Mrs. Roosevelt's Confidante (16 page)

“You type, you file,” Edith said, checking to see if her tea had steeped. “Anyone could do that. And I'm sure it's exciting—all those young men, the threat of bombs…”

Maggie poured hers without looking and dumped in sugar and milk simply to be annoying. “Has
your
city been bombed recently?”

“I lived through the Great War—”

“The Great War took place in the trenches of France. Britain wasn't in the line of fire. The lives of British civilians weren't at risk every night.” Maggie did the mental calculation. “Plus, you left for the U.S. in 1915—you missed most of it.”

Edith decided her tea was properly steeped. “Margaret, don't be dramatic.” She poured tea into her fragile china cup. “I worry about the way you seem to define yourself through men. ‘Mr. Churchill's secretary,' you keep writing. What about you? Why do you need to hide away in the shadow of a great man? Be a great
woman
!” She sighed. “I worry that all this is because I couldn't give you a proper male figure in your life growing up.”

Oh, for pity's sake! Why can't she see?
Maggie thought, but she surrendered. “You know, you're right. And when this war is over, I'll try to be more…great. Greater.” She slathered a scone with clotted cream and jam. “By the way, your brother—my father—you know, the one that I grew up believing was dead—says hello.”

“Does he?”

“Well, no. I haven't seen him recently. For all our dramatic reunion, dear old Dad seems as odd and self-involved as ever.”

Edith lifted the delicate porcelain cup to her lips. “I'm not surprised,” she said in even tones.

When the waiter passed, Maggie caught his eye. “I'd like a glass of champagne, please.”

“Yes, miss.”

“Drinking already?” Edith protested. “It's not even six!”

I need a drink if I'm going to get through this damn tea.
“I drink now. Everyone does in London. It helps make the bombing more tolerable.”

“Well, if everyone jumped in Lake Waban, would you, too?”

Maggie gritted her teeth. “Maybe…if I felt like it.”

“Your great-grandfather was an alcoholic, Margaret,” Edith intoned.

“I am not an alcoholic!” She started as the waiter put down the coupe.

“Margaret, please lower your voice,” Edith scolded, her lips pursed. “Ladies never speak loudly in public.”

“Speaking of relatives—maybe you could have mentioned that my father wasn't actually
dead
?”

Edith sighed. Maggie recognized the sound, one she remembered Aunt Edith using on chemistry students whom she saw as especially dense about an obvious—to her—equation. “It was a long time ago. And there are things one doesn't discuss with children.”

Maggie could feel a muscle under her eye begin to twitch as her blood pressure rose. “I'm not a child!”

“Do drink your tea, Margaret. It's getting cold.”

There was a painful silence, and the harpist segued into a Cole Porter medley. “Julia Ward Howe—now that was a great woman,” Edith remarked. “She wrote ‘The Battle Hymn of the Republic' while she stayed here, you know. It was after she met Abraham Lincoln.” Aunt Edith sniffed. “Poor Julia. What would she think of the advantages you've had and the choices you've made?”

“I'm working with Eleanor Roosevelt! Now,
she's
a great woman—”

“But that's different from
being
Eleanor Roosevelt!”

Scanning the room, Maggie spotted David and John walking in. She breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh, thank goodness—I mean, look—here come my friends.” When everyone had been introduced and the young men had ordered, the four sat in awkward silence, the two women on the sofa, the men in chairs across.

“So!” David said brightly, sensing the tension. “It's an honor to meet you finally, Professor Hope. Maggie's said so many lovely things about you.”

“I highly doubt that.”

“Well, that's wartime propaganda for you!” David replied with brio.

Maggie decided to take control of the situation. “What do you think of the death penalty, Aunt Edith?”

The older woman blinked. “The what?”

“There are posters all over town in support of Wendell Cotton, who's sentenced to die in Virginia. I went to a meeting last night, protesting his execution. I was wondering what you thought.”

