“Soap in the bucket,” one of the guards told them.
Elizabeth glanced in the bucket and saw one sliver of soap, blackened from use and probably shared by every inmate foolish enough to use it.
“Don’t touch it,” she warned Anna. “Some of the women here have diseases.”
Anna’s eyes widened with terror as she followed Elizabeth to the shower. The women ahead of them shrieked when the cold water hit them, so Elizabeth knew to do no more than get a bit damp, which was fortunate, because there were no towels.
At the end of this ordeal, some of the regular inmates were passing out prison clothing to the suffragettes, and the women ahead of her balked.
“We are political prisoners, and we demand the right to wear our own clothes!” Lucy Burns said.
“Wear these or go naked,” Herndon told them. “You won’t get your own clothes back until you’re released.”
“I demand to see the warden,” Miss Burns said.
“You want to see him right now?” Herndon mocked her. “While you’re naked?”
In the end, having no choice, the women accepted their prison clothes. At least, thought Elizabeth as she accepted the pile the girl handed her, she knew they’d be warm.
Back in the ward, Elizabeth dropped her pile of clothes on an empty bunk and began sorting through them. She pulled out the thick, unbleached muslin undergarments and began to pull them on, willing to overlook the scratchy texture and be grateful for a barrier against the cold. She knew what the Old Man would say: “You can get used to anything, Lizzie.”
Anna scurried up to the cot beside hers and began to do the same. In her street clothes, the girl had looked thin, but naked she was a waif, all skin and bones with her white skin stretched tight. Why would a rich girl be so skinny? Elizabeth had seen beggars fatter than she.
Next came the bulky, Mother Hubbard wrapper made of blue gray ticking, and Elizabeth buttoned hers up to her throat, adding the “matching” apron. The heavy stockings wouldn’t flatter anyone’s ankles, but Elizabeth rolled them on gratefully over her frozen feet.
Mrs. Bates had settled at a cot across the aisle from them, and when she sat to put on her stockings, she said, “I happened to notice that the girl passing out the clothes was dressed in rags. I mean, as awful as the things they gave us are, at least they’re in good condition. I asked her about it, and she said that a few days ago the guards made them turn in the clothes they’d been wearing and gave them those rags to wear, so these clothes could be washed for us.”
“That’s terribly unfair,” Anna said.
Elizabeth wanted to point out that she probably wouldn’t like wearing the rags herself, either, so she should be grateful. But these women didn’t think the same way she did, so she kept her opinion to herself.
“Yes, it is unfair, but that’s not the worst of it,” Mrs. Bates said. “The fact that they were getting the clothes ready for us days ago means that they intended to send us here all along, even before we had our trial.”
Now that was unfair. The authorities had decided how to punish these women before they’d even been arrested!
Before she could become properly outraged, however, one of the guards shouted something that made the hair on the back of her neck stand up.
“Betty Perkins! Betty Perkins! Which one of you is Betty Perkins?”
Betty Perkins had been her name for the past few weeks, but only Thornton knew her by it. That meant he knew where she was, and he was trying to get his hands on her.
Elizabeth erased all expression from her face as the guard walked slowly down the center aisle, looking at each woman in turn.
“Speak up, Betty!” the guard called. “Somebody’s paid your fine, and you’re free to go.”
• • •
Oscar Thornton thought James Wadsworth looked exactly the way a United States senator should look, handsome and dignified, although he was a bit young for such a big responsibility. “More coffee, Senator?”
“Yes, thank you.”
Thornton reached across the breakfast table the hotel staff had set so elegantly to fill the fine china cup. “I’m glad you were free this morning.”
“I was a little surprised to hear from you again so soon. When you canceled our original appointment, I thought you said you were going to be away for several weeks.”
Thornton had thought so, too. He’d been planning a little trip with that scheming Betty Perkins. They were to have left on a cruise to the islands as soon as the deal with Coleman came through, or so she’d said. She would be traveling someplace much less pleasant now, as soon as his two bodyguards bailed her out of jail and brought her to him. Meanwhile, he’d decided to move forward with his original business in the city. “My plans changed unexpectedly. You haven’t said what you think of my proposal.”
Senator Wadsworth smiled uncertainly. “I really don’t know what to think of it, Mr. Thornton. Everything about the war is so new and . . . uncertain. I don’t think anyone really knows anything yet.”
“But surely you know who’s making the decisions about what to buy for the army.”
“Of course I do.”
He was lying, but Thornton didn’t mind. Wadsworth was a senator. He could find out easily enough, and they both knew it. “And I’m sure somebody on your staff can make the introductions for me.”
“Actually, I may be of more help to you in New York than here.”
“New York City?”
“Yes.”
“I thought you were from someplace out in the country, Senator.”
“Yes, Geneseo, but of course I represent the entire state. I have many friends in the city, people who helped me when I needed it. I was the first of the New York senators elected by the general population, you’ll recall. It required a lot of organization.”
“I always thought it was a mistake to let the people choose their senators directly.”
Senator Wadsworth smiled the way rich people did when they thought they knew something you didn’t. “Some people felt having the state legislature choose the senators was too elitist.”
Thornton smiled back. “Maybe it was, but you didn’t have to pay off nearly as many voters that way.”
Wadsworth looked like he might choke. “I . . . I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Thornton didn’t understand why rich men had to pretend that politics wasn’t all about money. The thought of money reminded him of Betty Perkins again. “Say, speaking of votes, what do you think about those suffragettes? Is your wife one of them?”