1876 (29 page)

“What standards!” I exclaimed. (I am certain it was the wine: I am now feeling sick to my stomach and in need of a purge.)

When we joined the ladies, Mr. Day gave a number of samples of Antique wit, particularly calculated to thrill and titillate mixed company.

“Why,” Mr. Day asked Emma, “did the Devil never learn to skate?”

“Learn to
what
?” Emma has not all our verbs at her command.

“Ice-skate. You know, skate on ice.”

“Ah, did the Devil wish to ice-skate?”

“No, no. Well, yes, I guess he must’ve. But why did he never learn? why couldn’t he learn to ice-skate?”

“I am baffled,” said Emma.

“Because how in hell could he!” Mr. Day and the Antique gentlemen laughed at what, I gather, is an old, even antique story, whilst the ladies clucked disapprovingly at the sly way profanity had been legitimately used in their presence.

Emma simply smiled. Saint Gratier seems a world away and entirely lost.

THE LAST FEW DAYS would have brought down any parliamentary government. As it is, the Grant Administration is a shambles, and there is even talk that the President might resign.

Events are moving so rapidly that I have become a sort of writing machine into which Nordhoff pours whatever information I need. He is most generous. But then he is writing every day, while I write, thank God, only once a week.

On March 1, Babcock resigned as the President’s private secretary. Ill-advised as ever, the President has just appointed his own son to take Babcock’s place. Apparently Grant wanted to retain Babcock, but Mr. Fish said that if he did he would then have to find himself a new Secretary of State. But Babcock will not want. The President has rewarded him with the super-intendancy of Washington’s public buildings where he can steal himself a second fortune. Happily, Babcock is about to be indicted for the burglarization of that famous safe in St. Louis and there is still a chance of putting him in prison.

Nordhoff is very grim these days; also, very pleased. The Augean stables of American politics may yet be cleansed once the public sees what condition they are in. Poor Tilden. He will have to play Hercules.

On March 2, Belknap resigned as Secretary of War. I was with the Belknaps earlier today, so I now have their version of what happened. It varies significantly from what Nordhoff thinks happened.

Terrified at the thought of impeachment in the House and trial by the Senate, Belknap went to the White House on the morning of March 2. With him was Secretary of the Interior Zachariah Chandler, a Michigan politician close to the President. This sequence of events was supplied me by Nordhoff and seems plausible.

According to General Grant’s defenders, the President had been so preoccupied with the Babcock affair that he had not been aware of the charges against Belknap ... Just writing these words makes me think that if Grant did
not
know of this business, then he is indeed the village idiot. I realize that there are those who would consign him to that category, but I am not one of them. No fool could ever command for any length of time a great army, much less defeat a resourceful and splendid enemy. But I must set down the story as Nordhoff tells it.

Shortly before the arrival of Belknap and Chandler, Secretary of the Treasury Bristow (rapidly becoming the President’s nemesis) interrupted General Grant at breakfast with the request that he receive at noon a certain New York congressman who would give the President full details of the Belknap scandal. General Grant agreed to meet the congressman.

Query: Wouldn’t Bristow have mentioned
why
the congressman wanted to talk to the President? And if he had, then the President must have known that Belknap was on the verge of impeachment The question is crucial.

Bristow departs. The President orders his carriage to take him to the studio of a painter who is doing his portrait. Just as General Grant is coming downstairs from the family living quarters, a messenger tells him that the Secretaries of War and Interior wish, urgently, to see him. They are in the Red Dining Room. The President goes to them.

Belknap says that he wants to resign immediately as Secretary of War; he babbles incoherently. Chandler is direct, if not honest. He gives Grant the impression that Belknap must resign in order to protect his wife, who has been involved in something of an illegal nature. Without returning to his office, Grant sends for his son Ulysses, and orders him to write out a letter accepting Belknap’s resignation; then he tears up his son’s letter (it is too cool in tone), and himself writes the letter of acceptance, and signs it. Exeunt Belknap and Chandler.

As the President is about to get into his carriage, enter two Republican senators who explain to him for the first(!) time the Belknap affair. The senators are shocked. The President is shocked, and, I should think, alarmed, for by allowing Belknap to resign, Grant inadvertently (the adverb used by his supporters) made it impossible for Belknap to be impeached, because in the eyes of many constitutional authorities an official may not be impeached, much less convicted of a crime committed in office, when he no longer holds that office.

