Chapter One
New York City
JULIA
It’s wonderful to be among people who know you so well (or most of the time, at least).
FROM LIBERTY ISLAND, BY MISS CRANE
Finally, nearly three months into her first semester at Barnard, Julia Demarest had landed at a gathering of the smart set—and yet there she was, standing alone by the wall, feeling stupid.
It seemed so promising, too! The four flights of stairs she and Mina climbed to reach the apartment had sagged in a most encouraging manner, and halfway up, they’d heard laughter and argument, and the muffled, doleful strains of what sounded like some Moorish air playing on a phonograph.
The door had opened to a marvelously bohemian scene—women in shapeless silk tunics, and men with low, loose collars and all manner of beards.
Even the more conventionally dressed gave off a whiff of heedlessness.
And while Julia could not say she liked the smell of Turkish cigarettes, the smoke was indisputably atmospheric.
Julia had come with Mina Ellis (a fellow freshman, though Julia thought she seemed years older).
Mina had finagled a job as a general factotum at The Current, a new and thrillingly radical magazine.
Not two minutes after they arrived at the party, the host, an editor there, pulled her away, leaving Julia to fend for herself.
Other than a passing greeting from “Stella the Anarchist,” one of Mina’s roommates (the others were “Jane the Socialist” and “Vera the Dancer,” of unknown political affiliation), Julia had spoken to no one.
She finally screwed up her courage and sidled up to a nearby cluster of people, hoping they might open the circle for her. One woman made eye contact, but no invitation was forthcoming.
Julia sighed inwardly. Probably for the best. From what she could hear, they were in a heated discussion about behaviorism and syndicalism. (Or behaviorism versus syndicalism? Beyond a vague and appealing sense of subversiveness, Julia knew little about either.)
Mina towered over many of the guests, so Julia caught an occasional glimpse. When she slipped out of view at one point, Julia hoped she was finding some circuitous way back to her. A moment later, she spotted Mina again and realized she had merely moved on to another conversation.
Worse, a shift in the crowd revealed that Mina was now talking to Pelham Stewart, the very man Julia had hoped to meet this evening.
Mr. Stewart, a senior at Columbia, was one of the promising young writers whose work appeared in The Current. Julia knew better than to expect her friend to part the seas to beckon her over. Mina had not even glanced in her direction.
Julia had only laid eyes on Pelham Stewart once, when he gave one of the informal talks The Current hosted in the restaurant below their offices.
He had not struck her as particularly attractive at first. Ruggedly handsome, maybe—with his broad shoulders, dark disobedient hair, and those thick brows that almost met at the worry lines between his eyes—but too brooding and intense for her tastes.
She had been riveted by the talk, though.
His theme was “Smashing the Idols.” When he declared, “We must abandon the tired notion that piety and restraint are the highest virtues,” Julia had almost cheered.
As a girl, she was constantly told she was insufficiently restrained (“hoydenish,” to use her brother William’s favorite word).
“And what of this absurd urgency about ‘assimilating’ immigrants?” he continued.
“Nobody clings to the old country more than the Protestant aristocrat. Culturally, we’re practically a British colony—the old church, the old literature, the old snobberies.
” (Julia tucked that away to pull out next time Father and William complained about foreigners besmirching America with their alien ways.)
Mr. Stewart relaxed when he took questions from the audience, and when one exchange made him laugh, his face completely transformed. Gone was the forbidding expression. He suddenly seemed youthful, charming, eager to be amused.
Julia was smitten, though she tried to disguise it when she and Mina went to a nearby teahouse after the talk. Mina was too perceptive. She leaned back, one long leg crossed over the other, and raised an eyebrow.
“Handsome, isn’t he?”
“I suppose.” Julia shrugged.
“You can’t fool me, duckie. I saw how you looked at him. I must orchestrate an introduction.”
Julia promptly abandoned the act and leaned forward eagerly. “Oh, would you?”
On the way over this evening, Julia asked Mina what sort of women Mr. Stewart liked.
“Don’t you dare change a jot for any man!” Mina had scolded.
“Not to change myself. Just for the purpose of conversing.”
“Well, in that case,” she replied, with a mischievous smile, “perhaps leave off that you’re playing basketball.”
“Will you never banish that image from your mind?” Julia laughed.
