Dynasty of Death

by Taylor Caldwell

  It was rare that Ernest expressed himself in personalities, and Gregory was jarred into reluctant surprise and obscure annoyance. He could not reconcile his own portrait of Ernest with such a cogent and powerful and even subtle insight into the characters and minds of others. “But I might have known,” he thought with self-contempt. “Have I grown so old and stupid that I did not realize that such drive and force and strength must also be intelligent, even wise?” But for some reason he liked Ernest none the more for this. He was too much of an egotist to enjoy being proved wrong, even in himself.

  “And your brother, Martin I believe his name is? Yes, Martin. He has no liking for the shops either, I believe you once said.”

  Ernest’s face darkened and tightened; he regarded the end of his cigar intently. “Martin,” he said coldly, “likes practically nothing, except dreaming with Jacques Bouchard. He is the cripple; you must have seen him about.”

  Gregory, in a last effort to subdue Ernest, took him into his remarkably fine library, dim with books and dark chairs and darker drapes and rugs. But to his own wry surprise he discovered that he felt on the defensive; all at once his intention to awe the youth seemed childish and absurd. His disconcerted thoughts made him force extra joviality into his voice and manner. He became paternal and almost effusive, keeping his long fine hand on the young man’s arm and pressing it appreciatively, and with laughter, at some grimly witty remark of Ernest’s. He was not a little pleased when Ernest asked to borrow one or two books. He raised his brows, appreciating the delicious irony of the occasion when Ernest picked Les Burgraves and Notre Dame. He took out a slim red volume of Voltaire, and briefly sketched Voltaire’s career and aims. Ernest was coolly contemptuous.

  “I doubt if Voltaire was very well acquainted with the real character of the poor and the ‘exploited’,” he said. “If he had known it, he would have despised it. I have noticed that nearly all of the signers of your Declaration of Independence were men of intelligence, and many of them were gentlemen. If the lower classes had written the Constitution, for instance, it would have been a Constitution of tyranny and viciousness and stupidity.” He tapped the volume in Gregory’s hand with a strong hard forefinger. “If Voltaire had written pamphlets about the noble aspirations and rights and souls of baboons in African jungles, a place he never saw, they would have been as true as the ones he did write.”

  Gregory shook with ruddy-faced and silent mirth. Finally he gasped, between his convulsions of laughter: “You are no democrat, my young friend! I am afraid you will never be a good American!”

  “I ask nothing except that I be as—profitable—an American as you are, Mr. Sessions, sir,” said Ernest, with a short stiff bow. Gregory stiffened, and stopped his laughter. He stared at Ernest with a rather foolish expression on his face. Then he returned the bow. What the devil did the young upstart mean by that? he thought. He took Ernest’s arm again, and led him from one immense bookcase to the other. A week before, Ernest would have been bored and contemptuous, but now his interest was vividly alive. This, too, was a means to an end, and the end was Amy Drumhill.

  He announced that he must leave very soon. Gregory rolled up a blind, and they looked out upon the garden. Amy stood at a little distance under the shade of a tree, the filtered sunlight in her bright hair. She was laughing and playing with the collies, who leapt about her, barking, their tongues hanging, their tails vibrating. In her blue dress and creamy lace, she was a figure of almost Dresden delicacy and sweetness; she ran lightly about on the thick green grass, fending off the tongues and paws of the dogs, her small white breast and arms rising daintily from the monstrous flowering of her costume. Ernest and Gregory watched her for several long minutes in silence. Gregory’s face had taken on itself an expression of melancholy.

  “It is no easy thing, bringing up a motherless girl,” he said in a low voice. “I have done my best for Amy. She is a sweet child, and like a daughter to us. I have sent her to one or two good female schools, but not enough to spoil her character.” He sighed. His sister, Amy, had been very close to him.

  Ernest saw the melancholy, heard the tone of Gregory’s voice. He clenched his teeth together in his exultation. Luck and life were with him, as they always were with the strong!

  He accepted Gregory’s civil offer of a carriage home. Driving through the early evening streets, he asked the coachman to slow down the horses. He was well aware that the Sessions carriages were easily recognized in Oldtown, and he enjoyed the pleasure of watching the “snobs” stare at him and the equipage. He knew he was recognized; he knew very well indeed that within a short time he would receive invitations to other homes like Gregory’s.

