Legacy: A Novel Page 8

  ‘You’ll like the Starrs,’ he had coached Anne before their arrival in Washington. ‘Solid people. One son, one daughter and a father that General Lee called “my faithful right arm.” ’

  It was a tempestuous courtship—it seemed to the two generals that both the young people fell in love at the same instant—and it rocketed to a Washington marriage graced by generals, senators and a cadre of New England textile millionaires.

  Anne was regal as she posed that week in a white outfit while young Sargent painted her. You can see her in the museum in Philadelphia, a woman of unforgettable beauty, but also of great austerity. Women of wealth are apt to be like that.

  She was so magnificent—that’s really the only word—that she quite overshadowed poor Emily, and the discrepancy was so visible that the General knew he wouldn’t have an easy time finding a husband for his daughter. She was taller than he thought a woman should be, gaunter than required, and quite graceless in a gawky way. Of course, I never saw her, but the history books are filled with photographs of her, tall and militant, swinging her pocketbook at policemen or being carted away to one or another of the four jails that housed her.

  That came later, of course, because in the late 1870s, all three members of her family—the General, Malcolm, Anne—were busy devising tricks to trap a young man. Apart from his house in Washington, the General had almost no funds, but Anne did, and the family exhibited an aura of wealth which attracted several young men who would otherwise never have looked at Emily, let alone court her. Warfare had made the General a good judge of men, while Anne had had her own experiences with fortune hunters, so between them they sent scattering several young fellows who would have brought Emily only grief.

  They were not so lucky with a chap named Nicky Poland, who had acquired at Amherst a social polish to which Anne said ‘he was not really entitled.’ He had little money of his own, a vague kind of job in New York, and two good suits which he interchanged for maximum effect. He was such a charmer that in 1881, when Emily was twenty-three, he came frighteningly close to persuading her to elope with him to a town in Maryland that arranged swift marriages with no questions asked.

  Emily, eager to take herself off the aging hands of her father, and persuaded that young Nicky had sufficient funds to support her, was about to flee Washington for a life of happiness. However, she confided her plans to her sister-in-law, who required only a few minutes to summon a family conclave, to which Nicky was invited. There in a sunny room, tea and biscuits were served, with little silver spoons for the marmalade, a delicacy young Poland had not tasted before. General Starr, tall and straight and almost funereal in his bleak presentation of facts, informed Nicky that the two Starr men had practically no money, that Emily had less, and that they were all living off the generosity of Anne Greer Starr.

  Before Poland could react to this appalling news, Anne made a little speech, which has come down in our family from father to daughter: ‘Mr. Poland, what the General has just said is true. The obvious wealth in this family comes all from my father and me. Emily here has not a penny, nor will she ever get a penny if she elopes with you. Now, hadn’t you better leave this house and Washington, taking this envelope with you?’

  Anne never told anyone what was in that envelope, but if it was money, it was sufficient to get Nicky Poland out of the room and out of Washington, too.

  Now, to save Emily’s self-respect, the family felt it obligatory to find her a replacement, and since the two Starr men showed no skill at that task the burden fell on Anne, who brought to the Starr home one eligible young man after another, none of whom returned voluntarily, for at twenty-four, Emily was even less enticing.

  ‘We must do something with your hair, Emmy,’ Anne said. ‘And you ought to smooth out your piano playing.’ Brother Malcolm was more direct: ‘Emmy, a girl with few graces has until her twenty-fifth birthday to get married. Anne has been most generous in helping you, but now you must help yourself.’

  And that was when the Starrs first realized that in their Emily, they had a young woman quite out of the ordinary, because she said to her brother, within earshot of both Anne and the General; ‘I’ve been thinking there might be more to a human life than being wife to someone who doesn’t want me.’

  Three gasps greeted this extraordinary assault on values, but since the revolutionary subject was now opened, Emily revealed the amazing turn her thinking had taken: ‘In all the noble work the men of our family did, Declaration of Independence to the rebuilding after Appomattox, Father, the word woman is never once mentioned. Women were not declared free in 1776. They weren’t mentioned once during the Convention. Grandfather Edmund never handed down a decision to protect or guide them. And the War Between the States was fought by men for men’s reasons.’

