XI
Irma hadn’t arrived when he reached the hotel, so he had more time to get himself together. He consulted his lists and found a picture on which he could possibly get a price; if he did so, he would send a few cablegrams and have an excuse to wait for replies. He would take Irma to a movie in the evening, to keep her from getting impatient. Movies are run in the dark, and that would be good, because he could shut his eyes and think about Trudi in the hands of the Gestapo without Irma’s seeing his fear-stricken face. If he shivered at the thought of what might happen to himself, Irma would attribute it to events on the screen.
No messages came; nothing happened; and to Lanny it was like one of those nightmares in which you know that you have been there before. But in the case of Freddi Robin he had been able to get some information because he happened to know one disloyal Nazi. Now that Nazi was dead, and where should he look for another? There wasn’t a person in Germany to whom he could mention the name of Trudi Schultz without risk of destroying not merely Trudi and her associates, but his own chances of being able to do anything for Trudi’s cause.
Irma proved to be unexpectedly compliant about the extra day’s stay. She was trying hard to be considerate and fair. She went with him to look at the painting, and agreed that it was fine, though the price was high. It was so high that he couldn’t offer it to his clients; but he didn’t tell her that, he said he would send a couple of cablegrams. It would take but a day or two more, he remarked, casually; and only then did his wife begin to make a fuss. Really, there had to be some limit to delays; she had made promises to her mother, and also an engagement in London. “I want you to do what you enjoy, Lanny, but it’s not fair to turn us both into slaves to this picture business!”
He had made the mistake of choosing a picture which was owned by a person of good repute, no Nazi; so Irma could argue that in case a sale was made, they could surely count upon having the right picture shipped. “Good Lord, I’d be willing to guarantee it; I’ll put up the money if the man cheats you!” And what could he say? He pleaded for one day extra, promising to leave the morning after next; and so she gave way.
After all, what sense was there in staying? If there was a question of the documents, Trudi could find some other way to smuggle them out; Monck might bring them to England and send them to Lanny by registered mail; Lanny could forward them to Rick by the same means. As for fretting and eating his heart out with anxiety, he could do that just as well in London or on Long Island; more easily, in fact, because he wouldn’t have the extra tension of lying to his wife. If ever he did get a letter from Trudi, if ever he could think of a way to save her, there would still be steamers crossing the Atlantic, and it would be nearly as easy to think up an excuse for returning to Berlin as for staying now.
XII
Was it cowardly of a Socialist to go off and leave his comrade in her plight? This was Trudi’s job, he told himself; she had chosen it for herself, knowing clearly its risks. She had refused to give him any means of communicating with her, so surely she couldn’t blame him for not doing it. Nevertheless, he would go on being dissatisfied with his job, of playing prince consort to an heiress, taking her to picture shows, and lying to her because she wouldn’t permit him to have a social conscience. He had told Trudi that he could get money for the cause in that money world and nowhere else; and Trudi had been glad to have that sort of assistance. But it had worked out to this: that while she lay in the dungeons of the Gestapo, Lanny would drive off in a fancy car, cross the ocean in a luxury liner, and spend the summer in a Long Island show-place with two- or threescore servants to wait on him. No amount of arguing could make that seem a satisfactory division of labor!
No message of any sort; and on the morning set for their departure Lanny packed his things with a heavy heart. He purposely took a long time, for there was a second mail before noon, and something might come by that. No need for hurry, he told his wife; it was a clear day and they would drive fast, and catch the Hook of Holland ferry in the evening. He talked about the news from Geneva; the first mail had brought a card from Pete, and now Lanny was reading aloud an item from the morning paper which showed how correct Pete had been. The League committee had appointed subcommittees, a time-worn device for postponing action. Lanny beguiled his wife into talking about a journalist, born in Naples and raised in Brooklyn, who took a disparaging attitude toward all “wops.” Irma, interested in people, let herself be beguiled.
