Afternoons with Emily (48 page)

Vinnie, on the other hand, had used this solemn occasion for show. She was dressed in heavy midnight crepe and wore an elaborate
bonnet wrapped with an immense tulle veil. Unaccountably, she greeted each and every mourner as if she were her father’s hostess,
as though this service was an “event” he had orchestrated for people’s entertainment. Watching her, I noticed that her youth
had slipped away and that she wore the defiant air of a woman facing a world that offered her no meaningful place. I expressed
my concern over her sister’s health and otherwise kept my own counsel. After the funeral, Emily had been away in Boston with
her Norcross cousins and her eye doctor. Since our last meeting, there had been such joy at the war’s end, followed by such
tragedy, that I naturally expected we would spend my visit talking about the times we had survived — but Emily had other plans.

“ ‘Sweet are the uses of adversity,’ ”
she quoted. I wondered to whose adversity she referred — her own or Mr. Lincoln’s, although when she took my wrap I noticed
that she looked as well as ever.

“Were you allowed to read or write this time, Emily?”

“Very little. The climax of the day was a hansom from Cambridge to Boston and then two drops in each eye! Then we would walk
in the Public Garden, a very UNNATURAL park. You never saw such a vulgar SHOW, Miranda. It was full of hideous oversize flowers,
laid out in beds shaped like playing cards. I’m sure it would appeal to Susan’s crowd. Of course, I am used to walking in
MY OWN MEADOW.”

“Did your cousins entertain you?”

“As best they could, poor little WAIFS. At least they kept me busy entertaining them!”

“So your writing goes well, then?” I ventured neutrally, sitting down at the tea table.

Emily smiled mysteriously, obviously not telling all she knew. “I am progressing toward my goal. I am not possessed by inspiration
these days — but the muse DOES call in on occasion. It took another banishment in SIBERIA for me to appreciate
‘this our life, exempt from public haunt.’ ”

“Did you continue to hear from your correspondents while you were away?” I wondered if her lack of inspiration was due to
a lack of contact.

She sighed prettily. “My Mentors do keep shuttling to and fro! Two of them are in San Francisco now; that is too FAR! And
my dearest Preceptor is much too CLOSE; he could come from Boston in a day, unless I prevent it.”

I had read that Mr. Bowles was visiting in California and knew Dr. Wadsworth had moved there in 1862. I was amused by Emily’s
insistence on the correct geographic distance that her romances-in the air required. These busy and worldly gentlemen would
be astonished to learn how much thought Emily gave them every day — since I doubted if they remembered her once a fortnight.

“And what news from Colonel Higginson?”

She lost her calm, evaded my gaze, and became oblique again. “Oh, he is so TRYING as a friend! I never told him I was in Cambridge.
It was too close to Newport, and he was still healing there — from his war wounds. What if he had decided to call?”

Suddenly I was incensed by all this causerie. “Emily, for heaven’s sake — what about the war’s end? What about
history?
”

Emily’s eyes widened at my outburst, then she resumed a placid expression. “The fireworks in Cambridge were very fine, Miranda.
We stood on the roof of our boardinghouse and saw them reflected in the Charles River. If the wind was right, we could hear
the bands playing.”

When she saw my disgusted face, she tried again.

“I suppose that the village celebrated too. I heard that some of our boys were still in uniform, so their mothers must be
relieved.”

I gave her one more chance. “And what about poor Mr. Lincoln?”

Now she eluded me, among her grand cloudy abstractions.

“Mr. Lincoln has crossed over into ETERNITY, Miranda. He is safe now.”

I decided this particular visit was over. As I put on my shawl, she performed one of her agile turnabouts and became a normal,
concerned friend.

“And what do you plan for the summer, besides good times with your Elena?”

Reeled in, I told her about the discussions Alan and I had been having. “Our scheme is ambitious and will require more of
my presence than I’d expected.” I confessed I was concerned about how to best accommodate all I wanted to accomplish and still
have the time I wanted with Elena.

Quicksilver Emily was at her sensitive, perceptive best. “All the pieces will make a pattern for you soon, my dear friend.
You are very close to finding your true center; I can feel it.”

