Dynasty of Death

by Taylor Caldwell

  Beyond the tall old windows the winter snow had sifted down; an even white rim lay on the windowsills. Someone silently turned on the gas, and the bulbous chandeliers burned with a soft and mellow light. An old clerk crept up to Ernest and whispered obsequiously that Mr. Bellowes would see him now. He led the way to a carved and discolored oaken door behind which old James sat in unshakable silence, as unhuman and merciless as death.

  He sat at his gigantic old mahogany desk across what seemed to Ernest half an acre of darkly glimmering floor. The light in the room was diffused and gentle; the huge clock boomed with lofty urbanity. Behind its polished grate the fire leapt and danced, glimmering over the furniture, then falling again.

  Nearby sat Jay Regan, with the faint cynical smile under his mustache. James Bellowes did not greet Ernest. He watched his approach in utter silence, and did not speak even when his visitor sat down. He sat behind his desk, thin to impossible fragility, watchful, straight and rigid. In spite of his fragile appearance, brittle and tense, he was a living and immortal strength.

  The two men regarded each other intently, pale eye to eye, implacability face to face with implacability. The regard went on for some moments. Then a faint flicker passed over Bellowes’ gray face and a sharp pallid flash disturbed his lips.

  “I am glad to see you, Mr. Barbour,” he said in his dry and grating voice. “And I am glad to hear from Mr. Regan that you are prepared to come to terms with me.”

  “I am a reasonable man,” replied Ernest. “And my time is valuable, too. I am glad to hear Mr. Regan has spoken for me. What have you to offer?”

  Bellowes’ long face turned grim and sour.

  “In your section of the country I patronize your railroad. We do business together. In spite of our business relationships you are operating a refinery of your own, selling oil, shipping it on your railroad. A very ambiguous state of affairs, Mr. Barbour, a very ambiguous state of affairs. I do business with you under the pleasantest of relationships, and you cut my throat by competing with me. Do you call that fair?”

  Ernest did not reply for a moment. Then he said very carefully: “Mr. Regan has told you what I have to say. We are not discussing fairness; only business. So I must ask you again: What have you to offer?”

  Bellowes did not answer. He pulled toward him a paper and studied it intently. He had gray corded hands and thick wrists. A good hangman, thought Ernest.

  Again Ernest spoke, slowly and distinctly. “You need our railroad. You can’t do business with Charles Pitts. He’s a stubborn man. As I said before, I’m reasonable. I can sell him out, put you in the way of ruining him. I can throw my stock in your brother’s business on the market. You need me; I need you.”

  At the mention of his brother a sort of spasm passed over Bellowes’ corpse-like face; then it relaxed once more into its rigid immobility. He raised his eyes with all their cold ferocity shining in them, and fixed them on Ernest.

  “I will give you fifty thousand shares in the Middle Oil Company, and forty thousand in the Apex Oil Company, for your refineries and your wells.”

  There was another silence. Jay Regan pursed his mouth in a soundless whistle. Ernest put the corner of his right index finger in his mouth and bit it reflectively.

  “And,” went on Bellowes, “you will carry out your agreement with regard to Pitts—and my brother.” He sighed thinly. “Poor Jack; I used to rock his cradle!”

  For some odd reason or other, Ernest thought suddenly of Martin, whose cradle he had rocked. He studied Bellowes openly; he thought: He is obscene! He said: “That part is satisfactory. Now, I must ask something else.

  “Your Senator Ford is a meddler. He is agitating for an alien contract labor law. That would be very bad, for me. And for dozens like me. Then there is Senator Winslow, a worse meddler, for he is a fanatic. He has introduced a bill, which, should it pass, would keep America from ever entering into any military agreement with a foreign nation, would forever prohibit alliances for mutual—protection. He is doing a lot of waving of the Monroe Doctrine. Now then, nations are coming closer to each other. We have steamships that annihilate distance—we have the cable. Nations are no longer isolated, and cannot maintain a policy of isolation. A nation that persists in isolation is in a dangerous position. Winslow would put America into that danger. You have more than a little influence. I want both Ford and Winslow stopped. I want their mouths shut.”

