Dynasty of Death

by Taylor Caldwell

  “Too long,” said Gertrude at last. They went on; heat throbbed in their heads, their hands, their hearts. Their whole bodies were on fire with it. Philippe heard a faint sound; he glanced down at Gertrude. She was crying.

  “I’m afraid,” she said simply. “I’m afraid we’ll never be happy. Something will happen to us, Philippe. I know it.”

  “Your father? That is foolish, Trudie. In eighteen months I’ll be twenty-one, and take over the management of my father’s affairs. Uncle Ernest can’t throw me out. I have my father’s share of the business. Then we can be married. Your father can’t do anything, then.”

  Gertrude sighed. “Papa can always do anything he wants,” she said. “I should not be talking so about him! I’ve always loved him so, and I’ve been his favorite. It is so terrible to hurt any one you love!”

  “But what has he against me?” demanded Philippe, for the hundredth time, and with increasing bewilderment. “He has told me I am no fool, that my father’s affairs will be safe in my hands. He has taught me himself, in the bank. He has praised my progress with Uncle Eugene. He has talked of sending me to the mines for experience there, and the wells near Titusville. Mama is his favorite sister; she consults him in everything. So what has he against me? Why does he prefer Paul Barbour, that brutal ox?”

  “He doesn’t like you, my darling,” answered Gertrude sadly. “Your—your character annoys him. He cannot reconcile your real ability with the fact that you can laugh so easily. He just dislikes you. We all dislike others without definite reasons, and Papa is no exception. Just as the French hate the Germans, and the Christian hates the Jew, and the Turk hates the Armenian. It is something rooted in character, mysterious and without explanation. Besides, he wants me to marry Paul. Paul, he thinks, is like himself. What Papa does not know is that I am like you, and you are like me.” She pulled the cloak about her and began to cry again.

  “I’ll make him like me at last, Trudie,” he said in despair, as he wiped her tears with his own handkerchief. “I know he distrusts me. We see things so differently. Perhaps I quarrel with him too much, contradict him too much. But he told me he likes young people to be independent. He—he’s so damned nasty to me, Trudie!” His voice ended in a youthful tremor.

  “But Frey got what he wanted,” she reminded him eagerly, becoming strong as he became more distressed. “And Frey hasn’t half your spirit, darling. And he hasn’t near so much as I have. And Papa gave in, eventually. He sees reason after awhile, though it takes him a long time to get over what he wants, himself.”

  “That is so,” said Philippe, struck. “Every one in the family bet that he wouldn’t let Frey go. But he did. We’ve got to remember that. I’ll try, Trudie, honest I will. If he likes Paul’s type, I’ll be a take-off of Paul. I’ll out-Paul him.” They laughed shakily.

  “If you do,” cried Gertrude, “I’ll never marry you in a thousand years! A real Paul is bad enough, but an imitation would be impossible.” She became interested. “There you are, Philippe. I don’t like Paul. Why? He’s never been anything but kind to me, and anxious to please. He’s handsome and industrious, and intelligent. Dozens of girls are always languishing around him at every party. But he’s devoted to me. He’s worked very hard, and he’s risen on his own merits. I know he will make an excellent husband. Then why don’t I like him? There you are! It’s rooted in our characters.” She beamed at him, with such an artless pride in her unravelling of the problem that he had to stop and kiss her again.

  They walked on together, their bodies seeming to cling through their clothing, their eyes shining with a bemused joy. Sometimes they walked for hours like this, not speaking. Streets passed them slowly and emptily, like gray, dimly lit caverns bored into the night. They did not see them. A late carriage rolled by them, splashed them from a shallow puddle, but they did not notice it. Drops of moisture collected on Gertrude’s head, rolled into the folds of the bright scarf; her cloak became damp. But she was no longer cold and frightened. She was looking up into the intense and smiling face above her, and kept looking, until all her senses seemed floating in the light of joy. She had dropped her skirts, and they dragged in the wet and the grit and the mud, and though this was one of her favorite frocks, she had gone beyond caring.

  “And to think,” said Philippe loudly, “that I once planned on being a Trappist monk!”

