The Revelation of Louisa May

Also by Michaela MacColl
Always Emily
Nobody's Secret
Promise the Night
Prisoners in the Palace

In memory of my dear friend,
Catherine Topp Amon
(1957 – 2014)

CHAPTER ONE
1

CHAPTER TWO
10

CHAPTER THREE
19

CHAPTER FOUR
34

CHAPTER FIVE
48

CHAPTER SIX
61

CHAPTER SEVEN
74

CHAPTER EIGHT
86

CHAPTER NINE
94

CHAPTER TEN
103

CHAPTER ELEVEN
116

CHAPTER TWELVE
129

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
137

CHAPTER FOURTEEN
151

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
161

CHAPTER SIXTEEN
170

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
181

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
190

CHAPTER NINETEEN
200

CHAPTER TWENTY
213

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
225

EPILOGUE THREE MONTHS LATER
236

AUTHOR'S NOTE
238

FURTHER READING
247

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
249

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

“Don't you wish we had the money papa
lost when we were little, Jo?
Dear me! How happy and good we'd be,
if we had no worries!”

Y
ou're leaving me?”

Her father's words floated through the cracks in the door.

Louisa stifled a cry. Marmee would never leave them. Through all their suffering, the one constant was that the family must and would stay together.

Abandoning her desk, Louisa pressed her ear to the door that led to the parlor. She strained to hear her mother's answer.

“Bronson, you've left me no choice.” Marmee's voice was tight, as though her vocal cords had been wrung like a wet rag.

Louisa opened the door with one finger, just a bit, to see her mother pacing back and forth across the narrow parlor. With a ripple of shock, Louisa noticed that Marmee's dark gray-streaked hair had come loose from her bun. Louisa stroked one of her own untidy braids in solidarity.

“I can't economize any more,” Marmee said. “We've used up our credit in every shop in Concord. We can't afford to stay in this house or buy necessaries for the children.” Her voice grew stronger, then faded as she paced away from the door. “If you won't work for money, I shall have to. It's a good job. They want me to run the hotel and manage the water cures.”

Craning her neck, Louisa could just make out her father's face, as handsome and stubborn as ever. But his voice shook as he said, “It's so far. Waterford is a hundred and fifty miles away. What if the children need you?” Father was reclining on the comfortable sofa, his hands interlaced behind his gray-streaked blond head, his long legs stretched out in front of him. But his indifference was a pose; he would be lost without Marmee. They all would be.

“What the children need is to go to school,” Marmee said. “But we can't afford it.”

“Bah! What better teachers could they have besides me, Emerson, and Thoreau?” he asked with his usual confidence.
“Millionaires would pay a fortune for their children to have such an education.”

“But their education, such as it is, lacks method and discipline.”

“All the better!” Bronson exclaimed. “You know my methods. Our children thrive without the confines of a schoolroom and a harsh schoolmaster.”

“Anna is only seventeen and she has to work for her living far from home. And what about Louisa? She should be going to parties and enjoying herself, as I did when I was her age.” Poor Marmee—her voice was so tired and discouraged.

“When I was their age I was working on the farm,” Bronson argued.

“But I enjoyed Boston's finest society, going to the theater and to parties. I want the girls to have some fun in their lives.”

Huddled against the door, Louisa slid down to the floor and sighed. She definitely would prefer the theater to working for a living. Louisa knew she should find a job like Anna had, but she hated teaching and sewing and all the respectable ways she could earn money. And anything that pulled her away from writing her stories and poems was a waste of her time.

“A little sacrifice is good for them,” Bronson said. “Our daughters must seek fields of richer thyme than we grow here. Let each of them make honey for herself, since all lasting enjoyments come from one's own exertions.” Louisa heard him get up and rummage about the small desk in the parlor.

Louisa pushed open the door a little further. Her father was writing in one of his leather-bound journals. “That bit about bees is quite good,” he muttered. “I might work that into one of my Conversations.”

Marmee stood, her profile to Louisa, watching him write. The line of her back was rigid, and her hands were clenched. “You haven't had a paying Conversation in months, Bronson,” Marmee said hotly. Then with a deliberate calming breath, Marmee moved close to her husband and placed her work-worn hands on his shoulders. “Come with me!” she murmured in his ear. “The hotel would like you to come and teach classes. They think you would be a great attraction.” Her voice became husky. “You'd be supporting the family, and we could be together.”

“Ah,” breathed Louisa. So this was Marmee's plan.

Her parents had moved to a part of the room where she couldn't see them. Just as she moved to nudge the door open, she heard footsteps, light but firm, crossing the floor. She pulled back. The door closed with a decisive click.

She pressed her ear against the door, straining to hear her father's response to Marmee's entreaty.

“My dear, my work is in my mind and in the hard labor I do to grow our food and fix our house.” Father's voice was only slightly muffled by the oak door. “I have no calling to work for others. Do not ask me to compromise my principles for money!”

“You would have us starve for your principles instead?” Even without seeing them, Louisa could tell her mother was close to tears.

Her father's voice took on a wheedling sound that put Louisa's teeth on edge. “Abba, you used to be proud of my ideas and principles. But you've changed, grown cold and unsympathetic. Now you complain like the most common housewife that there isn't enough money for fripperies.”

Louisa glanced up at the few dresses hanging in her narrow closet. Each one was a hand-me-down from some rich relation, turned out and resewn to make a serviceable gown. Fripperies? She'd gladly settle for a fresh bolt of calico.

“Fripperies? Bronson, there isn't any money to pay for firewood. Or flour. Or your precious journals.”

“Your family . . .”

“My family's generosity has been exhausted time and time again. Even my brother, who admires you greatly, wonders why you will gladly take the money that others have worked for, but you won't work yourself.”

Louisa had only the vaguest memories of her father ever working for his living. When she was three, he had a school in Boston. His revolutionary ideas included fresh air in the classroom, no corporal punishment, and the strange idea that children could also teach the teachers. At first wealthy parents had flocked to the school, but Bronson's other ideas about religion had frightened them away. When Bronson admitted a
black girl as a pupil, he lost his final backers. Almost sixteen now, Louisa couldn't recall her father working for money any time since, no matter how bare the larder. Father's willingness to let the family suffer for his ideals had been proven beyond a scintilla of doubt.

Marmee went on, ice in her voice. “I've been offered a contract for three months and you give me no choice but to take it.”

Bronson sank into an armchair and wiped his brow. “But who will take care of me?”

Louisa pressed her forehead against the doorjamb, steeling herself against the answer.