#reverend forte

[onefail-at-atime]

"Marriage is something one should never settle for or talk oneself into." - Ada Brook Forte

Marian, listen to Aunt Ada and ruuuuuuuun. Larry Russell will be waiting for you on the other side of the street.

[lesbiangummybearmafia]

The Gilded Age, 02x05 Close Enough to Touch, my thoughts...

Omg I'm so happy for Aunt Ada! It was brilliant she didn't allow her fears to stop her marring the Reverend Forte. Their so sweet together. I understand that Aunt Agnes had to marry that man she did and as result had a horrible marriage but I'm glad the Reverend Forte pointed out to her that it was for her own selfish reasons she didn't want Ada to marry him and not because she was trying to protect Ada. I'm also glad Aunt Agnes got her head out of her butt and went to the wedding! Because no matter what she said under the grumpy exterior I want to believe she actually happy for her little sister. Now I want them to find a man for Aunt Agnes, wouldn't that be amazing to see!

Ok I completely annoyed by the whole Peggy and her boss thing. How played out, over done, so predictable and well just lazy is that?! Why can't they make her character smarter than that. Be all like oh hell no fool, you're married. Yes we had a scary fucking moment back there but no we don't need to be kissing or anything else. Because it makes Peggy's character come off as less than she is, less intelligent, less brilliant. It does such a deserves to her character!

But Bertha's staff was so not on our watch mf! I freakin love them. Especially Church making sure the Duke didn't end up with a lap full of hot soup. And Watson for catching on to what was going on in the first place! Bertha needs to give them and Mrs. Bruce a rise!

Oh I loved, loved watching Turner's plan at revenge go up in smoke. Omg Mrs. Fish comments perfectly just hitting Turner's last nerve lmfao!! God their making me truly hate her.

Bertha's dinner party gown was so beautiful. I do like seeing all the lighter colors this season and flower prints. I thought Bertha was rather cute when she kept checking to make sure everything for the dinner was perfect and all her staff kept reassuring her. I would like to see more moments like that where she's well cute. When Gladys tried to walk further down the talk, Bertha all come back here you lol. I so knew one of the main reason Bertha wanted to meet the Duke was because of Gladys. If she gets her way Gladys is going become a Duchess. It was great Bertha and George are not longer fighting omg. I didn't realize how heavy that made the show until the episode. Even with the events with Peggy unfortunately the episode still feel lighter.

Oscar and Maude Beaton are very sweet together but I don't want to see Maude get hurt. If Oscar actually loves her, perhaps like one loves a very dear friend or a best friend than maybe it's alright but if not. He definitely needs to stop acting like any kind of goldigger though! I just really want him to have honest feelings for Maude is all.

Marian if she doesn't want to be with Dashiell Montgomery ok. But her doing cringie face everytime he said something in that direction is getting old and annoying. Could she please grow the same spine for herself she seems to have for everyone else.

It's so awesome they put in about Emily Warren Roebling the first female engineer. That whole thing Larry finds out is completely ture part of history. I really appreciate the show added. It's important that our women's history finally be included.

[orlaogden]

Some fluff before shit hits the fan :3

[h4t08]

Me: Ada and the Reverend are so cute!! 😍😍 The way he touched her fingers and gave her flowers… bestill my heart!

Reverend Forte asks Ada to marry him: 🚩🚩🚩

Me whispering into the void: Please don’t be a serial killer or momma’s boy seeking a mommy replacement or dying of cancer or an asshole.

Julian Fellows (probably): 🧐😏🤭

[ozkar-krapo]

V/A

"I.D. Art #2"

(LP. États-Unis. 2022 / rec. 1972-76?) [US]

[berthas-russells]

ADA BROOK & REVEREND FORTE in THE GILDED AGE (2022- ) 2x06 "Warning Shots"

[sheireen]

I need things between Larry and Marian to go beyond meeting across the street with him offering to accompany her somehwere an that's it for the rest of the season, because at this rate they're going to fall in love by the time they're Aunt Ada and Reverend Forte's age and I can't

[dnickels]

People are complaining about Fellowes' storytelling because the Reverend Forte got stage 10 cancer and immediately died and is, according to the internet, not being appropriately mourned but this is a silly take:

Fellowes already did a bereaved widow storyline. It lasted an entire season and spilled over into the next two. Honestly it was a little boring and I think he's over it

The reverend Forte wasn't really a character so much as a personified plotline for Ada. Luke qua Luke really doesn't matter as much as Ada learning to stand up for her sister and strike out on her own, and incidentally:

Now that he's out of the way and Ada has all his money, the actually interesting storyline can begin. The double reversal of fortune changes the calculus between them lightyears ahead of what "Ada moved out" could have done.

