by Rosalyn Eves
She turns to me, her eyes blazing. “Is my art only a hobby as well? All that stuff about passions and God-given gifts—did you mean that? Or was that only a convenient lie? You seem practiced at them.” She takes a long, steadying breath. “You know what? I’d rather you were a liar. Because if you’re not a liar, you’re a hypocrite, telling everyone what they want to hear and meaning none of it.”
I flinch. It wasn’t just my dream I was dismissing by trying to mollify her parents, it was Alice’s as well. “No, I—you don’t know what it’s like, being poor,” I say, my voice low, painfully conscious of her parents and Will listening in shocked silence. “You have opportunities I can only dream about. This may be my only chance to learn from Maria Mitchell. You’ll have other chances to paint, even to study painting if you want.”
“What do you know about my chances, my opportunities? You have no idea what it’s like to be a black woman and an artist. To have even a hope of studying in Pennsylvania, let alone France, I have to be perfect.” She drops her face to her hands. “And I’m so damned tired of being perfect.”
She doesn’t look angry anymore, just defeated, and somehow that’s even worse.
Louisa Stevens says, faintly, “Don’t swear, Alice.”
“Alice, I’m so sorry—” I start.
“Don’t,” she says. “You think it’s all right to dismiss me because I have money, but you have no trouble taking advantage of our wealth and connections when it suits you. I thought you were better than that, Elizabeth.”
Shame creeps up my throat, burning across my face.
Will says, “Don’t make such an issue of this, Alice. It’s just a misunderstanding—it doesn’t matter. Just plan another time to work on your picture.”
“It doesn’t matter?” Alice shoves her chair away from the table. “Maybe not to you. But then, nothing much matters to you, does it? Certainly not my comfort or interests. You’re as bad as Elizabeth. Worse, maybe, because at least she has the guts to go after what she wants, even if she has to lie to do so. But you? You’re too cowardly to confront Papa about what you really want from your life.”
Mr. Stevens frowns at his son. “Will?”
But Will ignores him. He glares at his sister. “Too cowardly? It wasn’t cowardice that faced that elk or took me out on the trestle—” He stops, appalled.
The anger sloughs away from Alice’s face, and she casts a quick, almost frightened look at her father.
I should leave. Alice doesn’t want me here, and the others can’t want me to witness the unveiling of family secrets. But I cannot seem to make myself move.
Mr. Stevens looks at Will. “The trestle? Did you cross that trestle bridge between Rawlins and Laramie on foot?” His voice is low and calm, without inflection, yet somehow menacing for all that.
Will seems to shrink, his shoulders drawing up.
Mr. Stevens continues, his voice grim. “You don’t deny it. I must therefore conclude you did. Have you gone mad, son? We talked about this, how your travel to California was an opportunity for you to prove to me that you’ve outgrown your childish antics. And where was your sister during all of this? You left her alone, open to the insults of strangers?”
“I was fine, Papa,” Alice says, but he doesn’t seem to hear her.
“I was with her,” I say.
Mr. Stevens turns to me. “This is between me and my son. Please leave us.”
I unfreeze finally, and I flee up the stairs.
A dull, sick throbbing courses through me.
If I hadn’t pretended to be something I was not, if I hadn’t hurt Alice, she wouldn’t have lashed out at Will, and he wouldn’t have struck back so incautiously. I think of the happy, friendly family that accompanied me to the ball that first night in contrast to the tense, unhappy group I left tonight.
Please leave us.
You have no trouble taking advantage of our wealth and connections when it suits you.
I can’t stay here.
In the bedroom upstairs, I pile as much as I can into my carpetbag. I can’t do anything about my trunk, but perhaps Samuel will fetch it for me later.
Scribbling a note to leave on the dressing table, I thank the family (especially Alice) for their kindness. I hope Alice won’t burn the note before reading it. I leave a pile of coins next to it, everything I owe Alice and then some, all my earnings from the hotel. Alice’s accusations sting because there’s truth in them, but I did not set out to abuse her generosity.
Creeping down the back stairs, I let myself out the servants’ entrance and stand for a moment in the gathering dark. Overhead, Cygnus glimmers at me like an old friend. I find the smudge of the Messier 8 nebula, and then the North Star.
Steadied, I follow the North Star into town, to the Trans-Oceana.
I ask the desk clerk for a room, and he laughs at me. “Everything here’s booked solid through the eclipse. Even had a fellow offer to pay me to let him sleep on the billiard table.”
I thank him and turn away, with some vague idea of finding another hotel in town. The clerk calls after me, “You won’t find anything else. Everywhere is just as booked as we are.” I suppose it’s a good thing for the Trans-Oceana, but it’s pretty rotten for me.
I hesitate, balancing the merits of sleeping in the train station against disturbing Samuel at this hour.
Samuel wins out by a hair.
chapter twenty-one
Wednesday, July 24, 1878
Denver, Colorado
Five days until eclipse
At my knock, Samuel opens the door.
“Are you all right?” His glance takes in the bag at my side.
“I’m fine.” I step toward him, but he doesn’t move to let me in.
“If you’re not injured, then where were you for our sitting today? You hurt Alice, for no reason that I can see.”
