Here Sue trailed off, and I understood. Emily might be a devoted aunt, but she couldn’t keep herself from resenting how much of Sue’s attention was fixed on the children. Despite all the years that had passed since Sue had been able to return Emily’s undivided devotion, Emily seemed to resent it anew whenever Sue’s obligations and interests took her elsewhere. Perhaps this was why I hadn’t heard from her lately; perhaps Emily was pouting over my deserting her for New York.
Well, if she wanted to be in touch with me, she would be. I would not allow her to make me feel guilty or force me to apologize for the way in which my world was expanding, even as hers was narrowing.
In March, Ethan and Ann Mackay — very sensible, very kind — celebrated their first wedding anniversary. Their families and their children — four sons and Elena — crowded Kate’s little parlor. For Elena, the occasion signified a new apricot velvet dress and a ride on the cars. Since Father seemed stable, I had made the suggestion to Ethan and Ann that I remain in Springfield while they took a brief anniversary trip. I could watch over the household, and it would give Elena a chance to know her brothers again. In part this idea filled me with trepidation — what if she asked to stay on? — but when Ethan accepted my offer with alacrity, I realized how strongly he must have wondered if we had done the right thing by keeping her in Amherst.
And so we stayed, Elena and I, at Ethan’s house, I with the terrible fear that my sweet “little daughter” might decide she wanted her old family, still her real family, after all. Not surprisingly, Elena and her brothers took to one another at once, as though she had never been away, and she enjoyed Ann’s two children, Caleb and Samuel — her “new big brothers” — immensely. This equanimity was thanks in part to Ethan and Ann’s insistence that I maintain firm discipline against any indoor rowdiness, and in part to their natural interest in, and affection for, one another as new siblings. She looked upon this masculine world as if the boys were creatures from another and more fascinating place, but to my secret and almost palpable relief, she asked every evening at bedtime whether we would be returning to Amherst. Yet I was not quite sure why this was so fixed in her mind. Finally, one very cold night when we had all finished an interlude of reading in front of the big kitchen fire after supper, I asked her about it as I put her to bed.
“Because,” she answered sleepily, “that is where I live now, with you and Grandpa Josiah and Grandmama Helen, and Sam, and . . .” Her voice trailed off with a yawn, and I smiled at her.
“Oh, my dearest Elena.” I bent down to kiss her, and her arms went around my neck. “You may always stay there with us. And you may visit your father and brothers here too, as often as you like. We are all your family!”
And when she fell asleep she was smiling, and I smiled too, with relief and for yet another reason. She and I were sleeping in the same room where not so long ago I spent many hours tossing and turning, only this time my nocturnal thoughts had taken a new direction, and my mind was no longer torn as to the course my life should take.
Spring was a busy time for me. Polly Randall and I spent hours developing curriculum and materials for the Stearns Center, and Mary Crowell and I saw to the renovations of the donated space. During all the Amherst preparations, I was also consulting with Alan Harnett in New York on the progress there. It seemed that endless decisions must be made!
I spent evenings reading aloud to Father, as his eyesight was worsening. Dr. Bigelow assured me the problem with Father’s eyes was simply the natural progression of age, but I knew it frustrated my father to be unable to do the reading he so enjoyed. This limitation, however, was more than compensated by Elena’s entertaining presence. She kept Father completely engaged with stories and drawings and explanations of her world, which seemed in their companionable way to be blending with his.
My friendship with Lolly Wheeler was slowly renewing. To the great relief of his family, her brother had returned from the war, and so had Lolly’s secret sweetheart, who was none other than our former sledding companion, Caleb Sweetser. But the war had changed Lolly, as it had changed all of us. Caleb discovered that she was a far more serious girl than he had left behind, with new ambitions of her own, and the tension it caused between them was the subject of our many conversations.
“He just doesn’t understand,” Lolly complained. She was helping me fold laundry. It astonished me sometimes how much washing a small household required.
