Alysse Aallyn

scene 9

(Curtain rises on a Massachusetts courtroom in the 1890’s. Judge seated at center; witness box directly beneath his high lectern, bleachers to left and right. Buzzing noises of excited crowd)

JUDGE
(Banging gavel)

We will have order in this court! Mr. Hammond, call your witness!

EMILY
(Pretends to bang the gavel too)

The Unknown is the largest need of the Intellect!

(Ruffling the JUDGE’s hair)

He fought like those who’ve naught to lose
But death was coy of him. He was left alive because
Of greediness to die!

(Purses his chubby cheeks as if he’s an infant. Of course he ignores her)

A little madness in the spring is wholesome even for the king!

HAMMOND
I call Miss Lavinia Dickinson to the stand.

(EMILY bangs the gavel)

EMILY
Grief is a mouse! Grief is a thief!

(VINNIE makes her way slowly to stage center. She is wearing a ridiculous hat trimmed with ridiculous homemade, home picked flowers.)

HAMMOND
State your name for the record.

(EMILY bangs the gavel)

EMILY
Grief is a juggler! Grief is a gourmand!

(Loud whispered aside to judge)

Anger soon as fed is dead. T’is starving makes it fat.

VINNIE
I am Miss Lavinia Dickinson of Amherst. I have always been Miss Lavinia Dickinson and I have always lived at the Dickinson Homestead in Amherst.

HAMMOND
Except when you lived at the Dickinson Mansion.

(EMILY bangs the gavel)

EMILY
There will be mourning, mourning, mourning at the judgment seat. The dangerous moment is when the meaning goes out of things.

VINNIE
Eh?

HAMMOND
Where you were born.

VINNIE
Well of course I was born!

EMILY
Tell the truth but tell it slant, little sister. The truth must dazzle gradually or every man be blind.

HAMMOND
Raise your right hand, Miss Dickinson. Clerk, Bible!

EMILY
Can dumb define divine?

VINNIE
Well naturally I keep my own Bible.

(Feels in her apparently endless bag)

It was Emily’s Bible, too.

(Excited sighs of crowd. VINNIE opens the Bible, and then bats at her face.)

EMILY
Laid away, I’d hoped, where moth cannot corrupt. It was a subtle moth, in its mothy way.

HAMMOND
Do you solemnly swear to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God?

VINNIE
(Triumphantly shaking the Bible)

I do indeed!

(Holds it to her chest)

EMILY
Truth is old as God; his twin identity. Excess of Monkey, Vinnie! As Father used to say!

HAMMOND
Now Miss Dickinson, are you accustomed to business and taking care of your own property?

VINNIE
Not in the slightest. Mr. Hills always acts for me.

HAMMOND
Miss Dickinson; is this your signature on this document?

VINNIE
No.

(Sensation.)

VINNIE
That is to say, it’s my autograph.

EMILY
Vinnie, Vinnie! Up from the pit you spoke!

HAMMOND
Do you recall the occasion of giving this autograph?

VINNIE
I have been very painfully reminded.

EMILY
Whether she has forgotten or is forgetting now or never remembered it is safer not to know. Miseries of conjecture are a softer woe than is a fact of iron!

HAMMOND
You invited Mrs. Todd to the house?

VINNIE
(sniffs)

I never invited her. She was in the habit of coming to copy my sister’s poems. They needed to be copied. My sister’s is a very difficult hand.

HAMMOND
But on this occasion of which we speak did she bring with her a gentleman?

VINNIE
Between seven and eight in the evening. She brought a friend to hear about my late sister. He so cherished her memory.

EMILY
What a prank of the heart! We met as sparks – diverging flints subsisting on the light we bore before we felt the dark!

HAMMOND
Did you give him an autograph?

VINNIE
She asked me to sign a paper. I do not recall Mr. Spaulding speaking to me on the subject. He did not point to the seal where I should sign; Mrs. Todd pointed to it, and I signed. That is all that I remember about it.

HAMMOND
(Triumphantly)

Witness is dismissed!

HAMLIN
(Defense Attorney steps forward)

One moment. Miss Dickinson. A few more questions if you please.

(VINNIE subsides back into her seat.)

Mrs. Todd frequented your house, did she not, to assist you with your late sister’s papers?

VINNIE
She asked for the privilege of doing it.

EMILY
(Shivering at his silky voice)

Zero at the bone! It must be cold because the trees shiver. The leaves are gay, but elderly. Nature gives us all her love – but science will not trust us with another world.

HAMLIN
Wasn’t the transfer of this tiny – this disputed strip of land – a strip directly fronting Mrs. Todd’s residence – understood to be her recompense for the arduous labors of preparing your sister’s books for the press?

VINNIE
No.

HAMLIN
No?

VINNIE
Isn’t that business? Mr. Hills takes care of all my business. That’s settled and gone.

(Washes her hands)

EMILY
A word is dead when said some say. I say it just began to live that day. An unsifted girl, I thought that words were cheap and weak. Now I can’t conceive of anything so mighty. They glow like sapphires.

