Children of Liberty Read online

  “But you just said you didn’t.”

  “But say I did. What if I told you I wanted children?”

  She drew rings on his chest with her graceful fingers. “I would want what you want,” she said at last. “That’s the truth. Left to my own desires, I wouldn’t have children. But if that’s what you wanted, then I’d want to make you happy. Perché ti amo.” She stared at him in the big bed in Chicago while down the street the anarcho-syndicalists were drumming out their historical grievances, making speeches, rousing crowds. “Il mio cuore,” she said, “isn’t that what love is? Trying to make happy the ones you love?”

  “I don’t know what it is,” said Harry. “I suppose we’re about to find out.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  EARTH’S HOLOCAUST

  1

  THE train returned them to Boston late on Friday night, and after dropping her off at Evans Hall, Harry took a carriage and appeared at his own house in Barrington, stealthy like a thief. Everyone was sleeping except Louis, who was sitting in the drawing room, napping in a chair by the extinguished fire.

  “Louis, what are you doing? Why are you up?”

  “I was not up,” Louis said, slowly rising, “until you woke me. Are you hungry? Do you want me to prepare a plate for you?”

  Harry was famished. Louis knew this. He walked with the butler down to the basement where the kitchen was and sat at the cook’s wooden table, while Louis set out the utensils and brought the plate of food he had left all prepared and covered.

  Harry tore into the cold meat, some potato salad and bread.

  Louis stood by the door, waiting for Harry to finish.

  “Are they angry?”

  “I don’t know what you mean, sir. Why would they be angry?”

  “Are they upset with me?”

  “Why would they be upset?”

  “Are you playing games with me?”

  “No, sir.”

  Harry put his plate in the sink and was about to go upstairs.

  “May I just mention, sir, this is not the suit you left here in, five days ago.”

  Harry was wearing a much less smart suit, now wrinkled, a traveling suit.

  “You’re observant, Louis.”

  “I know your clothes, sir. I know your best attire when I see it.”

  There was no bow tie, no crisp white shirt with gold cufflinks, no polished patent shoes. “Yes, this definitely isn’t it. Well, goodnight.”

  “Yes, goodnight, Master Harry.”

  The next morning he was awakened by shouting from downstairs.

  “Louis, go get him immediately! What time did he come back? I told you to wake us as soon as he walked through the door, why didn’t you do so? Louis, where did he say he was? What do you mean you didn’t ask? Go wake him, right now!”

  Harry spared Louis by coming downstairs. “Esther,” he said sleepily. “Why are you shouting?”

  “Harry!” Esther was red in the face. “Where on earth have you been? You ran out on Monday saying you’d be back in a little while.” She hadn’t even dressed, or done her hair. That was so unlike Esther. She looked pale and disheveled.

  “I’m back now,” Harry said calmly.

  “Five days, Harry! That’s not back in a little while! That’s vanishing!”

  Harry’s father was in the family dining room, in his usual spot, drinking his tea by the picture window, silently.

  “Where did you go? We were worried sick.”

  “To Chicago. Why were you worried? I’m a grown man.”

  “You went to Chicago.” Esther repeated it dully. “Why?”

  “For the IWW convention.”

  “For the what?”

  Herman stood up from the table, from his empty cup. “Esther, enough. Harry, why don’t you come into my office? Esther, dear, please get dressed. Ben is bound to be downstairs any moment. You don’t want him to see you in your housecoat.”

  In Herman’s study, father and son sat across from each other, separated by a giant wooden desk, not speaking. Harry’s hands were on his lap. Herman’s were on his desk. He was studying his hands, not his son. He looked through some papers, putting on his glasses to do so, then took the glasses off again and finally stared at Harry. “Billingsworth has been reporting to me some unusual spending patterns from you in the last few months,” Herman said. “There have been odd expenditures here and there.” Herman shrugged. “As you told your sister, you’re a grown man, and it was none of my business. I thought soon enough you would have to answer to a number of new people. I didn’t want to burden you with a pointless interrogation.”

  “Unlike now?”

  “But with this latest,” Herman calmly continued, “you’re making it my business, unfortunately. Do you want to tell me what’s going on?”

  “Not really,” said Harry.

  “Why did you go to Chicago?”

  “I don’t know if you’ve read about it in the papers …”

  “Please don’t tell me you went to Chicago for the socialist conference.”

  “Industrial Workers of the World—but yes.”

  “Is that why you’ve been going to Portsmouth? And Newburyport? And Revere? Is that why I’ve been getting invoices from the Vendome? I’m surprised you’ve heard of the Vendome, much less been frequenting it.”

  Harry and Herman sat still. Time passed in ticking silence before Harry spoke. The study was quiet like a tomb, no sounds from the outside, no windows open, no creaking—just two beating hearts with a desk between them, a life, a past, a life past.

  “I’m sorry, Father.” Harry took a deep breath. “There is no good way to say it, no good way to tell you. But …” He broke off, collected himself again. Then exhaled and raised his eyes. “I don’t want to marry Alice.”

  Herman was unmoved. “Is that what Chicago was? Cold feet? It’s a little late for that, don’t you think?”

