“Are you going to be all right?” Violet asked.
“I don't know,” said the woman. “You know, child, if men knew how much work it is having babies, I'm not sure they'd be quite so willing to start wars and have our babies blow each other up.”
“My brother was in France too,” Violet said. “But he came back,” she added apologetically. “With shell shock. He never talks anymore.”
The gray lady nodded. “I hope the good Lord will grant that this is my last one,” she said, resting both hands on her swollen belly. “And that no one dreams up a war to take this one away from me.”
Violet was just about to repeat what Miss Dexter had said, that the human race had outgrown war, when a barefoot newsboy thrust a newspaper at them and hollered, “Extra! Russians surround Warsaw! Poland under siege! Warsaw to fall by the weekend!”
Miss Dexter was wrong, Violet thought, about a lot of things.
“If you could vote,” Violet said, “then you'd be able to vote against wars.”
“Vote?” The woman looked as surprised as if Violet had just suggested she tap-dance. “My husband would never allow that.”
Violet was about to answer when a loud clang made her look up, and she saw that the Suffs' tourist car was being hitched onto a train.
“Excuse me!” she cried. “That's my train. Goodbye!”
She waved and hurried to clamber back aboard before they left without her.
As the train pulled out, Violet looked back. She could see the hatchet-faced woman sitting beside her basket, an angular gray figure growing smaller in the distance, until the train rounded a curve and she disappeared. Violet wondered what it would be like to be waiting for your son to come home from France in a box. She thought about the woman giving birth to her son (Violet's mother had told her that babies were brought by a stork, but Flossie had given Violet a different explanation that sounded only slightly less unlikely), and then changing his diapers and teaching him table manners and sending him off to school and making beef tea for him when he was sick, and then being told by the government that she had to send him off to France so that he could come home in a box.
The more Violet thought about it, the angrier she got.
Suddenly Violet understood why all these women were riding to Nashville on a train. It was so that women would never again have to sit by in silence while men made decisions they didn't like—whether it was Father deciding that Chloe couldn't go to college or the government deciding that people's sons had to go fight in France whether they wanted to or not.
The train pulled into a small station, a flag stop. The little covered platform was a jumble of trunks, porters, and valises. Men and women in stiff-looking best clothes milled about waiting for the train doors to open. Another newsboy who looked about eight years old was hawking papers, screaming at the top of his lungs, “Riots! Riots in Ireland!” Then, when that didn't attract any customers, “Tigers beat Yankees!”
Miss Dexter stood up and waved out the open window. “Paper!” she called.
The boy came over and handed a paper through the window. Violet could smell the fresh ink. Miss Dexter dropped three pennies into his outstretched hand.
The train doors had opened, and a few people went down the steps onto the wooden platform. Violet stared. If she hadn't known better, she would have sworn one of the people who got off the train was Mr. Martin. She looked again. It was Mr. Martin.
But how was that possible? Mr. Martin had jumped off a completely different train the night before.
She hardly had time to wonder before she noticed someone following Mr. Martin … or that's what it looked like, anyway. It wasn't one of the agents from last night, but the man wore a starched collar—of course most men did—and he walked with a speed and sense of purpose that seemed out of place on a railroad platform.
Violet sprang to her feet. She started up the aisle toward the exit. Maybe there was time, before the train left, to warn Mr. Martin he was being followed.
She was in the vestibule when the train started moving. She pushed at the exit door, but it wouldn't open. She gave it a hard push, and it came open, just as a hand grabbed Violet from behind.
“Let me go!” She hit out at whoever was holding her.
On the platform, she saw a small colored girl running toward Mr. Martin. She couldn't see if it was Myrtle; the train was already picking up speed, and the station was soon out of sight.
The conductor let go of her. “I don't know what you're playing at, missy,” he said disagreeably, “but you're a Nashville passenger and to Nashville you're going.”
