Lawless (79 page)

Coming right on top of the heat and the pain and the strain of the memorial service, that made him unreasonably angry.

Eleanor was enthralled by Papa’s brother. Even in a suitably sober suit, Uncle Matt was a dashing figure with his hair curling over his collar, and his mustache drooping past the corners of his mouth. He fanned both of them with his straw boater, then lit a cigar as she said, “I know this isn’t the time or place, Uncle Matt. But sometime I hope you’ll talk to me about the theater.”

“I confess I don’t know much about it, Eleanor.”

“Yes, but you’re a painter, and I’ve read that painters suffer just the way actors and actresses do.”

She was so fervent, she completely overlooked the wryness of his smile as he answered, “Well, I suppose I can give a little expert testimony in that department. Your father’s told me about your interest in acting. I’m not sure he approves.”

Her eyes glinted. “He’s the one who first took me to a play.”

“Watching them isn’t the same as spending your life performing them. Besides, you’re older now. You’re a daughter, and he’s a father—” He stirred the humid air with his cigar, as if stirring a cauldron. “That creates a special family brew. I’m told fathers become highly protective when daughters reach your age.”

“I can take care of myself,” she retorted. “And I don’t think he cares two pins about protecting me. I don’t think he cares about anything I do.”

“Eleanor, you’re wrong—”

She rushed on. “But I knew you’d understand what I want. You of all people in this family must know what it’s like to feel a terrible craving to be a dedicated artist.”

Matt was amused by the passion of her words, and by the words themselves. But he didn’t let on. That would have hurt her. It struck him that he must be getting old, because he was beginning to take cynical note of how intense, idealistic and optimistic young people were. There were apprentices up at Kent and Son, Boston, who were sure they’d own the biggest printing house in the land by the time they were thirty.

“I’ll be glad to talk with you any time you want,” he said, fully matching her seriousness. “I can tell you this much right now, though. I have a friend in Paris, a very fine painter named Paul Cézanne, who’s going to be well thought of one day. He once called painting a dog’s profession. He meant it was lonely, frustrating, unsatisfying for long periods of time—and that there was no guarantee of success. I imagine the same can be said of acting. To be very good at something, you usually have to give up something else. Peace of mind, perhaps. Or a normal life. Sometimes the choice is unappealing and damn—uh, very painful.”

“I’d give up anything to do what I want, Uncle Matt.”

“Sure you mean that?”

“Absolutely.”

How fiery she was, and how cheerless. He tested her a little further.

“Most girls your age are envisioning a marriage, babies—”

“I’m not. I never want to get married. I’m not even going to let myself be interested in a boy; that just—distracts a person.”

He had the feeling she finished the sentence in a way that concealed what she’d really started to say. Again he was troubled by the intensity of her statements. They were born of deep conviction—and perhaps of more than a little pain. But she hid that. There was a quality about her some would call strength and others hardness. It was difficult to tell at this stage whether it would help or harm her.

He tried teasing her. “The gain of the theater will be the loss of the male population, I’m afraid. I guess it isn’t amiss to pay a compliment to a niece and say she’s a very pretty young woman.”

Eleanor’s cheeks pinked. She wasn’t completely lacking in human feeling.

“Also a very determined one,” he added. “I have a notion you’ll be a success at anything you choose to do.”

“I’m glad someone thinks so.” She directed an unfriendly glance at her father, who was standing with a stranger a short distance down the walk. Then she gave Matt a warm, almost worshipful smile and murmured, “Thank you. We’ll talk sometime when Papa’s not around. I’d better go to the carriage now. I suppose they’re all gossiping because I’m not wailing and sobbing like an infant.”

What a curious girl, Matt thought as he puffed his cigar and watched her enter the carriage in which Molly was already seated. Fiery about certain things, cold about others. Didn’t she mourn for her poor mother? Or did she keep her sorrow buried inside?

And why had she looked at her father with something close to loathing? Gid had said long ago that his relations with his daughter were strained, but that seemed to be understating it.

As far as Matt could tell, Margaret’s death hadn’t brought father and daughter closer together, as family grief sometimes did. Disturbing, he thought as he finished his smoke. Damned disturbing.

