One Glorious Ambition

by Jane Kirkpatrick

  “Do they?”

  “More would find your intellect fascinating and your heart as the fire in the hearth. You simply do not allow others to know you, Thea.”

  “If they did, they would soon find fault. I worry over that with you too.”

  “Nonsense. I find no fault in you except you do not laugh enough and you take yourself too seriously. You’re a young woman, successful and full of generosity. But you should also have time for rest or you will become sick. I have seen this happen in men and women who work too hard in the care of others. With both schools operating, I fear you’ll fall ill.”

  “I’ll work harder at laughing,” Dorothea said.

  Anne laughed. “Somehow I knew you’d make a task of it.” She leaned forward and put her horse into a canter. Dorothea followed closely behind.

  Ten

  That Little Stability

  Dorothea’s days were filled with her school at Orange Court, her evenings at the carriage house school, and Sundays with the Heaths, and in between she wrote. She wrote to Anne, to her former Worcester students, and to Charles and Joseph, giving them instruction for living. She wondered how long she could maintain this grueling pace. And it was grueling. She arose at 4:00 a.m., donned enough petticoats to ward off winter drafts, dressed in a simple black linen dress with a white lace collar, fixed tea, and wrote. She wrote down ideas, stories, and even hymns she intended to use in her school. A kind of frenzy drove her days, and she heard herself be short with her students when they seemed unable to grasp a concept a mere day after she had taught them. At least cold weather halted the head lice in the carriage house schoolchildren, and in November she temporarily closed that school as the children all had coughs.

  She worried about Marianna and Grace. The child often missed class, and the last time she had seen Grace, the woman had a racking cough. She could help if only Grace would agree.

  “Marianna needs to live with me.” Grace’s lips shook and her fisted knuckles at the side of her gray linen dress were white as bone.

  “But you could rest more,” Dorothea said. “I can tell you’re ailing. Your cough grows worse. Marianna knows it. She worries about you.” It was the end of the school year and the children had left the library, allowing Dorothea to have time with Grace.

  “You are welcome to visit her during this break,” Grace said. “I have appreciated all you’ve done to advance her lessons. She adores you, but no. I need her to be with me.”

  “But what does Marianna need?”

  “She needs a loving mother, which I am.” Grace’s voice seethed.

  “I know. I know. That’s right. I’m so sorry.” Dorothea’s mouth felt dry. “I don’t know what I was thinking.” She reached for Grace who pulled back like a magnet against an opposite force. “Of course. She needs to be with a mother who meets her needs.” Her heart pounded in her head. How foolish! She must never try to separate a child from a parent. She hoped Grace would not keep Marianna from the school in the summer term. “I only proposed it to give you some relief. I … if I can do that ever, even for a day, I’d be happy to have Marianna with me.”

  Grace’s shoulders drooped, and she sank onto a high-back chair. “I can’t seem to fight off the fatigue. Nor the cough for any length of time.”

  “What do the doctors say?”

  “They don’t know.” She cleared her throat. “But yes, perhaps a few days this summer Marianna could be with you. I’ll send a note of invitation. I know you only want the best for her.”

  “I do. Absolutely. And for you. You’re family.” She’d have to be careful. Families could so easily be separated.

  A boarder who had recently been in Philadelphia talked of the Asylum for the Relief of Persons Deprived of the Use of Their Reason. Like an academic, he raised the issue of whether treatment for such people was possible. Could suffering be relieved or was such misery the result of the new industrial efforts, long hours worked in dark factories, farm girls brought in from the country with too much freedom and lack of discipline causing them to lose their ability to think? Boarders had opinions, and Dorothea listened. “All people are worthy of opportunity to change their ways,” she finally offered.

  One of the boarders wiped at his mouth with a linen napkin. “The asylum is more for the relief of the rest of us.” There were chuckles around the table, but Dorothea did not join in.

  “Isn’t the asylum a scriptural response to such people in need?” These were divinity students much more deeply immersed in Scripture. Dorothea was probably stepping into deep waters with these well-trained scholars; she didn’t know how to swim. “They can’t all be there because of excessive drinking.”

