The Loves of Leopold Singer (36 page)

A pile of newspapers and magazines lay on the table. “What an indulgence.” April picked up the one on top.

“Research,” Igraine said. “The girls are starting a school paper.”

“I haven’t seen this.
Boston Monthly Magazine.”

“It’s the first issue.”

“Listen to this.” April read the mission statement:

Among the fair we expect readers and hope for patrons, for we have at all times advocated their claims to an equal share with men, in the advancement of knowledge and happiness in society, and shall still continue to support the same doctrine. The time has gone when females were pleased with driveling flattery, and smiled in approbation at mawkish sonnets to their beauty and charms.

“That’s funny?” Igraine said.

“They always start out that way,” April said, “all idealism and conviction.”

A beam of sunlight splashed through the window and illuminated April’s green eyes. Her hair shone like a red-gold halo. Igraine was used to April’s loveliness, but every so often something surprisingly accentuated it.

Igraine asked her friend, “Why have you never married?”

April wasn’t at all bothered by the question. “Do you remember George Mark? Of course you do. Mr. Mark’s nephew.”

“Yes. I remember.”

“I once fancied he was in love with me. But I was wrong.”

Igraine felt her cheeks grow warm, remembering her own short-lived romantic notions about George Mark. “Poor Charity.”

April spurted tea over her scone. “Poor Charity, indeed. Seven children in ten years.”

“I have the two older girls at the school,” Igraine said. “They’re horrible. Undisciplined little monsters.”

“He drinks.” April’s eyes twinkled. “No sour grapes on my part.”

Igraine said, “But do you regret having no family?”

“Sometimes. I won’t dissemble. Who knows? Life isn’t finished with me. Perhaps some handsome sea captain will roll in off the ocean ready to retire and take me to his mansion.”

“Here’s to the captain and his mansion.” Igraine lifted her cup in salute.

“The captain and his mansion.”

Mrs. Johnson’s offers had long stopped, but sometimes Igraine wondered if she’d made a mistake in staying where she was. “Why don’t you come over to Mr. Mark? We could accomplish so much together.”

“Good lord.” April shivered. “That man gives me goose-bumps. I’ll never know how you abide him.”

“I hardly notice him anymore.”

“That’s surely a comfort,” April said drily.

“I’d better go,” Igraine said. “Mr. Mark will be out of sorts if I’m gone too long.”

April smiled. “And you hardly notice him anymore.”

Walking back to the school, Igraine felt restless. Each year she had less energy. Each year her pupils were less lively, more detached, stupider, their parents less liberal and more dedicated to material gain. How had such a people summoned the imagination to break free of tyranny and create an entirely new kind of civilization?

She wasn’t past the threshold before a gaggle of eager students descended, relieved to see her. “Hello girls.” She dispersed hugs and pats on heads. “Margaret.”

“Miss Fiddyment, did you bring them?” said Margaret Lawrence, an enterprising student with one or two ideas in her brain.

“Yes, yes. Here they are.” Igraine passed out the newspapers and magazines. “Have you assembled your staff, Margaret?”

“Yes, Miss Fiddyment. I hope I’m influenced by my grandfather’s memory,” Margaret never missed an opportunity to mention her ancestor, who had been a pamphleteer during the War for Independence. “As managing editor of The Boston Re-Mark, I’ve listed assignments for everyone.”

“Very good. Girls, spread these editions out so you can study their styles.”

The girls made a cheerful to-do of spreading sheets on the floor. They crawled about to search for stories of scandal and mayhem and squealed with mock horror when they found them. Igraine looked over Margaret’s shoulder at The Boston Gazette and an advertisement caught her attention:

Wanted: Educated lady to read to infirm older gentlelady. Room, board, wages. Inquire Grasmere House, Shermer Landing, Massachusetts.
 

Igraine couldn’t tear herself away from the words. She was suddenly weary. Fifteen years of service were repayment enough. Weren’t indentured servants held for only seven? Even Jacob endured fourteen years, and that was for love. She posted an inquiry that afternoon. Within ten days, Grasmere House responded.

Mr. Mark was not happy.

“Are you a fool?” He spilled his ink as he rose from his desk. “You’d leave your secure position for a mere chimera? You actually believe some unknown lady will pay you to read to her?”

“I’m going, Mr. Mark. I’ve accepted the position.”

“More likely this is a trap to lure an unsuspecting young lady into—I dare not say what!”

He was right. Her place at the school was a known quantity, and this was entirely uncertain. She nearly wavered, but he said, “How can you walk away so easily after everything I have done for you?”

“With my own two legs.” She didn’t expect he’d enjoy her humor. The known quantity of Mr. Mark had fed her and housed her and kept her from the world and suffocated her. “I should have left years ago, if only I’d had the imagination.”

“Imagination won’t feed you when reason brings you to your senses.”

She laughed at the oxymoron, which only enraged him.

“I certainly hope you don’t imagine some prince will rescue you from the world with an offer of marriage. That face isn’t capable of launching one ship, let alone a thousand.”
  

“Mr. Mark, your insults strike so often that the words no longer enter my brain. Let me pass.” He grasped her hands in his, and she felt a creepy diminishment in her being.

“Very well, then,” he said. “I will marry you, Miss Fiddyment.”

“Oh, lord.” She wanted to scream, and she wanted to laugh. She left Mr. Mark to wonder at her folly.

When Igraine came down to the front door she carried an ugly box, its lid held on tied by string tied. Margaret stood at the front door with a pleading look on her face. Years ago, Igraine had stayed for the girls’ sake then watched so many leave and never even write to her. It was surprisingly easy to say, “Goodbye, Miss Lawrence.”

