SPIRIT AND FLESH - The Life of Victoria Woodhull by G. L. Horton copyright 1994 by G.L. Horton 49 Washington Park Newton, MA 02160 (617) 630-9704 SPIRIT AND FLESH The part of VICTORIA must be played by an actress who does not double, but all the other characters in this "epic" can be performed by three men and three women- a total cast of seven. CHARACTERS TENNESSEE CLAFLIN -- Vicky's younger sister-- is in her mid- twenties at the beginning of the play, but at any age she displays the dress and manners of a charming child prodigy. ROXY CLAFLIN-- Vicky's mother-- at 50 she is eccentric and excitable, and speaks with a slight accent. VICTORIA CLAFLIN WOODHULL -- handsome, intense, charismatic, dignified, and sensual; with a glorious voice for oratory. MRS. CLARA HIRSH -- a middle aged farm wife. COLONEL JAMES HARVEY BLOOD -- a romantic-looking Southern gentleman of principle, who fought on the Union side in the Civil War. COMMODORE VANDERBILT -- 70, the legendary capitalist. BENJAMIN RUTHERFORD -- at 20, an eager, idealistic cub reporter. ELIZABETH CADY STANTON -- 50, plump, benign, the philosophical polemicist at the center of the movement for women's rights. SUSAN B. ANTHONY-- 50, famous preacher of ECS's feminism. ISABELLA BEECHER HOOKER --20's, radical enthusiast of the famous Beecher family, sister of bestselling author Harriet Beecher Stowe & Rev Henry Ward Beecher (most popular preacher in the US) CATHERINE BEECHER --40's, older sister of the above Beechers, a crusader for women's education and moral uplift. THEODORE TILTON, -- 30's, handsome, self-dramatizing clergyman. JUDGE CARTER, -- 50, active in the Suffrage Movement. ETHAN WAHL-- a lawyer. JOHN BIDDOLPH MARTIN--English banker. ZULU MAUDE WOODHULL -- appears as a babe in Vicky's arms in the early scenes, age 60+ in the final scene. Also: COCKNEY MESSENGER, NEWSBOY, POLICEMAN, DELEGATES TO THE SUFFRAGE CONVENTIONS OF 1871 and 1872. VICTORIA CLAFLIN WOODHULL BLOOD MARTIN was born in Homer, Ohio in 1838, to a medicine show family who traveled the Midwest one step ahead of the law. Her pioneering success as a stockbroker and her mesmeric oratory rocketed her to the leadership of the Women's Rights Movement in the early 1870's, but after the debacle of her 1872 run for the U.S. presidency, she married into the English gentry and tried to erase all trace of her radical youth. ACT ONE SCENE ONE (Tennessee Claflin, who is in her early twenties but is dressed and coiffed as an adolescent, is conducting in evangelical chant a healing for Mrs. Clara Hirsh, an influential matron in the farm community of Black River, Ohio. Colonel Blood watches respectfully silent) TENNESSEE - by the blessed power flowing though me, your hand is growing strong again, and free from pain. Even now the holy healing light streams down upon you, even now it is making you well and whole. MRS. HIRSH Oh, yes, Lord. Yes it is. Hallelujah! ROXY Hallelujah! MRS. HIRSH (demonstrates flexibility) Will you look at how I can move it, now! Isn't that a wonder! ROXY (hugs Tennie) That's my Tennessee. The Wonder Child. You see that, Colonel Blood? BLOOD Most remarkable, Mrs. Claflin. ROXY Praise the Lord. MRS. HIRSH I surely will. And I'll praise your daughter, too, Miz Claflin. ROXY My Tennessee, she lifts up her holy mother in Israel. MRS. HIRSH Amen. TENNESSEE If you want your hand to stay healed, Mrs. Hirsh, you'd best dose regular with my Elixir. Rheumatiz has a way of coming back. MRS. HIRSH (looks at elixir bottle) I'll take a dozen of these bottles, then. Will that be enough? Don't the two of you look sweet! How old are you, here? In your picture? TENNESSEE How old was I, Ma? Twelve? ROXY Victoria was twelve. You was ten. MRS HIRSH Looking just like a angel. BLOOD (kisses TENNIE's hand) "Fair as May, or a rose in promising bud." TENNESSEE Why, Colonel Blood! ROXY Run and get Miz Hirsh her Elixir, girl. Eleven bottles. MRS. HIRSH (gives money) Here's for the dozen. I'm adding in a little something for your family, Miz Claflin. That girl of yours is a miracle. ROXY My wonder child. A blessing on us from the day she was born. BLOOD You say Miss Tennessee manifested these powers from birth? ROXY I say both my girls manifest. From the cradle, they had the signs. Ain't you satisfied, you Blood? A message, and a heal- ing. Even if you come from Missouri, what more d'ya need? BLOOD I'd hoped to meet both of the Sister Seeresses. Miss Victoria- ROXY Miss Victoria's gone off to San Francisco, with her husband, The Woodhull. The Woodhull's set up. He's a medical doctor. Her husband can fix her up with ruffles and frills, now; while her family toils in the Lord's fields, nowise but in sackcloth-- MRS HIRSH I could maybe give you a bit more-- TENNESSEE Here you are, Miz Hirsh. Your Elixir. BLOOD (reaching into his pocket If contributions are customary-- TENNESSEE Put your money away! The Lord has blessed me with his gift of healing. I don't mean to take profit from it. ROXY We got to live. TENNESSEE Like the lilies of the field, mother. MRS HIRSH Well, you are saints on earth, and that's the truth. (massaging her healed hand) My stars, I hope I'm not stiffing up. TENNESSEE Soon's you get home now, Miz Hirsh, you take 3 spoonfuls of Elixir and lie down for a bit. MRS HIRSH I surely will. Bless you. Miz Claflin, Col. Blood-- BLOOD Allow me! (Blood carries Mrs Hirsh's box of elixir - exeunt) TENNESSEE Don't try to take this gent, Ma! ROXY Lookit the pockets on him! TENNESSEE Blood's president of the St. Louis Spiritualists. Convince the Colonel we're legit, and he'll send us others. Worth twenty times what we can get out of him. ROXY Where's the Colonel gonna send em, Tennie? This town ain't good for more than another day or two. I won't rest easy until we've got a hundred miles or so between us and that spavined son of Satan they call a sheriff-- TENNESSEE I'm not leaving here until Vicky catches up with us. ROXY Victoria's in San Francisco! TENNESSEE She's on her way here, I'm telling you! BLOOD Is she? Perhaps I could arrange to stay a day or two. How soon do you expect her? ROXY We don't expect her! TENNESSEE Oh, yes we do! My sister and I are joined in spirit, Colonel Blood. Vicky has sent me Word. ROXY I told you, Tennie, this man is not a Believer. Not a real one. That's why you wasn't working on top today. TENNESSEE Don't be silly, Ma. I did all right. A distinguished researcher like Col. Blood knows better than to expect 100%. I may slip on some details, but the Colonel has seen proof that I have the power. Within three days-- BLOOD But Miss Tennie---, TENNESSEE I'd bet cash money on it. BLOOD How much? TENNESSEE What'd we get from Miz Hirsh, Ma? BLOOD Really, Miss Tennessee, I know details such as time and distance don't register in the Ethereal Sphere. I doubt that it would be wise of me -(ROXY'S Speech begins and overlaps) to delay my return to St. Louis on the expectation of your sis- ter's arrival. ROXY Woe, I say! Woe to them that shoot out their lips! Woe to them with scorn and spitting, though they have a handsome outside! MRS. HIRSH Miz Claflin! Look what I've found for you out in the road! TENNESSEE Vicky! (VICTORIA Enters--a handsome woman in her late twenties, well-dressed in a dramatic style, carrying an infant) MRS HIRSH Recognized Miz Victoria from her picture. Figured she didn't know quite where to look for you. VICTORIA You called me, and I've come! TENNESSEE I thought you called me? ROXY Where's the Woodhull? VICTORIA He's tending our idiot boy Byron, but he'll be here. ROXY He got the mortal sickness again? VICTORIA I'm his income; he'll be here. ROXY Let's see your Little Gal. TENNESSEE Precious Zulu Maude ... come to Auntie Ten. MRS HIRSH Zulu Maude? ROXY Is this one an idiot too? VICTORIA I think she's all right. No thanks to Woodhull. TENNESSEE He at the drink again? MRS HIRSH Temperance, temperance is a mighty crown. Before my Jake got saved, sometimes he would-- ROXY God help him, and his crown of thorns! The Woodhull's a good man, though good-for-nothing, as they say. I remember the day he come to ask her father the Buckman could he have Victoria-- VICTORIA I was a child of fourteen! And my father sold me! Where is the old reprobate? In jail? ROXY Your father the Buckman has gone ahead to prepare our way. For straight is the gate-- VICTORIA I don't know how my father expects to stagger through it, then! I asked him for bread; he gave this millstone of a Woodhull! ROXY Victoria Claflin, where's your gratitude? You told us you wanted book learning, the Holy word weren't enogh for you, bless your soul. How else was you to get educated? Traipsing around? TENNESSEE The Woodhull's made a lady of you, Vic. VICTORIA Tennessee! I hope I've always been a lady! ROXY Queen Victoria! You was a queen in your cradle. TENNESSEE Well, you didn't always talk like one. Or dress so fine, either. Take little Zulu, Ma --tell Polly to keep an eye on her. I want to try on Vicky's flash hat. (ROXY carries ZULU MAUDE off). ROXY (calling off) Polly! (TENNESSEE tries on VICTORIA'S hat, ROXY returns) MRS HIRSH That's a mighty pretty turn out, Miz Victoria. If you could see your way clear to favoring our town with one of your lectures-- ROXY Wait till they hear! Till the whole town hears the both of you! Oh, there'll be a shouting on the mountaintops. We will take this town, and the next town, and shake em up till it rains down manna! With God's help there will be a mighty prophesying done here. VICTORIA I think a lecture could be arranged. Does your town have a suitable hall, Mrs. -- ? MRS HIRSH Mrs Hirsh. VICTORIA Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Hirsh. TENNESSEE That ain't all, Vicky. Bang over here, Colonel Blood--here's that certain somebody you've been looking to meet. BLOOD How do you do, Ma'm? I've been-- -My God! (When VICKY turns and catches sight of BLOOD, she sees an unearthly white-clad ANGEL standing beside him. The figure's arms are raised in blessing. VICKY starts in surprise, staggers, and then drops to the ground in a faint. When the others gather around, the figure disappears.) MRS HIRSH The girl's fainted! TENNESSEE She's gone into a trance. MRS HIRSH Does she always drop like that? TENNESSEE Shh-- she's trying to say something. Be-- betr--be something. BLOOD "Betrothed". She said "betrothed". TENNESSEE Back off a little. She's coming around. Vicky? VICTORIA Ah. Tennie. Did you see what I saw? TENNESSEE Not exactly. But I could tell it was something. VICTORIA My guardian, arrayed as one of the powers of the air ... TENNESSEE Then this message was for you, not for a Seeker--? VICTORIA Yes. For me and for-- (she looks up at BLOOD) Who are you? TENNESSEE I told you, Vic. That there's Colonel Blood, up from St. Louis. He's president of the spiritualists there. BLOOD James Harvey Blood, at your service. VICTORIA I am Victoria. Must I tell you what I saw? BLOOD I think I know. I believe I was called here to find you. TENNESSEE Vicky? What does this mean? MRS HIRSH I think it means a crime in a Christian country[ . ROXY She's got one husband, before God. Two is blasphemy and bigotry. VICTORIA Bigamy, mother. TENNESSEE Mr. swagger and stagger, she's got. What's the Woodhull good for, now that Vicky's all polished up? ROXY You thought the Woodhull good enough to climb up on his knee, Tennessee. TENNESSEE When we were children! ROXY Abide in the Lord, and in kith and kin. BLOOD I have a wife and two small sons, Mrs Claflin. I love them. But if a Higher Duty calls me, I must answer-- just as I answered the call to defend the Union, though my kin fought for the South. VICTORIA All my life I've been waiting for this call! Since I was ten-- ROXY Out, get out! This is fakery! MRS HIRSH Fakery? VICTORIA You're saying my visions are fake, mother? You've lived off them often enough. ROXY This is the whited sepulcher, this is. MRS HIRSH So it is! ROXY Out, you--you Hirsh! MRS HIRSH Would a blessed spirit talk to harlots? My Jake-- TENNESSEE A john if ever I saw one! MRS HIRSH I want my money back! TENNESSEE 0h, go along home, Mrs Hirsh. Every word I told you was the gospel. You just test it out and see. MRS HIRSH You can keep your phoney Elixir! ROXY You'll need more than that Elixir if you don't get out! You'll be so crippled up you'll need a corkscrew to wipe your bum! TENNESSEE Simmer down, Roxy-Loxy. Mrs. Hirsh, pay no mind to my mother. Victoria's been given a Prophetic Vision--. ROXY A brass face and wax moustaches! TENNESSEE It'll all work out for the best. MRS HIRSH Not in this town, it won't! (exits) ROXY See what you've done, you Blood! TENNESSEE [ don't care, I'm tired of telling fortunes! If Vicky's Guardian Angel has a better scheme, I say let's get on with it. ROXY This comes of denying your holy Mother-- TENNESSEE Deep breaths, Roxy-lox. Come have a spot of the 'Lixir. (TENNESSEE leads ROXY out) ------------ SCENE TWO (SAME, Continuous) VICTORIA Colonel Blood, I .... BLOOD Yes? VICTORIA I don't know what to say. BLOOD I seem to be speechless myself--and a bit numb. VICTORIA Numb? You mean you don't feel the Power, now. But you did? BLOOD Oh, yes. Everything's changed. VICTORIA So-- what do we do? BLOOD Perhaps we should get acquainted. I am thirty-two years old, Mrs. Woodhull, the son of a banker. [ was raised in comfort and educated to be a gentleman. In the late war, I served the cause of the North to the extent of six honorable wounds. I look forward to showing you my scars. VICTORIA Then you, too, believe that our union is meant to be physical? Not only on the spiritual plane? BLOOD I have always felt that the opposition of spirit and flesh is an error, Miss Victoria. Perhaps the distortion of sickly leaders like St. Paul, who mistook his own infirmities-- VICTORIA You too! But if only I could be sure! When as a child I had visions, my family called me a seeress; and people do testify that what I see for them is true. But my life-- I am twenty- eight years old, Colonel Blood. Twenty-eight! My life is all wrong. I am cut off from my destiny-- the life partner of a drunkard! A figure in white