Emily Dickinson Is Dead

by Jane Langton

  Cautiously, Owen put his ear against the door and listened. Immediately he could sense a slight vibration. Winnie was leaning her full weight on the other side. Shuddering, Owen stepped back.

  The whole thing was beginning to strike Dombey funny. He pictured himself making a joke of it at dinner. He could see the Smith brothers throwing back their bearded heads to roar with laughter as he described the grotesque behavior of that fat pig Winifred Gaw. Fat pig? No, he would call her Brobdingnagian, and chalk up a few Brownie points as a learned wag. “Have you got another key?” said Dombey.

  “No, I haven’t,” murmured Owen.

  “Well, then, we’ll have to get in through the window.” Dombey grinned at Alison Grove, who was standing limply beside the door, her exquisite lower lip sagging a little.

  “No,” said Owen sternly. “Why don’t we just let her alone?”

  “But the dress,” whimpered Alison.

  “Damn it all, Owen, it’s Alison’s room now,” said Dombey.

  Owen shook his head. “Alison can stay in your room, and you can move in with me.”

  “Oh, well,” said Dombey, “what the hell. Come on, Alison.” Picking up her overnight bag, Dombey shepherded Alison down the hall. He was furious.

  Owen went back to his own room and closed the door. The word key had triggered another scholarly memory. Once Emily Dickinson had lifted her hand in the air as if to turn an imaginary key in an imaginary lock, and then she had said, It’s just a turn—and freedom!

  Maybe Winnie, too, was enjoying the exhilaration of that kind of freedom. Owen, at any rate, wasn’t about to disturb her.

  But it wasn’t freedom Winnie wanted. On the other side of the door she listened to the retreating footsteps and the sound of the door closing across the hall.

  They were going away. The room was hers. She had won.

  She had no feeling of victory. Leaning against the door, Winnie yearned after Professor Kraznik. She had hoped that he would plead with her until she opened the door, and then maybe he would put his arms around her and console her.

  But he hadn’t. Disappointed, Winnie sank down heavily on the bed. It creaked and groaned.

  There was one small comfort. At last she had Emily Dickinson’s room all to herself. She could commune with the soul of Emily. Emily would understand Winnie’s feelings. Surely Emily would sympathize with Winnie’s dread of the beautiful Alison Grove.

  At suppertime Winnie stayed put. She didn’t dare leave, for fear Alison would find a key and move back in. But Winnie had plenty to eat. She had brought a lot of stuff in a paper bag. Munching on taco chips, Winnie sprawled on the green velvet sofa and tried to make sense out of her paper on capitalization in the poetry of Emily Dickinson, that old seminar report with Professor Kraznik’s praise at the end, Good Work, Winnie! C +.

  For Owen Kraznik, the dinner hour was another sociable chore. In the ceremonial comfort of the Lord Jeffery Inn, he sat at a long table with Professor Nogobuchi and the Japanese Poetry Society, playing the gracious host with all his strength.

  Across the dining room Owen could see Dombey Dell at a cozy table for three, and he was fascinated to observe that the black whiskers of the Smith brothers did indeed reach to the top and middle of their neckties, respectively. When Peter Wiggins came into the dining room and gazed uncertainly at the crowded tables, Owen wondered if Dombey would get up to welcome him. But Dombey was obviously in the middle of some jocular story, and he didn’t look up. Owen waved at Peter and pulled up a chair beside his own.

  Tom Perry, too, was ignoring his duties as co-chairperson of the symposium. Tom was dining with Alison Grove in Plumbley’s Restaurant a block away. Blond head to red-gold, they sipped their drinks and studied the menu.

  “Alaskan crab legs?” said Tom, picking the most expensive item on the list.

  “Oh, yuck,” said Alison. “Have they got, like, a steak?”

  Dr. Ellen Oak decided to go back to the Gaslite for supper. Sitting once again on a stool at the counter, she ordered a bowl of New England clam chowder with oyster crackers in a cellophane package on the side. Keeping her eyes firmly fixed on her spoon, she was careful not to look up, for fear of meeting anyone’s eye.

