Praise for
Emily’s House
“With lyrical prose and an irresistible narrative voice, Brown gives the reader a scrappy and little-known literary heroine to root for—the Irish maidservant who helped rescue Emily Dickinson’s poems. The immigrant experience is lovingly rendered against the backdrop of family drama, the historical details are immersive, and Dickinson fans will love this novel!”
—Stephanie Dray, New York Times bestselling author of The Women of Chateau Lafayette
“Amy Belding Brown brings us a warm, intimate, and rich portrayal of Irish immigrant Margaret Maher, maid and confidante to Emily Dickinson. Margaret’s story gives us a fascinating glimpse into another time while placing us directly inside the Dickinson household. I was captivated by this story and I know you will be, too.”
—Kathleen Grissom, New York Times bestselling author of The Kitchen House
“What a joy it is to once again revel in Amy Belding Brown’s incomparable voice. In Emily’s House, Brown introduces us to the remarkable Irish maid who saved Emily Dickinson’s unpublished oeuvre from certain destruction after her death. Margaret Maher’s own disappointments mirrored her mistress’s many, but the two women formed a bond so deep that if not for Maher’s abiding determination, Dickinson’s legacy would have been lost to us forever. Do we call Maggie Maher an American treasure? I think we must, and Amy Belding Brown, too.”
—Robin Oliveira, bestselling author of My Name Is Mary Sutter
Other novels by Amy Belding Brown
Mr. Emerson’s Wife
Flight of the Sparrow
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Copyright © 2021 by Amy Belding Brown
Readers Guide copyright © 2021 by Amy Belding Brown
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Brown, Amy Belding, author.
Title: Emily’s house / Amy Belding Brown.
Description: First edition. | New York : Berkley, 2021.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020050429 (print) | LCCN 2020050430 (ebook) | ISBN 9780593199633 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9780593199640 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Dickinson, Emily, 1830-1886—Fiction. | Maher, Margaret, 1841-1924—Fiction. | GSAFD: Biographical fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3552.R6839 E45 2021 (print) | LCC PS3552.R6839 (ebook) | DDC 813/.54—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020050429
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020050430
First Edition: August 2021
Cover design by Emily Osborne
Cover images: dress by Crow’s Eye Productions / Arcangel; hands and house by Jasenka Arbanas / Arcangel
Book design by Nancy Resnick, adapted for ebook by Kelly Brennan
Title page and part title art by Khosrov Hakobyan / Shutterstock.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author’s use of names of historical figures, places or events is not intended to change the entirely fictional character of the work. In all other respects, any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
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This book is dedicated to the memory of
Patricia Wyman Belding
1930–2018
beloved aunt, mentor, visionary, writer, and poet whose cheerful curiosity and warm encouragement shaped my early interest in writing and whose passion for Emily Dickinson’s work informed my own.
Contents
Cover
Praise for Amy Belding Brown
Novels by Amy Belding Brown
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Part I: Thresholds
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Part II: Shutters
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Part III: Windows
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Part IV: Doorways
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Part V: Chambers
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Part VI: Corridors
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Part VII: Porches
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
Readers Guide
About the Author
Part I
Thresholds
Chapter One
1916
More than once I’ve had the thought a life can be measured in doorways. Answering a knock or stepping over a sill ofttimes leads to what I’m not expecting. I’ve learned to be a bit curious when a threshold’s being crossed. So you might think I’d be interested when Rosaleen Byrne comes banging into my kitchen with a new hat on her head and her mouth full of gossip. But I’m not in the mood for a chinwag this morning—up to my elbows in minced pork and bread mash. Yet here she is, all bustle and burn with the cold March air coming off her and her face red as the sausage I’m making.
“Margaret,” she says, unbuttoning her coat like she’s planning on staying, “I just heard the news and came straight here. Ran near all the way.” Sure, she does look out of breath with her bosom heaving up and down. It’s a bit concerning—she shouldn’t be running anywhere at her age. Must be two or three years older than myself and I’m past seventy.
“What news is that?” I say. It’s not likely she’s heard anything interesting I don’t already know. My boardinghouse in Kelley Square is the place everybody comes when they want to hear the latest. Rosaleen lives clear on the far side of Irish Hill. She’s got a knack for digging up secrets—I’ll give her that—though most of the time they’re not secrets at all but tidbits common as spiders. I give the mix a few more squeezes and commence wiping my hands on my apron. One of my bad days, it is, the rheumatism pounding away in both thumbs, not to mention my knees.
“About the Dickinson property,” Rosaleen says. “I’m guessing it’s a shock to
yourself.”