“Never. It is burned into my memory.” Ever since she spotted Julia racing to her dormitory in bloomers and a middy blouse, Mina had been ribbing her about joining the freshman basketball team.
As it happened, this advice was unnecessary. Julia found Mina’s friends so terrifyingly sophisticated and blasé, she would never have mentioned anything as “rah-rah-sis-boom-bah” as basketball.
“Do I look all right, at least?” Julia had put on a simple blue silk dress with covered buttons, which looked nice with her eyes, and wrapped an ivory Persian-embroidered scarf around her waist. Her dark hair was in a low, loose knot.
“Anything goes, really. You’re terribly aristocratic-looking, but there’s nothing you can do about that.” She paused a moment, as if in thought, then added, “Come to think of it, I’m going to call you ‘Duchess’ from now on instead of ‘duckie.’”
It pained Julia, watching her friend and Mr. Stewart in an animated conversation. She knew Mina would tease her tomorrow. Why did you not join us? You said you wanted to meet Pelham! But not everyone was comfortable elbowing her way through a crowd in such a manner.
Nor was Julia comfortable continuing to stand in awkward solitude. Defeated, she headed to the bedroom to get her cloak. But then she felt a tap on her shoulder and turned to see a face that was as welcome as it was familiar.
“Hello, Jules. Imagine seeing you here.” Smiling down at her was Michael Seaborne, Columbia junior and dear old family friend.
Julia placed a grateful hand on his forearm. “How glad I am to see you, Michael! I was feeling quite friendless a moment ago.”
His eyes frowned. “You, Jules, friendless? I can’t imagine it. But I was just leaving, if you’d like to join me.”
Julia looked back at the crowd. Mina, with that sly look on her face Julia knew so well, was whispering something in Pelham’s ear, and he was laughing appreciatively in response.
“Yes, please,” Julia said.
“I’m sorry you had an unpleasant time of it,” Michael said, as he took her arm and they headed up Amsterdam Avenue, ducking their heads against the icy headwind that whooshed down the street. “What brought you there?”
“My friend is working at The Current, but someone grabbed her when we walked in, and I didn’t know a soul. Or I didn’t think I did, at least.”
Julia battled her disappointment by reminding herself how fortunate she was to have run into Michael.
He was like a taste of home, but better, since he was not actually from home.
Michael’s mother grew up with Julia’s grandmother in Concord, Massachusetts (though a generation apart, Julia’s grandmother was only seven years older).
But while Julia’s family was in Boston, Margaret Seaborne had married a newspaper publisher and settled in Washington, DC.
Michael was such a comfortable sort of person, too, with an easy, loose-limbed way of moving, and big brown eyes that turned down at the corners, giving him a look of kind sympathy.
“Where does your dorm mistress think you are?” Michael asked. “She can’t have known you were at that party.”
“Oh, heavens, no. I am now at a violin concert at the Lyceum, which I am finding most edifying. It ends at ten PM.” In order to get around the strict rules in Brooks Hall, the girls lied shamelessly about where they were going and with whom.
Michael laughed. “I’m glad you’re enjoying it. You’ve got some time, then. I’m meeting friends at the Astor. Care to come for a bit? They’re nice enough, though perhaps not as clever as the crowd we just left.”
“You know I think you’re terribly clever,” Julia scolded. She paused, and with customary candor added, “Though I was surprised to see you there.”
He chuckled again. “I’m on the staff of the Columbia Spectator with a few of the writers for The Current. I hope I don’t disappoint you when I say I’m not terribly revolutionary.”
“Oh, you can’t disappoint me, Michael, but what do you consider yourself?”
Michael shrugged. “Merely chary of anyone claiming to have all the answers. Son of a newspaperman, you know. The skepticism is bred in. Don’t let it stop you from being curious.”
There was no danger of that. At some point in the past few years, Julia had realized that, outside the snow globe that was Boston society, smart young people were reimagining everything.
They were determined to toss out old, rigid notions and make a better world, one with more freedom and opportunities, especially for women.
Once Julia was aware of it, she saw it everywhere, in newspapers and magazines, and especially in Father and William’s grumbling comments (a good sign that these young thinkers were onto something wonderful).
She wanted nothing more than to be a part of this grand, thrilling spectacle.
The very reason she wanted to attend Barnard was that she knew New York was where it was all brewing.