by Gore Vidal
Caroline sat next to the old lady, a mark of honor that did not go unnoticed by the other guests, most of whom she recognized but none of whom she could identify. New York had always been like that for her, a series of strange drawing rooms filled with familiar-looking strangers, and familiar-sounding names. She assumed that once she could put the right name to the right face she would be, at last, home, for she had decided that she was going to be what her father pretended, uselessly, not to be, an American. Nevertheless, New York was still a foreign city to her, unlike Paris, where she was at home, or even London, where she had often stayed with family friends or with girls she had known at Allenswood; over the years, she had graduated from children’s parties to the grown-up world, marked, officially, four years earlier, when she had put three feathers in her hair and in the company of the Dowager Countess Glenellen, mother-in-law of a schoolfriend, she curtseyed low to Queen Victoria. Now she sat next to the Queen’s American equivalent, who put her uneasily at ease as is royalty’s way. “You will not have cake?”
Caroline had refused the cake offered her by a maid. “This is my second tea, Mrs. Astor. I had my first in your old ballroom.”
“The Palm Garden.” Mrs. Astor pronounced each syllable with the same emphasis. “I have seen the Palm Garden. But only from the corridor. You are stopping at the hotel?”
“Yes. It is most comfortable.” Caroline was finding this sort of exchange oddly more tiring in English than in French, where the ritual exchange of polite phrases could be, occasionally, charged with meaning. “I think the hotel is unique.” And now, why not, she wondered, get the reputation for being much too clever for a girl? She launched herself, “The Waldorf-Astoria has brought exclusivity to the masses.”
Mrs. Astor’s range of expressions did not include astonishment, as, like her British counterpart, she could not, by definition, ever be observed in so fallen a state; but polite disapproval was very much in her repertoire. The eyes, which slightly drooped at the corners, opened wide. The short-lipped mouth was now pursed, as if she might be inclined to whistle. “Surely,” she said in her usual clear uninflected voice, “that is not possible. I also wonder how one so young, though brought up in France,” Caroline did not wince at the low thrust, “could know of these things.”
“Oh, Mrs. Astor, we are nothing if not exclusive …”
“I meant,” said Mrs. Astor, “the … masses.” She blinked her eyes, as if a tumbril had come into view. But it was only the maid with bread and butter. Mrs. Astor helped herself, as if falling back on a basic necessity in order to fortify herself against the mob. “Your grandfather,” Caroline was pleased that Mrs. Astor had made a connection, “wrote a book which I have still in this library,” her dark eyes stared vaguely at a row of magnificent tooled morocco volumes, emblazoned with the name Voltaire, “that told of what happened in Paris when the Communists overthrew the regime. It is a work which gave me many a sleepless night. Those fierce common people, after killing poor Marie Antoinette, then proceeded to eat the entire contents of the Paris Zoo, too dreadful, from antelope to … to emu.”
Caroline smiled politely in order not to laugh out loud. Mrs. Astor had managed to confuse 1870 with 1789. “Let us hope that the mob will be kept happy here by the Waldorf-Astoria with its one thousand bedrooms.”
Mrs. Astor frowned slightly at the raffish word “bedroom”; but then, as if recalling her young guest’s unfortunate upbringing, she said, “Your grandfather always said he was the wrong Schermerhorn and the wrong Schuyler. I was born Schermerhorn,” she added quietly, as if she had pronounced the ultimate royal name Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.
“I know, Mrs. Astor, and I hope you don’t mind but I have taken to pretending that my grandfather was the right Schermerhorn.”
Mrs. Astor’s genuine smile had considerable charm. “I suspect, my child, that the distance between the right and the wrong Schermerhorn has never been much wider than a ledger.” Thus, Mrs. Astor unfurled the Jolly Roger of trade, under whose cross-and-bones all America sailed, more or less prosperously. Before Caroline could think of something memorable—stupid or otherwise—to say, Lehr neatly replaced her on the sofa with an elderly man and Caroline, on her feet, was now face to face with a woman not much older than she. “I’m Mrs. Jack,” said the woman in a husky voice. “You’re the French Sanford girl, aren’t you?”
