The Scarlatti Inheritance (6 page)

Although Elizabeth did not take the cards seriously—they became a private joke between her and Giovanni—they did serve a purpose when not elaborated upon. They gave an identification befitting the Scarlatti wealth. Although no one who knew them ever referred to either as
conte
or
contessa
, there were many who weren’t sure.

It was just possible.…

And one specific result—although the title did not appear on the cards—was that for the remainder of her long life Elizabeth was called madame.

Madame Elizabeth Scarlatti.

And Giovanni could no longer reach across the table and take his wife’s bowl of soup.

Two years after the purchase of the land, on July 14, 1908, Giovanni Merighi Scarlatti died. The man was burnt out. And for weeks Elizabeth numbly tried to understand. There was no one to whom she could turn. She and Giovanni had been lovers, friends, partners, and each other’s conscience. The thought of living without one another had been the only real fear in their lives.

But he was gone, and Elizabeth knew that they had not
built an empire for one to see it collapse with the other’s absence.

Her first order of business was to consolidate the management of the widespread Scarlatti Industries into a single command post.

Top executives and their families were uprooted throughout the Midwest and brought to New York. Charts were prepared for Elizabeth’s approval clearly defining all levels of decisions and areas of specific responsibility. A private network of telegraphic communications was set up between the New York offices and each plant, factory, yard, and subdivision office. Elizabeth was a good general and her army was a well-trained, headstrong organization. The times were on her side, and her shrewd analysis of people took care of the rest.

A magnificent town house was built, a country estate purchased in Newport, another seaside retreat constructed in a development called Oyster Bay, and every week she held a series of exhausting meetings with the executives of her late husband’s companies.

Among her most important actions was her decision to help her children become totally identified with Protestant democracy. Her reasoning was simple. The name Scarlatti was out of place, even crude, in the circles her sons had entered and in which they would continue to live for the rest of their lives. Their names were legally altered to Scarlett.

Of course, for herself, in deep respect for Don Giovanni and in the tradition of Ferrara, she remained:

No residence was listed for it was difficult to know at which home she would be at a given time.

Elizabeth recognized the unpleasant fact that her two older sons had neither Giovanni’s gift of imagination nor her own perception of their fellow man. It was difficult to know with the youngest, Ulster Stewart, for Ulster Stewart Scarlett was emerging as a problem.

In his early years it was merely the fact that he was a bully—a trait Elizabeth ascribed to his being the youngest, the most spoiled. But as he grew into his teens, Ulster’s outlook changed subtly. He not only had to have his own way, he now demanded it. He was the only one of the brothers who used his wealth with cruelty. With brutality, perhaps, and that concerned Elizabeth. She first encountered this attitude on his thirteenth birthday. A few days before the event his teacher sent her a note.

That night Elizabeth asked Ulster about it.

“Yes. I took some of the invitations back. I changed my mind.”

“Why? That’s very discourteous.”

“Why not? I didn’t want them to come.”

“Then why did you give them the invitations in the first place?”

“So they could all run home and tell their fathers and mothers they were coming over.” The boy laughed. “Then they had to go back and say they weren’t.”

“That’s terrible!”

“I don’t think so. They don’t want to come to my birthday party, they want to come to your house!”

While a freshman at Princeton, Ulster Stewart Scarlett displayed marked tendencies of hostility toward his brothers, his classmates, his teachers, and for Elizabeth the most unattractive, her servants. He was tolerated because he was the son of Elizabeth Scarlatti and for no other reason. Ulster was a monstrously spoiled young man, and Elizabeth knew she had to do something about it. In June of 1916 she ordered him to come home for a weekend, and told her son he had to take a job.

“I will not!”

“You
will!
You will
not
disobey me!”

And he didn’t. Ulster spent the summer at the Hudson mill while his two brothers in Oyster Bay enjoyed the pleasures of Long Island Sound.

At the end of the summer, Elizabeth asked how he had done.

“You want the truth, Madame Scarlatti?” asked the youngish plant manager in Elizabeth’s study one Saturday morning.

“Of course I do.”

“It’ll probably cost me my job.”

“I doubt that.”

“Very well, ma’am. Your son started out in raw baling as you ordered. It’s a tough job but he’s strong.… I yanked him out of there after he beat up a couple of men.”

“Good Lord! Why wasn’t I told?”

“I didn’t know the circumstances. I thought that maybe the men had pushed him around. I didn’t know.”

“What did you find out?”

“The pushing was at the other end.… I put him in the upstairs presses and that was worse. He threatened the others, said he’d get them fired, made them do his work. He never let anyone forget who he was.”

“You should have told me.”

“I didn’t know myself until the other week. Three men quit. We had to pay a dentist bill for one of them. Your son hit him with a lead strip.”

“These are terrible things to hear.… Would you care to offer an opinion? Please, be frank. It will be to your advantage.”

“Your son is big. He’s a tough young fella.… But I’m not sure what else he is. I just have an idea he wants to start at the top and maybe that’s what he should do. He’s your son. His father built the mill.”

“That gives him no such right. His father didn’t start at the top!”

“Then maybe you should explain that to him. He doesn’t seem to have much use for any of us.”

“What you’re saying is that my son has a birthright, a temper, certain animal strength … and no apparent talents. Am I correct?”

“If that costs me my job, I’ll find another. Yes. I don’t like your son. I don’t like him at all.”

Elizabeth studied the man carefully. “I’m not sure I do, either. You’ll receive a raise starting next week.”

