Gore Vidal: Empire

“In fact,” said James, more to Caroline than to anyone, “when I needed employment on this side of the water, Mr. Hay-this was a quarter-century ago, and the world was younger, as were we, to strike the Dickensian note of spacious redundancy-Mr. Hay, as an editor of the New York Tribune , persuaded, with who knows what wiles, that worthy paper to take me on as its inadequate Paris correspondent.”

“Easily the wisest thing I ever did.” Hay’s voice was low and precise and, that rare thing to Caroline’s critical ear, agreeably American. “Now you are become so great that I have your bust in my library, along with Cicero’s. Adams often compares the two of you-the originals, that is, not the busts. Every day he thinks up something new to say, when he pays me a call.” Del had told Caroline a good deal about the curious Hay-Adams living arrangements at Washington.

Ever since the Civil War, Hay and Adams had been friends; the wives, too, had liked each other, a source of amazement to Caroline, who said as much, amazing Del, who was innocent. When the Hays at last abandoned Cleveland, Ohio, where Hay had first worked for-and then with-Mrs. Hay’s father, they had come to Washington to live, largely because Henry Adams lived there; and he lived there because, as he had told Caroline, it is a law of nature that Adamses gravitate to capitals. Since he would never be president like his two ancestors, he could at least live opposite the White House, where each Adams had, so disastrously, presided; and thus, close to “home,” he could write, think, and even make-through backstage maneuvering-history.

In due course, Hay and Adams had built a double house in Lafayette Square, a red brick Romanesque affair, whose outside Caroline already knew from photographs and whose inside Del intended for her to get to know. But though the two houses were physically joined, there was no connecting inner door. In this joint house, Hay had finished his interminable life of Lincoln while Adams had written much of his long account of the administrations of Jefferson and Madison, demonstrating, as Del had observed, how the Adamses, though seldom mentioned in the text, had almost never been wrong-unlike their opponents, Jefferson and Madison and the terrible Andrew Jackson, whose statue at the center of Lafayette Park was daily visible to Henry Adams, who, daily, chose not to look at this ungainly reminder of his grandfather’s political ruin, not to mention that of the republic. For was it not with Jackson that the age of political corruption which now flourished began? But despite the city’s ever-present mephitic corruption, the two wealthy historians lived contentedly side by side, influencing events through various chosen instruments, among them Senator Don Cameron, hereditary czar of Pennsylvania. When Lincoln wondered if Don’s father, Simon Cameron, would steal once he was secretary of war, a Pennsylvania colleague observed that, well, he would probably not steal a red-hot stove. When Simon had heard this, he demanded an apology. The congressman complied, with the words “Believe me, I did not say that you would not steal a red-hot stove.”

Hay’s career had seemed at an end when he moved into the Romanesque fortress opposite the White House. But then, as the political dice were again cast and Ohio, yet again, was about to produce a president, the obvious candidate was the state’s governor, one William McKinley, known as the Major-pronounced Maj-ah. A Civil War veteran and longtime member of the House of Representatives, the Major had sworn eternal loyalty to the tariff, the creed of the higher Republicans, and so gained the attention and loyalty of the party’s leaders, the merchant princes. For them, McKinley was immaculate. He was poor-hence, honest; eloquent but without ideas-hence, not dangerous; devoted to I his wife, an epileptic who always sat next to him at table so that when she went into convulsions, he could tactfully throw a napkin over her head and continue his conversation as though nothing had happened; when the convulsions ceased, he would remove the napkin and she would continue her dinner. Although Mrs. McKinley was not entirely an asset as a potential first lady, the fact that she was an “invalid” (and he deeply devoted to her) counted for a great deal in the republic’s numerous sentimental quarters.

Unfortunately, McKinley went bankrupt at the start of the campaign. Out of friendship, he had signed his name to a note, which the friend in question could not redeem, to the amount of $140,000. The McKinley campaign was about to end before it started, giving the election to the so-called boy-orator of the Platte, that fire-breathing populist and enemy of the rich, William Jennings Bryan. As blood would obscure the moon for a generation if Bryan should prevail, McKinley’s campaign manager, a wealthy grocer named Mark Hanna, appealed to a number of other wealthy men, among them Hay, to pay off the note and save the moon from a sanguinary fate. The Major was grateful. Hay, who had been passed over for high diplomatic office by an earlier president because “there was just no politics in appointing him,” now found himself in high favor with the latest Ohio management across the road.

The Major appointed Hay ambassador to the Court of St. James’s; and Hay had arrived in London the year before, accompanied by Henry Adams, whose father, grandfather, and great-grandfather had each held the same post. The ambassadorial party had been met at Southampton by Henry James, who was never seen anywhere near the world of politics or near-politics or even plain celebrity. But there he most loyally was at the customs house, crushed by the international press. After observing Hay’s dexterous handling of the thorny flower of the British press, James had whispered to Hay, in a voice audible to more than a few, “What impression does it make on your mind to have those insects creeping about and saying things to you?”

“I do not know this man,” Hay said with mock severity, getting into his carriage.

“Anyway,” Del had told Caroline, summing up, “the firm of Hay and Adams prospered from the day they moved into their joint house.”

But Caroline had been conscious of an omission. “Weren’t there, to begin with, two couples who were friends?”

“Yes. My father and mother. And Mr. and Mrs. Adams.”

“What became of Mrs. Adams?”

“She died before they could move into the house. She was small and plain. That’s all I remember. People say she was brilliant, even witty, for a woman. She took photographs, and developed them herself. She was very talented. Her name was Marian, but everyone called her Clover.”

“How did she die?”

Del had looked at her, as if uncertain whether or not she was to be trusted-but trusted with what? Caroline had wondered. Surely he knew nothing that others did not know. “She killed herself. She drank some sort of chemical that you use to develop pictures. Mr. Adams found her on the floor. It was a painful death.”

“Why did she do it?” Caroline had asked, but there had been no answer.

As the lunch party began to drift toward the dining room, with its southern exposure of quantities of Kentish Weald, Mrs. Cameron hurried toward John Hay. “He’s come! He says you invited him…”

“Who?” asked Hay.

“Mr. Austin. Our neighbor. Your admirer.”

“Oh, God,” murmured Hay. “He thinks I’m a poet, too.”

“But so triumphantly you were -” began James.

“Tell Mr. Austin there’s been a mistake…”

But there was no telling Mr. Beech, who was now declaiming, “The Poet Laureate of All England and Mrs. Alfred Austin!”

“What joy!” Hay exclaimed so that all could hear and relish. Then he hurried to greet what many believed was the dullest poet in all England.