by Anna Maclean
It proved to be a particularly interesting summer, as Marie Brennen was not the only fallen woman of the season. Several young society girls had also been discovered in compromising positions, a fact learned only after the girls had been sent home to New York or Boston in disgrace. Dot, the most innocent of our close threesome, had been especially upset by the discovery of Preston’s ungentlemanly behavior.
Even Preston, in his moral slumbering and enterprise, could not have been responsible for all the trouble stirred that season, but his name began appearing in whispered conversations much too frequently. His reputation suffered greatly, and with reason. Dottie wept often that summer, and all could see she had formed a higher opinion of him than his nature seemed to justify.
Preston, sitting now at our Pinckney Street table, chewed a bit of bread and swallowed it down with a large gulp of water. Judging from the look he gave the glass, and the way his hair stood on end, it was safe to assume he had been drinking stronger stuff before arriving at our house. He put his hands on the table, rested his chin in them, and stared beseechingly at me.
“Miss Alcott . . . do you think perhaps it . . . it wasn’t Dot we saw there, in the morgue . . . in the coffin?” he asked.
“Oh, dear.” I sighed. “Yes, Mr. Wortham. I’m quite, quite certain it was Dot.” Mother and I exchanged looks.
“Well, it’s just that . . . you know . . . you know, it seems like she will walk in the door any minute. She’ll smile and say, ‘I forgot the time. Have you been waiting long?’ She was like that in Rome, during our honeymoon. Forgetful. It doesn’t seem like Dot, you are thinking, but she did change, somehow. And I have been hearing things. . . .”
“Things?” I asked, raising one eyebrow.
“A woman. Laughing. Whispering. Then footsteps down the back stairs to the kitchen.”
“Where were you, and what time of day was it when you heard this?” I asked, now frowning and leaning forward.
“Early morning. In my bedroom.”
“Perhaps you were asleep and simply believed you heard real noises,” I suggested.
“No. I was awake, I assure you. In fact, I hadn’t yet been to bed.”
“Mr. Wortham,” I said with great gentleness, “I assure you, to our great sorrow Dorothy is dead. You have not heard her in the house.”
“Well, I’ve heard someone,” he insisted. “Did she love me, do you think?”
“Why, Mr. Wortham! Why else would she have married you?” Abba protested.
“Women have their reasons,” he said darkly, and then grew silent.
It was an uncomfortable dinner. Father lectured May, Lizzie, and me on the importance of consistency, of making life true to one’s beliefs. All the while he spoke, I had been studying Wortham, while Wortham had been glaring into his plate of vegetables, unable to eat.
“Well, it is an important principle,” Father said. “Especially for women. The domestic sphere must above all be the place where men and women stay true to the higher principles. It is not my experience that women are the best material for philosophers and mystics, but instead must guide and comfort the home.”
Abba and I exchanged another glance, this time one with an unspoken message about Father, not Mr. Wortham. As much as we loved him, his nonprogressive views on women were often grating. I felt it necessary to hide my monthly copy of The Lily since Father scorned the feminist press and praised Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe more for her femininely modest refusal to give public appearances than for her novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
And so, that difficult conversation was brought to a conclusion, for the time, and having reached that conclusion we realized that there was nothing else we wished to discuss. Dot was on our minds, but there was her husband, drinking a second glass of after-dinner port that Father could not really afford to serve. We lapsed into silence, and when we took more comfortable seats in the worn, soft chairs of the parlor, Abba and I fetched our sewing baskets. May went upstairs to bed, and Lizzie stayed in the kitchen, washing up and putting things away. After, I heard her soft steps creeping up the kitchen stairway, away from the parlor.
The fire crackled and hissed. The clock struck eight. Wortham stared morosely into the flames. We darned thin stocking after thin stocking, trying to get another season of wear out of them.
At eight-thirty the doorbell rang again. Preston jumped and turned pale. “Dot?” he muttered. I wondered if his confusion might indicate a strong disturbance of the conscience.
