The Whale (24 page)

Jeanie Field walked purposefully along Pearl Street in Manhattan, searching the doorways and windows for the Harper & Brothers sign. The high, cool October sun shone pleasantly between redbrick buildings, and she enjoyed the rustling bustle of her petticoats beneath her new scarlet-and-black striped dress—but she had already passed the block to which she had been directed. She stopped momentarily to gaze up and down the street, at the passing horses and carriages and the brusque, bewhiskered gentlemen rushing by on errands of commerce. It was a dreary part of town, devoted to business. She walked on.

Beyond the curve at Wall Street, near the East River wharf, she spied a bearded, redheaded man holding a sheaf of papers before him, reading intently as he walked. His floppy, wide-brimmed hat partially obscured his face, but he had the unmistakable rolling gait of a sailor. Jeanie stole up behind and poked him in both sides with her index fingers. “Herman!”

Melville took a tremendous hopping step. He lost his papers for an instant, clutching them against his chest at the last possible moment before they scattered away. He unleashed a blue streak that caused even grown men around him to protest.

“I knew it was you!”

“Miss Field,” he said dismissively, then immediately turned and strode away, shuffling his papers back into order.

Jeanie rushed to catch up. “And a very great pleasure it is to see
you, as well.” She put her arm through his and slowed him down. “Your brother Allan said I might find you here.”

“And what business did you have to call on him?”

“There's no need to be surly. I'm sorry I startled you.”

“No, you aren't. You intended to.”

“Selling your grand whaling adventure, then?”

“On the contrary, I have sold a pair of English copyrights for a crust of bread.”

“Whatever do you mean?”

Herman steered them east on Gouverneur Lane, toward the water. He waved the papers at Jeanie, but their fluttering permitted no close inspection. “
Typee
.
Omoo
,” he said.

“Yes?”

“I have assigned their English copyrights to John Murray in London.”

Jeanie puzzled over this. “I'm afraid I don't understand.”

“They have been pirated so many times in England that I have seen neither pound nor penny from them in five years, so I have sold the English copyright to Murray. Since the Harper brothers are famous pirates themselves, I thought they would like to know that I have joined Murray on the side of the law, so I have delivered a copy of the agreements to them—a kind of shot across the bow.”

“But even Dudley says that no one pays any attention to copyrights. They have no value whatsoever.”

“They have no value
because
no one pays attention to them.”

Jeanie yanked Herman to a stop. “Are you saying that you don't own the rights to your own works anymore? Are you sure this Murray is not just taking advantage of you?”

Herman took a deep breath. “Miss Field, how do my copyrights concern you?”

“I love your books, Herman. It matters to me what happens to them.”

Herman looked into her speckled gray eyes and appraised her open, pretty young face. She does love my books, he thought. As nettlesome as her attentions had been, Herman saw that her admiration truly sprang from his writing; and he suddenly recognized that, for a girl who could not escape New England herself, his early books might seem like a passage to freedom. “I am afraid you do not understand the problem,” he said, softening. “By giving Murray the copyright, I am allowing him standing in the English courts to sue on my behalf. He is enjoining George Routledge—who has sold thousands of copies of
Typee
and
Omoo
without paying me—to stop selling my books illegally. And if Murray sells some in the future himself, legally, he will at least send me a penny or two.”

“A penny or two does not seem enough to feed a new baby.”

“Thank you for pointing that out.” Herman pulled his arm away and walked on toward the water. “Who told you?”

“Mrs. Morewood. It's no secret that Mrs. Melville has given you another son, and congratulations! What is the matter with you?”

“You seem to know all the best sources for gossip. Does Mrs. Morewood also believe that you and I are having an affair?”

“On the contrary, I have invented one for you and Mrs. Morewood. Don't be surprised if Dr. Holmes pays you another visit and insists that you stop seeing her.”

Melville stared at her in disbelief. “You would make a good sea captain, Miss Field. Your whims are incomprehensible, you set sail in whatever direction you please no matter the weather, and it is impossible to disobey you.”

“You do, at every turn. But let us talk about something serious for a moment.”

“I will not move to New Lebanon with you.”

