Empire: A Novel

by Gore Vidal

  “American weight?” Hay provided the image.

  “I must,” said McKinley, sadly, “exercise more.”

  Dawes reported on Bryan’s mood. He would attack the Republican management of the new empire but not the empire itself. Silver would be soft-peddled, as a result of Congress’s acceptance, in March, of the gold standard for American currency.

  Mr. Cortelyou announced General Sternberg, the surgeon general of the Army. Hay and Dawes rose to leave. McKinley sighed. “Imperialism may cease to be an issue,” he said, “if we don’t stop the yellow fever in Cuba.”

  “It’s just the result of all that filth, isn’t it?” asked Dawes.

  General Sternberg overheard Dawes, as he entered the Cabinet room. “We think it’s something else.”

  “But what?” asked the President, giving the small general his largest warmest handclasp.

  “I’m sending out a commission of four medical men to investigate, sir. With your permission, of course.”

  “Of course. There is nothing, in my experience, quite so efficacious as a commission.” Thus, McKinley made one of his rare excursions into the on-going humor of government’s essential inertia, in itself the law of energy in reverse, thought Hay. If nothing could possibly be done, nothing would most certainly be, vigorously, done.

  Hay returned, alone, to the State Department. Already there were signs that the government was shutting down for the hot months. Except for important-seeming naval officers, the steps to the colonnaded masterwork were empty.

  Adee hissed a warm welcome. “I am writing some more open doors for you, Mr. Hay. I do love writing open doors.”

  “Don’t let me stop you. Any word from Peking?”

  “The diplomats have vanished, as far as we can tell. They are, probably,” Adee giggled, inadvertently, Hay hoped, “all dead.”

  As Hay entered his office, he glanced at a stack of newspapers to see which ones contained stories about him—marked in red by Adee, with an occasional marginal epithet. Except for the Journal, which maintained that he was England’s secret agent in the Cabinet and a sworn enemy to the freedom-loving Boers, the press was not concerned with the Secretary of State. The vice-presidential candidate governed the headlines.

  Wearily, Hay took up his “tactful” silver pen, the gift of Helen. For some reason this particular pen, once set to work upon the page, could, in a most silvery way, celebrate whomever he was writing to, in a tone of perfect panegyric, with no wrong notes struck. This letter was, of course, to “Dear Theodore.”

  Without thought or pause, Hay’s hand guided the pen across his official stationery: “June 21, 1900. As it is all over but the shouting, I take a moment of this cool morning of the longest day in the year to offer you my cordial congratulations.” With any other pen Hay might have been tempted to add, “and my congratulations to Platt and Quay who have given us you, a precious gift,” but the silver pen lacked iron as well as irony. “You have received the greatest compliment the country could pay you …” This brought a tear to Hay’s own eye: he must have his blood pressure taken; such tears were often a sign of elevated pressure. “… and although it was not precisely what you and your friends desire,” Hay had a glimpse of the sweating Roosevelt slapping mosquitoes as governor-general of the Philippines while sly Malays shot at him from behind jungle trees, “I have no doubt it is all for the best.” Here, Hay and his silver pen were as one. There was no mischief that a vice-president could make under a president as powerful as McKinley. More gracious phrases filled up the page. What small liking that Hay had ever had for Roosevelt was currently in abeyance, thanks to his sabre-rattling over the canal treaty, abetted by the treacherous Lodge. Henry had promised to bring Lodge around; and Henry had failed. Hay’s pen signed the letter, warmly. Hay himself sealed it. As he did, Adee entered. “I sent around the copy of Del’s letter to Miss Sanford. But she is gone.”

  “Where to?”

  But Adee was looking out the window; and heard nothing. Hay shouted, “Where has she gone?”

  “No answer to your letter to the Mikado.” Adee liked to pretend that his hearing was acute at all times. “You know how long Tokyo takes to answer anything.”

  “Miss Sanford’s gone where?”

  “There is no news from Port Arthur either. We should be thankful that Cassini is abroad. The Tsar is supposed to be ready to recognize his daughter.”

  “As the Tsar’s?” Hay was momentarily diverted by the usual Adee confusion.

