Dynasty of Death

by Taylor Caldwell

  “Is it?” countered Honore swiftly. “Is it?”

  The tense fist on the desk opened as though the owner had received a mortal blow. Eugene’s eyes seemed to sink in their sockets; as if a hollow had opened up behind them. “What do you mean?” he asked in a low hoarse tone.

  The single-minded Honore could not be stopped now in his own momentum. He went on rapidly and incisively, leaning on the desk with both his hands: “Germany has no nickel, or very little, father. You know that. And little or no copper. And you must know that Barbour-Bouchard, through its copper companies, is shipping this metal to Germany. Why? You must ask and answer that, yourself. Is it to make shells to kill Frenchmen? Pooh, puny little foe! Who is the only real juicy meat in Europe? England! The British Empire! Ah, there is a foe worthy of German ambition and greed. But Germany cannot do this alone, for there is Russia who hates her, and France, who still has a poodle-bite. Germany must have help from some nation full of power and wealth and limitless resources. And who is that nation? America!” Eugene lifted one hand as though in a feeble attempt at defense, and then, not making a sound, he let the hand drop.

  “O my God!” exclaimed the young Honore, with a fierce gesture, “is it possible that you, partner in Barbour-Bouchard, could not know this! How wily, how clever, how devilish that man has been! But it does not seem possible! My father not know this! How splendidly, how majestically, you have been deceived! Yet you must have seen in the newspapers, those nice big ones controlled and owned by my nice Uncle Ernest, all the subtle anti-British propaganda, the sneers, the suspicions, the planned jealousies, the implications, the increasing references to the American Revolution and the new prominence given to accounts of England’s sympathies and assistance to the South during the Civil War. You must have read the editorials, full of lofty indignations and accusations; you must have read the taunting paragraphs and the distrust openly expressed. But perhaps you did not know, my poor father, that Robsons & Strong, our associates and our business friends, are doing the same thing in England, in English school textbooks and newspapers and magazines, that we are doing here. Against America! They are doing as we are doing, using politicians who can become lyrically oratorical, after discreet transfers of stock. They are doing as we are doing, suborning educators and patriots, inciting the foolish, simple people with lies and hatreds and filthy patriotism. They are doing as we do, dispensing fear and hysteria. They have bought their government, as we have bought ours.

  “And, you know for what purpose, do you not? You surely must know why Americans have become so friendly with the Germans, why German is taught in the primary schools these days, why the Kaiser is spoken of affectionately in the newspapers, why German trade is encouraged and stimulated, why actually, in many schoolrooms, an etching of the Kaiser hangs side by side with etchings of Washington and Lincoln. Surely you must know why all things German have become interesting and accessible, and why our people are becoming more and more conscious of Germany, her musicians and her heroes, her scientists and her poets. Her publicists are everywhere! Paid for by Barbour-Bouchard, by Robsons & Strong, and, most probably, by Schultz-Poiret—”

  Eugene, with the face of a madman, struck the bell on his desk. “America!” he cried, in a strange muffled voice, as though he were choking on blood. “America, who helped us, and gave us refuge! The Government that trusted us, encouraged us, relied upon us!” A clerk ran in with a white face, for Eugene’s voice had penetrated beyond his office. “Call my carriage!” cried the poor man, beside himself. “America! You are a liar, Honore, a foul liar! I do not believe you! You lie!” In his native language he called his son foul and unspeakable names. “No, do not touch me, you swine, you liar! I do not believe you! I cannot have been so blind, such a fool, that even a child, a miserable youth, must enlighten me! Mary in Heaven, I shall kill that man, that cursed Englishman! Where is my carriage!” He stamped and screamed. Honore, terrified, appalled at what he had done, tried to hold him and control him. “How he has deceived me, knowing me for the imbecile I am! I might have known that he, who deceives everybody, would deceive me! Heart of Jesus, where is my carriage!”

  The next few minutes, to the trembling and self-loathing Honore, were a succession of ghastly blurs, in which Eugene lashed about when his son and his clerks tried to Mold him. Honore implored him to take him in his carriage, but Eugene, snatching the whip from his coachman’s hand, slashed savagely at his son with it. He was driven away, still brandishing the whip. The clerks assembled in the offices, aghast but enjoying, and whispered together, conjecturing what had caused this sudden madness in Eugene, and expressing the wildest theories, none of which came even remotely near the truth.

  Honore, now too ill physically as well as mentally to return to his laboratory, sat at his father’s desk, trying to control his violent trembling, wetting his lips, covering his face with his hands, cursing himself with the deepest fervor and sincerity. Mother, he thought, will never forgive me for this. He is sick, he doesn’t know what he is doing. God, what will he say to Uncle Ernest, what will be the outcome of this? God curse me!

  But when the carriage arrived at the Barbour-Bouchard Building, Eugene was found lying on the cushions in a broken grotesque attitude, and when they lifted him up they found he was dead.

  Archbishop Aloysius Dominick read of Eugene’s death in the newspapers and sent a telegram of condolence to the widow. He thought to himself, sadly and grimly: “Not only does that man deal out death to the world, but he also deals out death to those about him.”

