Children of Liberty Page 21

  Harry continued. “They were keen to open a place. There were two great locations. They presented this investment idea to me and Billingsworth. You know I know nothing about business, Alice. Not a thing.” Harry sped up, like the steady rattle of a jackhammer. “So he and I went out there and made an assessment. Billingsworth was the one who decided to take a chance. I couldn’t have done it without him. He forecast it could be profitable. And my father is correct—so far so good. The restaurants have only been open a few weeks. Ben, now that you have a little free time, we should ride out there and take a look together.”

  Ben said nothing at first. Then he spoke, into his china plate, into his empty tumbler. “I don’t have much free time. My plate is full. No time to ride trains.” He wiped his mouth with a napkin and stood up. He didn’t know where to look.

  “Harry,” said Esther, frowning, puzzling, “is that where you’ve vanished to the last three months? We’ve hardly seen you!”

  Ben’s hands started to tremble. Harry nearly snapped at his sister in full view of the guests. “I haven’t disappeared, Esther. I live at Beck, remember, not at home. I’ve been working hard on my course. Salutatorian of my graduating class, lest you forgot. Not a lot of free time. Billingsworth helped me out a lot. He’s the one who mostly supervised the renovations.” Billingsworth wasn’t present to confirm or deny the frequent supervisions. It was all Harry could do not to glare at his father. But Harry wouldn’t dare lift his eyes to see the lowered confounded head of his friend. The table got an odd hush over it.

  “I’m sorry, Harry,” Herman said, suddenly catching the drift of the chill in the sunny air. “I hope you’re not upset with me for speaking out of turn. I know we wanted to keep it quiet, but you said yourself it was only until the business got off the ground. And it seems to have gotten off the ground splendidly. I wanted to share your great success at this table. I didn’t want my friend Orville besmirching your fine efforts.”

  “I didn’t know he was making such a commendable effort, did I, Herman?” Orville bellowed.

  “You don’t have to worry about my boy,” Herman said to Alice’s father with a delighted smile. “Harry is easing himself into the life he chooses, though, as always, temperately. That’s one of his strongest qualities, his lack of impulsiveness.” He smiled fondly at Alice. “He is like a compass, my Harry. Says little but always points in the right direction.”

  “Oh, I agree with you, Mr. Barrington,” cooed Alice. “I agree with you wholeheartedly!”

  Neither Harry, nor Ben, nor Esther looked at each other or anyone else at the table when Herman Barrington proclaimed so unequivocally his son’s steady navigation of the uncharted course.

  With barely a bow, Ben excused himself, saying he would be right back, and fled. Getting up himself, Harry leaned over his sister to whisper to her. “Nicely done. Well played.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she whispered, smile glued to her lips like a ventriloquist, who speaks but doesn’t move his mouth. “You’ve got no one to blame but yourself.”

  “Blame myself for what? I did nothing wrong.” Harry was not a ventriloquist.

  “R-r-really?” She rolled her r’s without moving her grimacing mouth. “Then why didn’t you tell him?”

  “Why did you tell him? I didn’t tell him because I was doing nothing wrong and didn’t want to upset him. But you told him I was never home, which isn’t true in any case, because you thought I was doing something wrong. Why did you want to upset Ben, Esther?”

  She almost threw down her gloves onto the manicured lawn. “My intentions are pure,” Esther said through suddenly closed teeth.

  “Oh and mine?” Harry retorted. “I didn’t tell him because his feelings are more important than the silly truth. I thought they might be more important to you too, of all people. Clearly I was mistaken.”

  Esther blinked away tears, looking at the grass and her cream court shoes, her fingers tense like claws. “I didn’t realize he’d be that upset,” she said to Harry. “Why don’t you ask him,” she said quietly, “why a year later he keeps pining for someone who feels nothing for him?”

  “Of all people, Esther, surely you must know the answer to that question,” Harry said coldly, storming away to find Ben.

  He caught up with him down the street when Ben was already some distance away.

  “Sorry, I’m in a rush,” Ben said, not slowing down and not looking at Harry. “I’m doing a presentation on engineering structures for the Army Corps tomorrow as part of my interview portfolio, and I just realized I’m woefully unprepared.”