My eyes start to sting, and I blink fiercely. I will not cry right now. “I know.” I explain about Miss Mitchell, how I tried to send a note, but it didn’t reach Alice. I gloss over the disastrous conversation. “I made everything worse by botching my explanation of where I’d been. The whole family is in an uproar now, and I can’t stay there. They must be wishing me in perdition.”
“Or at least in Utah,” Samuel agrees, the faintest trace of a smile tugging at his lips. “For some, that’s likely the same thing.”
A huge wave of relief washes over me. If Samuel can laugh, he’s not irredeemably angry at me.
“Can I come in?” I ask again. “I don’t have anywhere else to go, except the streets.”
“I hear they’re quite nice this time of year,” Samuel says, and my heart drops all the way to my toes before his face cracks. “Come on. My mother wouldn’t let me darken her door if she knew I’d let you sleep on the streets.” He opens the door wider and steps out of the way for me to enter.
“Just don’t tell my mother,” I say. “I think she’d rather have me sleep on the streets than in a man’s room, unmarried.”
Samuel looks at me, amusement crinkling his eyes. “What, are you afraid your mama will drag you to the altar?”
I blush and look away. That is precisely what I fear. Though I much prefer Samuel to Brother Yergensen. And at that thought, my blush deepens. I can’t let myself think this way. I remember Miss Mitchell’s words earlier, about the sacrifice required to study astronomy.
If I mean to take this study seriously, I can’t be thinking of marriage at all.
Samuel continues, much softer, “If you marry me, it will be of your own free will and choice, not because your mama makes you.”
“Are you asking me?” I try to make it a joke, but it doesn’t sound funny as I say it.
Even quieter, Samuel says, “Do you want me to?”
I don’t know how to answer that, so I turn away to face the room,
and that’s almost worse, because the single bed seems to dominate the space. What would it be like, to sleep next to Samuel all night, to share his warmth, to feel his breath on my cheek? My whole body seems to tighten at the thought, and my face heats.
“I’ll sleep on the floor,” Samuel and I both say in a rush, our words tangling together. We look at each other and laugh, breaking the tension of the moment.
Samuel wins the argument, though I’ll admit I do not fight too hard. The emotional whiplash of the last twenty-four hours has left me wrung out, and I’m glad enough to curl up in the comfort of the bed. It smells like Samuel, like soap and summer sunshine and wood dust and some indefinable boyishness. I like it far more than I ought to. Samuel beds down on the floor with a borrowed pillow and blanket, and while he drops off almost at once, I lie awake for a long time, listening to the gentle puff of his breath, wondering what it would be like to fall asleep to that sound every night of my life.
A line from Mary Somerville’s now sold book floats back to me. Each body is itself the centre of an attractive force extending indefinitely into space. Though she writes of gravity, I think the same might be true of human bodies. Even now, separated by the length of the bed, I can feel the pull of Samuel’s warmth.
You’re a fool, Elizabeth Bertelsen. If things go as I hope, I’ll spend my nights watching the stars, then falling asleep to the quiet of my own room. But even as I think this, my heart gives a traitorous pinched twist.
Why do I always seem to want more than I can have?
* * *
* * *
Ironically, given that I’m already in the Trans-Oceana, the following morning is the first time I’m late for my shift.
I wake in the darkened room, blinking at the ceiling with a sudden surge of terror at the unfamiliar shape and smell of the room. But then Samuel lets out a snore, and I remember where I am.
And where I’m supposed to be.
With a renewed surge of alarm, I throw back the bedclothes. I don’t have to change my dress, since I’ve slept in it, but I splash water from the basin onto my face and do my best to straighten my hair and clothes in the dark.
I let myself out of the room, and come face to face with Frances, who has already begun her shift.
We stare at each other. Her gaze flickers from my hair to my rumpled dress, and back to my face.
“It’s not what it looks like,” I say.
She only nods shortly and continues on her way. I slip downstairs for my instructions, my heart hammering madly.
All through my shift, I half wait to receive word from Alice, even while knowing that’s ridiculous. At first, because the time is far too early for Alice to be up, let alone alert enough to send a message. And then later, because why should Alice forgive me?
In the end, it’s not Alice that sends word, but Mrs. Segura.
* * *
* * *
Mrs. Segura waits for me in her office, a small, tidy room next to Mr. Davis’s. Her rounded face is grave as I enter. She indicates my trunk, filling one corner of the room. “This has come for you, Miss Bertelsen.”
My breath whooshes out in mingled relief and guilt. I was afraid Frances had gotten me in trouble. But it’s only the Stevenses returning my trunk.
I thank Mrs. Segura, but her expression does not change. “I’ve received a disturbing report that you spent the night in one of our customers’ rooms.”
I flush, my heart pounding again. So Frances did snitch on me. “Nothing happened. I needed a place to stay and my friend gave me one.”
She glances at my trunk, her frown deepening. “I understood you were staying with the Stevens family. Was I misinformed?”
“No, I was—there was a difficulty—” I break off, aware that I’m making things worse.
