“How often do the trains run?” Gina asked suddenly.
Angela was momentarily rendered speechless. “Trains run where?”
“Anywhere. Say, to Boston?”
“Gina!” That was Mimoo. “Don’t even think about trains or Boston. You are not allowed to go to Boston.”
“I’m just asking a question, Mimoo. I’m allowed to ask questions, no?”
“No!”
“I don’t know about trains,” Angela said. “I don’t go to Boston.”
“You don’t go to Boston?” Now it was Gina’s turn to be speechless.
“Not since the day we came. And Verity has never in her life been. Why do you need a train to Boston?”
“I don’t. Just curious.”
Salvo elbowed her. “No,” he said. “Not even curious.”
“You leave me alone.” She moved away.
“Gina,” said Mimoo, “stop your lollygagging and help me unpack the trunks. We need fresh clothes. Train to Boston—ignore her, Angela. It’s dinnertime soon.”
Dinnertime! Gina couldn’t believe it. On top of all its other sins, Lawrence swallowed time.
They unpacked as best they could and helped with supper. They had spaghetti with tomato sauce and clams, “caught fresh yesterday!” The bread was good, as was the homemade Buffalo mozzarella, though Salvo later, and privately, pointed out to Gina that his mozzarella was much better and Gina pointed out to Salvo that the two rooms they had stayed in yesterday were much bigger.
After three glasses of wine, Mimoo began to cry about Alessandro and Antonio, and Gina took that as a cue to leave the table, because she knew that once her mother started, her mother would not stop. She went into the bedroom and lay down on the blankets on the floor. She didn’t even look out the window because there was nothing to see except the alley behind Canal Street.
But when she closed her eyes, she heard the bagpipes and the barrel organ and the wedding mandolins, saw the beautiful people in their urban haze, riding uphill in cable cars and trolley cars, and a busker with a harmonica on the jammed city street, who played and sang. On her first disillusioned night in her new home town, Gina fell asleep to the memory of the singing man, yearning that someone someday might want to win her heart like the pretty girl had won the heart of the lonely musician.
“Since we met I’ve known no repose, she’s dearer to me than the world’s brightest star, and my one wish has been that someday I may win the heart of my wild Irish Rose …”
Chapter Six
A SUNDAY IN A SMALL TOWN
“BARRINGTON is the heart of the American way of life,” Ben Shaw would add after he had introduced his friend Harry as the son of the man who founded and built a town entire. It was the way he had introduced him to Alice, a few years back, whom they both wanted to impress and were even more impressed when she wasn’t, and it was the way he had introduced him to Gina, whom they both wanted to impress and were even more impressed when she was.
And what a small town Barrington was. By train or stagecoach, close to Boston, the thriving hub of the Northeast, Barrington nested in sloping oaks and bushy maples on hilly roads. From the top of the town square on a clear night you could see Boston’s downtown lights twinkling in the distance. This Sunday the deep green of the trees and the startling white of the houses and the church steeples were sleek with fog and rain. Herman Barrington could’ve built his homestead anywhere, on a thousand acres with a mile-long winding driveway, like his brother Henry, but he chose instead to live four blocks from Main Street, in a stately but traditional colonial estate right off the sidewalk, from which passersby could glance into his bay windows. And when the family and their friends gathered in the drawing room or the library, sipping their drinks, fire crackling, amiably chatting, they could also see all the way down the wet and winding street.
This Sunday afternoon, as every other, Esther Barrington waited with her brother in the library, adjacent to the drawing room. Harry only pretended to wait. He was reading. The fire was on, their drinks were at their sides. She sat in the wingback, staring out the window.
“Is that staring out the window longingly?” asked Harry from the Chesterfield without raising his head. “Waiting for Alice, are we?”
Esther primly folded her arms. “I will not be mocked by you.”
“No?” He smiled.
“Oh, you’re brave now.”
“I’m not that brave.”
