Mrs. Poe (6 page)

“Well?” asked Mr. Willis.

I wanted to tell them that I found Poe’s bird poem childish and strange. If I were ever able to figure out how to write a “shivery” work for Mr. Morris, let it have depth and something to say about the human heart and not just be a game with words.

But my husband had run off, and even if I did sue him for divorce, it would do me no good—he had no money to support me. I was in no position to turn up my nose at Mr. Edgar A. Poe and the recognition his backing might give me. Surely no harm could come from that.

“Tell him, please, that I admire his poem greatly.”

Five

Two weeks later, I was tucked beneath a thick buffalo robe, riding downtown in Miss Fuller’s carriage. I had been too nervous to enjoy the trip or to appreciate Miss Fuller’s carriage, pulled by a clopping bay. That Miss Fuller was the only woman in New York to support herself by writing, let alone to have enough leftover to buy her own buggy, mattered little to me at that moment. Why had I agreed to meet Poe? And why would he want to meet me? He had already made and broken an appointment the previous week. I had been relieved by the cancellation, only to become agitated once more when he set up a different date. As suddenly and inexplicably as he had championed my poetry at the New York Society Library, he could withdraw his support if I said something wrong. Who knew what triggered the man’s tomahawk?

Miss Fuller jerked on the reins. “Here we are.” She looked at me expectantly, as if I should climb out of her trim little gig without her.

“Shouldn’t we wait for the doormen to take your reins?” I asked.

“Take my reins? Oh—did you think I was coming with you? No, no, dear, I’m off to investigate a slum on Hester Street. You really thought I was coming with you? I only meant that I would take you here. I thought your husband would appreciate my escorting you since he is, as you say, out of town.”

“Would you rather I came with you to the slum?” I asked.

“And have you jilt Mr. Poe? I wouldn’t dare.” Miss Fuller steadied her horse, then waved me toward the hotel. “Go on. It will be good for your books.”

Reluctantly, I climbed out from under the heavy robe. I held my breath as the carriage rattled away.

I found myself on the sidewalk before the hotel, contemplating an immediate about-face up Broadway when I felt someone’s presence behind me. Before I could move, a man said, “Lord help the poor bears and beavers.”

I turned to find Mr. Poe, his black-lashed eyes trained upon the building before us. Without a hello he said, “Davy Crockett’s words, upon first seeing this pile.”

I hesitated. “Because of Mr. Astor’s fur trade?”

He continued as if I had not spoken. “But Crockett was mistaken. It wasn’t the bears and the beavers that made Astor’s fortune. It was the opium he bought from the Chinese.”

I looked at him in surprise. “Mr. Astor deals in opium?”

He kept his gaze upon the hotel. “Whenever you see this much wealth, assume that someone dirtied his hands. Fortunes don’t come to saints.”

“I’ve never thought of that.”

He gave me a sharp glance. “Really?”

I drew back, chastened.

“Mr. Astor prefers to be known for the slaughter of animals rather than for his association with opiates. I wonder why that is.” He lowered his sights to me. “Shall we enter, Mrs. Osgood?”

So he did recognize me. I preceded him inside, into the hot maw of the lobby. As we walked past impressive people dressed in beautiful clothes, I felt low and insignificant, a ne’er-do-well’s abandoned wife, although my gown was as fine as anyone’s. What a sham I was.

I stopped to face him. “Congratulations on the success of ‘The Raven.’ ”

He frowned as if insulted.

“People love it. I hear talk of it everywhere I go.”

“ ‘People’ have no taste. Don’t tell me that you think it’s a work of genius.”

Was this a trick? I scanned his dark-rimmed eyes for clues.

When I did not answer he said, “Thank you, Mrs. Osgood. You’re the first honest woman I have met in New York.” He shook his head. “It is my luck that I will become famous for that piece.”

Still not sure that I shouldn’t be gushing, I switched to safer ground. “May I ask what you are working on now?”

“A book on the material and spiritual universe.”

I laughed.

He watched me coolly.

“I’m sorry. I thought you were joking.”

“I never joke.”

“Of course not. Excuse me.”

