The Passing Bells (16 page)

Brief impressions. Jacob Golden is twenty-four, about a year younger than Fenton, a year older than me, but wise beyond his years, as the saying goes. From conversation at tea, and from what Fenton told me about him later, I can piece together a sketchy biography of the man. He's the only son of Harry Golden, the great Lord Crewe. Crewe is as well known in Chicago as William Randolph Hearst is in London. Publisher of the London
Daily Post,
largest daily circulation of any newspaper in the world. A rag. Yellow journalism at its most blatant, a paper catering to the lowest common denominator of mass interest—lots of pictures, short texts, stories of murders and other crimes, falls of the mighty from grace, lives and loves of theatrical people and moving-picture performers, scare stories of civil war in Ireland, damnation of the German empire for having the temerity to compete with Britain in the building of a war fleet and the maintaining of colonies. Jingoism and sensationalism in a heady mixture.

Jacob Golden is amused by the paper his father built up from nothing, but I can detect an air of gravity beneath his cynical posturings. The paper, he says, wields a far greater influence on the masses than the Bible. The Gospel according to St. Crewe. Golden sees the world as being divided into two distinct classes, yahoos and nabobs—a few nabobs who rule, millions upon millions of yahoos who do what they're told and believe what they read. He can see nothing wrong in this division, provided all of the nabobs are intelligent, compassionate, and enlightened men—which, of course, they are not. The nabobs, he says, are donkeys sprinkled with a few apes. He says all of these outrageous things with a smile; a perverse pixie gleefully watching humanity stream toward the edge of a cliff. Fenton referred to him as an ass several times, and I'm half inclined to second the motion. And yet, I wonder.

Jacob and Fenton went to school together, a well-known preparatory school near London that sends the vast majority of its pupils on to Eton or Harrow. There were only a couple of Jews in the school, and Jacob had a miserable time until Fenton took him under his wing. From what I could gather, Fenton's father had designed the Daily Post Building in Whitefriars Lane off Fleet Street and was a good friend of Jacob's father. Jacob went on to Eton and then to Balliol College, Oxford. Fenton went to Sandhurst and the army, but there has been a tenuous bond between them since their prep-school days.

Jacob was expelled from Balliol and seems proud of the fact. He didn't say why he had been “sent down,” but I'm sure the powers at Oxford University didn't lack for reasons. His father gave him a job on the paper as a roving correspondent, and he has been to a great many places. I felt a pang of envy as he talked about the Balkan wars, tramping along with the Servian Army during its thrust across Albania to the Adriatic in 1912. An interesting anecdote, one that illustrates Jacob's theory about the nabobs. It seems that Lord Crewe objected to reportage on the “Servian” Army. He felt that the word sounded too much like “servile,” and so he ordered his editors to substitute a
b
for a
v.
So Servia became Serbia overnight, at least to the readers of the
Daily Post.
Nabob power! The changing of a nation's name by the mere stroke of a blue pencil.

Reflections. Jacob Golden is a newspaperman. I work on a newspaper. What a gulf separates our occupations! While I was toiling over a review of Frances Hodgson Burnett's latest novel, Jacob was sending dispatches from Ireland suggesting that Germany was supplying rifles to the Ulster volunteer army. He went a bit too far, I gather, and accused a British general of corresponding with the Germans in order to equip the Protestants with Maxim guns. Lord Crewe wouldn't print that story, and Jacob was brought home to cover local events. Still, even the reporting of murder trials is far and away more exciting and meaningful than anything I have done on a newspaper. Jacob made a suggestion to me. He said that his paper might be interested in half a dozen articles about England as seen through the eyes of a visiting American—“A Yank's View of Britain,” he suggested as a lead title. Advised me to make the pieces short and laudatory, although a gently chiding humor would be okay. The paper would pay three to five pounds per article. That won't pay for my trip, but it will make a slight dent in the tailor's bill. It will also be good training. The observation and reporting of life around me—people, places. . . .

