“At 8:30 you’re supposed to be in Roxbury …”
“Where I am not. What’s next?”
“At ten you have a late breakfast meeting at the Mayflower Club to go over the final menu for the annual fall bazaar in September.”
“How long will that take? I have lunch with Daddy at noon.”
“Lunch with Mr. Porter is at 12:45 at the Bavarian Club back here in Brookline. Your carriage will be waiting for you on Commonwealth.”
“How long from there to the Club?”
“Probably forty-five minutes.”
Alice sighed. She had a bite of scone and a sip of tea. She only liked apricot jam, and today Trieste had given her blackcurrant. Nothing was going right. She made no comment. She never forgot her manners no matter what she was feeling like inside.
“Lunch until two o’clock, at which time your father and you will ride out to Timber Mills for a board meeting on next year’s fiscal projections.”
Alice set her jaw. That was her least favorite part of her father’s business: sitting in a stuffy room with closed windows going over numbers on paper. She liked the inspection of the lumber, dealing with actual product despite the many problems that arose with shipments—the quality of woods, dampness, rot. All of it was better than board meetings, and best of all were the quarterly river drives, when she traveled to Maine for weeks at a time and oversaw the forestry operations from felling to bucking. Walking atop the huge tied-together trunks floating in shallow rivers was a joy akin to riding horses—dangerous and thrilling. She would do that every day if she could. Board meetings were another matter entirely.
“How long is that meeting?”
“Until 4:30.”
She groaned. She could do that in front of Trieste, make noises of dissatisfaction she could not make in the outside world. “Am I going to have any fun at all today?” she asked plaintively.
“At 5:15 you have tea at the Boston Public Library. Your father has made a generous donation to BPL, and they want you to approve their catalogue purchases.”
Alice brushed out her hair before she pinned it up, appraising her fine features in the mirror. She was delicate and dainty, she had a small nose, a perfectly formed mouth, big blue eyes, high cheekbones, and thin silky blonde hair.
“Please tell me the rest of my week is not as full, Trieste.”
“It is quite busy, Miss Alice,” Trieste said, leafing through the subsequent pages. “Ah, but I see here, on Saturday you have some free time. Harry has begged off Saturday’s activities. He said he was helping Ben with some engineering problems.”
Alice sighed. “Can you schedule a longer trail ride for me on Saturday then?”
“Will do, Miss Alice. But tonight you have an appointment at 6:30 at the Back Bay salon for a manicure before your evening.”
Alice glanced at her polished nails. “I don’t need it,” she said. “They were done just two days ago.”
“Yes, but after the lumberyard, they will be a mess.”
“I’ll be careful.”
“If they become rough and cracked before your dinner, then what?”
Alice sighed. “What time is dinner?”
“Harry is meeting you at the Hasty Pudding Theatricals promptly at 8:45 in the evening. The show starts at 9:15. You’ll have just enough time, if you rush, to return home to change. I want to lay out your dress now, so we can be quicker later. Your mother is coming with you.”
Alice pointed to her closet. “On the right-hand side is my mauve velvet and organza dress. I received it as a present from Mother last Christmas and have not had a chance to wear it.”
Trieste retrieved it from the closet. “Beautiful,” she said. “But we will have to redo your makeup.”
“Will you be here for that, or will the stove be broken again?”
“I will be here. Shall I arrange for some hot canapés and wine while you get ready?”
“Cheese and crackers only. And a glass of sherry. I don’t want to get too full. Hasty Pudding feeds us till midnight.”
“Quite right. The show is over at one a.m. Can I release the driver? Harry is staying at the university and indicated that his driver will be more than happy to take you and Mrs. Porter home.”
“That’ll be fine.” She was glad to have rested last night. It was going to be a full week. She turned to Trieste, her hair up, her face flawless, her dress perfectly pressed. “What do you think?”
“As usual, exquisite, Miss Alice,” said Trieste, straightening out one of the pleats on the skirt. “I will get your boots and coat and umbrella ready.”
