Jo & Laurie

by Margaret Stohl

  She could hardly breathe. What’s the matter with me?

  “This is silly,” Jo finally said, clutching at the umbrella handle, shivering. She felt light-headed, like the storm was closing in on all sides. “It isn’t letting up, Teddy. The weather. Perhaps we should head back to our rooms. Change out of these wet clothes.”

  Laurie beamed. “Jo, I have to tell you something. Another surprise.”

  “Perhaps I’ve had enough with your surprises. Perhaps not today.” She looked away, down the street. “Look—is that the tea-room? Can you imagine, this whole time, it was right there.”

  “Jo, just listen—”

  She kept her eyes fixed on the glass doors of the little restaurant. “And we can’t stay long. We’ve got tickets to a show tonight, don’t we? The opera? Isn’t that surprise enough, already?”

  “Si. Verdi, the Italian master.” His voice tensed as it always did when he recounted any of the operas his beloved mother had treasured in his youth. “La Traviata, the tale of the fallen woman, something the Italians pride themselves on knowing quite well, if memory serves.”

  And like that, the moment had passed, just as it always did. She could sense the hurt in his voice; he was sulking. “But Italians aside, your biggest surprise is tomorrow.”

  “Bigger than Meg and John Brooke?” Jo poked him between the ribs. “Come on, let’s go stuff our faces with pastries and tea, and you can tell me all about it, Teddy. Please. You know how you love spoiling your own surprises.” She felt like she was begging and she didn’t even know why. She wanted to hike up her muddy linen skirts and bolt.

  But it was too late. The umbrella was sliding out of her hands. He was taking it from her. Taking her will and her courage with it.

  Don’t.

  The umbrella was in his hands now, all forty cents of it.

  The rain was going to fall. There was nothing she or anyone could do to stop it.

  That was the nature of rain.

  “Don’t be afraid,” he said.

  “I’m not,” she answered. Then she turned and fled.

  10

  SILK THE COLOR OF MOONLIGHT

  The table was already piled high with all the delicate sweets and savories of a posh afternoon tea—and Jo was midway through her third crustless cucumber sandwich—by the time Laurie found his way into the tea-room. He sat down across from her, dropping the wet umbrella at his feet with a shake of his even wetter mop of hair.

  “I’ll never understand you, Josephine March.”

  Jo handed him a cup of Earl Grey. She had pulled herself together, somewhere between the second and third sandwich. “I know, old friend. To be fair, I don’t understand myself.”

  Laurie grinned ruefully. “But I’ll never give up trying.”

  “I expect you shall, one day—and I shan’t begrudge you for it.”

  He sighed and pulled four paper rectangles out of his waistcoat pocket, sliding them across the marble tabletop toward her. “Here. Your biggest surprise.”

  Jo felt a welcome flush of relief at the change of subject. “Tickets? Another opera?” Teddy’s love of music was heartfelt, and she would not have been surprised if he’d had them going to one concert or another every night of their little expedition into the city. Concord’s musical culture left something to be desired, especially after the Laurence boy’s Continental childhood. Perhaps he would never become a composer himself—as Jo knew he secretly wished he could—but that didn’t seem to stop him from appreciating the genius of others. Just as Jo herself appreciated his own gifts, when he played.

  “Not quite.” He grinned.

  “Oh, Teddy.” Jo shook her head. “It’s all too much.”

  “My sworn duty, Mademoiselle March. I’m your Master of Inspiration, remember? And it seems inspiration is a demanding master, especially for an author. If I am to do my job, every sunrise must hail an inspiring new surprise. Isn’t that what I promised when I persuaded you to come away with me?” He took a sip of his tea and held the warm cup to his cold face.

  “When you say it like that, you make it sound so scandalous,” Jo said, picking up the tickets without even glancing at them. She was in high spirits now. “The Marauding Bride and Robber Groom, to Their Horrid Grave. Translated from the German. In three parts!” she joked.

  Laurie took the tickets from her hand, waving them in her face until she finally focused on the small scripted words printed across them—

  Mr. Charles Dickens

  Steinway Hall

  14th Street

  One Night Only

  “Christopher Columbus!” Jo stood up, nearly upsetting the cream pitcher and sending a plate of pastries clattering over the edge of the table.