  “There might be a few innocents among them. Children, perhaps,” said the student who had begun the discussion.

  “Doesn’t Luke 13:4–5 tell us that misfortunes are not necessarily the result of sin?”

  “She has you there,” said a scholar with a bulbous nose and glasses too small for his face. “The asylum is privately funded, so what are we to say about it anyway?”

  “I don’t believe it is privately funded,” a physician-student commented, wiping his pencil-thin mustache with his napkin. “What alienist would put his money into such a venture? Surely a private medical hospital would be a better investment than a private asylum.”

  The conversation wandered into other kinds of investments, and Dorothea found herself lagging behind, her thoughts on her mother, the walnut-haired woman who had once joined them on Sundays, held up by her and her father whenever they entered the Methodist meeting hall. Her mother’s head would loll from side to side. Although her clear skin and thick hair made her seem ageless, her eyes were often melted holes in snow-white skin. Was her mother a patient for an asylum? Would placing her in such a place keep her from offending her family and neighbors?

  Dorothea often wondered how her mother was faring in New Hampshire. Maybe I should visit. No, visiting would do no good, but only agitate her mother at seeing her daughter after all these years. Maybe by now she had forgotten she had a daughter. Still, maybe her mother could be treated as though her state of mind was a disease. Maybe new apothecary salts and potions could induce a cure. Few considered the mentally ill curable. Aunt Sarah had suggested that Mary Bigelow Dix had never been right, never able to carry out her motherly duties. Unavailable.

  The supper discussion ended. If Dorothea could help prevent mind deterioration by giving children reasoning tools, she could perhaps keep them from sinking into a world of too much freedom, a cause of mental disease that many agreed on. That was her task then as a teacher. Prevention. Her mother must have had no one teaching her when she was a child.

  She had been sending sections of a book she was writing to Anne, and the two often discussed her progress on Saturday afternoons as they wandered through the Heath gardens or strolled beside the harbor. Dorothea wasn’t sure if it was the conversations she enjoyed most or if just being with Anne lightened her days. This woman supported her and genuinely cared for her; the knowledge inspired Dorothea and gave her energy for teaching.

  “You really think the book is interesting?” She’d thought her words a bit stiff, but if Anne approved …

  Anne was as tall as Dorothea, and people nodded and stepped aside as the pair walked arm in arm through the streets of Boston, parasols sheltering them from the summer sun.

  “The work is fabulous. You must get it published.”

  Dorothea wrote the book as a conversation between a mother and a daughter. The child would ask: Why, Mother, did you spend so much time in the factory the other day? I saw the spindles whirl till I was tired; do tell me why you looked so long at that great pile called machinery.

  The mother would respond: I will tell you, my dear; I wished to understand the principle upon which the spools and spindle were set in motion; the action of the looms; and closely to observe every part of what you thought so uninteresting.

  “It’s a lovely way to share information, and it
models respectful communication between mothers and daughters. Papa might have a publisher friend he could put you in touch with.”

  “That would be … that would be wonderful. Thank you. I’m nearly finished.”

  “You do so much more with your time than I,” Anne said. They stopped at a clock shop and looked in the window. “I don’t even need a clock. I don’t really have to be anywhere on time. Except church, of course. But my sisters keep me apprised of my appointments.”

  “I’m not sure what I would do with my time if I didn’t have these projects.”

  “I suppose that’s why we’re supposed to marry and have children. So we’re always occupied and never wondering what else we’re supposed to be doing. Yet marriage eludes us, it seems.” Anne’s hat brim brushed Dorothea’s.

  “Anne, has anyone ever proposed to you?” It was a daring question to ask. So private.

  Anne began walking again, this time with both hands on her parasol. “I did have a proposal long ago.” She hesitated. “I even accepted.”

  “Did you? What happened? If I’m not prying.”

  “He … felt pressured, I suspect. To make an arrangement before he went to Europe to school. And then he never returned. Papa received condolences from his family, apologizing for their son’s behavior, but I never heard from him. He married an Italian countess or something.”

