The Seekers by John Jakes
“I don’t see how that makes him responsi—”
“He was manipulated because he’s weak! As a man—the husband—he could have refused her unreasonable requests. He could have said no. But he didn’t. And he was repaid for his cowardice by the death of his first child, and then by Jared—who has inherited the worst qualities of both his parents!”
Gilbert seethed. “I wish I’d never repeated one syllable of the story! You twist it all so terribly to fit your view of Abraham—justify your dislike—”
“He is weak,” Harriet repeated emphatically. “God judged him so, and exacted punishment. You can see that in the way Abraham behaves—and his son too!”
Almost on the point of shouting at her, Gilbert controlled his temper with difficulty. He put the palms of his slim hands on the dining table. Through the strained softness of his voice he tried to show his wife how angry she’d made him.
“May we leave metaphysics out of this? The problem is tangible, urgent—and heaven has damn little to do with a solution.”
“I would appreciate your refraining from cursing in my—”
“You drive me to it!”
He drew a deep breath, leaned back in his chair, finally went on. “Harriet, it’s absolutely pointless to debate who was responsible for what happened. That there’s any debate at all is my fault. I was foolish to discuss past history and Abraham’s confidences—”
“But you did.”
Gilbert’s mild demeanor seemed to harden. “I do ask you, as I’ve asked you before, never to mention any of what I told you. Don’t mention it in Abraham’s presence—or, from now on, in mine.”
“That has the distinct sound of a threat.”
“No, no,” Gilbert said hastily. “A request.”
Harriet gave a sniff of disbelief. Gilbert’s eyes fastened on hers. “But it’s a request I expect to see honored.”
Harriet averted her glance. She pretended to be hurt.
Gilbert wasn’t sure he’d succeeded in making his point. In public, Harriet accepted her husband’s dominance, as did most wives of her station and circumstance. But the festering dislike she felt for his half brother was an unusual factor in a marital relationship. In the privacy of the family, she might not bow to his politely phrased intimidation.
But he hoped she would. He was sure Abraham carried quite enough guilt without the burden being increased by his sister-in-law’s spite.
During the ensuing silence, the tension between Gilbert and his wife gradually diminished. Finally he felt comfortable enough to try to return the conversation to its original course.
“The problem, Harriet, is not in the past but in the present. Abraham is not himself—”
“How long are we expected to suffer because of that?”
Gilbert struck the table. “Enough!”
For the second time, Harriet looked genuinely alarmed. He drew his hand back, wiped the damp palm on his trousers, swallowed once and went on.
“Let the past rest. I don’t excuse Abraham’s behavior, but I understand what drives him to it. I see nothing to be gained by punishing him—if indeed he deserves punishment, which I doubt. I see a great deal to be gained—I should say lost—if we fail to bring his son safely through this difficult period. You know very well that whenever Abraham walks in the door, Jared can’t predict whether his father will hug him or hit him. We have a duty to alleviate that situation if we can.”
“A duty I don’t accept.”
“But it must be accepted. It must be!”
Harriet obviously heard the strain, the emotion in her husband’s voice. She seemed unmoved. “Trying to help Jared is useless, Gilbert. He comes of bad stock, and he’ll never overcome that.”
“No, not if you keep telling him so. But I repeat—my first concern is with his father. I ask you to be tolerant just a short while longer. Just until I persuade Abraham to follow this plan I have in mind. Today I received an unexpected letter from Meriwether Lewis, the president’s secretary. You’ll remember Abraham served with him out west—”
Rapidly, Gilbert told his wife about the forthcoming expedition, and the chance he saw for Abraham to become part of it. By the time he mentioned the three letters he’d dispatched, enthusiasm had gone out of his voice, though. Harriet’s face was growing more and more sour.
The moment he finished, she said, “The very idea is idiotic.”
He pursed his lips. “Indeed. That’s your considered opinion? Having thought it over for all of five seconds?”
“I don’t need to think it over.”
“Just condemn it out of hand? It may be an unusual plan, but it’s not an impossible one.”
“I disagree.”
“Why?”
“Because I know Abraham. He’ll have nothing to do with it. He’ll laugh at you. Perhaps he’ll even thrash you—that would be like him. He’s a beast! Drunken, uncontrollable—what’s the matter?”
Gilbert started to answer, then quickly lifted a hand to cup his mouth. The spasm of coughing went on for almost a minute.
At last, recovered, he asked, “Why are you so averse to the plan? Why do you resist my efforts to help Abraham and the boy? Why do you detest them?”
“Abraham occupies too much of your time! I want this household to put attention where it belongs—on our lives. Our child!”
Unconsciously, her hand dropped to her swollen middle. Her features softened. She looked at her husband in a pleading way. “Even if you can get him to agree, it still means we’ll have to care for that vile-tempered little boy a year or more.”
“That’s true. But with Abraham gone, we might find Jared more tractable. I honestly think fear of his father has a great deal to do with the way he acts—”
“He has bad blood in him! He’ll never amount to anything!”
“Help me give him a chance!”
After a moment’s silence, Harriet sighed and struggled up from her chair.
