Miss Emily

by Nuala O'Connor

  “Will we go below until we dock?” I ask.

  He shakes his head, wanting, I suppose, to see Dublin loom through the murk, to make sure it is real. These last few weeks, I have been passing from one moment to the next, keeping watch on Daniel, allowing myself only small sallies in my mind into the days and months ahead. Now, as the boat slips in past the piers that are like two arms outstretched in welcome, it is as if I am releasing a long-held, jagged breath. A smattering of laughter rises from the passengers beside us, and I grip Daniel’s arm tightly, needing his body close to mine to stay me. We look at each other and smile, and anticipation surges through me.

  Dublin is washed with showers, not made clean by them but made gray and grayer. The city smells of itself: a hoppy, thick, smoky smell that I find pleasant and restorative. Gulls as big as dogs careen above the harbor, letting out eager cries. We stand on Queen’s Road looking back at the boat, trying to adjust ourselves to the feel of solid ground under our feet and the familiar, easy air of home.

  Rose meets us in our boardinghouse on Sackville Street. She embraces me, then stands back, holding my arms to take me in.

  “You seem well, Ada. You’ve lost weight, but you appear strong in yourself.”

  “And you, Rose, have budded into a young lady while I’ve been gone.” It is true; my sister looks composed in a way that she never used to. Maybe I had to get out of her path in order for her to grow up. Her eyes flick shyly to Daniel.

  He steps forward and offers her his hand. “How do you do?” he says.

  “Very well, thank you.” Rose shakes his hand and looks at me. She knows who Daniel is, for my letters to her have been crammed with him, but she is made quiet by his presence.

  We sit into the parlor, and the lady of the house brings a tray.

  “Not one letter from you, Rose, in eleven months,” I say, pouring milk into her cup for her to douse with tea. “Did your pen meet with an accident?”

  “Ah, Ada, I never took to writing.” She knows I am teasing, and she laughs.

  “Do Mammy and Daddy know where you are today, Rose?”

  “I didn’t say anything, like you asked in your note. But will you not come out to Tigoora? Mammy would be so pleased to see you.”

  “We will by and by, Rose. We are going south first. We want to get settled. Then we’ll come and visit.”

  Rose sips her tea. “Why did you come back at all, Ada? You were getting on fine beyond. I had no notion of you returning to Dublin.”

  I glance at Daniel.

  “Ireland is our home, Rose,” he says. “There’s nothing can replace that. We mean to raise a family here.”

  Rose looks to me, and I smile. I open the lanyards on my bag and take out my money pouch; I hand her a few notes. “For Mammy. Tell her I will explain everything when I come to Tigoora.”

  Down Granny Dunn’s mountain we come. It is my mammy’s mountain, too, and that of all women, and now it is mine. Down Slievenamon’s slope I walk with Daniel by my side. The May hedgerows are alive with elderflowers, and they are like a dusting of flour over the leaves. Down we come to Killusty and past it; the high walls and ornate pillars of the big houses and of Kiltinan Castle keep us out, but the buttercup fields with russet cattle and waving ferns welcome us along the way. Our tread disturbs the morning forage of a pheasant, and he bursts across the track ahead of us, his scarlet cheeks a welcome flash in the green. A pair of swallows—intent on play—flit and dive above, keeping us company on our walk. They swoon and lift, their forked tails fanning in carefree flight.

  I am hungry—we have been fasting—and my stomach growls like a hound. Last night we had beestings from the near farmer’s cow; he came to see who we were. I boiled up the thick, creamy milk, and it curdled together nicely; we ate it like hungry babies. The farmer wished us well. He spoke of his regard for my grandparents and all the Dunns and the Mahers. Now my insides grumble once more, and I look up to see if Daniel has heard, if he might make a joke of it. He is quiet, the way he always is now, and his face is fixed on the track ahead. As we approach the bridge at Fethard’s Watergate, he grabs my hand in his and presses it.

  “By noon, Ada, we will be man and wife.”

  “We will, Daniel.”

  We pass the bridge over the Clashawley and into Fethard. We walk its wide streets to the far side of town and the abbey. Farmers and shopkeepers stop to look at us. When they take in Daniel’s jacket, my red merino and my tussie-mussie of clover and dog daisies, they realize that we are going to the church to be wed. The men take off their caps; the women wave and call, “God bless you both.”

