Harvard Yard (43 page)

“To hell with them,” said Amos, and he kissed her.

They had kissed many times before, but never with such certainty of their commitment or such awareness of how easily a kiss could inflame other passions.

It was Dorothy who drew Amos by the lapels into the deserted bandstand. It was Dorothy who hiked up her skirt and petticoats, so that he could slip his hand along her thighs and upward to the place where her legs met. It was Dorothy who spread her legs wider to allow his fingers to go higher. It was Dorothy who cried out at the wondrous pleasure as his fingers slipped into her. It was Dorothy who said, “To hell with everyone . . . but us.” It was Amos who unbuttoned his trousers.

The wedding took place two months later, which was good because Dorothy Wedge Warren was already a month pregnant. But no scandal arose. Her father never even knew, for she miscarried a month after that.

As Dorothy devoted time to Lydia, Theodore did to Caleb. When Grandmother Christine died that winter, he moved into the house on Brattle Street to watch over the old man and his querulous sister. And he sometimes wrote about them in his journal.

Is this the fate we face? To bicker over meaningless things, like the temperature of the soup or the number of logs on the grate? If I remain unmarried, and Dorothy should outlive Amos, perhaps we shall end our days like Caleb and Lydia, sitting at a table in the house where we grew up, going on about the unimportant, the mundane, or the mysterious, by which I mean the fate of a book that sometimes I hear them argue over. They never bring up this subject in my presence and brush it away when I enter the room. But it is a strange thing they discuss, as though they were talking of some bastard child.

That winter, Theodore grew side whiskers like Emerson’s and read more of the Concord philosopher than of the works assigned to him.

In July of 1838, Theodore was thrilled to learn that Emerson would be coming to Cambridge once more to deliver a lecture at the Divinity School. He made sure that he had an invitation for himself and his grandfather.

And from Emerson’s first words—“In this refulgent summer, it has been a luxury to draw the breath of life”—Theodore was overwhelmed. But this was not a speech of which most Divinity students would approve, because Ralph Waldo Emerson had returned to Cambridge not to praise organized religion, but to bury it.

From the start, Theodore sensed his grandfather stiffening with anger. Emerson admitted that he admired Christ, but “I do not see in him the love of Natural Science. I see in him no kindness for Art; I see in him nothing of Socrates . . . or of Shakespeare.”

“Shakespeare?” whispered Caleb. “He wants Christ to read Shakespeare? Shakespeare should read Christ!”

And the old man grew increasingly agitated as the speech unfolded, sighing and clucking and shifting in his seat.

The Concord philosopher questioned the importance of historical faith, of Christ’s divinity, of the belief that God is a personality, somewhere out in the cosmos, rather than a flame burning in the human heart. “That which shows God in me fortifies me. That which shows God out of me makes me a wart and a wen.”

“I cut out many a wen in my day,” whispered Caleb. “I’d do the same for him.”

Emerson glanced in their direction, and Theodore told his grandfather to be quiet.

Emerson went on, rising toward this conclusion: “Let me admonish you to go alone; to refuse the good models, even those which are sacred to the imagination of men, and dare to love God without mediator or veil. Yourself a newborn bard of the Holy Ghost, cast behind you all conformity, and acquaint men at the first hand with Deity.”

Afterward, Caleb Wedge said, “It is time for an old Congregationalist to die.”

“He has opened my eyes,” said Theodore. “I will cast conformity behind me.”

And both were true to their word.

Theodore took his grandfather home to Brattle Street, then returned to the library in Harvard Hall, took a seat in the north corner, and wrote out his resignation from the Divinity School. He had planted himself firmly on his own instincts and would wait now for the world to come round. While he waited, he would write . . . a novel or essays like Emerson’s
Nature,
or perhaps a history of Harvard, which he would frame as a history of thought and belief in America.

