‘Have you listened to any newscasts today, Papa?’ he asked Armand.
Armand hurriedly chewed and swallowed a hard little nugget of a cake before he replied. ‘No. I never listen to ’em. Too depressing. I’ve had my fill of troubles. I’m letting the world wag along by itself.’ He smiled uneasily, and again his eyes sought refuge.
‘I listened to William Benson, this afternoon,’ chirped Mrs Antoine. ‘I always think one should keep up. And things are so thrilling now, so exciting. It’s so easy to be frightened. But Mr Benson is so reassuring. He says we must be calm, and sensible. We must just look on, and hold our peace. Europe is none of our business. Hitler isn’t threatening us. There’re three thousand miles of water, he says, and the war-mongers can’t get around that.’
‘Perhaps aeroplanes can,’ said Annette, looking affectionately at her brother’s wife.
But Mrs Antoine was quite superior. ‘Mr Benson went into that, Annette darling. No aeroplane could make a round trip. Besides, Hitler isn’t interested in us at all! This is a European quarrel; they’re always quarrelling, those strange creatures with the outlandish names. It has nothing to do with us. Mr Benson is so clever. He had a lot of arguments which I didn’t quite understand, but I know they were clever. He understands so many things, more than poor little me does.’
Christopher looked at Antoine. ‘Isn’t Benson the new commentator for the Green Network? And isn’t he the American Association of Industrialists’ man?’
Antoine was very arch. ‘I wouldn’t know that. So far as I know, he is on the Limey Lemonade half-hour. Limey Lemonade! God! You’ve got to admit we Americans have an unconscious sense of humour.’
Armand was exhibiting every sign of uneasiness. ‘Do we have to talk about the war? Haven’t we pleasanter things to discuss?’
There was real fear and distress on his fat and swollen face.
‘Such as The List?’ suggested Antoine. He turned to his wife. ‘What is it tonight? Liver?’
Mrs Antoine bridled. She shook her little pink finger at him, with a smile. ‘Now, now, Tony. It’s Thursday, and we always have liver on Thursday. It’s so good for Papa. Full of vitamins, and blood. I think. It’s good for you, too.’
Antoine shuddered elaborately, and the others laughed. ‘What are you having for dinner tonight, Annette?’ he asked his sister.
‘I don’t really know,’ she smiled in answer. ‘I think it’s capon. Our housekeeper mentioned it this morning, I believe. Or perhaps it’s capon for tomorrow. Why?’
‘If it’s capon, or anything else except liver, I’ll drive home with you,’ he said.
Mrs Antoine’s face was puckering as if she was about to cry. ‘Oh, Tony. How can you be so bad? You haven’t had dinner with us since last Friday. You aren’t really going away tonight? I think there are onions for you, if you want them, with the liver.’
He patted her hand. ‘If Annette isn’t having capon, I’ll stay for the liver,’ he promised. ‘I’m mad about capon. They call me Capon in New York.’
‘I doubt it,’ said Christopher. ‘I really doubt it. I could give instances.’
Even Armand laughed at this. But Mary looked from one mirthful face to another in great puzzlement. I never understand your jokes,’ she complained. ‘Please explain it to me.’
‘Uncle Christopher was just being vulgar, pet,’ said her husband, patting her cheek. ‘I wouldn’t soil your ears.’
Christopher was glancing at his watch. ‘It’s almost six. If you don’t mind, Antoine, I’d like to listen to our mysterious Gilbert Small tonight.’
‘The radio?’ exclaimed Armand. ‘Do we have to listen to that thing blare?’
But Christopher had already risen, and was making his way to a tall Chippendale cabinet which housed the radio. The dial sprang into light. A moment later a quiet masculine voice invaded the great room. ‘This is your KLDB announcer speaking. We are glad to bring you again at this hour Mr Gilbert Small, authority on European affairs. Mr Small’s opinions are not necessarily those of this Station’s. He has no commercial sponsor, and therefore speaks frankly, as he chooses.’
