The Navigator of New York (37 page)

I was at first taken aback by Aunt Daphne’s distrust of Dr. Cook. But there is so much that she does not know, I told myself. If she knew, she would understand.

Shy
. Could it be that that was all that most people ever thought I was? I so wished it was true that it seemed momentarily possible, that the whole thing, my childhood, had been a protracted misunderstanding on my part, that if I was to return home I would be celebrated by people who had all along thought shyness to be my only shortcoming.

I told Dr. Cook that I had written her but showed him neither my letter nor her reply, saying only that I had told her it was necessary that we not have any contact with each other for a while. I said that I would keep her informed of my whereabouts and plans so that she would not be forever in suspense.

D
R
. C
OOK AND
I
WERE
FÊTED IN
N
EW
Y
ORK SOCIETY AS A TANDEM
of heroes, Dr. Cook for rescuing Peary’s wife and child, and I for what became known as “Mr. Stead’s encounter with Lieutenant Peary.”

“There is no way to resist it,” said Dr. Cook. “They have chosen you to play a part. This is the sort of story they love: an unknown young man saving a famous old man’s life.”

“It’s being made to seem as if I am fond of Peary that I don’t like,” I said.

“Look,” he said, “you do not have to lie to them. Tell them about climbing the mast and standing in the pilot barrel. Tell them about the iceberg. Tell them about the fiords and the glaciers and what they sounded like at night. Tell them about the walrus and the narwhal. That is the sort of thing they want to hear. You cannot control the manner in which good fortune comes your way. But it would be foolish to refuse it.”

There came our way an invitation. We—that is, Dr. Cook, his wife and I—were invited to the Fall Ball, which took place every year at the Vanderbilts’ on the Hudson, where Frederick W. Vanderbilt and his wife lived in an Italian Renaissance mansion whose expansive grounds in Hyde Park overlooked the Hudson River.

Not only would every member of the Peary Arctic Club be there, Dr. Cook said, but they would be outshone by the other guests, “the absolute upper crust of New York society.”

Mrs. Cook, telling her husband that she did not wish to “spend
time with people who will regard my every word and deed as confirmation of the opinion they held of me before we met,” asked him to decline the invitation on her behalf. He wrote the Vanderbilts that at the time of the Fall Ball, his wife would be visiting her sister in Washington.

Dr. Cook took me to a tailor and had me fitted for “white tie and accessories.” White tie, it turned out, really meant vanilla tie—vanilla so that it could be seen against the white background of the shirt. I was also fitted for a vanilla-coloured vest, and a milliner fashioned a removable white silk lining for my top hat. After the purchase of a long white silk scarf and a pair of white silk gloves, I was, sartorially speaking at least, ready to meet the Vanderbilts.

We drove to the house in Dr. Cook’s horse and carriage, Dr. Cook being loath to risk having the unreliable Franklin break down in the Vanderbilt driveway in front of all the other guests who owned motorcars but regarded them as toys.

We had a long time to talk as the pair of horses clopped along, the sound of their hoofs making our voices unintelligible, Dr. Cook assured me, to the driver, whom Dr. Cook had hired because, in the eyes of the people I was about to meet, it would not do for us to drive ourselves.

“It is well known that by the time of the North Greenland expedition, your parents were estranged,” Dr. Cook said. “No one will mention this to you. It is highly unlikely that anyone will mention your mother at all. They will expect, on this one matter at least, the same sort of tact from you. With your father, things are somewhat different. They will expect you not to mention your father until, by doing so themselves, they invite you to.

“It is, in part, the story behind your story—the story that will never appear in the papers and that they will not allude to in your presence—that fascinates them. They see you not only as the strong, quick-thinking, promising young man the papers make you out to be, but also as a somewhat mysterious, possibly ‘haunted’ young man with a tragic past. That you are following the vocation that brought so much unhappiness to your mother and father intrigues them. You are
now among those whom they believe to be worth watching, as I once was. I do not mean that I am now regarded as uninteresting, but it is thought, in many quarters, that I am unlikely at this point to exceed my past accomplishments, unlikely to do anything surprising; that I will continue to distinguish myself in the second rank of exploration. I should add that I am not so regarded by other explorers or those who follow exploration closely.

