Afternoons with Emily Read online

  The Marian Latham Chase I knew was an elegant figure, rarely seen, who spoke only platitudes and stared with lovely vacant eyes. My maternal grandmother, Eliza Cabot Latham, died in childbirth when my mother, Marian, was three. Many of my relatives remember the pretty, lonely child growing up motherless in the big house at number 32. Even then, the weakness to which she would later succumb had been present in the occasional gasping for air, the labored breathing as she slept, the flushed cheeks upon exertion. But this was rarely discussed and certainly never outside the immediate family.

  Marian Latham finished her classes and lessons at eighteen. She was considered “accomplished” — that is, she wrote a pretty hand, sang a bit, and spoke flawless French. If she was remote, it was attributed to breeding, her stillness a quality to admire in a future wife. Furthermore, she was a noted beauty, an ornament to Boston society — and an heiress to a great fortune. Surely there must be a brilliant match waiting for such a belle! Yet at twenty-nine she was somehow still single. Her kindly relations had scoured Boston for years, collecting partners for Marian at their parties. But these introductions seemed to lead no further once the young eligibles learned that Marian’s delicate eyes and complexion were but early symptoms of the inevitable declining health that lay ahead.

  As a small child I wondered so often what she was thinking, what her secrets were. I soon learned that her secret was a terrible one: tuberculosis, the disease whose diagnosis was a virtual death sentence. This stalker of health spared no one. Even the rich and eminent — Chopin, Thoreau, Lanier, and Keats — were felled by it. Marian’s father was a known consumptive, a semi-invalid who seldom left home. Marian herself was a “parlor case,” with an early history of coughing blood but with intervals of better health and cautious activity. It is easy to see how my mother, already somewhat withdrawn by temperament and circumstances, would be further distanced from the world by knowledge of her fatal disease. It was there in the house already, eating at her father. Any morning it might turn and ravage her too. How could she ever be unguarded and carefree?

  This was the situation in 1840 when my father, a stranger to Boston society, appeared with his proposal. What a sigh of relief must have emanated from the tired Lathams! I can almost hear them now, congratulating each other.

  “A capital fellow!” the Howes and Lathams and Curtises assured one another.

  “From somewhere in the Connecticut River Valley . . . a bit older, but that Marian needs a steady hand. Harvard ’14, and on the faculty there now. Mark my words, Marian will be fine!”

  My parents were engaged in a fortnight and married just after Easter 1841. There were reasons for this modish hurry; my Latham grandfather was seriously consumptive, and the engaged couple were not young. So the double parlors and the spiral stair at 32 Mount Vernon Street were hung with garlands of white lilac and crowded with relatives in silk and serge. The Chases, coming from Springfield, never guessed how few festivals had graced the handsome house.

  The bridal pair spent a week in Newport, in a house lent by a pious Howe cousin whose rectitude had been enriched by a hundred years in the slave trade. Then they returned to Mount Vernon Street, and — after the round of family dinner parties to honor the newlyweds — my father unpacked his books and settled into his father-in-law’s mansion.

  If there were acquaintances who whispered that my father had sought to better himself by marrying up, they were mistaken. He loved comfort and convenience and beautiful things, but he was incapable of scheming to achieve them. He loved to travel and buy books and presents, but he had indulged himself in these ways when he was poor. Since he spent almost all his waking hours in the Athens of Pericles, it is quite possible that he never noticed the ease and elegance of his new setting. He slept on Beacon Hill, but by day he looked upon the agora from the acropolis.

  Perhaps in my father, Marian had found the perfect partner. Wrapped up in his own world, he would never attempt to invade or intrude into hers. And she would not make demands of his time or attention, leaving him to visit with the ancients. Neither noticed or missed the daily interactions, the entanglement of lives that other marriages entailed.

  My own story begins at 32 Mount Vernon Street, where I was born on September 16, 1843. I was installed on the fifth floor — the “nursery floor,” up under the roof. My parents resumed their tranquil parallel lives, undisturbed. Father read and studied and taught. Mother supervised her father’s servants; she dressed beautifully and skimmed French novels. Very occasionally, they dined out.

