Heaven and Hell (96 page)

"I have nothing to do with the Dixie Stores, Simon. Nothing."

There; another sign of Stanley's surprising new assertiveness. Until recently he'd been timid about using the Boss's first name. "I have stated and restated that to the press, and I'll continue to say it, because it's true."

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Cameron puffed his lips out and moved his tongue behind them as if trying to dislodge an irritating seed. "Well, yes, but to be candid, my boy, in the Republican hierarchy, they don't believe you."

Stanley sighed. The elderly black man in a fusty formal suit offered his silver tray. Stanley took his glass, which contained twice as much whiskey as the one given Cameron. "Then perhaps I had better be somewhat more forthcoming. I do aspire to that House seat. Of course, to clear myself completely would be hard. Emotionally."

Cameron, who could read most men easily, was thrown. "What are you talking about?"

A swift glance showed Stanley there were no members close enough to hear. A magnificent tall clock behind the periodical table chimed, six sweet, deep notes.

"I'm talking about the Dixie Stores. When they were established, I admit that family funds were used. I had no knowledge of it at the time, however. I was too busy overseeing General Howard's programs The Hanging Road 609

at the Bureau." His eyes, so like a mournful hound's, actually sparkled now. "Mr. Dills can verify that all of the stock of Mercantile Enterprises is registered in the name of my wife, Isabel."

The senator from Lancaster nearly spilled his drink.

"Are you saying she operated the stores?"

"Yes, and she started them on her own initiative, after a visit to South Carolina. Of course I discovered it eventually, but I have never had any knowledge of the details."

The older man guffawed. "Stanley took offense but quelled his resentment.

Cameron shook a long finger. "Are you telling me that you absolutely deny any association with the Dixie scandal?"

"I am. I do."

"You expect the party and the public to believe that?"

"If I keep saying it," Stanley returned calmly, "I expect they will, yes. I knew nothing. Isabel is an intelligent and driven woman.

The shares belong to her. I did not know."

Simon Cameron tried to align this bland, imperturbable Stanley
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with the timid naive man he had advised to look into some sort of profitable Army contract early in the war. Stanley had grown enormously rich selling shoddy shoes. He had also changed while Cameron's attention was elsewhere. The Boss couldn't find the old Stanley in the new one.

Relaxed in the leather chair, he gave a grudging laugh. "My boy, that congressional seat may not be out of reach after all. You are very convincing."

"Thank you, Simon. I had a master teacher."

Cameron presumed Stanley was referring to him. He took note of the clock. "Will you join me for supper?"

Stanley handed Cameron another surprise when he said, "Thank you, but I can't. I have invited my son here to dine."

Laban Hazard, Esquire, just twenty-three and only two years out of Yale, had already established a Washington practice. It was not prestigious, but it was profitable. The majority of Laban's clients were murderers, perpetrators of stock frauds, and husbands charged with adultery.

Laban was a slight, fussy young man whose earlier handsomeness was fast being eroded by too little sunshine and too much Spanish sherry.

In the club dining room, over excellent lamb cutlets, Stanley explained his predicament, and his decision to speak in more detail to prove his innocence. Laban listened with an unreadable expression. Under the gaslight his carefully combed hair resembled the pelt of an otter just out of a creek.

At the end of Stanley's long monologue, his son smiled. "You 6io

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prepared well, Father. I don't think you'll even need counsel if the shares are registered as you say. I'll be pleased to represent you in any unforeseen circumstance, however."

"Thank you, Laban." A syruplike sentimentality flowed through Stanley. "Your wretched twin brother is unredeemable, but you gladden my heart. I am happy I took the initiative in reuniting us."

"I too," Laban said. He belched. "Sorry." The S sound was prolonged; Laban had already drunk one sherry too many.

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"Will you contact the Star for me? I'd like a private meeting with their best reporter, as soon as possible." Stanley's voice was pitched low. There was no mistaking what he wanted his son to do.

"I'll take care of it first thing tomorrow." Laban twirled his wine glass. Then, avoiding his father's eye, he said, "You know I have always had difficulty feeling affection for my mother."

