Afternoons with Emily (67 page)

Lips unused to Thee —

Bashful — sip thy Jessamines —

As the fainting Bee —

Then another arrived, and I knew I needed to do something.

Wild Nights — Wild Nights!

Were I with thee

Wild Nights should be

Our luxury!

Futile — the Winds —

To a Heart in port —

Done with the Compass —

Done with the Chart!

Rowing in Eden —

Ah, the Sea!

Might I but moor — Tonight —

In Thee!

This was a blatant love poem. And not simply a romantic love but one suffused with a deep and erotic desire. I could not imagine
Emily expressing that to me, but why else would she send it? Did she imagine such an avowal would move me to take up our friendship
again? That as she had forced Roger away, she might offer herself to me as an alternative? I had no intention of seeing Emily
again. I wanted the poems to stop.

Sue Dickinson had told me once that she had received similar letters from Emily. And despite the barriers Emily put up against
her sister in-law, they remained friends. Sue was the person to speak to; I would have to explain that there had been a break
between Emily and me, but I trusted Sue’s tactful sympathy and did not think she would ask the cause. She had requested that
I look out for signs of mental disturbance in Emily, and these poems hinted at something I had neither the experience nor
the will to handle myself. Let Sue decide what to do. Let her absolve me of any responsibility for Emily.

After we settled on the sofa in Sue’s highly decorated parlor, she gave me a shrewd look. “Now, my dear, tell me what is troubling
you — for I can see that something is.”

I withdrew the poems from my folder and handed them to her. “Emily and I had a falling out,” I began. “Several months ago.
But she has continued to send me poetry. I don’t like to worry you, but — I do not know what to make of these or what to do.”

Sue read the poems, nodding her head a few times as she shuffled through them. “I can understand why these would disturb you.”

“I don’t know what to think. I cannot be Emily’s friend. These poems —”

Sue folded the poems, smoothing the paper carefully. “What do you think she is saying with these letters?”

“They appear to be — from anyone else, I would say they were love letters.”

“I agree. You must know by now that she does not mean them to be taken literally; I think she would be horrified and offended
if you did so. I think this is her way of telling you that you are important to her. An imagined passion is as good as — or
likely better than — a real one to Emily.”

This I could readily believe. But I no longer wanted to be important to Emily Dickinson. Something of that must have shown
on my face.

“I will not ask the cause of your falling out, but I imagine that it has affected Emily deeply. She does not admit many people
to her circle, Miranda.”

“Yes, that is a troubling part of this,” I said.

“What worries me . . .” Sue began thoughtfully. Then she rose and left the room. A moment later she returned with the collection
of letters she had shown me before. She riffled through them, then pulled out a creased and worn page. “Yes, I thought so.”

It was a copy of the poem that began “I showed her Heights,” which Emily had sent to me shortly before our quarrel.

“She sent this to me years ago. If she sent it to you as well, rather than composing a new poem, it may mean Emily is not
writing. If she is not, that explains why she is so . . . needy.”

“Whatever she needs, I will not — I
cannot
— supply to her,” I said.

Mrs. Austin shook her head. “I would not ask it. It is enough that you have let me know about this, Miranda. I do thank you.”

Gradually the flow of poems I received from Emily slowed, and their feverish tone quieted. Emily did not seem to expect any
response from me, and I gave none.

The vibrant autumn landscape faded to brown and gray, and then to the soft snow-edged monochrome of December. And then, in
the first week of that month, I received a letter from Roger.

My dearest Miranda,

It is surprisingly difficult for me to write these words. I have just received word that Cecilia died in her sleep. I had
given up hope years ago for her recovery and had resigned myself to the knowledge that death would be a release for her, but
I am still deeply grieved, as much for the beautiful life that was taken from her as for the years in which she has been only
a shell. It is a shock, as well, after enduring these long years without hope, to find that the end has come at last for her.