Violet hadn't wanted to get off, only to make sure Mr. Martin knew he was being followed. But it was no business of the conductor's. “I can get off the train if I want to,” she said angrily.
“Why would you want to?” the conductor said. “You're paid through to Nashville.” He opened the door to the suffragists' car. “Now get back to your seat, miss.”
In Nashville an army of women greeted the train, their arms full of flowers. They swarmed among the men and women getting off the train, thrusting yellow and red roses at them.
Violet stepped off onto the platform, holding the small bundle that contained her spare clothes. The train had pulled into a huge train shed with a high, soaring roof that covered all of the rows of tracks and platforms. Violet had never seen anything like it, but she didn't have time to study it. She looked along the train, searching for the colored car. There it was, all the way at the back. Violet hurried over to where colored men, women, and children were getting down from the two exits, carrying valises.
She watched every single person get off the colored car, but she didn't see Myrtle. So it must have been Myrtle who had chased after Mr. Martin this morning. And then what had happened to them? Had the Palmer agent caught Mr. Martin? If he had, then what would happen to Myrtle?
Violet paced anxiously back and forth on the platform, staring at the train and willing it to produce Myrtle. But it didn't, of course. Violet didn't know what to do. She and Myrtle had run away together—it was a joint project, and it felt wrong to have gotten separated from her. Besides, she was older than Myrtle and ought to have looked after her better. She went into the train station, worrying.
The station was even fancier than the one in Washington, though not as big. It had a high, arched stained-glass ceiling and mosaic tiles on the floor. A woman with a basket of red roses assailed Violet.
“Wear a red rose,” she commanded, smiling sweetly and holding one out to Violet.
Violet took it uncertainly. “How much are they?” She didn't want to buy one but wasn't sure how to say no politely.
“They're free, dear. We just want everyone to wear a rose to show her support for the cause.”
“Oh. Er, thank you.” The stem was wrapped in paper tape with a long pin like a hat pin through it. The woman helped Violet pin it to the collar of her dress. Violet's eyes wandered over to a set of windows at the side of the grand room, which had a sign on them that said Colored Waiting Room.
“There!” said the woman. “Now you look lovely. Where are you staying, dear?”
“Er, with my sister,” said Violet. A group of suffragists, some from the train and some who had greeted it, had joined arms in the middle of the mosaic floor and were doing a little dance, singing.
Oh, dear, what can the matter be?
Oh, dear, what can the matter be?
Oh, dear, what can the matter be?
Women are wanting to vote!
Women have husbands; they are protected.
Women have sons by whom they're directed.
Women have fathers; they're not neglected.
Why are they wanting to vote?
Violet did not see Miss Dexter in the circle, but she wouldn't mind losing her—she who had worn thin on better acquaintance. She didn't see Miss Kelley anywhere.
“I'm Miss Charlotte Rowe,” the woman said, extending her hand.
“Miss Violet Mayhe
w,” said Violet, shaking hands.
“Is your sister staying with us at the Hermitage Hotel?” Miss Rowe said. “I don't recognize that name, Mayhew. Or is your sister a married lady?”
“No, she's not married,” said Violet.
“I'm surprised she didn't meet you at the station.”
“She didn't know what train I was coming on,” Violet said, which wasn't exactly a lie.
“Well, come along with me to the Hermitage,” said Miss Rowe. “We'll get it all settled there.”
Violet could think of no better plan. She was worried about Myrtle—and about Mr. Martin, of course—but she might be just moments away from finding Chloe at last. Chloe would know how to go about finding Myrtle. Chloe would make everything all right.
Violet followed Miss Charlotte Rowe, who handed her basket of red roses to another lady and said that she was leaving. They went out to a darkening city street, lit at intervals by globe-shaped streetlamps. A tired-looking horse clopped along, pulling a wagon with Overton and Bush—ICE painted on the side. They crossed the street, stepping around horse manure and over streetcar tracks, and turned down another street. They passed movie theaters and vaudeville theaters and drugstores, which, even though they were closed, advertised the fact that they had soda fountains with fountains formed of electric light-bulbs blinking on in succession, to look like streaming water. Well, sort of like it.
