Mrs. Poe (18 page)

“No,” I said.

They looked at me.

“What if this is about my article for the
Tribune
? I cannot afford to jeopardize my chance at making money.” I almost laughed at my outrageousness. As if I wished to pursue that article. Writing it sickened me.

Eliza exchanged glances with her husband, then pursed her lips. “You may send him in, Catherine.”

Mr. Poe entered. My body quickened at the sight of him, darkly handsome in his mysterious way, an untamed beast just barely under control. Mr. Bartlett rose to shake his hand, after which Eliza received him, seated. He came to me. My heart thumping, I put out my hand.

He took it briefly. “Mrs. Osgood.” His manner was the perfect combination of professional friendliness and courtly reserve, the animal in him shackled and hidden. “Thank you for receiving me at this hour.”

“What brings you this way?” Mr. Bartlett said, a little rudely.

“An invitation for Mrs. Osgood from my wife.”

I cringed inwardly. Why wouldn’t she leave me alone?

He turned his dark-lashed eyes to me. “She would like to invite you to come with us to Mathew Brady’s studio on Wednesday. It seems he insists that he do our portrait.”

“That’s very kind of her,” I said, “but I’m afraid that I would only be in the way.”

“On the contrary, you’d be doing her a favor. She’s looking forward to having her portrait done, and having a witness to the event would only double her pleasure. I’m afraid that my own lack of enthusiasm for the project has not been much good to her.”

Mr. Bartlett puffed on his pipe. “What would Mr. Osgood say about your entering enemy territory?”

I felt a rush of anger. “Excuse me?”

Mr. Bartlett took his pipe from his teeth. “How would your husband feel about your frequenting the studio of his competition?”

“Mr. Osgood has nothing to fear,” said Mr. Poe. “A tray of chemicals can never replace the artistic eye, as his wife has so rightfully advised me.” He turned to me. “I would like to invite your husband, too. It might be very interesting to him.”

“Thank you, but he has not returned from his travels.”

Mr. Poe nodded. “Perhaps he can join us another time, then.”

“I’m sure that he’d like to talk to you,” Mr. Bartlett said pointedly.

Mr. Poe did not take the barb. “I understand, sir, that you have launched an ambitious undertaking.” He gave Mr. Bartlett a rare smile. “Collecting words and phrases particular to America—my hat is off to you.”

Mr. Bartlett raised blond brows. “You heard?”

“Mr. Willis told me. A worthy project.”

“What project, Russell?” asked Eliza.

Mr. Bartlett staunched a grin. “That Willis—the man cannot keep a secret. I didn’t want to tell you until I was a little further along with it, Eliza, but yes, I am working on a project, a spectacular one: a dictionary of Americanisms.” He beamed unabashedly.

“Russell!” Eliza exclaimed. “How wonderful. How have you been able to keep this from me?”

Mr. Bartlett puffed cheerfully on his pipe. “It wasn’t easy.”

Released from his secrecy, Mr. Bartlett spent a happy hour discussing his method of collection and his criteria for classifying words with Mr. Poe, during which Eliza shot me several searching looks. At last the tall clock struck nine and Mr. Poe excused himself, saying that his wife would worry about him if he did not start for home.

“Not such a bad fellow,” said Mr. Bartlett after the front door shut.

“Should you reconsult your phrenology chart, Russell?” asked Eliza. She bit back a smile at me.

Still sanguine from delving into a topic that he obviously held dear, Mr. Bartlett calmly tapped his empty pipe into an ashtray. “Perhaps.”

I noticed Mr. Poe’s gloves on the arm of the chair where he had sat. I rose as quickly as dignity would allow and retrieved them. “I think I might still catch him.”

“It’s no use,” Mr. Bartlett called after me. “He’ll have gone too far. His office is near the bookstore—I’ll take them to him in the morning.”

“Just in case—” I hurried to the door. Down the stone steps I rushed, oblivious to the evening chill. I flung open the iron gate and ran down the sidewalk. Three short blocks up, I stopped abruptly. At the corner, under a tree outside the graveyard of the Baptist church, stood Mr. Poe.

My heart beating in my throat, I approached.

I held out the gloves.

He caught my wrist. “I need you.”

“This cannot be.”

“Then why did you come?”

“We’ll be outcasts.”

“I don’t give a damn.” He crushed me to him. In the dim glow of a gas-lit street lamp, I could see the wildness in his eyes. His raw yearning thrilled and terrified me.

