Afternoons with Emily (24 page)

I opened the front door.

He was a young man just a few years older than me, tall, with dark hair and arresting silver eyes. He was as startled as I
was, but he collected himself and bowed briefly and correctly.

“Miss Chase? I am David Farwell. Professor Chase has very kindly invited me for supper.”

I answered as politely as I could, hiding my surprise. “Won’t you come in? Father will return soon from the college, I’m sure.”

When students came to the house, Father saw them in his library, so I decided to take this one there. We entered the library
wing, where the spring sun was gilding jonquils and pussy willows in a pewter jug.

“You did that, didn’t you?” His smile carried over into his pleasing voice.

“I did, but Father may want me to move it. He gets very upset when my flowers shed on his papers.” How did this young man
know I had done the arrangement? Had Father mentioned this skill — a surprise itself — or had David Farwell surmised it by
looking at me?

“Then you should use laurel leaves instead! Actually, you make me think of Daphne and the laurel, with that wonderful color
you’re wearing.”

“Then I’d better leave you, before I turn into a laurel tree!” And I departed, swaying and rustling, a convincing young lady
— thanks to my stays and crinolines — astonished by my casual reply.

I heard Aunt Helen and Vera, our new Swedish hired girl, returned from their marketing, talking in the kitchen. When I told
them our dinner guest was here, Aunt Helen hurried off with sherry. I set the table with Vera, wishing David Farwell would
see me in my green silk one more time.

Madame Lauré appeared to remind me that she needed to take the dress with her to make the alterations. Reluctantly I climbed
the stairs and came down for dinner in my Sunday dress, a striped mauve silk, but I did not change the transforming underpinnings.

Kate and Aunt Helen noticed my elegant new shape instantly. Kate’s hazel eyes widened with a question; Aunt Helen hid a smile
and seated us without comment. My father saw nothing and was in tearing good spirits.

“Ladies of my real family, let me present one of my academic family: David Farwell, my academic grandchild!” Father clapped
a hand on David’s shoulder. Aunt Helen had seated our guest to Father’s left, opposite me and Kate.

“David is my favorite student’s favorite student,” Father continued. “I taught Joel Parsons at Harvard, and now he is head
of classics at Exeter, my dear old school. Dr. Joel Parsons has sent me David to finish him off!”

David Farwell smiled, his fine-boned face lit with intelligence and humor. “Sir, with respect, I’m coming to Amherst to be
started, not finished off!”

Father appreciated this. “Quite right, my boy! We’ll give you an education in classics that will last your lifetime. Now tell
me, what translation of
The Aeneid
are they using at Exeter these days?” And they were off in their own world.

While they talked, I studied David. The most striking thing about him was his total ease. He was at once poised and relaxed;
he was without tension or effort. He gave my father his entire attention, unaware of his effect on others.

“Tell me, Miss Chase, are you a classicist too?” David looked directly at me, and I met those remarkable eyes. Now I saw they
were very light gray, with black rims around the iris. His thick lashes were black too, even darker than his thick hair. I
must have been staring; I immediately lowered my gaze.

“I don’t have Greek yet,” I told him. “But I truly love Latin. It sounds like the sea.”

“Indeed it does!” This pleased him. “Or like our Lake Michigan. The Great Lakes are inland seas, you know. We have tremendous
storms in winter, and the surf sounds just like Latin.”

“Miranda enjoys Ovid only because he tells love stories,” Father teased me.

“That’s not fair!” I felt a slight flush rise in my cheeks. “I enjoy Ovid, Mr. Farwell, because he tells true feelings. When
Daphne tries to run away from Apollo, then I feel her terror too.”

“And you ran away just like Daphne this afternoon, didn’t you?”

“I had to, before I took root!” After having so many conversations with Emily, I was well rehearsed for this sort of repartee.

David Farwell and I exchanged smiles, pleased with our banter — but Father wanted him back.

“I don’t know Illinois,” he said. “Do you live in Chicago?”

“We used to, sir, but the stockyards have pretty well taken over the city,” David explained, buttering his bread. “Everyone
wants to move out of town and build to the north. My family and some of their friends all moved together and started our own
town, right on Lake Michigan. We called it Lake Forest.”

