A More Perfect Union: A Novel (The Midwife Series Book 3)

by Jodi Daynard

  When the time came to leave, however, it was difficult to say good-bye. Johnny held on to Eliot for several long moments. Pulling away at last, Eliot affected a cheerful laugh.

  “Oh, Johnny. I’m not on death’s door. I feel reasonably well. Do not grieve just yet.”

  “All right,” Johnny said. “But you must promise me to remain well at least until spring break.”

  “I will do my utmost to oblige.”

  As Eliot’s waving figure dwindled, Johnny’s next article was already forming upon his lips. To have strength and health was a God-given gift, and so fleeting. He would write about the need for each citizen in a democracy to commit to meaningful action.

  25

  WINTER ARRIVED WITH A STORM THAT MADE the paths treacherous, and classes were suspended. Some days, Johnny would wake to a room so bitterly cold and dark that he would not leave his bed till near noon. The play they had meant to perform was cancelled, and as yet they had not rescheduled it. Johnny doubted they would. Only a letter from Eliot that December breathed life into his lonely existence:

  We are completely snowed in, and it is marvelous! We have excellent provisions, and what with keeping the fires going and fixing meals, we remain quite busy. I choose not to exert myself, of course, being inveterately lazy, and so spend my days in indolent comfort, writing poetry and being waited upon like King Solomon.

  O, irony! thought Johnny. That one with so little time left upon this earth should be so cheerful; and the other, with everything to be thankful for, shrouded in such gloom!

  When winter break arrived, many students left for home. This year, however, the college kept the commons open and the buttery supplied with firewood. The previous year, there had been many complaints from parents whose children had been forced out into treacherous conditions.

  Johnny read and slept. He submitted his article to the Centinel. When that was finished, he began to research his senior dissertation. He spent Christmas at the Lees’, but this one was far less festive than the previous year. Kate did not speak of Eliot, but she seemed anxious, and Johnny sensed their mutual friend was the cause. Nor did they resume the heady conversations of the Slotted Spoon Society. In this prediction, Kate had been prescient. The entire house felt as if it were waiting, somehow. When the first bluebells appeared beneath the snow, Johnny walked down to the Charles in search of other signs of spring.

  There were a few clumps of snowdrops here and there, and more bluebells. Johnny watched the children play, heedless of the mud and wind. One child chased a red ball. Johnny was mesmerized by this child; for several moments, he thought he was the boy. He could feel the red ball in his hands. There were times when Johnny felt he had no skin at all, either black or white, and that he was one great ear, or eye, or heart.

  The sun had descended behind the boathouse when Johnny finally made his way back to his chamber. There he found a letter from his mother beneath his door. It was the letter he knew would come:

  Dearest Son

  I wish I wrote with better news. Eliot is failing. He has put up a brave fight. But he finds the fresh stirrings of spring so inspiring that even now he writes until he can no longer hold his pen. He has no wish to leave us, but the body no longer heeds the soul. I fear it shall not be long before they are parted. Please come as soon as you can. He longs to see you.

  Johnny stood immobile for several seconds before taking up his coat and hat. He left his chamber without bothering to lock it. On the way down the stairs, he met one of his tutors.

  “Illness calls me away,” he explained. “I know not when I shall return.”

  The tutor made some reply, but Johnny had already run down the stairs and did not hear him.

  Aunt Martha answered the frantic knocking. Seeing Johnny, she called, “Kate! It’s Johnny.”

  Kate appeared within moments, tucking a neckerchief into her bodice. Her hair was not pinned, and her cheeks were flushed. Perhaps she had been playing a game with her siblings when he had interrupted her.

  Johnny looked at her; no words were needed. She allowed her eyes to rest upon his. Then she nodded, blinking tears.

  “I should like to borrow a carriage, if I may. I must leave at once.”

  “Yes, at once,” she said, turning. “Mama!”

  Kate hesitated, then turned back to Johnny. “May I accompany you?”

  “I would like that,” he said.

  Kate threw on her cape and, as her mother had not yet answered, said, “Would you tell Mama I go with you?” Without stopping, she ran to the stables to have the coachman ready the horses.

