Fortunately she falls a little in love with Mary, too. Like calls to like, Mary says. Edwin and Elizabeth have very similar personalities—volatile, passionate. She and Richard provide the ballast. Soon the Stoddards are their most intimate friends.
Adam Badeau provided Edwin’s first entrée into New York’s literati, but what the Stoddards can offer is a cut above. He’s the only actor included in their salons, marking him out as an artist first and foremost. Critics begin to note the intelligence and sophistication of Edwin’s audience. Now when he’s onstage, he’s continually aware of the Stoddards sitting with Mary in her private box. He knows that when the applause dies away, he’ll be headed to some gathering where the adulation will continue, where his performance will be discussed in admiring detail. The trip to England was a disappointment, but not a waste. New York’s critics see a new maturity in his work that they credit to his time abroad. It’s a strange thing, to be enjoying such heady success while his country is swimming in blood. He doesn’t quite know how to feel about it. His mood changes moment to moment.
Then there is Mary. It seems to Edwin that she’s been a little sick ever since Edwina was born and is now a little sicker. She still comes to every play and she makes it through the late nights after, but he can see that she’s exhausted. She talks more to Elizabeth about her symptoms than she does to him. All Edwin knows is that she’s suffering in the places where women suffer, that there is an unnatural heat in her abdomen, and no diagnosis.
He’s well aware that the reason Mary pushes herself to accompany him everywhere is to keep an eye on his drinking. He’d promised her when they married to control it. But he can’t perform, not at his best, without. He sweats and shakes; his thoughts muddle. He feels desperate for a way out of his own skin. He can’t remember his lines and all this is put instantly right with just one drink or maybe two. All he needs is enough liquor to get through his performances.
And maybe a glass or two after to calm him down. He begins to dislike the pressure of her hand on his arm as she steers him away from the bottles and glasses. She fails to keep him sober as often as she succeeds.
Asia notes that Mary’s influence over him seems to have waned. The rest of the family might choose to believe that love is stronger than liquor. As to herself, Asia’s never doubted the outcome.
* * *
—
Edwin, Mary, and Elizabeth Stoddard travel to Boston, where Edwin performs for a week. While there, they hear of a brilliant physician who treats women for women’s problems, a Dr. Erasmus D. Miller. Miller’s practice is in Dorchester, so if Mary is to be among his patients, Dorchester is where she must live.
Edwin buys a house on Washington Street, a cozy nook with windows in the back overlooking the slope down to Dorchester Bay. Edwin likes the house better than Mary does. He can sit for hours, smoking his pipe and watching the light play over the water, turn it silver or green or black with the moonlight spreading its shining road. Two trees in the yard go a vivid yellow, blazing like candles.
He pulls Mary into his lap, her head against his chest. Her hair falls from its knot. He combs his fingers through it. “When the snow comes,” he says, “we’ll take a sleigh ride in the dark. I’ll hold you just this way. Your hair will catch the starlight.” He imagines her ruddy with cold, a red scarf around her neck.
He thinks they’ll spend many winters here. He thinks this is a house that they’ll return to over the years. A good place for Edwina and her brothers and her sisters to grow. Better than New York City.
To Mary it’s just a place to be lonely. Edwin’s engagements often take him away.
In order to diagnose Mary, Dr. Miller must perform the very examination she’d hoped to avoid. He takes a good, long, painful look inside. Then he goes to find Edwin, standing by the parlor fire, smoking his pipe. Dr. Miller is encouraging. He tells Edwin that Mary’s condition is serious, but not dangerous. Edwin’s been telling himself that Mary will, of course, recover, but how wonderful to hear it confirmed. He’s surprised by the physicality of his relief. His legs give way and he must sit down, but maybe he doesn’t even need legs. He’s so light with joy that he’s floating.
“I’ll return her to you in the glow of health in six months’ time,” Dr. Miller promises. “If she does exactly what she’s told.”
Edwin is about to leave for another run in New York. Mary will rest here and recover, well cared for by Dr. Miller. And Edwin can drink unimpeded. It works for everyone.
Dr. Miller’s prescription is for absolute rest. No outings, no visitors. Even Mary’s time with Edwina is strictly limited. The boredom cure. A good time to learn Sanskrit, one of her friends says jokingly.
There are other aspects to Dr. Miller’s treatment that leave Mary in tears after every visit and make her dread the next one. She never tells Edwin what’s being done to her and he never asks.
* * *
—
Whenever he visits, he can see how very dull her life is. It’s not like Mary to complain, but rather than improve, she seems to him to be wilting. When John comes to town, Edwin takes her to the theater against her doctor’s orders. What Dr. Miller doesn’t know can’t hurt him.
John is playing the villainous Duke Pescara in The Apostate.
O Fortune,
Thy smile still follows me, and each event
Swells the deep rush of Fate, in whose swift tide
I’ll plunge the man I loathe.
It all seems quite normal, to be sitting with Mary in the dark, the sound of the audience shifting about them, a cough or two from the boxes, or the silence of the audience spellbound. As he watches, he takes her hand, wonders what her sharp mind will see in John’s performance.
Edwin himself is impressed. A few rough edges, he thinks, but he’ll make his mark. He’s worth a dozen polished, bloodless players. John is full of the true grit.
Mary doesn’t disagree, but she adds that John still has much to learn and more to unlearn. This is just the outcome Edwin would have chosen, for John to be good, but not as good as Edwin.
John’s career is flourishing. He’s using his full name now, and his playbills say, “I Have no Brother. I am no Brother. I am Myself Alone.”
His audience is rougher than Edwin’s, his reviews more mixed, though mostly good. Where he really excels is swordplay. He can fight right-and left-handed. He can make it so real he frightens his fellow players. There are some who buy tickets just to see him do that. Others come for his handsome face. Managers have taken to appearing onstage before his appearances to plead with the ladies in attendance to act like ladies. On leaving the theater, John’s had gloves ripped from his hands, buttons from his coat, hair from his head. Notes with unladylike offers arrive daily in his dressing rooms.
He’s making great sums of money. It’s not clear where it’s all going.
* * *