Empire

newspapers.”

“My White House marriage will be the first since poor Julia Grant married Prince Cantacuzene.” Alice hurled herself at center stage.

“Nellie Grant, Julia’s mother, was married in the White House.” Longworth was languidly pedantic. “That was the last White House marriage. Julia was married in Newport…”

“And my father, representing the Tsar, had to give permission, which he wouldn’t, of course, because Julia’s aunt, Mrs. Potter Palmer, wouldn’t come up with a dowry on the ground that Julia was pretty enough to be married for herself alone.”

“Hardly true,” all three girls echoed as one.

“So Father said to Mrs. Potter, ‘How much do you pay your cook?’ Then he explained that a newlywed prince and princess must also have enough money to pay their cook. He was overwhelming. Of course, the Prince was rich in his own right…”

Caroline cut short Marguerite’s tsarist vainglory. “Alice, you must tell us when your White House wedding will take place; and with whom…”

Alice was brisk. “In 1905, probably. After Father’s reelected. I haven’t picked anyone yet. Blaise is very rich, isn’t he?”

“Very.” Caroline had often thought what a good match it would be for him, not to mention the publisher of the Tribune. In or out of the White House, the Roosevelts would be colorful, if nothing else. “You’d also have that new palace of his to live in.”

“Oh, I’d never live here! Too dull. Scenes of former glory sort of thing. I don’t want to be a fixture. No, I could never live here. I want New York, Paris, London…”

“Oyster Bay is probably what you’ll get,” said Longworth. “And deserve.”

“Better that than Cincinnati.” Alice’s eyelashes were, Caroline noticed, remarkably thick; she fell just short of actual beauty. Did she care?

Then Longworth proceeded to amuse them with an impression of Theodore Roosevelt, which made even his daughter laugh: and Alice was always alert to condemn lese-majeste. But Nick, like the President, was a member of Harvard’s Porcellian Club and so nearly an equal.

“I was in his office Monday, talking about some business in the House, and he was in a bad mood-for him, that is. So I was getting a bit uneasy because I’d promised this young Cincinnati reporter that I’d get him into the President’s office for a minute or two, and he was waiting in the next room. Anyway, after we finished our business, I said, ‘You know, Colonel, there’s a young journalist who’d like to say hello…’ ” With that, Longworth began a rendition of Theodore Roosevelt-snarling, grimacing, charging about the room, fists punching wildly at the air. “ ‘Never! Never, Nick! You presume too much! You are a fellow Pork, true. We are bound together by the ties that bind all gentlemen, but, no! Of course, I am the First Magistrate, and I am accessible, in theory, to every citizen. But if I saw them all, there would be no time left for me to magistrate…’ ‘First magistrate,’ I ventured. ‘Execute’ ” the voice was now an inhuman shriek, “ ‘my office. What’s his name?’ I told him. ‘Never heard of him. What’s the newspaper?’ I told him. ‘Never heard of it!’ I was desperate. ‘His father, so-and-so, led the movement that denied General Grant a third term.’ ‘I don’t believe it. Send him in.’ Well, the young man entered, filled with awe, and the President practically embraced him. ‘I am thrilled, young man, to make your acquaintance. Do you know why? Because your grandfather was one of the greatest men I have ever had the privilege to meet. How well I remember him arguing to the party’s leaders-such eloquence!-which you’ve inherited, I can see, in the pages of your inspiring journal. Well, sir, on that occasion your grandfather was another Demosthenes, but unlike the original, he stopped the tyrant, and saved the republic from corruption of a sort that it makes me shudder, even now, to contemplate. Go thou, my boy, and do likewise!’ With that the President shook the ecstatic boy’s hand and got him out of the room, a convert to TR for life. Then he turned to me and hissed, ‘Never do that to me again!’ Then he winked.”

As they all laughed, Alice said, thoughtfully, “Father has depths of insincerity not even he has plumbed.”

“It is the nature,” said Longworth, “of our politicians’ art.”

The ladies asked to see the baby, who was brought down to the drawing room, a solemn wide-eyed child. Cissy promptly burst into tears at the thought of marriage and babies and money and a title, and Caroline gave her a tumbler of brandy, which she drank in a single gulp, to everyone’s amazement.

As the impromptu “at-home” broke up, Marguerite Cassini took Caroline aside to announce, “Nick has asked me to marry him. Tell nobody.”

Except the public, thought Caroline, who asked, “Will you?”

Marguerite nodded.

“Come on, Maggie,” Alice commanded. “Nick’s taking us in his carriage. I hope that father of yours fixes those brakes. We,” she said dramatically, “could have been killed.”

“Maybe,” said Cissy, darkly, to no one, “it would be for the best.”

“Do be still,” said Princess Alice; and they were gone.

Glumly, Caroline sat at her desk and began, yet again, to study her husband’s debts. Slowly, she was coming to the realization that if his creditors refused to wait, she might have to sell the Tribune. She did her best not to blame John. After all, she had married him, and not the other way round. Even so, men were supposed to know about business, and she felt, obscurely, cheated. The wages of sin, she thought; and laughed aloud: she was beginning to think like a newspaper. Nevertheless, where, she wondered, could money be found?

TWELVE

1

BLAISE STARED A MOMENT at the door to the house in Lafayette Square, exactly opposite the White House. All in all, he decided, it was a tribute to the energy and colorfulness of Theodore Roosevelt that this less than splendid house, formerly rented by Elihu Root, was now occupied by Representative William Randolph Hearst. Plainly, it was Roosevelt’s powerful magnetism that drew to sleepy backward Washington Hearst and himself, not to. mention the likes of Elihu Root, now gone back to New York to practice law, his place as secretary of war more than amply filled by that human mastodon William Howard Taft, the President’s most trusted adviser on the Philippines, where he had reigned in vice-regal splendor during the… whatever it was: no one had yet come up with the right word for the violent resistance of so many Filipinos to Yankee rule. As of February 1, 1904, a week ago, Taft had become secretary of war, complaining bitterly to everyone that he would not be able to live on his salary; yet while every officeholder made the same complaint, everyone accepted office and, somehow, got by, thought Blaise, cynically.

The familiar corpulent George opened the door, just as if they were still in a real city instead of this curious Southern village. “Mr. Blaise, you’re a sight for sore eyes.” Over the years, George had come to regard Blaise as the Chief’s young brother, or even son, a role Blaise had never once had any desire to play. But play-act both men must, the omnipotent Hearst, publisher now of eight papers (Boston had surrendered), and the wealthy Blaise, who had still to make his mark at anything, particularly since yesterday’s disastrous fire had destroyed his Baltimore printing press. Although Hapgood had made arrangements with a new press, the Examiner would not appear for several weeks.

Hearst sat, enthroned, in the wood-panelled study, listening to a small and-to Blaise-perfectly appalling Georgian named Thomas E. Watson, who had served a term in the House, as member of the Farmers’ Alliance; been vice-presidential candidate of the Populist Party; might now be the Populist candidate for president in 1904. Currently, Hearst was desperately wooing him to support the Democratic Party-and Hearst, who was weak in the Godly South, thanks to the aura of scandal about his name; yet, practically speaking, Hearst was the closest thing,