What Is Visible: A Novel (11 page)

“Miss Wight, it has come to my attention…It’s been reported that…”

Sarah realized he wasn’t angry, just terribly uncomfortable.

“It seems that Laura has been, um, bothering some of the girls. At night, that is. Were you aware of this?”

“I heard a girl mention it at table, but I didn’t think…”

“You sleep in the room beside Laura, correct?”

“Yes, sir, but she can be very quiet when she’s determined.”

“Determined to what?”

“Well, to seek…to seek affection.” Sarah felt the color rising in her cheeks and knew it would not go down.

“Do you not give her enough affection?” Doctor asked.

“I think I do, sir. Yes, I do. I care for the girl very deeply, but she seems to require more affection than I can provide.” If only you would give her a bit, like when she was younger, Sarah thought, if you could bring yourself to take her in your arms the way you used to. Sarah remembered her first year at Perkins teaching the other girls, the year before Doctor married, how he and Laura would walk hand in hand down the halls, how she’d run to him whenever he entered the room, and he’d gather her up and kiss her. Once she had seen him carrying the girl on his shoulders in the garden, her face turned upward toward the sun, lit with pleasure as she fingered the leaves on the trees. But she was no longer an adorable little girl, but a difficult and, yes, strange-looking adolescent. Sarah recalled her own early years; they had been trying enough without Laura’s heavy load. Sarah had been plain, was still plain, but at least no one had ever ridiculed her for that; instead, she was ignored, almost invisible, she sometimes thought. An invisible woman teaching blind girls—how perfect!

Doctor particularly had never paid her the least notice, but now he stroked his beard and gazed at her with those penetrating eyes. He was so fine that even Sarah sometimes found it hard not to stare. She looked down at her lap.

“Do you think it’s necessary for you to sleep with Laura? Miss Swift always―”

Sarah shocked herself by interrupting him. “No. No,” she said, perhaps too vehemently. “Miss Swift cared for Laura when she was a child. Now that she is seventeen I don’t believe she needs her teacher sharing her bed.” Oh, Lord, please, if she had to sleep with Laura, she would never catch a wink, she knew it. The girl’s hands would never leave her.

“Then it is up to you to make sure she does not crawl into the beds of others. The girls do not need to be harassed, and her behavior is unbecoming at this stage.”

“But many of the girls snuggle in together, Doctor, even some of the older ones. Is it possible they are singling out Laura because―”

“They are singling out Laura because apparently the extent of her…affection exceeds that of the other girls.”

Sarah dared not think what he might mean, but she knew there was something to what he said, something she could not quite put her finger on, or didn’t want to. “I will mind her, Doctor. It won’t happen again.” How she was going to accomplish that Sarah had no idea. Tie Laura to the bed? Lock her in?

“Miss Dix will be arriving this afternoon. Make sure that Laura is clean and at her best.”

Sarah was stung by the remark and realized she was being dismissed. Laura adored Dorothea Dix and was always on her best behavior for those visits. The reformer was nearly as devoted to Laura’s cause as she was to helping the insane. Nearly ten years had passed since she’d brought about the changes to Massachusetts’ asylums. Before her graphic reportage, the poor lunatics had been tied up, kept in pens, lashed, starved. Sarah read in the paper that Miss Dix was now establishing hospitals in Illinois and North Carolina.

Dorothea Dix didn’t look like a reformer, not like Elizabeth Cady Stanton or Lucretia Mott of the coming Seneca Falls Convention. Miss Dix appeared to lack the robust constitution necessary for such demanding work; she was as pale and nearly as thin as Laura, and the two could have passed for sisters. Miss Dix had the consumption, and it was rumored she’d had it for years, but every time she went down for the count―this last time in isolation for six months in Chicago—she bounded back and took up her causes again with renewed vigor. Of all Laura’s celebrated visitors, this lady was the one whom Sarah most admired. Here she was barely able to handle her one charge, and Miss Dix was off wrangling armies of the insane, some of them violent, drooling maniacs. She put even Doctor’s great enterprise to shame, and when they were in company, he looked like his collar was too tight; after all, he had advised her, assisted her in her early endeavors in Massachusetts, where she’d started, and now her work—a woman’s work, for God’s sake―far outshone his.

