460h?”
“He said he had sent word to General MacArthur to find Jimmy and tell him ‘ ” she said.
46 Then by now, Barbara, I would think Jimmy knows. But it will be as difficult for him to get back word from there as it is to reach him,”
“I was thinking before,” she said calmly, “that if anything should happen to Jimmy over there, the Whittaker name would die with him. I would really hate to see that happen.”
“I’m sure Jimmy will be all right,” Donovan said with a convic_ tion he did not feel.
“Something like this does strange things to you,” Barbara said.
“Of course it does,” he said comfortingly.
“I was just thinking,” she said, “that it would have been nice if Chesty had made her pregnant.”
“I beg your pardon?” Donovan said, astonished.
“Her,” Barbara Whittaker said, nodding out the window.
Donovan looked. Cynthia Chenowith was on the beach, her head wrapped in a kerchief, her hands jammed in the pockets of her trench coat.
Barbara Whittaker smiled at Donovan.
“Don’t be so naive, Bill,” she said. “If you took a young mistress, don’t you think Ruth would know9”
She smiled at his discomfiture.
“When I saw her out there,” Barbara went on, “I felt sorry for her. After Chesty, what’s left for her? And then I had another thought. I wanted so much for him to have a child. If there was a child, it wouldn’t quite be the end of everything.”
“There’s something I would like to ask you,” Donovan said, wondering if he was asking now because he desperately wanted to change the subject.
“Oh?”
“I talked with Chesty about this on our way to Washington,” he said, “and he was willing to let me have the house on Q Street.”
“I thought you had a place in Georgetown,” she said.
“We do,” he said. “I meant for… what I’m doing.”
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“I’m Coordinator of Information,” he said.
“Whatever you’re doing, Bill, it has nothing to do with information,” she said. “If I shouldn’t have asked, forgive me.”
“Information in the intelligence sense,” he said.
“Oh,” she said. “I thought you were trying to make me befie-V you were some kind of press agent.”
“That, too.” He chuckled. “I’ve got Bob Sherwood handling that. But, as I told Chesty, I need a house in Washington near the office-we’re Twenty-fifth and E-a place where I could put people up, have dinners, that sort of thing. Chesty was willing to let me have the house. I want to know if that’s all right with you.”
,It,s really Jimmy’s, you know. It was his father’s. But there’s no reason you can’t have it. Whatever happens to Jimmy, I don’t think he’d ever want to live in that old house. And he’ll get this one, Of course. I have no idea what it’s worth. And I can’t legally sell it.”
“I was thinking of leasing it.”
“If Chesty said you can have it, Bill, of course you can have it.”
“I am being paid a dollar a year,” he said. “How does that strike you as annual rent?”
“I don’t like it at all,” she said. “It seems as if Franklin, aided d abetted by his friend Wild Bill Donovan, is finally succeeding an in taking advantage of the Whittakers.”
“I’ll get an idea of what a fair rent would be and see if I can’t find the money.”
“No,” she said. “You misunderstand me. I don’t like it, but if Chesty would have rented it to you for a dollar a year, Jimmy would want me to do the same.”
“Pressing the bargain,” he said. “We talked about furnished.”
“I don’t want anything in that house,” she said bitterly. “Nothing. I don’t ever want to think about it again.”
“I’ll see if there’s anything of Chesty’s,” Donovan said. “And-”
“Nothing,” Barbara Whittaker said. “Nothing, Bill. Understand?”
“Yes,” he said.
She leaned up and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you for coming,” she said.
“If there’s anything I can do, Barbara..
“Keep Jimmy alive,” she said. “By fair means or foul. If you want to do something for Chesty or for me, do that.” don’t know what I could do.”