Someone I thought I knew...someone I would never know.

Photo by Nick Stephenson on Unsplash

Dear Tara and Anthony,

“What terrible deed was this which I had done…?” Thus, begins Chapter 9, with a declaration of Vera’s fear that when still a child, she killed Miss MacIntosh and did so, “only perhaps by opening my eyes.”  Vera asks, had her eyelids remained sealed, might Miss MacIntosh still be alive? What did Vera see that still haunts her all these years later, and how did this new-found knowledge lead to her nursemaid’s disappearance or death?

For all of the drama and suspense of Chapter 9, I am reminded of how very funny many of Vera’s memories of Miss MacIntosh are, not because her nursemaid could be silly or fun-loving (she never was), but rather the extreme and serious attitude Miss MacIntosh always maintained in raising Vera.

Miss MacIntosh was with Vera from her seventh year until the month following her fourteenth birthday. Their time together, according to Vera, was full of her own self-deception as the two kept up the task of “playing at good housekeeping.”

Miss MacIntosh was Vera’s “cross to bear,” always interfering with her “contraband thoughts.” Miss MacIntosh constantly barking orders to fetch her sewing things or volleying rapid fire questions about geography, the constellations, or the genealogies of the Moody Bible. Although Vera’s reflections are serious, I cannot help but chuckle at Miss Macintosh’s exaggerated habits and stock phrases.

“When she was a child, her underclothes had been made of bleached flour bags.”

“Though her father had been a poor shoemaker as well as a coffin-maker, she had worn broken, hob-nailed shoes or none, and she expected to have no coffin.”

“Winter and summer Miss MacIntosh insisted that the windows be kept open at night, for our health’s sake. Winter was so cold, we both wore earmuffs in our section of the house.”

“Sometimes she would dust her face with an old feather duster.”

And poor Vera, all alone and so naïve and impressionable, has no defense against Miss MacIntosh except quietly, privately feeding her own imagination. “Though I would be busily sewing or ripping out stitches, I was also living a totally different existence from any medium she, in her wildest apprehensions of disaster, could have imagined.”

It's interesting to think about Marguerite Young’s choice to make Miss MacIntosh so extreme--the caricature of a puritan nursemaid from a forgotten century. Did she wish to invite some levity in the lead up to this most traumatic episode in Vera’s life—the night of her fourteenth birthday? Does the unnatural bearing of Miss MacIntosh demonstrate how impressionable Vera was? Or perhaps Miss MacIntosh’s character simply is indicative of the extreme characters and situations in the novel?

Whatever the reason, I enjoyed laughing at Miss Macintosh, while at the same time feeling pity for her apparent plight. Either Miss MacIntosh’s demeanor is an act for Vera’s benefit, or the result of a very sad, isolating past, bereft of authentic relationships and genuine connection.

The humorous passages in the first half of Chapter 9 are nestled among others that portend tragedy.

“In seven years, I had lived with a stranger, someone I thought I knew. In one month, I had lived with a dearly cherished friend, someone I would never know.”

“There was no incident until I came to my fourteenth birthday…that day was the beginning of the end.”

What follows are some of the most eventful chapters of the eighty-two that make up the novel. I’m looking forward to exploring these with you. Like so much of what we’ve read so far, these pages will raise many more questions than they will answer. But what a beautifully rendered journey it will be!

With open eyes,

Lori