The Lost Prince (12 page)

Eleanor stared at him for a long moment, running through her head the revelations of the past few hours. “Well,” she said, stopping, allowing a long silence to settle in. “I am deeply honored, and what is done is done.” And she went to think through this monumental eruption in her careful planning and strategy.

“You would like to replace me.” It was more of a statement than a question. The man who had for a moment thought himself destined to be Will Honeycutt, legendary director of the Hyperion Fund, now looked down, waiting for the axe to fall.

“You did magnificently today, you know,” was what he heard. “You more than proved yourself.” Eleanor paused.

“But?”

“But,” she said, eyeing him again with mock seriousness, “that doesn’t alter the fact that there is this other T. Williams Honeycutt to consider.”

“It does not,” Will Honeycutt said, still not certain what was coming.

Eleanor paused and took a puff of her cigar and leaned her head back. She released one single, imperfectly formed cloud of smoke vaguely resembling a ring. Then, admiring her work for a long moment, sitting up and looking him square in the eye, she said, “From today’s encounter with Wall Street, I would say that one thing has emerged as perfectly clear.”

“And that is?”

“And that is…” She paused and leaned back again and this time released a second puff of smoke, this one a perfect ring, and she watched with the greatest satisfaction as it dissipated in the air of the hotel room. “It appears that I have chosen very much the correct T. Williams Honeycutt.”

“MOTORCARS, MR. HONEYCUTT”

E
leanor and Frank Burden were married in the fall of 1902, four years after she returned from Vienna and a good two years into their formal courtship. The wedding took place, as planned, in Trinity Church, and it was an important punctuating event in the Boston social year, although a little subdued since both Eleanor’s and Frank’s parents were gone and neither had brothers or sisters.

Perhaps the most memorable feature of the wedding ceremony itself was the fact that William James walked the bride down the aisle, and the vision of those two handsome figures in that solemn and significant ritual moment gave the feeling of nobility to the ceremony and brought tears to many eyes. That accompaniment part of the ceremony had been William James’s idea actually. As the forthcoming event was being announced, a good eight months in advance, James wrote from England that if no one else had come forward he would consider it a great honor to “accompany you down the aisle,” he said. William James and his brother Henry had known her parents well and had been very close to them when they were younger, before Eleanor was born. Although he had never been given such formal designation, Eleanor had always considered him her godfather, and the older man had certainly been, more than expected, a faithful observer of the major events of her life.

His letters of congratulations and encouragement during her young life had always been special to her, and the few times they had a chance to be alone together and talk in those early days had always been for her
memorable. It was he, for example, along with Eleanor’s (in those days called Weezie) headmistress Miss Hewens, who suggested that she attend Smith College, and his letters while she was there had played a large part in encouraging her in her pursuit of art history and music. And since her return from Vienna, her regular meetings with him in his office in Cambridge had become a staple.

So she wrote back to her godfather in England and said that although the long line of candidates who had asked to perform the duty would be disappointed—there were no other candidates, actually—she would love to have him join her in that “very short and very poignant walk to matrimony.” Her lightness of expression on this matter was an attempt to mask the weight she felt concerning the whole issue of being given away, and how moved she was by the offer by someone of such significance in her life. She had confidence that William James of all people knew well how much his offer meant to her.

And Arnauld, in Vienna, recognized the event with a letter, one of those obviously most cherished in Eleanor’s lifelong collection.

The letter was important to Eleanor for many reasons; not the least was the fact that it was the first time, after all her efforts, that Arnauld had mentioned his intention to come to Boston.

After the wedding, Eleanor and Frank moved into her family’s Acorn Street house near Louisburg Square on Beacon Hill, the house where she had been born and where she knew she was supposed to live out her full life. The young couple set about establishing a proper Boston social life, she continuing her volunteer work in a number of important charitable endeavors, and he continuing his promising career as a Boston banker. It was assumed by everyone that they would set about immediately starting a family. And indeed a little after a year following the wedding, Eleanor announced that she was pregnant, and a few months after that Susan was born, and a little more than a year and a half after that Jane followed. Eleanor, the young mother, found the raising of two bright, young daughters a fulfillment beyond anything she had anticipated, the great compensation of her marriage.

From the point of view of nearly everyone in Boston, Eleanor and Frank Burden played out their parts with a kind of perfection that brought great pleasure to those who wanted to believe that Boston was the ideal way of life, life as it should be. No one even began to suspect the secret life Eleanor lived and the remarkable success she had within it, nor the dark secret of their time together in Vienna.

After the extraordinary success with the Northern Pacific stock, she knew exactly what she and her new colleague Will Honeycutt needed to do with the Hyperion Fund monies, and she broke it to him immediately upon returning to Boston.

“Motorcars,” she said when Will, newly confirmed as the Hyperion Fund’s permanent associate, met her one morning in their office. “Starting tomorrow we will shift our considerable funds to motorcars, Mr. Honeycutt.”

Catching the bumptious Will Honeycutt by surprise was never a good idea, she was to learn over the years. Her directive caused him to stare speechless for a moment. Then he turned suspicious. “You know about motorcars?” he said, the whole idea obviously new to him.

“No, I do not,” she said distinctly, with confidence. “But you are going to.”

“You are doing this for a reason,” he said.

“We are doing this for our next investment.”

But he would have none of it. “This is about the bucket shops. You are trying to get me out of the bucket shops.” He was grimacing now. “You are worried that I am too obsessive.”

