Gear, W Michael - Novel 05 (2 page)

 
          
 
Here then is the only expedient, from which we
can hope for success in our philosophical researches, to leave the tedious
lingering method, which we have hitherto followed, and instead of taking now
and then a casde or village on the frontier, march up directly to the capital or
center of these sciences, to human nature itself; which being once masters of,
we may everywhere else hope for an easy victory. . . . We must therefore glean
up our experiments in this science from a cautious observation of human life,
and take them as they appear in the common course of the world, by mens
behaviour in company, in affairs, and in their pleasures.

 
          
 
—David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature

 
          
 
Boston
—January 1825

 
          
 
A bitter wind drove an angry chop across the
gray waters of
Boston
Harbor
. Waves slapped the hoar-frosted hulls of
ships snugged against ice-cloaked piers. The gale moaned through the furled
rigging, sang in the taut lines, and whispered past the red-brick buildings
facing the waterfront. It whipped down the cobblestone streets in eddying gusts
that twirled faded bits of paper and soot-speckled snow across patches of dirty
ice. The hanging signs swayed and creaked forlornly over firmly latched oaken
doors.

 
          
 
Driven by the wind, the terrible chill ate
through wraps and woolens until a man's bones ached, and a deep breath seared
the lungs. The few courageous pedestrians shivered as they hurried along
Boston
's slick and winding streets. They scuttled
forward, bent into the wind, coats hugged tightly about them, lost in thoughts
of warm fireplaces and cheery stoves. Exposed flesh prickled as the relentless
blow tore frosty breath from nose or mouth to hustle it away into the gray
afternoon.

 
          
 
The freezing wind bulled across the Commons to
rattle the paned windows of an imposing house. It surged against the firm brick
walls, twisted at the gables, and wormed around the fretwork and trim; but the
house stood as solidly as the stout man poised behind the quivering
second-story windows.

 
          
 
Like a master at the wheel of his ship,
Phillip Hamilton had his feet braced, hands clasped behind him. A black
cummerbund graced his thickened waist and snugged the crisp white shirt. A
full-cut coat hung from his shoulders. Once so broad, they had bowed with age.

 
          
 
His rough-hewn face looked bulldoggish. The
stubby nose might have been mashed onto the thick cheeks. Lines strained the
pale skin around his clamped mouth as though he were enduring pain, and hard
gray eyes glared out at the world from under grizzled brows. His brown hair was
shot through with silver now, and pulled back into a severe pony-tail—archaic,
given the fashions of the time.

 
          
 
Phillip Hamilton lifted his chin as he caught
sight of the figure that rounded a far corner, glanced back and forth, and
started irresolutely across the track-dimpled Commons. Against the powdery
white background, the young man seemed to be a wavering apparition, hardly
human in form. He progressed in halting, uncertain steps, peeking at the house
as if he could sense Phillip's hard gaze.

 
          
 
Is there nothing of me in him?

 
          
 
Richard John Charles Hamilton—Phillip
Hamilton's only son—shuffled his way through the drifted snow. From Phillip's
window he looked as if he were taking an absurd pleasure in the agony of his
cold feet and the needling sting on his half-frozen face.

 
          
 
Phillip rocked on his feet, frustration
wrapping around his heart. Damn it, just once couldn't the boy act like a man?
Walk with pride in his step, head back?

 
          
 
Not when he understands what is about to
happen. Surely he must know why I've sent for him.

 
          
 
Phillip snorted, fortifying himself. Dealing
with will-o'-the-wisp Richard always agitated him, set his stomach to churning.
God's blood, if the boy didn't grovel so, maybe it wouldn't be so tempting to
grind him down. A little backbone, that's all it would take.

 
          
 
My fault. . . all my fault.

 
          
 
Richard stamped snow from his feet as he
stepped onto
Beacon Street
. He thrust balled fists deeper into his coat and kicked at a pile of
frozen horse manure.

 
          
 
Come on, boy. Let's get it over. It's just as
hard for me as it will be for you.

 
          
 
The trees on the Commons formed a black lace
of branches, stark against the sullen gray-white sky. Occasional crystals of
ice drifted down, dancing in the numbing wind. Richard raised his apprehensive
gaze to his father's redbrick house.

 
          
 
Phillip instinctively stepped back into the
shadows. To either side of the bulging bay windows hung the Belgian lace
curtains Phillip's wife had once delighted in.

 
          
 
Thoughts of her touched that deep-seated
callus of anxiety and grief. I should have been there for Caroline. His eyes
narrowed as he watched the boy. And for him.

 
          
 
He'd been at sea when Caroline bore Richard.
During the following weeks when her life ebbed slowly out of her body, Phillip
had been in
Paris
,
Madrid
, and
Amsterdam
, negotiating the agreements that would make his fortune.

