Captains and The Kings (46 page)

"So you have," said Joseph. "What it is to be a politician! I am glad I am not one. Lying is not exactly my forte." The governor, sitting in the only comfortable chair in the stark study, narrowed his eyes at Joseph. Tom Hennessey was no fool. He had never liked Joseph, and had always suspected him without the slightest reason -objectively. All Joseph's later politeness and political help had not overcome Tom's memory of that night when Joseph had looked at him in the hall of this house after Katherine had died. Bernadette had told her father that Katherine had asked for Joseph. Tom always wondered why. Had it been something about Bernadette? Had Joseph already hinted so much to Katherine? Yet he had looked at Bernadette's father as if he wanted to kill him, and with such hatred, too. Of course, Katherine could have babbled to Joseph before she died-Tom had come to that conclusion. Katherine had always been a dim-witted fool. Tonight, Tom dismissed the unlamented Katherine from his thoughts. "I'll make it brief," he said, and his voice was rough with renewed agitation and now with open anger and despair. "I was informed, yesterday, by our Party that I would not receive the nomination this year. Yet, only a month ago I was assured of it by the State Chairman, himself. Who else?" Joseph had seated himself nearby in the growing dusk of the room. The early autumn gardens outside sent up a poignant strong scent of mowed grass, chrysanthemums, late lilies and roses and crisping leaves. It was still falling daylight outside. Here it was becoming dim and shadowy, for great trees loomed outside and their tops brushed against the windows. Joseph, unusual for him, had mixed himself a whiskey and soda, and he carefully sipped at it and looked at the floor, as if pondering. He said, "Now, why should they do that? What do they have against you?" Tom put down his glass with a thump on a nearby table. "Nothing!" he shouted. "Haven't I done everything they suggested? Haven't I followed all their directives? I've sewed the Party well, by God! Now they turn on me." He breathed heavily. "I've even done some things-well, they were profitable for all concerned, but I took on the possible danger, myself. They profited more than I did." Joseph shook his head. "I'm not a politician, Tom. I don't know the ways and the reasons of politicians." Tom laughed cynically. "Oh, Joe. Don't be so humble. You know damned well you are one of the big political powers in this Commonwealth. Just tell those bastards to change their minds at once or they'll hear from you. It is as simple as that. They wouldn't dare cross you." "I have heard hints," said Joseph, "that they'd prefer a younger man. Hancock, for one. After all, you aren't young any longer, Tom. And, you've made your fortune. They take all that into consideration." Tom studied him. Joseph's air was entirely too disinterested. He had never been one to shilly-shally like this, to Tom's knowledge. It was not in character. "Joe," said the governor quietly. He's an astute bastard, thought Joseph, and I am no actor. I am not even a good liar. He thought. Then he looked at Tom with an expression he hoped was concerned and disarming. "All right, Tom. What do you want me to do?" "I've told you. Tell them to change their minds-or no more funds, no more bribery." "I don't bribe," said Joseph. "I send only small gifts of appreciation. No one has any evidence of me bribing anyone." "You took care of that, you and your Philadelphia lawyers," said Tom, with mounting anger. He saw Joseph shrug his thin shoulders. He saw Joseph smile at him faintly. "Very well," said Joseph. "I will write to them tonight. I hope it will help to change their minds." "Telegraph," said Tom Hennessey. "I hear they intend to nominate Hancock on Monday. There's no time for writing." "Very well," Joseph repeated. He went to his desk and wrote for a few moments in his angular tight script. He brought the paper to Tom, who put on spectacles to read it. ALL CONTRIBUTIONS RECENTLY MADE ARE TO BE USED AS PREVIOUSLY DESIGNATED IN BEHALF OF THE CANDIDATE HERETOFORE CHOSEN. JOSEPH ARMAGH. Tom Hennessey scrutinized it. He wished it could have been warmer, more explicit, and that it had mentioned his name or referred directly to him. Then he saw that this might not be prudent. He said, with some surprise, "I see you have already made a large contribution." "Yes, very large. In August. After all, are you not the perennial candidate?" "When you made that contribution you had no idea about-Hancock?" Joseph stood up. He looked at Tom with glittering blue eyes full of cold umbrage, and Tom was so frightened that he sat up in his chair and stared. Joseph said, "When did they mention Hancock to you?" Tom's full face, so sensual and brutal, trembled. "Monday, Joe." When Joseph did not speak he cried, "Joe, I'm sorry! I am almost out of my mind. I see