BOSTON
BOSTON
_A Novel by_
UPTON SINCLAIR
VOLUME I
[Illustration]
UPTON SINCLAIR
STATION A
PASADENA, CALIFORNIA
COPYRIGHT · 1928 · BY
UPTON SINCLAIR
MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
First and Second Printings
before publication
PREFACE
The decision to write this novel was taken at nine-thirty P.M. (Pacific
Coast time), August 22nd, 1927: the occasion being the receipt of
a telephone message from a newspaper, to the effect that Sacco and
Vanzetti were dead. It seemed to the writer that the world would want
to know the truth about this case; and his judgment proved correct,
because there began a flood of cablegrams and letters from five
continents, asking him to do the very thing he had decided upon.
A “contemporary historical novel” is an unusual art-form, and may
call for explanation. So far as concerns the two individuals, Nicola
Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, this book is not fiction, but an effort
at history; everything they are represented as doing they actually
did, and their words have been taken from their letters, or from the
dictation of friends and enemies. All others who played important parts
in this drama likewise appear as they were, and under their own names.
Paralleling the Sacco-Vanzetti case throughout the book is a story of
business and high finance which will be recognized as a famous law case
recently carried to the United States Supreme Court. I have used the
incidents of this case as material for my fiction; but the characters
which I have invented to enact this story are wholly fictitious, and
bear no relation whatever to the real persons in the case, who are
entirely unknown to me. There is one simple rule for guidance in
reading the novel: the characters who are real persons bear real names,
while those who bear fictitious names are fictitious characters.
The writer has been visiting Boston off and on for twenty-five years.
The first visits had to do with the novel “Manassas,” and involved
meetings with the city’s old-time heroes, such as Thomas Wentworth
Higginson, Frank B. Sanborn, Julia Ward Howe. The later visits, having
to do with “The Brass Check,” “The Goose-step” and “Oil!”, involved
a change of view-point not without its interest to students of our
history. Nevertheless, it should be said at the outset that what is
great in Boston finds due recognition in this story. Those who have
made the city’s glory have never been its rulers, but always a “saving
minority,” and that minority is there to-day, and it is active.
The task has not been approached in a spirit of grudge; on the
contrary, the writer regards with a mixture of gratitude and amusement
those Boston officials who provided for “Oil!” an advertisement which
went around the world several times. To them he owes the fact that he
is almost out of debt to his printer, for the first time in twenty-five
years as publisher of his own writings. An honest effort has here been
made to portray a complex community exactly as it is. The story has no
hero but the truth, and its heroines are two women, one old and the
other young, who are ardently seeking the truth.
The complete legal record of the Sacco-Vanzetti case is soon to be
published in six volumes. I would have checked by this record every
statement having to do with legal proceedings, but unfortunately a few
documents were not accessible at the time of writing. I had the 3,900
pages of the Dedham trial testimony, but the Plymouth trial testimony,
of which only one copy existed, was withheld from me. I have checked
my narrative by many documents derived from the record, and had the
manuscript read by a dozen persons who have made an eight-year study
of the case. I have omitted every statement concerning which doubt has
been voiced, and the story contains no errors of any real significance.
It so happens that the important thing in connection with the
Sacco-Vanzetti case is to know, not what a certain witness testified,
but how he came to testify at all. Those who read my story attentively
will get the meaning of this remark.
I wish to make clear that I have not written a brief for the
Sacco-Vanzetti defense. I have tried to be a historian. What I
think I know, I have told the reader. What is uncertain, I have so
portrayed--and have let the partisans of both sides voice their
feelings and beliefs. My book will not satisfy either side completely;
both have already expressed dissent--which I take to mean that I have
done my job.
I desire to acknowledge my great indebtedness to James Fuchs and
Floyd Dell for valuable literary criticism, and to many Bostonians
and ex-Bostonians for advice and help. So many of these prefer
to have their thanks in private that I confine myself to this
general acknowledgment. Also I owe apology to persons active in the
Sacco-Vanzetti case, whose letters and adventures I have purloined and
assigned to my fictitious characters. Extraordinary adventures--let
no one say that romance is gone from the world! Also, let no
fiction-writer imagine that his powers of invention can rival those of
the Great Novelist who makes up history!
I think I should add that “Cornelia,” the heroine of this story, is a
lady eighty-six years of age, an old friend of mine, who ran away from
her family at the age of sixty as I have described. But this lady never
had anything to do with the Sacco-Vanzetti case, and my character,
“Cornelia,” bears no relation to any of the ladies who interested
themselves in that case.
CONTENTS
VOLUME I
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE RUNAWAY GRANDMOTHER 1
II. PLYMOUTH ROCK 35
III. DAGO RED 68
IV. YOUNG AMERICA 91
V. THE SAVING MINORITY 128
VI. WHITE TERROR 156
VII. DEPORTATION DAYS 187
VIII. THE DETECTIVE MACHINE 219
IX. THE WEB OF FATE 247
X. THE LEGAL SYSTEM 280
XI. THE GRAFT RING 312
XII. SHADOWS BEFORE 346
VOLUME II
XIII. TRIAL BY JURY 375
XIV. JUDGE FURY 403
XV. THE WHISPERING GALLERY 445
XVI. THE LAW’S DELAY 478
XVII. THE MILLS OF THE LAW 510
XVIII. THE SUPERSALESMAN 540
XIX. ACADEMIC AUTOCRACY 573
XX. THE DECISION 605
XXI. DAYS OF GRACE 639
XXII. THE CITY OF FEAR 674
XXIII. THE LAST ENEMY 706
XXIV. THE TRIUMPH 730
BOSTON
CHAPTER I
THE RUNAWAY GRANDMOTHER
I
It was the parlor-maid who found Old Josiah in the morning, seated at
his desk, his head fallen forward upon his arms. He might have been
asleep, but his dinner-coat told her that he had not been to bed. She
stood in the door-way, whispering his name feebly; then she fled to
Addicks, the butler, who was privileged to make intrusions. He touched
his master’s hand and found that it was cold. So Cornelia Thornwell was
awakened and told of her release.
She had had a right to expect it many years ago. Now that it had
come, it seemed too late. Fright seized her, an indescribable sense
of loneliness. What would life be like, without a husband to direct
it? How would her grandchildren know what to do, without Josiah to
incarnate the Thornwell tradition?
But she must not show emotion to servants. She slipped into her
dressing-gown and came down to her husband’s study. “Call Dr. Morrow,”
she said to the man. “And then notify Mr. James or Miss Clara.” Her
youngest daughter, wife of James Scatterbridge, lived upon the estate,
in a house just visible through the distant trees. At this hour Clara
would be getting her brood of seven started on the day, and James would
be dressing for his work at the mills. Both would drop everything and
hurry over to relieve Cornelia of care.
The daughter arrived in three or four minutes; very emotional, as
always--it seemed as if she had come to be one more of the large brood
she was raising. She was growing continually in bulk, as they did; she
was chattering as eagerly as they, and her mind, like theirs, would fly
from one small topic to the next. But she had a strong sense of what
was proper, and was shocked to discover no tears in her mother’s eyes.
James Scatterbridge came with her. He ordered the body taken upstairs
and called up his two brothers-in-law and gave the news; then he came
to Cornelia. “Now, Mother, you are not to worry about the practical
details. We’ll attend to it all.” James was solidly made, both in body
and mind; a plain-looking and plain-thinking business man, with nothing
of what he called “frills.” He ran the great cotton-mills in the valley
below them, and a little thing like a funeral presented no difficulties
to his mind. “I’ll notify Hobson, the undertakers; also, there will
be the press to see to.” He moved away; and Clara, drying her tears,
started off upon the subject of a dressmaker for her mother’s mourning
costume and her own.
Such things had to be attended to, Cornelia realized. “But, Clara, I’m
not going to wear a veil.”
“Oh, Mother! Whoever heard of such a thing!” Clara’s large china-blue
eyes grew even larger and rounder with dismay.
“I am not going to be a Hindoo widow and jump on the funeral pyre.”
“Mother, don’t start making jokes! You of all people cannot afford to
be eccentric.”
“Why, my dear?”
“Because everybody knows you weren’t happy with Father--you didn’t
really love him.”
“Because I didn’t really love him, must I pretend that I did?”
“But Mother, we don’t want to set everybody talking! Surely you owe him
one last tribute!”