I am returning to the United States. There is much sad business to attend to: Cecilia’s estate and the family. I sail in January
from Southampton; whatever the hazards of a winter crossing, I hope to make the fastest journey possible.

Even at this sad time I cannot ignore the fact that this changes everything between us. My feelings for you are what they
have always been, and I hope to make that clear to you. There must be what society calls a “decent interval,” but I hope that
at the end of that time, you will let me hold you in my arms and offer to you my heart, my hand, and the rest of my life.
I love you.

For a long moment my head whirled and my mind went numb. I stood rooted to the floor as a strange and negative state pervaded
my being. It was an odd blankness in which my mind and my heart and my body seemed unwilling to react. Strangely, I wanted
this blankness to continue.

“I cannot go back,” I said aloud. Roger would have to stay in England. Everything needed to stay exactly where it was. I looked
down and saw my hands, holding Roger’s letter, shaking so hard I thought I might drop it.

Then I shook my head and began to move, slowly, carefully, not knowing until later that I must have emitted a low, choked
moan. But Aunt Helen heard and came running. “Miranda . . . ?” She stopped. “Oh, my darling. What is it?”

I could not answer. Aunt Helen led me to the kitchen and guided me gently into a chair. Bridget, also in the kitchen, immediately
brought a cup of tea. Aunt Helen sat down beside me, alternately stroking my arm and patting my shoulder. “Oh, my dear girl,
my dear girl,” she kept repeating. “You have received bad news. We will rest here quietly together until you regain yourself.”

Finally I said, “What will I do?” And again, “What will I do?” I tried to shrug off this strange, empty feeling, but I seemed
not able to move or even think.

“Tell me what has happened,” Aunt Helen said. “And we will approach the matter together. May I see the letter you are holding?”

Wordlessly I handed it to her, and while she read it, I said again, “What will I do?” It was as though I had lost my ability
to think, to plan.

My aunt put the letter down and took both my hands in hers. “At this moment you need do nothing,” she said. “Roger will not
leave London until January, and the voyage to America, even by packet boat, takes two weeks at least. You need not write to
him — he will be gone before a letter reaches him. We will go forward with our lives as usual, and you will soon be able to
think clearly. Things will sort themselves out.”

Dear Aunt Helen, with her wonderful, commonsense approach to life.

“Thank you.” I looked up at her. “I am sure that you are right.”

We were interrupted by the arrival of Elena, bursting with the news that she had been chosen to be the Virgin Mary in the
school’s Christmas play. There was no escaping reality, not even in this warm and cozy kitchen, and I took some comfort in
that. My world might have exploded, but everything else seemed to be proceeding at its normal pace. I simply did not want
to proceed with it.

“That will change,” Aunt Helen said to me when I expressed this thought. “You have received a great shock, and you need time
to recover and adjust your thinking. But you will recover.”

Again her words gave me solace, and as the next several days passed, I could see that I really had no choice. Christmas was
bearing down upon us, and Elena’s excitement was not to be ignored. If only for her sake, I must involve myself in all the
usual activities. To myself I acknowledged that I had built walls around my heart, comfortable walls, and I did not want them
lowered. But in spite of myself — surrounded by the familiar and safe routines of caring for Elena, keeping up with my correspondence
and my work, and assisting Aunt Helen with our holiday preparations — thought and feeling returned and, with them, the knowledge
that I must somehow find a way to come to terms with the facts: Roger was returning, and he wanted me to marry him.

But not yet, I said to myself, not yet. My feelings were so contradictory; they changed from moment to moment. I was sad,
grieved for Roger’s loss. I felt a shadowy guilt that any possibility of future happiness with Roger might have been bought
at the cost of Cecilia’s death. And, most important, I wondered whether, now that there was no impediment to that happiness,
marriage to Roger was truly what I wanted.

