Afternoons with Emily (5 page)

“I wish I could help your poor father more at this unhappy time,” Aunt Helen mourned. She had a round face like a worn pansy.

“Why, Aunt Helen? He’s fine. He loves being a professor.”

“I’d like to be here to help him with your mother’s illness — and to do things for you, Ara dear, since your mother can’t
be active. But I’m needed at home.”

Aunt Helen had long private talks with Cousin Daisy and Dr. Jackson — and, I imagine, with Father. Afterward she sighed and
hugged me — and sighed again.

“Someday we’ll be closer, Ara,” she promised. “Someday you’ll know your cousin Kate. She’s a bit older, but I know you’ll
be friends.” This made me very curious about Springfield and Aunt Helen’s life. But not for very long. My own life was now
peopled by all the characters brought into my nursery by Mr. Harnett.

In geography, Mr. Harnett and I studied Captain Cook’s adventurous voyages. One spring morning in 1852, we were down on our
hands and knees, creating the Pacific Ocean. My tutor was sloshing blue paint on a sheet, and I was following him with a stiff
brush, making wave ripples. Suddenly, Father appeared in the nursery, looking stern and remote.

“Ara, I want you to come with me to say good-bye to your mother.”

“All right.” I laid my brush down carefully. “Where is she going?”

“She has been gravely ill this month, and Dr. Jackson thinks she may leave us soon.”

I knew this meant dying, and I was very interested. It did not concern me directly, for I had always considered “Mother” an
honorary title in my life, but the closeness of death in the house intrigued me.

I glanced at Mr. Harnett’s face; he nodded and I followed Father downstairs, where a serious nurse opened Mother’s door. The
room smelled of medicine and something new — death, perhaps. She was lying on her chaise longue in a beautiful creamy lace
peignoir with knots of blue ribbon. She was turned toward the chestnut tree blooming at her window. She was wasted to a shadow.
Her skin was almost ethereal in its transparency, and her breath was so imperceptible, a rose leaf might have slept undisturbed
on her lips.

“I like to look at the chestnuts too,” I said, trying to find something to say, something we might have in common. “I have
one at my window. I can look all the way down inside it. It’s like a little lace cave.”

“I imagine it’s very like this one,” she said. “Chestnut trees are usually the same, I believe.” Then she turned toward us.
All the blood seemed to have run out of her flawless face. She could have been a marble statue.

There was a dainty piecrust table at her side, with her mirror and her medicines, and a pile of white cloths. I noticed the
new
Atlantic Monthly
too, containing Father’s article about Theseus in Minoan art.

“Did you like Father’s article?” I asked.

“I haven’t read it yet. Did you want something, Arethusa?”

I looked up at Father, uncertain, but his eyes gazed down at the floor.

“Father says I should say good-bye to you,” I explained.

Mother nodded very slowly, as if understanding this statement came to her from a distant place. “That was very thoughtful
of him. Good-bye, Arethusa. Thank you, Josiah.” She turned her perfect head back to the window and reached for one of the
cloths.

Father and I both knew we had been dismissed. He took my hand to lead me out of the room, gave me an odd questioning look,
then sent me back to Mr. Harnett.

In the nursery, I was dismayed that Mr. Harnett had finished the Pacific without me. The thick paint dried very quickly; you
had to work it while it was still wet. But Mr. Harnett offered me the challenge of doing the curving lettering as consolation,
along with placing the islands with the haunting names. I felt his eyes on me as I faced the task with deep concentration,
aiming for perfection and accuracy.

Two things happened that night: I woke up with croup, and my mother died. I was soon used to the steam kettle and the strange
noises I made in the croup tent, which Mr. Harnett told me sounded like Maine seals calling back and forth. My mother’s death
was something more unusual, but my illness caused me to miss her funeral and interment.

My life in no way changed. As far as I could tell, neither did my father’s. We had always operated in our separate spheres,
one in which Mother was only a shadowy tangential fact, something one knew but not something one experienced.

Not too long after this, Nanny Drummond confided to Cousin Daisy that at the age of seventy-five she was now past raising
children. I had made her last several years in the nursery as easy as I could, often not waking her until afternoon and carrying
our trays from the dumbwaiter myself. Still, I knew she was right.