“French, no. Sanford yes; living in France …”
“That’s what I meant. Jack and I visited your father at Saint-Cloud. That’s the way to live, I said, not like the way we do in the Hudson Valley, in wooden crates.” Then Caroline realized that Mrs. Jack was Mrs. John Jacob Astor, the daughter-in-law of the Mystic Rose. The war between the two ladies was a source of delight to New York. Although friendly when together in public, each tended to disparage the other when apart. Mrs. Jack found her mother-in-law’s social life boring, while Mrs. Astor thought Mrs. Jack’s circle fast. Worse, in the eyes of the Mystic Rose, her son had political interests if not ambitions. Like so many of New York’s young grandees, Jack Astor had been inspired to clean up the Augean stables if not of the republic, an impossible undertaking, of the city. He had been a colonel in the recent war; he was said to be an inventor; he had published a novel about the future. None of this gave pleasure to his mother. On the other hand, she herself had recently won the only family war that mattered: not only had William Waldorf Astor exchanged New York for London, he had also renounced his American citizenship. Caroline Schermerhorn Astor reigned alone. “I can’t think where my mother-in-law finds these people.” Mrs. Jack looked about the room. She was very handsome, Caroline decided; and very fashionable in the English rather than the American way. “I think they must be kept in cedar chests when they’re not here. Harry amuses, of course. Did you know Ward McAllister?”
“I think,” said Caroline, “he was under a cloud when I first stepped onto the stage.”
Mrs. Jack looked at her with some interest. “Yes,” she said, “it is very much a stage, our world. But the clouds are real, if one’s not careful.”
“The problem must be,” Caroline wished to sound tentative, and succeeded, she thought, “at least my problem is, what is the play that we are supposed to be acting in.”
“The play, Miss Sanford, is always the same. It is called ‘Marriage.’ ”
“How boring!”
“How would you know?” Mrs. Jack gave a sudden great hearty deep laugh. “One has to be married to know just how deeply boring the play is.”
“But if that’s the play, I’m well into the first act. Getting married is at least a third of the drama, isn’t it?”
“To Del Hay, I hear. Well, you could probably do worse.”
“Who knows? Perhaps I shall, Mrs. Astor.”
“Call me Ava. I shall call you Caroline. Do you play bridge?”
“Not yet.”
“I shall teach you. I used to play tennis until Jack took it up. Now I play bridge. It is exactly like being alive. You’ll love it. The danger. The excitement. We shall see each other from time to time. We shall lunch at restaurants together, something that drives my mother-in-law mad. We shall compare notes on the play, between terrible yawns. I do hate my life, you know.” On that intimate if somewhat somber—not to mention theatrical—note, Mrs. Jack bade her new close friend farewell; kissed ritually the cheek of the Mystic Rose; and departed.
“Ava is always bored,” said Mrs. Astor to Caroline, as if she had overheard their conversation. “I am never bored. I recommend that you never be bored either. There is nothing so boring as people who are always bored.”
“I shall remember that,” said Caroline, fearing that she would.
“I am told that your brother, Blaise Sanford, is in the city. He has not come to see me, though your d’Agrigente brothers have. They are French,” she mysteriously emphasized; then regained her subject, Blaise. “He works with that Mr. Hearst.”
“Yes. Blaise also plans never to be bored. He finds Mr. Hearst very exciting
.”
“It is possible to be too exciting.”
“I’ve not been so lucky.”
“I see Mrs. Delacroix each summer in Newport, Rhode Island. She does not think Mr. Hearst a good influence on her grandson. She tells me that journalism is bound to draw Blaise into the company of politicians and Jews. She is deeply distressed.”
“I’ve not met her, you know.”
Mrs. Astor’s dark stare was curiously disconcerting. She looked at Caroline as if, indeed, Caroline were an actress on stage and she the critical audience when, Caroline was certain—or was she?—that it ought to be the other way around. “That is right. You had different mothers. I knew both. Your mother I knew very slightly. She was dark—like you. She was the Princesse d’Agrigente. Then Denise Delacroix Sanford died, and your mother married your father.”
