How Do I Love Thee?

by Nancy Moser

I measured the weight of the books again. They were heavy. With words. With thoughts. With droplets of my life, pooled together into this stream of one page leading to the next. Would readers feel refreshed by my offering, or would they drown in it and snap the pages shut for want of air?

  And yet . . . I reluctantly possessed an inkling that this might be my final offering to the world. My health, my life, my creative power . . . although I dabbled with the notion of additional publications, I did not distinctly imagine any future accomplishments and attainments. What was now was accessible. Even in my mind’s eye, in my heart’s beat, I did not clearly foresee more. Although I tried not to dwell on it or even verbalize it, I knew that what stood as a barrier between now and more, was death.

  “Ba?”

  “Yes. Sorry, cousin.”

  “Are you pleased?”

  “It is something,” I said.

  “It is more than most women achieve.”

  I did not argue with him, and yet what most women achieved—the love of a husband, the joy of children—these would never be mine. Were these volumes my surrogate family? My proxy for flesh and blood progeny?

  The complexities of the issue threatened to taint the moment, and so I left John’s statement of achievement as it was and responded with a simple nod.

  I heard Wilson come bounding up the stairs—only she came in such a fashion. She burst into the room out of breath and thrust a note in front of me.

  “This just came from next door. Their butler is waiting for an answer.”

  Next door? Although we knew the family, we did not know them. Why would they send us a message? Me, a message?

  Flush sniffed at the envelope, reminding me that the note was mine to read. I pulled out the card: I am visiting next door. May I come by to meet you in person? Yours, Mrs. Anna Jameson.

  I gasped.

  “Who’s it from?” Wilson asked.

  “An acquaintance. A fellow writer. She wants to stop by.”

  “Stop by?” Wilson repeated my words with full disdain. “No one stops by the Barretts’.”

  She had learned well. Although some of my siblings did not mind such casual practices, Papa and I found such actions objectionable. And yet my desire to meet this woman who was the very genius of literary criticism . . .

  “What excuse should I give?” Wilson asked.

  Even to my maid it was not a question of yes or no, but a question of how to decline the offer. I retrieved my pen and wrote a reply on the back of the card. How very nice to hear from you, Mrs. Jameson. But alas, if only I had heard from you at the hour of five instead of six, I would ask you to step in, but, unfortunately, a visit is not now possible.

  I considered adding perhaps another time but I did not want to be put in this situation again. And so I added my close and slipped it back in the envelope. “Take this,” I told Wilson.

  I held my breath in order to hear her exchange with the neighbour’s butler. Then the door closed.

  And that was that.

  I was relieved.

  And disgusted at my own cowardice.

  I read the note, just handed to me by Wilson. Dear Miss Barrett, once again I find myself next door. I would so love to meet you. I can come at any hour. Fondly, Anna Jameson.

  Wilson anticipated my needs and brought me a pen. “She is nothing if not persistent,” she said.

  Nothing if not crafty. For, by the way she had worded the note, there was no way out. Any hour . . .

  It seemed she knew me even before meeting me. For the truth was, I did want to meet her but was too fainthearted to say, “Yes, come!” But upon knowing that I would have to allow her a visit or appear ungrateful, my heart almost broke itself into pieces with bumping.

  And so . . . I wrote a quick note before what measly courage I had could dissipate: I look forward to your visit. Perhaps at two? I handed the envelope to Wilson.

  “I suppose she’ll come again and again until you finally let her.”

  “I told her to come at two.”

  Wilson’s mouth gaped. “Two? Today?”

  “An hour from now.” Oddly, I enjoyed shocking her. In recent years I had grown far too predictable and had lost the ability to shock anyone. “Now go. Get the message on its way, then come help me get ready.”

  The short time it took Wilson to parlay the message was time enough for my body to rebel. The beat of my heart combined with a shortness of breath, causing me to feel faint.

  “Stop it!” I commanded.

