by Anna Maclean
And so Sylvia was allowed into my attic workroom. When Sylvia and I were alone, and not working for the poor, for women abandoned by their husbands, or for children desperate to learn, she helped me be less serious and indulge my fancies, my whims, my creativity. Looking back, I am certain that Sylvia was something of an inspiration for me. But I often wondered how we could be frivolous—even silly—when there was so much injustice in the world. Was it that Sylvia and I valued each other not for the fancies and fantasies we indulged, but for what was most subtle in the other’s character, for that mysterious promise of what could be?
“What could be,” I repeated aloud.
“Another gorgeous fancy?” Sylvia asked. Seeing the look on my face, she said, “Are you thinking again of that letter? You must not let it discourage you. Your writing is marvelous and success will come.”
“Sylvia, you are a friend. Meanwhile I write my blood-and-thunders filled with moonlight in Rome, adulteresses with flashing black eyes, madwomen locked in attics, when real life needs to be written. If Father ever read this . . .” I riffled the pages on the desk.
“Now, Louy, you know your father never reads anything more entertaining than Pilgrim’s Progress. And you may publish those Flower Fables, that sweet collection.”
“Yes. A children’s book. Closer to life, I hope.”
“Louisa! Sylvia! It is almost time!” my mother’s voice called up the narrow stairway.
I carefully placed the manuscript in a drawer, leaving Beatrice to her fate, and locked the drawer. I extinguished the lamp, for the attic was dark even in the afternoon, and stood.
“We must go, Sylvia. Time to face the terrible siblings and the Medusa.”
“Poor Dottie,” Sylvia said, also rising.
Dear reader, I must now explain this profusion of friends. Mr. Hawthorne, in one of his calmer moments a few years before, had patiently explained to me the importance of pacing, of allowing the characters time to speak, to be known by the reader, before introducing the next. “Think of it as a play,” he had instructed, knowing I was stagestruck in my teens. “Characters appear one at a time, or in couples. Never all at once.”
Suffice it to say that before Sylvia became my sole close companion (for as much as I loved my younger sisters, Lizzie and May, they were too young for the adult conversations I had shared with Anna when she was at home), Dottie had also been a close companion. She had, the year before, married Sylvia’s cousin, Preston Wortham, and embarked on a honeymoon visit to the capitals of Europe. For months Sylvia and I had speculated on Dottie’s daily activities (her visit to Italy had inspired me to place my heroines in peril throughout the Apennines and along the Bay of Naples), and the tea party was our first chance to see her since her return to Boston. Unfortunately, as a price of seeing our friend, Sylvia and I would be forced to endure a visit with Dottie’s sisters, and her aunt, a formidable creature we had nicknamed “the Medusa.”
Mother waited for us at the bottom of the attic stairs, a basket of just-baked rolls in her hands.
“Bring these for Dottie,” she said. “She always liked my raisin cakes. Just imagine, Dottie is a married woman now. Seems like just yesterday she was still in short skirts and afraid of the dark.”
“Oh, Abba, with all you have to do,” Sylvia said, accepting the basket and giving my mother a kiss on the cheek. Like all of us, Sylvia called Mrs. Bronson Alcott by the familiar name, Abba, short for Abigail. Mother usually had high spirits, but today she looked tired and worn. We worried that she bore too much responsibility on those frail shoulders. Yet she remained my rock, my deepest support in times of difficulty.
“A year seems a long time for a young woman to be away from home and friends.” Abba sighed. “These new customs. Why, after your father and I married at King’s Chapel we went back to his room at the boardinghouse, and after supper he wrote his lecture for the next day of school. We didn’t make such a fuss of things.”
“You and Father are the exception to all customs,” I said, smiling.
“But to invite you for tea instead of supper,” said Abba. “Well, it is time. Send Dottie my love.”
In my mind’s eye, I can still see us rushing out of the house, two pairs of neat, high-buttoned shoes clacking over the wooden floor and down the stairs, and our black cloaks making the whooshing sound of heavy flannel as we dressed for outdoors. I dashed out, chiming the doorbell as I left, both of us laughing with nervousness, dreading the ordeal to come.
