Mr. Emerson's Wife

by Amy Belding Brown

  After the table was cleared and Mr. Emerson had taken the Rodmans off on a long walk, I took Hitty and Nancy upstairs, where we finished making the bedchamber suitable for our guests. It was half past ten at night when I was finally able to invite the Rodmans upstairs. It was then that Mrs. Rodman confessed in her soft voice that she had neither nightclothes nor brushes with her. Did I have some that she might borrow? And so I handed over my silver brushes and my best nightgown with the ribbons and silk insets.

  When I finally retired that evening it was nearly midnight. Mr. Emerson was already in bed, though not yet asleep. I undressed, put on my old yellowed nightgown and took my hair down, then sat in the chair by the fireplace to plait it.

  “There’s something we must discuss,” I said, reciting the speech I’d been silently preparing all evening. “I hope in the future you’ll consult me before you invite unexpected guests to stay the night. It puts a great burden—”

  Mr. Emerson spoke before I had finished and I wondered later if he, too, had prepared what he would say. “Surely the true worth of a hostess is measured by her ability to respond generously on the instant, making the comfort and pleasure of her guests her chief concern.” He propped himself on his elbows. “And Lidian, you were magnificent! More gracious than I could have hoped for.”

  I dropped my braid as he rose from the bed and crossed the room to me. He took my hands and drew me from the chair. “Don’t you see, my Queen? It’s already begun! Our country home has become a temple of friendship and hospitality! And only days after your arrival! I could not have dreamed so swift and perfect a beginning to our enterprise!”

  His enthusiasm and approval stayed the complaint in my throat. His smile lit my heart. And soon his kisses turned all thoughts of recrimination to joy.

  7

  Associations

  The true economy of housekeeping is simply the art of gathering up all the fragments, so that nothing be lost.

  —LYDIA MARIA CHILD

  Mr. Emerson quickly established the routine he kept for the rest of his life—he rose at six, pulled on his blue wool robe, visited the privy, washed his hands, splashed a few drops of cold water onto his face, dressed, and was seated at the dining-room table by seven, awaiting his breakfast. He rarely wanted much to eat—a thin slice of pie and a cup of coffee sustained him through his morning labors. Sometimes he took a second cup with him into his study, always closing the door firmly behind him. I learned to resent the click of the falling latch, for it meant I would not see him again until one, when he emerged for dinner. In the afternoons, he spent an hour or two writing letters, then went out for a long walk. I sometimes accompanied him, though he had a penchant for woodland paths and fields where brambles caught at my hems and burrs stuck to my petticoats. After his walk, he retired again to his study until the lamps were lit and tea was served. In the evenings, we entertained. Guests came so frequently I began to wonder if I’d ever have the opportunity to speak with him alone again.

  Lucy’s presence and companionship was a pleasant compensation. I consulted her on all manner of things and once, during the privacy of a walk home from the butcher’s, I questioned her on the matter of pregnancy. It troubled me that I’d not yet conceived, for Mr. Emerson’s attentions had been constant and vigorous. I told her this without looking directly at her, focusing my gaze instead on a tree in front of the First Parish Church.

  “I recall that you were quite ill with Frank,” I said. “But my digestion is so often disrupted that I don’t know how I’ll distinguish one condition from the other. I may be expecting a child unaware.”

  “You’ll know well enough when the time comes,” she assured me. “Your menses will cease and you’ll feel fatigued and sore in your bosom.” She stopped and shifted her market basket to her left arm. “Didn’t Mother tell you any of this?”

  I shook my head, and at last found the mettle to face her. “I worry that age has robbed me of fertility. I’m three years past thirty. And I don’t think I could bear it if I were unable to give Mr. Emerson the child he longs for!”

  Lucy’s smile disappeared. I watched something close in her face and knew she was thinking of Charles. “Men are always eager to replicate themselves. But remember, they have no understanding of the rigors of childbearing. Or child rearing, for that matter. I’ve sometimes thought that the barren woman has the best of it.”

