by John Jakes
“Do you have an itinerary? At least tell me where you’re going—”
She reached for the valise. “Medium-sized cities and small towns, mostly. Our first three engagements are upstate.”
His helplessness finally overcame his rage, and he was no longer a father berating a child, but an adult pleading with another adult. “Will you write us, then?”
She broke his heart when she smiled and said, “Of course, Papa, just as often as you wrote to me after you left.”
And then she whirled and ran, one hand clutching the valise, the other holding her bonnet.
He rushed to the window as she dashed down the steps to the waiting hack. He watched the hack turn on Fifth and clip south again. After it was out of sight, he remained motionless at the window, a man who realized he’d grown old in an instant. Old, confused, and unexpectedly full of a sense of his eventual death.
Old. His child was gone from him. As all children left their parents.
No, that was wrong. Eleanor was different. She’d left with a heart brimming with hate that he hadn’t been able to overcome.
He heard workmen complaining out in the foyer. The smell of smoke hung everywhere. The breeze fluttered the pages of the fallen copy of 100 Years. Sunlight drenched Fifth Avenue, and the dust raised by the hack drifted away and dispersed.
iii
“Julia? Julia!” He stormed through the main floor, searching for her. Cook hurried from the kitchen.
“She’s across the street, sir.”
He didn’t understand. “You mean in the Park?”
“No, sir. The vacant lot where they’re burning Mrs. Kent’s effects.”
Cook’s gray eyes hinted at disapproval. Julia had been spending almost every day at the house, but none of the servants was as yet fully accustomed to her presence.
“She went to see to their disposition,” Cook added.
“Goddamn it!”
Cook stepped back as he stalked by.
“I told her to leave all those things alone—” he said under his breath as he rushed to the rear stairs and into the coach yard. One of the hired men was dippering water from a bucket. He started to wave, but saw Gideon’s face and thought better of it.
“Julia?”
On the other side of Sixty-first, she turned and came toward him through knee-high weeds. The workmen had cleared a sizable area and trenched its perimeter to a depth of a foot and a half before igniting the fire. Gideon waited in the coach yard, his face thunderous, as Julia picked up her skirts with one hand and crossed the street. There was something black and square in her right hand. He paid no attention. He spoke before she was halfway to the curbstone.
“Julia, I specifically asked you to have nothing to do with the disposal of Margaret’s—”
“Asked?” she broke in. “You ordered me.”
He seized her wrist. “Whatever verb you care to use, you chose to disregard—”
“Of course I did.” She wrenched away. “What’s come over you, Gideon? I’m not some slavey, to be given orders and abused at your pleasure. If you think I am, I’ll be happy to go back to the hotel, pack my things, and leave New York before the day’s over.”
Trembling, she gazed up at him. His blustery wrath faded. He realized she was carrying some sort of charred book, and a packet of letters whose edges were burned. She went on in a firm tone.
“But as long as I’m here, I’ll continue to inspect everything before it’s consigned to that fire. Most of Margaret’s clothing is in perfect condition. It only wants a little cleaning, and it can be given to the poor. I’m sorry to hurt your feelings, but I can’t stand unnecessary waste. And it’s a good thing, because I found something important. That is, one of the workmen found it after I asked him to break the lock on Margaret’s—”
“Julia, Eleanor’s gone.”
“What’s that?”
“I said Eleanor’s left. For good. Didn’t you see the hack?”
“I noticed it, but I paid no attention. I thought the driver had gotten the wrong address.”
“Eleanor took it. She’s leaving the city. Going on tour with a Tom troupe.”
She understood, but it was clearly difficult for her to believe the news. She shook her head and uttered a low, ragged sort of laugh. Then she leaned against Gideon’s side.
“Dear God. Two such shocks in one morning is one too many.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
She showed him the book, and the envelopes with blackened edges. The envelopes were bound in a piece of old twine that had somehow survived the fire.
Astonished, he recognized the handwriting on the top envelope. Then he saw the address. He snatched the packet and riffled through it.