The telephone rang in Cornelia’s room. It was her oldest daughter,
Deborah. “Mother, Henry and I will be right over. We’ll be there in an
hour, and meantime I want to make sure nothing is done about practical
arrangements.”
“How do you mean, dear?”
“I mean the funeral.”
“James said he would notify Hobson’s.”
“Oh, Mother, how perfectly atrocious! Don’t you know that nobody has
Hobson’s?”
“I don’t know anything about it, Deborah.”
“Well, I do think we ought to be allowed to manage our own father’s
funeral without having our in-laws take everything out of our hands!
Clara has no more taste than a sack of potatoes, and she lets James run
her, and put the stamp of his commonness on everything in our lives.
Won’t you please see to it that those undertakers don’t get into the
house?”
“My dear,” said Cornelia, “I shall follow my usual policy of letting my
children do their own disputing.” And she hung up the receiver.
It was not merely a matter of the social standing of undertakers, she
realized; it was a deep-seated, bitter quarrel among her children,
never to be assuaged. Deborah and Alice, the two oldest, considered
that the husband of Clara had robbed them of their patrimony, and that
Clara had compounded the felony by failing to make his life miserable.
Originally the Thornwell mills had been Thornwell; established by
Josiah’s father and extended by the son, with James Scatterbridge an
employee of low standing. But James had forced his way to the front,
and after the panic of 1907, when a reorganization had been necessary,
it had been he who possessed the confidence of the directors and
bankers. So now a great block of shares, instead of being a family
inheritance, were tucked away in James’s safety-vaults.
Nor had the ex-employee helped matters by marrying the youngest
daughter; that was a scandal, which the world would never forget.
Three generations from now, you would hear whisperings at Boston
dinner-tables: “Oh, but, my dear, don’t you know that story? The
original Scatterbridge was a clerk in the plant and he got all the
stock away from them, and they had to marry him to get it back!”
It was not as if the other two sons-in-law had needed the money. Rupert
Alvin was a banker who counted the year a failure if he had not added
a million to his fortune; and Cornelia had heard Henry Cabot Winters
boast that his law firm never had less than twenty-five millions in
litigation. But apparently this money game was one in which it was not
possible to be satisfied. Rupert and Henry, who composed a team, would
have liked to take in Jerry Walker’s felt-plants and the Thornwell
cotton-mills, each in one bite. They had their “lines” on so many other
properties that Cornelia could not keep track of them; the names were
to her like those of ancient battles, famous in story, but which she
had never looked up on a map.
II
Dr. Morrow came; the pink of fashion, rosy-faced and silver-haired,
with sharply trimmed, dapper white mustaches. His manner reminded you
that good breeding asserts superiority to every weakness of mortality.
He went to the big four-poster bed, felt the cold hands, listened for
the non-existent heart-beats, and then turned to the widow. “Well,
Cornelia, old Josiah had fourteen years more than the Bible promised
him. So we can’t complain.” He knew there had been no love between them.
Hearing the verdict, the efficient James instructed Josiah’s secretary
to notify the papers. Some went to press early, and would need time
to handle this important story. The secretary would begin with the
_Transcript_, the family organ of all the families that “count” in
Massachusetts. The mischievously-minded assert that mortality records
show a great increase upon Fridays, due to desire of the socially elect
to appear in Saturday’s obituary columns.
Meantime the efficient James was closeted in Josiah’s study with the
efficient head of the Hobson undertaking establishment, and these two
were learning to understand each other. It was to be a great funeral,
a matter of state, which would mean prestige and advertising to the
concern which secured the contract. The family was wealthy, and would
pay for the best, but there must be a distinct understanding that
they were to get what they paid for. Mr. Hobson listened politely and
replied that he understood Mr. Scatterbridge’s position perfectly.
There was no reason why a funeral should not be dealt with as any
other matter of business; and certainly his firm appreciated the
importance of social prestige and would be prepared to adjust its
price accordingly. After which he produced a portfolio about caskets,
revealing that there were art-modeled items of burnished bronze for
which it was possible to pay from twenty-five thousand up. James
Scatterbridge gulped once and composed his features, and did not reveal
his plebeian astonishment.
Meantime Deborah Thornwell Alvin was descending from her limousine,
tall and stiff, always ready for a funeral, because she dressed in
black, with only a touch of white at the neck and a double necklace of
white pearls. She had her father’s lean and stern features, and had
served as his deputy in keeping the family traditions in effect. As
soon as she was in the house she began objecting in decorous whispers;
and presently there arrived her sister, Alice, her ally in war on the
Scatterbridge clan. Who had given James authority to bring those vulgar
Hobson people into the case? Who had taken the responsibility to rush
the family into print, from who could tell what cheap and sensational
angle?
“Mother,” said Deborah, “do you know anything about Father’s will?”
“Nothing, my child; he never spoke of it to me in his life.”
“We’re going to find, of course, that James has got this house and the
land. You know he took a mortgage on it when Father lost his money in
the New Haven jam.”
“Let me remind you, Mother,” put in Alice. “Father promised me my pick
of the old furniture. He knew I was the only one that appreciated
it--he told me that again and again.”
“Yes, my dear. I hope he put it into the will.”
“I can only say this, if James and Clara get that Mayflower cradle that
I was rocked in, they may bury me in it.” Alice Thornwell Winters’s
fair blonde features were set in a look which her beauty-specialists
would have deplored, because it made sharp lines on each side of her
mouth. Alice was the adventurous one of the family, going in for costly
culture, inviting poets and artists and people of that dubious sort to
her home. She had been painted several times and hung in exhibitions,
and had learned to regard herself as a work of art, a feature of the
social landscape. The fact that she could appreciate the old treasures
of the family was a moral reason for a family quarrel: something which
Boston quarrels require.
III
If Cornelia had realized the previous night that she was hearing her
husband’s last words, no doubt she would have paid more attention.
There is a certain importance attaching to finality as such, even when
it applies to the words of a man who has been your husband for forty
years, and whose every mental reaction is known to you in advance.
Cornelia had been reading about the destruction of the Rheims
cathedral; there was an engraving of it among the works of art she had
brought back from her honeymoon, and she had gone into her husband’s
study, and seated herself upon a hassock, and begun rummaging in the
drawers of a chest which had belonged to Great-grandfather Thornwell,
holding the records of his ships in the East India trade. In a drawer
bearing in faded gold letters the label, “Sylph of the Sea,” she had
found the portfolio of engravings and sat turning them over for an hour
or two.
And meantime Josiah was conversing with Rupert Alvin,--oldest of
his sons-in-law. They paid no more attention to Cornelia than if
she had been a mouse. They were talking about Jerry Walker and his
felt-business; and Cornelia, even while thinking about cathedrals,
could not help catching the drift of their remarks. Jerry Walker had
been an errand boy in an institution of which Cornelia had been a
patroness; and now it appeared that he was on the way to monopolizing
the felt-business of New England. Rupert Alvin, who ran the Pilgrim
National Bank, objected to monopolies in the hands of other people, and
was of the opinion that Jerry was dangerously impulsive--he had paid
over a million dollars for the Atlas hat-works, while Rupert was in the
midst of making up his mind whether the concern was good for a small
loan.
Cornelia glanced at her son-in-law, who sat very straight, as he
always did, in the big leather armchair; his dinner-coat bulging, his
tucked shirt-front puffed out, so that he looked like a black and
white pouter-pigeon. Rupert’s face ran to bulges: his forehead a great
pink bulge, with two minor ones over the eyes, his cheeks half a dozen
rosy-red bulges, and his neck and chins a number of bigger and redder
ones. To Cornelia there was something comical in his indignation that
some one else had dared to think more quickly than he. But that was the
kind of thought she had spent forty years learning to keep to herself.
Josiah gave his decision, in his old man’s voice that was beginning to
crack. Jerry Walker might break himself some day, but not now; these
were the days to buy anything at any price; hats were necessary to
armies and felt slippers were worn in hospitals. That led them to the
subject which all men of affairs were discussing in this summer of
1915. Josiah repeated his well-known opinion that it would be a long
war and that it was the part of wisdom to buy and buy. Cornelia sat
thinking of human lives while they were thinking of money.
Rupert was of the opinion that the war couldn’t last over the year,
because the warring nations were heading for bankruptcy. But Josiah
told him not to worry; we would lend them the money, provided they
spent it for our goods. How would we get the money back? And Josiah
said we wouldn’t have to get it back--it would be like Jerry Walker’s
felt-business. “When Jerry can’t pay what he owes us we’ll take over
his plants.”
