Zaphia gave birth to a daughter on New Year’s Day 1934. They named her Florentyna, after Abel’s sister. Abel was besotted with the child from the moment he set eyes on her, and Zaphia knew at once that she would no longer be the first love of his life.
George and a cousin of Zaphia’s became the child’s Kums, and Abel threw a traditional ten-course Polish dinner on the evening of the christening. Numerous gifts were presented to the child, including a beautiful antique ring from Abel’s unknown backer. He returned the gift in kind when the Baron Group made a profit of $63,000 at the end of the year. Only the Mobile Baron was still losing money.
After Florentyna’s birth Abel spent more and more time at home, and he decided that the moment had come to build a new Baron in the Windy City. He intended to make his new hotel the flagship of the group in memory of Davis Leroy. The company still owned the site on Michigan Avenue, and although Abel had received several offers for the land, he had always held out, hoping that one day he would be in a strong enough financial position to rebuild the Old Richmond. The project required capital, and Abel was glad he hadn’t touched the $750,000 insurance payout from Great Western Casualty.
He told Curtis Fenton of his intention at their monthly board meeting, adding the sole proviso that if David Maxton did not want a rival to the Stevens, Abel would drop the whole project. A few days later, Curtis Fenton assured Abel that his backer had no objection to the idea of a Chicago Baron.
It took Abel fifteen months to build the new hotel, with a helping hand from Alderman Henry Osborne, who hurried through the permits required by City Hall in the shortest possible time. The Chicago Baron was opened in May 1936 by the mayor, Edward J. Kelly, who after the assassination of Anton Cermak had become the leader of the Democratic Party in Illinois. In memory of Davis Leroy, the hotel had no seventeenth floor - a tradition Abel continued in every new Baron he built.
The Chicago Baron was praised by the press both for its design and for the speed of its construction. Abel eventually spent well over a million dollars on the new hotel, and it looked as though every penny had been put to good use. The public rooms were large and sumptuous, with high stucco ceilings and decorations in pastel shades of green, pleasant and relaxing; the carpets were thick and luxurious. The dark green embossed ‘B’ was discreet but ubiquitous, adorning everything from the flag that fluttered above the entrance of the forty-two-storey building to the neat lapel of the most junior bellhop. Both Illinois senators were in attendance to address the two thousand assembled guests at the official opening. Mr Maxton took his place among the guests, puzzled as to why he was seated on the top table.
‘This hotel already bears the hallmark of success,’ said J. Hamilton Lewis, the senior senator, ‘because, my friends, it is the man, not the building, who will always be known as “The Chicago Baron”.’ Abel beamed with undisguised pleasure as the two thousand guests roared their approval.
When Abel rose from his place to reply, he began by thanking the Mayor, the senators and a dozen congressmen for attending the opening. He ended his speech with the popular catchphrase, ‘You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.’
George had been briefed to lead a standing ovation. He didn’t need to, as everyone was already on their feet when Abel sat down. He smiled. He was beginning to feel at ease among big-businessmen and senior politicians, who treated him as an equal. Zaphia hovered uncertainly in the background during the lavish celebration: the occasion was a little too much for her, and she felt uneasy with Abel’s new friends. She neither understood nor cared for success on her husband’s scale; and even though she could now afford the most expensive wardrobe, she still managed to look unfashionable and out of place, and was only too aware that this annoyed Abel. She stood to one side while he chatted to Alderman Henry Osborne.
‘This must be the high point of your life,’ said Osborne as he slapped Abel on the back.
‘High point? I’ve only just turned thirty,’ said Abel.
A camera flashed as he placed an arm around the Alderman’s shoulder. Abel beamed, realizing for the first time how exciting it was to be treated as a public figure. ‘I’m going to put Baron hotels across the globe,’ he said, just loud enough for the eavesdropping reporter to hear. ‘I intend to be to America what Cesar Ritz was to Europe. Whenever an American is travelling, he must think of the Baron as his second home.’
