by John Jakes
“Can you tell me?”
Another pause. “I’d like to join one of the volunteer fire companies. But I don’t think I’d better. I think I should pick something quiet.”
Gideon almost burst out laughing until he saw the seriousness of his son’s expression. There was something so timid about Will, something so cowed and so contrary to the normal exuberance of boys, Gideon’s heart almost broke with guilt.
“Why do you say that, Will?”
With perfect logic, the boy answered, “Mama likes quiet children. You don’t get yelled at or whipped when you’re quiet.”
“But boys need to whoop and holler once in a while. It’s allowed.”
“Oh”—he nodded—“I do that over in the Park. By myself.”
What have we done to him, me with my inattention and Margaret with her bad moods? His voice was hushed. “I see. Well, good night, Will.”
“Good night, Papa,” The boy’s hug was unashamedly loving.
Gideon turned out the gaslight and left. He walked down the corridor to bid Eleanor good night before she finished her studies and made ready for bed. Like Will, she too represented a problem, though a different one. Of late she’d started to treat him with a cool reserve he found upsetting.
Oh, she was never disrespectful. And deep in her eyes he thought he detected affection struggling to break free. But she would permit no tangible demonstration of it.
He entered her room quietly. She was bent over her Latin grammar. He murmured, “Good night, Eleanor,” and reached down almost shyly to touch the back of her hand. One did no more than that with a maturing girl, he’d discovered. Physical contact with parents seemed to embarrass them.
The moment his fingers brushed hers, she jerked her hand to her lap. She forced a smile at once nervous and insincere.
“Good night, Papa. Before you go, may I ask you a question?”
“Certainly.” It was unexpected—but far better than indifference.
“Do you know a boy named Leo Goldman? He said he met you once down near the paper.”
“Goldman. I don’t believe—”
“He’s two or three years older than I am. From the lower East Side. He said he used to deliver newspapers.”
“Oh, yes, now I remember. It was five or six years ago. He stopped me at the door of the Union and asked a question about an extra edition. Good-looking youngster, as I recall—” Memory made him smile. “Struck me as a cheeky sort, but in a nice way. His voice was changing. He was very excited about the opportunity in America. His parents were immigrants, and he said he planned to make a fortune here. I recall thinking he probably would. Where on earth did you run into him?”
“Oh, he’s a friend of Martina’s brother.”
“Of Charlie Whittaker’s?” Gideon recognized a fib. His daughter wasn’t good at deception, thank heaven.
He didn’t press the issue, just murmured to acknowledge that he’d heard. But he meant to stay alert for any further inquiries or signs of interest. He didn’t want Eleanor involving herself with some streetwise slum boy, not at her age—not at any age, for that matter.
All at once he saw an opportunity he’d been wanting—chances to converse with his daughter were very few these days.
“Since I answered your question, will you answer one of mine?”
Her response was a shrug. “Of course.”
“Why are you so annoyed with me lately?”
“I’m not.”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t believe you. Is it because of the trip to Philadelphia? That’s all settled now. We’re going next month. I’ve booked the suite of rooms. More important, your mother has finally agreed to the departure date.”
The trip was scheduled for the eleven-day period between the Republican nominating convention in Cincinnati and that of the Democrats in St. Louis. The Union’s chief political reporter would be doing daily stories from both conventions, but Gideon planned to attend a few sessions of each as an observer and editorialist.
Eleanor turned in her chair and exclaimed, “I know—Will’s already in a tizzy over the trip. He’s driving me absolutely wild.”
Gideon chuckled. “Well, I’m glad to see a response, even if your brother does catch the worst of it. Things are entirely too grim and listless in this house. I’m trying to change that. I hope the excursion will help.”
She gave him a hard stare. “I thought you liked things the way they are, Papa.”
He suppressed sudden anger. “May I ask what you mean? That’s a rather impertinent remark for a girl your age.”
