Harvard Yard (Peter Fallon)

by William Martin

  So Murdoch shouted, “Lower away!” and the lifeboat dipped below the level of the boat deck.

  And then, thought Victor, the third-class males did what he should have expected of them. All eight rushed the boat.

  Murdoch screamed for them to stop, but they kept coming. So he fired, not into the air—it was too late for that—but right into the biggest of them. The man stopped suddenly, but none of the others did, for in that night of rising panic, the collapse of one man was nothing, and the rest leapt past Victor for the boat.

  And somehow, Victor was knocked backward, so that he was flying, twisting, reaching out.

  He saw the black water below him. Then he struck the gunwale of the lifeboat, heard one of his ribs crack, and struck his head against the boot sole of the one who’d jumped ahead of him. At the same moment, he heard two loud splashes thirty feet below as two immigrants missed the boat.

  And he was falling, too, sliding backward as the boat swayed crazily from the impact of several bodies.

  Then one of the Irishmen, safe on the lifeboat, grabbed his sleeve. “Hang on.”

  And an Italian grabbed the shoulder harness of his life vest.

  And from somewhere above him, he heard Harry Elkins Widener’s voice. “Hang on, Victor, old boy. And good luck.”

  “Aye, hang on,” said the Irishman who had almost killed him and was now saving his life.

  Victor looked up into their faces—one dark and bearded, one ghostly white with a bulbous potato nose, and he thought, what a place for the Earl of Mount Auburn.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  “SO . . . YOU’RE telling us that Victor Wedge went back for a book?” asked Peter Fallon.

  “Yes.” Katherine Pratt Carrington looked out over the Gulf of Mexico. “They say that people who survived the sinking either remembered every detail or buried it as if it never happened. All I need to do is think of a cold clear night, and it all comes back.”

  Florida in early April: like Massachusetts in late August. Temperature in the eighties, breeze light, cumulus clouds floating over the Gulf. A good place for a weekend getaway, especially if it meant a chance to talk to someone who had actually looked into the eyes of Victor Wedge.

  Peter and Evangeline were sitting with Katherine Pratt Carrington on the little veranda of her winter home on the island of Captiva.

  “You know,” said Katherine, “I lost my whole family that night . . . father, mother, both brothers.”

  “Didn’t your mother go onto a lifeboat with you?”

  “Yes. But they filled the boat only halfway on the boat deck. As the ship settled, the lifeboats on the port side swung away from the hull. So they cranked the boat down to the promenade deck, A deck, and called for ladders.”

  “Ladders?” asked Peter.

  “Once the boats were level with the promenade deck, they wanted to run ladders out the windows for gangplanks. But no one could find any. So they lashed chairs together and used boathooks to draw the boat against the ship. Three more women climbed aboard, and then two men.

  “My mother pulled herself up—she was a great one for high dudgeon—and glared at the men. ‘This is a boat for women and children only!’

  “‘There are no more women and children around,’ said one of them. And you know, he was right, at least as far as the promenade deck was concerned. Some of those boats were only half full when they left. So, my mother looked at the young officer in charge of our boat and said, ‘If we’re letting men aboard on A deck, there are men on the boat deck who should be allowed aboard, too.’ She shouted up, but it seemed that our men had gone looking for another boat, so she said to the young officer, ‘Wait here.’

  “‘Madam,’ said the officer, ‘we can’t wait.’

  “But my mother jumped onto the deck, stuck her head back out the window, and said, ‘I am a first-class passenger. I demand that you wait here until I fetch my husband and sons.’ She had a great sense of herself, my mother did. She looked at me and said, ‘I’ll be right back.’

  “That was the last I saw of her. The people from second and third class were finding their way up from below, the people in the boat were shouting to leave, and—”

  “What about Victor Wedge?” asked Evangeline.

  “I didn’t see him until next morning, aboard the Carpathia. He was very kind to me, but what could anyone really do for me by then?” She looked off toward the Gulf.

  Evangeline put her hand on Katherine’s arm.

