Miss Emily

by Nuala O'Connor

  I shrug, but I wonder if that is what will happen; the thought of it shames me. I would be better off finding a new position elsewhere if they mean to make an example of me altogether. I curse Mrs. Rathcliffe. I curse myself for my morning dip in the river.

  “I don’t know what’s next for me, Rose. I don’t know at all.”

  I cut in under the hare’s ribs, then drag the rest of the meat off with my hands, enjoying the sinewy rip of it. Each pull of the flesh tugs a fierce grunt from my throat. I glance up to see my sister watching me, and though I smile at her, her look in return is doubtful. I’ll show them, I think—Cook and Mrs. Rathcliffe and Daddy and them all. They’ll see that I was made for more than the scullery. I’ll do something that will shake the lot of them, and though I have no idea yet what it might be, it will be big.

  Miss Emily Surveys Amherst

  THE JULY AIR IN AMHERST ALWAYS HUMS WITH HEAT AND promise. The conservatory is too greenly stuffy today, so I climb up and up through the house to the cupola. It is warm too and smells of the camphor gum I scatter to deter moths; I like this place to be truly my own—not even insects are welcome. It is my lamp atop the house, my spy hole.

  I peer down onto Main Street, hoping to see Susan walking out from the Evergreens with little Ned, thinking she might pass on her way to the Hills’ house. Alas, she is not abroad. Looking down into the garden, I see that the top of Austin’s Quercus alba is rich with foliage; how proud he is of that oak. Across the meadow the factory churns out the palm hats that adorn heads from Maine to Oregon. And far off, the Pelham Hills are a lilac shimmer under the haze. I wonder what it would be like to be up on the hills now, looking back at Amherst, all snug and industrious in the summer heat.

  I think of yesterday and the sweet afternoon I spent with Susan in the garden of the Evergreens.

  “Do you realize, Sue,” I said, “that we know each other twenty years this summer?”

  “Truly, Emily? Can it be that we first met in ’46? Why, yes, it must be so.” She smiled one of her glorious smiles, and the lamb hairpin that Austin gifted her on their marriage seemed to smile along with her. “How wonderful to have remained such steadfast friends through all of life’s ripples.” She took my hand in hers and pumped it; we both laughed.

  Dear, radiant Sue. Whatever would I do without her? She has a patient, committed ear. She is the only audience my heart trusts, and to her alone I gift my deepest thoughts, my most profound self. For sure we have had our bumps; she is somewhat unknowable and changeable, and I am perhaps a little too needy for her at times. And when she and Austin kept their engagement secret—and for so many months—I was undone. But we jog along, and all those years ago I soon realized that her being wedded to Austin was an opportunity. What better way to retain a loved friend than through matrimony with one’s own brother? Ten years on from their marriage, it is one of my greatest blessings to have her next door.

  Sue lifted her face to me. “I really liked the poem you sent me yesterday, Emily. There is such joy in it. I could not say I understood it all, but the image of the bee was rather beautiful. You find poetry everywhere, my dear.”

  I can send Sue a note or poem on any old scrap—she does not expect gilt-edged formality. She is as hungry to read my words as I am to write them. It is our small conspiracy: I show all my writings to Sue, and she makes remarks that I mull over and accept or reject. Her wish is to help me to accomplish the best possible poem, not mold my words to her desire, which is what I fear from others.

  Several women pass on the street below the house, parasols shielding their faces from the sun. I think to let out a cry or make a birdcall, but they might look up to the cupola and see me, catch me in my silliness. It would achieve nothing but to give them fodder with which to discuss me. Austin says I am much gossiped about already, and clearly it displeases him. But what is there for me to do about it? I have my own ways. I opt not to whistle or startle the parasol women, and they walk on unawares, leaving me free of their glances, their disapproval. But I still ponder that of my brother. He has become stern over the years; he was such a blithe boy. The demands of marriage and upright citizenship have stiffened him somewhat, but surely not completely? He won the prize—Susan! Perhaps he tries too hard to be manly, to be more like Father, and, in trying, he chooses Father’s worst traits to emulate. I know not. I only see that the soft brother of our youth hides himself well now.

