Captains and The Kings (51 page)

Would he be reassured that no other enemy would unearth the story sometime in the future? Could he live with that knowledge, the fear, the haunting dread? He did not fear for himself. He had the most appalling fear of all--that the truth would destroy those he loved. Love, thought Joseph. Like all things else it was a lie and a delusion, a crippling and a betrayal. No wonder it was so celebrated: It was so rare, so beyond the nature of man that it struck him into marveling as would a miracle. Only those were safe who never loved and did not love. They were safe from the world of men. He walked back to his hotel in the midnight heat of the city. The bricked or cobbled or muddy streets were crowded with vehicles, loud with laughter and the steel rattle of wheels and the clomping of horses' hoofs. He saw the faces of politicians, rotund, flushed, jovial--he had met them often and knew them. They waved at friends from rich victorias and coaches, and smiled and smiled and smiled. They never stop working, thought Joseph. They are sleepless predators. The fetid tropical heat did not lessen. It was worse in Joseph's rooms. He tossed and dozed and had nightmares. Once he dreamt that he was on a little skiff and he saw his mother's hand stretching up to him from black waters. But when he reached for it it sank again, and he heard a moaning. He awoke, sweating, just as the blue-green light of the predawn appeared. Then he got up and washed. When he was listlessly eating a meager breakfast a messenger arrived at his door with a letter. He opened it and saw it was from Senator Bassett. For a moment or two he squeezed his dry and scalded eyes together before he read. Then he stiffened. The senator had written: You have asked me to withdraw at the price of not destroying those who are dearest to me. There is but one way I can withdraw that will not lacerate my conscience so that I cannot rest in peace. When you have received this I will have gone the way of all flesh. But with my dying breath I can only say this to you: I have laid a curse on you and none of those you cherish will ever prosper or fulfill your dreams and your hopes. It was not signed beyond the initial "B." Joseph stood up abruptly. He thought he was smothering. There was an enormous chill all through his body, and an awful sickening. Everything became cloudy about him. The walls and the ceilings of the room became mist, ruffling and flowing, dissolving. He felt faint. He had to reach for a chair, and he fell into it, the paper falling from his hands. He put his hands over his face and shuddered. It was not the dreadful curse of the self-immolated man which disturbed him, for he was not superstitious. He believed neither in curses nor in blessings. It was something else.
He had killed a phenomenon: an honest man. After a long while he thought, But then, an honest man is ludicrous. He has no place in this world, and never had such a place. In a way, if all honest men died this would be a peaceful world, for there would be no transient disturbances and agitations, no foolish hopes, no dedicated and fruitless efforts doomed from the beginning, no crusades fated to be destroyed, no lofty eloquence. He was in the railroad station among the seething throngs when President Garfield was shot, not thirty feet from him. A few months later the Alien Contract Labor bill was passed by both the Senate and the House. "We owe this," said one senator, "to the labors or our beloved Senator Enfield Bassett, who gave all his selfless energies to the passing of this bill. He died as an overladen horse dies, harnessed and pulling with all his strength, and it was an honorable death. The burdens of Public Office often kill. We consider Senator Bassett as much a martyr to his country's weal as President Garfield who died on September 9th, after a desperate fight for his life over many weeks." Joseph Armagh did not believe political assassinations were "random things, brewed up from insane minds and disordered intellects," as some newspapers averred concerning President Garfield. The hand on the trigger might have been "random," and the mind and intellect "insane and disordered." But the men behind the assassin were not random or insane or disordered. They knew why and what they did.