  I hesitated a moment to see if my words had any power over my anatomy. There was a lessening of panic, though it was far from an eradication. I swung my feet to the floor and forced myself to take several deep breaths as fuel to my determination.

  I would do this. I would.

  I did it.

  After seeing Mrs. Jameson—Anna—out, Wilson returned to my room to find me standing at the fire, basking in its glow.

  “Enough, miss. You needs to get to bed again and—”

  I turned towards her. “I think not.”

  Her brow tightened. “But you talked and talked, and you know how such exertion tires you.”

  “Tired me,” I corrected. And though I was as surprised as she regarding my new resolve, I continued. “I found the visit quite stimulating.”

  “But so much stimulation—”

  “Will not do me harm.”

  Wilson lifted an eyebrow, questioning what we both knew to be a falsehood.

  Or was it merely a misconception? Just because I had previously reacted thus and so, did that mean I was preordained to always react in such a manner? To shrink and grow pale in the spirit? One point that remained constant was that after such a meeting took place, I had a hard time recalling why I had been so anxious about it. Such had been the way when I had met Mary Mitford. I’d worked myself into a tizzy over the very thought of such a meeting, when it had led to a friendship that had lasted for years.

  Now I had two female friends who had broken the Wimpole Street barrier and could come to call. They were far different from each other. Mary was petite and plump, with a vibrancy and openness that enticed many a confidence. And now Anna . . . she had a certain indecision of exterior. She had very pale red hair, no eyebrows, and thin lips with no colour at all. Both women had a strength of mind that inspired me. And though Mary was eighteen years my senior and Anna twelve, they were my peers. We were three women united by a passion for the written word.

  Wilson stood across from me. I had left her confused. Over the past seven months she had come to know my ways, my schedule, and my preferences. And now . . .

  I was throwing a stick into the spoke of our finely tuned carriage, and the very act of it . . .

  I felt fortified—and ambitious. “Are my sisters downstairs?”

  She blinked. “Yes.”

  “Then help me descend. I wish to join them.”

  “Join them?”

  “They are in the drawing room, yes?”

  “I believe so.”

  “It is my drawing room too, is it not?”

  “Well, yes, Miss Elizabeth, but—”

  “Then help me.”

  A mantra of I can do this, I can do this was alternating with Why am I doing this? Why am I doing this?

  Even as Wilson helped me traverse the mountain of stairs to join my sisters below, it took all my will and determination to not halt the process and request to be brought back to my room. By the tentativeness that I felt in Wilson’s assistance, I knew she expected a change of heart at any moment and had prepared herself to about-face and retreat.

  Perhaps this tentativeness on her part fueled my resolve. Between the repetition of my inner mantra, I turned my thoughts to what would surely transpire upon my success. I would enter the drawing room and all eyes would turn to me.

  Exclamations of “Ba!” would sprinkle the room and my sisters would rise and come to my aid, leading me to a chair by the hearth, gaining me a coverlet to drape across my lap, one sister callin
g to the butler to order a pot of strong coffee because it was my favourite.

  As we rounded the final landing Flush ran ahead, and for once I wished to scold him, for he would surely steal my thunder and dilute—

  But then I heard my sister’s voice race up the stairwell. “No, I won’t! You are not being fair!”

  I audibly gasped, yet the sound seemed once removed, as a sound heard through a window.

  Wilson whispered in my ear, “Perhaps we should go back upstairs, miss—”

  I shook my head. Although I preferred not to be embroiled in my sisters’ squabbles, my visit with Mrs. Jameson had given me new courage and I was not about to let a tiff about a bonnet or a dinner menu terminate my victory and resolve.

  “Come,” I told Wilson. “Let me finish this. As the eldest, perhaps I can help.”

  I knew this last to be bravado. No one in the house needed me to settle their differences or even to offer an opinion. In my upper room I had created a world set apart. I had defined the rules and marked the boundaries. For me to impose upon this conversation could be likened to Henrietta coming into my sanctum and insisting I get up and dance a jig.

