In the weeks since they had been back in Philadelphia, the seasons had changed with a cadence that was familiar and comforting. The last warm afternoons of summer had given way to the brisk breezes of fall, the leaves changing in time with the temperature as the trees pulled inward in preparation of winter. The city itself transformed slowly and incrementally, making ready against the onslaught of cold and snow and wind. There was also the promise of the upcoming holiday season that snuck in with the cool draft around the doors and windows and settled itself in the hopeful energy of everyone it touched.
"Pam, have you seen my gloves? I can't seem to find them and the last time I laid eyes upon them was at my writing desk here. Perhaps Eleanore knows..." he mumbled to himself, distractedly.
He was already desperately late for the beginnings of his day but a series of events that morning seemed determined to keep him from the office. The blacksmith required an opinion on the thrush that had plagued Sergeant since Virginia. The groundskeeper asked him to seek permission to remove a tree that stretched between his property and the adjacent one. Eleanore needed him to use his height to tighten the ring on the flue pipe of the cookstove. All of which could have been handled by someone else but he was master of his house, lord of his domain and all that.
He heard her soft chuckle from the other room as he rifled around in the drawer.
"Are you so forgetful in your old age, husband?"
It had been only an hour since he had seen her last but he needed one more moment of her before he went back downstairs and presumably on to work at last. He strode into the other room to find her in her corset and petticoat with her hair already pinned up for the day.
"I would have remembered but someone tends to distract me with her feminine wiles in this room," he pulled her face towards his in an attempt to silence her teasing, his mouth drinking her in, before lowering his voice, and trailing a single finger softly over the swell of her breasts pushed up deliciously by the stiff material, "I also wouldn't think my age be in question on that account either."
"Indeed it is not," she murmured into his lips before glancing over to the other side of the room where Julienne waited patiently holding her dress.
He followed her eyes, jumping back slightly at the realization that they weren't alone. "My apologies. Please excuse my ...our... " any lame explanation he had for being there, accosting his wife while she dressed seemed weak. "I'm still getting used to her having a maid. I'm sorry," he finished quietly.
She took a step forward hesitantly, the yards of fabric in her arms almost dwarfing her small frame, "Please do not trouble yourself, Monsieur. If it is not a bother to my mistress, it is not a bother to me," her voice was small but strong.
He turned back to Pam, taking her hand and brushing his lips against it in a much more suitable expression of affection in mixed company, "I'll be back at supper."
Julienne bowed slightly as he retreated safely back into the more masculine half of the bedchambers but he couldn't help himself overhearing their exchanges while he returned half-heartedly to his search.
"I'm sorry if that was uncomfortable, we are still growing accustomed to married life, I suppose," he heard Pam apologize again.
"Oh please do not, Madame. You are very fortunate to have a husband so clearly smitten with you," her tone and expression far more relaxed with just the two of them, he noticed, and her accent more pronounced, "I will never understand this American and English foolishness when it comes to love. You are both young and handsome, why should you not enjoy each other? Heaven forbid."
He heard her say something else but it was now low enough that he couldn't make out the words. Although based on the feminine giggles that followed, perhaps it was best that he didn't.
As he made his way downstairs, he recognized the front door open and a quiet exchange of voices before he rounded the turn just in time to see the maid pushing the door shut against the winter wind and turn in his direction.
"Sir, your brother's driver left this for you."
He opened the folded paper and Peter's distinct penmanship greeted him. Visit Thomas. He is not well and needs to talk to someone.
He glanced up at the maid waiting patiently, "Will you tell the driver to bring the carriage around? I am apparently not going to the office anytime soon."
"Brother. What brings you calling at this unusual hour in the middle of the day?"
Thomas sat slumped in the chair near the fireplace of the study, his shirt undone and the buttons clearly not paired with the correct hole as there was a protruding loop of fabric halfway down his torso. He didn't bother to rise in his greeting, instead, he ran his finger along the moistened edge of the glass he held. His eyes were glazed over and unseeing and James sighed disappointingly at the sight before him.
The message had been correct, he was indeed not well and completely inebriated before lunch had even been served.
