Sex Wars

by Marge Piercy

  They were in Davenport, Iowa, when the newspapers headlined the Commodore’s death. They were in a sleazy hotel in Des Moines when Victoria read about the family suit. The Commodore had left 90 percent of his wealth to his son William, and a pittance to each of the other family members. He had never shown any interest in his daughters. He viewed Corny Junior as a parasite. The rest of the family was suing for what they considered their fair share of the hundred-million-plus estate. They claimed that the Commodore had been senile, even crazy in his later years, and that his will should be broken because his mind was unsound.

  “Why do we even go back to New York?” Tennie asked, standing at the hotel window looking out on the dusty street and the carriages passing. “We have no home there. You’re dumping the Colonel. Everything’s gone and busted.”

  “We go to New York so we won’t go back to Ohio.”

  “What’s going to become of us? Will we have to be prostitutes or mistresses?”

  Victoria pushed her face into her hands and closed her eyes tight. “I have no idea.”

  “I sure wish we had some of the money we spent. And what those freeloaders in our family spent like water going down the gutter and into the drain.”

  Dingy hotel after hotel. As the audiences grew smaller and the fees less, so were their accommodations bleaker. Roxanne acted as maid, washing, brushing, repairing. She wasn’t skilled at keeping up their clothes, but at least she tried. Everything had to last. Fortunately, gaslight was kinder than sunlight to Victoria’s increasingly shabby black silk dresses. The rose she wore at her neck or on her bosom now was a silk rose, not a fresh one—one more little luxury that had vanished with their money.

  Back in New York, she found the notice that her divorce had not been contested and was final. Surprisingly, she also found a note from William Vanderbilt, of all people—the Commodore’s son and heir—addressed to her and Tennie. She knew the Commodore had despised William for years, teasing him, sticking him out on Staten Island on a farm inherited from the Commodore’s mother. He had made a profit on the farm, mostly by driving his employees until they dropped. Gradually the Commodore had begun using him as a surrogate on boards. Finally he had come to rely on William. Now he had left almost everything to him. Why did William ask them to let him know when they had arrived in New York? Victoria sent a message back saying that she and Tennie were there for two weeks.

  The messenger came back: William would call on them incognito the next evening at eight. He would appreciate privacy for their conversation. Victoria bribed the boardinghouse keeper to let them have the parlor to themselves.

  At eight promptly, a carriage pulled up outside and a gentleman in a long cape, his face muffled, got out and climbed the steps. The maid showed him into the parlor and Tennie shut the double doors.

  “Here we are,” Victoria said. “How may we help you? You know that we frequently assisted your father.”

  “That’s why I’m here.” William was not a prepossessing figure. He was a heavyset man, but without the Commodore’s robust and commanding presence. His head looked too big for his body; his skin was coarse and red, his eyes small and narrowed, perennially squinting. She wondered if he was nearsighted. His voice was low and rather soft. He laid his cape carefully on a chair. “We are in court. The rest of the family is trying to break my father’s will. He left the bulk of his estate to me because he believed I could increase it, and that the rest of the family would fritter it away. I believe his estimation was correct and I am fighting to maintain the will.”

  “The old boy had all his marbles as long as I knew him,” Tennie said. “He could tell lamb from mutton any day.”

  “The family plans to subpoena the two of you to demonstrate that he was…eccentric. To be blunt, that he was crazy. They plan to question both of you about your relationships with him. The séances. The advice from his mother and his dead son—the son I was always compared to and found wanting. They plan to trot out the massages. The laying on of hands. The magnetic healing. Now that stuff is in bad repute these days. All those newspaper stories about fraudulent mediums using devices to simulate spirits. I know you never did any of that, rapping, voices, whatever. But it will look bad in court.”

  “I ain’t afraid of courts, Willie.” Tennie crossed her arms. “We’ve seen the inside of more courts than I can count.”

