Harlan sat forward, suddenly exhausted. He was tired. He was tired of worrying about what he was supposed to do, tired of hiding, tired of trying to be the kind of man that he knew he was supposed to be. His side hurt. His split lip was sore. He brought his hands to his face, sinking his cheeks into his palms with a heavy sigh. The sigh was almost long enough to turn into a sob, but Harlan choked back the fear and shame rising in his chest with a gurgle. He felt, rather than saw, Benton’s expression grow both more concerned, but also softer.
“I know what you all must think of her,” Harlan began, his voice small behind his hands.
Benton waited. Then he asked, “Are you planning to marry her?”
Harlan held his head in his hands, shrugging his shoulders.
“She’s . . . I want to, Ben, I want to, so much. But I don’t see how. . . .” Harlan left the thought unfinished.
Harlan heard the professor shift his arms on the desktop, as though one hand were worrying the gold band that he still wore on his left ring finger.
“She ran off from her family. In California. She’s been on her own for ages. She goes on the stage. You think I don’t know what that means? It’s just that . . . I love her. I know I’m not supposed to. But I do,” Harlan said. He dropped his hands between his knees, head hanging, avoiding Benton’s gaze. He felt the weight of a hand descend on his shoulder. The hand squeezed.
“So I see,” the professor said.
Wiping the corner of his eye on the back of a wrist, embarrassed, Harlan struggled to his feet, shuffling them together in his haste to escape his admission. Benton’s hand fell from Harlan’s shoulder, and Harlan helped it go, shrugging him off.
“I should go,” Harlan mumbled to his feet.
Benton nodded, hands in his pockets. The two men stood like that in Benton’s office for a little while, each waiting to see what the other would do.
“Going to try to catch the game?” Benton asked, failing to sound jovial.
Harlan shook his head. “Nah. Too wet,” he said, eyeing the dismal spring world waiting for him outside in the Yard. “Guess I’ll just . . . Oh, I don’t know.”
Benton shifted his weight and made a noise of assent.
“Well then,” he said after a time. “Why don’t I have another word with the dean, and then we’ll just see where we are?”
“All right,” Harlan allowed. Head still hanging, he turned to leave.
As Harlan reached the office door, his cheeks scarlet with shame, he was waylaid by Benton’s clearing his throat. Harlan glanced over his shoulder to find the young professor rocking back on his heels, as though he had something else to say.
“Harley,” Benton began.
“Huh?” Harlan grunted.
The professor paused, one hand clasping his opposite wrist. “Ah. You’ll give my regards to Miss Allston, won’t you?”
If Harlan didn’t know better, he would have said that Benton looked nervous.
“Sure,” Harlan said, lowering an eyebrow before pulling the office door closed behind him.
Chapter Seventeen
Bosworth Street
Boston, Massachusetts
April 30, 1915
The door swung open on a merry crowd of fancifully hatted women, clinking glassware, low-hanging cigarette smoke, and the smell of cooking butter. Sibyl loitered in the entry, pulling off her gloves. She flopped them against her palm, craning her neck to look over the heads of the diners. She spotted him, pressed into the corner of a wooden booth, and Sibyl shot her hand up, waving to get Benton’s attention. Lifting his chin with an answering smile, Benton started to get to his feet, nearly shouldering aside a long-aproned waiter balancing a platter laden with covered dishes. The waiter unloaded a torrent of French on him that Sibyl gleaned rather than overheard, due to the ambient roar of the restaurant, and she laughed.
By the time she wove her way to his table Benton was standing, hands in his trouser pockets, ducking his head with embarrassment after his tongue-lashing. He took Sibyl’s hand in both of his and said, “I thought for sure I’d be thrown out of here before you made it to the table.”
“Serve you right if you did! He almost lost his Welsh rarebit, you know. That would’ve been a disaster,” Sibyl chided.
