Mrs. Poe (9 page)

Ellen’s face crumpled with doubt. “Has he written yet?”

“No.”

“Maybe you should have been nicer to him.”

I opened my arm for Vinnie, suddenly tearful, and brought her close, too. “Your papa loves you both very, very much. How can he help it?” I kissed the tops of their heads in punctuation: “You are the most lovable, most clever, most adorably silly girls in the world.”

I stood back with a smile, although my heart was breaking for them. “Well,” I said brightly, “what kind of necklace do you think Miss Fuller will have on tonight—made of shells, bones, or animal’s teeth?”

Vinnie wiped her eye. “Bones.” Both she and her sister had met Miss Fuller on afternoon promenades down Broadway last fall, when the weather had been fair. As one would guess, Miss Fuller’s distinctive dress had left an indelible impression on them.

“Teeth.” Ellen retreated again into her solemn facade. “People teeth.”

“That is possible,” I said. “Maybe she’ll stop off at the dentist’s on the way to the party and get herself a few.”

Ellen frowned. “Maybe she steals them from people.”

“Ellen!” My overly shocked tone brought out her smile.

As they exchanged gory and inappropriate ideas for how Miss Fuller might bolster her supply of teeth, I examined a sudden thought for a shivery story. What if a beautiful woman who had lost her teeth due to illness forced her maid to give up her own teeth and had them
implanted in her gums, only to find that she was starting to think and speak like the maid . . . ?

I shook my head to clear it of ugliness. How could I ever write the kind of poetry that was selling well when dwelling on the dark side unnerved me? How did Mr. Poe bear it? You would think that his mind was ill. Yet the Mr. Poe I was beginning to know did not seem ill at all, but steady and even thoughtful, when I spoke to him alone. To be honest, more honest than I could be with Eliza, I found that I liked him a great deal.

As I fastened on my ear bobs, a pair Samuel had given me when he had been courting me—a set of pearls that had falsely given the impression that he had money—I felt dread at having to speak of Mr. Poe’s private circumstances to Miss Fuller and Mr. Greeley. Mr. Poe had trusted me enough to let me meet his ailing wife. It seemed wrong to betray him.

And so I was relieved at the party that night to find that Miss Fuller and Mr. Greeley weren’t there. I operated the samovar with cheerful vigor, happy to help Miss Lynch serve as I listened at the edges of conversations. It was freeing to be able to observe the various personalities without the distraction of having to interact with their owners: Miss Lynch’s genuine modesty and earnest friendliness, which relaxed even pompous elitists like Senator Daniel Webster, glowering by the chimneypiece in his flamboyant purple coat; Mrs. Butler, with her actress’s great energy and her natural good spirits, even while being rebuffed by some of the more traditional members of the assembly; and the Reverend Mr. Griswold with his Midas’s touch of negativity, capable of puncturing anyone’s mood with a single sour word. Soon after the cookies had been dispensed, we pulled around chairs and sofas to see the young spiritualist, Andrew Jackson Davis, give an impromptu performance in the art of mesmerization.

He looked around the crowd, his long, attractive face lifted in a grin. “Any volunteers?” he asked. He would have been very handsome had not his glossy mound of beard been trimmed so precisely to his jawline, making him look like he was wearing a fur ruff.

“What does it feel like to be mesmerized?” Eliza asked cheerfully. At her elbow, her husband, Russell, never one for nonsense, shook his head.

“The subject goes into a trance and feels nothing,” said Mr. Davis. “While they are in the state of nervous sleep, I shall ask them to perform a few simple tasks. They will remember nothing when I awaken them.”

Mrs. Butler stepped before him. “Use me. I should like to try it.”

Mr. Davis seated her before the crowd, then pulled a leather case from his vest. At that moment, Mr. Poe walked into the salon, his top hat in his hand.

Miss Lynch flitted over to him. “Come in, Mr. Poe! We were just getting ready to see Mr. Davis put Mrs. Butler into a nervous trance.”

Mr. Poe caught my eye as she led him over to the chair she had been occupying. I smiled, ridiculously shy. He blinked in acknowledgment just before the gaslights were turned down low.

I could not fully focus on the mesmerization. Yes, I watched Mr. Davis take a curette from his case and wave its shining blade just high enough above Miss Kemble’s eyes so that she had to look up without lifting her face. Yes, I heard him command her to follow it with her eyes from side to side, and heard him tell her that she was getting sleepy. I witnessed her lids growing heavy, and Mr. Davis’s stepping forward and closing them by simply putting his thumb in front of them. But although my face was trained toward the performance, my outer gaze was upon Mr. Poe, who was watching the proceedings closely. I could not help but wonder if Mrs. Poe’s health was improving. Had he found a new house? And, absurdly, had he thought of me?

