New York_ The Novel - Edward Rutherfurd [341]
As for his opinions, now that he was at university, one never knew what he was going to say next. He’d already told her that the Bolsheviks in Russia had a good cause; the other day he’d said he was thinking of joining an anti-war protest. His ideas and enthusiasms seemed to alter every week.
Her husband William might find it all amusing, but she was well aware that Nicholas Murray Butler at Columbia was determined that his university should be seen as patriotic and politically sound at this critical time. He’d warned the faculty and undergraduates that if they started any public protest against the war, they’d be dismissed, and recently Charlie had confessed that two of his friends had been expelled. She lived in terror that any day he might come home and tell her that the same thing had happened to him.
“I’m sure,” William said cheerfully, “that if Charlie gets in trouble, you’ll be able to smooth things over with Butler. Just ask him to one of your parties.”
It was true that Rose Master was quite a force to be reckoned with, these days. After the death of old Hetty Master, a good deal of money had flowed down to William’s parents. And when, a couple of years ago, William’s mother had died, and Tom Master had followed her not a year later, the trust funds had left William and Rose in possession of a considerable fortune, to do with as they pleased.
Recently they’d moved up to a considerably larger townhouse just off Fifth Avenue in the Sixties, only a couple of blocks from the magnificent new palace of Henry Frick. The house had a fine classical facade and a further, special feature, copied from Mr. Scribner the publisher’s house, which stood nearby. Most people with motor cars kept them in converted stables nearby, but in the Masters’ new house, the entrance was through a double gateway, leading into a little courtyard, where the car descended into a basement garage by a private elevator. William had also bought a new Rolls-Royce, the Sedanca de Ville model, which resided there.
If Rose, over the last decade, had built up a reputation as a hostess who entertained delightfully, but with a well-judged, old-money restraint, she was now able to do the same thing on a considerably grander scale. And through her entertaining, it was perfectly true, she could wield surprising influence.
But she was well aware of her limitations.
“If Charlie annoys Nicholas Murray Butler,” she said, “I don’t think I could save him.”
And now, she very much feared, Charlie was about to commit a dangerous error.
So it was in no uncertain terms that she told Charlie, one November evening: “No, Charles, I will not have that man in my house.”
“But, Mother,” he protested, “I already invited him.”
Why, of all the people lecturing at Columbia University, Charlie had singled out Edmund Keller as a hero she had no idea. As far as Rose was concerned, the relationship between their two families had died with old Hetty. But earlier that fall, when Charlie had met the popular lecturer and Keller had expressed his warm remembrance of the Master family’s role in his own father’s career, Charlie had been delighted.
“I realized we still have some of his father’s photographs,” he told his mother. “He even asked me if I meant to be a patron of the arts.”
“He’s trying to flatter you.”
“It’s not like that,” Charlie said, with a frown. “You don’t understand. Keller’s a pretty important person at Columbia; he doesn’t need us.”
It was true that, with commendable restraint in her opinion, Butler had allowed Mr. Keller to continue his career as a university teacher, and that Keller had done quite well. But in her mind, two facts remained. Firstly, Edmund Keller had been, and no doubt still was, a socialist. Secondly, her son was far too impressionable.
And now Charlie, in an act of childish idiocy, had asked the man to one of her select parties. But looking at Charlie’s fair-haired, blue-eyed face, it now occurred to her that it might be wiser if she used a little subtlety. Keller must be dealt with, but in a way that wouldn’t antagonize her