Mr. Emerson's Wife Page 3
“But we’re Jacksons.” I gave her an impish smile. “And Jacksons do what they can for money.”
“Our mother was a Cotton,” Lucy said solemnly, ignoring my badinage. “You are as familiar with that responsibility as I am.”
“John Cotton has been in his grave for generations. He may have been a great man in his day, but we are in a new age.” She could not dispute that, nor did she try. The Revolution had changed the very structure of society—titles and class divisions were gone, and so were the overbearing Puritan clerics. What mattered now was an individual’s nobility and character, not his name.
I did not seek an immediate position for there was much to do at home. I had housework and gardening to tend to as well as cooking and sitting watch with the sick in our neighborhood. The greatest satisfaction of my week was leading the Bible class of young women who gathered in our parlor each Sunday evening. Yet I did not entirely dismiss the thought of teaching. Experience and observation had taught me that circumstances sometimes forced one to unfamiliar measures.
When I returned to the parlor, Sophia was there, her arms wrapped securely around her mother’s neck as she covered Lucy’s cheek with kisses.
“Sophia, for goodness’ sake!” I cried. “Have you forgotten your manners in one short week?”
“Your aunt is right.” Lucy gave her daughter a kiss and detached herself. “Now sit down here and tell me what you’ve accomplished while I was away. Did you finish the hem on your dress?”
“Almost.” Sophia dropped gracelessly to the carpet. “I went to Nelly’s party on Wednesday and wrote three letters on Thursday and yesterday I attended Mr. Emerson’s lecture.” She rose on her knees. “You must make Aunt Lydia tell us of her conversation with him, Mama!” she cried. “She had a private audience with Mr. Emerson!”
Lucy withdrew her gaze from her daughter to focus on me. “Is this true, Liddy?”
“It is.” I could not prevent the smile that widened my mouth as I watched astonishment transform her face.
“What great fortune! You must tell me every detail!”
“And me, too!” Sophia cried, bounding again to her feet. “You promised!”
I spent the next hour relating my experience at the Russells’ reception. Though it seemed a poor sort of adventure, it rendered Lucy and Sophia silent throughout the telling.
“He comes to lecture again in two weeks,” I said. “If there is another reception for him, you must attend, Lucy.”
Lucy’s eyes sparkled. “If you will promise to introduce me.”
“I doubt that he will remember me.” I laughed. “I was but one of hundreds of admirers. Most of them female.”
“He will not have forgotten you.” Lucy was suddenly solemn. “Whether you know it or not, Liddy, you are the most memorable of women.”
“Any distinction I possess is due entirely to God’s grace and my peculiar baptism.” I smiled again, knowing that I had trumped her flattery with the plain truth.
I WAS SIXTEEN on that cold October morning of my baptism. Our mother had been on her deathbed for a week. She lay in her upstairs chamber with its tight-shut windows and heavy green drapes, her face flushed pink with fever, her poor chest and rising and falling as she drew in long clattering breaths and slowly released them.
She had been afflicted for ten years, and I don’t know how she comprehended that her release was finally at hand. Yet just after the noon bell tolled, she pushed herself off her blood-flecked pillows and bid me fetch Dr. Kendall.
“I want to join the church,” she said, in the voice that had grown so abraded by hemorrhage that it was no longer familiar.
“The church?” At first I thought her fever had spiked again and she was delirious. Mother had never expressed a desire to join the church—she had withstood the relentless badgering of my aunts all her life.
“Mother, lie down.” I placed my hands on her thin shoulders and pressed her back into her pillows. “Let me get you some water.”
“No!” She pushed me away with unnatural strength. “Send for Dr. Kendall at once!” She stopped as a gurgle surfaced from her ruined lungs. She began to cough and fell back onto the pillows, pressing her handkerchief to her lips. I watched her chest wrench up and down in long spasms. When the paroxysm finally subsided, I took the blood-soaked handkerchief from her and pressed a fresh one into her hand.
“And I want you baptized,” she said. “I want you all baptized before I die.”