“No, really serious: how does this copyright situation affect your whaling adventure? I saw Mr. Duyckinck last week and he said your new novel would be in stores any day now.”

“So it will, and who knows what will happen, in terms of the copyright. The first three months after its release will be critical—that's about how long it takes for publishing houses to begin printing illegal versions—but no one will bother to pirate the book if the legitimate editions fail to sell.”

“I know it will be a success, Herman. I can't wait to read it myself, and all of my friends are excited to have it.”

“How many friends do you have?”

They arrived at the wharf and turned north. The water of the East River was steel gray, and the wind blew it into choppy little waves. Ahead, on a pier enclosed by a white wooden fence, men were rolling barrels off a ship.

“You might at least be a little kind to me,” said Jeanie. “Surely you know how unpleasant it feels to try to impress someone you love and yet still suffer his disapprobation.”

Herman looked heavenward. In his mind's eye, he saw Hawthorne's angry face. “Yes, you're right. I apologize, Miss Field.”

She smiled and playfully caressed Herman's cheek. “Thank you.”

He led Jeanie down the pier, and they half sat against the wooden crossbeams of the fence. They listened to the chatter of the dockworkers and the scraping and thumping of wood against wood as the men transferred cargo to land; and they stared across the harbor at the ugly river, and beyond, at the low white clouds streaking the sky over Brooklyn.

“What have you named your son?” Jeanie asked.

“We have not yet decided. Lizzie believed that the child would
be a girl, which she wanted to call Hope. Now that it's a boy . . . well, Hope is hardly a proper name for a boy.”

“Hopeless might do, though, and seems appropriate. Hopeless Melville. It has a masculine ring to it.” Herman could have thrown her into the river. “Tell me, truthfully,” she said, “what darkens my dear Herman's brow? Debt only? Or something truly troublesome?”

He wondered how it had come to pass that his only confidant on earth was an impudent girl. “The problem is Hawthorne, of course. Something has happened. A disaster. I wonder now if he will even read my book.”

Jeanie leaned into him and put her hand on his back. “Are you going to Catharine Sedgwick's party?”

“What party is that?”

“Hawthorne's going-away party.”

The look on Herman's face told Jeanie all she needed to know about the state of affairs between Hawthorne and Melville.

“Where is Hawthorne going?”

“He is moving to West Newton. He is breaking his lease with the Tappans.”

Herman swooned. “Why?” He nearly let the contracts he was holding fly to the wind.

“I have heard several reasons. Eliza Fields says there was a dispute with the Tappans about fruit picking, but James says it was because their friend Mrs. Kemble is letting them stay at her house in West Newton for almost nothing. My brother says it's because the cottage in Lenox is too small, now that they have a third child. Dr. Holmes says it was because Hawthorne hates the weather in the Berkshires, and the climate has made his wife more sickly. In fact, there seem to be a thousand reasons.”

Yes, Herman thought, a thousand conjectured reasons and not
one of them true, except the one that Hawthorne couldn't tell. “When is he leaving?”

“I don't know. The party is on a Tuesday, oddly enough—Tuesday after next. Why don't you go, and you can ask him yourself?”

He felt as if he would vomit into the river. Hawthorne leaving, and without a word to him? Had he done something so unforgivable? It was too much to bear; and yet, what choice did he have but to bear it? Could he risk further disaster by going to Miss Sedgwick's party and trying to force Hawthorne to speak to him? To what end?

He looked up and down the river at the ships on the wharf and wondered if he could just sail away, as he had done before—sign aboard a whaler and disappear for four years, or forever. Jump ship on the Marquesas Islands again. Find a job as a postal clerk in Honolulu. Build a house in Melbourne and never come back.

“How long will you be in Manhattan?” Jeanie asked.

“I'm leaving for Pittsfield on the afternoon train.”

“May I call on you there? I will be splitting time between Dudley's house in Stockbridge and the Fourier phalanx in New Lebanon for two weeks starting tomorrow, so I will have many occasions to pass through Pittsfield.”

“If you call on me, please do so properly. Announce your visit and come with an escort. Don't just show up in the middle of the night.”

“Perhaps you could escort me to Mr. Hawthorne's farewell party.”

