Afternoons with Emily

by Rose MacMurray

  Vinnie, on the other hand, had used this solemn occasion for show. She was dressed in heavy midnight crepe and wore an elaborate bonnet wrapped with an immense tulle veil. Unaccountably, she greeted each and every mourner as if she were her father’s hostess, as though this service was an “event” he had orchestrated for people’s entertainment. Watching her, I noticed that her youth had slipped away and that she wore the defiant air of a woman facing a world that offered her no meaningful place. I expressed my concern over her sister’s health and otherwise kept my own counsel. After the funeral, Emily had been away in Boston with her Norcross cousins and her eye doctor. Since our last meeting, there had been such joy at the war’s end, followed by such tragedy, that I naturally expected we would spend my visit talking about the times we had survived — but Emily had other plans.

  “ ‘Sweet are the uses of adversity,’ ” she quoted. I wondered to whose adversity she referred — her own or Mr. Lincoln’s, although when she took my wrap I noticed that she looked as well as ever.

  “Were you allowed to read or write this time, Emily?”

  “Very little. The climax of the day was a hansom from Cambridge to Boston and then two drops in each eye! Then we would walk in the Public Garden, a very UNNATURAL park. You never saw such a vulgar SHOW, Miranda. It was full of hideous oversize flowers, laid out in beds shaped like playing cards. I’m sure it would appeal to Susan’s crowd. Of course, I am used to walking in MY OWN MEADOW.”

  “Did your cousins entertain you?”

  “As best they could, poor little WAIFS. At least they kept me busy entertaining them!”

  “So your writing goes well, then?” I ventured neutrally, sitting down at the tea table.

  Emily smiled mysteriously, obviously not telling all she knew. “I am progressing toward my goal. I am not possessed by inspiration these days — but the muse DOES call in on occasion. It took another banishment in SIBERIA for me to appreciate ‘this our life, exempt from public haunt.’ ”

  “Did you continue to hear from your correspondents while you were away?” I wondered if her lack of inspiration was due to a lack of contact.

  She sighed prettily. “My Mentors do keep shuttling to and fro! Two of them are in San Francisco now; that is too FAR! And my dearest Preceptor is much too CLOSE; he could come from Boston in a day, unless I prevent it.”

  I had read that Mr. Bowles was visiting in California and knew Dr. Wadsworth had moved there in 1862. I was amused by Emily’s insistence on the correct geographic distance that her romances-in the air required. These busy and worldly gentlemen would be astonished to learn how much thought Emily gave them every day — since I doubted if they remembered her once a fortnight.

  “And what news from Colonel Higginson?”

  She lost her calm, evaded my gaze, and became oblique again. “Oh, he is so TRYING as a friend! I never told him I was in Cambridge. It was too close to Newport, and he was still healing there — from his war wounds. What if he had decided to call?”

  Suddenly I was incensed by all this causerie. “Emily, for heaven’s sake — what about the war’s end? What about history? ”

  Emily’s eyes widened at my outburst, then she resumed a placid expression. “The fireworks in Cambridge were very fine, Miranda. We stood on the roof of our boardinghouse and saw them reflected in the Charles River. If the wind was right, we could hear the bands playing.”

  When she saw my disgusted face, she tried again.

  “I suppose that the village celebrated too. I heard that some of our boys were still in uniform, so their mothers must be relieved.”

  I gave her one more chance. “And what about poor Mr. Lincoln?”

  Now she eluded me, among her grand cloudy abstractions.

  “Mr. Lincoln has crossed over into ETERNITY, Miranda. He is safe now.”

  I decided this particular visit was over. As I put on my shawl, she performed one of her agile turnabouts and became a normal, concerned friend.

  “And what do you plan for the summer, besides good times with your Elena?”

  Reeled in, I told her about the discussions Alan and I had been having. “Our scheme is ambitious and will require more of my presence than I’d expected.” I confessed I was concerned about how to best accommodate all I wanted to accomplish and still have the time I wanted with Elena.