There was a short wait. Armand’s teacup clattered irritably on his saucer, and he sighed and shifted noisily in his chair. ‘I don’t know why—’ he mumbled. ‘May I give you some more tea, dear Papa?’ asked Mrs Antoine. She began to chatter brightly and clearly as Mr. Small’s grave firm voice emerged from the radio. Antoine turned to her, and said softly: ‘My pet, will you please shut your mouth for a moment?’ She stared at him blankly, her mouth falling open, her eyelids blinking. She glanced miserably at Annette, but Annette was leaning forward a little in her chair, her eyes fixed on the radio. Christopher stood near the cabinet, his head bent.
‘Today,’ said Mr Small, ‘the Nazis murdered ten thousand men, women and children in Poland, one thousand Czech students were shot to death in Praha. The oldest was seventeen. Today, in a pogrom in Munich, two thousand little Jewish children were dragged from their mother’s arms and pushed aboard cattle trains for shipment into death. Today, twenty Austrian intellectuals were murdered in a cellar in Vienna.
‘There is a great calm in America. Tonight, in a New York stadium, two famous pugilists are fighting for a purse of fifty thousand dollars. Tonight, in a New York theatre, a crooner is drawing an audience of six thousand titillating women and girls, who will sigh and swoon all over each other as his sweet voice thrills them to their toes. The streets of America are filled with men and women carrying bundles of Christmas presents. In Hollywood, Marianne Vincent has announced she intends to divorce her fifth husband very shortly. I said we were calm. No. We are very excited. We have such important things to think of. But not one of these things concerns the events, in Poland, Czecho-Slovakia, Munich, or Vienna. You see, Poland, Czecho-Slovakia, Munich and Vienna are so far away, and the people are so strange. They are not really our brothers and our sisters and our children. They are creatures apart.’
‘Too true,’ murmured Mrs Antoine, happily, forgetting her husband’s snub. She looked about her for the usual affectionate smiles. But every face was grave, turned away from her. Armand’s head had fallen on his chest; his hands were slack and flaccid as they hung from the ends of his dropped arms.
‘Tonight,’ continued Mr Small, ‘when I heard these things, I had the most curious vision of a certain garden standing in the sunset. A quite mythical garden, you will agree. It is very silent in the garden; over the great dark trees the sunset is red as fire, and burning vividly. Even the birds are quiet, and the river near by flows onward without a sound, its surface blazing with crimson light. There is peace in the garden; the flowers bend their heads.
‘But all at once (and this is only my vision, you understand), I see a dead man lying there, a very innocent young man. His sleeping face is covered with blood. It is very sad. He has never wronged anyone; he has never injured a living soul. He has only been happy, and has only wanted to live peaceably with his brother. Nevertheless, he has been done to death by a brutal and savage hand. Where is the murderer? He is hiding somewhere among those trees, crouching in their black tangled shadow, his hands covering his sweating face.
‘The sunset darkens. And then, all at once, a terrible and furious wind blows through the trees, bending them, whitening them, throwing them up against the red sky. The birds cry out in the branches. The flowers turn pale as death and hang their heads, falling to the ground, and out of the wind comes a great Voice, echoing from space: ‘Where is Abel, thy brother?’
‘Somewhere, out of that cavern of twisted tree-trunks, out of the fury and turbulence of wind and the cosmic Voice, comes a faint whisper: “Am I my brother’s keeper?”’
Mr Small’s voice was suddenly still. But the air vibrated with its memory. Christopher lifted his stark and motionless face and looked at Antoine, who was smiling widely. Armand did not stir. He might have been dead, or asleep, sprawled in his chair. Annette’s little hands were clenched on her. knees. Mrs Antoine sat gapi
ng near the fire, blinking her eyes, bewildered and confused.
Then Mr Small’s voice rose on a loud arch of accusing sound: ‘I hear the Voice again (and again I must warn my listeners that all this is just a dream of mine). And the Voice cries out: “What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto Me from the ground.”’
He paused again, with passion, and then resumed: ‘You will say to me, my listeners, that you are not Cain, that you did not slay Abel in the peaceful garden, that it is not his blood that cries out against you. But I tell you that you are Cain, that you did slay Abel, that it is his blood that is crying out against all of America, against all of the world. If we did not actually lift our hands today, in Poland, in Czecho-Slovakia, in Munich and Vienna, we gave our consent to the real murderer. We gave the consent of silence. We knew the garden of death was there. But we were off in the town, celebrating and adoring our pugilists and our crooners, our Hollywood strumpets. If we heard the Voice that cried out from space to us, we merely told the latest band maestro to beat his drum the louder, to call on his trumpeters to shrill more deafeningly. It was none of our business. Cain was not threatening us. There was the river between the garden and the town, and the river kept us safe from him. It was too far for him to swim. Besides, it was just a local quarrel between Cain and his brother, and was no concern of ours. We’ve always known that the two brothers have fought for years, and it had become very boring.
