“How’s it going?”
“Really well,” she says. “I’ve been to Yale. I’ve seen Mabel’s actual diaries.”
“Cool.”
“How’s things with you?”
“Exhausting,” he says. “Can’t wait for half-term.”
“How are the sexy girls in hijabs?”
“Oh, God! Did I tell you that?”
He covers his face with his hands in mock shame. Seeing Jack is disconcerting, but also touching. Like being home again.
“Isn’t Skype weird?” she says. “I feel like you’re very near.”
“I don’t,” he says. “I feel as if you’re in a parallel universe.”
“I think I may be in two parallel universes. I’m in Amherst now, and I’m spying on Mabel and Austin back in the nineteenth century.”
“How’s the screenplay coming along?”
“Hardly at all. I keep trying out fragments, but none of it adds up. What do you think of the idea of telling the story from the point of view of Emily Dickinson, only without ever seeing her?”
“Like the camera is Emily Dickinson?”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
“I’d say that’s really exciting.”
“Oh, Jack.” His round face beaming, frozen, on her screen. “It’s so good talking to you.”
“I don’t suppose,” he says, “you’d consider putting on a hijab?”
“Turning into a fetish, is it?”
He sighs and nods.
“I do feel a little ashamed of myself. But I don’t think it’s exactly a fetish. I think it’s about proximity. You know, like priests fondle altar boys. It’s whatever’s within reach.”
“Oh, Jack. That’s so like you.”
“Do you think I’m wrong?”
“No, I think you’re horribly right. Listen . . .” She realizes with a shock that she’s going to tell him. That this is what she called him to say. “I’m alone in this house with a man twice my age, and guess what?”
“You aren’t!”
“Just a little bit.”
“Alice! He’s Mum’s old boyfriend! That’s practically incest!”
“Think of it as a holiday romance.”
“Bloody hell! That beats me fantasizing about girls in scarves.”
“He’s getting a divorce, so it isn’t really adultery. He thinks I’m using him to work through my father obsession.”
“I expect you are. Which father?”
“Guy, I suppose. The useless one. But I prefer your idea. It’s just proximity.”
“Proximity and opportunity. That covers just about everything.”
How amazing to be able to say it all like this. The only people you can talk to about new lovers are old lovers.
“Do you think I’m mad?”
“Depends what you want out of it. I got the impression from Mum that he was pretty flaky.”
“He talks about your mum a lot. She’s the one who got away.”
“Christ, Alice, just think! If she hadn’t, he’d be my dad. You’d be doing it with my dad!”
He clasps his head in his hands and rocks it from side to side, as if trying to pull it off.
“But she didn’t and he isn’t,” says Alice. “And you know what? Being so much older makes no difference at all. He’s as screwed up as you or me. More so, maybe.”
“Well, babe.” He puts on a bad American accent. “I do not know what to say to you.”
“Why are you talking like that?”
“To indicate the withdrawal of my primary self from this conversation.”
“Oh, please, Jack. Can I have the primary self back?”
“I am only flesh and blood, Alice.”
But his accent has reverted.
“Look into the camera,” she says. “I want to see you looking at me.”
He does as she asks. Those gentle brown eyes, so incapable of deceit.
“Now I’ll look at you.”
She stares at the tiny hole in the top of the screen’s frame, trying to imagine that Jack is there. Odd that they can’t look at each other at the same time.
“Okay,” he says. “I’m better now.”
They resume their misaligned exchange.
“I blame Mabel Todd,” he says. “She’s stuffed your head with heavy breathing. Oh, I get it.” He smacks his head. “This is research. You’re Mabel, Nick’s Austin.”
“Don’t think I haven’t thought it.”
“What about your plan to tell the story from the point of view of Emily Dickinson? Maybe you should stop all the sweaty stuff and become a celibate recluse.”
She smiles as she listens. Just hearing him grounds her, gives her perspective on the heady events of the last two days. The sweaty stuff.
“I’ll do my best,” she says. “But there is something to be said for bad behavior.”
“No,” he says. “No. I’m being so strong-willed. I’m being so good. If I elope with a doe-eyed Bangladeshi, it’ll all be your fault.”
“You do know that they only make up their faces where they can be seen? Take off the scarf and all the edges will be raw.”
“How on earth do you know that?”
“I’ve got a makeup marketing account.”
He gazes solemnly at her chin.
“That is probably the single most useful thing you’ve ever said to me.”
“I do love talking to you, Jack.”
“Even though nothing I ever say’s useful to you.”
“Yes, it is.” She’s nodding at the screen, wanting him to believe her. “I’ve remembered what you said about endings. It just isn’t so easy actually finding one.”
“For Mabel’s story?”
“Yes.”
“There’ll be an ending sitting there somewhere,” he says. “But it may not belong to the story you’re telling.”
“So what am I supposed to do?”
“Switch the story. Use the ending you’ve got. I’m telling you, that’s what’s important. Work backwards from the ending, and wherever that takes you, that’s your story.”