“The front rank of American explorers is a front rank of one. It contains no one else’s name but Peary’s. No explorer in history has been more ‘backed’ than he has. The uninformed, by whom he is regarded as our explorer laureate, appointed to his position of pre-eminence for life, have given no thought to who should succeed him.

“That someone must soon succeed him—that he is, however unwillingly, about to step down—they do not know as yet. Nor should we so much as hint at it tonight. Do not say a word to them of Peary’s condition. If they ask you what you think his chances are of reaching the pole, tell them that if any man, after three years in the Arctic, still has strength enough to make it to the pole, that man is Peary.

“You should say nothing even faintly critical about him. We should seem to be Peary’s admiring rivals, his gentlemen competitors.

“They will watch you, Devlin, not so much to see what you make of yourself as to see what life makes of you, to see what becomes of you.”

“I had hoped to make a new beginning here,” I said. “Now it seems that I am regarded in New York as I was in St. John’s: as being fated to wind up like my parents.”

“No, no, it is just the opposite. They do not know what you are fated for because most of them do not believe in fate, not really. Americans, even those who not only value social standing but believe it is fixed, immutable, do not like to think in terms of fate. There is, I know, a contradiction there, but they could not be bothered to acknowledge it. Americans like to think that anything is possible, that ours is a country of limitless opportunity for all. One cannot believe that
and
believe in fate.”

“I think you are exaggerating the degree of their interest in me.”

“I assure you that I am not. How long it remains at its current level to some extent depends on you. But they will always be watching now to see what becomes of you. They like to bring in people like you and me as guests—not just into their houses, but into their lives. But guests are all that we will ever be. It is important to remember that.”

“I would like it if, at some point in my life, I could just fit in somewhere, not seem like such an oddball,” I said.

“Well, do not try to fit in among these people. Do not try to act ‘properly.’ Do not be anxious because you do not know the rules of polite society. Among the people who wish to meet you, it is universally
assumed
that you do not know these rules. They would be disappointed if you did. The last thing they want you to be is one of them.”

“What
do
they want me to be?”

“Yourself.”

“But I am not what they think I am.”

“Perhaps not quite what they think you are. But you are rougher around the edges than you realize. You will soon see what I mean.”

“Now you have me terrified.”

“They will love your accent.”

“I didn’t think I had that much of one.”

“My dear fellow, you have a brogue so thick it would blunt a butcher’s knife.”

We drove up a well-lit driveway overhung by massive oaks and pulled up behind some other vehicles at the foot of a set of limestone stairs that fanned out widely at the bottom like the train of a wedding dress. We disembarked and, as our carriage was led away, ascended the stairs to a double-storeyed portico, on each side of which there were two massive fluted columns that supported an entablature whose centrepiece, though it reared above me, I could not make out.

We were relieved of our scarves, gloves and hats just inside the door, swarmed by taciturn footmen who simply waited to be handed
articles of clothing. If not for Dr. Cook, I would not have known when to stop, what to give them and what to keep.

The moment I left the vestibule, I had to resist the urge to turn sharply right, to where I knew the business room to be.

We were led by a short, scarlet-complexioned butler through the vestibule into the entrance hall and then upstairs to the enormous reception hall, a circular room at the heart of the house from which a dozen doors, now closed, led off to other rooms. As we climbed the bronze-work stairs, I put my left hand on the balustrade, only to withdraw it when I saw that the rail was encased in velvet of which only the light side showed, as if it had never been touched, never brushed against the grain. I looked at the mark left by my hand, the only such blemish the whole length of the balustrade, and, resisting the urge to turn back and erase it, hurried on.

Dr. Cook and I joined a receiving line, in which, I was relieved to see, were Clarence Wyckoff and some of the other passengers from the rescue expedition.

