Afternoons with Emily

by Rose MacMurray

  I shall miss our correspondence, which has meant a great deal to me. Perhaps someday we shall meet again. Until that time, I wish you, and the foundation, all good things.

  The letter was cordial and distant, as if he feared someone else might read it. And perhaps, I thought, he did fear that. But folded inside the letter was a smaller slip of paper, with a few words.

  I have you always in my heart.

  R

  Those few words undid me. Once again my longing for Roger, which I had thought was well controlled, welled up. I wanted, now especially, to feel his arms around me, to be safe and protected. And loved! The yearning for him was so powerful I felt it like heat on my skin. I stared at his handwriting and realized those few sweet words might be my last from him. I might never see Roger again. I might never hear another word from him. I closed the door to my room and sat there for a long time, too sad even to cry, running my fingers across the surface of that note as if it had been Roger’s skin.

  Through the days and nights that followed, I carried this private sorrow, unable to confide to anyone but Miss Adelaide. And yet I could not bring myself to write to her too candidly about what had happened, for fear that my letter might go astray. I felt sometimes as though I were being watched, my actions and words judged. Someone had known, or guessed, or suspected, that Roger and I were more than colleagues.

  I threw myself into work, and work, as it always had done, soothed my hurts and distracted me from the great emptiness where Roger had been in my life. And life insisted upon continuing. Trees leafed and blossomed, and each morning the summer sunshine attempted to burn away my sadness. Alan wrote to me of the end of the first year’s classes at the New York school, hoping I would visit before the summer break to see the bounty our work had reaped: “Two dozen bright, happy children, busily learning everything and anything we can teach them!”

  One morning’s post brought a message from Emily. She had written to me several times since our gardening day, just before the turmoil at the foundation, but I had been too distracted to make time for her. Perhaps the tone of those notes — cloying, worrying that she had offended me in some way — had made me want to avoid her. Still, this was not a note but a poem:

  We learn in the Retreating

  How vast an one

  Was recently among us —

  A Perished Sun

  Endear in the departure

  How doubly more

  Than all the Golden presence

  It was — before —

  I imagined Emily was acknowledging that we had not seen each other recently. But I did not care for the exalted position she placed me in, in her private galaxy. I sent her a note thanking her for the poem, relieved at least to see that she was writing again.

  Over the next weeks more poems arrived, and I grew uneasy. There was something insistent about the steady stream of verse, and I was unable to understand what Emily’s meaning was in sending them.

  ’Twas awkward, but it fitted me —

  An Ancient fashioned Heart —

  Its only lore — its Steadfastness —

  In Change — unerudite —

  And another several days later:

  I showed her Heights she never saw —

  “Would’st Climb,” I said?

  She said — “Not so” —

  “With me —” I said — With me?

  I showed her Secrets — Morning’s Nest —

  The Rope the Nights were put across —

  And now — “Would’st have me for a Guest?”

  She could not find her Yes —

  And then, I brake my life — And Lo,

  A Light, for her, did solemn glow,

  The larger, as her face withdrew —

  And could she, further, “No”?

  I could not imagine her purpose in sending me these. They seemed very much to be messages intended for me, but I could not — or perhaps would not — discern their meaning.

  I had, after all, a good deal else to think about. There were the curricula for both the New York and Amherst schools to be planned. More trained teachers would be needed soon, and Alan was looking for candidates in New York. Late in June he sent me a list of several candidates, with his detailed notes on each. Almost as an afterthought he enclosed the letter he had received from the anonymous “Friend of Education,” with his apologies for having forgotten to send it on before now.

  I unfolded it and then could not read it. Not at once, when the shock of its authorship was with me. It was written in imitation of pompous business letters by someone to whom the style did not come naturally, but the style did not disguise it. I knew that hand, the delicate, slantwise arches.

  Dear Mr. Harnett,

  I have learned of the success of the Frazer Stearns School with great pleasure, for it is on the education of children that America’s future rests. Because this sacred mission is of such importance, I feel I must warn you of an unwholesome relationship between two central figures in the school. Mr. Roger Daniels, the administrator of your foundation’s trust, has what can justly be described as an unconventional influence upon Miss Miranda Chase. I believe Miss Chase is too young and inexperienced to understand the consequences of this association. This regrettable influence can only serve, in the end, to cloud the mission of the school and its generous backers. Even the appearance of unhealthy interest might jeopardize a school whose work, I think, is of the greatest importance.

  A Friend of Education

  The handwriting was Emily Dickinson’s.

  I felt dizzy and, for a moment, unaware of my surroundings. Then, as the shock wore away, I was left with cold outrage. I folded the letter, took up my hat, and left the house for The Homestead.

  Lavinia met me at the door.

  “Miranda! Emily had not told me she was expecting you!”

  “She isn’t, Lavinia. I need only a moment of her time.” It was hard not to let my anger spill over to poor Vinnie. “May I go up?”

  She stood aside to let me pass, but her face was avid with curiosity. I thanked her and went up the stairs to knock at Emily’s door.

