The House of Hawthorne (16 page)

As the service progresses, I allow my
innere
to separate from our surroundings, and coerce Nathaniel’s soul to mingle with mine. It takes a short time for him to answer the call, but within moments I sense that we are alone within our spheres. His gaze locks into mine, and our hands seem to melt together. I can feel his communication of love and adoration, and my heart opens like the night flowers from Cuba. I realize that my love walks at night, and I will bloom in his dark and radiant glow, and when I see the shine of emotion in his eyes, my growing elation spills over into the most joyous of tears.

At the conclusion of the ceremony, we hear a tremendous boom of thunder, and in moments the sky has dissolved into great cataracts of rain. I laugh with delight as we race to the waiting carriage, and the door is just barely closed when we collapse into each other’s arms.

As we begin the ride to Concord, the storm rages around us and shakes our conveyance, but I have no fear, only ecstasy. Nathaniel is distracted only enough to make passing comments on the rain, but mostly he is at my neck, my collarbone, my lips, my hands—there is not one exposed place on me that he leaves unkissed. After a short while we become aware that we are stopped in the road, and have been for some time. I hear the call of the
driver and rearrange myself so as not to appear too unkempt as we make our way to a stopping post, where we must wait in the carriage while our dear horses rest and recover from the muddy road.

I slide the curtain open so we may watch the summer storm, and then look down as Nathaniel threads his long fingers through mine. He rubs my palm with his thumb in a smooth, circular motion that hypnotizes me.

“Are you mesmerizing me, Mr. Hawthorne? I thought you feared such interference with my mind and soul.”

He lifts his hand to my face and pulls me against him, tracing my lips with his tongue and nearly bringing me to crisis. He nibbles my lower lip, and follows with a long, slow, soft kiss. Then he places his forehead to mine.

“No one but I will ever interfere with your mind and soul and body again,” he says, his eyes dark with passion.

“Now that you have made me yours, you may be my lord.”

“That’s my dove,” he says, tracing my brow with his fingers before rearranging his face wickedly. “But please do not banish naughty Sophy for good. I want her to make appearances too.”

I match his look with a devilish smile and slide my hands into his shirt while kissing his neck.

“You may count on that.”

1864
Massachusetts

N
athaniel is asleep on my shoulder, dreaming fitfully, while I shift in my seat, wondering whether he can sense my pounding heart, my memories of passion so filling this space that I could suffocate. I press my handkerchief to my cheeks and blot the perspiration on my brow.

How different is this carriage ride from the one after our wedding. How many miles have we traveled together? Have our years of bliss outnumbered our times of pain?

Even in our Eden days, the stain of death spilled like crimson ink over the clean, white pages of our lives. Reflecting back, I am in awe of the great and terrible rivers that delivered the deaths of kin and stranger to us. Water is the source of life, the holy baptism, but can also be the end of it, the drowning. The placid surface of the Concord River that drifted behind the Old Manse—
the river that Nathaniel hated, which I talked him into appreciating just before it stole from us—masked its depths. I could not fathom the turbulence that existed below us on our lazy canoe rides or our winter ice-skating. Had I heeded Nathaniel’s good sense, perhaps I could have changed the course of our lives at that time.

My ailing husband sighs and cries out from the pain in his stomach, and I pat his hand to try to soothe him, but he is awake and agitated.

“Are we there?” he asks.

“Not yet, my love.”

He takes his hands from mine and reaches up to touch the lump in his jacket as if to reassure himself the thing he needed is still there. Then he wraps his arms around his waist and pulls away from my shoulder to lean on the side of the carriage. I am cold where his body no longer meets mine. It is as if a cloud bank passed over, blotting out the sun’s warmth.

“Do you remember our wedding day?” I ask, desperate to reconnect with Nathaniel before we are separated.

He grunts and screws up his face, flinching from pain. I use my handkerchief to dry his sweaty forehead.

“Do you wish me to stay quiet or talk, my love?” I say. “Which will bring you comfort?”

He looks at me, his eyes the only clear and unaltered part of him, though time has taught me of the turbulent depths they conceal.

“Speak if it will bring you comfort,” he says. “Though I fear I am beyond it.”

“I will paint for you,” I say. “I will paint with words something you can hang under the veil inside your soul.”

A smile plays at his dry lips. When I mention the veil, I know he is reminded of how he used to hide my paintings.

“I was a dramatic youth, was I not?” he says.

“Perfectly so.”

“Where did we hang the engagement paintings at the manse?”

“In your study, remember? Where you could observe them in private.”

“No, that is where we hung your
Endymion
.”

“I did not make the
Endymion
until I was round with Una.”

“Ah, yes. The years blur from this vantage.”

“Like the mist on the river in the mornings,” I say.

We are quiet for a moment. I drink of our little conversation as if from the wellspring of life. The older I become, the more importance I assign to even the smallest interaction. Fickle, changeable life has taught me to savor any sweetness, no matter how insignificant it might seem.

“I am glad to have this time alone with you in a carriage,” I say. “We are fortunate to have each other. When I think of Robert Browning and poor Longfellow—widowers alone in the world—I do not comprehend how they endure it.”

“I would not last a day without my dove.”