“Yes, I know the sequence intimately.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Astor. “I suppose you must.”
Harry Lehr then amused everyone; and the tea was over.
At midnight Broadway resembled itself at noon, except that the millions of white electrical lights used to spell out the names of theaters and plays, lacking all color, drained Broadway of color, too. There was something arctic about the scene, thought Caroline, as the carriage entered Longacre Square, a lozenge-shaped area whose south end was dominated by an odd triangle of a building. At midnight the square was almost as crowded as at noon. Streetcars rattled by; carriages stopped and started, as the night people got in, got out.
Blaise was entirely at home, thought Caroline, with a twinge of envy. She was still a foreigner; he was already a New Yorker. At the theater, he pointed out all sorts of New York figures in the audience, including a man who invariably bet a million dollars on almost anything, and another man, very fat and covered with diamonds, who ate a dozen dinners a day but drank only orange juice, a gallon at each meal.
“Here’s Rector’s.” Blaise was at his most attractive when he was excited, and New York excited him—electrified him, she thought, feeling a dozen years his senior. But despite her own new gravitas, she had enjoyed the play almost as much as the intermissions. Neither had mentioned the will; presumably, over supper, they would begin their business, and she would ignore her cousin’s warning.
Rector’s occupied a low yellow-brick building between Forty-third and Forty-fourth Streets on the east side of Longacre Square. Over the doorway hung an electrical griffin. “There’s no other sign,” Blaise explained happily. “Everyone knows this is Rector’s.”
As Caroline entered Rector’s the orchestra was playing what she had come to think of as the city’s anthem: “There’ll be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight.” She was not certain whether the war had made the song popular, or the other way around. In either case, she preferred this jaunty tune to the lachrymose “The Rosary.” A thick, heavy man—but then all New York men were thick, heavy—Mr. Rector himself greeted Blaise; and was pleased, if somewhat surprised, to learn that Caroline was his sister. “We’ll put you in the back, Mr. Sanford. A quiet table.”
“Has Mr. Hearst been in?”
“No, sir. But the evening’s young.”
They sat facing one another across a corner table. The room was overheated, and smelled of roast beef and cigar smoke.
“You’ll like the Chief. At least I think you will.”
“Mrs. Astor—”
“Oh, those people hate him. You see, he does everything his own way. They really hate that, you know. They also can’t believe it. Like Brooklyn Bridge …” The maître d’hôtel took their order for supper. Although Caroline could not get enough of Long Island’s oysters, she disliked France’s allegedly more delicate and distinctive oysters. The Atlantic was colder here than there; or so someone had said, trying to explain to her the crucial difference. Meanwhile, she ate as many oysters as she dared.
“What about Brooklyn Bridge?” Meekly Caroline accepted every delay that Blaise saw fit to contrive; and he was in a delaying mood. She had also begun, almost idly, to wonder what he was really like. She had, of course, analyzed him to their Sanford cousin, but even as she had held so sententiously forth on Blaise’s form of ambition, she now realized that she hardly knew this sharp-faced, high-colored blond youth sitting opposite her. They had been apart too often. Was he, for instance, in love with anyone? Or was he what Mrs. Astor’s circle called a libertine? Or was he simply interested in himself, in thrall to his own energy as she was to hers?
Blaise told her about the Brooklyn Bridge. “The Chief decided that after all the fuss about the bridge—you know, the biggest and the best and so on—that the bridge was about to fall down. So we ran a series on how it’s about to collapse. Lovely stuff. Except there was nothing wrong with the bridge. Then when people found out that the bridge was safe, everyone was so mad at the Chief that he goes and publishes a big front-page story, saying that Brooklyn Bridge is safe at last, thanks to the Journal. It was a wonderful series!”
“Doesn’t it bother …” Caroline shifted tactfully from “you” to, “him that these things aren’t true?”
Blaise shrugged; and looked, momentarily, French. “It’s just for circulation. No one cares. There’s always another story tomorrow. Anyway, he makes things happen.”
