The Other Alcott

by Elise Hooper

  He stood up straighter. “Wonderful, shall I call on you this Saturday?”

  “I’ll need to see what my sister has planned. I can send you a note about getting an outing on the calendar.”

  His smile fell slightly, but he nodded, tipped his hat, and politely took his leave.

  She closed the oversized wooden door behind her with relief and leaned against it before mounting the stairs. “I’d better hope my art is better than my read of men,” she said to herself, shaking her head in disbelief.

  Upstairs she found Louisa waiting up for her. “I’m done with my book. Let’s go home.” Louisa started to list out all of the tasks they needed to complete before leaving, but stopped when she got a good look at her sister’s expression. “What’s wrong?”

  Depleted by the agonies of the day, May simply leaned an arm out to the doorway of her bedroom and turned to Louisa. “Dash it all, I barely know where to start.” She decided not to mention anything of the Crownovers using her for access to her sister. That indignity was all too painful. “Suffice it to say, nothing indecorous was ever going to happen between Crownover and me.”

  Louisa stared at her sister in bewilderment.

  “It appears he’s drawn to strapping Roman bucks.”

  Louisa’s eyes widened, and she clapped her hand over her mouth in surprise, before bursting out in laughter. “Oh, goodness. Dare I even ask how you discovered this?”

  “Please, don’t.” May pulled a couple of pins from her hair. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m ready to retire—my emotional resources are exhausted for the day.”

  “I can imagine.”

  But before Louisa turned to walk away, May reached for her sister and hugged her close, resting her chin against her sister’s dark hair and inhaling the familiar scent of lavender and powder.

  “Oh, dearest girl,” said Louisa from their embrace. “You’ll be all right?”

  May let go of her sister and put her hands on her hips. “Of course. It’ll take more than a few shenanigans to bring me to my knees, but I’m ready to return home now. Good night.”

  Chapter 17

  Mama, we’re hungry.” Freddy looked up from the game of tin soldiers he played with his brother. Anna turned her head from the window, and her gaze wandered along the paintings on the walls and to the small vase of bluebells on top of the piano, before settling on her boys with an empty expression. They looked up at their mother expectantly and reminded May of baby rabbits with bright eyes and postures tensed, as if on the verge of lifting their noses to test the wind for predators. Anna said nothing.

  May fixed a smile at her nephews. “Anna, stay where you are. I’ll make them some supper. Boys, what would you like? Snail sandwiches? Perhaps a worm pie?”

  They giggled. May’s heart ached as she watched their thin knobby shoulders rise and fall as they bent toward each other and whispered.

  She stood from patching a pair of Freddy’s pants on the sofa and bent over to kiss Anna’s dry cheek on her way to the kitchen. As May drew back, Anna looked up at her in surprise. Her once dark hair was now streaked with gray. Gaunt and distracted, sadness had settled over Anna like a shroud since John’s death. May hovered over her sister and picked up the abandoned embroidery resting on Anna’s lap. “This is pretty. I’ll frame it when you’re done. You’ve always had such a good eye for sewing.”

  “It’s not much.”

  “But it is. You must keep with it.” May stood up, turned to the boys, and clapped her hands. “Come on, fellas. Let’s get some food in those bellies of yours.”

  Freddy and Johnny scurried ahead of her into the kitchen, and the smell of the baked beans May had started cooking earlier in the day wafted over them.

  “Auntie May, did you put extra brown sugar in the pot?”

  “Don’t I always?”

  Both boys looked up at her with bright grins and took seats on the stools next to the window. Johnny wore unmatched socks. Freddy’s vest was buttoned unevenly.

  “Freddy, come here, let me fix the buttons on your vest. See how they’re crooked?”

  The boy shrugged. “No one seems to mind.”

  “Well, I mind. You’ve got to look sharp, my handsome little man.”

  “Thanks, Auntie May. I’m so happy you’re home.”

  May bit the inside of her cheek to keep a lump from rising in her throat. “So am I.”

