Lanny Budd went out from that conference with the realization that he had greatly misjudged the skipper of this trading vessel, whom he had taken to be a rather naïve grown-up playboy. Lanny found himself wondering, was the name of Laurel Creston included among those members of the family phalanx who were waiting, patiently or impatiently, for Reverdy Johnson Holdenhurst to decide to die? Lanny thought with amusement of the sensation he might have created if he had asked this question, and gone on to reveal the part which this cousin had played in helping Robbie Budd to develop a new type of single-gear supercharger!
VI
One day in the midst of these diversions the son of Budd-Erling picked up the morning paper, and found spread across the front page the news that President Roosevelt had addressed a telegram to Adolf Hitler, with a copy to Mussolini, inviting this pair to lay their cards upon the table and to state their purposes and demands, and the reasons, if any, why they could not co-operate with the peace-loving nations of the world. Lanny’s eyes ran hastily over the text, and saw that his Chief had used a number of the P.A.’s sentences, but had changed many and added others. In offering to transmit the reply to other nations, the President had listed those on behalf of which he expressed concern:
“Are you willing to give assurance that your armed forces will not attack or invade the territory or possessions of the following nations: Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, The Netherlands, Belgium, Great Britain and Ireland, France, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Luxemburg, Poland, Hungary, Rumania, Yugoslavia, Russia, Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey, Irak, the Arabias, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, and Iran?”
Lanny had not been consulted as to that listing, and he was dubious as to the wisdom of it; for nations which were in fear would be so greatly in fear that they wouldn’t dare to admit it, and this would give the shrewd Adi an opening of which he would hardly fail to take advantage. Lanny studied the document carefully, marking the passages he could recall as his own—for he had kept no copy. He listened to the comment of his relatives and their friends, and discovered that the head of the United States government had thrown a brick into a hornets’ nest. It had been a long time since Lanny had seen his father so outraged. “My God, my God, the man is mad!” he exclaimed; and the skipper of the Oriole took up the responses like a church congregation reciting a litany: “Stark, raving mad!”
“Can you imagine it?” Robbie continued. “He lists thirty-one countries—count them!—whose affairs we undertake to manage!” The antistrophe came promptly: “To keep them out of war!” Then Robbie: “And with us teetering on the edge of another panic, with millions of unemployed, and a national debt piling up by the billions!” Then the hater of income taxes: “And all of us being plucked like so many fat geese!”
Lanny couldn’t say a word, of course; he just had to listen. Everywhere he turned it was the same: the locker room of the Newcastle Country Club resembled the Wailing Wall of Jerusalem. We were going to take on the troubles of the whole world, fight the wars of the whole world, pay the debts of the whole world—and the businessmen of the nation were powerless to help themselves because it would be twenty-one months—count them!—before they could get rid of that madman in the White House. “Somebody ought to kill him!” declared a leading citizen, and Lanny watched to see if others were lowering their voices and getting ready to carry out the threat. But no, they shouted it; they were shouting it in country clubs from Portland, Maine, to Portland, Oregon. It was their God-given freedom of speech.
VII
Adolf Hitler knew all about what was being said in America, and being the cunningest crowd compeller in the world, he set to work to make the most of this unsought and unexpected opportunity. He sent his agents scurrying; Dr. Goebbels to the Near East, Göring back to Italy, and so on, and extracted from many of the thirty-one nations statements that they were not afraid of being attacked by Germany. With the help of his advisers he prepared an answer with twenty-one numbered points, each shrewdly contrived to appeal to the golf and tennis players in the locker rooms. Then he summoned his tame Reichstag, for never would Adi content himself with telegram or cold print when he might have an audience and a radio reaching all around the world.
Surrounded by all the trappings of governmental and military power, the one-time Gefreiter harangued his five or six hundred deputies for two hours and a half. He told once more the history of Germany for the past quarter century: all the wrongs it had suffered and the refusal of the Judeo-pluto-democratic-imperialist nations to right those wrongs. Mr. Roosevelt wanted Germany to disarm and come into a conference; but Germany had tried that once, at Versailles, and what she had got was “the most cruelly dictated treaty in the world.” Since then, the United States had expressed its opinion of the conference method by its refusal to join the League of Nations. The United States had its own method of dealing with its neighbor nations, a device which it called “the Monroe Doctrine.” Said Adi: “We Germans support a similar doctrine for Europe—and above all for the territory and interests of the Greater German Reich.”
Mr. Roosevelt wanted to ensure peace; all right, said the humorous Adi, he, Führer of the Germans, was busy doing it. In Czechoslovakia he had just taken control of 1582 war planes, 501 anti-aircraft guns, 2175 pieces of artillery, 785 mine throwers, 469 tanks, 43,875 machine guns, 114,000 automatic pistols, 1,090,000 rifles, and many other sorts of materials of war; thus he had made certain that these weapons did not fall into the hands of “some madman or other.” Recently in the United States there had been a panic caused by a dramatic sketch over the radio telling of an army landing from Mars; Hitler had his fun with that, showing what the irresponsible democratic radio and press could do. He had another laugh, because Mr. Roosevelt had said the Irish were afraid of the Germans, whereas the Irish Premier had just made a speech saying that what the Irish were afraid of was the “continuous aggression” of England. Mr. Roosevelt had named Palestine—overlooking the fact that England was subjecting that country to “the cruelest maltreatment for the benefit of Jewish interlopers.”
