The Americans (5 page)

man, Mr. Make-A-Lister." Society's prime minister turned purple when Gideon applied the scornful name the newspapers had given him. But he had no time to utter a protest because Gideon immediately knocked him down with one punch.

Gideon usually rose before sunup. His work day seldom ended until nine or ten at night. This evening was no exception. After a light supper, he retired to the library of the splendid three-story Federal brick house that he'd purchased when he and Julia returned to Boston in 1878. He had paid the exorbitant asking price solely because Philip and Amanda Kent had both owned the residence during their lifetimes. Gideon intended to see that the house never slipped out of the family again. On Beacon Street below the library window, gas lamps glimmered, as they did above Gideon's large desk. Immediately after moving in, he'd taken over the library and converted it to an office. Wires hung from several holes in the plaster. The house would presently be electrified with some of Mr. Edison's lamps. And Gideon planned to install a telephone as soon as long distance lines were available between Boston and New York. At present he could only phone long distance to Lowell. Who the hell wanted to call Lowell? Puffing on a cigar, he settled down to work just about the time Carter was leading the donkey into Eisler's stable. Gideon's own son was upstairs in his room, studying, Gideon presumed Will attended the excellent Boston Latin School; Carter's wayward behavior at the Adams Academy had put the name Kent in such disfavor, Will could not possibly have gone there. Gideon reminded himself to look in on his son later. Over the library mantel hung the sword and rifle Philip Kent had collected in the early years of the Revolution. The rifle was the kind commonly called a Kentucky; the sword, a French grenadier's briquet. On the mantel itself stood the original green glass bottle of tea Philip had brought home from Mr. Adams' tea party. All the other family mementoes were displayed in the library as well. A glass case contained the medallion struck by Gilbert Kent, Philip's second son, as well as the bracelet of tarred cordage from Old Ironsides, on which Philip's grandson Tared-Gideon's grandfather-had served. Nearby hung the oil portrait of Philip himself, painted when he was an affluent, middle-aged Boston printer. On the wall opposite, Gideon had put the framed Auguste Renoir cartoon depicting Matt and his wife, Dolly, dancing at a Paris cabaret before their permanent separation. Dolly was now teaching school at an army post in India, and raising her son, Tom. Next to the cartoon hung Gideon's contribution-a decidedly inferior one, in his opinion. Strictly speaking, he had contributed nothing, merely rediscovered a memento left by another. When he'd moved in, he had come across it in a packing crate that had evidently been abandoned in the cellar years ago. Now it was displayed as befitted a treasure-nestled in a velvet background under glass contained by a thick walnut frame. It was a splinter of wood, four inches long. He had found the splinter wrapped in oilskin and shoved in among rotted garments in the packing case. One moldering coat bore a legible label. G. Kent. From that, Gideon knew he'd found the lost piece of the mast of Old Ironsides which Jared had brought home to Gilbert from the War of 1812. Gilbert's correspondence had referred to the sliver of wood, but no Kent had seen it until Gideon chanced upon the crate. For a moment he felt tired, reluctant to attack the papers piled on his desk. Very little had changed since New Year's night. He'd made no progress in solving the problems which had sent him wandering the docks that evening and many evenings since. If anything, one of the problems had grown worse. Carter had taken to roistering more and studying even less. Gideon hadn't suffered a recurrence of the chest pain, though. That was the only part of the situation which had unproved. With a sigh, he picked up the first paper. It was a detailed cost estimate from the Herreshoff Company in Bristol, Rhode Island. John Herreshoff and his younger brother, Captain Nat, built steam launches for the United States and torpedo boats for other countries. Lately they'd introduced a new kind of pleasure boat-a small steam yacht noteworthy for its speed and economy. Gideon was negotiating for construction of an eighty-five foot vessel that would incorporate one of the Herreshoffs' innovative triple-expansion engines. He could easily have afforded one