  Their little voices nattered on while May turned and sliced off some hunks of brown crusty bread. She had arrived back in Concord to find the town fully ripened with summer. Strawberries the size of May’s thumb hung off bushes at the side of the road. The cucumber vines dragged to the ground under the heft of gigantic vegetables. Lush greenery swathed the yard. Yet in the midst of all of this bounty, her family appeared diminished and forlorn.

  “Here you go.” May placed steaming bowls of beans in front of her nephews before putting a plate of bread on the table. Each boy grabbed a slice of bread and dipped it into their beans.

  “This is my favorite meal,” Johnny said, his mouth full of food.

  May held back from scolding him about his manners. “What about my carrot muffins? Last week you said those were your favorites.”

  “I like those, too. Can I pull more carrots from Grandfather’s garden so you can make more?”

  “Yes, after you’ve eaten.” May crossed her arms and leaned back against the wall, watching the boys inhale their food. Anna never used to forget to make meals. Since arriving home six weeks ago, May barely had time for her art, so consuming were the household tasks that filled her days. After John’s death, Anna had sold the house in Maplewood and moved back in with Marmee and Father. The household, expanded with two young boys, appeared to overwhelm Marmee. Her gait was halting and even the smallest household tasks created struggles for her. The only family member who appeared unaffected by grief was Father. If anything, he became sprier and more productive than ever. Clouds of white hair circled his head, immune to the forces of gravity. Louisa’s success was feeding his own.

  When Father and Mr. Niles had met Louisa and May at the docks in Boston, they rode in a buggy garnished with a sign on top advertising Little Men. The sisters, weary and reeling from another rough Atlantic crossing, had been besieged by fans seeking signatures of the famous authoress. Mr. Niles had fished them out of the crowd threatening to drown them and deposited the sisters on the back seat of the buggy; all the while, Father had waved and handed out pamphlets promoting his next string of lectures throughout Massachusetts.

  Freddy’s spoon clattered against the wooden table. “All done. Now can we go outside?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can I bring a jar outside? I’m going to look for treasures.” Johnny stood up next to his brother.

  “Sure, here you go.” May reached for one up off a high shelf and handed it over to Johnny. “Just be careful not to smash it.”

  “We will.” The boys ran outside, knocking over one of the stools in their haste. Rather than telling them to slow down and pick up the stool, May simply watched them go.

  LATER THAT EVENING, May left the kitchen through the back door and walked out into the warm evening. Streaks of movement flickered through the stalks of corn standing tall in one corner of the garden, and laughter floated through the air. Like a drop of ink spilled into water, dusk seeped across the orchard, darkening the air and reducing all of the trees and shrubbery into simple, flat shapes.

  “Boys, come on in and get ready for bed. Grandmother is waiting to read to you both.” She could hear the boys hushing each other into silence and the pattering of their footsteps stopped. “Oh, do you plan to hide from me? I’ll find you.” May raised up her arms and swooped into the garden as if she were a great owl, chasing them. The boys shrieked and pulled away from her outstretched hands, giggling as they jumped to their feet and tore toward the back door, vanishing into the house. She sighed, her enthusiasm feigned. Although she acted lively with her family, in reality, everything she had be
en working toward in Europe seemed to be drifting away from her. Here, the oak trees hemmed her in, the dust of summer weighed on her, and the repetitiveness of the days made her want to scream. Time stretched before her in an endless, predictable path of banal routines—preparing and cooking meals, cleaning up the same daily disorder of the house, and discussing the weather with neighbors.

  Ahead of her in the dark yard, something glimmered on the ground, and May walked over to see Johnny’s jar lying in the grass, abandoned. She picked it up and a croak echoed out from the glass. Something landed on her arm, causing her to shriek. A brown frog perched on her forearm, its little chest heaving in and out rapidly. She held her arm still and stooped over. The small frog leapt off her arm and hopped away across the yard into the darkness. “Go frog, go,” May said, quietly.

  IN EARLY AUGUST, Alice Bartol visited May on her way up to a friend’s summerhouse in New Hampshire. May needed the visit desperately. The oppressive summer heat, her family packed under one roof—she felt on the verge of madness.

