Guardians of the Dream

By Joseph J. Sollish

Guardians of the Dream is a sequel to Gates of Horn and Ivory, continuing the story of Cornelius and Vanessa Maximilian and the unique town they built on the site of a restored coal mine in 1893. The years carry the town and the family through the destructive machinations of their son, the Great War, the crash of 1929, and the ensuing Depression, each a test of the endurance of the family and the love that binds them to each other and the town.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 5, 2001
• ISBN: 9781462831883

Joseph J. Sollish

Joseph J. Sollish is the author of seven novels, Gates of Horn and Ivory, Guardians of the Dream, Tell Me a Story, No More Tears, Bless the Children, Casey Calhoun, and Family Forever. He has also published Halls of Academe, a collection of thirteen new short stories. Sollish lives in Los Angeles with his wife of fifty years, Claudia.

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Copyright © 2001 by Joseph J. Sollish.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

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Contents

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TO MY WIFE, CLAUDIA, AND MY DAUGHTERS, ERIKA, ROBIN, AND BONNIE, AND TO THE MANY READERS OF GATES OF HORN AND IVORY

WHO URGED ME TO CONTINUE TELLING THE MAXIMILIAN SAGA.

1

With the late afternoon sun pale in the window of her sitting room, Vanessa Maximilian spread her son’s letters across her marquetry writing desk, as she had done so many times before. Studying the smudged, almost illegible postmarks on the worn envelopes, she traced Joshua’s wanderings through Mexico, Costa Rica, Venezuela, Argentina, and finally, the most recent letter, marked Panama, July 23, 1916, four months earlier. As were all the others, it was addressed not to her, but to Anna, Joshua’s younger sister.

Dear Sis,

Just arrived in Panama City. Well, actually, I’ve been here myself for about a week, I think, waiting for Freddie Willens to finally show up. What a sap. He got lost again, he said. We got separated on the trip north from Buenos Aires and he had all our money, but it’s okay now. You should see this town. I’d thought I’d gotten used to crowded, filthy places, but this one takes the cake. Sure is nothing like good old PM, where you can practically eat off the pavements. But old Freddie and I, we’re having a grand time, living the great life, not a care in the world, as always. Your loving brother, Joshua

Fighting back her tears, Vanessa re-read the letter, her trembling fingers gently tracing across the words as if to establish contact with her son by caressing the pencil marks he had scrawled on the paper. Shuddering, she relived that wintry night when the special security guard at the Port Maximilian coal mine, alerted by her warning, had apprehended Joshua placing explosives, blasting caps, and detonator fuze in an attempt to destroy the mine.

You were right, ma’am, the guard had said as he marched Joshua, with shotgun at his back, to the iron-roofed shed where Vanessa had stood in the shadows, watching Joshua cowering in the beam of the guard’s flashlight.

Mother! Joshua had shouted as she threw back her cowl and stepped into the light, her golden hair shining. How glad I am to see you! This idiot almost shot me! Would you please tell him who I am?

He knows who you are, Joshua, Vanessa said, then turned to the guard. Thank you. Thank you very much. Now leave him to me, please. She hesitated. And please, not a word of this to anyone. No reports of any kind, is that clear?

If you say so, ma’am, the guard reluctantly agreed, eyeing Joshua. He touched two fingers to his cap in salute, saying, I best be disarming the dynamite, before hurrying off to the mine shaft.

Shivering beneath his coat, Joshua said, Mother, I know what you’re thinking-

She had fought back tears as he tried to put his arms around her and she pushed him away. He shrank back, cringing, as if expecting a blow.

I don’t know what I did wrong, she said, but whatever I did, to make you what you are, I can’t take it back. But I can put a stop to it all right now.

Mother, listen. He fell to his knees, reaching for her hands, which she pulled away. Don’t tell Father. Please. He doesn’t understand. Mother, Mother, listen to me. Please. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything I’ve done. I didn’t mean it, honest. I’m sorry. I won’t do it again. I won’t. I promise!

Stop your sniveling, she had snapped at him. I’m not going to say a word to your father. Or anyone. Because this never happened, none of it. She drew in her breath sharply, in anticipation of the next words to come from her mouth. You are going to leave, now. Leave this place, this town, our house. Your father will think you just ran off after your argument with him. The way you always do. She paused, struggling to control her voice. Only this time, Joshua, you won’t come back. Ever.

