Turning the Tide

by Edith Maxwell

  “Then it’s firm.”

  “Thank thee, my friend. I wondered what excuse I’d have to make up to visit Zula. Now we’ll just be two friends paying a call.” I stood.

  “And we can talk about the plans for tomorrow,” Bertie added. “Now I’d better get back to work.”

  I said good-bye and let myself out. I stood on the street for a moment, my bonnet flapping in the wind, as I determined what my story would be at Bixby & Batchelder. I certainly couldn’t pretend to talk about a woman suffrage demonstration with those lawyers. Or … maybe I could. Rowena, a leader of the suffrage movement, had worked for the firm, after all. Or I could ask them what their plans for a memorial gift might be, and see if I could learn more about Elbridge Osgood’s firing while I was there.

  I headed back up Water Street to the square and then made my way along Main Street to the attorneys’ offices.

  “Yes, miss?” A middle-aged lady at a desk facing the door looked up over her glasses. “How may I help you?”

  “My name is Rose Carroll. I’d like to speak with George Batchelder if he has a minute, please.”

  “Mr. Batchelder is a very busy man, Miss Carroll, I’m afraid.” She glanced at an open appointment book and then back at me, removing her spectacles. “You don’t have an appointment. What would this be in regard to?”

  “It’s about Rowena Felch.”

  The woman’s face fell. “Poor Mrs. Felch. What a terrible tragedy.”

  “It is.” I cleared my throat. “I’m afraid I was the one who found her body.”

  The woman’s mouth fell open. She recovered herself and pointed to the chair in front of the desk. “Sit yourself right down there and tell me all about it.”

  I sat and gave her the barest of details of my discovery.

  “Mrs. Felch was a fine, fine attorney, despite being a lady,” the woman said. “This firm suffered a great loss with her death. It will be hard to replace her.”

  “I heard Elbridge Osgood recently left his position here. Can’t the lead lawyers convince him to return?”

  She snorted. “He didn’t leave voluntarily. Mr. Batchelder asked him to go. Mr. Osgood threw such a scene when they promoted Mrs. Felch. Why, it was like a young lad stomping around because someone stole his toy truck. He couldn’t believe they’d promoted a lady over him. No, they won’t be asking Mr. Osgood back. And he wasn’t promoted because, frankly”—she leaned in and lowered her voice—“he’s not all that bright. Took forever to write up a brief and he was always making mistakes.”

  “A pity.” Lyda hadn’t exactly given me the true story. But why would she? She was married to him.

  “Anyway.” The woman straightened. “What was it about Mrs. Felch? The reason you came?”

  “I’ve come about a memorial to her, from the Woman Suffrage Association. I thought perhaps her employers here would like to contribute.” I cringed inwardly about misleading her, definitely not how a Friend was supposed to act. But I could certainly suggest such a memorial to one of the association leaders at the demonstration tomorrow.

  “I think this an excellent proposal. I’ll bring it to the attention of the Misters Bixby and Batchelder.”

  “I thank thee.” I stood.

  “You’re a Quaker, then.”

  “Yes.”

  “Good for you. I always did admire you all for living the clean life. There’s far too much drinking and gambling in the world today, but not from your sort. And you know, I’ve been meaning to join the Woman Suffrage Association, myself. Maybe I shall one of these days.”

  “I hope thee will.” I said good-bye and made my way out. Elbridge was definitely still on the list of suspects. How could I find out where he’d been Saturday night?

  Zula opened the door to her flat with a look of astonishment. “Miss Winslow, Miss Carroll. Please come in.” She backed away and ushered us into a spacious room with large windows and electric wall sconces. The flat was the second floor of a large, elegant house on Highland Street. We’d been let in the front door by a uniformed maid and then made our way up a graceful staircase. This room was furnished with chairs, a settee, and a chaise. A gleaming black grand piano stood in the far corner. A tall plant was positioned in front of a window, and one wall featured built-in bookcases. Considerable resources had paid for this residence

  “Please sit down.” She gestured toward the sitting area.