After this disheartening news, General Grant went and sat for his portrait, and the artist later reported that the President was as serene as ever. I find it curious that the ordinarily suspicious Nordhoff tends to believe that Grant knew nothing of the Belknap scandal
before
the arrival of the two senators. It seems to me inconceivable that he would accept so quickly the resignation of an old friend on the grounds that, out of office, Belknap might be able to protect his wife—a perfect
non sequitur
, since a high official is always in a better position to thwart justice than the plain citizen. I think that General Grant understood perfectly what he was doing. But I think that even the most partisan of Democrats will prefer to believe that Grant did not understand the matter, for if he did, he is guilty of obstructing the course of justice and is as much a criminal as Belknap.

Now for General and Puss Belknap besieged at 2022 G Street in their lovely home, as Mrs. Fayette Snead would say, crammed with French furniture; no, not besieged—kept under guard in order to prevent them from escaping to Europe. We arrived at tea-time, in response to an urgent message from Puss not to “abandon” her.

“May we go in?” I asked the policeman. I was tentative, not certain of the protocol in these matters.

“Suit yourself,” was that genial officer’s response.

The scene in the downstairs parlour resembled a lying-in. Heavy curtains were drawn against the daylight. Large funereal candles stationed at strategic points created a dim but attractive setting for the room’s centerpiece, a blue velvet chaise longue, on which reclined Puss, swathed attractively in lace, features pale and interesting. On a papier-mâché’ table at her side a glass of port stood next to smelling salts.

The Negro servant showed us into the presence. “Bring them tea,” a tiny voice whispered from amidst the lace, “and tell the General our friends are here. Our only friends!” The servant vanished just as the tears fell. I suspect that this dialogue and those tears have been often repeated these last few days.

Dramatically, Puss held wide her arms to receive Emma, who dutifully filled those arms, allowing the rain of Puss’s tears to fall onto her shoulder. I stood awkwardly to one side, as men must do at such times, wishing I were elsewhere.

But then tea came. Puss poured. Respectfully we sat around the bier and heard her version of what had happened. “It is beyond me how anybody on this earth could believe a word that Mr. Marsh said, much less the word of that—that
woman
he is married to, that viper I once like a perfect fool befriended! Sugar? Milk?”

We instructed her. Puss was now in full command of herself. Our tea was handed us without a tremor. “The truth is that my late sister, an angel if ever there was one loose on this terrible earth,
did
know the Marshes, and did have some kind of business dealin’s with them which I knew nothin’ about, bein’ unable to add two and two, much less able to do—what that awful woman got that stupid husband of hers to say I did.”

“Then Mr. Marsh never paid you anything?”

“Of course he paid me what he
owed
us!” The answer was swift. She has learned her part. “And I did, in my ignorance, use him to look after certain business affairs of my late sister’s and took his word for everything since I have no head for such things, and should probably be hung for my stupidity, seein’ as how my poor husband has been forced to resign ...”

“But Mr. Marsh said that he paid both you
and
your husband.”

“It’s that awful Mr. Bristow! Oh, I tell you this, Mr. Schuyler, before that man is through he is goin’ to drive General Grant himself from office. He’ll have the President of the United States, the greatest hero of all time, in jail—”

“For what?”

Although Puss’s rambling commentaries never exactly responded to any question asked, they were conducted for a definite purpose. “I shudder every time I pick up a copy of the New York
Herald
, shudder when I read what your friend Mr. Nordhoff is writin’ about us as if we were criminals! Did you know that they came here and arrested my husband because Mr. Nordhoff had said we were plannin’ to flee to Belgium, which has no extradition treaty with the U.S.?”

“I don’t think Mr. Nordhoff intended to ...”

“Well, it’s all craziness! We’re not goin’ anywhere. As if we could! Because after my poor husband was arrested and they let him come home, they put that policeman outside the house, and when I begged the man to at least come inside and sit in the vestibule, where he would be less visible, he just laughed in my face. I hope Mr. Nordhoff is satisfied. And I hope you at least will give the world
our
side, somethin’ nobody else will even dare to do.”