A stirring behind us revealed Mr. Greeley tiptoeing into the room with Miss Fuller and a man who I recognized to be another editor at the
Tribune.

“Shhh!” one of the ladies hissed. “A mesmerization!”

“That humbug?” Miss Fuller said under her breath. She took a place on a chair that Miss Lynch had quickly found her.

Soon Mrs. Butler was meowing like a cat at Mr. Davis’s command. He commanded her back to sleep, then asked her what she saw.

“My sister,” she said in a strange voice.

“Where is your sister?” asked Mr. Davis.

“There!” Mrs. Butler flung out her arm. In doing so, she knocked
over a Chinese urn on a pedestal. It broke apart on the floor like an egg tapped against the edge of a skillet.

Mrs. Butler opened an eye. “So sorry, Anne,” she whispered to Miss Lynch.

All laughed, except Mr. Davis and, I noticed, Mr. Poe. As people broke into animated groups, he took aside Mr. Davis. They were talking quietly when Miss Fuller tapped my arm.

“How was your meeting with Poe?” she said in a low voice.

I gazed at her necklace—stone, tonight—as I grasped for a noncommittal answer.

Mr. Greeley ambled over with a cookie. “What did I miss?”

Miss Fuller strained to see if Mr. Poe were still occupied. “I just asked her about Poe,” she whispered. “So tell us, what was his house like?”

I lowered my face. “I can’t say. He was living in temporary lodging.”

“Did you talk to his wife?” asked Mr. Greeley.

I looked up. “She was very sweet.”

“Sweet?” cried Miss Fuller. “I can’t write a column on ‘sweet’!”

I glanced at Mr. Poe, still engaged by Mr. Andrews. “I really don’t know the Poes. At any rate, maybe there’s not enough about Mr. Poe’s personal life on which to write a column.”

Miss Fuller gave me an incredulous stare. “Edgar Poe married his thirteen-year-old first cousin when he was in his twenties. He regularly scalps America’s best poets. His stories are filled with dead people who haunt their killers. And you mean to tell me there’s nothing about his private life to write about?”

I saw Mr. Poe coming our way. My frown made Miss Fuller turn.

“Mr. Poe!” she cried. “Good evening.”

“It is good-bye, I fear. I have been at the office all day and must return home. Mrs. Osgood—” He bowed. “I had hoped that I would catch you here. My wife asked if you could possibly call on her next week. Perhaps Tuesday?”

I felt Miss Fuller’s smile upon me. “Certainly,” I said.

“At ten o’clock?”

“Ten is fine.”

With nods to all, he backed away, then left.

“Well,” said Mr. Greeley, “that was fast.”

Miss Fuller chuckled. “And you don’t know the Poes.”

I kept my expression pleasant. Mr. Poe had walked a mile and a half from his office to Washington Square and the walk home was equally far. It seemed like a lot of time and trouble just to deliver an invitation.

Reverend Griswold arrived at our circle. “Where’s Poe going?”

“Home,” said Mr. Greeley.

“Well that he should run!” said Reverend Griswold. “If he thinks I will forgive him for insulting my book, he’s got a big surprise coming.”

“I doubt if you’ll take him by surprise, Rufus,” said Miss Fuller. “Unless you actually did forgive him.”

Reverend Griswold raised his smoothly pink face in a superior smile. “Why should I forgive Edgar Poe, when ruining him would be ever so much more fun?” His rings crunched my fingers as he plucked up my hand with his own dove-gray-gloved one. He smelled strongly of crushed roses when he leaned in to kiss it. “Wouldn’t you agree, Mrs. Osgood?”

Nine

Frozen pellets of sleet rattled on my bonnet and served as tiny ball bearings under my feet as I gingerly shuffled along the lower stretches of Greenwich Street that Tuesday. The children had gone away. The Temperance lady had abandoned her position at the groggery. The pothouse itself was shuttered up tight, only to issue forth a roar when a patron stumbled out into the whistling curtain of ice. Why I was making a trip to the Poes’ home in these conditions, I did not know. Or perhaps I did know and would not admit it to myself.

Ice crunched under my boots as I climbed the steps to their house. Through the rag-plugged window, I saw a candle burning.
Let Mr. Poe be here.
I knocked resolutely on the door.

