sticks, to handling the short end, as they said in Fayette County.
Harry had been well pleased by Jess’s organization of the Madame Marcia meeting. Until then, the Duchess had never really taken to the idea of Warren and herself in the White House. The Senate suited her just fine. Warren, too, she said; and he would echo her. But what Warren said and what he thought were often two different things, according to Harry Daugherty, who knew Warren—or W.G., as he called him—best of all.
Twenty years earlier, when Daugherty had begun to realize that his own career would never go much higher than that of a party chairman, he had decided to conduct a high-powered career by proxy. When he had met the remarkably handsome Warren Gamaliel Harding early one morning in the front yard of Richwood’s Globe Hotel, some fifteen miles from Marion, he had decided there and then that this handsome young state legislator and newspaper publisher was going to go all the way to the stars, or so Daugherty now told the story, and as he did, W.G. would half-smile that smile of his and stare off into space, eyes half-shut, head half-tilted. Jess had known both of them long enough to have heard the story become more and more elaborate, as W.G. had risen, in a zig-zag way, with a lot more zags then any of them had anticipated. After two terms in the state senate, W.G. had zigged into the lieutenant governorship of the state; served one term; went back to editing the profitable Marion
Star
, with considerable help from the Duchess, who was inexorable when it came to collecting monies due. Six years later, in 1910, W.G. zagged disastrously when he ran for governor and was defeated. But two years later Daugherty had reversed the Harding fortunes when he maneuvered the Republican magnates into letting Warren give the nomination speech for William Howard Taft at the party’s convention. In a matter of hours, the handsome, sonorous, gray-haired, black-browed young politician was a national figure; and two years later, in 1914, he was elected to the United States Senate in the first election where senators were chosen not as the founders had intended, by state legislators, but by the people themselves. Now Daugherty was scheming to place his friend in the White House. What W.G. thought of all this, deep down, was a mystery to Jess. What the Duchess thought was often voiced: “I’ve seen the inside of the White House. There’s no taste or refinement there, which is maybe the fault of the Wilsons. Anyway, how can a body stand having all those people around all the time? Why, you can’t turn around you don’t see somebody lurking back of a potted palm, his eye on you.”
The Duchess was now in the room, busily straightening up, which meantthrowing cigar stubs into the grate of the coal-fire. “Where are you two going to go meet Colonel Roosevelt?”
“Mrs. Longworth’s house. Your favorite house, after the White House.” Daugherty enjoyed teasing the Duchess. As she had no sense of humor, she could tolerate quite a bit of joshing at her own expense.
“I’ve still never set foot there. Nor she here. And. I.” The Duchess spelled it out. “Am. The wife. Of the Senator. From Ohio. And Nick Longworth’s just a representative of a lot of no-good Germans from Cincinnati. Which he wouldn’t be today if my Warren hadn’t helped him get back in after he got licked in ’12, as well he should’ve been, the lecherous drunk.”
“Well, he
is
in Congress. And Alice is still the President’s daughter …”
“
Ex
-President. So stuck up. With her painted face. And cigarettes. And,” the Duchess’s thin mouth became a wide slit rather like that of a letter-box, “her cocaine.”
Jess sat bolt upright. This was what he lived for. The real inside about everything. Whaddaya know? was now answered in spades, “How do you know that?”
“The dentist.” The Duchess looked very pleased with herself. “I go to him. She goes to him. He prescribes
Harry had been well pleased by Jess’s organization of the Madame Marcia meeting. Until then, the Duchess had never really taken to the idea of Warren and herself in the White House. The Senate suited her just fine. Warren, too, she said; and he would echo her. But what Warren said and what he thought were often two different things, according to Harry Daugherty, who knew Warren—or W.G., as he called him—best of all.
Twenty years earlier, when Daugherty had begun to realize that his own career would never go much higher than that of a party chairman, he had decided to conduct a high-powered career by proxy. When he had met the remarkably handsome Warren Gamaliel Harding early one morning in the front yard of Richwood’s Globe Hotel, some fifteen miles from Marion, he had decided there and then that this handsome young state legislator and newspaper publisher was going to go all the way to the stars, or so Daugherty now told the story, and as he did, W.G. would half-smile that smile of his and stare off into space, eyes half-shut, head half-tilted. Jess had known both of them long enough to have heard the story become more and more elaborate, as W.G. had risen, in a zig-zag way, with a lot more zags then any of them had anticipated. After two terms in the state senate, W.G. had zigged into the lieutenant governorship of the state; served one term; went back to editing the profitable Marion
Star
, with considerable help from the Duchess, who was inexorable when it came to collecting monies due. Six years later, in 1910, W.G. zagged disastrously when he ran for governor and was defeated. But two years later Daugherty had reversed the Harding fortunes when he maneuvered the Republican magnates into letting Warren give the nomination speech for William Howard Taft at the party’s convention. In a matter of hours, the handsome, sonorous, gray-haired, black-browed young politician was a national figure; and two years later, in 1914, he was elected to the United States Senate in the first election where senators were chosen not as the founders had intended, by state legislators, but by the people themselves. Now Daugherty was scheming to place his friend in the White House. What W.G. thought of all this, deep down, was a mystery to Jess. What the Duchess thought was often voiced: “I’ve seen the inside of the White House. There’s no taste or refinement there, which is maybe the fault of the Wilsons. Anyway, how can a body stand having all those people around all the time? Why, you can’t turn around you don’t see somebody lurking back of a potted palm, his eye on you.”
The Duchess was now in the room, busily straightening up, which meantthrowing cigar stubs into the grate of the coal-fire. “Where are you two going to go meet Colonel Roosevelt?”
“Mrs. Longworth’s house. Your favorite house, after the White House.” Daugherty enjoyed teasing the Duchess. As she had no sense of humor, she could tolerate quite a bit of joshing at her own expense.
“I’ve still never set foot there. Nor she here. And. I.” The Duchess spelled it out. “Am. The wife. Of the Senator. From Ohio. And Nick Longworth’s just a representative of a lot of no-good Germans from Cincinnati. Which he wouldn’t be today if my Warren hadn’t helped him get back in after he got licked in ’12, as well he should’ve been, the lecherous drunk.”
“Well, he
is
in Congress. And Alice is still the President’s daughter …”
“
Ex
-President. So stuck up. With her painted face. And cigarettes. And,” the Duchess’s thin mouth became a wide slit rather like that of a letter-box, “her cocaine.”
Jess sat bolt upright. This was what he lived for. The real inside about everything. Whaddaya know? was now answered in spades, “How do you know that?”
“The dentist.” The Duchess looked very pleased with herself. “I go to him. She goes to him. He prescribes
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