Watchfires (31 page)

"What are you going to do?" Fred demanded.

"I'm going to call on Miss Bristow. I, at least, may still be admitted in Madison Square."

"Bless you, Selby, boy. Tell her I adore her!"

"And don't stay here drinking all night. Go home and go to bed!"

At Madison Square, after some delay because of the lateness of the hour, Selby was ushered into the library where he found Elmira alone. She listened silently, her eyes intently upon him, as he told his tale.

"So that's what happened. I couldn't make out from Pa. He was almost incoherent."

"I'm afraid Fred let his anger get the better of him. He should have thought more of you before he was so rude to your father."

"I like him just as he is, thank you very much! I wanted him out of that world, and now he's out. I suppose he's lost everything he had in this business?"

"Probably."

"Well, I think I know a way that can be remedied. I'll go to Uncle Corneel."

"Uncle Corneel? Won't he listen to your father?"

"He loathes my father!"

"And what will Fred do when you've bailed him out?"

"Become a lawyer. As he should have been from the beginning. In your father's firm."

"You
have
thought it out."

"Somebody had to."

Selby, walking south to Union Square, found himself wondering if Fred would admire as much as he did the fiery passion that he had evoked in his beloved. He sighed. It was perhaps just as well for all of them that Ellie was too much obsessed with his brother to be even aware of other admirations.

He found his father alone in his study. His mother had gone to one of her meetings. Selby considered it characteristic of his father's departmentalized neatness that the room should contain no law books or paintings. Law was for the office; the seascapes were for the big, downstairs rooms. The little second floor chamber in back was for the personal life of Dexter Fair child. The shelves that covered the walls were filled with the contemporary English fiction that he so loved—on the desk was an open volume of
The Last Chronicle of Barset
—and in the few wall spaces were watercolors executed by Fairchild aunts. The only large picture was a Mount portrait of Selby's priestly grandfather—the one who had absconded to Italy. Selby, as a boy, used to search for a forecast of adultery in the brooding eyes under those bushy eyebrows.

When he had related Fred's news, his father shook his head.

"Well, I can't really regret this if it takes Fred out of the brokerage mess. But poor boy! What a blow to his pride! How does the girl take it?"

"Like a brick. She wants him to be a lawyer."

Dexter looked up in surprise. "Does she really? By George! Maybe she's the right sort, in spite of her old man."

"She has quality. What she will ultimately do with it, one can't be sure. You'd like to have Fred become a lawyer, wouldn't you, Dad?"

"I confess it."

"You'd like to have him succeed you in the firm?"

"It would be a dream come true. A fourth generation of Fairchilds! Think of it, Selby."

"Poor Dad. You really ask so little of us. I'll bet you never even suggested that to Fred."

"Well, you know how your brother is."

"But even if he'd been different, you wouldn't have. You've always wanted us to be ourselves." Selby felt a small lump in his throat as he took in the furtive embarrassment of his father's roving eye. "I've always appreciated that. No matter what we wanted, well, that was what you wanted for us. You knew I wanted to be an artist, and you were afraid I wasn't good enough. But you always kept that to yourself."

"Not very successfully, it seems."

"Oh, you can't fool
me.
Remember, I'm a second son. A second son knows that his parents are only poor blokes like himself."

"A second son knows how to love."

"Oh, Fred loves you, too. In his own way. But you and I, Dad ... well, we understand each other. But, as Hamlet said to Horatio, 'Something too much of this.' To change the subject. You're in a stew about Ma."

"And what should I do about it?"

"Back her up! Tell her you're with her."

"And if I'm not?"

"Say you are!"

"I can't, Selby!"

"It's like rape, Dad. Give in, and it's not so bad."

"Really, Selby! What about my principles?"

"How can you have a principle against women voting? You may think it's unwise, but you can't think it's immoral. God didn't decree that women shouldn't go to the polls, did he?"

"I'm not so sure. My father would have thought so."

Selby glanced up at the portrait and chuckled. "Well, look what a woman did to him!"

"Is a man to have nothing to say about what goes on in his own home?"

"Not if he wants peace and quiet."

