by John Jakes
“That isn’t true. I did.”
Contempt then: “Did you really see the words that the painters had to cover up? ‘Communist’ spelled out in red letters three feet high? The other filthy things?”
“Of course I saw them. What are you trying to say?”
“That Mama was always terrified of the very thing that happened—people attacking the house. She must have understood your work better than I did. But you kept on with your—your causes and never made it easy for her to forget her fear. You kept so busy at that blasted paper, you never made it possible for us to live like an ordinary family.”
“Now see here!” he said, his voice shaking. “You have to understand my side of it. She demanded that I give up my work. She wanted me to be something I couldn’t be—a drone in some safe, secure job. She wanted everyone to obey her, but especially me. I wouldn’t, and it was wrong of her to ask—”
“So you did exactly as you please, and now she’s dead.”
“Damn it. Don’t twist everything!”
“Gideon.” Molly’s lips were all but colorless. “Don’t curse, and for the love of God, don’t keep up this wrangling. The poor woman isn’t even buried.” She stabbed a look at Eleanor. “Both of you show a little restraint.”
He shook his head. “We’re going to settle it, Molly. Somehow my own children have been turned against me with insinuations and outright lies. I’ll never know what Margaret said to either of you—” A glance at Will, cringing at Molly’s side. “I’ll never know how she worked on your imaginations. But I know she did it. She lost her sense of what was right and wrong. I could see it happening before I left. The alcohol affected her mind, just as it affected her father’s. She was a sick woman—”
“Did you make things easier by staying with her, Papa?”
In answer to the scorn, he shouted, “She made it impossible for me to stay! She—”
Suddenly he stopped. The carriage swung around a corner. He was only alienating Eleanor all the more. He had to change direction.
“All right.” His voice was much softer. “Will it calm things and help us start on a better footing if I admit I made many, many mistakes? If I accept my share of the blame for all that happened?”
“You deserve all the blame! You were the one who walked out—” She rubbed her eye, then shook her head as if annoyed with herself. “You were the one who never even wrote a line to find out whether we were still alive.”
“Eleanor, what are you saying?”
“That you never cared enough to write so much as a single line after you left.”
“But I did. I must have sent you a dozen letters. Begging you to come down to the Union—I was willing to meet you anywhere, so we could patch up our differences—”
“That’s a convenient lie now that she’s gone,” Eleanor scoffed.
“I swear to God I wrote to you! Surely someone in the house saw the letters—”
She shook her head. “I kept asking Samuel, but there weren’t any.”
“Then somehow your mother must have intercepted them. It’s the only explanation. She must have destroyed them.”
Eleanor looked close to tears again. “Oh, Papa, that’s cruel. There’s no end to your cruelty. First you desert your wife and then you bring your mistress to New York and flaunt her in front of—”
“Don’t speak about Julia!” Gideon roared. “By God your disrespect is unbelievable. You’re not old enough to—”
“I was old enough to care for Will when you abandoned us! Old enough to care for Mama and run the house!”
“Eleanor—stop!” Will screamed. “Stop, stop, stop it!”
Molly’s eyes accused both Gideon and his daughter. “I told you that you were going too far.” She turned and comforted the crying boy. Gideon felt bludgeoned. There was a defeated tone in his voice as he made his last, desperate appeal to Eleanor’s reason.
“You mustn’t vilify Julia. She wanted to come to New York to pay her respects. She’s a fine woman. You may not believe it, but she’s been a strong partisan of you and Will for as long as I’ve known—”
“Gideon,” Molly whispered, “that will be all. Can’t you see the damage you’ve already done?”
He could, and it broke his heart.
Will’s face was buried in Molly’s skirt. Eleanor stared out the window at passing rooftops sprinkled by the rain that hadn’t even dampened the pavements.
He’d failed.
Exhausted, he leaned back against the cushion. She blamed him. She hated him. She always would. The family was sundered, and in the carriage he’d finally faced the truth of his own role in that destruction.
