Emily's House

by Amy Belding Brown

He laughed. “Sure, Margaret, you’re so contrary you make the Devil look obliging. I love you and that’s the truth of it. Just say yes and give me a kiss.” He took my hands and smiled into my eyes. Sure, that minute I saw he meant it. My insides started swirling like water going down a drain. I was excited and cross and sad all at the same time. Needed to clear my head and figure things out before making any promises.

  “What can I do to be convincing yourself?” His voice was sweet as glazing on a cake. He pulled me in for a kiss and I didn’t stop him. In truth, I kissed him back.

  “You’ve muddled my brain, Patrick Quinn,” I said. “I’m needing time to think before giving you an answer.”

  “I’ll wait you out, lass,” he said. “Time and patience will bring the snail to Jerusalem.”

  It was an old proverb, but the way he said it made me feel like a rabbit destined for the snare. So I said, “I’ll not be getting on any train with you till I’m sporting a wedding ring.”

  “That sounds like a yes to me, surely.” There was a laugh in his voice.

  “Something must be wrong with your ears, then,” I said, feeling snappish. “Because it’s not. So best not be counting your coins before you’re earning ’em.” And I hurried back to Kelley Square, with himself following me like an eager pup.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Trouble was, when Patrick turned on his charm, I couldn’t resist him for long. By twilight we were sitting on the boardinghouse steps, sighing and kissing, when I should have been thinking and praying about whether to be giving him the yes he was after. When Ellen came out on the porch, we jumped up, and I’m certain we were looking guilty as we were.

  “James is hoping to share a pint with you before bedtime,” she said to Patrick.

  “Tell him I’ll join him after walking my sweetheart home.” He squeezed my hand.

  “Sure, there’s no need,” I told Patrick. “I’ll be taking myself home tonight. Go on with you now.” He looked sorrowful, but I knew a pint would cure him quick enough. And it saved me from committing a sin that night. For I’m certain if he’d walked me back, he would have pressed me to lie in the straw with him again, and I’d not have the will to resist.

  I gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, left him to his drink, and started back to the Homestead. But there was Mary sitting in her rocker on her porch, so I stopped and had a word. “Sure, Margaret,” she said, “your cheeks are bright as if you’d been standing over a hot stove.”

  “Are they now?” I went up the steps and plunked myself down in the chair beside her. With the sun gone down, the air was lovely and cool.

  “They are indeed,” she said. “I’ve known you from the day you slid into this world. You’ve never hid your feelings. ’Tis Patrick, isn’t it?”

  I didn’t say yes and I didn’t say no, but my eyes slipped past hers, which was as good as admitting she was right.

  “Sure, ’tis no surprise. The two of you shine like the stars themselves.” She gave me a glimmering smile. “It won’t surprise me if he’s asking you to marry him one of these days.”

  “He already has.” I wasn’t planning to tell her, but it slipped out and I confess it was gratifying to see the staggered look on her face. “But I’ve not given him an answer,” I added, quick as a minute.

  Her surprise gave way to a laugh and then she was crowing. “Didn’t I tell you?” She stood and gave me a hug. “ ’Tis what I’ve been praying for. It’s what we all wanted.”

  “What you wanted?” I said. “I remember clear as day you telling me Patrick was a rogue. Not the marrying kind, you said.”

  “Sure, I’ll not deny there’s a bit of the rascal in him,” Mary said. “But I’m guessing he’ll settle down once he has a wife and little ones. It’ll content me, knowing you’re married and living close by.”

  I couldn’t look at her for wondering if I should tell her Patrick’s plans. She’d not be so pleased if she knew he was taking me off to Brooklyn. “I’m still deciding.” I didn’t want her prying deeper. She had a way of uncovering my wickedest thoughts. “I’ve got to be getting back to the Dickinsons. Tomorrow’s a washing day if the weather holds.” I stood up.

  “Don’t keep him waiting too long now,” Mary said. “Luck has a way of slipping through the fingers.”

  “Sure, that’s the truth.” I gave her a kiss and went down the steps.

