One Glorious Ambition (22 page)

Her uncle had “generously” offered to manage her finances when she had gone back to the mansion, where a light snowfall had dusted the shrubs. Low fires burned in the parlor fireplace. The room was cool enough that Dorothea kept her gloves and hat on, not that her aunt had offered to take them or invited her to take tea. The three of them sat in the parlor. Dorothea did not recognize any of their furniture.

“Uncle, I do not approve of the arrangements made on my behalf, but I am settled that I have no recourse.”

“It was done for your good, niece.” His sharp nose and small eyes reminded her of a ferret. “As God would intend that we care for the widows and orphans.” Her relatives had moved in soon after her grandmother’s death and had been visiting in Dorchester on the day Dorothea toured the house. It was still devoid of accoutrement. Her eyes scanned the room. “We kept only essential items and sold what was unnecessary.”

“Yes,” Dorothea said. She noticed the hall clock that had been
her grandfather’s now graced the parlor. At least they had kept some of the valuable furniture. “What I would inquire about is whether the writing desk that had been in my room was sold at auction. I did not find it in the storehouse to which the executor directed me, where he said you had collected my share of the furniture.”

“Let me think,” her aunt said, tapping her chin. “Oh, yes, we did save that for you. Didn’t we, Thaddie? It’s in the guest room. We worried that it might be damaged in storage.”

“I … I looked in the room, my old room, and didn’t see it.”

“You were in the house? When?”

“The day I returned. I believed it was my home as well.”

“You should have come to us before simply walking in,” her uncle chastised her.

“It would please me if you would hold the writing desk until I find a permanent abode. It was my father’s, I believe. Perhaps my mother’s.”

“Oh, your mother was no writer,” Thaddeus said.

She could read
, Dorothea thought.
Perhaps she wrote
.

“But, of course, we will preserve it for you, for whenever you wish it sent to wherever you may go. Thaddeus is also willing to manage your finances. Aren’t you, Thaddeus?”

“Of course. What is family for if not to be helpful.”

She had not wanted an invitation to remain with them through the winter, but it would have been nice to have been able to decline such an offer. Still, she had their commitment for what she wanted, but then another thought occurred to her.

“I may be staying some with the Heaths, and I should like to have the writing desk left there.”

“Oh. Well. We understood there was a falling out. The Peabody sisters are so close to the Heath girls now.”

“I’m aware. But we continue to correspond. And she came to see me off to Liverpool.”

“Did she? I didn’t know.”

“I’ll just take the desk with me now.”

Looks were exchanged, and she knew she ought to have discussed this with Anne before simply arriving with a desk, but she no longer trusted her uncle. The desk was hers, and she didn’t want them using it or deciding to sell it because it was “in her best interest.”

The desk was strapped onto a carriage. Little Benji bounced around during the lifting and tying, which Dorothea helped her uncle to accomplish. At least the dog looked to be in good health. If she had a home of her own, she would have asked for the dog. Dorothea spoke her good-byes and took the carriage immediately to Brookline where Anne greeted her warmly.

“Here I am, unannounced.”

“No, no, come in.” Anne looked beyond to the carriage with the desk.

“I am being intrusive, I know. I can’t stay, but might I leave my writing desk with you? It was my father’s and one of the few items left to me by my grandmamma and uncle.”

“I’d heard about Orange Court. I’m sorry, Dorothea. I know you hoped it would one day be your home.”

“I promise not to be at your doorstep when you least expect it … present moment excepted.”

“Of course. We’ll store it. It’s a lovely piece. Please, stay for supper.”

“I have things to do regarding my grandmother’s estate. You understand.”

Dorothea turned to leave, her heart a hummingbird of hope when Anne added, “You come back soon.”

Dorothea spent weeks in Philadelphia. Then she moved on to Savannah because she was told it was one of the few cities in America laid out in an orderly fashion, the other being Washington DC. Her grandmother had bequeathed a vase to a woman there. The city reminded her of the painting in the Rathbones’ bedroom, how the war had ravaged the town. She hoped the beautiful city would never again see such destruction. While she was there, she began to read about city planning, ways to manage the glut of tenements, and how water and sewage systems ought not be afterthoughts but paramount for public health. She wrote an article on botany that was published in a magazine. She meandered.

For two years she visited friends, staying for a few weeks at a time and then moving on before they tired of her.

As she traveled, she wrote letters to Anne. In one such letter, Anne encouraged her to give up her wandering and return to Brookline, where the two old friends could live together. Dorothea caught her breath. How she would have longed for those
words years before! But now she was wary. Her time at Greenbank, being tended and loved back to health, told her that she had something else in store for her. Why else would she have survived her terrible lung disease? Resting away her days with an old friend was not the future she imagined

She remembered her Greenbank morning routine. After an hour of silent prayer and contemplation, she wrote down a list of important work she could do: the suffering to be comforted, the wandering led home, the indolent aroused, the overexcited restrained. She sent a letter to Anne with those words included and began to see that these works of service could guide her, keep her from being “a floating wad upon the ocean of each day’s events.” Anne told her those last words were overly dramatic. She did not comment on Dorothea’s proposed life plan. Dorothea never asked after Anne’s.

