Capable of Honor (63 page)

“And now we shall see,” Frankly Unctuous said dryly, “whether so-called ‘emotionalism’ or Senator Munson’s notably calm and dispassionate appeal for support of the President carries the day. And also whether the ancient injunction to ‘say nothing but good of the dead,’ so strikingly followed just now by the Senator, is still respected and honored by his countrymen.”

“Al—a—bama!” cried the Secretary (Anna Hooper Bigelow of New Hampshire, her bony frame clad in a mustard-green sheath, wearing a purple toque topped by ostrich feathers pinned with an enormous rhinestone buckle, exercising the office of glory she had held for three successive conventions).

“Madam Secretary,” Alabama said in deep bass accents, “the great State of Alabama, where Southun hospitality flourishes and the win’s are sof’ an’ gennle—’

“All right,” the Speaker said as a few good-natured boos began across the floor, “all
right.”

“—casts 14 votes NO on the minority amendment.”

“A—laska!” cried Anna Hooper Bigelow.

“Alaska, the forty-ninth State, where summer’s suns and winter’s snows grace the fastest-growing State in the Union.”

“All
right,”
the Speaker said.

“—casts 9 votes YES for the minority amendment.”

“A—ri—zona!”

“Arizona casts 8 votes NO on the minority amendment.”

“Arkansas?”

“Arkansas, health resort of the nation, casts 20 votes NO on the minority amendment.”

“Ca—li—fornia!”—and there was a sudden waiting silence.

“Madame Secretary,” the strident voice of Esmé Harbellow Stryke announced, “there seems to be some division in the California delegation. We request a poll of the delegation.”

Twenty tense minutes later Anne Hooper Bigelow announced, “California votes 54 YES, 40 NO on the minority amendment!”

There were wild yells from the Knox camp, boos from the Jasonites, excited figurings and analyzings everywhere.

“Colorado?” Anna Hooper Bigelow said.

“Mrs. Knox,” said a lady from CBS, leaning over the box railing to peer with an intense brightness into Beth’s face, “how have you enjoyed the proceedings so far today?”

“Let me ask you a question,” Beth said coldly. “How have you got the gall to ask me such a thing after what has happened here tonight?”

“I’m paid for it, Mrs. Knox,” the lady from CBS said, flushing angrily. “Believe me, I don’t enjoy talking to you.”

“Nor I you,” Beth said, turning away.

“Mrs. Knox,” the lady from CBS appealed to Crystal in a placating tone, “Mrs. Knox, perhaps you can help me. I don’t mean to offend, honestly, but my network does want me to get a little interview, and I—well, I’m embarrassed and I really didn’t know what else to say to your mother-in-law to start it off. Have
you
any comment to make?”

“Just a minute,” Crystal said, pausing to listen as Delaware cast six votes YES on the minority amendment. “Yes,” she said slowly. “I think there has been a deliberate attempt to smear my father-in-law, to attach to him blame for something for which neither he nor his people are responsible; to place these whole proceedings on a basis of violence, demagoguery, and fear. I think this is foreign to our way of doing things in this country. I think Governor Jason will live to regret it.”

“Then you think,” CBS’ lady said, “that these charges against the Secretary of State that we have heard here are exaggerated?”

“I said untrue,” Crystal snapped, “I didn’t say exaggerated. What are you trying to do, anyway?”

“Just get an interview,” CBS lady said, apparently close to tears.

“I think you’ve had enough,” Crystal said shortly.

Dolly Munson was the only one left, but after a glance at her expression CBS hastily removed her elbow from the railing, got up, and walked away. “Darling,” she said with a chuckle as she met the lady columnist of the
Reporter
in the walkway beneath the stands, “I’ve just given the Knox women a fit, and am
I
going to have fun with them in my broadcast!” Five minutes later she was seated before the cameras, oblivious to the roll call still booming along over her head, saying sweet as cream:

“The women of the Knox family appear to be at the point of anger and tears tonight as the tactics of Secretary of State Orrin Knox are apparently backfiring in this explosively dramatic convention. In a mood of near-hysteria, Mrs. Beth Knox, the Secretary’s wife, refused to answer my questions just now about the violence which has claimed the lives of two young supporters of Mr. Knox’s opponent, Governor Edward M.—”

“Mrs. Jason,” the lady from
Newsweek
said with a chatty air on the other side of the auditorium, “isn’t this a thrilling and exciting evening for you!”

