Little Woman in Blue

by Jeannine Atkins

  Mr. Niles took a bite of haddock. “It reminds me of the delicious turbot I recently enjoyed in Rome.”

  May supposed that everyone here had tasted seafood from the Mediterranean. She glanced at a gentleman who was discussing The Scarlet Letter.

  “Did you read it, Miss Alcott? What do you think?” Mr. Niles asked.

  “I found the ending disappointing.” May thought that was a safe comment for any Hawthorne novel.

  “I used to work with his editor, but I left Ticknor and Fields to help start a company specializing in memory albums. The war means there’s a call for books with blank pages for pictures and inscriptions,” Mr. Niles said.

  “But novels will always be needed. Even in these hard times, people want to read about love and tragedy.”

  “And what does a young lady like you know of such goings on?”

  “Not a thing, but my sister does. She’s a writer.”

  Mr. Niles’s eyelids fell. As a maid set down bowls of water with rose petals floating on top, he dipped his fingers, then stood and pulled out her chair. He didn’t look back as he joined the gentlemen filing out. May followed the ladies down a hall, then heard the clacking of billiard balls and smelled cigar smoke wafting from the next room as ladies stirred sugar into cups of Darjeeling tea and chatted about an uppity cook, bouts with influenza, the quest for an honest butcher, and a curiously short engagement. Alice spoke near her ear. “I’m afraid we bored you at dinner.”

  May hooked her arm into hers. “Didn’t you tell me that your father has a drawing by Michelangelo?”

  “It’s in his study. I’m not supposed to go there.”

  “Please. I want to see art as it was intended, not copies. The sketches tourists bring home are like being given a taste of something fine, then having the feast pulled away.”

  Alice glanced around, then showed May into a room lined with cases of leather-bound books. May turned slowly, stopping when she saw strong chalk lines depicting a man shown naked from the hips up. The sketch of the head and torso seemed unfinished, though the lines depicting muscles looked both confident and swift, so the portrait seemed to rise from the paper. The places where the red chalk thickened then turned paler suggested a face aching to change expression, a body about to move.

  “My mother doesn’t think it belongs even on a private wall, but she allows it as it’s supposed to be someone from the Bible. Whoever it is, I’m sure he’d look nicer dressed,” Alice said.

  “Artists have worked from the nude for thousands of years.”

  “Not in Boston.”

  “You must get used to nudity if you hope to take the Grand Tour with your mother.”

  “She says the most eligible men can be met in Europe, where the best families spend some time. May, wouldn’t it be bonny if we went together? I’m sure our mothers would adore each other.”

  May turned to a plaster cast of a gladiator struggling to stand. His head was thrown back in agony, with taut and rippling muscles in his neck and gored chest. The clenched toes and fingers looked rigid, as if he were desperate to hold onto life. “Who sculpted this?”

  “Dr. Rimmer, a talented but rather odd friend of my father’s,” Alice said. “I think art should be uplifting, don’t you? What’s the point of depicting something gruesome? There’s talk of raising money to have it cast in bronze and sent to Paris, where it might be shown in the Salon des Beaux-Arts. Its chances of getting past the jury don’t seem good.”

  “Surely this would find a place! The artist won’t send it himself?”

  “I presume shipping is expensive. Dr. Rimmer teaches an anatomy class for artists and also works as a doctor for poor people out in Quincy, but he can scarcely put food on the table for his passel of children.”

  “He teaches? Are women allowed?”

  “I believe he has one class of young ladies.”

  “Imagine how much better we could paint portraits if we knew what’s under the surface. Does he use nude models?”

  “Gracious, not in his classes! He has daughters of his own and knows what’s good for them. All his subjects are gloomy or violent. Cain and Abel. Saint Stephen being stoned to death. I suppose such things used to happen, but must we dwell on them? My mother says it’s no wonder his art doesn’t sell.”