Our friends Elizabeth Browning and Fanny Longfellow both died in ’sixty-one—Elizabeth from her chronic lung illness, and Fanny of a dreadful accident when she dropped a lit match on her dress and caught fire. Henry Longfellow had attempted to save
her by wrapping her in a carpet, but the burns were too severe. I shudder at the thought.

“When I recall the Concord River,” I say, “I think of how I saw it through the words we etched on the window. ‘Man’s accidents . . .’”

“‘Are God’s purposes.’”

Summer 1842
Concord, Massachusetts

U
nder the benediction of twilight, at the gentle prodding of the setting sun’s rays, the rain parts like a curtain around our home. As the carriage turns to proceed down the avenue of black ash trees, Nathaniel calls to the driver.

“Halt!”

Nathaniel’s face is lit from the emerging sun, and my heart feels as if it has exploded and showered bliss over every inch of this carriage.

“Let us go on foot,” he says.

He is breathless with an exuberance I have never before seen in him, and I cannot contain my tears of joy. Nathaniel’s eyes leak rivulets down his face. We laugh together at our stupidity, and launch down the drive toward our abode—a friendly house of two floors, where ivy has taken over, and where a dear stone wall leads around to an abundant orchard that borders the Concord River.

Before we arrive at the house, Nathaniel leads me through the muddy earth to the vegetable garden Mr. Henry Thoreau has started for us as a wedding present. After we exclaim over the beans and asparagus shoots, I pull Nathaniel over to the front door, where we remove our shoes and he lifts me into his arms. We burst over the threshold and are greeted by flowers—vases and vases of flowers!—adorning every room like an interior garden. There are notes from our friends tucked in the lilies and roses spilling from baskets and hollowed tree stumps, and the air holds the sweet exhalations of the blooms.

“Eden!” I shout, as my husband places my feet on the floor. I run through the house, ecstatic that my head has clarity and aliveness. “Oh, my Adam, my whole life has been leading to this moment!”

He chases me, and when he catches me, he laughs like a boy who does not know where to begin making mischief. He settles on plucking a lily from a nearby basket, and threads it through my hair. He takes my hand and leads me past the parlor, through the kitchen, and down the slope that runs to the river. When we reach its banks, we marvel over the reflection of the sky in the placid Concord.

“Have you ever seen a more charming stream?” I say.

He wrinkles his nose and grins. “Perhaps my eyes are so dazzled by your loveliness that I cannot comprehend anything lesser, for it looks like a great mud puddle.”

I gasp and strike his breast, and he laughs wickedly.

“How dare you insult any aspect of paradise,” I say, turning away from him to face the water. “Dear river, please excuse my
husband. He is quite stupid with giddiness. Once I attend to him, he might be more friendly and welcoming.”

His arms wrap around me from behind, and he kisses my neck so that every inch of my body is alert with longing. I spin to meet his embrace, when the voice of the carriage driver tumbles down the hill and breaks our spell. Nathaniel groans.

“Go, my lord,” I whisper. “Attend to and dispose of the mortals quickly so you might have your reward.”

“Yes, my lady. My queen. My Eve.”

My silly husband kneels, kisses my hand, and runs up the hill in long strides. I press my palms to my burning face and admire his godlike form until he is out of view.

I turn back to the river. Does she wink at me with her sun reflections and the disturbance of jumping fish? I raise my hands to her in blessing and bow my head. In moments, the sun slips behind the clouds and a swift wind raises the skin on my arms, urging my eyes open. With the sun hidden, the river appears murky and foreboding. I regard her for only a moment more before I hurry up to the house to prepare for my first night with my husband.

In our bedroom we have drawn a bath, pumping buckets of water and warming them on the stove, then pouring them into the washtub. We rinse off the summer’s heat, and remove the dust and mud of travel—a lifetime of travel—that has culminated in this destination that fate intended for us all along.

The light of thirty-one candles—one for each month that has
passed since our secret engagement—glows over the walls, the flowers, the empty wineglasses, and the bed whose blankets lay open in invitation. I see it all while Nathaniel’s hands lather my hair, my face, my shoulders. He removes his shirt, and I am nearly dizzy from his beauty. His arms disappear in the liquid and I accept his explorations with rapture.

I slip out of the water while he slips in, and I make slow work of cleaning his hair and body. Once I finish, I drape myself in my new velvet robe, and wind the music box Mary gave us as a wedding present. Its strange, lovely tinkling fills the air like the music of faeries. I cross the room to brush my long auburn hair until it is smooth around my shoulders.

Watching Nathaniel sit so regally before me, I feel an urge to dance for my lord. At first with a coy smile, and then with seriousness and deliberation, I begin moving to the music, gliding toward him like a harem girl. I lift the robe to cover my face, and then expose it a bit at a time, undulating in ways I could not have imagined. Nathaniel is riveted, and the intensity of his gaze makes it hard for me to breathe. I turn my back to him and allow the robe to slip from my body to the floor. I take a deep breath and then face him, fully aware of my grand state, relaxed from the wine, unafraid and unwilling to wait a moment longer.

He rises, steps from the tub without drying himself, and lifts me to the bed, where we pass the night in a chemical fantasy of the most perfect and exquisite bliss.