Читать книгу Young Lady Randolph - Rene Kraus - Страница 6

Table of Contents

Into the days, chronicled in society annals as the days of a mass invasion of French chefs, the substitution of the art of dining for the old-fashioned gluttoning, the wholesale importation of European manners and mannerisms, and the ladies’ new habit of sending to Paris for their hats, since they were now no longer satisfied with their old modistes—into these days of plenty, and particularly of snobbism aplenty, burst the opening shots of the Civil War. More than six hundred thousand men sacrificed themselves in the cause of freedom, for four years America was torn from top to bottom. Only Newport remained neutral ground.

In the words of Mr. McAllister, himself the son of a Southern gentleman and a Northern mother, Newport was a Southern colony. Indeed, in 1834 a few gentlefolk from South Carolina had been the first summer guests to come. After a time, a sprinkling of New Yorkers followed them. The first resort hotels came into being. The outbreak of the Civil War affected peaceful conditions in Newport only so far as the Southern guests had now to confine themselves to the “Touro,” whereas “The Ocean House,” “The Atlantic” and “The Bellevue” discriminated against them.

Conditions remained, on the whole, unchanged until the gusty Leonard Jerome swept the place. He first antagonized accepted tastes and customs by building what Lady Randolph later called “a charming villa more in accordance with one’s idea of a seaside residence than the gorgeous white marble palaces.” Victorian fussiness was banned from the structure. The beauty of Jerome’s new building was its cleanliness and simplicity.

This American home teemed with European visitors. English guests and friends prevailed. One of them caused, unwittingly, an incident which showed Leonard at the height of his power and combativeness. His house guest, a colonel in the British army, rode his polo pony to the Newport Reading Room, where all the veterans of society were chatting and gossiping. Somehow, it appeared, they were annoyed by the stranger on horseback. They dared him to ride the pony into the hall of the revered old club. The English horseman did not hesitate. Egged on to do it, he actually did ride his pony across the narrow piazza, right into the hall of the club itself.

Newport was agog at the incident. What sacrilege! They sent a delegation to Jerome, withdrawing the guest card previously given to the colonel—whereupon, aroused by this slur on his friend, Leonard Jerome himself canceled his membership. He did not let it go at that. Aggravated, he retaliated in his customary lordly fashion. The parties he gave became ever more splendid, some of them, people said with an approving, understanding smile, were even riotous. His daughter’s birthday was celebrated with a masked ball. All the rooms in the first floor were converted into a series of charming supper niches. A huge tent was spread covering the whole park. The grounds were illuminated in a blaze of electric light.

Proudly Jerome surveyed his magnificent fiesta. He had scored another victory!

He had various reasons to be a proud man. The Civil War, a national catastrophe, gave him his great opportunity to exercise his two outstanding qualities: his patriotism and his uncanny business instinct. He immediately took a leading part in various national movements for the preservation of the Union. Lincoln had no more ardent follower than Leonard Jerome, who poured out his money with both hands for the cause. He bore the entire costs of the first great Union meeting in the Academy of Music, which started the war on the propaganda front. He was made Treasurer of the Union Defense Committee, and contributed largely to the expenses of that body. In directing the committee he was assisted by his friend Mr. August Belmont. Jerome’s name usually headed the subscription lists. Frequently he sent $10,000 checks as his own contribution to the committee. A check of $35,000 went for the construction of the vessel “Meteor,” built by private enterprise for the sole purpose of hunting and capturing the “Alabama,” the pride of the Southern navy. With his brother Addison he donated $75,000 to war charities.

By the same token he practiced enormous private charity. War conditions made for tough going on the Street. Not all his fellow brokers had Leonard Jerome’s skill in tightrope-walking. But every halfway decent friend who failed could borrow enough money from the tall, straight, spare king of the Street to start over again. There were no checks to be signed, and no obligations to be entered into. The handsome, witty, courtly man, always surrounded by crowds of business and social acquaintances, seemingly engrossed in amusement and affairs, remained a keen observer, ever on the lookout for those who deserved help. Sometimes, it is true, his keen insight failed him. Two or three times he was cheated out of considerable sums. In 1862, the agent of the State of Indiana swindled him out of $600,000 by selling him bonds of an unauthorized issue. Evidently the gentleman had banked successfully on Mr. Jerome’s well-known inflammable imagination and spirit of enterprise. “If Leonard were only as judicious in his choice of men as he is in his choice of plans, he would die as one of the richest men in the world,” Mr. August Belmont commented. Such deception and disappointment might well have disillusioned another man. But Jerome took the bad with the good. He never lost his composure. Unabashed, he admitted that most of his sweeping successes came from what he modestly termed his “first-hand information.”

