The End of Innocence (16 page)

“Come,” he said, taking her hand and leading her to a small embankment.

She caught her breath. On the ground was a richly embroidered cloth dusted in rose petals. She looked at the fabric, so different from the brown of her shawl, and turned to him.

“What's this?”

She walked to the cloth, pulled off her shoes, and stepped on it in her stocking feet. It was intricately patterned, with hues of greens and reds and blues bursting from it. In the center were two vines embroidered in gold, each wrapped around the other, their tendrils overlaying the letter
W
with an
H
.

Wils cleared his throat. “The shipping lanes have cleared. I'm leaving in three days. I can't hold you to a promise when I don't know the future,” he said as she took in the tapestry. “It's not honorable. But when I return I will ask you to marry me.”

“What?”

Helen turned to him, surprised to find him kneeling. She felt so much all at once: overjoyed, terrified, ecstatic, speechless.

“I have no idea how long I'll be gone. I don't know much about where I'm going. But I couldn't leave this shore if I didn't let you know what is in my heart.”

He took her hand and looked into her eyes.

“My dearest Helen, will you marry me?” he asked. “I know this is quick, but it would make me the happiest man alive. And I promise to do everything in my power to be the best husband for you that I could possibly be.”

She could not believe it—the moment she had been waiting for! She smiled at this wonderful man, this man she loved now, kneeling before her.

“Oh, Helen,
Die
Liebe
welche
Gott
geweiht,
Die
bleibet
bis
in
Ewigkeit.
The love, which God consecrates, abides for eternity,” he said tenderly as he kissed her hands. They were soft and small, and smelled of fresh flowers.

In the wondrous moment she had still said nothing. Instead she knelt beside him, leaned toward him, and kissed his forehead gently.

“The love, which God consecrates, abides for eternity,” she repeated. “Yes, I will marry you, Wils Brandl.”

“Thank you!” He gave a big laugh and threw his arms around her hugging her tightly. She laughed with him.

“Oh dear Helen, I am the happiest man alive,” he said. “May I kiss you?”

She pulled back and looked into his eyes—eyes that danced with joy. “Yes. I mean, yes please.”

As they kissed she felt every part of her come alive.

He loved her! He saw her with all her passions, with all her faults, and yet he loved her! He delighted in how smart she was; that she was beautiful to him even though she did not have the looks of a Caroline Peabody. To him she was not part of a large, august family. She was not measured by her bank account. She was not judged by her mother's actions. She was not part of New England or Radcliffe or anywhere.

This man—for whom she cared so deeply—saw her and loved what he found. In his eyes, she was simply Helen.

She realized she had harbored an empty place in her heart for too long. She had no idea how light and happy she would feel when she found the person with whom she might share her dreams, laughter, and life. What a poor imagination she had when comparing those pale dreams to the reality of Wils Brandl!

“In Prussia I have a ring for you,” he murmured. “A sapphire as blue as your eyes.”

“And a coronet?” she teased.

“Well, yes, actually.”

She gave a slight laugh. “I've no need of one. But—” She thought, then stopped. She reached for the satin ribbon in her hair. Taking the pearl ring from her finger, she threaded it through the satin, knotting one end. She kissed the pearl and draped the ribbon around his neck, tucking it in his shirt. “Keep this until you return from the war,” she said.

“When I return,” he said softly, taking her in with his eyes.

“My promise is binding,” she said. “You are what has been missing in my life. And I cannot let you leave my heart. This war will not change that or me.”

“I will return,” he said, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her closer to him.

“You must! I'll be terribly sad if you don't.”

“Then it's settled.” He gave a soft laugh as he kissed her again. “Besides, I can't wait to take you to Germany! After the war of course.”

She grinned, thinking about what fun it would be to explore Europe with the most delightful man her heart had ever encountered.

* * *

A cold rain began to fall as Wils walked Helen from his car up to the steps of Longworth Hall. He promised to call on her father as soon as possible to ask for his blessing. Not caring a whit for the rain, she glided into the building. Ann would be astonished at the news!

“Miss Brooks! Your father—” Miss Sullivan called out.

“Does he know?” Helen asked, surprised.

“Know what?” the large woman said with a snort. “Don't interrupt. Your father called to take you home. Your mother's been arrested, again”—she emphasized the word in her ham-handed manner—“for giving safe haven to criminals. Your driver is picking you up in five minutes to meet your brother, who is already at City Hall. He said to pack for a few nights and meet him at the corner.” Miss Sullivan seemed almost delighted at the news.

