Mrs. Poe (8 page)

“Shouldn’t you get her out into the air?” I asked helplessly.

“Virginia!” Mrs. Clemm bleated, spilling the medicine on her spoon. “Breathe! Breathe!”

Mrs. Poe convulsed in silent spasms, until at last, mercifully, she stopped. Mr. Poe held her, his face tight with fear.

Mrs. Poe smiled weakly as she leaned against her husband. “Sorry,” she whispered to me.

My gaze went to the handkerchief, which had fallen from her hand. In its center was a coin of liquid crimson.

My skin tingled with fear. “I should go now and let you rest,” I said.

“No,” she whispered. She pulled away from Mr. Poe as her mother draped her own black shawl over her. “Please. Stay.”

I laid my hand on her arm. “I will come back at another time.”

“Promise?”

“Yes. Of course.”

Reluctantly, Mrs. Clemm moved the table to release me from the sofa. After a tearful good-bye, Mrs. Poe sank against the sofa and watched as Mr. Poe helped me with my cloak.

He followed me outside and shut the door behind him.

“Thank you for coming,” he said quietly.

“It was my pleasure,” I said.

“You cannot know what this means to my wife.”

I felt a rush of sympathy for the man. His fragile young wife seemed so helpless and ill. Again I wondered why a person of his means did not take her to a more suitable clime to heal her sickened
lungs, when he so obviously doted on her. I was beginning to understand that Mr. Poe might not be so wealthy after all.

“I was glad to do so. I hope your wife gets better soon.”

His silence told more of his worry than could words.

The wind tossed his hair, shining black in the weak March sun. I became conscious of how handsome he was and how noble in his restraint. He was as buttoned-up as his frock coat, as if he felt that all who depended on him would fall apart should he relax for one moment.

“Thank you again for the coffee.”

“May I see you safely to a cab?” he said.

“You are hardly dressed warmly enough for the cold. At any rate, I walked. It’s not so far.” I would not mention that I did not want to waste money on a hackney.

“I would like a little air. Do you mind if I accompany you for a ways?”

“Doesn’t Mrs. Poe need you?”

He kept any emotion from his face. “She is probably asleep by now. Her mother will watch her.”

We walked silently along the pavement, the soggy flotsam left by the melted snow oozing under our feet. I wondered how long Mrs. Poe had been suffering with bronchitis, or if she was consumptive and that was why she had not borne the children she so fervently wished for.

A woman swathed in veils rounded the corner and commenced in our direction. I tried to see her face when she passed us but she was so heavily covered that it was impossible to get a measure of her. I turned to see her hurry past Mr. Poe’s home and toward the building beyond, where I had seen the other shrouded figure enter earlier.

“Is there a nunnery on your street?”

“Nunnery?” He turned to see what I was watching. “No. Not a nunnery.”

He offered no further explanation as we strolled on. “What are you working on now?” he asked.

“Not much.”
Except on projects meant to siphon from your glory.
I could feel my face radiating with shame. “How is your book coming along on—what was it—the spiritual universe?”

He glanced at me. “You remembered.”

“Of course.”

He returned his gaze forward. “Unfortunately, I’ve had to put it aside for something that might actually sell.”

I gave him a look of sympathy. “Something frightening?”

“There is nothing more frightening than cold reality. But readers don’t want that, do they?” He allowed me a rueful smile. “What do you think I should write about?”

“I needn’t tell you. You are the most popular writer in New York.”

“Do you think so?” He scanned my face as if to detect any insincerity.

“ ‘The Raven’ is on everyone’s lips. My friend Eliza heard ‘never-more’ worked into a scene in a play at the Castle Garden Theatre. The little girls jumping rope in my neighborhood were chanting it. I have listened to ladies gush about meeting The Raven, as if you and your poem were the same. How does it feel to suddenly be adored by thousands of readers?”

He grimaced. “To be truthful, Mrs. Osgood, I have striven my whole life to be famous. Oddly enough, now that I have had some measure of success, I don’t feel any more at ease. In fact, if anything, I feel less so. It is as if I am standing on the brink of a precipice, looking into the abyss.”

