Emily's House

by Amy Belding Brown

  “In fact, it was Tom who suggested I come,” the Squire said. “I’m here to hire you.”

  I frowned. Fourteen years I’d been living in America, and working for the Boltwood family most of that time. Now I was done with all that and about to be making something of myself. Come Beltane, I’d be off to California where my brothers, Michael and Tommy, were already digging gold and silver out of the hills.

  “Sure, I’m working for Mrs. Talcott now,” I said.

  “So I understand,” he said. “But it’s a temporary arrangement, is it not? I have it that her niece is coming from Baltimore next week and you won’t be needed.” It was plain he already knew my situation. He was a sly one, the Squire.

  “I’m leaving town first of May, sir,” I said, himself still standing there in his coat and scarf and holding his hat in his hand. “I won’t be coming back. You’ll be wanting to find somebody steady.” I thought certain he’d turn around and go out the door. Who’s so foolish to be hiring a maid when he knows she can only work a few weeks?

  “I’m prepared to offer twice what Mrs. Talcott is paying,” he said as if he’d not heard me. “I assume you’ll be able to put the money to good use.”

  Twice the wages. My mind was calculating how much it would come to. Six weeks of work for double what I was getting could be earning me twenty dollars or more.

  “We have an agreement, then,” the Squire said, sticking out his hand for me to shake, though I’d said nothing. “I’m sure you know where we live. Just down Main Street. The yellow house on the left before the railroad tracks.”

  “I do, sir,” I said, for didn’t I walk past the very house every time I visited my sister?

  He seemed not to notice I didn’t shake his hand. “I shall expect you in a week, then.” He popped his hat back on his head and went out the door.

  “I’ll think on it, sir,” I called after him.

  Down the steps he went and didn’t look back. Left me standing in the doorway watching him go down Prospect Street till he turned the corner. Marching along like a fancy rooster, he was. Set me wondering if he believed I’d said yes, or if he thought himself so grand it didn’t matter I had not.

  I spied my friend Molly Ryan coming around the back of the Hollands’ house with her market basket on her arm. Gave her a wave and went back inside. With luck I’d be chatting with her soon, and the Squire’s offer would surely be a story worth telling.

  In truth, though, his visit rattled me. If the Boltwoods got wind of it—and likely they would—they’d be tormented. It vexed them that the Dickinsons were thought more important than themselves and they wouldn’t like me working for them. It’s something I’ve noticed about gentry—for all their fancy manners, they don’t admire one another. Mostly they just want to be grander than the rest.

  Fanny Boltwood was the first one hired me when I came to Amherst and I was always grateful for her kindness. Not yet fifteen I was then, gawky as a foal and green to boot. But she lectured and scolded, and after a while, I was good as any maid in Amherst. Got so she even used to boast to her friends of my butter making.

  Five years I worked in her big house, doing every kind of drudgery alongside her cook and housekeeper. Then her son married Clarinda Williams and Fanny sent me over to them. Clarinda, like Fanny, was overfond of correcting me, but I liked her well enough. I was her only servant and spent every waking minute keeping house and minding her little ones. When the family moved from Amherst to Washington, DC, and then to Hartford in Connecticut, I was the one doing the planning and packing.

  Sure, I’d still be in Hartford if not for my da dying. Got back to Amherst just two days before he took his last breath. Five days later, Tom fell off the Lamp Black Factory roof and crushed his bones to powder. Lost his arm and came so close to dying I heard the Banshee howling, and myself the only help poor Mary had for his nursing.

  Clarinda got a temporary maid to take my place and begged me to return soon as Tom recovered. But it took all summer for him to heal—it was a blow to a big strong lad like himself. He had more than his share of pain, and the days so hot he had to lie on a cake of ice to keep from perishing of heatstroke. My sister couldn’t have got along without me, not with six children and the littlest only four months old. But once Tom recovered and I was packing my trunk for Hartford, didn’t I come down with the typhoid? Couldn’t lift my head off the pillow for weeks and weeks.

