Dear Aunt Helen, with her wonderful, commonsense approach to life.
“Thank you.” I looked up at her. “I am sure that you are right.”
We were interrupted by the arrival of Elena, bursting with the news that she had been chosen to be the Virgin Mary in the school’s Christmas play. There was no escaping reality, not even in this warm and cozy kitchen, and I took some comfort in that. My world might have exploded, but everything else seemed to be proceeding at its normal pace. I simply did not want to proceed with it.
“That will change,” Aunt Helen said to me when I expressed this thought. “You have received a great shock, and you need time to recover and adjust your thinking. But you will recover.”
Again her words gave me solace, and as the next several days passed, I could see that I really had no choice. Christmas was bearing down upon us, and Elena’s excitement was not to be ignored. If only for her sake, I must involve myself in all the usual activities. To myself I acknowledged that I had built walls around my heart, comfortable walls, and I did not want them lowered. But in spite of myself — surrounded by the familiar and safe routines of caring for Elena, keeping up with my correspondence and my work, and assisting Aunt Helen with our holiday preparations — thought and feeling returned and, with them, the knowledge that I must somehow find a way to come to terms with the facts: Roger was returning, and he wanted me to marry him.
But not yet, I said to myself, not yet. My feelings were so contradictory; they changed from moment to moment. I was sad, grieved for Roger’s loss. I felt a shadowy guilt that any possibility of future happiness with Roger might have been bought at the cost of Cecilia’s death. And, most important, I wondered whether, now that there was no impediment to that happiness, marriage to Roger was truly what I wanted.
For more than a year I had assumed so, had believed, with all the ardent longing of my heart, that love was paramount. And yet, in that time, the New York school had opened and begun to thrive. The Amherst school, firmly established, had more applications for the fall term than we could accept. I had lectured on early childhood education in Boston, with Ralph Waldo Emerson and onetime Concord School superintendent Bronson Alcott in the audience! I was becoming someone, an independent woman of accomplishment. Could that continue if I were Roger’s wife? I knew, after this year, that I could live without Roger; now I would have to decide if I would live with him.
This was the crucial question, as my body and my hands moved through the days. My mind embraced and discarded many answers. We attended Elena’s pageant rehearsals, we spent many hours baking Christmas cakes and cookies, we decorated the house. It occurred to me that Aunt Helen had not once referred to the emotion in Roger’s letter. What could she be thinking now that she had seen with her own eyes his passionate declarations? Did she approve? Disapprove? As far as I could tell, she had had no idea that our relationship had been anything more than a strong and respectful friendship. I thought of asking but decided against it. Aunt Helen was, after all, a grown woman, and surely she was aware of Roger’s charms. If she had guessed some time ago that there were the seeds of something more between us, she had certainly kept her thoughts to herself. And had she disapproved of the possibility, I was sure she would have expressed her views.
No, I would not stir that pot. Her behavior with me now was that of the wonderful, kind aunt I had always known, and I would do as she proposed: think carefully and move forward.
And so we bought or made and wrapped our presents, watched Elena — self-conscious and proud together — in her Christmas pageant, and a few days later took the cars to Springfield to spend a calm holiday with Ethan and his family. It was a lovely time, one I did not want to end, where warmth and family joy seemed especially poignant. Elena and her brothers were wonderfully close, and Ethan and Ann’s fine intelligence and warm hearts were more in evidence than ever. I hated to leave this island of calm; my eyes filled with tears when the moment came.
The journey back to Amherst passed as a blur, my mind whirling again through every clacking mile. As many times as I had imagined Roger’s return, I had never imagined I would question my own heart so sternly. I thought I loved him; he believed he loved me. But it had been a long time since we had seen each other. If my stomach fluttered and my skin tingled at the thought of Roger’s body, did that mean we were meant to be together? What would be the price, to satisfy the yearnings of my heart and my body?
