Fortune's Hand (12 page)

“Of course you must know that you'll be made a partner in the not-too-far-distant future,” her father was saying to Robb. “You've exceeded our expectations. Sam Taylor and Jim Jasper both have a high opinion of you, as you also must know. The way you handled the Hawthorne case last month, for instance, an acquittal that really was touch-and-go—everyone was impressed.”

“I was pretty nervous,” Robb said. “The first trial all on my own. I'll tell you—I was afraid my mind would go blank and I'd make a fool of myself, a disgrace.”

“That's natural. I had the same feelings my first few times. But you were up against a tough adversary, Robb, a man with a reputation. Frankly, I wouldn't have made a bet in your favor.”

“I guess what got me through were my thoughts of that boy and his small theft. He'd never had a chance, with his wretched father and all the troubles. He didn't deserve the punishment they were asking for. And he was depending on me.”

Yes, Ellen thought, he even looks like a man on whom people can depend. There is no mistaking him. People feel it. You can tell by the way they look at him, and ask things, and listen to his answers. I've seen it so
often, and I have felt so proud every time, so lucky and proud.

In the final painting on the final page of Ellen's book, a flock of robins had settled upon the grass and in the trees.

“Oh, that's good,” Robb said. “You've done it, Ellen. I can almost hear them flutter and chirp.”

“I hope so. I've worked really hard to polish every word. They have to be simple enough for a child to understand, but they must be beautiful, too. Beautiful and simple, like a poem.”

“I don't know what to say. I'm in awe of you, darling.”

“Wait! It hasn't been published yet.”

“That's Mommy's book,” Julie said, interrupting importantly. “She wrote it all herself, Daddy. Now the poor birds are nice and warm again and they can eat. There's no more bad snow.”

“Julie's as excited as I am,” Ellen said. “But it's after seven, and she needs to be in bed. Robb, will you take her, please? I don't seem to have the energy today to climb the stairs.”

He looked at her, and they both laughed. It could be any time this week, the doctor had warned, and she mustn't go far from home. She was feeling, and probably looking, like a melon ready to split open.

Ah, but life was good! Everything had gone smoothly through the spring and summer, her father's move out of the house, and their move into it. This return to her home had been a reweaving, as if life were
a seamless cloth on which, at intervals, new patterns emerged: first Robb, then Julie, and now still another appeared in the splendid cloth.

Otherwise, all was the same. Even Billy, growing sadly old, lay sleeping at her feet. The only thing that her father had removed from the house was the ancestral Confederate portrait, which was “to go to your brother in the male line of descent.” Between the windows, the Norfolk pine that her mother had nurtured from infancy now almost touched the ceiling with its graceful tip. Beyond the windows lay the autumn evening, pale yet gilded where the sun touched the oaks and the lawn. In one corner near a bed of late-blooming roses, stood a statue of some unidentified would-be classical goddess, half-naked and half-draped, holding a lute.

“Falling asleep?” asked Robb. “Why don't you go upstairs and get comfortable in bed?”

“It's too early. No, I was just resting, looking out at your friend Eddy's awful statue, and laughing.”

“Don't worry, we can find an inconspicuous yet tactful place to put the thing. It is pretty bad, isn't it? But it's so well meant. I'm sure it's awfully expensive, too. Anything Eddy buys is expensive.”

“You do like him so much, don't you?”

“I do. He's fun to be with, and he's genuinely good besides. You know that.”

She did not doubt the man's goodness. Nor did she truly dislike him. But she was just as pleased not to see him too often. For this she sometimes scolded herself. Was she, heaven forbid, turning into some sort of narrow
intellectual snob, withholding herself because his manner and tastes were not hers? Or not Robb's either? No, that was not the reason. Definitely not. There was just something else.… Call it the usual “chemistry” in reverse. And very probably the feeling was mutual. He did not visit very often.

“I always wonder,” she said, “what made Eddy stay here instead of going to New York or Washington, where he has all those contacts he talks about?”

“The reason is that his biggest contact is here now. Richard Devlin's made a final decision to keep his headquarters. He wants to run for the Senate someday after he's made his fortune.”

