Dragon Harvest

by Sinclair, Upton;

  What Emily said was that the Oriole was about to sail, but it would seem that the Holdenhursts ought to meet Wallis, and be in a position to tell the home folks how their best-known daughter was getting along. “Wally,” of course, would never forget Baltimore, or the imposing brownstone mansion on Monument Square which had been the town house of the Holdenhurst family in her childhood. She would have had to be superhuman not to enjoy receiving their tribute of homage. Home-town girl makes good, so to say! “Bring them to tea tomorrow,” said the duchess.

  So, of course, the sailing of the yacht was postponed, and all the ladies were in a flutter, most of all Lizbeth. She knew that she shouldn’t have been, for, after all, any American is as good as any king, to say nothing of an ex-king, or a duchess who had hoped to be a queen and missed it by—who could say how closely? But Lizbeth knew quite well the first questions everybody at home would ask her—whether she had met “Wally,” and what was she like and what did she say and what did she wear and what did she have that they didn’t have, excepting the duke.

  The idea was, of course, that Lanny should drive Emily and Reverdy and Lizbeth to the tea party. Since he had already met the hosts, this would be no intrusion. But the stubborn fellow put his foot down; he had another engagement and he wasn’t going to break it—the first time in all his life that he had ever turned down a request from his near-foster-mother. “No, darling,” he said, over the telephone, “I am not going one step farther with that girl. I don’t love her, and it’s not fair to her to let her think that I do, or that I might. Irma was enough for me, and it ought to be for all my friends.”

  The truth was, he was going to the Château de l’Horizon because he had learned that Charles Bedaux was a guest there, and this Frenchman who had made his millions in America was a gold mine and treasure chest for a “P.A.” He was that peculiar type of person who is dazzled by famous names and flies to a celebrity as a moth to a candle flame. He had watched the rise of Mussolini, and then of Hitler, and now of Franco, and it had become clear to him that these were the men of the future, to whom history would belong. He had attached himself to them, housed them, fed them, financed them; he had a château here in the Midi, and a villa on the Obersalzberg, and a shooting box in Scotland, all of which were always crowded with his Fascist friends. He shared their secret schemes, invested in their enterprises, carried their gains abroad and hid them safely—and all he asked in return was that the big businessmen of these countries should be instructed to install the Bedaux system of timing every movement made by every workingman!

  Emily’s chauffeur drove her and her friends to the villa in Californie, while Lanny sat by the blue and green swimming-pool and sipped ginger ale and told how he had so nearly been caught by the French police in the Cagoulard conspiracy of the previous year. That set the pace, and for a couple! of hours thereafter he listened to Bedaux’s account of the new coup d’état that was going to be carried out from Algeria and French Morocco—just as Franco had started from Spanish Morocco, you remember! In Belgium, also, events were preparing; in two or three years, you would see, there wouldn’t be a single labor union left in Europe, nor a political demagogue fattening himself on labor discontent, nor an income or inheritance tax squeezing the “free enterprise system.” “I am an economic royalist,” declared the inventor of the Bedaux system, with grim defiance.

  XIV

  Common decency of course compelled Lanny to accompany his mother and her friends to the pier to see the Oriole cast off and slide out of the harbor. Before that they all went on board and drank a toast. Lizbeth looked fresh and lovely in a simple sailor suit, and Lanny thought she wouldn’t have much trouble in finding a Baltimore husband.

  Before they parted, the father said: “I shall probably have to run up to New York, and I might come to Newcastle and talk with your father.”

  “Certainly,” replied the son. “Will you come and visit us?”

  “I will be on the yacht. I might come directly to Newcastle, before I go into the Chesapeake. I suppose the best way would be to come into Long Island Sound from the east.”

  “By all means avoid the congestion of New York harbor and the East River. Perhaps I shall have the pleasure of seeing you at Newcastle. I will arrange it if I can.”

  He couldn’t say less, for in the previous conversation he had mentioned that he would be coming to America when he was through with his affairs in Germany. Driving home, he thought it over and found it strange that a man who had been away from home for more than half a year should by-pass his home and make a long detour, just for a business call. How easy it would have been to call Robbie on the telephone and make an appointment to meet him in New York. But that way, Lizbeth wouldn’t be along, and Robbie’s son wouldn’t be there either!

  The more Lanny thought about it the more uneasy he became. Could it be that Lizbeth had fallen completely under the spell of an American who was half a European, who played the piano better than anybody she knew and delivered suave lectures on art—and who, at the same time, knew all the famous people a subdeb from Baltimore had ever heard of, and who seemed to spend most of his time in palaces and châteaux? And one who didn’t run after her and her father’s money as other men did, but on the contrary turned her down, politely but firmly! What did he want that Lizbeth Reverdy Holdenhurst didn’t have?

  Could it be that Lizbeth had taken this problem to her father and clamored for his aid? A girl who had always had everything she wanted would hardly submit without a struggle to not getting the thing she wanted most of all. Could it be that the invitation for Lanny to join the cruise of the Oriole had been her idea? And that she had then persuaded her father to visit Newcastle, Connecticut, before returning to their home—to see the man she wanted for a husband before seeing even her mother?

