The Americans

by John Jakes

  He browsed through the first couple of acts of the handcopied manuscript. The play was entitled Shenandoah. Its author, Bronson Crocker Howard, had turned to the Civil War for his theme and setting. It seemed a dramatic and well-written play; Will regretted his sister’s lack of interest.

  He left the script where he found it. Gideon picked it up in the same place a day later. That night he brought it into the dinner conversation.

  “When I saw your script, Eleanor—”

  “Not mine,” she interrupted. “Frohman’s.”

  He drew a deep breath and went on. “I realized the war was truly over. Playwrights and novelists only return to a war for subject matter when the older veterans start dying off, and it’s no longer so painful for the public to recall the conflict. It certainly took long enough in this case—twenty-four years. The funny thing is, sometimes it doesn’t seem long at all. Sometimes it seems like only a moment ago that Jeb Stuart was leading a troop of the First Virginia up to the Yankee lines so we could get accustomed to the sound of cannon. Only a moment—”

  A melancholy expression had erased his earlier pique. He went on matter-of-factly. “You aren’t interested in auditioning for the gentleman, then?”

  “For a play about this country?” Eleanor laughed, and Gideon’s cheeks darkened again. “No, I certainly am not. Besides, Charles Frohman’s never had a success in New York.”

  “I see,” Julia murmured. Scarlet, Gideon concentrated on his food. He kept silent with great effort.

  That evening, for the first time, Will stopped looking at Gideon as a parent and considered him as a man exhibiting symptoms. The result was unexpectedly alarming. From now on, he must keep his eyes open.

  As for Eleanor, Will didn’t believe it was only Leo’s death that had caused her cold rejection of the outside world. Something terrible had happened in Johnstown. He was positive of it when he came home late one night from an outing with friends from the hospital. He passed his sister’s door, heard her tossing and ranting in a nightmare.

  He paused in the silent hallway, listening. A few words were clear. “—no, you didn’t hear me say that. I never said such a thing. Never!”

  The rest was muffled. But the fright and anger in her voice spoke eloquently. He shivered. What had she denied saying? And to whom?

  He might never know. Whatever the nature of her secret, he feared it was destroying her.

  ii

  Underneath his resentment, Will harbored a deep love for his father. So, as the summer wore on, he began to pay more attention to Gideon’s physical condition. What he saw upset him.

  Early in June he developed a tentative diagnosis. Then one boiling afternoon he came into the downstairs office and discovered Gideon sitting absolutely still in a chair under old Philip’s portrait. It was hard to tell that he was breathing.

  Although Gideon was only forty-six, his beard was rapidly turning white to match the hair at his temples. Permanent wrinkles already creased his face. He would admit to his family that he suffered from rheumatism, but nothing more—nothing to explain his pale, sweat-stippled skin, or his peculiar pose of breathless rigidity.

  But Will understood that pose perfectly. It fitted his diagnosis. It was the classic self-imposed immobility of the person trying to calm the anguishing pains of angina.

  Will was determined to try to validate that diagnosis, which at this stage was little more than an informed guess. Gideon winced and stood up. Will clasped his father’s hand in greeting—something he seldom did. The action so startled the older man, Will was able to feel for Gideon’s pulse without detection.

  He only managed to catch two beats. But they seemed unusually far apart. A slow, labored pulse was another symptom of the inappropriately named angina, which had nothing to do with strangulation, even though its Latin root, angere, suggested otherwise.

  That night after dinner, Will commented on the hot weather, then casually asked Gideon whether the heat was causing him any discomfort. Any problems with sleeping or breathing. Any chest pains—

  “No!”

  Gideon’s answer was quick, sharp, and presumably final. Still, the vehemence of it only served to convince Will that his father had meant exactly the opposite, and was deliberately hiding the truth from the family.

  iii

  To add to the emotional strain in the household, Gideon’s stepmother, Molly Kent, was stricken with heat prostration down at Long Branch. Molly was sixty-six. She hadn’t been well for the past eight or nine years.