Consider the facts: Fellowes created a male character with no real purpose but to advance a woman's personal growth and then unceremoniously killed him to create tension in a relationship between two middle-aged sisters. This is equality! This is what you wanted! This is a blow for feminism!!

[pagetreader]

@honorhearted

It made no sense. One moment, Clara had been hunting through the swamps near Lakay, and the next she'd was overcome but a terrible humming akin to a swarm of bees. As she'd attempted to find the source, she'd suddenly found herself knocked for a loop, winded and disoriented on the ground.

Even as her vision had struggled to readjust from the vertigo, it'd been evident that she wasn't in the same area anymore. These woods were abundant in thinner trees and the nearby river wasn't murky, but crystal clear.

Had she been abducted and taken somewhere else? Damned Lemoyne Raiders. No doubt it was there doing.

The meeting of a strange Reverend in the middle of nowhere, however, told her that her instincts were correct. Something more was wrong her, though she didn't know what. The holy man had mentioned taking her to the nearest British fort for help, but what fort in the entire damn state was occupied by foreigners?

As if things couldn't get anymore complicated, a newcomer had shown and the Reverend had urged her to hide. Then, from her place in the brush, she'd witnessed him brutally shot after a conversation that'd sounded like a scene from a play.

What in the hell was going on?!

Drawing her cattleman revolver, she stepped out from the trees with wide, cautious eyes. She'd held a man at gunpoint many a time before, so this should have been no different, and yet with the strange garb the man before her wore, she couldn't shake the feeling that things were far worse than she could imagine.

"Drop your weapon. Now," she ordered coolly, "Nice and slow now, darlin'. Don't want to get a bullet lodged into that pretty skull of yours, now do we?"

[christinaroseandrews]

So Gilded Age Season 2... Spoilers ahead.

I've been watching my pretty costumed crack and enjoying it, but one thing has been niggling at the back of my mind: How FUCKING Fast everything is happening this season. Like OMG so fucking fast. Or at least it feels fast, Julian Fellows (JFell) is not good on the specifics. But plots are simultaneously too slow and too fast (Poor Jack and his clock) or just so fast as to be OMG (Ada and Reverend Forte)

And because I can't let it lie I started looking shit up. Because we have two concrete dates for this season and dammit, I'm gonna use them. (As a note, I wanted to also use when Porter Hall at Tuskegee was dedicated, but all I could find (even on Tuskegee's website) was that it was built by students in 1883 and demolished in 1905. The first is when the season starts: Easter Sunday 1883. Which was March 25, 1883 just so everyone is on the same page.

The second is when the Brooklyn Bridge Opened - May 24, 1883.

So two months. Two bloody months.

Only two months for the following:

Ada to meet, be courted by, marry, have a honey moon, and be widowed by Reverend Luke Forte played by the chronically tragic ending actor Robert Sean Leonard.

Larry to have a grand affair with one of his clients enough so that he'd want to marry her and for it to be gossip.

Oscar to meet, court, and be conned by the lovely Maud Beaton.

Everything with the Duke. Like OMG...

Jack and his clock. Sure he worked on the clock for weeks. But then he had to go to the patent office and get a response via the mail then have Bannister get someone from the horological institute come out. The waiting via mail and the government bureaucracy alone will take a month and it was addressed in a single episode.

ALL OF THE TRAVEL. Yes, the railroads helped with this, but it only shortened things from months and weeks to days and hours depending on distance. It'd still be a multiple day journey from NYC to Tuskegee, Alabama.

Like I get that JFell wanted to include certain things in his story, and sure some of the stuff that I listed can go faster. But all of it?

