by Jane Langton
“Oh, darling, there you are.” Suddenly Alison was swept up from the stool, engulfed in a tweed jacket, embraced and kissed, while everyone else in the restaurant looked on, pleased at the sight of two marvelous-looking young people in one another’s arms. And then the two of them made their way to the cash register, crushed together, the man’s hand in the red-gold hair of the girl.
Tom Perry had not even noticed the drab woman in the brown dress, although he was still engaged to be married to Ellen Oak.
12
Behold! Whose Multitudes are these?
After lunch Owen felt restless. He was reluctant to go back to the Homestead. And he wasn’t needed right away. Dombey had promised to play host for the afternoon. Actually, Owen knew, Dombey was lying in wait for the Smith brothers.
“Why not invite them to stay in the Homestead?” Dombey had said to Owen. “They could have my room, and I could move in with you.”
“But I thought the house was reserved for the speakers,” protested Owen. “The Smith brothers aren’t going to speak.”
“Well, what the hell,” said Dombey Dell. “I just thought, considering their position—and, after all, it’s my symposium.” And then Dombey took Owen by the shoulders and shook him, rattling his teeth together. “Listen, Owen, they’re terribly interested in Emily Dickinson.”
Taking his time, Owen walked around the Common. To his nearsighted vision the sidewalks along South Pleasant Street seemed to be tumbling. Students were milling everywhere. A couple of girls were licking ice cream cones in the vast shade of the ancient katsura tree on Boltwood Avenue. It was almost time for exams, but the day felt festive. A pink balloon wobbled on a parking meter. Owen could detect no tension in the air. Even the boy approaching him with an armload of books lost his look of studious solemnity as his bubble gum swelled and exploded all over his nose.
Duty was calling. Owen walked back to the Homestead. In the driveway he found Dombey abandoning ship. “The Smiths are at the Lord Jeffery Inn,” said Dombey importantly. Slicking down his hair, he scuttled away up the street.
But Homer Kelly was shambling up the walk to keep Owen company. “Hi,” he said. “Just thought I’d come along and help you hold the fort.”
Afterward, remembering Homer’s innocent remark, Owen was struck by its prophetic power. Within the hour, the Homestead was a besieged fortress, a stronghold under attack.
At first, settling to their coffee in the kitchen, Owen and Homer paid no attention to the commotion out-of-doors. It wasn’t until the noise became insistent, like the rustling of a great gathering of birds, a shrill chattering like the mutterings of eagles or giant rocs, with a tenor undertone in some foreign tongue, that the two of them suddenly looked at each other and hurried to the parlor to look out the window.
“Dottie Poole, stop falling behind,” cried Tilly Porch, marching backward at the front of the line, her glasses tipped wildly sideways. “Rachel! Carolyn! Hold the banner high!”
Obediently, Rachel Miller and Carolyn Chin lifted the banner of the Amherst Women’s Emily Dickinson Association at arm’s length over their heads. The women of A.W.E.D. were present in strength. Their banner was a freshly ironed sheet with huge letters appliquéd in calico:
EMILY IS OURS!
At the granite steps in front of the Homestead they suddenly stopped short and stared.
Another straggling line was advancing on the Dickinson house, another banner fluttered in the breeze, another pair of glasses sparkled in the sunlight. At the head of the other procession a tall thin woman marched sturdily forward. Behind her wallowed a vast shape in a denim jumper, then an expectant mother, leaning backward to balance her burden, and then a miscellaneous raggedy crowd. At the end of the line a girl lugged a whining child.
This militia too had a flag, a yellowed curtain crudely lettered with a marking pen. Tilly squinted at it. What did it say? It had folded over on itself again. But now it billowed wide.
BUILDING TAKEOVER!
“Good God,” gasped Tilly Porch. Through her mind rushed a jumble of images from the late sixties and early seventies, the anti-Vietnam moratorium at Amherst College, the Quaker peace vigils on the Common, the sit-in at Westover Air Force Base. It was all so long ago. What sort of takeover was this? What building were these women planning to occupy? Not the Homestead? Surely they weren’t about to trespass on the ancestral home of Emily Dickinson?
“Who are those people?” whispered Barbara Teeter.
