The Adventures of Allegra Fullerton (2 page)

Preface

Such is the significant content of a letter from the offices of Ticknor and Fields that I found neatly folded and moldering at the bottom of a box containing a handwritten manuscript. This manuscript was among a collection of art instruction books, sketch and watercolor studies, and albums of quotations from favored authors that came into our hands some years ago from the estate of a local woman. She had left the collection, you see, to our library in a small Massachusetts town and under the care of our historical society. As a recently retired scholar and long-time member of the society, I happened to be establishing an overdue inventory of our collections when the box fell, so to speak, into my own hands. The society's understanding is that none of the material left to us from the estate is to be auctioned to private collectors. The manuscript to which the letter refers was written, I discovered, by the deceased's great-great-great (or so) grandmother—one of those rare women who earned her livelihood as an itinerant portrait painter during the early decades of our Republic.

Although the editorial underling who composed the rejection does not say it, my guess is that these gentlemen found especially distasteful the audacity of an author who would compose a
kunstlerroman
, or artist novel, with a woman at its center. One only has to recall that for over a hundred years beyond the decade of Allegra Fullerton's narrative, many American women artists—especially if they were unmarried—were still left out of biographical dictionaries and genealogies.

Today's readers will find, of course, that such “frankness of description and incident” as the editors refer to would hardly shock our enlightened age. Perhaps these stuffy old fellows were not prepared even for frankness worthy of a
journal intime
or the ancient and honorable tradition of the picaresque. But I suppose I must concede some merit to their compunction over Mrs. Fullerton's unconventional narrative strategy, for I too at first thought I had stumbled upon A Long Fatal Love Chase only to be ambushed by a Portrait of the Artist as a Young Woman!

I should probably add one or two brief considerations more. If the novel's heroine is not a conventional figure—the vapid angel or malign temptress—of so many early American novels of sentiment, seduction, or frontier adventure, neither is she a flawless heroine of Chimeric proportions, as if the only alternative to angel or temptress were a kind of nineteenth-century Anita Schwarzenegger (or some such meretricious phantasm more acceptable to our illuminated sensibilities today). No, here is a woman who had to rely on her own more natural wit and courage, as much as on the help of others, if she were to survive the menacing and irresponsible men and women she encountered on her journey toward self-definition.

I can't help believing that readers will welcome Allegra Fullerton's unromanticized approach to her journey. They may miss some of that metallic—dare I say lifeless?—brilliancy of so many of our own contemporary authors. But Allegra's story feels, to my mind, neither complacent in its genteel historicism nor smug in its cybernetic currency.

Even though for her time she writes plainly, readers will no doubt find a certain formality of language and presentation not quite in tune with modern ears. But for those of us who can relax our twentieth-century prejudices and happily enter into the spirit of her tale, our reward will be an unaffected peek at nineteenth-century life, a kind of antidote to the mania for sentimental novels so common in many epochs, including our own.

A
MERE TRANSCRIBER
, I understand my duty as chiefly to edit eccentricities of spelling, irregular capitalization, excessive uses of the ampersand, lack of apostrophes, as well as any overly ambitious nineteenth-century syntax that might confuse readers today. Beyond such clarifications, I place before you a printed text of Allegra Fullerton's handwritten, intimate memoir—just as it flowed from her pen and her heart.

ONE

The onset of my captivity

F
rom the beginning, my time of bondage was like a terrible dream: filled with lurid strangers and events. Dark moments of unknowing alternated with moments of oppressive enlightenment. My heart seemed to oscillate between desire for liberty—sickening in its very intensity—and utter hopelessness.

Of the first day in my room I remember little. I recall a dim Pandemonium of carts, carriages, and people below my window each time I awoke, only to lie in a stupor. If I arose languidly in an effort to understand my circumstances in this room somewhere in the city, fatigue soon drove me back to bed. Beside my bed was a simple night table on which sat two well-trimmed sperm candles. Plush, red brocaded curtains on the single window hung to a carpet patterned in unicorns and other mythical creatures.

It must have been near dusk when I awoke once more to the presence of others in the room. But I lay in my lethargy and feigned sleep.

“The doc give her another dose after she came,” I heard a woman's voice say softly.

“The old sot must have kill't her nearly,” a man's deep voice said.

The voices began to whisper at the far end of the room, but with the clamor on the street and the difficulty I had concentrating on the words, I couldn't comprehend them. I began to understand, however, that I had been in some way besotted, which accounted for my lassitude and nausea.

I heard a tray slide off the table and the door close quietly. I slept again, waking briefly two or three times in the night, and finally, near daybreak, I began to feel some of my vital energy returning. After a patch of sky near the top of my window had turned blue, I finally arose and began to examine the room closely. I found a washbowl full of cool water on a dressing table and washed myself as well as I could. The room was close, but the window was sealed shut in some way. Still, I heard from the street below the same hubbub I had heard in wakeful intervals the day before. As I looked down upon the street I began to feel dizzy again, so I sat on the bed a while, facing the locked door.