came to me when I was ten. An angel I called it,--- but then when Woodhull showed me pictures of the ancient Greeks, I came to think it might have been Demosthenes who was the messenger-- BLOOD And what was the message? VICTORIA I would have fame and riches. I would be a leader of my people! Yet at 28, what I have is a drunken middle-aged husband, a half- grown half-wit son, a family that--well, Tennie is the best of sisters. But to a gentleman such as yourself, they must seem like a band of barbarous gypsies. BLOOD Uh--the Claflin clan is colorful, to say the least. VICTORIA Even so, the ancient wisdom of the lost tribes is in us, Colonel Blood. In these times we are forced to barter our secrets, but my mother says that we are descended from kings. BLOOD (laughing) Irish kings? VICTORIA You're laughing at me. BLOOD Not at you. At human nature. VICTORIA You don't believe that you and I are called to some high Purpose? BLOOD All I know for sure is that something has happened. To interpret it as a "call" seems reasonable-- VICTORIA Reasonable! But you are a Spiritualist. Don't you accept a Higher Truth? BLOOD For me, Mrs. Woodhull, Revelations from the ethereal realm must pass the test of reason. I accept very little as Truth with a capital T. But I am very free with my opinions. VICTORIA What sort of opinions? BLOOD The radical sort. You'll surely find them as odd as I find your family. These opinions may not be capital-T Truth, but as I said, they make me free. Free trade, free thought, free the slaves-- VICTORIA We must talk and talk! Do you know, Colonel Blood, I have never before met a man of intellect. I have such a hunger! My own mind is a chaos-- besides the great gifts of foresight and intuition, my mind has the power to leap over lies. But simple sums and elementary logic-- BLOOD Your fortune telling is all based on clairvoyance? VICTORIA On intuition, mainly. I tell people what they want to hear. BLOOD Your sister brought me a message from the ghost of my maternal grandmother. VICTORIA Wasn't it all true? BLOOD The message seemed accurate enough. But my grandmother, though 83, has so far neglected to pass over. VICTORIA Tennie's not often caught out. You must have misled her. BLOOD I think of myself as a scientist of the occult. VICTORIA I'm so sick of fraud! If we join in partnership, Col Blood-- BLOOD James-- VICTORIA James. Let there never be a lie between us. BLOOD Agreed. (they shake hands) Did your spirit say what we're to do next? VICTORIA No. A vision comes of the goal, that's all. No directions BLOOD Well, then. I suggest that we embark on an extended honeymoon. Somewhere out of the reach of our spouses. VICTORIA Are you rich? BLOOD Hardly. I'm Auditor of the city of St. Lewis. If I desert my post, I'll be left with what I have in my pockets. VICTORIA I'll still have to tell fortunes, won't I? ... Or worse ... BLOOD I suppose we can sell your sister's Elixir. Can you see me as James Harvey, medicine man? VICTORIA I can't see a gentleman living in a wagon, rolling from one hick town to the next, just one step ahead of the law. BLOOD An old soldier's good at making camp. We'll have to lie low for awhile, but we'll be snug under those trees in the firelight. We'll get to know each other. Spiritually and carnally. Once we've got our divorces-- VICTORIA We must head for the sea. My angel, or my Greek-- that noble- looking man wrapped in a bedsheet--- he prophesied that I'd live in a mansion in a city surrounded by ships. I'll be a leader-- BLOOD That sounds worth giving up my job for. VICTORIA What does an auditor do, exactly? BLOOD Examines accounts, budgets, financial statements. . VICTORIA You understand money? Large sums of money? BLOOD I suppose I do--if it belongs to other people. VICTORIA Can you teach me? Credits and debits and bonds and stocks? BLOOD Probably. But why? No one's going to hire a woman to keep track of his money, and since you say you've none of your own-- VICTORIA I will have! That's the prophecy. Riches and fame and leadership. I've just gone about it wrong: trying to go on the stage, or be a celebrated medium like the Fox sisters. But the prophecy said riches first, because wealth is what rules this country. I want to understand money. Where it comes from, how it operates, who has it-- BLOOD Vanderbilt has it. VICTORIA How do I get to Vanderbilt? BLOOD You can't. Vanderbilt's only interested in business and --wait! I've heard that since his wife died, the old man's taken up spiritualism. Maybe Vanderbilt would see you-- VICTORIA But first you must teach me everything you know. BLOOD (smiles, embraces VICTORIA) Everything. --------- SCENE THREE -- A year later (The WOODHULL & CLAFLIN brokerage office. a photo of VANDERBILT Decorates the office wall. There is also a sign prominently displayed: "gentlemen will state their business and retire at once." COMMODORE VANDER- BILT himself is dozing in an armchair, a shawl draped over his legs. The old man has papers on his lap and more on the desk beside him. TENNIE sails in, wearing a droop-feathered bonnet and a mud spattered cape, both much the worse for rain.) . TENNESSEE Commodore? VANDERBILT (jerks awake) Ah! About time! What are you doing out of the office, you "Fascinating Financier"? TENNESSEE Working, of course. Trying to turn the press up sweet. VANDERBILT I thought Vicky is dealing with the press herself from now on. TENNESSEE She is. But I'm supposed to put in an appearance. Smile sweetly, leave early. And for my reward, I get rained on! Look at my petticoat, will you? Soaked near to the waist. Drat. VANDERBILT (lifting petticoat) Peek a boo! TENNESSEE (slaps his hand away) Wake up, old boy! You'll aggravate the rheumatiz. Are you going to buy me, that you expect samples? VANDERBILT Ah Tennie, I'd marry you in a minute. TENNESSEE (puts on VANDERBILT'S top hat) Oh, yes? Then what would your children say? VANDERBILT The pups'ld be speechless with shock--and a good thing, too. My late wife would approve, I think. A sensible woman, my late wife --don't know how she produced such a dithering litter. TENNESSEE Going to ask your wife's permission? VANDERBILT We'll get Vicky to call her up for us. TENNESSEE (takes one of his cigars) This week? VANDERBILT Not this week. I want to talk to the spirit of Jim Fiske. Business first. TENNESSEE (lights, puffs) You don't want to marry me, then. With me it's pleasure first. VANDERBILT Pleasure should be your whole business, my dear. TENNESSEE (coughs) You mean I oughtn't to own this brokerage? At the moment, Vicky and I are raking in the greenbacks. VANDERBILT Your spirits give good advice. TENNESSEE You don't take much of it, yourself, Colonel. VANDERBILT Well, it's a damn smart spirit who knows business better than Cornelius Vanderbilt! Not but what they don't have better information on the other side. Still, you can't quite trust 'em. The Blessed aren't inclined to be ruthless. TENNESSEE (tugging his beard) You're an ogre. A big old white-whiskered ogre. VANDERBILT Give your old boy a little magnetism. TENNESSEE I'll give you the healing hands. VANDERBILT I'd rather do you. TENNESSEE (slapping away his hands) None of that, now. VANDERBILT Vicky's been scolding you? TENNESSEE It's the blasted papers! VANDERBILT The Herald loves you two. Giving Vicky her own column as their Petticoat Politician! TENNESSEE This wasn't in the Herald. VANDERBILT What'd they say? TENNESSEE I don't care. VANDERBILT Yes you do. What'd they say? (TENNESSEE reaches into her bodice) What's in there? Buried Treasure? TENNESSEE (reads newspaper clipping) " When a woman attempts to combine flirtation with business, and tries to gain favors in exchange for familiarities all too freely offered, the ordinary man of business is annoyed and disgusted and naturally declines to submit." VANDERBILT Naturally! Naturally! Stay well away from that ordinary man, Tennie. He's a damn fool! TENNESSEE Vicky's in a rage. We're very careful, you know. VANDERBILT Careful, hell! That's no way to success. Risk and outrage. That's the ticket. Dare anything just this side of jail. If familiarities are your assets, use 'em! Now, you take me, I'm frightening. You think I don't know it? It's useful! If I were a plum pudding, like you are-- TENNESSEE Vicky thinks they want to close us down. VANDERBILT Of course they do! You're making money! You should've heard what they used to say about me! TENNESSEE I issued a statement. Want to hear it? VANDERBILT Will it make me laugh? TENNESSEE (reads "I despise what squeemy girls or powdered, counter-jumping dan- dies say of me. A woman is just as capable of making a living as a man, and I have seen men so vain of their personal appearance and so effeminate that I should be sorry to compare my intellect to theirs." VANDERBILT Don't sound like you. Who wrote it? TENNESSEE Shut up. "I don't care what society thinks .... VANDERBILT Then why issue a statement? TENNESSEE "My mind is on my business, and I attend to that solely." VANDERBILT That's to go in the Herald? Where one of your boyfriends is the editor? I bet if you marry him, he'll run Vicky for President. TENNESSEE Why not? Vicky could run this country. But I won't marry him or anybody else. Not even you, old boy. (BENJIE calls from outside the door.) BENJIE (off) Uh--Ma'm? Woodhull or Claflin? TENNESSEE (shouting) Who's there? BENJIE (off) Uh--Rutherford--uh--from the Morning News. TENNESSEE (shouting) The press conference is at Delmonico's. BENJIE Miss Claflin? TENNESSEE You'd better hurry. Mrs. Woodhull's got more important business to do than talking to the press all day. VANDERBILT (whispers) So do I. (TENNIE giggles, tips hat. VANDERBILT signs that he has to go, collects his hat and cigar, starts off) BENJIE Miss Tennessee--could I speak to you for a moment? TENNESSEE (blowing a kiss to the exiting VANDERBILT) Oh, all right. (sees BENJIE) Why, he's just a boy! VANDERBILT (pushing past BENJIE) Pardon me, young man. TENNESSEE You can't be a reporter. BENJIE (hands TENNESSEE his card) Everybody says that--but I really am, see? TENNESSEE So you are, for that great big paper! You'd better run right down to the restaurant, if you want an interview. BENJIE I can't go into Delmonico's. TENNESSEE Why not? BENJIE I--haven't any money. TENNESSEE It's Vicky's treat, you silly boy. We don't expect the Press to have money. BENJIE I can't go in there, with those people. Couldn't I just talk to you? Or look around at the office? Maybe I can get some kind of a story out of that. TENNESSEE I'd love to talk to you, darling, but my sister does the interviews. BENJIE You're the silent partner? TENNESSEE No, that's Blood! I'm the junior partner. BENJIE Why can't you talk to the press? TENNESSEE You promise not to print it? I'm just learning all this finance folderol. If I talk too much, I'll let out the cat. BENJIE But-- how? TENNESSEE The brokering? It's not hard. Vicky and Blood decide, I just sell it to the customer. Vanderbilt advises us, you know. BENJIE So I've heard. TENNESSEE It's true. That's the old boy's picture. BENJIE Say-- Wasn't that Vanderbilt who just walked out of here? TENNESSEE (giggles) No comment. BENJIE I don't know much about stocks myself, but -- TENNESSEE Two months ago I'd never even heard of 'em! BENJIE Don't you find it hard, being women--? TENNESSEE The first women! BENJIE Matching wits with men of experience, some of them totally unscrupulous? TENNESSEE Know what I've found? Brokering stock is a lot like telling fortunes! Once you know what a man's after--, (VICTORIA Rushes in. Only after she has embraced TENNIE does VICTORIA see BENJIE) VICTORIA Tennie, Tennie! We're going to get away with it! Respectable! Rich! You should have heard the questions! . .. Who's this? TENNESSEE He's a reporter. VICTORIA Why aren't you at Delmonico's, Mr. -- ? BENJIE Rutherford. Benjamin. I'm sorry. I need a story about your business, but I couldn't ... TENNESSEE He's shy. VICTORIA Well, Mr. Benjamin, I have copies of the figures I gave the other gentlemen of the press. As you'll see, our brokerage is off to such an auspicious start that we can't spare the time to talk to the press individually. BENJIE May I make a note of your sign? VICTORIA "Gentlemen will state their business"? That is to discourage idlers and curiosity seekers, Mr. Benjamin. BENJIE Uh-- Benjamin's my Christian name, Mrs. Woodhull. My surname is Rutherford. VICTORIA Other what? BENJIE Ford, Ma'm. Ford. TENNESSEE I bet they call you Benjie. VICTORIA And you are a member of the press! BENJIE Well, I hope to be. Mr. Blackwell said he'd give me a chance, if I can just -- BLOOD (rushes in, hugs TENNIE) Tennie, you dear little magpie, you were right! (waving a check) Bless your bright eyes! TENNESSEE Kited, wasn't it! BLOOD Our genteel friend altered a perfectly good sixty-six dollar check to sixty-six hundred. No harm done, since we caught him. VICTORIA Better than that. Mr. Ford, we may be able to give you an exclusive, after all. TENNESSEE This bunco tried to sharp us! VICTORIA Your paper's story might discourage other larcenous individuals. Show him the forgery, James. Tennie spotted it, and we sent it round to the Bank for verification. TENNESSEE L knew it right off, Benjie, because I-- BLOOD Tennie! TENNESSEE Now what, you bloodyminded Blood? VICTORIA The Colonel means this may be a matter of some delicacy, Mr Ford. BLOOD We want the public to have a respect for the ladies' business acumen, but-- BENJIE You can depend on my discretion, sir. I have the greatest admiration. BLOOD Miss Tennie spotted this bad check because she has a very highly developed intuitive faculty, almost what you'd call "second sight". This is not something we wish to see advertised. BENJIE Why not--? VICTORIA What would you think if you invested your money on advice you believed to be infallible, and then lost it? TENNESSEE You'd be madder than a goat in a blanket. BENJIE It's hard for me to imagine .... BLOOD Believe me, you would be. We don't want our clients to think that we promise anything other than sound dealing. VICTORIA That we