“Indeed, Mrs. Crowell, the circle is sometimes encrusted with nettles.”
“Admittedly, but would you permit me an analogy? Do you garden?”
I nodded and waited for her to continue.
“Then you know that one must prune one’s flowers ruthlessly, to remove the faded ones of yesterday. Such an exercise is necessary. Only by refusing to crowd the bed with every weak plant is the gardener assured of a vigorous growth — so that the garden will bloom like Eden.” She smiled. “It is that way with Emily and her poetry. It is a calling, my dear. Remember that, and be kind.” She squeezed my arm affectionately. “And tell her I’m glad she has you for a friend!”
On my twentieth birthday, among the bright leaves, I began my next course at the college. I had chosen to learn and read about the lives of the poorest English children — from the vanishing farms and the new industrial towns — who had no education past the age of eight.
In October, new Amherst citizens joined the bandage factory at our house. Lolly Wheeler and her sister-in-law, Charity, arrived one chilly afternoon. Without school throwing us together, Lolly and I had drifted apart, as I had once sworn to Emily we would never do. I hadn’t realized that Charity was now living with Lolly’s family while her husband, Lolly’s older brother, was away at war.
I set them both to work at once, but Lolly gripped my hand as I began to turn away. I looked back to see a careworn face, still pretty but with a new expression in her once sparkling eyes. Apprehension, perhaps; a caged worry, wishing to be let out. In the instant that our gazes met, I knew we now had much in common.
“Mother is worried to distraction,” she whispered. “So am I. And Charity cries all night. This” — she gestured around the large room — “was all I could think for us to do. To be useful.”
“You are very welcome here,” I told her. “I’m glad you came.”
Charity stood and stretched and went to speak with Mrs. Crowell. Lolly brought her face close to mine. “She’s expecting. That’s why she is staying with us. She has no other family, and if William . . .” Her voice cut off as tears sprang into her eyes.
I stroked her hair. “Just wait and see,” I told her. “All you can do is wait and see.”
Just after Thanksgiving, I was walking home to Amity Street, carrying my books. It was dusk; the last autumn bonfires still veiled the village in smoky sweetness. I was not happy, but I was at least contented. Davy was newly arrived in Tennessee, which appeared safe on Father’s map. Kate was stronger; Josey was out of diapers at last. The Howlands, having missed Thanksgiving with us, were coming to Amherst for a party for the first time in years, and Bridget would help me do the pies tonight. Tomorrow we would get out the damask cloth and set the table for Thursday.
As I turned onto Amity Street, I was startled to see, through the bare branches, that Father’s study wing was lit. It was Tuesday evening; he should have been at a meeting at the college. As I went up the walk, I heard Aunt Helen’s voice coming from the study. Could she be weeping?
I ran to the library door, clutching my books, my wild heart racing. Somewhere, deeper than I knew, I had been expecting exactly what I saw. It was like arriving late at an ongoing play, with the characters already onstage: Aunt Helen on the sofa, head bowed in her hands — and a tall older man, a stranger, beside her. He rose when I entered and looked at me gravely, from eyes I knew.
“Miss Miranda Chase? I am Cyrus Farwell.” He had those black brows too — over the same shocking silver eyes.
“Davy is dead.” It was not a question.
“Yes, my dear. He was killed last Tuesday, at the Battle of Lookout Mountain in Tennessee. I came to you at once — as soon as we got the news.”
Aunt Helen guided me to Father’s chair. For some reason, I would not let go of my books. I stared at Mr. Farwell.
“Do you know what happened?” I heard myself asking.
“Yes, his colonel sent word to us. The enemy was massed on the summit, guns trained on the fields below. After two days of fierce fighting, our boys stormed Lookout Mountain and planted the flag where Confederate guns had blazed just hours before. But Battery B took a direct hit. Two men were killed outright. Chuck Baird, Davy’s particular friend, had a leg wound, and at first it appeared that Davy was only nicked in the chest. He was barely bleeding.
