The End of Innocence (28 page)

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Christmas Eve

It was Christmastime once again in Cambridge, and colored electric lights decorated the storefronts. Despite the toll of the Depression, money was still found for windows to be hung with holly wreaths and stair railings to be draped in boughs of fir and pine. Helen had managed to put a red ribbon on her front door.

The morning of December 24, she was called from her coffee and toast by a knock. She walked to the front door and was surprised to see Robert Brown standing there, in a dark suit and topcoat, with a copy of the day's newspaper. He was tall and thin, with wrinkles beginning at the edge of his brown eyes. His hair was dark, yet, as she got closer to him, she saw some silver. His cane and limp, she had heard, were souvenirs from the Battle of the Somme.

“Robert!” she exclaimed, surprised at how pleased she was to see him. She'd tried to meet him in the past few weeks, but his calendar had been quite crowded. “Please come in!” she offered.

He didn't move, but rested on the cane while holding up the front page of the newspaper. “I see you made the news, Miss Brooks,” he said with a smile. His breath came in white puffs.

“What?” she asked, puzzled. She stepped outside to take a closer look at the paper. The cold hit her hard, biting through her wool sweater. She crossed her arms in front of her.

The photo in the paper was of the new memorial. Its caption read:

The Harvard compromise memorial plaque, above, was supported by Reverend Sperry, Professor Copeland, and Librarian Helen Brooks. Students from the Phillips Brooks House gathered this week to protest the compromise Monday as “too little” and “a memorial to division.” As President Lowell announced his resignation shortly after the compromise was reached, the students will have to wait for the next president to discuss the matter.

“Too little! Those students should be grateful they—”

“Your mother would be proud,” he interrupted. “And I walked over here on a cold day to tell you. You got yourself involved in politics and prevailed.”

“In other words, I've become my mother!”

“I certainly hope so,” he said with a smile. “Your father loved her.” He folded the paper and put it under his arm. “My mother had said that the passion of the Brooks family died with your mother. I'm glad to see it didn't. I was given hope.”

Her eyes stung in the wind. “Hope?” She frowned. “For me?”

“No. For me. She is what you should have been all along. I'm glad to see people return to their old selves.”

“Thank you! How kind of you to stop by. But was it just for this? Was there anything else?”

He hesitated.

“Would you come in for some tea?” she asked. “It's freezing out here.”

He nodded and agreed to enter. She poured him a cup of hot tea as he took off his topcoat and pulled up a chair by the fire.

“Helen, I thought you might consider joining an old friend at the Christmas Eve service tonight, over at this new church you're so fond of. Of late I have found it useful to have old friends around at Christmas. It's one of the few times of year, since Jane died, when I actually look forward to something.” A fragile smile crept to his lips.

She took a deep breath. “I've not thought much about Christmas since the war. I thought it a farce,” she said. “Perhaps it's time I held it in higher esteem.”

“I should say so.”

Helen paused and looked at him.

“Robert, I have a question—something I can only ask an old friend who has walked the same path as I have.”

“Yes?”

“Do you believe God takes care of our dead: Jane and Wils and the others?”

“That would be a relief. I'm no good at it myself. I tried,” Robert said with a twinkle in his eye.

“Be serious, Robert.”

“Helen, what can I say? I don't know. None of the dead have seen fit to return and inform me. So you teach me,” he said with a grin. “What do you believe? After all these years, what have you learned?”

Helen laughed. “Caught! I thought you'd know the secret.”

“I have none. And you?”

“I do have an idea, and one that gives me solace. I think that love may return to the source of all love, and there finds even greater joy.”

“That, Helen, is a great comfort to me. I like it. Maybe it's true. But I wish that love returning to love didn't require so many tears.”

“Me too.” She sighed. “But, Robert, I have also come to believe that nothing is wasted, not even those tears.” She looked at him intently. “Do you think this makes me a heretic?”

He laughed. “I'm hardly the one to judge. Do you breathe better, having sorted this out?”

“Yes.”

“Then why did you need to ask me? You have your answer. You don't need some man to tell you what your heart knows. What would your mother say to that?”

She thought for a moment. “I've never needed her approval either! Robert, I'm ready to live again. But it's a scary thing to admit that I can't control much.”

“I had to get used to that fact long ago!” he said. “But, Helen, may I say that I'm so very glad the days of your mourning have finished.”

She sighed. “Robert, it's been quite a journey.”

Helen heard the telephone ring in her kitchen. “Wait,” she said hurriedly. “Please don't go, Robert.”

A British accent spoke on the other end. Riley Spencer Jr. was in town and had arranged to come by. Helen put down the phone and steadied herself.

“Robert, Riley Spencer's son is coming over.”

He stared blankly then suddenly frowned. “That name.” His eyes suddenly opened. “The dance before you went to Radcliffe! And the car at the Harvest Festival. I wanted to do some fairly awful things to that young man after the way he treated you,” he said.

She gave a half laugh. “He probably would have deserved them too. But he married and died in the war. His son is looking to create a past.”

“And you're part of that?”

“Briefly.”

He looked at his shoes and nodded. “I'll leave you to your visit,” he said. “Perhaps we shall go together to the service later this evening?”

She looked at Robert and smiled, fondly remembering his friendship so many years before in Concord and Lexington.

“I'd enjoy it. We could discuss your mother's plans for us—for your life.”

He laughed. “I'll need an ally in that battle. You know, she always did approve of you. You had better watch out.”

Helen took a deep breath as she saw him out into the cold December air. She had always approved of Robert Brown. She waved at him, watching him leave. The tap of his cane seemed almost energetic.

