Advise and Consent (89 page)

Chapter 5

“Well,” his son said, looking up with a grin from his struggles with a dress shirt, “I didn’t know whether you’d be able to stop being a world statesman long enough to come to my wedding or not. How did the committee meeting go?”

“So-so,” Orrin said. Hal paused a second and looked at him closely.

“Did you get licked?” he asked. His father smiled.

“Not exactly,” he said. “It was a seven-to-seven tie vote on Arly’s motion for a favorable recommendation, so the motion lost, and the recommendation will be unfavorable. But it’s only a parliamentary device, as Arly pointed out. The significant thing is that I couldn’t muster a majority against him. And I almost ruined it by trying to make my own motion for an unfavorable recommendation, which would have had just the opposite result.”

“What stopped you?” Hal asked with a smile. “I didn’t know anything could.”

“Well, yes,” Senator Knox said with an answering smile. “I’m not as bullheaded as all that. Lafe stopped me. He apparently checked the committee a little closer than I did and knew what might happen.”

“I like Lafe,” Hal said. “He chases around too much, but his heart’s in the right place.”

“He’s going to stop chasing,” the Senator said, and his son gave him a look of surprised interest.

“Don’t tell me he’s going to get married too?” he said in some disbelief.

“So he tells me.”

“Well, well,” Hal said. “All of us old rakes are retiring from the competition. But I guess it’s time to leave the field to younger and fresher men. God
damn
it,” he said suddenly. “Will you fix this stud for me?”

“Gladly,” Orrin said. “Where’s your mother? I was sure she’d be here, hovering around.”

“She’s at the Cathedral checking on things,” Hal said. “She kissed me, and started to cry, and ran.” He smiled. “I like the old girl,” he said.

“So do I,” Orrin said. “I only hope you’re as lucky as I am.”

“Oh, I think so,” Hal said with a new note in his voice suddenly. “Yes, I think so.”

“I think so, too,” his father said. “She’s a wonderful girl.”

“She is that,” his son agreed softly. A little twinkle came into his eyes. “Isn’t there anything you want to tell me?” he asked.

The Senator from Illinois tried to look surprised, and that failed, and tried to look dignified, and that failed. He wound up laughing rather self-consciously.

“I do believe you’re blushing,” Hal said.

“I’m not blushing,” Orrin said flatly. “I was just wondering what a man of my generation could possibly have to tell one of yours that you don’t know already, and that a long, long time ago.”

“I remember you tried to tell me once,” his son remarked, with the same little twinkle.

“Well, did you understand it?” the Senator asked.

“I understood it,” Hal said, “but it hardly seemed logical.” He grinned. “Doesn’t yet, as far as that goes, only now it doesn’t matter whether it’s logical or not. That’s the least of the things that matter.”

“I thought it was a clear and objective discussion,” Orrin observed. “Factual, straightforward, and to the point.”

“It was,” Hal agreed. “It certainly was. It was a good basic presentation. I felt I was well-launched.”

“When did you get your pilot’s license?” his father asked dryly, and was pleased to see that it was his son who was blushing.

“That’s all right,” Hal said. “That’s all right, now. What time is it?”

“It’s five thirty-one,” his father said.

“How do I look?” Hal asked, and for a moment the Senator couldn’t see him at all, except he knew that somewhere through the haze there was a little boy and a tall young man, both of whom apparently belonged to him, fantastic though it suddenly seemed.

“You look wonderful,” he said, not too steadily, and then his eye lighted on something that brought the world back to perspective. “Except that you’re wearing your bedroom slippers.”

“Well, by God, so I am,” Hal said, and suddenly he started laughing in a way that was tense but happy.

“Nobody can say I’m nervous!” he exclaimed. “Ohhhhhh, no!”

