The Strong City

by Caldwell, Taylor;

  The gentlemen of fashion in Nazareth and surrounding cities and towns knew of the gaming-tables on the third floor, and the pretty gay young ladies, six of them, who occasionally visited Mrs. Chisholm and entertained guests. It was all very costly, discreet, good-tempered and entertaining, and the gentlemen kept their own counsel except when with the initiated. No man who could not give the most impeccable references, including banking references, was ever admitted. It was a closed brotherhood. It would have been cruel to call this a house of assignation, for there was nothing hushed or furtive about it, or faintly criminal. It is true that none of the ladies of Nazareth would have dreamed of inviting Mrs. Chisholm to call, but this was less because of her musky reputation than because she was so “different,” and not “quite a lady.” To acknowledge even among themselves that Mrs. Chisholm was outside the pale would have given the idea that their own innocence was not quite intact.

  Mrs. Chisholm, herself, had fiery red hair of doubtfully natural origin, and so lustrous and beautifully dressed that it had become a kind of legend in Nazareth. She was closer to forty than to thirty, and was a “fine figure of a woman.” Very tall, of commanding bust, incredibly small waist, and swelling hips, round white arms and column-like neck, she was of impressive appearance. She had a round white face under her brilliantly red tresses, and a large crimson mouth, small nose, and flaming black eyes. Her expression was knowing and robust, full of laughter and good temper and intelligence, and when she smiled, which was almost always, she displayed the most wonderful white teeth, which even malice could not report were false. Her voice was hoarse and deep and booming, like a man’s, and very loud. She had a remarkably profane and careless vocabulary, and used it to amusing advantage, so that she was as renowned for her wit and bon mots as she was for her chic and virility. Forthright, vulgar, subtle and alive, she was adored by the elect who frequented her house, for she was as shrewd as she was handsome, and as genuinely sympathetic as she was avaricious. Moreover, she kept herself well informed on politics, and more than one State Senator, party “boss,” and mayor, came to her for advice, which was usually sound and penetrating. She knew everything. She had a fine library of the best classics, which she actually read. Her one regret, she would say frankly, was that she had been born a woman. She was a natural politician, a natural busybody, humorous, understanding, quick-witted and blunt.

  She dressed as exuberantly as possible, or perhaps it was her vital personality that made even the simplest and most modest gown spectacular. She loathed black. Her gowns were of the lightest mauve, blue, rose or violet, lavishly decorated, and made of the most expensive silks and velvets. When she swept through the large bright rooms of her house, she rustled loudly, and an aura of thick hypnotic scent blew about her. Coarse she was, unscrupulous she was known to be; yet her every word, her every flash of eye and hoarse laughter, her every movement, exhaled such health and gay turbulence that she was compellingly fascinating. She loved jewelry, and wore diamonds on bosom, ears, hair, fingers and arms at all hours, and very lavishly.

  She often said that “I have the loosest tongue. I tell everything.” But only the obtuse believed that she told anything at all. Nevertheless, she had a reputation of finding nothing sacred, which was a reputation she had artfully created. She had long ago abandoned a youthful effort to be beautiful, and had resigned herself to chic, wit, and dazzling toilettes, which were all the more lasting and more impressive.

  She had her favorite among the gentlemen who frequented her house “for a quiet cosy evening.” And her favorite was Franz Stoessel, who had never been able to deceive her, and whom she called “a great scoundrel, a perfect rascal, a brute and a most abominable liar.” But she said these things with a wink, and a pleasant, cynical laugh, a deep smile, and with fondness. She would have admired him, if only for his handsomeness and his extravagant gifts of jewelry and money. But with these he gave her real excitement and a humorous affection. “I can take off my shoes with you,” he would say. “Bertie, you are good for my soul.”

  He visited her at least twice a week, and often more. These nights were gala ones for her. She would spend hours over her toilette, trying on various gowns and gems. She not only respected him because he had paid off her mortgage. He had re-created in her a youthful passion, which she thought had long been dead from satiation.

