The Balance Wheel

by Caldwell, Taylor;

  CHAPTER L

  Mrs. Holt assured Charles that she was delighted to be home. Mr. Holt was also delighted that his wife had returned, though the poor man’s eyes already showed signs of fond strain. Charles sympathized with him, as he watched Mr. Holt’s apprehension whenever his wife spoke. Mr. Holt had spent the summer, while Mrs. Holt had been travelling with Phyllis, visiting friends in Philadelphia and Atlantic City and an area which he vaguely described as “The Mountains.”

  They had had a very pleasant dinner in the monster dining-room, the three of them, and now they sat in the vast, tapestried living-room, talking. It had begun to rain at sunset, and through the open French doors they could hear the soft whispering of water on the trees, and could feel the mountain wind which filled the house with gusts of pine and grass and verbena.

  “So cozy, this,” said Mrs. Holt, fanning herself with a handkerchief heavily laden with a perfume she had confided was called “Ashes of Love,” and which could not be bought anywhere but in California. “Just the three of us, together. A night at home, with the rain outside.”

  Charles thought that “cozy” hardly described the great hall. It was like sitting in a museum. But he understood what Mrs. Holt meant, and so he smiled. He was relieved that Phyllis, according to Mrs. Holt, had “told her and Braydon everything.” He did not like thrashing and rethrashing old straw. What had been done had been done; there was mold on it, thought Charles—an acrid mold, which stung the nostrils with remembrance.

  “But, of course, one expects such wonderful things of you, Charlie,” said Mrs. Holt with enthusiasm. “How you managed it all, that horrid Jochen, and everything! How very Machiavellian of you, Charlie!”

  Charles was mortified. Mrs. Holt glowed at him admiringly.

  “Now, Minnie,” said Mr. Holt. “‘Machiavellian’ has unpleasant connotations. I don’t think Charles relished what he had to do. He did a disagreeable job of work—”

  Mrs. Holt slapped her husband’s hand affectionately. “Did you hear that, Charlie? ‘Job of work.’ He must have met some Englishmen, someplace. Braydon keeps forgetting that he was once a fine, brawny, American oil-weller, or whatever you call it, with just one pair of overalls, and a dinner-pail. And did you hear him tell you when you came that he was feeling ‘very fit’? Such silly expressions—the English think up. So precious. Did you meet Englishmen in New York, Braydon, my pet?”

  “A lot of them,” replied Mr. Holt, and now for some unaccountable reason he was uneasy. Charles glanced up, alert.

  “That accounts for it,” laughed Mrs. Holt. “And those idiot New Yorkers: they’re beginning to parrot the English a lot now. Aren’t they, Braydon?”

  Mr. Holt cleared his throat. He crossed his legs, uncrossed them, crossed them again. “A certain class of New Yorkers—yes, my dear, the ‘precious’ ones—always did parrot the English, and imitate their mannerisms. They’ve even begun to speak of ‘quiet holidays,’ and ‘quiet week-ends,’ and such.”

  Charles waited. There was something he was intended to hear. Mrs. Holt’s blue eyes had that certain glazed, blank expression. She said, with hearty ridicule: “The Englishmen of ‘Merrie England’ weren’t the ‘quiet week-enders,’ and the ‘quiet hearts’ and the ‘quiet family men’ who are so fashionable in England now. What do you suppose happened to ‘Merrie England,’ Charlie?”

  She was staring at Charles. But Charles looked at Mr. Holt. Mr. Holt’s distinguished face had become brooding and harassed. He held his big brandy glass cupped in his hands, and he regarded it as if it were a crystal ball.

  Charles replied to Mrs. Holt, very slowly, but he still looked at his host: “Maybe the gaiety and the ‘spirit’ have gone out of the English, Minnie. But something’s still there: the worst of what they are.”

  Mrs. Holt said: “Well, we all know that the English are hypocrites. They even know it themselves, now, and they’ve made it a virtue, as they always do with their vices.”

  “I suppose the Englishmen you met were negotiating for war materials for England, Braydon?” asked Charles.