  “Ben, come on,” Harry said. “You left your mother just sitting there, you didn’t thank my father, didn’t say goodbye to me, to Esther.”

  “Please sincerely apologize to your father and to your sister. I’m not myself.”

  “Ben.”

  The dark-haired young man kept walking and said nothing. He loosened the tie around his neck, as though it was choking him, then ripped it off.

  “Dear friend, please, don’t be upset with me.”

  “I’m not upset.”

  Harry reached out to get hold of Ben’s arm. Reluctantly Ben slowed down and stopped. The two men stood in front of each other on the sidewalk, dressed as if for a wedding.

  “Benji, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  Harry willed himself not to look away. “Because I didn’t want to upset you. That’s the honest truth.”

  “You didn’t tell me because you didn’t want to upset me?” Ben repeated slowly and incredulously.

  “Why do you sound so surprised?”

  “Um, I don’t know. Maybe because … that’s the stupidest thing I ever heard?”

  “Ben, don’t be upset …”

  “I’m not upset. But you should’ve told me, Harry. Told me what you were up to. I know we’ve both been busy, but it’s not like we haven’t seen each other. We just had lunch at Hasty Pudding two weeks ago.”

  “Yes, with eleven other men.”

  “What, hardly the time for confidences?” asked Ben.

  “I have nothing to confide. It’s all tediously above board.”

  “Why would it upset me if it’s above board?”

  “Not if. It is. But you tell me. Why are you cross with me?”

  “Cross? Not me.”

  “Ben.” He reached out to his friend. “You know I’m going to ask for Alice’s hand.”

  “Do I know this?” Ben said, unmollified.

  “What you’re thinking, it’s not proper. Or possible. More important, it’s not real.”

  “What I feel for her is real.”

  Harry lowered his head briefly. He didn’t know what to say. “You haven’t seen her since November,” he said quietly. “You’re this close to shipping off to Panama.”

  “So? What is your point? And not at all close—just like you are to marrying Alice.”

  “Then very close. Look, it was just to help her brother …”

  “Why do you care about helping him?”

  “That’s what my father’s business is. We help the immigrants in North End. This time they’re a little further north. It’s the same principle. It’s just business, Benji.”

  “If it was just business, why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I didn’t want to upset you for nothing.”

  Ben remained silent. Harry took that as an opening. “Ben, I’m seven years older than her. Can’t you see that what is impossible for you, is doubly impossible for me? Honestly, it doesn’t bear speaking about.”

  “Soon she will be sixteen,” Ben said.

  “But you and I will be twenty-three!”

  Ben rubbed his eyes, his face. “Jiminy Cricket. Sixteen is so damn young.”

  “Yes.” Harry took one shallow breath with shattered crystal in it.

  “Oh, Harry!” Ben exclaimed, almost like his old self, but with injury in his eyes and voice. “Why didn’t you j
ust tell me?”

  Why didn’t Harry have a quick enough reply? He feared that his friend, while diligently working on bringing the canal to life, dreamed every day of someday having the belle of Belpasso be old enough to no longer withstand his full-hearted, half-hearted advances. “I was afraid of confrontation,” Harry finally said. “You know how much I don’t like a contretemps. I didn’t want to have one with you, of all people. We’ve never had any trouble between us.”

  “No. We never have.”

  They shook hands, giving each other a quick hard hug.

  “Will you come next Sunday for afternoon tea? Tomorrow we’re not entertaining. And all next week I’m moving my things back home. But then it’ll be just you and us. My father misses you. Esther, too.”

  “And Elmore too.” Ben rolled his eyes. “Did you see how famished he was for a fight with me? He is so deliciously hostile. Will he be there?”

  “I’ll make sure he isn’t so we can avoid all that hostility, delicious or not.” Harry shook Ben’s hand again. “Benj, are we square?”

  Ben almost smiled. “We’re square,” he said.

  2

  Next Sunday arrived, and Ben came. He greeted everyone, almost like normal, even teased Esther. “Where is Elmore, Esther? Oh no, he’s working! What a shame. And on a Sunday too. No rest for the wicked, I suppose. Harry, did you rest today?”

  They had drinks outside, because the weather was again splendid and sat for their finger sandwiches and scones under the covered gazebo. There was a slight breeze, no flies, and the gin and tonics were refreshing. Herman, delighted to see Ben at his house once more, peppered the young graduate with questions.

