Afternoons with Emily Read Free Page A

trade. Then they returned to Mount Vernon Street, and — after the round of family dinner parties to honor
     the newlyweds — my father unpacked his books and settled into his father-in-law’s mansion.
    If there were acquaintances who whispered that my father had sought to better himself by marrying up, they were mistaken.
     He loved comfort and convenience and beautiful things, but he was incapable of scheming to achieve them. He loved to travel
     and buy books and presents, but he had indulged himself in these ways when he was poor. Since he spent almost all his waking
     hours in the Athens of Pericles, it is quite possible that he never noticed the ease and elegance of his new setting. He slept
     on Beacon Hill, but by day he looked upon the agora from the acropolis.
    Perhaps in my father, Marian had found the perfect partner. Wrapped up in his own world, he would never attempt to invade
     or intrude into hers. And she would not make demands of his time or attention, leaving him to visit with the ancients. Neither
     noticed or missed the daily interactions, the entanglement of lives that other marriages entailed.
    My own story begins at 32 Mount Vernon Street, where I was born on September 16, 1843. I was installed on the fifth floor
     — the “nursery floor,” up under the roof. My parents resumed their tranquil parallel lives, undisturbed. Father read and studied
     and taught. Mother supervised her father’s servants; she dressed beautifully and skimmed French novels. Very occasionally,
     they dined out.
    If my parents ever asked to “see the baby,” then someone must have carried me in — all ribbons and shawls, like a squab on
     a garnished platter. The rest of the time I was cared for by Irish nursemaids. At three months, I was christened Arethusa,
     soon shortened to Ara by my grandfather, who I am told loved me dearly.
    How I have searched my memory for the faintest trace of this gentleman! I retain only a huge, warm presence, a prickly kiss,
     a sense of being welcome and valuable. It is family lore that he would have me brought down at breakfast every day. He would
     hold me on his lap while he read the morning paper and tell me when to turn the page — and they say I never wriggled once.
     Father must have observed this often, to tell it so well when I would ask him.
    My first actual clear-edged memory is of Grandfather’s winter funeral — though the concept of death was meaningless to me.
     I remember the great snorting black horses, wearing curling black feathers and silver jewelry; they stamped and steamed in
     the cold. I remember the fresh, bright snow on the cobblestones and the quiet crowds of people in black. Their sharp shadows
     were blue on the snow, violet on the pink brick houses. This was in February 1846; I must have been two and a half.
    When summer came that year, the big house was suddenly noisy with hammers and saws. Jolly red-faced men came and went, shouting
     and spitting in strange languages. I begged to see all this, and my bored nursemaid would take me downstairs to watch the
     carpenters working. They were changing my grandfather’s old bedroom into a new room for my father’s books.
    When the loud carpenters disappeared, the house settled back into dense silence. My father vanished into that study, barely
     emerging. Sometimes I heard the heavy front door open and close; sometimes I heard the tall clock strike the hour calmly;
     but usually my big house kept its unbroken quiet.
    My lively, sociable relatives all lived nearby, up and down Beacon Hill, in high, bay-windowed houses like mine. My mother
     seemed to me a whole other species than my brisk, busy, talkative cousins and great-aunts. I used to stand at the street windows
     of our famous double parlor on the second floor. From there, I would see my aunts and cousins passing in carriages or crossing
     to call on one another. They were always in twos and threes, talking earnestly. Sometimes they would look up and