She was Emily Dickinson’s maid, her confidante, her betrayer… and the savior of her legacy. An evocative new novel about Emily Dickinson's longtime maid, Irish immigrant Margaret Maher, whose bond with the poet ensured Dickinson's work would live on, from the USA Today bestselling author of Flight of the Sparrow, Amy Belding Brown.
Massachusetts, 1869. Margaret Maher has never been one to settle down. At twenty-seven, she's never met a man who has tempted her enough to relinquish her independence to a matrimonial fate, and she hasn't stayed in one place for long since her family fled the potato famine a decade ago.
When Maggie accepts a temporary position at the illustrious Dickinson family home in Amherst, it's only to save money for her upcoming trip West to join her brothers in California. Maggie never imagines she will form a life-altering friendship with the eccentric, brilliant Miss Emily or that she'll stay at the Homestead for the next thirty years.
In this richly drawn novel, Amy Belding Brown explores what it is to be an outsider looking in, and she sheds light on one of Dickinson's closest confidantes—perhaps the person who knew the mysterious poet best—whose quiet act changed history and continues to influence literature to this very day.
Release date:
August 3, 2021
Publisher:
Berkley
Print pages:
384
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More than once I’ve had the thought a life can be measured in doorways. Answering a knock or stepping over a sill ofttimes leads to what I’m not expecting. I’ve learned to be a bit curious when a threshold’s being crossed. So you might think I’d be interested when Rosaleen Byrne comes banging into my kitchen with a new hat on her head and her mouth full of gossip. But I’m not in the mood for a chinwag this morning—up to my elbows in minced pork and bread mash. Yet here she is, all bustle and burn with the cold March air coming off her and her face red as the sausage I’m making.
“Margaret,” she says, unbuttoning her coat like she’s planning on staying, “I just heard the news and came straight here. Ran near all the way.” Sure, she does look out of breath with her bosom heaving up and down. It’s a bit concerning—she shouldn’t be running anywhere at her age. Must be two or three years older than myself and I’m past seventy.
“What news is that?” I say. It’s not likely she’s heard anything interesting I don’t already know. My boardinghouse in Kelley Square is the place everybody comes when they want to hear the latest. Rosaleen lives clear on the far side of Irish Hill. She’s got a knack for digging up secrets—I’ll give her that—though most of the time they’re not secrets at all but tidbits common as spiders. I give the mix a few more squeezes and commence wiping my hands on my apron. One of my bad days, it is, the rheumatism pounding away in both thumbs, not to mention my knees.
“About the Dickinson property,” Rosaleen says. “I’m guessing it’s a shock to yourself.”
I don’t know what she’s talking about, but I have a bad feeling. “Who was it told you?” I ask, still wiping my hands, choosing my words so as not to let on.
“The new maid that works for Mrs. Hills. The red-haired one. Ran into her in Cutler’s Store and it’s all she talked about.” She already has her coat half off. Likely she’s planning to dump it over the back of a chair instead of hanging it proper on a hook beside the door. “I expect half the town knows by now.”
I nod as if I’m agreeing, but my temper’s rising. I know she’ll be revealing her gossip sooner or later, but it nettles me she’s making such a show of it. God help me, I won’t be giving her the satisfaction of asking.
I go to the sink to wash my hands and calm myself. Turn the tap and warm water splashes out. Sure, it still takes me by surprise after all those years yanking pump handles and filling buckets for heating. A daily miracle, it is—hot water conjured with just a flick of the wrist. I take my time, and when I turn around, Rosaleen’s plunked herself down on a chair and is pulling a handkerchief out of her handbag.
“From what I hear that girl’s head is always in a muddle,” I say. “She’s as likely to twist the truth as tell it.”
“Aye, I’ve heard that too.” Rosaleen snaps her bag shut and dabs her nose with the handkerchief. It’s a fancy one, with deep lace at the hem. “But she says she got it word for word from Mrs. Hills herself. ‘The big Dickinson house on Main Street is up for sale,’ Mrs. Hills told her. And Dr. Bowen is thinking of buying it.”
There’s a snag in the middle of my chest. “Which house?” I hear the blade in my own voice. “She owns them both.”
“Not the Evergreens, where she’s living,” Rosaleen says. “The big one next door they call the Homestead.”
Miss Emily’s house? I almost say it out loud. I have my answer, but God’s truth, it rocks me. And in my head I’m thinking, Emily won’t like this, as if she’s still among the living.
Rosaleen says something else but the rumble of a train coming into the depot is drowning all sounds but itself. Takes a minute or two till the screaming of whistles and brakes passes, so I busy myself wiping the faucets. When the noise finally fades, she’s still talking. “I hear it’s been on the market two weeks but nobody here in Amherst knew a thing till today. Except Mattie D, of course. And maybe yourself—working for that family so many years and all?”
