The Americans

by John Jakes

  Will’s lack of confidence was a problem already beyond solution, Gideon feared. It was also a mystery he suspected he’d never solve; Will absolutely refused to discuss it. What on God’s earth had caused the boy to think so poorly of himself?

  CHAPTER VI

  MIDNIGHT VISITOR

  i

  THE ANSWER TO GIDEON’S question lay hidden in the past. Not all of Margaret Kent’s cruelties and deceptions had died with her on that July night in 1877 when the mansion at Fifth Avenue and Sixty-first Street, New York, had been invaded and ransacked by men sent by one of Gideon’s enemies.

  Just before Margaret fled from the men and accidentally plunged through a second-floor window in a fall that took her life, her mind had cleared. For a moment or so she was blessedly free of the all but ungovernable madness which, combined with the effects of her alcoholism, had made her concoct schemes to drive a wedge between her husband and Eleanor.

  In that brief period of clarity, Margaret’s long-suppressed maternal love reasserted itself. She warned Will to remain in his room with the door bolted.

  Seconds later, the invaders appeared at the end of the hall. Margaret ran from them, and died—

  Leaving a frightened and bewildered boy of eight crouching behind a locked door. His mother’s last lucid act had been totally unlike the behavior she’d exhibited toward him for the past several months.

  It had become a game, her tormenting him. No, worse than a game, for in each of their encounters she managed to convey a loathing for her son. She reinforced that loathing with an instrument that filled Will Kent with utter terror—a rod cut from a stout hickory limb she had somehow secured from Central Park.

  Margaret beat him with the rod whenever he displeased her. And she arranged situations to insure that he would displease her. On each occasion, she warned Will that the slightest mention of the rod would be punishable by even worse reprisals. Over a period of a year or so, the boy suffered beating after beating because of a misguided and desperate hope: by putting up with pain—by enduring Margaret’s abuse—he thought he could win the approval and the love he seemed unable to win merely by being her son. Will took what his mother gave, and said nothing to anyone.

  There had been one final encounter with her on the afternoon of the day she died. Of all the encounters, it was the one he remembered most vividly, and with the greatest pain.

  About three-fifteen, Margaret rang for a pot of tea. Everyone on the household staff knew she never drank tea, only the liquor she kept hidden in her room. But the staff members always humored her rather than risk her irrational fury.

  Through the speaking tube to the butler’s pantry, Margaret said she wanted Will to bring the tea up to her. By now the boy was accustomed to the harrowing routine. But knowing what was going to happen seldom made it any easier to bear.

  He walked upstairs, not like an eight-year-old going to greet his mother for the first time that day, but like a grown man shuffling stoically to his own execution. Margaret’s bedroom was dark and fetid, as always. Will could barely stand the smells of airless corners, soiled bedding, whiskey, unwashed flesh.

  He set the tea tray on a small marble table, then immediately turned to leave. Margaret pointed to the teacup’s rim. “There’s a smudge on the cup, young man.”

  He looked at her sadly. Her hair was unkempt. Her eyes lacked focus. “Mama—” he began.

  “Do you expect me to drink out of a filthy cup?”

  The cup was spotless. He was sick with despair. “Mama, there isn’t any smudge on—”

  “There is. There is! Are you blind?”

  Now her eyes had that irrational glint. She was starting the cruel game again. But much as he loved her—much as he feared and pitied her—today something in him rebelled.

  “Mama, the cup is clean. If you’ll just look, you’ll see.”

  “Don’t tell me what I see and what I don’t!” She pushed him. He fell against the table, upsetting the teapot and shattering the cup.

  “Oh!” Her mouth curved down in disgust. Her gleeful eyes made him cringe. “See what you’ve done, you stupid child.”

  She was sometimes quite graceful when she’d been drinking; this was such a time. With a smooth, supple motion, she bent and snatched the hickory rod from its hiding place beneath the bed. “Turn around and lean over.”

  “Mama—”

  “Lean over, I say!”

