She smiled. “Very. I will pass along your regards when I write to him.”
“WHAT A VERY strange family,” said Llew when they had left.
“The brother is equally strange,” I said. “A confirmed invalid who never leaves the house, except to give instructions in croquet, it seems. Llew, dear,” I added, carrying the tea things into the pantry for washing up, “have you friends in Detroit? Is it so very far from Clearwater, where you have been living?”
“Have you a mind to visit in the autumn when I return? Nothing would give me greater pleasure,” he said, though I could see conflict in his face: desire to spend more time with his “sister” and also the worry that goes through the bachelor mind when it discovers a feminine visitor is to intrude on his masculine quarters. Desire won, and he smiled with delight, and took my hands in his.
“I have something more immediate in mind.” I took back my hands so that they could be better used rinsing out the teapot. “Could your friends discover what church or chapel in Detroit is currently being constructed or renovated? Which might require a new bell?”
Llew’s smile turned to a lopsided grin. “I had forgotten how you love a mystery,” he said. “Remember when we tried to act out ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’? You always cast me as the orangutan.”
“Because you were the strongest and needed to carry us about after you murdered us,” Anna said, laughing.
“I could send a telegram or two,” Llew said.
WE, ALL THE Alcotts and our two adopted siblings, Llew and Sylvia, sat under the stars that night.
The evening was mild and clear and smelled of new grass and other growing things. We lay on our backs on stable blankets and gazed upward. Nights in Walpole were very dark compared to Boston. The country sky was brilliant with pinpoints of light, and every once in a while, like a small streaking miracle, a shooting star would cross the heavens.
“That is Orion,” said Father, pointing up, his noble profile looking chiseled against the evening sky. “That ancient constellation has looked down upon many mastodons—when they were fierce animals, not bones and fossils. Perhaps there are no more mastodons simply because mankind killed them all in their erroneous desire to eat flesh,” he mused. We had been talking about geology and the search for fossils, and the mastodon skeleton that had been found in New Jersey.
“Much as the sperm whale will soon be harpooned to extinction because of our need for lamp oil,” he continued, sighing deeply. “Why use lamps when you can sit under the stars?”
“They are useful for reading by,” commented ever-practical Abba, who, even prone full-length on the ground, was busy at her knitting. The clacking of her needles sounded in time with the chirping crickets. “And for mending by. Go to bed, May. It is well past your bedtime.”
“Perhaps I will find my own mastodon. Good night, darlings,” said May, and her pretty blond head with its curls and snub nose disappeared into the cottage. The heavy wooden door slammed hard behind her.
“You work too hard, Abba,” said Father. “Must you spend so much time mending? And what could be read in books or journals that is not already contained in the heavens?”
I agreed that Mother worked much too hard, but Father, in his limited masculine thinking, did not reflect that if Abba did not perpetually mend his wardrobe, he would soon be in a state more natural than even he would condone.
As for reading lamps, I did not agree with him on that point at all. The stars were lovely, but even lovelier was curling up in my reading chair with a volume of Goethe or Shakespeare. And I couldn’t help but reflect on a certain insincerity in his words, since he sat up late each night rereading Hesiod’s Works and Days for agricultural information, although he refused all advice, even Hesiod’s, and determined that the creator would provide all that the little seedlings needed. Nor did he believe in staking beans or planting lettuce in tidy rows. (I refrained from pointing out that if women took the same attitude to linen as he did to vegetables we would all be wearing stalks of hemp rather than shirts and shifts.)
Walpolians were as bemused by his gardening methods as his family, and I often caught Abba watching him in his patch and shaking her head in loving amusement.
“There is much we know of medicine that is not contained in the sky,” said Llew shyly, commenting on Father’s critique of Abba’s habit of journal reading. Llew had been silent during most of our stargazing, for he did not like to contradict Father, but he was also an honest boy who spoke his mind. “But speaking of extinction, what was that bit about Mr. Tupper at the end of Mrs. Tupper’s visit? There seemed to be an undertone to that small talk.”
“Mr. Tupper seems not in evidence,” I said, “and has not been in evidence for many months now.”