Eventually, a key turned and the door to my room opened slowly. I looked up to see the head of a woman, her hair covered with a colorful nightcap, peering in at me. Her face was for the moment inscrutable, neither frowning nor smiling, encouraging nor discouraging. She entered the room with a tray of food and set the tray beside me on the bed. As she did so, I noticed that her face was well powdered and that she wore an unfamiliar scent, at once exotic and sweet. Her bright, loosely fastened dressing gown, worn décolleté fashion, revealed an ample bosom, as powdered as her face—a woman of thirty-five years or more.

Before speaking a word, she pointed to the tray of food and allowed a quick little smile and a nod of her head, whereupon her face immediately resumed its expression of impassivity.

“Who are you?” I asked. “And why have you brought me here against my will?”

“You'll find out soon enough, my dear,” she answered. “For now, see to yourself. You must eat, rest well, and bathe later. And those clothes! Have you seen yourself?” She glanced toward the large mirror attached to the dressing table. “You'll soon have clothing suitable to …” She paused and looked around the room. “To your position here.”

“But why am I here?” My raised voice seemed to give her a start.

Her eyes narrowed a bit. “You'll see soon enough,” she repeated. “No more questions till you take care of yourself.”

The door opened again and a large, rough-looking Negro man entered. In one hand he carried a fresh chamber pot; over his other arm he had draped what appeared to be several nightgowns and a dressing gown not unlike the one my mysterious interlocutor was wearing. He said nothing, never even stole a glance at me.

“Put those things on the chair, Reggie,” the woman said. When he had done so, she thanked him. Still speechless, he then stooped over and reached under my bed, slid out the chamber pot, and carried it out of the room, closing the door behind him.

“I must have some fresh air,” I said. “This room is oppressive.”

She looked at me in silence, then said matter-of-factly: “None of these things we discuss till you eat, bathe, and change. Come now.” She indicated the tray of food again and stood there waiting. By then I was hungry, and I saw that I had no choice but to comply with her wishes.

As I began to eat, she explained that once I finished I was to go under her supervision three flights down to the washroom on the first floor. After my bath, she continued, I was to prepare myself for an interview with a certain gentleman that evening. She refused to answer any further questions, averring once again that all such conversation was to cease until I had done everything I was told.

After I ate, she led me downstairs and into the washroom, remaining there with me until I finished and dressed in one of the dressing gowns the Negro had brought in for me. I had found it most difficult to bathe under her appraising eyes. But somehow I completed my task and soon found myself back in my room. Or cell rather.

I stood for a time at the window looking down upon the busy, unfamiliar street—a place of heterogeneous shops and boarding-houses. Below, the comings and goings of an odd assortment of people flowed continually. Sailors and shop clerks strode cheek by jowl; substantial men of trade rubbed elbows with hawkers and ballad singers; black men and women thronged among white, some exchanging greetings, others entering or exiting various shops or taverns together. As one door down the street swung open, I dimly heard a burst of wild fiddle music, as if from a dance hall. Two young men somewhat above the middle station of life, their linen suits rumpled and vests undone, lurched out of a rumhole into broad daylight and, leaning on one another, endeavored to regain their bearings before setting off down the declining street. They nearly fell over a handbarrow from which a man and woman sold their wares. Following these two men was a most perfidious looking fellow whose swarthy laborer's clothes were disheveled, even unto the tattered cap askant on his greasy head.

Had I been at liberty to run out into the street, I would not, I now understood, have felt safe asking for help. Many of the people I saw seemed exuberant, some nearly to the point of delirium, yet there was a garish cast to their persons and proceedings that suggested to me the desperation of Nether Regions, of antic figures from Hogarth or Brueghel.

Yet I had witnessed a mere pocket of my new neighborhood, in, as I soon discovered, its quieter hours. For later, as I watched evening coming and finally darkness spreading over the city and settling comfortably into the corners and alleyways, the scene below seemed to quicken, to throb and blazon forth under a strange flaring light that, for me, only heightened the tawdry chaos of this neighborhood. How many afternoons and how many evenings was I condemned to witness the shameless little dramas of the street?

I recall feeling in the early days and weeks as if I were an aloof and ruthful spirit looking down upon the vanities and follies of the human race, as if, indeed, the windowpanes through which I observed these people were in fact that adamantine barrier which separates the visible from the invisible worlds.

I was soon to discover, however, that the barrier between me and the street below was something more than those thin panes of glass through which I observed the garish parade. For on the third night of my immurement I met my chief tormentor.

It happened after the Ethiopian had returned to my room with a supper tray balanced on one enormous hand. He placed the tray on my bed, again without a single word, and without expression on his face. I turned from my window to watch him in a silence of my own as he came and went. Then I ate the light meal and drank off the small pot of tea. I began to understand that every meal (there were two a day) was to be light. But just as I had finished, someone knocked softly on the door. I asked who was there, but for reply heard only another knock. I stood up and returned to my sealed window, thereby placing the bed, with its curtains drawn aside, between me and whoever should enter.

A key turned in the lock and the knock was repeated.