He did not receive this “information” in his capacity as the principal owner of the New York Times. His reporters were not expected to supply the boss with private tips of possible value in his stock exchange speculations. This purpose was served by a small army of personal confidence-men with and among the Northern as well as the Southern armies. Their code messages were simple enough. “The boy is badly hurt” meant that the Unionists had suffered a grave setback. News of this kind arriving a few hours before business on the Street opened was a bad shock for Leonard Jerome, but it paid dividends. When the message read: “The boy is getting worse,” Leonard was despondent. So was Wall Street, after hearing the adverse reports in due time later on. The short interval, however, sufficed Jerome to carry out the boldest operations.

Oddly enough he saw not the slightest inconsistency in his double role as a fierce war leader on the home front and a war profiteer on a gigantic scale. Why, with the exception of the amazing Mr. Lincoln, Leonard’s idol, everyone did his best to make the best of this best of all worlds. This, at least, was Jerome’s explanation. In the era of push and plush this moral was generally accepted. Whether Leonard accepted it for himself, remains an open question. The fact is that immediately after the Civil War, he dropped out of politics for good.

His ups and downs in these years in which tremendous battles raged, not only at Chancellorsville and Bull Run, but in Wall Street as well, are best illustrated by two of his most memorable speculations. In the first year of the Civil War, the Pacific Mail Line, after innumerable, and sometimes dangerous fluctuations, was greatly depressed. Its stock fell to 69. A new ring of shareholders had to be formed. Twenty-six thousand of the forty thousand shares went to a group of operators for whom Brown Brothers acted as trustees for five years. In fact, Jerome was the head man and ringleader of the anonymous group. But as he was well known as an impetuous operator whose successes and reverses almost canceled one another out, he did not wish to assume public responsibility for maneuvers which seemed more promising as long as no one could guess the power behind them. His own family had not the slightest idea that he was engaged in a life or death gamble. It was only after Jerome’s death that Lady Randolph learned the carefully kept secret. Understanding almost nothing of financial affairs, she thereafter liked to explain that her father had been the sole owner of the Pacific Mail Line for a couple of years.

Pacific Mail shares profited immediately from Jerome’s financial witchcraft. Although not a great deal in the management or the volume of business changed, the value of the stock trebled. Finally they were rated at 180 despite the fact that in the meantime the capital had been doubled and the company paid 20% a year in dividends.

In the month of July, 1863, New York City was about to become one of the liveliest theaters of the Civil War. When the troops had all gone to stop General Lee in Pennsylvania, draft riots broke out in the City. Encouraged by Tammany Hall and its press, the mob attacked the buildings of the patriotic newspapers. They had already tried to storm the building of the Tribune, which had been saved only by the timely arrival of a strong detachment of police. Jerome did not grieve much over his competitor’s troubles. He was equally unafraid of what might happen to his own paper. The New York Times lashed out sharply against the mob. To be on the safe side, however, the Times obtained two specimens of the recently invented Gatling gun. Under the personal command of the “consulting director,” they were mounted inside the business offices. The entire staff of the New York Times was armed with rifles. After a few days a third Gatling was installed on the roof so that it could, if necessary, sweep the streets in any direction. This third gun, however, was kept trained, it was said, on the window of competitor Horace Greeley’s office in the Tribune building near by. But this was probably a malicious invention. When the excitement died down ingloriously, Leonard Jerome celebrated victory by creating a fund for the benefit of the families of those killed and wounded in the riots.