“Harry, I need to speak with you.”
“No.”
“You have to stand up to him.”
“No.”
“Ben and I can’t keep defending you.”
“You call what you do defending?”
“Don’t let him talk to you like that—and in front of Alice!”
“She finds him charming.”
“She finds everyone charming. That’s her gift. And soon she won’t. He’s planning to put you into quite a spot during dinner.”
“Just during dinner?”
“I’m giving you fair warning, brother. He is growing impatient.”
“Busy men are always impatient. What is it now?”
She took a breath. “Is Ben coming today?”
Harry glanced at her, amused. “Not just Ben but also his mother. Are you going to try to get on her good side?”
“Why would I need to? Stop being cheeky. Oh, Harry, you have to defend yourself.”
Getting up, he took his books and walked over to where Esther was sitting by the window in the leather armchair. He sat on the low footstool by her side, and, looking up at her, said, “But it’s so much more fun when you come to my Pyrrhic rescue, Esther. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Patting his head, Esther laughed. She had a good, hearty laugh, like a man’s—though she herself was nothing like a man. She was subdued and proper, never flirtatious or coquettish, but what reduced her occasional severity and gave her an ephemeral air was her skin: it was the color of parchment because she never went in the sun without a parasol, even on Revere Beach. Her translucence made her seem fragile, but despite her narrow bone structure, her thin face and nose, her slender slits of eyes, Esther was tough and strong. Her voice was the genteel voice of a well-born woman who was aware of her position, and yet its alto pitch made it sound as if she could swear like the sailors on the Long Wharf. She didn’t swear, of course. But Harry knew what she was capable of, should she so choose. “Let’s have it, Esther. What will it be about today? My future?”
“Yes, and no. Your and Alice’s future.”
“Ugh.”
Alice was the only child of Orville Porter who owned the Massachusetts East Timber Company, which supplied Herman Barrington with lumber for most of his construction projects. Alice was sporadically enrolled at the Society for the Collegiate Instruction of Women, which had a few years earlier begun offering university-level instruction to women, though without the attendant Bachelor of Arts degree. It had also renamed itself Radcliffe College, after Ann Radcliffe, a colonial philanthropist. When they first met, Ben had mentioned to Alice that Harry’s family were also colonial philanthropists, to which Harry said, how philanthropic could they have been? They still have all of their money. This made Alice laugh. So though Alice wasn’t swayed by Harry’s position in life, she was swayed by Harry.
They started dating, cautiously. That was two years ago when he was a sophomore; now he was entering his fourth and final year, and it occurred to him that they were still dating, cautiously. They were both still young, he reasoned, Alice barely twenty-one. Also, he had a few poorly developed concerns about their mutual suitability. He was bookish, while she was very much her father’s daughter, going on river drives up north to inspect lumber, walking in her thigh-high waterproof Wellingtons on the logs, wielding her branding axe and searching for imperfections. Did Harry really want Alice searching as assiduously for his? The fallen trees had no chance under her stern boots. She was known for limbing and debarking them herself. Mostly he felt
he was not good enough for her, and it was only a matter of time before she discovered it.
“Don’t worry,” Harry said to his sister. “I have everything in hand.” He looked down at the books on his lap, one of them a book he was thinking of doing his senior thesis on next year, a short story by Edward Everett Hale. Under it was volume four of the ten-volume History of the United States by George Bancroft, which he was supposed to be reading for his advanced seminar, but wasn’t.
Harry didn’t tell Esther how just last week he overheard from the open bedroom window his father and Orville and Irma Porter below on the lawn discussing the topic of their children. They talked of the proper way to do things in Boston: a family heirloom ring, a formal announcement, a modest but well-publicized engagement dinner, followed by a long, productive period during which Harry graduated and settled on a career, while Alice methodically planned their extravagant and very public nuptials. A high society ball, a fancy affair, the wedding of the new century. The way the three parents extolled the romance of it, Harry himself was drawn in.
