Spearfield's Daughter (77 page)

Louise came out on to the wide porch of the big house as Cleo got out of the car. She no longer ran but walked sedately, as if she had at last decided that nothing in life was worth chasing. She spent a good deal of her time now looking backwards, at what she had missed, and one can't run safely while looking over one's shoulder.

She greeted Cleo warmly, like a long-lost friend. They had seen very little of each other since the episode in Washington; each had waited on the other to call and as time had gone on the calls had never been made. But there was no awkwardness now.

They sat out on the porch, tossing conversation as light as the breeze that wafted past them. Then Louise said, “Roger tells me there may be some blood spilled in the boardroom. Is that why you wanted to see him?”

Cleo nodded. “I understand you and Roger are joint owners of ten per cent of the stock?”

“I think so. I've never been interested in it.” She made a slight gesture of embarrassment. “I had a mother and father who brought me up to believe that it was—
grubby—
for a woman to concern herself with money. I know that's not the usual case, not in America. Isn't there some statistics that say women own more than half of America? Well, anyway. I've always had more than I needed and I just took it for granted. Every year I write cheques for charity and I suppose I think that's enough to ease my conscience.” She looked with almost innocent frankness at Cleo. “It isn't really, is it?”

Cleo felt she was in no position to judge; her own charity ran only to writing cheques. “Would you back me against Claudine?”

Louise smiled, like a cat that had been offered entrée to a dairy. “I think I might. But you'd still have to win over Roger. He's a Brisson, whatever else he is.”

“
I think he's appreciated the space I've given him on our Op. Ed. page for his articles on foreign affairs.”

“He thinks Alain might give him more space. They're both very conservative, you know.” She herself was conservative because she had never bothered to find out what liberalism was; she was army trained. “I don't know whether he's told you, but he has his eye on being Secretary of State when we have a Republican President next year.”

Cleo was not surprised at the information. She had become cynical enough to believe that in today's world, when bombast and violence were part of diplomacy, anyone could have aspirations to being a diplomat. Roger was neither bombastic nor violent, but he could learn to be.

“Claudine and Alain would back him for that,” Louise said. “She would adore to have him President, but unfortunately he was born in France of a French father. She would settle for Secretary of State.
My brother the Secretary—
I can hear it rolling off her tongue in a dozen languages. She would do a crash course at Berlitz in everything they teach.”

Louise had spent too much time alone in the past two years; she had lost her generosity and taken to practising malice. At least towards her sister-in-law.

“Would you back him?” she asked. “He'll need all the support he can get. But don't tell him I said so. Here he comes now.”

The big black Mercedes came up the driveway. He'll have to change
that,
Cleo thought, if he's to become Secretary of State. Detroit wouldn't want to be represented by a man who drove around in something from Stuttgart. He got out of the car, recognized Louise's visitor at once and bounded up the steps. But not before he had hesitated for a moment as if the two of them might be conspiring against him. He was learning the first defence of a diplomat, suspicion.

He kissed Cleo on the cheek, something he had taken to doing on their last two meetings. “What a delightful surprise!”

“I'll leave you two together,” said Louise, practising her own diplomacy. “I'll check with Lena to see how lunch is coming along.”

“Let's go for a walk,” Cleo said and started off down the steps.

Roger looked after her in surprise, then he followed. He attacked at once: “You're out here to see
if
I'll sell my stock.”

“Yours and Louise's. I understand it's held jointly.”

“You've been working on her?” He was still affable, if only just.

“No, not
working
on her. I have the feeling she'll do whatever you suggest.”

He nodded; she expected smugness, but there was none. “We're almost back on our old terms. Not quite, but nearly. About the stock—I've told Jerry Kibler I shan't sell. Why should I?”

“Of course. Why should you?” She, too, was being affable; but she knew it would get her nowhere. “Roger, Louise has told me you have your eye on State next year if there is a Republican President.”

“Yes,” he said cautiously. “I've talked to some of those who might be candidates. Governor Reagan, for one.”

“Have they committed themselves?”

“No candidate ever does, not this early. There are several other men who'd like to be Secretary. I shan't be the only runner. Would you back me if I became one of the favourites?”

“I might. I couldn't do it if I were not still the editor of the
Courier.
”

“No-o. But Alain has said he will back me, too. So I shall have the
Courier
behind me, no matter who's in the editor's chair. I'm sorry, Cleo. You're a far better editor than Alain will ever be and the paper can ill-afford to lose you. But blood is thicker than water, isn't that what they say? Blue blood, anyway,” he said, trying some of his sister's snobbery but smiling with it.

She went for the jugular, ashamed of herself; but there was no alternative. She had not consciously thought about the tactic on her way out here; it had been at the back of her mind, hidden, a secret weapon that shouldn't be used in decent warfare. But her father had told her of the chances he had missed because he had never gone for the jugular. She was not going to sacrifice what might be her only chance to stay at the
Courier.

“Do you ever think about any of the blood that was spilled at An Bai?”

He was shocked at her ruthlessness; he had always thought of her as
decent.
He looked about him, as if wondering how the assassin could have crept up on him here in his own grounds. Sparrows, unfrightened, randomly stapled the lawns with their tiny claws; a gardener abstractedly clipped a hedge
down
at the bottom of the slope. Cleo, too, looked abstracted, as if she were outside herself, like someone suffering from
petit mal,
not able to believe what the woman in her shape and with her name had just threatened.

“Good God, that was years ago! It's forgotten—”

“Not by me. I never forget it.” Not even if the memory had to be whipped up like a sleeping dog, like now.

He steadied himself, wanting a situation briefing. “Are you saying you will dig up all that if I don't sell my stock?”

