Mrs. Poe (19 page)

He pulled an iron stand behind her. “If you will pardon me, I must affix this brace to the back of your neck.”

“A brace!” said Mrs. Poe.

“I apologize, but it is necessary to keep you perfectly still. Once I have exposed the plate, you must remain absolutely motionless for one minute exactly, while your image develops. It doesn’t sound like a long time to keep still, but it is surprisingly difficult to do without an aid.”

“What happens if I move?” she asked.

“Why, you’ll disappear! Any motion will erase your image. I have many pictures of towns that look to be empty even though they were teeming with horses and people. It was the movement that wiped them out.”

He put a clamp against her neck and tightened the screws, then gingerly arranged her black knot of hair over them. “Comfortable enough?”

She blinked her affirmation.

He stood back. “Now, try not to breathe. Ready?” He nodded to his assistant on the step ladder, who then opened a chamber in the little cabinet. I found that I was holding my breath, too, as Mr. Brady attended to his watch.

After what seemed much longer than a minute, Mr. Brady called, “Time!”

He released Mrs. Poe from the apparatus and helped her down
while his assistant hurried the tray containing the exposed image to an adjoining room.

I took my turn on the stage. Mr. Brady positioned me toward the camera, readjusted the table for my own lower height, and aligned my arm upon it. Once he had clamped the brace to my neck, he took his place with the watch.

“Ready?”

Motionless as a dressmaker’s doll, I blinked my yes. He signaled to his colleague, now back upon the ladder.

I heard the sound of metal sliding against metal when the assistant exposed the plate. The screws dug into my flesh as I held my breath and stared into the camera. What would the image reveal of me? Would the guilt be visible in my eyes, my painful yearning for Mr. Poe?

“Oh!” cried Mrs. Poe.

I jerked my head in her direction, the screws raking my neck.

She touched her gloved fingers to her mouth, blinking her eyes like an innocent child. “Excuse me!”

Mr. Brady looked doubtfully at his watch. “The exposure
might
have been long enough.”

“Oh no. Did I spoil it?” said Mrs. Poe. “I’m so very sorry!”

“We might be all right,” said Mr. Brady. “Mr. Poe? Your turn.”

Mr. Poe submitted himself to Mr. Brady’s ministrations. Afterward, we went downstairs and were entertained by a violinist as Mr. Brady’s assistant worked his chemical magic in their little laboratory. We spoke little, other than Mrs. Poe commenting to Mr. Brady on whom among the portraits of the famous that she knew personally, and those of whom she would like to know. She then lit upon the idea that Mr. Poe could have the daguerreotype engraved for usage in the
Journal
once he owned it.

“I cannot wait until your name is the only one on the masthead,” she told Mr. Poe.

Mr. Brady’s eyes bounced behind his thick glasses. “Is that news to the other owners?”

Just then, the assistant came down with a glass plate.

“I’m sorry to disturb you,” he said to Mr. Brady.

“What is it, Eakins?”

The assistant showed the plate to Mr. Brady, who then looked up, the concern in his eyes amplified by his lenses.

Mr. Brady turned the plate to our group. On it was a perfect reproduction of my body standing before the curtain on the stage, with my dress flawless and my clenched hand lying upon the table. But where my head should have been was a blank. It was a portrait of a headless woman.

•  •  •

Mrs. Poe’s laugh was as merry as a jingling bell. “Oh, Frances, I think you’ve lost your head!”

That evening after supper, Vinnie hunched on the wide rim of the tin tub, trying to draw warmth from the rapidly cooling water at her feet. The water had been hot when the maid Martha had started up the three flights of stairs to our room. As second girl to the parlor maid and cook, the one with the most difficult physical labors although the slightest of the Bartletts’ four maids, Martha had hauled up many buckets that night. A midweek bath had been in order for all of the children. They had gone on an outing with Mary to see the men digging out a new street and had returned caked in dirt. They wouldn’t have had to go far to find excavations. Twenty-some years earlier, to make flat, uniform blocks for investors like Mr. Astor to purchase, the city commissioners had decreed for the entire island of Manhattan to be made level, and the destruction had commenced. The rocky hills that covered the island were slowly being pulverized into plains. Bogs were being filled with debris. The substantial farmhouses were rolled away on logs; squatter’s shanties were knocked flat and plowed over. The countryside, which only recently started at the bottom of Union Square, was receding to the north each day. Mr. Bryant, as self-important as he was, had been correct to call for a new park, before there was nothing green and natural left on the island.

