Afternoons with Emily (49 page)

I sat, waiting for his verdict. This was the first time that I had expressed these ambitions to a stranger, albeit hiding
behind the wishes of Alan Harnett. I recognized the unusual nature of our relationship — as my trustee he would advise me,
but I, younger by perhaps nearly a decade, and a woman, would make the decisions as the head of the foundation.

An approving smile crossed his face. “These are excellent plans, and in the spirit of Davy’s trust.”

Relieved by his response, I almost missed his use of Davy’s first name. When this familiarity registered, I asked, “You said
‘Davy’ — did you know him?”

“Our families were friends, though he was younger. I confess I had never really talked to him until he came to our law firm
to set up the foundation in the summer of ’63. I was at home on leave. He was so dedicated, so definite about what he wanted
for you — none of us have ever forgotten him.”

I was aware of his intense, unwavering gaze. He did not stare; his calm eyes simply didn’t leave me. What does he see? I wondered.
I tried to imagine myself through this interested stranger’s eyes and was pleased to acknowledge that I was proud of who I
was becoming. Despite the pain I had endured, I felt strong and enlivened by a future that now seemed possible. I sensed Mr.
Daniels’s approval.

At dinner, Father entertained us with stories of his trip abroad. Then he turned serious and tactfully asked Mr. Daniels about
his war experience.

“I was a captain and then a major on General Sherman’s staff, at Shiloh and Vicksburg.”

“You saw a great many of the most crucial campaigns,” Aunt Helen commented.

Mr. Daniels took another mouthful of his stew, then nodded. “Eventually I was transferred to General Burnside’s staff, outside
Petersburg.”

“We hear a great deal about the war,” Father said. “But I often wonder about the news that doesn’t travel.”

“I always felt Davy was protecting me in his letters,” I added. “I think I might have been less afraid if I had known more.
My imagination created its own horrors.”

“Much occurred that would have been unimaginable to you,” Mr. Daniels said. “The face of battle is one I want never to look
into again. The malignant personal hatreds wearing patriotic masks; the chances for brutish men to grow more brutal and for
honorable men to degenerate into madness. This is what I saw, and again at the prison camp at Andersonville, where our men
turned against one another to survive. War may be an armed angel with a mission, sir, but she has the personal habits of a
slattern.” He gave Aunt Helen and me an apologetic smile. “If you will forgive my terms, ladies.”

“Of course,” Aunt Helen said, her voice husky with emotion.

“When were you captured, sir?” my father asked.

“As we were nearing Atlanta, on our march from Chattanooga. I was captured at Kennesaw Mountain and sent to Andersonville.
I suppose you have heard about that place?”

“A little,” Father told him sadly. “It sounds far worse than any battle.”

“Whatever you’ve heard, it’s not savage enough. It was Hell, man-made and deliberate Hell. I had never known such evil was
possible. I still cannot believe that American men could treat one another as I saw them doing in Andersonville, day by day,
week by week.”

“Do you think of those terrible days often, Mr. Daniels?” I asked him, awed by his passion.

Mr. Daniels looked sad. “Not by choice, but I can’t put it behind me. I’m a different man, Miss Chase. The experience of war
has changed me forever.”

At dawn there was a thunderstorm followed by a drenching rain, then a blazing sun. As though Nature herself had washed away
the evening’s grim memories, it was a gentle, even relaxed, Roger Daniels who greeted us at the breakfast table. Aunt Helen
piled his plate high, as if a hearty breakfast could repair the pain of the past, and Mr. Daniels tucked in with relish, pleasing
her to no end.

Elena was delighted with our guest. She introduced my trustee to her bear (formerly Maple Syrup, now Zeus), and Mr. Daniels
shook his paw. I saw that he had a natural ease with children; he neither patronized nor pretended an interest that did not
exist. As they chattered comfortably, I wondered whether he had children of his own. As he reached for the teapot, I glanced
down quickly at his left hand and saw that he wore no wedding band.