In particular things like the U.S. Mail system which had to go from NYC to DC, get checked, get rejected, a letter of rejection to be written, then sent back to NYC. Today, in the year of our Lord & Lady 2023, it takes a letter to travel between NYC & Washington DC approximately 3-5 days (1 day processing at DC, 1 day transit, 1 day processing, 1 day delivery (some of these can be faster depending on when drop off/delivery occur). (BTW I know mail, I worked for the post office doing tech support and my father worked for them for 25 years and set up the computer systems that tracked mail cross country.)

So all of this to say that things are moving fast this season. It isn't just me. And like a I get that things moved quickly, especially in regards to romance, but bureaucracy is never quick and this is a hill I will die on.

Still... even more than that. Poor Ada!!! I loved my gentle middle-aged romance with the woman being older than the man (or at least the actress being older than the actor). *Wails* She deserved more time!!!

[socialoutsider1a]

So that's three characters Robert Sean Leonard has played during his career who have suffered from cancer:

*James Wilson of House MD- Diagnosed towards the end of the series. It's not known if he died from it in September 2012 or if he eventually decided to change his mind and get treatment.

*Shamus O'Malley from the Good Doctor- Ends up in hospital while trying to catch a fish and after it's discovered he has cancer, he gets his left leg amputated.

*And Reverend Matthew or Luke Forde from the Glided Age- Is diagnosed with it shortly after marrying Ada Forte with Forde later dying from the cancer.

[kemetic-dreams]

Jo Ann Gibson Robinson ,unsung activist (April 17, 1912 – August 29, 1992) was a civil rights activist and educator in Montgomery, Alabama.Known for initiating the 1955 bus boycott in Montgomery, AL, USA

Born near Culloden, Georgia, she was the youngest of twelve children. She attended Fort Valley State College and then became a public school teacher in Macon, where she was married to Wilbur Robinson for a short time. Five years later, she went to Atlanta, where she earned an M.A. in English at Atlanta University. After teaching in Texas she then accepted a position at Alabama State College in Montgomery. It was there she joined the Women's Political Council, which Mary Fair Burks had founded three years earlier. In 1949, Robinson was verbally attacked by a bus driver for sitting in the front "Whites only" section of the bus. Her response to the incident was to attempt to start a protest boycott. But, when she approached her fellow members of the Woman’s Political Council with her story and proposal, she was told that it was “a fact of life in Montgomery.” In late 1950, she succeeded Burks as president of the WPC and helped focus the group's efforts on bus abuses. Robinson was an outspoken critic of the treatment of African-Americans on public transportation. She was also active in the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

The Women's Political Council had made complaints about the bus seating to the Montgomery City Commission and about abusive drivers, and achieved some concessions, including an undertaking that drivers would be courteous and having buses stopping at every corner in black neighborhoods, as they did in European areas. After Brown vs. Board of Education, Robinson had informed the mayor of the city that a boycott would come and then after Rosa Parks arrest, they seized the moment to plan the boycott of the buses in Montgomery.

On Thursday, December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to move from her seat in the African area of the bus she was travelling on to make way for a white passenger who was standing. Mrs. Parks, a civil rights organizer, had intended to instigate a reaction from white citizens and authorities. That night, with Mrs. Parks permission, Mrs. Robinson stayed up mimeographing 52,500 handbills calling for a boycott of the Montgomery bus system. The boycott was initially planned to be for just the following Monday. She passed out the leaflets at a Friday afternoon meeting of AME Zionist clergy among other places and Reverend L. Roy Bennett requested other ministers attend a meeting that Friday night and to urge their congregations to take part in the boycott. Robinson, Reverend Ralph David Abernathy, two of her senior students and other Women's Council members then passed out the handbills to high school students leaving school that afternoon. After the success of the one-day boycott, African citizens decided to continue the boycott and established the Montgomery Improvement Association to focus their efforts. The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. was elected president. Jo Ann Robinson became a member of this group. She had denied an official position to the Montgomery Improvement Association because of her teaching position at Alabama State. She served on its executive board and edited their newsletter. In order to protect her position at Alabama State College and to protect her colleagues, Robinson purposely stayed out of the limelight even though she worked diligently with the MIA. Robinson and other WPC members also helped sustain the boycott by providing transportation for boy-cotters.