“The Stevens family is highly respected at this hotel,” Mrs. Segura says. “Given that you were seen coming from a guest’s room and you are no longer welcome at the Stevenses’ home, I’m afraid your services are no longer required.”
“Please,” I say. The position was nice when I had a secure place to stay—a way to maintain my self-respect. But it’s no longer nice, it’s necessary. I have no other resources to my name. “It was a misunderstanding.”
She shakes her head and folds her hands over her desk. “Nevertheless, we cannot be too careful of appearances. I bear you no ill will, and you can continue to stay with your friend”—her mouth twists a little at the word—“but you cannot work for us anymore.”
And just like that, I’m dismissed.
* * *
* * *
After lugging my trunk up to Samuel’s room, I spend the rest of the day in the library at the high school, not even stopping for lunch (which I can’t afford now anyway). I try to throw myself into my research—at least I have not yet disappointed Miss Mitchell—but I cannot seem to sustain my focus. My thoughts keep breaking up, worrying about what I am to do for funds, how I will get home. I suppose I could go to Mrs. Stevens and beg her to get my job back for me, but I don’t feel I have the right to ask for any more favors from Alice’s family.
And anyway, I’d rather bite off my own nose at the moment than beg.
Samuel buys me dinner that night, soup and bread in the hotel restaurant (the cheapest items on the menu). I tell Samuel about the corona drawing class, and he offers to come with me. I hesitate for a long moment. A part of me wants Samuel to come, wants the comfort of his familiar presence in a new setting, but I know I cannot do that. If I mean to follow this path, I can’t bring Samuel with me. Sooner, rather than later, I need to accustom myself to relying on my own resources.
“Surely you’d find it boring,” I say. “I promise I’ll be all right on my own.”
Samuel frowns. “Will you at least let me meet you at the end to walk you home?” He knows I mean to share his room again that night, though I haven’t told him yet that I’ve been fired. After everything else, I can’t bear his pity.
He reaches across the table and sets his hand on mine. And though I know—I know—I shouldn’t let him, I leave my hand in his. I touch a thousand things a day—cloth and wood and iron and glass—but nothing moves me like this. All the nerves in my skin are firing, sending heat signals to my brain. Even my toes feel some of the residual electricity.
Abruptly, I pull my hand away. “I’ll meet you at nine.”
I make my way back to the high school, climb the steps to the double doors, and look around the long, tiled hallway with classrooms on both sides. Miss Mitchell didn’t tell me what room the drawing class was to be held in, but voices echo from down the hall, so I head toward them, moving away from the library. I peer into a classroom with the door ajar, looking for anyone who looks as though they might belong to something as prestigious as the Chicago Observatory.
An older man, with graying beard, pale skin, and protruding belly, stands before a chalkboard. A collection of men and women of varying ages cluster in the desks in front of him. I take a seat near the windows. A few moments later, Miss Culbertson also enters the room and selects a chair near mine. I’m surprised: I didn’t think she liked me above half.
The older gentleman is indeed Professor Colbert of the Chicago Observatory, and he begins by welcoming us all and explaining the importance of what we are to accomplish. “We know so little about the corona, the aura of light that surrounds the sun. We don’t know for certain what it’s made of, or how it behaves, though we believe it is solar light reflected from meteors falling into the sun. Any observations we can gather during totality will be valuable. To add to those observations, our job tonight is to train you how to make accurate sketches of the corona.”
Our sketches should be made in pencil, upon a plain sheet of paper to be provided. The circle of the moon can be sketched beforehand, saving time for valuable observations, and we should position ourselves ten degrees sou
th of the west, to face the sun at totality. He makes assignments to everyone in the room, to sketch one-quarter of the corona. I wonder if he gives some of us the same assignment for comparison purposes—or because he expects some of us to fail.
“It’s best to have a partner with you, someone who can blindfold you before the eclipse so that your eyes are most sensitive to the dim light and you can best observe the corona and radiances. Be sure to have a lantern already lit: few people realize how dark it can become in the moments of totality.”
I glance sidelong at Miss Culbertson, who is taking precise notes in a small journal. I wonder if she would be willing to partner with me at Miss Mitchell’s observation site, or if she has other duties.
Professor Colbert continues, describing how we are to sketch the outline of the corona, including dotted lines where we can’t precisely see the shape of it. He finishes the lecture and invites us all to return the following night, where we’ll practice drawing the corona from photographs. A few students go to the front to ask Professor Colbert questions. I stand and head toward the door.
Miss Culbertson intercepts me and holds out her hand as if to shake mine. “Miss Bertelsen, I feel as though we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot. May we have a do-over? I’m Emma Culbertson, aspiring physician.”
I take her hand. “Elizabeth Bertelsen, aspiring astronomer.”
She falls into step beside me, asking questions about my home, my family. I find myself telling her about Monroe, about Mama and Hyrum and Rachel, and all my other siblings.
“You must miss them,” she says.
“Every day,” I answer. “But I’m glad to be here all the same.”
“How does your mama manage with so many?”
I smile. “With help.” That’s one of the great things about a small community like ours—even though much of the daily work falls on me, or on Emily now, there are always hands ready to help us should we stumble. “Even Aunt Olena would help, if we needed her.”
