“Of course,” said Elsa. “I will help you. I can do it better than that girl.”
Helplessly, May silently cursed her good breeding, which would not allow her to insult Elsa as she so heartily desired. It’s my nerves, she thought severely. Yesterday I thought what a really good girl she is, and how pathetic and affectionate, and truly intelligent, and today I believe I could cut her throat. I’m becoming quite abominable.
Elsa was already assisting the maid and the porter to prepare May’s couch. May, resigned, was about to leave Ernest when he said, glancing bemusedly through the window: “Each time I travel this way I remember that I took this very route by stagecoach, a thousand years ago. Stagecoach! How damnable that was! Days and days of torture, mudholes and craters, rain and sun, thirst and dust, aching back and bruised legs, and grimy sweat.”
May, already standing, looked back over her shoulder at him. “My great-great-grandfather Sessions made the same journey in his own coach.” As she lay down on the couch, and Elsa and the maid fought simultaneously to make her comfortable, she said to herself: That was petty. And it’s very funny, and embarrassing, that that is the sort of thing that can impress him! But it was very petty. Yes, I am really becoming abominable. She closed her eyes, but the lashes did not meet. Between them, for a long time, she watched Ernest. The pillow under her cheek showed a dark spreading circle of moistness.
Elsa sat near May, reading and yawning. Her great legs were spread out, so that a deep purple velvet hollow lay between them. May thought her feet enormous. The sunlight rippled over her thick hair, and her large dominant face was the face of Brunhilde. Between chapters she would pause, stare into the empty distance beyond the windows. It was then that a shining look came over her big features, a look of ecstasy, and she trembled slightly.
Gertrude, alone now, looked mournfully from the rear of the coach at her father. She knew that the old eager confidence she had had in him, the faith and trust, the ease, were gone. Since her marriage to Paul she had not been able to approach Ernest with any naturalness. This situation was almost agonizing to her, but some hidden instinct kept her from attempting to change it. She lay back in her chair. The window was dusty. Her fragile forefinger traced a letter in the dust without her conscious exertion. She looked at it. It was the letter P. She stared at it a long time, with dry fixed eyes.
Twenty-four hours later they arrived in New York. Lucy Van Eyck’s carriage, resplendent with two coachmen in uniform, was waiting for them. They drove through the blue and white glitter of the wintry New York streets, and the morning air had a zest in it. The hour was still early; only a few drays and heavy wagons lumbered and crunched over the blazing snow, though occasionally the sweet jingle of sleigh bells rang festively from the quiet residential streets. The intense dark blue of the sky and the white clouds were reflected brilliantly in every high window; the shops glittered; icicles hung from eaves like lances of crystal. Omnibuses lurched by, crowded with early workers. Lower Fifth Avenue, decked with small shops like a dame scintillating with bracelets, brooches and ear-rings, looked gay and vivid, for the sidewalks were already thronged with scuttling thousands, who turned into Fourteenth Street like overflowing rivers. This was the heart of the shopping district; sales were afoot, post-Christmas sales, and clotted masses of women were feverishly and belatedly buying presents for forgotten friends and relatives, or exchanging presents found undesirable. Carriages were already lined up against the curbs along Fourteenth Street, Fifth Avenue and Broadway; the harness dazzled the eye as it caught the sun, the horses tossed their heads and exhaled clouds of white steam and stamped their hoofs. May caught a flash of an elaborate black velvet and sequin gown in the broad window of Arnold Constable’s, and made a mental note to visit the store later in the day. Driving up Fifth Avenue, leaving the shopping district behind, the streets became quieter and more sedate; the shops thinned out. Magnificent dwellings lined themselves up along the thoroughfare. Upper windows were still shrouded in rippling pale silk, but there was activity below in the areaways. Servant girls were already rushing in and out with baskets, and altercations were going on between cooks and vegetable and meat men. The sun, growing higher and warmer, was beginning to melt the snow; it was forming soft flabby patches on the street between which ran writhing black water.
