Читать книгу Young Lady Randolph - Rene Kraus - Страница 5

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“Neve!” said the nurse, a dark-eyed, kindly peasant woman, pointing out the peak of Mont Cenis. “Falda di neve!” she added, excited as southern people are at the unaccustomed aspect of a glacier.

The family was on one of these short land expeditions which used to interrupt a cruise along the Mediterranean so pleasantly. They had not seen snow-capped mountains for almost four years, ever since Mr. Jerome had been appointed U. S. Consul in Trieste, the Adriatic seaport. It was good to see a snowfield again. It reminded one of the Berkshires in winter, of home.

“A glacier!” sighed Mr. Jerome comfortably. Almost four years of uninterrupted sunshine and blue skies had been too much for him. Nothing is harder to bear than a constant flow of beautiful days. One gets listless and lazy dividing one’s days between sunshine and office hours. Leonard W. Jerome had at length become most anxious for a little fresh air and rough going. “A glacier!” he repeated with gusto.

“Ghiacciajo!” the nurse translated for the benefit of the baby.

The child looked first at her nurse, then at her father. Evidently, she had to make her choice. A choice is easily made at the tender age of four. Her oversized, pitch-black eyes in the round, peach-colored face, crowned with clusters of dark little curls, were illuminated by a happy smile. “Ghiacciajo!” she repeated, clapping her fat little hands.

“Glacier!” Mr. Jerome said sternly.

“Neve!... Falda di neve!” the baby insisted stubbornly.

“She will never learn English,” Mr. Jerome sighed once more, this time not so comfortably. The prospect of bringing home an Italian daughter did not elate him. “I will not have an Italian child!” he grumbled. In the year of the Lord 1854 New York was prone to regard Italians primarily as Sicilian cutthroats or ice-cream vendors. At best, their gangs were sewer workers for Irish bosses. Of course, they could be opera singers, too.

“One day she will be a famous prima donna,” his wife tried to comfort him. Now it was her turn to sigh a little. Clarissa Jerome, née Hall, before her marriage the most beautiful girl in Palmyra, New York, had herself been born for the stage; or so she believed. But such a career had been out of the question for a distinguished up-state belle, a modest heiress. Instead, she and her sister had duly married—on the same day, the fifth of April, 1849—their cousins, two of the innumerable brothers Jerome, Leonard and Lawrence, respectively. Thus the dowry remained in the family; besides, a double wedding was so romantic. The newly-weds started their married lives under the most promising auspices. Leonard Jerome, then an assiduous young lawyer in Rochester, was patently destined for a splendid future, a prospect that his young bride found delightful. But the doors of the great world, it seemed, were prematurely closing, as her husband’s first appointment in the consular service led nowhere but to an unceremonial return to the United States. Clarissa, however, was determined to open these doors very wide indeed to her little girls. “Fanciulla!” she said tenderly, caressing Jennie, the second, the favorite baby. The mother, too, had to muster her few words of broken Italian to be understood by the child.

“Neve!” answered Jennie. “Falda di neve!” she persisted.

Almost half a century later Lady Randolph Churchill recalled the first impression of her turbulent life. “The deep snow on the Mont Cenis,” she wrote, “filled my childish mind with awe and astonishment.” And she still maintained that Italian was the most melodious of all languages.

Both little Jennie’s obstinacy and inclination to disagree were part of her heritage from her father which she, in turn, bequeathed to the next generation. Leonard Jerome, a most conspicuous man throughout his sixty-seven blessed and sometimes harassed years, had been already remarkable as a boy. On the paternal side he was a Huguenot; his mother was of Scottish descent. His grandfather, a clergyman, had married Betsy Ball, a distant relative of George Washington; by this marriage the Jerome family gained access to polite society. Yet the reverend gentleman preferred to remain tucked away in his village. He bequeathed his rural inclination to his son Isaac, who bought a tract of land in the Berkshire Hills, between Lenox and Stockbridge, Massachusetts. There he settled down, and married Aurora Murray. Like all the ladies of the Jerome tribe, Aurora developed into a memorable character. Oldsters of the Berkshires still remember the countless tales and legends centering around “Aunt Bora,” her nickname in her advanced years.

True to the prolific habits of her time, Bora gave birth to nine children, eight boys and one girl. America was full of opportunity, and the boys could choose their calling. The two elder, Aaron and Allen, both Princeton graduates, became Presbyterian clergymen, whereas brothers Addison and Lawrence—“Larry”—became men of affairs. At the peak of his achievements Mr. Addison Jerome was a well-known society lion in New York, a wit and bon vivant and a favorite of the international set, then in the making. Larry established himself as a prosperous Wall Street broker. Three other brothers preferred to stick to the soil. They remained farmers. But in Leonard all the contradictory qualities of the amazing Jeromes were embodied. A survey of his career, spectacular as it was, cannot adequately describe him. Throughout the ups and downs of his life, he was, above all, a gambler, a freebooter, and a patriot. His principal claim to posthumous fame lies in the fact that he was to become the grandfather of Winston Churchill. But to regard Leonard W. Jerome only as a forerunner—admittedly the ancestor of one of the greatest men of our century—is doing grave injustice to his memory. He was, indeed, in his own right the perfect embodiment of the chaotic era of American giants.

