Presidential Mission Read online

  “Fine, Governor! Thanks a million.”

  “The thanks arc all yours. And one thing more. Get me a visiting card out of that desk drawer.”

  Lanny had done this once before and knew where to look. The President took the card and wrote on it with his fountain pen: “My friend Lanny Budd is worthy of all trust. F.D.R.” He handed that to the secret agent, saying: “Better sew it up in the lining of your coat or some safe place, and use it only when you are sure it is needed.”

  The agent replied: “If I get into a jam with the enemy, I’ll chew it up and swallow it!” Little did he guess what a seer he would prove to be.

  IX

  Business first, then pleasure. “If you can spare the time,” said the Boss, “you might stay for tea and meet some of the family. You don’t have to be so carefully hidden from now on.”

  Lanny said he would be glad to stay. A button was pressed, and an amiable Negro man appeared, the same Prettyman whom Lanny had seen many times dozing in a chair just outside the President’s bedroom door. The master was wheeled from the library, up the ramp, and along the hall to the drawing-room at the other end of the house. There was a tea service waiting, and Lanny met for the first time the tall, active person whom the newspapers were wont to call the “First Lady of the Land,” and whose picture he had seen so many times.

  The First Lady was splendidly dressed in a pale blue panne-velvet gown, adorned with “diamond clips” in many places. She had the same delicate blond coloring of eyes and skin which had once caused Lanny to say of Bernard Shaw that he was the cleanest-looking person he had ever seen. In her story of her own life she had stated that since she had not been blessed with a pretty face she had had to cultivate other gifts. But Lanny thought her opinion of her own face was certainly a mistaken one; she was not only pretty, she was an exquisite person. Her blue eyes smiled constantly, even when she was occupied with the tall silver tea service. There was no trace of that gaucherie in gestures and posture which news-camera men somehow managed to put into her photographs. Perhaps their employers always chose the worst!

  Eleanor Roosevelt had been her name before her marriage—she was Franklin’s cousin. She had married him and brought up five children, whom her mother-in-law considered she was spoiling. Her political enemies had considered that these children wanted too much money, and too many divorces; but now the four tall sons were in the service and doing their painful duties, so that clamor was for the most part stilled.

  The young Eleanor had played tennis, and the mature Eleanor played politics, and in that game half the country finds fault with whatever you do and attributes it to the worst motives imaginable. The conservative half considered that Eleanor gadded about too much, especially in wartime; they insisted that woman’s place was the White House, and that it was a deplorable thing for a President’s wife to be filling the place up with all sorts of riffraff—movie actors and dancers and labor leaders and even Negro singers. They found it intolerable that she should go flying about the country, making speeches to women’s clubs and “radical” conventions and what not; they didn’t like the sound of her voice, rather high-pitched and tremulous over the radio, nor anything that she had said over a period of ten years. They insisted that she made too much money, and refused to pay attention to the statement that it all went to charity. In short, they just didn’t like her; and the worst of it was, she didn’t appear to mind it in the least, but went serenely ahead to manifest her able personality and give pleasure and advice to millions of the plain people who wanted it.

  Now here she was, seated behind a tea-table, smiling brightly. She knew that this caller had been in her husband’s service without pay, and was going off again on a dangerous mission. She set out to be agreeable to him, and he had no trouble in believing that it was because she really liked him and was interested in what he had to say. She had heard of his escape from Hongkong, and who wouldn’t want to hear about that? Lanny, who liked to talk, told about it; then he told about Ching-ling, the widow of Sun Yat-sen, founder of the modern Chinese Republic. She was another gracious lady, born just halfway round the globe, yet her social ideals and political program were in complete harmony with those of the First Lady of the Americans. So powerful are the forces which are making the modern world, and are making it one world, whether or not anybody wants it so.