  “Is it?” Harry said quietly.

  “The wedding is the weekend after next.”

  Harry sat motionless.

  “Son, you’ve had eight years to vacillate.” Herman was measured. “You’re scared. That’s understandable. I was terrified before I married your mother.” They both lowered their gazes. They had never spoken of how that turned out.

  “I’m not scared, Dad.”

  “Then what is it?”

  Harry’s mouth twisted. “I just don’t want to marry her.”

  Herman nodded shortly, matter-of-factly. “You’re scared.”

  “No. I just … I can’t marry someone I don’t love.”

  “Nonsense. Of course you can. And how could you stop loving someone before marriage?”

  “What do you mean?” Harry frowned. “Better than after. Truth is, I never loved her.”

  Herman shook his head. “I don’t believe you.”

  “I don’t know how else to say it.”

  “Why would you agree to marry her?”

  Why? Because it was the right thing to do? Because we were a good match? Because it’s what everyone expected of me? Because our fathers have been in business together for fifteen years?

  Harry said none of these things. He suspected his father knew most of the reasons.

  Herman made a pacifying paternal gesture. “Son, maybe it’s better that way. I loved your mother when I married her, and look.” They stared into their separate spaces when Herman spoke those words. “You think your sister loves the dolt of a man she is with?”

  “The dolt you foisted on her?”

  Herman waved off the comment. “They’re also a good match.”

  Harry didn’t want to tell his father that had circumstances been different and Ben hadn’t run off to Panama leaving his sister desolate, Esther would have never agreed to wed Doctor Good Match.

  “You should have thought of all this before today.”

  “I’m not thinking of this today. You’re asking me. I’m telling you.”

  Herman pondered, then shrugged philosophically. “Well,
nothing to be done about it now.”

  Harry stood up. “Here’s the thing, though,” he said. “We have to fix it—”

  “There is no fixing it.”

  “All right, but come a week from next Saturday, I cannot stand before the altar of God next to Alice. So I need to figure out what to do.”

  “If we’re going to do that, figure things out, I mean, why did you get up right now as if you’re ready to leave?”

  Harry sat back down.

  “Harold,” Herman said in an even, no-argument voice. “I realize you’re having a crisis, and I don’t mean to”—he took out and stared at his pocket watch, then out of the window, at his son—“make light of your concerns. Certainly I don’t have to remind you that seven hundred people are coming from all over this country and a number of others to share in your celebration.”

  “You don’t have to remind me.”

  “Many of them are already here.”

  “How could I not be conscious of this,” Harry muttered.

  “What? Oh, yes. Conscious indeed,” Herman said pointedly. “Josephine is surprisingly clear-headed for someone who is at death’s door.”

  “How—how do you know?”

  “I went to visit her.”

  Harry stammered. “When?”

  “Two days ago.”

  “Why?”

  “I went to visit her,” Herman replied, “because she is sick and needed company. But also, we were very concerned about you, I don’t have to tell you that either. You must have known what your infantile disappearance would do to your family, to Alice, to Ben. I went to see her because I thought she might know where you were.”

  “But she didn’t.”

  “No. That part she did not know.”

  Father and son said nothing. Harry felt Herman’s eyes on him but he’d be damned if he would meet his father’s gaze.

  “Your wedding, which we have been planning for two years, is the event of the summer, of the year—hell, of the decade,” Herman said, gliding over fragile yet clear-headed Josephine like he was on ice skates, even though what was unsaid was like a glacier beneath his blades. “The wedding dress hand-made in Paris, the Grand Ballroom at the Algonquin, where dukes and princes marry, the field of exotic flowers, the first-class rooms for the attending guests, which, in case you forgot, include the Mayor of Boston, the President of Harvard, the Governor of Massachusetts, a Supreme Court Justice of the United States, several old and infirm authors, several critically ill friends of our family, and the Secretary of Defense!”

  “I didn’t forget,” Harry said quietly. “I know all this. I’m very …”

  “The details have all been taken care of,” Herman interrupted. “Only one thing is left. And that is for you to walk down the aisle and wait for your bride.” His voice thundered. “You know we cannot cancel it. This isn’t a tawdry scandal, Harry, this is your life.” He folded his papers as if the conversation was done.

  But Harry knew it wasn’t done by a long way. “I’m sorry, Father.” He kneaded his hands. “Truly I am.”

  “Sorry for what?”

  “Father, I can’t m—”

  “Harry, I have been more than patient with you, more than. But in one minute I’m going to lose my temper. I called you in here not to argue as usual, but to talk some sense into you.”

  “It’s too late for that, I’m afraid.”

  They stared at each other. After a long moment, a muscle moved on Herman’s face. “Who is she?”

  Harry said nothing.

  “What? The cat got your tongue? Tell me. Shout it from the rooftops. If it’s love, don’t keep it a secret. Who is the girl?”

  “You don’t know her.”

  “I hope I do not. But who is the girl who brought Rose Hawthorne to Effie? Is she also a nun?”

  “Father, please.”

