Bellagrand: A Novel

by Simons, Paullina

  “We bathed them and changed their dressings right in the parlor room.”

  Rose nodded. “In the summers we used the front porch for their beds. My father used to sit and have his morning tea on that porch.”

  “And in New York we collected the sick into three cold-water flats on the Lower East Side,” said Alice. “We managed. They managed.”

  “Well, yes,” Rose said. “Because our goal wasn’t convenience. It was to do something to comfort other hearts than ours. To take the lowest rank of human beings—both in poverty and in suffering—and put them in such a condition that if our Lord knocked on our door, we would not be ashamed to let Him in.”

  “Let’s go then and comfort other hearts than ours,” said Gina, rolling up her sleeves. “Perhaps we can make our Lord proud.”

  Eighteen months went by.

  Four

  IN OCTOBER 1914, GINA was in the kitchen at the Wayside making chicken soup for the annex patients and mopping the floor when there was a knock on the glass pane of the back door. She had been thinking about the lateness of the hour and her long trip home to Lawrence when the soft knock startled her out of her musings. She opened the door and in front of her stood Ben Shaw. He took off his hat, bowed to her slightly, and smiled.

  “Ben?” She almost didn’t recognize him, having not seen him in nearly fifteen years. They hugged like the old friends they were, kissed each other on both cheeks like Europeans. Instinctively Gina’s hands lifted to adjust and pin up her always falling-down hair. She smiled with joy at seeing his kind, familiar face, fleetingly wishing she looked less grubby.

  “Benjamin, I am stunned to see you!”

  “Why?” he asked cheerfully. “Did you think I’d be dead by now?”

  Ben had been in Panama, engineering and building the Panama Canal. His modulated tenor hadn’t changed, his amiable face was as handsome as ever. His dark eyes sparkled, the expression in them when he looked at her familiar and welcome and true, but in all else he was hardly the same person. He was a grown man now, not an eager, smitten boy. His dark hair was clipped short and graying above his ears. He had an impeccably groomed salt-and-pepper goatee, was thin like a steel pole, and extremely tanned. So tanned that if Gina hadn’t known better, she would’ve guessed he was of Mediterranean or South American stock. Lines had gathered under his friendly eyes and around his burned-by-the-sun mouth. He wore thin-wire glasses that made him look like a solemn scientist. Yet he was still inimitably Ben when he smiled.

  He walked in, placed his sharply structured hat on the entry table, hung up his wool coat. He wore a smart gray serge suit, a white shirt, a silk tie. He looked modern. He looked successful. His black shoes had been recently shined. He looked as if he had been recently shined. A seamstress, a textile expert, a dreamer of high fashion, Gina knew about such things. He was put together well. Like Harry had been once, before he married her.

  She was disappointed in herself, at how happy she was to see him again, to see a familiar face that belonged to a man who had once gazed upon her with unreturned affection. She put on a kettle to make him some tea, and then puttered around feeling flustered, not knowing what to ask him first or what to get hold of next. She was all too aware of her drab brown dress, the stains of her difficult work on it, the labor-scratched hands, the short unpolished nails.

  She saw herself as if through a looking glass, a reflected plain Gina, not the blaze she had once been, but a working woman wan of face and devoid of makeup, with no embellishments in her skirt or sparkles in her auburn hair. Deeply self-conscious, she busied herself with their cups of tea. They sat down at the tiny table in the corner by the window, where she sat by herself during the brief breaks in her day.

  “You’re dressed too well for someone who’s been digging in mud for a decade,” said Gina.

  “Digging is a weak word for what we’ve been doing. I won’t miss that part.”

  “So tell me everything—where to start—what in the world are you doing here?”

  “Here in Boston or here at Rose’s?”

  “Yes!”

  “I could ask the same of you.”

  “I help out on the weekends. They’re always short-staffed.”

  “I thought you had to be a nun to work here?” he said, teasing her.

  She chuckled at the memory of her silly fifteen-year-old self being mortified once by that question, but she was not discomfited anymore, not blushing. “Well and truly, the time for the nunnery has passed,” Gina said. “But don’t change the subject. What are you doing here?”

