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The narrator explains that Emily suffered a long illness following this incident. When she resurfaced, her hair had been cut short, and the narrator likens her appearance to that of a “tragic and serene” angel.
Not long after, the town contracted workers to pave the sidewalks. A construction company, under the direction of a northerner called Homer Barron, was awarded the job, and the laborers began the work the summer after Emily’s father’s death. Homer soon became a popular figure in town; children would follow him about, delighted to hear him cussing out his workers, and it wasn’t long before Homer, often found at the center of a laughing group of townspeople in the square, knew everyone. He was seen taking Emily on buggy rides on Sunday afternoons, which at first placated the town, relieved as they were that Emily “would have an interest,” but eventually became a scandal. The townspeople felt that, by becoming involved with a man below her station, Emily was forgetting her family pride; Homer, though well-liked, was a Northerner and a day laborer, and clearly not of Emily’s standing. They expressed a wish that her relatives would come and rescue her from a socially disastrous marriage, mentioning kinfolk in Alabama who had fallen out with Emily’s father over old lady Wyatt’s estate and had not been present at the funeral.
As the affair continued and Emily’s reputation was further compromised, she held her head high; she was the last Grierson, after all, the narrator tells us, and as such knew she must possess a certain level of dignity. A year after the town had begun to pity her in earnest, and while she was being visited by two female cousins, Emily went the drug store to purchase poison—“the best you have,” she informed the druggist. By now she was over thirty and thinner than usual, though with cold black eyes. When questioned, Emily suggested arsenic. Though required by law to reveal how she would use the arsenic, Emily offered no explanation, simply staring at the druggist until he complied. He didn’t reappear, instead giving the wrapped package to a Black delivery boy to hand to Emily. She returned home and opened the package, which was labeled “For rats.”