  “Ah yes. I shouldn’t think so. Harry, we might have to adjourn this meeting. You need time to think, and frankly I need time to calm down.” He looked remarkably composed when he spoke.

  Harry shook his head. “I’ve been doing nothing but thinking …”

  “No, you’ve been doing other things.” Herman raised his palm. “Harry, forgive me for stating the starkly obvious, but if you commit yourself to this plan of action, it won’t be just me you will show contempt for. The humiliation will not be just mine and Esther’s and yours. What about Alice? You might not love her, but why do you despise her and want to hurt her? She has been nothing but good to you. Her parents have treated you with kindness, like a member of their own family. Have you no regard for your friend Ben, who had to get special dispensation to take a month off work, just as crucial construction is getting underway on the canal and there are a number of personnel changes right above him? His job is in jeopardy because he took time off to stand by your side. His time, his effort, Alice’s wasted years, can’t be just another black joke to you. I refuse to believe you can be that cold-blooded.”

  “I will make it right with Ben.” Harry had to force these words out. He didn’t know how he was going to do that.

  “What about making it right with Alice?”

  Harry shook his head.

  “What about making it right with me?”

  Harry shook his head.

  “This isn’t just your life that’s going to be affected …”

  “That’s just it, Father. For everyone else, it’s a five-minute gossip.” He saw his father’s face. “All right, maybe an hour’s worth of idle talk.”

  Herman stood up. “Don’t degrade me by reducing my reputation that I’ve spent a lifetime building to nothing more than a byline. Don’t insult me. I’ve asked you to go and think about it. Are you refusing to do even that?”

  Harry just shook his head.

  “This has gone beyond the pale,” said Herman. “This is no small rebellion or feisty upheaval. If you continue on this path, you will ensure shame for our entire family, for my brother and his children, for your sister, her husband—it will be a stain on our good name. Everyone who has been associated with you or with me will be tainted by this. This will destroy my relationship with Orville. You know there is nothing that will make it right.”

  “Father, it’ll blow over. You’ll see.”

  Herman continued to stand, looking at his son with an expression that could best be described as disgust. “You are doing this deliberately. I refuse to interpret it any other way. This is a malicious act on your part, knowing how many people you are going to damage, how many personal relationships, how many business dealings, how many friendships you’re throwing away. This is an act of dismal disloyalty to your family.”

  Harry said nothing.

  And then Herman’s voice got lower and colder. “There are things you obviously don’t understand. But since you insist that you’re an adult, I’m not going to insult you by treating you like a child and explaining to you the simple things that every adult would know when finding himself in this situation. What I’m going to insist you do is leave my study and take stock of your life, of your future, of the duties before you. Come back to me tomorrow morning.”

  “Father, do you know what adults do?” Harry said, lifting his head. “They make their own choices.”

  “You understand nothing. This is not what adults do. Who ever told you this? Adults do two things—they work, and they face down their obligations. That’s all. But yours is the common curse of mankind—ignorance and folly.”

  “I am neither.”

  “You are both.”

  “This marriage is not just about how I feel about Alice. It never was. I knew that. I accepted it. But I didn’t care about it before.”

  “A week before your wedding is when you started to care?”

  “Yes.”

  “And that doesn’t seem malicious to you?”

  “You can’t choose who you fall in love with, Father,” said Harry. “Or when.”

  Herman was utterly unpersuaded. “You can absolutely choose wha
t you do about it.”

  Harry stayed silent.

  Herman tried again. “You say you fell in love,” he said, “but you won’t tell me who it is. You say you fell in love, but you’ve barely had enough time to take the girl out for a stroll down the Charles, much less to have a proper courtship. What do her parents say about this?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Splendid. So you haven’t discussed this with her family either. This affair is so serious that in the five minutes you’ve been dragging her to Seaside Cottage, you’ve managed to dishonor her too, taking no heed of her reputation such as it is—for she only might know, but I know you know that no self-respecting woman of any kind, of any stature, high or low, gives herself so freely to a man. Well done, Harold Barrington, my son. Well done!”

  “Don’t talk about her like that.”

  “What kind of family would let you take their daughter to hotels and guesthouses all over New England? Where is her chaperone, her own sense of any decency!”

  “Father!”

  “Don’t they keep watch over their own daughter?”

  “I won’t listen to this anymore.”

  “Only to the sound of your own voice, eh?”

  The fire of Harry’s interior monologue must have been evident by the chill on his face. “I don’t wish to discuss my personal life with you,” said Harry. “I have no intention of submitting a list of her credentials for your approval.”

  “Does she have that long a list?”

  Harry blinked. “This is not your little construction project in North End.”

  “No?”

  Harry trembled. “No. You have no earthly idea, none, what I feel about her.”

  “Of course I don’t! Why would I? How could I?” Herman was bitterly loud. “No one else but you has ever been in love! Why, they created the word just for you and your consort.”

  “Father!”

  “And you can’t have been feeling this deep and abiding love for long, Harry. The first bill from a bed and breakfast, or at least what I hope was a bed and breakfast, didn’t arrive at my desk until late May.”

  “Oh, yes, how could I forget? Daddy still pays the bills for his grown son.”