Eventually we sorted it out. The ladies were the Misses Norcross, from Monson. Emily’s legendary “little cousins.” Emily had decided we should meet and sent them to call — without telling me. I was not surprised by Emily’s failure in etiquette: she could be quite exacting about social niceties when it served her or forget them entirely when it did not.
I brought the women inside. They gave my house one or two knowledgeable compliments and murmured, “That’s my last duchess, there upon the wall,” as they met a Latham matriarch, frowning in the parlor. They had a subtle, threadbare dignity.
“Are you in Amherst for a Dickinson matter?” I asked as we took tea.
“Nothing particular, Miss Chase,” answered Miss Louise Norcross, the confident elder sister. “Emily sends her carriage for us sometimes.”
“When she is feeling maternal!” explained Miss Fanny, who was dainty and ringleted. “She likes to give us a little outing.”
“Do forgive me,” I said, “but somehow I had the impression, from Emily, that you were both — younger.”
“Emily prefers to have us younger and smaller than we actually are.” Miss Louise smiled. “Of course she does the same thing to you. She sees you — or at any rate describes you — as a headstrong schoolgirl.”
“And about her own height!” Miss Fanny added.
Our laughter was a treaty, a wordless acceptance. We would not deny Emily’s fantasies — and we would not call them lies. This reminded me of a poem Emily had given me a few years ago. I brought out the draft to show the Norcross cousins.
Tell all the Truth but tell it slant —
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth’s superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind —
“Why, this is precisely the way Emily thinks,” Miss Louise observed.
I nodded. “It’s true. She is saying, ‘Never use the whole truth. Change it, fix it, tell it slant.’ ”
We passed a delightful afternoon. The Norcrosses were witty and cultured company. My heart went out to them — forced by poverty and war into vicarious lives. Emily’s “little cousins” darned their gloves and drank weak tea, waiting to be needed. They went from one house to another, “helping out” in family crises — journeys and illnesses, moves and births and deaths. They were part of a new generation of surplus women: girls and young women whose lives never developed, whose lovers were killed before they had ever met. These tragic figures, prepared only for the homes they would never have, the children they would never bear, affected me deeply. Or the slightly older women, widowed before their time, often with few resources — social, emotional, or, often, financial. Had they and their generation been educated for a profession, they might have been useful now — working to heal the nation. Without Davy’s foresight and generosity, without the foundation, I might have been among the “extra women” — a new phrase in society for an unevenly seated dinner party but also a pitiless truth about a new class.
Again, I found myself troubled by Emily’s tunnel vision, her inability to care how she diminished the Norcross cousins by keeping them small. She could not see their struggles or their worth. And as Miss Louise and Miss Fanny revealed, she did the same thing to me.
Halloween jack-o’-lanterns were carved, shone their orange light into the frosty darkness, and were discarded. Halfway into November, a letter came from Roger on a day when the sky was steel colored, and the trees, stripped of their autumn colors, seemed to huddle together against the cold and wind. I took the fat envelope up to my room and read it in private. It was as well that I did so.
Miranda,
I have not written, not because my heart was not full but because I could not think of what I could possibly say. I understand your feelings; I wish you could see that this is a hard time for me as well. My feelings are all that they have ever been, but I know, as you do too, if only you will remember it, that everything you and I value — excepting only our love — could be destroyed by discovery. Would parents send their children to be educated at a school organized by a woman known to be in an illicit relationship? You have said Elena’s father is a conservative man. How long would he permit Elena to remain with you if our relationship were uncovered? Would your dear aunt Helen be able to accept so unorthodox a union? You have managed, with tact and charm and your formidable intelligence, to carve out a profession in a new field, a field that stands to benefit hundreds, perhaps thousands, of children.
I do not think you would wish to risk any of that.