Herman scoffed. “I believe you are the only person alive with less sense of propriety than I have. No, you may not call on me.” And he stalked off down the river.

Catharine Sedgwick's grand manor house lorded over Lenox from a hill at a little remove from the village. It could have materialized directly from
The House of the Seven Gables
, so imposing did it seem compared with the houses below it. It lacked only the time-eaten decay of Hawthorne's moldering imagination: its three stories were freshly painted a fetching bright coral with black trim; diamond-shaped white lattices beautified the ledges and window frames. Quaint figures of angels—stamped in glittering plaster—ornamented its whole visible exterior; and copies of Renaissance sculptures beckoned visitors up the gravel path from the street. To the rear of the house, a white, vine-entangled gazebo commanded a view of twenty miles of valley, all the way to the Taghkanic Mountains.

In addition to being an outspoken abolitionist and suffragist, Catharine Sedgwick was the most accomplished American writer living in the Berkshires, having published ten well-received novels, whose sentimental plots captured readers' imaginations and whose sympathetic portrayals of women stirred debate in parlors and lecture halls. Despite having had many suitors, she remained unmarried at age sixty-one and advocated that no woman should marry if she were not inclined to—a controversial position. She shared her home with her brother, Charles, who was a lawyer, and their elderly mother.

Sophia Hawthorne had read all of Catharine's novels and occasionally took tea with Miss Sedgwick and her brother; but Nathaniel had always found reasons to miss these friendly get-togethers. In fact,
all of Miss Sedgwick's attempts to draw Hawthorne out of the cocoon of his lakeside cottage—church outings, picnics, ice cream socials, and the like—had met with polite denials and evasions. However, even a recluse like Hawthorne could not, with any propriety, resist tonight's invitation to her house: in addition to honoring Hawthorne himself with a “
bon voyage
and
bonne chance
” on the occasion of his departure from the Berkshires, Miss Sedgwick's party would also introduce the prolific English novelist G.P.R. James and his wife to local society. James had recently moved from London to Stockbridge, but his prodigious literary output had preceded him to America by decades—he had published over one hundred historical novels and romances—and his reputation immediately cast a long shadow over Berkshire literary society. It would be a grand party, and despite the chill in the air, Catharine and Charles waited on their front porch to welcome each of their guests personally.

The Melvilles were first to arrive. Their wagon rattled up to the Sedgwicks' walk, banging and bumping—Herman, as usual, drove helter-skelter, and he yanked the horses to a halt so abruptly that Maria, Augusta, and Helen—bundled into beaver muffs in the back of the wagon—toppled forward into a pile. They disentangled themselves and climbed out of the wagon, grumbling and scolding Herman, who paid no attention. They walked up the front path, rubbing their arms and necks, while Herman hung back to give the horses oat bags and tie their reins.

Since Herman's stormy visit to Hawthorne's cottage, he had left the ordinary world behind; he wandered through dreadful emotional labyrinths of such awful complexity that he could no longer picture a way out, and his bloodshot eyes communicated perpetual shock and horror to everyone around him, no matter how banal the subjects of his conversation. Hieronymus Bosch grotesques populated his imagination. His heart thumped wildly day and night. His bowels churned.
His sleep was so near waking that he was no longer sure where reality ended and dreams began. In this heightened state, he walked up the path to the Sedgwicks' front porch, wearing the disguise of his own body and acting the part of Herman Melville. His mother and sisters had already disappeared into the house.

Catharine Sedgwick wore a full-length blue cape and peacock-feather hat. Charles wore an expensive but nondescript tan suit. “Miss Sedgwick,” said Herman, gallantly taking Catharine's white-gloved hand and kissing it, as Herman Melville might do. It worked! Despite his hollow madness, Miss Sedgwick took him for Herman Melville and introduced him to her brother as such. “Welcome, Mr. Melville,” Charles said. Herman shook Charles's hand and made a proper half bow. Charles then explained that their mother did not always recognize everyone by sight any longer and might greet him with incomprehension, so he should not take it amiss if she introduced herself as if for the first time. “She is very old and also nearly deaf, Mr. Melville, so please speak loudly, so that she hears what you are saying.”