His voice was thick with furious urgency. “You are all I ever wanted. I have waited for you my whole life.”

I pulled back. “Your wife. I fear she cannot stand a blow.”

“You don’t know her.”

“I don’t want to know her. I can’t bear to think what this would do to her.”

He let go of my waist. “Yes, you are right. It’s best that you don’t know her. For your sake.”

I stared at him, my lips aching for his. I didn’t care about his wife. I wanted his body against mine.

He took my arm. I cried out in surprise as he led me swiftly back to my door. With a curt good-bye, he strode away, leaving me with his gloves in my trembling hands.

He had treated me like a child. I hated him, and what’s more, I feared him.

I lifted his gloves to my lips. They smelled like leather, cold air, and his flesh.

I would possess him, no matter if it killed me.

Sixteen

It was a sunny day, rich with the promise of spring, but little of the fine day penetrated the gloomy hackney in which I rode down Broadway. With my gloved hands folded upon my reticule like a trussed bird, I breathed in the odor of cigar smoke and sweat—a souvenir from previous passengers—and listened as Mrs. Poe recounted the details of the ball that she and Mr. Poe had attended the previous night. It seemed that neither the food nor the acclaim that she and her husband had received there had its parallel in modern history, or so one would think, hearing her glowing account as we jounced along.

“Everyone who was important was there,” she was saying in her silvered voice. “The William Backhouse Astors, the Coopers, the Vanderbilts. Do you know them?”

“Yes.” They were the new-money crowd whom Samuel had courted vigorously. The coal of fury smoldering in my heart reddened at the thought of him.

“Oh, the ladies were so lovely! Do you know that Mrs. Vanderbilt’s dress, including her jewels, cost thirty thousand dollars? I know. I asked her.” She smiled. “She seemed glad for a chance to tell.”

Maybe Mrs. Vanderbilt really was happy for the opportunity to divulge the price. It was customary among the well-heeled for the value of things to be
understood
but not divulged. Perhaps it was refreshing to get exact credit.

Across from us, Mr. Poe seemed to be staring at the dust motes shimmering in the shaft of sunlight pouring through the open carriage window. He had not looked at me since they had retrieved me at Eliza’s house. Did his body still hum, too, from when we had touched three long nights ago?

“The talk was of a new dance step,” she said, “the polka. Have you heard of it?”

“No,” I said. “I’m afraid I haven’t.”

“You haven’t?” Mrs. Poe gasped in delight. “It’s just divine! You’ve never heard such happy music.”

“An insane Tartar jig,” muttered Mr. Poe.

She made a pouting face.

I laughed to show my support of Mrs. Poe as guilt seeped from my pores. Yet face her I must. The pain of doing so while in the company of her husband seemed the proper punishment for having the feelings that I had for him. Maybe it could be my cure. If only suffering through her discomforting company could break me of my dangerous attraction to him.

Mrs. Poe gazed out the window, picking at the low neckline of her dress. With its revealing neckline and cinched waist, her gown was the most stylish that I’d seen her wear. In fact, I realized with a jolt, it was similar to the one I had worn when I’d first met Mr. Poe.

“I like your dress,” I said.

“Do you?” She stroked the front of it. “I had it made from the advance money of Eddie’s new book.”

“A new dress does wonders for the spirit,” I said.

She gazed at me for a moment. “You must know all about his book.”

“I don’t,” I said lightly. “Which book is this?”

“Really? I thought that he might have told you at one of those
conversaziones
.” She pronounced the word in mocking tones.

“I’m afraid not,” I said with false good humor. “I’m just another of his readers, waiting to see what treat Mr. Poe has in store for us.”

“Didn’t he come to your house?”

A wave of heat swept over my face. “The Bartletts’ home, you must mean, where I am staying. Yes, he did, but I fear Mr. Bartlett kept him rather occupied. What is this new book, Mr. Poe?” I said brightly.

He glanced from the window long enough to give his wife a baleful look. “Tales.”

“People can’t get enough of his frightening stories.” Mrs. Poe studied me as our carriage shuddered along. “Which ones have you read?”

I felt my blush deepen.

Mrs. Poe crooked half of her pretty mouth in a smile. “You really should bother with reading them, you know.”

“Why should she?” Mr. Poe snapped. “I’ve had quite enough of them.”

Mrs. Poe plucked at the fabric of her dress. “You will never be done with your scary stories, Eddie. Never. Don’t you know that?”