  He was on his way! He was filled with a renewed and savage energy. The world was his, and in the center of the world was Amy Drumhill.

  CHAPTER XV

  Within two months Ernest decided that he would let the matter of rebuilding George’s house go. He had come to the conclusion that only one house would satisfy him, and that was the Sessions house. He had become more and more enamored of it; it had entered into him so completely that he felt in exile in his own home, and its plainness and lack of taste and absence of delicacies affronted him. Not having before been conscious of where he lived or how, he was now irritated by his mother’s homely housekeeping and ignorance of refinements; the solid comfort of her British menage seemed to him gross and unimaginative. He found himself ludicrously quarrelling with her about her taste in furniture and the utilitarian pattern of her silver and china, and the durable quality of her linens. Hilda was astounded at first, and then highly edified. “Our Ernest is in love!” she announced deliciously to Joseph, who surprised her with his scowl.

  “He is trying to ape his betters,” he said sullenly.

  Nevertheless, both he and his wife were pleased at this display of a very human failing in the formidable youth. Nor were they insensible to the fact that the Sessions seal having been set upon their household had raised them to a high estate, almost into nobility, as Joseph said, trying to make his gratified smile sour. It is true that the gracious Mr. Sessions, who frequently visited the shops, had not as yet extended an invitation to the rest of the Barbours or the Bouchards to dine at his table, or even to call upon him and his niece, but there was no doubting that such was his future intention. He inquired most kindly about Mrs. Barbour and Madam Bouchard. Everyone thought him excessively civil, except Ernest and Armand.

  “I never trust a man who believes himself a grand seigneur, and is yet democratic,” he said. “Such democracy is hypocritical. It is impossible, my young friend, to know that one is superior and yet maintain the pose of an ordinary man with any sincerity. It is a pose that any simple man must resent.”

  Ernest regarded him steadily with his pale and implacable expression. “Mr. Sessions,” he said, “is not being ‘democratic’ because he is civil to us. He may think he is playing the grand lord, as you say, but I know who is the better man.” He nodded shortly to Armand and walked away. Armand, smiling a little, murmured to himself: “L’état, c’est moi!”

  Later he thought: “I balk at shadows,” and frowned. Nevertheless, he was very glad that his copy of the partnership contract was safely sealed away in the Windsor Savings Bank. He was also exceedingly glad that he had several important patents in his own name, exclusively. Less and less was he being amused by Ernest; more and more was a wariness and suspicion being infused into his old admiration.

  One day Joseph came to him, his face wrinkled grotesquely with his troubled and half-angry thoughts. “Here, Armand,” he said, thrusting a sheet of paper into the other man’s hand—“read it.” He lowered his voice a little. “You know, I gave Georgie two thousand dollars of my own after we got that Army contract. Sent it to him. I thought it was only fair. Now he writes me a letter and thanks me. No, that part isn’t important. Read that—that down at the bottom of the page.”

  Armand read: “You were always a good brother to me, Joe, and sometimes I blast
myself that I wasn’t a good brother to you all the time. I hope you won’t hold it against me for what I want to say to you, now: and that is, watch that lad of yours, Ernest. You’re his Pa, Joe, but he’ll do you in, so help me God, if he can. It’s just his nature, to do people in when he can’t use them any more. Just watch him; take my advice. He’s got too big a mouth for one man. I always told you that you didn’t flog your lads enough, and I hope this time that I wasn’t right. But I am afraid I am.”

  Armand read the excerpt carefully, then handed the page back to Joseph, who was watching him anxiously. For a moment Armand did not speak. Then he said: “It is plain that Mr. Barbour has no love for our Ernest.”

  Joseph shook his head impatiently. “I do not care about that, Armand. I only want to know what you think?”

  Armand raised his brows. “What I think? My friend, a year ago you would have thrown such a letter into the fire, and spat upon it. And have forgotten it. Now you bring it to me, and ask my opinion, in great distress. Why?”