  When he came, he joined the small crowds in the gaming-rooms, sometimes playing for discreet stakes, drinking a little, smoking, wandering through the brilliant rooms ablaze with gaslight, crystal, mirrors and the splendid gowns of the young women. He was well liked by every one, and was an especial favorite of the servants. But the men of highest social position in Nazareth, and even old austere Percival Hartford himself, who was a grim reformer in public and a foul perverse old rake in Ethelberta’s house, felt that the evenings were incomplete without him. His affability, his good-temper, his affectionate smile turned democratically upon expensive whore or business associate, his manner of listening with sympathetic or amused attention to every one, endeared him. “A man may smile and smile, and be a villain,” Baldur would say of him. But villains who are good-natured and amiable, equable of temper, and full of tact, were better loved than any serious man bursting with virtue, Baldur had discovered. To his cynical surprise, he had also discovered that Franz had a legion of truly devoted friends, loyal and fervently blind.

  Ethelberta would frequently call her carriage when Franz appeared, and they would leave the hot blazing rooms of her house, and take a short drive in the cool dark evening air. She would put her huge plumed hat carefully on her red hair, throw her ermine or sable cape over her white damp shoulders, thrust her hands into her muff, and sit beside him as her satin-black horses trotted sedately through quiet and empty residential streets. He was very fond of her. She reminded him, in her vitality and health of comely body, of Irmgard. He enjoyed her loud hoarse laugh, her licentious tongue, the sweet strong odor of her French scents, and the glint of her eyes and teeth in the gaslamps. She was never tedious nor capricious, never bad-tempered or melancholy. Her exuberance was like a wild bright wind, full of noise, bluster and exhilaration. He told her many things which he never told any one else, except Baldur. It was curious that in these two so widely different characters he found ease and no treachery. He spoke to her as though she were a man, and by the time they returned to her house, he was refreshed and heartened, laughing so hard that his large fair face was crimson and his eyes moist. Later, when the crowds had gone, and the girls had retired to their plushy and silken bedrooms with their choice of the evening, he would climb the velvet-carpeted stairs with Ethelberta to her own chamber. It was warm in that chamber, spacious, filled with velvet chairs, heavy velvet draperies, firelight, candlelight, and rich with scent. He slept in her broad silk-covered bed beside her, and he slept as peacefully as a child, his head on her soft, luxuriant breast.

  Tonight he came as usual, and after a while they drove away discreetly in her carriage. It was a fresh spring evening, silent, echoing faintly, as though the wet black earth was speaking, even in the grimy city. Stars shone thickly through still empty boughs. There had been an earlier rain, and the streets glittered darkly in the street-lamps, which were reflected back from the streets as though in a black mirror. The wind was very soft and whispering, moist on the cheek. The lower windows of the tall houses were dark, but upper chambers were yellow with gaslight. Against the dim sky, to the east, was a dull rosy glimmer from the chimneys of the Schmidt Steel Company. Lying back contentedly on her leather cushions, Ethelberta idly noticed that glimmer, and she said languidly: “You are busy at the mills, I see.”

  She knew that something was disturbing Franz, and astutely, she guessed that it had something to do with the mills. She was not surprised when he answered in an unusually surly voice: “Not as busy as I should like, curse Jules Bouchard!”

  Ethelberta touched his arm with affectionate concern, and waited. Franz stared gloomily at the back of the coachman.


  “We’ve been delayed four weeks, now, on the last shipment of ore from our Great Lakes mines. As I told you before, Barbour-Bouchard own and control the Philadelphia and Windsor Railroad, and we have to ship over it. Before I underbid that French snake on those three important bids, everything was very amiable and reciprocal between us. Now, he’s getting impossible. He expressed his regrets that our shipments have been shunted on sidetracks, and left standing for weeks. He said it was a mistake, and regrettable. Very regrettable! We’ve found only one-third of our coal, and, according to him, a ‘search’ is being conducted for the rest. We are operating at only half our capacity. Other shipments are taking a devil of a time to reach us. In less than two weeks, we’ll have to shut down, perhaps, and wait for our coal. Another thing which annoys him is that we buy no more coal from Sessions and Barbour-Bouchard, but he said nothing much about that when he was trying to get me to come in with him. And our orders! We can’t fill them at this rate.”

