1876 (34 page)

“Not to mention collaborator.”

I was unexpectedly embarrassed. I do like Garfield, and dislike deceiving him. But then of course he lied to me, got me to provide Blaine with time enough to answer the charges against him. Yet I am uneasy whenever I dine at Garfield’s house and he takes me into his confidence ... but then I am
not
taken into his confidence. I must stop this sentimentalizing. I am with ravenous wolves. This is Africa.

Emma and I arrived late for dinner, delayed by a tremendous tropical storm that suddenly broke over the city at sundown. Much thunder and lightning and gusts of wind full of rain turned the unpaved streets to thick mud while horses stumbled, carriages slid, umbrellas turned inside out.

Finally our carriage stopped at the corner of Thirteenth Street and I, and we braved the storm that flung us like flimsy dolls hard against the Garfields’ pleasant red-brick house, so like all the other pleasant redbrick houses of the town. We were then propelled by the wind through the front door held half open by a delighted servant.

The interior of the house is pretty much like all the other houses that we have visited. On the left of the entrance hall is the parlour with its inevitable upright piano and slate-mantelled fireplace. On the right of the hall, the family sitting room is at the front of the house and the dining room is at the back.

The dinner guests were in the parlour: a room whose only distinction proved to be a pair of tall Chinese vases that were, according to Emma, “most lovely,” and Lucretia Garfield was visibly pleased to have her own taste confirmed by Emma, who is thought to be an authority on every sort of “tong.”

A dozen guests had already assembled, amongst them the dread Madame García who has taken to flirting with me in a most alarming way, thundering her heavily accented French into my ear whilst allowing me vistas of what appear to be four very large breasts encased by all too fragile whalebone beneath a purple muslin marquee or tent.

As I record her bold advances I am suddenly aware that I have not had a single amatory encounter during all this time in Washington City. Nordhoff is too much the puritan to be of any use. In fact, when I made a delicate inquiry or two, he pretended that I was joking. I daresay he thinks me too old for this sort of thing. One of the waiters in the bar at Willard’s did propose sponsoring me at an establishment on Ninth Street, but I was not feeling sufficiently hearty at the time. Since then, my would-be cicerone has been dismissed.

The specialty of the town is the mulatto, or “high yellow,” girl and I confess that, once or twice, I have seen truly marvellous-looking half-breed girls in the street of the sort to inspire languorous daydreams even at congressional hearings. If only Jamie Bennett were here to guide his old uncle!

Garfield introduced me about the room. For the dozenth time I met the courtly Horatio King, who organizes literary evenings at which Garfield shines. I have so far avoided these Parnassian revels but “Soon, Mr. Schuyler, soon we shall have the pleasure I am sure.”

Madame García threw me a flashing black-eyed glance. “
I
shall bring him, Mr. King! He too shares our passion for Art and for Life writ large!” On the gale of her explosive sounding of the word “passion,” I was propelled toward Baron Jacobi, who took both my hands in his and exclaimed, “To think, Mr. Schuyler, that I shall soon be able to address you as Father!”

Lucretia Garfield thought this in the poorest taste, and said so. But Emma and I were both amused. Everyone, needless to say, had read Fay.

Emma was serene. “I never dreamed Mrs. Fayette Snead’s revenge would be so charming, and so flattering.” With that, I lost Emma to the Baron while I met the British minister Sir Edward Thornton and his wife, a couple that are produced in considerable quantity by the British Foreign Office. Zach. Chandler was also present; just as we were shaking hands Garfield was called away to greet new arrivals, fugitives from the storm that still thundered and whistled about the house. “Well, sir, how did you like Mr. Blaine’s answer today?” asked Chandler.

“I didn’t hear him. I was having a tooth extracted.” I touched my lips with the handkerchief that I have been clutching all day. “Answer?” The anesthetizing gas had made me slow; in fact, this whole stormy day and evening linger in my memory like a dream. “You felt that he was answering
me
?”

“Oh, don’t be modest, sir. You’ve caused a considerable commotion.” Chandler smiled down at me—a formidable grey face, much lined, with a shark’s mouth and dead eyes. I cannot say that the Secretary of the Interior charms me.

“At least,” I rallied, “our friends the Belknaps are off the front page for a time.”