Chapter 32
Joseph Armagh said to his son, Rory: "You are not doing exceptionally well in mathematics, at your school. But I notice that you excel in history and English and German and French, Latin and literature." He smiled at the boy. "So, I am pleased with you. However, you will have to be more proficient in mathematics to get into Harvard." He laughed. "For an intellectual you are singularly healthy and sane and pragmatic." "I know enough about mathematics to think I should get an increase in my allowance," said Rory with his beguiling and impudent smile. "I get only two dollars more than does Kevin." "A dollar is a dollar, and it is a lot of money. Three dollars a week for a lad of fifteen is sufficient. Kevin buys his own pets out of his one dollar a week, and is very serious for a spalpeen only nine years old." Rory was tall and slender and moved lithely and quickly, with his grandfather, Daniel Armagh's, grace but with his father's strength and economy of movement. He was exceedingly handsome, with a buoyant and energetic air, which he had inherited from his mother. He was also courtly and gallant, even at his young age, and was always ready with a pungent joke. He had Joseph's once-russet hair, but his curled, endearingly--to the ladies and young girls--over his forehead, about his ears and almost down to his nape. But the russet was brighter than Joseph's had ever been, with a more pronounced reddish tinge, and was vital and coarse. He had a big well-shaped nose with a slight tilt at the tip, and a smiling mouth, also well-shaped, and large white teeth. His eyes, under red-gold brows, were light blue and mocking and usually mirthful, though frequently touched with good-humored cynicism. Like Joseph's, his cheekbones were broad, his chin determined. He gave off an almost visible aura of gusto and health and joy in life, and exceptional intelligence. His pink lower lip had a sensual thickness to it. He was also exigent, in a charming and coaxing way, though he could also be brutal when necessary. He appeared more mature than his age. Unlike other very handsome youths he was always curious, always searching for new knowledge, new insights, and he found humanity uproariously funny. Except for his father. He knew, even at fifteen, almost all there was to know about Joseph and had acquired his knowledge in many avid and devious ways and from scores of other men and from the newspapers, and from his mother, and he found his father endlessly fascinating. Joseph was the only creature Rory feared, and perhaps loved. Young as he was, he was not a virgin, nor had been since he was fourteen. Girls, and even older women, were as attracted to him as he was attracted to them, and even from his earliest youth he was gayly licentious and did not care who knew it. He was as brave as his father, but unlike Joseph he loved danger and the excitement of it. He would be, many said with conviction, an extraordinary man, not only because of his appearance and his ability to fascinate men as well as women, but because of his intellectual qualities, his eloquent and manly speaking voice, and his flair for smiling sarcasm. He was already a politician in the small world he still occupied. Though he was sometimes suspected by his school fellows to be "bookish," he led them. He rode a horse like a centaur, played tennis magnificently, and could climb like a monkey, for he was fearless. At times he was even rowdy. His twin sister, Ann Marie, did not resemble him in the slightest. She was a slender, rather thin, and quiet girl, somewhat tall and of so flat a figure that her mother constantly wailed over it. Once as noisy as her brother, she was now inclined to silence, probably, Joseph thought, because her mother "never stopped talking." She had fine straight and light brown hair, which she dressed simply as befitting a schoolgirl of fifteen, an oval face with a dear pale complexion, large sherry-brown eyes, a small nose and a controlled mouth resembling her father's. Her mother had convinced her, when she had been still very young, that she possessed no beauty but was "very plain," so the girl wore clothes without distinction and which were often drab. But Joseph, once becoming aware of her, saw that she had the austere elegance so much admired by the Irish, and it startled him, for his children were fourteen years old before he was actually conscious of their being and their identities. For, to him, Rory and Ann Marie had been "Bernadette's children," or the grandchildren of the loathed Tom Hennessey. As such he bad little interest in them and less affection, beyond an indulgent vague fondness when he saw them playing or listened to their arguments. He had often forgotten their existence, and sometimes, hearing their distant voices, he had wondered who possessed them. He paid their bills at preparatory (boarding) schools in Boston and Philadelphia, but as Timothy Dineen wrote out the cheques for all expenses and Joseph merely