Lanny persuaded his wife to go on driving. What could they do in New York? Stand outside the brokers’ offices and watch the tortured faces? He had seen enough of them to last him the rest of his life. Or go up to their rooms in the Ritzy-Waldorf and hear their friends crying over the telephone? Tell them for the hundredth time that Irma had very little cash, that her business manager had absconded, that her estate was tied up, that she had to help her mother and her uncle and many others? Here was New York state, which Lanny had never seen, and the sun was shining on it, the tang of autumn in the air and every turn of the winding roads a picture for a lover of art and nature. Lanny poured out his treasures of understanding and love, and beguiled his young bride farther from the great massacre of human hopes.
IX
More than once during the cruise of the Bessie Budd Irma had said: “I wonder if we are really married.” Each time Lanny had answered: “We’ll do it again some day.” It might be that if it ever came to a test some stern English judge would decide that they had not been bona fide passengers of the Plymouth Girl, but had been perpetrating a fraud upon the Archbishop of Canterbury. More than once during their sojourn in New York Lanny had thought of suggesting another marriage; but the trouble lay with Irma’s so notorious name. If they were to have another ceremony, who would believe that they had been married before? And what a juicy morsel for the “tabs” and the radio scandal-mongers!
But now the people they knew were so busy with the panic that they wouldn’t pay any attention to a hundred marriages. Lanny said: “I hear it’s very easy to get married in Jersey. How about crossing over there and hunting up a preacher?”
“Oh, Lanny, should we dare?”
“We can find some small village where there wouldn’t be reporters. Anyhow, let’s have a look.”
They crossed the Hudson by the Poughkeepsie bridge and drove south. When the road signs told them that it was the state of New Jersey, they turned back into the well-wooded hills and began looking for a village of sufficiently humble appearance. The first one had no church, and when they found one with a church it had no preacher. At last, however, they found an aged Methodist minister about whom it seemed a safe guess that he had never been in a night club or listened to radio gossip; he was a bit tottery and his voice quavered, but his white-haired wife was spry, and she hurried next door for a neighbor to serve as the second witness. The three of them were so kind and sweet that the young people were embarrassed, as if they were perpetrating another fraud.
However, it was all right; this was the sweet land of liberty, and if you wanted to get married in every state of the Union, it was your privilege. In this particular state there were no banns and no bars; you weren’t asked anything about your parents’ consent, your religious faith, the state of your health, or even whether you were sane. All you had to give was your name, which might be fictitious, and your address, which might be the same, and your age, which frequently was. These were duly noted in a record book, and signed by the preacher and the witnesses, who could see that this was a rich young couple but gave no sign of ever having heard the name Irma Barnes.
The old gentleman went to a clothes closet and got out his best frock-coat, badly in need of brushing, and put it on. He took up the printed word of God, which he held as a sort of fetish, though he didn’t need to consult it. He took his stand in front of them, coughed once or twice, and proceeded in a very solemn tone to invoke the blessings of Almighty God upon what he was about to do; then he did it, and after he had done it he wrote a certificate and gave it to Irma for her future protection. She took the document quickly and stepped back, because she had heard somewhere that it was the custom for the preacher to kiss the bride and she didn’t want it. Lanny provided a diversion in the shape of a ten-dollar bill, probably the largest sum the man had ever received for such a service during his long pastoral career. The two young people gave their thanks, said their hurried farewells, and made their escape. “What a funny thing that that should make us husband and wife!” mused Irma.
X
When lunchtime came they stopped in a town, and in front of a newspaper office was a bulletin board, from which they got reports of the morning’s events in Wall Street. This Tuesday, the twenty-ninth, proved to be the worst of all. Apparently the entire stock-owning population of the United States was telegraphing or telephoning orders to sell at the market, and Europe and the rest of the world were joining in. The slaughter of prices affected the bond market, the grain market, even real estate; bankrupted people had to have cash, no matter at what price. The horrified brokers on the trading-floor could hardly credit what they heard. There was a story of one who was trying to dispose of a block of sewing-machine stock which had been selling at more than 40; he was calling for a bid, and a messenger boy had the bright idea to offer one dollar, and he got the stock. It had been sold “at the market.”
That afternoon Lanny was driving his wife through the lovely scenery of the Catskill mountains. The air was exhilarating; they got out and walked in the sunshine, and sat for a while listening to the babble of a mountain stream. Irma developed a real appetite, and that was a good thing for the expected baby, which she was beginning to feel.
At dusk they drove into a town, and in the lobby of the hotel sat and listened to a radio telling of the wreckage of men’s fortunes that day. Another record-breaker—seventeen million shares on one exchange. The ticker was again hopelessly behind, but the radio gave sample prices, from which it appeared that the entire list of United States stocks had lost nearly half their value. After dinner, they listened again, along with a miscellaneous crowd—traveling-salesmen, hunters, farmers, small-town merchants—who talked freely about their troubles. Misery loves company, and men took a perverted kind of pride in telling of their ruin. They had swallowed the bait which Wall Street had fed to them through newspapers and radios and “market reports”; they had refused to “sell America short,” and now it was they who had been “sold down the river.”
