My energy was flagging. “How old was he then?”
“I’m not sure,” said Mrs. Clemm. “Let me think.”
Perhaps I could simply ask Mr. Poe to provide me a list of his publications and be done with it. I reached for my reticule and began to pack up my things.
“He was twenty-two,” Mrs. Poe said.
I looked up. Her eyes were fierce in her childish face.
“He was twenty-two and the most handsome, most intelligent man I’d ever seen. And I knew he was going to be mine.”
Mrs. Clemm laughed. “Can you tell Virginia took a shine to him?”
“And he, evidently, to you,” I told Mrs. Poe.
“From the moment he came to live with us, she tagged along wherever he went,” said Mrs. Clemm, “even to his lady friends’ houses. When Eddie was courting Mary Starr over on Essex Street, he made Virginia his little go-between. She had to run between their two houses with their love notes. Virginia even delivered Eddie’s proposal for marriage.” She rubbed her nose. “That didn’t work out like he thought it would.”
Mrs. Poe laughed. “He didn’t make things easy for himself by going over to Mary’s house drunk.”
“Virginia!” Mrs. Clemm glanced at me.
“It’s a funny story, Mother,” said Mrs. Poe. “When I gave Eddie Miss Mary’s note of rejection, he got so mad that he drank down the whole bottle of rum that I found, then went charging over there. Miss Mary’s mother must have seen us coming because she sent Mary upstairs. But Eddie was out of his head. He went right upstairs after her when I dared him to. If he ever had a chance with Mary Starr, he didn’t after that.”
Mrs. Clemm shook the lappets of her cap. “Dear me, Virginia! What kind of impression are you giving our guest?”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “We are off-the-record now.”
“Do you have enough for your article?” Mrs. Clemm asked doubtfully.
“I want you to know,” Mrs. Poe said as I began to rise, “that my husband has not touched the bottle since he met you.”
I paused, taken off guard. “That is . . . wonderful. Frankly, I don’t even remember when it was that we met.”
She smiled, serene as a cat. “At Miss Lynch’s party, in February. February fifteenth, to be exact. You had on a green dress.”
The hair raised on my arms.
“Virginia has an eye for detail,” Mrs. Clemm said proudly.
“Indeed you do,” I said, more stoutly than I felt. “I fear we didn’t even speak.”
“We didn’t. But I found out who you were. When you were talking to Eddie, I asked that nice Miss Fuller.”
“I’m sorry that you and I didn’t get to speak then. I would have liked to have met you.”
“It doesn’t matter. We are friends now. You and I must always be friends.”
“Yes. Certainly.”
“And Eddie, too?”
“Of course. Whatever you think is best.” I could feel her gaze boring into me as I moved to the door. Good manners forced me to turn to say good-bye. “Thank you for your time, Mrs. Poe, Mrs. Clemm. I’m sure we will be speaking soon. I will get the article to you for approval before it is published.”
I sprang from the house like a bird freed from a snare.
Blind to the drunkards and peddlers and hogs on the street, I hurried northward, disturbed by what I had just experienced. Was Mrs. Poe hostile toward me? Or was my guilt coloring my judgment, making me misinterpret what was simply her social ineptness? I could not find my footing with her. I resolved to associate with her as little as possible once the article was published.
Thirteen
The next morning, after the children had left for school and Eliza had gone to pay calls in the neighborhood, I sat at my desk in the Bartletts’ front parlor, looking at my notes. How was I to write an interesting article about the Poes with the material that I had? For Mr. Poe’s sake, there was precious little of my interview that I could print. No wonder he kept his wife from the public eye. Strangely naïve and physically frail, it would be difficult for her to keep up with the rigors of New York society life. I felt honored that he trusted me not to expose her.
Yet all the pride I felt for being allowed into his inner circle was dashed when I thought about his cool treatment of me in her presence. It hurt to think that he did not trust my judgment. Did he think so highly of himself that he feared I would throw myself at him in front of his wife?
An idea nudged at a corner of my consciousness.
