“I’m tempted to believe,” Mrs. Jones announced, the quality of her voice remarkably like that of a bugle, “that there is some truth to Mr. Poe’s musings in ‘The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar.’ Is it so unreasonable to think that a person mesmerized at the point of his death could be kept alive, as long as he was being held in a hypnotic trance?”
“It’s a story,” said Reverend Griswold. “And not a very good one at that. I did not review it well, I’m afraid.”
“Well!” She tossed her plume. “I can tell you of more than a few persons who have hired mesmerists to attend the deathbed of their loved ones.”
“And did it work?” demanded Reverend Griswold.
“I did hear of one case—”
Before she could finish, a disturbance arose in the dining room. Several ladies were exclaiming around a large wicker basket that had been brought in by Mrs. Jones’s manservant.
“Excuse me! Excuse me!” she trumpeted, barging through the crowd. I followed in her wide wake, conscious of Reverend Griswold at my heels.
“Daniel!” she bellowed. “What is the meaning of this?”
The servant held up the basket. I was behind Mrs. Jones’s shoulder among the gathering crowd when she turned back the soft cotton blanket inside it. A beautiful infant, maybe a week old, in a clean worked linen gown and lace cap, and with a woman’s gold locket around its neck, blinked in the gaslight.
Into the shocked silence, a man said laconically, “Look what the stork brought.”
“Why me?” cried Mrs. Jones. “Why here?”
On the other side of the circle of shocked onlookers, Mr. Poe spoke up quietly. “Because his mother could not keep him.”
“Well, I can’t keep him!” Mrs. Jones exclaimed.
“Open the locket,” suggested a gentleman with a lady on his arm. “Perhaps that will give you a clue to who the mother is.”
The guests drew closer, as if discovering the baby’s parentage
were an exciting parlor game. Mrs. Jones put her gloved hand to her mouth, then, gingerly, picked up the locket. It opened with a spring. A blond wisp was curled inside.
“Hair!” exclaimed Mrs. Fish. “Mamma’s or Papa’s?”
Eliza drew near with the ladies with whom she’d been speaking.
Mr. Bartlett stepped forward and took her arm. I saw him whisper in her ear.
Meanwhile, as the crowd watched in a stunned hush, Edgar moved next to Mrs. Jones, then carefully lifted the child from the basket and cradled it in his arms.
“I never took you for a little mother, Poe,” said Reverend Griswold.
“Shhh,” Mr. Poe whispered to the child. “All will be well. Don’t be frightened.” He looked up and caught my gaze. There were tears in his eyes, tears for the abandoned child, and tears, I knew, for the orphan that he himself once was. How hard he had tried his whole life to hide his pain behind his cool and cultured surface. It crushed me to see his vulnerability exposed to a crowd of curious onlookers.
Without thinking, I stepped to his side and put a hand on his arm. “This child must be very well loved. His mother brought him here because she wanted him to find a home among the best in the city.”
He glanced up. We exchanged a look rich with understanding.
I felt a hand upon my back.
“Fanny,” said Eliza, “we have to go now. Russell is ill.”
I turned to leave with a rustle of skirts. It was then that I saw Reverend Griswold watching me, his handsome pink face slack with the dawning knowledge of what he’d just seen.
• • •
Eliza spread the cooked date filling over the dough that I had rolled out on Bridget’s breadboard. “Fanny, you really don’t have to leave.”
It was the day before Christmas. She had given the Irish girls (except for Mary, who had departed for home months earlier), the day off in which to make any Christmas purchases they needed to make. The new tradition of celebrating Christmas Day by exchanging gifts and giving presents to the children, allegedly brought by that right jolly old elf, Saint Nick, was already well entrenched in New York,
where people embraced Mr. Moore’s poem with an enthusiasm he still regretted.
I listened to the children, playing jacks in the family room. “You’ve already been entirely too generous,” I told her. “I have been here for more than a year.”
Surely she’d had enough of me being constantly underfoot. I had recently sold several of my old poems to
Graham’s
and
Godey’s Lady’s Book,
most likely on the strength of the rumors of my having been Mr. Poe’s lover. I could keep digging into my stock of rejects and eke out some kind of life based on my notoriety until my ability to write returned. Maybe being on my own would force it out. Need is the mother of creation.
