Terrible Virtue (11 page)

She was carrying what appeared to be a Bible. She stood silent for a moment, then introduced herself as Sister Aimee Semple McPherson. Around me, a murmur of disappointment went from mouth to mouth. Apparently this was not the person they'd come to hear.

She explained that she had been asked to speak at the last moment and had prepared nothing. A snake-oil saleswoman's line if ever I heard one.

“I will rely on the Lord for guidance.” She held the Bible over her head with both hands, then lowered it to the lectern and let it fall open.

She began to speak. I had no idea what she was talking about. Old Testament prophets and palmerworms and cankerworms and locusts. But I knew what she was selling. Sex. She was whipping herself and the audience into a white heat.

I glanced around me. The symptoms were so classic they might have come from one of Havelock's books. Flared nostrils, flushed cheeks, and eyes wide as startled animals'. The man beside me crossed and uncrossed his legs again. Then the responses started. The hallelujahs and amens and I-am-saveds and Sister-Aimee-has-saved-mes grew louder and more abandoned. Here was all of the power of sex with none of the beauty. The girl up on the stage shouting and slithering and burning with hysteria made a mockery of my lecture to the Fabian Society. I had gloated over a hundred people willing to hear an honest reasoned discussion of sex and contraception.
She packed Albert Hall with nine thousand hypocrites taking their pleasure on the sly.

The feeling of defeat followed me back to Torrington Square like a confidence man whispering blandishments in my ear. Why can't you be like other women? Why can't you be satisfied with a home and husband and children? Why can't you stop trying to save the world and save yourself and your children? Give up.

FOR THE NEXT
few days, I flirted with the possibility. The weather turned unusually clear and clement, and I wandered St. James's and Green and Hyde Parks, imagining myself as a different woman, cared for, cosseted, content with my three children around me. But it was no good. My crusade wasn't a choice I had made; it was a calling, like the vocation of the nuns I had known in my childhood. I might fall short of success, just as they might not attain perfect faith, but we had to continue the struggle. So I was back where I'd started with my children on one side of the Atlantic and me on the other.

THE IDEA CAME
to me a few days later as Havelock and I were walking to our usual tearoom near the British Museum. The weather had turned nasty again, and black umbrellas bobbed like corks in the April mist. Cold and wet and sooty as the city was that afternoon, it had captured my heart. If only I could bring Peggy over. The boys were happy in boarding school, and I didn't want to disrupt their lives, but Peggy belonged with me. The problem was getting her here. A five-year-old cannot cross the Atlantic alone, especially in wartime.

Havelock had the solution. When the war broke out, travelers had panicked, but now passenger liners, even German and British passenger liners, were considered safe, and people were sailing again. His wife was returning from a speaking engagement in America at the end of the month. She had already booked passage on the
Lusitania
. She could bring Peggy over.

I
FOUGHT THROUGH THE
crowd outside the Cunard office. The mob pushed and snarled and elbowed one another. Fear does that to people.

I was still clutching the newspaper with its pitiless headline.

LUSITANIA SUNK BY SUBMARINE, PROBABLY 1200 DEAD

TWICE TORPEDOED OFF IRISH COAST; SINKS IN 15 MINUTES

Inside, the walls were hung with posters of Cunard liners sailing placid waters. The images did nothing to calm the hysteria. A glass case housing a model of a Cunard ship crashed to the floor. Splinters flew. A woman held a handkerchief to her face. A man let the blood drip. The crowd crunched over the shards of glass, battling to get to the front desk, where officials stood with lists of survivors.

A woman shouted a name. One of the men behind the desk ran a finger down the pages he was holding.

“Not yet received.” His voice wasn't unkind, merely exhausted.

“It must be there,” the woman insisted. “Have you got the spelling right?”

The man ignored her and searched for another name that someone had called out.

I fought my way to the desk. “Margaret Sanger.” My own name sounded strange in my ears. If only it had been mine; if only I could change places with Peggy.

The man looked down at the list again. “Not yet received,” he repeated.

Perhaps Edith Ellis had registered her as Peggy rather than Margaret.

“Peggy Sanger,” I shouted above the din.

This time the man merely shook his head.

“But she's only five,” I insisted, as if age had anything to do with it, as if there were any logic to disaster.

The man turned away to another mother or father or wife or husband. There were hundreds of us, surging back and forth in the damp room that steamed with overheated bodies and terror.

At two in the morning, another man appeared behind the desk and called for quiet. I heard the hush fall as suddenly and completely as if I had gone deaf.

“A list of the dead and missing has been completed,” he announced and began to read the names. A woman moaned. A man pounded his hand against a wall. Someone fainted.

The list was alphabetical. He got to the
E
's swiftly. Edith Ellis was not on the list. Surely if Edith had found her way into a lifeboat, she would have taken Peggy with her.