“The death penalty is incompatible with human dignity. It is cruel and unusual punishment,” Edith said, warming to the topic. “It is the weapon of white supremacy and a means of public lynching.”

John frowned. “I believe each person is his own decisive moral agent.”

Edith's eyes flashed. “You don't attribute anything to environment?”

“I think people need to be responsible for their actions. Especially when we're talking about taking another human life. We can't just let murderers go free. If we don't execute them, more murders will be committed that otherwise would have been deterred.”

“Utter speculation,” Edith snapped. “The death penalty is morally indefensible.”

“Samuel Johnson wrote about the executions of children who stole loaves of bread and how their public hangings became fertile ground for pickpockets,” David interjected. “No deterring crime there.”

“It was Boswell quoting Dr. Johnson,” corrected John. David looked uncharacteristically cross, but John didn't notice. “The death penalty served to deter those considering murder—who hadn't yet committed to a course of action.”

“There's no difference in murder rates in states that have the death penalty and those that don't,” Maggie argued. “Not only that, but the application of the death penalty is unfair. For example, Wendell Cotton was sentenced by a bunch of old white men who could afford the poll tax. They are hardly his peers.”

“So you're saying you're against the death penalty because it's not fairly applied?” asked John.

“It's never going to be fairly applied,” Edith stated. Maggie gave a grim smile—at least they were on the same page about
something
.

“Still,” John persisted, “when I hear about an especially gruesome crime, I can't help rooting for the death penalty. How can you deny the pain of husbands and wives, and fathers and mothers who are left to grieve? They want vengeance. They want peace—the peace of knowing their loved one's killer is gone from the world. And I believe they should have it.”

“But do you think our legal system should be in the business of doling out vengeance?” Edith asked. “Death, the ultimate punishment, for which there can never be any correction? There's shameful racism in our justice system that's a call for humility and self-awareness, not more death!”

David looked around at the angry faces. “More tea, anyone?” he tried.

Maggie realized that it was indeed time to change the subject. “Oh, and I have presents for all of you! Sorry no time to wrap them, but as we say in Blighty—‘There's a war on, you know'—paper rationing.”

“I've heard of
The Sun Is My Undoing,
” Aunt Edith said, thawing slightly as she accepted her book. “
The
New York Times
gave it a good review. Thank you, Margaret.”

As David tried not to snicker at Maggie's being called Margaret, she handed him
Little Women
. “I know it may not look like your sort of thing,” she said, “but it's as all-American as you can get, and one of my favorite books when I was younger.”

“I shall treasure it always,” assured David.

“And this is for you.” She handed John F. Scott Fitzgerald's
The Last Tycoon
.

“An American author,” he grumbled. “I don't read Americans. With an exception for Charles G. D. Roberts, but he's a poet, and Canadian at that. But I'll try your Fitzgerald.” Under the table, Maggie pulled out her shopping bag, tilted it, and gave John a peek at the lingerie. His eyebrows rose in appreciation.

David glanced down at his watch. “So sorry to break up the party, Professor Hope, Maggie, but I'm afraid we must go. The Boss needs us to hold his hand while he gets ready for his speech at the Christmas-tree lighting.”

“Professor Hope, you must join us,” John added.

Edith was not convinced. “I abhor crowds.”

David winked at Maggie as he took care of the bill. “Well, ma'am, we'll make sure you have the best seat in the White House.”

As Edith rose, he gave a courtly bow. “And, really,” he asked, offering his arm, “how often does one have the chance to hear someone say that?”

In the District, it was cold and damp. As the sun set, the silver clouds became touched with orange and the air turned even more chill.

But that didn't stop nearly twenty thousand people from wanting to get a glimpse of the White House Christmas tree—this year on the South Lawn—and hear the President and Prime Minister speak. “No cameras, no packages!” the security staff called as people made their way through bare trees in the fading light, a crescent moon tangled in strands of fog. As the Marine band played “Joy to the World” and “Adeste fideles,” choirs from a multitude of churches sang.

