Mr. Emerson's Wife

by Amy Belding Brown

  His intelligence was marred by an exquisite sensitivity. When he spoke there was sometimes a tremor in his voice, as if he could barely contain his emotions. Yet when he shared his thoughts during our evening conversations, his words were as caustic and barbed as my own. More than once I heard him speak the very words I was thinking.

  Henry moved into Bush on the twenty-sixth of April, carrying his satchel up the front stairs and through the narrow door on the landing into the room I’d prepared. I’d made the chamber as comfortable as I could, furnishing it with a cot and bookshelf, a small writing desk and chair. Because it lacked an adequate window, I installed an extra lamp and supplied two candlesticks besides. That morning I placed a small jar of flowers on his desk—mayflowers and dogtooth violets I’d found in the woods—their pink and yellow petals lending a small dash of cheer to the otherwise dreary room.

  I lit the lamp and stood in the doorway, watching him take in the room. He kept glancing at me, as if to assure himself that I accepted his occupancy. He seemed unusually shy, awkward in a way he had not been for more than a year.

  “I don’t want my presence to add to your burden,” he said, placing his satchel on the bed. “I’ll wash my own clothes and keep this room clean. Of course it’s understood that I’ll make whatever repairs are needed about the place. Just tell me what’s to be done.” He smiled, then looked away.

  “I’m glad you’re here.” Something in my chest trembled as I spoke, a vibration that was part elation, part warning.

  He looked straight at me then, directly into my eyes, as if to assure himself that I spoke truly, and his look jarred me. It was a look of deference and esteem, a look that approached veneration, but what shook me was the recognition in it. He alone was able to penetrate my carefully acquired refinements and see clearly who I was.

  He turned abruptly to the tiny window overlooking the road to the Mill Dam. Turned as if something in my face had alarmed him.

  It was his expression that caused me to remember the poem he’d presented to me the previous January. He had spent a morning at our house repairing one of our dining-room chairs that had threatened to collapse due to a loosened rung. When he finished he refused my invitation to dinner but instead took my hand and pressed a folded paper into it without speaking.

  The paper contained eight lines written in Henry’s jagged hand—his t’s and I’s made me think of needles—a poem that made my heart pulse in my throat.

  We two that planets erst had been

  Are now a double star,

  And in the heavens may be seen,

  Where that we fixed are.

  Yet whirled with subtle power along,

  Into new space we enter,

  And evermore with spheral song

  Revolve about one centre.

  I’d told him that he must show the poem to Mr. Emerson. I did not acknowledge the thump of recognition in my chest, nor did I admit that the poem perfectly described the triad nature of my affiliation with Henry and my husband. I remember my hands dampening, my thumb leaving a feathery gray blot upon the paper. I remember handing the poem back to him even as its words engraved themselves in my heart.

  He stood, holding the paper pressed against his chest, and I realized his eyes had never left my face. They were still filled with the expectation of praise, and with good reason, for when had I not commended him on the excellence and delicacy of his words? He had made a habit of showing his poems to me before offering them to my husband. On several occasions I’d taken it upon myself to show them to Mr. Emerson with the hope that he might publish them in his new journal, The Dial.

  But this one had been different. This was about us. With it, Henry had crossed a line into a realm of friendship that touched on intimacy.

  Now Henry stood in shadow, his back to me, outlined against the tiny window, in the room I’d prepared for him.

  “The children are delighted you’re living with us,” I said. “Wallie made me promise to allow him a walk with you this afternoon.”

  He swiveled back to me, and he was smiling again, his hair wind-tossed, as always, every strand pitched in a different direction. “I’m delighted too. To be here,” he said, his voice slow and quiet, like a man waking from a pleasant dream. “I feel as if things have finally come right.”

  “Yes,” I said, smiling—I could not help myself—and I sensed something unfolding within me. It was too soon for the new baby to quicken. This sensation was something else, a state of extreme awareness, a rare unity of mind and body. I pictured my heart opening and stretching, like a plant in sunlight.

