Chapter Seven
Washington, DC
JULIA
The girls often pretended there was a naval blockade and practiced daring maneuvers in the cove. They watched for enemy spies on the shore, charged up San Juan Hill, pantomimed firing cannons, and captured Guam without firing a shot.
So, you see, they had not actually forgotten about their fathers, off fighting the war.
FROM LIBERTY ISLAND, BY MISS CRANE
Julia threaded her way around tables, dodging servants carrying bowls and platters to the buffet table at the center of the Seabornes’ backyard. All was in preparation for the large group of war reporters about to descend upon them.
Mr. Seaborne approached Julia, a glint of mischief in his eyes.
“Margaret wants your help in arranging flowers, and then I believe she’s assigned you to the punch bowl. Your real job, however, is to keep her away from the war photographers. If she gets talking to any of them, I’m afraid she’ll run off to France herself.”
Julia laughed. Margaret had taken up photography, and had even set up a darkroom in their cellar. Margaret was at the back of the yard, standing at a table piled with cut flowers from her garden, but when Julia joined her, it was clear that she did not have war photographers on her mind.
“I am so glad you are here, Julia. I’m a nervous wreck,” she said under her breath.
“About this party?” Julia asked, surprised.
“No, no,” Margaret whispered. When she looked up, Julia saw the circles under her eyes.
“Oh, of course. You’re worried about Michael,” Julia said. “I’m sorry. I was not thinking. But I feel certain he will be all right. It is a relief, is it not, that he will be reporting?”
Michael had been torn between enlisting and going to Europe as a war correspondent. It was only when General Pershing said he’d rather have one good reporter over there than a whole battalion of men that Michael made his decision.
“I don’t want Robert to know how worried I am. I am comparatively fortunate, of course, not having any of my sons enlisted as soldiers,” Margaret said, as Julia picked up stems and greens and began arranging them in vases.
Ever since the United States officially entered the war in April, men of all ages had been signing up, but the older Seaborne “boys” (if one could use the word boys for married men with children) were working at their papers, immune to the pressure to enlist.
“You know Michael, though. He will take any risk presented,” she continued. “That boy has always grabbed the happy skirt of chance, but luck and daring only count so much in this awful war.”
“Michael is adventurous but sensible,” Julia said.
She realized then that she had been a bit blithe in thinking this, but she used her most reassuring tone.
She knew the war was particularly hard on Margaret.
In addition to having a son heading to France, Margaret tended toward pacifism.
Even without a husband in the newspaper business, she would have had to be terribly guarded in what she said.
There was no tolerance for even the mildest expression of doubt, since the whole city—indeed the whole country—seemed to have gone war-mad.
The boys in Julia’s third grade class were no exception.
Every recess during the spring term, Julia had been treated to the sound of their voices as they marched about the playground, holding sticks like guns.
Shoulder arms! Forward march! Hep-hep-halt!
Mark time … (Given that Julia had been obsessed with Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders at their age, she could not really fault them.)
An hour later, Julia stood behind the same table, the stems, greens, and vases replaced by a large bowl of punch and small glass cups. Though she was greeted cordially by many of the men, they had a clear preference for beer and whiskey.
The reporters stood about in clusters on the lawn, the younger and greener listening, as the more seasoned offered their opinions about the censorship rules they had learned about that day.
Though arguably young and green, Michael naturally knew a great deal about the newspaper business.
While his parents greeted the arriving guests, Michael circulated among them, spreading his usual good cheer.
As Julia was ladling a cup of punch to one of the rare takers, she heard his voice.
“Do you know Miss Demarest?” he said. “She went to Barnard.”
“I don’t believe I do.”
When Julia looked up and saw Michael’s companion, she almost fell over. Pelham Stewart!
Mr. Stewart had spoken the truth when he said he did not know her. In all these years, they had never met. Julia never missed his articles in The Current, where he still worked, though, and nothing she had read indicated he was going overseas.
After the long-awaited introduction, Michael was pulled away, leaving Julia and Mr. Stewart alone.
“How did we not know each other?” He cocked his head, as if this were a great mystery.
She smiled. “Oh, I knew you. You just didn’t know me!”
