by Elise Hooper
“Can either of you row?” a man called out in a thick Scottish brogue. “Good lord, my shoulder hasn’t recovered from yesterday’s swimming races. I hate to admit defeat to my cousin this quickly.”
“I can,” May said, untying her boots and lifting her skirts to climb through the water and into the boat, as Jane looked on with arched eyebrows.
“Excellent! I’ll be your coxswain, although I suppose I’m probably much too heavy for the job.” He repositioned himself in the bow of the boat. “Off we go! See you at the finish line,” he called out to Jane. She pulled out her handkerchief to wave them off, letting it flutter over her head.
“My manners are abhorrent, I apologize. My name’s Bob Adamson. I always admire a lass who will just hop into a boat with a strange fellow and start rowing.” He nodded approvingly at the smooth motion of May’s oars cutting through the water. “And you know the tricks! What luck!”
“I’m May Alcott. This is my Harvard stroke.”
“Aha! An American. Lovely.” They both laughed, May luxuriating in stretching out the muscles of her back and arms as she pulled and pushed the oars against the resistance of the river. They gained on the two other boats ahead. Shouts of encouragement bounced over the river.
“You’re new here?”
“Yes.” May gasped in between deep breaths.
“Oh, sorry, I should allow you to focus on the job at hand.” He lifted his head and shouted out at the boat closest to them. “Ha! I’ve brought a new recruit aboard. Ahoy there, mates, off we go.”
Their closest rivals groaned, and May sped up her rowing to pass them. Bob cheered and jeered at their opponents when May propelled the nose of their boat past a fellow waving a red scarf along the shore to signify the finish line. May’s coxswain navigated their boat to the riverbank and stood up to announce to the group, “Ladies and gentlemen, I hereby welcome two new members into our merry band of misfits!” He turned back to May and winked. “Bet you didn’t know what you were getting into when you stumbled down here—eh?”
That evening, while tucked in the garden courtyard behind the Hotel Chevillon, May noticed Bob’s efforts to keep her glass of red wine full and the languid way he rested his arm along the back of her chair. The ease with which he leaned in to tell a story to the group, the crinkle of lines around his eyes, and the drape of his lanky body as he stretched back confidently on the spindly little wooden chair underneath him—May knew it was all an invitation. They could have sunk into the shadows beyond the candlelight, sunk into each other. Yes, it tempted her, but not enough. She blinked away the dulling torpor of wine seeping through her, brushed her hair out of her face, and excused herself for the night, amidst cries to stay with them just a bit longer. She knew where just a bit longer would lead. Instead, she wanted to rise in the early morning hours to paint the magic light of dawn on the river. She had a job to do.
A FEW WEEKS later, May found herself lying on her back next to Jane in the shade of the riverbank, watching Bob develop a game that involved swimming and trying to throw a ball at a target—the rules appeared to be evolving in response to the shenanigans ensuing in the water.
“I could stay here forever.” May rolled over onto her belly, crossed her arms, and laid her head down upon her hands. She closed her eyes and absorbed the warmth of the sun soaking into the back of her linen dress.
“I probably should stay here forever,” Jane said, frowning.
May rolled onto her elbows and looked over at Jane expectantly. “Why were you so eager to quit Paris?”
Jane gave a bitter grimace and dodged May’s eyes by looking at the sky. “If I told you, you’d think less of me.”
“Hardly. Come on, I turned thirty-seven years old last month. Few things surprise me anymore.”
“I’m caught up in a romance with my mentor.”
“Bouguereau?”
“He’s the one.” Jane exhaled smoke circles up into the air. “It all started before his wife died. It’s a mess.”
“Why’s it such a mess? Do you love him?”
“Yes, but I swore off ever allowing myself to fall into such a predicament long ago. Now I’m fawning over my teacher like a simpering schoolgirl.”
May rolled over and laughed before covering her mouth with a guilty expression. “Sorry, but I think you’re being too hard on yourself. Enjoy the romance, consider yourself lucky.”
