1876

by Gore Vidal

  After dinner, Ward McAllister (who had acted as host, once again in loco Astoris) explained to me what a scandal there had been in March, when General Van Alen was told that Mr. Astor had allegedly said, “No daughter of mine is going to marry into that family!”

  When McAllister was out of range, a wild-eyed Chanler lady told me, “Of course Bill Astor said it. He was drunk. He’s always drunk. And General Van Alen challenged him to a duel. But then, at the last moment, the duel was called off. Too exasperating!”

  The wedding took place in Grace Church without incident. During the reception afterward Mr. Astor fled the city. So we amuse ourselves at Ferncliff.

  4

  A WEEK OF HEAVY EATING and, I fear, heavier company made bearable by the fine weather and the girls. Now it is time to go.

  “So soon?” asked the Mystic Rose. She seemed genuinely displeased when I showed her the telegram from Jamie: “Blaine to go before Committee They have got the goods You must go to Washington.”

  “Who is this Mr. Blaine?” asked Mrs. Astor.

  I told her. I could not determine if she is really ignorant or if she simply prefers not to acknowledge that politicians exist. I should note that not one member of the house party admits to having read my articles for the Herald. But then, of course, the Herald is not really a respectable newspaper and perhaps they mean to do me a kindness by not mentioning my shameful connection with it. The talk is of food, clothes, horses, servants, children, arrivals and departures. Like money, the arts are never mentioned. Unlike money, the arts are never thought of.

  Mrs. Astor has taken to Emma and they have long grave conversations under the elm trees. But when I ask Emma what they talk about, she just laughs and says, “I have no idea. She declares things and I agree to her declarations.”

  Although Mrs. Astor does not go visiting in the neighbourhood except on state occasions, we are encouraged to drive about, visiting Chanlers and Livingstons and the rest of the gentry whose estates adjoin one another on a forested bluff high above the river and the railroad. Some of these county seats date back to the eighteenth century and are very fine—like Clermont, the principal Livingston house. Most, however, are new, and in the heavy, gloomy Gothic style made popular hereabouts by the novels of Sir Walter Scott. Thank God, Scott is unknown in France and we have no Gothic revival, only the Gothic itself (I’m beginning to sound like Flaubert’s idiot: it is the company I keep).

  After lunch, McAllister, the girls and I drove north along the river road to a charming estate owned by some people whose name I never learned but whose house is a fine example of the Greek style that was so popular in my youth. Six tall columns form a portico that overlooks a sweep of lawn ending in willow trees and the Hudson River. The house is beautifully proportioned, with a north wing consisting of a single octagonal room two storeys high and lit by a glass cupola that must make it unpleasantly hot in the summer and impossible to heat in the winter.

  But none of this matters to the owners. “We are simply camping out, that’s all,” said our hostess, a. vigorous middle-aged woman who had greeted us in front of the house. “We’re never here any more. We’ve given up. What’s the use—” She was interrupted by a noise rather like an explosion close by, then a deafening shrill whistle.

  We looked and saw just back of the house one of Commodore Vanderbilt’s monsters: some thirty freight cars jerked and rattled past as smoke and burning cinders erupted from the locomotive, making a huge cloud that obscured half the sky.

  During this visitation even the natives did not speak. We stood mute, motionless, as ashes fell about us like a dark rain.

  “It is Vesuvian,” said Emma, for once tactless in her surprise.

  “Would that it were!” said our hostess. “Then the place would be covered with lava and we’d never have to come back. It’s all the fault of my husband’s father. He said, ‘Oh, how marvellous!’ when they wanted to put the railroad through. ‘It’ll stop and pick us up whenever we want!’ Well!”

  Poor woman, another fine place blighted by this railway age. But between trains the prospect was delicious, and we strolled contentedly about the lawn in the company of a most sensitive, wide-eyed, rather plump young man from, I think, Boston. “I read you faithfully, Mr. Schuyler.” We were standing beneath a willow tree at the river’s edge. The smell of rank river mud mingled most agreeably with the scent of lilies. Across the silvery water the delicately irregular line of the pale-blue Catskills was like the flourish beneath Washington Irving’s signature.