Something unexpected had happened during the ferocious, enervating argument. By admitting his culpability to his daughter, he’d also admitted it to himself, and done so without reservation, for the very first time. He could no longer put all the guilt on Margaret. He must shoulder his share, because it was deserved.
In one way poor Margaret was better off. She no longer had to carry that guilt. He’d bear his till the hour of his death, never forgetting that he was the sole living engineer of the Kent family’s ruin.
The pain of it made the wound in his side a scratch, a trifle, nothing.
v
An hour later, while he was talking with Joshua Rothman in the Fifth Avenue study, Samuel brought in a telegraph message that had just been delivered. Gideon tore it open. Rothman noted the younger man’s harsh expression as he read the one-line report from Sal Brown:
LORENZO HUBBLE A STAFF ATTORNEY FOR WISCONSIN PRAIRIE.
After a moment the butler murmured, “The boy is waiting, sir. Is there to be any reply?”
“Yes, Samuel.”
Pale, Gideon strode to his desk and wrote a message asking his reporter to investigate Hubble’s whereabouts on Sunday, July 22, as well as the day before and the day after. No expense was to be spared.
Samuel took the message and started to leave. At the last moment Gideon called him back. He watched the butler closely as he said, “During the past year, I mailed a number of letters to Eleanor. Evidently they didn’t arrive. At least she says they didn’t.”
Samuel frowned slightly. Gideon concluded he was trying to flog his memory. At last, looking his employer in the eye, he said, “No, sir, I don’t remember any letters in your handwriting.”
“Did Mrs. Kent ever collect the morning or afternoon deliveries herself?”
“Yes, sir, frequently, when I was busy at some chore. She liked to do it, she said.”
“I’m sure she did.” Both the butler and Joshua Rothman looked mystified by Gideon’s extreme bitterness.
Samuel hesitated, then said, “You sound upset, sir. Did I say something wrong?”
“No, Samuel. You didn’t give me the answer I hoped for, but you gave me the one I expected. That’s all. Thank you.”
Chapter VII
Call to Forgiveness
i
BY EVENING, RAIN was drenching the city. Water cascaded from the eaves of the roof of the train platform. The sight and sound of it carried Gideon back nearly six years, to another rainy platform where he’d discovered he couldn’t leave the woman who was still at his side this evening.
The intervening years had brought almost continuous and sometimes shattering change. Through it all, only Julia, his children and his work had sustained him. His work had finally brought down the vengeance Courtleigh had promised. His oldest child was his enemy. Only Julia remained a constant. Thank God she did, or he’d never have been able to go on.
Impatiently, he took out his pocket watch. “Twenty after already.” The Boston express left at half past the hour. The wagon bringing the coffin was nowhere to be seen.
A few latecomers were hurrying to board the passenger coaches. Gideon had arranged to accompany the coffin in the express car, whose open door was just to his left. He didn’t know precisely why he’d decided to do that, unless it was because he no longer, had anything to offer Mar
garet except his presence on the final stage of her journey. A memorial of dubious value, he thought with the bitterness that had infected his thoughts ever since the quarrel with Eleanor.
He peered along the platform. The lanterns hanging from the platform roof were dim. Blowing steam hampered visibility even further. Rain pelted his face. He wiped it away with his cuff. “What have they done with the damned thing?”
Julia laid a gray-gloved hand on his arm. “Don’t fret. It’ll be here.” The sympathy and patience in her voice calmed him a little. The calm was superficial, though. Inside, he felt like a baffled, frightened child.
Julia had sensed it when he’d stopped by her hotel. It was she who’d suggested she keep him company on the melancholy ride to the terminal. In the hack, they’d embraced with an unexpected ardor. They didn’t kiss, merely put their arms around one another and held each other tightly, as if each needed comforting after a day too full of rancor and reminders of their own mortality.
Now Julia said, “You didn’t finish telling me how things went after you got home.”