  By the time Kate had returned, Aunt Martha had heard the news and prepared a small sack for her. She hugged her daughter, then Johnny, and placed her hands on their cheeks.

  “Write me with news, if you have a spare moment.”

  “We shall,” they said in unison. Kate kissed her mother once more and stepped abroad before the children could come running after her.

  In the carriage, Johnny began to speak. “Kate, I’ve been a stranger.”

  “No need to apologize,” she said. “You’re a scholar with a great deal to do.”

  “I’ve been hard at work on my dissertation.” Johnny fell silent, but Kate discerned his blunder at once. Her eyes stared shrewdly at him through her spectacles.

  “Dissertation? That is for next year, is it not? You’re in your third year.”

  “Kate, I know the moment is not opportune, but I must tell you, I cannot hold back.”

  “What is it? Oh, tell me at once, for I shan’t bear it otherwise!” Kate leaned away from Johnny in the carriage, as if to avoid a physical blow.

  “I’m leaving Harvard.”

  She looked back at him, confused. “What mean you? You have one more year.”

  Johnny shook his head. “I’ll graduate this year. I applied to President Willard, and he has given his consent. Granted, I must work like a fiend for the next few months.” He tried on an amused smile, but Kate did not return it.

  “But why?” she cried. “Why do you wish to leave us? And why, of all possible times, do you tell me now, when my heart has no strength to bear another blow?” Tears ran unchecked down her cheeks.

  “I’ve no wish to leave you or our families. But I stagnate here. Never have I felt so alone. I work and work, nothing more.” He paused, then resumed with a more cheerful air, “Mr. Adams was good enough to find me a mentor in Philadelphia.”

  “Philadelphia! But that is so very far!” Suddenly, she grew red in the face. “Shall you have the courage to tell him of your plans?”

  “I am thinking that—”

  Suddenly, Kate inhaled and let it out almost violently. “Trask!” She called to the coachman. “Stop the carriage! At once!”

  The carriage slowed and then came to a stop along the road to Roxbury. Kate rose and opened the door. She descended and began to walk back the way they’d come.

  “Kate!” Johnny cried. “What are you doing?”

  “Don’t speak to me. Just don’t speak. I can’t believe you waited to tell me this when we were on our way to Quincy to visit our dying friend. Are you devoid of all sense?”

  At first, Johnny just stared after her. Then he descended the carriage and ran after her. “Kate, please!” He grabbed her arm. “I’m so sorry. Forgive me. I figured . . . I figured we could not feel any worse.”

  Kate looked at him, astonished. Suddenly, she backed away from him and burst out laughing, part hopelessness and part incredulity.

  “Excellent, John. Is there anything else you’d like to tell me whilst I ‘cannot feel any worse’? Does Papa have a cancer, perhaps? Or maybe Mama has been arrested . . .” She wrapped her scarf about her neck so that her face was partly obscured. She shivered.

  “The wind blows.” Johnny begged. “Please return to the carriage. For Eliot’s sake, if not for mine.”

  With a deep exhalation, Kate turned and walked back to the carriage. Johnny trailed after her.

  “Trask, you
may continue,” she said.

  The carriage resumed its pace. Johnny thought he saw the old coachman shake his head. Youth could be so volatile!

  They crossed the bridge into Roxbury, then came to Boston Neck, where they turned onto the coast road. They were silent all the way to Milton.

  Then Johnny hazarded, “Kate, I wish—”

  “Say no more to me just now.” Her amber eyes flashed a warning.

  “Do you forgive me? I shan’t rest until—”

  “Oh, Johnny.” She heaved a deep, miserable sigh.

  “Do you? Do you?”

  His voice was so abject, so pathetic, that she said, “Of course, I forgive you.”

  Kate’s benediction loosened some great sadness buried within him. Whatever it was, he covered his face and sobbed. Kate moved next to Johnny and held his head in her lap, as one might a child.