  “And we don’t want to see any more,” Victoria said firmly. “What’s your plan? I gather you want to prevent the family from subpoenaing us? You would prefer that they not bring into court the letters that your father wrote me and most particularly Tennie. Even if they don’t show he was incompetent, they might cause a scandal. You know he proposed to Tennie. In fact, we have that in writing.”

  “I’d be very interested in seeing those letters.”

  “I’m sure you would, but they’re in a safe place.” In fact they were upstairs in the lining of Tennie’s trunk.

  “I’d be interested in acquiring them, for the sake of the family archives. I collect memorabilia about my father.”

  Tennie leaned forward. “Okay, Willie, I’m interested. They mean a lot to me. But as you can see, we’re not exactly rolling in it these days.”

  “Could you produce those letters this evening if I wrote you a check for, say, twenty thousand?”

  “Forty,” Victoria said.

  “Twenty-five, and you produce them right now, or you may keep them. I’m only willing to go so far to pull my father’s chestnuts out of the fire.” He took out his checkbook and a silver pen. “Do we have a deal?”

  “What about our appearances in court? That’s a different matter.” Victoria’s heart was beating so fast she thought she might pass out. She clutched the arms of her chair, but she kept her voice level and her face expressionless. With twenty-five thousand, they could crawl out of poverty again and set themselves up. But as what? Should they restart their paper? But the country had turned conservative.

  William produced his narrow foxy smile. “I have on my person two tickets first-class to Liverpool leaving two days hence, the steamship Oceanic on the White Star line. It makes the crossing in seven days. Do you think you would enjoy an ocean voyage and some time in England? I can wire ahead and engage very comfortable lodgings for you in a fashionable section of London. I can also set up an account into which I will deposit ten thousand pounds once I know you are in England. Then we call it quits. I only ask you do not return to this country for a decade. After that, I don’t care what you do.”

  “Ten thousand pounds. Is that more or less than ten thousand dollars?” Tennie asked.

  “It’s more than twice as much.” He looked at Victoria. “You can make a fresh start in England, ladies. You seem to need one.”

  “Two tickets won’t do it. There are my two children. They must accompany us.”

  “Of course. Two more tickets will be in your hands tomorrow.”

  “Your deal is accepted,” Victoria said, quelling Tennie with a gesture. “We will be on that ship. Provided the lodgings are acceptable in London and the money is deposited, we will carry out our end of the bargain. We were always reliable in our dealings with your father.”

  “Until you tried to blackmail him.” William smirked.

  “That wasn’t us,” Tennie said. “That was our crazy parents and sister. We knew nothing about that scheme until it was too late.”

  “We also have family problems.” Victoria smiled slightly. “You might find it advantageous to send our parents to England. We would set them up at some distance from us, but they’d be out of your way. You don’t want them called into court either. They cause scandal every time they open their mouths. But if you decide to send them on, wait until we’re settled in London, please.”

  Victoria sat primly in her chair, taking care not to act too excited while Tennie ran upstairs to get the letters. William had guessed they were on the premises. Their lives had been too irregular of late to allow them anyplace they could stow them safely.
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br />   “I have never been abroad,” Victoria said. “I look forward to the experience.”

  “I imagine you do,” William said. “Try to stay out of the papers in London.”

  “It will not impact on you or your family, whatever career I decide upon. I’ll probably lecture, because that’s what I do best. I will, needless to say, not mention my connection to your father or to you. You can count on my silence.”

  “But can I count on your sister’s?”

  “Tennie will be silent. She wasn’t the one who let out that the Commodore asked her to marry him, remember that. He told you himself, didn’t he?”

  William nodded. “And your parents?”

  “Work through intermediaries. Make sure they don’t know where the tickets are coming from. Don’t send them first-class, by the way. They would cause too much of a stir. Have them told that the money is from us and that we’re doing well in England.”

  “I appreciate your discretion.”

  Victoria smiled. “See that you do. And it will continue—to the grave.”

