What Is Visible: A Novel (21 page)

The oddest thing—Laura had written to Julia that she had recovered her sense of taste. Julia was sure this wasn’t possible, but in her reply said only that she was glad for the girl.

Obviously, it was Louisa who’d written to Chev, or, clever gossip that she was, probably to her dear friend Sumner, who would of course go straight to Chev. And that was the other thing that prickled her: her husband had Sumner, with his peculiar and annoying attachment, to stroke his monstrous ego. He was the perfect mate in that regard.

Shortly before she left, Julia had discovered, quite by accident when she was looking in Chev’s desk for a new pot of ink, a cache of letters from Sumner tied with a red silk ribbon. Since when did her husband buy ribbon? She’d untied the packet and skimmed each letter quickly, mostly for unfavorable references to herself, of which there were many. But aside from expected insults and the tittle-tattle of politics and yawning social reform, she was more than a bit unnerved by the fulsomeness of the endearments, by the sheer number of times Charlie spoke of longing to touch her husband’s face, his hands, any part of him, it seemed. And at the bottom of the last page of nearly every missive, in bold capitals, the words
BURN THIS
, a request that her husband had obviously not obliged. Why did he keep the letters, over ten years of them? She considered confronting Chev about what she’d found, but really, what was there to say that would make any sense? It was all too confusing for her to even formulate a plan, and she didn’t understand the heat of her own reaction. After all, most people, Julia included, wrote letters full of affection to their dearest friends. What did Chev’s letters to Charlie say? She decided she preferred not to know, even if that had been at all possible.

But she was more than a bit frightened that her husband seemed on the verge of actually bringing up divorce in his letter to her, especially when their circle was still abuzz with last year’s trial of Edwin Forrest. The famous actor had sued to divorce his wife of twelve years after catching her with another man, a circus covered daily in the papers. She would never subject herself or her children to such a frenzy, and so she would have to go to great lengths to make peace with Chev when she returned, whether she wanted to or not. All this tortured her as she waited for Mr. Wallace to return. She had taken to wondering if perhaps their very propriety was what was now keeping him away, but then again, he had never touched her, except for her hands. If he did want to take her, she decided she would let him, though she knew how easily she fell pregnant. If there were to be a consummation, she would have to rush back to Boston immediately to cover any possible consequences, but the truth was she thought it would be well worth all the trouble.

She tried to lose her worries in her work. Through her discussions with Mr. Wallace, the collection had taken shape and she could finally see a real book in it. She wrote to Longo for publication advice, enclosing a few of the poems, and promised herself that on the voyage back, she would dig in and begin the wrenching process of revisions. The poems would be by far the most candid and emotionally revealing of her career, but Mr. Wallace had helped her to realize that their hard-won authenticity was what made them true art. Still, she didn’t have a title for the book.

One week later, he arrived at her door, violets in hand, but his angelic face was haggard, dark circles beneath his lovely eyes. She thought for a moment that he might collapse in the foyer, but he made it to the settee.

“You have been ill?” Julia asked and felt a little twinge of satisfaction that he had not stayed away from her on purpose.

He nodded and then began to talk of a new opera,
Rigoletto
by Verdi, and would she like to see it with him? She had to tell him that an evening out, even in the company of others, was impossible at the moment due to the mongering of her sister. Mr. Wallace suddenly put his hands to his face, and Julia realized he was sobbing. Her instinct was to put her arms around him, to comfort him, but she knew she couldn’t. She wasn’t the kind of woman who could ever throw herself at a man. Instead, she patted his hand.

“It’s just an opera,” she said, “and not even the premiere. That was in Venice last fall.” She waited. “You’re still ill, aren’t you, poor thing? Is it your head again?”

He raised his face to hers and laughed, but it was a low and bitter laugh. “Yes, it is my head again.”

She rose. “I’ll get you a cup of tea and a cold cloth―” But he reached out and took her hand, pulling her back down onto the settee.

“I was praying I wouldn’t have to tell you the truth,” he said.

Julia couldn’t breathe. Was he in love with someone else?

“I am afflicted with spells of melancholy, many years of misery. You don’t deserve to be brought low by my moods, even for one day.”

Julia couldn’t help it; she too began to weep, but with relief. He did love her, after all, and also here, piteously revealed, was another thing they shared.

“A confession,” she whispered as he wiped at his face with a handkerchief. “That black dog is one of my oldest companions.”

He looked at her as if she were joking. “But you…,” he started. “But you are always sound, always bright. The light of…”

“Not always, dear Mr. Wallace. I don’t think it is my natural disposition, but I have my spells in despair over my marriage and,” she whispered, “my childbearing state, which renders me useless.”

He nodded. Finally he smiled. “At least yours is brought on by circumstance, while I fear mine is entirely constitutional. Here with you I have been as happy as I have ever been, and yet it has overtaken me once again. The ancients would have flung me from the Tarpeian Rock for certain.”

She made him happier than anyone! “You should have come to me sooner.”

He laughed, a real laugh this time. “I couldn’t get out of bed.”