We touched cheeks and planned for another Monday. In the moment, it felt right, two friends sharing affection and plans. It
wasn’t until I was near to home that I envisioned the endless vista of Mondays ahead: the Mondays after Mondays as Emily’s
marionette.

My father returned from Sicily in mid-May, gossiping about the splendid tyrants of Syracuse; about Hiero I, patron of Aeschylus;
about the doomed Athenian fleet and the captured Athenian aristocrats toiling as slaves in the quarries. Relating this to
Aunt Helen and me — like the most gifted of historians — he made us feel this all happened just last year. He was interested
and complimentary about my work in New York and Amherst, and impressed that the
American Student
would publish the article I wrote with Alan Harnett. “They have a fine reputation,” he stated. “You couldn’t do better.”

When he saw our rosy, confident Elena and heard her story, he heartily approved her inclusion in our Amity Street household.

“It’s the best possible solution,” he said. “You just have to look at Elena — she’s positively in bloom! And so are you, my
dear. We need her just as much as she needs us. Is Ethan pleased?”

“He says it’s wonderful for her to be here with us just now, Father. When he visits he sees that she won’t let go of my hand
for a second. She’s afraid he’ll take her back to Springfield!”

He nodded thoughtfully. “Does this bother Ethan?” he asked. “Seeing her prefer her life here?”

“I believe he is genuinely happy that she is thriving.”

“That is the mark of a true father. Ethan instinctively wants what is best for her.”

Father quickly became Elena’s friend and her surrogate grandfather, even asking Sam to dam our brook into a wide shallow pool,
moving a wicker armchair into the shade of the maples, where he read beside her all through the amber afternoons. Elena did
not interrupt him; she played in the water and arranged pebbles, humming softly to herself. Sometimes they told each other
myths, Father laughing heartily at Elena’s variations. There were sixty-six years between these two companions, but their
harmony was a joy to behold. I never imagined that losing Kate would give us such a blessing as Elena for our consolation.

Father also approved the blue velvet curtain I had ordered for the stage. With the war over, we were reviving our Shakespeare
evenings. The curtain would allow the readers to be hidden and then revealed, like actors.

“Let’s plan our next play evening right now,” he suggested. “We’ve never done
Antony and Cleopatra.
I’d love to read Antony. Tell that imperial Susan Dickinson I want her for my Cleopatra!”

“We should ask Miss Lavinia to play the asp, Father. Emily says she has an ‘adder tongue,’ and I believe her.”

I proceeded to tell him how Vinnie had learned from friends in Springfield, Illinois, that a former law partner of Abraham
Lincoln’s was spreading a story about the president’s early, doomed love affair with Ann Rutledge — a story that Vinnie, like
a pig scenting truffles, was circulating here. The man, a Mr. Herndon, was claiming that Miss Rutledge was the only woman
Mr. Lincoln ever loved and that she died from want of it. Mr. Lincoln “wandered from his throne,” according to Vinnie, and
when he recovered he’d lost the woman he should have married and settled for one who brought him only misery.

Our conversation moved on: we began to compare our calendars so we could arrange rehearsal time.

“Do you know your fall teaching schedule yet, Father?”

“Two sections of Homer only — and then Edward Crowell, your friend’s husband, will become acting chairman. I have decided
to cut down, Miranda.”

Since his return I had been noticing his color was unhealthy — a new grayish tinge around the mouth and fingertips. Today
his breathing was audible and seemed to be an effort.

“Father, may I ask Dr. Bigelow to come and examine you?”

“One of these days I’ll go to him myself, but antiquarian holidays can be very tiring, I find. I’ll feel better when I start
teaching.”

Now I was an official adult in Amherst society. My reading and teaching in New York, the news of the foundation, and our Leo
Press — all these combined to make me a welcome guest at The Evergreens, at the president’s house, and at college functions.
Father brought back a length of violet Italian silk for me, and on a brief visit to Boston, I took it to Madame Lauré. She
made it up décolleté, with the modish new narrow skirt.
Godey’s Lady’s Book
had declared crinolines passé. Now the fashionable line was a straight skirt swept to the back and fullness falling in pleats.
After an August evening with the Austin Dickinsons, Father and I chatted in his library. Aunt Helen had retired to bed.

