What Is Visible: A Novel (5 page)

“And we come off well? Boz assured me the portrait would be favorable.”

“Boz, is it? Didn’t realize you were that close to the great scribbler.” Sumner scattered the papers on his secretary, and a pile of law books tumbled to the rug. “It’s here somewhere.”

“You need a good wife or a better maid.”

“We’ll see if you end up with either,” he said. “Here it is―‘Paragon of Noble Usefulness,’ that’s what Dickens calls you, Robesey says. Do you feel like a paragon?”

“Yes, I do.”

“And noble? And useful?”

“Yes and yes.” It was true. “He’s summed me up.”

“Dickens is good for that. The book should be here in a few weeks.”

“In time to impress the Astors at the wedding, I hope.”

“The
Examiner
claims that you’ve stolen one of ‘the three Graces of Bond Street,’” Sumner said. “It is madness, you’re right, but the best kind, I suppose.”

“Now, Charlie, Julia swears that I love you more than I will ever love her, but then I remind her that you were the one who brought us together.”

“Yes, the ‘rider on the black steed,’ as Diva Julia has immortalized you in her girlish verse. And I am the dun-colored horse left grazing. I would whip myself if I weren’t so tired.”

“You were never dun-colored in your colorful life.”

“If only I hadn’t brought Julia and her sister to view the inimitable Laura Bridgman. It’s actually Laura’s fault, you know, because you’ve made her such a showpiece.”

“She has been my own God-given, personal tabula rasa—how could I resist?”

“But with Julia, the slate is so full you’ll be lucky to find room to sign your name. At the bottom.”

“She’s keeping the Ward—she’ll be Julia Ward Howe—I made the deal with her brother in exchange for another thousand a year.”

“Do you think, Chevie, that I’ll ever be so blessed?”

“Of course,” Doctor told him. “Maybe even snare one of the other Graces.” But he didn’t think Charlie would ever marry; he thought less of women, and more of men, than even Doctor did.

“Do you know what your fiancée said to me that night after I first introduced you—she said, ‘Sumner, you and Dr. Howe are both so high-minded I’m surprised you can wear hats.’”

Doctor folded the letter carefully in quarters, then in eighths, and finally into the smallest diamond he could make it, and thrust it into his waistcoat pocket. He was charged with the greatest philosophical and religious experiment of the century, and this was what his future wife saw—a mere nuisance? His blood was boiling to the consistency of molasses, and he knew he had to let it cool before he could even think straight.

After an agonizing week, he penned a note to Miss Swift instructing her not to tell Laura about the wedding until the day after he’d left for New York. He arranged for Laura and Oliver a tour of the Cunard steamer docked in Boston Harbor that he and Julia would be taking to England for their honeymoon. More than that he could not think about and stay sane. His life was changing, and he couldn’t let this child—his feelings for this beloved child who wasn’t even his—hold him back, paragon of noble usefulness or not. He’d have his own children, and Laura would too. No, she probably wouldn’t, unless some violence was done, but she would have her own life. Perhaps. He had boarded her and fed her and taught her language and would continue in his loyalty, albeit with a fractured heart. What more could God expect of him?

H
er first glimpse of the RMS
Britannia
, the ship that would carry her into her future, into the whole rest of her life. The docked steamer presided serenely over Boston Harbor, flanked by two enormous paddle wheels, the late-day sun swatting the forty-foot steel funnel painted the signature Cunard orange-red banded in black. The
Britannia
would have dwarfed all other ships, but there were none with which to compare her majesty, because Cunard had constructed their own wharf when they’d launched her four months earlier.

Chev helped her from the carriage; he knew how tired she was after the long trip from New York after the wedding. They would have stayed over at Perkins, of course, but Julia was so loath to deal with Laura that she’d insisted they not stop the night there. Chev was irate until she showed him the letter that she’d received at her New York address from Laura the week before.
Dearest Julia,
it read,
I humbly ask your permission to hide in the closet to surprise Doctor after you set sail. I will be your maid for the journey, and you needn’t even feed me.
It was signed
Your beloved sister, Laura
. Even Chev was shocked by the request, and so arranged that Laura and Oliver should tour the ship early in the day and be gone long before the happy couple arrived.