Gertrude, looking unusually small and wan and dark, huddled under the thick fur rugs; she watched the passing streets dimly. May, in spite of her anxiety and excitement, could feel pleasure in the swift flow of the great city and anticipation of a long shopping orgy. Elsa, vigorous and exuberant, bounced about continually, dragging the rug from May’s knees, apologizing, rearranging, exclaiming, laughing, clapping her gloved hands, settling her bonnet which always fell awry, and showing her delight, excitement, feverish joy, with the lack of restraint of a passionate and healthy child. Once Gertrude glanced at her slowly, and May was quite struck by the expression of her daughter’s face, so tired was it, so contemptuous, so languidly brutal. Dear me! she thought, disturbed, it is true that Elsa is extremely tiresome—and wearing—but it is hardly right to hate some one like that without real provocation. Ernest, however, seemed pleased and amused at his niece’s bouncing pleasure in the city; he pinched her hard and blooming cheek and rallied her. “You are a handsome piece, Elsa,” he said, gratified at the resemblance to himself in her features.
She laughed heartily. “I only hope Frey thinks so, too!” she exclaimed.
May glanced involuntarily at Gertrude; Gertrude’s eyes became brilliantly pointed with hate and malevolence as they fixed themselves upon her cousin.
“If he doesn’t, he’s an ass,” said Ernest. It would be nice to have this girl for his daughter. She would put strength into the vinegar of his son’s blood; she would give him children, Barbours, vital and strong and forceful as herself.
They arrived at Lucy Van Eyck’s house, a quiet but dignified four-story residence on Twenty-third Street and Fifth Avenue. It was of whitestone with narrow balconies, and enormous arched windows rippling with gray silk shades. Ernest had been here before, but not May or Gertrude. “Lucy,” he said as he helped May to alight, “has done herself well.” The butler and two men servants rushed from the house to assist.
They entered a great square hall panelled in mahogany, from which a squarish and solid staircase, ivory-colored, stolidly marched to the second floor. Lucy, plump, affectionate, sharp-eyed and smiling, greeted them in a rose-colored morning gown. Her husband, Percival, a tall narrow young man, insipid and fair and kind, and “not too bright” (to quote Ernest), stood by her side. His light silken mustaches hid his weak and pretty mouth. But he was all elegance, soft voice, sincerity, true graciousness and hospitality. Beside him, Lucy seemed more than a little common, with her forthright expression, small sharp sparkling eyes, loud authoritative voice, plumpness, high color and arrogant manner. She loved her Percival, but she thought him “a poor helpless lamb that I have to watch like a child, and guide and scold.”
She kissed Ernest with a resounding smacking report, assaulted May’s cheek in true matronly style, and greeted Gertrude with a sudden dropping into reserve. She shook her dark curls at Elsa with a knowing smile, and in the midst of her chatter and exclamations told her sister frankly that she needed some decent clothes, that she positively looked a fright. Gertrude smiled for the first time in two days.
Before the guests were allowed to eat their late and waiting breakfast, they must inspect the big house from kitchen to store-room, especially the nursery, where young Thomas sat in his crib playing with his toes. He looked much like his mother. Percival demurred gently at this imposition on the guests, but Lucy silenced him with a competent wave of her hand. The young man trailed disconsolately and apologetically behind the inspecting party, murmuring every now and then. Finally, Ernest, who liked the simple and the none-too-bright better than he liked the more intelligent and troublesome who might get in his way, engaged him in a pleasant and interested conversation as they went downstairs again.
Lucy expressed herself as quite offended that “little Godfrey” had not chosen to call upon her, or to remain at her house since he had arrived in New York. “Imagine!” she exclaimed when May mentioned her son’s address. “On Seventh Avenue between Thirteenth and Twelfth Streets! Why, that’s the artists’ neighborhood. Really quite dreadful people, many of them so poor they are living, men and women together, four and six in a single room.”
“I’m sure Frey wouldn’t associate with any one who was really dreadful,” said May smoothly, disliking her niece.
“How do you know that?” demanded Ernest brutally. “He never had an ounce of discrimination in his life.”
May colored, though her smile was determined. Ernest enlarged on his theme: “I don’t know why it is accepted that ‘artists’ must necessarily be fools. It seems to me that if a man has keenness enough, and intelligence enough, to give sound or substance to what he has seen of other men or things, his faculties of discernment and wit and competence develop in proportion. An incompetent man is an incompetent ‘artist,’ no matter how many silly women gush over him and declare him a genius.” May shrugged. “Of course, my dear, that is only your opinion. You haven’t met any artists, you know.”
