Read Online The Americans by John Jakes - Free Book Online

medicine," he muttered to himself as he walked slowly and wearily eastward along Beacon Street, through a dawn awash with familiar smells of fish, cordage tar, and the lump coal smoke plumed from scores of household chimneys. The morning was chilly. His teeth began to chatter. He clenched them, then raised his head and squared his shoulders. He could take the worst that Edmund Eisler had to offer. The very worst. Didn't Gideon always say the Kents were, above aUs, survivors? But unconsciously, he began whistling "Pop Goes the Weasel" to keep his courage up. CHAPTER V At Home on Beacon Street MORE THAN FIFTY MILLION people inhabited the United States in 1883. Only a few hundred belonged to what was termed Society. The Kents did not. Although they were one of the richest families in the nation, wealth alone had not been enough to get them an invitation to the social event of the year-Mrs. William K. Vandefbilt's costume ball. The ball had been held on the night of March 26. By any standard, it exceeded anything yet offered for the approval of those who comprised Society. In prior years Mrs. Astor's annual ball in January had always been considered the season's paramount event. The Vanderbilt affair changed that. Conservative estimates said it cost the hostess a quarter of a million dollars to stage her I little party. The opulence of the costumes of the guests was matched only by the cleverness of some of them. Another Vanderbilt, Mrs. Cornelius, had come arrayed in white satin and diamonds, representing the electric light. And although elaborately costumed and choreographed quadrilles were no novelty at formal balls, Mrs. Vanderbilt's quadrilles- especially the Hobby Horse Quadrille featuring realistic, life-size representations of horses which were attached to the dancers" waists-had been talked offor days afterward. No wonder the established leader of Society, Caroline Astor- the Mrs. Astor, as she preferred to be known-had been forced to recognize Mrs. Vanderbilt at long last. Before the ball, Mrs. Astor had discovered that her daughter was rehearsing for the Star Quadrille but had not received a card of invitation. The significance of the omission was clear. There would be no invitation unless Mrs. Astor paid her respects to Mrs. Vanderbilt, even though the latter was theoretically inferior in the social ranking. Putting her daughter above her pride, Mrs. Astor ordered up her carriage and drove to the Vanderbilt chateau at 660 Fifth Avenue in New York. She sent one of her blue-liveried footmen inside with her card. In recognition of her eminence, it bore only the words Mrs. Astor. She didn't personally enter the mansion, or even leave the carriage. But she had humbled herself sufficiently. The invitation was in her daughter's hands soon afterward. No symbolic act of reverence could have secured an invitation for Gideon and Julia. The list of reasons was an extremely long one. Julia's family credentials-she had been born a Sedgwick-might once have entitled her to consideration, but they no longer did. Not since she had divorced one Kent- Amanda's son-and married another. The women who ruled New York Society did not divorce. Not even if their husbands slept with other women, which most of them did. Julia was also on the disapproved list because she had publicly espoused the causey of female suffrage. Gideon had even more against him. First, he'd served on the Confederate side during the war. After Appomattox he'd associated himself for a time with the labor movement. His newspaper and his publishing house were considered scandalously liberal. And lie was "in trade," the contemptuous term for anyone who wasn't a gentleman of leisure, I living off a business income but doing nothing to earn it. Gideon actively involved himself in his business, and had even been known to repair a broken book press if the schedule of Kent and Son demanded it. His recent history was cloudy, too. His first wife had died in a fall from a window of