A Voice of Her Own

by Barbara Dana

  Part III

  Destiny Calls!

  “I reckon—when I count at all—

  First—Poets—Then the Sun—”

  Ben

  I first met Ben when the wild gentian was in bloom, the August before Mt Holyoke. He had come to work in Father’s office, a lawyer in the making. Though I spent little time in his presence that first summer, he impressed me greatly. He was older than yours truly by nearly ten years upon the Earth. In other ways he was older by larger degree. I suspected this upon our first meeting and had thought of him sometimes while away at school.

  The gentian was in bloom once more upon my return, a punctual harbinger of the season’s end. And then October. It had been hot for days. The roads were dusty and a heaviness in the air signaled something unpleasant. We all wondered if the heat would ever end, but weather—as all—will not remain unchanged. The next day a terrible storm came up with thunder and lightning, strong winds and a rain that poured as if it had intention never to stop. Lighting killed Mr. Sweetser’s cow. I was awfully upset about it. I knew her, as I often had occasion to pass her on my way to church. She was gray, her round eyes deep and pleasant. She had apparently been waiting out the storm, standing in the middle of the field, when she was struck. Vinnie told me the news. I was coming down the stairs and Vinnie was standing by the stairway holding a cat—Roughnaps I think. “Mr. Sweetser’s cow was struck by lightning,” she said.

  I grip the banister.

  “She died.”

  I feel my mind split from my body and I—frozen—a statue on the step. Vinnie is gone, though I did not see her leave.

  Where am I?

  Nothing.

  Should I move?

  More Nothing.

  Should I go down the stairs?

  Blank.

  What for?

  And blank still.

  Back to my room.

  I instruct myself, step by step. Turn around. Up the stairs. Into your room. Onto your bed. Close your eyes. Leave the World.

  When I woke, the fate of the unsuspecting cow filled my mind. No breath. I felt I did not want to live in a world where an innocent cow could be struck down for no reason. Was there no reason for her death? An awesome thought—and I spinning alone in the nothing of Space! Was there a reason? God’s reason? How could that be so? I lay on my bed, knowing nothing, caring less. And then the Fear.

  Not again!

  The feeling overtook me once more that I did not exist. There was only the Fear.

  I will not survive this.

  I lay for some moments, beginning, slowly at first, to perceive a simple truth. If I could think of myself surviving or not surviving, then I must exist. There was a part of me doing the thinking.

  I want a cup of tea.

  I made my way down the stairs on trivial legs. There in the parlor was a man. He rose and I, noticing his grave, gentle eyes, greeted him in unthinking manner, suitable to my station. Father was with the man and Austin. “Emily, you will remember Mr. Newton,” said Father. “He works with me in the office.”

  “Oh,” I said, remembering and not remembering—mind trapped in fear. I sat on the lounge. The man sat.

  “We were discussing the state of the Whigs,” Father explained.

  “Oh.” It was all I could think to say.

  Mother came in with cake and fussing. Were we cold? Were we thirsty? Did we have enough light?

  No. No. Yes.

  Mother returned to the kitchen.

  “Well now,” said Father. A pause and then, “Excuse me.” He left the room.

  Austin went on some about the Whigs. Things were not good with them. I forget why. Before I realized it, Austin was gone to check on Ned and there we were, Benjamin Newton and I, alone in the parlor and no one there to care.

  “How did you like Mt Holyoke?” he asked.

  “I liked it well.”

  “What did you enjoy the most?”

  “Reading, Composition, Botany, Geology, Music, Philosophy and Latin,” I answered in swift define.

  “You have many favorites.”

  “I do.”

  “So do I.”

  “What do you fancy besides the law?”

  “Literature first.”

  “The best!”

  “And philosophy.”

  “We have common fancies.”

  “With you one can hardly miss.” We laugh. Vinnie comes in, looking lovely, smiling. She sits on the little red ottoman.

  I wish she would go.

  Vinnie looks at Ben. “Did you hear about the cow?”

  “What cow is that?”

  “Mr. Sweetser’s cow.”

