Alice in Bed (18 page)

“Really? Let me see that, Alice!” William rudely snatched the newspaper out of my hand and held it beyond my reach while he scanned it. “By George, you're right. Here it is, right next to a lady in a bustle. Languor, sparkles before the eyes; sounds like neurasthenia to me.”

“I don't care for this new bustle style,” said Father. “In our day women would never be mistaken for sofas. They dressed simply and elegantly; isn't that right, dear?”

Mother was tapping her water glass with her fingernail. When others strayed from the topic, she would become uneasy until she managed to steer the conversation back to, in this case, Harry's health and the Italian climate. “Remember, Will, when you and Harry were so ill with the Roman Fever? And so far from home! I don't understand why Harry has chosen to put his health in peril again.”

Citing poor health, William had taken a leave of absence from teaching the previous autumn to join Harry in Rome for several months. Almost immediately, the two of them were stricken with the Roman Fever, and for weeks William was desperately homesick and, in that febrile, melancholy state, penned letters home bemoaning the shortcomings of Italian civilization. Whenever a letter arrived from abroad, Father would bring it to the next Shady Hill dinner party to read aloud, and one night he arrived with two letters. When he announced he had letters from William in Rome, all the Nortons from old Mrs. Norton down to young Sally brightened visibly.

Sara whispered into my ear, “For heaven's sake don't mention Italy to
Charles
. It's just like rolling a stone downhill.” Her breath was warm, and our eyes met, just for a moment, and there it was again. Like striking a match.

“Wait and see, Sara. The Nortons are in for a shock.”

I knew Father and I could see the fiendish glow behind his spectacles as, feigning innocence, he read that William felt his mind

being opened to the past like an unwilling oyster, and that with all this dead civilization crowding in upon my consciousness, I feel like one still obliged to eat more & more grapes and pears, and pineapples, when the state of the system imperiously demands a fat Irish stew.

On and on it went, his jeremiad against “moribund latinity.” Italy, he lamented, couldn't
help injuring all one's active powers, for the weight of the past here is fatal.
Father's voice became especially sonorous when he read:
Even art comes before one here more as a problem. I think that that end is better served by the stray photographs which enter our homes
.

Charlemagne's countenance appeared to darken at this passage in particular.

“My goodness,” old Mrs. Norton said later, as I was saying goodbye. “And Harry loving Italy so! How on earth do your two brothers get along there, dear?”

From Italy, in his wretched, homesick state, William had written me the tenderest, most fraternal letters, of which I could recall whole passages by heart.
Thou seemest to me so beautiful from here, so intelligent, etc.
But no sooner did he return home than he started scheming to get back to Europe. Wherever he was, it was his nature to long for where he was not. He wrote to Harry warning him that if he came home, he would have to “eat his bread in sorrow” for some time (I managed to sneak a look at the first paragraph when William left it on a table), which must mean that William felt that he was eating
his
bread in sorrow. If my brothers only knew what it was like to be a female, stuck in Cambridge in perpetuity, eating your bread in sorrow year after year, and no one wants to hear a peep out of
you.

Now William was saying, “I recall Harry turning the most ghastly hue. Later I realized it was the exact color of many of the Roman buildings. Yellow ochre, I believe. Roman Fever, by the way, Mother, is only malaria by another name.”

“Well, why not call it that?”

“How was Mrs. Sargent's ‘aesthetic tea' yesterday, William?” Father asked. “What was aesthetic about it?”

“Oh, it meant that certain individuals read poetry while others sat and longed for them to stop so that they might start talking again. Afterwards I had a long and drastic dose of Miss Putnam, relieved, happily, by the incoming of Miss Bessie Green.”

“Well, poetry might at least relieve the awkward silences that characterize so many Cambridge teas,” I said while inwardly steaming over the mention of Bessie Green, a loud, silly, and man-crazed girl with whom I hoped William was not too smitten.

My own European tour was two years behind me and it was pathetic how often I consoled myself with the memories, like polished gemstones I took out to fondle secretly. When Harry's letters were read aloud, I burned with longing and envy and feared that my emotions must be visible to others. No one seemed to notice, however.