  If my parents ever asked to “see the baby,” then someone must have carried me in — all ribbons and shawls, like a squab on a garnished platter. The rest of the time I was cared for by Irish nursemaids. At three months, I was christened Arethusa, soon shortened to Ara by my grandfather, who I am told loved me dearly.

  How I have searched my memory for the faintest trace of this gentleman! I retain only a huge, warm presence, a prickly kiss, a sense of being welcome and valuable. It is family lore that he would have me brought down at breakfast every day. He would hold me on his lap while he read the morning paper and tell me when to turn the page — and they say I never wriggled once. Father must have observed this often, to tell it so well when I would ask him.

  My first actual clear-edged memory is of Grandfather’s winter funeral — though the concept of death was meaningless to me. I remember the great snorting black horses, wearing curling black feathers and silver jewelry; they stamped and steamed in the cold. I remember the fresh, bright snow on the cobblestones and the quiet crowds of people in black. Their sharp shadows were blue on the snow, violet on the pink brick houses. This was in February 1846; I must have been two and a half.

  When summer came that year, the big house was suddenly noisy with hammers and saws. Jolly red-faced men came and went, shouting and spitting in strange languages. I begged to see all this, and my bored nursemaid would take me downstairs to watch the carpenters working. They were changing my grandfather’s old bedroom into a new room for my father’s books.

  When the loud carpenters disappeared, the house settled back into dense silence. My father vanished into that study, barely emerging. Sometimes I heard the heavy front door open and close; sometimes I heard the tall clock strike the hour calmly; but usually my big house kept its unbroken quiet.

  My lively, sociable relatives all lived nearby, up and down Beacon Hill, in high, bay-windowed houses like mine. My mother seemed to me a whole other species than my brisk, busy, talkative cousins and great-aunts. I used to stand at the street windows of our famous double parlor on the second floor. From there, I would see my aunts and cousins passing in carriages or crossing to call on one another. They were always in twos and threes, talking earnestly. Sometimes they would look up and wave, but they did not often stop. I never expected them to. My grandfather’s death, my mother’s isolation, the frequent doctor visits, all spoke to one fact: we were dangerous. My family had a terrible disease, and the relatives did not want us very close.

  I do not mean to suggest that my parents and I were complete outcasts in that family neighborhood. The relatives never abandoned Marian; instead, there was a distance. It was simply that Latham plans did not often include the Chases. “Marian wouldn’t enjoy it,” said the uncles. “Marian isn’t well enough,” said the aunts. “Arethusa probably shouldn’t exert herself, just in case,” said the cousins.

  There was and is very little known about the course, treatment, and prevention of consumption. My grandfather had died of it, and after I was born, my mother’s illness flared up; she went from being a “parlor case” to a near invalid.

  The Lathams told one another that Dr. Jackson saw Marian every week and that he always listened to my chest too. They reassured themselves that we were being taken care of while firmly establishing among the connected families that I too either had or would soon come down with consumption like my mother.

  Cousin Daisy Powell was the family’s designated herald. Sixty or so,
alert and stylish, she loved her duties of reporting news and carrying messages among the relations. She was unfailingly kind to me; she always expressed an official family sympathy and interest.

  “We all want you to get better,” she assured me. “What did Dr. Jackson say about your health this week?”

  “Not much. He always asks if I have spat blood.”

  “And have you?”

  “Not yet.” And I would search her face for a clue as to whether this was the right or the wrong answer. There seemed to be an expectancy surrounding this question. I answered truthfully, and there did seem relief in my response, but the very routine nature of the questioning reinforced the idea that coughing up blood was inevitable. My difference, my unique unhealthy condition, was a fact, a given — like the Lowell cousins’ freckles. Being “not well” was as much a part of me as my fair braids or the little hidden mole behind my left ear — or the secret that I did not really have a mother.

