Miss Emily

by Nuala O'Connor

  “He forced me, Daniel. He was drunk, and he came to my room, and if I could have stopped him, I would have. I’m sorry, Daniel, I’m so sorry. I was frightened.”

  He doesn’t answer me, just keeps moving his hands over my back. I look up at Miss Emily, and she stands there, triumphant, as if she has resolved things.

  “You had no right to tell him that,” I say.

  “This needs to be finished, Ada.” Her voice is even but grim. “The truth makes us free.”

  I loosen my arms around Daniel; he is no longer crying. I bend my head to his to try to see his eyes. He pushes back his chair and stands. He pulls on his cap and tips it at Miss Emily and then is gone out the door, quick as a hare.

  Miss Emily rushes across the kitchen. “Mr. Byrne! Mr. Byrne! Daniel!”

  I run to join her, and we see him disappear into the barn. He is out again in a moment, slipping something inside his jacket; he is swallowed up by the mist after he strides through the back gate.

  “Oh, my God. Oh, Jesus, Mary and Joseph, what will he do?”

  Miss Emily grabs my arm. “Run, Ada. Get my shoes.”

  I tear up the stairs and into Miss Emily’s bedroom, and I have to scuttle under her bed to find a pair of outdoor shoes. Back in the kitchen, I shove them onto her feet, and I bless Miss Vinnie for choosing shoes with elastic sides, that I don’t have to be fiddling with laces. Miss Emily takes my hand, and we rush out the back door. She gasps when we get to the gate, pauses and gulps, like a child entering the sea for the first time.

  “Are you all right, miss?” She looks scared, but she nods, and we plunge on. “Where are we going?”

  “Does Crohan reside with his aunt and uncle?”

  “They evicted him. I heard he’s in the shanties now by the mills in Cushman, with some other men.”

  “Well then,” Miss Emily says, “that is where we must go.”

  Miss Emily Leaves the House

  WE HALF RUN, HALF WALK UP EAST PLEASANT STREET TOWARD Cushman. Everything is gray-mottled, and buildings hulk around us like shades. The mist hovers in a cloud over the streets; it seeps downward and keeps everything fixed. I wish the fog would lift that we might have some sun to brighten our way. Trees are swagged with white. We are the only creatures abroad, Ada and I, and our scurry and scamper seems to disturb the very air. We cannot see Daniel Byrne up ahead, though I am sure he is making a long tunnel through the fog that will lead straight to Patrick Crohan. It is very strange to be out, to rush through Amherst like this; I feel as if my legs are directed by a mighty force. It is as if my actions are being decided by a mind more unwavering than my own.

  We pass large and small houses, their residents still abed, no doubt, shuttered in and safe. We come up on the common school where as a five-year-old I learned to spell and chant verses. One by one the mills loom in front of us, and I fancy I can feel around me their cotton, paper, wool and grist. Each of them spills an amount of its wares into the yards in front of it; I see patches of grain and curls of wood, stray scraps of paper and a broken spinning jack. I sniff deeply, but I cannot smell anything of them, though I long to. Men are ghost figures in the yards of the mills, started already on the day’s toil. They pay us no heed as we hurry past. Both Ada and I pant after short spurts of running, so we walk a little before we run again. She blesses herself when we pass the edge of West Cemetery—a rapid flit of one hand that ends in a thumping to her chest.

  I remain sequestered at home by my own choice or by some reason that is mine but lives outside me. But oh, the morning air fills the lungs with such vigor when you move through it at a pace. The street air holds Ada and me, and it passes us along with a high energy, handing us from one step to the next. It does not feel the same as when I run through the Homestead’s garden. I have forgotten the exotic, expanding nature of simple town air.

  Ada mutters a prayer as she jogs along: “Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est. Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est.” Over and over she chants it, keeping herself moving forward with the rhythm of the words. The mills melt away, and we come to the swampy hem of Cushman; the air is sour, fecal, and ahead we see the sorry tumble of shanties that grew up beside the Mill Brook. Though it is early, the place feels alive: a thrush pipes its liquid song to the morning; dogs bark their annoyance back and forth to one another, and somewhere a fiddle is playing, its reedy, melancholic voice traveling toward us. Figures slope through the fog ahead; they thread around the shanties as if looking for a place to rest. Only one of them moves fast. I point, and Ada nods. We run together, past the general store, which is little more than a porched shack, and through the mean lanes lined with cabins, one atop another. A woman sits on the threshold of a house, her skirts hoiked to her thighs, and she laughs like a maniac as we pass.