It is fully as difficult for me to contain expression of my feelings, on paper or in person. I was hurt when you sent me away in New York, but after much reflection I know that you were right. That was my own longing speaking and not good sense. That same longing drove me to investigate a solution — a difficult and imperfect one but one that was much on my mind. I have studied the law on this point, and I know it would be possible for me to divorce Cecilia —
I drew a breath and stared at the letter in dismay. Divorce? I had never met a divorced person; I did not think that anyone in my family had ever done so. No one but those experiencing the most desperate cases of depravity, cruelty, or abandonment obtained a divorce. If Roger, upright and honorable as I knew him to be, could suggest such a thing, his feelings were more engaged than I had imagined.
— but what is possible is not necessarily wise. Divorce would expose you and the foundation to scandal and gossip as surely as discovery would. You might lose the school, or lose Elena, and such a loss could not help but burden our life together, until perhaps it broke under the weight. I cannot allow that.
We have each had a great love that came before. Please understand that I do not trivialize your feelings for Davy when I say that your loss was easier: Davy’s death may have been brutal, but it was final. Since Cecilia’s illness she has been in a kind of twilight state, neither fully alive nor fully dead, and I have shared that state with her. Your love brought me alive again, and it is painful, for reasons I know you too well to believe you will not understand, to know Cecilia still dwells on the shores of the River Styx. Before you think too harshly of me, remember that I am caught between Cecilia, sleeping in the shadows, and you, waiting in the land of sunlight.
I read the letter through twice, then burned it. He loved me — I had not imagined that — but there was no end in sight, no happiness for us. The sweet, piercing joy I felt on reading his words of love turned to ashes. Then to anger. I had struggled, in the months since we last met, to master my feelings and live my life. Roger’s letter, tantalizing in its promise, had torn open a wound that had begun to heal without my knowing it.
And Christmas, that time of light and joy in the Amherst year, was approaching.
The decorations went up. The schoolchildren made gifts and planned a pageant, and we needed many rehearsals for our caroling night through the town. Elena, old enough to understand and anticipate the wonder of the holidays, was caught between giddiness and an uncharacteristically angelic manner. I wore a mask of pleasure, hoping Elena would be happy if I could not. My act did not convince me, and I think Aunt Helen was sometimes troubled by my unhappiness, but she was too tactful to say anything.
Emily, of course, was not.
Just before Christmas I decided to make up our quarrel. Emily-like, she greeted me as if there had never been a cross word between us.
“Welcome, snowbird.” She helped me with my shawl and heavy coat. “Warm yourself by my fire.”
“It is bone-chilling out there,” I admitted with a shiver. “I had not realized before I left my house how much the temperature had dropped.” I sat beside her stove and held my hands out to its warming haze.
“Have you been cooped up indoors as I have been?” Emily asked. “Once it becomes this cold, I don’t even venture into the garden. I
spend most of my time here or in the conservatory.” She stood by the window and gazed down at her neglected territory. I noticed small transparent line drawings on the pane; she must have been amusing herself by making finger drawings in the condensation.
“How are your flowers thriving?” I asked. “I fear we lost some of Elena’s plants to the early frost.” I gave her a rueful smile.
She playfully waggled a finger at me. “Not paying attention, I see. The gardener must always be on her toes. You see Nature as benign, but I know better. She can be FIERCE and UNFORGIVING.”
Despite her scolding tone and strong words, I knew she was in jest. I held up my hands in a gesture of supplication. “I admit it, it’s true. Elena and I missed our moment, and now Nature has taught us that everything has a cost.”
Now she turned wistful. “That is all too true.” She stared out her window a few moments, and I worried that my lighthearted comment, completely in keeping with her own, had triggered the melancholia that I had detected in her on previous occasions. But then she turned and gave me an appraising look. “I wonder what cost you are bearing now?”
“What do you mean?”
“There is something sad in you, something that all your worldly TRIUMPH does not touch. You have had challenging times and now you reap your bounty, but it does not wholly . . . touch you.”
