Jo & Laurie Read online

  “Not at all,” said Brooke, taking a step toward her. “How are you liking New York?”

  “Very well,” said Lady Hat. “To be fair, the weather has been a bit off, but I find it improving more and more by the minute. Rather suddenly.”

  Mr. Brooke took her hand. “Charmed.”

  “Are you?” She smiled.

  Meg stiffened under her crinoline, until Lady Hat turned her considerable attention to her. “So Miss Margaret, are you yet another Concord cousin? A Cousin Meg perhaps?”

  Now Laurie grabbed Jo’s gloved hand and kissed it as well. “Cousin Jo is, most emphatically, not my cousin, but rather my—”

  “Special friend?” Hat said, suggestively.

  “I was going to say my beating heart itself.” It sounded like a joke when Laurie said it, but also not. “She and her sister Meg.”

  “Hence the dress.” Lady Hat smiled. “I thought it was intended for Miss Josephine?”

  “She wanted Meg to wear it tonight,” said Laurie, with a twinge of sadness.

  Lady Hat went on. “It turned out rather better than I expected, I’ll give you that. Even for the House of Worth. Charles does work his magic.” She shook her ringleted head. “Do you recall the day I took you there? How incredibly lost you were, on Prince Street?”

  “Surrounded by fabric and feathers? Would you imagine I was otherwise?” Now both were laughing. It took Jo a moment to catch up.

  Hence the dress. She was there when he ordered the dress. This dress, my dress. Here in New York, with Teddy. Lady Carmichael-Carlthorpe. Teddy’s “old family friend.”

  Jo pulled her hand away. Her heart was pounding. “Of course. And I must thank you for helping Laurie with his most generous and . . . adventurous errand.”

  “Any day with Laurie is an adventure.”

  “And with you, Hat,” said Laurie, giving her an impudent wink.

  Was it possible Laurie was flirting with her? The bosoms?

  Just then, an emphatic noise came from behind the box curtain. “Theodore Laurence! Is that you? How utterly charming to see you, and so fortunate, as tomorrow is the Ducal Ball!”

  Lady Harriet, Theodore Laurence, John Brooke, and the two Misses March all turned to face the speaker—an older and even more buxom version of Lady Hat, in an even more ridiculous degree of finery and plumage—as she pushed through the curtains. This was, apparently, the Dowager Lady Carmichael-Carlthorpe, or, as Lady Hat said, “Mummy.”

  “Madame,” Laurie murmured, rising from a rather grand bow with a deferential nod, while it was all Jo could do to wriggle out the smallest bob of a curtsy. Beside her, Meg made a small noise of terror in the back of her throat.

  “Do say you’ll join us, my dear boy—I haven’t seen your grandfather since Biarritz.”

  Laurie smiled at the mention of the elder Laurence. “Ah yes, for the Ducal Ball. How could I have forgotten? And so the great Carmichael-Carlthorpe clan is assembled to grace all Manhattan with its presence?”

  The broad-faced, lavender-scented matron smiled with a heave of her lacy . . . collar. “Not all Manhattan, my dear boy.”

  “Uppertens only, if you please. Strictly first quality for the Ducal Ball. Otherwise you’ll frighten Mummy.” Lady Hat yawned.

  Jo was, of course, familiar with the horrid phrase; the Upper Ten Thousand New Yorkers, the upper crust, had been much discussed as of late in almost every magazine that had also carried one of Jo’s own little submissions. But to hear it spoken? To hear Laurie, of all people, laugh at such a thing?

  Jo, ever the chaplain’s daughter, felt ill.

  “Behave, Harriet. Of course, we’ll just be entertaining a very few well-bred, properly positioned families. Including, naturally, the Laurences of Boston,” the dowager said.

  “Naturally.” Lady Harriet smiled. “Oh, and do bring your friends, Laurie. Where are they from again? Boston?”

  “New York City, mademoiselle,” said Mr. Brooke. “But I was mostly brought up in Providence.”

  “And we are from Concord,” said Meg, awkwardly. So there it was. There was little else to say about it.

  Lady Harriet smiled at the sisters. “Conquered? That’s too bad. Here I thought the Union soldiers had won it all back.” She tipped back her head and laughed at her own pun.