“So Davy carried Chuck to the field dressing station, behind the lines. Davy told the doctor he was fine and to fix Chuck first. They all saw him resting under a tree; they thought he was sleeping. There must have been shrapnel in his chest. All the bleeding was inside, you see.”
So he had never used one of our dressings after all.
Mr. Farwell crossed the room and knelt beside me. He took my books, put them on the floor, and clasped my hand. I could not bear to look in those familiar eyes. I saw him open his briefcase. I saw Aunt Helen pouring Father’s brandy for us. I heard Mr. Farwell speak again.
“My dear, on his last leave with us in July, David told us to be ready for his death. While he was in Lake Forest, he made his own preparations. These will require time. Right now I know David wanted you to have this engagement ring. It belonged to his mother; now I give it to you.” He handed me a small silver box that was inscribed: FOR MY BELOVED INTENDED WIFE, MIRANDA ARETHUSA CHASE.
“I know Davy would want you to have this,” Mr. Farwell told me. “Will you allow me the honor of putting it on your finger?”
I removed my little amethyst heart and gave it to Aunt Helen. Again we seemed like actors, doing a scene we had already rehearsed. Mr. Cyrus Farwell put the ring on my third finger: a large oval diamond, rose cut, set in heavy plain gold. The great stone covered my knuckle. It had a final look; it was not the beginning of our love but the end of it.
Aunt Helen must have sent Sam to fetch Father. He rushed in — coatless and hatless at the beginning of December. He stared at us all; then he crossed to Mr. Farwell and grasped his hand. Neither spoke.
I rose, turned blindly toward the open door, and stumbled into the night. My next awareness was of my room. I was in the dark, lying across my bed in my outdoor clothes and boots, when Father knocked and entered. He carried a lamp and a pen.
“Miranda, you must sign these papers for Mr. Farwell before he leaves.” He had to guide my hand. I was not trembling, but I could not remember my name or how to write it.
Sometime later I saw it was daylight, and I remembered the pies I should have been making for the party: two apple and two mince, since Father had invited some students. I dressed quickly, wondering why I felt so faint, and hurried down to the kitchen. But where was my pastry that Bridget should have prepared last night? I expected it in a bowl, ready to roll out for my pies.
I was slicing apples when Aunt Helen hurried in. She looked very badly too. Had we all been ill?
“Miranda, whatever are you doing?”
“Making the pies. I know I’m late.” I sliced away in the loud silence.
“Dear Miranda, dear child — what pies?”
“Two apple and two mince.”
She still appeared confused, so I explained to her, “The pies for tomorrow — the ones I promised for the party.”
Then her pretty round face withered and crumpled, and she crossed the kitchen to hold me against her bosom.
“Miranda, child, that party was eight days ago. Of course, we didn’t have one —” And Aunt Helen caught me as I remembered, and I fell.
Book VIII
AMHERST AND SPRINGFIELD
1864
For several weeks I had appalling blanks, strange voids in time. I sat in my room, staring into space, unaware of how much time might have passed. Dusk would fall and I never noticed that my room had grown dark.
One day a letter from Davy arrived. I knew it was posthumous, yet I ran upstairs to Kate’s old room to tell her the news. I sat in her room for an hour, unable to make myself open the letter. I do not remember that I ever read it. Often I woke at night during a winter storm, hearing the to
rrent of wild wind outside. At those times I thought I was a little girl again, half asleep at York Stairs, listening to the surf beating on the eastern beaches. I could almost feel the breakers, mounting, rearing, and cresting for seconds — before booming into foam. Like flotsam I was caught in the grisly undertow.
On New Year’s Day 1864, Father slipped a note under my bedroom door, asking me to see him in his study. I dressed and went downstairs, and found him sitting at his worktable with a big manila folder before him. The pale afternoon sun illuminated his expression, both sorrowful and resolute.