Robinson was the target of several acts of intimidation. In February 1956, a local police officer threw a stone through the window of her house. Then two weeks later, another police officer poured acid on her car. Then the governor of Alabama ordered the state police to guard the houses of the boycott leaders. The boycott lasted over a year because the bus company would not give in to the demands of the protesters. After a student sit-in in early 1960, Robinson and other teachers that had supported the students, resigned their positions at Alabama State College. Robinson left Alabama State College and moved out of Montgomery that year. She taught at Grambling College in Louisiana for one year and then moved to Los Angeles and taught English in the public school system. In Los Angeles she continued to be active in local women's organizations. She taught in the LA schools until she retired from teaching in 1976. Jo Ann Robinson was also a part of the bus boycott and was strongly against discrimination.

[scotianostra]

Brigadier General Hugh Mercer died on January 12th 1777 after being wounded at the Battle of Princeton.

Historians argue that, had it not been for his untimely and grisly death at the Battle of Princeton in 1777, Hugh Mercer, born in Aberdeenshire, would have been a greater leader than Washington and would rank as one of the greatest American heroes of all time.

Born on January 17h, 1726, at the manse of Pitsligo Kirk in Roseharty, Scotland, Hugh Mercer was the son of Reverend William Mercer and his wife Ann. At the age of 15, he left home to attend Marischal College at the University of Aberdeen to study medicine. Graduating as a doctor, he practiced locally until the arrival of Prince Charles Edward Stuart and the beginning of the 1745 Jacobite Uprising.

Rallying to the Prince’s colours, Mercer became an assistant surgeon in the Jacobite Army. He remained in this service until the Battle of Culloden. Mercer was forced to flee Scotland for America in 1747. Arriving in Philadelphia, he settled on the Pennsylvania frontier and returned to practising medicine. by 1758 he was, like many Scots who fled, serving in the British army, battling Shawnee and Delaware Indians, Mercer and his men took part in Lt. Colonel John Armstrong’s raid on Kittanning on September 8th, 1756. and became separated from his men. Alone following the battle, he made his way 100 miles on foot back to Fort Shirley where he received medical attention and was heralded a hero and promoted to the rank of Captain, it was here that Mercer was to become good friends with a man that would shape the remaining years of his life, also a Colonel at the time, his name was George Washington.

Before you start questioning his loyalty with being in the British army remember Washington was also in their pay at this time. After the 7 year war he settled back into private practice but 15 years later was elected as a Colonel of the Minute Men of Spotsylvania a Militia that would play an important part in the American Revolution, he had initially excluded from the elected leadership and branded a “northern Briton,” later being appointed Colonel in the Virginia Line part of the Continental Army which rose in revolt against British rule after the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War, once again he was fighting against “the auld enemy”.

One of the officers under Mercer was future president James Monroe. He rode through the ranks to Brigadier General distinguishing himself and involving himself with George Washington battle plans until January 3rd while on their way to The Battle of Princeton leading a vanguard of 350 soldiers, Mercer’s brigade encountered two British regiments and a mounted unit. A fight broke out at an orchard grove and Mercer’s horse was shot from under him. Getting to his feet, he was quickly surrounded by British troops who mistook him for George Washington and ordered him to surrender. Outnumbered, he drew his saber and began an unequal contest. He was finally beaten to the ground, then bayoneted repeatedly—seven times—and left for dead.

When Washington learned of the British attack and saw some of Mercer’s men in retreat, he himself entered the fray. Washington rallied Mercer’s men and pushed back the British regiments, but Mercer had been left on the field to die with multiple wounds to his body and blows to his head. (Legend has it that a beaten Mercer, with a bayonet still impaled in him, did not want to leave his men and the battle and was given a place to rest on a white oak tree’s trunk, while those who remained with him stood their ground. The tree became known as “the Mercer Oak” and is the key element of the seal of Mercer County, New Jersey.

When he was discovered, Mercer was carried to the field hospital in the Thomas Clarke House (now a museum) at the eastern end of the battlefield. In spite of medical efforts by Benjamin Rush, Mercer was mortally wounded and died nine days later on January 12, 1777.

In 1840 he was re-buried at Philadelphia’s Laurel Hill Cemetery. Because of Mercer’s courage and sacrifice, Washington was able to proceed into Princeton and defeat the British forces there. He then moved and quartered his forces to Morristown in victory.