She’s fishing, to be sure. But I won’t have it spread all over Amherst I didn’t know about the sale. Instead of answering, I scowl. Everybody in Amherst calls Emily’s niece Mattie D, but hearing it come out of Rosaleen’s mouth irks me. Feels like she’s belittling my own family. “Her name is Madame Bianchi now,” I say.
“Madame Bianchi.” Rosaleen makes a snorting sound and opens her bag to put the handkerchief away. “What kind of name is that? Herself with her fortune and fancy ways, acting like a countess since she married that Russian. She’s haughty as her mother before her.”
“God keep her soul,” I say quick to ward off the Faeries, though I’ve sometimes had the same thought myself. But I don’t like hearing any ill talk of the dead. Besides, I’d seen a different side of Sue Dickinson through Emily’s eyes.
Rosaleen is casting a glance at the kettle on the cooker’s back burner. I know she’s hoping I’ll be wetting the tea, but I’ve heard enough of her prattle and need to be alone to think my thoughts.
“Well,” I say in a brisk way, “I promised my boarders sausages for supper. ’Tis sorry I am I can’t be offering you a cup of tea, but it’s getting on toward noon and my casings won’t be stuffing themselves. And I expect you’ve got errands to be doing.” I give her a kindly nod to gentle the sting.
She looks a bit startled but up she gets and fidgets herself into her coat, and soon enough I’m bundling her out the door. Sure, I’m glad to be seeing the back of her, though I know she’ll likely be spending what’s left of the morning noising it all over Amherst that Miss Margaret Maher’s too full of herself to be sharing a cup of tea with a friend.
Soon as she’s out the door, it strikes me I could have been right about the maid’s story—it might not even be true. Wouldn’t be the first time Rosaleen scattered fables amidst her gossip. From the window I watch her pass my brother-in-law’s house and cross the yard to the train depot. Wonder how many other ears she’ll be bending before she gets home today. Seems strange I didn’t hear her news from my niece first. Nell’s always stopping by to tell me what she hears around town. Makes it all the more unlikely there’s reason to believe Rosaleen. The more I think on it, the less sense it makes. Why in Heaven’s name would Mattie D be selling the Homestead? She loves the place as much as I do, surely. She’s the last of the Dickinson line to own it, and she knows the big yellow house is a treasure, sitting so proud behind its handsome hedge and fence.
Taking care of the Homestead was my job for thirty years. When I left back in 1899 and walked down Main Street to my sister’s place in Kelley Square, I thought I was shed of the Dickinsons for good. Felt like a blessing that sorry day, with Emily and Austin and Vinnie all gone to their graves and the house shut up like a tomb.
Now I can’t pass the place without wanting to take another peek inside. I’m always glancing at the upstairs west windows, where Emily’s bedroom was. More than once I’ve spied a white flutter there and wondered—was it a trick of the light, or maybe her ghost? The quare thing is I always walk on feeling more comfort than chill. As if the place is consecrated.
Mattie D inherited everything after Vinnie died. The houses and land and all her grandfather’s money. Last time I saw her was at her mother’s funeral. But I remember her best as a girl running along the path between the Homestead and the Evergreens. Carrying notes back and forth between her mother and Emily. Forty years ago, it must have been. She was lively and full of spark as Emily herself. The pair of them headstrong and fierce, full of secrets and schemes. Used to think they were clever as new-minted dollars. But Mattie D sometimes uses her cunning in heedless ways. Like running off to Europe and marrying a Russian. Like renting out the Homestead.
That unsettled me, to be sure, but I saw the need. A house needs people living inside or it goes to ruin. Needs curtains at the windows and lamplight glowing in the parlors at dusk. Needs the clinking of silverware on china and the creaking of stairs from time to time as folks go up and down. It’s calmed me, knowing it still belongs to a Dickinson.
It’s plain I need to find out what’s true and what’s not. Before it’s too late.
And at the minute, smack in the midst of stuffing sausage casings, I resolve to pay a call to the Evergreens this very afternoon. I’ll talk to Mattie D face-to-face and root out the truth. And if need be I’ll give her a piece of my mind.
I finish up quick with the sausages and give the table and counters a good scrubbing. Scrub my hands too to get the sausage smell off them and then, for good measure, I rub them with a dollop of Hinds’ Honey and Almond Cream from the bottle Nell gave me last Christmas.
In my bedroom I change into a clean skirt and blouse and—for good luck—pin my new hat to my head at a jaunty angle. It’s when I’m regarding myself in the mirror I’m struck by a familiar jingly feeling—like I’m starting on a new adventure. Seems the Homestead still has the same uncanny pull on me it did back in 1869, when I first came under its spell.
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