  Adee opened a box of Havana cigars; and offered one to Hay, who took it, in defeat. As Adee lit the Havana cigar he said, as if he’d heard all along, “Miss Sanford’s gone to Newport, Rhode Island. She left us her address. She stays with Mrs. Delacroix. Her half-brother’s grandmother.”

  “How do you know such details?” Hay was curious; and impressed.

  “In the absence of a court and a Saint-Simon, someone must keep track.”

  “We have so many courts in this country.”

  “There is only one Newport, Rhode Island.” Adee, without a by-your-leave, helped himself to a cigar. Then the two old friends methodically filled the office with fragrant smoke, successfully eliminating the cloying odor of summer roses, arranged in every vase. “She left me a note, saying that anything that she hears from Del she will let you know, and hopes that you will do the same.”

  “Yes.” The pains in the lower back had, ominously, ceased. For some reason, Hay had always felt that a degree of pain was not only reasonable but a sign that the body was correcting itself, as new things went awry in the furnace, the plumbing and the electrical arrangements. But now there was only a general weakness in every limb; and a sensitivity to heat, which made him constantly sleepy, a condition that sleep itself did not improve. He must soon withdraw to New Hampshire or die; or both, he thought, without fear, glad that he could at least enjoy, in the present instant, Adee’s inspired misunderstanding of the word “Tsar.”

  The appearance in the doorway, unannounced, of the Secretary of War caused Adee, graciously, like Saint-Simon indeed, to withdraw, never turning his back on the great ones while never ceasing to puff at his cigar.

  Root sat on the edge of Hay’s desk. “The Major wants all Americans out of China.”

  “How are we to do that, with the Boxers surrounding them in Peking?”

  “I’ve told him I thought it was a bad idea, unless the Russians were to go, too, which they won’t. He’s worried about the effect on the election.”

  Hay sighed. “I now leave Asia in your hands. I leave the State Department in your hands. I leave …”

  “You leave too much.”

  “Well, I don’t leave you Teddy.” Hay looked at the now sealed letter to the Governor of New York. “He will speak in every state, he says.”

  “It will be interesting to see if he mentions the President.” Root’s contempt for Roosevelt was entirely impersonal and spontaneous. At the same time, they got on well politically: two practical men who needed each other. Teddy had already written Root his version of the convention, which Root had shown Hay: “It was a hard four days in Philadelphia.” Teddy made his own nomination sound like a war won. “What will the Major do?”

  “He is going home to Canton,” said Hay. “He will sit on his front porch until election day, chatting to the folks …”

  “… and waiting for the telephone to ring.”

  “We’re weak on the Philippines.” Root was abrupt. “Taft’s too easy-going. MacArthur’s too much of the military proconsul.”

  “You can handle the General.”

  Root chuckled. “Oh, I’ll break him to sergeant if he disobeys me. But I can’t give Taft a backbone. If there’s trouble between now and November …”

  “Bryan won’t know what to do about it. We shall be reelected, and I shall no longer be the heir-presumptive to the republic. Are you certain you wouldn’t like my place?”

  Hay, genuinely, for the moment at least, wished to relinquish office. But Root would ha
ve none of it. “We make a good team, the way we are.” He picked up a copy of the Washington Tribune from a side-table where the national press was each day arranged, much as Hay himself used to prepare it for President Lincoln. But unlike Lincoln, who had never been a journalist, Hay should have known better than to take seriously the press. But fabulists, Hay knew, tend to believe tall tales.

  “Del’s fiancée seems to be making a go of this.”

  “She says that she does not lose money,” said Hay, “and she is amused.”

