The End of Innocence

by Allegra Jordan

  THE PETITION DRIVE

  Raising Money for Lady Liberty!

  RULES:

  Women drivers only.

  One man may ride along, but he mustn’t touch the wheel.

  Two laps around; first to finish wins.

  GRAND PRIZE:

  The use of the Darlington Rolls-Royce for one week.

  Bet on your favorite!

  We can’t fund the vote if you stand there with your hands in your pockets!

  This event was approved by Reverend Ames.

  “Helen, you didn’t tell me there was a prize,” said Riley. “I have an excellent plan for the use of the Rolls-Royce once you and I win.”

  “Miss Brooks! The ribbons!” came a commanding voice from the inside of the tent.

  The smile on Helen’s lips evaporated. “Bertha Darlington!” She whispered to Riley and Wils, “If I’m not back in five minutes, please come and get me.”

  Riley shielded his eyes from the brightness of the September sun. “Command me as you wish.”

  “Miss Brooks!” insisted Mrs. Darlington.

  “We’ll meet back by the cars,” offered Riley as Helen turned to face Mrs. Darlington at the Petition Drive booth.

  “Were those young men bothering you, Helen?” she asked, taking the ribbons Helen had brought from Cambridge.

  “Not at all. Have you seen my mother?”

  “She left. There was an emergency with some factory woman in Boston.”

  “She isn’t here to watch me race?” Helen exclaimed hotly. “She signed me up for this!”

  “Bertha Darlington!” Mrs. Belinda Peabody, Caroline’s mother, was suddenly with them. Her face was pale, her thin lips pursed, and her eyebrows cocked for battle.

  “Is there a problem?” Bertha asked.

  “A reporter,” declared Mrs. Peabody. Her hatband, which vaguely resembled a ferret, quivered on her head. Mrs. Peabody turned to Helen angrily. “Did your mother invite him?”

  “Of course not,” Helen returned, not knowing if it were true. She noticed that Mrs. Peabody’s hat was indeed a former ferret. It had the unfortunate effect of making her look somewhat ferretlike herself.

  “If your cousin Phillips Brooks were still alive, he might be able to counsel her on the appropriate use of reporters.”

  “Perhaps Charles Archer did,” offered Mrs. Darlington. “He’s here today with his son to speak about their new Patriots’ League.”

  “Councilman Archer is here? Ah, perhaps that explains it. That is all, Miss Brooks,” said Mrs. Peabody with a terse smile. She turned her back to Helen and began to discuss the matter with Mrs. Darlington.

  Helen fumed as she spun on her heel and searched the crowd for Riley and Wils. Mrs. Peabody had no sense of grace in victory, no nobility. That’s what happened when you weren’t the main branch of the family. She didn’t even want to be in the Peabodys’ silly town anymore, she fumed. They could have Lexington and Concord, Frank, Caroline, and all the other members of their bullying, arrogant gang.

  She was going to win this race and then she’d act perplexed as to why Caroline hadn’t been able to do better on the track.

  Helen walked to the edge of the tent and looked across the field to where the cars were being moved. A gust of wind sprang up and blew hard against her hat, lifting it and flinging it into the green expanse. As she chased it, a group of children dressed in colonial garb rushed in front of her, following a wooden hoop. Another burst of wind carried the hat past a group of young troubadours. One stepped back on the hat with the heel of an old-fashioned shoe and slipped, crushing it.

  A large young man suddenly dashed over and helped the young lad up. He picked up her flattened hat and returned it to her.

  “Thank you,” she said, as her long hair flew around her face. He was tall and clean-shaven, with a square jaw and closely cropped brown hair. His gray suit made him look like a newly minted lawyer.

  “I only wish I could have been quicker.” When she put it on her head, the crown fell out and they both laughed.

  “I’ll be fine,” she said, trying to be heard above the noise of the children. She extended her hand. “Mr.—”

  “Arnold Archer, at your service.”

  Chapter Ten

  Arnold Archer

  Concord, Massachusetts

  Helen’s eyes widened at the name.

  “And you’re Miss Helen Brooks, right? Peter’s sister?”

  “How do you know me?”

  “Everyone has heard about you defending Wils to the police the other day,” Arnold said. “And you were in the newspaper, standing behind your mother when she was arrested. That was you, right? I mean, I read the papers, just like you, I assume.”

  “We both read the papers. One does when one’s mother is arrested, at the urging of your father, I believe.” She stepped forward to leave, but he did not move to let her pass.

  An announcement came from across the field: “All racers to the field.”

  “I have a favor to ask of you, Miss Brooks.”

  “A favor? What? You wish me to help you?”

  “I wish you to help your country.”

  “Mr. Archer, I will not join your Patriots’ League. I’ve heard you’ve been making speeches in the Yard and that they have a nasty habit of turning into brawls.”

  “Hear me out. My father and I have put two and two together—your mother’s problems with my proposed solutions to our German spy problem. My father’s received word that the kaiser is doing everything he can to ask Germans in this country to get that information to Germany—to spy on the country that has given them safe harbor and home. He also will take advantage of his subjects’ weaknesses—like he did with Max von Steiger. And no, I didn’t have anything to do with that poor young man’s death, despite what you may have read in the papers. I was as horrified as you.

