“I was exempted from duty, not dismissed. Anyway, it’s not a time for practical jokes. It won’t help.”
“It will help me, Eddy!”
“It won’t help, Bob!” Edwin seemed angrier than Bob could remember ever seeing him.
“I didn’t know you were made of such stern stuff, Eddy Hoyt,” Bob sniffed.
“Maybe you don’t know the first thing about what I’m made of, Bob! Have you ever thought of that?”
“Well, someone took a pile of notes I kept in my laboratory,” Ellen said. “And I had once thought of those small rooms as my sanctuary. I’m going to go back in to look for them.”
“Wait!” Bob said hastily, impeding her exit with his body. “When did you last see them?”
“Well, I suppose I have not looked at them for a week or so.”
“Perhaps you simply misplaced them. It might still be dangerous out there.”
“Mr. Richards, must we go over this again? I have not yet shown my full strength to you or anyone. I am not afraid. Let me through.”
“You mustn’t.”
Ellen inclined her head as she studied him. “Mr. Richards, need I ask if you have seen my notes?”
He felt as if he had been punched in the gut. “Professor—”
“It appears you do not wish me to search for them,” Ellen said sharply.
“You mustn’t imagine … Professor, you know I would not—”
“What I know is that you wanted to continue our investigations despite impossible circumstances, and perhaps you believed my notes could help your own private analysis. What I also know is you have shown enough disrespect for me in the past that you might not think twice about pilfering them.”
“Very well, go!” He stepped aside and gestured at the door. “See for yourself what is out there in the corridor.… See for yourself what messages await you! Enjoy!”
They stared at each other for a moment and her expression softened, her shoulders slumping. She turned and resumed her seat.
“I heard President Rogers was here yesterday,” Edwin said with a transparent attempt to change the spirit of the room. “Perhaps he will come back and help us.”
“I doubt that,” Ellen said. “Not after the papers, and the police, and this mob descended on us. The crowd out there is increasing faster than rabbits. Our trying to contact him about all that has happened would only put him under more scrutiny.”
“I walked by Temple Place; it was surrounded by police. There’s nothing Rogers can do here anyway, Eddy,” Bob said. “Nothing anyone can.” He added softly, “Mansfield.”
Bob looked over at Marcus, who was sitting by himself in the corner. Since Monday night, after he told them of his devastating odyssey across the city, he had been mostly silent, sitting withdrawn and broken in a corner of the laboratory. Now he lifted his head slightly, but then returned it to its place buried in his hands.
“I am afraid,” Edwin admitted. “Very afraid. What if the experimenter strikes again today, or tomorrow? Maybe if we try to explain one more time to the police what the city is facing—”
“It won’t help anything,” said Bob. “The police didn’t listen to anything we have to say. They wouldn’t on Monday, they wouldn’t now. Not now, with the Institute directly under a cloud of suspicion! Just our being from Tech would discredit what we say.”
“Stop.”
The others all looked to Marcus and waited.
“Stop what, Marcus?” Edwin asked gingerly.
“We started our experiments to find out the source of these assaults. To show that science could help the city. But what this lunatic is doing isn’t about science. No. What happened Monday shows it.”
“Shows what?” Edwin asked.
“This is about pure destruction, about tearing Boston into pieces.” Marcus stood and looked at each of his three friends. “The die is already cast. So let us come to a stop. Stop presuming that our good intentions, our knowledge, will ever make a difference.”
“There must be something else to try!”
“What, Bob? People have died despite all our efforts. Look what is happening around us to this Institute. By attempting to counter such savagery with our theories and experiments, we have only made things worse on all counts. If she had not been with me there in the first place—”
“You don’t know where Miss Turner might have been, Mr. Mansfield,” Ellen said.
“You mustn’t blame yourself, Mansfield,” Bob agreed.