34
WILLIAM FOUND IT difficult to settle down at Kane and Cabot under his new chairman. The promises of FDR’s New Deal were passing into law with unprecedented rapidity, and William and Tony Simmons found it impossible to agree on whether the implications for investment were good or bad. But expansion - on one front at least - became inevitable when Kate announced soon after their return from England that she was pregnant, news that brought her parents and her husband great joy. William tried to modify his working hours to suit his new role as a married man, but to begin with he found himself chained to his desk throughout the hot summer evenings. Kate, cool and happy in her flowered maternity smock, supervised the decoration of the nursery at the Red House while William found for the first time in his working life that he no longer minded not being the last to leave the office in the evenings.
While Kate and the baby, which was due at Christmas, brought William great happiness at home, Matthew was making him increasingly uneasy at work.
He had taken to drinking with companions William did not know, and coming to the office late without explanation. As the months passed, William found he could no longer rely on his friend’s judgement. At first he said nothing, hoping it was no more than a reaction to the repeal of Prohibition. But it soon became clear that it wasn’t, as the problem went from bad to worse.
The final straw came when Matthew arrived at the office two hours late one morning, obviously suffering from a hangover. He then made a simple, avoidable mistake, selling off an important investment which resulted in a small loss for a client who had been hoping to make a handsome profit. William knew the time had finally come for an unpleasant, but necessary, head-on confrontation.
When William had finished his pep talk, Matthew admitted his error and apologized profusely. William was thankful to have the row out of the way, and was about to suggest they go to lunch together when his secretary rushed into his office.
‘It’s your wife, sir, she’s been taken to the hospital.’
‘Why? What’s wrong?’ asked William.
‘I think it’s the baby,’ said his secretary.
‘But it’s not due for at least another six weeks,’ said William.
‘I know, sir, but Dr MacKenzie sounded anxious, and wanted you to come to the hospital as quickly as possible.’
Matthew, who a moment before had seemed a broken reed, immediately took over and drove William to the hospital. Memories of William’s mother’s death and her stillborn daughter came flooding back to them both as Matthew drew into the hospital parking lot.
William did not need to be guided to the Richard Kane maternity wing, which Kate had officially opened only a few months before. He found a nurse standing outside the delivery room; she informed him that Dr MacKenzie was with his wife, and that she had lost a lot of blood. William paced up and down the corridor helplessly, numbly waiting, exactly as he had done years before. How unimportant being chairman of the bank now seemed, compared with the thought of losing Kate. When had he last said to her, ‘I love you’?
Matthew sat with William, paced with William, stood with William, but said nothing. There was nothing to be said. Occasionally a nurse ran in or out of the delivery room. Seconds turned into minutes, and minutes into hours. Finally, Dr MacKenzie appeared, a surgical mask covering his nose and mouth, his forehead shining with little beads of sweat. William could not see the expression on the doctor’s face until he removed the white mask, to reveal a huge smile.
‘Congratulations, William. You have a son, and Kate is just fine.’
‘Thank God,’ breathed William, clinging onto Matthew.
‘Much as I respect the power of the Almighty,’ said Dr MacKenzie, ‘I feel I had a little to do with this particular birth myself.’
William laughed. ‘Can I see Kate?’
‘No, not right now. I’ve given her a sedative, and she’s sleeping. She lost rather more blood than was good for her, but she’ll be fine after a night’s rest. A little weak, perhaps, but ready to see you first thing in the morning. But there’s nothing to stop you seeing your son. Don’t be surprised by his size; remember, he’s quite premature.’
Dr MacKenzie guided William and Matthew down the corridor to a room in which they peered through a pane of glass at a row of six little pink heads in cribs.
‘That one,’ said Dr MacKenzie, pointing to the infant on the end.
William stared at the wrinkled little face, his vision of a fine, upstanding son destined to be the next chairman of the bank rapidly receding.
‘Well, I’ll say one thing for the little devil,’ said Dr MacKenzie cheerfully. ‘He’s better-looking than you were at that age.’
William laughed with relief.
‘What are you going to call him?’
‘Richard Higginson Kane.’
The doctor patted him affectionately on the shoulder. ‘I hope I live long enough to deliver Richard’s firstborn.’
That same afternoon William wired the rector of St Paul’s, who registered the boy for a place in September 1945. Having planted the first step in Richard’s career the new father and Matthew got thoroughly drunk, overslept and were late arriving at the hospital the next morning to see Kate. William took Matthew for another look at young Richard.
‘Ugly little brute,’ said Matthew. ‘Not at all like his beautiful mother.’
