#emma stringfellow

Henry Hopkins needed looking after. His cuffs were just this side of frayed and his collar was barely starched; his coat was made of a fine navy broadcloth but hadn’t been properly brushed. The crease in his trousers could not, by any stretch of the imagination, be called sharp and his boots had gone far too long without a polish. If she were tempted to consider the ravages of the journey as explanation, she had only to look at Dr. Foster. His linen was snowy, his every aspect precise—this was Mary’s work, as was the fondness in the man’s dark eyes, his hand at her elbow. Henry had been left alone for a long time. Too long.

Emma had taken it all in a glance. She could not afford to gaze upon him and risk his notice or worse, Frank’s. Henry, Mr. Hopkins as she should call him even to herself, would pity her and her husband would not let her sleep a wink, railing at her until the sun rose if he suspected she looked at Henry with the regard anyone other than a stranger would merit. She had learned to look at flowers, at the sky, at her hands at work, in such a way that Frank saw nothing else. She had learned to conceal everything that meant anything.

“Mrs. Stringfellow,” Henry said in greeting. He was very solemn, even more so than he’d been when she’d first met him. She’d swept past him then, intent on Tom and showing those Yankees what a Southern lady was made of, her curls bobbing and her hoops swinging wide; she hadn’t thought then to memorize the small smile he gave her.

“Mr. Hopkins,” she said. He hadn’t brought a wife with him and she knew she would thank God for it on her knees before she climbed into bed and turned on her side, away from Frank. She should wish for his happiness, for his contentment, and she didn’t. Perhaps he had been right in leaving, leaving her behind for a battlefield.

“It’s been—that is, I never imagined, to see you again—” He was fumbling for words and she was wordless, far too taken with him in his dusty traveling clothes and his gold-rimmed spectacles and the insistent, intrusive phantasy her heart supplied of the life she hadn’t had: the tall brick house on a leafy street that belonged to a professor and his wife, that rang with the cries of happy children, a canary’s trills, a fire’s homely crackle in the heart. Of nights lit only by the moon, of moonlight reflected in his blue eyes.

“Dear Emma!” Mary exclaimed softly, rescuing them both. The look in her brown eyes said she knew and knowing, cared for them both. She took Emma’s hands in her own as she smiled up at Henry. Emma saw how it calmed him, how Mary had once again found a balm. “It is so good to see you again. It’s so good to be among our friends.”

“Dr. Foster doesn’t seem as enthused,” Emma remarked. He was watching them with a furrowed brow. She saw, despite his vigor, how much older he had become. She saw how he only cared for Mary and somehow, despite their marriage, how he longed for her still, as if she would never be won. Never be his.

“You mustn’t admit I said it, but Jedediah does not make a good traveler. He misses the comforts of home, his laboratory, his library,” Mary confided in such a warm, amused tone someone might not have noticed her apprehension if they had not been listening very carefully. If they had not learned to listen to every note, for the lives that depended on it.

“He misses the boys,” Henry said. “As you must as well.”

“I cannot say aught but that I do. I shan’t bore you with my maternal doting, Emma, and Henry already knows all about them. They have cost him a fortune in buttons and bootlaces already,” Mary said. Henry smiled. They must visit regularly, Mary’s children must call him Uncle Henry and clamor him to play, to take them for a ramble in the woods or scouring the seashore for shells.

“They’re good boys, very lively, as curious and determined as you might expect any children of Jed and Mary Foster to be,” Henry said.

“I shall rely on my faith that my aunt has them well in hand and failing that, Mrs. Hutchins and Essie,” Mary said. Emma braced herself to be asked if she had also left little ones at home but Mary was thoughtful as ever.

“I wonder if I can ask a favor of old friends,” Mary said. “Henry, would you come with me to talk to Jedediah? I sense thunder-clouds gathering, a storm better dispelled by a friend perhaps, than a wife.”

“Of course,” he said, as they all knew he must. Mary had managed it neatly, ending the interview as it became unbearable, leaving Emma to her own devices without specifying them, without leaving her alone with Henry. She might have expected as much, though she had not expected to see Mary rest her hand on Henry’s arm, the one he offered to her without comment; she had not expected to see how obviously Mary relied upon his strength.

“Emma, I hope we will have an opportunity to sit down for a cup of tea, though I admit, that would be a novelty for us in this place,” Mary said in parting. Henry did not say anything, only looked down. It was the best farewell he could give her.

“Certainly. I’d like that,” she said, finding the truth sweet to say, unfamiliar. Mary seemed to have a way of drawing candor from all around her. It made her a good friend, a good person.