Emily's House

by Amy Belding Brown

  “Sure, you’ve been blathering on about it ever since Mass ended,” Mary said. “And it wasn’t the grand weather excited you. ’Twas Patrick Quinn himself, and that’s the truth of it.” I turned and saw her chuckling and twinkling at me.

  “He’s a bit of a flirt, to be sure,” I said. “But there’s no harm in that, now, is there?”

  “Just sets me wondering if you’re wanting a family of your own after all,” Mary said, and I felt a pang, but pushed it away. “I’m thinking maybe you’ve changed your mind about staying single,” she went on. “You’re thirty-six and ’tis no secret a woman’s seasons are numbered.”

  “If it’s marriage I’m wanting, do you think I’d be setting my sights on the likes of himself?” I went back to my chopping. Mary’s words nettled me, for all my bold talk. I didn’t like being pitied for not marrying.

  Willie ran in, whining that Jamie was teasing him, and Mary went off to sort things out. By the time she came back, the meal was half made.

  Mary folded herself into the rocking chair with a sigh. “The headache’s still with me and Jamie’s not a bit of help,” she said. “The boy’s too high-spirited and that’s the truth.”

  I nodded, thinking she was going to be going on about what Jamie’d been up to. But she went right back to talking about Patrick. “You could do worse for a husband. He’s a handsome lad and good-natured, from what I can tell.”

  “Pshaw!” I said, for I didn’t want to be talking about him anymore. Still, it took some of the soreness from her earlier words. Like putting honey on a bee sting.

  That night I went back to the Homestead, promising myself I’d spend less time thinking about Patrick. Hoping I could keep that promise.

  * * *

  Deciding not to think about a lad is a sure way to be carrying him around in your head all the day long. Patrick kept popping into my mind when I wasn’t expecting it. And Mary had been no help, with her deciding I was wanting my own family.

  She was right about my age. Everybody knew a woman who waited too long to be having children could end up having none at all. But long ago I’d seen the value of a single life and was in no rush to marry. Seemed to me a woman should be somebody herself before she became somebody else’s. By the time I was twenty, I’d seen for myself how many wives were doing the same work I was as a maid and getting nothing for it but bad knees, a lame back, and a houseful of hungry children. No wages nor any days off. My sister, for all she was blessed with a lovely husband and children, was worn out by the time she was forty. So I wasn’t yearning after her happiness, surely. I didn’t need the bother of a lover, let alone one who’d pester me to marry.

  But a maid’s life is a lonesome one, even with her sister living close by. I was mindful of what I was missing—the thrill of a lad’s sweet kisses, the pleasure of his smiling eyes, and the comfort of lying in strong arms at night. No matter how many times I reminded myself I didn’t want to give up my freedom, I wasn’t always believing it. There wasn’t much freedom in domestic service, truth to tell. I was bound by the whims of other folks.

  Sure, these thoughts worried me early and late and in the middle of the night. But even as I puzzled over them, I knew their foolishness. For the truth was no lad was asking to marry me, was he? Least of all Patrick Quinn.

  * * *

  December came in hard with biting winds, the kind that froze the laundry stiff on the line and stabbed my fingers when I took it down. Emily liked to say we were feeling the back of the Old North Wind’s hand slapping our cheeks. Sometimes I wondered if she had Irish blood, she liked playing with words so.

  News came in the middle of the month that Judge Lord’s wife, Elizabeth, had died. The poor woman had been so broken down with rheumatism and winter fever, it wasn’t a surprise. But it struck the Dickinsons hard. They’d long prized his friendship and Emily especially felt the blow. She was certain the Judge was bowed low with grieving. She wrote him consoling letters so long they made the envelopes fat.

  Christmas was soon on us. Austin and Ned cut a small tree to set in the corner of the Homestead parlor and Vinnie and Emily trimmed it with ribbons and strings of beads and colored glass balls. Set an angel of creamy wax atop the tree, looking like Saint Gabriel himself. It was lovely when I drew back the drapes and let the sunlight in.