  The news came on the twenty-second of July, two days before Will’s departure for Newport. Julia was in Scranton, lecturing. Gideon sent her a telegram. As soon as she received it, she immediately dispatched two of her own. One was to the headquarters of her association, canceling the remaining week and half of her tour of Pennsylvania and Ohio. The other was a reply to Gideon, telling him that she knew he was busy, and assuring him that she could handle the emergency by herself. She’d send for him only if it became necessary. She boarded the next express for Philadelphia, and changed there for Long Branch.

  Just in case he received a sudden summons from Julia, Gideon that day visited the Boston shipyard where Auvergne was careened for repairs to her hull. The yard superintendent told him the yacht couldn’t be ready for at least four days. That enraged Gideon, even though he was the one who had ordered the scraping and painting. When he returned home, he grumbled and complained—he was becoming an irascible old man, Will thought sadly. Perhaps a very sick one, too.

  At breakfast the next day, Gideon confessed he’d slept hardly at all. Will knew he’d better tread lightly. His father seemed determined not to permit it.

  “Still leaving for Newport tomorrow?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Nothing worthwhile on that damned island except Mahan and the college.”

  The installation to which he referred, the Naval War College, was barely four years old. There the navy trained officers for future command responsibilities. Captain Alfred Mahan, one of the professors, had recently made a name for himself with a series of lectures on the influence of sea power on world history during the years 1600 to 1783. The lectures were soon to be published as a book. Kent and Son had already purchased the right to reprint it in a cheap edition.

  Mahan was what Gideon called an expansionist—a man who felt it was the United States’ destiny to extend its influence around the globe, via warships, just as it had extended itself from the Atlantic to the Pacific, buying or swallowing up the territory of others until it became an ocean-to-ocean country.

  Gideon didn’t approve of all Mahan’s ideas, but he considered them to have a certain inevitability. Political thinkers such as Mr. Roosevelt were fascinated by Mahan’s theories—and that strongly suggested the course America might follow in the next couple of decades.

  At the moment, however, Gideon’s reference to Newport had a much more personal motivation. Will resisted an urge to retort, saying instead, “I’d be happy to offer my services to Molly. I can easily delay my trip and go to Long Branch instead.”

  “No, thank you,” Gideon shot back. “I prefer to have my stepmother attended by a doctor who takes medicine seriously.”

  “And I don’t?”

  “In my opinion, you’re in training to treat the nerves and vapors of debutantes.”

  Livid, Will rose and flung down his napkin. Before Gideon could say anything, he walked out of the dining room.

  He only kept his anger in check by reminding himself that his father was in poor health and undoubtedly wornout from a night of worrying about Jephtha Kent’s widow. Besides, he’d be on his way to Newport in a little more than twenty-four hours. No point in causing a scene before he left. All the ingredients were certainly present for one. Will knew he’d better continue to tread lightly.

  Events of July 23 conspired to rob Will of sleep, too. That night he again met a group of friends from the hospital. They had dinner at a tavern near the office of the Boston Globe. Eve
ry few minutes the Globe received telegraphic dispatches from a secret site in Mississippi, where Jake Kilrain was meeting John L. Sullivan for the world’s boxing championship. The men were fighting bare-knuckle style. That was already illegal in thirty-eight states, hence the secret location.

  The telegraphic reports, summarized on chalk boards in front of the newspaper, were slow to come in. It was late when the outcome was posted for a small but noisy crowd which included Will and his friends. The Boston Strong Boy had won the $20,000 purse by knocking out the half-dead Kilrain in the seventy-fifth round.

  A cheer went up. Will and his friends decided it wasn’t too late for one more round to celebrate Sullivan’s victory. One round became several. It was four-thirty in the morning when Will staggered up Beacon Street, lascivious thoughts of Laura chasing through his head and a bedraggled cat meowing at his heels.

