The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson

by Jerome Charyn

  BROTHER IS LOST TO ME FOR THE MOMENT, BUT I DO HAVE Lavinia, who arrives near the end of Valentine season on the afternoon coach. Her traveling dress is light green, and with her braided hair in a brownish snood, she looks like the Queen of the Commonwealth as she steps down from the stage. Lavinia is so much lovelier than I am, with the darkness of romance around her eyes, and I have an instantaneous bout of panic that I cannot control. What if my Domingo should feast upon Lavinia and transfer his affection from the plain sister to the lovelier one? Lavinia is a flirt, and I am not. She would feel much more comfortable sitting on my Domingo’s lap.

  I do not whisper a word as we march with Mother and Father from the depot in front of Amherst House hotel to the “wilderness” of West Street. But Father must have fed Lavinia a fat tale about my Domingo in the letters he sent to Ipswich. She is mostly silent during the light supper I have prepared, since Mother’s Neuralgia still keeps her out of the kitchen. But the second we are upstairs in the retreat of our own room, Lavinia smothers me with a kiss and says, “Sister dear, I command you. Don’t leave out a syllable! Who is this prodigious rake of a man?”

  I bat my eyelashes like Bathsheba, the collector of kings. “Vinnie, I haven’t the faintest idea of what you mean.”

  Lavinia laughs and wraps me in her shawl. “Emily, I will imprison you, as God is my witness, until you tell.”

  “Brainard Rowe,” I hurl at Little Sister. “He’s visiting us from Yale.”

  “My cats could have told me that,” says Lavinia, who has her own small empire of cats, cats I have to feed while she’s away. “Did he kiss you until your mouth bled?”

  “More than bled.”

  She squeezes her eyes shut and explores the inside of her cheeks with her tongue, like a lizard in search of something. “And did you trap him with your hair, curl it around his head?”

  “Lord, I’m not like you, Lavinia. My hair isn’t long enough. But I didn’t have the chance to trap him. He swept me out of my seat and sat me upon his lap.”

  “He did not! And what did it feel like?”

  “Vesuvius—that’s the sort of eruption I had right under me.”

  Lavinia claps her hands and squeezes her eyes tighter than before. “What happened next?”

  “We had to leave that rum resort like a pair of outlaws…with Brother crazy enough to kill me and my poor Domingo.” She ruffles her forehead. “Domingo?”

  “That’s what I call him on account of the rum. He’s an impoverished lord, with a castle in Devon that does not pay him a cent. He reminds me of Rochester.”

  There’s a twitch in her forehead again. She has not read Jane Eyre. Currer Bell is utterly unknown at Lavinia’s Female Academy, which is in the midst of a Revival, and Little Sister has succumbed to it. She has entered Lord Jesus’ house, has become a bride of Christ. That is why Father lured her out of Ipswich, hoping she would protect me from my Domingo’s unchristian ways. But he does not comprehend Lavinia. Finding God hasn’t made her less of a flirt.

  ON THE VERY SAME NIGHT THAT LAVINIA IS BACK AT HEAD-QUARTERS, sleeping beside me under our comforter and quilt, I have a troubling dream: Sister and I are lying under the ground, in separate beds that are no more or less luxurious than our graves, with a wall of earth between us. We cannot converse; try as we may, our voices will not carry across that thickness of wall. I am wearing my finest merino and a breastpin, as if I were at a Senior levee, but there is nothing to celebrate while I am all alone in my grave.

  I begin to claw at that earthen barrier between Sister and myself. My entire hand is deep inside the wall, but I cannot take any measure. Is that hand involved in an act of penetration, or is the earth swallowing one more piece of myself?

  I call out to Sister, but either she doesn’t hear me or chooses not to answer. I cannot seem to wipe the dirt from my face with the one hand I have that is not inside the wall…

  I wake near Lavinia, with the crust of sleep in her eyes. Neither of us is entombed, though one of my arms is pinned under her pillow, and I have to pull it free and try not to arouse her. I wash the crust from my own face, descend to the kitchen in my slippers, shawl, and morning shirt, and stand like a little lord with my baker’s shovel as I watch the dough of Father’s bread rise in the oven. But I cannot shake off the patina of my dream. All morning I seem to live underground. I am silent through breakfast, and my mind wanders as Father reads from his Bible and asks the Lord to bless our meal.

