by Gore Vidal
The previous night, at dinner with the Hays, Adams had whispered in Hay’s ear that he would like to see him, alone, before breakfast the next day. When Hay arrived, Adams had been maddeningly mysterious, as he went slowly through the drawers of his escritoire, collecting bits of paper, while Hay, finally, retreated to the window and the view of the passersby, many of them slipping and falling most agreeably upon the frozen pavement. Only the one-legged Sickles was entirely sure-footed.
“The will,” Adams said, at last.
“The estate …?” Hay was more to the point.
“Well, there will be money. Our friend’s collection of pictures and bric-a-brac is stored in Tenth Street, in New York City, and once sold off at auction should provide enough money for any reasonable contingency.”
“What, dear Henry, is ‘reasonable’ and what is the ‘contingency’?”
But Adams was staring at the fire as if it were the sun and he a worshipper. “You know, John, that for King, in his robust way, and for me, in my crabbed way, woman is all things in Heaven and earth …”
“Your twelfth-century virgin …”
“Our Virgin; as revered in that last cohesive century, and memorialized at Mont-St.-Michel and Chartres.”
Although Hay never wearied of Adams’s enthusiasms, currently focussed on the idea of woman as virgin, and mother of God, he failed to make any connection between the Porcupine’s ongoing literary work of celebration and Clarence King, who had died a bachelor. But Adams was not to be hurried, and Hay settled back in the window seat, and stared at Blake’s mad Babylonian monarch, on all fours, munching grass. “King always saw the male as being rather like the crab’s shell, to be discarded when no longer needed, by the crab—by woman, that is. She is the essential energy that uses the shell, and then lets it go. Obviously, King was a more primitive, basic man than I. Although each of us celebrated the idea of woman, I see her as the virgin queen of an ordered, perfect world while he celebrated an earthier, more primitive great-mother goddess, rich in the inheritance of every animated energy back to the polyps and the crystals.”
Even for Adams, this was highfalutin, thought Hay. Admittedly the two men had obviously run amok in the islands of the South Pacific, paying court to old-gold women, but to make a universal system out of two inhibited nineteenth-century American gentlemen’s good luck was, perhaps, too much.
“In any case, our friend was to find his ideal, his inspiration, and in 1883, he married her.”
Hay nearly fell from the window seat. “Clarence King was married?”
Adams gave a maddeningly diffident bob of his pink-bald head. “In Twenty-fourth Street, in New York, he married one Ada Todd, by whom he was to have five children.”
“In secret!” Hay had the sense of going mad.
“In such secrecy that he never actually told Ada his true name until the very end. He called himself James Todd, and he settled her, and their children, in a lovely rural New York retreat called Flushing.”
“Henry, if you have turned to novel-writing again …”
“No, no. Truth is bizarre enough for the mere historian. King was still able to produce sufficient money to keep his family in comfort in their Horatian rusticity, where the ginkgo trees run riot, and loyal servitors were able to maintain them in Arcadian if anonymous comfort.”
As Hay grew more and more impatient, Adams grew more lyric. “As you might suspect—I saw your face subtly change when I used the word ‘anonymous.’ There were excellent reasons why King did not want the world—or even the Hearts, sad to tell—to know of his secret life. Ada was his ideal, of course, an earth goddess, essential, a custodian of cosmic energy …”
“Henry, in God’s name—”
“John.” Adams raised a hand in gentle remonstrance. “I’ve not finished with the secret life. Just before King went west again, he decided that it would be best for his family—still called Todd—to move to that part of the world which currently gives you so much trouble, over the infamous Alaskan boundary …”
“Canada?”
“Our Lady of the Snows, yes. He moved the lot of them to Toronto, where the sons have been enrolled in,” Adams glanced at the paper on his lap, “something called the Logan School …”
“Why Canada?”
“Because there is a tolerance there quite unlike our own—oh, fierceness on the subject of identity, one might say. Our national disapproval of any and every misalliance.”
Hay nodded. “I can understand that, particularly now that he has given her his name. He has, hasn’t he?”