“To be a doctor!” Lolly exclaimed. “Why can’t he see that those are worthy goals for a woman? Instead, he thinks to study and to care for the sick and the wounded would cause scandal.”
I listened as I matched socks, concerned that this disagreement between them reflected a far deeper estrangement. “Does the school in Boston have literature you can show him? It might reassure him if he can see the materials for himself.”
Lolly sighed. “I’ve shown him. It doesn’t matter. All that matters to Caleb is that I behave the way he expects a proper woman and wife should. I don’t know —” Her voice broke, and she clutched the tea towel she was folding. She cleared her throat. “I don’t know if I can marry a man who believes as Caleb believes.”
She began to cry, and I put my arms around her. “You are right to question this,” I said softly. “A true love would want you to achieve your heart’s desires.”
She nodded miserably.
“You’ll see,” I assured her. “You will go to medical school and you will meet a wonderful man who will encourage you and be proud of your accomplishments.”
“I — I don’t even know if I will be accepted,” she said in a shaky voice. “Should I end my engagement for such an uncertain goal?”
“Only you know the answer to that,” I said. “But think of this: even if you were not accepted at that school, don’t Caleb’s objections indicate a significant difference between you?”
Lolly took a deep breath, calming herself. “Yes.”
I took the tea towel from her hands and wiped her tear-stained face with it. “I will help you study,” I promised her. “You will get into that medical school.”
“Thank you.” She smiled weakly, then her brow furrowed. “The tea towel!”
I laughed. “Far better to relaunder a tea cloth than have you wiping your face on your sleeves. Now that would be unladylike behavior — and far more scandalous than applying to medical school!”
I knew I could not mend her disappointment and broken heart, but I could support her in her decisions. So we did study together while I also continued my correspondence with Miss Adelaide and, of course, with Roger.
The Frazar Stearns Center opened on my twenty-third birthday, September 16, 1866. Father attended the opening day. He heard Dr. Stearns and me speak, and saw Elena beaming from the first class. After the excitement, he rested but could not rise from the sofa later. He complained of a sore throat, but Dr. Bigelow was not concerned — it was only a cold — and determined that rest was all Father needed.
I brought Father some cold beef tea jelly and an egg beaten with brandy, and held his hand until he dozed off. But the cure would not come; he was noticeably weaker. Soon he was spending most of the day in bed, “Behind a drapery, like Jefferson,” he said. One late September afternoon, Dr. Bigelow sat back after examining him and sighed.
“Enjoy your family and the season, Josiah. This is your resting time.” To us he said privately, “A few weeks — no more.”
I wrote and poured out my heart to Roger. The shortness of breath, the rust-colored sputum, the fever and cough that were this condition’s calling cards, paralyzed me — it was like my mother’s death all over again.
Roger wrote back:
This is different. This is a fine dying, after a fine life. From all that I know, your father has had a singularly full life, filled with books and ideas, and love around him everywhere. You must take credit for your share in it. When we met a year ago, I watched him with you and Elena, and I listened to him talking about his students. I thought then
— I think now — This is a happy man!
Father reclined on the library sofa in the afternoons, receiving very few guests. Elena visited to chatter on about school. Surprisingly, Emily sent warm notes and cheery lines of verse calculated to draw his smile. Emily seemed to always respond when Death was near, as if it beckoned her. Her missives for Father, though, were delightfully disingenuous. They were not Emily at her melodramatic worst but Emily the entertaining raconteur.
One day, Father asked for Mr. Austin to come, and when Mr. Austin returned the next day, he brought papers to sign. I hovered at the doorway, which was still open a crack. Perhaps it was unworthy to eavesdrop, but I did not want the truth held from me. I heard only what I had expected: “Here is your amended will,” said Mr. Austin. “And the notarized statement for Judge Lord.”
