Louisa and the Missing Heiress Read online

  The Home, as the people of Boston referred to it, was a ramshackle house on Charles Street, once empty and unfit for living and now filled with a dozen girls and women, all in various stages of pregnancy and with nowhere else to go. The building showed the city’s ambivalence to this reminder of sin and misfortune among them: One side of the façade had been hastily and clumsily painted in large red letters spelling out the word whore; the other side was graced with a new porch and several rocking chairs, courtesy of an anonymous donor. Sylvia and I spent much time there. I realize now that my experience working with these young women was the best education in life I could have had.

  On that particular late afternoon, last summer’s pots of marigolds, now dried and frozen into perpetual ashy brownness, lined the four steps leading to the little porch. Six ragged children played in a makeshift tent made from an old torn quilt. They turned large eyes in my direction as I approached.

  “Victoria, are you in there?” I said, as I crouched down before the flap opening.

  A little ragamuffin with blond curls and huge brown eyes stuck her head out.

  “Hello, Miss Alcott. Do you have a present for me?” Victoria was the fourth child of Miss Amelia Rowbothoms, who, as a resident of the Charles Street home, was waiting for the fifth. Amelia had been born with the dual misfortune of beauty and a simple, trusting nature, a nature that her various employers had amply demonstrated was a liability rather than an asset.

  “I do. And for all of you. Apples.” I pulled the fruits from my pockets and distributed them, noting sadly that even the dried, withered winter apples were larger than the little hands grabbing for them, and those hands were caked with seasons of dirt. A certain stability of income, I thought for the dozenth time, was required for good manners and cleanliness. How different this was from Dot’s front parlor of 10 Commonwealth Avenue, where no children were yet in evidence but when in good time they did appear, it would be in whitelace christening robes with doting parents and sponsors who would hire clowns and pony rides for yearly birthday parties. Most of the children in the home didn’t know their own birthdays, much less celebrate them with pony rides.

  Inside, the house smelled overwhelmingly of dirty linen and nappies. There was always a vat of cloths boiling on the stove, always the metallic smell of dried blood. Often there were the sounds from the birthing room upstairs of a woman panting, groaning, screaming, as yet another soul made its way into the world. Yet, surrounded by misery, I felt of use and at home, a sensation foreign to me at the Brownlys’ party.

  I stood at the bottom of the dark, dusty interior stairs and listened. Except for the low mumble of unseen conversations, the occasional whimpers of babies, the clanging of the metal lid over the steaming vat, the house was quiet. Good. Queenie wasn’t in labor yet. It was too soon for the baby, but there had been false labor pains for a week now.

  “Queenie?” I called up.

  A face, tawny colored, green eyed, not much larger than those of the playing children outside, peered over the stairwell railing. Queenie’s rambunctious curls surrounded her face like a messy halo.

  “Miss Louisa?”

  “Yes. I’ve a basket. Come pick something for yourself.”

  The girl, fifteen years old and now as wide as she was tall, made her way carefully down the stairs, leaning backward for balance, keeping one hand on the shelf of her belly and the other firmly on the banister. She sat on the bottom step and stared forlornly into the basket. Her large green eyes moved over the checks and plaids and only slightly stained laces and then looked away again, at the ceiling, at the wall, at her own huge belly.

  “See! Pink and green stripes, your favorite colors.” I picked out a wool frock and waltzed it before her.

  “I can’t wear that,” Queenie said. “Look at me. Look at it.”

  “You’ll be able to wear it after, I promise. Just keep it for now, and when the time comes we’ll give it some alterations. It is much too long, I see. How are you today, Queenie?”

  “All right, I suppose.” The child leaned her chin into her cupped hands and stared inward, to where the secret was.

  “Any pain?”

  “Most of the time. I just wish this thing would go away. I don’t want it.”

  “When you hold that little baby for the first time, you’ll feel differently.” I’m afraid I always told the girls that, even though I knew it wasn’t always true. I suspected that some of the girls were here because their own mothers had not been able to hold them and love them.

  “Maybe,” Queenie said, suspecting the lie.

  “Have you heard from your father?”

