Miss Emily

by Nuala O'Connor

  Once the loaf is in the stove, we sit together, and I can see her spirits rise as sure as the bread is rising in the oven’s heat.

  “There are only a few places I ever seem to want to be, Ada. Here in the kitchen, making magic with flour and milk, and up in my room, scribbling words onto pages. Or, indeed, in the company of Susan. Is it wrong of me to want little more but these things?”

  “How could it be wrong, Miss Emily? We must do exactly as we please in life. How else are we to be happy?”

  “When I was a girl, I loved to gad about. But now sugaring parties and teas with ladies don’t interest me. In fact, they unnerve me. I have a dread of being looked at. It has always been so, as long as I can recall. Mother blames herself for this. She sent me away as a two-year-old to stay with my Aunt Lavinia. She worries that I developed a fear of people when I was so rudely removed from all I knew. It may or may not be so. How can we know?” She leans forward and speaks intently. “Vinnie, Susan and I were at tea lately in town, and the cacophony struck me dumb. The din was hideous, and I did not feel I belonged. I felt sickened by probing eyes, as if I were an object with few dimensions. I knew that those strange to me did not see me rightly. Rather than be misinterpreted, I prefer not to be seen at all. I have concluded that the outside world—the one of people—does not bring me joy.” She flutters a little, looks at me. “But what about you, Ada? Are you happy? You are so very far from your home, your family.”

  “I am content, miss. I’ve taken to America very well. These past few months have been a wonder to me. And my uncle and aunt are more than kind.”

  “Did your life in Ireland not suit you?”

  “It suited me well enough, miss, but I always had a question about what lay far off. I couldn’t rest until I answered it for myself. And Ireland has changed, miss. There aren’t prospects like there used to be. A lot of people are leaving.”

  “I cannot imagine being so removed from my family.”

  I take out the bread; it is as golden and perfect a loaf as Mammy would make. Miss Emily hands me a broom straw—her favorite method for testing—but I take the knife I habitually use and stab it into the bread. It comes out clean. Then I knock on the bottom of the loaf and hear its hollow answer.

  “If I didn’t know you, Ada, your skill with that blade would perturb me.”

  “Mammy used to say I would frighten the crows out of the trees when I was in a thundering mood.” I laugh. “But there’s no fear of me with the knife.”

  “Ada, you are like a breath from Madagascar.”

  “You say the queerest things, miss.” I take the loaf and cut it into quarters. We have a slice each, the butter dribbling off it onto our chins. It pleases me to see Miss Emily content, eating a lump of soda bread, with something like a smile lurking around her mouth.

  Miss Emily says November is the Norway month, but it has arrived in a burst of sunshine to thwart her. In the brightness of the day, the yellow bricks of the Dickinson Homestead glow beside the gloom of the Evergreens, Mr. Austin’s villa. I look up at its dour walls as I pass; how his wife and son can stand the dark of the place is beyond me. Though Miss Susan has a haughty air, I see how soft she is around Miss Emily, and that makes me warm toward her. She is devout, too, and goes often to church. Her husband is another thing entirely; he is what Mammy would call “a wicked-faced gent.” Who dreamt them up as a pair? I ask myself.

  A cotton day moon lurks behind the trees as I walk toward the town. I am taking Auntie Mary to the Amherst House for a treat; she has not been feeling the best, and I mean to get a good dinner inside her, one that neither of us has had to cook. I have arranged to meet her at the inn. I walk across the common toward Amity Street, and I spot Auntie standing stiffly at the railing on the porch of the inn, waiting for me; she looks like the figurehead on the prow of a boat. I follow her gaze to the tiered water fountain and frog pond behind me.

  “Ada! I thought you weren’t coming at all. I was about to go home.” She trots down the steps to meet me.

  “I’m not late, Auntie.”

  “No, maybe you’re not.” She sighs and rips off her gloves.

  I link her arm, and we ascend the steps and enter the lobby. The restaurant smells sweet and bready; I squeeze Auntie’s elbow. “This will be lovely now, Auntie Mary. It’s not often you’re waited on hand and foot.”