it of the much larger floating palaces of the kind skippered by Astor, Gould, and Bennett. A Herreshoff yacht was more to his taste. He intended to christen it Auvergne, after the region in France where Philip had been born. He studied the estimate for ten minutes, wrote several questions on the margin and approved the total, appending a note to the Herreshoffs asking them to proceed with all speed. Next he read a memorandum from his banker, Joshua Rothman. It informed him that the New England Telephone and Telegraph Company could now make service available between his home and the Rothman Bank. Except for communication between cities, Gideon considered Mr. Bell's telephones an impractical novelty. But he liked to surround himself with the latest gadgets, so he scribbled a note to the bank officer who handled details of his account. The note authorized installation of a line. To the first note he pinned a second one approving a new roof for the family home at Long Branch, New Jersey, where his father's widow, Molly, a near-invalid now, lived the year round. He turned to a belated letter of appreciation from the young Irishman, Oscar Wilde, with whom Gideon and his Beacon Hill neighbor, William Dean Howells, had shared a delightful evening at the Kent dinner table the preceding year. Boston had been one of the stops on Wilde's American lecture tour. Gideon and Howells-both of whom favored the new, more realistic approach to literature which Howells practiced in his novels-had jumped at the chance to entertain the young aesthete. The country's chief defender of old-fashioned literary virtue, Edmund Clarence Stedman of New York-"The Mrs. Astor of poesy," Gideon called him with great sarcasm-had been outraged by some of Wilde's earlier pronouncements, and had written the Boston newspapers in an effort to persuade the literary community to ignore him when he came to town. In response, Gideon invited Wilde to dine. He'd asked Howells to join them to make sure Stedman was properly affronted. Oscar Wilde had turned out to be a moon-faced, brown- eyed chap. He had lank, dark hair which hung around his ears, and a manner that was languid and faintly decadent. But there was something delightful about him, too. Entering the United States, he'd told them at the dinner table, he had been questioned by customs officials. "I replied that I had nothing to declare except my genius." After reading Wilde's letter, Gideon put it aside to save. Then he turned to the competitive newspapers delivered every day by special messenger from New York. He spent an hour with the papers. Buried in a back column of the Times he found an item about a new type of outdoor pageant being tried out in Omaha by Buffalo Bill Cody. Something called a Wild West show. The Times was too dignified to give it more than a paragraph, but Gideon quickly got on the telegraph transmitter which served in lieu of a telephone. The private wire linked the house with the editorial rooms of the Union down on Park Row. Gideon had taught himself telegraphy so he wouldn't have to rely on intermediaries to transmit confidential instructions. He clicked off his message. Five minutes later, he received confirmation that a reporter would be dispatched to Omaha to see the outdoor show and write an article about it. The Union needed a steady supply of colorful copy. Theo Payne, the paper's superb editor, was nearing seventy, but his judgment was as keen as ever. He constantly reminded his employer that competition among New York dailies was intensifying every day. Neither Payne nor Gideon was as smug as some newspapermen about the arrival of Joe Pulitzer, who was taking over the World. Like Gideon, Pulitzer was something of a crusader. But Pulitzer also had fewer scruples about printing items of a sensational or sordid nature. He knew how to get a newspaper read by those who counted most-ordinary people. Now Gideon proceeded to write down some thoughts for a long, long letter to Payne on the subject of trying to enliven all sections of the paper. A last glance at the Times brought a smile to Gideon's face. Eleanor was mentioned in the column headed Theatrical Gossip. In fact she was referred to as "one of the country's most talented young actresses." In the next line, her name was linked romantically with one of her fellow players, "the handsome Mr. Leo Goldman." Leo Goldman had pursued Eleanor ever since they were young members of an amateur theater club in New York City. Leo would marry Eleanor eventually, Gideon supposed. He admired Leo, who was talented, ambitious and bright. But he hated to think of Eleanor being forced to deal with bigotry all her life, as she surely would be if she became the wife of someone of the Jewish faith. And of course, the more deeply she involved herself in the theater, the less interested she would be in the affairs of the Kents. His last task was to write a special editorial for the Union. It had been stewing in his head for weeks. In three quick paragraphs, he reiterated the Union's endorsement of the Pendleton Act, which had become law over President Arthur's signature in January. The act removed about twelve percent of Federal jobs from the realm