  “Mama, don’t.” He fought back tears. She never struck him on bare skin; she didn’t want any marks to show. The worst blows weren’t delivered by the rod, in any case.

  “Mama, it was an accident. And you punished me only yesterd—”

  “You were clumsy yesterday,” she interrupted. “That’s why I punished you. Again today you were clumsy, so you must be punished again. Lean over.”

  He bit his lower lip until he tasted blood. He couldn’t stand to cry in front of her. His eyes were dry as he bent forward at the waist. The rod rose above her right shoulder. Her forearm brushed against a spiky strand of her unwashed hair. He heard the beginning of the litany which by now had become familiar.

  “Perhaps one of these days you’ll show me you can do something right, Will Kent.”

  Her timing was exquisite. The rod came down as she spoke, and it struck him precisely as she uttered the word right. Then it flashed upward again.

  “You’ll be a bungler all your life!”

  She struck. “You’ll never”—struck—“amount to anything!”

  She beat him faster then. Faster and harder, her words becoming thick and running together. Her mouth filled with saliva as she cried. “Never! Never!”

  In a minute or so the orgiastic frenzy passed. She flung the rod under the bed and collapsed onto the mussed covers, weeping and moaning. He stole out.

  He was still too young to understand why she behaved as she did—that it was her loathing of herself which, in her misery and delirium, she transformed into a loathing of him. As he cowered in his room, a whipped animal, he returned to a conclusion he’d reached long before. His mother might be disturbed, but she couldn’t be wholly irrational. She was his mother. In his scheme of things, that made her well-nigh omnipotent. Thus, he concluded, she must have a very good reason for everything she said and did. The reason could only be that he was, indeed, worthless.

  That night, she died.

  ii

  In the aftermath of the attack on the house, Margaret’s diary was discovered. In the book she’d kept a secret account of her. deception of her husband. The disjointed, sometimes almost incoherent, narrative revealed the way she’d deliberately played father against daughter so that Eleanor came to hate Gideon for a time. Margaret’s mistreatment of her son was nowhere written down—except on the tablet of the boy’s mind.

  With the finding of the diary on the day Margaret’s things were removed from her bedroom and consigned to a bonfire, Eleanor and her father were set on the road to reconciliation. But nothing could undo the damage done to Will.

  Suffering silently, he concluded that the memory of his mother, already badly tarnished, could stand no further staining. He decided he must say nothing about the beatings.

  Someone had certainly found the hickory rod and tossed it on that bonfire without guessing the purpose to which it had been put. There was no point in accusing his poor mother after she was gone. She’d suffered enough. And she could no longer hurt him.

  Or so he thought.

  You’ll be a bungler all your life.

  Months later, he still heard it in nightmares, or in waking daydreams in which he watched the rise and fall of the terrible rod.

  You’ll never amount to anything.

  NEVER.

  As the years passed, he continued to hear that voice and never let on. Sometimes the voice was faint; sometimes it was quite loud. But either way, he never misunderstood what it was saying.

  iii

  Gideon walked into Julia’s sitting room. The two of them kept separate quarters
for working, but not separate beds. They were ideally matched, and found that the approach of middle age had in no way diminished their ardor. Gideon’s only regret about their marriage was that they’d been unable to have a child of their own. One had been born— a girl: a sad, blue-faced little creature who had gone to a nameless death in forty minutes. On the advice of doctors, Julia had never risked pregnancy again.

  She was writing at her desk by gaslight. Notes for another lecture, he supposed.

  The sitting room was jammed with furniture and all sorts of ornamentation. That was perfectly in keeping with current fashion, but Gideon had to be observant to navigate. Reaching Julia’s desk was like running a maze, in and out among the matching pieces of the rosewood set finished in gold brocade. Other areas were occupied by a tall grandfather clock, assorted whatnots, two pedestals bearing marble busts of elderly Romans, a rubber plant, two Boston ferns in expensive jardinières, and a pair of large cabinets holding Julia’s collection of cut glass.