  Alice said, “I find sketching trees to be terribly hard. It’s just so difficult to get the lines of all of the branches to look natural and graceful.”

  “It is.”

  “I’ve missed you this summer. I’ve been visiting lots of friends from Dr. Rimmer’s class. Sarah Whitman and I traveled up the coast to visit Elizabeth Boott—do you remember her? She’s quite a beauty. Oh, wait, she wasn’t in Dr. Rimmer’s class when you were there. She joined while you were in Europe.”

  Alice stopped talking when she noticed May’s weary expression. “It’s been pretty miserable here, hasn’t it?”

  “Yes, quite grim.”

  “I’m sorry. Poor Anna. Her boys are darling.”

  “Aren’t they? It’s been heartbreaking to see her brought so low.”

  “How’s Louisa?”

  May groaned.

  “That bad?”

  “You’d think being the top-selling author in the country would put her in a fine mood, but it doesn’t.”

  The previous day, Louisa had accused May of losing a mailbag filled with important correspondence. She had dragged May up to her bedroom and pointed an ink-stained index finger at the mailbags lined against the wall. “When Father and I picked them up from the post office, there were eight bags. Now there are seven. See?”

  She’d continued to rail about the missing mail while May searched the house, high and low. Father eventually located it in the barn—the bag was simply overlooked when they were all brought inside. But its recovery had done nothing to placate Louisa. “You’re just jealous of all my success!” Louisa had stormed, slamming her bedroom door on May.

  The worse part was that Louisa was correct; May did envy her sister. Cards with requests for speaking engagements and interviews littered the dining room table. Each day visitors arrived at Orchard House looking for the writer. May watched her sister’s star rise with a sinking feeling of being left behind. Louisa planned to move back to Boston at the end of August, and the date couldn’t arrive soon enough, as far as May was concerned.

  Alice bent over her sketchbook to draw in some small lichen patches on the tree trunk. “You two make me glad I’m an only child. But listen, I’ve been looking forward to telling you some good news. There’s this new fellow in town, William Morris Hunt. He spent years in France studying under Millet and Couture and runs a thriving portraiture business in the city. Beginning in the fall, he’s offering art classes to women.”

  May looked up from her sketch pad.

  “He’s taking Boston by storm. We must get into his class,” Alice said.

  “What do we need to do?”

  “Well, I won’t lie—the whole process sounds rather intimidating. On September fifth, we must drop off ten sketches by nine o’clock and wait for our work to be reviewed. If he likes what he sees, we’ll be called in for a brief interview and learn if we’ve been accepted.”

  “Only sketches? No watercolors?”

  “Only sketches. He wants everyone to demonstrate exceptional drawing skills.”

  “My drawing skills have improved . . . but still,” May said, holding up her worn eraser, “I have to use this more often than I ought to.”

  “I know. Me, too.”

  “But if we don’t get in, we can always go back to Dr. Rimmer.”

  “Well, there’s the rub: we can’t. Rimmer left for New York City last spring and took a teaching job down there.”

  “So, this Mr. Hunt is the biggest toad in the puddle.” May tapped her lip with her eraser.

  “He’s the only toad in the puddle.”

  May stood and smoothed out her skirt as she pondered preparing for her audition with Mr. Hunt. She winced, thinking about how she would need to move back to Boston if she got into this class.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yes,” May said. She couldn’t let a few arguments with Louisa get in the way of advancing her art; she would have to make amends with her sister. “Well then, we must impress this man with everything we’ve got.”

  A WEEK LATER, May walked into the barn looking for nails to hang up some sketches on her bedroom wall, and she encountered Rosa, standing in her stall. The horse looked at May balefully. “I know you want a good long ride, old girl. Sorry, I’ll get you out there soon.” She rubbed her fingers over the horse’s bristly nose, feeling the warm exhalations on the palm of her hand, before continuing her search for nails.

