“You don’t think she’d be even more compromised by marrying me?”
“If I did, I would scarcely go out of my way to suggest it, would I? You’re bright, resilient, ambitious, and — allowing for the fact that you’re a lovesick teenager — quite level-headed. From my point of view, an ideal son-in-law. Bobo doubtless sees you in a different light, but I think, all in all, that she’s made a wise, even a prudent, choice.”
“What about the, quote, inequality of our circumstances, unquote? Isn’t that even more a consideration in the case of getting married?”
“No, for you’d be equals. My son-in-law could never be other than well-to-do. The marriage might not work, of course, but that risk exists in all marriages. And the odds for its working are, I should think, much better than the odds for the Boston trial balloon. You can’t dip your toes into marriage; you must plunge. What do you say?”
“What can I say? I’m flabbergasted.”
Whiting opened a silver cigarette case standing on his desk and turned it round to Daniel with a gesture of invitation.
“No thank you, I don’t smoke.”
“Nor do I, but this is grass. I always find that a bit of a buzz makes the decision-making process more interesting. Almost any process, really.” By way of further endorsement he took one of the cigarettes from the case, lit it, inhaled, and, still holding his breath, offered it to Daniel.
He shook his head, not believing it was marijuana.
Whiting shrugged, let out his breath, and sagged back in his leather chair.
“Let me tell you about pleasure, Daniel. It’s something young people have no understanding of.”
He took another toke, held it in, and offered the cigarette (coming from Grandison Whiting, you could not think of it as a joint) again to Daniel. Who, this time, accepted it.
Daniel had been stoned only three times in his life — once at Bob Lundgren’s farm with some of the work-crew from Spirit Lake, and twice with Boa. It wasn’t that he disapproved, or didn’t enjoy it, or that the stuff was so impossible to get hold of. He was afraid, simply that. Afraid he’d be busted and sent back to Spirit Lake.
“Pleasure,” said Grandison Whiting, lighting another cigarette for himself, “is the great good. It requires no explanations, no apologies. It is what is — the reason for continuing. One must arrange one’s life so that all pleasures are available. Not that there’s time to have them all. Everyone’s budget is limited in the end. But at your age, Daniel, you should be sampling the major varieties. In moderation. Sex, above all. Sex (perhaps after mystic transports, which come without our choosing) is always the most considerable, and cloys the least. But there is also something to be said for drugs, so long as you can hold on to your sanity, your health, and your own considered purpose in life. I gather, from the efforts you’re making to learn to be a musician, despite an evident inaptitude, that you wish to fly.”
“I… uh…”
Whiting waved away Daniel’s stillborn denial with the hand that held the cigarette. Its smoke, in the beam of the lamp, formed a delta of delicate curves.
“I do not fly myself. I’ve tried, but lack the gift, and have small patience with effort in that direction. But I have many good friends who do fly, even here in Iowa. One of them did not return, but every delight has its martyrs. I say this because it’s clear to me that you’ve made it your purpose in life to fly. I think, in your circumstances, that has been both ambitious and brave. But there are larger purposes, as I think you have begun to discover.”
“What is your purpose, Mr. Whiting? If you care to say.”
“I believe it is what you would call power. Not in the crude sense that one experiences power at Spirit Lake, not as brute coercion — but in a larger (and, I would hope, finer) sense. How to explain? Perhaps if I told you of my own mystical experience, the single such I’ve been gifted to have. If, that is, you can tolerate so long a detour from the business in hand?”
“So long as it’s scenic,” said Daniel, in a burst of what seemed to him show-stopping repartee. It was very direct grass.
“It happened when I was thirty-eight. I had just arrived in London. The euphoria of arrival was still in my blood. I had been meaning to go to an auction of carpets, but had spent the afternoon, instead, wandering eastward to the City, stopping in at various churches of Wren’s. But it was not in any of those that the lightning struck. It was as I was returning to my hotel room. I had placed the key in the lock, and turned it. I could feel, in the mechanical movement of the tumblers, the movements, it seemed, of the entire solar system: the earth turning on its axis, moving in its orbit, the forces exerted on its oceans, and on its body too, by the sun and moon. I’ve said ‘it seemed,’ but it was no seeming. I felt it, as God must feel it. I’d never believed in God before that moment, nor ever doubted Him since.”
“Power is turning a key in a lock?” Daniel asked, fuddled and fascinated in equal measure.
“It is to feel the consequences of one’s actions spread through the world. There is a picture downstairs — you may have noted it: Napoleon Musing at St. Helena, by Benjamin Haydon. He stands on a cliff, facing a garish sunset, and his shadow is thrown behind him, a huge shadow. Two seabirds circle in the void before him. And that is all. But it says everything, to me.” He fell into a considering silence, and then resumed: “It is an illusion, I suppose. All pleasures are, in the end, and all visions too. But it’s a powerful illusion, and it is what I offer you.”
“Thank you,” said Daniel.
Grandison Whiting lifted a questioning eyebrow.
Daniel smiled, by way of explanation. “Thank you. I can’t see any reason to go on being coy. I’m gratefuclass="underline" I accept. That is, if Boa will have me.”
“Done,” said Whiting, and held out his hand.
“Assuming,” he was careful to add, even as they shook on it, “that there are no strings attached.”
“I can’t promise that. But where there is agreement as to principle, a contract can always be negotiated. Shall we invite Bobo to join us now?”
“Sure. Though she can be a bit grouchy when she just wakes up.”
“Oh, I doubt she would have gone to sleep. After he’d accompanied you here, Roberts brought Bobo to my secretary’s office, where she has been able to observe our entire tête-a-tête over the closed circuit tv.” He looked over his shoulder and addressed the hidden camera (which must have been trained on Daniel all this while): “Your ordeal is over now, Bobo dear, so why don’t you join us?”
Daniel thought back over what he’d said to Whiting and decided that none of it was incriminating.
“I hope you don’t mind?” Whiting added, turning back to Daniel.
“Mind? It’s Boa who’ll mind. Me, I’m past being shocked. After all I’ve lived at Spirit Lake. The walls have ears there too. You haven’t bugged my room at home, have you?”
“No. Though my security officer advised me to.”
“I don’t suppose you’d tell me if you had.”
“Of course not.” He smiled, and there were those bony teeth again. “But you can take my word for it.”
When Boa arrived upon the scene, she was, as Daniel had predicted, in a temper over her father’s meddling (over, at least, the manner of it), but she was also pleased to be all at once engaged with a whole new set of destinies and decisions. Planning was Boa’s forte. Even as the champagne bubbled in her glass, she’d begun to consider the question of a date, and before the bottle was empty they’d settled on October 31. They both loved Halloween, and a Halloween wedding it was to be, with jack-o-lanterns everywhere, and the bride and groom in black and orange, and the wedding cake itself an orange cake, which was her favorite kind anyhow. Also (this was Grandison’s contribution) the wedding guests would be able to stay on for a fox hunt. It had been years since there had been a proper hunt at Worry, and nothing was so sure to bring Alethea round to a cheerful sense of the occasion.