“Come in,” I said softly. The door opened and suddenly there before me stood Joseph Dudley.

My knees began to tremble as if I were about to engage in life and death struggle. A thousand unspoken questions coursed through my mind. No doubt prepared for my confusion, he merely indicated with a small gesture that I should sit in the chair by the window and compose myself. I sat down, without taking my eyes off his face. In his white waistcoat and kid gloves, he was handsome as ever, as if he were on his way to the theater or opera, his full dark hair combed perfectly into place, shining like polished leather above the rather pale but perfect skin of his smooth-shaven face.

He was smiling, almost as if to encourage me. When he began to speak, I remained in the chair.

“I'm truly sorry, Mrs. Fullerton,” he said, “that we should meet again in these circumstances.” His good eye glanced quickly around the small room, his face tending toward disapproval. “Rest assured you are under my protection here. No injury shall befall you so long as you are my concern.” He smiled again.

“I'm sure you're aware of betraying my confidence previously. I'm not a man to nurse grudges.” He spoke serenely, pausing to let his words make their mark upon me. “Yet like every man I do not relish being taken for a fool. Mattie, Mrs. Moore, assures me that you've been seen to, and she has treated you well, I believe, just as I've instructed.”

I found my voice. “Mrs. Moore? To what end have you brought me here, Mr. Dudley? And to what sort of establishment?”

“You are safe here,” he suggested, again in a calm voice, “so long as you betray me no further, as I'm sure you would not wish to.”

“My questions remain, sir!”

“Yes, my hand is in your restraint,” he said. “And why should it not be, given your promises and deceits? Yet, as I've said, I bear no grudge. I do not desire that you should suffer, nor to restrain you any longer than necessary.”

“Necessary!”

“Please, Mrs. Fullerton. If I may …” He walked over to the bed, sat upon it, and turned enough to face me. “If I may,” he began again. “I want you to understand two things. First, that I and I alone have stayed your uncle's hand, and the hands of his … emissaries.” He put a long, gloved finger to his lips. “Please allow me to continue. I have your interests at heart, you see. I do not wish that your uncle should have you forcibly returned or treated as a common criminal. Nor do I wish to see you, in transit, at the mercy of hireling mollbuzzers or reprobates.

“Secondly,” he began after a brief pause, “I wish that we, you and I, should reach an understanding, more than a mere accommodation. That you can trust me, that I do not wish to restrict you, that I welcome your ambitions, your lack of conventionalisms—that, finally, I wish us to become friends and intimates. Since discovering after long search your whereabouts, I have delighted in hearing of your progress. I have the acquaintance of two or three gallery owners. In brief, I too may be of some use to you, if you'll but relinquish your scruples toward me—I am the first to admit that we started on the wrong foot—and accept my offer of friendship.”

He paused. I could hardly find where to begin. “And what does your betrothed know of your wishes,” I blurted, “to say nothing of this—what shall I call it?—captivity you have placed me in?”

“Please, Mrs. Fullerton,” he said, raising his hand again. “You have the habit of seeing everyone in the worst possible light, if I may say so. To be brief, in answer to your rather personal query, my engagement to Amelia, to Miss Simmons, is terminated. I am quite free to cultivate other friendships and relations with the fair sex. So you see, there is no hindrance from that quarter, no need to scruple.”

“Mr. Dudley, unless I'm free to leave this … house immediately, I will not hear of friendships and relations. I will not listen to you further.”

“I understand your concern, Mrs. Fullerton,” he said before I could go on. “Indeed, I share it. I had hoped you'd listen.” He smiled. “To my reasonable appeals. I will press you no further this evening, as I am in any event otherwise engaged.” He pulled out his watch. “But I wish you to consider a little longer my offer of protection and friendship. And help in your work. Were I to relinquish my interest in you, and in your safety, your uncle's men would swoop down on you like owls upon a helpless chick.”

He rose off the bed, smiled, and without a single word more quietly let himself out of my room. I heard the key turn in the lock, and again I was alone.

I remained seated by the window, confused and feeling even more helpless than I had before his appearance. Gradually, there came over me a terrible oppressiveness of spirit. It was not merely the sealed window, the locked door, the utter dependency upon total strangers for my most basic needs. It was all that, of course. But more than these strictures, it now came to me with frightening clarity, was a deeper violation.

Held in this tiny room through each round of the sun and moon, I might be in any state of dress, dishabille, sleep, wakefulness, or personal function when, without warning, one of the strangers whom I had now seen, and God knows what others, might unlock my door and enter abruptly. It was, finally, this exposure to the sudden violation of my dignity and privacy that now truly oppressed me. It was as if my every movement, thought, and dream were no longer my own, were no longer inviolate to the merest whim or incidental intrusion of others.

A
ND NOW
I knew that it was none other than young Joseph Dudley who had undone me, destroyed my dreams, smothered my ambitions, and turned the course of my life, as if a free highland rivulet had been straightened to a ceaseless drudgery at the manufacturer's wheel. Yet how could I have foreseen my undoing upon meeting him or upon meeting, first, his most respectable father?