"Do you not have pressing issues at the shipyard today? It seems an odd time to have a drink." He began cautiously. His older brother had always been prideful, perhaps as a result of being the firstborn, more likely, however, as a result of having the expectations of the entire family resting invisibly on his shoulders.
"It's never too early for a drink, James." He replied with a small hint of rebuke, finishing off what was left defiantly.
"Where are Marcie and Vanessa?" He had not seen Marcie in weeks, since the dinner at his mother's house and while that wouldn't normally be something unusual, he suspected it was for other reasons.
"I sent them away. Her mother lives in Washington," he replied offering no further explanation.
"Perhaps you should join her there. Get away from the stresses of Philadelphia for a while."
He looked at James harshly, and he knew he caught on to what he was implying, "I am not like you, little brother. I cannot abandon the family. I will stay until this whole thing can be sorted, until the election at the very least."
Indignation swelled in his chest, and while his rational mind knew it was a loose tongue because of the liquor, he also knew that it tended to let the truth come forth as well.
"I have not abandoned the family. I am here, supporting father in whatever way I can with the paper."
"Your energies have been focused elsewhere and it is clear that this is less of a concern for you, living all happily over there with your adoring females," James started to interject but he pushed through, continuing, "They are pushing me out, James. I have lost nearly every shipping contract in recent months. They have threatened me on numerous occasions because I won't sell, they have followed me, and have even alluded to coming here, to my home."
"Wait, who is they?"
"Charles Moore. Not him directly, of course. He is separated from such base actions by several degrees," he waved his hand flippantly as he rose unsteadily and leaned against the mantle. "He wants father's seat and he wants me out entirely from the shipping business. It all started to unravel months ago while you were down traipsing around in North Carolina." His words dripped bitterly from his lips.
His family losing the upper hand of the situation needed somewhere to place blame and it appeared that the place they had chosen was him, despite the flawed logic of it all.
"Perhaps, you could buy more contracts or just cut your losses and leave the business entirely? There is no shame in pursuing other endeavors, especially if they have threatened you and your family."
"You would like to see that wouldn't you?" his words slurring together slightly, "You have always undermined me, James, even as boys. You have always thought yourself better than I."
James rubbed his forehead tiredly, a headache beginning to form. "What are you talking about, Thomas?" he asked exasperatedly. "You know that's not true."
"Is it not? You have always been everyone's favorite. You even were the one father chose to take the Paper and now you have the perfect life, coming in my house and telling me to tuck tail and scamper off in defeat."
There was profound anger and pain in his eyes that James had never seen before in all his years. He had always suspected some jealousy, but nothing beyond the usual competitiveness between male siblings, and while he was far closer with Peter, this deep-seated animosity came as a startling surprise.
"Just go," he finally spoke again at James's stunned silence, forgoing the formality of pouring more whisky in a glass and just pulling a long swallow directly from the bottle. "Go back to your successful newspaper and your southern whore."
James clinched his jaw hard, pressing down the anger that threatened. He would allow for daggers to be thrown at him, but she was off-limits.
"Don't speak of her like that. You direct your anger at me, that's fine, but not her. She has nothing to do with any of this."
"She leads you around by the cock, anyone with eyes can see that," he murmured as he flopped rather ungracefully into the chair again. "You embarrass the family, James."
He knew better than to respond, that this insult was just designed to hurt him, to bring into question his manhood and make Thomas feel better about himself as every aspect of his life was crumbling around him. Knowing this didn't dampen the sting of his brother despising him so thoroughly, however, and he turned to leave, realizing any conversation past this point was fruitless.
He stopped with his hand on the large iron handle of the front door, pausing briefly to consider the servant standing there listening, "I am not the one embarrassing the family, Thomas."
The winter wind had died down considerably, so he opted to walk, sending the driver back to the house. It was only twelve or so blocks from Thomas's home to Market Street and he needed the time to think, the loose ends of what he had learned and what he knew he must do slowly winding themselves into a plan.
The city was always quieter when it snowed. The flakes drifted lazily to the ground and the blanket of white seemed to insulate everything from the usual noise, a convenient cover over the stains of humanity's sins, making everything appear clean. The peace, whether real or imagined, allowed his thoughts to be heard more clearly over the din of his responsibilities and guilt and obligations.