“Very well. Speak to Abraham. I want this intolerable situation resolved.”
“I will speak to him.” Gilbert nodded. “Tonight—when he returns.”
She couldn’t hold back a last thrust. “If he returns.”
She turned clumsily and waddled through the door that led to the kitchen and pantry, a sagging, somehow slovenly figure despite her elegant clothes.
Gilbert almost went after her. Instead, he forced himself to remain in the chair, one hand over his eyes. The verbal duel had drained and exhausted him.
Presently his angry feelings moderated again. His features smoothed out. He sat up straight. He brooded a good half hour before uttering a short sigh and rising.
His plans for a cordial, peaceful meal during which he would win Harriet’s cooperation were in ruins. As he consulted the banjo clock and noted the lateness of the hour, he had to admit the prospects for the remainder of the evening didn’t appear much better. Abraham might not come back until tomorrow—or next week!
The trouble in the household wasn’t entirely Abraham’s fault. Harriet exacerbated the difficulties. But much as he disliked certain facets of his wife’s character, Gilbert couldn’t place all the blame On her either. Jared Adam Kent was impertinent, rebellious, resentful of the most common and proper forms of discipline.
Though he felt he was being a traitor to his mother’s memory, he again asked himself whether Harriet might be correct. Perhaps there was something bad in the child’s bloodline. Something inherited from Elizabeth, who had in turn drawn it from that shadowy father about whom Gilbert knew so little—
Useless speculation. Bury the past! Hadn’t he just urged that on his wife? Yet here he was, exhuming it as he desperately tried to fathom and resolve the turmoil Abraham and Jared caused.
The challenge lay in the present, not the past. With more than a little apprehension he fixed his mind on that fact. He left the table looking far older than his twenty years.
iii
The July evening with its threat of thunderstorms turn
Gilbert had converted the library into an office, with furnishings of dark wood. He slouched in the chair beside the littered desk and regarded the large oil portrait of his father hanging between the windows on the outer wall.
The portrait had been painted the year before Philip’s death. Gilbert stared at the strong, almost truculent face on the canvas. Probed the painted eyes that appeared to defy the world. How would Philip have dealt with the problem of his older son—?
A boom of thunder roused him. The reverie was futile. No one could resolve the dilemma except Gilbert himself. That inescapable fact gave his eyes a remote, gloomy look as the curtains belled at the partially open windows: The lamp flickered. He heard the first spatters of rain on Beacon Street.
Gilbert loved his wife. He appreciated that pregnancy put her under a strain. Still, there was a sour, even cruel streak in her makeup that he wished were absent.
The coldness of her nature carried over to the marriage bed. She lacked spirit there, took no pleasure in making love. Though Gilbert had never been so indelicate as to question her on the subject, he suspected she’d been taught that sexual intercourse was basically sinful, to be indulged in only for the purpose of begetting children.
He found that disappointing though by no means unbearable. Perhaps because he’d always been less than robust, or perhaps because he was usually preoccupied with business affairs, he did not often experience a strong desire for sex. That reduced Harriet’s reluctance to little more than an inconvenience. What he missed most in her was simple, straightforward affection.
For this and a number of other reasons, he had never considered their match perfect. But he’d learned at an early age that little in life was perfect, so he was reasonably content.
Harriet Lebow of New York City was one year older than Gilbert. She was the only child of a prosperous commodities dealer whose family had settled on Manhattan island four generations ago, when a majority of the residents were Dutch. The family originally spelled the name Lebouwe.
During his first year managing Kent and Son, Gilbert had found it necessary to float a loan for the new presses. The Rothman Bank provided the funds. With the money assured, Gilbert took a trip to New York to visit a machinery importer.
After inspecting one of the presses, Gilbert placed his order. He remained in the city a few more days, spending most of his time at the one place with which no rising American businessman dared be unfamiliar—the center of the country’s expanding commerce, Wall Street. He was told an actual wall had once stood there, defense against attacks by Indians who lived in the woods at the north end of the island.
On busy Wall Street, Gilbert met Harriet’s father through a mutual friend to whom he presented Royal Rothman’s letter of introduction. The friend entertained Gilbert at the Tontine Coffee House building, which housed the growing Stock Exchange. Among the gentlemen gathered on the Tontine porch was the wealthy Lebow.
Later, Gilbert’s friend provided some of Lebow’s background. The commodities dealer had managed to keep his Tory leanings concealed during the Revolution. After the war, he built his fortune by speculating in the government certificates issued to soldiers in lieu of pay.
By 1783 these promissory notes had declined so sharply in value that their owners, pressed for cash, were eager to sell them to speculators like Lebow for as little as twelve cents on the dollar. Lebow, in turn, was gambling that the government would eventually untangle its finances and make good on a major part of its obligations.
Under Secretary of the Treasury Hamilton, it did—though as everyone knew, Hamilton had traded the location of the new capital city, Washington, for the southern votes necessary to pass his financial legislation. Mr. Lebow, now an avowed Federalist, blessed Hamilton ever afterward. He prospered mightily as a member of what Mr. Jefferson sneeringly described as “the stockjobbing herd.”
