Mr. Emerson's Wife

by Amy Belding Brown

  “You and I are going to take a long walk,” he said. “Right now.” He would not listen to my protests. He helped me dress the children and bundle Edith into the perambulator. It was a mild January afternoon. The snow melted in tiny rivers beside the road. I complained that my gown would be quickly muddied, but he paid no heed to what was underfoot, but pointed out every chickadee and squirrel. He demanded that I note the clarity of the sky and the intriguing shapes of the clouds.

  “I am not so old that I’m already blind,” I told him.

  “No, indeed. You’ll never be old in my eyes, Lidian. For the heart sees with perfect clarity.” He was staring at me with an expression of such plain and open affection that I felt a jolt of alarm.

  “You must not say such things,” I said quickly, easing the perambulator over a large rock in the middle of the road. Yet my admonishment was not born of virtue, for even as I spoke I blushed with pleasure.

  “And why not?” He stopped beneath a large chestnut tree whose branches formed a black lacework against the gray January sky. “I determined several years ago I’d adhere to the truth of things and give no heed to the voices of those who limit freedom.”

  “I admire your convictions, but they don’t pertain here. You know the reason.”

  “Because you’re married.”

  “Yes.”

  He folded his arms. “In name only.”

  My breath locked in my throat. “That is not for you to judge.”

  I saw his upper lip twitch and thought he was going to say more, but instead he took Ellen’s hand and turned his attention back to the road. “I’d like to walk out to Walden Pond and look at the ice,” he said.

  His sudden abandonment of our argument took me by surprise. It was unlike him and left me wondering whether or not he accepted my prohibition. I half wanted to continue the dispute.

  “Is it too far?” He wasn’t looking at me, but loomed over the perambulator, watching Edith, who was peacefully asleep.

  “Not at all.” I realized then that his words and the admiration in his gaze had so invigorated me that I was eager to walk those two miles and more—all at Henry’s brisk pace.

  And of course we talked. For when did Henry and I not converse? Our bond was rooted in our conversations, for it was in the exchange of thoughts and ideals that we both became most completely ourselves. Our most intellectual exchanges always had the greatest emotional effect upon me, for I had discovered long before that heart and mind were not two separate units, but connected by the most indestructible filaments.

  On this occasion we fell into a discussion of the relationship between love and hate, Henry asserting that the two were inextricably entwined.

  “The person toward whom I feel love is the same who commands my hate,” he said.

  “No!” I replied, laughing at the absurdity of the declaration. “Love and hate are opposites. They cannot exist within the same heart. Not, at least, at the same time.”

  “But think on it, Lidian!” He stopped in the middle of the path and released Ellen, who ran off to gather pinecones. The bough of a young pine hung above his head, scattering the sunlight into yellow droplets that splashed across his face. “We do not hate those whom we do not know or care for! The Chinaman on the far side of the world is not my enemy for I know nothing of his life. I have no feeling for him at all! Even the Irishman in his hut down by Flint Pond is only an acquaintance, toward whom I hold the mildest sentiment. It’s those closest to me, the ones I most love—my sister, my parents, my most intimate friends—who arouse the greatest anger. Which is the same as hatred, is it not? It’s only those whom we hold dear who can break our hearts.”

  I was frowning throughout this speech, for my mind did not want to admit the truth of his words. “I hate the slaveholder,” I said, “though I do not know him. I hate the man who abuses his livestock, no matter where he lives in the world.”

  “Ah, but antipathy is not the same as hate. There’s a natural—a noble—aversion to injustice. But hatred is something else. It comes from the very depths of the heart.”

  Ellen returned and begged to be carried, so Henry lifted her to his shoulders, where she sat, happily surveying the world as we continued walking.

  “Then are you suggesting that our friendship is based in hate?”

  “No!” He spun in a full circle and Ellen giggled. “It’s based in what is most real—most alive—which is both love and hate. Don’t you see?”

  I did not, but could not think how to refute him. The idea struck me as so alien that it would take me years to comprehend it. Meanwhile, we had reached the pond.

  The sun was halfway down the sky, chasing tree shadows out over the ice. Edith was still asleep in the perambulator. We stood beside the road looking down at the pond—for I could not easily make my way down the steep hill to the shore with the carriage. Henry pointed out the way the ice was cracking in long perpendicular lines along the shore.

  “I’ve wondered about that phenomenon—if seems curious to me that the ice should break so uniformly.”

  I studied the blue lines in the snow-covered ice. They were remarkably straight, as if carved there by some mammoth skater. “Perhaps the ice cutters began their job but couldn’t complete it.”

  He shook his head. “I considered that, but I’ve examined them closely and those marks are natural.”

  “Look!” cried Ellen, pointing eagerly at a group of skaters emerging from a cove near the far shore. “I want to skate too, Mama!”

  “When the ice is stronger you will,” Henry said, without awaiting my answer. “I promise that you and I will skate out to the very center of the pond. And perhaps your mother will come with us too.”

  “Oh, no, Henry,” I said. “I couldn’t.”

  “Why not? Have you never skated?”