His voice droned on through the
F
's and
G
's and
H
's. Why didn't she have my last name? Higgins would have come sooner. He reached the
S
's. Neither Margaret nor Peggy Sanger was listed among the missing and dead.

My relief made me dizzy. I put a hand on the glass case of a ship model to steady myself.

HAVELOCK WAS WAITING
for me in the sour-smelling parlor of 67 Torrington Square. He held out his hand. The yellow telegram paper looked brown in the dim light.

I knew without reading what it said. The list the man had read had been incomplete. Peggy was dead.

Havelock inched the cable closer to me. I took it between thumb and forefinger.

GERMAN AD IN NEW YORK WORLD WARNED AGAINST SAILING ON BRITISH SHIP STOP BOOKED PASSAGE ON AMERICAN LINER STOP DID NOT BRING PEGGY STOP TOO MUCH RESPONSIBILITY DURING WAR STOP EDITH

I
STOOD IN THE
overcast October morning with the Hudson River at my back and Manhattan rising ahead. Iron wagon wheels and horses' hooves clattered over cobblestones. Automobile horns shrieked. Vendors hawked. The din was deafening. A man driving an ice wagon shouted, “Watch out, sister.” I was home.

A month earlier I had received a letter from Jonah J. Goldstein. The climate of opinion was changing, he said. The words
birth control
no longer had to be whispered behind closed doors. Some of the more serious magazines like
Harper'
s
Weekly
were running articles on the subject.

“If you're willing to take a chance and come home, Mrs. Sanger, I think we can strike a blow for the cause.”

This time he hadn't guaranteed anything, but I'd booked passage that afternoon.

I picked up my suitcase now and began walking across Fourteenth Street. As I passed a newsstand, a headline jumped out at me from the cover of
Pictorial
Review
.

WHAT SHALL WE DO ABOUT BIRTH CONTROL?

J. J. Goldstein had written that some of the more serious magazines were running articles, but I hadn't expected a glossy publication like
Pictorial
Review
, filled with advice on how to make the latest-style hats, word a wedding invitation, and furnish a nursery, to take up the cause. I started walking again, more quickly now. I had no time to waste. I had to get back to work. But first I had to see my children.

BILL SANGER

YOU WERE IN SUCH A HURRY, PEG, THAT YOU DIDN'T EVEN HAVE TIME TO VISIT YOUR HUSBAND, WHO WAS SERVING THIRTY DAYS IN THE TOMBS FOR YOUR CAUSE. AND DON'T TELL ME I WASN'T YOUR HUSBAND ANYMORE. THE LAW SAID WE WERE STILL MARRIED, NO MATTER HOW YOU CARRIED ON ALL OVER EUROPE. DON'T TELL ME I WAS A FOOL TO FALL FOR THE PLOY THAT LANDED ME IN JAIL EITHER. YOU WOULD HAVE TOO, IF YOU'D SEEN THE MAN
.

I'D JUST GOTTEN BACK FROM PARIS—SOMEONE HAD TO TAKE CARE OF THE CHILDREN—WHEN HE TURNED UP AT THE STUDIO I'D TAKEN IN THE VILLAGE. HE SAID WE'D MET A FEW YEARS AGO AT MABEL DODGE'S. I DIDN'T REMEMBER HIM, BUT THEN I DON'T REMEMBER MOST OF THE CHARACTERS FROM THAT DEN OF INIQUITY. I BELIEVE FREUD WOULD CALL IT REPRESSION. IT'S ALL TOO PAINFUL. I DIDN'T LET HIM IN RIGHT AWAY. I WAS TRYING TO SIZE HIM UP. HE DIDN'T LOOK LIKE A POLICEMAN OR ONE OF COMSTOCK'S HENCHMEN. HE REMINDED ME OF THE WAITER AT THAT CAFÉ AROUND THE CORNER FROM OUR FLAT IN PARIS. YOU REMEMBER, THE FELLOW I PAINTED SEVERAL TIMES. BUT I STILL DIDN'T OPEN THE DOOR WIDE. I ASKED HIM WHAT HE WANTED. HE SAID HIS WIFE HAD TUBERCULOSIS, AND THE DOCTOR HAD WARNED THAT ANOTHER PREGNANCY WOULD BE FATAL. HE WAS DESPERATE FOR A COPY OF “FAMILY LIMITATION.”

“I'M NOT A RICH MAN, MR. SANGER, BUT I'LL PAY ANYTHING YOU ASK. WHAT GOOD IS MONEY IN MY POCKET IF MY WIFE IS IN HER GRAVE?”

