by John Jakes
He saw Billy Dawes come up the stairs from the street, and went to meet him at his desk.
“Hello, Gideon. What can I do for you?”
“Answer a question, Billy. Are there any printed texts of Aiken’s Tom show available?”
“I could be wrong, but I don’t think so. Nothing but prompt scripts for the actors.”
“Could you get hold of one? In time for me to put it on a late train to Boston?”
“You mean a late train tonight?”
“Yes.”
“That’s a tall order.”
“Draw any amount of money you need.”
Dawes grinned. “You just shortened the order considerably. I have friends in most of the playhouses. I’ll see what I can do. Will Mr. Payne think I’m malingering?”
He glanced toward the cubicle in which Payne could be heard chastising Staniels, the city editor, for what Payne considered poor opening paragraphs on several recent stories.
“I’ll keep him occupied,” Gideon promised. “Will you get started?”
“Right away.”
Gideon next wrote his telegraph message to Kent and Son, Boston. Dana Hughes wired back that it was a difficult assignment, but if Gideon could put the prompt script on a midnight express, a representative of the publishing house would meet the train, all regular work would be set aside in the type shop, pressroom and bindery, and the special order would be delivered by the requested date.
Hughes’ message concluded by asking what Gideon had heard about Mr. Matthew Kent’s participation in the historical project.
Nothing, Gideon realized with a glance at a calendar. Another day had gone by without a letter or cable. Where the hell was his brother? In hiding in order to finish some important piece of work?
Gideon decided he was either growing old, or growing conservative, or both, because he certainly didn’t understand the mind of someone like Matt any longer. He didn’t even have much of a desire to try.
iv
True to his word, Hughes had the finished, one-of-a-kind book in Gideon’s hands by three o’clock on the afternoon of Eleanor’s birthday.
Gideon had been warned that the special edition might cost as much as a thousand dollars by the time all charges were in. But he thought the price was worth it—especially when he unwrapped the layers of paper and protective wadding and examined the finished volume.
It was an oversized edition, bound in rich, maroon-dyed leather and elegantly stamped in gold. The title of the work as well as Aiken’s name and that of Mrs. Stowe glittered on the spine together with the Kent and Son colophon, the half-filled tea bottle. The vellum smelled new. So did the leather.
The text had been set with a ragged right margin, in twelve-point type, generously leaded. It made for a bulky book but Gideon liked the effect. He immediately sent Hughes a telegraph message expressing his pleasure and his thanks.
He left the Union at six, over the protests of Payne, who wanted to have supper at the tavern and discuss a series of forthcoming articles on the country’s continuing economic woes. “Tomorrow night,” Gideon promised, and scooted for the staircase with the gift tucked under his arm.
The gift looked beautiful. One of the copy boys who aspired to be an editorial artist had claimed he was good at fixing up fancy presents. The beribboned package which he’d returned to Gideon’s desk had proved it. And earned the boy five dollars on top of the cost of the wrapping materials.
Gideon’s carriage clipped north along Fifth Avenue. He was genuinely excited about the evening ahead. With luck it might be one of the happiest in the household in years.
Again he blessed Julia for urging him to make the effort to create that happiness. She was far wiser than he, but he was beginning to learn again that kindness and patience brought greater rewards than anger.
A spring sky of pale yellow spread above Central Park. Black thunderclouds were rolling in from the northwest. Through the open window of the carriage he felt the chilly brush of an approaching storm wind. Soon the first drops of what might be a downpour thumped the carriage roof. But no storm could dampen his enthusiasm for the coming celebration—or the sheer joy of being able to go home to children he loved.
The carriage swung into Sixty-first Street, then into the yard at the rear of the mansion. He said a cheerful goodbye to Mills and, with the package tucked under the left side of his coat, started inside. At the back door he remembered something, turned and called, “Was the train on time?”
The coachman booted the brake, shouted back through the rain and noisy gusts of wind, “What train, sir?”