“Well, that’s just it. I can’t enjoy anything. His mother threatens to disown him if he ever marries me, and his little wench of a daughter says she’ll join a convent if he marries again. I say good riddance to both of them, but he doesn’t see it that way. I feel like an idiot.” Jane groaned and threw her forearm across her face. “I must sort a few things out when I return to Paris. Or maybe I’ll simply hide here.”
“I’ll join you.”
The two women stared at the deep blue-domed sky overhead.
Jane propped herself up on one elbow to look over at May. “So, I never realized your sister is the famous Louisa May Alcott.”
“Yes.” May reached for a wildflower growing beside her and picked off its orange petals one by one. “She’s my older sister.”
“Well, that can’t be easy.”
May said nothing and thought of the silence between her and Louisa. Her sister’s cruel words back in Concord haunted her, but really, now it was the silence that left a tightness in May’s throat.
“And Little Women is based on you and your sisters?” Jane asked, closing her eyes. “It must be complicated to have so much of your life bared out for the world to read. What’s it like?”
May stared at Jane. No one ever asked her that. Almost a decade had passed since Little Women was published. Everyone loved to nose around what was fiction and what was true, but no one ever asked May how it felt about having a story based upon her. “I . . . we’re fortunate Louisa’s books have been so successful.”
Jane shrugged. “Well, sure. But it doesn’t mean you have to like it.”
May nodded. “It’s presented certain challenges along the way.”
“Hmm, that’s probably an understatement. Is she paying your way here?”
“No, this time I’m on my own.” May sighed as the weight of figuring out a way to remain independent in Europe pulled at her again.
“Good for you. Scary, isn’t it? But still, there aren’t many like us around.”
“True, but the bar has been set high in my family for what a woman can achieve. Louisa’s earnings support my whole family.”
“Now, there’s something. How many women can say that?”
“Not many. Now I need to start making some work to sell.”
“That makes two of us.” Jane rolled over onto her side to look at May. “What’s it like for her to be famous?”
“Well, she says she hates it, but I think what she really hates is being famous for creating something she doesn’t feel passionate about. She’d rather write different types of books.”
“And what about you?”
May closed her eyes for a moment. No one ever asked her about herself. “I’ve always felt as if the only way to fit into my family was to be ambitious, even though I’m nowhere near as committed to anything as my parents or Louisa.”
“You seem committed to your art.”
“Oh, I am. But sometimes I think I need more than art.”
The two women looked out at the chaotic game in the water for a few minutes. Bob let out a mighty yell as he hurled the ball at some of the fellows deeper into the water. They all laughed.
“Seems like maybe you’ve found something more there.” Jane nodded her head in Bob’s direction.
May gave a melancholy smile. “I’m not going to say I wasn’t tempted by indulging in a little distraction when we first got here, but I lost my nerve.”
“And you’re giving me grief for being too hard on myself and not enjoying a little romance?”
“I know, it sounds silly. But I just worry that if I allow mysel
f to fall in love now, I’ll lose my way. I’ve come so far on my own—how would I manage it all if I’m distracted by all that comes along with a romance?”
Jane swiped at some blades of grass on top of her sketchbook. “Well, that’s the problem, isn’t it? I don’t know either, but somehow I lost my ability to make rational choices when I met Bouguereau. Now I’m in it too deep to turn back.”
May pondered what it would feel like to lose her ability to make rational choices. It was now late August, she could no longer hide from making choices—rational or irrational. London called with its market for landscape paintings and Turner studies. It wasn’t the center of the art world, but at least she could scrape out a living there. London was where things had first fallen into place for her, and it felt like home. She could speak English; it was more affordable; it was a safe choice. She worked so hard for recognition, but to what end? A painting in the Salon was supposed to lead to success, yet it brought her nothing but doubt and cost her a valuable friendship. So much was being sacrificed for this dream of hers, but at what price? She was alone. Was her dream of becoming an artist worth the amount it seemed to be exacting? London offered her the possibility to return to safer ground and start afresh. Its art market embraced her love of Turner and wasn’t as exclusive as the one in Paris.