“You mean, they seem to happen.”
“It’s all the same here. It’s not like other places. Where’s Del?”
“In New Hampshire, I think.”
“You like him?” Again the bright blue eager stare.
“Do you like him?” Caroline was curious.
“Yes. He’s very—old-fashioned, I guess. Is he going to work, or is he just going to be a clubman?”
“Oh, he’ll work, I suppose. He talks about the law. He talks about the diplomatic service.”
“Well, he’s set up there. Old Hay’s back on top.”
“Old Hay is not so well, I think. I liked them, the old people, this summer.”
“I can’t stand old people.” Blaise scowled. “They always act like they are judging us.”
“I don’t think they notice us at all.”
“Oh, they do! They notice the Chief anyway. The only old person he knows is his mother, and she’s jolly enough, for an old lady.”
“I hadn’t realized that you had developed this phobia for—old folks.”
“It’s New York!” Blaise grinned. “It’s the only place to be young in.”
“Well, I intend to do my best,” said Caroline, ready now to broach the delicate subject. But the one person in all New York who ought never to know their business approached the table. It was the infamous Colonel William D’Alton Mann. Florid, white-bearded, definitely elderly and thus entirely unacceptable to Blaise, the gentle-seeming Colonel, whose style of address was antebellum courtly—he had actually been a colonel in the war—was known to all New York as the city’s preeminent blackmailer. He published the irresistible weekly Town Topics, where, as “the Saunterer,” he confided to his readers a man-about-town’s inside knowledge of society’s dark side. The Saunterer gave the impression that he was more than eager to print not only devastating truths but ingenious libels about the rich and powerful. But this vivid impression was, largely, for effect. In actual fact, a truth too devastating or a libel too ingenious would first be submitted to the victim, who then had the opportunity to buy off the Colonel, usually with a loan of money, at a nominal interest rate, that became, in due course, a thoroughly bad debt. Smaller truths and minor libels were kept out of print by the payment of fifteen hundred dollars a year for a subscription to the Colonel’s luxurious annual volume, called, rather pointedly, Fads and Fancies of Representative Americans. Caroline was delighted to meet a villain of such stature. Blaise was less than pleased.
“Dear boy.” said the Colonel, seating himself uninvited in an empty chair beside Caroline. “How I revel in what the Chief is doing to the Secretary of War. Mr. Alger is indeed a murderer, just as the Chief says, killing American soldiers with poisoned beef, the s
ame old trick that was played on us who fought in the War Between the States. You must give him my compliments. He is the best thing to happen to journalism since—”
“Since Town Topics was revived by you,” said Caroline, eager to show that she was up-to-date. To her pleasure the Colonel’s dull red face began to take on a purple coloring at the edge of the snow-white whiskers.
Colonel Mann was all honey. “How rare it is to find a young lady who appreciates—well, courage, I suppose is the word.”
“That’s one word,” said Blaise.
“The word,” said Caroline. “I can’t get enough of your newspaper, and I don’t know why so many people I know are made uneasy by your … saunterings.” Caroline flattered.
“I am, at times,” the Colonel’s confession gave every appearance of shyness, “unkind, even—yes, a fault admitted is a fault mitigated—unfair. For instance, there is something about Mrs. Astor that annoys me, possibly because we’re all good Democrats, aren’t we? Well, the jewels that she wears in just one evening could rebuild the thousand and one Astor tenements that paid for them.”
“The Colonel’s turned socialist.” Blaise had not yet learned how to turn social disgust to fascinated rapture. Caroline had been well taught by Mlle. Souvestre.
“No, my boy. I simply voted the way the Journal told me to vote, for Bryan.” He took a pinch of snuff from a silver box. “Have I your permission, Miss Sanford?”
“Of course! How nice to know one another without being introduced. Versailles must have been just like … Rector’s.”
“God,” said Blaise to the oysters that had just arrived.
“You will live here, I hope?”
Caroline nodded. “It is the city of the future, and so perfect for someone like me who has no past, as you know best of all.”