The Education of Harriet Hatfield Read online

  But even Angelica raised doubts about the emphasis on women. “Why does it have to be limited at all? A good bookstore should be open to all literature,” she felt.

  But here I was adamant. In the women’s bookstores I visited in Philadelphia, Washington, and New York I always had the sense not of limitation but of a door that had been opened and always I saw a great variety of customers.

  I suppose the hardest day was when Vicky’s and my house in Chestnut Hill was emptied. It had sold for a very handsome price but I had not somehow faced the actual uprooting and every time a piece of furniture was carted off, I felt a sharp pang, as though it had become a piece of my own flesh. Then there was the garden. There would be no garden in the new house, no seed catalogs and plant catalogs; only book catalogs would come to me from now on. Would the new owners care for the garden? the tree peonies? the old-fashioned roses?

  “Oh Angelica,” I cried out, “what am I doing?”

  “You simply must close it off,” she said, “you can’t look back now. You can’t afford to, Harriet.” And she had dragged me off at five for a drink and supper at her house where I would find dear old Patapouf, our ancient Labrador retriever, waiting for me. Angelica had offered to take her in until I could have her back. And I hugged her and sat down beside her for she was really all that was left of my life with Vicky now. Patapouf licked my face and licked off the tears.

  When we had settled down with a drink, Angelica looked across at me and raised her glass, “To the vita nuova,” she said, “and a brave woman.”

  “Not brave, just driven,” I said, taking a good gulp of scotch.

  “I see that, and I sometimes wonder what it is that drives you. You have chosen not to mourn. You have given yourself no time for that.”

  This surprised me. Had I not mourned? I had to admit to myself that there was some truth in her remark. “I don’t know. I guess I have been fighting for a life of my own. I know it sounds odd, but really for years I have been living Vicky’s life.”

  “You seemed an exemplary couple, you know. I often envied you.” Angelica had not married, was involved in innumerable charities and good works, and took off on long travels until very recently. She was now over seventy, and although she often said she did not feel her age, I had noticed and so had Vicky that she was no longer embarking on journeys to Tibet or Timbuktu.

  “I loved Vicky, you know, and when one loves someone living their life does not feel limiting. I enjoyed Vicky’s powerful life and all that it drew into the house. But when she died, Angelica—this will shock you—I did not feel extreme grief.”

  “Weren’t you lonely? Didn’t you feel cut in two?”

  “Don’t laugh at me, but I think I felt very much as I did when I graduated from Smith, lots of woe at the loss of all that those four years had held and which was gone forever, but also a wild excitement. Now I can begin to live!”

  “It is rather odd,” Angelica granted. Her large pale gray eyes opened wide. She had never been a beauty but her unwavering eyes made her rather plain face arresting. “I miss Vicky. She was such a life-giver. When she walked into a room the atmosphere became electric at once.”

  “She took over.”

  “Yes, I suppose she did.” And she got up. “I must see what Alice is up to in the kitchen. Excuse me for a moment.”

  For the rest of the evening we talked about the bookstore. Angelica was looking around for someone who could help me with the business side.

  “An efficient mouse is what I need.”

  “One who will not take you over?”

  “Exactly. One who does not displace very much atmosphere.”

  “Joan Hampstead might do …”

  “And who is that?”

  “Oh, someone I have been on a committee with, the committee for the library, actually. She is a divorcée, needs a job, I think, and most important you would feel at ease with her. A very intelligent mouse.”

  And that is exactly what she turned out to be.

  But after dinner I was suddenly exhausted and got a taxi to take me to the hotel where I was stowed until I could move into the new place. There I lay in bed, unable to sleep for hours. I missed Patapouf’s warmth beside me though she had become awfully heavy to lift onto the bed. And I wondered in a kind of anguish how I was going to manage this new life, what a lot I still had to prove to myself and the skeptical Mr. Fremont.

