Mr. Emerson's Wife Read online

  “Henry, you must let me know how I can help you.”

  He nodded without glancing at me. And then quite suddenly he emerged from his reverie, straightened his back, and looked at me. “I don’t know when I’ll be able to return. My family may need me for some time.”

  “Of course. You must take as long as required.” I took a deep breath, for it was the only way in which I could keep from saying the command that waited behind my tongue: And then you must come back, for you belong here—with me.

  I attended John’s funeral, sitting by Mr. Emerson’s side. Wallie accompanied us, for he had asked particularly to be included, and I could not refuse him. Reverend Barzillai Frost, who had become minister of the First Parish Church after Reverend Ripley’s death, gave a gracious and moving funeral oration. Every pew was filled, and sobs were audible throughout the service. I watched the Thoreau family follow the coffin down the aisle. Henry looked straight ahead and appeared entirely composed, yet his face was paler than I had ever seen it, and his eyes appeared dull and colorless. A light had gone out of him. I feared it would never return.

  JANUARY UNROLLED its long white carpet and the fires roared in the hearths. Mother Emerson no longer haunted the shadows of the rooms but drew her chair close to the fire. My hands roughened and grew coarse, and Mr. Emerson abandoned his cold-water baths. Edith thrived on my milk and I delighted in her—she was the most beautiful of my infants, a pink rose that brought instant cheer to all who beheld her. I wrote Sophia, thanking her for the name, although by then it was unthinkable that Edith should have any other.

  My only discontent was that I no longer saw Henry. The house seemed empty without him; it was as if a great melancholy emanated from the plaster and the walls themselves mourned his absence. The children missed him acutely. Every morning Wallie asked plaintively if Mr. Thoreau had returned in the night, and every morning I sadly confessed that he had not.

  MR. EMERSON’S LECTURE engagements had grown in number, requiring him to travel more frequently. While he was away I tried to manage things, but the demands of the household fell upon me with double weight. I had little time to devote to concerns outside our family. So it was with surprise and alarm that I heard the news a week after John’s death that Henry was gravely ill, struck down by the same malady that killed his brother. It was Nancy who reported this, having heard it from the Thoreau family cook, whom she’d encountered in the butcher’s shop on a frigid Saturday morning. Mr. Emerson, who would have called upon the Thoreaus immediately to determine the truth of the matter, was away and would not return for three days. So I hastened there myself, leaving the children in the care of Nancy and Mother Emerson. The day was bitterly cold, yet I relished the stinging wind upon my face. A few years before the family had moved from their home on the Mill Dam into the old Parkman house on the other side of the Concord village. The house was a handsome structure, situated on the triangle of land between Main Street and Sudbury Road. It was a fifteen-minute walk at a brisk pace.

  Cynthia answered the door and invited me into the kitchen since the parlor was crowded with boarders drinking coffee and discussing the weather. She apologized for the state of her kitchen, which was indeed a confusion of dirty pots and pans, and sat me down at the table. She offered me a cup of coffee, which I accepted but was reluctant to drink once I’d tasted its bitter strength.

  “What brings you out, Lidian?” She did not sit with me but busied herself at the sink while she spoke. “And how is your babe faring?”

  “Edith is fine,” I said. “I came to ask after Henry. I’m told he’s ailing.”

  “Yes.” I watched her back. Her shoulders rose and tightened with each breath.

  “But what is wrong?” I took one last sip of coffee and placed the nearly full cup on its saucer. “Does he have a fever?”

  She shook her head. “Dr. Bartlett can’t explain it. But he exhibits all the symptoms of lockjaw.” Her normally strident voice trembled. “I believe he may not live.”

  “Cynthia! No!” I was on my feet at once, folding her in an embrace that was born as much from my own need as from Christian charity. She briefly dropped her head upon my shoulder then pulled away and went back to her washing. “I must busy myself to keep from thinking of it. This has been the most frightful month of my life.”

  “I cannot imagine anything more painful than losing one’s child,” I said.

  “That’s right—you cannot imagine. No one can. To lose one’s child is devastating. And now to lose two—” Her voice broke and she could not continue.