Cornelia got up, carrying her engraving. “Good-night,” she said, and
they answered in a perfunctory way; and that would have been the end
of it if she had been the right sort of a wife. But she could not
resist the impulse to stop in front of her son-in-law and remark,
“It’ll be fine, Rupert, when we can bring Europe up to date.” Rupert, a
practical-minded man, assented; and Cornelia held up the picture of the
cathedral. “We can widen out this Angel Tower and make it the branch
office of Jerry Walker’s felt-plants.”
For forty years, even during the two that Josiah Quincy Thornwell had
been governor of the Commonwealth, Cornelia had been saying things like
this, and some people had found it roguish. But never Josiah; always
he would frown, and remark, as now, “Your sense of humor is untimely,
Cornelia.” She put her hand lightly on the top of his white wig and
said, “Some day, my husband, you will tell me the proper time for my
sense of humor.”
So she tripped out, the little old lady who had seen so much that was
funny in this big household that the wrinkles around her eyes had got
set in a pattern of laughter. Not even the destruction of the Rheims
cathedral, not even the thought of the peasant-boys in the trenches,
could wipe out her amusement at the moral impulse of Boston, which was
driving Rupert Alvin to take charge of Jerry Walker’s felt-business,
and likewise of the geography and finance of Europe. Her last thought
was “He’ll do both those things.” And, in his own time and at his own
convenience, he did.
IV
In the offices of half a dozen evening papers the “rewrite” men had
dug out a column or two of copy which had waited for thirty years,
being brought up to date every year or two. They inserted at the top
the information that Josiah Quincy Thornwell, twice governor of the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts, leading manufacturer and philanthropist,
for twenty years a member of the Republican State Committee, had
been found that morning dead at his desk in the family home in the
town of Thornwell, the probable cause being heart failure. The more
sensational papers added how the body had been found by a parlor-maid;
the sort of thing for which Deborah would hold James Scatterbridge
responsible. Also they said that the funeral services would be held at
Trinity Church, Boston--whereas Deborah and Alice were determined that
they should be at the family home, so that the undesirables might be
excluded.
Upstairs in the ex-governor’s apartments Mr. Hobson’s shirt-sleeved
assistants were spreading their rubber-sheets and placing two tables
end to end, at the same time listening to their employer set forth his
conviction, that “ninety percent of this business is psychology. You
meet a hard-boiled guy like that one downstairs and you have to let him
talk himself out, and then he’s ashamed of himself and you can do what
you want with him. After all, what does he know about funerals and how
a swell one ought to be conducted?”
And at the same time in Cornelia’s sitting-room Deborah and Alice had
brought up the subject of the Shah of Persia’s rug. “It really is my
property,” Deborah was saying. “I only left it in the house because I
knew Father liked to have the heirlooms all together. For years I have
seen to the cleaning of it every spring and sent a servant to make sure
it was safe. You know that is true.”
“Yes, of course,” said Alice.
“And now if James and Clara think they are going to move in and let
their children trample it--”
Cornelia went downstairs and met Great-uncle Abner, Josiah’s
youngest brother; Abner Quincy Thornwell, burly and slow-moving,
stoop-shouldered and very deaf. Like many thus afflicted, he considered
it necessary to hear his own voice. “Well, Cornelia,” he boomed, “well,
well--so it has come at last! A hard day for you, I know! We’ll stand
back of you, my dear. Anything I can do?” There was a look of concern
on his bland and rosy countenance--something that happened rarely, for
he gave most of his time to chess and would sit for hours lost in a
problem.
Clara appeared, and greeted her uncle. When he asked her what he could
do, she shouted into his ear, “Make Mother wear a veil.”
“Veil?” said Abner. “Of course she’ll wear a veil! Aren’t veils made
for widows?”
“Mother doesn’t care, she wants to advertise to the world that she
isn’t grieving. I don’t believe she has shed a single tear.”
Said Cornelia, “I have read that moving picture actresses make tears
out of glycerine. Perhaps I may do that for the funeral.”
“Oh, Mother, how can you say such horrid things?” Clara began wiping
real tears from her nose and her uncle peered from one to the other,
with the uneasiness of the deaf. “Glycerine?” said he. “I hear it cures
cancer, but I don’t know if it’s true. What did Josiah die of?”
“Dr. Morrow called it heart failure.”
“Heart failure, hey? Well, that’s respectable enough. Where is he, up
in his room? Poor old boy! But he had a long life, and he got what he
wanted.”
He ambled off, and Cornelia found herself escorted into the library
for a formal conference with James Scatterbridge. This son-in-law did
not possess the worldly art of concealing his purposes, but had to
come directly to the point, like a business man. “Mother, I suppose
you haven’t had time to think what you are going to do, but I want to
be the first to tell you that you’ll be welcome to live with Clara and
me. Nothing will give us greater pleasure, and we’ll do everything we
can to make it the same as your own home. Things will stay just as the
governor loved to have them.”
The meaning of that was plain enough: Deborah and Alice were right in
their fears! “I suppose, James,” she said, “this house will come to
you?”
“It is already mine, Mother. The governor gave me a deed several years
ago. You know how his New Haven stock went all to pieces; and the money
I advanced to him was more than the place was worth. The governor felt
a little nearer to me because I had so much to do with managing the
mills.”
“Yes, of course, James. But the girls are going to be vexed. Does the
deed include the furnishings?”
“Yes, Mother; but Clara and I will do our best to satisfy the others.
What I want to make clear to you is, it will be your home just the
same. You need never know that anything has been changed.”
“That is kind of you, James.” She said this with her lips, but at the
same time her mind was flying on. Clara would bring her brood of seven
to this stately old house and they would possess it; she could hear
their shouts resounding through the halls, their heels clattering on
the stairs; she could see them sliding on the polished floors, using
the Shah of Persia’s rug to play marbles on. Against the wall of the
library in front of her was a bookcase some ten feet tall and seven
feet wide, of French walnut, hand-carved over every inch of its surface
with rose-vines and blossoms; the morning sun streamed upon it, and a
thousand facets shone like burnished gold. There was a companion-piece
farther down the wall and Cornelia knew that the last dealer who had
inspected her husband’s treasures had mentioned eight thousand as a
price for that pair.
“There are some valuable things in this house, James.”
“I know, Mother, and don’t you worry. We’ll add a wing back of the
conservatory and keep the children there till they’ve learned manners.
I haven’t been used to fine things, but Clara has and she’s the boss of
this family. You stay and help her.”
“I don’t know, James. I am sixty years old, and all that time I have
done what other people have told me. Now I might want to please myself.”
A troubled look appeared behind the large round spectacles of James
Scatterbridge. He had a literal mind, adjusted to the production of
seventy million yards of low-priced cotton goods per annum; this
production was the real religion of his life, and, for the rest, he
left everything to his wife, satisfied that he had done the best
possible in the matrimonial line. And now here was this little old lady
with the laughing eyes, bearing the sacred name of Thornwell, hinting
at the revolutionary idea of pleasing herself. In his heart James was
afraid of this great family, with its implacable pride and dignified
cruelty; they were sons of pirates and privateersmen, while James was a
farmer-boy, whose ancestors had worked and produced.
V
He had no chance to question Cornelia. The bell rang and through the
wide double doors of the library he saw Addicks in conference with
several well-dressed youngish men. Presently the servant came with a
message which, repeated from one dinner table to another, became a
standard jest of the inner circles of Boston. Addicks had been with
the family more than fifty years and understood all possible social
relationships. Now, after due meditation, he came to his master with a
formula precisely adjusted: “Mr. James, there are three reporters and a
gentleman from the _Transcript_.”
James went out, took the three reporters and the gentleman into the
privacy of the governor’s study, and proceeded to enjoy the fruits of
his own distinguished marriage. He reminded them that the Thornwell
line went back to the Mayflower; there was in the mansion a cradle
which had been brought over in that greatest of ships. He reminded
them that there had been two colonial governors in the line, and two
governors of the Commonwealth. He reminded them of the deeds which
Josiah had performed in office, how he had sent the public thieves to
jail. He verified the names of the ex-governor’s children and gave
the names of the grandchildren, not forgetting the seven of James,
all of whom carried the blessed name: Josiah Thornwell Scatterbridge,
Cornelia Thornwell Scatterbridge, James Thornwell Scatterbridge,
Quincy Thornwell Scatterbridge--and so on. He was in the midst of
telling them how the Thornwell mills were to be closed for a half day
during the funeral, when a tap was heard on the door of the study, and
there entered in full majesty Mrs. Rupert Alvin, _née_ Deborah Quincy
Thornwell.