  Victoria told Roxanne that they had a lecture tour in England and had been sent only four tickets. She assured her mother she would send for them as soon as they could afford to, providing the lectures went well. If they didn’t, Tennie and she would soon return. In two days, not only were the sisters ready to travel, but they had bought a few gowns. Annie Wood, still in Manhattan, although she had an agent scouting real estate in New Orleans, put them in touch with a source of secondhand society gowns and a seamstress who refitted them overnight. Thus they were more or less ready for the crossing, although they lacked jewels. Tennie got some decent paste from Annie.

  As the Oceanic left New York Harbor, the sisters toasted each other with champagne. They were both free. They were unmarried, out of jail and in the money again. Zulu Maud was up on deck with Byron, leading him around as she inspected the huge white steamship. She would watch over him and keep him out of trouble.

  “The Commodore came through for us one last time. He might be looking down—or more likely up, from the hot place—if it exists,” Tennie said. “Lord Almighty, I am glad to be heading out. We can do it again, Vickie. Good times ahead.”

  “We’re going to be respectable this time,” Victoria said, putting down her glass with a smart rap. “No massages, no séances. I’m the widow of Dr. Canning Woodhull. You can be the widow of whomever you want. I recommend a Civil War hero. That has a nice ring to it.”

  “Oh, feel the swell. I hope we don’t get seasick. I think I’m too happy to get sick. Isn’t champagne supposed to settle the stomach?”

  “Tennie, listen to me. We must behave.” This time she would not let her chance to flourish be destroyed by her family or anyone else.

  “Oh, to a point. I want to have fun. We have money again. Let’s enjoy it.”

  “We must invent a family tree. He’ll send Buck and Roxanne over. We’ll stow them in a suburb or a country house, some place where they can’t interfere and get in our way.” Victoria sipped her champagne with a frown. Then she reached for a pen and her little black notebook in which she scribbled ideas. “Let’s go back at least five or six generations. We’ll start before the Revolution. They were merchants. That always sounds respectable, doesn’t it?”

  “Sure.” Tennie yawned. “Whatever you say.”

  FORTY-THREE

  ANTHONY WENT OFF to Cleveland and Chicago to pursue pornographers, but in spite of his seizure of close to three boxcars full of filth and his putting seven men and two women in jail, he was ill at ease. He pursued a photographer of naked females all the way to Nevada. He thought of himself as God’s bulldog, for once he had hold of a felon, he never let go. Still, these days he was troubled in his conscience. He was used to the calm conviction that he was the Lord’s strong right arm. Yet there was a mission he had not attempted, going after a great source of evil, that female vulture Madame Restell. He must act. He would proceed against her in the way he proceeded against every criminal, by entrapping her in the commission of a crime. He must prove to the newspapers that he was brave enough to pursue evil, no matter how protected by the high and mighty. David going forth against Goliath, he was armored in virtue and right. Then why did he feel so ill? He had a cough he had not been able to shake. His limbs and torso ached. He could barely raise his arm above his head. He was so accustomed to being strong and hale that he scarcely knew what to do, away from Maggie on the road and feeling weak in all his joints, feverish some mornings. His throat was constantly dry and his voice rasped.

  What mattered the tons of obscene books, dirty pictures, plates, postcards burned in pyres in Brooklyn, what mattered peep shows and dirty plays shut down, what was the use of the mounds of ungodly rubber articles he collected and destroyed, when all the time that notorious murderer of the precious unborn, defiler of the marriage bed, operated in his city with impunity, growing rich on the blood of infants. Last year, 72,500 pounds of bound books, 87,000 pounds of nasty pictures and photographs, 36,000 pounds of rubber articles intended for immoral purposes, 2,150 pounds of indecent playing cards, 2,875 pills and powders of abortifacients or preventives of contraception—he made no distinction. All interfered with woman’s sacred duty. He had lists of men and women he had put in prison, lists of those awaiting trial—at which he would be the principal and sometimes the only witness, and a list of those who had died while he pursued them.