“Is it a village, like Amherst?” Aunt Helen asked, passing the bowl of peas and carrots to our guest.

David spooned the vegetables onto his plate. “Not really. It’s all too new. There was only prairie there until ten years ago.
We chose the place for an extraordinary stand of oaks, mile after mile along the lakeshore. We built our houses right there
among the oaks. We saved them all.”

“Did the Indians never damage the trees? Firewood must have been scarce on the prairies,” Father said.

“They say the Indians protected the oaks too. They used to have their rituals and ceremonies there. You feel it, even today.
I simply can’t describe those oaks to you, Professor Chase, they’re . . . noble.”

“There’s a sacred grove at Epidaurus,” Father recalled. “You sense its deep holiness. Your forest sounds very like Epidaurus.”

“My father will give me a year in Greece when I graduate,” David announced. “Then I’ll see Epidaurus, and Delphi, and Sounion
— Sounion most of all! Byron wrote . . .”

I stopped listening and just watched David Farwell. Van Dyck should have painted him. He was long-boned and elegant, with
beautiful wrists and hands. He had a straight, narrow nose, winged eyebrows, those strange silver eyes. Then he glanced at
me, and I caught his look and understood my attraction to him. He had a quality best named in Latin:
bene volens.
David Farwell was benevolent. He wished me well.

The talk moved about the table. We spoke easily about winter sports, about Kate’s wedding. David spoke of his parents — his
father and stepmother, married many years after the death of David’s mother — and mentioned his little stepsister, Frances,
who loved to hear Father’s book at bedtime.

“You return to Exeter tomorrow?” I asked over the custard dessert.

David nodded. “This was a short trip. Merely to introduce myself to the college.”

“And the college to you,” Father added with a smile.

I found I was disappointed that this brief visit would be my only contact with David Farwell. Perhaps when he returned in
the fall as a student, we would meet again.

After supper, he left with a word for each of us.

“Mrs. Sloan, that dinner made me homesick. Professor Chase, I wish I could start Amherst tomorrow! Miss Sloan, you have my
very best wishes for your upcoming wedding.” Then he took my hand to shake, and his smiling eyes met mine. “Miss Chase, beware
of gods prowling in the underbrush!”

I might have told Emily about meeting David Farwell, but when I called at The Homestead next, she was entirely focused and
centered on her own urgent concerns.

“At last! Now, Miranda, we must talk seriously. I have some important news. I think I have found my surgeon.”

I was shocked. “Emily, how terrible! An operation?”

“Not for me, for my poems!” She laughed at my misunderstanding. “I want you to read this and give me your opinion.” She handed
me a recent copy of the
Atlantic Monthly,
folded open. She indicated an article by Thomas Wentworth Higginson called “Ought Women to Learn the Alphabet?” This was
an ironic but overwritten piece, stating and restating women’s intellectual equality with men. It ended with a baroque flourish:

First give woman, if you dare, the alphabet, then summon her to her career; and though men, ignorant and prejudiced, may oppose
its beginnings, there is no danger but they will at last fling around her conquering footsteps more lavish praises than ever
greeted the opera’s idol, — more perfumed flowers than ever wooed, with intoxicating fragrance, the fairest butterfly of the
ball-room.

“I call this very overdone,” I told Emily. “His style is like Mrs. Austin’s parlor, all satin and fringe. Why would you want
his opinion of your poems? You write much better than he does.”

“But he does believe in a woman’s gifts! Somehow he speaks to me. I feel a sympathy, a kinship. So I’m choosing a few suitable
poems to send to him. I feel I could bear ‘surgery’ from Mr. Higginson. He has none of that fatal CONDESCENSION toward women.”

“Emily, are you quite sure?” I dissented with care. “His style is so ornate that he might not appreciate your simplicity.
He might fault you for not using as much decoration as he does.”

“Miranda, I have DECIDED,” she stated firmly, taking the magazine from me. She laid it in her lap and gazed down at it as
she spoke. “He will give me a fair hearing, a true reading. Just knowing he is influential and available has cheered me ALREADY.”

