Captains and The Kings (89 page)

They marched out together, laughingly chanting, "War, war, war! To arms!" Rory undressed in his room in the heavy silence which Timothy had exuded. Timothy sat by the window, in despair. What had possessed the usually discreet and exigent Rory? Why couldn't he have waited until the primaries, at least? He could not help himself. He turned his head and watched Rory pull his nightshirt on. "Why couldn't you have waited for the primaries?" "Because," said Rory, behind the muffling silk, "I don't think I will even make the primaries." The telephone rang and Timothy, cursing, answered it. There had been orders not to disturb the senator, yet the damned phone was ringing. "Who?" shouted Timothy. "Never heard of her! Tell her to go away, Jesus! What, she insists? 'Old friend of the senator's?' Well, damn it, what's her name, and I will report this intrusion to the manager." Rory was sitting on the bed taking off his slippers. Timothy looked at him with sparkling eyes of rage out of proportion to the "intrusion." "Some damned female demands to speak with you, Rory. She won't go away. The assistant manager says she is of an 'old and notable family in Boston.' Knows the family well, and he doesn't want to tell her to get off. Well? She's on the telephone. Shall I tell her to go to hell?" Maggie, thought Rory at once, and his haggard face was excited and suddenly filled with color. He trembled, staring, sitting on the bed. Maggie. "Some female you've bedded in Boston, no doubt," said Timothy with anger. He could not get over that infernal interview and took his rage out on Rory. "Maybe she's got a wood's colt to try to saddle you with; make good newspaper copy." Maggie, thought Rory, and he pushed himself to his feet and took the telephone. He moved like one in a daze, and did not look at Timothy. He could hardly speak for a moment. Then he almost whispered, "Maggie?" "Oh, Rory," she said, and her voice was filled with tears. "Oh, Rory, Rory." "Maggie," he said. The receiver had become wet in his hand. Her voice rang over the years, all those long years. And the years vanished. "Where are you, Maggie?" "At home, Rory. I don't know what made me call you, but I had to." Timothy could not believe what he saw. Rory's exhausted face was illuminated and smiling and shaken. He was a youth again, excited, bursting with joy, transfigured. He held the receiver in both hands, as if holding the hand of a beloved woman. "Maggie, Maggie," he said. "Why did you leave me, Maggie, my darlin'?" "I had to, Rory. Rory, I am still your wife. Your wife, Rory. I don't care that you married again. You are my husband. I've been faithful to you, Rory. I've loved you always." Her voice broke, and he could hear her sobbing. "It was your father, who separated us, Maggie. He did it, the-" She interrupted wildly. "No, Rory! It's time you knew the truth. I don't care what happens now. Papa and Aunt Emma are dead. I am all alone- your wife, Rory. It was your father who did it, who threatened Papa and me-and you, Rory. I did it for you, Rory. He would have ruined you, thrown you out, Rory. Your own father. We knew he meant it. So, I did it for you, more for you than for Papa and for myself." He stood in numb silence for a long moment or two. Then Marjorie said, "Rory? Are you still there, Rory?" "Yes," he said, in a most peculiar voice. He was staring at the wall now, and his pale blue eyes were wide and fixed, with the whites brightly glistening under the iris, and his face slack. Nothing showed in his expression, yet Timothy, watching with sudden intensity, felt that he was looking at a dangerous and deadly face, a mask that was terrifying. "You believe me, Rory," Marjorie was weeping. "I never lied to you, except in that last letter. I had to do it for you, my dearest." "Why didn't you tell me before, Maggie?" "I couldn't, not so long as Papa and Aunt Emma were alive. Papa died a month ago. Rory, perhaps I shouldn't have told you after all. What good does it do? But, I read you were here. I saw your photograph in the newspapers. Oh, Rory, I must be out of my mind to talk to you now! But I couldn't control myself; I had to hear your voice, for the very last time, Rory. It will have to content me the rest of my life, I am afraid. Oh, Rory." He shook himself all over, like someone shaking off dusty years and dead( grass and rising from them, renewed, after