  Then Wallie called out for me from the nursery.

  14

  Friendship

  It must be rare, indeed, that we meet with one to whom we are prepared to be quite ideally related, as she to us. We should have no reserve; we should give the whole of ourselves to that society; we should have no duty aside from that.

  —HENRY DAVID THOREAU

  Near the end of June, a young cousin of mine came to Bush on an extended visit to help tend the children. Mary, who had been a zealous member of my Bible class in Plymouth, had grown into a beautiful young woman, whose shining eyes reflected her deep interest in spiritual principles.

  Soon after her arrival Mr. Emerson began to engage her in long conversations. More than once I came upon them in the parlor—she, sitting on the floor at his feet, gazing up at him with an adoring expression, her skirts swirled around her with the grace of flower petals—he, elaborating quietly on some philosophical point while bestowing his beneficent smile. Her rapture reminded me of how my first glimpse of Mr. Emerson had moved me in a similar manner.

  Mary captured his interest only by the compliment of her flattery, and not—as Margaret Fuller did—through the force of her personality and intellect. Yet I did not resent Margaret, but strove to be her friend. Friendship was our constant credo in those days—it was nearly a religion with us. We believed people were drawn together by their natures, and that no relationship should be defined or constrained by traditions of gender and culture. We allowed ourselves many liberties in the name of that virtue. Perhaps too many. I did not believe that Mr. Emerson was subject to the corruptions of the flesh. Nor, I told myself, was I.

  Henry’s presence under our roof was a special delight. We’d grown close through long and frequent kitchen conversations while we waited for Mr. Emerson to emerge from his study. With Henry, I had the pleasure of being able to fully assert my opinions, for he enjoyed a hearty debate as well as I. Yet I began to sense that Henry felt a certain discomfort in our home. He was forever wandering off alone in the evenings for a moonlit sail on the river or a walk to Walden Pond.

  Mr. Emerson professed great satisfaction in knowing that Henry was on hand to help me with the children and the household burdens. My husband traveled often on lecture trips and when he was home he always kept closest company with his books. Ours was a strange household, where each inhabitant went about his daily business alone, like a planet in its private orbit.

  I complained, often and loudly. One morning late in June, when my third pregnancy had drained both strength and wisdom from me and Mary had taken the children for a walk, I invaded my husband’s study and demanded his attention.

  “Surely you could put your papers aside for one hour and give me the benefit of your regard.”

  He sighed and did not look up from his book.

  I yanked at my skirts. “Mr. Emerson, there are times when I believe you would prefer me as a decoration upon our mantel. Perhaps you should have my portrait painted on the wall, so I could come and go to Plymouth as I please. I believe you would be perfectly content.”

  He finally removed his gaze from his book, and frowned up at me. “You disappoint me. Are you truly suggesting I’m not a proper husband?”

  My hands knotted into fists, which I struggled to keep hidden in my skirts. “I’m suggesting that this marriage is not as I had imagined it would be.”

  He blinked. �
��That seems to be the nature of marriage. Perhaps if you were less preoccupied with our children—”

  “But the children are my one consolation!” I cried.

  “You cannot view both sides of the same coin at once.” His tone was infuriatingly moderate. “You appear to always prefer motherhood over conversation.”

  “I’m talking with you now, aren’t I?”

  “This is hardly a conversation. You’re overwrought. Nothing is to be gained by argument.” He gazed at me calmly, as if to imply that he alone could perceive the truth. “Now, please, leave me so that I may finish my work. We’ll talk later.”

  I stalked from the room and ran directly up the stairs to my chamber, where I fell into a fit of despondency that lasted the rest of the day. The next morning, I woke with a fever.