I thought of all the literary lions who strutted and roared at The Evergreens, where the Austin Dickinsons had established
an influential salon. There the college faculty mingled with literary luminaries — poets, journalists, essayists of regional,
even national, renown. Any one of these, including Emerson himself, would have been glad to advise a Dickinson and smooth
her way to publication. But willful Emily turned instead to a stranger. Why? Her shy arrogance made her motives forever inscrutable
— at least to me.

I returned home, stepping carefully to avoid the March mud, and discovered a letter waiting for me on the sideboard. I did
not recognize the bold hand or the crisp gray stationery. Curious, I examined the postmark. New Hampshire?

I stared at the envelope, feeling a tingling rush of excitement. Wasn’t Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire? Surely there
was only one person who could have written to me from that state. David Farwell.

Standing in the front hallway, I carefully opened the envelope. I leaned against the sideboard and angled the paper to better
catch the fading sunlight through the front windows.

My Dear Miss Chase,

It was a great pleasure meeting you and your gracious family. You all made me feel very welcome. I was sorry when the evening
came to an end — I felt we could have talked on for hours.

This may be presumptuous of me, but I would greatly enjoy continuing our conversation through a correspondence. I felt we
had a good deal in common. Do you agree? Perhaps, then, if it is agreeable to you, I shall find I have a friend already when
I return to Amherst to attend the college.

With best wishes,

David Farwell

“Miranda, what are you doing standing in the hallway?” Aunt Helen stood at the other end of the hall, her arms wrapped around
a rolled-up carpet. Kate stood behind her, holding up the other end.

“I — I was just reading my letter,” I explained. I held up the paper.

Aunt Helen nodded. “Ah, yes. From young Mr. Farwell. He sent a very nice thank-you letter to me as well.” She stared at me
for a moment, and I wondered if she was trying to guess the contents of my letter. Then I realized I was standing precisely
where she wanted to lay the rug.

“I’m sorry!” I scrambled out of the way, allowing Aunt Helen and Kate to troop past me. I slipped the letter into the pocket
of my dress and helped them lower the heavy carpet to the floor.

Aunt Helen stood and placed her hands on her hips, surveying the rug. “Much better,” she declared. She brushed a stray silver
hair back toward her low bun. “Yes, that David Farwell seems a nice, well brought up young man. Your father will enjoy having
him as a student.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “The college is lucky to have him.”

I must have written six drafts before I deemed my reply to David Farwell acceptable. I now understood Emily’s flurry of paper
every time she sat down to write even the simplest note. I wasn’t quite sure what to say to my new correspondent. His letter
merely expressed an interest — he gave me no real information. Well, I had met the challenge of the uncharted territory Emily
Dickinson had presented, I reminded myself; surely I could compose a simple letter.

Still, I paced, fretted, crumpled. Then finally a letter emerged.

Dear Mr. Farwell,

Thank you for your gracious note. I agree; I too felt we had many interests in common. I would be happy to serve as your introduction
to Amherst, particularly if you introduce me through your letters to Illinois.

I know what it is like to be a newcomer in this town. We came to Amherst from another world. Has my father ever mentioned
our time in Barbados? I imagine the Greek islands must be similar — sky and water meeting each other every morning at an endless
blue horizon. In Barbados it was easy to imagine an angry Neptune at work during the hurricane season and a placated Guardian
of the Deep during the rest of the year. Winter in Amherst was quite a jolt to the system after island life — though I imagine
to one from Illinois our Amherst weather will seem mild.

I would be very interested in hearing about your studies. Father is quite proud of his Exeter education and counts his years
there as among his happiest. Do you feel the same?

I must go now; Aunt Helen is calling us to supper. I will be happy to hear from you again.

Best regards,

Miranda Chase

I gave the paper a delicate blot, folded it in half, and placed it into its waiting envelope. If I read it over even once
more, I should find fault with either a phrase or the curl of an “a” or the crossing of a “t,” and I should never send it
at all. Once again I felt sympathy for Emily’s endless revisions. I went downstairs and left the letter with the other mail
waiting to be collected in the tray by the front door. I tried to put any additional corrections or word changes out of my
mind as I set the table.