Silver

by Graham Masterton

  Over a game of poker one evening in March David said, ‘I’ve warned you before, Henry, it’s very much easier to lose a million than it is to acquire it. You’ve been lucky. Not many men have anything like your luck. But the only way you’re going to hold on to that luck is if you keep down your spending; and make sensible investments; and after a while, diversify. You could think of going into railroad stock now; and maybe milling.’

  ‘Let me see how I get on with the politics first,’ replied Henry. His huge diamond ring flashed in the lamplight, and his cufflinks followed up the display with a quiet glitter of pavé-set diamonds and rubies. He was smoking a huge cigar of Havana tobacco, the size of one of Denver’s telegraph-poles. He had grown his moustache longer, and taken to waxing up the ends again. He loved the wealth: he loved the ostentatiousness of it. He loved to see passers-by turn their heads in amazement as he and Baby Doe stepped down from their black shiny landau when they were driven to the theatre; Baby Doe in her furs and her feathers and her dazzling necklaces, and he in his glossy opera-hat and swirling black vicuna cloak.

  ‘I never thought of you as being particularly political,’ said David, in a careful tone.

  ‘Why not?’ asked Henry, dealing cards. He took the cigar out of his mouth and looked at David with a grin that wasn’t entirely humorous. ‘Money is power, didn’t you always tell me that? With money, you can make waves.’

  ‘It depends, Henry,’ said David, uneasily.

  ‘It depends on what? Go on, tell me. We’ve been friends for long enough. You don’t have to be shy.’

  ‘It depends on what kind of waves you want to make.’

  ‘David,’ said Henry, leaning forward over the green baize card-table and speaking softly so that the ladies on the other side of the drawing-room couldn’t hear him. ‘For all of my life, I’ve been floating along with the current, allowing myself to be taken wherever chance or fate or God’s will or whatever you call it has decided to take me. I’ve kicked and struggled sometimes, but I’ve kept on floating. Now I’ve begun to see that if I go on floating for very much longer, my whole existence from the moment I was born to the moment when they cover my face with that sheet—my whole life will have been floating. From birth to death floating, without leaving a ripple. What will I leave, for people to remember me by?’

  David picked up his cards and carefully inspected them. Without raising his eyes, he said, ‘It isn’t generally advisable to make waves just for the sake of making waves. It could damage your business interests. It could even put your life at risk. Remember that politicians always have enemies.’

  ‘Enemies? What enemies have I got?’

  ‘Quite a few, already.’

  Henry felt a prickly shock of perplexity, as if he had suddenly and accidentally caught his hand on a hidden tangle of barbed-wire. ‘What do you mean? I don’t have any enemies! Enemies? Me? Who?’

  ‘You’ve been talking about standing for mayor of Leadville, haven’t you?’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘There are those in Leadville who feel that the city needs greater respectability, rather than less.’

  ‘David, what are you talking about?’ Henry demanded.

  David put down his cards. ‘I’m just trying to tell you, Henry, in the friendliest possible way, that the most influential men in Colorado are also some of the most puritanical. You can recognize them by their bulging wallets and their blue noses. You’ve already created an incredible stir in Denver, dressing up in diamonds and opera-cloaks and walking out with the prettiest woman for five hundred miles around. Aren’t you aware of the furore you’re creating? Look at that ring on your finger, Henry, and tell me if that isn’t guaranteed to stop anybody dead in their tracks. And look at this.’

  David stood up, and walked across to the magazine rack by the fireplace, and came back with a recent copy of the News. ‘I don’t know whether you’ve seen this. I didn’t show it to you before, but you might as well realize what kind of an impression you and Baby Doe have been making on this backward little town of ours.’

