The Other Alcott

by Elise Hooper

  “Miss Bartol is fine?”

  “She is.”

  “I’m worried about my sister, she’s so weak already. She cannot get the fever.” Fear stabbed at May.

  “I know. Hurry back.”

  Only when May was outside on the deck did she realize she had been holding her breath since leaving Marie. She clasped the rail, feeling depleted and raw in the bright sunshine. The sky was a clear blue with thin clouds lining the sky like fish bones. A breeze tugged at her hair and pulled at the rim of her bonnet. A keening sound hummed in the distance, but it took May a moment to register it. The ship was too far out into the middle of the Atlantic to have seabirds squawking overhead. She squinted her eyes against the day’s brightness, looking fore and aft. A cluster of people stood at the stern of the ship around a man who hoisted a small white parcel over the railing of the ship and flung it overboard. It fell toward the water, turning end over end in slow circles until it dropped into the sea in a halo of white foam before vanishing below.

  She let out a small cry of horror when she realized what she had just seen: a body buried at sea. Judging by the compact size of the package, it was a child. Another rectangular package was hauled over the side. The second bundle tumbled down into the ocean below. And then it happened again. After the third body dropped overboard, she could hear a smattering of voices raised in a hymn. The group dispersed and moved back inside the ship.

  May looked at the ocean with fresh eyes. She had floated above it all, thinking only about what lay ahead, with little thought of all that lay below. Now she understood that underneath the smooth sheet of blue lay all sorts of beauties and horrors: fish, monsters of the deep, debris, wrecked ships, and bodies. There was a whole other world underneath her with a landscape of its own. Although the surface looked placid and lovely, she was surrounded by an unexpected wilderness, dangerous because of its seeming innocuousness. She wondered if their voyage was too ambitious. Perhaps she should have stayed in Boston and led a comfortable life as Joshua Bishop’s wife.

  She turned and hurried back inside. On her way to their stateroom, she passed the ship’s rheumy-eyed physician. His shoulder knocked into hers, leaving her enveloped in fumes of rum as he staggered by her in a path as crooked as a Virginia fence line. May picked up her skirts and ran directly to their stateroom, slamming the door behind her.

  “Why did you do that? I was sleeping,” Louisa mumbled, opening one eye to squint up at her sister, who leaned against the door, panting.

  “Sorry, I lost my balance and knocked into the door.”

  Louisa didn’t notice the tremor in May’s voice and rolled onto her other side. Within moments, she was lightly snoring.

  May steadied the shaking in her hands with deep breaths and sat on the bench to watch over her sister.

  THERE WAS A faint rapping at the door. May opened it to see Alice looking jubilant.

  “Good news, the coast of France is visible. We’ll be in port soon.”

  May’s legs wobbled as relief flooded her. She grabbed for the doorframe. “Thank God.”

  Alice frowned. “Have you gotten any sleep?”

  May shrugged. She couldn’t remember the last time she had slept. Even in the dark, she had stared ahead, listening to her sister’s even breathing. The last five days had been spent watching her sister for any sign of fever. Every time Louisa emerged from her bundles of bedding, May inspected her sister’s face, looking for any of the telltale signs of rash. It seemed they had been spared.

  After ten days at sea, Louisa hobbled off Lafayette between Alice and May, determined not to give away her poor health to the assemblage of fans and journalists awaiting her arrival in France. She signed a few books for girls aboard the ship before the women looked for a carriage to take them somewhere to clean up.

  May could have kneeled down and kissed the solid ground beneath them. She never mentioned the bundles buried at sea to anyone.

  Chapter 11

  May 15, 1870

  Dinan, France

  Dearest family,

  I’m delighted to report that I’m in a perfect state of bliss. France surpasses even my most optimistic dreams. For one thing, the light here is suffused with a golden tinge that gives the gray stones of the village a lavender and rosy hue, depending on the time of day. You probably think I’m embellishing, yet Louisa and Alice both confirm that the atmosphere is extraordinarily picturesque.