  I am still under the same curious cloud as I wash the dishes in our sink-room with its own little side door that I sometimes use to escape unwanted company. I hear a rapping on the door, which is most unusual, since none of my suitors has ever been to this side of the house.

  Then I hear my Domingo’s voice. “Currer Bell,” he says with a throaty whisper, “come out and play.”

  I am no magician, but I can tell from the tremor in his voice that he’s been drinking rum, and it is not even noon. I open the door. My heart leaps through the walls of my chest and then leaps back, since there’s no real place for a girl’s heart to go.

  He has a bruise on his cheek that I long to kiss, and there’s a bit of blood on his mouth—suddenly I’m as awake as a warrior. Miss Emily is no longer underground. I calculate, wonder if Alpha Delta Phi has been hounding my Domingo, chasing him across the hills. The rim of his floppy velvet hat is filled with snow. His scarf and cape are filthy. But no one has been chasing him, he insists. He had just finished his morning constitutional at his cave on Merchants Row.

  I interrupt him. “Brainard, that is a bald lie. The College has closed all the rum resorts.”

  “Then I am blind and delusional, since I had a beaker of rum not half an hour ago. College men are forbidden in the cave, but its walls are as sturdy as ever.”

  “Then I am still perplexed. Is not a Tutor from Yale still a College man?”

  “Indeed,” says this Tutor with snow in his hat, a soiled cape, and a swollen blue mark on his cheek. “But President Hitchcock has stripped me of all my credentials, and I am nothing but a civilian on College grounds.”

  “Then why are you all rumpled and bruised?”

  “I fell in the snow…too much rum. I might not have fallen had I not lost my bearings. I was looking for Currer Bell’s abode. Damn you, woman, come out and play. There is so little time for us. I’m being drummed out of Amherst like a lad with the plague.”

  He bows and that bruised cheek of his seems to land in my face.

  “Will the Squire’s daughter do Brainard the honor of walking with him in the woods? He does not bite or suck the blood out of Amherst belles, even in the nadir of his disgrace.”

  I begin to cry and cannot control this sobbing of mine, a schoolgirl’s performance, the parody of a fit, but the truth is that I am trapped inside head-quarters, Father’s prisoner of war. I had promised the commander-in-chief that I would not leave the confines of West Street without a military escort.

  “My lord,” I tell Domingo, “I am not permitted to play.”

  “Then I will kidnap you, Currer Bell.”

  “Sir,” I say, with a smile that masks a portion of my tears, “I should have to resist.”

  He wipes a stray tear from my cheek with his hand—that touch is torture, a torture of delight.

  “Can a sinner such as myself overcome a maiden’s will?” says he with a smile of his own. Yes, I long to shout, but his maiden is curiously silent. Would that he had fed me chloroform or some other potent drops and carried me away to the seraglio he kept at Yale. I’d turn into an ogre and swallow whatever wives or mistresses were about. I’d capture him under my hellish strands of hair and make certain that no one but Emily ever sat upon his lap. I’d have Vesuvius all to myself.

  But my desires fade as I hear footsteps in the pantry that connects with the sink-room. It must be the housekeeper, Zilpah Marsh, who has become my father’s spy of late.

  “My darling,” I shout with a shiver, “you must go at once, before Father’s h
ead-quarters descends upon you and devours us both.”

  “Ah,” he says as a lover must, “then we will share our own ruined eternity.”

  It is not Father’s spy who is in the pantry but Sister, who has come to warn me that Austin and his fraternity brothers are wandering about. Yet Lavinia troubles me as much as Zilpah Marsh.

  “Is this your Domingo?” she asks, always the flirt. Shame on her! She should not give my secrets away.