signed them, he was hardly aware even of this. To Joseph Armagh, his "family" had meant his parents, and then his brother and sister. Bernadette's "family" was something else again and not part of himself as Scan and Regina had been. On more than one occasion, when someone queried about the welfare of his family, he had absently but sincerely seemed surprised and had replied, "I have no family." He finally discovered that others looked at him, then, in a sidelong and speculative fashion, which was more than a little unpleasant, and so he was careful now in his answers and, while he never demonstrated enthusiasm, he would say, "My family is well, thank you," and change the subject impatiently. He never visited his children at their schools, nor had he shown any interest in their progress. As he was not very often in Green Hills it would sometimes be months before he saw his children. He did see them at Christmas and Easter, and found their presence boring and avoided them. It was as if his profound devotion to his brother and sister, his total engrossment with them, had depleted the vital reserves of love in himself and had drained him dusty. There was nothing left to give to others, and since Scan and Regina had "deserted" him he was more than ever detached from other human beings, and absolutely indifferent. The spring of his affections was filled with stones. Bernadette's adoration and love for him had become fanatically obsessive since she had learned that he cared nothing for her and had mar. ried her only at her dying mother's deluded request. She had her father's tenacity of purpose: she would win Joseph's love no matter how long it would take, and she dedicated herself to his interest and his well- being and served him with a slavishness that everyone knew, and even pitied, because Joseph was not conscious of it at all. He only knew that Bernadette was no longer insistent with him or demanding. He was not grateful for this blessing, nor did he care. The less he saw of his wife the more contented he was. He appreciated her as a fine housekeeper and in excellent hostess, and that was all he desired of her. He had not approached her sexually since his younger son, Kevin, had been born. He had not wanted another child; he held Bernadette to blame for Kevin, and so he had avoided her since that time. He was not cruel nor harsh with her. She simply was absent from his mind, and when he was away from Green Hills he never thought of her at all. Had she died he would have felt no regret. He rarely conversed witla her, and since Kevin's birth she could no longer amuse him or make him a stupid woman, extent give his grudging laugh. Sometimes he appeared startled, as if wondering who she was, when she entered a room. Bernadette, though not still did not know the of his uninterest in her. She had the romantic notion that selfless and passionate love would eventually reach him, and as she was optimistic by nature she was infrequently discouraged. On those rare occasions she would ask herself in despair: What do I see in him? Why do I love him with all my heart and soul? He is not handsome in the accepted fashion. His voice is cold and short. He is not suave nor considerate. He shows me no tenderness. He looks at me blankly. Yet, how I love him, how I adore him! I would die for him. The mystery of love never occurred to her, and so she suffered deeply and intensely because her love was not requited. However, she never gave up hope. There was much that was superficial in her and so she did not know that it was sufficient for love to serve, however despised or unnoticed. But Joseph's mere presence in her house was enough to give her a piteous joy. When he asked something of her--as he would ask a servant-- she was ecstatic. Her adoration surrounded him like a bubble. His indifference to her children did not disturb her as once it had done in a faint fashion. The fewer those whom Joseph cared about the more she was pleased. She was jealous of Timothy Dineen, and was elated when James Spaulding died and Timothy had been dispatched to take his place in Titusville and in Joseph's interests in the northwest section of the Commonwealth and in Ohio and in Chicago. (There were eight lawyers working under Timothy in Titusville, and a very large office force.) Joseph had a new and handsome secretary, one Charles Devereaux, a brilliant lawyer, a man of his own age who, Bernadette dimly knew, was from "somewhere in Virginia." Charles had enormous responsibilities, of which Bernadette did not even try to guess. She was passionately jealous of him, for he accompanied Joseph everywhere and lived in this house when Joseph was in Green Hills, and there seemed, to Bernadette, too much affection between them and too much attachment. It was only when Charles was present that Joseph really laughed or exhibited the sligh. test animation. Sometimes she complained petulantly to Joseph about this, saying that he preferred the company of his