Everyone returned to talking again about her, as if Louisa were the sort of swashbuckling hero she’d acted in the plays she wrote. Didn’t she remember that somebody always died? That in this case, there might be no curtsy before an improvised curtain? No, everything would be all right. May knew she couldn’t complain about putting off drawing classes when others gave up so much more for the war. She stood up. “I’ll make tea.”
Mother squeezed her hand. “It’s good to have you back here. You know just the way I like it. Strong, but not bitter.”
As May rummaged for cups, she moved the breadboard with the burnt impression of Raphael she’d made with a hot poker on wood. As if she could know what one of her favorite painters would look like, when she’d never even been to Italy. She set the teapot over a low flame and thought how foolish she’d been to think she might save the day with a plum cake. She looked through the window to bent, blackened sunflowers and larches between their house and Julian’s, then carefully measured spoonfuls of tea. How many cups would she brew while Louisa was gone?
She snatched up the breadboard and tried to cram it into the woodstove, but the iron door was too small. She threw it hard, so it slammed against the wall.
“Is everything all right?” Mother called.
“Yes.” May took a breath, so her voice would carry to the next room. “Of course.”
4
NORTH AND SOUTH
The Emerson family and Mrs. Hawthorne joined the Alcotts at the train station. Louisa held a basket of apples, gingerbread, a copper teakettle, paper, and a brass inkstand. Mr. Emerson kissed the top of her head and gave her two Dickens novels to pass the time on the train. Father clapped his hands on her shoulders and said, “I’m sending my only son to war.”
May stamped her feet to keep warm. She reminded herself that Louisa was leaving for Washington, D.C., not Paris or Rome. She knew she should be grateful that Mr. Sanborn had told her he could use another teacher. But she couldn’t help feeling forgotten.
“Are you sure you know what to do?” Mother asked.
“Miss Dix wrote down directions. I change trains in New London, take a ferry to Jersey City, then catch another train to an inn, where I’ll spend the night.” Louisa whispered to May. “I should have written a will, but I have so little. If something happens, will you see that everyone chooses a memento, as we did with Beth?”
“Don’t be theatrical. You’re coming back.” May regretted her words even as they left her mouth. She softened her voice. “I’m sorry you’ll have to leave your writing.”
“I might find something really worth writing about there.” Louisa turned to Mother. “Am I doing the right thing? Should I stay here?”
May pulled her cloak tighter. She felt the fear she’d tamped inside her tighten then lift. She could smell Mother’s woolen scarf, sprinkled with pepper, which she used to keep off moths, and willed her to say: No. It’s ridiculous. It’s risky. Stay home.
“Of course it’s the right thing.” Mother hugged Louisa. They didn’t drop their arms even when the locomotive’s whistle shrieked and the smell of burning coal deepened, so May threw her arms around them both. Amid lots of wishes for good luck, Louisa pulled away and climbed aboard.
The next day, May walked to the schoolhouse run by Mr. Sanborn. She spent the morning between the blackboard and the girls who sat on one side of the room, teaching composition and introductory French. These lessons weren’t much different from those given to the boys, but the school was already considered advanced enough without them sharing recess. While the boys went outside to wrestle, aim imaginary rifles at imaginary Confederate soldiers, and throw snowballs at horses, May listened to the girls recite poetry and supervised their knitting.
Ten days after Louisa left, May trekked over the packed snow into town. The general store smelled of pickles, coffee, and molasses. Men huddled around the woodstove, arguing about Generals Sherman and McClellan. A woman asked May about Louisa while keeping an eye on Mr. Stacy, who broke up lumps of sugar and put them on his scale. “How your mother must worry!”
“She’s proud.” May winked at some children pressing against the glass case displaying lemon drops and cinnamon candies. She picked up the mail and hurried home.
