House of Cards

by Stanley Ellin

It intrigued me to hear such concern expressed for Paul for the second time within the hour. First by Madame Gabrielle and now by Bernard.

  “What’s Paul got to do with it?” I asked.

  “Everything from the family’s point of view. Consider, Reno, that of the de Villemonts, the de Gondes, the Vosiers, this is the one child, the sole heir, the family’s most precious treasure. His upbringing means everything to these people. Left to his mother he was being turned into a neurotic, sickly little creature. In your hands he’s being shaped into a boy his father might have been proud of. If anything happened to Madame de Villemont—”

  “What, for example?”

  “Do you really want to know,” said Bernard, “or are you only looking for an excuse to hand me the same dose you handed Morillon?”

  “I want to know,” I said. To give Bernard his due, he seemed honestly concerned by these family problems.

  “Then in the kindest terms,” he said, “Madame de Villemont is not well. Her psychotic outburst last night—”

  “She was drunk.”

  “That in itself is a bad sign to anyone who knows her. The point is, she’s already spent time in a mental institution and may some day have to return there. In that case—”

  “Who’s the judge of her mental condition?” I cut in. “Dr. Morillon?”

  “No, Dr. Felix Linder. He’s recognized throughout the world as an authority in this field.”

  “But Morillon has a strong influence on him, doesn’t he?”

  Bernard looked annoyed.

  “I’m sure they respect each other,” he said, “but Morillon isn’t in practice; he’s simply an observer at the sanitarium. And what I’m getting at is that the last time Madame entered the sanitarium, it was almost disastrous for Paul. He had barely recovered from the loss of his father, and now he thought he had lost his mother as well. What everyone hopes is that if this emergency arises again, you’ll be on hand to give the boy the sense of security he needs, the courage to get along without his mother, even the upbringing he ought to get. Does that make clear your importance to the family? Can you see why they all hope you manage to take a properly clinical attitude toward Madame?”

  Somehow I managed to look squarely into those hooded eyes and nod polite understanding. The worst mistake, I knew, would be to get into any argument with Bernard where the secret of Anne’s plans might slip out.

  When I prepared to leave, Bernard said that if I were free for the afternoon—

  I told him I wasn’t and he took this graciously.

  “But we must get together very soon,” he said. “I’m especially anxious to hear about your meeting with Charles Leschenhaut. I’m a great admirer of his.”

  “And of the Comtesse de Laennac?” On his desk was a copy of her La Mystère du Tarot, its jacket garishly illustrated by a picture of The Hanged Man from the Tarot deck. It was hard to imagine the icily intellectual Bernard devoting himself to fortunetelling.

  “Oh, that.” He grinned mischievously. “The Tarot is Madame Cesira’s obsession, dear lady that she is, and she’s been on my neck for ages now, insisting I delve into its mysteries. All I can make of them so far is that old Sophie de Laennac is probably the worst writer who ever twisted the French language to her own idiotic purpose. If you’d like to borrow the book—”

  I thanked him but declined the offer. I had already heard Madame la Comtesse deliver herself at length on the subject of the Tarot and wanted no more of that dubious pleasure.

  When, in the privacy of his study later that afternoon, I told Claude de Gonde about the missing gun, he wearily said, “It must have been Madame de Villemont herself who took it. It couldn’t have been anyone else.”

  “But she entrusted it to me, monsieur,” I pointed out. “If she wanted it back, all she had to do was ask for it.”

  He pondered this, slowly rubbing a thumb up and down that hard jaw.

  “Yes,” he said unwillingly. “That’s undeniable. But what other explanation could there possibly be?”

  “Monsieur, I hope I’m not overstepping bounds, but if you told Dr. Morillon about the gun—”

  He didn’t like that.

  “I did tell him about it, and you are overstepping bounds, young man. Don’t judge Dr. Morillon by last night. If he behaved badly, it was because he was driven to it by Madame de Villemont’s obscene performance. His fault is temper, not lack of honor. I assure you he had nothing to do with the gun’s disappearance.”

  I left it at that, wishing I could be as sure of it as he was.

