Emily's House

by Amy Belding Brown

  Patrick laughed his big warm laugh. I might have felt jealous if not for his hand resting so easy on my back. “Maria, this is my friend Margaret Maher.”

  “ ’Tis a pleasure to be meeting you,” I said, giving her my hand to shake. “ ’Twas a grand speech. Stirred my blood, it did.”

  You’d think I’d given her the blessing of the Pope himself from the smile she turned on me. “I’m gratified to hear it,” she said. “Welcome to the cause. I’m hoping you’re as true a warrior as Patrick.”

  “Sure, I’m no warrior,” I said, wondering if she was jesting.

  Patrick laughed. “Whist now, Maria. I’m still recruiting her.”

  Others were clamoring around us. A woman came up and drew Maria away, and we left, going out the door we came in and down the steps to the street. Patrick was in high spirits as he drew me along the sidewalk. “I’m thinking we should celebrate,” he said, walking fast. “Let’s have a cup of tea.” He stopped before a red door and opened it with a flourish. A strap of hanging bells made a tinkling sound when we went in.

  Sure, the tearoom was an enchantment. There were seven tables dressed in white linen and on each one stood a vase of flowers. Three women sat at one, every one of them wearing an elegant hat and shawl. A waiter came up and led us to an empty table. Patrick ordered a pot of tea and a seedcake, and soon as they came, I started asking questions. “How did you meet Miss Doughtery?” I said. “And what did she mean about myself being a warrior? Sure, I’m not a warrior nor ever could be.”

  “But you were roused by Maria’s speech, surely.” I watched him drop sugar into his tea. Brought a memory of our first chat at the Homestead.

  “I was that,” I said. The look of the cake was making my mouth water.

  “And you’ve a warrior’s soul—there’s no denying it.” He smiled across the table and cut into the cake.

  My mind conjured the old stories Da told of warriors and heroes and how he once said I had a heart strong as Cú Chulainn’s. But I couldn’t imagine a way to fight for Ireland’s freedom when I was in America. I was still getting used to the idea of being of the Irish stripe.

  The seedcake was sweet and buttery. Every piece melted on my tongue. I asked Patrick about the lad who spoke to him after the speech.

  Patrick was busying himself cutting more cake. “An old friend from the Hoosac Tunnel,” he said. Something in his face made me wary of asking more. He shifted a wedge of cake onto his fork. “Sure, let’s not spoil the day with talk of old times,” he said. “Let’s enjoy the time we’ve got.” And his smile warmed me top to toe.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Patrick and myself kept walking out together, and the times I was with him, I felt pretty and young. He’d worked a charm on me, to be sure. I saw how other women from St. Bridget’s Parish looked at the pair of us when we strolled on the town common. He took me to the Cattle Show and more dances in Northampton. Once he rented a buggy and drove us out to Pelham and back. And didn’t I feel grand sitting by his side?

  He talked a good deal about Ireland and how much the country suffered. He told me he dreamed of going back—for it’s best to be amongst your own kind, he said. He told me how hard things were the first years when he came to America. New York City was a wicked place then, plagued with cruel and murderous lads who’d rob you quick as look at you. He’d had a hard time finding work at first—taking one odd job after another, everything from ratcatcher to street sweeper. When war came he was glad to sign up for the Union Army, just to get himself out of the city.

  He never spoke much about the war itself. What I found out was in dribs and drabs. It was a dull life mostly, he said. Soldiers were most of the time just sitting around or marching to the next fight. Sometimes a memory would tighten his lips and set a bleak cast to his eyes. I learned not to press him, for when I did he’d go all quiet and gloomy. Once we saw a one-legged lad coming along Amity Street on crutches and Patrick told me he’d seen a friend’s arm blown off in battle. “A shell took it clean off at the shoulder,” he said. “The poor lad died where he fell.”

  “Lord have mercy,” I said.

  But before I could ask questions, he sank into what Emily called a brown study—with his eyes turned down and his mouth a thin line—and I knew he must be thinking dark thoughts. Not for the first time I was certain he was keeping some dreadful secret. But any eejit could see it wasn’t a good time to be asking.