JUDGE
Excuse me, Mr. Hamlin, but the Defendant responded in her Defendant’s answer that Mr. Austin Dickinson wished her to be compensated, not Miss Dickinson. Therefore the issue of compensation is quite irrelevant to this case.

He that is robbed and smiles, steals from the thief.

HAMLIN
Call Mrs. Todd as a witness!

(VINNIE bustles away, clutching her Bible. MABEL is elegantly, fashionably, glamorously dressed, a ship under full sail. Mr. HAMLIN proffers her a Bible)

HAMLIN
Do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you God?

MABEL
Naturally.

(Settles into her seat like a burrowing dove with gloves, veil, the whole bit)

JUDGE
Speak up, Mrs. Todd!

EMILY
It’s a rare ear that’s not too dull to hear. Your judgeship, this woman’s constitution requires stolen fruit. Perfidy were more genuine.

HAMLIN
You considered yourself a friend to the Dickinson sisters?

MABEL
I did. They were sadly housebound – Miss Emily entirely so. I offered myself up unto their service.

HAMMOND
(Rising up and chiming dangerously in)

You knew Miss Emily?

EMILY
Not precisely knowing and not precisely knowing not. We talked about each other though neither of us spoke.

MABEL
(An uneasy laugh – sounds like she’s lying)

I saw her flitting. I heard her. She was a recluse, as you know.

(Gathering confidence, trying to work the crowd)

She was never seen in church.

EMILY
Divulging why I shunned them would rest my heart but ravage theirs. Doesn’t anybody notice how wide and broad these church aisles are? It took hours afterwards to catch my breath. A lonesome glee will sanctify the mind. The cricket is earth’s utmost elegy to me.

HAMMOND
You spoke to her?

MABEL
We corresponded. She spoke to me.

HAMMOND
You spoke to her?

MABEL
Words! I never spoke to her.

(HAMMOND turns away satisfied)

EMILY
The only commandment I ever obeyed is “consider the lilies.” I could not bear to live aloud! It may puzzle the public exceedingly but my hard-heartedness gets me many prayers.

HAMLIN
(Resuming control, Ostentatiously reverent)

And Emily is gone.

EMILY
“Forever” is deciduous except to those who die. Sir, I have been introducing myself to planets.

HAMLIN
And following Emily’s death you received property from the Dickinsons? Property on which to build your house?

MABEL
Right next door to the Homestead! Within hail of the Evergreens! Naturally.

EMILY
(Mockingly)

Ah, the hollow awfulness of the world! Nothing’s so stale as yesterday’s surprise!

HAMMOND
(Interrupting – attacking)

And what did you pay for this property?

MABEL
(Produces a lace handkerchief – works it)

Oh, I don’t recall.

EMILY
We’d flee from memory – if we had wings.

MABEL
It was all arranged between my husband and Mr. Dickinson.

HAMMOND
Isn’t the deed in your name?

EMILY
Ah! Revelation is the seed of romance! How luscious is the dripping of February! It makes our thinking pink. I’m amazed that the fascination of our predicament does not entice us more.

MABEL
Everything is as Mr. Dickinson and Mr. Todd wished.

EMILY
Modesty befits the soul that wears another’s name.

HAMMOND
So it is fair to say no cash money exchanged hands?

MABEL
Of course no money changed hands! I was helpful – merely.

HAMLIN
(Attempting to resume control)

As would a generous lady act.

MABEL
A generous, generous lady. Quite.

HAMMOND
Offering what services in specific, if I may inquire?

MABEL
I was the only one to comprehend dear Emily’s uniquely gnomic poesies.

HAMMOND
Gnomic?

EMILY
(Crossing her arms)

Resurrection had to wait until they moved a stone

MABEL
Mystic. It was left up to me to explain her to the world from which she shut herself off.

EMILY
Believing what we don’t believe does not exhilarate. I dwell in possibility –a fairer house than prose. Gathering paradise in my narrow hands.

(Attempts to dance with Mr. Hammond)

Mortality is fatal; gentility is fine, rascality heroic,
Insolvency, sublime!

MABEL
(Modestly)

It was I who saw every one of Emily’s books through the press!

HAMMOND
Wasn’t that after Mr. Austin Dickinson died? But while Mr. Dickinson lived –

EMILY
Wild nights! Wild nights! Republic of delight!

(MABEL breaks out in noisy sobbing)

EMILY
I like a look of agony because I know its true.

HAMMOND
(Pressing)

Did Miss Dickinson tell you she has a man of business?

MABEL
Well of course I know Mr. Hills! I dine with Mr. Hills regularly! And his mother! A true lady! The sweetest –

EMILY
The sincere spite of the woman, rocking truth to sleep!

HAMMOND
Why did you bring your own man of business to a business meeting when Mr. Hills was absent?

MABEL
Mr. Spaulding is not my man of business!

HAMMOND
Then who is he?

MABEL
(Feeling in her purse for a document)

Mr. Spaulding is a Northampton attorney who was recommended to me as a witness for a very minor transfer of land.

(Produces document with great relief.)

I have his deposition here.

HAMMOND
And I have the disputed document here. It’s in your handwriting I see.

MABEL
It’s just a tiny strip of land! Six hundred feet by –

HAMMOND
Did Miss Dickinson inspect the property?

