VI
The firm of “R and R” hadn’t had a consultaion for some time, and they took this occasion to go into details about all their affairs and to plan what they would do in the future. Some of the concerns which Johannes had purchased in Germany were turning out the same sort of goods as Budd’s, which brought them into rivalry in various markets; but that didn’t trouble them, for the world was big, and there was no limit to the expansion of production. Lanny didn’t sit in at these conferences, but he heard some of the casual talk and gathered that the German capitalist was much less optimistic than the American. Johannes had had to work for his money, and knew what it was to face adversity; he wouldn’t expect to have summer weather during his entire cruise on the ocean of big business.
Robbie, on the other hand, was sure that for America, at least, the problem of permanent prosperity had been solved. He had got the ideal President of the United States this time; the Great Engineer, who didn’t have to be told what to do, because he understood the business machine in every part and knew exactly how to help American industry and finance to conquer the world. Just look at the way things were booming, orders piling in from every land! Budd’s had such a backlog that it could be sure of dividends for a couple of years if it never booked another order. Robbie said that the choicest stocks were now acquiring a scarcity value; people were putting them in safe-deposit boxes, and they no longer came on the market. “Don’t sell America short!” said one half of “R and R” to the other half.
There was only one cloud in Robbie’s sky, and that was his personal trouble with the business in Arabia. They talked about that at much length. Johannes advised Robbie to take his loss and get out; the place was too far away, and the factors beyond control. They had more than got back their investment, so why not call it a day? But Robbie was stubborn; it was a matter of principle. Johannes smiled and said: “I cannot afford to have principles. I am a businessman!”
All his life Lanny had sat and listened to such conversations, and learned how the world was run and how the wires were pulled. What firm of lawyers one had to employ in Washington if one wanted the American State Department to get busy with the British government and demand protection for an American oil property! What detective agency one employed if one wanted to be sure of keeping labor organizers out of a great manufacturing-plant! Or, if it was Germany, what Cabinet member one dealt with in order to get promptly the supply of rationed raw materials that one needed for export products! How to put one’s earnings back into new plant in such a way as to avoid income taxes! There were no laws that shrewd businessmen couldn’t find some way of getting round—and it was a good thing, because what was going to become of industry if governments kept on encroaching on all opportunities of profit?
The firm of “R and R” talked frankly in the presence of Lanny, because they didn’t take any of his “radical” ideas seriously; and maybe they were right about it. Johannes looked upon the Redness in his own family as a sort of measles, German measles, perhaps, which young people had, and the earlier they had them the quicker they got over them. Robbie told how Budd’s had put the Communists out of business in Connecticut, and Robin told how they were still doing it in Germany. They were using those Nazis—a dangerous weapon, but there appeared to be no other at hand. The steel and allied interests of the Fatherland were now paying a regular tribute of one-half of one percent of all their earnings into the treasury of Adolf Hitler’s party, and Johannes was paying his share; not that he liked to do it, but the emergency was extreme and a man couldn’t separate himself from all his associates.
A part of that money had to be spent for arms, and Johannes had used his influence to have the Nazis purchase several thousand submachine guns which Budd’s had made for the United States government during the war and which Johannes had bought at a great bargain, using cash put up by Robbie. That was the way capable businessmen took in money with both hands! Those little guns were marvels—they could be carried in one hand and fired from the shoulder like a rifle; they had been brought in through Holland canals, marked as agricultural implements, and unquestionably they had been the means of turning the tide of battle for the streets of Munich and Berlin.
VII
Esther asked Lanny to come to her room; she wanted to have a chat with him. Quite a change since he had last been in this home; then she had been relieved to see him go, but now she wanted his help. Esther wasn’t the kind to be impressed by a rich marriage, but she had come to realize that while Lanny’s moral code was different from hers, he had one and he lived by it. He had been right about Bess, and as a result had won Bess in a way that Esther had failed to do. Life was puzzling, and no matter how hard one tried to do right, one often blundered.
Esther was worried about her husband. She had always thought that he drank more than he should, and now he drank more and more. No one ever saw him drunk, but he depended upon liquor to sustain him, and it couldn’t fail to harm him in the end. Lanny said he had seen a great deal of the same thing among the French people; they rarely got drunk, but many kept themselves mildly pickled all the time; their systems seemed to get used to it. Lanny said that Robbie drank because he was under too great a strain; he worried about his business affairs, some of which hadn’t gone so well. Esther said he undertook too much, and what was the sense of it? They didn’t need so much money; she saw to it that they lived within their means, and the boys had learned to do the same.
Lanny replied: “It’s a kind of a game with Robbie, and he plays it too hard. It’s too bad that he hasn’t got some hobby.”
“You don’t know how hard I’ve tried to interest him and to help him; but there must be some lack in me. I really believe that you have more influence over him than I have.”
“I don’t think so, Esther.” He had decided to address her thus; he couldn’t very well call her “Mother” while Beauty was in town! “I have never heard Robbie speak of you except with affection and respect.”
“He doesn’t give me his confidence, and he resents being criticized.”
