Dynasty of Death

by Taylor Caldwell

  So Godfrey James Barbour was left at the school, after Madam Bouillon had assured May that the child would be as her own, his health guarded, his other studies not neglected. If Madam would not object, would see reasonably, she suggested delicately, and with such gentle modesty that May loved her, there was a boys’ school just around the corner, a small, semi-private school, conducted by the good Brothers of St. Joseph. They would not use any subversive means to convert the little garçon to Catholicism; there were many Protestant boys there, even Jews, and their teachers were excellent, dedicated. “And such a choir!” she exclaimed. “An inspiration itself, in the beautiful little chapel. But Godfrey need not attend, though Henri approved of it, as part of the musical education.”

  CHAPTER LXI

  He remained at the school nearly five years.

  For the first time little Godfrey was happy. Before this, he had lived in a disjointed, disoriented world, that had faced him like the distended quills of a porcupine. He had lived among strangers, whose voices were too harsh and near and loud, whose eyes were too avid with curiosity, whose touch was a shock and an affront. He had loved only two people, his mother and his sister, Gertrude. And only May had given him complete tenderness and sympathy.

  But life, apart from his mother and his sister, had been almost unendurable for young Godfrey. He never questioned the misery of his existence, or wondered why it was; he merely accepted it as one accepted a congenitally twisted leg or a club foot. Sometimes, watching the happiness and gaiety of other children, he was struck with amazement that they could be so at ease, so unrestricted, so free from the iron sadness and malaise that afflicted him. Sometimes, he thought it sheer pretending, unable to believe in such lightness, in such casual acceptance, in such complete adjustment to reality.’ Even at eight, or ten, he was not an innocent boy, in a more subtle and wider meaning of the word, and his modesty masked an angry but timid conceit, a cold aloofness, a distaste for too much closeness, a shrinking and a hauteur before attempts at intimacy, a somewhat cynical if frightened sadness.

  At the Bouillon school, among the gifted pupils, he met others almost exactly like himself, and naturally joined their unintimate, reserved and haughty brotherhood. His face, as he grew older, took on itself that certain congested look about the nose and eyes, that classic indifference, which distinguished them from the others of the mediocre student body. Yet even in this brotherhood of friends who were not friends, he formed no close attachments. These youths were like small asteroids belonging to one constellation, revolving closely together, crossing each other’s path, shining upon each other, but each pursuing his own silent and lonely orbit.

  He knew that his father was wealthy; he knew practically everything about him. But perception in his case, acute and painfully intense though it was, was born of his fear, distaste, and real terror of Ernest. They were a bitter light in which he saw his father—naked. Had he loved him, he might have been blind. But the extent of his father’s fortune, the immensity of his holdings and enterprises, did not exist as realities for him.

  Even the boy’s passion was intellectual, and the adoration he had for Monsieur Bouillon was based on his full appreciation of his teacher’s genius. There were twelve other teachers in the school, each a master of some particular instrument, and an artist and composer in his own right. But Monsieur had a selected small class of his own, in which were all those he considered superlative, and Godfrey was a member of this class.

  When he came home for infrequent visits, he was wretched. He felt his father’s eye on him constantly, felt his personality even when he was not in the house. Sometimes it seemed to him that Ernest was like a pervading gas in the atmosphere, from which he could not escape and which he must perpetually breathe. When Ernest tried to approach him, to find some little platform to stand on with him, distaste was like a vital sickness in his body. He never tried to explain this aversion, for it was too profound and instinctive. He could not even pity his father, for terror destroyed any compassion that might be born in him. When he saw Ernest’s hurt, his fright increased, dreading new displeasure as revenge.

