by L. E. Waters
“I promise I will get a good price for it and we will buy one as soon as we settle in Richmond. An even finer one for you to dance your fingers over.”
She wipes a tear and her smile removes the pain from leaving it behind. “Someone else will get to enjoy it.”
The trip to Richmond is extended by muddy roads caused by a fleet of bad storms, costing us twice as much in rooming fees. I have just enough to pay for the trip, boarding house, and a week worth of minimal food, even with the money I got for Virginia’s piano. As soon as the trunks are delivered to the tiny, dismal three rooms, I wash the road dust from my face and set out to find Mr. White as the women unpack.
I make my way down the familiar street and walk in through the office by the very place I spilled the contents of my uneasy stomach weeks ago. I ask for Mr. White, which is awkward given that I usually was allowed to pop in on him whenever I was inclined. Mr. White glances up with a remorseful look on his face. I remove my hat and hold it in my hands in penance. I have to be the first to speak.
“I’ve come to thank you for your concern, and I’ve rectified the thing that was causing my intolerant behavior.”
The hardness of his face softens.
“I’ve gone home and married my cousin, Virginia, of matchless beauty, and brought her back with her mother to keep me company.” I wring the hat in my hand. “I do not expect that you have kept my position open, I would be grateful for any—”
“Of course I kept your position open. I thought you’d be back last week.” His smile relaxes my shoulders.
“With two others depending on me this is a great relief. I promise that I will stay away from the bottle and will work my hardest.”
His slender hand grabs tight during our handshake. He holds it in the air. “I only have done this out of the utmost care. I have seen all that liquor can destroy. It can befall the most ambitious man.”
I nod my head in quick agreement, sure I will never have such a problem now that the future seemed so bright. “Can I start this very moment?”
He leans back in his chair and chuckles. “Enjoy your honeymoon one more night. Oh, to be young and newly married. We have survived without you this long. See you in the morning, Poe.”
I replace my hat and tip it to him. When I get back with high hopes for our new start, the skeleton-of-a-house has transformed, fully-fleshed by Muddy’s endearing touches: spotless cleaning, fires lit, fresh calico linens upon the beds, starched cotton curtains on the windows, and a savory dinner simmering in the fireplace fills the space, making it instantly a home. Tired from our journey and setting up house, we all head to our beds. Virginia and Muddy still share their bed, and I can’t help thinking as I slip under the supple cotton, silkened by so many washes, thank God I’ve held onto them. If only I’d had them with me all this time, I wouldn’t have had the set back with Mr. White. But all that’s behind me now. I’ve repented and made a promise. I will prove to everyone what I’m capable of.
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
I work harder than I ever did before. I soon have a decisive hand into every part of the newspaper. I wade through the slush pile of submissions, edit, check proof, decide typographical matters, solicit manuscripts, keep an eye on other magazines, write reviews, make editorial comments, and publish my own material. Though my title is junior editor, the truth is I’m the editor in action. Even though I wake in the dark and come home at dark, Muddy and Virginia always manage to make those short moments restful and joyful.
Soon enough, we have saved so much that we move out of the dank boarding house and into a quant cottage, appointed with modern furniture and an expansive garden for Muddy to plant her vegetables and flowers for Virginia’s hair. Everything Muddy touches thrives, and the bees and the butterflies swarm our little paradise in the day and fireflies light up our yard at night. Returning to the piece of solitude I work so hard for, the firelight glows from within and smoke puffs out through the moss-covered cedar roof, I pause. All I loved on earth remains under that roof.
I enter into the atmosphere of the coziest pub. Virginia attempts a song on Henry’s left-behind flute and Muddy tries to sing along with the anything but melodious sound.
“Who is murdering a goose in here?”
Virginia rests the wood on her lip. “Ha ha.” She picks it back up to play, with a wince when she makes the notes sharp.
Muddy laughs as she spoons out our supper. “How soon before we can purchase her a piano?”