  ‘Emily!’ the General cried, as if his honor had been impugned. ‘The men of the South revered women …’

  ‘If women had been consulted in that ridiculous affair, it would have ended in 1861.’

  There was more, a whipping back and forth, laying bare ugly wounds that had not previously been ventilated, and at the conclusion, the General said: ‘Emily, you talk like an enlightened woman bred in Massachusetts, and an uglier tribe was never born.’

  Leaving her alone in the darkening room, the three retreated to the General’s study, where they conducted a painful discussion on ‘what to do with Emily,’ and once again Anne volunteered to take draconian measures: ‘She finds herself a husband within the year, or it’s over.’ Before anyone could react, she corrected herself: ‘No, we must find her a husband within the year.’

  That was how a shy, attractive man from Connecticut appeared at the Starr home. Philip Rawson was twenty-nine, unmarried and a distant cousin of the wealthy Greers. The money had not flowed his family’s way, but Anne had intimated to Philip that if he found Emily interesting, he would also find his fortunes enhanced, considerably.

  He proved to be such an amiable fellow that the Starrs were happy to have him as a guest. Emily, cognizant of the fact that Anne and Malcolm had gone far out of their way to find him, actually blossomed, to an extent that caused the General to confide to his son: ‘I think our problems are solved.’ But Malcolm warned: ‘Only if she doesn’t resume that nonsense she was talking.’

  One night, while Emily was playing the piano for Philip, the other three Starrs held a council of war in the General’s study, where Malcolm posed the question that had been worrying his father: ‘If this Rawson is as acceptable as he seems, why hasn’t he married long before this?’ and Anne explained: ‘I wrote to friends in Hartford to ask that same question.’

  ‘And what did they say?’

  ‘The Rawsons are even poorer than I thought. They had two daughters to marry off and there was nothing left for Philip. He makes such a pitiful living as a librarian that he felt he could not fairly ask any girl of good family to marry him.’ She paused. ‘I find him quite acceptable and we must pray that things go well.’

  They did. He was enamored of books and introduced Emily to the richly textured works of William Dean Howells. At the end of three weeks, when it had been understood that he would leave, Anne asked him to stay on, and she extended her invitation in such a way that he now knew without question that they wanted him to consider an alliance with Emily. He accepted this invitation so graciously that Malcolm informed the General that night: ‘I think we’ve solved Lady Emily’s problem.’

  And they might have, had not a tempestuous woman stormed into Washington at that moment. She was Kate Kedzie, widow of a Wyoming cattleman and the first woman in America to have voted in a general election. She had waited in a snowstorm to cast her ballot under the Territory of Wyoming’s revolutionary law of 1869 granting woman suffrage. She was short, dynamic and darkened by the Western sun, but she was also intellectually mature, for she had attended college at Oberlin in Ohio, where she had developed her talents in music, physical education and oratory. Upon graduating, she did not return to her Indian
a home to marry and raise children; she went instead to Chicago, where she found a job with a publisher and married his son, who had attended Yale. Together they moved west into Wyoming Territory, where they gambled their mutual savings on an enormous spread of almost barren land at six cents an acre. They thrived under frontier conditions, and when she surprised him by saying ‘I think women should be allowed to vote,’ he said ‘Why not?’ and the two formed the team which initiated and passed the legislation.

  Having conquered the prejudices of her own area, Kate, as a widow, branched out into Colorado, where the miners rebuffed her with obscenities, and then into Kansas, where she was well received. Before she was fully aware of the transition, she had become a woman suffragist, working with great leaders like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton in the apparently fruitless drive to alter the Constitution so that women could vote throughout the nation.

