Mr. Emerson's Wife

by Amy Belding Brown

  “You’re ill!” He squatted before me like a boy, and the sight of his earnest and innocent face was yet another forceful reminder of his youth.

  “No. No, it’s my condition. A momentary faintness.” I gestured for him to rise. Prayed that he would rise, for I did not think I could bear the combination of his posture and proximity. I longed to tell him everything—all the thoughts and feelings that had passed through me during the past five months. At the very least I yearned to confess that I’d lied to him—that I did not truly know if the child I carried was my husband’s. The urge was so powerful I had to press my hand to my lips to keep from speaking.

  Henry continued to study me for some time.

  “I’m fine now,” I said, unnerved by his scrutiny. Apparently this satisfied his concern, for he rose and resumed telling me of his trip plans. I tried to attend to his words, but my sensibility seemed perversely determined to focus on his body—on the particular slope of his left shoulder and the arc of his arm through the air as he described the Catskill Mountains, at the small cleft in his chin, and the way his neck rose so eagerly from his collar, as if it longed to escape its starched confines. Oh, I was depraved! I could no more guide myself back to virtue and self-discipline than I could have climbed the highest peak in the Catskills.

  I absorbed very little of what Henry told me that day. I recall an unfamiliar relief when he finally returned Mr. Emerson’s book to its shelf and left. I went immediately to my chamber, where I fell on my knees and prayed for God’s forgiveness. I begged Him to show me what I must do to be healed of my desire. I knew if I could not curb it I would sin again.

  26

  Complications

  The intercourse of the sexes, I have dreamed, is incredibly beautiful, too fair to be remembered.

  —HENRY DAVID THOREAU

  It was an unusually dry spring, for the snow had melted early and the long rainy days that were so typical of April never manifested themselves. Instead we had day after day of clear skies and bright sun. The trees budded early and the roadside ditches filled with cowslip and dogbane. Mayflowers and bunchberries crowded the woods. Yet the stream at the bottom of the garden was narrow enough to step across, and the shores of the rivers and ponds widened daily. Ryegrass lay stunted and brown in the fields and the sweet spring soon dried up. I began to worry that our well might run dry and no longer insisted that the entire family take a cold bath each morning. Mr. Emerson expressed a jovial satisfaction at this change in routine, for he’d complained from the first at the shock of cold water on his person. Yet he surprised me by resuming the custom later that summer. It was my first indication that, despite his protestations, he actually prided himself on practicing some of the healthful habits I introduced.

  April ended as dry as August. In the middle of the afternoon on the last day of that month, young Louisa Alcott burst into our kitchen and announced in a wild voice that a fire raged in the woods south of town.

  It was laundry day and Elizabeth Hoar had taken the children for the afternoon so that I might scrub the stains out of their dresses unimpeded. I was grateful for the opportunity to unbend from the washtub, wipe my hands on my apron, and massage the ache in the small of my back.

  “A fire?” I said. “I didn’t hear the bell.” It was the custom in Concord when a fire was discovered for a general alarm to be raised by the strident ringing of church bells. At that signal, all able-bodied men filled their fire buckets and hurried at once to the scene. Mr. Emerson’s two leather buckets hung ready beneath the stairwell in the east entrance.

  I saw that Louisa was trembling. “Where’s Mr. Emerson? Marmee bade me come and tell him.” She stood with both hands on her small bosom, her words punctuated with hiccups of panic.

  “At the town meeting. Surely your father’s there, too.”

  She shook her head. “He went to visit the Shakers today.”

  At that moment, the alarm began to ring—first the low, solemn First Parish bell, then the livelier one of the Trinitarian Church. Louisa ran outside and I followed.

  “There!” Louisa pointed to a low ridge of trees beyond the poorhouse. I had to squint to detect the braid of gray smoke unraveling on the horizon.

  The sound of hooves made me turn to see Edmund Hosmer bearing down on us with his big plow horse and wagon. The wagon bed was filled with water buckets and three of his sons. One of them waved happily, but Edmund, who sat on the high wagon seat, set his face grimly on the road ahead, barely nodding as he passed.