  Joseph sat down heavily as though he were very tired, and puffed somberly on his pipe. He began to speak, without looking at the other man, and in so low a voice that Armand could hardly hear him: “I don’t know. I don’t know. I can’t get near the lad. He’s like a stranger. I tried to be cool to him after Georgie was kicked out, and I thought he noticed it and cared. But if he noticed it, he didn’t care. I can believe now that he was really glad to get away from me, and keep to himself. I thought my being cool would bring him back like a decent lad to his father, but I just opened the door for him to take to his legs.”

  “Are you,” asked Armand, “sad about this—or just afraid?”

  Joseph glanced up, his eyes flashing with sudden violence. “Afraid!” he exclaimed. “Of what? Of a slip of a lad? That’s an insult to me, and a blasted bad insult to Ernest!”

  “In two weeks,” said Armand thoughtfully, “Ernest will be twenty-one years old. A man by law and nature. He is no ‘lad.’ In fact, he never was a lad. My friend, I am not insulting you. I am very sorry for you. I am glad I have no sons who are ambitious. Look you: a year ago I would have laughed with you at this letter. Today, I do not laugh Why? I cannot tell. Perhaps we are both old fools.”

  He shook his head a little as Joseph walked away. “I should not have said that,” he thought, somewhat ruefully. “It is ridiculous to pretend to be afraid of that Ernest, and it was cruel of me to suggest such a thing to his unfortunate father. Armand, you are not yet fifty, yet you are as malicious as an old woman. And why is that? Because you do not like this Ernest Barbour, and would even break his father’s heart to annoy him!”

  He regretted his words more deeply later when he discovered that the breach between Joseph and his son Ernest was now almost complete, and a thousand times he was on the verge of confessing his malice to Joseph. But something, he knew not what, kept him silent. Perhaps it was dislike, and perhaps it was something more instinctive.

  On Ernest’s twenty-first birthday Joseph gave him a gold watch and chain, elaborately chased and of the very best workmanship. Ernest was surprised and very pleased; he examined the watch with care and gratification. Hilda gave him a gold ring, a signet, which delighted him. Martin, who had noted, with great amazement and incredulity, Ernest’s recent interest in books, gave him a volume of Shakespeare’s plays, elaborately bound in tooled crimson leather and embossed in gold with Ernest’s initials. Florabelle, now an engaging young beauty with light blue eyes and flaxen braids about a small head, had embroidered him a number of delicate silken kerchiefs. Dorcas, a frail but beautiful child of eleven, had knitted him a purse and made him a cravat.

  Ernest appeared touched at all this evidence of affection. And somewhat startled. It seemed to occur to him with something of a shock that after all he was part of his family, that he shared human flesh and human blood with these loving creatures who had taken such care to give him pleasure, that he was not a formidable stranger to them but a son and a brother, and that, in their various ways, they loved him. And believed that he loved them, also. He saw that they were not really insignificant, and somewhat of annoyances, but individuals. Suddenly he was humbled and made contrite. He looked at his brother and his young sisters with half-ashamed and newly interested eyes. Martin, there, was no fool, in spite of his moonings, and it was contemptible that he, Ernest, had made no effort to set Martin’s feet in the right path. Florabelle was a young beauty, and it was in his hands to find her a suitable husband soon, one who would advance her interests and provide for her with all respectability. Dorcas, there, was going to be still more beautiful. He looked at them all with surprise and a little of bewilderment, and wondered where he had been for so long. It was high time that he made plans for those who would one day be dependent on his energy and his bounty, his brains and his strength.

  He kissed his mother, and his sisters, who backed away from him shyly and confusedly, shook hands with his brother, and after a moment’s hesitation, kissed his father simply and boyishly on the cheek. Joseph swallowed convulsively, and his eyes dimmed. “It’s all right, now,” he thought, “it’s all right. The lad’s heart is in the right place. I was a tool.” He wondered why he did not feel happier.

  CHAPTER XVI

  Ernest was not one to make easy resolutions when stirred by emotion, then forget them. Nor did he keep resolutions because he believed it to be his “duty.” Duty was a word that never occurred to him. He never forgot resolutions because it was his nature never to make them unless he saw reason for them. And seeing reason, he set himself inflexibly to keep those resolutions.