“Ah, that is the difference. When you have children, you must get out of bed. We will blow that smoke away together.” She stood up. “The old stones await.”

“What a fine pair we make.” His eyes, still gemmed with tears, were steady on hers as he rose and they left the apartment. The nosegay lay abandoned on the table, the violets without water.

Over the next three weeks, they resumed their daily walks. But Chev had sent another letter, this one telling her to stay in Europe, that he didn’t want her back. More than that heavy news, though, was the knowledge that they would soon part; long before they met, Mr. Wallace had already made plans to return to Paris to spend more time with Comte. Julia was in anguish at the idea of going back to America, which now seemed the country of her exile, a land of the new, the modern, the ill-considered, everything utterly lacking in timelessness and fascination. So they made a plan to meet in New York at the end of spring when Julia would go there to visit her sister Annie.

On the day of Mr. Wallace’s leave-taking, Julia stopped him in a side alley several streets from her apartment, its only resident a gargoyle spewing water into a small basin. Like the French, the Italians decorated even their drain spouts.

“I can’t bear to have you leave me at the door,” she said. “So here.”

He said to her only two words―“passion flowers”―and then took her face in his hands and pressed his lips to hers, just for a second, but she felt his sweet breath enter her, and for a while, this would have to be enough. Beneath the upturned brim of her bonnet, she stared into the unblinking eyes of the gargoyle, his smile twisted into a salacious grimace.

Y
our wife is frolicking on the Spanish Steps, and here you spend your dark winter’s eves with me,” Sumner told him, though Chev knew that his friend was inordinately pleased to have him all to himself lately, especially for the recent New Year, this alleged beginning.

“Are you merely needling me with your sharp prong or do you actually have something to tell me?” They were cozied in Sumner’s apartments, suspenders loosened, feet and fire up, fourth brandies in hand.

Sumner closed his eyes and rested his leonine head against the pillows, as if he were seriously considering. Chev was used to his dramatic silences as much as his dramatic monologues, both of which he held ridiculously, inestimably dear for reasons he could not explain, even to himself.

Sumner opened his eyes and sighed. “There are certain whiffs of an inopportune nature blowing over the Atlantic,” he said, his words breaded with sympathy.

“There always are,” said Chev. “That is why we still secretly delight in Europe, but you have already apprised me of Julia’s friendship with Mr. Wallace, Esquire.”

“I have been told that Mr. Wallace encourages and critiques her verse, so much so that Longo says she’ll soon have enough for a book.”

The poetry, always back to the blasted poetry. “And has he read any of it?” Chev knew Longfellow held an equally strong allegiance to both Julia and himself, though he trusted him entirely with Julia, even in the delicate bower of poetics.

Sumner lit both their cigars, the finest from Cuba, a holiday treat from Horace Mann. “Yes.”

“And?” Sumner possessed the natural storyteller’s gift of drawing out any tale to enhance the suspense, something that served him well in the courtroom, but tonight Chev was tired of it.

Sumner grasped his hand as if to prepare him. “The poesy seems to be all about the rigors―‘dues,’ I think she calls them—of marriage versus the state of natural love and freedom.”

Chev allowed his friend to continue to hold his hand. He knew Julia had written a few poems about marriage and that they might be of a more personal nature than he desired, but he had not considered that she might be selfish enough to offer them up for public consumption. Especially with a young lawyer loitering nearby.

“She wouldn’t be unfaithful to me,” he said.

“Except in verse,” his friend countered, and Chev detected a decided relish in the pronouncement. He moved his hand away and concentrated on the soothing scent of his cigar.

“Perhaps,” he finally allowed. “But it is all rumor, and rumors from across the Atlantic often acquire a tsunami’s worth of dubious detail in the translation, as we both know well.”

“Or they become diluted.” Sumner tapped him emphatically on the knee, leaving his fingers to rest there.

Chev stood and did his
de rigueur
round of pacing in front of the fire. “If there were actually a book, I would know. I would definitely know.”

Sumner lounged back against the cushions like an enormous house cat. “The title is
Passion-Flowers
. By Anonymous.”

Chev exhaled long and hard, and sat back on the sofa, his head on his dearest friend’s shoulder. He knew Charlie would tell him everything, whether he wanted to hear it or not. Sumner stroked his hair, and he let him.

“
Passion-Flowers
,” Sumner repeated. “Do you think she means
flowers
as a noun or a verb?”

“It’s not good either way. The verb is worse, I suppose. But at least she has the strength of character and respect to publish anonymously.”

Sumner tugged at Chev’s dark forelock, a bit harder than he would have liked. “Until the wits and wags of Beantown devour and regurgitate it, picking through for clues. It shouldn’t take long to finger the authoress, from what I’ve read in the past of Julia’s work. She seems to take everything most personally, an almost deviant quality in a wife.”

Chev shook himself. “And what would you know of wives, Charlie? What you’ve read in books? Seen at the opera? Gleaned from my conversation and Longo’s and Mann’s?”

