Robbie Budd was busy all day, and in the evening he had a lot of figuring and dictating to do, so it was easy for Lanny to get excused; he wanted to call on an important client, he said—and that wasn’t any fib. He was picked up and taken to the client in that big high-ceilinged bedroom with the dark blue wallpaper. He asked: “Did the hotdogs agree with you?” and he was answered with one of those grins which he had come to know. F.D. loved this job of his, but only on his own terms, which were that he could remain himself and have some fun as he went along. He was determined not to become stiff and formal, glum and morose, as his greatly disliked predecessor had done.
“They are very simple and friendly people,” he said, speaking of his royal guests. “Everything went off very well—except that our butler at Krum Elbow slipped on a rug with a loaded tray.”
“Well, I dare say that has happened in Buckingham Palace,” commented Lanny. Then, being curious about Robbie’s affairs, he remarked: “My father is here in Washington—being roped and branded by the Army.”
“By golly!” exclaimed the President. “I hope they don’t burn him too deep.” The twinkle in his lively gray eyes told that he knew what was going on. Such a lot of things he knew!
XIII
Lanny understood that this was one of the busiest periods in a great man’s life, for he was involved in a long and grueling struggle with Congress over the amending of the Neutrality Act. The stack of papers on his reading table seemed like a hint to a visitor, and Lanny decided to make his report quickly and take himself out of the way. But F.D. wanted to chat, and there was no stopping him. “How did you like my telegram to the Führer?” he inquired.
“It was all right, Governor; only, if I’d had a chance to revise it, I’d have left out Ireland and Palestine.”
“He’s a dirty fighter!” exclaimed the other, revealing that he felt the barbs which had been shot at him across the Atlantic.
“Many of the country-club set in Newcastle agreed with him; but I took occasion to sound out some of the plain people, and found that they had got the point. One old farmer said: ‘Somebody will have to sit on that fellow and hold him down.’”
“Meaning me or Hitler?” asked the President; and then, after enjoying his own joke: “What is he going to do next, Lanny?”
“He’s going to have his way with Poland; but first he’ll make some sort of deal with the Russians, to keep them quiet. That is what I came to tell you about.”
Lanny had burned the letter from Monck, having first learned it by heart. Now he recited it, and told briefly about the writer. “He is a levelheaded and careful man, and would never make such a statement about Ribbentrop unless he had got it from the horse’s mouth. You know how it is with the underground—they have sympathizers in high positions, and sometimes secretaries and clerks take documents over the week-end and have them photostated. I myself have helped to get such documents out of Germany—they had come from Göring’s files.”
“This makes a pretty black prospect, Lanny. If the Nazis and the Soviets combine, they can just about take Europe.”
“Don’t read more into my message than it contains, Governor. If Monck had meant to indicate a military alliance, he would have used the name of some painter of patriotic or militarist tendencies. We talked our code over very carefully, sitting on the edge of the battlefield of Belchite, in Spain, where he commanded a company. We couldn’t have a verbal code, because neither of us could risk carrying notes. It had to be painters, because that is my business. He said: “I don’t know much about them, but I can look them up or have somebody else do it for me. As I read the riddle, Vereshchagin stands for peace, and it will be some sort of mutual non-aggression pact.”
“But surely the Russians must know that if Hitler could knock out France, he would overrun the Ukraine in no time!”
“No doubt they know everything we know, and then some. But they will be playing for time: time to get new troops trained, time to get new factories going behind the Urals.”
“From the accounts that come to me, things aren’t going at all well in Russia; the people are poor, and even the commonest goods are scarce.”
“Don’t let that fool you, Governor. I have an uncle in Paris who is a Communist deputy, and he talks the Party line perforce, but he’s a pretty levelheaded old boy, and I’ve had many tips from him. What he tells me is that the Soviet government allots just enough production of civilian goods to keep the population going. Everything else goes into defense preparation, and it’s colossal.”
“It’s too bad we can’t have their resources on our side, Lanny. Is there anything on earth that I can do?”
“Not much, unless you can promise aid to the Soviets in case Hitler attacks them.”
“You know I can’t do that. In the first place, in case of war, it would be almost impossible to get goods to Russia; and, in the second place, if I tried it, my opponents here would impeach me.”
“Well, the only other thing would be to persuade Britain and France to make up their minds and guarantee support to the Soviets if they are attacked. Britain and France can’t do it for the same reason that you can’t—political disunity at home. The greater part of the Tories and French Nationalists would rather see Hitler win than Stalin. What they want is to have them fight each other to exhaustion; and of course that’s obvious to both Stalin and Hitler—and why should they go out of their way to oblige their enemies? Hitler has said that to me in so many words. I had no answer then and I have none now; why should he?”