  Laurie caught the plate with one hand, scooping up a scone with the other. He took a bite and grinned. “Not quite. I do believe those tickets would have been even harder to get, though not by much. But a berth on the Niña, the Pinta, or the Santa Maria would have been a fair sight cheaper, to be sure. The queue for these tickets was five thousand readers long, Jo.”

  Jo sat back down. Her face had gone pale. “Charles Dickens? The Charles Dickens? Here?”

  Laurie was exuberant now. “Tomorrow night. Eight p.m. sharp.” He beamed. “At the Steinway theater. A private box at the opera pales in comparison.”

  “Oh, Laurie.” Jo was speechless, a rare thing indeed.

  “You hold in your hand the last four tickets in all of New York City, and they’re yours—well, ours—even if I admit they’re wasted on this lowly Master of Inspiration.” He raised his teacup to her. “Long live the Pickwick Portfolio, my dear Snodgrass!”

  “Why, this is the very fount of inspiration itself! I don’t believe it!” Jo put one hand on her fluttering heart. “I read that he was coming to America but . . . this weekend? What luck!”

  “Luck, indeed! I’ve been planning it for ages.” Laurie looked proud of himself. “I’ve done everything I could to keep you from the newspapers this week. You’ve no idea. Nearly every story has been about the poor fellow and his wife.”

  “Oh, Teddy.” Jo looked dazed.

  He finished his cup and immediately started on hers. “Seems like a regular enough chap.”

  She shook her head. “Theodore Laurence! I can’t believe you did this!”

  He sat back in his chair, genuinely pleased. “Well, not just me.”

  Jo was having trouble looking away from the tickets. “I will fly at your grandfather with such a glad embrace, it will knock the air straight out of him!”

  “This wasn’t just my grandfather. I had to call in every favor in the book, high and low. Talk about great expectations. Then again, how could we, the publishers of the esteemed Pickwick Portfolio, not be in this particular audience?”

  Jo still couldn’t speak, such was her excitement.

  “Think of it as a glimpse of your future, Jo! One day everyone shall fuss just the same over you, my friend!” He beamed at her.

  Jo laughed delightedly. Then—a realization. “Now I understand why Meg came all the way to New York City to deliver that parcel from Mama Abba!”

  “Obviously, as the titular Mr. Pickwick, Meg had to join us. I only hope Mr. Winkle won’t have burned Orchard House to the ground by the time we return.”

  “Blast!” Jo’s eyes narrowed at the thought—the memory, rather—of her littlest sister’s wrath and her own lost manuscript. The one Amy had burnt up in the fire three years ago, and Jo had immortalized in her book ever since.

  “Well, yes.” Laurie ran a hand through his unruly brown waves. “Let us just say that the fourth member of our little Portfolio was not entirely pleased to miss such a grand occasion—but Mr. Winkle’s mother was entirely clear that Mr. Winkle’s tender age would make the journey impossible.”

  Jo was aghast at the idea of Laurie having to na
vigate a disagreeable Winkle. “Thank you. Truly.” She didn’t know what else to say. Entirely too much had been said and not said already. But her heart was bursting, she was so overwhelmed—and she could not keep such feeling to herself. “The March family is so lucky that you showed up one day in sleepy old Concord, all those years ago. I can’t imagine what my life would have been like without you, Laurie.”

  “That . . . is not a thing anyone needs to imagine, Snodgrass.” Laurie put a gentle hand on her sleeve. For once, she didn’t protest.

  “I suppose not, Weller.”

  She handed the tickets back, Laurie pocketing them once again. “Now, are you going to eat the rest of that sandwich or what?”

  Jo shook her head. “It’s quite possible I’m never eating again.”

  Laurie picked up her plate. “They say he does all the voices. I hope so, at that rate!”

  “It would be enough even if he refused to speak a word.” Her eyes were still shining. “I never thought to breathe the same air as Dickens. Never.”

  “Excellent,” Laurie said, his mouth already full of bread. “Let’s be off, then. I’ve one last stop to make before the opera.”