  Henry took the newspaper with increasing bewilderment. David pointed with a steady finger to an article headed ‘Mrs Elizabeth Doe—An “Ophelia Beyond Compare”; Beauty Of Beauties To Play Shakespearean Role in Mr Roberts’ Hamlet Opening Next Month.’ The reporter had been careful to avoid saying directly that Henry and Baby Doe were lovers, but all the way through the item there was a subtle but persistent implication that ‘Mrs Doe and her wealthy sponsor’ were more than professionally intimate.

  Henry read the article from top to bottom, then handed the paper back to David, and said, ‘You can put it on the fire now. That’s where it belongs.’

  David slowly folded it up. ‘Henry, you can’t ignore public opinion, not if you want to be a politician; and not if you want to become one of Denver’s really influential elite. Money alone isn’t enough. That’s what I’ve been trying to explain to you. If you’re going to get on, if you’re going to make those waves you keep talking about, then I’m sorry—but you’ve got to finish matters with Baby Doe.’

  ‘What are you trying to tell me?’ Henry retorted, aggressively. ‘You’re trying to tell me that Mrs Doe isn’t respectable enough for you? That you object to having a married man’s mistress in your house?- Is that it?’

  ‘Henry, that isn’t the problem at all. I adore Baby Doe. I think she’s pretty and amusing and I know exactly what it is that you see in her. But you can’t go on flaunting your adultery and still expect to get political and popular support.’

  Henry sat silent for an uncomfortably long time. My God, he thought. I’ve suffered all these years with Augusta, scratching for money; and now that I’m rich, it’s going to be just as bad. Where did that day in Bennington go, that day with all its sunshine and freedom? Where did my life go? Is this all there is to it, being nagged at by wives and cautious colleagues and moralistic busybodies who care more for respectability than they do for happiness? My God, he thought, if this is what the proper and acceptable way of leading your life is like, then it isn’t worth living. I might as well have thrown myself down that shaft on top of George Hook, instead of a barrow-load of steels, and killed both of us together, to put us out of our misery.

  He had always been dutifully conscious that a would-be politician should scrupulously avoid getting himself involved in sexual scandal; in fact, he had repeatedly told Baby Doe that he couldn’t leave Augusta, not just yet, for fear of spoiling his chances of being elected mayor. Yet somehow, during the winter, as more and more money had accumulated in his bank account, and he had begun to realize that he was not just rich, but a millionaire several times over, his perception of what was scandalous and what was proper had radically changed. He was rich: what he did was proper. It was only what poor people and Democrats did that was scandalous.

  He stood up. He rubbed his hands together. He told David, ‘This is it. You’ve decided me.’

  ‘This is what?’ asked David.

  Henry stalked into the centre of the drawing-room, and held out his hand towards Baby Doe.

  ‘This is what, Henry?’ David repeated anxiously, hurrying after him.

  ‘David—this is where I stop lying—stop deceiving myself and stop deceiving everybody else. That article shocked me, that article in the News about Baby Doe. It was cheap and it was smutty. If people are going to gossip about us, if people are going to snigger and moralize, well then, let them do it in front of us, where we can see them. I’m leaving Augusta.’

  ‘What?’

  Henry stood with his fists on his hips and bent forward and glared directly into David’s bright pink face. ‘I’m leaving Augusta. For good. She can have the mansion, she can keep the store. I’m leaving her. She’s had eighteen years of my life, no, nineteen, and that’s all the time she’s going to get. She came to my door begging to be married, and I married her; but when I stood in that chapel and said that I’d honour and keep her, for richer, for poorer, that didn’t mean that I prom
ised to crush myself up for her, and live the rest of my life in boredom and frustration and pain. Happiness is a God-given right, David; and there’s my happiness, sitting there, and I’m damned if anybody’s going to stop me taking it, for any reason, political or moral or financial or social or any damned reason that you can think of.’

