The Orchard House

by Heidi Chiavaroli

  I held up a hand. “She was a nurse?”

  Victoria rolled her eyes. “How do you not know that, living with me for nine years?”

  I stifled a laugh, shook my head. I’d never been as obsessed as she was about some of these things. “Go on.”

  “Well, I went to my copy of Hospital Sketches and read about him again. There was something there, Taylor. Something I hadn’t seen reading all those years ago as a teenager. Louisa . . . she didn’t think much of many men—but this one, this John, she seemed to think a lot of him.”

  “She loved him?”

  Victoria looked out the window. “Maybe. Or maybe she just respected him. Like she recognized there was substance to him. An honor that so many other men around her seemed to lack.”

  Honor.

  I thought of Will and what I needed to tell Victoria. For some reason Luke’s image came to mind—him walking, slightly crooked, through an antique shop, spotting the first edition Grapes of Wrath. Him handing it to me.

  I shook the picture from my head, tried to replace it with one of Kevin, who made me dinners and was most attentive to my every want or need—but who would never see potential for a meaningful gift in an old book.

  What was honor, exactly?

  It was unfair to compare any of these men, for they each walked different stories. Maybe that had been Louisa’s problem to begin with—comparison. In some ways, how could any man compare to a man dying with honor for his country? Impossibly high standards weren’t realistic. And yet expecting faithfulness was.

  “What are you thinking?” Victoria asked.

  “I was wondering if Louisa’s expectations regarding men were too high, if love should trump all else and see past mere imperfections and faults.”

  “Love.” Victoria practically muttered the word.

  While it was a perfect opportunity to confide to her about last night, I instead chose to stick to our historical conundrum rather than our present-day one. “Was there anything in the book about a Johanna?”

  “No. Not in the book. But I did find this online.” She flipped to a few pages she’d printed out. The writing was small and hard to read, but I saw the heading: “Finding Private Suhre: On the Trail of Louisa May Alcott’s ‘Prince of Patients.’” It was taken from The New England Quarterly and written by a John Matteson, author of Eden’s Outcasts.

  “This article traces the idea that Louisa fictionalized some of her experiences in Hospital Sketches. Or perhaps she simply wanted to protect her identity and those of the soldiers she met. She didn’t first publish the book under her name even and calls herself ‘Tribulation Periwinkle’ in the book.”

  “Huh.”

  “She seems to have fabricated John’s age, where he lived, and even his siblings’ names, Jack and Lizzy.”

  “Why keep his name, then?”

  “She didn’t give his surname in the book. That was found later, in her journals,” Victoria said. “I don’t know . . . there’s something sacred about a name, don’t you think? Maybe, if she really was close to him, she wanted to honor the true him with that much—his name and good character.”

  “Okay. And this article proves she fabricated some of these other things?”

  “Pretty much. The author found convincing evidence of who John was from a variety of sources—a book by a military historian about the Battle of Fredericksburg, John’s own letters home to his family, and a genealogical search. It all falls into place, and you’ll never guess who he found John Suhre’s sister to be.”

  I lifted my gaze to hers. “Not Johanna Bancroft.”

  She nodded excitedly. “Well, she was Johanna Suhre at the time, and I suppose we can’t be 100 percent sure, but it seems likely. I don’t see that Louisa knew any other Johannas, and being that someone named John meant an awful lot to both of them—it would make sense that it be someone like his sister and the nurse who grew fond of him—maybe even loved him—as he lay on his deathbed.”

  I leaned back in my chair. “Wow. I can’t believe you found all that.”

  “It’s kind of up my alley.” She winked at me. “But I’m dying to know more of Johanna’s story and how Louisa played into it all. I didn’t find anything online, but we have the book of poems. I say we dive in and see if we can find any clues.”

  I reached into my purse and pulled out a sandwich bag with Johanna’s book tucked within. “But poems can be fictitious. Just as Louisa threw us off by fictionalizing her Civil War account, Johanna could have written about fictitious feelings or characters in her poems.”

  Victoria tapped her fingers on the table. “You yourself said there’s a piece of honesty—a piece of yourself—in every writing, fiction or not. I don’t think it’s outrageous that we try to find it.”

  I flipped through the book, glimpsing titles of various poems, trying to catch one that might give us a clue. My eye caught the word marriage, and I gave the little book, opened, to Victoria. She read.

  TILL DEATH DO US PART

  UPON THE MARRIAGE BLOCK

  In anger,

  I hear crowds inside my head

  yelling words of untruths.

  I block my ears

  from the jeers

  and instead

  think memories of you.

  Love, or rather marriage,

  is like a block of wood—

  like the trunk of a tree

  sturdy in its youth,

  silly with leaf,

  but later hewn to only a few feet.

  At first you carried me in your arms,

  spoke with charm, and

  swore me no harm.

  Placed me above you

  on a pedestal of solid wood,

  that should the years have told,

  you’d chip away

  with words bone cold.

  I became withered and old—

  but then came spring—

  and again I’d open and bloom

  and sow your seeds

  ignoring the weeds

  that occasionally choked

  out my reasons for loving you.

