Mrs. Poe (31 page)

Mr. Poe got up abruptly and left the room. Footsteps in the hall preceded the opening and closing of the front door.

“Please excuse him,” Mrs. Poe told Samuel. “He cannot bear to see me happy.”

“Virginia!” Mrs. Clemm frantically stirred her bonnet rim with her fan. “You should not talk like that.”

“Go find him,” Mrs. Poe said to me. “Bring him back. He’ll come for you.” She sank back in her chair.

Samuel exhaled a noisy breath. Already intent upon this project, he couldn’t be bothered with further distractions. Sweat beading at his hairline, he fell into sketching, soon forgetting the drama around him. Mrs. Poe languished against the cushions as if the last bit of her strength had drained away the moment Edgar had left.

I perched on the edge of the scratchy red-upholstered chair, the scrape of Samuel’s pencil, the click of Mrs. Clemm twitching her nails, and Mrs. Poe’s strangulated breathing unsettling me more deeply by the minute. A stew of regret, remorse, anger, and terror simmered within me until my nerves boiled over, sending me fleeing.

Mr. Poe was waiting outside on the stoop.

“I should not have brought her,” he said.

Storm clouds were darkening the sky. I wondered if Eliza would return soon with the children. “You were right to bring her. She seems to enjoy it.”

“She enjoys torturing me.”

“We have given her reason to.”

He grasped my shoulders. “You are not to blame, Frances.”

I turned my head in disagreement.

He waited until I looked at him. “This is between her and me. Don’t you see that she wants you to blame yourself? When you do, she wins.”

“I
am
to blame. She has a right to hate me. She’s dying and I’m waiting like a vulture for her to go.”

His voice cracked with vehemence. “Would you have me die, too?”

His extreme agitation stunned me. “You won’t die. Why would you say so?”

He let me go. “Mark me, she will take me with her. She will not rest until she does.”

What had his troubles done to his mind? I touched his proud and wounded face. “Edgar, what is happening to us?”

He stared at me as if willing me to understand. “Madness,” he said quietly, “is as a drop of ink in water. It sends sly tendrils from the afflicted person into everyone around until all are shaded in black. Soon one does not know who is mad and who is not.”

The door swung open.

“There you are!” cried Mrs. Clemm. “Are you coming in to see Sissy’s picture?”

“Yes,” he said. “Go.”

Her worried blue eyes widened. She withdrew into the house with a bang. When she’d gone, he looked both disturbed and closed. He reopened the door for me. “If he’s any good, your husband won’t like what he finds in my wife.”

Samuel was shading the sketch when we came back in. “Shhh.” He nodded toward Mrs. Poe. Her face, slick with a feverish sweat, was twisted away from her body and turned into the maroon cushion as if she were in the thrall of death. Her chest rose raggedly in sleep. I inched toward the canvas to see, holding my breath so as not to wake her as I passed.

Her eyes flew open. I gasped.

Slowly, her sights trailed to Mr. Poe.

The parlor maid, Catherine, came in, bearing a small lamp. “Beg your pardon, but when it starts to get dark and we have company, the missus likes me to light the gas.”

“The lighting will ruin the picture.” Samuel put down his pencil. “Oh, well, doesn’t matter. There’s not enough good light left. Go ahead. I’m done for now.”

Catherine caught the ring at the bottom of the chandelier, drew down the apparatus, and released the gas cock at the end of each arm. A steady hiss, like the whispering of demons, issued forth.

“May I see?” I asked Samuel.

He spread his palm toward his easel.

I pulled back in revulsion. The people in his portraits usually were faced in a flattering one-quarter turn. On occasion, someone would ask for a profile. But Mrs. Poe’s face was turned three-quarters into the cushions as if her neck was broken, oddly exposing her throat and jaw. Only a single, mostly averted eye could be seen. Yet, even from this strange angle, the dark pupil seemed to watch the viewer, following one’s every movement.

I glanced at Mrs. Poe. She had pushed herself upright and was keenly observing Catherine take a stick of kindling from her pocket, dip it into her lamp, and then touch it to a gas jet. It burst into light.