  Walking back to the Homestead, I was thinking of the times I’d planned on leaving the Dickinsons’ service. Wondering why the way was opening for me now.

  * * *

  After he proposed, Patrick stopped by the Homestead every day. “Are you ready to give me your yes?” he’d say, coming up behind me and sliding his arms around my waist. I’d feel his breath at the back of my neck and the smell of himself, soapy and clean and fresh with outside air. And my spine would go soft as a pudding.

  I told him I was still deciding. He’d have to give me time.

  “How much time, agra?” he’d whisper. “You can’t keep a lad waiting forever.”

  “You’ve been talking to my sister.” I’d laugh, shaking him off.

  What I didn’t say—what I didn’t know how to tell him—was how uneasy I felt about moving to Brooklyn. And I couldn’t figure out why. Didn’t I love an adventure? Hadn’t I been the one longing to go to new places and see new sights? Living in Brooklyn would be all those things, surely.

  But the times I’d thought about marrying Patrick, I’d always imagined living in a house in Amherst. On Irish Hill maybe, or at the Crossing. Maybe even at Kelley Square. A small house, with a little garden and a yard for children. I tried to picture keeping house in a city flat looking out on a noisy, crowded street. The air would be thick with dust and smoke. There’d be no gardening there for me. And—worst of all—no sister just down the street.

  * * *

  It must have been Tom told Emily about Patrick proposing. She brought it up in her own peculiar way one morning while she was kneading bread, her hands dusty with flour and the smell of yeast on her apron.

  “I had a chat with a wren early this morning,” she said, not looking at me but working away at the dough with her head down and wisps of hair floating around her face.

  “A wren, was it?” I was pounding allspice and rosemary into a saddle of mutton and only half minding what Emily said. It wasn’t the first time she’d talked about chatting with birds.

  “He came to my window and shared a disquieting tale.” She stopped kneading and rounded the dough into a ball.

  “Did he, now?” I lifted the meat and settled it into a pan.

  She covered the dough with a dishcloth and wiped her hands on her apron. “He told me someone’s been trying to convince you to marry.”

  I near dropped the pan. It was all I could do to open the oven and slide it in. I couldn’t think of anything to say, but there was Emily turning her twitchy smile on me and expecting my confession.

  “I understand love, Maggie,” she said. “And I know the attractions of marriage, but—”

  I cut her off. “If you’re meaning Patrick, I haven’t told him yes or no.” I shut the oven door with a bang.

  “Good for you, Maggie. Be brave.” Her smile opened and the flicker in her eyes made me feel tender and sad at the same time. “I wouldn’t have you caught in his snares.”

  “Snares, is it?” I went in the washroom to clean the grease off my hands. Pumped the water hard to settle myself.

  “I suspect it is,” she said. “Men are fond of snaring their prey. And what better place to set a snare than in a woman’s heart?”

  I stopped pumping. I didn’t like to think about Patrick that way. It made him seem scheming and cruel. But he’d set himself in my heart, to be sure. I dried my hands and went back in the kitchen.

  “Is that in the Bible?” I asked. She knew her Bible, Emily did, and was fond of quoting it.
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  She laughed. “Not the one you’re thinking of. A Bible of Life, perhaps.”

  “ ’Tis from one of your verses, then,” I said.

  “You know me too well.” She shook her head slowly back and forth but she was still smiling. “But in this instance, no. Not precisely. Though the sentiment lurks.”

  I remembered times we’d talked about love—its pleasures and confusions. And because they were there in my mind, the words came out without my meaning to say them. “Judge Lord,” I said. “Hasn’t he set a snare in your own heart while I’ve been sighing after Patrick?”

  She gave me a look she’d never turned on me before—admiring and respectful. Then she tilted her head. “How wise you are, Maggie. Perhaps he has.”

  * * *

  August came and I still hadn’t given Patrick an answer. But all of a sudden Mary stopped pressing me to marry. She began acting as if there was nothing at all between Patrick and myself. Talked as if he was just another Irish lad boarding with Ellen and James. It was puzzling, for she’d been overfond of reminding me he was my last chance for having babbies. “And I’m knowing better than anybody how much you like children,” she’d say with a nod.