Mother, with her housecap askew on her graying hair, waved from an upstairs window and shouted, “Louy, remember to bring back a cake of laundry soap. Now hurry along, or you’ll be late! Don’t keep Dottie waiting!”
“Oh, true and tender guide, we will not forget the soap!” I waved back a farewell. “And we won’t keep Dottie—Mrs. Preston Wortham—waiting!”
Later, I would recall with great sadness the irony of those words.
CHAPTER ONE
The Hostess Goes Missing
“I SUPPOSE IT IS some strange new custom,” complained Miss Alfreda Thorney. “Inviting guests and then not being there to greet them. I never.”
Miss Thorney was the personage we referred to in private as the Medusa, for the thick, curling salt-and-pepper hair that snaked around her forehead and cheeks in a style of hairdressing that had been popular some thirty years before; and because her glance could turn men to stone. Or so I had imagined as a little girl, when the mere sight of her would compel me to run away in terror. Unfortunately, as an adult I found her only slightly less terrifying. There were, after all, those rumors of her instability, of a two-year period when she had been locked into a room with only the family doctor for a visitor.
“Mrs. Wortham is only back from a long voyage,” I protested gently, braving the Medusa’s stern glance. “I am confident that some pressing matter arose at the last minute, and that she will be home soon. Have another slice of seedcake, won’t you?” I picked up the silver cake tray to pass it, but before I could, Mr. Wortham’s man, Digby, stepped forward and took it. This sort of formality was not what I was accustomed to.
“I’ll do that, miss,” he said, and with great stateliness, as if he held the crown jewels, he silently moved around the little circle with it, his highly polished black boots giving off occasional glints of light. Alfreda Thorney visibly cringed as he approached her and studiously avoided any eye contact with the servant. Digby, I thought, must be the only man in Boston who intimidates even the Medusa.
Other than Sylvia and myself, our companions in the room were Edith and Sarah, Dottie’s sisters, the Medusa, of course, and Edgar, Dottie’s brother. Preston Wortham, Dottie’s new husband, our host, had briefly greeted us and then disappeared before explaining why our hostess, the new Mrs. Preston Wortham, was not present. Good manners forbade a direct question, but I felt distinctly uneasy.
With both Preston and Dottie absent from the room, Sylvia and I were trapped with Dottie’s relatives, and we shifted around in an awkward silence. I tried to observe, contenting myself with the idea that I might encounter some snippet of conversation, some nuance that might reappear in my stories.
We sat in the best parlor of 10 Commonwealth Avenue, one of the new mansions that had begun to appear along that tree-lined boulevard. It was a late-winter afternoon, a season of gray skies and constant damp drizzle. Any disheartened light the sky offered could not make its way through the heavy velvet curtains, so all the lamps had been lit and a fire set roaring in the fireplace, as well.
I held an alarmingly thin teacup and saucer in one hand and a plate of fish-paste sandwiches—so different from our less fancy but more delicious fare at home, cunningly (and wastefully, when one considered all the crust and cutaway bread) shaped as shells—in the other. I kept my back straight and my gaze serene, but I must admit I gave in to the temptation to tap my foot, marking time with my impatience, safely out of sight under my hooped skirts, a habit of my girlhood.
“The seedcake is dry,�
�� Miss Thorney complained.
“Do try the lady cake,” I said, allowing a touch of impatience to creep into my voice. Miss Thorney glared and purposely let her eyes come to rest on my high-buttoned shoe, where the leather had worn noticeably thin at the toes.
At this time in my life, before I had gained success, I struggled with an occasional painful awareness of how others saw my fortunes and my family’s. I knew that Edgar and his sisters had heard that my family was at the height—or rather the depth—of its poverty at that time, and I also knew, with the aching self-consciousness of youth, that my white collar was a bit frayed and my hat misshapen from too much hard wear. My wardrobe was often, due to age and stages of being handed down, in a condition that required gentle use, resulting in a toilette often lacking in style or even protection from the elements. Yet I also knew that my worries about my clothes were foolish luxuries when compared to the elemental worries faced by so many less well-off, even people just down the street from the Wortham mansion. I had a loving family, a roof over my head, and wonderful friends. Who was I to sit and worry about frayed fabrics and old shoes?