At last, however, the husband could think of no more devices. Their bags were locked up and carried away. He went down and paid his bill at the cashier’s window. He asked at the desk for a message, and there was none. The car was at the door, the bags stowed, and Irma appeared in her quiet but elegant traveling-costume, conscious of her ripe brunette beauty, gazed at by all men and women, and knowing it. A splendid tall personage in uniform opened the door for her and then hastened to open her car door; the bellboys bowed, and Lanny followed, scattering largess, one of his functions.
Irma took her seat, and Lanny had gone around to the other side to get in, when there came a bellboy running with a letter in his hand. Lanny thought: “Oh, God!” His heart hit him a blow under the throat. It was one of those cheap envelopes that Trudi used, and the handwriting was hers. He opened it hastily and read:
Dear Mr. Budd:
Very urgent circumstances made it impossible for me to complete the sketches as I hoped. Please accept my apologies. Gluckliche Uberfahrt!
Kornmahler
He got into the car, a bit dizzy. “What is that?” asked Irma, and he had an answer thought up in advance: “Young artist whose work I took a fancy to. Promised to send me some sketches, but something went wrong.” He handed the note to his wife, so that she wouldn’t be looking at him for a few moments.
“Is this why you wanted to wait?” she inquired.
“No, no,” he replied; “they can come by mail just as well.”
“Kornmahler,” she remarked. “An odd name!”
“Probably Jewish,” he said, starting the car. “Graingrinder” instead of “Miller”! Trudi had known that he would get the point; she was in hiding somewhere, and had to change her name in a hurry! Also, she was telling him that there was nothing he could do about it. Happy crossing! Bon voyage!
BOOK THREE
The Worst Is Yet to Come
10
THE HEAD THAT WEARS A CROWN
I
It is the nature of the human creature to have desires, and part of the process of civilization to devise new ones. The creature forms ideals, he sets himself goals, and then labors to attain them. When he has got there he looks about, and finds that it isn’t so satisfying as he had imagined; already he is in process of forming a new ideal, of setting himself a new goal. The unfortunate creatures are of two sorts: those who are so low in the social scale that they have no hope of attaining their desires, and those at the other end of the scale, so well provided with everything that they have nothing to strive for, and thus fail to make the efforts whereby their capacities are developed.
Lanny Budd was one of these latter unfortunates; or so, at any rate, he felt himself while playing his role of prince consort on the Long Island estate. He was the young lord of Shore Acres, the only male there having authority; and while the females owned the place and ran it, they deliberately deferred to him and abrogated their rights in his favor. They did this because they wanted him to stay; they wanted the place to serve his pleasure, and they were puzzled when it failed to do so. They watched him anxiously for signs of discontent, and their attitude was communicated to the servants, who never fail to know the circumstances of those families upon which their lives are centered. Mr. Lanny doesn’t like this place, Mr. Lanny wants to go back to Europe and take his wife and daughter with him. If he goes, the staff will be cut down, a lot of us will lose our agreeable jobs; so let us find out what it is that Mr. Lanny lacks, and let us bring it to him on a silver platter, or perhaps the gold service which is kept
locked in the safe built into the wall of the master’s bedroom. He is of a friendly disposition, so let us smile and say a cheery “Good morning.” He appears to be preoccupied right now, so let us steal about our duties on tiptoe. Now he is frowning—have we done anything to displease him?
There is something peculiar about this young master—really quite unprecedented. Mr. Binks, the second footman, declares that he is a Socialist. He takes several papers full of that sort of stuff, and when he throws them into the trash Mr. Binks read them, and now he is talking like a Socialist, too; he says that the rich are a lot of parasites and ought to be put to work like everybody else. For God’s sake, how does one please a young master like that? By being a bad servant instead of a good one? Mr. Binks reads aloud a sentence which Mr. Lanny himself has marked in the paper, quoting a party named Walt Whitman, who says: “Give me neither masters nor servants; give me comrades and friends.” And what does that mean? Would Mr. Lanny like us to come and sit down in his study and be comradely? And what would Miss Irma make of it? The older servants still call her Miss Irma; it is a privilege which marks their rank.
