The Background

By August, Sophia had reached the conclusion that would help shape Hinton’s delay in publishing, though she did not make herself unavailable to him.

Lizzy, she decided was “more weak than wicked,” and there were friends of Richard who feared the truth would harm her if made known. Kate, by contrast, remained dangerous.

Sophia could imagine meeting Lizzy and the children, but not Kate. “The length and breadth of these States,” she wrote, was “scarce distance between me and that malignant woman.”

For the present, then, Sophia thought it best to remain in the background. Yet even that decision was conditional. If Hinton thought otherwise, or if he believed it best to see her and talk matters over, she asked him to write at once. She was not hiding because her claim was uncertain. She was weighing whether the proof of it would injure Lizzie and Realf’s son.

By summer, the immediate danger of Kate’s interference had passed, but nothing had been resolved. Hinton had not yet published the book announced for spring, and Sophia remained under temporary addresses.

From Mattapoisett, where she was staying with an invalid cousin-friend, her letters turn suddenly spacious and witty. For a few paragraphs she is not Richard Realf’s hidden widow but a sharp-eyed woman at the Massachusetts shore, amused by wind, cottages, jellyfish, and Boston's summer people. Yet even there the tangle followed her.

Mattapoisett, Mass.

July 6, 1879

Dear Friend,

Having left Lynn some time before yours of June 15th arrived, my nephew forwarded it to me — but through a blunder in the address, the letter only reached me last evening (Saturday), and no mail leaves this little seaside place until Monday morning.

Lynn is so near Boston that I could have arranged to meet you readily, but Mattapoisett is sixty miles from Boston (near New Bedford), and no trains leave Boston for this place on Sunday. As I conjecture your time of absence to be limited, I shall not expect to see you here — though probably you have already made the proposed visit to Boston. I think a meeting with you will not be painful, and sometime in September — or perhaps in August — I shall go by way of New York City to my friends in the West, and then I may be able to see you.

If your family are living in the City (always presuming that you have a family), you had better send them to this quiet place, for I assure you there is no cooler atmosphere to be found within the precincts of the U.S. The wind blows every day (Sundays not excepted), hurricane-like, and I never venture out without thinking that — like “the best laid plans of mice” — I may gang agley,^⁠[1] or be blown to some unexpected corner.

There is a beautiful sea here, but the shore is tame and cliffless. All the coast of Massachusetts that I have seen — save Nahant — has been so flat and unpicturesque that I find myself doubting the truth of that “stern and rock-bound” shore on which the Pilgrim Fathers are said to have landed, and I imagine Plymouth Rock to be a very limited affair.

This Mattapoisett was formerly a small village of seafaring people, mostly whalers, but of late quite a number of Bostonians have summer cottages on the shore or among the hills, and find both health and pleasure in boating, bathing, yachting, or sidling over the hills. The cottages are true Boston Hindoo, and are very exclusive, and have only business relations with the natives. I am here with an invalid cousin-friend, and we belong to neither class — natives nor Hindoos — so we are somewhat isolated, save casual acquaintances. But my temporary aquarium — consisting of a limp jellyfish, a clam, and a starfish — is quite unpermissible; and with books, work, wood, and seashore tramps, time slips away too fast — if anything.

I heard by way of Mrs. Whapham of the result of your trip to Pittsburgh — I can only hope that the creature has concluded to retire from publicity. Have you renounced the work you have found so difficult? I never had courage to read that article by Johnson in Lippincott until a few weeks ago. I therefore resisted it long enough — but its misrepresentations are more favorable for R. than the truth might be.^⁠[2]

Write me at any time convenient.

Yours truly,

S. E. Realf

Mattapoisett, Mass.

Mattapoisett, Mass.

August 15, 1879

My dear Sir,

I received your letter sent to my nephew in Lynn, and wrote explaining the delay in answering, and I write now simply that you may know where I am.

When I received your note telling me that you would be in Boston the same day, I was rather averse to traveling at all, else I should have made some arrangement to meet you—had I thought it of consequence to you, I should certainly have arranged to see you.

Through Mrs. W. I learn that our bête noire, K.C., is in Pittsburgh. Have you had any communication with her since your fruitless trip to P.[Pittsburg] to meet her? Had your friend R. been a Hindoo and mercifully ordained that a few of his wives should be immolated on his funeral pyre, perhaps your task might be less difficult—if you still have hopes of presenting the work you designed at his death.

I feel like one suddenly reanimated after years of “dumb forgetfulness” and finding matters all a “muddle”—haste has no optimistic faith that all things will work together for the best. The woman Lizzie appears to be doing as well as she can for herself and eldest child, and there seem to be friends of R. who take an interest in her and fear it would be bad for her were the truth known in regard to her connection with the dead. Therefore, it appears still best for all concerned that I should remain in the background. If you think differently, or think it best to see me and talk matters over, will you kindly write me at once? For I do not expect to remain here but a week or two longer.

I had arranged to call upon Mrs. W. on my way West—but now that I hear K.C. is in that vicinity [Pennsylvania], it looks dubious to go there, for the length and breadth of these States is scarce distance between me and that malignant woman. Lizzie seems more weak than wicked, and I could bring myself to see her and the children with little dread—but I did not intend to inflict so much of this matter upon you at this time.

You can address me as S. E. Ralfe —I might not have been known by my true name here, as the people are so little addicted to literature of any kind that they would never have connected me with R.

Very sincerely,

S. E. Realf

By August, Sophia had reached the conclusion that would shape Hinton’s decision on the book. Lizzy, she believed, was “more weak than wicked,” and there were friends of Richard who feared that the truth would harm her if made known. Kate, by contrast, remained dangerous. Sophia could imagine meeting Lizzy and the children, but not Kate. “The length and breadth of these States,” she wrote, was “scarce distance between me and that malignant woman.” So Sophia chose the background. Not because her claim was uncertain, but because its proof could injure the living.

By December, Sophia had left the Massachusetts shore and gone west again. From Michigan City, Indiana, less than eight miles from Furnessville, she sent Hinton another temporary address. She had been ill, the cold tortured her, but she was again close to the family ground where her marriage to Richard had begun.

Michigan City, Indiana

December 26, 1879

Dear Sir,

Sent you, a few weeks ago, my address from Cleveland, but unexpectedly leaving that place, I now forward you my present address — send a line or two when you reach home. I hope you have warmer weather in N. York; the cold here is torturing to me. Perhaps I feel it more on account of recent illness.

Sincerely,

S. E. R.

Care of O. R. Butler^⁠[3]

NOTES

¹ “Gang agley” means “go awry” or “go wrong,” from Robert Burns’s poem “To a Mouse” (1785): “The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men / Gang aft agley.” Sophia uses the phrase playfully, imagining the Mattapoisett wind blowing her plans—and perhaps herself—off course.

² Rositter Johnson did not know of the existence of yet a first wife, lawful wife and so, “its misrepresentations” were more favorable to Realf than the truth would have been.

³ O. R. Butler is Sophia’s brother-in-law, Oliver R. Butler, husband of her sister Margaretta (Graves) Butler. The Butlers had moved from Appleton to Michigan City, Indiana. Michigan City is less than 8 miles from Furnessville, suggesting Sophia was staying close to extended family after departing Cleveland