After breakfast Elena took Mr. Daniels to the brook to visit her pool. Within the hour, Mary Crowell came, and we worked through
the morning, answering Mr. Daniels’s questions and showing him the sketches and suggestions made by Ethan Howland, who, with
the war over, was once again in private practice. Gradually, emerging from the collage of architectural renderings and printers’
passes, I could almost see the expansive shape of the life ahead for me. As Mr. Daniels listened intently to my presentation,
again I thought I felt his respect — and my confidence swelled. It was a heady thing to have the money for a dream!

In the afternoon Mr. Daniels and I were to meet with President Stearns; I suggested we leave well before the appointed hour
so I could show him something of our community. As we made our way to the village center, we walked by The Evergreens and
The Homestead, though the high hedges guarding Emily’s house precluded a good view. We went cross lots, three fields away,
passing through stands of hemlock and yellow birch to West Cemetery on Triangle Street. There we began to talk about the role
Amherst had played in New England’s history, and New England in our nation’s. Mr. Daniels observed that the headstones marking
the remains of our grim Puritan forefathers didn’t look nearly as severe in death as he imagined they had in life.

“Yes,” I said, “we New Englanders begin to enjoy ourselves only
after
we are dead.” We both laughed.

By the time we passed the ivy-covered Johnson Chapel, one of the oldest buildings at the college, the late-day sun was bathing
the facades of Morgan Hall and South College, and the Holyoke Mountain Range in the distance wore a rosy corona.

During our meeting with President Stearns, I was a little distracted, once again, by Mr. Daniels’s steady regard across the
conference table. But soon we were in deep discussion with that venerable educator. I was astonished to find that nearly three
hours passed in his company! He had been impressed by my talk in the temple last month, and as I had hoped, he agreed to lend
us a large former laboratory for our Amherst kindergarten. Our plans were now truly under way.

In the evening we dined with the Crowells and some would-be kindergarten parents. There was good talk about education, and
I was proud of my trustee’s intelligence and learning. Our glances kept intersecting as he studied me and as I tried to get
a better look at him. I decided his fine eyes were more topaz than ocher.

Mr. Daniels was supposed to take the morning train, but he lingered at breakfast, ill at ease. Finally he asked if he might
speak to me privately.

“I have a confession to make, Miss Chase,” he told me in the library. “I must tell you I was here under false pretenses.”

I was startled by this admission. “You mean you’re not my trustee?”

He laughed and held up a hand. “No, I’m surely that.”

“Then whatever do you mean?” I settled into a chair by the window, gesturing to Mr. Daniels to take the seat beside me.

“I came to Amherst in person because I’d already met you, and I wanted to know you better.”

This explanation only confused me more. “If that is true, I’d remember it. When did we meet?”

“In Lake Forest this June. I was so thin and weak after starving at Andersonville that the Farwells invited me to swim at
their beach and get my strength back. When I changed in Davy’s room, there was your lovely portrait — very serious and earnest,
with a column and some clouds.”

“That must be Mr. Gardner’s pose.”

“I knew your story very well, of course, and we had exchanged letters about the foundation — but seeing your face changed
everything. You became a real person, and I found excuses to be in Davy’s room. I swam so often that the Farwells must have
thought I had grown gills!”

He chuckled at his own foolishness, and I realized the implications of this information. He liked what he had seen in that
portrait! I felt a slight blush rise in my cheeks and hoped he didn’t notice. I certainly didn’t want him to feel he had embarrassed
me.

“When I was well again,” he continued, “I decided to come here and see if I could help you with the foundation. I could have
sent someone else.
That
was how I deceived you, Miss Chase, and
there!
” He slapped his thighs and stood up. “That makes me an honest man again! Now I’ll go to New York and talk to Alan Harnett,
and see the property he has in mind. May I come back on Friday?”

“You will be very welcome, Mr. Daniels.” And so he departed, leaving the house a little bit emptier.

And so I began to set our plans in motion. Since President Stearns had agreed to lend us the space for our kindergarten, I
decided it was only appropriate that he name the school. When I called on him with official papers, I asked him to do so.
The mild, sad gentleman smiled at me from his tragic scholar’s face.

“Your kindness does your father credit, Miss Chase. I would be obliged if you would call your school the ‘Frazar Stearns Center.’
My son loved all young children; I would like to hear their voices saying his name.”

