The Typewriter Girl

by J. L. Jarvis

  “Benjamin?”

  Chapter 18

  “What’s that?” said Mrs. Hall, looking up as she came into the shed and set down a bushel basket.

  Emma was trembling and pale, still reading from last Sunday’s newspaper. Mrs. Hall joined her, and watched her with concern. Emma read it again, then once more, each time daring a little bit more to believe that she had not imagined it. Mrs. Hall took the paper from Emma’s clutched hands and led her to a bench to sit down.

  Emma’s face was blanched. “He was here.”

  Mrs. Hall glanced up from the paper, which she was still reading.

  “I saw him.”

  Mrs. Hall reread the article. “Today.” She looked at Emma, more urgently. “It’s happening now.”

  Emma could not absorb it. Benjamin is alive.”

  “This meeting. It’s just about starting. You could see him today.”

  “I did see him. I’m sure of it now.”

  Mrs. Hall gripped Emma’s shoulders. “You’ve got to go to him. See him and talk to him. He might have come looking for you.”

  “Then why didn’t he find me? I was here.” But she knew the answer before she was finished. “Because Emily Stone is here, not Emma Farlowe.”

  “Go to him. Tell him what’s happened. Let him see that you’re all right.”

  Emma was too stunned to think clearly. Thoughts flew through her mind. She imagined him standing before her, so closely that she could touch him and talk to him. How clearly she still could recall how it once felt to be in his presence. She longed to see him and hear his voice once again. “But how can I?”

  “How can you not?”

  “Mrs. Hall, look around us. I can’t just go out for a stroll across town to go see him. I can’t let him know that I’m here. He won’t want a lunatic wife.”

  “Talk to him. Give him a chance to decide that,” Mrs. Hall urged.

  “Maybe I could send a message somehow.”

  “There’s no time. He’s going to be speaking today. After that, he’ll be leaving soon. A message or letter could sit in his mailbox for months.”

  Emma’s hope gave way to despair.

  Mrs. Hall held Emma’s shoulders. “Emma, you can get out.”

  “In time, perhaps.”

  “There’s no time.”

  Emma said, “I could ask one of the nurses to go there and give him a message.”

  Mrs. Hall frowned, knowing what a waste of time that would be. She looked down for a moment to think. “The Buffalo Club. It’s been years since I’ve been outside these walls. But Delaware Avenue should be easy to find. If not, you could ask someone. It’ll be a good walk, but once you’re on Delaware, it should be a straight shot to the club.” She stood and took hold of her hand. “Come with me.”

  Emma followed obediently. Beyond a thick clump of trees, shrubs lined the wall that separated the grounds from the rest of the world.

  “If you climb up this tree, you can hang onto the branches and follow that limb to the top of the wall. From there, it’s a short drop down and you’re outside the grounds.”

  “But I couldn’t.”

  “It’s the only way I can think of. You’re young and limber. I’ll give you a leg up.”

  Emma stared while the idea settled. “Do you think that I should?”

  “I know that you should.”

  “But they’ll miss me.”

  “I’ll cover for you. They trust me. Don’t worry.”

  “But what if—”

  “Look at me, Emma. You need to do this.”

  Emma let the idea sink in while she tried to find courage.

  “Mrs. Hall, if you knew this was here, why haven’t you gone?”

  “I used to think about it.” With a twinkle, she said, “Can you imagine me climbing that tree? Besides, where would I go?”

  “You don’t belong here any more than I.”

  “My life is here now, but not yours, Emma. Your life is out there. Go and get it back now.”

  Emma hesitated, nearly frozen with fear. On an impulse, she whispered, “Okay.” She nodded, gaining more confidence with each moment.

  Mrs. Hall told her which way she thought Delaware Avenue was. “Once you get there, keep walking. It will take you a while, so walk quickly. Don’t waste time. Look for Trinity Church. You’ll see that first. Then across the street is The Buffalo Club.”

  Emma listened intently as excitement and hope took root.

  “By the time you get there, you won’t have much time. You’ll have to head back almost immediately. I’ll wait near the wall with some rope, if I can find some, or some sheets tied together. Don’t worry. I’ll get you back over.”

  She stopped and looked into her eyes. “Emma, you don’t have to come back.”

  Emma did not know what to do with that thought. Freedom was something she both wanted and feared.

  “Decide while you walk, but walk quickly.”

  Emma was stricken with last minute panic.

  Mrs. Hall urged her on. “If you’re going, you’ve got to go now.”

  With a confident nod, she boosted Emma up into the tree, where she made her way out on the limb to the edge of the wall. She waited a long time for the walk to be clear of visitors. Her foot slipped as a visiting family passed by underneath. The branch moved and made the leaves rustle. A little girl looked up and saw her. Emma smiled nervously at her.

  “Mommy, I saw an angel.”

  “That’s nice, honey,” said the woman, who continued to talk to her husband.

  The little girl looked up into the tree, her mouth gaping, while her parents tugged their daughter along.

  Emma’s chest thumped as she placed one knee then the other on the top of the fence post. She scraped her knee climbing awkwardly down, then she dropped to the grass between the wall and the walk. She stepped onto the sidewalk and set off down the street toward Delaware Avenue and The Buffalo Club.