  Years and tears . . . and

  the wood in which I stood,

  and understood, to be our love,

  cracked and chipped,

  and

  I lifted

  to my toes

  for there was no room.

  I choked and screamed

  and tried to lean

  on you.

  They tied my hands

  though I didn’t understand,

  but then I understood

  all about this block of wood.

  I heard the words inside my head

  of the crowds and what they said.

  And then I saw myself

  toppling upon our love

  that you chipped and kicked

  and left me hanging

  like the witch

  I never was.

  Victoria’s voice near trembled as she finished the poem.

  “Um . . . I think I know why her poems were never published back in the nineteenth century.”

  She swallowed, nodded. “And you’re telling me this is fictional? I may not be the author here, but those words are coming from some place of authenticity. I—I understand them.”

  I opened my mouth to suggest it could be a nod to the Salem witch trials which happened so very close to Concord, but I knew Victoria was right. No nineteenth-century woman would fictionalize such a poem for fun. There was feeling in the words, there was fight, there was confusion, and there was anger. I wondered if Louisa Alcott had ever read them, if perhaps she’d helped Johanna in a marriage gone wrong.

  I closed my mouth, couldn’t help thinking of Victoria’s own marriage.

  She didn’t seem far behind. “I know how she feels. Like everyone thinks you’re married to the perfect man, but they don’t see what you see. They don’t see how you try and you do love, but it’s never enough. They think the problem is you. You think the problem is y
ou.”

  I slid my hand across the table to cover hers. “I’m so sorry, Victoria.”

  “It’s not your fault,” she whispered. “It’s mine. Only mine.”

  The waitress dropped our bill on the corner of our table, but we both ignored it. I started slow. “I have something to tell you that won’t make any of this easier, and yet you need to know.”

  She put her head in her hands, and although she didn’t speak the words, I felt how the gesture admitted defeat already—as if she couldn’t handle one more piece of bad news.

  There would be no easy way to do this. “I went to Main Streets to do some writing last night. I saw Will there.”

  A small sound, almost like a whimper, came from somewhere behind Victoria’s hands, where her shining wedding rings did little to hide the raw hurt behind them. I hated that I had to do this. I’d come here bitter. All these years, I’d told myself I didn’t care about Victoria, that she wasn’t really my sister and definitely not my friend. But I couldn’t ignore the bond that held us even when I hadn’t wanted it to.

  She’d hurt me in the past, yes, but seeing where I could have been if things had gone how I so badly wanted them to all those years ago . . . in some strange way I couldn’t help but think that she’d saved me from the hurt she was going through now.

  I wasn’t sure that was forgiveness exactly, but it was something that felt an awful lot better than resentment.

  Only now I’d have to continue. Go deeper into this pit.

  “I shouldn’t have agreed to walk with him. I thought he had some things to get off his chest, thought it’d be healthy for us to have some closure after all these years.” I watched Victoria slowly lower her hands from her face. “I felt I owed it to him to at least listen.

  “He said things. Honestly, I couldn’t believe they were coming out of his mouth. I walked away from him, but not before he kissed me.”

  Victoria stared at the remnants of her wine in the bottom of her glass, her face frozen and emotionless.

  “It was half a second. I was surprised—you have to believe me, Victoria. It didn’t last. I didn’t let it. I didn’t want it. I know he wasn’t think—”

  “Don’t make excuses for him. Or you.”

  I whispered, realized I was begging, but not able to help myself. “I didn’t come here for any of this. I came for Mom.” I sounded defensive, maybe guilty. Was I?

  She stood, fumbled for the papers she’d just been sharing with so much excitement. She tucked her pocketbook under her arm and left.

  “Victoria, wait. Please.” I grabbed up Johanna’s book, the sandwich bag, and my own purse, went after her before remembering the bill. I stopped a curse from slipping out of my mouth, went back and slid enough cash into the bill book, along with a hefty tip because I didn’t have time to wait for change.

  I left the restaurant, looked toward my car. No Victoria. I saw her then, walking in the direction of home. It wasn’t far, probably a twenty-minute walk, but that wasn’t the point.

  “Victoria!” I tried again. “Victoria!”

  I growled under my breath about how muleheaded she could be, thought about taking the car but then decided against it and ran after her instead. My tennis shoes pounded the pavement; my pocketbook fell off my shoulder. I picked it up, felt sweat gathering at my palms where I held Johanna Bancroft’s book.

  I should stop, put the book—which should be in some museum instead of within my sweaty palms—in the sandwich bag. But Victoria was getting farther away, and right then all I could think about was getting to her. I had hurt her, and surprisingly, that thought hurt me.

  I realized then that I still loved my sister. Running after her now, I imagined never being able to get to her. Was this how she felt all those years ago when I’d left?

  We weren’t perfect. Our relationship was a mountain range of highs and lows and scrapes and bruises with a little joy mixed in. Really, shared blood had very little to do with it. She was the only sister I had. And like it or not, right now I was the only one she had.

  My breaths came fast by the time I caught up with her. I grabbed her arm. “Please, we need to talk.”

