by Anna Maclean
“Of course, the one person to whom restitution can never be made is Mr. Phips’s wife, Emily,” I said, pushing back my chair and rising. “She died believing that her first lover, her true love, had been unfaithful, because that was what Mr. Phips wished her to believe. How sad.”
“Mr. Cobban, shall we fetch the ladies’ wraps?” asked Mr. Barnum, and the two men headed for the coatroom.
“Now, Sylvia, tell me,” I said when the gentlemen were gone. “Have you and Constable Cobban arrived at an understanding?”
“We have,” she said, grinning. “We will wait a year before we talk more of this matter, and not rush in.”
“How wise you’ve become!” I said with relief.
“It was Father’s idea,” she said.
I sighed. “You still believe you are in communication with his spirit?”
“I do,” said my friend. “As is every child who feels a bond with a parent, be he present in life or not. Even if he speaks only in dreams, he is speaking, is he not?” Her eyes gleamed, and I saw that, indeed, she enjoyed something of the presence of the father she had never known, perhaps simply because she wished to.
“But what of the day that Mrs. Percy seemed to speak through you?” I asked. “That was no dream.”
“I cannot explain,” Sylvia said. “We must, I fear, leave that as a mystery.”
“And now, home,” said Lizzie, “to Auntie Bond’s piano and my new Liszt music. I believe it has all been worth it.”
I FINISHED “AGATHA’S CONFESSION” that evening in my little attic writing room. After her terrible crime of passion Agatha pleads with Philip to forgive her, to be merciful.
“I had suffered so much from her, and I could not give you up. Be merciful, and I will atone for it by a whole life of sacrifice and penitence—but do not cast me off,” I cried, overcoming in my despair the horror and remorse that froze my blood.
But he never heeded me, and his stern purpose never changed. He tore himself away, saying solemnly as he passed out into the night:
“God pardon us both. Our sins have wrought out their own punishment and we must never meet again.”
We never have.
As sorry as I was for Agatha Percy, she had sealed her own fate by choosing crime rather than repentance. We must never overcome horror and remorse, for sin found in a person can also be found in a society, and vice versa; we must root out the crime, not our penance. So Mr. Emerson and Father would say, and so say I, if people and nations are to be healed.
Read on for an excerpt from the
first Louisa May Alcott mystery,
Louisa and the Missing Heiress
Available from Obsidian.
Dunreath Place
Roxbury, Massachusetts
February 1887
Gentle Readers,
I had a letter from an old friend recently. She asked if I remembered Dot and if I had ever thought of writing her story. She is too kind to say outright but she gently reminded me that youth is far behind and that what I am going to write, I should perhaps write now, and quickly. The letter seemed an omen, for that same day Father had sat up in bed and asked if I had heard from Dorothy Brownly recently. His mind wanders and he thought, that morning, that I was perhaps on my way to one of those girlhood afternoon activities that occupied my younger years.
In my youth, I struggled to write and publish stories. Now I am known and I may even admit beloved. In the streets of Concord I cannot even mail a letter or purchase yarn without being recognized. That is one of the joys of age and success, though I admit to occasionally yearning for those younger days when I could walk the streets anonymously. A certain anonymity no doubt assisted the events of which I now wish to write. While I have never shied away from telling my readers about my family and my childhood, I have—in part because of the deepest personal reservations—kept silent about many of what used to be called my “adventures.” In part from modesty, and a wish not to hurt the living, I have kept secret many of the most interesting years of my life, years in which I found myself in the curious role of lady detective.
I do find myself reticent, however, I who have already revealed so much of my life in my fictional works. What mother would wish to reveal to her sweet children that their beloved author, Louisa May Alcott, had knowledge of crime and criminals, and deeds so dastardly that if known they would require a night-light to burn in the hall? Yet knowledge of them I had. For many years of my life, I found myself surrounded by unexplained death and unexpected danger, as well as holding the unusual and unmerited position of being the only person able to reach a satisfactory conclusion to the mysterious events.
I have decided to go through my diaries and reconstruct the events of some of these years. These, then, are the other stories of my youth, of friends and foes who chanced across my path, sometimes gracing it, sometimes causing such distress I would fall into the Slough of Despond and doubt all, even the words on a white page. I begin with the story of my dear childhood friend Dot, and her untimely demise.
I trust you may gain some enjoyment through the reading of these tales.
Louisa May Alcott
Prologue
“Listen then,” replied the count, “and perhaps you too may share in the excitement of those about you. That box belongs to Josephine….”
I PAUSED, PEN in hand, and scratched out the name. It simply did not suit her. I considered following Shakespeare, knowing that my heroine would be as enticing with whatever name God gave her, until I realized that, surely, no reader would become entranced with the lady’s plight were she named Maud or Jo.
“Josephine won’t do,” I said. “People would be calling her Jo, and this woman is most definitely not a Jo. Jo is a homespun name, tomboyish and striving, not given over to frivolity or melodrama. This woman needs a name that is more Italianate, more romantic. Beatrice. Yes, that’s it…. And her rival shall be Therese.”
“Nay, not so strange as one may fancy, Arthur,” said his friend, “for it is whispered, and with truth, I fear, that she will bestow the hand so many have sought in vain upon the handsome painter yonder. He is a worthy person, but not a fitting husband for a truehearted woman like Beatrice; he is gay, careless, and fickle, too. I fear she is tender and confiding, loving with an Italian’s passionate devotion, if he be true, and taking an Italian’s quick revenge, if he prove false.”
