The Last Princess (9 page)

The next morning, in spite of Harry’s assurances, Lily somehow sensed his apprehension, and a feeling of foreboding settled upon her as they mounted the stairs to the Kohles’ town house.

“Darling, if you don’t mind,” Harry said, “I think that I had better speak to my parents alone first.”

Lily waited nervously in the drawing room while Harry went up to his father’s study. His parents had been surprised by Harry’s unexpected call, but when he announced his intention of marrying Lily Goodhue, his mother almost fainted with shock.

After her successful efforts with her three older sons, she had lately turned her energies to choosing an appropriate bride for Harry. Aware that he had already been entangled with a number of inappropriate young women, she had determined it was time he settled down.

Now she realized that, as with everything else in his life, Harry intended to go his own way. No Kohle had ever married a non-Jew. “Goodhue” utterly stunned her.

Then, recovering herself slightly, she began to marshal her arguments. They knew absolutely nothing about this girl. She wasn’t of their religion, and even if she were to convert, she still would not be one of “their own.” And what would the children be brought up as?

No, this marriage was totally reprehensible…. It could not be allowed to take place!

Harry had always been so much more difficult than their other sons … but this was outrageous, even for him. His marriage to Lily Goodhue would create a chasm within the family which could never be bridged.

Benjamin Kohle now spoke with a stern calm which was more intimidating than any thunder, because it was like the calm before the storm.

“Harry, how long have you known this young woman?”

“Close to two months.”

“I might have expected something like this from you, Harry. I’ve allowed you a lot of latitude in the last few years, hoping it would help you grow up—but now I see my folly. This marriage is far more serious than any of your other escapades. Just a few months ago, you were obsessed with taking a year off to finish your novel. What happened to that grand plan?”

“Father, writing is no longer important to me. Lily is!”

“Harry, you stood here and swore that nothing in the world was more important to you than that book. And now you’re ready to drop the idea entirely. Is that evidence of maturity?”

Harry was trying very hard to control his anger. He took a deep breath and said, “Father, things change. When the right woman comes along, she becomes more important than any dream. I’m serious about Lily.”

“But you were just as vehement about your book,” said Benjamin scornfully. “What guarantee do I have that your plans for marriage won’t cool in a few months?”

“Father, you don’t understand. Writing was my dream, Lily is real. I want to go into the bank as soon as possible and start to earn my own way.”

“I don’t think you understand, Harry,” Benjamin said. “Your mother and I can’t possibly give our blessings to a son who marries outside our faith.” In all fairness, Kohle’s prejudice was nothing like that of Charles Goodhue. Benjamin counted many Christians among his friends and colleagues. He just wanted to make sure his children stayed in the fold. Suddenly he narrowed his eyes and asked, “Do you have to marry this young woman?”

“Of course not,” Harry nearly shouted. “How dare you insult Lily!”

His father replied cynically, “It’s a natural inference, my boy. One usually does not announce impending nuptials in so hasty a fashion.”

Pacing angrily about the room, Harry searched in vain for words to make his parents understand. His greatest frustration was that they were rejecting Lily sight unseen. They wouldn’t even give him the opportunity to show them what an extraordinary woman she was.

He tried again. “Father, I don’t want to defy you. Please, at least meet Lily, give her a chance.”

“We don’t need to see her, Harry. It’s not her personal qualities that are at issue, it’s your responsibility to the family, and to our traditions.”

Harry threw up his hands in despair. “Father, I love you and Mother. I don’t want to hurt you, but you can’t rule my life. I’m going to marry Lily.”

Benjamin’s voice was cold and remote. “I am sure that you have no idea of the blow you are striking against our family. There is no way that your mother and I can condone this act of folly.”

“So you will not give my marriage your blessings?”

“No. If you persist in marrying this girl, forget your idea of working at the bank. You will no longer be a member of this family.”

Harry was stunned at the implications of his father’s words. “You can’t mean that!”

“You have no idea how painful this is to me,” said Benjamin. “All my hopes for you …” His voice trailed off. Then he added, “I hope you will come to your senses because there will be no place in my will either for you or for any children you may have outside our faith.”