“Mother, you must rest.” But she would not listen. An uncommon urgency had overtaken her and she refused to lie still until I fetched the minister.
It was a long, cold walk. A northeast wind bore down on Plymouth, spitting snow. The houses were charcoal in the gray light and they appeared to lean wearily against one another. When I reached the two-story brick parsonage, a maid let me in and showed me to the pastor’s study, a dark room even on the brightest day, for he always kept the shutters closed. “Against the distractions of the world,” he said. My aunts often commented on the extravagance of this practice, since it required burning a lamp constantly so that he could see to read and write. Yet I sympathized with his attraction to low light. My own eyes were sensitive to brightness, and I shrank from naked sunlight.
The study was lined from floor to ceiling with bookshelves. I stood gazing at them, awed by the concentration of so much wisdom in one place. I longed to take down a volume, but Dr. Kendall had risen from his chair and was glaring at me behind his spectacles. His hair, which he still wore in an unfashionable queue, was disheveled.
“I apologize for disturbing you, but my mother insists on joining the church. I don’t know why, now—”
He stopped my words with a shake of his head. The gray queue bounced upon his shoulder. “It is not ours to question the Lord’s work. Give me a moment to ready myself, child.”
I watched him pack his Bible and communion effects into a small leather bag. Then he pulled on his coat and hurried past me out the door. I had to race to keep up with him. When we reached Winslow House, he strode straight through the front door and up the stairs, directly to my mother’s chamber in the southeast corner.
Lucy had combed Mother’s hair and tied a fresh cap on her head, but the pillows were freshly stained, and the room bore the too-familiar scent of blood.
Dr. Kendall opened his bag and placed his utensils on the small table by the bed, all the while questioning Mother about her knowledge of Christ. She could barely whisper out her answers, but they seemed to satisfy him, for he soon read the liturgy that united her to the church. He then administered the Lord’s Supper with great tenderness—almost as if she were a young child. When she choked on the wine, he bent and wiped her mouth, assuring her that the sacrament was no less efficacious for the weakness of her flesh.
Mother then told him that she wanted us baptized, and so Lucy and Charles and I waited at the foot of her bed while the housemaid went to fetch a pitcher of water. I stood nearest the window, where I could watch the sky darken over the harbor and feel the long spindles of wind slip through the crack beneath the sill. Red and brown leaves rattled on the trees on Cole’s Hill—leaves the color of blood.
I became aware of an icy darkness within as Dr. Kendall walked over to me and raised Mother’s silver pitcher above my head. I looked up briefly at the curved, bright belly of the pitcher, and before I could say a word, he had tipped it and I felt the cold shock of the water on my crown as he baptized me Lucy Cotton Jackson.
“But I’m Lydia!” My hands flew to my dripping hair.
I heard Mother gasp, though I didn’t know if it was reaction to the error or the exhalation of her consumptive lungs.
Dr. Kendall frowned. “You’re not the eldest?”
I shook my head and pointed to my sister. “She’s Lucy.”
“I assumed because you were taller—” His frown settled deeper into his stern face. “We must begin again.” He turned to Lucy. “In order of age.”
And so I was bapt
ized a second time by my own name, Lydia Jackson. I stood with my back to the window, water dribbling from my hair onto the floor in such quantity that it formed a puddle. As I listened to Dr. Kendall intone yet another prayer, I was struck by a thought so disquieting that I clapped my hand over my mouth to avoid crying out.
I was double-bound to Christ.
The next day Mother sank rapidly toward death and by afternoon she had settled into a stupor, from which she roused only to cough up bloody flows or call for water. My aunts came and said their farewells while Lucy and I took turns sitting watch. It had been spitting snow all day with no sign of sun. By nightfall the snow had changed to a freezing rain that lashed the windows. Around nine o’clock, on my watch, Mother began to shiver so violently her teeth chattered. I piled more blankets over her, poked up the fire, and massaged her icy hands, but she did not respond. Again I went to the fire and added more wood, and as I passed the window on my way back to her side, I glanced out at the street below, where the light of a lamp cast a jaundiced glow across the frozen troughs of mud. Rain slatted past the glass in sheets, yet I longed to be outside, free of the confines of the stuffy death chamber.