Meanwhile, Old Caleb went out to his barn and said good-bye to all the ghosts who had inhabited it, a few of whom might inhabit it still, considering the dissections he had performed there. He went through the study and remembered all the nights he had talked there with his wife, his children, and old Burton Bones. He said good-bye to the portrait of Reverend Abraham, seated as he always should have been, before a Bible rather than a play. Then he slowly climbed the stairs. And at the landing, he was greeted by a portrait of his wife in her youth.

“Christine,” he said, “we shall soon embrace again.”

He then went into the bedroom, slipped off his boots and trousers and wooden foot, and slipped into the bed that they had shared for sixty years. It was two o’clock in the afternoon, and the summer sun was hot and bright on the treetops outside his window. He closed his eyes and wondered if he could die.

“What is this foolishness?” Lydia marched into the bedroom two hours later with a tray of tea. “Are you sick?”

“No.” Caleb’s eyes popped open. “I’ve decided it’s time. I’ve seen enough.”

“Enough of what?”

“Enough of new ideas, I suspect.” Theodore came in right after Lydia.

And Caleb sat up. “I spent the first third of my life learning that a man must step forward when the moment demands. I should know when it’s time to step aside.”

“Why?” asked Lydia.

Caleb looked at Theodore. “If Harvard is letting someone like Ralph Waldo Emerson lecture to our divinity students, I leave the world to the rest of you while I rejoin those who believed in a faith with form and a God with identity.”

Lydia set three cups on the nightstand and filled them. “If you’re going to die, have some tea first.”

And the three of them spent an hour drinking tea and talking.

Then Theodore rose to leave. “Don’t die, Grandfather, at least not until the cornerstone is laid for the new library.”

“We are all invited,” said Lydia, “because of the contribution arranged by George Jr. from the Boston Associates.”

After Theodore’s footfalls had receded down the stairs, Caleb said to Lydia, “’Tis time for us to deliver the book, now that our family has helped to deliver a new library.”

“You’ve decided to take yourself out of the world, so you have no say.”

“Lydia, it should be
my
decision. It was
I
who stole the book.”

“And destroyed John Harvard’s library in the process.”

“You know that’s not true.”

“But it’s what people will believe. I’ve always told you.”

“Our ancestors wanted the book in the possession of the college. So did John Harvard. I won’t rest until I’ve done my duty.”

“Then don’t die. Outlive me, and you can decide what to do with the book. Die first, and I’ll follow Emerson’s advice. I’ll stand on my instincts. I’ll wait for the great college to come round and educate the other half of humanity.”

“In that case”—Caleb Wedge swung his legs out of the bed—“give me my foot.”

iv

Over the next two years, the entries of Theodore Wedge in his journal were filled with references to the building of the library:

October 8, 1838:

The cornerstone was laid this day, in bright sunshine. President Quincy, the Fellows, and many others were in attendance. Our father did not attend, saying that it was a day for George Jr. to receive adulation for his fund-raising. Aunt Lydia and our rejuvenated grandfather, however, would not miss the moment.

Afterward, George Jr. received much in the way of praise. Even Dorothy and Amos Warren congratulated him.

George Jr. said to her, “None of this would be possible without the hard work of the Boston Associates.”

“And their southern slaves,” added Lydia.

George Jr. turned to me. “These women do not understand, we build a house of granite and glass, so that men like you can build your castles in the air.”

“The airy castles of thought,” I answered, “are the bastions of change.”

October 20, 1839:

The structure has risen, a gray Gothic cathedral of learning, modeled after King’s College Chapel, Cambridge. Grandfather and I walk around it often, although he walks slower all the time. I have written an essay on the meaning of nature that I have sent to Emerson.

November 10, 1840:

Assistant Librarian John Sibley and I talked yesterday. He said that President Quincy has asked him to prepare a triennial report of graduates, and he needs assistance. As nothing I have written has borne financial fruit, I have decided to accept a job in the Harvard libraries, for what better place will I have to enrich myself?

April 18, 1841:

Today, there is a procession of joy in Harvard Yard, a mirror of yesterday’s sad procession. Of which shall I write first?

Why, the happy. By cart, by box, by bucket and arm, the books are moving this morning from Harvard Hall, across the Yard, to our new library. President Quincy says it will be a hundred years before the library is full. I think it may be much sooner.