She remembered how he had looked about fearfully, scanning the darkness beyond them, then scrambling to his feet.

But I thought you loved me, Mother. You were the only person I could always turn to. No matter what happened, what I did. All my life, you were there.

She recalled her words as she pulled the hood closer around her neck, feeling the chill of the night deep within herself. I heard every word you said to your father tonight. I know what you’ve been doing to hurt him. And when I followed you- She broke off. Where does all this-this venom come from, Joshua? I look back on every day of your life since you were born and I blame myself, but that doesn’t help. She sighed. I should just turn you over to the police like the common criminal you are, but that would only hurt your father still more.

Mother, listen to me, he had implored. I’ll change. I will. I promise.

She stiffened. Go. Now. And don’t come back. I never want to see you again.

He retreated one step. Then his lip curled into a snarl. You never loved me either! he sneered. It was always him! He spat the last word out as though to rid himself of a bad taste in his mouth.

Yes, Joshua, it was always him, she responded, even though, when you came, I gave you all the love that was in my heart because you seemed to need it more. But how could so much hate come from so much love?

She turned away when his attack quickly became desperate pleading, closing her ears to his whimpers of, But where will I go? How will I live? She heard his frantic footsteps behind her as she strode quickly to her roadster and pulled open the door. As she drove away, she could see him in her rear-view mirror, a sight she would never forget, a forlorn figure, arms outstretched helplessly, receding, growing smaller and smaller and finally disappearing into the black of night.

But she had been all through that, she now told herself with sudden clarity and determination, and would never again permit guilt and remorse to overwhelm her as they had during the months following Joshua’s departure. Even though it still pained her deeply that their son could bear such malevolence toward his father that he wanted to destroy everything the captain had built, that such hatred could come from all the love she had poured out to him, she knew she had saved the mine and the town at the sacrifice of her son. Only the love of her husband, and her daughter, Anna, had helped her survive those sun-less days when she had hid from herself and the world in the great house high up on Captain’s Way, stricken helpless by the guilty fear that Joshua might have joined the fighting in Europe to die in some trench in France trying to prove he could finally do something worthwhile with his life, or, more likely, just to spite his father once more. How relieved she had been when Anna received that first letter saying he was alive and safe in Mexico.

A deep sigh echoing throughout her body, she collected the letters and returned them to Anna’s tapestried box. Pulling a pink silk shawl across her shoulders, she pushed through French doors and stepped out on her balcony, to gaze across the valley toward Port Maximilian.

At 50, Vanessa Maximilian, with her golden hair, her green eyes flaked with gold, and her tall, proud figure, was still the beautiful, majestic woman who had married the sea captain twenty-four years earlier and helped him build the town that bore his name. How well she remembered those years, when, as Vanessa Tompkins, she first dared to journey to the Shelbourne coal mine. Savoring those delicious feelings of boldness and independence, and smiling at the mischief she had wrought by her outrageous suggestion, she recalled how Sir John Fletcher, representative of the English owners, had been scandalized, horrified, when she insisted on accompanying him to the mine. Listening to her proposal was a tall, black-bearded figure in the gold braid of a ship’s captain, Cornelius Maximilian, unfairly dismissed from the merchant service and now in the employ of the Shelbourne mine. It was then, in Baltimore, in the parlor of the Tompkins house on Charles Street, when Maximilian’s gentle, understanding support had helped her overcome the Englishman’s objections, that she had known in her heart that he was the man she loved and would marry. She remembered descending deep into the mine, to witness the harrowing work of the coal miners for a few suffocating moments, then sharing the captain’s shock and dismay at beholding the dismal lives of the immigrant families, crowded into wretched hovels through which the cold wind swept mercilessly, cheated and exploited at every turn by Shelbourne’s avaricious manager, Walter Clyve.

She remembered how the captain had shared his dream with her as they lay under a starry sky, that one day he would build a new town, where miners and their families would live in comfortable homes, send their children to school, not to work down in the foul air of the mine, and where the profits from the mine would support the town and its services, without rents or taxes. When Shelbourne mine was flooded by an underground river and abandoned by its English owners, it was Vanessa who had provided the money from her family’s Baltimore shipping business to enable the captain to realize his dream by secretly draining and resurrecting the mine and creating the new town of Port Maximilian, aided by his great friend, the engineer and inventor Andrew Campbell.

