Captains and The Kings (72 page)

I shall never forget how he ate it, poor little spalpeen, licking every morsel and every drop of juice." He sighed shortly. "He was too long without the apples of existence, too long, I am thinking. He was always frail." Rory considerately looked through the snow-lashed window, and now his regret was for his father and not for his murdered uncle. Harry Zeff had had many quiet conversations with Rory on the subject of Joseph, for Harry had been determined that Rory would not be another Sean to blacken his father's life with ingratitude and girlish cruelty. "I knew your Dad when we were boys together," he would keep repeating. "I know what Joe suffered for his family. I know what Sean's running away meant to him, and I know what it meant to him when Sean finally accomplished something by himself. He was as proud as a peacock." He had looked at Rory then. "I read something once, a Turkish poet or something, your father was always giving me books to read though I never wanted them. Omar Something. How can I remember? It was about man forgiving God, and not the other way around." Rory had quoted: "O Thou Who man of baser earth didst make, And even with Paradise devised the snake, For all the sin wherewith the face of man Is blackened, Man's forgiveness give-and take." "Yes, yes," Harry had said, nodding with contentment. "That is it. The old Turks understood, didn't they? Joe's got a lot to forgive God for, and don't you be forgetting it, as Joe himself would say." When Rory and Joseph reached Delmonico's, Rory said, "It's very cold, and you are tired, Pa. You need a drink." Joseph scowled at him. "I seem t < to remember that on every gloomy occasion you reach for the bottle, Rory. Well, then, let's have it." The steam pipes clanked desolately but Rory had ordered a fire, remembering how cold affected his father. He mixed a hot toddy for Joseph and Joseph said, "Where do they get lemons here this time of the year," and Rory said, "Why, from Florida, by fast train. These are new days, Pa, very modern and fast."' f j Joseph drank gingerly, and then with a sudden thirst Rory had never seen him exhibit before. When he appeared to be relaxing, and warming, Rory said, "I won't beat about the bush. I thought you ought to see some of the newspapers from Boston, and some from the yellow press in New York, before you go to Boston to arrange for the funeral and bring Uncle Sean to the family plot in Green Hills." "Why should I see the newspapers?" demanded Joseph. "What is all this mystery? Well, let me have the damned things."'. j So Rory gave his father a sheaf of headlines and shouting print, and made himself another drink and prudently absented himself for a while in the next room. He heard no sound but the turning of pages, except for one exclamation, "Oh, my God!" Rory winced, and wished he had brought the whiskey bottle with him into this room. The hell with you, Uncle Jenny Find, he addressed the dead man, grimly. It wasn't enough that you once kicked him in the teeth, but you had to do this thing to him, too. Rory saw the sudden welling of the fire as Joseph savagely thrust the papers into it. But Joseph did not call him immediately. For Joseph was thinking again of Senator Bassett. He was not thinking of the explicit scandal which had fallen upon his family. He could only see the face of the man he had destroyed, and he saw that face in the bright coals on the hearth, and he heard, again, the dead voice and reread the last letter the unfortunate man had ever written. After a long time Joseph called his son and Rory went back into the darkening room. "I think," said Joseph, "I need another of your infernal drinks." But when the silent Rory gave it to him he only held it in his hand and stared at the fire, and his face had become stark and pallid, and occasionally he shivered. Scan was buried in the family plot with its huge obelisk, and he was buried quietly, and the innocent priest said, "-this sad and famous victim of an insensate act on the part of a madman. We can only mourn the loss of so magnificent a treasure- We can only condole with those who grieve, and remind them-" The snow fell on the bronze casket and into the black and waiting grave, and those who had been invited to accompany the father and the two sons exchanged looks which were meekly malicious, except for Harry Zeff and Charles Devereaux and Timothy Dineen, who stood with Joseph like a bodyguard and let the snow fall on their uncovered heads. The handful of earth and the holy water also fell, and Joseph did not turn away but looked at his brother's coffin and nothing at all showed on his ravaged face. Two days later, without even seeing Elizabeth, he returned to Europe. Before his trial, Herbert Hayes hanged himself in his cell.