MABEL
(Nonplussed)
Inspect it! Emily’s meadow? On a freezing night!

HAMMOND
How was Mr. Spaulding compensated?

MABEL
Mr. Spaulding? Er – it was a gentleman’s favor.

HAMMOND
A gentleman’s favor?

MABEL
(Confused. Looks to HAMLIN for assistance.)

A lady’s favor.

EMILY
Now, that’s a bundle of nonsense!

HAMMOND
Had you ever met Mr. Spaulding before?

MABEL
He wished to see the poet’s house!

EMILY
Ah, the enchantless Pod! The suburbs of a secret a strategist should keep. Better on a dream intrude than scrutinize the sleep.

HAMMOND
And that favor was within your gift?

MABEL
Within my gift? No. But I was so often in attendance on dear Miss Vinnie.

HAMMOND
On Miss Lavinia Dickinson?

MABEL
Exactly. We were such great friends.

EMILY
My only friend was my lexicon.

HAMMOND
Wasn’t it Mr. Dickinson on whom you danced attendance?

EMILY
Sir! You are shallow intentionally and profound by accident!

HAMMOND
(MABEL’s mouth drops open.) Call Maggie Maher to the stand.

EMILY
Ah, Maggie! Maggie is a warm name, as home is the definition of God.

(MABEL rushes away sobbing, seats herself unobtrusively in the audience. Garbed in a simple shawl MAGGIE steps up holding her out Bible.)

HAMMOND
Do you swear –?

MAGGIE
I swear no oaths. I’ve never lied in my life. I’ve got my own Bible here – a present from the Dickinson sisters.

HAMMOND
You are maid of all work for Miss Lavinia Dickinson at the Homestead?

MAGGIE
So I am.

HAMMOND
You know Mrs. Todd?

MAGGIE
(A world of disapproval)

I do.

HAMMOND
You admitted her to the house?

MAGGIE
Mr. Dickinson admitted her. Mr. Austin Dickinson. After that she let her own self in. Sometimes they would take a whole day out in the carriage and ask me to put up a lunch. I always put one up. He sent her messages at any hour of the day or night, and I had to carry them.

(Sensation)

EMILY
Oh, Maggie! Remorse is memory awake! Departed acts are a cureless disease!

HAMMOND
Did Mrs. Todd give you a reply?

MAGGIE
Only to say, “Tell the Master I am always ready.”

(Wild buzzing of crowd. JUDGE stirs uneasily.)

HAMMOND
Did Mrs. Todd discuss any business arrangements of compensation for editorial work in your hearing?

MAGGIE
She talked about it all the time. She called it a “labor of love”.

HAMMOND
You knew Mrs. Todd had received a piece of land to build her house?

MAGGIE
(Crossing her arms disapprovingly)

I did. Mr. Dickinson arranged that in spite of everyone. Mrs. Dickinson was ever so grieved.

EMILY
Oh, Maggie, Maggie! You had better starch the geraniums!

HAMMOND
Did you see Mr. Dickinson and Mrs. Todd together?

MAGGIE
She embraced him. She called him “my King” and “you dear old man.”

(Sniffs)

But they were together alone behind closed doors most of the time. While poor Mrs. Dickinson was closed up in mourning for her son.

EMILY
I watched her face to see which way
She took the awful news.
Whether she died before she heard
Or in a protracted bruise.

HAMMOND
(Bringing us back on track – speaks to the audience with satisfaction)

While Mrs. Todd and Mr. Dickinson were alone together behind closed doors at the Homestead?

(Crowd gasps. Lynch mob noises. MAGGIE nods.)

MAGGIE
Hours at a time. That’s what their consciences allowed them.

EMILY
Ah, the smitings of conscience! If there’s one thing to be grateful for, it’s that one is oneself and not somebody else. Faithful to mystery. The rest is perjury!

JUDGE
(Banging gavel)

I am ready to rule!

HAMLIN
But your honor –

EMILY
Bring out the stocks and the long-lashed whip! If your nerve denies you, go above your nerve! Can there more than love and death? Tell me its name!

JUDGE
I am ready to rule! Where testimonies are irreconcilable, one must look at habits of life. Miss Dickinson, a gentlewoman of sixty years, lives alone with her maid in the house her grandfather built, and was very quiet, and of a retiring disposition. She knows nothing of the world or of business and her testimony gives a sufficiently clear picture of the refinement of her life and the urgency, secrecy and misrepresentation of the defendant.

MABEL
(Rising)

Oh!

JUDGE
On the other hand the defendant is very much a woman of the world. She has not spent her life in seclusion in this little town of Amherst. She has the business experience of extensive travel as a public lecturer.

MABEL
Oh!

EMILY
Two swimmers wrestled on a spar
Until the morning sun
When one turned smiling to the land –
Oh God! The other one!

JUDGE
Clear case of fraud and so I rule! Deed is voided, land is returned, Defendant to pay costs. Court dismissed!

EMILY
Eyes in death still begging – raised
And hands beseeching, thrown!

(Watches participants file out.)

How happy was I, could I forget how sad I am.

(Lights out.)