“To tell you the truth, I’ve been troubled by things I’ve heard Patrick saying,” Mary told me. “Snippets of chat here and there. Some twaddle about a rising in Ireland. Does no good nor never did, is what I say.”
“Sure, Patrick may be wrong about some things, but he’s right about that,” I told her. “I heard it myself at a lecture. And it’s not just lads saying so.” Next thing I knew, I was telling her about hearing Maria Doughtery speak. How her words had stirred me and started me thinking new thoughts about being Irish. “And she’s a respectable woman,” I assured her. “With a taste for fashion, if you can judge from her hat.”
Mary laughed. “ ’Tis the best way of judging, surely.”
* * *
I went shopping in Northampton with Molly Ryan the next week. Molly was after buying a new hat for her honeymoon. She was soon to be married to a lad from Worcester—William O’Shea. In truth, I was happy for her but sad for myself, for she’d been a dear friend, and after she moved, I knew I’d rarely be seeing her.
We stopped in front of an emporium where the window was filled with handsome spring bonnets. We admired them a minute and Molly said she was for buying the hat with the red feathers, and in she went. As soon as I stepped through the door who did I see but Maria Doughtery herself, standing by the counter, holding a green bonnet in her hands?
Her face lit up when she saw me. “You’re Patrick Quinn’s friend,” she said. It pleased me she remembered, though I wasn’t certain it was still the truth. I introduced Molly and the three of us chatted a bit. I told her how much I’d liked her speech. “Don’t you live in Worcester?” I asked.
“I do,” she said. “But I have family in Northampton, and whenever I’m here, I visit the local hat shops.”
I was puzzled. “Surely there are milliners in Worcester.”
She laughed. “I’m a milliner myself,” she said, her eyes sparking. “With my own shop on Main Street. So I like to see what others are selling. Are you looking to buy a new hat?”
“Sure, I’m always looking,” I said, laughing myself. “I’ve got my eye on that blue bonnet. ’Tis stunning, isn’t it?”
“It is,” said Maria. “And it would suit you well. The color will set off your eyes.”
The hat was the latest fashion, a pert brim with ruffles tucked under, a pink silk rose, and a satin ribbon for tying. Had to pull my eyes away or I’d have bought it on the spot.
“I must be going.” Maria put the green hat back on its stand. “I hope you’ll come and visit my shop sometime,” she said.
I nodded good-bye and watched her leave, admiring her bearing and the way she moved. Like a warrior, I thought. Later Molly confessed she was as taken with Maria as myself, the woman was that friendly. Said I must come to visit once she’d moved to Worcester and we’d visit Maria’s shop together. It was a grand idea, to be sure, but I left without buying the hat.
* * *
A week later Patrick showed up at the Homestead. Walked right into the kitchen without knocking. I was feeding wood into the stove firebox when he said my name. I stood up straight as a plank. “What are you doing here?” I said.
He was standing with his hands tucked behind his back, just smiling at me. His dark eyes were so lovely I couldn’t stop myself from smiling back. Took every drop of my will not to cross the floor to himself.
“What is it you’re wanting?” I asked. I wanted to say he wasn’t welcome here, but couldn’t make my tongue form the words.
He took his arms from behind him.
“What’s that?” I said, though it was plain as the nose on my face he was holding a hatbox.
“It’s for you,” he said.
“Sure, I have work to be doing,” I said. “And don’t you have a job of your own to be going to?”
He didn’t answer, just stepped closer. “Open it,” he said.
“Go on with you now,” I said, but it was only a minute before I was taking the lid off that box, though I knew it was a fool’s business. Lying there in a blanket of tissue paper was the blue bonnet I’d admired in the Northampton shop.
I looked at him, looked back at the hat. Shook my head.
“Try it on,” he said, his voice so sweet it made me catch my breath. “See if it fits.”
“Go on, be off with you. I’ve no time for your figary.” I had to make myself say it, for those weren’t the words that wanted to be coming out of my mouth.