  “There’s a reason for that, Ada—I don’t like being waited upon.” She unpins her hat, and we take our table; she smooths the linen with her hands and looks around, appraising the other diners. “Did they enjoy the bareen brack at the Homestead?”

  “They did. Mr. Austin found the ring in his slice, which was a shame, as he’s already married. I was hoping Miss Emily or Miss Vinnie would come upon it in theirs.”

  “Ah, I don’t think either of them is for marrying. Sure Miss Emily barely goes out anymore. Wouldn’t it have been grand if you had found the ring, Ada?” Auntie Mary grins at me.

  I snort. “Sure who’d have me, Auntie?”

  “Well now, you’d be surprised. A girl like you doesn’t go unnoticed in a place like Amherst.”

  I shrug, but truth be told I am as pleased as a dog with two pockets. And I hope that whoever it is she is thinking of is the same person I am thinking of myself.

  We eat our meal with gusto, and Auntie Mary seems to fill out her clothes a bit better by the time we have enjoyed our soup, chicken and bread. I feel full up and glad, as if I have achieved something small but good.

  Miss Emily Intervenes

  in a Family Matter

  SINCE ADA ARRIVED, THE HENS HAVE BEEN LAYING AGAIN. Father styled her a sorceress recently, and he may be right. He was alarmed when she carved a grimacing face into a rutabaga and stuck a candle in it. She called it a “turnip lantern” and sat it by the stove. There it sent eerie shadows around the kitchen walls.

  I feel that Ada has bewitched the hens with her Irish charm; she has used her sorcery to cajole them into laying, for since June they have done nothing so crude as produce an egg. I have heard her scold the fowl, calling, “Come out of that, you little slieveens,” to coax them from their boxes.

  This morning I encounter Ada scouring through the deepest grass in the garden, her behind cocked like a bantam’s. A light rain falls, but she dips and lifts, moving from patch to patch. I stand to watch. Before she places each egg into her basket, she raises it to her mouth and puts her tongue against the shell.

  “Ada, what are you doing?” I call.

  “Gathering a clutch of eggs, miss,” she says, with that guilelessness that all her kind use, though there is a certain sly element to it.

  “You’re licking them!”

  “I’m making sure they’re all right, miss. Mrs. Child says that if you hold the large end of the egg to your tongue and it feels warm, it’s fresh. If it feels cold, it’s bad.” She shrugs.

  “Our beloved Mrs. Child.”

  “It’s a very good book, Miss Emily,” Ada says, a chiding tone to her voice.

  “Well, I am glad of the abundance of eggs, as I mean to make a coconut cake for Susan, to comfort her in the last of her confinement. Women like to eat sweet things toward the end.”

  “They certainly do, miss. My mammy spooned sugar into her mouth right before each of my sisters was born. She couldn’t even wait to sprinkle it on her bread.”

  I sit on the stone bench, though it is damp. “Ada, join me.”

  “You’ll get your end, Miss Emily, sitting in the rain with no shawl or bonnet.”

  “And you, Ada, won’t you get your end?”

  “Not at all, miss. I’ll go at the house like the hammers of hell shortly, and I’ll be warmed up in no time.” She tilts her face skyward. “I like a soft day, miss. I can’t get along with all that sun. My skin’s not used to it.”

  “I, too, love a drizzly day, Ada.”

  “I had a l
etter from my mammy.”

  “Was it a good letter? Did she send you news?”

  Ada frowns. “Ah, Mammy is not great at the writing. It was mostly about her hope that our Lord will preserve me and that my workload is not too heavy. I wanted to hear stories of my sisters. Of the neighbors. Of home.”

  “How many sisters do you have, Ada?”

  “Seven. I’m the eldest.”

  “How lovely! When I was a girl, I longed for more sisters, dozens of them. I made friends at school, of course, but Father feared for my health and dragged me home so often that I could never settle into my friendships.”

  “I was only a couple of years in school myself. Long enough to learn to read and write, I suppose.”

  I spy Austin barreling toward us from the Evergreens. Ada sees him, too, and stands up. My brother stops in front of us, his face pinched.

  “Hello, Austin,” I say, but he ignores me.