  Bertie and I sat in two chairs upholstered in a maroon chintz across from the settee, where Zula perched. Her hair fell in a long braid down her back and she wore a green-and-pink dotted day dress, giving her a softer look than when I’d seen her in public.

  “We just thought we’d pay you a call,” Bertie began, “to express our condolences on Rowena’s death.” Bertie folded her hands primly in her lap, looking like a proper lady making a proper call.

  I had to choke back a giggle, since that was the last thing she was.

  Zula regarded her own lap for a moment, letting out a shuddering sigh. Her gaze rose again. “I thank you both, and I appreciate the visit. Let me ring for tea, unless you’d like something stronger. I have some excellent Spanish sherry.”

  “I don’t mind if I do,” Bertie said.

  Zula went to a cabinet and brought back two small glasses full of an amber liquid and handed one to Bertie. “Miss Carroll?”

  “Nothing for me, but I thank thee.”

  “Rose is a Quaker,” Bertie said with a grin. “She never touches the hard stuff.”

  “So that’s why you speak in your odd fashion.” Zula sat with the other glass.

  I smiled. “That’s why, yes.”

  “We also wanted to ask if there’s anything we can help with for the demonstration tomorrow, other than showing up,” Bertie went on.

  This was the additional ruse we’d come up with for our visit, since Zula was one of the organizers, although there was nothing wrong with a simple condolence call, of course.

  Zula blinked a couple of times. “You’re very kind.” She got up, fetched a piece of paper from a small writing desk in the corner, and brought it back. I glimpsed a list of items jotted down. “No, everything is in order, but thank you. Just be there by eight.” She laid the paper on the end table between her seat and mine.

  I casually picked it up. “You have quite a list of tasks,” I said, but really I was comparing the handwriting with my memory of the one on the note Rowena had held. Zula’s writing was also unusual, with upright and almost backward-leaning letters. Was it the same as on the note requesting a rendezvous? I couldn’t tell.

  “Organizing a large group of people isn’t a simple matter,” Zula said. “But we have worked diligently on our plans for the demonstration, and I believe it will be a successful gathering. And highly visible to the citizens of the town, which is important.”

  “Will Mrs. Stanton be joining us at the polls?” Bertie asked.

  “She said she would. You were given sashes the other night?” Zula asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “We both were.” I gazed at Zula. “After the meeting on Seventh Day evening, I saw you walking away with Rowena. Were you having an argument?”

  She stared at me, and then sighed. “The same old argument. I wanted her to move in. She didn’t want to. I couldn’t seem to make her change her mind. Look at this place. There’s plenty of room for two. She’d have had her own bedroom.”

  There was indeed far too much space here for only one person. Why had Zula’s family set her up here in such a large, independent apartment?

  Zula shook her head. “But Rowena refused, said she needed to strike out on her own. And now she never will.” She sniffed.

  “Did you walk her all the way home?” Bertie asked with an innocent look on her face.

  Zula cleared her throat. “Why, no. I continued on Highland when she turned onto her street.” She lifted her chin
as her eyes filled. “I wish I had. I might have been able to protect her against the brute who killed her.”

  Was she a good actress or was she telling the truth? If she had left the note, then it was a ruse, because why ask Rowena to meet her if she was already with her? Perhaps we were only adding to her hurt by asking her overly painful questions.

  thirteen

  I bounced on my heels on the platform at the Water Street train depot as the Boston and Maine steamed in. The scream of its brakes announced the arrival and steam billowed white into the night sky as if in a celestial celebration. I couldn’t wait to see Mother. We’d never experienced the mother-daughter conflicts many of my friends had. I’d long admired my unconventional parent for her disregard of the tongues that wagged when she became active in the suffrage movement. She was honest and funny and energetic, and I loved her.