I’ve done the best I could, Stanley Danta said in the private conversation he often carried on, and I’ve tried to do all the things I think you would have done if you hadn’t—if you had been here. I doubt if I’ve done everything, because I never did think of everything, and without you to remind me I’ve probably forgotten some things; but on balance
I am well pleased and I think you would be, too. She’s a nice girl and she’s marrying a nice boy and they’re getting a good start in life, and that’s about all one can hope, or guarantee, for anybody. I don’t think she’ll let him down or let us down. So having managed that, I guess it’s time for us to wish them well and retire gracefully from the premises, isn’t it? I just wish you could be here to see her
....
I just wish you could be here.

It would be thirteen years in November since she had been, and never a day had passed without that same futile wish, which the passage of time, though easing its pain, could not erase from his heart or mind or being.

“How are you coming?” his daughter called from her room, and he realized with a start that the hour was moving on and he had consumed precious minutes daydreaming. He tied his tie hastily and gave himself a critical look in the mirror.

“Fine, thank you,” he called back. “How about you?”

“There will be some tucking and tugging and buttoning and zippering for you to do here in a minute,” she said, “but I’m making progress. In a way—it sounds awful, but you know how I mean it—I’m kind of glad things worked out so the wedding would be small and quiet and I could be here with you alone these last few minutes without a lot of fussy females running around the place.”

“I’m flattered,” he said.

“Well, after all,” she said, “you’re the only daddy I ever expect to have, you know. Do you want to come in now?’

“You look beautiful,” he said gravely, and so she did, young and earnest and flushed with excitement. “What do I tuck and tug and button and zipper?”

“Look back there,” she said, pointing over her shoulder. “There are various infernal devices you’ll see that I can’t reach very well.”

“Yes,” he said. “I think—that—ought—to do it. Jump up and down and run around the room ten times and we’ll see if anything falls off.”

She kissed him suddenly.

“I’m going to miss you,” she said.

“And I you,” he said quietly, and for the first time they both realized just how alone he was going to be from now on.

“No, you aren’t,” she said fiercely. “We’ll be here for a while, and while we are you’re going to be in and out all the time
....
As a matter of fact,” she added firmly, “what you ought to do is get married again.”

“Do you really think so?” he asked in some surprise, for this was a topic they had never discussed. She had been nine when her mother died, and that made the memory strong enough to inhibit other talk; even if the possibility had arisen, which it had not.

“Uncle Bob’s going to marry Dolly,” she said, “and you ought to make it a double ceremony.”

“Well,” he said reasonably, “I can’t just go out on Connecticut Avenue and say, ‘Hey, marry me,’ to the first woman I see.”

“You
could
,” she said with a smile. “You know perfectly well you
could
. But anyway, you ought to give it some thought.”

“You think I never have,” he remarked with a touch of irony, and she smiled again.

“I know,” she said. “But you just haven’t found anyone to match Mother.”

“That’s the exact truth,” he said quietly. She kissed him again.

“Okay,” she said, “forget I ever suggested Connecticut Avenue. Anyway, Illinois is only minutes away, and well expect you every weekend. I hope to provide you with several extra inducements before long, too, Gramps.”

“Oh, you do?” he said with a chuckle, and she blushed.

“I’m determined upon it,” she said.

“I’ll bet Hal is, too,” he observed, and she blushed again.

“I understand he has some interest,” she said.

“I expect he wants to go back to Illinois,” he said, “and follow his father into politics, doesn’t he?”

“Yes,” she said, “he does. And I guess I want him to, when all is said and done.”

“It’s a rough life.”

“But capable of honor,” she said.

“Yes,” he repeated softly, “capable of honor.” And seeing her there, so bright and young and sure, he was moved to ask what struck him later as probably the bravest question he had ever asked anybody.

“What do you think of me?” he said. “Really.”

“I think you’re a wonderful father and an excellent Senator,” she answered promptly. Then her eyes narrowed in the thoughtful manner of her mother.

“I think,” she said slowly—and he could see she really was thinking, because her face got the concentrated, dead-earnest look he could remember through all the years from long ago when she was a little girl, “I think you’re a good servant.”

“Then I’ve succeeded,” he said.

