One Glorious Ambition (9 page)

Madam Dix raised her eyebrows to Dorothea. “That’ll be our hope, at least.”

So finances were more strained than she had realized if even Harvard wasn’t a certainty.

Dorothea was about to say something more about her father’s death and the promise of a future with him in heaven when her grandmamma said, “According to my daughter, your school was successful even if our hopes for your marriage were not.” Dorothea nodded. “I’ve already conferred with Mrs. Hudson, and having a school here will be fine. We can advertise in the circulars. The income will be useful. We can hope you’ll meet suitors at church and thus enter the Boston social scene.”

“I did enjoy the children.”

“Not necessary to enjoy what one must do to survive,” Madam Dix said. She wiped her face with a napkin, beads of sweat having formed above her lip.
Is she ill?
“Mrs. Hudson has faithful boarders, many of them divinity students from Harvard. Thank you,” she told Cookie after the cook had poured hot water into the tea caddy before rising to clear the soup bowls. “The others I believe
are legislators and their wives. They are in Boston during the sessions.”

“I’ve met Mrs. Hudson. She seems more than adequate to the task of running the house.”

They finished the meal. Since it was already late, Dorothea said good night. She hugged Charles and shook Joseph’s little hand when he put it out to her. Then she walked in a daze across the lawn to Orange Court. No one had said a word about their mother. Better that she forget she ever had a mother. This was the family she had now. A lonely hoot owl expressed her feelings exactly.

Dorothea took her meals with the boarders while Charles and Joseph took theirs with their grandmother at the cottage. The family attended church together since her grandmother had already paid the pew fees. Dorothea’s request that the boys live in Orange Court and attend her school when she started it fell into her grandmother’s brooding silence like a rock sinking to the bottom of a pond.

“They will be tutored at the cottage,” she said. “Your school fees can pay for it.”

Dorothea watched her brothers roll hoops on the cottage lawn and didn’t attempt to join them. She knew her grandmother would find it unseemly. Instead, she worked on her school, hoping to recreate the same sense of goodwill she had managed in Worcester. Her students would be girls. She would add her brothers if her
grandmother relented. Dorothea expanded the age range, including girls up to age seventeen so that she might use the older girls as assistants and thus extend the number of students she could teach.

Not two blocks away from Orange Court a best-selling author had begun an academy for young ladies, and everyone praised her efforts. Dorothea could do as well, couldn’t she? Her school might receive a public distinction that would help her find acceptance in Boston society, if not for making a “fine marriage,” for doing something to further the public good. “Doing public good” was a constant theme of the divinity students who boarded at Mrs. Hudson’s table.

The school began within a few weeks of Dorothea’s arrival in Boston. Her previous success opened the door to parents asking her opinion about managing a child’s behavior or how they could encourage their children at home. A few parents invited her to supper as others had in Worcester. She had even discovered that her youngest student, Marianna Cutter, was a second cousin.

“How wonderful! We’re family,” she told Marianna’s mother, Grace, after the young widow shared the news.

“It’s quite down the line, you understand. I believe your grandmother is my grandmother’s cousin.”

“Close enough,” Dorothea said. She stroked Marianna’s chestnut hair as they talked. The girl carried herself with confidence although she was but five. She had the same Dix blue-gray eyes.

“I’d invite you to supper,” Dorothea said, “but it’s Mrs. Hudson who permits supper guests or not. I’ll speak with her and hope you can join us at a later date.”

“In time we’ll invite you.” A grayish pallor painted the young mother’s skin. She was as thin as a knitting needle.

Dorothea kissed Marianna on the child’s pug nose—definitely not a Dix nose—and Marianna took her seat, waving to her mother as the woman left. Dorothea had already found delight in the girl. Her quick mind and helpful spirit lit up the room. Now she paid even more attention: Marianna was family, right here in her schoolroom.

After a few months, Madam Dix permitted the boys to attend Dorothea’s school. “Their tutor tires” was her only explanation. Dorothea smiled when Charles and Joseph came into the room the first time and plopped into their chairs, surrounded by girls who simply stared.