  The old woman said, “You know, longevity can be a curse. I’ve lived over ninety years with that memory. I’ve outlived both my children, too.”

  And Evangeline’s eyes filled with tears. Her mother had been one of those children, dead of breast cancer just a few years.

  The old woman patted her granddaughter’s hand. “One of the lessons of longevity is to keep looking ahead. So . . . I’m glad that you two have come down here together. That bodes well for the future. I’m glad you’re—”

  Evangeline said, “We’re in separate bedrooms, Grandmother.”

  “Oh, hell,” said Katherine, “sleep with him. You’ll be dead for a long time.”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” said Peter. “But can we get back to the story?”

  “See,” said Evangeline. “He wants to sleep with me to get something.”

  “Maybe you’re what he wants to get,” said Katherine.

  “The wisdom of old age,” said Peter. “But the book . . . Did Victor Wedge have it with him on the Carpathia?”

  “I asked him. He said he had it in his pocket.”

  “Do you remember the title?” asked Peter.

  “Yes. He even offered to let me read it to take my mind off my grief. Very nice of him, though not too effective. It was . . . Oh, I’m not sure. . . .”

  “Was it printed or handwritten?” asked Peter gently.

  “Oh . . . printed.”

  “Did it have the word Love in the title?”

  “Yes,” she said, brightening. “I remember. It was Love’s Labours Lost.”

  “Not Won?”

  “The title of the play is Love’s Labours Lost, Peter. I know my Shakespeare.”

  Peter sank back in his chair. “Then it’s a quarto. Love’s Labors Lost. It has to be.”

  “But what happened to it?” asked Evangeline.

  “Oh,” said Katherine, “I don’t know. Victor and I were never close, because you know, all the men who survived without going into the water were a little suspect, especially to those of us who lost our families that night.”

  After dinner, Peter and Evangeline walked across the road and out onto the beach. As their eyes adjusted, the deep Gulf darkness became more than a black sky pinpricked with light. There were so many stars that the sky seemed iridescent, as alive as the plankton-blooming sea below.

  “So, is it over now?” Evangeline started to walk.

  “If Wedge brought back a quarto of Love’s Labours Lost, I think we’re still on the job. A quarto can be a million-dollar book these days.”

  “You know,” she said, “I have to admit I like it.”

  “The chase?”

  “The sense that people are watching you, wondering what you’re up to, trying to beat you to the prize. The sense of purpose.”

  “I like it, too.” He put his arm around her, and they walked together for a time in silence, the cool sand massaging their feet.

  Then she said, “Did you love your wife?”

  “At the beginning. Your husband?”

  “I met him in Siena. I was doing an article on great views in Italy. I was climbing the campanile and bumped into him on the stairs. He’d come to deliver a paper on face-lifts in Florence. He invited me to lunch . . . and then . . .”

  “Why didn’t you have kids?”

  “We couldn’t. Nothing worked. I suggested adoption. But he said if we couldn’t have kids of our own, he didn’t want to tie himself down. So, it was boob jobs, then Barbardos; tummy tucks, then Tuscany; lipos
uctions, then—”

  “Lithuania?”

  “We went everywhere else. It was fun at first, but after a while, it seemed to me like we were running away. When I heard you’d had a son, I envied you.”

  “The only reason I’m enviable,” he said.

  “A good answer, even if it isn’t true.”

  Then he stopped and kissed her.

  “So, it’s not over?” she said.

  “The search for the Shakespeare?”

  “The search for something.”

  “We’ll know in the morning.”

  They woke up in the same bed and agreed that it was a good place to be.

  About ten, they drove to the ’Tween Waters Inn, rented a Boston Whaler, and headed up the Intracoastal Waterway to the island of Useppa.

  If there was a Bostonian’s fantasy of Florida, Useppa was it. An island a mile long, maybe a quarter mile wide, a handsome old lodge put up by some railroad baron at the end of the nineteenth century, a hundred condo units clustered here and there—all painted Nantucket gray and white, with tin roofs and balconies and views of the mangrove islands to the east or the barrier islands to the west.