“Isn’t this insane?” said Rachel Miller, giggling.
“I want to go home,” whimpered Dottie Poole.
“Hold it a sec,” shouted a kid in the street. He had a camera. He was backing up to take a wide-angle shot of the two processions staring at each other beside the old wooden sign that said: THE DICKINSON HOMESTEAD, BY APPOINTMENT ONLY.
“Excuse, please,” said someone to Tilly. “May I please? Excuse!”
From nowhere a third parade was emerging, a long line of Oriental-looking men in shiny black shoes and dark business jackets and open-collared sports shirts. Smiling, nodding, bowing, they pressed past Tilly Porch and Helen Gaunt, and moved up the walk in a thick flood. “Pardon! Please excuse!” Behind them on the street, a chartered bus released its brakes with a wheezing sigh and pulled away from the curb.
The two lines of women fell back. Tilly Porch gathered her wits. Stepping up to Helen Gaunt, she said crisply, “I think we ought to parley.”
Owen couldn’t believe his eyes. Leaning out the parlor window, he stared, gasping, at the men moving up the sidewalk, at the women spilling over the front yard. One of the women was Winifred Gaw. They were carrying signs and banners:
EMILY IS OURS!
BUILDING TAKEOVER!
EMILY WAS A WOMAN!
MOTHER OF TEN!
“Mother of ten?” cackled Homer Kelly. “How irrelevant can you get? What does motherhood have to do with Emily Dickinson? My God, Owen, it’s Pearl Harbor. It’s the Amazon army scaling the walls. Man the battle stations.”
The boy with the camera was running up from the street. Winnie Gaw, too, was taking pictures. All the Oriental-looking men had cameras, and there was a continuous soft clicking of shutters as they recorded the front porch, the plaque on the wall, the blossoming dogwood trees.
Owen couldn’t figure it out. He put a trembling hand to his forehead. Why were there no women among the invaders from the Far East, no men among the protesting white faces? What mad union of masculine East and feminine West was assaulting the Dickinson Homestead?
“Come on, old man,” said Homer staunchly. “I’ll stand beside you. Open the front door.”
Owen got a grip on himself. Grasping the handle of the door, he swung it wide. Instantly, shining round faces pressed forward.
“Good afternoon, please?” A plump man in trifocals was smiling at him. “The bus, it deposit us at this address. Poetess live here, is it, not so?”
“Merciful heavens,” said Owen. “Professor Nogobuchi, welcome!”
It was the Japanese Poetry Society, at the’ end of its journey halfway around the world. From seven thousand miles away it had arrived at its destination, and now it was gazing at the sacred shrine with reverence and joy and humble eagerness to learn.
Owen stared wildly from Professor Nogobuchi to the women in the background. “Oh, sir, are they with you?”
Professor Nogobuchi turned to look at the swarming lawn. He seemed astonished. His companions looked too. All of them shook their heads vigorously. “Oh, no,” explained Professor Nogobuchi. “Ladies regrettably not of our party. Unhappy misfortune to be unrelated.”
Then Homer saved the day. Stepping in with flowery eloquence, he saluted the gentlemen from Tokyo and explained that there would be an official welcoming tour of the house later on in the afternoon, at which time Professor Kraznik would be overjoyed to welcome them back.
“So happy!” exclaimed Professor Nogobuchi. “This visit in politeness only. We go now to Lord Jeffely Inn.
Four-thirty! Return sharp!”
Hands were shaken and glowing smiles exchanged, while the women dressed their lines, ready for combat. As the Japanese delegation retreated, bowing once again to the standard-bearers at parade-rest in front of the hemlock hedge, Tilly Porch exchanged a glance with Helen Gaunt, and raised her arm. Solemnly the women of S.I.N.G.E.D. and A.W.E.D. advanced upon Owen Kraznik and Homer Kelly at the front door of the Dickinson Homestead.
“It’s not fair,” said Helen Gaunt, staring angrily at Homer, her angular body pitched forward, her running shoes gripping the porch. “Singles for Emily Dickinson protests. We’ve got this list of demands.” Helen gestured vaguely at the boy with the camera. “Everything you say will be taken down by the press.”