Emily Dickinson had told me that if I married, I would be forced to submit my dreams to those of my husband. I did not believe Roger would ask such a thing of me, but might it happen anyway, in the course of things? Could a woman have both love and accomplishment in her life?
At home I settled in uneasily, waiting for what I knew was close at hand: a talk with Aunt Helen. A cable — a new and expensive way of communicating — had arrived from London, telling us that Roger’s packet ship would arrive in Boston Harbor on January 20.
“You must be there to meet him,” Aunt Helen pronounced. “Whatever you decide, you owe him that courtesy. He is a fine gentleman, and he has lost his wife. You must at the very least extend your deepest sympathy.” She looked at me. “You know he would do the same for you, if the circumstances were reversed.”
She was right, of course. Extending my sympathy would not require a decision, and it was exactly what I should do. I nodded. “Will you travel to Boston with me?”
“Of course,” she said. “It would not be proper for you to meet him there alone.”
On a bitterly cold morning, Aunt Helen and I boarded the train to Boston. Elena had been invited to stay with a school friend, although when she learned why we were going to Boston, she began to issue commands that we bring “her friend Roger” back to Amherst for her.
Sitting in the chilly carriage, Aunt Helen and I rode in silence for some time. I sat next to the window, watching the wintry gray landscape hurtle by. I had thought that Aunt Helen had dozed over her knitting, until I felt her hand enclose one of mine.
“Miranda?”
“Yes, Aunt?” I kept my gaze out the window.
“You have known me only as a widowed aunt, your father’s sister. Can you believe that I was once as young as my dear Kate and as much in love with her father as she was with Ethan? That is why I rejoiced so in her marriage; I know how joyful a good marriage can be.”
“But Kate’s marriage — she died so young. If she hadn’t — if Ethan had not insisted —”
“We cannot know that Ethan insisted on anything, Miranda. And in any case, it might as easily have been Ethan who died as my own dear husband did, leaving Kate alone. Life is short, my dear Miranda. Which is why love is so precious.”
I turned to her now. “What do you think I should do?” I asked plaintively.
She smiled. “What is in your heart. Mr. Daniels has left you in no doubt, surely, about his feelings. I do not know all of what has passed between you —” She held up a hand as if to stop me from telling her. “Nor do I want to know. You must follow your heart, but if you decide not to accept Mr. Daniels, you must be very clear about it. It is no kindness to him to give him hope if there is none. And I do think, Miranda,” she added, with an oddly knowing humor, “that marriage is good for a woman. For many reasons.”
She returned to her knitting, and I, bemused, to the many things she had given me to think about.
I settled Aunt Helen at the hotel and hired a carriage to take me to the docks. I stood in bitter cold amid a throng of waiting people, stamping my feet to keep my toes from freezing in their boots. There was a dusting of snowflakes; I had worried about the dangers of a winter crossing, but there in the distance was Roger’s ship, its great smokestack pluming gray smoke against the silvery sky, and that worry, at least, was no longer important. But the closer the packet came to the dock, the more my thoughts churned. We will always be colleagues, I told myself. And friends. We had shared too much to lose each other entirely. For the rest, time would tell. Aunt Helen had told
me to follow my heart, but I still could not be sure where that wayward organ was leading.
I watched as men tossed ropes back and forth and looped them with bewildering speed and agility to moor the ship. Then I looked up to the deck.
There, among the crowd of men and women who lined the rails, I saw Roger’s dear face. In that instant my rationalization was undone. I felt a welling of joy, as if I had suddenly recalled every part of him that was dear to me, as though the last year, with its heartbreak and frustration, had never happened, as if we were both freshly returned from Barbados, with the memory of every kiss and every touch etched in our minds. More than that, I recalled Roger the man, who had nurtured my dreams as his own, who had helped me realize the foundation. I would not lose myself in him; I would become more, do more.