“Yes, I’m sorry,” she said, and turned back to her grammar. Her tone clearly said she didn’t think she’d done wrong. Somehow he was being cast in the role of the family’s chief sinner.
Who was doing that? Margaret? She was barely civil any longer. And sometimes, despite the alcohol haze in which she lived, she gazed at him in a most peculiar way. Almost a calculating way.
He hoped to God she wasn’t attempting to influence the minds of the children against him. The thought was a sorry climax to his aborted effort to come to some understanding with Eleanor. She didn’t even glance up as he left the room and softly shut the door.
Well, it was only a small defeat. He mustn’t let it ruin his determination to improve conditions in the family. Will needed the companionship of a brother or, lacking one, of a father. Gideon needed to start teaching his son to play checkers. He ought to buy a bat and ball for them to use in the vacant lot on the other side of Sixty-first.
And despite Eleanor’s hostility, he wanted to make her birthday a happy one. As yet he’d gotten no present for her. Time was running out, but he’d been unable to think of the right thing.
He wanted to make the gift a special and important one. The celebration itself was shaping up that way. Cook had drawn up an extra-good menu. And Margaret had surprised Gideon by suggesting she write Molly in Long Branch and invite her to come up and spend the night, a proposal he’d enthusiastically seconded.
So far, he’d done no more than scribble a list of ideas for a gift. Downstairs in his book-lined study, he turned up the gaslight and tugged the list from a waistcoat pocket. He ran his eye down what he’d written.
Brushes.
Combs—moth. of prl. inlays.
Perfume.
There were six other items, equally pedestrian.
What could he get that would excite Eleanor? The obvious answer was something connected with her developing interest in the theater. Did he dare buy a book of some sort? A Shakespearean text? Much as Margaret disliked the New York theaters, she surely couldn’t object to a printed play.
He’d search the better bookshops starting tomorrow morning. He would, that is, unless he could think of something even better before then.
He sat down at his desk. He took out pen and tablet to compose a message for the Atlantic cable. He’d had no response to his letter to Matt. He was beginning to think his brother hadn’t received it, or had received and dismissed it. In case the latter was true, Matt at least owed him the courtesy of a refusal.
Abruptly he gnawed the end of the pen. The street boy—Goldman. Where had Eleanor met him?
He still didn’t believe the explanation about Charlie Whittaker. Had she encountered Goldman in some kind of theatrical activity? He hoped not. Reading plays was fine. Harmless. Becoming personally involved in the seedy, amoral world of the theater was something else again. It was a possibility that, as a father, he couldn’t tolerate.
He recognized that he was in effect creating a double standard—one for his children, and one for himself—and Julia. But more and more, he was coming to look at things from a father’s perspective. And if a double standard was required to protect a daughter, so be it. Damn what anyone might say about hypocrisy.
He glanced up at the sound of the study door opening.
“Margaret!”
A surprised smile spread over his face. It vanished when he took note of her sullen eyes. Ho
w white and weary she looked. For a moment he felt a stir of the old affection. Or was it merely pity?
There was almost a whine in her voice as she said, “I wanted to let you know I saw Dr. Melton today.”
Good God. He hardly dared take a breath. Had she realized at last that the drinking was destroying her?
As if to confirm it, she added, “I’ve been having some problems—”
Careful Don’t upset her.
“What sort of problems, Margaret?”
“Why, feminine ones. The kind a woman doesn’t discuss even with her husband.” That was unexpected; it jolted him, then brought a feeling of discouragement as she went on. “Dr. Melton gave me a tonic that’s different from the one I’m taking now.”
The one that’s rotting your mind and ruining your life?
Sweat broke out on his forehead. He fought to keep from shouting at her. She continued. “He gave me some other preparations as well. During the next ninety days, he wants me to rest as much as I can. I wanted to tell you at once, because going on the trip to Philadelphia will be quite impossible now.”
He tried to conceal his hurt. “I could still take the children—”
A touch of hostility: “It was planned as a family outing, was it not?”