“James, do I understand that these are representatives of the press?
Good morning, gentlemen, I am Mrs. Alvin, the governor’s oldest
daughter. You will wish to know that I have been in communication over
the telephone with the Reverend Doctor Wolverhampton, rector of St.
Luke’s Church here in Thornwell, which the governor built and endowed.
He has agreed to officiate at the funeral services, which will be held
in the family home. I understand that some of the papers have a report
that the funeral will be held in Trinity Church, Boston, but that is
a mistake; they will take place in this house on Friday afternoon at
two o’clock, and be sure you get it correct so that our friends will
be under no misapprehension. Yes, the name is pronounced Woolton, but
spelled W-o-l-v-e-r-h-a-m-p-t-o-n--the Reverend Doctor James Lowell
Wolverhampton, rector of St. Luke’s Church, Thornwell. He will be
assisted by the Reverend Mr. Quincy Adams Thornwell, a cousin of the
governor’s. The interment will be in the family vault at St. Alston’s
Cemetery.”
After which Mrs. Rupert Alvin, _née_ Deborah Quincy Thornwell, seated
herself firmly upon the sofa, knowing that so long as she was there not
even her plebeian brother-in-law would dare to contravene her. It was
a legend of the family that in one of Deborah’s disputes with her own
husband she had said: “Take me into the closet and spit on me if you
will, but when we are in public show me the respect that is due to my
station.”
The three reporters and one gentleman took their departure in a
taxi-cab which they had hired jointly and were whirled down to the
village, where each annexed himself to a telephone receiver and spelled
out these details, which were first rushed out on a typewriter and then
upon a linotype machine and then upon a printing-press. So in less
than an hour after James had spoken and Deborah had revised him, the
newsboys were crying the second edition of the afternoon papers, with
all possible particulars about the life and death and impending funeral
of the ex-governor of the Commonwealth. They had a generous-sized
picture of him on the front page; a lean face with thin, tight-shut
lips and a long thin nose tapering to a point; a face that had
reappeared continuously in the course of three centuries. In panels on
the walls of his music-room were four oil paintings, life-size, of four
different governors, in four different costumes, but unchanged in soul;
personally incapable of wrong-doing and merciless to all wrong-doers.
Statesman, manufacturer, philanthropist, said the newspapers in their
editorials: a model to posterity, an exemplar of all things dignified
and worthy of emulation--
And meantime, up in the big room with the four-poster bed and the
windows shrouded with dark curtains, Hobson, the psychologist, was
remarking to one of his assistants, “If you don’t stop pumping on that
carotid you’ll have this old gent’s face discolored and have to paint
him.”
VI
Rupert Alvin arrived, having stopped at the Pilgrim National Bank
just long enough to glance at his mail and order his engagements
postponed. Now he emerged from his purring limousine, drew himself up
to his full height of six feet, composed all the bulges of his face,
straightened his waistcoat and went in. He listened with politeness to
James’s account of the arrangements made, and then, in a room apart, he
listened to his wife’s emphatic opinions of Hobson, and rugs, and the
determination of James to become the Thornwell family.
Finally he sought out Cornelia. “Mother. I want to tell you that
Deborah and I will be more than glad to have you make your home with us
and will do everything in human power to make you happy.”
“Thank you, Rupert. I really can’t say yet; I haven’t had time to get
myself together.”
But her mind was quick, and was busy picturing life with Rupert and
Deborah. They had a big house on Commonwealth Avenue, where they lived
three months of the year; the rest of the time they occupied a castle
on the rocks of the North Shore. Deborah had the lean face and thin
nose of her father and held herself in the same stiff manner; for her
that variety of chair is made, of which the backs go up in a straight
vertical. She would be her father’s successor in understanding and
preserving the Thornwell traditions. She was very devout, and gave
her spare time to the management of charities--certain special ones;
she did not like other people to make contributions to them, because
they would then expect to meddle with her administration. It was her
complaint that there was no such thing as an efficient subordinate to
be hired; impossible to delegate any responsibility, so she managed
everything.
As for Rupert, he was running a great banking industry which carried
a general supervision of other industries and the gradual taking
over of many of them. In between times he would advise about his
wife’s charities and their religious affairs. His hobby was church
architecture; the rectors of parishes in eastern Massachusetts would
come to him for advice about the proper proportions of an apse.
Cornelia realized that if she went to live with them she would indeed
feel “at home”; she would be told what to do, exactly as if Josiah were
there.
Rupert was summoned to help his wife revise the list of the guests to
be notified of the funeral; and Cornelia wandered into the music-room,
where the services would be held. But she could not stand those four
life-size governors, each with the same lean face and tightly shut
lips and nose tapering to a point. She went into the conservatory,
where there were beautiful plants and flowers, and benches for young
lovers listening to music--even in the suburbs of Boston they did that.
Cornelia’s children had been young here and now her grandchildren were
at the age of love, yet she had never felt at ease in the house; she
had never been able to have her way, it always had to be the Thornwell
way. A public career had not been enough for Josiah; he had insisted
upon managing his household and had had the support of brothers and
sisters, a whole phalanx of righteous people. Great-aunt Deborah had
lived in the home until her death, quite recently, and had been the
real mistress of the family, with the duty of teaching the daughters
what Thornwell daughters ought to know and think.
For Cornelia there had been a little music and a little painting, a
rose garden and some books, a few friends, a play now and then and
symphony concerts. Gradually the family got used to the fact that
they could expect no more of her than this--that she should conceal
from them the fact that she found any element of fun in their sober
traditions. They did not understand her smile, and it never occurred
to them to want to understand it; what made them “Boston” was the fact
that never by any possibility would it cross their minds that they
had anything to learn from what was “not Boston.” Cornelia’s father
had been a professor in a small college, which was decent enough, but
his father had been a common immigrant; and three generations from
now at Boston dinner-tables people would still be whispering to their
neighbors, “Oh, yes, but, my dear, her grandfather came over in the
steerage; they say he was a bog-trotter--the name was Irish, anyhow.”
Nor had there been any fun in being the wife of a governor. Let those
who wanted fame and prominence help themselves to Cornelia’s share! It
had meant long speeches to listen to, bores to talk to, indigestible
dinners to eat. It had meant never speaking a natural word, never
laughing a merry laugh; everything calculated, everything a matter of
policy, to enhance a career which loyalty required a wife to believe
in. Cornelia put her hands to her ears to drown out the roaring of
crowds shouting victory on election night. She could hear a nasal,
drawling voice pledging zeal for the public interest. “Fellow-citizens
of the Commonwealth, upon this solemn occasion when you have summoned
me by your suffrages--” and so on. Nowhere any charm, or humor, or
touch of simplicity! Nothing but heavy pageantry and play-acting, from
the cradle to the coffin!
Even now, when in the darkened bedroom the psychological Mr. Hobson
had charge of Josiah’s affairs. Said the assistant, “How shall I get
this old buster’s wig to stay in place? Can I ask one of the servants
for some glue?” Said the psychologist, “No, you can’t ask for glue in
a house like this--what would they think? Look on that bureau for a
couple of safety-pins.”
VII
The news had spread, the telephone was ringing, messages of condolence
were arriving--a constant coming and going and whispering in the house
of death. The dressmaker to consult Cornelia about her costume; also
the old lady who sold bonnets in the town and was patronized as a
matter of charity. Cornelia was willing to be charitable--but Clara was
using this old lady to persuade Cornelia to don a veil. A dozen other
questions: who was to provide the flowers, and what kind? What was to
be the music, and who was to play it? Should the mill-hands be given an
opportunity to look upon the features of their employer and just how
was that to be managed? Two keys of the organ failed to sound and must
be seen to. Such details served to break the monotony of mourning.
Also there were relatives arriving: Quincy Thornwell, Great-uncle
Abner’s son, a clubman of fifty or so, prematurely white-haired, his
wizened face full of gossip; he had the reputation of a ladies’ man,
in a decorous Boston way, and Cornelia liked him because he was not
so proper as the others and would tell her funny stories about the
city. Quincy had grown rich by using the family information on the
stock-market. He spent his days in board rooms, watching the prices
of stocks chalked upon a wall; and in the evening, when he was not
visiting the ladies, he was playing chess with his deaf old father.