* * *

On most days Helen's white parlor saw no one, yet today she had two male visitors, neither a blood relative. Her neighbors on Chestnut Street thought this might be the year's Christmas miracle, and resolved after the holidays to converse among themselves about the odd goings-on at Helen Brooks's house.

At the appointed time a young man had arrived at her doorstep. He was a good bit taller than his father, but had the same brilliant green eyes. His teeth were a bit large, perhaps his mother's doing, but his smile was quick and kind, again like his father. He seemed at ease with an adult, projecting the confidence of a remarkably untroubled life. Since he'd had such rough beginnings, she could only think it reflected well on his Kinnaird grandparents.

“Miss Brooks, I've only a half hour before I'm to catch the train to New York, and I wished to come by to speak.” His voice was his father's. She could barely contain her smile as she invited him in.

As he spoke of his family, she felt a burden lift from her shoulders. She had long thought she was the only one who cared to recall the lives of these cousins. But here was another generation who would know, and would wish to learn, of the two men she had cherished in her younger days as well. She no longer felt alone. It was the touch of cool water on the tongue of the thirsty.

They talked quickly, and she learned much. Riley was entering a military academy in England. His German relatives in Prussia had been devastated by the war. The Brandl estate had been overrun and looted, and Wils's mother had been placed in an asylum, where she'd died shortly after the war. The toll of the war and the depression had been difficult, but he had faith that things would right themselves.

“I am quite thankful for any news that you might provide me about my parents such that I could place it with the museum.”

She looked at him carefully. “I didn't know your mother.”

He beamed. “She was a beautiful woman. I think it was heartbreak that led to her death. She adored my father, and it was so clear that he loved her too. If I can only find that in my life, I would think it complete.”

She looked at him carefully. He knew little. “And who else will you visit while you are here?”

“I saw a few professors and the Memorial Room. I'm off now to see Mr. Morris Rabin in New York. I had a hard time finding my father's friends, but it seemed time to give it a try.”

She related to him what she could—the story of her courtship with Wils, of Arnold Archer's brutal attack, of his father Riley avenging her husband, and of how Riley had told her he promised to marry Edith in their last meeting. She also told him with a wry smile about how she thought that her family's romantically inclined cook may have taken pity on Wils and herself as young lovers just as her father was heaving Wils out the door, and that it was this same cook who pierced Wils's tires. Wils could go nowhere, and as a result they had a moment in which they married in body and in spirit.

As the time drew near for him to leave, he reached into a scarred leather satchel and brought out a folder. “Miss Brooks, I have something for you that recently came into my possession. It is of such a personal nature that I could not send it by post.” She looked up quizzically at him.

“I was given two letters before I left England. Apparently my uncle Wils was with my father at the time of my father's death. When Uncle Wils died, the letters were retrieved by a priest, a Father Rupert, who was subsequently killed by a British soldier. By an odd coincidence, when the Imperial War Museum called a meeting to request donations for their collections, I attended, as did a man who had letters that, we both acknowledge, belong to you. They were opened when they came into my possession and I have them here now.

“I'll let you read these in private; I know you must wish to.” He looked down at his watch. “I am sorry but I must be off. I've an invitation and my train leaves soon.”

As he smiled and gave a quick nod of his head to depart, she saw Riley again, and not his son.

* * *

She sat in a stuffed high-back chair, looking at the envelopes on the table—one thin and brittle, one thick. It had been so long since she'd received any. She picked up the thin envelope, addressed to her and in Wils's handwriting.

From
Riley
to
Helen. I received this on the battlefield. I found him and buried him.

Madam,

I beg to inform you of my marriage to my dearest Edith Kinnaird. We have of late received the joyous news announcing an upcoming birth and are delighted. I understand congratulations are in order for you as well, on your marriage to my dear cousin. I pray that we will all meet again at the christening of our much-expected child, and in the meantime wish you all grace and Godspeed.

With joy,

Riley

Behind the letter was a yellowed, wrinkled newspaper page: the kiss from the Harvest Festival, so many years ago.

Helen blinked back tears but she understood. This was Riley's gift to his unborn child and to her. He had redeemed himself.
Well
done
, she thought.

And so she picked up the second envelope. It was different from the others—bulky. The handwriting, while shaky, was unmistakably Wils's.

A yellowed satin ribbon fell out, with her pearl ring on it. She broke into fresh tears.

My darling wife,

Our German commanders have instructed us to write our last letter to our loved ones. I am doing so, but hope that we will one day sit and toss this note on the fire together. If you are reading this letter, I pray all mercies on your heart and mine.

At Harvard we were asked to find our futures, and you were mine. You gave me everything. In my death I have asked my mother to provide for you as my equal and her sole heir.

For the past few weeks I have seen the hollow faces of those who have lost loved ones, and I am reminded of how I felt when Max died. He wrote me a letter—a gift of absolution and well wishes. It released me and was, in death, the kindest thing he could have done.

I have asked Father Rupert to include your ring in this letter. It is a wondrous pearl—one I kissed many times while waiting for life—and eventually, while waiting for my death. Yet I never wish it to become the pearl of great price, for which you sold everything. I pray your life will be as beautiful as the time you gave me.

When you feel a warm breeze cross your lips, know that it is from the gate left opened for you to the golden fields of God. There, I once again will await the pleasure of your company. Let us learn to laugh again.

I love you. And now, my dearest Helen, I release you.

Wils

Helen Windship Brooks didn't know how one changed, but after reading his letter, for the first time in years, she no longer felt seventeen, crushed beneath the weight of grief in her cold room at Longworth Hall. She felt as if Wils had walked through her, and his spirit, cold and eternal, had left again, for another place. Apparently he'd said his good-bye to her years before. She'd just not known it until now.

She sat back and inhaled deeply, looking at the letter.