He started as a farmboy at Pompey Hill, Onondaga County, N. Y., where he had been born in 1818. He was a silent youngster, who, tilling the soil, soon acquired habits of self-reliance. The monotonous farm work, however, was not entirely to his taste, nor did an early knowledge of crops and cows fully satisfy his hunger for information, the passion that spurred him on throughout the busy years. His genuine Yankee trading instinct was early developed. While still in short trousers, he quit his father’s farm and made good as an apprentice in the village store. He saved every penny of his salary, which rapidly increased from a dollar a week to a dollar fifty, and finally to two dollars. He was determined to amass sufficient capital to get a higher education.

At fourteen he entered Princeton. But opportunities to work one’s way through the fashionable college were scant. So he shifted to Union College, where it was easier to earn a few dollars on the side. Three years later he graduated with high marks.

For another three years he read law at Albany with John C. Beach and Marcus T. Ronalds. At the age of 22 he was admitted to the bar. His uncle, Judge Hiram K. Jerome, took him as a junior partner into his law office in Palmyra. A couple of years later, some time between 1842 and 1844, Leonard Jerome had saved enough money to establish his own law office in Rochester, on the corner of Exchange and Buffalo (now Main) Streets. His practice flourished, but the exercise of the legal profession in a small town did not satisfy his ambition. He was always in a hurry; both his daughter and his grandson inherited this trait.

Brother Larry, himself somewhat erratic, approached Leonard with an excellent idea: Why not enter the publishing business? A newspaper might well become a formidable weapon in a small town. Moreover, it could be tied up with a printing office, for which there should be good chances in expanding Rochester. Leonard needed not much persuasion. Quick of decision, but careful in the execution of his plans, as he was in his youth—paradoxically, this inherent caution failed him in later life—he entered into negotiations with the Rochester Daily American. In the second part of 1845 the brothers Jerome took over the newspaper. For a time—again the strangely unyouthful caution!—Leonard regarded his paper strictly as a business enterprise. While he developed the printing shop into the finest in the city, he refrained even from entering the editorial room. His province was the counting room only, whereas gay brother Larry, a born super-salesman, procured subscriptions and advertisements. Some of the elder citizens smiled at the young brothers, the lords of the local press. Leonard, after all, was only an attorney of a few years’ standing in town, and Larry still gave his regular profession as a law student. Mr. Samuel Wilder, described as a gentleman always entertaining and usually accurate, spoke haughtily of the “know-nothing paper, the local American.”

This, of course, was challenging a man who spent most of his subsequent career himself looking for a fight. As if to silence his deriders, Leonard Jerome plunged into politics. The neighborhood paper developed into a hard hitting Whig organ that soon achieved a degree of national importance, particularly by its manner of sharply attacking the Democrats. Leonard never wrote an editorial, either in Rochester or later on, when an infinitely greater opportunity in the newspaper field came his way. He confined himself to whistling the tune to which his editors danced, a tune that occasionally gave the Democratic foe the St. Vitus dance. The thirty-two-year-old chief’s personal respectability had to be kept out of feuds, the more so after his marriage.

The young Jeromes moved into a comfortable apartment in smart Fitzhugh Street. The mortgage on the newspaper was repaid out of the bride’s dowry. The first two little girls arrived with clockwork precision; Jennie, the second daughter, incidentally, in Brooklyn, when her parents were already about to leave for Europe.

Leonard Jerome was satisfactorily settled. Still his restless ambition drove him on. He had saved thousands, but he dreamed of millions. The memory of the hard sledding he had undergone in his youth never released him from its grip. The way to the millions was clearly indicated. There were different ways in booming, roaring America. The most promising, if not the cleanest, led through the marsh of politics.

The Rochester Daily American stressed more and more strongly its allegiance to the Whigs. In 1850 their candidate, Mr. Millard Fillmore, became President of the United States. For Larry Jerome this entailed the unassuming but juicy post of a Rochester port collector; to Leonard it brought the U. S. Consulate in Trieste. Naturally, this modest assignment was intended only as a first stepping-stone on the way to a brilliant diplomatic career. The brothers entrusted their paper to the management of Messrs. Lee, Mann & Co., and embarked upon their promising new duties.

For almost four years Leonard Jerome was mildly bored in faraway Trieste. But his time was not entirely wasted. In his official position he learned to deal with men of many nationalities, and his beautiful wife acquired the old-world polish that her second daughter was later to develop to its highest, late-Victorian perfection. A cosmopolitan family, yet American to the core, they returned, when the next Presidential election was won by the Democrats. The assumption of power by Mr. Franklin Pierce brought about sweeping changes among port collectors and consuls. Leonard Jerome did not mind the homecoming. He had been yearning for the excitement of America. He was at that time, and long remained, a tall, straight, handsome man with a sharply-cut face, embellished, according to the taste of the period, by a walrus-mustache, and with a certain military bearing. He possessed a little money, he had gained a lot of early experience, and he felt entitled to nurse great expectations. Only with politics he was definitely through. Subsequently, he tried to imbue his children with his disgust of this dirty game. But children do not learn from their parents’ experience. All the three Jerome girls married, in due course, British men of politics.