  Brainard laughs, and I do not like the electric ruminations in his eye. Is he planning to sweep Sister into his seraglio?

  “Brainard,” I say with a dollop of bitterness, “I must introduce you to my sister Lavinia. She is at the Female Academy in Ipswich, but Father has brought her home for a week to watch over me.”

  Sister smiles. “Emily, we do not have the time for such ample introductions. Alpha is at our heels.”

  But my Domingo plays the courtier and kisses Lavinia’s hand. “Delighted,” he says. “I was never told of your existence. But indulge me a little. Tell me, why am I Domingo?”

  “Because you are her own plantation and sugar-house,” she says, while I ready to strangle her. “But you must depart, Mr. Domingo. I would not want to have your death on my hands.”

  “Sister exaggerates, as always,” I insist. “Austin is no murderer.”

  “But Alpha Delta Phi doth have a murderous look,” Sister says, like some Shakespearean, and I am not in the mood for her antics.

  My cheeks are frozen with a chill of the North. How can Brainard feel the agony under my Arctic cover? He does not know the Dickinsons.

  “Brainard, I cannot accompany you into the woods, not while I reside in my father’s house and have promised him never to look upon your face.”

  “But you are looking at me now, and you have not turned to stone. Lavinia is my witness.”

  “There are worse things than stone,” I say. I long to comfort him, to feel the outline of his face, but I cannot while Sister hovers over us and my Domingo is in danger of being captured. I do not mind that Father will court-martial me, and Sister too, as my accomplice. But what hurts is that I will have lied and as a liar be forced to watch that dread look of disappointment upon Father’s face. This I cannot bear.

  The sudden whoop and shout of fraternity men pulls me out of my reverie—Austin’s brothers have the smell of Brainard’s blood in their nostrils, like a pack of wild dogs.

  “What is my name?” he whispers in my ear so that Lavinia cannot listen.

  “Domingo,” I whisper back, and like some obstinate child who has gone against her father’s wish, I fondle my lover’s cheek with the blade of my hand. He twirls that scarf of his once around his neck, with the boldness of a toreador, and runs off into the woods.

  18.

  MY POOR DOMINGO DID NOT ESCAPE THE WRATH OF ALPHA Delta Phi. The fraternity men found him in the woods, tore his scarf to shreds, and escorted him to the stage depot. Their former Tutor was not even allowed to pack. They went into his rooms while he was held at the depot, rummaged through his belongings like burglars, seized for themselves whatever took their fancy, and delivered the rest in a pair of pillowcases to their captive in front of the Amherst House hotel.

  And when the coach appeared, they tossed him inside with the pillowcases. That was the end of Brainard’s history at Amherst College, and the start of my mourning period. But how could I mourn? I would not wear black, since that color could cast a dark spell over Brainard’s life. And I could not deposit a letter to him at the Post Office, as the Post Master despised my father for being a Whig. He saw Pa-pa as an aristocrat.

  Father was the village dictator, according to him, and he would not have protected the dictator’s daughter—no, he’d inform the entire town of my telltale letter and it would finish up in Father’s pocket and never get to Yale.

  So I had to become a secret agent. I posted Brainard’s letters to Lavinia, who had returned to Ipswich now that my Domingo was no longer a threat to Amherst and any of its daughters. Despite her new religious zeal, Lavinia would never tattle on me. But there were obstacles to my secret agenting, since Father liked to collect our family mail. I had to appear at the Post Office before he did, but my scheming bore little fruit. There were no letters from my Domingo tucked inside Sister’s envelopes, nothing at all.

  I plotted voyages to New Haven inside my head, but knew I would not venture far from Amherst. No longer restricted to head-quarters, I could wander freely with Carlo, but I had no taste or appetite for adventure. I did not even travel as far as the hat factory to watch the female workers parade in their leather aprons. I did not romp with Carlo on College Hill. But I went like some broken arrow to that rum resort at the edge of Merchants Row. My Domingo had been telling the truth. Tardy Tavern is not closed, but it has a guard stationed at the door to keep out college Seniors—said guard does not have a damaged face, but he is just as foreboding as Mr. Breckenbridge had ever been, though cautious with Carlo around.

