Free Afternoons with Emily by Rose MacMurray

tears.
    “Ah, little one,” Lettie said, patting my back. “This has been a fine day indeed.”
    The family met on the gallery in the bronze twilight; the clouds high over the eastern sea still held the last of the daylight.
     Dr. Hugh James was tall and thin and stooped like the blue heron we saw on the beach. He had smiling eyes like those of Uncle
     Thomas Bulfinch. His speech as he welcomed me was soft like Miss Adelaide’s.
    At table, the two men spoke the “big talk” of ideas, and I listened gratefully; there had been very little conversation in
     my life so far. I had never been included in family meals; we didn’t have them. Father, Mother, and I had not functioned as
     a family.
    “We never had the killings and the burnings they had on some of the other islands,” Dr. Hugh asserted. They were discussing
     the former slavery on Barbados and the lives of the natives when they were still slaves, some twenty years ago. I was relieved
     to know that young Lettie had never been a slave.
    A little sleepy from my big day, I looked around me. The large dining room was shadowed, lit only by candles in wall sconces
     and along the table. Each candle was protected from the constant wind by a crystal cylinder. But the centerpiece also shone:
     a silver bowl of enormous flowers, as creamy as a dessert. Miss Adelaide saw me studying them.
    “Magnolias,” she whispered, smiling. She was elegant in deep blue mull, like the shadows on the sea, with a little diamond
     constellation on one shoulder. After she had approved my dress and hair upon my arrival at the dinner table, she had settled
     into the role of an interested observer, allowing the men space to fill with their expansive talk. I didn’t get the sense
     that she wasn’t included — she occasionally slipped in a comment or directed a turn in the conversation, but she chose an
     active quiet. I imagined I could learn a great deal by following her lead.
    After supper, we went out to the gallery, where there were lanterns, each with its cloud of clumsy bumbling moths. Some of
     these looked as big as my hand — but I soon saw they preferred the lights to me. We sat on woven straw chairs, hearing the
     sweet air moving in the palms and — far off — a low dull roar like a dragon breathing in his sleep.
    “Do you hear that, Ara? That’s the surf on the eastern coast,” said Dr. Hugh. “We’ll take you there after a storm. Our Barbados
     waves are famous! And we have another treat for you next month: a Shakespeare evening. Our neighbors come and read with us,
     and we’ll want you to join us. We hear you’re a fine reader.”
    “Oh, I love Shakespeare!” Mr. Harnett had already introduced me to two of the lighter plays,
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
and
Much Ado About Nothing.
“I’d really like to read with your friends.”
    Lettie came to the gallery, and I curtsied my good nights. We went back down the grand stair, our oil lamp lighting our way
     through the arch and along the vaulted hall. Our shadows curved grotesquely on the ceiling. We came to my shutter door, my
     own beautiful, tall room — and I think I was asleep before Lettie had even untied my sash.
    The next morning Lettie brought me my eggnog and my banana — and a letter from Mr. Harnett.
    “Miss Adelaide is saving this greeting for you till after your first day at York Stairs,” she told me.
    So I began to read: “You and I worked for years together, preparing you for the new life you are starting now,” Mr. Harnett
     wrote. “Now you will apply all the knowledge you have in order to gain more! Every part of this experience will be a pleasure
     and a profit to someone with your gifts — and to others later. Every question, every new thought, will lead to another — and
     I will be with you always, as you are with me.”
    “Your letter-writing friend must think you are very important indeed to be sure this message reached you on your arrival,”
     Lettie said.
    I nodded, her