The second picture show a painting entitled George Washington at Battle of Princeton features in the foreground Hugh Mercer lying mortally wounded in the background, supported by Dr. Benjamin Rush and Major George Lewis holding the American flag. This portrait is the prize possession of Princeton University.

[myhauntedsalem]

Giles Corey’s Ghost and Curse

Giles Corey and his wife along with 25 other people were accused of witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts by a group of young girls in 1692.

Corey, born in England in 1611, was a wealthy farmer who lived with his wife five miles southwest of Salem in what is today Peabody.

Corey’s accusers were three young girls, Abigail Williams, Ann Putnam and Mercy Lewis, they along with two other girls had implicated most of the victims in the Salem Witch Trails.

Giles and his wife Martha were members of the Salem Town Church where they were a part of a group of members who did not want Reverend Samuel Parris appointed the minister of this church in 1689.

Ironically, Abigail Williams was Parris’s 11-year old niece and one ringleader of the girls involved in the accusations. Putnam was the other leader.

Corey was brought before the local magistrates, he refused to enter a plea so he was thrown in jail.

On September 9th his wife was sentenced to die along with five others.

At his trail the girls stated he was “in league with the devil.” Corey refused to enter a plea because he knew the law stated he could not be tried, condemned, and executed until he stated he was either innocent or guilty.

Historians believe that he was avoiding this because he knew he was going to be found guilty which meant his land would be confiscated. He wanted it turned over to his heirs. He and Martha had 3 children from previous marriages.

Since he stayed mute, the court decided that a confession should be forced out of him. Corey was ordered to undergo peine forte et dure or pressing.

On September 19th he was dragged, naked to an open field where he was placed on a board that had been put in a shallow pit. Another board was placed on top of him.

Heavy stones and bricks were placed on top of him. For three days he endured this torturous pain, all the time remaining silent.

On September 22nd the end was near. Corey’s mouth was dry with thirst and his face was swallow and red. George Corwin, whose ghost is mentioned in another post here, was the Essex County sheriff at the time.

He knelt on the ground next to Corey having seen his lips move. He felt that Corey was about to relent but instead Corey uttered these now famous words, “More weight!”

With his dying breath Corey called out. “I curse you, sheriff, and I curse all of Salem.” That same day Martha was hanged with eight other people.

The witch trail executions stopped after this. Salem’s townspeople realized shortly after Corey’s pressing that all the girl’s testimony had been lies.

Nineteen people were hanged, four or five others died in prison waiting for their trails or executions. And Corey died under stones.

This torturous death resulted in his ghost haunting the Howard Street Cemetery today. It is believed he also haunts the Joshua Ward House in Salem–more information about this is in the link above.

This cemetery did not open until 1801 but it was on this land where Corey was pressed in a pit. It is believed his body is buried here as well.

Several witnesses have stated they have seen his apparition floating among the tombstones. Others state they have felt his clammy hands touch them.

As for the curse, George Corwin died of a heart attack. Other Essex County sheriffs have suffered from heart conditions as well. Several over the years reported seeing Corey’s ghost in their bedrooms.

Those who reported this sight stated they felt a strong pressure on their chests that didn’t go away until Corey’s ghost disappeared.

There is also a legend that states when Corey’s ghost appears he acts as a harbinger. It is said people saw his ghost just before the June 25, 1914 Great Salem Fire that destroyed most of the city.

Others believed Corey’s curse caused this fire.

[wah-pah]

Here for Ada x Reverend Forte.

[jomiddlemarch]

Tis the privilege of friendship to talk nonsense

“I’m worried about Matthew,” Mary said, having set down the coffee-pot, every Wedgewood cup filled. The meal might have ended with port or brandy for the men in a household aspiring to be fashionable, but to Jed’s eternal amusement, Mary held fast to her New Hampshirewoman’s disapproval of anything she thought was more for show than purpose and though she was not deeply involved with the temperance movement, she saw limited appeal in spirits, which unlike coffee or even tea, never enlivened the enervated nor hastened industry. Jed spent a good deal of his time trying to impress upon her the value of leisure, but admitted it was a Sisyphean task. She applied her considerable efforts, fussing he called it, to the well-being of those she called friends, so he could not be surprised at her declaration.

