The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott (21 page)

“When my babies were born,” Abba began again, as if Louisa herself was not one of those babies, “all of their needs just . . . eclipsed me. And I was so happy. It’s a cruel fate that the years I put into raising you girls are rewarded by all of you drifting away. Soon, no one will need me anymore.”

Louisa pulled Abba’s shoulders toward her own and held her. “We will
always
need you. And what about Father? He would be lost without you.”

“Husbands and wives are not what we are discussing here.”

“Marmee—you must know he is utterly devoted to you!”

Abba examined Louisa carefully for a moment. “I suppose you will learn this soon enough on your own, but I might have understood my life a little better if someone had told me. For a man, love is just a season. For a woman it is the whole of the year—winter, spring, summer, and fall—and yet, sometimes it is not what it could be. What it seems it should be.”

“What do you mean, Marmee?”

Abba turned back to the window. It faced the south. She couldn’t see the setting sun, but its vivid pink light sliced through the clouds that hung over Mr. Parson’s orchard in the distance. “We must never give if we are hoping for something in return.”

 

 

 

W
ith her gratitude over Lizzie’s safe return and her worries over Abba’s most recent spell, Louisa felt her thoughts should have been too full to be plagued by Joseph Singer. Yet he continued to appear in her mind fully formed, as real as if he had walked through the door of Yellow Wood. She woke at dawn unable to sleep and nearly leapt from bed in an attempt to keep the thoughts at bay. She woke Anna, and they descended to the washroom to begin the task of laundering the sheets, towels, and underclothes that lay heaped on the floor. Soon, May and Lizzie were awake and helping, and they worked quietly, hoping Abba would sleep late and wake to find the task completed.

Two hours before the audience would begin to arrive, Anna and Louisa met the rest of the cast at Walpole Academy, where they would perform the play. Paul Ferguson hammered away at the last piece of the set, while Alfred Howland worked at the opposite end, painting in the wood-grain detail of the two-dimensional china hutch that sat at the back of the “pub.” May, who took her role as prompter quite seriously, had gathered the cast around her to go over the signals she planned to use one last time. Louisa escaped this annoyance by claiming a need to “study her lines.” Anna sat near her, filling out cards with the word Reserved in her steady, feminine hand, which they would place on the chairs in the front row. Margaret sewed buttons and trim on the costumes.

Anna and Margaret chatted. Louisa appeared to be absorbed in her reading, though she listened in.

“I traveled to Boston last week to visit with my great-aunt. She is an invalid, you know,” Margaret said, pulling the thread through the seam to secure it and snipping off the end with a pair of engraved embroidery scissors that hung from her wrist on a ribbon.

Anna lifted her pen from the card so as not to smudge it. “I’m sorry to hear that. I know she has been ill for some time.”

Margaret nodded. “Honestly, I can’t remember a time when she was well. But she bears it cheerfully enough. I, on the other hand, dread visiting, and so I walked the long way from the train station to her apartment so that I could pass the shops. You know, I have yet to find a dress that suits me and satisfies Samuel’s mother.”

Anna smiled. “It seems like she might be difficult to please on that account.”

Margaret shook her head. “You understate the point—I don’t think there is a dress or a fabric on this earth she would approve of that doesn’t make me look like I’m headed for the convent.”

Louisa closed her eyes and took a deep breath, working to suppress a groan.
Margaret is so tiresome,
she thought.
If I have to listen to her go on about this dress much longer I’m going to—

“As I was walking along I saw Nora Sutton and her mother leaving a shop with the most beautiful satin silk.”

“Really,” said Anna. “That sounds lovely.” Louisa could feel her sister’s eyes sweep in her direction, hoping, she knew, that the play was fully consuming her hearing as well as her sight. “I’m sure she will make a beautiful bride.”

“She is a beauty—there is no question about that. Though, of course, there is such a thing as too much beauty. It can get one into trouble.” Margaret’s voice took on the conspiratorial quality she embraced when she was preparing to reveal some interesting gossip.

“What do you mean?” Anna said, playing right into her game, Louisa thought.

“Were you not aware that she was previously engaged?”

Anna raised her eyebrows. “Engaged? I suppose I have heard something about that. To whom?”

“About two years ago, a man named Cecil Morris appeared in Walpole and took a job as a clerk in the town hall. He was from New York City.”

“Did he have family here?” Anna asked.

“No—that was the strange part. To anyone who asked, he said he had grown tired of the noise and dust of the city. He decided one day to find a nice village in New Hampshire where he might find a wife and settle down. When he rode into Walpole in his carriage he said he knew this was the place for him.”

“How interesting,” Anna said.

“Telling you now, it sounds suspicious. But at the time I think we were all flattered he chose our town. The families here take a lot of pride in this place.”

“As they should,” Anna said.

“Word got around, and soon all the girls were talking about him. He seemed to have money, he was charming and very handsome. Of course,
I
knew there was something untrustworthy about him right from the start. But would anyone listen to me?”

“I suppose not,” Anna guessed.

“No,” Margaret said, shaking her head. “They wouldn’t. Well, it didn’t take long before he set his sights on Nora. She fell completely in love—completely lost her senses. Mr. Sutton gave his blessing and the wedding date was set. But just a few weeks before the union was to take place, Mr. Morris disappeared.”

“Disappeared?”

“He said he had to travel to Boston on a business matter. Nora went to meet his train the evening he was supposed to return, but he wasn’t on it. Weeks went by, the day of the wedding came and went. She heard nothing. Finally a letter came. He admitted his whole scheme—he had been married all along to a woman back in New York. He was attempting to leave her when he first came to Walpole. But the birth of his son pricked what tiny speck of a conscience he had, and he decided to return to his family.”

