I
Zoltan was in Baltimore, arranging the details of the Detaze show. On the day before the opening Lanny drove there and put up at the Belvedere hotel—the largest and most fashionable, though its abundant gilded carvings were tarnished and dingy. You wouldn’t call attention to the fact, because Baltimoreans had held all their swanky cotillions there, and were sentimental about it.
Lanny had decided that it would hardly be decent to trouble the Holdenhursts on the day of the début party. But when he telephoned, Reverdy insisted that he should at least come to dinner—they would all have to eat, and one more plate wouldn’t matter. As a matter of fact they were most of them too excited to eat, for they had only one daughter, and she would make only one début.
Lanny went, and found the house turned into a flower garden. After dinner they all retired to array themselves, and just before they went downstairs again the father escorted Lanny to his wife’s boudoir, where Lizbeth was standing in the middle of the floor, wearing a white tulle dress lightly touched with tiny silver sequins; both full and floating, yet by the designer’s art folding into a clinging, cloudy mist.
It was as if Reverdy said: “Did you ever see anything to beat it?” And Lanny in his heart had to admit that he seldom had. Aloud he said: “Lizbeth, you are the prettiest thing ever!”—and she blushed and trembled so that it almost went to her knees.
A great occasion for her, almost as important as a wedding, in fact the first step toward a wedding. It was a leading family producing their most precious treasure and saying to their world, and to all Baltimore through its Sunpaper: “Here she is, ‘finished.’ She is ripe and ready. Come look her over and make up your minds about her.”
The eligible swains would come, not merely from this city but from others. They would inspect the home and the service and sample the foods and wines; they would look over the débutante, her expensive sophisticated dress from New York, her proper hair-do, her makeup, her modest jewels; they would dance one or two turns with her and hear a few intelligent words in her soft refined voice. They would decide that everything was as right as right could be, and if they thought there was any hope for themselves they would seek further opportunity.
In that large throng, almost a crush, there was nothing to make Lanny Budd conspicuous. He would have his minute or two of dancing with the débutante, and would not overlook the mother and other ladies of the household. He would learn from Zoltan, who had been invited to the party, that everything was ready for the next afternoon, and he would take occasion to thank Reverdy and the banker for their courtesies in this matter. Later on he would be drawn into the smoking-room by gentlemen who wanted to ask him what was going to happen next in Europe, and were Britain and France going to send aid to Poland, and why had they promised it if they knew they couldn’t send it?
Also, there were ladies, mostly matronly, who wanted to know about the French painter about whom they had been reading so much in the papers of late. They didn’t know that a skilled publicity man had been at work for the past month to bring that about, and Lanny didn’t tell them. He delivered an agreeable discourse—one of a score which he could have said in his sleep, and perhaps did. He pointed out the two examples which Reverdy had hung in his drawing-room, and which would be taken down next morning and transported to the showrooms, marked with their owner’s card.
The music thumped and the champagne flowed and never could you have guessed that there was anything wrong anywhere in the world. It was a magnificent and costly occasion—and all for the purpose of telling the world, including Lanny Budd, what an important young person the Princess Lizbeth was. Lanny understood this, and sought the honor of a second dance with the heroine of the occasion, and paid her one or two more compliments; he ate his plate of terrapin stew, drank a sip or two of wine, and at three o’clock in the morning excused himself and drove back to his hotel.
II
The one-man show proved to be as exactly as “right” as the one-girl party. Zoltan had found a high-class press agent and supplied him with a mass of copy, biographical as well as critical. No painter had ever a more moving story, and in the course of years Lanny and his associate had learned exactly how to exploit it. Zoltan had paid for the right amount of advertising space in the papers, and therefore was entitled to a certain amount of reading space, and could get more if the copy was impressive. The critics were provided with reprints of what had been said about the paintings in Paris, Berlin, Munich, London and New York. They were informed that there was a Detaze in the Luxembourg and one in the Tate, six in Adolf Hitler’s home in Berchtesgaden and two in the Holdenhurst home in Green Spring Valley.
Thus the public had every opportunity to realize that a great art event was taking place in their city. These master works had been brought to America in order to keep them safe from the chances of war; and thanks to the enterprise of two leading citizens, Baltimore was being favored with the first opportunity to view them. “Everybody” came; and there was Zoltan, correct with morning coat and pinstriped trousers, and a silk bow tie lending a Bohemian touch. His slightly rebellious gray mustache was newly trimmed, and his manners were foreign but not too much so. There was the painter’s stepson, whom “everybody” had already met or heard about; and there were members of the two great families who had espoused this painter, and by now were not quite sure whether they shone in his glory or he in theirs.
The prices of the paintings were not marked on them, for that would have been vulgar. You would have to go to Zoltan or his clerk, who would consult a typewritten list in which the works were priced by number. When you learned that a Greek peasant boy was expected to bring twelve thousand dollars, you would go back for another look and discover virtues you had missed at first. Then it would occur to you that it would be a story to tell, and that your friends would be just as much impressed as yourself. You would start to figuring—what was there you had intended to buy that you could just as well get along without for a month or two? So it was that a dozen numbers were checked off as sold; and Lanny began to worry, as he always did—for he had guarded these paintings for a long while, and wondered if it wasn’t his duty to persuade his mother to donate them all to one great museum. But Beauty always needed money, and so did Marceline—and so did the underground!
