The Loves of Leopold Singer (42 page)

He was killed fighting with Colonel Jackson—President Jackson, some would wish—in Louisiana. It is strange to think of Willie as a mature man with children of his own, but that is what he would be now had he lived.

I am so morbid today!

Leopold is well, as am I. Samuel completed his studies at Harvard and has continued at their school of Divinity. Leopold is beside himself knowing that he has spawned a preacher! We have a freethinking Unitarian minister whom Leopold loved up to the day Samuel announced his vocation. Now my husband cannot forgive Reverend Lightfeather. He holds a grudge against the man for doing his job too well! I confess I am ambivalent about my son’s choice of profession, but he did not consult me about it, nor did I expect him to.

Harry is at Harvard in his last year. I suspect he has political leanings. And what would be the surprise in that, the way his father meddles! The only question is who will run the farm? Had Eleanor been male, she would be the choice. There is nothing she loves better than inspecting her gardens for flowers and vegetables, chasing the pests away and making what she calls “a triumphant soup” of her own produce.

She is away at school now and curious about the world, but she will want to settle down soon enough. I suppose she will marry the Zehetner’s son Jonnie and they will run the farm together. I am gruff about the match, just to keep the young people on their toes. But I must say I am happy in her choice. He is a fine young man.

I miss you still, dear Gabby. My life is fuller than I could have imagined it would be, and I have no complaints. But I do wish I could see you one more time on this earth. Give my brother and your children hugs and kisses from their Aunt Marta and Uncle Leopold.

Your loving sister,

Mrs. Leopold Singer

NB: I have enclosed miniatures of all of us that I had painted for you. I believe the likenesses are quite good. You will notice Eleanor looks a little like Wolfram, had he been good-looking ha-ha.

Marta.

Igraine passed through the kitchen on her way to the mudroom to ring for the girls’ free time, an important part of the Academy’s happy routine. Soup simmering on the stove gave off a delicious aroma and filled her with contentment. After
The Maid and the Moonstone
,
The Romancer
bought three more stories. Soon after, the editor sent a plea for anything else Igraine might offer. Crisis averted. There was money to pay bills and indulge in a few extravagances. Yesterday, April arranged for a side of beef with the butcher, and Cook was ecstatic.

At the mudroom door, Igraine reached for the bell pull but was interrupted by a commotion in the garden.

“I’ll slug you, Miranda, I will!” Eleanor Singer dropped her spade and gave chase after Miranda Goodson.

That Goodson girl again! She never left off teasing poor Sara Adams. Sara grabbed Eleanor around the waist and held fast.

Miranda stopped when saw she was safe. She said, “It’s true. Mrs. Adams does voodoo, and her driver is a voodoo man.”

“Let me go,” Eleanor said, but Sara held on.

“It is true,” Grace Grummond said apologetically. “Everybody says it’s why she only ever had one child. She knows how to stop babies with voodoo.”

Igraine sighed. Girls could be so cruel.

“Watch out,” Sara said. “My mother taught me everything she knows.”

Igraine chuckled and rang the bell. Sara was as shy as ever, but once in a while she let out a real humdinger. The girls had discovered the old brass ship’s bell in the attic on one of their expeditions. At its sound, they all looked toward the mudroom door.

“Oh, please, Miss Fiddyment,” Eleanor Singer said. “Say it!”

“Free time! Free time!”

“Hurray!” The girls put away their tools and bounded from the garden into the mudroom carrying baskets of the early beans they’d picked.

“Eleanor, your soup smells wonderful,” Miranda said by way of apology, looking at Sara.

“It’s triumphant,” Sara said by way of acceptance.

Everyone relaxed. All was well with the world. And it was free time!

Igraine and April remembered with no small fury their schooldays when there had never been any time for thinking or dreaming. They made it a practice to have some free time every day. Today was Saturday with the entire afternoon free from the end of gardening until dinner at four o’clock. There were no lessons on Sundays, but they were full of the obligations of church and visits with relatives or letter writing.

The Saturday free time bell also signaled the day off for Mrs. Fuller and Cook. The two usually stayed at Grasmere House, but the girls prepared their own meals and cleaned up after themselves.

Igraine started to follow the girls inside, but an eerie feeling took hold of her. She saw something, someone moving beyond the garden. A strange man—no, not strange. “Hello? Hello there! Uncle James?”

It felt strange to call someone else by that name. She hadn’t thought of her aunt and uncle in years. Penelope Adams’s driver emerged from behind a tree. They met halfway into the garden.

“I’m Sara’s teacher.”

“Yes, Miss Fiddyment. I know you.”

He seemed embarrassed at being caught, but Igraine was glad to see him. Sara had seemed sad and lonely since her parents abandoned her. “Did you come to visit Sara?”

“I would like that.”

“Lovely.” Igraine led Uncle James in through the kitchen. He couldn’t hide his interest in the pot of soup on the stove. Without asking, she poured out a bowl full and set it on the table. “Eleanor always makes more than enough. Please have some.”

“Thank you,” he said. “I have been my own cook this past while. I’m not so good at it.”

This he said as if it had come as a great shock. He did have an air of competence about him. “Have you been taking care of the Adams place, then?”

“Something like that.”

When Igraine and April peeked into the kitchen half an hour later, Sara was smiling.