  Lanny realized that his fate might still be on his trail!

  3

  Gold Will Be Master

  I

  A wireless message came from Robbie Budd; he was on a steamer and bound for Paris. So Lanny packed his bags and wrote a few notes. Then, as he was about to leave in his car, the postman brought a note signed “Bruges,” saying: “I have a painting for you to look at.” The art expert was happy indeed to get that word, for the name was code for his old friend Raoul Palma, concerning whom he had become deeply anxious.

  In the old days as a “parlor Pink” Lanny had been pleased to go to the workers’ school in Cannes, and had made no secret of his sympathy with its ideas. But now he couldn’t afford to go near the place, or to be seen with either Raoul or his wife. While the school director was in Spain, it had been the practice for Lanny to write to Julie Palma, naming an hour, and he would pick her up on an obscure street and drive her out into the country. This would have looked suspicious to the world, but few would have guessed that the purpose was to give her money for the support of Socialist education.

  Now Lanny typed a note arranging for a rendezvous; he did not sign it but sealed it tightly in an envelope, and addressed it to Raoul. On the outside he typed: “Pay two francs to bearer,” and then set out on his journey, which took him through the city of Cannes. The school was in a working-class district, the so-called “Old Town,” near the harbor, and two or three blocks away Lanny parked his car and went for a stroll. Observing a fellow who appeared to be loafing, he offered him four francs to deliver the note, two to be paid by Lanny and two by the person who received the note. The man accepted, and Lanny went back to his car and sat reading the morning paper until his Spanish friend stepped into the back seat of the car.

  In a forest of friendly oak trees which would surely not betray any secrets, Raoul told what had happened to him during the past sixteen months. He was still tense with his memories; the bombing had not been incessant, but the expectation of it had been, and even now, when a plane was heard in the sky overhead, Raoul’s heart missed every other beat. Barcelona during the past few weeks had been a nightmare of hunger, disease, and death. The official of the Forei
gn Press Bureau, always too optimistic, had clung to the hope that the invading armies would be beaten back. Then he had hoped that Franco would make some civilized terms with his conquered foes. Only when he had realized that the Fascists were proceeding to grab every official of the Loyalist government, even down to the humblest clerk or porter, and stand them against a wall and shoot them without ceremony, did he decide that his Spanish dignity permitted him to take flight.

  The roads were jammed, and being machine-gunned continually from the air; it had been a question of walking cross-country, and Raoul had been weakened by a long period of underfeeding. He and two colleagues had found a fisherman who agreed for a very high price to row them along the shore during the night. That, they figured, would give them a head start, and a chance to rest; but unfortunately it had been a moonlit night, and they had been spotted by an Italian hydroplane whose pilot was amusing himself by bombing and machine-gunning vessels large and small. The fisherman and one of the passengers had been killed and the boat filled full of holes. Raoul and one of his friends had managed to get ashore, and with money redeemed from the dead fisherman’s pockets they had bought a burro. By taking turns, one riding and the other walking alongside, they had managed to make their way across country and get themselves smuggled into France.

  II

  So here was this former school director, many pounds underweight, and suffering from what were doubtless stomach ulcers. His delicately chiseled features had never shown up so clearly; with his melancholy eyes and black hair in need of cutting he looked like one of Goya’s saints. But he was still optimistic, confident that Madrid would hold out. He had been there, and knew the spirit of the people; with what they had learned about the atrocities in captured Valencia and Barcelona, every man and woman would understand that it was better to die fighting.

  Lanny had to say: “You might as well forget it, Raoul. Count those people dead, and Spain as through. Nobody can fight bombing planes and artillery with rifles and revolvers—at least not for many weeks.”

  Tears ran down the Socialist’s pale cheeks, and he did not try to wipe them away. He had heard others say it, and had denounced them as defeatists; but he knew that the son of Budd-Erling went among the people who decided the destiny of nations. “All those comrades, Lanny! We simply have to save them!”

  “We simply can’t save them, Raoul; and what good does it do to fool either them or ourselves? Only a few days ago I talked with the man who has been raising the money, and putting up a large part of it. Whatever it takes, he will furnish, or has already furnished. When money is in the bank, and munitions have been purchased and put on shipboard, it is something we can no more change than the coming of spring or the phases of the moon. Let’s get busy at our next job, and try to do it better.”

  “What is that job, Lanny?”

  “To try to save France. We have more workers here, and they are better organized, and if we can make them understand what is being plotted against them, they may be able to act in time.”

  So Raoul dried his tears and took out a pencil and paper and made notes while Lanny told what he knew about the Cagoulards, whose conspiracy to overthrow the Republic had been exposed some fourteen months ago, since Lanny had last seen his friend. Lanny didn’t say from whom he had got this information; he was learning to be more and more cautious, putting his duties as a “P.A.” above all others. But it could do no harm to tell the inside facts, which Raoul would put into articles for the Socialist press of France. Such is the help which men of social conscience can give to the masses, and when in future years the records are opened and secrets laid bare it will be found that in every country there were men and women who rebelled against the despotism of la haute finance, and found ways to tip off its opponents.