Elizabeth sent Ulster Stewart back to Princeton that fall, and the day of his departure she confronted him with the summer’s report.

“That dirty little Irish son of a bitch was out to get me! I knew that!”

“That dirty little Irish son of a bitch is an excellent plant manager.”

“He lied! It’s all lies!”

“It’s the truth! He kept a number of men from pressing charges against you. You should be grateful for that.”

“To hell with them! Groveling little snot-noses!”

“Your language is abhorrent! Who are you to call names? What have you contributed?”

“I don’t have to!”

“Why? Because you’re what you are? What are you? What extraordinary capabilities do you possess? I’d like to know.”

“That’s what you’re looking for, isn’t it? Isn’t it!? What can you do, little man? What can you do to make money?”

“It’s one measure of success.”

“It’s your only measure!”

“And you reject it?”

“You’re damned right!”

“Then become a missionary.”

“No, thanks!”

“Then don’t cast aspersions at the marketplace. It takes a certain capability to survive there. Your father knew that.”

“He knew how to maneuver. You think I haven’t heard? How to manipulate, just like you!”

“He was a genius! He trained himself! What have you done? What have you ever done but live on what he provided? And you can’t even do that graciously!”

“Shit!”

Elizabeth suddenly stopped for a moment, watching her son. “That’s it! My God, that’s it, isn’t it?… You’re frightened to death. You possess a great deal of arrogance but you have nothing—absolutely nothing—to be arrogant about! It must be very painful.”

Her son raced out of the room, and Elizabeth sat for a long time pondering the exchange that had just taken place. She was genuinely afraid. Ulster was dangerous. He saw all around him the fruits of accomplishment without the talent or the ability to make his own contribution. He’d bear watching. Then she thought of all three sons. Shy, malleable Roland Wyckham; studious, precise Chancellor Drew; and the arrogant Ulster Stewart.

On April 6, 1917, the immediate answer was provided: America entered the World War.

The first to go was Roland Wyckham. He left his senior year at Princeton and sailed for France as Lieutenant Scarlett, AEF, Artillery. He was killed on his first day at the front.

The two remaining boys immediately made plans to avenge their brother’s death. For Chancellor Drew the revenge had meaning; for Ulster Stewart it was an escape. And Elizabeth reasoned that she and Giovanni had not created an empire to have it terminated by war. One child must stay behind.

With cold calculation she commanded Chancellor Drew to remain a civilian. Ulster Stewart could go to war.

Ulster Stewart Scarlett sailed for France, had no mishaps at Cherbourg, and gave a fair account of himself at the front, especially at Meuse-Argonne. In the last days of the war he was decorated for bravery in action against the enemy.

November 2, 1918

The Meuse-Argonne offensive was in its third or pursuit stage in the successful battle to break the Hindenburg line between Sedan and Mézières. The American First Army was deployed from Regneville to La Harasée in the Argonne Forest, a distance of some twenty miles. If the chief German supply lines in this sector were broken, the Kaiser’s General Ludendorff would have no alternative but to sue for an armistice.

On November 2, the Third Army Corps under the command of General Robert Lee Bullard crashed through the demoralized German ranks on the right flank and took not only the territory but also eight thousand prisoners. Although other division commanders lived to dispute the conclusion, this breakthrough by the Third Army Corps signaled the final arrangements for the armistice a week later.

And for many in B Company, Fourteenth Battalion, Twenty-seventh Division, Third Corps, the performance of Second Lieutenant Ulster Scarlett was a superb example of the heroics that prevailed during those days of horror.

It started early in the morning. Scarlett’s company had reached a field in front of a small forest of pine. The miniature forest was filled with Germans trying desperately to regroup under cover in order to execute an orderly retreat farther back into their own lines. The Americans dug three rows of shallow trenches to minimize their exposure.

Second Lieutenant Scarlett had one dug for himself just a bit deeper.

The captain of Scarlett’s company did not like his second lieutenant, for the lieutenant was very good at issuing orders but very poor at executing them himself. Further, the captain suspected him of being less than enthusiastic about being shifted from a reserve division to the combat area. He also held it against his second lieutenant that throughout their reserve assignment—the major portion of their stay in France—he had been sought out by any number of ranking officers, all only too happy to have their photographs taken with him. It seemed to the captain that his second lieutenant was having a hell of a good time.

On this particular November morning, he was delighted to send him out on patrol.

“Scarlett. Take four men and scout out their positions.”

“You’re insane,” said Scarlett laconically. “What positions? They’re hightailing it out of the whole area.”

“Did you hear what I said?”

“I don’t give a God damn what you said. There’s no point in a patrol.”

Several of the men were sitting in the trenches watching the two officers.

“What’s the matter, Lieutenant? No photographers around? No country club colonels to pat you on the back? Get four men and get out there.”

“Go shag,
Captain!
”

“Are you disobeying your superior officer in the face of the enemy?”

Ulster Stewart looked at the smaller man with contempt. “Not disobeying. Just being insubordinate. Insulting, if you understand the term better.… I’m insulting you because I think you’re stupid.”

The captain reached for his holster, but Scarlett swiftly clamped his large hand on his superior’s wrist.

“You don’t shoot people for insubordination,
Captain.
It’s not in the regulations.… I’ve got a better idea. Why waste four other men.…” He turned and glanced at the soldiers watching. “Unless four of you want to be candidates for Schnauzer bullets, I’ll go myself.”