YOU'RE GOING TO SAY I SHOULD HAVE BEEN SUSPICIOUS OF A TEAR-JERKING LINE LIKE THAT, BUT THE DAY I BECOME SO HARDHEARTED THAT I CAN'T SYMPATHIZE WITH A HUSBAND'S FEAR OF LOSING HIS WIFE IS THE DAY I STOP BELONGING TO THE HUMAN RACE. SO I LET HIM IN AND SOLD HIM A COPY OF THE PAMPHLET
.

A WEEK LATER COMSTOCK TURNED UP AT THE STUDIO WITH AN ARREST WARRANT. BUT HERE'S THE BEST PART, PEG. HERE'S WHY I THINK THE LEAST YOU COULD HAVE DONE WAS COME TO SEE ME IN PRISON. COMSTOCK OFFERED ME A DEAL. HE SAID IF I TOLD HIM WHERE YOU WERE, HE'D SEE I GOT OFF WITH A SUSPENDED SENTENCE. I TOLD HIM HELL WOULD FREEZE OVER BEFORE I TOLD HIM ANYTHING
.

AT THE SENTENCING, THE JUDGE GAVE ME A CHOICE BETWEEN A ONE-HUNDRED-AND-FIFTY-DOLLAR FINE OR THIRTY DAYS IN THE TOMBS. I TOOK THE THIRTY DAYS. I FIGURED IT WOULD BE BETTER PUBLICITY FOR THE CAUSE. BUT EVEN THAT DIDN'T GET THROUGH TO YOU, THOUGH IT SEEMS TO HAVE TAKEN A TOLL ON COMSTOCK. TEN DAYS AFTER I BEGAN SERVING MY SENTENCE, HE DIED OF PNEUMONIA. SOME SAID IT WAS BROUGHT ON BY MY TRIAL
.

I DON'T KNOW WHAT ELSE I CAN DO FOR YOU, PEG, EXCEPT GIVE YOU THE DIVORCE YOU KEEP WRITING ME ABOUT. PERHAPS I WOULD IF I THOUGHT YOU MEANT IT, BUT I KNOW YOU DON'T. YOU COULDN'T, NOT AFTER WHAT WE'VE BEEN TO EACH OTHER
.

IF YOU DON'T CARE ABOUT ME, THINK OF THE CHILDREN. THEY CAN'T GO ON THIS WAY, BEING BOUNCED FROM PILLAR TO POST, A FEW WEEKS WITH ETHEL, A MONTH WITH FRIENDS IN THE VILLAGE, NOW BOARDING SCHOOL. WHAT KIND OF A MOTHER PUTS A FIVE-YEAR-OLD CHILD IN A BOARDING SCHOOL? COME HOME TO US, PEG. I NEED YOU. WE ALL NEED YOU
.

PEGGY CAME RUNNING
toward me down the dirt drive. I bent to scoop her up. Her arms went around my neck in a stranglehold. I couldn't imagine how I'd got along without her for a year.

“You're so big,” I said, and she grinned and hugged me tighter.

Grant approached slowly, looking up at me from under a thick fringe of lashes.

“Hello, Mother,” he said and held out his hand. I put Peggy down and shook his hand solemnly, then bent and hugged him to me. Beneath his thick winter coat, his muscles were so tight they felt as if they might snap. I went on hugging him. The muscles began to ease.

We started toward the old farmhouse-turned-school, Grant on one side, Peggy on the other. If only Stuart had been there, we'd be complete, but the freedom of a progressive school had proved too chaotic for him. Some children thrive on being able to show up when they want, stand or sit as they choose, read or paint, play games or work a loom when the mood moves them, but Stuart wasn't one of them. I'd had to take him out of the school in New Jersey and move him to a more conventional one on Long Island. I hated the idea of his sitting in a classroom all day, being forced to memorize and conform, but he was finally doing well in reading and arithmetic.

Peggy darted ahead, then circled back, steady on her legs. I'd always known she didn't need a brace, only an environment that encouraged her independence and let her run free.

I asked them to show me around. I knew Stelton only from the recommendations of friends like Will Durant, who'd helped establish it, though he'd left a year earlier to marry one of his students. There was a bit of a fuss about that. The girl had been
only sixteen, but people said she made up in brilliance what she lacked in years.

In what must have once been the parlor of the farmhouse, a group of children, bundled up in coats and hats and mittens, sat at a table or sprawled on the floor, reading or drawing or simply thinking their own unfettered thoughts. Grant and Peggy led me into the kitchen. A small boy stood on a chair stirring a pot. Two other boys were throwing oranges and bananas against a wall. I tried not to look disapproving. Freedom was the watchword of the school. Only by giving children liberty could you raise adults who knew how to grasp it. Still, I hated waste.

“What an unusual game.” I was careful to keep my voice neutral.

