These Fevered Days

by Martha Ackmann

  For Vinnie, the family’s sorrow ended a chance for life on her own. Long ago, she had stopped going on walks with suitors. Mr. Howland, who gave her a ring when they were young, had settled into married life and had children. Another suitor, Joseph Lyman, was dead.‡‡ Vinnie once told Joseph she had half a mind to give up gentlemen admirers altogether, and by the age of forty-two she had.50 When her father was alive, she feared her flirtations—or any action—would displease him. She still did. She said she felt she had a right to freedom, but was not strong enough to take it.51 Lavinia could not be called reclusive like Emily, but she spent more time at home than she used to. Once shopping for bonnets in Northampton—all of seven miles away—she admitted to being homesick.52 On summer nights, she often sat with Emily on the side terrace overlooking the garden. With Margaret’s help, they would drag the big Daphne odora from the conservatory and ring the sitting area with jasmine and tall oleanders in green tubs—a fortress of plants. When it came to the flowers and vines, Vinnie loved profusion, nothing pruned, everything in tumult.53 She looked over the garden with its dense tangle and knew this was her life. She was not unhappy, exactly. With her father gone, she had risen in rank, becoming the family’s lieutenant: mindful of everyone’s needs, protecting Emily’s privacy, and keeping track of commitments, invitations, and grudges. Mattie said she admired her aunt’s ability to locate anything from a lost quotation to last year’s muffler.54 But to Emily, Vinnie shouldered an invisible burden. My sister, she said, lives in “the State of Regret.”55

  With her father gone, Emily almost missed the family obligations she once dreaded. For decades during Amherst College commencement as guests spilled out over the lawn and crowded the house, she would position herself by the east window in the dining room, next to the sherry decanter. From six in the evening until eight, she stood with a flower in her hand and dutifully poured wine for guests. She remembered the bread she baked for her father—round loaves so there would be more crust.56 When she looked at her enfeebled mother, it was difficult to recall a time when Emily Norcross Dickinson supervised the entire house: banging carpets every spring, gathering eggs in her apron, and remembering to send shoe blacking to her daughter at Mount Holyoke. It was even more difficult to imagine her mother as a young woman who had moved away from her family to study chemistry in New Haven. Few people—including Emily—credited her mother with having intellectual interests. Too often all they saw was a quiet woman who stirred custard and mended socks. Now at night Mrs. Dickinson called out and could not understand why Edward wasn’t home. “Home is so far from Home, since my Father died,” Emily wrote.57 With both daughters tied to her mother’s needs, Emily asked neighbors to mail her letters and packages. Seventy-year-old Luke Sweetser took Emily’s postings and sent them off.58 But for private letters, Emily entrusted only Elizabeth Holland. Mrs. Holland had been sending Emily’s letters to Reverend Wadsworth for years, addressing them in her own hand and mailing them from her residence in New York City. Now back in Philadelphia after years in San Francisco, Charles Wadsworth was leading a new church, and still earning acclaim for his powerful words. “I once more come, with my little Load,” Emily wrote to Mrs. Holland, thanking her for “beloved Acts, both revealed and covert.”59

  Sue also felt Edward Dickinson’s loss. She tried her best to send one of the children over with “some dainty” each Sunday for her mother-in-law, but she was too busy to do it as often as she’d like.60 A friend worried Sue looked “used up.”61 During one commencement, both children had the measles and it was all she could do to deal with guests and her children’s fevers. Austin did not seem to pay much attention to Sue or his son and daughter. On one of his many visits to New York to frequent art galleries and buy landscape paintings, he neglected to retrieve Mattie from one of his stops, and several hours later found her sitting in front of a seascape and staring at the waves.62 After Edward’s death, Sue took Ned and Mattie and joined her brother at a resort hotel in Swampscott, where she walked the rocky ledges above the Atlantic. Young Mattie wouldn’t go near the ocean. The force terrified her. “The tide was enough,” she later said, “and too much.”63 Sometimes Sue would stay away from Amherst and Austin for a month at a time, and Emily knew all was not well.64 After Edward died and before Emily Norcross Dickinson suffered her stroke, Sue learned she was pregnant—again. On August 1, 1875, she gave birth to her third child—a son, Thomas Gilbert. Gib they called him. Sue was forty-four years old with a son who was fourteen, a daughter who was eight, a crying infant—and a husband who had removed himself. Life was so upended, she must have wished for nothing more than Edward’s Sunday-morning knock at the door. The coffee at the Homestead had always been too weak for her father-in-law. He would steal over to the Evergreens for a secret cup. Like Edward, Susan sought quiet, order, and a strong brew.65

