The Technologists (53 page)

A general murmur ran through the entrance hall.

Blaikie continued even more brashly. “Those of you who are seniors would study for an extra term, freshes would start that year again in the fall, and the rest would be one year behind. If there are any who should wish to discuss possibilities with a representative of our college, you may drive back with me in a comfortable private coach to Cambridge. We shall be a merry caravan, over the river, across the bridge to your futures.”

“We’d rather lay our heads on a railroad track and let the train cars run over them!” cried Bob, no longer holding back the power of his voice.

Bryant Tilden stepped forward. “Say, I’ll look into it. Why not?” he added lightly to nobody in particular. “Conny, come on—think what your kin back in old Kentucky would say to know you’re a Harvard man. What do you say? Hall, you’re not going to let all your dreams die for a lost cause? Come on.”

“You have some nerve, Tilden,” said Conny.

“No, Tilden!” Albert declared. “This is where I belong. You, too!”

“Back to the factory with you, Albert. I’m certain I won’t be alone in this for long.”

“You traitor!” Bob shouted. “You’re killing it! You’re killing Tech—we’re all it has left!”

“What will
we
have left—tell me that!” Tilden said. “Nobody here ever took me seriously. Nobody thought I was smart enough. Well, blast you all! I take myself seriously. This place is a tomb.”

“It is only a tomb for the old system of colleges that
he
represents!” Bob retorted, pointing at Blaikie, who chuckled at the notion.

“It’s my future and I wish it to be assured,” Tilden replied. “Damn you and your high horse to hell, Richards.”

“Scrub! Dirty snake in the grass!” Bob threw himself at Tilden.

“No, Bob!” Hammie said, pulling him off.

“Brace up now, Richards—it won’t help Tech!” cried Conny, taking hold of his other arm.

As he was split up from Tilden, Bob was thrown backward in the general fracas. As he struggled to push his classmates off him, he could see Blaikie speaking quietly to Edwin. He would not watch his friend fight his fight for him.

“Stay away from him,” Bob cried as he pushed himself to his feet.

“You mean Mr. Hoyt?” Blaikie asked innocently. “Why should I do that, when the prodigal son returns?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I mean Hoyt here—coming back to Harvard,” Blaikie announced.

Edwin was looking at his feet. He cleared his throat twice before glancing sideways at Bob and saying, with another pained glance downward, “I am going with him, Bob. I’m … I’m sorry.”

“He can’t do that. He took an oath to Tech!” Hammie complained.

“Eddy … no …” Bob didn’t know what to say. If Edwin had given
up on Tech after all they had been through, then what chance did Tech have? A few underclassmen began inching forward toward Blaikie and Edwin. “Eddy, you’re a Top Scholar. Don’t you see? They’ll start following you.”

“I’m … sorry … really …”

“Hoyt has more ambition than you gave him credit for,” Blaikie said, putting a hand on Edwin’s shoulder. “You think everyone just wants to follow your lead, but people like Hoyt think for themselves.”

“Bob, please, you have to understand …” Edwin said, but then was pulled away by a cheerful Tilden with a congratulatory handshake.

“I told you I’d win,” Blaikie said softly as he leaned in to Bob’s ear. “Admit it. It takes the usual fellow four years to finish college. This time, your whole college has finished itself in four years.”

“I’d rather my limbs be torn from my body then see Eddy go with you,” Bob said, writhing against the continued restraint of his classmates. “Let go, you blockheads—do you hear? You’ll eat your words, Blaikie!” He finally managed to pull himself free.

“We could even see what we could do for you, my good fellow,” Blaikie said pleasantly to Marcus, who was standing on his own, away from the group, watching. “You won’t be blackballed, old grudges aside.”

Bob waited. Marcus would not allow this to go on. Marcus took a step forward, staring at Blaikie, who flinched, with Tilden cowering at his side. But then he brushed past them, past Bob and Edwin and the whole group, and strode out the front entrance.

Bob followed out and onto the steps. “Where are you going? Mansfield, wait! You cannot leave all of us behind like this!”