  “I didn’t mean to lance an old wound,” Dorothea said. She wanted to reach out and comfort Anne, place a hand on her shoulder, but she didn’t.

  “Oh, it’s a wound well scarred over. After that, I wanted only friends, not the ache of caring deeply for someone only to have him spurn my love. Not even care enough to tell me directly. I suppose that’s the greatest humiliation. His parents told my parents. I felt like damaged goods being returned when I was as I had always been.”

  “Perfect,” Dorothea said. “You are perfect. His is a terrible loss that he will never know.”

  Anne smiled. “Thank you.” They paused next in front of a silver shop with Paul Revere pieces for sale. People dressed in finery walked behind them. Yellow and pink parasols reflected in the window. “And you?”

  “Me? No. No marriage proposals. Not even an interest, really. A frightened kiss by a divinity student, however.” Anne raised her eyebrows. “Nothing, really. I adored my French tutor and my riding instructor, but of course one must keep one’s feelings controlled when it comes to the employed classes.” Dorothea laughed. “Now I am in the employed class with parents hiring me to teach their students.”

  “You’re a businesswoman. Very different,” Anne told her.

  “Still. I’ve found no one to give my heart to except my brothers. And you, my friend. You are my best friend.” Her palms felt clammy inside her gloves. Her chest hurt from exposing her care so openly.

  “There’s Marianna,” Anne said.

  “Yes,” Dorothea whispered. “She is family and I adore her.” She hesitated. “But it’s you who mean so much. I should die if ever I did or said something that turned you from me.”

  Anne pulled her arm through Dorothea’s and patted her hand. The brims of their hats touched once again. Dorothea smelled Anne’s minty breath. “You should never worry over such impossibilities as that. Besides, families work through such things.”

  Dorothea looked away, felt tears burn at her nose.

  That night Dorothea apologized in a letter to Anne. She had not meant to put such a weight on her friend by asking about proposals or burdening her with fears that Anne might one day find another dear friend. “I have never had a friend such as you, never. If I pass the boundaries of those lines of which I know nothing, please forgive me. You are the stake beside me that keeps me sturdy in a buffeting wind.” She read and reread the lines, then sealed the letter with wax before she added more.

  Boston publisher Munroe and Francis agreed to print and sell Dorothea’s first book. They titled it Conversations on Common Things, or Guide to Knowledge, with Questions. A subtitle For the Use of Schools was added. “You ought to add ‘for use in families’ as well,” Edmund Monroe noted.

  “Oh, I’m hardly one to speak of how a family ought to be. Too presumptuous.”

  Munroe shrugged. “And your name will go below that.”

  “My name?” Her heart began to pound and her breath threatened to catch in her throat. “Oh. No. That would be unseemly for a proper woman. No, just say ‘By a Teacher.’ ”

  Munroe wiggled his pursed lips, then shrugged.

  Madam Dix would be appalled if Dorothea’s name were to be associated with something as mundane as book publishing. It was not the proper pursuit of a Boston woman. For some reason, what the woman thought of Dorothea still mattered.

  “Oh, that’s silly,” Anne told her later when Dorothea visited to thank Mr. Heath for referring her to Munroe and Francis and to share with her best friend this wonderful news. “Why not have a little public recognition for your work?”

  “I have my students’ and their parents’ recognition. That’s enough.” She looked away, then said, “I would share this with you, and only you, Anne. I do not want the world’s applause, but I would so like to be a fitting companion of the Virtuous Great.”

  “It’s a glorious ambition to wish to receive ‘well done, good and faithful servant’ from God Himself,” Anne told her and clasped her hand.

  “I want that so much, with an intentness that threatens to annihilate the little stability that now sustains me.”

  Anne raised an eyebrow. “What a strange thing for you to say, Thea. You seem quite the stable woman to me. More so than many I could name.”

  Dorothea gave a choked laugh. “Of course.” She pulled her hands from Anne’s, fluttered them, dismissive. “I’m not sure what I was thinking. God, through your friendship, has given me all I’ve needed to be on solid footing for my life. I am forever grateful. Forget what I said about my annihilation. I … was being dramatic, something I rarely am. It must be the vapors coming on.”

