Summer of Dreams (10 page)

“Is there anything you can do?” she asked. “You know Clyde will be a brilliant engineer. Surely the army won’t throw him away over this.”

Her father let her ramble without interrupting, but when he did speak, there was rare sympathy in his eyes. “I’m sorry, but the rules about demerits are inflexible. They are designed so no one gets special privileges or escapes responsibility for his actions.”

“But what about loyalty? Can’t the army understand basic loyalty?”

“Yes. We have loyalty to the country, to our fellow soldiers, and to the rules that maintain order in the army. How can we depend on an officer who breaks those rules on an impulse? And not just once—Clyde has flouted army discipline time and again.”

“But he did it for a good reason. Please, Father . . . can’t you intervene? Can’t you do something?”

“The army’s rules may seem overly rigid in times of peace, but we train our officers so their adherence to discipline comes automatically, not merely when convenient. Once a war breaks out, it is too late to start instilling that discipline. It’s why we begin training our officers in those rules on the first day they arrive at West Point. Can I intervene for a man who, with all knowledge and foresight, impulsively breaks rules despite repeated warnings?”

“I don’t know!”

Her father’s smile was patient. “But I do. Clyde Brixton has the makings of a brilliant engineer. He is a true and loyal
friend, but he does not have the makings of an army officer. I stand by his expulsion.”

Her dream of living in Washington as Clyde participated in the grand transformation of the city, her dream of going to college . . . all of it was slipping away. Clyde’s dreams were ruined, too.

“What will happen to him?”

“He will have a choice. Two years in jail or two years as an enlisted soldier in the army. The country has invested a great deal into this young man’s education and deserves to be repaid.”

“And if he enlists . . . what happens to him?”

“It would be a waste to send a man like that to dig ditches, but make no mistake, he will be an enlisted private in the army and will perform whatever task he is assigned. Go wherever posted. His freedom to control his destiny is gone.”

She knew what that felt like. She had been helpless her entire life, drifting from one household to the next, always rootless, always alone. Only when she was with Romulus or Clyde did she have a sense of belonging.

And that sense of belonging with Clyde had happened even though they had no home together. They had only each other and their wild, ambitious dreams.

What if she could be as bold and daring as Clyde? What if she stepped out from the shelter of her father’s protection and created a new life for herself, instead of passively sitting here waiting for it to happen?

The trembling began in her hands but soon consumed her entire body, for the thoughts whirling in her mind were daring and frightening. She’d been passive her entire life. Clyde had shown that it was possible to step out into the world and act.

Her gaze trailed across the fields. Did she have the courage to implement such a plan? And if she did, would Clyde even allow it? She smiled a little. Even if he didn’t, she was sick to death
of wandering from house to house, doing nothing meaningful with her days and waiting for something to happen. It was time. She was going to
make
something happen.

“Father, I’d like to ask a favor,” she began.

She suspected he would pitch a fit, and he did. For once, Evelyn was grateful for the isolation of Aunt Bess’s house in the middle of a barley field, for otherwise the neighbors would have overheard hours of blustering about inappropriate females, reckless actions, and the likelihood of Evelyn falling flat on her face.

Everything her father said was true. The possibility of failure was high. If she botched this, within a few months she might well be crawling back to West Point to fall on his mercy, but at least she would have tried.

At the end of the evening, he had agreed to her plan, and for the first time in her life, she saw genuine respect in her father’s eyes.

C
lyde had never realized how forced inactivity could weigh on a man. For the past five days, he’d been confined to his room with no visitors or responsibilities, nothing to do but lie on his bed, stare at the ceiling, and fear for his future. It was draining and demoralizing. The formal disciplinary hearing would be held this afternoon in the commandant’s chambers, but he already knew what to expect. He was going to be expelled from college, demoted to the rank of private, and agree to serve two years as an enlisted soldier wherever the army chose to send him.

And he’d probably never see Evelyn White again. He’d managed to smuggle a message to her aunt’s house the day after arriving back on campus, but that was four days ago and still no response. Could he blame her? All spring, he’d been spinning daydreams about what their life in Washington, D.C., would be like. She could go to college while he worked on the grand renovation of the city. She would be an officer’s wife. They would dine in the city’s famous cafés, take long walks in the parks, and curl up before the fireplace in a home of their very own. Those dreams were all in ashes now.

Perhaps a clean break was best, but it was hard.

Two years as an enlisted soldier wasn’t so bad. He’d do his best to keep abreast of the developments in electricity, and the instant he was released from service, he’d race to Menlo Park and beg a job from Thomas Edison. If he could become successful, a man whose skills were sought after by the world’s best engineers, maybe Evelyn would look at him again. He couldn’t give up on her. Not yet.

