The Raven and the Nightingale

by Joanne Dobson

  “The Northbury Center,” Harriet said, on a meditatively calculating note.

  “Ten million dollars,” Elliott said, running his tongue over his teeth.

  The previous year, the great-granddaughter of the nineteenth-century novelist Serena Northbury had left Enfield College her ancestral home and a goodly chunk of her fortune to endow a research center and library dedicated to the study of American women writers. Her sole stipulation was that I must serve as director of the Center. Ever since the announcement of the bequest, my colleagues had been trying to horn in on running the research institute that was to be established at the Northbury mansion.

  “Well, yes. The will is likely to be tied up in court for a while, but the college is already soliciting donations of authors’ papers for the research library. These are the first we’ve received.”

  “Hmm,” Amber Nichols said. It was one of those hmms that resonate with unspecified significance.

  I glanced at her. I understood only too well my senior colleagues’ self-interested focus on anything pertaining to the Northbury Center, but I was puzzled by Amber’s interest in such an obscure poet as Foster. She raised her eyebrows, and spoke in her high, precise voice. “I’m interested in the destabilization of established constructs of authorship afforded by the disruptive intrusion into the epistemological field of previously marginalized authorial modes and venues.”

  I stared at her for the three or four seconds it took to translate. “Yeah, me too,” I said, and turned back to the letter: “… I feel certain that this is the best disposition of this material. My late uncle, Christopher Cummins, was heir to the family estate of Edward Cummins of the nineteenth-century Manhattan publishing house, Cummins and Sons, and Miss Foster seems to have been one of their authors. At least, I assume so from her letters to Edward, and from the enclosed books and personal memorabilia that somehow ended up in his possession.

  I am certain that you will know far better than I what to do with this material. Feel free to call on me if there is anything more I can tell you.”

  The letter closed with a Manhattan address and phone number, and was signed “Alex Warren.”

  “Wow!” I was delighted. “I don’t know much at all about Emmeline Foster—I don’t think anyone does—but it looks like we’re about to learn. Let’s see what we’ve got here.”

  I rummaged through the layers of bubble wrap and seized the first object that came to hand, a small blue leather-bound notebook with page after page of close handwriting. Leafing through the book, I saw that from beginning to end its pages were covered with lines of poetry. I read a verse at random.

  The tumult in the shadowed woods,

  The babble in the tree,

  The clamor in the scudding clouds,

  Speak silently of thee.…

  Nothing new or startling there, I thought. A poem about love, in conventional verse form. Pretty typical for nineteenth-century women’s poetry. Monica and Harriet had begun pulling books and manuscripts helter-skelter out of the box. I laid the little notebook on the table and moved to forestall them: This was not a professional way to go about receiving a donation to our new research library. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Amber pick up the blue notebook and riffle through it, then pause to read a poem. I turned back to retrieve it, and as I did so, Elliot plucked it from her hand. She glared at him, and seemed about to protest, when Jane, who’d been silent since Elliot’s arrival, distracted us all with an abrupt exclamation.

  “Karen, look at this picture! Is this Emmeline Foster?”

  A hinged brass portrait case opened to reveal an astonishingly clear daguerreotype image, a head-and-shoulders portrait of a delicate-looking young woman with bunches of dark ringlets framing her thin face. Amazing! Fifteen decades ago, a photographer had manipulated iodine, mercury vapors, and common table salt to affix a woman’s image to this copper plate, and here that image remained. I took the daguerreotype case by its edges and studied the portrait closely.

  “I’ve never seen this picture before,” I said, thinking back to my research on the popular poets. “As far as I recall, there’s only one known portrait of Emmeline Foster, and it’s an engraving, not a daguerreotype.” Plucking the thick, well-worn Encyclopedia of American Women Authors from one of the floor-to-ceiling bookcases, I turned pages rapidly until I came to the F’s. “Fergusson, Fern, Fields—Foster. Here we are: Look, there’s the engraving.” The sketch was typical of the period, a black-and-white line drawing with its subject captured in a demure pose.

