by Avi
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HAVE YOU EVER BEEN STRUCK BY LIGHTNING?
I have.
I write not of the sparkling that bolts from the sky, but of gold, the yellow metal buried in the earth and the shatter-wit world of those who seek it. That world turned me topsy-turvy, so that I did things I never dreamed I would or could do.
It began, fittingly, in a leap year: 1848. I was thirteen years old.
My family — Father (Randolph Blaisdell); Mother (Abigail Pell Blaisdell); my younger brother, Jacob; and I, Victoria, most often called Tory — was residing in the smallest state in these United States: Rhode Island. We had a home in Providence, the state’s major city, with its fine buildings, wealth, tranquility, and a population of forty thousand.
Our home was 15 Sheldon Street, a modest but agreeable wooden house on the east side of town. It stood upon “The Hill,” as it was smartly called, above commercial Wickenden Street. We had a cook and one servant, both of whom lived in our attic.
Our lives were comfortable, with nothing unusual ever happening. Indeed, my early family life was untroubled, as smooth as Chinese silk. I questioned nothing, not about the world or about myself. My entire universe was Sheldon Street, which meant I knew everyone as they knew me. As for my social life, it consisted of calling and receiving among a small group of proper neighborhood girls.
As one grows up, it can take a while to understand that sometimes it is not your mother or father who have the greatest influence on your life. Thus it was but gradually that I came to realize that the person who shaped my life more than any other was my mother’s older sister, Aunt Lavinia.
Since the two sisters were from the distinguished Rhode Island Pell family, Lavinia already considered herself quite the queen. Then, before I was born, she married Quincy Fellows, a wealthy Pawtucket cloth-factory owner. That made her — in her mind — an empress.
A tall, big woman, with hanging coils of braid alongside her puffy face, which peered out from a deep, dark bonnet, she wore long, wide gowns with bulging sleeves, a shape that made me think of her as a walking mountain, and a volcano at that. Indeed, she constantly erupted with lava-like judgments, advice, and instructions as to how my family should live our lives. All of which is to say, while my mother and father raised me, their words were almost always prefaced by “As your aunt Lavinia suggests . . .”
One of Aunt Lavinia’s judgments — which I was shocked to discover — was that my mother had lowered her station in life by marrying my father.
Father was a man of middle age and modest height. Quite portly, he had a round, smooth, shaved face and fair hair brushed with care. His soft pink hands — somewhat ink stained — were what you would expect of someone who wielded pen, not pickax. At home or at work, he attired himself in common gentleman’s fashion — English frock coat, vest, knotted neck cloth, tan pants, and tall black silk hat.
He worked as an accountant for Pratt and Willinghast, a respectable trading business, which had its offices on Peck Street in the middle of Providence. Significantly, it was a position secured for him by Aunt Lavinia’s husband, a fact which she did not let Father (or Mother) forget.
Still, after ten years of service, Father received a silver pocket watch in recognition of his good work. He liked to bring it out at regular intervals so as to suggest that he was a busy man. In fact, I came to understand it was displayed mostly to show Aunt Lavinia that he was worthy. But then, as I came to realize, Father’s highest ambition was to become acceptable to Aunt Lavinia, and he chose to do so by agreeing to all her advice and judgments.
As for my mother, she had a kindhearted, loving nature and looked after us all, trying her best to shield us from her sister’s dictates. By way of personal occupation, other than supervising her children’s upbringing and managing the household, she had her reading (popular romances such as The Betrothed) and needlework to do. Yet while Mother was a quiet soul, sometimes, when I watched her sewing, it seemed as if she were frustrated with her life and used her needle to pierce the fabric of her world.
Exasperated by my parents’ constant deference to Aunt Lavinia, it was upon my younger brother, Jacob, that I bestowed my deepest affections. More than anyone else, he was willing to listen to my endless prattle. Most of all, he didn’t criticize me. We were as close as kin can be, and I enjoyed his company greatly.
Jacob — four years younger than I — had a pleasing, apple-cheeked sweetness. An earnest, serious, almost solemn boy, he was not given to mischief. When he played with his school friends, he did so quietly, without much zest.
He was fond of music and enjoyed whistling the popular songs of the day. That said, his whistling told me that he was troubled. Whereas Jacob considered me hot-brained, he fretted far too much, and worry made him agitated.
Jacob appeared to be the least bothered by how much our lives were governed by my aunt. But then it was Jacob of whom Aunt Lavinia most approved. She, who had no children of her own, once said, “Jacob is a perfect child. He is quiet and does what he is told. We should all encourage Victoria to be more like her brother.”
Once she informed me, “You should know, Victoria, that someday Jacob will be the head of the family and you will need to defer to him.”
Young though I was, I was much distressed and replied, “Jacob shall have his life. I shall have mine.”
To which Aunt Lavinia scolded, “Nonsense. A girl’s life should be solely dedicated to taking care of others.”
I’m sure that made me pout-mouthed.