  12

  Meanwhile, the whole week went by without any word from Leschenhaut about the manuscripts I had given him. Saturday, which marked the beginning of the second week, I was in no state of mind for light conversation when Paul and I went out after lunch, and I was grateful that he was also in a silent mood, evidently brooding over some deep problem of his own.

  We did the historical bit that afternoon—a visit to Napoleon’s tomb—and on the Esplanade des Invalides were caught in a sudden downpour and forced to seek shelter in a crêperie where Paul could stuff himself with leathery pancakes sweetened with strawberry preserve and washed down by Breton cider. He ate steadily but said nothing, highly unnatural for him, and I was about to ask him what was on his mind when he suddenly came out with it.

  In the middle of his third crêpe froment à la comfiture, he fixed his eyes on me and said in an accusing voice, “Do you love Mama?”

  I choked on my apéritif, then recovered myself.

  “Of course,” I said with a great show of indifference. “Don’t you?”

  “I don’t mean that way.” He jabbed his fork into the limp pancake here and there as if stabbing it to death. “I mean, are you going to get married to Mama?”

  I shrugged. “To tell the truth, I haven’t been planning to marry anyone.”

  He brightened immediately. “Then the Tarot cards were right. Last time I went to Grandmother’s I asked her to find out what the cards said about it, and they said Mama would never get married again.”

  And they would, I reflected, as long as Madame Cesira was dealing them out. If Anne remarried in the reasonably near future, it meant that her son, that heaven-sent heir to the de Villemont name, would be given a different name, a different identity, would be removed from the hands of the de Villemonts altogether, and I could see Madame Cesira’s face harden at the thought. It might explain why there was never an escort calling for Anne on her evenings out. Orders could have emanated from Île Saint-Louis that suitable males were to be kept at a safe distance from this sultry, tempting young widow. And, since she was tightly ringed around by her husband’s family, there wasn’t much she could do about it.

  That scene also gave me an insight into myself. Anne de Villemont was devious and secretive. Her moods, ranging from stony arrogance to panicky fearfulness, from the morbid withdrawal into herself to the not yielding to me, were unpredictable. She was, after making her son neurotically dependent on her, incapable of managing him. She got drunk at the wrong time. She gambled recklessly and incompetently at the tables for stakes too high even for someone with her kind of money. I knew all this. And now that Paul had come out with the word, I also knew that, despite everything, I was in love with the woman. It had been ten long years since I broke up with my wife, and from that time to this I had been afraid to let myself go over the edge about any woman. Now I had the feeling I was making up for all those years in one jump. A wild, blindfolded jump, and a blissful one.

  It was a relief to face that fact squarely. I raised my apéritif glass in a silent toast to it.

  At about nine that evening when I was at my typewriter and when Paul had just settled down to the Alfred Hitchcock show on his television set—the dubbing of dialogue into French giving the American scene a decidedly Gallic flavor—I heard Anne addressing her son over the crackle of dramatic dialogue.

  “I’m going now, chéri. And this must be the last program.”

  “Yes,
Mama. You look very pretty.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “But the dress—It’s very naked on top, isn’t it?”

  “Mais oui. C’est la mode.”

  That sounded interesting. I got up to investigate la mode for myself, but then heard Djilana’s voice.

  “The jewelry, madame. After all, one must make the proper impression at a grand place like Spinosi’s. Yes, this one, I think. And this bracelet.”

  Spinosi’s. So this was to be one of those profligate gambling nights, and the thought vaguely depressed me. Apparently fate had decided that the woman I was to love would be of the kind that my father, viewing them from behind his dice table, most loathed. But then my father had loathed everybody he ever had dealings with, not excluding his own wife and child.

  “Good night, chéri,” Anne said to Paul, “and behave yourself. I’ll be leaving as soon as I give Monsieur Reno his instructions.”

  When she came into my room, discreetly leaving Paul’s door wide open behind her, I forgave her all profligacy on the spot. She was distractingly lovely. The dress left little of those ripe breasts and long, shapely legs to the imagination; the jewelry was a diamond and sapphire necklace and bracelet, and the sapphires almost exactly matched the color of her eyes.

