The Americans Page 5

  Disheveled and badly shaken, Carter paused at the east side of the Common, listening. He heard no sounds of pursuit—no outcries from that hateful voice, either in English or German. For a moment he experienced a delicious relief.

  Then he grimaced. He was not only a bungler; he was a fool. Of course Eisler wouldn’t come rampaging after him. The professor would collect his wits and realize he had other, more effective and certain means of punishment at his disposal.

  Carter wiped his sweaty forehead with his sleeve. The night was a failure. The whole scheme, planned for so long, was a failure. He didn’t want to face that, and he didn’t want to go home to face the family—particularly Will, who looked up to him. He knew he had to start thinking about the defense he must mount against Eisler, but before that he wanted a drink.

  Where to get it? The Red Cod? Too far—and too risky. Heeding Captain Eben Royce’s warning, he hadn’t been back since the night of the trouble.

  He glanced at the trees rustling in the Yard. Maybe Willie was in his room, instead of taking supper with some little shop girl over in the city or sitting with cronies in a box at the Howard, awaiting the right moment to begin pitching custard pies at the actors. He’d welcome Willie’s company right about now, even though he would be forced to tell his friend that he’d failed.

  Carter limped across the brick avenue, through the gates, and turned right after he passed the end of Massachusetts Hall, the oldest building on the campus. He fervently wished he were anywhere in creation except Boston.

  ii

  Light showed beneath the door of Willie’s dormitory room. Willie still lived in Matthews, in the Yard, but he was talking about moving next term to one of the more fashionable dormitories on Mount Auburn Street— Dunster, Fairfax, Apley, or one of the others that were starting to constitute a so-called Gold Coast that attracted the elite of the student body.

  To judge from the tangy smell of cheese in the hall, Carter’s friend was cooking an evening snack. He knocked. A high-pitched, almost girlish voice invited him in.

  Willie was stirring a pot on a gas ring. He waved and grinned at his visitor in that ingenuous way Carter liked so much. There were some things about Willie which the older boy didn’t like at all. His pranks that took innocent and unsuspecting people as their victims, for example. Still, Willie was always diverting, and a stout comrade once you breached his initial shyness.

  William Randolph Hearst hailed from California. He had spent almost a full academic year in Cambridge, yet he didn’t have many close friends. Carter suspected one reason was his peculiar appearance. Quite tall and skinny, he had unusually large hands and feet and a startling baby pink complexion. He parted his long yellow hair in the middle and sported a silky mustache. Neither feature could offset his awkward-looking physique, or the oddness of his eyes. Blue-gray irises were all but lost in immense whites.

  “You’re just in time, Carter. The Welsh rabbit’s almost done.” Willie pointed a dripping spoon at an armoire. “The beer’s in there.”

  Carter slumped in a brocaded armchair. All the furnishings including the books on the shelves had been chosen by Willie’s mother, Phoebe Hearst. She’d accompanied him to Cambridge for the opening of the school year. Willie liked his mother, yet he’d once spoken unenthusiastically to Carter about being an only child.

  “As a sprout, I was dragged all over Europe with a tutor and my friend Gene Lent. I wouldn’t be so stinking spoiled if my parents had produced more than one youngster. Mother wanted more but somehow it never worked out. There are times when I wish it had.”

  Now Willie took two mugs from behind a stack of textbooks. He handed one to his friend.

  “What’s wrong, Carter? I thought you’d be buoyant after your triumph. And impatient to collect twenty-five dollars.”

  Carter glanced up. His black eyes caught and held tiny reflections of the room’s gaslights. With sarcasm, he said, “The triumph, Willie, ended in a rout. Mine.”

  Twenty-year-old Willie Hearst blinked, his delicate lashes momentarily hiding those peculiar yet curiously compelling eyes. Then he sprawled in another chair and draped a storklike leg over the arm. He looked totally relaxed, as if he worried about nothing and wanted for nothing—which, in fact, he did not.

