The Firebrand Read Free Page A

Hathaway?"
    She didn't, truth be told. She didn't even know any children. She had always considered babies to be demanding and incomprehensible, and older children to be silly and nonsensical.
    "Do you?" she challenged, and didn't bother waiting for a reply. "Would you ever judge a man by that standard? Of course you wouldn't. Then why judge a woman by it?"
    He made the picture of masculine ease and confidence as he stood and bowed to Reverend Moody. "Shall we remove this discussion to a more appropriate locale?" he inquired. "A sparring ring, perhaps?"
    Laughing, Moody stepped back from the podium. "On the contrary, we are fascinated. I yield the floor to open discussion."
    Fine, thought Lucy. They all expected her to disgrace herself. She could manage that with very little effort. She swept the room with her gaze, noting the presence of several prominent guests—Mr. Cyrus McCormick and Mr. George Pullman, whose enterprises had made them nearly as wealthy as Lucy's own father, Colonel Hathaway, hero of the War Between the States. She spied Mr. Robert Todd Lincoln, son of the late great Emancipator and one of the leading social lights of the city. Jasper Lamott, head of the Brethren of Orderly Righteousness, sat in smug superiority. Watching them, she felt an ugly little stab of envy. How simple it was for men to stand around discussing great matters, secure in the knowledge that the world was theirs for the taking.
    "I believe," she said, "that women have as much right as men to hold office in the church or the government. In fact, I intend to support Mrs. Victoria Woodhull's campaign for president of the United States," she concluded grandly.
    Higgins's brow descended with disapproval. "That woman is a menace to decent people everywhere."
    Lucy felt a surge of outrage, but the heated emotion mingled strangely with something unexpected—the tingling excitement touched off by his nearness. "Most unenlightened men think so."
    "Her ideas about free love are disgusting," Jasper La-mott called across the room, instigating rumbles of assent from the listeners.
    "You only think that because you don't understand her," Lucy stated.
    "I understand that free love means immorality and promiscuity," Higgins said. "It most certainly does not." She spoke with conviction, trying to do honor to
    the great woman's ideas, even though she knew her mother would be calling for
    smelling salts if she heard Lucy debating promiscuity with a strange man in front of a crowd of avid listeners.
    "Isn't that exactly what she means?" Randolph Higgins asked. "That a woman should be allowed to follow her basest instincts, even abandoning her husband and family if she wishes it?"
    "Not in the least." In the audience, heads swung back and forth as if they were watching a tennis match. "The true meaning of free love is the pursuit of happiness. For men and women both."
    "A woman's happiness is found in marriage and family," he stated. "Every tradition we have bears this out."
    "Where in heaven's name do we get this tradition of pretending a marriage is happy when one of the parties is miserable? Marriage is a matter of the heart, Mr. Higgins, not the law. When a marriage is over spiritually, then it should be over in fact."
    "You're almost as much of a menace as she is," he said with a harsh laugh. "Next you'll be telling me you approve of divorce."
    "And you'll be telling me you believe a fourteen-year-old girl forced to wed an
    alcoholic should stay with him all her life." That was precisely what had befallen Victoria Woodhull. But rather than being beaten down by circumstances, she'd begun a crusade to free women from the tyranny and degradation of men.
    "People must learn to live with the choices they've made," he said. "Or is it your conviction that a woman need not take responsibility for her own decisions?"
    "Like many women, Mrs. Woodhull wasn't allowed to decide. And sir, you know nothing about me nor my convictions."
    "You're a spoiled,