‘That’s what I thought,’ said William.
‘Spitting image of you, though.’
William returned to Kate’s flower-filled room.
‘Do you like your son?’ Kate asked her husband. ‘He’s so like you.’
‘I’ll hit the next person who says that,’ William said with a grin. ‘He’s the ugliest little brute I’ve ever seen.’
‘Oh, no!’ said Kate in mock indignation. ‘He’s beautiful!’
‘A face only a mother could love,’ said William, as he hugged her.
She clung to him, and said, What would Grandmother Kane have said about our firstborn entering the world after less than eight months of marriage?’
‘I don’t want to seem uncharitable,’ said William, mimicking his grandmother, ‘but anyone born after less than fifteen months must be considered of dubious parentage. Less than nine months is definitely unacceptable in society, and they should be packed off abroad … By the way, I forgot to tell you something before they rushed you into the hospital.’
‘What’s that?’
‘I love you.’
Kate and young Richard had to stay in hospital for nearly three weeks, and it wasn’t until just before Christmas that she was fully recovered. William became the first male Kane to change a nappy and push a perambulator. He told Matthew it was high time he found himself a good woman and settled down.
Matthew laughed defensively. ‘You’re getting positively middle-aged. I’ll be looking for grey hairs next.’
One or two had already appeared during the chairmanship battle but Matthew hadn’t commented.
William was not able to put a finger on exactly when his relationship with Tony Simmons began to deteriorate. Simmons started to veto his policy suggestions, and his negative attitude to any proposals he made caused William to seriously consider resigning as a member of the board.
Matthew was not helping matters by returning to his former habits. The period of reform had not lasted more than a few weeks, and if anything he was now drinking more heavily than before, and arriving at the bank later each morning. William wasn’t sure how to handle the situation, and found himself continually covering for his friend. At the end of each day he would double-check Matthew’s mail, and return any unanswered telephone calls.
By the summer of 1934, with President Roosevelt’s New Deal being implemented, investors began to regain some confidence and took their money from under their beds and began to deposit it in banks. Some literally appeared carrying suitcases full of cash. William felt that perhaps the time had come to step tentatively back into the stock market and even began to expand his own portfolio, but Simmons vetoed the suggestion that the bank should follow his lead in an offhand memorandum to the Financial Committee. William stormed into Simmons’s office without knocking, and asked if he wanted his resignation.
‘Certainly not, William. As you know, it has always been my policy to run this bank in a conservative manner. I am not willing to charge headlong back into the market and risk our investors’ money.’
‘But we’re losing business hand over fist to other banks while we sit on the sidelines. Banks we wouldn’t even have considered as rivals a few years ago will soon be overtaking us.’
‘Overtaking us in what, William? Not in reputation. Quick profits perhaps, but not reputation.’
‘But we have to be interested in profits as well,’ said William. ‘It’s a bank’s duty to make good returns for its investors, not to mark time in a gentlemanly fashion.’
‘I would rather stand still than lose the reputation this bank built up under your grandfather and father over the better part of half a century.’
‘Yes, but both of them were always open to new ideas to expand the bank’s activities.’
‘In good times,’ said Simmons.
‘And in bad.’
‘Why are you so upset, William? You still have a free hand in the running of your own department.’
‘Like hell I do. You block anything that even suggests enterprise.’
‘Let’s start being honest with each other, William. One of the reasons I have had to be particularly cautious lately is that Matthew’s judgement is no longer reliable.’
‘Leave Matthew out of this. It’s me you’re blocking. I am head of the department.’
‘I can’t leave Matthew out of it. I only wish I could. The overall responsibility to the board for anyone’s actions is mine, and he is the number two in our most important department.’
‘Therefore he’s my responsibility, because I’m the number one in that department.’
‘No, William, it cannot remain your responsibility alone that Matthew comes into the office drunk at eleven o’clock in the morning - no matter how long and close your friendship has been.’
‘Don’t exaggerate.’
‘I’m not exaggerating, William. For over a year now this bank has been carrying Matthew, and the only thing that’s stopped me from mentioning it to you before is your close personal relationship with him and his family. I wouldn’t be sorry to see him hand in his resignation. A bigger man would have done so long ago, and a close friend would have told him so.’