a long and lightless dream. "No, Maggie," he said. "Not for the last time. Maggie, I am giving a speech here tonight-" "I know, dear. I am coming to hear you. I should have been contentedt with that and not have intruded on you now-at this late day. Rory." "Maggie, afterwards, come up to my rooms." He paused. "Will you, Maggie?"," For God's sake, thought Timothy, who was astounded at the part of the' conversation he was hearing. A trollop, apparently. But Rory had a taste for trollops. This was no time in his career for a flaunting of strumpets in ( the face of public opinion. She must have been a memorable doxy to stir \ the experienced Rory like this. He was actually trembling. "Rory," he said. ) "Not tonight, for Christ's sake, Rory! You're in Boston!" \ Rory looked over his shoulder at him. "I am talking to my wife," he said, and his voice was full of a huge yet elated impatience. "Shut up." Timothy had been half-rising. He fell back weightily in his chair, his
head humming. His wife! Timothy's thoughts rang with wild surmises of bigamy, of madness, of polygamy, of threatened scandal, of a brood of unknown brats, of blackmail. The Press! He put his hands to his head and groaned. Rory was giving the number of his suite. Now his voice was the voice of a boy, speaking with his first love, exuberant, joyous, excited. His face was the face of a lover. His weariness was forgotten. He was bending over the telephone as if he would kiss it, devour it. His eyes shone and glittered, became deeply blue. lie glowed. He radiated delight. His voice was deep, shaken, stammering. Then he said, "Until tonight, my darling, my Maggie." He hung up the receiver, slowly, lingeringly, reluctantly, listening to the last when only silence was there. He turned to Timothy. He tried to speak, then sat down on the bed, clasping his hands on his knees, staring at the floor. His throat worked. He said, "It was Maggie. My wife." Then his face changed, became savage and terrible. "That son of a bitch. My father." Then he told the aghast Timothy. He spoke without emotion, but Timothy could sense the charge of rage and hatred that impelled his voice which was slow and without emphasis. "All these years," he said, and he seemed heavily indifferent. "All these wasted years. I haven't been alive. Only partly alive. He did that to me, and I thought he-I thought he had some feeling for me. He did that to me. He must have known what that would mean, but he didn't care. I could kill him. Perhaps I will." Now his look changed again, and his face was eloquent with sorrow and despair and incredulous acceptance. "He did that to me, his son." "Now, wait a minute, Rory," said Timothy, who was sweating with his own emotions. "I've known your father a long time, since you were only a child. If he did that, then he did it for you. A nice Boston girl, who couldn't meet his ambitions for you. You had to have someone who was -important-and spectacular, though I hate that word. Someone who was known, who could do you proud, as your father would say. Someone perfect for your position. Claudia is that. Perfect for the wife of a politician. Come on, Rory. You are a man, not a boy in his first, puberty. You must realize your father did it for you." "For me, for what?" Timothy tried to smile, and it was sickly. "You know what Kipling said about women. A woman's only a woman. But you are a man, with a future. Your father knew that. Give him his due, Rory. I know it must have hurt- when it happened. But you aren't a kid any longer. You have to be realistic. If the young lady is-willing-well, romp awhile with her tonight, though God knows how I'll manage it, to keep down scandal. She isn't a kid herself, any longer. How old? Thirty-three? Thirty-four? She should have had better sense than to call you, you a married man with four children. Women! A middle-aged woman, older than Claudia." "My wife," said Rory. "I never had any other wife, all these years. I comimitted the worst kind of bigamy when I married Claudia." "Who happens to be devoted to you," said Timothy, with pity. "Claudia loves only her image in the looking glass," said Rory, and so dismissed his wife. "Maggie. Let her in tonight, Tim. She's the only thing I have, and I mean it." He threw himself down on the bed and moved restlessly, as if hisi thoughts were too tumultuous to let him be still. "I'll take it all up with dear Papa, when I get home," he said. "I'll divorce Claudia. I'll marry Maggie again, and the hell with everything. 