A summer rain drenched her as she walked away from fifteen years at Mr. Mark’s Girls’ School. The one box held every material thing she owned. April came to say goodbye, the rain disguising her tears. In a stage-coach more wagon than carriage, Igraine crawled over benches to the back. “What will I do without you?” April called from the street.
 

“Get married,” Igraine said.

“My heart is breaking. Write to me.”

“We will always be friends, dear April.”

The driver climbed onto the front bench and spat affectionately at the lead horse, “Git up, there Joe, or I’ll swap ye fer a mule.”

Built by the original publisher of The Shermer Post, Grasmere House stood three-stories tall in the heart of Shermer Landing with a thirty-foot setback on Hamilton Street and a circular drive. Behind the mansion, stables and a carriage house occupied two and a half acres with coops and pens, chickens and a few pigs, and a small orchard of apple, walnut, and cherry trees, along with a cherished hazelnut.

When Mr. Grasmere died in the influenza epidemic of 1809, Leopold Singer bought the newspaper from Grasmere’s widow. He offered to buy the house, but Mrs. Grasmere had lost her daughter as well as her husband to the disease. She wouldn’t lose her home too. The Post was another matter as she had no interest in it and her remaining living son had gone to sea.

When Leopold discovered Helene Grasmere’s delight in town gossip, he made it a routine to visit her from time to time with what morsels came to his attention. Tonight he called at Grasmere House with something delicious.

“Good evening, Mrs. Fuller,” he said to the housekeeper. “Is Mrs. Grasmere in? I’ve come with the latest on Martin Grim.”

“She’ll be sorry to have missed you, Mr. Singer, but she’s gone to bed for the night.”

“A visitor is coming.” Old Kate stood behind Mrs. Fuller, not hiding exactly. It wasn’t that Mrs. Fuller was so very large, but that Old Kate was so very tiny.

“Hello there, Old Kate.”

Leopold always favored the grumpy little gnome with his most musical voice, and she always pretended immunity to his charms. They made an incongruous pair: he tall, expansive, and beautiful; she tiny, contracting, brittle and dry. Old Kate always seemed like a kitten who didn’t want to show how much she wanted to be petted.

“Likely even now at the coach station, waiting in the dark,” she said with a bit of resentment, “and it’s going to rain again.”

“Yes, yes, Old Kate,” said Mrs. Fuller. “I was just about to…”

“I have the rig, Mrs. Fuller, on the street ready to go. Let me fetch Mrs. Grasmere’s visitor for you.”

Mrs. Fuller followed Leopold to the carriage. “What was the news on Martin Grim?”

“He’s turned Unitarian.”

“He never!”

“Strange times, Mrs. Fuller.” Leopold touched his hat and drove on.

Igraine waited at the Shermer Landing station beside her meager little box, listening to the soft roll of approaching thunder. Perhaps she’d made a grave error after all. In Boston, many streets had gas lighting. As far as she could tell, Shermer Landing had not one lamp. Had she come to backwoods country?

A few soft raindrops hit her cheeks and the breeze turned cold just as a carriage approached. A rather fine carriage with a matched pair.

“Miss Fiddyment?” The driver’s voice was friendly and kind.

“Yes.”

“Very good. I am sent from Grasmere House to collect you.” Before she could move, he’d scooped up her box. It was dark, but Igraine was conscious of how vulgar it was as he handed her into the carriage. A flash of lightning illuminated his features. This was no stableman; his appearance was as elegant as his voice. He arranged a carriage blanket over her lap, closed her in, and cheerfully took the reins.

What wonder such a being existed in the world! Beside this Orpheus, George Mark was a mere creature. He delivered her to a mansion, lamps glowing in its front windows, and gave her over to a lady at the front door. “Here is your delivery, Mrs. Fuller, safe and sound.” He made her seem like precious cargo. He handed over the box. The rain fell steadily now.

“Thank you, Mr. Singer,” Mrs. Fuller said. “Safe journey to The Farm!”

He was gone. Igraine fell from metaphysical splendor back to the material, mundane world, but her sensual education continued.

In the mansion’s entry hall, she was enveloped in a warm feeling of well-being. The door shut soundly, secure in its frame, the house so well-built the weather could not get in. Nothing like the drafty, thin-walled entry to Mr. Mark’s School for Girls.

Mrs. Fuller led her up stairs that did not creak while acquainting her with names of Grasmere House inmates, present and gone. With all poor Mrs. Grasmere’s other troubles, her eyesight had begun to fail. Hence the need for a reader. They came to the dead daughter’s bedroom.

“Mrs. Grasmere ordered personal reminders of Sheba removed so you wouldn’t be uneasy,” Mrs. Fuller said. “It is the finest bedroom in the house, and she very much wants you to feel welcome.”

The room was huge, with a desk, a wardrobe, a sitting area, and a four-poster bed. The fireplace had a proper blaze crackling and a small table nearby set with tea. The delicate porcelain service had a hand-painted floral design, and the plate was sterling silver. There were scones and butter and jam, and sugar and milk for the tea.

“Mrs. Fuller, I have not felt so welcome anywhere since my aunt and uncle were living.”

“Sit and eat, dear, while your tea is hot.” Mrs. Fuller laid out Igraine’s nightgown, hung the second dress, and put the box in the bottom of the wardrobe. Igraine devoured a scone and looked about. The white marble mantle was an artisan’s masterpiece carved with angels bearing swords of fire, and above the mantle was a massive mirror.