Henry and Clara (8 page)

A susurrus traveled from the gowned graduates to the spectators behind them. It was clear that the boys, who within minutes would cast their votes for the two best speakers, were already fighting among themselves. Small groups swept away by Henry’s icon-smashing were determined, in a carnival spirit, to make a little revolution and bestow one of the Blatchford Medals on him. Clara could feel this happening, just as beside her she could feel Will twitching to put out the anarchic fire Henry
had lit. Pauline strained to see the blank ballots being passed into the rows of graduates before poor Mr. Brush had even finished his oration.

The counting was accomplished as degrees were conferred. First prize went to Mr. Daniel W. Richardson of Middleton, Massachusetts, for his remarks on “Freedom of Thoughts,” and second prize to Henry Rathbone, the orator who had unexpectedly carried Mr. Richardson’s bland prescription into distant territory. Though the conventional students got to see their man take top prize, the real victory belonged to Henry’s impulsive party, who had succeeded in conferring one of the college’s honors on a highly unsuitable candidate. Their hurrahing had yet to cease when Dr. Nott began his benediction, sending these newest sons of Union “into the light, to serve their land and Lord.”

With that, the band struck up the alma mater. The black pool of graduates dissolved into the parti-colored one of friends and family. Henry Rathbone, never the most popular man in his class, now received the backslappings of his new claque, who were ready to revel in the way he had turned Schenectady, for one afternoon, into the Land of Cockaigne. Will went off in search of his father, and Clara made her way toward Henry.

“You were wonderful,” she said.

“It was nothing,” said Henry, blowing his mother a kiss and promenading Clara away from his troops. “As it is, passion came in second to prudence.” But his expression belied his words, and he took Clara in his arms and made her dance with him to the recessional airs the band was piping. “It was a silly speech,” he said.

“But you meant it,” she argued.

He did not slow their dance, but his expression became more serious. “I meant all my fears of the war. And what it will do to every man in this class if these politicians bring it upon us. I can think of nothing else.”

“You won’t go to it,” said Clara, unsure if she meant this as a question or just her own pointless wish.

“Oh, I’ll go to it,” said Henry. “With relish. From the same part of me that relished being up here today.”

“The best part.”

“The impulsive part. The part that can’t help itself.”

They laughed together at this last elaboration.

“The best part of me is the one you bring out,” he declared.

She lowered her eyes, unsure of what to say.

“Have they sent you to attend me as a nurse?” he asked, whirling her across a patch of the lawn. “Are they afraid my departure from the arms of Union will mean the end of all restraints on my behavior? Are you to be your brother’s keeper?”

Clara only laughed, silently thanking God that Henry Rathbone was not her brother, since he was, she now realized, looking into his eyes, the man with whom she had fallen in love.

I
RA HARRIS
’
S
younger brother, Hamilton, had a thriving law practice in the Exchange Building. His clientele was a mixture of commercial men and criminal defendants, the latter made up partly of people he had prosecuted during his three-year term as Albany County’s district attorney. That had ended in 1856 and now, two years later, he kept himself and a small team of copyists busy with a steady flow of deeds, affidavits, and motions for dismissal. He had also taken on a law student, his nephew Henry Reed Rathbone. This was done at the request of Ira Harris, who had suggested his stepson give the law a try while waiting for his true vocational desire to make itself known. Henry, who had shown scant anxiety about this delayed revelation, agreed to the arrangement, much to the judge’s surprise and Pauline’s satisfaction. The political ambitions of her brother-in-law Hamilton were, in contrast to her husband’s, still waxing, and should Henry decide that he himself had aspirations in that realm (something Pauline hoped for), she knew he would learn more of what he needed to know by toiling in Hamilton’s busy law offices than idling in Ira’s august chambers.

