Gore Vidal - Empire

Hay was conscious of the two men’s intent gaze, like a pair of predatory night birds in the forest. “Well,” said Hay, “late or soon, this is the bolt from the blue, isn’t it?”

“Surely,” said Adams, “you have something more memorable to say at such a time.”

A sudden spasm of pain made Hay gasp the word “Yes.” Then: “I could. But won’t.” But inside his head an aria began: Because, if I were to tell the truth I would have to confess that I have somehow managed to mislay my life. Through carelessness, I have lost track of time and now time is losing, rapidly, all track of me. Therefore, I cannot accept this longed-for honor because, oh, isn’t it plain to all of you, my friends and foes, that I am dying?

White was speaking through Hay’s pain: “… he would like you to be in Washington by the first of September so that Judge Day can then go to Paris for the peace conference with Spain.”

“I see,” said Hay distractedly. “Yes. Yes.”

“ Is it too late?” Adams had read his mind.

“Of course it’s too late.” Hay managed to laugh; he got to his feet. Suddenly, the pain was gone: an omen. “Well, White, we have work to do. When in doubt about anything, Mr. Lincoln always wrote two briefs, one in favor, one opposed. Then he’d compare the two and the better argument carried the day, or so we liked to think. Now we’re going to write my refusal of this honor. Then we’re going to write my acceptance.”

Henry Adams stood up. “Remember,” he said, “if you don’t accept-and I think you shouldn’t, considering your age-our age-and health, you will have to resign as ambassador.”

“On the ground…?” Hay knew what Adams would say.

And Adams said it. “If you were just an office-seeker, it would make no difference either way. But you are in office. You are a man of state; and you are serious. As such, you may not refuse the President. One cannot accept a favor and then, when truly needed, refuse a service.”

Thus, the Adamses-and the old republic. Hay nodded; and went inside. All deaths are the same, he thought. But some are Roman; and virtuous.

CAROLINE HAD ESCAPED what was left of the house-party in order to explore, alone, the woods below the house. As always, she was impressed by the stillness. No breeze stirred as she made her way between huge rhododendrons, their white flowers wilting, long past their season-dusty flowers, she thought, and wondered yet again why dust and its connotation, decay, should be so much on her mind just as she was about to spread her own wings at last and begin her flight through the long-awaited life that she had dreamed of. It must be her European childhood, she decided, that was ending, dustily, so that she, the oldest child on earth, might now become, brilliantly, the youngest woman.

A deer metamorphosed in a clearing at whose center was an attractive-to the deer at least-muddy pond. Caroline stood very still; hoped that the animal would come toward her; but the dark brown eyes blinked suddenly and where the deer had been there was now only green.

The problem of Del, she began to herself, contentedly. But the problem of Del was promptly replaced, like a magic lantern slide, by the problem of Blaise. Moodily, she sat on a log near the mud pond; was it England or Ireland that had no snakes?

When she had written Blaise that she was staying at Surrenden Dering, he had answered that he was more impressed than not; although Del Hay was “perfectly suitable,” a condescending fraternal phrase, she ought to meet a few more men first. He then filled a page with admiring references to “the Chief,” Mr. Hearst, and Caroline wondered if the actress-loving Mr. Hearst, still in his thirties and unmarried, might be Blaise’s candidate for her valuable hand. But then Blaise had suggested that after England she go back to Saint-Cloud and look after the old place until he was properly settled in New York. At the moment he was living in the Fifth Avenue Hotel, and that was hardly a proper home for a jeune fille de la famille . The rest of the letter was in French, rather the way their conversations tended to be; thoughts, too. He reminded her that the will was still making its leisurely way through probate and nothing would be decided before the first of the year. Meanwhile, although he hoped that she was enjoying her new status as an orphan in Paris, he recommended that she take on one or another of the numerous d’Agrigente old maids or widows as a duenna. “Appearances count for everything in this world,” he wrote, reverting to sententious English. But then Blaise should know. As a journalist, he was now a creator, an inventor of appearances.

“Caroline!” Del’s voice recalled her to the house. Del was standing on the lower terrace, waving a paper at her. “A telegram!” Suddenly, he was no longer standing on the terrace; he was sliding down it on his ample backside. “Damn!” he said, standing up. “Damn,” he repeated, looking at the grass stains on his handsome tweed. “Sorry,” he said; and smiled. He was attractive, she decided. If only a bit of the smooth fleshy lower face could be moved above the eyebrows; and the eyes themselves, perhaps, enlarged.

Caroline opened the telegram. It was from her cousin, and lawyer, John Apgar Sanford. Shortly before Colonel Sanford’s death, John had come to Saint-Cloud and he had said to Caroline, apropos nothing at all, “If anything should ever happen to your father, you’ll need a lawyer. An American lawyer.”

“You?”

“If you like.” At the time Caroline thought the possibility of her father’s death remote: Sanfords lived forever, enjoying to the full ill-health. But when the Blue Train had so abruptly transported Colonel Sanford prematurely to another plane, Caroline had written to John Apgar Sanford, to Blaise’s disgust: “Everything was all set. All arranged. Now you’ve gone and complicated things.” When Blaise had written her that the probate would not be settled until January, she had felt guilty. Plainly, she had complicated things. Now John Apgar Sanford urged: “Come to New York fastest will to be probated September fifteen don’t worry.”

“What is it?”

“I’ve been told not to worry-about something. I suppose that means I should be very worried.”

“Are you?”

Caroline put the telegram inside her reticule; and chose not to answer Del. “That poor telegraph lady in Pluckley. How busy we’ve all kept her!”

“She has asked Her Majesty’s Government for help. Otherwise, she says she will shut down.” Del smiled. “Come on. Uncle Dor’s brother, Brooks, has just arrived. He is something to see. And hear.”

Caroline took Del’s arm. “Can the embassy get me on a ship, to New York?”

“Of course. I’ll tell Eddy. When?”

“Tomorrow evening, if possible. Or the next day.”

“What’s happened?”

“Nothing. That is-nothing yet. It’s just business,” she added lightly, and paused for fear of stammering before the “b,” something she was prone to do when nervous.

Brooks Adams was holding court-no, she thought, more like a papal conclave-on the upper terrace. Brother Henry had so curled himself in a chair that he looked like a spineless porcupine, at bay. Henry James leaned against the nearby balustrade and studied the papal Adams with narrowed eyes. A plain little woman, Mrs. Brooks Adams, sat next to Mrs. Cameron, just out of range of her husband’s eccentric orbit; and it was an orbit that he was making as he waltzed excitedly… a pope with St. Vitus’ dance… about his seated older brother; yet of the two, Brooks, white of head and beard, looked the older. “Here they are,” the thin cultivated voice was inexorable, “the best of France, the military elite, brought into court, bullied, badgered, humiliated by a gang of dirty Jews.”