This was the real America, of which Lanny hadn’t seen very much. Nobody shed tears—they preferred making “wisecracks.” Lanny was interested to note that every last man took it for granted that stocks would come back; what fortunes would be made by the lucky ones who were able to hold on for a few days!
Presently one of the “newscasters” came on the air: a pert, aggressive gentleman, speaking with a swift staccato style; everything was “Flash,” and there was a clicking of a telegraph key to suggest that he was getting it right off the wire. He told about the market crash, the prices, and who was said to be down and out, and what bears had managed to coast on top of the avalanche. Then came news of cafe society, the gossip of personalities which had made the man famous. “Flash! Your reporter is informed that Mr. and Mrs. Lanny Budd are expecting a little bundle from heaven some time next March. They were married in June—no time wasted. She is Irma Barnes, the glamour girl of Broadway last season. It is possible that the glamour will need polishing up after the events of the past five days. Irma’s father, the great J. Paramount Barnes, took no chances with his holding companies, but put his money into blue chips. Hold onto them, Irma, they’ll be worth something some day!”
There sat the glamour girl and her glamour boy, blushing and stealing uneasy glances at the people in the crowded lobby. But nobody looked at them; nobody had looked at the hotel register; nobody was thinking about anything but the closing prices—and, besides, it couldn’t have occurred to them as a possibility that the greatest of cafe celebrities might be sitting alongside them in this remote hotel.
XI
In the morning the young couple had the papers, and read the details of that desolating day. American Telephone and Telegraph, the security upon which Robbie Budd had staked his fortunes, was down eighty-three points from the price that he had paid. Lanny, who had cast in his lot with the bears, need never again worry about his standing as a Wall Street authority! “I believe I’ve lost half my money,” said Irma. He told h
er to cheer up; they would survive.
She wanted to see her mother before sailing, so they drove back to the city and out to Shore Acres. They found Uncle Horace pretty well calmed down. He no longer interrupted Lanny when he spoke, but listened politely. He had to admit that he was glad he hadn’t been in that market; but, oh, if only Irma would let him get in now, what a killing he and she could make! Poor derelict, he would sit in the brokers’ offices and watch the prices, read the gossip of the “Street,” make his predictions, and see himself fail over and over again; for that Great Bull Market went on sinking, sinking—like one of those Spanish bulls when the matador has pierced him through the heart, and he stands rocking unsteadily, his great head drooping inch by inch.
Fanny Barnes wept, and agreed to forgive her daughter, and the daughter promised to come home before too long. All the dependents shed dutiful tears as the fortunate young couple drove away. Their belongings were packed for them, and a truckload of baggage was taken to the steamer. Robbie and Esther arrived, and father and son went down to the brokers’ office and joined the customers, sitting with their hats tilted back on their heads and watching the Translux, far behind after another day of turmoil. But prices were firmer, and once more the market authorities were emerging from their cyclone cellars; once more leading bankers and statesmen were assuring the American people that business conditions were fundamentally all right. The Great Engineer said it, and “John D.” and his son told the world that they were buying sound securities. The rest of the people would have felt better if they had had any means of knowing which securities these were; also if they had had the Rockefellers’ money to buy with.
Mr. Dingle, being uninterested in worldly shows, had assumed the duty of getting Madame Zyszynski to the steamer. She had been booked in the second cabin, where she would feel more comfortable, along with Irma’s maid. Lanny hoped that the spirits would take note and not be left behind. He had to stop and remind his materialistic self that spirits do not exist in space—and, anyhow, maybe they are just telepathy! Funny thing, if the subconscious mind was playing games like that, creating imaginary beings, fictional or historical, or a combination of both! The lover of art reminded himself that that was what all great artists did, and it was called genius. Maybe Madame was some kind of genius; or maybe it was Lanny’s own mind which was doing the tricks. For some reason it hadn’t got properly harnessed up for creative labor, like Kurt’s and Rick’s. Why that was, Lanny didn’t know; but Zoltan said: “You are too comfortable, my boy!”
They had dinner at the hotel, a party of six: Lanny and his wife, Robbie and his, and Zoltan escorting Beauty. Robbie and the three ladies were driven to the theater in Irma’s car, and after that the chauffeur would go to the hotel and take the secretary and the maid to the steamer, and then return to the theater for the party, and afterward drive the car back to Shore Acres. Lanny and Zoltan chose to stroll to the theater, and have a chance for a good-by chat. Zoltan was sailing for England in a few days, to see if anybody there would buy pictures; he had had word from two of his patrons in New York that they would be glad to sell the old masters which they had purchased. Art prices were on the way down, and Lanny would have to learn a new schedule!