  Since Alice’s visit, May’s bedroom walls had become covered with sketches while she considered what to put in her portfolio for Mr. Hunt. She would awaken at night, light her lamp, and sit on the floor with her work spread out around her. Her eyes burned from the lack of sleep, and she could barely stomach anything to eat. After all of the effort and expense put toward her artistic training, May could not bear to consider how she would survive the shame of being denied entry to Mr. Hunt’s class. How would she be able to live with herself if she failed? But another question niggled at her: What would she do if she got in?

  Chapter 18

  Your dress is terribly impractical for this weather. You’ll arrive looking like a drowned cat,” Louisa said. Rain sprayed at the windows of Louisa’s Allston Street boardinghouse room where May had spent the night before her interview with Mr. Hunt.

  “Yes, but wearing blue seems to bring me luck, so I shall stick with it and hope for the best. Maybe it will stop raining.”

  From her writing desk, Louisa sighed. “Your optimism will be the death of you. There”—she pointed at her purse—“take some money so you can take a carriage. And take my black umbrella.”

  May didn’t even attempt to argue. The muddy streets left the morning’s traffic in a snarl. She fretted about being late the entire time she sat in the hackney with her portfolio clasped in front of her. The cab’s wheel got stuck in a pothole and pitched her forward. Her portfolio flew from her fingers and fell to the floor. She scrambled to pick it up and then wiped the sludge off the black leather sides. Once she was assured her work was undamaged, she closed her eyes and hugged it to her.

  The night before, she had pulled up a chair to Louisa’s writing desk. “If I’m granted permission to join Hunt’s class, I’m going to move back into the city.”

  Louisa had dipped her pen into the inkwell and paused to look at May. “Now that we’re back from Europe, you’re in charge of caring for the family. I must keep writing.”

  Over the summer, Louisa had installed a new furnace to keep their Marmee’s rheumatism at bay, so May felt emboldened. “What about hiring a cook and a housekeeper to help back at the house?”

  Louisa put down her pen, crossed her arms, and frowned in response.

  “What good is having money if you can’t spend it on making life more enjoyable?” May asked.

  “I hate spending my hard-earned money on stuff like that.”

  “Stuff like what? Useful stuff? Come on, we’ll both be swaybacked old mares soon if we keep trying to do everythin
g. Don’t worry. I’ll go out to Concord every few days.”

  “I hate the idea of servants’ gossip. Soon the Boston Globe will be carrying stories about what I like to eat for dinner and what’s in my dresser drawers. I can only trust family. You must do it.”

  “I cannot do everything.”

  “You mean you won’t do everything.” Glowering, Louisa pressed her palm to her temple. “I suppose we can try the arrangement. But if the help breathes a word about me—anything about me—to the press, I’ll hold you responsible.”

  May nodded her head wearily. Ever since they were in Switzerland and some of Louisa’s discarded correspondence with her publisher led to some newspapers publishing accounts of her earnings, she had become obsessive about burning her letters. “I’ll also speak to Father about filing his letters away instead of leaving them all over his desk.”

  Louisa gave an assenting grumble. “And where are you going to live?”

  “I’m looking into taking a room in your old boardinghouse on Beacon Street.”

  “Nonsense, you will live here with me.”

  “But I’ve—”

  “You have no income to speak of. You’ll live with me.” Louisa had bent back over her writing to indicate the discussion was over. May knew her sister to be correct; May didn’t have the means to be independent. Not yet, at least.

  The carriage finally rattled to a stop in front of Mr. Hunt’s Mercantile Building studio on Summer Street. Inside, the hallways were crowded with anxious women. She turned in her portfolio and wormed her way out through the sea of bodies to find a place next to Alice for the long wait. May knit to occupy her hands, but it did little to still the anxiety slithering around inside her mind. The hands on the clock on the wall slowly ticked forward. One by one, names were called. Some exited Hunt’s studio looking pleased; many left blinking back tears.

  May’s stomach dropped when Alice emerged from the interview looking gleeful. What if she failed?

  How much more time passed? One minute? Ten? An hour? A year?