Gore Vidal - Empire

The Secretary of State was recognized as he was borne by Pope Toledo to the Delacroix cottage, and hats were raised, and he nodded graciously at the strangers who held him-or rather, his office-in such awe. When one was dead did one actually know it? as in the sort of dreams when the dreamer knows he dreams? That seemed an urgent question to put to Henry Adams, who knew everything.

In the Delacroix drawing room they were greeted by Caroline, who held in one hand a dozen newspapers. “You catch me with my knitting,” she said.

“Mine, too,” said Hay, “only I’ve sworn off reading the stuff until September.”

“If only I could.” Caroline greeted Payne rather as if she were the sister-in-law that he might have had, and Hay wondered what sort of marriage she and Del would have had. He was fairly certain that Del would not have wanted her to go on publishing a newspaper, and he was equally certain that she would not have given it up. She had a good deal of will, Hay had long ago decided; and if there was one quality that he himself would not have wanted in a wife it was will, of Caroline’s sort, which was like a man’s, unlike Clara’s, which was formidable, in its way, but entirely womanly, wifely, motherly.

“Mrs. Delacroix is surrounded by Louisiana ladies, and Blaise is playing tennis with Mr. Day.”

“Which rhymes with Hay,” said Hay, “and who is Mr. Day?”

“James Burden Day. He’s an Apgar, too. He’s in Congress.”

“Why isn’t he home, looking after the folks, like all the other tribunes of the people?” Hay looked with longing at an armchair, but the sound of ladies’ voices kept him on his feet; he could no longer bear too many standing ups and sitting downs.

“He wanted to see Mr. Hearst in New York. Mr. Hearst wants to be elected president next year. He is very ambitious.”

“He married the chorus girl,” said Payne, who had moved, before his marriage, in glamorous Broadway circles.

“She will make a stunning first lady.” Caroline was solemn.

“What a lucky country!” Hay was amused; until the room filled up with ladies from Louisiana.

Mrs. Delacroix had aged, she told everyone, but she looked no different to Hay from the way that she had always looked during the thirty years that he had casually known her. “I am now aged beyond recognition,” she said, giving Hay her hand, while she removed a large hat with the other.

“You are unchanged,” said Hay. “But the hat shows its age.”

“How rude! It’s only ten years old.” A chorus of approval from the ladies, who were now taking cups of tea from the Irish housemaid, circulating among them. “Sit down, Mr. Hay. Please. You look peaked.”

“It was the Pope Toledo,” said Hay, sinking into an armchair.

“Pope who?” Mrs. Delacroix looked anxiously at the Irish maid. Catholicism, Hay knew, was always a delicate subject in the presence of servants.

“My new car,” said Payne.

“Blaise is here, too. Isn’t it wonderful?” Mrs. Delacroix addressed this sentiment to Payne, as Blaise’s one-time classmate.

“But doesn’t he always come to see you?” Payne’s own strong familial life was so rich in furious drama that he had little appetite for the family dramas of others.

“Not when Caroline’s with me. Now they have made up.” Mrs. Delacroix turned to Caroline, and smiled.

“No, we haven’t. We simply ignore any differences when we’re under your roof. It is our affection for you, not one another. It is also my-atonement.”

“Yes. Yes.” Mrs. Delacroix smiled at Caroline; then sat opposite Hay, while the Louisiana ladies hovered around the grand piano, as if they expected to break into song.

“Is it still the inheritance?” asked Hay, who had once known, from Del, all the intricacies of the Sanford testament, which had proved to be every bit as stupid as Sanford himself, Hay’s exact contemporary.

“Yes. But in less than two years I shall inherit under the mysterious terms of the will…”

“The one that looks like a seven?” Hay recalled the portentous detail.

“Exactly. Well, when I am twenty-seven, the one will at last be a seven; and what is mine will be mine…”

“You must marry.” Mrs. Delacroix frowned. “You’re much too old to be a single girl.”

“I am a spinster, I am afraid.”

“Don’t!” Mrs. Delacroix made the sign to ward off the evil eye. “Payne, why don’t you marry her?”

“But I am married, Mrs. Delacroix. To Mr. Hay’s daughter.”

“I quite forgot.”

“We haven’t,” said Hay, agreeably. “It’s still very much on our minds.”

“Such a splendid wedding,” Caroline contributed.

“You must come to New Orleans, Caroline. We have a great many young men there, all ready to marry and settle down.”

“Not too young,” said Caroline. “Not at my age.” Hay wondered why so handsome a young woman should so much enjoy depicting herself as old and, essentially, unattractive. Perhaps she was, as she had said, one of nature’s most curious creatures, a spinster. He had always somehow doubted that Del would ever succeed in marrying her. She was too self-contained; too-cold? But that seemed the wrong word to describe a character of such charm and amiability. She was, simply, independent in a way that their world was unused to.

“Don’t wait too long,” was Mrs. Delacroix’s conventional wisdom.

Blaise and the young congressman stood in the doorway. They wore white cotton shirts, flannel trousers; they were sweating. It was a sign of great old age, thought Hay, when congressmen looked like schoolboys.

“Don’t come in!” ordered Mrs. Delacroix. “Go change, both of you.”

The young men vanished, to the apparent sorrow of the Louisiana ladies. “I want,” said Payne, to Mrs. Delacroix, “to ask all of you to come out on Uncle Oliver’s yacht, for lunch.”

“I hate boats.” Mrs. Delacroix was firm. “But I’m sure the young people will want to go. Caroline?”

“Oh, yes. I love boats.” Suddenly she stood up. Hay noted that she had ripped in two the lace handkerchief that she had been playing with. Was she ill, too? Or was so much talk of spinsterhood disturbing to her?

“I’ll be right back,” she said; and slipped out of the room.

“Their reconciliation has been the joy of my life,” said Mrs. Delacroix, with somber joy.

“Funny, isn’t it? how family quarrels are always about money,” said Hay, who had had his problems with his own wealthy father-in-law.

“What else is there to quarrel about?” asked Payne, unexpectedly, himself the victim of a family quarrel, whose origin, whatever it was, was not money.

“Unrequited love,” said Hay, and observed with pleasure that his son-in-law had blushed. Hay had always suspected that Colonel Payne had been in love with brother-in-law Whitney, and as a love so sulphurous in its possibilities could never manifest itself, Oliver Payne had allowed it to turn so violently to hate that at least the same quantity of violent emotion might be used up in the process.

CAROLINE STOOD OVER THE COMMODE in her bathroom; and vomited. She felt as if she might turn herself inside out, so powerful were the spasms and of such long duration. She would not, she decided, ever commit suicide by poisoning. Then the spasms ceased, and she washed her face in cologne, noting how red and swollen her eyes had become.

Suddenly, Marguerite was at her side. “What’s wrong? What’s wrong?”

“Dear Marguerite, you, of all people, how can you ask me that?” Caroline put down the linen towel. “I’m pregnant,” she said. “In my fifth month.” Then, before Marguerite could cry out, Caroline placed her hand firmly over the old woman’s mouth. “Maintenant le silence ,” Caroline whispered.