  They tied up at the main wharf, amid cabin cruisers, cigarette boats, and a hundred-foot yacht with a uniformed captain and a crew.

  Hoi polloi didn’t just land at Useppa and get out for a stroll, so Fallon told the harbormaster that he had come for lunch with Mrs. Harriet Wedge.

  “Good that Mrs. Wedge invited your grandmother to lunch a few times,” whispered Peter to Evangeline.

  “Let’s hope she’s there.” And they started walking, because there were no cars on the island, just golf carts puttering along paths that wound through the palm fronds, along the beach, and across the open expanses of grass.

  At the north end of the island, Peter and Evangeline came to a cluster of two-story units baking in the sun. Three golf carts were parked in the little cul-de-sac. Two of the condos were already closed up as the Florida summer approached and the Yankee snowbirds headed north.

  They went up to the door of number sixty and rang the bell. No answer.

  “I told you this was a long shot,” said Evangeline.

  Peter looked down the little service alley between number sixty and number fifty-nine. The air-conditioning units were running. “Someone’s here.” He went down the alley, and Evangeline followed him.

  At the back, there were verandas overlooking a little cove, a dock, a few small boats. A big pelican was perched on a piling, on a plastic piling cap that was supposed to make it harder for pelicans to perch. The bird glanced at Peter, fluttered its wings as though it considered leaving, then went back to thinking about whatever it had been thinking about. Probably fish.

  It was hot enough that one of the distant mangrove islands seemed to have water running through it—a mirage. And the heat heightened that funky smell, distinctly Floridian, of sweet earth, decaying vegetation, and . . . marijuana?

  Just then, one of the air-conditioning units shut off, and Peter realized that there was another sound, somewhere above him. Someone—two someones—were having sex. He could see the naked bodies through the railings on the second-floor deck, going at it doggie-style.

  Thump-bump, thump-bump. Oh, yes. Oh, God. Thump-bump. Thump-bump.

  “Peter,” whispered Evangeline, “I don’t think that’s Harriet Wedge up there.”

  Thump-bump. Harder. Thump-bump. Faster. Thump-bump-thump—bump.

  And Peter called up to them, as innocently as he could, “Hel-lo?”

  Thump-bump . . . bump . . . thump . . .

  “Excuse me,” called Peter.

  Bump . . . bump . . . The man’s head popped up. “What? Who the fuck are you?”

  “I’m . . . I’m sorry to bother you. I’m looking for Mrs. Wedge.”

  “Well, she’s not here. Good-bye.”

  “Do you know when she’ll be back?”

  “No.”

  “Could you tell her that Peter Fallon and Evangeline Carrington were here?”

  And the man said, “Fallon? The book guy?”

  “Yes.”

  “Wait a minute.” There was a rustling of bathing suits and bodies, and a middle-aged man with good Wedge height and firm Wedge features and an un-Wedge ponytail and a decidedly un-Wedge earring came down to the back sliders. “I’m Franklin.”

  “Will’s brother?” asked Fallon.

  “Yeah. The one they never talk about.” He offered his hand. “I’m still marching to the barricades while my brother marches to the bank.”

  “It was your mother I wanted to talk to,” said Peter.

  “Mom’s not here. She’s . . . peripatetic. Gone to the Bahamas for a few.”

  A dark-haired woman wearing a bikini appeared from the house.

  “Meet Marie,” said Franklin. “She’s more fun than Mom. And Marie, could you bring us some iced tea?”

  Marie looked at Peter and Evangeline as if they owed her money, or a good orgasm, then she went padding away.

  “Great girl.” Franklin gestured for them to sit beneath an umbrella table on the deck. “She’s one of my graduate students, writing a thesis on images of female subjugation in the novels of Hemingway. Such a pig, that Hemingway.”

  “I . . . I kind of like him,” said Evangeline.

  “The original male chauvinist.” Franklin looked down at his suit. “Now that the Viagra is wearing off, is there something that I can help you with?”