  It is stifling in the cupola, though the full views of Amherst please me; I am an eagless in her eyrie. I look across at the tower atop Austin and Sue’s house and wonder if we will talk again soon, if she will come to me, to sit awhile and tell me of new books she has read or people she has recently met. When we sat together yesterday, we hardly spoke of now; we let ourselves linger in our younger days, recalling hours spent at her sister’s house when they first moved to Amherst.

  I am eager to let Sue know that we will shortly have a new maid and therefore I shall be able to spend more time composing notes and poems to her and maybe, if I am up to it, sitting in her company. Sue’s face is rounded out these days because of the baby that makes a small mountain of her front. The extra flesh on her cheeks suits her, as everything does. Sweet Sue, my own Dollie, my nearly-sister. She is as good as any true sister and more besides.

  I take one last look from each of the four windows and descend to my room. My desk sits forlorn by the window; a swath of peach light crosses its cherrywood like an invitation. I look at Elizabeth Barrett Browning and George Eliot in their frames on the wall and know that they understand my distress at my enforced absence from words.

  At night, when I am not too bone weary, I dream. I would love to live in the softer planet of dreams. But if I cannot live in dreamworlds—those palpable fantasies that are conjured from fancy, as much as from the stuff of life—then I am content to invent parallel worlds. Places of the imagination that I alone can inhabit. And these destinations are made of words.

  “Emily! Emily, come now.”

  It is Vinnie calling, and I go down to her in the kitchen. She is sweating over a mound of crockery, and it is my duty to help, it seems. One of her menagerie strolls along the table toward the butter dish, tail cocked like a lord.

  “See how Mr. Puss preens,” I say to Vinnie, who smiles the indulgent, motherly smile reserved for her charges.

  I grab a cloth and begin to dry and stack the dishes. I lean into Vinnie’s side and chant into her ear:

  “—His porcelain—

  Like a Cup—

  Discarded of the Housewife—

  Quaint—or Broke—

  A newer Sèvres pleases—

  Old Ones crack.”

  “Less poetry, more drudgery, please, Emily.” She flicks water droplets at my face, and I muss her curls, then pick up another plate to dry it.

  “The opposite is my life’s hopeful refrain these days, Vinnie. ‘More poetry, less drudgery.’ Perhaps I could compose a verse on that.”

  Miss Ada Leaves Ireland

  for the New World

  IT IS THE NIGHT BEFORE I AM TO GO, AND MAMMY SAYS TO ME, “Ada, this is the last time we will speak. A girl like you won’t have any wish to come back to a place like this.”

  “Ah, Mam,” I say, taking her hands in mine, but we both know the truth of it. Once I close the door on our house in Tigoora, I will be gone for good and all. No one comes home from the New World once they go to it.

  Mammy thinks it is just a figairy I took, to leave my Dublin home and my position with the baronet and sail for America; she says I have too many notions. But ever since my Auntie Mary Maher and her family left Tipperary to go across the sea, I have thought about going myself. My Auntie Mary’s letters spill with Massachusetts, Washington and Connecticut, and the names of these places have always been like songs in my ear. At night, I whisper to myself the spots she mentions; they are lullabies to help me toward sleep: the District of Columb
ia, Hartford, Amherst.

  “Massachusetts,” I often say to Rose. “Massachusetts. What do you suppose a name like that means?”

  Today I am up before everyone else. I sit at the table alone and spoon cold stirabout into my mouth—Mammy left a bowl out for me. She never likes a lingering good-bye, so I bade farewell to her before we turned in. Rose lay deep into my side in our shared bed, sobbing for hours until she drifted off. I was awake most of the night listening to the sleep sounds of my sisters and wondering what might lie ahead.

  Daddy comes into the kitchen, stands by the stove and sighs. “You’re off so,” he says.

  “I am, Daddy.”

  He takes me the five miles to the train station in the baronet’s trap. He does not speak until we are on the platform.

  “Godspeed, Ada.” He hugs me close.

  “Good-bye, Daddy. I will write.”