  Alice continues to be a perfect travel companion, although I’ll never forgive her for remaining perfectly chipper the entire time we were at sea—a little sympathetic seasickness would have been appreciated by all of us who were flattened. She surprised Louisa and me by bringing home a bright green parakeet yesterday. He’s a dapper little fellow and his endless songs give our apartment a jolly atmosphere, which is particularly pleasant for Louisa, who has been staying behind to rest while Alice and I sashay around town. (Anna, I’ve found a shop with kid gloves on sale for a mere pittance—I shall stock up and send some home to you.)

  Alice and I discovered a swimming hole nearby, and we’ve been able to rent some donkeys to tow us in garden chairs to the small sandy beach along the riverbank. The only downside is that my stomach always ends up aching dreadfully from laughing so hard. I suppose it’s a small price to pay for such a lark. Louisa has been under the weather with aching joints and insomnia but a local doctor prescribed some laudanum to help her.

  You would not believe the lovely vistas that abound. Alice and I simply don’t even know where to start with our sketching. There are some charming thirteenth-century ruins nearby called Anne of Brittany’s Round Tower. From the top, we can see sweeping views of the village and valley below. Alice’s hat blew off when we were up there yesterday, and we must have made quite a sight as we chased it along the gardens below. A viaduct said to be one of the best preserved examples of Roman engineering in the country towers above the village. I’ll be sure to send along some sketches of all these marvels as soon as I can.

  My favorite spot so far is the rue du Jerzual with its gabled stories of timbered shops crowding out over the steep and narrow cobblestoned street. It’s here I’m likely to encounter local peasant women clomping along in their wooden sabot clogs and sweet-faced children in their white Communion dresses and suits traipsing along after a priest.

  Despite all of the village’s charms, I practically ache to go to Paris, but we’ve learned that all of the master painters leave the city during the hot months of summer. Fall will be the ideal time to arrive in the city to study art, so I’m forced to be patient. In the meantime, I’m working on my French with an old widow from down the street whom Alice enlisted to tutor me. The old biddy picks at her long, yellowed teeth with a hairpin as she runs me through endless verb conjugations. If that’s not incentive for me to improve my French enough to be done with lessons, I don’t know what is.

  Love,

  May

  The Pension de Madame Coste on Place Saint Louis became their new home. Tucked next to the ancient fortified stone walls of the medieval city, their new quarters provided a convenient location for the women to explore both the town and the surrounding area. The spring air was warm and unusually mild, according to Madame Coste. The fragrance of peaches and peonies wafted up to the ivy-covered walls from the garden below. While May and Alice adventured, Louisa liked nothing more than to sit in the salon window overlooking the street. Farmers in straw hats and striped shirts trudged along the cobblestones to escort their pigs to market. Priests, blessed with rotund figures, ambled to Mass smoking long, aromatic pipes. Louisa did not write a word, but simply sat at the window, taking it all in. Although she was paying for this trip, she could barely muster the energy to leave Madame Coste’s.

  When May suggested meeting with an English doctor who was staying in town, Louisa grimaced. “Who knows what ruinous measures he’ll prescribe?”

  “Hopefully more French wine. Come on, you must try.”

  In fact, the doctor recommended mor
e rest and a prescription of iodine to treat what he suspected were the aftereffects of the mercury treatment Louisa had received following a nearly deadly encounter with typhoid fever several years earlier when serving as an army nurse in the nation’s capital during the war. Soon, Louisa recovered her vigor and itched for a change of scenery.

  By June, the three women left Dinan and crossed the country for the clear air of Switzerland. Once settled into the Pension Paradis in Vevey, they indulged in boating excursions along the lake and hunting through the area’s shops for trinkets. May spent her mornings exploring the nearby countryside. One afternoon toward the end of summer, she arrived back at the hotel breathless after an alpine hike with some other American travelers and found Louisa and Alice in the hotel’s tearoom.