  Gertrude had started at the sudden sound of his voice, and then what he had said struck them both as exquisitely ludicrous at exactly the same moment. They burst into shrieks of laughter. Gertrude smothered her mouth in the folds of the cloak; they rocked helplessly in each other’s arms. When they finally could control themselves, they were sobbing weakly and tears were on their cheeks. Some one had thrown up a window irately, and was bellowing at them from the darkness.

  “They’ll be calling the constable,” sobbed Gertrude, when she could catch her breath. Philippe seized her hand; they ran madly through the silent streets, which shone with a leaden lustre; their heels beat upon the uneven pavement, also slimily moist. Their shadows raced after them, gyrating under the street lamps, twisting about them like strips of darkness. Somewhere aroused dogs began to bark excitedly. They stopped, gasping. They could hear distant carriage wheels on a far street. Every house was shrouded and dark. Water slowly trickled along eaves, and their breath steamed on the wet air. Suddenly a bell from a far church tower began to strike the hour, churning up the hollow air and sending it, mourning, through the night. “Eleven o’clock,” said Philippe aloud, with disdain. “And Windsor fast asleep! Trudie, we shall go to New York on our honeymoon. Maybe we’ll live there some day. You have no idea how splendid, how incredible it is! It never sleeps. We are just being buried alive, here.”

  “There is no excitement, it is true,” Gertrude admitted, as they walked more sedately now. “Outside of a few little skirmishes with the die-hard Oldtowners who still won’t accept our family. But even that excitement is going: there are only three Oldtown families who don’t recognize our existence, and they’re wavering. I hear Jules has been invited to the parties given by that little Endicott girl, and we actually received an invitation from the Sandringham family yesterday.”

  “They can’t hold out against our money,” said Philippe, with a sneer.

  Gertrude-lifted her shoulders slightly. “Money is a wonderful thing,” said the daughter of Ernest Barbour. “Papa says so, and I believe him. Mama was always well-to-do, and so she depreciates the value of money. Never mind, dearest. We all have plenty, so we can afford to sneer at it.”

  But Philippe would not acknowledge her sarcasm. “It makes me afraid,” he said stubbornly, “when I see that money can buy everything. Practically everything of value. I’d like to believe there are a few things it couldn’t buy. I’d like to believe there are some things that are inviolate.”

  She pressed his arm against her breast. “Money couldn’t buy me, Philippe,” she said softly. He looked down at her, almost with distress. “It might break you, though,” he said. They began to walk fast, as though hurrying away from something. “Oh, I’d like to believe there are things money couldn’t buy!” repeated Philippe with passion. “Things accessible only to honor and love and integrity and ability. It would take the slime off living. Most of the time I feel dirty. When I was at school in New York the boys toadied to me because of my father’s money. At college, the richer students tried to get me to join their silly little fraternities and athletic clubs; they told me that ‘of course’ I would not want to associate with ‘nobodies.’ So I looked them in the eye and said ‘Of course not!’ They blackballed me, after that. It was all very dirty. And foolish. And impossibly silly. It makes me sick, knowing that the things I want, and am willing to work for with all my heart and my soul, can be bought without effort on my part.”

  “You wouldn’t want to be poor, Philippe?” Gertrude was smiling at him indulgently.

  “No, you silly pet. Who would? But I’d still like to feel that I’d have to b
uy many of the things I want with something else besides money.”

  “But there are so many things,” said Gertrude softly, looking up at him radiantly. “Health and love. And peace. They have to be bought too, but not with what you have in your purse. Grandpa Barbour died of cancer, and his money couldn’t save him. Grandma Barbour wasn’t very happy, when she was old, and she was very rich. It is true that being poor wouldn’t have saved Grandpa and Grandma, but being rich didn’t save them, either. And, as I said before, money couldn’t buy me. But what you are could, Philippe.”

  Again they stopped for a last kiss, a last passionate straining together. They were approaching the Sessions house. They could see its lights on the rise in the distance. They trudged up the long slope toward it.