So the Latham family gave her a grand farewell tea at our house, in the double parlors. This was the biggest difference between
before and after my mother’s death: we hosted an event. The family gathered en masse at the house. How curious they must have
been. Some had never been inside; some I knew only from seeing them at holiday gatherings elsewhere.

Nanny Drummond cried through most of the tea. Each of her “children” gave her a single rose — starting with Cousin Cabot Howe,
who was nearly sixty, and ending with me. Then Cousin Daisy tied a ribbon around the bouquet with a rolled-up scroll in the
bow. This was a copy of the family arrangement that would give Nanny a comfortable monthly income while she lived with her
dear niece in Milton, and a handsome sum for the niece’s farm when Nanny died. I could tell from the approving murmurs that
this ceremony pleased all present.

With Nanny Drummond gone, I was mortally afraid of finding myself with another Miss Ellison as caretaker. I begged Mr. Harnett
to speak to my father for me. It was arranged that Jenny, the downstairs maid, would sleep in Nanny’s old room and help me
with baths and dressing. As to my dreary walks, Cousin Daisy solved that too. A remote Lowell connection had a crooked spine
and had to walk a mile a day in a special brace. She was a sour spinster who loathed children, and I was a sulky nuisance
who would have preferred a book — but nevertheless, most afternoons found Cousin Jane and me walking up and down the Beacon
Hill cobblestones for an unspeaking hour. The rest of the day was gloriously mine.

So for the next year or two, my life was shaped by Mr. Harnett and his lessons — our morning projects, our writing and Latin
and French. When he went back to Harvard after lunch, I continued my related reading — although all books were joy. We decided
to make a tremendous study of European history, starting with the Greeks and their colonies, because we agreed that everything
good started in Greece.

Soon these afternoons were occupied by the occasional social interval. When my mother died, Cousin Daisy became newly active
with my Latham connections — making sure the families who forbade my sharing lessons paid for this slight in other ways. Now
at least once a month I had a birthday party, or an outing to the theater or the circus, or a concert to attend. There were
many entertainments available for well-off Boston children at that time.

My studies with Mr. Harnett had made me better company and more confident in groups. Still, having been kept distant from
my cousins for most of my life, I was awkward and stiff in social settings. My slight remoteness was matched by an uncertainty
on the part of the others. Perhaps I was still tainted with the family secret, for despite my cousins’ new willingness to
include me, Mr. Harnett was still my only true friend.

We were just finishing Charlemagne on Good Friday 1853 when Jenny climbed the stairs to say that Father wanted to see us in
the library right away, for an Easter surprise. Mr. Harnett and I stared at each other with raised eyebrows. This was mysterious.

We went down to the library and discovered an amazing sight: Father and Uncle Thomas were waltzing madly about the room and
singing a loud Easter hymn:

The strife is o’er, the battle done;

The victory of life is won.

The song of triumph has begun.

Alleluia!

I could not believe any part of the fantastic scene, but Mr. Harnett gave a whoop of laughter and held out his arms to me.
Had he guessed what had made them so astonishingly lively or was their extraordinary humor simply infectious? It didn’t matter
— as we waltzed, Mr. Harnett steered me very nicely. The four of us sang the lovely hymn and danced around the library, bumping
often. Then Uncle Thomas stumbled over the book ladder on wheels. He sat down very hard on the bottom step. The ladder started
up — and rolled him slowly along beside the shelves!

We laughed so hard at the stately way Uncle Thomas rode his chariot that my father started to cry. I stood gaping at him.
Father? In tears?

“Ah, me.” He gave a shaky sigh, small chuckles erupting as he crossed to the sideboard. He poured us four sloppy glasses of
sherry, and finally the explanation for this extraordinary scene came: “My compendium of plays has found the ideal publisher!”
Father declared. “And Tom has finished his masterpiece!”

“To our years of work, old friend!” Tom said, holding up his glass.

We toasted their good news, made even better by being shared. I held up my glass and took a sip. It tasted warm and nutty,
but it burned as it slipped down my throat. I decided the cheerful toasting and clinking of glasses filled with amber liquid
was the best part of sherry.