  “Have you talked with Mr. Baldur about this?” asked Ethelberta sympathetically.

  Franz shrugged contemptuously. “He is not interested, as I have told you. He would not care particularly if we went out of business. I am the only one who cares about the mills. I have this worry, knowing that that foul Frenchman will do much worse than this, as time goes on. He is hamstringing me. All with polite smiles and his cursed ‘regrets’! He knows he has me, for they own the right of way, and the railroad.” He laughed without mirth. “However, that is my worry. I shall find a way. Yes, I shall find a way!” and he beat his knee with his clenched fist. Ethelberta saw his profile, brutal, boar-like, and she raised her eyebrows.

  “I’m sure you will find a way,” she said, comfortably, laying her gloved hand over the large hard fist. “In the meantime, don’t think of it.”

  He grunted, thrust aside her hand. “That is woman-talk,” he said. “The mills are not a bawdy house. They are things for men, those mills.”

  Ethelberta was silent, but not offended. She listened tranquilly to the trotting of the horses, and breathed deeply of the spring air. Franz sat forward on his seat, his teeth clenched.

  “Democracy!” he muttered, with an ugly sound deep in his throat. “Dog catch dog, and let the better man be damned! Ah, there will be an end to it, some day, and those who have the right to rule shall rule!”

  “Dear me!” exclaimed Ethelberta, with her deep baritone laugh. “What is all this?”

  He turned to her, and did not smile. She heard his hard breathing, saw the narrowing of his eyes.

  “Under a better system of government, Schmidt would be recognized for what it is, a superior company to Sessions. Schmidt would not be hampered, held back, allowed to be hamstrung, by the whims and greeds and connivings of such as Jules Bouchard! The best interests of the country would be recognized, and the better company given first choice of supplies, and the right of way, and the authority to choose the best labor and hold it. How can a nation advance if every hog has equal right at the trough, though by sheer weight of numbers the runts might crowd away the stronger and the finer? Can a people survive when superiority is penalized, because to curtail the activities of the lesser would be to injure their damned fine rights? Is the ‘right’ of the individual more valuable than the welfare of the whole? Yes, says democratic government, believing that noses are more important than brains!”

  Ethelberta chuckled humorously. She tapped Franz on the shoulder with her muff. “I take it then, my fine-feathered friend, that you don’t like our country. Well, don’t like it. That’s your privilege. But you might tell me why you don’t show it a clean pair of heels, if it hurts you so bad?”

  Franz smiled slightly, but only with his lips. “This is a newer, bigger, richer country. It gives me what I want. But it increases my appetite for more. I serve it, when I serve myself. America needs men like me. Not that I care. I take what America has to offer, and I see no necessity to thank America. What a country this could be, with its enormous resources, its wealth, if it would only rid itself of the barnyard politics of democracy!” His smile broadened. “If I have a duty to America, it is the duty to help change her form of government into something more realistic, something more rational and intelligent.”

  Ethelberta snorted thoughtfully. Then she eyed Franz shrewdly, and not with affection. “Easy, my buck,” she said, indulgently, but with a slight hardness in her voice. “I kind of like my country. Pretty fine place, I say. Room for everybody. Even buckeroos like you, with a pistol in your pocket and larceny and hate in your heart. Maybe I ought to be mad at you. But somehow I’m not. Know why? I think America’s too big for pirates and bandits like you. I think she’s too sound. You’ll come and go, cursing the government and the country, but it’ll stay, this country of mine. You can’t hurt it. Much. Depends though, on the people, on how much damage you do. But maybe they’ll wake up some day, and kick you mighty hard in the pantaloons. That’ll be one fine day!”

  Franz suddenly laughed, his good temper returning. He pulled her to him and kissed her roughly on the lips, his hand grasping her flesh under the fur cape. They clung together in a sudden violent gust of passion. Then he released her. His voice was thick and low, when he spoke.

