Chapter Nine #2
The drinks were not having an enlivening effect on Vera, who was only growing more maudlin.
Her friends tended to her in shifts, and Mina even managed to get a smile out of her with a pitch-perfect charade of Bernard and Vera on the dance floor, alternating between acting as Vera (graceful gliding) and as Bernard (awkward shuffling).
Mina and her friends had plenty of other complaints about Washington, but Julia had been prepared for those and mostly took them in stride (though it did irk her to hear Mina complain about living in the “suburbs,” given how fortunate she was to have this apartment).
Julia, for her part, had been pleasantly surprised by Washington.
Though her hometown had a larger population, between Boston society’s obsession with family lineage and the layout of the city, which allowed affluent families to wall themselves off in Back Bay and on Beacon Hill, it had always felt cramped.
Washington was more transient, and the neighborhood divisions were not so distinct, so it felt more porous socially.
The “cave dwellers,” as the old Washington families were called, were known for their clannishness and disdain of “official Washington,” but even that set contained a number of smart, broad-minded young women.
Julia also met many interesting people through the Seabornes, who hosted a never-ending parade of diplomats, artists, writers, and politicians, and she’d found a group of outdoorsy women with whom she regularly went canoeing.
While it compared favorably to Boston, however, she knew Washington was not New York. It had no bohemian enclave like Greenwich Village, and Julia relished the vibrant conversation and rapid-fire exchange of heterodox ideas.
That said, she was also reminded of some things she had not missed.
“Will you be joining the protest outside the White House?” Jane asked.
“Julia can’t possibly,” Mina teased. “She’ll lose caste.”
“You mean lose my job,” Julia said with a sigh.
The suffrage movement had long been divided between the moderates and the radicals, and the war had only deepened the divisions.
The moderates were committed to supporting the president and having their members do war work, while the radicals were staging protests outside the White House.
Mina and her friends had little patience for the moderates, but Julia and Louisa pitched in when they could, with little regard to which group was sponsoring a particular effort.
They often rolled bandages at a nearby toy shop, which converted to a surgical-dressing station every evening after closing, and they also had spent many hours at the National Woman’s Party headquarters, helping with mailings.
Participating in public protests, however, would likely cost both Julia and Louisa their jobs.
“I’m just teasing, Duchess!” Mina said. “Oh, you must tell everyone what your grandmother said about suffrage.”
This was the dance Mina had always done with Julia. One moment, she would tease, and the next, she would pull Julia into the conversation and set her up to be amusing.
“My grandmother insisted that any reasonably attractive woman can get what she wants from men without having the vote,” Julia said.
“I replied, ‘But Grandmother, what about unattractive women?’ To which she said, ‘Julia, you are not unattractive. If you would just behave, I am sure some man will have you.’”
This did get a laugh, after which Mina, as usual, inserted a bit of her own commentary. “Julia’s grandmother is the epitome of the blue-blooded Bostonian, straight from a Henry James novel.”
Among Mina’s friends, Julia always felt like a visitor to a foreign country, someone who had learned the language but could not be expected to speak like a native.
Between Mina’s comment about her grandmother, whom she had never met, and her liberal use of “Duchess,” Julia could not help feeling that she was being marked as an outsider.
In need of a change of scenery, Julia joined Louisa, who was at the kitchen table with Mitzy and a few people from the labor world.
Mitzy was describing a book she was illustrating, designed to get children interested in socialism, when Mina popped into the kitchen for more glasses and caught a few words of the conversation.
“Julia’s aunt wrote children’s books. That series … What was it called, Julia?” Mina said.
Mina knew very well what it was called, but being ignorant of “all things children” was part of her image.
“Liberty Island. Our family friend Margaret Seaborne was the illustrator.”
“Oh, yes. I’m familiar with Mrs. Seaborne’s work. Nicely illustrated. And good books for their time, I suppose.”
“For their time?” Louisa asked. Between her diminutive stature and big clear eyes, Louisa could make a pointed question sound like it had no edges at all.
“They’re just a bit dated. I know it’s only been fifteen or twenty years since they came out, but things have changed so much.”
“Better than all that sentimental Victorian nonsense, though,” one of Louisa’s labor friends said.
“As it happens, I think that is a problem,” Mitzy said, with a hint (very slight) of apology in her expression. “The style is more contemporary, and the girls are depicted as enjoying some freedom. It gives off a deceptive whiff of modernity.”