  “My business is rather personal,” said Peter.

  “The lost Shakespeare?” Franklin laughed, as if relishing the look of consternation that spread across Fallon’s face.

  “Well, yes,” said Peter. “What do you know about it?”

  “Can’t tell.” Franklin brought his fingers to his lips and laughed again, a little giddy, as if he was stoned. “If there’s a manuscript out there, I’m after it, too.”

  “You, too?” said Fallon. “You know, your brother says that Harvard will lay claim to it.”

  “Harvard University. Oppressor of the people. Tool of the rulers.” He winked. “You like that? Alliteration followed by assonance.”

  “That’s why you’re an English professor, baby.” Marie returned with a tray of iced teas and a little Baggie of marijuana.

  Franklin looked at Peter. “If I find it, I’ll liberate it. But a guy like you, you’re just in it for the money—”

  “There’s more at stake here than money,” said Peter.

  “There always is. That’s how I’ve lived my life, right, Marie?”

  “Principles all the way.” Marie began to roll a joint. “That’s you.”

  “Principles,” said Franklin. “Something my baby brother lacks.”

  Evangeline said, “Hard to picture Will Wedge as anyone’s baby brother.”

  Franklin lit the joint and inhaled. “Hard to imagine him smokin’ a bone, either.” He let out the smoke. “The Revolution lives, baby.” Then he offered the joint to Fallon, who hesitated, then reached for it.

  And Evangeline stood. “I think we’ll be running along. Wouldn’t want you to waste all this good dope and Viagra . . . on conversation.”

  Peter swung his hand to the iced tea and finished it in a gulp. Then he stood and said, “I have just one question. Did your mother ever tell you anything about this play?”

  Franklin took another long toke. “You know, I can’t fuckin’ remember just now.”

  “Well, that was enlightening,” said Peter.

  “I had to get you out of there,” answered Evangeline. “I saw you stoned once.”

  “Once. I smoked three joints in my whole life. If I smoked with him, I’d only be doing it to get information.”

  “He’s a professional stoner, and you think you’re going to get information out of him? Before he told you a thing, you’d be so wasted, you’d be telling him the numbers of your bank accounts.”

  When they were in the middle of the sound, speeding south, Evangeline said over the roa
r of the engine, “You know, Franklin Wedge looks like Will.”

  “A little.”

  “How long do you think he’s been growing that ponytail? A year, maybe?”

  “Yeah. Maybe. So what?”

  “Will Wedge signed in at the Mass. Historical Society last September thirtieth. But Will was in Los Angeles.”

  “You think Franklin is the one who went through the Theodore Wedge Papers?”

  “Could be.”

  They sped on for another mile or so, then Peter turned the boat and ran it onto the back shore of an uninhabited barrier island.

  “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “For a swim. There’s a deserted beach on the other side,” he said.

  “I’m not wearing my suit.”

  “I know. Neither am I.”

  By Monday, Peter was back in Boston, and it was snowing. The forsythia had bloomed, and the tulips were trying, but winter was giving New England the finger one more time.

  Peter was sitting a little gingerly because he was sunburned in some strange places.

  “You met him?” said Orson. “The phantom Franklin?”

  “He’s no phantom. He’s a professor of English at the University of Vermont.”

  “Associate professor. As I told you, he’s mostly a professional crusader. Once disappeared for six years. Said he was off fighting for the Cause.”

  “What cause?”

  “Come on, Peter. Don’t you remember the sixties? The Cause.”

  Just then, the doorbell rang. Bernice got up to answer it, and a moment later, Jimmy was standing in the doorway.

  “In or out?” said Peter.

  “In,” said Jimmy, never one to waste words.

  Peter and Orson let out a shout. In an instant they were both at the boy’s side, shaking his hand and patting him on the back.

  Bernice came in carrying a tray—four glasses and a bottle of champagne that Peter kept in the office refrigerator. “Your dad’s a happy man,” she said. “But remember, Jimmy, Harvard means nothin’ unless you’re a good man, too.”