  26

  LIZZIE HEARD THE CARRIAGE FIRST AND OPENED the door. Her eyes spoke the truth, but her voice cried cheerfully, “Hello, Johnny! And Kate, too! What a surprise!” A slow shake of the head warned them of what they would find within. “Eliot’s just here, in the parlor!”

  They entered. Eliot was sitting up in bed, and when his eyes lit upon Johnny, he grinned.

  “Come here at once,” he croaked, pointing to the foot of the bed. Johnny and Kate approached and hugged Eliot at the same time.

  Although quite thin, Eliot looked better than Johnny had expected. Perhaps his mother had been precipitate in her urging him to come?

  “You look well,” he said.

  “Looks can be deceiving, my friend,” Eliot replied. He gave a hiccup of laughter, which sent him into a paroxysm of bloody coughing. Lizzie ushered them into the kitchen so that she could tend to him.

  Johnny’s mother appeared in the doorway, having been abovestairs. She hugged her son and Kate wordlessly. “Tea?” she finally asked.

  “Oh, yes, please,” Kate replied.

  Johnny asked, “Was not Eliot’s chamber just there, in the back?”

  “It still is. But he likes to be at the center of our comings and goings during the day. He calls the parlor his New World, and us, its Pilgrims. But it is time to return him to his chamber. His parents visited this morning, but I sent them away so he could rest.”

  Johnny asked, “What are they like?”

  Lizzie smiled. “The father is a minister of some kind and holds himself in great esteem; the poor mother appears cowed.”

  “I hope we didn’t come at an inopportune moment?” Kate asked.

  “Nay, Eliot is vastly contented to see you. But I fear the excitement has already worn him out.”

  The women came and went for some time in an effort to clean their patient and to bring him various medicines. At last they returned to the kitchen with grim expressions that they could not conceal.

  “He sleeps,” said Lizzie with a sigh, dropping heavily onto a kitchen chair.

  Johnny, seeing the children standing about the parlor, asked her, “Do they know?”

  “Oh, yes. They are none of them strangers to death. But I do believe Eliot has them all fooled by his high spirits.”

  When Johnny entered the parlor, little Sara cried petulantly, “We’ve been waiting and waiting!”

  “I’m all yours,” Johnny said.

  “No—not you. Eliot!”

  “He’s resting, Sara. I will have to suffice.” The little girl then dragged Johnny off to her chamber to play a game.

  Just before Lizzie called everyone to supper, Johnny found the door to Eliot’s room ajar. His friend was propped up in bed, dictating a sonnet to Kate, who held his diary in one hand and a pen in the other. His voice was hardly above a raspy whisper, and his face was slightly blue. Eliot saw Johnny enter but continued to recite until he finished the final sentence. Then he nodded to Kate, and she blew gently on her work to hasten its drying.

  “My last masterpiece. Not to be confused with ‘My Last Mistress,’” Eliot quipped. “Especially since one can hardly have a last without having had a first.” Then, as if scolding himself, he added, “Oh, let’s not be witty, friends, for Lizzie tells me I mustn’t laugh.”

  “Johnny,” Kate said cheerfully. “You must hear Eliot’s new poem. It’s astonishing.” Here, she sent a warm glance in Eliot’s direction. “May I?”

  “Why not? You shall soon enough have a chance to read them all. I bequeath them to you, John. Do with them what you will. The college never does have enough newspaper in the necessaries.”

  “Eliot!” Kate frowned.

  “I shall find them a publisher,” said Johnny gravely.

  Eliot waved this thought away, but Johnny could tell his friend was pleased by the idea.

  “If you insist. A few might be worthy enough. Don’t bother yourself overly. I feel proud to have refined my art these past months. I’ve no very great need of the posthumous adoration of the multitudes.”

  “Say what you will, Eliot, your work should be read by the multitudes,” Kate replied sternly.

  Eliot could not conceal a satisfied smile. “If you think so, dearest, that means a great deal to me.”

  But now he began to sink. His eyes fluttered closed, and the pillows that propped him up and made him look nearly well gave way beneath the downward inclination of his body. Eliot slumped to one side, nearly tumbling off the bed.

