At this time in my life, before I had gained success, I struggled with an occasional painful awareness of how others saw my fortunes and my family’s. I knew that Edgar and his sisters had heard that my family was at the height—or rather the depth—of its poverty at that time, and I also knew, with the aching self-consciousness of youth, that my white collar was a bit frayed and my hat misshapen from too much hard wear. My wardrobe was often, due to age and stages of being handed down, in a condition that required gentle use, resulting in a toilette often lacking in style or even protection from the elements. Yet I also knew that my worries about my clothes were foolish luxuries when compared to the elemental worries faced by so many less well-off, even people just down the street from the Wortham mansion. I had a loving family, a roof over my head, and wonderful friends. Who was I to sit and worry about frayed fabrics and old shoes?
However, I freely admit that my diminished costume lay in great contrast to the parlor of Mrs. Preston Wortham, for that room, indeed the entire home, was appointed with new carved tables, new upholstered chairs, new carpets, new velvet curtains, all in that condition remarked in envious whispers as
très cher
and usually foreign. Indeed, although I felt such judgments were wrong to make and reflected badly on the superficiality of the observer, I realized how the room might look to Dottie’s siblings: as a vulgar display of newness so characteristic of Dottie’s new husband, Preston Wortham, and so unlike the charm and good taste of the Brownlys’ Boston home. The Brownlys’ home was, of course, old, not shabby like my shoes, but old in the tradition of old money and Boston taste.
I found myself wishing that Edgar Brownly, Dot’s brother, smoked, for I had decided in a moment of insight into my characters that Claude, Beatrice’s faithless lover, would smoke cigarettes. But that created a problem I could fix only through study and observation . . . yet here was I at a tea party when I could have been studying men pacing around the frosty grass on that area of the Commons known as Smokers’ Circle.
None of the other guests seemed to notice my restlessness, however. Instead they were busily and happily taking nips out of the reputations of their absent host and hostess.
The lord and master of this house had, ten minutes earlier, excused himself to see to affairs in the kitchen, since his wife was not there to instruct the new cook in the household preferences for garnishing the evening roast. Preston Wortham had accepted such temporary absences as a necessity in his social life, the price of marrying an heiress with a large family and social set. He had learned early in his marriage that ten minutes was enough time for them to vent their spleen, make their nasty comments, and then move on to a new topic of conversation, one that would allow his participation.
Lily, the hostess’s spaniel, hid under the sofa and made tiny growls at my ankles. I wished the creature would come out so I might give it a fish sandwich and make friends.
“. . . and then . . . oh, Louisa, you wouldn’t believe what he said to her! In front of all of us! I still blush to think of it . . .” And the speaker, young Miss Sarah Brownly, did blush, right to the roots of her white-blond hair, barely visible under her own beribboned and beflowered hat. The speaker’s teacup and saucer trembled ever so slightly with excitement . . . and another emotion that I and everyone else pretended not to observe. Miss Sarah Brownly, the hostess’s sister, pretty and vivacious and known for her elegant movements through the complications of a gavotte in the ballroom, had never fully recovered from the discomfort of having her plain younger sister married before she was. We suspected Sarah Brownly’s only consolation, whispered to herself each night before the mirror as she gave her hair its hundred strokes, was that the marriage was sure to be a failure.
“He said, and this is a direct quote, ‘Miss Brownly’ . . .” jumped in Edith Brownly, who found her twin sister’s pace of narrative too slow for the subject, “‘Miss Brownly, if you will do me the honor of being my wife I will cherish and protect you all my days. My heart is yours and whatever your answer this evening, I will never love another.’ That is what he said, right there at the dinner table.”
Sarah’s pretty face reflected the longing for a similar adventure. She sighed and pouted.
“Right out of a bad play, if you ask me,” grumped Edith, who had never played with dolls and saw no need, nor advantage, in marriage.
“Damn cheek, if you ask me,” sputtered Edgar Brownly. His face, round, ruddy, only half-finished with the labor of chewing a canape, reflected no such longing for a tender emotion . . . or a family scene. I imagined he was already wondering what the roast for dinner would be at home, and if roly-poly pudding would be served after.
