Afternoons with Emily Read online

  April 19, 1856

  My very dear Ara,

  I could not bear to write you sooner, till our parting bled a little less. Soon we will not miss each other as much as we do now. In all my classes I have been using what you and I learned, and I will write you about the ways we are still working together.

  Your father has made some wonderful plans you will hear soon. Do you remember when we learned how there can be a ship just below the horizon, still invisible — but heading for you, coming closer every day? Just such a ship is sailing your way. Your father is not a sentimental man, but he will always care for you and care about you.

  Now I want you to read David Copperfield and write a character sketch of Dora or Steerforth. Then make a play out of your favorite scene. Make a model of this. Be sure and show David very small to remind us how young he is. . . . But he ends up the strongest of anyone, and so will you.

  Remember that I am always going to be part of your life.

  Your friend always,

  Alan Harnett

  I was quite curious about all that Mr. Harnett had hinted at — but I had another surprise in store. I was reading in Father’s book of Greek art, the one that inspired my new hairstyle, when Father arrived with Madame Lauré, my mother’s dressmaker. She used to make my New Year’s velvet dresses and always called me “La pauvre p’tite” — so I could not tell her Mr. Harnett and I had been doing French for the last three or so years.

  Madame Lauré had tiny black eyes like raisins and talked around a mouthful of pins. While she measured me and made strange chalk markings, Father told her, “I’m not sure what it is that we want, but we want something other than . . . this.” He gestured to the dresses hanging in my wardrobe.

  I must be about to gain an entirely new wardrobe, I realized, and Father himself is overseeing this procedure rather than Cousin Daisy. Surely this was somehow part of the plans Mr. Harnett had spoken of in his letter.

  “M’sieur, please, one must be somewhat more definite in what one desires. I would hate to displease you.”

  “Something more . . . less . . .” Father seemed at a loss for words. This behavior I understood. It would have shocked me greatly if he had been able to discuss current women’s fashion. It was somewhat reassuring that he wasn’t a complete stranger to me!

  “Father,” I ventured, trying to stay as still as possible as Madame Lauré ran a tape from my ankle to my knee. “If I could have a new outfit, I would like it to be just like the one on the vase.”

  “Zee vase?” Madame Lauré looked perplexed.

  I patted my shorn head. “The vase,” I repeated.

  A delighted recognition sparkled in my father’s eyes. “Of course! Ara, it is a brilliant solution.” I pointed to where the book lay on the table. He picked it up and showed it to Madame Lauré.

  “Mais . . . mais . . .” she sputtered around her pins. “Zeese are trousers. Zee young lady —”

  “A chiton will be quite suitable,” Father declared, using the Greek name for the garment. He and I smiled at each other. We were united in sentiment and in shared controversy; it was our first true pact.

  “It is decided,” Father told Madame Lauré. “The Lathams are all coming for tea tomorrow,” he then informed me. “They’re all dying of polite curiosity to hear our plans.”

  I was curious to hear myself!

  The next afternoon, I joined Father in the double parlors, full of spring flowers brought by Cousin Daisy. I curtsied twenty times, hearing a buzz of comment about my hair.

  “So boyish,” murmured the aunts.

  “So . . . odd,” rumbled the uncles. Then they folded their hands around their sherry glasses and waited to be informed.

  “You were good to come this afternoon. I wanted you to hear some decisions I’ve made,” said my father. This bold, confident voice must be his teaching manner. “From now on, my first responsibility must be to my daughter — her health and happiness.”

  This made me feel very proud. I had never heard him express much interest in my life, nor had I much evidence in the form of attention. But I knew my father was a truthful man, so this must be the case.

  “I believe you’ve all been aware, over the years, that our medical adviser Dr. Jackson continues to watch Arethusa, fearing a tendency toward poor Marian’s disease. He and I have decided I should take her to the Windward Islands for a year so that she may grow stronger in that climate.”

