Emily Hudson

by Melissa Jones

  It began to rain, the streets immediately beginning to ooze with filth, the pavements becoming slippery with dirt. Passersby began to hurry for shelter because the downpour was considerable. She was now nearly on the edge of the Park and could clearly see the familiar statue of the Duke of Wellington ahead. She had passed all the coffee houses and shops in which she could have taken refuge and now it was just her and the traffic, the blinkered horses and shouting drivers, the bicycles and carriages and carts.

  She could make out a woman coming toward her, a respectable working woman, holding a child by each hand. She could see her coming closer and closer, intent on the way ahead as she was, the safety of her children. Emily must speak to her and ask her to help her find a cab, for she had no strength to essay the confusion of Hyde Park Corner by herself. Was she not ill? Did she not have the consumption? She should not be wandering abroad quite by herself. William would not approve.

  Reaching out her hand to speak to the woman she became aware of a terrible sound of rushing in her ears and pains in her chest. Then it all went black.

  The hardness of the fall brought her back to consciousness quickly; she was on the pavement and faces were gazing down.

  “I am perfectly well,” she heard herself say, in a gasping voice that sounded foreign and distant. The woman and her two little children: golden-haired girls with solemn expressions, were still discernible, and it was she and an errand boy who helped her to her feet. The boy stopped a cab for her within a few moments while the woman remained sturdily by her side, the rain falling on them both.

  “Your dress is spoiled, Miss,” she observed.

  As she climbed into the conveyance Emily tried to thank her but she seemed to have gone.

  “You realize you are in no fit state to travel, even if I were to write to my acquaintance about receiving you.”

  Emily sat with Miss Norton by the fire in her office, a blanket around her shoulders. Her clothes had been taken away to be dried.

  “Please—I am sorry for the imposition. But I must go. I have no choice—there is no one else to turn to.”

  “What an absurd thing to say.” Miss Norton appeared unaccountably angry. “You are surrounded by friends, well-wishers. Your cousin—”

  “Must not know where I have gone. I will write to him once I am settled.” Emily began to cry. She hated herself for her weakness, for playing on another’s feelings.

  “So you have quarreled with him. I cannot be party to such a deception and you should not ask it of me. I make it a rule never to interfere in the private lives of my pupils.” Emily did not remind her that it had been she who had first inquired as to her health in the Gallery in October.

  “Please, Miss Norton. I fear prevention.”

  Miss Norton frowned sharply. “Why should you fear it?”

  “He would prefer me to stay, I think. I have no independent means. I am not my own mistress. I can no longer stay here. It is impossible.”

  Emily watched Miss Norton rise to her feet and go to her window. Outside the rain was still falling in sheets. “You are not at liberty to divulge the reasons why you are afraid?”

  “No.”

  “Do you fear he will harm you? Hurt you in any way?”

  “Only in my spirit.”

  Miss Norton turned and looked at Emily with a very different expression in her eyes. She sighed and neither spoke for a long full minute. She put her hand to her forehead in an unconscious careworn gesture before continuing.

  “Yours is a dilemma not unfamiliar to me. I do not like to be reminded of it. I shall write for you. But I shall not conceal anything should Mr. Cornford inquire after you. I detest surreptitious behavior, unless it is absolutely necessary.”

  “It is absolutely necessary,” repeated Emily.

  “Then I will make the appropriate arrangements. And do not distress yourself; I shall do so with all speed.”

  PART THREE

  SIXTEEN

  Emily would always remember that long journey through a haze: the cold of the boat train, starting so early in the London fog, the damp on her chest like a real thing, the pain in her lungs, the coughing. She remembered ignoring the coughing; it could not matter to her now; it could not claim her attention. Wet fields and wet cows and gun-gray sky, the boat with its wheeling gulls and slurries of water on the deck and great waves beyond. She could not keep warm. And after, the change of trains at Paris with the distinctive burned smell of the Gard du Nord, and after so much time and confusion, to reach the train she longed for, the one with the word ROMA emblazoned on its front like a banner, made her feel warmer, as if it could be done.

  She slept deeply on the train, listening to its clanking, with French darkness around her, and woke only once in the night at the border with what looked at first like shadowy painted mountains looming out in the dim light, while the officials checked her papers with the brightness of their lanterns reflecting on the snow.

  Her mind was calm. As the landscape changed before her eyes; rivers and streams and rocks to hills and pines to olives and cypresses and all those beloved unknown longed- for names—Pisa, Napoli, Firenze—flooded past, she felt she might be coming home.

  It was morning again when she arrived, the last station, Roma, Italia: the goal of myriad pilgrimages, this last being her own. She thought of Augusta and the idea that this had been her city for so long, had held her golden vitality and given her so much happiness, made her spirits rise. In spite of her weakness, her clamminess and the faintness in her head, the taste in her mouth was sweet.