  “But what would you do without me, Bertie, to pay off your mortgages and cover you with furs and silks and jewels?”

  She leaned against him, her mouth close to his. “Damn you, I love you,” she murmured. She glanced quickly at the smooth broadcloth back of the coachman, and said: “You need a wife, Franz. A good strong wench. You need a woman of your own. Why don’t you marry some one?”

  He smiled sardonically. “Who?”

  She shrugged, drew away from him. “Not me. I’m not hinting. I wouldn’t marry you. You’re a pig. And I’m too smart. But there are plenty of women, not very bright, but nothing wrong with that. See here: your wife’s been dead for over a year. You can marry again, with propriety. Get married. It won’t come between us.”

  He looked away from her, and she saw the gloomy darkening of his face in the passing lamplight. He is thinking of some one, she thought, with a clench of jealousy at her heart. It isn’t me. Who is it?

  Franz was seeing again the wind-swept hill, and a woman against the sky, with blowing hair and upturned face. A woman who was Irmgard, yet not Irmgard.

  CHAPTER 18

  “So,” said Jules Bouchard, “he will be here within the hour. I anticipate some amusing moments. Very amusing. He is a hypocrite, but a hypocrite without finesse.”

  His uncle, Ernest Barbour (“the Old Devil”), thoughtfully considered Jules’s last words. “Finesse,” he murmured. “I once saw a very bad print in my grandfather’s house in England. Roman, I think. It showed a man, almost naked, and armed only with a lariat, and a light spear. He was fighting a heavily armed man with a shield and quite a good big sword. I never knew who won the fight. But I bet on the second man.”

  “Touché,” said Jules, with a smile, and an inclination of his head. “But somewhere, in school, I read that the first man frequently won. With his finesse. I’ve always preferred finesse to brute force. Besides, finesse is delightful to watch. This won’t be delightful. German pig! No finesse, the Germans. That’s why, in the end, they’ll always lose. No imagination. Only vindictiveness—the good big sword. I would bet on the spear.”

  “I’m relying on the spear,” said Ernest, pointedly, returning Jules’s smile. But his ice-pale eyes were impassive. “This time,” he repeated, “I’m relying on the spear. On your finesse.”

  “You see, he is coming to me, not I to him, Uncle Ernest.”

  “The German always does,” said Ernest, unconvinced, and very coldly.

  Jules shrugged. “German pig,” he said again.

  “Nevertheless, Jules, you must remember he is now twice as rich and powerful as Sessions. That should never have happened.”

  It would never have happened, thought Jules, still smiling, but vicious, if I had had a free hand here. But you w
ould never let me have the hand.

  “I have always believed there is room for every one,” went on Ernest. “I was mistaken. There is no room for this man in this State, with us. With another type, yes. But he is different.”

  A clerk came in to announce the arrival of Franz Stoessel. Jules winked at his uncle, leaned back negligently in his chair.

  Franz entered, large, sleek and composed, and Jules, always appreciative of sartorial elegance, smiled with impersonal pleasure. The blond beast, he thought. His racial aversion to the German rose in him like a swift hot gorge, thin but virulent. The German character was baffling. Even the French, who understood the human race, and thus every man, found the German soul incomprehensible, bewildering. But it was not complex; it was merely unhuman. He greeted Franz, rising gracefully from behind his desk, and extending his smooth dark hand. Ernest Barbour sat in his own chair near his nephew’s desk and appraised Franz with his basilisk eyes. He nodded courteously, said nothing.

  Franz had not been prepared for the presence of this stocky and terrible Englishman, the munitions emperor, whose name he reverenced as he reverenced all power. He had never met him before, and his broad pale face, with the light eyes, the short flaring nose and tight wide lips, was familiar to him only through the medium of newspaper photographs. He saw that Ernest Barbour was stocky rather than well-built, with the Englishman’s breadth of shoulder and hard round body. There was a stillness about him, but Franz was not deceived. This will be a greater struggle than I thought, he said to himself. If he is here, then it will be very bad.