  David raised both hands cautiously. ‘Henry, come on, you’ve had three glasses of brandy—’

  But Henry slowly and melodramatically shook his head. ‘Maybe the brandy has loosened my tongue, David; but it hasn’t affected my heart. All of you think that Baby Doe is a passing fancy, don’t you? You’ve all been tolerating her here because you think she won’t last long; oh, now that Henry’s come into money, he has to have his little fling, it won’t last long. Let’s just hope that he’s going to be civilized about it, and not flaunt it too much. You hypocrites. You, David, of all people. And me, worst of all, for not acting sooner; for making Baby Doe suffer all winter long; because I listened to you, and because I didn’t have the courage to leave Augusta when I first met her. Baby Doe isn’t only beautiful, David, she’s brave; and she’s stayed loyal to me, and honest, when all of the rest of you have been doing everything you can to make sure that I remained respectable. Well—let me tell you what the price of respectability is, for me—and that’s Augusta—and that is more than I am prepared to pay.’

  He looked around the drawing-room, flushed, and then he said, in the clearest, best-enunciated voice that he could manage, ‘I would give a million dollars, in cash, to be rid of Augusta, right this minute. I would give everything I own. Not that I consider it necessary, or just. Augusta will get what Augusta truly deserves. But let me tell you here and now that I shall be rid of her; and that I will stay with Baby Doe, and that I will still run for mayor, and damn it, I will run for senator, too, and anybody who doesn’t like the idea of it can be damned.’

  David was silent for a moment or two. He stood with his hands in his pockets looking down at the carpet. Then he raised his head, and said, ‘Well, Henry, you just lost something this evening.’

  ‘What was that, David?’

  David said sadly, ‘You lost a friend. Please, go get your coats, and leave. And whatever arrangements you want to make for handling your business—well, just let me know when you’re ready. I don’t want to have anything further to do with it.’

  Henry said, ‘This is the way you’ve been feeling all along, isn’t it?’

  David nodded.

  ‘All right, then,’ said Henry. He went over to Baby Doe and took her hand. ‘Come on,’ he told her. ‘This is where the old life really ends, and the new life really begins.’

  They left David Moffat’s house without saying anything more. Henry and David still liked each other, and neither of them wanted to risk losing his temper, and hurting the other more than he had to. Henry turned around at the doorway, but they didn’t shake hands.

  ‘What are you going to do now?’ Baby Doe asked Henry, as she snuggled up close to him in the carriage.

  Henry leaned towards her as he reached into his pocket for his matches, to relight his cigar. ‘You don’t mind if I smoke this thing?’

  She shook her head.

  He struck a match, and sucked. ‘The first thing I’m going to do is go back to Leadville,’ he said. ‘This time, I’m going to have it out with Augusta, straight and quick. It’s the only way. “Augusta,” I’m going to tell her, “I can’t take the sight of your face any longer and that’s the end of it.” Then, I’m going to go round to Nat Starkey and the rest of the Leadville city administrators, and I’m going to offer them the following: an opera house, which they sorely need for their ears, and a street railroad, which they sorely need for their feet; and electric street lighting, which they sorely need for their eyes. And I’m going to tell them: if you don’t elect me for mayor now, you need your brains tested!’

  Henry was in great high spirits. He sat up straight in the back of the carriage, and clapped his hands, his cigar clenched between his teeth, one eye closed against the smoke. ‘Then,’ he said, ‘I’m going to go to the judge and ask for a legal divorce, on the grounds of something-or-other, cruelty more than likely; and by God my love I’m going to marry you, as soon as the law permits.’

  Baby Doe held him close. But she said, quietly, ‘You’re drunk now, my sweetheart. Tell me again in the morning.’

  He took out his cigar, and breathed smoke, and looked at her with unfocused eyes. ‘You don’t think I’m going to do it, do you?’

  Baby Doe said nothing, but leaned against his starched white shirtfront with its real pearl buttons and watched the streetlights dancing by as if they were will-o’-the-wisps, fiery entrancing goblins who led you to nowhere.