I called Roger’s name over and over, heedless of the clamor and of the men and women beside me on the dock. And in a moment he saw me, his smile as bright as the sun, as welcome as home. I watched as he pushed through the crowd on the deck and was aware that I was pushing too, trying to reach the gangway to be there when he stepped onto land. I lost sight of him, saw him again, mumbled apologies to the people upon whose boots I trod. The cold was forgotten, the snowfall unimportant. I looked up to see him at the top of the gangway, pushed through the throng, and reached the foot of the gangway as Roger threaded his way past a portly gentleman — my handsome, long-limbed, somber attorney looking for all the world like a schoolboy, his hair tousled by the sea air and frosted with flecks of melting snow.
And then he caught me up, literally swept me off my feet, and kissed me. The longing of more than a year was concentrated in that kiss; I felt dizzy even as I returned it. His warm, masculine smell, the slight raspiness of his shaved cheek, the taste of his mouth — it was as if it were I who had come home.
There was a muted protest from someone at my elbow — the portly man on the gangway, horrified by our public passion.
“Roger, people —” I murmured into his neck.
“Damn people!” He was laughing. “We have the rest of our lives for people!” His arms tightened around me until I gasped, and there, where all the world could see, he kissed me again.
Epilogue
AMHERST
MAY 20, 1886
Roger and I were married in Amherst, in the house my father had so loved. I was surrounded that day by almost everyone important to me: Miss Adelaide was unable to make the voyage from Barbados, but Lolly was my maid of honor, and Elena, beaming with importance, was our flower girl. It was a late-summer wedding, as beautiful as anything I had ever imagined.
We did wait a “decent interval” — not the twelve months prescribed by custom but eight, during six of which only our closest friends knew of our attachment. At the end of that time, we wrote a letter to the school’s board, stating simply that we planned to marry, to allay any fears of scandal based on Emily’s earlier allegations. Slightly “slanting” the circumstances, Roger explained that it seemed fitting for the chairman of the board to be married, and therefore (his reasoning went), as he was now a widower, who better to take as his bride than the founder of the school, Miss Miranda Chase? In the week before our wedding, dozens of cards and letters arrived for us from the parents of children at the Amherst and New York schools; from some of the children themselves; and from old friends and well-wishers. Davy’s father and stepmother sent a beautiful letter wishing me love and happiness for their son’s sake, and several of his comrades from the army did so as well. On the morning of the wedding itself, when I had retired to my room to dress, Elena delivered an envelope.
“A man brought it for you.”
I turned the envelope over and saw the familiar arched and swooping hand. I was tempted — what would she think to send me on my wedding day? — but in the end I did not want this day tainted by Emily’s mysteries and melodrama. I took up a pencil and wrote, “Please return to Miss E. Dickinson,” on the envelope, then gave it back to Elena. “Put that on the tray with the outgoing mail, please?” I gave Elena a kiss. “Then run to your own room. My flower girl must be dressed!”
I did not think of Emily again for a long time.
After the wedding Roger and I returned to Chicago, although we came east several times a year — both to do foundation business and to let Elena see her father and brothers and Aunt Helen, who had moved to Springfield to be with Ethan and her grandsons. Ethan’s extraordinary generosity in letting me take Elena to Chicago did not fail to touch me, and I made it a point that my daughter — for so I felt her to be — knew her brothers and father well. She is married now, with two beautiful small sons of her own.
I could not bring myself to sell the Amherst house my father had been so proud of, but neither could I let it sit empty. In the end President Stearns at the college found a tenant for me: a department chairman who needed a house that would permit him to entertain students and faculty; until his retirement last year, that gentleman and his wife held court there. For me, the sense of my father’s presence, and of Davy’s, Kate’s, Aunt Helen’s, and my own, is still very strong, and now as the new home of the Frazar Stearns Center for Early Childhood Education, this house will always be filled with joyful children’s voices as well.
I have spent the entire night in the past, remembering and listening to the echoes of our lives in this place. Now I hear the birds of a new morning, heralding the day ahead. It is time to be busy again: to dress for the trip.
