“Shakespeare?” whispered Caleb. “He wants Christ to read Shakespeare? Shakespeare should read Christ!”
And the old man grew increasingly agitated as the speech unfolded, sighing and clucking and shifting in his seat.
The Concord philosopher questioned the importance of historical faith, of Christ’s divinity, of the belief that God is a personality, somewhere out in the cosmos, rather than a flame burning in the human heart. “That which shows God in me fortifies me. That which shows God out of me makes me a wart and a wen.”
“I cut out many a wen in my day,” whispered Caleb. “I’d do the same for him.”
Emerson glanced in their direction, and Theodore told his grandfather to be quiet.
Emerson went on, rising toward this conclusion: “Let me admonish you to go alone; to refuse the good models, even those which are sacred to the imagination of men, and dare to love God without mediator or veil. Yourself a newborn bard of the Holy Ghost, cast behind you all conformity, and acquaint men at the first hand with Deity.”
Afterward, Caleb Wedge said, “It is time for an old Congregationalist to die.”
“He has opened my eyes,” said Theodore. “I will cast conformity behind me.”
And both were true to their word.
Theodore took his grandfather home to Brattle Street, then returned to the library in Harvard Hall, took a seat in the north corner, and wrote out his resignation from the Divinity School. He had planted himself firmly on his own instincts and would wait now for the world to come round. While he waited, he would write . . . a novel or essays like Emerson’s Nature, or perhaps a history of Harvard, which he would frame as a history of thought and belief in America.
Meanwhile, Old Caleb went out to his barn and said good-bye to all the ghosts who had inhabited it, a few of whom might inhabit it still, considering the dissections he had performed there. He went through the study and remembered all the nights he had talked there with his wife, his children, and old Burton Bones. He said good-bye to the portrait of Reverend Abraham, seated as he always should have been, before a Bible rather than a play. Then he slowly climbed the stairs. And at the landing, he was greeted by a portrait of his wife in her youth.
“Christine,” he said, “we shall soon embrace again.”
He then went into the bedroom, slipped off his boots and trousers and wooden foot, and slipped into the bed that they had shared for sixty years. It was two o’clock in the afternoon, and the summer sun was hot and bright on the treetops outside his window. He closed his eyes and wondered if he could die.
“What is this foolishness?” Lydia marched into the bedroom two hours later with a tray of tea. “Are you sick?”
“No.” Caleb’s eyes popped open. “I’ve decided it’s time. I’ve seen enough.”
“Enough of what?”
“Enough of new ideas, I suspect.” Theodore came in right after Lydia.
And Caleb sat up. “I spent the first third of my life learning that a man must step forward when the moment demands. I should know when it’s time to step aside.”
“Why?” asked Lydia.
Caleb looked at Theodore. “If Harvard is letting someone like Ralph Waldo Emerson lecture to our divinity students, I leave the world to the rest of you while I rejoin those who believed in a faith with form and a God with identity.”
Lydia set three cups on the nightstand and filled them. “If you’re going to die, have some tea first.”
And the three of them spent an hour drinking tea and talking.
Then Theodore rose to leave. “Don’t die, Grandfather, at least not until the cornerstone is laid for the new library.”
“We are all invited,” said Lydia, “because of the contribution arranged by George Jr. from the Boston Associates.”
After Theodore’s footfalls had receded down the stairs, Caleb said to Lydia, “’Tis time for us to deliver the book, now that our family has helped to deliver a new library.”
“You’ve decided to take yourself out of the world, so you have no say.”
“Lydia, it should be my decision. It was I who stole the book.”
“And destroyed John Harvard’s library in the process.”
“You know that’s not true.”
“But it’s what people will believe. I’ve always told you.”
“Our ancestors wanted the book in the possession of the college. So did John Harvard. I won’t rest until I’ve done my duty.”
“Then don’t die. Outlive me, and you can decide what to do with the book. Die first, and I’ll follow Emerson’s advice. I’ll stand on my instincts. I’ll wait for the great college to come round and educate the other half of humanity.”
“In that case”—Caleb Wedge swung his legs out of the bed—“give me my foot.”
iv
Over the next two years, the entries of Theodore Wedge in his journal were filled with references to the building of the library:
October 8, 1838:
The cornerstone was laid this day, in bright sunshine. President Quincy, the Fellows, and many others were in attendance. Our father did not attend, saying that it was a day for George Jr. to receive adulation for his fund-raising. Aunt Lydia and our rejuvenated grandfather, however, would not miss the moment.
Afterward, George Jr. received much in the way of praise. Even Dorothy and Amos Warren congratulated him.
George Jr. said to her, “None of this would be possible without the hard work of the Boston Associates.”
“And their southern slaves,” added Lydia.
George Jr. turned to me. “These women do not understand, we build a house of granite and glass, so that men like you can build your castles in the air.”
“The airy castles of thought,” I answered, “are the bastions of change.”
October 20, 1839:
The structure has risen, a gray Gothic cathedral of learning, modeled after King’s College Chapel, Cambridge. Grandfather and I walk around it often, although he walks slower all the time. I have written an essay on the meaning of nature that I have sent to Emerson.
