Louisa and the Country Bachelor : A Louisa May Alcott Mystery (9781101547564) (14 page)

“I'll see you all the way up to your mansion door,” agreed Llew willingly. “But I just arrived. Let's not talk of departure!”

At the word
mansion
Ida Tupper sat up straighter.

“Llew, my boy,” said Father, ignoring Sylvia, for she and he did not see eye-to-eye on many issues, female emancipation from the roles of wife and mother being one of them. “You have a new avocation?”

“I do, indeed. Geology, sir. It is all the rage in Clearwater, and there are more tavern brawls over the theories of Cuvier and Lyell than over actresses. Not that I brawl, of course,” he added, turning bright red.

“Undergroundology,” said Clarence Hampton, ceasing his pacing and sitting in a chair close to the tea table.

“Beg pardon?” said Llew.

“The new science will retain the name of undergroundology,” Mr. Hampton asserted, as he had earlier with me.

“Clarence, dear, how can you discuss something as boring as science when there is a lovely young lady present?” Mrs. Tupper said. Her hand was over Sylvia's in a gesture she intended as motherly but that served only to frighten my friend, who was staring at me, wide-eyed with dismay.

“You know the science, sir?” Llew asked, stepping away from Abba, who still had her arm about his waist, and moving closer to where Clarence sat.

“I do. It is my avocation as well.”

“And you follow the theories of Lyell, of course,” Llew said.

“I do not, sir. I am a Cuvierian,” Clarence replied hotly.

“I would have guessed you to be of English and German ancestry,” Father said, scratching his chin.

“Did you?” said Uncle Benjamin. “And all this time I thought his people were Swiss.” And Father and Uncle promptly began a separate conversation between themselves about the merits of various nations.

“A Cuvierian,” said Llew, frowning and taking a chair. “Then you believe in the Doctrine of Catastrophes?”

“Clarence, darling, wouldn't you like to take Miss Sylvia for a walk in the garden?” asked Mrs. Tupper.

“The Doctrine of Catastrophes?” I asked, interested in this new phrase and ignoring—so Sylvia might as well—Mrs. Tupper's suggestion.

Sylvia wrenched her hand from its determined captor and moved closer to the armrest on her side of the settee. “The Doctrine of Catastrophes sounds like one of my mother's moods,” she offered, reaching for another piece of date cake.

“Only a fool and an atheist would follow Lyell,” Clarence said.

We realized the two young men were responding only to each other, and other talk in the room ceased. All eyes turned to the two young men.

Llew again turned a bright red, this time with anger rather than embarrassment, and his fingers twitched. I knew the signs. I also knew that calling Llew an atheist was not a way to earn his friendship. Before deciding on medical studies, he had attended Harvard Divinity.

“What is this doctrine?” I asked.

Llew answered me. “The Doctrine of Catastrophes, Louisa, is a ridiculous theory that states that the mountains and gorges and rivers were formed by immediate divine intervention rather than the slower processes of nature, and that mass extinctions occurred overnight. George Cuvier was a misguided Frenchman who thought that science should be used to buoy our belief in the Bible.”

“And Charles Lyell was a drunken Scot who maintained that the world is no more than a mechanical toy. An atheist,” Mr. Hampton said in a loud and hostile tone. I wondered if we might perhaps have a brawl in Uncle's parlor. The two young men were leaning toward each other, separated by a nose length, all but growling.

“Gentlemen,” said Abba. Her voice was sweet and lovely, but could also be quite authoritative. “As much as I value intellectual discourse, I object to your tones. Be courteous.”

Llew and Clarence put distance between themselves, making self-conscious motions of straightening cravats and crossing legs, all the while glaring at each other over rattling teacups.

“By the by,” Ida said as she rose to leave. She looked at me. “I have had a letter from Mr. Tupper, Louisa. He is in Detroit, and has taken an order for a bell there. Actually, not a letter. A telegram, wasn't it, Clarence? You brought it in yourself. What was the name of that parish? Oh, my memory is so bad!”

“I am pleased that you have had word from him. Is your husband well?” I asked.