  May looked back at the statue, feeling the heat of life and death twisting together. No matter how Alice might praise her, whether anyone here knew her name or not, May knew her paintings did not belong on these walls. But she vowed to someday make one that would. She wondered how much the sculptor’s lessons cost as she heard doors open and gentlemen’s voices get louder.

  She and Alice left for a drawing room, where butlers passed out fruit and ices. May asked Alice to find out the details of Dr. Rimmer’s classes, then asked if she could call a carriage for her.

  “It won’t be easy finding one at this hour.” Alice glanced at men collecting hats and helping ladies into ermine stoles or mink wraps. “Maybe someone could give you a ride. I don’t suppose there will be talk if you leave with Mr. Niles.”

  May wondered if she recalled that the fares doubled after eleven o’clock and was being considerate, trying to conceal, just as May did, that she taught not just for pleasure, but to earn a living. A few minutes later, May walked with Mr. Niles to his carriage. After they settled on seats across from each other, May asked a few careful questions about his work. He spoke of locating books that had proved popular in England to sell in the United States. “I work about half the year in London.”

  “What do you do there for entertainment?”

  “I go to an opera now and then.”

  “My sisters would give anything to see the London theaters. When we were little, we used to make pasteboard crowns and perform plays my sister wrote.”

  As the carriage passed the Common, May glanced out the window. Once again, she remembered standing under the bare gray branches of elms, passing out handbills. One morning, a gentleman had pressed a nickel into her hand and asked, “Does your father know where you are?”

  “Yes, he sent me,” she’d replied brightly. Her smile fell as he’d said, “Tell him to get a job instead of sending his children out begging.”

  May’s face grew warm, as if those words had been spoken moments instead of years ago. The coin had felt heavy in her palm. The blue sky had seemed to rise, clearly too high to touch. For the first time in her life, she’d felt all alone, knowing that the parents she loved weren’t loved by all the rest of the world.

  Now she pointed out the frog pond, sparkling in the moonlight. “That’s where my sisters taught me how to skate.”

  “It sounds like you had jolly times,” Mr. Niles said.

  “It was the happiest of childhoods.”

  The horses clattered over cobblestones, then stopped in front of the rooming house. May stepped out of the carriage carefully, so that only the tips of her boots showed.

  RATHER THAN LEAVING HER DISCOURAGED, THE ART SHE’D seen at the Bartlett’s home made May determined to work harder. She remained proud of her past paintings but also aware of how much she still must do. The following evening, she sketched Louisa in the room that smelled of lemon drops and pickled limes. It was impossible to convey the light on Louisa’s long, thick hair, the amber flecks in her eyes. May rubbed out lines.

  “You didn’t tell me about Alice’s brother.” Louisa clasped her hands over her head.

  “Sit still, please. There’s nothing to tell, though that family is wealthier than Julian’s.”

  “I suppose that’s all you need to know.”

  May didn’t just compare Julian’s house with its claret-colored carpets and brocatelle-covered cushions on the window seats to one that was even more elegant. She also wanted distance from a town where most people not only didn’t notice what was hung on a wall, but also called that a virtue. She missed kisses that felt like opening a door between a stuffy room and the outdoors, but she said, “There’s nothing wrong with looking out for not
only my future, but our whole family’s. Who will take care of Mother and Father one day? Anna married a poor fellow, and you claim to be uninterested, though you’re coy about that letter you carry around.”

  “I have more on my mind than fortunes or romance.”

  “Yes, you’re noble, with your old story about how Father returned from his lecture tour and I was the only one who asked what was in his pocket. When he took out a single dollar, Mother said, ‘All that matters is that you’re safely home.’”

  “I tell that to show her goodness.”

  “With me as the villain. But what’s wrong with having more to eat than stale bread or wrinkled apples? Or saying what everyone else is thinking? Anyway, your luck may change soon. I met an editor who works for a new company that specializes in diaries and albums.”

  “He thinks people want books without words?”

  “Maybe he hasn’t found the right ones yet. You should send him one of your plays or stories. You might even find you have more than literature in common. It seems he often goes to Europe on business.”

