Miss Fuller (3 page)

An agitation on the settee signaled what was about to come from Helen.

“Miss Fuller!” Silence, and a craning of all necks. “What about the black men, our brothers in chains, who have no property rights, and not even the rights to their own bodies, and the bodies of their wives and children?”

The speaker reached her hands in a sudden gesture over the heads of her audience, as if she could clasp Helen’s. “My dear — You speak for us all — I think I recognize you from the Anti-Slavery Women of Boston —”

“Concord.”

“Ah, my beloved Concord, home also to our dear teacher, the great Mr. Emerson. I will tell you, all bold women of Concord and Boston, all lovers of freedom, about the slavery of the Africans and the slavery of all women today — Hush!” She put a finger in the air to stop Helen’s next words, and like a silenced child Helen sank back.

“For how can we free the African if we cannot free ourselves? And consider as well our Negro sisters —” This was going a little far, as the sudden intake of breath hissed
through the room. “Yes, I say sisters as in God’s eyes we are all brothers and sisters, and if the African man is our brother, so surely the African woman is our sister.

“All depend on our strength, all depend on our action — such as we have already seen, in the anti-slavery committees that have been formed. And when I see the great Abolitionist Miss Sarah Grimke speak, I say — Here is a new woman! She can speak from a pulpit, at the lyceum, in the back of a horse-cart, about the rights of man, and surely I, inspired by her example, can also speak about the rights of women!

“Now think again of our Roman ancestors, and think of their intuitive, their glorious religion — but a precursor to Christian light, yet capable of shedding much light of its own. Philosophy and literature often return to the stories of these gods and goddesses, these nymphs and heroes, not because they are quaint and foolish stories — no! Because, as with all sincere religions, they held within them certain seeds of truth.

“Consider Minerva — Goddess of Wisdom, daughter of Jove. In antiquity she is often paired with an owl, the symbol of wisdom.

“Minerva represents the woman’s own wisdom, the ‘masculine’ side of the feminine, if you will, without which we would all be as silly as chicks newly hatched. No doubt some of you have daughters about whom you wonder, Is she but a silly chick? … Are any of them here? Yes?”

A certain amount of tittering filled the room. Miss Fuller opened her eyes especially wide and landed on a dowager with an elegantly turned-out young woman next to her.

“Oh, madam, I hope you do not wonder about her — She looks as pretty as anything, but I dare say there is wisdom as well.…”

The young woman threw her hands before her face and gasped with embarrassed delight.

“And as we need to exercise our wisdom, so do men today need to exercise their nurturance! Why should men not also be allowed to follow their own — if you will — feminine inclinations? I refer to the kindness of the benevolent father, the spiritual softness of the good preacher, the care that the best schoolmaster will take when instructing his charges.

“Perhaps in other ages, in other climes, we would not have such need of our Minerva goddess to guide us, our own Instructress who carries a wise owl on her shoulder. But today — ladies — we must solicit her to come to us as a dear friend, to guide us. We need leadership, courage, invention from the women of today! How much you can see if you look about you!”

Accepting her applause, Miss Fuller remained for some moments with her arms stretched wide. Then, with an eager look about her, she asked for questions. Some of the ladies wanted to hear more about Minerva. One had recently visited the Temple of Minerva in Rome, and with
effort a few details about its appearance were extracted from her — not so large, the building, as expected — dark inside — the guide not a bit helpful — an owl, or was it a pelican? above the door, she thought — no nose on her, on the Minerva, at all.

Helen made one final effort, pointing out that the Romans owned slaves, so were they to be regarded as offering a beacon of freedom from the past in that respect?

“Ah, my learned friend!” said Miss Fuller. “All societies have their weaknesses. But when we consider that the Roman enslavement of their Greek captives was primarily to employ them as tutors in the house-hold, the picture of slavery is very different from what we suffer here.”

“That’s not entirely correct,” began Helen, but, foolish thing, she was standing in the way of a more robust and better-trained horse than she, and got trampled into the dust quite firmly:

“We shall not here quibble about historical detail — we shall save that for another time! And ladies all, may I remind you that with Mr. Wilberforce’s heroic leadership in the English Parliament for many years, in the end of the slave trade and the freeing of the slaves in their West Indies Colonies, we have reason to rejoice and be hopeful about the future of ending slavery here as well!”

Some applause, as the ladies congratulated — they knew not what — themselves? Wilberforce? The freed slaves? The West Indies in general?

“And as the sweep of history pushes ahead to freedom, we will endeavor to act so as to make all men, and women, free!”

As the gathering dispersed, Anne walked over to the windows and looked again into the garden. The terrier was jumping and snapping about the base of a small tree where, just above his reach, the squirrel scolded and bobbed on a branch. The squirrel seemed to have lost its tail, but was otherwise quite alive.

They were still tingling on their ride home in the dark. This time a couple from Fitchburg shared the stagecoach with them. Upon learning of the cause of their companions’ excitement, the woman remarked that she couldn’t abide public speaking, especially from a female, and closed her eyes. Her husband also pretended to sleep.

Mrs. Deaver was delighted at having shown Miss Fuller to her friends, so pleased that the Wonder had performed her magic again. “Didn’t I tell you, she has large ideas, she gives you a sense of the breadth of life!”

Helen said that she was an actress, and said it with scorn, but even she did not deny the beauty. Anne said that Mother did not approve of pagan goddesses — that Martha and Mary, and perhaps Ruth, certainly Eve, provide metaphors sufficient for daily use.

Helen said, “Mother is old-fashioned about many things, dear. Look how John and Henry cite the classical at all times! We must not be restrictive, even as Christians.
All metaphors that have use may be invoked — it is the essayist’s and speaker’s prerogative — and just as the devil may quote scripture, so it seems possible that a lover of human freedom, as we must believe Miss Fuller to be, may pick and choose her talismans from the streets of Imperial Rome —”

Unable to resist, Anne interrupted: “You are talking just like her!”