“Why not, Bob?” He did not slow down.

“Because you made a promise! What about Miss Swallow? What about me, what about the Institute and the Technologists? And Rogers?”

Marcus shook his head. “College was never a place that I was meant to be. A machine man; a man without a father. I was a fool to believe otherwise, and you were a fool to believe in me. Why not go dun Edwin instead? He’s the one switching to Harvard.”

“Eddy’s frightened. He fears what his father will say.”

“There shall be no one disappointed in me—is that what you mean?
There is no one who cares whether I am a machine hand or a college man.”

“You promised to see this through!” Bob grabbed his arm and tried to pull him back up the steps.

“Do not press me further, Richards!” Marcus said, a flash of anger altering his voice.

“Or what? You’ll strike me instead of striking that arrogant swell in there like you should?”

“There’s nothing left to stop me. No rules, no restrictions on how to be a college gentleman.”

His face flushed, Bob shoved him hard. Marcus steadied himself by pushing back, sending Bob tumbling down, sprawled out on the steps, and hitting his knee on the granite edge. A spot of blood slowly enlarged on his pant leg.

“Mansfield …” Bob said in quiet disbelief, not seriously injured, but wounded deeply. “Wait! Where are you going? Finish this!”

“It is finished.”

P
RAYING TO
H
OLY
M
ARY
,
the young woman waited patiently while the bread was soaking up the milk. Carrying the soft bread to the bedside, she gently opened the lips of the patient and carefully placed it inside her mouth, moving her jaw up and down until the bread was chewed and swallowed. With her other hand, she wiped the girl’s forehead with a clean white cloth.

“Holy Mary, my advocate and patroness, pray for her,” whispered the caretaker, face uplifted, kneeling by the bed. For the next five minutes, she sprinkled holy water on the girl’s face and body.

“Madame Louise.” It was the Sister Superior, Alphonse Marie, entering the infirmary from the adjoining study.

The other nun bowed her head to her superior.

“Changes?” the older woman asked in French. Many of the nuns here, even after years in America, had learned only a few basic words in English, and spoke exclusively in French.

Sister Louise shook her head. “No.”

“
He
is outside,” said the Sister Superior.

“Still?”

“I am afraid so.”

“He has been there for three hours! Perhaps—”

“No,” the Sister Superior interrupted before the younger woman could finish her thought. “Madame Louise, you know our rules must be followed without exception at all times. For all we know, that … that rowdy, that ruffian from the Institute is partially responsible for what happened to this poor chambermaid. If he does not leave at once, I shall send for police to arrest him.”

“Yes, Sister Superior.” Louise knew that was not likely. The Sisters of Notre Dame could expect little assistance from most members of the Boston Police.

“I must return to my class,” said the Sister Superior. “The girls are scared out of their wits. Will you stay?”

“I’d like to pray for her a while longer.”

The Sister Superior nodded her permission. “Pray for all of Boston, Madame Louise.”

*   *   *

H
E HAD JUST COME FROM FRANK’S LODGING HOUSE
.
To his surprise, he had learned from the garrulous landlady that rather than recovering in bed, Frank had been ordered by Hammond to return to the works to help repair the damaged buildings.

“What?” Marcus replied. “I cannot believe it.”

“Yes, I pray I never again have a factory hand as a boarder,” she said.

“What do you mean?” asked Marcus.

“They are too prone to injury around those diabolical machines, and then who shall pay me what I am owed for his room if one dies? And if they are not lamed or crippled, sooner or later they’ll squander their wages in taverns.”

“Not all men who work in factories are the same.”

“A factory hand is a factory hand is a factory hand, young man—and never shall be gentlemanly! In my house, I look for true gentlemen—lawyers’ clerks, for instance. They speak so nicely at the table, too. I will put an advertisement for more lawyers’ clerks.”

He excused himself, leaving a card for Frank, not having the energy to argue. He walked by Temple Place but found Bob had been right—there were police in front, in back, in the windows of Rogers’s home. There would be no use trying to speak with Rogers, so he left.