Kicking snow from her boots, she called, “A letter from Louisa!” and she read it aloud to Mother:
December 16, 1862
My dearest family,
I meant to write the minute I arrived to tell you of my journey, but I fell asleep with pen in hand, only to be awakened by shouts and the rumble of wheels outside my window. Wagons, pulled by tired horses, were full of soldiers from Fredericksburg. I hurried downstairs where towels and a block of brown soap such as we use for laundry were thrust into my arms. I was told to take off boots, socks, and shirts. Attendants are supposed to wash the rest, but they are convalescents themselves, some barely able to stand. The good men had waited for days in the rain for wagons. Until we cleaned off the layers of mud, we couldn’t know their injuries.
Some nurses ask to be spared witnessing amputations, but I came here to help every way I can. One poor fellow had to have his leg cut off when we were out of ether. His lips turned white, but he did not make a sound. I couldn’t comfort, but recited Dickens from memory in an effort to take his thoughts off the saw.
I am blessed to be here. I know your prayers are with me.
Your loving Louisa
May was touched by the letter, but was it necessary for Mother to carry it on all of her errands and read it aloud to neighbors? Mrs. Hawthorne, who stopped by every day for news, must have heard it a dozen times.
“Poor Louisa. They say the wounded drink and use foul language,” she said. “I know they undergo dreadful amputations, but there’s never a reason to take the Lord’s name in vain.”
Mother fretted about the long hours Louisa worked and about Anna, whose back ached, which was common among women carrying babies, but which could also be a sign of something wrong. May knew it was natural for a mother to be concerned about a daughter living where she could hear cannons fire and another expecting her first child. She wished she could be more like Beth, who’d seemed to take satisfaction in perfectly plumped pillows and the view from twelve well-scrubbed panes of glass. But she missed kindergartners’ round faces, their eyes and noses the size of buttons, and the occasional dinner parties at her students’ houses. Instead, she joined a group of ladies who made dominoes, chessboards, and conundrum books to send to hospitalized soldiers.
The Saturday-night dances had been called off for the war. Molasses candy scrapes were thought unpatriotic, too. May was happy when Julian came home for the Christmas break, having grown a mustache and looking handsome in his blue Prince Albert coat. Skates were slung over his shoulders, which looked wider, probably from having joined the crew team.
“What brought you into town, besides to brighten your mother’s day?” she asked.
“Only that, of course. And perhaps to ask my father for some money.”
His slow smile forming with soft, beautifully shaped lips made her belly lurch. She said, “I suppose a college boy has lots of expenses. How are your classes?”
“All my professors see me as Nathaniel Hawthorne’s son. They compare my work to The Scarlet Letter, and my prose style comes out as wanting.”
“We’ve always been Bronson Alcott’s daughters. I know comparisons hurt.”
“The one good thing about my father being unwell is that he doesn’t know how badly I’m doing at college.”
“I hope your father’s troubles aren’t serious.” May thought of how he’d always seemed absentminded but had recently walked through their kitchen door and stood at the bottom of the stairs before realizing he was in the wrong house.
“My mother says it’s Concord that threatens his health. Maybe they’ll travel.”
May got her skates, and they walked to the frozen river, which glinted in the sunlight. Julian hurled a few rocks, which slammed and skidded
, to be sure the ice was safe in the middle. They sat on a stone between the old North Bridge and the house where his parents had lived when they were first married to strap on their skates. Wrapping their arms around each other’s waists, they wobbled down the slope to the lace-like edge of ice. They headed down the river and made a few circles before skating side by side.
“Have you settled on a course of studies?” she asked.
“What I really want is a chance to do my part to save the Union. But after the war, I’d be glad to just row and wander, like Mr. Thoreau. Or sail, like my ancestors did.”
“And go into trade?”
“I know little of that. But I’d like living on a ship.”
“Become a pirate?”
“Why not? And you a pirate queen!” He grabbed her hands, and they spun over the ice. As he let her go, he said, “A chap came to the college and spoke about searching for the origin of the Nile. There are fortunes to be found in Africa. Wouldn’t it be exciting? I want to see the world.”
“You’ve lived in Rome and London. You’ve seen Paris!”
“I’m not talking about seeing things from trains. Traveling to and from Italy, we passed by the Alps, but I wanted to climb them.”