  “Don’t talk about the cow,” I say.

  “It got struck by lightning.”

  “Don’t talk about the cow.”

  “She died.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” says Ben.

  “It was awful.”

  “Don’t talk about the cow!”

  “Why not?” says Vinnie. “I guess I can talk about a cow if I want to.”

  “Not that cow. Not now.”

  Vinnie appears determined to enumerate the many lurid details of the poor creature’s untimely Death. I am saved by the cats. It may be the one and only time in my life! Some “set-to” in the kitchen—some merciful dispute between Snugglepoops and Pussy—and Vinnie all but flies from the room.

  “Sad news about the cow,” says Ben.

  “I cannot bear it. Silly of me, I know.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “People dying every day and I worry about a cow.”

  “I don’t think it’s silly.”

  “You are kind.”

  “I mean it.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I don’t think it’s silly.”

  “Neither do I,” I admit. “But the force of my feelings overwhelms me. Does not Life appear strange to you? Inexplicable? Unjust?”

  Ben nods.

  “I can hardly manage it at times.”

  “It helps when I remember my faith in things unseen.” His words hit a resting place in the center of my chest. “Existence is larger than we know,” he adds.

  “I believe that.”

  “Blessed Immortality!”

  “For a cow?”

  “Why not?”

  I cannot answer the question.

  Frozen at the Bone

  Ben was often at the house, discussing legal matters with Father. This delighted both me and Vinnie no end. We vied for his attentions as might be expected of any two such stylish and eligible young ladies. He was decidedly too old for us to set our sights on, but that did not stop the fun and in no way hampered our rigorous imaginings!

  One fall evening Ben and I found ourselves alone in the parlor, sipping currant wine and eating black cake. We were on the subject of books. Our common favorites—not common in stature, rather common as in “same”—were Shakespeare, Dickens, the Bible, Longfellow and a new writer by the name of Currer Bell. I had just read the remarkable Jane Eyre, lent to me by Bowdoin. Jane—so straight, so true! Not about to belong to anyone save her Self, and save herself she did by sticking to that mental attitude!

  “Do you know the poems of Emerson?” Ben asks.

  “No,” I answer. “I know that a man named Emerson wrote some essays, but have not read them.”

  Ben takes a small book from the pocket of his coat, opens it and begins to read. I shall never forget that moment. It is as if the top of my head has come off. My skin is on fire. I am frozen at the bone. I have been picked up and delivered to a quiet spring where things “are” merely. I am Home—home to Myself—that region from which one must begin if one is to find any sort of real Life at all. I am nourished in a few small Words! A Miracle! To banish the darkness, to lift a Soul, to give it wings—its Own wings, not thoughts plucked from another’s brain, but light and air, safety and rest, Circumference without edge—Infinity! His knowing touched my own—

  There is more
to life than we can see.

  As a child I sensed this. The fact had lived within me—a basement tenant—due in part to the measure of its importance and the risk of its revelation too great, lest its declaration offend.

  There is more to life than we can see.

  I am trembling now.

  “Will you read another?” I ask.

  Ben turns a page. “‘Give all to love; Obey thy heart.’”

  I want to be a Poet!

  The thought rang through my Soul! My brain was flooded with the precious knowledge of what somewhere it already knew.

  That’s who I am! That’s what I want to do! Now I remember!

  It was a deep and inner remembering, like coming Home.

  I want to know what Emerson knows. I want to spread that knowing. I want to light a lamp that will never go out!

  I hear my own voice.

  “I myself write some verses.”

  “Really?”

  “They remind me of Emerson.”

  What did I say? Who do I think I am?

  “How interesting,” I heard Ben say. “I would like to hear more about them when time allows.”

  Ben’s lack of surprise at my declaration leaves me room to breathe.

  That night in bed beside a snoring Vinnie I thought about my future.

  I will be a Poet!

  Other thoughts attack.

  I am a girl. I will be a woman. It is quite the thing nowadays for girls to be poetical, but women must employ the needle and not the pen.

  I think of Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

  She did it!