  He looks down on Ada. “You are not in my father’s home that his family may purchase leisure,” he says. “You are here to assist, and for that reason I do not wish to find you idling on my parents’ time.”

  Ada picks up her basket of eggs, and I rise to defend her, but Austin holds up his hand to me, so I do not speak. He turns and marches back toward his own house. My brother’s eruptive nature pains me when it spills over in this way.

  “I had better get back,” Ada murmurs.

  “Little Emerald Ada. Do not look so morose.” Though Austin has maddened me, I defend him. “My brother is preoccupied with family matters and with work. His clients are demanding, and that makes him disagreeable, which in turn causes him to lash out. You were in his path, that is all.”

  “No, Miss Emily, it is true that I was idling.”

  Ada takes her basket and walks off; she prods again in the grasses. I watch her for a time, her deft bend-and-lift. I go to find Mother to urge her to tell Austin not to poke in our household affairs.

  Mother, of course, defends her son. And what is worse, she castigates Ada for sitting outside “chitchatting.”

  I seek Ada out in the cellar. “Try not to dwell on Mother’s reprimand, Ada.”

  “I’ve been taken up before for being too much of a talker,” she says, carefully laying the eggs into a straw-lined crate for storage.

  “Ada, Mother was never a successful youngster, so she does not understand the youthful. Bear that in mind, and you will make better sense of her.”

  “She is my mistress. There’s not much need for understanding between us.”

  I wish that Mother would have a care, and Austin, too; what need has he to march over from his house to ours? Ada executes her work with grace and efficiency. She is stronger than Margaret O’Brien ever was, being ripe and flushed with energy. Mother should be more appreciative, more thoughtful toward Ada; she knows how arduous the work of the entire house can be. It is a lot to expect, but sometimes I wish Mother would think more. Her mind is not as elastic as it should be, as it could be—if she bothered to stretch herself. It is a sorry thought, but the act of thinking seems to be one that evades my mother most days.

  I scrape the meat from two coconuts and measure out the sugar, flour and butter. Ada helps me to separate the eggs; their yolks are bright as marigolds. She is subdued, and I fear that Mother’s chiding has injured her.

  “Ada, Mother suffers at times with neuralgia. You mustn’t think that she is angry with you. Her head hurts wildly, and that makes her temper short.”

  She lifts her blue eyes to mine. “It’s not that, miss. My Auntie Mary seems very down in herself. She didn’t get out of the bed the last few mornings, and it’s not like her at all. She normally jigs around the place. She loves to be busy.”

  “Has the doctor been called?”

  “She won’t hear of it, miss, and that is what is worrying Uncle Michael and me.”

  “Mrs. Maher—that is, Ada’s aunt—is not well, Father.”

  He removes his spectacles and looks up from his papers. “And you mean to fix her with cake, Emily, and I am to be its messenger.”

  “No, Father. I think she needs to see Dr. Brewster. She has not as yet seen a physician.”

  “Illness should never be ignored.” Father lays down his pen. “I will see that Brewster visits Kelley Square today.”

  I knew that Father, the chief guardian of health, would not let me down. I go to the garden and drag it for winter roses. I give them to Ada for her aunt with my kindest regards.

  “Your countryman Moore wrote of the last rose of summer,” I say. “These blooms are that rose’s children.” Ada drops her nose into their pink heads and thanks me. Her heart lies so exposed; I can see that she is immensely touched by the flowers. “Give my very best to Mrs. Maher.”

  “Will you not come over and see my aunt yourself, miss?”

  “I will come soon, Ada,” I tell her, knowing as I say it that I am uttering a lie.

  But how can I explain that each time I get to the threshold, my need for seclusion stops me? The quarantine of my room—its peace and the words I conjure there—call me back from the doorway. Ada could not truly appreciate that the pull on me of words, and the retreat needed to write them, is stronger than the pull of people. Yes, words summon me to the sacramental, unsullied place where my roaming is not halted or harnessed by others. My mind and heart are only free in solitude, and there I must dwell. I take her hands in mine and wish her Godspeed and her aunt a full and hasty recovery.