  – 4 –

  BUT CAROLINE had lost money since spring; and she was not amused. She had spent far too much money covering the national conventions. Since Hearst had given every journalist in the country an exaggerated idea of his worth, she had been obliged to pay a former New York Herald journalist more than she could afford to write what proved to be, surprisingly, an excellent account of the Philadelphia convention. Could it be that Hearst was right? that one did get what one paid for? Now she sat on the lawn of the Delacroix “cottage” and read the Tribune’s account of the nomination of William Jennings Bryan at Kansas City on July 5. As a running mate, Bryan had selected Grover Cleveland’s ancient vice-president, Adlai Stevenson of Illinois. Caroline carefully compared the account in her paper to that of the rival press. Although Hearst was hearty in his endorsement of Bryan, nothing much was said about silver, while Bryan’s anti-imperialist views were barely acknowledged by imperialist Hearst. Happily, Hearst and Bryan were at one on the “Criminal Trusts,” whatever they were, thought Caroline, turning to Hearst’s new paper, the Chicago American, officially launched on July 4, with all of the Chief’s characteristic energy and rich inaccuracy.

  “It is curious indeed,” said a deep feminine voice, “to see a young lady reading the vulgar press, and getting ink on her gloves in the process.”

  “Then I shall take off the gloves.” Caroline dropped the stack of newspapers onto the grass, and removed her white gloves. “But I must keep on reading my competition; and perfect my own vulgar art.”

  Curiosity had, finally, brought them together. When Caroline, vanquished at last by Washington’s heat, had agreed to spend July with Mrs. Jack Astor, Mrs. Delacroix had written her that she must stay with what was, after all, the nearest thing that she had to a grandmother. And so Caroline had transferred herself from Mrs. Jack’s to the splendors of the Grand Trianon, set high on Ochre Avenue above the bright cool Atlantic; and from this sea-fragrant height the steaming heat of Washington was soon forgotten.

  Mrs. Delacroix was small and thin, with a face whose lines resembled an intricate spider’s web, framed by silver-gray hair so elaborately curled and arranged—not to mention thick—that half Newport was convinced she wore a wig like her contemporary Mrs. Astor. But hair—and spider’s web—were all her own. When the old lady spoke, her speech was swift with oddly clipped syllables, a reminder of her New Orleans origin. As Mrs. Delacroix approached Caroline, she held a parasol between pale skin and bright sun; she seemed, to Caroline, like some highly purposeful ghost; with truly bad news from the other side.

  “Mr. Lispinard Stewart, our neighbor, has come to call. I said that I thought that you were indisposed. But of course if you are disposed …”

  “I am entirely at your disposition.”

  “They do teach you girls how to talk over there in Europe.” A footman in livery appeared from behind a hedge of lilac, and placed a chair behind Mrs. Delacroix, who sat in it without once looking to see if the chair was in place. “Mr. Lispinard Stewart owns the White Lodge down the road. He is very snobbish.”

  “Like everyone else here. Or so I’ve been told,” Caroline added; she had vowed not to be critical, in conversation.

  “Some of us have more occasion to be snobbish than others. Mr. Stewart is a bachelor whom everyone would like to marry. But I suspect he will remain in his current state of immaculate chastity, as the nuns used to say in my youth, until he is one day called to a higher station, as a bridegroom of Christ.”

  Caroline could never tell when the old lady was being deliberately droll. In either case, she laughed. “It was my impression that Jesus contents himself only with brides.”

  “We must not,” said Mrs. Delacroix serenely, “question the mysterious ways of the Almighty.” With the point of her parasol she was turning over the pile of newspapers on the lawn. “You’re the first young lady that I have ever known who reads the front part of the newspapers.”

  “I am the first young lady you have ever known to publish a newspaper.”

  “I would not,” said Mrs. Delacroix, “boast.”

  “Boast? I had hoped to arouse your sympathy.”

  “I have none.” Mrs. Delacroix looked quite pleased with herself.

  “None at all—for anyone?”

  “Not even for myself. We get what we deserve, Caroline.” From the first day, the old woman had addressed the young woman as both child and relative. “But what I most particularly deserve, you don’t have.” She abandoned turning over the newspapers; and frowned with disappointment. “It’s not here.”

  “What were you looking for?”

  “Town Topics. I read nothing else. It’s always wise to know what the servants think of us. The things that that paper prints!”

  “It’s what they don’t print—the omissions—that I study it for.”

  Mrs. Delacroix carefully readjusted her huge pastel yellow hat with its swept-back veil of lace. Gold ornaments clung haphazardly to her bust. “Surely those not mentioned are virtuous, and so of no concern to our servants.”

