Ada’s devotion to The Frugal Housewife amuses me and Vinnie. Mother, of course, made us read it, too, but our favorite parts were the anecdotes about fallen girls and how to raise children well and so forth. We would say to each other in grave voices, “Do not dress your children in restrictive clothing, if you wish them to be either healthy or pretty.” I particularly liked the bit that said hair hanging over their foreheads would turn children’s eyes. I would cross my eyes hugely, for Austin and Vinnie’s entertainment.
But our most favorite passage was on womanly frivolity. Austin would pretend to read from The Frugal Housewife for us while exaggerating its content and tone. He glowered at us and said, “Did anyone admire this woman, this vain and foolish young thing, who served water in Boston and Sandwich crystal tumblers? Or did they exclaim over her placing of Irish linens by their plates? They did not! Ludicrous, conceited woman!”
Mrs. Child likes to make her point with drama, and I am totally in her favor because of that. Who does not want a narrative spun out of every small event? Who doesn’t enjoy the richness of a good story? Mother threatened Vinnie and me with the deportment chair when she heard us make fun of The Frugal Housewife, but she never had us perch on the awful thing, for she knew we would find mischief to conduct there, too. Austin’s renditions only made her smile and scold him mildly.
“Now, Miss Emily,” Ada says, “are you going to sit there like a clump of muck, or are you going to do something useful?”
Her goose-blue eyes needle through me, and I know that she will not permit me to write a scrap in her lair today.
The snow is no appreciator of persons; it enters the town extravagantly and distracts us all from the work at hand. All except Ada. I am trying to be very Dickinsonian in order that I may write—I do like to be churlish and muggy and dour—but the snow brings evenness and calm. I lack Austin’s natural Dickinson grit, it seems. I have shunted my desk over to the window to watch the flakes descend like swans—here a wing expanded, there a whorling plume—and the beauty of it all consumes me, drags me to earth. That Susan, Austin and the children will spend Christmas at our table—hurrah!—is what occupies my thoughts, not the lines I might write. I hope that Austin will be convivial; he sometimes regains his old ways at feast times.
Vinnie enters my room, softly as a squaw; she stops before me and reads out a letter from our Norcross cousins to say they cannot come for my birthday. I gasp when she says they will stay at home.
“Of course they won’t come,” Vinnie says. “Nobody ventures forth on these frozen days that does not have to.” She goes to my bed and flaps the pillows like a serf, then tucks the eiderdown neatly.
“How sad. For once I feel like having company.”
“The Norcrosses will visit when it thaws, my dear.”
“They have irritated me by refusing to come. I can’t help it. Nay, they have wounded me. I do so wish they would just sit into a sleigh and visit.”
Vinnie perches on the side of my bed. “Emily, please don’t be ridiculous. Our cousins would put themselves in danger. You cannot wish for that.”
“We could send our sleigh—it is superior to theirs.”
“Father would not let the horses out, and you know it. The Norcrosses will stay at home.”
“I say no a lot, but I cannot bear it from others. Is it not strange that I, who turn from so many, cannot tolerate it when others run from me?”
Vinnie comes to stand behind me; she pets my hair. “Our cousins are not running from you, Emily. They simply cannot travel. They must not.”
“I want to share love, Vinnie. How can I show my love if my closest ones will not spend time with me?”
She drapes her arms around my neck. “You show love in many ways, my dear. Just think of the fun we will have at Christmas, with Austin here to entertain us. And Susan and the babies. There will be ample opportunity for love and joy.”
“Yes, of course. We will have sport, if Austin’s mood is gay. And if Father permits laughter.”
“Oh, Emily, you are being gloomy. I fancy you spend too much time with Ada and her woes. Those Irish drip with melancholy. Try to be pleasant. You know that Mother frets if all is not happy at home.”
“I will try.” I place my hand over Vinnie’s. “But you misunderstand Ada if you see her as gloomy. She is all cheer with me.”
“Come. You must lift yourself out of this seat and take the air. Go. I insist.”
