Miss Emily

by Nuala O'Connor

  “Well, he’s changed his mind, it seems.” I look at my boots, then back up into his face. “He has forbidden me to see you.” I turn away from Daniel, afraid he will catch the lies falling from my mouth. “I’m sorry.”

  “Maybe I should go to Kelley Square and talk to Michael Maher, to see what he has to say for himself.”

  “No,” I say, alarmed at the thought of my uncle’s being dragged into it. “You’re not the be-all and end-all of my life, Daniel Byrne.” I turn away again. “I have to get back.”

  “What will be will be, Ada,” Daniel calls.

  I walk away and urge myself on toward Main Street. There is hope, not resignation, in his voice. He is telling me he will not give up so easily. My feet feel as if they are wading through molasses. I think of Daniel’s confused face and the beautiful heft of him and allow myself a handful of scalding tears. I dab at my cheeks with my handkerchief and quicken my step to put distance between us. He may have hope, but I have none, for I cannot let him make the mistake of pursuing me.

  I sit on the end of my bed and grease my boots with butter, my hand acting as a last. They were Mammy’s boots before they were mine, and the furrow of her toes still occupies the leather. It is asking for ill fortune to wear another person’s clothes, I know, but boots are different, surely. I love that the ghost of Mammy’s foot walks with me wherever I go. When I slip my feet into the boots, I feel her wrap herself around me and give me strength. Even the smell of the butter brings her near to me; it was she who taught me to churn, and it was Granny Dunn who taught her before that. The butter I make is the daughter of Mammy’s butter just as I am hers.

  There is a rap to my door, and I leave down my rag and boot to open it. Miss Emily stands before me, her eyes searching my face. I hold the door and look up at her. Her brown eyes are lively and quick as a squirrel’s, but they can be slow and lingering, too, like the eyes of a cow. Today they have a heavy, liquid look.

  “May I come in, Ada?”

  I stand out of the way, and she walks in. “Sit, miss,” I say, gesturing to the bed, and she sweeps her skirt with one hand and perches on the eiderdown, a dove on snow. What is it Granny always said about dove eggs? If you eat one, you will have no luck.

  “I was buttering my boots.”

  “Yes,” Miss Emily says, and she is still regarding me with unasked questions.

  “You look like you want to say something, miss. To ask something, maybe?”

  She fidgets with the ribbon at her throat; her long fingers are like skeleton bones. Miss Emily stands. “Ada, are you with child?”

  “I am not, miss.”

  “Very well,” she says. “Forgive me for asking, but after the attack it was a possibility, you do realize that?”

  “I did realize that.”

  “And you are sure, Ada?”

  “Yes, miss. I have bled since.”

  “Well then, I am glad that that is not part of your predicament at least.” She goes to the mantelpiece and picks through my things: the mirror that Daniel gave me, the pearl brooch in its box that she gifted me herself, the small pile of letters from home. “You are happy here, Ada, am I right? We treat you well?”

  “You have been more than good to me, miss, all of you.”

  “And your health, Ada, how is your health? I would like to call Dr. Brewster to the house.”

  “There is no need, miss. I am feeling strong. I had a small ailment, after what happened, but your brother procured a remedy for me and I am fully well now. And the hospital in Boston saw me right.”

  “That settles it,” she says. I am not sure what is settled, but Miss Emily smiles a tight, cheerless smile. It is like she is talking to herself and trying hard to wheedle the right meaning into her words. “Carry on.” She waves her hand at my boots and butter, and off she goes, closing the door behind her.

  I stand looking at the back of the door, wondering what it was she was trying to convince herself of and if it means anything at all for me.

  Miss Emily Defends a Friend

  AUSTIN WANTED SUSAN TO BE THE HOUSEHOLD ANGEL OF PATMORE’S poem—she was to be his pleaser as wives are destined to be—but, Sue being Sue, she pleases herself before any husband. And I fear, as Patmore further says, that she may have married an iceman and, in doing so, has frozen herself. My brother has shown a coldness today that I was not fully aware he possessed. Yes, I know Austin for a stern man, but with me he has retained at least a touch of his old self, that lighter fellow whom I love so dear. He has not kept as much as I would like, but I can coax buoyancy from him at times. Yet today I am feeling the lash of his detached, legal mind, and I do not much care for it.