  Jo coughed. Meg’s eyes widened in horror.

  The dowager lady leaned closer. “Harriet means no harm; it’s just that she finds herself in possession of a most wicked sense of humor, especially around unsuspecting Americans. To be sure, it’s a rather grievous character defect, as I’m certain you’ll agree.”

  Perhaps it was the tone of the banter, or the scent of the powdered ringlets, or just the cloying crush of the lacy frills. Whatever the cause, Meg clutched at Jo’s arm. Jo could feel her sister’s legs buckling beneath all the silk.

  “I think . . . I need . . . air,” Meg said.

  Jo couldn’t agree more. They all needed air. Air that didn’t smell like privilege and powdered bosoms, like jealousy and judgment.

  A deep breath of fresh Concord air.

  12

  GREAT EXPECTATIONS AT STEINWAY HALL

  The telegram arrived by breakfast the next morning. The telegram, and then the trouble. Just four clipped lines: DUCAL BALL—CARMICHAEL HALL—EIGHT SHARP TONIGHT—CHARLES ELIOT ATTENDING.

  The telegram’s meaning had been conveyed clearly enough, at least to Laurie: Grandfather Laurence wanted Laurie to represent the family at the famed Carmichael-Carlthorpe Ducal Ball. Beyond that, the details didn’t matter; clearly some Carmichael or another had sent a telegram to Mr. Laurence via his solicitor—the only way the old man received telegrams—after the curtain had fallen on Verdi.

  “We can go? The four of us?” Meg was nearly bursting with the news. A society ball, especially this society ball, would be worth the trip from Concord alone.

  But Jo was angry. It was amazing, she thought privately, how quickly a certain set of people could make the rest of the world fall in line. Even people as powerful as the Laurences. The speed implied some urgency, whether due to the proximity of the event itself, or the desirability of Laurie’s attendance. Which of the two it was, Laurie was too much of a gentleman to say, which only made Jo more cross as the morning progressed—not that she would admit it. Not to him.

  “If you need to go, just say it,” Jo said, pacing about the drawing-room of the boarding house.

  “It’s just the bit about Charles Eliot,” Laurie said glumly.

  “Yes, about this Mr. Eliot—why does your grandfather care if he’s going to be at a ball?” asked Meg.

  “You know how my grandfather feels about my going to Harvard.”

  “Of course I do,” said Jo.

  “Of course we do,” Meg repeated.

  “Eliot’s the new president. Only just arrived.”

  “Oh.” Jo sank into the hard cushion of the nearest wing-chair. “Well. That clarifies things. Is he friends with Mr. Laurence?”

  “They’re not close. All Grandfather’s said to me is that Eliot’s threatening to abolish the Greek requirement, which would put poor Brooke out of half his line of work.”

  “Really? I can’t imagine you’d be too put out by that, yourself.”

  “Of course not. It’s ancient Greek. But still—Brooke.”

  “Well, what does Brooke expect you to do? Go argue on behalf of studying ancient Greek, in your atrocious ancient Greek?”

  “Brooke? Of course not. Though he’s said he’s going. I suspect he wants to make his case in person, or else gape at old Hat again.”

  Meg looked pale.

  “Well, then?” Jo asked. “What’s the problem?”

  Laurie sighed, sinking into the arm-chair next to Jo. “I expect Grandfather just wants me to go to the ball to act the fine gentleman. You know, sort of play the gam
e a bit. Make an impression on him.”

  “Is that important?”

  “Yes? No? How should I know? It’s important to my grandfather, so it’s important, right? Isn’t that what you say when you’re arguing his side of everything? Which, by the way, you seem not to be doing at the moment?”

  Jo sighed. “Laurie. Surely your grandfather won’t expect you to miss this. It’s Charles Dickens. He hasn’t been to the States since before the war.”

  “I know, but my grandfather sent direct orders.”

  Jo was starting to see that arguing was pointless. “Fine. Go to your ball. Go hobnobbing and Harvarding about with your fancy society friends. Meg and I will go to see Dickens.”

  “Jo.” Meg made a noise of despair. “Truly, it’s why I came. But—a ducal ball? After you’ve written so many imaginary ones, in all our little plays? How can we miss the very thing itself?”