As Catherine went around the arms of the chandelier, setting each jet ablaze, Samuel said, “I can hear you thinking, Fanny. Yes, you’re right, this is a new sort of position for me. I don’t even know why I did it other than I felt called to do it this way. It was as if I had no choice.”

To Mrs. Poe, he said, “Perhaps, madame, you’d like to come back another time, when I’m in a more wholesome frame of mind. I’m sorry, I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

Mrs. Poe seemed not to hear him. “What happens if you don’t light them quick?”

Catherine looked up, seeing that she was being addressed. “Then the room explodes, ma’am, don’t it?”

Fall 1845

Twenty-six

Three weeks later, Samuel and I, the Bartletts, the children, and Mr. Poe were ambling toward Broadway. To the outsiders pouring in our direction, we must have looked like a well-dressed, respectable, and congenial group: the reunited couple, the old marrieds, their children, and a family friend whose wife’s health prevented her from joining them. I suppose most people only saw the friend. Mr. Poe’s popularity had soared to new heights in the months since the publication of his book of tales. We could hardly take four steps without another admirer accosting him, wanting to talk about his stories.

At Amity and Broadway, Mr. Clement Moore saluted our party, his grown daughter on his arm.

“Congratulations, sir.” He raised his voice over the shuffling of footsteps around us. “It seems that your Raven has firmly beaten my Saint Nick. I must thank you. Perhaps now my silly little tale shall be laid to rest.”

Two short blocks farther up, Mr. Samuel Morse stopped Mr. Poe in front of the New York Hotel, causing an obstruction in the river of humanity. I recognized him instantly from the articles I had read about his invention. I smiled privately. The telegraph line between New York and Washington had been nearly completed since Edgar had spoken of him. Another was under way to Boston. Some said soon all of the county would be connected by a web of cable, giving mankind dominion over time and space—an unimaginable thought that sunny fall day as horses clopped by and carriages quaked down the street, past the flow of chatting pedestrians.

“Mr. Poe,” said Mr. Morse, “pardon me, but I must ask—is it true
about mesmerism, that a person might be caught at the moment of their death as was Mr. Vankirk in ‘Mesmeric Revelation’?”

“It is a work of fiction,” said Mr. Poe.

Blond, wiry, and possessing an expressive handsome face, Mr. Morse’s air of acute observation was only exceeded by Edgar’s. “Yet you have planted sufficient evidence that this could be so.”

“Then I have succeeded with my story.” Mr. Poe bowed. “Thank you.”

“I’m intrigued with your ideas, sir. I think the potential of mesmerism is yet untapped.”

Mr. Poe nodded politely. “Then you might be glad to hear that I’m at work on another tale about it.”

Mr. Morse grinned. “A further look into the other realm?”

“More so about mesmerism as a means of cheating death, this time. I explore what might happen if a person is mesmerized at the point of his demise.”

“Truly? Excellent!” Mr. Morse looked wistful, perhaps thinking of the wife he’d lost. “If only this could be true.”

They continued their discussion, the Bartletts remaining to listen as the children gamboled ahead with Mary.

Samuel drew me aside. “So tell me, Fanny, what stories have you written lately?”

We began to follow the children, my skirts swishing in time to our footsteps. He waited, smiling.

“ ‘Ida Grey,’ ” I said at last.

“You wrote that last year when I was with you. Nice to see that it finally found a home in
Graham’s
.”

I thanked him, although I was sure I wasn’t being complimented.

“I find it amusing that readers are scrambling to read meaning into it, to connect it to you and good old Poe. Your literary romance is quite a hit these days.”

“As you said,” I remarked coldly, “I wrote the poem more than a year ago.”

“Yes, I remember when it got rejected. Interesting that
Graham’s
wants it now.”

“What are you trying to say, Samuel?”

He looked down his rugged nose at me. “I’ve been reading your little poems in Poe’s rag, too.”

I gave him an irritated glance.

He was not smiling. “What I want to know, Fanny, is what have you written lately that you actually care about?”

When I did not immediately answer, he said, “Surely you’ve written more than this piece.” He took a page from his coat pocket. When he unfolded it, I saw that it was from Edgar’s
Journal
. He skimmed down a moment, and read.

