“I was born—on a—farm—near a small town called Ashville, Miss, a day’s ride south from Charlestown, South Carolina.”
“A dear friend of mine from Boston moved to the South, to Louisiana, I believe, but I have not any southern acquaintances and, I have to say, I find the manner of speaking very charming.”
“There’s folks who speak a spell better than I, Miss. I grew up working—on the farm—and I have not had the advantage of book learnin’.”
“Nevertheless, it gives me pleasure to hear you speak.”
“I do read. My mama taught me to read by teaching me the Bible.”
“That is how I learned as well—I think. I can barely remember. But both my parents are serious readers of the Scriptures and we were made to read them, and recite them, well, religiously. Mr. Melville here is a writer of books.”
“That I have been told. Mr. Whitman, too.”
“So, we fellow readers are in excellent company!”
Between the Hyde Park and Suffolk stations, the views were of pastures and horse farms and rolling leas with nary a hint of the vast salt waters of the nearby sound. One particular view, just past Westbury, of a gentle wooded rise with clearings where wild flowers grew in profusion, inspired William Johnson to proclaim, “The hills—from whence cometh my help.”
Emily, smiling, replied, “My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth.”
“Oh my, Miss Emily.”
“Psalm number one-twenty-one. I know it well.”
“Mightily impressed I am. Do you believe in the Bible, Miss Emily?”
“In what sense?”
“In every sense, I guess.”
“My facile answer, the one I would give in public, the one I would say when seated at my parents’ table, would be yes.”
“Now that is a wise answer, wise and sly and incomplete.”
“Cowardly and incomplete perhaps,” she said. And this comment of hers inspired him anew.
“They were cowards to God’s Covenant, refused to walk by his Word. They forgot what he had done—the marvels he’d done right before their eyes.”
Melville, awake now and listening but with his eyes still closed, startled them both with a quote of his own … “No more masses and corpse gifts—no more tithes and offerings to make men poor—no more prayers or psalms to make men cowards—no more christenings and penances and confessions and marriages.”
“What heresy is that, Mr. Melville?” Johnson asked.
“Some lines from the heretical Walter Scott,” he answered, opening his eyes and looking at Emily.
“And yet you have married,” Emily said to him with a mischievous grin.
“Now I shall quote Saint Ambrose, ‘If you are in Rome, live in the Roman way; if you are elsewhere, live as they do there.’”
“I see,” she said. “An adage you have taken fullest to the heart.”
“Who was this Walter Scott? And I am ashamed to add I have never heard of Saint Ambrose neither,” Johnson said, wide-eyed.
“Scott was a Scot. As for the other fellow, I’ve no idea.”
“The only thing I know about St. Ambrose,” said Emily, “is that he is the patron saint of bee keepers.”
“Hmm,” said Whitman, awake now as well, “Honey is a bee’s nectar. There must be some relation to the word ambrosia, a drink, a nectar that conferred permanent youth and immortality, brought, it was said, by doves to the gods on Mount Olympus.”
“Immortality, as in not dying?” asked Johnson.
“Exactly that,” said Melville.
“As you can see, William,” Whitman added, touching the man on his knee for emphasis, “you are no longer in Bible class but in the wicked North.”
“I would not care to be immortal,” said Emily.
“How about ageless?” Melville asked. “How about if you could remain the age you are right now?”
“I should think I would get bored with it. I think it is through the process of ageing, that it is because of our mortality, that one appreciates what one has, that one feels things at all, in the moment.”
“I agree,” said Melville. “I certainly appreciate the present more, knowing what, inevitably, is going to come.”
They locked eyes again.
“I am all for immortality and not growing old,” said Whitman. “I am in a state of health and life now that I should like to conserve forever. God’s design to have instructed Nature to make all living things age and die is as cruel as cruel can be.”
“The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away,” said Johnson.