He helped her out of her coat, settling it on the hooks on the high end of the booth, and gestured for her to take the seat across from him. Sibyl didn’t usually dine in restaurants, and she enjoyed being in the noise and bustle of the room at midday. The restaurant, a venerable French institution in downtown Boston, echoed with wooden chairs scraping under the weight of diners, voices rising to make themselves heard over the din. The room was narrow, tiled in black and white, with a marble bar along one side and the row of wooden booths along the other. Several waiters swanned among the tables, platters overhead.
Benton gazed at her over his spectacles, and then looked down at the menu, chuckling.
“What is it?” Sibyl asked, noticing his laugh.
“Nothing,” he said, shaking his head.
“What? Now you have to tell me,” she insisted.
He looked back at her across the table with a small smile. “It’s nothing much,” he said. “You had the biggest grin on your face just now. I wasn’t used to it.”
Sibyl’s eyebrows rose, and she brought an abashed hand to her cheek. “I did?” A blush crept down her hairline, warming her skin.
He smiled more broadly. “You did.”
Sibyl laughed softly, through her nose, and hid behind the menu under pretense of studying it closely.
The indifferent waiter reappeared, jotting down Benton’s poorly accented order with a hint of disapproval, including a request for a pâté en croute over Sibyl’s napkin-twisting objections. Then, after they each swallowed a long drink of water, and spent the requisite amount of time admiring the surroundings, exclaiming over how delicious everything looked at other tables, and expressing relief that the rain had begun to let up, Benton leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table.
He hesitated, and then closed his hand over Sibyl’s where it rested next to her water glass. She twitched in surprise but didn’t withdraw. His hand felt warm to the touch, softer than she expected, but with a latent strength. The contact point where her skin met his tingled, and Sibyl swallowed, able to concentrate on his face only with difficulty.
“It’s good of you to join me,” he said. “I know you don’t usually . . . that is, I’m not accustomed to seeing you out and about. During the day.”
“Oh!” she exclaimed. “Well. I was glad for your call. It’s a treat, really. To have lunch.”
“Well,” he said. “I’m glad of it.”
Again, the awkward silence. “I suppose you know,” he continued, “that I spoke with Harley yesterday.”
Sibyl nodded, eyes on her salad fork. “That was good of you.”
“Well, your father asked.” Then he added with haste, “I was happy to oblige, of course.”
“Of course!” Sibyl agreed.
“Your family,” Benton said, “felt like a second home for me, you know. After my father . . . well.”
“Papa always liked you,” Sibyl said. “I think he’d have been happy for you to join the firm. If you’d wanted to.”
“Oh!” Benton exclaimed. “Yes. I never was much of a businessman, I’m afraid. And then, I was moving to Italy, so . . .”
“For Lydia’s health. I remember,” Sibyl said. She kept her voice neutral with difficulty.
“Right. Anyway,” Benton said, perhaps realizing his mistake, “I was happy to help.”
Sibyl shrugged, as if she could roll off the unpleasant memory. “Harley. He seems to be feeling better, I think. Though we’re no closer to him telling us anything.”
“I’d be surprised if he did. He’s an awfully proud fellow. And rightfully so.”
“Rightfully!” Sibyl exclaimed. She was on the point of pressing him when the waiter appeared, sliding a platter of mignons de porc bordelaise
with haricots verts before Benton, who waited, cutlery at the ready, and a small bowl of onion soup before her. She glanced at Benton’s plate of delicious steaming meat, into which he was sawing with gusto, and then looked back at the bowl before her, an inviting cap of browned cheese melting over its edge. Between them slid a baked pâté wrapped in pastry, as browned and crisp as leaves of burnt tissue paper. Benton was five bites into his dinner before she managed to pick up the soup spoon, dip it into the broth, and bring it to her lips.
“Yes, rightfully,” Benton continued, stabbing a tiny green bean with his fork. “You should try this,” he said, without asking, depositing the vegetable on her plate.
Sibyl blinked. She could hardly refuse. He would notice. And anyway, it was just a green bean.
“It’s normal for a man your brother’s age, or a bit younger, to push against what’s expected of him,” Benton said, chewing with evident pleasure. “All part and parcel of him figuring out what sort of man he wants to be. He looks at the rules bounding his behavior, and by God, he wants to test them.”
