Page 64 of Because I Could Not Stop for Death

I had never thought of it that way. The more time I spent with Emily, the more she showed me there are different ways of thinking. In that way, she was like Henry. When I had looked at life as hard work and a list of rules to follow, he had seen it as something completely different. Henry had seen the world as a place of adventure and new opportunity. I was just plodding along trying to keep myself on the straight path. There was quite a bit I could have learned from Henry if I had been willing to listen. There was still quite a bit that I could learn from Emily.

“I have had suitors,” Emily went on to say. “Some would have wanted to marry me if given the right encouragement, but it is hard to find in the boys of Amherst more than a passing distraction. Why should I marry at all? I am comfortable with my family. Tell me how marriage can improve my life.”

I didn’t have an answer for that. “I can’t, miss.”

“In your case, the one improvement I see is love. He loves you. But love”—she paused—“it leaves little time for anything else...” She trailed off, and for a moment, she had that faraway look in her eyes again. “It leaves little time for anything else,” she repeated.

I took a breath. “I don’t know if he loves me. He might think he does, but that’s not the same thing. I—I think more than anything, he feels sorry for me because of my mother’s death and for the trouble that Henry has gotten into in the past. He feels sorry for me even more now that Henry is dead. He wants to rescue me, but that is not the same thing as love.”

She looked at me thoughtfully. “And do you need rescuing?”

I thought about her question. “I need to know who killed my brother.”

Emily nodded. “And that’s exactly what we are going to find out.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

I could not sleep at all that night. I twisted and turned on the settee that was too short for my long limbs. My mind was so occupied with the lost diary. How could I be so careless not to keep it with me at all times? What was I missing from its pages? I wasn’t just thinking of the murder or what Henry might have been up to in the final days of his life, but what little pieces of Henry I could have winnowed out of those pages to learn more about him and the man he was in the process of becoming. He was only eighteen when he died. He was gone far too young.

The next morning when the sisters came out of their shared room, I’d already had their breakfast and coffee ordered and delivered by the hotel kitchen.

Emily rubbed her eyes. “Willa, we are so grateful that we brought you here. I love walking into the parlor and being greeted by these delectable smells.” She poured herself a cup of coffee. Tucking the cup under her nose, she inhaled deeply. “This is just what I need for today. Mother is going to be very anxious about the dinner party tonight. Instead of sightseeing, Vinnie and I are staying at the hotel to help any way that we can.”

Miss Lavinia buttered a piece of toast. “Mostly, we are staying to keep Mother calm. We won’t be doing any of the heavy lifting.”

I had expected as much. I didn’t say this, of course.

“I’m sure there will be plenty for all of us to do today,” was my diplomatic response. Maybe I was getting better at speaking like a politician since working for the Dickinsons.

As it turned out we were all right. There was much to do to prepare for the dinner party. Where the sisters were concerned, it was a matter of going ribbon shopping for the perfect velvet ribbon for their hair, and I had to take Mrs.Dickinson’s dress to a seamstress at the last minute. It seemed that a small tear happened just beside the seam in the bodice. Only an expert seamstress would have the ability to mend it to the point that it could not be seen.

The tear in the dress reminded me that I hadn’t yet mended Matthew’s coat, and he would be at the dinner party expecting to get it back. I had no idea how I would give it to him without being seen.

While the sisters were out on their errand, I removed the small mending case from my carpetbag. I thought I had some navy thread that would be a perfect match to his coat. Most of the thread I had was in masculine colors. Henry had the odd ability to tear a sleeve or pant leg every week. We could never afford to buy replacements for the clothes he harmed, so it was up to my trusty sewing kit to save the day.

Sewing was a skill that I had struggled with as a young girl. As a child, I hated to sit still, and that was what sewing required. I preferred the tasks of cleaning, fetching water, and cooking; anything that involved movement was welcomed.

As I grew older, I found that if I sat still too long, I gave time to my thoughts. Sewing was a skill in which my mind could wander, and I didn’t like that. It was too easy to dwell on hardship and what I didn’t have. If I kept moving, it was much more difficult to do that.

My mother insisted that I learn to sew though. She said it was a skill that all women needed no matter their class.

“I can assure you, the president’s wife can darn a pair of socks. It is a required skill. I cannot send you into the world without knowing how to thread a needle, place a button, and mend a seam at the very least. If I don’t I will have failed you as your mother.”

“Why doesn’t Henry have to learn to sew?” I had asked. My voice had been especially whiny because I knew on this occasion Henry was traipsing through the woods with his friends while I was trying and failing to sew a button on straight.

“Henry is a boy. Sewing is women’s work.” My mother had opened her sewing box and was removing all the buttons, needles, and thread that we were going to use for that day’s lesson.

I looked at the window. It had been a Sunday afternoon. One of the few times that there was free time outside of school or cleaning for one of the rich families in Amherst. I wanted to be out tramping about like I knew Henry was. It wasn’t fair that I was stuck back in our tiny home while Henry was having a fun day.

“Mama, it’s Sunday. Can we have the lesson another day?”

“You know Sunday is the only time that I have any hope of teaching you children anything at all. Now please return your attention to the task at hand.”

I wasn’t ready to do that just yet. “You said that sewing is women’s work, but then why is the village tailor a man?” I asked defiantly. I thought that I had really pinned my mother into a corner there.

“Mr.Roscoe the tailor is European. That is different. An American woman needs to learn to sew, not an American man.”

I scowled. That logic had not worked for me, but ultimately, because I was an obedient child, I learned to sew, and now as an adult I even enjoyed it. Perhaps that is going too far. I didn’t hate it, which was a vast improvement from my childhood.

---