Running Wild (24 page)

“I don’t care about that right now. We were talking about
your speech.”

“Why, on that we’ve nothing more to discuss. My mind is
set.”

A muscled jumped in his cheek. “Then I’ll unset it. Romeo
obviously has a screw loose. You don’t know what he’ll do if you go on.”

“I do know that abiding by his wishes will only encourage
him to continue such treatment. Soon you’ll be asking me to forfeit my writing
as well.”

“It’s a good idea, at least until we bag him.”

“Damn it, Nicholas,” she said, slamming down her fork. “I
have never before backed down to intimidation, nor will I now, in Saratoga
Springs of all places.”

He peered at her for a spell. “What’s so special about
Saratoga?”

Star stared back, marking the cool resolve of his
countenance. He refused to yield, to either rudeness or anger. Could she blame
him? If the situation were reversed, she’d be as stubborn. “A friend of mine
died here,” she said, lowering her voice, “and I must speak for her memory as
well as for the commitment I made.”

His face softened and his forehead wrinkled in concern. “I’m
sorry. Was she a reformer?”

Shaking her head, Star toyed with her food, while battling
to keep the door shut on the pain she’d locked up years earlier. “No, nothing
like that. Minnie came here six years ago to escape her husband.” She paused as
tears prickled her eyes. “In the end, she decided that death was her only true
escape.”

Nicholas sucked in his breath. He leaned forward, the frown
melting from his face. “Star. . . I’m sorry.”

The sound of her name on his lips, the sympathy in his
voice, broke through the last of her defenses. Memory flooded her brain and
tears spilled over her lids. She pulled a handkerchief from her pocket. “So you
see,” she said, discreetly dabbing her eyes, “you see why I must do this.”

“No,” he said, shaking his head adamantly. “It’s a tragedy,
sure—”

“Not merely a tragedy,” she whispered. “It’s my fault!”

He started. “How’s it your fault?”

Oh no, she could not tell him, not here, not now. She would
most certainly succumb to weeping. She could not bear to look like a weak,
silly spectacle of a woman, not even to a few people. “I cannot—Nicholas. . .”
She took a shaky breath. “This is not the place for such a conversation.”

“Oh,” he said glancing around. “Sure. Maybe we’d better just
eat now. We can talk later.”

“I shall go on tomorrow at all events,” she objected
halfheartedly, torn between the wish to keep her guilt to herself and the need
for him to understand.

He cut into his steak. “Reckon I have to hear the whole
story before I make that kind of concession.”

“I don’t require your agreement,” she replied lifting her
chin.

He glanced up at her, his eyes sparkling with a hint of
amusement. “No ma’am, you don’t. But maybe you’ll oblige my male sensibilities
by pretending you do.”

“I’m not particularly adept at pretense.”

He chuckled. “You’re so good at pretense, Star Montgomery,
that you could’ve been another Bernhardt.”

Regardless of his merriment, concern drew lines around his
eyes. He wasn’t attempting to exert his will over her; he truly believed her to
be in danger. It touched her heart and quieted her frustration. “Well then, if
you insist, we’ll take a stroll through Congress Park after dinner. There are
several areas where we may be private.”

***

Gaslights interrupted the darkness every few feet as Nick
and Star strolled along a park path. Sweeping green lawns filled the space
between paths, decorated with fountains, gazebos and a small pond with a
grandstand in the middle. The color still unsettled Nick. He wasn’t used to so
much green in the summer, leastways not outside of the mountains.

“A penny for your thoughts,” Star ventured.

“Not worth that much. Just thinkin’ about how it’s so green
out here in the summer. Back home, this time of year it’s starting to brown
up.”

“Ah. And it’s drier, I hear. Does this bother you?”

“The green is pretty, but the stickiness is hard to get used
to.”

“I’m not sure one ever does become accustomed to it. New
Yorkers summer in Newport for that reason, for the cool ocean breezes.”

“New Yorkers . . . not Bostonians? That’s where you
Montgomerys go.”

