“And how has Daddy ever prevented his son from acquiring the responsibility to try to pay his own bills?”
“I know responsibility.”
“Abandoning your bride a week before your wedding day after an eight-year courtship meets the strict moral code you’ve set up for yourself?”
“Father, I won’t talk about this …”
“You will talk about this as long as you need to, to see the light.”
“That will never happen.”
“Ah!”
Both men fell mute with the strain of keeping close to the chest all the things they wanted to say and couldn’t. “Look,” Harry began, softening his voice, trying to sound more appeasing. “I’m sorry. All I can do is apologize.”
“Bullshit. That’s not all you can do.”
“I will make this up to you, Father. I promise. I will—”
“Harold, if you go through with this,” said Herman, “there will be nothing you could ever do to make it up to me. Nothing. I will not recover from your betrayal, from your act of vengeance, from your assault against me. Believe me when I tell you this. Know this to be true.”
Harry stopped talking, and just sat and stared at his father.
Herman squeezed his hands painfully together. “Son, please! Just think about what you’re contemplating. We’re a week away!”
“I know. I can only …”
“I asked you to think about it.”
“I have.”
“What, in the last five minutes?”
“I can’t marry Alice, Father. The rest is immaterial. What more is there to think about?”
“Why haven’t you talked to Ben about this?”
Harry became lost for words. He couldn’t talk to Ben about this, and he couldn’t tell his father why he couldn’t talk to Ben about this.
“This isn’t about Ben.”
“It’s not about Ben, it’s not about me. Then what is it about?”
“God! How long must we keep at it?”
“Until you see reason.”
“I saw reason. I saw it just in time.”
“Harry, if you insist on having your own way in this, I must tell you—”
Harry stood from his chair. “Before you say another word, Father, let me stop you, please, so you don’t waste your time trying to persuade me by all the considerable means at your disposal to force me to do the impossible.”
“How can it be impossible?” Herman yelled. He actually yelled. “It wasn’t impossible two weeks ago, it’s not impossible now. Remember my law: Do the thing, and you shall have the power. But they who do not the thing, have not the power.”
“I know your law well,” said Harry. “And you’re half-right, sir—it wasn’t impossible two weeks ago. But,” he added, “it is impossible now.”
“Nothing is impossible.”
“Oh, this truly is.” Harry stood cold and composed. “And I mean this in the full Holmesian meaning of the word. Impossible, as in it cannot happen as planned, no matter what we say in this room.”
“That’s melodramatic and absurd—”
“And the reason for that,” Harry continued calmly, “is because I married Jane Attaviano last Monday before we went to Chicago.”
There was only a gasping, as Herman Barrington lowered himself into his chair. The grandfather clock ticked behind Harry. Everything else was ominously still—no noise, no wringing of hands, no gnashing of teeth. They weren’t women, they were men. They were Barringtons. And when faced with shocking news, they turned to stone, and were silent like memories. In the room, the silence was broken only by the rustling of the paper under Herman’s fingers.
“This is Salvatore’s sister?” he said. “The Attaviano immigrant?” Herman said immigrant, but he might as well have said simian, that was the uncomprehending and disgusted tone he used.
Harry said nothing.
Herman finally got up, tall and proud behind his sixteenth-century solid walnut desk. “You have greatly disappointed me,” he said to Harry. “There is really nothing more to say. And yet—this terrible, life-destroying choice was worth making.”
“Life-creating,” said Harry. “And yes. What does that tell you, Father? All these things laid out before me like bars in a prison, and yet I still chose her.”
“It tells me you are a foolish, underdeveloped man. This is deeply unworthy of you. And yet somehow you feel elevated by the degradation. You’ve always struggled with your duties as an eighth-generation Barrington, as a Mayflower descendant. You’ve always been impulsive, despite your paralyzing indecisiveness, and will do any stupid thing to satisfy what you perceive is your only real desire. You are not practical. You are unattractively selfish. You don’t care about the people who love you, who you’re supposed to love. You don’t give a damn about your friends, you care not a whit about your family. These things should scream out to your chanty bride like a Hydra-headed clarion call. Yet somehow I don’t think she sees this.”
“You’d be right. And stop insulting her.”
“Oh, you’ve already taken care of that. Why would you marry so precipitously? Have you abased her further, if such a thing is even possible, by making her with child?”
“No,” said Harry. “I married her to take away your power to sway me with money.” He stood straight, stood firm. “To take away your power to persuade me with inextricable obligations to your crown. To take away my own weakness at being threatened. I didn’t want you to diminish yourself by blackmailing me into a loveless marriage for the good of all, and I certainly didn’t want to lose respect for myself by being persuaded by your high-society, first Boston, arguments. I didn’t want to tell you that I loved her and wanted to marry her. You would not have believed me. I had to ask myself if I was prepared to give up everything: my position and my purse. To convince you of the sincerity of my emotions, I am prepared to give up everything. I didn’t want your counter-arguments to show me all I would have lost. I didn’t want the balance of what is right for me to be decided by the strings, financial and otherwise, you hold over my head. By marrying her I removed your ability to control me, and my temptation not to lose what I want most.” With satisfaction he folded his arms across his chest. “Now our discussion, by necessity, can only be about the future.”