He’d apparently been very supportive of Florence Nightingale too, when she came to him for advice in England on his honeymoon. Julia told Sarah how furious she’d been that he had encouraged the young woman to work while insisting that Julia herself not even publish her poetry. “Miss Nightingale is not married,” he’d told his wife. Neither was Miss Dix. Of course, neither was Sarah; perhaps she should embark upon a crusade for which the great man would trumpet her. No, all he wanted of her was that she keep Laura Bridgman out of the blind girls’ beds, and heaven knows, that was task enough for Sarah. She might truly rather tackle the bedlamites.

As soon as Miss Dix arrived, she insisted they take Laura out for a walk on the beach. She was a big believer in getting everyone outdoors, if possible, and though it was raining lightly, Sarah acquiesced. Laura delighted in the rain, though it was bad for her to be out in the wet, especially as sickly as she often was, so Sarah rarely allowed her this pleasure. But today, and for Miss Dix, anything. Sarah held the large black umbrella over the two as they walked and talked along the water’s edge, Miss Dix just barely keeping Laura out of the foam as it surged and retreated. They both knew that if she let her go, even for an instant, she would be up to her knees in the surf. She loved all water, warm, cold, no matter. Laura would bathe every day if her teacher would let her, and only the admonitions by Doctor about the potential damage of too much bathing kept her away from the taps.

Another wonderful thing about Miss Dix was that she always included Sarah in the conversation, unlike many other famous visitors, like Longfellow or Thomas Wentworth Higginson, who held private court with Laura, while her teacher had no idea what they were discussing, unless one of them required her assistance with communication.

Miss Dix looped her other arm in Sarah’s. “I was telling Laura that I’m petitioning the federal government to set aside five million acres for the care of our lunatics. And the rest for the deaf.” She patted Laura’s hand. “It is doubtful, however, that Congress will accede to my plan, though I have been winning them over state by state.”

Laura grabbed at Sarah’s palm. “But I stay here with you.”

Miss Dix laughed. “She is concerned about being trapped with the maniacs.”

“As she should be,” Sarah ventured.

“But some of them get better,” Miss Dix said. “It is astonishing, but I’ve witnessed it many times. With the right care and compassion, the madness can be lifted, or at least held at bay, especially for the melancholics.”

Sarah watched the waves roll in and out, pinholed by the drizzle. Her own dear brother was of such disposition, but sometimes even he was seized with gaiety, if not a complete reprieve. Her own temperament tended that way, Doctor had warned her, and this offhand diagnosis was not a complete surprise to her. She knew that she must keep her spirits up for Laura, even when in the midst of one of her spells, which she felt sure were of a physical, rather than a mental, nature.

By the time they’d walked down to the pier and back, all three were fairly sopped, but in an excellent frame nonetheless. Miss Dix kissed them both on each cheek, the way she said it was done in Europe, and went to meet with Doctor.

After Miss Dix left, Laura was in high fodder, so Sarah seized the moment, though it took a while to get her inside. Laura twirled around, bumping into furniture, trying to get her teacher to dance with her. Usually Sarah obliged, but today it seemed unwise, given the intended subject of the conversation. Finally she got her down.

“Important,” Sarah wrote, but Laura interrupted her.

“Music still playing,” she said and then pressed a finger to her temple as if to turn it off. Sarah waited patiently, but apparently the tune had started again, because Laura was still rocking and tapping her feet.

“Talked with Doctor,” Sarah wrote, and that got her attention.

“Me?”

“Yes.” She struggled to put it in terms that would brook no argument from the girl, so she skipped right to Doctor’s mandate, because while Laura might debate the abstract, she still very much wanted to please Howe. “Doctor wants you stay in own bed,” she wrote. “Not bother girls.”

“Not bother,” Laura wrote. “Play. They like.”

“Doctor doesn’t like.”

“But blinds sleep together.”

Sarah had known this was coming; even she often slept with her sister or cousin at home for warmth. She took the only tack that worked with Laura: “But you are special.” This almost always did the trick, and frankly, it was true.

“Doctor said?”

“Yes.”

“Special good?”

“Of course. Doctor worries. Says sleep better alone.”

“But I like…” Her fingers trailed in Sarah’s palm, and her teacher was grateful for once that she could not articulate exactly what she meant. “Stay alone always?”