“The train my wife sent you to meet this afternoon. Mrs. Kent’s train from the Jersey shore.” Raindrops splashed his forehead, oddly chill. “Didn’t you go down to the ferry station where the passengers arrive?”
“No, sir, I didn’t.”
Ah God, Gideon thought as the rain trickled down his neck and dampened his collar. She forgot again. Molly probably had to take a hack from the North River piers.
Well, if that was the evening’s only mishap, nothing would be lost. He composed himself and went inside. He took off his light checked MacFarlan with its separate sleeve capes and his matching brown beaver hat. The butler, Samuel, juggled those and the wrapped package as Gideon rubbed a palm over his hair, which he now parted in the middle and groomed with Macassar oil, as most men did.
“I suppose Mrs. Kent arrived from Jersey in good order?” he said with a smile.
“The elder Mrs. Kent, sir?”
Gideon nodded.
“Is she supposed to attend the celebration?” Samuel asked.
“She is.”
“Then I’m sorry to report that she’s late.”
“You mean to say she isn’t here?”
“No, sir. I wasn’t even aware she was expected.”
“My wife didn’t inform you?”
“No, nor cook either. Only four places are set in the dining room, not five—” Samuel’s voice trailed off. He was addressing the master’s retreating back.
Gideon went up the staircase two steps at a time, heading straight for Margaret’s room. A scowl marred his face. His earlier mood of anticipation was gone.
Chapter XVI
House of Madness
i
GIDEON KNOCKED ON Margaret’s door. She refused to let him in. Instead, she opened the door and quickly slipped outside. Their reflections were dim and distorted in the rain-speckled window at the end of the corridor.
At least she’d remembered to dress properly. In fact she looked quite pretty in a gown of tan faille silk with a white taffeta drapery. The dress had a pointed train decorated with bow knots from the peak of the bustle downward. She’d completed the ensemble with white slippers and an arrangement of aigrettes and white ostrich tips in her hair. “What did you want, Gideon?”
For a moment he saw the woman he’d once loved so fiercely. All the old memories helped him speak with a degree of control.
“I wanted to ask about Molly. Where is she?”
“Why, I have no idea. Down at Long Branch, I suppose.”
“She was planning to join us this evening.”
Margaret looked puzzled. “Are you sure?”
His stomach began to ache. “You were the one who suggested it, Margaret.”
Her confusion deepened. “I? Gideon, I’m very sorry, but I have no recollection of that.”
She blinked once, then again. Through the mask of her perfume he whiffed whiskey all at once.
He continued to study her by the light of the hissing gas fixtures. Continued to search for signs of the lie that was always so easy to detect in Eleanor. God help him, Margaret seemed sincere.
“You don’t recall saying you’d send Molly a note of invitation?”
“No, because I never said it,” she answered in an ingenuous voice. One plump white hand plucked at the décolletage of the gown. She seldom dressed so finely any more; she was ill at ease.
“I’m sure I di
dn’t,” she said, smiling at him in an almost infantile way. A stir of air moved the bedroom door. The latch clicked and the door opened an inch or so. She reached behind her to close it, but not before he smelled the staleness. Didn’t she ever ventilate the place?
He forced himself to speak softly. “I see. I must have misunderstood.”
“I hope you’re not accusing me of another lapse—”
“No, no.” He touched her arm to reassure her. She jerked away. His jaw whitened a moment. Then: “It’s my fault. Entirely mine. Now if you’ll excuse me, I must change. I’ll join you downstairs.”
He turned and hurried away, no longer angry but alarmed. He kept seeing her forlorn, vacant eyes. She’d forgotten again!
He shut the door of his room and leaned against it. For a moment he felt a remarkable kinship with Thomas Courtleigh. Kinship, and sympathy for him as well. He understood the agony Courtleigh must have gone through because of his wife—the agony of wanting to help and being unable.
What was wrong inside that poor head of Margaret’s? Was it the frustration of not being able to control him? The damaging effects of the drinking? Some unknown flaw inherited from her father? Was it one cause, or several? Who could explain? Who could help?