“I wish at
least
that Harry would go on to Switzerland or someplace like that,” Mother was saying. “A cool, bracing climate, not a stagnant one, is what he requires now. Don't you think so, Will?”

“You could be right, Mother. The effect of climate on health has never been explained to my satisfaction.”

I snatched the newspaper back from William and held it out of his reach while I flipped to the back pages and scanned them. “Oh, look! It's there again! An obviously fraudulent company is attempting to lure the maidens of Boston into purchasing and raising silk-worms. Someone should expose them, don't you think so?” I passed it to William.

“And look what they're charging!”

“It would be a source of income for poor women, I suppose,” Mother said, “and it would not take them out of the home.”

“Mother, it is an obvious fraud. I feel moved to write a churlish letter to the editor.”

“You won't sign your name, will you, pet?”

“I
shall
use my name, Father, and I shall say that I am the daughter of one Henry James and the sister of another, and better than both.”

In early September, Mrs. Tappan gave a ball for her daughter Ellen and her fiancé, a Mr. Dixey, at her Beacon Street mansion, which had a real ballroom on the third floor. Young, unmarried women were obliged to go to these Back Bay balls, just as young men must go to war. That night I hovered near the punch bowl, trying to blend in so that it would not be too apparent I was a wallflower. The gown that had seemed so pretty at home was eclipsed now by dozens of creations in taffeta, velvet, and satin. My slippers rubbed painfully against my heels; I would have to put a poultice on them when I got home.

Meanwhile, I strove for a blithe and bubbly demeanor, which was what was generally prized in a young woman, as far I could tell. I would be the first to admit I lacked the talent and inclination for flirting, which seemed daft to me when I saw other girls doing it. Why did they make themselves seem so insipid? Something I read in
Godey's
came back to me: “How to Converse with Young Men.” It advised one
to talk about what the young man was interested in and “draw him out.” Although I'd attempted this a few times, it always proved monotonous in the end. Why did most people have to be so
boring?

While hugging the shores of the punch bowl at the Tappans', I subjected myself to a frank self-assessment. I was still young. My hair shone brightly after it was washed, my eyes were “intelligent” (or so I'd been told), my figure was not bad. My complexion was unblemished, if not “bright.” That my gown was unbecoming was perhaps not fatal. I was considered witty. This, however, might not be an asset.

Sometimes a young man would appear to be walking toward me, and then do an about-face, as if suddenly recalling urgent business at the other end of the ballroom. “If you only smiled, dear, you'd be radiant.” Mother's oft-repeated advice. Remembering it now, I fake-smiled, but I could not sustain it; the muscles in my cheeks ached and then twitched and, really, what was there to smile about?

“Hello, Miss James!” Oh, not Ned Codman! He'd caught my fake smile and apparently believed it was directed at him. Now he was stuck to me like a burr. On the other hand, he'd rescued me from being a wallflower, and one had to be slightly grateful for that. How abject was a woman's fate, when all was said and done!

“Hello,” I said. “Are you still working at—at—?”

“Yes, I am, Miss James! National Union Bank,” he said brightly. I could imagine no fate more deadly than working at a bank, but I kept this to myself. “Mrs. Tappan has pulled out all the stops tonight, hasn't she?”

Ned was a beanpole, tall and gawky, with jug-ears that stuck out. The light coming through them turned them a rosy pink; their translucency reminded me of something—tropical fish? His Adam's apple bobbed up and down when he talked.

On those rare occasions when I imagined having a suitor, it was never one of these gauche Boston boys (except for the beautiful Charley Jackson, whom I'd marry in an instant, but he was unlikely to ask me). Otherwise, my ideal lover was a mysterious stranger, perhaps someone from abroad, who could perceive the depths of my soul. If I wound up with Ned or someone like him, I'd spend the remainder
of my natural life staring at his Adam's apple until I eventually went insane and attacked it with a fish knife.

“It does help that Mrs. Tappan is immensely rich,” I observed. “The Sturgis treasure is well nigh inexhaustible, so they say.”

