Lawless (64 page)

She slashed lines beneath the capitalized word. Unlike the underscorings at the start of the book, the ones on this page and those immediately preceding were distinctly uneven. Jagged, Z-shaped lines.

She lifted the brown bottle. Drank. Then, after using her little finger to dab spittle from a corners of her lips, she continued writing.

Next, if at all possible, I must find a way to make it seem he has intentionally ruined Eleanor’s birthday celebration.

Next morning, Gideon awoke angry. He was sure Margaret had gulled him last night.

He’d wanted to exhibit patience with her. Be sympathetic and kind when she needed it. So he’d swallowed her story whole. He awoke doubting it—and her honesty.

He suspected her alleged feminine problems were fictions, invented to once more disrupt the off-again, on-again trip. That angered him, and so did the frustration of being unable to verify her story. The only way he could do it was to go to Melton’s consulting rooms and ask vulgar questions about a subject which—as Margaret herself said—husbands seldom if ever discussed with their wives. She probably knew he wouldn’t set foot in Melton’s office for that purpose.

The suspicion that she’d once again spoiled things in order to create friction stayed with him as he commenced his trip downtown. As had happened before, a time of turmoil unexpectedly produced a good idea. He got an inspiration for Eleanor’s gift, and realized with impatience that he wouldn’t be able to speak with the
Union’s
drama critic, Billy Dawes, until midafternoon. The editorial people began to drift in then, although certain staff writers who did most of their work in the office reported earlier to prepare and polish filler material.

During the morning Gideon occupied himself with the previous month’s financial statement. He met with his chief bookkeeper before going to lunch with Payne at the tavern on Ann Street where he and Sime Strelnik had parted company that winter night in ’71.

Gideon had brought along a thick folder of copy. Eight articles prepared by Salathiel Brown, the
Union’s
correspondent who traveled west of the Mississippi. Each article dealt with some aspect of life in a growing city or town in that part of the country. Gideon showed Payne the minor changes and suggestions he’d noted on each of the first seven features. Then he pulled out the last one. The front page bore the title
Paris of the Prairie.

“Telegraph Sal to try this one again, Theo. That is, if you agree we’re not in the business of glorifying card sharps.”

“Indeed we aren’t,” Payne said between bites of a cutlet. “Haven’t read the piece yet. What’s wrong with it?”

“Mr. Brown chose to focus on the Kansas City tenderloin. Specifically, on the downfall of one man who’s been drawn there by boom times in the city. Some fellow named”—Gideon thumbed the copy—“Kane.”

“Not Jason Kane?” Payne spelled the last name.

“Yes. You’ve heard of him?”

The editor nodded. “He’s killed his share, like Hickok and some of those other desperadoes. What’d he do to get in trouble in Kansas City?”

“The same thing for which he says he was wrongfully run out of Deadwood Gulch. He cheated. He was caught, tarred and feathered.”

Payne winced at the painful thought. Gideon went on. “The point is, Sal portrays him as a kind of pathetic hero. A victim of his fondness for the bottle”—that just slipped out, but Payne didn’t act offended—“and of his need to maintain a fierce reputation. According to Sal’s view, this Kane had no chance to succeed after the war because he was a Reb. All he could do was take up a career as a gambler. I don’t accept that. Choices are open to every man. Hell, I was a Reb and I swam upstream in the biggest city in the North for years afterward. But I didn’t drown.”

With a melancholy smile, Payne murmured, “Some of us are not made of such stern stuff, Gideon.”

Then pink spots appeared on his cheeks. “I’m sorry. That was self-pitying and unkind. You’re a good friend and a good man. My weaknesses aren’t your fault. Accept my apology?”

The younger man waved, but Payne’s remark disconcerted him. If only the editor knew how often he doubted his own abilities—and how inadequate and downright helpless he felt in certain areas of his life, notably his home life.

Still, he had never forgotten Payne’s lecture about careless writing, and how it might fix some grammatical error in the mind of a man who trusted you to be correct. He thought a similar principle applied here. The
Union
would not promote sympathy for a thief.