  “Oh, dear, not entirely,” Mrs. Holt interrupted, smiling broadly at her husband. “Braydon told me. They were so impartial, the broad-minded dears. There was war material for England, of course, but there was other war material, too. Being loaded on Swedish vessels. The Swedes are so neutral, you know. So intelligent and civilized of them, isn’t it? Flag high in all waters: the good, sound Swedish flag. And no one, of course, would be so impolite as to ask where the war material was going, or by whom it had been bought, or with whose money.”

  Mr. Holt still gazed at his glass. “Yes,” he said. Now he looked at Charles, with distress. “Have you been watching the Stock Market, Charles? We shouldn’t just blame the English; that isn’t entirely fair. We’re selling to—to everybody, and taking everybody’s money, and making a good thing of it.”

  Mrs. Holt laughed as if it were the gayest subject in the world. “Germans buying the things which England needs, and the English buying what the Germans need. And the sturdy Swedish vessels plowing the seas diligently, and taking money from everybody, and delivering the goods to exactly the ports which need the war material. Well,” added Mrs. Holt, with gusto, “I’m just a woman, and all this agreeable high finance and courtliness between enemies is beyond me.” She looked slowly from one face to another. “And the English boys laughing and waving their caps as they rush up gangplanks on the way to the Front, and the French boys singing, and the German boys playing their brassy music and sticking out their legs—the poor children. And Belgium in ruins, and Alsace burning. Well, I’m just a woman, and I don’t know.”

  “I do,” said Charles. “This all isn’t just ‘happening.’ It’s the strongest blow ever yet struck against man, and against liberty. They’re all in it, together. The reported casualty lists tonight—just figures. So many thousands of boys dead, here, there, everywhere. But who cares? Who’s yet written what their parents are thinking tonight, or praying, or sobbing out? Who ever wrote a story, even Richard Harding Davis who’s having such a fine time writing about the murder of Belgium for us, about what a single mother or father is feeling? Who ever cared, in the history of the world, for a dead son?”

  No one answered him.

  “If the history of wars was written by parents, if the truth of wars was ever written, a politician who waved a flag, an army officer who mustered his men, a ruler who ever shrieked of the ‘destiny’ of his country, would be hunted down like the mad dogs they are!” Charles’ face swelled and reddened.

  Mr. Holt spoke now, faintly. “It gets all muddled. Finally, none of them know what they’re fighting for. Except, of course, a few men on top, and they’ll never tell the real reason.”

  “‘But ’twas a famous victory,’” said Charles.

  “Well,” said Mr. Holt, “we’ve sometimes got to choose the lesser of evils. A trite aphorism, of course. But it’s true.”

  “I don’t like the English; never did,” said Mrs. Holt. “But anyway, they aren’t as awful as that Kaiser. And just think of the Americans who are helping him! I wonder what would happen if, for instance, there were strikes in some of our big mills and factories, which are selling war materials to Germany?”

  “Yes,” said Mr. Holt. He and his wife fixed their eyes on Charles. Charles said nothing. The face of his brother Friederich swam before him.

  “I’m really in favor of unions,” Mrs. Holt prattled. “And the workers are really horribly low-paid. Except for a few craftsmen, the Connington pays the most miserable wages. The company’s so strong, too, and so busy. A strike would cripple the whole thing, for days, weeks, months, maybe. The Connington hates unions.”

  “Yes,” said Mr. Holt again, uncomfortably.

  Mrs. Holt smiled. “Well, it would be very exciting. Ralph Grimsley knows a lot, too. He’s such a friend of yours, Charlie.”

  “There’re dozens of other factories, however,” said Charles. “The Connington might be important, but
the others would go on manufacturing.”

  “Strikes,” said Mr. Holt, thoughtfully, “have a way of spreading.”

  He stood up, now, and all his hesitation was gone, and a new hard bitterness came into his face. “Charles, you buy your steel from the Sessions Steel Company, don’t you? The best high-speed tool steel?”

  “Yes. It’s a specialized steel, the very best. That’s why our tools are so much in demand.” Charles stood up, abruptly, and faced his host. “Well?”

  “The Connington doesn’t have the patent for that steel, Charles.” The two men faced each other. “I hate to speak so directly, my boy, but I feel I must. You use Sessions steel. Two weeks ago, I heard, in New York, that Brinkwell and the Sessions people have become very friendly, and Brinkwell’s manufacturing machine tools, now.”