She smiled. “Very. I will pass along your regards when I write to him.”

 

 

“WHAT A VERY strange family,” said Llew when they had left.

“The brother is equally strange,” I said. “A confirmed invalid who never leaves the house, except to give instructions in croquet, it seems. Llew, dear,” I added, carrying the tea things into the pantry for washing up, “have you friends in Detroit? Is it so very far from Clearwater, where you have been living?”

“Have you a mind to visit in the autumn when I return? Nothing would give me greater pleasure,” he said, though I could see conflict in his face: desire to spend more time with his “sister” and also the worry that goes through the bachelor mind when it discovers a feminine visitor is to intrude on his masculine quarters. Desire won, and he smiled with delight, and took my hands in his.

“I have something more immediate in mind.” I took back my hands so that they could be better used rinsing out the teapot. “Could your friends discover what church or chapel in Detroit is currently being constructed or renovated? Which might require a new bell?”

Llew's smile turned to a lopsided grin. “I had forgotten how you love a mystery,” he said. “Remember when we tried to act out ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue'? You always cast me as the orangutan.”

“Because you were the strongest and needed to carry us about after you murdered us,” Anna said, laughing.

“I could send a telegram or two,” Llew said.

 

 

WE, ALL THE Alcotts and our two adopted siblings, Llew and Sylvia, sat under the stars that night.

The evening was mild and clear and smelled of new grass and other growing things. We lay on our backs on stable blankets and gazed upward. Nights in Walpole were very dark compared to Boston. The country sky was brilliant with pinpoints of light, and every once in a while, like a small streaking miracle, a shooting star would cross the heavens.

“That is Orion,” said Father, pointing up, his noble profile looking chiseled against the evening sky. “That ancient constellation has looked down upon many mastodons—when they were fierce animals, not bones and fossils. Perhaps there are no more mastodons simply because mankind killed them all in their erroneous desire to eat flesh,” he mused. We had been talking about geology and the search for fossils, and the mastodon skeleton that had been found in New Jersey.

“Much as the sperm whale will soon be harpooned to extinction because of our need for lamp oil,” he continued, sighing deeply. “Why use lamps when you can sit under the stars?”

“They are useful for reading by,” commented ever-practical Abba, who, even prone full-length on the ground, was busy at her knitting. The clacking of her needles sounded in time with the chirping crickets. “And for mending by. Go to bed, May. It is well past your bedtime.”

“Perhaps I will find my own mastodon. Good night, darlings,” said May, and her pretty blond head with its curls and snub nose disappeared into the cottage. The heavy wooden door slammed hard behind her.

“You work too hard, Abba,” said Father. “Must you spend so much time mending? And what could be read in books or journals that is not already contained in the heavens?”

I agreed that Mother worked much too hard, but Father, in his limited masculine thinking, did not reflect that if Abba did not perpetually mend his wardrobe, he would soon be in a state more natural than even he would condone.

As for reading lamps, I did not agree with him on that point at all. The stars were lovely, but even lovelier was curling up in my reading chair with a volume of Goethe or Shakespeare. And I couldn't help but reflect on a certain insincerity in his words, since he sat up late each night rereading Hesiod's
Works and Days
for agricultural information, although he refused all advice, even Hesiod's, and determined that the creator would provide all that the little seedlings needed. Nor did he believe in staking beans or planting lettuce in tidy rows. (I refrained from pointing out that if women took the same attitude to linen as he did to vegetables we would all be wearing stalks of hemp rather than shirts and shifts.)

Walpolians were as bemused by his gardening methods as his family, and I often caught Abba watching him in his patch and shaking her head in loving amusement.

“There is much we know of medicine that is not contained in the sky,” said Llew shyly, commenting on Father's critique of Abba's habit of journal reading. Llew had been silent during most of our stargazing, for he did not like to contradict Father, but he was also an honest boy who spoke his mind. “But speaking of extinction, what was that bit about Mr. Tupper at the end of Mrs. Tupper's visit? There seemed to be an undertone to that small talk.”