Ned looked uneasy. You were not supposed to talk about money, although everyone in Boston was secretly preoccupied with it. Ned asked if he could fetch me a sandwich and I said, “Oh, yes, that would be nice,” and he left and returned a short while later bearing a small, dry triangular sandwich. It did not go down easily. We were standing near the tall windows then and I discreetly set the sandwich remnants on the windowsill behind me as Ned ponderously considered the prospects of the Harvard crew that fall. Smiling my best fake smile, I mentally composed a paragraph to Nanny describing Ned Codman's ears and plodding conversation, Mrs. Tappan in her imperial aspect, Ellen Tappan gazing adoringly at her fiancé, the suave gold digger.

Behind me, I could hear Fanny Morse chatting with Charley Jackson, who was her cousin. Through Fanny, I
might
have an inside track with Charley, if only Fanny Appleton would leave the picture. Three-quarters of an hour ago, Charley and I had just begun talking when Richard Dana came along and held forth tediously on the subject of his sister's wedding, derailing our conversation. If only I could shake Ned off now and sidle over to Fanny, insert myself into the conversation, and work my charms (if I had any) on Charley. Although he was said to be secretly engaged to Miss Appleton, he always brightened when he saw me and laughed at my jokes, which lesser men failed to appreciate. There was room for hope. Faint hope but still.

At present, however, here was Mr. Codman and his Adam's apple. When he'd concluded his meandering tale, I asked, “Have you met the prospective bridegroom?”

“Oh yes. He seems a good fellow. I understand he is a keen sailor, which is always a plus, Miss James.” He smiled, rather nervously.

“Really? He struck me as quite shallow. As the engagement is to be a long one, I hope he will not become weary of Ellen before the wedding.”

“Oh!” Poor Ned looked stunned. His ears turned crimson. “Don't you think they are in love?”

Just then my mother, stiff and fortresslike in her gown, was giving me an encouraging smile from the matrons' chairs. Why? Oh yes, a boy was talking to me. I forced myself to focus on Ned and said, “If Ellen gets out from under her mother's tyranny she may come out all right, I suppose. But why is it that love affairs in real life appeal so much less to one's sympathy than they do in the silliest novel?”

I had to suppress a yawn; poor Ned was having a deadly soporific effect upon me. I thought yearningly of my bed and the novel I was reading, while he applied himself to consuming a piece of cake, his Adam's apple bobbing like mad. With his mouth half full, he said, “Well, I happen to think Boston engagements are a fine thing—and capital for the Race, too!”

“Oh, the
Race
,” I said wearily.

Now Ned was visibly searching for an escape, and who could blame him? He finally found an exit line—he had to tell his cousin they should leave separately, or was it together?—and scurried across the room. I leaned back against the long windows, savoring the feel of the cool glass against my bare back, reminding myself that attending balls was like visiting the dentist. You just had to grit your teeth and get through it.

Regrettably, the beautiful Charley Jackson was now on the other side of the room talking to a young woman I didn't recognize. Lilla Cabot and Sargy Perry strolled past me, arm and arm, in the direction of the refreshment table, lost in their mutual self-regard. Their engagement was a joke; they had nothing to live on, Sargy was very immature, and Lilla was, well, Lilla. It was hard to forget overhearing her say, “Alice James is a hard woman to please. I pity the man who tries.” While wondering gloomily why I was so misunderstood, I saw Sara waltz by in the arms of a dark-haired man I did not know. I studied her expression to see if she was falling in love. It would happen one day.

Dante could not have devised a more hellish torture than the “German” at the end of a Back Bay ball. With the inane repetitiveness of a children's game, a couple dances, then each seeks a new partner, presenting her/him with a favor (a nosegay, a hair ornament, a
handkerchief), and those couples dance in turn and then seek other partners, bestowing more favors, and so on until everyone is waltzing. Until you have spent an eternity on a Louis Quinze tuffet, your gloved hands in your lap and a martyr's smile on your lips, whilst the chairs around you empty like trees in winter, you have no idea of humiliation. Fortunately, it ends eventually.

Two days later, on a warm September day, Sara, Fanny, and I were sunning ourselves on the steps of the Harvard greenhouse, leaning back like passengers on the deck of an ocean liner. Fanny was describing her visit to an immigrant family on the bad side of Beacon Hill; she'd found three small children prostrated by the heat; the youngest could not be revived. “You cannot convince them that fresh air is good for them.”