“I have enjoyed every minute of your company,” she said briskly. “I treasure our conversations. It’s a relief not to have every word that comes out of my mouth categorized: Is it American? English? or both?”
I laughed. “I envy your stable life.”
She paused with her spoon. “Do you? Do you really?
Wedded bliss is a tale made up to keep the species going.”
“Eliza!” I laughed. “What are you saying? You and Mr. Bartlett are the happiest pair I know.”
She glanced at me, her plain, dear face turning red. “I’m just glad that you are here, Fanny. I don’t know what I would have done without you to keep my mind off my troubles.”
I looked at her. What troubles?
She went back to smoothing out the filling. “Listen to me, proof that my condition makes a woman act bizarrely.”
“Your condition?”
She put a hand to her belly, then smiled uncertainly.
“Oh, Eliza! Really? You’re having a baby?”
She nodded.
I rocked her in an embrace. “Congratulations!”
A jingling commenced at the panel of service bells above the square stone sink. We looked at it as if a spirit were trying to contact us from another realm. Simultaneously, we realized that none of the servants were available to answer the summons. It jangled again.
“Front door,” said Eliza.
“I’ll get it.” I went upstairs, dusting the flour off my hands and cheek. It was probably a delivery boy with the goose for tomorrow’s meal.
I swung open the door, letting in a blast of cold air. Samuel stood on the porch, holding a cedar tree that was nearly as tall as he was.
I did not know whether to feel angry or glad. Angry, I decided. Very angry. I had not heard from him since September. No matter if I’d sent him away, he could have kept contact with the children. It broke my heart how they watched for him daily from the windows. “Well, if it isn’t Old Saint Nick.”
“Old Nick,” said Samuel. “No Saint.”
“I thought you were the delivery boy with the goose.”
“I am a delivery boy of a sort.” He thumped the tree on the porch. “I brought this for the girls. I thought you might let me in. Don’t prisoners get amnesty on Christmas?”
Some prisoner. Mrs. Ellet had not been the only one unable to resist telling me of his various conquests. He had been making good use of our separation. “Where did you get the tree?”
“I tramped up past Seventeenth Street and chopped one down. I figure I helped old man Astor and his counting house boys to clear the land.” He shook the tree. “According to European tradition, you put candles on fir trees for Christmas. Thought you might want to try it.” He gave me a hangdog grin. “What do you say about letting an old tree thief come inside?”
A damply cold wind rippled my skirt as I stepped aside for him to enter, if only for the sake of the children.
Vinnie bounded up the stairs as Samuel dragged the tree into the hall. “Papa! Where have you been? What is that tree?”
“A Christmas tree. You put candles on it on Christmas Eve.”
“That’s tonight!”
“Why, yes, yes it is. Do you think you might be able to scare up a few candles for it?”
“Yes!” She pounded down the back stairs.
I sighed. There would be no easy way of getting Samuel to leave now that Vinnie knew he was here. At least she would be happy.
The front door rang again. “There’s our goose,” I said.
I stepped around Samuel and his tree and opened the door. Mr.
Poe, hatless and wind-tossed, stood on the porch, holding a large fir. My soul leaped at the sight of him, so red-cheeked and handsome, happiness lighting his dark-lashed eyes. My joy quickly shrank into fear. Was it safe for him to be here? Where was his wife?
“There’s our goose,” Samuel said drily.
Edgar’s smile turned into a scowl. “I didn’t know he would be here.”
By now, Eliza and her brood had come to the hall, the littlest holding hands with Ellen.
“Two trees,” little Johnny said stoutly. “That’s silly!”
“Maybe you ought to take yours to your wife,” Samuel said. He met Mr. Poe’s cold stare with a shrug, then kissed Ellen.
“How is she?” asked Eliza gently.
“Sleeping. Soundly. Her mother is with her.”
Eliza glanced at me as if wondering whether to invite them in. It was Christmas Eve. A time of peace and good will, a time, as Samuel said, of amnesty. My children would be thrilled. And maybe the presence of my husband would placate Mrs. Poe should she hear that Edgar had come. I nodded in resignation.
“You may both stay for supper if you’d like,” she told them.
“Thank you,” said Samuel. “But it’s up to the lady.” He looked at me.
Vinnie ran upstairs, waving a fistful of little candles.