In fact, on this July afternoon a year after his graduation, Henry was not working terribly hard. He and one of the scriveners were engaged in a contest to see who could more accurately pitch balls of paper into the unlit Rathbone stove standing in the corner. (John Finley Rathbone, who had been started in business by Howard’s father, Joel, was now making thousands of them each year in a foundry on North Ferry Street.) Every few minutes, after a particularly good or bad shot, the two young men would shout loud enough to make Hamilton Harris
scowl at his desk behind the screen, where he was deposing a client. He wished Henry would take things a bit more seriously, but he didn’t count on it. He’d seen the boy grow up in his brother’s house and knew that he was more than a little mercurial. Still, Hamilton Harris didn’t mind having him around; he had brains and a certain rhetorical flair, which Hamilton might one day usefully deploy, if he could get the young man to learn the basics of the law. So far Henry’s progress had been sporadic; he seemed no more inclined to stick with a book during the day than he was to stay in one place at night. Hamilton never knew when, or from where, his nephew would roll in each morning: Loudonville, Eagle Street, his Aunt Emeline’s house on Elk, they were all possibilities, along with, Hamilton feared, rooms where Henry spent the night with girls who sold themselves along Quay Street. He was scattering his wild oats in a gloomy, peevish way that alarmed Ira and even Pauline. But given a choice, Hamilton would take Henry over his “solid” stepbrother, Will, who might have wound up in this office if he hadn’t gone off to the Point.

A few minutes before five o’clock the doorbells jingled, and in came Pauline and Clara. They’d been out shopping all afternoon, and Clara was in a rush to tell Henry what they’d just heard: “Mrs. Hartung has been captured!”

“You don’t say,” replied Henry, taking Clara’s bonnet from her and setting it on his pigeonholed desk. “Have you got all the details?”

“Just a few,” said Clara, still breathless, as Pauline took a chair near the scrivener who’d been playing ball with Henry. “They found her in New Jersey, in a town called Guttenberg, like the Bible, and they’re bringing her back.”

“Was her ‘paramour’ with her?” asked Henry, playing with the word Mr. Weed’s
Evening Journal
liked to use for William Reimann, who was widely thought to have helped Mary Hartung poison her husband before the two of them fled Albany several weeks ago.

“I think so,” said Clara. “Do you think they’ll put them on trial together?”

Henry laughed. “Appeals to your sense of romance, doesn’t it?”

“Oh, it’s a wonderfully romantic story, all right. Especially the part about how the coroner found enough arsenic in Mr. Hartung to do away with a whole family.” Clara leaned over, laughing, and Henry gave a playful swat to the hair piled atop her head.

The bells on the door jingled once again. “So what are you two delighting in?” Howard Rathbone asked as he entered the office. “Oh, I’m sorry, Aunt Pauline. I didn’t see you. I should have said three.”

“Except that she’s not delighting, are you, Mother?” Henry said.

“No, dear. I’ve got to think about
feeding
my husband tonight, not poisoning him. That’s why we’re here, in fact. I want to know if I can count on you for dinner. Mr. Morgan is coming.”

Henry made a face. Edwin D. Morgan, the Republican candidate for governor, Mr. Weed’s man this year, was not much of an enticement. “Will the Dictator be around?”

“No,” said Pauline, “I’m afraid not.”

“Probably over in Auburn having dinner with the Sewards,” said Henry. This succeeded in exasperating his mother, which Henry thought was good for her: once she gave up the last of her ambitions for the judge, she would be more content.

“Howard, how about yourself?”

“I’m afraid I can’t, Aunt Pauline.”

“Howard has his own constituents to court, Mother.” Clara smiled at her blade of a stepcousin. “Who is it tonight? Not the widow Hartung, I hope. She’s spoken for. But did you know she’ll soon be back in town?”

“So I just heard, up the street.”

“I’d love to get a glimpse of her,” said Clara.

“You’ll probably get the chance for a good deal more than that,” said Hamilton Harris, emerging from behind the screen to get a statute book that lay near the stove. “I suspect this one will be tried before your father, when he’s come back down from the court of appeals.”

“Really?” said Clara, her eyes brightening. “How do you know?”