  Early the following afternoon, his face grey, his moustache unwaxed, his coat-collar turned up against the wind, Henry set off for Leadville. When he arrived the next day, he went first to the store, but Hetty Larsen, who often helped Augusta to serve behind the counter these days, told him that Augusta had gone to the ‘big house’ as she called it, to watch the grand staircase being put in.

  It was a cold day in Leadville. The streets were thick with icy mud, and a thin drizzle poured relentlessly down from the mountains. Waggons struggled through the ooze; carters whipped and cursed; and loafers leaned on the hitching-rails with water dripping steadily from the brims of their hats. In the Pioneer Saloon, on State Street, someone was playing ‘Sweet Betsy From Pike’ on the piano.

  The house on East 10th Street was enormous, although it was still a shell. It was the talk of Leadville, and there were weekly reports on its construction in the local newspaper. At the moment, it was nothing more than a towering arrangement of brick walls and Doric pillars, with empty window-frames and empty doors, and the ground all around it was churned up by builder’s waggons and wheelbarrows, and cross-trenched with excavations for the drains. Henry climbed down from his carriage and crossed the muddy ground in his $55 shoes, scaling the marble steps, which were crunchy with black grit and plaster, and entered the hallway, roofless still, so that the rain fell softly on to the floor.

  Augusta was standing alone in front of the grand staircase; in a black cape, and holding a black umbrella. She must have heard Henry approaching across the hallway, but she didn’t turn around; nor did she look at him when at last he stood beside her.

  The grand staircase was almost complete: a magnificent sweep of marble stairs that curved around the side wall of the hallway, wet and dirty now, but all ready to be polished so that they would reflect the sparkle of chandeliers, and the silk of ladies’ slippers, and the taffetas and velvets of evening gowns.

  ‘Very impressive,’ said Henry.

  ‘I suppose so,’ Augusta replied.

  ‘Are they working today?’ asked Henry, looking around.

  ‘It’s too wet. They’ll come back tomorrow.’

  Henry walked around her, and looked at her.

  ‘Have you been here long?’ he asked her.

  ‘About an hour.’

  ‘Any—’ he paused ‘—particular reason? I mean, is there anything you particularly wanted to see? I mean, it’s going all right, isn’t it? No problems with the builders?’

  ‘No,’ she said, almost inaudibly. ‘No problems with the builders.’

  ‘Do you, um—do you want to go back to the store?’

  She suddenly turned and stared at him, her face rigid under her plain black bonnet. ‘Do you know what you’ve done?’ she demanded. ‘Do you understand at all just how immorally—just how carelessly—you’ve been behaving?’

  ‘Augusta, this really isn’t the place to—’

  ‘You are so weak,’ she barked at him. ‘Henry, you are so weak!’

  ‘Weak?’ he repeated. He was baffled. That was the very last thing he had expected her to say. Treacherous, yes. Callous, perhaps. But weak? What on earth did she mean? Weak?

  But Augusta was furious, and in full unstoppable spate. ‘Since they’ve started buildi
ng the house, and since I’ve been thinking of giving up the store, Henry I’ve been going through the books. The bank books, Henry, all of them; and all the correspondence; and all the transactions; all the things that you were supposed to be taking care of. It’s your precious friend William Byers, isn’t it? Him, and von Richthofen, and that ridiculous Henry Stanley. Those elite Denverites you keep boasting about. Well, do you know what they’ve done, with your collusion, or perhaps with your carelessness, and your unbelievable innocence?’

  Henry had been right on the pitch of telling Augusta that their marriage was over; that he loved Baby Doe and that he wanted a divorce, so that he could marry her. Suddenly, in the rain, he found himself having to defend a casual financial arrangement that he had made with William Byers, for no reason that he could think of, and he couldn’t even find the words to explain what he had done, or why. William had asked him if he could use his bank to finance a side-wheeler service on the Platte River, and a resort city for all of those Easterners who wanted a breath of mountain air; and that was all that he knew about it. The money had come and gone; and William had made him regular payments of commission; that was all he knew.