Gore Vidal - Empire

Between court life and the rarefied world of the Hay-Adams house, Caroline was far removed, as Trimble accused, from those readers who were plain folk, and followers of Bryan. “But the Post is the Democratic paper. Why shouldn’t we be the Republican?” Caroline had thought Mr. Trimble unreasonable; but, of course, he was right in the sense that a newspaper that existed largely to entertain need not ally itself so exclusively with one faction. To please him, she had taken advantage of Mrs. Day’s invitation.

The Days lived in one of a row of similar houses, with steep porches, Gothic windows, and a roof that sprouted unexpected crenellations. The overall effect was of a fortress built to dominate Rock Creek.

Kitty sat behind her silver teapot, her silver coffeepot, and her regiment of cups. With the help of what looked to be an elder sister, she poured and greeted, and spoke of the weather. Caroline recognized a number of Democratic legislators, by face if not by name. Only the minority leader of the House, John Sharp Williams of Mississippi, was known to her from dinner-parties. A sardonic, dishevelled man, never entirely sober, he was feared for his wit. He collected her by, simply, putting his arm through hers, most indecorously, and guiding her toward the dining room, where a lonely decanter of whiskey had been placed, for his use. “I’m Jim Day’s boss, you know. He’s got to look after me.” While Williams poured himself whiskey, Caroline noted the nice pattern that a number of dark tea leaves made at the bottom of her cup, escapees from Kitty’s coarse strainer. “I didn’t know you knew Kitty, Miss Sanford.”

“I don’t. I know her husband.” Caroline paused; then added, “Slightly, when he was at the comptroller’s office.”

“He’ll go far, with Kitty’s father behind him.”

“The Judge?”

“The Judge. Oh, he’s a powerhouse, that man. He’s only got the one leg, you know. He got Jim the election.”

“Is that why Mr. Day married the Judge’s daughter?” Caroline softened the bluntness of the question with what she hoped was a deprecatory laugh. “I am a working journalist, Congressman.”

“Didn’t know the Tribune went in for that kind of story.” Williams’s round red face became solemn, a look that Caroline had come to know: the politician who has said to the press more than he intended to say, and fears the result.

“We don’t. My ‘Society Lady’ might hint around if I let her. But I won’t. Marriage is sacred to us.”

“Spoken like a true guardian of the morals of this republic, which you are, Miss. I make no bones about that.” Williams looked about the room. “Why, there’s the Speaker.”

“Mr. Cannon?” Caroline looked about her, eager to see this august personage. But Williams was mistaken. Someone who bore a slight resemblance to the Speaker had entered the parlor. Caroline recognized the man, a Washington realtor whose specialty was getting members of Congress “settled.” “It’s not Mr. Cannon.” Williams seemed relieved. “But then, most everybody’s headed back home by now. I’m surprised so many of us are still lingering on…”

“Potomac fever?”

“That’s for when you’re defeated. Then you can’t leave the town, ever. But we still come and go, and the more we go-home, that is-the longer we can stay around here.”

“I can’t wait until you all come back in November.”

“That’s kind of you, Miss Sanford.” Williams beamed at her, and for an instant, Caroline felt a hand lightly brush against her hip. At least, she had been spared a pinch of the sort certain notorious senators were known to bestow on ladies whose contours pleased them, often leaving blue-black badges on delicate flesh.

“I was not thinking of Congress in general,” said Caroline, deftly sliding a dining-room chair between them, “but the arrival of William Randolph Hearst.”

Williams scowled. “He’s already sent me his first orders. He wants to be on the Ways and Means Committee and on Labor.”

“You have obliged him?”

“In hell, yes. That’s where he’ll get those committees, not from me. You know, that fool is getting himself up to run for president. He takes the cake, that one.”

“Surely, he’s not the first fool to do that, or,” Caroline added, aware that Day was approaching her, “the first fool to be elected, if he is, of course.”

Williams laughed a loud whiskey laugh. “That’s pretty funny, Miss Sanford. Yes. There have been fools galore in the White House, and there are times when I think we have a precious one there right now, with all that ‘Bully!’ nonsense, and double-dealing… Jim, I never knew you aspired to the higher social circles.”

Day smiled, at Caroline; shook her hand. “We’re old friends, or so I like to think. I knew young Mr. Hay,” he said to Williams, who looked appropriately grave.

“Struck down, as if by lightning, in his prime,” intoned John Sharp Williams; then, whiskey in hand, he left host with guest.

“We’ve not done so well,” observed Day, neutrally, an angel food cake between them from which one large slice had been taken. Ladies hovered at the table’s other end, eating small pink shiny cakes, balancing teacups, gossiping.

“You mean the election?”

“That’s all we ever mean here.” He looked at her; the eyes were what the Society Lady had lately taken to referring to as “candid blue.” Lately, Caroline had rather hoped to encounter a pair of duplicitous blue eyes, which she could confound the Society Lady with. Meanwhile, the Society Lady herself, hugely incarnate, was working her way, methodically, through a plate of ladyfingers: it was her method to begin with the “fingernail,” a glossy blanched almond, and then, in two bites, to finish off the finger, and mourn the unbaked hand that she could not bite though it fed her, thought Caroline, rather wildly, head aswim with metaphors involving food, and all because the young man, towering beside her, was attractive, and made her think of-food. Was there a connection? Would she turn praying mantis, and devour him, as if he were angel food cake, or would she surrender to him, as all the romances-and the insistent Marguerite-required, her flesh mere cake to his sweet tooth? Perhaps, she decided, tiring of food metaphors, neither would devour the other; instead, they would resemble naked statuary in the gardens of Saint-Cloud-le-Duc, where, marble arms entwined, they would strike poses, in the rain-yes, she saw them both shining and wet in a heavy summer rain, a male and a female statue, side by side-no, stomach to stomach, Venus and Mars, dripping rainwater, face to face. On the back of the hand that held the teacup, she saw a pattern of sand-colored hairs and tried to picture the statue Mars entirely covered with interesting patterns of hair; but then the rain slicked down the hairs like a wet dog’s; yes, the hairy male most resembled a dog when he was not cake or marble but warm alien flesh, wet. Caroline was not certain that she would entirely enjoy the man’s real body, even if it were placed on offer, which he showed, newly married as he was, no sign of wanting to do.

“Every day on my way to the Capitol, I watch your brother Blaise’s house going up. It’s going to be about the same size as the Capitol, I’d say.”

“I can’t think what he wants a house here for.” Caroline’s victory in Washington was by means so total that she could bear fraternal competition. After all, Blaise still controlled the Sanford fortune; and Washington was for sale even to the lowest, or only, bidder. Once Blaise had taken a wife, she would be the Mrs. Sanford, and Miss Sanford, the spinster sister, publisher though she was, would fade. Who then would come to the small house in Georgetown when there was a marble palace in Connecticut Avenue, with a court always in session? She must marry. She must build a house. She must take to bed James Burden Day. “Of course, he wants to buy the Post , but Mr. Wilkins will never sell.”