  “You are the first reader I’ve met, my dear sir, in this valley.” I did not mean to sound petulant, but I fear that was the impression I gave. Quickly I modified my tone. “But then one cannot expect the gentry to read the Herald.”

  “I fear the Herald is perfectly beyond me, too, if I may say so.” The young man’s manners were exquisite. “No, I have read you on Turgenev, on Flaubert; read you with passion, let me herewith confess.”

  “Well, I am pleased…” But I got no further. A torrent of praise for me and for the French writers quite engulfed me and I was ravished by so much understanding. The young man is a writer—of course! Who else would find Turgenev interesting in this awful age—and country—of Mark Twain and Mrs. Southworth? My young admirer writes for the Atlantic Monthly; he will send me his newly published first novel before he goes “to live in Paris, the sort of life you have led, Mr. Schuyler.”

  “I am hardly a worthwhile model.” He made so bold as to contradict me, and in an ecstasy of communality we crossed the lawn to the hostess (she is in some way his relative) and a group of valley neighbours.

  Everything was most casual, and there was to be, I soon saw, no shape to our visit. I did notice a servant setting up the apparatus for tea on a table beneath a small sort of hut.

  When my young admirer was detached from me by the hostess, Emma and I strolled through a grove of locust trees, of all trees my favourite, particularly now when they are in bloom and their white petals are everywhere, causing me—this spring at least—to sneeze constantly. I am only able to get through the meals at Ferncliff with the aid of smelling salts. I must say that between the sneezing and the smelling salts, I have yet to taste anything that I’ve eaten.

  “Denise wants me to go on from here to Newport.”

  “We are getting to be true New Yorkers of ‘tong.’ We discuss only travel plans.”

  But Emma was thoughtful. “I don’t think John likes the idea.”

  “He will come, too, won’t he?”

  “Not until the end of June. I think he’d rather I stayed in New York.”

  “I give no advice.” I have often said, and always believed, that my success as a parent is based entirely on this indolent rule.

  “Then there are the children. Should they come over before or after the wedding.” This is a subject that we have both been avoiding. When I last saw my eldest grandchild he was not only taller than I but had the beginnings of a precocious moustache. At fourteen he looks a man; fortunately, his eight-year-old brother will look more suitable in the role of putative ring bearer or cherub-in-attendance at Grace Church. Yet I have been somewhat disturbed at the prospective tableau of Apgars in serried ranks, staring at Emma, the magnificent young bride, as she is attended by a young Frenchman who looks to be more than half the groom’s age. It is a delicate matter.

  “Would the Sanfords take the children?”

  “Oh, yes. Denise insists, in fact. But then…”

  “But then…” We think alike, as always.

  We now found ourselves on a retaining wall at the river’s edge. In the shadow of a willow tree stood a gazebo so divided into four sections that a couple seated in one section would not be observed by those in the other three. Slowly we walked around the gazebo. In the section that faced the river two figures were entwined most lovingly.

  Emma gasped. The figures quickly
separated. A shocked second as the four of us stared at one another; then we all burst out laughing and Denise and Sanford got to their feet, looking as confused as guilty lovers.

  “I suppose,” said Denise, “our behaviour would be considered very wicked in Paris.”

  “Quite the contrary,” I said. “You would be put on permanent exhibition at the zoo. The loving married couple. People would come from all over the world to look at you.”

  It appears that Sanford arrived today in his car. Not wanting to interrupt lunch at Ferncliff, he had come here to see old friends, intending to present himself to Mrs. Astor this evening. Denise had discovered him, “Quite by accident. I was in the garden over there when he leapt out at me from behind a lilac bush, clapped his hand over my mouth and said, ‘I’m a veteran, ma’am, a Union soldier, and I’m going to…’ The rest you can imagine.”

