City of Light (20 page)

He headed down Lincoln Parkway to Forest Avenue. We drove through the gate of the estate, up the shoveled drive, and stopped under the porte cochere, which was lit by an electric bulb in a fixture designed to resemble a gas lamp.

And then we saw that the beveled-glass window of the entry door had been smashed. Tom stared at the door in silence.

The groom, pulling on his coat, ran out from the coach house. “Good evening, sir.” Irish. Black-haired. Young, but self-possessed. All the Sinclair servants were Irish. Did Tom find some kind of comfort in that? Were they more deferential to him, or more to be trusted?

Without preliminaries, the groom jumped into the explanation. “Mrs. Sheehan heard the noise just after dark. It was a torch. Thrown from pretty close, probably, and pretty hard. Burned the hallway carpet. Could’ve been worse, if Mrs. Sheehan hadn’t been dusting the pieces on the mantel in the drawing room.” He paused for Tom to respond, and when Tom said nothing, he continued. “We searched, but we couldn’t find anybody or any traces. Not even footprints in the snow. They must have used the drive. Damned cheeky.”

“Yes.” Tom sounded oddly untroubled.

“Mr. Sheehan didn’t want to telephone the police without your approval.”

“Good. No need to telephone the police. Take hold of the horses, will you? I’ll get Grace settled before seeing Miss Barrett home.”

Tom went to the door, giving it a cursory examination before propping it open. How aloof he was. For him, aloofness was a kind of power. He did not invite me in, but took Grace in his arms with the utmost gentleness, keeping her wrapped in the blanket. Turning in his arms, she sighed. He spoke tenderly to her, words I couldn’t hear except for their reassuring tone. I had never been given the chance to speak to her with such words, to use such a tone.

“I won’t be but a minute, Louisa.”

In the hall, he was joined by the housekeeper and butler. The Sheehans were both gray-haired and thin, with an almost military bearing; they were one of those married couples who come to look like one another after long years together. They began talking about the window, pointing out the burned patch of carpet, but Tom silenced them, nodding toward Grace in his arms. He carried her up the stairs, Mrs. Sheehan following while her husband carefully pushed the door almost shut: closed enough to keep out the cold, open enough to show me no offense.

Soon Tom returned. Mrs. Sheehan would help Grace to change her clothes, then tuck her into bed; despite her forbidding appearance, the housekeeper was kindhearted. As we rode away, Grace’s third-floor light was on. The horses’ bells jingled sharply in the cold night air; if Grace had awakened she would hear the cheerful sound.

“Albright was telling me the other day that I must get a governess-companion for Grace,” Tom was saying. “Told me she needs more than a housekeeper looking after her. Advised me to put an advertisement at Smith College, or even Vassar. But not Wellesley, he told me—Wellesley girls are too headstrong! I’m sure he was thinking of you, Louisa.” He batted my shoulder good-naturedly as he turned the sleigh onto the street. “Anyway, I told him, seeing as what happened when
he
brought a governess-companion into the house, I thought as I wouldn’t! At least not yet.” He laughed. “But Albright assured me that a pretty governess was probably just what I needed. ‘Fix you up in no time,’ he said.”

I liked Susan Fuller Albright, the Smith College governess John Albright had married. Her New England family had ties to the Shakers, which made her unusual. But I couldn’t allow the thought of her (and the implications about a possible stepmother for Grace) to deflect me.

“Who do you think threw the torch?” I heard my voice echo beneath the snow-covered trees.

He waited a long moment before answering, and then said with studied indifference, “Oh, a thief, don’t you think?”

“A thief? A
torch?”

“You’re probably right, Louisa.” Suddenly he was treating the matter as a joke. “Couldn’t have been a thief. Much more likely that the house was set upon by nature lovers. Someone from the Niagara Preservation Society. Daniel Henry Bates himself. Singed his beard in the process. Or maybe the perpetrator was a disgruntled investor in the Buffalo Gas Light Company. Or a member of the lineman’s union—a ‘hot stick man.’ Or maybe—now here’s thought—maybe it was Frederick Krakauer. Although he doesn’t seem like a torch thrower himself. But surely Mr. Morgan provides him with discretionary funds to cover the hiring of torch throwers. I wonder how you’d put that down on an expense report. Honestly, I imagine; I’m sure Mr. Morgan insists on honesty: ‘five dollars, torch thrower with good aim.’”

“Why are you talking this way?”

His smile faded. “Ah, Louisa, everyone’s impatient with me these days.”

