Alysse Aallyn

Scene 7

(MABEL and VINNIE, both black-clothed, taking tea in the Homestead parlor. EMILY cavorts, playing hopscotch games they cannot see.)

EMILY
If recollecting were forgetting
Then I remember not.
If forgetting, recollecting
How near I had forgot.
Heart! We will forget him! You and I, tonight!
You may forget the warmth he gave
I will forget the light.

(Mimes rolling dice)

We lose because we win – gamblers toss your dice again!

VINNIE
Mabel, I do wish – we all wish –

(Gasp of distaste)

That you not wear black. It’s so undignified, don’t you see? Don’t you see it opens the family up to talk and scandal?

EMILY
Oh Vinnie, never improve! You are so perfect now!

MABEL
I do only what He wished. Don’t you see my life must be devoted to that now? To him, of course, and to Emily. If he lived we were to marry and go West – you see I wear his ring – but now I can only tend his grave. His grave, and his memory. And Emily’s memory, of course.

VINNIE
(Tapping her foot helplessly)

But it’s undignified! What must people think!

EMILY
How happy is the little stone
That rambles in the road alone
And doesn’t care about careers
And exigencies never fears!

(Shakes her head)

The mind lives on the heart like any parasite, dear Vinnie!. If full of meat the mind is fat!

MABEL
(Takes a paper from her purse)

And that’s not all he wished. Remember?

VINNIE
(Shuddering with distaste)

I don’t know what you want me to remember. I don’t wish to read my brother’s private correspondence. After a death, dear Mabel, such things are to be burned.

(Will not touch the paper)

EMILY
(Arms akimbo, head shaking)

Oh, Vinnie! Bats think foxes have no eyes.

MABEL
But they do burn! His words burn in me and so should they in you! Don’t you remember what he said?

EMILY
(All ears)

Momentousness ripens in a human soul impregnable as light! A single screw of flesh is all that pins the soul.

VINNIE
Things are so changed, Mabel! Everything is changed! We are authoresses now, public persons, don’t you see, in this new world! Did you get the fresh poems I sent you? I found them in the linen closet! Who knows how many more there might not be in this big house? And –

(Awkward change of subject)

How is the new volume coming?

MABEL
It’s difficult to concentrate on anything when I have so much sorrow!

(Gasps; threatens tears.)

When – my Master’s wishes go unfulfilled.

EMILY
To die before one fears to die may be a boon. Folks knock at the grass and the grass lets them in. With ghosts so attentive, what cause have we to complain? Still, we are children, and children fear the dark.

VINNIE
But Mr. Hills is my business manager and says I can do nothing without his oversight. Don’t you see, Mabel? When you have a position in the town you are not free.

EMILY
(Miming)

I never hear of prisons but I tug childish at my bars only to fail again!

MABEL
But a deed need not be recorded. It would be a secret, Vinnie, don’t you see? Then no one would know.

VINNIE
(Stunned into giving her real objection)

It need not? Sue would be so angry if she found out–

EMILY
Night is my favorite day. That’s why I love silence so. The infinite’s a sudden guest.

MABEL
I know the rages of the Black Moghul! To think she still stalks the sod while my King molders beneath it, his wishes forgotten! How can one endure! No, no, Vinnie, the Black Moghul must never know.

(Leans closer confidingly)

It will be our little secret.

EMILY
(Dancing)

Surgeons must be very careful
When they take the knife
Underneath their fine incisions
Stirs the culprit – life!

VINNIE
Well, it’s the patrimony – she’d find out. They all would know.

MABEL
But what about that tiny strip of meadow just in front of my house? Merely a little strip, Vinnie! Fifty-three feet by six hundred! And landscaped already – planted already to my – and my Master’s – choice. Nothing would be different.

EMILY
We are orchard sprung! I raised robins in that garden! If I helped one fainting robin I shall not have lived in vain. My flowers were disobedient. To be a flower is a profound responsibility.

(Sighs)

One clover, one bee and revery!
Revery alone will do if bees are few.

VINNIE
Nothing would be different?

EMILY
Silver scruples! The grass does not appear afraid. Perhaps its well our senses aren’t at home. Vinnie, your riches taught me poverty. Earth is short and anguish absolute.

MABEL
(She’s a hard worker)

Nothing! No money changes hands! Who would ever know?

EMILY
Back your morals with a mastiff and manners may prevail! Suspense – the gnat that mangles men! Suspense is hostiler than death!

VINNIE
You know I’d like to sign. Emily needs you to work on her book.

MABEL
Oh, that’s a gift of love! An honor! A privilege to perform these little tasks for the sainted singer of Amherst! Would you care to walk the property before you sign?

VINNIE
Oh, no. I walked there just last night. I often go when the moon is full.

(Hesitatingly, full of embarrassment)

I have faith that Emily is there.

EMILY
Faith’s a fine invention when gentlemen can see. But microscopes are prudent – in an emergency.

MABEL
(Uncomprehending)

Emily’s buried in the churchyard, Vinnie.

EMILY
(Passes her hands frantically in front of their unseeing eyes)

There are no dead. The grave’s our moan for them! A soul escaped the house unseen! Hands the grave has grimed place in our own, denying they have died. It’s not that dying hurts us so but living hurts us more. Unable are the loved to die, for love is deity.

VINNIE
Her spirit, Mabel. Of course that is what I mean. Oh, how she loved that meadow! She used to say the sunshine was a sacrament and the breeze communion wine!

EMILY
(Crosses herself)

In the name of the Bee and the Butterfly and the Breeze – Amen!

(Clutches her chest)

What shall I do? It whimpers so, this hound within the heart! If sinew tore and soul seesaw, lift the flesh door and give the poltroon oxygen!

