Free Woman (3 page)

One June morning, she was walking down the main street of Mount Gilead humming a little tune. There had been rain the night before, and the fragrant air smelled faintly of lilacs. Outside the post office, a man smiled at her She had never seen him before, but he was so handsome she couldn't help smiling back.

"Halloo," he said.

Vicky noticed that a lock of ebony silk hung down over his milky-white forehead. He had thick, sooty lashes and beautiful square teeth. His only defect, she thought, was a nervous twitch of the jaw.

"How do you do?" she murmured shyly.

Soon they were chatting like old friends. His name, he told her, was Canning Woodhull, and he had just arrived in town.

Obviously this fellow was no ordinary country boy. Tall and sophisticated, with charming manners and impeccable speech, he knew how to talk to a girl. Vicky could tell that he was older than she, as it turned out fourteen years her senior. As they spoke, she found out that he came from Rochester, New York. He'd studied medicine in the East and now had come to Mount Gilead to set up a medical practice. A doctor! A gentleman! She couldn't help feeling awed.

"My little chick," he said gaily, "I want you to go with me to the Fourth of July picnic."

No one had ever called her "a little chick"' before. She was filled with ecstasy.

Wide-eyed, she hurried home to ask her mother. Roxanna had no objections, but she quickly pointed out that Vicky had nothing to wear for so grand a date. It was true. Perhaps a dress could be borrowed, but the biggest problem was shoes. Hers were falling apart. They would never do, and there was no money to buy a new pair.

"I'll earn the money," exclaimed Vicky. "I'll pick apples and sell them and buy myself new shoes." And she did exactly that.

Apparently Vicky and Canning hit it off immediately. What happened during the Fourth of July celebration she never revealed. But on their way home that evening, Canning wasted no time in proposing.

"My little puss," he whispered tenderly, "tell your mother and father I want you for my wife."

It was like a fairy tale; in fact, it sounded too good to be true. The levelheaded Vicky must have told herself that, in real life, things don't happen so quickly. They hardly knew each other. How could Canning be sure that he really wanted to marry her?

These doubts didn't trouble her parents.

"A grand match!" bellowed Buck when he heard that his daughter had attracted a young man from a well-to-do Rochester family. Roxanna agreed.

Still, Vicky hesitated. After all, she was only fourteen and had never had a beau before. But her parents refused to listen.

"Marry him and the sooner the better," insisted Buck. "He might change his mind."

This made her very angry. Down deep, she felt hurt that her parents were so anxious to marry her off to the first man who came along. It didn't matter whether he was an eligible bachelor. They acted as if she were a piece of property, ready to be sold at the first decent offer. As far as her father was concerned, she murmured to herself, this was just another business deal, one too good to pass up.

At the same time, she knew that Canning Woodhull might be the answer to her prayers. He offered a perfect escape hatch from her humiliating life as one of the crazy Claflins. Marrying him would mean a new life—no more household drudgery, no more explosive scenes with her parents, no more fortune-telling, no more being poor and wearing tattered clothes. The prospect was very tempting.

Why shouldn't she marry this nice man who obviously adored her? As the wife of a doctor, wouldn't she have a house of her own and servants to do the work? Wouldn't she be a wealthy lady then?

Of course she would.

Two months later, a few weeks before her fifteenth birthday, she married Canning Woodhull.

2

From Frying Pan to Fire

During the early weeks of her marriage, Vicky discovered several startling facts about her new husband. To her dismay, the gentlemanly Canning much preferred drinking to practicing medicine. For that matter, he preferred drinking to any other activity.

It was scarcely a secret that Canning drank because she often smelled alcohol on his breath. But then, she reminded herself, what man didn't drink? In the nineteenth century, gathering in saloons and drinking was the most popular male pastime. It almost amounted to a national recreation. After work, or in the evenings, men would retire to the town saloon for a night of hearty boozing. Sometimes they left behind a considerable portion of their weekly wages.

