Afternoons with Emily (68 page)

“We cannot know that Ethan insisted on anything, Miranda. And in any case, it might as easily have been Ethan who died as
my own dear husband did, leaving Kate alone. Life is short, my dear Miranda. Which is why love is so precious.”

I turned to her now. “What do you think I should do?” I asked plaintively.

She smiled. “What is in your heart. Mr. Daniels has left you in no doubt, surely, about his feelings. I do not know all of
what has passed between you —” She held up a hand as if to stop me from telling her. “Nor do I want to know. You must follow
your heart, but if you decide not to accept Mr. Daniels, you must be very clear about it. It is no kindness to him to give
him hope if there is none. And I do think, Miranda,” she added, with an oddly knowing humor, “that marriage is good for a
woman. For
many
reasons.”

She returned to her knitting, and I, bemused, to the many things she had given me to think about.

I settled Aunt Helen at the hotel and hired a carriage to take me to the docks. I stood in bitter cold amid a throng of waiting
people, stamping my feet to keep my toes from freezing in their boots. There was a dusting of snowflakes; I had worried about
the dangers of a winter crossing, but there in the distance was Roger’s ship, its great smokestack pluming gray smoke against
the silvery sky, and that worry, at least, was no longer important. But the closer the packet came to the dock, the more my
thoughts churned. We will always be colleagues, I told myself. And friends. We had shared too much to lose each other entirely.
For the rest, time would tell. Aunt Helen had told me to follow my heart, but I still could not be sure where that wayward
organ was leading.

I watched as men tossed ropes back and forth and looped them with bewildering speed and agility to moor the ship. Then I looked
up to the deck.

There, among the crowd of men and women who lined the rails, I saw Roger’s dear face. In that instant my rationalization was
undone. I felt a welling of joy, as if I had suddenly recalled every part of him that was dear to me, as though the last year,
with its heartbreak and frustration, had never happened, as if we were both freshly returned from Barbados, with the memory
of every kiss and every touch etched in our minds. More than that, I recalled Roger the man, who had nurtured my dreams as
his own, who had helped me realize the foundation. I would not lose myself in him; I would become more, do more.

I called Roger’s name over and over, heedless of the clamor and of the men and women beside me on the dock. And in a moment
he saw me, his smile as bright as the sun, as welcome as home. I watched as he pushed through the crowd on the deck and was
aware that I was pushing too, trying to reach the gangway to be there when he stepped onto land. I lost sight of him, saw
him again, mumbled apologies to the people upon whose boots I trod. The cold was forgotten, the snowfall unimportant. I looked
up to see him at the top of the gangway, pushed through the throng, and reached the foot of the gangway as Roger threaded
his way past a portly gentleman — my handsome, long-limbed, somber attorney looking for all the world like a schoolboy, his
hair tousled by the sea air and frosted with flecks of melting snow.

And then he caught me up, literally swept me off my feet, and kissed me. The longing of more than a year was concentrated
in that kiss; I felt dizzy even as I returned it. His warm, masculine smell, the slight raspiness of his shaved cheek, the
taste of his mouth — it was as if it were I who had come home.

There was a muted protest from someone at my elbow — the portly man on the gangway, horrified by our public passion.

“Roger, people —” I murmured into his neck.

“Damn people!” He was laughing. “We have the rest of our lives for people!” His arms tightened around me until I gasped, and
there, where all the world could see, he kissed me again.

AMHERST

MAY 20, 1886

R
oger and I were married in Amherst, in the house my father had so loved. I was surrounded that day by almost everyone important
to me: Miss Adelaide was unable to make the voyage from Barbados, but Lolly was my maid of honor, and Elena, beaming with
importance, was our flower girl. It was a late-summer wedding, as beautiful as anything I had ever imagined.