  3

  After all the frustrations and exhilarations of getting ready I sent out invitations to the opening of Hatfield House in early September for September tenth from three to six. Of course my list had had to be chiefly mutual friends of mine and Victoria’s, for whom else did I know? But I had posters stuck up at the Coop and a few other bookstores or shops that would accept one. Joan Hampstead was invaluable in helping do this as I was too shy to ask for myself.

  By now we had established an easygoing working relationship and had some good laughs as we unpacked boxes and boxes and filled and arranged the shelves.

  “Should I shelve M. F. K. Fisher with cooking, women, or lit.?” Joan asked, and we pondered and agreed that she really included too much else to be placed with Julia Child, the queen of the cooking shelf. I did succeed in my idea of a table filled with the classics of the feminist movement and a dazzling table of art books, biographies, and the newest poetry in Vicky’s honor. This table would be referred to as “Harriet’s Choice.”

  I decided on champagne as the easiest and most festive drink, with orange juice in reserve for nondrinkers. Angelica insisted on having a huge cake catered for me, and that meant plates which we dashed out to get, paper napkins, of course, and plastic forks. Since the new owners of the house had not moved in I plundered the garden of chrysanthemums and asters, a glorious bunch in the middle of the round table in front of the fireplace. It was, as I had dreamed, surrounded by four small round leather armchairs where people could sit and read comfortably. I had placed my desk at the back where I could see what was going on but not obtrusively, and at half-past two I am saying a little prayer to Sylvia Beach, my heroine among women booksellers, to hover over us and give us her blessing. But when at three no one has showed, I begin to feel horribly nervous.

  “What if no one comes, Joan?”

  Patapouf, lying under my desk, gives a growl. No doubt she is dreaming. I had imagined that she would help put people at their ease, be the welcomer, waving her great black plume of a tail, but what if she thinks I am being invaded by hostile strangers? For the moment every single thing so carefully prepared seems to be in peril.

  But at this moment a chauffeured limousine stops at the door and, of all people I dread to see, Vivyan Powers emerges and walks in and shakes my hand and turns to Joan, whom I quickly introduce. She is dressed, I note with some surprise, in expensive stone-washed jeans and jacket and purple Reeboks.

  “I didn’t know how to dress,” she announces. “After all, what in hell is a women’s bookstore about? What are you up to, Harriet? You look awfully tame in that old tweed suit, I must say.”

  “Did you expect a clown of some sort?”

  But Vivyan is already wandering around, picking up Adrienne Rich and laying her down like a hot cake. “Am I the first victim?” she asks.

  “The first customer so far.”

  Patapouf now emerges and goes right over to Vivyan and smells her shoes. “So you’re still alive,” she says, bending down to pat her huge black head.

  “Champagne?” Joan brings a glass on a tray.

  “Never say no,” Vivyan says, and then, “You must join me so we can have a toast.”

  I do not intend to drink so early in the day and am relieved to see two old friends, Professor and Mrs. House, looking in the windows. “Welcome, friends!”

  Helen comes in the door first and gives me a hug. “It’s so exciting,” she says, and Harold follows and kisses me on the cheek.

  “What an achievement!” he says after I introduce them to Joan and Vivyan. “You really are an amazing
woman to have managed all this in less than a year!”

  “We’ve worked like dogs,” I say, including Joan.

  “Mr. House is brave to dare enter this sanctuary,” Vivyan says.

  “Really? But I am much too curious to be held at bay,” he answers, laughing his short bark of a laugh. “Who knows? I might get converted.”

  It is really a thrill when at last three young women in very long skirts, peasant blouses, and high boots troop in shyly. “We saw the sign,” one says, “in the Coop.”

  “Oh, look at the biography,” another goes right to the table. “It’s a treasure house! Masson … I’ve looked and looked for that. De Beauvoir … I was told it was out of print.”

  My head is beginning to hum with pleasure and relief. This is the scene I have dreamed of for so many months. Champagne is passed just as Angelica appears bearing the fabulous cake and lays it on the table.

  “You’ll have to cut it, Harold, I’m much too nervous!” and then I hug Angelica. Now she is here all will be well. “Without Angelica,” I announce, “none of this would have been possible.”