“It’s very interesting,” Ceil said cautiously. “Excuse me, did you hear Florida’s vote?”

“Against the minority amendment, I think,”
Newsweek
’s lady said. “Do you think your husband is going to win this roll call?”

“I have no idea,” Ceil said. “What do you think?”

“Oh, I
hope
so,”
Newsweek
said. “Tell me, how is the Governor? Is he confident?”

Ceil smiled.

“All candidates are confident at this stage, aren’t they? That’s part of it.”

“Mrs. Jason, Mrs. Jason,”
Newsweek
said coyly. “You’re being evasive with me, now!”

“No, I’m not,” Ceil said calmly, and after a second her interrogator decided to drop the coyness and try another approach.

“Are you looking forward to being in Washington?” she asked. Ceil gave her a polite smile.

“I always look forward to whatever I’m going to be doing, wherever I am. It’s part of leading a full life, don’t you think, to anticipate things rather than look back? I find it so.”

“Yes,” the lady from
Newsweek
agreed, momentarily stumped, while over the loudspeakers Idaho could be heard voting NO on the minority amendment. “Did you ever think,” she said doggedly, “when you married the Governor, that someday you might be the wife of the Vice President of the United States—perhaps even the President?”

“I was sure life with Ted would be interesting and rewarding and not dull,” Ceil said pleasantly. “I was right in that.”

“I see,”
Newsweek
said, thinking, God, she’s being a tough bitch. Doesn’t she know we’re on her side, for God’s sake?

“Tell me, Mrs. Jason,” she said in a deliberately nasty tone, “do you agree that Orrin Knox is a murderer, as your husband’s people said, and do you agree that he is responsible for the violence in this convention?”

This time, finally, she got a direct response. For just a second Ceil flashed her a look of naked dismay, followed by utter hostility. Then the courteous mask went on again.

“I think you are completely despicable,” she said politely. “Why don’t you go somewhere else?”

“Well,”
Newsweek
said, changing colors like some waspish little chameleon. “Well, I
will.”

And she did, and for several minutes, as she walked back to the periodicals section, had quite a struggle with herself. But discipline and training and knowing what was right decided the issue. “Just saw C. Jason,” she began typing her memo to New York. “She, Ted both confident. Looking forward to D.C. because quote I always look forward, it's part of leading full life, anticipated look back. Always knew life Ted be interesting wherever going, V.P., P. or what.” She had a story, did the lady, in Ceil Jason’s obvious horror of the way her husband was permitting his people to act in the convention, but it wasn’t going to appear in
Newsweek
even if the editors would have permitted it. She, no more than they, intended to help Orrin Knox with
anything.

“Illinois!” Anna Hooper Bigelow cried sharply. There was a pause and again the great hall hushed to a tense attention. One candidate’s home state was divided, what would the other—yes, there it came:

“Illinois demands a poll of the delegation, Madame Secretary.”

“The Secretary will poll,” the Speaker said.

“I don’t like it, Ted,” Bob Leffingwell said quietly at the Mark Hopkins. Its corridors were deserted now, only one guard remained on the door, no bands thumped and shuddered from below. Everyone was either at the Cow Palace or sitting enrapt before television. The candidate, his manager, a couple of secretaries in the outer office and a cop to bar the door were all that remained at headquarters tonight.

“I’m sorry for that,” Governor Jason said with an equal quietness. “I think it’s been quite effective so far. We’re leading in the vote right now, aren’t we?”

“So far,” Bob Leffingwell agreed. “I don’t think we’re going to win it, but—”

“But it’s going to be close. Very close.”

“Perhaps so. But I still don’t like—what’s been going on. I think it’s going to turn against you, before long. I think reaction is going to set in. This is an American crowd. They enjoy seeing people pushed, but sooner or later they react against it.”

“Just let them stay with me another twenty-four hours,” Ted said softly, “and I won’t care.”

“Won’t you?” Bob Leffingwell said thoughtfully, not looking at him, staring at the television set where Anna Hooper Bigelow was repeating, “Mrs. Harvey S. Rodebaugh, NO.” … “I should think you might.”

“Why? I’m not responsible for what’s going on there. I didn’t organize the chorus, that was Fred’s and LeGage’s and Rufus’ idea. I didn’t ask Roger Croy to take off into the stratosphere on a couple of no-good tramps—but I must say he was damned effective, and I don’t think Bob Munson managed to kill it much, either, particularly with the television boys helping us out and knocking down his remarks for us. I think it’s all been damned effective.”

