Ghost Town (9 page)

In those days—this would be the summer of 1859—all over New York buildings were going up, others coming down, some no more than ten years old, but in this impatient town where nothing ever has a chance to decay, ten years was practically an eternity. Up beyond Harlem Heights surveyed lots which were no more than granite outcrops with perhaps a few trees, some stagnant swampland, here and there a squatter’s shack and a dirt road running through it would soon be leveled, the swamps drained, the site turned into prime building land in a city whose expansion was limited only by its riverbanks.

“Man marks the earth with ruin; his control

Stops with the shore.”

Or so thought the poet Byron. None of which however had any immediate relevance to Julius van Horn. For him the din and chaos of a city engaged in an unending turmoil of construction was nothing more than a spectacle provided for his amusement. It was theater, and this being a period when increasing numbers of Europeans were arriving in Manhattan every day, the streets became more diverse, more colorful and exotic with every ship that discharged its cargo of humanity at the Battery. Julius liked the strange accents, the incomprehensible languages he heard spoken on the streets, and when she let him accompany her downtown he imitated these alien voices to Annie Kelly, who herself being only two generations away from the old country—Ireland, of course—shouted with laughter at his mimicry. And if more somber tones were sounding in the air about them, if the newspapers grew daily more dire in their predictions of open conflict between the northern states and the South, none of that touched Julius, for he had no time for newspapers and politics.

The same was not true of his father. The longsimmering
dispute over slavery went to the very heart of Noah’s cotton interests, for he held bonds from southern planters worth tens of thousands of dollars; like many New York merchants he was apprehensive as to what would happen next. He was not so apprehensive, however, that he failed to take note of his son’s changed mood. One night at dinner he suddenly asked Julius what was the matter with him, and the boy was surprised to feel a sharp kick on the shin. His sisters had warned him to say nothing about Annie Kelly.

—Nothing, father, he said, and gazed at his stern papa with bright eyes in which it was not hard to discern the fear of one who has all his life been innocent of any attempt at deception, particularly in his own home, but who for the first time has
lied
, if only by omission.

Noah frowned at his plate then cut his meat with some deliberation. The silence deepened about him and Hester attempted to change the subject.

—They say it will rain tomorrow, she began, but her father without a sound, without lifting his head, set down his knife and raised his hand slightly, and Hester fell silent. Once more clouds of unease and discomfort began to gather in the
room. I have heard about the terrifying power of Noah’s silence, when he chose to exercise it—so terrifying that its reputation came down through the family as though it were a legend, or an anecdote, at least, of some historic import, such as might be told if a great man had come to dinner at the house: Daniel Webster, for example, with whom Noah was acquainted. Such at any rate was the repute of his silences, and it seems he deployed one now.

Poor Julius was ill-equipped for the immense reserves of—what?—skepticism, disapproval, disdain, even, that charged the atmosphere when his father perpetrated a silence. He began to fidget. He squirmed. He dropped his fork, and the clangor of cutlery on bone china was very dreadful in the stillness of the dining room. At last Noah lay down his knife and fork, set them side by side across his plate, and lifted his head.

Oh, it was a noble head! A large head, and in the man’s maturity—Noah was over seventy now—his whiskers were clipped and gray, a salt-and-pepper beard which by means of its concealment of his cheeks and jaw drew one’s gaze to the wise black eyes and the broad forehead on which a few last strands of silver were
brushed straight back. The eyes came to rest with a gathering intensity upon the distressed figure of his son. At last he spoke.

—What is it you are not telling me, son?

—Nothing, papa!

Another few seconds of that frightful gaze upon him, and poor Julius wished only to be lifted bodily by a team of angels and spirited off to some remote place. Then Noah pushed back his chair, rose to his feet and, plucking the starched white napkin from his throat, flung it onto the table. Still regarding Julius, with an expression now of hurt, as though the boy had insulted him, he left the room.