“And what could you do with that?” May felt a flash of impatience, though she told herself it must be hard for some people to learn what they are best at. She supposed she was lucky to have known for so long what she could do, though her love of art might have fallen to her simply because it was what was left after Louisa claimed theater and writing, Beth music, and Anna a devotion to making sure clean linen was distributed fairly through the household and plum preserves through the neighborhood. She said, “You’re a dreamer.”
“And aren’t you? There have never been lady painters.”
“There’s a lot we don’t know.” Her father’s library contained no books by women, but that didn’t mean that they hadn’t been written. She wondered if women’s work wasn’t displayed in the galleries she’d seen because of something besides lack of worth. “Julian, it’s jolly to think of adventures, but you must make other plans, too. What will your friends do after college?”
“I suppose those with proper connections can study whatever they please and end up as lawyers or bankers of some sort.”
“Your father knows people in high places.”
“Most are men of letters, who are as penniless as we are.”
“Don’t exaggerate.” Such talk annoyed her. While his father’s books might not have been widely beloved, educated people liked having them on their shelves.
“I could hunt whales. All the retiring captains means a shortage of lamp oil. There are still fortunes to be made,” he said. “Or maybe I’ll become an artist. At the library, I found some missals from the Middle Ages with intriguing borders. I copied some illustrations, and the fellow at the college bookstore said he might put them up for sale.”
Pushing away jealousy, May skated farther down the river, past dried grasses bent by glistening ice. Soon Julian glided behind, then around her. He hummed a tune she didn’t know, but she recognized its waltz pace. They took each other’s hands and spun. She let go, slipped her hands back in her muff, and continued up the river, slowing down by a big rock. She heard the snap of splitting ice, the swallowing sounds of warmer currents clashing with cold. She said, “We should turn back.”
“The river often sounds like that.” He spread his long legs, sailed over a crack, then sped toward her. She threw out her hands so they wouldn’t collide, but he dragged the tip of his skate and stopped close enough so she could smell the tobacco on his woolen jacket. He said, “I think this is where the water lilies grow.”
“The ones Mr. Thoreau said open at dawn?”
“Yes. And where my father found a dead body, a long time ago.”
“Someone drowned here? The river isn’t that deep. And slow.”
“Apparently this girl worked at it. She was lonely and saw no chances for marriage or leaving town.”
“There must be other ways to get out of Concord.” May headed back toward the bridge. Seeing Julian skate around another split in the ice, she called, “Be careful!”
He leapt over a narrow channel, landing on ice that broke under the impact. She slapped her hand over her mouth but kept her eyes wide open as his foot, then ankle, and half his leg plunged into the water. He threw himself flat on the surrounding ice, which split. Black water rose and rippled, but Julian pulled up his leg and wiggled to ice that was thick enough to hold him as he squirmed to safety. May sped to the riverbank as he crawled toward it. He stood, hunching over, then lunged to the frozen ground.
“I’m all right.” He tried to wring out his trousers.
“How could you be so reckless?”
“I’m just a bit wet.”
“We should get back before your boots freeze.”
They walked silently and briskly, though he hobbled slightly. She wondered whether it was the stories of exploring Africa or the drowned girl or his soaked boots that kept him from kissing her before they reached the door.
THE FACT OF MAIL OR NO MAIL COLORED THE FOLLOWING afternoons. When Louisa wrote about a persistent cough and fever, May reassured Mother. “She’s surrounded by doctors. She’ll get help if it gets worse.”
May noticed that Louisa’s recent letters contained no more pathetic passages about dying boys asking nurses to send locks of their hair to their sweethearts or descriptions of the unfinished Capitol dome. The shortness of the letters unsettled her, with little more than references to typhoid and pneumonia. The more Louisa wrote, “Don’t worry,” the more May did.
Late one afternoon, she heard a man trudging through snow toward the house. She swung open the door, took a telegram from him, and stared at the return address: “Washington, D.C.” She read: “January 16, 1863. Miss Alcott very ill. Come immediately. Dorothea Dix.”