“Not to worry.” Herman winked. “In my family, we are used to compensating for debilitating infirmities of all kinds.” He passed with affected jauntiness into the parlor, where he found his mother and sisters shouting into the ear trumpet of old Mrs. Sedgwick, a frail, stooped woman so small and bent—and dressed in such abundant red, green, and white lace—that she could have been an end table decorated for Christmas. When it was Herman's turn to introduce himself, he shouted, “Call me Ishmael.”

“What? Ishmael?”

“Mother,” Charles ran in to intervene, with a censuring look at Herman. “This is Mr. Herman Melville.”

“Oh, yes,” Mrs. Sedgwick cackled. “I've heard of you. You are the Man Who Lived Among the Cannibals.”

Herman wanted to spit into the old woman's trumpet. He yelled, “Does one ever stop living among cannibals, Mrs. Sedgwick?”

“Why, yes,” she answered. “But tell me, Mr. Melville, have you eaten people yourself?”

Charles began a stammering apology and tried to step between them, but Herman shouted, “Yes. Quite.”

“I have been wanting to know: what do people taste like?”

“Oyster pudding.”

Charles was aghast. Mrs. Sedgwick pondered Herman's answer for a moment before thrusting her finger into the air and shouting, “I knew it!” Then she teetered to the credenza and shakily poured herself a glass of port.

With a chary look, Charles said, “Is that really true, Mr. Melville?”

“Of course not.”

“Then why did you say so?”

“To please your mother. Shall we serve ourselves?”

Charles scowled; but he rang a bell, and soon a servant came in and poured glasses of port all around.

Herman's mother took Charles by the arm and apologized—in a confidential tone that was still loud enough for everyone but old Mrs. Sedgwick to hear—for the fact that Lizzie could not come this evening. “My daughter-in-law's absence is no reflection on her feelings toward you or your family,” said Maria, implying by her tone that it somehow was. “She is still suffering from the effects of her recent childbirth.”

“I'm sorry to hear that,” said Charles, implying by his tone that he was not. He excused himself to the front porch, leaving the Melvilles alone with Mrs. Sedgwick, among the parlor's vast, puffy, salmon-colored sofas. They stood saying nothing for quite some time, until Mrs. Sedgwick sat down, and they all followed suit. Mrs. Sedgwick noisily tongued her port.

Herman looked at the massive crystal chandelier overhead, the crystal port glasses, the étagères crowded with expensive ceramic figurines, the bookshelves stuffed with leather volumes—all demonstrating clearly to him how abject his own home was. No amount of renovating or decorating could make Arrowhead's parlor truly grand, like this one—it would always strike its guests as a hodgepodge, a miscellany, a failure. He drank down his port.

A gang of chipper neighbors arrived, swinging mantles, doffing coats, and kissing the Sedgwicks on both cheeks. Catharine and Charles rounded the parlor introducing the new guests; and more servants appeared, bearing silver trays of wine, hard and soft cheeses, and bite-sized pâté sandwiches. Herman immediately tired of the affable who-what-where that ensued, though he took the opportunity to drink another glass of port and gobble half a round of Camembert; and he brooded, ever more apprehensively, on the prospect of Hawthorne's appearance.

Herman thought Hawthorne might simply refuse to speak to him; or, even worse, offer him meaningless small talk; or he might turn and flee. Whatever was about to happen, Herman feared it; and so he counted it something of a relief when Ellery Channing, the transcendentalist poet, arrived, wearing a fringed buckskin tunic, as if he were Davy Crockett.

Channing's black hair was pomaded up to a ridge at the top of his skull, from which a single heavily waxed lock curlicued down to his forehead. Herman detested Channing's poetry. He stood up and went to meet him by the credenza that held the liquor.

“Melville,” Channing said, shaking Herman's hand as if it were a competition. “I hear you have a new book coming out. Good work!”

“I will gladly sell you a copy,” said Herman. “Have you produced any poetry lately?”

“I thought you'd never ask.” Channing bounded over to the
fireplace, stepped up onto a hearthstone and shouted everyone into silence. “Ladies and gentlemen, I would fain interrupt your merriment, but Mr. Melville has asked me to recite my most recent poem, which I have just completed.” The guests applauded without enthusiasm. “I call this
The Restless Mind
.” He cleared his throat and recited with flamboyant gestures toward the packed balcony that appeared in his imagination.