Herman walked around his desk, past his son, and flung open his study door. “Your curse is folly and ignorance coupled with wanton pride, and never has that been more on display than this morning.” He was ice cold. “Don’t you understand anything? There will be no discussion. Because now there is no future. Leave my office, Harry.”
“Why? Because unless you threaten me with destitution, you can’t speak to me about things that matter most?”
“You don’t know a blessed thing about what matters most.” Herman no longer looked at his son. “Leave my house,” he repeated. “And never set foot in it again.”
2
It took Herman a full ten minutes after Harry walked out to collect himself to face Esther and Ben, who were anxiously waiting—obviously (by their tense demeanor) having heard snippets from the raised voices in his study.
Herman, impeccably dressed for the day, walked into the dining room and stood before his daughter and Ben. “I’m going to the bank,” he said in a low flat voice. “I have some business to attend to. Esther, can I count on you to get in touch with Alice? Sooner rather than later, I would think. The poor girl is going to be devastated either way, but let’s not compound her shame by not letting her in on the hoax perpetrated upon her.”
“What are you talking about, Father?”
“Oh, have you not heard? We were loud enough. The wedding is off, I’m afraid,” Herman said in his precise baritone. He stood straight, his gray eyes resolute and inscrutable, betraying no emotion. “Your brother has decided that he would prefer not to marry Alice.” Herman said it dispassionately but sharply, leaving his daughter and Ben to think about the word choice rather than the content.
“Oh my God,” said Ben
.
“What do you mean?” said a confounded Esther. “Harry has to pick up his wedding suit before five o’clock this evening.”
“You’ll need to call Stan and cancel that. Pay him, of course. Apologize for the discourtesy.” He looked at Ben. “Benjamin,” he added, “I’m sorry you had to travel all this way, but you know your Aunt Josephine is quite poorly. I saw her a few days ago and she barely recognized me. And I’m certain that your mother, who hasn’t seen you in years, will be delighted to spend some time with you. I can write a letter to John Stevens on your behalf, if you wish. I know him a little from my railroad days with Flagler. So please—don’t think of this as a wasted journey. Think of it as a family gain—for you. Go take Esther to the horse races, Ben. Elmore is always at the hospital. She’ll appreciate the company. Right, darling?”
“Father …”
“Esther, the less said about this the better. I would prefer we did not talk about it at all. Soon I will have to insist on it, once the commotion has died down.”
“What do you mean, he is not getting married?” Esther repeated.
“No,” said Herman. “That is not at all what I said. Review my words.”
Ben and Esther stared at each other dumbly.
“I said he is not going to marry Alice.”
“You mean … he wants to marry someone else?” said Ben.
“Children, it’s best you don’t delve into this too deeply,” said Herman. “I assure you, in it you’ll find nothing but heartache. Just leave it be.”
“Father, wait, please!” Esther jumped up, then became more dignified.
“It’s no use,” Herman said, “you trying to be a lady at a time like this. The most crass of all things has happened. And that’s not even the worst of it. This is the time to let yourself go, Esther … We won’t, of course. Because that’s not who we are. I will add only one more thing, in case it’s not clear—your brother is not to come back to this house. He is to be turned away at the door. I am never in, you are not receiving, the kitchen is not available, nor Louis, nor Clarence, nor Bernard, nor Rosa. From now on, you and I, Esther, will operate as if I don’t have a son and you don’t have a brother. He has turned his back on his family. Reluctantly but resolutely we will react accordingly. We will reciprocate in kind.”
“Father …”
“Please call on Alice this afternoon. Promise me? Go with Ben. She’ll need you both. And Ben, you might want to see your Aunt Effie sooner rather than later.” Herman raised his eyebrows a little. “While she is still a quarter lucid. She knows some things she might be able to impart to you.”
And then Herman put on his tall hat, took a little bow and left the breakfast room, speaking quietly to Louis and Clarence in the hallway, before he walked out the door.
A stunned Ben turned to a numb Esther.
“You know one reason why we can’t build a sea-level canal?” he said. “Because it requires us to excavate one billion cubic yards of earth and sediment to reach sea-level all the way at the Continental Divide. And even if we do this, because of the monsoon season, six months out of the year, despite our continued detonations, the Chagres River becomes a muddy, raging torrent and ruins all our plans. And yet,” Ben added, “it seems like a carriage ride in the sunny Common compared to what’s happening here. Next time I will know better than to ever complain.”
“That’s it? That’s all you have to say?”
“Rain, beloved Zeus,” Ben said, raising his palms to the ceiling. “Rain on the cornfields and the plains of Attica.”
3
Herman was still at his offices on Kenmore Avenue, just off Barrington’s Main Street, past the white steeple church and the fine hotel restaurant. He was in the presence of Billingsworth and three of his lawyers when Orville bounded in, demanding to be seen. He had been panting in the carriage all the way from Brookline and he was severely out of breath now.
Herman slowly dismissed Billingsworth and the lawyers.