Now I dunked a pitcher into the bucket and poured a stream of water over Vinnie. Pale rivulets ran through the dirt on her neck. “How did you get so dirty?”

“Ellen and I were playing lost girls. We made stew. We had a big
stick.” She put her hands together and demonstrated how she had stirred her pretend cauldron.

I soaped a flannel facecloth and lifted the wet strings of her hair. “Where was Mary while you were making your stew?” I asked, scrubbing her neck.

“Talking to a man.”

“A man?”

She nodded.

I examined her scalp. Grit sparkled on the skin of her part. Her hair needed washing, even though it had been done on Saturday.

I applied the Castile soap-cake to her hair. “Who was this man?”

“Her friend.”

“How do you know he was her friend?”

“She was smiling when she came back.” She dabbled her fingers in the grimy water.

I lathered her hair. “Came back from where?”

“I don’t know. I was playing.”

I did not like the sound of this. “Did you get a look at him?”

“He was too far away. He had on a hat. He looked like Henry and Johnny’s papa.”

So Mary had a beau. I wondered who he could be. I tried to recall the deliverymen who came by the house. “What did Mary do when she came back?”

“Took us home.”

“Lean forward.”

Vinnie sputtered and blinked as I rinsed her head.

Very well, Mary could chase after a man if she liked, but I was furious that she put the children in harm’s way when doing so. I had seen the work crews in action. Dozens of men chipped at the hills with pickaxes, while others blasted away the biggest rocks with gunpowder. Another army shoveled the rubble into ox-drawn wagons that shed debris as they rumbled along. Mary shouldn’t have had her eyes off the children for one minute near such a place.

“Next time Mary wants to go see the workmen, ask me first, all right?”

“All right.”

I heard the doorbell jingle downstairs. Someone for Mr. Bartlett, no doubt. It was past the hour for our lady friends to come calling.

Satisfied that Vinnie’s head was clean, I held out first one downy arm and then the other to scrub them. I had worked my way down her back and had her stand for me to wash her legs when Eliza came to the bedroom door.

A quizzical expression darkened her plain honest face. “Fanny, Mr. Poe is here.”

I stopped. Vinnie sat down in the tub.

I pulled her up. “The water’s dirty.”

“He came to see Russell. They’re in the parlor, talking. I thought you’d like to know.”

“Thank you,” I said firmly. “Did you know that Mary has a beau and that is why she took the children out to the digging site? I’m sorry to complain, but it’s such a dangerous place, and she wasn’t watching the children.”

“Yes, she was,” Vinnie protested, now shivering from being wet.

“She has been a bit distant lately,” said Eliza. “I wondered what was wrong with her. I’ll speak with her. But would you like her to take over for you now, before Mr. Poe leaves?”

“Mamma, you said you’d read me ‘Puss in Boots’ when I got in bed!”

I must not run to Mr. Poe. I must sever the connection between us.

“I did,” I told Vinnie, “and I will.”

Eliza looked surprised. “Very well. We’ll be in the back parlor.”

I tried not to hurry the rest of Vinnie’s bath. I put her and Ellen to bed and read them the story, straining all the while to hear the murmuring of voices downstairs. Knowing that Mr. Poe was close and that I could not be with him was a torment. But torment was what I deserved for loving another woman’s husband.

At last I had tucked in Vinnie and Ellen. In the hall, I straightened my skirt and pinched my cheeks, and biting color into my lips, I descended the stairs. Deep breath: I entered the back parlor.

The gas chandelier had been lit in honor of the guest. Mr. Poe rose from a chair flanking the fireplace. Joy leaped through my body when our eyes met. I fought to erase all emotion from my face as I gave him my hand.

Mr. Bartlett rose, too. “Good heavens, Mrs. Osgood. Are you well?”

“Of course.” My fingers burned where Mr. Poe touched them. I took a seat next to Eliza on the black horsehair sofa. I could feel Mr. Poe watching me in the tawny glow of the gaslights.

“You are just in time for the most interesting conversation,” said Mr. Bartlett. “We have just determined that at last I have found a source for Southern expressions for my dictionary.” He gave Mr. Poe an enthusiastic nod. “None other than our esteemed guest. Southernisms had been my weakest category—I had only a few rather poorly written novels to go by. Now, thanks to Mr. Poe, I have an expert in the field.”