By the bleak wild hill,

Or the deep lake still,

In the silent grain

On the upland plain,

I would that the unsparing Storm might rage,

And blot with gloom the fair day's sunny page.

The poem continued in this vein for three more stanzas, after which Channing made a deep bow, and the guests again clapped politely and immediately resumed their conversations. The poet rejoined Herman by the liquor. “What did you think, Melville?”

Herman said:

That bottle's wine

Will soon be mine,

The poet's verse

To blot and curse,

I've had my fill of doggerel—

Give me the rhymes of cask and still.

He took a deep bow, and then, to authenticate his satire, he poured himself another glass of port, which he drank immediately. Unconcerned, Channing held out an empty glass, which Herman grudgingly filled.

“They're printing it in next month's
Graham's
,” said Channing, “along with a daguerreotype of my face. Perhaps we'll see your name in a magazine again soon, Melville.”

James and Eliza Fields entered with Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Holmes quickly detached himself and joined Melville and Channing. Herman poured himself another glass of port.

“Go easy, Melville,” said Holmes. “Your cheeks are already flushed, and your eyes are bloodshot.”

“It's not from the wine, Doctor. Channing here has just recited a new poem, and, as you can see,” he waved his hand at the parlor, where everyone was chatting courteously in little groups, “the effect has been wildly stimulating. Have you any new rhymes today?”

Holmes cleared his throat and said, “I prithee by the soul of her that bore thee, pour me a ruby port and I'll adore thee.” Herman poured the doctor some port, and they clinked glasses. Channing left to try his luck with Eliza Fields.

Holmes held his glass up above his head and gazed at the chandelier through the wine. “Have you met this G.P.R. James fellow yet? The English scribbler?”

“He hasn't arrived.”

“I've just finished his
Castle of Ehrenstein
. Leaves me only a hundred books short of reading his entire list, and he has two new novels going through the presses in London as we speak. He'll be pushing ours right off the shelves.”

“He also has too many initials and too few names. What is this G.P.R. about?”

“Perhaps his parents were shy of vowels when he was born. Has Hawthorne arrived?”

At the mention of Hawthorne, Herman drank down his wine. He began to feel strangely taut instead of drunk. “Not yet. Both guests of honor are tardy.”

“Just like Hawthorne to be late for his own farewell party. Though, if there's one person who doesn't need a special farewell, it's Hawthorne.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Outside of hermits and convicts, he's the least sociable person I ever met. Every time you see him, it's a farewell party, since there's no guarantee you'll ever set eyes on the man again.”

John and Sarah Morewood arrived, hallooing and offering up a magnum of champagne, which old Mrs. Sedgwick insisted be popped immediately. As the cork flew across the room, Dudley and Jeanie Field walked in, and Jeanie snatched it neatly out of the air. She accepted the ovation of the guests with a puckish bow; then she held the cork up in one gloved hand and passed her other hand in front of it, making it vanish. Everyone applauded again and continued applauding as she made the cork reappear from her brother's left ear. Dudley flushed with embarrassment.

After procuring a glass of champagne, Jeanie made her way to Herman. “Mr. Melville,” she said. “Dr. Holmes. Have you left your wives at home this evening?”

Holmes grunted noncommittally. Herman said, “Mrs. Melville is ill.”

“How intriguing!” Jeanie put her hand on Herman's arm. Holmes tsk-tsked and shook his head no.

“No, Miss Field,” said Herman. “Mrs. Melville is
really
ill. She is still having a difficult time after the arrival of the baby.”

“Of course, of course, I'm so sorry to hear it.”

Holmes looked around the room for more suitable companions.

“Tell me,” Jeanie said, “have you decided on a name for the child yet?”

“Stanwix.”

Jeanie frowned. “Is that plural?”

Maria Melville, who had been eavesdropping from a nearby sofa, stood up and joined them. “It's a name of great honor, Miss Field,” she said. “Stanwix is the name of the fort that my father, Peter Gansevoort, saved from the British during the Revolutionary War. If not for my father, our side might have lost control of the Hudson River, to say nothing of the war itself!”