We Five (3 page)

Mrs. Barton gaped in disgust. “What an inestimable privilege it is for me to be receiving such sauce and pepper from you, and at such an early hour!” Mrs. Barton folded her arms in a harlequinade of parental disapproval.

Maggie held her ground. “You are a widow, Mamma. And he is a widow
er
, and I would rather not have him for a father, and that is that.” She turned again to go.

“You know very well and good,” said Mrs. Barton, addressing her daughter's back, “it was the death of Molly's mother and that baby which drove him to the spirits. But two years have passed and he drinks far less than he used to, for he has told me it is no longer necessary to apply such a heavy salve to his mourning heart, when the heart seems to be mending itself sufficiently without medicinal assistance.”

“Medicinal indeed,” mumbled Maggie.

“What was that you said?”

“No film or cloud has ever passed over
my
eyes, Mamma. What I see, and see quite clearly, is a woman who wishes to marry a certain dentist who would be a doctor, and if I am to place myself before this looking-glass…” Which Maggie did, taking the opportunity of reflection to adjust her bonnet. “…I would see, as well, a daughter who could not under any imaginable circumstances permit her mother to do so.”

Mrs. Barton's voice became adamantine: “My darling dear! You are neither my keeper nor my turnkey. It is unavoidable illness that has placed me with frequent inconvenience upon this cot, but I am still free and unbound in thought and spirit; whatever control you feel you exercise over me is illusory.”

“If you have done, Mamma, I will conclude this most uncomfortable interview by stating that if you marry Dr. Osborne, I shall very likely kill myself.”

Mrs. Barton turned to look at nothing at all upon the bedroom wall. “Mind, just don't throw yourself down the well and pollute the town drinking water.” Then, turning back to her daughter's dorsum with a sad moan of repentance: “You are so very fond of Molly. Would you not wish to have her for a stepsister?”

“You know that in a very real sense Molly is
already
my sister. Molly and Jane and Carrie and Ruth. We are, all of us, much more than mere friends. There is no need for you to marry a frequently intoxicated tooth-tugger to have what I, in point of fact, have already. Now I'm very late, Mamma, and I'm keeping the other girls. You know we walk together, and when one of us is late we are all late. Mrs. Colthurst doesn't like that.”

“Maggie?”

“Yes?”

“Mr. Osborne has already put things into motion. He has asked me to marry him.”

Maggie took a deep breath and exhaled slowly to steady herself. “I rather suspected.”

“And now that it is become a very real thing, have you anything new to say in response?”

“Anything
new
? No, Mamma, I have not.”

Maggie moved with a heavy tread to the door.

“Are you going to leave without kissing me?”

“I've kissed you already.”

With that, Maggie Barton betook herself in great haste down the steps and then flew out the front door and down the lane, whilst her mother sate up in bed and bowed her head in silent lament.

Then Clara Barton raised her head and shook it, and shook her shoulders as if to wrest herself free of a tangible burden placed thereupon, whilst saying to herself, “I do not live only to satisfy the whims of my selfish, benighted daughter. And I
will not
have this special day spoilt!” Subsequently, she stretched out her arms and yawned and embraced the morning in a mood that was uplifted by calling to mind Osborne's visit the previous day under the pretext of administering drops to clarify his patient's vision. Yet the visit carried a far more consequential purpose: the bestowal of a formal proposal of marriage. This recollection was succeeded by a recurrence of the rapturous thought that Osborne was returning the next after noon—this very after noon—to hear her answer!

Clara Barton had deferred that answer to give herself the opportunity to talk the matter over with Maggie, but she had lost courage the evening before, and this morning woke feeling defiantly independent of her daughter's self-imposed jurisdiction. That assertion of maternal liberty was validated when, without even raising the matter with her, Maggie had expressed an opinion that was severally predictable, very much to the point, and altogether maddening.