  A month passed while he had sent letter after letter to Madame Restell in his usual persona of a young woman in trouble. No answer came, not even an acknowledgment of his pleas. She must be hard-hearted indeed to refuse her help to a frail young woman in such dire straits. He would have to go after her in person. He would be using the state statutes then, not the federal. It made little difference. He was master of both.

  Although Maggie fed him corned beef that night with cabbage and potatoes, a boiled New England dinner he relished, he had little appetite. The doctor had bled and purged him, but he felt weaker. Adele sat at the table with them, eating daintily. She had fine manners, imitating Maggie. She would follow Maggie about during the daytime and sometimes one of the maids, trying to do what they did. She had not learned to read. She was still working on her alphabet blocks, tracing the letters with her sweet fingers. She was five now, as well behaved as ever. She did not talk much, an admirable thing in a female. She laughed easily, seldom cried, was as good-tempered as they could wish.

  “She will be with us all her life,” Maggie said to him. “She’s a little slow, you know, and I don’t think she could make her way.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with a girl being slow. Too fast is the problem.”

  “I never worry about her getting into mischief. Not on purpose.” Maggie fluffed Adele’s sausage curls. “Aren’t you my little darling girl?”

  Adele nodded vehemently, her curls bobbing. “Mama!” she said. “Good girl.”

  “Finish your cabbage,” Anthony said.

  “Don’t like.”

  “But you will finish it. Be a good girl, for Mommy and Papa.”

  Slowly, reluctantly but obediently, Adele picked up her fork and shoveled in the cabbage, endlessly chewing with watery eyes. But she ate it all.

  ANTHONY DRESSED THAT DAY as he always did, in a slightly rusty rumpled black suit, one of four, a clean white shirt with stiff collar, a white bow tie. His warrants, handcuffs and his badges—federal and state—were tucked away in the pockets, and under his belt in back, his loaded revolver. He would have thought that perhaps the old hag would have retired from the bloody work, with her husband recently dead and herself close to seventy, but her ads continued in the Herald, vaguely worded, nothing he could proceed on—but everyone in New York knew what she did and where she did it. His fever was up again this morning and his joints ached.

  Anthony had taken the train to Albany several times to secure passage of a statute with teeth against abortionists. He had gone after those legislators who opposed the new law until in
fear they withdrew their objections. Most men had something to hide. He had nothing to hide, so he was fearless. Under the new statute, possession of any drug, medicine or article intended to prevent conception or cause abortion was punishable by imprisonment—up to twenty years; possession of pills, powders or instruments was a crime. No more need Anthony drag women into court and force them to testify. No witnesses other than himself and his men were needed to convict. He had her.

  On a crisp January day, the sky gray with an occasional powdering of snow, he appeared at One East Fifty-second Street and rang the bell of the basement office. An older woman answered and he asked to see Madame Restell. He was shown into an office with a large well-polished desk, anatomical figures, lace curtains and green velvet chairs. A full-figured woman with dark hair marked by a single streak of white strode in and seated herself. She seemed strangely vigorous for her reputed age, moving swiftly and with authority. She was dressed respectably, but he had met women who dealt in vice and dressed like ladies before. He was unimpressed. “I have come on behalf of a lady who has a problem.”

  “And is the lady married or unmarried?”

  “I would prefer not to say. But she is very much in need of something to help her resume her female functions.”

  “How old is she?”

  “She is twenty-eight.”

  “How is her health in general?”

  “She is quite healthy.”

  “Has she borne children?”

  “Two.”

  She disappeared and returned with some fluid and a bottle of pills, giving him detailed instructions about exactly how the medicines were to be taken, when and how often. She made him repeat back to her the instructions. “If this does not produce the desired result, the lady will have to come to me herself. A brief operation will be required.”

  “How much will that cost her?”

  “Two hundred payable in cash beforehand.”

  “Is this procedure safe?”