The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott (30 page)

Louisa was overcome by the urge to tell him she would go anywhere to be with him, to feel the scalding sensation of his stare, the comfort of his friendship. He understood her in a way that made her feel she was being seen for the first time, really seen—the layers and layers of her public self falling away. Could she not sew or teach in New York as well as she could in Boston or Plymouth? This last month she had finally claimed her freedom, and what good had come of it? She wouldn’t have to let the writing go, wouldn’t have to give up on it altogether. But she could let her notion of what it meant to her shift, could let it recede. Would that be so terribly sad? She would gain so much in return.

His eyes were trained on hers as he waited for an answer. The lashes were almost translucent, his irises the blue-gray of chimney smoke on a chilly day. A moment elapsed and she realized she was nodding her head.

His eyes widened. “Is that . . . are you . . . ?”

She nodded again, more deliberately. Her voice felt strangled in her throat.

A noise, half laugh, half shout, exploded from his lungs. “My God, for a moment I thought my hopes were dashed.” He laughed again and kissed her. The kiss took her by surprise and she felt her lips limp against his. He took her hand and pulled her back down the alley. “Go back to Mrs. Reed’s,” he said. “Pack your things and have your trunk sent ahead to the station. Will I look for you at five o’clock?”

“Yes,” she said, surprised at the sound of her own voice. “Five o’clock.”

Joseph nodded, his hand lingering in hers as he turned to walk in the opposite direction, toward the station. “God is good to us this day, Louisa. We can’t forget it.”

She nodded, then gave him a little wave and started back toward Mrs. Reed’s. The incessant pounding of her heart overcame all the noises of the street. She passed some children playing a game in front of a large house. They shouted to one another but no sound came from their mouths. A carriage passed and the horses’ hooves struck the road, but she did not hear the muffled thumping of their shoes. There was only the deafening, relentless pounding of her heart. She felt almost manic with the prospect of freedom. It was just as she had dreamed it the opening night of the play, when she spotted Fanny Kemble settling into the front row of the audience—she could have both. Her independence
and
the kind of love she’d given to her characters but never imagined she’d have for herself.

Mrs. Reed emerged from the kitchen when she heard the door creak open. She wiped her hands on her apron. “Miss Alcott, perhaps I should write to your father. I’m not sure he would approve of—”

Louisa clasped the old woman’s hands between her own. “I’m leaving, Mrs. Reed. Tonight. We’re to be married at once. I will send a telegram to my parents from the station.”

Mrs. Reed’s stern expression softened, though she forged ahead with disapproving prattle. “Eloping then? What will your parents think? Your poor mother!” Louisa felt a wave of guilt rising up within her, but she pushed it away. “I’m glad to see you’ve come to your senses,” Mrs. Reed said.

“What do you mean?”

“There is no occupation more womanly and fine than the duties of wife and mother. All else is foolishness, and you are wise to let it go.”

Louisa bristled. “You are mistaken. I still mean to be a writer. Somehow.”

“Yes, yes,” Mrs. Reed said, “I suppose it makes a lovely amusement when you have free time. Of course in the near term, you’ll be going to housekeeping.”

The woman seemed determined to antagonize her, but Louisa silently urged herself not to take the bait.

“My work is not simply an
amusement
,” Louisa said steadily. “I intend to keep at it, despite my changing circumstances.”

Mrs. Reed twisted her mouth into a wry smile. “Of course, dear.”

“Watch—you’ll see,” Louisa said, straining to keep her temper in check. What difference did it make what an old widow believed? “I have to pack my things, Mrs. Reed.” She fished in her pocket for the sewing money from Mrs. Clarke. “Here is what I owe you for the balance of the week. I want to thank you for your kindness these last months.”

“This happy turn of events makes it all worth it,” Mrs. Reed said, putting the money in her apron and turning back toward the kitchen. “Caroline can arrange to have your trunk sent ahead.”

Louisa climbed the stairs to the attic room for the last time, taking a deep breath to try to soothe her rattled nerves. Perhaps she would have to put her work aside until they were settled in, but what was the harm in that? The living quarters would be cramped. Probably no space for a writing desk. They’d be needing linens, which meant more sewing, and then there was the wash. Until Joseph found work and they could afford some help, she’d have to do it herself. And the cooking too. Well, she had done it before and she could do it again. Hard work and sacrifice separated the true hearts from the weak, as her father was fond of saying.

Of course, there was also the matter of Catherine. Louisa cringed when she thought of Joseph’s tiresome sister and her behavior the day of the circus. No one would argue that she hadn’t been spoiled since birth as the baby of the family and the only girl. She was used to getting everything she wanted—clothing, parties, outings—and her unchecked extravagance was partly to blame for her father’s financial ruin. Joseph had told Louisa that Catherine didn’t like to read and could hardly cook or sew. It was no use counting on her help—she would have two to care for. A dull headache began radiating along Louisa’s hairline.

Joseph’s words came back to her: “. . . in time, we’ll pay off my father’s debts.” That phrase,
my father’s debts
, had lived in her mind for as long as she could remember, trailing the shame and anger of her own father’s troubles. Married to Joseph, Louisa knew she would shoulder the debts of two fathers—one dead, with creditors lurking around his grave, the other convinced that work would sully his philosopher’s soul. The burden of it, the endless grubbing for just enough money to get by, filled her with weariness.