Alice glanced outside her floor-to-ceiling windows. The morning sun was blazing.
“It will rain,” said Trieste. “As soon as you get to the sawmill, it will pour. You know Boston.”
3
“How do you not see what a giant mistake this is?” Harry said to Ben after they boarded the train.
“I don’t see even what a little mistake it is.” Ben had come prepared. He had brought pamphlets about Panama, information about the canal, brochures about geographical advantages and advertisements for railroad jobs in Central America. He also came dressed in his best suit and hat. Harry looked as if he had forgotten to shave. He had been up late reading, so he was late getting up, having forgotten what train they were catching. He barely made it to North Union Station to find Ben pacing the platform.
“You are impossible,” Ben said. “Please tell me it was Alice that kept you up so late on Friday night you nearly missed our train.”
“Paine’s The American Crisis,” replied Harry, disheveled but smiling. “‘The cunning of the fox is as murderous as the violence of the wolf.’”
“That kept you up? Why didn’t you try some Common Sense instead? ‘Our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer.’”
“Who is suffering?” Harry said. “I was never more happy than to stay in and read.” Once the 9:05 got moving, he examined the papers Ben carried. “Ben, you’ve gone insane.”
Ben took his research away. “I don’t recall asking your opinion.”
“I offer it freely.”
“Shut up.”
“You think your profits and bananas are going to sway an Italian girl?”
“Two separate issues.”
“Why don’t I think so?”
“Because you understand nothing.”
Harry pulled the hat over his face and settled into his seat, thinking he might have a quick nap. “I hope she never discovers,” he said, “your fickle and changeable nature. That last year it wasn’t bananas that kept you up late but boric acid. You don’t want her to draw any conclusions.”
Ben knocked the hat off Harry’s head. “Sit up straight,” he said. “We have an hour to learn what we can about Lawrence.”
“And how, pray tell, do we do this?” The train had been moving for five minutes.
From his bag Ben produced two books and a dozen pamphlets. Harry groaned and grabbed for his hat. “Start reading,” Ben said. “I’m counting on you. We have to fake knowledge.”
“Now there’s a way to win a girl’s heart,” said Harry. “Deceive her.”
“All right, paragon of virtue, let’s begin.” Ben opened the book on the history of Lawrence and stuck it under Harry’s face. “And I suppose you’ve been straight with Alice and told her you have no intention of doing anything, ever, but reading books.”
“She hasn’t asked.” Harry busied himself with the introductory chapter. “We are going to impress a fifteen-year-old—sorry, a fourteen-year-old with arcane minutiae about a town she’s been in for five minutes? Well thought out, sir.”
Ben ignored him. “Look—are you studying? Lawrence was incorporated in 1853. Not even half a century ago.”
“If that doesn’t get her to fall in love with you, what will?”
Ben continued reading. “Smart businessmen saw that the Merrimack River was a plentiful source of electric power, so they dam
med it with the Great Stone Dam above the city, past Andover, and then built textile mills on both north and south banks.”
“I know for a fact that the damming of rivers is enticing to young girls.”
“Ah! Did you know that in 1860 one of the mills collapsed and burned, killing over a hundred workers and injuring thousands? The Pemberton Mill.”
“You are deranged.”
“No, this is useful. We can wisely counsel her not to get a job there.”
“I thought you just said it burned down?”
“They rebuilt it, numbskull. Did you know that Lawrence has more immigrants per square mile, of which there are only six, than any other city in the world?”
“Six immigrants?”
“Six square miles.”
“Useful as evidence for committing you,” said Harry. “Are there any sanatoriums in Lawrence?”
“Immigrant girls from Ireland, France, Germany, Belgium, Poland”—Ben smiled—“and of course, Italy …”
Harry slunk down on his seat. “I will not come visit you in the pokey,” he muttered. “Not even at Christmas.”