“Why should people be impatient with you?”

“I’m sure they have their reasons.”

“What reasons, what people?” I knew I sounded proprietary, but I couldn’t help myself.

“People in hot pursuit of their own agendas. I wish them luck, one and all.”

“But don’t you care if—”

“Of course I care, Louisa. I particularly care about Grace. About her safety. But what’s the point of upsetting the household? Or upsetting you? It was obviously an act meant to frighten us, not to burn the house down.”

“How can you know that?”

“Because it was done when the servants were awake. And because someone who wanted to burn the house down would have thrown the torch through the front windows, onto the curtains.”

“Maybe whoever did it was just incompetent.”

“That’s possible,” he admitted grudgingly.

“Why won’t you telephone the police?”

“The less notice, the better. I don’t want to give whoever did it the satisfaction of a public investigation.”

“But ignoring it might prompt whoever did it to do something that would be impossible to ignore.”

“A risk I’m willing to take.” Suddenly he became angry: “If you want my hunch, it’s Bates’s gang. They make everything personal. Sometimes I wonder if they’ve got a spy on me: Their propaganda shouts things about me that I’m only vaguely aware of myself.” He smiled as he said this, his anger quickly waning. “I’ll just have to get a spy on them—tit for tat! Well, let’s not think about that now. Let’s think about what a wonderful day we’ve had. Let’s think about a snowball fight.”

He stood and reached to grab a handful of snow from a low-hanging branch. Before I knew what was happening, he’d put the snow down my back. It tickled and made me shiver even as I laughed. He put his arm around me, pressing me close to him and gripping my wrist to prevent me from trying to pull out the snow.

“Be careful or I’ll toss you into a drift,” he whispered.

And with that whisper, an image of the park lake came into my mind. An image of Karl Speyer writhing beneath the ice. I pulled away from him.

“What’s wrong? Have I taken liberties?” There was a touch of irony in his voice.

After managing to remove the snow, I wrapped my arms around myself. I stared ahead, reluctant to respond.

“You’d better tell me. I can’t let you go home unless you tell me. Shall we spend the night sitting in the sleigh outside school?”

In spite of myself I relaxed a bit. “Well, it’s just … I was surprised, when Karl Speyer died, that you didn’t, I mean—”

“That I didn’t mention to the journalists his impromptu visit to us earlier that evening?”

“Well, yes. Exactly.” I was taken aback by his frankness.

“And you’ve been harboring this question for weeks now, have you? Torturing yourself about my sins of omission? With no one to talk to and nowhere to go with your worries?” He was trying to make me laugh and had finally succeeded.

“Yes, to all those questions, yes.”

“You should have come to me right then, Louisa, and asked me about it,” he said gently.

“I felt—shy.”

“Shy? You?”

“Yes, I’m very shy. Once you get to know me.”

“Mmm, I see what you mean,” he said, not believing me. “Let me explain, then. I didn’t tell the reporters or the police about Speyer’s visit because it was irrelevant. I’m trying to run a business. How can I do that, with police and reporters swarming over me? Speyer and I had a discussion we’d probably had five times before. We disagreed on a certain policy that I won’t bore you with, and whenever it came up, I won the argument. I am the boss, after all. But he kept pressing his point, and that’s good: I don’t like yes-men around me.”

“Some people think you arranged his death.”

“No one I know, I hope.”

I didn’t think he’d ever met Fiske. “No one you know.”

“Good.”

“But you see, when you gave all that money to the school … well, naturally I wondered—”

But I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t say, I wondered if you were trying to bribe me into silence.

By now we were on Bidwell Parkway. Silent himself, Tom rode down to Elmwood and turned to come up Bidwell beside the school. In front of my home, he drew the horses to a stop.

Then I realized that he hadn’t denied the accusation; he’d asked a question, he’d made a joke—and he’d let my implication about the endowment and Speyer’s death stand unchallenged. Distressed, I reached for my reticule and pushed the blanket from my legs. Although I was upset, I had to maintain dignity and politeness. I turned to thank him for the day—and found him calmly studying me.

“Don’t go yet. I have a confession to make.” I didn’t move. “The truth is, I made a mistake with Karl Speyer. I let myself show how angry I was, because he came to the house instead of talking to me at the office or even at the club. I raised my voice. If I hadn’t raised my voice, you wouldn’t have found anything amiss, now, would you? You’d have simply been grateful that I’d kept your name out of the newspapers. I violated my own rule, which is to make my voice softer, not louder, when trying to make a point. A trick I picked up from old Dexter Rumsey.”