But first I must finish packing. Before I close my last valise, I hesitate over the official brown envelope, with its stamps and seals, that Mr. Farwell had brought with him when he came to tell me Davy was dead. Addressed in Davy’s hand, it had contained the first papers about the foundation and the Farwell diamond, in its small silver box. I had always kept it as one of my landmarks, and now I look to see if there are any other papers from that tragic time.
Then I notice it — a small, unexpected envelope I swear I have never seen before, labeled in my father’s strong script, “From Miss E. Dickinson to Miranda, December 3, 1863.”
That was two days after the news about Davy. The envelope was sealed. Perhaps Father had put it with the Farwell papers in the confusion of that week of which I remember nothing, nothing at all. Perhaps he gave it to me and I had forgotten. At any rate, this letter had come for me, and I had never read it.
I open the envelope. I am shocked to see Emily’s younger handwriting again, like a delicate budded vine. Twenty-three years ago, she had written me:
I will pray you can know, Miranda, my dear sorrowing child, that our friendship, however tempestuous, will endure always. I hope this poem will be of some comfort to you at this awful time, that you will sense how I value your friendship, even as we both “feel the Dark.”
For a minute I cannot help but remember how Emily took every occasion, in this case my own grief, to bring the moment back to herself. But then I see the poem, breathtaking in its clarity and simplicity:
We met as Sparks — Diverging Flints
Sent various — scattered ways —
We parted as the Central Flint
Were cloven with an Adze —
Subsisting on the Light We bore
Before We felt the Dark —
A Flint unto this Day — perhaps —
But for that single Spark.
And I am propelled into wonder. Finding this now, so unexpectedly, is like hearing Emily’s true voice again. This poem has a freshness, a poignancy, that reaches straight into my heart. And somehow I know that this chance encounter is not chance at all. For on this, her last day, Emily is reminding me of her immortality. I am sure that this poem, and others equally thrilling, will live forever.
I look up, feeling great joy and an unexpected kind of peace. For even more important to me, Emily’s last communication is a powerful affirmation of our friendship. The question I had always pondered — were we truly friends? — is finally settled. I am holding the proof in my hand.
I r
ise, sealing the package, and place it in my valise. I will take it with me and keep it always, knowing from this day forward that Emily Dickinson’s sparks of light, and my own life of unexpected triumphs, will remain securely entwined together.
A Note About Afternoons with Emily
BY ADELAIDE MACMURRAY AITKEN
october 2006
The story of the creation of this book is a saga in itself. Wherever she is, my mother must be filled with delight. And for the rest of her family, this is the joyful result not only of her individual inspiration but of a collective effort, over more than nine years, on the part of her husband and children, a number of friends, and most recently skilled and sensitive professionals.
For most of her life, Rose MacMurray never dreamed of writing a novel, but from the beginning she was a voracious consumer of words. She taught herself to read at the age of four, and from that moment, she knew that “There is no Frigate like a Book.” Words gave her comfort, entertainment, and escape throughout a rather lonely childhood in Lake Forest, Illinois; Paris; and finally Washington, DC.
At Westover School in Middlebury, Connecticut, she spent three happy years immersed in anything related to language and fleeing from anything the least bit quantitative. She was a brilliant student, winning many academic prizes, and she made deep and lasting friendships. Her writing in the literary magazine, primarily poetry, is remarkably sophisticated and skillful. Pictures of her at the time show a large-boned, beautiful blonde with a somewhat sad look. In the social circles of Washington, she discovered that all those years of reading gave her a broad frame of reference that, combined with her quick wit, made her a very appealing companion.
After a year at Bennington, she married Frank MacMurray and settled down in suburban Virginia as a mother and doctor’s wife. They met at a dance, discovered a mutual love of Yeats, and continued to delight each other intellectually for the rest of their lives. The rounds of car pools and raising children were sometimes stifling, but she always found solace and renewal in writing poetry. The topics were often taken from her daily life (children applying to schools; hanging out laundry with a friend; reading the quotations on tourists’ T-shirts), but her keen observation and humorously economical presentation made many of her poems memorable.
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