  Bellowes put his long pallid fingers carefully together, and over the bony tent they made he stared at Ernest without a change of expression. “It is a pleasure to do you this favor, Mr. Barbour. I have already written to Senator Ford about his alien contract labor agitation. Tomorrow I shall write to Senator Winslow about his bill. I consider it very unpatriotic of him.”

  After a prolonged moment Ernest rose, and gathered up his hat and cane and gloves. He turned to Jay Regan, who had been watching him blandly.

  “I must ask,” he said, “that you reconsider your refusal of a loan to France. Schultz and Poiret have just received a large armaments order from the Government.”

  Regan said nothing. Bellowes looked from one to the other of the two men and a pallid smile touched the corners of his lips. Regan’s face turned scarlet, and then he smiled. He rose also.

  When they were out once more in the narrow sunlit street, swarming with its feverish brokers and messenger boys, Regan said: “You have me to thank for the very excellent exchange you made with Mr. Bellowes.”

  Ernest’s mouth twitched. “Thank you,” he said, and there was no perceptible irony in his voice. Regan laughed. “He didn’t like your reference to fanaticism in connection with Winslow. They belong to the same church. Bellowes is very devout, you know, very pious.”

  “He only needed that to complete him,” replied Ernest.

  CHAPTER LXXXV

  When the Barbour family arrived at the Academy of Music with their host and hostess, Mr. and Mrs. Jay Regan, and the latter’s daughter, Miss Alice Regan, the large auditorium was already filled. The great crystal chandeliers were sparkling like hanging baskets of diamond frost; the great crimson curtains were looped about the gilded boxes and hung over the stage. The high ceiling gleamed with gilt knobs and curves. A tremendous crowd filled both the orchestra and the balcony, and every box was crowded with occupants. The musicians were already in their places, and the discordant wails of their tuning, the bump of their instruments, the thin glittering notes of the harp, mingled with the festive roar of the audience. Everywhere was movement, colorful and sparkling; here and there the gleam of a white arm or shoulder, the red or blue or green shimmer of a gown, the toss of a feathered head, the flutter of bright fans, the flash of eyes and jewels, the motion of black-coated, white-cravated gentlemen, the agitation of a program, the foam of lace, the white brilliance of a smile. Everything was in a ferment. Everyone was vehement and excited, full of laughter and gay anticipation; voices flashed from row to row, accompanied by nods and the wave of a hand. Pretty bare white backs leaned forward energetically, swayed, returned to place. The fashion and wealth of New York sat in the orchestra and the boxes, or moved from row to row exchanging laughter and jokes, or like a tide rose into the boxes and ebbed away. The air was very warm, and before long the audience sat in a mist of perfumes.

  May wore a Worth creation purchased that very afternoon, a deep crimson velvet elaborately draped and bustled and banded in rich black seal. It was cut very low in front, and displayed her still pretty plump white throat and chest and bare arms. She had put on her old garnets and wore the garnet ear-rings. Her small fat white hands flashed with diamonds and rubies, and on her hair, mingled dark red and gray, was perched a tiara of blazing blue diamonds. Her right wrist burned with broad bracelets of the same stones. Gracious, smiling, discreetly rouged, perfumed, and wielding a fan of black lace embroidered with garnets and diamonds, she sat in the Regan box and acknowledged the surprised nods and smiles of old friends below in the orchestra. Ernest thought she looked exceptionally wel
l, and he was proud of her, and proud of the fact that members of families with great names greeted her with real pleasure and without patronage. It did not disturb him to see how their faces changed slightly when they saw him, and how distrustful and wary was their renewed attempt at cordiality toward him. In fact, he was slightly amused. It was enough for him to see how they greeted May; he had never felt so strong an affection for her. He did not sit in the Regan box and sentimentally think: Nearly forty years ago I was a penniless immigrant boy. His arrival, his success, was to him the expected and inevitable thing. One did not marvel over the expected and the inevitable.