It was said of Mr. Edgar Brownly that he had planned to woo several of Boston’s fairest, at different times, of course, only to be checked in his plans by his mother, Mrs. Harriet Brownly, whose expectations of any future daughters- and sons-in-law far excelled anything this world has to offer. It was said of Mr. Edgar Brownly that he would probably marry very late in life (after his mother had passed on to her final reward) and that it would not be a love match. Some had suggested, acerbically and in a very low voice, that the church door would have to be widened considerably by the time Mr. Edgar Brownly made his way down the aisle to his special someone, and that the ring bearer would also be bearing a platter of Dutch chocolates to tide the groom over to the nuptial feast.
“Well, of course our poor Dot swooned on the spot.” Sarah Brownly grabbed back the conversational reins from her sister and whipped the tale to its conclusion. “I had to catch her head before it fell into her soup bowl—the Limoges set, painted with those sweet little shells and seahorses. We had to carry her to the little sofa in front of the window . . . you know the one, Louisa, the gray-and-blue-striped silk-covered one. I had so hoped Mother would re-cover it with yellow paisley, but she didn’t wish the expense.”
“Yellow paisley would have been lovely, I’m sure,” I said, stifling a yawn.
“And Dot’s mother almost had an apoplectic fit.” Aunt Alfreda pursed her mouth. “Well, we all know what the popular estimation of Mr. Preston Wortham is.” This last was said rather loudly. From somewhere deeper in the bowels of the house a pot clattered and voices mumbled.
“Mr. Wortham is in the kitchen, not the Arctic,” I gently reminded them. “You should not tread so on his feelings. We are his guests, after all, eating his cake and sandwiches.” I looked sideways at Edgar, who was gobbling another.
“Married!” chirped Aunt Alfreda, and while the word carried a certain amount of joy, of promises of white lace and pink-faced babes and pleasant evenings before the domestic hearth, I saw again the disapproval in the women’s faces.
“Louisa, you will not be marrying, I suppose?” Aunt Alfreda asked.
“I’ve no immediate plans,” I answered quietly, hoping that would end this all too familiar portion of the teatime conversation, for young women were expected to talk of beaus and plans, but I had none and wanted none.
“Nor you, Sylvia,” Aunt Alfreda said, turning to my friend. Sylvia turned red.
“Weddings are frowned upon in the convent,” I answered for Sylvia, who had recently announced her decision to enter such an establishment. I tactfully changed the subject and carefully balanced my cup and saucer on my knee. “Europe. I wonder if Dottie visited the galleries of the Palazzo degli Uffizi.”
“I understand they were not at home during the season.” Aunt Alfreda sniffed.
Footsteps sounded just outside the parlor door.
“Hush. Here comes the bridegroom,” Sarah said, giggling. Edith frowned.
“He’ll probably do her in; wouldn’t be surprised,” Edgar Brownly muttered. “For the money.”
“For the money? Dear brother-in-law, are you talking about the racing season already? How are the stables looking this year?” Preston Wortham threw open the parlor doors just in time to hear Edgar’s final words, not the first.
“There’s a certain filly I wouldn’t bet on,” Edgar said darkly.
“Well, you must tell me more when the ladies aren’t present. Instead we shall talk about the latest fashions, shall we?”
Preston Wortham was a tall man of powerful build; when he entered a room it felt as if all the furnishings were suddenly tilting in his direction. He sighed, a staged sigh that would read, in the play directions, as
The contented patriarch greets his womenfolk.
“The entire family is here,” he said. “Well, almost. My favorite sister-in-law, little Agnes, is missing.”
“Agnes is much too young for a tea.” Alfreda Thorney sniffed again. “And my niece, your wife, is strangely missing. What is the time?” She fussed with the little gold watch pinned to her bosom. “Four o’clock. And the invitation was for three-thirty. What can Dot be thinking of? Ten minutes is acceptable, but half an hour simply will not do.”
“Her hat, I’m sure,” said Digby, standing close behind Preston Wortham and still holding the cake tray. “She was thinking of her hat. Her rose toile from Paris blew off this morning in the park and she went out to purchase another.”
“Dot and her hats . . .” Mr. Wortham raised his hands palms-up and made a little smile, the kind that husbands make when they are being tolerant. “She has become quite obsessed with style.”