November 10, 1840:
Assistant Librarian John Sibley and I talked yesterday. He said that President Quincy has asked him to prepare a triennial report of graduates, and he needs assistance. As nothing I have written has borne financial fruit, I have decided to accept a job in the Harvard libraries, for what better place will I have to enrich myself?
April 18, 1841:
Today, there is a procession of joy in Harvard Yard, a mirror of yesterday’s sad procession. Of which shall I write first?
Why, the happy. By cart, by box, by bucket and arm, the books are moving this morning from Harvard Hall, across the Yard, to our new library. President Quincy says it will be a hundred years before the library is full. I think it may be much sooner.
But yesterday, we went in sad procession from Brattle Street to the Cambridge graveyard, where we interred the great Dr. Caleb Wedge. A light went out in the world. In his dying, our grandfather raved about a book. I asked him about it, but he could not elucidate. I am left to puzzle here at my new desk in the new library.
But Emerson has responded well to my latest effort on the existence of the soul. I must now return to my writing. Dorothy has enlisted me to write articles on abolition for the Liberator, my first publication, much to my brother’s chagrin.
v
Ancient hands wrote another poem and put it into another gilt-edged envelope. Then they wrote a set of instructions and placed them in another, simpler envelope.
Both envelopes were in Lydia’s purse when she rode to Boston for the next meeting of the Anti-Slavery Society. Before she went to the offices of the Liberator, she went down Summer Street to the offices of Fleming and Royce, the lawyers who handled Wedge estate matters. She had the gilt-edged envelope deposited in the safe and the second envelope placed among her estate papers, with this codicil attached: “Contents to be passed to Dorothy Wedge Warren, and to her only. If Dorothy is
deceased, to her daughter. Contents to be held in secret.”
The inspiration for Lydia’s decision was the birth of Dorothy’s first child, a baby girl whom they named Lydia Diane, born in the house that Amos Warren’s father had bought for them on Colonnade Row in Tremont Street.
On a warm Sunday in the fall of 1841, Lydia went to visit mother and child. They sat together looking out over Boston Common, while the carriages clattered by in the street and the babe slept in her mother’s arms.
“She is so small,” said Lydia, sliding her little finger into the child’s hand.
“She is, you might say, ‘a small gift of majestic proportion.’”
Lydia looked into Dorothy’s eyes and smiled. “Indeed she is.”
A coach stopped below the window. As it was a Sunday, the driver was singing the hymn “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.”
Lydia began to hum it, then she said, “It satisfies an old woman to hold such a young child, for I shall be going to God’s fortress soon.”
And Dorothy said, “I must know . . . is it a book, the small gift you’ve spoken of?”
“The small gift of majestic proportion?”
“Theodore thinks it’s a book. He’s always asking me what I know.”
“Theodore thinks a great deal. You shall know more when I die. And this child shall know the truth when we are all dead and gone.”
But three nights later, the child developed a fever, and a frightened mother sent for the doctor. When he arrived, the infant seemed to be burning from within.
“’Tis an infection of some sort,” said the doctor.
“Can you do anything to comfort her?” begged Dorothy. “Hear how she cries.”
“Bathe her in cool water. Use ice if you have any left. But I’m afraid that it is in God’s hands . . . unless you would consent to bleed her.”
“Bleed her? Bleed a baby? That’s barbaric.”
“It’s old-fashioned, and I’m an old-fashioned doctor. Bleedin’ sometimes works for generalized inflammation. But bleed her or not, trust in God.”
And God saw fit to take Lydia Diane Warren the following day.
When Great-Aunt Lydia heard, she knew that she had lived too long.
Chapter Eighteen
A FEW days after the gallery opening, the Globe carried an article about the Harvard Portrait Collection and the restoration of a Copley painting.
Evangeline saw it first and called Peter at his condo. “Have you seen the paper this morning?”
Peter was making coffee. “What section?”
“Probably the Living section. I’m reading it online. I’m in New York.”
“No wonder I couldn’t get you yesterday. I thought you were going to stay in Cambridge for a few weeks.”
“We could use a little cooling-off period. I’m not ready for the whole Peter Fallon experience again . . . at least not the total-immersion version.”
“You mean enthusiasm becoming obsession, sweeping everyone else along?”
“It can be fun while it lasts. But it can be dangerous, too.”
“I agree.” Peter found the Living pages, and there was a color photo of Abraham and Lydia with their copy of Love’s Labours . . . something. The article speculated on the reasons a Bible would have been painted over a play, and it quoted several people, including Peter Fallon.
“What do you think?” asked Evangeline.
“I think I was right. History is alive and kicking. The people in that painting are as alive as the people in the photos that Scavullo put in front of me the day before yesterday, or the people who were looking at the painting the night before that.”
“So you’re saying what? Total immersion?”
“I’m saying we have a few more bread crumbs here. I guess I have to follow the trail.”
After a pause she said, “I’ll be back Monday. Call me here if you want to talk.”
“I was hoping you’d say that. I’ll call you tonight, after I have dinner with Will Wedge.”
Before dinner, a little row.