I rise and hug Vinnie and clamber down the stairs before I can change my mind. I fetch the least cumbersome pair of snowshoes and strap them on. Bundled up like an alpinist, I trudge through the garden. Pleasing suck-and-sump noises rise from my feet. The snow has stopped falling, and winter shines through the trees where mere weeks ago leaves murmured. Air cleaner and sweeter than any air I have tasted for a long time fills my mouth and nose. At the foot of the garden, I find a redpoll on a bush, chirping merrily to the sky.
“You sit here singing, and nobody can hear you. Why do you sing?”
He chirrups and cheeps, as if to say, “I live to sing.” And so I am castigated by a red-capped, brown bird, browner—if it is possible—than my cloak.
I catch a movement from the corner of my eye and am alarmed to see a man coming toward me from the orchard. He is nobody I know. I step awkwardly in my snowshoes and pull myself up to accost him. The man tips his cap and plods on, his legs sinking into the snow up to his knees.
“Hallo! What do you want here?” I call to his retreating back. He is a big fellow, wide and tall.
He turns to face me. “Your father needs me to clear paths through the snow.”
“And you are?”
“Patrick Crohan.”
“Well, Patrick Crohan. Go about it. The shovels are in the barn.”
“This is not my first time here.” He shrugs and walks on.
“Well then,” is all I can think of to say. His casual, insolent manner distracts me from saying anything more useful. I watch him go into the barn and wait for him to come out to begin clearing the snow, but he does not emerge.
Miss Ada and Mr. Daniel Byrne
Are Found Out
THE KITCHEN HAS A VIEW OF THE BARN. MISS EMILY TEASES ME that the builders put the window there especially for me so that I could keep an eye on “a certain someone” while he works. It is true that when I fill the lamps or pluck a chicken, my eyes wander to the window to see what I might see. Daniel is out there this morning with Moody Cook. Moody leads the Squire’s favorite horse, Dick, out of the barn to shoe him. Mr. Dickinson prides himself on having the best horse in Amherst, and he is lavish in his care of him. Daniel washes Dick’s feet, and because I have the window ajar to stop it from steaming, I can hear him coaxing the horse.
“Come on, sir,” he says. “Come on, Dick, you’re a belter. Good man. Whoa, now. Good man, Dick.”
He goes on like that, relaxing the horse and talking him up at the same time. They’re like two old butties having a one-sided chat. The horse’s breath and Daniel’s mingle in the freezing air. The yard is cleared of snow—the men shoveled it away—but the air is still frost-heavy. I think how cold Daniel’s hands must be, and I long to warm them for him. I consider heating soapstones for him to slip into his pockets, but then Moody would know about us.
Daniel glances up and sees me poking my nose at the window. He raises his hand in salute, but I, like an eejit, dip backward. He has seen me and knows I have seen him, and now I feel properly foolish. I look around the kitchen for something to distract me from my blushes and realize that I have spent so much time gawping into the yard that I am late for setting the dining-room table for the family’s breakfast. I get going, but I am still arranging delft and cutlery when they come in. I dish up the hash and applesauce, pour their coffee.
Mr. Dickinson steps up to the sideboard. “I will take an egg today, Ada. Would you care for eggs, my dears?”
The three women look from him to me and shake their heads.
“Boiled, sir?”
“Poached,” he says, sitting and lifting the Springfield Republican to his face. I am nearly out the door when he calls, “Not too much vinegar, Ada. You almost poisoned me with it last week.” He shakes his paper. “‘As vinegar to the teeth, and as smoke to the eyes, so is the sluggard to them that send him.’ Is that not what Solomon says, Emily?”
“If you say so, Father.”
The egg sets me back for finishing the plucking, which sets me back for getting the slops, which sets me back for starting the wash, which in turn means I will have less time to plan the Christmas feast. I can feel bars of annoyance threading through my spine, but I soften them because that way folly lies. I can hear Mammy saying, “God made time, Ada, but man made haste,” so I decide I will take everything slowly and get it all done, regardless of the chores piling up.
The kitchen door swings wide and Moody Cook stands there grinning like the newly mad.
“Miss Concannon, a cup of tea and a slice of something delicious, if you please.”