  “But,” Archer continued, edging closer, “we live in an open society—any German national can wire Berlin right this very minute. And we have evidence that many are.”

  “You can stop your lecture,” she said, puzzled as to what he thought she knew.

  “Helen, German informants may destroy us all.”

  “Are you speaking of Wils Brandl?” she asked.

  “Yes. We need you to let us know what he’s up to.”

  “I’ll not be involved in something as awful as spying on a poor poet.”

  “He’s not just anyone. He’s the only son of Bavaria’s favorite poet and a Prussian countess.”

  “If you intend to defend your friend Wils, as you did to the police,” Archer warned, “and ignore the needs of the innocents here, perhaps there are other common interests we could share.”

  “I hate the kaiser’s warmongering and will protest to any man who says differently. But that doesn’t mean I share interests with people like you.”

  His face hardened. “Quite right. We don’t share all interests. My mother doesn’t send obscene materials through the mail. She’s ruining your life.”

  “And your witch hunt is ruining yours,” said Helen hotly. She tried to step around him, but he cut her off.

  “My father can make your mother’s trouble go away. That’s why I thought you might help him out with Wils.”

  “Her lawyers will save her.”

  His face darkened. “Have it your way. But don’t be surprised if suspicious minds take matters into their own hands. Many have lost relatives to the kaiser’s army already and are angry.” He towered over her. “If you simply say Wils has been in contact with the kaiser or the German army, he’ll be held safely in detention—”

  “In jail?” she spluttered. She threw her hat down on the ground in disgust. “I can’t help you. In fact, I’ll tell my father.”

  His lips curled in a sneer. “Tell him what exactly? That you refuse to
help America against a danger on our doorstep? If you love this German—this snake—you can save him.”

  “I’ll not send an innocent man to jail,” she stormed. She stepped around him and walked straight across the field to the cars. Halfway there she turned to look back, but Archer had already disappeared.

  Love Wils Brandl?

  She had no time for this nonsense. She picked up her pace, tying her hair back in a tight bun as she marched toward the cars, bewildered that Archer thought she loved a German. And even more so that she hadn’t denied it.

  Chapter Eleven

  Racing Hearts

  Concord, Massachusetts

  There are times when the Brooks family is at its best. This is not one of them, thought Mr. Jonathan Brooks glumly as he sat atop his perch in one of two announcer chairs. His wife had been arrested and now awaited trial, his son was talking of running off to fight for the British, and his daughter had been jilted by Frank Adams and now sat in a car beside a young man of unknown origin.

  He took out his pocket watch and checked the time. Colonel Harris, in his white fisherman’s sweater and a straw boater, sat beside him, practically oozing good cheer, waving the checkered flag to the rhythm of the wind.

  Brooks lifted his megaphone. “Fifteen minutes! The race will commence in fifteen minutes!” But his voice had little life in it.

  His brow furrowed as he regarded Caroline Peabody and Frank Adams smiling beside their car for the society reporter’s camera. Frank Adams wasn’t the best catch, but he was preferable to what could well be a real cad signed up to drive with Helen. He didn’t know this man, but he looked like a salesman.

  Car number two’s volunteer, Mr. Brooks explained, was Robert Brown of Boston, driving with one Jane Billings, a family friend. Jane was the pretty blond daughter of a railroad fortune, in Boston to study music at a local conservatory. Her father was Frederick Billings of the Northern Pacific Railroad Company—a Vermonter who’d made his fortune in California and for which a town in Montana had been named. Brooks sniffed as he looked at Helen and her escort in their car talking to a mechanic, who was pointing to different levers. Peter and Ann sat in their car talking intently to each other.

  “At least your family will ship off on time,” said Harris. “You know, Brooks, I hope those tires are on tight. I saw a race last year where one just popped off in the middle of the track. Bounced into another driver and nearly took his head off. And then the brakes on the first car failed—”

  “That could be Helen you’re talking about.”

  The colonel shifted in his chair. “Oh, not at all. Now everyone knows to tighten tires.”

  “Her mother shouldn’t have allowed her out there. It’s wrong to put these women in such peril.”

  “Why aren’t you in the car with her?” asked Harris.

  “Merriam forced me to announce the race.”

  “A woman’s fondest desire is to see a man work. That’s why I’m a bachelor.”

  “Spot on,” said Brooks and then looked down glumly at his shoes.

  “Brooks, you’re in a deuce of a bad mood.”

  “That young man has eyes for Helen.”

  “He looks nice enough.”

  “That’s my point: a little too nice. He’s up to no good.”

  “Right,” said Harris. He lowered his voice. “If anything happens, we’ll put arsenic in that young man’s drink.”

  “Painful?”

  “Exceedingly,” said Harris. “I’ll diagnose it as a liver ailment.”

  Brooks thought for a moment. “Right, then.”

  “Right,” said Harris, waving his flag again, trying to get the attention of the drivers.

