One. Re
One
Reunion
TWO WEEKS LATER
Boston Harbor, July 16, 1865
William had taken to walking Long Wharf at night. At first, he would pace its length alone, staring out at sea while the servants despaired and the judges used Austen to distract him from his plight. Do you not see how worried everyone is about you? Connie had asked him once, and the truth was that William had not. His worries never included his own self, his own development—he never worked to clear the horizon in his mind. He behaved instead like Mrs. Bennet in Pride and Prejudice , very much a Chicken Little, giving the outside world such power to wield over him.
Connie never doubted her power in the face of the world’s, marveled William as he strolled the wharf on a breezy midsummer night, her arm now linked through his. Up ahead was the Custom House in all its revivalist glory, a four-faced Greek temple–like building fronted by three dozen Doric columns yet assigned to the most mundane business of ship registration and cargo inspection. From its new location, one could see all that arrived by sea in Boston, from two-masted schooners to massive ocean liners, from mail packets and merchant clippers to army ships being recommissioned after years of bloody battle.
William gazed forlornly about the crowded harbor, and Connie firmly squeezed his arm in turn. “William, it’s been only a month. You must prepare yourself for a lengthy absence from Charlotte as well as Henrietta, I’m afraid.”
Two letters had arrived the week before from Portsmouth, announcing Henrietta’s marriage to a Mr. Denham Scott of London. Nash had sounded beyond remorseful in his lengthy missive, while Henrietta could not have sounded happier in hers. After a few days of shock and self-indulgence, William had written his congratulations to Henrietta care of the Fountain Hotel. He had never even met this Mr. Scott, although he had noticed him darting about the courthouse often enough, and still didn’t know where the newlyweds were to live or how they were to manage. William could not have felt further from his daughter or her new life.
“Henrietta writes of such enthusiastic new friends,” Connie continued. “I expect Charlotte will want to join them on the Continent next. I myself was gone for two years at her age.”
“Connie! My heart!”
She reached over with her free hand and gently patted the area of that organ. “The doctor says things here are much better regulated of late. Perhaps I have a calming effect on you?”
He had to smile. “From the many hours of political debate?”
“They’ve proved a distraction at least, like your beloved Austen.” She nodded ahead at a large transatlantic steamship that had just docked. “We should think about a trip together, you and I, to keep you occupied.”
“But we would have to travel separately,” he warned, an unusual edge to his voice.
“I’ve done so my whole life. Besides, the Continent is much more tolerant when it comes to such things. We would be of little controversy there.”
“But not in England. They are behind even us in such matters.”
“Oh, the English can be so purposefully obstinate and contrary—I suppose snobbery over even the most trivial of matters promotes class entitlement. Of course, here in the land of opportunity, we have discovered our own pernicious ways to keep others down.”
As he listened, William watched the steamship at the end of the dock begin its disembarkation in order of class. He thought of the people in steerage coming to America for something they could not find at home. He had never, not for a second, wanted or needed to leave his own. How fortunate he was to be able to say that. Life was hard enough—people died in the very rooms where happiness once reigned—and you had to get up the next morning and face the absence, like the mark left on a wall when a painting was suddenly taken down. None of it ever left you, and the home was a crucible in that way, as well as a grave—from all the complex interactions of love and loss that melted hearth-like in its warmth, one never lost the chance to change and grow into someone deserving of such intimacy. Nothing was more important than the anchor of home and the nearness of those one loved. William understood this now in a most profound way that had nothing to do with fear.
“I waved to Thomas Nash—right there—from the phaeton.” He pointed at the very spot where the large steamer had just docked, RMS Neptune blazoned across its hull. “The girls were somewhere on deck—I never did see them. Never even got the chance to wish them well…”
William’s voice trailed off as he watched hundreds of first- and second-class passengers leave the steamship and swarm toward the wharf. Connie was recounting that afternoon’s lecture at the Horticultural Hall, when his attention was caught by the sight in the crowd of a straw bonnet trimmed with bright yellow ribbon, the very color that so suited his fair Charlotte.
“William…?” he heard Connie ask, and realized he was staring.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Connie—you caught me at it again. How silly I’m being.” It was curious, though, how the bonnet next to that one was trimmed in the very shade of lavender that Henrietta preferred. “I must be imagining,” he muttered half to himself. He often thought he saw things when faced with a crowd. Certainly, the man accompanying the two bonneted figures was no one William recognized. For a second, he could swear he glimpsed the tall figure of Thomas Nash among the nearest passengers, but this time said nothing to Connie. He was clearly seeing things.
There was a sudden commotion up ahead, an excitement near the very group he had been examining, followed by the crying out of his name by female voices. Not William, not Justice Stevenson, of course, but Father, Father! He was a father, a sad voice inside him cried back—he knew this feeling of parting and reunion—he had daughters, too.
And then all of a sudden they were coming straight at him, both at the same time, the two men behind them running to catch up, the bonnets flying back with their bright happy-colored ribbons dancing in the ocean wind, the other passengers making way… Father, Father! they cried out, over and over again, louder and louder, even louder than a ship horn if such a thing were possible… and then there they really were, back in his arms again, both his beloved daughters, and nothing on earth had ever felt more wondrous or welcome.