“These are letters to Eleanor that I wrote after I moved out.”
“So I assumed.” Julia nodded. “We didn’t discover them until the desk was in the flames. As you can see, they haven’t been too badly damaged. Or this either.” She held out the blackened book.
He’d never seen it before. He returned his attention to the letters, speaking his thoughts aloud. “She must have intercepted them. Hidden them. But Samuel said—” He stopped.
“Said what?” she prompted.
“The day of the funeral, the subject of these letters came up with Eleanor. She denied ever seeing them. I questioned Samuel and he told me Margaret had frequently picked up the mail. He also said he’d never seen any letters like this. Not one.” He shook the packet. “But she couldn’t have intercepted this many without his cooperation—or without attracting his attention, at the very least.”
“You mean to say he lied to you?”
“Evidently.”
“But why?”
Gideon spun toward the house. “We’ll soon find out.”
She caught his arm.
“Take the book too.
He turned back. He didn’t understand why her eyes were so apprehensive.
She continued. “It’s a diary, Gideon—one which your wife must have begun several years ago. I—”
She dabbed at her upper lip with a sleeve kerchief. From across the street, the bite of a workman’s ax sounded, tearing into wood which another man proceeded to pitch into the translucent flames. A plume of inky smoke rose and drifted away.
“I only glanced at a few entries. I think it will require a good deal of courage for you to read the whole thing.”
He tucked the blackened volume under one arm. Then he stalked into the house. Julia followed.
They cleared the kitchen and confronted Samuel. Accused and confronted with evidence, he broke down almost at once. Yes, he’d lied to Gideon. Of course he’d seen some of the letters to Eleanor.
Looking miserable and speaking in a halting voice, he described how Margaret had informed him over a year ago that she wanted to see all the mail before anyone else did. He said she’d warned him against mistakes; threatened him with firing if so much as one letter slipped by. He’d weighed the ultimatum—it was from the mistress, after all, and Gideon was -gone—and from then on had made sure the postman put all deliveries into his hand and no other.
“But I didn’t realize she was holding back certain letters, Mr. Kent. I thought it was just another of her—peculiar whims,” he finished in a lame voice.
By then Gideon was almost drained of emotion. It was Julia who asked, “Why on earth did you lie to Mr. Kent the day of the funeral?”
Samuel shifted from foot to foot. “All at once I realized I’d gotten in too deep. I was afraid that if I confessed, I’d be sacked. I have a very large family—seven children. Jobs that pay as well as this one aren’t easy to find.”
Too weary for retribution, Gideon said, “All right, Samuel. I’m glad it’s cleared up. Perhaps I should discharge you, but I won’t. Just get out of here.”
The butler vanished without questioning his good fortune.
Gideon carried the letters and the book into the library. Julia closed the doors. She picked up the fal
len copy of 100 Years and placed it on a side table as Gideon opened the book’s browned pages. He read one short entry.
“Oh my God.” He sank into his chair, read another, a third.
As Julia had said, coming right on top of Eleanor’s departure, the shock was almost too much for a single human being to bear in a single morning.
iv
Julia asked a question about his daughter. He looked up and briefly told her what Eleanor had said. Then he returned to the book.
He discovered some of its pages were splattered with curiously sinister inkblots. Others had holes or rips in them, as though damaged by the nib of a pen. Those were the pages on which she’d referred to Gideon as him. The pages conveyed her hatred, her deceit, and the steady deterioration of her mind in a way that left him openmouthed and made his belly hurt.
“She did he to them, Julia. Deliberately. I wasn’t wrong.”
“No, my darling, you weren’t.” There was grief in her voice, pity, too.
Suddenly he stood up, slapping the book against his thigh. A corner of the cover broke away. Black flakes fell to the carpet. “I’m going to throw this back in the fire—”
He saw Julia shaking her head.
“Why the hell not?” With a trembling hand, he shook the book again. “No one’s going to see this sad, filthy thing. It deserves to be forgotten.”