Esther leaned into him. “He plans to ask you point blank when you intend to honor him with grandchildren.”
Harry whistled. “Isn’t that putting the cart before the horse?”
“He will ask you to put the horse before the cart.”
“At Sunday dinner? Well, better perhaps than the usual.”
“If by better you mean more mortifying, then yes. Why put poor Alice on the spot like that?”
Harry rubbed her hand. “Don’t fret, Esther. Look forward to the plank walk. I do.” They sat side by side for a few minutes. Esther seemed restless. “What’s the matter with you today?”
She shrugged. “Do I look nice?”
“As always.” And she did, with a bow in her ruffled peach blouse, a camel-colored skirt, subdued beige high-heeled pumps. Her fingernails were buffed and shiny, her makeup was light, she even wore lipstick. Esther always tried to look especially attractive on Sundays. She just seemed more anxious than usual today. “What? Tell me.”
“Nothing.” She sighed. “I think Father might be bringing someone for dinner. He told me to dress up a little.” She waved Harry off. “I don’t want to talk about it. How was your week? What are you reading? For school?”
“Yes, because you know me, school’s the only time I crack a book.”
“You know what I mean.”
“It does happen to be for a seminar I’m taking. Colonial America. Visions and Dissertations.”
She was distracted. “Did you and Ben work last week?”
“All week. The boats never stopped coming. Father is going to have to do something, convert one of his other buildings perhaps. We’re out of room. We rented the last two apartments Friday.”
“Talk to him about it at dinner. How is Ben?”
“Ben is, as always, fine. Soon you will see for yourself how he is.”
She stared out the window.
Presently a carriage pulled up and a youngish man popped out, not Ben. Esther sat up straight, emitted a small sound of distress and got up. “Put away your book, Harry. Someone’s here to see you.”
He glanced outside. “To see me?”
“Well, who is that man?”
The young clean-shaven gentleman was nervous and portly as he lumbered through the gate and to the portico.
“He looks as if he hasn’t started shaving yet,” Harry remarked.
The doorbell rang. “Louis, the door!”
Louis Jones, their butler, the man who ran the house, had been with the Barringtons since before the Civil War. They were supposed to call him Jones, but throughout their childhood they called him by his first name because that was what his mother had called him, and they couldn’t alter this when they got older. Louis and Leola were escaped slaves who made it to Boston in the late 1850s. They were hired by Harry’s grandfather and lived in the back of the house in the servants’ quarters, working for three generations of Barringtons. Leola died at eighty-seven a few years ago. Seventy-two-year-old Louis was almost completely deaf but pretended he wasn’t. “I hear the doorbell, you impertinent children. I’m right here.” He moved slowly, hobbled by arthritis and cataracts, but still retained his sharp tongue, his sharper memory and his shock of white hair. Esther and Harry joked that if he weren’t careful, the rest of Louis would soon turn white too. “I’ll drop dead before that happens,” Louis would retort.
“Who do you think that is?” Harry said to Esther with a glint in his eye as they stood in the doorway studying the young man at the front door.
“How should I know?” Under her breath she tutted.
At the back of the house, a heavy door creaked open and Herman Barrington’s firm footsteps echoed down the hardwood, darkly paneled center hall. “Elmore!” they heard him say. “Come in! How are you? Thank you, Jones. Would you please fix the creak in my office door, it’s getting worse. Do you not hear it? Come in, Elmore. Let me introduce you to my children.” As Herman walked by, he appraised them—Esther briefly, Harry longer, his son’s frockcoat, his pressed herringbone trousers, his starched white shirt and gray vest. Harry slowly took his hands out of his pockets. He knew his father found that habit obnoxious.
The sister and brother exchanged a mute look. Elmore? they mouthed.