Chandler nodded. “A blessing, small but appreciated.”

“Does the impeachment continue?”

“Since the Democrats control the House, there will be an impeachment. Of course the whole thing is illegal. How can you impeach and try and perhaps remove from office a member of the Cabinet who is no longer
in
the Cabinet?”

I did not make any contribution to this subtle constitutional question because, like the Devil himself, with a clap of thunder and a gust of wind, James G. Blaine had entered the room from the vestibule and stood in the doorway. Garfield promptly seized him in that peculiar way of his which is almost an embrace; as he pulled the hero close to his side, he quite blocked from view the charming Mrs. Blaine.

Applause from everyone in the parlour, save the foreigners—and myself. Then the great man made a slow progress through the parlour, receiving compliments with a gracious smile until he came to me and the smile became gaily conspiratorial.

“Mr. Schuyler, I guess you know by now that I spoke only to you this morning. Yes, sir, to you directly. From the very first moment that I saw you up there in the gallery, I said to myself, If I don’t convince Mr. Schuyler who’s sitting there, looking down at me with that skeptical look of his, then I had better quit politics forthwith and go back to Kennebec. So ...” He paused dramatically. “What did you think? Tell me the unvarnished truth?”

“The unvarnished truth, sir, is that I was
not
in the gallery but at the dentist’s.”

“That was
not
you?” Caught in his splendid lie, Blaine responded splendidly. “Then I addressed myself with all my heart to your double, to a counterfeit Charles Schermerhorn Schuyler!”

“But from what everyone tells me, your speech itself was purest gold, and in no way counterfeit.”

For the first time Blaine gave me a truly amused and interested look; it is obvious that he enjoys his own performances and is more amused than not to find his art appreciated, even at the expense of his plausibility. It may well be that Blaine is what the country needs (and deserves?). In any case, as of today, it looks as if Blaine is what the country is going to get, at least as Republican nominee for president.

Garfield was euphoric. He got me to one side, looked at me with those beautiful blue eyes, and said in a low voice, “You have saved us.”

“You exaggerate, General.” I was uneasy, not wanting anyone else to hear this undeserved and dangerous (to me) compliment.

“No. Your article was perfectly balanced. You repeated the charges that were being whispered, and so, by bringing everything to a head, Mr. Blaine was able to answer his enemies, to clear his name.”

“But has he?” I was perverse and irritable. Those who use do not like being used.

“To the satisfaction of everyone. Obviously die-hard partisans will not be convinced, but I’ve just learned that
The Nation
is going to support Mr. Blaine, and all as a result of his speech today.” I suppose Garfield thought that I would be impressed by
The Nation
, a most intelligent and virtuous journal, and as capable of making errors as any other paper.

“You think the matter is ended?” I was genuinely curious, recalling Nordhoff’s secret face. “There’ll be no more revelations about Mr. Blaine and the railroads?”

“It’s a dead issue.” Garfield was emphatic. “Oh, there’s some talk among the Democrats in the House about an investigation, but they won’t get far. That’s a promise. Fact, after today, I have a hunch they’ll all dry up pretty fast.”

At dinner I sat next to Mrs. Blaine. Not unnaturally, she was somewhat prickly, but I did my best to convince her of my impartiality. I don’t think that she is in on the plot. If she is, then she is as good a performer as her husband. In any case, we did not mention
l’affaire
Blaine. Other topics concerned us. Although she spoke at length of her admiration for General and Mrs. Grant, there was a mocking edge to some of her stories. But then Grant is supporting in a not-so-secret way Blaine’s rival and bitter enemy Conkling.

“I know that people complain of General Grant’s silences but let me tell you they are to be preferred sometimes to his actual conversation. Just the other day I sat next to him at dinner and I tell you, Mr. Schuyler, that man talked about himself for three hours without a stop. All about how ungrateful the country is and how he is always being held responsible for everything that goes wrong, and how the newspapers have always been against him even during the war when they were guilty of treason for what they wrote in support of the South, and how the British gave so much money and property to Marlborough and to Wellington for saving their country while he got nothing at all from us Americans but a job he never wanted. It was something of an earful.”