  There was one gasp, then many from the assembled Lathams. We surely had their attention now! I only wished that he had not stated this fear of my “tendency” quite so openly. But the gathered relatives seemed to be far more shocked by the mention of these islands than by the bold statement of my potential illness.

  “I have a classmate in Barbados, a dear friend, Hugh James,” Father continued smoothly. “I have visited him and his sister, Miss Adelaide James, several times.”

  I had not been aware of this; I had not been aware of most of my father’s comings and goings. It did explain some of his absences.

  “Their sugar plantation, York Stairs, is one of the handsomest on the island of Barbados. Hugh was a consumptive too, but he believes it was the clean, warm sea air that cured him. He is a physician and will care for Ara. He and Miss Adelaide expect us at York Stairs next month.”

  Astonishing! We were leaving Boston. We were going to live on a tropical island — straight out of Captain Cook’s reports! I was truly about to have an adventure.

  “So we are following Dr. Jackson’s advice for Ara and seeking a warmer climate and an outdoor life. My arrangements are nearly complete, but I need your help on a family affair.” He gave his audience a charming smile.

  “I have rented number 32 to a colleague, but I find I will require a temporary home for the portraits. I hesitate to rent out your ancestors, even to a Harvard professor. Would any of you care to board them for a year or so?”

  Father must have known this would be the perfect distraction from his startling news — and my short curls.

  “I’ll take the Copley: Eliza Cabot in yellow with the parakeet.”

  “But your chimney smokes! She’d be far safer in my dining room.”

  “I’ll hang both Stuarts. They should stay together.”

  “But that’s not fair! Marian would have wanted us to . . .”

  No one noticed me leaving. The well-bred haggling followed me up the stairs. I went straight to my father’s library and dragged his huge atlas over to the pale spring light. I turned to the index: BAC, BAL, BAR. I flipped to a page full of blue. From the moment of Father’s announcement, I felt a flicker of returning interest. I was starting to be curious again. I found the island on the map, pressed my finger on it, and held it there a long time.

  Madame Lauré returned the next day to fit me in the muslin model of the Greek costume. It was a loose sleeveless tunic with a pleat at each shoulder, ending just above the knee. There were very short, straight trousers underneath.

  “A bit more in the pleats, please, Madame Lauré,” said Father, looking me up and down. “She’ll need plenty of room for running around.”

  I could not imagine myself “running around” — but if I was to become active, this would certainly be the costume for it. I was pleased with the feeling of freedom the clothing gave me. The boy on the vase seemed to be going somewhere; perhaps I was too.

  My father seemed equally delighted by the Greek object I had become. “We’ll need six of these, Madame Lauré, and six more in a size larger. Please use the toughest cotton you can find anywhere and the brightest colors — nothing dainty! And make us two in dark blue, with extra drawers — for the ocean. Ara will be swimming all day long!”

  This seemed unlikely, but he knew Barbados better than I did. In all my life, I had never had so much attention and interest from my father. I would learn — gradually — that he would never fail me on the important things involving foresight and intention. He skimped only on the daily details of love.

  “
Now, Ara, show me your favorite dress,” Father instructed.

  This was a corded silk from last Christmas, for a cousin’s wedding. I was meant to be the flower girl, but I had bronchitis instead. Cousin Daisy called the high waist and puffed sleeves “Empire.” To my eyes it was straight out of Vanity Fair; I called it my Becky Sharp dress.

  “Yes, that looks just right for Barbados,” Father approved. “We’ll need four like this, Madame Lauré — all in white, in different materials. Please find us something cool for the tropics.”

  “Zen I will make zee silk, zee mull, zee linen, and zee dimity. And I will make more décolleté, for zee heat.”

  “Splendid, Madame — splendid. And give her big hems, won’t you? She’ll be doing a lot of growing on the islands.”

  Preparing to leave in June was easy, since we were taking so little. Father packed his notes and references for the new book he had started. My chitons and new dresses arrived, looking like costumes for a play. I decided to leave my old doll and my playthings behind; I had never used them after Mr. Harnett came. Since Father said there were plenty of fine books at York Stairs, I took only my scissors and my watercolors. Jenny helped me with my trunk.