  “Yes, as a girl. But that was many years ago, and I’m sure I’ve lost the knack.”

  “It’ll come back to you.” He spoke with such boyish assurance and enthusiasm that I laughed.

  “I’m quite serious,” he said. “I wish I had a pair of skates with me to prove it to you.”

  “I’m very glad you do not.” I looked at him and was instantly unnerved by the challenge in his eyes, for it was not a challenge simply to skate, but to cast away my cautious vigilance.

  Part of me longed to accept. At that moment, I wanted nothing more than to fling away all my restraint and self-discipline and dance across the ice at his side. The ice of the pond was solid, but the ice of my despair had cracked under Henry’s joy.

  Then, as if in warning, Edith stirred in her perambulator and I quickly bent to attend her.

  THAT NIGHT as I lay alone in my bed, I listened to Henry moving about his room. There was but a wall between us, a few plastered lathes, a layer of wallpaper, and air. After a time I heard his bed frame creak and I pictured him reclining beneath his blankets, the weight of his head indenting the pillow I’d stitched from sacking and filled with the feathers of my hens. I imagined the rhythm of his breathing and wondered if he were sleeping. Or was he was lying awake in bed, staring at the ceiling as I was, unable to sleep?

  WHEN I WOKE snow was falling beyond our curtains in its own thick drapery. Dawn had grayed the windowpanes, and a small ridge of snow lay on the floor beneath the sash, for as always I’d opened the window to the night air. The house was so cold the floorboards snapped when I stood. I went into the nursery and checked on the children, who were still sleeping deeply. I wondered if Henry had risen before dawn, as was his custom, and gone abroad before breakfast. But when I went downstairs I found him stoking the dining-room fire. The cap of snow melting from his hair declared that he’d already been out.

  “Just to the barn for wood,” he said, when I commented on his appearance. “There’s two feet of fresh snow out there. Not the best conditions for walking.” He stood and brushed briefly at his knees, then rubbed his hands together. “Did you sleep well last night?”

  “Better than usual,”
I said. “And you?”

  He nodded. “Very well, thank you. Outdoor activity is the best tonic. You should dispose of your pills and powders and partake of the air more often.”

  It was the sort of raillery he frequently adopted in our conversations, and I rarely allowed it to go unchallenged.

  “My pills and powders mystify you,” I said. “Perhaps if you learned to bottle the outdoors I’d partake of it more regularly.”

  He laughed. “But it’s impossible to contain such wealth. Though I mean to share some related thoughts with you after breakfast. If you’ll allow me.” He gestured to the table where lay a small leather-covered book. “My journal.”

  That morning, and many mornings after, he read to me from its pages. Our habit was to retire to the parlor as soon as the breakfast plates were cleared and settle ourselves into the two rocking chairs before the fire. He didn’t read chronologically but selected pages by some unexpressed logic of his own. There were descriptions of the weather and plants he’d discovered, observations of birds and animals, narrations of events he’d witnessed, and philosophical musings. He chose plain, direct sentences to make his points; there was no pretense in his language. Each morning, I found myself more eager than the last to hear new passages he read.

  On the day Mr. Emerson was to return from Philadelphia, Henry read longer than usual. I listened, enraptured, to his account of a midnight sail upon the Concord River.

  He smiled as he closed the book. “You inspire confidence just in the act of listening,” he said. “All that is good and admirable in me is due to the fact that you’re my friend.”

  I was about to refuse his compliment, when he pulled his chair closer to mine and reached across the space between us to take my hand. Instantly a vivid happiness blossomed within, and I felt myself yielding to and returning the ardor I saw in his gaze.

  “If I inspire you, it’s only because your companionship sustains me,” I said. “I could not have endured this past year had it not been for your kindness.”

  He drew my hand to his mouth and kissed it tenderly. A stab of pleasure went through me. Then, just as quickly as it had bloomed, my happiness withered, and I was flooded with a sensation of guilt. I withdrew my hand and lurched to my feet. I did not look at Henry as I hurried from the room, murmuring that I must tend to the children.

  I was disturbed that on the very day I was to be reunited with my husband, I’d found such pleasure in another man’s touch. I fled not to the nursery, but to my chamber, where I fell on my knees and prayed for God’s mercy. Yet I was so wretched in my sin that I found no relief even after an hour’s prayer. Finally I rose and opened my Bible for guidance—a practice that I was given to in times of distress—and my eyes fell on the text of Galatians V:16-17: “This I say then, walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other.”

  The message was clear—though I’d willfully fallen from God’s grace I might yet repent and live a pure life in the Spirit. In fact, it was what God commanded me to do, the direction in which He’d pointed me when He brought me into Mr. Emerson’s sphere. He had brought Henry into our mutual sphere that Mr. Emerson and I might direct him toward His purposes. I resolved to strive more earnestly for obedience, and disabuse Henry of any romantic thoughts. What God had brought together, and I had almost abandoned, with His help I might restore. I spent what remained of the day in single-minded devotion to housekeeping chores.

