Chapter Seventeen
Washington, DC
JULIA
When Victoria dug up the ceramic jug handle, the girls debated whether it counted as “treasure.” Audrey said that without the jug attached, it shouldn’t even be considered, but Victoria insisted it qualified.
After going round and round, Victoria said, with an air of finality, that “it’s treasure because I treasure it.” This seemed like a good rule of thumb.
FROM LIBERTY ISLAND, BY MISS CRANE
Lillian Demarest could not have died at a worse time had she selected it to spite her granddaughter.
She probably did, Julia thought bitterly.
The telegram was waiting when she arrived home from work: “Funeral Saturday at Trinity. Please advise as to arrival. Will have you picked up at North Station.” It was not a complete surprise. Mother had informed Julia a week ago that Grandmother Lillian was quite ill.
As if to drive home the poor timing, the telegram was sitting atop a package that Julia knew contained Pelham’s manuscript.
She went up to her apartment and slumped into a chair, head swimming. Pelham’s novel had just been accepted for publication, and he was eager for her reaction. She had been pleased it would arrive in time for her to read it before his planned visit the coming weekend.
She dragged herself to the telephone to break the news.
“Why are you expected to pay your respects?” Pelham said. “She didn’t even like you!”
“I cannot skip my grandmother’s funeral.”
“Whyever not?”
“Because my absence would be remarked on, and it would create unpleasantness for my family.” Julia was careful to use a matter-of-fact tone. “That unpleasantness would, in turn, be heaped upon my own head, a prospect I do not relish.”
Julia felt neither angry nor defensive, but she was aware of a certain weariness that had been creeping up on her and was now settling into her bones. Evidently Pelham sensed this, because when he spoke again, his tone was gentler.
“Julia, I leave for Europe on assignment next week. I have no idea how long I will be over there. Please. Won’t you consider begging off? Tell them you’re ill.”
“I won’t lie.”
Pelham sighed. “Julia…”
Julia wavered. Her last visit to New York had ended on a confusing note, and she had hoped to clear the air before he went abroad. He sounded so pathetic, too, that something in her melted. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Julia hung up the phone and paced about her apartment.
She had known Pelham would not understand.
He and his friends had no sense of filial obligation.
The more she thought about it, though, the more she saw his point.
Besides ill-considered Christmas gifts, all Lillian had ever given Julia was her firm and consistent disapproval.
Her attendance would spare her parents embarrassment, but why was that her responsibility?
Julia’s mind flashed to her last visit to Haven Point, images of William’s cruel treatment of Pauline, and then that scene on the cliff, when Julia practically begged her mother to show some emotion, to let down her guard and just be honest.
Maybe it’s time for some honesty of my own, she thought. Before she could talk herself out of it, Julia went to the telephone.
Needless to say, her mother was as appalled at the idea of Julia skipping the funeral as Pelham had been at her attending.
“Why should I go?” Julia argued. “Lillian never even liked me.”
“Because she was your father’s mother,” Mother said, in a tone of utter mystification, as if she could not comprehend having to point this out. “You should be there for him.”
Julia felt a pang of guilt. She had considered her parents’ shame, but not her father’s grief. She had gone this far, though. She was not going to turn back now.
“Lillian was horrible to me, Mother, and nobody ever said or did a thing about it. It was all just repressed. Brushed under the rug like everything else.”
“So the opposite of repression is neglecting the most basic courtesy to your father?” There was an uncharacteristic twinge of contempt in her voice.
“I wonder, should nothing be repressed? Should we utter every truth that comes into our minds, no matter who it hurts? If merely being civil is a sign of repression, then give me that any day, rather than this cruel rudeness that has come over you.”
Despite mounting uncertainty, Julia tried to maintain her indignation. “It would be the height of hypocrisy to show my face at the funeral of a woman who despised me.”
Mother was quiet for a moment. When she spoke, she sounded as weary as Julia felt.
“I don’t know what is happening with you, Julia, but you don’t seem happy, and you haven’t for some time.”
“I’ve never been happier, Mother. I have to go,” Julia said. She hung up the phone and promptly burst into tears.