  It was raining outside the station and she wanted to laugh at her own dreams: in her imagination the Roman sky was for ever like the Titian in the National Gallery when she had first seen Firle, and the ground a carpet of flowers. But this was November. It was winter here, too.

  She had no time to gain any impression but of rain and red rooftops and a seemingly vast piazza before being approached by a small plump figure, dressed plainly and wearing spectacles.

  “Miss Hudson?” The lady looked up at her, like a respectable maiden aunt, but brusque in her manner, with untidy hair and an air of self-importance that was not without charm. She wore stout boots and carried an umbrella. “It is Miss Hudson, is it not?”

  “Yes. Yes, indeed. How do you do?”

  “I am Miss Drake. Miss Catherine Constance Drake.” She pronounced her name with amusement as if it did not belong to her.

  “I am Emily.”

  “I know. Miss Norton told me that in her letter.” Emily wondered how—with an introduction so awkward—the rest of their discourse would proceed.

  “I can hardly believe I am arrived at last. It is good of you to come and meet me.”

  Miss Drake did not reply to this, glancing around her as if looking for something. “I shall arrange for your trunk to be sent on, and we shall walk. Where is it?”

  “I did not pack a trunk. I have left most of my clothes in London. They did not really belong to me.”

  “You have come with nothing?”

  “Only a small suitcase. And my portfolio, of course.” She indicated them at her feet.

  “They shall carry those, then. We can hardly be expected to. Have you an umbrella?”

  “No.”

  “Then you shall share mine.”

  Her companion pronounced Emily so pale that she insisted they stop for breakfast in the square. In the darkened interior, among the leather booths, Emily had her first taste of Italian coffee and brioche with sugar on top.

  “This is so delicious!” she exclaimed, with her mouth full, like a child.

  “Everything is delicious here. It is the way they are,” said Miss Drake. She put her head on one side. “Are you well enough to walk? Miss Norton wrote that you have been suffering from a cough.” Her look was intrusive, but not unkind.

  Emily could have opened her mouth and said, I am suffering from the consumption; so little is known about it that I might recover, die within months, or I might give it
to you. (She would have added, of course, that she always took great care not to breathe too closely upon any companion for fear of such contagion.) But she could not do it. She could not arrive an invalid in Rome.

  “I have been suffering from quite a severe chill. I must admit I have had a fever and am rather weak with a cough. It may take a few days to recover fully.”

  “You require sunlight. My studio has plenty of that. Shall we go?”

  Miss Drake rattled her cup and tapped her spoon and wiped her mouth in a way that Emily had been told never to do. She quite liked it.

  They walked together in close proximity under the umbrella, which Emily carried as she was the taller, and that is how Emily was first introduced to the wonder of Rome: walking as if waking out of her dream and into another so extraordinary she had no words in her head to describe it.

  “How do you live every day with such beauty, such grandeur, such history?”

  “Very happily,” said Miss Drake. “Very happily indeed.”

  WILLIAM CORNFORD, ESQ.

  CARLTON CLUB, SW

  C/O POSTE RESTANTE, ROME

  December 1st, 1862

  Dear Cousin,

  I hardly know how to begin this letter. First, I must apologize for quitting London in such a hurry and without bidding you good-bye. I was afraid you might not have let me go, nor afforded me the means, and now I see that in your eyes it may very well be for the best that I have gone. I am sorry that I appropriated your funds in what can only be described as an underhand manner. My judgment, I fear, was clouded by excessive emotion, as I am sure you will say is the case always where I am concerned.

  I can only say again that I am sorry we quarreled so violently. I try not to brood over it and hope you will do the same.

  Again I am sorry that I took money for the purposes of my journey without your knowledge. I shall find a means of employment and repay you, to the last farthing.

  I am at Rome, staying in the apartments of a respectable connection of Miss Norton. I am safe. I am tolerably well. I cannot imagine that you should need or desire to know my address, but at present I feel I must withhold it. If you care to write to me, please do so at the Poste Restante.

  I am convinced that I must somehow attempt to forge my own way and that this is the place were I shall either succeed or fail.

  With love, as ever,

  Emily

  “Why are you crying over a letter?”

  Miss Drake stood in Emily’s doorway. Her rooms were on the first floor of a crumbling pink palazzo in the foothills overlooking the city. She had given Emily a small spare room for her bedchamber, but it had a beautiful window and a door opened on to the loggia, where Emily knew that in the warmer weather she would sit and gaze and be peaceful. She had a little iron bedstead and a washstand.

  “We must find somewhere for you to hang what remain of your clothes,” Miss Drake had said.

  The main room, also opening on to the loggia via three sets of French windows, was used as a studio: Miss Drake slept in a curtained-off recess in the corner. It was piled with canvases and paper and art materials of every description, neatly organized and stacked. The floor was of red tile. Miss Drake was frequently barefoot even in cold weather, and the color came off on her feet. She wore no corset and her clothing was loose-fitting and what Caroline would describe as frumpy. She often covered her whole dowdy ensemble with a large apron to protect it from the paint. Emily had never seen any female person like her before.

