And therein lay another reason for leaving that I had hardly dared acknowledge.
I was with Ethan too long and too often these days. Even as Kate’s beau, he was always vital and attractive — his thick, fair hair, his intent blue eyes, his rosy, rugged New England looks. Now that I saw him more frequently — and now that I saw no one else — I sensed a growing awareness, a physical response between us. Nothing was ever said or done, but I felt our constant new tension. Once, I touched his shoulder — not by mistake — and he jumped as if I had scalded him.
My nights were full of restless dreams, although baby Ethan slept in my room and woke me often. He was a dear little fellow, but he couldn’t help getting cold or hungry. Then when I had tucked him back in his cradle, I lay awake for many dark hours, considering my present and my future. If I chose, I could live here forever, caring for Kate’s family. If I was married to Ethan, I could experience much more than the caress along his cheek and jawline that I longed to give. I trembled, trying to imagine the secrets yet to be discovered. But would that mysterious “much more,” which even joyous Kate would not describe, compensate for a narrow and unrewarding life here? How could married love transform all my ambition? And Ethan, however desirable, was Kate’s husband; I would never be able to see him as freely mine. I would always feel that I was trespassing.
Beyond that, there was a darker barrier. Ethan’s passion had killed Kate. How could I ever forget that?
While I wrestled day and night with these thoughts and sought the best of roads through a wilderness of emotions, I received a message from Emily. Was it a coincidence or could she sense from afar that I was in conflict? Whatever the explanation, the mail brought an unexpected letter from her and a new poem. The letter — which, surprisingly, was encouraging throughout — urged me to look at the whole world around me and pick the journey that felt best to me. I was so struck by its supportive generosity that I eagerly read the poem:
Out of sight? What of that?
See the Bird — reach it!
Curve by Curve — Sweep by Sweep —
Round the Steep Air —
Danger! What is that to Her?
Better ’tis to fail — there —
Than debate — here —
Blue is Blue — the World through —
Amber — Amber — Dew — Dew —
Seek — Friend — and see —
Heaven is shy of Earth — that’s all —
Bashful Heaven — thy Lovers small —
Hide — too — from thee —
This message from the blue, so timely, so perceptive, stirred me so much that I showed both the letter and the soaring poem to Ethan at dinner. He was puzzled.
“What exactly does Miss Dickinson want you to do, Miranda?”
I was surprised that I had to explain Emily’s meaning to him. This poem, more than most, seemed crystal clear. “Turn to Heaven,” I said. “Don’t hide from it. Pray, then make decisions. Yes, and for me that would mean to explore and be forceful and influential, I guess.”
“But those are masculine goals!” Ethan scoffed. “Surely she doesn’t expect you to play a man’s part in society, does she?”
“Perhaps she does.” I gazed down at my plate. Ethan took this tone because he assumed that those goals were not mine but Emily’s for me. He didn’t realize he had trodden on my own deeply felt ambitions.
“Then she has picked the wrong person. You, Miranda, are entirely feminine. You were made to be a lovely wife and mother. That role will be your authority and your creation.”
This revealed such a profound division between us that it seemed pointless to pursue the conversation. We finished Maureen’s pie and then did an hour of “Childe Harold.” Ethan did not read aloud very well; his New England reserve did not permit displaying emotion. But his intense gaze never left me — and in spite of our differences, I knew I’d be remembering it tonight, around midnight.
The very next day a letter came from Mr. Harnett, forwarded by Father:
My school, Friends Seminary, wants to hire you this fall to be my assistant in the new Froebel-based “kindergarten.” It is time we began working together again. You will be helping me as you help yourself — as you start your professional life. I need you and I am counting on you, Miranda.
Perhaps this was the signal I had been needing. I considered the offer for several days and nights. Then a stranger’s casual remark made the decision for me.
It was a July evening of afterglow, scented by Kate’s nicotiana. Ethan and Josey and I were sitting outside, taking turns composing a long poem. Baby Ethan and Elena were in bed; Josey was prolonging his own bedtime through this thoroughly entertaining game. It was such a beautiful twilight that Ethan and I pretended not to notice Josey’s obvious ploy. Josey made up a line, and Ethan or I supplied the rhyme to match, charmed by our own wit.
There was a knock at the gate, and a messenger arrived with building plans for Ethan. “I could hear you laughing as I came up the street,” he told us with a warm smile. “I thought, There’s a happy family!”
He went — and I heard the gate shutting, trapping me inside Kate’s garden, inside the role he had just assigned me — trapping me forever. Suddenly I knew what I had to do.
“Josey, the game’s over. Go to Maureen. It’s long past your bedtime. Scoot!”
Josey must have understood I was serious, for he didn’t argue but simply toddled away. And then — before he could speak the inevitable, irrevocable words — I turned to Ethan and took his hand.
“You must hire Mrs. Newell tomorrow to be the children’s nurse. She’s the best of the women we interviewed.” Then I took a long breath and told him I would be leaving next week.
He gripped my hand so hard that it hurt. “Will you be coming back?”
I ducked my head, unable to meet those pleading eyes, knowing I had to be firm. And clear. For both of us. “Only to see the children.”