“I’m sure you needn’t,” Emma said. This only caused Mary to purse her lips in a manner Jed found adorably kissable, but which indicated she felt Emma was not taking seriously what she deemed a serious matter indeed.

“Why are you worried?” Henry asked. “He’s not written often since he went to New York. At least not to me. Perhaps you’ve heard more from him?”

“If she hasn’t, it’s not for lack of trying,” Jed remarked. “At this rate, we may send Daniel out West to earn his Harvard tuition as his mother’s spent it on postage—”

“It won’t work, Jed, Emma and Henry already know you for a fabulist. You ought to confine your exaggeration to your waistcoats,” Mary replied, sounding very much as she had when they’d first met in Alexandria, all asperity and wit. She turned to face Henry, whose earnestness still matched her own. “It’s not so much what he says as what he omits and there are times I almost feel he’s written me a sermon instead of a letter to a friend.”

“I thought it would be easy enough for him, in New York. They’re not known for their propriety as Boston is,” Emma said. She had found it more difficult than she expected to gain acceptance, even as Mrs. Reverend Hopkins, her soft drawl a lesser issue than the myriad small faux pas she made, which she discovered only through a raised eyebrow or a short, barely audible sniff. When Mary’s efforts at consolation had proven ineffective, she’d brought Emma to Margaret Brook and then to the Bhaers’ exercise in utopia. She’d left with a hand-printed program of “The Pirate’s Fearsome Revenge and Also, His Parrot Makes a Freind” as a talisman against disappointment. “No Lowells, no Cabots, it might as well be a children’s garden party at Plumfield.”

“Evidently the von Rhijns and the Astors would make the Cabots and Lowells quail,” Mary said. “There’s a brazenness in New York society that’s frowned upon in Boston and Matthew mentioned that some of the newer families, the Russells in particular, are rather given to excess, even though that is reflected in their charitable giving as well as their millinery.”

“You are concerned Matthew will be caught up in the battles between old and new money?” Henry asked. “That he may be diverted from his ministry and his neediest parishioners?”

“The man survived five holiday bazaars, including the one the former Miss Hastings attended,” Jed said. “Have some faith—”

“He was at home then,” Mary said. “He knew the players and he knew who he might call upon as allies, should he need them.”

“You make it all sound quite cut-throat,” Jed said. “Not that I don’t think Anne brought a Bowie knife to that sewing bee you hosted. I expect she spiked the punch from her trusty flask as well.”

“No one serves punch at a sewing bee,” Emma said.

“I’m afraid Matthew’s affections are becoming improperly engaged,” Mary interrupted. Henry frowned but Jed let out a low whistle, one his sons had all learned to replicate. He was teaching the girls in secret.

“Improperly engaged! Given the source of such an assessment, I can only assume our esteemed Reverend Forte is enamored of a circus performer or perhaps his inamorata is a lady aeronaut,” Jed said, making little effort to restrain himself. He was, after all, among friends.

“Do be serious,” Emma said, an exhortation Mary knew better than to ever bother with. Henry, uxuoriousness undimmed by nearly twenty years of marriage, patted his wife’s hand. Mary rolled her eyes, but Jed could tell she was equally amused by his playfulness and Emma’s exasperation. There was little latitude granted to a minister’s wife in Massachusetts and Emma’s thirsts for gossip and the latest fashion were generally unquenched. 

“Not a widow of means, then?” Henry said.

“He writes almost effusively about a Miss Brook and no, Jedediah, there is little chance she’s any relation to Mrs. John Brook, the surname is common enough,” Mary said.

“What makes an engagement an improper one then, Molly?” Jed asked.

“As her title suggests, she is unmarried, but not fresh from the schoolroom. She is a lady of some years—”

“An elderly spinster,” Jed remarked. “Probably poor as a church mouse, though I’d defer to Henry to explain why all the mice who make churches their residence are doomed to being impoverished. Not much opportunity for cheese, I suppose—"

“Hush!” Mary exclaimed. “She is of middle years and unmarried but what makes the engagement risky—”

“Not risqué,” Jed muttered under his breath, low enough Henry could claim he hadn’t heard but loud enough he’d grinned.

“Is her connection to the van Rhijn family,” Mary went on.