Julia could not remember when she last had a good cry, and a half hour later, she wondered if she should not engage in the practice more often. Once she’d “cried ’til her tears were gone,” to borrow Louisa’s term, she did feel a bit better.
She wrote a letter to Father, in which she managed to extend her genuine sympathy, and to apologize profusely for not attending the funeral, while omitting any mention of the reason for not being there.
It would not erase the consequences, but it made her feel better, and might even make him feel better, too.
By the time Mina popped in to visit an hour later, she had somewhat recovered her equilibrium.
Mina’s eye immediately caught the manuscript on the coffee table. “What’s this?”
“Pelham sold a novel. It will be published a year from now,” she replied. Seeing a shadow cross Mina’s face, she added, “It was a great secret. He is terribly superstitious and would not speak of it until it was sold. He is only now allowing me to read it.”
Julia ordinarily found it annoying that Mina believed herself entitled to all information about everyone she knew, but it was more understandable in this case.
Since September, Mina had been seeing Gardiner Lide, one of Pelham’s closest friends in New York.
She eagerly coordinated trips with Julia, and the two couples had spent countless hours together.
Mina recovered somewhat. “Well, wonderful, then. Did he get a handsome sum?”
“I believe he did, yes.”
“So, it’s arrived just in time for his visit.”
“Yes, which has caused a great row.” Julia relayed the news of Lillian’s death, and told her about the fallout from her announcement that she would not attend the funeral.
“This was an important stand to take, Julia. I’m proud of you,” Mina said.
Julia found the comment a bit condescending, and Mina was grating on her already taut nerves. Plus, Louisa would be in the neighborhood and planned to stop by, and Julia needed every available minute to read the manuscript, so she was relieved when Mina left.
Julia brought the stack of pages to the wingback chair by her fireplace, and began to read.
Julia had known Pelham’s lush prose would translate beautifully to a novel, and he had clearly marshaled every ounce of his tremendous talent for this story.
That said, he had told Julia that “some of the material would be familiar,” and by the time she heard a knock signaling Louisa’s arrival, she understood what he meant and had begun to feel uneasy.
She felt uneasy again when she opened the door and took in her friend’s appearance.
Louisa was just getting over one of the infections she was susceptible to in winter, and it was not uncommon for her to huff a little after climbing the stairs to Julia’s apartment, but she seemed more breathless than usual.
She was pale, too, her normally clear eyes dimmer, like a watercolor painting left in the sun.
“Come in, Lou,” Julia said. “I’ll make you some tea.”
When she returned with the mug, Louisa nodded at the manuscript on the table.
“Pelham sent his book?”
“He did.” Louisa was the only person Julia had told about Pelham’s novel. She was safe as houses with a secret, and also far outside Pelham’s orbit.
“How is it?”
“I’m no literary critic, and I’m only a quarter of the way through, but it is quite good. Remarkable, even,” Julia said with a sigh.
“Remarkable but…?” Louisa said, evidently noting the incongruence between Julia’s high praise and flat tone.
“It’s about a utopian commune, clearly based on Brook Farm.”
Pelham had set his novel, The Schoolcraft Colony, on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, forty years after Brook Farm failed, but Julia recognized elements, including some characters.
“And his is a sympathetic perspective?”
“Quite sympathetic, as far as I can tell. I honestly thought his flirtation with Bolshevism was just that, a flirtation.”
It was implicit between Julia and Pelham that his time in France after the war was a tender subject, and they never spoke of it.
The subject of Russia came up, of course, given the terrible famine, and Mina’s boyfriend even referred to Pelham’s efforts in France once—“You were ahead of your time, I’m afraid”—but Pelham had merely nodded in response.
“I am not certain how this story unfolds,” Julia continued. “But I have a suspicion that Pelham is writing an alternate history of Brook Farm, in which the commune somehow succeeds. Needless to say, it will be tricky to discuss.”
“Is Pelham under the impression that you favor communism?” Evidently revived by the tea, Louisa looked amused.
“I’m not sure what impression he has. We talked about Brook Farm the very first time we met.
He asked if my grandmother liked it there, and I said she did.
But Winifred Newbold was just a little girl, romping through fields and making daisy chain crowns.
He seemed so pleased, I didn’t want to tell him that she ultimately concluded the concept was unworkable. ”