Between Medford and Riverhead the terrain was dull. Acres of scrub oak and shabby pine devoid of grace or majesty, a desert of low sparse growth Emily hoped would not continue for very long. And then, at Jamesport, everything did change. What had been low, sharp and prickly softened again with the appearance of tended lawns, leafy trees, and the shimmering waters of Flanders Bay. Moored skiffs, sailboats, bright sand, and white gulls resting on the sloping shingled roofs of modest white clapboard houses. Here the break from the city was complete, the sensation that Manhattan had been left definitively behind was palpable.
“Look, Armando—It’s lovely.”
She said it innocently, spontaneously. No longer was he Mr. Melville. The tenderness of this simple gesture harpooned his heart. And Whitman, a clumsy man physically at times but, a sensitive one in every other regard, picked up on it. What he had sensed the day and night before, and then seeing how their travel party had suddenly dwindled from four of them to just these two, underlined it further. The scandal of it appealed to him, in a genuine and nonjudgmental way. He took it as a healthy sign of Nature when beings were attracted to each other despite society’s restrictions. He knew Melville was married to the daughter of a well-known Boston judge, but the man had his reputation as well. Anyone capable of cavorting for months with primitive peoples on an island on the other side of the Earth in no apparent hurry to return to civilization would surely not feel overly bound by a New England marriage vow. The girl’s situation was something else again. She appeared to be unblemished and a New Englander through and through who had clearly been raised within a family of upright Puritans. The plain way she dressed and wore her hair and carried herself all bespoke decorum.
The train arrived at Greenport half an hour later where the foursome hired a carriage to take them to the picnic grounds from where one could see the ferry piers. The only black man William Johnson saw in that extremity of Long Island that day was the gentleman who drove the carriage, a man who looked at Johnson with alternating measures of skepticism and astonishment.
When they arrived at their destination, a park with tall trees and a small pond that ended at a beach, the driver spoke to Whitman, who had offered to pay, as the others walked off.
“S’cuse me sir—one minute.”
Whitman put his change back into his pocket and smiled at the man.
“I’m usually very good at minding my own business, sir, but you all seem like good folk and I’d hate to see something sour happen.”
“Go on.”
“The colored man with you. He a slave?”
“What are you getting at man?”
“What I’m getting at is that you can count the number of colored folk around here on one hand and all of them are known and accounted for—so this man you have with you is going to draw a lot of attention as you try to get on that ferry. If you can’t give a proper explanation for him you are going to have some trouble on your hands and that poor boy will go back to where he come from. This is not a community in sympathy with the abolitionist movement.”
“I see.”
“I just thought you should know.”
“Well, I do appreciate that.”
“Perhaps you were told differently—but I have seen bad things happen here of this nature.”
“What is your own story, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“All the coloreds in this area, all five of us, are related and rel
ated in kind to the Shinnecock Indians who were here before everyone else. One of them married a black woman some time ago. Nobody knows where she came from.”
“Our friend William Johnson, here, also has an American Indian ancestor, but it has not done him any good.”
“Because he comes from the South.”
“Yes.”
“There you go then. We live on a reservation. They can’t do us any harm there.”
“No way you could pass our man off as I relative I suppose.”
“Not with that accent of his. And moving him around in broad daylight is not the best plan either, I can tell you that.”
This irked Whitman to no end because part of him had known it to be true and he had been warned against it by others and he had gone ahead anyway, forcing himself to believe it all the imaginings of alarmists. His own benevolent and progressive views of New York and Long Island—in spite of his own harrowing experience in the township of Southold, an event he had deposited in a different archive—had gotten in his way.
“What would you suggest?” he asked, suddenly solicitous of a man who, up until ten minutes ago, was barely worth regarding.
“Either wait until nightfall and go for the last ferry taking your chances when the Blackbirders are mostly in the taverns getting drunk—or—go back and get him up to Boston the way he’s supposed to go.”