  “I didn’t ask you to look for a beau for me! Or an editor.”

  “Everyone can use some help.” May rubbed out most of the portrait.

  A FEW DAYS LATER, MAY WALKED UP TREMONT STREET and entered the Art Studio Building, where Alice had told her Dr. Rimmer taught. She heard a harp, scuffing slippers, numbers called in French from a ballet studio, shouts from rehearsing actors, and a pounding mallet from behind a door with a handle streaked with clay. She climbed the stairs and peeked into a room where charts of bones and organs were tacked to the walls. A human skeleton hung in a corner. A chalkboard was covered with sketches labeled frontal, parietal, and occipital bones. May touched a drawing showing what was under a turned neck. The strands of muscles looked as hidden and complicated as the currents of a river. She vowed to never again draw a few lines and a smudge of shadow for a neck.

  May left the studio to call on Aunt Bond. She didn’t ask for a loan but for references for women who might need mending done. By the following week, May was letting out waistbands for young women expecting babies or hemming linens for beds she wouldn’t sleep in. She kept accounts of what she spent on thread and trim and how much she’d need to pay for classes. As her needle circled, her thoughts of the future turned less to the sort of gown she might wear to a show that included her paintings and more to her hand painting eyes that properly flickered, mouths on the verge of moving.

  One evening, Louisa frowned at the black silk dress on May’s lap. “Where did that come from?”

  “I’m taking in sewing.”

  “Why? You have more students each week.”

  May felt proud that Louisa noticed. “A new series of anatomy classes starts in January. If I improve at drawing faces and figures, I might earn a living painting portraits of sons and husbands before they leave for war.”

  “When will you find time for classes between sewing and teaching? May, you did what you said when we moved to this neighborhood. You got more students. I’m not surprised they adore you, and they take you seriously, too. You’ve accomplished something. It’s a shame you should sew so much when you might be improving your craft. I’m putting money aside to send home, but the next time I sell a story, I’ll help pay for lessons.”

  “You’re too generous! I’ll get commissions, I’m sure, and it won’t be long before I can pay you back.”

  “It’s a gift. There are enough debts in this family.”

  “Just your wanting to do this means a lot.”

  “You didn’t think I’d help out a sister?”

  “I didn’t think you’d help out an artist.”

  May’s anticipation of classes over the following weeks lightened all her chores. Louisa also often seemed in a bright mood, crumpling fewer sheets of paper. One night, when she took out a worn letter, May said, “You might tell your sister if you were courting.”

  “I’m not.” Louisa’s voice was firm, but color rose on her face. “I have a plan. It may come to nothing. I must talk to Mother first.”

  “Then it’s time for a trip home. Let’s ask Anna and John to join us for your and Father’s birthday.”

  ON A CHILLY MORNING LATE IN NOVEMBER, MAY AND Louisa headed to the train station. Louisa whistled as they walked, though her birthday often made her gloomy. Father had been born on the same day and had long preached that it should be an occasion to give rather than get. Louisa had often spoken of being a little girl who was asked to smile while passing around plum cakes to the students who Father then taught, though she didn’t get to taste one. May didn’t bring this up, but she’d packed dried plums, hoping to bake a cake.

  They got off at the depot and walked by arbors covered with vines shorn of grapes and leaves. Cornstalks had turned brown and brittle. On their way through town, they passed the general store, the apothecary, the redbrick town hall, the blacksmith shop, and a church. They turned at the rustic fence Father had made from twisted branches and gnarled roots he’d dragged from the woods.

  As May opened their kitchen door, she heard Mother, Anna, and Father talking all at once. The sputter of flames from the hearth suggested a generous fire. Before May had put down her bonnet, she learned the festive air had nothing to do with birthdays.

  “I wanted to wait until everyone was here to tell,” Anna said. “But I couldn’t keep quiet. John and I expect a baby in spring!”