  Patrick had his secrets, surely, and was fond of keeping them close. There were times I wondered if it was his most powerful charm.

  * * *

  Judge Lord came again and Emily went about in a happy daze. The two of them closed themselves into the parlor for hours and I could hear them laughing behind the door. When I called them for dinner, they came out blushing.

  As they came into the dining room, the Judge bent and tugged at a ruffle on Emily’s skirt.

  “Why do you wear such frippery?” he said.

  She laughed. “It seized your attention, didn’t it, Phil? That’s answer enough.”

  “My dear, if it’s my attention you desire, you must take it off altogether. And be assured it’ll be more than my attention you’ll be seizing.” And didn’t he slide his arm around her waist and pull her against him?

  Sure, it made me blush and it should have made Emily blush too, especially with his hands on her that way. Instead she said, “Why, Judge, sir, don’t you know that what you see not, you better see?” And she laughed all the harder.

  But the next time the dressmaker came to the Homestead to be making her frocks, Emily told her to leave off the ruffles and ribbons. Twice a year, it was, Mrs. Noyes and her cloth occupied the dining room for a week. Emily and Vinnie always had a grand time of it, choosing their patterns and fabrics. Vinnie favored the color lilac and sorted through swatches of silk and cambric and velvet for hours, setting them next to one another and holding them up to her face, asking if they flattered her complexion.

  In the fall of 1878 Vinnie decided I must have a new calico. Don’t know what was wrong with my old ones, but I wasn’t about to object. “What do you think, Maggie?” she said, waving a swatch of dark blue sprinkled with yellow and gray flowers.

  “She must have more than one, now that she has a suitor.” Emily smiled in that sly way she had.

  “A suitor?” Vinnie dropped the swatch back into the pile. “Oh, Maggie, you must tell us everything!”

  “Sure, there’s nothing to be telling,” I said. “Patrick’s a friend, is all.” And I pretended there was a pot on the stove needed tending. But I heard them laughing together when I hurried off and I feared they were mocking me again.

  Later Emily came to the kitchen looking sad. “I’m sorry if I spilled a secret,” she said. “I didn’t mean any harm. You’re our own dear Maggie, so to make it up to you, you shall have four new dresses.” She took my hand and led me back to the dining room, where Mrs. Noyes showed me patterns she said might suit. I was glad to have new calicoes, but I would have traded them all for one silk frock, just for the slip of the cloth under my fingers.

  On Christmas Day I wore the prettiest calico I had—dark red with lilac and pink flowers twining across it—and my best wool shawl, the color of cream. Vinnie clapped her hands when she saw me and Emily pronounced it a glory and tried to look solemn. But it was the smile on Mary’s face when I walked into her kitchen filled my heart that morning.

  We had our dinner at Kelley Square, sitting around the big table, young and old alike. Mary wouldn’t let me serve, made Nell and Meg do it, said for once I’d sit and be waited on. We laughed and told stories and feasted together—and what more could I be wishing for?

  Patrick gave me a gift that day. A rosary wrapped in a square of white linen. The beads and cross were the color of honey.

  “It’s been blessed in Ireland,” Patrick said. “ ’Tis made of cow’s horn.” I could h
ear in his voice he was proud of himself.

  I didn’t have the heart to tell him the only rosary I’d ever pray on was the one my mam gave me. So I looped it around my palm and kissed the crucifix before I put it in my pocket. Then I gave him a kiss on the cheek in front of everybody.

  When he walked me back to the Homestead that night, there was a ribbon of ice on the edge of the road and a ribbon of stars above our heads. I shivered when I opened the Homestead gate, and Patrick said, “You’re cold!” and wrapped his arms around me so I felt swaddled tight as a babe. My bones went soft as pudding. I didn’t resist or push him away when his mouth came down on mine. God’s truth, I welcomed his kisses, sinful as I knew they were. For a blaze was running through me, fast as fire climbs a curtain blown too close to a lamp. If it had been the fire of Hell itself consuming me, I wouldn’t have noticed. I was that far gone.