guarantee, Mr. Ford. Sound dealing, no mysticism. BENJIE But that bad check . . ? VICTORIA Miss Tennessee can explain that to you, Mr. Ford. TENNESSEE I surely can. Come along, Benjie. I'll explain the whole business over a pitcher of beer--my treat. (They exit together. Tennie turns back to wink at VICKY) BLOOD You think she'll be all right? VICTORIA Oh. yes. Tennie's made a personal conquest. Oh, James, you should have seen the reporters! They were eating out of my hand. BLOOD You're getting better at public speaking all the time. It wouldn't surprise me if within a year or two you develop into an orator on a par with Henry Ward Beecher. We've got to keep filling in the gaps in your education-- VICTORIA (thinking aloud) The Social Gospel-- of course! As a spiritual leader, I couldn't have a better model than Beecher, linking reform with revelation- BLOOD Whoa! First we'd best prepare for a new wave of clients. I never imagined making money'ld be this easy. VICTORIA Easy! This is the hardest work I've ever done! Leading those reporters on, putting words in their pens. If we could just write the stories ourselves! BLOOD Your column for the Herald-- VICTORIA Newspaper writers are hired hands. Allowed to say only what the publisher wants. BLOOD Then be a publisher. VICTORIA Edit a weekly, an inspirational weekly! "Woodhull and Claflin's" BLOOD If you want to meet and learn from the greatest minds of the nineteenth century, I can't think of a better way than to offer them a popular forum in which to publish. Philosophers, feminists-- you could even approach the Rev. Beecher. ----------------- SCENE FIVE (The office of WOODHULL & CLAFLIN'S WEEKLY-- a desk and the weekly's motto in gothic print: "ONWARD AND UPWARD! PROGRESS! FREE THOUGHT! UNTRAMMLED LIVES!" BLOOD is sitting at the desk, wearing a green eyeshade and writing. VICTORIA enters, wearing cloak and hat and carrying manuscript sheets.) BLOOD Vicky! I met your train. Where were you? VICTORIA Afterwards there was such a crowd. People followed my carriage, pressing me with questions and invitations-- I missed my train, so I just sat there in the station and held court until the next one! I'm exhausted. BLOOD I should think so. You must rest, or you'll be ill. VICTORIA I'm never sick. When one's spirit is aligned with the Powers, the body is protected. BLOOD Nevertheless, after 50 hours straight-- VICTORIA My mind is racing. I sent my baggage to the house so I could come right here to get to work. BLOOD Your speech went well? VICTORIA At first I was so nervous I could hardly get the words out. But then I saw my angel-- BLOOD No need to he afraid congressmen. Half of them are crooks. VICTORIA It wasn't just the judiciary committee. Some of the most famous suffragists were in the gallery: Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Isabella Beecher Hooker- BLOOD To hear the first woman to speak at a congressional hearing. VICTORIA They came to jeer, not to hear! But I moved them, James, as I spoke I could see their hard faces melting. When I finished I was embraced as a sister, as a leader, James! I think I'll be asked to speak at the Suffrage Convention. (BLOOD sweeps VICTORIA up in an embrace and twirls her around) BLOOD Hurrah! VICTORIA Careful! My papers! BLOOD What's all this? VICTORIA Notes for a new article on prostitution. I was working on the train. What do we have ready for the next Weekly? BLOOD Investments for women, an installment of George Sand. Your column's only roughed out, so we might substitute it-- VICTORIA What by Andrews? BLOOD Two. One on Pantarchy and one on economics. VICTORIA Both long? BLOOD Both long. VICTORIA We'll cut Pantarchy and run "prostitution" instead. BLOOD Are we pro or con? VICTORIA A little bit both. I describe the working conditions, the bribes, the bullying from the police-- BLOOD Do you think this is wise? If the paper's to support you for public office-- VICTORIA A lot of support I'll get if no one reads it! Horrid examples, spicy gossip, expose- - combine the titillation the public craves with a demand for justice for our sisters. BLOOD Are you going to sign it? VICTORIA We'll just run it. Can you get to work on it right away? ROXY (storming in) Why ain't you home, Victoria Claflin? I open my door and all I get's a cabman with a pile of luggage and his hand out. VICTORIA I have business to take care of here, Mother. ROXY Whoring off to Babylon, with no care for your holy mother! Young lady, I'm about out of my mind. BLOOD What's wrong now? ROXY That bunch of noodles you've moved in on me! I don't know my own house! VICTORIA It's my house! My house, mother: the mansion promised me in my vision. ROXY Full of beasts and blasphemers and I don't know what all scandal before the Lord. Beast Butler, him that insulted the flower of Southern womanhood, walking in my door now big as you please! VICTORIA If it weren't for General Butler, I'd never have spoken before the judiciary committee. ROXY Spoke, did you? When you wasn't home, I reckoned they'd thrown you in jail. BLOOD Victoria is one of the leading feminists of our day. Congress honored her-- ROXY Copperheads and Beasts! Listen to angels, child. Stop up your ears against Blood and guile-- VICTORIA Mother, I haven't time for this now. ROXY You never have time for me no more! You serpent's tooth, that shut out my good daughter Polly and my best son-in-law, Sparr, to make room for that fellow, Andrews. VICTORIA Stephen Pearl Andrews is the most brilliant philosopher of his generation, mother-- ROXY Generation of vipers, to cast out kin without a roof! VICTORIA Let Polly's lazy husband get her a roof! You all take and take, and give back nothing but complaints! ROXY Did we complain when we was poor? We cleaved to one another, like the Holy Book says. Vicky, we got to get back. Your father the Buckman is sick with the drink. Even the jailing didn't put him down like this idle hands. Him and the Woodhull. VICTORIA Woodhull has the children to look after-- ROXY And where's their holy mother? BLOOD Zulu Maude worships the ground Victoria walks on. ROXY Vicky don't walk on the ground no more--she's all high and mighty in the air. Over the bones of her own kin. BLOOD Maybe we should give Buckman a job [n the office, Vicky. VICTORIA He'll juggle the books. BLOOD I can unjuggle them. We can get Polly a place near ours, Roxy Lox. Come now, won't you make it up? ROXY That Andrews-- BLOOD He's writing for Vicky's paper. It makes good sense to keep him where we can use him. There, there, mother. (SITS ROXY DOWN ON HIS LAP.) You shall have your Polly in a gilded cage, if only you'll smile for me! ROXY Go on with you! BLOOD Can't I be your best son-in-law, at least once in a while? ROXY If it weren't for you, you Blood-- VICTORIA We'd be dodging the sheriff in some backwater-- TENNESSEE (enters) Vicky? I thought you'd be here. VICTORIA Where else, with a Weekly to get out? If you had pulled your weight while I was in Washington-- TENNESSEE You can't expect me to write! I can barely read. VICTORIA You can dictate to Andrews. TENNESSEE Oh, yes? Even you can't--- never mind, now. I've got Benjie outside. VICTORIA Who? TENNESSEE Reporter for the News. Wants to interview you about your speech to congress. (EXITS) BLOOD (gets up and sets R0XY in his chair) We must behave ourselves, mother. (TENNESSEE reenters with BENJIE) BENJIE Mrs. Woodhull! What an honor! May I offer my congratulations? VICTORIA Thank you. I am rather pressed for time. James, if you would give Mr. -- uh-- BENJIE Rutherford. VICTORIA I thought I remembered--? TENNESSEE Just call him Benjie. VICTORIA A copy of my speech for the gentleman, James. BENJIE I've read the copy you sent the News. What I told the editor I'd get is your impression of how the speech was received. VICTORIA Very well, I think. The congressmen were most gracious. BENJIE What about the feminists in the gallery? I heard a bunch of them had a plan to stand up and turn their backs on you. VICTORIA If so, they didn't carry it out. In fact, I expect to be invited to address the Women's Suffrage convention. BENJIE I hope you accept, Mrs. Woodhull. I've heard you speak, and in my opinion you are just about the greatest orator this country's ever produced. VICTORIA You flatter me, sir. It is not difficult to speak effectively when all the weight of justice is on one's side. But the feminist's war is not to be won by words. BENJIE What do you mean? VICTORIA Business! My sister and I are doing daily more for women's rights than the tired old diatribes will do in decades. From now on, the only speech that matters is a call to action. BENJIE Of what sort? VICTORIA The constitution refers to persons and to citizens, which women clearly are. The time to argue this has passed. I will call on ladies to follow my example: to conduct business, to vote, and to present themselves as candidates for public office. BENJIE You realize that most of suffragists will oppose you? VICTORIA Who are these people? What have they done for women? BENJIE I've heard that Mrs. Black is writing to influential members all over the country, begging them to deny you their platform. TENNESSEE Oh, Vicky, I'm so sorry. Drat that woman! VICTORIA You just couldn't restrain yourself. Of all the laps in the world, you had to sit on Mrs. Blake's husband's! TENNESSEE Mr. Blake was ever so enthusiastic, Vic. VICTORIA (TO BENJIE) You see our motto, sir. "Untrammeled lives!" Some small-minded souls are not ready. BENJIE "Honi soit mal y pense" ROXY What's that, Blood? BLOOD "The evil is in the minds of those who think it". ROXY Ha! More of your Heathenish notions, you Blood. You and that gang of free lovers-- TENNESSEE Mother, it's time we went on home. ROXY My girls was never puffed up till you got to 'em. They was my props on my right hand. My Tennie could be riding in her own carriage, up and down with the fat of the land-- TENNESSEE Stuff it, Roxy-lox. BENJIE Do you--advocate free love, Mrs. Woodhull? VICTORIA Affection cannot be coerced, Mr.--uh-- BENJIE (enunciating carefully) Ruth-er-ford. VICTORIA Oh, yes. Ruther Ford. Well, sir, wouldn't you agree that only the affection that is freely given is worthy of the title "love"? And if affection ceases, should not the partners release each other to seek out new affinities? BENJIE Is it true that you live in the same house with both your present and your former husband? VICTORIA Canning Woodhull came to me sick and without funds. He is the father of my children. I took him in, and as friends we share the house. BENJIE Do you--do you share a bed? ROXY Vipers and beasts! A plague ot uncleanness-- TENNESSEE (hauls ROXY towards the door) Roxy, home! ROXY Woe to the house where-- BLOOD (hustling ROXY out) "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." (TO BENJIE) If you will excuse us-- Always a pleasure to meet the friendly press. TENNESSEE (exits) Blast it, Benjie! You better treat my sister right. BENJIE I beg your pardon, Mrs. Woodhull. I shouldn't have-- VICTORIA That's all right. I'll answer your question -- if you will print my answer in your paper. BENJIE But I--I couldn't, Mrs. Woodhull! VICTORIA Then why do you ask it, Mr. Ford? BENJIE It's Rutherford, Mrs. Woodhull. Benjamin. My friends call me Benjie. I don't know why I-- VICTORIA Idle curiosity? Or a matter of personal interest? Is that it, Benjie? You're interested in free love? In Elective Affinities? BENJIE I don't know much about it. VICTORIA But you'd Like to learn? Perhaps--by making love to me? BENJIE Well, I-- VICTORIA Yes? BENJIE If I were to-- to make love to you--- it would be my first attempt in that line. VICTORIA (beginning to undress BENJIE) You are very young. (Split scene: lights dim on the weekly office, and come up on the backstage area of the hall where the may 1871 convention of the national suffrage association is being held. ELIZABETH CADY STANTON is waiting for VICTORIA to appear. BENJIE I'm twenty! VICTORIA Very young--for your age . . . (VICTORIA kisses BENJIE, ISABELLA BEECHER HOOKER enters the backstage) ISABELLA Isn't she here? ELIZABETH Not yet. ISABELLA Shouldn't you be on the platform, Mrs. Stanton? ELIZABETH I'll wait for Mrs. Woodhull. ISABELLA I'll be happy to bring her in. ELIZABETH You're not old or respectable enough, Isabella. (the lovers are groaning and groping in the background) ISABELLA. Not respectable? Mrs. Stanton, I'm a Beecher! ELIZABETH But a young Beecher. Only in another 40 years or another 100 pounds will the miracle happen to you-- I mean the metamorphosis from being a dangerous radical to a pillar of the community. No, dear, I'm the one who must provide Mrs. Woodhull support. ISABELLA Has she many enemies? ELIZABETH You should know better than I. Your sister Catherine-- ISABELLA If only Catherine would meet her! All this nasty gossip-- you don't believe it, do you? (louder lovemaking from VIC & BENJIE) ELIZABETH Mrs. Woodhull comes to us energetic, beautiful, and rich; with great persuasive powers. If she offers these gifts in our cause, it ill becomes us to question their origin. ISABELLA You've only to look at Victoria's face to know that she's pure. ELIZABETH Isabella-- I myself have heard her defend divorce and unsanctioned unions. (love scene fades) ISABELLA On moral grounds! These advanced ideas of Victoria's are mistaken, surely; but they are the errors of a generous nature, untouched by jealousy. Yet Catherine's determined to destroy her! ELIZABETH We've had enough women sacrificed to man-made notions of purity. Integrity's what we need. Let our heroines be true to the laws of their own nature. ISABELLA She is a heroine, isn't she? When she began to speak, I saw-- (VICTORIA enters) ELIZABETH Mrs. Woodhull! We were beginning to despair. Are you all right? VICTORIA There's such a press outside. I feel somewhat faint-- ELIZABETH Catch your breath, my dear. Isabella--some water? VICTORIA Never mind. I shan't be ill. I'm never ill. ELIZABETH Nerves, I imagine. ISABELLA (suddenly shy) I'll tell them you're here. (begins exit, turns) Don't worry. You'll win them