  Clarinda wrote me cheering letters and sent vials of tonic to cure me. In truth, I’d have gone back if my brother Tommy hadn’t sat with me evenings reading out loud from Four Months Among the Gold-Finders and singing the praises of California. Before I was even able to get out of bed, the two of us were scheming to join Michael, who was already there working in the gold mines and sending letters about how grand the place was. Tommy and I agreed when we got there we’d put our money together to buy a house with room for taking in boarders. I’d run the place while Michael and Tommy were mining. I’d be making myself proud instead of drudging for rich folks. Helped cure me, those plans.

  When Tommy left for California in October I wasn’t yet strong enough to go. But I promised to be following him come May. Michael wrote he couldn’t wait to see me again and he’d already arranged to rent a room in San Francisco so I wouldn’t have to worry myself finding one. I bought my ticket and tucked it in the bottom of my trunk. Every night I held the little daguerreotype of himself and Michael in their California clothes and said a prayer for the three of us. I took on temporary work, putting up preserves for Mrs. Hill and cleaning the Lessey house three times a week. Then Mrs. Talcott offered me a short-term job. I saved every penny for the journey. It was to be my greatest adventure.

  Didn’t have the courage to tell Clarinda, though. I thought it best to wait till I got to California and write her a long explaining letter. I wanted to be far enough away there’d be no use trying to persuade me back.

  * * *

  The next morning I made quick work of my errand at the butcher’s and stopped by the Hollands’ kitchen to have a chinwag with Molly Ryan. Molly and myself had enjoyed many a chat. The pair of us liked nothing better than putting our heads together over a lady’s magazine full of gowns and hats. But that day—with Mrs. Talcott’s veal fillet tucked in my basket at one end of the table and the two of us having our tea at the other—we didn’t speak of fashion. I was too busy telling her about Squire Dickinson’s offer.

  Gawking, she was, with her brows raised and her eyes round as dollars. “All that money—’tis a small fortune! Think what you can be buying!”

  She didn’t have to tell me, for I’d already pictured soft wool shawls on my shoulders and smart hats on my head. “ ’Tis tempting, surely,” I said. “But I need to be saving the money for my boardinghouse in California.”

  “Your boardinghouse, is it?” Molly had a wicked twinkle in her eye. “Sure then, the Dickinsons are the folks to be working for, but you’ll be earning every penny. From what I hear they’re quare hawks, every one of them.”

  “Aye, I’ve heard so myself,” I said, recalling a bit of tittle-tattle my sister had shared a few weeks back. “ ’Tis said they’re hard folks, not friendly nor good-natured either. An ailing wife and two spinster daughters, the son living next door, disagreeable as his father and haughty besides.”

  Molly nodded. “And the older daughter—they say she’s daft as a bedbug.”

  I took a look at the clock. “Lord have mercy! Mrs. Talcott will be wondering where I’ve got to!” I stood up quick and got my basket. I had no more time to be spending with Molly. Not when Mrs. Talcott’s dinner was waiting to be made.

  * * *

  “He’s worrying, Squire Dickinson is,” I told Mary and Tom the next Sunday. “There’s something dark and muddling about him. Like thunder itself, grumbling over the hills.” Sunday was my day off and the three of us were sitting in the kitchen at Kelley Square after th
e washing up. Tom was having his third cup of tea and Mary was knitting a pair of gaiters while I rocked my youngest nephew in my arms. Jamie’s teeth were coming in hard, giving him a fierce misery.

  “Stern but fair is what he is,” Tom said. “Are you taking the job, then? Did you give himself a yes?”

  “Sure, he didn’t give me the chance,” I said. “Acted like he thought it was settled—without even a handshake.”

  Tom chuckled. “The Dickinsons have a way of getting what they want, surely.”

  “Like rich folks the world around,” I said, thinking of Squire Cooke selling the farm in Tipperary and turning us Mahers into exiles from our own country.

  Tom looked down into his cup. It was painted all over with green leaves, pretty as a picture. “That’s as may be,” he said. “But they’re not mean-spirited. Pleasant enough once you get to know them.”

  “And how long does that take?” I asked, rocking Jamie. “I’ve not much time before I’m off to California.”