“Is she a second cousin? A cadet branch? A companion?” Emma asked, speaking the word companion as she might say harlot.

“She is Mrs. van Rhijn’s only sister,” Mary said. “He was invited to luncheon at the van Rhijn house. They had New England clam chowder. Miss Brook admitted amidst the guests that she’d had it specially prepared to remind him of home.”

Emma looked aghast.

Henry looked as surprised as he had when his eldest daughter Lydia had announced her intention of studying Ancient Greek at Wellesley College the day after the school’s charter was announced. She had been five at the time and was already halfway through Cicero.

Mary looked concerned and also divinely self-satisfied, largely due to the expressions on the faces of both Hopkins and the near-absolute silence that had descended on the sitting room. Jed could only barely make out the sound of the boys arguing, Rebecca wheedling cakes from Mrs. Hudson for Beatrice and the Hopkins girls. They were dear to him, these three, and though he could not share in the apprehension over Matthew Forte’s affections and reputation, he was fond of the minister in his own way.

“As it’s evident the three of you believe Reverend Forte shortly to be torn limb from limb, either figuratively or literally, with the likelihood of a new iteration of New England chowder featuring a man of God, his frock coat, and quantity of diced potatoes doused in cream soon to be presented at the van Rhijn table, I would suggest a course of action,” Jed said, allowing himself to wax, if not rhapsodic, then comedically melodramatic. Mary might take him to task later, but they were all so earnest and Emma, in particular, needed to be reminded there was life outside the parlor and parish hall, life she had once lived, most threatening with her swinging hoopskirt. It was always fraught, to refer to the War, each of them carrying their own burdens, each of them managing in the best way they knew how, but they had once attended or performed in the dramas of the Mansion House Players and given the clear desire to make a tragedy out of a few lines in Matthew’s letter, their previous experience would be well to be evoked.

“Well, out with it,” Mary said. “You’re overdoing the dramatic pause, Jedediah. If Timothy and John were with us, you wouldn’t escape so lightly—”

He nodded. The two younger boys had his same taste for mockery and were only slightly reined in by Daniel’s steadiness, so like his mother’s, and Bea’s innocence. Rebecca would only egg them on. Mary could quell them all with a glance but only if she chose. 

“Matthew needs an ally. Reinforcements. The introduction of an unexpected character from the wings, kitted out with a shield and sword. And flask,” Jed said. Henry and Emma still had blank expressions but a light came into Mary’s dark eyes as he spoke and he loved her for it. “Mrs. Frederick Morris—”

“Nurse Hastings?” 

“Anne?”

“I may quibble with your approach, but I must admit, this is a pretty solution. A surgeon’s intervention,” Mary said. “No one can deny Anne has the acuity and aim of a scalpel. She’s impervious to shame, while being well-aware of its impact on those around her. And she has the resources to allow her to make a splash in New York society, though her money’s old enough she will merit some respect. I shall write her in the morning.”

“And if she does not succeed?” Emma said.

“I suppose Dr. Foster may find it necessary to visit Mrs. Manson Mingott and make sure she has been taking her tonics as prescribed,” Mary said, smiling. “Or then, Newport is lovely in the summer and we’d be happy to have you and the girls come to stay for a few weeks, Emma. Henry, if you can’t get away, you needn’t fret. We shall have it all well in hand and Mrs. Brook and Mrs. Laurence will make sure you don’t expire while living as a bachelor.”

“I notice you don’t leave Henry to Jo Bhaer’s tender mercies,” Jed remarked.

“I shouldn’t think he’d survive the theatricals at Plumfield,” Mary said. “And she has quite a heavy hand with caraway, which I know makes Henry dyspeptic.”

“Shouldn’t we just send you to Matthew’s side? Within a week, you’d have wedding bells rung for the lovesick couple and Mrs. van Rhijn ringing them herself as well as all the receipts for Delmonico’s menu for Mrs. Hudson to improve upon,” Jed said. 

Henry nodded. 

Emma smiled.

“I’m far too busy here at the moment,” Mary said. “And Anne is likely in need of some diversion.”

“Heaven help Mrs. van Rhijn,” Jed said.

“I believe Matthew must be trying his best in that regard,” Henry said. 

“Unless she has already dispatched him for chowder,” Emma added, making them all laugh.