In front of the Post building, there was a large newsstand where out-of-town-and even out-of-hemisphere-newspapers were on sale. Beneath an awning, next to the busy newsstand, a high blackboard stood, covered with mysterious white and yellow lines.
“What is that for? A lottery?”
“Baseball scores. From all over the country.”
“Is that the game,” asked Caroline, “they play with a wooden stick?”
“Yes.” Sanford smiled. “As someone who is about to become deeply involved in American life, I suggest you know all about baseball.” Sanford now led her into Gerstenberg’s Restaurant, next door to the Post. The interior was smoky, and smelled of vinegar-of sauerkraut, to be exact, she decided sadly; she had never been inclined to German cuisine. A German waiter in shirt-sleeves and red galluses led them past the crowded bar. “Newspapermen,” whispered Sanford, as if warning her of lepers in a lazaret.
They were established at a table in the back, close to the swing-door to the kitchen. Huge schooners of beer sailed past them, and any moment Caroline expected to be drowned by one; but the waiters were as dexterous as they were loud. Then the man they had come to meet joined them.
Josiah J. Vardeman was a mulatto. Quite unprepared for anyone so exotic, Caroline gazed in fascination at the red kinky hair, café au lait skin and unmistakably Negroid features in which were set pale gray eyes. Mr. Vardeman was not yet forty; dapper in appearance; elaborate in manners. “I am late, Miss Sanford. Forgive me. I have been with advertisers. You can imagine. Good to see you again, Mr. Sanford.”
Caroline stared at Sanford, who looked at her innocently. He had intended to surprise her; and he had succeeded. “I see you are tolerant of the opposition,” she said. Vardeman looked bewildered; she explained, “I mean you come here …”
“Oh, yes. A German place. But then my father’s family were German. From the Rhineland.”
“I meant here, next to your opposition, the Washington Post.”
“Oh, that.” He laughed. “Well, we are so much older. We can afford to be nice to the new folks. I’m not saying I wouldn’t mind having some of their advertisers. They’re good at business, those people. We’re not, sad to say. But we Vardemans are an old family, and I guess old families lose some of their vigor, don’t they? Europe’s full of that, I reckon.”
Caroline then knew delight. “Old family? Oh, Mr. Vardeman, we’re all of us-everyone there is-as old as Adam and Eve and no older.”
“I am second to none in my belief in Scripture, Miss Sanford, but families that have had great men in them sort of dry up at the roots, you might say, and the next crop or two don’t amount to all that much.”
“I wouldn’t know. My own family is nondescript except for one ancestor, perhaps.” How on earth, she wondered, could she get this extraordinary creature deeper into genealogy?
“Who is that?” he asked.
“Oh, no one very highly regarded nowadays, or even known-Aaron Burr,” she said, hoping that the name would mean absolutely nothing.
She was disappointed. Vardeman clapped his hands. “We are practically related!” Caroline was pleased to see that a number of surprised, not to mention suspicious, looks were turned in their direction. Cousin John looked very pale indeed; to compensate, no doubt, for this new relation. “My mother was a Jefferson. One of the Abilene, Maryland, Jeffersons. So your ancestor was my ancestor’s vice-president.”
Caroline expressed delight and wonder. She had always heard that Jefferson had had a number of children by a mulatto slave girl; no doubt, this was the descendant of one of them, passing, as perhaps they all did by now, for white. In any case, Caroline knew that she had at least one thing in common with Mr. Josiah J. (for Jefferson?) Vardeman: each was descended, literally, from a bastard. Now it was her task to have something else in common.
“I am interested, as my cousin has told you, in acquiring the Washington Tribune. I have developed a passion for newspapers…”
“Devilish expensive passion,” murmured Sanford, lighting a cigar. Caroline felt like a man; like a business man. This was life. She wished that she knew how to smoke! A cigarette smoked openly in a German restaurant would quite overshadow Mrs. Fish’s girlish capers at lofty Sherry’s. Mr. Vardeman, lineage forgotten, was watching her attentively. “There are,” she said, “five thousand shares in all, and all owned by you or your family,”
“Yes. It’s always been a family newspaper. First, Mr. Wallach owned it. Then he started up the Evening Star. I’m third generation of his family. A cadet branch,” he added, not knowing, Caroline decided, what the phrase meant.
Caroline took a deep breath; and inhaled her cousin’s cigar smoke. No, she would not take up cigarettes, she decided; she coughed once, and said: “I accept your offer of twenty-two dollars and fifty cents for each of the five thousand shares.” Next to her, Sanford coughed. She had taken him by surprise. But she had not taken herself by surprise. She had spent a lot of time in N Street, thinking. She was betting almost everything that she had on a single throw of the dice.
Mr. Vardeman stared at her, as if not certain whether he was being included in a particularly high-toned verbal game. Then, as she gave no signal that she was anything other than serious, he said, “What will you do with a newspaper, if I may ask? They’re not easy or cheap to run, as I can tell you firsthand. The Tribune loses money every issue. We’d have to close down if it weren’t for our printing shop, and all those visiting cards they make for everybody. Mr. Sanford’s told you about our books, I guess.” Mr. Vardeman had finished his stein of beer. At the bottom of the now-empty mug, Caroline noted the ominous legend “Stolen from Gerstenberg’s.”
“Indeed I have,” said Cousin John. “And there’s no doubt that the Tribune’s name is a great one in the city. But the Post and the Star have sewed up the town. What can anyone do to change that?” He looked at Vardeman, who looked at Caroline, who said, “I’m sure there are new things to be done. Who would have thought Mr. Hearst could have revived the New York Journal?” This was a daring move, because for all that Caroline knew, Blaise and Hearst might already have been in correspondence with Vardeman. On the other hand, she had had tea with Phoebe Apperson Hearst, the sweetly stern mother of the most ambitious man in publishing, if not the United States, and Mrs. Hearst had said, “I have spent all that I intend on my son’s newspapers. I now want to spend money on educating young Americans.”
“So that they will be too clever to read your son’s newspapers?”
The old lady had looked, first, severe; then she had laughed. “I had not thought of that.” Then she had proceeded to speak longingly of California, and of a university at an exotic place called Palo Alto. What her son was doing for journalism, she would do for education. Plainly, mother and son would be forever at cross-purposes.
“Mr. Hearst’s people were down here a few months ago. They looked over the plant, the books, everything. They’re still very interested.” Vardeman’s attempt at selling was perfunctory. He did not expect anyone to pay the price he was asking for what was, essentially, a run-down printer’s shop.
“Do we have,” asked Caroline tentatively, “an agreement?”
Solemnly, Vardeman extended his hand across the table. Solemnly, Caroline shook it. “The Tribune,” said the now former publisher, “is no longer a Wallach-Jefferson-Vardeman newspaper-after forty-two long, long years,” he added somewhat anti-climactically.