  “I’d like to do something,” said Philippe meditatively. “Something outside of the family business. Something such as Frey is doing. But I have no talents. I used to think, before I loved you, that I would enter a monastery, or become a priest. I think I should have done it, become a priest, if it hadn’t been for Mama marrying again. Major Norwood is a Protestant, and any little flavor of Catholicism there was in our household disappeared when Mama married him. I’m the only one in the household that goes to Mass even once a year. And even Mama smiles a little now, when I go. Once she said: ‘But isn’t it all nonsense, dearest?’ As if God were ever nonsense! Though sometimes, seeing things as they are, I almost believe He is!” he added bitterly.

  Gertrude was silent. They were dangerously close to a dark place which they had agreed they would never approach again. Philippe looked at it miserably. Then he, too, fell silent.

  The lights were all blazing in the library. They could see them through the blinds. They tiptoed to one of the long tall windows, and peered through a crack. Though it was after eleven, Paul Barbour sat with his uncle before the fire. It was too evident that they were waiting. For Gertrude. Philippe did not see the significance, but it suddenly occurred to Gertrude, and she felt giddy with fear. She withdrew precipitately, pulling Philippe with her.

  “Paul and Papa are waiting for me,” she whispered. The light from an upper window shone on her face; it was quite white. “I can’t see Paul, tonight. I don’t want to.” Philippe was surprised to find how she was trembling. The dogs in the stables began to bark, and from the shadows on the blinds Gertrude saw that her father and cousin had risen, and were waiting. She picked up her skirts and ran around to the rear of of the house, down the steep little slope to the back door. Philippe followed. Gertrude tried the back entry door that led into the kitchen. It was open; she had not expected this, and a sharp breath was exhaled through her lips. They crept through the little hallway, and silently opened the door. The kitchen was blazing with hot friendly light; the stove glowed redly, and three of the women servants, the cook and two chambermaids, were sitting at the kitchen table sipping coffee, eating cakes and gossiping. They cried out, startled, as Gertrude and Philippe entered, then rose, red with embarrassment.

  “Good evening, Mrs. Battle,” said Gertrude, smiling at the cook. “Good evening, Jane and Edith. My father has a visitor, and I’m so rumpled and soiled and tired that I don’t want to see or be seen—”

  “But, Miss Gertrude,” protested Edith timidly, “your Papa gave me express orders that when you returned I was to tell you to go into the library at once.” She smoothed her apron, and regarded Gertrude anxiously. “I should lose my place, Miss Gertrude, if I didn’t tell him you had come home.”

  Gertrude stared at the girl, her eyes very dark and wide in her pale face. Then she turned mutely to Philippe. He took something out of his pockets: three five-dollar gold pieces. He laid them on the table. The women blinked at them, audibly sucking in their breath.

  “No one has seen Miss Gertrude come in,” he said easily. He smiled at the servants; his white teeth flashed in his brown face. All at once he was his father, irresistible, charming, fascinating, the courtier. The cook and the maids might have resisted the money, after a titanic struggle, but they could not resist Philippe with his dancing black eyes and the cleft in his cheek that was almost a dimple. They yearned at him adoringly. The cook thrust the money toward him. “Go on, Master Philippe,” she said, grinning. “We wouldn’t say nothin’ about Miss Gertrude if she didn’t want us to. Would we?” she demanded with a fierce frown, as she turned upon Edith. “Why, no ma’am,” she stammered. She and Jane regarded the money wistfully. Philippe pushed it forward again.

  “There, this is just a present for you and the girls, Mrs. Battle. Not a bribe. I know you are all above bribes. But I haven’t forgotten the cookies you used to make for me, and the way Trudie and I used to tease the girls. Buy yourselves something with the money.”

  The maids snatched up their gold coins, Mrs. Battle deftly slipped hers into her apron pocket, and muttering something about needin’ butter, she went into the scullery. Gertrude and Philippe kissed each other swiftly, again and again, then Philippe slipped out into the hall, and Gertrude heard the door closing after him.