  “Lucy! You can’t mean that!” I put my hand over my open basket, as if there were a babe lying inside who required my protection. “How could you imagine living without Sophia and Frank?”

  “I love them dearly, Liddy, but you have no idea—you can’t have any idea until you have your own—what they cost me.”

  “I’m astounded to hear such thoughts from you.” We’d stopped walking and I moved to face her, blocking her way. “God gives us children to increase our love. I thought you of all people, took delight in motherhood. It’s one of the reasons I want my own child.”

  I thought she’d hang her head but instead she looked me straight in the eye. “A child will disturb every belief you ever held, Liddy.”

  I wanted to smile, to make her smile; I tried to think of something light and amusing to say, but her hard gaze emptied my mind. I was relieved when the sound of an approaching wagon required us to move to the side of the road.

  FOR THE FIRST MONTH of my marriage I was entirely caught up in the flurry of decorating. I was so busy I scarcely had time to miss Plymouth. In the parlor I installed cream, watered-satin wallpaper and a carpet in vibrant shades of red. My rosewood cabinet and center table, the red moreen-covered sofa with its elegantly carved legs—all went into that room. The brass andirons I’d polished as a young girl gleamed from the fireplace. In the dining room, I installed my old green-and-white carpet beneath Lucy’s mahogany table.

  I distributed and redistributed the other furniture, convinced that there was a proper place for each piece. I set Mr. Emerson’s favorite rocking chair in the study and added his bachelor bedstead to Charles’s room. The green rocking chair, which had belonged to his first wife, matched the dining-room carpet, so I placed it in a corner of that room, though I soon questioned my wisdom in doing so. Sometimes when we were eating, Mr. Emerson’s gaze rested there, and a certain look came into his face that made me feel forsaken.

  Every day presented countless chores—sweeping floors, dusting furniture, airing chambers, making beds, cleaning and refilling lamps. I spent long hours in the kitchen, preparing meals and supervising Louisa and Nancy. I made caraway cakes seasoned with rosewater, and Indian cake of meal and molasses, adding stewed pumpkin to enrich the batter. I made pies daily, varying them so that Mr. Emerson would not find his diet tedious—apple, cranberry, rhubarb, custard, and huckleberry. I made hasty puddings and cranberry puddings from recipes Aunt Joa gave me. My favorite was bird’s nest pudding, which filled the kitchen with the scent of baking apples.

  All day I moved like a dancer across the scratched wooden floors, responding to the changes of sunlight as it climbed the wall behind the pie safe. By the time Mr. Emerson emerged from his study for dinner, the house was filled with the perfume of domesticity.

  WHEN BRONSON ALCOTT FIRST APPEARED on our front doorstep in his worn and unfashionable clothes, I thought him a vagrant and was about to ask him to go to the kitchen door, when Mr. Emerson came out of his study. Greeting Bronson with a hearty handclasp, he introduced him to me as the most interesting teacher in New England, and led him into the parlor, where Charles was sitting by the fire. Soon the four of us fell to discussing philosophy and education. Our guest had a beatific smile, a serene disposition, and a voice that made me think of sun-warmed seas. Before an hour had passed, I’d invited him to dine and offered him accommodation should he wish to stay the night. His manner was so congenial and his attentions to me so generous that when he accepted I felt he’d bestowed a favor.

  Over dinner, Bronson explained at length his use of Socratic dialogue as a tool to unlock the minds o
f the young. “I’ve recently been discussing Luke’s description of the birth of Christ with my students. My method is to first ensure that they know the meanings of the words. Let me demonstrate. If one of you would play the role of student—” He turned to me. “Would you be willing, Mrs. Emerson?”

  “I’d be honored.” I wondered where Bronson intended to lead me. I felt vaguely wary, as if I needed to be on the alert for the possibility of both pain and pleasure.

  “What is the meaning of the word ‘conceive’?” he asked.

  “To be with child.” I glanced at my husband, but his face registered nothing but a cheerful curiosity.

  “And how do you think a mother feels knowing she is with child?”