all over, my queen! (exits) ELIZABETH I'm hopeless on the podium, myself. The ideas that sound so fine at home strike me as witless. I shake, my stomach revolts-Thank heavens I can just write and let my dear Susan B do the talking. VICTORIA [ am apprehensive, Mrs. Stanton. Not about the quality of my speech: it will be inspired, by the courageous spirits who have chosen me to be their tongue. But will it be heard? There are rumors that I am to be shouted down. ELIZABETH The worst you can expect is that a few ladies whose sense of propriety is offended will get up and walk out. VICTORIA But if Catherine Beecher has it planned! ELIZABETH Isabella Beecher Hooker planned to snub you after your congress speech--But I see you've made her your slave. If you can convert the rest of the Beechers, you'll have a veritable army. VICTORIA What a clan they are! Everywhere one looks, a he-Beecher or a she-Beecher, preaching! Most of them, denouncing me. ELIZABETH The Latin "religio" means "I bind". The clergy have always been eager to bind women down. But I'm surprised at Rev. Henry Ward. He's always supported suffrage, and he's scarcely in a position to criticize your sex practice-- his own is much the same. VICTORIA Oh? -- The Reverend does have the amative physiognomy. ELIZABETH If all his mistresses sat in church together, they'd fill the first three pews. Well, the same gifts that make Beecher irresistible in the pulpit draw women like Lib Tilton to his bed. VICTORIA Lib-- the wife of Theodore Tilton, Beecher's right hand man? ELIZABETH Beecher's dearest friend, almost his son! Susan B was at their house last week, and what a scene erupted around her! Tears and Shrieking. In the middle of the night Lib ran to Susan for refuge. Only Susan's mighty scold kept Theodore from breaking down her door. VICTORIA Because of Beecher? He'd made love to her? ELIZABETH During pastoral consolation on the death of her infant son. VICTORIA A natural progression, from comfort to caress-- ELIZABETH It's also natural that her husband is outraged. VICTORIA How can Beecher be a leader, when what he does and what he preaches are so much at odds? ELIZABETH Likely he's a good actor. But if as a rational man and a Christian, Beecher believes in virgin birth, infant baptism, and water turning into wine, why should he stick at believing he never fuddled his neighbor's wife? Sorry. I hope I haven't offended your theological sensibilities, Mrs. Woodhull. VICTORIA Of course not, Mrs. Stanton. I am a skeptic myself. ELIZABETH Indeed? From the inspirational tone you take on the platform, I rather thought-- VICTORIA I am a skeptic, Mrs. Stanton, but not a hypocrite. When I speak with the voice of prophets and angels-- as I believe I am about to do, I feel my angel near, now -- I expect that what I am inspired to say will be held to the strictest standards of logic and consequence. My doctrine is my life. (VICKY'S ANGEL appears, and, in response to his beckoning, she confidently leads the way to the podium.) ---------------------- SCENE SIX (VANDERBILT in his chair, TENNIE teasing him with a large wrapped painting) TENNESSEE Look here, old boy, I've brought you a present. VANDERBILT A present? What's it worth? TENNESSEE (begins to unwrap painting) It's worth a lot, but I'll sell it to you for a kiss. VANDERBILT Sold! (kiss) Too big bargain, even for me. Take some more. TENNESSEE (shows nude AURORA), Better take a look at it, first. VANDERBILT By God, Tennie, that's capital! TENNESSEE I thought capital was money. VANDERBILT It is, and so's this. I do believe that's you, Tennie. TENNESSEE It looks Like Vicky, too. That's why we bought it. VANDERBILT Got the Claflin mole. TENNESSEE Noticed that right off, did you? Had it added-to remember us by. VANDERBILT Why should I need to remember when I have my friends right by me? TENNESSEE Oh, soon you won't be speaking to us. At this very moment, Vicky's making a speech that will bring down the roof- . SCENE SEVEN ( VICTORIA at the convention podium, in mid-speech) VICTORIA Enough of this weary pleading! The time has come to seize those rights which are ours-- rights which the Constitution and its recent amendments guarantee. To what can the phrase, "previous condition of servitude" refer, more than to the bondage of Woman? She toils, but she has no claim to her wages. She pays tax, but she has no voice in the laws which exact her obedience. She bears in pain and raises through suffering the next generation of her masters. Ladies! The time has come to tear down our Bastille! If the very next congress refuses to grant us all the legitimate perquisites of citizenship, we must declare our independence! We mean treason. We mean secession, and on a scale a thousand times grander than that of the South. We are plotting a revolution: we will bring down this bogus democracy, and erect a republic of righteousness in its stead! ----------------------------- SCENE SIX-A TENNESSEE -and she's become a communist. VANDERBILT A communist?! TENNESSEE She's publishing the writings of Karl Marx. VANDERBILT Karl Marx? TENNESSEE The communist philosopher. VANDERBILT I know who Karl Marx is. I just can't figure what Marx got to with you girls. Vicky's going to publish this communist phi- losopher in her weekly newspaper, using my money? TENNESSEE Uhhuh. And she'll lecture on the evils of capitalism. Using you as a black example. VANDERBILT (laughing uproariously) O, yes? I'll bet those lectures of hers will be packed to the walls! I can see why a fellow might go out of his way to see the only female communist fortune telling stockbroker in the whole wide world! TENNESSEE You're not angry? VANDERBILT Angry! No. But I'm glad you came to me with it--wouldn't want to read it first in Vicky's paper. Tell her to get herself over to see me. I won't bite. TENNESSEE I'm your morsel, Commodore. O, what big teeth you have! VANDERBILT The better to gobble you up! Grrrr . ..... TENNESSEE Wait! Will you look, she's watching! VANDERBILT Who? Where? TENNESSEE Silly old boy. The painting. Vicky's watching us. VANDERBILT Gave me a fright. Turn her around. TENNESSEE No, leave her. I Like it. VANDERBILT Turn her around. ---------------------- SCENE EIGHT (applause and cheers at a distance. VICTORIA is coming backstage after her speech) BLOOD What a victory, Vicky. What a victory. The mood they're in, the ladies are ready to storm Fort Sumter. VICTORIA Oh, James! I am come to my destiny! BLOOD I talked to one of the reporters. The headline will be, "The Great secession Speech". VICTORIA The Great Secession Speech! BLOOD This is your hour, my dear. (CATHERINE enters) VICTORIA I owe it all to you, James. Before we met I was mired in superstition. I would never have had the logic to connect my inspiration to principle, or the courage to proclaim it. CATHERINE A stirring speech, Mrs. Woodhull. VICTORIA Miss-- Miss Beecher? I am honored by your commendation. CATHERINE I have always conceded your oratorical powers, Mrs. Woodhull. With the exception of my brother Henry, you are the finest speaker I've ever heard. ISABELLA (rushing in) Victoria, you were wonderful! I feel like a sea bird, tempest- tossed, but soaring! Bless you, you treasure. We are--Catherine! You've come round! And you've met her? (JOINS THEIR HANDS) O, this is glorious! Great intellects, great souls, you must join forces. Woman's cause will be invincible. (HUGGING BOTH) BLOOD We're going out to dine. Perhaps you'll join us? CATHERINE I think not, thank you. Mrs. Woodhull-- ISABELLA Catherine! Catherine, don't take that tone. Now that you've seen Victoria, you must love her as I do. VICTORIA Why don't you two go ahead? So that Miss Beecher and I may get acquainted. BLOOD As you wish, Vicky. The usual? ISABELLA Oh, all right. But Catherine, you must promise me. An open mind and an open heart. CATHERINE I have come this far. BLOOD Shall we be on our way, Miss Isabella? VICTORIA So, Miss Beecher. I take it that you do not approve the direction I have given this convention? CATHERINE The delegates are swept away now, Mrs. Woodhull. But once they have time to reflect, and see how the ordinary citizen responds to your speech in cold print -- they will be appalled. You've turned this convention into a joke. VICTORIA I? I'm not the one who holds women up to ridicule, Miss Beecher. It is your sister Harriet Stowe, with a pen mighty enough to topple slavery, who has chosen to make comic caricatures of me and my family. I am prepared for logic, for argument-- CATHERINE When it comes to leadership, the argument "ad hominum" is most persuasive, however illogical. The scandal of your past, your position on the marriage question-- VICTORIA My position is that to maintain by force a relationship which has become repugnant is slavery. It's prostitution! CATHERINE I can't speak with your authority on prostitution, Mrs. Woodhull. But I know that this side of heaven, marriage is as close as a woman gets to equality. Her husband is bound-- VICTORIA With silk, while the wife's chains are adamant--- CATHERINE Cut him loose, and then we shall see slavery. Lords and concu- bines. Cast off old wives, and starving infants-- VICTORIA Our children won't starve if we are allowed to earn a living. CATHERINE In competition? Where men make the rules? Men are stronger than we are, Mrs. Woodhull. All power is theirs: except the power to set the terms on which they win our approval. Equality? We'd be insane to give them permission to treat us the way they treat each other! Pity, tenderness, nurture-- these are woman's strengths, and she must use them to teach man to put his power at the service of others. VICTORIA Strange: I see no tenderness in you. Like a stone-faced idol, you set yourself up as a law to women, and prescribe what they are fit for,-- yet you've never been a wife or mother yourself, have you? It seems to me the Beecher family motto is:"Do as I say, not as I do." CATHERINE My brother's right. A woman like you should be bridled, set in the stocks with a scarlet "A"-- VICTORIA Oh, shut up! I'll not be lectured on marriage by an old maid, or on morals by a preacher who mounts his lady parishioners as often as he mounts his pulpit. CATHERINE To whom do you refer, Mrs. Woodhull? VICTORIA To you, Miss Old Cat Beecher. To your amorous brother, Henry Ward --and I'll throw in your sister, Hypocrite Letcher Stowe! CATHERINE How dare you! VICTORIA the truth shall make us free! You are beyond endurance, you Beechers, and if you know what's good for you you'll stop trying to blacken my name, said the kettle to the pot! CATHERINE If you ever repeat these filthy lies--! VICTORIA Repeat them? I shall publish and preach them all over this land! CATHERINE Do it, and we will strike you dead for it, Victoria Woodhull! We will strike you dead! --------------------------------- SCENE NINE (The office of WOODHULL AND CLAFLIN'S WEEKLY. BENJIE is sitting at the desk.) BLOOD Rutherford! The porter let you in? Or has Vicky given you a key? BENJIE Where is she? BLOOD I've no idea. I searched all over the courthouse. BENJIE When Vicky dashed out, I tried to follow her. But by the time I'd got a hansom, hers was out of sight. BLOOD I suppose she couldn't bear to listen. She must have realized how this makes us all look. BENJIE How'd the rest of it go? BLOOD It's over. The judge threw the case out of court. BENJIE Thank God! BLOOD The damage is done. Who's going to trust their hard-earned money to us now? After Tennie has said in open court that she's been humbugging people since the age of eleven? BENJIE I know. I was there. BLOOD Were you there when Tennie leapt out of the witness box and tried to climb into her mother's lap? BENJIE That's when Vicky left. BLOOD Well, after that, Tennie accused her sister Polly's husband of signing Roxy's name to blackmail notes. Tennie testified that her mother couldn't have written those notes herself, because Roxy's more or less illiterate. While I was trying to persuade Tennie to get off Roxy's lap, Polly told the judge that there'd always been unnatural relations between Tennie and her mother. BENJIE Why would Mrs. Sparr say a thing like that? BLOOD Why does any member of that family do the terrible things they do? I don't understand it. I'm as convinced of Vicky's God- given genius as I am of any good thing in this world, but with these millstones around her neck--! Unnatural relations! BENJIE I'd like to help. If I can. At least try to get you some positive publicity. BLOOD What kind of story do you propose? Vicky's enemies have hired actors, to pose as her relatives? Put drugs in her water supply? Victoria! (she enters) My dear. VICTORIA What was the verdict? BLOOD Case dismissed. VICTORIA (sinking into a chair) At least it's over. BLOOD All but the editorials. Benjie here would like to write up our side of it. What is our side, Vicky? (VICTORIA looks blank) BENJIE I thought you might want to make a statement. All the papers are full of the trial, and I thought .... VICTORIA Let's see the papers. Is that picture supposed to be me? BENJIE They're saying that the association of your name with the Woman Suffrage movement will cause respectable women to shun it. VICTORIA What can I say? If my ideas are valuable, what has my family's foibles to do with them? My mother is clearly deranged-- BLOOD Will you look at this byline, Vic? Henry Bowen wrote that! VICTORIA Bowen? Bowen has a lot of nerve to criticize me. His own wife is a member of the Beecher harem! Benjie, I do have a statement. Take it down: (inspired, reels off her statement while BENJIE takes shorthand) "Because I am a woman, and because I hold opinions somewhat different from the self-elected orthodoxy, men endeavor to cover my life with ridicule and dishonor. But I do not intend to be the scapegoat offered up by those who cover the feculence of their lives with hypocritical mouthings." Benjie? BENJIE Slow down a second. I can't do shorthand for "feculence". Do you spell it with a "c" or a "k"? VICTORIA James? BLOOD With a "c". BENJIE You can go on now. VICTORIA (NODS) "I