“ ’Tis no figary.” He put the box on the table and took the hat out, all in one motion. “If you won’t be putting it on yourself, I’ll do it for you.” And didn’t he set the hat on my head and tie the ribbon under my chin as if he’d done it a hundred times?
I knew I likely looked a fool, standing there in the kitchen in my old calico and dirty apron with that dainty lady’s hat perched on my head like a pretty bird. I knew I should be snatching it off. But my hands were shaking and tears were coming up in my eyes. “How did you know?” I said.
“That would be telling, now,” he said, grinning. “A lad needs to be keeping some secrets. Even from the prettiest girl in Hampshire County.” He reached to touch my cheek and I didn’t stop him. “Ah, Margaret,” he whispered, “ ’tis breaking my heart not to be seeing you anymore.”
Sure, that was all it took. The pleading in his voice broke my own heart and my tears spilled over. I let him put his arms around me and kiss me right there in the kitchen. When he let go and stepped back, I felt so bereft I started to pull him back. Then I saw he was looking past me at the door to the pantry.
“Good morning, Miss Dickinson,” he said in a thin voice.
I turned and there stood Emily watching us. She was smiling in that way she had, as if she was understanding everything—both what could be seen and what could not.
I pulled the hat off quick as a burn. But from the minute I saw her smile, I knew I’d be hearing about that bonnet for days. And so I did, for Emily was a great tease and liked poking fun. I suppose I should have taken her mockery for a sign of affection, and looking back I think that’s how she meant it. But that day just knowing what she saw riled me.
“ ’Tis not what you’re thinking,” I said, putting the hat on the table and giving Patrick a nod toward the back door. When he left, I poked another chunk of wood into the firebox and clanged the heavy door shut. I knew my face was bright red and it wasn’t from the fire.
* * *
Whenever Judge Lord came to Amherst he spent every day and every evening with Emily. It was the sort of goings-on the Squire would never have allowed and it was plain Mother Dickinson, tucked away in her room, had no knowledge of. Vinnie, though, was merry as a robin. Nothing seemed to scandalize her as long as Emily was happy.
One afternoon while Emily and the Judge were in the parlor, Vinnie said we must polish all the silver. I helped her lay out every piece on newspapers on the kitchen table and we spent hours rubbing away tarnish. She chattered on about the latest fashions and gossip. Told me of a lady who used to live in North Amherst and was arrested in Boston for poisoning her husband.
“He’s not the first husband she poisoned either.” Vinnie put down her cloth and leaned close. “She was married before and that husband died of dreadful spasms in the middle of the night. She couldn’t bury him fast enough.” She said the famous Mr. Emerson from Concord might be coming to Amherst. “There was a day Emily would have given everything she owned to meet him,” Vinnie said. “Now it’s always Phil this and Phil that.”
Her eyes danced and sparked and next thing I knew she was telling of a man who courted her years before. Joseph, his name was, and they had had an understanding about marriage. He was handsome with curly hair and eyes so blue they dazzled her. “Tragically, he died.” She looked sad a minute, then brightened. “But I’ll never forget his kisses.”
I smiled, thinking of Patrick’s kisses. He’d been coming ar
ound again—every day or two he’d turn up at the back door, we’d share a cup of tea, and he’d steal a few.
A log shifted in the cooker stove and the fire made a whoosh. I got up to check on it and shoo a cat off the shelf. Then I went upstairs to check on Mother Dickinson. When I came back in the kitchen, Vinnie was whimpering and covering her right eye. Saw right off what likely happened—a speck of polish lodged in her eye. I hurried her into the washroom and rinsed her eye, but she was still in pain.
“I’ll fetch Miss Emily,” I said, for nobody is better at calming a woman than her sister. Off I ran without a thought except Vinnie’s relief. Didn’t stop to knock at the closed parlor door, but burst straight in. And didn’t I clap both hands over my mouth at what I saw? There on the sofa with her bodice open and her skirts up to her thighs was Emily herself, lying atop the Judge.