XII
Phyllis Gracyn, alias Pillwiggle, was starring in The Golden Lure, a drama in three acts. It might have been the story of Irma Barnes when she was seventeen, a girl in school, naive and trusting—if Irma ever had been that. Her father was a traction magnate, playing the political game in the large-scale crooked style. He was a widower and had a mistress, a golden blonde, and both magnate and mistress were tied in a net of intrigue, with a corrupt district attorney trying to get the magnate on a charge that would have sent him to Sing Sing. The stage Irma learned about the mistress, Gracyn, and went to her, asking her help in saving the father. The stage Irma thought that the stage Gracyn really loved the father, but she didn’t, she had been planted there to get evidence on him. But of course she had a heart of gold, and was so touched by the daughter’s plea that she told the stage Irma a secret which would save the father, and helped the stage Irma to foil the crooked district attorney in a sensational third act.
Of course it was “hokum” of the crudest sort. But Broadway had a technique for dressing up what it knew was hokum in modern costume, flavoring it with a dash of cynicism, sprinkling it liberally with wisecracks, and building it up to what was called “the big punch.” There was a large and fashionable audience; some people still had money for theater tickets—or was the house mostly “paper”? There were some references to the stock market, doubtless put in at the last moment, and these got a great “hand.” Gracyn carried off the honors; she wasn’t the old-style slinky vamp, but the gay and smart kind that you met in the night clubs nowadays. Evidently the play was a “hit,” and she would have a chance to recoup her financial losses. The real Irma didn’t recognize her stage self or her father, but she thought that Gracyn was “a darling,” and whispered to Lanny that she didn’t mind his having been in love with her—but a long time ago, and there must be no more of it!
They were driven to the Hudson River pier and boarded the great steamer. There was music and laughter and singing—people were always a little “high” at that hour of the evening. Several of Irma’s young friends had come, and they were higher. When the time came for the partings, those who were sailing threw down rolls of colored paper tape, holding one end, so that they made lines connecting them with the friends on shore. When the steamer was warped from the pier these lines were broken, and all felt sad. You stood waving and shouting, but mostly you couldn’t make the right person hear you. The Budds all had tears in their eyes, for they had been through strenuous hours. Beauty had rarely been so happy, for at the last moment Esther had pressed her hand and said: “I have misunderstood you all my life, and I am sorry.” Another blond mistress with a heart of gold!
Out in the river you could tell what had been happening in the Wall Street district, for at that late hour every window in every building was ablaze with light, and the same was true for many of the midtown office buildings. If you didn’t know what was going on inside, it was a lovely spectacle, a dream city rising from the sea. Lanny and Irma watched it fade into the distance. Behind them, in the saloon, a party of young people were pounding the piano and singing college songs, hurling defiance at all panics:
“For tonight we’ll merry, merry be,
For tonight we’ll merry, merry be,
For tonight we’ll merry, merry be;
Tomorrow we’ll be sober.”
Lanny and Irma moved over to the starboard side. There was Bedloe’s Island with the Statue of Libery. Lanny remembered how he had stood by the rail of the ship eleven years ago and watched the great tall lady at this same late hour. She had come from France, and he had been going home, and she had waved her bright torch as a sign of greeting. Now he was going again, and she waved it still more vigorously; she was singing: “I’ve been drunk for a long, long time—tomorrow I’ll be sober!”
Turn the page to continue reading from the Lanny Budd Novels
1
The Old Beginning
I
Lanny Budd was the only occupant of a small-sized reception-room. He was seated in a well-padded armchair, and had every reason to be comfortable, but did not appear so. He fidgeted a good deal, and found occasions for looking at his watch; then he would examine his fingernails, which needed no attention; he would look for specks of lint on his tropical worsted trousers, from which he had removed the last speck some time ago. He would look out of the window, which gave on one of the fashionable avenues of the city of Cannes; but he had already become familiar with the view, and it did not change. He had a popular novel on his knee, and every now and then would find that he could not interest himself in the conversation of a set of smart society people.
Now and then one of several white-clad nurses would pass through the room. Lanny had asked them so many questions that he was ashamed
to speak again. He knew that all husbands behave irrationally at this time; he had seen a group of them in a stage play, slightly risqué but harmless. They all fidgeted and consulted their watches; they all got up and walked about needlessly; they all bored the nurses with futile questions. The nurses had stereotyped replies, which, except for the language, were the same all over the world. “Oui, oui, monsieur.… Tout va bien.… Il faut laisser faire.… Il faut du temps.… C’est la nature.”
Many times Lanny had heard that last statement in the Midi; it was a formula which excused many things. He had heard it more than once that afternoon, but it failed to satisfy him. He was in rebellion against nature and her ways. He hadn’t had much suffering in his own life, and didn’t want other people to suffer; he thought that if he had been consulted he could have suggested many improvements in the ways of this fantastic universe. The business of having people grow old and pass off the scene, and new ones having to be supplied! He knew persons who had carefully trained and perfected themselves; they were beautiful to look at, or possessed knowledge and skills, yet they had to die before long—and, knowing that fact, must provide a new lot to take their places.