Six. A Brace of Bluestockings
Six
A Brace of Bluestockings
Boston, May 9, 1865
Henrietta and Charlotte sat in the newly built Horticultural Hall on Tremont Street, listening to an afternoon of speeches while avoiding eye contact with Denham Scott across the aisle.
The mostly female speakers were celebrating two upcoming anniversaries: Boston’s first annual Woman’s Rights Convention on June 2, 1854, and an impromptu march that same day to protest the abduction of escaped slave Anthony Burns by federal authorities under the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. The convention members had flooded onto the city streets to join fifty thousand others in the march, which had ended up one of the largest anti-slavery protests in American history. Boston’s bluestockings continued to take inspiration from that historic day, when their city had come together regardless of sex or race.
At the conclusion of the final speech, Henrietta hurried Charlotte onto the pavement outside the humid hall. “It’s the heat of summer already,” she said, wiping her brow with a lace handkerchief.
“Oh, look, there’s Connie!” Charlotte cried out.
On the cobble street lined with hansom cabs for hire, Constance Davenish was being helped into a stately brougham by her driver. One of Boston’s most famous advocates for women’s rights, she was a formidable presence in any crowd with her swoop of silver-streaked black hair and penetrating ice-blue eyes. Charlotte stood on tiptoe and waved to catch Constance’s attention, hoping for a quick ride home along the park.
“Harry—Charlie—do let me give you girls a lift!” Constance motioned to her driver, who came forward to help the sisters into the carriage.
Henrietta settled back on the foldaway seat next to Charlotte’s. “You rescued us from the heat.”
“And that awful reporter from England, Denham Scott,” Charlotte added. “He’s always chasing us for comment.”
“He should come to my weekly salon if he wants an earful so badly.” Constance tapped the window and the horses started up. “What did you think of the speeches today on our famous march? It was a very galvanizing time back then, although I suppose you were too little to remember much.”
Henrietta nodded. “I do remember how upset Father was.”
“They imprisoned Mr. Burns in the federal courthouse for days. That valiant attempt by abolitionists to rescue him…” Constance shook her head. “City authorities should have ignored Congress’s Fugitive Slave Act. Such is the Cornelian dilemma that has long faced our country: how to behave morally in the face of an amoral law.” She sat back and waved out the carriage window at the pink and purple lilacs lining the Common. “But now we have spring, a proposed thirteenth amendment to guide us—thanks to our late president—and, finally, a path to freedom ahead.”
“Connie,” said Charlotte, “are you really so confident we will see equality in our time?”
“The prospect is indeed daunting. But our only option is to keep fighting. I’ve fully pledged my life to that.”
“You don’t miss having a family?” asked Henrietta. Most of the women advocating at lectures and salons for the upheaval of their patriarchal society were nonetheless married to men who reaped its benefits. But Constance had grown up wealthy and improved her lot through shrewd investments ( not that lack of money alone should be the reason to marry , Henrietta reminded herself).
“Your question implies I lost something—in point of fact, I never went looking.”
“I would like to be a wife and mother one day,” Henrietta confessed.
“I haven’t scared you off the notion?” Charlotte turned to Constance to explain. “When Mother died, Harry was seven to my two and demanded to run the nursery. I am told I was quite the handful.”
“I have no doubt.” Constance smiled. “But what about you now, Charlie—do you want motherhood?”
“What I want right now is to be a great actress.”
“Is one of us more correct than the others? How can anyone—any society, any court, any man —be an arbiter of what women want, when we three alone are so different?”
“Our father doesn’t question his authority in that regard,” replied Henrietta.
“That is because he believes his heart to be in the right place.” Constance leaned forward as if in confidence. “He is afraid, like all fathers—surely the result of not properly preparing their daughters for the world. Now that you are grown, he needs greater occupation. Find a way to give it to him— without more worry.”
“There’s always the judicial reading circle. They’re discussing all of Austen this summer at Father’s suggestion.”
“Oh, I do like the sound of that for him —Austen has always left me cold. Well, and what do you two young ladies have planned for the season?”
Henrietta wasn’t quite ready to share their secret letter-writing scheme, not even with someone as trustworthy and enthusiastic as Constance, so she mentioned their more public undertaking instead. “We petitioned Harvard to let us sit in on some classes before winter term ends.”
“I remember when they finally let Margaret Fuller use their library.” Constance snorted. “ My , but how far they’ve come.”
The brougham pulled up before the massive steps to the Stevenson family’s five-story Federal-style brownstone, and the three women entered the front vestibule just as William Stevenson appeared, hat on, heading out. “Oh, Miss Davenish, hello. How nice. I didn’t know we were expecting you.”
As polite as he sounded, Henrietta could see the worry in her father’s eyes. He had always been suspicious of his daughters’ older female friends, as if they were the personification of the very dragons that those ancient mapmakers had warned about. “Father, Miss Davenish is joining us for tea.”
William gave a little bow. “I am sorry to miss it then.”
“Can’t we tempt you to stay?” Constance tried to catch his eye with a smile.
“I’m afraid I’m due at chambers. A big Exchequer decision just came out that could alter liability law in England forever.”
Charlotte gave a little yawn, while Constance looked intrigued. “I’d love to hear more.”
William stared at her in surprise. “You would?”
She nodded. “I wanted to be a lawyer when I was a girl, just like my father. But of course, only men are allowed to sit the bar.”
“Ah, yes, well, if my girls are anything to judge by, there is good reason for that. There’d be no getting a word in edgewise. You women would surely outtalk us all.”
“Now, Justice Stevenson, I am quite certain that is not the real reason,” Constance lightly intoned, at which William, apparently sensing he was beat, tipped his hat and gave his regrets one last time.
The three women moved into the parlor where a low center table had been set for tea, complete with candle warmer, porcelain cups and saucers, and Mrs. Pearson’s famous custard cake. While Henrietta poured out the black tea imported to Boston by Chase these words were sacred.
These words were also about laundry, and baking apples, and the latch on the tea caddy breaking. It amazed the sisters that a writer like Austen had apparently led as domestic a life as them. Not for her were the lecture tours of Dickens or Emerson, the European castle-hopping of Byron or Shelley. If this letter proved anything, it was that Austen conjured her worlds from within a most mundane one. A world of women, at that.
“But you don’t know of what certain objects the admiral writes? How intriguing.” Constance returned the letter to Henrietta. “Ninety-one, though, you say? Well, you know what men of contracts law would stipulate.” She gave a wink. “Time is of the essence.”