Chapter 43
After his uncle's funeral, and his and Kevin's return to Harvard, Rory was taken by a profound depression which he had never known before. He had heard of "black Irish moods" but had thought them only invented by the poetic Irish to explain the melancholy experienced at times by all men. He could not shake off his depression, though he attempted to find the cause. Even Marjorie, with her mocking jokes and ardent love, could not alleviate it much. Rory found himself studying the newspapers and trying to "read between the lines." But everything seemed tranquil in an America of rising prosperity and hope, despite the screaming politicians and that segment of the press known as "yellow." America rejoiced in her freedom. She was the Mecca of a whole envious world. She was at once naive, ebullient, happy, rich, expanding, innocent, gay, and emotional, caring more for news of the British Royal Family than for the speeches of her President. Americans adored William Jennings Bryan and laughed happily at cartoons lampooning him. Their opinions are like froth, thought Rory. Their emotions are equally turbulent and shallow. Yet under that froth there appeared to be a serene and tranquil current, flowing steadily to Utopia and its golden towers, where every man would own his own "cot," to quote a newspaper, his own land and his own destiny. Rory had still been in Europe when, on January 25, 1898, the little American battleship, Maine, entered Havana Harbor to the alleged joy of both the Spanish government and the Cuban insurrectos. Everyone pretended that this had happened by invitation of the government, though it was not for a considerable time that it became known it was at a secret request of the American Consul General, for reasons never quite divulged. The Spanish commander of the port personally visited the battleship, accompanied by cases of rare Spanish sherry as a gift, and he invited the officer-crew to a bullfight. The President of the United States said that the visit of the Maine to Cuba was "simply an act of international courtesy." But Joseph had told Rory that the "friendly act" was to protect American citizens resident in Cuba, "or perhaps to use them for certain reasons." It was also to protect American property if the interior revolution reached Havana. Joseph did not expound on the "certain reasons" for the presence of the Maine. But Rory began to watch the newspapers. Sometimes he derided himself. He was looking for bogeymen, for traitors under beds, for conspirators. Feeling the power and pulse of America now that he was home it seemed amusingly incredible to him that any conspiracy of anonymous men meeting in St. Petersburg, London, Paris, Rome, Berlin, Vienna, or anywhere else, could truly gain an international ascendancy over his country, and destroy her for their own ambitions. Was it possible that his father had actually taken them seriously? Of course, they were powerful, for they were financiers and could manipulate the currencies of Europe-but how could they possibly manipulate America's currency, and her politics and her government? Even the "robber barons" of America were too American to permit such a thing. Rory had heard them laugh in New York at "our European trolls." It had been the laughter of strong and humorous men, men who appeared at national celebrations of the Fourth of July, to give fervent speeches on patriotism and "the glory of our beloved and invulnerable and peaceful country." There were, as they often remarked, "two oceans girding and guarding our shores from foreign ambition and foreign attack." The Monroe Doctrine was a revered document, third only in the esteem of Americans after the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. It was impregnable. Wars? Confiscatory taxation? Inflation? National "emergencies"? They were as remote from America as Arcturus. They were European aberrations, a disease of old and decadent countries, and would never invade the healthy tissues of the American body politic, for all its innocent flamboyance and noise and fireworks and denunciations and excitements and roaring emotions, and other irrationalities. Kevin was a freshman at Harvard, and he and Rory often met in little quiet restaurants in Boston. Kevin was young, but he was as tall if not taller than his brother, and he was a "black Irish bear," as his mother often said. But there was something about Kevin which was not juvenile or collegiate, something steadfast, immovable, and rational, without emotional overtones or rashness. Kevin was not a "talker." It had long been Rory's opinion that Kevin knew more about Ann Marie's "accident" than he would ever tell, and nothing could force him to tell. When Kevin appeared his presence was not just the presence of another very young man, awkward, uncertain, gawky or defensive. He was simply there, and he was felt almost tangibly. Between the two brothers was a deep and unspoken love and trust, yet it was rare when they confided