“And one day soon, a mother,” Fanny said.
“Oh, I do hope so,” Molly said, a wide smile lighting up her features. “I hope you don’t feel poorly toward me for this bout of nervousness.”
“Not in the least. I’m sure every bride feels exactly the same. It is a good day, a happy day, the start of a new and wonderful future.”
“Yes,” Molly said, her spirits restored. “Yes it is.”
Fanny helped Molly finish the last of her preparations, then left her with a kiss on the cheek so that Fanny could manage the few guests who would be in attendance.
When Fanny entered the parlor, which had been set up for the ceremony, Robert looked as nervous as Molly had been. None of his family were in America, and she was glad that the extended Appletons had embraced him fully. Fanny whispered words of encouragement to him before taking her seat between her dear friend Emmeline Austin and her Aunt Sam.
Tom and a very pregnant Harriet sat on the chairs opposite the aisle, with an empty chair for Father between them, while a dozen or so guests filled the chairs behind. Emmeline reached for Fanny’s hand, which Fanny appreciated.
For all of Fanny’s speeches and encouragement, part of her was absolutely heartbroken over Molly’s marriage. She would miss her sister so much.
Dr. Channing took his place at the front of the parlor, the windows behind him overlooking the Commons. As the musician began to play a hymn on the pianoforte, Fanny allowed the last few years to weave through her mind: Mama’s death, Charles’s passing, traveling through Europe, burying William in Schaffhausen, Father’s marriage—not quite a year ago. So many changes. So many struggles.
Molly had been there through all of them, smoothing out Fanny’s edges, encouraging her to see the best in people, helping her keep her confidence and not fall prey to her fears that nothing would ever be right again. After each difficulty, life had once again gained its color and joy.
But was that because of Molly’s influence? Had Fanny weathered the storms because Molly had pulled her through them? There were surely more struggles ahead, and Fanny would face them without her dear sister, her closest friend, the person in the world who Fanny believed knew her best and loved her anyway.
Dr. Channing instructed the guests to rise, and Fanny, along with the other guests, stood and turned toward the doorway.
Fanny held her emotions in check until she saw Father blinking back tears as he led Molly to the front of the room. Then there was no hope for controlling her own. Tears streamed down her face as Father and Molly made the slow walk down the aisle.
Standing before Dr. Channing, Father handed Molly to Robert, who thanked him, then took Molly’s hand. Whatever nervousness bride and groom had felt before this moment disappeared in the bright hopefulness of their expressions as they looked upon their futures together.
Emmeline squeezed Fanny’s hand again, and Fanny sent her friend a happy smile. It was a happy day, and Fanny’s heart was full.
Twenty-Six
A Scholar
Fanny gave her Aunt Sam a quick hug and a kiss on her cheek. “Thank you for such a lovely afternoon,” she said as the carriage stopped in front of 39 Beacon Street. It was early November—Fanny had celebrated her twenty-third birthday a few weeks before—and cold enough to freeze fingers and toes, but not so cold to prevent the women from sprucing up their wardrobes for winter. Since Molly’s marriage and removal to England last March, Fanny had become even closer to her aunts as they filled in some of the loneliness she felt.
“I am the one who should be thanking you,” Aunt Sam said. “Such young company keeps me from feeling my age. Besides, what good is having a niece if I cannot spoil her from time to time?”
Fanny smiled, thinking of what a wonderful mother Aunt Sam would have been. It had not been her destiny, and so she bathed her nieces and nephews with love. “This niece will not complain one bit,” she said, lifting up the hatbox hanging at her wrist. Inside was the most beautiful green velvet hat that matched the striped pelisse Fanny had ordered from the same shop two weeks earlier. “Thank you.”
“Oh, never you mind,” Aunt Sam said, waving Fanny from the carriage. “Besides, I want you to look smart for your smart company tonight. Come for tea tomorrow and tell me all about the lecture.”
