Gore Vidal - Empire

“Is it always covered with garbage?” Plon rubbed his nose, as if the smell might be pushed away.

“Only human,” said Blaise.

At that moment, Mrs. Jack appeared on the boardwalk that ran the length of the clubhouse. She was in what she called “tennis costume”: white tennis shoes, black stockings, white silk blouse and skirt beneath which could be seen-daringly-bloomers; on her head a sailor hat held in place two veils like mosquito netting. When Mrs. Jack saw them, she swept aside her veils so that they could see her. “Caroline,” she called. “Do come here, and bring your young men.” Caroline did as she was ordered. The young men pleased Mrs. Jack, who delighted them when they heard her name, and listened to her imperious nonsense, all delivered in a husky Comédie Française tone. “You are exactly what I want. You both play tennis?”

“Yes, but-” Blaise began.

“Perfect,” said Mrs. Jack. “I gave up tennis for bridge when my husband took up tennis. Now he has taken up bridge again, and is giving a bridge party. So I shall take to the court with you two splendid young men. You are clever, Caroline, to have so many brothers.”

“Half-brothers…”

“Better and better. One needs only to be half-fond of them.” Mrs. Jack was gone.

“We have one of those in Paris, too,” said Plon, “but she’s very old.”

“That’s the Mrs. Astor. This is her daughter-in-law. La Dauphine. She’ll make you laugh. She hates everything.”

“She’s quite good-looking,” said Plon. “Is she… vivacious?”

“This is America. The ladies are all pure.” Caroline was warning.

“I know,” said Plon, glumly. “I shouldn’t have come.”

Half the Astor house-party played tennis, and the other half played bridge. Mrs. Jack took over Blaise as a partner, leaving Caroline with Plon, who was as vague and kindly and impecunious as ever. “When Blaise heard my purse was vide … how you say?”

“Broke.”

“Broke. He offered to pay to bring me over for the summer. So here I am.”

“Looking for a new wife?”

“We are still Catholic. Aren’t we, Caroline?”

“Yes. But there are always arrangements.”

Plon shook his head, his eyes on Mrs. Jack’s elegant figure, and haphazard game of tennis. “Maybe I could give tennis lessons,” he said. “They play very badly here.”

Idly, they gossiped beneath the huge copper beech tree. Occasionally, Colonel Astor would come out on the verandah and gaze, rather bewilderedly, at his wife. He was an eccentric man, with a full moustache and a bald forehead that receded in agreeable sympathy with his chin. He was happiest, it was said, on his yacht, the Nourmahal , away from Mrs. Jack. Since Mrs. Belmont had so fiercely blazed an exciting new path through the wilderness of society, the sword not Excalibur but divorce in her hand, it was now, for the first time, conceivable that even an Astor might get a divorce. Admittedly, the Vanderbilts were still a number of rungs beneath the Astors on the gilded ladder, but what Alva Vanderbilt Belmont had done Ava Willard Astor might also do. “Divorce will become a commonplace.” Caroline was sententious, a habit that was growing upon her now that she was being taken seriously as a newspaper publisher, and general authority.

“Not in France. Not with us,” said Plon. “I like your Mrs. Astor.”

“But only to seduce. You are so French, Plon.”

“ You are so American,” said her half-brother bleakly. “I am told that that curious creature with you on the beach…”

“The pretty man?”

“The lovely man… that he sells champagne to these rich Americans. Perhaps I could do that. I know a good deal about wine.” He blinked his dark seemingly depthless eyes, and Caroline realized that she was looking into her dead mother’s eyes. Mrs. Delacroix had inspired her to search for likenesses, clues.

“You have our mother’s eyes,” she said.

“So they say.” Plon was watching for the occasional glimpse of Mrs. Jack’s ankles as she careened wildly about the grassy court.

“What was she like?”

“What was who like?” Plon’s mind was on the court.

“Emma. Your mother. My mother.”

“Oh, it was so long ago. She was American like you.”

“Plon, are you really so stupid or is this your idea of how to charm American ladies?”

The handsome aquiline face was turned toward her; he smiled, and showed good teeth. “Surely, I don’t have to charm a half -sister. Or is there something a trifle Egyptian about this Newport of yours?”

Caroline allowed this tasteless gallantry to go unnoticed. “Do you think Emma might have-”

“Killed the first Mrs. Sanford?” Plon was still staring at the court, where Mrs. Jack had just, for the first time, perhaps ever, scored a match point. “Bravo!” Plon shouted. Mrs. Jack turned, her usual look of annoyance in place, but when she saw the lean admiring Frenchman, she gave a small curtsey.

“You should get at least a cigarette case,” said Caroline sourly, “for attendance.”

“I’m afraid I shall need more than a cigarette case.”

“You’ve heard the rumors?”

“Only what everyone hears. The dull Colonel Astor prefers his boat to his wife. They have a son, so she has done her duty…”

“I speak of Emma!”

“You do have a thing about the past, don’t you? All right. She was, for me, adorable. When I went driving with her, I always hoped that people would mistake her for my mistress. Yes, yes, I know. I am very French. I was also fourteen when she died, and full-grown for my age.”

Caroline tried to imagine the boy Plon and the dark lady of the portraits together in an open carriage, driving through the Bois de Boulogne; and failed. “I was prejudiced, of course, against your father. I thought him very… very…”

“American?”

“The exact epithet I was searching for. He was very American except that he had no energy at all, an impossible combination, we thought. But Maman always did her best to bring us together. She was very weak those last months, particularly after…”

“I was born.”

“Yes. She just faded away. We were sorry, my brother and I, to see her go like that.”

“No more than sorry?”

“Boys are like that. One develops a heart much later.”

“If at all.”

“Maman would never have killed anyone.”

“Then why the rumor, which I’ve just heard, yet again, right here.”

Plon gave a stage Frenchman’s shrug, and crossed his long legs. “Rumors are eternal in our world. No, chéri , if anyone killed the first Mrs. Sanford-which I highly doubt-it was your abominable father, who was capable of anything to get his way.”

Caroline felt as if she had been given a sudden electric shock. “I don’t believe you,” was the best that she could do.

“I couldn’t care less what you believe.” The dark eyes stared at her, with an expression that she had never seen before. Could this be Emma, she wondered, looking, so directly, into her daughter’s eyes?

“Now you credit him with energy.” Caroline turned away. Plon’s eyes were suddenly neither human nor animal; they were of another order of nature altogether, a mineral that reflected nothing at all.

“He would have had the energy for that.” Plon yawned. “Anyway, it’s all done. It’s very American,” he suddenly grinned, “to think always of the past.”

Caroline was horrified to find herself suddenly unmistakably attracted to the Prince d’Agrigente in a way quite different from the perverse attraction of the golden enemy, Blaise. “I must,” she said, “go in.”

Mrs. Jack had already preceded Caroline into the house. She was removing her tennis veil; the pale face was agreeably flushed; a young plain boy, clutching a nurse’s hand, stared up at her.