Miss Baker is a woman of her word. Yesterday, after she provided for Margaret and me in the kitchen as richly as she supplied the Burnhams—with roast pork loin, potatoes, candied carrots, and greens—she tucked a piece of walnut pie wrapped in a napkin into my hand and another into Margaret’s.
“Mind you don’t leave crumbs for the mice,” she said as she pushed us toward the door to the back stairs. She refused to let us help her clean the kitchen. “Plenty of chances in days to come. Go get some rest.”
After almost two days’ worth of her rich meals and desserts, my milk seems more plentiful, and Henry shows no signs of suffering. Thank goodness for an opinionated cook.
*
I see by looking back that my letter to Peter went out twenty-nine days ago. Since then, each time the letter carrier’s bundle has fallen through the front-door slot and Clementina has collected it, my pulse has grown as insistent as a woodpecker’s beak at a tree—to no avail. But this afternoon, Clementina called for me.
My hands were deep in a basket of peas in need of shelling; I wiped them and rushed to the parlor. Clementina sat on a padded chair with letters in her lap, scrutinizing an envelope. Her face was pink and sweaty from the heat.
“This has gone to three addresses,” she observed. “First to a post-office box downtown. Then our Pine Street house. Then here.”
As far as I could recall, only Father and Patience had the post-office box for the Haven. But when Clementina gave the envelope over, I didn’t recognize the hand.
“If thee will excuse me,” I said, starting from the room.
“You’ll let me know if it affects your employment.”
I nodded, then raced to the kitchen to sit. Margaret and Miss Baker looked on curiously. On the back of the envelope was this: PHILADELPHIA LADIES’ SOLACE.
A reply to my request! I ripped open the seal. Inside, on fine parchment and in an elegant and curlicued hand, was a florid rejection.
“Our aid goes only to the deserving,” the writer explained, “who through no defect of character face hard limitations. The evils of indiscriminate almsgiving, and the dreaded prospect of giving encouragement to those who dwell in sin, are kept at bay by this principle.”
This is precisely what Anne warned us about. This is why the Haven is so crucial and so hard-pressed for funds. I must have looked crestfallen, for Margaret came beside me and quietly asked, “Have you gotten bad news?”
“Yes,” I whispered. “I’ll tell thee tonight.”
Miss Baker had the grace not to inquire.
Later, in the cool of evening, Margaret and I met for a lesson. Her private efforts had done much good: she could read a page of simple sentences. We worked on a new sentence, “My cat loves to eat fish,” which led her to bubble over with anecdotes of her family’s several pusses. When her fount ran dry, she told me more about her friend at church, Rosa, with whom she became acquainted last summer. Rosa was so pleased to see Margaret again at church service last week that she walked her to the driveway of this house after the social. Rosa works at a cigar factory—“but she doesn’t smoke or chew,” Margaret hastened to explain. She withdrew from her skirt pocket a note Rosa had given her, softened at its corners from frequent fingering. She asked me to read its contents, since she’d tried but wasn’t confident she had it all.
“Won’t you join in a celebration of spring at Valley Green this coming Sunday, 1 p.m. onward? Bring a blanket and a picnic. Reply to Rosa Jones, care of xx Herrick Street.”
It was not a personal invitation but one that all invited would receive. Yet Margaret took it much to heart. We composed her exuberant acceptance, and after a fitting pause, I told her of my rejected request for aid.
“That’s because you were honest,” she said, appalled at my naiveté. “You ought to claim you’re a widow.”
I told her I won’t make false claims.
“I know you wouldn’t freely choose to,” she replied. “But for Charlotte’s sake, you should.”
She said she’d start off lying for me, with my permission. She’d ask at church if anyone could help a widow set herself up. Someone might have an old machine to loan or give me.
I wanted to say yes, but I asked her to hold back. Though lying had been her idea, I wouldn’t encourage it. This was just the sort of influence I mustn’t have on Margaret.
I wondered, however: Might J. S. Mill support the use of falsehoods to help one cross a landscape littered with foul prejudice? At least until the world’s a fairer place?
If only someone older and more experienced than Margaret could advise me.
If only I could speak with Mother. She’s so close by—in the burying ground beside the meetinghouse.
Yes, I know the body after death retains no remnant of the soul; nevertheless I want to be near her, to have only dirt and coffin separating me from the body that carried and nourished me, my solid ground, my mast, my lodestar.
Sixth Month 1
I’ve been paid! What a relief it was when money reached my hand. Twenty-five dollars minus fifty cents for Dr. Snowe’s care and four dollars fifty cents to Margaret and Clementina for what I gave Gina. Remarkably, Clementina decided not to deduct for the days Charlotte was here this month. So I have twenty dollars and twelve pennies.
I whistled a tune as I moved Henry’s carriage along the back porch, soothing him to sleep. Miss Baker had suggested that I let him nap outdoors, saying fresh air is good for babies. When Albert returned from playing cricket, after putting his bat into the stable, he walked to the back porch to observe me.
“I’d never have expected to hear you whistling,” he said, withdrawing a handkerchief to wipe away a layer of perspiration from his face. “It doesn’t seem the sort of thing a Quaker does.”
I pointed to indicate his son, so that he would speak more quietly. “I was paid today,” I whispered.
“Is it that easy to brighten your mood?” he whispered back. His jovial face came near to mine, and I caught the scent of liquor. “Why, I’d pay you ten cents a day just to see you smile.”
I might have agreed, if he’d meant it as more than a jest. That ten cents a day would more than make up for the increased fee at Gina’s, and another cause to smile would do me good.
Henry calls. It’s time to become his nurse again. When I write, I forget that I don’t belong to myself.
*
The Burnhams have gone to stay downtown overnight, and Miss Baker departed with permission to attend her neighbor’s funeral, leaving me no duties beyond Henry. So despite my dread of being seen by familiar people, I hatched a daring plan: to visit Mother at her grave.