  “I sent that letter you helped me write. He didn’t send nothing back.”

  “He wants to know the father’s name. Give him that, and he says he’ll take you back in.”

  “I can’t, Miss Louisa.” Many of the girls in the ward would not name the father; some for shame because it was their brother, or even their father, others because they did not know which man of several bore the final responsibility. For Queenie, it was different. Her fear was obvious. If she named him, he would take revenge. And no matter what we said, none could convince Queenie that she could be protected from his anger.

  “Shall I go talk to your father again?”

  “What’s the point, Miss Louisa? He doesn’t change his mind.”

  “Don’t give up hope, Queenie.”

  But Queenie only looked back with wounded eyes and went upstairs.

  “Don’t give up. When this is past, we’ll find a situation for you. I promise.”

  Queenie paused and smiled over her shoulder.

  “You’re what my ma used to call an optimist,” she said.

  TUESDAY WAS MILD and dry. I stared up at the sky as I emptied the ashes of last night’s hearth onto the sooty heap next to the privy. The branches on the oak were brown and bare and carved into the smoky Boston air, reminding me of Beatrice’s predicament of loving the faithless Claude. My story was waiting for me, and I had promised to attend for the second consecutive day a tea party! A day such as this in winter was rare, and I would rather have used the little spare time I had to walk along the northern paths out of Boston, to the marshes where the long-legged herons nested and hawks circled, and then, refreshed, go back to my attic and write.

  After six years of city life I still missed Concord, missed the ponies and the long walks through forest and field with only squirrels and chipmunks for company, and the occasional hikes with Henry Thoreau or Ralph Emerson. The day after a visit to the Charles Street home usually brought on this homesickness for the clean, quiet countryside.

  Yet after my school hours ended and the little Alcott parlor was cleaned of the biscuit crumbs, loose marbles, building blocks, and songbooks that so distressed my father (men can’t stand disorder, yet women must!), then were three hours of work at the shelter, helping terrified mothers learn to fold nappies, burp babies, and mend linen, and instructing even more terrified pregnant girls in the nightmare of first labor ahead of them; after that long day, I was now to sit on a silk sofa with my little finger arched over a teacup, as if I had done nothing all day but select an appropriate frock to wear!

  Yet even in this period of my life, when my tasks were many and my free hours few, I remember I smiled most of the day. I always knew that Beatrice, or whichever fictional character obsessed me at that moment, would be there on the morrow, waiting, or even later tonight, when I would find a free moment for writing. Both Abba and my father, Bronson, had taught me that an easy life was not necessarily a good one. The life of the mind and the spirit demanded constant testing, improvement, work. And to be the writer I intended to be, I knew that I must live the kind of life that writers live, one of hardship and stamina and reflection. Yet . . . I couldn’t help but think, sometimes, that writers of the male sex did have it a little easier. They could work behind a locked study door all day, while the women cleaned and laundered and cooked. Even Henry Thoreau, cloistered in his little
cabin at Walden Pond, had sent his dirty laundry home to his mother.

  “Dottie,” I had once confessed as a girl, lamenting female limitations and responsibilities in the world, “I am tempted to don trousers and stride through life à la George Sand.”

  This statement had agreeably thrilled and shocked Dot, cloistered in her wealth and her family’s expectations.

  “But then,” I remember saying, perhaps a little dreamy eyed, “but then, I read Anne Bradstreet’s poems to her husband and think there can be nothing more beautiful than two pure hearts united in love.” Dottie had agreed, not knowing then the exhaustion and sadness just a brief period of marriage would bring her.

  I did not want to attend this aftenoon’s tea. I wanted to walk in the fresh air and listen to Claude and Beatrice argue in my head.

  But I had promised Dot I would attend her tea party, and so I would. I admitted to more than a little curiosity. Dot had changed from the quiet, self-contained girl she had been into a quixotic, puzzling young woman. I was lucky to have my companion-at-arms, Sylvia, with me to mull over the odd transformation in our dear friend.