  “Ben,” he asked, “is it true what Harry tells me?”

  “I don’t know. What true thing does Harry tell you?”

  “That United Fruit offered you a full-time position, and meanwhile the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers presented you with a spot on the Panama Commission. Are you trying to decide between United Fruit and the Army Corps of Engineers?”

  “Yes,” Ben replied. “Unlike Harry, I’m actually trying to choose a career.”

  “Quite wise of you,” agreed Herman, glancing slightly perplexed at Harry. “Which way are you leaning?”

  “I’m vacillating. Afraid to make the wrong choice.”

  Herman laughed. “Well, that sounds very much like Harry.”

  Ben shook his head. “No, sir. I know for a fact it isn’t. Your son is enjoying an entirely different kind of problem.”

  Harry put down his gin and tonic, which suddenly didn’t seem quite as refreshing, sensing veiled hostility.

  “Oh, really?” Esther asked, curious. “And what do you think is my brother’s problem?”

  “A deep and abiding aversion to toil.”

  Ah, so not even veiled. Frowning, Harry said nothing to defend himself, averting his eyes from his discomfited sister.

  “What did you say, Ben?” That was Herman. “I didn’t quite hear. I’m beginning to sympathize with Louis …”

  “Nothing.”

  “I’ve been hitting the books for four years,” Harry said slowly. “Eight if you count Andover.”

  “And it isn’t all Harry’s been hitting,” returned Ben.

  No one knew how to respond to that comment, so no one did. It was all so unlike Ben. Esther studied her blackberry jam and clotted cream. Herman studied both his son and his son’s friend.

  “I’d say most of Harry’s efforts have been largely chimerical,” Ben continued. “Except of course for the extravagance of his labor in Lawrence—but what’s that all about? I hardly know.” He paused. “Perhaps it’s a labor of love?”

  “Oh, it’s definitely that,” agreed Herman, looking around for Louis. “But also, perhaps Harry is finally finding his way.” He gave up and rose to pour his own cocktail.

  “Yes, perhaps,” Ben said casually coldly. “Or … perhaps it’s like Joseph Conrad says, there are some men to whom the whole of life is nothing more than an after-dinner hour with a cigar.”

  “Don’t knock after-dinner cigars, dear boy,” said Herman jovially. “They’re a delightful and well-deserved treat.”

  “Easy, pleasant,” Ben said. “Empty.”

  Herman returned to the table with his drink. They sat without speaking. Harry wondered if it would go away, if they could all pretend for just a few weeks, and then all would be forgotten and things would go back to normal.

  It had started out a fine Sunday. Where had it gone wrong? The briefest thought flickered in Harry: are we trying to put back together something that’s irreparably broken? Harry refused to believe it. Nothing in life was like that.

  Almost nothing.

  But he had tried very hard to arrange his own days so that nothing in them would be like that again.

  Chewing his lip, and concluding yet again that even the smallest of truths led only to vast unpleasantness, conflict to nothing but ugly scenes, extreme emotions only to hurt, Harry swallowed Ben’s bitter words and tried to leaven the table with self-deprecation. “I’m trying to attain perfection through little more than thought and reflection, Benjamin. Is that so wrong?”

  “Ah, is that what you’re trying to do? Attain perfection?”

  “Why not?”

  “Because that’s not a project worthy of us Christians,” said Ben. “That’s a project for ideologues and dictators.”

  “Ideologues, you don’t say.”

  “Ideologues like Marx,” said Ben.

  “Marx was an ideologue? Well, count me in.” Harry raised his crystal tumbler filled with untouched gin and tonic.

  “Is there perfection and freedom in being a Marxist?”

  “Why not?” Harry said. “We’re not bringing you Marx by the sword, are we? Congregations of people get together and through a democratic process decide how they want to shape their own destinies.” He paused. “Which is what I’d like to do.” He stood up. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I think the sun has gone to my head. Thank you so much for an enjoyable afternoon. Ben, Esther. Excuse me, Father.”

  Ben caught up with him in the galley between the family eating room and Herman’s study. “So now you’re walking away?” he said.