Eleanor, never one to jump into an argument, paused, reflecting, herself now caught off guard. “Mr. Will Honeycutt,” she said very slowly, “I have told you this before, and I repeat it now. There is much I cannot tell you, and I am sorry for that, but yours is not to question my motives. Yours is to do what I say.” There was a new iciness in her tone.

Will Honeycutt, deadly serious, stood for just a moment, as if deciding his entire future. “And you are adamant about this motorcar business?”

“I am,” she said.

“Very well,” Will Honeycutt said curtly, sensing the discussion was over, never one for poise exactly, but poised enough in this moment to swallow whatever it was that he really wished to say. “We need to do as you wish.”

“Good,” Eleanor said.

“And what exactly is the appeal of motorcars?” Will asked later, calmed now, both he and Eleanor back to the flush feeling, returned to bathing in the warm glow of their success.

“They are the future, Mr. Honeycutt.”

“You are certain of that?”

“I am positive,” she said. “Your job will be to find a man by the name of David Dunbar Buick in Detroit, Michigan. We are going to back him.” And Eleanor, who had no way of explaining to her partner the certainty of her investment intentions or the reasons for her inability to provide reasons or facts, said simply, “I just know,” which was all she said whenever asked. And once she had made those intentions clear one more time, her partner had acquiesced with a resigned sigh.

Moving the Hyperion Fund monies to Detroit and the investment in motorcars was to be a perfect solution, she surmised, which would keep Will Honeycutt busy, out of town mostly, and would allow her time to concentrate on her life with Frank as a successful Boston couple.

So while Eleanor was tending to her personal and social duties, Will Honeycutt traveled alone by train to Detroit and set about his task and within a few days had progress to report and had forgotten, it seemed, any tension that had arisen between them. “Your Mr. Buick is indeed an automobile man,” he said on the telephone. “He makes the new internal
combustion engines in Flint, Michigan. Fascinating stuff.” And Eleanor could feel that Will Honeycutt could barely hold back from telling her about the intricate workings of David Dunbar Buick’s new internal combustion engines.

“Have you met him?” she asked, a bit impatiently.

“Yes,” Will replied, “of course, and I have seen his engines.”

“Well done, Mr. Honeycutt,” said Eleanor. “I trust he is glad to hear that we intend to give him what he needs.”

“Oh my, yes,” Will exclaimed. “We have gotten along quite famously.”

Then, apparently having gotten to know this Mr. Buick a little better, Will telegrammed his second thoughts: “Have met Buick several times. Wisdom of investments questionable.”

Not really interested in finding out the specifics, Eleanor’s return message was short, instructive, and to the required point. “Proceed as planned.”

Upon his return to Boston, Will Honeycutt discussed with Eleanor in great detail what he found in Detroit and the surrounding area. And he became convinced that the greatest profit was to be made with investments with the ancillary products. “There is the greatest flurry of automotive energy,” he said with passion. “As far as one can tell, it had all begun there because of Buick and a few others, but now things have spread well beyond him and his company. Lots of creative energy. There are all manner of subsidiary producers, wiring devices, electrical batteries, carburetors, and the like. It is very exciting. And the sparking devices,” Will said. “We ought to back them.”

“Sparking devices?” Eleanor repeated. “I am not familiar with them.”

“They are an essential part of the engines,” Will Honeycutt said. “At the top of the cylinder.” He held up his fist and raised it into the palm of his other hand. “The piston pushes to the top of the cylinder and compresses the gasoline. The device connected to the electrical battery produces a spark that ignites the gasoline and drives the piston down to the bottom of the cylinder. That spark producer needs to be of the highest quality and must be part of every engine. Mr. Albert Le Champ, a Frenchman, has designed the most efficient of these devices. I have met him, he’s a highly energetic fellow, and he is in need of investment. My recommendation is to back him. The returns would be manyfold.”

Eleanor stared for a moment. “We are not destined for such an investment, Mr. Will Honeycutt. I think you know that.”

“But it is a wise one. I have met with Mr. Le Champ, and I have seen his product. It is the wisest—”

She stopped him. “We are not going to invest there, Mr. Honeycutt.” And she said no more. “You have your ten percent for such gambles.” She paused again. “And you can enlist your friend Jesse Livermore.”

“It is not a gamble,” Will said, exasperated.

“That may be. But we are not budging from our plan to back Mr. Buick.”

But what gave Will pause about this man Buick, it turned out, was his reputed disorganization. “Mr. Buick seems to be of creative mind but without sufficient discipline and direction,” he said to Eleanor on his return home. “He is a man of too many ideas. He has been working at it for years and has only one automobile to show for his efforts. But he does need the money, and he was most enthusiastic when I told him of the Hyperion Fund’s interest.”

“Nonetheless,” Eleanor said pointedly, “we shall back him.”

Word of the possibility of investment spread as a number of people sought him out; one of them was a man named Henry M. Leland, who represented Mr. Henry Ford, another inventor in the area. “They would very much like our support,” Will Honeycutt said. “Given my choice,” he said, “I would have pursued this man Henry Ford. He has a fire in his eyes and the organized approach to back it up. You should see the man’s plans for production.”

Again unmoved, knowing well in advance from a simple journal entry what she was meant to do, Eleanor said simply, “That may be so, but we are backing Mr. Buick. You may do what you wish with your allotted ten percent. That is yours to gamble with, as intended.” Again, she gave no further explanation, and Will Honeycutt knew it was pointless to argue.

“We will travel there,” Eleanor said, and she told her husband, Frank Burden, that she would be visiting a Smith College friend in the Midwest.