advocate free love openly, in the purest sense, as the only sure cure for immorality. My judges practice it in secret. So be it--but I decline to stand up as the frightful example. I intend to analyze some of these lives in my Weekly, and I shall take my chances in the matter of libel suits." Have you got that, Benjie? BENJIE Yes. But I'm not sure I understand-- VICTORIA I am sick of hypocrisy! The hypocrites must be toppled from their pulpits--or they must take their place beside me, and wear the scarlet letter as a badge of honor. BENJIE You intend to expose the private lives of your enemies? VICTORIA Yes! I will! If they do not stop these attacks. If Beecher insults us, let him beware. BENJIE My paper couldn't print allegations against a man like Beecher- VICTORIA Afraid of the libel laws, Benjie? You're just reporting. BENJIE What about the Comstock laws? Obscenity means jail. VICTORIA Don't worry, little Benjie-man. You just print the statement I gave you, and leave it to my Weekly to give details. BENJIE Victoria, I want very much to help you. But I won't slander an innocent person. And I won't be a party to blackmail. VICTORIA Benjie! You know me better than to think I'd stoop-- BENJIE I-- I've heard businessmen say that you put pressure on them to advertise in your Weekly, threatening to expose their -- their-- sexual adventures. BLOOD Rutherford! I will not permit you to insult Mrs. Woodhull! BENJIE If you'd just assure me-- BLOOD Mrs. Woodhull views her position as a sacred trust. How could she resort to such tactics? (ROXY enters unnoticed, and listens) VICTORIA A woman uses such weapons only in desperation, to avenge the most outrageous wrongs. Is she to be blamed, then? As long as man is only a cunning animal, woman must meet fraud with fraud! When my statement appears, hypocrites will be shaking in terror- ROXY Let him who is without sin cast the first stone! For the enemies of the righteous shall be-- (TENNIE enters) TENNESSEE (shakes ROXY) That especially applies to those who live in glass houses, Roxy- Lox. Now sit down and shut up. (to VICTORIA) We gave the press the slip, but I couldn't get Ma to go home. ROXY Fie on that house of iniquity! We could be set up now at ease, milk and honey in a crystal palace - VICTORIA Will you please be quiet, mother? I'm doing an interview with this reporter. Which would not be necessary if your insane fantasies hadn't invited the world to refer to my sister and me as "The Two Prostitutes"! ROXY (to BENJIE) They ain't prostitutes! I don't care what that judge in Indiana says -- they was raised outside of Babylon, by a holy mother-- TENNESSEE Poor mother--she wants to move on. BLOOD She'll get her wish. The landlord's evicting us. VICTORIA Oh, James! BLOOD Can you blame him? Your own mother says the place is a brothel. I had to admit on the stand that there was physical violence. ROXY (to BLOOD) You swore you'd wash your hands in my blood! TENNESSEE Roxy, that was a dream. ROXY You take his side, Tennie? Against the womb that bore you? BLOOD What you need is a good spanking. ROXY Hit me, you Blood, and I'll incapacturate you! Filling my girls with infaturaton, to scorn their mother in a court of law-- TENNESSEE Where you dragged us-- VICTORIA Mother. I can't support us if you insist on our ruin! TENNESSEE Who could-- All thirty-five of us? There ain't a plutocrat in New York rich enough to keep this Claflin clan. ROXY It ain't the family uses it up, it's them Pantocrats-- VICTORIA Mother, go home and start packing. Your latest escapade has left us without a roof over our heads. I hope you're satisfied. BENJIE (offering his escort) I guess I should be going, too. Miss Tennessee? Mrs. Claflin? ROXY I'm not going to budge till I've seen the end of that Blood. That Sodom and Gehenna-- VICTORIA Mother! TENNESSEE (arm around BENJIE) Don't put that in your paper, Benjie! BENJIE I don't know what to put in. I think your sister's trying to get me fired. TENNESSEE Oh, no. Vicky gives you the exclusives because she wants you to go straight to the top. When Vic wants to get a reporter fired, she has a whole other way she goes about it. Run along, now. Don't worry, Vicky. We'll find another house. And I'm not mad about Benjie. I like him a lot. But from the beginning it's only been you he's had eyes for. BLOOD We'll be hard put to get a lease. The brokerage profits were down before this. If you hadn't mentioned Vanderbilt, Tennie-- TENNESSEE The Commodore doesn't care. Public be damned, that's his motto. BLOOD But there's a new Mrs. Vanderbilt. She cares. ROXY That could have been you, Tennessee Claflin! The spirits had it all fixed, but you wouldn't listen. TENNESSEE Come on, Roxy, back to 38th Street to pack. ROXY I wish I was going back to Homer, Ohio. BLOOD What a good idea. Suppose I arrange for a pension --every month you stay in Ohio and keep out of the papers. TENNESSEE We can't go back. There's still a warrant out. ---------------------------- SCENE TEN ( The brokerage, a week later. BLOOD examining accounts) BLOOD What are we going to do? Without Vanderbilt- VICTORIA The last time Tennie called on the Commodore the butler told her he was not at home. He hasn't answered my letters. BLOOD We'll have to give up the Weekly. Printing costs alone . .. VICTORIA No! Not my paper! I must make my myself heard. BLOOD If Vanderbilt won't help, the brokerage can't support it. VICTORIA I can do more lectures. BLOOD Your last lecture -- on Capital and the Exploitation of the Labor Relation -- made $42.67. VICTORIA I'll lecture on the exploitation of the sex relation! Did you see those slobbering old men? I'll bet there are ten thousand sex-starved idiots in New York, ready to pay through the nose to see Mrs. Satan. In the lewd and living flesh! BLOOD Where and when? VICTORIA Two weeks from Saturday in Steinway Hall. My subject will be "The Principles of Social Freedom, Involving the Questions of Free Love, Marriage, Divorce and Prostitution." Send a note round to Rutherford to put it in the paper. BLOOD I don't know if you can risk a hostile crowd right now. VICTORIA If the spirit comes down and speaks through me, I can win them over. If not -- well, Steven Andrews has been supplying me with the whole history of sex oppression. That should be inspiration enough. Hecklers, like hypocrites, are a kind of stimulus-- TILTON (enters) Uh-- Mrs. Woodhull....? VICTORIA Yes? TILTON I'd hoped to find you alone. My business is--rather personal. BLOOD (VICTORIA signals him to go) I was just leaving. VICTORIA What can I do for you, Mr. Tilton? You are Theodore Tilton? TILTON Yes, I-- it's difficult to find words-- VICTORIA I assume you've seen the article in the latest Weekly? TILTON Not personally. One of my wife's friends-- VICTORIA (handing him the paper) Why don't you read the underlined section aloud? TILTON "I know of one man, a public teacher of eminence, who lives in concubinage with the wife of another teacher of almost equal eminence. All three join in denouncing offenses against morality" VICTORIA You realize that I refer to yourself and Henry Ward Beecher. TILTON Mrs. Woodhull, what do you hope to gain by this? VICTORIA Let's just say that it's lonely standing in the public pillory. TILTON Mrs. Woodhull, I beg you! Consider what harm you will cause. My innocent children. Those trusting souls of Plymouth Church who depend upon Henry for their spiritual nourishment; why must these pay for our weakness? VICTORIA Weakness? A warm nature like Beecher's? Our Savior promised that we should have life, and have it more abundantly! TILTON The mob will never understand that. VICTORIA Not if you continue to lie to them. TILTON Two leaders most ardent in the cause of women: a seducer and a cuckold! They'll laugh us out of public life. VICTORIA I understand your fears. Every cartoonist in the country has made me his butt. I'm been pictured as a harpy, a siren, a bitch. But the barbs of those ignorant scribblers are not half so painful as the ones hurled by men like you and Beecher. At heart, we are kindred spirits. If we all joined hands and stood before them unashamed-- TILTON Unashamed? Of this hell we've made ourselves? Oh, Mrs. Woodhull, if you knew how bitterly we repent, how many tears have been shed. My wife has suffered enough, Mrs. Woodhull! VICTORIA So I've heard. TILTON Must you expose her to the scorn of her neighbors? VICTORIA I think they envy her. From your own experience: isn't it a joy to be close to Henry Beecher? To be the object of his love? TILTON He was like a father to me. He taught me, inspired me, even got me my job with the church. He was godfather and "uncle" to my children -- if they are my children! In the name of Heaven, how could he do this? Worse than adultery! It's incest! VICTORIA (shakes TILTON Humbug! Get ahold of yourself, Theodore! Nothing is more natural than that the warmth between two friends should find physical expression. If Beecher is worthy of your love, and Lib's -- TILTON He's a disgusting old man, stuffed with gravy and red as a crab. How can she prefer him to me? VICTORIA You're certainly handsome. TILTON He's twice her age! VICTORIA While you are Boy Tilton. TILTON I'm thirty-four! VICTORIA (caressing him. My age! The best age. Ardent, but mature enough to restrain that ardency in favor of mutual delight. But possibly you are too straight laced? The ideal lover is open and generous-- TILTON I've had chances. Women, emotional women, they fling themselves at me all the time. VICTORIA But you fend them off! Oh, Theodore, you're not mourning your wife's lost virtue-- it's your own missed opportunities! Throw off this stifling self righteousness. Grant Lib her freedom and take your own. TILTON What should we do? VICTORIA Be truly leaders. Let your life and your message coincide. TILTON If I thought it were possible-- VICTORIA Next week I will lecture on Free Love at Steinway Hall. Persuade Henry Beecher to come and give my introduction -- he needn't say he agrees with me. We could all be friends. TILTON (embracing her) Oh, Victoria, we've been so unhappy! --------------------------- SCENE ELEVEN (Steinway hall, backstage. Noise of an unruly crowd) BLOOD Is Beecher here? TENNESSEE I haven't seen him. BLOOD We can't hold much longer--crowd's getting nasty out ut there. TENNESSEE Vicky? Somebody else'll have to introduce you. BLOOD Hardly any women -- and not a single one whose face I know. You'd think suffragists would come, from curiosity. VICTORIA They're afraid of my dangerous eloquence. Suppose my angel and I were to sweep them away, as I did last May? They might take to streets, loving all and sundry. Irretrievably ruined. TENNESSEE They couldn't vote to rescind that. VICTORIA The Ladies are taking no chances this year--my invitation to speak at the Suffrage Convention has been withdrawn. TENNESSEE You're not going to let that stop you? BLOOD Even after . ...? (TILTON enters, dramatically) TILTON Victoria. VICTORIA Did you bring Beecher? TILTON No. I left him on his knees, Victoria, tears pouring down his cheeks. "Let me off. I can not face this," he cried. What could I do, drag him down here by his beard? TENNESSEE Men are such cowards. TILTON Lib--Lib asked me to tell you--to beg you-- think of us! VICTORIA There's no man brave enough to stand here with me tonight. TILTON I will, by heaven! (mounts podium to address the unruly crowd) Friends! May I have your attention, friends! I am Theodore Tilton, and I have the privilege this evening of presenting to you a tireless crusader. If the Woman Movement has a Joan of Arc, this is she. Tonight she is to speak to you about the marital relation. Because of her views, the prominent clergyman who was to introduce her has declined to appear. But I know this woman. and I will vouch for her. It may be that she is a fanatic, it may be that I am a fool-- but before heaven I would rather be both fanatic and fool than such a coward as would deny a woman the right to free speech! With pride, I introduce to you Victoria Claflin Woodhull! (mixed applause and disapproval) ad lib "about time!" VICTORIA The history of woman's subjection is a shameful one. Woman has been bought and sold and held as chattel far longer than her brother, the Negro. The source of woman's oppression is the doctrine that in the sexual relation she is subject to her father or husband, and may not choose--- HECKLER FROM AUDIENCE Woodhull! Are you a free lover? VOICES AD LIB Are you, Woodhull? Answer the question! Yes, tell us-etc. VICTORIA (ANGEL appears at her side, benevolent) Yes! I am a free lover! I have an inalienable, constitutional and natural right to love whom I may, to love as long or as short a time as I can,--- to change that love every day if I please! And with that right neither you nor any law you can frame have any right to interfere! (pandemonium) ---------------------- SCENE TWELVE (Backstage. Before the may 1872 national woman's suffrage association convention) SUSAN B Well? ELIZABETH I've told Victoria she mustn't appear in this hall again. SUSAN B I will not allow a repeat performance. ELIZABETH I can't help but think that you're mistaken about her, Susan. SUSAN B She means to use us! Mrs. Woodhull's proposed political party is a vehicle designed to push her. Many of us object, in the strongest possible terms. ISABELLA Because of the slander? Miss Anthony, surely you are above such bigotry. SUSAN B I say nothing against her past. Woodhull is a threat to us now. This is no time to divide the energies of the Movement. ELIZABETH You have conceived a prejudice against her, Susan. SUSAN B Is it a prejudice to object to lies? That woman signed my name to her call for a party! To her endorsement! ELIZABETH She may've believed she had your support. We called her a "bright and glorious spirit", you and I. ISABELLA You admitted Victoria as a leader. SUSAN B So she is--and she'll lead us to destruction if we let her. What sort of troops does she marshal to our ranks? Communists, Free Lovers, pantocrats, cranks of all kinds-- ELIZABETH But Susan,-- we are