  The fall of 1875, when Gib was born, Helen Hunt was again in New England. But she wasn’t making her usual gallop around the countryside gathering research for essays. She was getting married. “Peggy” and Will had a small wedding at the home of Helen’s sister, who had moved to Wolfboro, New Hampshire, in the White Mountains. Emily sent a congratulatory note and a few lines from a longer poem she had written earlier. “Have I a word but Joy?” she wrote, adding,

  Who fleeing from the Spring

  The Spring avenging fling

  To Dooms of Balm – 66

  Helen was pleased to hear from Emily, but baffled by the verse. What did “dooms” mean and how did the idea of calamity connect to her wedding? In her usual direct way, Helen asked Dickinson for an explication, and sent the poem back, along with a warning. “This is mine, remember,” she wrote. “You must send it back to me, or else you will be a robber.”67 Emily did not return the verse, at least not right away, and Helen was on her again. “You did not send it back, though you wrote that you would. Was this an accident, or a late withdrawal of your consent? Remember that it is mine – not yours – and be honest.”68 Sensing she might be overstepping her bounds, Helen offered reassurance that she simply wanted to understand what Emily meant.§§ She also reiterated her long desire to see Emily. She always was full of questions and had many for her girlhood friend. Mainly she could not understand Emily’s ambivalence toward publication. For Helen, every essay or poem needed to find its way into print. Publishing always was the final step—for reasons of both ambition and money. But to Emily, publication was far from her mind. Helen confronted her in a letter. “When you are what men call dead,” she said, “you will be sorry you were so stingy.”69 Emily might have shrugged off the remark or even been amused by the force of it, but she could not ignore another sentence. In more personal tones, Helen told Emily she hoped they would get to know each other better, and write from time to time—only when it does not bore you, she added. Then she declared what she most wanted to say. “You are a great poet,” she said, “and it is a wrong to the day you live in, that you will not sing aloud.”70 Emily always remembered when someone called her a poet: the word was almost too sacred to be uttered, let alone claimed. She recalled something Judge Lord had once told her: the joy we most revere, we profane in taking.71 As much as sharing her poems with the world unsettled her, she at least was willing to listen to Mrs. Jackson. Emily and Helen made a plan. Next fall, when Helen Jackson was on her annual trek through New England, she would call at the Dickinson Homestead. Emily could only imagine what Mrs. Jackson would say next.

  That autumn as students began the new term at Amherst College, Professor Ebenezer Snell went about his usual tasks: teaching, checking his weather apparatus three times a day, and recording meteorological details. On Friday, September 15, 1876, he walked up the hill to the college and met with all his classes, but he felt odd. He was light-headed, and fainted. He blacked out several more times at home and grew increasingly weak. His family sent for the doctor, who did not have good news. Ebenezer Snell was rapidly declining, he said. He did not expect him to live through the weekend. That Monday, when Emily he
ard the college bells toll, she knew why. Professor Snell was dead at age seventy-four. “I had a father once,” she wrote the family—a single sentence conveying her condolence.72 College officers said no one could compare to Ebenezer Snell. He was in the first graduating class of the college and taught generations of Amherst students for half a century. Although he had little money, they said he was one of the college’s greatest benefactors—giving all he had in service to Amherst.73 Snell’s family knew his tender side. He never got over the idea that although people who loved each other might be apart, they could gaze up at the sky and see the same stars and the same moon.74 The scientist in him understood the phenomenon, but the poet in him appreciated the wonder. During his brief illness, the meteorological journal Snell kept so meticulously did not miss a day. His daughter Sabra collected the measurements. She had been working by her father’s side for some time and shared his devotion to the record. On the day her father died, she pulled down his heavy leather ledger and entered the data just as he had instructed her to do: “61 degrees. Stratus, minimal clouds.”¶¶ In the remarks column where Ebenezer Snell once noted all the atmospheric phenomena that thrilled him—halos, and parhelia, and the blazing Northern Lights—she made a simple notation: “Professor Snell died Rainy day.”75