“I’m hungry.” Jane rose, brushing off her skirts while looking thoughtful. “So you say your sister supports you all, eh? Maybe I should try my hand at writing.”
May glanced up at her to check if her friend was joking, but Jane’s face was serious.
Part 4
October 1877–September 1880
London, England
Chapter 32
A dense, noxious fog settled over London that fall. It snaked down the city’s streets and alleyways, making daytime dark, cold, and dreary. Nighttime visibility was even worse. Rather than providing comfort, the gas lamps cast clouds of murky green light into the darkness. The Times claimed several unwitting men fell into the River Thames and drowned, a pitiful way to go if there ever was one. Stuck inside the dank rooms of the National Gallery, a persistent coldness burrowed deep inside of May.
Letters from home announced Anna’s purchase of the old Thoreau house. After all of this time, the family would be leaving Apple Slump. May pictured Anna, entering the small bedroom in the back of Orchard House and throwing out May’s collection of seashells resting in the sun on the windowsills, folding up the faded quilt on her narrow bed, and tossing her sketchbooks into a crate. And what of her sketches on the walls? Would the next resident paint over them without a second glance? All signs of her would be removed, and her few possessions would reside in a crate in the attic of Thoreau house. Anna and the boys would finally have their own home, with Marmee and Father established in the best bedroom in the front, overlooking the road. Louisa could return to her beloved Boston. But what of May? Where did May belong now?
The Paris Salon had not provided her with any sales, new contacts, or income of any sort. The memory of those glowing letters she sent home right after her Salon acceptance made her squeeze her eyes shut; her career appeared stalled. Her eyes ached from strain and headaches plagued her. When she visited the doctor, he urged her to rest her eyes, so May refrained from drawing even a line or painting so much as a dab. She had not visited any of her agents since arriving in London, because she did not possess a single painting to be sold. Was it time to return to America? But then what?
The one spot of brightness in her daily existence was the boardinghouse in which she had taken a room, a stately old brick home in her beloved Bloomsbury. The neighbors on her hallway, whom she promptly befriended, were an assortment of appealing people. Across the hallway, twenty-something-year-old Una Hughes hailed from Buffalo and studied painting at a women’s art school in nearby Queen’s Square. Next door were Phoebe and Walter Pierce, both young schoolteachers from Providence, and farther down the hallway, she found Robert Warner, a newspaperman from New York City, and his wife, Caroline, a poet. May and her new friends avoided going out into the gloomy nights and holed up playing whist, chess, and reading to one another.
One October afternoon as May sat in her room with a compress on her forehead, staring at the stuffed white owl she had purchased in Paris, there was a knock on the door. Alice Bartol greeted her with a jubilant embrace. As May folded into her friend’s shoulder, she caught a glimpse of a man standing behind Alice. He was barely taller than Alice and bald, except for a few wisps of hair brushed over his head, the comb lines still visible. He picked at his lapels with soft, white fingers that made May squeamish with the sensation she was viewing a body part better left unexposed.
“I was hoping to catch you for a surprise. I wrote to Anna to find you,” exclaimed Alice, pulling the man beside her gleefully. “I know I said I’d never marry, but I’ve learned to never say never. Meet my husband, Mr. John Meeker. We met on my voyage home from Paris last spring, and it’s been a whirlwind since. We’re on our honeymoon, can you believe it?”
No, May thought numbly, I cannot.
“How do you do?” Mr. Meeker asked, sucking on his thin lips. He appeared to be incapable of producing any sort of excitement, much less a whirlwind. May was left looking back and forth at them, blinking, searching for words. How had her vivacious friend suddenly married this cold fish of a fellow?