  And three miles north of the center of town, on Market Hill Road, as the blossoms of Tilly Porch’s apple orchard glistened in the twilight and dusk settled in the deep cleft of Cushman Brook, Tilly shared the last of her early peas with Debbie and Elvis Buffington. Elvis loved Tilly’s peas. Sitting on two sofa pillows at the kitchen table, he wolfed them down, shoveling them into his mouth with both hands. Debbie ate them grudgingly, and refused a second helping. Then Tilly drove Debbie and Elvis back to the apartment where they were living on welfare, dropped them off, and raced madly back to her own house.

  Tilly still had three things left to do. She had to wash the dishes, she had to go over the notes for her talk tomorrow, and she had to go up-attic to take a look at some of those old boxes. The visit to the Dickinson house this afternoon had whetted Tilly’s appetite to look at that old stuff. After all, some of Tilly’s ancestors had known the Dickinsons—good heavens, some of them had actually been Dickinsons themselves, members of that enormous Connecticut Valley family. Maybe there would be something really interesting up there in the attic—notes from Emily, or letters from her relatives. Well! Who knew what Tilly might find up there? She was eager to get started.

  But just as she put her hand on the latch of the attic door, the phone rang.

  It was Professor Dombey Dell. “Oh, Mrs. Porch, good evening. Excuse me, I’ve just got a minute. I’m calling from the Lord Jeff, where I’m entertaining distinguished guests. Oh, Mrs. Porch, I just want to say how fine I think it is that you’ll be one of our speakers tomorrow. I just want to welcome you to the platform officially. Oh, and, by the way, Mrs. Porch, speaking of tomorrow’s program, I wonder if it might be possible—that is, I was hoping you might just have time to help us with a little problem that has arisen. Do you happen to know where we might find a white dress? Something suitable for a young woman? You know, sort of old-fashioned? A long skirt, that kind of thing? The truth is, Mrs. Porch, we were wondering if you might be able to run up something very quickly on your sewing machine?” Then Dombey explained Alison Grove’s predicament, and the importance of her appearance as Emily Dickinson tomorrow morning.

  Tilly thought at once of her old lace curtains. “Well, I’ll do my best,” she said. “What size is the girl?”

  Dombey passed along the measurements Alison had given him, then hastened back to the dining room of the Lord Jeff to hustle around and shake hands, and settle down again with the brothers Smith. So far neither of the brothers had said anything about a job opening at Harvard. At last Dombey brought it up himself, making a joke out of it. “Say, tell me, how’s good old Rexpole? Still blundering around the department? Writing his so-called masterpiece?” But the two Smiths merely looked at Dombey blankly, and there was an awkward silence.

  “Oh, say, that reminds me,” said Dombey, changing the subject in a panic, “I forgot to tell you about this girl named Winifred Gaw. I mean, you should really see this woman. She used to be Owen Kraznik’s girl Friday. She’s huge, I mean really enormous, positively Grobdingdongian.…”

  17

  The Show is not the Show

  But they that go—

  Menagerie to me

  My Neighbor be—

  Fair Play—

  Both went to see—

  It was Wednesday morning, Dombey Dell’s great day. By the time Owen Kraznik walked into Mahar Auditorium, the place was packed. Owen looked for an empty seat in the rear of the hall, but soon Dombey caught sight of him and motioned him grandly to the front. Obediently, Owen walked down the aisle, inspecting the crowd.

  At first glance, the devotees of Emily Dickinson’s poetry looked like ordinary people. On the surface they didn’t appear to be helpless in the grip of greedy aspiration and territorial ardor. But strong passions were surging j
ust under the skin, Owen knew, even now during the taking off of jackets, the settling of posteriors in the rows of seats, the crossing of knees and the blowing of noses, the courteous introductions, the pleasant chaffing. Listen! In the high pitch of the voices, in the tendency to laughter, you could detect the presence of all those underlying obsessions. You could see them in the sidelong glances left and right, in the craning of necks over shoulders—Do I see anyone I know? Does anyone else know me?

  Owen sat down and glanced at the newspaper on the seat beside him, where someone was saving a place. There was a grouchy headline, COOLIDGE HALL FIRE INVESTIGATION ZILCH SO FAR.

  Tom Perry picked up the paper and sat down. “They tell me The New York Times man is here,” he said, leaning over to Owen. “Over there on the aisle in the third row. See that guy in the seersucker suit?” Then Tom moved one seat away. “Save that one for Alison,” he said. “Look, here she comes.”