  Quicksilver Emily was at her sensitive, perceptive best. “All the pieces will make a pattern for you soon, my dear friend. You are very close to finding your true center; I can feel it.”

  We touched cheeks and planned for another Monday. In the moment, it felt right, two friends sharing affection and plans. It wasn’t until I was near to home that I envisioned the endless vista of Mondays ahead: the Mondays after Mondays as Emily’s marionette.

  My father returned from Sicily in mid-May, gossiping about the splendid tyrants of Syracuse; about Hiero I, patron of Aeschylus; about the doomed Athenian fleet and the captured Athenian aristocrats toiling as slaves in the quarries. Relating this to Aunt Helen and me — like the most gifted of historians — he made us feel this all happened just last year. He was interested and complimentary about my work in New York and Amherst, and impressed that the American Student would publish the article I wrote with Alan Harnett. “They have a fine reputation,” he stated. “You couldn’t do better.”

  When he saw our rosy, confident Elena and heard her story, he heartily approved her inclusion in our Amity Street household.

  “It’s the best possible solution,” he said. “You just have to look at Elena — she’s positively in bloom! And so are you, my dear. We need her just as much as she needs us. Is Ethan pleased?”

  “He says it’s wonderful for her to be here with us just now, Father. When he visits he sees that she won’t let go of my hand for a second. She’s afraid he’ll take her back to Springfield!”

  He nodded thoughtfully. “Does this bother Ethan?” he asked. “Seeing her prefer her life here?”

  “I believe he is genuinely happy that she is thriving.”

  “That is the mark of a true father. Ethan instinctively wants what is best for her.”

  Father quickly became Elena’s friend and her surrogate grandfather, even asking Sam to dam our brook into a wide shallow pool, moving a wicker armchair into the shade of the maples, where he read beside her all through the amber afternoons. Elena did not interrupt him; she played in the water and arranged pebbles, humming softly to herself. Sometimes they told each other myths, Father laughing heartily at Elena’s variations. There were sixty-six years between these two companions, but their harmony was a joy to behold. I never imagined that losing Kate would give us such a blessing as Elena for our consolation.

  Father also approved the blue velvet curtain I had ordered for the stage. With the war over, we were reviving our Shakespeare evenings. The curtain would allow the readers to be hidden and then revealed, like actors.

  “Let’s plan our next play evening right now,” he suggested. “We’ve never done Antony and Cleopatra. I’d love to read Antony. Tell that imperial Susan Dickinson I want her for my Cleopatra!”

  “We should ask Miss Lavinia to play the asp, Father. Emily says she has an ‘adder tongue,’ and I believe her.”

  I proceeded to tell him how Vinnie had learned from friends in Springfield, Illinois, that a former law partner of Abraham Lincoln’s was spreading a story about the president’s early, doomed love affair with Ann Rutledge — a story that Vinnie, like a pig scenting truffles, was circulating here. The man, a Mr. Herndon, was claiming that Miss Rutledge was the only woman Mr. Lincoln ever loved and that she died from want of it. Mr. Lincoln “wandered from his throne,” according to Vinnie, and when he recovered he’d lost the woman he should have married and settled for one who brought him only misery.

  Our conversation moved on: we began to compare our calendars so we could arrange rehearsal time.

  “Do you know your fall teaching schedule yet, Father?”

  “Two sections of
Homer only — and then Edward Crowell, your friend’s husband, will become acting chairman. I have decided to cut down, Miranda.”

  Since his return I had been noticing his color was unhealthy — a new grayish tinge around the mouth and fingertips. Today his breathing was audible and seemed to be an effort.

  “Father, may I ask Dr. Bigelow to come and examine you?”

  “One of these days I’ll go to him myself, but antiquarian holidays can be very tiring, I find. I’ll feel better when I start teaching.”