She gives up the flute with a pout. “It’s Henry’s fault. He never did teach me.” She lights next to me at our small table.
“If things go as well as they have been, we’ll have enough saved for the sweetest sounding piano in Richmond.”
As soon as supper is cleared, Virginia hands over the stack of competing newspapers I brought home with me.
I sigh. “I’m never going to find the time to write, am I?”
“Of course you write. Your name is all over the paper,” Muddy says.
“I mean, time to write something worth reading. All I’ve managed to write in these last few months is filler.”
Virginia purses her bow lips. “I wish you could write the day away.”
“Poems don’t pay the rent,” Muddy says. “At least not yet.” She pats my shoulder.
As the women ready for rest, I settle into the rocking chair by the fire, and fall asleep on the first page.
Chapter 25
Over the next year, Mr. White’s jolliness increases with the growing subscriptions. He comes into my office, never failing to check the trash bin beside my desk and, again, at seeing it’s absent of a bottle, smiles up at me. “Poe, you astound me with your unfailing work ethic.” He sits across from me in the rigid chair. “It is only that I trust your strengths so unquestionably that I add so much responsibility to your shoulders.”
I see truth in his eyes. “I’m so grateful that you gave me another chance.”
He lets loose a laugh. “What I fool I would have been not to have embraced you back.”
He stands up and slaps something down on the table in front of me. I look up slowly wondering what this was all about. “You’ve earned every penny of this raise.”
Without even checking the amount, I say, “Thank you, sir. Your kindness astounds me.”
He gets his coat and hat from his office. “Don’t work a minute more tonight. Go home and enjoy your evening for once.” The bell at the door rings as he closes it.
I lift the check closer to my eyes to be sure I haven’t made the number out wrong. Thirteen hundred! I leap up from my desk, forgetting my hat, and rush to the store where I have had my eye on the most delicate piano. I pay twice as much to have it delivered that very night, and Virginia’s eyes couldn’t have widened more when she sees the movers coming up our step with it.
Muddy cries after she plays Pachelbel’s Canon for the first time. “This piano sings like a nightingale.” She clasps her heart. “What more could we want?”
There is something that I wanted. “Now that we are managing so well, I have it in my mind to see to a tutor for Virginia.”
Virginia ceases playing immediately. “A tutor? For me?”
I simply have to nod and she flies to me, practically knocking me off the chair. “Oh, could things possibly get any better?”
All the hours I hunch over print, the increasing blurriness from reading by candle light, the colds I get from the drafty office, are all worth the smile on Virginia’s sweet face and Muddy’s tight smile, as she holds back proud tears.
I leave for work even earlier, so I can arrange for Virginia’s tutor, and seeing her endlessly studying by the fire whenever I return fills me with so much pleasure. She is such an adept student my heart wrenches at the thought of what she could have been capable of, if we’d always had the means to educate her.
But the clouds always chase a string of sunny days. Something inside me feels jumpy the day Mr. White comes in late—most likely its
elf the culprit for the uneasy mood, since Mr. White is never late. He goes straight to his office without immediately checking in with me. The itchiness intensifies. Finally, I work up the nerve to go into to check upon him.
“Feeling under the weather today?” Oh, I hope that was it. However, the look on his face tells me something worse than a passing fugue languishes within him.
“What?”
He didn’t even hear me.
“How are you feeling, sir?”
He stares at his hand, seeming to rub something—invisible to me, but bothersome to him—away. “Oh, me? I’m fine.”
Something is troubling him.
“Is there something the matter? Something I can rectify?”
He waits a moment, maybe wishing I can mend things so easily. “It’s quite a delicate matter I’m afraid. It’s my wife. The doctor has informed her she has cancer.”
Shock still clouds his eyes.
“I’m so very sorry, sir. Is there anything I can do? I can run things here if you need to be with her.”