Mother’s groan called me back to the bedside. I lifted her and pressed a cloth to her mouth as she began to cough. The fabric was instantly saturated in blood. I dropped it into the bucket beside the chair and crushed another against her lips. When she finally ceased coughing, I eased her back onto the pillows and wiped her face. I was surprised that the spasm had not woken her—she remained insensible throughout. The rusty odor of her blood filled my nostrils. I sat in the chair and again smoothed her hair away from her cold cheeks. Her face no longer held the chaotic flush that she’d carried for so many years. Her skin had assumed the pallor of snow.
I sat, measuring time by her sodden, labored breaths. Her drowning lungs seemed to me like a great bellows, pumping steadily toward death. Just after midnight, she opened her eyes once and looked at me.
“The Scriptures, Lydia,” she whispered, “they’ve been flowing through me like the sweetest wine.”
She spoke no more after that. I offered what comfort I could—a wet towel, a prayer, my hand—but Mother had crossed to a place I could not follow. There was nothing for me to do but stay awake and alert.
I felt no sorrow. All I knew was a great, encompassing fatigue. Dawn began to gray the edges of the windows when I sagged dizzily upon the bed. I thought—I’ll just close my eyes for one minute.
I woke to the sound of voices and pushed myself upright. It was morning and the room was filled with women, their voices muted but hard. My aunt Joa stood on the other side of the bed, braiding Mother’s hair. She looked at me.
“The end came while you slept,” she said.
I felt the spear of her condemnation. Guilt, like a great black dog, strode into my heart and took up residence there. Is it any wonder that when I heard Mother’s voice on a hot June afternoon in my twenty-third year, I fled directly to Christ? I joined the church in the throes of a religious passion so fierce no human emotion could have offered competition.
MR. EMERSON’S SECOND LECTURE was on a Sunday evening, so there would be no reception. Lucy, Sophia, and I all attended the lecture; for once, I managed to arrive at the appointed hour, and with time to spare.
We sat in the fourth pew back from the front, a situation that afforded an excellent view of Mr. Emerson as he held forth on the Quaker leader, George Fox. He wore the same suit as before, and his hands moved in the same graceful gestures. Though his voice was hoarse and roughened—the effect, I believed, of too much oratory—still his words were filled with barely tamed passion, and I had the sense that he was courting the entire audience. “Love and religion are the remedial forces by which the degeneracy of the human race is hindered,” he said. “The Inner Light directed Fox as surely as it addresses us. It is the most republican principle, and it is the source of all modern, democratic ideals.”
I was relieved when, midway through the speech, Horace Billington brought forward a pitcher of water and a glass for Mr. Emerson’s use.
I found this second lecture as moving as the first, though I’d read nothing by Mr. Fox. Yet Mr. Emerson brought Fox to life by modulating his voice and using his eyes to kindle an ardent light in the audience, the way a focused sunbeam can kindle fire in a pile of leaves. His arms hung easily at his sides throughout, except for three occasions, when he used his hands to great effect. Yet, even when they did not move, I sensed a great vitality and strength in his hands—and I shocked myself by remembering what my own hand had felt like clasped in his.
The heat of the close-pressed bodies and the heat of my mind combined to make me long for fresh air. As soon as the lecture ended, I excused myself, assuring Lucy and Sophia that I would make my own way home. I squeezed through the clots of excited townspeople and left through a side door.
Outside snow had started to fall in large, wet disks. I pulled up my hood and walked behind the meetinghouse, taking great swallows of icy air. On my right loomed Burial Hill, where the remains of the Pilgrims lay entombed. Stones slanted black against the indigo clouds.