“I shall,” Fanny said, though she knew Aunt Sam was not all that interested in Mr. Dana’s poetry. As Aunt Sam had said, however, she adored her niece and rarely needed a reason for a visit.
“I shall expect you at four,” Aunt Sam said as Mathews opened the carriage door. He lifted Fanny down from the carriage, and she stood long enough to wave a final good-bye as the carriage drove off.
Mathews opened the front door for Fanny and then received her hat and coat. She instructed him to put the hatbox in her room.
She turned toward the sound of footsteps coming from the drawing room. “Good afternoon, Fanny,” Harriet said.
“Good afternoon, Harriett,” Fanny said with a smile. “How is little William faring today?” Her half brother, whom Fanny adored, was ten months old and an absolute delight. He was crawling now, and at times the house on Beacon Street did not seem nearly big enough to contain him. Harriet had a nurse come in every afternoon, but did all the rearing herself in the morning—a very unusual choice for a woman of her status.
At first Fanny had been annoyed with the disposing of tradition, but as time passed, she gained a new respect for her stepmother, and perhaps a bit of envy for William, who had his mother’s full attention for hours every day. He had become a thread of connection between the women, giving them a safe topic of conversation.
“Oh, William,” Harriett said, shaking her head. “He only napped half an hour this morning, and then he toppled down the first flight of stairs when I turned my back a moment too long.”
“Oh, dear,” Fanny said, glancing up the grand staircase—marble, hard, unforgiving. “Is he alright?”
“Bumped and bruised. But I do think he’ll respect the staircase in the future.”
Fanny smiled politely but wondered if a hired nurse would be more attentive. Sometimes Harriett had the strangest ideas on parenting—as though a child could learn to avoid stairs. Better to put a chair at the top and prevent harm, Fanny thought. But it was not her place to say so.
“You received a letter from Molly today,” Harriett continued as she passed Fanny in the foyer. “I had Mathew put it on your desk. She wrote to your father as well, but he won’t be home until dinner.”
That Harriett had not opened Molly’s letter meant that it had not been addressed to her. Fanny wondered if Molly had intended the slight—it was not like her.
“Do you remember that I won’t be home for dinner?” Fanny said when Harriet reached the first stair.
Harriet turned back to her. “That’s right, tonight is your lecture at the college.”
“Jewett and I will get dinner beforehand.”
“Very good,” Harriet said, moving up the stairs. “I believe I will lie down while the nurse keeps William occupied. I daresay I would probably be better served if the nurse stayed overnight so I might get a full night’s sleep.”
“Father would be glad to arrange it,” Fanny said, reminding her stepmother that not having a nurse during the night was her own choice.
“I’m sure he would,” Harriett said, smiling softly. “Only I am far too selfish. I want my face to be the one William sees when the tremors of night wake him from his rest. I am unwilling to share.”
She really was the most peculiar mother. Harriet continued up the stairs, and a minute later, Fanny climbed the stairs to her own room. She spotted Molly’s letter on her writing desk and hurried across the room, eager to hear from the sister she missed so very much.
Fanny had been so tempted to go to England with Molly when she’d issued the invitation back in March, but she did not want to encroach on the couple’s time to set up a household together. Molly had written faithfully twice a month, and Fanny drank down
every word like it was fine wine. They had celebrated their birthdays together every year, until this one, and the ache of longing Fanny had felt was more than she’d dared admit to anyone. She settled at her desk and opened the letter, letting the words take on Molly’s voice in her head. When she reached the second line, she gasped.
“I am an aunt,” she said quietly and read the announcement a second time.
It was not unexpected. Molly had written of her pregnancy for months now, but it was fantastic all the same. And perhaps a bit of a sharp reminder. In the time it had taken Molly to move into two new life-roles, Fanny had stayed the same. There were a few suitors who had come calling, but her interest was not sparked by any of them. Because Molly was not with her, Fanny hadn’t gone to Lenox for the summer and instead attended Harriett and William to Newport. It had been a nice trip, the sea was lovely and Fanny had enjoyed the countryside, but when she remembered the prior summers with Molly, she’d found Newport wanting.