I leaned against the wall and shut my eyes. The inevitable day that I was dreading was fast approaching. Father knew it; it would not be right for me to hide from it. Uncle Thomas Bulfinch came from Boston and moved quietly into the guest room. Bill Baker, a young theology student from the college, replaced Sam in Father’s old room and cared for him in the night. Father’s “cold” had now settled in his chest, into pneumonia. “It won’t be long,” said Dr. Bigelow, putting his stethoscope back into his bag as I held his overcoat. “There is nothing more to be done.”
Aunt Helen and I tried to maintain the household as usual; we kept our tears private and tried to make Father comfortable. Mercifully, when at last he did leave us, on a lovely late October afternoon, it was while he was sleeping and with almost a smile on his calm face.
He was buried with his volume of Horace and a scroll listing every student he ever taught. His pallbearers were every man in his last course at the college. Those who could not carry his coffin — the veterans, crippled and healing — walked beside it, each with a hand on the wood. This was their unconventional wish; I was happy to permit it.
There was a splendid service in the college chapel, where every pew was filled. The student choir sang Handel, and Dr. Stearns spoke, comparing Father’s life to the “educated man” of Marcus Aurelius’s ideal.
But how would Father have reacted to that other gesture, spontaneous and tender, which compelled me to love her with my whole heart, even as I continued to resist her? Who else but Father could have appreciated as I did the brief, spectral appearance at the church today of the woman seated in the last pew, her face shielded by an elaborate — and borrowed — tulle veil? I knew she owned no such article, for there was no need: she did not mourn in public. Her chapel was her second-floor room, the room she rarely left.
As the minister brought the funeral service to a close, by chance I turned around — otherwise I might have missed her. I saw her rise and hurry out, head bowed, so as to be neither recognized nor detained by the departing crowd, who would surely have stopped to stare and whisper. Yet her silhouette was unmistakable. Emily, unseen in public this way in nearly a decade, had come to be with me.
With Davy and Kate both gone, there was no one with whom to witness this magnificent gesture. Aunt Helen would not understand, and Roger — Roger and I had not discussed my strange and prolonged friendship with Amherst’s myth. I was filled with a lonely despair. Father, of course, was the one I most wanted to share the moment with. Aunt Helen and I gave a reception afterward in the temple. We closed the velvet stage curtains and used the most brilliant maple boughs, with black velvet bows, as our only decoration. Father would have enjoyed these metaphors.
He always enjoyed a party too, so we served the best French champagne to his many friends. I was touched to greet Alan Harnett and Cousin Ellen Lyall, who had come a long way. And Roger had come, as my dignified trustee. Roger’s friendship, his instinctive kindness in wanting to be near when the end came, touched me profoundly, as I knew it would have Father.
I found Roger standing at the side of the stage, and without a word he folded me into an embrace. I stood still, not wanting him to release me. He felt so strong, and in command, and protective. Finally, I felt his hold lessen, and I stepped back away from him.
“Can you stay?” I asked.
“If you need me, of course I can,” he replied.
“Thank you,” I said, my voice no more than a whisper.
He lifted my chin with his finger. “You know you have been loved,” he said. “That counts for so much. And your father knew how much you loved him. That is what you must remember. That and how proud he was of you.”
I couldn’t answer; I could only allow him to brush away my tears as I nodded. I knew he was right — as he had said, this was a fine death after a full life.
Aunt Helen was pleased that I had invited Roger to stay for a few days — having a man in the house during this sad time brought her comfort. I understood this — Roger’s presence was solid, strong. One felt protected knowing he was near, and grieving makes one feel vulnerable. He made us feel safe; it was enough.
Roger’s presence also helped to distract Elena from her sadness, if only temporarily. She was a resilient child, but I knew she would miss Father as it became more clear to her that he was not going to come back.
On the third day, after breakfast, Roger announced he needed to return to business. “But please,” he said, “if there is anything you need, if only to talk, I will be back.”
“You’ll write?” I asked.
He nodded. “The moment I leave,” he promised.