  Now I was an official adult in Amherst society. My reading and teaching in New York, the news of the foundation, and our Leo Press — all these combined to make me a welcome guest at The Evergreens, at the president’s house, and at college functions. Father brought back a length of violet Italian silk for me, and on a brief visit to Boston, I took it to Madame Lauré. She made it up décolleté, with the modish new narrow skirt. Godey’s Lady’s Book had declared crinolines passé. Now the fashionable line was a straight skirt swept to the back and fullness falling in pleats. After an August evening with the Austin Dickinsons, Father and I chatted in his library. Aunt Helen had retired to bed.

  “I noticed you and Mrs. Austin were the only ladies with that new draped skirt,” he remarked. He poured us both glasses of Spanish sherry. “I suppose the style will be all over Amherst tomorrow.”

  “I think it’s more than a style, Father,” I replied, crossing to take the delicate cut-crystal glass from him. “It’s a statement, an attitude.” I sat in the armchair by the window, enjoying the soft summer breeze. “Those crinolines and hoops made women look helpless and frail — and then the war showed we weren’t fragile anymore. You saw me heaving bales of bandages!”

  Father smiled and lifted his glass to me. “I did indeed.” He took a sip of the tawny liquor. “None of us will ever be quite the same, will we?”

  “Except Emily,” I replied. “She lives just as she always has, on a desert island of solitude.”

  “And how do you find that detachment, Miranda?”

  I placed my glass on the side table. “Right now, I deplore it — but we can’t know yet if her writing makes it forgivable. If she becomes famous, then perhaps her selfishness will be justified.”

  Father studied my face. “You sound as if you’ve given this some thought.”

  “Oh, I have! When I first came back from New York and took on Elena — and then the war ended, and the president was murdered, and my mind was buzzing and boiling with everything I’d learned and done — well, Emily enraged me! She just went on as if nothing had happened, sitting in her prim closed room and feeding her birds.”

  “And how do you see her now?”

  I thought about this carefully. “Simply as a blank. She does no harm; she is merely absent. Miss Lavinia, the asp, slithers about doing the real damage to people’s lives.”

  He smiled. “Your conversation is always such a pleasure to me, my dear. Perhaps we can thank Miss Dickinson for that, anyway.” He stretched his legs and placed his feet on the ottoman.

  We were quiet and at peace, reluctant to end the evening. Upstairs, Elena was sleeping in Kate’s room, her small arm enfolding Maple Syrup. Somewhere along the way, Father and I had become colleagues.

  “Should I use my American Student article in my talk about Froebel?” I asked Father. Tomorrow I was to address some faculty wives in the temple — friends of Susan Dickinson and Mary Crowell who might want to enroll their children in our kindergarten.

  “Certainly,” Father said approvingly. “The material is there, and the prestige of the journal will add to your credibility.”

  I nodded; that had been my feeling too — Father’s approval sealed it. “President Stearns has offered a site for a school; should I invite him to hear me speak?”

  “Splendid idea,” Father said.

  There was another matter about which I wanted his advice. I heard this week for the first time from the foundation’s Chicago trustees. Now that the war was over, they wanted to hear my plans for the trust and for the income that had collected. Mr. Roger Daniels, the lawyer for the trust, was anxious to discuss the future. He wanted to know when he might come to talk to me in Amherst. Father suggested we invite him for early September.

  My violet silk rustled and gleamed as I crossed to draw the curtains. Satisfied and sated, we sat on in the firelight another half hour, in companionable discussion.

  Mr. Daniels arrived in Amherst in mid-September. He was to stay with us, in Father’s wing. He had an accent like Davy’s, but he was taller, with a certain bony elegance of carriage; the French would call him racé. His full hair was dark brown; his eyes were an unusual light ocher. In his early thirties, Mr. Daniels had the look of a Titian portrait — a merchant banker, wise and humorous.

  Father lent us his library, where we talked foundation business. Mr. Daniels was very encouraging about our finances.

  “There is income accrued since Davy’s death, and you should be able to undertake two or three projects at once.” He looked at me with his warm eyes. “What would you like to do?”

  “Mr. Alan Harnett and I are hoping to start two kindergartens. A small one here that I shall watch over. I have a particular friend, Mary Crowell, who will work with me to organize it. You’ll meet her tomorrow.”