He cleared his throat. “Miranda, dear daughter, we must begin your future today,” he declared formally. “The Greeks, who were wiser than we are in spiritual matters, believed in total mourning for a fixed time — and then a ritual and symbolic closing to the period of grief and withdrawal.
“This day that begins the New Year is a fitting day for you to end your first stage of mourning. A traditional way to do this is to acknowledge these messages from other people who loved Davy.” He handed me the folder of letters.
There were scores of them. Dear Miss Adelaide, the faithful Harnetts, my own friends and teachers, Emily, of course, and my neighbors and classmates had written — and so had Davy’s. I had not realized what a large acquaintance we had between us — but of course Davy was not a person you could overlook or forget.
“I want to be with you while you answer these,” Father told me. “You need one sympathetic and harmonious presence; I would like to be that person. Nothing can change the fact that Davy is gone, but these letters will help you begin to move forward.”
I saw that he had a table ready for me, laden with boxes of black-bordered writing paper. I sat down to work. I began slowly, cautiously, braced for torrents of feeling, or worse, an increasing despair. I experienced neither. Gradually I found myself engrossed in the task in a way that allowed me to think about Davy without soaring pain.
Seated at his familiar spot behind his desk, Father was an inextricable component of the process. Sometimes I read him a phrase someone had written or he gave me a line from a colleague’s translation he was correcting. We drank China tea and shared his apple-wood fire. His presence at this time reminded me of our old York Stairs days, where I was his amanuensis, as he was now mine.
I heard from many of the college faculty, even President Stearns, still suffering from the loss of his son. “Our college will be darker without his bright spirit,” he said. I liked that.
The letters from Davy’s fellow officers in Battery B were of two kinds: Some of the men knew him from a Lake Forest childhood and recalled a sunny companion, laughing and carefree. The other letters were from wartime friends and described someone sterner: a leader, brave and high-minded. This was a Davy I had only recently met and had just begun to know.
“He was simply better than we were,” one wrote me. “He was made of finer stuff.”
Emily had sent me a poem; I could not judge it. Perhaps I would in the future.
I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,
And Mourners to and fro
Kept treading — treading — till it seemed
That Sense was breaking through —
And when they all were seated,
A Service, like a Drum —
Kept beating — beating — till I thought
My Mind was going numb —
And then I heard them lift a Box
And creak across my Soul
With those same Boots of Lead, again,
Then Space — began to toll,
As all the Heavens were a Bell,
And Being, but an Ear,
And I, and Silence, some strange Race
Wrecked, solitary, here —
And then a Plank in Reason, broke,
And I dropped down, and down —
And hit a World, at every plunge,
And Finished knowing — then —
Was she “trying on” emotion again? Or was this genuine? The final lines ignited a brief spark of recognition in me. I put it aside to read again later and thanked her for her thoughts at this time.
Mr. Harnett wrote: “I grieve for you and with you, and I know that some part of you expected this. Now that it’s happened, it will be necessary for you to re-create yourself and redirect your life — albeit a very different life — incorporating and using Davy’s love for you. You will find me at your side to help you in any way I can.”
And from Miss Adelaide: “Oh, Miranda, I should be with you! I am haunted by the picture of your grieving without me. Perhaps you will take small comfort in knowing that you are not alone in this grief: all over our two tragic countries, you have a generation of sorrowing sisters. We will all need your strength to rebuild.”
I did not really understand either of these, but I sensed my friends’ true sympathy and support. No “early-soldier heart . . . covered . . . with the sweetest flowers” for them.
In the peaceful silence of my worktable, as I blotted and folded my responses, I knew Father was right. Answering these mourning people, connecting with their sorrow, was a healing ritual. I was very grateful to the letter writers and their tender memories. I had been selfish — like Emily — wanting to grab all the grief for myself. And Father’s steady concern warmed me more than his fire. When I tried to thank him, he shook his head.
“There are times in life when ceremony is the only balm.”