  One Thursday afternoon I was in the midst of telling her how Patrick had once worked in Worcester, when Tom cut in.

  “The lad’s had quite a life, he has,” he said. “And knows how to tell it too. A couple weeks ago he had a bit too much of the drink and blathered on for an hour about being with the Fenians on one of their raids back in eighteen seventy. They all marched up to Vermont and crossed the border into Canada. Armed to the teeth, he said. But it turned out to be a bloody business for the Fenians. Some were shot dead and their leader was arrested before their very eyes.”

  “They’re a cowardly lot, Fenians,” Mary said, sending a look in my direction. “Wicked and wild and ungodly. Hooligans, surely. Looking to rile up the countryside and wreck the order of things.”

  “Likes a bit of mischief, Patrick does.” I poured myself another cup of tea. “You ought not be believing every word he’s saying. Likely he read something in the papers and was acting the maggot.” My words were bold, but Tom’s words rattled me. It was one thing to be wanting the freedom of Ireland. It was another to be killing folks. I didn’t like hearing Patrick might be mixed up with that. Worse, it troubled me he was confiding to others what he never told me.

  Tom gave me a look. “He had a lot of information for somebody who wasn’t there, Margaret. I’m telling you, the lad has a past.”

  “Not one to be proud of from the sound of it,” said Mary.

  “Everybody has a past,” I said. “Doesn’t mean it’s one to be ashamed of.” But in truth, I didn’t know what to think. If what Tom said was true, I was hurt and angry Patrick didn’t tell me himself. I’d always been inspired by tales of wild courage and action. And thinking about Patrick being so bold stirred me now.

  I decided to ask him about the raid. The next time I saw him, I promised myself. But when he turned up in my kitchen Saturday afternoon, the thought went flying straight out of my head. For he came to say he was leaving Amherst.

  “I’ll be back in a few weeks—maybe a month.” He pulled me close, paying no mind to the great splatters of grease across my apron. There was a faint smell of sweat about him. “I’m after giving you a chance to sort things out—decide if you’ll be marrying me. Truth is, I’ve grown as weary of nagging you day in and day out as you are of hearing me. So I’ll not be pressing you anymore. But much as I love you, I can’t wait forever. So when I come back I want your answer, yes or no.”

  I looked up at him. He was gazing at me with such tenderness I almost said yes on the spot. Instead I asked, “Where are you off to, then?”

  “I’ll be visiting a friend,” he said.

  I pushed out of his arms. “Does it happen your friend lives in Brooklyn?”

  He glanced away a minute and then looked back at me. Didn’t have to say yes for me to know the answer. “I’ll give you the address. You can send a letter if you like,” he said.

  I didn’t fancy the idea of himself leaving, or setting a limit on my time for answering, but I’d dithered so long I had only myself to be blaming. And here he was standing in front of me with his arms at his sides, looking regretful.

  Sure, I couldn’t be cross at him more than a minute. “All right,” I said. “I’ll have your answer in a month, then.” And I reached for his hands. I was thankful when he took mine and drew me back in.

  His good-bye kiss was so slow and sweet my whole body ached when he left.

  * * *

  A letter came from my brothers the next week. Four pages, it was, reporting how they were moving from mine to mine, working their way into New Mexico Territory. They’d stayed together and their luck had been good. It was risky, though—there were terrible accidents in the mines and plagues in the camps. Michael had suffered a bout of typhus that laid him low for weeks, but he was recovered and the pair of them in good health.

  Folded into the letter was money for Mary and the children. Mary told me to write back telling them she wasn’t in need—her Tom provided well for his family—so she’d be putting it in the charity box at church. I added a whole paragraph about Patrick. How handsome he was and all the places he’d lived and things he’d done. How he’d asked me to marry but I hadn’t decided. I ended that letter like I ended them all—begging them to quit the mining life and come back East to settle down in Amherst. We’re all missing you, I wrote. Come home soon.