No sooner was the mob-revolution broken than Jerome engaged himself in another ferocious contest. This time the fight was over the Hudson shares. A clique of bears sold them short. Jerome, who had himself scored his first successes on the short side, had by now reached the age and dignity in which a respectable financier despises the bears. Moreover, the bears had acted in a highly unpatriotic fashion in disrupting the market at a time the war demanded stable business conditions. Jerome had made sure that Hudson shares were fundamentally a good and sound proposition. He bought them up. As the struggle continued the bears ran out of money. Before the time for settlement came, Hudson stocks had risen from 112 to 180, while the bears, having lost their shirts, had to borrow money at the uncharitable, but then customary rate of 5% a day. They finally bought at 170 to 175, thus covering their short sales at 107 and 112. They were completely washed up. Leonard Jerome’s profits were immense. Now he led the Street to the exclusion of everyone else. Even the Vanderbilts had not Jerome’s power. King Leonard triumphed. But his triumph was short-lived.

The five years during which the Brown Brothers were to hold the Pacific Mail shares in trusteeship were up. The capital of the Line had in the meantime increased to twenty million dollars. Jerome had taken up over 50,000 shares at $200. Immediately the stock rose to 243. But a reduction in the next quarterly dividend, resolved by a majority of one voice in the board of directors against Jerome’s eloquent pleading, brought the crushing avalanche. At this most unfavorable junction the Brown Brothers threw enormous quantities of Pacific Mail stock on to the market. There was no money to buy them. Within a few hours Jerome had lost eight hundred thousand dollars. In the end Pacific Mail was stabilized at 115. A crown rolled into the dust of the Street.

Feverishly, the unbreakable Jerome embarked upon other speculations. But now reverses came as quickly as success had previously. His “magic” had gone from him. He proved vulnerable like other men. He was not ruined for good—in fact, two years before his death he made a last modest fortune with New Jersey stocks—but his wings were broken.

His family knew nothing of the tremendous fight he was carrying on. No one told them about it. Society was polite. Papa’s personal bearing was unchanged. He still walked with the gait of an officer in mufti. With an iron will be controlled his strong features. His military mustache was never fiercer. Indeed, during the hectic years of his gigantic struggle he squeezed life to the last drop of what passed for pleasure. And he was obsessed by one idea: Jennie would soon be coming out. New York society must receive her as a princess.

At home, the only indication of the fatigue Leonard suffered behind his devil-may-care mask found expression in a certain slackening of the discipline the pater familias had thus far rigidly enforced. Now his daughters were, at least during the summers in Newport, “allowed to run wild, and be as grubby and happy as children ought to be,” Lady Randolph recalled later.

This wider latitude given to half-grown girls was entirely in tune with the times. The period immediately following the war ushered in an unbridled era. Large classes of society had made enormous profits, and the post-war reconstruction further promised fabulous gains. People were tired of penny-pinching. Newport learned to forget the term “expenses.” There were elaborate picnics and innumerable dinners, breakfasts and open-air balls. The merrymakers rarely missed the drive along Bellevue Avenue, prescribed for the afternoon hour from five to six.

Jennie became known as the “driving angel.” Mrs. Ronalds, then the reigning beauty of Newport, presented her little friend with a small dog-cart, driven by two donkeys named “Willie” and “Wooshey.” Now nothing else counted for Jennie but the daily drive along Bellevue Avenue, with the cart more often than not filled with half a dozen laughing girls. As they tore up and down, Willie and Wooshey were in frequent contact with what Jennie termed “the business end of a tin-tack,” a stick she had christened the “Persuader.” Leonard was amused as he watched his daughter’s antics. She would one day become a perfect horsewoman. But the smart set who drove majestically by were outraged by the holy terror. Their complaints increased which only added to the fun. “These were delightful days,” Lady Randolph recollected.

The fame of Newport spread over the fashionable world. London society thrilled to the saga of the millionaire’s beach. But the general opinion in Belgravia was that it was certainly no place for a man without a considerable fortune. Mr. Ward McAllister was disappointed. He would have loved to see a few younger sons of the peerage spending their summers in Newport. True, most of them were penniless. But they were good fellows and excellent advertisements into the bargain. Their presence would add a new glamour to Bellevue Avenue, and furthermore it would serve to promote Anglo-American relations. Mr. McAllister was devoted to both. “Related nations must understand one another,” he argued. “It is the same with nations as with the members of a family. Small differences of opinion, I fear, are inevitable. But why magnify them? Why shall two great and kindred peoples continue this unending struggle over—venison? All right, we in America serve the saddle, whereas in England they eat the haunch. But there is a good reason for this difference of habit. In England dinners, as a rule, are attended by more guests than in America. Hence there is not enough meat on a saddle for an English dinner. You see, there is an explanation for everything. Take, for instance, this nauseating feud about steaks. The U. S. A. eats tenderloin steaks, England eats rumpsteak which, in this country, is only given to the servants. Are we a better people for that reason? Let us be frank: The English used to kill their cattle younger than Americans do; moreover, in the British Isles cattle intended for beef has not been worked previously. I regret to say,” McAllister summed up, “but justice demands it, English rumpsteak is more tender than American.”