  “May I speak with him?” I said, then wished I hadn’t, for when Cynthia looked over her shoulder at me I was shocked to find her eyes blazing with animosity.

  “I fear he’s too ill for visitors. You’d best go home and tend your own babes.” And she dismissed me by turning her back again, begrudging me the simple courtesy of showing me to the door.

  For the next two days I spent many hours in prayer, pleading with God to spare Henry’s life. When Mr. Emerson returned from his journey I told him what I’d learned and watched the alarm spring into his face. He went immediately to call on the Thoreaus and came home several hours later with the encouraging news that Henry had turned the corner and was beginning to improve.

  “They believe he’ll fully recover.” Mr. Emerson touched my shoulder as he spoke, as if he sensed that I required steadying. We were standing in the hallway between the Red Room and his study. “Yet I fail to understand how he could contract lockjaw.” He shook his head in puzzlement.

  Nor did I understand God’s purpose in striking Henry. Yet when Mr. Emerson closed himself in his study a few moments later, I went immediately to my chamber and knelt to offer thanksgiving.

  ON SUNDAY MORNING Mr. Emerson took Wallie to worship service, though it was against my wishes for it was a cold, wet morning and church the dampest of places. The next day Wallie awoke with a cough, and by Tuesday he had contracted a fever. His skin was red and hot and he complained of nausea. I felt his forehead and neck; his pulse was racing. I put him to bed and dosed him with tea and honey, and that afternoon, because his condition had worsened, I gave him castor oil. Later that day a rash broke out. He slept fitfully, moaning and crying in his bed. I rocked him as often as I could, but it did not calm him.

  “My throat hurts!” he moaned, clutching at his neck. When I gently pulled his hands away, I felt the dry heat pour from his skin. Edith began to cry, and I left Wallie to tend her. When his fever continued to rise that evening, I sent for Dr. Bartlett.

  “It’s scarlet fever,” he said after examining him. “The rash is proof.” He ran his hand over Wallie’s chest where tiny scarlet blisters winked their dark blue points. “His pulse is full and hard. I must bleed him.”

  I watched him take his knife and cup out of his black satchel. Yet I could not make myself look when he bent over Wallie’s arm and made the necessary incisions. It took only few moments and when he finished, I could see that it had an immediate and satisfactory result. Wallie had fallen into a light sleep and was no longer moaning and thrashing about.

  When I showed the doctor to the door, he advised me to keep Ellen away from her brother. “There are those who suspect it’s contagious,” he said. “Try not to expose Ellen or the baby.”

  “How long will it last?” I remembered lying for weeks in my garret bed at Aunt Priscilla’s house when I was nineteen and ill with the disease.

  “We should see improvement in a day or two.” The doctor closed his satchel and put on the coat I held for him. “I’ll come back in the morning to check on him.”

  That night, Wallie’s fever continued to climb and, between applying cold compresses to his neck and chest and nursing Edith, I was not able to sleep. Ellen began to cough in the middle of the night and by dawn her fever was also rising. Wallie thrashed on his bed and was no longer calmed by my touch. He soon entered a delirium, neither awake nor asleep, but murmuring nonsense in a hoarse and rapid voice. Mr. Emerson abando
ned his study and sat by Wallie’s bedside, stroking his hand. I put Ellen in our bed and ceaselessly traveled the short hallway between our chamber and the nursery. Finally, exhaustion overtook me and I was forced to lie down. But I was not allowed to sleep, for Wallie—apparently sensing my absence despite his hallucinations—kept calling out for me over and over in a piteous voice and could not be persuaded to stop.

  When I went to him, he did not recognize me and the first note of terror rang in my heart. I rocked him against my breasts and spoke gently to him and the sound of my voice seemed to quiet him.

  I was frantic with worry and fatigue. Mr. Emerson tried to calm me. “The fever’s about to break,” he said. “He’ll soon be well and running about the house again.”

  “Get the doctor.” I buttoned and then unbuttoned Wallie’s nightshirt. “Go and find him and bring him here at once.”

  My husband left without a word, as overcome with anxiety as I.

