“Of course, if it’s orders.”
“It’s orders of the most urgent sort—unlimited emergency. When you are in France you will mail your reports to Bullitt, marked personal, and when you are in England you will mail them to Kennedy. Perhaps I had better include Harrison, in Bern. I will instruct all three that when they receive an envelope containing a sealed letter marked ‘Zaharoff 103’ they will seal it in another envelope marked ‘Personal for the President’ and send it by diplomatic pouch. There is only one other trouble I can foresee, and that is your passports. We are going to make it hard for Americans to travel in the war zones, and if I’ should give the State Department orders to show special favors to you, that would be a give-away.”
“I’ll make a suggestion,” volunteered the agent. “My father’s business can serve as a cover. If the embargo is lifted, he will be having a lot of business with France and Britain. I doubt very much if he will wish to travel; he will be busy, and the British and French will come to him. But by giving an order applying to both of us, you will make it appear that I am his agent and not yours. That would look right even to the Germans, if they happened to get word of it. My father’s dealings are with the War Department, and you could drop a hint to the right man there; doubtless the State Department issues passports when the War Department requests it.”
“Excellent!” said F.D.R., and made a memo on a pad. “See me again when you are ready to leave.”
IV
While waiting in New York Lanny had telephoned his father, also Zoltan Kertezsi, who had made an early escape from the war. The Detaze show in Baltimore was scheduled for early October, but it seemed to Lanny hardly conceivable that anybody would be interested in looking at paintings with the world in its present mess. But when he got Reverdy Holdenhurst on the telephone and voiced that idea, the sponsor replied: “Don’t worry. In a couple of weeks people will have got used to the war, and be ready for something new.”
He urged Lanny to stop off on his way back to New York; and Lanny strongly suspected that this was the purpose for which the works of Marcel Detaze were being made known to the Monumental City. The guest took a morning train, and Reverdy’s car met him at the station and drove him out to Green Spring Valley, this time by a different route, around Druid Hill Park. The chauffeur, acting as cicerone, pointed out the estate of this or that eminent family, some of whom Lanny had met on his last visit. “Miss Lizbeth’s début party is set for the evening before the show opens,” remarked the man; he added, American fashion, “Bunching our hits.”
The smart folk were coming back from seashore and mountains, and the social swirl was getting into motion. In between listening to the horrors of war on the radio and seeing pictures of them in the papers, Lanny Budd enjoyed pleasures with Lizbeth Holdenhurst and her friends: It was the same sort of people and the same life that he had lived on Long Island ten years ago. The “smart sets” in American cities had become as standardized as the breakfast foods and the soaps; they patronized the same costumers, played the same games, spoke the same slang, and danced to the same jerky growling jungle tunes called hot jazz, then swing, then boogie-woogie—the more the name changed the more it remained the same thing. The smart folk were shocked by the tragic fate of a nation concerning which they had vaguely romantic ideas, but it seldom occurred to any of them that this was going to make any difference in their routine of play. They talked about parties past and present, about places to dine and dance, about personalities and possessions and love affairs and quarrels. They talked about Lizbeth’s coming-out party and the Detaze show, and with equal interest about Panzer divisions and Luftwaffe and the unpronounceable names of Polish towns—all this in between a round of golf and one of drinks.
Among these children of privilege—third and fourth generations for the most part—were men of handsome presence and agreeable manners. They had family, they had money, they wore properly tailored clothes and had been to Princeton or the University of Virginia; they were in every way suitable as husbands, and they were on the job, ready to squire the daughter of the Holdenhursts wherever she wished to go. Why should Lizbeth have picked out a comparative stranger and fixed her thoughts upon him—as so evidently she had done? Lanny, pondering the problem, decided that it was because of his strangeness, the differences which set him apart. He had traveled all over Europe, he had been a guest in palaces and courts, he had had romantic adventures about which Lizbeth must have heard at least rumors on the Riviera. Right now, with everybody talking about the war, he could remark: “I was in the Führer’s home less than a fortnight ago, and he said thus and so.” Straightway the people in a drawing-room would gather about him; or, if it was in the dining room, other conversation would cease and the guests would ply him with questions as to what Hitler and Hess and the rest of them were really like and what they meant to do to the world.
It was natural that Lizbeth should have decided that this was a distinguished man. She was “throwing herself at his head”—something against which all mothers and aunts warn all girls. Men do not like to be “run after”; but Lizbeth could not see what else to do, since Lanny made it evident that he didn’t mean to run after her, but treated her with the same friendly courtesy he showed to her parents.
As a matter of fact he wouldn’t have especially minded being run after, because if he took a wife he would want her to be in love with him; she would have to be, to stand his peculiar ways. Though he did not let anybody know it, he was strongly attracted to this girl, who was not merely untroubled and lovely to look at but genuinely sweet and unaffected. By all the books, she ought to have been spoiled, for she had had everything she asked for all her life. The effect had been to keep her somewhat immature; she had never had to make decisions for herself, except small ones—whether she would go to this party or to that, buy this dress or that. How would she behave when it came to a major issue and she discovered that she couldn’t have what she wanted? Would she fly into a temper and throw her hairbrush across the room? Or would she dissolve her make-up in tears of frustration? Lanny, who had known so many fashionable women and had disappointed more than one, recollected scenes and wondered what might be happening offstage now.