Another year passed with her travels, and then Dorothea returned to Boston and accepted the invitation of Sarah Gibbs to live at the summit of Beacon Hill in her home on Mount Vernon Street. Before long, the Channings joined them. To make room, Dorothea moved into a townhouse on the estate. On Sundays at the Federal Street Church, listening to the moving words of William Channing, she began again to feel a calling to inquire more diligently as to the reason for her being. In the evenings, she would read to the reverend, awaiting something she knew not what. At Channing’s request, she began teaching a Sunday school class for
teenage boys at the Charlestown Navy Yard. The work made her think of her brother Charles.

“It is a great satisfaction again to teach,” she wrote to Anne, “to feel that I am not wholly a burden in the social circle. I am at home and at ease here.”

She sent for her writing desk.

Compliments settled on Dorothea’s shoulders like snowflakes in May: rare and dissipating, uncertain as to their intent. Dorothea felt her face grow hot, which only seemed to encourage John Nichols, the divinity student who shared the kind words of Dorothea’s mentor as they walked home from church one Sunday.

“Reverend Channing said they warmed to you, that you had an extra affinity, a charm, that put both men and women at ease. I certainly don’t have it. And besides, I really need to prepare for my debate.”

Dorothea nodded her bonneted head toward the young man she had met at the Channing lecture.
So young and the world opening to him with a dozen paths
. Dorothea was nearly forty and still wandered from path to path.

“But if I agree to do this, I might be getting in the way of your mission, John.”

He stopped and put both hands on his cane, which he didn’t need. He stared at her. “Yes, but perhaps my asking you is helping to define your great ambition.” She looked away. “Please say you’ll
consider it. It’s just one term, and if you truly detest it, I’ll take over again.”

“How many are there?”

“A few dozen. They’ll be in an open area, maybe a few in cells. But for Sunday school they let them come in together. It’s probably one of the few times they’re allowed to be with each other. They’re well behaved. Not like the ones across the courtyard, those awaiting trial and the overflow from the mental asylum.”

She remembered her revulsion at the conditions of the jail in Washington when she and her boardinghouse friends had visited and later returned with books she thought might help pass the prisoners’ time. She had been healthy this winter. Would teaching in a drafty jail bring back the misery? She heard a sea gull screech high above, sounding lonesome and lost. She looked for the bird and blinked into the hazy late winter sun.

“All right,” she said, not certain why. “I’ll do it.” Who knew what might come of it?

It was a March morning, one of those days when people smiled at each other on the streets and cab drivers asked after one’s health as though they genuinely wanted to know.

Back in her room, Dorothea donned her black dress and straightened the white collar, checking herself once in the boardinghouse mirror. She pulled on the ribbons of her black bonnet. As it was Sunday, no steam from the textile mills hovered over Cambridge, threatening to bring down uplifted spirits.

The women populating the East Cambridge jail gathered in a room with old benches. Dorothea could see that some attempted
to keep up their hygiene, most likely by family deliveries of soaps and clean linens, as she knew these would not be provided by the prison.

A red-haired woman leaned against the stone wall, arms folded across her chest.
Show me!
she seemed to say. The other women looked curious, representing all ages.

Dorothea couldn’t help but wonder what had happened in their lives that brought them to this place. Women had so few choices. She remembered her journey to her grandmother’s, hoping for rescue, and the devastation she had felt when she had been turned aside. She had drawn on a resilience she didn’t know she had back then as a twelve-year-old child. Her purpose had been to rescue Charles and make life better for them all. She had failed that day. Perhaps these women didn’t know their purpose, hadn’t been given the news that they were loved by One greater than all others, a love that could help them make a better life when they left this place. Perhaps this was what she was called to do: give these women the thread they could follow to don the cape of great hope.

Threadbare slippers scraped quietly on the stone floor as the women waited.

“Good morning.” Her voice was as clear as a mountain stream. “Thank you for allowing me to come.”

The red-haired woman snorted. “As if we invited ye.”

“Quiet,” spoke another.

“I’d like to begin with a psalm.”

But before she finished, a woman with a crooked nose interrupted,
asking, “Why has God forgotten such as us? We done nothing but support our husbands, do what they ask, and we end up here.” Dorothea read a few more words, then stopped. Her prepared lesson would be of little use. What these women wanted was comfort, assurance. Was she the one to give it?

Dorothea cleared her throat. “God has not forsaken you though it may seem this way now. It was true for those of old as well, who wondered if God had forgotten them at times. But He never does. I promise you. This is but a stop on your journey to a relationship with God who will never fail you.”

“A cold stop,” the red-haired woman said. She reminded Dorothea of one of her students, sullen yet haughty.

“It is that. But even in the chill, we can be warm.” The room quieted as Dorothea spoke of God’s love for each of them. She shared bits of her own story, from being forlorn to illness to finding friends who sustained her. She spoke of moving against a stream and the strength her faith gave her for the journey. More than one woman dabbed her eyes when Dorothea read Psalm 30, which promised mourning would turn to dancing and sackcloth changed to clothes of joy. Dorothea helped them imagine themselves dressed differently, dancing instead of merely existing in this hovel. She looked each woman in the eye as she spoke. Even the redhead had loosened her arms and eased her way onto a bench by the time Dorothea finished.