Lawless (68 page)

In the arrivals shed, Matt unfolded his passport. The customs official compared the man he saw with the one described on the sheet of parchment. Satisfied, he returned the document. “You may pass.”

Gideon was waiting by an iron pillar beyond the barrier. Matt went straight to him.

“Matt.”

“Gideon—good God—”

Neither of them could think of anything original to say. They hugged one another with fierce masculine affection, then separated, Gideon the soberly dressed businessman and Matt the picture of a dashing young sportsman.

Matt fanned himself with his boater and tapped a toe on the ground. “The sod of my native land. The Yankee part of it, anyway. Never thought I’d tread on it again.”

“I can’t say how happy I am that you are. I didn’t think
100 Years
would really excite you.”

“A hundred—? Oh, the book. Well—” Matt hesitated, unwilling to bring up bad news immediately.

“I did wonder why you took so long to give me your answer,” Gideon said. “You never really did, you know.” He sounded just a shade sententious, Matt thought. Probably that came of running a newspaper, and bossing people.

“Got very busy all at once,” Matt evaded. “But I did spend a bundle to cable you from Southampton and tell you I was on the way.”

“That you did. By God it’s good to see you after so many years.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t here when Pa died.”

Gideon waved. “He’d have been buried a good two weeks by the time you caught a ship and got home. I think his death was an easy one—if any of them are ever easy. It was certainly quick. But let’s not be so blasted gloomy. I have some good news. The Wilmington picture’s attracting a lot of favorable comment at the exhibition. I’ve saved some articles by two of the leading critics.”

“I hope they had nothing kind to say. That’s bad luck for a painter. Among my friends in Paris, I think the only ones who are certain of lasting fame are the ones the public hates and the critics devastate. Paul Cézanne. Manet—”

Gideon interrupted. “You didn’t finish what you started to say about the book.”

“Oh. Well, perhaps that can wait until we’re at the house.”

The brothers were jostled forward into the claiming hall where stevedores piled luggage in great teetering heaps without much concern for order or damage. Even in the confusion, Matt saw the unhappiness on Gideon’s face.

“I’m not living at home, Matt.”

“My God. Since when?”

“Since the first of June.”

“Where are you living?”

“At a hotel downtown. I’ve reserved a suite for you there—”

Suddenly he pivoted to face his younger brother. Passengers streamed by them, some cheerful, some complaining. “I might as well give you the whole of it right now. Margaret and I are finished. I moved out. Things are in a complete mess. I don’t seem able to control events any longer. They control me.”

“Sounds like an excuse for a good bender of two or three days’ duration—what do you say?”

His smile faded as Gideon gave him a piercing, almost injured look. Matt didn’t understand his offense. Why should a reference to drinking upset his brother? Gideon had never been an abstainer.

Confused, he covered it by hunting for a bill and flourishing it to summon a porter.

“That steamer trunk, my man. And that one. To a hack, if you please.”

For his part, Gideon was regretting that he’d been so candid so soon. Somehow, though, just seeing his younger brother had made him feel that here was the one other human being besides Julia with whom he could share everything.

There were changes in Matt, of course. He was thirty-three now. Time was beginning to cut lines into his raffishly handsome face. He acted as if he didn’t have a care. For that reason Gideon felt bad about pouring out his troubles. He wouldn’t reveal any more of them just now. He didn’t want to spoil Matt’s homecoming by trying to explain things like the three notes he’d sent to Eleanor since he’d moved out.

All of the notes had gone unanswered. One Saturday morning he’d driven up Fifth Avenue and asked for his daughter, only to be told by Samuel that she refused to come to the door and speak with him.

“All right,” he replied in a tired way. “Just answer one question. I’ve sent her three letters. Have they arrived?”

Samuel said, “Yes, sir,” and Gideon’s world began to crumble in earnest.

The other man seemed on the point of amplifying his remark. His eyes darted to one side in a nervous way. Margaret’s voice rang out, demanding to know who was at the door. The butler leaned forward and whispered, “Things aren’t healthy here, Mr. Kent. Not healthy at all. Get the children out if you can.”

Margaret screamed at him and he slammed the door in Gideon’s face.