III
A pleasant holiday in this lotus-land on Chesapeake Bay! It was the time of year when it seemed “always afternoon,” as in Tennyson’s poem, and the dwellers in this land “smile in secret,” not exactly “looking over wasted lands,” but reading about them in their newspapers:
Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery sands,
Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking ships, and praying hands.
Lanny met charming and cultivated people, and was invited to dinner parties where he was a feature, because he could tell so many “inside” stories about Europe, going back to the last war which we had won and the peace which we had bungled. Would things have been any better if we had joined the League? An interesting speculation, but remote from the dinner tables of the American rich; Europe seemed to them in very truth “a lamentation and an ancient tale of wrong.” Apparently it had never occurred to any of the persons Lanny met that the foundations of their social system might be cracking.
So many people wanted to see the paintings that the show was being continued for a third week. But Lanny couldn’t stay longer, for it became evident that the legislation being shaped by the congressional committees was going to forbid Americans to travel on the ships of belligerent nations and forbid American ships to enter the ports of such nations. These provisions would make it difficult for a P.A. to return to Europe without revealing his status to somebody. Lanny decided that he had better go while the going was good.
IV
He announced his decision to Reverdy, and as a result was invited into the yachtsman’s study and the door was closed, somewhat portentously. Lanny guessed what was coming, and it was none the less embarra
ssing because it was conducted with so much tact and consideration. Reverdy wanted to tell his younger friend what this friend already knew but had to pretend not to know: that there was a split in the Holdenhurst family, symbolized by the fact that Lizbeth spent half of each year under her father’s care and the other half under her mother’s. This made the disposing of her future a complicated matter, and the father begged Lanny’s permission to have a heart-to-heart talk. Lanny granted the request with grave courtesy, realizing that this scene would call for all the training he possessed.
“You, too, have a daughter,” said the host; “so you will be able to understand what is in my heart. The unhappy circumstances of my life have caused me to center my affections upon Lizbeth. Many people have said that I was trying to spoil her and maybe they were right, but I do not think I succeeded, because she is fundamentally so good! and kind. What I want is to see her happy; and, as you know, that depends most of all upon the man she picks out. Nothing torments a father more than the thought that his dear one may make a wrong; choice. In these days the parents don’t have much to say about it; you watch and wait, wondering what fate will hand out to you—because, of course, if she blunders, you are going to help pay the penalty, you are going to suffer every pang that she suffers.”
“Long ago,” remarked the well-read Lanny, “I made note of the saying of Bacon, that ‘He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune.’”
“Precisely so; and we do not know what fortune will demand of us; we can only sit and watch while the die is thrown. I observed that Lizbeth was greatly impressed by you from the first time she met you, and I was pleased, because I, too, admire and like you. Now I have decided that it is the part of wisdom to talk to you frankly about it, and I hope this will not be displeasing to you.”
“Not at all,” replied Lanny; “on the contrary, I am glad to have the chance to let you know exactly my position.”
“Let me say this, Lanny: I understand that a man cannot be asked to change the impulses of his heart. If Lizbeth does not seem to you the woman you want, that is something nobody can blame you for.”
“Let me answer without delay. Lizbeth seems to me one of the loveliest girls I ever met. I have thought about her a great deal. It would be foolish to deny that I have observed her interest in me. I hope you know that I have been careful to do nothing to encourage her feelings. I have been a friend; and many times I have wondered if I ought not to keep away from your home.”
“Your attitude has been blameless, and that is one reason I venture to bring up the subject. Are you in love with some other woman?”
“No, it’s not that. But I have thought the matter over, and I do not believe that I could make Lizbeth happy.”
“Why do you feel that way?”
“I am twice as old as she is, and I have acquired habits and ways of life, interests and obligations which are foreign to her. I have to travel a great deal, on my own business and my father’s. I have to pick up and leave at an hour’s notice, and have no idea when I can return. I tried marriage once on that basis, and made one woman unhappy. I took a vow I would never try it again.”
Lanny might have gone on and said: “I have work to do which I am not at liberty to tell even my best friends about.” But he couldn’t say that; he must not make himself a man of mystery, and spread the suspicion that he was something else than the dilettante he pretended to be. This made matters difficult, because the master of Briarfield and skipper of the Oriole couldn’t for the life of him see why a dilettante couldn’t make a proper husband for his darling daughter; in fact an elegant and cultivated and at the same time wise and kind dilettante was exactly what he was looking for, and thought he had found in the son of Budd-Erling. He was so sure of it that he was willing to overlook an ex-wife and a half-grown daughter in England!