Marcus dropped it, then went on. “I said I could do this, could stop it, I vowed to succeed, and I failed. I was wrong. Flat wrong! I’ve racked my brains hour in and hour out. We tried to investigate on our own, we tried going to the police. But the jaws of hell still yawned. Well, I raise the white flag. Frank Brewer saved my life at Smith Prison by agreeing to enslave himself to a Southern factory, and he nearly lost his life Monday because we couldn’t find the right method to stop this. And Aggie … well, shouldn’t I blame myself? Can’t we all? You should have talked to us first, Bob, before you did it.”
“What do you mean?” Bob asked, offended before he knew why he should be.
“Blasting through the door of the experimenter’s laboratory. Maybe that provoked the villain to unleash the next attack earlier than he intended to.”
“That’s a damned cat’s cradle, and you know it! I did what I had to, and we found the laboratory because of it! Don’t turn the tables on me, Mansfield. You took long enough to tell us about that Cheshire fellow. What if he had talked to the press about us?”
“He didn’t.”
“He damned well might have before he was barbecued! What were you planning to do to stop him that you didn’t want us to know about?”
“I didn’t know how closely we were being watched.… Do you imply that I was the one to blow the man up?” Marcus laughed.
“How do I know you didn’t, Mansfield?” Bob asked, his anger transforming all his feelings about his friends, himself, and the whole situation they were mired in. “You were always so desperate to keep hold of your place as a collegey—you might do anything to feed your ambitions!”
“Well,” Marcus said. “We all made our beds, and we are lying in them.”
Marcus exited without another word. Bob turned for support to Edwin and Ellen, who looked back equivocally.
“Mr. Richards, it is no use fighting among ourselves,” Ellen offered.
“Why not tell that to him? I’m utterly exhausted by his dark ghouls and goblins. I have my own to contend with. Well, thank you for supporting me, both of you. I don’t have the need for two more false friends.”
“Bob!” Edwin cried. “Don’t behave like a child!”
“Do you hear that?” Bob asked. “Quickly!”
There were sounds of a new commotion coming from the first floor. Bob rushed out and up the stairs. When he reached the vestibule, his head still steaming, he burst out of the stairwell ready to take no prisoners. But he stopped dead when he saw a group of Tech students gathered in the vestibule. In the middle was Will Blaikie, his wrist wrapped in a bandage.
“Old Plymouth!” he bellowed, smiling at Bob’s entrance. “I mean, Mr. Richards,” he intoned with exaggerated deference. “Join us, will you? I was just about to inform your peers of some very good tidings from Harvard during this trying time.”
Bob glared at him and, trying to stop himself from yelling, barely pushed his words out through his tightly clenched jaw. “What are you doing here, Blaikie?”
Blaikie smiled at the onlookers. “I’d think that I would be welcomed heartily.”
“Think again. You’re decidedly not welcome at Tech. Ever,” said Bob.
“I’m rather certain that’s not true at the moment, old salt. You see, I’ve come to tell all of you about a special arrangement. We at Harvard are absolutely crestfallen about what is now plaguing our infant neighbor, your institute, in light of these terrible catastrophes and the apparent connections to this place. To this end, at
the suggestion of some well-regarded students—I include myself in that, if I may be bold enough—the Harvard faculty has this morning voted to extend an offer, and they have sent me, as First Scholar of the Harvard Class of 1868, to tell you about it.” The emissary swept his gaze around the group, letting the suspense build. “If any of you good gentlemen”—he paused when he saw Ellen had by now appeared from downstairs and joined the group—“if any of you fine gentlemen who are currently enrolled at Technology in good standing wish to come to Cambridge and switch over to Harvard College, and study under the celebrated Professor Agassiz, the faculty is prepared to do its best to accommodate you in the spirit of fellowship due in these unusual circumstances.”
A general murmur ran through the entrance hall.
Blaikie continued even more brashly. “Those of you who are seniors would study for an extra term, freshes would start that year again in the fall, and the rest would be one year behind. If there are any who should wish to discuss possibilities with a representative of our college, you may drive back with me in a comfortable private coach to Cambridge. We shall be a merry caravan, over the river, across the bridge to your futures.”