  And yet, I could visit their world as they often visited mine. And perhaps by my very entrance I could help dispel the tension—

  I spotted Arabel, backing into the outer margin of the room, her skirt finding escape into the passage that stood between us. By her manner I knew this wasn’t her argument, so who—?

  “You will obey me, daughter! I demand it!”

  My heart leapt to my throat. Papa? Papa was home?

  “I am not your slave!” Henrietta shouted. “This is not Jamaica. This is—”

  Suddenly, I heard a slap, and then . . . a thud; the ringing of knees upon the floor. I saw Arabel recoil, one hand to her mouth, one to her chest.

  And then, Henrietta’s wail rose and I saw Stormie and Henry on either side of her, carrying her flailing and fighting into the space just a few steps below me.

  They looked up, and Papa appeared in the doorway and looked right at me, his face florid and twisted and foreign. And then—

  I fainted.

  A soft murmuring reached my consciousness, words said so softly as to nearly express a constant hum. Occasional words found fruition: God, Father, help . . .

  My other senses stirred and I felt the embrace of my mattress, tasted a parched mouth, and smelled the musk of my Flush close by. Sensing my return to him, he licked my hand and gently bit my little finger as if to encourage me towards full wakefulness.

  The last of my senses demanded release and I opened my eyes.

  As I had ascertained, even in my groggy state, I had been returned to my room. Which brother had climbed the many stairs with me as his burden? Or had Papa—

  I stopped the thought as a memory demanded attention. “You will obey me, daughter! I demand it!”

  I shuddered as I heard—as though freshly created—the awful slap, the thud, and my sister’s wails.

  Arabel was suddenly at my side, her Bible clutched to her chest. “We thought you dead,” she said.

  I attempted to push myself to sitting, and managed, with her assistance. She adjusted the pillows as my support. Then she headed towards the door. “I will get—”

  “No!” I called her back. “I must know what happened.”

  “You fainted.”

  “No, no. Between Henrietta and Papa. Whatever could cause such an awful contest between them?”

  Arabel glanced towards the door, then back at me. “Henrietta has a suitor.”

  It was the first I had heard of it. “Who?”

  “Our second cousin, Surtees Cook.”

  I had never met him and must have looked perplexed because Arabel moved to explain. “We share a great-grandfather.”

  “Are they engaged?” I asked.

  “Henrietta would like them to be.” Arabel shrugged. “But Mr. Cook’s financial condition will not make him easily accepted.”

  “He is poor?”

  “His mother is widowed but has connections, yet he is but an army lieutenant.” She hastened to add, “But apparently he is writing a novel. I believe it is entitled Johnny Cheerful. He hopes to be made rich by it. I heard Henrietta tell him when the time came, you would offer your advice.”

  “I will do no such thing!”

  “Why not?”

  “Because he . . . because Papa does not approve of him.”

  Instead of arguing with me—which would have been beyond her character—Arabel sighed. “He will never approve. And though he has allowed Mr. Cook to dine with us—he being a relation—he will never allow marriage.”

  I knew her last statement was all-inclusive. It was not just the groom potential of Surtees Cook that was in question; the ban against marriage was absolute. At age thirty-eight, I had long ago accepted that dictum as law, but Henrietta, a few years younger, still grasped on to hope.

  She must have really been in love for her to risk Papa’s wrath—a wrath I had never, ever witnessed. Although on no occasion had I been the recipient of Papa’s anger, I had heard him chastise my siblings on occasion, his stern words standing without emotion or fury. But today . . . what had Henrietta done to elicit such rage?

  Arabel set her Bible down and tucked my covers between bed frame and mattress. “Although Papa will never approve of Mr. Cook, his wrath today was provoked by Henrietta’s secrecy.” She stopped her tucking. “She has been having Mr. Cook come to lunch while Papa is at work.”