  Will’s ears seemed to be buzzing as he lurched up the front steps. He stumbled, fell against the projecting metal key, which sounded an inside bell when twisted. He thought he heard the bell ring, flung a finger to his lips. “Sssh!”

  He’d better not go in until he could walk a little more steadily. He sat down on the steps under the paling stars and again thought of Laura. She’d never been carried away to the point of losing control and letting him do anything he wished. But he suspected that under the proper circumstances, she might—

  Laura Pennel was a shining and wondrous creature, desirable, altogether perfect. She was also his entrée to a world from which his father would be forever barred.

  The wind blew gently, sweet with the smell of the ocean. The sky began to lighten. At last Will tottered to his feet and turned to the front door. A drunken determination surged through him. He knew Gideon wasn’t a healthy man, but compassion had its limits. If his father refused to accept Laura as a prospective daughter-in-law, he could go to hell. Will was old enough to marry whomever he wanted. And he was ready to say exactly that—or anything else that became necessary—should Gideon force the issue.

  Later that same day, he did.

  CHAPTER II

  QUARREL

  i

  WILL FOLDED SHIRTS AND piled them in his valise. It was two in the afternoon. The bedroom was broiling, the house exceptionally still. His head still ached from the previous night’s binge; every noise was an irritation, whether it was the buzz of a fly near the ceiling or the happy shout of a youngster careening down Beacon on a bicycle. Bicycling had recently become very popular with children and even with some adventurous adults.

  Will had his mind on pleasure of a different kind. A letter from Laura had arrived in the morning mail. She said she couldn’t wait to see him.

  To protect the next item he packed, he surrounded it with several pairs of socks. The object thus protected was a brand-new, boxlike affair with a pebbled black finish— one of George Eastman’s amazing Number One Kodak Cameras, put on the market just the preceding year.

  Eastman was revolutionizing photography, transforming it from a tool of portrait makers and journalists to a pastime anyone could enjoy. Eastman’s factory packed and shipped the camera with roll film already inside. After Will had snapped all his shots, he’d mail the camera back to Rochester, where the film would be taken out and processed and the pictures printed and returned together with the reloaded camera.

  He folded a pair of white flannels into the valise, then pulled out his watch. Soon it would be time to go. He had a ticket on a four p.m. train to the little town of Wickford, Rhode Island. He’d stop overnight at an inn there, and in the morning board a side-wheel steamer which made daily runs between Wickford and the flourishing summer colony at the south end of Aquidneck Island.

  The passenger and freight steamer Eolus was one of the two favorite means of transportation of Newport’s many warm-weather tourists, the other being the Fall River boats out of New York. Of course the rich didn’t sully themselves by taking public transportation to the island—not even a steamer as opulent as one of those on the Fall River Line. The elite arrived in private railcars, or on personal yachts far larger and grander than Auvergne. It struck Will that his father would probably hull and sink his own yacht rather than see it docked at Newport among the boats of people he loathed.

  He heard footsteps ascending the hall stairs, out of sight beyond the open door of the bedroom. Without listening closely he assumed the steps to be Gideon’s. On hot afternoons the owner of Kent and Son often came home early.

  The last thing he wanted right now was an encounter with his father. To keep calm, he concentrated on closing and locking his valise.

  The footsteps grew louder. He strode to the window and looked down at the Common.

  “Will? Are you in there?”

  He swung toward the door, hearing a second sound his anxiety had made him miss—the sound of rustling petticoats.

  He pulled out a handkerchief and mopped his face. “Yes, Eleanor. Come in.”

  ii

  His sister was still shockingly pale, and a good twenty pounds thinner than she’d been when Gideon brought her home from Pennsylvania. Will assumed she’d just returned from Watertown. Once a week she drove there with flowers for Leo’s empty grave. She had wanted Leo’s monument placed in the Kent family burying ground despite his father’s wish that it be located in a Jewish cemetery in Manhattan. Finally Efrem Goldman had relented.

  “I see you’re ready to go.”