No sooner had the door closed than Julius burst into tears and laid his head on his arms on the table. His sisters rushed to him and with their arms about his heaving shoulders begged him not to cry, it was all right, everything was all right—

—It’s not all right! cried Julius, lifting his head and turning to them, and as he did so the last of the evening sunlight fell full upon him, and his cheeks shone with tears, his hair gleamed like gold.

—It’s not all right, he said more quietly, but with a desperate throb of sorrow in his voice. I have told papa a lie!

—Not a lie, said Hester, stroking his head.

—I must tell him about her, he whispered, his damp eyes fierce now.

—Not yet, I beg you, dear brother.

I think this may have been the first time Julius properly understood the necessity of behaving in the world with less than utter transparency. Never before had he had to conceal his feelings, though I remind myself of what he must surely have concealed as a small boy, when his papa had beaten him until he bled.

Noah meanwhile sat in his library upstairs and pondered what had just occurred. There are versions of Julius’ story in which Noah assumes the appearance of a one-dimensional figure whose sole function it was to punish and constrict, but I am not so sure. I believe he had come to regard with deep remorse the man he had once been, and recognized that his own grief and loneliness after the death of his wife were responsible for the rage which was discharged at Julius; or even, in his blindness, that he had
blamed
Julius for the death of his wife. And the fact that the boy had grown up with no apparent residue of bitterness disturbed him now, for he was too honest with himself to believe that his violence had had no consequence.

All this I imagine going on behind the grimly frowning façade of the bearded man who padded about the large house on Waverley Place during the fraught summer of 1859. Nor could he take any comfort from his daughters. He knew them to be entirely partial to Julius, and none of them wise enough quietly to seek their father’s counsel save, perhaps, Charlotte. But Charlotte lived now with her husband, with Rinder, and was only rarely in the house on Waverley Place. So Noah decided that he would try to find common ground with his son without Charlotte’s mediation, and break down the barrier of silence which had arisen between them. After dinner one evening he asked Julius to walk with him in Washington Square while he smoked a cigar.

This was a pleasure Noah had for many years indulged during the summer months, although perhaps
pleasure
is not the right word. For those strolls around Washington Square had once been taken in the company of his wife, and very delightful it must have been, I am sure, for this driven man to speak quietly of his day and be assured of an intelligent feminine sympathy. But since Ann’s death the evening stroll had become a thing of sorrow and nostalgia, and beneath
those ancient sycamores he often allowed his grief to rise to the surface, and the occasional fugitive tear to fall—“nor did all the Pacific contain such wealth as that one wee drop,” as Herman Melville had written a few years earlier about another troubled American. When Noah returned to the house and put his key in the front door, he was not at peace, as once he had been, but was, rather, almost overwhelmed at the loss of the woman who had once brought meaning to all he did.

So one evening he took Julius with him. The boy was nervous, of course. For almost two weeks he had been trying to conceal from his father the fact that he was in love, and the strain was acute. He longed to burst forth with all he felt, pour it out and lay it before him, have his father nod and grunt and then perhaps say something wise, as had so often happened in his childhood after the dreadful early years. How important his papa’s sympathy had been to Julius! And now he had deprived himself of it. How he longed to make things right and clear between them once more, but had not his sisters warned him that his father would forbid him to see Annie Kelly, should he come to hear of their friendship?

It was a sultry evening early in July. They left the house together and were watched from the parlor window by Hester and Sarah, who of course understood the implications of this walk in Washington Square. Noah paused on the sidewalk as was his habit, and took some moments to light his cigar. He considered talking to Julius about Havana, where he had just opened an office. But on reflection he decided that silence would more quickly loose the stream of the boy’s mind.

And so they walked in silence, and as his father expected, Julius soon became agitated, and then could hold back no longer.

—Father.

Noah inclined his head. The heat of the day had passed off a couple of hours before, and the warmth of the evening was pleasant, the air thick with the fragrance of foliage and flowers, and as they followed the path around the square they bowed to other well-to-do New Yorkers who had come out of houses not unlike their own to enjoy the evening.