As I slowly regained my equilibrium, Aunt Helen hovered less closely and then decided to return to Springfield to be with Kate until the baby came. I resumed the duties of our house with Bridget’s help. Our meals these days were often neighbors’ gifts — hams and pies and puddings — a steady reminder of the kindly village custom of treating loss with kitchen messages.
“What you see is the mourning gesture of inarticulate people.” Father smiled sadly. “Many wrote you, but few can say the words in their hearts directly to your face. So they make you a pumpkin pie instead.”
I might have missed this insight without Father. Every day, in large and small ways, he helped me across the darkness.
In mid-January I went back to work in the dressing factory, where Mary Crowell had handled both the production and the ladies very ably. I had been silent for so long that my voice was hoarse and strained when I first tried to read aloud.
Although the ladies welcomed me back warmly, my presence seemed to have a disquieting effect. After an initial “hello,” many of the women whose husbands or sons or fiancés were at war could barely meet my glance. Lolly steadfastly sat beside me, even as her sister-in-law stood and crossed to a seat on the other side of the room. I understood; I was a reminder of what might befall them and their absent loved ones. Gradually, the tension in the room thawed, and I was glad to have, once again, this task.
Now my only remaining duty was to Emily. I had been dreading her lavish reactions to the news about Davy. She would sigh and talk about her own sorrows — and the pains of early death and lost love. But when I realized two months had passed, I decided I must overcome my aversion and make an appraisal. In truth, she had been the staunchest of friends, sending me homemade treats and handwritten notes or scraps of verse nearly every day. One poem, which she said was written for me, brought on a shower of tears. It started with “After great pain, a formal feeling comes —” but I found the last four lines to be the most stirring:
This is the Hour of Lead —
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow —
First — Chill — then Stupor — then the letting go —
The searing truth of this poem reminded me again that there were two Emilys, each incomparable: the sentimental ingenue and then the shrewd, practical New England woman. Luckily I found the latter awaiting me — with a rare embrace and a mourning shawl of black challis.
“Do not forgive me for not meeting him when I had the chance. I will never forgive myself.” That was all she said on the subject. Then she showed me
her private view of snowdrops, strewn under her window like pearls on the snow.
“I always think of us together, that morning in the Indian summer mist. Some memories are INDELIBLE.” And I knew she referred also to my memories of Davy and that they would always be with me as a source of comfort. We smiled at each other, recognizing the message that had been sent and received obliquely.
“I wrote Mr. Crowell at the college,” she informed me as we had our tea.
I wondered why she didn’t say “Mary Warner’s husband.” Had that once close friendship been so severely strained that Emily could not even mention Mary’s name?
“I asked him to suggest something you and I might read at this time,” she said. “He sent me this. It reads very like Vicksburg, as you described it.”
She handed me Euripides’s masterpiece, The Trojan Women. After tea, we read the play in that single afternoon. We were taken up and out of ourselves, swept along by its timeless majesty. Emily was the only friend who could have consoled me in this particular way.
Walking home in the dusk, filled with gratitude for Emily’s imaginative gesture, I found that the door to learning had been reopened for me — if only a crack. None of my emotions were accessible yet, but apparently my intellect was available again. Sharing this literature together had been a gift from Emily; the tragedy of an ancient war so relevant for me today linked me to a community of feeling, if only for a few hours.
Kate’s baby was expected in March, but she asked me to come a few days before her delivery date. “We haven’t talked seriously since Davy was killed. It broke my heart that I had to leave,” she wrote.
So I packed enough for a short visit, planned Father’s meals with Bridget, and took the cars to Springfield.
The entire family greeted me with waves and kisses when I arrived. Aunt Helen gripped both my hands firmly. “You look much improved,” she declared.
“ ’Randa!” Josey crowed cheerfully, but Elena still hid her bronze green eyes, so like Kate’s. I saw her fragility mirrored in Kate, whose own beautiful eyes were now shadowed. She kissed my windblown cheek, and I felt her search my face for evidence of my inner state. When she stepped away, her expression told me she understood my heart was healing but was still in retreat.
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