‘We did not hear the Voice when it turned from Cain and cried out to us: “And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother’s blood from thy hand.—A fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.”
‘And that, my friends, is what America has become today: a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth, hiding and whimpering in theatres and stadiums, while Abel lies dead in the garden. It must be a most horrible sight to God, to see us here. He must be quite sickened. Once, I imagine, He was proud of us. Once, we were valiant and strong and brave, and full of indignation against oppressors and murderers. Now we condone them. Now we finance them. Now we send them weapons to kill more innocents. Now we silence those who would warn us that Cain is at our very door, the Cain we have admired, financed, condoned, for half a dozen years.
In future broadcasts, I shall tell the names, outline the machinations, of the men who have done these things, who have conspired against you, who are opening your doors to Cain. They have been very active. They will become more Active in the future, lying to you, lulling you, deceiving you, so that you may not rise up and demand arms against your enemies, and revenge for the death of the innocents who were murdered today, and the greater number who will be murdered tomorrow. You see, they believe Cain can be their weapon against a free America. They do not want a free America. They want a nation of slaves. You. And you. And you.
‘Will they succeed? Will the sleeping soul of America brighten once more into reality and power and passion? I don’t know. Only you can give the answer. I, myself, am very afraid. I am afraid that America has sold her dream for a handful of lollypops.
‘There is a couplet of Wordsworth’s which I should like to quote to you now:
“Whither is fled the visionary gleam?
Where is it now, the glory and the dream?”’
He spoke the last slowly, loudly, clearly, and then his voice dropped into profound silence. Christopher turned off the radio, and then stood by it. He and Antoine exchanged a sharp look.
‘Melodramatic claptrap,’ said Antoine. ‘If that’s the best he can do, he’ll be no danger.’
‘I don’t know,’ mused Christopher. ‘I’m not so sure of that.’ He came slowly back to the fire. ‘Remember: melodrama appeals to the mob.’
‘But not if bayonets are at their backs. They’re deaf to any appeal which urges them to fight, or endangers their bellies. They’ll listen more readily to a man who urges them to hide in the cellar, and promises them full bellies if they keep their mouths shut.’
Now Annette spoke, her light voice quite vibrant and swift, her blue eyes flashing strangely in the firelight. ‘You have a very low opinion of the American people, haven’t you, Antoine?’
‘My dear,’ he replied, easily, ‘it isn’t just an opinion. It’s personal knowledge. There are some fools who believe that Americans can still feel the impulse to rise to an ideal, to sacrifice that others may live, and all the other trash. I don’t believe it. As our Mr Small so poignantly pointed out: they prefer Hollywood strumpets, lollypops and prize-fighters. A nation like that has no mind, no spirit, no decency, no pride or intelligence. You see, I’m very frank.’
Annette was silent. But her small thin body was taut as bent steel.
‘I think Mr Small is horrid,’ prattled Mrs Antoine. ‘He’s just a war-monger, like Mr Roosevelt. He wants our boys to die on foreign soil. Just for the Jews, or the Czechs, or somebody. Did you hear Captain Jaeckle the other night? He says nobody wants to attack us, and besides, we’ve got three thousand miles of water between us and Hitler. Somebody ought to put that silly Mr Small off the radio. He wants to get us into war, and we won’t! The mothers won’t let the warmongers take our boys away to die.’
Antoine gestured towards his wife, but grinned at Christopher.
‘There speaks the voice of the American people,’ he said, sardonically. ‘What more do you want?’
No one noticed Armand. His eyes were closed. He appeared to sleep. Even when the visitors got up to go, he still lay immobile in his chair.
Later that week, Christopher was shut up with Henri. He had talked for an hour, while Henri had listened, sometimes jotting down a note or two.
‘Yes, I think it’s a good idea for you to go with him to that conference,’ said Henri. ‘This is very interesting, indeed. He has no suspicions, of course?’