Julia had not forgotten Mina’s counsel. Men like Pelham Stewart were accustomed to sophisticated, worldly women, not eager ingenues. But given the circumstances, where he was going, it did not feel right to pretend.
He shook his head, as if in wonder.
“You look as if you just found a long-lost puppy.” Julia laughed.
“Perhaps I have, though … not a puppy.” He returned her smile, leading her to imagine what other “long-lost” thing he might be thinking of.
“I know I’m taking liberties as a man off to a war zone, but are you permitted to leave your post?
I was going to get a plate, and I would love if you would sit with me. ”
Julia nodded at the full punch bowl and smiled. “I think I can be spared.”
He filled a plate at the buffet, then led her to a wrought-iron bench outside Margaret’s studio.
“How did you know me when I did not know you? I assure you, if I had seen your face, I would have remembered.”
“I saw a talk you gave once, downstairs from The Current.”
He groaned. “Was I dreadfully pompous?”
“Oh, not at all! You spoke about the old Protestant aristocracy and their puritanical ways. I remember thinking, ‘When did he meet my father and brother?’”
Mr. Stewart responded with a gratifying laugh.
“I went to Barnard thinking I would be steeped in exciting modern ideas, but I was not really picking them up in Latin or botany. I was thrilled to attend that talk—quite dazzled, really.” She shrugged, hoping that between her use of past tense and her mild expression, she would avoid giving him the impression that she was throwing herself at him.
“But I never met you!”
“We were supposed to meet once after that, but it did not come to pass. I think I’ve read everything you’ve written, though.”
“You read The Current?”
She straightened, and with a tone of mock seriousness said, “I do, and have done ever since my brother mentioned it was run by”—she lowered her voice to an ominous pitch—“dangerous radicals.”
He laughed again. “By which you inferred it was worth reading?”
“An indication, at least.” She smiled. “I don’t know much about politics, really, but I’m terribly interested.”
He shifted to face her, arm on the back of the bench, his plate of food forgotten on his lap.
“Why, you’re darling!” His expression was one of curiosity, perhaps even astonishment.
Julia’s memory had not been overly charitable. He was still ruggedly handsome, with his broad shoulders and that tendency to pull his dark brows together. His blue eyes were softer than she remembered, though, and his hair, now cut close, had lost that unruly look.
“You look surprised,” Julia said. “Do I make a very forbidding first impression?”
“Not at all. I noticed you were beautiful, of course, though I hardly need to tell you that. But you’re so fresh and unaffected, so marvelously yourself. When were we meant to meet?”
“Your senior year. I was a freshman. Mina Ellis planned to introduce us at a party. I went, but it was quite crowded, and I left.”
“You and Miss Ellis are friends?”
“Again, you seem surprised.”
“Well, she’s quite worldly. And you seem quite…”
“… Unworldly, I know.” Julia sighed. “Her friends were all so sophisticated, and I was determined to worm my way into her set. Mina did her best to help me tamp down my exuberance, but to no effect.”
“Well, I am glad she failed,” Pelham said with a frown. “And I wouldn’t say ‘unworldly.’ Otherworldly would be more suitable.”
“You flatter me, Mr. Stewart,” Julia said, feeling a not unpleasant tightening in her heart.
“Ugh,” he groaned. “Mr. Stewart is my father. I am again abusing the privilege, as I know you won’t deny me, but can I ask that you call me Pelham?”
“Certainly. I’m Julia, then.”
Pelham smiled broadly, his face transforming just as it had when she first laid eyes on him all those years ago. “So, Julia, what other advice did Miss Ellis provide?”
Julia figured she might as well open her budget to him. “I was under strict orders not to mention that I was on the basketball team.”
“You played basketball? It gets better and better! Why did she think you should keep this a secret?”
“Too ‘rah-rah-sis-boom-bah.’ Do not mistake me. I was eager for her advice. I aspired to a languorous, mysterious air. Basketball was not in keeping with that image.”
He laughed, then asked about her relationship to the Seabornes, and was delighted to hear about Julia’s Concord roots, especially when it emerged that Julia’s grandmother had lived on the Brook Farm commune in West Roxbury when she was a girl.
“It’s a shame Brook Farm did not succeed,” Pelham said. “I suspect under other circumstances they could have made a go of it. Did your grandmother enjoy it?”