  Emma walked for over an hour in her ill-fitting shoes, which were not the nice shoes Benjamin had bought her but a pair issued to her by the hospital, along with the dress she was wearing. For the sake of the visitors, patients were given nicer clothing to wear than the torn and patched garments they wore every day. But the nice clothes Emma had worn upon her arrival were gone. She had not seen them since.

  Delaware was a grand avenue with one mansion after another. People in lavish attire walked and rode by. When they bothered to look, they made Emma aware of how pitiable she must appear. Her clothing was shoddy. Her hair was not beautifully fashioned, but simply combed and twisted up into a knot. But Benjamin would not mind. She could not wait to see him and to have him see her. No matter how plain her appearance, he would look at her and make her feel as though she belonged with him, wherever he was. But would he feel the same after what she had done to him? How would he look at her now? How could his feelings not have changed? But he had once loved her. She had to believe that he still loved her now. Somehow, they would get through this.

  She quickened her pace. After walking for so long, she began to worry that she might have gone the wrong way, but at last she spotted Trinity Church, with its beautiful windows of stained glass. Across the street from the church was a grand home. No longer a residence, it now housed The Buffalo Club, where she would find Benjamin.

  Her heart beat fast. He was close. Emma walked through the wide open wrought iron gate to the door. A uniformed man of considerable bulk blocked her way. She politely insisted that she needed to enter, but the doorman stretched out an arm to keep her from passing.

  “Please, I need to see Mr. Benjamin Stark.”

  The doorman looked down at her beggarly appearance. “Well I don’t think he needs to see you.”

  “Please. I know he is here at a meeting.”

  “You do? Then you know that you’re not invited. Now go on.”

  “But he knows me. He’ll want to see me.”

  “Sure, Cinderella. Now don’t make me get the police.” Emma took a
step forward. The doorman grabbed hold of her arms and pulled her out the door and past the entrance gate. “Don’t get any ideas about coming back, either.”

  Another doorman came out. “Need some help, Stan?”

  “No, I can handle it.” He left her outside the gate, and went back to the door. “It’s just some girl, thought she could get in. Must be crazy. Coming here looking like that?”

  Emma stood outside the gate. The words rang in her ears. She looked down and smoothed out her dowdy dress. It was frayed and the fabric was faded. Her shoes were cracked and the toes turned up at the ends. Between the scuffs and dried mud, the original black was no longer there to be seen.

  Just some crazy girl? Was she crazy? Emma wished that the ground would just open and take her, but instead it left her there outside the gate. All the way here she had thought about seeing him, and the joy of once more looking at the man she thought she had lost. She had imagined the feel of him holding her, taking her home. Those were grandiose dreams. To imagine that he would look up from his table of powerful friends and be glad to see her standing there was a delusion. She looked down at her clothing. She would only disgrace him.

  “Hey! You still here? Did you hear what I said? Get out of here! Now!”

  The doorman was on his way down the walk. Emma looked back through her tears and scurried away from him. Crossing the street, she ran into the path of a carriage, and nearly got trampled by horses. They reared up and she ran out of the way while the driver’s yell rang in her ears. Emma turned from him and saw a wagon heading her way. She darted toward the church, barely making it safely to the side of the road. She ran up the church steps and cowered outside the large arched wooden doorway. Across the street, the doorman turned and went into the building. One of the large double doors of the church was open. Emma walked in, just hoping for some place to sit for a while, to rest. Her legs ached from walking so far, and her heart was no better. Warm light filled the room with colors from the glorious stained glass windows, now brilliantly lit by the sun. All the glass pictures went blurry and ran. Hot tears spilled down her cheeks.

  She must have been crazy, just like they said. What made her believe she could come here and see him? She had nearly killed the one person she loved, and could not even remember what had happened. She woke up, and the deed had been done. What made her think she could walk back into his life? If he were fool enough to take her back, would it be out of love or some odd sense of obligation? Either way, she would only risk hurting him as she had before, or even worse. How could she have thought this was possible? She’d been selfish and weak. No matter how much she loved him, she was poison to Benjamin Stark.

  Emma heard something. From across the street, fragments of voices and laughter came to her, too distant to make out more than vague sounds. She hid in the shadows and watched men emerge from The Buffalo Club. Several men came out and went on their way, walking down the street or riding off in waiting carriages which blocked her view. Was one of them Benjamin? The last of the carriages pulled away, and the last of the men walked down the street, out of view. It was quiet. Emma slid down the wall and sat curled up behind the large door.

  “You don’t have to come back,” she could hear Mrs. Hall saying.

  But where would she go? If she managed to make her way home, they would only send her back to the asylum. In a few hours, it would be dark. She had no place to sleep, and no food. She had no money, no job, nowhere to go until she got one. What would she do until then—or even until tomorrow?

  Emma’s spark of hope fizzled. Life with Benjamin was a faraway dream that could never have been. And now here she was, all alone. How long could she last on the street, with no home? Would she beg? What if that was not enough? What would she do then? Emma knew what women did then. At that moment, she knew she would have to go back to her room in the asylum. It would be her home now. It was all that she had.