“That’s all, Miranda? Only for the children?”
He must have been trying to break my hand with his. I felt his intense gaze, his profound disappointment, and the strong attraction between us.
I couldn’t allow myself to be dissuaded. This time I faced those eyes directly. “Ethan, I have to go — now.”
His hand and face went slack, his shoulders sagged. He was suddenly middle-aged and defeated, a careworn widower.
“My family will always be grateful for your sympathy and assistance in our sorrow,” he told me formally. Then he picked up his building plans and went indoors. I waited until I saw him enter the house, then slowly followed. Despite the sadness I felt, I also knew I had done the right thing, and this made me feel instantly lighter. I barely touched the grass as I crossed the lawn.
That was the end to our evenings together and the end of something that never really started — a tableau in which I never genuinely belonged.
The next week, darling Elena stood in the door with Ethan, waving and calling, “Be back!” — as I had taught her to do when I went to market. Her small voice made me falter for a moment. Even more than the others, Elena had become a part of me.
But now I must save the other parts. The parts that added up to myself.
Book IX
AMHERST AND NEW YORK
1864
When I returned to Amherst, I seemed to have been on a journey of many months and many miles. When I left home almost three months after Davy’s death and went to Kate in Springfield, I was like one of Lettie’s island zombies: a ghost going through the motions of living but heartless and soulless. When Kate died, for weeks more I felt nothing but pain. Eventually I began to sense the shadow shapes of other emotions: pity for Kate and Davy and their unused gifts; devotion to Elena and affection for Josey and little Ethan; attraction toward Ethan; a stronger understanding with Father. That was as far as I “dared to live.” And then, soul-searching at Ethan’s, I began to find a new sense of purpose.
Whether or not I opened my heart aga
in to another man’s love, I believed I must find my life in my work. It was my calling. The affectionate regard I felt for Ethan was just that and no more. And although if I chose to I could have lived in his house forever caring for Kate’s family, we both deserved better. I knew that Ethan should be free to fall in love again and find a wife for his motherless children, just as I also knew I could never be content filling another woman’s shoes, or her bed. So whatever it was to be for Ethan and for me, we had to be allowed to follow our own paths.
I had joined a growing group, one that was scrutinized and judged against rules that had been set by others. Within the context of the larger community, the bereaved bump and stumble as they turn back to the business of living. They yearn to belong again, but to whom? To what? Long before the weekly grim lists of the war dead altered the marital expectations of my generation, I observed how uncharitable the world could be when the one left behind sought to remake a life.
If you went too easily along, stoically and with purpose — no matter how befitting our New England traditions — they called you unfeeling. If grief left you clinging to memories, you were thought morbid. If you married too soon, they’d whisper you were insufficiently devoted to the deceased, and if, like Father, you never married again, they’d question your devotion to God’s plan — for wasn’t wedlock man’s most noble aspiration?
It was a tricky road to navigate. But navigate it I would. My first promise to myself upon my return was to stay engaged in the larger world, to not allow myself to shrink into Emily’s reclusive response. I understood its appeal, but I would resist. So I would attend to the business of living again with efficiency. There was Alan Harnett’s teaching offer to accept, and Father had some important papers waiting for me. The first was an official history of Battery B, Chicago Light Artillery. These men served with distinction, from the day after Fort Sumter till the Battle of Chattanooga. They took part in five major campaigns and suffered heavy losses. The battery won many citations and decorations; Davy himself was awarded a posthumous Distinguished Service Cross.
The second was a letter from Chuck Baird, with whom Davy had served at Lookout Mountain. He had married Miss Julia Cooke of Lake Forest during an earlier leave, and they were expecting their first child. Now he was writing to inform me that they hoped to name him David Farwell Baird.
The third document was a serious parchment roll, full of “whereas” and “inasmuch.” It was written in a copperplate clerk’s script and taped and sealed and embossed. It came from a Chicago law firm and looked like an international treaty.
“You will need your own lawyer for this,” Father advised. He leaned against the front of his large desk, the curtains behind him filtering the bright afternoon light. “Mr. Austin will arrange for a notary and witnesses. I hope I may be one.”
I gazed at the intimidating document in my hands. “But what is it?”
“This is the document concerning your foundation. Cyrus Farwell has explained to me that Davy wanted you to pursue and develop your own ideas about primary education. Davy established funds for you, for study or travel, or for support of individuals and projects in early education. There are no qualifications; you are to use the money as you see fit. It’s entirely up to you.”
“I still don’t understand.” I was dazed. “How could Davy do this for me?”
“On his last leave in Chicago, he had the Farwell lawyers set up a trust, using capital he had inherited from his mother. When invested, this money should bring ten thousand a year.
“Davy named this instrument the ‘Miranda Arethusa Chase Foundation for Early Childhood Education.’ You will have Davy’s bank, and Mr. Farwell and the trust lawyers, to advise you. It is a tremendous honor and responsibility. I will be here to help you however I can.”