'Marry her again?' Why, I was always married to her, my Maggie, my darlin'." "Jaysus," said Timothy, and threw up his hands. "All these years of planning, and it comes to this! Rory, think of your future for a minute, just a minute." Was it really possible for a man to give up his whole life for a woman-a woman! Incredible, nightmarish. "I'm thinking," said Rory, and smiled, and turned on his side and slept\ like a contented child, satisfied at last after a long and weary day. Timothy watched the sleeping man for some time and felt broken with hopelessness. Not only had Rory talked devastatingly to the Press this afternoon, and would probably talk so tonight, though the general, himself, had hinted at discretion. But he had just entangled himself in an impossible and scandalous situation. No doubt that woman would slyly talk to reporters, too, simperingly, calling Rory her "husband," for God's sake. She would want to be important in the eyes of the public, and the hell with Rory's prospects. Timothy could just see her, pretending to be< meek and plaint, ogling her eyes, wetting her lips, affecting modesty, and burning with ambition. She would swing her little bottom seductively and look from under her lashes, and she would cling to Rory's arm publicly, and everything would fall into the trash barrel. The Press, already newly hostile to Rory, would go wild. "Jaysus," groaned Timothy. It was all over now, as they said, except for the shouting. He could see big black headlines all over the country. He could hear the bellows of indignation and incredulity. The Committee for Foreign Studies would be coldly satisfied. Timothy had a thought. It was very possible that that ambitious nobody< had been induced to do this to Rory Daniel Armagh-for a great deal of ^ money. Timothy tried to reach Joseph by telephone. He was not in Green Hills. He was not in Philadelphia. Where the hell is he? thought the desperate and sweltering Timothy. Where is he? No one knew. Like father, like son, said Timothy bitterly to himself: Probably in some discreet hotel I with a trollop, tonight of all nights. Timothy, to his shame, was taken with a childish desire to cry. He had served the Armaghs the greater part of his life, and he was full of grief for them, not for himself. He could hear the distant band playing "The Harp That Once Thro' Tara's Halls." All at once it sounded like a mournful dirge, of centuries of sadness. Why the hell did we pick that damned song? Timothy asked himself, and he wiped his eyes and cursed. All I need now, he thought, is to hear the banshees wailing the end of the Armagh ambitions-and a man's whole life. He was thinking of Joseph Armagh. Now he sniffled, and cried the bitter tears of a man, sparse and scalding.
Chapter 56
"Tim," said Rory, with a kind and admonishing look, as he dressed. "Don't take it so hard. Everything isn't lost, you know. What will be will be." "Don't be so fatalistic," said Timothy. "I come of a fatalistic race. Come on, Tim. Cheer up. Where's the Irish in you? Maybe what I say tonight to that big audience will-what is the phrase-ring round the world. Have a drink, Tim. This may even get me the nomination. I want a drink." "You've had enough. All right, it is half-past seven. Let's go downstairs." Never had he seen Rory so confident, so alert, so colorful, so potent. He also appeared larger and taller than usual, as if some power in him was expanding. His eyes glittered with excitement. He even hummed a little as he gave a last pat to his tie and shrugged his coat into position on his broad shoulders. He had brushed his hair until it shone like a red-gold helmet. Timothy, in the face of all that youth and romanticism, let himself hope a little. It was unfortunate that women could not vote. They would go mad for Rory Armagh, mindlessly mad. The rougher suffragettes vowed that men thought through their bellies. But women thought with their organs of generation, and Rory was the erotic dream of women. "For the first time," said Rory, as they went to the elevators accompanied by six bodyguards, "I feel, I really feel, that I will capture the nomination. There's an old saying: 'Let the people know.' I have confidence in the American people and their common sense." That's more than I have, thought Timothy. Still, he let himself