  Lanny told about the cruise from Baltimore on the yacht Oriole, which had taken him to the Orient, and how on the night of the Japanese attack on Hongkong it had endeavored to steal out of the harbor. Four months had passed, and the yacht had never been heard from, so it must be presumed to be lost. The President remarked that of the many vessels which had made that attempt, seventeen were missing. Of course some might have been captured. “We may not know until the war is over, for our barbarous enemy pays no attention to the Hague Convention.”

  Mrs. Roosevelt asked about Reverdy Holdenhurst, owner of the yacht. She had never met him, but had heard of him. He was one of those “economic royalists” whom F.D.R. had pilloried, and who had responded with bitter hatred. “A strange, unhappy man,” Lanny said. “He was not equal to the battle of life, and he knew it, and clung to his money as his one form of distinction. I never gave him any hint concerning my attitude to the New Deal. It was enough that he put his money into Budd-Erling stock and enabled my father to expand more rapidly.”

  “Let him be admitted into heaven on that basis,” remarked the President.

  Lanny knew how to make himself agreeable, and also when to take his departure. When he arose, Mrs. Roosevelt said: “Tell your wife that when she is settled I shall be happy to call upon her.” Nothing could have been kinder, and he said so. As he drove back to New York he reflected upon the subject of how much a woman could do to make or mar the life of a public man. In how many of his crucial decisions had this man been guided by his wife’s advice, by the facts she put before him, and the people whom she introduced to him? What would he have been without her by his side? Would he even have survived his illness? Lanny, who had called himself “a feminist” from his boyhood, found confirmation of his creed.

  2

  Between Love and Duty

  I

  Laurel Creston’s friend Agnes Drury had shared Laurel’s apartment in the East Sixties, just off Park Avenue. Now Laurel had been around the world and come back with a husband; they could make room for him, but it was crowded. Laurel had said: “I’m afraid he’ll be leaving very soon.” Her unmarried friend replied: “I am curious to see what a man is like.”

  When the man returned from his errand up the Hudson, Agnes was in the kitchenette, preparing the evening meal. The new wife came and put herself in her husband’s arms. “Lanny,” she whispered, “I have been to the doctor.”

  “And what?”

  “He says it has happened.”

  “Sure?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Oh, grand!” He held her tightly, and she hid her pleasure in his coat. She was a little woman, and the top of her head just about came to his shoulder. He kissed her soft brown hair. “I am tickled to death,” he said. And when she asked: “Really? Truly?” he declared: “It will be an adventure for both of us, and make sure that we have to appreciate each other.”

  He had a twelve-year-old daughter in England, but hadn’t seen her for almost a year, and he had the sad belief that she would mean less and less to him as she grew up. She was Irma’s daughter, and Lanny was bored with Irma and her friends and everything they said and thought and did. But a child of Laurel Creston’s could grow up to be interested in what Lanny himself said and thought and did. He led his subdued bride to the sofa and put his arms about her, whispering delightful nothings to cheer her up and give her courage for woman’s long ordeal. He put off saving: “I have to leave in a week,” and instead remarked: “I ran into Mrs. Roosevelt, and she offered to call on you.”

  Laurel was surprised, and objected: “That wouldn’t be proper. I ought to call on her. She is the older woman.”<
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  “Well, drop her a line at Hyde Park and fix it up the way you think best. She is worth knowing, and some day you may want to write about her.”

  The wife didn’t say: “Where did you meet her, and how?” If Lanny wanted to tell that, he would do so; if he didn’t, she had to assume that he was bound by his orders, and she was bound not to “fish.” She was rigid about all duties, an ethical person. She didn’t even ask: “Have you found out when you are leaving?” Perhaps he wasn’t free to let her know that meeting the First Lady and getting his marching orders had any connection with each other. She had married him with the understanding that he was not free to tell her anything about his job.

  II

  Their next adventure was to be a visit to Newcastle, Connecticut. Lanny said: “How about driving up this evening? It only takes an hour or two.”

  The answer was: “I am a little tired and I’d rather rest and start fresh in the morning. I had to get some clothes, you know.”