I don’t know what she’s talking about, but I have a bad feeling. “Who was it told you?” I ask, still wiping my hands, choosing my words so as not to let on.
“The new maid that works for Mrs. Hills. The red-haired one. Ran into her in Cutler’s Store and it’s all she talked about.” She already has her coat half off. Likely she’s planning to dump it over the back of a chair instead of hanging it proper on a hook beside the door. “I expect half the town knows by now.”
I nod as if I’m agreeing, but my temper’s rising. I know she’ll be revealing her gossip sooner or later, but it nettles me she’s making such a show of it. God help me, I won’t be giving her the satisfaction of asking.
I go to the sink to wash my hands and calm myself. Turn the tap and warm water splashes out. Sure, it still takes me by surprise after all those years yanking pump handles and filling buckets for heating. A daily miracle, it is—hot water conjured with just a flick of the wrist. I take my time, and when I turn around, Rosaleen’s plunked herself down on a chair and is pulling a handkerchief out of her handbag.
“From what I hear that girl’s head is always in a muddle,” I say. “She’s as likely to twist the truth as tell it.”
“Aye, I’ve heard that too.” Rosaleen snaps her bag shut and dabs her nose with the handkerchief. It’s a fancy one, with deep lace at the hem. “But she says she got it word for word from Mrs. Hills herself. ‘The big Dickinson house on Main Street is up for sale,’ Mrs. Hills told her. And Dr. Bowen is thinking of buying it.”
There’s a snag in the middle of my chest. “Which house?” I hear the blade in my own voice. “She owns them both.”
“Not the Evergreens, where she’s living,” Rosaleen says. “The big one next door they call the Homestead.”
Miss Emily’s house? I almost say it out loud. I have my answer, but God’s truth, it rocks me. And in my head I’m thinking, Emily won’t like this, as if she’s still among the living.
Rosaleen says something else but the rumble of a train coming into the depot is drowning all sounds but itself. Takes a minute or two till the screaming of whistles and brakes passes, so I busy myself wiping the faucets. When the noise finally fades, she’s still talking. “I hear it’s been on the market two weeks but nobody here in Amherst knew a thing till today. Except Mattie D, of course. And maybe yourself—working for that family so many years and all?”
She’s fishing, to be sure. But I won’t have it spread all over Amherst I didn’t know about the sale. Instead of answering, I scowl. Everybody in Amherst calls Emily’s niece Mattie D, but hearing it come out of Rosaleen’s mouth irks me. Feels like she’s belittling my own family. “Her name is Madame Bianchi now,” I say.
“Madame Bianchi.” Rosaleen makes a snorting sound and opens her bag to put the handkerchief away. “What kind of name is that? Herself with her fortune and fancy ways, acting like a countess since she married that Russian. She’s haughty as her mother before her.”
“God keep her soul,” I say quick to ward off the Faeries, though I’ve sometimes had the same thought myself. But I don’t like hearing any ill talk of the dead. Besides, I’d seen a different side of Sue Dickinson through Emily’s eyes.
Rosaleen is casting a glance at the kettle on the cooker’s back burner. I know she’s hoping I’ll be wetting the tea, but I’ve heard enough of her prattle and need to be alone to think my thoughts.
“Well,” I say in a brisk way, “I promised my boarders sausages for supper. ’Tis sorry I am I can’t be offering you a cup of tea, but it’s getting on toward noon and my casings won’t be stuffing themselves. And I expect you’ve got errands to be doing.” I give her a kindly nod to gentle the sting.
She looks a bit startled but up she gets and fidgets herself into her coat, and soon enough I’m bundling her out the door. Sure, I’m glad to be seeing the back of her, though I know she’ll likely be spending what’s left of the morning noising it all over Amherst that Miss Margaret Maher’s too full of herself to be sharing a cup of tea with a friend.
Soon as she’s out the door, it strikes me I could have been right about the maid’s story—it might not even be true. Wouldn’t be the first time Rosaleen scattered fables amidst her gossip. From the window I watch her pass my brother-in-law’s house and cross the yard to the train depot. Wonder how many other ears she’ll be bending before she gets home today. Seems strange I didn’t hear her news from my niece first. Nell’s always stopping by to tell me what she hears around town. Makes it all the more unlikely there’s reason to believe Rosaleen. The more I think on it, the less sense it makes. Why in Heaven’s name would Mattie D be selling the Homestead? She loves the place as much as I do, surely. She’s the last of the Dickinson line to own it, and she knows the big yellow house is a treasure, sitting so proud behind its handsome hedge and fence.