Oscar looked at him disparagingly as he appeared, extraordinarily late and in the doorway of the office with a layer of snow on the shoulders of his fine overcoat, and added a disgusted wrinkle of his nose as he shook the excess off it near the coat rack.
"Do you not have a driver?" Mr. Schrute asked briskly from his desk in the corner. "It has been snowing for nearly two days, walking would not be the most efficient means of transportation."
James ignored him and worked his way past the other desks to his office at the opposite end, with only a quick nod acknowledging Oscar as he shut the door behind him.
The words flowed from his pen violently, cursing the time it took to dip it back into the inkwell. He did not consider himself accomplished in elocution in any sense but he could articulate his thoughts in written form fairly well, and on rare occasions, those thoughts transformed themselves eloquently as they spilled from his mind to his hand.
In an extirpation of all the anger and frustration of recent weeks, he held up the resulting opinion for examination, the ink drying carefully into the fibers of the thin paper. Larissa's editorial laid just beyond the space where he had been writing, a few scribbles and notes from Oscar's edit in the margins.
"Oscar!" He called loudly from behind the mountain range of books and papers that lined the front edge of his desk, and as the chief editor whisked the door open in prompt reply, James handed him the two papers.
"Print them. Print them both."
He had once had opium. It was often given to the officers in the battlefield hospitals to relive to pain or dull the senses as one died. The night he was given a large dose, he suspected that the young surgeon that had examined him deemed him in his last hours, mercifully allowing him to slip into oblivion peacefully. He didn't die that night, of course, or the dozens of nights after it.
This felt the same. Truth had no meaning. Time ceased to exist. Everything felt pleasant and lovely as the tip of his nose tingled and he heard colors and tasted sounds.
A man stood in front of him and as he focused on the flapping of his overcoat, a scene appeared around him like a mist. It was the bank of the Delaware in springtime and as the man turned he realized it was his uncle. His father's brother had been a boyhood hero of his except his mind began revolting against what his eyes were seeing.
He had buried his uncle years ago. He had seen him die and had watched the coffin go into the ground. This had to be a dream, he concluded, but the breeze fanned his cheek and the grass beneath his feet crunched as he walked closer, calling his logical mind a liar.
"You have grown so, my nephew."
He was talking now. The dead man was talking and all he could do was stand there dumbly and listen.
"Remember when we would come to this park, you and I, and watch the boats go by?"
He tested his voice and, "I remember," came out strangled and muted.
His dead uncle smiled amicably and looked out across the gently lapping current of the river.
"You should have died in that hospital, James."
"What?" The pleasantness of the reunion seemed to evaporate from around him.
"All of those lives you took. All those men you let down. They trusted you, counted on you."
Everyone else, the river, the breeze, seemed to slip into the murky background and all that was left was his uncle, the silk his top hat standing out against the gray. He turned to look at him again, to try and understand what he was saying except this time his eyes were so depthless and black they seemed to see right through him.
"You are going to lose everything if you are not careful, James," his voice a calm monotone now, and the words seemed to drift through him like a ghost. "You will make her pregnant and lose everything. Philadelphia is not safe for anyone."
His mind scrambled for purchase as the feeling in the pit of his stomach grew and less and less of it made sense, "What do you mean lose everything? What is going to happen to Pam?"
He turned away and James reached out to grab his arm, to demand an explanation. His body was warped and slow now, like walking through mud and his hand grasped at nothingness.
He woke in the center of his own bed, the sheets tangled around his legs, the familiar pattern of the heavy drapes that hung from the four posts staring blankly back at him.
Reaching for her was instinctive, but she wasn't there, and even though the scent of their bodies together lingered, only cooled sheets filled his grip. The high moon lit the room well and he grappled for his pants, fumbling towards the bedroom door.
His uncle's words played over in his mind as he went from room to room looking for her but finding the same nothingness that had surrounded him before.
He pushed the swinging door to the kitchen in escalating panic, and exhaled heavily at the sight of her standing in front of the cookstove in her nightdress, her long hair cascading down her back looking sable in the dim light of one lantern.
She turned around, startled, "Heavens, James, you scared me."