“You stay, Abba. I’ll get it,” I said, glad to be free of the darning needle, and strode into the front hall.
When I returned, I was as white and dazed as Preston. Constable Cobban was with me, dressed in his plaid suit and with the conspicuous badge of his office pinned onto his lapel.
“Mr. Preston Wortham,” he said, “I have come to arrest you. You will accompany me to the Watch and Police Station, and then be held at the courthouse until the time of your trial.”
Preston, who had risen to his feet, looked even more confused than he had before.
“Jail?” he said in a small, disbelieving voice.
I stepped forward. “Mr. Cobban, what is this about? On what intelligence do you base this arrest?”
“We have received an anonymous letter that places Mr. Wortham at the docks at the time of Mrs. Wortham’s death. And we questioned once again the downstairs maid at the Wortham residence, and she has stated that husband and wife quarreled that morning. In fact, most mornings. There is motive, and now a witness.”
“An anonymous witness. Really, Mr. Cobban. And if you arrest all husbands and wives who quarrel, well . . .” I glared at him. He glared back for a moment, but then dropped his gaze.
“Sorry, Miss Alcott,” he said. “I had hoped he wouldn’t be here, so that this scene could have been avoided, but he is here, and now he must leave with me.”
Preston smiled as if he were just stepping out onto the porch for a smoke. He did not yet quite comprehend what was happening. When Constable Cobban stepped forward with handcuffs, Preston ceased smiling. Beads of perspiration broke on his forehead, despite the chill of the evening.
“Is that really necessary?” I asked rather sharply.
“Afraid so. This is a murder investigation, Miss Alcott.” Cobban addressed his comments to me, as if no one else were present. Our eyes met. His seemed to ask for understanding.
“As you see fit,” I said. “But remember and believe that we are innocent till proven guilty, and treat Mr. Wortham accordingly.”
“Yes, miss.”
“Miss Alcott?” Preston was hunched over now, miserable, his hands cuffed behind his back. Constable Cobban, with a hand on his shoulder, turned him toward the door.
“Just a moment,” I exclaimed as Cobban led him away. “Mr. Wortham, were the footsteps and woman’s laughter the sounds of the upstairs maid, perhaps?”
“No. She does not come upstairs until ten in the morning. Dot is very strict about that,” Preston said. “Jail?” he said again.
The gathering in our parlor waited, shocked, as the front door closed and we heard the constable’s steps, and Preston’s, marching down the wooden porch. Gone.
“We should have seen them out,” Abba said weakly, realizing there had been a breach in manners.
“I think Mr. Wortham preferred we did not,” I said, shaken.
“Well,” said Father. “Well. Louisa, you do ask strange questions, wanting to know housekeeping arrangements as a man is being led off in cuffs.”
And so concluded the evening. Sylvia could see that I wished to be alone with my thoughts, so she prepared for departure.
“This is a puzzling, sad business,” I said, holding her coat and absentmindedly stroking the sheared beaver collar as Sylvia backed into it. “I fear it will grow yet sadder.” I sighed.
“Preston would agree with that statement, since he stands a fair chance of being hanged,” Sylvia agreed. “Perhaps he will simply be sent to a lunatic asylum instead. He seem
s to have come unglued. All that nonsense about hearing Dot in the house . . .”
At which point Father began one of his familiar sermons on the evils of capital punishment and the inadequacies of our housing of the criminally insane. He was in fine voice that evening, and his words carried all the way out onto the moonlit, rain-dampened street.
I spent several late night hours in the attic, trying to compose my story of star-crossed lovers and Italian nights, but more often than not the sentences turned into thoughts of mourning for Dorothy, and confusion over Wortham.
THE NEXT MORNING, after a night of tossing and turning and finally falling into fitful sleep for an hour or two, I received a letter from Preston Wortham:
My dear Miss Alcott (the hastily penned and smeared message read),
Constable Cobban seems to be of the opinion that poor Dorothy was merdered, and that I am the culprit. I am shoked to the bone, needless to say. I was fond of my wife, more than I am willing to admit to the casual observar and I am not complety insensable to comments whispered about my afections for her, that they might be based on merits other than her own charm and virtues. Such was not the case, and you will believe me or you will not.
