Judy laughed. “Me, too….But I heard he got loaned out to David O. Selznick to play in Gone with the Wind.” She polished off the cake, and Maud again switched the plates back.
Half a second later, Judy’s mother appeared next to their table. Without saying hello, she tapped on her watch. “Judy, you’re needed on the set. Everyone is waiting. You haven’t been eating too much?”
Judy’s jaw clenched and her eyes flashed black at her mother. She jumped up rapidly, dropping her napkin on the floor.
“Absolutely not!” Maud said, flashing a charming smile at Ethel. “Diet plates for both of us. I need to keep my figure trim.”
Ethel did not acknowledge Maud at all. She tugged on Judy’s skirt, brushed a few imaginary crumbs from it, and hurried her out the door.
Maud could plainly see the truth of the matter. Judy Garland didn’t need to lose weight—she needed to stop growing up, and that was something that all the cottage cheese and lettuce leaves in the world could not change.
CHAPTER
9
ITHACA, NEW YORK
1881
Six weeks after Maud’s return to Cornell, winter had settled over Ithaca like a block of ice. Bodies hurried past each other so wrapped up in overcoats and scarves that it was often difficult to tell people apart. Maud found this an improvement over the warmer weather of fall, when walking across campus had made her feel so conspicuous.
That evening, a thin, gray sleet was falling as she picked her way across the campus from Sage. Maud was hoping that the dispiriting weather would keep most students in tonight. The fewer classmates who attended this lecture, the less unwanted attention would accrue to herself in the following days. Loyal Josie had promised to accompany her, but she was coming down with a cold, and Maud had insisted that she stay in. The other girls, Maud knew, did not want to attract attention to themselves by attending a lecture on such a radical topic as women’s suffrage. While some young women participated in the scholarly clubs, only a few of the most resolute older girls showed interest in the controversial subject of the vote for women.
Inside Association Hall, a small knot of people, professors in their dark suits and vests, some seated next to their wives, were clustered in the first few rows, talking in low murmurs. About an equal number of male students were scattered in groups of four or five, islands in a sea of empty seats. Maud estimated the total number of attendees in the hall to be under thirty.
Making her way into one of the back rows, she slid into a seat, shivering. She pulled her shawl tighter around herself. Each time the doors opened, a blast of cold air sent a chill down her back.
The auditorium was still mostly empty when the soft murmur of conversation hushed as a small group of people mounted the stairs next to the auditorium stage. Maud recognized Henry Sage, the benefactor of Sage College, two faculty members, and a Unitarian pastor.
Mr. Henry Sage gave a lengthy speech about the coeducational experiment and the civilizing influence of education for women, before at last he announced, “Please welcome our distinguished speaker, Mrs. Matilda Joslyn Gage.”
Her mother was not tall. Only her head and shoulders appeared over the large oak podium, her elegant face framed by soft waves of silver hair. Maud remembered the story, oft retold, of the time her mother, just twenty-one years old, asked permission to address the women’s conference in Seneca Falls. Struck by stage fright, she spoke so softly that some of the women demanded that she leave the stage. But Mother wouldn’t be deterred.
Maud saw none of that shy twenty-one-year-old now. At fifty-four, her mother was formidable in manner and address, her voice clear and true, her manner confident. That she believed entirely in her cause was evident, and coming from a woman of petite stature and calm, feminine ways, this resoluteness carried especial force.
Although the audience seemed generally respectful, Maud did not let down her guard. Her mother was no stranger to heckling, but Maud herself had never grown used to it. She was fiercely proud of her mother, who could stand before men and women and speak without fear. If she had been given the chance to study at Cornell, Maud didn’t doubt she’d have made a brilliant career of it. But Maud’s surge of filial love was tempered, as always, with a wish that she could have gone about her business on campus without her mother’s notoriety following her everywhere.
She began to lose interest in her mother’s speech—as much as she believed in the cause, all of this was as familiar to her as her own face in the looking glass—and soon drifted off into her own thoughts. The Navy Ball, the winter’s biggest social event, was to take place in just three days and the girls had all been swept up with fittings for their gowns. Maud was thinking about her dress—white dotted Swiss with a demi-train and pink sash—but while she was looking forward to the dance, she still felt a sense of unease about it. All of her friends were now sweet on someone, except for Catherine Reid, who was interested in nothing but the study of the natural sciences and showed an innate disinclination to any sort of merriment. Maud had dreamed twice now that she was at the ball—once she awoke with a start after imagining herself waltzing in the arms of Teddy Swain, but the second time, she dreamed that she was dancing with a tall stranger with bright gray eyes.
Maud had not had a word of communication with Mr. Baum since she’d last seen him in the foyer of Josie’s home on Christmas Eve. Returning to school, Josie had been all aquiver, wanting to hear news, and wondering why they had not asked Frank to come and call. She even read aloud parts of Frank’s letter saying how much he had enjoyed meeting her. Maud had wanted to die inside. She was not accustomed to keeping secrets from Josie—her dearest friend—but she could think of no suitable way to address the subject. If Maud explained that Matilda would not even consider a call from the young gentleman due to his line of employment, it would seem insulting to Josie’s entire family. So, instead, Maud pretended that she was not interested in suitors as she was wholly devoted to one thing, and one thing only: obtaining her diploma. Josie had taken to calling her “schoolmarm,” as that is where they both knew Maud would be headed if she obtained a diploma but no husband. In dedicating Sage College, Henry Sage himself had specified that his goal in facilitating female education was to create a fallback position in case a woman found herself in a circumstance of want. A widow with a diploma could teach school, but nobody thought teaching school would be better for a woman than having her own household.
Maud was so deep in her reverie that she scarcely noticed when another cold blast of air blew down her back. She pulled her shawl tighter, unaware that someone had just opened the doors and entered the hall. But as she heard footsteps coming down the aisle behind her, she turned her head, wondering who would be arriving so late.
A figure in a dark overcoat with flecks of sleet still clinging to it was shuffling sideways into the row of seats behind her. His face was obscured by a heavy wool muffler. Something about the gentleman struck her as familiar, but she couldn’t place him, and not wanting to appear to be staring, Maud quickly averted her gaze. After a few minutes, however, she started to feel as if he was looking at her.
In the past, Maud would have simply spun around and looked again, but her months at Cornell had improved her in the matter of self-regulation, and so she sat with the uncomfortable, prickly feeling, while restraining herself from further investigation. A moment later, a loud bang sounded from the back of the hall, along with a freezing gust of wind as the double doors swung open.