  May hugged her, then let go to throw her arms around Mother, John, then Father. Everyone repeated the usual questions about whether Anna was sure and well and if she suspected exactly when the baby might come.

  “This is the best gift a daughter could give us. Motherhood is woman’s highest calling,” Father said. His long hair was the color of butter and tarnished silver.

  “Of course, but I worked hard in the kindergarten, as May does now,” Louisa said.

  “Teaching is noble, but it’s not the same as being a parent. You girls will understand when you have your own,” Mother said.

  “Mother, I’m thirty years old. I’m not going to get married,” Louisa said.

  “You just haven’t met the right man yet,” Anna said.

  “We don’t know if she has.” May made her voice light, hoping Louisa would smile again. “I don’t know how she keeps so mum, but she won’t even hint about who wrote the letter she’s been carting around.”

  “I told you, there’s no one.” Louisa pulled the letter from her satchel, shook it dramatically, and read: “‘We seek mature ladies who are diligent, clean, healthy, sober, and industrious. No jewelry, bows, or hoop skirts are allowed.’” She straightened her back. “The nation won’t let me fight, but I can help the men who do.”

  “I’m not sure I understand,” Mother said.

  “Dorothea Dix is looking for nurses and said I might join,” Louisa said.

  “You can’t be serious,” May exclaimed.

  “I want to do more than sew blue shirts.”

  “It’s an honorable idea. Who would have thought I’d have a child who might help turn this war around?” Father said.

  “Bronson, please!” Mother turned from him to Louisa. “You’d be so near the fighting! And we’ve heard these hospitals are breeding grounds for sickness.”

  “That’s why I’m going. They need help. I’m strong and healthy, just the sort they’re looking for. I thought you’d be proud.”

  Louisa looked so stricken that May said, “Mother, you shouldn’t worry. Louisa has never been sick a day in her life.”

  “You’re the one who taught us to help others,” Louisa said.

  “It’s dangerous,” Mother replied. “Pneumonia, typhoid, and measles spread from one person to another.”

  “It’s nothing compared to what our good men risk,” Louisa said. “People say that President Lincoln will soon free the slaves, and Governor Andrew is already looking for colored men to make up a regiment. They’ll fight like no one else, and the war will be over soon.”


  May wrapped an arm around her oldest sister, who seemed forgotten as Father read aloud the letter in his rich voice. May knew Louisa deserved praise for meaning to bathe and bandage men whose arms and legs were cut off, men who bled and coughed and needed bedpans, but did she have to announce this plan minutes after Anna’s news? John seemed agitated, too, as if about to defend his wife. Or was he hoping to become invisible, sorry that the hero in the family wasn’t him? No one found fault with him for staying out of God’s war, not when they knew he endured constant pain in his legs. But May supposed he must dread silent criticism.

  “I suppose we all must make sacrifices in these times,” Mother said.

  “Then it’s settled,” Louisa said. “May and I will move our things back here, and as soon as I get notice, I’ll be off to the front.”

  “Move back here? I was going to start art lessons in January,” May said.

  “Lessons?” Mother asked. “You’re the finest artist in town. Louisa never took classes in writing.”

  “Art is different. I’ll look for cheaper lodgings,” May said.

  “Mercy, you can’t live in Boston by yourself,” Mother said.

  “The kindergarten has been losing students and has been advised to close for the duration,” Louisa said. “And your young ladies will make do without your fruit bowls for a while.”

  “Won’t you be glad to be near Julian again? When he’s home from college,” Anna said.

  “His mother tells me he sometimes dines at Judge Hoar’s house. Carrie is quite pretty,” Mother said.

  “Judge Hoar graduated from Harvard and likes to make sure the college boys get a good meal now and then. A lot of them go.” May thought Carrie seemed a churchy sort who wouldn’t even play croquet lest someone catch sight of her ankles. “Julian can do as he pleases, as will I. Maybe Louisa and I will go to Europe together, when she gets back from the front.”

  “Why not?” Louisa said.