Canning, however, showed no sign whatsoever of wanting to work. It was not unusual for him to start the day by taking a nip immediately upon arising from bed. By nightfall, pleasantly pickled, he seemed to forget that he now had a wife. For Canning, alcohol was certainly not a sport. It was a deep need, a habit, an addiction. In her naïveté, Vicky had married a genuine alcoholic.

Shortly after their wedding, she received another shock. One night Canning failed to come home. Sitting up until nearly dawn in their rented rooms, Vicky waited fearfully. What could be keeping him away? She imagined the worst. Surely he'd had an accident, perhaps he was lying dead somewhere. Finally, exhausted, she dozed off.

The next morning her husband reappeared, his eyes bloodshot but otherwise in fine spirits.

The anger rising in her voice, she demanded to know where he had been.

Apparently Canning did not have either the physical strength or the presence of mind to concoct an excuse. Looking sheepish, he blurted out the truth: he had spent the night with another woman.

The stunned girl could think of nothing to reply. Her tongue felt paralyzed, her mind numb. But she got the message. For an instant, she wished she were back home again, in the midst of the brawling Claflins where life may not have been ideal but at least there were no staggering miseries like those she felt right now.

"In a single day, I grew ten years older," she would recall many years later. "The shock awoke all my womanhood."

It also awoke her missionary zeal. "Sinners, repent," she had once sternly lectured the children in Homer. She had been play acting then; now she faced a real and terrible situation. She would reform Canning, she would save him.

The problem was, Canning did not want to be saved. When sober, he was a gentle, scholarly person, a man who adored children. At those times, Vicky loved him; but when he drank, she couldn't help despising him. Still, she was determined to be a good wife.

Although the new bride didn't admit it to anyone, she soon discovered that housekeeping bored her. More than that, she loathed washing and dusting, much preferring to sit at the window and dream about her destiny, which now seemed like a bizarre joke. Bur if the floors were unscrubbed and the bread unbaked, Canning never noticed.

She began to feel that marriage was horribly depressing. One day she suddenly had an inspiration. She suggested to Canning that they visit his family in Rochester. Surely they would want to meet his wife.

That being one of Canning's sober moments, he immediately agreed. In fact, he wondered why he hadn't thought of the idea himself.

Vicky wisely refrained from mentioning her real motive. Once back with his very proper family, she hoped that Canning would stop drinking and begin to think about medicine. So far, they had lived on a small allowance from his father, but most of the money went for whiskey. Obviously they couldn't continue that way indefinitely.

As the time for their departure neared, Vicky began to feel nervous. What if the fancy Woodhulls didn't like her? What if they snubbed her because she wasn't a lady?

Unfortunately, her fears turned out to be justified. Canning's father, Judge Woodhull, treated her cordially enough. But her elegant mother-in-law and the other women in the family were outraged by her ignorance and what they considered her lower-class vulgarity. They didn't bother to hide their scorn. Cruelly, they laughed at her manners, her poor grammar, her small-town clothes, her lack of education.

Once, Vicky's stomach turned over when she overheard Mrs. Woodhull say bitterly to a visitor, "How could my son have married a trashy little baggage like her!" Feverish with humiliation, Vicky ran to her room.

"The old cat!” she cried. From behind her locked door came the sound of terrible smothered sobbing.

Eventually she managed to bury this painful experience. But the grudge she felt against so-called respectable people, her social superiors, would explode into violent rebellion twenty years later when she fought against the hypocrisy of the upper classes.

In all respects, the trip could be counted a fiasco. Back in Mount Gilead, Canning resumed his drinking and womanizing. Once again, the desperate Vicky thought a change of environment might solve his problem. Moving was a solution she unconsciously had picked up from her childhood: if anything goes wrong, get out of town. She and her husband, following the old pattern of the Claflins, began moving from one place to another.

First they went to Chicago where Canning rented a one-story frame house. Now almost sixteen, Vicky felt happy because she was expecting a baby. Maybe fatherhood would make Canning realize he must work. At least she hoped so.

