Read What Is Visible: A Novel for Free Online Page A

is―‘Paragon of Noble Usefulness,’ that’s what Dickens calls you, Robesey says. Do you feel like a paragon?”
    “Yes, I do.”
    “And noble? And useful?”
    “Yes and yes.” It was true. “He’s summed me up.”
    “Dickens is good for that. The book should be here in a few weeks.”
    “In time to impress the Astors at the wedding, I hope.”
    “The Examiner claims that you’ve stolen one of ‘the three Graces of Bond Street,’” Sumner said. “It is madness, you’re right, but the best kind, I suppose.”
    “Now, Charlie, Julia swears that I love you more than I will ever love her, but then I remind her that you were the one who brought us together.”
    “Yes, the ‘rider on the black steed,’ as Diva Julia has immortalized you in her girlish verse. And I am the dun-colored horse left grazing. I would whip myself if I weren’t so tired.”
    “You were never dun-colored in your colorful life.”
    “If only I hadn’t brought Julia and her sister to view the inimitable Laura Bridgman. It’s actually Laura’s fault, you know, because you’ve made her such a showpiece.”
    “She has been my own God-given, personal tabula rasa—how could I resist?”
    “But with Julia, the slate is so full you’ll be lucky to find room to sign your name. At the bottom.”
    “She’s keeping the Ward—she’ll be Julia Ward Howe—I made the deal with her brother in exchange for another thousand a year.”
    “Do you think, Chevie, that I’ll ever be so blessed?”
    “Of course,” Doctor told him. “Maybe even snare one of the other Graces.” But he didn’t think Charlie would ever marry; he thought less of women, and more of men, than even Doctor did.
    “Do you know what your fiancée said to me that night after I first introduced you—she said, ‘Sumner, you and Dr. Howe are both so high-minded I’m surprised you can wear hats.’”
      
    My darling Chevie,
    If I have come to know you at all—and we are certainly doomed if I have not—I’d wager you don’t want to hear all the gallivanting we’ve been up to with the ceremony details. So suffice it to say that I’ll be exquisitely bedecked, as will the premises. All that remains of your duty is to ride that black steed to New York, or to poke along in a carriage with young goats Sumner, Felton, and Longo.
    Your dear sister will, as we discussed, serve me at the wedding with my three sisters, but my family feels strongly that we cannot allow little Laura to be a member of our party. I pleaded, you know I did, Chev, but Brother Sam was quite resolute: if the Astors were gracious enough to host our wedding, we could not possibly repay them in such august society with the kind of interruptions the poor child would surely make. If my father were still alive to handle my dowry, things would not go so rough, but Sam feels he must act my fierce champion, especially since he settled with you on the house. And have you considered the glass eyes for her?
    So please, darling, do forgive me on this one tiny point. I know you will.
    Your soon-to-be-obedient―
    Doctor folded the letter carefully in quarters, then in eighths, and finally into the smallest diamond he could make it, and thrust it into his waistcoat pocket. He was charged with the greatest philosophical and religious experiment of the century, and this was what his future wife saw—a mere nuisance? His blood was boiling to the consistency of molasses, and he knew he had to let it cool before he could even think straight.
    After an agonizing week, he penned a note to Miss Swift instructing her not to tell Laura about the wedding until the day after he’d left for New York. He arranged for Laura and Oliver a tour of the Cunard steamer docked in Boston Harbor that he and Julia would be taking to England for their honeymoon. More than that he could not think about and stay sane. His life was changing, and he couldn’t let this child—his feelings for this beloved child who wasn’t even