Miss Emily (14 page)

The day passes in a fug of roast, mash, slice, season, pour, serve and wash. The family proclaim themselves very pleased with their meal. I take mine alone in the kitchen with my feet propped near the stove, for they are like two blocks of ice from standing so long. The clam soup is not to my taste, but I enjoy the pork and apple dumplings very much. The family ate all the fried parsnips, but I saved a good mound of boiled onions for myself, and they are savory-sweet, exactly as I like them.

A few tears plop onto my plum pudding when I think of Mammy and the girls, snug at home. And Daddy, maybe spinning a yarn about his time at sea and the mermaids who spoke to him from rocks and tried to lure him into the water. But I can't let my thoughts linger there, because it makes me lonely and sad. In the heel of the reel, I am here now, and that is that. Tomorrow I will take some pudding to Uncle Michael, and I will let him talk about his beloved Mary and all that they left behind in Tipperary. He likes to talk about Slievenamon and the neighbors in Killusty and Fethard, and I like to let him; there is a mournful comfort in looking back that we both enjoy.

A sharp rap to the back door startles me. I get up and open it to find Patrick Crohan standing there.

“Patrick. Hello! Is everything all right?” I peer past him into the gloom.

He looks down at me, then drags the cap from his head like an afterthought and twists it through his hands. “I only wanted to wish you a happy Christmas, Ada.”

“Well, that's very kind of you. Many happy returns.” We stand for a few moments in silence. I wave my hand toward the clutter in the kitchen. “You can see I'm occupied here, so . . .” I go to close the door, and he wedges himself into the space, startling me. “What is it, Patrick? What do you want?”

“I want you, Ada,” he says, his mouth hung open in a way that unsettles my heart.

“I'm spoken for, Patrick. I'm walking out with Daniel Byrne. You know that.”

“What do you want with that scruffhead?” He comes so close that his coat buttons scratch against my apron; I can smell spirits on him, and I pull back. “I'd be properly good to you, Ada. Sure why wouldn't I? Aren't you a lovely little thing?” Crohan lunges forward as if he means to put his mouth to mine, and I hop sideways so that he staggers instead into the kitchen.

“Are you drunk, Patrick? Get out of here this minute, and leave me alone. Come on, out now.”

I push him toward the door and through it, closing it after him; he shouts something, but I can't hear what he says. I stand with my back tight to the door, hoping that he does the decent thing and goes home. When no further sounds come, I tidy my dishes, keeping one ear cocked in case Crohan knocks again. All is quiet, and I clear the leftovers and put them away.

Mrs. Dickinson comes to ask me to rekindle Miss Emily's fire, as she will retire early, owing to her cold.

“Susan will accompany her up the stairs, as she does not wish to go alone,” Mrs. Dickinson says. She smooths her skirt with both hands and remarks absently, “My daughter loves to be a child. She does not desire to grow up.”

“I'll see to the fire now, ma'am.”

She leaves, and I open the back door and look out into the
darkness; Crohan is definitely gone. I get some ivy and dry wood and take my basket up the stairs. The embers still glow in Miss Emily's stove, and they make a pleasing low heat in the room. I stoke them up and manage a fine blaze; the oil lamp I light by the bed warms the air even more. I hear voices outside the door, so I haul my basket and go to leave.

Miss Susan is talking urgently. “But how can you truly understand me, Emily, as you claim to? My arms, my mind, all of me, is glutted with duty: to the children, to my home, to Austin, to our friends. You please no one but yourself.”

“But I please you, do I not?” Miss Emily murmurs.

“Of course you do, my dear. But you see me as others don't, as no mortal could. I am flesh, I am bone. You must not idolize me, Emily.”

I open the door, and they stand, arms tightly around each other's waist and bodies pressed close, front to front; Miss Emily's head is lying on her sister-in-law's shoulder.

“Forevermore, Sue,” she says, lifting her eyes to Miss Susan's face. She startles when she sees me in the doorway and breaks from their embrace. “Ada! Why do you sneak around so?”

“Begging your pardon, miss, I was doing the fire. The stove. Your mother told me to. I wanted to have the room warm for you. I'll go.”

“Well, go. Quickly,” Miss Emily says. She turns from me and marches into her room, Miss Susan close behind her. I hear their voices high and irritated as I run down the back stairs to the kitchen, afraid my basket will tumble from my hand I am going so fast.

Miss Emily Refuses an Invitation

F
ROM THE CUPOLA
I
WATCH
M
OTHER AND
V
INNIE STROLL OUT
together and turn toward the town. How easily they amble along, unfettered by anything so mundane as the relentless press of words. They talk, probably, of lace and lawn, of whom they might meet in Cutler's or the Amherst House. Part of me envies their ability to crowd their minds with trivia, part of me is glad that I cannot. Words command me—they beg to be courted, danced and bedded and will not leave me alone until I comply. But it is not only words that keep me here, I know that. It is a fact that if I do not leave the house, I cannot lose myself; I am better contained in my home, looking inward. This is where I best function.