cranks! SUSAN B Anyone associated with her will lose all credibility. Elizabeth, she has already forced your resignation as president --. ELIZABETH Susan, you forced that. ISABELLA How could you, Susan? After all these years? Poor Elizabeth! ELIZABETH I couldn't stand against you. SUSAN B Elizabeth cannot be trusted to preside. If Woodhull shows up tonight, she must be gaveled down, ruled out of order. ISABELLA Why? The Republicans and Democrats refuse to make even a token concession. If we set up this Equal Rights party--? ELIZABETH Susan-- If we nominate Vicky for president, at least we'll get some attention from the press. SUSAN B O, the papers'll love it. Woodhull jokes and Woodhull cartoons. Editorial fulminations against Woodhull immorality. The Woman Question will be buried for years. ISABELLA We're buried now! One paragraph on page fourteen! ELIZABETH If we seriously attempt to register and vote, we'll be arrested. Susan, that might be an excellent shake-up. SUSAN B I've been arrested. I'll go to jail, gladly, to claim my rights. But to advance the career of a deceitful adventuress? Never! Not so long as there's breath in my body. ------------------------------------- SCENE THIRTEEN (the 1872 suffrage convention podium.) SUSAN B Is there any old business? VICTORIA (moving up to the platform) This is all old business! For thirty years and more we've sought to gain the most elementary rights, through patient merit and laborsome petition-- SUSAN B (banging the gavel) The chair will recognize only bona fide members of this convention-- VICTORIA Too long have we obeyed a set of outdated rules, forbidden to work or speak or lead as our talents permit-- SUSAN B The speaker is out of order! Sit down, Mrs. Woodhull! VICTORIA The time has come to shake off such restrictions! With our full womanly strength! Join the fight of those who-- SUSAN B None of this is to be included in the minutes, Mrs. Ross. Mrs. Woodhull, if you do not sit down I'll have the marshals escort you from the hall. VICTORIA Yes! Escort me---all of you! Friends, I move that this convention be adjourned, to meet with me tomorrow in Apollo Hall, convening there as the Equal Rights Party! VOICE FROM THE AUDIENCE-MALE Second the motion! SUSAN B The motion is out of order! VICTORIA We must free our minds of a thousand petty restraints-- VOICE FROM THE AUDIENCE-MALE Motion to adjourn to Apollo Hall! Call the question! SUSAN B There is no motion on the floor! This convention-- AUDIENCE --AD LIB Boo! Adjourn! Silence! Woodhull! Throw her out!, etc. SUSAN B --this convention is now adjourned and will meet again in this hall at eleven tomorrow morning. Only legitimate members of the National Suffrage Association will be admitted at that time-- VICTORIA Ladies, friends, I dearly prize the good opinion of my fellow beings, and I would love to have you all think well of me. But-- SUSAN B Meeting adjourned! VICTORIA -But even more dearly do I prize my vision of mankind, and Woman as she is meant to be, living in harmony and freedom! SUSAN B Mr. Turner, turn off the gaslights. Ladies and gentlemen, clear the hall! VICTORIA (as the lights dim out) This is painful now, but out of our struggle a revolution will sweep this country! Purge it of political trickery and industrial injustice, bring it to a new birth, spirit and flesh, a union of innocent joy! ------------------------------------- END OF ACT ONE ACT TWO SCENE FOURTEEN (Lights up on podium. It is Apollo Hall, the next day. JUDGE CARTER presides) JUDGE CARTER All in favor of the nomination? AUDIENCE Aye! (thunderous applause: a band begins to play.) VOICE FROM AUDIENCE . I move the nomination of Frederick Douglass for Vice President. We have the oppressed sex represented by Woodhull; let's have the oppressed race represented by its most distinguished advocate. VOICE FROM AUDIENCE I move the nomination of Spotted Tail. Indians ought to have a voice here before Negroes. VOICE FROM AUDIENCE-FEMALE I nominate Colonel Blood to go to Washington with Mrs. Woodhull. It is not good for a man to be alone! (laughter) JUDGE CARTER All in favor of Mr. Douglass? AUDIENCE Aye! JUDGE CARTER I declare Mr. Frederick Douglass the Vice-Presidential nominee by acclamation. We have a winning combination! AUDIENCE Victoria! Victoria! Victoria! VICTORIA I thank you all, from the bottom of my heart. We've come so far together, I've stood with you so long; sometimes meriting your applause, sometimes your rebuffs; but I've been faithful to my principles, and--and--without saying more, again I thank you for the great honor you have shown me. (Cheers. TENNESSEE, In a drum major's uniform, leads the band in the campaign song, sung by the audience to the tune of "coming through the rye.") AUDIENCE Yes, Victoria we've selected For our chosen head: With Fred Douglass on the ticket We will raise the dead ,, Then around them! Let us rally Without fear or dread! And next March we'll put the Grundys In their little bed. -------------------------------- SCENE FIFTEEN (The brokerage, which is also serving now as newspaper office and emergency living quarters, is crowded with trunks and boxes which have been converted to temporary beds. VICKY is wearing a cold cloth on her aching forehead. TENNIE is asleep.) TILTON (enters, waving a paper) Victoria, what is this? VICTORIA Shh-- quiet! What it says it is--Tit for Tat. TILTON You admit you're responsible? VICTORIA Why shouldn't I? It's all true, isn't it? TILTON How should I know? But I know it's libelous! Victoria, these women are my friends. They know me as your defender, my name is on your biography. How can I face them? VICTORIA With such friends, how can you face me? Look around you, Theodore. This is what your friends have done to me. I and my family are destitute. TILTON When Emmaline Baker told me that you were blackmailing her, I refused to believe it. VICTORIA In this whole city, no landlord will rent to me, no friend will take me in. My children, my Zulu Maude and my poor dim Byron--I've put them to bed in a packing case! TILTON You know I'd have housed you, except -- VICTORIA Except that Lib is not my friend any more. I suppose I should not be shocked at the way poverty reduces one's friends-- TILTON Victoria, have you lost your mind? Lib doesn't want you in the house because she's jealous, and because she's afraid you'll use her to get at Beecher. VICTORIA Tell her to go to her lover, and warn him. Beecher's asked for twenty-four hour notice, so he can take his own life--well, tell him to load his pistol! TILTON Victoria, will you listen to reason! VICTORIA My Weekly's gone, bankrupt; but I can still raise money for one last issue to fire at my enemies. TILTON (shaking VICKY) Will you ruin us all?! (VICKY protests) VOICE OF ZULU MAUDE Momma! TENNESSEE (Goes to ZULU MAUDE) . Dangit! Hush, Zulu honey, Auntie Ten's here. TILTON (a harsh whisper) Stop and think, Victoria. Not for my sake or for Lib's, but for America's women. Thousands see you as an ideal: a woman who has thrown off shame, a woman honest and generous. What you're doing is a betrayal. It's wrong, pure wrong! VICTORIA Pauline Davis says I was raised up by God to do this work! To bring down the hypocrites! My mistake has been to temporize, to try to get the Tiltons and Beechers of this world to be on my side. But once I smite with thunderbolts of truth, the American people applaud me. Their eyes will be opened-- TILTON Talk about blindness! Now I know why we're commanded to resist the sins of the flesh. Not that the flesh itself is evil-- but its joys cloud the judgment. I've been giddy with fucking. VICTORIA Theodore, I don't want to hurt you. TILTON I've hurt myself. If I'd been kinder to Lib, none of this would have happened. VICTORIA Not so. You are part of destiny, Theo. Had your wife been another Penelope, still you'd have loved me. TILTON (taking her face in his hands) Even now, in spite of everything, I look at you and see innocence and honor--. (starts to kiss her) VICTORIA (disengaging herself) A woman's honor is not necessarily what a man thinks it is, Theodore. (BLOOD enters) BLOOD Vicky? (seeing TILTON) I beg your pardon. VICTORIA Have you found us a place to stay? BLOOD No. Nothing. I'll talk to you later. VICTORIA It's all right, James. Mr. Tilton is just leaving. TILTON This is goodbye, then. VICTORIA I believe it must be. (TILTON exits) What does Polly say? BLOOD She says she's trying. VICTORIA You don't suppose Beecher's got something on her? BLOOD More bad news: the landlord here wants a thousand dollars more for this office, due the first of the month. VICTORIA A thousand dollars! Where's it going to come from? BLOOD I have no idea. VICTORIA We must get the Beecher issue out, right away. BLOOD You're going ahead with it? VICTORIA There's no time to lose, now. I hope that with this important work ahead of us, James, you'll devote your full attention. BLOOD I have to keep looking for lodgings- VICTORIA That's not what I meant. BLOOD Well, what did you mean? VICTORIA Tennie saw you with than Janie creature. TENNESSEE (stirring in her sleep) Hmm -- What? VICTORIA Go back to sleep, sister. No one's talking to you. (to BLOOD) Meeting on the sly, sneaking into out-of-the-way restaurants- BLOOD I don't sneak! If I take a lady to an out-of-the-way restaurant, it's because I can't afford Delmonico's. And if I neglected to tell you, it's because it didn't occur to me that you'd be interested. VICTORIA I'm not. BLOOD Then why bring it up? VICTORIA I'm disappointed, is all. I've always believed that a superior nature draws like souls to her with irresistible attraction. I thought of you as the noblest of men. How you can stoop from the most remarkable woman in America to a silly little slut! BLOOD It's not an election, Vicky. For five months now you've had no time for me. You've seen Benjie, and that fat stockbroker-- VICTORIA For business! For information! BLOOD And does your angel approve that? Eh? Does he spread prophetic wings over that vast behind, and coach you what to ask for? VICTORIA How else am I to get what I need? BLOOD I don't know, Victoria. I have needs of my own. VICTORIA I won't allow it, James. BLOOD Dammit, Vicky, I've been patient as a saint. Staying out of Boy Tilton's way--isn't that what you want? Holding the brokerage together, while you and the Boy row around the lily pond, reciting the Song of Songs. VICTORIA We were working on my biography. BLOOD I'd already written your biography, Vic. Why'd you have the Boy do it over? VICTORIA You left out what's most important. Theodore knows theology. He understands how to put things. BLOOD Compare your vision of Christ to Saint Paul's?-- but point out you'd had two of them?! Sincere Christians are offended by it, Vicky. My version-- VICTORIA Tilton's a name! Who'd publish a book by James Harvey Nobody! BLOOD Funny thing: I was Somebody when I met you. VICTORIA Oh? BLOOD Tilton, too -- But after the reviews he's got, he may never publish again. "Mawkish trash", the Times called it-- recommended for a laugh. You'd have done better to pay attention to the business that supports us, Vicky. VICTORIA Supports you, don't you mean? Poor James. You haven't done so well on your own, have you? You--oh--(SHE IS FEELING FAINT) BLOOD Vicky? What is it? VICTORIA I'm dizzy--I--(BLOOD tenderly assists VICTORIA to lie down) BLOOD I think you've a fever. VICTORIA I've not slept well. BLOOD You must get more rest. VICTORIA I need my own room, a real bed. When the family had nothing, I slept on the ground, and the angel came anyway. But now-- BLOOD (kisses her gently on the forehead) Try to rest. I'll find us a place, I swear it. (starts out) VICTORIA (clutches at blood, sits up) No, James, there's no time! We have to get out the paper! Wake up, Tennie! Wake up, we must get to work. You must write! TENNESSEE (sitting up) What? VICTORIA The great washing day is here! I need your help. James! The notes are in that box, bring them here. TENNESSEE My dirty petticoats are in-- VICTORIA Not the laundry, Tennie, the paper; the Beecher edition at last. We'll turn over the rocks and watch all the slime-crawlers writhe in the light. Our last, best edition. TENNESSEE If it's the end, can I put in the story about the cherry collectors? And the prostitute's ball? Those poor little girls! It's a danged shame, it is, and the men ought to be told so. VOICE OF ZULU MAUDE Mommy? VICTORIA Hush, my precious. Hush, my angel. Mommy's going to clean and clear the air. ---------------------- SCENE SIXTEEN ( Later. Stacks of copies of the beecher issue of the weekly are all around. TENNIE is wrapping papers for mailing. ROXY, with some difficulty, is tallying a stack of copies w1th paper and pencil. VICKY is check- ing through the daily newspapers for the reaction to her bombshell. BENJIE enters, bringing with him the latest edition of the "news", which he hands to VICKY. She begins to scan it. BENJIE Both news stands are sold out! TENNESSEE We're going to need another edition, Vick. VICTORIA How many are left, mother? ROXY Downwards of a thousand, I make it. VICTORIA Count off 120 for Benjie to take down the street. BENJIE They say some dealers are getting fifty cents a copy! VICTORIA You see how eager people are to get the truth! The established press are plain cowards! Listen to this: "--we note the furor raised by a notorious scandal sheet published by an unsexed pair of sisters. Its most recent barrage of vile garbage concerns a prominent paster and some female members of his flock." Why not just come out with it, now that I have? BENJIE It'd be shut down, Vicky. The publishers would go to jail. I know that doesn't daunt you, but these are businesses that employ hundreds-- VICTORIA (beckoning him aside, quietly) Benjie, I won't be able to be with you this afternoon. BENJIE That's all right, Victoria. I know how busy you are. , VICTORIA Benjie, it would make me happy if this afternoon you'd love Tennie instead. BENJIE Actually, I'm kind of rushed myself-- VICTORIA Tennie and I are as close as two sisters ever could be, Benjie. Loving