I busied myself with my reticule, feeling the friction between them. But Mr. Poe and I
had
to play the part of jolly friends if I was ever to see him at all. “So Let It Be,” written so innocently, now served as a map as to how we must behave.

“When should we expect your article on Eddie to be published?” Mrs. Poe asked.

Firmer footing. I leaped at it. “It’s almost finished. I’ve yet to put the final touches on it.”

“Do you need more information? Eddie, why aren’t you talking to her?”

I gathered myself. “Actually, the public wants to know about both of you. They want a glimpse of your happy married life together.”

Mrs. Poe giggled. “Do they?”

“Kill the article,” Mr. Poe said suddenly.

Mrs. Poe blinked as if slapped.

“My privacy has already been ruined,” said Mr. Poe. “If one more person asks me to say ‘nevermore,’ I shall throttle them.”

“Eddie!” Mrs. Poe protested. “So vicious.”

“This time, Virginia, you don’t get what you want.”

Just past Saint Paul’s Chapel, the carriage stopped. I looked out the window as an omnibus rumbled by. On the pavement before Mr. Brady’s studio, a boy hoping for a half cent was trying to sell a stolen apple to a gentleman.

“Here we are.” Mrs. Poe slid out her bottom lip. “But you’ve spoiled the occasion.”

“You’ll find a way to enjoy it.” He got out and held the door for his wife. It struck me how in the sunshine, the blue-black of her hair was the very color of a raven. Had he been gazing at his wife when he was writing the poem that would make him famous? A shard of jealousy twisted in my heart.

I was helped from the carriage by Mr. Poe. He let his agitated gaze linger upon me, exciting and frightening me with his boldness.

Inside the studio, the three of us strolled by a gallery of portraits of the rich and famous. Many I recognized from Anne’s conversaziones: Mr. Audubon, Mr. Greeley, Senator Webster, the aged Mr. Astor. We were examining them, Mrs. Poe coughing daintily from time to time into her handkerchief, when Mr. Brady trampled down the stairs, wiping his hands on a towel.

“Mr. Poe!” He shook hands, his blue eyes enlarged to comic proportions behind his spectacles. “And the beautiful Mrs. Poe.” He kissed her hand, then came to me. “Mrs. Osgood? What a surprise.”

“I see you have Dickens,” said Mr. Poe.

Mr. Brady turned around. “Ah, yes.” He gazed fondly at his work, hanging on the wall. “I had the honor of making his portrait when he visited New York several years ago. I had just bought my equipment and didn’t yet have my studio. He was most kind to sit for an unknown like me. Of course
all
daguerreotypists were unknown two years ago; it’s such a new art.”

“He was clever to have his portrait made,” said Mrs. Poe.

Mr. Brady’s huge eyes nearly danced with merriment. “Indeed! If ever a person knew the value of publicity, it was Dickens. He orchestrated his every move with the press, from his dinner at Delmonico’s, to his carriage ride afterward through the slums of Five Points, to his tour of the lunatic asylum on Blackwell’s Island.”

“See, Eddie?” said Mrs. Poe. “
He
courts attention.”

Mr. Poe’s expression darkened. “I’ll not imitate his usage of the poor and ill to sell my books. If that’s how an author wins his readers’ attention, I’d rather be unknown.”

Mrs. Poe shook her pretty head. “See what a difficult husband I have?”

Mr. Poe frowned at Mr. Brady. “What did you have in mind for us today?”

“I thought to make a portrait of each of you separately, if you don’t mind.”

“And Mrs. Osgood, too?” asked Mrs. Poe.

Mr. Brady glanced at Mr. Poe as if to see if the great man had time to wait for a portrait to be made of his wife’s friend.

Mr. Poe gave a short nod.

“Yes, yes,” said Mr. Brady. “Of course. If you will step this way.” He motioned for us to go up the stairs.

We climbed three flights, a task made slower by Mrs. Poe’s coughing. The studio was on the top floor, in a room that was bright from the sunlight pouring through the glass roof. A red velvet drapery covered one of the walls. Opposite it, Mr. Brady’s assistant was atop a ladder, latching a compartment of a metal cabinet that was set high upon a shelf.

“Ladies first.” Mr. Brady directed Mrs. Poe to a small stage before the curtain. “If you will allow me.” He arranged her body so that her head was turned to face us, then adjusted a small table covered with a Turkey carpet and rested her arm upon it.