II
The executive head of this estate is Mrs. Fanny Barnes, nee Vandringham, and she is one of the old sort, with no non-sense about her; the servants have no difficulty in knowing their place when she is around, and that is most of the time. They know everything about her and her family, because in one of the many cottages of the estate there live aged pensioners, one of whom was Mrs. Barnes’s nurse and is now a fountainhead of ancient lore. She can tell how bitterly Mr. J. Paramount Barnes, the utilities king, used to quarrel with his wife, and so he didn’t leave the estate to her but to Miss Irma, or rather to a trusteeship, so that his daughter won’t come into full possession until she is thirty. Meantime, she is away most of the time, and doesn’t care very much about the place, so Mrs. Barnes has everything her own way, and a hard taskmistress she is.
The real center of the demesne has come to be little Frances; the twenty-three-million-dollar baby, as the newspapers still call her, though the value of the fortune has been cut in half by the depression. But things are coming back, and dividends are being paid again. That ought to please the well-to-do, but it appears that taxes take most of it—the ladies and gentlemen all worry about them, finding fault with the President and calling him bad names. Mr. Lanny grins, teases them, and sometimes gets into an argument. Evidently that is a part of being a Socialist; you are glad to see the rich taxed, even though you are one of them. A hard thing to imagine!
Mrs. Barnes holds her little granddaughter as the most precious treasure and guards her like an old dragon; has her sleeping in her room, and doesn’t mind being waked up by her; watches her food, sends for the doctor if she sneezes once, and doesn’t like to see her taken off the estate. She is jealous of Mr. Lanny’s mother, who lives in France and has the child the greater part of the time. But Mrs. Barnes does not let Mr. Lanny see this; she humbles her pride, trying her best to please him and make him feel that Shore Acres is his real home. She is all the time taking her brother off and scolding him because he talks too much and bores Mr. Lanny with his opinions, especially about politics and the stock market and that sort of thing. “Shut your fool mouth!” she says, loud enough for her maid to hear, and of course the story is all over the servants’ quarters before the day is done. Poor Mr. Horace Vandringham, nobody feels very sorry, for he is a big domineering fellow who makes a lot of noise and trouble for the help, giving orders when he has no right to; he cannot bring himself to realize that he is a down-and-outer, a charity boarder, and the pride of his sister will not permit her to put him definitely among the pensioners.
Lanny and Irma are the privileged ones, the reigning queen and prince consort, whom all serve gladly. Free and easygoing, laughing a lot, good to look at, and always dressed at the peak of fashion—surely there are no people in the world more to be envied than these two! And yet they aren’t always happy, you can see it if you watch them closely. There are stories going the rounds of impatient words and irritated looks. They go out a great deal, and servants don’t always find out what happens, but they can guess, because the friends come to Shore Acres and one gets to know them and sees how they behave. They play cards a lot, and some of them lose money which they can’t afford. You can tell that by their looks, and sometimes you hear husbands and wives fussing as they go out to their cars—oh, yes, there isn’t much kept hidden from servants. A big place like this is a world of its own, and while it doesn’t have a newspaper it has many busy tongues.
These playboys and girls—they are getting to be middle-aged but they don’t want to admit it—are many of them unhappy and they drink too much. Mr. Lanny drinks very little, and he doesn’t like to see Miss Irma take more than a couple of cocktails. The servants know that and don’t take the trays to her, at least not while her husband is near. That is one of the things they have fusses about now and then; not long ago he had to help her up to bed, and next morning they had a real row. Her eyes were red with weeping, and she must have promised, because now she drinks much less; she tries hard to keep him with her, and not have him go off to the city and meet the queer sort of people he likes. Once he took her to some radical meeting, and they had an argument in their room. Her maid heard snatches of it and told it in the upper servants’ dining-room: he said and she said—always when they tell such stories it is “he” and “she,” and they will go on for an hour without mentioning a name. There can be only one he and one she in a feudal community.
