Chapter Thirteen #3
At first, he seemed to take her resistance in stride.
He sent sweet, cajoling letters, describing the beauty of the countryside and the world they would be creating.
She generally responded as she always had to Pelham, by asking lots of questions and inviting him to tell her more.
Only occasionally did she push back, and always gently.
“Is there nothing here that you miss?” she asked. “I know America is imperfect, but there is beauty here, too, and people I love. I cannot quite fathom leaving it all behind.”
On this point, he was adamant.
America has lost something vital and primitive. That greed and acquisitiveness, the endless, hungry pursuit of money, of things—it makes for such a graceless life. If this war taught us nothing else, it is that we are all puppets of capital and militarism. Here everything is owned by everyone …
Their back-and-forth continued for a few months, but toward the end of the year, his letters once again began to arrive more sporadically, and his efforts to entice her less emphatic.
Julia grew increasingly anxious in response.
By February, in a rather desperate state, she wrote to him, proposing that she visit over the summer.
She was so uncertain even about this prospect, she felt some trepidation about his response.
As it turned out, she was correct to fear his reaction, but wrong—catastrophically wrong—about the reason why. Never for a moment did it occur to her that Pelham would see her suggestion as the final straw, but evidently that was what it had been.
As much as I relished the idea of seeing you, your proposal occasioned some thought on my part.
I asked a lot of you, I know, and while I held out some hope that you would jump at the chance, I knew it was unlikely.
Literally or figuratively, you will always have one foot planted on American soil.
I feel we must accept that we are on different continents, an ocean apart, in more ways than one.
You have an inclination toward contentment, an ability to see beyond the base and vulgar and find beauty. These wonderful qualities helped see me through the war, and I feel like a wretch to be throwing them back at you.
I know you are not complacent, Julia, that you yearn for change.
But the work we are doing here, the world we are preparing for (and, indeed, that we are living in a small way ourselves) is a wholehearted business.
It requires not just willingness, but eagerness—a need, even—to cast off everything, to relinquish all attachments.
I suppose I hoped your Concord blood might win out, that it would transcend, to use their word. It did not, and in many ways I envy you. I suspect yours will be a happier life. I certainly wish you all happiness …
Julia did not know what she would have done without Louisa.
For countless hours, her friend sat cross-legged on Julia’s bed, handing her clean handkerchiefs and listening as nobody else could.
Louisa frequently disagreed with Pelham, but she accepted that Julia loved him and sympathized on those grounds.
That said, she could not avoid the occasional comment. At one point, Julia declared that Pelham was right. “I’m like Mr. Carruthers. Too content.”
“You mean the seal on Liberty Island?” Louisa replied, a smile teasing at the corner of her lips. “As you’re neither fat nor lazy, I’m afraid I don’t see it.”
“That makes it even worse,” Julia replied. “To my lack of seriousness, I add frenetic movement, in service of nothing important. And when it came to embracing big change, I balked.”
“When you’re on the wrong road, driving off a cliff is a change in direction,” Louisa replied dryly. “Doesn’t make it a good idea.”
Louisa was right, of course. One could be committed to change without committing to this change. If joining a commune in France was a test, Julia knew almost no one who would have passed. Pelham had even acknowledged as much, in a way.
Somehow, though, that did little to diminish Julia’s distress. She had lost not just someone she loved, but also a sense of who she was, or who she could be.
When Julia was little, Grandmother Lillian often derided her as “bold as brass,” little knowing that what she meant pejoratively, Julia had considered high praise.
Similarly, when Pelham described his image of Julia as a “liberty-loving” child, nothing could have touched her more.
She had spent so many hours in her youth imagining herself as bold and freedom-seeking, different. More.
Pelham had seemed to see something in Julia that Mina and her friends never had.
He treated her as a worthy companion on his adventure, simply by virtue of her curiosity and enthusiasm for learning.
But in the end, he had concluded that she lacked the vital qualities of restless discontent and “wholeheartedness,” and was thus ill-equipped for the journey.