Some people do not learn from their own experience either. Immediately upon his return to Rochester, Jerome plunged again into the political turmoil. Railroads were the fashion. Their sudden development was tremendously popular, and gave scope to vast speculations. The New York and New Haven Railroad Co., as well as the Harlem Railroad Co., were then involved in terrific scandals. They had sold forged stock, a practice that exceeded even the accepted business habit of over-issuing stock in which at that time many companies indulged. Instantly Leonard Jerome took a hand in the railroad battle. For ten years he remained a leading speculator in the field. Finally he succeeded in persuading his good friend Mr. Freeman Clark, Congressman for Rochester, to secure the passage of a railroad reform bill which would not be quite unprofitable to its sponsors.

Gambler’s blood flowed in the veins of most of the Jerome family. While a theology student in Princeton, Leonard’s eldest brother Aaron had taken a flier in the memorable mulberry tree speculation, and had made $40,000 in a single coup. He used this money to build a home for deserving fellow-students whom he housed and entertained for the remainder of his collegiate career. Another older brother, Addison G. Jerome, had already established himself as a successful Wall Street operator, by the time Leonard returned from Europe. Brother Addison had built a fine residence at 33 W. 20th Street. In this mansion he received his brother Leonard one evening late in 1854; after an elaborate dinner it was decided that Leonard should join the firm. William R. Travers, a friend of brother Larry’s, was taken in as a third partner. And so the “three musketeers,” as they were soon to be called, prepared their attack on the Street.

The first attack backfired. Leonard Jerome’s initial venture ended in disaster. On a sure-fire “tip” from a friend, the treasurer of the Cleveland and Toledo Co., he put up a margin of $2,000 on 500 shares of that stock. But the stock crashed, and Leonard discovered that his supposed friend, the treasurer, had unloaded on him. Another man, double-crossed in this treacherous way, might have raged with fury. Not so Leonard Jerome. The volcano did not erupt. Quietly he retired from active business, since he had lost his entire capital, and devoted a whole year to studying the ways and people of Wall Street. Then he tried his hand a second time in buying $500 calls, risking a modest sum, but, as it was, his last penny. Inside a month he pocketed ten times his investment. His success began.

Wall Street did not welcome the lucky newcomers. Their operations were too bold for conservative tastes. They sometimes startled the most hard-bitten speculators. Moreover, the three musketeers were persistently on the short side. Their methods were new and merciless. A striking example of Leonard Jerome’s originality and fertility of combative tactics, by the same token a proof that he was by instinct a journalist, was his invention, the “observatory,” a luxuriously furnished room he rented on the upper floor of a building at Pine and Nassau Streets. In this setting exquisite luncheons with plenty of champagne were served to intimate friends, primarily to Messrs. Hudson and Snow, financial editors of the Herald and the Tribune, respectively. Having satisfied himself by careful research that the Cleveland and Toledo was rotten to the core, Jerome, ever persuasive, and aided and abetted by streams of champagne, convinced the gentlemen from the financial press that it was their patriotic duty, or that it would be at least a sure-fire scoop, to debunk the above-mentioned company. In due course a press campaign started, Cleveland and Toledo stock crashed, and the bank accounts of Jerome and Travers mounted correspondingly. The same procedure was repeated in the case of the ill-fated Michigan Southern. Again the three musketeers cleaned up, but they had the perfect excuse that they were simultaneously cleaning up the Street.

The panic of 1857 was a godsend to the bears. While countless millions evaporated in the fog of speculation and many an old established operator put a bullet through his head, Leonard Jerome harvested a golden crop. Over night he became the rival of Vanderbilt and Drew. Now the newcomer could dictate his terms to the Street. One lucky stroke had endowed him with a fortune. But he did not hoard it. He scattered it with lavish hands.

Leonard W. Jerome was never a true capitalist, with the latter’s inborn worship of finance. Certainly, in an era of dancing around the golden calf he was one of the fastest dancers. But money was not his ultimate aim; to him it remained, throughout the years, merely a means to establish his leadership in whatever sphere he chose and to satisfy his ambition. He prided himself on being progressive in his methods, but conservative in his manner. He dressed very much vieux jeu, preferably in a black, silk-faced, high-buttoned morning-coat, wearing paper collars and cuffs and the fashionable “dickey” of white linen that covered the vest opening and hid the blue flannel shirt underneath. The coat stopped short at the hips. The “spring bottom” trousers were slim and tight. A flat pancake derby hat crowned the outfit. Leonard Jerome was never seen without his pocket toothpick, in the fifties an indispensable adjunct to the well-dressed man. To possess an inherited toothpick was a mark of lineage.