  The situation of Marianne, as Lanny portrayed it, was perilous indeed. The Cagoulards, or “Hooded Men,” had been exposed, but nobody had been seriously punished, and the authors of the conspiracy were so highly placed that they had not even been named. The heads of the “two hundred families” which ruled France had made up their minds that their interests required the overthrow of the Third Republic, and the establishment of some sort of dictatorship which would break the power of the labor unions, as had been so efficiently done in Italy, Germany, Austria, and Spain. The conspirators had retired “underground” for the moment, but they were as strong as ever, and as determined: great industrialists and bankers, cabinet members and other officials, and the heads of army and navy—such men as Admiral Darlan, General Weygand, and Marshal Pétain, the most honored names in France.

  Such was the situation, and the triumph of Franco promised to bring matters quickly to a head. La patrie was caught in a vise, with enemies on both sides of her, and others within. The middle classes of France had been pretty well corrupted by the Fascist poison, and were fed new doses of it every day through a purchased press. The one hope lay in the workers; it was the task of Raoul and his friends to awaken them to the peril, to hold up before them the hateful image of Fascism, and make them realize that for the masses it was an issue of freedom or slavery, of life or death.

  The director had been at home only a few hours, but already had heard the situation in the school explained by his wife. It was a miniature of what existed throughout the whole country. The working-class world was split into factions, which spent the greater part of their energies in fighting one another instead of concentrating upon the common enemy. The Communists, by far the most active group, insisted upon following in the footsteps of Russia; they went to such an extreme as to argue that from the point of view of the workers there was no difference between a bourgeois republic and a Fascist dictatorship. Therefore, why fight for France? All wars were capitalist wars, and the workers could never win one.

  “We have been teaching the workers pacifism for a century,” explained Raoul, “and it is almost impossible to unteach them, even after what they have seen in Spain. Some of our best lads have gone over to the Communists, because Julie kept insisting that France has to be armed now.”

  Said the son of Budd-Erling: “It is hard for a man to practice pacifism while his neighbor is planting dynamite under his house.”

  III

  Lanny put a bundle of banknotes into his friend’s hand, enough to keep the school going for another two or three months. It wasn’t an expensive undertaking, for the building was old and dingy, and Raoul and his wife lived humbly. The wife had invented an aunt in Paris who was supposed to be putting up the funds; thus Lanny, reclining in the lap of luxury, could salve his conscience with the idea that he was doing something concrete for the workers of the Midi, with whom he was forbidden to have direct contact. From childhood on he had been eager to find out about such people—fishermen, peasants, workers in the perfume factories—anybody he ran into in his neighborhood. But now he was sentenced to live among those greedy and coldhearted persons who called themselves the grand monde.

  Driving over the familiar route nationale up the valley of the river Rhone, Lanny brooded over the confusions of this world in which his lot had been cast. Men had invented means of production capable of making plenty for everyone, but their mental development had not kept up with their techniques, and their moral equipment was centuries behind. They were still predatory animals, trying to enrich themselves at the expense of others, and thus filling their hearts with jealousy and hatred. If anyone suggested the development of co-operative techniques, they called him a “crackpot”—or what Maxine Elliott had dubbed Winston Churchill, “a social menace.”

  “That Man in the White House,” another such menace, had said to Lanny: “You are under orders.” So the son of Budd-Erling would go on leading a double life, associating exclusively with persons whose ideas and purposes he despised, studying their wishes, saying what they wanted him to say, thinking up devices to cause them to talk out their inmost hearts. Then he would retire to his room, lock himself in, type out a summary of what he had learned, and find a way to get it s
afely mailed. He would do that even with his own father, and not have to worry about it, because he was making his father happy, in the belief that his son had become dutiful and what the father called “sensible.”

  IV

  So there was Lanny, waiting at Le Bourget airport with his car, ready to transport the president of Budd-Erling to the Hotel Crillon, and listen to the news about the large family of Budds in and about the city of Newcastle, Connecticut. They did not a little quarreling among themselves, but considered that they got along fairly well as families go. They had various kinds of eccentrics among them, but one and all they were proud of themselves, and had learned to adjust themselves to their world; they all made money, or at any rate hung on to what their forefathers had made. They all had to be proud of Robbie Budd, whether they wanted to or not, and the knowledge of this was one of the quiet and solid satisfactions which Robbie took with him wherever he traveled.

  They had called him a wild one, and later on in life an adventurer and gambler; he had started a new gamble at the age of sixty or so, when a sensible man would have been settling down to play with a hobby: collecting old china, or building toy boats, or sending missionaries to the Hottentots. All the old Budds—and the woods were full of them—had shaken their heads and said that he would lose his last nightshirt. Airplanes to fight in, of all things on earth, or above it! But he had gone his stubborn way, and now he sat at the gambling table, preparing to rake in the chips, and grinning at those townsmen who had been invited to come in with him and had declined.