No matter,
she told herself, determined to shake off the worries as she entered the attic room.
The important thing is that we will be together. The problems will be easier to solve with the two of us.
She had been using her trunk as a table of sorts, and she cleared the piles of paper from its surface before unlatching the top and swinging it open. She surveyed the creaky wardrobe in which she hung her clothes. Mrs. Clarke had told her she could keep the fabric left over from the sheets she’d made. She’d done so happily and made a new dress and a set of underclothes from it. Aside from that, she’d acquired no new articles of clothing. Once the clothes were in the trunk, though, along with the worn quilt she’d brought along, and the Dickens and Brontë and Whitman, she could see that it would be a challenge to close the lid. She glanced at the manuscripts on the night table, shoved the books over to one side, and pressed down hard on the quilt. She placed the manuscripts on top, holding them in place with one hand while she drew the lid down with the other. It stopped a gaping six inches short of the latch, and despite her efforts to wrestle it into place, it wouldn’t close.

What would she leave behind? The books? That seemed out of the question. Who knew how long it would take them to be able to afford books, and the thought of living without Dickens within easy reach was unsettling. The quilt took up the most space but it had belonged to Abba’s mother, and Louisa couldn’t see leaving that behind. Of course she could find a box for the stories, perhaps have them delivered to the station separately. But then she thought of all the mud puddles and gusts of wind between Mrs. Reed’s and the station. If anything happened to those papers, all her work would be lost.

It would have to be the books, then. She’d read them so many times the words were burned in her brain.
Perhaps I have read them
too
many times,
she thought.
Too many books, too many times—perhaps now it’s time to pull my head out of the books and realize that my real life is beginning
.

With the books removed Louisa closed the trunk and fastened the latch. She tried not to let her heart grow heavy and told herself that Mrs. Reed could send them to her when she got settled. Her father visited New York from time to time. Perhaps he would bring them.

Louisa heard light footsteps on the stairs and a rustling knock. “Miss?”

“Come in, Caroline.” The pale girl slipped silently into the room.

Louisa looked behind her but no one else was there. “Surely you can’t mean to carry this trunk by yourself!”

Caroline shook her head. “No, Miss. There is a man from the station downstairs. But . . .”

“What is it?” Louisa replied sharply. She had made her decisions—about everything she was going to leave behind—and she knew instinctively that motion was the only thing that would keep her from doubting. Any delay could be fatal. “I’m in a hurry, Caroline. What is it?”

Caroline stood shivering in the drafty attic, her eyes darting between Louisa’s wrist and the floor. She made a sound in her throat like a bird before she spoke. “I thought . . . I thought before you go you might like to see this.” Caroline pulled a letter from her apron and handed it to Louisa. “It arrived while you were out.”

What now?
Louisa snarled to herself. Mrs. Clarke needs some more pillowcases? May wants a new bonnet and we must all slave away until she has it? She held the letter at her side and attempted to compose herself. Her nerves were frayed—she was lashing out at all the people she blamed for putting her in this impossible situation in the first place. But it was worth remembering that she herself had chosen this path. She alone.

She took a breath and unfolded the letter.

Louisa’s left hand felt for the bed behind her and she sank down onto it, resting the letter on her lap. Caroline stood blinking at her like a barn owl.

“Is everything all right, miss?”

Louisa stared blankly at her and then back at the letter. All she could think was
L.M.A
. and
Saturday Evening Gazette
. She had been published in the paper once before, but under a pseudonym, and
Flower Fables
was made of the simple fairy tales she’d dreamed up at age sixteen. This was something different. She had wanted to know whether she could write serious stories, not just fairy tales, and here was the proof. A story—six stories in all, if she could make her deadline—in one of the most widely read papers in America.

With a sinking feeling she started to realize the enormity of the housekeeping that lay ahead for her in New York. It wouldn’t be like Boston, the city she had lived in off and on for most of her life. New York was massive, and she knew she would have to start at the beginning, learning her way around, finding a decent grocer, procuring the pots and dishes and other tools she would need to set up her kitchen. She saw her beloved silence slipping away—no time for work or contemplation when there were bellies to fill and linens to scrub.

She had two weeks to dash off five more stories, or Mr. Clapp would probably rescind his offer altogether. The stories she had written over the last few weeks needed editing and she doubted whether they were good enough to submit. She might have to write something new altogether.
Maybe there is some way it can all be done,
she thought weakly.
If I don’t sleep
. . .

“Oh, Caroline,” Louisa said. “What am I to do?” She felt her heart splitting like a piece of wet wood, its fibers clinging to the center. How could one letter be both the best and worst news you’d ever received? She thought of Joseph standing in the station, drawing his watch from his pocket to calculate the time left until they boarded their train. A sob climbed to the top of her lungs, but she was practiced at stopping the crying before it started, and this time was no different. For there was no doubt in her mind about what she would do, no matter what it cost her.

T
he train slowed to a stop at the station in Bellows Falls. Louisa shook herself from her reverie, closed her book, and placed it back in her case. As she adjusted her bonnet, she stooped to peer out the window of the train car to the sunny platform, where people stood waiting to greet their guests or welcome home sojourners. The passengers filed toward the front of the car and descended the stairs.

Inside the station she hired a Rockaway carriage and held her case on her lap as it thundered across the wooden bridge that spanned the Connecticut River and pulled to a stop in the center of Washington Square. The driver offered Louisa his hand and helped her step down to the road. She asked him to hold the carriage and explained that she would be back in an hour or so, and he should avail himself of the town’s charms. They gave her heart a pang as she recited them: the trail along the Connecticut and up through the woods to the farms that lay beyond, the walkway through the town square to admire the autumn leaves, resplendent with their reds and golds.

As she made her way toward School Street and the address in Joseph’s recent letter, her slow pace and aching joints reminded her that much had changed since she last walked Walpole’s pathways. Twenty-six years before, the town square had been surrounded on all sides by fields, full of knee-high grass that rustled Louisa’s skirts, and the precise rows of orchards stretching off toward the horizon. Now the fields had been carved into plots where charming houses stood, each with its own garden and fence, each with a wreath on the door.