  “Are yiz lost?” she shouts, then laughs again, a chilling, mirthless bark. “Come here! Come here and talk to me!” she calls. Ada grabs my hand, and we rush along. “Ah, go on so! Pair of bitches!” the woman bawls.

  The man ahead stops and looks around, then bounds forward. We follow him, our breath ragged from exertion. My shoes pinch; though they are four years old, I have worn them but once before. We move along and get closer to the running figure.

  “It’s him,” Ada says. “It’s Daniel.”

  Daniel slows now, and at a gap between two shanties he stops. He shouts something, both fists rigid at his sides. We come up behind him in time to see Patrick Crohan stagger to his feet from a campfire he has been lying beside. His eyes are half closed, and his limbs unbend slowly, giving him a quasimodical gait. Daniel leaps forward, and he thrusts and thrusts again at Crohan. I think he is beating him, but when Crohan staggers backward holding his stomach, I see a garnet of blood drip from his fingers, then another and another until the blood washes over his hands like wine.

  Quiet reigns horribly; we all stand and gape in the suspended silence.

  “Oh, God Almighty. Oh, Daniel.” Ada hurls herself at her man and drags him back toward the way we came. “Away now. Come on. Come on, Daniel.”

  Daniel breaks free of her and stands in front of Crohan. The injured man is not making a sound, but he winces and clutches at his stomach and bends his head to try to see his wounds. Daniel pushes Crohan, and he falls over and lies in the dirt, curled like a baby. He gurgles—a wet, distressed cry.

  “Die there, you filthy fuck,” Daniel says, and he spits at Crohan’s head.

  Ada pulls at Daniel’s arm. “Come on, we have to get out of here.” She takes the knife from his grip, and the three of us stand and look at it. Ada wipes the blood from it with her apron, and she hands the knife to me. I tear off my shawl, wrap the knife in it and bundle it under my arm. I take Daniel’s other hand in mine and we drag him away.

  “This way,” I say, not wanting to pass again the ruined woman who so recently saw us. We track a different route through Cushman and turn toward East Pleasant Street and home.

  Daniel stumbles forward between us. He stops and looks at Ada. “I have no one under God to look to now,” he says.

  “Hush, Daniel. Miss Emily will help you. She’ll see you right. Won’t you, miss?”

  I nod my assent, though I do not see what aid I can give if the worst has happened to Crohan. “Ada, remove your apron.”

  She tugs it off and rolls it up. “What will I do?” She looks wildly around, then runs to a hedge and stuffs the apron deep into it and comes back to where we stand.

  Dawn spills downward on us, for the sun, risen already, is beginning to break through the fog. There are buckboards and horses on the streets, and I am suddenly aware that we may be seen by anyone who knows one—or all three—of us. We make our way down East Pleasant, each of us silent, Ada and me holding Daniel, to drag and coax him on, as one would a child. He walks forward with difficulty, the magnet of Patrick Crohan, and what Daniel has done to him, luring him backward to Cushman.

  O
n Main Street I look up to see Austin’s buggy leave the front of the Evergreens and come toward us. I glance from side to side, but there is no gateway into which we might steer Daniel and conceal ourselves. I huddle into him, and Ada does the same, and she barks at him to lower his head. We shuffle along the side of a fence like some misshapen hexapod, but it is too late; I hear my name called, and the buggy stops.

  “Emily Dickinson! Is that you? Confound the gods, it is you. And you are out!”

  “Austin, I beg you to drive on.”

  I have uttered the wrong thing; at once I realize it, and at once my brother is alert. He jumps from the buggy and stands in front of us.

  “Emily, what is going on here? Mr. Byrne?”

