The Hope Chest (20 page)

“He'll take off again,” said Myrtle. “Probably already has.”

“Do you ever think about what you're going to do with the rest of your life, Myrtle?” said Violet.

“Yes,” said Myrtle.

“Well, what?” said Violet.

“I don't know. But it's going to be important,” said Myrtle.

They walked farther downstream and tried to catch some frogs. When Violet finally did catch one, she held it for a moment, enjoying the cool feel of its soft clammy skin in her hands, and then it pushed off with its mighty hind legs and plopped into the water. Violet asked Myrtle if it wasn't time they headed back, and Myrtle said it wasn't, so they walked even farther downstream and talked about the things they'd seen and done and heard in Nashville.

Violet wanted to know more about where Myrtle and Mr. Martin were staying, but Myrtle was curiously reluctant to talk about it.

“It's called Dead Horse Alley,” said Myrtle. “We're staying with a lady in her house.”

“Is it like the alleys in Washington?” said Violet, remembering the tumbledown shacks and heaps of trash and rats.

“Sort of different,” said Myrtle with a shrug. “Look, there's some kind of animal hole over here.”

So they went over to the bank and looked at a burrow under the roots of a willow tree and tried to decide what might live there. Myrtle was fun to explore with, Violet thought, a lot more fun than the Antis. But the world seemed to have been set up so that Myrtle and Violet would always be on different sides of an invisible line.

By Monday, August 16, nobody could tell which side anybody was on anymore. Nobody knew when the House was going to vote. The Antis and the Suffs were both polling the legislators every few hours, and it seemed like every few hours the list of who was an Anti and who was a Suff had changed. Chloe told Violet at their noon meeting that she didn't think the polls were good at all anymore.

They had met at the lunchroom in Union Station because Violet was supposed to have been spending the morning watching the train station telegraph offices for the Antis. She hadn't really been doing this, of course, but she had gone down to the train station for verisimilitude.

Chloe had been assigned to spend some more time with Harry T. Burn, but he had gone up to the capitol. The Suffs' strategy required that only Tennessee women
lobby legislators at the capitol. Northerners were known to irritate Southerners, and the Suffs didn't want the Tennessee legislators to be irritated.

“I don't think we have a chance with Burn anyway,” said Chloe. “He's just enjoying the attention. He's so young.” Violet had heard that Burn was twenty-four, which was a year older than Chloe. “He's still wearing a red rose.”

“Let's go up to the capitol,” said Chloe when they finished their chicken salad sandwiches.

“But we're not supposed to,” said Violet.

“Oh, we won't lobby anybody,” said Chloe. “I just want to see what's going on. Besides, you've never seen inside it, have you? It's nice.”

Chloe drove the Hope Chest carefully along Broadway and then up Sixth Avenue, braking to let people pass. The city seemed to be getting more crowded every minute. Not everyone had yellow or red symbols to show that they were Suffs or Antis—there were a lot of tourists who had just come to watch the battle. Chloe stopped to let a woman pushing a high-backed wicker wheelchair cross the street. In the wheelchair was a young man whose legs ended at the knee, who Violet guessed from his age might've been a soldier. The woman looked like she might be his mother.

“I wish you hadn't left Stephen alone like that,” Chloe said.

“You wish
I
hadn't!” Violet was stung by the unfairness
of this. “I didn't leave him alone; I left him with Mother and Father.”

“Yes, but being with Mother and Father can be a bit like being alone, you know.”

“Yes, I do know, as a matter of fact,” Violet said, folding her arms.

“Violet, you don't think I abandoned you, do you? Father threw me out.”

“No, he didn't,” Violet argued. “He told you never to darken his door again when you bought the Hope Chest, but you'd already moved out by then.”

“Yes.” Chloe stopped again; a yellow dog was wandering across the road ahead of them. “I had to leave, Violet.”

“So did I,” said Violet. “Anyway, it's not like Stephen really notices who's around him.”

“I think he does,” said Chloe.

Then Violet remembered that Chloe had studied to be a nurse since leaving home. “Do people with shell shock ever get better?”

“Some do,” said Chloe. “It takes time. And it may be that they all do—it's a fairly new disease; we don't know much about it. Damn!” The engine gave a loud
pow
and stopped running. “Now we're stalled. Violet, could you crank?”