  As SPRING PROGRESSED and the garden prospered under Henry’s management, my husband prospered as well. His winter-weakened lungs grew strong and his face and arms bronzed in the sun. For two months he was constant in his daily attentions to the vegetables he had planted. He seemed to regard their germination and growth with the same wonder one might witness a miracle. But when June came and my roses bloomed he ceased his watchfulness, and began to neglect the garden for his study. The vegetables were not ignored, of course, for Henry’s commitment to them never flagged. And Wallie retained his interest in the garden throughout the summer. Whenever I could not locate my son, I always looked first in the garden, where I usually found him on his knees, weeding or pruning the tender plants, performing these chores exactly as Henry had taught him.

  It had long been my habit to spend what free time I had in the garden, caring for my flowers. I took special pride in my roses, for many in Concord had remarked on their beauty and fragrance. One afternoon in early July, while Ellen napped and Mr. Emerson conversed with Mary, I found Henry and Wallie weeding the bean plants with such concentrated pleasure that I abandoned my roses to join them.

  Wallie welcomed me by holding out his soiled hands as if they were medals of honor for which he should be rightfully praised, whereupon Henry did the same, making me laugh and compliment them both.

  We spent an hour there with our hands in the earth, while our conversation ranged from the toughness of weeds to Henry’s reminiscence of a river trip he’d made with his older brother John. Soon Wallie wandered off to collect pebbles, and our discourse became more intimate. Henry confessed that he and John had had a brief falling out over a young woman. “That was more than a year ago.” He bent over the weeds so I could not see his face. “We had a few disagreeable weeks, but the rift is long since healed.” There was a curious entreaty in his tone that invited me to pursue the subject. I wondered at first if I had imagined this, if my curiosity had simply overruled my sense of propriety. But no, he slid a glance in my direction and knocked the soil from the roots of a weed he had pulled.

  “Her name was Ellen.” He smiled and sat back on his heels. “Ellen Sewall. She’s sister to young Edmund, one of the boys enrolled in our school.”

  I nodded. The private school had been popular, and John and Henry Thoreau had quickly become known for their enthusiastic and progressive educational methods, but John’s frail lungs had forced its closure.

  “She came to Concord to visit her aunt who boards with us. John and I both enjoyed her company. We went boating, walking, picnicking …” His voice trailed off as I detected a distinct reddening of his cheeks.

  “It’s all right,” I said. “It’s natural for young men to find pleasure in the company of young ladies.”

  He raised his head. “Perhaps you recall a conversation you and I had at that time. It was a fall morning and I’d come to repair the kitchen door latch.” His words seemed to gather momentum as he spoke, and his last sentence came out in a long rush. “We spoke of love and you said—I recall this very clearly—you said that the only cure for love is to love more. Do you remember?”

  “I do,” I said. “But it was not intended in a particular sense. Nor was it directed at you. I was thinking of my own situation.”

  “But it’s quite true. When love becomes an illness the cure is not to stop loving—an impossibility, after all—the only remedy is to turn it in a new direction. A sort of homeopathy of love.” He smiled, yet I sensed he intended far more than he said—and that he expected me to fully apprehend his meaning.

  I got to my feet and clapped my hands against my skirts to remove the layer of soil. “I’m gratified if I said something you found useful. Though I’m not clear what it has to do with your brother or Miss Sewall.”

  Instantly he was on his own feet beside me. “Don’t you see? I was able to control my heart, to turn it toward Ellen, and away from”—he stopped abruptly and looked down at his knees, then back at me—“from its unsuitable desire.”

  “Unsuitable desire?” I straightened to brush off my sleeves.

  “Yes.” He was staring into my eyes, holding my gaze with his and in that instant I was certain he referred to me.

  “Henry,” I said, slapping again at my skirts, despite the fact that all the dirt likely to come loose had already fallen, “infatuations are altogether common for a young man your age. You must not take them seriously.” I managed to look at him, though it violated my inclination.

  “That’s what I told myself.” His eyes suddenly seemed unbearably sad. I longed to embrace him.

  “So,” I said, forcing a false heartiness into my voice, “what happened to Miss Sewall? Did she return to her family?”