  A minute later I spied her climbing down from the third car and I waved, hurrying in her direction. Silver hair peeked out from a rich maroon bonnet matching her cloak, and her eyes shone. Friends were admonished to wear plain dress free of adornment, but she’d always told me the practice didn’t mean we had to wear drab colors, too.

  “Rosie, darling.” She set down her valise and embraced me.

  I’d grown a couple of inches taller than Mother in my teen years, and it still seemed odd she was shorter than me. I hugged her, feeling her strong slender back under my hands.

  “I’m so glad thee came,” I said. “How was the trip?” I pushed up my spectacles and lifted her case.

  “Oh, thee knows the route. I had to change four times—in Bradford, Georgetown, and Salisbury—and it seemed to take all day. But I’m here now and that’s all that counts.”

  “The children are beside themselves with excitement. And Faith has decided to come to the demonstration tomorrow, as well.”

  “Excellent. She’s plenty old enough.”

  “Frederick doesn’t think so. Let’s go home and thee can see for thyself.” As we walked arm in arm, I filled her in on yesterday’s argument and my subsequent extraction of my brother-in-law from the saloon.

  She made a tsking sound. “I never did understand what Harriet saw in Frederick. But he’s part of the family now. I’ll have a word with him about the drink.”

  “Good luck.” While Frederick had seemed penitent, I doubted her word would have much effect. On the other hand she could be persuasive. It might work.

  “So, my darling, I read in the Lawrence Sun American Amesbury’s had another murder, and the story said the body was discovered by a local midwife. I suppose such midwife might have been thee?”

  “In fact it was. I haven’t had time to look at the papers. I wonder if the Amesbury and Salisbury Villager or the Newburyport papers said the same.” I wrinkled my nose. I didn’t mind investigating murders as an amateur, but I didn’t want my clients thinking I was somehow tainted by violence, or that they might be at risk from a criminal pursuing me.

  “Thee is infamous, dear. Tell me all about it, and what thee has discovered so far.”

  Mother supported my sleuthing tendencies. I told her my thoughts on the case and about the various people who might have had an urge to do away with Rowena. I ended with Zula.

  “Even a suffragist?” Mother asked. “I hope it wasn’t her.”

  “She claims it wasn’t, of course. Just a couple of hours ago she told Bertie and me she’d parted ways with Rowena before they reached Rowena’s home that evening. But I sensed she was lying. A misleading statement doesn’t mean she killed Rowena, of course.”

  We passed the ornate four-story Merrimack Opera House. Lights blazed and a round of applause broke out from within, drifting out through the open doors. A police officer strolled up and down in front, wearing the white helmet the police switched to in the winter months.

  “It’s a big Republican rally,” I told her. “Gathering votes for Harrison and the other Republican candidates, I suppose. The Democrats held theirs last Thursday.”

  “What are the president’s chances here in Amesbury, does thee think?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. I have heard more people say they support Harrison than Cleveland. But we won’t truly know until after tomorrow.”

  We turned up the path leading to the Bailey house. “I forgot to tell thee about meeting Elizabeth Stanton. She gave us a stirring call to action at the suffrage meeting on Seventh Day. And my friends Bertie and Sophie hosted Elizabeth at a gathering last night, where she spoke movingly about equality and personal responsibility. She remembered meeting thee.”

  “What a woman. I look forward to seeing her. I mean, if she hasn’t already gone back to New York.”

  “No, she’s staying for the demonstration.”

  “Splendid.”

  “Mother, I have a concern I want to share with thee.” I paused at the base of the steps.

  “Yes, darling?”

  “The clerk of the Women’s Business Meeting eldered me yesterday. She made it quite clear I’ll be read out of Meeting when I marry David.”

  The lights in the house pushed out a welcoming greeting into the darkness, but they also illuminated the concern in Mother’s eyes.

  “I wondered about your prospects for being expelled.” She set her hands on her hips. “I might have to have a word with this clerk, too. It seems to me to be the very opposite of rights for women, of Friends’ clear position on equality between the sexes, for this stupid old-

  fashioned custom to be perpetuated. What on earth could possibly be wrong with thee wedding a fine, upstanding man like David, just because he’s not a Quaker?” Her voice rose in indignation. “It’s an outrage. Why, Lawrence Meeting dropped reading members out for that reason years ago.”