The one accomplishment she could claim over the last months was that she’d become a great reader. She’d enjoyed everything from Balzac to novels and read all manner of essays and commentary that had once seemed uninteresting. Perhaps words had become her new friends now that Molly was gone.
Fanny returned to the letter and read about her new nephew, Ronald Mackintosh, who had been born on Molly’s birthday. A Scotsman like his father, he was healthy and fat and “always hungry.”
Fanny wondered at a line about the difficulties with his birth, but Molly did not expound, and Fanny knew enough about childbirth to know it was never without hardship. She hoped Molly was improving and immediately began wondering when she might make a trip to England to meet her nephew. She would not be encroaching now that there was a child. Rather, she would be helping her sister while soaking up the magic of her new nephew.
There was little keeping her in Boston as more and more friends married or sought their fortunes in other cities or even other continents. Everyone seemed on the move—everyone but Fanny.
After Molly’s letter, Fanny immediately began to pen her response, using her most flowery words to share with her sister how truly happy she was for her and Robert. She expressed how eager she was to meet her “Cockney nephew” and wished them every happiness.
By the time she finished the letter, it was time to prepare for the lecture. Fanny moved to her vanity and repaired her hair for the event.
Richard Henry Dana was a fine poet, and Fanny found his commentaries fascinating as they distracted her from all the ugly politics that bogged down her mind. Locofocoism, abolitionism, and Harrisonism had become the topic of nearly every dinner party and drawing room. Fanny had had enough of it. Literature was a much kinder place to center her attention, and Mr. Dana provided a welcome playground for her thoughts. She had just placed her new hat upon her head when Mathew announced that Jewett had arrived with his carriage.
Fanny pinned her hat into place and hurried down to the foyer where her cousin bowed elegantly over her hand. He complimented her new hat when she preened and posed for him, and they spoke of all manner of things during dinner at Jewett’s favorite pub as well as on the ride to Cambridge, where the driver let them off in front of the lecture hall.
It was cold, and Fanny was glad she’d worn her wool petticoat and thicker boots. The doors to the hall were open, and Jewett walked behind her with his hand at her back so they would not lose one another in the stream of attendees filtering in.
“I do think you are quite outnumbered,” Jewett said from behind her. “I haven’t seen another woman here yet.”
“Truly?” Fanny was relieved when they reached the hall and she could pick out half a dozen colored hats and coats amid the determinedly black and gray sea of men’s clothing. She was glad not to be the sole representative of her sex and a little proud that she was one of only a handful of women reaching beyond what was expected of them. She liked to think she and her scholarly sisters in attendance tonight were doing their part to prove that a woman’s mind was equal to that of a man’s.
Jewett found two seats only a few rows from the front and led Fanny toward them. She took her seat and unwrapped the scarf from her neck. She had nearly settled into her seat when a familiar form on the platform at the front of the room made her pause.
She had not seen Mr. Longfellow for months, not since Tom’s birthday party in March. She hadn’t sought out Mr. Longfellow’s company that night, but during a brief encounter with him toward the end of the night, he had recommended that she might like to read Macaulay’s essay on Milton. He knew of her love of Milton from their time in Germany. She had thanked him for the recommendation and then thought little of it until Newport, where she happened to find a copy of the Edinburgh Review, which had featured the essay back in 1825.
Even standing with the periodical in hand, she’d hesitated; she wanted no more connection to Mr. Longfellow than that of an acquaintance and was proud of herself for having overcome the most intense reactions toward Hyperion to allow even that. To read what he’d recommended—obviously referencing their connection in Europe so many years ago—made her feel as though she were inviting him in somehow. She nearly ignored the essay completely, but then her love of Milton swayed her and she gave in.
