Alice pointed to her closet. “On the right-hand side is my mauve velvet and organza dress. I received it as a present from Mother last Christmas and have not had a chance to wear it.”
Trieste retrieved it from the closet. “Beautiful,” she said. “But we will have to redo your makeup.”
“Will you be here for that, or will the stove be broken again?”
“I will be here. Shall I arrange for some hot canapés and wine while you get ready?”
“Cheese and crackers only. And a glass of sherry. I don’t want to get too full. Hasty Pudding feeds us till midnight.”
“Quite right. The show is over at one a.m. Can I release the driver? Harry is staying at the university and indicated that his driver will be more than happy to take you and Mrs. Porter home.”
“That’ll be fine.” She was glad to have rested last night. It was going to be a full week. She turned to Trieste, her hair up, her face flawless, her dress perfectly pressed. “What do you think?”
“As usual, exquisite, Miss Alice,” said Trieste, straightening out one of the pleats on the skirt. “I will get your boots and coat and umbrella ready.”
Alice glanced outside her floor-to-ceiling windows. The morning sun was blazing.
“It will rain,” said Trieste. “As soon as you get to the sawmill, it will pour. You know Boston.”
3
“How do you not see what a giant mistake this is?” Harry said to Ben after they boarded the train.
“I don’t see even what a little mistake it is.” Ben had come prepared. He had brought pamphlets about Panama, information about the canal, brochures about geographical advantages and advertisements for railroad jobs in Central America. He also came dressed in his best suit and hat. Harry looked as if he had forgotten to shave. He had been up late reading, so he was late getting up, having forgotten what train they were catching. He barely made it to North Union Station to find Ben pacing the platform.
“You are impossible,” Ben said. “Please tell me it was Alice that kept you up so late on Friday night you nearly missed our train.”
“Paine’s The American Crisis,” replied Harry, disheveled but smiling. “‘The cunning of the fox is as murderous as the violence of the wolf.’”
“That kept you up? Why didn’t you try some Common Sense instead? ‘Our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer.’”
“Who is suffering?” Harry said. “I was never more happy than to stay in and read.” Once the 9:05 got moving, he examined the papers Ben carried. “Ben, you’ve gone insane.”
Ben took his research away. “I don’t recall asking your opinion.”
“I offer it freely.”
“Shut up.”
“You think your profits and bananas are going to sway an Italian girl?”
“Two separate issues.”
“Why don’t I think so?”
“Because you understand nothing.”
Harry pulled the hat over his face and settled into his seat, thinking he might have a quick nap. “I hope she never discovers,” he said, “your fickle and changeable nature. That last year it wasn’t bananas that kept you up late but boric acid. You don’t want her to draw any conclusions.”
Ben knocked the hat off Harry’s head. “Sit up straight,” he said. “We have an hour to learn what we can about Lawrence.”
“And how, pray tell, do we do this?” The train had been moving for five minutes.
From his bag Ben produced two books and a dozen pamphlets. Harry groaned and grabbed for his hat. “Start reading,” Ben said. “I’m counting on you. We have to fake knowledge.”
“Now there’s a way to win a girl’s heart,” said Harry. “Deceive her.”
“All right, paragon of virtue, let’s begin.” Ben opened the book on the history of Lawrence and stuck it under Harry’s face. “And I suppose you’ve been straight with Alice and told her you have no intention of doing anything, ever, but reading books.”
“She hasn’t asked.” Harry busied himself with the introductory chapter. “We are going to impress a fifteen-year-old—sorry, a fourteen-year-old with arcane minutiae about a town she’s been in for five minutes? Well thought out, sir.”
Ben ignored him. “Look—are you studying? Lawrence was incorporated in 1853. Not even half a century ago.”
“If that doesn’t get her to fall in love with you, what will?”
Ben continued reading. “Smart businessmen saw that the Merrimack River was a plentiful source of electric power, so they dammed it with the Great Stone Dam above the city, past Andover, and then built textile mills on both north and south banks.”
“I know for a fact that the damming of rivers is enticing to young girls.”
“Ah! Did you know that in 1860 one of the mills collapsed and burned, killing over a hundred workers and injuring thousands? The Pemberton Mill.”
“You are deranged.”
“No, this is useful. We can wisely counsel her not to get a job there.”
“I thought you just said it burned down?”
“They rebuilt it, numbskull. Did you know that Lawrence has more immigrants per square mile, of which there are only six, than any other city in the world?”
“Six immigrants?”
“Six square miles.”
“Useful as evidence for committing you,” said Harry. “Are there any sanatoriums in Lawrence?”
“Immigrant girls from Ireland, France, Germany, Belgium, Poland”—Ben smiled—“and of course, Italy …”
Harry slunk down on his seat. “I will not come visit you in the pokey,” he muttered. “Not even at Christmas.”
“That’s the difference between you and me, old boy,” Ben said. “Because I will come and visit you in the pokey.”
“Why would I be up the river? Do you see me being threatened with certain prison or risking death at the hands of an irate Italian male? I don’t think so.”
“Harry!” Ben stopped with the books for a moment, looking wistful, softened, dream-like. “Did you see her?”
“I could hardly avoid it.”
“You have to admit … her mother trying to hide her under those awful clothes …”
“Not hide her, save her.”
“Nothing could hide that girl. That hair, that mouth.”
Harry leaned back, his hat over his inscrutable face.
“Well?” Ben nudged him. “Thomas Paine, or a nubile beauty from Sicily?”
“Clearly Thomas Paine. I’d be asleep now in my bed.”
“Do you remember the name of the street they live on?”
“Let’s see … Crazy Street? Cuckoo Street? Commitment Street? Cranial Injury Inflicted by Enraged Sibling Street?”
“Canal Street! Thank you.”
“I’m going to