Because I resisted my aunt’s dictates, she was particularly harsh on me, finding me too independent, too bold, and far too free with my opinions. But the truth is, there were few aspects of my life which did not come under her firm declarations.
“Victoria should dress this way.” That meant, for example, that I must never go outside without gloves and bonnet.
“Victoria should have proper acquaintances.” This meant that the Misses Biggs were not suitable friends whereas the Misses Colchester were. I was never told the reasons.
“Victoria should be taking dancing lessons from Mrs. Coldbrett’s Academy of Dancery.”
I attended weekly.
And: “To call Victoria Tory is vulgar.”
Once — I was no more than ten — she told me, “Unless you change your opinionated ways, you will not find a suitable man willing to marry you.”
My retort was “I intend to remain self-governing.”
When Jacob turned six (I was ten), he began to attend a school selected by my aunt: the Rhode Island Institute of Instruction, in Providence. She further proclaimed that it was sufficient for a girl to be educated at home, save Sunday church school. My parents did as she advised. I did not go to school.
Whereas Jacob went to school tamely, I objected to not going and did so strongly. Why, I argued, should I not get an education? Was I not the eldest child? Was I not quick-witted and eager?
Father consulte
d his pocket watch and said, “We shall do what Aunt Lavinia advises.”
While I did not go to school, my mother sympathized with me. She took it upon herself to teach me to read and write (as, she told me, her mother had taught her).
Additionally, I secretly persuaded Jacob to share all his school lessons with me. That allowed me to be educated on my own — furtively. The truth is, I far surpassed him.
I was therefore soon reading a great deal. Alas, the books in our home were too few, too limited. Having a desire for more knowledge, I took such small monies as I had saved (birthday and Christmas gifts) and, telling no one, walked downhill to the Providence Athenaeum, the city’s fine library. But when I placed my sparse coins on the counter and informed the white-haired gentleman secretary that I wished to purchase a membership, he told me I had not nearly enough.
Disappointment must have clouded my face.
The secretary considered me with a kindly smile, paused a long moment, and then leaned down and whispered, “Since you are so young and eager, I shall give you a free subscription. But,” he added, finger to his lips, “you must not tell anyone.”
I went from rejection to rapture.
I borrowed books and hid them in my private room. At night, while the whole house slept, I read voraciously by candlelight and learned that stealthy reading is absolutely sublime. Reading became my other world. I discovered and consumed volumes by Mr. Poe, Mr. Dickens, and Miss Austen. Did I understand them all? Of course not. But then people do not generally grasp the true value of reading: It is not to learn about others. It is to learn about oneself.
Thus it was that I came upon the recently published autobiography of Jane Eyre. That book transformed my life.
IADORED JANE EYRE, THE PERSON AND THE BOOK. In that book — it was as if I were reading a mirror — I read about Jane Eyre’s aunt, the tyrannical Mrs. Reed, who, I had no doubt, was much like my aunt Lavinia.
More than that: I revered the narration for its wisdom, ardent emotions, and beyond all else, the heroine’s fierce independence. How Jane suffered. How cruelly she was treated. How much she overcame. How splendid were her impulsive emotions. Her bravery. Her courage. Wisdom. Her great love. Oh, how I yearned to live just such a life, full of trial, rebellion, and adventure.
(Only much later would I learn that the book was a work of fiction. When I first encountered it, I truly believed it to be the memoir of a real person and was thus enthralled the more. Since then, I have come to regard fiction as fact without dates.)
Most important, it was in Jane Eyre (chapter 23) that I found this extraordinary sentence:
Your will shall decide your destiny.
Those words became my guiding light, my ideal. Oh, how I wished my will could decide my destiny.
The more books I read, the more convinced I became that I must become up-to-date in all my thoughts and live a life of independent and heightened sentiments. I began to appreciate that the smartest thing I could do was to acknowledge how ignorant I was. I saw old Providence as far too passive, with nothing spirited or fresh. I yearned to be free of Aunt Lavinia’s rules. How grand, I thought, to be caught up in mystery, strong feelings, and adventure (like Jane Eyre), to live a life written with exclamation points!!!!
Increasingly resistant to my aunt’s opinions and rules, I came to think of her not merely as a controlling force but as a bully.
When I turned thirteen, I looked up the word teen and was much pleased to discover the early meaning of the term was “angry, vexed,” and “enraged.” Thus, being, as it were, licensed by my dictionary, I chose to become fully teen, which to me meant that I had to move beyond Sheldon Street.
How can I best express this?
Since Rhode Island is a seagoing place, the state’s symbol is an anchor. However, in Latin, an anchor — ancora — is a symbol of hope. Thus the state’s motto is Hope. Observe the jest. An anchor is something that keeps you in place, whereas ancora/hope suggests change.
As you can see, I began to desire not Rhode Island’s anchor, which held me in place, but Rhode Island’s ancora, which meant hope. My desire was to be free of Aunt Lavinia’s directives.
I began modestly. One day I informed my brother that I was going to walk downtown to the Arcade to buy a ribbon.
“Alone?” he said. “Across the river?”
I said, “Alone. Across the river.”