of patronage and made them subject to competitive examinations. It also established a commission to oversee the civil service. The snivel service, as one of the act's disgruntled opponents, Senator Roscoe Conkling, called it. The act had been passed as a direct result of President Garfield's assassination in '81. The president had been shot by a man named Charles Guiteau, who had expected a Federal patronage job and failed to get it. Gideon's editorial lashed the Congress for waiting for a tragedy before passing needed legislation. He headed the editorial Must Someone Always Die? He feared he knew the answer to the question. Congress seldom acted swiftly or decisively until jolted by some disaster. On a scrap of paper he scribbled a reminder about another editorial he ought to compose soon. Something had to be done to set up better machinery for presidential succession. The Constitution was vague on the procedure, and while Garfield lay dying with a bullet in him, the country had in effect been leaderless for three months. A small clock showed Gideon the hour. Almost eleven. He hadn't heard Carter come in yet. No wonder the young man was failing most of his courses. A frown on his face, Gideon climbed the stairs to the second floor, passed the door to his wife's sitting room and looked in on Will, who was under the sheet devouring a paper-covered ten cent novel about Bill Cody. "Time to put out the light," Gideon said. His voice still bore traces of the soft, rhythmic speech of his native Virginia. Will yawned. He was a stocky boy of fourteen with I brown eyes, brown hair, and features that favored his late I- mother. When he lost the adolescent fat still showing in his cheeks, he'd be good looking-though never as handsome as Carter, of course. "All right, Papa." "Did you finish your school work before you turned to great literature?" Gideon asked with a smile. "Yes, sir. Barely. The math gets me down. I can't do it." "Of course you can! A person can do anything if he puts his mind to it." Will looked doubtful. Gideon was sorry he'd snapped. "Did you ride today?" "For an hour. The mare almost threw me, though." "Ask them to rent you a different horse next time." "All right." From the boy's expression, Gideon knew he probably wouldn't have the nerve to make the request. "You have the makings of a fine horseman, W. Maybe you'd like to learn to drive four-in-hand." Will's face lit up. "Yes, sir, I surely would." Hesitancy then. "At least, I'd like to try to learn it-was Gideon pretended he hadn't heard the last sentence. "Good. We'll do something about that. Coaching's a coming sport." "That's what Carter said a few days ago." Gideon scowled. No statement was ever true unless it bore Carter's imprimatur. "Is Carter back yet?" Will asked. In spite of Gideon's good intentions, the scowl deepened. "No. Why?" "I need to ask him a question." "What about?" "Oh, just something." "Could I answer it?" I'd rather ach"k him. It's something to do with fellows our I I I age." His "And a graybeard like me wouldn't understand?" Will smiled back. "Your beard isn't gray. Well, not very." "What about your question?" Again the boy's eyes shifted elsewhere. "It can wait until I see Carter." "AH right. Good night." Gideon leaned down and squeezed his son's arm. The boy had grown self-conscious about being kissed by his parents. As Gideon left the bedroom, he tried not to be annoyed by Will's blind affection for his stepbrother. Perhaps Will owed that to Carter. After all, it was Carter who had moved in with the Kents after Margaret's death and given Will the comradeship the younger boy so desperately needed. Carter had done what no adult could. By serving as a brother and surrogate father combined, he'd restored a little of the zest for living which Margaret's crazed behavior had driven out of her son. But it was disturbing to Gideon that Will had become dependent on Carter for the answer to virtually every question. He ought to discuss the situation with Julia, and soon. Will's lack of confidence was a problem already beyond solution, Gideon feared. It was also a mystery he suspected he'd never solve; Will absolutely refused to discuss it. What on God's earth had caused the boy to think so poorly of himself? CHAPTER VI Midnight Visitor THE ANSWER TO GIDEON'S question lay hidden in the past. Not all of Margaret Kent's cruelties and deceptions had died with her, on that July night in 1877 when the mansion at Fifth Avenue and Sixty-first Street, New York, had been invaded and ransacked by men sent by one of Gideon's enemies. Just before Margaret fled from the men and accidentally plunged through a second floor window in a fall that took her life, her mind had cleared. For a moment or so she was blessedly free of the all but ungovernable madness which, combined with the effects of her alcoholism, had made her concoct schemes