“Of course I’ll accept it, Theo. On one condition.” Gideon smiled. “That you go over these, and if you agree with my thoughts on the Kansas City piece, ask Sal Brown to take another crack.”

“I certainly shall.”

Back at the paper, Gideon went into a long session with the circulation manager. When the meeting ended, his watch showed three o’clock. Dawes should be coming in soon.

He wanted to ask the drama critic a question about George Aiken’s dramatization of
Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
The play had first been produced by the resident acting company at the Troy Museum upstate, shortly after Mrs. Stowe’s influential novel was published. A year later, in 1853, Aiken’s revised six-act version had been brought to New York City—again with not one penny of royalty going to Mrs. Stowe. Loosely drawn copyright legislation permitted playwrights to pilfer any published work they chose.

Since ’53, the Aiken play had been staged hundreds of times. The productions ranged from spartan to opulent. After the war the play’s popularity had remained undiminished. Even today scores of companies were always out in the provinces playing Tom shows, as productions were called.

Gideon had only seen one version, but it had been a lavish one. Julia had taken him to it in Cleveland. He could never forget the scenic effects, especially Uncle Tom’s ascension to Heaven in a gilded car at the final curtain, and the thrilling picture created by live bloodhounds pursuing Eliza across the ice in the Ohio River scene. The bloodhounds were an interpolation by the producers, Julia said. She’d seen two other versions which didn’t use dogs, and thus assumed they weren’t specified in the text.

Although the play, like the novel, was fundamentally an abolitionist tract, it was nearly as popular in the South as in the North. Gideon supposed it was because in some respects, the drama pandered to, and even reinforced, stereotyped ideas about nigras. Audiences tended to ignore the fiercely militant and freedom-loving George Harris, Eliza’s husband, and fix on the other black characters. But even the resigned and deeply religious Uncle Tom would probably not be so objectionable to newly freed blacks as would Topsy, Gideon supposed. Topsy was a thoroughly shiftless and treacherous girl who delighted in tricking whites. Of course audiences found her grotesque misunderstandings of proper English to be hilarious—as the author intended.

Still, there was no getting around one fact. The play was undoubtedly the single most important social drama created in America so far in this century. At the same time, Gideon had found it a thunderingly good melodrama. Any girl interested in the literature of the theater ought to own a copy of Aiken’s work—even if it did come to her from a former Confederate. That was the conclusion he’d reached when the idea popped into his head earlier. He couldn’t imagine that Margaret would object. The play was on its way to becoming a classic.

He saw Billy Dawes come up the stairs from the street, and went to meet him at his desk.

“Hello, Gideon. What can I do for you?”

“Answer a question, Billy. Are there any printed texts of Aiken’s Tom show available?”

“I could be wrong, but I don’t think so. Nothing but prompt scripts for the actors.”

“Could you get hold of one? In time for me to put it on a late train to Boston?”

“You mean a late train tonight?”

“Yes.”

“That’s a tall order.”

“Draw any amount of money you need.”

Dawes grinned. “You just shortened the order considerably. I have friends in most of the playhouses. I’ll see what I can do. Will Mr. Payne think I’m malingering?”

He glanced toward the cubicle in which Payne could be heard chastising Staniels, the city editor, for what Payne considered poor opening paragraphs on several recent stories.

“I’ll keep him occupied,” Gideon promised. “Will you get started?”

“Right away.”

Gideon next wrote his telegraph message to Kent and Son, Boston. Dana Hughes wired back that it was a difficult assignment, but if Gideon could put the prompt script on a midnight express, a representative of the publishing house would meet the train, all regular work would be set aside in the type shop, pressroom and bindery, and the special order would be delivered by the requested date.

Hughes’ message concluded by asking what Gideon had heard about Mr. Matthew Kent’s participation in the historical project.

Nothing, Gideon realized with a glance at a calendar. Another day had gone by without a letter or cable. Where the hell was his brother? In hiding in order to finish some important piece of work?

Gideon decided he was either growing old, or growing conservative, or both, because he certainly didn’t understand the mind of someone like Matt any longer. He didn’t even have much of a desire to try.

True to his word, Hughes had the finished, one-of-a-kind book in Gideon’s hands by three o’clock on the afternoon of Eleanor’s birthday.