  Several weeks later, on October 9, Helen Jackson was in New England as planned. She stood at the base of a mountain and looked up. The Mount Holyoke summit towered above her, but she was undaunted. Before seeing Emily Dickinson the next day, she wanted to spend the night at a hotel on top of the mountain. One time, when Helen was researching a travel article about a cog railroad that transported passengers to the top of New Hampshire’s Mount Washington, she had convinced the conductor to let her ride outside the train engine for a better view.76 If she survived the 2,700-foot ascent of Mount Washington, surely she could tackle Mount Holyoke’s 935 feet. To reach the top, she had three options. She could tramp two miles to the summit. She could climb 522 steps up a rustic staircase. Or she could choose the most precarious way: the Old Sleigh. Workers had created a cable funicular by nailing two wooden sleighs together to form a cart. A single rope then hoisted four passengers to the top—two facing forward and two backward. A horse, sometimes a team of oxen, and later a steam engine did the hoisting. The Old Sleigh was not for the timid. As the horse moved the rope around a turntable below, the sleigh would lurch unpredictably, sending passengers perilously close to the edge. When the contraption finally made its way to the summit, the sleigh rolled to an opening near the Prospect House.## That’s where Helen would spend the night. From the mountain peak, she could see everything familiar to her: thirty-eight towns, Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, and Amherst College. A telescope positioned at the drop-off allowed her to see even farther. The hotel staff said that if you looked through the glass, you could set your watch by the clock tower at the United States Armory all the way down in Springfield. That night, when Helen stood on the hotel’s wide wraparound porch, the view was especially beautiful. The Connecticut River curled like a ribbon through dark-green pastures. Sometimes a blanket of fog settled on the valley making pumpkin fields and barns disappear. What made the view so exceptional, people said, was the perspective. There were no foothills to obstruct the scene or long slopes that made the world seem distant. While Helen could see for miles, the view had a human scale. She could trace all the roads that had brought her to this single spot.77

  The next morning, Emily Dickinson came down from her chamber and waited. On those rare occasions when she did agree to see friends—Bowles, Abby Wood, Higginson—the calls had been social. But Emily knew Helen wanted to talk business. Months earlier she had sent Dickinson a circular from a publisher in Boston, announcing the start of an unusual series of books. “The Messrs. Roberts Brothers, of Boston will begin soon the publication of a series of original American novels and tales,” a newspaper reported, “to be published anonymously under the title of ‘No Name.’”78 The idea for the series had come from Thomas Niles Jr., a brilliant editor known for spotting new talent and stirring up excitement. Niles predicted that curious readers would buy the books and enjoy speculating about who had written them. Helen knew Mr. Niles planned a volume of anonymous poetry further down the line, featuring both famous and unpublished poets. Like many publishers, Niles was especially interested in presenting the work of women writers. The series would be perfect for Emily, Helen thought. “Authors like it hugely,” Niles wrote a friend. “The idea of being able to write fearlessly, intrenched behind an anonymous, and all the critics at bay, is pleasing. We shall all have a good deal of fun.”79 Niles had made a name for himself at Roberts Brothers by encouraging Louisa May Alcott to write what he called a girls’ story. Little Women had been a success for both Alcott and Niles. He asked Miss Alcott if she might consider writing for No Name. Anything she wanted, he said, perhaps a novel full of mystery and suspense.*** Knowing authors might risk writing something not in their usual style, he assured Alcott and others that anonymity would be guaranteed. He hired copyists to transcribe manuscripts and made sure even Roberts Brothers employees did not know the identities of No Name writers. The first book already had been released: Mercy Philbrick’s Choice. Like many of the volumes to come, it focused on New England and the lives of women—and was a sensation. Nearly 4,000 books sold in two months and newspapers across the country were filled with conjecture about the author. It’s Louisa May Alcott, one newspaper reported. No, it’s Harriet Beecher Stowe, another guessed. Louisa Chandler Moulton, Harriet Prescott Spofford, Susan Coolidge, others proposed.††† To make it easy to track the possibilities, Niles included a blank page in the back of each book entitled “GUESSES AT THE AUTHORSHIP of MERCY PHILBRICK’S CHOICE.”80

