Galveston (18 page)

We walked the rest of the way in silence, except for Serena's constant yammering in Charles's ear. Janet walked beside Rubin, and I walked alone behind Charles and the child. When we drew up to their house at last I noticed the oleander bushes which flank the front of their porch were losing their blooms. “It will soon be the end of summer,” I said. “You can always tell. The oleander blossoms stay around to the end, and yours have been particularly good this year—better than those around the church.”

“Those are the tallest bushes I've ever seen,” said Charles. “They'll soon reach the top of the porch.”

“They hide the porch,” I said. “Can't even see Janet's swing from the street anymore.”

“Yes, I like it that way.…” she said.

We had no more than arrived in our own house than Charles left again. “I'll be home in time to get dressed for the banquet,” he said. “I've got some business to tend to.”

“Where are you going?”

“No time to explain. See you later,” he said, and I watched him walk to the barn to get Gypsy. I was nervous after the ordeal, although I hadn't realized it until he left. Watching the raging spectacle of flames had given me an almost detached feeling; yet now, at home alone, it was strangely more real. When I closed my eyes I could see the fire. My clothes smelled of smoke; I changed and walked next door.

Janet was feeding Serena her supper in the kitchen, and Rubin was talking quietly to the both of them. “Hi, Caire,” she told me between bites.

“Hi, darling. You weren't afraid of the fire, were you?”

“Yes, but Daddy says everything is gonna be okay.”

“Come on, Serena, eat your vegetables,” Janet said impatiently. I could see the afternoon had taken its toll on her.

“You must forgive Charles being so upset,” I told them. “You see, he lost his parents in a fire when he and Damon were just a little older than Serena. He was raised by an aunt. So he can see the magnitude of all this more easily than the rest of us.”

“Apologies aren't necessary, Claire,” Rubin said. “Charles is a man of action, and he was justly alarmed. Such a man can save a community sometimes, much as Christ saved the world.”

“Poor Charles,” said Janet. “There are families who seem to be stalked by fire. I knew one in Virginia.…”

Chapter 2

The Pavilion fire marked a turning point in our lives. Surely as it leveled the big building to the ground, it also ignited Charles's spirit in a way I had not before witnessed.

Before that, each thing Charles became involved in was resultant in some way, directly or indirectly, of the driving force of Pete Marlowe. Although Charles did work very hard in his own right for the Industrial Expansion Committee, I have always felt his being appointed to its membership was Pete's doing.

Then, sometime later, Charles's involvement in the Galveston Deep Water Committee was only a veil covering work actually carried on by Pete. The Deep Water Committee was instigated by a number of important citizens—most notably one or two stockholders in the Wharf Company—for finding ways to raise money for harbor improvements and dredging the swiftly shoaling inner and outer bars. Since Pete had come out both publicly and privately time and again against the Wharf Company, his presence on the committee would hardly have been welcomed.

Charles, on the other hand, had no known enemies among the elite members of Galveston business society. So while Pete quietly contributed money, Charles went to meetings and worked on devising plans for getting the necessary work done. He muttered privately though that while the Deep Water Committee might help Galveston to an extent, the only way to assure its place as a port of the future would be to destroy the monopoly held by the Wharf Company.

Once he told me, “Of course our doing this work on harbor improvements is helping Houston too—don't think her people have missed the point that when Galveston money is spent to deepen the channel, she benefits too. Any ship that can pass over the bars to Galveston will be just that much closer to Houston's port. Only when we put an end to our exorbitant wharfage fees are we going to remove the impetus for Houston's own effort at getting deep water.”

In between the committee meetings of one kind or another several nights a week, we landed our share of social invitations. I hobnobbed with the wealthy and prominent, content to flirt with the curled edges of city society. I knew I wasn't an actual participant, only an invited guest by virtue of knowing Pete and Faye. I amassed a closetful of creations by Madame LaRoche, and would go along to the social functions on the arm of a man as often as not introduced as Marlowe's partner, and smile and be charming the evening long, then go home and not even remember names because they didn't seem important at the time.

Then the fire. “What's the point of all this?” Charles asked me that night after he returned. “I spend my time trying to get new business blood flowing through the veins of this town, and rack my brain along with several others, trying to figure out how to finance the harbor improvements. And all the time we sit here unprotected from the whims of nature. The fire brought it all home to me. Fire destroyed my parents. It could have destroyed Serena. Could have killed you and me, Janet and Rubin, and everyone else in the Pavilion today.

“Don't you see? If a fire started on this island when the wind was blowing right, the whole town would go within a matter of hours.”

And that was it. What happened afterwards for months to come was a result of Charles's own motivations, regardless of how it appeared.

Shortly thereafter a movement was under way to change over the city's fledgling group of volunteer fire companies into one citywide system of paid employees. I know there were others involved in it, and that Charles probably met with several of them that evening after the Pavilion fire. But for most of them it probably
was
just another civic committee. For Charles Becker it was a labor of love, and made all the rest of his work for Galveston matter more than ever.

March winds can be scathingly cold on the island, and on one particularly windy night in 1884, Pete Marlowe came over unannounced and brought with him Lucien Carter. The two stood on the front verandah with woolen scarves wrapped around their necks, overcoats on, and red noses. Pete's appearance at my front door came as no great surprise; Lucien Carter's, on the other hand, caught me off guard. We didn't see very much of him.

“Come in, come in,” I said. “We've a fire in the parlor. Go and warm yourselves. I'll get Charles.”

He appeared surprised when I interrupted his work in the study, and looked at his watch. “Was I supposed to meet with Pete tonight?”

“I don't know, but he and Lucien are wrapped up like eskimos, and Lucien's carrying his brief case. Maybe it's something about business. I'll make some hot chocolate.”