“That’s the difference between you and me, old boy,” Ben said. “Because I will come and visit you in the pokey.”
“Why would I be up the river? Do you see me being threatened with certain prison or risking death at the hands of an irate Italian male? I don’t think so.”
“Harry!” Ben stopped with the books for a moment, looking wistful, softened, dream-like. “Did you see her?”
“I could hardly avoid it.”
“You have to admit … her mother trying to hide her under those awful clothes …”
“Not hide her, save her.”
“Nothing could hide that girl. That hair, that mouth.”
Harry leaned back, his hat over his inscrutable face.
“Well?” Ben nudged him. “Thomas Paine, or a nubile beauty from Sicily?”
“Clearly Thomas Paine. I’d be asleep now in my bed.”
“Do you remember the name of the street they live on?”
“Let’s see … Crazy Street? Cuckoo Street? Commitment Street? Cranial Injury Inflicted by Enraged Sibling Street?”
“Canal Street! Thank you.”
“I’m going to stop speaking.”
“Harry, admit it, if you weren’t so utterly uninterested in all women save Alice, you would be sitting on this train yourself.”
“Ben Shaw, I hate to point out the startlingly obvious, but I am sitting on this train myself.”
“Exactly!”
“Ugh.”
“I’m surprised to learn that Lawrence is the world leader in the production of cotton and woven textiles. Are you?”
“Stunned.”
They spent the rest of the ride bickering like this and alighted in Lawrence nearly an hour and a half later. After buying a quick bun at a local mart on Broadway, they walked to Essex Street, found an acceptably busy corner on Essex and Appleton, took out their clipboards and pamphlets, and began approaching anyone who was willing to stop and talk to them for a minute or two. After forty-five minutes of being cut off on, “Please can we have your signature to reopen the study on the advantages of building the Panama Canal to help American trade and the American economy—”, after being ignored, insulted, pushed past, shouted at and misunderstood, they had collected six signatures.
“How many more?” Harry asked.
“Four thousand nine hundred and ninety-four. If you sign, then four thousand nine hundred and ninety-three.”
Harry put down his clipboard. “I’ll sign right now. Can we go home?”
“Yes—when we get a thousand signatures.”
“Ben!”
“You’re not even trying!”
“Can you do math? Are there even a thousand people in Lawrence?”
“A hundred thousand.”
“How many?”
“I thought you’d read the pamphlet I gave you.”
“I completely ignored it. Ben, you do understand, don’t you, that these people don’t speak English? They don’t understand when you say, ‘Study, advantages, Panama, canal, American, trade.’ You say the word ‘economy,’ they hear gibberish, gibberish, gibberish.”
“You’re giving up already?”
“Aren’t engineers required to do rudimentary math? If it took us nearly an hour to get five signatures …”
“Six with you.”
“How long will it take us to walk back and catch the 3:20 back to Boston?”
“Harry? Ben?”
The female voice came from behind them. When they turned around, Gina stood before them smiling broadly. To say she looked unreservedly pleased would be to under-define her expression. Ben smiled broadly back. She was dressed in a green skirt and a white high-necked lace blouse, and she carried a basket on her forearm. Her hair was properly tied up. Next to her stood a skinny homely girl.
“Hello, Miss Attaviano.” Ben was beaming. “And is this your cousin Angela?”
“No, this is Angela’s friend Verity. Verity, Ben, Harry. Harry, Ben, Verity. I’m sorry, but I can’t remember your family names.” Gina smiled apologetically. “What are you two gentlemen doing here?”
“We are collecting signatures to open research on the construction of the Panama Canal,” Ben said. “What about you?”
Gina pointed. “I live just down the street on Canal,” she said.
“Oh, is that where you live?” said Ben. “So close. We had no idea.”
“We are doing a bit of shopping. Negotiating for some cheap fruit. Verity runs the mission bazaar table on Sundays and I’m helping her collect some things to sell to raise money for the poor.” She smiled. “Like me.” She cleared her throat. “I mean, poor like me, not sell like me.”