hope. He blinked in the glare of the photographers' ignited powder as they took photographs of Rory near the elevators. Rory smiled and waved, and even those cynical members of the Press were surlily charmed. The enormous lobby below was crowded from wall to wall with heads, really nothing but heads, Timothy thought, for the crush, shoulder to shoulder, above and below, obliterated body and feet. The heads moved constantly, wordlessly bellowing, back and forth, pouring into eddies, into torrents, into swirls and backwaters and whirlpools, into roaring brooks and rivers and tributaries, into seething clots that dissolved to become bigger clots, larger whirlpools, broader rivers. There were hundreds of gray heads, red heads, brown heads, black heads, and auburn and yellow heads, mingling, blasting apart, milling, disappearing, reappearing. The noise was stupendous, a howling and clamor to be found nowhere else but in a frantic zoo out of control. Over them all floated one solid and writhing cloud of smoke. The lobby had gold damask walls and half-columns of walnut or mahogany, and there were many scintillating chandeliers, all lit, all swaying as if in a tropic wind. For it was very hot in the lobby and smelled of heavy smoke and sweat and pomade. There were few women there, except for a small number huddled for protection against the walls and absently guarded, from time to time, by their men who kept plunging into the torrents that filled the major part of the lobby. Doors at both ends of the lobby had been left open, and through them poured more men intent on joining the congested and yelling throngs already there. Some carried banners and flags. There were many white silk flags with a green harp imposed on them with the legend: "A Harp for a Harp!" "Erin go bragh!" was also seen on banners. A band was playing somewhere, patriotic songs and marches, and Irish ballads, inspiring those nearest to sing and enhance the general confusion and weltering roar. There were stairs on each side of the lobby, one set leading to dining rooms, the other to the ballroom. Men stood on them, brandishing whiskey glasses and yelping jovially and laughing, and milling up and down, and smoking, or happily pushing each other. All were sweating profusely and mopping foreheads with handkerchiefs like banners themselves. Uniformed men in blue and purple, employed by the hotel, tried to coax those frenzied, drunken, and shouting men up the stairs to the ballroom, and there was a large blue contingent of the Boston police also trying for the same end. They were frequently swept off their feet, helplessly. Glasses were pushed into their hands, and cigars. "Good God," said Timothy, half-pleased and half-dismayed. "This is far worse than Chicago." The elevators had opened on a shallow elevation above the lobby. The two men stood there, unseen for a moment or two, and surveyed the scene below. Hoarse voices surged up to them, clamoring, ebulliently babbling, and tumultuous pandemonium, senseless but joyous riot, feverish hubbub. And the heads seethed with increasing excitement, and the mobs increased and men fought to enter through the jammed doors and the band, losing its mind, devoted itself mainly to drums and trumpets, possibly in a last effort to be heard. Now a wave or breeze of air came to Rory and Timothy, and it was permeated with the smell of whiskey as well as sweat and pomade and smoke. It was both nauseating and choking and too hot and acrid. "Good old pols," said Rory, in Timothy's ear. He had to bend and put his mouth almost against Timothy's ear to be heard. "How many do you suppose are here?" "Thousands," said Timothy. The gold-colored carpet of the lobby could not be seen under that heaving carpet of heads moving in vapor. "Shouldn't wonder they'll start climbing the walls next or swinging from the chandeliers." Their bodyguard shifted uncomfortably close to them, in all that heat and stench, and new crowds were being disgorged by the elevators, all bawling, all waving to no one in particular, all bulging frenetically of eye, and all very, very drunk. To them the clot of men standing quietly close by was an impediment. They shoved against them, and cursed and glared, but did not as yet recognize Rory. "Nowhere into the ballroom but through this damned jungle," said Timothy. "Come on," said Rory. "You'd be first to complain if the place were half empty."