  The house was always full of cousins, he thought wretchedly. He particularly could not endure Paul and Elsa; he knew that Paul despised him, and he despised Paul in return. He knew that Elsa was “sweet on him,” and this offended him, even outraged him. Her red cheek, her bold, aggressive eye, her robust handsomeness and loud, arrogant voice, her practicality, exigency, earthiness and uncompromisingly simple acceptance of realities, revolted him. He thought of her as a heifer, smelling of hay, which was somewhat unfair, as Elsa was by no means a fool or unastute. He hated Lucy, with her cunning, coaxing ways, her plump rosiness and greedy eyes. He disliked the noisy, relentless children of his Aunt Dorcas little less; Florabelle’s children, silent and frail, aroused in him some distant feeling of compassion and softness. They looked so defenseless and bewildered in a world too much for their weakness, their thin, uncertain hands. They were like the wan, undernourished children of London slums.

  By the time he was sixteen he had written a concerto, a few simple sonatas, and one or two nocturnes. The concerto had been without M. Bouillon’s approval, for he felt that the youth should confine himself to simpler things that did not require orchestral cooperation. “Time enough for symphonies and operas and concertos,” he said, fuming. “But the little cabbages, the toddlers, always want to write epics or operas before they know what a triolet or a nursery song is; they scorn simplicity, the pure gentle beauty of an exquisite phrase or an uncomplicated theme, though Shakespeares and Beethovens have not scorned to use them. It is the babes who want to climb the mountains, and the wise men who know the hills.”

  Later he wrote to Ernest Barbour: “I can do no more for your son. My friend, M. Georges Lorenz, of Paris, who is world-renowned, as you doubtless are aware, will receive him at my insistence. From his hands young Godfrey will emerge ready to take his place in the world of music.”

  Ernest read this, contemptuous and gloomy. Let the lad once go to Paris and his father would lose him forever. He would no longer exist for Barbour-Bouchard, nor would Barbour-Bouchard exist for him. His family would know him no more than if he had been deposited in a cemetery. Almost as bad as a monastery, he thought sourly, and his gorge rose as it always did when he thought of Martin in connection with his son and recalled their physical resemblance. He struck his hand heavily on his desk, sent the butler for May. This time, he said to himself, he would have his way.

  May came in. Nearly forty, she had grown pleasantly buxom, her lace cap was pinned on dark-red hair threaded thickly with white. No longer did it bounce in curls about her cheeks, but was smoothly combed to the top of her head in a tight roll, the cap covering it. Her complexion was still beautiful, her eyes sparkling and vivid as in her early youth, her throat plump and white. She had become philosophical as she had grown older, and had decided that wisdom began and ended with the acceptance of the half loaf.

  “Yes, love,” she said cheerily, smoothing the front of her straight black silk dress, and plucking up and out the crushed buoyancy of her bustle. “Dear me, how that lint from that wool does stick! Yes, Ernest?”

  He tossed her the letter. Hypocritically, she pretended to read it through to the end, though she was well aware of its contents. She laid it down, beamed upon him.

  “That is very splendid! Think of it! I was right about Frey, after all. Do you think he is a little young to be going to Paris? I thought, perhaps, when he is seventeen, this spring—”

  “He is not going to Paris at all, ma’am!” he said grimly.

  May pretended bewilderment, though her heart tightened.

  “But, Ernest, he needs it. He needs this final help. M. Bouillon hinted something about this a year ago. When Frey leaves Paris, he will be a real composer—”

  “I don’t want a damned composer in the family!” shouted Ernest. “I want a son who can take his place in his father’s affairs. Now mind, I don’t want t
he old arguments about him not being fitted. A man only needs to go hungry to be ready and fit for any work. I want him; I’ve got some training of my own to give him. While he’s learning to live, he can play around with his music if he wants to. He can write his ballads and sonatas for amusement, but the real world is out there, and he’s got to pull up his breeches and get into it. I’ve been patient; I’ve let him do as he wants for five years. Now, it’s my turn.”