  He didn’t let me go but drew me through the gate and up the drive. Took both my shoulders and kissed me again, hard. My whole body was quivering with wanting him.

  “Don’t leave!” I whispered, my words sounding like a scandal even to my own ears. But I didn’t take them back.

  “Ah, sweet Margaret,” Patrick whispered. “I’m not wanting to leave you, but what would you have me do?”

  I had no answer for his question but couldn’t bear the thought of parting. So my body said what my tongue could not. I took his hand and turned away from the house and led him to the barn.

  The mare lifted her head and nickered for attention when we stepped inside. Then Patrick pulled the big door shut and the warm straw-and-animal smells folded around us. I heard the cow moving in her stall and the sleepy chucking of a few hens on their roosts. We kissed again—long and sweet—and made our way to the back of the barn where hay was banked high against the wall. Patrick slipped his hands around my waist smooth as butter. Then he was laying me down and himself beside me. And whatever was about to happen, I welcomed it, that I did.

  This is love is all I was thinking as Patrick kissed me and his hand moved on my breast and slid up under my skirts. He touched my bare thigh and I shivered and let out a little moan, for my flesh was near melting with the heat of his fingers.

  It was that very minute an unwelcome thought popped into my head—seeing Emily and Judge Lord the last time he came, the way he fondled her neck and slipped his fingers under her collar when they didn’t know I was looking. He’d pried open her top button and she’d laughed and leaned against him for a bit before gently pushing him away. It was as if the two of them were in the barn with us, just a few feet away. And both of them laughing at myself. I was washed all over in shame. I rolled away from Patrick and stood up.

  “What is it, love?” He tried to pull me down again, but I slipped my hand from his and headed for the door.

  “Sure, I don’t know what I’m doing,” I said. “Go home now, Patrick. Leave.”

  He was right behind me. “Don’t be getting angry now. ’Tis loving you, I am.” His voice was sweet and sad in my ear and his breath was warming my neck and then he was turning my face and kissing me again. I almost gave in, but mustered the will to push him off and open the door. He kept following. Even as I was stepping out into the cold he was touching me, trying to draw me back into the barn, calling me darlin’ and ma chree, and all the sweet words he could think of. And the truth of it is my body wanted to stay the whole long night with him and give myself over to his caresses. Even though it would blacken my immortal soul.

  He followed me across the yard to the back door and stole another kiss before I could pull it open. I hissed for him to go and gave him a shove so hard it set him lurching off the step. I told him if he was any kind of man he’d be respecting me instead of stealing kisses. And I said I didn’t want to be seeing him again.

  God’s truth, it was the biggest lie I ever told.

  * * *

  It was Dennis the stableman found my shawl next morning, lying where I left it in the straw. I should have been glad it wasn’t Austin or Ned spying it, but I was so agitated when I saw the lad coming from the barn with that lovely cream wool hanging off his shoulder like an old sheet, I lit into him for being careless.

  “Eejit!” I yelled, yanking it out of his hands. “ ’Tis my best shawl and look what you’ve done! Soiling it like some old rag.”

  “ ’Twas soiled where you left it,” he said, which was true, but the bold look in his eye told me his meaning had layers I didn’t want to think on. Innuendo was what Emily called such talk. I was turning away when he said, “ ’Tis not the only thing you’ve lost.”

  Sure, I whirled around in a fury, thinking he was meaning my virtue. But there was the rosary Patrick gave me dangling from his fingers. “Should be thanking me, I’m thinking,” he said. “I’m guessing you’ll need to be saying some extra prayers after what you did last night.” And he smiled.

  It was all I could do not to spit. Wouldn’t it be just the thing, having it noised all over Amherst the Dickinsons’ maid was too free with her favors? I couldn’t bear the thought of Mary hearing such gossip. I was too old for such goings-on, she’d say, and she’d be right. Too old and too careless of my reputation. Which I knew as well as the next woman was the only treasure worth keeping.

  So instead I took the rosary and mumbled, “Thank you,” and invited Dennis into the kitchen for a slice of cake.