  “How exciting!” Emma beamed her pleasure, but as soon as the loving couple moved on ahead of us, she frowned, was pensive.

  “Did you know he was coming?”

  “No. I don’t…” She did not finish the sentence. We stopped a few yards from the tea hut, where a dozen guests were gathered about Sanford, apparently spellbound by one of his performances.

  “You don’t what?”

  “I don’t trust him.” Between Emma and me fell a single white locust petal.

  “Does it matter that you trust him?”

  “For Denise’s sake, yes, it does matter.” She was herself again. “But it’s none of my business. We must be neutral, as you always say.”

  “But seldom am.”

  I found Sanford unusually boring, even by his previous high standards. But he did bring news from Washington. “I was with Mr. Blaine on several occasions.” He sounded quietly important. We were in the carriage on our way back to Ferncliff, the light of the setting sun making a green fire of those leaves that come together like a roof over the river road.

  “What does he say about the secret investigation?”

  “That it’s a secret, ain’t it?” Sanford cackled, like a Union veteran tramp-rapist. But seeing the look of dismay—disgust?—on my face, he assumed his grave statesman’s voice, rather worse, all in all, than the tramp’s. “Blaine says they’ve got nothing on him except some letters that aren’t incriminating but might be twisted about. He’s going to be nominated. We’ve seen to that.”

  Emma and I exchanged a quick glance. Denise was half-asleep, head resting on her husband’s shoulder. Sanford, as far as I can tell, knows nothing useful.

  Before dinner tonight, Emma and I met in the large drawing room; the others had not yet appeared. Masses of flowers everywhere made lovely the great room whilst causing my mucous membranes to swell. Although the smelling salts stop the sneezing, I am beginning to feel most odd, and wonder if, in time, they’ll stop the heart, too.

  “I think you should go on to Newport with them,” I said, giving that advice which I am celebrated for never giving.

  “I would like to go with you back to…to…”

  “To the jungle?”

  “To the zoo! I am pining for Mr. Blaine. But I agree, I think it’s best I go with Denise.” Without thinking, Emma started to re-arrange a vase of perfectly arranged Madonna lilies. “She needs looking after.”

  “What are you afraid of?”

  “If I knew, I would warn her.” This was swift. “I’ve just written John—with her permission—asking him to come to Newport as soon as possible.”

  “For protection?”

  Emma nodded. “In a way, yes. Also, it will look better. One needs, at times, a counter…”

  “A pawn?”

  Emma gave me a sidelong mischievous look, “Oh, no, a knight, and a knight’s gambit often takes the queen.”

  Ward McAllister sailed across the room, gorgeous in evening dress. “I have won a great victory, my dears! We are having old champagne with the shad! For years the Rose and I have argued. I say that ten-year-old champagne is superb with fish, particularly if it is flat as can be—the wine, not the fish—so, secretly, I smuggled several cases into the house and this afternoon she agreed, at the eleventh hour, to let it be served! Isn’t it terrible what the trains have done to that lovely house?” With McAllister there are no pauses in conversation, unlike his Rose.

  I was again at Mrs. Astor’s side, and she declared that she would be sad to see me go. “Your beautiful daughter, too. The Princess is a charming addition to society. And quite my favourite distant cousin.”

  I got the subject as quickly as possible from our dubious cousinage. “But then, we shall see you at Newport next month. We are staying with the Sanfords.”

  “You were to stay with me.” Accusation in her voice; emeralds upon her poitrine.

  “Perhaps another time.”

  “Why is she marrying…I have forgot the name?”

  “Apgar.” Although Mrs. Astor is perfectly aware that the Apgars are related to almost everyone she knows, she has decided that they themselves are not yet knowable. The Astorocracy is stern: Vanderbilts and Belmonts are too glossy, Apgars too numerous and dim. “They are in love. And as you said yourself, girls do fall in love.”

  For the first time in our acquaintance, I saw in Mrs. Astor’s face a look not only of intelligence but even of humour. “Oh, yes. That’s right. I did say that.” She took a sip from her glass and made a face. “I hate old champagne. How am I to tell Mr. McAllister?”