They talked about poor Josiah for a while, and then Abner could not
keep off his hobby. He tried unsuccessfully to whisper: “The fellow
that won the last round is a Jew, but they say he’s French--kind of
funny, ain’t it?”
And then Priscilla and Elizabeth, the daughters of Deborah. Priscilla,
the elder, was a perfect replica of her mother and planning at the age
of twenty-one to devote herself to settlement work. Betty, the younger
one, gave Cornelia thrills; a little round face, a nose trying its best
to turn up, soft brown eyes that shone with tenderness, and little
puckers when she laughed. She sat in the councils of the women, demure
and silent, as became a miss of seventeen, whose right of entrance
might be challenged. Later, when Cornelia left the room, she followed.
“Oh, Grannie, I wish they didn’t have to quarrel so!”
“So do I, Betty.”
“Sister is just beside herself over that old Shah of Persia’s rug.
Of course it’s interesting to know that your grandfather traveled in
Persia and had the Shah give him presents; but after all, there are
plenty of rugs you can buy. But Mother says if Aunt Clara doesn’t let
us have it, she’ll never speak to her again. Do you suppose she means
that?”
“Such things have happened, dear. Your Great-uncle Abner has not spoken
to your Great-uncle Ahab for fifty years.”
“Oh, Grannie! What extraordinary things in a family! Will Great-uncle
Ahab come to the funeral?”
“Of course.”
“And he won’t speak to Great-uncle Abner?”
“In public he will, but not otherwise. Abner married the girl that Ahab
was engaged to, so Ahab has stayed a bachelor all his life. Don’t you
remember that big house down at the shore that they sawed in half?”
“Oh, was that it?”
“They quarreled and divided it exactly, and Ahab moved his half to
another part of the town.”
Said Betty, “I’m so glad you’re not going to cover yourself with a
horrid black veil. It wouldn’t become you a bit. And I’m glad you’re
not crying when you don’t feel like it. I say for you to do what you
want to.”
“Thank you, Betty dear.”
“It’s a fact that Grandfather never felt the need of personal
affection--or at least he never showed it--so why should other people
show it?” Betty stopped for a moment, and then caught the old lady’s
hand. “Oh, Grannie, you’re crying now! I’ve hurt your feelings!”
“No, dear, not that! It’s just that I was thinking how much unhappiness
I’d have saved if it had been the fashion for people to say what they
mean.”
“Well, Mother is cross with me; she says I’m an unnatural child, and
she can’t understand me. Do you find me so?”
“No, dear.” And Cornelia smiled through her tears. “Don’t mind me, I
was really looking for a chance to cry. It’s a great strain when you
break the habits of forty years, no matter what they are.”
“Oh, Grannie dear. I wish you’d come and live with us, and wake up the
family. I wish Mother wasn’t so terribly strict with me. I wish I had a
car of my own. Dear me,” said Miss Betty, “what a lot of things I wish!”
VIII
There came Henry Winters, husband of Alice; later than the others,
because he had had to appear in court. It is not customary to adjourn
court for the death of fathers-in-law, but when it was Governor
Thornwell the case was different. Henry had been conscious of doing
a distinguished thing when he asked for adjournment and the judge of
doing a distinguished thing when he granted it, with a gracious little
tribute to the eminent departed.
As Alice Thornwell Winters was a model of social elegance, so Henry
Cabot Winters was a model of legal insouciance; a lawyer who was also
a man of the world and of fashion. Four years in Harvard and three in
the law-school had not sufficed to suppress his sense of humor and
for this reason he was the nearest to Cornelia of her sons-in-law. He
was a slender and rather dark man, fastidious, dressed in the pink of
fashion, his graying hair combed in a picturesque wave. He commanded
enormous fees for his inside knowledge of the financial affairs of
New England; and after business hours he became the man of pleasure,
yachtsman, fox-hunter, favorite in the ballrooms. He knew the right
people and brought in the business; and left it for his partners to do
the tiresome work of looking up the law and winning cases.
Henry now had need of all his urbanity. First he had to listen to
his wife raging in whispers on the subject of the Mayflower cradle;
and immediately afterwards he was trapped in the drawing-room by his
sister-in-law, Deborah. “Henry, there is something that some member of
the family simply has to speak to you about. I hope you understand that
I have no wish to intrude upon your private affairs, but I have spoken
to Alice and it seems that I can accomplish nothing--she absolutely
insists that she will let Joyce Edgerton attend the funeral if he
wishes.”
“Why shouldn’t she, Deborah?”
“Henry, the way you and your wife work out your marital problems is no
affair of mine--”
“Exactly, Deborah!”
“--until it threatens to become a public scandal. Don’t misunderstand
me, I am not casting any doubts upon my sister’s virtue--she assures
me that her relationship to Joyce Edgerton is innocent and maybe
it is--but there is a limit to what you can expect the world to
believe--and when Alice continues to have some young man tagging after
her everywhere she goes--and when she changes them so frequently--and
they all go to the devil afterwards--you know what I mean, Henry!
And of course it may be true that Joyce Edgerton is a great poet--or
that he is going to be some day, and all that--nevertheless it seems
to me that this is one time when the family has some rights and when
the sacredness of our grief ought to be respected--and I really
think we have a right to ask you to use your authority and see to it
that Joyce Edgerton finds some other way to amuse himself on Friday
afternoon--surely he can find an unmarried woman to go somewhere with
him--just this one day, that’s all I am asking--”
And so on; until Henry Cabot Winters got up and excused himself and
went up to his mother-in-law’s sunny rooms, where none of the curtains
had been drawn, and he could sink into an easy chair and laugh.
Cornelia knew about it, of course; Deborah had not failed to put the
problem up to her. They discussed it for a while and Henry remarked
that Alice deserved much more admiration than any one man could
supply. Later on he made the same little speech as the others, offering
Cornelia a home and assuring her that everything they had would be at
her disposal. The Winters had a great deal: a town house and a suburban
estate and a camp on a lake up in New Hampshire. They had only one son,
a lad who was preparing to enter St. Mark’s school, so there would be
plenty of space and freedom for Cornelia. She could laugh about life
with Henry; but what would she do about Joyce Edgerton and about the
young man who had preceded him and the one who would follow him?
Alice had her side, of course; it was pretty generally known that
Henry was keeping a woman in an apartment in the Fenway. Also, Alice
was “virtuous”--meaning that she never gave herself to any of her
adorers. But living in the house with Alice meant that you had to know
the details of these emotional entanglements; just what the new young
genius found in the soul of Alice that was so especially wonderful and
why he preferred it to what he found in any of the available unopened
buds who had not been beaten upon by the storms of experience. You had
to know whether these young geniuses were happy or unhappy, whether
they were coming or going; and after they were gone, you had to know
just why they had been so disappointing to Alice, so unworthy of the
high faith she had placed in them.
“Henry,” said Cornelia, “I suppose I’m going to have a little money
left me out of the wreck of Josiah’s fortune?”
“I hope so.”
“I suppose James will tell me about it in due time. If it’s enough,
maybe you’ll advise me about renting an apartment in the Fenway, where
I understand things don’t have to be so proper.” And Henry laughed--he
couldn’t help laughing, of course; but at the same time he was somewhat
shocked. How much did his mother-in-law know about such matters? How
much should he admit to her that he knew that she knew? He had an
impulse to glance behind him at the open door.
“Henry,” said Cornelia, suddenly, “I am ashamed of the way this family
is behaving. But, you know, the Thornwells have not been exactly what
you call ‘nice’ people.”
“No,” said Henry, “they have been ‘great’ people.”
“Which means,” countered the woman, “they have been greedy--and with a
streak of insanity.”
IX
The heavens, regardful of the dignity and standing of the late governor
of the Commonwealth, sent rain on the night before the funeral to
wash the air and make every blade of grass to shine. They sent the
sun especially early to chase away the clouds, all but a few fleecy
ones, setting off the deep blue of the sky. The expanses of lawn that
stretched out on every side from “Hillview” were smoother and cleaner
and brighter than any rug that a Shah of Persia ever trod. Under the
great dark oaks a flock of sheep were feeding, and behind a steel fence
a herd of deer. On the opposite slope in the distance were the white
columns of the Scatterbridge home, and at one side the cottages of
the tenants who worked the thousand acres of farmland. To the east,
underneath the newly risen sun, were glimpses of the great mills, red
brick stained with coal smoke; also of the river through the trees, and
day and night came the music of water pouring over the dams.