  I started to tell her this, but she hastily pressed a finger to my lips. Djilana was still there in Paul’s room, her ears certainly pricked for any word of ours she could catch.

  “Make sure the child has his glass of milk before bedtime,” Anne said loudly, then came into my arms for a quick, hard kiss. “I’ve left lipstick on you,” she whispered warningly as she broke away, and raising her voice again, “Good night, Monsieur Reno,” she said in the tones of a kindly chatelaine, and was gone.

  But the scent of her perfume remained with me, making it impossible to concentrate on my work. I very soon gave it up to join Paul at the television set, and afterward saw to it that he had his glass of milk and was tucked into bed. I had just stretched out on my own bed, hands under my head, to contemplate the mixed blessings of my situation when I had to get up to answer the phone.

  With shock I realized it was Charles Leschenhaut who was speaking to me. What he had to say sounded like music. He had read my six stories, he jovially informed me at the top of his voice, and while four of them were beneath contempt, a couple were highly promising.

  “The one about the musician in the strip joint especially,” he bellowed. “Ça te la coupe! Right on the jaw, that’s how it hits one. Also the story about the young husband who discovers his wife has asked her rich and loving papa to buy her a mink coat because he can’t afford to. That really cuts to the bone. Were you the young husband by any chance?”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought so. Well, two out of six isn’t bad for a start, but both these little beauties need a lot of work before I print them. Your literary French is sometimes atrocious beyond belief. Anyhow, I’m busy as the devil all week, but next weekend I can give you two full days of my time. Are you interested in putting in a couple of days of hard work with me at my apartment?”

  I was so dazed by this incredible good news that I said, “Yes, of course,” before it struck me that next weekend, by Anne’s schedule, I was supposed to be far away from Paris. Now the departure would have to be postponed. It seemed only fair to get Anne’s nod of approval on this before I accepted Leschenhaut’s invitation.

  “There’s one small problem,” I told him. “Nothing of any importance really. You see, Saturday and Sunday are work days for me. I’ll have to get Madame de Villemont’s permission to take them off.” He was too close to the family, I was sure, to be trusted with the exact truth. “Would it be all right if I spoke to her about it and called you back?”

  “If you wish,” said Leschenhaut, and gave me his phone number. Then he remarked, “There’s no reason why Madame would be inconsiderate, is there? I know she has her—ah—eccentricities, but I don’t imagine suppressing literary talent is one of them.”

  “No, I’m sure it isn’t, Monsieur Leschenhaut. I’ll call you back tomorrow.”

  If I had been free to do it after that call, I would have gathered together Louis and a few other cronies and gone out on the biggest drunk of my life. But trapped as I was, all I could do was try to pass along the good news by phone.

  Even in that I was frustrated. When I called Louis, Madame Olympe informed me that Monsieur Louis and Monsieur Becque had already gone out for the evening, God knows where. When I tried Véronique’s number, although I was sure she must be with Louis, there was no answer. In the end I settled down to wait for Anne’s return, whenever it would be. I was so keyed up that sleep seemed impossible anyhow, so I turned out the light, stretched out still fully clothed on the bed again, and lay there alert for any sound of homecoming.

  Nothing induces sleep like the determination to stay awake. Eventually I dozed off. I was brought suddenly awake by the throbbing of a car motor in the courtyard below. Then the motor was cut off, and in the silence that followed I made out the sound of muted voices and the clicking of women’s heels over cobblestones.

  I got out of bed and opened the door to the corridor an inch or two, no more than was necessary to see Anne when she passed by on the way to her room. Waiting there in the darkness, I heard the whine of the elevator ascending and the small clash of its gate opening and closing. There was a muttered colloquy at the elevator—the Vosiers and Anne making their farewells to each other, I supposed—and then footsteps approached.

  My hand was on the knob of the door when I saw the flicker of light from the jewelry Anne wore at her throat, but the hand froze on the knob, the door remained as it was. Anne was not alone. There was a man with her, handsome and blond as a Viking, swinging her evening bag from his forefinger in time with the tune he was silently whistling through pursed lips. Dr. Hubert Morillon.