“And then what, Louisa? Does she give her hand to the faithless painter, Claude?” breathlessly asked Miss Sylvia Shattuck.
I stopped reading and began marking on the pages, crossing out some words and adding others. On some days the phrases came easily; on others each was a struggle. This day was a struggle, since I was already preoccupied with the events to come . . . though I could not yet know how truly and frighteningly eventful the afternoon would become.
Sylvia and I were in the attic writing room in my family’s house on Pinckney Street. She stood beside my piles of manuscript wrapped in paper and string, leaning on the huge ancient desk at which I wrote. Behind her on a ledge stood my favorite, much-thumbed books: my father’s gift, Pilgrim’s Progress, and my secret thrill, an edition of Poe’s Murders in the Rue Morgue. I have always adored Poe for his prose and the suspense and thrill of his writing. But, truth be told, not so much for the mystery of this story, which I solved long before Poe intended me to, an achievement I credit to my education in my father’s philosophical methods and the influence of my mother’s gift for insight. My parents’ careful education in the ways of the world has made me particularly apt at arriving at answers to questions of human nature.
The one window in my garret was curtained with muslin, not lace—I prefer a gentle light when I work, and of course my family could not waste money on lace. The floor was bare but scrupulously clean. It was 1854, I was twenty-two, Mother had just lost her job with the charity agency, and Father . . . well, he had never had a talent for earning income. Those years of poverty bleed together in my memory, always overpowered by memorie
s of more important problems. That was the year following the election of President Franklin Pierce, and Father, months later, still grumbled to himself about it. We would see him pottering from library to parlor, from parlor to dinner table, jabbing the air with his forefinger as he lectured President Pierce in absentia. Pierce was a will-o’-the-wisp, a moral deficient, willing to do anything for a vote, including support slavery.
That was also the year my beloved older sister, Anna, had gone to Syracuse to work as a governess. I missed her every day, every evening, and perhaps my friendship with Sylvia grew even deeper because of that longing for the wise, gentle, absent Anna.
That afternoon, as I finished my work, the slanted light coming through that window indicated it was close to three o’clock, the household dinner hour.
“Well,” Sylvia said impatiently, reading over my shoulder. “Does she leave the stage and pledge herself to the faithless one?”
I considered Sylvia’s question, replacing my pen in its tray. “She must, else there is no story, I fear. But it will not end happily.”
“Claude will love another,” Sylvia guessed, leaning forward eagerly.
“He will be absolutely unreliable,” I admitted. “But Beatrice will have her revenge.”
“How exciting, Louisa!”
“Do you think so, Sylvia? Is it, perhaps, too exciting?”
“Could there be such a thing as too exciting?”
I scratched my nose, leaving a smudge of ink behind, one of my bad habits, I’m afraid. I contemplated the quality of my writing. It was all blood and thunder. My natural ambition was, I suppose, for the lurid style. I could not help but indulge in gorgeous fancies. Perhaps there was no other way for me to write, I thought as I straightened the manuscript pages into a neat pile. Yet there was this impulse, deep inside, to tell a true story, not a fancy.
Even then, before I had published my first work, I sensed what would ultimately be the real value of my work. But that day there were three manuscripts on my desk: The Flower Fables, little stories I invented for the Emerson children and was now working into a children’s book; my true short story, “How I Went Out to Service”; and my tale of Beatrice and Therese, which I had just named as “The Rival Prima Donnas.” None had yet been published. Next to “How I Went Out to Service” was a rejection letter. I hadn’t anticipated how much pain a simple envelope could carry. The rejection had suggested—no, stated—that I should pay more attention to domestic duties, as I had no talent as a writer. The story was one of my first “real” stories about real people, rather than inventions such as Beatrice and her fickle lover, Claude. In fact, it was about me, and the rejection had a double sting to it, for it was my life, my experience that was rejected, as well as the story.
That name Josephine, though. That was not a blood-and-thunder name, nor was it a fairy name for the Fables. The name conjured up a fleeting image. A young woman, a character who sprawled on rugs rather than sitting primly in chairs, a woman who cherished books over new bonnets and rich husbands. Was this too ordinary a character for a novel? What would she say if she spoke? The seed that bloomed into Josephine took root that day . . . but I get ahead of myself.
Whilst some authors complain that they cannot work without perfect solitude, at this stage in my life I found being with Sylvia Shattuck more natural and more helpful than being alone. We had been friends since childhood, and we had arrived at that wonderful, intimate stage in which words are often unnecessary, so well does one know the other. Of a far less humble background than I, Sylvia was able to enjoy the frivolity that comes with wealth. Unlike so many members of “society,” however, she possessed a deep conscience and dedication to help those less fortunate, and, for this and her sweetness, my parents had accepted her into the bosom of our family. “She can’t help that she was born wealthy,” Father often said, in the same tone in which another person might say, He can’t help that he was born lame, or mute, or some other inescapable and unearned defect of nature.
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 custom
s,” 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.
About the Author
Anna Maclean is the pseudonym of Jeanne Mackin, an award-winning journalist and the author of several historical novels. She lives in the Finger Lakes area of New York with her husband, artist and writer Stephen Poleskie. Visit her Web site at www.annamaclean.net.