“We’d rather lay our heads on a railroad track and let the train cars run over them!” cried Bob, no longer holding back the power of his voice.
Bryant Tilden stepped forward. “Say, I’ll look into it. Why not?” he added lightly to nobody in particular. “Conny, come on—think what your kin back in old Kentucky would say to know you’re a Harvard man. What do you say? Hall, you’re not going to let all your dreams die for a lost cause? Come on.”
“You have some nerve, Tilden,” said Conny.
“No, Tilden!” Albert declared. “This is where I belong. You, too!”
“Back to the factory with you, Albert. I’m certain I won’t be alone in this for long.”
“You traitor!” Bob shouted. “You’re killing it! You’re killing Tech—we’re all it has left!”
“What will we have left—tell me that!” Tilden said. “Nobody here ever took me seriously. Nobody thought I was smart enough. Well, blast you all! I take myself seriously. This place is a tomb.”
“It is only a tomb for the old system of colleges that he represents!” Bob retorted, pointing at Blaikie, who chuckled at the notion.
“It’s my future and I wish it to be assured,” Tilden replied. “Damn you and your high horse to hell, Richards.”
“Scrub! Dirty snake in the grass!” Bob threw himself at Tilden.
“No, Bob!” Hammie said, pulling him off.
“Brace up now, Richards—it won’t help Tech!” cried Conny, taking hold of his other arm.
As he was split up from Tilden, Bob was thrown backward in the general fracas. As he struggled to push his classmates off him, he could see Blaikie speaking quietly to Edwin. He would not watch his friend fight his fight for him.
“Stay away from him,” Bob cried as he pushed himself to his feet.
“You mean Mr. Hoyt?” Blaikie asked innocently. “Why should I do that, when the prodigal son returns?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I mean Hoyt here—coming back to Harvard,” Blaikie announced.
Edwin was looking at his feet. He cleared his throat twice before glancing sideways at Bob and saying, with another pained glance downward, “I am going with him, Bob. I’m … I’m sorry.”
“He can’t do that. He took an oath to Tech!” Hammie complained.
“Eddy … no …” Bob didn’t know what to say. If Edwin had given up on Tech after all they had been through, then what chance did Tech have? A few underclassmen began inching forward toward Blaikie and Edwin. “Eddy, you’re a Top Scholar. Don’t you see? They’ll start following you.”
“I’m … sorry … really …”
“Hoyt has more ambition than you gave him credit for,” Blaikie said, putting a hand on Edwin’s shoulder. “You think everyone just wants to follow your lead, but people like Hoyt think for themselves.”
“Bob, please, you have to understand …” Edwin said, but then was pulled away by a cheerful Tilden with a congratulatory handshake.
“I told you I’d win,” Blaikie said softly as he leaned in to Bob’s ear. “Admit it. It takes the usual fellow four years to finish college. This time, your whole college has finished itself in four years.”
“I’d rather my limbs be torn from my body then see Eddy go with you,” Bob said, writhing against the continued restraint of his classmates. “Let go, you blockheads—do you hear? You’ll eat your words, Blaikie!” He finally managed to pull himself free.
“We could even see what we could do for you, my good fellow,” Blaikie said pleasantly to Marcus, who was standing on his own, away from the group, watching. “You won’t be blackballed, old grudges aside.”
Bob waited. Marcus would not allow this to go on. Marcus took a step forward, staring at Blaikie, who flinched, with Tilden cowering at his side. But then he brushed past them, past Bob and Edwin and the whole group, and strode out the front entrance.
Bob followed out and onto the steps. “Where are you going? Mansfield, wait! You cannot leave all of us behind like this!”
“Why not, Bob?” He did not slow down.
“Because you made a promise! What about Miss Swallow? What about me, what about the Institute and the Technologists? And Rogers?”