  “Nonsense!” she says.

  Quite a buzz of people have arrived, last an elderly woman who looks a little lost for a moment, then stands at the table marked “Harriet’s Choice” and becomes absorbed in the books. She shakes her head. “Never knew all this existed!”

  “I’m Harriet Hatfield,” I say, going over to her, “please feel welcome.”

  “Oh, so you are the owner,” she says, giving me a penetrating glance behind rather thick glasses. “Well, I’m Sue Bagley. I live right around the corner and I expect you’ll see a lot of me.” She smiles at me with what seems like delight. “What fun I shall have. What a lot I shall learn.”

  Harold, who has cut the cake, now proposes a toast, “To Harriet and Hatfield House—may they flourish!”

  And quickly I get a glass of champagne for Sue—what is her name?

  At four or so my brother Fred, with Andrew in tow, turns up and I am happy that they have to make their way through a crowd to reach me, sitting on my desk in absorbed conversation with two middle-aged nuns in mufti, the small cross at each throat the only sign of their way of life. It is the first real conversation I have had so far and I hate to be interrupted. We are discussing the recently published collected Flannery O’Connor. They tell me they are Sisters of Loretto. I feel at home with them right away, the dark one with hair pulled back in a pony tail and very bright dark eyes and the other, a little older, in a simple dark blue jumper and open shirt—a face crisscrossed with lines but full of character.

  “Damn,” I murmur to them, “these are my brothers,” and then, “Hello, Fred. Hi, Andrew. I didn’t expect to see you here.”

  “It’s clear you don’t need help,” Fred says. “We imagined we might fill vacant space.”

  “It’s a subway crowd. How can I get to the champagne?” Andrew asks. “I must say you’re doing very well.”

  “We haven’t sold a book yet.”

  At this point Joan emerges looking flustered. “We’ve forgotten to have the guest book signed,” she whispers. It had been her idea that a guest book would be one way to build up a mailing list.

  “Oh dear. What a dunce I am!”

  The older sister offers to mind the book and carry it around for signatures and addresses. How amazing, already I have new friends who offer to help!

  Fred comes back with a glass in his hand and offers it to me, but I don’t dare and so he lifts it to me and drinks it as we talk. “Andrew is impressed,” he says. “He came to laugh, I suspect, and is staying in a rather different state of mind. See, he’s over there apparently deep in a study of your shelves.”

  And so he is, I can see, tall Andrew towering over the crowd. “I wonder what he thinks he will find.”

  “Gunpowder.” This brings on the giggles and suddenly we are both laughing. Fred’s voice evidently wakes Patapouf for she emerges from under the desk, wagging her tail furiously. “Pretty noisy here for an old dog,” he says, bending down to rub her back and head. “Who are all these people anyway? The only ones I know are Angelica and Vivyan. Of all people, what is she doing here in blue jeans, for God’s sake!”

  “Showing off in her own inimitable way, I suspect.” I look around. There really are quite an assortment of people of all ages milling about, some with books in their hands. I see a stunning young black woman just coming in with a green bag over her shoulder. Harvard, no doubt. “Who are they? I haven’t any idea. That is what is so exciting.”

  Joan is now sitting at the cash register on the high stool our architect had provided behind a high counter, so whoever sits there can see what is going on, though I objected to a mirror behind it that would show up a thief. She is busily making out invoices and a small line of people with books in their hands is forming. The head of the line holds a heavy pile of art books, Georgia O’Keeffe among them, in the new paperback. She is very thin and dressed in black leotards with a long tunic over them, an intriguing silhouette, though I cannot see her face or guess her age.

  Four women have taken over the armchairs round the table and are immersed in books, the cake plates piling up around them, I see, and go over quickly, abandoning Fred, to make some order. Andrew kindly helps me take a tray to the tiny kitchen.

  “Hey, you can open another bottle of champagne,” I tell him, “as long as you’re being useful.”