  CHAPTER XCIX

  Godfrey Sessions, self-absorbed, delicate and selfishly remote from reality, knew nothing of his mother’s complete despair and wild grief when she received the news, both from Florabelle and the newspapers, of Ernest’s marriage to her cousin, Amy. He had his lessons, his friends as selfish and chill and absorbed in themselves as he, his concerts and his pale arctic excitements. His demands on his mother were rigorous, for he had an exceptionally large amount of self-pity, and she must constantly encourage, soothe, cajole, pet and sympathize with him, share his indignations no matter with what sadness she observed how petty they were, pretend to a passion she did not feel for music, suffer the visits of his friends and entertain them, though even her inexperience saw how mediocre and stupid many of them were, how utterly ill-bred and boorish and whiningly predatory for all their reverential talk of their “art.” Godfrey was a pouter; when the smallest thing displeased him or the smallest obstacle demanded a part of his immediate attention, he flung himself about in distraction, emitting loud wails and bitter denunciations against a brutal and greedy world. He was erratic and childish, complaining and melancholy, brooding and icily passionate by turns, sometimes not speaking to his mother for days if she displeased him in the least or gently criticized the more atrocious of his friends.

  But when the name of her son, Godfrey Sessions, appeared more and more frequently in the French newspapers, when more and more of his compositions were played by great orchestras, then May felt that she was repaid for her devotion and financial outlays and sacrifices, and even for the crushing loneliness of her days and the scalding tears of her nights.

  When she received the news of Ernest’s remarriage, Godfrey remarked with the icy rage that was so much a part of his character: “I expected no better of that beast and that woman.” He dismissed the subject with that phrase and a single gesture. He was much perturbed and affronted that May could not dismiss it so. Really, his actions and his expression implied, she was being very tedious and annoying, with her weeping and her broken words and her hand-wringing; could she not see that she was causing him irritation and impatience? Pouting and tossing his head, he packed a small portmanteau and retired to a nearby little hotel for nearly a week, with great dignity and offended manner, giving his mother to understand that he would return only when she was sure she would no longer annoy and bore him. He expected to hear from her within two days at the most, but after six days when he still had
not heard from her, he returned, prepared to forgive if she showed sufficient contrition and signs of behaving herself. He found May silent and haggard, but kind and considerate as usual, and he was too selfish and petty to know of or care for her torment and anguish. However, she never felt her old complete devotion for him again, and while she pitied him for his constitutional blindness she knew that she was more alone now than she had ever been before in all her life.

  May’s income was lavish enough for her to afford an immense suite in a family hotel on the Champs-Élysées, a hotel noted for its vast lobby with black marble pillars, thick dark red carpets and gilding, crystal chandeliers and wide stately curving white marble staircases, and expert servants. She employed four servants of her own, a chambermaid, a personal maid, a coachman and a valet for Godfrey. Each day she drove in her Victoria down the Champs-Élysées and through the Tuileries Gardens and the Bois, her parasol tilted over her tiny hat, her eyes interested and smiling mechanically. She still loved beautiful objects, and her suite was exquisitely ornamented and furnished by herself. But eventually, she observed to herself, there is a saturation point even in buying, and when one’s wardrobes are filled to bursting with fine garments one seldom has the occasion to wear, and one’s house is perfect in every detail, one simply can’t shop any longer. And after awhile one tires of travelling about Europe and listening to music, music, music, until one’s brain dances in a maze of bars and notes, and symphonies become something which one finally endures with intense distress. She had few acquaintances, even among American residents, and though she gave to charities and tried to interest herself in the wretched and the indigent, and entertained Godfrey’s “unspeakable” friends, her boredom and loneliness became a physical agony. She was in that state of mind when the news about Ernest arrived, and thereafter she went about in a sort of numb stupor, in which everything she did was automatic and life became only a vague gray dream of grief and pain.

  She suddenly realized that though Ernest had divorced her, and though she had allowed him to do so, he not even being chivalrous and kind enough after nearly thirty-four years of marriage to give her the privilege of divorcing him, she had believed in her heart that he had a deep affection and regard for her, more than he realized himself, and that a separation from her would bring him to his senses, where he would acknowledge that he was too old for passion and needed her companionship and good-tempered understanding more than he needed satisfaction in “love.” She saw now, with what anguish and deathly despair only she knew, that she had discounted his love for Amy too much, and that even a man in his fifties might remember old passion and need old love. I cannot live any more, she thought simply, from the depths of her suffering, everything is dead for me. But I do not blame him; I blame myself, and Gregory. Gregory should have understood what sort of man Ernest was, and I should never have married him knowing he did not love me.

  The tragic deaths of Gertrude and Guy had not caused her half this grief, and she understood only too well that her leaving Ernest after Gertrude’s death had been the pathetically childish desire of a middle-aged woman for the consolations and tendernesses of a beloved husband who had turned cold and indifferent. But there was no chance of that now. With indifference and complete forgetfulness of her, Ernest had finally married the only woman he had ever wanted. What shall I do now? she asked herself. And went about asking over and over, until it became a chorus to the terrible days and nights: What shall I do now?