My proud father wanted to call out his news to all the neighbors on Mount Vernon Street, but Mr. Harnett could not seem to
open the windows — so Father decided to take a little nap and try the windows himself later. We covered him on the daybed:
he thanked us graciously. Next we put Uncle Thomas on the sofa with a blanket, clutching his completed manuscript to his chest
like a crusader. Then Mr. Harnett and I went back up to our own floor and our own world, still laughing and singing,
“Alleluia!”

“Don’t forget this morning, my Ara,” said Mr. Harnett. “I want you to start laughing more than you do.”

So of course I tried hard to do this, as I attempted whatever he asked.

The rest of 1853 passed smoothly. Father told us that Uncle Charlie Sloan had died, and he was worried that the income left
to Aunt Helen and my cousin Kate might not be enough. He went to Springfield once or twice, arranging that the Sloans receive
a royalty from his book of plays, which was selling very well. We could afford the generosity; Mother’s income had passed
to him, leaving us with more than we would ever need.

My tutor and I studied the Dark Ages and the Crusades, and then we moved on to the Renaissance. We made a fine model of the
Globe Theatre and staged scenes from Shakespeare. Mr. Harnett found us some all-purpose hand puppets that were easy to adapt
to a particular role: a beard for Lear, a sword for Mercutio. Sometimes our productions turned into a rowdy roughhouse, but
there was no one to hear our racket.

The years passed quickly and productively, and by March 1856, I was a serene twelve and a half. There was an infinity to learn,
and dear Mr. Harnett was there to see that I learned it. I saw no reason for my life to change.

But he was a mysterious day or two late after Easter, and it worried me. When he reached the nursery, where I had made him
a display of spring bulbs, he looked remote and distraught.

He motioned for me to sit at the table and then took his place opposite me, as he had for a thousand mornings. But this time
he took my hand, which unsettled me badly. He had always insisted that a tutor and his pupil should never touch — except for
a hard good-bye handshake and a birthday kiss. And of course that once when we waltzed in Father’s library. His hand engulfed
mine; it felt strong and warm, but I could sense an undercurrent I could not identify that frightened me.

“Ara, I have to talk to you.” He began to speak, shook his head — then tried again. “My dear Ara, I must tell you . . . I’m
moving back to New York.”

I stared at him for a moment, trying to understand what he had just said to me. Then I cried out, “No, NO!” as if I had been
stabbed through the heart like Mercutio. I pulled away from his grasp and covered my face with my hands. I wouldn’t listen
to him, to his good news of his new school, his chance to teach as he had taught me, to use the lessons we had invented together,
that he was finding another tutor for me, that he was not leaving for another few weeks. The more details he offered, the
more I felt the crushing fact of reality. I wanted to drown him out, repeating “no” over and over, almost as a chant. I covered
my ears and ignored the tortured, worried look on his face.

He sat with me until I tired myself out. After making me wash my face, he began the lesson as if nothing had happened, as
if nothing had changed. By the end of the day, I had almost forgotten Mr. Harnett’s terrible news.

For several days, we operated in this pretend fashion. We worked together; I even occasionally laughed, as I knew it pleased
my tutor. But underneath there was a dark sadness nagging at me.

One day, Mr. Harnett brought a young man with him.

“Ara, I’d like you to meet William Brooks,” Mr. Harnett said. The short man nodded and smiled.

“Your tutor has told me a great deal about you, Ara,” Mr. Brooks said. His voice had a soft accent; he sounded like he was
speaking around a mouthful of velvet. “I am looking forward to our working together.”

“Mr. Brooks will begin next month,” Mr. Harnett explained.

My eyes widened as the implication of this statement chilled and stopped my blood. He was Mr. Harnett’s replacement. The pretending
was about to come to an end.

I began to cry wildly, helplessly, uncontrollably, with huge, regular shaking sobs that took over my whole body. I sobbed
from my feet up.

Mr. Harnett asked Mr. Brooks to leave and then held me close, whispered a good-bye, and left; I believe he was crying too.
I couldn’t stop until evening, until midnight. Then Jenny told my father, who must have sent for Dr. Jackson. Suddenly the
doctor was in my nursery, bringing me a bitter brown drink.