  “This is the same woman—Emmeline,” Amber exclaimed. She had taken the daguerreotype from Jane, and now she placed it next to the picture in the reference book. Her voice held an unmistakable note of excitement. “Look, the same curly hair, the broad forehead—”

  “The button nose, the rosebud mouth, the porcelain complexion,” Elliot interjected, sarcastically. “Dearest Emmeline was a walking compendium of hackneyed poetic conventions.”

  I shot him a nasty look. “Maybe that’s why Poe was so interested in her.”

  Behind me, Amber Nichols emitted a sharp, instantly suppressed bark of laughter.

  Monica was reading through the encyclopedia entry. “Unlike most of what goes on around here,” she remarked, “this is actually sort of interesting.”

  “What does it say?” Harriet asked. “I don’t have my glasses.”

  Monica plopped herself down at my desk and read aloud from the open encyclopedia. “FOSTER, Emmeline Charlotte (1811–1845). Little is known of this poet’s early life, as she refused to disclose personal details to the editors and anthologists who clamored for her verse in the early 1840’s. She arrived in New York City in late 1839 after having had poems published in Ladies’ Magazine and in Godey’s Lady’s Book. Some reports suggest she was the daughter of a prominent Hudson River family, but, although she was established comfortably in the elite society of the New York literary and cultural scene, she never mentioned the source of her income to her Manhattan friends. Foster published widely in the periodicals of the day, and her one book, The Nightingale (1842), was produced by Cummins and Sons, and well received by contemporary reviewers. Nonetheless, after Foster’s early death, her work slipped into obscurity. Emmeline Foster is perhaps best remembered as one of Edgar Allan Poe’s lady loves, and it is rumored that her death by drowning in the Hudson River near the house occupied by Edgar and Virginia Poe, was no accident, but rather, as one contemporaneous newspaper said, ‘the desperate act of a woman scorned.’ ”

  “That’s fascinating,” Monica said. “The desperate act of a woman scorned. Just like a romance novel.” These were the only words of approbation I had ever heard from our cranky secretary.

  When everyone had finally tired of the new toy and left, I began to repack the box, not quite knowing what to do with this unexpected bonus. Its contents had certainly cluttered up my office. Books and papers were piled on the desk, the floor, the chairs, wherever a bare surface had been found. A stack of composition books on the floor caught my eye. The thin books were tied together with a length of maroon grosgrain ribbon. I sat cross-legged, pulled the stack toward me, untied the careful bow with a tug on the ribbon, and spread ten identical black-covered school notebooks around me. Feeling eerily like a voyeur, I opened the first. A young person’s round, unformed handwriting filled the blue-ruled page from top to bottom, side to side, leaving no margins.

  19 November 1824

  my thirteenth birthday

  Dear Friend, for I shall call you my friend for now and ever, today Papa gave you to me, to practice my penmanship he said for it needs much to be improved. A Lady’s hand he said must always be decorative, and my scrawl as it is would never grace any epistle of Love. Fond, foolish Papa, as if any beau would wish a letter from such a scapegrace as I! Instead of my copybook, you shall become my confidant, for it is lonely here. Papa is much away and Mama lies long days in bed with the sick headache. I read today in the Ladies Magazine a verse by Mrs. Sigourney t
hat I like very much. I wonder how a young lady gets to be a poet??? Must ask Papa.

  My name is Emmeline Foster and I am thirteen today. I presume I should think Important Thoughts on such an auspicious date but have none on hand. There will be roasted goose for dinner and Annie promised a raisin cake with sugar icing. I think Papa has a story by Miss Austen for me—he has been hinting about it forever!!! Mama says I should be a very grateful girl and I am sure I am. Miss Ross is calling for me to come down to lessons. I will write more tomorrow, and I vow everyday hereafter.

  I raised my eyes from the page. Emmeline Foster’s journal! And ten volumes long! Had the poet kept it up throughout her entire life? If she had, I might be able to uncover the truth about her death. Surely if she had been as desperately in love with Poe as was rumored, she would have written copiously about her feelings. Greedily I opened the final notebook somewhere close to the end. A more mature handwriting met my eye, prim, rounded little letters.