  “You’ll write to your mother, I suppose,” he says. “Stay amidships if the swells bother you. And keep your eyes on the horizon.”

  I step back to look into his face, but he turns from me and is gone. I take the train to Kingstown and board the first of the boats that will ferry me across the seas. The gangway is jammed with people, and a ship’s officer shouts at us not to break it.

  “Go easy, go easy!” he roars.

  But in the throng we have no choice whether to move forward or back to save his gangway, with all the pushing and shoving and trick-acting that is going on.

  Up on the deck, I grip the rail and watch the harbor shrink as we move away; Dublin lies like a big dozy cow, not able to shake the sleep off herself. I wrap my hands around the rail and rock back and forth; my palms come away dappled with salt grains, and I hold them up and watch them glint in the early sun. I laugh aloud, feeling happier than I ever remember in my seventeen years on this earth. I have never been on a big boat, and though everything is rumbling and strange, I feel as if I have done it all before; it is like adventure comes natural to me. The coast of Ireland gets smaller and smaller—it cannot disappear quick enough. It is possible, I think, to throw off one life and glide toward another so easily that it is barely noticeable. When Dublin is no more than a blurred line, I put my back to it and turn my face forward.

  Miss Emily Hides in the Garden

  THE GODDESS POMONA HAS BEEN AROUND THE ORCHARD scattering her goodness: everything is floral and abundant, while the apple maggots and cabbage worm do their best to undo it all. I sit under a pine, listening to the sounds of the earth, the turn of the beetle and the bone song of the crickets; above me a jay chimes her good fortune to the sky. Moody Cook, the blacksmith, is by the barn tending to the horses with the Irish boy, Byrne, who sometimes comes. Their voices lilt across the garden to me, though I cannot hear what they say. Byrne is a big, well-put-together young man, steady, gracious and capable. Father talks of him in an avuncular way, as if he has made Byrne the fine fellow he is.

  The smells are summery: leaves, blossom and rich marl. I would like to push my hands deep into the clay and savor its deathly cool around my fingers; I would enjoy the corpsy feeling of it. I fix my spine against the tree trunk and stretch my chin skyward. There is true peace here for those of us who crave it.

  I am hiding from Mother and Vinnie, who are determined to pin sheets while the sun shines, but the wet slap of linens is not what I want to feel today. There is a poem forming in my gut, and in order to release it, I must be alone. I have a chocolate wrapper and a pencil in my pocket, and as soon as the words crystallize in my mind and push to my fingertips, I will write them down. For that I need the shelter of the garden; I am too easily discovered in the house.

  Mother’s voice—in the imperious tone she uses for the help—slices through the air. “Mr. Cook! Mr. Byrne! Has my eldest daughter passed this way?”

  The men saw me indeed, for they stopped their fussing around Dick, Father’s favorite horse, as I passed the chaise-house. They stood to watch me go by, both raising a hand in salute. I had put my finger to my lips and shaken my head, knowing they would take my meaning.

  “No, ma’am,” I hear Moody say, “I have not spoken to Miss Emily this day.”

  “Nor I,” says Byrne.

  They did not even lie. Bravo, Moody Cook! Bravo, Daniel Byrne! I rise and slink under cover of trees to the farthest reach of the Homestead’s rim and prop myself behind a large chestnut where there is no chance of Mother unearthing me.

  Words begin to jostle, then settle, in my mind; they play out before me as if already written. I see them in the inked curlicues of my own handwriting; I see them in pencil, blocky and spare. Words behave differently depending upon what I need them for. Writing a poem is not like writing a letter; the addressee is my soul—myself. Yes, I write for myself, and if the thing I write ends up shambolic or spasmodic, then what of it? Is it not the nature of all humankind to be unruly and contrary? To be uneven and to do things in uncharacteristic ways? Words are my sustenance: they are bread and wine. I flex my fingers and press my palms together. I flatten the yellow chocolate wrapper across my knees, take my pencil in my hand and begin to write.

  Miss Ada Arrives in

  Amherst, Massachusetts

  MY UNCLE MICHAEL SITS BESIDE ME AS THE TRAIN ROLLS toward Amherst.