Even now he didn’t deny my implication. “But then why—” I began, prepared to challenge him.

“No, don’t say anything.” He put his fingers to my lips for a half-second. His hand smelled leathery from the reins.

“There’s something else I must tell you, seeing as you’ve virtually accused me of murder,” he said amiably.

“Tom—”

“Quiet, now.” He brought his hand to my lips once more. “Since our discussion, what, six or seven weeks ago now, I’ve been keeping track of Grace a bit more than I used to. I’ve been bringing more work home instead of staying late at the office. I’ve been reviewing papers in the library, that kind of thing. Grace has been joining me, doing her drawings and her homework. So we’ve been working together, you might say. And I’ve been watching her. I’m discovering—to my surprise—that she begins to remind me of someone. Of you, in fact. Or rather, you begin to remind me of Grace.”

There was a subtle strain of threat in his voice. Dread crept into me, tingling in my fingertips.

“Not her manner—that’s like Margaret. But her features. Her—your hair, your eyes, your jawline.” No, I wouldn’t challenge him now, and he knew it. Twisting the reins around one hand, he touched my face, one finger moving across the line of my jaw. I didn’t move. He pushed back my hat, rubbing his fingers into my hair. He whispered, “Yes, I see you in her, and her in you. What does that mean, do you think?”

Abruptly I turned away from him and fumbled for my key. “It’s our Anglo-Saxon Protestant blood.” I tried to sound lighthearted even as I trembled. “It makes us all look alike. Sometimes in class, I can’t tell one girl from the next. Thank goodness for the scholarships you’re funding, to bring some fresh features among us. I’d best be going.” I was careful not to look at him. “Thank you for the lovely day.” I slipped out of the sleigh, not waiting for him to accompany me, and hurried up the path.

I was panting by the time I shut the door behind me. I pressed myself against the wall, gasping for breath.

And then the tingling sound of sleigh bells reached me, telling me Thomas Sinclair was driving home.

PART II

“I have tried so hard to do right.”

Former president Grover Cleveland,
before his death on June 24, 1908

CHAPTER XI

W
hat is the measure of a man?

Is it physical? He was of medium height with dark-blue eyes and rich brown hair. His mustache was thick and long. He weighed over two hundred fifty pounds, but during his time heftiness was a sign of prestige, of the enviable comfort needed to consume so much food. His weight was also a reflection of the German beer gardens he frequented, where he enjoyed sausage, sauerkraut, and innumerable steins of beer.

What is the measure of a man?

Is it professional? He was the impoverished son of an impoverished clergyman. Struggling to find his way, he settled with an uncle in Buffalo. He became a clerk in a law office, taught himself the law. Gradually he progressed in his chosen field, impressing one and all with his probity, his honesty, his hard work. He was elected sheriff and never shirked his duty, even when duty included the role of hangman. In 1881, he was elected mayor. He promised to end corruption, and he did. Over and over he vetoed city contracts that had been awarded by graft. The “veto mayor,” they called him. In 1882, he was elected governor. “Public Office Is a Public Trust”—that was his slogan, and it was revolutionary. With unwavering courage, he confronted the forces of corruption, fighting patronage and the vested interests. And in 1884, he was elected president of the United States.

Stephen Grover Cleveland. Yes, there was much to admire in him. People said his rise was meteoric. In three years, he went from mayor to governor to president. Some said it was Buffalo that catapulted him to glory, Buffalo that spoke for him—the city like an explosion of power and might withstanding every economic downturn. Buffalo, the city every American wanted to feel touched by, an emblem of hope for the nation.

What is the measure of a man?

Is it moral? In public, he projected steadfast integrity. He took pride in being a reformer, battling bribery and kickbacks. He struggled to put an end to the spoils system which had ruled political life for years. But in private, his standards were different. Perhaps this is true for most men, however—their private transgressions are harmless enough, as long as they remain undiscovered. Perhaps we should simply be grateful when, in at least some arenas, these men put duty and honor first. And yet … Cleveland aspired to the highest office in the land: Should he have been held to a higher standard than other men, in order to inspire the nation by his example?

During the Civil War, Cleveland avoided service by paying a Polish immigrant to replace him in the fighting. Of course there was nothing illegal about this; many estimable men did it, and Cleveland at the time was the sole provider for his mother and sisters. Nonetheless his decision to avoid the draft was considered somehow … unpresidential.