The mansion had tall columns in front, going up over the second story,
covering both the veranda and the graveled driveway. The house was
painted white, the paint, like everything else, being decently old.
Wings had been added on each side, and in the rear the music-room, and
beyond that the conservatory: nothing regular, because the architects
had had to adjust themselves to the elm trees which bowered the
structure.
All morning there was the sound of wheels on the driveway, and delivery
men and chauffeurs in uniform ringing the bell, bringing wreaths and
floral designs. “Say it with flowers,” ran the formula; and every
saying had a card attached, to identify the sayer: the Governor of the
Commonwealth and his lady, the Bishop of the Diocese and his wife, the
members of the Republican State Committee, the Society of the Sons of
St. Andrew, the Society of Colonial Dames, the Class of ’58 of Harvard
University, the employees of the Pilgrim National Bank, the executives
and managers of the Thornwell Mills Company, the Chamber of Commerce
of Boston, the Board of Trade of Thornwell--so on through a long list.
Addicks, the perfect family servant, received each offering with grave
thanks, deposited the cards on a silver tray and handed the flowers to
the footman, who took them to the music-room and placed them under
Deborah’s direction.
The room had been made into a church, the “highest” possible. There
was an altar with a large cross made of white roses and at each side a
seven-branched candle-stick, with tall candles burning. The casket was
in place, holding the lean body of Josiah, his face upturned to the
light for his last few hours, the long thin nose seeming longer and
thinner than ever could have been possible in life. The skin was a pale
waxy color, tinted with great skill--since Mr. Hobson was not merely a
psychologist but a “cosmetologist” also. In his advertisements he said
“Every funeral is _my_ funeral”; which was why Deborah considered him
so vulgar. Boston--the real Boston--does not wish its advertisements
“peppy.”
The three reporters and the gentleman from the _Transcript_ came again;
and this time there had been an understanding between James and his
sister-in-law. It was like the case of the man who said that he and
his wife had worked out a solution of the domestic problem; on all
major issues he was to have his way and on minor issues she was to have
hers; and so far, no major issues had arisen. The three reporters and
the gentleman were received by James and Deborah, and James got the
cards from the silver tray and dictated the names of those who had sent
floral tributes; while every now and then Deborah would say, quietly,
“Omit that name, if you please.” Not every one was entitled to send
tributes to a Thornwell funeral!
The organist from St. Luke’s Church arrived, and Addicks knew exactly
what to say to him. “This way, if you please, sir. The choir will robe
itself in the little room back of the governor’s study. The ceremony
will begin promptly at two.” Attired in a flowing white day-gown, the
visitor proceeded to test the organ, and mysterious vibrations crept up
and down the timbers of the building. “Jesus, lover of my soul, let me
to thy bosom fly,” whispered walls and ceilings; and at the same moment
Deborah Thornwell Alvin was standing with her two hands clenched,
addressing Clara Thornwell Scatterbridge: “I wish to say once for all,
I consider one-third of the family heirlooms are my property; and if
they are taken from me because of any mortgage I shall regard the taker
as a pawnbroker for the rest of my days.”
X
Members of the family arriving. The ladies went upstairs to put their
hair and complexions in order, while the men stood about, exchanging
phrases in soft whispers: a beautiful day, yes, ideal for the occasion,
most fortunate; a fine editorial in the _Transcript_, the press had
been dignified; a great man was gone, we don’t have that kind any more;
a very convincing tribute from the party, yes, they would find it hard
to replace him; looked as if the Germans might get to the channel;
amazing the way the market continued to boom.
There came John Quincy Thornwell, another son of Abner, with his
father’s heavy frame and his uncle’s long nose; soft-voiced, semi-bald,
president of the Fifth National Bank. And Grandfather Porter Alvin,
father of Rupert, and Andrew Alvin, his younger son, a polo player and
sport, tanned as brown as a Kanaka, with a puffy checked necktie and
every shiny strand of his black hair in exactly the right position. He
stood in the library, listening to Great-uncle Abner shouting “Who will
read Josiah’s books now?” Andrew ran his eyes over the shelves of heavy
works on political science and history and economics and law, and knew
that he was not the one.
Two automobiles deposited six pairs of choir boys, subdued in voice but
eager of eye; they were herded into the robing room by the Reverend Mr.
Quincy Adams Thornwell, the cousin who was to assist in the ceremony;
tall, flat-footed, with large bunion shoes and black suit and flat
black hat like an English curate--its ugliness excused for the reason
that it had ritual significance. Also came the rector and his lady; the
Reverend Dr. James Lowell Wolverhampton, pronounced Woolton, physically
and phonetically equipped to become a bishop; he gathered up the letter
“rs” which the Boston Brahmins all drop, and saved them and rolled them
out two or three at a time in his sermons.
He received the final advice from Deborah: “The family will descend
at one-fifty-five.” After which he retired into Josiah’s study, to
instruct his assistant concerning the service. “First I recite, ‘Lord,
let me know mine end,’ and you make the responses. The choir sings,
‘Lord, Thou hast been our refuge,’ and then, before the Lesson from
the Epistle of St. Paul, we intone the anthem--”
“Then I will need both books?” broke in the Reverend Mr. Thornwell.
“No, no! You don’t understand.” And with Christian patience the rector
said it all over again, but more slowly, pointing out the passages.
He would have added the word “Dunce!” but that would not have been a
Christian thing to say to a cousin of a governor.
XI
The guests arriving. They stepped onto the veranda and the chauffeurs
parked the cars in a long line down the driveway. There were three
policemen in blue uniforms stationed in front of the house, but in this
well-trained community they had only to confer dignity. The guests
did not chat, merely murmured a few greetings, after which they went
to the music-room, which most of them knew well; walking softly, on
padded feet, and not permitting their eyes to show signs of animation.
They were old people for the most part; gentlemen with white heads or
gray, flesh-colored or rosy; they wore black broadcloth, some with
black stripes of braid down the side of the trousers. The ladies were
in black, with now and then a touch of white at the collar and cuffs;
many of them wore black-dotted veils and fur neckpieces even in summer
weather. They were much wrinkled and the older ones had hanging mouths;
they let themselves carefully down the three polished steps into the
music-room and took their seats, seeing only what it was possible to
see without moving the eyes.
The place was open and airy, full of sunshine; divided into four
sections by an aisle down the center and a cross aisle with open doors
at each side. It had white Doric columns set in the walls, and panels
with the stern ancestors painted. There were tall windows, with dark
red curtains at the side, and seats upholstered in red velvet to match.
The front of the room had a bower of flowers and in the center, where
the two aisles crossed, stood the casket with the body of the great
man, white carnations at his head and white roses at his feet; if you
looked down through the glass, as a few did, you saw his thin nose of
pale waxen color, and his white wig, resting securely in position with
no trace of safety-pins.
Across the aisle was stretched a purple ribbon, marking the seats
reserved for the family and the family servants; in this solemn
hour class distinctions were abolished, there was only Thornwell or
not-Thornwell. The governor of the Commonwealth--the living one--came
in with his lady, but no one did them special honor; they seated
themselves among the guests. So with the lieutenant-governor and his
lady, and the senator who represented the Commonwealth in Washington;
a “scholar in politics” with a very famous name, a dapper little
gentleman with sharply trimmed mustaches and beard. If you knew the
“blue-bloods” of this community, you would recognize great bankers and
lawyers, the presidents of two universities and several scholars of
fame. You would not know the timid old ladies dressed in rusty black,
who had got out of cars some distance down the driveway and walked
about for a while so as not to get there too early; poor relations, who
had been in receipt of pensions from Josiah, and were trembling with
anxiety until the will should be read.
Through the side door you saw a throng of humble people; the employees
of the mills, which were shut down for the afternoon. They came
streaming up the path from the road below, dressed in their pathetic
best; they would stand patiently for an hour or two, listening to
the strains of the organ and waiting their time to file through the
room. A rare occasion for them; one might work in the mills another
generation and gaze up at the white-painted castle amid its sheltering
elm trees and never climb the path to glimpse the splendor. The rest
of the village, which did not work in the mills, was clustered along
the roadside to stare at the shining limousines and their stately
occupants. It was feudalism in frock-coats.