Adams nodded. “If she wants to use it, of course. He also made it clear in his will, which you’ll get a copy of, in due course. You are a trustee …”
“Why do you have a copy, and I don’t?”
“A friend—our friend, Gardiner—gave me this early draft. Once the will is probated, and King’s bric-a-brac is sold, the widow will be able to live in moderate comfort as Mrs. Todd or Mrs. King, in Toronto or Flushing or …”
“This sounds like one of poor Stephen Crane’s stories. The gentleman and the fallen lady, the illegitimate family, the false names …”
“Oh, it’s a much bolder story than anything Mr. Crane put his hand to. You see, dear John, King’s perfect woman, mother of his five children, emblem of the original universal goddess for whom the male has no use once his biological function is complete, this glorious creature from pre-history, this Ada Todd, is a Negress.”
Hay exhaled suddenly; and all the blood went from his head. For an instant, he thought he might faint. Then he rallied. “Clarence King married a Negress! But—that’s impossible.”
“You did not go to Tahiti.” Smugly, Adams gazed into the fire, framed by luminous Mexican jade.
“But you did, and I fail to see a dusky Mrs. Henry Adams on these premises …”
“Only because I moved on—and up. To the Virgin of Chartres, to another more perfect avatar of the primal goddess, who …”
“I’ll be damned,” said John Hay, as William slowly opened the door to the study and said, “The young ladies would like to pay their respects …”
Adams rose; and assumed his avuncular mask, though a certain unfamiliar gleam in his eye suggested that there was still something demonic latent in his nature.
The room was filled by three girls. Hay had never been able to figure just how it was that his two daughters and their friend Alice Roosevelt could take up so much space, breathe so much air, create so much atmosphere—for want of a better word—but they did.
The three swarmed over Uncle Henry; receiving chaste touches of his hands, now raised in papal blessing. Helen was more and more like Clara, while Alice was like himself. The President’s Alice was, happily, not like her father, except for a thin mouth full of large snaggled teeth. Alice Roosevelt was more handsome than pretty, with a slender figure, and gray marbly eyes; she stood very straight, and comported herself like the regal princess she saw herself as. She was also given to demonstrations of manic energy, and there were already signs of a dextrous, most undemocratic—yet hardly royal—wit. Henry Adams affected to find her intimidating. Eager to please, she proceeded to intimidate Uncle Henry. “You must come to the party. It’s not every day I have a debut in the White House …”
“I am too old, dear child …”
“Of course you are. So we’ll prop you up like who was it at the feast?”
“Themistocles …”
“Mr. Hay, make him come!” Alice Roosevelt turned to Hay, one arm raised high like the goddess of victory.
“I’ll do what I can.”
Helen threw herself, with rather too much of a crash, into the chair opposite Adams, the large chair consecrated to her mother, who was still larger, Hay was relieved to note, than their daughter. He was also relieved that Helen would marry Payne Whitney the following month. Were she to become even larger … He dared not think of what it would be like to live in a house between that massive Scylla, his wife, and a prospective s
pinster of equal grandeur, Helen, as Charybdis.
“Everyone else is coming.” Alice Roosevelt perched on a stool. “Of course, it will be boring. Father and Mother refuse to spend money. Other girls get a cotillion. Do I? Of course not! Simple Republican Alice gets only a dance, and punch. Not even champagne. Punch!” she exclaimed, as her father might have shouted “Bully!”
“Surely punch is suitable for young people.” Hay, making kindly grandfatherly sounds, could think only of voluptuous black women, heavy-breasted and sinuous, crabs to his relevant shell, to appropriate Henry’s ugly image. How lucky King had been. Even as he was dying, he had had “a woman,” and, apparently, such a woman as the unadventurous Hay had not known since he was a very young man, living a bachelor life in Europe. Was it now too late? Of course, he was dying, but then King had been dying, too. Where there was a will, there was Eros. There was, also, Thanatos, he grimly completed his reverie. He would never again touch warm silken skin.
“We’re to have a hardwood floor in the East Room instead of that awful mustard carpet, and those round seats with the palms sprouting out of them. It’s a horrible house, isn’t it, Uncle Henry?”