"Cynic!" Dexter picked up a piece of note paper. "Maybe you think I should do this, too. It's a letter from Mr. Evarts. You know he's one of the five attorneys selected to defend the President?"

"I thought he was too much of a Republican."

"So many people thought. But he's a lawyer, first and foremost. He writes me that he's doing it for a nominal fee. He's made a list of half a dozen 'distinguished counselors' whose brains he would like to be able to pick. As a matter of public duty on their part."

"And you're one of them?"

"Yes. He would like me to come down to Washington and be available for strategy talks. Should I do it?"

"Do you believe the President's guilty?"

"I believe it would be a blessing to the nation if he were removed from office."

"That's not what I asked. Is he guilty?"

"Of high crimes and misdemeanors? For using intemperate language? For suspending Stanton as Secretary of War? For expressing doubts about the constitutionality of the Reconstruction Acts? No. Decidedly not. The whole thing's a farce. But a much graver issue is at stake..."

"Never mind the graver issue." Selby, in his sudden enthusiasm, did not hesitate to interrupt his parent. "If Johnson is charged unjustly, Johnson should be acquitted. Doesn't it
have
to be as simple as that?"

Dexter smiled ruefully. "And it doesn't matter to you that I'd ruin myself with the party? That I should be regarded as a traitor by a host of friends and relations? And that I should have ruled out forever the possibility of an appointment to the federal bench?"

Selby laughed in sheer delight. "You know as well as I do, Dad, that's your greatest temptation! To be the martyr of martyrs." He looked suddenly at his watch. "But now I've got to catch that sleeper!"

C
HARLES
H
ANDY
was dressing for dinner in his bedroom, a large square chamber with gold and brown cloth-lined walls that overlooked Fifth Avenue on the third story of Number 417. He stood before a full-length mirror held in an Empire mahogany frame surmounted by two bronze eagles, attempting to adjust his white waistcoat without crumpling the stiff shirt front beneath. Sam, the young valet who Jo (she had grown quite bossy of late) had insisted should help him dress, was vigorously brushing down the back of his master's black coat.

The bureau and tables were covered with family daguerreotypes in red velvet frames with gilded mattings. The tan wallpaper above the cloth was almost concealed by dark prints of old New York. An oval portrait of Lafayette as an old man hung over the fireplace. Handy reached for a heavy gold chain lying on the stand by the mirror and stretched it across the center of his waistcoat.

"What do you think, Sam? Does it improve me?"

"It's very pretty, sir. A nice bit of joolry." Sam was an inscrutable Yankee youth. He agreed with everything his employer said, without the least alteration of tone, quietly resisting all efforts on the latter's part to establish any closer relationship.

"I've had this chain for fifty years, Sam. I wore it when I was in the Guard and rode beside the Marquis de Lafayette's coach when he came to New York on his famous return visit. You should have seen me in those days, Sam. I sat in my saddle straight as a ramrod with my saber held so!" He raised his cane to his shoulder to show how.

"You must have looked very fine, sir."

"That's the old man there." Handy jerked a thumb towards the portrait of Lafayette.

"He was a Frenchy, sir?"

"Really, Sam, I'm surprised at you. Do you know who General Grant was?"

"Oh, yes, sir. He won the war."

"Well, Lafayette won the Revolution! Or helped to win it, anyway. Yes, he was a Frenchman. A French nobleman who believed in the rights of man." But what was the use? Handy reflected with a sigh. What were they coming to with a younger generation that had already forgotten the war that had created the nation? And if the great were so soon forgotten, what would be the fate of the less great? Would anyone in Manhattan in the year 1900 have possibly heard of the man who had been president of the Bank of Commerce, adviser in New York recruiting to President Lincoln and one of the original commissioners of Central Park? Would even all of his descendants recognize his name?

Ah, well, he thought now, sinking back in an armchair while Sam polished his black leather slippers, at least there was the dinner party to look forward to. He closed his eyes to savor the sense of passing through a marble foyer to the play of a little fountain, into a long chamber enlivened by ladies with exposed white shoulders and necks partially concealed by large jewels, and then into a dim candlelit dining hall with a long table glinting with silver and gold and with a cluster of crystal wineglasses at each place. Ah, the anodyne of wine and laughter and amiable flattering women! So long as he had the dinner party in New York and his gardens in Newport life was not all futile.