  “I’m not feeling quick enough on my feet,” Harry said. “Or with my tongue. I feel dull. I feel like …” He broke off. “What’s wrong with you?” he said to Ben coldly. “I thought we were square.”

  “Oh, we were, we were,” Ben said, just as coldly. “Until a minute after I left you and was on my way home last week, when it occurred to me that I forgot to ask you a small but all-important question.”

  Harry didn’t want to be asked anything.

  “Are you still cantering off to Lawrence every day of the week and twice on Sunday?”

  His face falling, Harry said nothing.

  Ben stepped away, opened his hands. “And you wonder why we’re not square.”

  3

  Motionlessly Harry sat in the drawing room. He asked Louis to build up the fire, though it was blistering hot in the late evening. For some reason he was cold, like the moon had gone out. He felt blackly depressed. It was decided: he knew what he had to do, what he must do. He had no choice. He didn’t have even the illusion of freedom. To save the only life he knew how to live, he knew what had to be done. Why then did it make him feel like a seaborne vessel from which all men had fled, leaving her to sink alone?

  He didn’t have long to sit and commiserate with himself. His father called him into his study. Reluctantly Harry followed Louis down the hall. He wished he had gone upstairs so he wouldn’t have been bothered tonight. Perhaps a good night’s rest would rid him of his malaise.

  “Harry, sit down.”

  Reluctantly Harry sat down. “Elmore suggested a nurse he works with at Mass General,” he began, launching into a campaign of distraction. “According to Esther, Elmore said she is quite capable. Rosa something or other. Would you like Esther and me to interview her this week now that I’m home? She wo
uldn’t be a replacement for poor deaf Louis, merely an additional pair of hands.”

  Herman ignored him. “Later about Louis. Tell me about Ben.”

  “What about him?”

  “Don’t be obtuse. What’s got into him?”

  “I don’t know. A bad mood, I reckon.”

  “Why?”

  Harry shrugged.

  Herman folded his hands. “He seemed uncharacteristically hard on you.”

  “Perhaps I deserve it.”

  “Ah. Now we’re getting somewhere. What have you done?”

  “I said perhaps, Father. I don’t know.”

  Herman wiped a speck of dust off his wood desk, straightened out some papers in the corner, fiddled with the inkwell next to his quill pen. “I overheard some of your conversation with him in the hall earlier.”

  Harry folded his own hands. If he had been standing, he would’ve put them in his pockets, the way his father hated. “So if you know, why ask me?”

  “But I don’t know anything.”

  “It was hardly a conversation. Two sentences.”

  “That’s why I’m still ignorant,” said Herman. “I was hoping you could enlighten me.”

  “I’m trying to enlighten myself.” Though opening his eyes was not such a wonderful thing.

  “I also had a chance to speak to your sister.”

  “I’m glad, Father. Will there be anything else?”

  “What do you mean, we just sat down.”

  “Surely you don’t need me to hear that you talked to Esther. You do that quite frequently,” Harry said. “After all, you are related. Also, you live in the same house.”

  “Son, don’t be upset with your sister. She only wants the best for you. As I do.”

  “Do you?”

  Herman frowned. “Of course. I would have liked this Lawrence situation to be something foundational, not built on the ever-shifting sands of your mercurial nature or another passing whimsy. I had been so excited to help set you on your way. Esther, however, seemed to indicate … but no. I have to ask you directly, and be straight with me, don’t give me your runaround. Is it real?”

  Harry didn’t answer for a few minutes.

  Not long ago she had brought him a dyed carded roving to open his eyes to wonders he didn’t understand. She had combed the wool and braided it and then steeped the plump spool in vinegar water colored with the deep juice of blueberries. The wool had dried by the time she showed it to him, and he touched it like he was touching a purple pupa—with the barest tips of his fingers. How does this become anything one can possibly use, he asked. With a breathless laugh she said—by magic. Like electricity. A week later she gave him a gift of a violet scarf, soft and scarlet like bloodied down. But in that untouched week she and the roving went into the chrysalis together. She emerged on the other side of Tuesday floating in a pink sunshine dress, and the sheep fur in her hands became a faint millstone around his neck that he took with him to Beck Hall. Near the scarf fringe an ivory letter “H” was knitted. He asked: for Harvard? For Harry, she replied.