  “Happy, of course. She rejoices in her good fortune.” I thought of Lucy, how joyfully she had announced her pregnancies to me. She had been afraid, as well; I had not missed the dread behind her smile.

  “Precisely!” Bronson pushed back his chair, and extended his long legs, digging his heels into my carpet. He rubbed his hands together as if they were cold. “Yet what is women’s experience of childbirth?”

  I felt as if I were reciting a catechism. “Pain and suffering.”

  “And if that is true, how can a woman rejoice when she is with child?”

  “Because she knows she will bring a new life into the world.”

  Bronson beamed, but I saw that Mr. Emerson was frowning.

  “Are you actually teaching such lessons to children, Bronson?”

  “I am!” Bronson turned his radiance upon my husband. “And the children prove Plato’s thesis, that all knowledge resides within the mind at birth, and merely needs the right instruction to draw it forth.”

  “Has no parent objected to your introducing such intimate matters to schoolchildren?” Charles asked.

  Bronson shrugged. “A few. But I cannot be controlled by narrow opinions. These children are vessels of wisdom! They must be allowed expression!”

  “You must pay some attention to your public, Bronson,” Mr. Emerson said. “They are not so wise as you.”

  “It’s a matter of witnessing the truth,” Bronson said.

  “Indeed it is,” I said. “Throughout history the man of greatness has had to stand against the crowd.”

  My husband was still frowning. “That may be. I must say that your disregard for the opinions of others fascinates me.”

  “I advise no course of action that I’m not willing to take myself.” Bronson straightened in his chair and raised his hands. “I’ve applied this teaching method to my own daughters with excellent results.”

  “You have children then?” I smiled at Bronson, whose face seemed to shine with a sacred glory.

  “Three.” He folded his long fingers across the tops of his knees. The brown fabric of his trousers had the faded look that comes with frequent washing. “Elizabeth was born last June. Anna is four and Louisa is two, as different in nature and appearance as two girls can be. Yet both have benefited by early training and observation.” He smiled. Like an angel, I thought. “I’ve discovered in each of them my own affections incarnate.”

  “We hope for children soon,” I said. “I believe the innocent of this world are the greatest teachers.”

  “Yes! It’s been my experience, precisely, Mrs. Emerson! Every child is a revelation!”

  I smiled. “I would go farther. I include the animal kingdom among those innocents.”

  “But so do I, my dear lady! I do!” He could no longer confine himself to his chair but rose to his feet and began to pace in a small circle. “The treatment of dumb beasts is an abomination! No less than slavery!” He stopped and faced me. “I trust you have an abolitionist’s soul?”

  “And heart!” I said vehemently.

  Bronson returned to his chair, his face flushed. “I cannot express the extent of my good fortune in meeting you. I believe I’ve at last found my paradise—in this unexpected corner of creation.”

  Mr. Emerson leaned forward. “You must consider living in Concord, Bronson. I mean to gather a community of philosophers and lovers of nature here, and you ought to be part of it.”

  This was the first I’d heard that my husband planned to assemble a group of like-minded people to live nearby. I would come to be astonished at the lengths to which he would go for that purpose, but then—in those early days—I was as enthusiastic as he, for Bronson utterly inspired me with his words and his serene countenance.

  I HAD, by this time, received several letters from Aunt Mary, who, once I was unequivocally bound to her nephew, had replaced her hostility with a forceful assault on my affections. She was convinced that I could have an exemplary effect on Mr. Emerson and lectured me on methods by which I might divert his pursuit of spiritual beauty to the fight for abolition. She praised me for my devotion to the Cause and insisted that she’d found in me someone so like herself in temperament and thought that it could only be a miracle of God’s grace.

  She soon took it upon herself to invite to my house two abolitionists she’d heard speak near Boston. Not for an evening of conversation in our parlor, but to breakfast. When I pointed out the inconvenience this caused me, she replied in her blunt way that the full schedule of the men prohibited another arrangement. She clearly was used to having family members cater to her whims and expected me to do the same.

  I was equal to any conflict and was determined to stand my ground, until Mother Emerson intervened on Mary’s behalf.