Violet was surprised to see such a lively, modern city, after the quiet towns and vast wooded mountains they had passed through on the train. Unfortunately, Nashville also seemed to be a very hot place, even at night. Violet could feel sweat trickling down her back inside her undervest.
“I know it looks quiet,” said Miss Rowe. “This is the still before the storm, as they say. There's a battle brewing that's unlike anything the South has seen since the Civil War.” She smiled grimly. “I'm from up north, as I gather you are too, Miss Mayhew?”
“Yes, Pennsylvania,” said Violet.
“A state we fought long and hard for! Well, we have a battle on our hands here, Violet. The other side is pouring every effort into Tennessee. They've sent in some of their most unscrupulous … Ah, here we are.”
The Hermitage Hotel was ten stories high and mobbed, the crowd pouring out the grand entryway onto the street. Violet started toward the entrance, but Miss Rowe pulled her arm. “The ladies' entrance is around the side, Violet.”
They went around the corner, under a vertical sign that reached up the side of the building and spelled out Hermitage in electric lightbulbs.
They went in through the much smaller ladies' entrance, then down a hallway and past the elevators to the lobby.
There was a crowd of men and women around the elevators, and a lady in a pink satin dress called out, “Charlotte! Come here a minute.” Miss Rowe went to the lady, and Violet wandered on into the lobby.
The lobby was as crowded as the train station had been. Violet looked up at a high stained-glass skylight (which was dark now) set in an elaborately decorated ceiling, with plaster bosses and garlands of fruit. There was a balcony, and people crowded along the railing, looking down at the people in the lobby. Violet couldn't hear what anyone was saying—the babble around her was too loud, with hundreds of voices echoing off the marble floors and walls. In fact, she was getting an awful headache.
Violet looked around and found the registration desk. She made her way through the crowd of people in yellow roses and red roses and past an old man wearing what she thought was a Confederate army uniform. The desk clerk didn't seem to notice her.
“I beg your pardon—” she ventured.
“No rooms!” said the desk clerk, looking up. “I have no rooms left. Small or large. With or without conveniences. No rooms for Suffs, no rooms for Antis, no rooms for the Southern Women's Rejection League, the Men's Ratification Committee, the Tennessee Constitutional League, the National Woman's Party, the League of Women Voters, the Confederate Widows' Society, or the Women's Christian Temperance Union.”
“I'm not with any of those,” Violet said hurriedly. “I was wondering if—could you tell me if my sister is staying here? A Miss Mayhew.”
“Suffs are on the third floor,” the clerk went on, seeming not to have heard her. “Antis are on the seventh and eighth. Anti headquarters are on the mezzanine. Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt and Mr. Joe Hanover are on the third floor although not, of course”—he sniffed delicately—“together. Miss Josephine Anderson Pearson is on the seventh floor. Antis' hospitality suite is on the eighth floor. People who take both the Antis' and the Suffs' side—”
“Mr. Walker!”
Violet turned. A woman was calling to a man in a black suit who seemed anxious to avoid her. She called his name again and he turned reluctantly to face her. She looked very angry.
“Who got to you?” she demanded. “How much did they pay you, Mr. Walker? Was it thirty pieces of silver?”
Silence fell in the crowded room. Everyone drew back and watched. Mr. Walker put his hand to his throat and took a step back, looking shocked.
“Was it the Louisville and Nashville Railroad that bought you off, Speaker Walker?” the woman hissed.
“How … how dare you!” Mr. Walker jammed his panama hat on his head, spun on his heel, and stalked out of the hotel.
People started talking again, a little nervously.
“Huh,” said the desk clerk. “That's the Speaker of the Tennessee House, Seth Walker. He was one of the Suffs' strongest supporters. If he's turned coat, I don't see how they can win.”
“You mean he changed sides?” said Violet.