Main Street is framed by the view; it is a moving landscape of carriage and pedestrian, squirrel and dog. Sometimes people I know stray into the picture, and I style myself the artist who has painted them in, though inevitably they display their own will. I see Mrs. Sweetser forage in her nose and flick what she has found there to the footpath. I see Moody Cook scratch himself all over and yawn like a man newly broken from the earth—a rough and ragged Adam. I see Patrick Crohan walk up to the Homestead and stand staring at the top windows like a hunter stalking prey. He seems agitated, and he cranes his neck upward until I think it
is me he seeks, though I fancy myself well hidden. Has he seen me? I step back from the window and go down to my bedroom, where I sit at my desk. I lean forward to look: Crohan has gone, disappeared back into his own life.

I sit at my desk and think of Mother and Vinnie and myself, about how we differ. I have had a great inner conversation about how I am, for hours and days on end. I ponder over whether I shall ever wish to be as social as I was when young. Or shall I withdraw and become a complete hermit, sociable only with those who know me best and will not think to upbraid me for loving solitude? The former, I thought firstly, should be my lot. But I have come to realize that if I gad about too much, I will write nothing. And if I stay at home, I can easily protect myself. I am in the habit of this house, and it is in the habit of me. We mourn each other when we are apart. And so it is folly to separate often.

Mother has begun to remark frequently on my stopping indoors; Father, too.
She
would not understand the demands of the mind, but Father at least does. And he understands, too, that I was not made right for the world; it does not welcome me or my conversation as it does others. My speech is best done on paper. Paper that I can stash away in this trunk or that nook, for Father could not bear for the world to read my insides. He does not know how much I write, but he would dread my becoming a Woman of Letters, a breed he despises. How far that would sink me, in his view. And dear Father, he would not welcome being dragged—a reluctant anchor—to the seabed with me.

No, I will not send my birds out to nest, save to those who will nurture them alone, in private rooms. My words are best enjoyed by those who know me, and I shall remain happy to sit in the light of my own fire and draw pleasure from its heat.

I say this, and yet and yet. I often wish I were more like dear
Sue—vivacious and able and
outward.
She holds her salons with grace and enthusiasm; she loves to be in large groups, to discuss and debate. What a trial it can be to remain resolutely
inward,
to be always tripping over your own toes for looking downward, toward the heart.

I drag myself from my room and go to the parlor; I set the Aeolian harp that Cousin John made on the windowsill and lift the sash to let the breeze do its work. I watch the strings move and listen awhile to the harp's tingling chant, its crescendos and falls. Needing a melody, I sit at the piano. Up and down the scales I teeter; Messrs. Hallett and Davis, who fashioned the instrument, would button their ears and scold me—I am out of practice. I play some of my invented airs, embellishing them as I go. Vinnie calls these my “ghost tunes.” They madden me with their mournfulness and fun, my strange compositions, but they please me, too, and I like to run through them before turning to my Beethoven waltzes and the quicksteps I love so much.

A voice says, “You are a rare spirit.”

Thinking it is only Vinnie, I continue to play, but then Susan comes to the side of the piano and stands watching me. I look from her broad cheeks and soft eyes to the piano keys, then back again.

“Have you come to scold me?” I ask.

“For what?”

“For holding you too dear.”

“Emily, we are friends. Sisters. It is not possible to hold each other too dear.”

I bash my fingers along the keys, then stop. “But you belong to Austin and the children. And I belong to no one. You told me so.”

“You are melancholy today, dear Emily. Come to the Evergreens tonight. I am having a small salon, a select few people,
nothing overwhelming. We will hold it in the library, not the parlor.” She leans in to me. “There is a man I would very much like you to meet.”

“Who is this man?”

“A poet. A great poet and a great man.”

“What would I have to say to a poet and
great man
?”

“Come, Emily. Now you are choosing to be stubborn.”

Susan walks to the pier glass, and I turn on my piano stool to observe her. She stares at her reflection, then licks a finger and runs it over each eyebrow.

“You live only the length of the hemlock away,” I say, “but sometimes it feels you are farther from me than the moon.”

She turns to face me. “You are the one who does not come out to play, Emily. You cannot find fault with me for distance.” She walks over and kneels in front of me, takes both my hands in hers. “Meet the poet. You two would have so much to discuss. I know you would delight him. I have shown him some of your verses already, and they please him. Say you will come.”

“I cannot. Mother needs me.”

“Lavinia can look after your mother. And the Irish girl—she seems ever-present. Your mother will not want for anything. And as you say, you will be but the length of the hedge from her.”

I bend forward to kiss Sue's cheek, but she rises quickly. I am left—mouth puckered—hanging in midair. Her bombazine crackles as she moves across the floor to sit on the horsehair sofa, where there is room only for one. I turn to the piano and begin to play my Rossini aria, hoping its pomp and pageant, mixed with the feline cry of the wind harp, will discompose Susan and send her away. Today I have no use for her.

Miss Ada Takes a Ride on a Buckboard