“By everyone except one person. Eleanor.”
“What?”
“You must get the book to her, Gideon—the book and the letters. Let her read them. Let her be the one to destroy them.”
“Do you know what you’re saying? You want me to show Eleanor this—this testament to her mother’s deranged state?” He uttered a short, bleak laugh. “She already thinks I’m a monster. Now you want to confirm it.”
“I want your daughter to know she was manipulated—just as you said she was. I want her to know it so she won’t hate you for the rest of her life.”
He understood. Pondered. Hesitated.
“It would only defame Margaret’s memory—”
Julia seized his arms and shook him. “Margaret is dead! She can’t be hurt any further. The living members of this family are the only ones who count now. If you want Eleanor to be your daughter in more than name—”
“You know I do.”
“Then what’s wrong? Are you afraid she’ll reject you again?”
His blue eye brimmed with pain. His voice was barely audible.
“Yes.”
“Could she dislike you any more than she already does?”
A pause. “No.”
“Then you must show her the diary and the letters.”
Still uncertain, he stared at her.
“You must, Gideon!”
Ten minutes later, dressed and lashing the buggy nag furiously, he went racing down Fifth Avenue in the calash, hoping he wasn’t too late to catch her, find her, make her listen.
Chapter X
Two Farewells
i
THE SCHEDULE BOARD showed only one train for upstate New York during the rest of the day—a noon local which terminated at Albany. An express for Buffalo, Cleveland, and points west had departed at ten after eleven. Eleanor might have boarded that one at the last moment, Gideon thought as he hurried from the station into the train shed, the letters and the diary clutched in one hand.
The local had only three second-class passenger coaches. He sprinted past the rear one, then the second. There was a severe and steadily worsening ache all across his chest—his age showing.
A puff of steam obscured his vision a moment. When the steam cleared, he saw people milling up near the express car. Since most of them were shouting and gesturing, he presumed he’d found the troupe of actors. One of the men, a rascally-looking old fellow with a black wig, was waving a paper at someone inside the express car.
“Your loutish helpers dropped three different pieces of our scenery. The wings for Little Eva’s dove, the ice floes, and the heavenly gates. If there’s so much as one scrape or tear on any of them, this line will pay!”
Gideon shifted his attention to the dirt-streaked windows of the front passenger car. No sign of Eleanor there. He needed to go inside and look for—
He was distracted by a ferocious yapping. Again he looked toward the front of the train. He saw a man with two magnificently proportioned but carelessly groomed dogs on long chains. Apparently the man had been exercising the dogs on the empty track next to the platform on which Gideon was standing, and somehow the animals had gotten excited.
As the companions of the man in the wig closed around him to second his protests to the invisible expressman, the other man’s dogs gave a lunge against their chains. The man nearly pitched on his face on the empty track.
Just in time, he righted himself. The dogs kept dragging him forward. He jumped up and landed on the platform with a thump, one hand clutching his wide-brimmed hat while the other, with the chains wrapped around it, was repeatedly yanked.
All the commotion around the express car merely incited the animals. One of them gave another lunge and tried to climb the front steps of the first passenger car.
By then the owner of the dogs was only a few feet from Gideon. The man wore clothes several years out of date, but they still had a costly look. Although the man was short—the crown of his hat was level with Gideon’s shoulders—he carried himself with authority. He was slim, in his middle forties, with lively gray eyes and wavy dark hair streaked with white.
He gave Gideon an imperious look, as if questioning his right to be on the same platform. Then he swung toward a portly conductor who had appeared in the vestibule above the steps the dog was trying to ascend. While the other dog yapped and turned in a circle, the first kept its paws on the lowest step. The conductor’s path down to the platform was blocked.
“Animals in the baggage car!” he exclaimed. He aimed a kick at the dog but missed. Fangs snapped together, inches from his shoe.