  Mary gave a long sigh. She’d made it plain she didn’t like my going.

  Tom looked up at me. “If the Squire’s set on having you, you’ll not be finding it too taxing. The rest live to please him.”

  Wasn’t sure I liked the sound of that. Men used to being coddled are the troublesome ones.

  “What of the older daughter?” I asked. “Is she cracked like they say?”

  Tom shook his head. “Emily’s not cracked. Peculiar, though, to be sure. I’ve seen her out weeding her garden, happy as the day is long. Then a buggy will turn into the drive and she’ll disappear. Like she’s made of the air itself.”

  Made me curious, what he was saying. “Is she bashful, then?”

  He rubbed his shoulders back and forth along the chair rail. “I don’t know what ails her and that’s the truth. Most times she’s like anyone else. Sharp with her tongue maybe. But all the family’s that way.”

  “Mrs. Talcott calls her the Myth of Amherst,” I said. “Says nobody’s laid eyes on her in years.”

  Tom laughed. “Emily’d like that, I wager. Fond of making a mystery, she is.” He drank the last of his tea and clattered the cup down on its saucer. “A few years back she had trouble with her eyes. Went to Cambridge for treatment and stayed for months. Cured her mostly, though sometimes the light afflicts her. You’ll not be seeing her, then.”

  There was the sound of running above us. Then a young one wailing. Mary shook her head. “Likely it’s Katie,” she said. “Woke up cranky and even Nell hasn’t been able to make her happy today.”

  “I’ll go have a word.” Tom heaved himself out of his chair. The pin fixing his left sleeve to his shoulder came loose and the empty sleeve fluttered down.

  Mary put down her knitting and got to her feet. “Come here, love, and I’ll fix it.” I watched her pin the sleeve and pat his chest. Sometimes she reminded me of Mam, with her tender ways and good common sense. In truth, she’d always been like a mother to my brothers and me. Fifteen years older than myself, she was, and I’d looked up to her all my life.

  She turned to me. “Will you be wanting more tea?”

  I moved Jamie to my other shoulder and rubbed his back, though he didn’t need soothing, for he was fast asleep. “I’ll burst if I have another drop, surely.”

  “Bless you for rocking the wee lad. And himself fretting all week.” She held out her arms to take him.

  “Go on with your knitting,” I said. “He’s grand where he is. Been missing the Boltwood children, I have, so Jamie’s comforting my bones and mending my heart.”

  “There’s naught wrong with your heart,” Mary said. “ ’Tis your tongue wants mending.”

  I laughed. Rocking away with Jamie’s little breaths tickling my neck, I was feeling too comfy to argue. Mary dropped back into her chair and took up her needles and we settled into a sisterly quiet.

  After a time Mary said, “So you’re still fixing on going, is it?”

  “Aye, you know I am,” I said. “Been wanting to see the place since before we left Tipperary.” I thought of the thin little book about America I’d read as a schoolgirl. It belonged to the teacher and sat on a shelf by his desk. The story about California I read over and over. Seemed like it was the Garden of Eden. “Our brothers are prospering there, so why shouldn’t I be prospering too?”

  “I’ll not be sparring with you,” she said. “But I don’t know what I would have done without you when Tom was hurt so.”

  My boldness melted on the spot and tears came into my throat. “It’s not that I’m wanting to be away from you, Mary. I’m thinking you might persuade Tom to move out there too so we’ll all be together again. Michael says it’s sunny and warm the year round and there are more jobs than men.”

  She gave me a sad look. “We both know Tom won’t be getting a regular job. He’s lucky the Squire looks out for him. He’s a good man, the Squire is.”

  Couldn’t think of anything to say to that. I was quiet for a bit, listening to the click of Mary’s needles and Jamie’s sweet breathing. I heard Tom’s feet on the stairs. “I’m guessing I’ll soon be taking the measure of the man for myself,” I said, “since I’m to be working in his house. Sounds like doing his bidding could be a kind of adventure itself.”