  I was helping Emily twist red ribbon through evergreen boughs on the fireplace mantel when she asked who my sweetheart was. Came out of the blue, her question, though it shouldn’t have surprised me, with the close way she watched folks. Took me a minute to answer.

  “Sure, I don’t have a sweetheart, Miss Emily,” I said.

  “Oh, but I have reason to think you do.” She tilted her head. “For you’re looking as happy as if you’d just received the sacrament.”

  I blinked at her blasphemy, and I must have blushed too, for she laughed and said, “Come, it’s nothing to be ashamed of.” She tucked the end of the ribbon behind a bough and stepped away to see the effect. In her white frock she looked a bit like the tree angel herself. Something graceful and light in the way she held her body made her almost beautiful.

  “Have you ever been in love, miss?” The question came out without my wishing it, born of wondering and that unsettling angel look.

  “In love?” Emily tapped two fingers along her bottom lip. Her smile started slow and opened like a flower. “I would have a quicker answer if you’d asked have I ever not been in love. For that condition I have no memory of at all.” She looked back at the mantel. “Truth to tell, I don’t know how to avoid being in love with someone.”

  I tried to unpuzzle her words. “Is there somebody you’re loving now, then?” I asked.

  She turned to face me again. The flash had drained out of her eyes and they went round and sad—I’d never seen that look on her before. “Oh, my dear Maggie,” she said. “There are so many someones, I wouldn’t know whom to pick.”

  What a quare strange thing to be saying. I couldn’t think what to reply, so I just nodded and quick as I could went back to the kitchen to comfort myself peeling potatoes. But it set me thinking hard about what she meant. For the life of me I couldn’t work it out. Or maybe I didn’t want to—maybe I was fearing what I might find if I thought too hard. It was easier sometimes just to tell myself Emily was a riddle and not go poking around in the shadowy corners of the truth.

  * * *

  With the turning of the year the cold settled in and the snow came down and piled up against the door. It was a hard winter—one affliction following on the heels of another. Vinnie fell sick with a slow fever, keeping her in bed for weeks. Mother Dickinson grew weaker and weaker. She’d been confined to bed since her attack. At first she couldn’t speak, nor feel anything at all on the right side of her body. I made broths and teas and milk toast and oyster soup, and Emily and myself spooned them into her mouth like she was a babby. We moved her into the room next to Emily’s. There was a door between, so Emily could hear and tend her in the night. When she could finally talk again, Mother Dickinson’s mind was a hundred miles from nowhere. She’d ask and ask if the Squire had come. “Why isn’t he home yet?” she’d say, tossing on her pillows. “I don’t understand what’s keeping him.” And she’d beg Emily to watch for him. “Someone needs to wait up,” she’d say. All the color would wash out of Emily’s face and she’d look like she’d been stricken herself. Near broke my heart, seeing it.

  “Hush now,” I’d say, taking Mother Dickinson’s hand and giving a nod to Emily. “No need for Miss Emily to be losing her sleep. I’ll wait up and see him in myself.” It seemed to soothe the poor woman.

  At the Evergreens, Ned had falling fits. Then came word Samuel Bowles had died. Emily looked as if she’d been struck by a plank. She staggered around the house and spent hours in her conservatory though it was bitter cold. In truth, I was puzzled why she took it so hard. He was a friend, surely, and the only mourner who sat
with her through the Squire’s funeral. But she hadn’t laid eyes on him since then. Molly Ryan speculated they’d been secret lovers years back. I told her it was a foolish idea, but more than once I wondered.

  It was near the end of February before I saw Patrick again, and that on a sunny Wednesday afternoon when I was going about my errands in town. The snow was melting into puddles of slush, wetting my hems and chilling the toes in my boots. But the sky was blue and the sun was pouring down and my misery disappeared when I saw himself stepping out of the Amherst House.

  I had my market basket on my arm and it was heavy with a pork loin and a three-pound sack of rice and other sundries. But it could have been made of mist for all the notice I took of it as I stepped up to Patrick. “I’ve not seen you at Mass,” I said. “Where have you been hiding yourself after all?”

  “Ah, Margaret,” he said in his cheerful way. “Don’t you know I’ve been out and about doing the Lord’s work?” And didn’t he laugh like he had the wittiest tongue in Amherst?