The warning left Gideon frustrated and frightened. Were Eleanor and Will in danger because of his wife’s deteriorating mental state? No, he doubted that. Whatever else he was willing to believe about Margaret, he couldn’t believe she’d physically hurt her children. He feared Samuel was referring to some subtler but no less terrible form of injury.

What could he do? Abduct the children? Nonsense. This was the nineteenth century, not the Middle Ages. He felt unbelievably frustrated, though. He was powerless if Eleanor refused to answer his letters or speak to him when he called.

Gideon had yet to solve that particular problem. But he couldn’t burden Matt with it. In the hack, he raised a pleasanter subject.

“I’ve gotten you a guest card at Salmagundi. That’s a very fine private club for artists and art patrons. It’s on lower Fifth Avenue. Has very commodious rooms, and I think you’ll like the crowd. I’ve also been searching for a studio.”

“Wait a minute. Wait!” Matt held up a hand. “That’s rushing things a bit.”

“You’ll need a place to do the sketches for the book, won’t you?”

Matt opened his mouth to speak, having decided it would be far better to tell his brother right now that he wasn’t interested in the project. Somehow, though, he just couldn’t utter the words. Gideon’s haggard face, slumped posture—and most especially his announcement that he’d left Margaret—made Matt reconsider.

If there was anything he loathed, it was responsibility for someone else. But here was a case that absolutely demanded he take responsibility. Damn if he liked the idea. But Gid had been the older brother all his life, and now he obviously needed someone to assume that role with him. Matt finally shrugged.

“Oh, I suppose—”

“That’s wonderful!”

The instant Matt accepted the responsibility, he began his retreat from it. “I’m not sure how long I can stay here, though. And I’m certainly not sure this book you’re proposing is my cup of tea.”

Gideon was already growing more animated.

“Of course it is. There’s no one who could do it half as well. It’s also the one thing in my life that hasn’t gone to pieces. Excepting my relationship with Julia.”

Another shock. “Who’s Julia?”

“You’ll meet her.”

“Gid, are your children all right?”

“Yes.” He frowned. “They’re with Margaret.” That said a good deal.

A little more briskly, Gideon went on. “As soon as you’re settled, I want to show you a list of proposed plates for
100 Years.
I also want to hear about your work. And about Dolly, and your son.”

With a rueful grin, Matt said, “We seem to be a couple of homeless wanderers, don’t we? Men without their women, hanging around some hotel with nothing better to do than plan a picture book—” The smile faded. “I’ll tell you this. It isn’t the splendid, footloose life I once thought it would be.”

“You mean your career?”

Matt nodded.

Quietly: “I feel the same way about the paper. The book and Julia are damn near all I have left.”

Again Matt looked into his brother’s ashen face and saw the need visible there. Yet something within him bawled like an infant, and fought the yoke.

“I won’t promise to do more than try a few sketches. You’ve got to remember this isn’t my country anymore.”

“Yes, it is. Only now you’ll see it with the eyes of someone who’s been away for a while. You’ll see it with fresh vision. You’ll see what I miss because I’m too accustomed to it.”

The enthusiasm in his brother’s voice bothered Matt. “Look, Gid, don’t get your hopes up. I didn’t like the idea when I first read about it and I still don’t. If the first half dozen sketches are no good, I want to be free to quit. You’ve got to give me that much.”

“Happily, happily!” Gideon exclaimed. “Once you get started, I know everything will work out.”

In a cynical voice, Matt asked, “Have you gotten religion while I was gone? You certainly have an unwarranted amount of faith.”

But it was obvious nothing would convince Gideon the project was foredoomed. Perhaps his was a confidence born of desperation.

“All right,” Matt sighed. “Let’s take a turn through the lower part of the island before we head for the hotel. I’d like to see some of the changes. I’d like to see whether I can rediscover even”—he held his right thumb and index finger a quarter inch apart—“that much interest in this damn country.”

Gideon laughed. “Anything you say. I feel better just seeing you. When everything else seems to totter, at least we have family to hold on to—oh, Matt, I’m glad you’re home.”