  “Emily, it is Miranda Chase.”

  Her flutelike voice bid me enter. “So formal today! So you finally DEIGN to visit? I see that the claims of old friends are less than —”

  I extended the letter to her. She squinted slightly, as if the sunlight on the page made it difficult to recognize. “Oh. Yes, that would bring you here if NOTHING else did,” she said.

  “Why, Emily?”

  She tilted her head as if hearing another voice than mine speaking to her.

  “I did it for you and for the school. You’re very young, Miranda. Little more than a child! You have no conception of how dangerous your LIAISON with that man was to you — how likely it was to separate you from everything important in your life.”

  “Likely! Emily, your letter was more destructive to the schools and the foundation than anything Roger and I did! What were you thinking? What could you hope to accomplish by —”

  “I told the TRUTH.” Emily turned back to her desk.

  “You told the truth slant, Emily. You told enough of it to suit your own purposes and might have destroyed the schools, and me, and a very good man.”

  “You do not need HIM,” Emily said crisply. “Women like ourselves must do without men — to WORK we cannot afford distractions. Women like ourselves —” She appeared to have lost her train of thought. “Do you think I could BEAR to see you dwindle into a SATELLITE of this man? That I could stand that PAIN? I acted to save you, Miranda.”

  “You acted to save yourself,” I said furiously. “You acted to keep me as your pet. It was all very well when I was your satellite! But you could not bear that there was another person in my life who was as important as you. More important! You could not bear that there was some experience in my life that you could not share!”

  “What of what I have SHARED with you? You forget that there are very few people I admit to my c
ircle. Perhaps there are others who would better appreciate that HONOR.”

  “An honor is not a friendship! And what you have done is not honorable! It is selfish and cruel. It is all posturing and false drama, without an iota of real feeling.”

  For a moment this accusation seemed to affect Emily. “I was trying to SAVE our friendship. And I was afraid for YOU. Miranda, that is hardly —”

  I could not listen to any more. “What you did was not the act of a friend, Emily. It was the coldest, most calculating self-service.” I folded the letter and put it in my pocket. “Do not ever attempt to hurt me or the foundation again.”

  “Miranda, do not LEAVE this way!” Emily’s burnt sienna eyes were cold, but her anger felt like playacting.

  “Good-bye, Emily.” I was as cold as she.

  “You will not be able to REPAIR this,” she warned. Then abruptly her anger was gone, and she reached out her hand to me. “Miranda, please! Miranda, this is CRUEL!”

  I said nothing more, just turned and left the room.

  As I went down the stairs, I heard Emily call my name again, but I did not stop. As I turned toward the back door, Lavinia Dickinson appeared at the kitchen door and watched without comment as I left the house.

  I walked unseeing through the town. Confronting Emily had not made me less angry, only deeply tired. When I reached home I wrote to Alan, telling him that I had discovered who the mysterious author of the letter was and assuring him that there would be no further problem.

  Then I slept. When I awoke, I felt sad but oddly free. I even felt some pity for Emily, so alone in that great house, keeping half the world at arm’s length and driving the rest away. But sadness did not excuse what she had done. I would not see her again.

  Mercifully, that summer, with Emily gone and Roger lost to me, I was busier than I had ever been. I taught, I wrote, I traveled to New York to meet with Alan, to help select new teachers. I was invited to lecture on early childhood education and to write essays for newspapers. There was Elena to watch over and nurture, and Lolly to visit in Boston. When I thought of Roger, it was with longing but not despair; my life was now becoming meaningful and full again. And so, summer rolled into autumn.

  From time to time as the months passed, I received notes or poems from Emily. None of them referred to our last meeting, and all of them were disturbing. I was still angry with her, and each time I saw that familiar hand on an envelope, I felt a shudder of exasperation, but I was curious despite my anger, and sometimes I did read them. The poems, in particular, suggested a depth of feeling I could not believe — more of Emily’s melodrama. One poem I recognized from the time years ago when we had collected her poems into fascicles: Emily was sending earlier work.

  Come slowly — Eden!

  Lips unused to Thee —

  Bashful — sip thy Jessamines —

  As the fainting Bee —

  Then another arrived, and I knew I needed to do something.

  Wild Nights — Wild Nights!

  Were I with thee

  Wild Nights should be

  Our luxury!

  Futile — the Winds —

  To a Heart in port —

  Done with the Compass —

  Done with the Chart!

  Rowing in Eden —

  Ah, the Sea!

  Might I but moor — Tonight —

  In Thee!

  This was a blatant love poem. And not simply a romantic love but one suffused with a deep and erotic desire. I could not imagine Emily expressing that to me, but why else would she send it? Did she imagine such an avowal would move me to take up our friendship again? That as she had forced Roger away, she might offer herself to me as an alternative? I had no intention of seeing Emily again. I wanted the poems to stop.