I know a noble heart that beats

For one it loves how “wildly well”

I only know for whom it beats:

But I must never tell!

Hush! Hark! How Echo soft repeats,—

Ah! never tell!

He refolded it and then put it back.
“There was a time when you would have made fun of a poem like this.”

I grimaced. It was true.

“All I wonder is why is it that your writing is shrinking into cute little rhymes, while your Poe grows his audience like corn in manure?”

“A disgusting analogy.”

“High yield,” he said. “You get the point.”

I did. And it stung. “I’ve had a lot of disturbances in my life lately,” I said pointedly.

He nodded soberly, as if accepting some of the blame. “It must not be easy to watch Mrs. Poe slowly dying of consumption.”

“She’s not dying!” I exclaimed. “She ruptured a blood vessel while singing two years ago and cannot seem to heal it.”

“Because she is dying, Fanny.”

“How coarse of you to say so.”

“Why? Because it’s true?” He reached out and spanned my temples with his hand, then shook my head gently. “Who is in there? What is that man doing to your mind? I can hardly bear watching the change in you. The Fanny I know calls a spade a spade and is skeptical
of those who don’t. Doubting Fanny, where are you? I think Impetuous Fanny has eaten you up.”

“Coming from a man who traipses after any pretty woman who attracts his attention!” I knocked away his hand. “Tomcats have more restraint. If you only knew what I’ve given up, how I’ve tried to make things right for everyone involved, you would say I’m the very opposite of impetuous. I’m responsible, and I pay for it.”

Mr. Poe trotted up, his satisfied look dimming when he saw us. “Are you all right?” he said to me, but staring at Samuel.

“Of course.”

We recommenced our walk, the three of us unhappily abreast. Eliza and Mr. Bartlett trailed behind, carrying Johnny.

I tugged at my gloves, as if to pluck away the words Samuel had lodged in my mind. “What did Mr. Morse have to say?” I asked Mr. Poe.

He swished his jaw distractedly, as if his thoughts were already elsewhere and he wished to be with them. “Morse has whet my enthusiasm for my new story about mesmerism. If only I felt as sure about my reading for the Lyceum in Boston.”

Samuel leaned to ask Mr. Poe, “Is Fanny invited?”

He frowned. “She can go if she chooses.”

I glared at Samuel. He knew that neither my conscience nor my reputation could bear such a trip.

Samuel raised his brows. “How nice for you to go on Poe’s victory tour. Your own writing can wait. What are a few more weeks of putting it aside for your ‘friend’?”

Mr. Poe saw my face. “Why don’t you go back to your whore, Osgood? Don’t you see you aren’t wanted here?”

“By who?” asked Samuel. “You or Fanny?”

“You know the answer.”

“Fanny, do you want me to go? Just say the word and I will.”

I sighed with frustration. “Just go.”

Gawkers strolled past as Samuel stared at me. Then, his brown eyes quiet with genuine sadness, he touched his hat and loped ahead to walk with the children.

Mr. Poe rubbed his brows. “I can’t think when that man is around. All my life I have been made to eat the dust of the Boston
Frogpondians—now I have a chance to make them lick my heels. But how, Frances, with what? The most important address of my career, and I cannot think of a single worthy line.”

“You will.” I watched Samuel kiss each of our girls in turn and then stride away.

Mr. Poe saw at who I was looking. “Just get rid of him, will you?”

A thorn lodged in my heart. “I think I just did.”

Twenty-seven

The next afternoon, I was out pacing upon the flagstones in the Bartletts’ back garden, trying to compose a poem. Samuel’s words about my writing had stung. He was right. I had not produced a work that had excited me or that I was especially proud of since becoming involved with Mr. Poe. Filled with my yearning for him, and made complaisant by the Bartletts’ kindness and the usage of their home, my creativity had become a flimsy thing, easily snagged in a spider’s web of preoccupation. The more it tried to break free, the more its weak struggles entangled it. I could not write a decent sentence.

Vinnie came skipping outside. “That lady is here, Mamma. Mrs. Clam.”

Mrs. Clemm? “What does she want?” I wondered aloud.