  “I came to pay Rose a visit. She told me you were here, in the back. It would’ve been rude not to stop by and say hello.”

  “Pay Rose a visit?” Gina was flustered. “How could you possibly know her?”

  Ben smiled. “Have you forgotten? My family knows her because of you.” He reminded her that it was through her intervention that Rose had come to Boston and ministered to his aunt Josephine Shaw Lowell who had been terminally ill with cancer. “Months after you brought them together, Aunt Effie died with Rose at her side.”

  So much had happened, Gina had forgotten indeed. She nearly cried at the sharp, stinging memory of that awful night, when she first discovered what a torment it was for Harry to face up to the truth of immutable things.

  “Aunt Effie left a good portion of her estate to Rose’s Home, here and in New York,” Ben told her. “Twice a year, still, the Shaws and the Lowells do a blowout charity bash for Rose and Alice.” When Gina winced at the sound of the name Alice, he frowned. “I meant Alice Huber.”

  “I know,” Gina said. “Who else could you possibly be fundraising for?”

  “Quite right.” Ben tilted his head sympathetically. “Listen, you must feel bad about the way things turned out. Don’t. This is what was meant to be.”

  “Who says I feel bad?”

  Ben smiled. “Unlike your husband, I’m not the black sheep. I still keep in touch with everyone. I hear certain things.”

  “Oh. Like what? What did Esther tell you?”

  “Nothing. What I’m trying to say is, don’t worry about Alice. She is fine.”

  Gina sniffed skeptically. “If you say so.”

  “I say so because it’s true. She married a rancher from Texas a few years back.”

  “No!”

  “Yes. When her father died, she sold his lumber company and took his money and her mother with her. She now runs a four hundred-acre cattle spread somewhere near Austin. Has two little ones. Is completely happy from what Esther tells me.”

  “Texas!” Marveling, Gina stared out the window at the sugar maples and the elms framing the green clearing.

  “That’s the only part you heard? Texas?”

  “Texas is just shorthand for what I’m feeling.” She sat for a moment, hand on her heaving chest, trying to squeeze relief from her repentant heart. She took a deep breath. “And Harry’s family is well, I hope? Herman, Esther?”

  “Yes, everyone’s all right now.”

  Gina perked up. “Now?”

  “Harry’s father had a heart attack a few years ago. In 1912.” Ben paused for meaning or maybe for a reaction from Gina.

  Gina lost her baby in 1912. She shuddered. “But he’s better?”

  “Yes. Of course now Esther is out of sorts.”

  “Why? She must be happy you’re back home.”

  “I don’t know about that. Elmore, her husband, just left for England.”

  “What on earth for?”

  “Some archduke got shot in Bosnia.”

  “Ah, yes. The pesky archduke.” She sounded exhausted even to herself.

  “Dr. Lassiter went with the Red Cross as a medic. Esther is not pleased with him, to say the least.”

  “I know how she feels.”

  “Why?” Ben asked. “Has Harry become an army medic and gone to England?”

  “Sure.” Gina stared out the window. “Something like that. And your mother?” Ellen Shaw had quite a reputa
tion around Boston, demonstrating day and night against each affront to the independence of women and every encroachment against the isolationism of the United States.

  He nodded agreeably. “Fine. Militant as ever.”

  “Tell her to be careful,” Gina said. “Or she’ll be sharing a cell with Harry.”

  “So I keep telling her. What did he do?”

  “Which time? I don’t know. Kept arguing?”

  Ben whistled in fond amazement. “Don’t they know he is the original objection maker? They can’t punish him for his essential nature. But seriously, what did he do?”

  “Broke the terms of his probation by inciting a riot in Paterson during the silk strike. Have you heard about that?”

  “Yes,” Ben said. “I heard something about that. Where is he?”

  “Nearby. Up in the Massachusetts Correctional Institution near Warner’s Pond. That’s why I’m here every weekend. I work Saturdays and take the bus to visit him on Sundays.”