  Sue Dickinson had told me once that she had received similar letters from Emily. And despite the barriers Emily put up against her sister in-law, they remained friends. Sue was the person to speak to; I would have to explain that there had been a break between Emily and me, but I trusted Sue’s tactful sympathy and did not think she would ask the cause. She had requested that I look out for signs of mental disturbance in Emily, and these poems hinted at something I had neither the experience nor the will to handle myself. Let Sue decide what to do. Let her absolve me of any responsibility for Emily.

  After we settled on the sofa in Sue’s highly decorated parlor, she gave me a shrewd look. “Now, my dear, tell me what is troubling you — for I can see that something is.”

  I withdrew the poems from my folder and handed them to her. “Emily and I had a falling out,” I began. “Several months ago. But she has continued to send me poetry. I don’t like to worry you, but — I do not know what to make of these or what to do.”

  Sue read the poems, nodding her head a few times as she shuffled through them. “I can understand why these would disturb you.”

  “I don’t know what to think. I cannot be Emily’s friend. These poems —”

  Sue folded the poems, smoothing the paper carefully. “What do you think she is saying with these letters?”

  “They appear to be — from anyone else, I would say they were love letters.”

  “I agree. You must know by now that she does not mean them to be taken literally; I think she would be horrified and offended if you did so. I think this is her way of telling you that you are important to her. An imagined passion is as good as — or likely better than — a real one to Emily.”

  This I could readily believe. But I no longer wanted to be important to Emily Dickinson. Something of that must have shown on my face.

  “I will not ask the cause of your falling out, but I imagine that it has affected Emily deeply. She does not admit many people to her circle, Miranda.”

  “Yes, that is a troubling part of this,” I said.

  “What worries me . . .” Sue began thoughtfully. Then she rose and left the room. A moment later she returned with the collection of letters she had shown me before. She riffled through them, then pulled out a creased and worn page. “Yes, I thought so.”

  It was a copy of the poem that began “I showed her Heights,” which Emily had sent to me shortly before our quarrel.

  “She sent this to me years ago. If she sent it to you as well, rather than composing a new poem, it may mean Emily is not writing. If she is not, that explains why she is so . . . needy.”

  “Whatever she needs, I will not — I cannot — supply to her,” I said.

  Mrs. Austin shook her head. “I would not ask it. It is enough that you have let me know about this, Miranda. I do thank you.”

  Gradually the flow of poems I received from Emily slowed, and their feverish tone quieted. Emily did not seem to expect any response from me, and I gave none.

  The vibrant autumn landscape faded to brown and gray, and then to the soft snow-edged monochrome of December. And then, in the first week of that month, I received a letter from Roger.

  My dearest Miranda,

  It is surprisingly difficult for me to write these words. I have just received word that Cecilia died in her sleep. I had given up hope years ago for her recovery and had resigned myself to the knowledge that death would be a release for her, but I am still deeply grieved, as much for the beautiful life that was taken from her as for the years in which she has been only a shell. It is a shock, as well, after enduring these long years without hope, to find that the end has come at last for her.

  I am returning to the United States. There is much sad business to attend to: Cecilia’s estate and the family. I sail in January from Southampton; whatever the hazards of a winter crossing, I hope to make the fastest journey possible.

  Even at this sad time I cannot ignore the fact that this changes everything between us. My feelings for you are what they have always been, and I hope to make that clear to you. There must be what society calls a “decent interval,” but I hope that at the end of that time, you will let me hold you in my arms and offer to you my heart, my hand, and the re
st of my life. I love you.

  For a long moment my head whirled and my mind went numb. I stood rooted to the floor as a strange and negative state pervaded my being. It was an odd blankness in which my mind and my heart and my body seemed unwilling to react. Strangely, I wanted this blankness to continue.

  “I cannot go back,” I said aloud. Roger would have to stay in England. Everything needed to stay exactly where it was. I looked down and saw my hands, holding Roger’s letter, shaking so hard I thought I might drop it.

  Then I shook my head and began to move, slowly, carefully, not knowing until later that I must have emitted a low, choked moan. But Aunt Helen heard and came running. “Miranda . . . ?” She stopped. “Oh, my darling. What is it?”

  I could not answer. Aunt Helen led me to the kitchen and guided me gently into a chair. Bridget, also in the kitchen, immediately brought a cup of tea. Aunt Helen sat down beside me, alternately stroking my arm and patting my shoulder. “Oh, my dear girl, my dear girl,” she kept repeating. “You have received bad news. We will rest here quietly together until you regain yourself.”

  Finally I said, “What will I do?” And again, “What will I do?” I tried to shrug off this strange, empty feeling, but I seemed not able to move or even think.

  “Tell me what has happened,” Aunt Helen said. “And we will approach the matter together. May I see the letter you are holding?”

  Wordlessly I handed it to her, and while she read it, I said again, “What will I do?” It was as though I had lost my ability to think, to plan.

  My aunt put the letter down and took both my hands in hers. “At this moment you need do nothing,” she said. “Roger will not leave London until January, and the voyage to America, even by packet boat, takes two weeks at least. You need not write to him — he will be gone before a letter reaches him. We will go forward with our lives as usual, and you will soon be able to think clearly. Things will sort themselves out.”