  Ah. As the uncontested head of our Wimpole Street household, Papa would never condone covert actions behind his back. That I had brought Mrs. Jameson into the house without his knowledge . . .

  A tightening in my midsection told me I would never take such a risk again. To do so was usurping his position. Although I had meant no disrespect I had crossed the line of a good daughter’s deference.

  We both looked towards the door when we heard feet upon the stairs. Was Papa coming to check on my condition?

  Instead Henrietta, Stormie, and Henry came into view. Upon seeing me sitting upright, Henrietta rushed to my side and flung her arms about me. “I was so worried. That you are well . . .” She stood back to see me. “I never would have forgiven myself if you had suffered true damage.”

  “Ah, she’s well enough,” Henry said. “It was just the drama of it that overtook her.” He leaned against the doorjamb. “You did put on quite a show, Hen.”

  He looked to Stormie, who nodded and smiled, but without the satisfied malice. “Papa . . . wwwwaassss . . . mmmmad.”

  Henrietta sat on the side of my bed and took my hand. “I made it worse. I argued. I shouldn’t have argued.”

  “It is not allowed,” Henry said. There was bitterness in his voice, and a note of finality. We all knew it was the truth. I abided by Papa’s pronouncements out of love and respect, but I feared some of my siblings did so for more mercurial reasons. Other than George, none of them earned enough income to subsist on their own.

  “Where is Papa?” I asked. For it was his concern I desired the most.

  “He is about,” Arabel said.

  “Has he come to see me?”

  The look they exchanged spoke in more layers than Arabel’s simple no. She hurried to add, “Not yet.”

  Had he found out about Mrs. Jameson? And had that one impulsive act put me into the same league as Henrietta’s deception? I quickly thought of an excuse. I could tell Papa that Mrs. Jameson’s note had not allowed a refusal. Surely he would understand—

  There was a communal cessation of breath, then an instant check in all movement, as we heard Papa’s feet upon the stairs.

  Henry leaned towards the room. “Glad you are better, Ba.” He hurried out the door with Stormie at his heels. I heard the door to the roof click open, then shut.

  They had made their escape, leaving behind the one who needed escape the most. To her credit, Henrietta remained seated at my side, though a twitch to her hand told me she had conside
red otherwise.

  Papa’s massive presence filled the doorway, and the three women of the household waited to gauge his mood and motive.

  His eyes quickly scanned the room, falling twice upon me—at first and at last. “I see you are awake.”

  It was not quite an apt term for coming out of a dead faint, yet all I could say was yes.

  “Good.” He nodded once. “Well, then. Good night.” With that, he turned to leave.

  Henrietta made to rise. “But, Papa—”

  I grabbed her arm and pulled her to silence. Arabel added her own shake of the head. Not now.

  None of us moved until Papa’s footfalls faded into the silence of the house. Only then did we breathe.

  “Will he ever forgive me?” Henrietta said.

  “Of course he will,” Arabel said. “The Bible insists on forgiveness.”

  Henrietta shook her head. “But does Papa?”

  They proceeded to ask after my needs and I assured them Wilson would take care of me. Then they kissed me good-night and departed.

  Only after the solitude of my room was retaken did I realize that Papa had not stayed to pray with me.

  He had never missed an evening. It was our special time together.

  Yet tonight . . . had he deemed me so undeserving that he was repulsed by my very presence? Was he so disgusted with Henrietta’s sin that he now lumped me as one with her? Had I forever lost his favour?

  I gazed at my Bible on the table near the sofa where we always knelt. I could pray alone. I often did so, but had never attempted these final prayers of the day without my father’s influence.

  I could kneel down without him. And yet, somehow the idea of bypassing one father to speak with another . . .

  I remained where I was, across the room from our holy place.

  I had never felt so alone.

  And unworthy.

  EIGHT

  I should not care for praise.

  But I did.

  The Bible says that Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall, and because I do not wish to fall, I tried to keep my pride in check lest I demand divine repercussions.