  “Prison!” Ben looked disbelieving. “That doesn’t seem like the Harry I knew.”

  “It’s really been an unending smorgasbord of humiliation.” Gina almost cried. “No, no,” she quickly said, catching herself, keeping away the hand that reached across to her. “My own life is the last thing I want to talk about. I am, however, completely enthralled by your wonderful reappearance. Tell me really why you’re back.” She made an effort to smile. “Who’s getting married this time?” Ten years ago Ben had sailed home from Panama to be best man at Harry and Alice’s wedding.

  “Just like last time,” he said. “Nobody.”

  They sat cupping their tea, warming their hands on it. The New England flaming fall was on full display; inside and outside glowed with light like fire.

  “The papers have been writing about nothing but your canal.” Gina smiled with pride. “You always said the impossible was possible. And you were right.”

  “You mean I was a lunatic. I looked at nothing but mountains and mud and said we would build a fifty-mile waterway above sea level with concrete dams to push giant ships through.”

  If she could whistle and she weren’t a lady, she would have. “It’s extraordinary.”

  “It’s madness.”

  “It’s a phenomenon! They’re calling it the engineering wonder of the modern world. Just like you said it would be.”

  “It was nothing like I thought it would be.” He shrugged. “I said a lot of things when I was young and foolish. I received a healthy dose of reality in Panama.”

  “Did you get yellow fever, too?” Gina asked, appraising him. He seemed toughened, but somehow worn-out. He looked as if he needed a juicy steak, a stiff drink.

  “Yes. Washed my face in the river. Teaches me.”

  “Well, you don’t need to go all the way to Panama to catch yellow fever,” said Gina. “Mother Jones’s husband and four of her children died of it somewhere in Tennessee.”

  “It was touch and go for me, too, for a while. Though now I’m immune for life.”

  “Really? From malaria, too?”

  “No, but I do carry a small bottle of quinine with me everywhere I go.”

  “I don’t think there’s much risk of malaria in Concord, Ben.”

  “One can never be too careful against that wretched blight.”

  “That’s true.” Her elbows were on the table, her head resting between her hands. “So they didn’t need you in Panama anymore?”

  “I don’t know. All I know is that in August we finally had our first ship navigate through. I stayed until mid-September to make sure there were no irrecoverable disasters, and at first sign of trouble, when one of the levees failed to open, I sailed home.” He laughed. “I told them I was testing the time of travel through the canal instead of around Cape Horn.”

  “How did you get here?”

  “The liner took me to Key West where a railroad met me.”

  “A railroad in Key West? Isn’t it an island?”

  “So you would think. Little did I know that in the last ten years, some man named Henry Flagler was bringing a railroad over one hundred and fifty miles of sea to Key West, precisely because of our canal. He thought the United States could use a southernmost port connected by rail to the mainland.”

  “Oh, that is amazing! So many amazing things everywhere. People working, making things.” She shook off her words, coughed. Why were the simplest things so hard to talk about? “Are you home for good?”

  “We’ll see.” He smiled, slightly rueful. “I’m afraid I still miss it terribly, against all reason. Why in the world would I miss the sandflies and what they do to my body? What if I discover I can’t make a life anywhere else but in the infested malarian tropics?”

  “Hmm. You look like you adjusted well.” She appraised his tailored suit, his crisp white shirt. “Are you working here?”

  “As opposed to what? Of course I’m working. Still and ever with the Army Corps. Headquartered in Boston, but constantly out on civil engineering projects.”

  “Oh, Ben.” She sighed, remembering the past, gazing at him fondly. “So how was it? Where did you live? What did you eat? Did you work long days? Did you get hurt? Was there any fun?”

  He smiled, with amusement, with pleasure. “That’s a mouthful of questions.”

  “I know. I’m sorry!”

  He got a look in his eyes as if he were recalling a lost lover. “It’s like nothing I’ve ever imagined.”

  “Aren’t most things?”