“I don't care whether you sell it to me or not, so long as you back me against Alain as editor. And as publisher,” she added, all at once appreciating that Claudine, too, had to be got rid of. “I expect to own forty-two per cent of the stock by this afternoon. Your ten per cent, whether I own it or you give me your vote on it, will give me nominal control.”

“lf I say no?”

“I'll give all the An Bai stuff—I still have the story I wrote on it in my files—” She hadn't: she kept none of her material. But she knew she could write the story again as clearly as she had eleven years ago. “I'll give it to several Democrat Senators who I know wouldn't want you as Secretary of State—they're prejudiced against military men in that post. I saved your neck once, Roger. Now it's your turn to save mine.”

He let go a short harsh laugh. “There's no comparison. You're blackmailing me. I suppose you'll give your Senators that other bit of dirt, too.”

“An Bai will be enough. It's more than a bit of dirt.”

“Jesus Christ—” He looked at her eyeball to eyeball; it never happened in modern warfare, not to generals. “You must really want the
Courier.
”

“Not the paper itself so much. I just want to run it the way I've been running it. I didn't start this stock-buying. I want to be editor of the
Courier
just as much as you want to be Secretary of State. I'm only sorry I have to do it this way.”

“Horseshit.” He had never been vulgar-mouthed, at least not to ladies. “You'd do anything to get your own way. All you women are the same.”

She
was branded, she could see that; but he had lumped her with her sex. With Claudine, for instance: “I've never had to fight this way till I met the Brissons. It's just like An Bai, Roger. The end justifies the means. This isn't a moral war, either.”

Louise came out on to the porch and called them to lunch.

“Coming,” Roger said without looking at her. He changed his tactics, turned to pleading, though not abjectly. “Cleo, I can't just vote Claudine out of her paper. I'm her brother, for Christ's sake she's always looked on the
Courier
as hers—”

She had gone too far for any charity; she couldn't even write a cheque to ease her conscience. Conscience, she decided, had to give way to responsibility; she was fighting to keep other people besides herself in jobs, men like Joe Hamlyn and Carl Fishburg. Guilt, given intelligence, can always invent.

“It's her or me, Roger. Think who deserves your vote the most.”

She turned quickly and went up to Louise on the porch “I shan't stay for lunch—I have no appetitite. I think I'd better get back to town and get myself ready for this afternoon's shoot-out.”

“Is it going to be bloody?”

“I think it may well be.” She took Louise's hand, then leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek. She felt both hypocritical and sincere; she was genuinely fond of Louise, yet she had just threatened to shoot down her husband in flames. “But I'll survive.”

She drove away, turning in the car to look back. Roger still stood in the driveway staring after her. It struck her that he probably hated her more than Alain or Claudine did.

V

If the atmosphere in the boardroom had been charged two days ago, it was much worse this afternoon. I'm sitting
inside
a bomb, Cleo thought, one that has to explode within the next half-hour. No one would be able to prolong the suspense any longer than that. All at once she longed for Tom's company; then just as abruptly she was glad he wasn't here. She did not want him ever to learn how she had threatened Roger. If she won this afternoon, Roger would never tell anyone what had made him vote for her. If she lost, she would keep the story to herself forever. It would be cheap charity, like writing a cheque on a bottomless account, but it would help her conscience. No: she had to be honest with herself. It would
protect
her from Tom's contempt.

Claudine called the meeting to order as soon as the door closed. Cleo looked up the table at Roger, but he avoided her gaze.

“The first point,” said Claudine, looking down the table at Cleo, “is to repeat my offer to buy your stock.”

“It is not for sale,” said Cleo. “None of the forty-two per cent I now own.”

Jerry Kibler said nothing. He had told her that the sale of the Galloway stock had gone through; only the papers had to be exchanged. She had then told him she would do all her own talking, that she would look to him for advice only when she needed it. He had not demurred, seeing at once a far more determined woman than he had spoken to this morning. He wondered what had happened to her in the meantime.

Claudine nodded. “I understand you persuaded the Galloway trustees to sell to you. So it's stalemate as far as the stock situation goes. However, I am still the majority stockholder and I have Roger's support.”

“There's just one point,” said Stephen Jensen, dressed for business and not for sport. “None of us who has sold his stock has been formally dismissed from the board. We are still directors of the company.”

“Without voting rights,” said Claudine.

“I think I'll stay, anyway,” said Jensen and settled back in his chair. “As a spectator.”

Beaton, Stabler and Warburg looked at each other; Warburg half rose, then flopped back as the other two remained seated. He looked across the table at Kibler and shook his head as if to say,
This isn't going to be civilized.
Jerry grinned and nodded encouragingly.

“Then I take it there is really only one item of business,” said Cleo, carrying the attack up the table. “You mentioned some changes, Claudine. I expect that's the item.”

Claudine took her time. All at once she had doubts, something as foreign to her as humility. She could be destroying the
Courier
for the sake of her family pride. Her dignity had been dented by the success of the girl (well, woman) at the far end of the table; the
Courier
had indeed become Cleo Springfield's paper. But that had been her own fault; she had neglected her duties as publisher. If it was to be her paper again,
she
would have to move in full-time to the office next door. The
Courier
could be Alain's when she was dead. She dispelled her doubts and took out her axe.

“I propose that Cleo Spearfield be asked for her resignation as editor of the
Courier,
effective immediately.” She looked at Roger, who had sat gazing at the blank pad on the table in front of him as if nothing being said interested him. Then she looked down the table, past the spectators, at Cleo and Jerry.

“The voting, obviously, will be even, two against two. So I further propose that voting will be decided on the stock held by the respective parties.”

“Highly irregular,” said Stephen Jensen. “Of course that's only a spectator's opinion.”