“I am only a little tired,” I told her. “We take the cars in a few days to visit Elena’s family in Springfield. There is so much to do.”
“No. It is something more.” Emily tilted her head to one side, birdlike, and regarded me with fierce inquisitiveness. “If you are not happy with your schools and your little girl” — as she had before, she made them sound trivial, as if they were a child’s playthings — “there is something more.” Emily looked out the window, silvered with condensation and frost. “Do not tell me you think you are in love, Miranda. I thought you had more IMPORTANT concerns.”
I stared at her. I had no intention of telling her about Roger, but I knew Emily would not be put off easily.
“Who is it? Do you intend to marry him?” Her mouth drew into a tight straight line, and she crossed her arms over her chest.
“I do not intend to marry anyone at this time,” I said crisply. It was hard to know whether to be appalled or amused.
“Good.” Emily smiled. “I have given the matter some thought, and I have decided you should NEVER marry.”
“You have decided? Don’t you think that perhaps that is a decision for me to make for myself?”
Emily gave no sign that she had heard me. “You could never obey a man’s WHIM. You could never be his PROPERTY.”
“You are right,” I said. “And I would never marry a man who would treat me in such a fashion.” I did not say that I had known two men — Davy and Roger — who would not harbor such an attitude.
Emily’s eyes narrowed, and an odd glint came into them. “You misunderstand me. You are someone who should never . . . SUBMIT. You do not have the temperament.”
I realized with a pang of shock that she was talking about intercourse.
“Emily, how can you possibly know that?”
“I know more than you think,” Emily told me enigmatically. She pulled her red shawl tighter across her shoulders, although the little stove kept the room very warm. “I know you believe I am a naive recluse, but before you met me I lived in the wider Amherst world. I am not as IGNORANT as you imagine.”
“If you intend to advise me, you had better talk plainly.” I was curious as to what she would say.
“I will try. You must listen carefully, for I could not possibly say this twice. I want to PROTECT you.”
What in the world — her strange, fanciful world — was coming now?
“My father bought The Homestead back for our family in 1855. Before we moved back in, when there were workmen making repairs here, I came up to the barn very early one morning and went in to get a hoe. Probably he thought the place would be empty at that hour.”
“Who thought, Emily?” I could not imagine where this story was heading.
“Whoever it was — that ANIMAL. He was there, up in the hayloft, with his — mate. They were like a boar and a sow, COUPLING. Squealing and gasping and tearing at each other. You cannot possibly conceive what I heard and saw.”
I was speechless.
“I learned all I needed to know about so-called love that morning. Love is not sympathy and tender attentions. Love is bestial violence. Love is RED MEAT.”
Her eyes glittered. I was repulsed to see how much she relished describing this incident to me so that I would be persuaded to choose as she had.
“I consider myself very fortunate to have been forewarned,” she declared. “Think of the women who must go into marriage UNPREPARED.” She gave a fastidious shudder. “But I was always conscious of the DARKNESS in men, and I want you to become so too, Miranda. It was my duty to warn you.” The avidness left her face, and her demeanor returned to that of a prim spinster. I think it was this, as much as anything else, that outraged me.
“But that is not what real love is — coupling in a barn. Emily, you have allowed this one dreadful incident to confirm everything you believe, and now you want me to believe it too! Physical love need not be bestial, any more than an individual need be bestial in any other part of his life. Love and physical love, together, are —” I stopped, caught in a memory of Roger’s hands and lips, stirring my heart and body at once. My skin went hot all over, and I bit my lip, recalling ecstasy.
Then I saw Emily’s face. Her eyes were narrowed again.
“I am too late, I see,” she said with deadly quiet.
“No, Emily —” I reached a hand out to her, but she did not see it. She was watching my face. “It is not —”
“Who was it? Did he persuade you it was LOVE? Oh, yes.” She turned back to the window. Her voice, when she continued, was low and sympathetic, but her eyes were avid. “You are still almost a child, despite your accomplishments. When did it happen? Where? How did this man take advantage of you?”
