Afternoons with Emily (23 page)

During my Monday afternoons with Emily, I watched her carefully for aberrations, as I had promised Mrs. Austin I would. When
it weighed too heavily that I might be thought of as spying on my friend, I remembered what was at stake. Emily, however,
never noticed my scrutiny; in fact she may have relished my even more attentive presence. She behaved as she usually did,
including continuing to correspond with Mrs. Austin on a near daily basis.

Things took a different turn after Thanksgiving. Miniature snowflakes were falling in the early dusk as I told Emily about
our musical plans for Christmas.

“We’ll do our program here again,” I promised. “Kate’s voice teacher has found us a medieval Twelfth Night song. It’s beautiful
— very earthy and unreligious!” I knew that would appeal to Emily, reminding us both of our first meeting as cheerful unrepentants.
“And Mrs. Austin has invited us to her party again.”

“I may have to miss your music,” Emily warned me. “I may not be here. I might have to go out of town.”

This could have meant anything or nothing, so I proceeded carefully.

“Where will you be?” I tried to betray no concern, no suspicion.

“In Philadelphia. My Master has written; he needs me URGENTLY. I must go to him.” Silently she handed me a letter; silently
I read it.

My Dear Miss Dickenson

I am distressed beyond measure at your note, received this moment, — I can only imagine the affliction which has befallen,
or is now befalling you.

Believe me, be what it may, you have all my sympathy, and my constant, earnest prayers.

I am very, very anxious to learn more definitely of your trial — and though I have no right to intrude upon your sorrow yet
I beg you to write me, though it be but a word.

In great haste

Sincerely and most

Affectionately Yours —

C. W.

“You can see he is quite beside himself,” said Emily, with evident satisfaction. “It is clearly my DUTY to go to him and comfort
him.”

What had she told him that would produce this disturbed letter in reply? I approached this with the utmost care — tiptoeing
on eggshells. One misstep and all could have been lost.

“Emily, I believe he was upset because you told him
you
were,” I said evenly. “Why don’t you just write and tell him that whatever happened is over — that you feel better now?”

“And leave him in such TORMENT?” She was superior and scornful. “I owe him more than that. I must put his mind at rest NOW!”

“What will you do?” This was the information I needed the most — what were Emily’s plans? And how could they be stopped?

“It will be a very long day on the cars, with two changes — but I have no CHOICE. I will be making my arrangements.”

As she spoke, I could envision the whole appalling drama, and I shuddered: the train, the confidences to strangers on the
way, the hansom from the Philadelphia station. Then the church, perhaps a confrontation at the altar in midservice. This must
not be allowed to transpire!

I was so distressed that I cut my visit short and ran along the path to The Evergreens. Emily’s room was at the front of The
Homestead; she would not see where I was headed.

The hired girl let me in. Mrs. Austin was in her music room, seated at the piano, practicing Stephen Foster’s “Hard Times.”
How apt!

The moment she saw my face, she knew that Emily’s fantasies had outgrown her miniature garden and threatened to spill into
the world at large — and with grave consequences. I related all I knew, panting and shivering, and Mrs. Austin pounded a fierce
dissonance of angry notes.

“I knew it, I knew it,” she muttered. She rose and paced about the sparkling, tinkling room, her purple velvet skirts swaying
around her. She was like a great tropical bird.

“Miranda, we must stop this. I must find a way.”

“I do have one idea,” I told her. “It came to me as I ran here. Emily respects Dr. and Mrs. Holland. She has often said what
wise advice they give her.”

Mrs. Austin stopped pacing and turned toward me. I could see her thinking, mulling over the idea, her eyes never leaving mine.
“Miranda, I do believe you’re right! They are the only old friends she still sees, actually
sees.
And Dr. Holland is very sophisticated, very worldly; Emily admires that. He could tell her a
man’s
point of view in an affair like this, and she’d listen to him.” She nodded decisively. “Yes. Austin will be on the milk train
to Springfield in the morning.”

She crossed to me and took my hand in hers. Then she pulled me into a warm embrace, squeezing my shoulders as she spoke. “How
can we thank you, you dear, sensible child?”