“I noticed you and Mrs. Austin were the only ladies with that new draped skirt,” he remarked. He poured us both glasses of
Spanish sherry. “I suppose the style will be all over Amherst tomorrow.”

“I think it’s more than a style, Father,” I replied, crossing to take the delicate cut-crystal glass from him. “It’s a statement,
an
attitude.
” I sat in the armchair by the window, enjoying the soft summer breeze. “Those crinolines and hoops made women look helpless
and frail — and then the war showed we weren’t fragile anymore. You saw me heaving bales of bandages!”

Father smiled and lifted his glass to me. “I did indeed.” He took a sip of the tawny liquor. “None of us will ever be quite
the same, will we?”

“Except Emily,” I replied. “She lives just as she always has, on a desert island of solitude.”

“And how do you find that detachment, Miranda?”

I placed my glass on the side table. “Right now, I deplore it — but we can’t know yet if her writing makes it forgivable.
If she becomes famous, then perhaps her selfishness will be justified.”

Father studied my face. “You sound as if you’ve given this some thought.”

“Oh, I have! When I first came back from New York and took on Elena — and then the war ended, and the president was murdered,
and my mind was buzzing and boiling with everything I’d learned and done — well, Emily
enraged
me! She just went on as if nothing had happened, sitting in her prim closed room and feeding her birds.”

“And how do you see her now?”

I thought about this carefully. “Simply as a blank. She does no harm; she is merely
absent.
Miss Lavinia, the asp, slithers about doing the real damage to people’s lives.”

He smiled. “Your conversation is always such a pleasure to me, my dear. Perhaps we can thank Miss Dickinson for that, anyway.”
He stretched his legs and placed his feet on the ottoman.

We were quiet and at peace, reluctant to end the evening. Upstairs, Elena was sleeping in Kate’s room, her small arm enfolding
Maple Syrup. Somewhere along the way, Father and I had become colleagues.

“Should I use my
American Student
article in my talk about Froebel?” I asked Father. Tomorrow I was to address some faculty wives in the temple — friends of
Susan Dickinson and Mary Crowell who might want to enroll their children in our kindergarten.

“Certainly,” Father said approvingly. “The material is there, and the prestige of the journal will add to your credibility.”

I nodded; that had been my feeling too — Father’s approval sealed it. “President Stearns has offered a site for a school;
should I invite him to hear me speak?”

“Splendid idea,” Father said.

There was another matter about which I wanted his advice. I heard this week for the first time from the foundation’s Chicago
trustees. Now that the war was over, they wanted to hear my plans for the trust and for the income that had collected. Mr.
Roger Daniels, the lawyer for the trust, was anxious to discuss the future. He wanted to know when he might come to talk to
me in Amherst. Father suggested we invite him for early September.

My violet silk rustled and gleamed as I crossed to draw the curtains. Satisfied and sated, we sat on in the firelight another
half hour, in companionable discussion.

Mr. Daniels arrived in Amherst in mid-September. He was to stay with us, in Father’s wing. He had an accent like Davy’s, but
he was taller, with a certain bony elegance of carriage; the French would call him
racé.
His full hair was dark brown; his eyes were an unusual light ocher. In his early thirties, Mr. Daniels had the look of a
Titian portrait — a merchant banker, wise and humorous.

Father lent us his library, where we talked foundation business. Mr. Daniels was very encouraging about our finances.

“There is income accrued since Davy’s death, and you should be able to undertake two or three projects at once.” He looked
at me with his warm eyes. “What would you like to do?”

“Mr. Alan Harnett and I are hoping to start two kindergartens. A small one here that I shall watch over. I have a particular
friend, Mary Crowell, who will work with me to organize it. You’ll meet her tomorrow.”

“Have you a location yet?”

“The college will lend us one, I think.”

“And the other school?”

“This plan is more ambitious; you may not approve.” Stalling, unsure of how he would react to this grand scheme, I poured
us each a glass of lemonade. I crossed to him and handed him his glass, then gazed at him directly. “Mr. Harnett thinks we
need a ‘show window’ kindergarten in New York,” I declared. “A place where teachers and educators can come and study, and
see our Froebel theories in action. He wants the foundation to buy a house and establish a model kindergarten.”