He doesn’t seem to hear me. Red spots appear on his neck and where he’s scratching on his hands. “Yes, yes.” He picks up some papers but his eyes stay still.
“Well, I best get back to my desk. Please let me know what I can do for you.”
He nods, but keeps staring at the paper.
This is the stillness in the air before a gale. The pressure drops all around me and the hairs on my neck perk up. The atmosphere warns of change.
Even though Mr. White keeps coming into work, his mind seems somewhere else. He obviously doesn’t want to be at home, but whatever he witnesses upon his return robs him of his business sense and the political skills needed to keep such a paper afloat. His hives become permanent and seem to cause him much distress. I frequently pass by as he uses a shoehorn to scratch down the back of his shirt, like a dog chasing a persistent flea. I’ve always claimed the success of the paper was due to my own contributions, but only now do I see the huge effort Mr. White was making to keep our sponsors and readership content and paying.
It’s no surprise the day he calls me into his office. I had avoided him so completely during his strange state that my knees shake at being in his usually calming presence.
He stares into my eyes for the first time in months. He’s truly there again for a moment. “Things are not good, Edgar.”
“With your wife, sir?”
He blurts out an odd, pressured laugh. “Oh, she’s practically left us. Just a fish gasping for air at this point.”
I look down. What does someone say in reply to that?
“Things are falling apart all around me.” I check back to his eyes. “It’s the paper, Edgar. We’re deeply in the red.”
“What about the public funds?” One of those questions you wish could just hang in the air to provide you with hope.
“They are scarce and meager at this time.”
I think of Virginia’s tutor and how much she enjoys it. I fight the first word off for a moment before I pledge. “You can always go back to my original pay if that makes a difference, sir.”
He smiles a sad smile. “It would not make the difference, and you deserve it now more than ever with all that you’re managing.”
I let out a blow of nervous air. At least I wouldn’t have to deny Virginia so soon.
He straightens his back, but his shoulders still hang. “Oh, look at me all doom and gloom. I’m sure we can figure something out. We can’t forge our way with such pessimism. We must carry on. Not give up so easily. We can’t let these trials take us to a…dark place.”
I fake a smile, the two of us suddenly pretending. But the gravity of it all weighs heavily upon me as I leave the office under the full moon. It’s easy to keep from drinking when everything runs smoothly, it’s only when trouble begins to brew that the temptation to numb myself resurges. I walk right by the bar but turn around a few paces away and retrace my steps to purchase the horribly beautiful bottle. I tell myself it’s only for tonight. That under such circumstances any man would need such medicine. I pretend it’s because of the full moon that I decide to take the drink to the river where Elmira and I swam, but I know deep down I don’t want to finish the whole thing in their presence.
It’s not unusual for me to come in as late as I did, but it’s unusual that I should have to be woken up by Muddy.
She pulls me awake with so much force I know she must have been attempting to wake me for some time.
“Edgar!”
My eyes painfully flicker open to the bright light. “You’re late for work.” She whispers yet it rings in my throbbing head.
“Is it dawn so soon?”
She reaches immediately to pinch her nose and anger flashes through her face. “Get up.” She busies herself with pouring a glass of water. After gulping it down, I need three more. “Make yourself presentable.” She barks in an unusually unhappy voice. “And do something about that offensive odor.”
She knows of the liquor after all. Part of me wants to tell her why I gave in but that would just worry her more. Each day Mr. White comes in without proclaiming all is fixed, I finish each night with varying amounts of liquor. I make friends at the bar and use that as my excuse for visiting so frequently and so late. I never see how those nights start to contribute to the illnesses I blame on Mr. White’s cutting back on coal to heat the office. I have bouts of fevers, digestive ails, headaches, and stomach upset, all explained away by everything but the bottle.
The most troubling thing is that Mr. White doesn’t seem to notice I’m ill so often, or that my condition affects my comments and reviews in the previous way. After a particularly harsh review of James Fennimore Cooper, the newspaper contributions dropped drastically, and I hear rumors it’s all due to my increasingly embittered reviews. Many of the other newspapers pick up on this and refer to me sarcastically calling me “Judge Advocate Poe.”