“I am glad that my childhood in Richmond is good for something,” said Mr. Poe.

Mr. Bartlett laughed, not knowing, I guessed, what a miserable childhood Mr. Poe had. “I look forward to picking your brains.”

“I hope you won’t use too fine a point,” said Mr. Poe.

Mr. Bartlett paused, then laughed. Seeing Mr. Poe was serious, he said, “It is a grisly expression, isn’t it, as are so many of Americanisms.”

“We do seem prone to them.” Eliza pulled her thread through her ever-present sewing. “When we are frustrated with someone, we wish to ‘wring his neck.’ We speak of ‘twisting arms’ when we want a favor. When we’re angry, we could ‘just kill’ persons.”

“Eliza, my goodness,” said Mr. Bartlett. “I am not compiling
The Dictionary of the Violent
.” Realizing the sort of material that his visitor wrote, he smiled uncomfortably.

“The human animal has a taste for the violent,” Mr. Poe said smoothly. “That is why my readers insist that I write in that vein.”

“We are hardly animals,” said Mr. Bartlett.

“Oh, but we are,” said Mr. Poe.

“Don’t tell me, Poe, that you are one of those who believe that animals have spirits.”

“I do not see why that is unreasonable.”

“Why don’t you go as far as the Swedenborgians and claim there are spirits in rocks, too?” Mr. Bartlett grinned at Eliza and me for approval.

“I will leave those musings to Mr. Emerson and Mr. Longfellow,” said Mr. Poe. “I am just saying that, like animals, we have spirits within us, and whether you realize it, they are reacting to one another this very moment.”

Eliza shivered. “How chilling.”

“Not really,” said Mr. Poe. “They are with us all the time.” He glanced at me. “As someone I respect once said, ‘We just aren’t used to attending to them.’ ”

“I believe,” said Mr. Bartlett with raised yellow brows, “that attending to them might be a definition for madness.”

Eliza plunged her needle into the cloth. “Mr. Poe, could you enlighten me? I’m afraid I have not given this subject much thought. My day is taken up with the commonplace: stubbed toes, teething pains, bee stings.”

Selfishly, I did not want him to answer. I wanted to keep my understanding of his most treasured thoughts as my own special privilege.

Mr. Poe seemed to hear my mind. “The commonplace,” he told Eliza, “deserves every bit as much attention as the sublime.” He then reached into his coat and drew out a packet of letters. He held them out to me. “For you.”

“Me?”

“From your admirers. You were right—my lady readers did appreciate your scolding of the arrogant gentleman in ‘So Let It Be.’ My congratulations.”

I fanned the letters to count them.

“Nine, and your poem was only just published.” He reached down to offer his hand to his namesake kitten, which had pulled itself from under his chair. “This is the most enthusiastic response a poem has received since I’ve been at the
Journal
.”

I wondered why he did not give the letters to me before we went to Mr. Brady’s studio that morning. They could not have all arrived this afternoon. Did he not want his wife to see them? “Thank you.”

“Thank you for thinking of the
Journal
. I hope you’ll send more poems. Especially since I’ve asked that you hold your article for the
Tribune
.”

I saw Eliza’s surprise. “I won’t be writing the article about Mr. Poe and his wife,” I explained.

“Oh no,” said Eliza. “I was really looking forward to that.”

“Mrs. Osgood’s talents might be better spent on her poetry,” said Mr. Poe. He picked up the kitten. “I believe I know this cat.”

“You’ve heard what the children named her,” said Mr. Bartlett. “ ‘Poe.’ ”

He smiled. “She’s an improvement on the original.”

Eliza was frowning. “Have you told Miss Fuller, Fanny? I can’t imagine that she took this lightly.”

“I will write to her this week,” I said.

Mr. Poe’s tone became more formal. “Mrs. Osgood, I would like to offer you an advance for further poems, to offset the income you will be losing from not writing your article.”

“Perhaps, Mr. Poe,” said Mr. Bartlett, “you should ask her husband.”

My flesh prickled with offense. “He need not ask Samuel. Samuel would not care.”

Mr. Poe put down the kitten. “I was under the impression that Mrs. Osgood makes her own decisions.”

Mr. Bartlett’s golden brow knotted in disagreement. “I would hope that she would consult her husband on business as well as personal matters. She is a married woman, you know.”