I murmured, “Pardon me,” and ran back the way I came. But I didn’t go quick enough to flee the chime of Emily’s laughter. Sure, I wanted to run all the way to Kelley Square. I wasn’t just ashamed for Emily. I was ashamed for myself. Hadn’t I been in nearly the same state in Patrick’s arms just a few months ago?
It wasn’t till the next morning I was able to look Emily in the eye. From what I could tell she felt not one whit of shame. In truth, I was feeling envy of her carefree ways, for it still fretted me how close I’d come to sinning with Patrick. Was it because I was Catholic? From the looks of it, Protestants, for all their talk of righteousness, did what they wanted and never felt a bit of guilt.
The next day the Judge went home to Salem. Looking pleased with himself too. And wasn’t Emily happy as any lark on a summer morning all the rest of that day? You’d think she’d been blessed by the Faeries themselves.
About noon Tom stopped in the kitchen on his way home. He said I looked quare sickened and wanted to know what was troubling me. Sat me down for a chinwag, he did. So what could I do but tell him what I saw?
He listened close and tugged on his ear. “Ah, Margaret,” he said, “there’s no judgment on you for the sins of your betters. ’Tis just the way the world works and you won’t be changing them no matter what you do.” He shook his head, smiling. “Miss Emily’s had a wild streak ever since I’ve known her. She’ll do what she wants, make no mistake about it. She always had the Squire wrapped around her little finger. And now she’s got the Judge there, from the sound of it.”
“Sure, I don’t know what she sees in him,” I said. “He’s not a bit handsome and he takes shameful liberties. It’s wicked for her to be loving himself.”
He laughed, a deep burst of it, and put his hand on my shoulder. “Love has its own ways, darlin’. And there’s no unpuzzling it—you’ll just be wasting your time.”
Part IV
Doorways
Chapter Twenty-One
1916
The stairway up to the Realty Company office is lit so dim, I stumble and crack my shin against a tread. So I’m limping when the clerk shows me into the office where a little man with sparse gray hair is sitting at a desk behind two stacks of paper. He looks up smiling and then wipes the smile off his face. Don’t know who he’s expecting but it’s plain it’s not myself. Sure, any eejit can see I’m not off to a good start.
Soon as I say who I am and why I’ve come, he holds up a hand and clears his throat. “Let me stop you before you go on,” he says. “There are certain stipulations on the sale of that house. Madame Bianchi isn’t selling to someone off the street.”
“Sure, I’m not off the street!” I’m half out of the chair, I’m so provoked. “I have my own boardinghouse, sir.”
He gives me a doubting glance. “Permit me to be candid, Miss Maher.” He straightens his shoulders, makes himself a wee bit taller. “Madame Bianchi is looking for a buyer suited to the neighborhood, if you catch my meaning.”
God’s truth, I’m raging. I know his meaning, to be sure. “My money’s good as anybody else’s,” I say. I know my accent gets more Irish the more vexed I am, but I can’t help myself. “And maybe she won’t be so persnickety if word gets around there’s ghosts in the old place.”
“Ghosts?” Gives me a surprised look, the man does.
I lean over the desk. “Folks don’t like buying a haunted place,” I say. “And I won’t be shy of telling them.”
His eyes go narrow. “Why would you want to buy it if it’s haunted?”
It’s a surprise, his question. I sit back, touch my hat to steady my nerves. And then I hear myself saying what I didn’t know till this minute.
“It’s because it’s haunted I’m wanting it,” I say.
He blinks. “You’re an interesting woman, Miss Maher. Unfortunately, your pursuit of this matter is futile. Madame Bianchi is already in negotiations with a buyer.” And he stands up, making it plain it’s time for me to go.
The news rocks me, surely. Don’t know why he didn’t tell me straight off instead of spewing all his nasty blather about myself not being suitable. Takes me a minute to gather my wits. I get up slow. “Who’s buying the place, then?” I ask. I remember Rosaleen mentioning Dr. Bowen.
But he won’t give me a name. Just stands holding the door open, waiting for me to leave.