  May sat down, laid her arms along the chair arms, and regarded her husband steadily. “No, Ernest, it’s still Frey’s turn. He’s got his life now, out of your grasp, and he’s not going to turn it back to you. He has a right to his life, just as you had a right to yours. You did as you wished, though you alienated your father, and might have estranged me, also, if I had not loved you quite so much. But you allowed no one to touch your life. You were stronger than Frey is, and had resistance. He has very little; if you press on him too much he’ll snap like thin silver. If you force your will on Frey, he’ll die—”

  “Pack of blasted nonsense, woman—nonsense! You talk as if the lad is a frail bit of trailing arbutus, or a lily in a dell. He won’t die, learning how to manage millions in money and thousands in men. Why, he’s got to learn! Otherwise the money’ll spill out of his hands like water. He hasn’t the slightest understanding of it, you know that. God, when I think what I would have given—! Look here, ma’am, I’ve been more than fair. You asked me for four years; I’ve given five, and not a complaint. Now, I’m finished. I’ve done my share. I’ve humored both of you long enough.”

  “Humored us? Ernest, Frey’s a genius, not a dilettante. Music is his life and soul.”

  “I’m sick of this talk of souls! Let’s have done with it. I’ve been reasonable. Now it’s my turn.”

  May went on quietly, with a kind of desperate tenacity: “You’ve still got Reggie and Guy and Joey. You don’t need Frey. And you’re not going to get him.”

  Ernest glared at her blankly, incredulously. “Are you defying me, May?” he bellowed unbelievingly.

  She rose, clasped her hands together before her, pressed the fingers one into the other in her inner agitation. But her expression was calm, unshaken.

  “You may call it that, if you wish. Frey isn’t a child any more. He has a right to his choice. And I am with him. He’ll go to Paris—”

  “Against my commands? Against my express commands?” Ernest could not believe that he was actually hearing this. His face flushed darkly and his eyes glittered down upon her in fury.

  “Ernest, you are being tedious, and very noisy, shouting like this. I’ve never disobeyed you before; I’ve always reasoned with you, and when your reason was better than mine, I’ve always given in. But this time I’m not giving in. With or without your consent, Frey is going to Paris. I’m not penniless. And if you become theatre-ish, and threaten to cut him off with a shilling, he won’t mind. And I won’t mind. He wouldn’t think of money, but as I said before, I’m not penniless.”

  The eternal inflexibility of female nature astounded Ernest. Dumfounded, he stared upon a wife heretofore complaisant and humorously yielding, reasonable and placating; in a few moments she had become impervious as stone, not to be moved, not to be broken. He could not believe it; his fear of impotence roiled through his veins. He dared not be impotent! He dared not yield, even in the face of this implacability. Surely he dared not yield to a woman! Frey, as an individual, was forgotten; he had become an abstract issue, to be used like an iron hammer to smash this stony image.

  Ernest forced himself to relax, to unclench his hands, to lower his voice.

  “You forget, ma’am,” he said, almost quietly, “that he is under age, and I am his father. Take him to Paris; send him to Paris. I’ll bring him back. By the law.” He picked up M. Bouillon’s letter, and deliberately tore it to shreds before his wife, as though it were a living thing, as though it were flesh, as though each tearing sound wounded her, and he enjoyed so wounding her.

  May had become white as death. She trembled violently, and the flesh about her upper lip and around her pale mouth turned bluish. Her eyes became brilliant and distended as though a light had been turned upon them.

  “To save Frey’s life, Ernest, I would destroy my happiness, and yours. Not only mine and yours, but Amy’s.”

  A deadly silence, imponderable yet weighty, fell between husband and wife at the mention of that name. The last shred of the destroyed letter fell from Ernest’s fingers as though they had become paralyzed. A livid tint suddenly flowed over his features.

  May sighed; she appeared to have grown older, to have become ill. But she went on resolutely, turning her head slightly from her husband, as though she could not bear to look at what she had brought about: “You have forced me to say this. You gave me no other choice. God knows I wish it might have gone unsaid. Now there’ll never be any straightness between us again. Pretense that all is well sometimes helps us to maintain cheerfulness, to make life endurable. All this will make it impossible for either of us to be happy or casual or friendly again. I’m terribly sorry. I’m sorry for you. But I’m so awfully sorry for myself! I wanted to keep on pretending. Now you’ve robbed me of my pretense, that made my life comfortable. But I’m glad to give it all, for Frey.”

  “May—” The one word seemed dragged from him by a sort of torture.