In his sartorial splendor, he jealously watched over the fashionable appearance of his wife. Mrs. Leonard Jerome, Clarissa to her friends, was an outstanding beauty in her day. A little on the plump side, her classic figure was well suited to the Grecian bend, much affected by society ladies. The Grecian bend demanded long, trailing skirts, bustles, bosom pads of inflated rubber or stuffed with horsehair, and formidable corseting. Beneath the layers of petticoats and skirts white cotton stockings were universally worn, later adorned with horizontal green, yellow and red stripes which, of course, remained invisible to others, but pleased their wearers. The same argument was used to defend the introduction of fine lingerie—both a new term and a new necessity at about the time Clarissa established her salon in New York. Many a penny-wise husband received the news that lingerie would now form a new budget item with the skeptical question: “Why spend money on what nobody is going to see?”

American women were just about to establish their independence in the realm of fashion. Clarissa Jerome, keen to be recognized as a leader, wore tremendous hoop skirts. She approved the bell sleeve, loose about the wrist, and supported by delicate undersleeves of mull or lace. Another innovation she popularized was the re-introduction of the fichu, the most flattering of neckwear. Ruffles, sashes and fringe trimmed her dresses. Clarissa was a wife to be proud of. She was never seen without all the paraphernalia of a gentlewoman: fresh lace at throat and wrists, shining boots, a crisp handkerchief, and spotless gloves. Her daughter studied bellissima mammina with an expert’s admiration. Jennie was six at the time.

Jennie was an anxiously guarded and rather spoiled child. Soon after their return to New York the Jeromes had been grieved by the sudden death of one of their daughters. The two surviving little girls, and another that came later, were carefully protected from the dangers of the world. “Unlike most American children we were seldom permitted to go to boy and girl dances,” Lady Randolph recollected, decades later.

The upbringing of the Jerome girls was well in advance of the customs of those days. Exercise and fresh air for women and children was almost a subversive idea in the early Fifties, when female frailty was considered a delicate attraction. Again the Jeromes “were among the first to challenge the accepted rules. In spite of her expanding hip-line Clarissa gave up wearing tight corsets. The windows in airless bedrooms were opened wide. Dietetic rules, which Jennie subsequently adhered to throughout her life, long before the age of vitamins and calories, were first introduced by Clarissa. Hard mattresses replaced the soft featherbeds. Another startling innovation was the bathtub which allowed of more comfortable and hence more frequent bathing. The baths were followed by “home exercises” and “lessons in calisthenics for young ladies.” These new and rigid methods of upbringing brought about many hardships and privations. But Jennie picked up her mother’s words. They deeply impressed her, and remained unforgotten: “Strong women are more beautiful.” In her seventh year she was entirely determined to become a strong woman.

In spite of Clarissa’s progressive ideas, the Jerome household maintained the old-fashioned ways. The family dinner was a solemn affair. Everyone dressed. Little Jennie was early introduced to the mysteries of fashion. The family was assembled in the drawing-room to await the head of the house. Usually a few of Jerome’s friends with healthy appetites were present. Grace was said before the solid meal. Blessed with a trim figure, Leonard could afford to smile at his wife’s dietetic fads. They were all very well at breakfast and lunch which the ladies partook of by themselves. But at the dinners over which Leonard Jerome presided, eating was still written with a very big E. Drinking was not neglected either. The children retired immediately after the meal. The parents sat down in the drawing-room, reading books from the Society Library or, if there were guests, engaging in a game of whist.

Clarissa, a pioneer of healthy and hygienic education, tenderly supervised Jennie’s growth—incidentally a slow process, for Jennie never reached above middle height. Her father imbued her, while still almost a baby, with his sporting instinct, above all his passionate love of horses. But it is doubtful whether she would ever have become one of the leading hostesses of her time, had it not been for Mr. Ward McAllister’s patient exertions.

The “snob of snobs,” who had coined this title for himself, the only one he ever aspired to, was a close companion of Leonard Jerome, although a good deal younger. He enjoyed tutoring his friend’s remarkable daughter. He saw in Jennie a great opportunity to perpetuate his theories on fashion, perfect manners, and good eating. He visualized the perfect lady, before Jennie had quite outgrown the nursery.

Once she was grown up and married, he told her when she was eight, she would have to spend much of her time in the kitchen. (Here the prophet erred.) The kitchen was a full-time job. Not the best French chef could relieve a hostess from her personal duties. “I do not give any attention to the details of my dinners. Nine times out of ten I simply tell my chef how many people there are to be.” Disdainfully McAllister quoted these words of a well-known hostess as a horrible example. Then he smiled in slightly self-satisfied memory. “My comeback was: ‘Nine times out of ten, Madam, this is apparent in your dinners!’ ”

Little Jennie nodded earnestly. This was a lesson to be remembered. Another lesson followed immediately: “Baroness Rothschild, who, of course, gives the best dinners in Paris ...” (evidently Mr. McAllister was familiar with Parisian hostesses) “personally supervises every dish. So does the Duchess of Sutherland, Queen Victoria’s intimate friend.”

Jennie listened attentively. She became familiar with the social register of the three cities that counted: New York, London, Paris. But her education was not confined to fashionable nonsense. “To improve their minds,” her parents used to send the children frequently to the matinee in the Opera House. Usually their mother accompanied the little flock. Only when Adelina Patti sang, Mr. Jerome, too, took the afternoon off. On these occasions his business cares were not so important. He was an avowed admirer of the prima donna. He felt more than just admiration for her voice, he felt a sort of paternal affection for her as well, he frankly admitted. In a way she strongly resembled his own little Italian baby, whose gibberish in a foreign language he no longer discouraged. Who had ever dared to say that all Italians were Sicilian cutthroats or ice-cream vendors? Indeed, it was a pity that Jennie now chattered in plain English. Something of her earliest charm was lost. This girl Adelina reflected it.

Adelina Patti was six years older than Jennie. At the age of ten, she had been the craze of New York. Her debut on September 22, 1853, at a concert at the Tripler Hall had caused a sensation. Overnight she became the “nightingale.” A year later, when the Jeromes came back to America, they soon heard the nightingale’s song. By that time La Patti had already joined the distinguished company of Mmes. Sontag, Staffanone, and Salvi who graced Signer Maretzek’s Italian stagione at Castle Garden.

As the years went on, Leonard Jerome’s zest for the opera increased. Now he went repeatedly alone to the evening performances. He was still convinced that he was admiring the image of his child on the stage. But when Adelina had grown to the respectable age of fourteen—and Jennie was eight—the young prima donna received for the first time an enormous bouquet in her dressing room, sent by an unknown admirer. La Patti waved and kissed the orchids, a comparatively new and very chic flower, just before the last curtain. She received the unknown admirer after the show. She was a little exhausted and terribly thirsty. A glass of champagne at Delmonico’s? Why not? Mammina cara would enjoy it. Unmindful of her increasing bulk, La Patti’s mother enjoyed, indeed, a twelve-course dinner. Then Mr. Jerome squired the ladies home. He was proud of his four-in-hand, one of the first in New York. But La Patti found the carriage a little too conspicuous. In view of her tender age, which was constantly stressed by mammina, she preferred, she said, a modish little barouche with ponies.

Before the door of the Patti abode Leonard Jerome lifted his silk hat. When alone, he whistled a few bars of “Twenty Years Ago,” the hot tune of the period, partly to encourage his horses, partly to encourage himself. “Twenty Years Ago ...” he was still whistling as he stood before the mirror at home. Why twenty years ago? he asked his image. He was still going strong, and if his hair was receding a little, his mustache was certainly flourishing. The tune changed to another ditty: “Kissing a man without a mustache is like eating an egg without salt....”

When Adelina awoke next day toward three o’clock, a barouche with two white ponies stood in front of her door. Clarissa was very silent on this day. She did not even answer when her husband explained to her in detail the business conference that had kept him the night before. But the family peace was completely preserved. Strictly to maintain its semblance, at least, was obligatory in polite society. Only Jennie brought a discordant note to the family dinner. When her father entered the drawing-room, she looked at him, long and silently, and then refused to kiss him. She was a terribly moody child.

She was allowed to do pretty much as she liked. One day she returned from the dancing class, relating with tears: “Georgina spit at me!”

“Georgina—who?” asked her father sternly.

“Georgina Rivage!”

“A Southerner, of course! Why did she ... er ... behave so outrageously?”

“Because I pinched her,” Jennie replied, frankly assuming full responsibility for the incident. She was entirely unafraid.

Amazingly her father chuckled: “You are quite right, my dear! Nowadays Southerners must be pinched.”

The year of 1858 was closing. But New York disregarded the signs of the times. The grave depression of the year before gave way to riotous gaiety. Fun was all-important. The great P. T. Barnum sold fun at a dime. With the slogan: “There’s a sucker born every minute,” he soon all but monopolized the amusement business. In deference to old prejudices which were only slowly waning, he cloaked his performances with the mantle of respectability. His shows were given in so-called lecture rooms. He covered the whole town with posters, inviting everyone to visit his spectacles. The public came by the thousands. Signs directed them through the halls. They read: “This way to the Fat Lady.” Or: “This way to the Happy Family.” One inscription said mysteriously: “This way to the Egress.” The way led out to the street, and the human specimen, born every minute, had to pay another dime to gain re-entry.

Such popular amusements were strictly forbidden to the Jerome children. They were not even allowed to skate in Central Park, where enormous crowds gathered enjoying the new mass amusement. Instead, Leonard bought a large area near Fordham, enclosed and flooded it, and called it Jennie’s Playground. It was a strictly private ice-rink, but the only way Mr. Jerome could envision strict privacy was to invite to the opening three trainloads of guests who found two pretty cottages full of conveniences and comforts, with a good band playing, while they lunched, chatted, and skated.

Soon after Jerome built his stables on Madison Square. Only the Emperor’s mews in Paris could compare with them. They were of red brick, faced with marble, three stories high, with a mansard roof, housing thoroughbred horses and carriages of the finest makes. The building was lavishly decorated with black walnut paneling, plate glass and richly carpeted floors. On the second floor was an enormous hall, the scene of the opening ball to which invitations were at a premium. All the wealth, fashion and beauty of the metropolis danced. There were two fountains, one spouting Eau de Cologne, the other champagne. The entrance to the stables was carpeted in crimson. The front of the building was flood-lit by the new illuminating gas. It was a great evening. Total expenses: $7,536, Mr. Jerome noted.

The children were still too young for such parties. The youngest guest was Adelina Patti. As she surveyed the wide ballroom, she exclaimed: “What a marvelous place this would be to give an opera!” Indeed, a few weeks later the ballroom in the Jerome stables was converted into a private theater, more brilliant in decoration than Niblo’s and Wallack’s, the leading theaters of the day. Duly, Patti became the star of the troupe which was otherwise made up of amateur singers, society ladies and stage-struck young Wall Street brokers. La Patti herself had chosen this ensemble. Perhaps she did not care for competition. However, rivals there were. The horses downstairs out-neighed the arias upstairs. It was a strange duet: Adelina Patti and “Kentucky,” the most famous racehorse of his period. Jerome enjoyed the dissonance tremendously. He soon built a palatial home opposite the stables.

For many years the Jerome mansion on Madison Square was a center of New York’s fashionable set. Ceremoniously, the host left it every Sunday afternoon in his four-in-hand. The neighbors thronged the streets. They themselves profited from the spectacle, for Mr. Jerome had spent a great deal of money in improving the streets in the vicinity. The people cheered when he made his appearance. They cheered still more loudly when Jennie gravely mounted the place of honor next to her driving father. Gracefully she nodded her curly head. At eight, she was already perfectly accustomed to the admiration of the crowd. She smiled enchantingly. People thought the dark little girl in her white lace dress must be enjoying the ovation. What she really enjoyed was being allowed to sit next to her father, while her mother and sister sat tamely behind.

The children had their own social circle. The season for this youngest set included three outstanding entertainments. One was the surprise party. Gentlemen in their teens received the following invitation: “You are cordially invited to attend a surprise party to meet at the residence of Miss ... on ... at ... Please bring oranges (candy, cake, fruit, lemons). Yours truly, The Committee.” The young people gathered at the address, and trooped off to “surprise” some girl in her home. Since the intelligence service in her dancing-class was highly developed, Jennie used to know beforehand when the palatial building on Madison Square would be the goal of such an invasion. But she was inimitable in concealing her advance knowledge and in feigning the most innocent surprise when the uninvited guests arrived.

Another accepted occasion for merrymaking was the New Year’s call, an old Dutch custom. Toward the middle of December boys in their first long trousers got invitations from the young ladies bearing the address at which they would be received on New Year’s Day. Mostly, three or four young ladies received together. The point was, of course, who would attract the greatest number of callers. Amazingly, Jennie did not score. The family chronicle, carefully kept by Clarissa, expressed the suspicion that “the boys were too shy to present themselves to little Jennie.” Many of the would-be visitors hesitated at the red-carpeted entrance to the Jerome mansion, and decided instead to leave their New Year’s cards—some lavishly sprinkled with powdered tinsel to represent glistening snow, others in gorgeously embossed floral designs—with the liveried doorman.

More democratic were the grotesque parades on Thanksgiving Day, the only time in the year when the Misses Jerome, thanks to the emphatic patriotism of their father, were permitted to stroll the streets. Thousands of children from every social stratum dressed up in their parents’ clothes, wearing masks over their faces. They made the rounds of their neighborhood, collecting a few pennies in a tin cup. This peculiar custom, Mr. McAllister insisted, had its origin in the English Guy Fawkes day.

Ward McAllister was a connoisseur of people, manners, and things English. He imbued Jennie with her first images of London. In his opinion the English gentleman was the first gentleman in the world. He did not make such statements lightly. He had traveled a good deal. He was a globe-trotter, always eager to bring home to America the experience he collected in the old world. He had recently been in London for a few months. But a little village had impressed him much more than the Empire’s capital: Windsor, the site of the Royal Castle.

He had used his preferred methods of surveying Windsor. He was not actually presented at court. This privilege was, at that time and for a few more years, rarely granted to American sight-seers. Yet he had made friends at Windsor. “It was my great pleasure to meet Her Majesty’s chef, who frequently dined with me at the village inn,” he reminisced. “Soon he allowed me to inspect the kitchen,” Mr. McAllister’s principal interest. “I saw roasts for all living in the castle—at least twenty pieces turning on spits. I had a welcome opportunity carefully to examine the large hot steel table on which any cooked dish would stay hot for an indefinite period. It was thrilling. I entered the dining room, of course not as a dinner guest, only to admire the gold bowl, the size of a small bathtub, in which the Prince of Wales had been baptized. I was finally admitted in Her Majesty’s model farm; I had just to say: ‘I am an American landed proprietor.’ I observed that all the flax-seed for the cattle was imported from America....”

But the Prince of Wales, it appeared, was foremost on Mr. McAllister’s mind. Speaking of Edward, he said: “Everyone loves the Prince. The chef admitted unblushingly that he reserved his talents for the dinners the Prince honored. I, too, have my modest dinner-recollections with Edward. In the village inn I dined off pheasants which the Prince of Wales himself had shot. Two or three times I even had the opportunity to see him shooting....”

“I want to dance with the Prince!” exclaimed Jennie determinedly.

It was not childish arrogance. It was a perfectly legitimate ambition. In the last year before the Civil War the Jeromes were already the American counterparts of British aristocratic society. On the far side of forty but still slim and spare, Jennie’s father was climbing the social ladder. In September, 1860, he bought, in company with Mr. Raymond, the majority of the shares of the New York Times from Mr. Wesley. Although Jerome modestly contented himself with the unassuming title of “consulting director,” and as in the days of his first newspaper venture in Rochester, he never exercised any direct editorial influence, he was now generally accepted as a leading citizen. He was also one of the wealthiest. Before the general profiteering that followed in the wake of the Civil War, and before the boom of the ensuing era of reconstruction, there were only five or six taxpayers in New York with incomes of $60,000 a year or more. Leonard W. Jerome was one of them. In spite of his occasional escapades, he was an excellent family man, and, above all, a deeply loving father. If Jennie wanted to dance with the Prince—well, in ten years or so, after her debut in Madison Square, he would take his ladies to London.

In the meantime, in New York, he preferred them to confine their social activities to the upper set. The riotous gaiety in the early summer of 1860 was not to his taste. This unbridled gaiety reached its height when the first Japanese delegation ever to visit New York arrived on June 16th. The delegation was led by three high commissioners, representing their Tycoon, as the Emperor of Japan was then called. They were princes of the blood, attended by a retinue of 74 courtiers. New York had never seen anything like the group of little yellow gentlemen in stiff kimonos, wearing two swords apiece and with tonsured skulls. As they arrived aboard the “Alida,” cheering crowds almost mobbed them; the entire police force of 1,100 men struggled to keep back the masses. This excess merrymaking boded ill. “We do hope,” editorialized James Gordon Bennett’s Herald, “that at least our aldermen will school themselves in good manners when acting as hosts. They will find that by taking fewer chews of tobacco, and smoking less bad cigars, their sanitary condition will be improved.” But it was the same dignified Mr. Bennett who gave a sumptuous reception at Washington Heights for the Japanese guests—a reception climaxed by the ball sponsored by the Corporations at the Metropolitan Hotel, where the little yellow men were staying.

The day was Monday, June 25th. The night of the ball was the wildest, and the most expensive, New York had thus far witnessed. Ten thousand guests, invited or uninvited, partook of the dinner; some had come from the most distant parts of the United States. Five bands played until dawn. Yet the gala affair ended in disaster. Contemporary critics called the ball miserably and vulgarly conducted. “Thousands of bottles of champagne had been wasted on a class of people whose ordinary drink was whisky. This gentry handed champagne bottles by the dozens unashamed to their friends and voters crowding the streets, to people who thus far had only tasted New England rum. The most costly ornaments in the ballroom were either broken or ‘abstracted’ by persons who had surreptitiously gained entry to the supper. The scene was little better than a civic orgy.” The costs of the evening exceeded $100,000, to say nothing of costs of a very different sort which the New York Times summed up with the words: “The Japanese take back complete models of our best howitzers and Dahlgren guns, with full instructions as to their manufacture and use.... We can only hope that we may not find ourselves among the earliest victims of our overzealous and mistaken benevolence.”

Just as suddenly public enthusiasm turned to complete indifference. Without even an official farewell the Japanese mission slipped away aboard the U. S. S. “Niagara” on June 30. Most newspapers did not even bother to announce their departure. Perhaps the people of New York felt a little ashamed of themselves. But the main reason why the departure of the Tycoon’s emissaries went unsung and unheralded was a bombshell that had burst while the Japanese officials roamed Niblo’s Garden, the popular Music Hall, and while the Academy of Music still announced a Japanese Gala Matinee without attracting the slightest interest. Washington published the text of a letter, received via the Atlantic cable, the newest great invention.

The letter was addressed to President Buchanan. It read: “Buckingham Palace, June 22, 1860. My Good Friend: I have been much gratified at the feelings which prompted you to write to me, inviting the Prince of Wales to come to Washington. He intends to return from Canada through the United States, and it will give him great pleasure to have an opportunity of testifying to you, in person, that these feelings are fully reciprocated by him. He will thus be able at the same time to mark the respect which he entertains for the Chief Magistrate of a great and friendly State and a kindred nation. The Prince of Wales will drop all Royal State on leaving my Dominions, and travel under the name of Baron Renfrew, as he has done when traveling on the continent of Europe. The Prince Consort wishes to be kindly remembered to you. I remain, ever your good friend, Victoria R.”

The letter created a sensation, mingled, however, with a certain dissatisfaction. Buckingham Palace had evidently decreed that the Prince should drop his exalted state during his stay in America in order to respect this country’s republican feelings. President Buchanan, a former U. S. ambassador to the Court of St. James, appreciated the gesture. Public opinion did not. “A prince is a thing we don’t see every day. And we’d rather not see him than see him half way!” R. J. deCordova, the popular Broadway rhymster, expressed public opinion.