The worst thing about being confined to quarters was that he still heard the normal activities of campus. The trumpet blast of reveille each morning, the shuffling footsteps of cadets scrambling to inspection, the bugle calls for meals, the laughter of his classmates at the end of the day.

Clyde was isolated from all of it. He couldn’t even open the door to exchange a quick greeting. The only person he saw was Smitty, who brought him three meals a day and emptied the trash can. Despite all the trouble he’d gotten into over the years, he had loved being a West Point cadet. The comradery and the rigor, the chance to work alongside hundreds of other smart, driven men. It was going to hurt to be severed from it.

A tap broke the silence, and Clyde rolled from the bed, prepared to help Smitty in with his lunch tray. Smitty had been like a father to him since his first year on campus, and these few minutes of accepting food ought to have been a comfort, but it was difficult to see the disappointment in the old janitor’s eyes each day.

To his surprise, Smitty had a stack of clothing over his arm. “You’re to put on your full uniform for the hearing today,” he said as he hung the formal wool uniform from the hook on the door. “After the hearing, you’ll be changing into these,” Smitty said, his voice radiating sympathy as he set a stack of light brown clothing on the bed. It was the uniform of a private. “I’m sorry, laddie.”

Clyde tried to smile. “It’s okay. I don’t regret anything. I’d do it again.”

He mostly believed it. Romulus had been a great friend, and even if they never crossed paths again, last summer in the greenhouse had been an experience he’d treasure for the rest of his life. He’d never known anyone like Romulus, a brilliant man who hid a staggering array of interests beneath a glittering, flamboyant exterior. And Evelyn . . . so cautious and contained. She and Romulus were complete opposites, yet they brought out the best in each other. And for a few glorious months, he’d been allowed into that friendship. It had been a privilege he would never forget.

He changed into his dress uniform. The swallowtail dress coat, tailored to military precision and heavy in his hands, was the finest article of clothing he’d worn in his life. He tried not to think that this was the last time he’d ever wear it. Standing before the small mirror on the back of the door, he adjusted the stiff collar so it was in perfect alignment beneath his chin. The silk braids and rows of brass buttons across the front of the coat gave him a look of bearing and distinction. Tugging on his white gloves, he stared at the mirror, trying to memorize this sight, for in a few hours he’d never see it again.

Even in hindsight, he would go to Romulus’s aid again. He wished the price wasn’t so steep, but he couldn’t regret that show of loyalty and friendship. For the next two years, while he was toiling at some army outpost, he would have the knowledge that he was a loyal friend until the end.

Evelyn had never been inside a third-class railway car before today, but she was pleased as she wriggled into an open spot on the bench between a postman and a woman with a caged chicken on her lap. It would take five hours to get back to West Point, but her mission in Boston had been successful.

Now she just had to get back in time to intercept Clyde before he was sent off to his posting. It was going to be a close call. Her errands in Boston had taken considerably longer than she’d anticipated, and Clyde was at his disciplinary hearing at this very moment. Would he still be in town by the time she arrived? Or would she have to hop back on a train and chase him to Fort Slocum?

It was hard to guess what Clyde would think of her actions. He might be proud of her, but he was just as likely to be embarrassed and humiliated. Even if he shuddered and wanted nothing to do with her plan, it was done, and there was no going back. She would carry it through—hopefully with Clyde, but she was prepared to go forward on her own if necessary.

She had a job! It had taken her two days to find someone willing to hire a girl with no work experience and soft, smooth hands unaccustomed to manual labor, but she was going to start work at McKendry’s Dry Goods Store in the north end of Boston near the marketplace. It wouldn’t require much skill, merely weighing out sacks of flour and oats and making proper change for customers. Apparently Mr. McKendry had difficulty with clerks who struggled to calculate the right cost for customers, but Evelyn was able to demonstrate her mathematical abilities with ease.

Her wages wouldn’t quite cover the cost of an apartment, but Evelyn had anticipated the problem and brought a few pieces of her mother’s jewelry to help fund her first few months alone in Boston. She had no memories of her mother but liked to imagine she would be proud to see her ivory brooch and gold bracelet being used to help make her daughter’s dreams come true.

The money from pawning the jewelry was used to lease a one-room apartment over a delicatessen near the Boston harbor. She had some left to buy a little bit of furniture and the train tickets to get back and forth to West Point. Her father had steadfastly
refused to help fund even a dime of her “harebrained scheme,” but he’d given her something far more valuable.