“Although I wish I were. It will never sell.”

“Your work always sells,” I said lightly.

“Not any of my works with a true idea in them. People want to be titillated or frightened. They don’t want to think.”

I smiled hesitantly. What did he want with me?

“This is why I singled out your poems in my lecture,” he said. “They have real feeling in them, if one reads between the lines.”

I could not help but be disarmed. “Thank you. I find that the thoughts spoken between the lines are the most important parts of a poem or story.”

“As in life.”

I reluctantly met his intense gaze. “Yes.”

“I am particularly taken with your poem, ‘Lenore’:

So when Love poured through thy pure heart his lightning,

On thy pale cheek the soft rose-hues awoke—

So when wild Passion, that timid heart frightening,

Poisoned the treasure, it trembled and broke!

I swallowed my surprise. “You memorized it.”

An elegant couple drifted by, he in succulent wool and she in layers of costly lace. Mr. Poe frowned. “It spoke to me somehow, and not just because I had written a poem with the same title and had used the name in ‘The Raven.’ ”

“A coincidence.”

He stared at me.

I looked away. Why had Mr. Poe called this meeting? Surely he had better things to do than to raise the hopes of an unknown writer.

“You are probably wondering why I wished to meet you.”

I drew in a breath.

“Actually, it is on behalf of my wife.”

“Mrs. Poe?”

He frowned slightly at my unnecessary question. “She is a great reader. I have taught her all of the classics. I like to encourage her when she shows interest in good work, and your poems, Mrs. Osgood, delight her.”

I pictured the pretty woman-child I had seen at Miss Lynch’s conversazione. I wondered if it was my poems for adults or for children that she admired.

“Thank you for your kind words, Mr. Poe. I wish she were here so that I could thank her, too.”

His expression hardened. “She has had bronchitis. Her recovery has been long and difficult. There was no question of her going out today.”

“I am sorry to hear that.”

“The few times she has ventured beyond our home have only served to set her back.”

“I am truly very sorry.”

He glanced away, then glared as if I’d offended him. “You will not hear her complain. She’s a brave, good girl. If I could only take her to Jamaica or Bermuda or some such hot clime, I’m certain she would become well.”

Why did they not go, then? With his success, surely he had the money.

“I hope she gets well soon.”

His expression settled back into cool civility. “It is bold of me to ask—we are perfect strangers, and you have obligations to your husband and family—but might you come visit her someday? I know from looking into your eyes that you are a good person, and kind, and that your gentle association might help her.”

That was why he wished to meet with me? Ashamed of my disappointment, I exclaimed, “I should like very much to meet her! Might I have the pleasure of visiting her at your home?”

“Mrs. Osgood, you are too kind. Yes. Yes, we’d like that very much.”

“When would you like me to come?”

“At your convenience.”

“Would next week suit you?”

“Name your day. Any day. I will arrange my schedule around you.”

“Monday? In the afternoon?” I saved my morning hours for writing . . . writing, that is, what I hoped would be my imitation of his work.

He bowed, as stiffly formal as if in a royal court. “We would be so grateful.”

He gave me directions to his home on 154 Greenwich Street, then bowing again, left me in Astor’s parlor with all the frippery that bears and beavers and opium could buy.

Six

That Saturday, at Eliza’s insistence, I attended another of Miss Lynch’s conversaziones. The talk was provocative, as usual. In the orange gaslight amplified by the many mirrors upon the walls, Miss Fuller, wearing the beaded headband of an Iroquois maiden, regaled the assemblage with some the colorful expressions she had learned while visiting the poor families in the Bowery—“slang,” they called it. Men were “b’hoys”; women were “g’hals.” A friend was a “chum” or a “pal,” and to die was “to kick the bucket.” “Good-bye” was the perplexing “so long.”

Assuring us “chums” that he had no intention of “kicking the bucket,” Mr. Greeley next spoke about the state admitted to the Union the previous week. Florida, a malaria-ridden swamp to which the Seminoles clung, was a land, all agreed, that would never amount to much. Georgia plantation owners just wanted it for expansion for when their cotton fields went barren. The conversation then turned to slavery, which few in the gathering supported, but when Mrs. Butler began to relate the horrors she had seen on her husband’s plantation, the implied subject of her divorce raised its unsuitable head, provoking some chilly stares around the overheated room.