‘He hinted I was “in very deep,”’ said Christopher, laughing. ‘He has a light hand with blackmail, but a candid one. By the way,’ he added, curiously, ‘there is something about Small’s broadcasts which sound familiar. You wouldn’t have any idea who writes his scripts, or who is buying him time on the network?’
Henri regarded him blandly, with a faint smile. ‘No. Why should I?’
CHAPTER XXXII
Hugo Bouchard, second brother of Peter, and Assistant to the Secretary of State, lived magnificently in Washington with his handsome wife, the former Christine Southward, whose father had been ‘Billie’ Southward, Chairman of the Republican Party in Pennsylvania. Hugo had inherited this lofty position after the death of the rotund and affable Billie, and because of his own personality, which was bluff, amiable, easily moved to laughter, and possessed of those extrovert qualities of fellowship, good humour, open sympathy and expansive reasonableness, had become even twice as popular as his father-in-law, which was quite an accomplishment. A lawyer of considerable parts and acumen, he still received a large salary from Endicott James of New York (publicity agents and attorneys for Bouchard & Sons). His own private fortune, augmented by the million and a half of his wife’s, was gigantic, a fact which he, for many reasons, kept modestly to himself. His brother, Jean, had declared that he was a club in brown velvet with a gold handle, a remark that was not without its astuteness. For Hugo Bouchard was large and solid of frame, without flabbiness or bulginess, and had a commanding presence which inspired confidence rather than timidity. He had a big buff-coloured face, bright golden eyes full of laughter and friendliness, a blunt and amiable nose, a big gay mouth with excellent flashing teeth. His hair, once buff-coloured also, was now a silvery mass of thick shining waves, though he was only in his early fifties. All this, combined with a certain splendour and warmth and solidity, made him the ideal politician, trusted by many, disliked by few, even his enemies, and admired by almost everyone. With all these admirable assets, a certain hearty bluffness and a rollicking affectionate voice, very few discerned that here was a consummate rascal, an avaricious and relentless man, a man without scruple and without conscienc
e. Even his wife hardly knew this, for he was quite moral in sexual matters, and was a devoted father to his three young daughters, Elsie, Alice and Joan. The only one who really understood him, and disliked him without reservation, was his youngest child, his son, Hilary, now almost seventeen years old.
No man really likes to be ‘understood.’ Hugo was no exception. He had taken an almost immediate dislike to Hilary, when the child had been hardly a week old. For Hugo was of that thoroughly masculine nature which tends to adore daughters and feel an indifference to sons. He doted on the three girls. Christine doted on Hilary. This annoyed Hugo. Hilary was small and brown and puckered, ‘like the damned Jules line,’ Hugo declared, contemptuously. (He did not admire his relative, Antoine, as he decidedly had not admired Jules, his second cousin, and Antoine’s grandfather.) As Hugo had a hearty admiration for the ‘Aryan’ type of physique, which he fondly believed tended to the tall, the robust, the solid and clumsily masculine, accompanied by fairness and ‘openness’ of countenance, Hilary’s elegant smallness, his delicate features and hands, his sharp black eyes, his slight smile, subtle even in early childhood, his wryness and Latin grace, affronted and repelled him.
Moreover, Hilary displayed an unusual and brilliant intelligence, and an endless zest for knowledge. He also loved all things of beauty, and so worshipped his handsome mother. Christine, a not very bright woman, yet possessed the intuition of love, and so all her presents to her son displayed exquisite taste and thoughtfulness. She filled his room, even in childhood, with objects d’art which she had sedulously ferreted out in New York, Paris, Vienna and London. She was speechless with passionate admiration for his wit and grace, and found no music sweeter to listen to than the praise of Hilary by his tutors. At sixteen, he was admitted to Harvard. Hugo, in spite of himself, and in spite of his contempt for learning and all the intellectual arts, was moved temporarily to reluctant pride. Hilary’s forte was mathematics, that great and classic art. Hugo wanted the lad to study law, and often jokingly declared that Hilary would soon be invaluable to the Bouchards. He also remarked that while Antoine was an adequate ‘Understudy’ to Jules, it would be Hilary who would inherit the subtle fame of Jules Bouchard.
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