“Yes, but . . .”
What he says begs so many questions she doesn’t know where to begin. His flickering features betray impatience. Or maybe her confession has bothered him more than he’s saying.
“Or you could just ignore me.”
“No, I’m really trying hard here.”
“Sorry, I’m tired. That’s the trouble with Skype. It’s free, so we can’t say, Oh, God, this call’s costing a fortune, we’d better hang up. So we have to go on forever.”
Alice looks at the time. Five hours later for him than for her.
“Long day?”
“I’m on my knees.”
“You go, darling. Go to your bed.”
“To a can of Stella and Game of Thrones.”
“Can I call you again?”
“Anytime, doll.”
That’s the dodgy American accent back. His primary self has checked out.
“I’m switching you off now. Bye!”
The screen goes black.
She gets up to go to the bathroom. As she stands, staring into the mirror, she remembers and looks away, as if caught in some shameful act.
Did I really call Jack “darling”?
17
The new cottage being built for the Todds at the bottom of the Dickinson Meadow started construction in the fall of 1886. By the turn of the year the shell of the house was in place, and part of the plumbing and heating had been installed. The kitchen in the basement was usable, as was the top floor, which was to be Mabel’s studio. Then with very little warning the owners of the house they were renting decided not to renew the lease, and the family was obliged to move into the unfinished house. They named it the Dell.
They camped out through that bitter winter. Millicent caught a throat and ear infection. David suffered an attack of kidney stones. Mabel worked. She oversaw the builders, directed the setting out of trees, and painted oil friezes
round the upper walls of the entrance hall and the parlors. And every day, whenever she had a spare moment, she continued the long task of copying out Emily’s poems, and then typing them on a Hammond typewriter, borrowed from a friend. David helped when he could, acting as a second pair of eyes, checking Mabel’s guesses at the words that were harder to read. Even Millicent was pressed into occasional service, forming and re-forming the little bundles of papers. The great work went on in the third-floor attic room, where Mabel had pinned to the wall a copy of the daguerreotype of Emily Dickinson, taken in 1847 when she was a student at Mount Holyoke College. Beneath this image of the serene and beautiful sixteen-year-old, the only likeness that Mabel had been able to obtain, Emily’s poems and their transcripts slowly spread across the floor.
Austin visited daily. By now Mabel considered herself married to him as well as to David. She kept a gold wedding ring that Austin had given her, but she did not wear it in public. Austin kept a soft indoor hat at the Dell and was as much or more at home there than at the Evergreens. But in the world beyond its walls, they continued to behave to each other as virtual strangers.
Mabel found her double life increasingly hard to bear. The great love which seemed to her to be so right and good had settled into a pattern of secrecy and shame, and she could see no sign that anything would ever change. She felt betrayed by the world, and by God.
She wrote to Austin:
As for God, I feel utterly deserted by Him. I have tried so hard during all these years to trust Him, and to wait patiently. Yet He gives no sign. I am pitifully helpless in His hands, and dare not even reproach Him. The heavens are dumb. He has shown us the possibility of a life as happy and as pure and as noble as heaven itself—and then He lets us go. He sits silently up in the great spaces and watches us suffer—if indeed He cares enough even to notice the pain—and we pray and entreat in vain. Only I shall always be glad that He did show us each other, even if I die for it, which I think not at all unlikely. A sensitive nature cannot hold on forever against such odds. We have each other—but we have each other against the bigoted spite of the rest of the world. And we cannot make it otherwise. There seems no real help but in death.
In her growing despair, Mabel took refuge in the strange poems she was puzzling out in her attic room. Emily’s perceptions of the world were sharp-edged, bitter, often profoundly sad. Mabel found this comforting. At the same time, as she untangled the densely packed lines, her admiration for Emily’s poems grew. Here was a fellow spirit with the power to utter truths that no one else would admit, but that Mabel was learning for herself. She felt herself to be Emily’s first, her only, reader. In the poems she found her own story, of her struggle to declare her love, and of her attempt to brave the unkindness of the town. The poet offered her no consoling redemption, which was a consolation in itself.
I took my Power in my Hand—
And went against the World—
’Twas not so much as David—had—
But I—was twice as bold—
I aimed my Pebble—but Myself
Was all the one that fell—
Was it Goliath—was too large—
Or was myself—too small?
Emily gave her the words to express her love for Austin, a love that the world would only allow her to enjoy in snatched moments.
So set its Sun in Thee
What Day be dark to me—
What Distance—far—
So I the Ships may see
That touch—how seldomly—
Thy Shore?
Every day more convinced of Emily’s genius, she worked away at her laborious transcriptions. She purchased a typewriter of her own, which punched out the poems one capital letter at a time. To ease the burden she hired a copyist but found her quite incapable of deciphering Emily’s handwriting. So she continued alone.
As the poems were transcribed, Mabel showed them to Vinnie. Vinnie, devoted to Emily’s memory, fierce in her defense, was timid when faced with the task of presenting them to the world.