 
          
 
What God gives with one hand, He takes with
the other. A triumphant Phillip Hamilton had returned to his house one week to
the day after his wife's death. And, there, had encountered the end of his
dreams—and an infant son lying in a wet nurse's arms.

 
          
 
Phillip craned his neck to see the street
below.

 
          
 
Richard had slowed to a stop in the center of
the street, and his thin body erupted in shivers. With a mittened hand, he
reached up to brush a loose strand of honey brown hair from his sensitive brown
eyes.

 
          
 
Caroline's eyes. You can see so much of her in
him. But where is that spark of daring and courage? How could he have so many
of her looks, but so little of her spirit?

 
          
 
Richard had received his father's summons that
morning. Jeffry, Phillip's household servant, had described the young man
crouched by the tiny tin stove in his rented room, cocooned in threadbare
blankets, studying a new translation of Hegel's Phenomenology of Mind.

 
          
 
Phenomenology of mind? What kind of idiocy
could that be?

 
          
 
Upon sight of Jeffry, the boy had gone pale,
his hand trembling as he broke the wax seal and read the note. Phillip's
perfectly formed letters stated: Richard, I need to see you immediately to
discuss your situation. A carriage is waiting for you downstairs.

 
          
 
For long moments Richard had stared glumly
through the panes of his little window, the sill delicately mantled with snow.

 
          
 
Jeffry had reported him as saying, "I
can't come now. Not now. I—I'm feeling poorly."

 
          
 
In his preoccupation, he had accidentally
kicked over the clutter of empty wine and ale bottles amassed along one wall.
They had rolled across the slanted floor in a tinkling racket.

 
          
 
"Your father's carriage is downstairs."
Jeffry had that cold, precise nature about him. Phillip could imagine him,
standing tall, black face as graven as solid walnut.

 
          
 
"I have errands," Richard had
stated, and Phillip could imagine the tremor in the young man's voice.
"I'll be there as soon as I can. Tell him . .. tell him at one. I'll be
there at one."

 
          
 
Jeffry had inclined his head, taken his leave,
and reported back. Phillip needn't glance at the old ship's clock to tell that
it now lacked fifteen minutes of two. And there the boy stood, shivering in the
snow, trying to muster the guts to knock at his father's door.

 
          
 
So, where had the boy been? That student's
hideout, no doubt: Fenno's Tavern on
Washington Street
. Was that it? Did young Richard need a
stiff shot of whiskey just to face his father?

 
          
 
I've failed. . .failed miserably. From the
shadows behind the lace curtains, Phillip watched his son close his eyes,
breath puffing before his thin face. He'd be a handsome young man were there a
little color to his cheeks, a little meat to his shoulders and arms. The high
brow, the thin nose, both spoke of aristocracy and privilege—of everything
Phillip Hamilton could never have been or had were he not American.

 
          
 
Apparently, Richard nerved himself. One by one
he climbed the steps and reached for the ornate knocker on the heavy door.

 
          
 
The hollow sound carried to Phillip's
second-story study.

 
          
 
They had fought this same battle many times
before. Richard, for all his talk of philosophy, freedom, and natural law,
clung desperately to the umbilical cord of Phillip's purse. It seemed that one
could not be a philosopher unless one had a wealthy father to support the
luxury.

 
          
 
Today, however, Richard's luxury was coming to
an end.

 
          
 
Rousseau .. . yes, Rousseau, Richard liked to
imagine himself as a man in the state of nature, possessed only of virtue and
happiness. What had the boy said that day? Yes . . . ' 'Father, you have
embraced all the curses of civilization: property, money, power, greed, and the
corruption of the soul that led one man to place another in bondage."

 
          
 
And he'd had the audacity to say that at the
very instant that Jeffry was ladling soup into Richard's silver bowl!

 
          
 
"Father, you find no study more
fascinating than a ledger page. All you do is hunch at your cherrywood desk,
peering at your books by the light of an oil lamp. You call that life?
Balancing figures over and over again?"

 
          
 
Yes, boy. Those figures keep your belly full
and buy your books. Or, at least, they have up until now.

 
          
 
The younger
Hamilton
claimed that civilization had fallen from
God's natural grace.

 
          
 
Well, boy, you may have God's grace.
Unfortunately, today you 7/ have to deal with mine.

 
          
 
The heavy door downstairs closed with
finality.

 
          
 
Phillip sighed, hitched around on his good
leg, and stumped across the ornate parlor. After the death of his wife, Phillip
had practically lived here, behind the cherrywood desk, surrounded by his
fortress of ledgers. Here he'd made war on the markets with tobacco, rum,
slaves, lace, tinware, porcelain, muskets, glassware, tea, and all the other
things that ebbed and flowed in the international trade. He'd lost ships and
crews to hurricanes, icebergs, pirates, disease, and impressment. He'd battled
tariffs, interest, and insurance with the same fiery spirit that he'd once
shown the British. Just over there, across the bay at
Breed's Hill
.