I had a moment’s illumination — a vision like a second of pale summer lightning. For the first time in months I could see Davy clearly, young and intense and vulnerable. I saw him spending his last leave in offices with powerful older men, bankers and lawyers. I could see his serious face, his beautiful long hands moving as he spoke. He had foreseen his own death, and he had spent that precious time considering my future, to carry out his intention “to be a part of my life.”
I felt his presence so keenly it was hard to speak. After a long silence, I whispered, “Thank you, Davy.” I cleared my throat and then said to Father, “Perhaps now Mr. Harnett and I can print our alphabet in color.”
Father came out from behind his desk and embraced me. “Of course you can, my brave Miranda.” I heard his voice break. “There’s no end to what you can do! You will touch a thousand lives. I am so proud of you. And of Davy.”
I was as moved by Father’s embrace as I was by his words. He was not a parent given to easy displays of affection. I allowed myself the pleasure of sinking into the steadying circle of his embrace. I had thought, with Davy and Kate gone, I would have to live without love given or received. Now there would be another source, another direction for my own unused love. I would pour my energies into Davy’s inspiration, for the benefit of children we would never have but who would be “ours” all the same. With my father’s arms about me, just as Kate had promised, I felt my life and dreams taking root once again. I felt the actual start of my healing.
That night, I sat in my room, gazing down at the heavy gold ring on my finger, the diamond sparkling with reflected moonlight. I took a deep breath and slowly, tenderly, removed the ring. I would keep it always, perhaps wear it on a gold chain along with the amethyst heart Davy had given me, but as an engagement ring, it held me in a frozen moment with my lost love, the marriage never to be. Now was the time for me to move forward and engage in a future. Davy would be with me through my actions — my life itself would be a testimony of our commitment to each other’s best selves.
The next day, a note came from Emily: “Monday, once more.” As I walked to her house, I felt again that our years of afternoons were long, long ago. Another girl than today’s went cross lots that very first time, and yet another in the February snow to our reading of The Trojan Women. My eyes took in neighbors’ carefully tended gardens; their lovely designs had always been a source of pleasure for me. But today I saw the borders of marigolds and salvia as flickering bronze and scarlet flames, and I heard the screams of burning soldiers and fleeing civilians. Atlanta was now under siege, and in my commitment to stay informed, it was hard not to see signs of war’s devastation everywhere.
But Emily was as I had left her, twittering over her miniature dramas and preoccupations. Dick the stableman’s child was down with typhoid. This year’s robins had eaten their young; how very unnatural! And Emily herself was unsettled from her trip to Boston; she had barely unpacked. Her eyes were “restored.” She still felt “strange to all but my books.”
“I have not ROOTED myself yet,” she stated. “I do not know the village news. Have the wild geese crossed already? Are the apples ripe yet?” She fluttered to her seat and gazed at me. “But you’ve been away from EVERYTHING too, haven’t you?”
I stood awkwardly, not feeling at home but not knowing how to leave. I thanked her for her last poem about the “bird’s-eye view.”
She shrugged off my words of appreciation. “I merely thought of your days in Springfield, caged in with demanding little children, as being very like my life in Cambridge with the little cousins,” Emily confided. “How much I rely on a person’s literary CONTENT! I have to be able to refer to Artemis or Prince Hal, or I DISAPPEAR. Living with the unread is HARD WORK!”
“Little children are quite another sort of work,” I corrected her. “It’s much more strenuous. You lift and wipe and button and brush. You forget your inner self for days.”
This did not interest her, and she changed the subject.
“I suppose you have heard our sad news, Miranda?”
I could see she was longing to tell it. She gazed up at me coyly from under her dark lashes.
“I don’t know,” I said. “
What, pray?”
“I thought your father might have told you. I heard it was in the paper, but I never saw it.”
She always enjoyed this conversational hide-and-seek. Today I had little patience for it.
“You still haven’t told me what it is I don’t know, Emily.”
“It happened in South Carolina, on one of those coastal islands. There is a Confederate fort there.”
“Emily, I’m not going to play anymore.” I sat in “my” chair and crossed my arms over my chest. “Just tell me.”
“Mr. Higginson was wounded.”
This was actual news. I was instantly concerned. “I’m truly sorry. Was he hurt badly?”
“I don’t really know. Too gravely to WRITE, at least.” Here she pouted a bit.
This was my clue that perhaps the story was not as dire as she had presented it. I leaned back again. “When did this happen?”
“Last summer — the summer of 1863, that is.”
I began to understand. Emily was taking her Mentor’s misfortune personally. “And where is Colonel Higginson now?”
“He said he has left the Army and is recovering by the sea with his wife. He wrote me from Newport a few weeks ago. He has not been well enough to write me since. Of course I feel his wound DEEPLY myself.”
I considered these facts very carefully. As I understood it, Colonel Higginson had been hurt a year ago. He recovered and returned to civilian life. He had only just now informed Emily of all this, and her feelings were hurt.
On the way home, I realized she had never once asked about Kate’s children. It was just as well; I could not have borne hearing Emily describe her unassuaged grief over the little motherless Howlands. My own feelings of guilt and separation were too raw.
Afternoons with Emily Page 34