For more than a year I had assumed so, had believed, with all the ardent longing of my heart, that love was paramount. And
yet, in that time, the New York school had opened and begun to thrive. The Amherst school, firmly established, had more applications
for the fall term than we could accept. I had lectured on early childhood education in Boston, with Ralph Waldo Emerson and
onetime Concord School superintendent Bronson Alcott in the audience! I was becoming
someone,
an independent woman of accomplishment. Could that continue if I were Roger’s wife? I knew, after this year, that I could
live without Roger; now I would have to decide if I would live
with
him.

This was the crucial question, as my body and my hands moved through the days. My mind embraced and discarded many answers.
We attended Elena’s pageant rehearsals, we spent many hours baking Christmas cakes and cookies, we decorated the house. It
occurred to me that Aunt Helen had not once referred to the emotion in Roger’s letter. What could she be thinking now that
she had seen with her own eyes his passionate declarations? Did she approve? Disapprove? As far as I could tell, she had had
no idea that our relationship had been anything more than a strong and respectful friendship. I thought of asking but decided
against it. Aunt Helen was, after all, a grown woman, and surely she was aware of Roger’s charms. If she had guessed some
time ago that there were the seeds of something more between us, she had certainly kept her thoughts to herself. And had she
disapproved of the possibility, I was sure she would have expressed her views.

No, I would not stir that pot. Her behavior with me now was that of the wonderful, kind aunt I had always known, and I would
do as she proposed: think carefully and move forward.

And so we bought or made and wrapped our presents, watched Elena — self-conscious and proud together — in her Christmas pageant,
and a few days later took the cars to Springfield to spend a calm holiday with Ethan and his family. It was a lovely time,
one I did not want to end, where warmth and family joy seemed especially poignant. Elena and her brothers were wonderfully
close, and Ethan and Ann’s fine intelligence and warm hearts were more in evidence than ever. I hated to leave this island
of calm; my eyes filled with tears when the moment came.

The journey back to Amherst passed as a blur, my mind whirling again through every clacking mile. As many times as I had imagined
Roger’s return, I had never imagined I would question my own heart so sternly. I
thought
I loved him; he believed he loved me. But it had been a long time since we had seen each other. If my stomach fluttered and
my skin tingled at the thought of Roger’s body, did that mean we were meant to be together? What would be the price, to satisfy
the yearnings of my heart and my body?

Emily Dickinson had told me that if I married, I would be forced to submit my dreams to those of my husband. I did not believe
Roger would ask such a thing of me, but might it happen anyway, in the course of things? Could a woman have both love and
accomplishment in her life?

At home I settled in uneasily, waiting for what I knew was close at hand: a talk with Aunt Helen. A cable — a new and expensive
way of communicating — had arrived from London, telling us that Roger’s packet ship would arrive in Boston Harbor on January
20.

“You must be there to meet him,” Aunt Helen pronounced. “Whatever you decide, you owe him that courtesy. He is a fine gentleman,
and he has lost his wife. You must at the very least extend your deepest sympathy.” She looked at me. “You know he would do
the same for you, if the circumstances were reversed.”

She was right, of course. Extending my sympathy would not require a decision, and it was exactly what I should do. I nodded.
“Will you travel to Boston with me?”

“Of course,” she said. “It would not be proper for you to meet him there alone.”

On a bitterly cold morning, Aunt Helen and I boarded the train to Boston. Elena had been invited to stay with a school friend,
although when she learned why we were going to Boston, she began to issue commands that we bring “her friend Roger” back to
Amherst for her.

Sitting in the chilly carriage, Aunt Helen and I rode in silence for some time. I sat next to the window, watching the wintry
gray landscape hurtle by. I had thought that Aunt Helen had dozed over her knitting, until I felt her hand enclose one of
mine.

“Miranda?”

“Yes, Aunt?” I kept my gaze out the window.

“You have known me only as a widowed aunt, your father’s sister. Can you believe that I was once as young as my dear Kate
and as much in love with her father as she was with Ethan? That is why I rejoiced so in her marriage; I know how joyful a
good marriage can be.”

“But Kate’s marriage — she died so young. If she hadn’t — if Ethan had not
insisted
—”