“Yes,” she said absently. “Thank you again.”
She paced a few steps, nervously, then moved to the yellow sofa nearest the fireplace and sat down, head bowed.
Dilman’s uneasiness increased. He wanted to escape. “I-I think you deserve some privacy. I’ll go.”
Her head came up, and she spoke as if she had not heard him. “You have a son, too, have you not, Senator? I can’t remember.”
“Yes. A twenty-year-old boy at Trafford University. In fact, he’s coming down to see me today.”
“It is wonderful, having a son. My own is at Andover.” Her eyes took in the room. “He so enjoyed coming here. He was so proud and thrilled. Like his father, he has a sense of history.”
Dilman did not know how he could reply or comment. He wanted to move the conversation away from the White House. Because it was difficult speaking to her across the table desk, he walked around it and sat on the corner of the other sofa. “Have you made any plans yet? Will you stay on in Washington?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so. Of course, Freddie will return to school. I believe I’ll settle in our Phoenix house. There’s so much, so very much, to be done. I want to go through T. C.’s papers. Princeton is preparing a special Presidential Wing to receive them. Then many fine scholars, historians, want to write biographies about my husband. I think they should. I think it’s my duty, difficult as it will be, to cooperate.” She paused. “By the way, Miss Laurel-she’s been our social secretary-Miss Laurel has consented to come along with me, to help handle the thousands of letters that have poured in, to help with the rest. I believe that you’ll have her resignation today. I hope you won’t mind?”
“Not at all,” said Dilman hastily. “She belongs with you.”
She was inspecting him once more. “You’re alone, I’m told. Who will run this place for you?”
“I’m sure it will run itself.”
“No. It needs someone. There is so much that goes on. It needs a woman. Find one-an experienced social secretary, at least.”
“I-I’ll try to find someone,” he said. “I’m fortunate to have Miss Foster.”
“She’ll be helpful, but she is limited. I might add, I’ve requested her to empty my husband’s files, and put them in some kind of order, and send them to me-you know, for the biographers. I promise, she won’t take too much time away from you.”
“Miss Foster and I will do anything to cooperate. I want to do whatever is possible to commemorate T. C.’s achievements and his leadership. No matter what, do not hesitate to call upon me.”
She was staring at him. “There is one thing,” she said slowly, but said no more.
“Please, anything-”
She pulled herself erect. Her manner was more candid now, more firm and forthright. “Perhaps what I am about to say I should not say. Perhaps it is out of line. Do not misunderstand. I am not being presumptuous. I may be moved by private emotion, but I choose to think that what is giving me strength to speak out is my concern for the millions of Americans who voted for my husband, backed him, depended upon him.” She caught her breath, and then rushed on. “Nothing I can do from this day forward, no gathering of his letters and documents, no publication of his speeches and life, can be one-tenth as useful as what you can do, Senator Dilman. You alone can truly perpetuate T. C.’s memory and the ideals for which he gave his life. You, and no other, can serve his voters and the future generations who will be grateful for what he accomplished. You yourself can be his best memorial.”
Her urgency troubled and bewildered Dilman, and the burden she was settling upon him made him wince inwardly. He did not speak, but waited, hoping that he was masking his dismay.
She went on. “You will be sitting in the chair T. C. was to have sat in these next critical seventeen months. You will be holding the pen he was to have held when his proposals and legislations come to your desk. You will be implementing decisions on matters here and abroad, decisions he had already made but had had no opportunity to carry out. You will be surrounded by good and wise men, Governor Talley, Secretary Eaton, Attorney General Kemmler, General Fortney, whom T. C. appointed, counted upon, whose advice he would have continued heeding, but whose words he can hear no longer.”
She paused. “I-I have no right to ask it, Senator Dilman, because now my husband is gone, and I am no longer a President’s wife but a private citizen and a widow. Nevertheless, I will ask it as a private citizen, one of the millions who put him in office to lead us. I will ask that you try-try your best-to-to perform in the next seventeen months as if the Saviour had resurrected T. C. inside your head and your heart.” Suddenly her voice broke, and her composure with it. “Oh, I know you can’t be T. C., but-” Her hand went to her wet eyes, and she murmured, “Oh, forgive me-”
He had come off the sofa, stirred, to embrace this good woman, but then, as he neared her, arm extended, he could see the blackness of his supplicating hand groping past her white face. He froze, then straightened, trying to find the right words to speak.
There was a light knocking on the door behind him. Startled, he spun around.
“Mr. President?” A platinum-haired, smartly dressed young female was speaking to him from the doorway. “I’m Miss Laurel, the White House social secretary. I have a worried call from Edna Foster. She’s trying to locate you. She says you are running behind schedule. Secretary Eaton and Governor Talley are in your office, and then the Cabinet meeting-”
Dilman nodded, distraughtly, then turned back to look down at the former First Lady. She had found her handkerchief and was dabbing at her eyes.
His voice thick, Dilman spoke to her. “You have my promise, ma’am. On any matter that confronts me, from this day on, I will think before I act-I will think of T. C. first. I can never be the man he was, except in one respect. I love my country as much as he did, and I will do everything I can to preserve its security and wellbeing, no matter what lies ahead.”
Quickly he left her, and as he did, he exposed T. C.’s widow, for the first time, to the full view of Miss Laurel, who was still standing at the doorway. Miss Laurel gasped at the sight of the handkerchief and tears, and ran past Dilman, crying out, “Hesper, dear-what is it? What is it? Don’t, my dear-everything will be all right.”
Dilman fled from the room into the hall, but Miss Laurel’s promise to T. C.’ widow, repeated over and over again, followed him to the elevator. Everything will be all right. These moments, if the alchemy were possible, he would have sold his soul to the devil to bring T. C. back. For he knew that he could never be T. C., because he was weak and he was black. Then, he thought, he crazily thought: an original sheet of paper is white, but the carbon is black, and often the carbon, copy, no matter how weak, is almost as useful. He would try. He would try with all his strength.
When he punched the elevator button, he felt better.
Slouched in the wooden antique chair alongside the Buchanan desk in the President’s Oval Office, Arthur Eaton crossed his legs, dropped the memorandum he had prepared for the Cabinet meeting in his lap, and tightened the navy blue knit tie higher between his button-down shirt collar. He brought out his silver holder, twisted a cigarette into it, lit it, puffed contentedly, and watched with amusement Wayne Talley’s impatient dartings about the office.
“Easy, Governor,” Eaton called out. “Save yourself for the Cabinet meeting.”
“If there’s going to be any,” Talley growled. “Why does he have to be late on a day like this? We’ll have only half the time we need to cram him.”