Louisa and the Crystal Gazer

by Anna Maclean

Cobban left a few moments later, having achieved the purpose of his visit—that unsurprising announcement of his feelings for my friend Sylvia. I sat dreaming before the fire, still strangely at odds now that I had no labor to occupy my hands. It was weeks before the spring shirts would need to be finished. Lizzie, after a while, went to the old piano and began to play Christmas tunes, but my spirits stayed apathetic, wondering. She went up to bed at ten; at ten thirty Auntie Bond’s guests began to leave and Mrs. Wallace, a woman I had met before, came in to say good evening. She was a kindly soul with a perpetual look of disappointment in her lovely blue eyes, as if life had never measured up to her expectations.

  “Miss Bond tells me you have been asking about Mrs. Percy,” she said quietly, taking a seat in the chair next to me.

  “Did you know her?” I asked, sitting up.

  “Yes. In our younger days, and I knew many of her friends, when she still had them. When you have lived in one place all your life acquaintances build up, rather like the nacre on a pearl, only of course some acquaintances aren’t at all luminous.” She paused, wondering if she should go on. She had her hat on, but carried her cloak. Obviously she was willing to spend a moment or two with me.

  “Please tell me of whom you speak,” I asked.

  “Mr. Phips.” Her tone was icy.

  “You do not care for him.”

  “I do not. He was possessive, in the way that men who marry above themselves can be. He cut his wife off from her old acquaintances, and he was no gentleman, Miss Alcott; I will tell you that much. Poor Emily. She never really stopped grieving for August Pincher. His death just about destroyed her. And then William Phips came along, carrying words from her dead beloved, carrying that portrait, and he convinced her she would be happy with him. Oh, the promises men will make.” Her voice trailed off.

  “Were Emily and William well matched?” I asked, intensely disliking that I sounded much as Sylvia’s mother would have sounded at that moment—but sometimes, patient reader, facts of finance are relevant.

  Mrs. Wallace tucked a strand of her lovely white hair back into its snood and paused before answering, as if in reflection. “My dear, his father was a stable hand in Pennsylvania. Breeding tells, in the long run. I’m certain he married for wealth and position. And there was considerable wealth in that family. Don’t let the brother’s eccentricity fool you. The Grayling children each inherited a small fortune. Many a man marries for wealth, and learns to love his bride.” Her voice grew very soft and she seemed to become distracted. Then she shook off the mood and continued her story. “I’m not certain Phips grew to love Emily, not in the way she deserved. His kindness certainly had limits. He told her once—and I’m certain he meant to give pain, to take revenge for some little domestic sin she had committed—that August Pincher had been unfaithful to her in Canton, that he had taken a Chinese bride. I think he invented it, Miss Alcott, to wound Emily.”

  “Yes, her brother had the same belief. Her beloved Mr. Pincher,” I said, wondering. “I feel sorry for your friend, Mrs. Wallace. She was unable to find any man true and loyal.” In fact, I felt sorry for both husband and wife—for Emily, who lost her true love and married for comfort, only to find marriage brought no guarantees of peace; and for William Phips, the son of a laborer who had dreams to better himself and who married well, but perhaps without that passion that inspires fidelity, perhaps knowing he was never truly loved, not as another had once been.

  “Poor Emily wasted away in that house, in that marriage. She, who had once been so worthy of love. Good night, Louisa,” said Mrs. Wallace. On impulse she bent and kissed my forehead, as Marmee would have, had she been there.

  “Only a fool marries for something less than love,” Marmee had often told me. “I hope my daughters never make such a mistake.”

  When the house was quiet and I was alone in my writing room, I thought again of Mr. Barnum, of the relief that had been evident in his manner when Mrs. Percy had been found dead. I thought of the many strange people that Sylvia’s adventure into the world of séances had brought into my life: Mrs. Deeds with her greed for jewels, even or perhaps especially those belonging to other people; her meek husband, almost too meek, so that he seemed to be playing a role—perhaps he had resented that dangerous triangular friendship between his wife, Mrs. Percy, and Mr. Nichols? Amelia Snodgrass, betrothed to a gentleman from whom she kept secrets, and now facing long years of overcoming the regret and pain of her affair with another man who had betrayed her several times and involved Mrs. Percy in those betrayals.