The grandfather’s clock at the head of the stairs pointed to
one-fifty-four, and the organ was pealing a magnificent heavy
tune. Every person in the room knew the words, and beheld the same
magnificent picture--
_Ten thousand times ten thousand
In sparkling raiment bright,
The armies of the ransomed saints
Stream up the steeps of light:
’Tis finished, all is finished,
Their fight with death and sin:
Fling open wide the golden gates
And let the victors in._
At which sublime moment, with all heaven thundering in her ears, Alice
Thornwell Winters, black of dress and white of face, was confronting
Clara Thornwell Scatterbridge, demanding, “Once more and for the last
time, do you admit that the Mayflower cradle is my property?”
Said Clara: “I think this a most unsuitable moment--”
Said Alice: “There could be no moment more suitable. It marks the
break-up of our family, if you so decree. That Mayflower cradle has
been the cradle of our destiny, and the symbol of our position. I was
rocked in its arms, and the generations before me. I bore the first
man-child--”
Said Clara: “Well, I have borne five boys and two girls, even though a
little bit late.”
Said Alice: “I have Father’s pledge and I stand on that. Give me your
answer!”
Said Clara: “It is a matter about which James must be consulted--”
Said Alice: “You have had opportunity to consult James, and you have
done so. If you do not answer my question, I understand that your
answer is no.”
The clock had moved one minute, and Cornelia came, saying, “It is time
to descend. I hope my children are not going to advertise our family
shame to the world.”
XII
The procession of men and women and children was formed in the proper
order, and down the stairs, two by two, they went: Cornelia first, with
no veil over her features and no tears in her soft brown eyes; her
gray hair was smoothed flat, and her little round face was solemn, her
little nose facing straight ahead, her gaze fixed upon nothingness.
One hand rested upon the arm of Great-uncle Abner; and behind her
came Great-uncle Ahab, escorting Great-aunt Priscilla. Then Deborah,
the oldest daughter, with her husband, Rupert Alvin; then Alice, the
second daughter, with her husband, Henry Cabot Winters; then Clara,
with her husband, James Scatterbridge; then the son of Alice, and the
two daughters of Deborah and the seven children of Clara tapering to a
small pair with a governess between them. The miscellaneous uncles and
aunts and nephews and nieces and cousins had already been seated inside
the magic purple ribbon, so the procession ended with the personal
servants; Addicks, with his venerable black suit showing slightly green
in the bright sunlight; the governor’s private secretary, and his Negro
valet, and Cornelia’s Negro maid, and the handy man, and the gardener,
and the cook--all persons who had been with the family so long that
they alone knew the dates.
The six pairs of white-robed choir boys came down the center aisle,
their cherub voices proclaiming, “Now the laborer’s task is o’er; Now
the battle day is past.” The last and tallest bore a high jeweled cross
and behind it strode the two clergymen, robed in white and black.
All found their proper places, and the rector lifted his hands and
pronounced, “Peace be upon this house.” And, truly, whatever spells he
might command were in order at this moment, with Clara Scatterbridge
sitting with her teeth clenched on the thought, “They are ours and
we shall keep them!” And Alice Winters glaring before her at the
sentence, “They got it by a mortgage, like pawnbrokers!” And Priscilla
Alvin, elder daughter of Deborah, shutting her fists tight upon the
conviction, “When it comes to a show down, Mother will give up, but I
will never give up!”
“I am the r-r-r-esur-r-ection and the life!” proclaimed the Reverend
Dr. Wolverhampton; and then, exactly as if he had known about Mayflower
cradles and Shah of Persia’s rugs, he added, “We brought nothing into
this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.” The choir
chanted, “Lord, thou hast been our refuge: from one generation to
another”; and then the clergyman began to read the extract from the
fifteenth chapter of the First Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians.
It is very long and somewhat involved, so there was no matter for
surprise if here and there a member of the congregation found his
attention straying. Rupert Alvin had seen, as he came down the aisle,
the face of Jerry Walker gazing from one of the side seats; thus it was
inevitable that Rupert should be thinking about the felt-plants and
the hat-works which Jerry had bought, and would he be able to meet
his notes, and how far should the Pilgrim National Bank lead him on?
And Great-uncle Abner, who in the next match was to meet the French
Jew, and could not help wondering about the fellow’s tricks. And young
Josiah Thornwell Winters, the infinitely precious son of Alice, who had
a date with a girl and wondered how soon he would get off. And Betty
Alvin, who sat behind her grandmother, thinking, “If only she’d come
stay with us and liven things up!”
The voice of the rector was wrestling with the complicated Pauline
metaphysics. “For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this
mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put
on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then
shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed
up in victory.” Cornelia was thinking “Can all that really be true?
Shall I really ever see Josiah again? Is he alive somewhere now, and
does he know what I am thinking? If he does, am I really free?”
In the casket, within three feet of her, lay what St. Paul called the
“natural body” of her husband. For three days it had been preserved by
formaldehyde solutions; but an hour or two more and it would be shoved
into a vault, and there would begin a process extremely unpleasant to
think about. Cornelia had been reading Fabre, and had come upon the
details, which now forced themselves upon her shuddering thoughts. St.
Paul, thinking the same thoughts, had said, “This corruptible must put
on incorruption.”
XIII
The clergyman was praying; and Cornelia, down upon her knees, said
a prayer of her own, “Oh, Lord, let my children stop quarreling!”
Then she was back in her seat, listening to a eulogy of the great
departed. “When the state was in peril, he was as a rock of refuge
... to every need, public or private, he gave freely ... the greatest
of his generation ... we of the new time call in vain for his like--”
and so on, a discourse that was Boston in every tone and accent. But
Cornelia’s mind was occupied with the realities of this household, to
whom the glory of Josiah was not a crown to be worn but a carcass to
be rended. For years she had prayed “O Lord, take worldliness out of
their hearts.” But something must have been wrong with her technique of
prayer; it had failed entirely of effect.
“The services will be continued at the place of interment,” said
the rector; and the six pairs of choir boys marched out, singing
“The church’s one foundation,” and the guests moved slowly into the
library and the drawing-room, or to the front lawn, to await while the
mill-hands filed across the room. The executives of the company were in
charge of this, but Cornelia considered it her duty to remain, and her
daughters, not to be outdone in ceremony, stood by her side.
The workers came in single file, slowly and hesitatingly: men and
women, old and young, foreigners for the most part, pathetic figures,
the more so because of their efforts to look proper. It was not often,
under this system of feudalism in frock-coats, that the two kinds of
people met in the same place; but here they were, the masters, tall
and elegant, and the toilers, stunted in form and scarred in features,
with shoulders bowed and limbs crooked and hands knotted and calloused.
They had stood upon weary feet for hours in order to see this splendor,
but now they were too timid to look at it; all but a few of the young
ones kept their eyes straight ahead. A few saw Cornelia--persons whom
she had visited in sickness--and these made faint signs of recognition,
which she acknowledged.
Then came the pall-bearers; the honorary ones, whose names were in
the papers, walking honorably alongside. The casket was slid into
the hearse; the relatives entered their cars and so did those guests
who cared to follow, and the long line of vehicles set out, with two
motorcycle officers at the head and all traffic waiting respectfully.
So they came to the family mausoleum, with the costly bronze receptacle
waiting for its tenant. The group stood about with heads bowed, and
again the choir sang and the Reverend Dr. Wolverhampton lifted up his
rolling voice. “Man that is born of woman, hath but a short time to
live, and is full of misery.” The casket was set in place and sealed,
and the doors of the vault were shut and locked; the blessings of
the Lord were conferred upon those present; and all was over. The
hearse went back to its garage to await the morrow’s passenger and the
guests scattered to their homes; the members of the family returned to
“Hillview” for a ceremony which concerned them alone--the reading of
Josiah Thornwell’s will.
XIV
Behold them waiting in the library: every one, from the highest to
the lowest, the richest to the poorest--even the older servants, who
were certain of being remembered. Every one--save two. Clara, looking
about, missed her sister Alice and, becoming suddenly suspicious, went
into the entrance hall. There, coming down the broad staircase, was a
sight the like of which had never been seen by any Thornwell since the
days--well, a long time ago, when the ancestors had been privateersmen.
Alice was marching, her cultivated features set in grim defiance and
her deep-souled eyes staring before her; behind her a French maid, and
between them a piece of furniture of brown varnished wood, much scarred
and scratched.