The upper set was above such petty considerations. Newspapers teemed with offers of mansions whose owners desired to place their residences at his Royal Highness’ disposal. A certain “brownstone-front” house on Fifth Avenue splashed its invitation across a whole page in every respectable morning paper. Besides, every hotel-keeper turned his establishment upside down. He would make a fortune if the Prince would only sleep a single night in his house. All sorts of suggestions appeared in the papers. The “Rainbow,” in Beekman Street, a modest but disguised hostelry in the heart of the business section, yet in the close neighborhood of the filthy, dilapidated slums (a most unlikely quarter for the Prince of Wales) entered the race with the claim that its owner was an Englishman; hence he was the natural host for His Royal Highness. Most discussed was an elaborate epistle Mr. Gorham Abbott, a gentleman of high literary ability, wrote to the papers. Mr. Abbott was the head of the Springler Institute, one of the first and most respectable academic institutions in the country. It was, beyond doubt, the leading finishing school for young ladies. From this fact Mr. Abbott derived his right to claim: “The Prince has a mother. Consequently, no house in New York would so fitly receive him as a ladies’ school.”

It so happened that the eldest Jerome daughter was, at that time, a pupil in the Springler Institute. Elated, she conveyed to her family the news that the Prince would be their school’s house-guest. Leonard was skeptical, Clarissa mildly excited; only Jennie did not lose her poise. “The Prince comes to dance with me,” the ten-year-old beauty said confidently.

The Prince’s journey through the United States was a highly successful re-affirmation of Anglo-American friendship, due largely to Edward’s engaging personality and unaffected friendliness. He had, in fact, come not as the British Empire’s traveling salesman—usually the principal task of globe-trotting heirs to the throne—but to make a serious study of the U. S. Presidential campaign, which, in the autumn of 1860, was approaching its climax. True, the Prince was not supposed to display his deep political interest. It was not tolerated at home, and had strictly to be suppressed abroad. Edward had to confine himself to playing the role of the royal charmer, whose remarkably handsome appearance, well-cut face with blue eyes and light hair, agreeable countenance and gracious manner, set many an American heart aflame. Never before had a young gentleman of nineteen years scored such a complete triumph. Conversely, it was on this journey that Edward acquired that predilection for the men, and perhaps still more for the women of the U. S. A. to which he remained so faithful as King.

Edward made hundreds of friends in New York City. He shook hands with all the notables who were waiting in City Hall to be introduced to him during his triumphal entry into New York. When the crowd jammed outside found the ceremony too prolonged and expressed this feeling with their healthy American vocal cords, the Prince stepped out on the balcony and waved his hand, beaming, a happy boy. Uproarious cheers answered.

The Prince established his headquarters in the Fifth Avenue Hotel. For three days the hotel was besieged by masses, patiently staring at the lifeless walls. Then the plans for “The Prince’s Ball” were worked out. On Friday, the twelfth of October, at nine o’clock in the evening, the General Committee of Arrangements gathered. Messrs. Peter Cooper, Charmor, and M. B. Field, the secretary of the General Committee, formed the inner council. They were concerned whether white waistcoats should be de rigueur for the men’s apparel. It would have been the most natural thing, but many guests from all parts of the States were expected, and it was dubious whether all these out-of-towners would be suitably equipped. Since this was an important matter of protocol, the inner council decided to consult Lord Lyons, Her Majesty’s ambassador, and Mr. Archibald, British Consul General in New York City.

Unfortunately, the gentlemen of the inner council underestimated the caution British diplomacy exercised in the U. S. A. One could never be sure how American public opinion would react to advice concerning the white waistcoat. The question was so much the more delicate as already the first voices from this side of the Atlantic had protested against the wearing of knee breeches by the American ambassador at Court functions in England.

Thus thrown on their own, the inner council sought aid from an undisputed society leader. Leonard Jerome found a formula making the white waistcoat compulsory and yet excusing those who were without it. At the family dinner table, he rather prided himself on this satisfactory way out of the impasse. Clarissa duly admired her husband’s wisdom. Jennie asked: “And what am I going to wear to the ball?”

It was terribly hard to have to disappoint Jennie. For days she had been choosing among her fancy-dress costumes. She had decided in favor of the costume of a vivandière. It fell to her father’s lot to explain that little girls could not attend balls. “Don’t be sad,” concluded Leonard to comfort her. “We will have some dancing in a few days.”

“I am not sad,” Jennie replied courageously. Her brown little face was flooded with tears. Obediently she went to bed.

A few days later the vivandière costume came into its own. To make up to Jennie for the Prince’s ball, Mrs. August Belmont gave an elaborate children’s party. Jennie, everyone agreed, looked perfectly sweet in her costume. However a photograph, taken on this occasion, tells a rather different story. She did not smile into the lens. Her dark, black eyes look serious and searching. Their expression of early thoughtfulness belies her theatrical get-up: the high fur helmet, the white officer’s dress uniform coat, covered with gold braid and tassels, and the ballooning hoop skirt of the period. Already in her tenth year a certain incongruity between her glamorous appearance and the deep earnestness of her nature was becoming apparent—even to the young girl herself. In the carriage, on the way to Mrs. Belmont’s, she shed a few tears.

“For heaven’s sake, why are you crying?” her perturbed mother asked.

“I ... do ... not ... look at all ... as I thought I ... was going to ...” was the only explanation the child could give. Many years later a worldly-wise woman, recollecting this scene from her early days, added philosophically: “A situation, which, alas! has often repeated itself.”