XIV
Once more Lanny remarked what a heavy burden this Chief Executive was carrying in hot summer weather. He offered to leave, but the reply was an emphatic “No, I want you to answer questions.” In the six years since Franklin Roosevelt had taken office, his range of duties had expanded to include Central Europe and all the Mediterranean lands; he had to know their geography, their politics, and the different personalities who handled their affairs—just as he had to know the Congressmen and Senators who were now making speeches attacking him.
At the moment there appeared to be a stalemate between Germany and Poland. The Führer had made his “one and only offer,” and Poland had said No. Whose move was it now? Lanny explained the Nazi technique, the “softening up” process, the game of intimidation which preceded every new adventure. There were more “outrages” in Danzig and the Corridor, more screaming in the Nazi press. Maybe the talk of a deal with Russia was just part of this process. Maybe Ribbentrop would pack up his duds and say he was going to Moscow, and maybe that would scare the Poles so that they would give up a few more square miles of territory.
It was the same in every capital of Europe; the Nazi agents were working like termites, burrowing, undermining, devouring. The amount of money they were spending was unbelievable—in France it was billions of francs. “The French like money,” said Lanny, “and most of them take what they call an ‘envelope,’ then make a speech or write an editorial or cast a vote to get another. In England it’s different—they have what Lincoln Steffens used to call ‘honest graft,’ meaning respectable big business. You notice perhaps that Chamberlain has been backing out of the stand he took right after Prague. That doesn’t mean that he has been paid any money; it isn’t even because he owns a big block of Imperial Chemical stock and Imperial Chemical has $55,000,000 invested in the German I. G. Farben; it’s that all his business friends are tied up in such deals with German cartels, and it just isn’t cricket to hurt one another’s interests. You have noticed that the Bank of England released all the Czech gold to Hitler, by way of the Bank of International Settlements. Chamberlain said he had found that he didn’t have authority to stop it, but of course that’s just the bunk. He didn’t dare to stop it, because it would hurt business and spread alarm; it would make Hitler angry and he would make a speech like the one he made to you!”
“I must admit I can understand the umbrella man’s point of view,” remarked the President, with a grin. It was clear that h
e didn’t like Adi’s method of carrying on public discussions.
XV
The Big Boss wanted Lanny to proceeed to Berlin as soon as convenient and find out what was coming next. Lanny said that had been his intention; and so at last, near midnight, he was turned loose, and set down by Baker at his hotel. He found Robbie still working with a couple of his men whom he had ordered by plane. Since Lanny didn’t know anything about contract specifications and the cost of alterations in military planes, he went to bed.
In the morning he told his father that unless his help was needed, he would make reservations for a steamer to England. Robbie said: “O.K., but you’d better stop off for a while at the Holdenhursts’, or their feelings will be hurt.” Then he had another thought. “If you are going to Germany, I will ask a favor of you. See Göring and try to patch this thing up for me. He’s used to the idea that governments control what businessmen do.”
“What do you want me to tell him?”
“Say the government is forcing me to break off. Lay it on thick—they threatened to boycott me, to put me out of business; I am powerless to help it.”
“That’s not going to do me any good in my business with him, Robbie.”
“I know. I’ll make it up to you somehow. But he can’t be too angry—he knows perfectly well that he’s been diddling me, and he wouldn’t respect me if I took it from him.”
“You can’t have it both ways,” objected the son. “Either you’re doing it because you want to, or because the government makes you.”
“Well, use your own judgment. Sound him out and see how he takes it. But try not to let it be a quarrel. Kid him along—make a joke of it.”
“I can see him roaring with laughter,” replied Lanny, making a joke of that.
“Nobody can guess what’s coming next in this crazy world,” explained a capitalist who was being put on the dole. “I must never forget that Göring might come out on top, and then we’d have to do business with him again.”
The opulent father took out his billfold, extracted a crisp thousand-dollar note, and said: “Take this and pay your way.” When Lanny protested that he didn’t need it, Robbie answered: “I’ll put it on the expense account. You have earned it many times over.”
XVI
Lanny drove to the nearest travel agency. It was the season of the year when steamships were crowded by schoolteachers and their pupils, by subdebs and their mamas or chaperons, on the way to put the crown on their culture. But Lanny managed to find one vacant cabin on a steamer sailing from New York in three days. That time limit would protect him against the wiles of Cupid, so he figured, and telephoned to Reverdy Holdenhurst to ask if it would be agreeable for him to stop by on his way to New York.
A couple of hours later Lanny’s car drove northward on a thorough fare which Baltimoreans oddly know as “Charles Street Avenue.” He passed the old gray stone Church of the Redeemer and the famous Elkridge Hunt Club, and drew up in front of a high-pillared brick colonial mansion in the fashionable Green Spring Valley district. Rolling country with little hills and many woods and streams, beautifully kept estates, and a dignified and conservative aristocracy who considered that they had everything that anyone could want and were doing their best to keep it just so. There was Lizbeth, looking her loveliest; she was glad to see him and showed it as much as was proper for a well-bred young lady. There was the family, doing everything to make a visitor feel at home, but not urging him to stay longer, since he had stated in advance that he couldn’t.
