Boston Jane (6 page)

I would have given anything for him to have written that he missed
me
and not Mrs. Parker’s cherry pie. It was so disheartening. Even so, I faithfully wrote back that very day.

Christmas arrived and with it another letter from William. It was, without question, the best of gifts!

I held the slender pale green ribbon to my lips and smiled. If I had doubted that William returned my affections, I did so no longer. His most recent letter made his warm feelings clear.

William’s sweet letters sustained me through the hard months of winter and rainy days of spring when it seemed that everything I accomplished at Miss Hepplewhite’s disappointed Papa.

Like the day I won the embroidery contest.

It had been exciting beyond words. I had drawn top marks for my embroidery of a small violet on a pocket-handkerchief. I had even bested Sally Biddle, who had sewn a dove—a rather lopsided dove, in my opinion. Miss Hepplewhite declared that I had the neatest small stitch of any girl ever to attend the academy.

Her praise rang in my ears all the way home. I could hardly wait to tell Papa the good news.

He was sitting in his study reading a book and eating a piece of Mrs. Parker’s cherry pie when I rushed in the door.

“Papa, look,” I said, waving the prize handkerchief in the air. “I won! I won first prize!”

“Hmmph,” he said, sounding unimpressed. “I’ll be sure to have you stitch some flowers on the forehead of my next patient.”

Disappointment rushed through me. Didn’t he understand how important this was? I stomped my foot. “Papa!”

Papa sighed, his face gray. He was very tired of late, and I knew it was because of the yellow fever. Mothers and fathers had been banging on our door at all hours, bringing their sick children. Papa forbade me to come downstairs when patients called.

“There’s no vaccination for yellow fever, Janey. I don’t want you endangered.”

He had kept me trapped upstairs last year too, when smallpox had raged through the slums. And there
was
a vaccination for smallpox. His excuse then had been, “Janey, the vaccination is generally effective, but there have been cases reported of vaccinated persons getting the pox, and I don’t want you endangered.”

Papa looked at my face and softened. “Oh Janey,” he said, his voice catching. “I miss my little girl. What’s happened to you? Now all I hear is talk of pouring tea and fashion and embroidery. And the only book you ever read is that useless etiquette book!”

“But Papa—”

“Here,” he said in an encouraging voice. “Sit down and
talk
to me.” He held out his plate. “Have a piece of pie with your dear old pa. It’s Mrs. Parker’s cherry pie. Your favorite.”

“I can’t eat pie,” I said stiffly, putting my hand to the corset on my waist. While my waist was somewhat slimmer, I had a considerable way to go before I looked on the verge of fainting, as Miss Hepplewhite recommended.

“Why not?”

“Because I’m fat! I’m fat as a pig! And I’ll never have a waist as thin as Sally Biddle’s if I go around eating pie!” I shouted in frustration.

Papa smiled gently. “Janey,” he said. “My sweet Janey. You’re not fat. You’re lovely. You’re the picture of your beautiful mother.”

“Then my mother was fat!” I burst out.

Papa went white.

I turned and ran from the study.

“Janey!” he barked.

But I just closed my bedroom door and cried.

You can see why I came to depend on William’s encouraging words. He alone seemed to understand the importance of my education. And all my hard work was paying off. The proof of it arrived one warm May afternoon in a heavy, crisp envelope—an invitation to the Midsummer Gala at Cora Fletcher’s house. Mr. and Mrs. Fletcher’s Midsummer Gala was an annual event, and invitations were greatly coveted.

Mary and I spent all our time finding me the perfect dress and endlessly discussed how she would arrange my hair. She tried out different styles in the evenings. My favorite was a fashionable one that involved a lot of ringlet curls. I thought it was quite charming, if a little complicated.

“I think it’s lovely,” I said, patting the curls.

Mary just shook her head. “If ya want to look like a sheep.”

When the day of the gala arrived, the house was a hive of activity with Mrs. Parker and Mary almost as excited as I was.

“What’s all the fuss about?” Papa asked.

“Oh sir, our young miss is going to her first party!” Mrs. Parker said, beaming.

“Party?”

“I’ve been invited to Cora Fletcher’s Midsummer Gala!” I said in exasperation. “I told you
weeks
ago.”

“Cora who?”

“Cora
Fletcher
, Papa!”

“That Harry Fletcher’s girl?”

“Yes, Papa. The Fletchers are only one of the most important families in Philadelphia!”

“Harry Fletcher important?” he asked, rubbing his beard thoughtfully.

“Papa!”

