New York - The Novel

‘fast.’ Lady Randolph Churchill is part of it.”
    “Oh,” said Mary. “In New York, men quite often have mistresses.”
    “Well,” said Lady Rivers, “the fast set believes in perfect equality between the sexes, in that regard.”
    “A remarkable woman, Jennie Churchill, all the same,” said His Lordship. He paused a moment. “Tell me, as you would know, there was a rumor that the father was”—he dropped his voice a bit—“Jewish.”
    “Sounds it, but isn’t,” Sean assured him. “The name Jerome is French. They were Huguenots.” He chuckled. “There may be some Indian blood there, but that’s on his wife’s side.”
    “Does Jennie have children?” asked Mary.
    “Two boys,” Lady Rivers answered. “We saw the eldest, Winston, not long ago.”
    “Not everybody likes him,” Gerald interrupted, and earned a bleak look from his father.
    “Why’s that?” asked Sean.
    “People say,” replied Gerald, “he’s too pushy.”
    “I’ll tell you a story, then,” said his host. And he recounted how Leonard Jerome had come to him during the Draft Riots. True, he omitted to say that he was keeping a saloon at the time—O’Donnell’s Saloon became his office—but the rest was unchanged. “So he came by my office and told me: ‘I’m off to defend my property from the mob.’ ‘How will you do that, Jerome?’ I asked him. ‘I’ve got a Gatling gun,’ he cried. How or where he got such a thing I don’t know, but that was Jerome for you. The man was a street fighter. So if young Winston Churchill’s pushy, now you know how he comes by it.” He laughed. “Young Winston Churchill sounds like a true, cigar-chomping New Yorker to me!”
    They loved it; Sean had them eating out of his hand. Mary relaxed. She’d hardly touched her wine during the meal, but now she drained her glass. Everything was all right. She gazed at them, contentedly, and only gave half her attention to the conversation until she heard Lord River-dale say:
    “When Gerald came back from New York, he brought me a photograph of the city. Taken from the harbor at sunset, I think, with theBrooklyn Bridge in the background. It really is the most beautiful thing. Made me want to get in a ship and go there at once.” He gave his son a smile. “Very good of him.”
    “A wonderful photographer,” said Gerald Rivers. “You might have heard of him. Theodore Keller.”
    And Mary beamed. She beamed at them all. Then she glanced at her brother. If he could play this game so well, why, so could she.
    “I not only know him,” she said, “it was I who persuaded Frank Master to sponsor his first important exhibition. I have several of his photographs myself.”
    “You know him well?” asked Gerald, delighted.
    “I know his sister better,” she answered without a blink. She smiled at Sean. “Actually,” she said, “my father used to get his cigars at their uncle’s store.” It was perfectly true, in a sense.
    “And what did your father do?” said Gerald.
    “My father?” She’d been so pleased with herself that she hadn’t anticipated any further questions. “My father?” She could feel herself starting to go pale. The awful horror of their lodgings’ squalor, of Five Points, of everything she must not speak of, suddenly filled her with a terrible, cold fear. Her family’s eyes were all on her. What on earth was she supposed to say?
    “Ah,” said Sean, loudly. “Now there was a character.”
    Their eyes were on him at once.
    “My father,” said Sean, “was an investor. Mind you, like many investors, he had his good days and his bad ones, so we were never sure if we were facing riches or ruin. But,” he smiled genially, “we’re still here.”
    After her near drowning, Mary was coming up for air again. She watched her brother, fascinated. He hadn’t exactly lied—their father certainly liked to call his bets investments, and he had good days and his bad days all right. The fact that somehow Sean had implied that the old man was on Wall Street, without quite saying it, she could only admire, as she would the dexterity of a pianist. As for saying “We’re still here,” it was a masterstroke. Of course they were still here, or they wouldn’t be sitting at this table. But it could mean, and surely would be taken to mean, that the family fortune had never been lost, and only improved upon. Her brother hadn’t finished, though.
    “But above all, like Jerome and Belmont and so many others, my