The Hellfire Club(35)

“Oh, that seems silly,” Margaret said.

“Why? We’re neighbors. People do say hi, Margaret.”

She rolled her eyes but relented, as he’d known she would. Even Margaret was not immune to a certain type of luminary.

They approached the Kennedys’ table; Bob Kennedy looked up and motioned them closer, his grin deployed instantly and convincingly. Charlie couldn’t help wondering if he himself would ever possess the same natural ease; it was definitely an asset in this town.

“You’re Winston Marder’s boy,” Bob Kennedy said, shaking his hand.

“That’s right,” Charlie said. “My wife, Margaret.”

“So nice to meet you,” Jackie said in her high, almost childlike voice as she delicately reached out to take Margaret’s hand. She was twenty-five but looked eighteen. “You must be the zoologist I’ve heard so much about!”

“Yes,” said Margaret bashfully, unsure of what Jackie had heard and knowing how odd it was for a congressman’s wife to have an actual career. Jackie herself had been the “Inquiring Camera Girl” for the Washington Times-Herald, though her career seemed to have ended with her marriage to the senator, as was standard. It made Margaret feel self-conscious and she wondered if other wives thought her selfish or a freak.

“Jack,” Bob said, “this is the congressman that’s taking on Goodstone. Father told us about it.”

His older brother nodded and looked appraisingly at Charlie. “I see,” he said noncommittally.

“That was a risky venture, what with General Kinetics making a move on them,” Bob said. “Lot of money and jobs at stake.”

“Lot of lives at stake if they keep making cruddy products,” Margaret said. “Charlie lost a soldier because of one of their gas masks.” Charlie suddenly realized that she’d helped him finish that large carafe of Chianti over dinner.

Bob and Jack seemed taken aback at her boldness, but then Jack decided to smile, and Jackie and Ethel and Charlie exhaled.

“Quite a firecracker,” Jack said to his brother, as if the Marders weren’t standing right there.

“She’s my lodestar,” said Charlie somewhat dramatically, and then, having had his own fair share of Chianti, he found himself reciting a poem he’d read over and over in his tent in France:

A star, but no cold, heavenly star— A warm red star of welcome in the night.

Far off it burned upon the black hillside,

Sole star of earth in all that waste so wide— A little human lantern in the night,

Yet more to me than all the bright

Unfriendly stars of heaven, so cold and white.



He finished, slightly abashed at this impromptu tableside recital.

“Who is that?” asked Bob. “Gibson?”

“Yes, sir,” Charlie said. “And forgive me. The wine.”

Bob waved his hand to dismiss any self-consciousness.

“I’m not acquainted with Gibson,” said Jackie.

“Wilfrid Gibson,” said Jack. “British poet, served in the infantry on the western front in World War One. An admiral gave me a book of his poems after I got back from the island.”

“Well, it was just lovely,” said Jackie.

“Thank you,” said Charlie. “Got me through a few long nights, reading Gibson and thinking of this lady here.”

Margaret smiled indulgently and squeezed his arm lightly: a signal. “Anyway, we’ve taken up enough of your time.”

“Do you know Alan Seeger?” Jackie asked.

“Is he in Congress?” Margaret replied.

“No, he was in the French Foreign Legion during the Great War,” Jackie said. “He was killed in Belloy-en-Santerre.” She put her hand on her husband’s shoulder. “He wrote one of Jack’s favorite poems. He asks me to recite it sometimes.”

“Harvard man,” said Jack. “He joined the Foreign Legion because we hadn’t entered the war yet and he wanted to fight. Give us a sample, Jackie.”

His wife smiled and began.

I have a rendezvous with Death

At some disputed barricade

When Spring comes back with rustling shade

And apple-blossoms fill the air—

I have a rendezvous with Death

When Spring brings back blue days and fair.



She stopped and shrugged and Bob began to clap.

“Well done, girl,” he said.





Chapter Eleven





Monday, March 1, 1954—Morning


Georgetown, Washington, DC



Margaret sprang from her bed Monday morning at 5:30 as if answering a fire alarm. This was how mornings were for her in this early pregnant state; she snapped from a near-coma into high-adrenaline alertness. She made her way downstairs and started the percolator for Charlie, turning the nearby wall calendar to March while it brewed. The elm that stood in front of their town house was starting to sprout sawtooth leaves. The rising sun presented a clear sky. Was spring here?

The milk truck veered around the corner onto Dent Place; it belched exhaust, jerked forward, and came to an abrupt stop in the middle of the street. The milkman hopped out of his truck. He emptied a milk churn into six bottles and filled his metal carrier. A minute later, he walked up the steps of the Marders’ town house and shouted out to Margaret.