While Gilbert was conversing with Lebow on the Tontine porch, Harriet called for her father in the family carriage. More introductions were performed. Soon Gilbert found himself making return trips to New York, first as a regular guest at the Lebow table, then as a prospective son-in-law.
Gilbert found Harriet intelligent and attractive, if overly concerned with matters of status and appearance. In the rational way his mind worked, he decided she would make an eminently suitable wife for a substantial businessman. She would also give him important connections in New York’s financial community. Though her parents were both dead now, those connections remained intact.
He did love her—as much as a man of deliberately dispassionate temperament could love another person. He doubted that she loved him at all. He suspected love was alien to her experience—except as it applied to herself. Still, it wasn’t a bad bargain—
Except at times like this, when Harriet’s personality disrupted the entire house and created genuine ill-will among those living there.
A glare of lightning lit the office as Gilbert paced back and forth, still pondering the various approaches he might make to his half brother. A quarter hour passed. Another. He was becoming convinced Abraham would be gone all night. He was almost relieved. Tomorrow or the next day, he’d be better rested. This evening he was edgy, prone to anger—
His relief was short-lived. At the end of a long rumble from the night sky, he heard irregular footsteps on the walk outside. Then an oath.
He didn’t bother to glance out a window. He opened the double doors and waited in the dim hall, watching the front entrance. In a moment, Abraham lurched through the doorway.
iv
Gilbert Kent was eight years younger than the shorter, stockier man who stood blinking at him in a vaguely hostile way. Yet Gilbert somehow seemed the older of the two.
Another lightning burst lit Abraham’s filthy, unshaven cheeks. His brown eyes looked addled. His ink-stained shirt, leather vest and homespun breeches bore an assortment of stains. He smelled of rum and vomit.
Gilbert said, “Come into the office please, Abraham.”
Abraham slammed the door, started by, his step unsteady. “Spare me the lecture on self-discipline and deportment, will you? I’ve a terrible throbbing head—”
“That’s not my doing.” Gilbert seized Abraham’s arm.
Abraham looked at his brother’s hand resentfully. But Gilbert refused to let go. “It’s imperative that we speak privately. You can clean up later.”
Releasing Abraham’s arm, he reentered the library, not glancing around. The sound of Abraham’s shuffling footsteps signaled that he’d won the first skirmish. But he took no satisfaction. The major engagement remained to be fought.
Gilbert crossed to one window, then the other, opening them wide despite the rain that soaked the curtains. He could barely tolerate Abraham’s stench.
Abraham rolled the double doors shut. He took a chair, turning it, Gilbert noticed, so that his back was toward the portrait of their father.
Gilbert glanced at the letter on the desk, then to his half brother’s sullen face.
“May I ask where you have been all day?”
“You can ask but you won’t get an answer.”
“Be so good as to speak to me in a civil way, Abraham! I’m your brother, not one of your tavern cronies.”
Abraham covered his brow with a dirty hand. A small raw spot shone on one finger.
“I’m tired. Can’t this wait?”
“No, I’m afraid not. This morning you completely disrupted operations at the printing house—for the sixth time. I don’t count your innumerable verbal assaults on my employees.”
“I didn’t start it! That damned Naughton—”
“Whose hand you broke. A man can’t set type with a broken hand.”
Abraham pretended not to hear. “He made one sneering remark too many.”
“About me not being fit to hold a job at Kent’s.”
“Don’t sound so proud! Unfortunately, the remark appears to be correct.”
“The bastard said I was only kept on because I’m your brother.”
“In that, too, Mr. Naughton is regrettably accurate. I’ve given you repeated warnings, and you’ve disregarded every one. Therefore”—here was the delicate part; the first stroke of strategy so necessary to the working of his plan—“I’ve no choice but to discharge you.”
That, at least, fully caught Abraham’s attention. He raised his head. Stared in disbelief that changed to fury. A blue-white flash suffused the office, putting an eerie sheen on Philip’s portrait.
“Thrown out? Is that it?”
“Yes.”
“Out of the house too? That would make your wife happy!”
“I don’t deny Harriet has little admiration for your gutter ways.”
Abraham’s jaw clenched. “I wonder how she’d feel if she saw you shot down, the bitch.”
Gilbert turned scarlet. One hand closed into a fist. Abraham noticed. The harsh mask of his face seemed to crumble, revealing a man abruptly ashamed and vulnerable. Very softly, he said, “Forgive me for that.”
The scarlet faded.
“Certainly.”
He walked over, laid a hand on Abraham’s shoulder. He could feel the trembling, the physical manifestation of misery. Abraham’s hand hid his eyes again. Gilbert asked, “Would you let me pour you a rum?”
“That would help. That’s all that seems to help any more.”
Gilbert fetched the decanter and a glass from the cabinet where he kept liquor for business visitors. “I’ll only pour you a small amount, because I want you to listen to what I have to say.”
The older man accepted the drink, tossed it off quickly, extended the glass. Gilbert set the decanter on the desk beside the letter.
“I told you—no more until we’ve talked.”
Abraham peered ruefully into the empty glass. Then he stretched his legs out. His body seemed flaccid, defenseless.