  Gertrude pleased him tonight, also. She was dressed in a long-sleeved, high-necked gown of bottle-green velvet banded with black velvet, draped with dignity. She wore no jewels, except the diamond Paul had given her. Her slim body sat upright in the gilt chair, and her dark cloudy hair and colorless cool face, while not at all pretty, had distinction. She made even her mother, who had no plebeian ancestors, seem almost dowdy. Ernest, the Englishman, thought to himself that his daughter looked quite the patrician. The Englishman was unshakably strong in him, and though he would have denied it with fury, he had the Englishman’s reverence for aristocracy and birth. And so he looked at his daughter, with her wan face and immobile expression and pale lifeless hands and slim throat, and he was grateful. There had been no exchanges of affection or confidence between them for a long time, but tonight he broke open the wall she had built about herself and leaning forward, he touched her hand. She turned her face to him; and he had a faint shock. He had thought her expression serene. He saw now that she was only rigidly entranced, and that she looked at him from deep within herself with eyes like a cry. Even when she smiled at him, and turned away, he still felt the shock, and his head fell forward a little on his heavy neck. I am imagining things, he thought, and shook his head faintly, over and over. But he did not touch Gertrude again.

  Mrs. Regan, short and fat and amiable in black lace, was very vivacious, jerking her gray curled head about acknowledging acquaintances below. Miss Alice Regan, conscious perhaps of her father’s origins, sat in state with a very refined air, and inclined her pale blond head regally. Jay Regan, who had dined and drunk too well, fought with a tendency to go to sleep. He talked loudly in consequence.

  Elsa, in heavy rose satin and brilliants, with a long rosy feather in her piled hair, was excessively florid. Had she been dressed in black velvet and white ermine, with here and there a pearl or a diamond, she would have been magnificent. But Elsa was not distinguished for her taste in dress, and thought her rose satin devastating. As it was, she resembled a huge blooming cabbage-rose more than anything else, and her fine vivid complexion, which May thought vulgar, did nothing to add refinement to her appearance. Elsa’s voice, loud and more than a little husky, attracted the attention of people as far as four rows away in the orchestra below the box.

  May was gracious and smiling enough, endearing herself all over again to the Regans with her sympathetic air of interest and gentle attention. But she was trembling inside; it seemed to her that every bone in her body shook in its sheath of flesh. There was a thick lump in her throat and her hands were wet and icy. Between smiles and laughs and remarks, she studied the program. First was Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, followed by a concerto by Mozart, and then at the bottom was printed: “The Academy of Music is pleased to introduce at this time a distinguished young American composer, unknown as yet to American audiences though newly acclaimed in Paris: Mr. Godfrey Barbour. His First Symphony, called ‘The Mountain Symphony,’ will be played tonight.” Then followed extracts from the opinions of French critics, all laudatory, some extravagant, and a brief résumé of the life of Mr. Godfrey Barbour and the schools of music in which he had studied.

  May read the program over and over. Sometimes her heart swelled, and tears burst into her eyes. She winked them back. When she smiled again, the smile was radiant and tremulous. She gave Ernest the program and he read it impassively, returned it to her without comment. For a moment or two she decided that she hated him. But when she accidentally glanced at Gertrude, her daughter smiled whitely, and May saw that her hands were shaking. Mother and daughter drew closer together than ever before in their mutual agitation and terrible excitement.

  There was a disturbance at the velvet curtains behind the box, and a tall broad youngish man with thick black mustaches, and an immense, arrogant-faced woman in early middle-age, and dressed in the most execrable taste, entered the Regan box. The gentlemen rose. The newcomers were Mr. Vanderbilt and Mrs. Urlich. The lady had a hoarse contemptuous voice, lavish diamonds, and arms and hands like a butcher’s. Her mauve lace and satin gown, her feathered hair, set off her dark-red face and darting small black eyes, sharp as jet. Ernest, who respected birth and not money, was not overly cordial to the guests. He did not like Vanderbilt, who had worsted him in a little railroad business. He particularly hated arrogant women of no great handsomeness. So, before the guests were seated, he had already sat down again.