  “Oh, if only I were a boy and could go!” Louisa ran a few steps after the wagon. The yearning in her narrow shoulders was plain. The sight made me recall the crisp autumn day in 1828 when my brother left for Paris to study medicine—how I’d longed to accompany him! I stood on the wharf for more than an hour, watching the cold wind fill the ship’s huge sails and drive it slowly out of Plymouth Harbor. Despite Lucy’s earnest pleas that I would catch my death, I’d not moved until the last sail disappeared from sight. I’d thought then—and since—how well the sea represented the great chasm between the lives of men and women. No matter how many books I read, no matter how fiercely I debated the newest philosophies, I could never become a doctor or a lawyer. My sex was more constricting than any corset.

  I looked at the barn, at the wide, dark door below the schoolroom window. It had been left open to allow the horse and cow stalls to freshen in the spring air. “Louisa,” I said. “I’m going to hitch up Mr. Emerson’s buggy and ride out to Fair Haven and observe the situation myself. Would you like to come?”

  She spun and stared up at me. Though she said nothing, her eyes grew round and wide.

  “It would be a sort of adventure,” I said. “Just the two of us. The kind of thing I used to do when I was your age. One night I took my papa’s mare for a long ride on the beach. There was a full moon out and I could see everything so clearly. I must have been thirteen or fourteen. I didn’t bridle her. I can’t abide the practice.” For a moment, I felt again the salt wind in my face and my loosened hair streaming out behind me as I raced along the beach. The mare’s great hooves thudding beneath me, the suck and hiss of the tide, and the moon rising like a silver plate above the water—it all came back to me in a wash of memory.

  “You?” Louisa took two sharp breaths, and a pucker appeared in her right cheek. “I can’t picture you galloping about on an unbridled horse.” But the pucker had deepened to a dimple and she was looking at me with an expression that mixed confusion and hope. I smiled and reached for her hands. “There’s much that people in Concord don’t know about me,” I said. “I’ve changed since I was your age. At least, outwardly. But”—I moved my hand to her shoulder and smiled so broadly I felt my own dimple begin to reveal itself—“we must hurry if we’re going to reach Fair Haven before the excitement’s over.”

  Though it had been years since I hitched a horse to a buggy—my mother and aunts had often cautioned me against such unladylike ways—Louisa was familiar with the task, and in a surprisingly short time we managed to back Sable into the traces and harness her to the buggy. It was when I climbed clumsily aboard that Louisa—who had already scrambled up to perch on the high driver’s seat—gave a soft cry.

  “I forgot your condition!” She had half-covered her mouth with her hand and was gazing at my abdomen. “You can’t drive on the Fair Haven Road! There are too many ruts! What about the baby?”

  “Nonsense!” I said, losing my own uncertainty in the face of her distress. “Babies are sturdy creatures, well protected within. Any jarring we’re subjected to will be mere rocking to the child.” I sat beside her and picked up the reins. “Besides, Mrs. Child recommends exercise in the open air while carrying a child. In her book she claims it’s very beneficial.”

  “Mrs. Lydia Child?”

  “Yes, your mother’s friend. Perhaps she’s discussed such things during one of her visits.”

  “No,” Louisa shook her head. “Or perhaps she has, but I haven’t paid attention sinc
e I don’t plan to marry.”

  I almost laughed at the childish satisfaction in her voice. “When I was your age I had no plans to marry, either.” I flicked the reins and urged Sable onto the road. “But God has a way of reformulating our plans for His own purposes.”

  “Well, if someone like Mr. Emerson proposed to me, I’d accept.” Her voice had softened.

  I glanced at her. A fine blush had darkened her olive-toned skin. I’d known for some months that she harbored an infatuation for my husband, as had so many girls before her. I had even spied her singing a love song outside his study window one warm summer evening.

  I felt a sudden rush of affection for her. “See? You make my point! We must not erect obstacles to God’s will, but be always open to His calling.”