The small man might have been handsome except for a tomato-colored nose that had grown too large for his face. His cheeks turned the same color as he yelled, “Don’t do that again, sir, or you’ll face a lawsuit. Nicolai and Nicolette are not mongrels to be abused. They are full-blooded Borzois.”
To add to the confusion, someone began yelling, “Daniel? Daniel, why don’t you ever wait for me?” A tall, skinny, drably dressed woman emerged from the crowd still hectoring the expressman. Although the woman was as old as the man with the dogs, girlish ringlets dangled below the brim of her hat, and she’d blacked her eyes and rouged her face like a woman half her age. Her jaw was long, her face more than a little horselike. But she had large, vivid dark eyes, and a voice as mellow as a French horn.
“Daniel, you’re a rude boy.” She came hurrying toward him, hiking up her skirts so anyone could see her pantaloons. No one was interested.
“I don’t give a hang if they’re the Czar’s children,” the conductor snarled. “Pets don’t ride with the passengers.”
The small man took a long, deep breath and drew himself up while the wolfhounds snapped and pranced around his legs, winding him in their chains. All at once a little breeze carried an odd aroma to Gideon’s nose. He identified it as hair dressing or cologne, mixed with another scent that had a sad familiarity. Whiskey.
“Daniel Prince’s dogs do not ride anywhere but in the passenger section!” the actor shrieked. The ringleted woman tried to reach his side but was prevented by the wolfhounds still racing in circles. Wrapped in chain, the actor started to topple.
Gideon jumped forward and propped the man up. In the process he got a blast of whiskey breath. He backed away quickly to avoid being bitten by one of the wolfhounds. It was snapping at him while the other one tried to jump up and lick his face.
“Thank you, sir, thank you,” Prince panted as he struggled to extricate himself from the chains. Gideon was impatient now.
“Is the Bascom Tom Company aboard this train?”
The sm
all man couldn’t answer. The Borzois were yanking him toward the empty track again.
The conductor said, “Yes, the troupe’s on board and I wish it weren’t. Theater folks are nothing but trouble. Noisy show-offs, the lot of them.”
Less than cordial, Gideon said, “My daughter’s with the company. I’m trying to find her. Miss Kent is her name—”
The conductor shrugged. “Believe me, I don’t introduce myself to any of them.” He jumped from the bottom step, avoided the entangled actor and rushed to the assistance of the expressman, who was now rolling on the platform, locked in a tussle with Bascom. The latter’s black wig had fallen off, revealing a totally bald head. The members of the troupe were yelling encouragement to both combatants, much to the annoyance of their employer.
Other passengers began to raise the car windows and poke their heads out. Gideon was nearly beside himself with impatience. He’d only been on the platform two or three minutes, but what he’d seen in that short time renewed his fears for Eleanor’s safety and sanity.
He grabbed the handrail beside the steps and started to climb up. A hand touched his sleeve. He spun and found himself facing the woman with the ringlets.
“I bed your pardon, sir. Did I hear you say you are Eleanor’s father?”
“That’s right.”
“I am Mrs. Prince.” She indicated the small man, who was still uttering feeble pleas for help with the chains. The Borzois had worn themselves out. One flopped at Prince’s feet, tongue lolling. “I am indeed happy to meet you, Mr. Kent. We weren’t aware anyone would be seeing Eleanor off. She’s our new Little Eva, you know. A charming girl. Bascom raves about her talent.”
“Bascom raves about anything which moves and wears petticoats,” Prince said. He studied Gideon’s shoulders, then his legs. Someone at an open window snickered. Prince glared.
“My name is Martha,” the woman said, extending her hand. Gideon shook it. Time had marked Mrs. Prince’s face with deep lines, and there was a certain sad quality about her arresting eyes. But she seemed a kind and essentially cheerful woman. She went on, “I’ve only chatted briefly with your daughter, but in that time I discovered she’s quite young. Much younger than she looks, most assuredly. In a group like this, she will need someone to look after her. She has a young gentleman who seems willing to undertake part of the responsibility—”