her is just the same as loving me. BENJIE But I don't want to love Tennie! She's not--she's-- VICTORIA You don't care for my sister? BENJIE Not in that way! VICTORIA I'm very disappointed in you, Benjamin. I'm afraid you don't love me in the true spirit, the way that you should. BENJIE I'm sorry. I-- VICTORIA Mother! ROXY Hush up, girl. I'm counting. VICTORIA Stop counting, please, and bring Mr. Rutherford his papers. From now on our relations will be strictly business. BENJIE I'm not in this business! I only offered to help because you-- If my paper knew I was mixed up in this, they'd fire me! VICTORIA Then I'd better not draw it to their attention, had I? (ROXY comes forward with a heap of Weeklies.) Take the papers, Benjie. Deliver them to the stands. . (BENJIE Takes the stack and staggers towards the exit. He collides with BLOOD who is dashing in with an armful of envelopes.) BLOOD Mail orders! BENJIE You're not sending these through the mails! VICTORIA Of course we are. TENNESEE Get us some more stamps while you're out, will you, Ben? BENJIE But there's laws. Comstock laws! BLOOD We're taking our chances, Mr. Rutherford. TENNESEE (lifts her skirt, peels bills off her garter-- attempts to put money in BEN'S pocket.) Here's some cash for the stamps. Bring back a bucket of beer. BENJIE (fending TENNIE off as best he can) No! VICTORIA Get the stamps, Benjie. BENJIE Not me. I won't be coming back! (BENJIE dashes for the exit, running into JUDGE CARTER, who is just coming in.) JUDGE CARTER Be careful, young man! (picks up paper to read) BENJIE Sorry. (exits) TENNESEE Benjie, wait! You're being cruel, Victoria. You should have told him that you're sick. (dashes out after BENJIE) VICTORIA Tennesee! Don't! He mustn't---. JUDGE CARTER (looking up from newspaper) What a bombshell! I expected to find you on the barricades. ROXY You should've seen this place when the paper first come out, Judge. So many dealers drove up we had to call the police To direct traffic! BLOOD By now they're sold out and clamoring for more. JUDGE CARTER Will you let me have a copy? A dozen, to take to my club? ROXY On the house, Judge. (ROXY hands JUDGE CARTER a paper, and he sits down on a box and begins to read it.) BLOOD We've done it, Vicky. God alone knows what the end will be. (BLOOD sweeps victoria into one of his swirling hugs. VICKY slaps him) VICTORIA Don't touch me! (JUDGE CARTER stares) BLOOD Vicky! VICTORIA Not any more, James. You just tend to the mail. ROXY I think he's poisoning you, like he done to Polly's Sparr. (shocked pause) JUDGE CARTER Beecher's friends are buying these up by the bail, I hear. VICTORIA Might as well try to stop the ocean with a pail. ROXY The tide of righteousness'll wash like the blood of the lamb. BLOOD A second edition's on the way. ISABELLA (rushes in, takes victoria's hands) Victoria! I had to come. I'm so glad you've lanced this boil. For months I've been begging Henry to confess. VICTORIA I thought perhaps the family sent you to buy us out. ROXY Price is going up by the minute. JUDGE CARTER I was offered a copy at two dollars, right down the street. A trolley went by-- and I swear, every passenger was reading it! ISABELLA The truth is a pearl beyond price. VICTORIA It's a trumpet blast-- ROXY Walls of Jerico are a shaking. Falling to the mighty arm-ed word! POLICE OFFICER (enters) Is this Woodhull and Claflin's Weekly? BLOOD Temporarily. ROXY Are we tying up the traffic, officer? OFFICER Are you Woodhull or Claflin, Ma'm? ROXY I'm Roxy Claflin. OFFICER The publisher of this paper? ROXY Not me. That Claflin's my daughter Tennessee. VICTORIA I'm Victoria Woodhull. OFFICER Miz Woodhull, I have a warrant for your arrest. ROXY You get offen my girl, you iniquity! (attacks OFFICER) BLOOD (stopping her) Roxy! ISABELLA Calm down, Mrs. Claflin. You needn't fear for Victoria. The truth and her friends will set her free. JUDGE CARTER Or at least bail her out in no time. VICTORIA I trust that they will, Judge. This is an inconvenient time to be away from my campaign for the presidency. (exit with OFFICER) JUDGE CARTER (calls after her) Chin up, Victoria. You'll be out to vote in the election. ISABELLA Or if not, -- then in time for your inaugural address! -------------------- SCENE SEVENTEEN (Ludlow street jail. November 1872) WAHL Mrs. Woodhull? My name is Ethan Wahl, and I'm an attorney. I'd like to talk to you. VICTORIA Did Judge Carter send you? WAHL No, another friend. I've been asked not to mention his name. VICTORIA Ah! So I still have friends-- just anonymous ones. WAHL I suppose you found the election results distressing-- VICTORIA My votes were thrown out--in gross violation of-- WAHL How many, do you think? 15? Maybe you counted on a firm base of your multitudinous bedpartners. But since most men figure once they've paid off a whore they don't owe her-- VICTORIA You weren't sent by a friend. WAHL A friend's anyone who'll help you. After six months, you're stale. Your reporter friend's got a new girl, a young one. Oh, and have you heard? The elders of Plymouth Church have met. They exonerated Beecher. Everyone agreed that your charges were too preposterous to dignify with a denial. The Reverend denied them anyway, of course, though not under oath-- VICTORIA How could he? WAHL Beecher knows his people. God's word is the law, strict and binding. Those who have raised up leaders insist that they uphold the law -- but a denial is as good as repentance. You should have thought of that, Victoria. VICTORIA Get out! You ....! (VICTORIA begins A violent gesture, but is overcome by dizziness. She leans back and closes her eyes.) WAHL Jail's bad for the health, eh? Surprising how long you avoided it. Morals charges outstanding in Ohio, Illinois, and San Francisco- You jumped bail. So you could be sent back, you know. Fortune- telling? Taking money for that's against the law in Massachusetts and in Iowa-- VICTORIA If we hadn't been poor I'd have told them for nothing. WAHL Commodore Vanderbilt's? I've got depositions from the servants. After a strenuous seance, they brought you breakfast in the Commodore's bed. Of course, the old man was senile-- VICTORIA (calls ) Guard! Will you get this man out of here? WAHL Wait just a minute. There might be some people,-- say, hypothetically, clients of mine--, willing to put up your bail. VICTORIA Under what conditions? WAHL Get out of the country and out of the newspapers. VICTORIA Run away? Desert the women of America? Their leader can't be free while they are in chains-- WAHL Leader? Of the dozen crackpots who tried to vote for you? To respectable citizens, you're a whore, that's all. An ordinary, lying whore. Cleverer than most, I'll give you that. But you had to be --cause even when you were young and healthy you never had more than common looks. VICTORIA I know that. I laugh, when the papers call me "nymph" and "siren". A label to assign blame. But I am a being of fire and air, not some sort of sex magnet. If men are drawn to me, it is to my spiritual flame-- WAHL Burning, are you? That's fever, Vicky. Hocus pocus, you were lucky for a while. But then you got caught. (READS) On April seventeenth you saw Dr. Eliot Brigham, specialist in venereal disease. You returned in subsequent weeks, until you were arrested for obscenity. You saw the doctor twice in July, while out on bail, but since remanded to Ludlow jail you've gone without treatment. So. How advanced is it, Vicky? If you stay in jail and see your case through the courts, how long before you look like this? (WAHL Takes illustrations from a medical text out of his briefcase to show to VICTORIA. She recoils from them in horror) VICTORIA Never! It's impossible! I have a guardian angel, my flesh is ever renewed and pure. WAHL My God-- don't tell me you believe it? I could almost feel sorry for you: a flimflam artist, falling for her own con. Well, have it your way-- (WAHL packs up his briefcase, but puts the last of his pictures of disease on VICTORIA'S LAP) You can keep that, in case you come down to earth-- VICTORIA (defeated) Wait. What is it you want me to do? WAHL My clients will put up your bail and pay your way to England. There's a specialist there-- VICTORIA In return for what? WAHL Sign a deposition. Then, till the Commodore's will has gone through probate, live decently in England and keep your face out of the newspapers. VICTORIA Give up on my fame, my leadership. (lights fade on VICTORIA) WAHL (spot narrows to WAHL only. He delivers this speech as if the audience were VICTORIA) Mrs. Woodhull, I love my country, and I honor her women. But I tell you truthfully, if you are sincere about advancing the feminist cause -- the best thing you could possibly do is just to disappear. The Woodhull name is so smeared with mud that whatever it touches will be as dirty as you are. As far as my clients' concerned, you can come back in a year or two, when the lawsuits are over. But I make a personal appeal: Don't ever come back. Take your collected speeches and your press clippings and your pocky old carcass, and get the hell out of my country. Think of it as a fresh start. -------------------------- SCENE EIGHTEEN (Five years later-- 1877. London. A backsiage dressing room after one of VICTORIA's lectures on "the human body, the temple of god". VICKY, exhausted, eyes closed, lolls on a chaise while ROXY brushes her hair. VICKY's dress jacket has been laid aside, revealing her camisole. She is rehearsing to herself in a monotone the speech she has just delivered.) VICTORIA "Even as the fruitful waters thereof purify the Garden of Eden, so shall woman and her issue of cleanliness purify the body of mankind. Euphrates is her name. When she and her husband are as the Bible declares, one flesh, they embrace as the right and left hand clasped in prayer. The husband the strong right hand"--Ouch! ROXY Sorry. VICTORIA Be careful, mother. I have the headache. ROXY Lay yourself back now, and let your holy mother-- now what? (a bell sounds outside) VICTORIA That's the hall door. ROXY I'm coming, goldang ya. VICTORIA Don't answer it, mother --send the whatdaya call him. ROXY (calls) You! Slavey! Answer the door. PORTER Who're ya calling a slave, Mrssus Jump-up? Answer it yourself! ROXY I'll knock you onto your gratuity, you ...! VICTORIA (getting out some money) Mother, please! Whatever's the custom here. ROXY (offering the porter money) Would ya see who it is, then. fella. If you please. PORTER (still surly) Right, then. (exits) VICTORIA I'm so tired. I don't know if I can see anyone. ROXY It's that Blood, sucking your life away. VICTORIA He's in New York, mother. We're divorced. ROXY There's more than meets the eye. Didn't you drop down like dead the first time you saw him? The Devil's got his own set of miracles, girl. VICTORIA How dull these Londoners are! Weren't they moved at all? ROXY You lost 'em round about the river of Hekkedel. VICTORIA Hiddekel, Mother. "A stream that runs with a swift current." ROXY Piss river, that's the one. Pison ain't piss: Pison compasseth the gold land of Havilah. It entereth the gut, where Hekkedel pisseth it out. VICTORIA It's pronounced Hid-de-kel, Mother. You make us sound to the English like ignorant savages. ROXY I know my Bible! I laid it into you, same as my Pa beat it into me. When your Holy Mother-- VICTORIA Stop pulling! (The PORTER reenters.) PORTER (respectful, now) Gentleman's regards, M'um. (hands message to VICTORIA) ROXY What's it say? VICTORIA "Warmest admiration ... wants to meet me .. respectfully yours." PORTER Shall I bring the gent round, Miss? VICTORIA What's he look like? PORTER He's Quality. ROXY Is the fella a lord? Did he say he was one of them lords? VICTORIA The note says plain "John Martin". But some of them don't use their titles- ROXY Send the fella in. (PORTER exits) ROXY A real English gentleman! Now there's a strong right hand. (ROXY arranges a filmy shawl across VICTORIA'S bosom) (VICKY pushes away the shawl, reaches for her jacket) VICTORIA Mother, we must allow for their sense of propriety. ROXY (insisting on shawl) Pokers up the assbone. But that don't mean they can't unbend if you meet em halfway. VICTORIA You'd better stay, Mother. But for heaven sakes, don't talk. Lend countenance, as they say. MARTIN Mrs. Woodhull? VICTORIA Mr. Martin? How kind of you to come round. MARTIN Not at all, dear lady. Pleasure all mine, assure you. Inspirational lecture, what? Had to come and say. VICTORIA My mother, Mrs. Claflin. ROXY The Lord make his face to shine upon you, the Lord lift up his countenance -- VICTORIA Amen, Mother. Amen. -------------------------- SCENE NINETEEN (five years later--London, 1882. A hotel room. ELIZA- BETH CADY STANTON is writing in her diary. A knock at the door is followed immediately by the entrance of a heavily veiled VICTORIA.) ELIZABETH Come in! Yes? What's this? VICTORIA (unveiling) Don't you know me? ELIZABETH (embraces VICTORIA) Mrs. Woodhull! VICTORIA I'm called Mrs. Martin now. I married John Biddolph Martin. ELIZABETH Of the banking Martins? Select circles, my dear. VICTORIA Oh, Elizabeth, it's been such a struggle! Who are these English gentry, that they set themselves so far above us? Lawyers and farmers. No sophistication, no spirituality. ELIZABETH My dear! I wonder that you've chosen to live with them, then. VICTORIA My husband's mother was the worst. While she was alive John and I were never able to wed. ELIZABETH I know how that is. My family didn't want me to marry Stanton-- a dangerous abolitionist. Of course, compared to me he was a moderate. VICTORIA Men generally are. ELIZABETH So you're an Englishwoman now? Well, the suffragists here can use every persuasive voice. VICTORIA My sister Tennie's marched with Emmaline Pankhurst. ELIZABETH Splendid orator. Isn't she? A pillar of fire! VICTORIA I confess I've never heard her. ELIZABETH In England ten years and not met Emmaline? VICTORIA Those women are wasting their breath. The English can't be led; they must be ruled. There's such a weight here, of caste and convention -. Mrs. Stanton- Elizabeth-- these