Free Mrs. Poe by Lynn Cullen Page A

daughter who had fallen to diphtheria. She clung to her surviving children, a nine-year-old girl, Anna, and the two boys, with a quiet fierceness made more heartbreaking by her attempts to hide it.
    “Mary took the children to the park.” She tugged on her thread. “I hope you don’t mind.”
    I removed my hat. “Thank you. Truly, I don’t know what I would do without you.”
    “Never mind that. How was Mr. Poe?”
    “In truth, very pleasant.”
    She laughed. “Poe?”
    “Surprisingly, yes.”
    “We are talking about the man who regularly bludgeons Longfellow?”
    “The same. But he didn’t cudgel anyone today. He was actually almost courtly.” I thought a moment. “Especially once we left his home.”
    She raised her eyebrows.
    I laid my hat on a table and sat. “It’s not like that. He’s very devoted to his wife. I think she causes him a great deal of worry. She’s really very sick.”
    “He wouldn’t be the first man to turn away from his obligations.”
    I gave a rueful laugh. “No, Samuel has already charted that territory.”
    She stopped sewing. “I’m sorry, Fanny. I didn’t mean to imply that.”
    “No harm done. We both know what Samuel is.”
    She sighed. From behind the closed door to the kitchen came the clink of crockery as the cook, Bridget, prepared for dinner.
    “What was Mrs. Poe like?” asked Eliza. “Beyond her illness.”
    I took up my own basket of mending. “I can’t say exactly.”
    She dipped her needle into the cloth. “What do you mean? What does she seem like? Sweet? Sharp?”
    “Both, oddly enough. But more of the former, I would say. I think she means well.”
    She plucked the needle out the other side. “That’s a strange thing to say.”
    I absentmindedly picked at one of Vinnie’s stockings. “She was very hard to fathom even though she talked a great deal. To tell you the truth, she rather disconcerted me.”
    “So you don’t like her—”
    “That’s not it.”
    “—but you do like the husband and he evidently likes you.”
    “I did not say that!”
    “He invited you to his house.”
    “At his wife’s request.”
    “And you talked to him alone.”
    I put my finger through a hole in the heel. “Only for a moment. He walked me partway home.”
    I could feel Eliza’s affectionate look of concern before she returned to her sewing.
    As if taking a precious jewel from its hiding place, I replayed my conversation with Mr. Poe in my mind. I was gleaning his words for all possible warmth—and finding, to my great wonder, much—when Eliza spoke up.
    “Fanny, be careful. You are vulnerable now, what with the wound from Samuel’s leaving so fresh.”
    I laughed. “Mr. Poe is in love with his wife. You are making something from nothing.”
    “Perhaps I am.” She sewed silently. After a moment, she said, “Did I tell you who left his calling card today? The Reverend Mr. Griswold.”
    “I am glad that I was out.”
    She laughed. “Fanny!”
    “I’m sorry. That sounded rude. He just—Do you find that there’s something a little off-putting about him?”
    “I don’t know him. But maybe you ought to. He could be very important to your writing—Russell says that he has everyone’s ear in publishing.” She tugged at her needle. “It is possible that he came here for Russell.”
    “ Please let that be the case.”
    She chuckled, then bit her thread, the repair having been made. And so the subject of Mr. Poe was equally sewn shut, at least for the afternoon.

Eight
    Saturday came, and with it another literary soiree at Miss Lynch’s house. For reasons I refused to acknowledge, I dressed with utmost care. It struck me as Eliza’s maid Mary buttoned up the back of my frock that Miss Fiske and the other rich young ladies would be taking pains to look less rich in order to fit in with the modest tone Miss Lynch set, while those less wealthy would be mustering all their forces to give the appearance of having money. How Samuel would have scoffed