  Charles’ mouth went dry. “I wired them, yesterday, for double the amount of tool steel which I ordered at this same time last year. I haven’t received a confirmation of the order yet, but I’ve no doubt I’ll be supplied.”

  Mr. Holt gazed at him in silence.

  “So,” said Charles. “It’s Brinkwell.” He looked around, with furious helplessness. “I’ll get the steel; I can’t run the shops without it. I’ll get it!”

  He sat down. He was sick with his hate and fear. Tomorrow! He couldn’t wait for tomorrow. But he had to wait. He had to wait, and think all night, and plot and plan. He sat in his black silence, and his fingers were numb and cold as they held his coffee cup. His head pounded with his thoughts. I’ll stop at nothing, he said to himself.

  Then he heard Mrs. Holt say, placidly: “Oh, no, Braydon, I’m sure we won’t get into the war. Don’t worry.”

  “So, there it is,” said Charles, to Friederich. His right hand rested on the telephone on his desk. His other hand held a telegram. He looked at the telegram again, which had come from the Sessions Steel Company in Windsor: “Regret that previous large orders from other concerns, now straining our capacity to manufacture high speed tool steel, force us to decline your own order for an indefinite period of time.”

  Charles said: “We have enough steel for five months. That’s all.”

  Friederich said: “Calling them will do no good, Karl.” He had listened to Charles for nearly an hour, and so profound was the change in him that only once or twice had he uttered an exclamation, or made a vehement gesture.

  “I’m afraid you’re right,” said Charles. “It won’t do any good. They probably won’t talk to me, anyway. So. We’ll have to bring up our own ammunition. I’ve talked to Grimsley; he’s ready for action at any time, when I give the word. We’ll have to use dirty tactics, Fred, and you’re not a man who ever liked dirty tactics. And now, as for you: you understand, of course, that no one must know that you are behind the labor organizers who’ll come to Andersburg. It’s all to be spontaneous.”

  “I understand,” said Friederich. He gnawed briefly at his thumb-nail, and frowned in concentration. “Dirty tactics. But for a good end. We must try to remember that.” He paused.

  “I know just the men we’ll need. Honest men. Karl, we could use the same tactics against all the mills and factories which are supplying war materials to Europe.”

  Charles laughed weakly. “It would take too long. Besides, you and I alone can’t fight this monster organization; you know that. We can’t even persuade our neutral Government to take a hand in it, though that would promptly stop all wars, of course. But we’d be ‘interfering’ in business, and nothing must ever interfere in ‘free business.’ Besides, Mr. Wilson stubbornly persists in ignoring the war; it’s so damned ungenteel and distasteful.”

  “But the newspapers could tell the people.”

  “They could. But they won’t. After all, newspapers don’t exist apart from society, and they get their orders. ‘Free press.’ A high-sounding phrase, but a contradiction in terms. The Clarion, here in Andersburg, comes as close to being a free paper as it can be, and that’s because Ralph owns it, and nobody else. But even he has to temper his news with a nice appreciation of what he owes to advertisers.”

  The Sessions Steel Company in Windsor did not call Charles. Instead, the superintendent called Roger Brinkwell. The conversation between the two friends gave much pleasure to Mr. Brinkwell, who went, thereafter, into the fine suite of offices which his assistant, Jochen Wittmann, now occupied.

  “Well, Joe, we’ve got old Charlie on the run,” he said, slapping Jochen on his massive shoulder. “Sessions have an idea he has only about two months’ supply of steel. At the proper time, we’ll close in on him. We’ll have him working for us and eating out of our hands and begging us to use his damn patents.”

  Jochen grunted mirthfully. But his little brown eyes shifted away from Mr. Brinkwell. His big blunt fingers began to beat on his desk. “Serves him right,” said Jochen. He looked about his sumptuous private office, with the panelled walls and the draperies at the big windows. He looked at the heavy carpet on the floor, at his large mahogany desk, at the door behind which his secretaries tapped, at the distant view of immense smoking chimneys. He thought of his extraordinary salary, and of the string of oriental pearls he had bought for Isabel, of his new Pierce-Arrow automobile with the silver appointments, of the coming engagement between his daughter Geraldine and Roger Brinkwell’s son. He looked, and he thought, and he said to himself: I’m a lackey.