Jennie Jerome listened attentively. She made careful mental notes of every winged word of wisdom. Somehow the thought flashed through her alert young mind that all the nonsense Uncle Ward was babbling would prove most precious to her.

“When you will play an important role in England ...” McAllister addressed her suddenly.

What on earth made him think of such a thing? she asked herself.

“... you will also be free to disregard another American tradition. You will be able to serve our good old turkey not only on Thanksgiving Day but as a delicious summer treat.... I have long planned,” he confessed confidentially, “to introduce turkey in summer. But Newport is not yet far enough advanced to accept this innovation.” Mr. McAllister sighed. “Turkey except on Thanksgiving Day would still be considered a national sacrilege. This is a young country, yet deeply steeped in its short past. And we can be proud of it,” he compromised, as always, with convention.

In her next season, her last in New York, as it turned out, the time had come for Jennie’s debut. The great event was preceded by months of hectic preparation.

Jerome assumed a heavy duty. In spite of the fact that his business problems were becoming more and more complicated and that he had to devote every moment, except occasional evening hours spent in the company of La Patti, to his multiple enterprises, he embarked on the new venture, the last one in which he completely succeeded: introducing his daughter to society.

He gave theater party after theater party, followed by delightful little suppers, inviting to them most of the city’s jeunesse dorée. And now Jennie, after a rigidly guarded childhood, had always to be surrounded by admirers. It became overworked and worried Leonard Jerome’s new job to secure for his daughter a prominent place in every cotillion, and to see to it that she was never without a suitable dancing partner.

Still regarded as a portentous society leader, he discharged his task with ease. But in the end the business of smoothing his daughter’s path took too much of his time. As ever a man of rapid decisions, he decided to give one party which would substitute for innumerable smaller entertainments. He would give New York a sensation: a banquet which should exceed in luxury and expense anything before seen in this country.

The setting for the feast was, of course, Delmonico’s, then at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 14th Street. Leonard had Signor Charles Delmonico come, and told him: “The U. S. government has just refunded me $10,000 overpaid on duties.” (Perhaps he knew that his credit was already the subject of some headshaking, and so wanted to explain his largesse which otherwise might have aroused suspicion in Signor Delmonico’s Italian brain.) “I am resolved to devote this whole sum to a banquet that will always be remembered.... I am aware it’s a folly, a piece of unheard-of extravagance.”

“We never expected anything from you, Signor Jerome, but greatness,” Signor Delmonico made a profound reverence. If he could redress himself, in case of emergency, with the U. S. government, the credit was good enough. “But it will be difficult to spend ten thousand on a single banquet,” he pondered.

This is how they spent it: The large ballroom at Delmonico’s was taken up by a table for seventy-two guests, leaving only a narrow passageway for the waiters. Every inch of the long oval table was covered with flowers, but for a space in the center, left for an artificial lake, an ingenious device. It was a pond, thirty feet in length, and nearly the width of the table, enclosed by a delicate golden wire network, reaching from table to ceiling and making of the whole installation a tremendous cage. Four superb swans, brought from Prospect Park, floated on the pond, surrounded by high banks of flowers which prevented the birds from splashing the water on to the table. Around this enclosure, above the entire table, hung little golden cages with fine songsters which filled the room with their melody; the only dissonance being a fierce combat between the graceful, stately swans, which disturbed the guests for a time, but which caused much amusement. Around this table sat the most beautiful flowers of American womanhood, interspersed with the most eligible young men.

One place, at the right of the host, was left empty until the company had assembled. Their glasses were filled with the incomparable ’48 Claret. But the guests had been discreetly asked not to lift their glasses until the party was “complete.”