Alice insisted on dragging May to a tearoom off Leicester Square, and she gibbered on about the latest news from Boston without ever stopping to breathe. “I share a cunning little studio on Boylston Street with Sarah Whitman who was in Dr. Rimmer’s class with us. Remember her? She’s barely been there this summer because she goes up to the North Shore. Did you ever see the Whitmans’ summer house up in Beverly Farms? It’s a splendid spot. I visited with Helen Knowlton the other afternoon. Miss Knowlton’s preparing thirty-eight paintings for an exhibition with Ellen Hale at the Boston Art Club this winter.” Alice stirred her tea with the energy of a propeller. “Can you believe that number? Thirty-eight! She’s awfully busy. Her classes are packed. Her book about Mr. Hunt attracts students, I’m sure.” Alice gasped and covered her mouth. “Oh no, I don’t suppose you’ve heard about Mr. Hunt?”
May shook her head.
Alice leaned in and lowered her voice. “He died at the end of summer—the circumstances surrounding his death were a bit mysterious. He was vacationing on the Isle of Shoals and went out for a walk one morning but never returned. A friend discovered the body. Awful.” As Alice sat back, her lower lip quivered, and her new husband put out his small hand and rested it atop hers on the tablecloth.
May’s stomach turned. Mr. Hunt had always been such a large personality; it seemed impossible he was gone. The three of them sat quietly amidst the churn of conversations surrounding them until Alice’s husband cleared his throat, saying he had to see if his new suit was finished at a nearby tailor. Alice nodded at him. May watched the pair exchange private little smiles. Once he left, Alice fidgeted with a silver spoon. “I’m dreadfully sorry about how I left things with you in Paris. I took the news from the Salon poorly. I apologize for being so upset with you.”
“I understand. We’ve all suffered disappointments. But I’ve missed you.”
Alice stared off toward the door and whispered, “Did you? You never wrote. I was so miserable, yet you never inquired to see how I was faring.”
May’s surprise brought her up short. “Of course I missed you. I didn’t write because . . . because I felt that you were so upset with me.”
“Well, I was upset with you. I was upset with everything. But we’ve been friends for so long, I hated to believe that was the end. I kept waiting to hear from you.” She drooped back against the backrest of her chair, her chin trembling.
May leaned toward her. “The Salon didn’t work out the way I expected either. I didn’t get any commissions from it. I wasn’t sure what to do next.” She was about to say, And I’ve been lonely, so lonely, but she held back, not wanting to seem despe
rate, and instead added, “I came here because it felt more . . . familiar.”
Alice bit her lip, and her thin, perfectly arched brows rose. For a moment, her eyes seemed to shimmer with tears, but then she blinked, sat up, and smiled quickly, erasing any sign of uncertainty. “Well, I couldn’t be happier now that I’m married. Goodness, it’s hard to imagine that I ever made that silly vow not to marry. I realize now that my life was a little bleak before. Just painting, painting, painting. Of course, I’m still painting, but I’ve also realized perhaps my talents could be used to help cultivate more of an art culture in Boston.” With each word she spoke, her voice became louder and her face brighter.
“What do you mean?” May’s head swam at the rapid torrent of Alice’s words.
Alice continued, telling her of how she planned to collect art on this trip to Europe for a new art museum opening in Lowell, Massachusetts. “We’re off to Paris next. I wrote to your friend, Miss Cassatt, and she’s going to help me obtain some new pieces.”
“I . . . I could have written you a letter of introduction to her.” May stumbled over her words as she tried to string together what Alice was telling her. Months before, May had introduced her friend to Mary, but after the meeting Alice had been quick to say Mary was too serious, too dour. Back then, May detected Alice’s jealousy of her friendship with the Philadelphian, and she avoided getting them all together again. Was Alice trying to punish her by this sudden familiarity with Mary Cassatt? Was she trying to sidestep May’s involvement?
“Oh, no need. I managed to reach her. She was very accommodating, very gracious.” Alice went on to describe her upcoming itinerary to Italy and Egypt and listed all of the sights they planned to visit. May sat back numbly and watched her friend talk. Alice’s mouth opened and closed, she nodded, she shook her curls, but May couldn’t hear a thing. It felt as though she was floating outside of her body, drifting toward the ceiling like the vapor rising off the overcoats of freshly arrived patrons. She longed to place her index finger upon the steaming teapot, steaming with scalding tea, to ground herself. Would she feel a burn? Instead, she sat paralyzed in place.