“Franklin,” he said, “didn’t deal himself a dead man’s hand, did he?” He grinned again, the famous crinkling of the ugly face, and slapped the senator on the shoulder.
Charlotte, in her magpie way, moved a step closer, to hear what was said. In Polly Lockwood’s face she saw fear come and go; only a woman as quick as Charlotte would have caught the expression.
Patrick made a gesture and one of the waiters approached Lockwood and Polly with a tray on which there were two brimming glasses. Patrick took the tray and offered the glasses himself.
Recovering his own glass, Patrick proposed a toast. “To the President and his lady, health and long life!”
Emily looked for Philindros, to see if he was drinking. His glass was at his lips, but it was empty.
Charlotte and Patrick, chatting easily, took the Lockwoods over to see the new painting. The party murmur began again, and grew. The Lockwoods stayed for an hour, drifting from couple to couple like any other guests. Lockwood drank three glasses of champagne and his large scarred nose grew a little red. Smiles of endearment were smiled. Everyone there knew that this happened to him when he drank wine.
The Lockwoods left at eight and the rest followed them out the door within minutes. Julian and Emily were among the last to go. Charlotte saw Patrick’s eyes on Emily as she was helped into her wrap, and she wondered again about San Francisco. Julian as always was oblivious to Patrick’s ardor. He had been the same with Caroline, he was the same with Lockwood. President and assistant had barely spoken at the party.
Of course, thought Charlotte, Julian is alone with these people Patrick loves whenever he wants to be.
She kissed both Emily and Julian at the door; she had to tug at the lapels of Julian’s topcoat to make him bend over and give her his rough cheek. “Delicious,” said Charlotte after the kiss; “rather like a poodle just back from the hairdresser.” Julian and Emily went down the steps laughing, and on the brick sidewalk were surrounded by their Secret Service detail for the walk home. Snow fell through the glow of the streetlights and sparkled in Emily’s hair.
The Grahams turned away from the door. They were dining in tonight, the two of them alone.
A sofa had been drawn up before their Tissot, as before a fireplace, and they sat down to look at the painting. Houlkes offered them champagne. Charlotte took a glass, but Patrick waved his away.
The servants had cleared away the plates and glasses and napkins, and the air conditioning had sucked the last traces of tobacco smoke and perfume from the room. Nothing remained but the Grahams and their pictures and sculptures, and that vague disturbance which lingers after a party, as if some invisible thing were filling in the spaces. where the chattering guests had stood. It reminded Charlotte of sand running back into a hole. That, in turn, reminded her of a beach near Cannes where she had lain as a girl with a laughing mutilated lover.
“It’s so quiet,” she said to Patrick. “No Clive—that’s it!”
Charlotte straightened her back and shot a glance to the other end of the long room, as though expecting to see the rumpled figure of their uninvited guest sprawled on the duchesse brisée. Then, with a sigh, she subsided and looked again at their new Tissot.
“No more Clive at all, ever again,” Charlotte said, giving Patrick’s smooth hand a little squeeze. “But at least all his murderers were here tonight, weren’t they? Frosty and Julian and you and me. How chic! Clive would have loved it!”
“Frosty and Julian? You and me?” Patrick said in a biting voice.
“You don’t much like that, do you?” Charlotte squeezed his hand again. “Suppose I had named other murderers—Mallory and Susan, 0. N. Laster. Would you have snarled at me then?”
Charlotte looked into Patrick’s face. She could only see his profile: his eyes were fixed on the painting, he wouldn’t look at her. His lower lip was caught between his teeth and the skin was white where he bit himself.
“If Mallory had won, he would have been our guest of honor tonight,” Charlotte said. “You and I, darling, don’t care, really, who dies, as long as the survivors come and drink our champagne on Midwinter Night. They’re all the same.”
She saw that Patrick knew this at last. By tomorrow he would forget what he had learned.
Charlotte threw back her head, she had a finer throat than the girl in the Tissot, and drank her wine at a single swallow.
The Better Angels Page 38