A bachelor until age forty-nine (when he married twenty-two-year-old Frances Folsom in the White House), Cleveland spent his Buffalo evenings drinking and carousing. There were pranks; practical jokes; fisticuffs on the street outside his favorite saloons; blunt language and blunt pleasures with women who expected nothing more. Even after he became governor, no visit home was complete without a good-natured brawl.

And then there was the shop-girl widow Maria Halpin, the child she bore him, and the whole sad, sordid tale I knew so well, of how she expected marriage and began drinking to console her shame; how Cleveland arranged to have their son taken from her by force and adopted by a well-regarded family; and how she was committed to an asylum until she accepted the separation.

What is the measure of a man?

Was he an incorruptible reformer, or profligate philanderer? An apostle of rectitude, or an inveterate roisterer? Was he moral or immoral? Honorable or dishonorable? Or was he simply a man, a prism of good and bad?

In 1888, President Cleveland was defeated in his bid for reelection by Benjamin Harrison; Cleveland won the popular vote but lost in the electoral college. He had refused to campaign, considering it beneath the dignity of the presidency to beg for support. In his final message to Congress, he gave the speech that I’d quoted to Franklin Fiske; that I quoted so often to myself as if I could gain strength from the fact that he had once harbored such notions: that he had noticed that trusts and corporations were becoming “the people’s masters,” that fortunes were being built “upon undue exactions from the masses.”

But no changes resulted from his words, and soon he himself seemed to have forgotten them.

Out of office, Cleveland refused to move back to Buffalo. He was bitter. When he had won the presidency, the most aggressive office seekers had been from Buffalo, self-serving acquaintances and even friends pressuring him for bounty, for a share in the spoils. He refused to give that bounty; after all, he had run on a platform of reform. As a result, these supposed friends neglected to invite him to their homes during his first summer vacation as president. This wounded and offended him. Of course he had other reasons for refusing to move back to his hometown. He hated the city now, hated it with an unforgiving passion because in Buffalo his enemies had unearthed the stories of Mrs. Halpin and her child, of his draft avoidance and his easy living. He blamed the city when his own deeds came back to haunt him.

So the former president and First Lady settled in New York City, where Cleveland became “of counsel” to the firm of Bangs, Stetson, Tracy, and MacVeagh. The “Stetson” was Francis Lynde Stetson, J. P. Morgan’s legal counsel, and Cleveland and Stetson were close friends. Each morning Cleveland rode the omnibus to work while quietly, far in the background, his supporters laid the plans for another run for the presidency.

In May of 1891, after much effort, Cleveland’s true Buffalo friends, among them the men of my board, especially Milburn, Urban, and Wilcox—those who had no need to share in any spoils—finally persuaded him to visit his hometown. They would ensure that the city redeemed itself for its overly aggressive seekers of personal gain. Now the city would make amends for the rumors that his political opponents hadn’t allowed to be forgotten. The city would show him its true, selfless adoration—and prepare a golden place for itself in the second Cleveland administration that people assumed was at hand.

The former president traveled to Buffalo by train with a few assistants and friends but without his wife, who reportedly awaited the birth of their first child. A boisterous contingent of well-wishers met him at the station and brought him in pomp to the new, elegant Iroquois Hotel. While in the city, Cleveland visited old cronies, gave speeches, made time for a fishing expedition to one of the forested islands in the Niagara River. And he attended an evening reception and buffet dinner at the Cary residence at 184 Delaware Avenue. At this reception I made his acquaintance.

The Cary residence: a rambling, ivy-encrusted Gothic pile presided over by the widowed Julia Love Cary and her younger sister, Miss Maria Love. Although the house truly belonged to Mrs. Cary (having been built by her now-deceased husband), somehow it had come to be known as “Miss Love’s house.” Throughout the wide hallways, Cary and Love ancestors smiled wistfully at one another from oil portraits and from marble busts placed atop heavy pedestals; so weary were their expressions that I often thought the ancestors would have been happier locked in the attic. The appurtenances of wealth filled the house: carved fireplaces, mahogany wainscoting, high ceilings with intricate plasterwork, a colonnaded music room.

But there was nothing staid about “184.” Indeed any approach to the front door was greeted by squealing children and barking dogs. Julia Cary had seven children, who by 1891 were beginning to marry (they married Rumseys, mostly) and have children of their own. All these children knew other children, and one and all they came to “184,” creating an atmosphere of barely contained chaos. They adored their aunt Maria. Miss Love permitted excesses among her own young that she would never tolerate among the needy souls at the Fitch Crêche.