Clara stood, all but paralyzed. “Alice Thornwell! What are you
doing?”--as if it were not evident enough! Then, seeing Alice go
straight by without a word: “If you take that cradle out of this house,
I will never speak to you while I live!” And then, “I will denounce
you for a thief to the world!” And when even this most dreadful of
maledictions failed of effect, Clara could only stand with fingernails
dug into the palms of her hands and face white with fury, whispering
over and over, “Oh! Oh! _Oh!_”
They went through the front door and Clara rushed into the library,
whispering to her mother “Alice is stealing the cradle!” Cornelia
hurried outside in time to see the heirloom being loaded onto the
Winters limousine. It would not go through the door, but the two women
set it on the running-board on the right-hand side, away from the
chauffeur; the maid sat on the front seat and held it through the front
window and Alice sat on the rear seat and held it through the rear
window; and the car rolled away down the drive, leaving the Thornwell
family like a nest of ants which has been stepped on.
And even that was not the end! A dreadful idea flashed through the mind
of Clara, and she rushed into the rear reception room, which the ladies
of the family used for their tea-parties. In the center of this room,
upon the seldom-trodden floor, had reposed the Shah of Persia’s rug;
and now it was gone! Clara gave one glance, and fled back to her older
sister. “Deborah Thornwell, you have stolen my rug!”
Deborah drew herself up to her utmost height of amazement. “I have not
touched my rug!”
“But it’s gone!”
“It has not been taken by me.” Still whispering, of course.
Clara looked, and saw that Deborah’s elder daughter, Priscilla, was
missing. She asked no more but turned to Addicks, the perfect servant,
who never in his fifty years of devotion had encountered an emergency
like this, nor in his maddest nightmare had dreamed it. “Addicks, Miss
Priscilla has taken the Shah of Persia’s rug. Search for it and bring
it to me. Run!”
In the two hundred and eighty-five years of Boston’s history, no such
un-Bostonian thing had ever been known to happen, so there could be no
Bostonian way of dealing with it. Clara Thornwell Scatterbridge became
an ordinary woman in a rage. With tears in her china-blue eyes she
appealed to her husband, to her mother, even to her older children and
the governess. Ignoring her husband’s efforts to restrain her, she ran
from room to room, flinging open doors and looking into cupboards and
behind sofas. As it occurred to her to look outside, she rushed through
the doorway, breathless, red of face, forgetting her stoutness, her
laboring heart, her varicose veins, forgetting even that institution
which through so many generations had stood inviolate, the Thornwell
dignity. A civilization in ruins!
The mystery was solved at last. Word spreading among the servants, a
chauffeur reported that he had seen Miss Priscilla with the rug in her
arms, going towards the apple-orchard. So across the fields marched
Clara, followed by Deborah, at Clara’s insistence. The other members of
the family, suddenly realizing that this was a scene which must not be
admitted, ordered the lawyer to begin the reading of the will.
Out under an old apple-tree, in the exact geographical center of the
priceless Persian rug, sat the new generation, “young Boston,” which
was going to think and act for itself--and bring back the days of the
pirates and privateersmen.
“Priscilla!” commanded Clara. “Get up!” And then: “Priscilla, you hear
me speak to you! Get up off that rug!”
Silence. And Clara turned to her sister. “Deborah, will you order your
child to obey?”
Would she? There was a pause, while history hung in the balance.
“Priscilla, I disapprove of what you are doing. Please get up.”
And so the rug-sitting sphinx revealed a voice. “Mother, I am the
person who will inherit this rug and I have made up my mind what to do.
I shall sit here until Grandfather’s will has been read. If he gives
it to us, as he promised, all right. If not, Aunt Clara may call the
police to remove me from it.”
“Priscilla! You defy your mother?” Clara’s voice was trembling.
“Deborah, make her obey you!”
“Priscilla, obey me,” said the mother. Was it possible that the voice
lacked just a little of its usual firmness? Anyhow, Priscilla Alvin
continued to sit, her eyes fixed on space.
“Obey your mother!” commanded Clara.
“Priscilla, obey me!” echoed Deborah.
“Mother,” said the rug-sitter, “I was twenty-one years of age last week
and I have taken legal advice and learned that I am no longer compelled
to obey any one but the law. I am here and I shall stay here, and I
serve notice now that if any one but a policeman removes me I shall get
a warrant for the person’s arrest.”
“Oh!” cried Clara. “What is this new generation coming to?”
“Aunt Clara,” said the rug-sitter, “you will save time if you go back
and hear the will, because you won’t accomplish anything meantime. Do
not worry, I shall stay right here till the question is decided. I
could have gone farther if I had wanted to, but I like this orchard,
which you got away from us.”
XV
And meantime Cornelia had gone to her rooms and locked the door behind
her; and then into her bedroom and shut that door, to make doubly
certain. She was pacing up and down, beset by a storm of emotion. As
they say a drowning man lives over the experiences of his whole life,
so she was living the repressions of forty years. All the rages she
had felt and never voiced! All the disappointments, the despairs! The
experiences she had longed for, and never dared to have, and now could
never have, because it was too late! She had been caught, a wild young
thing in a trap; she had lived, a prisoner in a cell. She had had
dreams, and seen them suffocated; she had had children, and seen them
taken from her, and made into strangers. Forced into the mold of this
family--this solid phalanx of iron people--with iron souls, iron wills
which broke you!
This crowning indignity, this outbreak in the very presence of
death--this was an accident, Cornelia told herself. They had never
done anything like this before, nothing so open, so undignified. They
would repudiate it themselves, they would be ashamed of it to-morrow.
This was not “Boston”! But to Cornelia, who had been on the inside of
“Boston,” it seemed an outbreak of reality, a revelation of hidden
natures. Petty jealousy, petty greed, masked with dignity, and wearing
the solemn costumes of historical tradition! Other people, living
people, would quarrel over real things; the Thornwells quarreled over
the dead rags and relics of their ancestors!
Once there had been real people in this family! Once there had been men
and women who had acted, who had dared to think for themselves--and to
care about something else than rags and relics! Memories surged into
Cornelia’s mind, of the old days when the Thornwells had been smugglers
and privateers--not thinking about the proprieties then! There had
been revolutionary leaders among them--men who had gone into the
“pot-houses” and incited mobs! There had even been women who had dared
to think, and to act, instead of obeying the men! Didn’t they worship
the memory of a Great-great-aunt Deborah, who had been one of the
anti-slavery pioneers? Not frightened by the horrible name of “Black
Abolitionist”--no indeed, she had made her home one of the stations in
the “underground railway” which had carried fugitive slaves to Canada!
She had taught Negroes to read and write--not only black women, but
black men! Such was the tradition they thought they worshiped; but
really they only worshiped the rags and relics of it!
Suddenly this storm of emotion culminated, and Cornelia, who had been
pacing back and forth in her room, suddenly stopped still. What was the
reason women were always bound by fear? Because they were afraid! Why
were they obedient? Because they obeyed! When they wanted to act, they
did not know enough; and when they knew enough, then they were too old!
But who could say you were too old to act, if you acted?
Cornelia, trembling with excitement, but at the same time calm inside,
went to her desk and sat down, and took pen and ink and began to write.
“My dear Children:
“For forty years I have been doing what other people wanted me
to do, and I have never had any fun. Now I think I have done
everything I can for you, and that you can get along without me. I
hope that I am old enough to take care of myself. I am going away
for a while, to remain until I choose to return, if ever. I am not
taking any property, because there has been too much of it in my
life, and I believe I shall be happier without it. I am going to
prove to myself, for my own satisfaction, that I can take care of
myself, without any advice or assistance from any one. I have only
one request, that you will waste no time or money in efforts to
find me. It will only irritate me and do no good whatever, because
I shall continue to do exactly what I please. I have heard of
runaway children; I am going to be the runaway grandmother.
“With best wishes,
“Mother.
“P.S. I enclose a respectable letter which you may show to our
friends.”
And the second letter:
“My Dear Children:
“Your father’s sudden death has shocked me deeply, and after the
strain of the funeral I realize that I am run down and in need of
rest. I have received a telephone call from an old school friend
who is starting on a camping trip and begs me go along. I think
such a complete change will help me, so I am taking a night train,
and write this to explain and leave you my dearest love and wishes
for a happy summer.
“Affectionately,
“Mother.”
Having sealed these two letters in one envelope and marked it “For
Deborah, Alice and Clara,” Cornelia laid it in the middle of her bed.
She then changed her mourning garb for an ordinary street-dress, and
took her handbag with some ready money in it, and unlocked the two
doors, and slipped down a back stairway, and out by a rear door, and
down the path which led to the main road. There was a trolley stop, and
a car labeled “Boston,” and she stepped aboard.