  * * *

  Then came a cool, bright morning with a soft wind riling the rye in the meadow and a bite of fall in the air. Before breakfast my chickens escaped the coop and I had to chase them clear to the end of the garden. Sure, it was plain it was an unlucky day and I’d have to be taking extra care with knives and fires. At eleven o’clock Emily was making custard in the kitchen and I was washing pans at the sink when we heard a loud knocking on the front door.

  “I’m not receiving anyone today,” Emily said. “Unless it’s Phil.” The bell of her voice followed as I went to answer.

  The young lad on the doorstep wasn’t anybody I knew. I was about to order him around to the back when he pulled a yellow envelope out of his pocket. It was stained and wrinkled but I knew what it was—a telegram. And they rarely brought good news. I figured it was likely for Vinnie, since she had a friend in Boston with consumption. But then the lad spoke my own name like a question, and when I nodded, he gave it to me. My hand was shaking when I took it. As if I already knew what was inside.

  I didn’t want to read it. I slid it into my pocket and went back to the kitchen, where Emily was pouring her custard into molds. I was walking slow, which wasn’t my usual way. She looked up with a little frown on her face. “Who was it, Maggie?”

  I shook my head. “ ’Tis a telegram, miss. For me.” I took the envelope out of my pocket and stared at it.

  She didn’t say anything, didn’t ask why I wasn’t opening it, didn’t turn away or leave the room. She just waited. As if she knew I’d be needing a shoulder to cry on.

  Finally I sat down and opened the flap and pulled out the paper. Western Union was written at the top in fancy letters. And below were the words I was dreading even before I knew there was anything to dread:

  MICHAEL DIED AT 10 YESTERDAY MORNING IN MINE EXPLOSION. TUNNEL COLLAPSED. REMAINS NOT RECOVERED. WILL TRAVEL EAST SOON AS POSSIBLE. TELL MARY AND TOM. YOUR GRIEVING BROTHER TOMMY.

  My mind unraveled that afternoon there in the apple green kitchen. For the life of me I can’t recollect what happened next. It was as if a great crack opened in the ground and I fell in. A few things I remember, though they’re more like sparks of light in the dark than memories—the telegram fluttering to the floor. Emily’s hand on my arm, then on my shoulder. The rattle of a carriage going by the house. But I don’t know if those things happened anywhere b
ut in my mind.

  I can’t tell you how long I sat there or how I managed to stand. I don’t know who fetched Tom from Kelley Square or what he said when he put his arm around my shoulder. I don’t remember praying my rosary with him there at the table, though Emily said I did.

  I do remember thinking I would surely die.

  And then wanting to.

  * * *

  Mary took the news hard as I did. She was part mother to Michael after all, just as she was to myself and Tommy. At Kelley Square we held a wake though there were no remains to be waking. All the Irish in Amherst came and we keened and drank and sang for hours. I couldn’t stop thinking of Michael’s poor body crushed in that broken earth. I took the daguerreotype of himself and Tommy out of its frame and tucked it inside my bodice, close to my heart. At night I dreamed terrible dreams and woke up gasping. I missed Patrick and was cross at him for not being near when I yearned for the comfort of being wrapped in his arms. Days I stumbled through my chores half blind. I burned roasts and boiled the kettle dry. I dropped plates and scorched linens on ironing day. I overchurned the butter and forgot to feed the cats. I felt as if my heart was ruptured and my insides were washed in blood.

  After a week I wrote Patrick a short letter telling him the news. Sure, I would have written more if I’d not felt so empty and lonesome. It was as if I’d been crushed in the mine beside poor Michael.

  Vinnie didn’t scold and Emily was kind and tender. She brought me flowers from the garden and told me not to worry about housekeeping—she and Vinnie would be doing it for now. She distracted my mind by reading stories out loud and leaving little notes pinned to my door. Her cousin Frances sent me cheering letters. Even Mother Dickinson seemed to understand what had happened and said she was sorry for my loss.