  “Oh!” Kate exclaimed. Lizzie, who had been standing beyond the door, arrived just in time. She made her patient comfortable, then moved to pull the bed curtains closed.

  “Time for him to rest.”

  Kate kissed Eliot on the cheek and said, “See you in the morning.”

  Johnny took his friend’s hand. Eliot grasped it with surprising force.

  “Good night, dear friend,” Eliot said. “See you in the morning, God willing.”

  But instead of leaving, Johnny slipped fully clothed beneath the bolster. Eliot’s eyes were closed, but he smiled. “At last, I get my wish. I had to die to get it, but it was worth it!” He shifted closer to Johnny and leaned his head upon his shoulder. Johnny’s eyes looked blindly up at the ceiling. Tears burned them. There was silence for some time. He thought by Eliot’s slow breathing that the boy was asleep. But suddenly Eliot asked, “Johnny, do you believe in the transmigration of souls?”

  “I do,” said Johnny. “But it’s not merely belief; I have experienced it.”

  Eliot sought no explanation. He said, “I have, too. What has been your most recent sojourn?”

  “A child, playing along the Charles River, holding a red ball.”

  Eliot nodded slightly, though his eyes were still closed.

  “I have endeavored to enter you. I feel your body easily enough. Oh, how I envy you its vigor! But your mind is as dark as this room. It’s heavy, impenetrable. Be happier, Johnny. I command it.”

  “All right.” Johnny closed his eyes. “I shall try. Give me a moment.” Johnny scanned the blackness behind his eyelids until a bright image emerged: Carlisle Bay.

  It was his favorite time of day, early morning. The breezes were cool and gentle, and the aqua-blue water was still. His toes were buried in the soft sand beneath, and small fish swam about him; he could feel them slither between his legs like a thousand light kisses. Soon he would hear the bell of St. Michael’s and the gathering clamor of children racing to a nearby schoolhouse.

  “Ah, yes. Much better. Sunshine, and water. Do I lie on the sand?”

  “Yes,” Johnny replied, steadying his voice with difficulty. “Rest now. I shan’t leave you.”

  He didn’t. Instead, Johnny remained standing in the warm, blue water until he dozed and consciousness dissolved. He awoke to a soft, gentle hand upon his shoulder. His friend was turned away from him as if in sleep.

  “He’s gone,” said Lizzie.

  27

  THE JOHN BOYLSTON THAT THE HARVARD OVERSEERS saw that spring was a tall, imposing young man who commanded every corner of the room. He recited his oration on the topic of the individual a
nd democracy with stunning conviction. In it, he argued that democracy was not an idea but an act. It occurred when disparate men worked in tandem toward a common goal. A great nation, Johnny argued, needed the goodwill and effort of every citizen, no matter how small.

  Afterward, convening to decide upon marks, the overseers agreed that they had not seen such a scholar since Joseph Warren. One overseer even made a gentleman’s bet with another that John Boylston would be president someday.

  Kate saw a different John Boylston. To her, the more successful Johnny became, the less happy he was. Kate knew that now Eliot was gone, he longed to flee Cambridge. He hoped and believed things would be different for him out in the world. Kate feared it was true: Things would be different. They would be more dangerous.

  She recalled the previous year, when Johnny had argued that a lie by omission was justified when no moral imperative to reveal the truth existed. But, justified or no, she knew Johnny could not live with the lie forever. He was too honest. There was just too much Barbados in him, too much huckster and slave.

  At that moment, Johnny did not feel very honest. He had been too cowardly to tell his mother that he was leaving and so had written a letter, explaining his position. She had replied tersely,

  We shall talk about it when you return to Quincy.

  Now, he lay on his bed, in the room he had shared with Eliot. Eliot’s things were still there where he’d left them: his books, his blanket and pillow, the fine teapot and Turkey carpet. There was an old bloodied rag beneath his bed that the maid had missed.

  Johnny had neither washed nor shaved since his oration. He had not attended classes. Then, one sunny morning at the end of April, he was pulled away from himself by a familiar tapping upon his window. He descended the stairs and saw Kate waiting impatiently just beyond the door.