  * * *

  • • •

  INSIDE THE CARRIAGE, moods continued to lift as the welcome distraction of an errand gave both friends some relief from the afternoon’s heavier topics. And at least the storm had stopped, though the clouds still rolled gray and thick across the sky.

  Laurie whistled Verdi while Jo looked out the window. Charles Dickens! She still couldn’t believe it. She felt like she was in a dream, flying low above the city streets and away from her old life, her old self. The idea of introducing herself to him as the author of Little Women, perhaps striking up a friendly correspondence with him, overwhelmed her. It wasn’t that she’d never encountered other authors before. She’d been to lectures at the Boston Athenaeum, loads of them.

  But this was Dickens.

  Would he scoff? A girl like her, so young? An authoress, really?

  She wouldn’t be able to bear it if he laughed at her. No, she would not confess herself an author. Not to Dickens. If he laughed, if he dismissed her book as the scribblings of a little woman, she would die on the spot. She was sure of it. She would never be able to write the sequel, at the very least.

  Quit your whinnying, she thought crossly. He’s Charles Dickens. He’s probably never even heard of a book called Little Women, much less cared whether you are its author. You’ll never get close enough to speak to him, anyway.

  In such a mood, they stopped the carriage at Mrs. Kirke’s boarding house to pick up Meg, who climbed inside with a dismayed look at the muddy hem of Jo’s still-damp dress. “Gracious, Josephine!” she declared in horror. “What have you been doing? Wrestling in the mud? And on such an auspicious week?!”

  Jo had been trying to rub out the soiled spots, but it was no use. “You were right to stay home, Meg. This is my best dress, and it will never dry in time.”

  “Jo always looks perfect,” Laurie said, in a jolly tone. It made both girls laugh.

  “Laurie, you are hopeless,” Meg said, with a sigh.

  “Utterly,” Jo agreed.

  Meg surveyed the offending dress. “She can’t possibly go to the opera like this.”

  “What have I done?” Jo studied her sodden gloves, wiggling her damp toes with regret. “New clothes are entirely wasted on me, I confess.”

  “I wouldn’t say that,” said Laurie, who looked hurt.

  But it was no use. Jo sank back in her seat, dejected. “It’s true. One solid afternoon of rain and Cinderella is officially back to her old self.”

  Laurie smiled. “Cinderella is La Cenerentola. An entirely different opera, by Rossini. I saw it in Rome, with my mother.”

  “That’s beside the point, Teddy.”

  “Nothing is beside the point, my cinder princess.” A short while later, Laurie pushed open the carriage door just as it slowed in front of a glass-windowed boutique painted in a distinctly Parisian blue. (Or so Jo thought, but truthfully, having never been to Paris, it was at least what in her manuscripts she would have called a distinctly Parisian blue!)

  Red geraniums were clustered in painted boxes along the glass. A placard at one side of the entrance read a distinguished name, along with a word Jo knew only from novels—HOUSE OF WORTH, COUTURIER PARISIEN.

  Jo stared from the relative safety of the carriage. “Teddy, what have you done?”

  “Rien.” He offered his gloved hand. “At least, nothing of consequence.”

  She hesitated. “I can’t.”

  He looked even more hurt than he had a second ago. “You can.”

  “I can’t, Teddy. I can’t go in there like this!” She plucked helplessly at her skirts again. “I’m a disaster. You can’t spend your money on me. Not for clothes. I won’t let you!”

  Laurie hesitated, looking from one March sister to the other. “But I already made the appointment,” he said. “It would be rude not to keep it.”

  Jo groaned and slid down on the carriage seat like a bored schoolgirl. “I refuse to let you dress me up like a paper doll simply to avoid being rude.”

  Laurie glanced at Jo with such a look of disappointment that it nearly took her breath away. He glanced at Meg, ready to plead his case.

  Then Jo had the best idea. The most brilliant idea she’d had all day, maybe her whole life. For—what had Meg said? The words came crowding into her mind: The other March sister. The one who didn’t die. The one who isn’t renowned. The one who isn’t an artist, or a scamp.