Gideon had been warned that the special edition might cost as much as a thousand dollars by the time all charges were in. But he thought the price was worth it—especially when he unwrapped the layers of paper and protective wadding and examined the finished volume.

It was an oversized edition, bound in rich, maroon-dyed leather and elegantly stamped in gold. The title of the work as well as Aiken’s name and that of Mrs. Stowe glittered on the spine together with the Kent and Son colophon, the half-filled tea bottle. The vellum smelled new. So did the leather.

The text had been set with a ragged right margin, in twelve-point type, generously leaded. It made for a bulky book but Gideon liked the effect. He immediately sent Hughes a telegraph message expressing his pleasure and his thanks.

He left the
Union
at six, over the protests of Payne, who wanted to have supper at the tavern and discuss a series of forthcoming articles on the country’s continuing economic woes. “Tomorrow night,” Gideon promised, and scooted for the staircase with the gift tucked under his arm.

The gift looked beautiful. One of the copy boys who aspired to be an editorial artist had claimed he was good at fixing up fancy presents. The beribboned package which he’d returned to Gideon’s desk had proved it. And earned the boy five dollars on top of the cost of the wrapping materials.

Gideon’s carriage clipped north along Fifth Avenue. He was genuinely excited about the evening ahead. With luck it might be one of the happiest in the household in years.

Again he blessed Julia for urging him to make the effort to create that happiness. She was far wiser than he, but he was beginning to learn again that kindness and patience brought greater rewards than anger.

A spring sky of pale yellow spread above Central Park. Black thunderclouds were rolling in from the northwest. Through the open window of the carriage he felt the chilly brush of an approaching storm wind. Soon the first drops of what might be a downpour thumped the carriage roof. But no storm could dampen his enthusiasm for the coming celebration—or the sheer joy of being able to go home to children he loved.

The carriage swung into Sixty-first Street, then into the yard at the rear of the mansion. He said a cheerful goodbye to Mills and, with the package tucked under the left side of his coat, started inside. At the back door he remembered something, turned and called, “Was the train on time?”

The coachman booted the brake, shouted back through the rain and noisy gusts of wind, “What train, sir?”

“The train my wife sent you to meet this afternoon. Mrs. Kent’s train from the Jersey shore.” Raindrops splashed his forehead, oddly chill. “Didn’t you go down to the ferry station where the passengers arrive?”

“No, sir, I didn’t.”

Ah God,
Gideon thought as the rain trickled down his neck and dampened his collar.
She forgot again. Molly probably had to take a hack from the North River piers.

Well, if that was the evening’s only mishap, nothing would be lost. He composed himself and went inside. He took off his light checked MacFarlan with its separate sleeve capes and his matching brown beaver hat. The butler, Samuel, juggled those and the wrapped package as Gideon rubbed a palm over his hair, which he now parted in the middle and groomed with Macassar oil, as most men did.

“I suppose Mrs. Kent arrived from Jersey in good order?” he said with a smile.

“The elder Mrs. Kent, sir?”

Gideon nodded.

“Is she supposed to attend the celebration?” Samuel asked.

“She is.”

“Then I’m sorry to report that she’s late.”

“You mean to say she isn’t here?”

“No, sir. I wasn’t even aware she was expected.”

“My wife didn’t inform you?”

“No, nor cook either. Only four places are set in the dining room, not five—” Samuel’s voice trailed off. He was addressing the master’s retreating back.

Gideon went up the staircase two steps at a time, heading straight for Margaret’s room. A scowl marred his face. His earlier mood of anticipation was gone.

G
IDEON KNOCKED ON
Margaret’s door. She refused to let him in. Instead, she opened the door and quickly slipped outside. Their reflections were dim and distorted in the rain-speckled window at the end of the corridor.

At least she’d remembered to dress properly. In fact she looked quite pretty in a gown of tan faille silk with a white taffeta drapery. The dress had a pointed train decorated with bow knots from the peak of the bustle downward. She’d completed the ensemble with white slippers and an arrangement of aigrettes and white ostrich tips in her hair. “What did you want, Gideon?”