Taking care of the Homestead was my job for thirty years. When I left back in 1899 and walked down Main Street to my sister’s place in Kelley Square, I thought I was shed of the Dickinsons for good. Felt like a blessing that sorry day, with Emily and Austin and Vinnie all gone to their graves and the house shut up like a tomb.
Now I can’t pass the place without wanting to take another peek inside. I’m always glancing at the upstairs west windows, where Emily’s bedroom was. More than once I’ve spied a white flutter there and wondered—was it a trick of the light, or maybe her ghost? The quare thing is I always walk on feeling more comfort than chill. As if the place is consecrated.
Mattie D inherited everything after Vinnie died. The houses and land and all her grandfather’s money. Last time I saw her was at her mother’s funeral. But I remember her best as a girl running along the path between the Homestead and the Evergreens. Carrying notes back and forth between her mother and Emily. Forty years ago, it must have been. She was lively and full of spark as Emily herself. The pair of them headstrong and fierce, full of secrets and schemes. Used to think they were clever as new-minted dollars. But Mattie D sometimes uses her cunning in heedless ways. Like running off to Europe and marrying a Russian. Like renting out the Homestead.
That unsettled me, to be sure, but I saw the need. A house needs people living inside or it goes to ruin. Needs curtains at the windows and lamplight glowing in the parlors at dusk. Needs the clinking of silverware on china and the creaking of stairs from time to time as folks go up and down. It’s calmed me, knowing it still belongs to a Dickinson.
It’s plain I need to find out what’s true and what’s not. Before it’s too late.
And at the minute, smack in the midst of stuffing sausage casings, I resolve to pay a call to the Evergreens this very afternoon. I’ll talk to Mattie D face-to-face and root out the truth. And if need be I’ll give her a piece of my mind.
I finish up quick with the sausages and give the table and counters a good scrubbing. Scrub my hands too to get the sausage smell off them and then, for good measure, I rub them with a dollop of Hinds’ Honey and Almond Cream from the bottle Nell gave me last Christmas.
In my bedroom I change into a clean skirt and blouse and—for good luck—pin my new hat to my head at a jaunty angle. It’s when I’m regarding myself in the mirror I’m struck by a familiar jingly feeling—like I’m starting on a new adventure. Seems the Homestead still has the same uncanny pull on me it did back in 1869, when I first came under its spell.
Chapter Two
1869
It’s said many a fateful change begins on a dreary day. And God’s truth, there’s none more dreary than a February afternoon with the snow coming down and the cold stabbing my bones. I’d been working as maid to Mrs. Talcott only four months—just temporary to tide me over. She didn’t have many visitors, so when a knock came on her front door, I was curious who it was.
The man was tall and spindly, standing there tapping the porch floorboards with his fancy cane. Had a gold nob on top. Caught my eye, it did, even i
n that gray light. “I’m Mr. Dickinson,” he said, and gave the cane another thump—made me look back to his face. It wasn’t a pleasing face at all. Grim and hard with fierce brows and sharp little eyes.
Sure, I knew who he was. Everybody in Amherst knew of Edward Dickinson. His name was always turning up in the papers for one highfalutin thing or another. He was a lawyer and a landlord, treasurer of Amherst College, and a founder of the Agricultural College too. Called him the Squire, folks did, for his proud, swaggering ways. Many a time I spied him in the center of town, strutting along in his grand clothes, swinging that very cane.
I gave him a proper nod. “Come in, sir. If you’ll wait in the parlor, I’ll be fetching Mrs. Talcott.”
He stamped the snow from his boots, took off his hat, and stepped over the sill. I waited for him to give me his coat, but he didn’t take it off. Just laid his skinny hand on my arm and said, “You’re Margaret Maher.” He had the air of a man who thinks saying something makes it so.
“I am, sir,” I said.
He gave me a tiny smile, with the corners of his mouth quirking up and the skin stretching stiff over the bones of his cheeks. It was plain he didn’t do much smiling. “It’s you I’ve come to see.”
Sure, I couldn’t think why. “Me, sir?” An evil thought prickled my mind. “Is it Tom Kelley?” My brother-in-law sometimes worked for the Squire inspecting railroad tracks and doing the odd job. Had he been struck by another accident—and himself still getting used to having only the one arm?
The Squire shook his head and a little bark came out of him. Might have been a laugh—I wasn’t certain. “No, no,” he said. “Tom’s fine.”
I felt a purity of relief, for Tom was a lovely man. Worked hard and brought his wages home to my sister and never took to the drink. Saved enough to buy a lot by the train depot and two square houses stood there now—one for himself and one for his brother James. Named the lot Kelley Square, like a country estate. Made me laugh, for what County Tipperary lad ever thought to be naming his house? Tom had ambitions, he did.
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