  3 October 1844

  Dear Friend:

  Today I walked down Broadway as far as the Astor Hotel. Am beginning to recover strength and flesh and trust that if the weather holds fine I will sit in the sun one full hour a day and write again.

  The large Maple in the square displays a single branch of scarlet foliage even this early in the season and the leaves dance. I read in the book of Miss Barrett’s poems dear Fanny gave me. Otherwise I am idle, but content—although it is hard to be alone in this big City. Mr. Poe has written, requesting another poem, but I declined. When I am ready to publish the new verses I will offer them to Mrs. Hale. Though I would not admit it to a living soul, I know they will be my Triumph!—

  “Professor Pelletier?”

  The voice yanked me far too abruptly from the past to the present. Shamega Gilfoyle, a senior English major, stood in the doorway regarding me curiously. Dark eyebrows furrowed quizzically in her slender face. “We’re waiting for you?” she informed me, with the interrogatory lilt of the truly puzzled.

  “Waiting?” I rubbed my right eye with the heel of a grimy hand.

  “Yes. Some people thought we should leave, but I said I’d check and see if you were coming. I knew you were on campus ’cause I saw you this morning in the coffee shop.”

  I stared at Shamega blankly, then slapped my forehead. “The seminar! I’m supposed to be in class! What time is it?”

  “Two forty-five,” Shamega responded. “Should I tell them you’re coming?”

  “Yes!” I jumped up from my cross-legged position on the floor, brushing myriad paper specks from my trousers. “Give me five minutes,” I said, then hastily gathered up Emmeline Foster’s notebooks, retied the ribbon, and placed the stacked journals in the box. As I gathered up my own textbook and class notes, I noticed that I had overlooked one of the old copybooks, so I scooped it up, crammed it in my book bag with everything else, and hurried out the door, twisting the knob to make certain the lock was engaged.

  I was hustling across campus when it hit me that Emmeline Foster’s little blue book of verses had not been among the artifacts I’d repacked with the other Foster materials.

  7.

  … and all our proudest lore

  Is but the alphabet of ignorance.

  —LYDIA HUNTLEY SIGOURNEY

  KAREN, THANK GOD YOU’RE HERE! This time I think she’s really dying!” Jill had her apartment door wide open before I’d even set a foot on the bottom step of the wide, wraparound porch. Eloise was screaming bloody murder. I’d heard the shrieks the second I opened my car door. I’d groaned, then scooted around the Jetta to retrieve the sausage-and-eggplant pizza, still blistering hot in its flat white box.

  It was five o’clock Tuesday, and I’d dropped by to lend Jill a hand. Eloise was braced against her mother’s shoulder, body stiff, face red and scrunched, mouth a wide orifice of fury. Any human being who could expend that much energy on making noise was nowhere in the same universe with death.

  “It’s just colic, Jill. She’ll live.” I set the pizza box on the kitchen table, shifting aside bright pacifiers, plastic baby bottles, and an electric breast pump to make room. “The question is—will you?” I took the baby from Jill and held her facing outward with both my arms around her midsection. Then I strolled around the room, jiggling her gently up and down. Her howls subsided to sobs, then ceased. She craned her little head like a turtle, trying to get a fix on the lights, the colors.

  “How’d you do that?” Jill queried, wide-eyed. She appeared exhausted; the shadows of sleep deprivation were imprinted under her green eyes like etiolated bruises. “She’s been screaming half the afternoon. I was about to go out of my mind.”

  I shrugged, looked wise. Truth is, I was lucky. With colic, it’s a crapshoot—so to speak—sometimes a simple change of scene will help, sometimes you’re doomed to hours of perdition.

  Jill showered while I changed Eloise and snuggled her down in her crib. Then Jill and I sat at the kitchen table dispatching pizza. “I’m soooo tired, Karen. And I’m getting to be soooo boring,” she confided. “All I want to talk about is Eloise. All I think about is Eloise. All I dream about is Eloise. I eat, sleep, walk, talk baby. Me! I can’t believe it! And now I’m turning into a cow; every time she makes a peep, I spurt at least a gallon of milk. Nobody ever comes to see me anymore, except for you, of course—and Kenny. And I don’t blame them; I am a cow. Does it ever get any better? Am I going to be a cow for the rest of my life?” Jill actually had tears in her eyes.