  “Well, I hope He calls me to be an authoress like Mrs. Child.” She sighed and folded her arms across her breast. I saw that the blush had not yet left her cheeks. I smiled, for her reveries made me remember my own girlish dreams. I’d once imagined writing a book—a philosophical tome, heavy with ideas. A book that would so impress the deans at Harvard College that they would allow me to attend classes there.

  Sable trotted along easily, without urging or direction. The fields were beginning to green but the trees had not yet put out their leaves so there was no shade to shield us from the sun. My eyes began to water and I was forced to pull my bonnet forward, screening my face. As we turned onto Sudbury Road, two men on horseback rode past at a gallop, fire buckets attached to their saddles. I recognized John Wilder, the Trinitarian minister, and George Minott, our neighbor across the way. Louisa waved cheerfully and I nodded my regards. Smoke burdened the air as we neared its source, and soon we both began to cough. I pulled my handkerchief from my sleeve and urged her to hold it across her mouth and nose as protection from the noxious fumes. A rabbit bolted suddenly across the road in front of us and I pulled hard on the reins, slowing Sable to a walk. My heart ached at this proof that the fire was driving animals from their dens.

  “Whoever set this fire is a monster!” I cried, letting impulse rule my tongue.

  Louisa looked at me solemnly. “Maybe it was an accident. No one would set fire to the woods on purpose.”

  “Carelessness does not render one unaccountable!” I reminded her.

  We rode on in silence for a time, holding our thoughts in private. Smoke billowed around us, like a great gray cape blown in the wind. Fair Haven Hill rose up ahead, a massive dark mound, reminding me of the back of the whale I’d once seen surface and roll out of the dark water beyond my father’s ships in Plymouth Harbor. There was a powerful smell of burning wood and the acrid stench of wet ashes. Through the trees, I could see flames at the height of my head, blistering the trunks. Then I caught sight of a man walking toward us through the smoke, his shoulders hunched forward and his head bowed low. I slowed the buggy, and was turning Sable toward the right ditch when Louisa cried out, “It’s Mr. Thoreau!” and tumbled from the buggy in a commotion of limbs and ringlets. She ran pell-mell toward the figure while I peered through the soot-filled air, quickly satisfying myself that she was right—It was indeed Henry who walked so dejectedly toward town. I would have climbed down from the buggy myself had not the stench so overpowered me at that moment that I was forced to bend forward and inhale deeply to keep from vomiting.

  By the time I straightened, Louisa had clasped Henry’s arm and drawn him near the buggy.

  “Henry!” I cried, barely able to speak as my own weakness poured into sympathy for him. I knew how he prized the woods surrounding Concord, and was certain their destruction cut him to the quick. Supposing him weary from battling the blaze, I urged him to climb into the buggy. “Let us carry you home! You’re exhausted!”

  He raised his head and looked at me. His eyes were sunken and the skin of his cheeks pouched sadly. “It’s my fault.” His voice scratched the air, a dark abrasion in the smoky gloom.

  “Your fault?” I gaped at him, wondering if the smoke had made him go out of his head. “Nonsense! Climb into the buggy and we’ll get you out of this horrid smoke.”

  But he shook his head and made a sweeping gesture toward the flames that, I saw with alarm, were advancing toward us through the trees. “I started it—a fool’s idiocy—I was bent on cooking up a chowder—” He stopped and coughed.

  “Spare your voice,” I said. “You can tell your story later. For now it’s urgent that we leave this place.”

  But he shook his head again, and backed away, shaking off Louisa’s hands as well as my words. His eyes momentarily met mine and I felt the shock of his despair. He turned away and walked quickly into the woods. Though I knew black moods sometimes assailed him, I’d never seen Henry so melancholy.

  As quickly as I could, I climbed down from the buggy and together Louisa and I attempted to follow, but the smoky conditions and the thickness of the undergrowth made the task impossible. Nor did I have sufficient heart for it, knowing that Henry was bent on resisting any attempt to secure his safety. I prayed he would return home safely and that I would subsequently learn the truth of the matter.