His conduct, from the feminine point of view, was really exasperating. When she drove him to the country club to play tennis, he offered no playful caresses with hands or eyes; he talked to her about the great world in the manner of a kindly teacher, or perhaps an uncle. He would dance with her, pleasantly and coolly, just as he danced with other girls. He didn’t invite her for a stroll in the wooded glen which ran through the estate; instead he offered to play the piano for her friends, and then he would discuss the music. Didn’t he have any romance in him? Or was he in love with some duchess overseas—and if so, why didn’t he talk of his infatuation, of his interest in love, after the manner of the younger set who had few secrets from one another?
V
What was going on in this visitor from overseas was a war between two parts of him, an ambivalence he had known about since boyhood. “I feel two natures struggling within me,” the sculptor Barnard had entitled one of his works. There was one half of Lanny Budd—possibly a little more than half—which wanted to quarrel with an evil social order and to make sacrifices in the cause of truth-telling and justice; and there was another half, or near half, which liked to live in a well-appointed home, enjoy well-cooked food, be waited on, have a properly tuned piano—a long list of things which the world does not allot to its heroes, saints and martyrs. “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.”
Lanny had experienced this inner conflict through both of his marriages. Irma Barnes had been luxury and worldly prestige, while Trudi Schultz had been heroism and devotion to a cause; and neither had satisfied the husband entirely. He had called Trudi the incarnation of his better nature, and he had tried his best to keep her from knowin
g about his other half. It had been in vain, for she had understood him thoroughly, and had feared his worldly half, and had said, in the clearest way, that he would never be able to love her completely, because she had none of the graces he was used to in women, and because she neither could nor would move in that “great world” where he had spent most of his life. Perhaps that hadn’t been a good suggestion to give a husband, but Lanny knew in his heart that this was the truth, and in trying to change himself he was always under a strain.
Now again it had come about that this ambivalence was embodied in two women, both of them out of the same world, indeed the same city, the same family. One reason why Lanny never made love to Lizbeth was that whenever he was with her he spent part of his time thinking about her cousin, comparing the two and trying to make up his mind which of them would make him the sort of wife he ought to have. This was interesting as a psychological exercise, but hardly conducive to romance, or even to flirtation. But Lanny, who was expecting his fortieth birthday in a couple of months, figured that he was past the age where he could be excused for stumbling into a love affair by accident.
He had practically told Laurel Creston that he was a secret agent of some sort. If he asked an anti-Nazi writer to marry him, it would have to be on the same terms as with Trudi: a closely guarded secret, with clandestine meetings at widely spaced intervals. As matters stood at present, Laurel could stay at Bienvenu and be absorbed in mediumistic experiments without anyone giving much thought to her or digging up her published stories. But if she were to marry Lanny, of appear to be thinking of it the case would be quite different. Everybody on the Cap had been interested in the loves of Beauty Budd and her son and had talked about them for a quarter of a century. They would get busy on this latest comer and rake up every scrap of information about her—including the fact that a little more than a year ago she had publicly described her future husband as a “troglodyte.”
Ordinarily this would have served as a tidbit of gossip, but not in this time of suspicion and raging hate, of civil war on the Riviera as everywhere else. There were British and French who were loyal to their country, and others who were loyal to their class, and took Nazi-Fascism as their protector against the Red menace. There were the paid agents of Hitler and Mussolini and Franco, laboring by bribery, blackmail, and every sort of device to break down the morale of their enemies. They trusted nobody, not even their own fellow-workers; they were jealous of everybody, most of all of their fellow-workers. The son of Budd-Erling would have been naïve indeed if he had expected to go among such people and not have every circumstance of his life gone over with a fine-tooth comb and studied under a microscope.
VI
So Lanny’s thoughts would come back to Lizbeth, and go the round all over again. Here was an alliance in which the most suspicious enemy could find no political speck or blemish. Marriage with the daughter of the Holdenhursts would establish a near-Fascist as a member of the right class, holding the right ideas and living the right life. She was not merely the “lovely young thing” a man of his age might rejoice in, to find respite in as in a rose garden or an exquisite piece of music; she was an embodiment of all the graces his worldly life required. The trouble was, his young bride would see so little of him; and how long would it be before she began to wonder why he persisted in taking long journeys and not asking her along? When she had so much money; why did he need to be peddling pictures? Lanny could hear the very words—because Irma Barnes had said them all.
Could he take Lizbeth into his confidence, even to a partial extent? What would his ideas mean to her except something abnormal and terrifying? Could he take on the job of educating her, away from all the ideas, the basic instincts of her class? She seemed so pliable, natural and straightforward; but that was because she had everything she wanted, everything made to order for her. She was like a stream flowing smoothly over a pebbly bed; but set a big rock in the middle of that stream, and see what a surging and splashing, a boiling and bubbling there would be! Lanny had seen it and heard it with his first wife over a period of six years, and was filled with a dread of it.