I believe they mean to hang me in due proces. Miss Alcott, for the sake of our earlier frendship, plese help me. I swere I am inocent of this deed.
Would you also be so kinde as to stop at my rezidence and fetch a few articles for me. Digby will get them redy for you, from the enclosed list.
Yours in iternal frendship,
Preston Wortham
“He is most certainly innocent of the laws of the English language,” Father observed at the table, reading over my shoulder. “I believe he was tutored by Charles Henry of the Harvard Classics department. It seems to have had little positive effect on his writing style.”
“What will you do, Louy?” Abba asked. We were in the midst of our breakfast when the missive from Preston arrived, and Abba was busily moving around the table depositing a grayish, gelatinous mess of porridge into everyone’s bowl. While Mother’s bread was excellent, her morning porridge was one of the reasons I remained slender.
“I will go to Mr. Wortham and see in what way I may assist. I owe Dorothy that much, for the sake of our friendship,” I answered. “Immediately.” And with my excuse ready-made, I pushed away my bowl and went back upstairs to finish dressing.
Society women might spend an entire morning donning their stockings, chemise, corset, hoops, crinolines, gowns, underskirts, lace sleeves and caps, shoes, false curls, and such, but for me—thank goodness—dressing was an activity that occupied all of ten minutes.
Abba did not, for which I was thankful, require me to wear corsets or wear them herself, and my father considered such devices unhealthy and also wrong, because the obtaining of whalebones was necessarily cruel to the whales, who preferred to keep them. Hence, my costume usually consisted of a chemise, drawers, hooped crinoline, stockings, and a linen bodice buttoned onto a matching skirt, all of which could be donned in seconds, since I moved with both speed and efficiency, having trained my left hand to be as strong and coordinated as my right. My hair was thick and wavy and required only a brushing and a twisting into place to form the neat, winged chignon I preferred to more elaborate ringletted coiffures.
And, of course, I wore no cosmetics whatsoever; no lady did, though more of them than would admit rubbed stove black on their eyebrows and powdered cornstarch on their noses. Nor did I ever engage in the dubious habit of drinking vinegar to whiten my skin; I preferred a healthy complexion, and the family budget would not allow such vanity.
So, when I had declared “I must get ready immediately,” my family knew I referred to matters other than dress: Usually it meant I had fallen asleep in my garret, at my desk, and wished to be certain the pages I had written during the night were safely stored away during the day in my metal tin box. I realize now that my writing life was an open book to my family.
My quick, tapping feet flew up two flights to the attic; and, I imagine, there followed the usual mutterings and exclamations, noises of drawers opening and closing and then a silence, as I quickly reread my work of the night before. I was still embroiled in my love story of fickle Claude, passionate Beatrice, and unwitting Therese, and had come to the realization that one or several of the triangle must die for the story to resolve. Blood and thunder, indeed.
When I returned back downstairs I suspect my family knew from my expression that my writing efforts of the previous evening had not passed muster. I could feel that my eyes were lowered, my mouth tight. My skills at disguising my true feelings have always been blissfully inadequate.
“The story is almost finished, but I am not pleased with it,” I said to my mother.
“Louisa, you must not give up,” Abba said, understanding.
“I will not. But it is discouraging.”
“You must persevere.” Abba stroked my hair and I leaned against her for comfort. “You will achieve great things,” she whispered in my ear.
“Your faith in me will see me through.” I kissed her lined forehead.