“Yes, you have. And now, Senator,” she said lightly, “before you get too misty-eyed to be able to see to do it, you can help me on with my veil and we’ll go. My groom awaits.”

“He’s a lucky man,” said Senator Danta.

“It’s mutual,” his daughter said.

An honest mind, a candid intelligence, a loyal spirit, and an understanding heart. Yes, he said, you would like our daughter.

And there the years went, Beth thought, hurry, hurry, hurry, and away with you. Where did they go, and what had you accomplished when they were over? Well for one thing, she brought herself up tartly, you had accomplished this good-looking young male up there at the altar, and that was quite enough to have accomplished. And more than that, you had also helped in a very major way to accomplish this vigorous public servant beside you, and that wasn’t such a small achievement either. And you had also, not to be too modest about it, accomplished your own place in the world as distinct and recognized, almost, as his, and that was a fair triumph, too. So why should you do something as stock and standard and unimaginative as cry at a wedding? It hardly made sense in the face of so many accomplishments, except that the sense of loss and the sense of gain got so muddled up and confused at a wedding that tears seemed to be the only possible comment to make upon them. Lose a son and gain a daughter, people always said; but they said “lose” first. Everybody lost somebody at a wedding, even up there at the altar where they were losing the boy and girl they were yesterday.

And the gain? Well, if you were lucky, enough to balance; and she honestly felt, even allowing for a mother’s prejudice, that the balance was sufficient here. She was well satisfied with her son, and she knew—she hoped—that Crystal would be, too. Marrying a Knox had its difficult moments, but it also had great triumphs, and she suspected that Stanley Danta’s daughter possessed the character to survive the difficulties and aid in the triumphs. The last thing Elizabeth Henry had thought to do on that long-ago day in college was assist in the establishment of a political dynasty, yet it appeared that might be what she had done. The pattern seemed to be repeating. Thinking of what it had meant for them, with all its excitements and satisfactions, its hits and near misses in a tale that was not yet done, she wished them well with all her heart. To seek, to strive, to serve—above all, to serve; tend to the serving, and the seeking and the striving took care of themselves. Whether their son knew this or would have to learn it like his father, she did not know; whether his father had learned it entirely even now, she was not sure. Anyway, Hal was no longer her problem; Crystal, daughter of a Senator, daughter-in-law of another, wife someday, no doubt, of still another, would have to worry about that from now on. Her own problem was the same as always: here it sat beside her, blowing its nose, sentimental as ever underneath the prickly exterior the world knew. She began to chuckle, a muted sound that no one heard but transmitted by contact through her arm to his. He turned toward her with a startled expression and then winked gravely before beginning to smile. Something suddenly seemed awfully funny to her, but it was unlikely that she would have been able to say exactly what if anyone had asked. It was something, she thought, that her daughter-in-law would understand someday; not yet, probably, but someday.

“I think,” he said in the motel, “that was the nicest wedding I ever expect to be in.”

“I liked it,” she said, unpacking busily and bustling about.

“Why is it,” he asked suddenly, “that a bedside radio always sounds so furtive and sexy?”

She laughed.

“Because that’s often just what it is, I suppose,” she said, hanging up dresses, smoothing out blouses, whisking shoes swiftly out of sight.

“Speaking of sexy,” he said, and she laughed again, inspecting drawers, checking linen, looking for dust.

“Were we?” she said.

“Well, in a manner of speaking, yes,” he said. “Why don’t you stop being so industrious and come over here?”

“Do you think I should?” she asked.

“You’ve no idea how I’m counting on it,” he said.

“Well,” she said, pausing abruptly. “Well—okay.”

“I should hope, well, okay,” he said a few minutes later. “How are you, Mrs. Knox?”

“I’m very fine, thank you, Mr. Knox,” she said. “You know,” she added a moment later against his ear, “I’m glad we were old-fashioned and waited.”

But on that Mr. Knox had no comment, because by then Mr. Knox was beyond conversation.

***