  When Dr. Bartlett came, he entered the house without knocking and dashed up the stairs. I stood watching, my fingers clenched in the folds of my skirt as he examined Wallie.

  He straightened slowly and his arms fell away from my son. He turned, shaking his bowed head. I looked into his face to discover what hope was written there, but he had closed his eyes.

  I sank onto the bed beside my son, whose shallow breaths were accompanied by faint moans. His closed eyes were sunken in their small sockets and his body—when I slid my arms under him and gathered him into my lap—was limp. The extremity of heat had left his skin and the hectic flush on his face was gone. He had slipped into insensibility and I found only a tiny measure of comfort in the knowledge that he was beyond pain.

  I don’t know how long I held him. Time had slipped far beyond my awareness, though I felt my senses to be singularly acute. I was aware of the drape of the blanket from the bed to the floor, the flat, sour scent rising from his skin, the rasp of his small, rapid breaths, and the echo of footsteps in the hallway below. Mr. Emerson came and went from the room with numbing regularity. Tending to things, I assumed—I did not realize until later that he was treating his own heartache by pacing between the nursery and our chamber. Once, when he came into the nursery, he placed his hand on my head and very gently stroked my hair. A few moments later, Wallie shuddered and made a little choking sound deep in his throat. He then let out a long sigh and breathed no more.

  Mr. Emerson bent his head. “My boy!” he whispered, again and again.

  It was just after eight o’clock in the evening. Outside, the air was so cold it formed crystal ferns on the window glass.

  SOMETIME AFTER Wallie died I loosed my arms from his stiffening body and released him, laying him gently on the bed and covering him with the blanket, though I could not bring myself to shroud his face. Mr. Emerson stood beside me, his hand on my waist. He said nothing, but led me down the stairs and settled me in a chair by the parlor fire. Mrs. Emerson was there, her pale face softer at the edges than normal, as if grief had melted the ice in her jaw.

  We sat in silence for a time, and then began to speak of the day’s events, going over them with a peculiar calmness. I heard my own voice as if from a great distance. It seemed as if some stranger spoke of the death of her son, and my heart went out to her. Firelight flickered on the walls and on our faces. Mr. Emerson took the poker and rolled the log on its andirons. The fire snapped and blazed, sending up a sudden fountain of sparks. We stared as if the embers contained answers to questions we could not bear to ask.

  I recalled the death of my two-year-old brother, John, and how I’d watched my mother wash the little black-and-red dress he’d worn the night he died. She’d lowered it into the washtub with such tender care she might have been bathing John himself. Then she spread it on a stool before the fire and took up her scissors. Tears raced down her cheeks as she cut a square of material from the hem. I wondered why I did not weep now. How I longed for the release of tears! But they refused to come. I felt as if my heart had shriveled and dried so that it now resembled a small, bloodless stone.

  We separated just after midnight. I went alone to my chamber where, because of her fever, Ellen slept in my husband’s place while he retired to the Red Room. I checked on Edith in her cradle and unbuttoned my dress. I undid my hair and put on my nightgown. I sat on the bed and brushed out my hair. I knelt and briefly prayed, then rose to blow out the candle. The corporeality of the routine was a comfort. I climbed into bed and drew the blankets over me, dimly aware of Ellen’s great heat as I lay down beside her. I stroked her cheek. She lay drowned in fever and sleep, submerged in her immobility.

  I lay in the darkness thinking of Wallie’s silent, still form on his bed in the nursery only a few steps away. A thousand memories assailed me—I recalled the way he liked to climb into my lap and take my face between his hands and kiss me. I recalled his thoughtful observation of the flight of birds and his desire to include Ellen in everything he did. It was then that grief overwhelmed me, and I choked on a great flood of sorrow. I rolled onto my stomach and wept into the pillows until Ellen stirred and cried out in her sleep and then woke thrashing, requiring me to tend her. I covered her in cool wet cloths and gathered her against me. The heat of her body burned through my nightgown. I prayed—or tried to—for God’s pity, begging him to spare my daughter. I felt as if I were a swimmer washed out to sea by a merciless riptide, battling rising waves, dragged farther and farther from the shore.