  Me, hopeful—and then—

  But she has a different father.

  I hear the buckle snap.

  He may have given her the space to breathe.

  Vinnie begins to snore loudly. I poke her in the ribs with my elbow. “What time is the parade?” she mumbles. I poke her again. Thoughts of Father fill my weary brain.

  He holds us in a viselike grip, tells us to appreciate fine books but not to read them, to think for ourselves but to follow his rules. He wants his daughters to get an education but not to use it. He treasures his family but is seldom at home. He wants us to think of him only, but can’t be found; has a sense of humor, but rarely smiles; wants to be loved, but will not admit it.

  The more I think about Father, the less inclined I am to sleep.

  There is no way to please him!

  I feel the desire to please Father rise up to challenge the joyous discovery of my future Calling.

  I cannot let him take my Life!

  And doubts now, rising up to claim the Me of me—a drowning of my fire.

  But he is my father! Would it really be so hard to please him? What would Father consider to be the ideal qualities for a daughter?

  I put myself in Father’s mind, considering what an ideal daughter would be. Intelligent, deep minded, thoughtful, bright, witty, sincere, obedient, not frivolous, not foolish. She would possess a sense of humor, an appreciation of nature, a diligent spirit and strength of character. She would be capable and enjoy staying at home. She would be hardworking, self-reliant, selfless, sensitive, in need of his care, frail—so as to secure that need—yet she would never succumb to serious illness. She would not be flirtatious.

  That’s me.

  Vinnie turns over and resumes snoring.

  Father’s most desirable daughter is me!

  The idea troubles and pleases me all in one.

  Whose person am I? Mine? His? A little of both maybe.

  The thought overtakes me that I have turned into someone with qualities Father fancies merely for the sake of pleasing him.

  What about me? I want to be a poet! I don’t want to appreciate poems merely. I want to write them! I do write them! I write in the secret dark—past 9. oclock! Father does not know my wicked side. I like to be flirtatious. I like to flirt with handsome young men, with Emmons and Cousin John and Bowdoin and all the rest! I read the books he tells me not to read! Who is Jane Eyre for, if not for me?!

  I am wide-awake now, speaking directly to Father inside my brain. “I hate morning prayers! I hate the punctuality of your mealtimes! I hate the word ‘punctuality’! It’s fussy and unyielding! Like you!”

  The moon’s bright rays come through the window on the far side of the room. I’m lost in the blue light. I think of my handsome Whisker friends. I wonder what it would be like to lie with Whiskers. Father’s displeasure at the consideration of such a circumstance could hardly be measured. “The best little girl in Amherst” lying with men?! Perish the thought! To hear Father tell it, I am his “little girl.”

  But where does that leave me?

  I have no answer.

  I must not lie with Whiskers. That way I stay “his.”

  And then.

  Do I want to stay “his”? Is that my mind or Father’s? Is there a difference?

  I imagine a Great Love where all else is swept away—even Father! I speak to him now—out loud—inside my brain. “I laugh at you! I speak of you with Austin behind your back! Sometimes I wish you would not come home with your tight face! You cover the house with your serious opinions! I don’t want to clean the house for you! I want to be a Poet!!”

  My heart is racing. No sweet sister lying close, snoring or not, can ease the Volcano within—the news of my Destiny!—the thing I am to do—to be—battling for its life! And yet rising up to overtake my very breath, the instinct to be Father’s girl—“the best little girl in Amherst”! My very blood knows that way—was caught in his desire!

  Can inspiration tear survival from its moorings?

  I spoke to no one of my concerns but waited for Ben. He visited often, a new world—aflame in all its glory. Ben opened my eyes to many things that he and Emerson believed in—the sense that God was within each and every Soul, not separate on a cloud; the difference of each and every Individual, the importance of that difference; the need to be true to one’s Self, to be open to Possibility, to the idea of the existence of things unseen, to glorious Immortality! Eternity appeared dreadful to me, a never-ending sameness under the watchful eye of a censoring God—but Immortality! Ever changing, ever growing, ever new, in the company of God’s glorious Power within all!