  Mr. Barnum. Mr. Phineas T. Barnum, the greatest showman of all time, now tottering on disgrace and bankruptcy, thanks to Mrs. Percy’s ability to forge signatures. My heart sank as I thought of him, and I knew deep in my heart that he had wished her dead.

  The maid, Suzie Dear, still in jail and with many years of jail ahead of her, most likely, for having been caught with stolen goods, and the unfairness of that —for all I knew the items had been given to her by Mrs. Percy, as bribery as well as payment. Could Suzie, that flighty young woman, have murdered? Had her mistress not been generous enough?

  Mr. Phips, the son of a stable hand, a war hero who married well, very well, but did not keep his vows to his wife, who caused her so much unhappiness that she lost her desire to live.

  And at the middle of so much unhappiness was Agatha Percy. She was the connection, the universal theme that united them.

  There had been another. Yes, the Chinese cook, Meh-ki, who had fled in the middle of the night, the night that Mrs. Percy had been murdered. What had been her role in all of this? Certainly her actions, that hasty flight, had brought suspicion upon her. Why had she fled, when I merely wished to speak with her? Because that is what immigrants do, a voice that sounded suspiciously like Marmee’s said in my head. Imagine yourself in a new country filled with unfamiliar customs, a language you barely understand, and now imagine that a great crime has occurred and you will be suspected of involvement. You flee.

  I sighed. So many unexplained events, so many people who were not what they seemed, who had secrets and buried passions, for money, for forgiveness, for freedom, or even simply for excitement. Mrs. Percy, I said in my head, what strange course of events did you set in action that your own death must follow?

  The voice answered immediately, the woman’s voice in my head that had been telling me the story of “Agatha’s Confession”:

  I listened to the evil demon that possessed me, and hardening my woman’s heart, I vowed a solemn vow that she should never win the prize she sought, never, if I killed her to prevent it.

  And I muttered to myself, “Twice I have conquered my revengeful spirit, but to be more deeply wounded. Now I will yield to it, and if a word of mine could save her, I would not utter it.”

  And so Agatha allows her former friend, Clara, to be buried alive. Could a word, I wondered, have saved Mrs. Agatha Percy? What word, and from whom? My two Agathas, the one in my story and the real Mrs. Percy, I saw now shared a similar fatal flaw, the blind merging of the living with the dead, and both would pay heavily for this sin, my Agatha by losing, finally and forever, the love of her life, and Mrs. Agatha Percy with her own life.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The Cook Reappears

  THE NEXT MORNING dawned bright and fair with a cold winter sun gleaming off the icicles hanging from the eaves. I awoke to a clatter of pots and pans coming from the kitchen and pantry. Auntie Bond was baking her famous Christmas seed cake, for while the neighborhood bakery might make a fine queen’s cake and lemon pound cake, no one baked as fine a seed cake as Auntie Bond.

  “May I help?” I asked, when I had thrown on my workaday brown dress and gone downstairs.

  “You might shell the walnuts, please,” Auntie Bond proposed, handing me a bag of nuts. “There’s just enough time before the holidays to bake and soak a batch of cakes to send to Walpole.” She winked. The secret of Auntie Bond’s seed cakes: She aged them in brandy!

  �
�Did you win a round last night?” I asked, finding in the table drawer the little hammer she kept for nutcracking.

  “Three rounds! I won twelve cents! Don’t tell your father, Louisa. I know how he disapproves of gambling. I’ll give a dime to the missions to make up for my little sin.”

  I spent the morning chopping walnuts and hazelnuts and chatting pleasantly with Auntie Bond about the holidays. I forced myself to cease thinking about Mrs. Percy. I had done what I could, and asked all the questions I could think to ask, and had only found myself deeper and deeper in confusion. Many puzzles are like that—they make no sense until the very last piece has been put into place. Except how does one know what the last piece is?

  In the morning mail was a note from Mr. Crowell, which I took hastily from the tray and opened in private, so that neither Lizzie nor Auntie Bond could read it over my shoulder:

  Signor Massimo will meet with your sister Elizabeth at three o’clock this afternoon. Will that suit?