“Oh, there’s no one like Harlan, for testing,” Sibyl said drily.
Benton eyed her with a smile. “Could be worse. There’s no need to go into details, but I’ve spoken with the administration and gotten a clearer picture of what happened. I think, with some promises made to the right dean, we can eke him back in.”
“Well, that is good news. Papa will be so pleased.” She paused. “And what did happen?”
Benton laid his fork aside and looked at her over his spectacles. “If it’s all the same to you, Sibyl, I’d rather not mention the specifics. There was some”—he paused—“ungentlemanly behavior.”
Sibyl pressed her lips into a disapproving line, irritated. “Well, of course there was, Ben,” she said, laying her spoon aside with a sigh of impatience. “A boy doesn’t get asked to leave college for behaving himself too well, does he? I wish you didn’t feel the need to protect me from my brother’s considerable shortcomings. I can assure you I’ve a pretty good idea what they are already.”
“Have you?” Benton asked, one eyebrow raised.
“I have. She’s actually very nice, you know,” Sibyl said briskly. She took a bite of the bean and chewed, not meeting Benton’s gaze.
Benton laughed in surprise. “Oh, is she now!”
“She is,” Sibyl affirmed. “Papa was adamant. After what happened to Harlan, he insisted we help extricate her from what was doubtless a very complicated situation. It was the decent thing to do.”
The professor waited, resting his chin on his palm. The surprise on his face occasioned by Sibyl’s comment softened into an indulgent smile. “And . . . ?” he said.
“And so she’s staying at the house now. Temporarily.” Sibyl, still avoiding Benton’s gaze, leaned forward, blowing a delicate stream of air over the soup in her spoon.
“Temporarily,” Benton repeated.
Sibyl sat back with a sigh and looked him in the face. “Oh, you needn’t conceal what you really think. Of course I was against it at first.”
“Of course,” Benton agreed.
“But Harley’s quite attached to her, and given what happened in that awful boardinghouse, well . . .” Sibyl trailed off. She added “It’s no place for anyone, that boardinghouse. It’s dreadful. After all the work I’ve done with settlement houses, how am I going to object when the girl needs our help? Besides, Harley is the real problem here, not her.”
“I don’t suppose the Captain thinks Harley’s really going to marry this girl?” Benton asked, voice low. “I can’t see him allowing that. Or you, for that matter.”
A curious expression crossed Sibyl’s face as Benton voiced this idea. “If there’s been any discussion of marriage,” Sibyl said, stumbling over the last word, “I haven’t been party to it.”
“I see,” Benton said. He returned to the plate in front of him, sawing off another morsel of pork and forking it into his mouth.
“But in any event,” Sibyl continued, stirring her cooling soup, “Miss Whistler’s a much nicer girl than I would’ve anticipated. Even if she has had an unconventional upbringing.”
“Unconventional,” Benton said, spearing another few green beans and depositing them, again without asking, on the edge of Sibyl’s plate. “That’s one word for it.”
“Ben!” Sibyl said, irritated. “I’m surprised at you. She’s had a tougher time of things, all right. But Miss Whistler’s a lively girl, and she’s devoted to my brother. Of course I don’t know what Papa’s plans are, but she’s been perfectly fine to have in the house. In fact, I’ve grown quite fond of her.”
Benton sighed, massaging an eyebrow with his fingertips.
“What is it?” Sibyl pressed, folding her arms over her chest. “I wish you’d just say what’s on your mind, and not make me guess at it all the time.” I so often guess wrong, she thought without saying.
“Frankly,” Benton said, looking at her, “I can’t believe this. What, are you going to bring her along to Junior League meetings now? Lectures at the Bostonian Society?”
“Why not?” Sibyl challenged him. Perhaps she hoped to shock Benton with her worldliness.
“I don’t think you understand. It’s not just a matter of Harlan’s having a romantic, ill-fated love affair, like something out of one of your women’s pulp novels.”
“I don’t read pulp novels!” Sibyl objected, but he cut her off.
“She was in his rooms, Sibyl. She was found there. In a—” he cleared his throat—“a compromising way. An immediately compromising way.”