  Almost every other horizontal surface in the room was equally cluttered. A cloth-of-gold lambrequin draped the mantel of the small fireplace. Several tables were almost completely concealed by long-fringed cloths. The cloths in turn were nearly hidden by books, picture albums, vases, figurines and even a jar full of dried rose petals.

  Nor did the walls escape. Julia had chosen all the decorations either because she liked them, or because they had some family significance. They included two Audubon prints, a large sketch of couples strolling in the garden of the Tuileries which Matt had done in 1879, two smaller prints based on his etchings for the Kent and Son book 100 Years, and the stuffed head of a fierce owl with yellow eyes. The owl’s head jutted from the wall near three brown-toned photographs showing the Parthenon on the Acropolis, the Colosseum in Rome, and Westminster Abbey. Photographs were becoming quite popular as household art.

  A memento which the Kents especially prized had come into the family at Christmas, 1880. One of Gideon’s favorite hymns was “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” which had been written and set to music in 1868. The author of the lyric was the Kents’ friend Phillips Brooks, currently head of the Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge and former rector of Trinity Church in Copley Square. Julia had gone to Brooks and asked him to copy the first stanza of the song, then sign it. She’d presented the manuscript to her husband as a surprise gift, and he in turn had insisted she frame it and hang it in an honored place in this room.

  Julia put her work aside and stood on tiptoe to greet her husband. Even so, she barely reached his shoulder. She was just five feet, with a perfectly proportioned figure, lustrous dark hair, and flawless pale skin that heightened the vivid blue of her eyes. She planted a kiss on his mouth.

  “Finished?”

  He pulled another cigar from the pocket of his velvet smoking jacket. “Who’s ever finished these days? The world gets busier and busier.”

  “Or could it be that we get older and slower?”

  They laughed. Julia was forty-three, older than her husband by three years. As she sat down, she noted his expression. “Darling, you’re worrying again.”

  He perched on a brocaded footstool beside the desk. He described the little scene with Will. When he was through, she shook her head. “I don’t quite see why you’re worried. The boys have been close for a long time. That’s natural for brothers. To have secrets is natural too.”

  “It’s a matter of degree. I feel Will relies entirely too much on Carter. Your son’s a strong young man— temperamentally as well as physically. Maybe Will needs—”

  A gesture with the cigar. He groped for the words. “Independence. Independence and toughening. So that when he’s on his own as a man, he can think and act for himself, not run to someone else for suggestions about everything from clothes to girls.”

  In silence, Julia considered that. After a moment she nodded. “Very well. If you feel there’s a problem, we must try to find some way to solve it.” She sighed. “There seem to be problems everywhere. Carter’s going to be dismissed from Harvard at the end of this term unless a miracle takes place at examination time.” Her tone said she didn’t anticipate a miracle. “I’ve failed to direct him properly, Gideon.”

  He reached for her hand. “Nonsense. All boys his age assert themselves. I did.”

  “Did you always try to impose your opinions and your wishes on other people?”

  “Sometimes,” he said, though he couldn’t remember having been so single-minded about it.

  “And did you absolutely refuse to accept authority?”

  He grinned. “Unfailingly.”

  “Gideon Kent, you’re just trying to make me feel better. You could never have served even one week in the cavalry if you acted the way Carter does.”

  She shook her head. “Sometimes I see so much of Louis in him. Louis’ disposition. Selfish. Willful—”

  “He’s a good boy, Julia. You mustn’t start believing otherwise, because he’ll feel it.” The reminder was for himself as much as for her.

  “He’s also a man. Twenty-one years old, I can’t control him any longer. But it’s evident that I did a wretched job of raising him. In some ways I fear he’s still Louis’ son.”

  “The past is gone. We ought to work on channeling the talents he’s got.”

  “What talents?” she replied in a melancholy way. “A talent for smiling? For charming people? Shall we encourage him to be another Ward McAllister?”