(Threatens)
Vinnie, an imperial thunderbolt will scalp your naked soul!

MABEL
Yes, certainly. We will treasure its honor intact – for her.

EMILY
(Asking the audience)
I lost a world the other day – has anybody found?
You’ll know it by the row of stars around its forehead bound.

VINNIE
(Postponing the fearsome moment)

I don’t have my spectacles.

EMILY
We grow accustomed to the dark when light is put away. Spiders sew at night without a light and conscience reads without its glasses on revelations’ wall.

MABEL
That’s fine, Vinnie. We will need a witness at any rate.

VINNIE
A witness? Shall I call Maggie?

MABEL
A lawyer of course, Miss Lavinia! What did you think?

EMILY
A lawyer! To extricate suffering humanity from its hopeless ditch?

VINNIE
But Mr. Hills –

MABEL
(Finger to her lips, shakes her head complicitly)

Mr. Spaulding! Mr. Spaulding!

(A proper Victorian gentleman enters the room and doffs his hat)

MR. SPAULDING
Oh, Miss Dickinson, it is such an honor to attend you!

MABEL
Mr. Spaulding is from Northampton.

MR. SPAULDING
Greetings to you, good ladies.

EMILY
And marrow of the day to you. The sun took down his yellow whip and drove the fog away.

MR. SPAULDING
(He looks around with relish)

To tread the selfsame boards of the Belle of Amherst is such a privilege, as God’s my witness!

EMILY
If belles are kangaroos, good Sir! Charm invests a face imperfectly beheld.

VINNIE
(Softening)

You’re an admirer, Sir?

MR. SPAULDING
Yes, indeed. How I should like, how I would do my utmost in your service if I could discreetly touch any item, anything – on which she laid her hand.

EMILY
Utmost is relative. None see God and live. Alas, my body’s as unnecessary to me now as boots to birds. My every scar’s a gem. Are you a gem collector, sir?

VINNIE
This is her tea set here. She won prizes for her Indian bread – Father would eat no other. I wish Maggie could duplicate it.

MR. SPAULDING
(Picks up a teacup -– studies it and is overcome)

Oh. Oh.

(He declaims)

Because I would not stop for death
He kindly stopped for me.
The carriage contained –

VINNIE
But just ourselves

MABEL
And immortality. Such delicate insights!

MR. SPAULDING
Who could plumb the secrets of that heart?

EMILY
Sir, thoughts we will not show are more intimate than persons that we know.

MABEL
(She thrusts the paper at Mr. Spaulding.)

Miss Dickinson would like this deed of transfer properly witnessed.

EMILY
Madness is divinest sense to the discerning eye. Much sense –
Seems starkest madness. Assent and you are sane. Demur –
You’re straightway dangerous and handled with a chain.

VINNIE
(Panicked)

For just the meadow, now! The little strip of meadow!

MR.SPAULDING
Six hundred by twenty-two hundred feet, is what it says here. A transfer of land you understand.

VINNIE
(Ruffled)

Of course I understand! My signature goes where?

MR. SPAULDING
(Produces a tablet and helps her with her signature.)

If you’ll just dot that there – there you go. Right as rain. Now if I may just peep into the Poet’s conservatory? Where she cherished her blooms in our cold hard winters!

EMILY
We are a vivacious climate, kind sir. Curiosity is a Garden in the brain. The goodwill of a flower is minted holiness.

MR. SPAULDING
(Looking thirstily about)

She loved too well, they say. And that was why she never left her home.

EMILY
This dirty little heart inside its freckled shrine – not with a club was it broken but with a whip. So small you couldn’t see it.

VINNIE
(Very excited)

We each bore up under terrible disappointment. We clung only each other. Such cold winters! So hard!

(She is getting worked up about MR SPAULDING)

The conservatory has fallen into sad disuse I’m sorry to admit. You see, neither Maggie nor I can spare the time –

MR. SPAULDING
And we’re none of us getting younger, are we?

EMILY
Vinnie runs all day with her tongue abroad, like a summer dog. She has always been the pert one, gifted with Poetry of Motion. Oh, Vinnie! I have a strong surmise that moments we have not known are tenderest to you!

(SPAULDING pockets tablet and paper and offers VINNIE an arm)

MR. SPAULDING
I’m so fond of literary ghosts!

EMILY
My art had patrons – once a queen and once a butterfly. My splendors will entertain the centuries when I am dishonored grass whom none but beetles know.

VINNIE
This way, Mr. Spaulding.

MR. SPAULDING
(His hand on hers along his arm)

Please call me Timothy. I’d like to think of us as friends.

MABEL
(Watching them wryly)

Well, I’ve got a great deal to do if I’m to get the latest volume to the printers before I go to Japan. Mustn’t tarry.

(Bustles out. They all leave EMILY alone)

EMILY
She speeds as petals of a rose offended by the wind. Frigid and sweet her parting face – frigid and fleet my feet. Penury and home – who was she to withhold from me?

(To the audience)

Endow the living with the tears you squander on the dead! Twice have I stood a beggar before the door of God! I stunned myself with bolts of melody. The rumor of delirium was a hope so juicy ripening I almost bathed my tongue, but… We outgrow love like other things and put it in the drawer. Eden’s not so lonesome as New England.

(Clutches her chest)

A pain so utter swallows memory up. They shut me in the cold and they themselves were warm. You forgot but I remembered – I recalled enough for two. We tell a hurt to cool it. It is good that we are dreaming – it would hurt awake. I dropped this world like a bundle.

(Declaims)

Softness suffuses the story
Silences the teller’s eye
The children have no further questions
Only the sea reply.
Dominion lasts until obtained – possession just as long.
But everlasting are the lips known only to the dew
These are the brides of permanence, supplanting me and you.

(Lights out)