  Chapter Three

  It was sleeting the morning I started at the Dickinson house. Had the look of a fortress as I drew near, bowing my head against bits of ice spinning in the frozen air. Like needles, they were, pricking my face and bouncing off my cape. I unlatched the carriage gate and followed the drive past a side porch around to the back of the house. Only family and guests were to be going in and out the front, Tom said.

  Close behind the house was a barn. Sure, it was comforting as a milk cow, seeing it, putting me in mind of the farm in Tipperary and giving me a homesick tingle. Had a notion to step inside just to be smelling the hay and running my hand down a warm animal flank.

  Instead, I pulled my hood tighter and gave the house a hard look. It was massive—two stories with an attic and a cupola, the porch on the west end and a long ell on the east. Close up I could see the walls were brick under the yellow paint. Shutters the same dark green as my calico dress framed the windows. A handsome house, surely, but something about the place made my skin prickle. Felt like sorrow was rising off it like steam from a kettle at the boil. I squeezed my eyes shut. Maybe a sad spirit was haunting the place, or a Faery was warning me off. I waited till the feeling eased before knocking on the ell door.

  It was a few minutes till I heard footsteps and the door opened to a pretty, round-faced woman. She had a big orange cat draped over her arm. “Can I help you?” Her voice was crispy, but then she said, “Oh, you must be the new maid,” in a kinder way. Before I could get out an answer, she waved me in and shut the door quick behind me. In a shed we were, with fresh-split wood stacked against the far wall and a narrow stairway on my right.

  “Margaret, isn’t it?” She didn’t wait for my answer. “I’m Lavinia. Hang your cape on a peg there and I’ll show you around.” She gave me a smile—a little quirk at the corners of her cunning mouth. I still hadn’t said a word—wasn’t given a chance, for she didn’t stop talking. “You must call me Vinnie. Emily and I don’t stand on ceremony. But be sure to address our mother as Mrs. Dickinson or ma’am. She’s dreadfully old-fashioned.”

  I was surprised at the careless way she spoke of her mother, but there was no time for pondering. I followed her through a passage cluttered with brooms and mops, and into a washroom. First thing caught my eye was the copper kettle set into a brick firebox. It was filled with water and steaming away. I’d never worked in a place with the luxury of having hot water close to hand all day. I just stood admiring the wondrous thing.

  “I see you’ve noticed one of Father’s improvements,” Vinnie said. “He’s quite proud of it—and our soapstone sink.” She waved her hand at the e
ast wall, where a stack of dirty pots was waiting to be scoured. “The very best soapstone, we’ve been told.” She blinked her eyes in a comical way. “The well is under the kitchen, so you won’t have to step outside to fetch water.” She pointed to the pump mounted next to the sink and I smiled. It was welcome news, surely.

  “Come along,” she said, hurrying me into the kitchen. Sleet was ticking on the windowpanes and gray light leaked onto the walls and floor. But the room was warm and cheery with its yellow casings and walls green as a Tipperary meadow.

  “Wait here and warm yourself by the stove while I fetch Mother.” She bustled away through another doorway.

  I stood where she’d left me, picturing myself working there. Looked like everything I’d be needing was at hand—a grand cooker, a long worktable, four stout chairs, and a stool. Tubs and basins, shelves and cupboards and a drying rack filled with dish towels and cloths. The oven was decorated with a pretty medallion and the warming doors had fancy scrolls. Sure, somebody in the house liked pretty things. A happy bubble grew in the pit of my stomach. It was not at all the feeling I was expecting.

  Vinnie came back with a thin woman whose skin was gray as I’d ever seen. I thought surely she was at Death’s door. “Mother, this is Margaret.” The cat Vinnie was holding glared at me with wicked yellow eyes and swished its tail like a beast. Sure, I was never fond of cats—they’re always up to one mischief or another.

  “Margaret.” Mrs. Dickinson nodded. She was twisting a little watch on a chain. A slow twisting, like the bones in her hand might be breaking if she moved too quick. “You’re highly regarded in the village for your industry and skill.” She gave me a little smile. “We are so pleased you could come to us. So very pleased.”