  That evening alone in her room, she wrote to Grace and Marianna, asking if the child might be able to go to a concert with her at the Harvard campus. She had received no note of invitation from Grace, so she took the initiative with courage. She told Grace of her publishing contract too. Sharing a good thing with family was acceptable, wasn’t it? The letter sealed, she fixed herself hot water with lemon and honey to fend off a sore throat and cough. Why did her cough seem to follow on the heels of consternation?

  The thought of her name attached to the book had upset her. She wondered if Grace’s cough might be related to the same kind of thing, a bodily response to an emotional turn of events. Nonsense. Grace had seen doctors. She thought Grace might suffer from consumption, and hoped it wasn’t. Dorothea’s cough was simply from the fall foliage making her throat feel as rough as poor paper. She blew out the candle, but sleep came late, riding on the recycling of her day.

  Marianna wrote in reply, her tiny script saying she could not attend the concert but could Miss Dix please come to tea. Miss Dix—no longer Auntie.

  The next day Dorothea walked to the small brownstone where Marianna and Grace lived. River mist her companion. Marianna was sweeping the brick steps of wet leaves as she approached.

  “Hello, Aunt—Miss Dix.” She curtsied, then dropped the broom and ran to her, hugging Dorothea’s black skirts. “I’m so glad you came. Can we draw?”

  “Whatever you like. But I thought I came for tea.”

  “Mummy is fixing tea, but I’d rather draw.”

  “Fancy that. I happen to have brought a set of paints with me. Would you like to try your hand at that?”

  “Oh yes! Come! I’ll tell Mummy and she can watch.”

  Dorothea did not gasp when she saw Grace was as slender as a cap ribbon and just as limp. “Grace. You’re … may I help … you’re so … frail.”

  “I am. I am. But Marianna wanted you to come. And so did I. Please, sit.”

  Dorothea removed the reticule from her wrist and
placed the carpetbag with the paints and small easel at her feet. Grace poured the tea, and the steam and the scent of mint lifted from the cups.

  Dorothea glanced at Grace, then moved her eyes to the tea and added cream and sugar. She searched for words. Grace was so much worse.

  Marianna pressed herself into Dorothea’s side. “Mummy’s been sicker.”

  “No. I haven’t. Just more tired.” The defense brought on a cough. “Why don’t you go to your room and draw for a bit. Let Miss Dix and me talk.”

  “She brought paints.”

  “I did.” Dorothea opened the carpetbag. “Here they are.” Marianna smelled the pigments. “Why not take them to your room, as your mother suggested. We’ll join you in a moment.”

  Grace nodded approval and the child skipped off.

  “I asked you to come because—”

  “You want me to take her.” Dorothea was breathless, pressed her hands over Grace’s. “I understand. It would be so much easier for you both. I’ll take very good care of her, I will. She is an adorable child, and my looking after her will give you the chance to truly get better.”

  Grace leaned back in her chair. “No! No! Nothing like that. I asked you to come to tell you that Marianna may attend only two days now at your school. I need her here.”

  “I … Of course.” Dorothea’s face warmed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. I only want to help. You suffer so.”

  “I haven’t forgotten your … offer, Miss Dix. But, for now, your being her teacher is what I need, just not as many days.”

  “She’ll be missed.” I’ll miss her so much.

  “Then enjoy her today as much as you can.”

  Eleven

  Tumbling Down

  Dorothea’s first book came out in the spring of 1824. The publisher held a small party for her that summer. The Heath girls attended, along with some of the Harvard students. Mary charmed the room; her dimples and tinkling laughter were a magnet for the men. Dorothea wore a sable-colored linen dress with a feather-like bustle and matching collar, as dressed-up as she ever was. She allowed herself a moment of pleasure looking in the mirror before entering the room where all turned and applauded. Sales were rapid. Parents as well as teachers purchased it. As a result, an educational reformer approached Dorothea to teach at the Female Monitorial School in Boston. She would lead an afternoon session of needlework for seventy girls—if she accepted.