Woodsburner (26 page)

“Margaret knows of this?”

“Well, certainly! It is practically her idea.”

Eliot could not have felt less certain how to respond. Margaret had never hinted at the possibility of such an arrangement. He felt it discomfiting to think of the two of them, father and daughter, discussing his future as if it wanted planning. But he did his best to summon a weak smile, and nodded slowly without actually meaning to.

“When do you require an answer?” Eliot asked.

“Your expression has already given your answer,” Mr. Mahoney observed. “Ha! Besides, you really have no choice in the matter. How else could you expect to afford the wedding gift I have in mind for my daughter?”

Eliot Calvert's bookstore opened for business a year and a half before Margaret Mahoney became Mrs. Eliot Calvert. Once the sign was hung and the books displayed, Eliot found that running a bookshop had far less to do with books than it did with ledgers and receipts. Patrick Mahoney promised not to intervene, provided that the shop turned a profit, and he was true to his word.

Eliot was free to fill the shelves as he saw fit, and he sent orders to publishers and printing houses with the avarice of a nouveau
riche collector. Books that he longed to read appeared by the cartload; writing instruments and exquisite papers arrived in carefully packed crates. He became the temporary caretaker of expensive folios that he could never have hoped to afford. He looked forward to the possibility of slow afternoons when he might sit on the high stool in the front window, reading the books in his trust, a living advertisement for the pleasures offered by his shop.

The wooden sign that swung above Boylston Street glittered with twelve-inch gold letters crowned with a pair of reading spectacles, “Eliot Calvert, Purveyor of Fine Books.” The sign was visible to clear-eyed readers from all the way across the new Public Gardens. Eliot thought of the tiny handprinted block letters on the white card tacked to the door of the cramped basement office that his father was sometimes permitted to use at Harvard. He brought his father and mother to the shop on the first day of business, and as they walked side by side beneath the sign he observed their reflections, multiplied across the checkerboard panes of glass at the shop front. No longer a timid observer of other men's accomplishments, Eliot stood square-shouldered to show that he had as much right to walk the streets as any man, an owner and shaper of the world in which he lived. Eliot's father walked stooped, hands clutched behind his back, and his mother clung to her husband's arm for support. Edna Calvert suffered from grievous bunions that forced her to take quick, short, painful steps, which made her appear as though she were forever running downhill.

“Faust,”
Ambrose Calvert said appreciatively, as he rubbed the leather cover of the book Eliot had purposely left on the counter.

Edna ventured between the closely set bookcases, marveling at the packed shelves. “How do you afford so many fine books?” she called out to her son.

“They belong to the shop,” Eliot answered. “That is how a business works.”

His father looked around thoughtfully. “Still, I should think a man must first own what he intends to sell.”

“Mr. Mahoney has been most generous in his support.”

Eliot's father tapped the cover of the big book on the counter. “And does Mr. Mahoney support your other efforts?” he asked.

Eliot picked up the volume of Goethe and placed it on the empty stand in the window. “If you are referring to my plays, Father, Mr. Mahoney has shown great interest, but my writing requires little in the way of capital.” Eliot spotted his mother on the other side of the shop, running a finger along the shelves, checking for dust.

“Capital?” His father chuckled. “That is not a word I ever expected you to employ.” He placed a hand on Eliot's shoulder, and it struck Eliot that his father's jacket and waistcoat were identical to his own—gray and black, the cut and color of apology. “I suppose you'll have no choice now but to marry this man's daughter,” Ambrose said.

Eliot smiled. “Only if she'll have me.”

His father looked out the window at the immense sign creaking heavily above the street.

“It would appear that she already does,” he said.

The next morning, Eliot promptly bought six new coats and waistcoats in contrasting colors. Never again would he stare at the ground as he walked. The years that he had spent with downcast eyes, ruminating on plots and characters, had done little to advance his success as a playwright. He could see no reason to adhere to that public performance of introspection, as long as he remained faithful to the exercise of writing itself. He considered moving to new accommodations, but then decided against it, unwilling to alter the circumstances of his creative life. He would be a successful businessman by day and a struggling playwright by night.

Eliot harbored a loyal affection for his simple room near Mount Vernon, Boston's westernmost hill, once dubbed “Mount
Whoredom” by British soldiers, for obvious reasons. Eliot's room was furnished with all that he had ever needed in his pursuit of fame: books, a desk, a chair, and a bed. Most important, the room's location on the top floor, with one narrow window overlooking a small garden instead of the busy street opposite, provided him with solitude and silence. There were few places in the modern world, he thought, with its emphasis on speed and efficiency, where a man could sit undisturbed and undistracted, accompanied by nothing more than his own thoughts.