  “It is to my cousin. I left without saying good-bye. It is the first time I have deceived anyone in my life.”

  “In my opinion one is usually driven to it,” said Miss Drake.

  MRS. R. W. HARPER

  HOTEL SPLENDIDE, VIENNA

  ROME

  December 7th

  Sweetest Augusta,

  It may come as a surprise to you that I am all of a sudden arrived at Rome, having decided that a change of air and society would be very beneficial after the many inconveniences of London. So many journeys—we are both wandering souls it seems! And yes, before you shake your head, it is true that I am being evasive, but it is also true that I am under the protection of a thoroughly respectable if unmarried lady. She is proof that even a lone female can become respectable quite easily, providing she is no longer young and no gentleman is interested in making love to her.

  Miss Drake is originally from Pennsylvania, but has lived at Rome these ten years. On reflection, you may have heard of her, although sadly she has not heard so much as a whisper of you. (Unsurprising, considering the very different circles in which you must have moved.) She is an artist. Occasionally she travels to Venice for the light, and to Florence purely for Florence. She is far more disciplined than I make out; I fear my thoughts are fluttering and I am unable to put her into words satisfactorily. I am still most terribly tired after the journey.

  She runs a studio here that caters principally to young Americans, although all nationalities frequent it: young people embarking on their grand tour, overwhelmed by their own ignorance and the city’s beauty, longing for structure and tasks to which to apply themselves—individuals not so different to myself, in other words. She teaches class in drawing and painting, gives lectures, arranges tours of the antiquities. I declare she is an authority on every subject connected to Rome. I have yet to see her caught out on a single point. And this living museum, or city of memorials to the dead, somehow feels contained when she constructs her thoughts around it.

  Indeed I must admit to a certain relief that we are in the hills and not among the throng of moving and disturbing beauty—I think it would overwhelm me quite, and as I said, I am very tired. What I have seen of the city has been from a carriage where I have been wrapped up, and Miss Drake instructs the driver about the correct route in perfect Italian.

  In addition to this very busy life, Miss Drake is also dedicated to producing work of her own; what I have seen of it is very fine, and an inspiration. Her technique is excellent, her style her own. At present she is painting me on a chaise longue with drapery. It is a source of great amusement, but she says it is necessary to keep me still and I must remain still for the time being, so I obey. She is easy to obey.

  Miss Drake’s servant, Anna, completes the household; she has a fine little boy of ten, Paulo, and together they cook in the evenings and we light a fire. It is extremely convivial, the supper so simple and delicious, the hot pasta and the pungent sauce and the home-baked bread.

  I am determined to seek a means of employment, but Miss Drake assures me that time is measured quite differently here and that I must not exert myself prematurely. She has a habit of scrutinizing me that I find disconcerting but not uncomfortable. I am sure she thinks I am suffering from a broken heart. When that is mended (in her opinion) she can unloose me upon the world! Then I can begin to explore Rome as I would wish.

  As for you, married lady, is it to be Christmas among the Viennese?

  I send you so much love,

  Emily

  MISS CAROLINE TRELAWNEY

  GROSVENOR SQUARE, SW

  ROME

  December 10th

  My dear Caroline,

  I admit to feeling extremely embarrassed to be writing to you and wonder if perhaps you might not invite the correspondence, having no doubt learned the sudden circumstances of my departure from my cousin, a departure that became expedient for reasons I feel I cannot wholly confide to you on paper.

  If I have caused you pain or embarrassment I apologize unreservedly. I am so grateful to you for your friendship—more than that, your nursing—and time spent in your company, even the most difficult, always holds a glow in my mind. But my life in London—as I am sure you had eyes to see—simply became untenable. I long for an afternoon of conversation with you to explain, and at the same time I do not, partly because of your English reserve and partly because I sense you already know more than you might say.

  Here at Rome I am resting after a long journey in the
care of a thoroughly decent connection of the principal at my school. She is very well established in the city, and although at present I am somewhat dependent on her hospitality I am looking forward to the day when I can make some real contribution to her ménage.

  Please write to me of your aunt’s health, of your brother’s, and more importantly, of your own—and, of course, your spirits.

  I miss you and keenly hope you are not regretting our friendship.

  Affectionately,

  Emily

  MISS MARY CORNFORD

  CORNFORD HOUSE

  ———SQUARE

  BOSTON, MASS

  C/O POSTE RESTANTE

  ROME

  December 11th

  My dear Mary,

  I do not know how much your brother would have made known to you about my whereabouts, but I feel I must tell you that I have removed to Rome where I find myself quite safe and well looked after.

  Relations between William and myself had, I am afraid to say, deteriorated to such a degree that I felt I had no choice but to take this step. As I do not wish to be the cause of any quarrel or misunderstanding between you and your brother, that is all I shall say; and may I add that in addition I hope that you and I will continue to correspond freely.