“Ah.” He understood, now, the importance of those telegrams he had already sent off.
“It does seem a strange way to run a marriage,” spoke up Anna in the darkness. She sat directly in the middle of our gathering, leaning against Abba, with a plaid lap robe over her knees to keep the dew from her dress.
“Travelers often are away for months at a time,” said Father somewhat defensively. He himself traveled often, to give his conversations and lectures.
“When you travel, you write long letters every day, and this young man prefers infrequent picture cards and telegrams,” replied Abba, and though she spoke with some heat her knitting needles never paused. “When we were courting and you traveled, you wrote twice, sometimes thrice a day.”
Father cleared his throat. “I was writing to the most noble of women,” he said. “How could I forget that honor?”
“Perhaps the ill will between stepfather and son has encouraged the young husband to stay away,” suggested Llew.
“Why do you say that?” I asked, looking away from Orion and turning in Llew’s direction. I felt the same, but wanted to hear Llew’s reasoning.
“Did you see the look in his eyes when his mother mentioned her husband, and this telegram about bell orders? He’s a shifty-eyed fellow. I don’t like him.” Llew leaned up on his elbows. “And I smelled gin on his breath. I can’t imagine he made for a comfortable home life between his mother and stepfather.”
At that moment, next door a door creaked open and a light appeared on the path in front of our cottage, a lamp carried by Ida Tupper’s maid. As she approached, the stars overhead dimmed from the intrusion of harpooned-sperm-whale oil, and Father rose to his feet, muttering.
“Mrs. Tupper has sent a message,” the girl announced. “I am to deliver it immediately. It won’t wait for breakfast.” Obviously Ida Tupper thought it very important. She had sent the child out in the night with her curling papers in her hair.
“Well, we’d better read it, then,” said Abba, rising somewhat stiffly from her place on the blankets and accepting the note. “But you go home, child, to your rest.” The little maid giggled and ran off. There, too, was evidence of something amiss in the household; a wise mother should not employ a child so young, so pretty, when her bachelor son is at home, and that son has a reputation.
“The young people are invited to a picnic,” Abba said, reading. “There is no mention of a chaperon. It seems Mrs. Tupper herself will not attend.”
“Abba, Anna is already twenty-four,” I said. “I am twenty-two.”
She looked at us somewhat wistfully. “Of course.” She sighed. “I forget sometimes how grown-up my ‘Golden Brood’ has become.”
“When is it?” Llew and Lizzie asked simultaneously.
“In three days, if the sun shines. Mrs. Tupper writes she will pack a hamper for you, and hire a mule to carry it. She asks if Miss Sylvia Shattuck prefers her chicken fried or boiled. Clarence is to bring his banjo and songbook.”
“Banjo?” said Sylvia. “Oh, my.” We laughed.
“Did someone mention frying a chicken?” asked Father, who was still studying the night sky. “How very unkind. And a mule. These young people have strong backs of their own.”
�
��Indicate that the mule will not be required; you can each carry a hamper. I agree with your father on that.” Abba folded the note and gave it to me.
Mrs. Tupper’s intrusive note ended the magical night under the stars. We began to rise, yawning and stretching, and made our way back into the house, to our beds. I found a wooden cot in the kitchen pantry, dusted it off, and spread fresh linen and blankets over it for Llew, who was to bunk down in the little parlor.
“Like when I was a child and pretended I was camping in your parlor,” he said happily as I helped him arrange the blankets over the cot. “Perhaps we should hang a sheet over this for my tent, and tell ghost stories?”
I hugged him close. Llew, my childhood friend, my brother of choice. Laurie, I thought. He is my Llew, but he is Jo’s Laurie.
“It is too late for ghost stories,” I said. “Look at you; you can barely keep your eyes open.” A shock of dark hair had fallen over his half-closed eyes.
“It has been a long day,” he admitted, pushing back the hair.
“Sleep now,” I said, giving him a sisterly kiss on the forehead. He looked as if he would say something, but changed his mind.
Upstairs, Sylvia and I sat up quite late, whispering as Anna breathed slowly, already deep in sleep.