  Mr. Brinkwell was in high good humor. He regarded Jochen with affection. An able man, an excellent choice, old Joe. No one could be better.

  “Just be patient, Joe,” said Mr. Brinkwell, walking towards the door. “Just two months. Charlie won’t buy inferior steel; he’s too damned proud and stiff-necked about his tools.” He stopped as he began to open the door, and grinned back at Jochen. “When you come to dinner tonight Kenneth will show you the ring he’s bought for Gerry.”

  Jochen raised his eyes. The small muddy pupils lifted and showed a large portion of white cornea under them. Mr. Brinkwell could not read their expression. “Good,” said Jochen. “Good,” he repeated.

  “You gave up too easily, when Charlie showed his teeth,” said Roger, with indulgence. Then with a wave of his hand he went out.

  Damn you, thought Jochen. I didn’t give up. I just didn’t want to go on with it.

  CHAPTER LI

  Though President Wilson continued to ostracize the war, as one would ostracize an ill-bred person, the American people uneasily became more and more conscious of it, by October. They could not ignore it. The great guns of European propaganda swung on their pivots and belched their poison gas across the Atlantic. The President could murmur “neutrality,” but the people could not pretend that there was not a stench in their nostrils.

  The Germans and the French were vociferously, and simultaneously, accusing each other of the foulest atrocities. No sooner did the French produce photographs of murdered civilians and priests, than the Germans produced other photographs (much better) of wounded German soldiers being murdered by the French, and civilians and clergymen also being slaughtered. They had one thing in common: a complete lack of originality.

  The Kaiser and France were now too busy to plead the “righteousness” of their cause before America. The British heroically undertook that task. They pitted the wits of their artists, teachers, and scholars against the wits of German artists, teachers, and scholars. “We protest the lies and calumnies (of the Allies) (of the German Government) against us!” they cried. “It is NOT TRUE!” they screamed in chorus.

  Britain had one advantage: she controlled the news that came by cable across the ocean. She had, in fact, cut the single German cable between Germany and America almost at the moment war was declared. This put her in a very advantageous position, for now Germany had to rely solely on the uncertain wireless and the more uncertain mails. British propaganda, ringing, solemn, and skillful, poured unrestricted into America, from London and from Paris.

  The war, a dim nightmare far off in space to America, now brightened daily in scarl
et and purple on the horizon of American consciousness. The editors of newspapers now tentatively but still uncertainly began to express cautious indignation against German “Kultur” and German “Junkers” and German “Schrecklichkeit.”

  Charles Wittmann waited. There was nothing that he could do but wait. Long patience was one of his strongest characteristics, and though he knew the deathly danger all about him, and the imminent menace, he knew that he would have to be patient. He read the New York newspapers and the Philadelphia newspapers minutely, and nothing else. He walked the streets of Andersburg, and he listened. Nothing I can do, yet, he would say to himself. I can only wait. Friederich was working in silence. He never told Charles what he was doing, and Charles never asked him. The supply of high speed tool steel he had on hand was dwindling.

  There were letters from Jim, three or four a week, sometimes very short, sometimes very long. These, and visits to Phyllis, were his only pleasure these days. It was not until the end of October that Charles became aware that Jim was not mentioning the war any more, though in the beginning he had casually written of it in his letters. He knows what I’m feeling, and thinking, Charles thought, and he’s trying to get my mind off it. He wrote to his son: “You must be hearing a lot about the war at Harvard. What do all the boys up there think of it?” Jim answered the letter, or rather, he answered everything else his father had asked, but he did not write of the war. “It is of no interest to him, thank God,” he told Phyllis. “He even forgot I’d asked him the question.”

  Charles went to see his minister. “What has Walter to say about the war?” asked Charles. Mr. Haas obligingly opened a drawer in his desk and brought out Walter’s last letter. “Walter takes everything seriously,” said Mr. Haas. “He says he wishes ‘there was something a person could do.’”

  Charles, transfixed, looked at Mr. Haas. “Now what in the hell does he mean by that?” he demanded. “Excuse me. But what does the kid mean?”

  Mr. Haas was perturbed. He looked sharply at the letter to see if there was something in it which he had overlooked. “I can’t imagine, Charles,” he murmured. “But everyone’s talking about peace missions, and things like that, and Walter always did think the clergy could do something about wars, and ought to do it.”