  “Haven’t you a closet full?” he countered.

  “How manlike! Don’t you know how fashions change in half a year? And don’t you realize how much your own happiness depends upon my managing to please your family?”

  “Really, darling, you don’t have to worry about that. They will be delighted with you.”

  “Their delight may be increased if I look the way they think I ought to. For a man forty-two years old, you are still naïve, Lanny. You told me for how long they tried to get you married to an heiress.”

  “They gave up that hope long ago. I am sure they will be willing to settle for a bluestocking.” He chuckled.

  “Maybe so, but all the same I’m taking no chances. Whatever you think of them, I’m sure they think of themselves as very grand people.”

  He chuckled again. “They surely don’t think themselves any grander than your Uncle Reverdy thought himself. They wanted me to get married, and when they hear that I am ‘expecting,’ they will welcome you as the vessel of the Lord.”

  “We will go the first thing in the morning, and I’ll have a chance to make friends with your stepmother before I meet your father. One at a time!”

  Lanny telephoned to Newcastle and announced this program, and incidentally gave his father the medical tidings. He had announced their safe arrival on the previous evening, as soon as they had stepped off the plane from Newfoundland. Early the next morning Robbie had sent them a car for their use. That was Robbie’s way.

  Lanny inspected the spring costume which his wife had purchased, a blue frock and hat to match; he had told her that he liked her in blue, and so she had adopted it. She would take along the very grand fur coat which had been presented to her in Moscow, for you couldn’t count upon New England weather in early April. Lanny duly praised her taste, and then they went in to the supper which Agnes Drury had got ready—mostly out of cans, according to the custom of apartment dwellers in Manhattan. Agnes was a trained nurse whom Laurel had met in a boarding-house when she had first come to New York; they had teamed up and got along perfectly, because one went out to a job while the other sat at home and pecked at a typewriter. It would be still more convenient later on, for when Laurel needed help, she would become Agnes’s job, and Lanny could be sure that his wife was in competent hands.

  Only after they were alone in their room did he tell her: “Darling, I have to be leaving for Europe in about a week.”

  He saw her blanch. She had known it was coming, but that did not spare her the pain. He added quickly: “I am not going into Germany or any enemy-held country. I have positive orders on that. So there won’t be much danger.”

  “Yes, dear,” she forced herself to say. “Do your best to take care of yourself, for my sake.” She had had fair notice what she was marrying, and what her lot would be. She would never torment him with grief.

  “Millions of men are going into danger,” he reminded her, “and mine will be of the least.”

  “I know. I know, Lanny. I have my job, and I’ll do it and not allow myself to brood.”

  “My headquarters will be at Juan-les-Pins. Write me there; but of course nothing of a confidential nature. The Vichy censorship will read everything. Remember, I am an art expert.”

  “I understand. When do you expect to return?”

  “Usually I stay two or three months, depending upon what I run into. I will write to you frequently, and I may be able to drop you a hint by references to paintings I discover. Be on the watch for a double meaning in any names of painters or their subjects.” He didn’t say: “That is my code.”

  III

  Next morning they set out on their drive, by one of the bridges across the Harlem River and along the boulevard which borders the Sound. The weather favored them, and the fur coat stayed locked in the rumble seat of the car. They drove to what had once been the little town and now was the crowded port of Newcastle, and onto the higher ground where the masters of the community had their homes. Esther was out in the rose garden, waiting for them, and Robbie, busy though he was, came home at lunchtime to meet his oldest son and newest daughter.

  They were pleased with Laurel—how could they be otherwise? She was thirty-three, a settled woman who knew what she wanted, and presumably Lanny was it. She was what is technically known as a “lady,” and shared his peculiar ideas and interests. She was going to give him a child, and that was what all his parents wanted—the pair in Connecticut and the pair on the French Riviera. The former got their claim in first, inviting Laurel to come and live with them; but Laurel, forewarned, made it plain that the way of life she had established was necessary to her work. In New York she met the editors and publishers and got their advice. She was going to write several articles about what she had seen in China and Russia and then resume work upon a partly completed novel. Pregnancy wasn’t going to make any difference in her life, at least not for some time. A lady who knew her own mind!