  “Even that strange sentence yesterday, something about carrying it about all morning in the fierce Italian heat . . . Sylvia, that kept going through my mind all last night. Do you remember it?” I said, when Sylvia had arrived and we had begun the walk together back to Dot’s house on Commonwealth Avenue. I had changed, as I had to, into my afternoon calling frock, and wore black-lace mittens mended in several places and the requisite hemisphere hat. Although my costume was a lady’s, I was in a rush and I realized I could be accused of using my “Concord walk,” a fast and long-strided pace meant more for boots and fields than high-heeled button-ups and cobbled streets. I knew I had slipped into such habits, because Sylvia was having trouble keeping pace. And I chastised myself—much as I still do to this day—for worrying about what Boston society thought of me. Why should I care so much what they thought of my walk?

  “No, Louisa, I don’t,” she said, panting.

  “Well, finally, I did. It is from one of the stories we made up, that summer when we had bonfires every night. But I can’t remember the rest of the story, only that a young woman is in great danger, and she carries something about in the Italian heat. . . .”

  “Perhaps,” Sylvia suggested, pulling at my sleeve in an attempt to slow my pace, “Dot simply doesn’t have enough to keep her occupied. You often say that hard work and ‘good drill’ keep the mind clear.”

  “Do I? How righteous I must sound, Sylvia. You know, of course, I am counseling myself to keep out of the Slough of Despond. I miss Anna, and I am worried about Dorothy.”

  “Dorothy did seem changed yesterday,” Sylvia agreed. “Certainly she is different from her old self. She used to be shy. Now she seems secretive. She was gay; now she frowns very often. Do you think Wortham has caused this?”

  “Your cousin is charming, but unreliable,” I said as we approached once again the Commonwealth Avenue mansion. “He claimed to become a new man when he fell in love with Dot. But Abba says people cannot change their nature, and I think I agree. I know Dottie, being Dottie, even knowing of his earlier exploits, forgave perhaps too quickly, too easily. But I admit to feeling uneasy.”

  “I know.” Sylvia was breathless. “I can tell by the length of your stride.”

  At two-thirty we knocked once again at the Wortham front door.

  Wortham opened it, except he wasn’t his usual debonair self. His hair stood on end; his shirt was open at the collar and rumpled. He smelled of whiskey.

  “Oh, dear.” I sighed. “Dot isn’t here, is she?”

  “Miss Alcott! She’s been gone all day! She left before breakfast, didn’t leave a word for me, never came home for lunch. . . . Miss Alcott, I’m worried something has happened!”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Dottie Is Discovered

  “DOT IS GONE! She’s been gone all day!” Preston exclaimed again, tearing at his hair in an overwrought manner.

  “Stay calm, Mr. Wortham. I’m sure there is an explanation.” But even then I wasn’t at all sure. “Let us go inside.” I placed my gloved hand on his elbow and guided him into his own parlor.

  I had never seen Preston Wortham in such a state until that terrible day. He was beside himself, unable to sit, shaking, wild-eyed. I later realized he was overreacting to a wife who had acquired a penchant for absentminded late arrivals. Something was very wrong in this household.

  Tea was already set up and Digby stood by, towel on arm. The parlor maid shifted nervously on her tiptoes and wrung her hands in her apron. No one else had arrived yet.

  “Mr. Wortham, have you and Dot quarreled?” I was convinced a direct approach was called for.

  “Quarreled?” Preston Wortham’s eyes grew even larger, and he again ran his hand through his bristling hair. “Quarreled?” he repeated as if the word were new to him. “Of course not!”

  Digby cleared his throat and stared straight ahead. The parlor maid giggled.

  “I see,” I said. “Well, we must sit and wait and hope that Dot will be here soon.”

  Wortham sat in his armchair, and Sylvia and I perched on a little settee. The first cups of tea were poured. And finished. A second cup poured. Lily the spaniel was nowhere to be seen. Occasionally Mr. Wortham bolted from his chair and paced over the expensive Aubusson rug; then—perhaps I had gazed at him rather sternly—he sat back down.

  A half hour passed. The doorbell rang.