Whitman looked down, perturbed. By this time, the others had stopped and turned in their tracks. Shielding their eyes from the glaring sun they were aware something was afoot. He could not face them with this bleak revelation. But should he risk having Johnson apprehended that afternoon? The shame of it, and the publicity when the local press got wind of it, would be excruciating. His pause and paralysis allowed the carriage driver’s brain to pursue another option.
“Or …”
Whitman looked up.
“… I had a client this morning, a local man of good standing I overheard worrying about how to get his sailboat to New London for repairs, looking for someone to get it there for him.”
“Could you look into that for us? I’ll make it worth your while.”
“I could do that. He doesn’t live far from here. But do you know how to sail?”
“One of us certainly does. Look, we’ll be just over there under that tree,” said Whitman pointing to a spot near the beach.
As the driver pulled away Melville came up to Whitman.
“What was that all about?”
“We have to talk, I’m afraid.”
“Let me offer a guess—something about this escaped slave you’re looking to get up to Boston.”
Whitman, sheepish, scratched the back of his neck.
“Did he say something?”
“Nope.”
“I suppose it has been somewhat obvious.”
“I don’t think Emily suspects, but why would she?”
“I’m sorry I didn’t come on straight to you about it.”
“Me, too.”
“And now we—I—have a problem.”
As they started to walk to join Emily and Johnson who had resumed strolling toward the beach on their own, Whitman related his conversation with the driver.
“What kind of a boat is it?”
“I’ve no idea. I don’t know anything about boats. But look, if worse comes to worse I’ll invent some kind of excuse and take William back to New York with me on the train this afternoon and try again tomorrow going north by the usual route. You and Miss Dickinson can take the ferry as planned. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“Let’s see what transpires,” said Melville, patting Whitman on the back. “I must say the idea a man can’t go where he wishes in this country, any man who is not a criminal convicted of an actual crime, makes me angry.”
“I’d hoped we were sufficiently far north to be rid of these other kinds of people. I mean, this is the State of New York.”
“I’m sure in ten years time no one young today will believe these things ever went on. But at the moment, we are still in the middle of it. It’s painful to think about but I expect we need to. I feel bad too about flying high over your question yesterday about the abolitionists. It’s just that my natural reaction when faced with fanatics of any stripe is to turn and run!”
Whitman laughed, relieved by this change in Melville’s humor. Alienating such a talent was not something he had looked forward to.
While the carriage driver ran his errand the four travelers rested under an elm tree on a low rise looking down to the shore. Emily removed her shoes and loosened the buttons at her collar and lay back nestling her head on Melville’s folded jacket. Whitman unpacked the meal prepared for them early that morning in Downing’s kitchen—meat cutlets and bread and fried oysters and raw carrots and ale. In an effort to make the atmosphere amusing, Melville addressed William Johnson.
“William, I expect you’ve left behind at least one young lady very unhappy over your departure.”
“The only lady I’ve left unhappy down there is my mama, Mr. Melville. I don’t go in much for young ladies. I prefer men.”
“I see,” said Melville, not quite believing what he had just heard.
Emily rose up on her elbows. Whitman blushed. Johnson himself did not seem vexed or embarrassed or up to any mischief.
“You mean romantically?” Emily asked, genuinely astonished.
“Yes, ma’am. Physically speaking, I mean.”
“You mean you are not attracted to women?”
“No, Miss Emily. Not in that way. But I like some women very much. The best friends I have ever had have all been women.”
“I don’t know how things are in South Carolina, William,” Melville said, “But up here, I don’t recommend you volunteer such information. And if you’re asked, better to lie.”
“Excellent advice, Mr. Melville,” said Whitman. “Seems to me, this young man has troubles enough without having to call down an additional hate mob upon him.”
“I am aware,” said Johnson, speaking evenly, serenely. “Things in South Carolina, Mr. Melville, could not be worse in this particular respect. I’ve seen men of my persuasion killed outright in a most gruesome manner even if they were only suspected of such a leaning. I reckon, I just feel comfortable with the three of you.”
“That’s very brave of you,” Emily said.