  “John proposed marriage.” He was no longer looking at me, but toward the trees beyond the brook. His voice was dull. “She rejected him. Her family sent her to northern New York to stay with relatives. Then we had our conversation. You and I.” He took a long breath and let it out. “And I wrote to her. I asked her to marry me.”

  “You proposed? Henry, why didn’t you tell us?” Too late, I knew the answer. I inwardly castigated my too-impulsive tongue. “She said no.”

  He nodded and his voice dropped. “I had no reason to expect her to accept. But my mother and aunts”—again, he paused—“they all seemed bent on making Ellen part of our family. And I thought I might come to love her enough.”

  “Oh, Henry!”

  “No,” he said quietly. “I was—quite honestly—relieved.” He turned his gaze on me once again and I saw in his eyes all the answers to the questions I had not asked. Would never ask.

  MY GARDEN CONVERSATION with Henry distressed me. Less because of his interest in me than because of my own unseemly response to that interest. I was fonder of him than I had any right to be. My affection went beyond the natural attractions of friendship. I buried my unease in attentions to my children and the cares of the house, cares that increased whenever my husband traveled. His lecturing schedule required him to go sometimes as far as Pennsylvania, and whenever I protested his absence, he reminded me that his lectures and books were the chief source of our income and that I must not begrudge him the capacity to support his family.

  “I begrudge you nothing,” I said. “I merely ask that occasionally you are mindful of my needs.” It was a Sunday night and we had retired late to our chamber after an evening conversation with Bronson, Elizabeth, Mary, and Henry on the subject of duty and love. The night was oppressively warm; I had flung open the windows. Now, as I stood next to one in my chemise, hoping to catch a trace of cooling breeze upon my skin, I wondered if I ought to close them, for it appeared we were about to quarrel.

  “Mindful of your needs.” He stood before the carved chestnut wardrobe, the light from the mantel candle wavering across his face and neck as he removed his collar. I had the sense that he’d deliberately turned away from me, that he did not care to look in my direction. “I observe every marital courtesy that was ever contrived by woman. What more do you ask?”

  “I ask that you honor me with your thoughts, in the same measure that you honor Mary and Henry.”

  He stepped back, receding into the shadows. I heard hi
m sigh. “So now you’re jealous of our young guests. Though you have access to me day and night—”

  “Access to you?” My voice rose and my fingers clutched the thin fabric of my chemise. “Access when you are away in Boston or Philadelphia or New York three weeks each month? When you lock yourself in your study every morning and take walks with your friends every afternoon? I hardly know you!”

  He came into the pool of candlelight. He had put on his nightshirt and it clung to his chest and arms, attesting to the evening’s damp and close atmosphere. A tiny breeze rippled the curtains. I felt it stroke my bare arms and instinctively leaned closer to the window.

  “I’ve never attempted to hide my defects.”

  “But you no longer love me.” Even as I spoke the words I knew how rueful and bitter they sounded. I had not intended that but, spoken, they could not be taken back.

  “Love.” He sighed again. “Love is not a tide to flood and ebb. I told you before we were married that I loved you in a new and higher way. That has not changed. I know I’m sometimes cold and arid. I don’t possess your emotional elasticity. But I don’t think you have just cause to complain.” He went to the mantel and blew out the candle. “Now we’d best get some sleep. The hour is late.”

  I stood at the window, for I couldn’t bear the thought of lying down beside him. My fingers released the fabric of my skirt and slid together. The emotions that raged through me threatened to shake me to pieces. I left the room, still in my chemise, and went downstairs, where I paced through the warm, silent rooms, wringing my hands and trying to pray, waiting for my outrage to diminish so that I might rest. I don’t know how long I was in that state—it may have been hours, for I was dimly conscious of moonlight growing in long spears across the floor—but eventually I calmed sufficiently to become aware of the sounds beyond my own rapid breathing. I heard the scuttling of mice in the walls, the occasional creak of joists and floors, and finally the chant of crickets, which drew me outside.