He shook his head in despair. There were no answers.
ii
Silver candelabra all along the table lent the dining room a festive air. Yet somehow Gideon knew the evening was foredoomed.
Margaret was the last to arrive. She swept through the entrance and flung a pettish look in his direction. His inquiry about Molly, and the implied accusation of faulty memory, had obviously put her in a bad mood.
He had an impulse to flee and seek sanctuary in the parlor, where the servants were kindling a fire now that the spring air had turned sharply cooler with the coming of rain. He would have done that, except for Eleanor.
She, too, was wearing her best dress, a gown of velvet. She looked radiant, and far older than the fourteen years they were celebrating.
Both children sensed the tension between their parents. Eleanor tried to keep the conversation lively and inconsequential, chattering about events at Miss Holsham’s while the soup course was served. Will wiggled in his chair, repeatedly pulling at the tight, high-standing collar and scarf cravat he’d been forced to wear. When he picked up his spoon to dip into the turtle soup, he was so nervous the spoon fell and clanged against the silver tureen. Margaret gave him a withering look. Despite encouragement from Gideon, he didn’t try to taste the soup again. He sat rigid, darting apprehensive glances at his mother.
She didn’t taste the soup either. When the serving girls came to clear away the tureens, Margaret pushed hers away so sharply, soup splattered all over the spotless tablecloth. Eleanor kept her gaze confined to her own place.
As the next course arrived, Will screwed up courage to ask his father if the paper had received any new dispatches from the Dakota Territory, where the army was mounting a punitive expedition against the Sioux. Thoughts of soldiers and Indians could always overcome Will’s fear and put a sparkle back in his eyes—but Margaret quickly took care of that by slapping the table.
“Kindly do not bring up such distasteful subjects at this table!”
Gently, Gideon said, “He didn’t mean any harm, Margaret.” She just glared.
Will had already shrunk back against his chair. Reluctantly Gideon turned to him. “Let’s try to honor your mother’s wishes.” The boy was almost pathetic in his haste to nod. God, Gideon thought, how many more times can he be defeated without being ruined for life? Not many, I fear.
Mercifully, the meal was quickly eaten. They reached the sherbet and the plates of fruit and cheese in thirty minutes. Gideon sensed that Eleanor had hurried deliberately, perhaps wanting to get them to what might be happier surroundings. But for all its warmth, and for all the cheerful light generated by the gas and the flickering wood fire, the parlor too seemed to be under a pall—the pall of Margaret’s dour and volatile presence.
Gideon strode to the mantel where the important family keepsakes were displayed: the small, stoppered green bottle containing an eighth of an inch of dried tea and, hanging on pegs above, the French infantry sword and the Kentucky long rifle. The portrait of the man who had collected the mementoes hung on the opposite wall.
Philip Kent’s picture had been commissioned after the Revolution. By then he’d been in his late thirties, affluent and conservative. Yet the painted image had a youthful vitality, as if a pugnacious street urchin was hiding just behind the face of the splendidly dressed adult.
Gideon stared at the portrait a moment. He was Philip Kent’s heir—and that meant being spiritual heir to some of the strength which seemed to radiate from the canvas. He drew a breath, resolving again to make the evening a good one.
Eleanor settled herself, arranging her skirts. Will ran in, then skidded to a stop when he saw Margaret’s reproving eyes. Very cautiously, he advanced to stand beside his sister. He pulled his hand from behind his back, thrust something at Eleanor and blurted, “I-hope-you-like-it-I-know-you-won’t-but-you-know-I-don’t-have-a-big-allowance.”
Gideon laughed at the breathless words. Sheepish, Will looked at his father. Gideon summoned him to his side with a smile and the boy gratefully went. Gideon slid his hand around Will’s shoulder as Eleanor examined her brother’s gift—a clear jar containing a dead frog afloat in brine.