  As Helen’s carriage pulled into Amherst on October 10, 1876, the town was empty. The college had declared Tuesday to be Mountain Day, and students took the day off to enjoy the outdoors. Many Amherst College faculty were not present anyway; they were off visiting the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. Helen had already made the trip to celebrate the anniversary of the nation’s first one hundred years—an experience she labeled a great chore.81 She preferred the countryside, not a quarter of a million people crammed into stuffy exhibition halls. From down the road, Mattie Dickinson could see Mrs. Jackson’s carriage passing Phoenix Row. Her father was away at the exposition, but with fourteen-month-old Gib teething and Ned’s troubles developing into a rheumatic heart—her mother was at home. She had told Mattie all about Mrs. Jackson. The girl was so full of anticipation she called the day one of the “excitingest” moments of her young life.82 Mattie peered out the window as the team of gray horses came to a stop. Mrs. Jackson stepped out, fluffed her full skirts, and marched right up to the Homestead. Aunt Emily’s door opened and then it closed. For the rest of the afternoon, all Mattie would see was the livery driver walking his horses down to a tree, then turning around, and walking back to Homestead’s front gate—over and over again.83

  Emily took pride in her appearance. She always did—the clean white dress, the brown velvet net over her hair.‡‡‡ For special occasions, she would add a white-and-gold cameo pin or wear a small watch draped from her belt. When Helen first saw her, she was shocked. Emily looked small, mothlike, and pale.84 Helen wondered if she had been ill and asked about Emily’s health, regretting almost immediately the words that fell out of her mouth. In Dickinson’s delicate presence, Helen said she felt like an ox and thought she sounded clumsy and stupid.85 Emily took no offense. She found Helen kind and noble, and worried more about disturbing her or doing something that might turn her away.86 But Dickinson knew why Helen was there, and it was not to discuss her appearance. She wanted to talk about the circular. Emily had not tossed it away as she had Miss P’s letter soliciting poems. They began talking. Will you give me some poems for Roberts Brothers, Helen asked. She appreciated Emily’s desire for privacy and offered to copy the verses in her own hand to ensure double anonymity. Helen abhorred publicity
herself, and turned down requests for speaking engagements, even when Higginson encouraged her otherwise. She said public attention was foreign to her instinct and she lacked the courage to address an audience.87 Helen’s work always had appeared under a pseudonym, if not H.H.—then Saxe Holm, Rip Van Winkle, or Jane Silsbee. Friends said Helen once bit off Louisa Moulton’s head when Moulton reviewed one of her books and referred to her by name rather than her pseudonym.§§§88 Yet as much as Helen understood the use of a pen name, she could not understand why Emily did not publish at all. When Emily said how much she had enjoyed Mrs. Jackson’s recent book of verses, Helen saw an opening to make her case. Surely your poems would give others pleasure, she told Dickinson.89 Emily listened carefully, sitting as she usually did on a straight-backed chair with her hands neatly folded. But Dickinson thought she owed the public nothing. Her devotion was to the work itself, not the world. A poem she had among her loose sheets placed the importance on the poetry, not the poet. It was the words themselves that lived.