—Father, is it ever wrong to love?

Familiar though he was with the naivety of his son, Noah could not restrain a bark of laughter.

—Is it wrong? How could it be wrong to love? he said.

Then all at once Noah understood that he had given away the first point in the game by admitting the absolute value of love. Poor Julius, he did not even know he was playing a game, nor that he had seized the advantage effortlessly by failing to employ a stratagem. He agreed with some alacrity that no, of course it could not be wrong to love, how could it be? And more in this vein. When his outburst was over his father allowed a few seconds of silence and then spoke again.

—And who is it you love, son? You love your sisters, I know. I may hope you love your father.

Now this was a stratagem. Julius at once plunged into the trap.

—Of course I do, papa, but this is not the same.

—What is not the same?

There. They were at the crux of the thing already.

—Why, it is different!

—That is surely what we mean by “not the same,” said Noah, dryly.

Julius made an inarticulate sound. He was encouraged. He could hold it back no longer.

—I love a girl, papa!

—Ah. That is different.

—It is different, papa!

—To love a girl is certainly different from loving your sisters.

—It is not the same at all, papa!

—I think we have established it. Who is she?

This was the moment, the boy knew, about which his sisters had warned him.

—You will be angry with me.

—But why?

—Her name is Annie Kelly.

Here was the first realization on Noah van Horn’s part that Julius had not chosen a girl of his own class. He knew no Kellys. He did not doubt, however, that the human cargo of the Atlantic packets, discharged daily at the southern tip of the island, contained many a Kelly.

—And what do her people do, son?

—Her mother keeps a boarding-house on Nassau Street.

Another silence, as father and son turned at the end of the square. The father walked slowly with his hands behind his back, his head lowered, the cigar between his teeth. Julius, beside him, seemed all arms and legs, his face alive with shifting emotions, now biting his lip in acute
agitation, now grinning at the branches overhead. He twisted like a fish on a line which leaps from the water when the line is jerked.

—I should like to meet her. Will you bring her to the house?

Would he? For this his sisters had not prepared him. He was alarmed but did not know why. He had no guile and he could think of no reason to refuse his father. But all the same it was, I am sure, with some anxiety, some foreboding, even, that he agreed to bring Annie Kelly to the house. They walked home in silence. When they reached the front door Noah turned to his son. He saw how impressionable the boy was, how innocent. How
gullible
. He was aware of a distinct surge of anger, its object the Kelly women. He grew cold. He would crush them if he had to. But he showed Julius nothing of this. He opened the front door and ushered his son into the warm gloom of the hall. Julius’ sisters appeared in the parlor doorway.

—Here he is, said Noah. You may have him back now.

It had become Julius’ habit after the life class to wait for Annie under an awning on the south side of Tenth Street, and sometimes they would
wander downtown together, or perhaps take a horse-car, pausing in City Hall Park to sit by the Croton Fountain before Annie went to her chores in the boarding-house. I believe Annie had no delusions about her feelings for Julius. He was far less worldly than she was but he amused her, this laughing boy, and with him she could shed her tough skin. He was like a brother, and she was, I think, genuinely fond of him. One day shortly after his conversation with his father she saw him waiting for her as usual and ran across the street to him, heedless of the cry of a cartman high on a wagon piled with barrels. She pushed back the brim of his hat and pulled loose his cravat. Their affection for each other was largely expressed in pullings and pushings, little kicks and slaps and such. Julius being a transparent youth, that day his mood was evident in the pull of his mouth, the sag of his shoulders, his whole sorry aspect.

—What is it? cried Annie. You are ill!

He shook his head, and as they set off along the street she turned toward him, concerned to discover what ailed her friend.

—What did he say to you? she said.

He did not have to ask her who she meant. “He” was always Jerome Brook Franklin.