David was true to his word. Aunt Edith had a place near the guests of honor in attendance, including the prizefighter Joe Louis and Crown Prince Olaf and Crown Princess Martha of Norway. Maggie was busy with the P.M. but pleased that when she had a moment to check in on her aunt, Edith's eyes were wide and her mouth just slightly open.
Well, maybe a first-row seat at the White House is what will finally impress her,
Maggie thought, amused. She also did a quick scan for her follower from earlier in the day. But it was impossible to spot individuals in the throng.

There was an invocation by His Excellency, the Most Reverend Joseph Corrigan, the rector of Catholic University, then introductory remarks by the Honorable Guy Mason, Commissioner of the District of Columbia.

And then, what everyone was waiting for—Christmas greetings from the President and Mrs. Roosevelt. “Our strongest weapon in the war is that connection of the dignity and brotherhood which Christmas Day symbolizes,” the President said, standing with the help of two aides. “More than any other day or any other symbol. And so,” he said, flashing another irresistible grin, “I am asking my associate, my old and good friend, to say a word to the people of America, old and young, tonight—Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of Great Britain.”

Mr. Churchill rose and walked to the podium amid deafening applause, welcomed by the American people like a prodigal son. He positioned himself in front of a forest of microphones and waited, fingertips under the lapels of his coat, for the crowd to quiet. “I spend this anniversary and festival far from my country, far from my family,” he intoned. “Yet I cannot truthfully say that I feel far from home. Whether it be the ties of blood on my mother's side, or the friendships I have developed here over many years of active life, or the commanding sentiment of comradeship in the common cause of great peoples who speak the same language, who kneel at the same altars and, to a very large extent, pursue the same ideals, I cannot feel myself a stranger here in the center of the summit of the United States.”

It was a magical moment. David, John, and Maggie all caught each other's eye and nodded. They'd come a long way, both literally and figuratively, to get to this place, to this time, and they knew it had all been worth it.

In his plummy tones, Churchill continued. “I feel a sense of unity and fraternal association, which, added to the kindliness of your welcome, convinces me that I have a right to sit at your fireside and share your Christmas joys.” He beamed. “And so, in God's mercy, a happy Christmas to you all.”

There was wild applause and cheers and then a countdown. As the tree's colored lights sparked on, the crowd gasped, then applauded. The enormous evergreen glimmered in the darkness, and the band played “God Save the King” and “The Star-Spangled Banner.” As the United States's national anthem was played, Maggie noted with amusement that Fala stood at perfect attention. And, when it was over, he flopped back onto the wool blanket in his basket.

Aunt Edith glanced back at Maggie and smiled. Maggie felt a glow of pride. And she felt, too, the bittersweet knowledge that she would never be able to tell her aunt the whole truth.

Byrd Prentiss was also at the tree lighting. He made his way through the crowd to the press section. “Thomas O'Brian? I'm looking for Thomas O'Brian,
Buffalo Evening News
?”

Tom had finished his last photographs. “I'm Tom O'Brian,” he said.

Prentiss strode over and stuck out his hand. “Byrd Prentiss, Governor King's representative in Washington. We spoke by telephone earlier today.”

Tom took the offered hand and shook. “Yes, good to meet you in person.”

“As I mentioned, we have someone in common,” Prentiss continued. “My fiancée is—was—Blanche Balfour. Her mother was born there and her grandparents still live in Buffalo—on Bidwell Parkway.”

“I grew up not far from Bidwell,” Tom said, nodding. “I'm sorry for your loss.”

“May we talk in private?” Prentiss led Tom away from the crowd, to a more shadowed section of the White House lawn. “I didn't want to say this over the telephone, but the thing is,” he said, “I don't believe Blanche's death was a suicide. I believe it was foul play. In fact, I'm convinced Blanche was murdered.”

Tom stared at him, trying to read his eyes. “What makes you think she was murdered?”