He shrugged, his mouth setting in a bitter line. “Eleanor refused to speak to me. It was more peaceful than the carriage ride, but hardly more cordial. Will said she’s happy that Matt’s moving from his hotel to the house to look after things while I’m in Boston.”
“I’ve been thinking about that house, Gideon.”
“You’re still planning to come live there, aren’t you?”
She said softly, “No, I don’t think I should.”
“Julia, we agreed—”
“I know what we agreed, darling. But just this evening, I changed my mind. What you told me about the conversation with Eleanor convinced me I’m right. You built that house with a great deal of hope. But it’s become a mausoleum for bad memories. Memories of arguments, violence, lives half lived and half fulfilled—but discounting all that, it remains your wife’s house, not mine. For me to move in even temporarily would be a kind of desecration of Margaret’s memory. Just as important, I want our house to be a loving house. Yours isn’t, not any more. I’m sorry, my dear, but that’s the way I feel.”
He respected her conviction, but he felt adrift again. “Then where will we live?”
“Anywhere else you choose. Perhaps we should go to another city for a while. Boston, if you’d care to involve yourself in the affairs of Kent and Son for a while. The change of scene might be beneficial, and the firm will need guidance to capitalize on the success of 100 Years.”
“I’m not that confident the book will succeed.”
“I am. In any case, it doesn’t really matter where we go if we’re together and have work that satisfies us.”
He was about to object, then thought of something he’d done earlier in the evening. It prompted him to say: “You could be right about the house. After supper I went up to Margaret’s room. The mob never got into it. I stood outside for ten minutes, wanting to unlock the door. I didn’t have the courage.”
“That’s perfectly understandable.”
His eye fixed on the terminal at the end of the platform. “Before we move out permanently—if we do—that room must be opened. Everything in it must be taken out and disposed of.”
“Don’t you think you should examine the things first? There might be some items the children would find valuable. Some keepsakes—”
His reply was abrupt and vehement. “There’s nothing in there but grimy furniture and old clothing. Nothing worth saving. If there are memories in the house like the ones you described, that room’s the chief source. Just as a practical matter, it has to be cleaned out before any prospective buyer looks at the property.”
“I still think someone should examine Margaret’s effects. I can understand why you don’t want to do it. I’d be willing to take on the chore—”
“No!” His blue eye shone bright as a gas flame, reflecting one of the lamps inside the express car. “Everything will be burned.”
She sighed. “I can’t agree with your decision. But—”
An expressman appeared in the open door of the car. “That box here yet, Mr. Gray?”
Gideon had filled out the shipping papers under the assumed name, and spread some money around to assure silence on the part of the terminal superintendent and his staff. Passengers weren’t usually allowed to ride in express cars. If higher-ups ever found out that permission had been given to Gideon Kent, the radical newspaperman who regularly attacked railroad owners, someone could lose a job. It was better to travel anonymously.
“Not yet,” Gideon answered. “I’ll go check on—wait, here it comes.”
A four-wheeled wagon pulled by two freight handlers appeared at the terminal doors. Like an image in a dream, it seemed to float along in the billowing steam. The iron wagon wheels rumbled. Rain slanting through the lamplight glowed and splattered on the lid of the coffin.
Julia saw how pale he’d grown. She slipped her hand in his. He didn’t turn. His eye remained fixed on the silver box.
The freight handlers rolled the wagon up beside the wide door of the express car. They lifted the coffin and maneuvered it inside. Only then did Julia say, “Did you decide to tell the children you and I had discussed marriage after a suitable mourning period?”
He pulled his gaze from the rain-speckled coffin. “Yes. I brought it up at the supper table. I didn’t know whether they’d think me callous with Margaret not yet buried. On the other hand, even Will knew she and I weren’t getting along. And Will has really taken to your son. All in all, I saw nothing to be gained by a delay. Will was excited. Not so much about you and me as about the possibility of having Carter around all the time.”