  In frantic pursuit of that goal, she had come to Washington to persuade a reluctant Congress that an amendment was necessary, and at one of her first public meetings she made a soul-searing impression on Emily. Using every oratorical trick she had acquired at Oberlin, she finished in a low, pulsating voice:

  ‘We are the forgotten people. We are the abused, the trampled upon, the ridiculed, because we are powerless. But, my friends, a storm is rising, and above it our voices will be heard. Justice, we cry! We demand justice! And … we shall … attain … it!’

  Emily did not move forward to speak to her that night, nor on the two nights that followed, but Kate Kedzie was a clever woman. She had spotted reluctant converts before, so at the conclusion of her fourth stormy lecture she reached out, caught Emily by the wrist, and asked: ‘Who are you, young woman?’

  ‘I live here. Emily Starr.’

  ‘Are you of my persuasion?’

  ‘I think so.’ And from that hesitant beginning, Emily became a suffragist who suspected that she might be entering upon a battle that could last the rest of her life. The Constitution must be changed so that all women could enjoy the political and property rights that Kate Kedzie had won for Wyoming in 1869.

  Emily’s introduction to the fray was dramatic, for on a June morning in 1886 her father choked on his breakfast eggs, and roared: ‘Emily, what’s this in the paper?’ and there it was:

  Among the speakers on behalf of what she claimed were ‘long-delayed women’s rights’ was the daughter of General Hugh Starr, who said in a voice that could scarcely be heard: ‘We shall fight for the ballot in every known venue until Congress offers the states a chance to vote on an amendment.’ Loud boos greeted the challenge, but Miss Starr held her own.

  The General was a formidable man, fifty-three years old and in full possession of his considerable force. Should a new war erupt on Monday, he would be ready to ride forth on Tuesday, so he was more than ready to punish his daughter’s assault on decency: ‘Did you parade yourself in public?’

  ‘Yes,’ spoken firmly.

  ‘And you presumed to advise Congress?’

  ‘I did.’

  A torrent of abuse followed, scathing in its denunciation of women who wanted to be men and contemptuous of the idea that they might want the vote or know what to do with it if they got it: ‘Have you ever heard that splendid chain of words invented in Germany not long ago? Kaiser, Kirche, Kinder, Küche. That’s what women really want. Obedience to the ruler. Faithfulness to the church. Care of the children. And supervision of the kitchen and home.’

  Emily had hoped to avoid confrontation with her father, but she was so imbued with the daring ideas of Kate Kedzie that she simply could not remain silent: ‘I think that if our form of government has errors, they must be corrected—’

  ‘Errors? And who are you to determine error?’

  ‘If half the population is denied participation—’

  ‘Participation? You women run the home, highest calling in Christendom. What more do you want? A soldier’s uniform and a gun?’

  He was so agitated that he dispatched one of his daughter-in-law’s servants to fetch Anne and Malcolm, and when they appeared in dressing gowns, for they rose late, a triumvirate was formed, three people who would oppose Emily for the rest of her life: General Hugh in the middle, stern and forbidding; brother Malcolm on his left, pallid but always willing to preach; sister-in-law Anne on the General’s right, cool and able and formidable.

  The General spoke first: ‘Our Emily has disgraced herself. Acting up in public. Wants women to be soldiers.’ He ranted for nearly five minutes, ridiculing his daughter’s aspirations and lampooning her presumptions: ‘Suffragists? Is there an uglier word in the language? I would march to the shore and swim away if my country ever encouraged women to leave the sanctuary of the home and dirty themselves in cheap politics.’

  He looked to his son for confirmation, but Malcolm, like many indecisive men who have married women wealthier and brighter than themselves, merely nodded and deferred to his wife.

  Now another phenomenon of this tense period in American life began to manifest itself. Anne Greer, a woman of privilege with six servants, became a vigorous foe of everything that her sister-in-law Emily was fighting for: ‘The General is right. Woman’s place is within the chapel of the home, tending it, making it a haven, providing a refuge from the busy cares of the world …’ On and on she went about the glories of homemaking, despite the fact that she never performed any of these tasks; her servants did.