She’d found Macaulay’s insights quite fascinating, enough that she’d considered for one crazy moment writing Mr. Longfellow her thoughts. There were not many people of her acquaintance with whom she could discuss literature at depth. The idea to write him was dismissed as soon as it had come, of course, but seeing him now renewed her wish that their friendship had been sustained. She would like to have discussions with him without worrying she would give him the wrong impression. It was too bad he had ruined whatever chances they had for that kind of friendship. It had been over a year since Hyperion had made her a topic of gossips and speculators, and though the fervor had died down, the impressions had not.
“Ah, your beau is here,” Jewett said as he unbuttoned his coat. He nodded toward Longfellow conversing comfortably with Mr. Dana as they waited for the lecture to begin. Jewett gave her a sideways look. “Please don’t tell me that’s the true reason we are here.”
“As though I would cross the river for him,” Fanny said, then winced at how rude it was. Why was it so easy for her to be caustic with Jewett?
“Better to throw yourself into it,” Jewett said with a merry grin. He put his hands together and pantomimed diving into the very river he referenced.
Fanny could not keep from smiling, despite how terribly inappropriate his comment was, but she shook her head. “You are bringing out the worst in me.” She lifted her chin. “And I am trying very hard to appear as dignified as my company.”
Jewett looked around the audience—the hall was nearly full—and then back at her. “If dignified means tattered coats and ill-fitting hats, then I suppose I shall have to agree. I feel like a rose among thorns. It was a waste to wear my new shoes.” He lifted his pant leg so she could see his new leather shoes, shined to a gleam. It was the second time he’d drawn her attention to them. The first time was in the carriage ride, and then, like now, she rolled her eyes at his vanity.
“If you are the rose, what am I?” she asked, acting affronted. As though he would be noticed before she would.
Jewett shrugged. “You’re the one who called the company distinguished.”
She was phrasing an appropriate response when the sound of someone clearing his throat drew her attention, along with the attention of the audience.
Mr. Longfellow stood at the podium, awaiting the crowd to quiet down so that he might, apparently, begin the lecture. While he waited, he scanned the crowd rather languidly until he saw her. His gaze instantly stopped for one count. Two. Three. She felt her face heating up as people around her began turning to see what had captured the attention of the man on the stand.
Finally, Mr. Longfellow seemed to collect himself and looked up, but his demeanor, which had been comfortable before, w
as now rigid and tense.
Fanny sunk lower in her chair. She heard someone behind her whisper her name to someone else.
“Oh, from the book?” came the whispered reply.
Fanny closed her eyes, mortified. Would Hyperion ever go away? She was slinking even lower in her chair when Jewett put his hand on her arm and leaned toward her.
“Don’t give them reason to think less of you,” he whispered. “Your embarrassment will only give them permission to think ill.”
She nodded and straightened in her chair, lifting her chin and keeping her eyes on Mr. Longfellow as though it did not take every bit of her focus to appear unaffected. He did not look at her again, skipping over her when he took in different portions of the room.
She was glad he did not risk noticing her again, but she could see that his own neck was red and could tell by the way he fumbled through his introduction that her presence had unnerved him. She hated causing him discomfort but was also irritated that he was putting a blemish over what was supposed to be a very fine evening. He had not been present at Mr. Dana’s last lecture. She hoped he didn’t think she’d come to see him.
“ . . . and so it is my pleasure to introduce you to the estimable Mr. Richard Henry Dana.”
Fanny applauded with the crowd while Mr. Longfellow and Mr. Dana traded places at the podium. Fanny was soon captured by Mr. Dana’s beautiful interpretations of culture and history. She was glad she had come, despite the initial discomfort. At one point she shifted her attention from the podium and saw that Mr. Longfellow was not there. She took a longer look, focusing on each face on the stand until she was certain he was not among the other faculty members.
He hadn’t left because of her, had he?
She chided herself for the wave of guilt that washed over her. Mr. Longfellow could have left for any number of reasons, why should she flatter herself into thinking she was the cause? He was a busy man—a professor, a writer—and he was responsible, in part, for the growing support of the public lectures that were becoming more and more common at the college.
Forever and Forever (Historical Proper Romance) Page 18