It was a fitting tribute, and one I was happy to make. He signed the papers with a flourish, and preparations could begin
in earnest. I looked forward to being able to report this news to my trustee.

On Friday, Mr. Daniels returned to Amity Street full of enthusiastic plans.

“Alan Harnett and I got on like a house afire,” he exulted. We sat on the edge of the stage in the temple, eating apples.
“He’s a splendid fellow; Mr. Jewett thinks the world of him. He found a house on Washington Square that is just what we need
— a four-story brownstone, with a big walled garden for the children. It was very reasonable because it needs renovation,
but you’ll have to remodel it for the school’s needs anyway. I think Ethan Howland should go to New York soon and make us
some drawings so we can get started. We’ll need some big changes.”

“Can we really pay for all this, Mr. Daniels?”

“Easily. We’ll do our Amherst school out of accrued income and borrow from the trust to buy the house on Washington Square.
We’re not going to stint ourselves; this ‘show window’ kindergarten is very important to us.”

I noticed his easy use of “we” and “us” but said nothing. I also observed my pleasure in hearing him do so.

“So I’ll go back to Chicago and talk to the bank and the other trustees — and draw up the papers. May I come to you again
in three weeks, Miss Chase?”

“Please do. Our autumn colors should be at their finest then.”

“And one more thing — since we’ll be working together from now on, would you call me ‘Roger’?”

“With great pleasure — and you must say ‘Miranda.’”

When he was ready to leave in the morning, he seemed reluctant. “There is still so much to talk about . . . so much I want
to learn,” he said. “I suppose it will have to wait until I come back to Amherst.”

“That will be in only three weeks, Roger,” I reminded him with a smile. But when I walked him to the door and shut it behind
him, three weeks suddenly seemed like a very long time.

With Roger gone and Father resuming his teaching duties, I found a Monday to visit Emily. She was paradoxical toward the Frazar
Stearns Center. She relished every detail involving gossip and personalities (“Stay clear of Rebecca Scott. She’s a stormy
petrel!”) and yet was oddly uninterested in the big educational changes we were introducing. (“As long as everyone learns
to read, I can’t see what all the FUSS is about!”) Yet she was sweetly generous about my pleasure in the ongoing work of starting
our kindergarten.

“Didn’t I tell you your TRUE CENTER was nearing? I just didn’t know what it would be!”

We discussed the new First Congregational Church, a stylish Romanesque monster that was rising directly across Main Street
from the two Dickinson properties, and of which Emily highly disapproved. The lovely old church on the green, so Greek and
gracious, was to be unfrocked and deporticoed and given to the college to use for offices. She restated her rejection of the
new shrine.

“Austin took me out to the fence the other night,” she explained, “and I saw all the view I wanted to. What a SWARM of cupolas
and minarets and slate EMBROIDERY! Father will dedicate it, of course, but without my presence. I don’t think God will be
there either. He’ll never find his way in!”

“Emily, you should have a Boswell!” I told her.

“Should I, Miranda? Perhaps when I find my ‘manager,’ he will do that for me too.”

I pricked up my ears. “Your manager?”

“Manager, or agent, or whatever he will be called. Someone who won’t edit me, of course — just see my poems are printed EXACTLY
as I wrote them. And do the arguing and bartering for me so I won’t have to HAGGLE.”

“Who is he, Emily?”

“Someone worldly, with a thick skin and a firm will. Someone tough! When I meet him, I’ll surely recognize him. Meanwhile,
I spin my poetry and hope my diligence will turn flax to gold, as it does in any good fairy story.”

It was one of the best afternoons with Emily I could remember in recent months. This time, as I walked home, I was pleased
to be able to look forward to future visits with “the myth.” Perhaps she was capable of engaging in life beyond her tiny circumscribed
space after all.

I placed an advertisement in the
Republican
for a teacher “who loves to learn.” The first young woman who applied was very familiar. Her heart-shaped face, enlivened
by cheerful brown eyes, her slim figure, her light brown hair, were all somehow known to me. How was this possible?

“You’re wondering where we met.” She smiled. “You came to some of my classes in Springfield, when you were still at the academy.
I remember you took notes on everything I did.”