  “It would go a long way toward smoothing the waters if you’d accommodate Mary in this case,” she said when I called on her at the Manse. “What harm can it do, after all, to expose Waldo to these ideas? If it’s a matter of food preparation, I’ll come to the house and help you.”

  Her manner carried an unspoken criticism. Yet in those days I was still so eager to please that I extended the requested invitation without consulting my husband.

  Miss Emerson arrived with George Thompson and Samuel May just after seven o’clock in the morning and they were already settled at the dining-room table when my husband came down for his morning coffee. Although he handled the situation with grace, their presence postponed his habitual retreat to his study, which set him in a bad mood. Yet he sat patiently through an emotional and heated discourse by Mr. Thompson, then put down his fork and fixed him closely with his gaze.

  “Your feelings are noble,” he said. “Yet a cause so sacred as the abolition of slavery requires facts and principles above personal feelings.”

  The abolitionist hesitated in his response, which gave Miss Emerson an opportunity to leap into the conversation, reanimating Mr. Thompson and his friend.

  Though I noted some pointed barbs in my husband’s remarks, neither man appeared to take offense. They departed with Aunt Mary in high spirits, apparently convinced that they’d converted Mr. Emerson to the Cause, while he enjoyed a hearty laugh at their expense.

  Later that evening, when we were alone in our chamber, he raised the subject again. “I’ll always admire your loyalty to principle and truth,” he said, “but I beg you, do not invite guests to our breakfast table again if you wish me to be civil. I require the solitude of my study and the companionship of my books before facing such dunderheads.”

  “Dunderheads?” I cried. “They’re men of principle and compassion!”

  “They’re fools who do no benefit to their Cause. Mr. Thompson is vanity-stricken and won’t allow the words of any other to make the slightest impression on him. Where did you find him?”

  “Aunt Mary asked that I invite them.”

  “I should have known.”

  “I’m entirely in agreement with their thoughts,” I said, as calmly as I was able. I did not like his condescension. “And I think your aunt has done us a great favor in her suggestion.”

  “Lidian.” He took my face between his hands. “You must not let her bully you. She would soon rule the nation if women could vote.”

  “Can you doubt that would be an improvement?” I
asked.

  He didn’t answer, but kissed me, chuckling. It occurred to me as I smiled back at him that he had his own sort of bullying, which was just as effective as his aunt’s.

  SHORTLY AFTER the abolitionists’ visit, I joined the Female Anti-Slavery Society. At my first meeting there were not many in attendance—a handful of women headed by Mrs. Mary Brooks gathered in the dimly lit yellow parlor of the Thoreau boardinghouse on the Mill Dam. We discussed the ethics of secession. Many believed that Massachusetts should withdraw from the Union, for the slaveholding states had cast their spell too completely over Congress. We also complained of the corruption of the churches, the passivity of the clergy, and the depravity of those who justified slavery by quoting Bible verses. As we turned from the issues and began to address ways we might increase our membership, several loud thumps sounded directly over our heads.

  We all looked up, startled, and Cynthia Thoreau apologized. Her boarders, she said, were not always considerate of other guests. There was also her own family, including two active sons. She gestured widely as she spoke, and something in her motions suggested to me a couple of gangly schoolboys wrestling on the floor above our heads. I was thus surprised at the end of the meeting to discover that John and Henry Thoreau were not boys at all, but full-grown men—John a teacher and Henry a student enrolled at Harvard College. John was both charming and cheerful and exchanged pleasantries with the ladies, while Henry hung back in the doorway’s shadows, apparently too shy to mingle. I did not take any particular notice of him that evening, except to observe the depth of his gaze. His eyes were unusually large—or at least gave that impression—and seemed to regard the world with an ageless curiosity.

  Despite our small number, the meeting was lively, and we ended the evening debating whether or not to engage a speaker knowledgeable about the southern plantation system. We argued back and forth for nearly an hour without reaching a satisfactory conclusion. I suggested we might wish to discover who was available for such a lecture before dissipating more energy in speculation. They all regarded me for a moment of chilling silence. Then Cynthia spoke.