud could hardly wait to return to Cornell. In spite of the difficulties she had faced there, in comparison, home had come to seem stifling and intolerable. And perhaps Josie would have some news of Frank Baum.

  CHAPTER

  8

  HOLLYWOOD

  1939

  A few days after the incident with the secondhand-store jacket, Maud returned to M-G-M Studios, hoping to catch the young actress alone. Since the last time she had seen Judy, the thought of the girl had never been far from her mind. At odd moments, Maud would turn her head, thinking she’d heard a snatch of the song about the rainbow, only to realize it was nothing but a passing car horn or the wind in the camellia bushes outside her windows. Perhaps she could have a few minutes to speak with Judy, to get to know her a little better, to give her some hints about Dorothy. From the little she’d seen of her, she suspected that Judy might be more open-minded to her suggestions than any of the men were.

  This time when Maud arrived at the studio property, she was allowed to drive past the crowd of autograph seekers thronging outside the gates. Her name had been added to the list of ap
proved visitors for Production #1060, and the guard directed her to Sound Stage 27.

  Outside the sound stage, a different guard gestured toward a red light spinning above the door, the signal that entry was prohibited because the cameras were rolling. Maud leaned up against the stucco wall to wait. The bright California sunshine reflected off the white walls of the alley, and a fringe of palm trees, visible above the rooftops, looked like a row of shaggy poodles against the clear blue sky. Maud had not been waiting long when a large group of costumed people—at least twenty—rounded the corner, chattering excitedly. Each one of them was tiny—the tallest reaching only as high as Maud’s waist. Three gents wearing lederhosen, striped tights, and elf shoes with curled-up toes pulled cigarettes from their pockets and lit them up. A tiny woman in green tights with a papier-mâché flowerpot affixed to her head kept popping up on her tiptoes, trying to see over the others’ heads. And an older gentleman dressed in a floor-length purple robe repeatedly bumped into the others with his especially broad-brimmed purple hat. It took a moment for Maud to realize that most of these people were chattering to each other in German.

  Maud was startled by this improbable congregation, but the guard’s implacable expression did not change. He pointed to the spinning light, and the group clustered around Maud, preparing to wait. She smiled down at the people around her, but no one was looking at her, distracted as they were by the fanciful sight of two gleaming black ponies in white harnesses trotting up the alley, pulling a tiny carriage behind them.

  Was this a dream? She peered into the glaring light of the alleyway, convinced that surely Frank himself would be bringing up the rear of this startling parade, a twinkle in his eye and a pipe clamped between his teeth, waving his unmistakable fingers in the air and telling her that he had conjured up all of this specially to delight her. Maud remembered the day in Chicago when she’d been waiting to meet him near the gate of the Columbian Exhibition and had then caught sight of him, marching and waving majestically in the middle of a parade of courtiers accompanying the king of Spain. He had smiled at her and tipped his hat as he passed. Later, he’d explained that he’d been mistaken for part of the king’s coterie and had decided to play along. That was Frank. Today, behind the black ponies, there was nothing but an empty alleyway, flooded with sunshine.