“Poor Nora!” Anna said.

Margaret nodded. “Yes, it was unfortunate. She had made such a fool out of herself over him, flaunting her new status all over town, and all along he had no intention of following through on his pledge.”

“But how could she have known? It could have happened to anyone.”

Margaret pursed her lips. “Well, not anyone. Not
me
—I knew he was trouble.”

“Yes,” Anna said. “You mentioned that.”

“Nora soon descended into a terrible state. Her nerves took over. She wouldn’t leave her room. Dr. Kittredge was at the Suttons’ home every day. She was convinced she had squandered her chance for a respectable life, for marriage and children. No one really blamed her, but . . . well, not everyone is as understanding as you and I are, Anna.”

Anna pressed her lips together to suppress a smile. “That’s true, Margaret. Well, it is fortunate, then, that she has found herself in”—she looked over at Louisa and cringed—“her current circumstances.”

“Quite,” Margaret said, nodding.

The two worked in silence for a moment, Margaret fastening the last gray button onto Louisa’s Widow Pottle costume.

“Of course . . .” Margaret said.

“Of course what?”

Margaret leaned in toward Anna. “Well, I didn’t tell you this . . .”

“Of course not,” Anna said.

“Joseph Singer didn’t court Nora, and I don’t believe he wants to marry her.”

Louisa’s eyes froze on a period at the end of a sentence and refused to move.

“Margaret, that seems like an awfully salacious thing to say. How could you know?”

“I’m very observant, as you know, Anna. I pick up on these things.”

Probably by listening at doors and beneath windows under the cover of night,
Louisa thought. But she held her breath anticipating what Margaret would say next.

“Joseph’s father is in grave financial difficulty. Joseph has helped to improve business at the store, but his father gambles the profits away on imprudent investments as quickly as Joseph can earn it.”

Anna looked stricken. “That’s terrible.”

“Yes, it is. As you probably could see at the Suttons’ dinner party, Mr. Singer is not long for this world. His lungs are weak and he probably will not make it through the winter. So he is looking to put his affairs in order. Technically Catherine is not too young to marry, but fifteen
is
awfully early.”

“Our youngest sister May is fifteen as well. That is too young,” Anna said firmly.

“I agree. And so does Mr. Singer. And she is a
young
fifteen. She has been coddled and spoiled her whole life. I think he doted on her out of guilt that she didn’t have a mother. But because she hasn’t known sacrifice or responsibility, there’s no way she could be sent out as a governess or maid. She wouldn’t last a week.”

“I think I understand what you mean to infer,” Anna said. “Mr. Singer went to see Mr. Sutton?”

Margaret nodded. “They are old friends. Each had something to gain from uniting their families. The Singer debts are repaid, Catherine is safe from a hasty marriage, and Nora’s reputation is restored.”

“Except that Joseph has to marry someone he doesn’t love,” Anna said, glancing at Louisa, who hid her face behind the play.

“Yes, Samuel says he is quite grave about it. But he admits he can’t see a better way to take care of his sister. Joseph Singer’s strength of character outdoes anyone’s in this town, I’ve always said.”

“I’m sure you have,” Anna said with an amused smile. Louisa’s mind reeled. Was this what Joseph had meant to explain in all the letters she had refused to read?

May clapped her hands and stood on a crate at the foot of the stage. “Everyone—it’s time to get dressed!”

A
t seven in the evening, the cast members of the Walpole Amateur Dramatic Company began to hear the echoes of footsteps on the plank floors of Walpole Academy’s great hall. They sequestered themselves in two empty classrooms—the young men in one, the young ladies in another—to put on their costumes and run over their lines one final time before the curtain rose at eight o’clock.

Louisa’s Widow Pottle costume was a simple chintz dress and colored petticoat and took no time at all to put on. A linen cap that was more appropriate to the dress of the prior century, but was all that was available, concealed Louisa’s heavy coiled braid. Though the others viewed their involvement as a light dalliance, Louisa had spent her evenings the last two weeks practicing her lines again and again in her room, relishing the chance to channel her frustrations into her character’s improper pronouncements. Shouting “Impudent varlet!” and “Ragamuffin!” in any other context would have been a scandal, but onstage she could hope to garner some laughs. And now here was this unexpected piece of news that turned everything on its head. Joseph didn’t love Nora. Even if he still planned on marrying her, this seemed a victory of sorts.

As the other girls fussed with their hair, Louisa crept quietly down the hall to the stage door. She entered and peeked through the gap between the old musty velvet curtain and the wall. Families and out-of-town guests crowded the rows of chairs, and the hall echoed with the chatter and laughter of friendly conversation as the audience anticipated the performance. She scanned the crowd of about a hundred for familiar faces. Her father and mother sat in the second row along with Lizzie. Three chairs in the front row sat empty, and as Louisa looked down the aisle to the entrance at the back of the hall, she discovered with astonishment the guest they had been reserved for.

Louisa had read in the New York paper that Fanny Kemble, the British actress she’d always admired, was touring New England to give her infamous Shakespeare readings. Incredibly, Louisa’s idol now floated gracefully toward the front row in a gown of purple silk, her neck draped with jewels. Louisa never would have dreamed this famous actress would bother with a little community theater. Suddenly she was in the presence of a genius of her time, not to mention a woman unafraid of upsetting the dictates of propriety in order to live her life as she pleased. She wondered if God had put Fanny Kemble in her path at this moment to remind her that life held the promise of unlimited and surprising joys, if only one had the courage to pursue them.