“From the frying pan to the fire?” Sylvia said, pulling the blankets up to her chin, for the night had grown chill. “I left Boston to get away from Mother’s persistent attempts at matchmaking, and here I am being matchmade by your Mrs. Tupper, I think.”
“You are rich, my dear, and her son is unwed.”
Anna stirred and mumbled in her sleep. I reached over and tucked her blankets in tighter.
“He seems an unsuitable choice for a husband. All that gin.” Sylvia yawned. “I’m going to sleep now, Louy. See you in the morning.” Her eyes closed and she began to snore, ever so gently.
I lay awake, thinking of what Sylvia had said. Clarence had the reputation of being “fast,” of being a flirt with the girls and a bit of a heartbreaker. Yet his behavior toward lovely Sylvia had indicated complete indifference. Why? Was it part of the general derangement I had noticed in him?
When my questions about Clarence began to fade under the softening of awareness that announces sleep is not far behind, I realized I was dizzy with joy. I couldn’t remember the last time I had had all my loved ones, at one time, under the same roof. I smiled to myself and watched out the open window until Orion, that steadfast hunter, moved to a different part of the sky.
Once, I thought I saw a figure moving in Father’s vegetable patch, but realized it was a shadow cast by the moon.
CHAPTER TEN
The Bell Foundry
IDA TUPPER MISSED her next knitting lesson, and her maid acquired much leisure time, which she spent in Uncle Benjamin’s kitchen, gossiping with Mrs. Fisher, which was how we learned that Ida was off to Manchester for shopping.
“I hope there will be no extravagant foolishness over this picnic.” Abba sighed. “May is at such an impressionable age, and if she comes home with a taste for caviar and sherbet packed in ice I will not be pleased.”
“Caviar is fish eggs,” Lizzie protested, making a hideous face.
We had all gathered as usual in the cottage kitchen for morning porridge, Father with his nose in a book, Abba with flour on her nose from rolling biscuits, May with her pet mole peeking out of her pocket, Lizzie with her curls loose on her shoulders and with a sheet of music stuck in her waistband, and Anna, dear Anna, dreamy-eyed and in a serene world of her own.
Llew came to the table in his shirtsleeves and dressing gown, his dark hair rumpled from sleep and his cheeks rosy. He looked young and boyish and not at all like the studious medical student. Sylvia sat next to him, for they were already close friends united by a common bond: the Alcotts, whom they loved and who loved them.
Sylvia looked a little strange, for she had pulled her blond ringlets into a stern bun at the base of her neck, and her morning gown had long bell sleeves and that strange, prim little collar. “It is Mandarin style,” she announced, when Abba asked if the new costume was Parisian. “Confucius was a Mandarin.”
Father looked up from his book. “Philosophy isn’t adopted with a change of wardrobe. It goes deeper,” he warned.
“Oh, I know,” Sylvia said brightly. “I have decided to change my diet as well. No coffee, thank you, Abba. Tea, if you please. With no cream or sugar.”
Father sighed and returned to his reading, absentmindedly sticking his butter knife into his coffee cup and his spoon into the butter bowl.
“I, myself, am eager to try caviar,” offered May, reverting to our previous conversation.
“Then you had better find employment,” Abba said. “Our budget barely allows hen’s eggs.”
After breakfast, Sylvia sat in the garden, meditating, and I spent several hours in my writing shed, working on my elf stories. When I wearied of elves and edifying endings, I returned to work on “The Lady and the Woman,” always keeping Abba as my inspiration.
“You have given your idol a heart, but no head. An affectionate or accomplished idiot is not my ideal of a woman,” I let Kate tell Mr. Windsor. I had much of the dialogue, but was still uncertain of the setting for this story. My tendency was to place them in Rome or other places of the sophisticated world to which I had traveled only in my imagination—so that, dear reader, at least my imagination could travel!—but this story, because it was inspired by Abba, should be set closer to home. Where?
LATER, WHEN THE sun was past its zenith and the heat began to dissipate somewhat, Sylvia and I took a walk to the river. First we stopped in front of Father’s vegetable patch and pondered.
“It is a wonder,” Sylvia said. “Look, the Brussels sprouts must be an inch tall already. I did not know your father had a green thumb.”