“Fine. Keep your money. I don’t want any of it on those terms.”

“Am I to infer from your bravado that you’re planning to live on Miss Goodhue’s money?”

“I’d starve before I’d live off my wife’s money!” Harry blazed, stung by his father’s contempt.

“You might just end up doing that. After all, what kind of work are you prepared for? Driving around in your Stutz and being a ladies’ man?”

Harry stopped his angry pacing and faced his father defiantly. “God, I’ve learned a lot today—not only how prejudiced and unjust you are, but also how low an opinion you hold of me. Well, I don’t need your help to succeed in this world, and I’ll prove it!”

Benjamin felt an overwhelming sense of grief as he watched his son turn to his mother, hesitate as if to bid her good-bye, and then turn and leave the room.

Lily stood up trembling when she saw Harry’s ashen face. Obviously the scene must have been much the same as the one she had endured with her parents.

“I’m going upstairs to pack my things,” was all he said. His voice was full of hurt and she followed him up to his room and helped him fill two suitcases. When they were done, he took a last look at the room he had known from his earliest childhood. He glanced at the pictures in the silver frames on the mahogany dresser. There was one of himself with his three brothers in Nice, the summer he’d turned thirteen—the year he was bar mitzvahed. He couldn’t bear to look anymore.

Not until they were back in Harry’s shabby rooms could they shut out the world and let their passion obliterate their problems. Afterward Lily drifted happily to sleep. They were young, they had their lives ahead of them, and they had infinite faith in each other. But as Lily lay curled up against him, Harry realized how dependent she was, and his fears for the future overwhelmed him. How could he take care of her? He had a business degree, that was true. But aside from his aspirations as a writer, the only other career he’d even considered was in his family’s bank. Now that future was forever closed to him.

Harry sat up late into the night, making plans and discarding them, growing more and more frantic with worry. He knew he could not burden Lily with these dark thoughts or allow her to feel that he was less than her beacon of strength. But when she woke and saw him silhouetted against the window there was no way he could hide his heart.

“Darling, what’s wrong?” she asked. “Are you having second thoughts about us?”

“No, no. It’s just that our lives are so complicated. The truth is that my father, like yours, said he’ll disown me if we get married.”

Her breath caught in her throat. “Oh Harry, I’m so sorry! I don’t want to be the cause of this—”

“Lily, darling, that’s not the issue. Our immediate problem is how I’m going to support you. Where do I go to get a job? The truth is I’m not suited for anything.”

“Harry, if you could do anything you wanted, what would you do?”

“I’d be a writer—that’s what I’ve always wanted to be.”

“Well, what’s to prevent you?”

“I don’t think I can make a living at it.”

“Harry, there are an awful lot of books out there. Those authors must be making a living. And you’re much smarter than all of them.”

Harry smiled. Her faith in him was so touching. “I can’t do that to you, Lily. It’s too uncertain.”

“Well, nothing is for sure, and besides, what else can you do?”

He sighed. “I can get a job in a brokerage house, I guess.”

“Will you like that?”

“That’s not the point. I want to support you in the style to which you are accustomed.”

“Harry, listen to me. Until I met you, I may have been wealthy, but I was the unhappiest girl in the world. The important thing to me is that we are together, and that you are happy. So if you want to be a writer, that’s what I want too. Tell me, have you ever published anything?”

“Just in the college paper, but I started a novel almost five years ago. It would take months to finish and then there are no guarantees it would ever be sold. In the meantime, we could starve.”

“But what if you had time to finish? Do you really believe in it? You think it could be published someday?”

Harry hesitated. Then, with quiet conviction, he said, “I believe in it with all my heart. But it’s a question of time, Lily—time we don’t have!”

There was a sudden light in Lily’s eyes. “That’s where you’re wrong. My grandmother left me some money. There wasn’t any need to touch it until now, but it’s there for us.”

Harry flinched. His father had predicted this. God, he was not only a pariah, but a gigolo.