Helen walked upstairs, the color draining from her face. As she closed the door behind her she burst into tears. They flowed freely as she swiftly gathered her things into an evening bag—a notebook, brushes, a change of clothes.

Not now. Wils was leaving. She couldn't go.

She took a deep breath, drying her tears on the back of her hand and dashing off a quick note to let Ann know where she was.

She should be glad to be free of Radcliffe for now. After what happened on the river, the place suddenly felt too small for her, with Miss Sullivan below as her juvenile jailer.

She was no longer a child to be moved by her mother's or Miss Sullivan's caprice. She was Wils Brandl's wife.

Lexington, Massachusetts

Jonathan Edwards Brooks ordered his breakfast in the study that next morning. He was in no mood to talk. He seethed in his dark red lounging jacket in front of his study's warm fire. He had a headache, and his headache had a name: Merriam Windship Brooks.

An hour into his morning regimen he was still simmering, the peppery scent of his third cup of tea no balm for his troubled thoughts. He finally gathered the strength to look at the morning papers to read what shocks were in store for him today: war, wife, or other calamities.

The top headline, as usual, was that the Europeans were killing each other in all sorts of brutal fashions. Why this still made headlines was unclear to him. For hundreds of years this had been going on: the Hundred Years' War, the French Revolution, Napoleon. Every time you turned around, these people were killing each other, typically in the name of enlightenment, pride, or some God-given right to another man's wine cellar.

His eyes scanned the paper—a city boss's son had run off to war to fight for the British. At least that news pushed Merriam's story off the front page. Although she would probably complain about that too. He could just hear her now. The Civil War delayed women's suffrage and here men were, trumping up another war in order to delay a vote on women's issues yet again.

And so it went that the sun had climbed a fair way into the sky by the time Mr. Brooks actually cracked the shell of his hard-boiled egg. Just as he added a judicious pinch of pepper and opened his mouth to pop it in whole, he stopped, adjusted his pince-nez, and shook his head at a news story at the bottom of the page.

Harvard Reiterates Regulations Regarding Rallies

Harvard University has reiterated its restrictions against discussions of contentious political issues after this last month's rally in Harvard Yard, led by Arnold Archer, son of influential congressional candidate Charles Archer (see related story, page 1). It was the third rally of this type since the kaiser invaded Belgium. Given that the rally fell immediately after a reading by Harvard's Assistant Professor Charles Copeland, there was considerably less mayhem and drinking than accompanied the previous two rallies. However, many had copies of
Candide
, Copeland's text that evening, and these they threw into a bonfire. Other books burned were by the German professors Kuno Francke and Hugo Munsterberg.

The authorities immediately put out the fire, citing the hazardous combination of exuberance, spirits, fire, and political opinion.

After an angry complaint from Professor Copeland, the Harvard Corporation reissued its 1912 regulation, which states, “The halls of the University shall not be open for persistent and systematic propaganda on contentious questions of contemporary social, economic, political, or religious interests.”

The topic inflames passion on the campus. Harvard has seen almost as much attrition this fall as it did during the entire War Between the States. Officials have attributed the exodus of students to the ready availability of news reports regarding how the British are now engaged in some of the most exciting, honorable soldiering to have been available to students since Theodore Roosevelt, class of 1880, charged up San Juan Hill. (For related story, see front page: “Late-Breaking News: Son of Councilman Leaves for War; Sets Example for Youth of Today.”)

At that moment Brooks pondered enlisting. Perhaps he could shed a few pounds and fit into one of those dashing airplanes. He looked sullenly down at his paunch.
Maybe a zeppelin
, he thought with disgust.

But before he could finish his self-flagellation, he heard steps on the gravel of the driveway.

It had better be his lawyer, Ronald Choate, and Choate had better have some answers, or Choate would be choked. His mustache twitched in rage.

“Father?”

His walrus mustache perked up. Helen was better than Choate.

“Yes?” he replied, looking at her in the doorway. The frown returned.

Helen had come from a walk. Her hair was unbound, her cheeks reddened by the wind. Mud clung to the hem of her wool skirt.
Ophelia in the moated grange looked better
, he thought.

“Dear child, why did you go out in this mess?”

“How could I sleep after the police searched our house last night? The house felt like it was caving in on me. I went for a walk.”

“Yes, the police.” He sighed. “A most humiliating business. At least they didn't find any additional people hiding out or doling out family limitation booklets by the gross. Please, come in.”