  It wasn’t long before I showed Ben my verses. I showed him the Hamlet poem, the Valentine to Thomas—no name mentioned!—the poem about the dog (my favorite), the Dungeon Fear, the worm, and the sailor lost at sea. When he finished reading, he sat still, looking down at the paper, mute. Minutes passed. Those minutes seemed like years! At last he looked up. “You are a poet.”

  He said no more, nor needed to for all of Time.

  Carlo

  Just when I think Father must be the coldest, most hard-hearted man in the entire world, he does something so pure as to transport me to Heaven and beyond! Not days after his inappropriate interruption of our harmless, merry little game of charades—and me not wanting to speak to him ever again for causing such embarrassment to myself and Vinnie in front of all those handsome Whiskers—the greatest surprise awaited me at his design.

  I was in Vinnie’s and my room of an afternoon, resting, as I was not feeling well. I had been experiencing a great tiredness, accompanied by a skin rash and a soreness of the eyes. Any light at all made matters decidedly worse, so there I lay and feeling sorry for myself and too distressed even to keep up with my secret delight in reading Kavanagh, that intensely enjoyable book by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow that Father had bought but asked us not to read. What did he expect us to do with it?

  There came a knock on the door. “Father here.” I quickly buried Kavanagh beneath the comforter. Or was it Jane Eyre? My mind is unsure. “I have a surprise” came the voice from the hall. “He would like to meet you.”

  A surprise that would like to meet me?!—a “HE”??

  When I opened the door, there before me stood Father, and sitting at his side a dog—a puppy by the looks of him, yet enormous!—and shaggy, auburn hair, gentle eyes
and the hugest paws one could imagine!

  “A dog!” I quickly bent down, embracing him all around, burying my face in his shaggy coat.

  “For you,” said Father.

  “For me?” Tears over the dam. “Oh, thank you!” I leaned back, stroking the huge dog’s soft head and part-way down his sturdy back. “He’s beautiful!”

  “A fine dog.”

  “Thank you, Father!” I stood up. The dog stood up as well, watching me, waiting. He knew I was his, or so it appeared to me, and I knew he was mine forever! No tiredness now, no strain in the eyes, no rash. All had gone!

  A dog of my own!

  He looked familiar. Was this another moment as with Emerson—a glimpse into the familiar future—a Poet alone with her Dog?

  “He will be good company,” said Father. “Long walks will be good for both of you.”

  “Is he a Newfoundland?”

  “Yes,” said Father. “With perhaps a touch of Saint Bernard. A puppy.”

  “He’s enormous!”

  “I must return to my briefs.”

  “Of course.”

  “He may want water.”

  “Thank you!”

  And Father was gone.

  I knelt once more, stroking the dog along his broad back. Vinnie appeared in the hall. “What’s that?” she asked, no small degree of horror in her tone.

  “My new dog,” I answered.

  “He’s going to live with us?”

  “No place else!”

  The dog sniffed Vinnie’s frock for elucidation. Vinnie appeared to be frozen. “What about the cats?” she managed.

  “What about them?”

  “They won’t stand for a dog in the house.”

  “They will have to learn.”

  The dog began to pant. “I have to get him some water,” I said, and we were off to the kitchen, leaving a stunned Vinnie to gather her equilibrium about her as best she could.

  The dog watched as I took a bowl from the cupboard, filling it with water from the pump. As I moved to set the bowl on the floor, he backed up. Once the bowl was down, he advanced and collapsed flat on the floor, his large paws on either side of the bowl, his ears in the water. His hind legs were out behind him, pointing toward the opposite walls. I wondered that he would be comfortable in such an odd posture. Lap, lap, lap. As I watched him drink, I thought back to the little book Father had given me when I was ten, the Newfoundland, all golden amber, just like mine—Torbold or Thurston or some such name. How large he was, how he loved the sea, how he stayed by the side of that small girl and how much I had wanted a dog just like him! I found myself wondering why I had gotten such a wonderful gift from Father while Vinnie got none. I had no answer.