A Northern Light(53)

"How did you find me? Whom did you pay to inform on me? And how much?"

"Emily, just come home."

"Under what conditions, Teddy? Knowing you, there will be conditions."

"There's to be no more scribbling, no more foolishness. You're to come home and take up your duties and responsibilities. If you do, I promise I will do my best to forget any of this ever happened."

"I can't. You know I can't."

There were a few seconds of silence and then the man spoke again. He wasn't shouting anymore. His voice was calm and steady and all the more frightening for it.

"What you've done is not only embarrassing and distressing, Emily, it is immoral. Threnody should never have been written, never mind published. Anthony Comstock has involved himself. Do you know who he is?"

"The applesauce king?"

I did not know Miss Wilcox could be so flippant. I didn't think she should be. Not around an angry man.

"He's the secretary for the Society for the Suppression of Vice. He's ruined people, driven some to suicide. Never in all my born days did I think I would see your name alongside the names of deviants and pornographers."

"I am neither a deviant nor a pornographer, Teddy. You know this. And the odious Mr. Comstock does as well."

"He says you are obscene. And when Comstock says something, the entire country listens. You are doing grievous injury to the names of Wilcox and Baxter, Emily. I will seek help for you if you refuse to seek it yourself."

"Meaning what, Teddy?"

"My meaning is perfectly clear."

"No, it damn well isn't! Have some guts for once in your life! Say what you mean!"

"You leave me no choice, Emily. If you do not come home—on my conditions—I will sign you over to a doctors care."

There was a terrible crash and the sound of glass breaking, and then I heard Miss Wilcox scream, "Get out! Get out!"

"Miss Wilcox! Miss Wilcox, are you all right?" I shouted, banging on the door.

The door was wrenched open and a man stormed by me. I think he would have knocked me right on my backside if I hadn't stepped out of his way. He was tall and pale, with fine dark hair and a mustache, and he barely gave me a glance.

I ran inside, frightened for my teacher. "Miss Wilcox!" I shouted. "Miss Wilcox, where are you?"

"In here, Mattie."

I hurried into the library. The writing table had been upended. Papers were all over the floor. The beautiful red apple paperweight had been smashed to bits. My teacher was standing in the middle of the room, smoking.

"Miss Wilcox, are you all right?"

She nodded, but her eyes were red and she was trembling. "I'm fine, Mattie," she said, "but I think I'm going to lie down for a bit. Just leave the mess. I'll see to it. Help yourself to whatever's in the kitchen. Your money's on the table."

I heard her speaking, but my eyes were on the broken glass and the scattered pages. He'd done this. Maledictions my word of the day. It means bad speaking, like a curse. I felt a shiver run up my spine and left the library to lock the front and back doors. When I returned, Miss Wilcox was on the staircase.

"Will that man be back?" I asked her.

She turned around. "Not today."

"I think you should call for the sheriff, Miss Wilcox."

Miss Wilcox smiled sourly at that and said, "He wouldn't come. It's not illegal, not yet at least, for a man to destroy his wife's home."

I didn't say anything, but my eyes must have been as big and as round as two fried eggs.

"Yes, Mattie, that was my husband. Theodore Baxter."

"Baxter? Baxter! Then you're not ... then that ... that makes you..."

"Emily Baxter, poet."





ab ? scis ? sion


According to the article I'd read in Peterson's Magazine, if you wish to attract a man, you need to be "attentive and receptive to his every word, put his own interests before yours, and use the eloquent, unspoken language of the female body to let him know that he is the very center of your universe, the primary reason for your existence." The first two bits of advice were clear to me. I had trouble with the third one, though.

I thought it meant I should bat my lashes, but when I tried it, Royal looked at me with a puzzled expression, and asked if I'd gotten some grit in my eye.

We were halfway down the Loomises' drive. Daisy had gone and smashed through their fence again. Pa was furious. Mrs. Loomis was, too. I pretended to be, but really I was glad, for it meant I got to see Royal without looking like I wanted to. He'd been in the barnyard, just as I'd hoped. He'd helped me get Daisy and Baldwin out of the pond again and then he walked me home.

We met Will and Jim coming the other way. They had their fishing rods over their shoulders and a creel full of trout.

"Oh, Mattie, dear, be mine until Niagara Falls!" Jim cooed.

"I will, Royal, darling, until the kitchen sinks!" Will gushed.

They were blowing kisses at each other when Royal slipped Daisy's noose off and cracked Jim on the ass with it. He took off howling, with Will right behind him. Then Royal picked up where he'd left off, telling me what turkeys ate and how they'd be good to raise alongside chickens and geese. As I nodded and smiled and umm-hmm'd and oh, my'd my way down the drive, I wondered if boys had any sort of magazine that told them how to attract women and, if so, did it ever tell them to put the girls' interests first?