  He bows to his waist like the ignorant, mocking bully that he is and says with a lick of his tongue, “We don’t allow tarts in this establishment. Best try another resort, Mamzelle.”

  “I will not,” I answer, holding my ground. “Have the kindness to tell Breck that I’m here.”

  His tongue withdraws into his mouth. He doesn’t know what to do with me, a plain woman in merino who looks more like a pioneer than a prostitute.

  “And who should I say is calling, Mamzelle?”

  “Carlo and Currer Bell.”

  “Right,” he says, more muddled than ever. But he leaves his post and returns with Mr. Breckenbridge, who can’t seem to make up his mind whether I’m an angel or a pest, or halfway in between.

  “Have you been impolite to this young lady?”

  “Breck, I didn’t know she was a friend of yourn. I figured she was some pumpkin who was coming here to paint her face.”

  “Idiot, did you ever see a pumpkin travel with a big dog? She’s not looking for male company.”

  “Then what is she doin’ at a rum house?”

  “Seeking her intended who has returned to Yale, and don’t you bother us.”

  The door guard disappears, but Mr. Breckenbridge still does not invite me inside. I start to shiver, but it’s not from the cold; it’s from that distance I begin to feel between Brainard and myself, terribler by the minute. And Mr. Breckenbridge seems to understand my distress.

  “Would you like to share a beaker of rum, Miss Bell?”

  “More than anything in the world,” I say, and it’s true. That beaker is as close to my Domingo as I’ll ever get in a long, long while. I don’t need rum to remind me of Brainard, but that taste will resurrect him a little. And wisely Mr. Breckenbridge won’t permit me to park Carlo outside the tavern. My big dog would leave a significant sign, and Father might come running with the Sheriff or a slew of firemen to free his daughter from such a hellhole.

  So Carlo sits under the table in that front room where Amherst’s lost Seniors formerly sat night and day with their rum cups. The room has one occupant, but I cannot read his face. He could be the village drunk, or a wayfarer looking for a little peace in that curious “church” of a rum resort. Mr. Breckenbridge does not pay much heed to him, as if this man in the dark were a customer known to one and all. The first taste of Domingo cures my shivers, and I am calm.

  “Breck, have you heard from him since he was run out of Amherst by certain rascals from my brother’s own secret society?”

  “Miss Bell, I am a rum lord. Brainard wouldn’t write to me. But I have had word of him from an acquaintance of his at New Haven.”

  My heart beats with a sudden fervor. “Did he mention me?”

  “Yes, he did. But I am reluctant to intrude upon his privacy. Mention you he did, but I am not certain it was for your own ears.”

  He must have seen the terror in my face, even in that feeble glow.

  “It was nothing unkind, Miss. I give you my guarantee.”

 
; “But Breck,” I whine in my whispery way, “you leave me without hope. You must tell me more.”

  “He said, if I might quote his remarks to a third party, that he missed Currer Bell, but was not Rochester and would never be.”

  I pitch my head forward the better to catch the sound of Mr. Breckenbridge’s voice.

  “I am lost,” I say, but really I am not. My Domingo wouldn’t play the blind man for me, wouldn’t return to Amherst, or wait for Currer Bell.

  Mr. Breckenbridge has to hold my glass while I devour more Domingo. He is called away from the front room on urgent business, and I sit there alone in the near darkness. But I am not alone. That man with a seam on the side of his face has left me with a perfect stranger.

  19.

  I CANNOT RECALL HOW LONG I SAT THERE. IT MIGHT HAVE been an hour. But now I understood the lost Seniors of Phi Upsilon, and how they had no more ambition than to sit in a rum room within reach of College Hill; learning could not fire up their souls, and thus they abandoned their caps and gowns and sat with the constant taste of molasses in their mouths. They did not want a future of delivering sermons or arguing legalities. They did not want a future at all. They wanted Domingo, and so I drank in their ghostly presence until a voice shot out of the dark.