When I saw that he was serious, I said, “Maybe you should take some time to enjoy your fame. You said you are working sixteen-hour days. You must be exhausted.”

“Journals don’t put themselves together nor do books write themselves.”

“Maybe you could hire someone to take over some of your editorial work.”

“If I’m ever to run a journal of my own, I must know the business from the inside out.”

“Is that what you are working toward, having your own journal?”

“Yes. That is one of my goals.” He smiled slightly. “You have caught me out.”

I thought of my own goal of establishing my literary reputation, yet it was important to me to be a good mother as well. “There are so
many ways in which our hours can be claimed each day. What a shame that we only have one life.”

“Do we, Mrs. Osgood?”

I saw that he was serious. “Do you think we have another chance?”

“At this never-ending and mournful remembrance? No. Our maker would not be so cruel.”

“Then what do you suggest that we have to look forward to?”

“You and I are poets, Mrs. Osgood.
Our job is to raise questions, not to answer them.”

I sent him a silent thanks for thinking of me as an equal.

Just then he grasped my arm. From the open door of a saloon reeled a man with his greasy hair falling in his face, shouts and laughter trailing after him. As we waited for him to lurch from our path, I looked down at Mr. Poe’s hand. He met my eyes.

Time strangely and sharply suspended. We were gazing at each other guardedly, as if something within us was making a connection that we ourselves feared, when Mrs. Clemm came bustling down the sidewalk, her bonnet askew and her shawl riding slipshod over her shoulders. “Eddie! Eddie! Come quick. It’s Virginia.”

His hand trailed from my arm.

I watched them go, he upright and polished, even at a run, she shambling and flyaway. Long after they’d gone, I could feel his touch upon me. I hoped that his fragile young wife would be well even as a silky voice whispered,
I wish he were mine
.

•  •  •

I went up to the Historical Society Library in Washington Square on the way home. My association with Mr. Poe had the exhilarating effect of making me want to write. Maybe I could support myself and my family, if I only applied myself harder. With this in mind, I strolled through the gallery, peering at the portraits for inspiration as gentlemen conversed quietly around me. A poem about Time drifted into my mind, but like so many poems and stories that shine like gems in one’s imagination, once I found paper and pencil and sat down to write, it had turned to dust.

Frustrated, I scratched out the inane lines that I’d produced, then bent my imagination toward creating a dark tale to sell to Mr.
Morris. Strangely, Mrs. Poe sidled into my mind. As I stared at the writing table, I saw her as an angel of darkness who’d come to earth in the form of a fair young woman. She charmed her admirers with her sweetness and innocence, lulling them into complacency, only to swoop in and—

And what? Snap their necks? I laid down my pen. Not even Mr. Morris would wish to print such rubbish. Where had I gotten such an idea? Shuddering at my perversity, I packed up my reticule and left immediately.

Eliza was sewing in the downstairs family room when I returned. She greeted me with an inquiring smile. One would never guess that a desperate sadness lurked just below her cheerful blue eyes, that she was still grieving for her two-year-old son, lost to scarlet fever not yet three years ago, and for a seven-year-old daughter who had fallen to diphtheria. She clung to her surviving children, a nine-year-old girl, Anna, and the two boys, with a quiet fierceness made more heartbreaking by her attempts to hide it.

“Mary took the children to the park.” She tugged on her thread. “I hope you don’t mind.”

I removed my hat. “Thank you. Truly, I don’t know what I would do without you.”

“Never mind that. How was Mr. Poe?”

“In truth, very pleasant.”

She laughed. “Poe?”

“Surprisingly, yes.”

“We are talking about the man who regularly bludgeons Longfellow?”

“The same. But he didn’t cudgel anyone today. He was actually almost courtly.” I thought a moment. “Especially once we left his home.”

She raised her eyebrows.

I laid my hat on a table and sat. “It’s not like that. He’s very devoted to his wife. I think she causes him a great deal of worry. She’s really very sick.”

“He wouldn’t be the first man to turn away from his obligations.”

I gave a rueful laugh. “No, Samuel has already charted that territory.”

She stopped sewing. “I’m sorry, Fanny. I didn’t mean to imply that.”