“Mr. Tupper seems not in evidence,” I said, “and has not been in evidence for many months now.”

“Ah.” He understood, now, the importance of those telegrams he had already sent off.

“It does seem a strange way to run a marriage,” spoke up Anna in the darkness. She sat directly in the middle of our gathering, leaning against Abba, with a plaid lap robe over her knees to keep the dew from her dress.

“Travelers often are away for months at a time,” said Father somewhat defensively. He himself traveled often, to give his conversations and lectures.

“When you travel, you write long letters every day, and this young man prefers infrequent picture cards and telegrams,” replied Abba, and though she spoke with some heat her knitting needles never paused. “When we were courting and you traveled, you wrote twice, sometimes thrice a day.”

Father cleared his throat. “I was writing to the most noble of women,” he said. “How could I forget that honor?”

“Perhaps the ill will between stepfather and son has encouraged the young husband to stay away,” suggested Llew.

“Why do you say that?” I asked, looking away from Orion and turning in Llew's direction. I felt the same, but wanted to hear Llew's reasoning.

“Did you see the look in his eyes when his mother mentioned her husband, and this telegram about bell orders? He's a shifty-eyed fellow. I don't like him.” Llew leaned up on his elbows. “And I smelled gin on his breath. I can't imagine he made for a comfortable home life between his mother and stepfather.”

At that moment, next door a door creaked open and a light appeared on the path in front of our cottage, a lamp carried by Ida Tupper's maid. As she approached, the stars overhead dimmed from the intrusion of harpooned-sperm-whale oil, and Father rose to his feet, muttering.

“Mrs. Tupper has sent a message,” the girl announced. “I am to deliver it immediately. It won't wait for breakfast.” Obviously Ida Tupper thought it very important. She had sent the child out in the night with her curling papers in her hair.

“Well, we'd better read it, then,” said Abba, rising somewhat stiffly from her place on the blankets and accepting the note. “But you go home, child, to your rest.” The little maid giggled and ran off. There, too, was evidence of something amiss in the household; a wise mother should not employ a child so young, so pretty, when her bachelor son is at home, and that son has a reputation.

“The young people are invited to a picnic,” Abba said, reading. “There is no mention of a chaperon. It seems Mrs. Tupper herself will not attend.”

“Abba, Anna is already twenty-four,” I said. “I am twenty-two.”

She looked at us somewhat wistfully. “Of course.” She sighed. “I forget sometimes how grown-up my ‘Golden Brood' has become.”

“When is it?” Llew and Lizzie asked simultaneously.

“In three days, if the sun shines. Mrs. Tupper writes she will pack a hamper for you, and hire a mule to carry it. She asks if Miss Sylvia Shattuck prefers her chicken fried or boiled. Clarence is to bring his banjo and songbook.”

“Banjo?” said Sylvia. “Oh, my.” We laughed.

“Did someone mention frying a chicken?” asked Father, who was still studying the night sky. “How very unkind. And a mule. These young people have strong backs of their own.”

“Indicate that the mule will not be required; you can each carry a hamper. I agree with your father on that.” Abba folded the note and gave it to me.

Mrs. Tupper's intrusive note ended the magical night under the stars. We began to rise, yawning and stretching, and made our way back into the house, to our beds. I found a wooden cot in the kitchen pantry, dusted it off, and spread fresh linen and blankets over it for Llew, who was to bunk down in the little parlor.

“Like when I was a child and pretended I was camping in your parlor,” he said happily as I helped him arrange the blankets over the cot. “Perhaps we should hang a sheet over this for my tent, and tell ghost stories?”

I hugged him close. Llew, my childhood friend, my brother of choice.
Laurie,
I thought.
He is my Llew, but he is Jo's Laurie
.

“It is too late for ghost stories,” I said. “Look at you; you can barely keep your eyes open.” A shock of dark hair had fallen over his half-closed eyes.

“It has been a long day,” he admitted, pushing back the hair.

“Sleep now,” I said, giving him a sisterly kiss on the forehead. He looked as if he would say something, but changed his mind.