Elsa lavishly buttered a slice of bread and bit into it. “Frey isn’t an artist,” she said in her confident voice, which settled all things. “He just thinks he is. That’s his way of playing. But I’m sure he is realizing now that his playtime is over.”
Ernest laughed. “I’ll give you the biggest diamond in America for a wedding present, Elsa!” he said.
May stood up. Her color was still high and she was trembling. “My dears, you must excuse me, but my head aches slightly. Gertrude, if you are quite finished, may I speak to you before I lie down?” And May, poised and controlled as ever, swept from the room followed by Gertrude, who had left her breakfast almost untouched.
“Well,” remarked Lucy, “Aunt May is a good example of Mama’s epigram that a true lady is a woman who knows how to insult you thoroughly without offense.”
“She hasn’t insulted me,” said Elsa. “I know she shudders at the idea of me marrying Frey. But that’s a weakness of women with sons.”
After breakfast Ernest excused himself on the plea that he had an engagement with Mr. Jay Regan, and must keep it immediately.
CHAPTER LXXXIII
Mr. Jay Regan, financial baron extraordinary, had offices on Wall Street that were sumptuous if old-fashioned. He lived behind a battery of attendants and secretaries, through which the visitor must pass as through an armed camp. The camp was polite enough, but frankly suspicious. However, when Ernest Barbour appeared, there was a great presenting of arms and salutes and dipping of colors. The Praetorians formed an escort to conduct him to the aide-de-camp, who thereupon conducted him to the tent of the General. Presenting the visitor, the aide-de-camp saluted, clicked his heels, and smartly retired.
“What are you afraid of? Assassination?” Ernest asked, laughing. “Each time I come you have added another couple of captains, brigadiers, and a detachment of lieutenants.”
Jay Regan grinned. “Of course I’m afraid of assassination! Didn’t some idiot, who claimed I had ruined him, charge my men outside, waving a gun? One of your guns, too, we found out later. A little out of alignment, or it might have blown me inside out. There’s a bullet hole just two feet over my head. Look at it,” and he pointed to a black scar in the red mahogany panelling behind him.
“Tut, tut,” said Ernest. “I’ll have to see about that alignment.”
Jay Regan was an immense man, six-foot-three in stocking feet, broad and tremendously paunched in proportion, his gigantic round head set squarely upon shoulders like beams. He was quite bald, but his sandy eyebrows were bushy to make up for it. Below those eyebrows were pinpoints of ambushed eyes. A full white-sandy mustache half-hid his broad mouth, which was savage in repose. His nose was of the type of Ernest’s nose: short, broad, belligerent, with distended nostrils. He had arms like Goliath’s, thighs like small kegs. One had a sense of shock when observing his hands, which were long and thin and white and delicate, like a woman’s, with nails pale and smooth as mother-of-pearl. Cruel hands. “Pickpocket hands,” he would say, himself, with enjoyment.
Original paintings of the old Masters were his hobby. Over his head, just above the bullet hole, was a fine Rembrandt, all passionate ochre and blazing jewel-points and curve of fine gold and black-brown shadow. Over the fireplace, leaping with ruddy flame, was a Rubens. His palace on Fifth Avenue was an art gallery. His son, a replica of himself, young Jay Junior, shared his obsession for beauty, and a great part of his business trips to Europe was spent in searching, stealing, bribing, cajoling and intrigue, in order to enlarge his father’s private galleries.
Mr. Regan was very glad indeed to see Ernest Barbour. He thought him one of America’s truly great men. He admired him. “There’s a fellow utterly without a conscience,” he would say heartily. “Not a gentleman, of course, and not a man I’d care to have marry my daughter. But for all of that, a great man.”
He pressed brandy upon Ernest. “Well, what have you come to New York to grab this time?” he asked genially. “Railroads? You’ll have to fight the Vanderbilts this time—and you haven’t got the ghost of a chance. Even the Goulds are going to drop out; interested in copper now.”
