A Voice of Her Own

by Barbara Dana

  So there was Mother, bearing the brunt. She could, however, lay claim to the dubious benefit derived from Father’s List of Instructions.

  1. Lock the doors.

  2. Close the windows.

  3. Stay out of drafts.

  4. Don’t let the children go out without their coats, especially Emily, as they may catch colds which could lead to pneumonia or death.

  5. Don’t go out at night. (You may catch the croup.)

  6. Don’t lock the barn door after the horse is stolen!

  The aforementioned has not been recorded verbatim. It is, however, exceedingly accurate, as my ear for the precision of Father’s mind is beyond reproach.

  On a blustery evening, upon returning from a late October walk, I opened the door and there was Carlo! What joy as he pushed past his mistress in usual presumption, heading straight for his beloved water bowl. Well, I almost swooned! I surmised that when he finished drinking he would straightway turn to face the door to the garden and stare at its flat prevention with apparent displeasure, but was proven entirely wrong. He lifted his large head and, drooling streams of unswallowed water, backed away from the bowl, proceeding directly to the washroom—where he turned, following nose to tail—and down! I did not repine, oh no!—but got to my knees, arms about his amber softness in quick gratitude! A draft came in around the edges of the kitchen door. I hugged Carlo tighter for the warmth of it. Suddenly, I knew. Carlo hadn’t deserted me. All those months he had been trying to keep cool! I cannot describe the consolation experienced at my discernment. To lose the approbation of my dog is a thing too horrible to contemplate.

  When Father returned from the Whigs we were together once more. And don’t that make a comely picture?! The Special Five. I do not believe there is a combination like it on Earth. Grand Protector, Gentle Nourisher, Dashing Partner in Crime, Sprightly Dusting Companion, and highly accomplished Yours Truly—a roguish band! And mustn’t forget Carlo, that Loyal Wonder of Shaggy Love!—The Special Six, together beneath the selfsame roof!

  But not for long. One week before my birthday Vinnie left for school in Ipswich. Hard as it was to let her go, it occurred to me straightway that Carlo could now share my quarters, as should have been the arrangement from the beginning. I myself would have welcomed my shaggy companion on the bed, were it not for the fact that we could not both fit. The first night I crawled beneath the covers, he came straightway to the bed, front paws on the spread and looking deep into my eyes. I pointed to the mat. “Lie down,” I told him. He turned his enormous head to consider the situation and without further ado complied. Soon he was leading the way upstairs each night, a signal that he quite liked our new arrangement. I myself was comforted no end by his presence. It was a lonesome time—Vinnie away and friends were leaving, too. Abiah was gone and Emily Fowler too and Jennie, off then to teach in Warren—in the far state Ohio. Though Abby had not left in the geographic sense, ever since our April marriage talk I noticed a distance beneath the closeness.

  Though lonely, the winter was not without some gaiety. Austin, done with Hume’s History, had a bit more time away from the College. There were parties, carriage rides with Emmons and Gould—so tall and handsome!—at the pauper’s door, who cared?—and the candy pulling at Harriet Montague’s, where I met a new girl by the name of Martha Gilbert, an orphan awaiting the arrival of her sister.

  I received many letters from Ben—all the way from Worcester! These brightened my days! He never failed to inquire after my verses, what jots I had made between the bread and the mending and what plans I had for them. The best, most wonderful surprise was when he sent me an edition of Ralph Emerson’s poems! I could not believe my good fortune and Ben’s kindness. I was near beside myself! Vesuvius was boiling underneath and soon to be “Vesuvius Unchained”!

