Mrs. Poe Read Online Free PDF Page B

wondered if they had grown up together and, if so, when they knew that they were more to each other than blood kin.
    “Fanny.”
    I started.
    Eliza laughed. “I scared you.”
    “You didn’t.”
    She edged in closer. “Does Mr. Poe?” she whispered.
    I drew in a breath. “Frankly, yes.”
    She chuckled. “I know what you mean. But I believe he might be a gentleman once you get to know him.”
    “Tell that to poor Mr. Longfellow and the scores of other poets he has shredded.”
    Eliza peered over the crowd. “Quick—Poe looks bored. Now’s our chance to meet him.”
    She pulled me across the room redolent with the smell of hair pomade, butter cookies, and perfumed flesh. We stopped before Mr. Poe, who was listening coldly as Miss Fiske related how her mother had died in the previous year and how her mother’s passing had only deepened her poetry and enabled her to truly feel.
    “I believe she is with me still, Mr. Poe.” Miss Fiske peered up into his face with earnestness. “Whenever I see a fallen feather, I know she has sent it. I collect them. See the one she has sent me today?” She pulled a brown feather from her reticule.
    He glanced at the feather and then at Miss Fiske. “Not resting comfortably in heaven, is she?”
    Miss Fiske flinched as if poked.
    Eliza chose this moment to interrupt. “Mr. Poe?”
    He turned his baleful gaze upon her. I nearly winced at the pain and fury in his dark-lashed eyes. What had happened to this man to make him such a wounded beast?
    Dismay flitted across Eliza’s face. She recovered her equilibrium with the speed of an experienced socialite. “I believe you have met my husband, John Russell Bartlett.”
    “The publisher? He has a bookshop in the Astor House.”
    “That’s correct,” she said, delighted. “I am his wife, Eliza. I would like you to meet my dear friend.”
    Mr. Poe cut me a doubtful glance.
    “Mr. Poe, this is Mrs. Samuel Osgood—Fanny, as her many friends and admirers call her. She’s well known for her poetry.”
    He let his beautiful, terrible gaze fall upon me. As discomfiting as it was, I refused to look away. I would not let this second-rate poet, as popular as he was, frighten me. He put one leg in his pantaloons at a time, just like every other man.
    Although his expression remained cool, his eyes registered surprise, then amusement. Did he find me that ridiculous?
    Eliza glanced between us. “Fanny has written several collections for children. ‘The Snow-drop,’ ‘The Marquis of Carabas, and Puss in Boots,’ and ‘The Flower Alphabet.’ We are so proud of her.”
    I must sound as childish as my tales. “I also write poems for adults.”
    “She does!” cried Eliza. “She has written about flowers for them, too.”
    “Flowers,” he said flatly.
    I was saved from melting into the carpet in shame by the vigorous approach of the English actress, Mrs. Fanny Butler née Kemble, who was advancing upon us with a swish of pumpkin-colored skirts. With her chestnut curls, milk-and-roses complexion, and soulful brown eyes, she was even prettier in person than in the hoardings that were still plastered around London when I had lived there, several years after she’d left the stage for marriage.
    “Mister Poe!” she said in her plummy stage voice. “I have been dying to talk with you!”
    He glanced at me as if he thought to say more, then regarded her coolly. “You look fairly alive just yet.”
    She laughed. “Thank you, you are quite correct,” she said, her voice less affected. “We must be mindful of our words. We do get lazy; at least I do.”
    She held out her hand to me as one would to a man. “And you are?”
    I shook with her. “Frances Osgood.”
    “So very nice to meet you.”
    I caught a glimmer of sorrow behind her brave smile. Even though she had just taken up residence in the city, everyone knew of her recent estrangement from her American husband over the issue of slavery, he being one of the largest