  * * *

  I washed the shawl and hung the rosary Patrick gave me on a nail over my bed. I wasn’t myself the rest of the week. I fretted over the oven being too cold and the cakes not rising. I complained about the gloomy weather and the damp in the walls. And all the while I was thinking of Patrick. I wanted to have nothing to do with him and I wanted to be with him—both at the same time. I fancied what I’d say when I saw him and wondered what he’d be saying back. Should I let him kiss me? Should I walk out with him again? I longed to talk to somebody. But what happened in the barn was too troubling to share with anybody. I knew I’d have to confess it to the priest sooner or later, and even that thought was beyond bearing.

  So I prayed. I said ten decades of the rosary instead of five. I prayed to the Blessed Virgin for fortitude and forgiveness. I prayed to Saint Patrick for mercy and wisdom. And I did everything I could to avoid Patrick Quinn.

  God’s truth, it wasn’t easy. Staying away from him was the hardest thing I’d ever done. For the truth is, that night in the barn left me wanting more. I missed the dazed way his kisses left me feeling. I remembered the sweet fire that rose in the pit of my belly when his hand slid up my leg. I yearned to feel it again. But I was afraid of what I might do if I did.

  It was three weeks before I went to confession. And a hard confession it was, for my poor knees were hurting that day and my head aching as well. Getting the words out near tore my throat. It was a great relief to have it done, though. Father Barry reminded me sinning was contagious and told me to pray for strength. I mustn’t give in to Patrick’s wiles. A woman should only lie down with a lad when she’s his wife. And he gave me a hard penance so I’d not be forgetting.

  After that some of my shame fell away. But the thought of being in Patrick’s arms again still had a glow to it, like living in a happy dream.

  Chapter Twenty

  Life went on in its normal way and I tried to be glad I’d seen the back of Patrick. Amherst had its share of excitement to keep my mind off what I didn’t wish to be thinking. There were always stories about misfortunes, sickness, accidents, and arguments. There were woeful fights at the billiard hall with Irish lads arrested for brawling. And terrible fires. It seemed some part of town was always going up in flames. As if the feverish spirits of America sent the sparks flying. The whole Phoenix Block burned one year, turning barns and houses to ashes. And so many chimney fires I could have marked the weeks of the calendar by them. Many were blaming Irish lads from the Crossing and Irish Hill. Seems it’s always the poor getting blame
d for a town’s hard luck.

  Winter settled toward spring and the snow melted away and the mud came up in the road. Then Patrick turned up at Mass on Easter Sunday. I tried not to be glancing in his direction but I saw him give me a long look and it gave me such a pang I almost left. Soon as Mass was done, I hurried away. Mary came after me, asking what had happened between us, but I said I didn’t care to be talking about it and she let the matter go. Patrick didn’t show up at Kelley Square that afternoon and for that I was grateful. Mostly.

  It was two weeks later Tom came by on his way to town and said Patrick wanted to see me. “The lad is suffering,” he said. “He’s done his penance long enough. It’s time you stopped punishing him.”

  I took Tom’s words to heart. Sure, I didn’t like to think of Patrick suffering. And truth to tell, I was suffering myself. For all my determination to avoid sinning again, my heart was yearning after him.

  Next day Mary came to chat. While I wet the tea she told me Anna Breen had left her post and was back living with James and Ellen. “And Patrick Quinn’s been giving the eye to Katie Murray.”

  “Are they stepping out?” A hot feeling came over me.

  “Sure, I don’t know,” Mary said. “ ’Tis just gossip. Likely it’s Katie herself spreading it.”

  “Or himself, knowing it’ll make me jealous,” I said.

  “Aye,” Mary said. “I wondered about that. What happened between the two of you? Did you give him the back of your hand?”

  “Maybe I should have.” I was thinking hard thoughts that day and letting the tea steep too long. It was bitter as my tongue when I finally got around to confessing the truth to Mary. She was more understanding than I expected and told me I’d done the right thing. Respect was a requirement for love, after all.