  Amid the ostentation of the trees, Brooks sat back with his megaphone and straightened his wool vest. His chest felt a little less tight, and the breeze felt cool and comforting.

  He liked this Harris fellow. He might even invite him to join his book club.

  * * *

  “Where’s Wils?” Helen asked Riley, as she looked quickly around the field. “He’s—”

  “Wils?” said Riley, shaking his head. “Forget Wils. You’ve got to learn to drive. This is serious business now.”

  “Wils needs to know that Archer is trying to have him deported for espionage.”

  “Oh, that,” said Riley nonchalantly. “He knows. Don’t worry about Wils. His mother takes good care of him. You needn’t.”

  “But—”

  “Is that Caroline?” he asked, pointing to a young blond woman who was smiling for a reporter as she put on her driving goggles.

  “Yes.”

  “Let’s win this race, Helen.” A broad grin swept over his face.

  Chapter Twelve

  The Letter

  Concord, Massachusetts

  The wooden stands slowly filled with townsfolk and children, eager to see what these women would do with the race cars. The wide arena in which they sat afforded warm sun and plenty of open sky. The rolling hills in the background created a natural amphitheater for the day’s race, one that, should Wils have been there just with Helen, he would have enjoyed enormously.

  He shook his head. If Helen had had any sense she would have asked her brother to race with her instead.

  He hated to feel this way. His cousin Riley was a rake if there ever was one. But Wils had promised his aunt he’d look after him. And honor demanded that he push Helen from the furthest reaches of his mind. But just as soon as he thrust the thoughts of her into some dark corner of his mind, he’d catch a scent of lilac in a tree or think of a poetic phrase she might like and then—

  Madness lay that way. He put his hand to his chest, his heart oddly aching.

  There he felt the letter marked “von Steiger.” He’d forgotten about it from earlier that morning.

  Wils opened the parchment and was jolted when he saw Max’s handwriting.

  Wils,

  Please don’t despise me for my actions. I’ve no courage or strength to continue on, and I’ve no way out. My debts stand too high to pay. My parents cut me off several months ago because of them.

  I had an agreement with a German agent to pass along information about the navy’s shipyard, for which he canceled some of my debts. I botched that job, as I botch everything I touch.

  I was told they’d recommend me for a treason trial. I’ve no idea of how that law stands in America, but it didn’t seem good. I only counted ships in the shipyard—anyone could do that, it would seem. Perhaps I counted the wrong ones.

  I’m paying with my life. No one can make more of an admission of failure than that. But I’ve thought long and hard about it. After Felicity left, much of my life’s joy went with her. This is the only honorable exit for me. Please forgive me for turning to dust my fortune and my friendships.

  I’m sorry to burden you with this letter. I felt I owed you an explanation. And that, at least, was a debt I could pay.

  My family will have enough pain. My hope is that in Germany they’ll think I’ve perished at war, except for my mother, for whom I ask you to pray. They won’t understand around Boston and they’ll get it all wrong. They always were such gossips.

  The Church says we’re immortal. If that is the case, then pray my soul finds peace. If it’s not, my troubles are through.

  Fare thee well, friend. You were always kind to me both here and at home. I beg you for your kindness in death’s final duties.

  Max

  Wils put his head down in his hands. Gott im Himmel. Max’s death was a suicide.

  He looked up, and from across the stands he saw Arnold Archer on the field, arms crossed, watching him intently. He pocketed the letter and hoped the race would be over quickly. He needed to return to Cambridge and speak with his lawyer.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The Kiss

  Concord, M
assachusetts

  “Trust me,” said Riley loudly, over the noise of the idling engine. “You’ll not have to say anything to her after you win. And to make her jealous, I’ll kiss you when we win.”

  Helen nearly choked. “You will not.”

  “Yes, I will, and you’ll like it. Now try turning the wheel.”

  “You won’t,” she mumbled. Her cheeks turned slightly pink as she wondered about whether she’d like his kiss. She shook off the thought and put both hands on the wheel trying to turn it. It felt as if she were lifting an entire trunk of clothes. She needed to concentrate, but it was difficult. The engine noise had been so loud she’d not been able to make much of the directions offered by the mechanic about a new brake system.

  But by the time she decided she’d not want a kiss under any circumstance, she heard Caroline’s voice erupt in anger over the cars’ loud engines. To Helen’s surprise, Caroline exited her car and gave Frank a cold glance.

  She couldn’t hear a thing being said, but suddenly Mrs. Darlington appeared. Helen thought she looked like what Martin Luther must have pictured when he wrote “a bulwark never failing.”

  She turned back and swallowed a smile as Caroline obediently got back in her car at the sight of her mother. All the engines were rumbling when Dr. Harris gave the signal.

  “On your marks! Get set!”

  Reverend Ames fired the signal gun.

  “Go!” boomed Brooks. The race was on.

  Ann’s and Jane’s cars purred off smoothly down the uneven dirt road. Dust blew in a small cloud behind each of them. Helen released her brakes, her car gave a little sputter, and then it stalled, jerking both her and Riley back and forth. The crowd laughed as the mechanics ran out to help start the car again.