And tonight ... but where was he going tonight? He could not seem to remember. To the Aspinwalls? No, they were in mourning. To the Clintons? Hadn't they gone to Italy for the winter? To that nice, if rather stiff little Mrs. William Astor? But, no, he had been there recently and something had gone wrong. What? Oh, yes, the invitation had come only the day before—very presumptuous—and he had been seated too far down the table while Dexter Fairchild had been on the hostess's right. Had people no more respect for a man of his age and distinction in what was still called society? But wait a minute. Perhaps Mrs. Astor had been subtly honoring him by honoring his son-in-law. One shouldn't be too suspicious. It was a fault of age.

"Do you recall where we're dining tonight, Sam? I wonder if I should wear my ruby cuff links."

"I wasn't told, sir. Shall I ask Miss Joanna?"

"No, no. It doesn't matter. The moonstones go better with the chain."

He recalled now that he had already asked Jo twice. He did not wish her to imagine that his memory was entirely gone. People her age never attributed their own memory lapses to age, but the smallest slip after eighty was dubbed senility. Still, it
was
worrying. For what was mind but memory? If one could not retain a fact for a day, an hour, a minute, a second—what would that be but insanity? He shuddered as the icy feeling slid through his back and chest. And yet he could remember old Lafayette's head in the carriage window, gravely bobbing to the cheering crowd, as if it were yesterday! One could always live in the distant past, if need be. It was probably the best place to live.

The Bristows! Of course, they were going to the Bristows'! Relief pounded through him, but only for a moment. Then he remembered they had been to the Bristows' only the week before, and Jo had made the point that it would not be politic to go there more than once in a season, even for Fred's sake. It seemed that the Bristows were the kind of people who revised their estimate of one's social position downward the moment one appeared in their drawing room. Handy remembered now that Mrs. Bristow's attitude had changed in a single evening from the near hysteria of her initial greeting to an almost offhand farewell. Dreadful woman! Was New York society in the future to be made up of the likes of her?

He went downstairs to find Jo, in gray silk, patiently waiting for him in the hall. In the carriage he checked himself from asking her their destination. He would try to guess it from the route they took. The horses headed north up Fifth Avenue, so it would not be the Astors'.

"Why do you suppose Mrs. Astor put Dexter on her right the other evening?"

"Is that so surprising, Papa? He's a very prominent citizen.

"Of
course. But
I should have thought seniority alone would have entitled me to the place."

"Perhaps she was honoring him as her lawyer."

"But he isn't, really. He represents some of her family's trusts. The Schermerhorns. That's a mere peppercorn compared to the Astor real estate."

"Then let's hope that one thing may lead to another."

"Don't be absurd, Jo," he retorted testily. "The Astors would never turn their tenements over to a trust lawyer in Wall Street. They wouldn't think him tough enough. No, all they'd ever allow Dexter to handle would be a couple of wills—of wives."

Jo was meditating. She seemed not at all put off by his impatience. "I suppose it's always possible that Caroline Astor wanted to show people that she took Rosalie's excuse for genuine. She may have wanted to protect Dexter from the reputation of having a wife who backs out of dinner parties at the last moment."

"What on earth are you talking about? Wasn't Rosalie there?"

"No, don't you remember? Elizabeth Cady Stanton was in town, and Rosalie went to meet her. Dexter had to send word that she had a sudden cold. But I don't think anybody believed that. Rosalie's done it too often."

Handy fumed with shame and irritation. Was there no limit to the humiliations to which his old age was to be subjected? And Jo accepted it all so serenely, so glibly! Sometimes he wondered if Jo believed in anything at all.

"I was brought up on the principle that if you accepted a dinner party, you either went or sent your coffin!"

"Then let us deem ourselves fortunate that poor Rosalie has not been driven to the latter extreme!"

"Do you countenance your sister in this, Jo?" he almost bellowed.