At that moment Joshua Rothman was saying to Gideon, “Did you know your father’s second cousin, Amanda Kent, had her mansion in Madison Square mobbed too? Just about twenty-five years ago, it was.”

Gideon wrenched his glance from Eleanor, who was getting into the family carriage. She’d obviously enjoyed speaking with his brother as much as she disliked speaking with him.

Once Theo Payne had told him adolescents went through a normal period of disagreeing and even quarreling violently with their parents. At the same time, Payne said, they frequently chose other adults as idealized mothers or fathers. Maybe that was happening with Matt. If so, it was wrong for him to be angry with his daughter.

In response to Rothman’s remark, he nodded and said, “Yes, I did hear my father mention that once or twice.”

In a thoughtful way, the banker continued. “Amanda died as a result of the attack. It’s a sad and interesting parallel. In 1852 the trouble came about because Amanda protected a runaway slave. Runaways, or contrabands as they came to be called, were one of the hottest issues then. I mean the question of whether they should be given sanctuary, or returned to their masters. Amanda took a stand on behalf of a poor black’s freedom, and she died for it. Your home was ransacked and Margaret lost her life because of your concern with another downtrodden class. It’s curious how idealism leads the Kents back over the same ground—”

Gideon’s accumulating tension made him snappish.

“I fail to see much of a comparison, Joshua. Amanda was shot defending her house. I brought the trouble down on Margaret and the children, but I wasn’t here to help them deal with it.”

“Gideon, you mustn’t blame yourself for your wife’s death.”

“Why not? Everyone else does.” Instantly, he realized how self-pitying that was, and apologized.

“Have the police located the men responsible?” Rothman wanted to know.

Gideon shook his head. “Eleanor and the servants were only able to provide very sketchy descriptions.”

“Then you have no hope of finding and punishing the ringleaders?”

One, he thought. In Chicago. But Rothman wouldn’t have understood, so he simply shook his head again and murmured, “Very little.” He took hold of the banker’s arm. “Come to the house for a while, Joshua.”

“Certainly—if I won’t be disturbing you.”

Gideon assured him he wouldn’t. “Will you stay to supper?”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that. My train leaves at six forty-five.”

Gideon handed Rothman into his hired carriage. Next he went to see Julia off. As Matt approached, she declined the same invitation Gideon had given the banker.

“I think it’s best you devote your attention to Molly and Mr. Rothman and the children.”

“I agree,” Matt put in. “I’ll see Julia and Carter back to their hotel.” He grinned. “May even steal her away from you, Gid.”

Gideon didn’t smile. Julia noted the tension on his face. She laid a gentle hand on his arm.

“If you have time, come by this evening before you take the train for Boston.” Matt drifted away again, to corral Carter. Julia stepped closer. “Above all, try to heal the rift with Eleanor.”

“It’s that apparent, eh?”

“Yes.”

“All right, I’ll do what I can.”

But he was beginning to believe the gulf was already far too wide. His own ill humor wasn’t helping to narrow it.

Matt returned with Will and Carter. Julia’s son had his arm around the younger boy’s shoulders. Will’s eyes were still red from the crying he’d done early in the service. Carter was speaking to him in a low, comforting voice.

“I’ll be up to see you soon, Will,” Carter called as he and Matt climbed into Julia’s carriage. Will gave the older boy a grateful glance, then preceded Gideon into the Kent carriage. Eleanor sat against the far wall, rigid. She barely turned her head to acknowledge her father’s presence.

Gideon squeezed in beside his stepmother. He shut the door and thumped the roof. The carriage rolled forward past the hearse into which the empty coffin was being loaded by the three young men wearing derbies. Gideon heard them cracking jokes. He bowed his head, controlled his temper, and began speaking in a moderate voice.

“Eleanor, I believe that you and I—”

“Papa,” she broke in, “we have nothing to say to each other.”

All his resolve vanished in a renewed rush of anger.

“Molly,” he growled, “you must forgive me, but it’s time Eleanor and I settled a few things. The conversation may not be pleasant.”

His stepmother frowned. “I think it would be more appropriate if you waited until we arrived home.”