Ben laughed. Harry took a step back. Ben took a step forward. “How is your family?”
“Very good. Thank you.”
“Are you working?”
“More or less.” She nodded. “We’re doing okay. I’d invite you to the house, but it’s so small, you wouldn’t fit in our living room. We’re hoping to get a bigger place soon.”
“Are you going to go to school?” That was Harry. It was the first time he had spoken.
Verity nodded her head. “I tell her she should. They are trying to encourage more children to attend school and improve reading and writing.”
“I’m literal,” said Gina. “I can read. Even in English.”
For some reason this amused Harry, who smiled from behind Ben, looked at his fine black shoes, fiddled with the hat in his hands, and said, “Going to school is good.”
“Yes, but it doesn’t pay me money,” Gina said, squinting at him in the sun. Her shoulders were covered with a shawl, but her teeth sparkled, particularly white against her dark skin, her vivid lips. “I need to work,” she said. “Make money, be independent.”
“Education is so important,” said Harry.
“So is paying your rent,” said Gina. “And buying gloves.”
“Let your mother and brother worry about that,” Harry said.
“That’s what I keep trying to tell her,” Verity said. “Come to school with me.” She was offputtingly skinny. She looked like a boy.
Ben just stood smiling. He paid attention to nothing but the Sicilian girl. “So what are you selling at the bazaar, Gina?”
“A little bit of this, a little bit of that.” She smiled back.
They moved to the side of the street to let rushing pedestrians pass and stood under an awning of a cigar shop. Verity eyed the two men curiously but suspiciously, especially Harry.
Foolish girl, Harry wanted to say to her, it’s not me you need to watch out for. Meanwhile Ben and Gina stood next to each other, chatting.
“Gina, we should go,” Verity said. “We promised the sisters we’d be back soon with the fruit.”
“Soon is so vague, Ver,” Gina returned.
“Yes, but we don’t have any fruit yet.”
Gina turned away from her friend. “How long are you gentlemen in town for?”
“For the afternoon,” said Ben. “We need to get a thousand signatures, but unfortunately we’re not having much luck. I’m afraid we’ll have to return to Boston soon if we don’t do better.”
“A thousand signatures is a lot,” Gina said. “How many do you have?”
“Six,” Ben replied.
“Eight if you two girls sign,” Harry said. “Oh, wait. You have to be over sixteen to sign.”
“I am over sixteen!” Verity exclaimed. “I’m eighteen.”
Ben cast Harry a look that said, you’re just pure evil, aren’t you? You had to go and bring up age.
“Though I can’t sign, Ben,” Gina said quickly, “perhaps I can help you? What do you say, Verity?”
“We said we’d be back.”
“Look what a lovely afternoon it is. We’re just out and about.”
“Gina …”
“It’s fine.”
“Let’s just go, G.”
“Well, you go ahead, then. I’ll stay and help.”
Harry and Ben exchanged stunned looks. It was rare indeed in the circles in which they were born and raised to have a young girl remain even on a public street alone with two men. By rare, Harry meant unheard of. And Verity was obviously torn. Though she was really too young to be entrusted with such a responsibility, she was nonetheless entrusted with looking after her young charge, and yet couldn’t budge her from the street.
Verity stayed. Harry watched her timidly trying by turns to rein in and to mimic Gina, telling her not to stand so close, watching her every move, trying to fling her own hair about, adjusting her tiny bun, fixing the bows on her dowdy blouse.
Gina had no imitators though. She turned out to be uncannily good at getting people to stop, much better than Ben and Harry. The green peasant skirt made her look untailored, yet fresh and young. She was tanned, looked happy, and walked up and down Essex Street, shouting at the passersby both in Italian and English. In three hours she collected seven hundred signatures. The boys and Verity collected eighty-four—combined.
“You clearly have skills we can’t ever hope to attain,” Ben said with an impressed glitter, as if he needed one more thing to impress him.