Louisa and the Country Bachelor : A Louisa May Alcott Mystery (9781101547564)

by Maclean, Anna

  I turned the paper over. “It’s a postscript. She says ‘There’s a theater here.’ ” The spidery writing with the arabesque capitals continued. “ ‘The Walpole Amateur Dramatic Company, a flock of young people who would look kindly upon your joining them.’ ”

  Abba was humming as she stirred and looked up at the cracked, flaking ceiling.

  “You’ve arranged this,” I said, giving her a quick hug.

  “You need time away.” With her free hand, Abba sketched a circle in the air that encompassed my household duties, the young students I taught in our parlor to earn money, my baskets of take-in sewing with which I earned a little more money. Father was a philosopher, and while they make for very interesting conversation, philosophers do not provide much leisure time for their offspring.

  In my mind, I was already thinking of the plays I would write and help produce with the Walpole Amateur Dramatic Company, for I have always loved the stage. My plays would all be comedies. I’d had enough of tragedy and death.

  It would seem, though, that they hadn’t had quite enough of me.

  I accepted the invitation with alacrity, believing as I often did in those earlier days that what I most needed was time away from my beloved family, time alone, to be simply me, not daughter or sister. I thought I wanted privacy, solitude. Indeed, I had risked Father’s impatience by quoting a little too frequently from Charles Dickens’s Bleak House: “I only ask to be free. The butterflies are free.”

  “Be a butterfly,” said Abba.

  I had tried. But in Walpole I had grown lonely without my family.

  And now they were joining me, and Sylvia and I were putting the final touches on the new Alcott parlor. Her voice called me out of my reverie.

  “Is it straight?” she asked again. “Maybe another picture over the doorway,” she suggested. “There’s plenty of room for an embroidered motto or something long and narrow.”

  I pretended to consider so as not to hurt her feelings, but the answer was no. Sylvia, when she wasn’t with me, lived in her mother’s Commonwealth Avenue mansion amidst a plethora of embroidered mottoes, watercolors, bronze gargoyles, chinoiserie cabinets, and other clutter. When it came to decorating, the Shattuck women did not know when to cease. In that, they were indicative of the times. Abba, however, and my father, Bronson Alcott, the philosopher of Concord, preferred simplicity in their immediate surroundings, less rather than more, so that when one walked into a room one did not feel quite menaced by the many fragile objects lurking within. It was a question of finances as well as aesthetics. The Alcotts could not afford fripperies.

  Sylvia read my expression and grinned. “No embroidered mottoes,” she agreed. “No shelves of porcelain shepherdesses. Then we are done. I don’t think I have ever worked this hard.”

  “We are done, and your labor will be rewarded,” I promised. I sat on the blue settee and looked around, sensing those other rooms that could not be seen. They were waiting, as was I, for the three-o’clock omnibus that would bring the rest of the Alcotts to Walpole.

  I admit, dear reader, to feeling a certain pleasure and even pride, though Father would have disapproved of such a lack of humbleness. The cottage on Main Street was the first house I had ever prepared for habitation without Abba’s guidance. All the while, as I had mopped floors, wiped windows, placed furniture, I had been guided by Abba’s invisible presence, and I was certain she would approve.

  This was what a house for the Alcott family must contain: one room with wall-to-wall bookcases for Father, who often forgot to pack his hairbrush but never traveled without at least five trunks of books; a little room with a rented piano for shy Lizzie, who had no ambition other than to master the more difficult Chopin preludes; a mudroom for fifteen-year-old May to contain her paint boxes and smocks; a lady’s room with a desk stocked with writing paper and envelopes for older sister Anna, who had friends in many parts of the country; a sewing room for Abba and myself, since our income often came from that occupation. However, I was on vacation that summer. Flower Fables had earned me forty dollars. Not a fortune, like the fortune that would come many years later, but a goodly sum nonetheless, one that purchased new afternoon dresses for all the Alcott women and allowed me a little more time for my writing.