We had been waiting a couple of minutes, the line moving slowly, when Wyckoff glanced over his shoulder and saw us.

“Dr. Cook and the doughty Mr. Stead,” Wyckoff said, and everyone in front of and behind him turned round to look. There was an outbreak of applause, led by Wyckoff, to which even Dr. Cook seemed unsure how to react. He smiled and bowed slightly, as if he believed Wyckoff was being playfully ironic. I did likewise.

“How is the arm, Mr. Stead?” Wyckoff said. The arm. The arm that saved Lieutenant Peary, the arm we have all read and heard so much about, he might have said by the way people looked at my arms, both of them, as if, now that I no longer wore a sling, they were unsure which was the special one.

“Much better,” I said. Instinctively, I flexed my right hand slightly, and now all eyes were on my right arm, people nodding and murmuring as if it was apparent to them, as it could never be to people who had not seen it with their own eyes, how such an arm could have saved Lieutenant Peary.

It seemed strange to think that at that moment Peary was still up north, somewhere in Greenland, facing such hardships and privations as none of us but Dr. Cook could even begin to understand. He was facing almost certain death, while there I was in Manhattan being celebrated for having saved what little remained of his life—there were we all, lining up to meet the Vanderbilts and partake of their lavish hospitality, speaking with such cheerful ease of Lieutenant Peary, who by that time, along with Matthew Henson and Charlie Percy, might have been dead.

Dr. Cook, who had met the Vanderbilts before, stepped aside after a short exchange of pleasantries to introduce me. But before he could say my name, Mr. Vanderbilt put his hand on my left arm.

“This must be Mr. Stead,” he said, as if he had not heard Clarence Wyckoff’s butler-like announcement of Dr. Cook and me.

“How do you do, Mr. Vanderbilt?” I said, extending my hand, which he took in both of his, giving it a gentle squeeze.

“Very well, young man. Very well,” he said. “I can now tell my friends that I shook the hand to which Lieutenant Peary owes his life. It was a great thing you did, a great thing that will never be forgotten.”

“Thank you, sir,” I said.

He introduced me to his wife, who smiled and held out her gloved hand to me palm down. For a moment I was mystified, then I realized that I was meant to kiss it, which I did. I must have been looking elsewhere when Dr. Cook had done so. I had never kissed a woman’s hand in my life. Should I bend to kiss it or raise it to my mouth, or both? Both, I decided. That there were no gasps of disbelief or disconcerted looks, I knew to be no indication that I had done it properly.

“We are all very proud of you, Mr. Stead,” she said. “You might not have been born in New York, but when anyone who lives here does something great, we shamelessly claim him as our own.”

After exacting from us a promise that at some point during the evening Dr. Cook and I would tell them all about the rescue expedition, the Vanderbilts turned their attentions to the guests behind us.

Dr. Cook and I were admitted into the main chamber of the reception room.

The room was lit by a row of identical, evenly spaced, globe-like chandeliers. I would later count six of them, though from where we stood, they all blended into one, as if a massive, sparkling, horizontal beam of glass was hanging from the ceiling. Whatever furnishings the room normally held had been removed, except for the reproductions of several Greek busts and statues, each of which stood on a pedestal in a grotto-like recess in the walnut-panelled walls.

Along the walls innumerable armless chairs sat side by side, all with red plush seats and upright wooden backs. Most of the chairs were empty, but I imagined them all occupied, everyone sitting around the edges of the great room, solemnly surveying their fellows across the way as if the occasion was not a ball but a multitudinous assembly at which matters of great importance were to be discussed.

Each half of the room was a mirror image of the other. Anyone entering by the opposite door would have seen exactly what we had, including the double doors themselves, flanked by the same Ionic marble columns. The doors at the opposite end were closed, and on a slightly raised dais in front of them, an orchestra was gathering.

Dr. Cook inclined his head towards me, about to give me some instruction, I assumed, but before he could speak, a woman emerged from the teeming throng of people on the floor, holding out her gloved hand, which he kissed.

“How nice to see you, Dr. Cook,” she said.