  The lava was heating up. How to contain my life? I did not know. I was writing more poems. I simply had to! Simple verses most, foolish some. It mattered not. I hurried through my daily chores—make the breakfast, bake the bread, polish the apples, adjust the comforters, dust the stairs, darn the socks—then Father’s dinner—beat the rugs, heat the tea, and on and on, stopping only to catch the arrows from Infinity—a ragged scramble upon the laundry list—illegible? No time to check! Stuff in the apron pocket for safekeeping until that blessed return to Self! 9. oclock! Oh, glory! Home to my Self! 9. oclock had been the time for Austin and me, our famous Night Talks. There were fewer of those now. Now it was time for my Self and Me! There is a force such times that moves like lava to express the smallest thing. It need not be “significant” to fire up the blood, not grand. A bird with beads for eyes, the occasional snake, a sunset—it matters not. Up the stairs! Close the door! Empty the pockets—decipher—tend—leave alone to grow in that still, deep place inside. I cannot tell you where that is. I do know it is plain, true, under all, above all—as weightless as the butterfly’s wing!

  Oh! Abiah was in Amherst in January! It was just a week, but we saw each other one brief time. I did not ask for explanations and ’Biah offered none, but all was well. What joy! The trouble may have been in my mind.

  Mother was ill, bearing another bout of neuralgia and low spirits. I felt sorry for her and at the same time burdened by the care of the household. Armed with The Frugal Housewife—“dedicated to those who are not ashamed of economy” and written by a certain Mrs. Child—one assumes she has no name of her own—I did the best I could.

  One afternoon Gould invited me for a carriage ride. I would have loved to go with him, but “No,” I had to tell him. “Can’t go. Mother needs me at home.” I was extremely vexed about it. I decided to send him a Valentine in the form of a poem—and he, being literary editor at Amherst and serving on the board of the campus monthly, Indicator, had it published! That was not the reason I sent it, but must admit to a fleeting imagining of such an outcome, not entirely without pleasure.

  Father was not pleased. He never did condone my interest in Gould, due perhaps in part to Gould’s financial inferiorities. I think he wanted me to marry no one, wealthy or no, preferring I should stay at home and bake his bread. At any rate, my first publication only served to make matters worse on two fronts. First off, in Father’s mind Gould could not be trusted. Publishing a young lady’s Valentine was not to be forgiven. Second, Father made it clear I should not be “flaunting my verses in public” or “wasting my time,” what with Vinnie away and Mother ill. Father’s reaction was a disappointment, though not a surprise. I regretted the publishing, but not the writing of the poem. Never! I was bursting with the joy of words, of what they could do, of what I could do by putting them together in countless ways. The Majesty, the Humor, the Phosphorescence! Answer the Call! Narrow the Charge! No time to waste! Sweep the porch! Beat the rugs! Dust the stairs! Then on to my Self! I would trade my Self for Nothing! Yet all the while I felt a gnawing in my brain. Father’s sense of things is trapped in my blood. I do so want to please him. His preference flows through my veins and cannot be overlooked.

  One afternoon in March I encountered a Scarlet Death. As Carlo and I started out for our walk I opened the kitchen door and there in the snow was a dead cardinal. Well, really, it was what remained of that noble bird—some scarlet feathers, his beak and crimson blood, shocking in its brilliance upon the pristine snow. Snugglepoops out for sport? Roughnaps on the kill?

  As we walked, I thought about the bird and what he had gotten for showing his Scarlet Grandeur—a bloody Death! But were we not all slated in kind? Male cardinals were brilliant, while the females owned a muted version of their magnificent mates. Must this be so with human-kind as well? All was not so in Nature. Or was it?

  Think of the lion! Consider the peacock’s tail!

  My mind was not comforted by these remembrances. But then—

  The tiger! The elephant! The giraffe!

  Visions of species flooded my mind where the sexes appeared of equal brilliance.

  We must all be ourselves!

  Carlo left to
chase after a squirrel, leaving me alone with my thoughts.

  It’s not fair. Girls are not supposed to take pride in their achievements unless it involves dusting something or making pudding.

  Carlo returned to my side, panting heavily. He had been outdistanced by a tiny nut gatherer.

  Sue

  Spring. 1850. And I not yet twenty.