  Miss Ada Is Laid Low by Grief

  EVERYTHING HAS LOST ITS SHINE, AND MY HEART IS DOWN ON the floor. Auntie Mary is dead, and what useful thing can be said about it? One day she is sitting in the Amherst House eating a fine dinner with me; a week later she is laid out to be waked in the parlor of the house she loved so well. She lies below with two pennies on her eyes that she brought all the way from Tipperary for the purpose.

  I don’t own a black dress, but Miss Emily has fashioned silk mourning ribbons to pin to my red merino, and she lends me her pendant of basalt and gold to wear at my throat. She comes from the Homestead to Kelley Square to help me get ready, though I know it pains her to leave the house.

  “I can’t believe Auntie Mary is gone,” I say, looking out at the train tracks from my bedroom window, which now feels like the bleakest spot in the world. “There’s something so very sad about dying far from the place you were born. To not be buried from the church you were baptized in. It’s like Auntie’s life went in a line, not a circle, as it should have.”

  Miss Emily fastens the clasp of the mourning pendant at my neck. “Angels have borne your Aunt to that country in the white sky, of which we know little,” she says.

  “But where is she really, miss? That’s the question that rattles in my head. Where is the whole of my Auntie Mary gone, the ins and outs of her?”

  “I cannot say. But the birds keep singing, Ada, and perhaps that is the hardest thing.”

  “Yes, they do keep singing. And Auntie Mary would have approved of that.”

  We go down, and Miss Emily stands with me at the coffin. I squeeze her hand.

  “Auntie Mary talked less in the last week, as if words didn’t matter anymore. I should have known she was getting ready to leave us altogether.”

  “Death comes stealthily, Ada. He doesn’t wish that we catch him in the act.” She sighs. “You will grieve, Ada, and sometime soon will come a new beginning in your grief, and it will be like a bloodletting. Then, only then, shall you go on again with grace.”

  I nod and think about what she says; I have not had to deal much with family death, and it fills me with a great loneliness for my own people, my own place. The parlor hums softly with the noise and warmth of all who have gathered. Daniel Byrne stands by the wall, and when he sees me look at him, he half raises his hand and knots his brow. But it’s a well-meant frown, I know that. I smile, though my cheek
s are stiff, making it hurt a little to do so.

  Mrs. Sweetser has sent her girl to make the tea and serve it, so that I won’t have to do it myself, or my cousin Annie either. I am sure Miss Emily is behind that, and it unburdens my heart to think of her kindness. She takes her leave after a short stay.

  Uncle Michael, Annie and I stand over Auntie Mary, keeping watch until my cousin Maggie, who has yet to come from Connecticut, arrives. Uncle won’t close the coffin until she gets here. The boys will not come from California; Uncle has written to them but his letter will not have reached them yet, of course.

  Some of Annie’s children run and trip about the house—it is just another day to them, and so it should be—but Uncle finds their noise distressing. He throws sharp glances at them, and more than once he covers his ears with his palms. Daniel Byrne sees this and takes the children in hand, bustling them out onto the street. I am grateful to him, as is Cousin Annie, though she would not stoop to thank him. I link Uncle Michael’s arm to continue our vigil by Auntie.

  “She is looking her best,” I say. “Her own gentle self is to be seen on her face.”

  “My heart is in smithereens, Ada. I miss her,” Uncle Michael says. “She’s still here, and I miss her.”

  I press my hand to his arm and gaze on Auntie. She is quiet and gathered, free now from the pain the doctor said she must have endured a long time. Poor Auntie Mary. She called for my mammy—her darling Ellen—at the end.

  “Ellen,” she said. “Ellen, a leana, will we go now? I feel I am ready to go.”

  And poor Mammy, three thousand miles away in Tigoora, doesn’t even know yet that her sister is gone.

  The house empties out, apart from some of the Tipperary people who will keep Uncle Michael company long into the night. I go in search of Daniel Byrne. I find him, still outside with the children, tossing a ball. He cups his hands around the hands of the littlest ones, to show them how better to catch. They do well under his guidance, whooping when they make a success of it. His patience with them touches me.