“No harm done. We both know what Samuel is.”

She sighed. From behind the closed door to the kitchen came the clink of crockery as the cook, Bridget, prepared for dinner.

“What was Mrs. Poe like?” asked Eliza. “Beyond her illness.”

I took up my own basket of mending. “I can’t say exactly.”

She dipped her needle into the cloth. “What do you mean? What does she seem like? Sweet? Sharp?”

“Both, oddly enough. But more of the former, I would say. I think she means well.”

She plucked the needle out the other side. “That’s a strange thing to say.”

I absentmindedly picked at one of Vinnie’s stockings. “She was very hard to fathom even though she talked a great deal. To tell you the truth, she rather disconcerted me.”

“So you don’t like her—”

“That’s not it.”

“—but you do like the husband and he evidently likes you.”

“I did not say that!”

“He invited you to his house.”

“At his wife’s request.”

“And you talked to him alone.”

I put my finger through a hole in the heel. “Only for a moment. He walked me partway home.”

I could feel Eliza’s affectionate look of concern before she returned to her sewing.

As if taking a precious jewel from its hiding place, I replayed my conversation with Mr. Poe in my mind. I was gleaning his words for all possible warmth—and finding, to my great wonder, much—when Eliza spoke up.

“Fanny, be careful. You are vulnerable now, what with the wound from Samuel’s leaving so fresh.”

I laughed. “Mr. Poe is in love with his wife. You are making something from nothing.”

“Perhaps I am.” She sewed silently. After a moment, she said, “Did I tell you who left his calling card today? The Reverend Mr. Griswold.”

“I am glad that I was out.”

She laughed. “Fanny!”

“I’m sorry. That sounded rude. He just—Do you find that there’s something a little off-putting about him?”

“I don’t know him. But maybe you ought to. He could be very important to your writing—Russell says that he has everyone’s ear in publishing.” She tugged at her needle. “It is possible that he came here for Russell.”

“
Please
let that be the case.”

She chuckled, then bit her thread, the repair having been made. And so the subject of Mr. Poe was equally sewn shut, at least for the afternoon.

Eight

Saturday came, and with it another literary soiree at Miss Lynch’s house. For reasons I refused to acknowledge, I dressed with utmost care. It struck me as Eliza’s maid Mary buttoned up the back of my frock that Miss Fiske and the other rich young ladies would be taking pains to look less rich in order to fit in with the modest tone Miss Lynch set, while those less wealthy would be mustering all their forces to give the appearance of having money. How Samuel would have scoffed at Miss Lynch’s insistence on moderation, especially had he learned that she and her mother, with whom she lived, were actually quite well-off. It infuriated him when those who had money would not flaunt it. He thought them dishonest. Only the rich, he said not a little bitterly, can afford to act like income does not matter. I wondered if he would ever return to New York. He was missing the opportunity to fish in this new pool of wealthy beauties while mocking their intellectual pretensions. Whoever had hooked him now must have pots of gold to be keeping him away for so long. Or maybe he just cared that little about his children and me.

Vinnie stroked the shiny satin of my skirt as Mary arranged my low-cut neckline around my shoulders. “You look pretty, Mamma. You’re going to be the prettiest lady there.”

She did not know of Mrs. Butler, whose beauty was renowned on both sides of the Atlantic, nor of Miss Lynch, with her kittenish pink-and-white sweetness.

“I hardly think so, dear, but thank you. Thank you, Mary,” I said when she’d finished.

“You do look nice, ma’am.”

I smiled at Mary, whose plain dress could not hide her own bright
beauty. With large dark blue eyes accentuated by a beauty mark below the left one, and the red cheeks and mouth and dark hair of the Black Irish, she was as breathtaking as the green countryside from which she’d come. Some man would claim her soon and Eliza would be out a competent children’s nurse.

Ellen, sitting on my bed, said, “I wish Papa could see you. Then he’d never go away.”

I stepped over and gathered her to me, furious at Samuel for hurting his daughters and, worse, for being so self-involved that he had no idea he was hurting them.

“I don’t think there is anything that you or I could have done to make him stay here, love. He’ll come back, as soon as he can. It has nothing to do with us.”