CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Life is my college. May I graduate well, and earn some honors!

~ LMA

Johanna

I STRAIGHTENED from where I was picking currants from our bushes and wiped my sweatied brow with the backs of my berry-stained hands. The warmer weather seemed to bring hope to our household. I had decided to foster that hope with one of Nathan’s favorites—currant jam. He’d given me enough money in the household account to order jars and sugar, and I had spent the last two days gathering the ripe berries.

I knew if Nathan saw me, he would insist on hiring a boy. It seemed to bother him when I did what he considered “common” work, and yet I thought it healthful for my mind and body, and it did not bother me. I did not tell him that I often visited the Alcotts to help when I could, as both Louisa and her mother had recently suffered the rheumatic fever. The last I visited, Mrs. Alcott was half-blind, Mr. Alcott seemed to have aged tremendously, and Louisa herself seemed weak and a bit nervous—not at all how I remembered her.

She insisted on paying me what she could when I helped, and only to soothe her pride did I accept. I often wondered if it were easier for her to think of me as “the help” rather than a friend who simply wanted to help.

I lugged the currants into the kitchen, smiling as I thought of Nathan’s reaction to seeing a stock of jam in the pantry that night. I donned my checkered apron and opened my copy of Mrs. Cornelius’s book with all the determination of a runner set for a grueling race. I imagined Nathan slathering the jam on my fresh bread, how he would look at me with surprise and pleasure when he tasted the sweet spread upon his tongue.

I had seen Mother make jam plenty and had even helped her once, but to my dismay, and despite my ardent efforts to boil, strain, and sugar it, the mixture proved too runny and would not for the life of it become a beautiful, smooth concoction.

And still I did not give up, trying to reheat and resugar and scold the liquid into jelling. The sun began its slow descent, and I knew I should be cooking the mutton, for Nathan was to arrive any minute, and yet I could not release the thought of all those beautiful currants gone to waste.

Finally, looking at the mess of a kitchen, runny currant mixture all over my new jars and pans and stove, I slumped onto the floor, admitting defeat, and sobbed into my checkered apron.

I had opened the window to allow the burnt sugar smell to clear out of the kitchen, and above my sobs I heard a carriage mounting the drive. My tears flowed all the more, for I liked to be waiting for him on the porch, the scents of a simmering supper wafting to greet him. Still, would he not understand? Surely, as soon as Nathan saw me in such a state, he would take me in his arms and assure me that all would be just fine in the end. That he didn’t care about jam as much as he cared about being home with me.

I heard the carriage stop and then . . . voices. One was Nathan’s. The other, a man’s voice I didn’t recognize.

Of all days! He’d brought company home. In my early days of housekeeping, when I was certain that being a wife and having dinners on the table would be a feasible task, I had told him to invite guests whenever he saw fit. And he had beamed at me as though I were the sweetest girl in all the world. Only now . . . oh, he should most certainly have sent word!

I fell further into despair and did not even bother getting off the floor or fixing my hair or wiping currant juice from my face. What did it matter?

The voices again, then footsteps in the house and Nathan’s voice. “Dear? Are you home?”

“I’m here,” I answered weakly. I didn’t bother to lift my head, for I didn’t want to see the shadow of disappointment cross his face at the untidy kitchen, at the mess I had made.

Did I imagine the foul word that came from his mouth upon entering?

I waited for him to come to me, to kneel on the floor beside me and wrap me in his strong arms, to call me “dear” again and ask what was wrong. But he didn’t, and I lifted my head. “I’m sorry, Nathan. I’ve ruined it all.”

His chest puffed out in a deep breath as he surveyed the kitchen again, his gaze finally landing on me. “I’ve brought Charles home. Charles Inglewood. I invited him to stay for the night. We’re to talk of the possibility of a new venture. What I’ve been wanting to do . . .”

I swiped at my eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

He paced the kitchen, raked a hand through his hair. “He can’t stay. Not like this. Not with you . . .” He looked at me again, and I’d never felt so inadequate before him. Yes, sometimes he came to bed late and seemed to avoid me. Sometimes he could be withdrawn or surly, but he had never, never looked at me as he did in that moment. Such displeasure, even disgust, that I felt certain he regretted marrying me.

I didn’t know what else to offer, what would improve the situation, if anything.

“I will drive him into town and put him up in the boardinghouse. We will fetch dinner and do our business there. Perhaps by tomorrow morning, you could be presentable for a breakfast.”

“Yes. Yes, of course.” I wanted to help him. I would redeem myself.

“Very well.”

And he was gone. Without a peck on the cheek or a kind word.

I heard him explaining away the change of plans by claiming me ill, and a rebellious part of me wished to pop out of the house in my currant-stained checkered apron and prove him a liar. He had been gone for days! Hadn’t he enough time to talk business? Why must he bring it home and then desert me when I felt such a failure?

I sank to the floor again as the horse clopped back down our driveway, and I let the tears come.

Much later, when they were dry, I got to work cleaning the kitchen. More than anything, I wanted to run down to Orchard House, to pour my troubles out to Louisa. But she was in one of her writing spells, composing fairy tales for a Christmas book that Mr. Fuller had requested.