  It was not long before he had persuaded his father to send Florabelle to Miss Cuthbert’s Female Academy in Philadelphia, where she would learn “deportment befitting a young gentlewoman, including exercises with the blackboard, mathematics, including algebra, painting, ballroom dancing, French, and performance upon the harp or piano.” Hilda was awed at this formidable array of accomplishments. Nothing was too good for the girl. Seamstresses were hired, endless yards of satin and velvet and merino and broadcloth were ordered. Laces by the bolt tumbled upon the chairs and the bed in the girl’s room. There were pelisses and cloaks, muffs and bonnets, slippers and petticoats, stockings and chemises all over the place, Joseph declared, pleased at the excitement in his young daughter’s pretty face. He cursed when he stumbled over enormous trunks, but was gratified by knowing that they would be well-filled. Raoul Bouchard, handsome and indolent and smiling, newly sophisticated and at ease from his European travels, came to the Barbour house with new regularity, and solemnly assured Florabelle that no Parisian lady of whatever beauty and wealth would sneer at this magnificent wardrobe, though she might indeed envy such a complexion and such hair and such heavenly blue eyes. And Florabelle, dimpling and smiling and blushing, looked at him with the “heavenly blue eyes” and trembled. Ernest, in the background, watched them both thoughtfully, plucking at his lip. Thereafter, he showed more friendliness than usual to Raoul, who raised eyebrows in surprised amiability. He was further surprised when he found his income mysteriously augmented, his responsibilities doubled and his supervision reduced. Then, one Sunday, when Ernest asked him to ride with him, horseback, Raoul was utterly dumfounded. But his distrust did not decrease.

  Ernest assured his father that their simple manner of living was a disgrace. A wing was added to the house, and a governess engaged for Dorcas, who was woefully ignorant. Though Hilda protested that she needed another maid no more than she “needed to fly,” another servant was engaged. Ernest had found it useless to argue with Hilda about moving over to Oldtown, so he characteristically did the best he could with this house. More land was bought, a gardener engaged, gardens laid out, larger stables, another carriage, more horses, and a collie! “We,” he said to his father with his pale smile, “are getting rich. No need to live like beggars any longer.”

  “Perhaps not,” grumbled Joseph, “but you insisting on buying those coal mines because you thought they
were such a bargain has left us strapped.”

  “They are a bargain,” Ernest assured him, laughing his short and unmirthful laugh. “Mr. Gregory has chewed his nails ever since for not snapping them up first. His own mines adjoin, and they are not very good. It won’t be long before he is buying coal from us, though it will make him sick with vexation. But he knows his own advantage, and he’ll buy. He’s not one to cut off his nose to spite his face.”

  “He’s been very civil and kind, with his Army contract, and all,” Joseph pointed out, wondering irritably why his son only smiled and did not answer. He, Joseph, was feeling languid and tired these days, though he scouted Hilda’s anxious suggestion that he “rest” and stop “mithering” so much about the shops. When it was suddenly borne in upon him like a flash of lightning that Ernest had been relieving him more and more of various burdens and responsibilities during the past year, he was made physically ill with fright and dismay and obscure rage. Appalled, he sat back and reviewed everything. How little he knew these days about new orders, prices, salesmen, new customers and new issues of stock! Oh, he knew all about them in a vague and general way from Ernest, but now he recalled that Ernest’s voice had been too smooth and too casual, the voice of a subordinate who wished to spare his superior unimportant and tedious details! It was Ernest who conducted nearly all the business, assisted by the docile and silent Martin; it was Ernest who interviewed salesmen and bought and managed everything. Joseph recalled that Armand was often in the office, airily and nonchalantly looking over the books, amiably discussing various matters with Ernest. Now Joseph saw that there was nothing either airy or nonchalant about Armand’s conduct. The man was no fool. He, Joseph, was the fool! He had listened, wool-gathering, to the monthly reports, had had few suggestions to offer as they, Armand, himself, Ernest, Martin, Raoul and Eugene discussed affairs and policies and accounts. He had been willing to relinquish more and more. But not Armand! But, he, Joseph, was a lazy laggard.