“Look at that,” April said as Sara laughed at something he said.

“Wonderful to hear.” Igraine pushed the door open wide, and they joined Sara and her visitor. “Uncle James, Miss Westerman and I have a proposition for you. Would you be insulted if we asked you to come and work at the Academy? We couldn’t pay much, I am afraid, but you and Sara could see each other more often.”

“Uncle James doesn’t mind about money,” Sara blurted out. Her face turned red, and she turned to him. “I mean, please say yes. I wouldn’t be so lonely. I mean…”

Igraine squeezed Sara’s hand in sympathy. “Don’t worry, dear. Your feelings are entirely understandable.”

Uncle James became the school’s chief driver and an entertainer too. One evening, Sara persuaded him to recite Rime of the Ancient Mariner. With his exotic looks and melodious accent, it was a marvelous success and fostered many a nightmare about sea-snakes and woeful specters.
 

Uncle James also provided a great service as chaperon during the daily walks. Igraine believed in the benefits of exercise, so every afternoon the young ladies marched two-by-two through Shermer Landing with Igraine and April at the lead. These walks quickly became the daily highlight for the young men in town, but it took longer and longer to accomplish the exercise.

Would-be beaux found it convenient to run errands on Hamilton Street as close to three o’clock as possible, tipping their hats to certain someones. When they engaged a young lady in conversation, it slowed the parade and ruined the point of the exercise, which was exercise.

On Uncle James’s first day as rear sentinel, Jonnie Zehetner tipped his hat to Eleanor Singer. “Have you come to throw pigs at my feet, Mr. Zehetner?” she teased.

“Diamonds, Ellie! Diamonds!” he called out, laughing, ready to launch into a clever story about The Farm he’d saved just for this moment.

Uncle James’s severe stare caused him to back away, and thus was every other young man’s experience that day. The daily walk was accomplished within forty minutes.

That evening after supper when April passed by the library, a cascade of female belly laughs poured through the slightly open door, and she was engulfed by a wave of well-being. At Mrs. Johnson’s it would have been shocking to hear a giggle. She entered the library, and the girls went dead quiet. They stared at her like rabbits, and she pretended not to notice. “You should be getting ready for bed, girls.”

“Yes, Miss Westerman.”

“Good night.”

“Good night, Miss Westerman.”

In their room, she found Igraine reading by the fire. “The girls found The Book, I believe.” She poured a cup of tea. “They acted mighty guilty in the library just now.”

“Ah,” Igraine said. “What would we do without The Book?”

In her room, Sara knelt to say her prayers. She’d gone to church like everyone else all her life but knew nothing about saying prayers before bed until coming to Miss Fiddyment’s school. There was a knock and suppressed giggling at the door. Eleanor let the girls in, shushing them. What was she up to?

“Do you have it, Eleanor?” Miranda asked.

“I do. Now keep quiet!”

They slept two to a bed. Sara and Eleanor shared a room with Evangeline and Grace Grummond, sisters who’d come from over a hundred miles west. They pushed the beds apart enough to sit in a circle on the floor. With a flourish, Eleanor held up The Book.

The proper title of this just-discovered forbidden fruit was
Ladies’ Guide in Health and Disease: Girlhood, Maidenhood, Wifehood, Motherhood
by F. Q. Conniver, M.D., illustrated and indexed.

They passed it around, each taking in as much as she could before handing it on. The room was quiet, all terrified of being found out and awed by what they read and saw. When the last girl closed the book, they all seemed able to breathe again.

Miranda let out an embarrassed snort. “Did you see?”

“Eew!” said Evangeline.

“Ugh!” said Grace.

“Never,” Sara whispered to herself. Forget voodoo to stop babies coming. Better not to let them get started in the first place.

1829, Shermer Landing

Storms of late spring pounded the valley for three weeks and with no respite at all for one three-day period. The river was about to overflow, most of the water supply was contaminated, and cholera threatened. For her students’ safety, Igraine wrote to their parents. Though she expected the closure to be temporary, there was no way to know when the school could re-open.

The Academy had operated for nearly three years, and some of the girls had been there from the start. All but Sara went home in the summers and for Christmas but always with the intention of returning. Now, not knowing when they would next meet, the girls tearfully exchanged addresses and swore undying fealty to each other.

In the midst of the deluge a letter arrived from England, delivered the day before the school was to close, addressed to Miss Igraine Fiddyment, Headmistress, Miss Fiddyment’s Academy. Thinking it was from Solomon Grasmere, Igraine took it to the kitchen to read aloud.

“Wait. This isn’t from Mr. Grasmere. The handwriting is different.”

“Do you know anyone in England?” April asked.

“No one. It’s about Sara.” Igraine scanned the letter. “Goodness.”

“Go on, Miss Fiddyment,” said Mrs. Fuller. “Has it turned out she’s a duchess after all?”

“It may be, Mrs. Fuller,” Igraine said. “Listen:

To Miss Igraine Fiddyment,

No doubt you have had a letter from my niece, Penelope Sande Adams, the mother of your student, Sara Adams. Mrs. Adams has written to ask me to take my grandniece to live here at The Branch as my companion. I am assured Mr. Adams also wishes this, and I have agreed to the proposal.