Jack Higgins: The President’s Daughter

As they circled the floor, he said to Jacqueline, “Everything you said – everything – is true. She’s wonderful.”

“With such a father, she would be.”

He looked down at her with enormous tenderness. “You know, I think I never stopped loving you, Jacqueline,” he said. “If only-”

“Hush,” she said, putting her fingers to his lips. “I know, Jake, I know. But we can be happy with what we have.” She smiled. “Now, let’s put some life into those feet, Senator!”

He never saw her again, the years rolled on, his wife finally died from the leukemia that had plagued her for years, and it was a chance meeting with the French ambassador at a function in Washington three years after the Gulf War that brought him up to date. He and Teddy were standing with him on the lawn at the White House.

The ambassador said, “Congratulations would seem in order. I understand the Presidential nomination is yours for the asking.”

“A little premature,” Jake said. “There’s still Senator Freeman, if he decides to run.”

“Don’t listen to him, Mr. Ambassador, he can’t fail,” Teddy said.

“And I must believe you.” The ambassador turned to Cazalet. “After all, as everyone knows, Teddy is your éminence grise .”

“I suppose so.” Jake smiled. Then, he didn’t know why – was it the music? – he said, “Tell me, Ambassador, there’s a friend of mine I haven’t seen in many years, the Comtesse de Brissac – do you know her?”

An odd expression came over the ambassador’s face, then he said, “ Mon Dieu , I was forgetting. You saved her life in Vietnam.”

“Hell, I’d forgotten that one,” Teddy said. “That’s how you got your D.S.C.”

“You are not in touch?” the ambassador said.

“Not really.”

“The daughter was engaged to a Captain Guyon, a fine boy. I knew the family. Unfortunately, he was killed in the Gulf.”

“I am very sorry to hear that. And the Countess?”

“Cancer, my friend, at death’s door, as I understand it. A great pity.”

Cazalet said to Teddy, “I’ve got to get out of here, and fast. Two things.” He was walking rapidly along a White House corridor. “Get in touch with our Embassy in Paris and check on the present condition of the Comtesse de Brissac, then phone the airport and tell them to get the Gulfstream ready for a flight to Paris.”

His mother’s death a couple of years before had left him very wealthy, although with his interest in politics, he was content to put it all in a blind trust and leave the finances to others. However, it did give him the privileges of rank, and the Gulfstream private jet was one of them.

Teddy was already speaking over his mobile phone, and as they reached the limousine, said, “They’ll call me.” They got in the rear and he closed the glass partition between them and the driver. “Jake, is there trouble? Anything I should know about?”

Cazalet did an unusual thing for him during the day. He reached for the bar and selected a crystal glass. “Pour me a Scotch, Teddy.”

“Jake, are you okay?” Teddy said anxiously.

“Sure I am. The only woman I ever truly loved is dying of cancer and my daughter is all alone, so give me a Scotch.”

Teddy Grant’s eyes widened and he poured. “Daughter, Jake?”

Cazalet took the Scotch down in one swallow.

“That was good,” he said, and then he told him everything.

In the end, the mad dash across the Atlantic proved fruitless. Jacqueline de Brissac had died two weeks before. They had missed the funeral by five days. Cazalet seemed to find himself moving in slow motion and it was Teddy who saw to everything.

“She was laid to rest in the de Brissac family mausoleum. That’s in a cemetery at Valency,” he said, turning from the phone in their suite at the Ritz.

“Thanks, Teddy. We’ll pay our respects.”

Cazalet looked ten years older as they settled in the limousine, and Teddy Grant cared for him more than any other person on this earth, more even than he cared for his long-term partner, who was a professor of physics at Yale.

Cazalet was the brother he’d never had, who’d taken interest in his career ever since the cafeteria incident at Harvard, had given him a job with the family law firm, had given him the totally unique job of being his personal assistant, and Teddy had grabbed it.

Once, at a Senate committee meeting, he’d sat at Cazalet’s shoulder, monitoring and advising on the proceedings. Afterwards, a senior White House liaison had come up to Cazalet, fuming.

“Hell, Senator, I truly object to this little cocksucker constantly appearing at these proceedings. I didn’t ask for fags on this committee.”

The room went quiet. Jake Cazalet said, “Teddy Grant graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law school. He was awarded the Bronze Star for bravery in the field in Vietnam and the Vietnamese Cross of Valor. He also gave an arm for his country.” His face was terrible to see. “But more than that, he is my friend and his sexual orientation is his own affair.”

“Now, look here,” the other man said.

“No, you look here. I’m off the committee,” and Cazalet had turned to Grant. “Let’s go, Teddy.”

In the end, when the President had heard, it was the White House staffer who got moved, not Jake Cazalet, and Teddy had never forgotten that.

It was raining at the cemetery and slightly misty. There was a small records office, with a clerk on duty, and Teddy went in to find the location. He returned with a piece of paper and a single rose in a cellophane holder, got in the limousine, and spoke to the driver.

“Take the road north, then left at the top. We’ll get out there.”

He didn’t say anything to Cazalet, who sat there looking tired and tense. The cemetery was old and crowded with a forest of Gothic monuments and gravestones. When they got out, Teddy raised a black umbrella.

“This way.” They followed a narrow path. He checked the instructions on the paper again. “There it is, Senator,” he said, strangely formal.

The mausoleum was ornate, with an angel of death on top. There was an arched entrance to an oaken door banded with iron and the name de Brissac.

“I’d like to be alone, Teddy,” Cazalet told him.

“Of course.” Teddy gave him the rose and got back into the limousine.

Jake went into the porch at the door. There was a tablet listing the names of members of the family laid to rest there, but there was a separate one for the general. Jacqueline de Brissac’s name was in gold beneath it and newly inscribed.

There were some flower holders and Jake took the rose from its wrapping, kissed it, and slipped it into one of the holders, then he sat down on the stone bench and wept as he had never wept in his life before.

A little while later – he didn’t know how long – there was a footstep on the gravel, and he looked up. Marie de Brissac stood there, wearing a Burberry trenchcoat and a headscarf. She held a rose just like his own, and Teddy Grant stood behind her, his umbrella raised.

“Forgive me, Senator, this is my doing, but I thought she should know.”

“That’s all right, Teddy.” Cazalet was filled with emotion, his heart beating.

Teddy went back to the limousine and the two of them were left staring at each other. “Don’t be mad at him,” she said. “You see – I already know. My mother told me a year or two after we met at the Ball, when she was first ill. It was time, she said.”

She put her rose into one of the other holders. “There you are, Mama,” she said softly. “One from each of us, the two people in the world who loved you best.” She turned and smiled. “So here we are, Father.”

As Cazalet wept again, she put her arms around his neck and held him close.