“It's not a game,” Grant explained. “They're softening the fruit. Different grown-ups run the kitchen on different days. On Anyuta's day all we eat are raisins, nuts, and mushy fruit.”

“We never get jelly sandwiches,” Peggy said.

“I'm sure raisins, nuts, and fruits are very healthy. All the same, would you like to walk into town for lunch?” I wasn't subverting the regime, merely giving them a treat.

The tearoom was small, with three rough wooden tables, mismatched chairs, and limp red-and-white-checked curtains of questionable cleanliness. We were the only customers.

“Are you back for good, Mother?” Grant asked after I ordered hot chocolate and sandwiches, without the crusts on Peggy's.

“I am.”

Peggy put down her cup of hot chocolate. It left a mustache of foam above her upper lip. “Can we come live with you?”

“Soon, my darling. But first I have important work to do. Besides, if you lived with me, you couldn't go to school here.”

Her smile disappeared into the foam mustache.

“Aren't you happy here?”

“It's fine,” Grant said before Peggy could answer.

“We have to go outside to pee,” she said.

“The outhouse is okay,” Grant insisted.

“It's always cold. We sleep in our coats. Last winter Grant's hair froze to the straw pillow.”

“It didn't,” Grant said.

“Did too. I saw it.”

“A bit of cold won't kill you. When I was in London, I had to crack the ice in the pitcher every morning to wash. And I'm all the better for it.”

Peggy looked dubious.

“I know how to set type,” Grant said.

“That's wonderful! Much better than sitting in a stuffy classroom memorizing.”

“There aren't any classrooms. After the morning meeting, we're allowed to go anywhere and do anything we want. Mostly me and Herbie play ball.”

“Herbie and I,” I said, though I was aware of the irony. I hadn't sent them to a modern school to learn grammar.

“Sometimes we run races. When the pond freezes again, we're going to go skating.”

“Last year a boy fell through the ice,” Peggy said.

“He was just playing at it. Anyway, one of the grown-ups pulled him out.”

“I was scared,” Peggy said.

I reached an arm around her and held her to me. She didn't feel as chubby as I remembered. “There's nothing to be frightened of. Mother is home and will never let anything bad happen to you. That's why I have to go back to work. To make the world safe for you.”

“Why can't I go back to work with you?”

“When you're older,” I said, and suddenly I saw it: Peggy grown, me still vital, working together. I tightened my grasp around her shoulders. “Hurry and grow up,” I teased.

They fell silent on the walk back to the school, though neither of them let go of my hands. When we reached the dirt drive in front of the farmhouse, I stopped and turned to them. I hugged Grant first. His muscles felt tight as stretched rubber bands again. I bent and scooped up Peggy. She grabbed me in another stranglehold. When I put her down, I had to pry her arms from my neck.

She began to cry. I fought back my own tears. But Grant was a trooper. He took his little sister's hand.

“Don't cry, Peggy,” I heard him say as he led her back to the house. “I'm still here.”

GRANT SANGER

WERE YOU REALLY SO BLIND THAT YOU DIDN'T NOTICE WHAT WAS GOING ON AT THAT HELLHOLE OF A SCHOOL, MOTHER, OR DID YOU JUST CHOOSE NOT TO SEE? DID YOU THINK PEGGY MADE UP THE STORY ABOUT MY HAIR FREEZING TO THE STRAW PILLOW, OR DID YOU BELIEVE YOU WERE BUILDING OUR CHARACTERS? AS LONG AS OUR SOULS AND SPIRITS WERE FREE, WHAT DID IT MATTER IF OUR MINDS WERE BEING NEGLECTED AND OUR BODIES PUNISHED? THE MAIN BUILDING HAD NO HEAT. THE DORMITORY WAS OPEN-AIR. WE ATE AND SLEPT AND WENT TO THE OUTHOUSE IN OUR COATS AND HATS AND SCARVES AND MITTENS. THE ONLY TIME I WASN'T COLD DURING THE WINTER MONTHS WAS WHEN I WORKED UP A SWEAT RUNNING OR PLAYING OUTSIDE. THE FOOD WAS SOME CRAZED UTOPIAN'S IDEA
OF HEALTHY
.
THAT MEANT WE WERE HUNGRY ALL THE TIME. I COULD TAKE IT. I WAS OLDER AND STRONGER. I HADN'T HAD POLIO AS AN INFANT. IT WAS POLIO, MOTHER, NOT THE FLU. WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO ADMIT IT? MAYBE THAT DAMN SCHOOL HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH WHAT HAPPENED. AS A DOCTOR, I CAN'T PROVE CAUSE AND EFFECT. BUT AS A BROTHER, I CAN TELL YOU IT WAS NO PLACE TO SEND A LITTLE GIRL
.