III
Across Long Island Sound lies the small city of Newcastle, known as the home of Budd Gunmakers and soon to be better known as the home of Budd-Erling Aircraft. Budd’s still made machine guns and automatic carbines and pistols, but most of it was now a hardware plant, which meant that it had lost its social status in the eyes of the old-timers. Lawford Budd, Robbie’s eldest brother, was still vice-president in charge of production, but the president now was a Wall Street man, and the board of directors consisted for the most part of dummies representing a syndicate of financial men. Robbie looked upon it with contempt, and his two sons had withdrawn, and so had several of the executives and plant managers. All had come into the new institution, which was going to be a one-purpose plant, with everything new and shiny, designed and operated according to the latest wrinkles of the scientific management people.
As little as a generation ago, if a man had announced that he was going to build a great factory to produce airplanes that would fly faster than two hundred miles an hour, everybody would have known that he was crazy. Indeed, it had been possible for the Wright brothers to stay up in the air over the sand-dunes of North Carolina in their flimsy wood-and-canvas “crate” for many minutes at a time over a period of several months without having the press of the country pay the slightest attention to them. What they were doing was impossible and therefore the stories couldn’t be true. But now it had been possible for Robbie Budd to sell five million dollars’ worth of stock, and to have some of the best engineers in the country design and erect a building where planes and nothing else were to be turned out on an assembly line, and he wasn’t called crazy, but, on the contrary, one of the town’s most progressive citizens. All looked up to him and said they had always known that he had it in him; he walked with new dignity, gave orders with quiet assurance, and saw that they were carried out promptly.
Lanny and his wife motored to Newcastle, by way of the ferry to New London, and paid a visit at the Robbie Budd home. Esther, Lanny’s stepmother, welcomed them cordially. His early sins had been forgiven and perhaps forgotten; he, too, was a success, quite apart from his rich wife—so his relatives and old-time friends tried to make him understand. His profession of art expert was impressive, his musical talents were considerable, he was a linguist and a traveler, almost an ex-diplomat and certainly a friend of the great. The members of the country-club set hastened to honor both husband and wife. If he voiced pinkish opinions—well, it was i
n the Budd tradition to be eccentric and tell the world to go to the devil, and this appeared to be the newest way.
The sales offices of the new concern were in New York, and here Johannes Robin was in charge. He had got a home for his family half-way between the city and the plant, so that he could commute to either. It was Irma’s duty to go with Lanny for a call, and they chose a Sunday afternoon. Papa and Mama, Rahel and the little one were all together again; they had bought a comfortable old-fashioned New England house of two stories and a dozen rooms, and said they expected to spend the rest of their lives here. Irma thought it was the right way for people of their sort to live—far more sensible than an elaborate marble palace and a yacht. She received graciously their thanks for her kindness in the past, and no great lady could have been less condescending to those who had been reduced in social status. Johannes’s hair had turned gray and there were more lines in his face, but he was the same urbane and subtle person with the flavor of old-worldliness about him.
IV
Robbie escorted the couple to see the new plant, now magically approaching completion. Rows of piling had been driven into the marshes, and great dredges had lifted the mud out of one side and dropped it into the other, so as to make steamship berths and docks. The cow pastures had been covered with concrete, and a skeleton of steel had risen over them, and now it had walls of glass and a roof of some patent material. Out of its floors sprouted innumerable bolts, to which machines large and small were to be attached; the concrete was covered with cabalistic signs in various colored crayons. Overhead were trolleys on which airplane parts would be carried, swinging from steel chains. Everything had been planned to the fraction of an inch, and the blueprints were numerous enough to have covered the floor of the building.
Wide Is the Gate (The Lanny Budd Novels) Page 22