LATER, AFTER I had helped Abba with the household chores, I put my old cape on and went out. The streets seemed particularly busy that day with even more small newsboys than usual offering the afternoon edition to hurrying pedestrians. A hasty sketch of Wortham had made the front page, with headlines announcing the murder of his wife, and to read of Dorothy in that casual and callow manner, to hear her described as plain but vivacious and privileged, took all the pleasure out of my walk. Instead of enjoying the movement and freedom, I was struck again by the dinginess of any city in late winter, when sooty smoke covers everything and people’s faces are pinched and drawn with cold. When my family and I first moved to Boston years before, I had ached for Concord, for the clean countryside, and now that ache returned. The bustle and dirt and change sent all lovely images and restful feelings away.
Servants don’t necessarily grieve when ill fortune finds their employers, I reminded myself later, when Digby answered the door at 10 Commonwealth Avenue. He had so successfully hidden his worry about Mr. Wortham that I discovered whiskey on the manservant’s breath and a curling black hair on his gray jacket. He appeared not to have shaved for several days, and his side-whiskers needed a trim. Digby, to use a phrase, was letting down the home team.
Even more surprising, a very flustered Alfreda Thorney exited the house just as I prepared to enter. “Oh, Miss Alcott, oh, my,” the Medusa stammered. “My, what a surprise. I have been here picking up the glove I left last week at our party.” Miss Thorney appeared quite alarmed at seeing me, and she all but jumped with fright when Digby touched her elbow on her way out.
I wondered what on earth could be behind Alfreda Thorney’s demeanor. But just as I was about to question her further, Digby said in his gravelly voice, “Yes, miss. Her glove.”
I looked at Alfreda Thorney’s hands. She wore two oldish gloves with yellowed fingertips and did not carry a third as she rushed away from the house.
Digby quite noticeably did not step aside so that I might enter. In fact, he blocked my way, and I had to use the “let me in” glance, that raised-brow, tilted-head command that young ladies learn when they first make calls and their ambition leads them astray, to parlors where they were not expected. But my glance was successful, so Digby reluctantly stood aside and gave me admittance.
“I have come at Mr. Wortham’s request, to fetch some articles. Here is the list.” I handed over the paper and Digby frowned in concentration, trying to discover the meaning of words such as shurts, raiser, stripped trawsours, and tartine waste.
I stood on tiptoe and peered over his shoulder while he read. The house seemed empty and quiet. Too quiet, with that ominous silence one hears immediately before restrained giggles can no longer be restrained. My instinct told me Digby was not alone.
It was not unknown for valets to entertain lady friends when left in charge of an otherwise empty household. Bu
t had Digby brought in a friend while his employer was still in residence? Were those the sounds, I wondered, the steps and whispers, that Mr. Wortham had heard? And whatever had the Medusa been up to? If she had come to fetch a forgotten glove, why had there been no mismatched third glove in her hand when she left? More likely, Miss Alfreda Thorney had decided to take advantage of Mr. Wortham’s absence and abscond with the sugar tongs she had admired the week before.
“That would be his new plaid waistcoat,” Digby finally deciphered, squinting at Preston’s handwriting. “If you will wait in the second parlor”—the second parlor being the second best—“in the second parlor,” he repeated, in case I hadn’t understood the insult, “I will be down in ten minutes with a valise. Will he be wanting soap and towels, do you think?”
“Yes. And bed linen. At the time of his removal to the courthouse Mr. Wortham may not have realized the nature of his accommodations,” I said. “I will wait in the front parlor. I see there is a fire there.” The front parlor being, of course, the best parlor. Digby frowned, but said nothing. Why is it, I wondered, that some servants are even greater snobs than their employers?
The front parlor had not been unused since Preston’s departure. A tumbler stood on a side table, the half-empty bottle of whiskey next to it, and next to that a creased opera program. The morning paper was crumpled on the settee, slippers rested underneath. A woman’s black lace shawl had been tossed onto a footstool. I picked up the shawl and sniffed it. Attar of roses. A paper carnation had been pinned to its collar, giving it an exotic look. I folded it and put it on the back of the settee, near the disheveled morning edition. I peered down at the paper. It was opened to the society page, the wedding announcements. Several names in that column had been circled boldly in ink. Digby, like many men of his station, seemed to have an inordinate interest in the doings of the upper class.