Helen frowned, but then as quickly her brow cleared, and she laughed along with her sister. “My goodness,” she said, “you may be right. And why not? I will condescend to learn. But —” She raised her eyebrows comically.

“We may admire the ancient myths, and the truths they tell — in any case, they are from the Greeks, conquerors and slave-holders themselves. The history of humanity is a sorry story — we must learn from it without making up fairy tales about it.”

She laughed again, and reached an arm over Anne’s shoulder to hug her close. “She did sometimes make me cross as two sticks, but we all agree she is a fine speaker, what Mother would call a ‘reg’lar spell-binder!’ ”

“She isa — Venus! — when she speaks,” said Mrs. Deaver. “Although her Minerva will do for a model, as all the goddesses were beauties.”

The Fitchburg man opened his eyes, just barely, to take in this extravagance. He crossed his arms, composed his face into a grim smirk, and closed his eyes again.

Helen and Anne were still wondering if Miss Fuller had been paid for the day’s event; Mrs. Deaver said that she probably had received something, since as far as she knew the Conversations were the only means Miss Fuller had to support herself, as she had given up school teaching. Feeling somehow as if they were discussing very dark matters, they talked in soft voices, keeping their secrets from the man in the coach, about further economic wonders: Sophia Peabody who was earning money not only from occasional commissioned copies of master-works but also with her painting of decorations on screens and lamp shades — ten dollars for a vellum shade! twelve for a glass globe! — and her sister Elizabeth who was publishing books and selling them in the shop; various governesses and teachers; one widow who worked as an apothecary’s assistant for forty dollars a month; and all the young ladies who gave music and drawing and French lessons. Mrs. Deaver told them about a boarding-house she had heard of in Boston especially established for such working ladies.

Closer to home, with the oppressive presence of the Fitchburg passengers gone, the girls agreed that Miss Fuller speaking was a revelation. Then it was that the physiognomy of the speaker overcame its parts: The bulging eyes rounded into perfect shining planets, the large pale brow seemed to pulse with thought, the mouth curled around her words; and it all seemed distinguished, a new kind of
beauty, offering insight and solace to her listeners before the high wind in which she perpetually stood should at last blow her clean away, to the next pressing engagement, the next crowd eager for enlightenment.

Early on the already hot July morning, Anne drove Henry to the depot in North Acton to catch the south-bound train for New Haven and New York City. Henry was not yet sure how to get to the site of the wreck on Fire Island but imagined he would take a ferry. Arthur Fuller, one of Margaret’s brothers, along with another old friend, Ellery Channing, were planning to meet up with Henry there.

Wearing only one petticoat, Anne was dressed for the weather, but poor Henry looked damp already in his flannel-cloth suit. He carried his small leather satchel on his lap. Anne was expected at a neighbor’s farm to help with the haying after she had seen her brother off.

The train pulled into the depot, and the passengers disembarked. A loud and disordered family clambered down, leaving a pile of baggage on the platform behind them as they crossed the street to take breakfast at the inn. Henry said, not for the first time, how much he disliked riding on trains. He said that train travel was an insult to his legs.

Laughing, Anne opened his case, fished out his small note-book and pencil, and wrote:

Jul.23.’50 Riding insults my legs. I fain would walk to Timbuktoo; yea, and rather lose my legs in that effort, than lose my self-respect by galloping astride some locomotive Behemoth, the devil’s own horse, bound for Perdition
.

A wisp of a smile passed over Henry’s mouth before disappearing into his whiskers, but whatever he might have said was interrupted by a distinct trill. They looked up to the depot roof and saw nothing; the trill was repeated, and they realized the sound came from somewhere amidst the baggage at their feet. A small cage of wood and wire contained a bird, charcoal black with a brilliant yellow head — a Canary-bird covered with soot.

Had someone hung the cage out the train window, right behind the engine? The bird’s head was still yellow, no doubt because it had jammed it beneath a wing. It was now frantically preening a tail feather, trying to clean off the black oily coat.

The train would not leave for another few minutes. After years of rescues — a beaver kit from the jaws of a hunting dog; birds, rabbits, and chipmunks from the claws of the cats; a turtle from the rain-barrel; a half-smothered owlet tangled in cobwebs in the barn — Henry and Anne did not even need to discuss what they would do. Anne kept look-out as Henry tucked the cage beneath his jacket and hurried to the livery stable across the station yard. The boy
gave him a bucket, a jar of slop soap, and a rag. Anne joined him to assist at the bath. The soot was persistent, but with rinsings and lathering, as the Canary-bird struggled and churned in the bucket, most of the black came off, as well as several feathers. As Anne shook out and wiped down the bars Henry got his hand pecked to blood by the quivering bird he returned to its cage. They tossed in some finely cracked corn and filled the tin water tray affixed to the bars. Anne darted back to the wagon, placed the cage just behind the buck-board seat, and covered it with a meal sack to keep the bird quiet.

At a signal toot from the engine, the platform filled again. The family retrieved its trunks — the boy hollering, a very little girl crying, a larger girl shaking the hollering boy, and the mother and father determinedly refusing to look for the disappeared bird.

Anne again said she wished she were going along. Death was the occasion and although death was terrible, she needed to remind herself so as not actually to smile from the giddy pleasure that filled her every time she heard a train, even when she was not a passenger, or now, as the wheels started to roll and she jumped from the engine’s gigantic side-sneeze of steam. Then Henry climbed up, waved, stepped away into the car, and the train hooted and jerked itself away from the platform.