in each other and had never, as yet, been totally frank. "Baring one's soul" was just not the Armagh way of life, and it would not have occurred to Rory to disobey Joseph and ask Kevin his opinion of what his brother had seen and heard in London, and in New York. If anything, Rory was even more secretive than his brother, who had a reputation for it. If either had encountered a grave trouble they would have gone to the other for assistance, without offering any explanation at all, nor being expected to offer such accounting. They had their father's innate dignity and his contempt for emotionalism of any sort. "Like a damned woman whimpering into her pillow," Joseph would say of any man he knew who could not control his feelings, or desired to display them. "Or taking off your trousers and underdrawers in public. Have they no self-respect? They want everyone to quiver with sympathy for them, and love them, for God's sake!" This was the attitude of the Armagh brothers also, who had pride if no "sensibilities," as Bernadette called it. Kevin was a good student if an uninspired one. He worked hard, as Rory had never had to work, yet he was as retentive as Rory. He sweated and labored over his books. His papers were adequately prepared, if pedestrian. Rocklike, bulky, strong, he was admired on the track and in the field. No one knew what Kevin thought though Rory came the nearest to guessing. Kevin was pragmatic. Kevin was realistic. Kevin was never haunted by bogeymen or nightmares. Kevin was forthright and blunt, and no sweet sayer, and he often had manners which were stigmatized as rude or boorish. It was just that Kevin had no time for fools or for the little niceties and frivolities. "What are you saving your time for, then?" Rory had once rallied him. "For me," Kevin had replied, at fifteen. On taking thought, later, Rory acknowledged that that was an eminently sensible remark. There were absolutely no affectations in Kevin, no pretensions, no hypocrisies. He had had many more fistfights in his life at eighteen than Rory ever had had, and he had fought efficiently and without passion and without rancor. "He is like my Grandda," Joseph had once remarked. "There was no stopping that black Irish bull when he had set his mind on something." The trouble was that no one, as yet, knew exactly if Kevin had set his mind on anything, not even Rory, though it was expected that he would go on to law school and then into politics, as his father had decreed. Kevin was no conversationalist. Whatever he thought was his own, and his mind was not to be invaded. His dark eyes were keen but not lively, sharp but not sparkling, and never seemed to smile. His large blunt head sat firmly on his short neck and wide shoulders, and he looked at the world not boldly but with an entire lack of wariness. If he sometimes asked a question, and the person became evasive, he immediately changed the subject. Whether or not that hinted at a lack of interest in others no one ever knew, except Rory, who knew it for an amazing sensitivity which Kevin kept hidden, and a deep respect for the privacy of others. Rory and Kevin met for dinner at a grubby little Boston restaurant on February 10th. Both were inclined to frugality and to complain of their father's parsimony, and Rory was careful with the remainder of the money Joseph had given him. "Count your pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves," Joseph would say, and his sons agreed with him, for all their complaints. The restaurant was really a saloon, or a pub, as Joseph would have called it, and the beer was excellent and so were the roast beef sandwiches, pickled pigs' feet, ham, pork sausages, potato salad, rye bread, tongue, and baked beans. Here healthy young men from the colleges, who had penny- pinching fathers of great wealth, could drink and dine heartily and smoke or even spit on the sawdust-covered floors, and tell their lewd jokes and roar joyously at each other, and boast of their sexual successes, mostly fictitious. The young ladies of Boston were often offensively unattainable, and the brothels-most of them owned by The Armagh Enterprises-were expensive. It was a favorite spot for both Rory and Kevin, and they could sit far back in semi-shadow and talk at a greasy wooden table, and rarely be accosted. It was known that their father owned the saloon, as he did many others in Boston, and there was an aura, therefore, about the two brothers which they would have protested had they guessed. Didn't they have to pay as much as anyone else? Did Pa let them have credit? No. Their only distinction was that the Irish bartenders insulted them more than they did others, and loudly called them "shanty Irish," and pretended to ignore them. Rory gave Kevin the news of that part of the family still in Europe, for the death of their uncle had prevented confidences before. They did not speak of Scan. Had he been murdered by robbers or an offended husband they would have talked of