“Of course, of course.” He was anxious not to agitate her. “As soon as you’re feeling up to it, we can discuss new reservations for the fall. The exposition will be open until the tenth of November. It’ll be cooler then. I suppose I’d better tell Eleanor and Will—”
“I’ve just done that. Will was upset, but Eleanor was very understanding. I’m glad you’re taking the same attitude, Gideon.”
She turned to leave, her step slow and her face disturbingly blank. In truth, he was furious over the news.
After she was gone he raked a hand through his hair, then picked up the pen with which he’d been about to write to Matt. Suddenly he snapped the pen in half.
“Goddamn it,” he said softly as tears of disappointment welled in his eye.
ii
An hour later, Margaret committed her latest coup to the pages of her diary. She chuckled and cooed to herself as she wrote behind drawn drapes and a locked door in the dank bedroom. By her hand stood an unlabeled brown bottle from which she drank occasionally.
—and he accepted my lie. Tomorrow I shall speak to E. and W. I told G. that I had already done so, but that is not true. Should he chance to discuss the matter with them before I do, I shall plead a misunderstanding. I do not think he will do it, though, as he was exercised, and appeared to accept my word as final. When I talk with the children I shall tell them it is their father who has once again found it impossible to make the journey to Philadelphia. I shall say his work has again taken precedence, and they will hate him. And why not, dear friend? The blame for all the woes of this household is HIS—
She slashed lines beneath the capitalized word. Unlike the underscorings at the start of the book, the ones on this page and those immediately preceding were distinctly uneven. Jagged, Z-shaped lines.
She lifted the brown bottle. Drank. Then, after using her little finger to dab spittle from a corners of her lips, she continued writing.
Next, if at all possible, I must find a way to make it seem he has intentionally ruined Eleanor’s birthday celebration.
iii
Next morning, Gideon awoke angry. He was sure Margaret had gulled him last night.
He’d wanted to exhibit patience with her. Be sympathetic and kind when she needed it. So he’d swallowed her story whole. He awoke doubting it—and her honesty.
He suspected her alleged feminine problems were fictions, invented to once more disrupt the off-again, on-again trip. That angered him, and so did the frustration of being unable to verify her story. The only way he could do it was to go to Melton’s consulting rooms and ask vulgar questions about a subject which—as Margaret herself said—husbands seldom if ever discussed with their wives. She probably knew he wouldn’t set foot in Melton’s office for that purpose.
The suspicion that she’d once again spoiled things in order to create friction stayed with him as he commenced his trip downtown. As had happened before, a time of turmoil unexpectedly produced a good idea. He got an inspiration for Eleanor’s gift, and realized with impatience that he wouldn’t be able to speak with the Union’s drama critic, Billy Dawes, until midafternoon. The editorial people began to drift in then, although certain staff writers who did most of their work in the office reported earlier to prepare and polish filler material.
During the morning Gideon occupied himself with the previous month’s financial statement. He met with his chief bookkeeper before going to lunch with Payne at the tavern on Ann Street where he and Sime Strelnik had parted company that winter night in ’71.
Gideon had brought along a thick folder of copy. Eight articles prepared by Salathiel Brown, the Union’s correspondent who traveled west of the Mississippi. Each article dealt with some aspect of life in a growing city or town in that part of the country. Gideon showed Payne the minor changes and suggestions he’d noted on each of the first seven features. Then he pulled out the last one. The front page bore the title Paris of the Prairie.
“Telegraph Sal to try this one again, Theo. That is, if you agree we’re not in the business of glorifying card sharps.”
“Indeed we aren’t,” Payne said between bites of a cutlet. “Haven’t read the piece yet. What’s wrong with it?”
“Mr. Brown chose to focus on the Kansas City tenderloin. Specifically, on the downfall of one man who’s been drawn there by boom times in the city. Some fellow named”—Gideon thumbed the copy—“Kane.”
“Not Jason Kane?” Payne spelled the last name.
“Yes. You’ve heard of him?”