He slumped into the nearest chair as the adrenaline left him suddenly exhausted. She turned from her task again, this time noticing his distress.
"What's wrong? I didn't wake you did I?"
We met her concerned expression with his and smiled comfortingly, "No, love, I just had a bad dream. Although it was less like a nightmare and more like a ..." he shook his head free of the haunting memory of the coldness of his uncle's eyes. "I woke and it worried me when you were not there," he furrowed his brow in question, "What are you doing up at this hour?"
"I couldn't sleep. I thought I might warm some cows milk," she motioned towards the small cast iron saucepan and the cloudy white liquid. The house was still and there were several hours remaining before its walls trembled once again with activity.
She moved it over to the unheated part of the stove surface to cool and bypassed the available chair in favor of his lap, seemingly knowing exactly what he needed, and he pulled her against him seeking her warmth. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders as he sighed contented, the mingled scents of milk and the remains if her perfume and what was undeniably her, surrounded him and his soul rested.
After several minutes his heartbeat slowed and matched in time to hers and he felt her lashes brush against his skin as she blinked. "You are not with child are you?" His quiet words filled the stillness nervously.
She pulled back and looked at him curiously as if he had asked her she was going to join the circus, "Not that I'm aware," she responded slowly, "Why?"
He only shook his head and pulled her back close to him and felt her began to stroke his hair softly with the tips of her fingers, "Although, I'm not exactly sure what to look for other than my courses stopping. Julienne says that is one of the first things."
She pulled back again and looked at him."I'm sorry I haven't given you a child yet. I know that is probably very important to you." Her voice was small and sad and he scrambled to reassure her. Of their many countless conversations, children had only ever come up in the abstract, the assumption that they would one day exist but the when of them had never quite been discussed.
"Please do not ever apologize for such a thing. It will happen when it is supposed to, and not a moment sooner." He relaxed into her again.
"Wait, you discuss things like this with Julienne?"
"Yes, of course."
"Of course," he echoed her, bemused.
"She is a wealth of information. She is much more worldly and experienced than I and the French are not shy about any of the more unmentionable things about relations between a husband and wife."
She dropped one of her hands from around his shoulder and smoothed her fingers across the muscles of his stomach, creating a building heat in him as she danced teasingly close to the top of his partially undone pants.
"Do you want children?" She asked suddenly and he pulled his eyes reluctantly from where they had been chasing the words falling from her mouth with rapt, sudden interest.
"As many as you will give me," he replied honestly. The gnawing worry of his dream getting slowly drowned out by the basic and louder noise of his response to her; fear being replaced incrementally by the ancient pull of the empty place inside her body that craved his.
"Perhaps we should go see what we can do about that," she stood in front of him, making him long for the weight of her now that it was gone.
"What about your milk?" He gestured behind him as she pulled on his arm, leading him through the swinging door.
"Leave it."
James had realized early on in his adulthood that he was a bit of a homebody. He imagined it was derived from a youth full of forced dinner parties, balls, theater performances and operas, but he would much rather be at home and while his circle of acquaintances was quite large, the people he preferred to spend any length of time with had narrowed down to one. Now that he was in charge of the decisions in his life, somewhat, in any case, that was often the choice he made; dinner at home with her. He came to understand rather intuitively that Pam felt differently about matters. She enjoyed seeing others and while he was often at work during the day, around people, she was not. He knew she was lonely, missing not only her family but female companionship. The presence of Julienne had helped and she had become closer to Larrisa but he could not deny her when she asked to go out to dinner or the theater.
Tonight, he had somehow been convinced to join most of the rest of his family at opening night of Il Trovatore, one of his least favorite social endeavors, the opera. Julienne wordlessly pinned up her curls as she sat at the dressing table, pearl crested combs carefully placed amongst the amber waves.
"It is an opera, oui?" Julienne enquired and Pam nodded. "There is something very romantic about an opera, madame. The costumes and the beautifully painted backgrounds," she said wistfully.
The pale yellow dress fit her flawlessly with silk leaves in shades of brown and gold embroidered on the bodice and hem. It was a masterpiece out of the mind of Grégoire and his wife was a perfect canvas for his muse. He would be concerned at the attention the man paid her but he suspected that Grégoire's desires did not lie with the fairer sex anyway.