  The hall was darkening. A spotlight drifted across the curtain. Owen looked up and gasped. Alison Grove was stepping into the ring of light.

  The rest of the audience was electrified, too, at the sight of Emily Dickinson in person. They clapped. They made happy chirrupings of appreciation. What a lovely facsimile! On the platform Alison stood quietly in the dazzling glare, waiting for the applause to stop.

  But for a moment longer they kept it up. The wood-burning-stove man uttered a shrieking whistle through his teeth. Professor Nogobuchi applauded in a transport of enthusiasm. Tilly Porch, too, was pleased. Alison’s dress was a success. Tilly had sat up till four in the morning to finish it. Did the tucks show in the back where she had tightened it this morning to fit Alison’s slender waist? Did the hem look bunchy where she had turned it up a second time? No, the dress was lovely. Tilly smiled and clapped.

  Ellen Oak steeled herself to endure.

  At last the room grew still, and Alison read her poem. It was a familiar one:

  “This is my letter to the World

  That never wrote to Me—

  The simple News that Nature told—

  With tender Majesty

  “Her Message is committed

  To Hands I cannot see—

  For love of Her—Sweet—countrymen—

  Judge tenderly—of Me”

  As Alison glided back through the curtain, there was a general exhalation of suspended breath, then a roar of approval. Judge tenderly? They would show her how tender they could be! The clapping went on and on.

  Homer Kelly’s applause was feeble. He soon gave up and sat on his hands. As for Winnie Gaw, she couldn’t bear it. Turning to Dombey, she whispered scornfully, “Emily didn’t look like that.”

  “Well, what the hell,” said Dombey Dell, still, applauding violently. “Who cares?”

  And then someone sitting behind Winnie leaned forward and offered her own opinion. It was the sentimental lady from Springfield, Marybelle Spikes. “I bet her soul sort of shone in her face, you know what I mean? Like some people have these really, really beautiful faces, because their spirit just really shines out of them, you know? You don’t even look at their features. Well, okay, maybe they’re not so great to look at really, but you just say ‘Hey, there goes a beautiful woman.’”

  18

  His Mansion in the Pool

  The Frog forsakes—

  He rises on a Log

  And statements makes …

  Peter’s talk was second on the program, right after Dombey Dell’s opening speech. Tom Perry introduced him. “Professor Wiggins comes to us from—ah—the University of Central Arizona. He brings us a fascinating investigation of a famous and controversial photograph. Professor Wiggins?”

  Peter ran lightly up the stairs to the platform, his heart in his mouth. What if the audience ripped into him as it had just ripped into Dombey Dell? Poor Dombey had entirely misjudged his listeners. He had called Emily Dickinson a typical Victorian female poet of helplessness and fragility. He had been clever and sarcastic at her expense. His pose of enfantterrible had enraged them all. There had been boos and catcalls, and during the question period Dombey had been dismembered.

  Peter’s talk was altogether more successful. As his slides succeeded one another in the darkened auditorium, he could feel the silence of. complete attention. Relentlessly he had stricken from his speech all sentiment, all subjective response to the face in his photograph. He spoke only of facts. Shrewdly he allowed the eloquent eyes to speak for themselves. Carefully he raised the issues that cast doubt on the identification of the woman in the picture with Emily Dickinson, and then he destroyed them, one by one. Why, for example, was she not wearing a white gown? Because in 1860 Emily was still dressing in fawn and blue and brown, in gay muslins in summer and bright merinos in winter.

  And then Peter launched into a detailed comparison of the photograph with the daguerreotype, displaying his diagrams of facial measurements and angles. Thoughtfully he discussed the ratio of facial length and breadth, the relative heights of forehead, nose, upper lip, and chin, the deceptive difference in the arrangement of the hair. From the massed audience in front of him, Peter was beginning to hear signs of approval, murmurs of pleasure. As he compared his findings with those of a cosmetic surgeon and a forensic dentist, there were outbreaks of spontaneous applause.