“And Eddy's going to make his own fortune?”

Robb shrugged. “Who knows? He takes a little piece of Devlin's deals as they go along. He was telling me about it the other day when he dropped by for lunch. Well, he has money to play with.”

“How much of him do you get to see?”

“When he's in town. Seems to me he spends most of his life on airplanes. But he enjoys it. Tell me how you're feeling.”

“Well, at this point, I'll confess I'll be glad to get flat again. Glad to see the young one's face.”

“It will be a wonderful face. A love child, as in the old wives' tale. I wonder whether there's any truth in that business about how you can tell when a child is the result of passionate love. It doesn't sound scientific, but who knows? Maybe it's true.”

When he knelt beside her chair, she took his face between her hands and kissed him.

“Maybe it is. Look at our Julie.”

“She's my heart, my miniature Ellen.”

“Can you believe she's in nursery school?”

“I wouldn't be surprised to find her in kindergarten with the five-year-olds, she's so bright.”

“Yes, but not one of those annoying, precocious brats parents like to show off.”

“She knows what she wants, though. She knows how to twinkle and charm, like you.”

“Did I really ‘twinkle'?”

“Not the first day. You merely looked me over carefully with your sea-green eyes, your mermaid's eyes.”

A sudden pain ran through Ellen and emerged from her throat in a sharp cry. She grasped the arms of the chair to steady herself against the next pain.

“What is it? Are you all right?”

“I'm fine. But I don't think it's going to wait a week. I think it's in more of a hurry.”

Robb went down the hospital steps to the walk, the same walk on which he and Ellen had once each pretended to be meeting by sheer coincidence. He was chuckling, both at that memory and at the fact of having a son in the nursery upstairs.

A son! After this one, he wouldn't care about the sex of those who would follow. He had what he wanted now, a girl like Ellen, and a boy who—oh, modestly, he hoped—would be like himself, if only as a companion who liked what he liked. They would go hiking together, follow the baseball games, and talk about the
world. The boy would be serious, but not too much so, just a bright, very decent, loving kid.

And now he was here, in his bassinet. “Penn,” Robb murmured, after his mother, Della Pennington. “Penn,” he said again. “My son, Penn.”

Then he remembered he ought to be handing out cigars. It was a funny custom. Why cigars? At his office, they all smoked cigarettes, except for his father-in-law, who smoked a pipe. Nevertheless, cigars would be expected, so he parked in front of a row of stores and went into the tobacco shop.

“Hey, what are you doing?” asked Eddy.

“As you see, buying cigars. Ellen's just had a boy this noon.”

“Say, that's great. What's his name?”

“We're calling him Penn. He's a bruiser. Weighs eight pounds, eleven.”

“Looks like Ellen, I hope, for his sake.”

“Doesn't look like anybody except a healthy baby. Bald, with chubby cheeks.”

“Well, congratulations. Come on in here and I'll buy you a new tie to celebrate, I'm picking up a suit.”

“This place? Too expensive, Eddy. Too rich for my blood.”

They were standing before the window, where models wore Irish tweed jackets, Italian suits, and Scottish cashmere sweaters.

“Get in there. Can't you at least let a fellow buy you a tie?”

And so Robb was propelled into the shop, obliged to
accept with grace the gift of a handsome silk tie, and urged to “take a look” at the fit of Eddy's new suit.

“Custom tailoring,” Eddy said. “You can always tell by the fit across the shoulders. Not a hair's breadth of a wrinkle. You should try it.”

“I don't care that much, Eddy. What's a little wrinkle?”

“A lot, my friend. You owe it to yourself to look your best.”

In his euphoric mood, with the celebration cigars in his hand, Robb was irritated. Shoulders! Wrinkles! Foolishness! He was about to leave, when a man came in from the street and greeted him.

“Mr. MacDaniel, isn't it? Either he or his double.”

“Not his double, sir.”

“My name's Trescott. Bob. Oh hello, Eddy. You two together?”

“We're old friends, Robb and I, from the year one.”