  It was the task of one of the servants to take me for walks twice a day around the streets of Beacon Hill. Whenever I met relatives, they would always ask about my health. Again I was reminded that I was frail and sickly — and I accepted this, as children will. I had no basis of comparisons; I had never lived any other way.

  Cousin Daisy was also the keeper of the web, the weaver of stray threads and loose people into the family tapestry. And in my case, she assumed many of the duties ordinarily handled by a mother. She took obvious pleasure in overseeing my wardrobe. Every fall and spring, she climbed to my nursery with little floppy books of cloth, accompanied by a sad, silent woman who measured me. Usually we copied the styles of dresses I already had, but I was allowed to choose the colors and materials. This selection was important to me; it was the only part of my life where I had any authority. I always looked for stripes, which delighted me; they still do.

  Despite the family taint, we were always included in the great family occasions: weddings and funerals, Thanksgiving and Christmas. To do less would have been far more scandalous than the danger implied by the threat of consumption. I could also count on seeing all the Lathams collected every New Year’s Day, when one of the linked families (never ours) took its turn giving a reception.

  The loud, crowded house would be alight with candles and crystals, fragrant with evergreen decorations. One of the half-grown sons would stand importantly beside the candle-laden tree with a bucket of water at hand in case of fire. Every table carried silver bowls of eggnog and salvers of sliced fruitcake. Jolly strangers who all knew my name shook my hand and wished me better health in the New Year. They were always careful not to kiss me.

  Mostly I would stand in my black velvet dress, watching the other children. I was amazed that my cousins seemed to know every detail of one another’s daily lives. I wondered at their inscrutable jokes, their holiday events, their complicated interlocking plans. They seemed to me like one solid block of rosy energy and action.

  “Did the sweater fit?” “She gave us all hymnals!” “O come, all ye faithful . . .” “We’ll come sledding tomorrow after the service.” “Jane got a pony!” “There’s another ham in the dining room!”

  I always noticed how a mother would straighten her daughter’s ribbons; a father would smooth his excited son’s unruly hair. They all seemed to touch one another easily and often. I was fascinated. My parents very rarely touched me; I don’t recall seeing them ever touch each other.

  Every year, going home with my parents, I took a piece of fruitcake in a little foil box, with the new date embossed on the cover. I always believed I had been part of the event. I never knew I should have been with my cousins for days beforehand, racing up and down the stairs, decorating the house, and wrapping the presents. I should have been asked to stay on for supper after the party, to finish the hams and the eggnog, and to sing our New Year’s song one last time.

  Still, I did not feel neglected. Since I had never had either companionship or parental concern, I did not know I was living without them. It was as if I had been born deaf and never missed music. I had a cramped, chilly nursery on the fifth floor, with three peaked dormer windows looking over the roofs and gardens and mews behind Mount Vernon Street. Here under the roof I had a scruffy parakeet and a jointed wooden doll named Lady Jane Grey — I forget why. Here were my paints and my scissors, my weaving and my beadwork. Above all else, here were a hundred books read to me by my nursemaids. What else could I possibly need? If a passing genie had offered to grant me three wishes, I would have asked him for a better lamp, a stove that didn’t smoke — and a hundred more books.

  Several of these nursemaids came and went; I have forgotten their names. One taught me a card game; another stole my clothes, one dress at a time. All of them took me for walks twice a day. Then when I was nearly five, I acquired a proper English governess: Miss Mabel Ellison. She was enormous, with hard red flesh and stiff black hair. She had a faint mustache and separate bristles coming out of round lumps on her jaw. Her huge arms and legs were hairy too, as were the backs of her thick hands. Her fingers were like stiff, strong sausages.