I had never liked her as much as I did that afternoon. I knew she was protecting the whole Dickinson family from scandal,
but she was genuinely concerned for Emily too. She feared a “keeper” for Emily as much as I did.

“How old are you now, Miranda?” Mrs. Austin asked as she walked me to the door.

“I was fifteen in September,” I replied.

“Fifteen — and yet our whole family depends on you! You really are a true friend to Emily. The Dickinsons won’t forget this.”

The rest of the week I had trouble sleeping, difficulty concentrating in school. What if my idea didn’t work? The following
Monday, Emily mentioned a delightful surprise visit from friends in Springfield who had made the journey solely to see her.
I went on mailing her letters and noticed none to Philadelphia. Talk of travel had evaporated from her conversation. That
was all I knew. On the rare occasions I saw Mrs. Austin — at church, leaving Emily’s as I entered, in her garden — we never
spoke of what had nearly happened, but we exchanged a complicated look: concern, gratitude, and promise. I did not intend
to fail either woman.

Since that very first undiscussed poem, Emily had been giving me poems, one or two a month. She simply handed them to me or
put them in my pocket; she rarely discussed them. I was sorry for this, as I needed her help to understand them.

Some of her poems were fresh and open and accessible. In them she had a clear, personal vision that made me see a bird or
a snake or a thunderstorm as if I’d never noticed one before. But others were mysterious, oblique, deliberately confusing
— as if she were hiding inside, sending out hints and waiting for the reader to discover her.

I put all her poems together in a sweet-smelling cedar box from Barbados as she gave them to me. Some were arranged properly
on the page; others were written almost as rhyming prose, with little curling dashes as the only punctuation. I must have
had nearly a dozen of them.

“Did you mean that God is like a father?” I asked her once, on the rare day she herself brought up the subject of one of her
poems.

“No, that Father thinks he’s God,” she snapped back. Was she impatient that I had not understood her oblique message? Or simply
annoyed by the attitudes of her father?

“Our fathers aren’t at all alike, are they?” I realized. “I wish mine would care more about my life, and I gather you wish
yours would care less.”

This insight forgave my misreading of her poem. “You’re right, Miranda — much less. My father is OBSESSED with keeping Lavinia
and me on the proper moral path and reminding us of our inferiority as women. He would BREATHE for me if he could, since he
thinks I don’t breathe correctly without his supervision.”

“While my father has to be reminded that I need air as much as he does!” I responded.

We laughed in a companionable way, two friends at ease, deploring the arbitrary ways of fathers.

“A few summers ago, before we moved back to The Homestead, I went to call on a friend late one afternoon,” Emily related.
“It turned to a fine evening, and since Amherst ladies are in no danger on our village lanes, I accepted an invitation for
supper. I returned a little after nine — and what a SCENE awaited me!” She grinned, remembering it.

“Father was breathing thunder and lightning, like Jehovah, and Mother and Vinnie were clutching each other in terrified flat-out
HYSTERICS. You could hear them on Main Street!”

“Because they were so worried about you, Emily?”

“No — because they thought Father would surely KILL ME, there and then!”

She laughed, but her laughter had a sharpness to it. This story, meant to entertain, chilled me. My responsibility toward
Emily, preventing any cause for incurring her father’s wrath, was cemented.

When Ethan designed our temple for us in 1857, no one had a clear idea of what we would do with it and in it. As our Amherst
life developed, however, the temple seemed to affect most of our family decisions. For instance, the handsome Italian iron
braziers heated only half the space, so we had them duplicated in Springfield. These then required a shed to store them in
summer. The shed led to a stable and carriage and pair, since my father, at sixty-two, really should not have been walking
to the college in bad weather anymore, and we were tired of renting from the livery stable. Then the stable and horses required
the hiring of Sam, our splendid red Irishman, to help us in everything. It reminded me of the children’s game “The Farmer
in the Dell.” One thing led roundabout to another and another.

Our Shakespeare evenings were established now — an Amherst tradition. The cast of readers sat on the stage, and the audience
of guests sat on black-and-gold stenciled Hitchcock benches. My father had them made at the Hitchcock Factory across the river.
If you looked carefully, you could see tiny scenes of Amherst Village life painted and stenciled in gold leaf on the backs
of the benches. One shows our house, with our family standing under the portico; we are no bigger than acorns.