“Well, I won't intrude. Just want to say, Mr. MacDaniel, I was in court yesterday waiting to be called when I heard your argument. And I came away impressed. I mean impressed. You were eloquent. You had your opponent beaten before five minutes were up.”

“Thank you very much.”

“Bob's at Lenihan, Burns and Fish,” Eddy explained.

Now it was Robb's turn to be impressed, but since he was not particularly so, he merely showed a very pleasant expression and nodded.

A few more minutes having been spent while Eddy's suit was wrapped, the two went out together.

“Nice guy,” Eddy remarked, “but an underling. Lacks drive. He'll never rise, never make partner. I think he's beginning to realize it, too.”

“That's sad,” Robb said, meaning it. “That is, if he really wants to ‘rise.' ”

“Well now, why wouldn't he? Once you're in a firm like that, you'll want to be on top. Those big top firms work you like the devil anyway, whether you're on top or bottom. I connect with all Dick's lawyers, and they're all the same. West Coast, East Coast, they're all the same. But they sure rake it in! Especially with the real estate market and the construction going on everywhere. They rake it in.”

“I guess so,” Robb said.

They walked toward the parking lot. Julie was with the baby-sitter, who was staying while Ellen was in the hospital, and he was in a hurry to get home to her.

“Lenihan, Burns and Fish, that's the kind of firm you should be in.”

“What?” With his hand on the car door, Robb halted. “Why should I? I'm doing very well where I am.”

“True, but you can't make a comparison. Your Wilson Grant's a throwback to other times. The scholarly country lawyer with his wills and trusts plus a handful of interesting cases that one good litigator like you can handle. There's not a hell of a lot of money in it.”

If he had not been in such a hurry, Robb would have argued. On the other hand, this subject was not worth disputing with Eddy. A lot of money! Judge Salmon probably earned in a year what any single partner in
Lenihan, Burns and Fish could make in a month. But how could he expect Eddy—or maybe most people—to understand that what he wanted most was someday to sit where Judge Salmon sat?

“And besides, for an independent guy like you, doesn't it ever feel strange to be hanging on to your father-in-law's coattails?”

Very seldom had Robb been so angry, and now he lashed out.

“Since we're trading insults, here's a question for you. Do you really think you're practicing law? Is this an ambition for the graduate of a fine law school, trailing a would-be tycoon around the country while he grabs up land and despoils the countryside? Is it?”

Eddy flushed. The flush looked painful, so that Robb's instant fury was followed by instant regret. I've just hit below the belt, he thought. Bottom of the class. Poor Eddy.

“I'm sorry, Robb. I didn't mean the coattails business the way it sounded. Of course I know you stand on your own feet. But you know me. I mean well, but I put my foot in my mouth too much.”

“No hard feelings, Eddy. I shouldn't have said what I said, either.”

They stood for a moment looking at each other, while traffic, people, and cars, all rushing about their business, flowed past them through the sunshine. Perhaps, Robb thought, we are both remembering the dinky room where we lived when we first became friends, the smell of beer and spaghetti sauce, the jangle
of jazz on the radio, and the silence of midnight before exams.

“I was thinking,” Eddy said softly, “I don't know whether you want to hear this or not. If you don't, stop me. It's about Lily.”

Robb raised his head. “Tell me.”

“She moved away. She got a good job as librarian at the main city library in Meredith.”

“That's a pretty big place, after Marchfield.” It was all he could think of to say.

“Yes. Well, it's a step up.”

“Alone? With her mother?”

“Alone. But you're asking whether she's married? No.”

Dry books. Women and school kids and a few students all day long. And somebody in the evening? He hoped so.

“I guess I won't be able to find things out anymore, since she's moved. My guy in Marchfield won't know anything.”

“Just as well.”

And again they looked at each other, silent until Eddy said, “So you've got two kids, God bless them. Give my regards to the boy, the son. Penn, is it?”

“Yes, Penn.”

“See you soon, probably.”

“See you soon.”

He drove home. Put that business out of your mind, he thought. What's done is done. And he rather wished Eddy had not brought up the subject.