Prologue
In the middle of the nineteenth century, thereabouts, the author Henry James claimed the Ailanthus tree dominated the landscape in old Washington Square Park in New York City. He noted, furthermore, that any discerning individual would observe that the tree possessed a fragrantly obnoxious odor. The tree, of course, was an invasive species which, Mr. James may have noted among his papers, had no business being there at all.
There are those who will offer evidence that Mr. James fabricated the umbrage deceit in pursuit of his literary career. If so, it plays a surprisingly insignificant role in his story. The persistence of memory, however, suggests otherwise.
James’ reputation as a fabulous storyteller was such that the City Fathers took his critical observation under advisement and in due course decided that the offensive trees must be poisoned out of existence. Yes–-poisoned! The species is tenacious of life. It would serve no useful purpose to cut the trees down even below ground level because the tree has the suckering ability to send up shoots throughout its root system thereby defeating the end game. The poisoning was, in fact, an eminent success and today you may visit the location and witness the more admirable tresses of the English Elm.
James, not content to leave the story there, insisted, if he was to be believed, that one Arthur Townsend swore an oath that his distant cousin, Morris Townsend, was so incensed over having lost the hand in marriage, and a tidy fortune, of Miss Catherine Sloper, that he spread his venomous ill will by transplanting the seedlings of the Ailanthus tree about his home in San Francisco, California. The neighbors, as the story goes, have never forgiven him.
Periodically, Arthur Townsend would add to or embellish the history of his cousin to reveal that the Victorian home in which he lived was not technically his but belonged to his wife who came to the marriage a wealthy woman. The wife bore his child, a son, who Morris insisted be named Montgomery after his New York sister’s married surname. Morris was, then, about sixty years of age. Unfortunately (perhaps), the wife died a few years after Montgomery was born, leaving Morris with a fortune, which he greatly respected, and a son who was to become a burden to the ill-equipped and aging father. Indeed, when the authorities questioned the manner in which his wife died, Morris made his explanations, shuttered the premises, deposited his son on the Montgomery family in New York and simply disappeared across the pond into Europe. France seemed the most likely recipient.
That Morris died somewhere in Europe--he never seemed to remain in one place for any length of time--was assured when a very modest sum of funds and documents was credited to his son’s account in a New York bank. Montgomery, at that green age, passed over the documents and photos with little interest. He was far more delighted by a modest selection of American and French gold coins he had inherited. At first it was simply the word “gold” that attracted him. It was the stuff of legend. As he matured, he became obsessed with the color and value of the coins.
Montgomery, when he achieved adulthood, legally changed his surname in order to deflect residual questions regarding his mother’s demise. He left the Montgomery family and transported himself to the Victorian home in California.
All of which was in the last century.
This is now—1941.
