The End of Innocence by Allegra Jordan Read Free Book Online Page B

and, as was the wont of Brooks men, it was traditional: a redbrick Federal with two floors and a basement, two central chimneys, and white-painted windows outlined by black shutters. Gas lanterns lit the bright red front door, and by the wide slate steps at the front visitors found an iron boot wipe bolted into a moss-covered stone.
    The interior of the house, given the disposition of its inhabitants, was slightly less bucolic. Some maintained that a house divided against itself could not stand, but the new Mr. and Mrs. Brooks found just the opposite to be true. Over the decades of their marriage they found that the more divided their house, the more secure the peace.
    And thus, in the first room off the main hallway, the parlor, Helen’s mother, a Windship from Boston, established her territory. Before Merriam had married Jonathan, the Brooks family had stuffed its statues and paintings, chairs, and books in the room. The day after the wedding, Merriam donated the overage of books to the Boston Public Library, an act which, according to friends, had sent her fragile father-in-law to an early grave. He was not against charity, but giving his books away was equivalent of letting all of his blood.
    Her parlor was then transformed into a room decidedly different from the rest of the house. It was distinctly feminine, with stuffed floral chairs and white walls set with borders of silver silk damask. White tasseled lamps lit the ceilings and alcoves where various carved owls and ancient goddesses sat looking stately. On one wall hung a large sepia portrait of Merriam Brooks as Athena, and on another, a picture of Seneca Falls.
    Mailing supplies overflowed the room’s central table, including boxes of Family Limitation , the dreaded sixteen-page tract (illustrated) on how not to have children. This was the pamphlet that had caused so much trouble. Carved into the mantel were the words of Saint Paul, “Love Bears All Things.” Each Brooks family member was convinced it spoke of his or her own martyrdom.
    This had been a silent room over the summer. In March, Mrs. Brooks had left for an extended visit with Margaret Sanger, a nurse she had met at the 1912 Industrial Workers of the World strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts. But ever since her return in early August, Merriam had rarely been around. She now spent her time in the winding corridors of the Boston tenements or with her lawyers. Initially, the state and federal authorities had sought to compromise on her repeated violations of the decency laws by mailing Family Limitation to local women. But City Hall had been particularly stubborn. Unfortunately for Mrs. Brooks, it was an election year for several city bosses who ran on morality and decency platforms.
    Helen viewed these activities in an entirely different light from her neighbors, but one even more damning. Her mother’s cause was ostensibly to provide better health care for the families of the women and children of Boston’s slums, but Helen had noticed over the past few years that if her mother’s hands were idle, she’d find a new problem to solve that would remove her further from her own family at Merrimack Hill. Two years ago it was workers’ rights. This year she worked for family limitation and equal voting rights, both of which, Mrs. Brooks felt, would contribute to better health for women. Next year, it would be something else.
    Helen, who was not a worker, not poor, and was in good health, knew she was of little interest to her mother. Her father had raised her. The two of them spent most of their time in the library, as far removed from the atmosphere of the parlor as was possible.
    The library was a very different sort of room: leather-covered chairs; books carefully cataloged by author and subject; wine-red walls hung with family portraits (of relatives other than themselves); and a bust of Edmund Burke in a dark alcove. On the mantel of the redbrick fireplace sat models of