But yesterday, we went in sad procession from Brattle Street to the Cambridge graveyard, where we interred the great Dr. Caleb Wedge. A light went out in the world. In his dying, our grandfather raved about a book. I asked him about it, but he could not elucidate. I am left to puzzle here at my new desk in the new library.

But Emerson has responded well to my latest effort on the existence of the soul. I must now return to my writing. Dorothy has enlisted me to write articles on abolition for the
Liberator,
my first publication, much to my brother’s chagrin.

v

Ancient hands wrote another poem and put it into another gilt-edged envelope. Then they wrote a set of instructions and placed them in another, simpler envelope.

Both envelopes were in Lydia’s purse when she rode to Boston for the next meeting of the Anti-Slavery Society. Before she went to the offices of the
Liberator,
she went down Summer Street to the offices of Fleming and Royce, the lawyers who handled Wedge estate matters. She had the gilt-edged envelope deposited in the safe and the second envelope placed among her estate papers, with this codicil attached: “Contents to be passed to Dorothy Wedge Warren, and to her only. If Dorothy is deceased, to her daughter. Contents to be held in secret.”

The inspiration for Lydia’s decision was the birth of Dorothy’s first child, a baby girl whom they named Lydia Diane, born in the house that Amos Warren’s father had bought for them on Colonnade Row in Tremont Street.

On a warm Sunday in the fall of 1841, Lydia went to visit mother and child. They sat together looking out over Boston Common, while the carriages clattered by in the street and the babe slept in her mother’s arms.

“She is so small,” said Lydia, sliding her little finger into the child’s hand.

“She is, you might say, ‘a small gift of majestic proportion.’”

Lydia looked into Dorothy’s eyes and smiled. “Indeed she is.”

A coach stopped below the window. As it was a Sunday, the driver was singing the hymn “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.”

Lydia began to hum it, then she said, “It satisfies an old woman to hold such a young child, for I shall be going to God’s fortress soon.”

And Dorothy said, “I must know . . . is it a book, the small gift you’ve spoken of?”

“The small gift of majestic proportion?”

“Theodore thinks it’s a book. He’s always asking me what I know.”

“Theodore thinks a great deal. You shall know more when I die. And this child shall know the truth when we are all dead and gone.”

But three nights later, the child developed a fever, and a frightened mother sent for the doctor. When he arrived, the infant seemed to be burning from within.

“’Tis an infection of some sort,” said the doctor.

“Can you do anything to comfort her?” begged Dorothy. “Hear how she cries.”

“Bathe her in cool water. Use ice if you have any left. But I’m afraid that it is in God’s hands . . . unless you would consent to bleed her.”

“Bleed her? Bleed a baby? That’s barbaric.”

“It’s old-fashioned, and I’m an old-fashioned doctor. Bleedin’ sometimes works for generalized inflammation. But bleed her or not, trust in God.”

And God saw fit to take Lydia Diane Warren the following day.

When Great-Aunt Lydia heard, she knew that she had lived too long.

Chapter Eighteen

A
FEW
days after the gallery opening, the
Globe
carried an article about the Harvard Portrait Collection and the restoration of a Copley painting.

Evangeline saw it first and called Peter at his condo. “Have you seen the paper this morning?”

Peter was making coffee. “What section?”

“Probably the Living section. I’m reading it online. I’m in New York.”

“No wonder I couldn’t get you yesterday. I thought you were going to stay in Cambridge for a few weeks.”

“We could use a little cooling-off period. I’m not ready for the whole Peter Fallon experience again . . . at least not the total-immersion version.”

“You mean enthusiasm becoming obsession, sweeping everyone else along?”

“It can be fun while it lasts. But it can be dangerous, too.”

“I agree.” Peter found the Living pages, and there was a color photo of Abraham and Lydia with their copy of
Love’s Labours . . . something. The article speculated on the reasons a Bible would have been painted over a play, and it quoted several people, including Peter Fallon.

“What do you think?” asked Evangeline.