to drive a wedge between her husband and Eleanor. In that brief period of clarity, Margaret's long-suppressed maternal love reasserted itself. She warned Will to remain in his room with the door bolted. Seconds later, the invaders appeared at the end of the hall. Margaret ran from them, and died- Leaving a frightened and bewildered boy of eight crouching behind a locked door. His mother's last lucid act had been totally unlike the behavior she'd exhibited toward him for the past several months. It had become a game, her tormenting him. No, worse than a game, for in each of their encounters she managed *ffccvey a loathing for her son. She reinforced that loathing with an instrument that filled Will Kent with utter terror-a rod cut from a stout hickory limb she had somehow secured from Central Park. Margaret beat him with the rod whenever he displeased her. And she arranged situations to insure that he would displease her. On each occasion, she warned Will that the slightest mention of the rod would be punishable by even worse reprisals. Over a period of a year or so, the boy suffered beating after beating because of a misguided and desperate hope: by putting up with pain-by enduring Margaret's abuse-he thought he could win the approval and the love he seemed unable to win merely by being her son. Will took what his mother gave, and said nothing to anyone. There had been one final encounter with her on the af- I ternoon of the day she died. Of all the encounters, it was the one he remembered most vividly, andwiththe greatest pain. About three-fifteen, Margaret rang for a pot of tea. Everyone on the household staff knew she never drank tea, only the liquor she kept hidden in her room. But the staff members always humored her rather than risk her irrational fury. Through the speaking tube to the butler's pantry, Margaret said she wanted Will to bring the tea up to her. By now the boy was accustomed to the harrowing routine. But knowing what was going to happen seldom made it any easier to bear. He walked upstairs, not like an eight-year-old going to greet his mother for the first time that day, but like a grown man shuffling stoically to his own execution. Margaret's bedroom was dark and fetid, as always. Will could barely stand the smells of airless corners, soiled bedding, whiskey, unwashed flesh. He set the tea tray on a small marble table, then immediately turned to leave. Margaret pointed to the tea cup's rim: "There's a smudge on the cup, young man." He looked at her sadly. Her hair was unkempt. Her eyes lacked focus. "Mama-was he began. "Do you expect me to drink out of a filthy cup?" The cup was spotless. He was sick with despak. "Mama, there isn't any smudge on-was "There is. There is! Are you blind?" Now her eyes had that irrational glint. She was starting the cruel game again. But much as he loved her-much as he feared and pitied her-today something in him rebelled: "Mama, the cup is clean. If you'll just look, you'll see." "Don't tell me what I see and what I don't!" She pushed him. He fell against the table, upsetting the tea pot and shattering the cup. "Oh!" Her mouth curved down in disgust. Her gleeful eyes made him cringe. "See what you've done, you stupid child." She was sometimes quite graceful when she'd been drinking; this was such a time. With a smooth, supple motion, she bent and snatched the hickory rod from its hiding place beneath the bed: "Turn around and lean over." "Mama-was "Lean over, I say!" "Mama, don't." He fought back tears. She never struck him on bare skin; she didn't want any marks to show. The worst blows weren't delivered by the rod, in any case. "Mama, it was an accident. And you punished me only yesterd-was "You were clumsy yesterday," she interrupted. "That's why I punished you. Again today you were clumsy, so you must be punished again. Lean over." He bit his lower lip until he tasted blood. He couldn't stand to cry in front of her. His eyes were dry as he bent forward at the waist. The rod rose above her right shoulder. Her forearm brushed against a spiky strand of her unwashed hair. He heard the beginning of the litany which by now had become familiar: "Perhaps one of these days you'll show me you can do something right, Will Kent." Her timing was exquisite. The rod came down as she spoke, and it struck him precisely as she uttered the word right. Then it flashed upward again. "You'll be a bungler all your life!" She struck. "You'll never-was Struck. "comamount to anything!" She beat him faster then. Faster and harder, her words becoming thick and running together. Her mouth filled with saliva as she cried: "Never! NEVER!" In a minute or so the orgiastic frenzy passed. She flung the rod under the bed and collapsed onto the mussed covers, weeping and moaning. He stole out. He was still too young to understand why she behaved as she did; that it was her loathing of