  “Goodness, I’m in quite a drip. As we got higher and higher, it just kept getting hotter and hotter.” May dropped into a chair at a small table across from Louisa and Alice, pulled off her bonnet, and fanned at her face as she looked around the parlor’s cluster of guests demurely drinking tea. “Hmm, perhaps I should run upstairs and clean myself up.” She started to rise.

  “Wait,” Louisa said, reaching out to put a firm hand on May’s forearm.

  “What?”

  Louisa exchanged a long look with Alice before speaking again. “Read this.” She swept the pile of newspapers toward May. “The Prussians are on the move and marching deeper into France.”

  “Can this wait a moment? I really don’t want to run into anyone looking like this.” May looked around for a familiar face at the tables around them.

  “No, this is serious.” Louisa’s dark eyes glinted down to the newspapers.

  “Is this about the Prussians and the French? Isn’t all of this nonsense confined to the Rhine? Why should we be worried? While everyone else is mad as hops, the Swiss have kept their heads.” May brushed the papers aside and looked back and forth at her companions.

  “True, but the papers are reporting that masses of refugees are beginning to flood this area,” Alice said, fingering the edge of the lace tablecloth.

  “But there are plenty of places for people to stay. Remember all of the lovely rooms to rent in Bex?”

  Louisa leaned toward May and tapped her finger on the front page. “Bismarck just flattened Strasbourg, and he’s now laying siege to Paris. It’s inadvisable to visit the capital. The newspapers are reporting that Parisians are now eating rats to survive.”

  May opened her mouth but nothing came out. She looked to the row of windows along the wall beyond the hotel’s guests idly gossiping over tea and sandwiches and could see Lake Geneva shining like a jewel under the relentless August sun. “Rats?” she asked in a tight voice.

  “We must reassess our plans.” Louisa spoke calmly and sat back, seeming to draw out the moment now that she had May’s full attention.

  The realization she would not be going to Paris dropped swiftly through May like a stone sinking in water. She willed herself not to cry. “So, what now?”

  “Well, there’s some uncertainty about money. I’m going to look into getting a line of English credit here because the value of the franc is dropping.” Louisa crossed her arms and chewed on her lower lip, lost in thought.

  “I’m going to England with plans to return to Boston as quickly as possible,” Alice said quietly.

  “You are?” May’s eyes widened. “Don’t you think that’s rash?”

  “No, I’d feel better returning home. And I’m not alone. I spoke with the Monroes and the Wallaces this morning—they’re all leaving.”

  May sagged back in her chair defeated, all concerns about her appearance forgotten. The mere prospect of boarding a ship anytime soon made her stomach roil.

  Louisa nodded. “Alice, I think your plan is a prudent one—”

  “No.” May dropped her hand on the table with a thump. “I will not get back on a ship. Not yet.” Louisa and Alice looked at her in shock, and May gave them a defiant thrust of her chin in return. Who knew when she would have the opportunity to return to Europe again? It was bad enough that travel to Paris was impossible; she was not about to concede the rest of her trip. “Until Bismarck himself shows up at our door with a bayonet in his hand, I’m not going anywhere.”

  Louisa gave a weary sigh, but May thought she could see her sister hiding an amused smile. “Well, what do you suggest?”

  May took a deep breath and looked around the room. Where else could she go to study art? Dresden, Düsseldorf . . . German cities were out of the question with the Prussians riled up over unification. Her eyes landed on a delicate gold cross resting on the collarbone of one of the women sitting at the table next to their own. “Rome. Let’s go to Italy. Aren’t they neutral in this whole thing?”

  Louisa raised an eyebrow at her, and May shook her head in indignation. “Don’t look at me like that. I haven’t been completely ignoring what’s going on. I just try not to dwell on bad news.”

  “Very well. I’m not opposed to heading south to Italy.” Louisa took a sip of tea. “Spending the winter in a warm place will be good for my joints.”