In the weeks that followed, I missed Father constantly — his wit, his learning, his flashes of insight and compassion. We had grown ever closer. Since Davy’s death, he had become the parent I had needed — and also my colleague and my friend. He had supported my work and my independence as a woman generously and freely, and his ready inclusion and acceptance of Elena transformed my life.
I fell into a profound lassitude and inertia. I went through all the motions of conferring with Polly Randall and Pamela Niles, our second teacher, as the Stearns Center ended its first semester. I passed the occasional Monday with Emily, and uncounted hours with Mr. Austin, executing Father’s simple will. Aside from Mother’s fortune, which now came to me, Father really owned very little. He left his classical library to Uncle Thomas Bulfinch and his modest estate to Kate’s boys, knowing that mine would one day go to Elena. Without telling me, when I turned twenty-one he had put the Amity Street house in my name.
For several chilly winter weeks, I slipped perilously close to feeling nothing again. I barely wrote to Roger and found it difficult to reply when he wrote to me. I went from meeting to meeting, agreeing and signing. Events and duties yanked me about like a puppet and let me flop down will-less when the need was over. I rallied for the few hours I taught my little charges, then, like a deflating balloon, I collapsed into inertia. I walked through my roles for Thanksgiving and Christmas with the Howlands and all their jostling boys.
Roger sent me a brooch — a violet Burmese sapphire, set in a curling wave. “This is a glimpse of your beloved ocean, to make you smile again. Someday, perhaps, we’ll see it together, Miranda.”
I was at first not certain I should accept so expensive and rare a gift — particularly when I reread Roger’s note. And yet, as heartsore as I was, I could not bring myself to return the brooch. Father’s death, the last in a series of terrible losses, had made it difficult to lose even the suggestion of a happier future. As I wrote to thank Roger for his gift, the letter seemed to take on a life of its own.
New Year’s Day, 1867
Dear Roger,
At our meetings and in our letters, we have moved from friendship to something more intense and emotional. I have felt this change developing between us, and I suppose that change is given form in the beautiful brooch you sent me. I am not certain that I should accept something so costly, but to find a friend who understands me so well is such a balm to my sore heart that I cannot say no. I thank you for it and will treasure it always.
It is difficult for me to collect my thoughts these days
; I feel as if I were caught in some deep well of sadness. It is not only my father’s death but Davy’s, and before that my dear cousin Kate’s. You never met her, but Kate was, saving only Davy, my dearest friend. She died giving birth to her third child; I was at the confinement, and it left an indelible mark upon me. I resolved afterward that I would never bear a child. I have Kate’s Elena as a daughter; I will not leave her motherless again. I suppose this means that I will never marry, for what man would be willing to have his posterity held ransom to his wife’s fear?
This is another reason why I throw myself with such passion into the work of the foundation. I cannot abandon the opportunities for creativity and influence that Davy planned and the foundation offers. These opportunities will be my life’s work. Again, what man would permit the comfort of his home to be disrupted by his wife’s career?
The last several years of war and loss have left me (as I suppose they have left many people) adrift and bewildered by sorrow. I need to tell you how very much your friendship means to me.
I was not satisfied with the letter; what would Roger make of it? It hardly made sense, but I could not gather my wits to tell my feelings more clearly. I sealed it and posted it. It was done, and I felt somehow relieved.
When I next met with Mr. Austin on my father’s business, he expressed concern. “Miranda, your aunt and I are worried about you. These last few years have been a great emotional strain for you. You have lost a fiancé, a dear cousin, and now your father. And you have become Elena’s mother! You are overdrawn, spiritually; you must take the time to restore yourself.
“I would like to see you take Elena and go somewhere quiet and beautiful. All your duties here can wait. I will write to Mr. Harnett and the trustees. Perhaps you should go south, to avoid the rest of our harsh Amherst winter and early spring. I see you smiling — do you know of such a place?”
“Yes, I do, Mr. Austin. I know exactly such a place, for Elena and for me. It’s in the West Indies, and it’s called York Stairs!”
Afternoons with Emily Page 40