  She jerked away from me. “There’s nothing to say.” Passersby gave us sidelong glances.

  “Come to the car. I’ll take us home.”

  “I need a walk.”

  “Fine, then. I’ll walk with you.” I could be stubborn, too.

  “I should have never asked you to come.”

  The words hurt, but I refused to let her see that. “I should have never come.”

  “It would have been easier if you kept on being your selfish self, wouldn’t it have? Just let Mom think you didn’t care that she was going through the hardest trial of her life, is that right?”

  “I was not—am not—asking to start anything between me and Will. You have to believe me. I am more than over him, and the last thing I want to do is hurt you like I was hurt all those years ago.”

  She stopped walking. “It’s just like you to make this about you, isn’t it? What happened back then, it was wrong, okay? I already told you that. But this is ten times wrong. He’s my husband and—and—” She made a loud sound of annoyance—half-grunt, half-scream. “Just go. I need some time to think.”

  “I want to help.”

  “You’ve helped enough.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Helped start a temperance society. Much needed in C[oncord]. A great deal of drinking, not among the Irish, but young American gentlemen, as well as farmers and mill hands.

  ~ LMA

  Johanna

  I WOKE TO A POUNDING inside my head, realized it was someone at the door, and chose to ignore it, tried to fall back into slumber once again. The caller would eventually give up and depart.

  “Johanna?”

  My eyes flew open. Louisa.

  It had been some time since I had seen her. I knew Mrs. Alcott was not well, that Louisa was busy with her stories, and though I liked to help, I had found myself busy with my own pursuits of late. Jam making and all that.

  “Johanna, are you home?”

  I burrowed further under the covers, hoping to hide the evidence of my shame.

  Her footsteps sounded up the stairs and then to the threshold of my door. “Dear, are you unwell?” She came in, drew one of the curtains aside.

  “I am fine.”

  She drew open another. “Then why are you abed in the middle of the day? You’re not like my poor Sylvia, are you?” she asked, a slight tease in her tone as she referred to a scene at the beginning of Moods.

  “I am only tired. Please leave.”

  I felt the weight of her hand on my shoulder. “Johanna, it’s unlike you to succumb to the doldrums. Please, tell me what troubles—”

  I knew then that she saw my face. I had not raised the looking glass to it since the other night, but I could tell by the pain that healing would be slow. Could I hide from the world for so long?

  I refused to look at her, could not fathom how I had gotten myself into this situation.

  “No. Johanna, Nathan did this?”

  “He was drinking. I made the mistake of harping on—”

  “If you made any mistake, it was in marrying the monster who would raise a hand to his wife. This is inexcusable.” She paced around the room. I couldn’t remember seeing her this fired up about anything for some time. When she stood still, she put her hands on her hips and faced me fully. “You must come away at once and stay with us again. I won’t hear otherwise.”

  “I can’t, Louisa. I just—can’t. I’ve made a complete mess of it all.” Then I let it all pour out of me. How this was not the first time I had witnessed his unkind hand unleashed by drink. How I had ruined the currant jam, how I truly had encouraged him to invite guests over at any time, how I had called him out on his faults when he was not in the proper mind to handle them.

  Louisa sat on the edge of my bed, listening to me without speaking. She looked unwell. I knew the p
ast winter and spring had been trying for her, that she forced the stories from her mind to provide for her family, that in many ways she had never truly recovered from the typhoid she’d suffered while nursing John. This—I—was not a burden she should have to bear.

  With that in mind, I finished my story and threw back the covers, rose for the first time in many hours, and tried to force a bright countenance upon myself. “All will be well. I am certain Nathan will be home anytime, that we will both see the fault of our ways, that we will begin under the light of a new day. Thank you for listening to my whining, dear. I am sorry to have troubled you.”

  “Johanna,” Louisa started, and it came out more gentle than I’d ever known from her, which alarmed me of itself. “You cannot stay with him. The fault lies with him, not you.”

  How could I heed the advice of this woman? This woman who chose to paddle her own canoe and insisted that for many, liberty was better than love? This woman who could name only a handful of men whom she admired? Her standards were high. But what about marriage? Would she have me discard my sacred union at the first sign of marital trouble? Of course I believed it wrong for Nathan to hit me. But was the just action to leave him altogether?

  “He is my husband,” I whispered.

  “And you are worth more than to be treated this way by the man who vowed to love you above all others. I was there, do you remember? This is not love.”

  I opened my mouth to defend myself, to defend my husband and the life I’d chosen, but no words came forth.

  Louisa rubbed one temple, then let her hand fall. She dragged in a breath. “When President Lincoln first called for the seventy-five thousand volunteers, Father agreed that no greater calamity could befall a people than that of deliberating long on issues endangering liberty. Mr. Emerson, also, said that gunpowder smelled good, for bad as war might be, it would be safer and better than a peace without freedom. Johanna, if you do not take up the call to change the course of things, you will live to regret it.”

  I allowed her words to sink in, pondered their possible truth, their possible consequences. Deep down, I hated how she spoke to me, as if she knew more, as if I were a child. I didn’t want her pity or advice—I wanted her understanding and friendship.