  So, of course, the new household also contained my writing room—no longer in the attic, as in our Beacon Hill house, but in a little outdoor shed that I shared with a solitary pitchfork and several handsome spiders. My desk was a plank set on two sawhorses; my rug was the graveled floor under my feet. The only decoration was three topsy-turvy umbrellas dangling from the roof to catch the seeping raindrops. The shed was a paradise.

  Out of an empty house I had, with Sylvia’s help and Abba’s unseen guidance, created a home.

  “There was mention of a reward for my labor,” said Sylvia, sitting on the other settee. Her blond hair had escaped its snood and curled around her face in rascal ringlets; there was a smear of dust on her nose and grime under her nails. Her costume was strange, with a high, tight collar and long bell sleeves that had been trailed through mopping buckets and looked much the worse for wear. Sylvia, when she had arrived the week before, had announced she was now a student of Confucius.

  She had quarreled with her mother over her marital status, which remained single despite several proposals; hence her flight to join me in Walpole. She had also become disillusioned with the Roman Catholic faith, abandoned the idea of joining a convent, and now quoted the Chinese philosopher whenever possible.

  This moment seemed to offer such a possibility.

  She folded her arms in those strange long sleeves and tried to rearrange her face in what she thought was a serene expression. How anyone with such unruly curls and such highly arching brows could achieve serenity was beyond me.

  “Confucious said: ‘A greater pleasure it is when friends of congenial minds come from afar to seek you because of your attainments.’ That’s me, come up from Boston. Will you grant a wish for greater pleasure?”

  “As you wish.”

  Sylvia’s gaze landed on my dress pocket, from which peeked a corner of white paper. “My reward shall be a reading,” she said. “Is that a new story, Louy?”

  “It is.” I took the papers from my pocket and gave them a caress, for luck. “A story about the true nature of woman.”

  “Read on,” ordered Sylvia, resting her feet on an ottoman and making herself quite comfortable.

  I shook out the paper, which had gotten damp from the mopping activities of the morning. “It is barely begun,” I explained. “But there is a young woman, Kate, who has suffered much adversity and learned to be both strong and independent. She herself describes the ideal woman: ‘I would have her strong enough to stand alone and give, not ask, support. Brave enough to think and act as well as feel. Keen-eyed enough to see her own and others’ faults, and wise enough to find a cure for them. I would have her humble; self-reliant; gentle though strong; man’s companion, not his plaything; able and willing to face storm as well as sunshine and share life’s burdens as they come.’ ”

  Sylvia was silent for a while. Then: “I feel quite fatigued from the responsibilities. But it is nicely stated, Louy. Very nicely said.”

  A knock sounded on the front door, which caused us both to sit up straighter, alert, since we were expecting no one until the arrival of the omnibus. The front door creaked open. A man’s voice boomed down the hall to where we sat.

  “Is anyone at home?”

  “In here!” I called back, wondering.

  Dr. Peterson Burroughs stuck his long, red nose into the doorway.

  “Ah,” he said. “The two young ladies are at home. I have come to see that all is well. Two women alone often encounter difficulties, you know, without a man for guidance and protection. Have you overexerted yourselves? Do you need salts?”

  Sylvia’s face was so screwed up with displeasure I almost laughed. She had met Dr. Burroughs once before, in the town square, when he had stopped us
with similar statements about the dangers of two young ladies shopping alone, unescorted.

  I had more knowledge of the man, as he had been my accidental companion during the train journey from Boston to the depot south of Walpole where the train tracks ended, since the railroad company had not yet finished the line that would connect Walpole with the more southerly cities. Dr. Burroughs was a tall gentleman of some seventy years, dressed in the stern black suit and white stockings of an earlier generation. A shock of white hair sprang out from under his hat, and during that journey his hair had trembled with constant disapproval. “Don’t see why we need trains t’all, t’all; coach do just fine,” he had said over and over.

  During that trip, I had restrained from asking why he had journeyed by train, if such were his feelings, and had surmised that his Boston daughter-in-law (the topic of most of his conversation, for according to him she was lazy, ambitious, slatternly, and overly refined, all at once) had wished him a hasty removal to his Walpole daughter-in-law.