Mr. White finally calls me into his office once again, and I’m the fattened pig prancing into the slaughterhouse before Christmas.
“You know what I’m going to say, don’t you?” He pushes back in his chair and looks utterly defeated. The hives still plague him.
“I have an inkling.” I fight a nervous smile.
“I even wonder if it’s any good to tell you.” His stare challenges mine. “Have you forgotten all your promises?”
“The state of the paper has thrown me off course.” I run a shaking hand through my hair. “If you tell me that things are looking up, I assure you I will rebound.”
“I wish I could grant you another chance, but this time I don’t have the means, or the hope things will improve for either one of us.” There we sit, in suspended silence, deafening self-pity. “I have let critical matters go myself, and now this blasted printer’s strike.” He tiredly clunks his hand on the desk then catches my worried gaze. “I’m retiring as editor, Edgar.”
That is not what I expect. “How can you?”
“And I’m giving you notice as of today.”
I nod, but his retiring has thrown me off.
“You don’t have to listen to my warnings any longer, but I do want to you to know how highly I hold your talents. When you are not given into temptation, there is no limit to all that you can master.” I can’t maintain eye contact. “I really do wish you the best, son.”
Another being who has called me son but has so quickly cast me aside as soon as I show any weakness. I steady myself and force a plain smile. I stand up and reach for his spotted hand and he holds on longer than I want. “Thank you for all your kindnesses.”
“I have contacts in New York if you wish to relocate.”
I back up to the door. “Would you still want to recommend me, sir?”
“I’d like to think it has been my recent misfortunes that set you off your track. I will do my best to assist you and will print your new piece”—he picks up the title page and squints as he reads—“The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. I’ll pledg
e three dollars for the first installment and twenty in lending.” He holds his hands up uselessly in the air. “It is all I can do.”
I give him a weary nod. “I look forward to our last week together and will do my best to see the paper off.”
Relief spreads across his worn face, I’m sure he expected an outburst. “See you tomorrow, Poe.”
As soon as I reach the hussle and bussle of outside I curse, “Balls!” and kick a large rock at a cart passing by, drawing the immediate scorn of the driver when it hits his wagon tongue with great force. How am I to tell Muddy and Virginia, who seem so accustomed to the large budget we’ve been enjoying?
I go home to them right away and my being home before sunset draws long looks. Muddy flusters immediately and barks commands to ready an early supper to Virginia. Virginia can’t help but ask, “What has brought you home so early?”
Muddy lets out a worried breath of air.
“I have not told you, since I didn’t want to cause concern, but Mr. White has been struggling with the paper.”
Muddy jumps in, “Well, how could he function with his poor wife expiring so tragically?”
“Exactly. He has let many things go in his grief.” I sigh. “And now he has let me go.”
They both freeze then pretend to busy themselves to hide their disappointment.
“Mr. White has also retired.”
Muddy brings me a steaming plate of rich food I can no longer afford. “What will we do then? Can you get a job at another paper here?”
I snicker involuntarily. “I fear my criticisms of them have rendered me…unpopular.”
Muddy fidgets with the tie on her wide apron. “What is our plan then?”
I look at her face, hating the worry lines which disappeared these last happy months only to surface once again. “Mr. White has talked of some friends in New York.”
Muddy searches around her immaculate little cottage not even needing to say that she’d grown attached to her first real home since her husband passed so long ago. Virginia senses the despair and comes bounding over with all the cheerfulness she can gather. “Oh, it will be such a grand adventure! I’ve always wanted to see New York.” She sits to supper beside me and pats my still hand. “Just think, Edgar. This might be the best thing that could happen for you. Now you can write the day away.” The nervous twirl of her hair gives away her pretended enthusiasm, but God bless her for trying.