  He has told Father to turn Ada out. Worse, he has told Mother. Now a great confabulation is taking place, and I have had to leave the room for fear of what I will say if I stay. My nerves judder so when people are heated, especially Austin. But I am no good to Ada out here in the yard, gulping great breaths to settle myself. I must go in to them and wear a head of reason on my shoulders while I fight for her. I walk back through the hallway.

  “Like so many young women, she suffers from hysteria,” Austin is saying, and I wonder if he refers to Ada or to me. Though he hardly considers me young. “She is like all of her race—they are naturally indigent and find it hard to rise above that. It leaks out in their moral framework.” He spies me in the doorway. “Ah, Emily. Are you restored?”

  I look at Austin—at his haughty mien, his arrogant head—and I want to shout poetry at him: Amputate my freckled Bosom! / Make me bearded like a man! Because if I were a man, I could battle him well and make him listen to me. I sit on the sofa beside Vinnie, Father and Mother flank the fireplace, and Austin commands the floor. Father has his spectacles on, which means things are serious indeed—he wears them only for business matters.

  “You cannot make Ada leave,” I say. “We need her. I need her. She is tireless, better than any help we have ever had. And she is a good person.”

  “She is not scrupulous in the company she keeps, Emily,” Vinnie says.

  “How can you say that, Vinnie? You do not know what has happened. You know nothing of the ills that she has suffered.”

  “She has brought this upon herself,” Mother says, patting and repatting her chest as if her heart might leap out and land at her feet.

  “No, Mother, she has not brought this on herself. Ada was attacked by that Crohan person. She has done nothing wrong.” I look at Father. “Surely you know that Ada is innocent, Father?”

  “I do not know what I know, Emily. Your brother tells me that Miss Concannon has questionable morals, and I have no reason to disbelieve him.”

  “Let me be your reason.” I rise and go to him. “Believe me, Father. Patrick Crohan attacked Ada in her bedroom. He was violent, he was drunk, and she suffers deeply because of it, in mind and body.”

  “It is peculiar that nobody heard this ruckus. This attack,” Mother says. “Not one of us heard a thing.”

  “Do you imply that it did not happen? Are you calling me a liar, Mother? Ada and me both? You saw the bruises she was left with. She may have tried to conceal their true nature, but everyone here saw them. All because of that abhorrent man!”

  “Do not rage, Emily,” she says. “It upsets your health.”

  “I am not raging. I am defending a friend.”

  “You persist in styling her your friend!” Austin says. “Really, Emily, the girl knows her place. It is a pity that you do not know yours.”

  “And you yours, Austin,” I say. “Is it really necessary for you to swagger over from the Evergreens to make mischief in this household? Is there not discord enough at home to keep you occupied?”

  “Emily,” he says, “if you cast your mind back, you will recall that you came to me to sort out Ada’s problem. I am merely trying to close the case.”

  “But this is n
ot one of your cases, Austin. This is the very real distress of a very real young woman. Ada is in our care. She relies on us.”

  Father stands up and tucks the newspaper under his arm. “Shall we adjourn the matter and speak of it again anon? I have urgent business in town.”

  Mother rises and smooths her hair. “Yes. Let us wait until tempers have moderated. I shall pray, and, in prayer I will find an answer. We should all retire and look to God.”

  “I believe more in Darwin than God,” I say, but no one answers me.

  I look from one to the other of my family, and all I see are closed, righteous faces; I cannot quite believe that these are the same people who ate breakfast from Ada’s hands this morning. We troop out of the room like a chastened congregation. I take the front stairs two steps at a time to get away from them. At the top Ada stands rigid, an unreadable look on her face.