It was uttered in a monotone; Laban was in his lawyerly mode. He made the personal confession sound ordinary.

"I know that, my boy," Stanley murmured. He felt triumphant; he would survive, and ascend to new heights. "But we mustn't harbor ill feelings. She will need compassion when the storm breaks."

Three days later, Saturday, Stanley was in the stable behind the I Street mansion. In shirt sleeves and already fortified by two morning whiskeys, he was admiring his matched bay carriage horses. They were the joy of his life; they symbolized the benefits of wealth.

"Stanley."

Her harpy voice brought him around to face the wide doorway. A pale sun was trying to break through the night mist from the Potomac.

The stable had a friendly smell--earth, straw, manure. Stanley saw a copy of the Star in Isabel's hand.

"Please leave us alone, Peter," he said. The young black groom knuckled his eyebrow and left.

Isabel was ashen. She shook the newspaper at her husband. "You fat vile bastard. When did you do this?"

"Transfer the shares? Some time ago."

"You won't get away with it."

"Why, I think I already have. I had a congratulatory note from Ben Wade yesterday. He commended my honesty and courage in the face of a draconian choice. He lauded my future as a Republican. I understand the White House considers me exonerated."

Isabel detected the spite in his treacly tone. She started to revile him, then thought better of it. She felt the weight of her nearly fifty years, and she was suddenly afraid of this pudgy man in disarrayed The Hanging Road 611

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linen whom she'd held in contempt for so long. She crossed over to him.

"What are we going to do, Stanley?"

He stepped away from her imploring hand. "I am going to institute divorce proceedings. Laban has agreed to handle matters. I can't condone the policies of your Carolina stores."

"My--?"

"I have my future to think of," he went on. Isabel's face showed a sick disbelief. "However, I've instructed Laban to arrange for transfer of five hundred thousand dollars to your personal account. Consider it a sort of parting gift, even though you served me ill as a wife."

"How dare you say that? How dare you?"

Suddenly Stanley was quaking. "Because it's true. You constantly humiliated me, belittled me in front of my sons while they were growing up. You deprived me of the one woman who ever cared about me."

"That music hall slut? You simpleton. She wanted your purse, not your privates."

"Isabel. That's revolting." Deep within, some little gnome of spite laughed aloud. Isabel prided herself on refinement. He'd finally broken her.

He continued. "That remark is further proof of my assertions. Even so, I'll still give you the money to tide you through the scandal. All I ask in return is that you stay away from me. Forever."

The blooded bays nuzzled one another from their adjacent stalls.

Shafts of brightening sun speared down from the hayloft. Outside, hidden by the mist, Peter whistled a minstrel song. Isabel's astonishment turned to rage.

"I taught you too well. I taught you too much."

"That's true. Growing up, I never thought very highly of myself or my abilities. Neither did Mother. Neither did George. You convinced me I could become successful if I wasn't overly scrupulous about how I did it." Christ, how he hated her. He was openly nasty for the first time. "In your old age you can take pride in that accomplishment."

"I did too much for you," Isabel screamed, charging at him, fists flying. She was slight; no match for him, flabby as he was. Stanley didn't mean to hurl her away so hard. She struck her shoulder against an empty stall and cried out, then sat down. Bewildered, she gazed at
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her twisted skirt. She'd gotten manure all over it.

The young black groom dashed into the wide doorway and checked there, a silhouette against the sunlit mist. Stanley was startled by the strength of his own voice:

"Nothing wrong, Peter. Go about your work."

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"I was too good to you," Isabel said, leaning her head against the stall and weeping. "Too good."

Blinking, Stanley said, "Yes, I would have to agree, even though I don't imagine it was intentional on your part. And when you were too good to me, you made a grave mistake, Isabel." He smiled. "Please be out of the house in twenty-four hours or I'll be forced to lock you out. I must excuse myself now. I'm thirsty."

He marched away into the mist, leaving her to stare at the filth on her skirt.

65

Richard Morris Hunt designed the mansion. It occupied the entire block between Nineteenth and Twentieth on South State Street.