To keep the conversation civil, Miss Lynch had us break for cookies and tea. I offered my services to man the samovar, the subject of estrangement too close to me for comfort. I remained in my position behind the urn as the crowd reassembled in small knots with their refreshments. I was surprised when Miss Fuller motioned for me to join her and Mr. Greeley. Warily, I stepped over.

“I wonder if he’ll bring his wife,” Mr. Greeley was saying.

“I hope so,” said Miss Fuller. “They make such an interestingly odd pair. Frances, here, is going to their house next week.”

“You are!” exclaimed Mr. Greeley.

“You remember Mrs. Osgood?” she said.

“With the talented painter husband?” Mr. Greeley scanned the crowd. “Where is he? I don’t recall seeing him of late. He used to dash off sketches of the ladies as easily as buttoning his shoes.”

“He’s had a commission out of town.”

He looked at me more closely. “You’re going to Poe’s?”

I nodded, wondering if it had been a bad idea to tell Miss Fuller of the invitation.

“What’s your connection to him?”

“I don’t really have one.” I could not tell them that he’d memorized my poem. For reasons I did not fully understand, that recollection was too precious to share.

“That’s what Frances keeps claiming,” Miss Fuller said to Mr. Greeley.

“But I don’t.”

Mr. Greeley’s pliable features bent into a rubbery-lipped grin. “ ‘The lady doth protest too much, methinks.’ ”

“I have been trying to interview Mrs. Poe for weeks,” said Miss Fuller. “And Frances here sashays out of the Astor House with an invitation to their home.”

Mr. Greeley smiled. “Well, with a beautiful woman like Mrs. Osgood—”

Miss Fuller cut him off. “Do you realize on how many levels you offend?”

“Forgive me.” Mr. Greeley bowed to us both. “I only meant to compliment. Are you working for the
Herald
?” he asked me. “Because if you are, give me your feature and I’ll pay you double whatever they’re paying.”

“It’s to be purely a social visit,” I said, “to Mrs. Poe.”

Mr. Greeley grabbed my hand and rubbed my knuckles. “Let me rub off some of your magic. Poe won’t let anyone near his child-bride.”

“As you recall, he also praised Frances’s poems at his lecture at the Society Library,” Miss Fuller said, “the evening that he crucified Longfellow.”

Mr. Greeley winked. “And you don’t know the man at all.”

“I don’t,” I said.

He called over Mr. Brady, who was passing by with an empty cup of tea. “Did you know that this little lady is a friend of Poe?”

Mr. Brady put down his cup, took my hand in his own chemically stained ones, and gazed at me through his prismatic lenses. “I’ve been trying to get Poe to sit for a portrait since January. Tell me how to influence him.”

I laughed. “I have no idea.”

“Poe’s asked Mrs. Osgood to visit his wife,” said Mr. Greeley.

“You’re kidding. You’ll have to tell us what she’s like at home.”

Miss Fuller pushed up her headband as she peered toward the entrance. “Maybe Mr. Poe will delight us with her tonight.”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “She’s not well.”

My fellow conversationalists grew silent, waiting for me to continue. I found that their interest felt good.

“She’s had bronchitis,” I said.

“She did have a terrible cough when she was here last,” said Miss Fuller.

“Mr. Poe said that going out had set back her recovery,” I said.

“I could see that he was worried,” said Mr. Brady. “One cough and he whisked her right out of here.”

“I had wondered if it wasn’t because he was ashamed of her,” said Miss Fuller. When the others frowned, she said, “Well, she is just a child. Don’t tell me I am the only one who finds that it’s strange that he married his adolescent cousin.”

“She may have been thirteen when they married,” said Mr. Greeley, “but you told me yourself that they’ve been together ten years now. Show me a man who wouldn’t want a pretty twenty-three-year-old wife.”

“Mrs. Poe is well educated,” I found myself saying. “She’s familiar with all the classics.”

“Oh?” said Miss Fuller.