  Things had been bleak and dreary, Mother ill, Vinnie gone, Ben gone, Whiskers busy at college. Austin was exhausted with too much study and no proper time to spend with his soulmate sister. No fancies by the hearth, no laughs before the early-morning prayers to put things right, only Father’s gray face—disapproval of my published Valentine may have been the reason—a cold and cough persistent enough to send yours truly off between the covers, eyes too sore to read, mind too dull to write. Was I listening to Father’s soundless instructions as regarded my heedless self-expression?

  Suffice it to say all had been sad for many weeks before spring graced Amherst with its benevolent splendor. Excitement was in the air!—“Hear ye! Hear ye! The Sewing Society has commenced again!” The world would be saved after all!! Then—longer days, robins back, the cherry trees in bloom in the front yard, Carlo soaking in the pond.

  And then . . .

  I am washing the dinner dishes, Carlo at my feet. In one hand I hold the gravy boat—delft blue sailing ships, sails unfurled on white background. The water from the pump flows over the narrow, sturdy handle. I hear voices in the hall. I set down the gravy boat, leaving the kitchen to end the suspense. Carlo follows.

  When we reach the hall, Mother is smiling pleasantly, shawl about her shoulders, and by the door, Martha Gilbert, the orphan girl from Harriet Montague’s candy pulling, and next to her a slightly younger girl, straight, handsome, with sad eyes. Mother closes her shawl about her neck. “You have friends, Emily,” she says, always the considerate hostess.

  “Hello,” says Martha, a gentle soul, who stoops, by reason of anatomy, insecurity or poor nutrition. She gestures to the other girl. “This is Sue.”

  Our eyes meet. Past, present and future in a single moment. I knew straightway. I would know this formidable, mysterious girl forever, as I had always known her. I cannot say why, but this was how it was.

  Soon after our auspicious meeting Sue and I found ourselves in the midst of fast and ever-deepening delight. Our Front Door Stone Talks were many and Fancies in the tall grass, walks up and down the hills and across the fields, through the woods, along the streams, New England arraying herself in the mantle of new Life! It was the same for me, new Life, new Love—Sue!

  Sue was born a few short days after the arrival of her loving admirer. Our first private conversation covered this point and many others. Both her parents had died. She had come from Miss Kelly’s School to live with her older sister, Martha, at the Cutlers’, and on and on, us two on the front door stone and noble March telling its blustery tale. But we don’t care for that. Together we sit, our shawls tight about our shoulders, our bonnets tied. “I feel that I have always known you,” I say.

  “I feel the same.”

  My heart tumbles on its end. “You do?”

  “I do.”

  “What is that feeling?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “We have only just met.”

  “But there it is.”

  “It’s as if we had known each other in another place . . .”

  “. . . At another time.”

  “Have you ever felt this way before? “

  “I have, but not often.”

  “I as well, though not so strong as with you.”

  Carlo jumps into the pool. A loud splash, then quiet. Underwater paws paddle in silence. I look at Sue. Her deep gray eyes watch my Shaggy Ally circle the pool, his huge head above the water. Sue turns to look at me. My heart tumbles once more. “You’ve had a sad life,” I say.

  “That’s true.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You are not to blame.”

  “Two parents dead. I can’t imagine it.”

  “That’s just as well.”

  “I think it’s well to imagine everything. The world is so full! I want to know it all!”

  “You don’t want to know about parents dying.”

  “I do! That is, if you don’t mind.”

  “My mother died when I was six. My father died when I was ten. He was, shall we say, of ‘ill repute.—Can we talk about something pleasant? People always want to know about my awful past. I want to know about the future!”

  Carlo leaves the pool. He stops, shakes water in all directions.

  “What do you like to do most in the world?” I ask. “I like to write.”

  My breath is near to stop. “I write as well! Is it not the greatest joy?”

  “It is.”

  “To capture those thoughts from the edge of Nowhere!”

  “To get ahold of life!”

  “A few simple words may be put in such an order as to jolt the senses! Don’t you find that true?”

  “I do!”

  “One’s very truth may be challenged to admit a larger Truth! One’s very life may be changed by the order of a few chosen words! Have you ever thought of it, Susie?—May I call you Susie?”