I was startled by the sound of footsteps, and turned to see a tall figure approach. I could not make out the features and felt a momentary stab of fear. Though most people in Plymouth were trustworthy, there was the occasional miscreant intent on robbery. The thought flashed through my mind that I should flee, but before I could put my feet in motion, Mr. Emerson’s voice cut through the falling snow.
“Miss Jackson? I saw you slip out the door and was afraid you had left. You’re not ill, are you?” He came closer. I could see his face—the kind smile, the jutting nose.
“No.” I shook my head and smiled back, though I doubted he could see my face beneath my hood. “I just wanted some fresh air. It’s so close inside. It muddles my thoughts.”
He nodded. “I, too, find that the outdoors helps to focus my mind.” His right hand, which had hung at his side, moved in front of him. “You have not forgotten your promise to continue our conversation, I hope?” He extended his hand and took mine before I realized his intent. “I would very much enjoy hearing your thoughts.”
“On George Fox?” I looked into his eyes. In the glow from the meetinghouse windows they appeared suffused with tender interest.
“On any subject.”
For a moment my mind was empty. I stood staring at him like a bewitched schoolgirl while the snow fell around us. I was aware only of the way his hand curled around my fingers, of the faint odor of damp wool emanating from his coat. Then, mercifully, words came to me, spilling into my brain as if God Himself placed them there for my use.
“I have a few questions,” I said, finally withdrawing my hand, “on a matter of great concern.”
He smiled. “Please ask them.”
“I would enjoy hearing your opinion on the abolition of slavery. The Quakers have been advocating it for generations.”
Was it my imagination, or had I taken Mr. Emerson by surprise? If so, it lasted no more than a moment. “I’m not a Quaker,” he said.
“Yet surely you’ve considered the question.” I was eager to press him on the subject. “Don’t you agree it is the great moral challenge of our age?”
He smiled—that warm, attentive smile that I’d dreamed of all week long—and I thought: I would give a good deal to see that smile each morning. The notion shocked me and I quickly swept it from my mind, as a maid sweeps dirt from the back steps.
“I agree it’s one of many issues we must discuss,” he said. “I favor the American Colonization Society approach—one that would gradually emancipate the slaves and send free blacks as colonists to Africa.”
“But gradual emancipation requires that we tolerate an intolerable condition!”
“Slavery is the unfortunate result of a flawed economic and social system,” he said. “There’s no question of that. But emancipation must be efficacious and orderly. The alternative is chaos.”
“Full measures do little good if they don’t effect the desired end.”
“True,” I said. “But surely you agree that it’s an issue of the highest moral concern! One that tests a man’s nobility and character.”
“All issues test character,” he said. “And I believe a high character is the noblest achievement of anyone, male or female.”
I turned to look at him, startled by his inclusion of my sex. “Then we are in agreement!” I impulsively put my hand upon his arm. It seemed a natural gesture and he treated it as such, yet I was aware of a tingling sensation at the point of contact, a sensation that spread throughout my body.
“It’s our task to discover and pursue the will of God, and to live in accord with the highest principles He reveals.” I noticed that we were walking along North Street. I had been unthinkingly leading Mr. Emerson toward Winslow House. Yet I did not want to go in yet, so we passed and continued down the hill to the waterfront. I was exhilarated by the conversation. Despite our disagreement, we were clearly of one mind in our desire to freely share our thoughts with each other.
The sea was pulsing with stiff-chopped waves and the wind came up as we walked along the wharves, at one point whisking off my hood and tearing at my heavy knot of hair. The snow still fell, swirling in elegant braids around our faces, but I don’t think either of us noticed. It was the words, the sheer pleasure of the debate, which held our interest.
“You stir my mind, Miss Jackson,” Mr. Emerson said, stopping beneath a streetlamp and turning to face me. Beyond his shoulder, the jumbled buildings on the wharves made thick shadows against the night sky. The snowflakes caught the light and for a moment it appeared to me as if a hundred tiny candles flickered over the water. He released my arm and took both my hands in his. “Your words challenge and enchant me. I feel as if I’m in the presence of a sibyl of wisdom.”