have been terrible years. I've had to use all my strength, just to stay out of the gutter. To be identified with sexual immorality is the worst thing that can happen to a woman. ELIZABETH Surely not! Time is on your side, Victoria. People are beginning to understand -- sex purity is a scarecrow, standing guard for masculine tyrants. VICTORIA How well I know! The elegant doctor I married: at fourteen, how could I guess at his barrooms, his bawdy house! ELIZABETH How fortunate that you could divorce him! In England, you'd have been chained for life. VICTORIA But Colonel Blood was worse. ELIZABETH Was he? I'm sorry to hear it. I was always most susceptible to the Colonel's southern charm. VICTORIA Blood wrote those filthy articles in the Weekly! He was the one who pushed the obscene doctrine of Free Love. ELIZABETH You're telling me you weren't the author of your own columns? VICTORIA It was Blood! Blood and Andrews! How could I have written them? I was lecturing, managing the brokerage-- ELIZABETH You never denounced marriage, or defended prostitution? VICTORIA Blood's afraid I know too much-- that's why he wanted me to die in jail. I think he tried to poison me. ELIZABETH My dear! That darling man? VICTORIA I could be wrong. But if any trace of our mutual affection were still alive in him, wouldn't he confess? He could clear my name! Dear Elizabeth, please, won't you pursuade him? ELIZABETH This is going too fast for me, Victoria. I'm to do what? VICTORIA Talk to Colonel Blood for me. ELIZABETH But I hardly know the gentleman these days. We never meet. VICTORIA He respects you, though, I'm sure of it. If you were to ask him, he could clear my reputation. Then I'd be received here, don't you think? ELIZABETH Why don't you work for the Pankhursts, Victoria? Believe me, that would open doors. VICTORIA My carriage is downstairs, Elizabeth--come home with me! Dear Elizabeth! Come see my town house--it's at 17 Hyde Park Gate--an exclusive address, I'll have you know. I've just done the salon over in celestial blue, but the furniture's Queen Anne, in the family for generations-- --------------------------- SCENE TWENTY (Thirty two years later-- December 1919-- Norton Park, the country estate of the Martin family. ZULU MAUDE WOODHULL, a handsome woman nearing sixty, is talking to BENJAMIN RUTHERFORD, now a distinguished gentleman in his late sixties.) ZULU My mother will see you very shortly, Mr. Rutherford. BENJIE I hope she's not ill? ZULU Mother's remarkably well for a woman in her eighties. But she's been asleep in her chair. Her vanity insists on a few moments to freshen up. BENJIE That nap business has started happening to me, too. Very embarrassing. I'm assuming it's age and not an uneasy conscience that keeps us from sleeping well at night. ZULU My mother does not sleep at night at all. BENJIE Really? Not at all? ZULU She has not laid down in her bed in three years. I don't know why I told you this--we certainly don't want it printed in your newspaper. BENJIE Don't worry, Miss Zulu. I'm semi-retired now, so if I uncover any bombshells, I'll save them for my memoirs. ZULU You're going to write about the Christmas festivities here at Brendon's Norton, aren't you? When you requested an interview- BENJIE I may, I may. Mostly I'm just here to take a look. I knew your mother when you were a little girl, you know. Prettiest little girl, with the kindest eyes--always wanting to help out. A shame you never married. You'd make a wonderful wife. ZULU Mr. Rutherford- BENJIE Do you remember the time you got me to take you into the barroom? ZULU I beg your pardon? BENJIE Your aunt Tennie sent you out for beer and sandwiches, but Duffy's was closed. You were afraid to go into a strange bar--. ZULU Sir, I have no recollection of-- BENJIE You ran up to me on the street--you weren't going home empty- handed. So then I stood up tall and walked into that bar with you--, I think I was more frightened than you were. What a very young young man I was then! A wonder your mother put up with me. ZULU Mr. Rutherford. I have very few memories of our time in the United States, and those that I do have are quite painful. BENJIE I'm sorry to hear that. ZULU Gentlemen in New York, members of the press in particular, imposed upon my childish affections to win their way into my mother's confidence, which they then cruelly betrayed. We were exposed to the gutter press, slandered by scribblers of lies and distortions. I trust that you are not one of them. BENJIE Well, distortions, now and then. Who can avoid that? We all have our partialities. But I've never been a man to tolerate an outright lie. ZULU Or to perpetrate one? BENJIE Absolutely not. ZULU Because I should warn you. British law, unlike American, is not lax on the subject of libel. BENJIE I'll say! The Brits don't accept truth as a defense. ZULU If you plan to write anything that will upset my mother -- BENJIE Miss Zulu! I assure you, no scandals! So, what do you do with yourself out here? I understand Mrs. Martin doesn't mingle with the gentry. ZULU I help with my mother's charities. While she was publisher of the "Humanitarian", I edited that. Now I'm preparing an edition of her speeches. BENJIE Quite a job--all the words that have Victoria's name on them. ZULU There are over one thousand-- (a bell rings) Mother's ready to see you now, Mr. Rutherford. (ZULU exits, then wheels VICTORIA on in her ornate chair) VICTORIA Welcome to Norton Park, Mr.--Uh-- ZULU Rutherford. BENJIE Thank you for having me, Mrs. Martin. VICTORIA Not at all, sir. I'm pleased when the American press takes an interest in our local customs. In these last years, I've devoted much of my time to promoting friendship between our two nations. Americans are a rootless people, easily blown this way and that, by the winds of commerce and opinion. One project we've had is to incorporate some of our English folk customs into the American county fairs. The Norton Christmas pageant -- you do realize that it's a direct descendant of our Medieval Guild plays? We have some actors here who have been our tenants since the time of Henry VIII. BENJIE (trying to control his laughter) Really? That long? (VICTORIA looks puzzled) ZULU Sir! BENJIE Sorry, ladies. The royal "we"! The Three Kings played by 400 year old yeomen--! I apologize. (taps his head) Too literal an imagination. So you are sponsoring these customs? ZULU Not just play pageants. All sorts of amenities. VICTORIA The flower show, the free kindergarten, the sanitary improvements. Perhaps you'd like to see the clippings? Zulu Maude, would you get the Brendon Norton scrapbook? I believe it is upstairs in Tennie's room. BENJIE Miss Tennie's here? VICTORIA My sister, the Dowager Lady Cook, is in residence for the holidays. ZULU Why do you ask, sir? BENJIE I'd dearly love to see her. I've been a great admirer of your aunt for many years, Miss Zulu -- even if I didn't admire her in quite the way your mother preferred. VICTORIA You may tell Lady Cook that a Mr.-- ZULU -Rutherford-- VICTORIA - has requested to see her. And bring the scrapbook.(ZULU exits) My sister and I started so many exciting projects, which the war forced us to put aside. But now we're at it again, and on a grander scale! After all, it was to preserve this Merry Old England that your doughboys fought the Huns. BENJIE You did a great deal of pamphleteering to get the U.S.into the war. VICTORIA A great deal. All that a mere woman could do. BENJIE Most of the women's rights groups in this country disbanded. VICTORIA With Civilization at stake? I should be ashamed of my sex if I thought that any woman would put her petty personal concerns before her patriotism. (TENNESSEE enters) Ah, Tennie! The American reporter. (to BENJIE) Lady Cook was of inestimable assistance in my war work. She opened a Red Cross station, and she carried my personal message to President Wilson. After all, America is but England writ in a bolder hand, as I said to the Prince of Wales-- BENJIE (to TENNESSEE) Did you ever open your home for unwed mothers, Miss Tennie?--I read about that in the Times. VICTORIA (jumping in) With a war on? Good heavens--! BENJIE Are you going to now? VICTORIA I'm afraid that's not possible. In the present climate. As my sister admits-- TENNESSEE To swing that one, I'd need to be a Nightingale. These English are unbelievable starchy. VICTORIA Lady Cook's intentions were good--. BENJIE Mine too. In spite of a certain disillusionment. I kept on trying to throw my influence on the side of your causes, Victoria. Votes for women-- VICTORIA I've said that women should have the vote, just as soon as they are fit to use it. I do not believe in forced maturity-- BENJIE Englishwomen got the vote, Vicky. Without your help. VICTORIA I helped. I gave money, donated my speeches. If I've not been as active as Lady Cook -- TENNESSEE Dressed up as Liberty and chained myself to a gatepost. BENJIE Did you? That's my girl! TENNESSEE (recognizes BENJIE) Vic? It's Benjie! VICTORIA It's what? TENNESSEE Your little Benjie Rutherford, the boy reporter. Benjie pie, I'm just awful glad to see you. But you got so old! BENJIE Not you, dear lady. The years have-- VICTORIA Rutherford! The Rutherford who villified me in the Boston press? TENNESSEE Are you? BENJIE I must admit- VICTORIA Mr. Rutherford, get out! TENNESSEE Vicky! VICTORIA The audacity! To set foot in my house! After that headline you put on article, calling it "THE BIGGEST LIE THAT WAS EVER TOLD!"? BENJIE Wasn't it? VICTORIA Absolutely not! TENNESSEE Vicky? I'd make it one of the bigger ones. BENJIE You can't blame me, Victoria. I was with you. I know what went on. If I'm on the copy desk, I'm responsible. I can't let a fabrication like that article of yours get past me. VICTORIA Am I not to defend myself? BENJIE Not from the truth! Victoria, one of us has got to be crazy. You can't erase your life-- it's my life too. You not only preached Free Love, you practiced it-- on me. VICTORIA Sir, you are no gentleman. BENJIE Maybe not. But then, it seems to me that you gave up a hell of lot to be a lady. VICTORIA Why are you here? BENJIE I just wanted to have a look at you. A look at this place of yours, to see if it's worth it. TENNESSEE Swell spread, huh? Course, mine's not so bad either-- and I never gave up anything. VICKY Are you satisfied? BEN The question is, are you? VICKY My work's not finished, if that's what you mean. The divinity that touched me in my youth is not yet burnt out. In spite of abuse, in spite of betrayal, I -- BEN Betrayal? You? Vicky, have you any idea--? There was a time when I would've followed you to hell, convinced that you'd just dropped down to reform the place. Then the next minute you were spewing pseudo-biblical garbage! And suing us. Me, and anybody else who mentioned that past of yours, that you know damn well is a matter of history-- VICKY A denial is as good as repentance. BEN That's what you learned from Beecher? VICKY Benjie. Believe me, I tried to be true to my principles. But there are times when in the service of a Higher Truth-- TENNESSEE That windy old bastard Beecher got away with it! Preaching and praying, and calling us the Two Prostitutes. BEN That's just words. Sticks and stones. VICTORIA I went to jail, Benjie. I was broke, I was sick--. BEN What happened to you, Vicky? If you'd stuck it out--. VICKY You hoped I'd rot in jail, didn't you? You, and Blood, and the rest of the crusaders-- you wanted a martyr to the cause. A sexual saint! Oh, you men and your labels. Saint, siren, strumpet, Mrs. Satan! Once I'm dead, you labelers have the last word. Well, the flesh is weak, I learned that. And my angel deserted me. But I didn't die, I won't! And I won't be quiet! Not till I've got what I was promised! BENJIE Promised? Promised by whom? TENNIE The Spirits, remember? Fame, riches, Leader of her people. BENJIE I don't know what the supernatural counts as leadership, but-- VICTORIA When the body wears down, or wears out, it's-- it's led into corruption. But there is something, something greater, and I had it once, I had it in me---, the Spirit. When I stood at the head of them all with the voice of an angel trumpet.....! (VICKY struggles to her feet, facing an imaginary crowd. She begins to fall, but when BEN extends his hand to her, she slaps it away with her cane) Get away from me! You're not allowed to touch me! BENJIE (turning to go) Sorry. I shouldn't have come. VICTORIA Wait--Benjie-- (exhausted, sits with eyes closed) Please. TENNESSEE It's nothing personal, Benjie. Vicky won't even let me touch her any more. VICTORIA I don't know why. I just can't bear it. BENJIE But at your age, don't you sometimes need--? TENNESSEE Zulu Maude does that. BENJIE And Vicky sleeps sitting up! TENNESSEE I think she has bad dreams. VICTORIA (rouses herself) Not dreams. Visions. My destiny -- but not bright and clear, not the way it was when I was young. Did you know that I was only ten when I first saw the angel? So clearly! And death on Mrs. Dobson's forehead. Oh, I have seen death marked many times. I saw Horace Greeley lying in his bed as in a coffin. I warned him! I've seen my own poor body, lying dead against my pillow--- (VICTORIA'S ANGEL appears, but she turns away from him) TENNESSEE (whispers) Vicky says she's marked to die in her bed. BENJIE So if she doesn't lie down, she'll never die? VICTORIA (snaps erect, eyes open, fierce) The spirit lives on! I know that. I've communicated with the other side. But there's so much to do here still, to fulfill my destiny ... after somehow, somehow I clear my name ..my.. (subsides, eyes closed) BENJIE I should probably be going. TENNESSEE (leading BENJIE out) Have you been round the place yet? Vicky's got the fastest motorcar made, and a chauffeur who's a devil to drive it. VICTORIA (awake, calls) Zulu Maude! (notices BENJIE leaving) Benjie? You could tell them. Explain it to them, Benjie. Explain to my people. If they knew, if they understood-- then I'd be - I'd be-- what I was meant to be. --------------------------- THE END.