Now, twenty-four years later, she gazed down at the town they had built spread out below, slate-roofed brick-and-siding homes with their private yards, the broad, grassy Common gracing Town Hall and Court House, inviting shops on the main thoroughfare, Harbor Street, intersected by Bridge Street, Waters Avenue, Shoals Place, River Lane, and Lighthouse Road. In the distance, at the southernmost end of town, she glimpsed the stone bridge over the ribbon of a creek which had once been the fierce underground river that had flooded Shelbourne mine. She smiled, remembering that Campbell had sardonically named it the River Clyve, after the scoundrel mine manager who had precipitated the riot at Shelbourne by cheating the miners (and the English owners as well), and who had narrowly escaped with his life when the rebellious miners thirsted for his blood. She sighed, not doubting for a moment that it had all been worth the struggle, the battles against the envious, the power-hungry, and the spiteful. Yet her heart still ached for the son she had lost out of love for her husband.

Startled from her reverie by a sound at her back, Vanessa turned. Anna had entered the sitting room. At 21, she was tall and slender, with black hair falling to her shoulders, and deep, warm, dark eyes, like her father’s.

Oh, Mama! I didn’t know you were home. I thought you were at the college.

No, I played hooky today. I suspect Mrs. Magruder can manage Martha Tompkins without me. Or would prefer to, anyway.

Anna smiled, but the smile turned to sadness when she saw her tapestried box on the writing desk. Following her eyes, Vanessa said, I hope you don’t mind my borrowing your letters. She shrugged. I was just wondering about him. Again.

Worrying would be the better word. Anna put her arms around her mother’s shoulders. I thought you were over all that, Ma.

I can’t help myself. It’s a perilous world. She pressed close to her daughter. I worry about you, too.

Anna nodded, straightening. I’m sure he’s all right. Joshua has a way of landing on his feet every time. Like a cat with nine lives.

We—you haven’t had a letter from him in months.

They’ve been traveling I suppose. The moment he and his pal Freddie settle in a new country we’ll have another letter. You’ll see. She picked up her box. I’m off to the Rangelee’s. Ben’s mother has invited me to dinner.

You spend more time there than with your father and me, it seems.

I’m sitting for my portrait, Mama, Anna said, her dark eyes shining. Ben’s painting me.

But it’s so late. Vanessa smiled. I thought painters needed the light.

Anna shrugged, looking toward the window. There’s still some, if I hurry.

Vanessa shook her head. Just keep your clothes on, please. No nudes, descending the staircase or otherwise.

Mama! Anna grinned. She kissed her mother’s cheek and was gone.

Bicycling along Harbor Street, the main thoroughfare of Port Maximilian, Anna passed shops which were already lighted in the deepening dusk. The air was crisp, sharp about her nose and ears. Her mittened hands clutched the handlebars. She wore a heavy blue-and-gold Tompkins College sweater emblazoned with a T, and a knitted stocking cap. Thanksgiving Day would be coming soon, she was reminded by pumpkins in front of Thalman’s Hardware. She rang her bell and waved at an open truck full of miners on their way to the second shift, and slipped by the knot of people always collected around the War News bulletins posted outside the Clarion. She had already read about the failure of the Russian counterattack and the revolution which was certain to eliminate the Russians from the war. President Wilson was reported insisting that the United States maintain strict neutrality, in spite of outrageous German sabotage, including the monstrous Black Tom ammunition explosion near the Statue of Liberty. Many Port Maximilians seethed over these unpunished ‘acts of war,’ stirred up by Samuel Gregory’s fiery Clarion editorials. Someone had smashed the window of Spiegel’s delicatessen and painted ‘Huns Go Home’ on the door of their Bridge Street house. All of that was ridiculous, she told herself, because many of the miners and others who had settled in Port Maximilian when the town was first built were German immigrants, as well as Poles, Italians, Russians, Swedes, and Hungarians. Nevertheless, the Clarion continued to incite hate and joined Teddy Roosevelt in sneering at President Wilson’s ‘cowardice,’ but in the election just passed, Captain Maximilian had vigorously supported the president; Wilson had been re-elected on the campaign theme, ‘He kept us out of war.’

Anna had fallen in love with Ben Rangelee a year earlier, though they had known each other all through Port Maximilian grammar school and the county high school. His father worked in the local post office. When Ben had left for Temple University in Philadelphia, and