Mrs. Holdenhurst proved to be a stoutish maternal lady, revealing, as mothers do, what her daughter would become. She was self-possessed and secure in her social position, but not the severe person whom Lanny had imagined from Emily’s story. She was a devout High Churchwoman, and perhaps that had had something to do with her heartbreak over her husband’s defection. That had been long ago, and they had found a basis for being polite to each other. Lanny had wondered whether Mrs. Holdenhurst had different hopes for the daughter from what the father had; but there was no sign of any disharmony in this formal and well-conducted household. The hostess looked her guest over and listened to his discourses, as any mother with a marriageable daughter would do; but what opinion she formed was her secret, and it was up to Lanny to make the first move if he wanted to find out.
Lanny wasn’t free to mention the humiliating WPA, but he revealed that his father was getting a contract from the Army, the biggest ever. Reverdy had got into the elevator just before it started to ascend! He wanted to know whether this development portended war in Europe, and Lanny was free to quote what had been said to him by statesmen and diplomats in the salons of Paris and London and Berlin, also the casinos and beaches and garden parties of Cannes. While he chatted away, what would a High Church matron be thinking? Speculating as to how many women he had had in his life, and whether he had one in Paris now? He had been divorced once, and from her point of view one time would be as bad as several.
XVII
It was Reverdy who appeared as the active matchmaker. He had hung the two Detazes on opposite sides of his entrance hall and had provided the right reflectors. He had shown them to one of Baltimore’s leading financiers, and that gentleman had asked to be informed as soon as the painter’s stepson put in an appearance. Now the banker came, a stout imposing figure looking like a cartoon of himself. He wanted to see all the Detazes and he didn’t want to take the trouble of transporting his busy person across the ocean. When Lanny said that the paintings were worth more than half a million dollars and it was not the family’s practice to ship them around, Reverdy put in the inquiry whether there hadn’t been a Detaze show in New York. Lanny said there had been, nearly twenty years ago. “Well, why shouldn’t there be one in Baltimore now?”
The upshot of this discussion was that the two gentlemen agreed upon an offer: if Lanny and his friend Zoltan would conduct a one-man show in Baltimore in the month of October, Reverdy would pay all the costs of packing and shipping the paintings, and the banker, Mr. Wessels, would store them in his vaults and keep them insured for half a million dollars. There might be other showings, in New York, Boston, Chicago—that was up to Lanny—but Baltimore must come first.
Very handsome, indeed; and maybe it was due to love of art in the bosom of Reverdy Johnson Holdenhurst—but the other works in his home failed to reveal any such abiding passion. The much-pursued Lanny Budd could not escape the suspicion that behind the whole thing was a father’s practice of trying to get for his adored child whatever her heart was set upon. Now she had come to a period of life where her heart spoke with sudden vehemence; and certainly, if it had been desired to bring the son of Budd-Erling to Baltimore and keep him there, no more plausible device could have been contrived. “You are bound to have very large sales resulting from such a showing,” said Mr. Hubert Wallace Wessels, president of the Shipowners National Bank and the Chesapeake Trust Company of Baltimore.
There was a tennis court on the estate, but Lizbeth preferred to play at the country club. That meant, of course, that she wanted to show Lanny off to her provincial friends—persons who had never had an opportunity to meet the headliners in the salons and casinos and garden parties of Europe. Lanny had brought the proper togs, and Lizbeth drove him in her shiny sports car, and that was the time for him to indicate some personal interest if he meant to. Instead, he told her about life at Wickthorpe Castle, and about his little daughter, a fatherly rather than a loverly topic of conversation.
In short, he was the most proper friend of the family; and after they had played tennis and drunk lemon squashes, she drove him back to her home, answering his questions about the friends he had met. After he had bathed and dressed, there was an elegant dinner party, with people eager to know what was going to happen in Europe and how it was likely to affect the stockmarket. He told them, to the best of his ability; and later, being invited to display his skill at the piano, he played one of Chopin’s Preludes, very elegant and at the same time thrill
ing. In short, he did everything that could be asked of an expositor of ancient cultures overseas; and when he departed for New York the following afternoon, he had established himself as an eligible grass widower in the best social circles of the Monumental City.
BOOK FOUR
The Brazen Throat of War
14
The Best-Laid Schemes
I
Lanny stopped in London, just long enough to get his car and to have a chat with Rick. Everything was normal in that immense rather dingy old city. People went about their affairs, not worrying too much about the history of the future. In Fleet Street Lanny saw the advertisement of a coach company: “Don’t Mind Hitler. Take Your Holiday.” The social season was gay, in spite of taxation being fierce. Lanny might have entered the swim, and let his old friend Margy, Dowager Lady Eversham-Watson, or his middle-aged ex-sweetheart Rosemary, Countess of Sandhaven, take him up and find him an heiress. Instead he sat in a hotel room talking about whether it was still possible to save democracy in the world.
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