He’d told her where Clyde’s first military assignment was to be. She also suspected he may have used some of his influence to ensure Clyde would be sent somewhere close and where his engineering skills would be put to good use.

The army was upgrading their telegraph and telephone communications, using underground conduits to ensure more reliable transmission. Boston was the testing ground, and the army needed skilled men to dig, lay, and install those systems. Clyde would not be designing the systems, but her father had gruffly assured her it would be good to have a man of his talent in the field.

That meant he would live in Boston.

And so would she. The shabby, one-room apartment had only a single window with a view of the neighboring building’s brick wall. It was a far cry from the idealized house of her dreams. There was no spacious lawn of soft grass for her children to play on, no huge oak tree from which to hang a swing, no plot of land for a rose garden.

But there was room enough for a kitchen table and a bed big enough for two. She just hoped she could get to Clyde in time to make it all happen.

It was as he’d suspected. After standing at attention while the list of his accumulated demerits was read out before the board, Clyde was informed that he was expelled from the academy and ordered to serve two years as an enlisted soldier.

He’d expected it, but it still hurt to stand at attention and hear the words said while maintaining an expressionless stare. He wanted to run away, break something, rip the list of his demerits from the commandant’s hands and tear it to shreds.
Instead he stood and accepted that his life had just taken a huge downturn.

To make it worse, Evelyn’s father had been there for all of it. General White’s face was stony as he watched the proceedings with a detached air. The only flicker of acknowledgment came at the very end, as Clyde left the superintendent’s office.

“Enjoy digging ditches,” General White whispered in his ear.

There was only one appropriate answer. “Thank you, sir. I will.”

His first assignment was for two months at Fort Slocum, which was on an island off the coast of New York. He’d be trained in the basics of military procedures. It seemed pointless, as Clyde had close to four years of military training, but then again, he’d been trained as an officer, not an enlisted soldier.

Back in his dorm room, he avoided the mirror as he peeled off the formal dress uniform for the final time. No matter where his life took him, it was hard to imagine he’d ever wear a coat of which he was so proud. He hung it carefully in the wardrobe before pulling on the light brown fatigue uniform. It was going to be humiliating to walk out the door in this uniform, but maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing. All his friends would see what happened to a man who squandered a gift, and if it helped them toe the line, that would be all to the good.

There was a knock on the door, and one of his former roommates tipped his head in. “There’s a lady downstairs to see you,” Jake said.

“A lady?”

“General White’s daughter. She wants to see you.”

Clyde closed his eyes. He couldn’t bear to see Evelyn right now. This was probably the most difficult day of his life, but he’d been plowing through it with his head held high, spirits more or less steady. Even the taunt from General White had glanced off his hide, but Evelyn?

No, he didn’t have the strength to see her now and maintain an even keel. Not while wearing these clothes.

“Tell her I’ll write,” he said.

Jake nodded and left to carry the message downstairs.

Clyde felt horrible, but writing was the most he could promise. The image of Evelyn’s desperate face as he was led away at the train station would haunt him for years. Once he got to Fort Slocum he’d have the time to draft a letter that put the best possible spin on things. Of all the people he’d disappointed, Evelyn was at the top of the list.

Maybe someday he’d be able to dig himself out of the hole he’d gotten himself into. He’d earn riches from his patents, acclaim from engineers and architects. Perhaps she would look at him again with that same sort of awed pride as when he’d hooked up the generator in her greenhouse. Or when she’d kissed him on the snowy winter evening the night he’d met her father. Those were the memories he wanted of Evelyn, not her look of pity and disillusionment as he set off to Fort Slocum.

Jake burst back into the room. “She won’t leave. She says she needs to see you before you get on that train, and she’s planted herself at the front door.”

He exhaled and plopped down on the mattress. He should have suspected Evelyn would be difficult, for it simply wasn’t in her nature to give up.

Nor was it for him. He glanced out the window, an ironic grin twisting his mouth. At this point, it didn’t really matter if he racked up more demerits, did it?

Evelyn might not budge from the front door, but there were other ways out of this dormitory than walking out the main entrance. His career at West Point had begun with a string of infractions, and it seemed appropriate that he’d leave the same way. He flashed a grin at Jake as he yanked the window sash
up. “If you don’t want to be party to an infraction of the rules, look away now.”

“You are
not
leaving out that window,” Jake said, but his voice was full of admiration.

“Watch me.” He scooped up his canvas rucksack, already packed with his meager earthly possessions, and swung a leg over the windowsill. In his pocket he had orders and a train ticket to get to Fort Slocum, and he’d obey them, but he’d do so on his terms.