  “Why not?”

  “It takes my breath away! Emerson can do it! And I will do it too!”

  “I believe you will,” she says. And don’t my heart skip a beat?!

  That night I lay awake, Carlo on the mat by my bed—a steady breathing comfort of love—and the moonlight through the window. I thought about my new friend.

  A writer! How Large a Circumstance!

  How grand it was to feel there was someone with whom I could share my deepest heart. One I could talk to—about anything!—and she would understand. It was too soon to know this and yet I knew it with all my being. There had been only Austin, but he was gone in that way now, uncaring of my writing, busy at college, caught up in his own life apart from me. I could never talk with Mother, not in the deep place where it mattered, not with Father(!) or Vinnie, not even with Abby, or my other girl friends, much as we loved one another. Not anymore. Some subjects yes, but others no. And those of the second group were the most important—to me, at any rate. Sue was different. I don’t know how I knew, but I knew. We were much alike, with circumstances so different, her parents dead, mine very much alive, her father improvident, mine the very model of respectability. She had traveled much and I almost not at all. She had no home. I had a Home with a capital H!

  Carlo gave a moan, adjusted himself on the mat and let out a contented sigh. I turned on my back, quilt about my chin, mind racing in the night.

  Sue!

  The next day we took a long walk with Carlo to the top of Hendersons Hill. We held hands, breathing deeply and full as we strove. “What do you write?” I asked her.

  “Stories and essays mostly,” she answered. “And you?”

  “Poems.”

  “I admire that.”

  “You do?”

  “So difficult and precise a form.”

  “My verses hold the deepest part of me,” I admitted. We were quiet for a moment, my thoughts having their own way. A matter had been concerning me very much of late. “Do you worry about the future?”

  “In what respect?”

  “Women rarely write, you know, and that’s what we shall be—women!—whether we like it or not.”

  “Why can’t women write?”

  “It’s not generally done.”

  “Women write.”

  “Not many.”

  Carlo barked at a circling crow. The bird paid him no mind, taking flight over the meadow below. “Can I tell you something?” I asked.

  “Anything.”

  “It’s private. . . .”

  “Life is dull without a bit of intrigue. . . .”

  “I want to be a Poet.”

  “You are a Poet.”

  “I mean seriously.”

  “I spoke se
riously. You are a poet. You write poems.”

  “I want Poetry to be my life’s work.”

  “Then it will be.”

  She sees me!

  Blessed relief! How grand it is to be understood for who one is!

  Carlo brought me a stick, dropped it at my feet and sat. I knew what that meant, so I threw it. Carlo ran to bring it back.

  “I would like to read your poems.”

  No one had said that, no one but Ben and he was far away. Oh, Ben’s belief in me was grand, but Sue’s brought all that selfsame fire and more! As one of the “fairer sex” Sue could see that a woman must write if she wants to—not hide her mind behind convention’s way!

  I was not alone. The inspiration! The permission! The joy!

  Stolen Time

  Sue had just appeared, bringing spring without and within, when not weeks after, days maybe, there they were—discs of frozen light, moist and broad—soundless—falling outside my window and the Daffodils bending their heads with the weight of it. Imagine their surprise! That selfsame could be matched only by Carlo’s as I swung open the kitchen door to let him out. Why, he stopped dead and stared, wonder showing in the straightness of his back, muscles tensing beneath auburn coat, massive head high. A brief pause as Time appeared to stop, then the pounce, the landing, snow past the belly and the snap—snow in mouth, snow on nose!

  The sun blinded me, reflected off the virgin whiteness. I shut my eyes. When light is overbright I feel exquisite pain, my eyes involuntarily shut and I to find some dark for comfort. I wonder if others feel this. There may be something wrong with my eyes.

  In a few days the Snow was gone—as is the way with all—and it was back to the same old sixpence of spring, and a fine old sixpence it is, with the singular exception of Spring Cleaning. I prefer dirt. I am fond of mud, especially plentiful in spring. I seem to be of a minority as regards that particular matter, as well as many others.