We did wait a “decent interval” — not the twelve months prescribed by custom but eight, during six of which only our closest
friends knew of our attachment. At the end of that time, we wrote a letter to the school’s board, stating simply that we planned
to marry, to allay any fears of scandal based on Emily’s earlier allegations. Slightly “slanting” the circumstances, Roger
explained that it seemed fitting for the chairman of the board to be married, and therefore (his reasoning went), as he was
now a widower, who better to take as his bride than the founder of the school, Miss Miranda Chase? In the week before our
wedding, dozens of cards and letters arrived for us from the parents of children at the Amherst and New York schools; from
some of the children themselves; and from old friends and well-wishers. Davy’s father and stepmother sent a beautiful letter
wishing me love and happiness for their son’s sake, and several of his comrades from the army did so as well. On the morning
of the wedding itself, when I had retired to my room to dress, Elena delivered an envelope.

“A man brought it for you.”

I turned the envelope over and saw the familiar arched and swooping hand. I was tempted — what would she think to send me
on my wedding day? — but in the end I did not want this day tainted by Emily’s mysteries and melodrama. I took up a pencil
and wrote, “Please return to Miss E. Dickinson,” on the envelope, then gave it back to Elena. “Put that on the tray with the
outgoing mail, please?” I gave Elena a kiss. “Then run to your own room. My flower girl must be dressed!”

I did not think of Emily again for a long time.

After the wedding Roger and I returned to Chicago, although we came east several times a year — both to do foundation business
and to let Elena see her father and brothers and Aunt Helen, who had moved to Springfield to be with Ethan and her grandsons.
Ethan’s extraordinary generosity in letting me take Elena to Chicago did not fail to touch me, and I made it a point that
my daughter — for so I felt her to be — knew her brothers and father well. She is married now, with two beautiful small sons
of her own.

I could not bring myself to sell the Amherst house my father had been so proud of, but neither could I let it sit empty. In
the end President Stearns at the college found a tenant for me: a department chairman who needed a house that would permit
him to entertain students and faculty; until his retirement last year, that gentleman and his wife held court there. For me,
the sense of my father’s presence, and of Davy’s, Kate’s, Aunt Helen’s, and my own, is still very strong, and now as the new
home of the Frazar Stearns Center for Early Childhood Education, this house will always be filled with joyful children’s voices
as well.

I have spent the entire night in the past, remembering and listening to the echoes of our lives in this place. Now I hear
the birds of a new morning, heralding the day ahead. It is time to be busy again: to dress for the trip.

But first I must finish packing. Before I close my last valise, I hesitate over the official brown envelope, with its stamps
and seals, that Mr. Farwell had brought with him when he came to tell me Davy was dead. Addressed in Davy’s hand, it had contained
the first papers about the foundation and the Farwell diamond, in its small silver box. I had always kept it as one of my
landmarks, and now I look to see if there are any other papers from that tragic time.

Then I notice it — a small, unexpected envelope I swear I have never seen before, labeled in my father’s strong script, “From
Miss E. Dickinson to Miranda, December 3, 1863.”

That was two days after the news about Davy. The envelope was sealed. Perhaps Father had put it with the Farwell papers in
the confusion of that week of which I remember nothing, nothing at all. Perhaps he gave it to me and I had forgotten. At any
rate, this letter had come for me, and I had never read it.

I open the envelope. I am shocked to see Emily’s younger handwriting again, like a delicate budded vine. Twenty-three years
ago, she had written me:

I will pray you can know, Miranda, my dear sorrowing child, that our friendship, however tempestuous, will endure always.
I hope this poem will be of some comfort to you at this awful time, that you will sense how I value your friendship, even
as we both “feel the Dark.”

For a minute I cannot help but remember how Emily took every occasion, in this case my own grief, to bring the moment back
to herself. But then I see the poem, breathtaking in its clarity and simplicity:

We met as Sparks — Diverging Flints

Sent various — scattered ways —

We parted as the Central Flint

Were cloven with an Adze —

Subsisting on the Light We bore

Before We felt the Dark —

A Flint unto this Day — perhaps —

But for that single Spark.