  “I don’t know,” said Ben. “Depends on the things.” Without a blink, he continued. “Panama is more mountainous than I expected. More dramatically landscaped. Rocky. It’s nearly completely covered by impenetrable forest. Dissected with rivers, streams, deep gorges. It’s tropically hot, it pours rain like you’ve never seen, and then is dry like the desert. The fish is good.” He smiled broadly. “The women are very friendly.”

  “Well, who wouldn’t be friendly to a handsome American man like you,” Gina said, just as Rose stuck her head in, reminding her that the patients were still not fed, and it was well past six. But there was still so much to talk about! Gina jumped up with regret and hurried to the stove, organizing the tray with the stacked soup bowls and bread.

  “Here,” Ben said. “Let me help.” He took off his suit jacket, unbuttoned his vest, rolled up his white sleeves, and carried the soup tureen into the annex.

  It was after seven and dark when they were finished with the feeding and the cleaning up.

  “Sorry you spent such a long time helping me,” said Gina. “I thought we might have time to go for a walk. Concord is lovely in the fall.”

  He chuckled.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. I’m trying to remember what Louisa May Alcott wrote about Concord. As I recall, it wasn’t very complimentary.”

  “It couldn’t have been that bad,” Gina said. “She lived and died in Orchard House, just down the road. But . . .”

  “Another time perhaps.”

  “Yes.” She mulled things over quickly, chewing her lip. “Could you maybe take me back to Lawrence? I don’t like to travel alone. You could keep me company, we could finish our catch-up and I’ll make you dinner for your trouble.” She smiled. “What do you say? I have a recipe for mustard chicken.”

  He nodded. “I’d be happy to take you home. You shouldn’t travel alone this late. But let’s not wait until Lawrence. How about dinner first? You must be hungry after a full day’s work. Let’s go to Wright’s Tavern.”

  “Go where?” She glanced at her skirt. “I can’t . . . I’m not dressed for dinner. I can’t show myself in a nice restaurant.”

  “Who said anything about nice? Wright’s Tavern, I told you. You’ll be the best dressed woman in the place. Possibly the only woman.”

  She laughed. “Ben, what could you possibly know about taverns in Concord?”

  “It’s the only thing I know about Concord. Except what Louisa May Alcott wrote.”

  She c
hewed her lip, curious, ambivalent, hungry.

  Ben must have been reading her thoughts. He leaned closer to her. “You’re worried about propriety?”

  She nodded.

  “Manners do dictate that a woman cannot be seen out and about with a man alone unless she is married.”

  “That’s what I feared, I mean, um, thought.”

  “But Gina, do I need to remind you that you are married?” Ben straightened up. “In every way, even this one, we can be proper Bostonians.”

  She laughed happily, she couldn’t help herself. “Please, another time?” She really wasn’t dressed to go out. Ladies didn’t go out in stained clothing in public. She pulled out a train schedule from her purse.

  “I tell you what,” Ben said, taking the booklet out of her hands. “How about we take my car.” He led her outside.

  “You have a car?”

  “Why are you surprised? Everybody has one.”

  “We don’t,” Gina said. “We can’t afford it. Harry says only rich people have cars.”

  “That may have been true in 1905 when Bill Haywood was yelling that only oppressors like Harry had cars. But now, thanks to Mr. Ford and his assembly line, there are two million cars on the road. He has transformed the United States. A nation of toilers is fast becoming a nation of consumers.”

  “Not me,” Gina said. “I’m still a toiler. You must make a good living if you can afford a car.” She said this with a feeling approaching envy.

  “Not really. I just make a living. But I will say that in Panama”—he smiled—“they paid us engineers as if we were kings. They paid us more than they paid the doctors! Can you imagine? And they paid the chief engineers most of all. I saved all my money. I had nothing to spend it on. All I did was work. The housing was paid for and the Canal Commissary fed tens of thousands of workers for free.”

  Gina could tell he was trying to make her feel better. Someone else to pay for her food and housing? What would that be like?

  Rose walked out to say goodbye. “Ben, come again. You’re always welcome.”