I began to write, crossing out, correcting, as a poem formed. The stanzas slowly swelled into being, word by word, phrase by phrase, until at last the piece, fragile as a soap bubble, glistened in its entirety on the edge of my mind. I dashed off the remaining verses, reciting the final two aloud as not to lose them:
The fair, fond girl, who at your side,
Within your soul’s dear light, doth live,
Could hardly have the heart to chide
The ray that Friendship well might give.
But if you deem it right and just,
Blessed as you are in your glad lot,
To greet me with that heartless tone,
So let it be! I blame you not!
I sat back, wrung out, as I always am after I have brought forth a true and honest work, regardless of its subject or length. It is as if producing a creative work tears a piece from your soul. When it is ripped completely free of you, the wound must bleed for a while. How similar it is to letting go of a dream, your hope, or your heart’s desire. You must open up and let it drain.
I became aware of the bells of the Baptist church at the next corner, ringing eleven. I pulled myself together, folded the paper, put it in my reticule, shrugged on my wraps, and left. On Broadway, four short blocks away, I hired a hackney. I was at Mr. Poe’s establishment before I had time to reconsider.
A lanky young man with carrot-orange hair leaped up from a heaped desk near the door.
“I’ve come to see Mr. Poe.” Even as I said it, I saw him sitting at a desk upon which piles of paper were neatly stacked.
Mr. Poe rose. Although he kept his face composed, I saw the gladness in his eyes. “Mrs. Osgood.” He came and grasped my gloved fingers a second too long before letting go.
Forcing myself not to feel, I dug for the poem in my reticule. “I would be gratified if you would consider this piece for publication.”
“In addition to the ones you recently submitted?”
“Yes. It is the best of them.”
“May I read it?”
“Please do,” I said, coolly.
He scanned the paper, then looked up at me. A sharp glance to the office boy sent the lad out of doors.
“What am I to make of this?” he said quietly.
I gathered myself. “I believe your lady readers who have had a genuine friendship with a married gentleman might find this poem refreshing.”
“Do you think there are many such readers?”
“More than you would realize.”
He nodded as if considering my point. “This poem assumes that the wife approves of the friendship. That is hardly a typical reaction a wife would have, I would think.”
“You give the wife little credit, Mr. Poe. Can’t she be wise enough to know her own good hold on her husband? Why should she feel threatened, when she knows the other woman has no ill intent?”
“I don’t know, Mrs. Osgood. Why should she?”
I was suddenly angry. “I think she doesn’t. In fact, to think she does feel threatened is an insult to her. And it is vanity on the part of the husband.”
“Vanity?” He allowed a small light of amusement to come to his eyes.
“Yes, vanity. It is vain of him to feel the need to slight a lady friend to prove to his wife that he is faithful.”
“My lady readers will understand this?”
“They will, I assure you. They will understand, too, that not only does he offend the wife but the lady friend as well. By snubbing her, the gentleman does not give her a chance to prove that she can conduct herself properly. It’s very insulting all around, Mr. Poe.”
“I’m still not sure that my married lady readers will completely agree with this poem.”
I held out my hand to retrieve it.
“But,” he said, folding the paper, “I have never been afraid of what people say, Mrs. Osgood, as you must be aware.” He tucked it inside his coat. “I will publish this. Immediately. I will pay you two dollars for it. Is that acceptable?”
“Yes,” I said stiffly. “Thank you.”
He went to his desk to write a check. He spoke without looking up. “My wife wishes for me to ask you to come with us to a play tonight.
Fashion
is the name of it. As a matter of fact, I was preparing to send you a message just as you came. You entered as I was writing your name.” He glanced up to gauge my response.
“Coincidence,” I said.
His long look told me what he thought about coincidences. “Will you come?”
“It appears that I am fated to go.”
“Pay attention to fate, Mrs. Osgood. It will always have the last word.”
I turned away. We were playing a dangerous game, one I was not sure I had the nerve for.
He brought me the check and then walked me to the door. Another wave of passenger pigeons was passing overhead as I stepped onto the sidewalk. Its ranks were thinner than the previous two days, with dribbles of individuals straggling behind.