  I go to my room. I sit and lay my hands on my desk; a wedge of light cascades across them. My skin is shirred and white; my nails wear neat crescents at bed and tip. These are my mother’s hands, and it has only occurred to me that I have inherited something of hers after all. The sunlight warms my skin, and I think to move my hands, lift paper and ink from the drawer and release myself into a poem. After the tumult of my family’s chatter, I need a recess, a place to slip into that is mine alone. The wood of my desk—its fine cherry top—seems to seep into my fingers. The tree it grew inside, the woodsman’s ax, the carpenter’s lathe—all sing to me through my hands. I close my eyes and think of Ada, of her distress. My breast aches when I think of how she has been violated. No matter what happens, I will help and comfort her; that is my resolution.

  For now I need the solace of words. Words bracket silence. That quiet gives propulsion to the words and all that they say. Words smolder, they catch fire, they are volcanic eruptions, waiting to explode. I like to start small. With the fewest words I can manage. If the words run away, I trip them up and pull them back. If they do not cooperate, I obliterate them. Each word is a candidate, sized up and interviewed and given its role only when it has proved its superiority to all other words. The best words—the most suitable candidates—come, most often, unsummoned. They are gifts from who knows what universe.

  I may have too much to say, though I say things silently. Can that be so? Silence and words are bedfellows in my world. And with words I address the outer world honestly, for I address Nobody.

  A word is dead, when it is said

  Some say—

  I say it just begins to live

  That day

  A chain of bobolinks fly past my window, and I jump up to watch them; they are like a coven of witches sweeping by, and I wonder if they are on their way to the deep forests of Brazil. How I would like them to take me by the wings up over New England and away. We would sail together above seas and purple mountains, and all care would be lost in the fine air that lies nearest the clouds. The bobolink is a joyful bird; today I wish I could drink from his beak and capture some of his noisy joy for my own.

  “Bobolink, go well to the south and think of me when you are there.”

  I step back from the window and am glad of the blocks of light that flood my room; they ease my heart. And if I cannot be outside, at least I may welcome the outside in and I may try at least to capture it in words.

  Ada comes to my bedroom with a trio of Indian pipes in her hand. She gives the stems to me and stands in the doorway; I bring them to my nose.

  “Monotropa uniflora,” I say. “Did you know these are my favorite of all the flowers in the world?”

  “I saw you plucking one for your herbarium, miss. I thought any flower that has you sit on mud under a tree, in your white dress, must be worth something to you.”

  “I thank you, Ada. Come in.” I pour water from my ewer into a vase and put the flowers into it. I look under their waxy skirts to see their flesh-pink innards. “Indian pipes don’t need sunlight to grow, Ada. That’s why they are sometimes called the corpse plant.”

  “That seems morbid, miss, for a thing so delicate and beautiful.”

  “They own beauty now, Ada, but they take revenge on us for picking them. Shortly, they will turn black.”

  Her look of horror is almost comical. “Oh, I didn’t know that, Miss Emily, or I wouldn’t have brought them.”

  “How could you know? Sit, sit.” She sits on my bed, and I turn my chair toward her.

  “I wanted to say thanks, miss. I wasn’t listening in to what went on below, really I wasn’t, but I heard you defend me to the others, Mr. Austin and the rest of the family. You have been more than a mistress to me.” Her Nebraska-agate eyes look lighter than ever, and there is worry in them. “You have been a friend, and it has been my pleasure to serve you.”

  “Ada, this is beginning to sound like a farewell.”

  She wrings her hands. “It is my feeling that I should go, miss, before I am told to leave. I have cousins in California, Uncle Michael’s boys. I can go to them.”

  I lean forward and take her hands in mine. “You will do no such thing. There isn’t any question of your having to leave. There has been a misunderstanding, and I am putting it to rights. Trust me.”

  “I was probably only ever the dirt before the broom anyway, miss. You’ll find someone good to replace me, a girl who will make Mr. Austin happy. I can’t do that.”

  “My brother is not master of this house.”

  “And you are not mistress of it, Miss Emily,” she says quietly.

  I kneel before her on the rug and place my hands on her lap. “Listen to me, Ada. I do not want to be without you. I will speak to Father, and all will be well.” I lift one hand and caress her cheek; she has the peach-soft skin of the young. “All will be well.”