A long pause settled on the table between them while Sibyl digested this piece of information. Her dark brows furrowed over her eyes. Benton waited, watching. She kept her face composed. Then she took up her spoon.
“Nonsense,” she said. And followed this pronouncement with a prim sip of broth through her pursed lips.
“I’m afraid it’s true,” Benton said.
“You’re mistaken,” Sibyl said. “She’s an actress. She has some unconventional ideas, I’ll give you that. An artistic temperament. That’s all. It’s quite refreshing, actually. I don’t know why I haven’t made more of a point of going to the artistic salons, as Harley has.”
Benton peered at Sibyl, and she saw behind his gray eyes the turning wheels of calculation. “What makes you say so?” he asked.
“Why, I’ve gotten to know her quite well these past few weeks,” Sibyl said with authority. “I have,” she reaffirmed before he had the chance to argue with her. “We’ve been going around together. She’s lovely. And not at all the way that you imply. I think we’ve all misjudged her.”
Sibyl looked at Benton under her lidded eyes, enjoying the shock on his face.
“Well, how do you like that,” he said. “Going ’round with her. Going ’round where, pray tell? I don’t suppose you’ve gone to catch the Griffith picture, then, or take in a show?”
“As a matter of fact, I’ve had her to lunch at the Oceanus. And that’s not all,” Sibyl said with a slow smile. She looked left and right over her shoulder, with an air of happy conspiracy, and leaned forward, beckoning for Benton to do the same. She moved her mouth only a hairsbreadth away from the curve of his ear and whispered, “There’s something else I’ve rather wanted to discuss with you.”
The cab had nearly arrived in Harvard Square, and Benton was still so angry that he hunched away from her on the seat, glaring out the window. But Sibyl was sure. She knew what she had observed over the past several weeks. She had never been more certain of anything in her life.
“It’s remarkable, I tell you,” she reiterated, but he only responded with an aggravated snort.
The cab bounced over a pothole, and the two rocked against each other, his shoulder pressing momentarily against her own. He felt solid, reassuring, but in his solidity Sibyl sensed a new remoteness.
The cab rounded a corner, and Sibyl glanced at the driver to see if their argument was being observed. From the
faint twitch in the driver’s ears, she saw that it was. She dropped her voice to a barely audible whisper.
“I’d think you of all people would be most interested in what I have to say,” she said. He, too, shifted his gaze to the back of the driver’s neck, then ducked his head to argue in a harsh whisper of his own.
“Miss Allston,” he said, and she noticed that her Christian name had fallen away over the course of their drive to Cambridge. “What you describe is simply impossible. Now I have every certainty that you believe that you’ve experienced something real. But your believing it doesn’t make it so. Frankly, it concerns me.”
“Concerns you!” she exclaimed.
“If it happens the way you’ve described it to me, how could I help but be concerned?” His voice rose, agitated, and the driver’s head inched back to hear what was being said.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Sibyl said. “It’s perfectly safe.”
“I don’t see how you, an otherwise reasonable woman, would claim such things are safe. There’s a reason the law was changed, you know.”
She started to protest, but by then the cab had stopped on Massachusetts Avenue and Benton was already out of the cab, tossing some coins at the driver and not bothering to see if Sibyl was following him or not. She scrambled after him as he strode through the brick arch leading to campus with the forward-leaning gait of a man on a mission.
“Ben!” she called, feet skittering beneath her, her skirts gathered with one hand and the other placed squarely on top of her hat. He didn’t look around. “Ben!” she cried again, breaking into a jog.
He slowed, only enough for her to start to catch up, then continued without looking at her. The Yard elms whispered together, their leaves waxy green from the rain, and Sibyl sidestepped a puddle.
“Perfectly safe,” he muttered under his breath, apparently indifferent to her struggles to keep up. “I’ll show you perfectly safe. It’s lunacy. You’re making a terrible mistake, and I’m going to prove it.”
He marched to the philosophy building, up the concrete steps, through an echoing marble entrance, down a long hallway, and through a heavy oaken door with the word FRIEND in black letters. Benton flung the door open.