  Chapter 12

  November 10, 1870

  Rome

  Dearest family,

  Rome has welcomed us with open arms. We have a divine view of Saint Peter’s dome from our parlor’s windows and a balcony overlooking the piazza and its glorious seventeenth-century fountain of Triton. The towering muscled merman and his spouting conch shell once delivered water in spectacular fashion to the residents of the Piazza Barberini, but I confess to being disappointed to learn that the far more basic and boring Fontana delle Api (in the corner of the piazza) was built when it became evident the mighty Triton sprayed water all over the women seeking to fill their water jugs on windy days. Apparently the Italians have a bit of practicality in them after all.

  Our cook informed us that unknown corpses were carted out to the piazza below our balcony for public identification until the eighteenth century. Of course, this morbid historical fact made Louisa’s dark eyes brighten up considerably. She’s been sleeping better and barely even touched Dr. Kane’s laudanum lately. I wouldn’t be surprised if she begins to write again soon.

  The other morning we awoke to find icicles hanging off our Triton. Fortunately we bought new furs in Florence, so we bundled up and walked the paths of Borghese Gardens and the damp halls of the Capitoline Museum while snacking on hazelnut truffles purchased from toothless old widows stoking braziers of roasting chestnuts.

  I bought a copy of Mr. Hawthorne’s novel “The Marble Faun” along the Corso and have delighted in following the custom of using the novel as a travel guide of Rome. Louisa has been helping me collect touristic photographs to insert in the novel at corresponding passages.

  Rome’s filled with treasures, and the fact that they’re cracked and crumbling does little to diminish their charm. Around the piazza, a jumble of terra-cotta-colored buildings, all in varying states of deterioration, tumble on top of one another, but rather than giving off an aura of decay, the whole area seethes with daily activity. I’ve been telling myself that I must start sketching regularly, but I’ve been too busy exploring our new home.

  Yours,

  May

  On a chilly morning late in November, May sat down at the table in the parlor for some coffee and toast. From across the table, Louisa flipped through a newspaper. American papers were always a couple of weeks old, but the sisters welcomed any news from home. Rain had fallen all night, and May huddled into her housecoat to fend off the unavoidable dampness permeating their rooms. She exhaled as warm coffee seeped through her body, but her enjoyment stalled when Louisa let out a small cry and clutched the newspaper, pulling it closer to her face.

  “What happened?”

  Louisa stared in fixation at the newspaper before dropping it to the table as if stung. “It says . . .” She spoke in a dazed tone. “It says our dear John Pratt died.”

  Louisa’s words were slow to puncture the drowsy p
rotection of morning, and May struggled to comprehend the news. “But . . . what? How did this happen?” Pings of rain tapped against the balcony’s French doors. Lavinia, their housekeeper, mumbled to herself from the kitchen, as she yanked and tugged at swollen sticking wooden drawers. “Could it be wrong? Is it really our John?”

  “It says he died of pneumonia and was buried in Sleepy Hollow. The paper is dated from November eighteenth,” Louisa said.

  May reached for the newspaper, but Louisa knocked it to the floor.

  May burst from her seat and fled to the small table in the corner and tore at the papers scattered across it. “Where’s our mail? Why have we not heard about this in a letter already? How did this happen weeks ago without us knowing?” Her hands flapped over the desk and her voice rose in panic. “It seems like we should have felt this somehow. We should have been . . .” She shook her head as her voice faltered. “We should have been there,” she whispered.

  It was inconceivable to think they had spent the past few weeks visiting friends and sightseeing while their family suffered across the Atlantic. The depth of Anna’s grief was unimaginable. May remembered the look of pride John had given his wife over newly born Freddy swaddled in his arms. Anna’s cheeks, already flushed from the exertions of childbirth, had reddened even darker as she returned his gaze with a contented smile.

  Louisa closed her eyes. “It feels impossible John’s gone.” She stood and walked to the French doors to look out onto the empty piazza. “Blast the Atlantic. I wish we were home now.”

  “Should we go? Go home?” A part of her hoped Louisa would say yes. To go home and give comfort to her family, to fall in easy step with what fate was trying to tell her. It was tempting to give in to the familiarity of home. At the same time, she hoped Louisa would say no. She wasn’t ready to leave Europe, wasn’t ready to return to her former life. How can I feel such contradictions? May pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes.