“I’ll see what I find there first.”
Hay nodded. There were those who liked to think that McKinley was Mark Hanna’s puppet, but anyone who had known either man back in Ohio, as had Hay, knew that the President was the perfect political animal, endlessly cunning and resourceful with a genius for anticipating shifts in public opinion, and then striking the right note. Hanna-now a senator from Ohio-was simply McKinley’s crude moneyman. Currently, he was “milking,” as he put it, every wealthy Republican in the country to ensure Republican majorities in the Senate and the House of Representatives.
“How are the negotiations in Paris?” Hay realized that McKinley was not going to volunteer anything.
“There are problems. The first is, simply, what do we want? I’ll know that better at the end of October. I’m going to St. Louis, too. When in doubt, go to St. Louis.” The Major looked cryptic; a cardinal again. “The Spaniards will cede whatever we want. But there is bad feeling.”
“I would suggest a payment for the islands.”
McKinley looked surprised. “I thought the cost of the war was the cost of the islands.”
Hay had given the matter some thought. He had also got the idea from his old friend John Bigelow. “If we pay, as we did for Louisiana and Alaska, then there is no doubt of the legitimacy of the ownership. The bill of sale is the proof. Otherwise, we can be accused of theft, or brutal imperialism, which is not our way, or ought not to seem to be our way.”
“That is a very good idea, Mr. Hay.” McKinley got to his feet. He touched a button on his desk. “Explain it here tomorrow morning, when the Cabinet meets. But I warn you. Foreign relations are now
“Except for the peace conference in Paris.” Hay was dogged. Should he be left out of that, he might as well have stayed on in London; or retired to 1603 H Street.
“Judge Day likes to deal with me. But while I’m gone, Cortelyou will keep you informed. When does Mrs. Hay join you?”
“In a couple of weeks.” Cortelyou was now in the doorway. “She has to stop off in New York to do the Christmas shopping.”
“Christmas shopping? In September?” The Major was astonished.
“Actually September’s a bit late for my wife. She usually does all her Christmas shopping in August.”
“We could certainly have used her at the War Department.” McKinley put his arm through Hay’s and they crossed together to the door.
“How is Mrs. McKinley?“ The delicate subject.
“She is-comfortable, I think. You will come to dinner, I hope. We don’t really go out. What is your son Adelbert doing now?”
“I didn’t know you knew him.” Was this the politician’s trick of boning up in advance whenever someone important called? or had Del, unknown to him, got to know the President?
“He was down here in June, before he graduated. Senator Lodge brought him by. I was most impressed. I envy you, having a son.” The McKinleys’ daughter had died young. It was said that their bedroom was a shrine to the dead child. “Perhaps we can find some work for your boy here.”
“You are kind, sir.” Actually, Hay had considered taking on Del at the State Department, but then decided against it. They did not, for reasons obscure to him, get on. There was never unpleasantness; there was simply no sympathy. Hay was happier with daughters; as Adams was happiest with nieces, real or honorary.
As the President and Hay stepped into the corridor, a tall, gaunt figure stared intently at Hay, who stared, bewildered, back. McKinley said, “You remember Tom Pendel, don’t you? He’s been a doorkeeper here ever since your day.”
Hay smiled, not recognizing the old man. “Why yes,” he began.
“Johnny Hay!” The old man had no teeth. But his handclasp was like a vise. “I was new here, remember? One of the guards back then when you and Mr. Robert were in the parlor there, when I came in to tell you the President had been shot.” Hay had a sense of vertigo. Was he about to faint? or, perhaps, poetically, die? Then the world righted itself.
“Yes,” he said, inadequately. “I remember.”
“Oh, it was terrible! I was the last one here to see Mr. Lincoln into his carriage, and he said to me, ‘Good-night, Tom,’ just like that.”
“Well, the sentiment, under the circumstances, was not unnatural.” Hay tried to make light of the matter. He had been warned that McKinley did not enjoy hearing about his predecessors.
“I was also the last man here to see off General Garfield that summer morning when he left for the depot, and said, ‘Good-by, Tom.’ Just like that, and then he was shot, in the depot, and lingered on and-”
McKinley was growing restive. “Our Tom has seen so many of us come and go.” Cortelyou signalled the President. “I must go to work. I’ll see you tomorrow morning. Cabinet meets at ten.” McKinley and Cortelyou vanished into the Cabinet room. A dozen ladies, making a tour of the White House, stared with awe at the President’s back.
As Hay extricated himself from the highly historic Tom Pendel, he was told that Colonel Crook, who had been Lincoln’s bodyguard, was also still on duty. “But the rest are all gone, sir, like snowflakes upon the river. You were so young back then.”
“I am not,” said Hay, “young now.”
THREE
1
CAROLINE HAD NOT REALIZED the extent of her own courage as she walked, all alone, in Peacock Alley, a corridor as long as that block of Thirty-fourth Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues which was encased- exquisitely entombed, she had begun to feel-by the magnificence of New York’s newest and most celebrated hotel, the Waldorf-Astoria. Even in Paris, the new hotel had been written about with, for the French, wry respect: one thousand modern bedrooms, untold restaurants, palm courts, a men’s cafe and, most intriguing, the Peacock Alley, which ran straight through the double building, a splendid promenade with walls of honey-colored marble that reflected rows of relentlessly glittering electrified chandeliers. Between potted palms and the mirrored entrances to alluring courts and restaurants, sofas and armchairs lined the alley; here sat what looked to be all New York, watching all New York go by. Like the city itself, the Waldorf-Astoria never slept. There were late-night supper rooms as well as early-morning cafes where men in white tie and tails could be seen drinking coffee with men in business suits, drones and worker-bees all in the same buzzing honey-filled hive.
Caroline had been warned that no proper young lady could ever be seen alone in Peacock Alley. But as she was there to meet a gentleman, she would not be alone for very long; and so she took pleasure in the interest that she-and her Paris Worth gown-aroused, as she proceeded from lobby to Palm Court, all eyes upon her progress. So, she decided, animals in the zoo watch their human visitors. Certainly, the notion that it might be she who was on display in the monkey house, and the fleshy ladies on their divans and the stout gentlemen in their armchairs were the human audience, she found perversely amusing; also, she noted, in their general grossness, the New York burghers were more like bears than monkeys: upright and curious, dangerous when disturbed.
Just ahead of Caroline, two by no means fleshy girls were walking, arm in arm, like sisters. Were they, she wondered, prostitutes? Worldly ladies had told her that even in the most splendid-or particularly in the most splendid-of New York’s extraordinary hotel lobbies, businesswomen patrolled. But now with the invention of the Waldorf-Astoria, it had become fashionable not only for respectable women but for grand ladies to be seen, properly escorted, in hotel lobbies and even, though this was very new, to dine in a hotel restaurant, something unknown to the previous generation. In a fit of charity, Caroline decided that her dark suspicions about the “sisters” in front of her were simply that, and that they were indeed, like herself, young ladies curious to see and be seen.