  I am packed and ready to take the morning train from Rhinecliff (gone are my regal days of private cars). I have just said good night to Emma, who will not be up when I leave.

  We talked of the Sanfords, and of how they have managed in some mysterious way to get themselves at the very centre of our lives. Emma’s attitude toward Sanford is openly hostile, and I can only put it down to straightforward jealousy. She wants Denise for herself. I find all this perfectly acceptable if surprising, since Emma has never before had a close woman friend.

  I have just thrown the vial of smelling salts out the window. I am sure it was responsible for the alarming stops and starts of the heart that I have been experiencing during the last few days.

  Nine

  1

  NORDHOFF’S FACE is no longer secret. “We’ve known for months about Mr. Mulligan.”

  I write this on my lap, seated in a crowded committee room of the Capitol. Mr. Mulligan is testifying, or was testifying a few moments ago. I am so hemmed in that I can barely write in this book. Against the wall, opposite me, sit the members of the special committee charged with investigating Blaine’s financial arrangements. A majority of the committee is Democratic, and scent blood. The chairman is a hard-faced man called Proctor Knott.

  Just beyond me, Blaine is seated in the front row; Garfield beside him. Nordhoff is behind me, bony knees gouging my back; his sharp barks punctuate the speeches of Blaine’s defenders, a beleaguered minority.

  James Mulligan is from Boston. I still don’t know who discovered him. But he is a plausible, deliberate sort of man, an accountant, who once kept the books for Warren Fisher, creator of the now infamous Little Rock & Fort Smith railway. Some minutes ago he told the committee that a director of the Union Pacific named Elisha Atkins told him that Blaine turned over $75,000 in Little Rock & Fort Smith bonds to the president of the Texas & Pacific, Tom Scott, who insisted that the railroad give Blaine $64,000 for the worthless bonds.

  I think I have got this straight. There have been so many interruptions. The Republicans on the committee make it as difficult as they can for Mulligan to testify. Blaine also interferes; from time to time, he whispers to one of the committee members.

  Procedural matters at the moment. Speeches. Nordhoff just whispered in my ear, “More to come.”

  I whispered back, “So far it’s Mulligan’s word against Blaine’s.”

  “Wait.”

>   Not long to wait. A Democratic member of the committee has just asked Mulligan if he has any correspondence that might be relevant to the Blaine-Fisher connection.

  Blaine sits up very straight; the ears are now paler than his face. Beside him Garfield slumps.

  The members of the committee seem not to know what to expect. One is trying, pitiably, with weakened teeth to bite off a large chaw of tobacco.

  Mulligan clears his throat. Looks about vaguely. “Well,” he says at last, staring at the still-intact plug of tobacco. “Yes, sir. I do happen to have some…I mean, a number of letters from Mr. Blaine to Mr. Fisher…”

  But Mulligan’s voice is drowned in the sudden uproar. “Liar!” a man shouts. There is some hooting, some cheering. Blaine is now on his feet, talking to a member of the committee who then whispers something in the ear of Chairman Knott, who meanwhile is banging his gavel for silence. The appearance of sergeants-at-arms quiets the room.

  The chairman says, “It has been moved by the ranking minority member that this committee be adjourned until tomorrow…” More shouts from the audience: fearful that we would be robbed of our drama, and we were.

  The motion was seconded, and on a narrow vote was carried. The committee stood adjourned. Blaine slipped out a side door. I am now back at Willard’s, writing this late at night. No doubt about it, even for a non-African, this was a most exciting day.

  I had dinner with the Garfields even though I feared that amongst the guests would be Madame García, whose passion for me is like some prairie fire quite out of control in the subequatorial pampas, assuming that a pampas is not the same thing as a prairie.

  My fears were justified. Once again the huge black eyes flashed their terrible invitation whilst the four breasts heaved in near unison whenever she looked my way, which was often.