  “Let Meg be the one,” Jo blurted.

  Laurie and Meg both turned to face her with a look of such shock, she nearly laughed. “What?” they cried in unison.

  “If you must spend your money on clothes for the March girls, give them to Meg. Oh, Teddy, they will look so much better on her than on me! And I can wear Meg’s old evening dress instead of my wet things. Please, please—you must!”

  A number of expressions crossed Laurie’s face as Jo watched. First hurt, then surprise, and then a certain sense of acceptance. He saw the wisdom of such a decision, surely.

  “I couldn’t—” Meg began.

  “But you must,” Jo cut her off.

  Laurie gave up. “Very well. If you won’t let me do this for you, Jo, then I shall do it for Meg.” He offered Meg his hand with a flourish and she took it, adjusting her skirts as she hopped down from the carriage door.

  “Jo, no—”

  “Meg, yes.”

  Meg’s smile was at once so familiar and so particular that Jo found she could not take her eyes from her sister’s face, not even as they heard the tinkle of a distant bell and followed Laurie through the open door.

  The great stack of blue cardboard boxes rising from the brass-cornered counter in front of them was impressive. A trio of smiling attendants in well-cut black woolen dresses and neat chignons hovered at every side of it.

  Laurie murmured at the nearest, who nodded to Jo and Meg with a reassuring smile.

  “Which of you is Mademoiselle March?” Jo pointed immediately to Meg. “Bonjour . . . welcome.”

  “French? You’re . . . that’s French.” Meg looked at Laurie, wide-eyed. “What have you done, Laurie?”

  “Be brave, dear Meg,” Laurie said, nodding at the attendant. She removed the lid from the box at the very height of the stack. Pale rose-colored tissue rustled as it erupted from the inside. Moments later, something gossamer, something made from dreams and wishes and fairy dust, emerged, slipping into the attendant’s deft hands. When she held it high, it reflected the light from the delicate brass chandelier that hung behind the counter.

  “Oh,” breathed Meg, and Jo squirmed from happiness. That her sister, her dearest Meg, would get to wear these clothes to the opera . . . nothing could have made her happier. />
  This is what’s left for you, Meg.

  Everything.

  Jo squeezed Laurie’s hand and grinned so happily that his expression brightened immediately. He was giving her pleasure—so much more than she could even describe—just not the pleasure he’d planned to give. “You must thank your grandfather for us, Teddy.”

  Laurie hesitated, then confessed. “This isn’t from Grandfather. It’s from me. I had it made for you. Well, for you, Jo—though it should look equally lovely on Meg.” He looked away.

  “More lovely,” Jo insisted. “She’ll be a vision, Teddy!”

  “The House of Worth,” Laurie went on, now with more enthusiasm. “You know the fellow, Charles Worth, he’s awfully famous for this stuff. He made all the dresses for Jenny Lind, all kinds of royalty. Some or another princess, I believe—oh, that Empress Eugénie, the one from Spain. The silk for your dress came into the city on one of those boats we saw at the docks—I was going to show you then, if I could find it. Oh, Jo, I’ve had this on my mind for awfully long.”

  “Teddy,” she said, smiling, “don’t be hurt. You know it will suit Meg far better than me. And I will have a new dress, too, after all. New to me, anyway.”

  The attendant held out the dress for Meg, who fingered the fabric as if it were a butterfly’s wing.

  “Mademoiselle March?” A second attendant held open a navy velvet curtain, where a matching velvet divan awaited. A dressing chamber. “Please, would you like to try it on, Josephine?” She pronounced it with a deep French accent, and Jo’s plain old name sounded suddenly très chic, even to Jo herself.

  Meg just stared. She was too petrified to correct the attendant who’d called her Josephine.

  “Go on, Meg,” Jo said. “Put it on.”

  Meg watched as the attendant hung the gown in the little room. “I . . . I can’t.”

  Laurie took her by the hand. “Of course you can. We want you to.”

  “We do,” Jo said, happily.

  Meg hesitated. Then inclined her head ever so slightly toward Laurie. “You meant all this for Jo,” she whispered. “How can I?”