secretary-associate to the presence of his wife and children, but Joseph never answered, and so Bernadette came to hate Charles. His exceptional and almost beautiful appearance would have attracted her under other circumstances, but now she thought of him as an enemy who had "stolen" affection rightfully belonging to "the family." As for Harry Zeff and his Liza, they never came to Green Hills. Bernadette had made it very obvious that she despised the presence of "that Arab" and "his servant girl," and found them offensive and an insult to herself. "One of these days," she said significantly to Joseph, nodding her head wisely as if she had secret information, "that Harry will betray you. But you never listen to me." It gave her enormous satisfaction when her children were old enough to attend boarding schools in Boston and Philadelphia. The potential rivals were eliminated. She would effusively declare her love for them, and how she missed them, to sympathetic friends, but she was happy they were gone and was even happier when they visited friends during the summer holidays. In short, if she could have imprisoned Joseph in the great white mansion in Green Hills she would have been overjoyed, and would have been content not to have seen anyone else herself, for all her gregarious disposition. She had made herself so cutting and vicious to Elizabeth Hennessey that Elizabeth had bought the house that Joseph had built for his family and had removed herself and her son. Sometimes Bernadette wondered why Elizabeth remained in Green Hills at all. Of course, Joseph "managed" Mrs. Hennessey's affairs, as a kindness to the widow whose husband he had destroyed, Bernadette conceded. But he could have done that as well if she had gone back to her native Philadelphia. Elizabeth was rarely invited to the Hennessey house except at Christmas and on New Year's Day, and Courtney, her son, attended the same school in Boston as did Rory. Bernadette did not see her half brother more than once a year and had no interest in him. He was, in her opinion, a "poor thing" contrasted with the resplendent Rory. Bernadette had lost the charm of youth, and was now a very plump matron heavily encased in restraining whalebone, with a large bosom and larger hips, but always extremely fashionable and overdressed. Never very pretty, her round flattish face had acquired a double chin and her original golden tint of complexion had become engorged. She had nothing left now but her fine and sparkling hazel eyes. She wore her thin brown hair, which was modishly cut short in the latest fashion, elaborately and painfully curled all over her blunt head. She also dipped into the paint pots and not always discreetly. But her vivacity and energy, if sometimes a little forced now, still pleased her many friends if her growing overbearing manner and autocratic and malicious judgments did not. She was the leader of society in Green Hills, as due the wife of so powerful and distinguished and dangerous a husband, and was also feared in Philadelphia and other cities. Now, as she would contentedly and proudly assert, she could "mingle" at ease with the Belmonts, the Goulds, the Fisks, the Regans and Morgans and others in New York, and there was none who could belittle or snub her. Her jewels rivaled the jewels of any other woman. She favored Worth as her dressmaker, and her millinery was superb. When, once a year or so, she insisted on accompanying Joseph to Europe--her only insistence these days--she had a French maid with her and so many trunks and bags that an extra stateroom had to be engaged besides the one she occupied and the one Joseph used. Joseph became reconciled to her presence. As always, she was a perfect hostess to his colleagues. Once she had said to Joseph, "No one now ever seems to care we are Irish." She had said this with smugness and with a triumphant toss of her curled head. She did not understand why Joseph had given her his fierce and concentrated look which lasted several minutes, and why she had felt so abashed and so bewildered. She had not detected the rage and contempt in his eyes, nor the hatred that had caused a blue fire under his brows. She only knew that in some fashion she had offended him, and so had fawned humbly upon him. He had not spoken to her for several days after that. Then when her children were fifteen years old she received the most wounding and most crushing experience of her life. In 1875 Joseph had visited Mr. Montrose--whom he now knew as Clair Devereaux--in Virginia. The beautiful new plantation house had impressed Joseph and so had the flourishing fields of cotton and the herds of cattle and the fine horses. "Without your help in the purchase of the adjoining property I'd now be the usual bankrupt Southern plantation owner--thanks to Yankee carpetbaggers and sundry other scalawags," Clair had said, shaking Joseph's haud warmly and with deep affection. Then he had added, "This is my dear wife, Luane, whom I married in