“Most of us do, Esther. Robbie is proud, and he doesn’t like to admit mistakes. If he takes an extra drink it’s always a special case, and he wouldn’t admit to himself that it’s become a habit.”
“That’s the way men drift into it, and why I hate it so. I’ve tried my best to impress it upon the boys, but I don’t know if I’ve succeeded—drinking at Yale is simply frightful.”
“The boys look all right.” Lanny sought to console her. They had both left for Yale a day or two ago—Junior for the law school. “The Prohibition experiment doesn’t seem to have turned out very well,” the stepson added.
“I hoped so much from it. Millions of women thought it was going to be the saving of our happiness; but nobody seems to pay any attention to the law.”
“How does Robbie get his liquor?”
“It’s the old story; ‘right off the boat.’ You hear the men all talking about it; each one is quite sure that his has come direct from Canada, and they swap references of their bootleggers—but how far can you trust men whose business is breaking the law?”
“Not very far, I should think.”
“Robbie is careful enough when he deals with a banker, or somebody who is trying to sell him a few carloads of metal; but some plausible young fellow turns up with a tale of having just run a bargeload of Scotch into the river last night, and all the businessmen in town swallow the tale and the liquor; they bring the stuff into their homes and serve it to their families and their guests, and no one ever thinks of having a chemist analyze it!”
“They’re afraid of what they might find,” smiled Lanny.
“It’s made the most frightful corruption in our city affairs. The bootleggers seem to have more money to spend than anybody else in town.”
VIII
Esther talked for a while about Lanny and his bride, and asked about their plans. But it wasn’t long before she brought back the subject of her husband. Another th
ing was worrying her—Robbie’s playing the stock market.
“He’s always done that, hasn’t he?” asked the son.
“He would do what he called taking a flier; but now he plunges. He doesn’t tell me about it, but I pick up hints—the way he looks at the paper, things I hear him saying over the phone. He’s made a great deal of money, apparently, but at the expense of his peace of mind. And why, Lanny, why? We don’t need it, and what are we going to do with it?”
“We can’t stop men from taking risks, or from challenging one another. If they haven’t got a real war they make an imitation one. I try to think what Robbie would be like if he wasn’t playing some money game. What would he do with himself?”
Esther answered, out of her troubled soul: “There’s something wrong with our education. We try to give our young people culture, and it doesn’t take.”
Lanny saw the traces which anxiety had left in his stepmother’s features, so smooth and serene when he had first become acquainted with them. Her straight brown hair was now showing signs of gray, and there were lines about her eyes and mouth. She was a conscientious woman, and tried to play the game of life fairly; had others been unfair, or was it that the spirit of her time was too strong for her? Certainly she wasn’t happy, and Robbie wasn’t happy.
Had she been too strict with him? Had she resented his youthful error and punished him in her heart for it, and in so doing punished herself? She had this beautiful home, managed it efficiently, played the part of a perfect hostess, a great lady of society, a benefactor to the poor, a leader of useful civic movements; but she wasn’t happy. Lanny wondered how many of these elegant homes in what were known as “exclusive residential sections” held tragedies of this slow-burning, secret kind. Lanny would have liked to ask some intimate questions: “What is your love-life with Robbie? How much trouble do you take to hold his interest? How much do you know about how to hold his interest if you want to?” Alas, he could talk about such matters with his irregular mother, but never with his tight-laced and rigid stepmother!
IX
The guests of the yacht Bessie Budd packed up their belongings and prepared to be transported up Long Island Sound to the richest city in the world. Her owner had business there, and Zoltan Kertezsi had arrived and was expecting Beauty’s help in promoting the Detaze show. Of course, Zoltan hadn’t failed to hear that the stepson of his painter had got married, nor did he overlook the advertising value of that event. He telephoned, suggesting a larger appropriation for grander show rooms, to accommodate the crowd which he felt sure would come, if only in the hope of catching a glimpse of the stepson’s bride. He chuckled over Irma’s having bought some of the paintings. “Tell her she wouldn’t have got them so cheaply if I had known!”
Lanny bade farewell to his old Connecticut family, and prepared to meet his new Long Island one. Mrs. Barnes had returned from Europe and was waiting at their country place; to delay too long to pay his respects would have been a failure in tact. Mr. and Mrs. Dingle were also invited, but Beauty pleaded the pressure of duties in connection with the exhibition. She had lived a long while in the fashionable world, and knew when people wanted her to accept an invitation and when they hoped she’d have sense enough to decline.
She and her husband would stay in a hotel, and while he looked up the meeting-places of the God-seekers, she would renew acquaintance with the many New Yorkers whom she had met on the Riviera in the course of the years. The yacht was returning to Germany with the Robin family, where Johannes had his business and the young people their various tasks to resume. They had all had an enjoyable holiday, and promised themselves others of the sort.