“Well, it has never been a fashionable house.” Adams began.
“Father is going to redo everything, as soon as he makes Congress cough up the money. It’s intolerable, all of us upstairs, and Father’s office, too, in such a small place. We’re going to do over the entire floor, from west to east …”
“And where will the President have his office?” In Hay’s memory, every administration had tried to change the White House; and except for the odd Tiffany screen, nothing much had been altered since Lincoln’s time.
“Father’s going to tear down the conservatories, and put his office where they were. So he’ll be practically next door to you at the State Department.”
“Is this wise?” Even the iconoclast Adams—and what mustier icon than the White House was better suited for his smashing?—was dismayed.
“Either our family grows smaller or the house grows larger.” Thus the Republican princess decreed.
“Alice knows her mind, her mind!” Helen applauded.
William was again at the door; this time he stood very straight, as he announced, “The President.”
All rose, including the Republican princess, as Roosevelt, dressed in morning suit, skipped into the room, as if he were still racing upstairs, two at a time, his usual practice, which would, sooner or later, Hay thought, with true pleasure, cause that thick little body to break down. “I’ve been to church!” The President shared the great news with all of them. Lately, he had taken to dropping in on Hay after church, which gave sovereign and minister a few often crucial moments alone together, away from secretaries and callers. The President, Hay had duly noted, could not be alone. Even when he was reading, a family passion, he liked to have fellow-readers all about him. “I heard you were over here, for breakfast …”
“Join us, Mr. President.” Adams was silky.
“Oh, no! Your food’s much too good for the likes of me.”
“Chipped beef will do for the President.” Alice grimaced. “And a nice hash with an egg on it. And ketchup.”
“Perfect breakfast! If Alice ever exercised, she’d eat hash, too. Prince Henry of Prussia.” Roosevelt flung the name at Hay; then took up an imperial position before the fire; and clicked his teeth three times.
“Father!” Alice shuddered. “Don’t do that. You know, the slightest breeze makes my bottom teeth sway …”
“I’m not making a breeze.”
“But you’re clicking your teeth, which reminds me.… Look,” Alice opened wide her mouth, “the horror!”
But all Hay could see was a lower tier of teeth somewhat smaller than the tombstones above. “They are all loose,” she said triumphantly, mouth still open, diction suffering.
“Do shut, please!” Roosevelt, in turn, as if by paternal example, pursed his own lips tight-shut.
“I should have had them all pulled out. Every debutante in America would have imitated me, of course. A nation of toothless girls—like the Chinese women, with their bound feet …”
“Alice, your teeth have exhausted us as a subject …”
“I,” said Adams, “was just beginning to enjoy this dental—permutation on Henry James’s American girl …”
“Effete snob!” Roosevelt glared.
“Prince Henry of Prussia.” Hay retrieved the lost subject.
“Oh, yes. He’s to come in February, to pick up the yacht we’re building for the Kaiser, or so I was informed at church by old Holleben, who had converted to Presbyterianism, at least for the day. What do we do?”
“Give him a state dinner. But try to keep him from getting around the country …”
“Since I am a debutante,” said Alice, “I shall be asked to charm him. Is he married?” Alice was now moving about the room in imitation of her father, only as she walked, she swept her long dress this way and that, as if it were a royal train. “If I married him, I’d be Princess Alice of Prussia, wouldn’t I? So much nicer than Oyster Bay …”
“Princess Henry, I should think.” Adams was in his avuncular glory. “You will civilize the Teuton. If that’s possible.”
“Barbarize them even more.” Roosevelt was brisk. “Anyway, he’s married, and no Roosevelt’s going to marry a Prussian.”
“Unless the next election looks very close,” added Hay.
“Extraordinary!” Roosevelt added at least one too many syllables to the word. “The loyalty common Americans have to Germany. Imagine if we felt the same way about Holland.”
“We’ve been away longer,” said Alice. “Come on, girls.” She swept from the room with Hay’s daughters in tow.