  He had one wonderful saving grace—many years of experience as a medical examiner. He had assisted in piecing together the dismembered remains of Dr. George Parkman, who had been murdered by his debtor, Professor John Webster of Harvard Medical College, some nine years before. “I myself found the right thigh,” Dr. Burroughs had told me. “Skinny, you know. The professors at Harvard don’t eat enough to put meat on their bones. These colleges will turn out paupers.”

  Dr. Burroughs had talked at great length about the process of reconstructing a corpse as part of the process of finding the murderer, and I had found this even more interesting than the scenery.

  We had met in the Walpole town square several times since our concurrent arrivals in that pleasant village, and I had learned to feel some affection for the man, since it seemed no one else cared for his company. He wandered the town square for most hours of the day seeking conversation and rarely finding it.

  “Come in, Dr. Burroughs,” I said. “Have a chair and make yourself at home. Would you like a glass of water? I can’t offer tea; we haven’t purchased any yet.”

  I hadn’t told Dr. Burroughs that I was moving from Uncle Benjamin Willis’s house to his cottage, to live there with my own family. Yet I should have known Dr. Burroughs would know. Such men—old, unwanted, but still filled with vigor and curiosity—are better at garnering news than the best newspaper reporters.

  “Ah.” He took a package from behind his back. “A housewarming.”

  I opened the brown paper–wrapped parcel. It contained a box of Ceylon tea, a tin of biscuits, and a cone of sugar.

  “Well,” said Sylvia, smiling. “Now we can offer tea.”

  “Offer accepted. May I?” He stepped over the threshold into the parlor, making a pantomime of stepping highly as if over a fence, and wobbled a bit, having challenged his sense of balance. Obviously he, unlike Sylvia, had never benefited from an Italian dancing instructor.

  I took his arm to steady him and put his coat and hat on a free chair. Sylvia went into the pantry to heat the kettle.

  “Your color is good,” he said, sitting on the settee and peering closely into my face.

  “I spend much time out of doors,” I said.

  “Good, good. Cannot stand those pasty, fragile females. My daughter-in-law seems to think she is more appealing with white powder all over her face.” He sighed heavily at the sins of youth. “Your family arrives today?” he asked. “Good, good. Do not like the thought of young women on their own. It’s an evil world.” He sighed heavily again.

  “It is also a beautiful world,” I protested. “Look out the window, Dr. Burroughs, at the mountains. Aren’t they glorious? And Walpole. So friendly, so filled with neighbors looking after neighbors. It is quite a change from Boston, I assure you.”

  “Bah,” he said, thumping his walking stick on the floor. “Walpole has gone to the dogs. That railroad line has sent property prices to the sky, and everyone is looking to buy or sell for profit, even the foreign laborers. Time was, a man bought a house and knew his children and his grandchildren and great-grandchildren would grow up in it. Now they buy only to sell later for more money in the bank. Bah. I never.”

  Sylvia arrived just then with the tea tray.

  “Coming by train, are they?” he asked, changing the topic.

  “As far as the depot. They travel often by train,” I said. “At least, Father does.”

  “Bah! Trains!” he muttered, thumping his cane again. His beautiful thick white hair, free now of its hat, shook as if a sudden breeze had captured it.

  “It is progress.” I poured tea into three only slightly chipped cups. “They say that soon we will be able to travel from Atlantic to Pacific in three weeks or less, and from Walpole to Boston in less than a day.”

  “Harrumph. Such speed is not good for the constitution. People will be dropping like flies should that happen. No, a strong horse’s steady pace is as fast as man was designed to travel.” Dr. Burroughs sipped his tea and glowered.

  “Think of hot-air balloons,” I said. “Soon we may all fly in the air.”

  “It will never happen. In the air, underground. Bah. I suppose you, like other young people, approve all this digging about for fossils and dead elephants. Geology. I never.”

  “You mean the mastodon they found nearby in a farmer’s bog last year,” Sylvia corrected.

  “I mean that dead elephant.” Dr. Burroughs knitted his brows. I bit my lip to keep from quarreling with him and stared determinedly out the window at the lovely mountains. Who knew what secrets could be found in those hazy peaks and vales, if mastodons could be found in bogs?