After they announced their engagement, Margaret insisted that he at last show her something he had written, and Eliot reluctantly allowed her to read the incomplete draft of
The House of Many Windows
. It lacked not only a conclusion, he explained to her, but a beginning as well, and some of the middle parts were in need of attention, but he was confident that he had produced some spirited dialogue. He sat across from her in the Mahoneys' parlor and watched her turn the pages of the manuscript as she sat on the same sofa where Mr. Mahoney had made his business proposition. Eliot studied her shifting expressions, and he fought the urge to snatch the pages away before she finished.

“What do you think?” he asked as soon as Margaret looked up from the last lines. “It is not, as you can see, complete.”

“Will this end well?”

“I have not yet decided my hero's end. But do you like it, thus far?”

“Well, yes, certainly, but…”

Eliot's heart sank. “But what? You would like something with more coherence, no doubt, but I should remind you that this is only a draft. And you should know that I do intend to provide something more in the way of action in future drafts.”

“No, no. That is not it. I… well… I think you should consider leaving your dreary rooms at Mount Vernon. A brighter prospect might fill you with thoughts less … gloomy.”

Eliot found no cause for disappointment in Margaret's critique. He did not expect her to comprehend that his writing was explorative of man's graver humors. Nor did he think she would appreciate the conditions he found conducive to summoning inspiration.

“I understand your concern, my darling. But I can assure you
that my rooms are not so gloomy as you think.” He took her hand. “Not when they are brightened by my thoughts of you.”

“Oh, Eliot,” Margaret said, laughing. “The things you say.”

Eliot had forgotten Patrick Mahoney's allusion to his wedding gift until the day he asked Eliot and Margaret to meet him at an address on Beacon Hill. Identical redbrick façades, bowed fronts in the Bulfinch style, stretched before them, their purple-flushed windows glowing brilliantly in the reflected sunlight. Patrick Mahoney stood at the foot of a short flight of steps, and his bulk seemed to fill the entire street. He welcomed his daughter with open arms, and the gesture made Eliot fear that Margaret might disappear beneath the immense curtain of his open coat. Margaret ran to her father—like a child, Eliot thought—and for a second he wondered why she did not rush so breathlessly into his embrace. Mr. Mahoney handed his daughter a key tied with a bit of ribbon.

“Father, you are far too generous,” she said happily.

Mr. Mahoney nodded and pointed to the door. “Shall we go in?”

He took hold of the iron railing and began pulling himself up the steps hand over hand. Eliot did not move. Margaret turned to the street and grabbed Eliot by the arm.

“What are you waiting for?” she asked.

“Who lives here?”

From halfway up the steps, Patrick Mahoney overheard him and wheezed. “Ha! That wit. I am always unprepared for it. Please, I am already winded.”

Margaret understood what her father did not. She lowered her voice and squeezed Eliot's arm firmly.
“We
do, Eliot. This will be
our
home as soon as we are wed.”

“This?” Eliot drew back, as if stung, and he saw his mistake in Margaret's eyes.

“Isn't it wonderful?” she said, without smiling.

“It is … unexpected.”

She tugged his arm, but Eliot remained rooted in the street while her father unlocked the door and entered the house.

“The wedding is but three months away,” she said. “Where did you think we would go afterward?”

“I have given it some consideration,” Eliot said quietly, once he was sure that her father was out of earshot. “Honestly I have, though I did not think the need quite so pressing. There are only two of us and—”

“You did not expect me to share your dismal, cramped rooms at Mount Vernon, did you?”

“We might have moved into rooms at Alexina Fisher's until—”

“Fisher's? The boardinghouse? With the actors? You cannot be serious.”

“I would have found us a place, Margaret. Certainly nothing so grand as this, but do we really need something this large? Two or three rooms would have sufficed.”

“Eliot, please! Where would I receive guests? Where would we entertain? How would you write amid the chaos of a household? Here you can have your own study, a whole room to sit with your books.” She leaned closer. “And if you get lonely you can refresh yourself with the knowledge that I am always just beyond your door.”

Eliot craned his neck and cast his eyes up to the roof; he thought he could already hear the deafening echo of so many large, empty rooms.

“Do we own all three floors?”

“Eliot, really,” she chided. “What use would we have for half a home?”

Eliot's mouth was dry, and the back of his throat felt as if it were covered with a layer of grit. He tried to swallow but could not draw enough saliva.

“Of course, of course.” He forced himself to laugh at his own misunderstanding. “It is only … well, I cannot imagine how we will ever begin to furnish such a place.”

“I am sure Father has taken care of everything.”

Eliot felt like an intruder when he stepped through the front door. Carpets of red and blue covered the floors, filling the close air with a heavy musk. The rooms were already stuffed with maple furniture in the American Empire style, and the walls held paintings of hunting scenes and sea voyages. Eliot turned and found himself staring into a large pier glass.