  When he’d arrived at Harvard, Willie’s reputation—and especially the names of his father’s various mines—had preceded him. George Hearst had started life as a Missouri dirt farmer. But in the last two decades, he and an assortment of partners had wrested several fortunes from the American earth, just as Amanda Kent had taken the bulk of the Kent family fortune from the California gold fields. Hearst hadn’t struck it rich until he was forty. After that, bonanza had followed bonanza. He owned the Ophir in Virginia City, a silver mine that was part of the fabulous Comstock Lode. He owned the Homestake in the Dakota Territory—gold. He owned a small Montana silver mine, the Anaconda, which had ultimately revealed its true riches—an incredible vein of copper.

  “Have a cigar and tell me what happened,” Willie said in a sympathetic way. This evening he was, as always, well dressed: checked trousers, a plain but obviously expensive linen shirt, and one of the large, garish cravats he fancied.

  Carter reached for a costly rosewood cigar box. He lit up and said through a blue haze, “Things went fine at first. I got the jackass into the stable with no trouble. But then there was some noise, and Eisler came storming out to see about it.”

  “You mean he was still at home?”

  “That’s right. He had a toothache and didn’t go to the faculty meeting.”

  “Did he see the sign?”

  “Yes, right before the donkey ran off.”

  “Then technically you won the bet,” Willie said with a delighted expression. “By God, I’d have loved to have seen that Dutchman’s face.”

  “No, you wouldn’t. He recognized me before I got away.”

  Willie’s smile vanished. “My stars. No wonder you look so glum.”

  “He’ll have me hung up by the balls,” Carter said. The words made Willie look uncomfortable; he never swore or used offensive language.

  Carter carried his mug toward the armoire, speaking around the cigar in his teeth. “At the very least I’ll be in trouble with the college. At worst Eisler will haul me into court on some charge or other. If he doesn’t, the bakery owner will. I wrecked the wagon I hired for the night. And the horse ran off—God knows where.”

  Willie whistled softly. Carter went on. “I’ll have to deal with my mother and stepfather, too. And I don’t make a habit of lying to them. It bothered me a lot when I had to tell them I’d be playing cards tonight. I don’t know what the hell I can tell them about Eisler, except the truth.”

  He paused, a hand on one of the armoire door handles. The gaslight accentuated the olive cast of his skin. Even bedraggled, he was a handsome young man. Thick arms and a slim waist testified to his fine physical condition.

  “I’ll take my winnings whenever you care to pay me,” Carter added. “That wagon will cost a small fortune—and while I get a pretty decent allowance, it isn’t the same as getting a nugget as big as a baseball shipped from California once a month.”

  Willie smiled an obligatory smile, although the campus joke which had been invented to explain his large and constant supply of money was growing stale. Carter jerked open the door of the armoire. He leaned down toward the zinc tub containing a pail of beer sitting on a block of ice. He was too preoccupied to really see the tub until something beside it stirred.

  “Jesus Christ!” he cried as a three-foot-long alligator roused and opened its tooth-studded jaws not six inches from his hand.

  iii

  That brought another laugh from Willie. “Oh, the devil. I forgot Charlie was asleep in there.” Carter quickly stepped away. “Like hell you did.”

  Willie walked back to the gas ring. “Go ahead, get your beer. Charlie won’t bother you. I got him drunk again tonight.”

  Warily, Carter leaned down an
d dipped his mug in the pail. Champagne Charlie, as Hearst’s pet alligator was officially named, regarded Carter with a sinister eye for a moment. Then he lowered his head lethargically. Carter slammed the door.

  He sat down and sipped the beer. It didn’t do much to raise his spirits. Nor did the hot, zesty cheese dish Willie served. The young Californian folded himself into a chair again. He spooned up some of the rabbit, tapped a napkin against his lips, then said, “I don’t blame you for feeling rotten. I knew right after we met that we were peas from the same pod. Must be why we get along so well. We both hate the unexpected—unless, of course, we engineer it to surprise somebody else. And we like to hold the reins. Can’t stand to let another person control things, am I right?”