“There could have been more women hiding at our house?”

“Who knows who your mother met in New York?” said Mr. Brooks.

Helen's heart sank. “Are we safe for now?”

“Of course not!” he said brusquely. “This has permanently affected our standing in the community. We'll be outcasts just like the Darlingtons.” He looked sadly up at a portrait of his father in military uniform. “In some ways, Helen, it's quite liberating, but in others it's not, especially for my unmarried daughter.”

She decided now was not the time to discuss Wils. “Then if there's no danger here, may I just return to my studies? I could be of use in Cambridge.”

He moved over on the settee, and motioned her to sit down. “Then both you and Peter would have deserted me. I need you here, Helen.” He suddenly looked older, she thought. Much older. And she understood that for today there would be no talk at all of Wils or of returning to Cambridge.

“Helen, your mother really wishes to help this cause but—but—” He caught himself, holding his hands up in protest. “Let me remember myself,” he said, catching his breath. “We've had too much emoting around this house as it is. I'll start over.

“While I cannot take credit for what others choose to do, I did marry your mother and I knew that the apple wouldn't fall far from the tree. Your grandmother was at Seneca Falls and raised a fighter. They believe that reasonable people work with the world, unreasonable people change it, and that”—he sighed—“is why we have the house in New Hampshire—to get away from unreasonable people! To flee such slings and arrows of outrageous fortune when the police come for the occasional odd duck in our family.”

“But, Father, Mother has been entirely unreasonable. And she looks down on us as conventional.”

He frowned as he pondered the question, and the bushy brows seemed to war with each other.

“Hiding those women from the police was a bad idea. This is not the Underground Railroad. Your mother is now in serious trouble. Apparently Ms. Margaret Sanger and her friend jumped bail and fled to avoid defending their principles in a court of law. I hope they are posted on a ship to England.”

“How did the shipping lanes clear, Father?” Helen could not think of a fact so vile as the shipping lanes being open. These lanes would take Wils from her if they were not shut down promptly.

“They're not clear. But they're also no match for the likes of your mother or her friends. And the truth be told, anyone with connections can get through—probably the kaiser himself—if they have the will to do so. Apparently these ladies possess that in spades.”

“Leaving Mother here to face the charges—”

“Leaving your mother here. Yes. It's good they did.”

“But she'll be blamed!”

He sat up and looked at her blankly. “I need her here, Helen. I mean, at least she'll be here in Boston. And I'll—I'll—” His shoulders slumped. “Well, you know I'll be there beside her, writing the checks to the lawyers and making sure that no one lays a hand on my wife.”

Helen gave his plump hand a sad pat. “That's the spirit, Father.”

“I do love your mother, and I'm so gullible in matters of love,” he grumped. Helen winced. So was she.

“Why did Mother decide that changing the world was worth all of this?”

He sniffed. His mustache drooped past his thick neck onto his velvet collar. “You haven't figured that out?”

“I'm mystified by her energy.”

He gave a slight laugh, his chest rumbling. “She is a reformer. That's what she wants to be—to help people who can't help themselves. It can be a noble calling, and her heart's in the right place.”

“But what of us?”

He looked down to her. “You don't feel compelled to distribute family limitation devices, do you?”

“Not in the least.”

He sighed in relief. “Neither do I. It's her calling and her constitution. It doesn't have to be ours.”

“And you love her for it? After she abandoned us?”

“Nonsense, Helen. She says I took you from her and alienated your affection so that you'd prefer me to her. But that is of course nonsense, and I dismiss it every time she brings it up. I love her. Of course I don't love her helping a person evade the law. But she is a fierce competitor and has a fine mind. Under all of that
Sturm
und
Drang
lies a soft heart, albeit one that tends toward taking in all the strays of the world. I have no need of a meek wife, and I hope I've not raised a meek daughter.”

Helen rested her head on her father's sleeve. “But I hear the meek shall inherit the earth.”

“I certainly hope not,” he said with a sigh. “I had my money on you and your mother.”

They sat together in silence, her head on his arm, as they stared at the fire, waiting for the lawyer Choate to arrive. The scent of the leather and tobacco of the study, the tall cases crammed with familiar books, the soft sound of the fire—it felt like home again to Helen. It felt like old times: before her mother's arrest, before her mother left for New York and she for college, even before she met Wils Brandl—when it was just Helen and her father working together in the study, and there was no trouble so big that they couldn't solve it together.