“How so?” Louisa asked.
“The characters obtained their so-called liberty through duplicity, and at the end of every book, they slip back into their conventional lives. Portraying female freedom as illicit reinforces bourgeois norms. I mean no offense, but I actually think it is quite harmful.”
“I see,” Louisa said. Through all of this, she wore her usual placid expression, but Julia knew she was fuming, a fact that was confirmed when they left a little while later (the remaining guests having transitioned from the cheerful inebriation Julia found enjoyable to the sloppy version she did not).
“Absurd, what that Mitzy woman was saying about Liberty Island.”
“Hah! I knew she got your goat,” Julia said. “Don’t you think she has a point, though? What freedom did we really have on the island? We always came back to Haven Point.”
“Julia, you know what we had was unusual.”
“Of course, but the point is, it should not have been. Remember how we were discouraged from talking about it, and how at first we only went on weekdays, when most of the fathers were away? That was because they weren’t to know how wildly we behaved out there.”
Louisa shrugged. “Right. They probably wouldn’t have approved.”
“But has anything changed on Haven Point? I don’t begrudge Maudie and Ruthie their marriages, which I am sure will be happy, but do you not see them as just conforming to bourgeois norms?”
“Julia, I know all these ideas about completely upending society are alluring,” Louisa said. “But there’s a danger of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.”
“Oh, let’s not argue.” Julia gave Louisa’s shoulder a squeeze. Liberty Island was one of the few subjects about which Louisa was very sentimental. And while modern in some ways, she was still a traditional, old-fashioned Catholic girl.
Julia had not been as offended as Louisa by Mitzy’s observations, but she was troubled by the idea that the Liberty Island books could be harmful. She told Pelham all about the evening in her next letter, how she had felt among Mina’s friends, and about the exchange with Mitzy.
His response was somewhat encouraging.
I was sorry to read of the discomfort you felt at that party.
How I wish you could see yourself as I see you.
Your mother might have cast off the spirit of Concord in her effort to please and conform, but it is obviously in your blood and bones.
Your curiosity, tolerance, and liberality of spirit shine through in your letters, as do your reverence of nature and beauty, and your ability to share in your students’ childlike wonder.
Every letter you write gives me a glimmer of hope in this dark horror. If you felt uncomfortable in a room I suspect was full of sharp tongues and hard edges, I can only rejoice!
Julia smiled. Pelham never made her feel like she was pressing her nose against the glass, looking in from the outside. She did not have to wear a sack dress or write modernist poetry for him to treat her as a fellow traveler. Her membership in his world was her birthright as a child of Concord.
Regarding your aunt’s books, I understand what Mitzy was getting at.
We are in a pitched battle against the stale old morality, and ingrained habits of society.
Her concerns, though, were overwrought. As Sigmund Freud has taught us, children are perfectly able to distinguish fantasy from reality. They do not become what they read.
All that said, I wish your mother had not felt the need to hide you away! A perfect world would celebrate the freedom-loving, imaginative, and expressive child that I know you were, but you did not grow up in that world.
Julia was reassured by Pelham’s very sensible analysis. Just as girls could read Little Women without thinking that the March family’s world was, or should be, their own, they could read Liberty Island and know that it was written at another time.
It was a bit sad, though. Julia had not realized it until Mitzy’s comment, but the books were dated.
The depictions of girls of such independent spirit, venturing beyond the domestic sphere, actually caused a minor uproar when Liberty Island first came out.
But while women still had miles to go, things had changed enough in the last seventeen years to render the books a bit quaint.
Liberty Island would continue to please girls, thanks to Anna’s clever writing and Margaret’s brilliant illustrations, but they were stories from another time.
When Julia reread Pelham’s letter, however, she had a disquieting revelation. It was in the contrast between Mitzy’s comment about how the girls in Liberty Island used trickery to gain their freedom and Pelham’s remark about Mother “hiding Julia away.”
Julia had always been proud that she and her friends had inspired the characters in her aunt’s books. But had they? Their fictional counterparts seized the island, but in real life, these adventures had been orchestrated for them.
Perhaps Pelham was right that children could distinguish fantasy from reality. Now that she was grown, however, Julia began to wonder how much she had been conflating the two.