However, I freely admit that my diminished costume lay in great contrast to the parlor of Mrs. Preston Wortham, for that room, indeed the entire home, was appointed with new carved tables, new upholstered chairs, new carpets, new velvet curtains, all in that condition remarked in envious whispers as très cher and usually foreign. Indeed, although I felt such judgments were wrong to make and reflected badly on the superficiality of the observer, I realized how the room might look to Dottie’s siblings: as a vulgar display of newness so characteristic of Dottie’s new husband, Preston Wortham, and so unlike the charm and good taste of the Brownlys’ Boston home. The Brownlys’ home was, of course, old, not shabby like my shoes, but old in the tradition of old money and Boston taste.
I found myself wishing that Edgar Brownly, Dot’s brother, smoked, for I had decided in a moment of insight into my characters that Claude, Beatrice’s faithless lover, would smoke cigarettes. But that created a problem I could fix only through study and observation . . . yet here was I at a tea party when I could have been studying men pacing around the frosty grass on that area of the Commons known as Smokers’ Circle.
None of the other guests seemed to notice my restlessness, however. Instead they were busily and happily taking nips out of the reputations of their absent host and hostess.
The lord and master of this house had, ten minutes earlier, excused himself to see to affairs in the kitchen, since his wife was not there to instruct the new cook in the household preferences for garnishing the evening roast. Preston Wortham had accepted such temporary absences as a necessity in his social life, the price of marrying an heiress with a large family and social set. He had learned early in his marriage that ten minutes was enough time for them to vent their spleen, make their nasty comments, and then move on to a new topic of conversation, one that would allow his participation.
Lily, the hostess’s spaniel, hid under the sofa and made tiny growls at my ankles. I wished the creature would come out so I might give it a fish sandwich and make friends.
“. . . and then . . . oh, Louisa, you wouldn’t believe what he said to her! In front of all of us! I still blush to think of it . . .” And the speaker, young Miss Sarah Brownly, did blush, right to the roots of her white-blond hair, barely visible under her own beribboned and beflowered hat. The speaker’s teacup and saucer trembled ever so slightly with excitement . . . and another emotion that I and everyone else pretended not to observe. Miss Sarah Brownly, the hostess’s sister, pretty and vivacious and known for her elegant movements through the complications of a gavotte in the ballroom, had never fully recovered from the discomfort of having her plain younger sister married before she was. We suspected Sarah Brownly’s only consolation, whispered to herself each night before the mirror as she gave her hair its hundred strokes, was that the marriage was sure to be a failure.
“He said, and this is a direct quote, ‘Miss Brownly’ . . .” jumped in Edith Brownly, who found her twin sister’s pace of narrative too slow for the subject, “‘Miss Brownly, if you will do me the honor of being my wife I will cherish and protect you all my days. My heart is yours and whatever your answer this evening, I will never love another.’ That is what he said, right there at the dinner table.”
Sarah’s pretty face reflected the longing for a similar adventure. She sighed and pouted.
“Right out of a bad play, if you ask me,” grumped Edith, who had never played with dolls and saw no need, nor advantage, in marriage.
“Damn cheek, if you ask me,” sputtered Edgar Brownly. His face, round, ruddy, only half-finished with the labor of chewing a canape, reflected no such longing for a tender emotion . . . or a family scene. I imagined he was already wondering what the roast for dinner would be at home, and if roly-poly pudding would be served after.
It was said of Mr. Edgar Brownly that he had planned to woo several of Boston’s fairest, at different times, of course, only to be checked in his plans by his mother, Mrs. Harriet Brownly, whose expectations of any future daughters- and sons-in-law far excelled anything this world has to offer. It was said of Mr. Edgar Brownly that he would probably marry very late in life (after his mother had passed on to her final reward) and that it would not be a love match. Some had suggested, acerbically and in a very low voice, that the church door would have to be widened considerably by the time Mr. Edgar Brownly made his way down the aisle to his special someone, and that the ring bearer would also be bearing a platter of Dutch chocolates to tide the groom over to the nuptial feast.