  For a few seconds we are alone and hidden from the throng. He is smiling at me and I know making up some joke or thrust. “All I can think of is a salt lick for deer. You are obviously providing something the deer need,” and at that I can’t help laughing.

  “So far the deer seem rather tame, I must say.”

  By five, Angelica, Vivyan, and the Houses have left, Fred and Andrew too, and the complexion of the party is beginning to change.

  “I got forty names and addresses for you,” the elder sister says, handing over the book. “What fun!” And then they too are off, assuring me that they will be back. So all my supports seem to be abandoning me and for a second I panic. How long will this go on? How shall I handle all these folk? Several white-haired women come in alone and I am happy to see two of them start talking as they pick up books on the biography table. Have they known each other before? The third makes her way over to where I am standing alone surveying the scene. “Are you Harriet Hatfield?” she asks.

  I like her face, thin and brown like weathered wood. “Yes, I am. How did you know?”

  “Somehow you look in command of the ship standing there.”

  “Totally ignorant and at sea, but I suppose I am in command, with the help of Joan Hampstead over there at the counter.”

  “It’s a brave venture, but what I want to know frankly is why a women’s bookshop? Why separate the sexes?” I find her penetrating look disturbing. It does not seem the time or place to be grilled.

  “Ask me that question in six months. I might have the right answer.”

  “Oh I’ll come back, and meanwhile I do wish you every success.”

  I look at my watch, feeling suddenly exhausted. It is half-past five, only a half-hour more and then Joan and I can go somewhere for dinner. But suddenly a host of young women pile in, talking excitedly and laughing, two of them clearly paired, all a little terrifying in their wild mops of loose hair and either very long skirts and leather jackets or very short skirts and high boots. Are these my people, I wonder? Will I ever be able to connect?

  Patapouf suddenly emerges barking loudly and I realize that one of the young women has a terrier on a leash. “Maybe you had better take your dog out,” I venture. “Patapouf is almost too good a defender. Lie down, Patapouf!” Now the terrier is growling and Patapouf, her tail wagging, advances towards her. I suppose when a dog sees another dog under circumstances like this it must be a little like a human seeing another human in some foreign place.

  “I’m sorry. I’ll take Teddy out,” the girl says. “She can stay in the car,�
�� and she goes. Three of the others have settled into the comfortable chairs around the table as if indeed this were a club and they were already members. I bring out a tray of champagne and sit down with them.

  “I’m glad to see you,” I said. “Are you students?”

  “M.I.T.,” says the wildest-looking one. “I’m going for engineering.”

  What does one say next? But I am spared some fumbling response by the return of Teddy’s mistress.

  “She’s my lover,” says the engineer; “has a job with an architect’s office.”

  “How did you find out about the store?” I ask.

  “Oh, Erica saw a poster somewhere and we decided to come and see. Thanks for the champagne.”

  They are looking me over, I think.

  “We live a few blocks away,” Erica explains. “It will be nice to come and browse.”

  “That’s what this shop is all about,” I say as warmly as I can, “browsing and talking.”

  “A joint,” one who has not yet spoken says. “What made you decide on Somerville?”

  “The house. It was exactly what I wanted.”

  “You don’t come from around here?”

  “Well, not exactly. Until last year I lived with a friend in Chestnut Hill. When she died—she was a publisher and very successful at it …”

  “And what did you do?” Erica asks. I am slightly troubled by their close attention. They are genuinely interested, I feel, but do I want my life probed just today? Right now?

  “What did I do?” I laugh. “Just about everything from proofreading to gardening, to God knows what. I kept things as peaceful and efficient as possible so Vicky could work.” I turn to Erica’s friend, “What is you name, by the way?”

  “Veronica,” she says. “I hate my name.”

  “I am Harriet Hatfield.”

  “That must have been hard, your friend dying,” says another young woman, who has been silent till now and had come alone. A narrow face with a bush of reddish hair dominating the rather small intent hazel eyes. She is wearing jeans and a red turtle-neck. “How long did you live together?”