“He didn’t.” My voice was as quiet as her own, but Emily had touched the nerve laid bare by Roger’s letter and my fears about the future.
“How did it happen?”
Haltingly, I began to tell her. I had wanted so badly to confide in someone, and once I began I could not stop. Without my being aware of it, she guided me to my red armchair and sat me there, and put a cup of tea in my hand. The tea cooled as I talked, trying to give Emily, who so loved the small details of life, a sense of the golden warmth of Barbados, where everything, including love, had seemed right and possible.
Emily listened intently.
“But now you have returned from EDEN,” she said when I finished my tale. “You do not mean to continue?”
“I do not know what I mean. Roger is right that many people — most people — would condemn what happened between us in Barbados —”
“It has not happened since?” Emily looked at me sharply.
I shook my head. “Time, place, and the world have worked against us.”
“Miranda, you know that I do not place much stock in the CONVENTIONS of the world, but I think you have been FORTUNATE. You might have been DISCOVERED and all your plans brought to ruin. You might have MARRIED and lost everything in submission to a man’s WHIM. The physical submission is only part of it, Miranda, a sign of the larger submission of your dream and your WORK to his. The WORK is the important thing. At least, to people such as you and I.”
I remembered the Emily who had stolen into the church for my father’s memorial; it seemed that this was the friend who sat with me now, not the increasingly moody and self-involved woman of the last few months.
“Take comfort in your WORK, Miranda. And in TRUE FRIENDS. In time you will see more clearly and know that this excursion into the — physical world — was an aberration. Men are — well, we need not discuss it further.”
My tea was cold. Emily took it and poure
d more. She passed a plate of her exquisite cakes to me. I sipped my tea and nibbled at a cake, exhausted. It had taken more strength than I had imagined to keep my secret. And telling it had not changed Emily’s mind; my experience of physical joy was so different from what she had seen, and her revulsion and terror had not been touched by my story. Emily was what she was. I was too tired and too grateful for her sympathy to be troubled by how desperately Emily wanted me to be what she was.
Eased of a burden of secrecy I had not realized was weighing upon me, I floated through Christmas. To Springfield and back we went, and on New Year’s Day Aunt Helen, Elena, and I made our rounds of Amherst’s various festivities. This year Aunt Helen surprised me by consenting to stop by The Evergreens for Mrs. Austin’s annual open house. “As Mrs. Austin has been so helpful to the foundation, it is only mannerly that we call,” she said firmly. As we passed The Homestead that afternoon, I glanced up and saw Emily in her familiar place at her window. On impulse I stopped.
“Would you mind taking Elena ahead?” I asked Aunt Helen. “I would like to wish Emily a happy New Year.”
“Can I come with you?” Elena asked, her sweet face red from the cold. “To meet your friend?”
I gazed down at her, wondering how I could make her understand that, due to Emily’s nature, Elena would not be welcome. “I’m afraid not,” I said. “Miss Dickinson hardly sees anyone. She’s very private.”
Elena’s brow furrowed as she puzzled this out. “Is she all alone?”
I squeezed her mittened hand, touched by her obvious concern. “No, she has her sister and her mother and father with her too.”
Elena nodded, satisfied that my mysterious friend was not lonely.
Aunt Helen held out her hand to Elena. “I’m sure Mrs. Austin has all sorts of surprises in store.” She gave me a sly smile, and I knew she was registering her disapproval of Sue Dickinson’s excesses while taking care not to spoil Elena’s pleasure at the outing.
Emily still stood at her window, so I waved. Oddly, she didn’t wave back. I hurried up the walk to the door, and as I reached for the door pull Lavinia bustled out, wrapped in several woolen layers. She started, then said, “Why, Miranda, Emily never mentioned you would be visiting.”
Afternoons with Emily Page 49