  She heard from her friends and relatives in America very often. She was much distressed at hearing of Eugene’s death from a heart attack, for she had always liked him because of his innate kindness and integrity, which few people suspected, and because she had been one of two or three others who had any idea of the constant uneasiness and vague distress in which he had lived. May, however, had never liked Dorcas; she had always maintained that: “Dorcas is, I grant you, a very ladylike person, but hardly, considering her antecedents, a lady.” May suspected the true aristocracy of delicate, dignified and exquisite women whose fathers had been laboring-class nonentities. A true aristocrat herself, she well knew that thoroughbreds are not normally born of plow-horses; Nevertheless, though recalling Dorcas’ indifferent coldness and inability to feel real sympathy or tenderness or compassion for any one outside her immediate family circle, she felt great sorrow for her. She wrote her a long and affectionate letter, forgetting her own private sufferings, for she knew that Dorcas’ husband had been her whole life. She received no reply to this warm and generous letter, and she was not hurt, understanding grief too well. But she was exceedingly shocked to receive, a few months later, a black-bordered letter from Florabelle telling of Dorcas’ death.

  “Dorcas died, I do believe, when Eugene died,” wrote the voluble Florabelle. “She had never been the same. Even her children did not interest her. Of course, I visited her a great deal, and tried to comfort her, and recalled my own sorrows to her, and how bravely I bore them, as the dear Major said, and how I refused to be completely cast down, to the extent of forgetting my dear children and all my obligations as a wife and mother, and the duty I owed my long-enduring friends and the community at large, to wear a brave calm face in the midst of misfortune, to remember that sorrow is our common lot, and trouble our daily companion, and—” May, with the tears on her soft withered cheeks, skipped several paragraphs of this very hastily, and arrived at the short and final information that Dorcas had contracted the influenza in the winter, developed lung fever, and had died within twenty-four hours.

  Florabelle later wrote that Etienne, “who is really too handsome for words, dear May, even if he is my nephew and I ought not to say so, had secured a minor but substantial rôle in a fine play in New York, and sent home dozens of favorable press notices. It was rumored that he was to go to London within a year with the same company. And do not think at all that Etienne is a fool, for he is really very sharp, and he and Honore are hardly on speaking terms any longer because of the terms of Eugene’s will, which made Ernest and Honore, who is nearly three years younger than Etienne, joint executors. Etienne demanded to see all the books and accounts, and went over them all minutely, and it was only after long persuasion and pressure on dear Ernest’s part that Etienne consented, as one of the major stockholders, to vote for Honore to become president of the Kinsolving Arms Company. I honestly believe that if he had not been offered the part in that play he would have wanted to be president himself, but dear me, these men are so tiresome with their petty jealousies. As for Renee, the ugliest, scrawniest, gangling, dark-faced old maid imaginable! I never could see that she even had the fine eyes everyone remarks upon, and she is so wild-mannered, so strange and flyaway, and careless about her clothes, that, dear May, you must forgive me, she reminded me of poor Trudie just a little, though, of course, dear Trudie had a sort of small fine elegance that big stringy Renee never had. Andre and Antoinette are living with me now, and that horrible hideous old Bouchard house is being pulled down. And I do believe, and isn’t it delicious? that my own dear Leon and Antoinette are becoming quite serious about each other, and she is so lovely, that child, like Dresden china. Andre is one of Leon’s assistants in the bank, and Leon thinks very highly of him indeed. My darling Chandler is doing excessively well at Princeton, but declares himself deeply interested in that most dreadful place, the factory. And my dear darling Betsy, at nineteen (and a beauty, I do declare, almost as pretty as I was, so my dear extravagant Major insists), will any day announce her engagement to the Major’s nephew, Henrik. Of course, Henrik is not too wealthy, but his father, Johan Van Ryn, was a descendant of Rembrandt’s cousin, and the family is impeccable. The Major declares he will give the young couple a present of seventy thousand dollars when they marry. Did I tell you that François has just had a volume of poems printed, in the most elegant red morocco you can imagine?

  “Did I tell you in my letter last week that I have seen your Reggie? He was in Windsor, on heavens knows what business, but I saw him
on Evergreen Road driving the most atrocious country carriage, with his wife. Heavens, what a pair, like those old Puritans we read about in school, Reggie with a wide-brimmed black hat and the blackest beard! and black flapping pantaloons and long black coat, and his Amish wife in her bonnet and shawl! They had their two little girls with them, lovely little creatures, and it is such a shame to dress the little fairies like that, in those hideous bonnets and long dragging skirts. Simply caricatures, dear May. You mentioned that Joey seldom writes. Well, he is in the bank also, now, as you probably know, working side by side with Dorcas’ Andre. John Charles is second vice-president at the bank, and resents it very much that he is subordinate to Leon. I always detested John Charles. They do say that it won’t be many years before Leon is president. And at the next meeting of the stockholders, it is certain that my wonderful Jules will be elected president of the Sessions Steel Company. If only my sweet sainted Philippe were here! But one must remember one’s blessings, I suppose, and my other children are all a mother could desire. The Major calls me Cornelia and her jewels.