A gentle tapping at the door interrupted his train of thought. He assumed it was the footman coming back for the tray and called out for the man to enter. He was surprised when Charles opened the door and stepped into the room, dressed in evening clothes and carrying a bottle of champagne.

“I hope I'm not disturbing you,” Charles said.

“No . . . not at all.” He capped the pen and closed the notebook.

“I saw your light as I came up from the garage. Thought you might enjoy a nightcap.” He held up the bottle. “Found this in the butler's pantry. Still reasonably chilled, and a truly decent year. My father has impeccable taste.”

Martin shoved notebook and pen into the attaché case, got out of bed, and put on his robe. Charles found two glasses on the dresser, one of which had a tootbrush resting in it.

“Just right for swizzing out the bubbles,” Charles remarked as he undid the wire around the cork. There was a tiny, satisfying pop, and then the pale amber wine flowed into the water glasses. “Enjoy your trip up to London?”

“Yes,” Martin said, taking one of the glasses. “I'm going on a Cook's tour of England next week. Leave on Thursday morning.”

“That should be pleasant. You'll probably see a good deal more of old England than I've ever seen. But that's always the way, isn't it? The traveler sees more than the native.”

There was only one chair in the room and Charles sat in it. Martin leaned against the bedpost, feeling self-conscious in his bare feet.

“Well, here's how,” he said, raising his glass.

“Yes, to your health.” Charles sipped the wine, staring moodily into the glass. “Nice and dry, don't you think? One of the few things the French can do well.”

It seemed to Martin that something was troubling his cousin and that he had come to the room for more than a friendly night-cap, but what it could be or why he had come was a mystery to him. He endured five minutes of small talk, and then Charles said:

“Odd, come to think of it. Here we are cousins—blood relatives—and yet I know next to nothing about you. Oh, just a few things that Mother has told me.”

“I know very little about
you
,” Martin said.

“There isn't that much to know. I went to Eton and Cambridge. Would like to be an historian . . . or teach history. I've been to France, Germany, Italy, and Greece. Enjoy good music . . . books . . . used to enjoy hunting. Rather an ordinary, uneventful life.”

There was a long pause, and Martin struggled to think of something to say.

“Were you born here?”

“In this house, do you mean? Yes. You were born in Paris. Is that correct?”

“In Montparnasse.”

“Is your mother French?”

“Was. She died four years ago.”

“I'm sorry. That's my point. I should have known that.”

Martin drained his glass, and Charles stood up quickly to refill it.

“I don't know why you should,” Martin said, sitting on the edge of the bed. “Your mother only met mine once. And besides, her death wasn't really a family matter.”

“The disinheritance, you mean?”

So he knows about that, Martin thought without bitterness. The midnight conversation was becoming curiouser and curiouser.

“Yes . . . the disinheritance. That took place before I was born, so I don't know too much about it. I never knew my grandfather, but I gather he was a tough old bird . . . very old-fashioned and puritanical.” He paused to drink some more champagne. Charles was watching him, hanging on to every word with taut-faced concentration. “I guess my father was a rebel. He was the second son, five years younger than Uncle Paul and three years older than Aunt Hanna. Paul was in the family business—half a dozen breweries—but my father didn't want any part of it. He wanted to paint. I guess my grandfather gave him a choice. It was as simple as that. Anyway, when he died, he'd cut my father out of his will. A dollar. I think he left him that much.” He felt dispassionate about the whole thing. It was like telling the life story of a total stranger.

Charles wet his lips with champagne. “I wonder what my mother felt about it. She was very fond of your father. At least, I've always had that impression . . . that he was her favorite.”

“I think he was, when they were kids. But my father alienated people. He had a talent for that at least.”

“Not much of a painter?”