May raced into Father’s study, with Mother right behind her. She read the telegram aloud, then said, “I’ll go. I wonder if any trains will head south tonight.”
Mother twined her wrinkled fingers between May’s soft ones. “I’d never forgive myself if you caught the fever from her.”
“We can’t afford two train tickets.” Father’s voice was firm, but his blue eyes looked frightened. “I’ll go.”
“Then let’s not wait for the train in town,” May said. “I’ll borrow the Emersons’ horses and sleigh and take you to Boston, where you can catch the earliest train to Washington.”
May helped him pack, hitched up the horses, brought Father to the depot, and waited for the train with him. On the platform, a man with one leg leaned on a cane. Another veteran with a bent back muttered to himself. After Father boarded, May watched while the train rumbled out of sight. She knew the journey would last through the night and most of the next day. Even if Louisa were well enough to travel, Father would be bound to stay a day or two. Longer if she’d become more ill since the telegram had been sent. And if … No, May wouldn’t let herself think of the worst. She remembered standing with Louisa at the depot. Why hadn’t she told her that she loved her? Instead, she’d only said, “Don’t be theatrical.”
She returned home, offering fresh handkerchiefs to Mother as she blamed herself for having let Louisa go.
“No one can tell her what to do. Did you get supper? Some chamomile tea and toast will settle your stomach.” May crouched by the hearth and slipped a slice of bread into a wire holder. A mouse scurried across the floor, startling her so she dropped the holder in the flames. She scorched her hand as she tried to snatch it, and she burst into tears. She cried, “Everything’s wrong. I hate the war!”
“But it’s necessary. In the end, our nation may become as just as our ancestors meant it to be. Your children will go to schools and sit side by side with the children of former slaves.”
“Oh, Mother, I just want Lu to come home safe. You were right. We shouldn’t have let her go.”
The next days seem
ed long with the work of waiting. May agreed to stop teaching to keep Mother company, but she needed to leave the house sometimes, and she told Mother she was going to the general store for cornmeal, even though there was some left in the bin. While Mr. Stacy scooped tea into white paper he tied with a striped string, May listened to the men talking by the woodstove and made silent wagers: If they decided the last battle had been a Union victory, Louisa would be all right. May wanted to stay among the barrels of pickles and apples, shelves and drawers of marbles, preserved quince, spools of thread, packets of needles, hammers, axes, red flannel petticoats, and brass doorknobs, but she left before the men came to a conclusion. Louisa had to be all right.
Father had been gone almost two weeks when a letter from him arrived. May read aloud his accounts of hearing President Lincoln speak in the Senate and how doctors brought Louisa logs and kindling, making sure the fire in her room didn’t go out. May hurried through his explanation that he’d been waiting to see whether Louisa’s health would take a turn before putting her on a train, scanned the date, and said, “That means they should arrive tomorrow!”
Father didn’t mention whether Louisa had become worse or better, but at least now they knew she was alive. Or she had been when he wrote.
THE NEXT DAY, MAY WAS RELIEVED WHEN JULIAN visited his parents’ house, and learning about Louisa, offered to come with her to the depot. He said his mother would wait with hers and might distract her with her own worries about Una, who was late returning from visiting her aunt in Boston. May and Julian trudged into the cold wind on their way to the Emersons’ house, where they hitched the horses to the sleigh. May pulled the bearskin left on the seat over her thin boots, woolen dress, and cloak. Julian snapped the reins, but when Grace and Dolly balked, he passed them to May, who was familiar with the old horses.
She steered onto the packed snow, which reflected moonlight, rode for about ten minutes, and turned at the depot. Sharing the bearskin, she and Julian held hands, but they didn’t talk. An owl called. Then a long whistle pierced the black sky. May didn’t move until Julian leapt down, and he reached for her as she jumped onto the tramped-down snow. The gaslights caught smoke rising from the locomotive. Doors clattered open. May saw Father, with his with light hair billowing, walking among other old, tired men. He was alone.
Little Woman in Blue Page 5