  An emphatic nod from Carter. Willie continued. “I’ll tell you something else. Personally, I can’t take much more of the regimentation around here. Chapel. Roll calls. Lesson recitation—I doubt I’ll ever get my degree. I wanted to go into the theater like your stepsister, Eleanor. Mother wouldn’t hear of it. But it’s the theater’s loss—”

  To cheer his friend, he jumped up, threw his head back and yodeled. Then he executed one of the quick, deft minstrel show dance steps he admired. With his beer mug raised and his other fist cocked on his hip, Willie grinned at Carter. “It’s the theater’s loss. I’m pretty good, don’t you think?”

  “Wonderful.”

  “Don’t strain yourself with enthusiasm.” Willie faced the wall, as if an audience sat there. He bowed from the waist several times. “I love applause—”

  “It isn’t the applause you like, Willie—it’s being around actresses.”

  “Well, that too,” Willie admitted, smiling again. He flopped back into the chair. “You know, maybe we’re both simpletons for wasting our time here. I know Harvard’s the finest school in America. But I’ve already dropped more courses than I’ll finish this year, and there isn’t a blasted thing in the curriculum I give two hoots about.”

  He hunched forward. “The only thing that interests me is a problem Gene’s going to inherit next year.” Eugene Lent was the son of one of George Hearst’s business associates. He was the friend with whom Willie had traveled in Europe when both were younger.

  “What problem?”

  “The poor chump has agreed to be business manager of the Lampoon. Thankless job! Humor doesn’t sell very well at this pious institution. And the business manager has to make up any operating losses out of his own pocket.”

  Carter whistled. “I didn’t know that.”

  “It’s true. I’d like to help Gene. I don’t mean with loans. I mean by thinking up schemes to get people to read the magazine. Stunts, contests, maybe a parade—I’d enjoy that.”

  “Because you’d be controlling things.”

  “Things and people.” Willie grinned. “Without letting ’em know I was doing it. That’s part of the game, too.”

  He ambled to the armoire. Helped himself to beer. Champagne Charlie again raised his deadly-looking head and scrutinized his owner for a few seconds before returning to sleep.

  Willie knocked foam from his mustache after he drank. “That’s the real charm in life, Carter. Holding the reins. That and a good joke. Pa isn’t much for joking, but he surely likes the other. I expect that’s why he’s so eager to go to the Senate.”

  Carter had heard a good deal about George Hearst’s political ambitions. A loyal Democrat, Hearst had bought the foundering San Francisco Examiner, the unofficial newspaper of the local party organization. He’d pumped money into it in the hope of furthering his political career. But the effort hadn’t been enough to earn him the 1882 Democratic endorsement as the candidate for governor. He’d lost the primary by a narrow margin. Undiscouraged, he was searching for a stepping-stone to Washington.

  All at once, Willie fixed his friend with one of his disconcerting stares. “Pa’s going to make it someday. Then he’ll handle the reins smartly. That’s what politics is all about. Maybe you should try it. You could start by passing out handbills, or running errands for a boss. You might enjoy it, and that silver tongue of yours would take you a long way, I think.”

  Carter momentarily forgot Professor Eisler. “In which party?” he asked.

  “Why, the Democracy, I suppose.”

  “The Kents are Republicans.”

  Willie waved his mug. “A sinner can always reform. I tell you, for a fellow who likes to be in charge, politics is a natural.”

  “Then why don’t you try it?”

  “With this voice?” Willie let out a loud yodel. “I’d be laughed off the platform. Even my looks are against me.”

  He swigged beer, then finished with what sounded like perfect confidence, “I’ll find some other way. But I’ll pull the reins, too. You can count on that.”

  The more Carter thought about Willie’s suggestion, the more it intrigued him. Politicians wielded immense influence. Disbursed huge sums of patronage money and collected rewards in turn. Sometimes those rewards took the form of bank drafts or stock certificates. A great many important Americans were constantly in need of favors from Washington, which helped explain why most top-level politicians could afford large wardrobes, lavish homes, and frequent European vacations.

  Of course there were risks in politics. Look at what had happened to poor Garfield two years earlier. But he could handle the risks, he decided.