Violet got out, went to the front of the car, and inserted the metal crank that turned the starter. She cranked until the car coughed, spat smoke, and started.
Then she got back in the passenger seat next to Chloe. They chugged on.

“So what causes it, then?” Violet said.

“Well, some doctors believe it's caused by low air pressure in areas where a lot of shells have been fired.”

“Not by …” Violet searched for a word.

“Cowardice?” said Chloe bluntly. “No, why should it be? After all, shell shock is a new disease, and cowardice is as old as humanity.”

Violet thought about this. It made sense. That was one of the nice things about Chloe: she was always so sensible.

Then Chloe ruined it by saying, “Violet, even if Stephen
was
frightened, why shouldn't he be? Surrounded by bombs and bullets and enemy soldiers?”

Violet made no reply. She liked the low-air-pressure explanation better.

The street in front of the capitol was full of Model Ts, parked diagonally on both sides. Chloe slid the Hope Chest into an empty space and they got out.

Violet remembered her red rose and pulled it off, sticking it inside her hat in case she needed it later. “Doesn't it matter, us going into the capitol together when I'm pretending to be an Anti?” she asked.

“I don't think anyone's paying any attention at this point,” said Chloe with a tired smile. “Both sides are panicking, just trying to figure out which side the legislators are on and when the vote is going to happen.

“There are some Tennessee Suffs up here guarding the special House committee that's supposed to meet on the amendment tonight.” Chloe nodded up at the capitol.

“What's the committee meeting supposed to do?” Violet asked as they climbed up the seventy-two stone steps toward the capitol. Violet had heard that a Model T Ford had climbed these steps a few years ago to prove the superiority of automobiles to horse-drawn carriages. Violet wondered if Chloe would be willing to try driving the Hope Chest up these steps. She looked at Chloe's exhausted face and decided now was not the time to suggest it.

“A committee's job is to look at a bill and decide whether or not to send it to the floor to be voted on by the legislature,” Chloe said, sounding weary. “In this case, it's a bill saying that Tennessee ratifies the Susan B. Anthony Amendment.” She stopped to rest, leaning against the pedestal of a statue. “A week ago we had a clear majority; nearly two-thirds of the House members said they favored the bill. But thanks to the Antis and their businessmen and mystery men, it now looks like the committee might not even vote to send the bill to the floor.”

“And if it does get sent to the floor,” said Violet, moving around to see if there was any shade anywhere, “then it needs a three-fourths vote to pass?”

“Three-fourths? No, no. Only a majority. More than half of the House, that's all it needs.”

“In school we learned …” Violet frowned, trying to remember. It hadn't seemed nearly as important when they'd learned it in school as it did now. “A constitutional amendment requires a two-thirds vote of Congress and three-fourths of the state legislatures.”

“That means the legislatures of three-fourths of the states,” said Chloe. “In other words, thirty-six of the forty-eight states. And we've got thirty-five and a half now. But we don't need the Tennessee House itself to vote three-fourths in favor. All we need is a simple majority. And we're so close.” She looked up at the old cannons that surrounded the capitol, left over from the Civil War.

“Capitols are built on hills so they can be protected if the people revolt,” said Chloe, looking up at the cannons and smiling.

Violet guessed from the smile that Chloe had probably heard this from Mr. Martin.

“Why are the women Antis even bothering?” Violet asked. This had been on her mind for the last several days. “If they're that much against voting, why don't they just not vote when they get the right?”

“Some people are never satisfied unless they're making choices for other people,” said Chloe. “And of course a lot of the Antis are funded by big business and by the political machines. Politics in this country is very corrupt, you know, Violet. Most elections are bought and sold. People sell their votes, and political machines in each city and state organize the purchase of votes.”

Violet nodded, too out of breath from the heat and the climbing to bother replying.

“The corrupt bosses don't want women to mess things up,” Chloe went on. “They've spent over a century building up the vote-buying system they've got now, and everything is so fine-tuned. If twenty-seven million voters are suddenly added to the rolls for the November election, it will destroy all their calculations.”

Violet moved around the statue again, still trying to find a spot of shade. “Who was this fella?”