I blew out a sigh. “Stay.”
“Hurray!” shouted Vinnie.
The awkwardness at the supper table was only mitigated by the children’s excitement over the Christmas trees, which had been duly decorated and exclaimed over before we sat down to eat. Samuel talked too much; Mr. Poe too little. Mr. Bartlett and Eliza tried to pick up threads of conversation only to have Samuel run away with them or Mr. Poe to snip them short. It came as a relief when Mr. Poe put down his napkin and, gazing at the children at the table, said, “Do you know the tale ‘The Fir Tree’?”
“Is it for children?” asked Vinnie.
“The man who wrote it, Mr. Andersen in Denmark, thought of it as such. It’s about a Christmas tree.”
The children leaned forward, Eliza’s boys barely containing their wiggling.
“Are you ready?” Mr. Poe looked around with those dark-lashed eyes. The children shrank back into themselves.
“Good.” He glanced at me, then began.
“Once there was a young fir tree growing in the forest. He was a handsome tree, proud of his green branches. All the birds and animals said how tall he stood and how very straight. No other tree was as green and straight.
“I have a tree!” exclaimed little Johnny. “In my garden.”
Mr. Poe nodded at his outburst. “This little tree, I’m sorry to say, was not happy. He had noticed that every year come winter, men would march into the woods with their saws and take away one of his brethren, even though the other trees were not nearly as fine as he was.”
“Why?” asked little Johnny.
“Shhh,” said Eliza. “Listen.”
Mr. Poe continued. “The little tree asked a sparrow where the other trees were going. The sparrow, who had been to the city, said, ‘To people’s homes, where their branches are stuck with candles and their tops are crowned with a golden star. Children dance around them and sing. A more wonderful sight I have never seen.’
“From that day on, the fir tree could not be content. Why was he not chosen to go to the city? If he were taken, he would shine brighter and dazzle the children more brilliantly than all the other trees combined.”
“Like our tree!” crowed little Johnny.
“Hush,” said Eliza.
Mr. Poe glanced at me before continuing. “Each year when the men came, he lifted his branches to the sunshine, showing off his beautiful green color and perfect form. Each year, the men passed him by, crushing him with their ignorance. He then tried all the harder to stand straighter, to hold out his boughs better, to display his extraordinary bright greenness.
Pick me!
He thought.
Pick me!
And still they did not notice him until one year, when he had almost given up, they
did
.”
Vinnie clapped, setting off applause from Eliza’s sons. Their sister, Anna, glared at them, intent on the story.
Mr. Poe thanked them, then went on. “Yes, he was happy, too. All
the way into the city, he dreamed of how important he would look with the candles upon his boughs and a star upon his top. Children would come from miles around to admire him.
“He was taken into a house and nailed onto a stand. Ouch, yes, that hurt, but he didn’t mind. It was a small price to pay for his upcoming glory. The candles came next—so tight around the tips of his boughs, and so very heavy, too, but he was strong, he could lift them up! Then he was crowned with a golden star: King of the Forest! He was beaming with pride when the candles were lit and then with a
swoosh
the parlor doors flew open and the children ran into the room.
“ ‘Oh!’ they cried. ‘It’s the most beautiful tree in the world!’
“His heart nearly burst with joy as the children danced and sang around him. He didn’t care when drips of wax singed his handsome boughs. All he could think about was what came next,
for then he would truly be the happiest tree alive.
“But then the candles burned down and the children stopped dancing. The people went away, closing the doors behind them, leaving him in the smoke-tinged darkness.
“The next day, he was dragged up to the attic, his star catching on the steps, where he was dropped down,
bang,
in the dust.
“He lay there many years, his branches turning brown, his needles crumbling, his torn star getting covered with dust, until one day, a rat gnawed at his trunk.”
“ ‘Stop that!’ cried the little fir tree.
“The rat gave him a grumpy frown. ‘Who are you?’ ”
Mr. Poe held up his chin. “ ‘The most beautiful tree in the world.’
“The rat sat back on his haunches. ‘You don’t look so beautiful.’
“ ‘I am beautiful,’ ” said Mr. Poe in his soft and frightening voice. “ ‘I was told so on the happiest night of my life, but I did not know I was so happy at the time. I thought there’d be more.’