  Miss Ada Makes a Confession

  MY BED SPOKE TO ME ALL NIGHT; EVERY TIME I MOVED, IT answered me back in a voice measured out in sighs and groans. Now I stand at the back door, blear-eyed, trying to get the dawn air to stir me into wakefulness. The water for the family’s wash cans is heating, and I have dyspepsia crackers in the oven—I found a grand recipe for them in the American Farmer—and there are fiddleheads ready to steam, to go with the morning hash. These days I always have a bit of green on Mrs. Dickinson’s plate; the fern tops have a delicate grassiness to them that I am hoping will please her. The crackers, too, are for her, to aid her biliousness.

  When I put on my shift and pantalettes this morning, I noticed that both felt loose. Peering at myself in my pocket mirror, I could see that my face looks scrawny; I set my hands on my hip bones and felt their jut. I have not been eating properly, and I must right that; my appetite has been poor, and I see now that if I am to be fully strong again, I will have to eat more heartily. I still paint on the calomel, and I bought a new bottle of sarsaparilla, telling the boy at the drugstore that it was to liven up my complexion. I thought he could see through me, see straight to the heart of my sin, but he wrapped the bottle with no comment.

  There is mist hanging over the property, and my breath makes cloudy puffs on the air. I can hear the trup-trup of the horses in the barn, eager for their oats, no doubt. I leap like I have been scalded when someone walks out of the barn and moves toward me across the yard. I slip back into the kitchen but keep my face to the door, for if it is Crohan, I will not let him come up behind me.

  There sounds a soft rap on the back door; Daniel opens it and walks in.

  “Good morning, Ada.”

  “Hello, Daniel.”

  “I saw you taking the air.”

  “Trying to wake myself up, that’s all.” I turn to the stove to move the water pot nearer to the edge, to stop it bubbling over.

  Daniel comes behind me and, with his arms around my arms, helps me lift the pot.

  “There,” he says. He turns me to look at him. “I have not been to visit your uncle, Ada, to test the truth of what you told me�
�that he forbids you to see me. I think it would be a waste of his time and my own.”

  “As you wish.” I move away from him and stand with my back to the table.

  “Patrick Crohan mentions you often, Ada. Already I have flattened him to the floor twice for things he has said.”

  “Crohan’s a pup, and you know it. He would say anything.”

  “He is, and that is why I have come to you, because I want to hear what you might say. It struck me that I can’t keep thumping the shit out of Crohan if I don’t know what you have to say about the things he spouts.”

  “What has he said?” I step up to Daniel, and instead of backing away from me, he comes even closer.

  “He was able to tell me that you have a small mirror in your bedroom, a mirror with a red rose painted on it. He was able to tell me that there is a smell of lavender about your nightclothes.”

  My legs jellify, and I sit. “Oh, Daniel. I never wanted you to know.”

  His mouth seems to disappear. “Know what, Ada?”

  “What difference does it make? He ruined everything, is that not enough?”

  “Tell me, Ada. I want to hear.” His voice is coaxing now, the tone he uses with horses to get them to do his bidding, to soothe them. “If something happened, we can fix it. I can.”

  “You cannot fix anything, Daniel. Leave it go.”

  “No, no. I won’t be leaving it go, Ada.” He takes my arm. “I’ll murder him if he touched you.”

  “Patrick Crohan attacked Ada, Mr. Byrne. He injured her and forced himself on her.” Miss Emily is standing in the inner doorway, a chamber stick in her hand that makes her face glow. “He came to this house—my house—and he violated her.”

  We both stare at Miss Emily. Daniel turns to look at me. All the soft lines of his face have flattened out; he has an ugly look that I have never seen before. I don’t understand this look, and it frightens me. He drags out a chair and sits, solidly, and then he spits tears like a baby and tries to fight them back at the same time, but they come hard and free. He lurches forward, and I hold him. Daniel sobs onto my shoulder, and his body jerks; I hug him tightly and say nothing, for I do not know what to say. He rubs up and down my back, as if trying to wipe away the stain of what he has heard.