  Mrs. Urlich liked Ernest Barbour, and even while she talked rapidly in her hoarsely rippling voice, she eyed him with those jet-like eyes that had little glittering points in them. Ernest had presented her with only three-quarters of his face and it was impassive, utterly without expression. The lady privately thought him fascinating, and considered his wife a smiling fool, who had nothing but good birth to recommend her. So she boomed at him, and as he continued to remain impassive she wanted to cut his throat. She fanned herself vigorously, emitting, as she did so, a prostrating effluvium of rose perfume, and Jay Regan leaned respectfully over the back of her chair. Her huge thighs were round and glossy under the mauve satin.

  “I refused to believe, at first, that that dear young man was really your son, Mr. Barbour! I would rather expect him to be an excellent business man! But when I was finally convinced, I simply had to come over and congratulate you! I tell you, all of New York is humming with his name! America has so few real artists, that we all feel grateful to you.”

  May glanced triumphantly at Ernest, who sat impassively and faintly smiling. His arm hung over the back of his chair, and it swung a trifle.

  “Let’s hear what he’s got to play, first,” he said, “before we judge.”

  Taken aback, Mrs. Urlich glanced at May, whose steady smile became a little fixed. “Ernest,” said May, fanning herself agitatedly, “cannot believe that a son of ours could be anything but an industrialist!”

  “Pardon me, May—‘anything but a fool,’” said Ernest in his monotonous voice. And as he said this he looked at his wife blandly.

  A sickening silence fell in the box, against which the uproar below was like a crash. Then Mrs. Urlich burst into violent and enjoying laughter.

  “What a delicious creature you are, Mr. Barbour! So excessively witty! I declare, you’d be invaluable at a dinner!”

  However, it was apparent that neither May nor Gertrude thought Ernest a wit. May had turned as pale as Gertrude and bluish lines sprang out on each side of her faint smile. The diamonds on her fingers splintered into sparks because of her trembling. The Regans smiled also, but with discomfort. Good-natured Mrs. Regan was on the point of tears, in her sympathy for May.

  Mrs. Urlich looked up. The jet eyes almost disappeared in the red flesh about them. She glanced sidelong at Mr. Vanderbilt, who was pulling his mustaches. She rose, and the perfume flowed about her rustling gown.

  “I am sorry you are thinking of returning tomorrow,” she said cordially. “I would so like to have you all for dinner tomorrow night.”

  May murmured regretfully; the fan hid half of her haggard face. Gertrude murmured, Elsa heartily expressed her disappointment. Ernest said nothing. He merely smiled. When the guests had gone, May moistened her lips behind her lace handkerchief and did not look at her husband.

  But the auditorium was darkening. A silence fell, broken only by random whispers and the rustle of a program. The color and sparkle of the audience faded
to a dim, restless sea. The conductor struck his score, lifted his baton. Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony dawned on the warm perfumed air like the voice of a celestial host. The horns of the orchestra were disks of gold in the darkness.

  Ernest soon saw that May had been quite truthful when she had said she knew little about music. Part of her inattention was due to her inability to enjoy music, and part to her own agitation. She kept touching her lips with her fan, then fanning herself vigorously; in the half-darkness of the box her diamonds winked. She moved on her chair as if it burnt her. Occasionally she sighed, a long and quivering sigh. But Gertrude sat utterly without movement, her long pale hands clasped in her green velvet lap, her profile pure and expressionless. Elsa fussed with her bangles and chains, and kept preening her large handsome head.

  Ernest was not the type of new-rich that affected to despise music because he did not understand it. Neither did he feel superior to it. He was merely untouched. There were no great calms in him, no super-worldly ecstasies and majestic movements, and he recognized this very clearly. It was necessary, he said to himself, for a man to feel like the musician in order to understand his music. Nevertheless, though his emotions were undisturbed (which he knew was all wrong if one wished to appreciate music), he felt a sort of admiration for such lofty perfection, for such unhalting flow of sound. Had there been a break, a flaw, an uncertainty, his ear, trained to catch breaks and flaws and uncertainties in the speech of other men, would have caught them in this symphony. The fact that he did not pleased him tremendously. He admired Beethoven for his perfect workmanship, his grasp, his scope, his masterful precision. Such things were pleasurable to hear in themselves; master of technique himself, he felt an almost sensual enjoyment in discovering technique in another man, no matter what the medium.