  “Finally!” Mr. Wortham ran to the door and was about to fling it open when Digby, with a gentle clearing of his throat, discreetly stepped before him into the hall. Gentlemen do not answer their own doors.

  “Preston,” growled a woman’s voice, “I have come again to tea, as Dot pleaded. I hope she is here for a change.” Alfreda Thorney marched into the parlor, stopping only to let Digby take her wrap. There was a frozen moment of hostility between Digby and Alfreda (Did no one notice it but I?); then she recollected herself. “Ah. I see she is not. Good thing I did not remove my gloves. Really, this will not do. I will cease calling on her.” She folded her arms over her meager bosom and glared.

  “Good day, Miss Thorney,” Sylvia said, rising and extending her hand.

  “It is not a good day. I do not like being mocked in this manner.”

  “I’m sure Dot doesn’t intend—” I began.

  “I’m no longer sure of what Dot does or does not intend. Her hasty marriage to this gentleman seems to have altered her. She has lost her breeding. No tea, thank you. I won’t be staying.”

  Preston Wortham turned beet red with anger.

  “Perhaps if her own family had been more sympathetic to her nature, Dot wouldn’t have wandered so far from home when she made her vows,” he growled at Alfreda. “She told me about her sixteenth birthday, when for a gift you brought a physician who specialized in weight reduction!”

  “For her own good. She had spent the summer in Newport and ate too many ices!” Alfreda roared back, and then jumped, surprised that she had raised her own voice.

  “I think this kind of conversation will do us little good,” I suggested, stepping between them, for Mr. Wortham had clenched his fist and seemed on the verge of violence. The doorbell rang again. Digby quit the parlor and returned with the Misses Sarah and Edith Brownly.

  “Oh my,” Edith said. “Dot has done it again, hasn’t she?”

  “We had better get to the bottom of this,” I said. “Digby, did she by any chance lose her hat again today?”

  The irony was not lost on Digby. He smiled ever so slightly. “No, miss, not that I know of.”

  “Did she say where she was going? Do you know when she went out?”

  “No, miss. On both accounts.” Digby seemed a man of few words.

  The parlor maid giggled louder and raised her hand. “Miss,” she said softly.

  Mr. Wortham, his black hair standing on end, turned to the little maid and roared, “Speak up! Speak up!”


  “Well, sir, if you yell at me like that . . .”

  “I’m sorry, Brigid. Tell me, please, what you know of Mrs. Wortham’s absence,” he said in a low voice between grinding teeth.

  “She went out to buy a raisin cake, sir.”

  “A raisin cake?” four voices shouted at once.

  “I’ll be damned,” said Preston Wortham. “I wonder if she’s got herself in the family way. This just is not like Dot!”

  “Quite so,” agreed Alfreda. “Though I must add that any discussion of . . . of . . . is completely out of place in the front parlor.”

  “Discussion of what?” asked Edgar Brownly, appearing in the curtained doorway. “I let myself in,” he said. “No one seemed to hear the bell ring. What is the commotion?”

  He was breathing quickly, panting almost, as if he had been running or in some way exerting his large frame. I noticed a water stain darkening the hem of his trouser legs and I looked to the window, where the cold winter sun still shone, though it was low in the sky.

  “Ah,” Edgar wheezed, looking at the group. “Dot is not here.”

  Digby tried to placate us with tea and sandwiches and seedcake, but the cold silence that filled the parlor as Dottie’s family sat on silk-covered settees and carved armchairs and again began their wait was palpable. Silver spoons tinkled against thin bone china; somewhere from deeper in the house a canary sang. Edgar slurped his tea. Alfreda sniffed. Sarah and Edith sat stiffly close to each other, one right-handed, the other left-handed, reflecting two images of the same person drinking tea and nibbling at cake.

  “Well,” Alfreda said after ten minutes, looking more like a Medusa than ever. “I’ll not return. Tell that to Dottie. Digby, my wrap.” And she sailed out of the room, her indignation puffing out her thin chest and making her sharp chin jut like a ship’s prow. Her steps grew dim; a door quietly shut. Alfreda Thorney did not slam doors, even when her patience was tested beyond endurance.