Julia was evidently not worthy of his world, and now that she was back on Haven Point, she was reminded of how alienated she still felt from this one.
The following afternoon, Julia and Maudie sat on a blanket at the beach, watching Julia’s nephew Oliver and Maudie’s daughter, Georgina (already “Georgie,” thanks to her brothers), as they built a sandcastle.
Julia had arranged the outing with two purposes in mind.
The first was that she had resolved to spend more time with Oliver, the one inmate of Fourwinds, besides Louisa and Daniel, with whom Julia not only enjoyed unadulterated mutual admiration, but who also seemed genuinely attached to her, and eager for her company.
Though not quite four years old, Oliver and Georgie were already old friends. After much discussion of the relative merits of various spades, they had chosen their implements and were setting about their task with a level of industry that would have pleased the Victorians.
“I think I know who the foreman is on this construction site,” Julia said. Georgie was standing over Oliver, hands on her hips, head tilted. The wind drowned out her words, but she was clearly conveying some vital piece of instruction.
“Oliver has ambitious ideas,” Maudie said. “I think Georgie adds a practical touch.”
“Sounds familiar.” Julia laughed.
With the kids comfortably out of earshot, Julia turned to her other purpose, which was to learn what was amiss with William and Pauline.
Anna was in Europe, and as dear as her aunt had always been to her, Julia was not sure how forthright she would have been.
Maudie had been such a friend to Pauline, Julia hoped she might enlighten her.
“Maudie, I’ve been troubled by how William is treating Pauline. He seems so cold and angry. I wonder if you knew anything about it.”
Maudie grimaced and her face clouded over. She was such an unsentimental New Englander, but just as Oliver touched a tender spot in Julia’s heart, Julia knew Pauline had touched a tender spot in Maudie’s.
“Pauline got a bit too jolly at the Ballantines’ a while back. I’m not sure it was the first such incident. I gather William was quite bothered by it.”
“How jolly?”
“Definitely worse for the wear, though nothing anyone here hasn’t seen before.”
“I see,” Julia said, furious at the double standard. William and his friends could drink as much as they wished, but Pauline had to behave with perfect decorum.
Julia wondered what Mother had said or done about William’s irrational anger, but she knew better than to ask Maudie. Haven Point women, regardless of generation, tended to circle the wagons. Julia’s absence in recent years put her decidedly outside that circle.
They talked about other matters, as the children hastened to complete their castle before the tide came in.
When water began to lick at their toes, Georgie placed a shell atop the tallest tower, evidently the crowning touch.
They stood back and watched as the water rolled into the moat and began its inexorable erosion of the walls.
Julia was struck by the loveliness of it—the willingness children had to experiment, their comfort with the ephemeral nature of things.
Oliver and Georgie might pretend to believe that this time they had finally constructed something that could survive the deluge, but it was belied by their delight in seeing the inevitable destruction.
It made Julia sad, thinking of the future, when these children would lose that comfort.
In the years ahead, Oliver might still come to Haven Point, but he would no longer build sandcastles just to watch them fall. His energies would go to protecting the sturdy walls of Fourwinds, or some other castle built on this mound of granite.
Julia’s only hope was that he would not take after his father. She hated to think of this child spending his life as William did, maniacally trying to beat back the tide.
Julia wavered about how to speak to Mother about William, or even if she should.
She expected it would be futile, and might just further drive the wedge between them.
Pelham Stewart had abandoned his family long ago, but even if Julia were so inclined, she felt far too alone at present to take such dramatic action.
That evening, Julia was passing the children’s room when she heard Pauline’s voice. She could not see in, but it sounded like Oliver was curled up on the bed beside his mother.
“Make up one about an egret,” Oliver said.
“All right, darling. Let me think.” Pauline was quiet for a moment, then she said, “All right. Here’s a poem about my favorite kind, the snowy egret.”
It is from my color that I got my name
And the fluffy plumes, that are my fame.
The truth is, I don’t care for snow.
When it gets cold, that’s when I go.
I fly down South, where the weather is warm,
Where I’m with friends and safe from harm.