  It only remained to read the verbal descriptions of Emily Dickinson, written by those who had known her, while the photograph remained on the screen. As Peter quoted from friends and relations, the words seemed to drift over the handsome face and settle there. A pair of great, dark eyes set in a small, pale, delicately chiseled face; beautiful eyes and an exceedingly pale skin; the wine-brown eyes that could flash with indignation or soften in approval; unlike anyone else—a grace, a charm; a wealth of auburn hair and a very spirituelle face; a beautiful woman dressed in white, with soft, fiery, brown eyes and a mass of auburn hair; to the funeral of that rare and strange creature Emily Dickinson … E.D.’s face a wondrous restoration of youth … not a gray hair or wrinkle, and perfect peace on the beautiful brow.

  As the lights came on again, there was a standing ovation. Owen stood and clapped with the rest. There were more whistles of approval from the wood-burning-stove man. On the platform Peter’s cheeks flushed, and he blinked in the glare, then jerked with surprise as a flashbulb went off in his eyes. Tom Perry shook his hand and laid a fraternal arm around his shoulders, then turned to the audience. “I know you liked it, but does anyone have any questions?”

  Hands shot up all over the auditorium. But Peter’s listeners wanted to praise rather than interrogate. Only Eunice jane Kloop and Winifred Gaw had questions.

  Eunice Jane stood up in the front row and quoted an obscure line from an obscure poem—Her countenance it did inflate—then fixed Peter with her fierce little eye. “Don’t you agree, Professor Wiggins, that this is surely a reference to a disease, so far unnoticed by scholarship, which must have afflicted Emily Dickinson? I am referring, of course, to a case of mumps?”

  Peter was too startled to reply, but fortunately Eunice Jane seemed to expect no answer. She sank back into her seat, having, she felt, made a contribution to learning.

  Winnie Gaw was more pugnacious. She spluttered at Peter Wiggins, “It’s wrong. That picture isn’t her. She didn’t look like that.”

  “Why not?” said Peter mildly, remembering that this woman had been an easy prey the day before.

  “You left out that other thing Higginson said, okay? He said she was plain. I mean, that’s what he said.”

  “Ah, but don’t forget,” said Peter, pouncing, his pale eyes alight, “he said it in a letter. A letter to his wife.”

  “I don’t see what difference—” began Winnie, but the audience was erupting in laughter all around her. A letter to his wife.

  Winnie couldn’t bear it. She shouted above the laughter, “But I can prove it. I can prove that picture isn’t Emily Dickinson.”

  Peter waited for the laughter to die down. “What sort of proof do yo
u have?” he said politely.

  Winnie was cornered. “Well, I’ve got this—you know, documentary evidence, okay? Documentary evidence,” she finished stiffly, “will soon be forthcoming.”

  “Very good,” said Peter Wiggins, bowing. “I will be happy to examine it when it—ah—comes forth.”

  There was more laughter, more spontaneous applause. Angrily, Winnie prodded Dombey Dell and pointed to the watch embedded in the fat crease of her wrist. “Make him stop. It’s my turn now. It’s half an hour late.”

  Dombey was in a sour mood. It occurred to him that the damn fools who had repudiated his brilliant lecture deserved a dose of Winifred Gaw. He stood up and roared at Tom Perry, “Time for the next speaker.”

  “Right you are,” said Tom. From the platform he nodded at Winnie Gaw, and turned to shake Peter’s hand. Flushed with success, Peter Wiggins gathered up his papers and went back to his seat.

  It was Winnie’s turn at last. Breathlessly she heaved herself up the steps. But then as she took her place behind the rostrum, she was horrified to see a mass of retreating backs. Half the audience was surging out of the hall.

  Dismayed, Winnie glanced at the front row where Professor Kraznik was smiling up at her encouragingly, nodding as if to say, Carry on, Winnie. For an instant she was comforted, but then she saw the girl sitting next to him. It was Alison Grove. Winnie’s heart sank. What was Alison doing there? Gulping, almost in tears, Winnie began to read her paper on capitalization in the poetry of Emily Dickinson. “Speak up!” shouted someone in the back. Winnie spoke up, but now her voice was too loud and rasping. The diagrams she displayed were too small to be seen, her subject was tedious, her theory impossible. And it was time for lunch. Below her in the auditorium there was a steady leak from the audience as one person after another gathered up clothing and possessions, fumbled past other people’s knees, and dodged up the aisle, head down. A plague of coughing swept the hall. The coughers, too, rose to their feet and hurried away.