Mrs. Blaine also told me of a recent day spent with Emma. I pretended I knew all about it, but, again, Emma has surprised me. Apparently she has met Mrs. Grant
twice
since our dinner at the White House. I knew of the first visit with: “All the ladies of the town, drinking tea. And very dull they are.”

But day before yesterday Emma met Mrs. Grant at the house of Mrs. Fish. Mrs. Blaine was also there, and spoke glowingly of Emma. “She is certainly the best-looking woman Washington has seen in many a moon. And so patient! Mrs. Grant kept asking her all these questions about Paris and what places she and her ‘Ulys’ ought to visit when they go around the world after they leave the White House.”

I have just asked Emma about the tea party
chez
Fish. Emma looked genuinely surprised. “But I told you all about it, didn’t I?”

“Not a word. And you know how I still covet an invitation to the house of the cousin of Hiram Apgar’s wife!”

Emma assured me that I had missed nothing. Emma found Julia Fish polite, dim, Apgar-ish. Mr. Fish was not present. As for Mrs. Grant, “Well, she took me aside, and looked me very close in the face, left eye into my left eye, right eye into my right eye, and said, ‘My mother once spent a night in a cabin with a part of Colonel Aaron Burr’s army in the West, and she told me that they were
perfect
gentlemen.’ I can’t think why she felt I ought to know this. Of course you used to work for Colonel Burr, but even so ...”

Obviously Emma and I do not entirely confide in each other. I cannot think why I feel hurt when she does not tell me every detail of her life, no matter how insignificant; yet I have never told her the most singular fact about myself, that I am—as was the late President Martin Van Buren—presumed to be an illegitimate son of Colonel Burr. Although I did publish
Conversations with Aaron Burr
, I have never alluded publicly to any connection between the Colonel and me other than a professional one.

Conversation after dinner: the American gentlemen praised Blaine extravagantly to his face while the British minister looked uncomfortable and Baron Jacobi looked alert. I suspect that even as I write this late at night, the Atlantic cable is buzzing with ciphered Balkan wit.

Recalling the Antiques’ fury at Blaine, I asked him why he was so unrelentingly hostile to Jefferson Davis when the civil rights of all the other officers of the Confederacy have been restored.

“Andersonville, Mr. Schuyler.” The black eyes narrowed. “Thousands of our men died in that camp and all because of Davis. He knew what was happening to those prisoners of war. Yet he did nothing.”

“But surely others were even more responsible.”

“Davis, as president of the Confederacy, had the power of life and death. And he chose death for our brave men.” From the slight roar of catarrh at the back of Blaine’s throat, from the deep rumble in his chest, I knew that I was listening to what will be a major theme in his campaign for the presidency: playing on the hostility of the North toward the South, waving on high the so-called bloody shirt in order to keep alive the passions of the war.

Blaine also told me that the Democrats in Congress would be blamed for denying appropriations for the War Department; particularly hurt has been the Army of the Frontier which protects Western settlers from the ever-irritable Indian tribes.

When we joined the ladies, Blaine went straight to Emma. “Well, at least I saw
you
very plainly in the gallery!”

“And no doubt
heard
me, too, cheering
in
the commonest way.” Emma was aglow in the presence of her favourite African chief.

“I do like him, Papa,” she said just now.

“But he’s an absolute scoundrel.”

“So was Napoleon—the First
and
the Third. Anyway the world is made for scoundrels, isn’t it? Certainly, they always manage to do with it as they please.”

“I’m afraid we have been here too long. You are becoming African before my eyes.”

“I was
born
African, Papa. And presently I shall put a bone through my nose and eat human flesh.” On that high note, Emma retired to bed.

The swelling in my jaw has gone down, but I am still oozing blood in the most disgusting way. Old bodies take so long to heal.

THE NIGHT of May 10 to May 11, at Philadelphia. I am so weary that I think it most unlikely I shall be able to write more than a few words. Emma is also exhausted and has gone to her room on the opposite side of the hotel. There was no suite of rooms to be had. In fact, only a series of telegrams from Bryant demanding rooms for us in the name of the
Evening Post
kept us from spending a night in the streets, for the Centennial Exhibition opened this morning and every room in the city is taken. I realize now that I am much too old for this kind of journalism, but as a beggar I am in no position to choose where I go or what I do. I feel most unwell.