  A few minutes later the hall clock (also on loan from Benjamin’s daughter, Eliza) chimed two o’clock.

  Sylvia cleared her throat. “Shouldn’t we be leaving soon, Louisa?” she asked.

  Dr. Burroughs took the hint and rose stiffly from his chair.

  “Thank you for the housewarming,” I told him. “I hope you will come again, and meet Mother and Father and my sisters.”

  He looked at me somewhat cross-eyed. Obviously it had been so long since he had received an invitation that he didn’t quite know what to say.

  “Well,” he muttered, confused. “Well.”

  AT TWO THIRTY, dressed in freshly washed and ironed frocks (Sylvia, unaccustomed to such work, had scorched hers, but the brown patch was covered nicely by a summer shawl), we made our way down Main Street to the central square.

  Walpole at that time was a large village of some fifteen hundred souls, twelve thousand sheep, and four hundred horses, perched on a high plain surrounded by the Cold and Connecticut rivers. Main Street ran tidily from north to south and was lined with beautiful old elms and maples, and behind those trees were very handsome residences. Children played at tag or with marbles, being careful to avoid the tidy, brightly planted front gardens of roses, foxglove, and iris that marked the homes. Walpole, with reason, was proud of itself. The town had excellent schools with almost universal literacy, a dozen shops, two shoe manufactories, and one shirt factory. White church spires darted into the cloudless blue sky, and in the near distance, Kilburn Mountain loomed in hazy shades of lavender and green.

  Father, I knew, approved of Walpole in particular and New Hampshire in general.

  “It is restful,” agreed Sylvia, reading my thoughts. “And Mother seems so very far away.” For as much as I admired my materfamilias, Sylvia spent much of her time trying to avoid hers.

  But then I saw the row of idling men leaning against fences and walls, the burly laborers whose work had been halted because of property disputes. Some of the men and boys spit great gobs of tobacco that made walking a hazard; they all wore the tweed caps and collarless linen tunics that marked the new Irish immigrants.

  There was a second group of men farther down the street, men with white-blond hair and wooden clogs: the Dutch workers who had arrived even before the Irish. The two groups shot glances of dislike back and forth, and occasionally on
e would venture over to shake his fists, mutter an insult, or snarl, before returning to the safety of his own group. It is ever this way, I have observed, that one group of low-wage immigrants will despise the next to come after them; there is a hierarchy of suspicion and employment rivalry.

  Each day, when I had walked to the square, I had encountered this same dual grouping, almost identical, with only minor variations of numbers and postures. The ceasing of work on the railroad had thrown many bread earners out of work, and there was unease in lovely Walpole because of this.

  I felt Sylvia stiffen next to me as we passed them by; for a moment their attention focused on us, and I remembered Dr. Burroughs’s words—that women unescorted by men were vulnerable.

  “Rubbish,” I said aloud. That made Sylvia laugh, and the moment passed.

  The omnibus from the train depot was a little early that afternoon, and Sylvia and I arrived in the square just as my family was alighting from the coach.

  I stood and gazed upon them for a moment, delighting in the sight of Abba, with her sensible brown dress and sewing basket dangling from her arm, for she never sat without a piece of mending or darning in her lap; Lizzie, shy and looking a little confused at the commotion, her beautiful long white pianist’s hands fluttering pale in the sun as she retied her bonnet; May, the youngest of Abba’s “Golden Brood,” our pet, dressed in a pink frilled frock and with her bangs curled on her broad forehead; Anna, a grown woman with a hesitant smile and lovely eyes; and Father. Father, with his sharp, noble features, his long, elegant figure, his patched and mended clothes, his air of constant distraction comingling with nobility of the highest degree.

  Anna saw me first, gave a little gasp, and opened her arms. I threw myself into them. Soon we were all hugging and exchanging kisses, Father going so far as to kiss Sylvia on the forehead, thinking for a second that she was one of his own. It was a busy market afternoon, and many people in the square tut-tutted at our public affection, but no amount of disapproval could dampen an Alcott reunion.