  They passed by; the door to Anne’s bedroom opened and closed; Morillon did not reappear on his way back to the elevator. I counted seconds, counted minutes, then finally gave up counting.

  At break of day, I watched Morillon depart, rumpled and sleepy-eyed, knotting his tie as he strolled along the corridor. Looking down from my window, I saw Georges leap from the driver’s seat of the Mercedes and respectfully usher Casanova into the car. As it passed through the gate, Pascal the garage attendant was right behind it to close and lock the gate.

  My valise and carry-all were stored in the otherwise empty armoire. I dragged them out, flung them on the bed, and opened them. First to pack, and then to write a parting note, a few choice words telling Anne de Villemont exactly what she was. Djilana could attend to Paul until his mother read them.

  I had flung my luggage on the bed with such violence that the sound of it must have penetrated Paul’s slumbers.

  “Reno?” he called in a faraway voice. “Reno, j’ai peur!”

  I went to him quickly. He was sitting up in bed looking around fearfully, and when I squatted down beside him he flung his arms around my neck and clung to me. I held him close and felt his bony little body relax.

  “There’s nothing to be afraid of,” I said.

  “I heard a noise.”

  “Yes, because I let something fall. I’m sorry.”

  “But in my dream it was a bad noise.”

  “All right, next time tell me when you’re dreaming, and I’ll make only good noises,” I said, and he giggled.

  “You know I can’t tell you when I’m dreaming because I’m asleep then. Why are you dressed? Is it morning already?”

  “No, it isn’t.” I detached his arms from around my neck and pushed him flat, roughing him up so that he squirmed and kicked joyously. “Now back to sleep,” I commanded, “and no more dreams.”

  “Will you stay with me?”

  “Naturally. But only if you close your eyes and make believe you’re asleep.”

  He was asleep within two minutes, but I waited a while before returning to my room. Then, after long and painfu
l consideration, I put the valise and carry-all back in the armoire. It was impossible to disappear from the child’s life this way. Whatever I felt about his mother, the parting from him had to be made as painless as it could be made.

  The best way to handle it was to go through with the bargain. Madame wanted herself and her son conveyed to New York? All right, they would be. I would attend to it, bid an affectionate farewell to Paul, and head directly back to Paris. And since there was no reason why Spinosi’s gambling establishment should be the only one to profit from Madame’s foibles, I was going to wind up with a pocketful of money for my trouble. Enough to buy me my complete independence for a long time to come.

  Independence from anybody and everybody, male or female.

  13

  My only duties on Sunday mornings were to see that Paul was fed and clothed and to deliver him to Georges for the weekly hegira to Île Saint-Louis.

  I managed this with my eyes bleary and my nerves ragged, and when Georges brought the limousine around to the door, I saw he wasn’t in any better shape. That was no surprise, since he had also been waiting attendance on Hubert Morillon until dawn. But the realization that by now every servant in the house must know how Madame de Villemont had spent the small hours of the night added the final drop of acid to the sourness of my disillusionment.

  What I most wanted was to walk right into her room and tell her off in plain language, but I knew I was still too dangerously angry for any such confrontation. Just the thought of seeing the imprint of Morillon’s head on the pillow next to hers filled me with a murderous urge to slap her senseless. Better in that case to cool off a little before the big scene.

  So I set off for the Champs Élysées as fast as I could walk, and wound up at a café on the corner of rue Washington where Paul and I were occasional customers. Taking a back table on the sidewalk, I was reminded that the tourist season had begun. There was a sizable gathering of well-heeled voyagers around me, cameras slung over chair backs, guidebooks at the ready.

  The idea of eating anything still turned my stomach as it had when Jeanne-Marie had brought up breakfast for Paul and me. I settled for a café au rhum—black coffee liberally dosed with potent West Indian rum in the Faubourg Saint-Denis style—and after a second one I felt a little better. After the third, I felt that the worst was over. I could now contemplate the image of Anne de Villemont with cold venom instead of boiling rage, could almost take pleasure in considering various ways of revenging myself on her. Six ounces of rum on an empty stomach is strong medicine. My head hummed with it; I felt crafty as Machiavelli plotting the downfall of an enemy.