“That’s the wonder,” I said, crouching down and peering at the little green plants. “He does not have a green thumb. This must be wondrous fine soil.” I stood again rather quickly, since a passerby was also gawking at Father’s garden, and it would not do for a lady to be seen crouching in the dirt like a child. Anna and Lizzie and May wished to be well thought of in town. (I had already promised never to whistle in public.)
“A fine patch,” said the straw-hatted gentleman. “I’ll get his secret yet.”
“I assure you there is no secret but that the soil here is very fine,” I said.
He gave me a wink. “Of course,” he agreed. “Of course.” He walked on.
“I believe there is a mystery right here in the vegetable patch,” commented Sylvia.
“I wish the patch were on the other side of the house,” I admitted, “not the side facing the house of the missing Jonah Tupper. I have an uncomfortable feeling.”
We also stopped at Tupper’s General Store to get some mending yarn for Abba. The store was empty of customers. Across the street, I saw some known town Republicans entering Hubert’s, along with the Democrats.
“Business seems to have fallen off,” I couldn’t help but comment to the counter girl.
“It’s because of Ernst,” she whispered. “Lilli is telling everyone that Mr. Tupper was there when Ernst fell. That Mr. Tupper pushed—”
“Cease your useless chatter!” said Mr. Tupper, storming through the double doors of his back room. “Ah. It’s Benjamin Willis’s niece from Boston. Still here with us?”
“Might Sylvia and I again look at your box of sheet music?” I asked. He took the box out from under the counter and pushed it at me.
“Take your time,” he said, meaning just the opposite.
Sylvia, who read music with an amateurish but reliable expertise, hummed some of the songs for me. I rather liked a black spiritual called “Jacob’s Ladder,” as the music was exciting and the lyrics contained many hidden references to the Underground Railroad. In Boston, the Alcott family was a secret part of that organization, helping fugitive slaves flee north to Canada and freedom.
Sylvia, much mor
e a romantic than myself despite her habit of turning down marriage proposals, insisted that Lizzie would prefer “Darling Nelly Gray,” a love song. I agreed without pointing out that Nelly Gray was a black female slave sold away from her home.
When our purchases were complete and Abba’s little marketing basket was full, I thanked Mr. Tupper for his assistance (he had done nothing) and added a cordial, “Uncle Benjamin sends his regards.” That was a lie, but I wanted to get to the bottom of the apparent hostility he felt for my uncle.
He glared even harder, his hazel eyes turning icy and narrow. “No, Mr. Willis don’t send his regards, any more than I send him mine,” Mr. Tupper said. “There’s ill will’tween us. You can tell him I said I’d just as soon dance on his grave as tip my hat to him.”
Sylvia and I, speechless with amazement, went back out into the daylight, only to see Lilli leaving Mr. Hubert’s general store with a shopping basket over her arm.
“Lilli!” I called, and waved my free arm.
She looked up and crossed over to where we stood. “Morning, Miss Louisa. And Sylvia.” She looked down at her black skirts, her black shoes, waved a hand in its black lace mitten. “I needed to walk, to get out of my room.”
“Of course,” I said. “Even in mourning one should take care of one’s own health. There is a bench under the tree just over there. Shall we sit for a while?” I took her arm and we walked to the shaded bench, away from the dust of the street.
“Is your uncle, Benjamin Willis, in good health?” she asked. “He sent me such a kind letter of sympathy.” She paused and took a deep breath. “It is good to have relatives near you. I wish . . .” Her voice trailed off.
“Have you second thoughts about staying in Walpole?” I asked.
Sylvia opened a bag of cinnamon candies and passed it.
“No,” said Lilli, taking a cinnamon ball. “No. I stay.”
A squirrel chattered overhead in the elm tree and studied us, the intruders, with its little black eyes. Lilli had said, “I stay,” with such vehemence, and last week she had mentioned acquiring an American husband as one of her goals. Was there a secret beau? Oh, these horrible rules of conduct that forbade intimate questions for such a long time!
Louisa and the Country Bachelor : A Louisa May Alcott Mystery (9781101547564) Page 11