“Well, of course our poor Dot swooned on the spot.” Sarah Brownly grabbed back the conversational reins from her sister and whipped the tale to its conclusion. “I had to catch her head before it fell into her soup bowl—the Limoges set, painted with those sweet little shells and seahorses. We had to carry her to the little sofa in front of the window . . . you know the one, Louisa, the gray-and-blue-striped silk-covered one. I had so hoped Mother would re-cover it with yellow paisley, but she didn’t wish the expense.”
“Yellow paisley would have been lovely, I’m sure,” I said, stifling a yawn.
“And Dot’s mother almost had an apoplectic fit.” Aunt Alfreda pursed her mouth. “Well, we all know what the popular estimation of Mr. Preston Wortham is.” This last was said rather loudly. From somewhere deeper in the bowels of the house a pot clattered and voices mumbled.
“Mr. Wortham is in the kitchen, not the Arctic,” I gently reminded them. “You should not tread so on his feelings. We are his guests, after all, eating his cake and sandwiches.” I looked sideways at Edgar, who was gobbling another.
“Married!” chirped Aunt Alfreda, and while the word carried a certain amount of joy, of promises of white lace and pink-faced babes and pleasant evenings before the domestic hearth, I saw again the disapproval in the women’s faces.
“Louisa, you will not be marrying, I suppose?” Aunt Alfreda asked.
“I’ve no immediate plans,” I answered quietly, hoping that would end this all too familiar portion of the teatime conversation, for young women were expected to talk of beaus and plans, but I had none and wanted none.
“Nor you, Sylvia,” Aunt Alfreda said, turning to my friend. Sylvia turned red.
“Weddings are frowned upon in the convent,” I answered for Sylvia, who had recently announced her decision to enter such an establishment. I tactfully changed the subject and carefully balanced my cup and saucer on my knee. “Europe. I wonder if Dottie visited the galleries of the Palazzo degli Uffizi.”
“I understand they were not at home during the season.” Aunt Alfreda sniffed.
Footsteps sounded just outside the parlor door.
“Hush. Here comes the bridegroom,” Sarah said, giggling. Edith frowned.
“He’ll probably do her in; wouldn’t be surprised,” Edgar Brownly muttered. “For the money.”
“For the money? Dear brother-in-law,
are you talking about the racing season already? How are the stables looking this year?” Preston Wortham threw open the parlor doors just in time to hear Edgar’s final words, not the first.
“There’s a certain filly I wouldn’t bet on,” Edgar said darkly.
“Well, you must tell me more when the ladies aren’t present. Instead we shall talk about the latest fashions, shall we?”
Preston Wortham was a tall man of powerful build; when he entered a room it felt as if all the furnishings were suddenly tilting in his direction. He sighed, a staged sigh that would read, in the play directions, as The contented patriarch greets his womenfolk. “The entire family is here,” he said. “Well, almost. My favorite sister-in-law, little Agnes, is missing.”
“Agnes is much too young for a tea.” Alfreda Thorney sniffed again. “And my niece, your wife, is strangely missing. What is the time?” She fussed with the little gold watch pinned to her bosom. “Four o’clock. And the invitation was for three-thirty. What can Dot be thinking of? Ten minutes is acceptable, but half an hour simply will not do.”
“Her hat, I’m sure,” said Digby, standing close behind Preston Wortham and still holding the cake tray. “She was thinking of her hat. Her rose toile from Paris blew off this morning in the park and she went out to purchase another.”
“Dot and her hats . . .” Mr. Wortham raised his hands palms-up and made a little smile, the kind that husbands make when they are being tolerant. “She has become quite obsessed with style.”
“Mr. Wortham, you have said so little of your voyage,” I said with forced cheer. “Tell me, did you visit Stonehenge? Did you take a boat down the Seine?” I leaned forward, in eager readiness for tales of foreign lands.