But such thoughts were not without momentary repining: “I
should
have discussed the proposal of marriage with her at some length, for, yes, as my daughter, Maggie is entitled to some opinion in the matter. But what would it serve? Maggie is a stubborn, wilful girl, but she isn't the mistress of this house! If only she could find a husband of her own and set herself up elsewhere—someplace where she may decide things which have naught to do with
me.
Would that Mrs. Lumley's son Henry
did
ask her to be his wife, and then gave up the nautical profession and took up the vocation of his greengrocer father. Then she would be happy and
I
would be happy and there would be cabbages and radishes for everyone concerned.”

Mrs. Barton's thoughts now turned to the girls who formed “We Five.” “Each of those five garden flowers are at the height of bloom and blow, and yet attachments go wanting. Is there not a single man who durst intrude upon that circle of sisterly affinity? Perhaps a good many men
would
have them if they would only place themselves in situations of inviting eligibility. But how is such a thing possible when all they do is sit in that back room and sew and knit and squint in the darkness and cackle amongst themselves like old hens?”

Clara Barton glanced at the eye-wash cup set upon the table next to her bed. A feeling of warm affection overspread her. Then she smiled. She bethought her of the man she esteemed—a man who had taken such good care of her through her recent illness, though he was clearly not permitted by law to do so—a man who would take even better care of her in other places than simply
beside
the bed, and her smile broadened with
this
thought, and then a frisson of something very much like love shot through her body. She fell back against the mattress in the manner of a giddy schoolgirl, hugging her pillow to her chest as if it were a newly received valentine she should place close to her heart. In the next moment, a new thought suddenly intervened; she wondered if Maggie had put away whatever it was she had purchased from Mrs. Lumley (Clara had asked for broccoli sprouts), or had it all been left downstairs to wither without attendance?

Food was on her mind, for her appetite had returned. And it was all due to Dr. Osborne—attributable both to his physician's skills, which he had acquired through years of opportunistic study and informal apprenticeship, and to the healing wonders that naturally derive from a man's loving heart.

A heart the likes of which her daughter Maggie had yet to behold.

Molly swiveled full circle in her father's dental chair. Then she turned herself around in the opposite direction, giggling like a little girl. Attending the delight in his daughter's voice, Michael Osborne entered the dental parlor from the living quarters in the back of the flat, which the two shared. He was whipping up lather in his shaving cup with his brush. “If you aren't careful, you're going to auger that chair right down into Mrs. Dillingham's front parlor. And I'll leave you to contend with her wrath all by yourself.”

Molly stopped the chair from revolving. She dizzily wagged a forefinger at her father. “Don't be silly. You
always
come to my rescue. That's what fathers are for: to love, protect, and defend their children, no matter how monstrous their behavior.”

“Explain to me how you can be on the watch for Maggie when you're nowhere near the window.”

Molly hopped out of the chair, grabbing one of the arms to stabilize herself. “To which window are you referring, Papa? The one in this parlor that is of absolutely no use? Perhaps you haven't noticed, but that big tooth blocks our view of nearly everything. I must go to the rear of the flat if I'm to see anything of Polk Street.”

Osborne crossed to the window at issue and gazed proudly upon his recent purchase: a large ceramic sculpture in the shape of a tooth. It had the words “Osborne Dental Offices” painted on it in big black letters. The tooth hung from an iron rod projecting from the lintel of the window. The morning was breezy; the tooth rocked gently and squeaked.

“It
is
quite large, isn't it? Hum. Would it have been better for me to have bought myself a smaller one?”

Molly walked over to the window as well, some of the strands from the swirl of long blond hair that had been gathered atop her head escaping and flying off to one side. “Oh, I like it that size,” she said, looking it over. “It's a real attention-grabber. And it's very funny. It's as if one day a fairytale giant came to you with a toothache and he let you keep the tooth after you'd pulled it.”

“But will it get me more customers?” mulled Osborne aloud. “
That's
the question.”

Osborne had to admit that Molly was right about the tooth impeding any view of the street below. All that could be seen beyond it was a sliver of the bright morning sky.

