Gore Vidal - Empire

But Hay was certain that Caroline did not know the rumors about the famous Princesse d’Agrigente.

After dinner, Caroline and Del and Helen Hay were bundled into the back of a sleigh for a long moonlight ride to the hamlet of Chevy Chase.

“Russia must be like this. Just like this!” Helen exclaimed, as they passed from town into open snowy country: a world without color, only black, white and shades of gray, and sudden flashes of diamond-glitter as moonlight struck ice. Clara had insisted, without subtlety, that Helen join them on their last ride, and Caroline had been as pleased as Del was displeased. Caroline got no joy from having her hand pressed beneath a sable rug, while a stolen kiss, anywhere, simply depressed her. She was not like other girls; she had accepted her uniqueness without distress; she was prepared, or so she thought, for everything, including the whole business of two anatomies entwined, and the prickling of fig-leaves or whatever, but she could not bear the step-by-careful-step American courtship. At least in Paris, marriages were business affairs, like the mergers of railroads.

Helen chattered incessantly of Payne. How he and his sister Pauline had chosen their bachelor uncle, Oliver, over their handsome- handsome , she repeated-father. She would make no judgment, while the other brother, Harry, and sister, Dorothy, chose to remain with their father. “You cannot know, Caroline, what it is like to live in a family with such, such Shakespearean emotions, emotions!”

“But I can imagine , Helen.” Actually, Caroline suspected that there had been something Jacobean about her own parents. Why did her father never mention the, always, “dark” Emma? Why had Blaise told her that Mrs. Delacroix’s eyes entirely vanished at the mention of Emma? Then, back of all, there was Aaron Burr, worth a dozen Whitneys, a gross of Paynes. Nevertheless, old Oliver Payne, who seemed to Caroline to be all malignancy, coming between father and children and buying two of them outright from their father because the father had remarried three years after the death of Oliver’s sister, Flora, deified by brother, it was said, as once he had deified or at least revelled in his handsome, handsome, as Helen would say, brother-in-law. “But then we always think our own families more original than anyone else’s.” Caroline thought that she had scored a point as their driver hurtled over a smooth untracked ivory field, close by a farmhouse where a single window filled space and time with a square of yellow light, the only color in their night world.

“Oh, we’re not original,” said Helen. “We are very dull, aren’t we, Del?”

“Some of us more than others.” Del was judicious. Under the robe his hand, a trifle damp, held Caroline’s.

“But your father’s life has been so interesting.” Caroline was now working herself up to the eventual embrace that their last evening together required. At times, she felt that she was involved in an elaborate peasant dance, which had not been entirely explained to her. Now the hand is held; now the heel is stamped; now the head turns; and then the kiss.

“I don’t think Father really believes he lived it,” said Helen, unexpectedly.

“Who does he think did?” Caroline stared at Helen’s profile, back-lit by snow-glare.

“I don’t think he thinks about that. He’s always in the present, you see; and there’s something always wrong, so he’s disturbed. I showed him a copy of that famous picture of him with Nicolay and President Lincoln. You know, sitting in front of the fireplace in the President’s office, and he said he had no memory when it was taken, but he was certain that he’d never once laid eyes on the skinny young man who called himself John Hay.”

“He remembered enough about the picture to say it was made in a studio and that the background was painted in later.” Del clutched hard Caroline’s hand. Should she clutch back?

“I hope I’ll never be so old.” Helen sounded as if she meant what she said. “I think he will resign, if the Senate rejects his treaty.”

“I don’t,” said Del; and Caroline withdrew her hand, and made a fist. “The President needs him. And what would he do if he went? Hatred of the Senate keeps him alive.”

In Chevy Chase, they stopped at an eighteenth-century tavern; and drank hot buttered rum in front of a great fire. At the next table what looked to be four local farmers played cards in silence. Helen, tactfully, excused herself.

“I wish you were coming to Pretoria.”

“So do I.” Caroline was almost sincere. After all, was there anyone nicer than Del? “But I’ve got the paper, and I’ve got Blaise to deal with.”

“Why does he take so hard a line with you? After all, you’ll inherit anyway in a few years.”

“Because my plan misfired. He’s more like me than I suspected. I thought he’d give way once I had something that he wanted. Now, of course, he’ll never give way.”

“Are you like that?”

“If tested, yes, I think so. Anyway, that is the way I am with him. Mr. Hearst is also very angry with me,” she added happily.

“When we’re married…”

The dance had started up again; a moment of panic; what was her next step? “Yes, Del?”

“You won’t go on, will you?”

“You’d rather I didn’t?”

“Do you think it’s the sort of thing a wife should do?”

“There are,” said Caroline, sagely, “wives and wives. Wouldn’t I be more useful to your father and the President with a paper than without?”

“Would you be more useful to me?”

“I don’t know.” Caroline had given the matter no thought. She realized that she was now several steps behind in the mating dance. “If you’re to be a diplomat and live abroad-well, no. But you say you’d rather be here after Pretoria-in politics!”

“Or business. I don’t know. Pretoria’s for the President. He wants someone there he can trust to tell him what’s really going on between the English and the Boers. He thinks Father is too…”

“Pro-British?”

Del laughed. “I can’t say that to a newspaper publisher, can I?”

“Fortunately, you don’t have to. The Tribune is already on record. Remember?”

“When some senators complained to the President that the Secretary of State was a product of the English school…?”

“The President said, ‘I thought he was a product of the school of Abraham Lincoln.’ Yes, we got that story first. And everyone’s copied us.”

“Was it true?”

Caroline laughed. “The gist of it, yes. I am in too deep at the Tribune , for now.”

“But if I were to buy it…?”

“Oh, I’d warn you against buying! I owe you that much.”

“You lose a great deal?”

“We make a small amount.” Actually, between the increase in the newsstand sales and the additional advertising revenue relentlessly extorted by Caroline from Mrs. Bingham’s friends, not to mention all of Apgardom, the paper was for the first time, if barely, in the black. Mr. Trimble was suitably awed; and Caroline suitably conceited. “I have something for you.” Caroline now chose to adapt the dance to her own measure. She removed a small-package from her handbag; and noted that Del was astonished at this change in the dance’s familiar pattern: a german had become a waltz. He opened the package; and took out a heavy gold ring in which was set a dark fire opal. “This was my father’s,” said Caroline, suddenly uneasy. Had she gone too far? “Opals bring bad luck but it brought him good luck and if it’s your birthstone…”

“As it’s mine,” he said, and slipped on the ring, and kissed her, as indifferent to the card players as those solemn men were to the young, now engaged, couple. Caroline had been openly wearing her sapphire, without explanation, for a month. Marguerite had complained, as had the ancient Miss Faith Apgar, who now lived under the eaves of N Street, an official duenna, put in place by the Apgars. Without a formal engagement, no man’s ring could be worn. Now a woman’s ring was in place on a man’s finger; and the scandal, if anyone were to know, would echo from flashy Lafayette Square to stolid Scott Circle. Apparently, no girl had ever given a man a ring before.