There followed a predictably awkward silence. Melville fought a powerful urge to stride down to the water’s edge, strip, and plunge in. Whitman took a long drink of warm ale, closing his eyes. Then Emily went on.
“But do tell me—only if you wish of course—surely your religion, your bible reading, your own mother even, view such tendencies as sinful.”
“They do, Miss Emily, and that is the heaviest cross I bear. But there ain’t nothing I can do about it. The soul wants what it wants. It’s how God made me, for whatever reason, me and not a small number of other men. I mean, I tried getting on with women that way, if only to attempt to please my mama just like you say, but it never came to anything. It felt as odd and as strange to me as it probably would for you to kiss another girl.”
“Now see here, William,” said Whitman in a tone of light reprobation.
“Oh, I don’t mind,” Emily said. “I have to say, I am fascinated. So it must be very hard for you, William.”
“Yes, m’am.”
“I have heard of such behavior, of course. People whisper about such things in Amherst, but, well I never met … or maybe I have…”
“It was hard for a long time until I learned my master buttered his bread on the same side as me, and my life began to change after that. I did not have to work as hard on the farm, and it was then I began to plan my escape.”
“Your master? Escape?”
Johnson looked at Whitman, realizing his mistake. Whitman took a deep breath and addressed the following looking mostly at Emily.
“Now is as good a time as any, and Lord knows we could use a change of topic. You see, Miss Dickinson,
William here was born into slavery and has only recently escaped from a cotton plantation where he lived all his life and I am helping him to safety and to a life of freedom in Boston.”
“No …”
“Yes, m’am.”
“A slave.”
“Yes, m’am.”
“The underground railway and all of that.”
“The very same.”
Melville watched her with a smile as she stood up and went over to shake Whitman’s hand and then Johnson’s. “Let me offer you both a most heartfelt congratulations, for your courage and spirit.”
Soon after the entirety of the day’s situation had been explained and agreed upon by all, the carriage driver returned bringing a white man with him. Whitman and Melville left Emily and William obscured by the trunk of the elm and walked back to the roadway. The driver presented the man.
“This here is Mr. Emmet Halsey.”
“How do you do, Mr. Halsey? I am Walter Whitman and this is my colleague Mr. Herman Melville.”
The driver fed his horse some oats from a burlap sack while the three white men conversed.
“It is a thirty-foot sloop based on a beach yawl that was common in England a decade ago. The bowsprit’s busted—I ran it into a pier like a damn fool—and though it’s still functional thanks to some strong rope, I’ve found a company in New London who can replace it and sail it back here but I’m just too busy this time of year to lose a day bringing it over there myself and I want to get it done before autumn.”
Melville carried his end of the discussion successfully impressing Halsey with his detailed knowledge of sailing, navigation, and how to best engage the fickle tides of Long Island Sound. Only fifty percent of this experience was practical, the rest he had picked up at sea talking with sailors day after day.
An hour later, Halsey was waving goodbye from a wooden pier at the Greenport marina watching Melville maneuver the sloop out onto Peconic Bay with a nervous first mate scurrying to his instructions. Once Halsey disappeared, they doubled back and landed at the beach near the elm tree and picked up a giggling William and Emily who had to wade into the water up to their thighs.
10
HALF AN HOUR LATER, THE SLOOP CLEARED ORIENT POINT. Plum Island dunes stood off the starboard side as Melville set a north by northeast course across the sound toward Fisher’s Island and Groton, Connecticut. The light summer breeze was in their favor and the sails billowed fully. Melville was in high spirits remembering his days on the island of Nukuheva when taking small sailing skiffs out beyond the reefs was almost a daily occurrence. But here he was on home territory, these were his waters and it imbued his feeling of exhilaration with a special poignancy. He was also appreciating the wonders of serendipity, for what time was more propitious than this for him to be out upon these waters with the last section of his manuscript waiting for him back at Arrowhead? It put him right back into a frame of mind that months spent living inland had diminished.
Emily & Herman Page 11