  Father Lonergan meets us at the door to the abbey, and we follow him to the side chapel. St. Rita stands in her shrine, a livid cut on her forehead. Before she became a nun, Rita suffered a violent husband. I will have the opposite—a decent, gentle husband, despite all. My hope is that we will get to enjoy the pleasures of marriage: having someone to face the world with, to build a home around; being able to talk about anything we please; working to help each other. We will not have much, but we will have each other for as long as God spares us. And, maybe soon, a son or a daughter to delight us, now and in our dotage.

  There was a feeling of comfort the moment we opened the door to Granny Dunn’s cabin; it seemed to sigh in relief and usher us in. Everything was as it was; no one had come near the place to plunder or occupy it. We tied bunches of cow parsley from every rafter to clear the damp. I washed the small windows and swept cobwebs and dust until my arms ached. We will whitewash the walls soon, and I will fashion some bright covers for our bed. It will be as gay as it was when Mammy was a girl.

  Last night I hung our clothes outside, to air them so that they would not be dank or smoky for today. Daniel sat on the stool at the doorway and watched me fuss over his shirt, pinching the collar flat with my fingers.

  “Are you satisfied this is what you want, Ada, to tether yourself to me forevermore?”

  I put aside the shirt and knelt before him “Yes, Daniel. I am more than certain.”

  “I’m not a good man, and well you know it.”

  “What happened happened. There is no changing it.” I kissed his hands.

  “I left Crohan on the ground, Ada. Like an animal.”

  “You had no choice, Daniel. We had no choice. No doubt he is swaggering into Conkey’s Tavern as we speak, not a bother on him.”

  Daniel nodded and took my hand. “And you’re sure, now, about getting married?”

  “Yes, my darling. Are you certain you want me?”

  “I am,” Daniel said. “More than any other thing.”

  I sat up onto his lap, and we kissed, our mouths joined in love. As ever, his lips and tongue astounded me with their fervor, heat and gentleness. We kissed and kissed, and I thought of tonight and our lying together in Granny and Granddad’s old box bed. I was not scared but felt expectant and cherished and safe. I looked forward to seeing him as he was born, bare and fresh, and to feeling his skin against mine and to our caressing each other with all the fond yearning that passes back and forth between us.

  I sat there on Daniel, and we rocked together until the sun slipped away, turning the blazing yellows and greens to gray and making a navy hump of Slievenamon. We sat on, and the sky grew black, as if all the crows of the world flew wing on wing together, a dark gathering to blot out the moon and stars. The wavery whistle of a gosling carried up from the farm below, reminding me of the geese who trumpeted at night on Amherst Common. The young goose went on to speak as all geese do, in gabbles and blasts and strings of sentences, and we listened to its chatter for a long time before it fell silent and the night was ours alone.

  The smell of the earth rose and swirled around our faces. I pulled Daniel’s head to my breast and kissed his hair, felt the subdued bulk of him under me. I thought of Miss Emily far away across the sea in her fine Homestead, and I sent a pr
ayer of thanks to her for all her goodness toward me and toward Daniel. And as I recalled her, I wondered if freedom is possible for anyone in this life or if we are all doomed to imprisonment one way or another. But no, I thought, there is always hope. It may be small and bald at first, but then it gathers feathers to itself and flies on robust wings. Hope never stops; it warms us in cold lands and through strange occurrences. Hope asks nothing of us. Yes, I am sure—surer than anything—that hope never stops at all.

  Acknowledgments

  My thanks go to Stan and Cindy Skarzynski and Jeff Kern for transport, chats, and support in Massachusetts; to Suzanne Strempek Shea for making sure I got to be in Massachusetts in the first place; to Marcella Brown for friendship, guidance, and gingerbread; to Jeff Morgan of the Emily Dickinson Museum at The Homestead in Amherst for a warm, informative tour of Emily’s world and for instruction since. Thank you to Robert Olen Butler for always being such a generous supporter of me and my work. Special thanks to Maureen Sugden for superb copyediting. Enormous and heartfelt thanks is reserved, of course, for Gráinne Fox, wonder-agent, and for my super-editors Tara Singh Carlson and Adrienne Kerr, and Helen Richard, and all at Penguin. Gratitude, as ever, to my family.

  Go raibh maith agaibh—thank you, all!

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