And I am propelled into wonder. Finding this now, so unexpectedly, is like hearing Emily’s true voice again. This poem has
a freshness, a poignancy, that reaches straight into my heart. And somehow I know that this chance encounter is not chance
at all. For on this, her last day, Emily is reminding me of her immortality. I am sure that this poem, and others equally
thrilling, will live forever.

I look up, feeling great joy and an unexpected kind of peace. For even more important to me, Emily’s last communication is
a powerful affirmation of our friendship. The question I had always pondered — were we truly friends? — is finally settled.
I am holding the proof in my hand.

I rise, sealing the package, and place it in my valise. I will take it with me and keep it always, knowing from this day forward
that Emily Dickinson’s sparks of light, and my own life of unexpected triumphs, will remain securely entwined together.

BY ADELAIDE MACMURRAY AITKEN

october 2006

T
he story of the creation of this book is a saga in itself. Wherever she is, my mother must be filled with delight. And for
the rest of her family, this is the joyful result not only of her individual inspiration but of a collective effort, over
more than nine years, on the part of her husband and children, a number of friends, and most recently skilled and sensitive
professionals.

For most of her life, Rose MacMurray never dreamed of writing a novel, but from the beginning she was a voracious consumer
of words. She taught herself to read at the age of four, and from that moment, she knew that “
There is no Frigate like a Book
.” Words gave her comfort, entertainment, and escape throughout a rather lonely childhood in Lake Forest, Illinois; Paris;
and finally Washington, DC.

At Westover School in Middlebury, Connecticut, she spent three happy years immersed in anything related to language and fleeing
from anything the least bit quantitative. She was a brilliant student, winning many academic prizes, and she made deep and
lasting friendships. Her writing in the literary magazine, primarily poetry, is remarkably sophisticated and skillful. Pictures
of her at the time show a large-boned, beautiful blonde with a somewhat sad look. In the social circles of Washington, she
discovered that all those years of reading gave her a broad frame of reference that, combined with her quick wit, made her
a very appealing companion.

After a year at Bennington, she married Frank MacMurray and settled down in suburban Virginia as a mother and doctor’s wife.
They met at a dance, discovered a mutual love of Yeats, and continued to delight each other intellectually for the rest of
their lives. The rounds of car pools and raising children were sometimes stifling, but she always found solace and renewal
in writing poetry. The topics were often taken from her daily life (children applying to schools; hanging out laundry with
a friend; reading the quotations on tourists’ T-shirts), but her keen observation and humorously economical presentation made
many of her poems memorable.

She found her true calling after her children were grown, when she volunteered to teach an elective poetry class in the Fairfax
public schools. Fifth graders were her favorite (“before the hormones start to churn”), and she not only introduced them to
all the various forms of poetry (sonnets, haiku, villanelles, ballads, etc.) but soon had them writing in those forms as well.
Her class was such a favorite that after the school year ended, the students sometimes persuaded her to keep meeting them
during the summer. I can remember her beside the pool, surrounded by a dozen or so intent small bodies, heads bent with the
concentration of creation. She was nicknamed “The Poetry Lady” and kept in touch with many of her young poets, both boys and
girls, long after fifth grade.

As her own family grew, Rose shared this same inspiration and love of poetry with her four grandchildren, filling their shelves
with books and their visits with collaborative poetry writing. She infused their lives with images and stories, all while
encouraging their own creative spark.

In my memories of growing up, no one could play with words, toss off a pun or quip, produce a fitting quotation, or invent
a fairy tale as dazzlingly as Rose. She was affectionate, emotional, and sometimes unpredictable but always hugely entertaining.
We would sometimes play our own version of Scrabble, where any made-up word would be allowed if the explanation of it was
both plausible and funny.

When my father retired, the two of them finally had the time to travel, and the intellectual curiosity they both shared took
them to many beautiful places. On a trip to France, my mother fell and fractured a vertebra, which required a long immobilization
in bed. Her sister, Adelaide, gave her a word processor that she could balance on her lap. From that moment, as my mother
described it later, some new force like electricity came down her arms and out her fingers, and she found herself writing
a novel about Emily Dickinson, her favorite poet.