  “I don’t care any longer, Ernest. I’m not asking you to give up anything. I’m not going to watch you, or condemn you, or nag you. I have my own pride, too. O my God, don’t apologize, don’t promise! Don’t pity me—I couldn’t bear it! If you do, I’ll never forgive you; I’ll—I’ll leave this house forever! All I want you to understand is that if you prevent Frey from going to Paris, I’ll sue you for divorce, and in order to get the children, to get Frey, I’ll prove you an unworthy father. I’ll bring Amy into it, cousin or no cousin, children or no children.”

  “May.” His voice trembled, hoarsened, and his face, as he approached her one step, looked crumpled and seamed. “May, my love, you wouldn’t do this to me, this horrible thing, this blackmail—I’m not thinking of what you have threatened—a divorce or any such silly thing—I’m thinking how terrible it is that you have said this to me. In my way, I’ve loved you. I still love you. But—Christ! how could you hurt yourself so—bring yourself to this point—”

  “I’ll do anything.” She retreated a few steps. “Anything!” Her face shone with a white exaltation. “Anything to save his life. You can’t stop me, Ernest. If you try, it’s your own disaster. And Amy’s. Now everything is gone in all the world for me, except Frey. And I’ll never give up.”

  She turned and went out of the room, walking steadily, unhurriedly. She even went into the nursery, where the two young boys, Guy and Joey, slept heavily. She even put her hand on Joey’s head, and wondered with automatic uneasiness if it were her imagination that his head was hot. There was an epidemic among the working men’s families in the flats along the river in Newtown, and it was spreading like mud through water. So far it had not touched Oldtown, though every mother here was sick with apprehension.

  Still moving automatically, May covered the restless little feet, lowered the light, drew in the shutters. She closed the door softly behind her.

  She went into her own room, almost running now. She closed the door as if pursued. She turned the key, locking it, for the first time in all her married life. Then she leaned against the door, panting, drooping, and utterly undone.

  She crept to her bed, threw herself upon it, fully dressed, and stared blankly at the wall that shimmered with pink fire-reflections. Her eyes tormentedly, dully, followed the twisting vines of the paper that appeared and disappeared as the rosy light waxed and waned. It seemed to her at last that she must follow this pattern forever, relentlessly, through wild terror and death, a sort of running through twisted passages, to keep behind her some monstrous agony and destruction.

  She heard a faint sound. The firelight shot up; by its illumination she sa
w the handle of her door turning, turning. She watched it, holding her breath. It fell back into place, and turned no more.

  Then she heard Ernest’s door close. For some reason that last sound gave strength to the pursuing agony, and it pounced upon her vengefully. She pressed her face into the pillows.

  Book Two

  I AND LAZARUS

  “The Government of your Country! I am the Government of your Country, I and Lazarus. Do you suppose that you and half a dozen amateurs like you, sitting in a row in that foolish babble shop, govern Undershaft and Lazarus? No, my friend, you will do what pays us. You will make war when it suits us and keep peace when it doesn’t. When I want anything to keep my dividends up, you will discover that my want is a national need. When other people want something to keep my dividends down, you will call out the police and military. And in return you shall have the support of my newspapers, and the delight of imagining that you are a great statesman.”

  MAJOR BARBARA—George Bernard Shaw.

  CHAPTER LXII

  Gertrude was reading aloud in the summerhouse:

  “Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;

  The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,

  Hath had elsewhere its setting

  And cometh from afar;

  Not in entire forgetfulness,

  And not in utter nakedness,

  But trailing clouds of glory do we come

  From God, who is our home;

  Heaven lies about us in our infancy!”

  “O pooh! That’s stupid!” exclaimed Elsa Barbour, flouncing on the summerhouse seat until her blue-striped foulard rustled satisfyingly. “It sounds like Philippe. So that’s where you got that, Trudie!” She reached out quickly and snatched the book from Gertrude’s hand, though her cousin unsuccessfully tried to retain it. She thumbed through the pages back to the flyleaf, and laughed with malicious triumph. “There! ‘To dear Gertrude, on her seventeenth birthday!’ But he overlooked the ‘love and kisses, from her Philippe!’”