  “Lizzie,” I called into the parlor, where she sat at the piano. “Can you come with me on an errand this afternoon?”

  “Yes, Louy!”

  “Be sure and wear your best hat and gloves!”

  “Why, Louy, where are we going?”

  “A surprise,” I told her. “Part of your Christmas present!”

  Three o’clock would suit, I wrote back to Mr. Crowell.

  I dressed in my best as well, my best at that time being another brown workaday dress, but a newer one without scorch holes from hearth sparks and with a touch of lace at the wrists and throat. Eager to make a good impression on the great maestro, I carefully brushed my thick chestnut hair into its snood and put a dab of lavender water on my handkerchief; in my pocket I carried my notebook and a pencil. Who knew when I might need an authentic description of a great Italian musician for a story?

  “Louy, your face is a study, but you look splendid,” said Lizzie, coming down the stairs to meet me. “And you smell nice, too. Is that lavender water? Why, Louy, what is this about?”

  “A surprise,” I said. “You’ll have to wait and see. First, a little walk, if you don’t mind. Your warmest coat, dear.”

  “Must I be blindfolded? Is this to be another séance?”

  “Neither, thankfully. I have no desire to sit in the dark and play at ghosts, have you? I thought not. This will be much more pleasant.”

  Signor Massimo had rented a little house on Tremont Street just across from the Common, situated with a fine view of the greenery in the park, which seemed even lovelier that day with its adornment of snow and icicles. When his servant opened the door to us I very carefully said that the Alcott ladies were there for their appointment, and to prolong the surprise, did not yet mention Signor Massimo’s name. I was relishing every moment, anticipating the delight that would replace the puzzlement in my sister’s eyes.

  The maestro had taken the house furnished, for the settees and lace curtains and thick, dutiful carpets all seemed very Bostonian and not at all Roman. But he had added his own thrilling touches: little statues of Apollo Belvedere and Venus placed here and there where occasional sun might shine on their white marble; bunches of glass grapes wreathed about doorways; a good oil of Pompeii in the hall.

  We were shown to a little sitting room appointed with a cleverly carved table whose legs ended in satyrs’ bodies, a matching settee and four chairs, a carpet patterned with cherubs and grapevines (surely that was Roman rather than Bostonian!), and a chiseled and painted wooden rack filled with sheet music, which his visitors could pick up and read as if they were newspapers!

  But Lizzie was far too nervous to read. She sat stiffly in a chair, hands folded in her lap, feet flat on the floor. “Why are we here, Louy? What a strange place this is.”

  “Isn’t it grand?” I asked. “What is that smell, do you think? Garlic? How wonderful! I would love to taste some.”

  “Smells like plain onion to me,” said Lizzie. “But you haven’t said why we are here.”

  “Have you heard of Signor Massimo, Lizzie?” I forced nonchalance into my voice, but the suspense of this surprise was making my face feel warm. Would she be pleased?

  “Why, who hasn’t?” Lizzie said. “I’ve already inquired about tickets for his performances, but they are far too expensive. I should love to hear him play Liszt.” Her eyes grew dreamy; her shoulders relaxed a little as she imagined that inaccessible music.

  “You shall do better than hear him in a public hall,” I said. “You shall hear a private concert and then have lessons with him besides.”

  “Why, how is that possible, Louy? We are as poor as church mice. Not that I’m complaining, mind you. I have Marmee and Father and you and Abby and Anna and couldn’t want for much more than that. Perhaps a good piano someday.” Her voice trailed off with a little sigh.

  “We are poor as church mice, but much luckier! Look!” I held up the little scrap of paper with her name on it and told her about the purchase of the portfolio and the lottery, a lottery we had won, and now she would have lessons with Signor Massimo himself, on his own grand piano.

  “Oh, Louy!” Her eyes shone so I feared she would faint, and that would be difficult, as I had no salts with me. But Lizzie had a staunch heart; she did not swoon but only looked at me with joy and love and wonder, and in her gaze was the true meaning of Christmas.

  “The maestro is ready for the young lady,” said the same servant who had opened the door to us. He was tall and dressed in expensive livery, yet when he bowed Lizzie into the hall there was a friendly sparkle in his eye.

  “When shall I return for her?” I asked.