“Papa, I think it was a good investment. Didn't one of your patients say only last week that it was seeing the silly tooth which brought him to you?”

“Not exactly. He'd already heard about my practice, so it was actually the
toothache
that put him in that chair. Although my giant tooth did confirm he'd come to the right building.”

Osborne grinned. It was a crooked grin, made even more obvious by the fact that it uplifted half of his thick black moustache. He dipped his head and squinted through the narrow dagger of light entering the room beneath the tooth. “As if there's anything else on this cluttered, woebegone street to take notice of. When my practice picks up, you have my promise: I'm going to move us out of this flat and away from this street forever. Even better: we'll leave San Francisco altogether. I'm thinking Sausalito. I'll find us a nice cottage there, with a handsome view of the Golden Gate. Someplace where you can plant violets and San Rafael roses, which were always your mother's favorites, behind whitewashed pickets. I'm sure people in Sausalito have just as much need for dentists as people in San Francisco do.”

“Oh do be serious, Papa. How can we even
think
of leaving Frisco! My four best friends in the world live here. And besides, shouldn't we include Mrs. Barton in this decision, since she's going to be a member of this family?”

“
That
has yet to be decided, monkey.” Michael Osborne was now on his way back to his sink in the rear bedroom.

Molly followed. “So you think there's the possibility she'll say no? Oh how
could
she, Papa? How could she possibly rob Mag and me of the chance to become
true
sisters?”

Osborne began to apply the foamy white lather to his accumulation of weekend whiskers. “I'm feeling
fairly
good about my chances with Clara. But I'm not sure your friend Maggie will be all that pleased to see the two of us wed.”

Molly sighed. “I wish I could say you're wrong, Papa, but no, I'm afraid she won't like it at all.” Molly sighed again. “Oh, I do wish you had let me talk to her yesterday. Her influence over her mother is strong, and I'm worried that even if Mrs. Barton
wanted
to marry you—”

“Oh, I know she
wants
to, monkey. No doubt about
that.
”

“Yet Mag could still talk her out of it. Mag Barton is quite good at talking my heart-sisters and me out of—
and into
—all sorts of things. She's very persuasive.”

The dentist pursed his lips in thought. “So just what do you think it is, Molly girl—the thing that makes our little Mag Barton dislike me so much?”

“I don't think she trusts you, Papa.”

Osborne held his razor in temporary abeyance. “Trusts me to do what?”

“Well, to be a good husband to her mother, for one thing. I hope you don't mind me speaking frankly.”

“Please, be as frank as you wish. I ought to know exactly where things stand with the girl.”

“Well, there's also the other thing. She's told me already how uncomfortable she is with your practicing medicine without a license.”

Molly's father laughed. “Oho! Wait until she finds out I'm also practicing
dentistry
without a license!”

“And one thing more,” said Molly.

“Good God! You're making me sound like the most disreputable man in San Francisco. Is it the drinking?”

Molly nodded. “It was drink that killed her father, you know.”

“To be accurate, it wasn't demon rum that killed Barton. It was a California Street cable car.”

“Which he stumbled in front of because he was soused to the guards, Papa. You saw it happen from that dental parlor window—back before there was a gargantuan ceramic tooth blocking the view.”

“Have you not informed my potential future stepdaughter Maggie that I drink far less than I used to?”

“Of course I have. She doesn't listen to me. None of my four heart-sisters listens to me. I'm like the youngest in the family who must sit all clammed up in the corner and hasn't the right to say anything about anything. Of course, that isn't completely true. It's only at work where I'm to know my place. At all other times I have license from my sisters to say whatever I please.”

“You may be low girl on that department store's totem pole, but I'm happy and proud of you for getting yourself hired on.”

“Though I would like to be more than a ribbon packer at three dollars a week, Papa. Mag and Jane and Carrie and Ruth have risen to salesclerks, and Jane has her eye on becoming a buyer someday, but I'm stuck in the stock loft above the shelves tying parcels all day—the little mouse in the attic: quiet and all but forgotten except when she peeps.”