  “Have you a location yet?”

  “The college will lend us one, I think.”

  “And the other school?”

  “This plan is more ambitious; you may not approve.” Stalling, unsure of how he would react to this grand scheme, I poured us each a glass of lemonade. I crossed to him and handed him his glass, then gazed at him directly. “Mr. Harnett thinks we need a ‘show window’ kindergarten in New York,” I declared. “A place where teachers and educators can come and study, and see our Froebel theories in action. He wants the foundation to buy a house and establish a model kindergarten.”

  I sat, waiting for his verdict. This was the first time that I had expressed these ambitions to a stranger, albeit hiding behind the wishes of Alan Harnett. I recognized the unusual nature of our relationship — as my trustee he would advise me, but I, younger by perhaps nearly a decade, and a woman, would make the decisions as the head of the foundation.

  An approving smile crossed his face. “These are excellent plans, and in the spirit of Davy’s trust.”

  Relieved by his response, I almost missed his use of Davy’s first name. When this familiarity registered, I asked, “You said ‘Davy’ — did you know him?”

  “Our families were friends, though he was younger. I confess I had never really talked to him until he came to our law firm to set up the foundation in the summer of ’63. I was at home on leave. He was so dedicated, so definite about what he wanted for you — none of us have ever forgotten him.”

  I was aware of his intense, unwavering gaze. He did not stare; his calm eyes simply didn’t leave me. What does he see? I wondered. I tried to imagine myself through this interested stranger’s eyes and was pleased to acknowledge that I was proud of who I was becoming. Despite the pain I had endured, I felt strong and enlivened by a future that now seemed possible. I sensed Mr. Daniels’s approval.

  At dinner, Father entertained us with stories of his trip abroad. Then he turned serious and tactfully asked Mr. Daniels about his war experience.

  “I was a captain and then a major on General Sherman’s staff, at Shiloh and Vicksburg.”

  “You saw a great many of the most crucial campaigns,” Aunt Helen commented.

  Mr. Daniels took another mouthful of his stew, then nodded. “Eventually I was transferred to General Burnside’s staff, outside Petersburg.”

  “We hear a great deal about the war,” Father said. “But I often wonder about the news that doesn’t travel.”

  “I always felt Davy was protecting me in his letters,” I added. “I think I might have been less afraid if I had known more. My imagination created its own horrors.”

  “Much occurred that would have be
en unimaginable to you,” Mr. Daniels said. “The face of battle is one I want never to look into again. The malignant personal hatreds wearing patriotic masks; the chances for brutish men to grow more brutal and for honorable men to degenerate into madness. This is what I saw, and again at the prison camp at Andersonville, where our men turned against one another to survive. War may be an armed angel with a mission, sir, but she has the personal habits of a slattern.” He gave Aunt Helen and me an apologetic smile. “If you will forgive my terms, ladies.”

  “Of course,” Aunt Helen said, her voice husky with emotion.

  “When were you captured, sir?” my father asked.

  “As we were nearing Atlanta, on our march from Chattanooga. I was captured at Kennesaw Mountain and sent to Andersonville. I suppose you have heard about that place?”

  “A little,” Father told him sadly. “It sounds far worse than any battle.”

  “Whatever you’ve heard, it’s not savage enough. It was Hell, man-made and deliberate Hell. I had never known such evil was possible. I still cannot believe that American men could treat one another as I saw them doing in Andersonville, day by day, week by week.”

  “Do you think of those terrible days often, Mr. Daniels?” I asked him, awed by his passion.

  Mr. Daniels looked sad. “Not by choice, but I can’t put it behind me. I’m a different man, Miss Chase. The experience of war has changed me forever.”

  At dawn there was a thunderstorm followed by a drenching rain, then a blazing sun. As though Nature herself had washed away the evening’s grim memories, it was a gentle, even relaxed, Roger Daniels who greeted us at the breakfast table. Aunt Helen piled his plate high, as if a hearty breakfast could repair the pain of the past, and Mr. Daniels tucked in with relish, pleasing her to no end.