“Without a chaperone?”
“Without a chaperone.”
“What,” he said, “would Aunt Lavinia say?”
Jacob’s words stiffened my resolve. I said, “I don’t care what she says. But you mustn’t tell.”
As I left the house, I could hear Jacob whistling.
I walked down the hill, then across the Providence River to the city center, a distance of more than a mile. I had never walked alone so far from home.
Despite my resolution and my desire for rebellion, I was quite nervous and walked with care, acutely aware that I was an unchaperoned girl, rare for someone of my station. Also, everyone was a stranger, and these strangers mostly men.
Feeling that every male eye was upon me — and those eyes malevolent — I kept my gloved hands clasped and my eyes straight forward, pretending not to notice anyone.
I managed to find a shop, quickly purchased a yard of blue ribbon, and went straight back home, altogether thankful when I reached it. Upon my return, such was Jacob’s relief that he hugged me.
“You were gone so long, I almost went to save you,” he confessed.
I did not tell him of my own unease, or my sense of triumph. Yes, that dictionary of mine told me there were many synonyms for freedom. Liberty. Self-determination. Autonomy. But as far as I was concerned, the most exciting meaning was boldness.
Perhaps the best illustration of my life at that time was my weekly dancing lessons.
As I have set down, Aunt Lavinia had insisted I attend lessons at Mrs. Coldbrett’s Academy of Dancery. There I was expected to learn to dance while absorbing proper social etiquette, which is to say, how to conduct my social life.
The classes were instructed by a Mrs. Coldbrett, who always reminded me of a giraffe (I had seen a picture of one in a book) in a long black dress. She used an ebony cane to beat the time while crooked-backed, speechless Mr. Coldbrett plucked the piano keys.
The quadrille, the grand march, and the waltz were taught. The polka — of which I had only heard — was considered unrefined and was not taught.
Though young, we girls were always dressed in good fashion. White gloves for all, high-necked, long muslin dresses of checked design with three-tiered sleeves. Boys came in cutaway jackets, black cravats, and narrow trousers. Some even wore top hats.
Of course, we had dance cards, which listed, by number, one’s partner for each dance. They were filled out by Mrs. Coldbrett, who was most careful to make proper matches.
(Note: I was told to bring these cards home so that Aunt Lavinia might inspect and evaluate my dance partners.)
The byword at the dancing school was serenity, with no displays of emotion. I can well recall Mrs. Coldbrett reminding us that:
“Attention should be particularly paid to giving the hands in a proper manner, to the avoiding of affectation in doing so, to keeping the united hands at a height suited to both parties, shunning the slightest grasping or weighing upon the hands of another, to avoid twisting your partner.”
The lessons were followed by a formal tea, during which we were required to make polite conversation. Needless to say, we girls were never to initiate a conversation. Mrs. Coldbrett had directives about conversations too, such as:
“Don’t talk in a high, shrill voice, and avoid nasal tones. Cultivate a chest voice; learn to moderate your tones. Talk always in a low register, but not too low. Avoid any air of mystery when speaking to those next to you; it is ill bred and in excessively bad taste.”
Aunt Lavinia thoroughly approved of such ideas. For my part, I desired nothing more than to acquire that “ai
r of mystery.”
One day in the winter of 1848, I was attending my dance lesson. Having danced, it was teatime, with delicate china cups, and we girls and boys were chatting in the required way.
“Miss Victoria, how pleasant to see you. How are you this day?” This was asked of me by a snub-nosed, big-eared, twelve-year-old boy named Archibald Ackroyd, who was a head shorter than me.
“Most fine, sir. Thank you.”
“Have you had an agreeable week?”
“Most certainly. And may I inquire about you, Master Ackroyd?”
Though I spoke so, I was feeling most disconnected, bored, barely listening to the mindless chatter of the children around me. I suspect my indifference was because the night before I had been reading Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, wherein are such glorious such passages as:
“To me the walls of a dungeon or a palace were alike hateful. The cup of life was poisoned forever, and although the sun shone upon me, as upon the happy and gay of heart, I saw around me nothing but a dense and frightful darkness.”
You can understand, then, how struck I was by the nothingness of the youth surrounding me, how thoroughly empty of vigorous ideas, how void of real emotions, how complacent, how potato-headed these suitable children all were.
That evening, with great indignation, I shared such thoughts with Jacob. To my frustration, my brother was puzzled by my reaction to that dance lesson. Of course, he had not read Frankenstein. In truth, if I had told him it had been written by a nineteen-year-old girl he would have been horrified — not so much by the monster but by the girl.
“You had better,” he warned, “not tell Aunt Lavinia what you read.”
I informed Mother I would not go to dancing classes again. Among my grievances: “Why must I always do and think as your sister says?”
“She is wealthy, older, and wiser.”
I replied, “She opposed your marriage to Father.”
Mother assured me that her marriage had been a love match. Then she smiled, patted my hand, and said, “All too soon you will grow up, and then you will understand the ways of a girl in the world. Be patient, Tory.”