Christmas 1858 was our second in Amherst. We were using the temple for a momentous event. There were candles everywhere and
ribboned wreaths in every window. The braziers and the guests were glowing. All our friends had come to drink champagne and
celebrate Kate Sloan’s engagement to Ethan Howland.

I was wearing my ice-blue tulle. I stood with Aunt Helen, watching Kate, whose joy lit the great room. She was onstage with
Ethan, showing her ring, an opal in a hoop of little diamonds. She wore ultramarine velvet with a wide lace bertha and a wreath
of white roses. Aunt Helen and I could see that Kate was adult and elegant and complete. The New Year, 1859, would usher her
into her new role as Ethan’s wife. She was being swept up into the stream of life; she was leaving us behind.

Of course I told Emily about Kate’s engagement party: the candles, the wreaths, the wine, Kate’s face as she sang “Drink to
Me Only with Thine Eyes” to Ethan. As I related the story, I could hear how being Emily’s narrator had improved my speaking
style. I made my account short and vivid and chronological; details were summoned only if they enlivened my little narrative.
Amusing Emily had become an education in itself.

Kate’s wedding was to be in mid-May, but plans and preparations for it took up our entire winter. There had been a few other
happenings: an extra blizzard or two, which extended our sledding — and measles at the academy. Then my literature class presented
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
on the stage of our temple. I tried out for Puck, but I towered over midget Oberon and miniature Titania — so I became a
reluctant Wall, which amused Miss Adelaide.

“What a comedown from playing Miranda and Cordelia!” she teased me. “But I know the audience never saw such a brilliant and
eloquent Wall!”

These diversions, however, did not keep us long from our family job: the wedding. Kate and Ethan had decided to live in Springfield,
where Kate had cousins and friends, and Ethan could take the cars to the various Connecticut Valley towns where he worked.
So Aunt Helen sold her house and gave the young couple half the profits; Father matched this as a wedding present. Thus, Kate
and Ethan were able to buy a small Federal house, a doll’s version of The Homestead.

“This will be a showcase for my work!” said Ethan happily. “We’ll add a wing when we need it and a music room soon. My clients
can see their architect using his own designs.”

“We’ll have to take the front door off its hinges to squeeze the piano through!” Kate laughed. This was the fine instrument
that Father bought for the temple but which he gave to Kate — with the promise to continue paying for her voice lessons.

Living closely with someone like Kate enlarged my father’s capacity for affection; it had done the same for me. What would
we do without her?

Now we had reached late March — usually the season of mud and despond, the price we New Englanders paid for exquisite May.
But in 1859, for the Sloans and the Chases, March was a season of anticipation and joy. We had lived in Amherst two winters
— one in the plush jungle and one in our own house. I would be sixteen in the fall; Kate would be nineteen. Our family life
had developed and evolved in the same way as our property, and the wedding preparations were in full swing.

Father engaged Madame Lauré to come from Boston to make Kate’s wedding dress — and mine, as her attendant. It was a Thursday,
after school, and it was almost April; Madame Lauré and I were alone in the house, fitting my dress. The delicate spring light
washed over us, over my reflection in the pier glass. We had moved it to Aunt Helen’s room, which had the best light. Madame
Lauré laced me into my first stays. I was overcome at the transformation wrought by two inches removed from my waist and added
to my bosom.

Kate was to wear heavy corded silk called “lutestring.” I would wear the same fabric, in the fragile green of little May leaves.
Madame Lauré dropped the heavy skirt over my head, over my grown-up crinolines; she fastened the little buttons on the basque
jacket. I studied myself in the mirror, a fashionable green tulip shape. I was startled by my own reflection. Was it possible
that I was beautiful?

Suddenly there was a brisk, efficient knocking at the front door. Madame Lauré and I were taken aback. There was no way I
could change quickly and no one else to go to the door — and all callers and messages were important as the wedding approached.
So, feeling almost in disguise, I trailed my silks and crinolines down the stairs and across the hall.