“Close that door and sit down. I’ll get you a bit of soda bread.”
“I’d eat the socks off a dead minister,” Moody says.
The door opens again, and Daniel slides through; he stands, saying nothing. Something seems to beat off him and glow; he fills the room. I stop like a statue and stare at him, eventually squeaking, “Daniel,” by way of welcome.
“Oh,” says Moody, looking between the pair of us. “Oh and oh and oh.” He rubs his hands together. “I will say nothing,” he says, and chuckles to himself, “nothing at all.”
Daniel looks at me, and my insides loosen and tighten in one quick jolt. “Tea, Daniel?”
“If you please, Ada.”
I make tea and slice the bread. I roll some butter into a curl with a spoon and place it before the two of them on a tiny dish; I dollop jam onto a saucer. I cannot find it within myself to sit down, so I bustle about, seeing to my cares, and the two men chatter softly while I lift delft from one spot and place it on another, unsure of what to do with myself or how to behave. What I wish is that Moody Cook would vanish and I could take Daniel to my breast and hold him, right here in the kitchen. I would like to press my mouth to his and feel the heat of him. These wild thoughts nearly make me drop Mrs. Dickinson’s white teapot, but I catch myself, and, face hot, I place it down carefully. Every bit of Daniel Byrne is pleasing to me, from his scalp to his toes, and I feel silly as a day-old chick when he is near me.
Miss Emily Welcomes
the Tenth of December
THE TENTH OF DECEMBER DAWNS SNOW-BRIGHT AND COLD. I find a rough package at my bedroom door. I unwrap the brown paper, and inside is a four-pronged cross made with folded rushes. It can only be from Ada. I place the cross over my bed, ready to defend it from Mother and Vinnie and anyone else who steps into my room.
In the kitchen Ada is wiping brasses with a rag dipped in rum. She rubs and haws, haws and rubs. The sugar-oaky smell of the rum is heady.
She holds up Vinnie’s needle case to me. “Look at that, Miss Emily, you can see your face as good as in any mirror.”
“Happy birthday, Ada,” I say, and the words, to my surprise, emerge shyly.
She leaves down her work and stands. “And many happy returns to you, miss.”
“The cross is beautiful.”
She knots her fingers in front of her. “I brought it from home. Those are reeds from an Irish river, miss. It’s a St. Brigid’s cross. It keeps evil from the door, so it does. It has been over my own bed since I came, but I want you to have it.”
“And now it is over mine. I thank you.” I take out the small box I have been concealing in my pocket and hand it to her.
“There was no need,” Ada says, but she is pink with pleasure and fumbles open the lid hastily. “Oh, it would take the sight out of your eye.” She lifts the brooch I have given her and mock-pins it to her apron. “I’ve never owned anything like this. Anything as bright and lovely.”
I had sent Vinnie to Cutler’s to purchase Ada’s gift, with guidelines as to what would be acceptable. She had chosen well.
“The pearls remind me of snow, and . . . well, I thought they would suit your dark hair.”
Ada grins at me, reaches over and clasps my hand. “May God bless you, Miss Emily.” Gathering herself, she puts the brooch back into its box and slips it into her apron pocket. Sitting again, she polishes the brasses. “St. Brigid performed miracle after miracle, you know. She tricked a king out of land by spreading out her cloak. It grew and grew, sucking up more and more of his fields. Isn’t that just marvelous? Tricking a rich man like that!”
She tells it so sincerely, with such belief in her tone, that I can only nod in agreement.
“Shall we try some of our cake?” I ask.
“Let me put the kettle on and cut us a lump each.”
Ada brews coffee and slices the cake. We are both aglow, made happy by our shared birthday. We sit at the kitchen table, a pair of avaricious birds, and gorge on wedges of Black Cake, celebrating the day our far-apart mothers gifted us our lives in this world.
Miss Ada Goes to Mass
with Daniel
IN MY DREAMS I HUMOR THE DEAD. I LET MY AUNTIE MARY bake bread in the Dickinson kitchen, as if that were her custom, and I say nothing when she soaks her clothes in the copper basin in the washroom. I watch her silently when she sits on the stool in my bedroom, taking everything in. Then we talk about things—her children and Ireland—and both pretend that she is still alive.