“You are good to take Alice in.” Roosevelt sat in the chair vacated by Helen. “She is so—strenuous.”
“Like her father.” Hay thought of black women; and spoke of Prince Henry. “He’s here for one purpose. To stir up the German-Americans.”
“We won’t allow that. He’s supposed to be a gentleman. Not like his brother. The Kaiser’s a cad, all in all. Well, one day he’ll go too far. He’ll put out his neck and place it on the block.” Roosevelt clapped right hand with left; the sound was like a pistol shot. “No head. No Kaiser.”
“Then we shall be king of the castle?” Adams’s voice was mild, always, Hay knew, a dangerous sign. Adams was growing more and more restive not only with the bellicose President but with his own brother, Brooks, who never ceased to make the American eagle scream.
“That may be.” Roosevelt was equally mild; and guarded.
“Brooks believes that we are now at the fateful moment.” Adams smiled at Nebuchadnezzar. “The domination of the world is between us and Europe. So—which will it be?”
“Oh, you must come on Thursdays, and enlighten us.” Roosevelt was not to be drawn out. He was wily, Hay had discovered, rather to his surprise. Under all the noise, there was a calculating machine that never ceased to function. “We meet at nine o’clock and listen—”
“To my brother. I could not bear that, Mr. President. I’m obliged to hear him whenever I—he likes.”
“We’ll pick a Thursday when he’s not there.” Roosevelt was on his feet. “Your breakfast guests will be coming soon. Gentlemen.” Adams and Hay rose; their sovereign beamed upon them; and departed.
“He will have us at war.” Adams was bleak.
“I’m not so sure.” Hay approached the fire, suddenly cold. “But he wants the dominion of this earth, for us …”
“For himself. Curious little man,” said Adams, himself as small as Theodore, as small as Hay; three curious little men, thought Hay. “Now there are three of us.” Adams looked at Hay, forlornly.
“Three curious little men?”
“No. Three Hearts where once there were five.”
Hay felt a sudden excitement of a sort that had not troubled him for years; certainly, not since he had begun to die. “Is there
a photograph?” he asked, voice trembling in his own ears. “Of her?”
“Of who?” Adams was bemused by firelight.
“The black woman.” The phrase itself reverberated in Hay’s head, and his mind was, suddenly, like a boy’s, filled with images of feminine flesh.
“As the trustee of his will, I suppose you could ask her for one. Droit de l’avocat, one might say. King outdid us all. We died long ago, and went on living. He kept on living long after he should’ve been dead.”
Two Hearts gone, thought Hay; three left. Who would be next to go? he asked himself, as if he did not know the answer.
TEN
– 1 –
AS USUAL, the apostle of punctuality was late. John Hay stood in the doorway of the Presbyterian Church of the Covenant, watch in hand held high to dramatize the lateness of the presidential party. Inside the church, the nave was crowded with dignitaries. To the dismay of the church elders, admission to God’s house—unlike Paradise—was only by card. The Senate, the Cabinet, the Supreme Court and the diplomatic corps were all represented, with sufficient omissions to cause social anxiety for the rest of the season. It had been Clara’s inspiration to place Henry Adams between the Chinese ambassador, Wu, and the Japanese ambassador, Takahira. As a result, the angelic Porcupine now resembled an ancient not-so-benign mandarin, engulfed in the Orient.
The Whitney family had given Hay rather more trouble than the canal treaty. The rupture was not about to be healed between William C. Whitney, with two of his children loyal to him, and his former brother-in-law, the bachelor Oliver Payne, with two of Whitney’s children loyal to him, including today’s groom, Payne. Hay had placed the Payne faction on one side of the aisle and the Whitney faction on the other. There had been even more confusion when William Whitney arrived at the church without his card, and the police had tried to stop him from entering, to the bleak joy of Oliver Payne, secure and righteous in his pew. As Hay got Whitney past the police, he was struck, as always, by the speed with which oblivion surrounded even the most celebrated of men when he no longer held office. Whitney, king-maker and king-that-might-have-been, was just another guest at his son’s wedding to Helen Hay.