He tugged at his cufflink, securely fastening the gold piece to the stiff, starched fabric. "I can't convince you to feign illness and stay at home with me, can I? Surely we can come up with some malaise that would prevent us both from going out into the cold."
"James, you spent entirely too much money on this dress to keep it hidden away."
Julienne motioned that she was complete with her task and she stood to face him, the expensive halcyon silk swirling around as she turned.
"Worth every penny," he murmured as his eyes traveled slowly over her and she self-consciously blushed and played with the delicate pearl necklace draped across her chest under his open admiration. He leaned down to kiss her lightly, despite Julienne as an audience, and she tasted like honey and warmth.
"You should be proud to have such a lovely lady on your arm tonight, monsieur," Julienne added as she bent down to straighten the edge of Pam's skirt as it brushed against the polished wooden planks of the floor.
"Oh I am, undoubtedly, I am just not all that interested in sharing her."
The Philadelphia Academy of Music was a relatively newer building, James having recalled visiting it only a handful of times before leaving for the war but he remembered its distinctive rounded arched windows along the facade. That particular evening found them lit up, glowing incandescent over the snowy street where several rows of black hansom cabs were both emptied and filled in a flurry of activity. When they stepped into the open horseshoe of the auditorium with its enormous central chandelier and murals, he heard Pam gasp next to him and clutch his arm tighter.
The gilded private box near the stage that was reserved indefinitely for the Halperts after a rather large donation by his father several years prior, afforded them privacy from the audience below. Pam leaned forward carefully, her gloved hands gripping the carved mahogany tightly, to look at the stage beneath them before sitting back and smiling excitedly in his direction.
"Mother told me that the two of you were coming tonight." Peter slipped into the plush red velvet seat next to him.
"How is Cindy faring? Is it more agreeable than last time?"
Cindy in her 'condition' would not be seen outside of her home now until after the baby came and her size once again met the approval of society. Babies were a blessing but the act of creating them was distasteful and a sin, so by extension seeing a pregnant woman only reminded polite society of that. Even working-class women hid their pregnancies as much as possible. Wealthy women just hid away only to reappear miraculously with a baby several months later.
"She appears to be although there are many weeks still," Peter answered distractedly, his voice tight with worry.
"I called on Thomas yesterday as you requested. He is troubled," James looked out over the raucous noise of the settling crowd below. "and angry, and bitter. Like father, he seemed to blame this entire predicament on me, rather unfairly, I might add. He said they have threatened him again and are following him? Did you know he sent Marcie and Vanessa to Washington? That is probably wise given his current state and the dangers."
Pete nodded in agreement and looked idly down at his hands in pensive thought, "I noticed your rather daring opinions on page three today. Do you mean to stir up more of a hornet's nest?"
"I intend to bring some light on what is going on down there. Perhaps if there is some unwanted attention, they will back off? The other one was your sister."
"My sister?" He asked slightly bemused, "And they might back off or they might redirect their anger at you instead."
"Let them. I'm in a much better position than Thomas is, and I will print every last one of their damn names if they make themselves known." He cast a glance in the direction of their mother, who was sitting primly at the front of the box, hoping she hadn't heard his crass language in mixed company.
Peter turned to him, lowering his voice and motioning to the full skirt on the other side of him, "You have more than yourself to think of now, James, remember that."
James shifted in his seat, slightly away from her with his shoulder, with a hushed hiss, "They wouldn't dare. What kind of goon goes after a woman instead of the one he has a grievance with?"
"The kind that bludgeons people nearly to death for not selling their property. Mr. Wilkes may never walk again, so as I hear. They won't kill someone's family, I suspect, but they will bother her...perhaps worse. Just be careful, James."
Larissa leaned forward casually from the other side of Pam, "There are the Moores, timely as ever."
Across the grand opera house, in the opposite private box, Katy emerged from the heavy red curtains lining the back entrance, followed by her sister and her sister's husband and Mr. and Mrs. Moore, each one finding their seats without so much as a glance in the direction of the Halperts. Even though there were hundreds of people below and a great expanse between them, their presence brought an unpleasant tension over his family around him and guilt pulled at his consciousness once again.