“Later,” said Pete, who'd come down the hall to the study door. “I want both of you to sit in on this conversation. Besides, I don't seem to be able to git an appointment with Charlie at his office these days.” he said, laughing, and we all trooped back into the parlor, where Lucien now stood before the fire, warming his well-manicured hands.

There was a sense of imminency in the air as we sat down to listen.

“You know, Mr. Fuller took the town by quite a landslide in yesterday's mayoral election,” said Lucien. “Not that it came as any surprise. He's been mayor before, some years ago, and was popular then.”

“It's pretty common knowledge our illustrious Wharf Company was pullin' for his election this go-round,” said Pete.

I looked at Charles. He nodded in agreement, pulling out his pipe and lighting it calmly. The statement seemed academic. What could anyone do about an election already over with?

“To get to the point,” said Lucien, “as long as the Wharf Company has the city officials on its side, there is little can be done to bust up the monopoly, and the monopoly, as we've all agreed before, is going to bring us to ruin. Either that, or the people like me are going to move somewhere else.”

Charles leaned back in his chair and crossed one leg over the other. “I'm in total agreement with you as far as that goes; but what have you in mind?” Lucien's last statement had given it away, but Charles always takes one point at a time.

“By startin' now,” Pete said, “we might have a chance two years from now when the next election rolls around, to beat Fuller with our own man. It will take some money, of course, and also an effort at educatin' people of the city to the importance of a new face in city government.”

“I'd back such a campaign as far as I was able,” said Charles, and drew on his pipe.

“We don't want you to back the campaign, son,” Pete said. “We want you to
be
the campaign. We want you to run for mayor.”

I sat with shoulders tensed, waiting.

“I told you I'd back a campaign for new faces around the city in any way I could, but don't believe for a moment I think I'd have a ghost of a chance. And anyway, why me? Why not you, Pete? You've been here far longer; have a good deal more influence than I.”

“Drat it, I'm too old to run for public office. Few years ago, maybe I might have, but not now. Mother wouldn't hear of it. You're the one; the perfect candidate: clean background, free of scandal. Your work around Galveston is reachin' the eyes and ears of everyone. You're young—at least by my standards—yet old enough to know the ropes and still have the energy to fight the battles, for there will be battles, even after you've been elected. Don't think you can't make it. Stranger things have happened in my experience. The Wharf Company don't have everybody paid off. There are twenty-four thousand people in this city, and a fair percentage of them can vote.” He was huffing and puffing now, his face growing red. He had his thumbs looped in the armholes of his waistcoat.

“You don't have to answer tonight,” said Lucien. “We need to begin this thing early, but we do have a little time. I've a list of supporters here in my brief case, but I'll just hold it for now if you like, till you've made up your mind.”

“A little time we have, yes,” said Pete, rubbing his hands together. “Time enough for Fuller to warm up the mayor's seat down at city hall. But that's about all. Don't say no because you think it will be a losin' battle, Charlie. Remember, a hundred years ago a small band of young upstarts successfully revolted against the Crown of England.”

“That's true,” said Charles, “though it strikes me they might not have been so successful if England had had the Galveston Wharf Company on her side.”

After they were gone Charles stood gazing into the fire. I had managed to remain calm during their visit, yet now they were gone I could no longer contain myself. I went to him and put my arms around his waist, and pleaded with him to answer “yes.”

“Poor Claire,” he said softly, the firelight playing on his cheek. “I haven't made you very happy, have I? Forcing you up and away from the home you loved, bringing you all the way down here, where you knew no one.”

“It's all right. I've been happy, honest I have. Besides, that was ages ago.”

“Would it really mean so much to you, my running for mayor?”

“Oh, if you only knew how much. It's what you've been aiming for since you came here. And after you've done it there will be other, greater things for you. The doors will continue to open in front of you. I can see it!”

“And what if I should lose?”

“You won't lose. I just know it. It's time something changed for the better … maybe this will be it.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Oh, nothing. Only that we've been pivoting around in a circle for all these years, never getting anywhere. Suddenly it's all worthwhile, all the waiting …”

He looked at me for a long moment then, and said, “You'd have to consider the strong possibility that I may not win—may not even score.”

“I'd take the chance … haven't I always taken a chance with you?”

“Yes, but you don't take disappointment lightly. I haven't lived with you for all these years without learning that.”

“I've had my share of disappointments, but I just have a feeling this time I wouldn't be getting my hopes up for nothing. I don't know—maybe it's because Pete is involved in it, and he's so strong a man—so well known, I—”

“If you think I'd do it at Pete's bidding, you can just get the thought out of your head. Running for mayor isn't something one does as a pawn.… If I decide to do it, it will be for my own reasons. He'll have nothing to do with it beyond coming up with the idea in the first place, and giving me his support.”

“Does that mean you'll do it?”

“No. It means I'll consider it, and in the light of your wishes maybe even more seriously than I otherwise would have.” He gazed into the fire and then looked again at me.

“You know, this town has a lot of advantages—its people, its beauty, the new fire department, the Deep Water Committee—it would be nice to feel one had had a big part in making Galveston into a great metropolis, like New York or Boston. And I really believe that it's all within our grasp if we handle it right, if we make everything come together as a unit.

“Still, it's a lot to give, running for public office … I began as a lawyer, and a damned good one if I do say so myself, but lately it seems any number of things get in the way and it's hard to decide which is more important.”

“There are a good many fine lawyers; there are fewer fine mayors, and probably none as fine as you would be.”

“Yes, but there would be a certain risk involved,” he said, turning again to face the fire. I left him there, and went up to bed. I had some of my own thinking to do.