* * *
Outside, the clouds have the look of silver needing a good polish, telling me it’s going to rain any minute. I hurry back to Kelley Square. Keep my head down and walk past the Homestead fast as I can. My shin still stings from stumbling on the stairs. I expect I’ll have a big black-and-blue patch on my leg in the morning. Haven’t felt this low in months.
The smoke curling out of Tom’s chimney is good as a finger beckoning. I hurry up the porch steps just as the rain starts bucketing down and find Tom in the kitchen wetting the tea. His face brightens when I come in.
“How was your visit to the bank?” he asks.
I shake my head and tell him what happened, mention there’s already a buyer. He’s a good listener, Tom is. He sits me down at the table and pours me a cup of tea and then sits across from me with his own. The sound of the rain ticking on the windows makes me feel cozy in the warm kitchen. Eases my disappointment, it does, and brings up happy memories.
“I’m sorry the luck wasn’t with you today,” Tom says. “Truly I am. ’Tis hard thinking of somebody else owning Miss Emily’s house.”
I nod and drink my tea. It’s a sweet thing, hearing him say the thoughts I’m thinking.
“Can’t say I’m surprised there’s a buyer already,” he says. “ ’Tis a handsome house and sturdy built. With grand grounds.”
“And the garden,” I say, to keep the tears from wedging up my throat. “I remember all those times Miss Emily sent me out to dredge a rose or a lily she could be sending in a letter. She had so many friends it’s a wonder her garden wasn’t stripped bare.”
Tom laughs. “She had friends, all right. Everybody who knew Miss Emily loved her. Like a sprite, she was.”
I nod. “Aye, there was a force about her, to be sure,” I say. “A kind of shining. Made me think of the way hoarfrost glimmers on the trees when the sun comes up. When I first started working at the Homestead I thought she was like a ghost—living in that big house, but hardly there at all.”
Tom chuckles. “She had her ways of disappearing, to be sure,” he says.
“But I was dead wrong about her hardly being there.” Even as I’m talking I’m feeling the old tingle. “That house was filled to bursting with herself. It was as if she was in the walls and folded into the light coming through the window glass.” I pour myself more tea and offer some to Tom but he shakes his head. “Times I thought she’d bewitched me. Wherever she was—in the house or garden, or even the barn—she made that place part of herself. I don’t know how she did it—she wasn’t just living in her body but in the bricks of the house. The dirt of the garden.”
We sit quiet a minute. Tom and myself do a lot of
talking about what’s past. Sure, who else can I be sharing those times with? Everybody we knew has passed on. But we talk the way folks tell the old Irish tales—as if we have all the time in the world.
“Remembering’s a sweet thing, surely,” he says after a bit. “Looking back, seems most of the days were good ones. Though I don’t recall feeling so at the time.”
I laugh. “That’s the truth of it,” I say. “But it’s always grand chatting with you.”
“Don’t you be fretting about the Homestead now,” he says. “When the sky falls, we’ll all catch larks.” And doesn’t he make me laugh again and think of Da, who was forever saying those very words when my spirits were low?
We rattle on and lose track of time. So it’s a surprise to the both of us when the back door opens and in walks Nell, carrying a sack of groceries. Though the rain is dripping off her, there’s a smile on her face. Pretty as a lass of thirty, she is, though she’s well past fifty now.
“Guess who’s bought himself an automobile.” She sets the sack on the counter and starts pulling things out. She tells us about a professor at the College who sold his two horses to buy a Knox Touring Car. She says it can travel forty miles in an hour.
“Surely not,” I say, trying to picture an automobile going faster than a horse at a gallop. Infernal machines, they are. Making a rattling racket and spouting foul smoke wherever they go.
“He swears to it,” Nell says. “He says he took his wife for a ride and it knocked the starch right out of her.” She finishes emptying the sack and pulls a towel from the drying rack over the cooker and wipes her face and hair. “You’d like it, Aunt Margaret.”
“I would not, to be sure,” I say. But Tom laughs and next thing I know I’m picturing myself sitting in an automobile, roaring along the road at an unholy speed. An adventure worth having, maybe.
Emily's House Page 16