And happy they were, though they were saving their crowning moment for their first night aboard ship. They had spent their wedding night, by agreement, not only in separate rooms, but in separate houses: Julia with her family downtown on Bond Street, and Chev at the Astors’ mansion, where the reception had been held. The wedding had been all that the bride had dreamed of and more: hundreds of the best of New York and Boston society all watching her walk on the arm of her father down the long petal-strewn aisle of the church in her ivory Indian lace, the floor-length, seed pearl veil covering her face. But when she had looked toward her groom, regal in his bespoke morning cutaway, his hat high on his dark curls, all the glitter, all the eyes, fell away until his face was the only thing that filled her vision. She had never wanted anything more, and she was, of course, used to getting all that she wanted. The next hours passed like the gossamer currents of a dream, everyone touching her, telling her how beautiful she was, when all she wanted was his touch, his voice, now and forever after. Not until they finally stood on the foredeck of the ship could she really believe she was about to be his. She let the wind blow the spray into her face and inhaled the fresh salty smell of her life to come.

They had arrived early for the press interview, and the writer and photographer from the
Evening Transcript
took to their business immediately, arranging them against the railings, the silhouette of the harbor in the background. Then they took a picture of the new bride alone, and Julia lifted slightly the brim of her pale blue cottage bonnet, the traveling outfit she’d chosen from her ridiculously large—even to her—trousseau. She wanted that look, that radiance she knew she now possessed, to be recorded for posterity. Not that she didn’t think it would last—no, it wasn’t that at all—but today was the last glow of her girlhood. Any photographs hereafter would show a woman full in the knowledge of the ways of love. She left Chev to contend with the reporter’s questions. Doubtless he would mention Sumner, who’d stood up as his best man, the only blot on the ceremony. He’d towered over them all in the moment when Chev should look the king, but the worst was his expression—not only did he not smile, even for the photographs, but he positively grimaced. Julia, of course, knew him to be of a naturally stern and even morose disposition, but on this, of all occasions, she believed he should have been willing at least to lift the corners of his thin lips. After all, she had been his friend years before Chev had ever met him, and he should be welling over with happiness for both of them. Instead he’d lumbered around like a kettle on low boil. She had thought she’d understood him, her Charlie, but now it was quite clear she did not. She was fairly certain that her husband—ah, the delight of that word even in her thoughts!―understood their friend more fully, and she couldn’t place a finger on it exactly, but she was sure she didn’t like it. Charlie had already taken up larking about the Institution far too much for her taste.

But Julia was in such a pleasant frame, she was willing to forgive Sumner. And maybe even Laura would not have ruined the wedding; it had been so perfect. The poor child―perhaps she should have allowed her at the reception, if not the ceremony, and then she wouldn’t be so desperate as to suggest coming with them on the voyage. Julia could not identify with that level of desperation, and she realized the strange depths of the girl’s longing were beyond her. Then again, Laura was young and impressionable, and it was quite apparent that she harbored some absurd, though harmless, attachment to her mentor. Julia couldn’t imagine, even for a moment, what it must be like to be cocooned in darkness and silence, unable to experience the beauty and varieties of the world: the slap of the waves against the ship’s hull, the crystal blue of the water mirroring the sky, matching Chev’s eyes. Who was she, with all the treasure of the world before her, to begrudge such a creature a crumb of happiness? She would buy her a lovely present in Europe, a feather-bedecked bonnet, perhaps, something which she would enjoy touching. Yes, she would show Laura that not only was she not a threat to the couple’s happiness, but that the new mistress of the house could open her heart, at least a tiny crack, to let the girl in, or at least not to completely exclude her. She felt better already just contemplating such compassion on her part, and she knew that Chev would be impressed.

Julia meandered down the deck, careful to keep her parasol aloft to protect her skin, and nodded at the seamen and the few other early arriving guests. She wondered if they recognized her; if they didn’t, they would soon: Mrs. Samuel Gridley Howe. And though she had promised Chev otherwise, she fully intended to be recognized also as a poet, a major American poet, and sooner rather than later. There would be children, of course, but there must be far more poems than children, and she already had an inkling which one she likely preferred. She’d brought with her in her trunk her well-thumbed copies of Thucydides and Petrarch, both of whom served as inspiration for her latest work. She might have to write under the covers, but she could manage it by pretending to write copious letters home.

She thought she saw a familiar figure walking toward her from the starboard side. She shielded her eyes against the glare―yes, it was Jeannette, her new sister-in-law! What in heavens was she doing here—a surprise bon voyage perhaps? She didn’t appear to be carrying any presents or bouquets, though.

Jeannette hurried down the long deck. “Oh dear,” she said, “oh dear,” taking Julia’s hands in hers. “We didn’t realize it had gotten so late.”