Marcus shook his head. “College was never a place that I was meant to be. A machine man; a man without a father. I was a fool to believe otherwise, and you were a fool to believe in me. Why not go dun Edwin instead? He’s the one switching to Harvard.”
“Eddy’s frightened. He fears what his father will say.”
“There shall be no one disappointed in me—is that what you mean? There is no one who cares whether I am a machine hand or a college man.”
“You promised to see this through!” Bob grabbed his arm and tried to pull him back up the steps.
“Do not press me further, Richards!” Marcus said, a flash of anger altering his voice.
“Or what? You’ll strike me instead of striking that arrogant swell in there like you should?”
“There’s nothing left to stop me. No rules, no restrictions on how to be a college gentleman.”
His face flushed, Bob shoved him hard. Marcus steadied himself by pushing back, sending Bob tumbling down, sprawled out on the steps, and hitting his knee on the granite edge. A spot of blood slowly enlarged on his pant leg.
“Mansfield …” Bob said in quiet disbelief, not seriously injured, but wounded deeply. “Wait! Where are you going? Finish this!”
“It is finished.”
XLVII
Prove Thyself a Mother to Me
PRAYING TO HOLY MARY, the young woman waited patiently while the bread was soaking up the milk. Carrying the soft bread to the bedside, she gently opened the lips of the patient and carefully placed it inside her mouth, moving her jaw up and down until the bread was chewed and swallowed. With her other hand, she wiped the girl’s forehead with a clean white cloth.
“Holy Mary, my advocate and patroness, pray for her,” whispered the caretaker, face uplifted, kneeling by the bed. For the next five minutes, she sprinkled holy water on the girl’s face and body.
“Madame Louise.” It was the Sister Superior, Alphonse Marie, entering the infirmary from the adjoining study.
The other nun bowed her head to her superior.
“Changes?” the older woman asked in French. Many of the nuns here, even after years in America, had learned only a few basic words in English, and spoke exclusively in French.
Sister Louise shook her head. “No.”
“He is outside,” said the Sister Superior.
“Still?”
“I am afraid so.”
“He has been there for three hours! Perhaps—”
“No,” the Sister Superior interrupted before the younger woman could finish her thought. “Madame Louise, you know our rules must be followed wi
thout exception at all times. For all we know, that … that rowdy, that ruffian from the Institute is partially responsible for what happened to this poor chambermaid. If he does not leave at once, I shall send for police to arrest him.”
“Yes, Sister Superior.” Louise knew that was not likely. The Sisters of Notre Dame could expect little assistance from most members of the Boston Police.
“I must return to my class,” said the Sister Superior. “The girls are scared out of their wits. Will you stay?”
“I’d like to pray for her a while longer.”
The Sister Superior nodded her permission. “Pray for all of Boston, Madame Louise.”
* * *
HE HAD JUST COME FROM FRANK’S LODGING HOUSE. To his surprise, he had learned from the garrulous landlady that rather than recovering in bed, Frank had been ordered by Hammond to return to the works to help repair the damaged buildings.
“What?” Marcus replied. “I cannot believe it.”
“Yes, I pray I never again have a factory hand as a boarder,” she said.
“What do you mean?” asked Marcus.
“They are too prone to injury around those diabolical machines, and then who shall pay me what I am owed for his room if one dies? And if they are not lamed or crippled, sooner or later they’ll squander their wages in taverns.”
“Not all men who work in factories are the same.”
“A factory hand is a factory hand is a factory hand, young man—and never shall be gentlemanly! In my house, I look for true gentlemen—lawyers’ clerks, for instance. They speak so nicely at the table, too. I will put an advertisement for more lawyers’ clerks.”
He excused himself, leaving a card for Frank, not having the energy to argue. He walked by Temple Place but found Bob had been right—there were police in front, in back, in the windows of Rogers’s home. There would be no use trying to speak with Rogers, so he left.