  I dozed in the rare moments when Ellen was still. I longed for the oblivion of sleep, but it was the most fleeting of consolations.

  Later Edith woke me to nurse, and I sat with her in my arms by the dying fire. There was a sweet, blind solace in the warmth of her infant flesh. Just holding her bestowed a small measure of comfort. I became slowly aware that she was moving restlessly, stretching around to smile at something behind her head. Yet when I looked I saw nothing there but shadows.

  A sudden comprehension invaded my mind. In her innocence, Edith was able to perceive what I could not—her brother’s spirit. And then I became certain that he was standing in the room just a few feet from me.

  I reached out to my son and whispered his name, but there was no answer.

  17

  Endurance

  Oh, that boy! That boy!

  —RALPH WALDO EMERSON

  The morning after Wallie died, I buttoned myself into mourning clothes while Mr. Emerson closed himself in his study and wrote letters—death announcements—to our friends and family. When he emerged at noon he climbed the stairs to our chamber, looking as if he’d been struck by lightning. His hair rose at acute angles and his eyes appeared singed; his arms hung flaccidly from his shoulders and he hunched forward over his chest.

  “How is Ellen?” His voice was as dull and lifeless as his eyes.

  I was seated by the window, rocking Edith while Ellen slept. My eyes were sore. “She passed the crisis. I believe she’ll recover.” I did not add that I had believed the same of Wallie.

  That night, Mr. Emerson returned to our bed. We did not speak or touch as we lay down. The darkness that girdled us was more than the absence of physical light. I fell slowly into sleep to the sound of his breathing.

  I woke at three, wondering what had disturbed me. The windows were suffused with pale light. The moon had risen and so had my husband. I saw him standing at the window.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Every cock in town is shrilling,” he said. “Why? Why now? I can make no sense of it.” He did not turn from the window.

  “It’s the moon,” I said. “They’ve mistaken it for the sun.”

  He turned then and came to the bed. He was stooped, bowed down by the weight of his grief. He lay down and surprised me by reaching for me and pulling my body against his. He held me for a long time and when he spoke I barely heard him; his voice seemed lost in the weirdly lit room.

  “The wisest man knows nothing,” he whispered. His head lay beside mine, yet it seemed at
an infinite distance. “Sorrow makes us all children.” He continued to hold me through what remained of the night until he finally lapsed into a shallow sleep. I lay awake, my arms cradling him as if he were a feverish child.

  BY THE DAY of Wallie’s funeral, Ellen was able to sit up in bed. She played with a basket of clothespins and asked to play with Wallie. I had to sit down—my legs would not hold me—and I told her that he’d gone to heaven to be with God. He was very happy there I said, for the angels were bringing him flowers.

  “Red flowers?” she asked.

  I fondled the ringlets that fell across her forehead. “Red and purple and yellow. Hundreds of flowers—all the colors of the rainbow.”

  She burst into tears. “I want to go too!” she cried. She was inconsolable.

  Edith had not sickened nor did she show any signs of weakness. Dr. Bartlett told me that my milk had protected her. That I had saved one of my children was my sole comfort in those desolate days.

  I could not comprehend God’s purpose in taking Wallie so soon. He’d been a strong and healthy boy, clearly destined for great things. His death was so monstrous that it bent the very backbone of my faith. What I felt was a great numbness, as if I’d suddenly been struck deaf, dumb, and blind all at once. I believe my outward appearance suggested that I felt a true Christian resignation, but inside I was screaming, shrieking like a madwoman, sunk in a grief so deep I knew nothing but darkness and pain. Even the hope that Wallie was with God brought no comfort. It was like bright sunshine falling on a scorched body.

  Nor could I turn to my husband, for when I looked into his face, I saw an anguish there as raw as my own. For him there was no consolation to be had, since he no longer believed in heaven. He withdrew into a grim and constant solitude. Even in the presence of others, he was alone. He claimed that the responsibility of work kept him from society. I knew it was not work, but grief. When I begged him for one comforting embrace three days after the funeral, he turned away.