The House of Hawthorne (21 page)

All time stops, and with it my beating heart. It is the sound that pierces me—like all the knives and forks that tormented me in childhood, the slave bells, the cart and carriage noise from the
roads, the plaguing clamor of my youth to which I was so sensitive. All of that noise concentrated in the shattering of the bust makes my head feel as if it is exploding, and I am at once screaming on the ground, feeling as broken as the sculpture.

I do not know how long I wail, or how Nathaniel gets me upstairs to bed, or how he calms me, but I awake to the dawn inching through the window, illuminating the still-clothed and sleeping form of my husband, and warming the room with sunlight we have not had since autumn.

My eyes are swollen and my nose is stuffy, but I sense the light is trying to show me something. I get up as carefully as my large belly will allow, wrap a shawl around my arms, and walk downstairs to the studio. I could cry with joy when I see that
Endymion
is aglow and beckoning, and resolve then that I will finish this work whatever the cost, and even if it is never seen by the eyes of another mortal. The only way out of this dark forest is to walk straight through it.

W
e look on this most glorious creation in wonder.

“It is a she,” he says in surprise.

“A red-haired she.”

“Like a little faerie.”

“Our faerie queen, Una.”

He smiles. “Una. Purity. It is the perfect name.”

“Una Hawthorne.”

“And what a dear little sack she wears,” he says.

“I made it using the silk flannel Louisa sent. I cannot wait until Lou meets our girl.”

Una scrunches up her little face and cries. Nathaniel pretends to be horror-struck.

“Does it always make that sound?”

“Often to always.”

She makes a terrific gaseous explosion. He screws up his mouth.

“Does it always do that?”

“Often to always.” I laugh.

“An unladylike and troublesome creature,” he teases, running his hands over her tiny head. “You must begin her education immediately. Call your sister Elizabeth for help. We should waste no time taming this wild thing.”

“I will. And her first lesson will be to ignore every word out of her silly father’s mouth.”

“Excellent advice,” he says.

He smiles, but soon his face becomes shadowed, and I wonder what troubles him.

“Do you want to hold her?” I ask, offering up the little bundle before she becomes squally and insatiable, as I know from her meager forty-eight hours of life she is apt to become. He looks very much as if he would prefer not to hold her, but wants to appease me. He takes Una from my arms in a great jumble of blankets and nervousness, but finally settles and begins to walk her around the room.

“Here is your mother’s velvet robe that makes her look like a queen. Here is a volume of Shakespeare, which you will learn to read as soon as possible. Here is a magazine that contains a story from the man holding you. The payment made to him for it should cover the cost of the periodical itself, and no more. And here is your mother. The sun around which you will join me in orbit.”

My mind lingers with distraction on the mention he has made of being paid so little to write. He places Una back in my arms, and I barely notice the kiss he plants on my head before
leaving me alone to feed Una, who is greedily sucking the nightgown covering my breast.

Nathaniel will not allow me to lift a finger except to write to our family and keep them up-to-date on every utterance and motion Una makes, and to check on the progress of her cousin, Horace, born to Mary just a week before Una entered the world. Poor Mary has had much difficulty with nursing, as has Ellen Channing, so I give them my best advice, and have even fed Ellen’s half-starved infant. Between my abundant breasts and Dr. Wesselhoeft’s excellent care, Una has already outgrown her colic and thrives in the most satisfying way.

When Nathaniel is not slaving at the manse, he slaves at his desk, for the muse has chosen now, of all times, to pour forth her gifts. Una and I enjoy his celestial presence during the day, at least, so I forgive him our cold bed at night. Today the first breath of autumn has arrived to tease us with its relief from the summer, and I sit in the shade of an ash tree while Nathaniel harvests tomatoes.

“Perhaps I could hire myself out as a wet nurse,” I joke, while Una pounds my neck with her dimpled fists. She is at my breast sucking merrily. “Ellen’s baby seemed drunk when I finished with her the other day. Poor Ellen has had a terrible time with her milk.”

“Is it proper to allow your friends’ babes to suckle you? They cannot bring any illness to Una, can they?”

“I am sure it is all right, since that is how babies have lived for
centuries. Besides, the little thing looked quite underfed. It was an act of charity.”

My husband’s forearms glisten with sweat. I feel myself wanting him more than ever lately, but he keeps putting me off. I watch him like a she-wolf and allow my shirt to open, exposing the breast that is not currently in use. I clear my throat and grin at Nathaniel, but when he sees me, he does not respond as I wish, and looks away, returning to his task. I slide myself back into my top, mortified by his reaction. Does he find me repugnant now that I have borne a child?

“You know I would love to take you,” he says, as if hearing my thoughts.

“No, I do not know that.”

He stops his work and looks at me. When he sees my embarrassment, he comes and kneels before me, taking my free hand in his.

“I am sorry to have distressed you,” he says. “Of course I want you, but during the day you belong to her, and during the night I have to belong to my work.”

“I understand,” I say, speaking a bit of the truth. “But Una will nap soon; we can steal time then.”

“My dear, when we consummate our love it pulls all of my energy out of me, and I need it. We are starved for money, and these stories, they are pleasing to me and seem to have a demand all their own. They are my own infants, and I am afraid that if I neglect them, I will lose them.”

When he thinks that I am appeased, he pats my hand and returns to the garden, but I feel no better.

That night he is a madman, tearing apart our boxes of storage, searching for something, and rambling about someone named Rappaccini.