  Mr. Emerson met us at the front gate of Bush, fire buckets in hand. He greeted Louisa as he always did—with a paternal smile—and helped her down from the buggy. “Go home, child,” he said, patting her shoulder. “See to your mother and sisters. There’s a fire in the woods south of town.”

  “We saw it!” Louisa exclaimed, fairly dancing around him in her excitement. “That’s where we were!”

  Mr. Emerson frowned up at me. “Is this so?”

  “I’m fine,” I said. “We drove out toward Fair Haven, but smoke overcame us and we turned back.” I set the reins in their hitch and climbed down. “I don’t think you ought to go, though, Mr. Emerson. Your lungs weren’t strong this winter and smoke would damage them further.”

  “I won’t put myself in needless danger,” he said. “I’m sure every man in Concord is fighting the fire at this moment. My absence would be noted.”

  “Then go if you must.” I knew there was little point in arguing with Mr. Emerson when public opinion was in the mix. My husband’s concern for his reputation had grown with his fame. I turned to Louisa, who seemed about to speak. Intuition told me she was on the verge of telling my husband about our encounter with Henry.

  “Go home, as Mr. Emerson told you,” I said quickly. “Your poor mother is probably sick with worry.”

  I watched Louisa run through our small orchard to Lexington Road, while Mr. Emerson climbed into the buggy. I handed up his fire buckets.

  “I’m glad Henry’s on an excursion today,” he said. “This would be very hard for him to bear. Though I suppose it will be just as hard when he returns.”

  I said nothing, holding my silence and patting Sable’s flanks as he turned her toward the road. But if I hoped by my silence to protect Henry’s reputation, it was a futile effort. By the time the sun rose the next morning over the haze-rimmed trees, the entire village knew that he and young Edward Hoar—Elizabeth’s brother—were responsible for the conflagration. They had been rowing a boat up the Sudbury River and stopped near the Fair Haven cliffs, where they had cooked their cache of fish in a hollow stump. Sparks from the fire ignited the undergrowth. Henry and Edward battled the flames for more than an hour, but their efforts were in vain. I learned later that after our encounter on the road, Henry climbed to the top of the cliffs and sat in a daze, watching the fire for hours.

  I did not see him until three days later, when he walked into our dining room where I was repairing the torn hem of a bedsheet.

  “Henry!” His appearance was quite normal, in remarkable contrast to what it had been the day of the fire. Indeed, he looked as if he’d just come fresh from a country ramble, for his hair was disheveled and his cheeks a wind-stung red. I thought I detected the odor of soot upon him, but it could have been my imagination, so completely had my thoughts remained with him in the fiery woods. “You look surprisingly well,” I said.


  He smiled with his customary cheer. “And why shouldn’t I? I’ve just come from a long morning tramp on the Old Marlborough Road.”

  “I thought you might have confined yourself to your chamber after …” I could not complete my sentence.

  “After what?” His eyebrows folded softly together. “Why would I confine myself to my chamber on such a fine day?”

  I wondered if he had truly put the fire out of his mind, or if he were playing some prank. His fine sense of humor blended with a skill at playacting that had often deceived his family and friends. He had several times bested my husband in this way, for Mr. Emerson, despite his intellect, was ill-equipped to see through a prankster’s deceit.

  “I thought perhaps you were still melancholy because of the fire.” I felt awkward and coarse, my body bulging beneath my skirts. My hands frittered at a woolen pleat.

  He nodded and his eyes went sad. “It’s a loss to everyone in Concord. Particularly the birds and animals that nested among those trees. There are few woodlots as it is, and the destruction of one impoverishes us all.”

  I searched his face for some trace of the guilt I knew he must feel. The entire village was talking about his part in starting the conflagration, but he appeared innocent of any culpability.

  “Henry?” I said. “Don’t you remember our encounter on the afternoon of the fire? In the woodlot on the road north of the cliffs?”

  “Encounter?” His face went soft with confusion.

  “Yes, on the road to Fair Haven, in the smoke.” I reached for him; my fingers grasped his coat sleeves and drew him toward me so that I could command his gaze and force him to see that I knew what had happened. I longed to assure him that he did not need to hide the truth from me.