“You’re as snug as a cap over the kitchen in here,” Auntie Mary says.
“Yes,” I say. “My little room keeps the kitchen warm as much as it warms me.”
Even in my dream, I realize that I sound like Miss Emily, and I laugh. The dream laughter is real, as it turns out, and I wake to find myself giggling. I also wake expecting to find Auntie Mary in my room, and I am disappointed that she is not sitting by me. But also a little relieved; I have long been frightened of ghosts. In my dream Auntie’s cheeks are ruddy and we do not mention illness or funerals or her family or poor, lonely Uncle Michael.
Miss Emily told me that dreams are messages—“couriers,” she said—and they try to show us things that we can’t see. I lie for a few moments, eyes shut again, trying to reenter the dreamworld, so that I might spend more time with my auntie and find out if she wants to tell me something. But forcing a dream never makes it happen.
I remember another dream I had recently, one where I was harried by lions. They ran to my mammy’s door every time I opened it, though it was not actually Mammy’s door, because the house sat on Amity Street in Amherst. Lions. Roaming wild in Massachusetts and eager as dogs for notice. The dreamworld is an odd place.
It is Christmas Eve morning, and it is dark; I swish my legs into the cold parts of the bed and swiftly snatch them back. Soon I will have to get up; today will be a long day of preparations. But tonight Daniel and I are going to Mass together at Mr. Slater’s home, there being no Catholic church in Amherst. Father Sullivan will travel from Holyoke to celebrate the Mass, and my only hope is that he has a stout sleigh.
I wear my red merino, at my throat the pearl brooch that Miss Emily gave me for my birthday. The ground is cleared of snow, and Daniel stays close by me for the short walk to Mr. Slater’s house. His wife welcomes us, taking our coats, and we choose seats in the large parlor and wait for Father Sullivan to arrive. Patrick Crohan and his aunt and uncle sit near us, and Crohan turns in his seat and grins in our direction. Daniel nods a greeting, but Patrick continues to stare at me, like a goat who knows no better than to gawk. I fidget my head this way and that, made uncomfortable by his eyes.
“Ignore him,” Daniel says.
“It’s all right. He’s only being friendly.” I wave at Crohan, a
nd he waves back, and I wonder if there isn’t something mocking in the slow way he moves his hand.
Uncle Michael comes into the room, and I smile at him; Cousin Annie links him, and she has a pious, put-upon look to her. She seems to revel in the glory of her mourning, in all the attention it gets her. Annie and Maggie were cut from the same cloth, and they couldn’t be more different from their parents.
I kneel and pray for Mammy, Daddy and the girls; for Auntie Mary and Uncle Michael; I pray for Miss Emily and all the Dickinsons. I place my face in my hands and close my eyes. I am a little homesick. I imagine Mammy getting the bigger girls to hang stockings on the bed and the mantelpiece, ready for the nuts, fruits and gewgaws she will put in them when all are asleep. It was my custom to help her on Christmas Eve, and we would stay up late stitching the last few dollies that we made from scraps and old clothes. I hope she misses me tonight as I miss her, but I am sure Rose has taken my place and that their two heads are bent by the fire now, sewing button eyes into flour-sack faces.
Daniel kneels beside me, and I wonder if he is thinking of his poor dead mother. Or of his grandparents at home in Ringsend. Being with him here makes it easier to hold up under the yearning that threatens to topple me tonight. I glance at him, and he turns his head sideways and winks. Daddy says that only corner boys wink at women, but Daniel is no corner boy. No, he is not that way at all. I know that Daddy would like Daniel, and that is saying a lot, because Daddy doesn’t take easily to anyone.
The lamp oil and tallow make the air in the room thick and comforting. The Slaters have put up a proper crib with plaster statues like you would see in a church. When Father Sullivan gives the final blessing, we all line up to say a prayer in front of the Holy Family.
Miss Emily Page 8