“These are my brothers,” Dorothea said. She wanted to dance at the news. They
were
together at last. She had told the boys not to call her Thea in the classroom, and they mostly complied. She would hold them to high academic and behavioral standards.

“You didn’t finish your writing assignment, Charles. That must be completed before you eat your lunch.”

“Ah, Thea … I mean, Miss Dix. My stomach growls.” She raised her finger at him. “It’s a rule, Charles. You must not defy me.”

“You’re not my mother,” he mumbled but returned to his work.

She required Joseph to wear a placard after he pulled up a plant rather than study it when she took the class outside. It was the first time she had used the dreaded placard here, and she wished it hadn’t been Joseph who introduced it to the other students. But at least they all knew she had no favorites.

“Grandmamma won’t like it,” Joseph told Dorothea as he tugged at the placard.

“You’ll have to explain what you did then, and we’ll see if she disapproves of the consequence.”

“Be glad it’s not Papa,” Charles told him. “He used the switch on us.”

She shivered at Charles’s mention of the willow switch. At least she had found a means for order that did not require suffering.

“It is your failure that your students need to be disciplined,” her grandmother told her. She had come by the school after the other children had left. The faithful Benji panted at her feet. “Joseph does not need such a placard.”

“He misbehaved. I cannot show favorites. What would you have me do?”

“Perhaps your lessons are too easy for him. He’s not challenged. He’s a bright boy. I think he doesn’t need your lessons. I’ll keep him at home.”

She had failed with her own brother. Maybe others could teach all these children better. The truth of that tempered her
accomplishment with the school and made her wonder when Charles would be pulled out as well.

Cousins Grace and Marianna lived in a modest home, and Grace’s husband, once a sea captain, Dorothea learned, had left them a comfortable stipend after his death. Grace looked much the same, and her fingernails were chipped, her skin sallow. After a light supper of cod and fresh greens, Marianna showed Dorothea her room.

“See my picture?” The child handed her a pencil drawing of lilies in a common pond done on good paper.

“I had no idea you were an artist,” Dorothea told her.

“Yes, Auntie. It’s my favorite thing to do.”

“Your writing is also excellent.”

“Pictures make the time go so fast I forget to eat, Mummy says.”

“When we find things we love, we do forget to eat and even sleep,” Dorothea told her. The child’s eyes lit up as they talked.

“Oh, I sleep lots. So does Mummy, but that’s because she’s sick.”

“I’m not sick.” Grace had followed them. She brushed wrinkles from a Dresden doll’s dress holding court on Marianna’s bed. “I’m just tired. Chasing after you, little one.” She poked Marianna’s tummy and the girl laughed.

Dorothea looked away, not wishing to intrude. But she ached
for Marianna. It was hard to have a mother who was ill in body or in mind.

Dorothea began creating opportunities for Marianna and the other students to paint and draw. She even hired an art teacher. A few more children challenged her order, but she did not use the placard. Instead, she shamed them with words and later felt worse than if she had switched them. She worked harder to find interesting ways of teaching her subjects, hoping that discipline would be less troubling.

Before long, she returned the supper invitation, inviting Grace and Marianna to Mrs. Hudson’s savory soup. Other boarders supped at the table as well, with the conversation bouncing from theology to politics to plants. A legislator sat at the head of the table, his wife with graying hair to his side. Marianna’s large red bow tied up her curls, and she swung her feet beneath the table, her eyes watching the several guests. During a lull, Marianna’s little girl voice said, “It’s fun to be downstairs instead of upstairs in school.”

Dorothea engaged her immediately. “What’s so different?”

“Here Joseph doesn’t tease me.” She looked at her mother who shook her head.

“He bothers you?” Dorothea frowned. “Where do you see him?”

“When we’re outside playing. He takes my basket and runs.”

“You must stand up for yourself,” Marianna’s mother said. “Not complain. Every girl needs to do that.” Grace’s voice sounded breathless, as though she’d climbed stairs to an attic.