  I set down her bag and embraced her quickly. “Thee has already made me feel better. Things will work out, as way opens.”

  She snorted. “‘As way opens.’ As far as I’m concerned, we need to open it our way, not that of those old biddies.”

  fourteen

  Faith, Mother, and I hurried around the corner onto Friend Street toward the polling site at eight the next morning. Mother had been given an exuberant greeting by the children last night, and even Frederick had shed his unpleasant manner for the evening to welcome her.

  When we’d left the house this morning, Faith had shown us a small notebook and two sharpened pencils. “I’m going to take notes on the demonstration and write an article for the Amesbury and Salisbury Villager.” Her cheeks were rosy with excitement at the prospect of being published again in our weekly newspaper. We’d invited Frederick to walk over to the polls with us, but he’d declined. At least he hadn’t raised a fuss again about Faith accompanying us. Perhaps the calming presence of my mother had something to do with it.

  Voting was taking place at the Armory, a recently completed town building, and the polls had already been open for an hour. I wore my bright yellow sash slung diagonally across my torso, and Mother wore one from a previous event, since the color was a symbol of the movement. She’d told me using the color of sunflowers was chosen because the flower always turns its face to the light and follows the course of the sun, as if worshiping the archetype of righteousness. She’d brought a sash for Faith, too. We received a couple of rude comments from men we passed on our way here, one glare from an older matron, and several admiring glances from women in shops we walked by.

  Now I gasped. In front of a three-story brick home on the other side of the street from the Armory a hundred women in matching yellow sashes lined the sidewalk. The women stood mostly in silence, watching men file in and out of the polling place. One demonstrator held a placard reading Women Bring All Voters Into The World. Let Women Vote, and it showed a drawing of a mother cradling a baby. I wished I’d thought to create a poster like hers. Other signs read Ballots for Both or Equal Suffrage, and a number of others simply had Votes for Women pr
inted in large block letters. Many were decorated with a yellow matching our sashes.

  Elizabeth Stanton stood in the middle of the line next to a woman holding an American flag on a pole, and I spotted Zula at the far end handing out sashes to newcomers who needed them.

  Faith’s eyes went big. “Granny Dot, this is stunning. Has thee ever seen a demonstration so big?”

  “I have, but today’s numbers are quite impressive for a town this size.”

  The dark-haired teenage girl I’d seen at the suffrage meeting waved to us. She wore her own yellow sash. “Faith, over here.”

  “She’s my friend Jasmine.” Faith waved back. “I’m going to stand with her, all right?”

  “What a curious appellation,” Mother said.

  “She told me her mother read a translated Persian poem called ‘Rubaiyat.’” Faith smiled. “Jasmine is some fragrant tropical flower the author mentions.”

  “It’s a lovely name. Go be with thy chuckaboo,” I murmured, using the term for “pal” Faith herself loved to say. I wasn’t surprised Faith had a friend with similar views and a similar courage to express them.

  Mother and I joined the group and stood next to Ruby and Frannie. After my eldering on First Day, I wasn’t particularly happy to see Ruby, and she gave me a somewhat stern glance as I introduced her and Frannie to Mother. I stood a pace away as they chatted in quiet voices.

  Two tall and wide arched windows flanked the arched door in the middle of the red brick building opposite, which was draped with red-white-and-blue bunting. Representatives from both the Democratic and Republican parties handed colored ballots to the men entering, the Republicans wearing tall white hats with black bands, the Democrats the same hat but with a pearl-colored band. A half dozen men held posters mounted on sticks. Several featured the president’s and A.G. Thurman’s images, and others had the faces of Benjamin Harrison and his running mate, Levi Morton. An older police officer stood with his hands behind his back, his eyes roaming constantly.