“I’m interested in copper, too. I’ve got options in Montana. Got them for practically nothing. Need that for our new type shell. I’m not dealing with the Goulds; I don’t need to. What I do need is manganese. I don’t propose to do much business with Germany, and just at present the Russians don’t like me. But I’ve got options in South America. The damnable part of it is that the manganese is almost inaccessible there, so I’m helping finance a railroad into the territory. When that’s done, I can tell Germany to go to hell. I never liked the buggers, anyway.”
“You’ll like them better, later on. They’ve got an eye on all of Europe, since Bismarck. Maybe it won’t be tomorrow, but eventually Europe will be a good market for your munitions. So don’t curse the Dutchmen too much. Am I too inquisitive, but what have you been doing lately? Seems to me I’ve heard you mentioned quite nastily a few times in the papers, both here and in Europe. According to some reports, you’ve turned into a Machiavelli—manufacturing wars so there’ll be a market for your munitions.”
Ernest smiled. “A munitions maker,” he said, “dare not make himself too conspicuous either by defending himself, or advertising. Munitions making is one industry in which advertising, voluntarily or involuntarily, would be fatal. I am condemned to a very private life. But, you’ve asked what I have been doing. Well, I’ll tell you. A little.”
He sipped the brandy. He considered it a “gentleman’s drink,” and his pretense of enjoyment had by now become second-nature.
“You remember, I worked for years trying to do some business with Japan, but she preferred to struggle along with other concerns in other countries or make her munitions herself. The Japs have great inventive ability and patience, and eventually, laugh if you will, they’ll be formidable competitors in trade with every Western nation. You’re not laughing? You are a wise man. We’ve got to watch Japan. There’s a ferment there. White men’s officiousness, in the name of civilization will make a yellow wrath out of Asia. You can’t teach your neighbor such gentle embellishments as trade and Christianity and agreeable intercourse without infecting him in the process with ideas. When you teach him to play nicely with you he’ll soon begin to wonder if he can beat you at the game. When the white man ‘civilizes’ what he considers the inferior races he either annihilates them in the process or makes them his enemies. So, while it is too bad that the Jap won’t be a nice boy and stop with our virtues, but will learn our vices and how to surpass them, we can still get our profit out of him before he realizes what we are doing to him.”
“I detest philosophers as a rule,” said Jay Regan. “But a rascal like you can make som
ething worthwhile out of philosophy. But go on.”
“You remember that the feudal tenure was practically abolished in Japan comparatively recently. Sakuma Shozan, Yokoi Heishiro and Omura Masujiro, were all fine men. I admit it myself. Under them, the Japs might really have become civilized, according to Western standards, and might have learnt to be great instead of becoming the yellow wrath which they will become within the next fifty years. They were true patriots (if you like patriots), liberal, tolerant, intelligent. They hated all that makes civilizations: cruelty, war and exploitation. But as men for me, they were very bad. How are you going to civilize a nation unless you teach it how much it needs munitions? Protection against other races that might get hungry and ambitious.
“There was Kumoi Tatsuo who had no illusions about the white man’s ‘freedom’ for the masses of people. A good sound old conservative, Kumoi Tatsuo, and no nonsense about him. A good old samurai—no democrat. He had the first essential necessary for true leadership—he despised the people. So he plotted with his fellow samurai and the three great liberals were assassinated. A very nice man, Kumoi Tatsuo—we’ll be able to do a lot of business with Japan in the future because of him.”
“You didn’t, by any chance, have anything to do with the successful uprising led by Kumoi Tatsuo?”
Ernest smiled. “You credit me with omnipresence. Japan is still practically a closed country. But I have been informed by Skeda in Austria that the arms shipped by them via Russia got through into Japan with a minimum of difficulty. A few more shipments, and Japan will be able to attack Korea.”
“And Russia, of course, is being helpful in permitting the transportation of arms through her territory?”
“Everyone is helpful if properly approached. Of course, there has been some uproar and a lot of threats in Russia since it was discovered that arms were being shipped into Japan. They didn’t accuse Skeda; they accused me. Absurd, of course. It is true that Skeda has a lot of my patents, and we exchange ideas and suggestions, and I own a considerable portion of Skeda stock—but it is silly to say that I am behind the feudal revolt and agreeable to the conquest of Korea.”
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