  MR. EMERSON RETURNED on the late-afternoon coach. He was visibly tired as he carried his satchel into the house. I greeted him with a warmth I’d not exhibited since before Wallie’s birth, yet his response was to ask what mail had come for him. He did not remark on my change in manner, nor apparently notice that I was more subdued than usual that evening. When he inquired after Henry, I reported that he’d gone to the Alcott home for an evening conversation. He retired to our chamber shortly after, where I joined him as soon as I’d settled the children for the night.

  I expected to find him asleep, but instead he sat by the fire, going through a small stack of letters that lay on his lap. His expression was one of contentment; the exhaustion I’d detected earlier and the grief that had lived in his eyes ever since Wallie died was gone.

  I stood in front of my dresser and began to take down my hair. I could see his form in the mirror, and I felt a rush of unexpected tenderness. “Letters from your admirers?”

  He glanced up. “These are Ellen’s letters.”

  My hands began to shake; one of my fingernails caught on a hairpin and the pin clinked to the floor.

  “I keep them in my satchel and read them from time to time.” He leaned his head back against the chair and sighed. “They restore my spirits. And coming home”—he paused and I saw his reflected shoulders rise in a shrug—“this house is a place of such sadness.” His voice trailed off.

  I pulled out another pin and placed it carefully upon the bureau. I thought of Henry’s hand curled around mine, of the warm brush of his lips upon my fingertips. I turned to face my husband. “If her letters sustain you then I’m glad. Perhaps you’d read a passage to me?”

  He studied me thoughtfully. “Sometimes your nobility humbles me.” He looked again at the page in his hand, opened his mouth to read, then swallowed, cleared his throat, and tried again. “‘Few, let them love ever so ardently and purely, have the happiness to lie down in the earth together—the hand of death when it destroys one, merely numbs the other as warning or as a comfort …”’ He stopped, cleared his throat again, and then folded the letter carefully and slid it into its envelope. “I apologize.” His voice was broken and raw. “I thought I’d be able to, but I cannot. Someday you must read them for yourself.” He looked up at me finally. “I wish you’d known her, Lidian. She was as pure and bright a soul as ever walked the earth. When she left this world, I knew it would never see her like again.”

  My hair was all down by then, flowing past my waist. My arms felt stiff and leaden as I removed my dress and chemise and pulled my nightgown over my head.

  “I’ve taken pains to assure that this second marriage will not be a betrayal of my love for her.”

  I must have looked stricken for he half-rose out of the chair, spilling the letters onto the floor. He bent to retrieve them and though I felt an impulse to help, I did not move but stood paralyzed, watching him tenderly collect the envelopes and cradle them against his chest.

  At last he straightened and looked at me. “I’ve always held you in the highest regard. You must not think I regret our marriage. I’m devoted to you and our children.”

  But I was not comforted. Devotion is not the same as love.

  21

  Reputation

  Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our private opinion. What a man thinks of himself that is which determines, or rather, indicates, his fate.

  —HENRY DAVID THOREAU

  Though mutual grief often binds a couple together, my husband and I withdrew into separate worlds after Wallie’s death, and the rift between us widened each day. Mr. Emerson dwelt in the cell of his study while I chained myself to the care of the children and house and fell into a fretful and distressing invalidism. I was beset by headaches and vague pains in my heart. I no longer rose early, but lay abed in a somnolent drowse. I contracted low, persistent fevers, strange debilities of my arms and legs, and a dyspepsia for which the doctor could find no cause or cure.

  Yet daily I grew closer to Henry. He came to my chamber when I was ill and read to me. He read the newspaper and his poems and passages from his journal. He listened patiently to my symptoms and encouraged me to walk outside when I felt strong enough.

  “There’s no remedy more potent than nature,” he said.

  He encouraged me to speak of Wallie. Despite his religious doubts, he didn’t scoff at my assurance that my son was well and safe in heaven, that I’d see him once aga
in. And we talked also of John, who’d been not only Henry’s brother but his dearest friend.

  Yet Henry and I had little need of conversation, for there was an understanding between us that ran deep and pure as an underground river. We were linked at a subterranean level by an attachment that went beyond understanding. How many times the same words sprang from our lips! How often we reacted with the same shudder of excitement to the wind! Or found ourselves swaying to a musical tune with the same delight. Our lives were knit together with no visible seam.

  My feelings for Henry were more complex than the fascination I’d felt for Mr. Emerson during our courtship. They evoked the same ferocity as my feelings for my children, though I never thought of him as a child, despite the difference in our ages.

  Yet I still loved Mr. Emerson. He was a generous and tolerant man, a tender father to my daughters, one of those rare men able to see through the superficial trappings of wealth and fashion and perceive the true value of others. There was not one ounce of dishonesty in him; he was incapable of dissembling. Above all, he was a man who valued ideas, who knew and honored the highest principles. It was as necessary and certain that I love him as it was for the sun to rise each morning.

  How was it possible for me to love two men without feeling that my affections were divided? That was a mystery I begged God to open to me. More, I prayed for the obliteration of my love for Henry, for surely it could not be God’s will that I love them both. Henry’s presence must have its purpose, which I’d not yet discerned.