him. But now he had been consigned to the discreet Limbo of the Armaghs, and so did not exist any longer except in their gloomy memories. A tinny piano-Scan had once played and sang here long ago-covered their intermittent conversation. Rory, the voluble, did not find Kevin's short remarks and long silences oppressive. There was an empathy flowing between them which needed few words. Kevin had guessed at once, tonight, that Rory was preoccupied-a rare thing for him-and even somber, and he waited for either Rory to speak or not to speak. The big dim gaslights flickered in their dirty globes and it was cold and dank in the saloon, but the beer was good and both the young men had fully filled their stomachs. The portrait of the naked lady over the bar seemed exceptionally ruddy and exceptionally fat, and beamed at the diners and drinkers below her in a most benevolent mood. Rory bent his handsome red-gold head over his beer mug and seemed to be tracing with his eyes the lacy patterns on the sides. He said, "I was only away for a little while but it seemed months. What a hole London is! But it's got a feeling of power which we don't have even in New York or Washington-a feeling of empire, of puissance, as the old boys used to call it. A kind of-throbbing-all over. But the 'merry men of England' have long gone, thanks to Cromwell and Victoria, and the Cavalier spirit is dead. If it ever existed." Kevin waited. Rory glanced up at him swiftly with those apparently candid eyes of his. He said, "I heard something about us sending a battleship to Havana, while I was in London. Hear about it, yourself?" "Sure," said Kevin. "We're getting ready to take over Cuba. And other loot." Rory was enormously startled and taken aback. His brother had spoken so casually, as of a self-evident reality. His strong voice had been dispassionate and even indifferent. "For God's sake, why?" Kevin shrugged his heavy bull-like shoulders. "Guess we want a war." "Why?" Rory almost shouted. He was still shaken. Kevin shrugged again. "Who knows? I suppose we are on our way." "To what?" "To being like other countries." What the hell does that mean?" "Come on, Rory. You know. Empire. And something else, too." Rory's chest tightened. "What do you mean by 'something else'?" Kevin frowned, and his big dark face became lowering. "How could I know, or you, or anybody else? Except Pa, perhaps. You just get a smell of it. A sort of feeling, fog, in the air. I've been studying some-things." "What?" "Hey, you are shouting. I've been reading about the Morgans, the Regans, the Fisks, the Goulds, the Vanderbilts-all the rest. Running back and forth to their houses in London and Paris and Vienna and on the Riviera. Lot of activity lately. It's reported in the newspapers-galas, weddings, fiestas, international society. The thing is I don't believe it. They always did it, but this time I don't believe it's so damned innocent." Rory was stupefied. Kevin gave him a glowering smile. "Didn't you meet some of them in London?" Rory nodded, unable to speak. "And they were all marrying their daughters off to European nobility, and such," said Kevin. "Selling the girls like heifers. Well. But it's something else, too, more important. I have a prof, or I should say I did have one. They let him out in January. He talked about the international bankers one period. Just a little. But I knew; it all snapped into place, what I've been reading in the papers. I don't know why he was kicked out. Or maybe I do." A deep coldness settled in Rory's interior. Suddenly his brother no longer looked impassive and young, but worldly and weightily disgusted, and more adult than himself, who was six years older. "Who do you think has been stirring up those insurrectos in Cuba?" asked Kevin. "They live better than American farmers in the backwoods live. Who made those poor peasants suddenly conscious that they were 'oppressed'? It isn't race or religion that divides them from the Spaniards; they are the same people, with a little mixture of Indian, probably. Who's kicking up shit in Cuba now?" "Who?" "Us, of course. For some damned reason or other. Do you think thecane-cutters in Cuba are now suddenly all fired up about 'liberty' and 'the fl rights of man'? Why, they can't even read, for Christ's sake. All the poor devils want is peace and guitars and romance and girls and wine and dancing. Food's almost for the asking, and they don't need houses like ours, and heat. But all at once they are talking about 'liberation.' You're the heir, Rory. Now you tell me why?" But I can't, thought Rory. He was chilled inside and out, and shivered. He said at last, "What do you mean, I am the heir?" Kevin smiled darkly. "You are the older son. You are almost out of law school. You'll be the first in politics. You've just come back from Europe. Pa sent for you. I'm not going to ask you why and expect you to tell me the truth. You said it was something about Ann Marie, and I didn't believe it for a minute, for she