  “Don’t be silly,” I said, and gave her hand a squeeze. “By the time you go back to teaching next semester, you’ll be your old sexy self.”

  “Ha!” she exclaimed. “I’ll never be sexy again!” Despondent, she dropped her head into her hands, rested her elbows on her knees. Then she peeked up at me. “Really?”

  “Just ask Kenny,” I replied. “We’ll see what he thinks.” I slid the last slice of pizza across the table to her and pushed back my chair. “I’ve got to go now, or I’ll be late for the study group. I’m so beat, I’d skip the damn meeting, except I’m scheduled to give a presentation on the plans for the Center.” I sighed, thinking about the hassle that was bound to ensue. “It’s at Elliot Corbin’s house, and I’m not looking forward to that. You know he’s a guy who really pisses me off.”

  “I think Elliot’s cute,” Jill said. “For an old guy.” Jill is twenty-six. Elliot is, oh, maybe fifty. That didn’t seem so old to me anymore.

  “Handsome is as handsome does,” I replied with a prissy little twist, then laughed. I couldn’t believe such uptight words had actually come out of my mouth. “I don’t know what it is about him, Jill. Maybe I’m just envious. My life is so—messy—” Jill sighed in agreement. “And Elliot seems to have it all together. Neat little boxes—that’s what his mind is like, anyhow: row upon row of neat little analytical categories that theorize the hell out of everything. And I’ll bet anything his life is exactly the same way: row upon row of neat little personal relationships, secure little tenured job, comfy little balance in the bank account, witty little postmodernist house. I’ll bet his brain cells are lined up in neat little rows—”

  “Life is messy,” Jill said with the hard-won wisdom of the new mother, dabbing at a milky stain on the left side of her green sweater. “It’s the nature of the beast. Don’t let anyone theorize you out of that.”

  • • •

  I was wrong: There was nothing either neat or postmodernist about Elliot’s place. The house was large, a mustard-colored, three-story mid-Victorian, with tall windows and a mansard roof. On the outskirts of town, it was set back from the street behind a wilderness of overgrown cedar and rosebushes. When no one answered my knock on the dark green door, I tried the ornate brass knob, and it turned in my hand. The hall was two stories high, featuring a massive mahogany staircase and a huge wrought-iron chandelier with only a third of its two dozen or so flame-shaped bulbs functioning. Although the hallway was dimly lit, I had the distinct impression of sparse furnis
hings and extremely dusty corners. This is a house that needs a woman’s touch, I thought, then automatically ran my thinking through the feminist p.c. machine: This is a house that needs the administration of a unionized, equitably reimbursed, affirmative-action-sensitive, domestic-maintenance service.

  I was late for the meeting—I’d had trouble finding the house—and from a room to the right of the entry hall, I could hear voices. To the left was a formal dining room whose mahogany table was cluttered with books. Following the increasingly louder tones, I wove my way through a stuffy formal living room, then came to a large chamber which appeared to run the full width of the house. My colleagues were gathered there, in a room with floor-to-ceiling bookcases that had obviously been built as a library. At the moment, though, it seemed to serve as a combination office and recreation room, exercise equipment in the front of the room, and at the back a wide oak desk, surrounded by a conglomeration of mismatched couches and chairs in a ragged seating arrangement.

  “Ah, Karen. Finally!” Elliot exclaimed when he saw me in the doorway. “Now we can begin. Please bring us up to date on the status of the Northbury Center.”

  I glanced around. I was acquainted with everyone in the room, a scattering of scholars from the state university, Amherst College, Williams, Enfield, and other schools in the area. We gathered monthly to share research and ideas. At the last meeting, Miles had brought in a copy of a newly discovered sermon by Henry Ward Beecher. The month before that, Harriet had shared an essay on hegemonic masculinities in nineteenth-century literary culture. Tonight was my turn, and I had the biggest show-and-tell of all.

  “Karen?” Elliot wanted to get this over with. I looked for a seat. There were none available. “How about a chair, Elliot? I’m too tired to do this standing.”