“Bostonians mostly summer in Manchester or Nahant. We,
however, have owned the property in Newport for decades, and have other New
York connections as well. Port’s wife is from New York.” For a time she chatted
on about those connections. It was mostly gibberish to Nick, but he listened
and asked a question now and again to put her at her ease. By and by, they
found a deserted, gas lit bench to settle on. Their conversation trailed off.
The chirping of crickets filled the lengthening silence, while Nick racked his
brain for a way to start a conversation that neither one of them wanted to
have.

“And so you wish to know about Minnie—Minerva Kingston
Burke, Bella’s sister,” Star said abruptly. “I met her twelve years ago at
school, when she was assigned as my roommate. We took an immediate liking to
each other and for two years were thick as thieves. We did everything together,
both at school and on holidays, which we always spent together, at each other
homes or in Newport, or here in Saratoga. Minnie had a wicked sense of humor.
We could laugh over the most mundane of things.”

She paused a moment, lost in recollection. Nick waited,
trying to picture a younger Star, lighthearted and innocent, instead of
restless and impassioned by her cause. “Our third summer break, however, I
spent in Europe with the Hathaways and my mother’s family. While I was away,
Minnie met Horatio Burke, whom, she raved, was charming, wealthy and
handsome—every girl’s dream. Before I even returned, he’d proposed. Her parents
refused him at first, insisting that she was too young to form such an
attachment and sent her back to school. I knew, however, as soon as I saw her,
that it was useless. She couldn’t concentrate on her studies or anything else. At
length her parents gave up and agreed to a June wedding.”

She rubbed her eyes. “I’ll own to an initial unease with
Horatio. He was her senior by fifteen years and seemed—possessive. Even then I
had little true interest in matrimony, however, so I dismissed it as my own
prejudice.” She sighed. “I was a fool.”

“You were young,” Nick interjected.

“I was a fool. In the autumn I returned to school, and
Minnie started her new life as wife and, within a year, as a mother. At first
we wrote regularly, but her correspondence quickly waned. She never invited me
to visit, and on those few occasions when mutual acquaintances brought us
together, she was distant, scarcely leaving Horatio’s side.” Star shook her
head staring at her hands. “I ought to have seen it,” she said in a low voice,
“but I was angry, feeling abandoned and jealous.”

“You’re not responsible for your friend’s life, Star.”

She turned to him. Her face was unusually lined, her eyes
glazed over. “Am I not? Does the Bible not say that we should treat others as
we would like to be treated?”

“You were treating her as you thought she wanted. You let
her go.”

She shrugged and looked off into the night. “It was easier
than prying, at any rate. At length I finished my studies, joined the movement,
and made my debut in Society. I ‘took’ immediately in both
very
different venues. It was—” She paused, frowning. “Difficult to juggle them. I
became absorbed with my status. I barely gave Minnie a thought until, one day,
I received word that she was staying at the Tremont. I was delighted—until I
visited her hotel room and saw her.” Star took a deep breath. “All the make-up
in the world could not cover her bruised face, and the rest of her person was
in even worse condition.” Another breath as tears burned her eyes.

“It is not, as I’ve since learned, so unusual a story. At
first Horatio behaved as an adoring, attentive husband, who lovingly offered
her “hints” on proper behavior. In time, the attentiveness transformed into . .
. into oppression, and the hints became punishment. He refused her visits to
family and friends, demanding that she divide her time between only him and
their two children. When she did not perform her duties, he hit her. When she
objected, he beat her. One day she fought back, and he beat her senseless. When
she awoke, she boarded the next train and came to me, because after her
parents’ objections to the marriage, she was too humiliated to return to them.”

“Star,” Nicholas breathed. He reached for her hand, but she
moved it away.

“We consulted with several reformers who knew the law better
than we did. Unlike Massachusetts, New York only grants divorce in cases of
adultery. Horatio’s treatment, however, justified separation from bed and
board. Minnie only wanted access to her children, though, and so, with much
persuasion, she contacted her parents. Naturally, they agreed to provide money
and influence in her petition—the Kingston name is well known in New York. Thus
armed, Minnie returned to New York. I expected next to hear about the beginning
of her new life without Horatio.”