That explained the invitation to tea. I must say my position is delicate. I cannot contradict anything that Nordhoff has written, and harsh splendid stuff it is; also, in general, I think that he is right. Certainly, I am absolutely convinced of Puss’s guilt. But the mysterious figure in all this is Grant. I must meet him; see him at close range. Yet I shall not be able to meet him if my next piece for the
Herald
describes my suspicion ... no, my conviction that the President is involved right “up to the handle,” as Sanford in the r
ô
le of rough-hewn railroad man would say. Meanwhile, I’ve solved the matter of this week’s piece. I shall simply describe in flat detail the committee hearings, the behaviour of Mr. Marsh as well as Mrs. Marsh (this will please Puss), and allow the reader to make up his own mind as to the Belknaps’ criminality.

We were joined by Belknap and a square-jawed, clean-shaven man of about my age, who proved to be the Secretary of the Interior, Zachariah (or Zach., as everyone calls him) Chandler. Belknap looked properly distraught. Chandler, however, was very cool, and very much in control.

With a trembling voice, Belknap said, “Princess, Mr. Schuyler, you don’t know what this means to Puss and to me, your rallying around at this terrible moment in our country’s history.”

I was much amazed that what was, after all, old-fashioned grand larceny should have so suddenly become a crisis in the affairs of a great nation. But then, I suppose, in a way, Belknap is right. As Conkling said, any hope of a third term for Grant has been butchered by the Belknap affair, and the prospects of Conkling or whomever the Republicans choose to run against Tilden will hardly be enhanced by these revelations.

Then Belknap turned to Chandler. “You tell her,” he whispered, turning to face the empty fireplace, head down as if praying; from the rear, he looked like a solid keg covered in black cloth.

“Clymer has started the impeachment process. He spoke to the House just an hour ago.”

“God save us!” Puss was not performing now. She looked more drawn than ever, and very intelligent: fox in a trap, ready if necessary to gnaw off its own leg.

Chandler was as soothing as he could be under the circumstances. “I must say it was a terrible strain on him, being such a good friend to you both. At one point, I thought he was going to break down.”

“A pity that he didn’t. What happens now?” Puss looked to her husband, but the dark keg of a man was impassive.

“There will be a trial,” said Chandler. “We can’t avoid it now. But they haven’t got the votes to convict us.” The “us” was very nice. “They’ll need two-thirds of the Senate which they haven’t got. Besides, there are quite a few senators who’ve already said that you can’t impeach and convict a man no longer in office.”

“What effect, Mr. Secretary, will this have, do you think, on the coming election?” I spoke in my rôle of solemn but friendly journalist.

“It is quite possible that the Republican party will lose.” Zach. Chandler was matter-of-fact.

The keg spun around. “And all on account of the damnable Marsh—forgive me, Princess—and that she-devil of a wife!”

“Evil is a constant in human affairs,” intoned Zach. Chandler. They were marvellous. The guilt had been transferred to the Marshes in order that that obscure couple would be held responsible through all eternity not only for the end to Grant’s hope of a third term but for a possible end to sixteen golden years of Republican rule.

I looked at Emma, afraid that she might burst out laughing, but she was as grave as any mourner. I felt a traitor in that room, for with every word Zach. Chandler spoke I saw with growing certainty—and joy—the fact of a Tilden Administration.

But Zach. Chandler thinks otherwise. “The man who will benefit from all this is Bristow.”

“Will your party nominate him?” I ought not to have said “your,” but Chandler seemed not to notice; treated me as one of them.

“If they do, I’ll kill him! I swear it!” That from the blue velvet sofa.

“He will have a difficult time.” Chandler was mild. “I don’t think the Stalwarts will take a man who has covered General Grant in mud.”

Belknap sat down in a chair opposite us. I felt truly sorry for him. He has taken money for favours given, but I cannot regard him as a bad man. Rather, he is a victim of this place, and I mean not Emma’s delicious Africa, the national capital, but the country itself; this vigorous, ugly, turbulent realm devoted to moneymaking by any means. Certainly, if true justice were meted out to one and all, impartially, most of the congressmen would be in prison while Mrs. Astor’s parties would be decimated at the very least.