Lanny and Irma were met at an East River pier and motored out to a South Shore estate for whose grandeur the bridegroom had been inadequately prepared. At last he was going to learn how really rich people lived! “Shore Acres” the place was playfully named, but it might have been called “Shore Miles.” The whole great expanse had a steel fence around it, twelve feet high, with inhospitable spikes pointing outward. The buildings stood on a bluff looking out over the sea; they were of red standstone, an adaptation of the Château de Chambord which had been built four hundred years ago for King Francis I. They had a great number of turrets, gables, and carved chimneys; in the American replica these latter had no openings, the house having a central heating system. The fastidious Lanny didn’t like buildings that were too big for comfort, and he thought more of the people who had created a type of architecture than of those who “adapted” it.
The place was only about ten years old, but already the interior had been redecorated—just a few weeks before its owner had dropped dead. The entrance hall was finished in white Vermont marble, and would have served any moderate sized city for a railroad waiting-room. The flunkies didn’t line up to receive the bride and groom as they would have done at Stubendorf, but perhaps that was because Lanny’s new mother-in-law hadn’t heard of the practice. Over this royal domain the large stout widow of the electricity king presided with admirable energy. The place now belonged to her daughter, but she ran it, and strode through the echoing corridors smoking her large dark cigars and keeping track of everything that went on.
Lanny had heard about living en prince, and now he had to do it and like it. He had a suite of apartments, with a four-poster bed in which several princes had been born. (Its pedigree was on the headboard.) His upholstery was of such exquisite silk that he was embarrassed to sit on it, and certainly he would never put his feet on the sofa. His bathtub was sunk in the floor and he descended into it by three wide steps, having ruby-red lights set into the rises so that he could see where he was going. The walls, floor, and tub were of the most wonderful green marble he had ever beheld, and all the fixtures of the tub and the plumbing, at least to the point where they disappeared into the floor, were of silver, and it wasn’t plated. When you turned the faucets, the water shot into the tub as if from a fire-hose. Irma’s apartment, which adjoined his, had similar equipment, but her marble had the pale pink tinge of la France roses and the fixtures were of fourteen-carat gold. You might refuse to believe it, and if you had done so during the life of the owner, he would have given you the name of the concern which made them. This particular suite had belonged to J. Paramount himself, and he had been a gay dog; the first time Lanny sat on the toilet seat he was startled by pretty little chimes ringing behind his back, and they didn’t stop until he got up.
A more than life-sized portrait of the financial genius confronted you in the entrance hall, and the young art expert studied it attentively. It was the work of a popular painter, who had made an honest effort to report what he saw. “J.P.,” as he was still referred to, had been a robust man and a fighter; he had that sort of jaw and eye. Hair and eyes had been black, and if he had grown a mustache and beard he might have made a pirate of the Jolly Roger epoch. His look was grim, but you could imagine the eyes lighting up, and you had to imagine a persuasive tongue, which had convinced the guardians of treasure that he was the wizard who could take one dollar and put it together with another dollar, and cause a brood of baby dollars to come into existence in a few days or weeks. He had performed that biologico-financial miracle over and over—he had never failed a single time. The huge corporation pyramids which he had constructed still stood, and “the Street” was convinced that they would stand forever as monuments to this master manipulator.
Another monument was this palace; and confronting the lifelike portrait Lanny wondered, was this hard-driving spirit watching him somewhere in limbo? Challenging him, perhaps: “By what right do you sleep in my bed and splash in my bathtub and listen to my chimes?” Would he consider Lanny Budd a proper successor, fitted to wear his heavy armor and draw his mighty bow? Certainly the young master didn’t fancy himself in the role. Lanny hadn’t yet found out just where Wall Street was situated!
X
Irma, having spent half her life in this palace, took it as a matter of course; so Lanny must try to think of it
as home. Talking to him in London, the majestic Mrs. Barnes had urged him to do this; she had made it plain’ that she was prepared to accept him and do her best to make him happy. Not an easy speech for a domineering woman to make; but she was the dowager, and had to humble herself. Never again would Lanny hear that dreadful word “bastard.” He had won the fight; he might take charge of the mansion, or he might carry Irma away. It was the mother’s hope that the pride and glory of the great domain would capture the young man’s fancy and win him away from the insane idea of taking Irma to inhabit a “cottage” in that pathetic little property on the Riviera.
This conflict of purposes became more plain as soon as Fanny Barnes made certain that her daughter was pregnant. Then it developed into a struggle over a grandchild, and it was going to be waged not merely between Lanny and his mother-in-law, but between two mothers-in-law. Each had a home which she wished to offer to the heir-apparent; and who was going to decide which was the better? Who was going to find any fault with the manner of Lanny’s upbringing? Let that rash one keep out of Beauty’s way! On the other hand, what would be said to that depraved person who might hint that Irma was anything short of perfect? Look at her! Ask the world about her!
Lanny’s intention was to wait until after the exhibition, and then take his bride by the first steamer that was properly equipped for the transporting of a princess. Take no chance of delaying until someone could argue that her condition made travel unsafe! She had told him that she would prefer Juan over any other place to live, and so Juan it was to be. Meanwhile he would be the soul of politeness, and accept with gratitude whatever courtesies might be offered. But he wouldn’t change his plans.