Now he was pacing along the gate to the convent and the Notre Dame Academy, a few lots away from the Institute. There was an expression of pure determination hardened on his face, though his luck here so far was no better than at Frank’s boardinghouse or Temple Place.

“They will never allow you inside.”

Marcus turned and saw Lilly Maguire approaching.

“It is a strict rule. No man over the age of ten may enter the convent,” the kitchen girl added, stopping a few feet away and still not looking in his face. “Except the police and the authorities, of course.”

“If I stand out here long enough, they will let me in.”

“Heigh-ho!” Lilly said mockingly. “These are French Catholic sisters. They are as single-minded as the hot-water pipes, Mr. Mansfield, and maybe, if I am not too bold, as single-minded as you. What I mean is, I shouldn’t hold my breath if I were you.”

“You have been to see her, though? Tell me how she is, Miss Maguire.”

Lilly clutched her bright coral rosary beads. “Poor Aggie has been thrown into a ‘coma.’ ”

“A coma?” Marcus’s heart ached at how it sounded even before he understood it.

“Yes. The doctors say it is a name for a state of stupor caused by pressure on the brain, or some such thing. What it all means is simple. Poor Aggie is asleep and does not wake up. They said there are cases where a person remains sleeping for years before … well, sometimes, they awaken, which can happen anytime, even years later, and are their old selves again. And sometimes they do not, or are changed from what they were forever. Aggie’s father arranged with the invalid ward of the Channing Home to take her, but President Rogers spoke to Sister Superior, who agreed she be kept here, in their infirmary, instead. Madame Louise attends to her and tries to soothe her little head, and calls her God’s sleeping wonder.”

“I only want to see her. Even for a minute.” Marcus nearly fell to the ground, propping himself up on the spires of the gate. “She would have been safe, if we had solved it all with enough time.”

“What?”

Marcus ignored her. “Which room is she in?”

“Are you as mad as you seem? I’ve told you they will never admit you. Will you scale the wall, Romeo?”

“Is it one of these windows?”

Lilly shook her head. “Mr. Mansfield, there is no way—”

“Will you see her again? Tell her I came, at least. Please.” He was nearly begging her.

“Mr. Mansfield, she is in a state of insensibility,” Lilly insisted.

“Please.”

The maid considered this. After she peered around for nuns, she held her chin up and looked at him squarely. “You know, it is said there is much to recommend even a Protestant marrying a Catholic girl trained in the religious community, that they are women who are most gentle and refined. I mean to say that for my cousin, for Aggie would be too proper to say so for herself.”

“I may test your theory, Miss Maguire.”

Lilly left him there alone. He finally abandoned his place at the gate an hour later. Sister Louise, standing behind the curtain at the window, watched him as he departed through the gardens, his shoulders hunched in defeat.

*   *   *

A
T THE
I
NSTITUTE
,
classes had been suspended temporarily, some said permanently this time. There were rumors that the building had already been sold to an insurance company, that the charter had been stripped by the commonwealth, that John Runkle in a fit of madness had blown himself to bits in his laboratory, that President Rogers had died in his library in Temple Place of an acute attack of despondency, and, alternately, that the old man had been dragged out of his home by the police, with his wrists in irons.

Standing in front of the building, Marcus was holding a dagger, checking the the blade against the toughest part of his palm. Sharp enough, yet he waited another second before lifting it, which caused a drop of blood to run down his palm. Satisfied, he marched across the grounds. After spending half the night walking the city end to end, thinking of all that had happened, Marcus had retrieved his belongings and his carpetbags from Bob’s rooms that morning. As he carried them through the streets, a carriage belonging to the Campbell family drew near, the pretty face of Lydia Campbell herself peering out. As their eyes met, the horses picked up speed, the sash of the window was closed, and mud and dirt kicked up. His heart sank, not for the strained smile of Miss Campbell, which he never wanted to see again, but for Agnes, who was all she was not.