Yet another dread—he had discovered the ability of women to suffer when their desires were thwarted. He found himself thinking: “This girl is going to be unhappy!” He knew the symptoms: a catch in the voice, perhaps a trace of anger in the eyes, or a pleading look. It must seem to her unkind, even insulting, that this attractive man went on treating her like a kind teacher or an uncle. Did he suppose that hands were made only for piano-playing, and lips only for talking about the increase in emotional content of the music of Beethoven over that of Mozart? Some day she was going to break down—and then what the devil would her teacher do?
He decided that he was dawdling here, and that the world needed him. He explained to Reverdy that he hadn’t yet seen his father, and that he had a lot of picture business which would require traveling. He would return to Baltimore for the début party and the opening of the show. His host said: “Right afterwards we are going to start on our cruise. Wouldn’t you like to come along?”
Lanny had been wondering about this, and was prepared in his thoughts. “Aren’t you disturbed by the dangers of war?” he demanded.
“We are going by way of the Panama Canal to the South Seas. We may come back that same way—or by the Cape of Good Hope. We won’t attempt to enter the Mediterranean.”
“The Germans had raiders all over the South Seas in the last war,” cautioned Lanny. “They are pretty certain to have them in this one, and perhaps long-range submarines, too.”
“I am taking every precaution,” explained the other. “I am having a large American flag painted on each side of the Oriole, and I will keep these illuminated at night. Also, I’m having the registry of the yacht changed back from a commercial to a pleasure vessel. That will cost me money, but avoid the possibility of trouble.”
“I hope so, Reverdy. I wish I could go with you and see the half of the world I have missed; but I have commitments to my father and others. Remember, I have a mother in France and a daughter in England.”
“We shall all of us be sorry,” was the response. “We should have enjoyed your company.” A proud and somewhat formal Southern gentleman couldn’t say more. He knew the meaning of what he had heard. In modern language it was: “Nothing doing!”
VII
Zoltan was in New York, and eager to see his friend and business associate, and to hear the news. Right now, with Polish cities falling into dust and rubble and Polish men, women, and children having their lives wiped out by the thousands every hour, the “good European” was in a depressed mood. “My native land is going Nazi,” he said, “and the Continent is kaput. I’ve made up my mind to settle down in New York and apply for American citizenship. I’ve made all the money I need, and I’m tired hearing cries of hate.”
Lanny, also heartsick, replied: “I’m afraid you will hear them in New York. There is going to be a fearful controversy over America’s part in this war. But I think your decision is wise. Travel to Europe will become difficult as well as dangerous.”
“What are you planning for yourself, Lanny?”
“I am in a privileged position. Our government won’t consider that we need old masters, but it will be certain that Britain and France need fighter planes. So when the embargo is lifted it should be easy for my father and me to get passports. If there is some business you want transacted, I’ll be glad to help you, and meantime you can sell Detazes in America. Keep the prices high!”
“Let’s go over the schedule,” said the Hungarian.
VIII
Lanny arrived in the middle of the afternoon, and took a taxi to his father’s home. The butler said: “The Library Board is meeting in the library, sir.” Lanny might have been puzzled by that if he had not known the circumstances; the Library Board was the governing body of the Newcastle Public Library, and Esther was a member. They met once a month, and she no doubt had invited them to meet at her home as a social co
urtesy; afterwards they would have tea, and continue their plotting to persuade the Town Council to vote funds for a new building.
Lanny went upstairs to the attic room which had been his ever since the spring of 1917. In that year a pair of mocking birds had built their nest in a cherry tree just outside the window, something which was unusual in Connecticut. Now the birds were gone, but his books were still on the shelves, and nothing had been changed between World War I and World War II. Lanny washed up, and, noticing his old golf clubs hanging in the closet, thought it would be fun to run out to the country club and stretch his legs. But then he realized that Esther would be expecting him to meet her Board members. It would be a bore, but he was always careful to show courtesy to his stepmother, knowing what a difficult relationship this is.
He went downstairs and passed the double doors of the library, in which half a dozen ladies and gentlemen were seated. He went on into the new sunroom, planning to read a magazine. Entering quietly, he stopped, for at one of the windows he observed a woman sitting, directly in front of a panel of rose-colored brocade by the French windows. The rich brown of her softly dressed hair was accentuated by the background of the room. The shadows interspersed by the afternoon sun were rosy, and the pale blue dress she wore was splashed with the color of red roses; there was, by chance, a basket of coral roses on the table behind her. She was absorbed in reading a book, and not aware of his entrance, so he was at liberty to look at her.
There was something vaguely familiar in her features, delicate and sensitive, but at first he didn’t recognize her. She was—how old? Not as old as himself, and perhaps considerably younger. Was the warm color in her cheeks her own, or did it come from the sun shining on the rose-colored objects? Lanny, with the eye of an art connoisseur, appreciated a fine composition, and wondered if it had been made by chance or by design. A ladies’ man since childhood, he knew the ladies’ arts, and would not fail to wonder whether this one had known who was coming, and had placed herself with the right background. Or had Esther told her where to sit?
Dragon Harvest Page 65