  “Now it’s blaspheming you are?” I said as if his words shocked me. “Be off with yourself, then.” And I started to turn away but it was all make-believe, for I was laughing myself. Seemed I couldn’t keep a stern look on my face when he was near.

  He leaned closer. “ ’Tis good to see you, truly it is. Though I have to confess”—I caught a whiff of the whiskey on his breath—“it’s not the Mass I’m missing but your sweet face shining like the dawn itself.”

  “Get away with you!” I said, laughing. His boldness, for all it flattered, made me a bit sad, as I knew it was likely coming from the drink as much as from himself. Irish lads were as fond of their liquor as they were of flirting, to be sure. But in truth, I was pleased to see him. “Would you be heading back to Kelley Square now?” I asked. “For I’m walking to the Dickinsons’ and wouldn’t mind the company.”

  “Sure, I’m happy to provide it, a chara,” he said, and took the basket from my arm like a proper beau.

  At the back door of the Homestead, he put down the basket and leaned toward me. “You’re a handsome woman, Margaret,” he said in a soft voice. His eyes were shining. “And I’m thinking it’s time I was giving you a real kiss.” I saw the crinkles at the corners of his eyes and my heart flipped upside down. I took up the basket and fumbled with the door latch.

  “Will you be going to the dance in Northampton on Saturday night?” he said.

  Meg had told me about the dance, for James McKenna was taking her. I looked back at Patrick. “Are you asking me to go with you, then?”

  “I am indeed.” His smile was warm as sunshine.

  “Sure, I’d like that, Patrick Quinn,” I said, and fled into the house, feeling like a young bird on the rim of a nest, working up the courage to fly.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Saturday morning I was making breakfast when Emily came in from outside, smelling of cold air and melting earth. Surprised me, for I’d seen the crack of lamplight under her door the night before and knew she’d stayed up till the small hours.

  “It’s a fine brisk day,” she said. “And if I’m not mistaken, there’s a ribbon of spring in the wind.” She pulled off her gloves and rubbed her hands together. “March is coming.”

  “A ribbon?” I was cutting slices of ham for the skillet.

  “Haven’t you ever noticed how certain scents flutter around us, Maggie? Like ribbons in a breeze.”

  “Perhaps ’tis your imagination, miss.” I dropped a slice into the pan, where it sizzled in a happy way.

  “Not at all. Come. You must smell it yourself.” She took the knife from my hand as if breakfast didn’t matter and pulled me out onto the piazza. There I stood in the wet cold, shivering while she waited for me to catch the smell she was talking about.

  But it was no use. I didn’t have the clever nose she did, nor the patience that morning to try. I shook my head. “Sorry, miss. I amn’t smelling any ribbons this morning.”

  She laughed. Tipped her head back and chortled at the sky. It wasn’t the first time she’d laughed at something I said. The soft humiliation in it I’d learned to ignore as time passed. But that morning it nettled me—maybe because my mind was mostly on Patrick. Even as I hurried back into the warm kitchen, I was thinking of what I’d like to be saying if I wasn’t a maid. If I was free to speak my mind.

  * * *

  When Patrick came knocking just after seven o’clock, I was ready—wearing my blue calico and burgundy shawl, my heart thumping away in my chest. Soon as I opened the door he looked me up and down, and then he bowed.

  “Sure, you’re the prettiest girl in all of Hampshire County.” He stepped over the sill, took my cloak, put it around my shoulders, and bundled me out of the house. His cosseting made me feel a proper sweetheart. God’s truth, it was lovely.

  He and his friends had rented a horse and cart for carrying everybody to Northampton. The cart was so full the poor horse had a hard pull. All of us were jumbled close, but it kept us warm. Soon I was laughing and talking without a thought for how icy my face was.

  The dance was in the basement of the town hall. We went in a side door and down some steps into a great room bright with gas lamps. Three fiddlers were playing a reel at the far end of the room. Some wooden chairs stood against the walls and there was a long table of refreshments—bowls of lemonade and pink punch and plates of cakes and biscuits. I was smelling the sugar just stepping through the door, my arm locked through Patrick’s and my feet already itching to dance.