To lure so fashionable an architect to Chicago had been a great feat. As with most everything else, Will Fenway found that overpaying by a third got him what he wanted.

The extravagance didn't concern him. It was impossible to spend his money as fast as he made it. The Fenway factory had expanded three times, the firm was ten months behind with orders, and, late in '68, Will's sales director, LeGrand Villers, had added three more company travelers, based in London, Paris, and Berlin. Will was beginning to think there were more whorehouses in the world by far than decent Christian homes.

Will Fenway was already sixty-eight when he engaged Hunt. He knew he wouldn't live more than a decade or so, and he wanted to enjoy himself. He asked Hunt to build him the largest, most ostentatious house possible. Mr. Hunt had studied at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, and was
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the foremost apostle of.French Second Empire architecture, considered by people of taste to be no mere revival of an old style, but the essence of modernity.

Hunt designed a granite castle of forty-seven rooms with mansard roofs on its three wings, and a spendthrift use of marble columns, marble floors, and marble mantels throughout. Will's billiard room was large enough to hold a small cottage; Ashton's ballroom would have accommodated three. Only one incident marred construction of the house. At the top of each mansard slope was a cast-iron cresting. Ashton one day discovered that Hunt had ordered these manufactured from his design by Hazard's of Pittsburgh. She flew into a rage and sent a letter discharging Hunt. In reply, her husband received an angry telegram from 613

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the architect. Will was forced to leave the factory, where he usually worked a minimum of twelve hours Monday through Saturday, and jump on a train for the East. He begged for several hours to get Hunt to overlook the insulting letter.

The crisis passed, and the Fenways moved into the mansion early in the summer. They spent many pleasant hours discussing and selecting a name for the house. Every important residence had a name. He wanted to call it Chateau Willard; Willard was a miserable man's name, but somehow it had an impressive ring when connected to a house. In choosing the name he suspected that he lacked taste, but he figured his money compensated for it, and people would therefore excuse his lapses, so he might as well go ahead with whatever pleased him. "Chateau Willard," he declared.

Ashton rebelled. Instead of nestling sexlessly in his arms that night, she moved into her own three-room suite. She stayed four days and nights, until he came tapping at her door to apologize. She let him in on the condition that they modify the name to Chateau Villard, with the accent on the second syllable. He seemed relieved, and agreed.

The year 1869 brought a riot of prosperity to the owners of Chateau Villard. Will couldn't believe the sums flowing in, or the number of Fenway uprights shipped out. A magnificent Fenway grand piano was already in the design stage, and there were orders in hand for the unbuilt instrument. Given all this, Ashton realized she was finally in a position to explore ways to revenge herself on her family. As a first step, she asked Will for a personal bank account. After some consultation with the Fenway Piano Company's bookkeepers, he established it with an
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opening balance of two hundred thousand dollars. In February Ashton decided she'd pay a visit to South Carolina as soon as weather and her schedule permitted. She had no definite idea of how she would proceed against her brother and Orry's widow; she merely wanted to search for possibilities.

The staff of Chateau Villard expanded from three persons to twelve, including two stable hands, during the first three months of what was to become the 1869 spending spree. Ashton bought paintings, sculpture and books by the crate. A two-thousand-dollar red morocco set of the works of Dickens excited Will's admiration--he touched and smelled the books reverently when they were delivered--but he remained an unpretentious man, and only read such things as Alger's stories of plucky and enterprising young fellows who succeeded, or the coarse frontier humor of Petroleum B. Nasby, or nickel novels like Spitfire Saul, King of the Rustlers. Although Will had seen the reality of the West, he seemed fonder of the falsification of it.

Ashton tried to get acquainted with the occupants of the mansions The Hanging Road 615

above and below Chateau Villard. To the north lived Hiram Buttworthy, a harness millionaire, a Baptist, a man who kept a spittoon in every corner of every room and had a wife so ugly she looked like she belonged in one of his harnesses. Mrs. Buttworthy, a society leader, didn't approve of the flamboyant Southerner who obviously had not married her husband for his youth, his looks, or his prospects for a long life.