“Mr. Wortham, you have said so little of your voyage,” I said with forced cheer. “Tell me, did you visit Stonehenge? Did you take a boat down the Seine?” I leaned forward, in eager readiness for tales of foreign lands.
The terrible siblings, Sarah, Edith, and Edgar, sighed with impatience. Boston had everything a civilized person could need. Why this unfortunate need to wander? their curled lips asked. Miss Alfreda’s eyes, however, acquired that faraway look as she perhaps imagined herself lounging on a silk-draped barge, floating up the Nile.
“All that is recommended, and more. We were busy to the point of fatigue,” Mr. Wortham replied. “Dot would see everything. For me, however, home is the place to be. Can’t get this in London or Paris.” He picked up a paper, the
National Police Gazette,
and waved it. “Rousing good tales of murder and mayhem!”
“Quite,” agreed Edgar, and then cleared his throat, abashed to find himself in agreement with his host on any issue.
In a more serious mode, Preston said, “I do apologize for my wife.” He sighed, his voice carrying a note of victory. The family might disapprove all they wish, but Dot was his. “Will you have more tea? I’m sure she will return momentarily. My wife would be so upset to learn she had missed you. My wife”—and this time the emphasis on
my
was heavy as a ship’s anchor in stormy port—“my wife has so happily anticipated this little reunion.”
Preston Wortham, when he wasn’t baiting his foes, had a deep, fine voice and the face and stature of a theater hero, one who could play a Roman caesar or French cavalier and make all the ladies of the audience go home madly in love with him. What he did not have was name or reputation or honest employment . . . so when handsome Mr. Wortham had proposed to and married plain but wealthy Dorothy Brownly, everyone assumed the obvious, even innocent Dorothy, who had commented several times, with an absolute lack of rancor, that “Poor Preston will be much more settled and calm once the family agrees upon the terms of his quarterly allotment.” Wives often jest that their husbands are a kind of child, and to Dorothy this was not a jest but a fact, and a fact that suited her, since she had a maternal nature.
Two winters previous, Preston Wortham had been my dance partner, before he had wrangled his introduction to Dot. My feelings for him were purely friendly, but I must confess I enjoyed his beautiful dancing. Yet I fear Preston had feelings for me at that time: In a moment of weakness he professed his admiration but admitted he sought to marry for advantage. “If only you had a bit of money, my dear Miss Alcott,” he had sighed.
“If I had it in any quantity, Mr. Wortham, I would buy a trip to Florence, not a husband,” I had assured him. And then, because I sensed a certain fragility of character in him, I whispered, “Go slowly and carefully, Mr. Wortham. This business of heiresses can be complicated.”
The clock chimed four-thirty. I sighed and stirred, tapping my foot more quickly under the concealing hem of my brown linsey-woolsey skirts. Where was our hostess? Surely she could have tried on every hat in Boston by now. Had she forgotten? Dot had never been the quickest mind—she had wept over fractions and torn her hair over South American rivers—but to completely forget her own welcome-home tea party!
I looked outside the room into the hall. The huge, ornate coat tree was close enough to the parlor that every time I looked in that direction and saw Mr. Wortham’s velvet coat hanging there on its hook, I had the eerie sense that someone was standing there, watching. Something strange, hostile, dangerous, floated through that house where newlyweds should have been so happy.
Much as I wished to see Dot, I decided it was time to leave. Abba was waiting for me at home with a basket of clothing to clean and mend for the women’s shelter and other tasks with which society could not be bothered. Mr. Wortham was standing at the bay window, looking out into the street. I went to him.
“I do hope Dot is all right. This is not like her.”
“I fear a year in Europe may have changed her,” he said. “It is liberating to travel, you know.” But he was frowning and his dark eyes seemed darker than usual.
“I can only imagine. But do give her my regards. Mother invites you to dinner next Sunday . . . if you can stand one of Father’s vegetarian meals. It will be carrots cooked six different ways, but it would be nice if you could come. Mother hasn’t seen Dot since we were both still in the schoolroom.”
Sylvia joined us at the window, since the terrible siblings had launched a new conversation on the uselessness of charity for immigrants. “How will they learn to support themselves if we give them handouts? Those Irish should not have so many babies,” Edith lectured. “Unwed mothers! I never!”