  Austin lunges forward and grabs Ada’s bloodied hands. He steps in front of Daniel then and stares at him; he lifts Daniel’s hands and studies them. Lastly he takes mine in his. As he examines my soiled fingers, the bundle slips from under my arm and falls to the ground. My shawl unravels, and the knife rolls out and lies in the dirt at our feet. Ada groans. Austin kneels and picks up the knife; he hurries it back into the folds of wool and gestures for me to bend down to him.

  “What has happened, Emily?” he hisses. I recount the morning’s events to him in a whispered torrent. Austin stands and helps me to my feet.

  “Daniel Byrne,” he says, “come with me.”

  “Where are you bringing him?” Ada says, stepping up to Austin.

  “I am taking him, Miss Concannon, to a place where he will be safe.” His tone is all chivalry and disgust.

  “Don’t go, Daniel,” Ada pleads, dragging on his arm. “He’s a law man. He’ll bang you up in a cell. He’ll have you hung before the end of the week.” She starts to cry, a whimper that seems to rise and lodge in the leaves of the tree above us. Daniel Byrne stares ahead as if in a trance, but his lips move, perhaps in prayer.

  “Austin,” I say. “Where will you take Mr. Byrne?”

  “Have you no faith in me, Emily? Are you now as suspicious and mistrustful as these Irish you love so well?”

  “I want to know what you mean to do with him, that is all.”

  “I will conceal him at my office. You take Miss Concannon back to the Homestead to gather her things. Meet me at my rooms in town as soon as you can.” I look deep into Austin’s eyes and see nothing there but the brother I have loved since a child. “Go now, quickly.”

  Austin shoves Daniel toward his buggy, helps him up into the seat and sits beside him; he tosses the snapper to make the horse drive on. He looks like Father at that moment—somber and determined in his broadcloth; all that is missing is the cane and the beaver hat. We watch the buggy slip away; Ada looks up at me, her eyes teary.

  “What have you done?” she says. “How could you let Daniel go with that man?”

  “Listen to me now, Ada. We must be stealthy. Nobody can see or hear us when we step inside the Homestead. Do you understand me?”

  Her head lolls back, and she wails. “Everything has fallen asunder!” she cries. “It’s all fallen to bits!” She throws her head this way and that, and spools of spittle come from her mouth. “Look what you’ve done!” she cries. The street is filling with carriages now, and she calls attention to us in a way that I cannot have. I grasp her upper arm, pincering my fingers around her soft skin until it surely hurts. She stops short and looks up at me, her eyes glassy as marbles.

  “Hush, Ada. We must go. Pull yourself together.”

  I link her and pull-push her toward the house; she is an unwieldy puppet beside me. At the back door, I tell her that if Mother is within, we must act normally. I open the door, and all is quiet. I haul Ada up the back stairs and into her bedroom. I sit her on the bed and shove things into her bag. She does not have much: her good dress, some undergarments and stockings, a money pouch, her hairbrush, a bottle of sarsaparilla and a pot of calomel, a small mirror and the pearl brooch I gave her for her birthday, a bundle of letters. I spy Mother’s copy of The Frugal Housewife beside her bed and throw that in, too. I tie the lanyards on the bag and pull her coat from its hook.

  “You’ll have to wear this, Ada. It won’t fit in here.”

  Obediently she shoves her arms into the sleeves. I tie her bonnet strings; she looks young and forlorn, and I wonder if I am doing the right thing by her at all. I hear a noise on the landing and peer out to see a pair of Vinnie’s cats haunchwise, slapping at each other’s face. I go to scatter them, and Vinnie comes from her room and stands to look at the cats. She raises her gaze to me, her eyes sleep-puffy slits.

  “Emily,” she says, yawning, “look at the silly pusses. They are like sparring hares.”

  “Yes,” I say, hoping that she is sleepy enough not to notice that I have come from Ada’s doorway and not my own.

  “What are you doing?” my sister asks.

  “Ada is late to rise this morning, and I am trying to rouse her.” The lie falls from my lips with no help from me, an astonishing wasp that hums in the air between us.

  Vinnie bends to her warring cats and flicks her hands at them; they stop their clawing at once and, when she turns, follow her into her bedroom. She shuts the door.