Though she could not see the tears behind the shade or hear them in the girl’s voice, Sarah knew that she was beginning to cry. Without the usual cues, it had taken her a while to figure out when Laura was crying, unless she was going full out―nose dripping, shoulders shaking―which only happened maybe once a month lately. Now the corners of her mouth turned down and her fingers faltered.

“God with you,” Sarah wrote. It was the best she could do.

“God not warm.”

Well, Sarah couldn’t argue with that.

“You sleep with me?”

“Grown ladies sleep alone,” she wrote emphatically. “Jeannette alone. Cook alone.”

“Julia alone?”

Oh dear. Sarah scrambled. Ah― “Julia sleeps with baby.”

Laura nodded slowly. “If I have baby, can sleep with me?”

“Yes.” Sarah felt no qualms making this promise because she knew it would never happen.

“When does God give baby?”

Oh no, it was backfiring. Think. “When two people love each other, God gives them a baby.” This explanation seemed to satisfy Laura, and to Sarah’s surprise, it satisfied her as well. She hadn’t known she was quite so wise.

J
ulia had found Sarah to be a good companion, the best at least that the Institution offered. No society belles here, no great minds with which to discuss philosophy or the latest poetry. Chev, of course, was capable of these things, but he refused. He was all action, little thought, her husband, though she’d long ago realized that that was a choice and not necessarily a character trait. And deprived of his animal rights, he granted her very little attention, though he doted on the children and the students. She knew that if she burned out her eyeballs with a fiery poker, he would be all tens and elevenses again. Sarah was decently educated, respectful of Julia’s position, and thoughtful in her opinions, if a little dull, though her slavish devotion to Laura was beyond Julia’s comprehension. She herself was not that rapt in her attentions to her own children, even with a third on the way. She loved them all dearly, especially her first, Julia Romana, who, at two, was turning out to be as beautiful and sensitive as her mother. They were all her little planets, revolving around her sun, while it was clear that for Sarah, Laura was the center of the universe and all revolved around her. But still she found herself searching out Sarah’s company, especially in these last months of her confinement. Her own dear sisters were far away, and letters could not look back at you and give you the sympathy you craved. And so the price for Sarah’s company was allowing Laura to play with Julia Romana, though she kept baby Florence well out of her reach. Florence was a good child, much sweeter than her sister, but the sting of being forced to name her after Chev’s protégé, Miss Nightingale, had not yet lost its venom. And soon there would be another one! She was still aghast that her body had produced three children in as many years. Though she loved her husband and even the physical side of their relationship, she had been thoroughly unprepared for this relentless onslaught of nature. And what toll it had taken on both her body and mind: she found herself unable to bring forth the quotes and aphorisms for which she was noted, and unlike some other women with child, her complexion suffered, no longer pink and rosy, but pale and drawn, though she knew she was still counted among the loveliest of Boston’s blooms. Chev had criticized even the way she walked, not cradling the precious treasure of her belly the way most pregnant women did, but instead with her arms rigidly at her sides.

Julia was still quite wary of Laura, the way one would be around an unpredictable dog. The girl vacillated between jumping on her, patting and petting, overwhelming her with physical affection, which she did not return; and blatantly ignoring her, pretending she wasn’t even in the room. Julia knew good and well that Laura could always tell who was in a room; she couldn’t explain how, especially without a sense of smell, but she had an almost unfailing knack for knowing who entered and who left. “Air changes,” was her only explanation, though she was clearly proud of her ability. And Julia had to admit, the children seemed to enjoy playing with her; perhaps because she was, in some ways, on their level, and they regarded her as a playmate in kind.

Today Julia and Sarah sat over tea in the playroom, supervising Laura as she attempted a game of tops with the girls. It was these drowsy afternoons, spring sunlight from the latticed windows dappling her children’s extraordinary curls, that she felt she could unburden herself, just a little. After all, Sarah was the perfect confidante; she apparently spoke to no one but Laura and a bit to Jeannette. She was not close with the other teachers, whom she’d confessed she found somewhat frivolous and low-minded, and Julia knew that 
 
out of respect for her 
Sarah would never repeat anything to Laura. Still, Julia shocked even herself when she confided that while Doctor was thrilled with the pregnancy, she felt uneasy, occasionally despondent. “I am much happier producing poems than children, while my husband insists on the reverse.”

Sarah blushed. It seemed to Julia that she had already accepted the edict of spinsterhood from the Lord and that it didn’t bother her, perhaps because she was dead on her feet every day from taking care of one of His children whom He’d amply slighted.