He sighed wearily and looked at me standing there in my fancy evening dress. “You look lovely,” he said gruffly. “You’ll be the most beautiful girl there.”

When I arrived at the Fletcher house, the rooms were already full of impeccably dressed girls and handsome young men. I smoothed my pale green skirt self-consciously and checked my hair in the hall mirror.

“Hello, Jane,” Cora Fletcher said. “What a charming dress.”

“Thank you.” I smiled nervously. “You have a lovely house.”

She shrugged. “I suppose so.”

I followed her into the parlor, where a group of girls were in rapt conversation. I felt a moment’s anxiety. But, remembering Miss Hepplewhite’s advice on such situations, I took a deep breath, pasted on a winning smile, and took a step toward them. Almost immediately I felt a tap on my shoulder.

“Would you like some punch, Jane?” Sally Biddle asked, her eyes mild, a cup in her hands.

“That would be lovely,” I said, surprised but pleased, taking the cup.

Sally Biddle peered across the room. “I do believe I see Horace Fink.”

And as she brushed past me I felt her arm shove my elbow
hard. The glass tipped and punch soaked the bosom of my dress and dripped down my skirts.

“Oh dear! What a mess,” Cora Fletcher said, shaking her head.

The other girls eyed me with pity.

From across the room I saw Sally Biddle’s grin.

The next morning the letter arrived that would change my life forever. And not a moment too soon. I had not gone to school as my eyes were puffy and swollen from crying all night.

The letter shook in my hand. William wanted to marry me? Joy rushed through me. Being his wife was the answer to all my dreams. And after last evening, I knew that there was nothing for me here in Philadelphia. Sally Biddle would always be there, waiting to ruin my happiness.

I ran to Papa’s study and burst in without even knocking.

Papa looked up and rubbed his eyes. He took a small bottle of medicine and drank from it.

“Not green again,” he said, eyeing my dress and rubbing his lips. “Did you make every dress out of the same god-awful bolt of fabric? I never see you in any other color.”

I was determined not to lose my temper. “William says that green suits me.”

Papa snorted. “If you like the color of bile.”

I refused to dignify that remark with a response.

“Papa, look,” I said urgently, holding out the letter.

Papa stared at the letter for a long time. When he looked up there was a shuttered expression on his face.

“No,” he said.

“But Papa—”

“You’re too young to be married.”

“I’m fifteen!”

He slammed his fist on his desk, upsetting the little bottle.

“No daughter of mine is going out to the godforsaken frontier! There’s cholera on the trail. You’ll die before you even get there!”

“Then I shall take a ship!”

“You will not. You will stay here.”

“But I love him!”

The room went silent.

Papa opened his mouth to speak, but all that came out was a cough. Soon he was coughing so hard that he was fighting for air, his whole body shaking. I rushed around the desk to help him.

“Papa!”

He coughed into his handkerchief and then pushed me away, his eyes watery and red.

“Don’t you have school today?” he asked harshly, a bleak expression on his face. He turned his back on me and stared out the window.

Miss Hepplewhite had said that a young lady might employ tears to further her goals, but tears had little effect on my iron-willed papa.

Papa just shook his head and handed me a handkerchief.

“Janey,” he said, “you are transfixed with William for the wrong reasons. There’s nothing for you out on that frontier. It’s dangerous. There are plenty of eligible young bachelors right here in Philadelphia. There’s no call to follow one out west, especially one with no sense.”

I bristled. “You’re mistaken! William is the finest man with whom I have ever been acquainted.”

“What kind of man throws away an education to chop down trees?” Papa demanded fiercely. “William has chosen a hard and dangerous and lonely life by settling on the frontier, a life that I don’t want my only daughter to share.”

“I’d rather be dead than be without William!” I said, my voice rising to a pitch.

“Janey,” Papa said in a weary voice. “You are being very foolish now.”

The house was in an uproar. Everyone had an opinion about the situation.

“Oh miss, it’ll break the doctor’s heart if you go away,” Mrs. Parker said, sounding miserable.

Even Mary required convincing.

I sat at the dressing table as Mary brushed my hair with long, smooth strokes. While I had acquaintances at school, Mary was the one to whom I most often told my troubles. She was sweet and wise, and I found her company a great comfort. Not to mention she was the only one who could do anything with my hair.

“Papa is the most stubborn man in all of Philadelphia,” I said, staring hard at my reflection in the mirror.

“Well, ya have the most stubborn hair in all of Philadelphia,” Mary said. “It must come from somewhere.”

I would not be humored out of my mood. “Papa understands nothing. Does he want me to end up a spinster? Can’t he see how wonderful William is?”