Exactly timing her appearance, Jennie entered. She wore a white lace dress without any jewels. Her black eyes and her dark hair contrasted strikingly with her white gown. Her eager young face with its slightly amused smile was so radiant that many of the guests felt the candles on the table were dimmed.

Jennie was launched into the sea of society. Immediately, she floated on her own power. Possessing the three requirements for social success—beauty, brains, and infinite tact—there was no need for her struggle for recognition. She let people seek her. Invitations to the house in Madison Square were more coveted than ever, now Jennie assisted her mother at receptions. Mr. McAllister’s four hundred were delighted with the debutante. Soon on pleasant terms with everyone, she played no favorites. She thoroughly enjoyed the gaiety of her first season. There were innumerable dances from simple hops to magnificent balls. The most memorable of these was the fancy-dress ball given by the Schermerhorns in their palatial mansion at the corner of Great Jones Street and Lafayette Place. The guests were asked to appear in the fashions of Louis XV’s court. Even the servants were dressed in period costumes. Bankers’ wives and brokers’ daughters blazed with jewels. Jennie wore a simple costume of pale blue silk. She was very “different,” a word that from then on pursued her persistently.

She scored a popular triumph at the opening of Jerome Park, the race course her father established in Westchester county. This course, and the American Jockey Club, which he simultaneously organized to “improve the breeding of horses and to elevate the public taste in the sport of the turf,” made Leonard Jerome known and preserved his name to posterity as the father of the American turf in the north. The day of the opening of Jerome Park brought the climax of his career as a leader of society. It was, alas, the last great day in his life. But even on this eventful day he yielded the laurels to his daughter.

Again Jennie sat in the place of honor at her father’s right, when his four-in-hand arrived for the first race at Jerome Park.

The grandstand, accommodating eight thousand spectators, was jammed. All Murray Hill and Gramercy Park attended. General Grant was an interested onlooker. The sale of liquor was banned. The crowd behaved admirably.

Fascinated, Jennie watched the field. She could see the blue and white of her father’s racing colors coming nearer and nearer. Jerome’s famous horse “Kentucky,” whose sire “Lexington” was of the best blood in England, came in first.

Leonard smiled. So the $40,000 he had spent on the animal was not an entire loss. It was a good omen. Now everything would turn for the better. The distinguished gathering cheered. Jerome took his daughter by the hand, led her across the track, and hoisted her on to the back of the winner. The grandstand enjoyed it hugely. General Grant is reported to have thrown his cap into the air like the youngest recruit.

The aftermath was less pleasant. Adelina Patti, infuriated that Leonard had not hoisted her on to Kentucky, made a terrible scene when he visited her next day. Did he want to hide her from the world? Was he ashamed of their friendship? Certainly not, he insisted. He was in no mood to quarrel with her. The after-taste of the previous day’s success should not be spoiled by a struggle. Besides, he had struggled long enough. To reconcile her, he promised to give an official party in her honor.

The party, to which a group of theatrical folk was invited, turned into a drunken affair. Signor Delmonico remembered it as the “silver, gold, and diamond dinner.” Years later he was still describing the gold bracelets with the monogram of the newly founded Jerome Park that every lady had found under her serviette.

Toward dawn Leonard in his cups suggested to some of his lady friends a drive in the cool, early morning air. On the road to Westchester they stopped at a village inn, where Leonard slept deeply and soundly throughout the whole day and the following night. As he drove home, he was met at every street-corner by knowing grins. The story of his escapade, wildly exaggerated, had already made the rounds of New York.

When he reached Madison Square Clarissa’s eyes were swollen with weeping. “Is there anything the matter?” he asked. “Nothing bad, I hope!”

“I don’t suppose you would consider it so,” Clarissa parried.

“Tell me what it is!” Jerome said anxiously.

“It’s my health.... I feel that I should consult Dr. Sims.”

Stunned, Leonard Jerome looked at his wife in amazement. Dr. Sims, once their family physician, was now practicing in Paris.

“Besides,” she went on relentlessly, “the educational opportunities for the girls are so much better in Paris. There is nothing to equal the French finishing touch. What is more, expenses in Paris will be much less. You would not object, I suppose, if I, for one, helped you to save a little money.”

She turned away.

Dr. Sims found his unforgotten patient in the best of health, when she sent for him to come to her Paris hotel.