The reception. I see the scene once more. I see Julia Love Cary, a haglike woman who too often wears a tiara. I see Maria Love, behaving as if
she
were the president. And I see you, Stephen Grover Cleveland, standing on the receiving line. You are more handsome than I expected. You are charming. Jovial. Polished and glowing, with a joke or a quip for everyone. Yes, you are justly renowned for your fine sense of humor, for your good-natured teasing. Your voice is deep and strong. You reach out to shake my hand. You place your left hand atop our linked hands, rubbing my knuckles. Your skin is soft. Your eyes—cliché that it is—twinkle with friendliness. Power surrounds you like an aura, and you take pleasure in treating the aura lightly. Your associates stand ready to fulfill any wish. They call you “Mr. President.” Everyone stares at you, even as they pretend to gaze at their companions. Everyone pauses to overhear your jokes. Everyone says how well you look. You’re in your fifties now, but you look better than ever, or so they say. Married life must agree with you, they say—and there’s a secret pride in this because you married Frances Folsom, one of our local princesses, and now her vibrant glamour is mixed with your power.

After shaking your hand, I circulate among the guests. As a relative newcomer to the city, surrounded by people who’ve known one another for years, I feel a twinge of nervousness. I’m still simply a teacher; Miss Love was kind to invite me. I wear what I think of as modified exotic garb, a nearly off-the-shoulder dress of claret-colored silk and a fringed embroidered shawl. I’m grateful when Dexter Rumsey (even then on the Macaulay board) comes to my side and offers me his companionship, publicly displaying his approval. Maria Love’s grandnieces and nephews, known for their mischief, live up to their reputation and let the birds out of the cages in the conservatory. Canaries circle overhead, diving down to steal crumbs off our plates, adding to the general mirth.

After completing your duty on the receiving line, you wander from group to group. All in the room are alert to where you are at every moment. Suddenly Dexter Rumsey, beside me, says in his fatherly way, “You should have your chance to chat with the president, Louisa. Young people do enjoy such things, I’ve observed.” He sighs with mock weariness. “I myself am feeling a bit beyond presidents. But come along, then.”

How kind he is to me. He leads me to a group that includes attorney John Milburn and his wife, Patty—and you. He explains to you that I am a teacher, come to Buffalo from Wellesley College. You focus on this for a moment, and then the conversation moves on.

Standing there listening, at first I notice only Patty, with her dark eyes, fine clothes, and an unexpected look of apprehension that now and again flickers across her face. Patty once taught school in Batavia, a village about forty miles east of Buffalo; now she gives money to the Free Kindergarten Association, which provides schooling for poor children. I met Patty when I first moved to Buffalo, and I thought she would be a natural ally for me, a friend even. But instead she seems always to focus her eyes just slightly away from mine. She befriends only the upper echelon, the wives of her husband’s clients. Her home is celebrated for its gracious hospitality; for fine food, warm fires, and scintillating conversation. The poet Matthew Arnold once stayed with the Milburns, at the suggestion of the city fathers.

Perhaps Patty will not meet my gaze because I remind her of her alternate fate, of what she could too easily have become: a spinster schoolteacher like me, one step away from poverty. Patty has no trouble, however, focusing on your eyes, Stephen Grover Cleveland. You relate for her benefit the story of how in years past her husband always carried law books beneath his arm when walking on the street. “I used to wonder if he was trying to absorb law through his armpits!” you jest, your voice booming. We laugh heartily; your laugh is the most hearty of all. No doubt you are remembering that John Milburn was your most staunch local defender during the Mrs. Halpin crisis. Others join our group. You step away to greet a new arrival. Many guests move into the dining room to partake of the buffet. Groups form and reform until the moment comes—Dexter Rumsey turning aside to consult his brother—when all at once you and I are alone.

Possibly you noticed when you clasped my hand on the receiving line, or when we stood with the Milburns, that I wore no wedding band. Francesca Coatsworth is one of the few other young women here without a wedding band, and already most people assume that she and I maintain a
ménage
. You, however, know nothing of these local assumptions. You speak of education for women. Of civil service reform and tenement house reform, of settlement houses, education for the poor, milk carts outside public schools, a gradual end to child labor. Bit by bit you use my own passions to lure me until, in the most gracious phrases imaginable, you invite me to your suite at the Iroquois Hotel. To continue our discussion without the pressure of your public responsibilities. You are formulating policies on these issues; you are looking ahead; you need knowledgeable assistance, private advice.