“So it would seem,” said the desk clerk. “Interesting.” He dipped his pen in ink and made a little note on his desk blotter, which Violet saw was covered with tally marks.
“Is there a Miss Mayhew staying at the hotel?” she repeated.
The clerk opened his ledger and ran his finger down it. “No, I don't have any Mayhew. Is she a Suff or an Anti?”
“There you are, Violet!” Miss Rowe came bustling up. “Did you find your sister?”
“She's not here,” said Violet, feeling desperate. She had lost Myrtle and Mr. Martin and she couldn't find Chloe. She was completely alone. She felt like crying.
Miss Rowe looked unconcerned. “Squeeze her into one of our rooms for tonight, Frankie. Put her in with Miss Escuadrille; there's an extra bed in there. Violet, come down to the mezzanine once you get settled. You can meet some of the really important leaders in our movement, like Miss Josephine Anderson Pearson! Oh, there's Mr. Burn—I must speak to him. Excuse me.”
Violet looked back at the desk clerk. He ran his finger down a page, frowning. “I'll put you in with Miss Escuadrille, then. It's room 907, on the top floor but one, just below the dancing.” He turned to the hook-covered board behind him and selected a key with a brass tag and handed it to Violet. “Elevators around the corner.”
Finding Chloe
THE NUMBER ON THE BRASS KEY WAS 907. Violet had never been in an elevator before. It was packed, and it stopped at every floor. A teenage boy in a white uniform worked the controls, and every time they left a floor, Violet's stomach lurched unpleasantly. On the eighth floor, several men got on who reeked of whiskey, a smell Violet recognized from back when Father used to drink it, when alcohol was still legal.
“Goin' down?” one of the men asked tipsily.
“Going up, sir,” said the elevator boy.
“Thassallright. We'll go up, then we'll go down.” He and his companion laughed uproariously, then tried to sing a song that went, “The red, red, anti-suffrage rose!” These were the only words they could remember, but they managed to sing them three times before the stifling, drunk-smelling elevator reached the ninth floor and Violet tumbled gratefully out.
The corridor was C shaped, and she went around it the wrong way and had to turn and go the other way before she found that room 907 was actually right by the elevator. She turned the key in the door and went in.
The r
oom was tiny but had two iron bedsteads in it. One of them was obviously taken. There was a trunk at the foot of it and a selection of shirtwaists laid out on it, as if the owner had had trouble making up her mind which to wear. There was a straw hat decorated with artificial red roses hanging from a peg, and a clothesline strung across the room held several pairs of black nankeen bloomers, two petticoats, and a corset.
Violet ducked under all of these and sat down on the other bed. The room was sweltering hot, as if all the heat in Nashville had risen up and settled in it. The window was open, and so was the transom over the door. There was an electric fan standing near the window. Violet went over and turned it on.
The underclothes flapped on the clothesline. A stack of papers on the nightstand between the two beds fluttered to the floor, and Violet bent wearily to pick them up. They looked like pamphlets. The top one said on the front, Men of the South! Now is the time to show your gallantry! Southern women require your aid as never before!
Violet put the papers back on the nightstand and weighted them down with an electric curling iron. She flopped back on the bed, feeling hopeless. It was horribly hot in here. It was too hot to move, let alone to go looking for Chloe or to find out what had happened to Mr. Martin and Myrtle. She would have liked to have taken off her clothes, but there was this unknown woman—she of the nankeen bloomers—who was going to come in sooner or later, so Violet couldn't. There was a little door in one corner of the room. Violet went to it. It was a bathroom—well, there was no bathtub, but there was a toilet and a sink. Violet had stayed in hotels twice before, when she'd gone to Scranton with her mother, but she'd never been in a hotel room that had its own toilet. She turned the sink on and splashed water on her face. The water was warm, and it didn't run cold when she left the tap on. But when she wet her hair and neck and stood in front of the fan, she felt a little better.
The Hope Chest Page 9