From the protection of his father’s side, Will added, “I caught him over in the Park. Gigged him to death myself.”
“How repulsive,” Margaret said. “Don’t ever bring such a thing into this house again.”
“Please, Mama,” Eleanor whispered, sounding almost desperate. “It’s a—very interesting present. I’ll treasure it, Will.”
Her cheeks were the color Gideon had mentally dubbed Fibbing Pink. Eleanor’s kindness shamed Margaret. The older woman said in a lame way, “Yes, I must remember that the intent always counts more than the gift itself—”
No one commented. Will looked relieved. He didn’t realize his sister had been employing her acting talent. Thank goodness for that, Gideon thought.
An instantaneous change took place when Margaret became the center of attention. She was cheerful, almost jolly. She made an elaborate show of stealing out to a foyer closet and returning with several beautifully wrapped boxes. The boxes contained an assortment of scarves and two dressy hats, one of which was decorated with artificial flowers and a long plume dyed brilliant blue. She proudly announced that the gifts were imported from Paris. They pleased Eleanor.
Then it was Gideon’s turn. He reached under a divan and pulled out the package. Eleanor unwrapped it, glanced at the gilt lettering and caught her breath in surprise and delight.
Margaret leaned forward in her chair. “What is it, dear? It looks frightfully expensive.”
“Yes, Mama, indeed it does.”
“Don’t worry. We got a special discount,” Gideon said with a nervous smile. “I had it printed and bound at the firm in Boston.”
Eleanor added, “It’s a deluxe edition of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Mama.”
Gideon hoped that would end it. If Margaret had taken a stiff dose of her tonic after dinner, it might have. But she was sober—and curious. She picked up her train and walked to where her daughter was seated. Gideon held his breath.
Margaret bent forward. “The Stowe woman’s novel?
Why would you give her that, Gideon? Why on earth would you spend money to bind up that piece of Yankee trash?”
Even as her mother was speaking, Eleanor was closing the book to conceal the text. But she wasn’t fast enough. The arrangement of the page finally registered on Margaret. “Let me see that.” She snatched the book and tore it open. “It’s a play. It’s the play version.”
Silence. A small log broke in the grate. Rain pelted the windows.
“I saw no harm—” Gideon began.
“You did this to defy me.”
“Please
control yourself. I did it because Eleanor is interested in—”
“To defy me!” Margaret repeated, shaking the book at him. Eleanor reached for her mother, perhaps hoping to calm things with a touch. Margaret saw the outstretched hand and slashed downward with her right arm, nearly striking her daughter. Eleanor drew her hand back and covered her mouth.
Gideon was desperately struggling for patience. “There is no harm in books, Margaret. Not in any book, whether it be a play or—”
“But you know I won’t permit this kind of thing in my home, this”—her voice was growing steadily shriller—“this kind of filth. Anything connected with the theater is filthy. Obscene and filthy!” She flung the book into the fireplace.
Eleanor uttered a cry and leaped to retrieve the book. Gideon shot out his hand to bar her. “Please don’t.”
“But, Papa!” She slipped under his arm and knelt on the hearth.
“Don’t, Eleanor.” With effort he lowered his voice. “Let it burn. I’ll buy you something more acceptable.”
She looked at him, then at the book. The paper was charring, the leather wrinkling. Bright flames surrounding it made the tears in her eyes sparkle.
“Papa, I don’t see anything wrong with owning a dramatization of a famous—”
“Let it burn!”
Quite without wanting to, he had shouted at her. She showed greater self-restraint. She rose, smoothed her skirt and stepped back from a sudden eruption of fire. The paper in the open book ignited and quickly disappeared into curls of black ash. The leather darkened. Gideon wiped his perspiring upper lip and said, “I really thought there was no harm in a book, no matter what its origins. I was in error. I’m sorry.” It took immense effort to add, “I also apologize to you, Margaret.”
She sneered. “Why do you bother? You did exactly what you wanted and you’ll do the same thing again. You always do whatever you want.”