Prentiss lowered his voice. “Blanche knew she was in danger.” He pulled out an envelope from the pocket of his camel-hair coat. “She told me to keep this, and open it only if something happened to her.” He handed it to Tom. “Well, now something
has
happened to her. And of course I opened it and read it. What I found was, well, shocking.”

Tom opened the envelope and began reading the note.

To my darling Byrd,

If you're reading this now, something terrible has happened to me.

For I believe myself to be in danger.

The First Lady of the United States of America, Eleanor Roosevelt, has—I'm ashamed even to say it—tried to kiss me. And, I blush to write this, more. When I refused her advances, she said she would ruin my good name in Washington and that I'd never find respectable work again.

I told her I'd never say anything. I told her that it would stay our secret. But if you're reading this, it means Mrs. Roosevelt has made good on her threat to make sure I couldn't tell a living soul about what happened—what she tried to do.

I will always love you, darling—

Your Blanche

Tom's eyes widened, even as he shivered in the misty cold.

“My beloved fiancée was murdered,” Prentiss insisted. “I believe by the Roosevelt Administration—to cover up a potential scandal.”

“Holy…” Tom was speechless.

“Yes, it's the story of a career,” Prentiss said. “
Your
career.”

Tom reread the letter. “There's no date.”

“She—she gave it to me the last time I saw her, on December twenty-first.”

“And she died on the twenty-second.”

“Yes.”

Tom's dark eyes narrowed. “Why don't you take this to the police?”

“The police aren't interested in any potential scandal concerning the First Lady. But if Blanche was murdered—”

“Her name could be cleared of the suicide and her killer brought to justice. But…Mrs. Roosevelt…”

“Exactly.”

Tom whistled. “It would be a huge story. Huge. And not the sort of thing a cub reporter from Buffalo usually gets to break.” He gave a rueful smile. “So, why bring this story to me? Why not
The Washington Post
or
The New York Times
or one of the other big papers?”

“They're in the pockets of the Roosevelts,” Prentiss said. “Look, I just want some justice for my poor Blanche. I want her family to know she didn't kill herself—that she would never have done such a thing. That she was a pure, honest, God-fearing woman. And I want the world to know that the Roosevelts murdered her. The Roosevelts' papers won't help me. But I'm hoping you can.”

“May I keep this letter? At least for now?” Tom asked.

“Of course.”

“I'll be in touch,” Tom said, placing it in his suit's breast pocket.

“Thank you, Mr. O'Brian.” Prentiss turned to walk away in the darkness. “I look forward to hearing what you discover. And reading the story you write.”

That evening, Churchill and his staff joined the Roosevelts for Christmas Eve dinner at the White House, where instead of the British holiday favorite of goose, the P.M. dined on roasted turkey, oyster and sausage stuffing with sage, and cranberry sauce flavored with orange zest. Aunt Edith had been invited as well, seated between Lord Beaverbrook and Ambassador Halifax, and speaking earnestly with Eleanor Roosevelt about supporting women scholars in math and the sciences.

When it was time to leave, Maggie smiled at John and squeezed his arm. Then she suggested to her aunt, “Let's all take a taxi together, shall we? Where are you staying?”

Aunt Edith gave an owlish blink. “Why, with you, of course.”

“With—with me?” Maggie managed. She didn't dare look at John.

“Why yes, ‘no room at the inn'—or at the hotels either with all the military personnel converging on Washington,” her aunt replied. “So I left my suitcase with the concierge at the Mayflower. You and I can have tea and knit and listen to the wireless”—for the first time, the woman gazed at Maggie with something approximating maternal affection—“just like old times.”

“Yes,” Maggie said, refusing to think of the new negligee still enfolded in delicate silver tissue-paper wrapping in her shopping bag, “like old times. Perfect. Absolutely…perfect.”

Clara Hess, General von Bayer, and General Kemp were in Chatswell Hall's wood-paneled library, listening to Goebbels's Christmas Eve speech on the wireless. They were enjoying a bottle of fine cognac that Lord Abernathy had given to them as his gift, sipping from their teacups while the fire crackled and popped behind the massive andirons.