“So late for what?” Julia asked, but the twisting in her stomach told her she already knew the answer.

“Laura insisted on counting the steps, the whole length of the dock. Eight hundred eighty-seven, I believe. And then Oliver, Oliver had to pet the cow in the hold. Quite remarkable really, one cow to provide milk for a hundred and twenty people.” She seemed almost frantic that Julia be entertained by these facts, but she was not.

Julia removed her hands from Jeannette’s. “She was supposed to be well gone by now. Chev promised. You promised.”

“I’m so sorry, but Miss Swift and I—”

“Where is she now?”

“Well, she wanted— She dug her heels in and refused to leave…She’s touring your stateroom.”

Julia thought she might cry. Laura, of all people, in her room, the most special room that she’d been waiting for all her life? All her newfound goodwill toward the girl left her in a violent exhale. She grabbed Jeannette’s arm. “Take me there.” She glanced back at Chev, but he was still holding court with the pressmen. She pulled Jeannette headlong down the deck. “Which stairs?”

Jeannette pointed, and Julia dragged her along, almost colliding with a sailor who stepped out of the way just in time. To Julia’s annoyance, Jeannette turned to gaze at the fellow. “At least we’ve gotten to look at some lovely seamen,” she whispered. “Every outing with the feeble has its saving grace.”

They walked down two flights of narrow steps and took a right into a long hallway. Jeannette stopped before an open door, and Julia closed her eyes for a moment before she could summon the will to enter. She had expected to be carried over this threshold in her beloved’s arms, but here she was stepping over it alone, to find her palace occupied by the one person she had done everything to prevent spoiling this moment.

They stood in the doorway of the stateroom and watched as Miss Swift stood over Oliver, who was intent on examining the rug, thicker and softer than the carpet of the corridor’s floors.

“Oh no,” Miss Swift said and bowed slightly in apology to Julia. “I’ll get them out in just a minute.”

Oliver flopped down on his belly and rolled until he found a patch warmed by the sun streaming in through the twin portholes. Miss Swift gave him a nudge with her boot, but he didn’t move, his face enraptured by the light. Laura skirted the corners of the room, touching everything with deliberation: the filigreed frame of the divan, the cubbyholes of the mahogany secretary desk, the brass faucets of the marble basin. When she reached the double bed laden with its silk sheets and eight pillows in brocade covers, she stopped and held out one finger, letting it sink slowly, inch by inch, into the plump damask coverlet of palest gold. She made a small, strangled noise in her throat; it was not her noise for Doctor or the new one she had mastered for Julia in approximation of her name, but a sound that neither Julia nor Jeannette had heard before.

Julia took a step into the room, a step toward the bed, and Laura turned, her finger still plunged into the linens. Julia was positive the girl knew exactly who she was, she could always tell. As if on cue, Laura swayed and then retched, spraying the bottom of the spread with vomit.

“Oh my,” said Jeannette, but still she didn’t move to enter. Miss Swift pulled Laura away from the bed, and the two of them sat down on the carpet with Oliver, who was engrossed in an examination of the armoire’s lower handles carved in the shape of bulls.

“How in heaven’s name did she get enough food in her to accomplish such a feat?” Miss Swift said. She plucked a handkerchief from her coat pocket, and wiped at Laura’s mouth and the trickle of sick on her chin. To Julia’s astonishment, Miss Swift began to giggle. “It’s not funny. I’m sorry,” she managed, but she couldn’t stop herself; she laughed harder. She was helpless to it now, the fit overtaking her. Laura felt the convulsions in her teacher’s arms and twisted away, ducking her head.

“You will pull yourself together and see that this mess is cleaned up,” Julia said, holding her handkerchief in front of her nose. “This is…this is…”―and here she thought she might begin to weep―“my marriage bed.” She could not bear to look at it. She grabbed Jeannette’s arm and thrust her into the corridor.

“I am exhausted by the tour of this beast,” Jeannette said, “and you are pale as your wedding lilies. Should we touch a tumbler in the ladies’ saloon? It looks quite fashionable.”

What a thing to suggest! Julia shook her head. “Just get me to Chev. Maybe he can have the room changed.” She turned to take one last look at Laura, and she could swear the girl was staring at her, right through the green shade, though she knew, of course, that this wasn’t possible. She realized she didn’t know the color of her eyes—did it even matter?—but in this moment she pictured them glowing like fiery black coals, hot enough to burn holes clean through the cloth. She thought she heard Miss Swift whisper, “Bon voyage,” as they whisked down the hall.