Inhale on the stroke. Exhale on the backstroke.
The days were getting longer, but the cold could still pierce the best Gore-Tex, especially when the ass was in direct contact with the seat of a little scull, and the sun was going down, and the temperature was, too.
Still, Peter needed to row every few days, winter or summer. Otherwise, he tended to feel sluggish and dull. And when things were heating up in the rest of his life, he needed the river even more.
So he put on the Gore-Tex, the fingerless gloves, and a Red Sox baseball cap, because spring training was under way and this was the year they were going to win the pennant. And he rowed.
Inhale on the stroke. Exhale on the backstroke.
He would start upstream from the MIT boathouse. He would pull slow and steady, pull himself into that tunnel of sensation where there was only the rhythm of movement and the air rushing by. And before long, the buildings would fade, and the four-wheeled world of headlights and taillights would fade, and his arms and shoulders would warm and loosen and seem to lengthen, and his mind would empty of all but the most elemental ideas.
Tonight, the idea came from Emerson: a man should stand on his own two feet and let the great world come round. Peter liked that.
Stroke. Stroke. Stroke.
Or maybe it was Lydia Wedge, channeling Emerson in her last published poem: “We must live like the sage of old Concord, who saw the one soul in us all, / who urged us to find the firm ground for our spirit, / And there, we were sure to stand tall.”
Stroke. Stroke. Stroke.
Or maybe that was too many ideas. He put Lydia and Emerson out of his mind and concentrated on the stroke, because he was coming to the place where the river made the big fishhook turn around Soldier’s Field, where the banks were dark and overgrown with brush that shielded them from view.
That’s where he’d break rhythm and head back downstream.
He was making the turn in the last light when he heard the roar of an outboard.
Outboard? A noisy stinkpot in March?
Only two kinds of people ran outboards on the river in March: coaches for the college crews and mechanics test-driving tune-ups from the Watertown Yacht Club.
But there was another kind of stinkpotter out that night. The dangerous kind, in a seventeen-foot Boston Whaler that was shooting downstream, right at him.
Before he could react, it smashed into his scull broadside, just forward of the seat.
The fragile little vessel seemed to explode, and Peter Fallon was flung into the freezing black water. He popped to the surface just as the boat cut a sharp turn and came at him again.
So Peter dove again into the blackness. As he did, the propeller cut through the brim of the Red Sox cap, and the boat cut so quickly through the water that the driver couldn’t turn it before slamming into the bank, bouncing off, and kicking up a splatter of mud. Then it roared into reverse, right at Peter again.
And Peter dove again. And the boat blew past again.
Chest deep in water, ankle deep in mud, Peter tried to make it to the bank, some fifteen feet away.
He made it to waist-deep then tripped on a submerged log and fell into the water.
This was it. Whoever that guy was in his black turtleneck and black ski mask, he had Peter Fallon pinned. Right . . . where . . . he . . . wanted . . .
The roar of the engine turned to a scream, and the boat stopped suddenly, stuck in the mud.
The driver slammed the engine into reverse and it roared again, backing up, back over the shattered remnants of Peter’s scull. Back into the middle of the river.
That gave Peter just enough time to scramble through the brush and up onto the bike path that ran along the bank.
Then he heard an alarm on the boat. An intermittent whistle: overheating. The engine had sucked a glob of mud into the cooling intake, and now it was crying for water.
And the boat was shooting down the river with the alarm still w
histling.
Peter decided to go after him. Because of the turn that the river took there, he might be able to intercept the boat at one of the bridges, and if he was lucky, the boat might overheat.
So he started to run, heading for the Larz Anderson Bridge. He was in shape to do it. He was in better shape than men ten years younger. But he was running in his stocking feet, because the footwear always stayed with the scull.
The boat was leaving a white wake, but now that it was approaching the Harvard boathouses, the driver smartened up enough to put his running lights on. Otherwise, he’d attract the attention of people who might chase him just because he was driving unsafely on their river. Whoever he was . . .
Fallon tried to stay on the grass and soft ground and ignore the rocks and bottle caps. He whacked his toe on the bike path curb, and he almost knocked over a pair of joggers. And by the time he reached the bridge, the soles of his feet were like two shredded blisters. But the boat stopped briefly so that the driver could raise the engine and clear the plug of mud.
From the bridge, Peter could jump on the boat. Just take aim and . . .
Wait a minute. Someone had died jumping off this bridge, even if he was a fictional character: Quentin Compson in Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury. They had actually put up a plaque to mark the spot. Only at Harvard.
By the time Peter processed that, the outboard shot through the corner arch and sped downstream. But there was still one more bridge, if Peter could get to it first.
A cyclist had stopped to watch the last light of dusk reflecting off the buildings of downtown Boston. So Peter grabbed his bike, shouting, “I’ll be right back.”
And he pounded the bike down off the bridge, along Memorial Drive, in front of Eliot House, and Winthrop, and—yes—he was sure to get this guy at the Weeks footbridge, because he was well ahead of the boat again. He left the bike at the base of the bridge, then ran up and planted himself above the middle arch.
Harvard Yard (Peter Fallon) Page 34