The wind ruffled the edges of my mantelet as I shielded my eyes from the sun to watch. “Maybe this is the last of them.”
“I admire them,” said Mr. Poe. “I admire any wild thing that won’t be ruled by man.”
“I believe these birds have the upper hand.”
“Do they?” He fixed me with his dark-lashed gaze. “Fifty years ago there were so many trees in America that a squirrel could jump from a treetop in New York and keep leaping until it reached Indiana. Now it wouldn’t make it out of Manhattan.”
“How quickly the world changes, yet we are so busy trying to live that we don’t notice it.”
“And yet,” he said quietly, “it does not change quickly enough.”
He bowed to me. “Good day, madam.” And then he returned to the confines of his office, captive to the demands of his work.
• • •
Vinnie’s soft hand was on my chin. “Turn your head, Mamma.” She was on a chair in our room on the third floor of the Bartletts’, my ear bobs in hand. I felt a nervous pit in my stomach as I leaned toward her so that she could affix one. Why had I agreed to go with the Poes to the play? How quickly I had broken my resolution not to associate with Mrs. Poe. Now what seemed like a simple invitation had taken on an ominous prospect as the day had wore on. While Mrs. Poe had nothing to fear from me, her odd frame of mind unnerved me. It was sure to be an awkward evening at best, no matter how well-meaning my intentions. I was glad when at last Eliza came to my door and I could get on with it.
“Mr. Poe is here,” she said, her eyes full of curiosity. I had answered
her earlier questions about my visit to the Poes’ intentionally vaguely. Talking about them disturbed me.
I nodded cheerfully, pretending to be sure of myself.
Downstairs, Mr. Poe stood in the hallway, rain dripping from his furled umbrella.
We greeted each other with reserved civility under Eliza’s interested gaze. It was determined that I needed my long mantle due to the weather, and once that was fetched from upstairs by the maid and donned, Mr. Poe escorted me to a hackney carriage standing at the curb.
Mrs. Poe was waiting inside. She allowed me to kiss her cheek as if we were old friends and then I settled next to her. Mr. Poe entered the carriage from the other side and off we went with a jolt.
“Such a rainy night!” said Mrs. Poe.
“Yes,” I said.
“Eddie says
Fashion
is a very good play.”
“Thank you for inviting me to join you,” I said. “It’s been a while since I have been to the theater.” Since the previous year, in fact, before Samuel had left.
We jostled along. Mrs. Poe cheerfully named all the plays that she and Eddie had attended over the past few months as guests of the management of various theaters. She then proceeded to give her impression of each, her stream of thought only broken by the occasional spate of coughing. Her observations took us all the way down Broadway to City Hall Park, where we rounded the corner to approach the Park Theatre, within sight of Barnum’s museum to the south. Although Mr. Poe was silent, I could feel his presence on the other side of his wife, as tightly wound as a coil.
The carriage stopped. I waited for Mr. Poe to help out his wife, who under her cloak, I noticed when she stood up, wore the same beribboned little-girl frock she had worn the first time I had seen her. Once she had alighted onto the sidewalk before the theater, and I was transferred by the cabman to the shelter of Mr. Poe’s umbrella, we took our place in line. The rain drummed on the canvas over our heads.
Mrs. Poe knotted together her hands at her chin. “Cozy, isn’t it?”
“Very,” I said.
She cocked her gloved thumb toward the right. “Have you ever been there?”
I turned to look.
“To Barnum’s,” she said.
I saw the edifice of the museum down the street, its lurid banners lit up by gaslight. I could hear strains of a poorly rendered march coming from its direction.
I paused. “Yes.”
“Recently?”
Mr. Poe kept his gaze pointed toward the theater.
“Yes.”
She smiled. “Lucky. I’ve never been. Eddie says it’s not educational.” She made a pouting face within her hooded cape. “Everything I do must always be educational.”
Mr. Poe took her elbow and turned her toward the theater door. “The show will be starting soon.”
She sighed to me. “I am his creature, you know. Everything I am, I was taught to be by him.”
“I did not know that you resented it, my dear,” he said mildly.