  The conclusion came easily because of the beer. He investigated and found there was plenty left in the armoire. This time Champagne Charlie didn’t even raise his head. Carter helped himself, anxious to let the beer ease him into forgetting he’d been unable to control anything or anyone tonight.

  He lurched back to his chair, his confidence ebbing rapidly. If he couldn’t carry off a student prank, how the devil could he ever hope to maneuver his way into political office? He couldn’t buy his way, obviously. He stood to inherit only a token sum from the Kent fortune; his mother had already informed him that the bulk of Gideon’s estate would go to Eleanor and Will.

  Well, he’d get around those obstacles somehow.

  He and Willie finished the food and then guzzled more beer, talking nonstop between drinks. The drunker they got, the more fanciful became the careers they spun for themselves. Carter rose from dispenser of political leaflets to big-city machine boss. Willie graduated from circulation manager of a humor magazine to newspaper reporter. In a final step, he became a publisher more influential than Gideon Kent of the Union, and more ambitious than Joe Pulitzer, the St. Louis newspaperman who was in the process of buying Jay Gould’s moribund New York World. Willie was, at the end, a publisher whose impact was felt far beyond San Francisco—a publisher who shaped national opinion and influenced national policy. And knowing his friend, Carter believed that was exactly what Willie would be one of these days.

  Carter lost track of time. He put Eisler, the aborted prank, and the wrecked wagon completely out of his mind. Sometime after midnight a thunderstorm broke. By then he was asleep in the armchair. When he awoke, gray light showed outside the rain-speckled window. He was brutally sober.

  He sat up and groaned. Willie raised his head. He’d been asleep on the couch, a full-sized coverlet barely reaching from his neck to the midpoint of his calves. He yawned, then scrutinized his friend. “You sick?”

  “Yes. I just remembered what happened last night.” His bones creaked as he pushed against the arms of the chair. “I have to go home.”

  “We could send out for more beer.”

  Carter grew dizzy suddenly. Speech was difficult. “I—need some air. Thanks for the hospitality, Willie. I like your idea about politics. But first I have to get by the old professor.”

  “Use that silver tongue,” Willie advised in a sleepy voice. “Talk your way out.”

  “Just the ticket.” Carter nodded as he stumbled to the door. “Why didn’t I think of that—?”

  Then he told a lie. “It’ll be easy.”

  iv

  Carter trudged toward th
e Charles River in a dawn that smelled of the rain that had already moved out to sea. A pebble in his shoe bedeviled him. When he reached the Cambridge Street bridge, he took off the shoe, inverted it and held it out beyond the rail to shake the pebble loose. The shoe slipped from his grasp and fell to the water.

  He bellowed an obscenity that brought a reproving shake of the finger from the driver of an early horse car just traveling into Cambridge. For a moment Carter watched the shoe go bobbing away downstream. Then he limped on toward Charles Street.

  What was he going to tell his mother and stepfather? He thought of several unbelievable stories, and rejected them all because they were ludicrous, and because they were lies. He loved his mother, but he also respected her. She was too intelligent to be fooled by invented stories. And as he’d told Willie, he didn’t lie to Julia or Gideon. Not often, anyway. That was just about his only remaining point of honor.

  “Just swallow the medicine,” he muttered to himself as he walked slowly and wearily eastward along Beacon Street, through a dawn awash with familiar smells of fish, cordage tar, and the lump coal smoke plumed from scores of household chimneys.

  The morning was chilly. His teeth began to chatter. He clenched them, then raised his head and squared his shoulders. He could take the worst that Edmund Eisler had to offer. The very worst. Didn’t Gideon always say the Kents were, above all, survivors?

  But unconsciously, he began whistling “Pop Goes the Weasel” to keep his courage up.

  CHAPTER V

  AT HOME ON BEACON STREET

  i

  MORE THAN FIFTY MILLION people inhabited the United States in 1883. Only a few hundred belonged to what was termed Society. The Kents did not. Although they were one of the richest families in the nation, wealth alone had not been enough to get them an invitation to the social event of the year—Mrs. William K. Vanderbilt’s costume ball. The ball had been held on the night of March 26. By any standard, it exceeded anything yet offered for the approval of those who constituted Society.