Sumner’s color rose. “I know―”

“What you know could fit in a thimble. Have you ever advanced past the stage of polite discourse with even one lady?”

“I have been impolite with many. You do not know every inch of me, Chev.”

“Meaning you’ve what—paid for a woman?”

“No. I mean…No.” He put his great shaggy head in his hands, and Chev felt instantly, deeply sorry for his interrogation of his friend.

“It’s all right, Charlie,” he murmured. “Whatever it is, however it is, it’s all right.”

Charles raised his head and looked up at him. “Whatever it is, however it is?”

“Yes, my dear. Of course.”

And before he could move to stop him, Sumner’s lips were on his own, tentatively at first and then with a greater urgency than he’d ever felt from a woman. He put his hands on his friend’s chest, and for the briefest instant, allowed his mouth to soften, his shoulders to relax into the embrace. But then he collected himself violently and pushed Sumner so hard that he half-fell from the couch, landing in a position of supplication, down on his knees. Chev snapped his suspenders and stood over him. Sumner did not bend his head; instead, he matched him look for look: helplessness, curiosity, revulsion, amiability, and then the smooth, impenetrable veneer of the public man.

“Find a wife, Charlie,” Chev said. “I mean it. Nothing will serve you better.”

Charles laughed until he almost choked. “As yours serves you? No thank you, sir.”

“Then make the best of your…nature.” Chev threw on his jacket, did not look back. As he reached the door, Sumner whispered, “Passion. Flowers.”

Chev slammed the door, wondering if he ever dared cross that threshold again.

So Julia was living again the life of a belle, a diva, free from his rules, far from his bed. He’d never enjoyed the type of socializing of which his wife was so fond, where charm passed for character and witticisms for truth. But he trusted her to be faithful, he thought, if for no other reason than the possibility of pregnancy, the state she so dreaded. Her mother had died in childbirth, it was true, but that shouldn’t make a lifelong coward of a woman, a betrayal of the natural order. Of course, he’d found a soft nest in which to seek comfort, to have his feathers smoothed, his nature attended to. He had been remarkably gallant during her first two pregnancies, until he realized she was deliberately weaning the babes for months longer than necessary, a strategy he was sure she employed solely to keep him from her bed. How could he impose himself with his own little poppet pressed close on her mother’s bosom, sleeping away the night while he paced? He felt made a fool of, and never more so than at this moment, with Mrs. Samuel Gridley Howe loose at the Colosseum. And so he’d now bestowed upon himself the gift of a young redhead, but not so young as to be innocent of the world.

His last letter to his wife had not been full of titter and gauze. His pen had trembled over the word, but he dipped it again in the ink and forced himself to write “divorce.” A possibility. A scandal, though if Dickens could do it, so could he, and unlike Dickens, there’d be no other woman officially involved. Yet. The redhead would never do for a wife, miles below his station. He needed a young, firm one from a good family with a naturally pliant domestic nature. And that would mean more little ones! God love him, he adored his children―well, most children—especially all his sweet, blind darlings racing about the place, laughing and hugging his knees. He doubted seriously if he could ever go through with a divorce; he probably couldn’t because he did love her, damn her, after everything, but she had pushed as far as he could suffer, and he needed to put the fear of God in her. To think back to those gray eyes cast down demurely as she’d promised at their engagement that she would not publish her work. Obviously, her desire for fame, for blatant display of pure ego, was stronger than her womanly instincts.
He
had not chosen fame; it had chosen him through the vehicle of Laura, but his own acclaim was also born naturally from the humanitarian instinct, the gravely large bumps of ideality and compassion that God had engendered on the grid of his skull. He thought back to Dr. Combe’s prenuptial examination of Julia, and how little he’d allowed the diagnosis of her self-regard and combativeness bumps to bother him at the time. Had he betrayed even phrenology for a woman? He ran his fingers over his own finely shaped head to see if there were any slight changes, any faction more pronounced. No, there was his affection bump at the back, large and healthy and deserving as ever. Combe insisted that no man he’d ever met had been given a gift so Brobdingnagian, and always cautioned that he must honor that most distinctive sign of his nature and all that it portended.

Chev received a letter from Laura’s mother, telling him that her old friend, Asa Tenney, had died. She didn’t know the cause; as Howe understood, the man had never been right anyway. Didn’t matter, Laura loved him. Her first friend. He dragged himself out of his own wallowing long enough to tell her and did not flinch when she fell into his arms. So strange to be holding this grown woman, usually so straight and brittle, now soft against his chest. All the times she’d sat on his lap after supper, those dreamy hours they’d spent together when she’d lived with him in the residence. He let her stay in his arms as long as she wanted and was surprised when that privilege was not enough to allay her sorrow. So he told her that she didn’t have to partake of any of her usual duties for as long as she needed, and didn’t have to help with the blind girls. The funeral was over; there was no point in her going home. He dried her face with his handkerchief, patting the eyeshade gently.

“Asa watching?” she asked, biting her lip.

“Yes,” he told her, “always.” She nodded and left him. He wondered if she felt as bereft as he did.