“Why are you thundering around the house, mumbling about Italians?” I say. “I have just got the baby to bed.”

He comes into the room where Una has just fallen asleep and pulls out drawers without even trying to be quiet. Soon she fusses, and when he sees her, it is as if he forgot who and what she was. He has the decency to give me an apologetic glance. I grumble and go to pick her up to rock her back to sleep.

“What are you looking for?” I ask.

“Your
Cuba Journal
. I want to read about all of those flowers and your descriptions. I have snippets in my notebooks, but I need the whole thing.”

“I think Mother has it, or a friend of hers.”

“Argh!” he yells, and runs his hands through his wild hair before leaving me to the baby and slamming the door to his study.

I sit alone in the dark with Una, trying to calm my agitated little one, and can hear Nathaniel pacing again. As frustrated as I am with his thoughtlessness, I cannot complain to the man who has become a near farmworker by day and scribbler by night. I must encourage him so he can get down these stories. Perhaps if he finishes and they are well received, we will not have to be cast out of this home we dearly love but can no longer afford to rent.

That night, by the light of a tiny candle, I write to Mother, asking her to secure and return the
Cuba Journal
at once, and
then to Elizabeth, telling her that the writer is active and productive, and to prepare Boston for what I am certain will be a collection of stories that will lay the foundation for my husband’s legacy. I only pray he might publish his work before we are evicted from Eden.

Winter at the manse is made warmer by my little one. I stand with her at the window in my studio of empty easels and blank canvases to point out the ice-encased trees and blanketed landscape. Una mimics my words in her baby talk, and is very interested when I scratch the glass with another message.

Una Hawthorne stood on this windowsill
January 22nd, 1845
While the trees were all glass chandeliers.
A goodly show, which she liked much, tho
only ten months old.

I am content to fill my days with my child, though I feel some measure of guilt for neglecting my art. Though Una’s learning is my new canvas, a living creation that consumes all my energy, Margaret’s voice seems ever at my ear. I quiet it by thinking that there will be time later for oils and pencils.

Nathaniel’s story “Rappaccini’s Daughter” was published in O’Sullivan’s
Democratic Review
, and his
Twice-Told Tales
were reissued, but neither of those worthy endeavors has reaped enough
for us to pay our debts. My love has recommitted himself to seeking a government appointment.

In truth, the charity of family and friends keeps us afloat—that and our extreme love for each other. We often ask how we can be so happy and so poor, and the answer lies in our contentment. Nathaniel is back in my bed, and without the gardens to consume him we live peacefully, though hungry and often restless, in our home. I think if we starve or are evicted, I will not cry, for these years of happiness at the manse are more than the average person can claim for a lifetime. I do worry about Nathaniel, though. I must work the way one labors at a well with a water bucket to keep him in good spirits. If I may draw one easy smile from him a day, I feel as if my work is accomplished, and very often I am able to draw two or three.

May brings us a welcome visit from Nathaniel’s Bowdoin College friend Franklin Pierce. Franklin is a successful lawyer and former senator, and has recently been appointed by President Polk as federal district attorney to New Hampshire. One would think his credentials would subdue Nathaniel into silence, but he is the only man of his position I have seen my husband welcome with a warm embrace, a pat on the back, and an ease of spirit. I attribute this to Franklin’s kind and engaging manner, and their history of friendship. Franklin has no pretention, and is happy eating cold chicken and whortleberries on a picnic blanket, with Una using him as a plaything. He also partakes of the drink quite a bit, and while I do realize he is on holiday, I wonder if he becomes so often drunk as a habit. I have no judgment of others on the subject of addiction, however. Even years removed from my own morphine
struggles, I get a thrill at the thought of the drug. I also know how Franklin is suffering. Though he and his wife, Jane, have a young son, they have lost two others. The first boy died just three days after his birth, and the second in ’forty-three at four years of age from typhus. Franklin says Jane is a bruised soul whose only light in life now rests in her little Benjamin.

It is late evening, and Franklin cannot stay with us long. He plans to depart in the morning to return home to New Hampshire, and he and Nathaniel are already silly from wine. They look like brothers in the shadows. Both recline on our picnic blanket on the hill overlooking the Concord River. Both have dark hair and wear white shirts rolled up at the sleeves. But my half of these men is much thinner than the other—gaunt from poverty.

While Franklin patiently endures Una’s climbing on him, I study him and try to imagine how one goes on in the face of such tragedy. But here he is, doting on our wild daughter, sharing laughter with us, lifting up my husband’s sagging spirits.

“We must find an appointment for you, friend,” says Franklin.

“I do not think anyone will have me.”

“Good God, man, you are the best of what is out there. Intelligent, creative, diplomatic.”

“I try to tell him,” I say, attempting to lift Una from Franklin.

“Let her be,” he says. “I am charmed by your little faerie queen.”

“Oona,” she says.

“Yes, Ooooona,” he echoes, drizzling clover and grass in her hair. She smacks it away, and again dives at his stomach, eliciting a groan.

“Una!” I say, pulling her away, but Franklin is on his feet and has my girl in his arms. He throws her high in the air, to my horror and her delight, and soon the night is filled with the sounds of her delicious laughter. When they both tire, Una crawls into my lap, and Franklin resumes his place on the blanket. Nathaniel lights the oil lantern, sets it on the ground beside us, and refills our three glasses with the last of the wine.