  Gideon frowned. Julia took her hand from his, covering her eyes. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to say unkind things about my own son. But lately I’ve been very downcast about his future.”

  “That makes two of us. I’ve been downcast about Will’s.”

  She nodded. “Sometimes I fear Carter hasn’t any future, unless it’s one like his poor father’s—” She patted her husband’s hand. “But it’s good we got all of this into the open. It may be that we each need the other’s objectivity. You think about Carter and I’ll think about Will. Perhaps between us—”

  A knock interrupted. The Kents looked up to see their tall, rather austere butler, Crawford. “Beg pardon, madam—beg pardon, sir. I tried to discourage the visitor, but he was insistent. He demands to see both of you.”

  Gideon jumped up. “He’s got a hell of a nerve demanding anything at this hour. Who is this fellow, Crawford?”

  “The gentleman claims to be from the college, Mr. Kent. He says he’s driven all the way from Cambridge, and he’s in a perfect rage about something. His name,” Crawford added, “is Eisler.”

  CHAPTER VII

  DEFIANCE

  i

  EDMUND EISLER DEPARTED FORTY minutes later. But as a result of his visit, the Kents were in no mood for sleep.

  The servants went to their beds down on the ground floor. Gideon and Julia had the first floor all to themselves. Around three-thirty, a heavy storm broke, drenching the house and the Common. The rain quickly slacked off, then stopped.

  There was little conversation between husband and wife. Gideon could tell how upset Julia was by the way she made frequent trips to the front parlor window. The rain-glistening slope of Beacon Street remained silent, empty. Four o’clock came.

  Four-thirty.

  Five.

  Finally, just as daylight was breaking and Julia was urging Gideon to go to the police, a soggy and tired-looking Carter hove into view. It was Gideon who spied him. He quickly dropped the drapery and stepped away from the window.

  “He’s coming. Minus a shoe, but there’s no other visible damage.”

  Julia murmured her relief, then smoothed her features and stood beside her husband, ready to deal with her son.

  Carter let himself in with his key and came to the parlor door, where light spilled out. Gideon had to admire the young man’s brass. His smile was confident and guileless.

  “Still up? Hope I didn’t worry you. The card game lasted until just a while ago.”

  Julia fisted her hands at her sides. “Please
don’t make matters worse by lying.”

  For an instant Carter’s confidence cracked. Then the all but irresistible smile slipped back in place. “Lying? I don’t understand. I’ve been in Willie Hearst’s room all evening, playing poker—only not for ten thousand a hand, the way his father does—”

  Gideon stepped forward. “Young man, you’ve caused your mother no end of anxiety tonight. As she said—don’t compound it by making up half truths. We know where you were, at least during the early part of the evening. Around midnight, we had a caller.” He paused to let that sink in, then added, “Professor Eisler.”

  Carter sagged against the doorframe. “Oh, Jesus.”

  “Kindly do not use that sort of language in front of me,” Julia said. “This is not a saloon or a bordello.” Then, in spite of everything, a plaintive note crept into her voice. “Why did you deliberately set out to humiliate that man?”

  Jaw thrust out, Carter retorted, “He had it coming. He humiliates me every time I go to class.”

  “Apparently,” Gideon said, “that is due in large part to your failure to turn in the assigned work.”

  Carter refused to answer the charge, exclaiming instead, “He’s made my life miserable for almost two years!”

  Julia’s eyes filled with angry tears. “What kind of son have I raised?”

  “Mother, don’t make such a damn to-do—”

  “I should say we will make a to-do, as you call it!” Gideon roared.

  “But it was just a prank!”

  “And a very costly one for you,” Gideon retorted. “Eisler said you drove a wagon to his house. A wagon that was totally demolished. How in God’s name did you get hold of a wagon?”

  Carter shrugged. “It was easy. I paid good money, and I told the owner a good story about needing it for my club.”

  Gideon seethed. “Just another little test of your powers of persuasion? The ingenuity you’ve developed in lieu of intelligence—?”