Said the Führer of the Germans, addressing his world opponent with elaborate sarcasm: “Conditions prevailing in your country are on such a large scale that you can find time and leisure to give attention to universal problems. Consequently, the world is undoubtedly so small for you that you perhaps believe that your intervention and action can be effective everywhere.” Listening over the radio in his father’s home, Lanny imagined the golf and tennis players in the locker rooms reading a translation in the newspapers and agreeing with every word of it; they would recognize it as exactly what Smith had said to Jones only the day before. “Why the hell can’t we stay at home and mind our own business?”
Lanny felt a sinking in the pit of his stomach, and wondered whether he hadn’t been the means of causing President Roosevelt to “put his foot in it,” and to increase still further the confusion and strife inside the democratic nations. Lanny thought about those nations which had said they were not afraid, and imagined all the diplomatic wirepulling and browbeating that must have gone on. He didn’t possess the gift of precognition, but he kept the newspaper clipping of the President’s telegram, and in after years he checked upon it. Of the thirty-one nations which had been named by F.D.R., eight were overrun and conquered by Hitler within a little more than two years, and in two years more he had overrun and conquered sixteen, not counting Russia, of which he took a large part, and England, which he did his best to destroy with bombing planes.
VIII
Esther came up to Lanny’s room one afternoon; he had sneaked off by himself and was seated in a comfortable wicker armchair by the open window, reading a book by Sir James Jeans on modern physics, a strange and wonderful subject. The stepmother said: “Can I interrupt you?”—and Lanny, who had expected this, braced himself for the shock. “Certainly, Mother,” he replied; he had accumulated three mothers and one mama in the course of his active career.
He
gave her the comfortable chair and took another. Esther hadn’t been able to think of any indirect approach to the subject, so she began without preliminaries: “I want to talk to you about Lizbeth. Are you the least bit interested in her?”
Lanny might have fenced, and raised the question of a definition of “interest”; but he knew that would not help matters. “I think she is a very sweet girl, but I am not in love with her.”
“It’s really time that you thought about getting married, Lanny. Your father thinks so, and asked me to talk to you about it.”
They had had this out before, more than once, but politeness required that Lanny should listen gravely whenever requested. “It’s really very hard for me to contemplate marriage, dear Mother. I have to travel about the world so much, and I can’t imagine myself making any woman happy.”
“I wish you would take my assurance, Lanny—there are many women who manage to be happy even though their husbands’ business calls them away. We in New England were a seafaring people, and we got used to the idea of women not seeing their husbands for a year or two. A woman has a child and that keeps her busy; when her husband comes back she has another child, and learns to make the best of it.”
“There may be women like that, but I haven’t met any that I could believe it of.” Lanny, of course, couldn’t give his real reasons, and this was the best he could think up.
“I wish I could persuade you to think seriously about Lizbeth. She is a sweet and lovely nature, and it is evident that she is attracted to you.”
“I know,” said the worried bachelor—the women wouldn’t let him alone wherever he went, and it had become quite a problem. “I have done my best not to encourage it. I have been polite and friendly, but nothing more.”
“I have observed that, and of course it is your right. But Robbie and I agree that it would be the most suitable match we could think of. She is the domestic type of girl; she would want to have children, and she would be happy at Bienvenu, or here with us, if she knew that you were busy with your work and would come back when you could.”
Lanny’s tongue was tied; he couldn’t say anything about his work, which would have so disturbed the older woman as well as the younger. The nearest he could come to the subject was: “Lizbeth hasn’t an idea in the world about what I am thinking.”
“I know, Lanny; but she’s only a child; her mind is only beginning to open to the world. I have watched her, and she listens with pleasure to everything you tell her. A girl like that builds her whole life around the man she loves. If you gave her books, she would read them; she would do anything that she thought would make you happy.”
“That’s what Beauty and all her women friends told me about Irma; but it didn’t turn out that way. Irma knew exactly what she wanted, and went right ahead to get it.”
“Well, Lanny, I can’t say anything about your European world, or even about smart society in New York; to me it seems heartless and corrupt, and I would never have advised you to marry Irma Barnes, not for all her millions. But Lizbeth is different; she has been brought up at home and adores her father; she hasn’t even been to a finishing school. Being on a yacht gets to be rather monotonous—so she tells me.”
IX
Lanny had to listen politely and answer patiently; that was part of his job. He could understand clearly the point of view of Esther and his father; what they wanted for him was what he ought to have had—if he had been what they believed him to be. All he could say now was that he was afraid of tying himself down, of contracting obligations that he couldn’t carry out. Suppose that some day he met a woman he truly and deeply loved, and found himself married to a woman he had never loved—that would mean tragedy for two women, not to mention himself. Lanny could guess that his father had told Esther about Marie de Bruyne and perhaps also about Rosemary, Countess of Sandhaven; not at the time, perhaps, but afterwards, when they had been discussing the problem of his future.