  “Massachusetts is greener than Ireland,” I say to him.

  “Only parts of it, girleen, and only for some of the year.” Uncle pats my arm. “It’s August now, but let me tell you, come winter there will be snow thicker and higher than you have ever seen.” He clicks his tongue in pace with the train’s skip and jolt. “Now, tell me all about the passage.”

  “My stomach never rose into my mouth once,” I say, “though it was often wild at sea. And they served a gray slumgullion to us three times a day. I was the only girl on deck most of the time. The men seemed hardier than the women.”

  “And did you find people to talk to?”

  “Not really. There was an English girl bound for Boston, but she could hardly speak she was so sick.”

  I don’t tell him about the woman with the oranges. Every night she sat alone at the long table in steerage and peeled an orange. Never having eaten an orange before, I couldn’t take my eyes off it. She dug her nails into the skin and broke the fruit into pieces; she popped the slices into her mouth, and the juice dribbled from her lips. I had never witnessed the like, and the sweet, strange smell tickled at my nose. The cut of her, I thought, my mouth filling with spit. There was something obscene and lovely about the woman, and I would have given my two ears for a nibble of that orange.

  “Wait until you see where we live,” Uncle Michael says. “Annie’s husband set us up nicely. He’s a decent man.” He sounds proud. Mammy always said that my cousin Annie’s good marriage had benefited them all. Annie married a Kelley from Tipp; she met him in America and not in Tipperary at all. Tom Kelley bought a large property on Main Street in Amherst, and all his family, and the Mahers, live on it in different houses. Tom named it—rather grandly, I think—Kelley Square.

  Auntie Mary is at the door of her house when we walk up from the train station, our legs unfixing after sitting so long. Auntie cries, shakes her head and looks at me as if I am something Uncle Michael has charmed out of the clouds.

  “Ada!” she calls, arms outstretched. “Ada Concannon, come here and let me wrap myself around you. I declare to God, it’s like looking at my own sister. You’re the spit of Ellen, the walking head off her.”

  All life throbs outside their door; the center of Amherst is not far. While Auntie Mary crushes me to her breast and sobs into my hair, I look farther up the way. Horses and men fill the street; women stroll, and children run. The smells in the air are sharp but welcome: oil and dung and a clear autumn-ness that is made of leaves. This is a town of light and brick; it hasn’t the gray drear of Sackville Street back home; it hasn’t the endless green of the land around Tigoora, though there are hills of
f in the distance. Auntie smells of butter, and her dress is stiff and new; she is a different shape to Mammy, but there is something of Mammy in her, too.

  “Mary, you’re holding that girl like you’ll never let her go. Bring Ada inside and let her take her rest. Feed her. She must be wall-falling with the hunger.”

  Auntie steps back and looks at me. “How was my darling Ellen when you left, a leana? How are they all?” I go to speak, but she shushes me. “We’ll get you settled first.”

  I startle awake to the sound of a long, sharp whistle, and it takes a minute for me to realize it is coming from outside. It is the factory whistle, I learn later, calling the men to work. It takes me another minute to let the shape of the room settle around me, to know where I am. My cousin Maggie’s bed is neat and comfortable, and I can’t say I miss the snorting and farting of my sisters. Maggie is in Connecticut, doing for the Boltwood family, which is lucky for me, because I get her room, never mind her bed, all to myself.

  I can hear Mammy’s voice saying, “Look at you lying there, Ada Concannon. You think you’re a cut above buttermilk.”

  “That’s right, Mammy,” I say aloud. “I do think that. Because I am.”

  Light slants through the sides of the shutters, and I get up and open them to see what I can see. The house is already awake—I can hear them below—and I don’t want Michael and Mary to think I am a lazy strap, so I haul myself into my petticoat and dress and go down.

  Miss Emily’s Father Pleases Her

  FATHER IS TRIUMPHANT. HIS VOICE BOOMS THROUGH THE OPEN backdoor, and I stand and listen from the yard.

  “She starts Monday next. She does not need to live in.”

  “And her experience?” Mother says.