“Damn it, Lily, I can’t live on your money. What kind of man would I be if I did that?”

“Once we’re married, it’s our money.” She slipped her arms around him. “Darling, don’t you know that whatever I have is yours? In any case, it would only be temporary. You’ll be published soon. I’m simply investing in our future.”

When he turned to face her, there were tears in his eyes. “Oh God, Lily—how did I ever get so lucky as to find you?”

A week later they had their license. As radiant as if she were walking down the aisle with twelve bridesmaids, Lily put on an ivory Fanchon suit. Above her burnished hair sat a small Lilly Daché hat sewn with diminutive pink forget-me-nots. The short veil that framed her eyes made her seem extraordinarily ethereal.

Today was their wedding day and they almost ran like children to get the car. But as they rounded the corner, Harry stopped short at a flower stand.

Pinning a bunch of pink baby roses on Lily’s shoulder, he kissed her tenderly, then belatedly handed the vendor a quarter for the flowers.

When the justice of the peace pronounced them man and wife, Harry slipped the gold wedding band on Lily’s finger.

In that moment of union, all the anger, all the recriminations they had endured from their parents were forgotten. They knew only that they were husband and wife, and that now they would have each other for the rest of their lives—the two of them against the world.

After the short ceremony, Harry turned to Lily and said, “Do you promise that I’ll always wake up to such a vision as this?”

“I’ll try.” She smiled shyly.

At that moment all their troubles were forgotten. But what they did not know was that Lily was already pregnant.

She had felt queasy the very day of her wedding. She chalked it up to prenuptial jitters. But when the nausea continued to plague her morning after morning, she finally heeded Harry’s counsel and took herself to her doctor.

When the doctor called the next day with the news, Lily’s joy knew no bounds. At first she was anxious about telling Harry. He’d fretted so about how he’d support the two of them, let alone a little one. Harry just didn’t seem ready for a family. But when her eyes met Harry’s after she told him, she knew his joy matched her own.

In 1917, Grandmother Goodhue, in a burst of patriotism, had bought $25,000 in Liberty Bonds for each of her grandchildren. At the time, that had been an insignificant amount, a mere pittance. Little did she know what an astronomical sum that would be to Lily. Without it, she and Harry would have been penniless. With it, they had the means to launch his writing career. Lily wondered if it were fate.

With Christian Raines, her father’s attorney for years, sitting across from her, Lily had already cashed the bonds in anticipation of her wedding. With a baby on the way, she knew that she and Harry would put it to good use. After an intimate dinner in Harry’s apartment, she decided to outline her plan.

“Harry,” she began timidly, “I think we ought to buy a small farm.”

“A farm!” Harry exclaimed, startled. “Why?”

“It has a lot of advantages. Just think of what fun it would be to have a cow and chickens. Fresh eggs—our own vegetable garden.”

“Lily, I don’t know one end of a cow from another!”

“We could learn. I’m sure it’s not all that difficult. But the most important thing is that you would be free to write. And if we paid cash, we’d have no monthly payments.”

Although on the surface it seemed a crazy scheme, after a few days he began to think the idea had merit. He had been plagued with worry about how they could stretch her money to cover the expense of living in New York City until he got something published. Perhaps a farm was the answer.

Lily contacted a rural real estate agent, but in the weeks that ensued, she almost despaired of finding the place of their dreams. There were plenty of small farms, but few that they could afford. The agent almost gave up on them, but then he discovered a New York State homestead that was going for four thousand dollars.

They drove up the next weekend. Standing in front of the broken fence, they viewed the property through different eyes. Lily saw only the beauty of the landscape, with the house sitting nestled in the shelter of the sycamores and the little creek gurgling nearby. She was blind to its deficiencies. To her, the barn had already been painted red, the wood-frame house white, and the front lawn was neatly weeded and mowed.

“What do you think, Harry?” she asked eagerly. “Shall we buy it?”

“Gee, darling,” said Harry, “it’s all so rundown.” Originally the farm had been over one hundred acres, but the last owners had subdivided it and sold off parcels until only five remained.