Gore Vidal - Empire

“Caroline! This is my son. He’s nine. Say how-de-do to Miss Sanford.”

The boy bowed politely from the waist. “How do you do?” Caroline was as polite as she would have been to the father, whose back could be seen in the drawing room, at one of the dozen bridge-tables, all occupied.

“Is he to be John Jacob the Fifth or the Sixth?” asked Caroline. “Your family is getting like the Hanovers with all their Georges.”

“I’ve broken the line. He’s William Vincent. Frightfully plain, isn’t he?” said Mrs. Jack, as the boy was led away. “It is one of those rare cases when the paternity is absolutely certain. He has Jack’s depressing features, and hangdog eyes. But the maternity’s very much in doubt. He doesn’t look a bit like me. Tell me about that handsome creature, your half-brother.”

As Caroline told her about Plon, Mrs. Jack looked very interested. “We must have him to dinner, with Blaise, too,” she added. “I’ll ask all the Stone Villa, and you, of course, and Mrs. Delacroix, if she doesn’t disapprove of me this year.”

“Just don’t smoke in her face.”

“How petty the old are! He looks very young for thirty-seven,” she added. Poor Plon; Caroline was compassionate. He already had more cigarette cases than he knew what to do with. Presently, he could have yet another one. In the long run, he would have to go back to his wife, who at least paid for the cigarettes that filled the cases.

If Caroline imagined that she could see in Plon their dead mother, she saw nothing at all of her father in Blaise. Doubtless, Mrs. Delacroix was not exaggerating when she had alluded to his remarkable resemblance to Denise. As Caroline dressed for dinner, she imagined Emma’s eyes staring out of Plon’s face, and watching Denise’s face as worn by Blaise. What would the two young men make of that? she wondered, and if Mrs. Delacroix’s mad story proved true, was Blaise in danger? Rather the opposite, she decided, as Marguerite laced her into a ball gown, from unfashionable Worth. “We should come here more often,” said Marguerite, putting the last touches to Caroline’s ivory-colored gown. “It’s almost like civilization.”

“You don’t have to speak English all day is what you mean.”

“And your two brothers are here. That is very right, you know. To have a family.” As a spinster entirely devoted to herself, Marguerite liked delivering homilies on the pleasures, duties and rewards of family life. She could not wait for Caroline to marry; and be truly unhappy like all the other ladies of her class. Happiness in others tended to have a chilling effect on Marguerite, who liked nothing better than offering desperate ladies sympathy, and a spotless cambric handkerchief scented with lemon verbena in which they might harvest bitter tears.

Plon was waiting for Caroline in the marble hall. Mrs. Delacroix had taken herself to bed, and Plon would escort Caroline to the Casino, where a dance in celebration of something was to be held. Neither Plon nor Caroline could remember what the something was. Plon thought that it might have to do with Mr. Vanderbilt’s motor car. He himself had hired an open carriage, and they drove through the warm moonlit night to the Casino, which was lit with Japanese lanterns and filled with Mullalay’s music. Plon brought her up to date. Mrs. Jack had proved incredibly cold, even for an Anglo-Saxon; no cigarette case would arrive from that quarter; worse, despite the fact that he had made a considerable point of his total marriedness, hostesses kept putting him next to single girls at table or, even more ominously, vivacious widows, eager for a second chance. “I can’t tell them that I only like married women.”

“No,” said Caroline, “you can’t.”

They made a stately entrance into the Casino. Plon soon vanished, taken over by Lady Pauncefote and one of her numerous unmarried daughters. Lord Pauncefote looked curiously unimpressive in plain evening clothes. Caroline much preferred him in gold braid, with decorations pinned to his stomach. He had quickly found Helen Hay, and Caroline joined them, to help out Helen, who was being given a thorough and entirely misleading account of the British war against the Boers. Helen embraced Caroline. “But you will have heard the latest, from Del. From Del.”

“I mailed the last letter he wrote me straight to your father in New Hampshire.”

“The young man has made an excellent impression in Pretoria.” Lord Pauncefote pronounced judgment.

“Don’t you wish you’d gone?” Helen was mischievous.

“Oh, I would be so useful in the… veldts? Is that the word?”

“So close to the German word for wealth,” said Blaise, at Caroline’s back. “Payne’s looking for you,” he said to Helen, liberating her from Pauncefote, who was now, in turn, taken captive by James Van Alen.

“Zounds, my lord!” he boomed; and led the Ambassador off to the bar. “Methinks you have a dry look to you.”

“There are,” said Caroline, “many very serious bores here at Newport.”

“Do you include half-brothers?”

“Only as half-bores, I suppose. I thought we were not speaking this year.”

Blaise took her arm; and led her, somewhat against her will, to a flowery alcove at the edge of the dance floor, as far as it was possible to get from Mullalay’s orchestra. Here they sat, side by side, primly, as if at school, on wooden chairs. “I saw my grandmother at lunch. At Mrs. Astor’s. You have charmed her.”

“Mrs. Aston!”

“Mrs. Delacroix, a much more difficult lady to… charm.”

“You make me sound as if I had designs upon your grandmother.”

“Don’t you?”

Caroline looked at him; and thought of his mother, Denise. “I have no designs on anything except my own property.”

“The courts-”

“No, Blaise. The clock. The calendar. Each breath I breathe brings me closer to what is mine.”

“Don’t tempt fate.” Blaise made the sign to ward off the evil eye. “My mother was dead before she was twenty-seven.”

“I shall not have children. That’s one safeguard.”

“You’ll never marry?”

“I didn’t say that. But I don’t want children.”

“Such things are not so easily arranged.”

“How is Madame de Bieville?”

Blaise responded serenely. “At Deauville. What news of Del?”

“At Pretoria.”

“The Chief’s giving Mr. Hay a hard time.”

“But that’s the Chief’s specialty, isn’t it?”

“This summer, anyway. He’s going all out for Bryan.”

“All out?” Caroline smiled. “He doesn’t take seriously Bryan’s nonsense about silver, and he loves the empire that Bryan keeps attacking.”

Blaise laughed in spite of himself. “Well, they don’t like the trusts, and they don’t like Mark Hanna.”

“Very statesmanlike. The Chicago American is losing money, I hear.”

“Quantities.”

“ My money?” asked Caroline.

“Some of it is my money, yes. But most of it is old Mrs. Hearst’s. They keep finding gold in South Dakota.” Harry Lehr swept by, a plain young woman on his arm.

“Elizabeth Drexel.” He said the name as if half-brother and half-sister were wholly interested. “I,” he added, with a lizard’s swift blink at Blaise, “am the Funmaker.”

“You must make some fun for my numerous half-brothers.” As Caroline sensed Blaise’s furious disapproval, she found herself quite liking Lehr.

“First, you must let Wetzel make your suits, and Kaskel your pajamas and underwear…”

Lehr’s public association of Blaise with pajamas, much less the pruriency of any reference to underwear, brought a coughing fit as Blaise’s phlegm, mistakenly inhaled, choked him-with wrath, of course, thought Caroline with satisfaction. Lehr was delighted to have caused so much distress, while the Drexel girl-the future Mrs. Lehr?-looked as embarrassed as Blaise. They were saved by the majestic approach of Mrs. Astor, with her daughter-in-law, Mrs. Jack. Caroline felt as if she ought to curtsey, while even Blaise-no longer choking-bowed low at the great ladies’ approach. Lehr pranced about the old sovereign like some huge blond dog. The two Mrs. Astors regarded him with stares worthy of the two bronze owls that decorated the gateposts to the Casino. Plainly, Lehr was going to pay for his defection to Mamie Fish.