Six. The Door in the Floor
Six
The Door in the Floor
Beacon Hill, August 1, 1865
Nicholas Nelson waited on the front stoop of Eleven Beacon Street, red-faced with shame. What had he been thinking, staying behind in Portsmouth with Henrietta? Now the two of them had been accused of adultery in a British court—he, who hadn’t dared address her alone until that final visit at Portsdown Lodge, and she, the most honorable person he knew. The accusation proved the wisdom of Nash’s ordering them to stay apart on the rushed voyage home. With that morning’s court decision, Nicholas planned to return to Philadelphia as soon as possible—that was, until the unsigned note had been slipped under his hotel room door.
A nervous servant greeted Nicholas as if expecting him, and hurried him to the drawing room through a pleasantly furnished front hall. There was a bust of Socrates on a pedestal (Henrietta had mentioned how Charlotte tapped its skull for luck whenever she bounded by), a Japanese porcelain vase being used for umbrellas, and a vast mural of a pastoral Greek scene along the entirety of one wall. Nicholas noted the many beautiful young goddesses depicted running in fields and bathing in streams—the seven sister-nymphs, perhaps? He wondered who in the family might have painted or commissioned such a sumptuous, painstaking, and permanent work.
“Thank you, Nick, for coming.” Henrietta sat upright in the middle of the settee, hands tightly grasped in her lap. She nodded for Nicholas to also take a seat, but he stayed firmly standing at the edge of the maroon Brussels carpet. “You heard today’s decision.”
“What can Denham be thinking?” Nicholas burst out, feeling quite unlike himself. “He wants the letter so much? To accuse us—to accuse you of anything.”
“I no longer know what he thinks. I thought I did.” She sat up even straighter. “Nick, I must apologize to you for us both. We have dragged you into this, and now I have asked you here at even further risk to your reputation.”
“Mrs. Scott, I cannot accept your apology. All the harm felt is yours.” It was clear how heartbroken she was; he recognized it painfully himself. So painfully that he would be glad to soon be back home in his little rooms above the shop. “And now you must wait weeks all over again to see what he does. He has all the power of the courts. It’s enraging—can nothing be done?”
“Constance is using her salons to rally editorials and public support. But it’s not only a matter of women’s rights, for once. My father calls it ‘the cold hard vise of the law.’ We all have to work within it, men and women both, else it all falls apart.” They both fell silent at the daunting prospect of another trial and a judgment in Denham’s favor, if only due to exhaustion of the courts. “I keep thinking about the poor admiral, losing everything, all those letters. The manuscript of Persuasion, for heaven’s sake—such opportunity for scholarship there that could have enlightened generations.” Henrietta shook her head. “How Sir Francis entrusted me with the one little bit of paper spared from Fanny’s wrath. I cannot lose that now, too.”
She stood up and removed the letter from her pocket, staring at it for a few seconds in her hand. It had all the power of a lit fuse and was wreaking just as much destruction. “Should Denham bring Sir Cresswell round and obtain judgment against me… I cannot risk the bailiff entering my father’s house and seizing this.” She held out the folded single piece of paper to him.
“Mrs. Scott, are you sure?” Nick knew right away what she was asking. Despite Nash’s best efforts, there had been communication between them on board the Neptune after all. The first unsigned note, slipped under his cabin door early one morning, had asked him to stay in Boston until things were settled in someone’s favor—and if not, to accept for safekeeping an item of the “highest personal importance.” The second note had arrived that afternoon within minutes of Norton’s decision.
“I know you will keep the letter safe for me.”
“But once things are settled…”
She gave a dismissive laugh, as if the idea itself was as ludicrous as the circumstances she found herself in.
“You should know that Haz has written from Baden-Baden and located Lu and Sara-Beth both,” he tried to assure her.
“They saw the Cresswell hearing in the papers? That hateful unsigned letter?” He nodded, his cheeks burning again from the shame of it all, while she widened her eyes at him in silent accusation. “Only one person would have motive to write such a thing.”
“Haz promises they will check Lloyd’s List regularly for the court listings and attend any hearing in your name.”
“I am so grateful for our new friends, the trust and attention of Sir Francis, the time we spent together in Chawton.” Henrietta nodded as if to convince herself. “I don’t regret any of it—only what pain it might cause others.”
He had always admired her quiet but steely determination. She was so different from Charlotte, just as he was from Haz. Everyone was so different from each other; he had learned that most painfully in war, when neighbors, classmates, and even family had fought against one another, leaving over half a million dead. What if a mural on a wall, a book by Dickens, a song in the air, were all that truly bound us, far more than society or religion or law—or even blood? The splitting apart of America over slavery and states’ rights had proved how fragile such bonds could be. Poor Sir Francis, that lovely old man by the sea, thinking his visitors were all somehow fated for each other simply because they loved Jane Austen. Then again, people have fallen in love over much less, Nick consoled himself. “I will never speak of it, not as long as I live. You have my word as a gentleman—Haslett’s, too.”
“We are both so fortunate to have a sibling we can trust the world to.”
“Haz is most loyal. Perhaps too much so. I worry he stays in the family business for me.”
“And what about you? You said at Portsdown that you would always be happy surrounded by books.”