  Didn’t I have a grand time? Patrick and myself danced and talked all night. Between jigs and quadrilles he brought me cups of punch and slices of cake. And every time we danced a waltz, he held me closer. By the last one his chest was pressing tight against mine. God’s truth, it was rousing to be in his arms.

  Late in the evening the dancing turned to singing—those sad, sweet ballads that always pull at Irish hearts. “Green Bushes” and “Eileen Aroon” and “Mo Ghile Mear.” Near the end of the night, a lad stood up and sang a ballad I’d never heard before—the tale of a lad longing to go back to the valley of Slievenamon. Sure, it took me straight back to Tipperary, for I knew that mountain so well it was carved on my heart. I remembered walking on its slopes with Michael, picking flowers for our mam. Michael was only two years younger than myself and we did everything together. Close as twins, the pair of us. Thinking of those days made me so homesick, my tears spilled over. Patrick put his arm around my shoulder, and when I looked up, I saw tears running down his own cheeks too. So there the two of us stood, crying like babbies. And I do believe I was never happier in my whole life.

  It was quiet most of the way back to Amherst, for we were all weary. At the Homestead, Patrick handed me down and walked me to the door. Before I could open it, he took both my hands and drew me against himself. “I’m thinking it’s time I was giving you a real kiss,” he whispered. I knew I should be stepping away, but I didn’t move an inch when his mouth came down on mine. Made me so weak in my bones I could barely climb the stairs to my room.

  Sure, I don’t know what made me stop before I went in. Maybe it was the sound of Emily’s footsteps—though it was rare as teats on a hen to hear them. She was usually all silence and glide. More ghost than woman, I sometimes thought. But something made me look up and there she was, not four feet from me in her nightgown and shawl, her hair streaming down.

  “Miss Emily?” I said. “Is something wrong?”

  She shook her head and stepped closer. “Did you have a good time at the ball?”

  “Wasn’t a ball, miss,” I said. “Just a plain old Irish dance.” I kept my hand on the doorknob, for I was reeling with weariness.

  “Coquetry pays no deference to class,” she said. “One can flirt as easily at a barn dance as at a ball.”

  “Sure, I try not to flirt, miss,” I said, though it was a lie. Most of my time with Patrick was giv
en to flirting.

  “Oh no, you must! It’s one of the great pleasures of life!” Even in the dark I could see her eyes sparking mischief. “And who better to flirt with than a handsome Irish rogue?”

  I took my hand off the knob. “Patrick’s not a rogue,” I said. “I’ll be going to bed now if you have no need of me. I’ve Mass in the morning.”

  “Every man’s a rogue if you give him the chance,” she said, smiling, but before I could answer she was gone.

  * * *

  “I like him,” I said to Mary. “And that’s the end of it. So don’t you be telling me what a blackguard he is.” I was too cross to look at my sister, though I was standing in her kitchen, washing her dishes in her sink. “I’ll not be listening to Amherst gossip.”

  It was two weeks after the dance and I’d walked out with Patrick three times since. We went to a fiddlers’ contest, sat through a lecture about the railroad strike in West Virginia, and took a long stroll out to the Agricultural College, just the two of us. Each time he took me back to the Homestead, we kissed on the doorstep. Sure, his kisses were growing longer and sweeter and making me hunger for them when he wasn’t around.

  “ ’Tis not gossip I’m telling you.” My sister’s tone was easy. “I saw him with my own eyes from the parlor window. Kissed Anna Breen on the cheek in broad daylight. If the girl had any self-respect, she’d have slapped his face.”

  I swirled the dishcloth over the last plate and dropped it in the rinse bucket. “A charmer he is and that’s the truth of it,” I said. “But he means nothing by it. ’Tis just his way in the world.”

  I didn’t tell Mary, but I did mind Patrick kissing Anna. She was Ellen’s cousin and fresh from Galway, not a day older than twenty with black hair and blue eyes and skin smooth as cream. She was looking for work as a maid. I was hoping she’d find a place soon—and not anywhere near Amherst.