  “I suspect we shall manage,” Jo said, irritated.

  Meg was less resolved. “If we go to Dickens, we’ll miss the ball. And if we go to the ball, we’ll miss Dickens.”

  “That is, generally, how the laws of the physical universe seem to work, yes. One place, one time,” Jo answered, wryly.

  Although normally an audience with Charles Dickens would have been the most exciting thing Meg had ever witnessed, it did not compare to a true society ball, apparently.

  One where Mr. Brooke would be in attendance as well—as Jo would have predicted.

  “How are we to decide?” Meg looked distraught.

  The idea that there was even a decision to be made was baffling to Jo, who was hurt her sister would prefer Brooke’s company to her own—hurt that she would abandon her, hurt that their childhood game meant somehow less to her.

  Jo changed tack. “Meg, you wouldn’t make me go alone? And have Laurie waste the ticket?”

  “Of course not, Jo. No self-respecting Pickwickian would do that.” Meg looked truly distressed.

  “Jo,” Laurie groaned. “It’s not the ticket I’m worried about, you nincompoop. I’m not going to leave you unchaperoned at night in New York City.”

  “Our chaperone? Is that what you think you are?” Jo laughed.

  “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “You don’t think we can handle ourselves at a literary event? Which one of us, might I ask, is the author here?”

  “Jo, don’t be like that,” Meg chided. “Laurie is trying to be a gentleman.”

  “Laurie is a gentleman,” said Jo. “He will go off to his gentlemanly world—to the uppertens—and you and I will go off to ours, Meg. We shall all be alarmingly fine on our own, and possibly a good sight less dull than we might be in some other people’s company.”

  “Jo,” Meg said. A warning: Meg was letting Jo know she was close to crossing the invisible line between her usual teasing and true disrespect.

  Laurie bowed his head in mock supplication. “Your company is never dull, Miss March. I might go so far as to say upperones.”

  The compliment was lost on her.

  Jo glared. “And yet oddly enough, Mr. Laurence, I, for one, am finding this whole morning to be exceptionally tiresome.”

  When she stalked out of the room, her volume of Great Expectations in her hand, he knew better than to stop her.

  * * *

  • • •

  JO AND MEG, Laurie and Brooke had negotiated a truce as they slipped across the cobblestones of Fourteenth Street, where Steinway Hall and Charles Dickens awaited. The agreement was thus: Laurie, Meg, and John Brooke were to accompany Jo to the Dickens event, then all but Jo would travel together to Carmichael Hall. Once there, Laurie would send the hired carriage back to Steinway Hall to await Jo at the close of Mr. Dickens’s appearance. Jo would make her own way back to their rooms in the carriage and then send it back to the Ducal Ball for the rest of them.

  Jo could not contain her excitement, could hardly stop talking, could barely catch her own breath—all to the continual amusement of Mr. Brooke and Meg. “Can you imagine it? That we are seeing this inconceivable spectacle with our own eyes?”

  “I’d rather witness it through your eyes,” Laurie said with affection as he pulled her just out of the path of a passing carriage, though Jo hardly noticed.

  As they crossed Fourteenth Street, the atmosphere was that of a great carnival, or a festival, Jo thought. The air was electric, wild with excitement. A throng of readers had camped out on blankets, forming a long line that snaked all the way from the entrance to around the block. From the look of it, readers had come out by the thousands.

  “Look at them, Laurie. All those readers!” Jo was breathless. She pulled her cape around her shoulders. Underneath she was wearing the well-cut dress Niles had sent to her at Orchard House, in congratulations for the success of her publication, as if it held some badge of writerly authority stitched into its hem. She barely even noticed how glum Laurie’s mood grew as they came to the entrance. He said little, dutifully tramping next to her, his hands stuffed into his pockets.

  “Mr. Snodgrass! Are you quite delirious?” Meg called from a few paces behind, where she and Mr. Brooke lagged.

  “Quite beside myself, Pickwick,” Jo shouted back. “Quite.”

  But even so, she found herself increasingly nervous with every step, as if she herself would be performing on the stage that evening instead of Dickens, which was also ridiculous.