  “At four thirty,” said the servant in a beautifully accented voice. “And then you will both take a little supper with the maestro, if you please. The soprano, Maria Venturi, will join you as well.”

  “Oh, Louy!” Shy Lizzie clasped her hands with delight. “Maria Venturi!” The soprano was second only to Jenny Lind in fame; this was almost too much for me as well.

  “We accept with gratitude,” I managed to reply.

  I watched as the servant, with elegantly outstretched palm, led Lizzie down the hall. She was a small delicate girl dressed in blue next to that tall, powerful man dressed in brown. I saw, or was reminded, how fragile my sister was. A maid showed me to the door, and I was free, with nothing to do for an hour and a half but ramble through the Common and wonder if Lizzie was enjoying her music lesson.

  But pure enjoyment is not a gift to humans from the gods. Underneath my pleasure in Lizzie’s pleasure was a new worry. Signor Massimo had been invited to the séance circle and had not come, I remembered; had there been some ill will between him and Mrs. Percy? Why had I not thought of it before? The shock was such that it brought me to a complete standstill on the sidewalk as people poured around me like a river around a stone.

  Louisa, I told myself sternly, you have been too narrow in your thinking, considering only those who were at the séance, not those who disdained to come. But surely not? Mr. Crowell had spoken most warmly of Signor Massimo. But Mr. Crowell thinks only of musical talent, I thought, and does not consider other virtues or vices if the music be divine. Tomorrow I would have to begin all over again and see what could be discovered about Signor Massimo. I would say nothing to Lizzie. I wished, then, that I had waited for my sister in the sitting room.

  Too late. Distracted and newly unhappy—how fleeting is joy!—I decided to visit a tea shop on Avery Street, two blocks from Signor Massimo’s house, and wait there till it was time to go back for Lizzie. I would use the hour to make notes about the artwork in Signor’s house.

  The usually quiet tea shop was doing a thriving business that afternoon, and after I found one little table in the back and was served tea and a plate of pastries, I realized why. They had a new pastry cook, and the usually heavy, lardy cakes had been replaced by ones light and tender as angel’s breath. Matrons, children, men of affairs in their top hats and capes, all stood or sat in groups gobbling with pl
easure.

  Mrs. O’Connor? I wondered. Is it possible? But the muffins had candied orange peel in them, and that was one of the Irishwoman’s trademark recipes. I was correct. No sooner had I finished my second raisin bun than I saw that friendly and gifted cook waving at me over the little counter that separated the glass case from the table area.

  “Louisa!” she called. “Miss Alcott! A word! How lucky you came. How did you know to find me?” she asked, when I had risen from my chair to struggle through the crowd and meet her at the counter.

  “I didn’t. I was just walking in the area.” An arm rose free from the throng of customers behind me and almost knocked my hat off before it disappeared back into the fidgeting mass. I clutched my hat and reticule.

  “Well. You do have a four-leaf clover in your pocket, then, for I was just about to send a message to you, but I’ve been so busy I couldn’t find time to pick up a pencil. I know where that Chinese woman is cooking, or at least how you might find her. Do you like the lemon cake? I’ve put in some ginger as well.”

  “It’s a dream,” I shouted over the clamoring customers, who were ordering cookies and cakes and pastries by the boxful. A little serving girl behind the counter, trying to keep up with the orders, was panting from exertion. “But tell me about Meh-ki! How did you find her?”

  “Two pounds of poppy-seed roll,” shouted a man behind me, tired of waiting his turn with the counter girl.

  “Here now, do I look like a cash register?” Mrs. O’Connor shouted back. “Give your order to the girl over there. Like this,” she said, leaning in my direction. “I’m cooking a Christmas dinner for Mrs. Simon on Boylston—you know the house, the one with the little trees in front trimmed to look like spirals and such? Imagine, so much money you can pay to barber a tree.”

  “Meh-ki,” I reminded her.

  “Meh-ki. And while I was at Mrs. Simon’s, getting the menu from her, I saw that gent you told me about, that Mr. Barnum. He’s a friend of the family, I think, been invited for the dinner, but he said he couldn’t make it. Asked me if I’d ever done my cooking before a crowd, said it might draw people to see a soufflé done up.”