“From a little discussion I heard last night at the sheriff’s office. I do maintain a few connections among the constabulary,” said the ex-district attorney, smiling at his niece before returning to his client.

Pauline was clearly not enamored of the prospect of Ira Harris refereeing the combatants in this sordid spectacle, which had already engrossed Albany for months. “Clara,” she said, “we’re off.”

When they had gone, Howard sat down on Henry’s desk and said, “That girl is in love with you. You know that, don’t you?”

“I’m aware of it,” said Henry, balling up another paper and preparing to resume his game of skill with the Rathbone stove.

“So is my mother aware of it,” said Howard. “And so is yours.”

“And so is Will,” said Henry calmly. “And so are Amanda and Louise and Jared. Probably even little Lina. Though I’m not quite sure it’s sunk below the silver dome of the paterfamilias.”

“In one family discussion down at Kenwood this was elevated to the level of a ‘problem.’ ”

“So?” asked Henry.

“I should think you’d be interested to know that that’s how it’s discussed.”

“Howard, this afternoon I have
no
problems, none at all, and to demonstrate my freedom from all care I’m going to take you to dinner.” From the pocket of his waistcoat Henry pulled a silver money clip that held a thick clutch of bills.

Howard laughed with recognition. “Your inheritance,” he said.

“The first installment of it. Having turned twenty-one more than two weeks ago, I decided to visit the State Bank of Albany this morning. It’s rather an interesting feeling,” said Henry, tapping the pocket into which he’d reinserted the cash.

“Well, Cousin,” said Howard, “I’ve
always
been rich, so I can’t appreciate the novelty. But if it adds to your enjoyment, you can buy us two plates of oysters at the Delavan.”

Within an hour Henry had done just that, and when the
dishes were set on the table, he took his fork and pointed first to the pewter plate and then to one of the oysters. “Emblems of our fortunes, Howard. Mr. Joel Rathbone, metal goods; Mr. Jared Rathbone, wholesale comestibles.”

“Speaking of metal goods, have you thought about going to work for Cousin John? If you like all this money you’ve come into, you’ll find there’s plenty more to be made with him. Making stoves might be more of a challenge than pitching legal papers into them.”

“So you’ve noticed I seem less than excited at my Uncle Hamilton’s. Well, for the moment it’s all right. I can wait.”

“Ah, yes,” said Howard. “You and your approaching apocalypse. Or what is it Mr. Seward calls it now?”

“ ‘Irrepressible conflict,’ ” Henry replied. “Coming ever closer.”

“Which is why I hope to be far away from it,” said Howard, swallowing another oyster. “I just hope my enlistment in the Marines — when I get around to it — lasts long enough to keep me on the high seas and in friendly ports while everybody back here knocks each other’s brains out. I was built for love, Cousin, not contention. Now buy us another bottle with your new wealth and tell me what’s going on at home — though I hear you’re never around long enough for the word to mean much.”

“Alas,” said Henry, “the flames of the Harris hearth reach out and singe me no matter how far I roam. So I can give you the news. The judge will be over at Union next week, laying a cornerstone and speechifying with Dr. Nott, who’s finally going to see his big Graduates Hall built. Will sends the family his every-other-day letter from the Point, all about bayoneting sacks of straw and refighting Napoleon’s battles on blackboards. He ends these heroic missives with pleas to Clara and Louise to send him fresh collars and the latest piece of sheet music.”

“Yes,” said Howard, “back to Clara.”

“Thank God she’s still different from the rest of them. Streaked with some mischief. Not weighed down by all that dutifulness, all that need to be ‘well thought of’ that crushes the life out of her father.”

“Henry,” said Howard, pushing his plate to one side, “someday
you’re going to tell me just why you’ve never let yourself feel the slightest affection for this man who’s clothed and schooled and sheltered you from the time you were eleven.”

“You’re wrong about that, Howard.” Henry paused to fill his glass, noting his cousin’s expectant expression. “I’ll
never
tell you why I don’t feel the slightest affection for this man who’s clothed and schooled and sheltered me from the time I was eleven.”