The editor nodded. “He’s killed his share, like Hickok and some of those other desperadoes. What’d he do to get in trouble in Kansas City?”
“The same thing for which he says he was wrongfully run out of Deadwood Gulch. He cheated. He was caught, tarred and feathered.”
Payne winced at the painful thought. Gideon went on. “The point is, Sal portrays him as a kind of pathetic hero. A victim of his fondness for the bottle”—that just slipped out, but Payne didn’t act offended—“and of his need to maintain a fierce reputation. According to Sal’s view, this Kane had no chance to succeed after the war because he was a Reb. All he could do was take up a career as a gambler. I don’t accept that. Choices are open to every man. Hell, I was a Reb and I swam upstream in the biggest city in the North for years afterward. But I didn’t drown.”
With a melancholy smile, Payne murmured, “Some of us are not made of such stern stuff, Gideon.”
Then pink spots appeared on his cheeks. “I’m sorry. That was self-pitying and unkind. You’re a good friend and a good man. My weaknesses aren’t your fault. Accept my apology?”
The younger man waved, but Payne’s remark disconcerted him. If only the editor knew how often he doubted his own abilities—and how inadequate and downright helpless he felt in certain areas of his life, notably his home life.
Still, he had never forgotten Payne’s lecture about careless writing, and how it might fix some grammatical error in the mind of a man who trusted you to be correct. He thought a similar principle applied here. The Union would not promote sympathy for a thief.
“Of course I’ll accept it, Theo. On one condition.” Gideon smiled. “That you go over these, and if you agree with my thoughts on the Kansas City piece, ask Sal Brown to take another crack.”
“I certainly shall.”
Back at the paper, Gideon went into a long session with the circulation manager. When the meeting ended, his watch showed three o’clock. Dawes should be coming in soon.
He wanted to ask the drama critic a question about George Aiken’s dramatization of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The play had first been produced by the resident acting company at the Troy Museum upstate, shortly after Mrs. Stowe’s influential novel wa
s published. A year later, in 1853, Aiken’s revised six-act version had been brought to New York City—again with not one penny of royalty going to Mrs. Stowe. Loosely drawn copyright legislation permitted playwrights to pilfer any published work they chose.
Since ’53, the Aiken play had been staged hundreds of times. The productions ranged from spartan to opulent. After the war the play’s popularity had remained undiminished. Even today scores of companies were always out in the provinces playing Tom shows, as productions were called.
Gideon had only seen one version, but it had been a lavish one. Julia had taken him to it in Cleveland. He could never forget the scenic effects, especially Uncle Tom’s ascension to Heaven in a gilded car at the final curtain, and the thrilling picture created by live bloodhounds pursuing Eliza across the ice in the Ohio River scene. The bloodhounds were an interpolation by the producers, Julia said. She’d seen two other versions which didn’t use dogs, and thus assumed they weren’t specified in the text.
Although the play, like the novel, was fundamentally an abolitionist tract, it was nearly as popular in the South as in the North. Gideon supposed it was because in some respects, the drama pandered to, and even reinforced, stereotyped ideas about nigras. Audiences tended to ignore the fiercely militant and freedom-loving George Harris, Eliza’s husband, and fix on the other black characters. But even the resigned and deeply religious Uncle Tom would probably not be so objectionable to newly freed blacks as would Topsy, Gideon supposed. Topsy was a thoroughly shiftless and treacherous girl who delighted in tricking whites. Of course audiences found her grotesque misunderstandings of proper English to be hilarious—as the author intended.
Still, there was no getting around one fact. The play was undoubtedly the single most important social drama created in America so far in this century. At the same time, Gideon had found it a thunderingly good melodrama. Any girl interested in the literature of the theater ought to own a copy of Aiken’s work—even if it did come to her from a former Confederate. That was the conclusion he’d reached when the idea popped into his head earlier. He couldn’t imagine that Margaret would object. The play was on its way to becoming a classic.