“She’s right, you know, Owen,” said Tilly Porch, standing beside Helen, nodding her head wisely. “We don’t like it either. I mean the rest of us here, the Amherst Women’s Emily Dickinson Association. No women speakers on your program? It just won’t do.”
“After all,” said Helen Gaunt loudly, half turning to look at the followers massed behind her on the lawn, “what was Emily Dickinson anyway? She was a woman, right?”
It was a signal. A chant struck up: “Emily Dickinson was a woman! Emily Dickinson was a woman!” They were all shouting at once, and waving their placards back and forth, and lifting their banners to dip and flap in the warm May wind.
“My God, Owen,” murmured Homer Kelly. “What are you going to do now?”
But Owen had made up his mind. Gazing seraphically at the blue sky dotted with puffy clouds, he stretched out a welcoming hand. “Invite them in, of course.”
13
Why cant I be a Delegate to the great Whig Convention?
Leading the way into the parlor, Owen felt wretchedly unequal to confrontation. But to Homer Kelly, Owen’s handling of the explosive affair seemed just right. Perhaps handling wasn’t the right word. Owen was merely listening, sitting patiently in a chair beside the display of Dickinson china, while the sunlight of early afternoon glittered on the gilt edges of the saucers and shone through the translucent porcelain of the teacups, and Helen Gaunt and Tilly Porch took turns bawling him out.
Homer sat back cautiously in his own chair, another fragile antique. (Homer had an unfortunate history of crushing valuable pieces of furniture.) Soon he stopped listening to Helen Gaunt and amused himself by imagining Emily Dickinson’s father holding court in the same room, confronting some delegation of town fathers or state politicians or railroad men. What would Squire Dickinson have thought of the present circumstance if he could have foreseen it in a crystal ball? Homer’s mind balked. He couldn’t imagine Edward Dickinson even beginning to struggle to catch a glimmer of a speck of an idea of what this was all about. In the Amherst of Edward’s time there had been no question about the proper behavior of men and women. Men ran things, women kept the children and the house in order. And that was that.
But Owen Kraznik was not another Edward Dickinson. “You’re right,” he said softly, “of course.”
There was an astonished pause. Tilly Porch smiled and glanced at Helen Gaunt, but Helen had been expecting some masculine trick. Narrowing her eyes in their hollow sockets, she waited for the betrayal.
But it wasn’t a trick. With one gallant sweep, Owen overturned Dombey Dell’s schedule for the next day. “Professor Dell asked me to be the executive director of this conference, and therefore I will now make an executive decision. Which of you would like to speak tomorrow? I’ll guarantee you a place on the agenda. Tilly? Aren’t you the local expert on the Dickinson family tree? Won’t you give us the benefit of your research?”
“Certainly,” said Tilly promptly. “I’ve got a talk up my sleeve, all ready to go.”
And then there was a volunteer. To Owen’s dismay, Winifred Gaw raised her hand. Winnie was sitting on the floor at his feet, her jumper spreading around her like a wigwam. The fat hand she was holding over her head was not the hand with the missing finger. That one was tucked under her knee.
“Oh, Winnie, of course,” said Owen, flinching. “Your essay on Emily Dickinson’s method of capitalization? Well, why not?” Grimly, Owen reflected that the entire audience would now be punished for Dombey Dell’s tiresome display of sexist chauvinism. He ran a finger around his collar. “Now, since the other speakers are staying in the house, I hope the new people on the program will stay here too. Tilly, how about you? The rest of us can double up.”
“No, thanks,” said Tilly. “Too many things to do at home.”
“Winnie?”
“Yes,” said Winnie, grinning, her great face flushed with triumph. Instantly her self-confidence swooped too far up the scale. Her sulky defiance vanished, and she became overbearing. “What about Emily’s bedroom?” she said imperiously. “Who’s going to sleep in there?”
“Oh, nobody will be using that room,” said Owen. Reaching down in a gesture of good will, he took Winnie’s hand.
The confrontation was over. Helen Gaunt unfolded her long bones from the floor, the Mother of Ten hurried home to make a vat of spaghetti, the pregnant woman staggered to her feet, feeling ready to give birth, and the members of the Amherst Women’s Emily Dickinson Association burst into excited conversation as they drifted to the door. Dottie Poole was beaming with relief, overjoyed to have survived the afternoon without going to jail.