“I was wrong. Although they disliked Horatio, her parents
believed that a wife belongs with her husband and encouraged reconciliation.
They contacted Horatio, and he came to her, overcome with remorse and begging
forgiveness on bended knee. He visited daily, bringing flowers, gifts, and
poetry. She fell in love all over again. Ignoring her attorney’s advice, and
mine, she returned to him. Her next letters extolled Horatio’s transformation
and perfection as a husband. Soon she was joyfully expecting another child. I
believed her. And him.”
Because
, a voice said in the back of Star’s
mind,
you wished for no further disruption to your life
.

“She wrote for months, assuring me of her happy marriage and
her joy in her upcoming confinement. After the baby’s birth, the correspondence
drifted off, which I supposed to be a natural parting of two people with vastly
different interests. I was becoming ever more immersed in the movement, and
Minnie’s little achievements seemed inconsequential.” Forgetting that the
movement was about women like Minnie.

Recollection turned Star’s thoughts to acid, churning her
stomach. That year had been the most thrilling, most exciting, time of her life
as she crusaded for female freedom and equality, not yet comprehending that she
was but a dilettante.

“Eighteen months after she left Horatio, Minnie telegraphed
me to join her in Saratoga. I brushed her off, for I had prior engagements.”
Star took a breath. “One week later we heard that she’d died due to a ‘lingering
illness’. Two days after that Minnie’s suicide note arrived in the mail.”

“Star,” Nicholas started, reaching for her hand again, and
again she refused him. She deserved no comfort.

“Horatio,” she said, her voice cracking, “had stopped
beating her. Beatings showed bruises. Instead, he forced himself upon her.
Every night, whether she consented or not.” Star gulped as tears filled her
eyes. “Moreover, Minnie’s doctor told her that she must avoid childbirth for at
least a year.
He
however refused to supply her with contraceptive advice
other than abstinence. Minnie resorted to using feminine syringes from the
druggist, filled with carbolic acid. Ultimately, they caused ulcerations, but
Horatio still demanded his ‘rights’.” Star paused, overcome by the images of
her tortured face, her raw, bleeding womb.

“Damn,” Nicholas breathed.

“At length she escaped to Saratoga Springs, where she
concealed her identity, hoping for time to heal. But Horatio found her. He beat
her and swore that if she left him again, he’d kill her. That night, as he lay
sleeping, she mailed the letter to me and then put a period to her life with a
bottle of laudanum,” she finished. A thick cloud of guilt and despair
descended, threatening to choke her as it had all those years ago: months of
tears and haunting images as she searched for peace, for sanity. She’d been on
the verge of marrying Ambrose when Lucy Stone, herself, visited and gave her
some articles to write. Lucy taught her how action, not marriage, promised
relief, which Star went on to teach Bella.

“Why not go to her parents?” Nicholas ventured by and by.
“They’d have protected her at least.”

Star sighed, weary now, of further explanation. “She could
no longer procure a separation, for she had no proof of brutality. She stood to
lose everything, her social standing, financial support and most painfully, her
children. Moreover, Minnie’s parents had sent for Horatio the first time. She
believed they’d do so again, and she was afraid of him. In the end, she had
only me, and I failed her.”

“Did she say in the telegram why she wanted to see you?”

“No, but—”

“Then how were you supposed to know? It’s not your fault,
Star. She made a choice, a bad one, but it was her choice.”

“I
ought
to have known. Our association hears these
stories daily, and the abuse is almost always progressive. The effect upon a
woman’s nerves, especially—” She took a quivery breath as imagined screams
echoed in her mind and tears threatened. “Especially one so impressionable is
to disorder the thinking. If I had taken that into account—”

“Star,” Nicholas interrupted, taking her hands. He refused
to let them go this time. “Look at me.” She raised her head. His eyes were
warm, as his deep, calm voice cut through Minnie’s imagined screams. “You
couldn’t have known if she didn’t tell you. Even if you did, you might not have
saved her. You aren’t to blame.”

“Maybe not,” she said, trying to push down the sobs rising
in her throat. “But it’s still
legal
, Nicholas. Everything he did to her
is legally permitted torture. Anybody who tried to stop him—her parents, her
sister or I—would have acted against the
law
. I am too smart to pursue
revenge against a man as powerful as he is, but how can I not fight the laws
that allow his actions? How can anybody think that it is
right
?”