  Then she heard his voice. Emma looked through the vertical crack between the door’s hinges and saw him. He was on his way down the walk from The Buffalo Club with Fletcher Van Elden beside him. They stopped at the sidewalk. Emma’s heart lurched. He was looking toward her. She shrank back into the shadows. No, he was looking up higher, at the church and the stained glass windows. Fletcher said something and nodded toward the church. They both waited for traffic to clear and then crossed the street. They were heading her way.

  Chapter 19

  Emma panicked. She wanted to see him, but she’d been in the asylum so long. She was not the same Emma he’d loved. She’d wait until he was near, until she had more courage. Emma hid in the small space behind the large open door, by the wall. She watched through the gap between the hinges. The two men were coming this way. Emma stood behind the door, poised to step out to see him or run if she lost heart. They were coming inside. Her heart pounded so, that she thought it might break from the nearness of him. How easy it would be to reach out her hand. She could touch him. She pressed her back to the wall. Fletcher prattled on about stained glass, throwing out names like Tiffany and La Farge and things Emma did not hear after her ears began ringing. Her head swam. The air was so thick. She leaned close to the gap by the hinges and breathed the fresh air in and out until her vision cleared and her body stopped trembling.

  Then Benjamin spoke. The sound of his voice breathed fresh air into her soul.

  “I’m sorry. I’m sure that it’s beautiful, but...”

  “Your mind is elsewhere,” said Fletcher.

  Benjamin stopped at the threshold. His shoulder was inches from her. She leaned close to the hinges and inhaled his scent.

  “I’m sorry. It’s—”

  “The Harriman Expedition.”

  “No. Emma.”

  They walked on inside. Emma’s heart swelled with love until it ached.

  They were inside, nearing the altar. Emma mustered the courage to step out to follow them. As soon as she did, tight hands clamped her arms and two men pulled her outside to the wagon they brought from the asylum. Emma cried out, but Benjamin wouldn’t have known it was she. If he heard the noise, it was not enough to make him want to come out to see who it was. She could imagine Fletcher making some snide remark, at which Benjamin would chuckle.

  On the ride back to the asylum, Emma wondered how they had found her so quickly. Then she remembered the doorman. He must have seen her go into the church.

  Emma was being escorted to a new room in a more secure ward, when Dr. Whitfield came looking for her. He had heard about her escape, and had come to look into the matter himself. After some discussion beyond Emma’s earshot, the doctor prevailed. She was moved back to her old room.

  Emma was relieved to hear later that Mrs. Hall had not gotten in trouble. She was in the process of fashioning a ladder from branches and gardening stakes when she heard the commotion. She hid the ladder and knew soon after that Emma would not be needing it today.

  That night, Emma lay in her bed and the anguish would not be stifled any longer. She wept, and when tears were not enough, she cried out, screaming into her mattress to muffle the deep, mournful bellowing cry. A nurse checked on her and came in some time later with a hypodermic syringe.

  “Too much excitement today,” the nurse said.

  Not long after, her placated grief hovered in mist, not too far out of reach, simply waiting.

  Her first thought when she woke the next morning was of Benjamin, and the joy of knowing that he was alive. But her heart sank as she thought of how he was still lost to her. She should have found solace in knowing that he was much more than a memory now. He lived and he breathed, but she could not feel his heart or his warm breath upon her. Until yesterday, grief had settled into a place quiet and deep, but now he was alive and close to the surface. This was a different kind of grief. This was longing and it was hopeless. But she had seen him. It was a memory to which she would cling.

  Emma emptied the watering can and started back to the shed to refill it. She stopped in the place where she
had first seen him yesterday. Had it been just a day since she’d thought he was a ghost? Emma leaned her shoulder against the oak tree and wished him back here again.

  She recognized the familiar padding of footsteps without looking to see who it was. She told Mrs. Hall all that had happened.

  “You love him still.”

  Emma’s answering look left no doubt as to the answer.

  “Well then, we must find a way to get word to him,” said Mrs. Hall.

  Emma shook her head gently. “I’m beginning to think it would only hurt more.”

  “But you’ve got to try. You know that you must.”

  “He would want to help me, but only because he is a good person. He would feel a sense of duty toward me. But I don’t want him that way. It would break my heart.”

  “So what if he did take you back out of obligation? In time, his old feelings would return.”

  “Perhaps, but they might not. In the meanwhile, I’ve got to take care of myself.”

  “You can do that and be with him.”

  “What if I cause him more pain?”

  “I can’t imagine it could be worse than thinking he’s lost you these months.”

  “It’s too late to go back where we were. He’s alive, and he’s well. I must learn to be content with that.”

  Fletcher and Benjamin got off the train at the Clifton Point depot. They were well on their way to the livery stable, when Fletcher caught sight of Henrietta on the opposite side of the street. She had spotted them first and ducked into a shop to avoid them.

  Benjamin spotted her, too. “I’m afraid that was my fault.”

  “I’m sorry. What?” replied Fletcher, jarred from his thoughts.