“I wouldn’t know much about that,” Sarah said. “The truth is I probably never will.”

It was true she was quite plain with her fine whey hair and pale gaze, the kind of woman a man’s eyes never lit on first in any room, but still there must be someone, equally slight, to match with her. Julia took her hand. “I doubt that, my dear. You would be an excellent mother, though you are too hard on yourself, and far too soft on your charge.”

“I can’t be anything but soft with her,” Sarah said. “She has so little, and she tries so hard for love.”

“Whose love?” Julia asked, her eyes narrowing, thinking of the girl’s ridiculous attachment to her husband.

Sarah turned to her. “Anyone’s.”

After that conversation, in spite of her queasiness about the blind, Julia began to thaw toward Laura, giving her more playtime with the tots, and as Laura sensed this shift, she too became warmer to her former rival. She began insisting on serving Julia tea, and though it was a potentially dangerous mission, Julia allowed it, and to Laura’s credit, she only scalded Julia once. And when Laura asked, as she had with Julia’s other pregnancies, if she could touch her stomach, Julia surprised herself by consenting, even helping Laura to kneel and situate her hands. Then Laura pressed her whole face into the dome of Julia’s belly, and they both let out a yelp as the baby kicked once, hard. Laura pulled away and stood up, then wrote on Julia’s palm: “Boy.” What cheek the girl had, and yet Julia felt instantly that she was right. How could she possibly know?

On one occasion, Chev popped his head into the nursery, and he looked as if he’d suddenly come upon the three witches of
Macbeth
toiling and troubling over his children. He actually stammered, and when he left, Julia began to giggle, and then Sarah started in too, and soon they were both nearly doubled over.

The next afternoon, Julia brought a pamphlet and handed it to Sarah. It was about the ocularists who’d set up shop in New York. She’d found it in her desk last night when she was looking for a new ink blotter, having forgotten that she’d picked it up in New York.

“I mentioned this to Chev years ago,” she said, “getting the eyes for her, but he didn’t seem interested. I think he believes himself too much a purist to adorn Laura with artificial devices. The Germans were making mostly enamel eyes—very easily damaged, I’m told—but now they’re blowing beautiful glass ones in all colors. I met a young lady on the train to New York last year who had perfectly lovely green eyes. They looked almost real in a certain light.”

Sarah nodded. “I had considered bringing that matter up to Doctor, but I’m afraid I lacked the courage.”

“He can be a lion,” Julia said, “but I will help you tame him, just enough. Tell her. Go ahead.”

“I hesitate to incite her with the prospect because she will be so disappointed if―”

“I will make it happen,” Julia said, and she patted Sarah’s arm and then Laura’s, suddenly as confident of her great powers as she had been before her marriage.

As Sarah wrote into Laura’s hand, the girl’s face brightened with joy, as if she had just been given the greatest gift of her life. “I’ll get big blue ones,” she wrote to Julia.

Julia warmed to the girl’s excitement and to her own compassion and generosity. After all, what a boon eyeballs, even the facsimile of such, would prove to the girl’s countenance. She might come to look almost normal, and that would certainly make her much more pleasant to be around. Aesthetics were nothing to be slighted. Early in her husband’s courtship, when she had been sure he would grant her every whim, Julia had asked to see Laura without the shade and had been shocked by the violence of Chev’s denial. It was as if she had asked to see the girl stripped buck naked. Now her youthful curiosity had abated, and she was thankful she had been spared the sight of those blighted sockets, which would probably have given her nightmares.

After this news, Julia didn’t think Sarah would be able to get Laura to settle back down, but Laura sat quietly at their feet, her head inclined upward to the left the way it was when she did her deepest thinking. Finally she reached for Julia’s hand, and Julia spoke the words as they were written.

“She asks if I remember when she hurt my ear. She says she only wanted to feel the bumps on my head.” Did she
remember
? How could she ever forget those fingers, thin as pencils, jammed into her ear. It had felt as if Laura was trying to tunnel straight through to her brain, perhaps to remove it. Julia recalled with pride how well she’d handled that assault in Chev’s presence, but afterward, she was reduced to shaking and crying in her room for the afternoon, and the memory pricked at her still. Julia smiled at Sarah. “That was before your time. She did have a go at me, but the truth is I don’t much believe in the science of phrenology, as my husband does.”