  I go back to Ada. “My sister’s tongue was quiet in her head this morning, Ada, and her wits soft as blancmange. Thank the stars. Now, let us go.”

  I take her bag, and we descend the stairs to the kitchen. At the back door, I balk at going outside again. It is full, bright morning now, the sun a dazzling globe over the pines. Words begin to burble in my throat; I mean to tell Ada that she will have to go alone to Austin’s office, but it is too late to back away from her now. I clasp her small, rough hand in my own, and we march through Amherst together as if it is our daily custom.

  Miss Ada Accepts Mr. Austin’s Help

  MR. AUSTIN’S OFFICE IS DARK AND WOODY; IT SMELLS BOTH clean and unclean, of beeswax and men’s scalps. Daniel rises when he sees us, but he doesn’t come to me, and I dare not go to him. Miss Emily and her brother go into a corner to confer, but we can hear all they say, for they make no attempt to talk quietly. Daniel and I stand across the room from each other, and there is succor between us, though we cannot touch.

  “I will see to it that they get away.”

  “They must go soon, Austin.”

  “We cannot risk the daylight,” he says. “At nightfall I will take them to a man I know in the Quabbin Valley. He will see them safe to Boston.”

  Miss Emily stands before her brother and takes his elbows in her hands. “I am thankful to you, Austin, for all you are doing for Ada and Daniel.”

  “Thank me when they are safely away, Emily.” He pulls back from her. “And I do not do it for them but for you. Your name shall not be wrapped into this affair.”

  “I need to get back to my lodgings,” Daniel says. “My money is there.”

  “Money?” Mr. Austin asks.

  “All my savings. I won’t go without them.”

  Mr. Austin walks up to Daniel; they are the same size, but still Daniel pulls himself tall to face the other man. “Are you aware that you may have killed someone, Mr. Byrne?”

  “I am.”

  “Do you think it wise to show your face today on the streets of Amherst?”

  “I’ll go nowhere without my money. I earned it.”

  “And you will earn a murder charge and the rope if you go after that money.”

  I go to Daniel’s side. “I have a bit put by, Daniel. It will get us away.”

  “Away where, Ada? Amherst is not ready to spit me out yet.”

  “Well, you’ll have to spit it out, Daniel. You can’t stay here now. And wherever you go, I’ll go.”

  All of me feels like lead, but I have to keep my heart out, to help Daniel along. He has not yet taken hold of what he has done, and he is more scarecrow than man standing here in Mr. Austin’s chambers.

  �
��It’s a lot of money. I want to get it.” Daniel looks to Miss Emily, hoping she will back him.

  “How much?” Mr. Austin says.

  “Seven hundred dollars or so.”

  Mr. Austin whistles. “You have been industrious, Mr. Byrne. And penny-wise. I trust that Miss Concannon knows what a prudent man she has snagged.” He glances at me and runs his fingers through his rough hair. “I will give you five hundred dollars, to compensate you for the money you are leaving behind.”

  “Oh, Austin,” Miss Emily says, and she takes her brother in her arms.

  I am sure she will weep for gratitude, but I do not feel as thankful as she does. Yes, Mr. Austin has been helpful to me always, but his manner—the way he looks at me as if I were mud on his shoe—cuts into me. My face hurts when I am around him as I try to compose it into an expression that will not betray me. I try not to frown, and I try not to smile or yawn, and my skin and jaw ache from the effort. He brings out a watchfulness in me that I cannot suppress.

  Daniel has not replied to Mr. Austin’s offer, and I see now that he is shuffling his feet as if he means to leave the room.

  “Well?” Mr. Austin says. “What say you, Mr. Byrne?”

  “It is kind, sir, that you wish to aid me, but I would prefer not to be indebted.”

  “Nonsense. I will retrieve the money from your lodgings when you are gone, and that will be the end of it.”

  “So, you will give me five hundred yet take seven.”

  Mr. Austin whacks the side of his desk with his buggy snapper, and the rest of us leap like scorched rats. “I am giving you your freedom, man. I am breaking the law for you.”