“There are few presents under the Christmas tree this year,”
Goebbels's voice intoned.
“The effects of the war are evident there as well. We have sent our Christmas candles to the Eastern Front, where our soldiers need them more than we do. Rather than producing dolls, castles, lead soldiers, and toy guns, our factories have been producing things essential for the war effort….The great task demands the same sacrifice from us! The hardest demands are on our soldiers. The same is true for all Germans abroad. They often live in an entirely foreign, sometimes hostile, world.”

Clara snorted. “Ha!”

Kemp raised his chipped teacup.
“Prost!”

Goebbels continued,
“It should not surprise us that we are not always loved as we defend our right to life. Envy and distrust, hatred and persecution often surround our fellow countrymen. We read about it occasionally in the newspapers, but they experience it every day.
Today, they are at least connected to us by radio.”

Clara and Kemp shared a wan smile.

“Earlier we sang of peace on earth in our songs. Now the time has come to fight for it. Peace through victory! That is our slogan.”

Von Bayer rose and walked over to the wooden wireless, turning the black knob to shut it off with a loud click.

“But—but he wasn't finished!” Kemp protested, nearly causing his cognac to spill from the cup.

“Oh, but he is,” said Bayer. “That…
midget
…is completely finished.” He began to pace in front of the fireplace, his good eye blazing with rage. “It's a scandal! It's shameful! Regarded objectively, it's a speech of absolute despair. Do you two have a different impression?”

Kemp considered. “At the beginning, I thought something was coming. But the speech's goal was simply to urge the people to accept measures that are already in existence. And it was quite senseless not to close on the note of confidence in the Führer.
That
ought to have been the conclusion—but no, off he went yet again.”

Clara's eyes were dim. “I'd hoped he was going to announce something of special importance, too.”

Von Bayer continued to pace. “It's disgusting! It ought to have been a brief, concise speech, couched in serious terms, lasting half an hour at the most. But instead it was a typical beer-house tirade.” He leaned against the marble mantel and stared into the dancing flames. “I am ashamed of the impression these fellows make on the world! Ashamed!”

He pivoted to face Clara and Kemp. “If I had the chance, I should like to speak directly to Goebbels. I've heard about how delightful and charming he can be, from people who know him well. But in these matters—no! A man who was there told me that he gave a lecture on the conduct of propaganda, and said his philosophy was ‘The masses themselves are stupid, you can do what you like with them.' That's what Herr Goebbels thinks of people. Of our own people!”

“Yes, that's Joseph,” Clara said, smoothing her skirt. She slipped off her shoes and tucked her legs under her.

Von Bayer refilled Clara's cup. “You know him, don't you?”

“I do.” Coiled in her seat, Clara drew out a cigarette.

Both men nearly fell over themselves in their haste to light it, but Kemp got there first with his monogrammed lighter and flickering flame. Kemp turned on von Bayer. “But it is not the right thing to throw all the blame on the Führer.” He narrowed his eyes. “Especially for those people who always used to cheer him the loudest.”

Von Bayer's lip curled. “I can say, with pride, that I
never
cheered him.”

“What?” Kemp looked horrified. “Above all there's one thing which we must not forget—that we have given our oath. After all, Hitler is our Führer. Goebbels is his right-hand man. And here you are, every day pulling them to pieces. If we adopt that attitude, then in time we shall become great friends of England and enemies of Germany.” He raised a defiant fist. “We must continue to support our Fatherland!”

Clara took a long drag on her cigarette and blew out a curling wisp of gray smoke. “If only we hadn't started this tomfool war—it was so unnecessary. After we had Austria and Czechoslovakia, we should have stopped.” She looked at the long shadows flickering up the yellow walls. “Everything was marvelous! The worst mistake we made in this war was not to invade England after the French campaign. Even if it had meant hundreds of thousands of casualties. And now the Russian campaign is costing us a million dead. And more.”