Mrs. Clemm answered. Her worried expression melted into a grin. “Come in!”

Mrs. Poe was seated on the sofa when I entered, the tortoiseshell cat in her lap. “Mrs. Osgood! You came! I didn’t think you would.”

Mrs. Clemm took my hat, cloak, and gloves. “Coffee?” she cried.

Mrs. Poe nodded enthusiastically for me to take some.

“That would be nice. Thank you.”

Mrs. Poe patted the seat next to her and the cat. No sooner had I taken it than Mrs. Clemm rolled the table in front of me, effectively blocking me in. I shivered although the stove was nearly glowing with heat.

“Eddie’s not here,” Mrs. Poe said. “In case you were expecting him.”

I covered my disappointment. “I came to see you. Thank you for inviting me. How are you feeling?”

Mrs. Clemm brought over the coffeepot from the stove. “We are quite well! Two more newspapers have printed Eddie’s bird poem.”
She poured a stream from the rustic pot into one of the delicate bone china cups. “That makes twelve magazines or papers in all, not including the ones that printed it twice.”

“It’s a wonderful poem,” I said.

Mrs. Poe held on to the cat, which kept trying to jump from her lap. “Do you think so?”

I took the cup Mrs. Clemm offered me. “Oh, yes. Once you hear it, you can’t get it out of your mind.”

“Like a curse,” said Mrs. Poe.

“Dear me, Virginia,” said Mrs. Clemm, “there you go, talking about curses. You’re as frightening as Eddie.”

Mrs. Poe smiled with satisfaction. “That’s because he and I are just alike.”

“Two more independent children, you have never seen.” Mrs. Clemm shook her head, the long lappets of her widow’s cap swaying. “They would run from me when I called them, though Eddie was older and should have known better. Virginia was always the instigator of the two. When just a wee mite of a girl, she led poor Eddie down the primrose path.”

Mrs. Poe laughed as if her mother had just paid her the highest compliment.

I smiled, wondering if Mrs. Clemm, too close to the pair to have a proper perspective, might be a poor judge of their abilities. It seemed particularly telling that she thought of Mr. Poe, elegant, successful, and in his thirties, as a child. Virginia, on the other hand, seemed less mature than my Ellen.

Wishing to change to a more comfortable subject, I said, “Did Mr. Poe write as a boy?”

“Dear me, yes,” said Mrs. Clemm. “It was all he had, what with losing his mother as a toddling child and then being cast aside by his foster father. I think sometimes his pen was his only friend in the world.”

Her worried expression brightened. “He got quite good with it, though, even while young. As a matter of fact, he wrote me the cleverest poem apologizing for breaking the teapot to this set.”

Mrs. Poe held down the cat as she sipped at her coffee. “I broke the pot.”

Mrs. Clemm looked at her, startled. “You did?”

Mrs. Poe continued sipping, holding her cup with her pinky finger raised.

After a strained silence, I said, “Mr. Poe must have done very well in school.”

Mrs. Clemm returned her attention to me. “Oh, very well, indeed! I always knew he would be someone special.”

“You must be so proud now.”

Mrs. Poe daintily put her cup upon her saucer. “Tell us about your husband.”

I met her inquiring gaze. “There’s not much to tell.”

“Is he rich?”

“Virginia!” Mrs. Clemm exclaimed.

I laughed with feigned ease. “I don’t know about that, but he does paint rich people.”

“He’s a painter?” asked Mrs. Poe.

“A portraitist,” I said. “After the school of Gilbert Stuart.”

“Gilbert Stuart is very good?”

“He was the best in his day. Have you ever seen a portrait of George Washington?”

She nodded. “In magazines.”

“Most likely the portraits were from engravings done from paintings by Mr. Stuart. Many of the portraits that hang in the President’s House in Washington were painted by him.”

“So Mr. Stuart’s famous?”

“Very much so.”

“Is your husband?”

I drew in a breath. “He’s trying to be.”

“Will you have him come paint my portrait?”

“Virginia!” cried Mrs. Clemm. “You must not ask. Perhaps he is busy.”

I considered Mrs. Poe with her beautiful child’s face, shining with excitement. “I’m certain that Samuel would love to paint your portrait. Unfortunately, he’s not in town at the moment.” Heaven help Mr. Poe if he were in town. Mrs. Poe was just the sort of adulating, soft-centered subject Samuel favored. He would sweep her off her feet before she knew to draw breath.