  Whenever Miss Ellison handled me — a dress over my head, a hand on my shoulder crossing the street — she managed to make the contact rough and painful. I felt anger in the tips of her fingers, frustration on the callous palms of her hands. My dresses seemed to infuriate her — she’d yank them from the wardrobe, muttering, “Why should you have so much when my own darling suffers?” I would catch her glare, as if my existence were a blight, and if I misbehaved (and often I knew not the nature of my crime, just that I was being punished) the lecture included references to her perfect daughter back in England, whose childhood was one of deprivation.

  On my fifth birthday, my father visited the nursery. When he entered, he found me crying. Miss Ellison was pulling my hair, completing the daily ordeal of my braids. She always told me this was extra difficult because my fair hair curled.

  “Did Ara disobey you?” my father asked.

  “No, Professor Chase, she carries on like this every blessed morning. She’s just a great big crybaby about her braids.”

  “Is she indeed? Ara, please come with me to the library. I have a birthday present for you.”

  Something in his voice gave me hope that he would listen to me about Miss Ellison. If I could only tell him what she was like, then perhaps he would make her a little kinder. He might even send her away.

  “Ara, talk to me about Miss Ellison. Why don’t you like her?”

  “Because she hates me.”

  “Why should she hate you? Are you rude or disobedient? Nobody likes a child like that.”

  “I’m not, I’m not! She hates me so she can hurt me. She likes hurting me.” I was desperate to explain that Miss Ellison had a child of her own in England who was poor. She hated me because I was not that child. Squeezing and pinching and pushing me made her feel better. I knew all this was true, though it made no real sense to me. I did not have the right words that would make Father believe me.

  “All English people are strict, you know,” he told me. “You’ll learn good manners that way. The English manners are still the best.”

  There went my chance; he had stopped listening. My father handed me my present, and I knew that the subject of Miss Ellison was now closed. There was no use talking about this to my mother; her burden of ill health was as much as she could bear. My jaw tightened as I fought back tears of frustration. Miss Ellison would stay.

  I gripped the gift and realized my father was waiting for me to thank him. I stared at the leather sack in my hand. Curious, I opened it to discover hundreds of little ivory tablets, each with an alphabet letter. My father took a book from his shelf — I don’t remember what it was — and showed me how to arrange the tablets to match words on the page, and then he read me the word. We played this game for a few minutes before he sent me back to Miss Ellison.

  Then it was Christmas, then New Year’s Day, and time to dress for another Latham eggnog party. I had s
ome bronze kid slippers with a pearl button at the ankle; I had loved them when Cousin Daisy bought them for me the previous year. When Miss Ellison had trouble fastening them, I reminded her I had been saying they squeezed my feet.

  “You wouldn’t complain if they were the only shoes you owned,” she snapped, yanking the buttonhook.

  So I walked to Cedar Street with my parents, between the tall houses with their wreaths and candles, and then after the New Year’s party I walked painfully home. By the next morning, my left heel was sore and red where the skin had rubbed off. I told Miss Ellison about this, because she was a grown-up and would know what to do. She was not interested.

  “You just want new shoes, don’t you?” she accused me. That ended the discussion.

  There had been a heavy snow in the night, and the steep streets were difficult. We could not take our usual dreary walk, so I wore my soft knit slippers in the house for several days. I did not speak about my heel again.

  Days later, my whole foot was red; it stopped hurting and began to beat like a little drum. There was a purple hole, with raised yellow edges, on the back of my heel. I wondered what would happen next.

  I realized I had a secret, my first. I made excuses to take my bath alone; I managed not to limp in the nursery. Somehow I knew I was taking action against Miss Ellison; somehow my foot would be the end of her. I waited.

  One morning, I couldn’t get out of bed. Miss Ellison yanked off my covers and saw my foot, which seemed to have burst during the night. Her scream was all I could have hoped for. Dr. Jackson must have been in the house already, visiting my mother, for he was there at once — and my father too. Then everyone left the room, and I never saw Miss Ellison again.

  When Dr. Jackson came back, he brought Teresa, a sweet, dark Italian girl who was learning to be a nurse in the big hospital near us. She spoke like someone singing. She was there all day and all night, the first person in my life who handled me gently.