bogies everywhere. When will you send that telegram?" His hands had become wet and cold. "At once," said Joseph, and went to the bell rope. His whole attitude expressed rigid offense, and Tom was alarmed again. It would be fatal to antagonize Joseph Armagh, to whom he greatly owed his past elections. Tom said, with an attempt at a placating smile, rueful and affectionate, "Yes, I see bogies everywhere. Probably in Bernadette and your children, too, and Elizabeth!" He tried to laugh. Then as relief flowed through him he laughed again, with real heartiness, and took up his drink. "That telegram will settle it," he said. "I hope so," said Joseph. A maid came into the room and Joseph directed that she give the telegraph message to a groom, who was to take it to the depot at once. When the maid had left Tom said, his voice breaking, "I can't tell you what this means to me, Joe, and how grateful I am. I tell you, I've been on the verge of apoplexy since Monday. I have scarcely slept or eaten." Joseph considered him with those small hidden eyes which were so inexplicable. "Then you must make up for it tonight," he said. "In the Bosom of your Family." Joseph was unusually pleasant and amiable to. Tom Hennessey at the dinner table that night, and Bernadette marveled, for she had never seen her husband so kind to her father before, nor so-almost-intimate. There had always been a reserve in Joseph towards Tom Hennessey, but now it appeared to have disappeared. She begged her father to remain "for a little festivity." Tom, enormously relieved, flushed with wine and food, consented. Bernadette immediately began plans for a dinner party and a ball. "Very sudden," she said. "But everybody will come. I will have the invitations delivered by hand tomorrow. Everybody will be so pleased." Her round hazel eyes danced at Joseph with infinite love. Whatever her father's hasty visit had portended Joseph had settled it, and dear Papa was so relaxed now, so comforted. He sat there as if this house still belonged to him, and in a way, reflected Bernadette, with warm pleasure, it still did in spite of Elizabeth and that brat, and Mama's last instructions. Joseph thought, Let the swine enjoy himself now and in the next days. It will be the last time. The condemned man's final meal. He smiled at Tom and directed a maid to give his father-in-law more wine. Tom's light eyes sparkled with satisfaction. Joseph waited. One week. Two weeks. As he waited he inwardly grew colder, and felt his own impatient exultation. He was not surprised that on the morning of the fifteenth day he received a telegram from his father- in-law: WILL ARRIVE TONIGHT AT FIVE. MUST SEE YOU ALONE, AT ONCE. Joseph crushed the telegram in his hand and smiled. He went to see Bernadette who was having her breakfast, as usual, in bed, her coverlet covered with jars of cosmetics, and perfumes, combs and brushes, mirrors, crumbs and lace handkerchiefs. It was not often that Joseph came here during the day, and hardly more often at night, and Bernadette's flat faintly golden face flushed and shone with joy. Her maid was laying out her morning attire, and a small fire burned to offset the early chill, though the day was brilliantly blue and sparkling outside. Bernadette's curling rags were concealed by a lace cap with ribbons and she wore a bed jacket of blue silk and lace, and her plump arms lifted themselves eagerly to Joseph for a kiss. He was not sorry for his wife and what she would soon know. Bernadette, in her way, was as pragmatic as he and much more earthy and very practical. She loved her father still, and she would be greatly grieved, and I, thought Joseph, don't care a damn. He stood by the bedside and one of his hands was held by Bernadette and she was chattering, her hazel eyes darting and flashing with life and laughter, and Joseph thought how t-' immediate she was and how her plans rarely ran beyond the day and the pleasures of it. He gathered she was going to tea with some friends in Green Hills, and her malicious and tripping tongue tore the reputations, the wits, the motives, and the lives of all her friends apart, and with the utmost gaiety. Joseph found himself listening. She could make him laugh ; with her jokes and sallies and her witticisms, for none of them were kind 'and all of them struck very accurately on their intended targets. He could not remember Bernadette speaking gently and kindly of anyone, except 1$'her father. She found her own children boring and annoying and had, p thought Joseph, a hard hand on her in spite of her prattle about "the modern method of bringing up Our Precious Little Angels." He neither loved her nor hated her. He did not like nor dislike her. Therefore he could almost always be temperate and detached with her, with no emotion whatsoever except occasional tedium. She might have been, to him, a dog of the household of which he was not fond and yet did not resent.