  “Almost.”

  “I just wanted to wish you a happy journey.” She picked up her black bombazine skirt, rearranging it as she sat on the bed with that natural grace which drew and held every eye when she was onstage.

  “Thank you. Did you see the mail I put outside your door?”

  Her nod was listless.

  “There was one from Philadelphia. The Arch Street Theater—”

  “Louisa Drew,” she said. “She heard what happened, and she wants me for a full season. Leo and I had a wonderful year with Louisa.”

  “I remember. Don’t you think you’d like going back to work?”

  “I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t face people. The questions, the continual talk about Johnstown, and Leo—”

  “Well, I see your point. Perhaps if you wait a little longer, you could go back to Daly’s.”

  She shook her head. “Mr. Daly’s been very kind. But he had to find two replacements immediately. Otherwise the touring company couldn’t have fulfilled its bookings. I can never go back with him. The memories would be too immediate. God knows they’re bad enough here, where I’m by myself—”

  Despite the indications that her temper was short, his conscience forced him to press his views. “That’s precisely the point, Eleanor. Working might take your mind off all that’s happened.”

  “I don’t want to work again—can’t you understand that?” His heart almost broke as she stared at him—and through him—to some terrible moment in the past. Her voice lost strength. “All I want to do is keep from losing my mind.”

  She jolted and frightened him with that last statement, and with the strange look she gave him for a moment: a supplicant’s look; the look of a terrified child pleading for help.

  He decided to push ahead. “Eleanor, if there’s anything you’d like to discuss—you know, on a confidential basis— I have some understanding of problems of the nerves. I’d be glad to listen to—”

  “There is no problem except forgetting Johnstown— which can’t be done. There is nothing to discuss!” It was as abrupt as a fire curtain thudding down.

  He glanced away and shrugged. “Whatever you say.”

  Suddenly he heard a noise at the door. He’d been so preoccupied with the conversation, he’d missed the approach of other footsteps—

  And now, unprepared, he faced the person he least wanted to see.

  iii

  Gideon had a smoldering cigar in one hand, a telegraph message in the other. Eleanor gathered her skirts and stood. Gideon waved the cigar, leaving a heavy blue tracery in
the humid air.

  “You needn’t leave, Eleanor. You should both hear this piece of news. Happy news for a change—though I’m damned if we need extra commotion just now.”

  Gideon’s sleeves were rolled above his elbows and a palm leaf fan was stuck in his back pocket. His rumpled appearance coupled with his tone of voice told Will that he needed to be extremely careful not to antagonize him.

  Eleanor pointed to the telegram. “Does that concern Molly?”

  “No.” He handed her the paper. She read it, then gave it to Will and said, “Mr. Calhoun and Miss Vail plan to be married.”

  “It comes as no surprise to me,” Gideon said. Chewing on his cigar, he stalked to the window.

  “I just wish to hell they’d wait a while,” he added. “As you can see from Calhoun’s message, they’d like to have the wedding in the suite at the Fifth Avenue Hotel. That’s no problem. But Julia will undoubtedly want to supervise the reception, and we’ll have to attend as a family. With Molly ill, I’m not certain we’ll be able—”

  He stopped, noticing Will’s frown. “You have a comment?”

  Will tapped the telegram. “The wedding’s to be the first Saturday in August?”

  “That’s what it says.”

  “And you want us all to attend?”

  “Yes, I expect you to be present.”

  That weekend Will would be helping Drew in New York—secretly. He certainly didn’t want to show up at the Fifth Avenue Hotel and be forced to explain in the presence of guests, hotel help, and a clergyman why he was in the city. Laura said the publisher of Town Topics had spies everywhere. And since Will’s name had been associated with hers almost constantly during the past months, if Colonel Mann found out about his little vacation in the Mulberry Street slums, he would surely print something about it. The Pennels wouldn’t like that kind of notoriety. More important, he’d promised Laura that he’d do no more horse doctoring, as she called it.