  There was a whole flock of Budds and Budds-by-marriage who had to drop in and satisfy their curiosity; and there had to be a hurriedly got-up reception for all the friends at the country club. The visiting bride had to be driven to see that vast new fabricating plant which was turning out fighter planes, a new model every two or three months, the way things were going in this mad war. For a year or more the Budd-Erling had lagged behind the Spitfire, but now it was ahead, Robbie proudly announced, and marched his daughter-in-law through drafting rooms and “mock-up” rooms where it was being made absolutely certain that never again Would American flyers have to fear anything in the skies. There was a new phrase, “jet propulsion,” which Robbie barely whispered; he couldn’t show any of that because he had hidden it away somewhere in the deserts of the far Southwest.

  Laurel had heard about the Budd-Erling Aircraft Corporation, not merely from her husband but from her Uncle Reverdy. Now that he was presumed to be lost, she, as one of his heirs, would become a stock-holder—another way of being important among the Budds. She was seated in a sort of little handcar and was run through the immense plant, amid a considerable racket and what looked like confusion but wasn’t. She saw parts of planes coming down from overhead and being welded together; she saw them roll out of doors, taxi under their own power, and take off on test flights. That would be going on all day and all night, while she ate and while she slept and while she finished an anti-Nazi novel. It was part of the immense and horrifying price required to put three dictators out of business; and much as she hated war, she had to reconcile herself to it, and be glad that her new father-in-law had foreseen it for half a century, and had had his own way at least for the past half-dozen years.

  She had heard a lot about him, and she now put her shrewd mind to understanding his. He was nearing seventy but refused to make any concession to age. His hair was gray, but his frame was sturdy and unbowed. He was kind and generous to everyone he liked, but he was limited in his interests and set in his opinions, as hard as the concrete of his runways or the steel in the engines of his planes. The world was a pl
ace of battle, and his country was going to get on top, and he, the master of Budd-Erling Aircraft, was on top in his country and going to stay there. The way to get along with him was to take those things for granted.

  As to Esther Remsen Budd, Lanny’s stepmother, the problem was even simpler. Esther, too, was an ethical person, a daughter of the Puritans. The great lady of her town, she took her duties seriously, supported all worthy causes, and would not permit the Republican Party boss to bring to prominence in public life any man who neglected his family or got drunk in public. She quickly decided that this shrewd woman writer was exactly the proper person for her problem stepson, and had a long confidential talk with her, telling about Lanny as she had known him since his youth, and about men in general, and the necessity of managing them. When after a visit of two days the couple set out for New York, the gray-haired woman kissed the brown-haired one and told her that she was a member of the clan and free to call for their help at any time.

  IV

  Back in the city, Lanny visited the bookstores and found a couple of works on Arab and Moorish art, which he learned was mostly architecture, because the Prophet, seeking to put an end to idol worship, had banned all “images,” and the zealots of his faith had interpreted that to include painting. Lanny visited the Public Library and spent a couple of mornings reading diligently and making notes concerning arabesque doorways with carved interlacements, and mosaic floors with designs representing flowers, vines, and geometrical forms made out of pious sentences from the Koran.

  Also, there was his friend Zoltan Kertezsi, his associate in art matters for a couple of decades. Zoltan had never met Laurel, nor indeed heard of her; he was astonished when his friend dropped down out of the blue with a wife, and of course he wanted to meet the lady. A lonely old bachelor would stop in at the little apartment now and then, and when he had come to know this woman writer well, he told her a story that he had never told Lanny, the story of his losing the great love of his life. She had been a lady of high degree in Hungary, his native land, and had decided at long last that she did not care to marry a commoner.