Mercedes Lackey: The Fire Rose

In either case, as a private tutor or as a teacher, she would be a servant, for as a schoolteacher she must present a perfectly respectable front at all times, attending the proper church, saying the proper things, so as to be completely beyond reproach. Neither a schoolteacher nor a child's private tutor could even hint that she had read the uncensored Ovid. Neither would dare to have an original thought, or dare to contradict the men around her. The days of her freedom of thought, action and speech were over.

She had not wept since the funeral; she had remained dry-eyed before the Ivorssons, before Mr. Grumwelt, before his greedy minions. She had stood dry-eyed for days, but now something broke within her at the realization of how much a prisoner of society she had become overnight.

Her eyes burned, her throat closed, and she bit her knuckle trying to hold back the tears. She was unsuccessful, and quickly turned her face into the pillow, sobbing, smothering her weeping with the coarse linen so that no one would overhear her. How could any of the women here hope to understand her grief'? This prospect of life that she found intolerable was the same life that they had always led.

One born to slavery finds nothing amiss with chains ....

She curled up into a ball, forming herself around the pillow, as she cried uncontrollably. She had never believed that a heart could be "broken," but hers certainly felt that way now.

Oh Papa-why did you have to die and leave me like this?

Then came guilt for thinking such a terrible thing, which only made her weep the harder as she realized she would now face the rest of her life without his dear, if absentminded, presence. Finally, she could weep no more; she huddled around the soaked pillow, muscles and head aching, eyes swollen and burning, throat sore with holding back her sobs, nose irritated and raw. Her physical discomfort did nothing to distract her from her sorrow.

While she had cried out her grief, the noises to either side of her disappeared, leaving only the sounds of activity below-stairs. She did not feel that she could face anyone, and as for breakfast-the very notion made her ill.

Evidently either no one had missed her or Professor Cathcart had indicated that she was to be alone, for no one came to disturb her. Despair held her in that hard, narrow bed in invisible bonds; she could not even muster the strength to reach for her glasses. Once again, the presence of the laudanum in her valise beckoned temptingly. She need only drink down the entire bottle, and all her troubles would end in a sleep with no waking.

Would that be so bad? True Christian doctrine told her that suicide was a sin, but the ancients had held it no more a sin than healing a wound was. When the soul was wounded past bearing-when life became intolerable-why tolerate it?

Why, indeed? Why spend the remaining years of her life in an existence that was less than life? Why must she smother her very soul to see her body fed? Surely that was no less a sin than simple suicide!

How many grim, gray spinsters had she seen in her schools, withered creatures who had ruthlessly rooted out every vestige of intellectual curiosity in themselves and now sought to do the same to the pupils beneath them? Life as one such as they would be less than life.

Better to end it all now.

She spent a moment in fantasy, imagining what the news of her death would mean to those around her. The Ivorssons, of course, would cluck and shake their heads, and say that they had expected nothing else from her-she knew better than to anticipate remorse from any of them. She could leave a note, blaming her despair on Neville Tree-a subtle sort of revenge, since the stigma of having caused a girl's death would ruin him, especially if she did not say precisely why he had driven her to this. People would assume the worst; they always did.

She uncurled herself from her pillow; felt for her glasses and put them on, since she could not write a suicide note if she could not see. But her hand fell upon something else as well; Jason Cameron's letter. Almost against her will, she found herself drawing the letter from the envelope and reading it again.

But this time, reading it carefully rather than skimming it, she got a much different sense of the writer's personality than she had in the restaurant. There, she had been startled by the strangely accurate description of someone with precisely the same accomplishments as her own. Now she was drawn to the paragraph about the children.

In particular, her eyes were drawn to the statements about the daughter.". . . the victim of prejudice that holds her sex as inferior to the male . . ."

Surely the man who wrote such words was not the uncouth tyrant she had imagined! And surely he would not object to her continuing her own education-even if she had to choose an area of specialization other than her first choice-

Perhaps she would not be treated like a servant after all. This letter seemed to have come from the pen of a man who cherished scholarship, and would accord a scholar honest respect.

Shouldn't she at least see if he was the enlightened man his letter promised?

After all, the bottle would still be in her valise. She could end her life at any time; it did not have to be here. She could make the journey to the West Coast first; see the vast hinterlands in between. She had never personally seen a buffalo, a cowboy, or a Red Indian. She had never seen a mountain, or an ocean. She had lived all her short life in Chicago; surely before she committed any rash act, she ought to see more than just one city.

Besides, if one ended one's life-the setting ought to be something less squalid than this.

The ancient Romans called in all their friends, gathered their most precious belongings about them, and had a great feast complete with poetry and music. Then, in the midst of splendor, they drank their bitter cup.

She should take more thought to the setting of her demise.

Besides, it would distress those pleasant girls if I did away with myself here. It might even cast a stigma upon poor Mrs. Abernathy, and neither she nor they have done anything to harm me. No. It would be impolite and unpoetic to drink my cup here.

If she waited until she reached the West Coast, however-

I could go to the Opera House when Caruso sings there.

That would be a setting worthy of the Romans, and a properly poetic ending as well.

If I saved-I could have enough for a fine gown, and a private box. Even if the promised wages come to less than he states, I could save enough.

Yes; that would be the way. To drink the dose at the first intermission, perhaps-drift away into death with glorious music accompanying her-be found dressed exquisitely, with her letter of farewell lying beside her on the table-

She might be thought to haunt the place afterwards, which would do the Opera House no harm, since every good theater should have a ghost.

Not in squalor, but in splendor; turning her back on this world in a way that could not be ignored or pushed onto the back pages of a newspaper.

I seem to have decided to live. For now, at least.

But now she was impatient to be gone. The sooner she was on her way, the sooner she would find out if the promise of the letter was true gold, or dross.

She managed to get herself out of bed, and went to the washstand, to pour cold water from the pitcher into the waiting basin. Just as well that it was cold; her ablutions succeeded in removing the outward signs of her despair from her face. She dressed in an odd combination of luxury and penury; her most intimate underthings were silk (though much darned), but her stockings were of the coarsest and cheapest cotton at five cents the pair, and they were as heavily darned as the silk. The one thing that she never regretted about losing her maid was that she never again had anyone about to tie the laces of her corset as tightly as a human could manage; she had not retied the laces in a year. She donned that garment by letting out her breath and hooking it up the front, and tolerated being that much more out of fashion by not having a fifteen-inch waist.