Occasionally he found her body enticing, but he wanted no more children. He cared for Rory and Ann Marie hardly more than he cared for their mother, but since Regina's desertion he had begun to consider Rory and even to listen to the childish remarks of Rory's twin sister, Ann Marie. Joseph's aloofness increased rather than decreased Bernadette's devouring passion for him. She thought it genteel and aristocratic, unlike her life-loving and very coarse father. He rarely kissed her and then only when in bed with her, and then he would not remain in her arms to sleep but left her in silence. She could not quarrel with him because of his indifference to her, which she had persuaded herself was masculine strength. ("Dear Joseph is too deep for facile expressions and protestations and all the other trivialities.") Because he was too uninterested in women, Bernadette would think, she had no occasion for jealousy when he was often away for weeks at a time, and even when in Green Hills he usually remained only two days out of a week. She never knew that he preferred the expensive trollops of Philadelphia and New York to his wife, and that he was the "protector" of a beauty, a successful young actress in the latter city, an Irish girl with a delectable face and figure and a glorious singing voice. Joseph took no effort to conceal his adulteries from his wife nor did he flaunt them. He did not care if she guessed. It was nothing to him, as Bernadette was nothing to him. Once he had felt a faint compassion for her on the night of her mother's death, because she was young and abandoned and wet with tears and sweat, and frantic, but he felt no pity for her now, and never the slightest tenderness. Had she discovered any of his affairs and if she had reproached him he would not have been angered or ashamed. He would have said to her, "What is it to you? What are you to me?" She was aware of Joseph as she had never been aware of anyone before, and she had noticed how even more gaunt he had become since "that horrible Regina left here like a thief in the night." His face had become more taut, his eyes more secret, and the shadow of gray more pronounced in his thick russet hair. The planes of his face were sharp and angular, the hollows under his cheekbones deeper, his complexion paler. But he never spoke of Regina as he never spoke of Sean. It was as if they had not lived at all. He said to her when her chatter slowed a little, "I have a telegram from your father, Bernadette. He is making an unexpected visit to me, tonight, on business. He will arrive at five." Bernadette's face gleamed with delight, and her white teeth flared. "Oh, how wonderful, and he was only here a short time ago! I must send my regrets to Bertha Holleye, about the tea-" "No," said Joseph. "That would be rude, wouldn't it?" He looked about the crowded gaudy room which had once been Katherine's, and he remembered the night of her death. "Go to your tea. Your father will be here only an hour or so before you return. I think he has some very important news for me." Bernadette flapped a little fat hand. "Oh, he wants to tell you he has been nominated again! Is that such news? But, I suppose it will call for a party for our friends, to celebrate, as usual." She looked up at Joseph and there was something about him which vaguely disturbed her. "There's nothing wrong with Papa, is there, Joe?" Joseph said, "Why should there be anything wrong?" "Well, then, is it about your business-all your business matters?" Joseph looked down into her adoring eyes. "I wouldn't be surprised in the least," he said. "I am pretty sure it is my business." "There's nothing wrong with that, either, is there, Joe?" Like all the rich who had never known destitution or privation money was a tender and emotional thing with her, and wealth something to guard with all the resources of one's mind and vigilance against anything or anyone which could diminish it by a penny. So Bernadette stared at Joseph with those round and somewhat bulging eyes and she no longer smiled. "Not a thing wrong with my business, my pet," said Joseph. He looked at her curiously. "You are a very rich woman yourself, Bernadette, in your own right. And you are getting richer. Why should you worry about my affairs?" "No one is ever rich enough!" she said, with passionate emphasis, and slapped her breakfast tray so all the china jumped. "Papa once said you were the richest man in Pennsylvania. That isn't enough. I want you to be the richest man in the country!" Then she laughed. "Rich as Mr. Gould, Mr. Fisk and Mr. Vanderbilt and Mr. Morgan and Mr. Regan, and all the rest. Richer." Joseph's eyes narrowed so that there was only a glint between his lashes. "And what would that buy you?" he asked, with greater curiosity. "More jewels, more Worth gowns, more journeys to Europe, more horses, carriages, houses, servants?" "Just to have it," said Bernadette. "That's all. Just to have it." "But why?" She was fondly exasperated and took his hand again. "Joe, why do you keep on making money?" "Just to have it," he mimicked her, and then when she laughed he did not smile but left the room. She lay back on her pillows, oddly and namelessly dismayed. He had looked at her as at an enemy, or as if he had hated her or thought her ridiculous. Bernadette was not very subtle, though she was acute. She chewed thoughtfully on a little jam-covered biscuit. I *; Then she said to herself: Don't be absurd. Joe loves me. But he is very strange. I don't always understand him.