“I did. But that was before.”
“Before the war?”
“Yes, in part.” Nick hesitated. “One should learn something from battle, if only how to better live—if lucky enough to survive.”
“I thought that larger conflict behind us, but there appears to be so much repressed anger in its place. That anger has changed its appearance, I fear—another old snake in new skin. It only pretends to offer us greater freedom. Suffrage for everyone now feels even further away. Mr. Saunders claims that Norton’s decision screams the power of a nation over its citizens—a way to keep us in our place, especially women.”
“Not even the courts have that much power, Henrietta—not over someone as singular as you.”
Nicholas came forward to take her hand, gazed at it far longer than he should have, then kissed it with all the gallantry he had read about and left.
The door in the floor of the attic pulled down.
“Henrietta, my dear? May I visit with you?”
She was surprised at the sound of her father’s voice. “Of course, Father. Do you need help with the ladder?”
“No, my dear, I am not quite so infirm as that.” She heard him softly chuckling to himself as he hoisted himself up. His kindly, drawn face appeared above the floorboards, and he peered back and forth between the two twin beds that his girls had slept in all their lives. “When I think of the last time that I looked up here, both my beloved children gone…”
Henrietta burst into tears.
“Oh, my darling girl, please don’t! It is all in the past.”
“No, none of it is—look at what I’ve done! Runaway Bride indeed…” Covering her face in her hands, she heard him chuckle again and removed her hands to stare at him in surprise. “Father, are you laughing at my situation?”
William clumsily got up from the floor and sat down next to Henrietta on the tiny bed, one arm around her shoulder. “Not at you. Never at you, my brave one. Only at the absurdity of this world. Think of the newspaperman at the Gazette , reading Sir Cresswell’s decision, and that is the headline he takes from it all? That is no one whose respect you need.”
“But he’s not here. What do I do about Beacon Hill? And poor Mr. Nelson caught up in it all—he’s been practically run off to Philadelphia.”
“Only out of concern for you, my dear, I am certain.”
“Father, The Saturday Press that has started up again in New York—you mentioned knowing the editor there, Mr. Clapp?” Henrietta brushed away tears with her hands. “Might you put in a word for Nick if they seek critical reviewers? He is so insightful when it comes to books, and the family owes him such a debt.”
“Of course, Henrietta, although I am certain you are Mr. Nelson’s sole concern at present. We men have got you into this mess when it comes to our remedies under the law, and we must help you find your way out of it.”
She crumbled in his arms and sobbed. “Oh Father, who will ever want to marry me, should I even end up free again? Not to mention Charlie’s own chances.”
“You are both such remarkable creatures. You deserve nothing less than a truly exceptional man, and such a man would never be deterred by what has happened.”
Henrietta pulled back to stare at her father. What had happened to him in her absence? “I wish I could be as sanguine as you.”
“You and Charlotte have been held captive to my moods for far too long. Connie—Constance—made me see how much everyone tiptoes around me. I couldn’t see it myself—couldn’t see how small a world I was trying to keep everyone in, in order to keep the pain small as well.”
“Well, there may be something to your philosophy, given all the injury I have caused in exceeding it.” Henrietta wiped her eyes again. “Father, I can’t lose in court over there. It’s too important.”
She still hadn’t told him what was inside the telescope. Only Charlotte and Nick knew of its contents—and him , of course, and whomever he might have told in his efforts to win it. But Henrietta knew she could trust her father more than anyone else in the world, and that notion calmed her along with his surprising new manner. To have someone who would always put your health and happiness first—who would lay down their life for you—was one of life’s greatest and most ennobling gifts. He didn’t have that—in fact, he had had to parent his brood of seven younger siblings when just a boy himself. But Henrietta refused to excuse him. After all, kind and decent Louisa had also suffered from crushing poverty and financial responsibility for her family, made even worse by the presence of an ineffectual father.
If Henrietta and Charlie, and charmed people like Sara-Beth, had better luck in life, it was only because they’d started out with such a good hand. Although a parent’s love for a child was more natural than not, it suddenly felt so potent to Henrietta as to be practically magical: the very thing she had been missing while in England, and it had nothing to do with age. She would want it always, this love of her father, no matter how old she grew. She thought of the admiral and how close the two of them had become—and how quickly—and how that must have made Fanny Austen feel in turn. For the first time, Henrietta felt a twinge of sympathy for the woman whose ill-founded actions had changed the destiny of so many.
“Norton’s decision throws a wrench into everything, I will admit.” William sighed. “But we have a clear month, if not a horizon, before word might reach us again from Cresswell’s court, should Mr. Scott renew his application for judgment.” He patted her hand in comfort, just like when she was a child. “Saunders says there is some precedent in English law that such marriages at sea are not valid. You may be unwilling to void the marriage yourself, but there is a chance the court there will do it for you. And then the admiral’s gift stays yours, even in England, as you will not be considered married or subject to their laws. And then all of life will be available to you again, as you so richly deserve.”
He kissed the top of her head and left her sitting on the bed. She waited until the ladder folded up and the door in the floor closed—waited until she heard the sound of his moccasin slippers fade away downstairs, past the many floors below. Then she lay back on the bed and finally let herself remember what had happened—finally let herself remember it all .