“And Eleanor?”
“You don’t really want to hear—”
“Yes, I do.”
He hesitated. “The first time I spoke your name, she left the dining room.”
Julia sighed again. “I know she’s bound to resent me for a while. I only pray it won’t be permanent. I’ll do my best to see that it isn’t. I’ve already written Lucy to say I want to curtail my travel for six months to a year. With a little luck and some help from the Almighty, perhaps we can give your children the kind of home they haven’t had for too long a time. Here in New York, or in Boston—”
Glum, he said, “I don’t know how Eleanor will accept that intention. I’m just coming to realize my daughter isn’t a child any longer. My God, she isn’t even sixteen and strangers think she’s nineteen or twenty. And she certainly has no qualms about addressing her own father in the most disrespectful way imaginable. I’m damned if I know what’s happening to the younger genera—may I ask what’s so funny?”
Her smile was gentle, not meant to hurt. “You, my darling. You’re sounding like an old fuss-budget. Or should I say a typically conservative parent?”
“Conservative? Me? Nonsense.”
“Don’t bristle so. I think it’s a healthy sign.”
He refused to smile. “The hell it is. I’ll never be a good father, Julia. I’ve come to the conclusion I never had it in me.”
“You mustn’t say that just because of Eleanor. Regardless of how old she looks, she’s young, emotional. Passion is characteristic of girls her age, but clear thinking isn’t.” A rueful smile. “I recall that very vividly, and with embarrassment.”
No amount of banter seemed able to break his grim mood. He turned toward the express car where the casket lay glistening. The expressman bent over it and began to wipe the water away with a clean rag.
“Over and over,” Gideon said, “I tried to make things go smoothly at home. I tried to persuade Margaret that we could have a happy family even though I gave a great deal of time and energy to the newspaper. She wouldn’t accept that. Then she started to make my work—and my unwillingness to give it up—a register of how I felt about her. From then on everything went to hell. ‘Smite the Midianites.’ Remember that? The passage my father picked from the Bible?” His tone grew steadily more bitter. “I’m glad
he never lived to see that in doing what he thought I should, I destroyed my family.”
“All right,” she said, softly yet with great intensity. “There were mistakes. Imbalances. But there comes a time when you have to forgive yourself.”
Again his attention seemed to wander. “Destroyed my family and killed my wife in the process—”
“Gideon, listen to me! Newsmen are so anxious to perfect the world, they forget it can’t be done with human beings. Accept that fact. Forgive yourself and—”
“I can’t.”
His anguished cry made the expressman glance up. Gideon turned his back on the car. Up and down the train, brakemen began signaling with their lanterns, streaks of light in the spectral steam.
A last passenger scrambled up the steps two cars behind. A conductor at the end of the train called, “All aboaaard!”
Julia looked dismayed by Gideon’s reaction. She marshaled her thoughts and said, “Very well, if that’s impossible, at least don’t speak of your wife with such bitterness. Be kind to her memory. She helped you learn, and grow. That took you out into the world, away from her. Resentment on her part was only natural. You had your work, but what did she have except tending her home and her children? What else was she prepared to do? Permitted to do—by you and by society? If you can’t forgive yourself, at least forgive her. No matter what you think she did, she’s gone. So be kind—”
“Mr. Gray, you’d better get aboard,” the expressman warned. In the dark at the head of the train, the beam of the oil lantern speared out. Gideon was somewhere else; in memory he’d returned to Richmond. To a footpath beside the canal in the desperate, bittersweet weeks just before First Manassas. Weeks in which he’d worn a splendid, spotless uniform and whispered endearments to a pretty, dark-haired girl.
“I loved her so,” he whispered. “Where did it go?”
Julia slipped her arms around his neck and drew his head down. “It’s futile to think of that now. We must only make sure our love doesn’t vanish the same way. We must work to keep it strong. And make sure your children are warmed by it, too. Both your children—”