“Mr. Higginson has been kind enough to say he will read the best of them,” she said to Mabel. “He will approve, will he not?”
“He’s a bigger fool than I thought if he doesn’t,” said Mabel.
“You truly do think them good?”
“Your sister is a great poet,” said Mabel. “Greater than Mrs. Burnett. Greater than Mrs. Jackson.”
“Do you really believe so?” cried Vinnie, her eyes shining. “You will tell Mr. Higginson so?”
When the great task was completed, it was Mabel who carried the stack of transcribed poems to Boston. She lodged in the Beacon Hill house of her cousin Caro Andrews. Here Thomas Wentworth Higginson met her, at Vinnie’s request, and read through several of the poems.
His response was not favorable.
“Of course I see that there’s some kind of genius buried here,” he told Mabel. “But the meaning is so obscure, the form so crude. The public will never accept it.”
“How can you say that?” cried Mabel. She was outraged by the verdict, both for Emily and for herself. “You think the poems crude because she writes in her own way and you’re not familiar with it. But I assure you they are not crude, and not obscure, any more than William Blake is crude and obscure.”
“My dear Mrs. Todd—”
“Permit me to read you one or two of my favorites aloud. Do me that kindness before you make up your mind.”
“Very well,” he said with a sigh.
Mabel picked out some poems from the sheaf and rose to her feet to read. She was a good speaker, and she understood the poems well, and she chose carefully.
Tell all the Truth but tell it slant—
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth’s superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind—
Higginson listened and inclined his head, understanding why she had begun with this poem.
“So I am the blind man. You must dazzle me gradually, Mrs. Todd.”
Next she read him a poem to flatter his literary bent.
There is no Frigate like a Book
To take us Lands away
Nor any Coursers like a Page
Of prancing Poetry—
This Traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of Toll—
How frugal is the Chariot
That bears the Human soul.
“Now surely, Mr. Higginson, there’s nothing obscure here.”
“No, no. I grant you, when I hear the lines aloud, the effect is very different.”
“Then hear just one more. Even a gentleman of your distinction will have experienced times of suffering, I daresay. Miss Dickinson understands suffering better than any poet I know.”
After great pain, a formal feeling comes—
The Nerves sits ceremonious, like Tombs—
“Have you ever experienced such a sensation, Mr. Higginson?”
The man of letters once more silently inclined his head.
“Listen to this and tell me the public will never accept it.”
This is the Hour of Lead—
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons recollect the Snow—
First Chill—then Stupor—then the letting go—
Higginson remained silent for a moment longer. Then he nodded his head again.
“I surrender,” he said. “You amaze me. I feel as if I hadn’t read these poems at all before.”
“And there are so many more! We’ve only just begun!”
He waved a hand in front of his face.
“Too many. I’m a busy man, Mrs. Todd.”
“Then let me pick out the best for you.”
“I think that would be a good way to proceed. Divide them up for me, if you will, into the best, and the next best, a
nd the rest. Not too many of the best, please. Be rigorous. Then come back to me, and I’ll see what I can do.”
“You’ll take them to a publisher?”
“I’m a reader at Houghton Mifflin. They’re a good firm. They respect my opinion.”
Mabel returned to Amherst and worked steadily for twelve days on the task of classifying the poems. In the end she selected six hundred and thirty-four poems, divided into categories A, B, and C. She had pored over these poems for so long now, transcribing them with her own hand, typing them letter by letter, that she felt almost as if she had composed them herself. The completed package was then sent off to Higginson in Boston, and Mabel and Vinnie settled down to wait.
• • •
The sudden cessation of activity threw Mabel back on the frustrations of her situation. She wrote miserably to Austin:
The first leisure shows me unpityingly the horror of my life, which goes on without the slightest interest from the Almighty, a life absolutely deserted by Him and left to swing for itself in space, unhelped and uncared for. Prayers are no more than so much extra breath wasted, or as Emily says, no more than if a bird stamped its foot on the air.
Higginson moved with agonizing slowness. He was too busy; then he was too ill; then it was Christmas. In the New Year, 1890, he settled to the task at last and picked out two hundred of the poems and gave them titles of his own invention to help the reading public understand them: “Almost,” “In a Library,” “Love’s Baptism,” “Troubled about Many Things,” “The First Lesson,” and so forth. He also divided them into four sections, headed Life, Love, Nature, and Time and Eternity. Mabel was horrified by the titles but felt she couldn’t afford to antagonize her coeditor, as he now classed himself.
Higginson took the collection to Houghton Mifflin. There he suffered the embarrassment of outright rejection. The poems were far too queer, he was told, and many of the rhymes simply didn’t work. Humiliated, Higginson told Mabel he had been wrong to give her hope. The poems were not publishable.
Mabel refused to give up. They must approach another publisher. What about Roberts Brothers, also in Boston? Higginson was not prepared for a second humiliation.
“Then I will take the poems myself,” said Mabel.