“I’m not saying it isn’t effective,” Bob Leffingwell said slowly. “I’m interested to know you’re satisfied with it. And that you think you’re not responsible. The captain of his ship,’ to quote Roger Croy.…I thought you were.”

“I’m a passenger,” Ted Jason said. “I’ve been a passenger for six months and more.”

“You didn’t sound like a passenger yesterday. You told me to let COMFORT and DEFY and KEEP into this. You were giving all the orders then. It wasn’t my idea.”

“What has your idea been,” Ted inquired pleasantly, “except to issue sounds of warning and worry? I’ve been a little puzzled, sometimes.”

“My idea has been,” Bob Leffingwell said coldly, “that you should fight an honorable campaign and win or take your licking as the event turned out.”

“I don’t like to take lickings,” Governor Jason said blandly. “It isn’t part of my family pattern.…Look!” he said, turning toward Bob Leffingwell and tapping him firmly on the knee. “If the wild-eyed Negroes, the half-assed liberals, and the crazy conservative kooks want to link hands and dance around my Maypole, that’s their problem, not mine. I think it’s great to have their support, if it helps me win”—he hesitated for an infinitesimal fraction and some little warning thought flashed across Bob Leffingwell’s mind, so fleeting as to be almost subconscious—“this nomination.”

“You know Orrin’s people didn’t start that riot,” Bob Leffingwell said, “and you know he didn’t have a thing to do with it.
‘With-draw, mur-der-er’
My God, Ted, what are you getting into? And these blank-faced semi-storm troopers standing around like sick children playing games! We’re going to be lucky if we get out of this with no one else hurt. What are you letting it build up to?”

The Governor gave him a calm glance.

“You heard me talk with Orrin this morning. I told him I had told you to issue orders against any form of violence, didn’t I? And I had, hadn’t I? What more—”

“You know what more,” Bob Leffingwell said flatly. “You seem to think you score a point when the scum of San Francisco calls Orrin murderer. Who scores when the Majority Leader of the United States calls you Hitler?”

“I don’t lose in the minds of those who believe in me,” the Governor said softly, “Because they don’t believe it.”

“But decent people do,” Bob Leffingwell said, and quick as a shot Ted said,

“Oh?”

His companion flushed but stood his ground, while somewhere in front of them, quite forgotten now, Anna Hooper Bigelow reported patiently, “Horace B. Stevenson votes AYE.”

“Yes,” Bob Leffingwell said, “they do. And they are going to leave you because of it.”

“Oh, are they?” Governor Jason asked, still softly.

“Yes,” Bob Leffingwell said, unflinching.

“How soon?”

“Not long, if this continues.”

“I shall have to take this into account in making my plans,” the Governor said.

“You should,” Bob Leffingwell agreed.

There was a silence, while Anna Hooper Bigelow polled Justin B. Thompson, who voted NO, and Alicia Tiburoni, who voted AYE.

“So Patsy was right,” Ted said finally in a thoughtful voice. Bob Leffingwell shrugged.

“Patsy is often right, for the wrong reasons. I think we’d better listen to Illinois, now.”

“On a poll of the delegation,” Anna Hooper Bigelow announced, “Illinois casts 53 votes NO on the minority amendment, 20 votes AYE.”

“Orrin isn’t in very good shape,” the Governor said with satisfaction. “Even if,” he added gently, “the decent people
are
flocking to him.”

“You don’t care as long as you win, do you?”

Ted smiled pleasantly.

“Oh, I’m determined to, now … whatever I run for.” His expression suddenly became dead-serious. “Because, look you, my friend: no man tries for these offices at the top unless he has some conviction that he personally knows what is best for the country—unless he personally feels that he has a mission to try to put it into effect. There has to be—there is in all of us—some inner conviction that
we know best
and that we have simply got to try to do it. This may be mistaken, I grant you. Obviously history eliminates many who share the conviction equally. But underneath everything else, there’s that—the feeling of
‘I
want—
my
program—for
my
country.”

“But what would your program be?” Bob Leffingwell asked. “At the moment you’re nothing but a focus for discontents—a sort of political back fence on which all the unhappy little boys in the neighborhood are scribbling their dirty words against the President and Orrin Knox.…What do
you
stand for, in your mind? What positive program are you offering?”