  “Or they pay Colonel Mann large sums of money to keep their names out of his ‘Saunterings.’ ”

  “Cynical!” Mrs. Delacroix’s voice tolled like the sea-bell on the sharp rocks beneath the house. “That’s what comes of reading newspapers! They soil one’s soul as surely as they soil white gloves.”

  Caroline held up her gloves. They were indeed smudged with ink. “I must change again,” she said.

  “Wait until we dress for lunch.” Caroline had been relieved to discover that Newport required no more than five changes of dress a day, assuming that one did not play tennis or go yachting or riding. In Paris, seven changes of costume was thought the fashionable minimum. As a result of this new dispensation, the asthmatic Marguerite was in Paradise: enraptured by the sea-air’s coolness, as well as by the thousand or so French maids employed along the ridge where Newport’s “cottages” were set apart from the old town whose year-round inhabitants had been dubbed by Harry Lehr, in a literal translation of Louis XIV, “our Footstools.” Although the Footstools loathed the fashionable Feet, they served them grimly during the eight-week season of July and August; after the last fête, Mrs. Fish’s Harvest Festival Ball, the huge palaces were then shut for the remaining ten months of the year and Newport was again the property of the Stools.

  “Why must you quarrel with Blaise?” Suddenly, disconcertingly, Mrs. Delacroix resembled a withered version of her grandson.

  “We only quarrel over money. Surely, that’s usual—and permissible.”

  “One disagrees over money but one does not quarrel. You could be such a good influence on him.”

  “Does he need a good influence? I thought,” Caroline was mischievous, “that Madame de Bieville now stood in loco parentis.”

  With some effort, Mrs. Delacroix managed not to smile. “I am in loco parentis. The poor boy’s last blood relation—except for you, of course.”

  “And I am so young, inexperienced, still a jeune fille, while Blaise is a man of the world, with Madame to guide him—when you are not there, of course.”

  “Now you make fun of me.” The dowager looked almost girlish. “But you seem more at ease in these parts than Blaise. You select your friends with care …”

  “Girls never select. We are selected.”

  “Well, you have, somehow, acquired the Hay family. Helen dotes on you. She’s arriving today, with Payne Whitney. Naturally, they go to different houses. W
e are not French, yet. But Blaise comes and goes and except for the delightful Madame de Bieville, he has no friends in Newport …”

  “No friends? Why, there is Payne, and Del Hay, when he’s here, and all those Yale classmates …”

  “He thinks only of Mr. Hearst and newspapers …”

  “Like me. I sometimes think our wet-nurse must have fed us ink instead of milk.”

  Mrs. Delacroix put her hands over her ears. “I did not hear that!” A footman arrived with a silver tray on which two near-transparent cups of bouillon were placed. “Drink up,” said the old woman. “You’ll need your strength. We have a formidable season prepared.”

  “You are good to invite me.” Caroline looked at her hostess; and began to be fond of her. Although she had not expected to find anything but a dragon, breathing fire, the invitation (summons?) had proved to be a sign of belated—not quite affection but deep curiosity: of the two emotions always the more interesting one in Caroline’s view. But then she, too, was curious about Mrs. Delacroix for many reasons.

  Thus far, there had been no talk of the past. A portrait of Denise Sanford hung in the drawing room; she looked very young, and rather startled; except for her expression, she looked like Blaise. There was no portrait of their father, William Sanford. “I must have put it away,” said Mrs. Delacroix. “Would you like to have it?”

  “Yes, I would.”

  “He is in uniform. In the war, he fought on the Yankee side.”

  “Hardly fought,” Caroline could not resist.

  “That is the best thing I have heard said of him. We continued to know one another only because of Blaise, who is my last living grandchild, my last relative, in fact, outside New Orleans, that is, where I am related to everyone.”

  “What a burden!”

  Mrs. Delacroix took Caroline’s arm and they walked, carefully, up the lawn to the pink marble terrace. “Mamie Fish is giving us lunch. She’s very curious about you.”