That winter was one of the coldest in Chicago's history. The thermometer seemed stuck below zero, and because Canning rarely remembered to buy firewood, there was often no heat in the house. On some mornings, Vicky awoke to find icicles on the bedpost.

As the time for the birth drew near, she began to panic. Where would they find the money for a doctor when her labor began? But Canning was all sweet talk and promises. Telling her not to worry, he reminded her that he was a doctor.

Vicky felt uneasy, but she had to trust him. There was no one else.

It was a long, difficult birth. True to his word, Canning stayed with her, but he was half drunk. As the agonizing hours passed, he became even shakier. Finally it was over. She had given birth to a boy.

Vicky heard Canning moving toward the door. Although she begged him not to leave her, Canning mumbled that he was just going for a walk. He would be back soon.

As the door slammed, the exhausted Vicky, too weak to weep, fell asleep. Later that evening, Canning returned to care for her and the infant. But three weeks later he disappeared.

After a few days, when the larder was empty, Vicky left her baby, Byron, with a neighbor and set out to find her husband. She had not been out of the house since before Byron was born. Most of the time, they huddled under blankets to keep warm. Now, dressing, she could find no underwear or stockings or shoes. She had to make do with a calico dress and a pair of rubber boots for her feet.

Her first and most logical stop was the corner saloon, one of Canning's favorite hangouts. "Have you seen Dr. Woodhull?" she asked the owner.

"No, ma'am."

A man drinking ale at the bar spoke up. "Why, he's living at Mrs. Petty's boardinghouse with his girl friend," the obliging customer volunteered.

A deadly rage began to seethe in Vicky. Shivering, she skidded along the glassy streets until she reached the house. Bursting in the front door, she found the boarders, Canning and his woman friend included, assembled around the table eating dinner. The sight of a big side of roast beef and a platter of fried potatoes made her feel nauseated.

When Canning looked up and saw her, he tried to explain and calm his furious wife. But Vicky refused to listen. Withering him with a single glance, she accused him of not loving her. "Your wife and child are starving while you sit here with your mistress, feeding your fat belly!"

That was only the beginning. Turning to the other startled diners, their forks suspended in mid-air, she proceeded to describe vividly what kind of man Dr. Woodhull really was. Her performance was as dramatic, and as vulgar, as any scene Roxanna Claflin had ever thrown. It was Vicky's first speech, and one of her most effective. Mrs. Petty's guests responded by angrily throwing Canning into the street.

And so her husband returned home, which was what she wanted. But nothing else changed. Gradually, however, a transformation began to take place in Vicky. She spent hour after hour brooding about her life. Like all young women in those days, she had grown up expecting to marry and be taken care of by her husband. Even a rascal like Buck always managed to provide a roof and food for his family. He knew his duty as a father and husband.

Canning was another story. He may have been aware of his duty, but he remained incapable of doing it. The truth was simple and unavoidable: Canning was sick. While she felt pity for him, Vicky slowly began to understand that she could not depend on him. Maybe she could never depend on any man.

In the future she would take care of herself, her baby, and yes, even Canning. If he would not be the head of their family, as tradition demanded, then the position went to her by default. From now on, she would give the orders.

Thinking led to action. The next thing Canning knew, they were on a boat bound for San Francisco. Once again, Vicky was trying the Claflin's last resort. Moving.

She had never seen a town like San Francisco. It was new. And wild. Five years earlier, in 1849, gold had been discovered in California. People had plenty of money. On the hillsides above the bay, makeshift wooden buildings went up overnight; down in the harbor, ships crowded the wharves. Didn't the man in her vision predict that she would live in a city of many ships, a city where she would rule over her people? Perhaps this is the place, she thought excitedly.

Leaving Canning and the baby at their hotel, hoping that her husband would stay away from the numerous saloons and gambling houses, Vicky set off to look for work. Her youth and prettiness swiftly won her a job selling cigars in a saloon. But the rough, bearded miners, full of leers and coarse remarks, made tears come to her eyes. She lacked the knack of answering their jokes in kind and, as a result, she sold few cigars. After a few days, the proprietor suggested that she find a more suitable line of work.