  My father had arranged our passage on a packet through the Windwards, traveling among the islands and ending at Bridgetown in Barbados. Cousin Daisy was joining us for the sea voyage and then continuing on to visit an English friend in Saint Kitts. As ever, she was making a lively pattern out of other people’s bits and pieces.

  Uncle Thomas came to ride down to the wharves and see us off. As the carriage pulled away from number 32, my father looked back at Mount Vernon Street and the tall, curved pink houses.

  “It’s time we left Boston, Tom,” he murmured.

  Tonight, I wonder if he knew we would never sleep there again. Or that in Barbados I would finally begin to truly live.

  Book II

  BARBADOS

  1856–1857

  I had been deeply asleep. I woke slowly to a wonder of silence. There were no shouts and footsteps overhead, no creaking and flapping like a great bird’s wing. There was a white mist around me and a solid white cloud underneath. I was no longer in and out of a world that slanted and heaved and twisted.

  I remembered our voyage and was bitterly ashamed. I had been a terrible sailor. My father and Captain Sisson had been patient and cheerful, promising that June was the best month at sea, that I would soon find my sea legs — but I went on retching. There were days and endless nights of sickness, with Cousin Daisy’s worried face spinning somewhere over my bunk, and my empty stomach heaving up the tea she tried to feed me.

  Twice Father had carried me up into the bright salty wind, and I winced at the sun. Once we saw some white plumes on the horizon; he told me they were whales. I was just barely able to say to him, “Thar she blows!”

  I remembered last evening, when we landed at Bridgetown just after sunset. Cousin Daisy stood on the deck, waving good-bye. There was a harbor with stone jetties and a wooden wharf, and a town with lit streets — and torches with ragged flames repeated in smooth, dark water. It was unlike anything I had seen; it was hard to imagine it was real. Then came a long carriage ride through the night and an avenue with tall pointed trees.

  Then there were more torches between white columns — and curving stairs, and strange voices in a sweet stirring darkness. Someone led me here, and someone else gave me cake and eggnog — did I actually eat?

  I heard someone moving near me. I turned my head and saw a hazy figure approaching my bed and raising the netting with a delicate dark hand. She was young and slim, with a dainty figure and skin the color of brandy in a decanter. I had never seen anyone like her before. My eyes widened.

  “Good day, Missy Ara!” She had a soft voice that rippled gently through the balmy air. “I am Lettie. I will be your companion. We will do many pleasant things together.” Each of her words was as clear and edged as cut crystal.

  “Mistress Adelaide is telling me you should be eating, so I bring you the eggnog you were liking last evening. Now, do you know banana?”

  When I shook my head, she handed me first the drink and then a curved yellow fruit — or vegetable?

  “First we peel it — see! Now, does it please you?” It was a big sweet pudding, complete in itself.

  “It’s wonderful! Please, might there be another?”

  Lettie laughed as a dove might laugh — three charming notes.

  “There is another and another. There are a hundred trees full of Barbados bananas! But first we must be settling you into York Stairs. We will arrange your pretty dresses in their new home.” She knelt at my trunk, and I looked about the room.

  This was white, all white, with a high ceiling pointed like the inside of a pyramid — a room as tall as the double parlors on Mount Vernon Street. It held my four-poster bed with its veil of netting; a cabinet with a pitcher and bowl; and several carved chairs. I saw a bookcase too, empty, and a chest of drawers holding a ceramic pitcher of blue and lavender flowers.

  “Mistress Adelaide is welcoming you with her flowers. She is choosing the colors of our sea,” Lettie informed me as she hung my clothes in a huge paneled wardrobe.

  “These white dresses are most fashionable for a young mistress. These little suits I am not knowing. Is it the American mode?”

  “They came from a picture,” I explained.

  Lettie nodded as if she understood, and she shut the wardrobe. “They will be doing very well for you here.”

  Lettie helped me wash, and we chose a violet chiton and trousers. She deplored my lack of sandals and promised to correct this very soon.