  Now she looked over at Laurie, who had taken her hand to pull her through a particularly clogged corner. “I wonder if he’ll read from Great Expectations or something new. Something unpublished?”

  “This way. Watch the step,” Laurie said, looking back to catch sight of Mr. Brooke and Meg behind them before shrugging at Jo. “You mean like his overdue sequel?”

  “Teddy!” Jo hit him with her fan. “You mustn’t spoil tonight! This is very important.”

  “You don’t have to tell me, Jo. I’m the one who got the tickets, remember?”

  “I do! And I will be forever in your debt, Theodore Laurence. Josephine March in the presence of Charles Dickens himself. I could die, Teddy.”

  “This was supposed to be our grand finale, the culmination of Pickwickery years in the making, the greatest night of the whole trip!” He was cross, indeed—probably because they were in sight of the main doors now.

  “Must you really go, Teddy? I’m bereft that you and Meg aren’t getting to see him.”

  “Do you imagine I’d miss it if I didn’t, Jo?”

  Now they stood side by side in the great throng of book-clutching readers nearest the entrance.

  Jo nudged his shoulder, and he nudged her back, finally smiling. “Oh, I’m just sad I’m missing the chance to sit by the side of the beloved authoress Josephine March, even if her curls do still smell like the fireplace poker.”

  She sniffed. “Chestnuts, actually.” She turned to look, and sure enough, Meg was holding a paper cone full of them, Mr. Brooke still putting away his coin purse. I wonder how many lessons those cost, Jo thought. She didn’t even want to imagine the price of the tickets.

  “You have your tickets?” Meg asked, offering a chestnut.

  Jo waved it away with the slender envelope, which she clutched so tightly her fingertips were starting to lose sensation. “Glued to my hands.”

  “Don’t lose sight of them. Not in a crowd like this,” Mr. Brooke said.

  “I won’t.” Jo leaned to kiss Meg’s cheek. “Have fun at your ball—but no duels, fisticuffs, or revelations of long lost and perhaps previously shipwrecked siblings, please.”

  “Those only happen at your balls, Jo.” Meg teased.

  “Mine and Roderigo’s,” Jo said, a wicked twinkle in her eyes. Then she turned toward the entrance—

  Laurie looked suddenly concerned. “I don’t know, do you really think you’ll be all right if we go? You’ll wa
it right here until the doors open?”

  “Yes, Grandfather.” Jo smirked. “We’ve already been over this. I promise, I won’t wander off and I won’t speak to strangers.”

  “Don’t be flip, Jo,” said Meg. “You are taking a chance, being here alone.”

  “With affection, I can take care of myself,” Jo said, exasperated.

  “With affection, when you say with affection it means with irritation,” Laurie snorted. “And I didn’t say you couldn’t take care of yourself, did I, Miss March?” Now he winked. “Maybe I’m just worried for the strangers.”

  Jo pointed. “Now. Go!”

  And with a squeeze of his arm and a quick wave to Meg, Jo was off.

  13

  AT THE DUCAL BALL

  At her first sight of Carmichael Hall—the family’s palatial house on Fifth Avenue, glowingly lit from within—Meg’s breath caught in her throat. Gleaming carriages were lined up two and three deep to drop their charges at the front door, including men in top hats and enormous starched white collars, women in gowns of glowing gold and blue brocade, hair wrapped around their ears in intricate braids and whorls, flowers and fronds tucked in the folds. From all over the Eastern Seaboard—and Europe, too, Meg had to remind herself—people of the most exclusive levels of society had gathered for the ball.

  And Meg March.

  Despite Jo’s comments about the uppertens, which normally would have shamed Meg as much as anyone, she was excited to be there. Excited to see it all with her own eyes, just this once. She felt certain she could return to her boring, impoverished life in Concord—could deny herself every luxury from this point forward, including nice gowns, new gloves, and the company of high society forever—if it meant she could come to this one event, this one glorious night.

  She remembered the time she had attended Belle Moffat’s coming-out, borrowing one of Belle’s dresses and feeling like an interloper, and how Major Lincoln had shamed her by complaining the Moffats had turned her into a doll, beautiful and spoiled. Jo had unfortunately memorialized the whole thing in her novel, doubling Meg’s shame.