V
Everything was so exactly to his taste that the head of the Holdenhursts questioned and hinted for quite a while. He painted an alluring picture of life on board a private yacht with most of the water surface of the world as your playground. You knew when the typhoon seasons ended and where the mosquitoes were and where they were not. You had a good library, and a radio with an aerial which would catch the voices of all the world bouncing up and down against the Heaviside layer. You had a piano, and no end of recorded music. You could dance, or play cards, or stop the vessel and enjoy a swim. Lanny had known all this in boyhood, and in those days he had learned “The Lotos-Eaters” by heart:
Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind,
In the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie reclined
On the hills like Gods together, careless of mankind.
In those ancient days the sea had been full of perils and the mariners had dreamed of delights on shore; but now modern science had made the sea a playground for the fortunate ones and they could travel and dream at the same time. When they got tired of change, here was this elegant estate which would be Lanny’s home—Reverdy was lavish in the offering of bribes. He would build a separate study for his son-in-law, and some day the whole place would be Lizbeth’s. They would have servants to wait upon them, and every desire of their hearts gratified. Anything in the world, to avoid disappointment for a daughter who so far in life had hardly known what the word meant.
Really, it became embarrassing. Lanny realized that Lizbeth must indeed have set her heart on him, and that she must have told her father so. All that the visitor could say was: “I am terribly sorry, my dear friend, but it would be a mistake. I have obligations which I cannot in honor escape.” Reverdy would doubtless be guessing that there was some other woman, perhaps a married woman whom Lanny was not free to name or to hint at; and Lanny would let it stand that way.
At last the father said: “Your decision will make a change in my plans, for I cannot answer my wife’s argument that Lizbeth ought to stay here this winter and take part in social life.”
“That will indeed be hard on you,” replied the other, sympathetically.
“I will invite other members of the family on the cruise, and Lizbeth will be left in her mother’s charge.” He didn’t say, but Lanny could guess the rest of his melancholy reflections. It would be his wife and not himself who would have the influencing of the daughter’s marital choice; the lucky one would be some alert and successful businessman of Baltimore, and no “mild-eyed melancholy Lotos-eater” to go wandering on a yacht!
“Come and see her when you return to this country,” said the father. “You might think it over and change your mind.” It was so hard to give up what he wanted!
VI
The President had gone to Hyde Park for a week-end, something he did now and then when the pressure of Washington affairs became too great. Lanny called Baker at a hotel in Poughkeepsie and said: “Zaharoff 103 is about to leave. Does anyone want to see him?” The order was to call later, and when he did so he was told that he was to walk past the hotel at ten that evening. He had to pack up his things in a hurry and drive fast through a cold autumn rain.
When he came to the “Skyway” leading to New York he did not enter the city, but continued up the Hudson River Parkway, formerly the Albany Post Road, a drive of eighty miles or so in country made famous by the Revolutionary War and by Washington Irving’s legends. Arriving on schedule, as he always did, Lanny parked and locked his car, and was picked up and driven to Krum Elbow, the estate which belonged to the President’s aged mother. It was here the P.A. had come for his first interview and received his assignment. But this time he did not enter the grounds by the regular gate, where army men were mounted in a guard box; he was driven by what appeared to be a woodroad, through a grove of fine trees of which F.D. was very proud—when he voted, he gave his occupation as “tree-grower.” When they approached the house they met a soldier on guard and slowed up while he flashed his torch into Baker’s face. When he said “O.K.,” they drove on.
Newspapermen were not permitted to swarm about this “summer capi
tal,” but stayed in Poughkeepsie, and received every day a list of the President’s visitors. Needless to say, the name of Lanny Budd would not be on that list; he judged that not even the members of the family knew of his visit. He was taken by a rear stairway to the President’s bedroom. This handicapped great man had no legs that he could stand on without steel braces, and these hurt him; so when he had work to do in the evening he retired early. The only time Lanny had seen him out of bed was on his first visit, which had been in the afternoon, and the caller had been received in the library of this fine old house.
The bedroom was large and cheerful, done in chintz; Lanny had seen pictures of it, and of most of the other rooms, at the time when the King and Queen of England had come visiting. Now there was a grate fire burning, and this large man with the powerful shoulders had his blue cape around him—one of his weaknesses being susceptibility to colds. He was grinning cheerfully, as he never failed to do, and his long cigarette holder was cocked at an angle which was a challenge to his foes. He always had some funny greeting, a new story, a nickname for everybody he knew. Henry Morgenthau, Secretary of the Treasury and a neighbor here in Dutchess County, was a serious-minded gentleman, so he was Henry the Morgue; Harry Hopkins was Harry the Hop and Thomas Corcoran was Tommy the Cork. It didn’t require much genius to predict that the present visitor would be Lanny the Bud, and he had stopped at a florist’s and put a pink rosebud in his buttonhole, to identify his political complexion.
“Well, Governor,” he began, “it looks as if Budd-Erling would be able to go on making planes.”
“I hope your old man is satisfied,” responded the other, with a smile.
“I talked with him on the phone this morning, and he seemed to be. But I can’t say that I am. If the amendment goes through in its present form, we shall be abandoning every principle of the freedom of the seas for which we fought last time.”
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