He felt Pam tense next to him, his body so attuned to hers now, and he reached for her hand, bringing her gloved fingers to his lips as the orchestra began its cacophony of sounds in preparation of the performance. The slight nod of her head as she held his gaze and the delicate smile that tugged at the corners of her mouth reminded him of the result of his rebellion and that the cost was well worth it.
Her small hand slipped into his bare one, his gloves still elusive, as he helped her down from the metal step of the carriage, her entire weight falling into him as she lost her footing slightly on the icy ground beneath them.
She smiled up at him from beneath the fur of her hood, "I think the weather is telling us it is time to be inside for the evening."
"Indeed. I am looking forward to the warmth of the fire and my bed."
His casual overture earned him a bemused smirk as she gathered her skirts to navigate the short distance between the carriage and the door of their home.
He glanced up through to open wrought iron of their front gate to see the figures of two people standing under the lit street lamp. As his eyes focused, he could tell it was two men, their unfamiliar faces barely illuminated despite being nearly directly in front of the yellow glow of the flickering lamp. They watched, unabashedly, as he placed his hand on the small of her back and led her inside.
"That was lovely. So much grander than the ones in Richmond and Savannah. I probably sound simple to you, rambling on like this. Your mother seemed to enjoy herself."
Despite the late hour, she still flowed with the energy of the performance, managing to rid herself of her shoes despite the impossible volume of her skirts.
"Will you help me?" She turned in front of him, presenting the buttons of her silk dress and the laces of her corset bound incredibly tight around her body underneath, and he dutifully complied.
"Where is Julienne? Not that I'm complaining, but doesn't helping you undress fall under her duties?"
"I gave her the rest of the evening off," she exhaled as they loosened, one by one. "She was not well earlier today. She barely made it to the privy, poor thing."
"Should we send for a doctor?"
"I asked her and she vehemently claimed it was some bad porridge. I told Eleanore to check the dried goods, though I can't imagine that is the source."
The stiff fabric fell away and he reached up to stroke her hip beneath her shift, placing his lips to her hair still bound and constrained; not in any way to relay a desire to seduce her, merely enjoying the privilege of doing so.
"Don't go to any meetings with Larissa or to Grégoire's without me for a while."
His statement was out of the blue, starting in the middle of a conversation she had not been included in, her having not been inside the constant turning over of events that had plagued his mind since the previous revelations from both his brothers.
She turned to face him, "Why?"
"Just indulge me, please?" He pleaded with her, hoping he would see in his eyes the seriousness of his request as he kissed her forehead, feeling the smooth warm skin there beneath his lips.
"I'm going to have someone from my father's house come and stay here during the day while I am gone to the office. I trust him and he will do until I can find something more permanent. Markus, perhaps he can come stay here..." his stream of consciousness now spoken aloud as his mind constructed a strategy.
"What is going on? Did something happen?"
He looked at her concerned face and realized she had been listening to his not-so-private thoughts as they spilled out of him.
"It's nothing, just some precautions."
"No, don't you dare. Don't treat me like some flower with delicate sensibilities, James."
Her tone startled him and despite the storm swirling in his mind, he smiled at her temper; always enjoying the fiery side of her that made itself known on occasion.
"There were men that followed us home tonight," he began as he pulled at his tie to loosen it. "I printed a couple of controversial editorials." He finished by way of explanation, hoping it would satisfy her.
She looked needlessly out the window, pulling the lace curtain aside to see the sliver of the street visible from that direction, "Since when do editorials warrant such a reaction?"
He should have known it would not.
"When they call out some highly illegal dealings at the shipyards, and giving the vote to women and former slaves. Neither topic wins favor in this city. Thomas has similar concerns so we are all being cautious."
He looked back to her as she sat on the chest at the foot of their bed, half undressed, the questions and concerns written plainly on her face.
"It's probably nothing," he attempted to reassure her. "They are just trying to intimidate me. They weren't hiding tonight, they wanted me to see them. I'm just not willing to risk your safety so please humor me with these likely exaggerated responses."
"Why during the day? If they are trying to intimidate you as you say, why would they not come to the paper?"
"Because they likely know that all they would need to hurt me, is hurt you."