  She looked about the bright empty kitchen. The brick stove exhaled waves of pleasant heat, and the lamps on the table and on the shelf near the pantry blazed through polished glass. The copper vessels on the walls shone like gold. She was conscious of great fatigue; there was a trembling in her legs. She removed the wet red scarf from her hair; the moisture had soaked through, and her hair was a mass of damp ringlets against her pale cheeks. Her skirts were bedraggled, dark at the hem with mud and water; she dropped them out of her hand and they fell soggily about her feet. She shook out her cloak, and the water splashed upon the stove with a hissing sound. Then, gathering up her skirts again, she opened the door that led into the butler’s pantry. It was all dark and quiet there, smelling of soap and herbs. The whole house was quiet. Somewhere a door opened, and Gertrude heard the impatient loudness of her father’s voice. The door closed again, and the voice was lost.

  She slipped into the dining room, then out into the great hall from which the library and the drawing rooms opened. The staircase twisted up dimly, a wide spectral stairway, and the grandfather’s clock boomed the half hour. The lamp on the newel post burned with a faint and uncertain light. Gertrude’s heart began to beat very fast; the library door was still shut but any moment it might open and she would be caught. She lifted her skirts high about her slender ankles and was about to bolt for the stairway when she heard footsteps descending with a soft hissing on the carpet. She shrank back under the stairs; it was the butler. He opened the library door and the light gushed out into the hall, accompanied by wisps of smoke.

  “I am sorry, sir,” said the butler, “but Miss Gertrude has not yet returned.”

  Ernest shouted an oath. “This is a fine thing, a girl staying out half the night!” he said.

  “Perhaps she is going to stay overnight at Uncle Eugene’s,” suggested Paul in a disappointed voice.

  “That might be. But, stay until midnight, Paul. Then if she isn’t here we’ll know she is going to stay over there. She often does, especially on disagreeable nights. If Eugene hasn’t brought her home by twelve, you had best go.”

  The butler discreetly closed the door. He turned toward the kitchen. Gertrude squeezed herself against the wall under the stairway, holding her breath. She was shaking with an absurd terror. But the butler passed within three feet of her and did not see her. The dining room door shut behind him noiselessly. Gertrude dared wait no longer. She pulled up her skirts about her knees, bent her head and plunged for the stairway. Never had she gone up so fast, even in her childhood. It seemed endless, like a stairway in a nightmare. When she reached the top she was faint and sick and trembling. She reached the door of her room, then halted. She had a feeling that she would not be safe there, that her father would soon be doing a little investigating on his own. There was a light under her mother’s door. She tapped on it lightly, turned the handle, and entered.

  May, ready for her bed, was sitting before her fire in ruffled ni
ghtgown and maroon dressing gown. Her red-gray hair hung in two neat plaits on her plump round shoulders. She removed her glasses self-consciously and put aside her book, and regarded Gertrude with surprise.

  “My dear! Did you know your father is waiting for you downstairs, with Paul?” Then she became aware of the fact that Gertrude had closed the door swiftly behind her, and was leaning against it, panting, and that her clothing and hair were in a sad state of dishevelment. Her surprise and apprehension quickened at the glimpse of the girl’s face in the firelight and lamplight; it was pale and drawn and there was terror in it. “What on earth!” she exclaimed, rising and advancing.

  Gertrude glanced fearfully at the door, put her finger to her lips, and turned to her mother. May took the girl’s hands; they were icy cold and tremulous.

  “Mama,” she whispered, “may I stay here tonight with you?”

  She had not asked this since she was a child, overcome with mysterious night fears. May peered at her keenly, looked at the door, and comprehended. She drew her daughter to the fire, made her sit down. She picked up an edge of the heavy wet frock and shook her head reprovingly. “The prettiest thing you have had for a long time,” she murmured. Gertrude still sat and trembled on the edge of her chair, her body rigid. “You’ll catch your death,” went on May. “Luckily there’s some hot chocolate left in the jug.” She went to her bedside table where a neat silver tray stood holding a silver jug and a cup. She poured out the still steaming liquid and brought it to Gertrude. The girl made a faint negative sign, but upon May’s silent insistence, she drank. And immediately felt better. May sat down.

  “You know,” she said, keeping her voice low, “your agitation is all out of proportion to the cause, Gertrude. In fact, it’s silly. Your Papa isn’t a dragon, and Paul isn’t waiting down there to devour you. You are a young woman. You have your own mind and your own will. I can see very well that you don’t want to marry Paul; it is easy enough for you to say so. No one in all this world can make you marry him if you don’t want to.”