“I couldn't say.” Martin shrugged. “He died when I was eight, and I don't remember his work . . . except that it didn't sell. My mother was a modiste, and a good one. That's how we lived. I remember my mother telling me that Aunt Hanna and Uncle Paul used to send Father money from time to time, but he always mailed the checks back—torn into scraps. He cut himself off totally from them . . . getting back at them for being cut off himself, I guess. Although Uncle Paul and your mother had had nothing to do with it. I suppose they gave up trying to help him after a time . . . as did everybody he knew in Paris. He had a terrible reputation, and I don't think anyone was sorry when he died. I'm sure you know your Conrad. I can't read
Heart of Darkness
without thinking of my old man. Paris was his Congo. It found him out early . . . the way the jungle found out all there was to know about Kurtz. ‘It whispered to him things about himself that he did not know' . . . or hadn't known in Chicago. I often wondered if he died like Kurtz, whispering, ‘The horror . . . the horror.' ” His mouth was dry as stone, and he reached down for the bottle, which was on the floor next to the chair. Charles picked it up and handed it to him. His face was pale, and tiny beads of sweat clung to his wide, smooth brow.

“How did he die?”

Martin took his time answering. He filled his glass and drank half of it.

“He cut his wrists. He spared my mother and me the sight, thank God. It was his most noble act. He did it in the apartment of one of his models in Montmartre. My mother believed he was just trying to scare the woman, but he'd been drinking heavily and I guess he lost his sense of caution. Anyway,” he continued in a flat monotone, “he died.”

“That's horrible,” Charles whispered.

“Yes. A wasted life.”

“It seems so cruel to be disinherited for such a trivial thing . . . wanting to be an artist.”

“I guess it wasn't a trivial thing to my grandfather. He expected obedience from his children. That was over twenty-five years ago, remember. A different age. And he was very Germanic. Never bothered to learn English properly or to assimilate American customs. I suppose he felt it was his duty as supreme head of the house to punish a prodigal son.”

Charles stood up abruptly, as though shaken by what he had heard.

“I'm glad you told me all this. I've always had the feeling that my mother wanted to tell me how her brother died. She started to tell me once. But perhaps she found me unreceptive . . . or the matter was too painful to discuss in any detail.”

“Could be,” Martin muttered into his glass.

“Anyway, I appreciate your candor.” He combed a stray lock of hair from his forehead with stiff fingers and began slowly pacing about the room. “One wonders what effect all that had on her. It must have been a shock to see her favorite brother destroyed by such a harsh, uncompromising directive and be unable to raise a voice in protest or, anyway, be unable to alter the outcome.”

“Being disinherited was a lousy break, but that wasn't what destroyed my dad. If he had been a different sort of man—”

“Perhaps, perhaps,” Charles cut in, speaking rapidly. “Still, that patriarchal edict was the first blow. If that blow could have been softened . . . If there had been someone in the family willing to take your father's side . . . to arbitrate . . . to conciliate—”

“But there wasn't. Uncle Paul told me quite a lot about my grandfather. His word was law. But that was a long time ago. There's not much point in talking about what could or could not have been done. Or is there? You won't mind if I'm blunt, will you? A little Chicago spade-calling. Is there anything bothering you?”

Charles stood very still, eyes fixed on the windows, where the curtains fluttered in the night wind. Then he returned to the chair and slumped wearily into it.

“I asked a woman to marry me . . . a positive, irrevocable commitment.”

“Congratulations. But you don't look very happy about it.”

Charles stared down at his hands, folded tightly in his lap. “It's something we both want. Something we've talked over many times. The final decision rested with me . . . not in asking her, but in facing my father squarely and resolutely.”

“And did you?”

He looked up, his expression carved into a mask of firm resolution.

“I intend to tell him in a few weeks . . . on my birthday. It seems like the best moment. I'm terribly afraid that he might withhold his blessing. It's not the girl—Father likes her—it's what her father does, and what his political views are, that my father finds totally unacceptable. Having him as an in-law would be a constant source of embarrassment.” His resolution appeared to waver and Martin could detect a slight trembling of the lower lip. “I'm certain Father would resign from some of his clubs because of it. What else he might do I . . . I . . .” His voice trailed off into silence.

Martin bent down for the champagne. The bottle was half empty, and he divided the contents between his glass and his cousin's.