“Why would you allow this?” Orville bellowed to Herman, before the doors were fully closed and the lawyers left.
“Thank you, gentlemen,” Herman called after them. “We’ll finish up tomorrow morning. Shall we say 8:30?” From behind his desk he raised his eyes to Orville—round, perspiring in the early July heat with anger and his exertions. “I didn’t allow this, my friend,” he said. “This is not my doing.”
“This is your doing!” Orville yelled. “This is the son you raised! How far is that apple falling from the tree?”
“I know you’re upset, but do not speak to me that way.”
“You expect me to speak politely at a time like this?” He was hyperventilating.
“Please calm down, Orville. You’re going to give yourself an infarction.”
“I wish I could be struck dead! Do you have any idea what my daughter is going through …” He couldn’t finish. Getting up, Herman came around the desk to comfort him. But Orville recoiled, teary with hatred. “You raised him to do exactly what he wanted. You gave him options, you gave him freedom, you said his freedom to make the right choices was more important to you than anything!”
“I never said this, I never taught him this,” said Herman. “You know that my whole life I have battled with him to teach him just the opposite. To teach him to balance with dignity on the tightrope between what was expected of him, what was absolutely required of him, and what he wanted. You know better than anyone, because we have talked about it enough times, that I tried to persuade him to see the third as a natural extension of the second and first.”
“Oh and a fine job you did with your boy, Herman,” spat Orville. “Do you remember what I said to you when you simply shrugged after learning he was going to teach for no money? I said to you then, pretending it’s okay is going to hurt him in the end. It’s going to make him think no matter what he does, it’s going to be fine by you.”
“I wanted him to get the rebellion out of his system,” said Herman, “so that when he married your daughter, he could walk through that narrow gate proud.”
“As I was saying”—Orville was choking on his words—“your decisions have made this debacle possible. Have you thought about my daughter? Have you thought about her even for a second? She waited for your disgraceful son for eight years! Now what does she do?”
“Alice is a lovely girl,” Herman said. “She is going to be the talk of the town.”
“For all the wrong reasons! What man is going to want her, knowing she was ditched at the altar days before the wedding?”
Herman paused to think. “I tell you what,” he said. “Send out cancellation notices. Write that it was Alice who has decided to postpone the wedding indefinitely. Let this be her decision.”
Orville’s bluster subsided slightly, but not his anger. “You will pay for those cancellations.”
“I have no doubt this is going to cost me plenty,” Herman said. “But it’s not about money, is it?”
“Why did he do it anyway? He is such a coward, your son. Nothing military about him, is there? Wouldn’t even tell my daughter in person! Sent his sister!”
“No. Yes. I agree.” Herman opened his weary hands.
“I feel sorry for you,” Orville said. “I always envied you, having a son, and a daughter. I wished I could have had more children with Irma. But now I see—better to get it right once than to have many and raise them like you raised yours.”
Herman had had enough abuse for one day. “Yes, my old and about to be former friend, but you might want to ask yourself,” he said, “how you managed to raise a daughter that even a vulgar son like mine could cast aside.”
Red in the face and wheezing, Orville swore. “This is the end of our partnership.”
“More’s the pity for you,” said Herman. “Lots of trees grow in New England.” He turned to the window to signal the meeting was over, the rancor, the relationship, everything.
“You always said expect nothing and you won’t be disappointed,”
Orville said before he left. “How did that work out?”
“I don’t know,” replied Herman, staring at the dogwoods and the sugar maples. “That advice was for other people, not me. I expected everything, and yet look what I got. Still nothing.”
4
She was waiting for him at Simmons. They went out onto the Fenway, holding hands while they strolled like lovers, kissing under the elms.
She asked for details and wouldn’t rest until he had told her every nuance, reported every inflected syllable.
“Let’s go see your father together,” she said. “I will make it right. I will explain to him. I will say we love each other.”
“You are crazy.”
“We can’t let him be upset, Harry. Let’s go talk to him. I know parents. They get angry for a little while, for a day or two. But then …”
“Let’s give him a day or two,” said Harry. “A week if he needs it.”
She didn’t know what to do about Alice. She had counseled him to go and speak to her directly, though she knew how difficult that would have been. But she believed Harry owed Alice at least that much.
“What’s the most I owe her?” He refused to do it, despite Gina’s remorseful repentant pleading.
“Gina,” Harry said, “I know what you’re trying to do. You want their approval for what we’ve done. But we’re never going to get it.”
“Sure we will.”
“Never. Do you think your family is going to make peace with us?”
She looked at him as if they spoke a different language. “Of course,” she said. “They don’t have a choice. They’re my family.”
“Hmm.”
She told him not to worry, appearing wholly optimistic. Families sometimes reacted strongly at first, she assured him. Sometimes even overreacted.
He was skeptical.
“They will accept you, Harry, they will grow to love you. You’re family now. That’s stronger than anything.”
“Are you sure about that?” Harry said. “We haven’t been to see them. We didn’t tell your mother we got married before a justice of the peace, not in a church. Your mother is going to be all right with that?”
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