Only the baby seemed distressed. Elvis Buffington, a fat child of thirteen months, had been sleeping in his mother’s arms, but now he woke up and howled with hunger. “Oh, Christ,” said Debbie. Reaching into her bag, she took out a candy bar.
Tilly was scandalized. The baby was too fat. His mother looked starved. “Why don’t you come to my house with the baby?” she said to Debbie. “I’ve got fresh-picked peas for supper.” Picking up Elvis, Tilly held him at arm’s length and tossed him playfully in the air. Elvis hiccuped once, and stopped crying. Tilly’s grandmotherly face was the loveliest thing he had ever seen.
Outdoors on the sidewalk there was a flurry of mutual congratulation. Helen Gaunt slapped Winnie on the back and grinned at her. “Good for you, Winnie. You’ll really sock it to them tomorrow, right?”
Winnie felt a frightening lurch in the pit of her stomach as she remembered the mishmash of her capitalization paper. But at the same time she was seized by fierce ambition. She would show them, all those stuck-up people who had thrown her out of the department! She’d show them she deserved to study with Owen Kraznik! Winnie hurried off importantly in the direction of her car. She would drive home for her notes and her nightie and something to wear tomorrow, and then she would rush back to conduct the official tour of the Homestead at four-thirty.
Hurrying around the corner of Triangle Street to her beat-up van, Winnie closed her eyes for an ecstatic instant and kissed the hand that had been held in the hand of Professor Owen Kraznik.
Homer Kelly, too, was enchanted with the afternoon. It wasn’t the justice of the women’s cause that had diverted him, it was the everlasting melodrama of human souls in conflict. It was the handfuls of gritty sand that were forever being sprinkled into the machinery of daily life, grinding the ill-fitting cogs against each other, warping the sprockets, jamming the mismatched teeth. It was always so fascinating, the way people went right on being so outrageously themselves, and therefore so eternally interesting. “Owen, old man, you were magnificent,” said Homer.
Owen was deathly pale, his forehead beaded with perspiration. “Well, then, tell me—how am I going to tell Dombey Dell he’s got to make room on his schedule tomorrow for a paper by Winifred Gaw?”
“Want me to tell him?” offered Homer amiably. “Look, if he gives you any trouble, just call on me. I’ll knock his block off. I’ll wring his neck. Oh, say, Owen, that reminds me. I bought a chicken. How about coming home for supper tonight?”
“Oh, no, thank you, Homer. I’ve got to be friendly to all those people who are arriving today. I’m sorry.”
“Oh, by the way, Owen,
Mary’s coming for the picnic on Thursday. Is it okay if she shares my room?”
“Why, certainly. I’ll be delighted to see her.”
“Well, so long then, Owen. Sorry about the chicken. I think I’ll boil it in gin. That ought to sozzle its gizzard. Now, remember, Owen, if you have a hard time with Dombey Dell, just call me up. I’ll come right over and bust him one.”
14
Will the frock I wept in
Answer me to wear?
“What the hell?” said Dombey Dell. “What the hell? What the hell? What the hell?”
Owen explained it again, from the beginning, and then he stood quietly beside the piano in the Dickinson parlor for fifteen minutes, enduring Dombey’s rage and despair.
“Winifred Gaw? A platform address by Winifred Gaw? I’ll be a laughingstock! How could you do it to me, Owen? How could you?”
But at last Dombey cooled down and accepted the additions with reluctant grace and only a mild sprinkling of extra what-the-hells. When Alison Grove appeared beside the teacups, Dombey goggled at her with lecherous enthusiasm and hurried to pick up her bag and guide her upstairs to the sacred bedchamber.
“Are you sure it’s, like, okay for me to sleep here?” Alison put down her coat on the bed and looked around doubtfully.
Dombey’s eyes flickered guiltily over the cradle in which the infant Emily had been rocked, the Franklin stove that had kept the grown woman warm, the bed in which she had died. “Oh, sure, sure,” said Dombey hastily, “of course it’s all right. After all, Owen Kraznik has been pretty high-handed himself. Well, never mind about that.” Dombey opened the closet door and took out Emily Dickinson’s white dress. “Don’t worry your pretty little head.”