She could tell from Sarah’s expression that she wasn’t a believer either, but she was clearly afraid to voice her opinion on a topic so sacred to her employer. But as Julia wrote of her doubts in Laura’s hand, she saw that Laura was shocked, her mouth open in an O. Then she nodded and signed rapidly into Julia’s palm.

“She says she thinks phrenology interferes with free will,” Julia told Sarah. “Exactly. If we are born with bumps that govern our character, then how are we to grow and change?” She’d had no idea the two of them shared this sentiment. Laura had far more depth and independence of thought than she’d given her credit for.

Julia laughed as Sarah watched them converse. Both of them could have been knocked over with a feather. She’d had no inkling that Laura could be such a compelling creature, under the right circumstances.

Julia made an appointment for the three of them to speak with her husband about the ocularists. She and Chev had been on good terms lately, and so she felt reasonably sure that she could convince him. And wouldn’t he be delighted that she was not only spending time with Laura, but was actually trying to do something for the girl. Julia had given the pamphlet to Sarah for a good study and suggested she accompany Laura to New York for the fitting. It would be nice for them both to visit New York since neither of them had been. Julia briefly considered going with them as a guide to her beloved city, but she couldn’t, after all, take them to any of her old haunts or to meet her friends or family. It would be unfair to all to expect too much of the young women and a breach of taste and imposition to expect her friends to readily accept them into their houses. Of course, there was the fame card to play with Laura, but seriously, could she bear the girl’s strange company for a week? How did Sarah do it? She had thought of giving Sarah some of her old clothes for the trip so that they might at least have dinner somewhere reputable, but the poor dear could never fill out the bustline without much retailoring. What a blessing to have round and perfect bosoms; as a matter of fact, she might have to use them today to gain the advantage with her husband. The pregnancy had near doubled them, and he had not been allowed a squeeze since her third month in, so she chose a much lower neckline than a woman in her state would generally advertise.

“I don’t have much time,” were the first words out of Chev’s mouth before they had even installed themselves. Right out of the gate, he was using that brusque tone in front of Sarah. “I have a meeting with Mr. Mann about the prison system.”

They’d agreed that Julia would do the talking. “Chev,” she started and saw that she had already misstepped as he winced at the use of his nickname in front of the help. She began again. “A wonderful opportunity has come up for Laura. Apparently, some German ocularists have set up in New York, using the latest techniques to―”

“Glass eyes?” he asked incredulously. “That’s what you’re on about?”

“Yes, I have here a pamphlet…” Julia handed it to her husband.

“It’s fascinating to me, my dear, that you have turned from mocking the feeble in verse to standing as a mighty champion.”

Julia looked down. “That was
one
silly poem, sir. And people do change.” She leaned forward so that he might get a good look at her décolletage, but he appeared as dismissive of her breasts as he was of the girl in this instance. What
was
the world coming to?

“Do they? Now that is a matter indeed for phrenological consideration.” He skimmed the pamphlet while Laura wiggled in her chair, reaching for Sarah’s hand. “I know all about this, of course, and if I’d thought artificial eyes were a good and useful investment for Laura, she would already have them.”

Julia was surprised to hear Sarah speak. “But why…”

Chev sat on the edge of his desk and looked at her as if she were a recalcitrant child. Julia could tell he was dying to say, “Because I said so,” but he forced himself to give an explanation.

“Glass eyes are newfangled, at least in this country, and are known to be hideously uncomfortable. As a doctor, I can assure you that the procedure is certainly not as simple as popping a marble in and out, regardless of what that tract says. Laura has an especially low threshold for pain, given the nature of her one sense, and so the eyes would not at all be in her best interest, which is what I always have in mind, of course.”

Laura was tapping insistently on Sarah’s hand to translate, but Julia saw that Sarah merely squeezed her fingers tightly, knowing she would need a little time to soften Chev’s speech for the girl. Laura held her head at attention in his direction, as if she were following every word.

He wasn’t finished, though. “The other and perhaps more important thing is that I have long observed that Laura is overly vain, a common unpleasantness with blind girls. As if glass eyes would really help her presentation anyway, bag of bones that she is, as unnatural as she has come to look. And yet she is so concerned with appearances, and with trying to appear ‘normal,’ that I have seen her more than once sitting with an open book, a regular one, before her in the parlor, pretending that she could read it.”