“Indeed it would be,” he shot back, struck by another spell of dizziness. He gripped the edge of the open window to steady himself. “But I refuse to wait that long. Eleanor, I’m sick of your disrespectful ways and your accusing looks. There is no reason for either.”

She acted incredulous. “No reason? Papa, she might be alive right now if you’d been here to protect her.”

“Do you think I don’t know that? Do you think I haven’t thought of that every minute since I heard she was dead?”

“Will,” Molly whispered, “come sit by me.” The wide-eyed boy squeezed against her side.

“Even when she was alive,” Eleanor went on, “you never thought of what she was going through.”

“That isn’t true. I did.”

Contempt then: “Did you really see the words that the painters had to cover up? ‘Communist’ spelled out in red letters three feet high? The other filthy things?”

“Of course I saw them. What are you trying to say?”

“That Mama was always terrified of the very thing that happened—people attacking the house. She must have understood your work better than I did. But you kept on with your—your
causes
and never made it easy for her to forget her fear. You kept so busy at that blasted paper, you never made it possible for us to live like an ordinary family.”

“Now see here!” he said, his voice shaking. “You have to understand my side of it. She demanded that I give up my work. She wanted me to be something I couldn’t be—a drone in some safe, secure job. She wanted everyone to obey her, but especially me. I wouldn’t, and it was wrong of her to ask—”

“So you did exactly as you please, and now she’s dead.”

“Damn it. Don’t twist everything!”

“Gideon.” Molly’s lips were all but colorless. “Don’t curse, and for the love of God, don’t keep up this wrangling. The poor woman isn’t even buried.” She stabbed a look at Eleanor. “Both of you show a little restraint.”

He shook his head. “We’re going to settle it, Molly. Somehow my own children have been turned against me with insinuations and outright lies. I’ll never know what Margaret said to either of you—” A glance at Will, cringing at Molly’s side. “I’ll never know how she worked on your imaginations. But I know she did it. She lost her sense of what was right and wrong. I could see it happening before I left. The alcohol affected her mind, just as it affected her father’s. She was a sick woman—”

“Did you make things easier by staying with her, Papa?”

In answer to the scorn, he shouted, “She made it impossible for me to stay! She—”

Suddenly he stopped. The carriage swung around a corner. He was only alienating Eleanor all the more. He had to change direction.

“All right.” His voice was much softer. “Will it calm things and help us start on a better footing if I admit I made many, many mistakes? If I accept my share of the blame for all that happened?”

“You deserve
all
the blame! You were the one who walked out—” She rubbed her eye, then shook her head as if annoyed with herself. “You were the one who never even wrote a line to find out whether we were still alive.”

“Eleanor, what are you saying?”

“That you never cared enough to write so much as a single line after you left.”

“But I did. I must have sent you a dozen letters. Begging you to come down to the
Union
—I was willing to meet you anywhere, so we could patch up our differences—”

“That’s a convenient lie now that she’s gone,” Eleanor scoffed.

“I swear to God I wrote to you! Surely someone in the house saw the letters—”

She shook her head. “I kept asking Samuel, but there weren’t any.”

“Then somehow your mother must have intercepted them. It’s the only explanation. She must have destroyed them.”

Eleanor looked close to tears again. “Oh, Papa, that’s cruel. There’s no end to your cruelty. First you desert your wife and then you bring your mistress to New York and flaunt her in front of—”

“Don’t speak about Julia!” Gideon roared. “By God your disrespect is unbelievable. You’re not old enough to—”

“I was old enough to care for Will when you abandoned us! Old enough to care for Mama and run the house!”

“Eleanor—stop!” Will screamed. “Stop, stop,
stop it!”

Molly’s eyes accused both Gideon and his daughter. “I told you that you were going too far.” She turned and comforted the crying boy. Gideon felt bludgeoned. There was a defeated tone in his voice as he made his last, desperate appeal to Eleanor’s reason.

“You mustn’t vilify Julia. She wanted to come to New York to pay her respects. She’s a fine woman. You may not believe it, but she’s been a strong partisan of you and Will for as long as I’ve known—”

“Gideon,” Molly whispered, “that will be
all.
Can’t you see the damage you’ve already done?”