The carriage bounced on through the traffic of Tenth Avenue. In the sunless light of the summer day, Matt thought he detected a touch of moisture in the corner of Gideon’s good eye. He poked his own with the tip of his little finger. A speck of dust or perhaps a bit of cinder thrown up from the noisy West Side streets had gotten in his eye and started it watering.

“Damn if I don’t feel the same way,” he laughed. And then the humor took on a hard edge that reality demanded. “Just don’t get your hopes up, hear?”

O
NE YEAR LATER
, on a Wednesday evening in July of 1877, Thomas Courtleigh entertained at his home in Lake Forest, Illinois.

Courtleigh had built the mansion in 1874. After his wife’s death, he’d stayed there because he preferred the suburbs over State Street or any of the other fashionable addresses in Chicago. On Prairie Avenue, for example, one could be a neighbor of the Armours, and the Palmers, and other leading families. But one paid a price, and was forced to live close to a swelling population of immigrants and niggers.

That didn’t suit the president of the Wisconsin and Prairie. He’d chosen to stay twenty-five miles to the north, in the exclusive little village platted on 1,300 wooded acres beside Lake Michigan. An architect obtained through Frederick Olmstead’s company in New York had laid out the winding streets. Courtleigh had chosen to situate his forty-room residence on, appropriately enough, Wisconsin Avenue.

This Wednesday evening he was entertaining two dozen couples. An elegant buffet had been served at twilight on the terrace of the great limestone house. Now, as the summer darkness deepened, some guests sat or stood on that terrace, chatting quietly. Others had retired to the sweeping green lawn where the host had provided croquet equipment imported from Europe. Croquet had become a national craze after the war. As Courtleigh moved from group to group on the terrace, excited cries and applause came drifting through the warm air. Soon small torches set in special brackets atop the wickets began to flicker out on the lawn. Servants were lighting the torches to permit night play.

“—still undersubscribed for the new stained glass,” Courtleigh heard one of the men say as he joined two husbands and their wives. All the male guests were members of the vestry of St. Margaret’s Protestant Episcopal Church, as was he. Courtleigh’s long, patrician face remained composed as he moved close enough to make his presence known.

“Undersubscribed by how much, Dillard?”

“Why, hello, Tom.” The man chuckled. “By twenty thousand dollars, that’s all.”

One of the women said, “Twenty thousand? A bagatelle.”

Unsmiling, Courtleigh nodded. “Quite right. In the morning I’ll prepare a draft for that amount.”

There were gasps, and then Dillard’s wife exclaimed, “Oh, Tom! That’s so generous. Sometimes I think you’re the finest Christian in the whole congregation.”

“No,” said the second man, “merely the richest.” They all laughed, Courtleigh included.

Then Mrs. Dillard put in a final word. “Dear Gwen would be so proud of your devotion to the church.”

Courtleigh’s bland face concealed sudden rage. There were so many things she could have enjoyed if it hadn’t been for that damned Kent. Now the wretch was attracting national attention with some illustrated book that was soon to be published.

The book had something to do with American history—as if a Marxian socialist knew anything about that, or even had a right to trifle with it. Kent had written the text for the volume. The illustrations were wood engravings based on sketches by his brother, an artist who evidently belonged to a crowd of crazy European daubers.

In addition to the book itself, a limited edition portfolio of twenty etchings based on the pictures was being sold by private letter of subscription. Each of the two hundred fifty portfolios cost $500. Courtleigh knew all about the project because one of his church friends had shown him the elaborate solicitation materials. They included a reproduction of a section of one of the etchings. It depicted Kansas wheat farmers stringing the new barbed wire which, at long last, was making farmland safe from trampling by cattle herds. But no one on God’s earth had ever seen farmers of the kind Kent’s mad brother drew—spineless, curving figures half finished and completely repulsive. If that was art, Courtleigh was John the Baptist. But of course one might expect such obscene insults to the intelligence from a clan like the Kents.

The subscription materials had exerted a kind of fascination, though. One sheet had listed twenty-three organizations and charitable institutions to which the profits from the portfolios would be donated. On that list Courtleigh saw the benefit funds of several enfeebled unions such as the printer’s and the typographer’s. That was enough to put him in a wretched mood for two days. At least Kent hadn’t had the audacity to mail him one of the damned solicitations.