I could not bother her with such a trifle as jam. And I knew she would take my side—say that Nathan should not have given me such a great burden and surprise when we had not spoken for days about such affairs as dinners.

And her defensive words would not serve my marriage well. For I would believe them true, believe that I was in the right and my husband in the wrong, and it would only create a further divide between us.

Instead, I prayed as I worked to clean the mess I’d made, tossing out the ruined currant liquid and scrubbing splatters of red goo from the stovetop, counters, pans, jars, and floors. Again, despite having failed me once, I looked to Mrs. Cornelius’s book for a simple breakfast that might redeem me in my husband’s eyes and Mr. Inglewood’s.

I cleaned myself last, settling by the waning light of the large parlor window to write a letter to Mother. Though we seldom mentioned him, I couldn’t help but write of John, of how he loved Mother’s currant jam. Then, because she was far away, and it felt safe, I told her a bit of the afternoon’s events and felt better for it, though I knew I would probably not mail the letter in the end.

It grew dark and I lit the candles, falling asleep in the parlor so I might not miss Nathan when he came in.

There was no fear of that. For he made every sort of ruckus when he entered, slamming the door so that I jumped awake from where I slept upon the sofa. I rose, gathered a guttering candle, and brought it to the foyer. “Nathan?”

“Leave me.” His words were slurred and I knew what that meant, though I hated what it portended for us.

Still I tried. “How was your dinner?”

He took off his hat and hurled it at the coatrack, missing by many feet. “How the deuce do you think it went? How can someone be expected to invest in a man who can’t keep order in his own home?” Anger frayed the edge of his words as he headed for his study. Words that seemed to pinion me in the pit of my belly and thrust the blame of the world upon my shoulders.

For a small moment, I believed it. I did feel bad about the jam and my part in Nathan’s distress, really I did. But he needn’t be so angry. He’d known I was not perfect from the beginning, and I knew that he wasn’t. Yet part of marriage was bearing with one another, was it not? And that meant forgiving when we witnessed those shortcomings.

Shortcomings. As if my attempting to make my husband currant jam were a shortcoming.

For a moment all the layers I’d wrapped around myself since I’d met Nathan unraveled, and I saw what I was becoming. A shadow of my former self. But who had I been to begin with? I’d come to Concord looking for a place to belong, a place to find my independence and pursue my passion for literature. I’d thought that Nathan was a part of that plan. I loved him, perhaps to a fault. But was I allowing myself to wither away, to be choked and snuffed out in the name of that love?

I dragged in a long breath, wanting more than anything to make peace. With both Nathan and myself.

“I am preparing a beautiful breakfast for tomorrow. Mr. Inglewood will come, won’t he?”

“No,” he snapped. “He’s leaving first thing in the morning.”

“Well, if a simple misunderstanding put him off so, perhaps he is not a wise partner to begin with.”

He went to his cupboard, pulled out a bottle of whiskey. Something hard knotted in my chest at the sight of the alcohol. Yes, I had long suspected. Maybe even known after seeing the shining glass beside him that night in this study. But to voice it seemed to breach the trust we had established as husband and wife. How many times had I dusted that cupboard, wondered if it contained what I feared, yet chosen not to open it? Not to let suspicion taint our new marriage? Now, though, I couldn’t argue with the evidence. And he wasn’t even bothering to conceal it.

I stepped forward. “You promised.”

He ignored me.

I placed a hand on his arm. “Nathan, this is not the answer. There is a better way for us to work—”

“I said leave me!”

I did not see his hand coming. Nor did I anticipate the power behind it. Black came over my vision, and I fell to the floor, partly from the force of it, partly because it put me in a state of shock and my limbs simply gave out.

I reached out a shaky hand to steady myself on the side of his desk.

“Johanna . . .” I felt his arm on my shoulder, but I flinched. “If you did not persist in harping on me . . .”

I couldn’t dredge up words to defend myself. What’s worse, I felt the start of an apology on my lips. Something. Anything to make it right between us again.

He helped me to my feet as if it were a chivalrous act. And once I regained my balance, I left the room to hide myself away in the bedroom, pathetic tears soaking the pillow.

I had known better, hadn’t I? I had seen his true form once before, had chosen to ignore it. I thought I’d been extending grace, but perhaps I’d only been extending my own naiveté. Believing what I wanted to believe. Hoping for something beyond what I knew to be real.

Now it was too late. And I hated myself for it.

The next morning Nathan was gone when I woke. One glance into the looking glass proved the horrors of the night before, and I collapsed back into my bed and chose to sleep away the day. Night came, and I rose to walk around the moonlit house, sat on the porch for an hour or so, listening to the crickets and owls chanting a melody just for me.

Words swirled in my head, something like a poem forming, nonsense trying to create sense from some well deep inside me. I prayed. I asked for wisdom. And then when the grandfather clock struck twelve, I went back up to bed.

My last thought before I dozed off was the very acute feeling that I had somehow let John down.

“I’ll fix it, John. I promise,” I mumbled, half-asleep, into my pillow.

I would. This would not be the course of my life. I would be a better wife, not harp on Nathan so, try to be more understanding. I would fight for what was mine.

Everything would be fine.