  But her first outburst was so effective, so filled with cherishable imagery that Emily thought: She’ll be more dangerous than the men. And that would be true, for without waiting for a chastised Emily to disappear, Anne said: ‘The thing to do is get Philip Rawson down here immediately, and you marry him, Emily, because he’s your last chance.’

  Philip, summoned by telegraph, arrived on the first train, and his courtship was both proper and forceful. It was obvious that he had grown to like Emily and dislike the prospect of endless years in a Connecticut library. On her part, Emily appreciated what a decent young man he was and how, on the assured income that Anne promised, they could have a meaningful life together. Malcolm, supervising the strange wooing, reported to his co-conspirators: ‘I think it’s settled. We can be damned grateful.’

  But now Kate Kedzie blustered back into town for her next shouting match with congressmen, and when Emily unwisely invited her home for tea, the other four very tense Starrs, counting Philip Rawson as one soon to be, met uneasily with the type of new woman they had not previously encountered. It was not a pleasant afternoon, especially when Kate told the three men, hoping to enlist their support: ‘It was actually my husband who got the movement started in Wyoming.’

  ‘I should think,’ the General snapped, ‘that men of any significance in their community would unite to oppose this foolishness,’ to which Kate replied with a smile: ‘But isn’t the real foolishness for men to suppose that they can continue to hold in bondage fifty percent of our population?’

  Here Malcolm broke in with a beautiful non sequitur that Nancy and I always chuckle about when we remember it: ‘Slavery was the real bondage, and my father gave his slaves their freedom even before the war started.’

  From there the afternoon degenerated, with Anne making perhaps the most ominous and revealing comment: ‘You must be aware, Mrs. Kedzie, that women of breeding will oppose the ugly things you’re trying to do, and oppose you with skill.’

  ‘You always have,’ Kate said icily, and warfare between these two was declared.

  Kate won the first engagement, because when the tea ended, Emily boldly left her family and accompanied the Wyoming suffragist to a public meeting, where she not only spoke with some effectiveness but also tussled with the police and went to jail.

  After Anne gave Malcolm the money to pay her bail, the General took Emily into his study, and said fiercely: ‘Young lady, this has to stop,’ and she, hoping to remain friends with him, asked pleadingly: ‘Father, why were you so generous in defending black slaves? I’ve always b
een proud of you for that. But now the next reform comes along and you’re dead set against us.’

  He saw no anomaly. ‘Blacks like Hannibal knew their place and I was proud to help them. Everyone has a proper place, and women should not be seen ranting and raving in the streets or lecturing United States senators.’

  He felt so strongly about this that he convened a no-nonsense family meeting in which he read the riot act, with Anne delivering the crucial blows: ‘Emily, if you ever repeat this disgraceful behavior, your father and your brother will not want you to remain in this house. It’s too embarrassing.’ Then she turned to Librarian Rawson, who had earlier been informed that the promised dowry for Emily would not be forthcoming if she persisted in her shameful ways. Realizing that without such a dowry, a Rawson-Starr marriage would be impossible, he told Emily in front of the others: ‘No man can retain his self-respect if a wife acts up in public. Real women don’t want the vote. They want the security of a good home … where they are in command.’

  Emily felt dizzy and was afraid she was going to be sick. The forces arrayed against her were too powerful. Her father was remorseless; Anne was too clever; and Philip, the person she had begun to feel might be her partner, had turned traitor. Ignoring the others, she stepped before him and said: ‘There’s always been a great wrong in this nation and I must try to correct it. I’m sorry, Philip,’ and the threatened sickness passed as she left her family and her intended husband.

  Nancy and I have a scrapbook which someone in our family put together. It shows in ugly images Emily Starr’s turbulent years at the change of centuries, and often Nancy has tears in her eyes as we see this procession of determined women in their long black skirts being attacked and reviled and even spat upon. Nancy says: ‘I wouldn’t have had the courage,’ and I tell her honestly: ‘I might have reacted just like Malcolm or Rawson. I wouldn’t have been prepared for this.’