Chloe squinted up at the statue. “Edward Ward Carmack. He was a newspaper editor who was gunned down in the streets of Nashville a few years ago. His murderers were pardoned by the governor—not the governor they have now.”

“Pardoned by the governor?” Violet tried to look up at the statue silhouetted against the blazing white sun but couldn't. “They shot him down in the street in cold blood and they were
pardoned by the governor
?”

“Well, I don't know if it was cold blood,” said Chloe, patting the pedestal. “Mr. Carmack might have drawn first. But in his newspaper he'd criticized the men who shot him, and he'd also criticized Governor Patterson. He was against the liquor interests, Mr. Carmack was, and Patterson was for them. Governor Patterson pardoned the killers before they'd spent a day in jail.”

“So the governor of a state can just have people he doesn't like killed?” Violet said. Nothing she had learned about government in school had suggested this.

“Oh, I doubt it was quite like that,” Chloe said. “Come on.”

As they climbed on, Violet looked back at the statue, suddenly struck with the idea that messing around in politics could be a deadly business. The liquor interests hadn't liked Mr. Carmack, and they didn't like suffragists either. In spite of the midday heat, Violet shivered.

Inside the capitol the low, vaulted stone ceilings gave you the feeling you were underground. It was dark and felt cooler than outside. They climbed a wide stone staircase. Violet ran her hand over the cool stone handrail. There was a huge, jagged-looking gouge out of it. But when Violet touched it, she found that it too was smooth, as if hands had worn it down for many years.

Chloe noticed Violet looking at it. “That's from a bullet,” she said. “When the Tennessee legislature met after the Civil War, some of the legislators tried to escape because they didn't want to vote for Tennessee to rejoin the Union. But there were soldiers guarding them, and they opened fire.”

Violet stared at the gouge in the stair rail. “No wonder Father thinks politics isn't safe for women!”

Chloe laughed. “Well, I like to think once we're in, there'll be a little less gunplay involved. Anyway, you can see why the Tennessee legislators might still be a little persnickety about having Yankees in here telling them what to do.”

“Yes,” said Violet. She followed Chloe up the stairs.

The second story was lighter, with a high stone
ceiling. The hallway was shaped like a cross. At one end was the House of Representatives, and at the other were the Senate and the library.

It all seemed oddly quiet after all the fuss and noise in the Hermitage and in the streets and in the train station during the last week.

“Thank goodness you're here, Miss Mayhew!” Miss Pollitzer burst through a doorway. “We need to work on two of the Suff committee members, quick. We've lost them.”

“I thought only Southern women were allowed to lobby with legislators here in the capitol,” Chloe said.

“They're not in the capitol. I mean we've
lost
them,” said Miss Pollitzer. “Blotz and Credwell. They've flown the coop. Do you know what they look like?”

“I think so,” said Chloe.

“Then go, please. Look for them. We've got search parties out. Mrs. Anne Dallas Dudley has gone to the Hermitage and Miss Sue Shelton White is searching the moving picture shows and Skalowski's Ice Cream Parlor. We have guards covering the train station, and I'm going down to check the Interurban station on Broadway, but Credwell might have an automobile. We need someone to drive out the highway looking for them. Is the Hope Chest nearby?”

Myrtle and Mr. Martin were trying a variation on their diet of sardines, Uneeda biscuits, and peaches. Myrtle had gotten a can of tuna fish instead. Myrtle was setting
the Uneeda biscuits neatly out on a napkin on Mrs. Ready's oilcloth tabletop and Mr. Martin was just slicing through the lid of the tuna fish can with his pocketknife when the door burst open. It hit the wall with a loud crack, and a board fell off it and clattered to the floor.

Two men pounced into the room. They both had guns out, pointed at Mr. Martin. Myrtle dove into a corner.

“Don't move, Arpadfi,” one of the men barked.

Mr. Martin raised his hands over his head. “I'm not Arpadfi.”

“Of course you are. Who else would be able to pronounce it? Drop the knife. And that device you're holding in your game hand.”

Mr. Martin dropped the knife and the tuna fish on the floor. The knife stuck in the wooden floor. The can rolled lopsidedly, a smell of tuna fish rising from the oil dribbling out.