Fumbling with his umbrella, the plump man awkwardly removed his coat and hat and then dropped them all, one by one. Louis helped him pick everything up, as the three Barringtons stood and watched. Herman was tall, gray, stately, impeccably groomed and crisply dressed in a chocolate sports coat and tan slacks. He looked like a male, more elegant version of Esther.
Elmore was dwarfed by Herman.
“Elmore Lassiter, I’d like you to meet my daughter, Esther, and my son, Harold.”
Harry shook Elmore’s soft hand. “Please call me Harry.”
“Yes, thank you,” the young man said. “Please call me Elmore.”
With great amusement, Harry glanced at an exasperated Esther.
“When is everyone due to arrive?” Herman asked. “They’re running late.” His punctuality was legendary.
“Not for another thirty minutes,” Harry replied. But he didn’t carry a watch on Sundays.
“Shall we take our drinks in the drawing room? No, let’s go outside. It’s a beautiful day. Jones!”
“I’m right here, sir.”
“Ah,” Herman said. “There you are. Please tell Bernard to hold dinner so it doesn’t burn.”
“Dinner won’t be ready for another ninety minutes, sir.”
“Well, let’s hope the tardy guests get here before then. Otherwise, Elmore, we’ll just have to eat the entire feast. Bernard is a wonderful cook. Would you like a refreshing mint julep? Esther, come, please. Would you like a tour of the house? Esther will be glad to show you around. Perhaps there’s time for a walk. Have you been to our little town before? No? Well, it’s a fine place.” Herman’s hand went soothingly around Elmore’s tense shoulder as he led him down the enormous high-ceilinged hall to the French doors that opened into the yard. “Esther, Elmore is a resident at Mass General … surgical unit, is that right?”
“That’s correct. I’ve got another two years of residency.”
“It’s a good thing you’re at Mass General and not City Hospital,” Herman said to Elmore as they exited the house onto the rolling and manicured lawn. “I hear they’ve closed five or six wards there, including the men’s surgical unit.”
“Oh, yes,” said Elmore. “You’re quite right. The men’s, the women’s, the medical beds, even the gynecological ward.”
Harry and Esther were following close behind. Speechlessly they turned to each other. “Did he just say what I think he said?” Esther whispered.
Harry shook his head. “Get your mind out of the sailor’s gutter, Esther,” he said. “Honestly. What kind of gentleman would he be, saying something like that in the presence of a lady the first time he meets her?”
“Or even the fiftieth. Fat
her,” Esther called, pulling Harry to a stop. “I’m going to run back and get my shawl.”
“I’m going to help her,” said Harry, and turning, they hightailed it back inside through the open doors. He put his arm around his sister. “That’s what you get for gallivanting with medical students. I don’t know how you’ll be able to resist.”
“Who said I’m going to resist, Harry?” countered Esther as they ambled through the center hall, both having no intention of going back outside. Lightly she shoved her brother. “Father continues to make the vulgar error,” she said, “that to a woman, love is her whole existence.”
“Isn’t it?” said Harry, at the very moment Ben opened the front door and walked in unannounced, followed by his mother and the three chattering Porters.
“Mrs. Shaw, hello, how good of you to come today,” said Harry to Ben’s mother. Ellen Shaw was the epitome of deceptive appearances. She was tiny and round, had a pleasant nondescript face, an unfashionably short, austere hairstyle, was friendly to strangers and carried a benevolent smile. Yet she was Harry’s brother-in-arms when it came to unpopular political notions and a lot less silent about them at the dinner table.
Carrying a bunch of yellow bananas like flowers, Ben headed straight for Esther. “Est! Look what I have.”
“Oh, no. Not bananas again.”
“Esther, you simply must develop a taste for them.” Ben pulled off one of the bananas like a rose and handed it to a reluctant but smiling Esther.
“You mean a distaste,” said Esther, taking one from his hands. Her entire demeanor changed. She became soft like chiffon, almost girlish.
A pristine Alice approached Harry.
“Hello, darling,” she said, raising her face for a kiss.