Said he: “I have been really in love, and I know what it means. If ever it happens to me again, I am afraid it will have to be with some woman who is mature, and who shares my thoughts and interests. Young girls are nice to look at and to dance with, but they seldom know anything—they don’t even know what they themselves are, and I am afraid of what they may be when they find out.”
Esther was afraid that if she said too much she might cause him to reduce the frequency of his visits. She asked one question which took him aback: “Tell me—may Robbie explain your attitude to Mr. Holdenhurst?”
“Good grief!” exclaimed the stepson. “Has he asked?”
“No, but we both think he’d like to know. If the mother were here, she would do the asking.”
“I suppose so; but I didn’t have any idea the matter had gone that far.”
“Didn’t it occur to you that maybe that’s why he came? Newcastle isn’t really such an interesting town—to a man who’s just been all the way around the world.”
“Well, I’m sorry if I’m such an interesting man,” replied Lanny, with a touch of mischief. “I was just trying to help Robbie sell stock. I hope I didn’t misrepresent anything.”
“Tell me one thing frankly, Lanny.”
“All right,” he said, bracing himself for another shock. When people said “frankly,” it was sure to be something unpleasant.
“Is there any other woman in your life?”
“No, Mother, there isn’t.”
“I ought to know if there is, because I’d be wasting my time.”
“If ever there is, I’ll promise to tell you. It won’t be anything to be ashamed of.”
“Well, think about Lizbeth.” Esther found it hard to give up. “She’s right here, and it may be some time before you meet anybody more worthy of affection.”
X
Yes, she was here, and she stayed. It was the essence of the family’s agreeable way of life that they were never in a hurry; if they were having a pleasant time they kept on having it. The few business details which had to be cleared up provided a sufficient excuse, if any were needed, but no one brought up the subject. The yacht had moved out into the river and anchored there, with bow pointed upstream except when the tide was running in strongly. When anybody wanted to go ashore, the launch took them. They slept on board, and when they weren’t invited out to meals they ate on board; a deck chair under a striped canopy was as pleasant a place to play bridge or read a novel as anyone could find; so why worry or ask questions?
Esther had said: “Think about Lizbeth”; and Lanny had to do so, whether or no. He saw her every day and it would have been rude to avoid seeing her. She was “on the carpet,” and he had been told that it was his carpet if he would have it. He wondered, how definitely had she made up her mind? Nowadays the young things seemed to know what they wanted and went after it; Lanny had been sought more than once. Lizbeth, he decided, wasn’t the demonstrative sort, but who could tell what might be going on inside her? Some day he might make the mistake of holding her hand the fraction of a second too long, and before he knew it she would be in his arms.
He thought of that and resolved never to be alone with her. But even as he thought of it, his blood was telling him that it mightn’t be so unpleasant to find her in his arms. It was a trap that nature had set, this infernal business of sex that wouldn’t let men and women alone. The moment she came into his presence, he perceived how well the trap had been baited; she was so pleasant to look at that it made him shiver a little. How could he be an art expert and not appreciate beauty? He had told Esther that he wasn’t in love with this girl; but maybe these shivers were love, and maybe the ideas with which he plagued himself were just efforts to keep from being in love.
At any rate, he was doing what his stepmother had requested—thinking about Lizbeth! He wondered what was going on in her mind. He couldn’t ask, of course; that would have been walking right into nature’s trap. Instead, he watched for signs; but then, if he saw one, he must glance quickly away, before she had discovered th
at he was looking. Was she looking, too? And was she glancing quickly away before he discovered what she was doing? That was a dangerous game to play; for what if their glances happened to meet? She would blush, and it might be possible that he would blush, and they might be at a loss for words to cover the awkward moment.
He wondered, had she taken the ladies of her party into her confidence, and were they all watching and speculating? One was a maiden lady of indeterminate age, Lizbeth’s tutor in various subjects. When the yacht was at sea, there were regular study hours, but when it was in port there was a holiday. Did Miss Chisholm know that her pupil was in love with an art expert who had traveled over Europe and knew the great ones of every country? Love wasn’t one of the subjects she was supposed to tutor, but maybe she had taken that on as a sideline—and out of what experience?
Lanny wondered also about Reverdy Johnson Holdenhurst, and what part he was playing in this inner drama? Had he guessed, or had he been told? Had his much-loved daughter said to him in Cannes: “Daddy,”—so she called him—“this is the man I want to marry. Please invite him to sail with us and give me three months’ chance at him”? And when that plot had failed, had she said: “Please find some excuse to take me to Newcastle”? Had the father replied: “All right, I’ll buy some Budd-Erling stock and make friends with the family.” Was that the way things went in the modern world? Here was a man, deliberately keeping his only daughter away from her mother, the person who was naturally charged with the duty of finding her a husband. Was Reverdy Johnson Holdenhurst saying to himself that Lizbeth should marry his man and not her mother’s man, whoever he might be? Someone who lived abroad, and not in Baltimore? Someone who could be visited by a yacht, and perhaps taken along?