  We left my room and went into a long vaulted hall with many shuttered doors. I was aware of sunlight through the louvers and air moving around me, even though we were indoors.

  “These are the sleeping chambers for the family,” Lettie told me. “They are below, to be cool when we lose the trades. The reception rooms are above, in the path of the good winds.”

  This all seemed very strange, but no stranger than dressing like a Greek runner, having a gracious golden friend who talked like a ballad, and walking through a house that was upside down.

  We came to sunlight flooding through a tall archway. Everything at York Stairs soared; there were no oppressive low ceilings, no walls crowding in to squeeze me. I would no longer be living in a chilly attic under the eaves.

  We climbed what felt like a stone stair, a lesser curve than Mount Vernon Street. I did not sense an actual wind, but I noticed the curls at my temples stirring as we walked forward a few steps in sweet lively air and reached what felt like a stone wall.

  “Now, Missy Ara, here is your friend the sea, waiting for you.”

  Mr. Harnett had given me my watercolors; I reviewed the names on the little tubes, trying to find the right ones. Ultramarine, cerulean, Prussian — no single blue could approach the living, moving radiance before me.

  Next I considered rainbows, which I knew quite well. I had seen a hundred from my window seat, arching unearthly over the drab roofs of Beacon Hill. But even a rainbow would have faded against this sea. The blues and greens and violets were the colors at the heart of flames. Luckily, there was a balustrade to protect us; it would have been so easy to fall into that space, into that beauty offered as simply as fruit on a plate.

  “The good sea will be your friend, Missy Ara,” Lettie told me, holding my shoulders lightly. “I will help to make you friends.”

  I leaned back against her, believing her promise, enjoying the mul-tiple sensations: Lettie’s warmth; the scents; the blue, blue water. When I could look away from the sea, I saw we were standing on a wide terrace, as long as the house itself. Half was covered by the roof, extended with plain columns; the other half was open to the stunning distance and the soft, steady wind. I held up my hand to feel it passing.

  “Those are our fine trade winds,” Lettie stated proudly. “Are you breathing the sugarcane?”

  I realized I w
as: a deep, rich sweetness pulsing in the air, the very breath of Barbados.

  Lettie took me from the terrace into the rest of the house, and we soon came to the library, where my father sat writing at a big table; large, curling pink shells held his papers down against the indoor wind. He seemed already to be entirely at home.

  “Ara, good morning! Have you had breakfast? Lettie, please could you find Miss Adelaide for us? And on your way back, would you ask Naomi for another eggnog? We missed a good many meals coming down. We’ll be on the gallery.”

  I followed Father onto the terrace. The view had changed. There were big loopy clouds over the sea now, making indigo shadows on the brilliant water.

  “This is the best room at York Stairs, and I helped design it,” Father announced proudly. “Hugh bought the plantation some twenty-five years back, when most of it had blown away. I suppose this style is mongrel classic. The columns are from a Greek stoa, and the stairs are pretentious enough to belong in one of Nero’s villas. But in this heavenly climate, it all works well!”

  “Of course it works! Don’t confuse the child with all that history foolishness. You designed us a plain old Charleston gallery, just what we wanted!”

  Here was a slim, graceful woman, with gray eyes in a delicate oval face. She wore her heavy silver hair in a low, soft knot. Her flowered lawn dress was more formal than a Boston lady’s, and she carried a floppy straw hat. I thought of Father’s big book of English portraits. Miss Adelaide James was a Gainsborough.

  “Ara, good morning — welcome to York Stairs. I don’t expect you to remember us from last night, but we feel we know you already. What a fine sleep you had on your first night with us. And here is the rest of your breakfast!” She handed me the eggnog in a little china tumbler.

  I had never heard an accent like hers, soft and blurred and somehow intimate, a voice for telling private matters.

  “Adelaide,” said Father. “You and Ara must have a lot to talk about. You’ll want to tell her . . . whatever it is she needs to know. I’ll leave you to it . . .” His voice trailed away, and so did he.