House of All Nations

by Christina Stead

‘Send Marianne poisoned chocolates anonymously,’ Claire-Josèphe suggested helpfully. ‘He would be simply a dishrag without her. Or a basket of glacé fruits, say.’

  Méline suggested, ‘Send José MacMahon to him with a revolver and tell him he’ll denounce him as a white slaver and the accomplice in the murder of Arturito, if he doesn’t give up the books …’

  ‘Not José,’ Jules objected dubiously.

  ‘Aristide has a gun himself,’ said William. ‘I’ve seen it. His service revolver, I think. I guess he’s expecting burglars.’

  They had an amusing time and began to let the urgency of the case slip; only Henri Léon and Brouwer were really anxious. Henri Léon said to Jules privately, ‘My Dutch merchants will still buy, as you stand, if you’ll give a private statement. They won’t care how your accounts are, my boy. Your reputation is all right since the Kreuger money; lots of people think you’re a hell of a smart fellow. If you let me bring in my friends and give them serious consideration, we can fix it up so that I’m their agent, and we can tell Aristide that he’s breaking up a business deal. Leave me to deal with him. He’s ambitious and he shilly-shallies. I can get on the right side of Marianne, I think: she’s more ambitious than he is. I’ll pretend to go into this Hollywood magazine she’s got on the brain. I’ll tell my girl Margaret Weyman to go into it with her: that’ll keep them off until the deal is done, or until we see where we stand. See! You don’t have to complete the deal, although, frankly, Jules, between one luck-child and another, I think you ought to get out of here. Your name, your bank—listen, Jules, if it’s only a shell—if you have stowed away the cash—you can still sell it. What do you say, eh? Will you consider it, Jules?’

  ‘Thanks, Henri,’ Jules said, very offhand. ‘Thanks, I’ll think it over. Yes, that’s right: you tell Mrs. Weyman you’ll go in with her and Marianne on the paper and tell Marianne to come right up to Brussels. You can give her a talking-to, and I can send someone down to hold up Aristide in a dark street, while they go through the apartment …’

  Jules became more and more fantastic in his replies, until he had confused them all and driven them away, to leave him to his own musings.

  * * *

  Scene Ninety: Aristide’s Friends

  Alphendéry, in London, found that Newchurch had received no instructions from the Bertillons and would not give up the books, secreted in his home, no doubt. Alphendéry wrote to Bertillon: ‘Tell Newchurch you want me to have the books.’ But Jules, still irritated, veered round and telegraphed, ‘Don’t want you to have books. Don’t do any business. Amuse yourself. Keep in touch.’

  Alphendéry was humiliated. He visited the branch every day, to show that he was not lazy, he looked through the London orders, interviewed Stewart, sent to the Paris branch his day’s gleanings. This irritated Jules, too, who telegraphed him, ‘Keep away from London branch. Do nothing. Amuse yourself.’ Alphendéry presently discovered that Theodor Bomba, who had secretly been on Jules’s charity list for months, was now re-employed by Jules and was in a big chair at the London office. Theodor Bomba greeted Alphendéry the next time the latter went in, therefore, with a regal smirk, ‘What are you doing these days?’

  ‘What is happening?’ wrote Michel to Jules. ‘I find Bomba in London. Are you actually sending Aristide there?’

  ‘It’s my bank,’ Jules wrote back.

  Alphendéry had no more but a note from William, asking him to come back soon. But Alphendéry, dismayed by these contrary orders, stayed in London and moped. The bank, the last few weeks, had been swarming with new individuals he had never met, with all sorts of queer businesses he had never been told of—the oil business, the negotiations for which were carried out without him; an ‘aviation’ business. He had to leave.

  Jules and William were now closeted together daily. Even Richard Plowman rarely saw them and complained of it good-humoredly. ‘I told you I’d stick by you till the finish but let me know when the finish is.’ He whiled away the time by visiting Claire-Josèphe and the four sons of Jules Bertillon; convinced, no doubt, that he was so far in the family affections that they would do nothing serious without consulting him. He hated to appear importunate to ‘the boys.’

  Two days after he arrived at Biarritz, Aristide telephoned Jacques Manray at his home at night. ‘Jacques, I saw the Bertillons and asked them to reinstate the clients’ accounts. They agreed to do so but would put nothing in writing. I am afraid of double-crossing. Keep your eyes open. Let me know if there is difficulty in paying out any account. Let me know if the clients make any complaint. Tell Mouradzian to write to me. Mouradzian is with us, Jacques.’

  This put Jacques in a panic. He and his wife sat up till two in the morning wondering what this could mean! Bertillon had refused to buy back shares for clients that had been sold out. If, for example, there was a big rise in the market and suddenly Bertillon was forced to deliver out eight thousand or ten thousand shares, what sort of a loss would he have? Suppose there was a panic, war, markets, rebellion—and the clients began to ask to transfer their accounts out, to other countries? Suppose Raccamond got hysterical and started a run? Could Bertillon meet it? These were bad moments for Jacques.

  ‘Raccamond himself is our worst danger,’ said Jacques to his wife.

  ‘So you must humor him, keep him in a good temper, work in with him,’ said the small dark-eyed woman that shared his troubles. ‘Always say, ‘Yes.’ That way, too, you will see what his scheme is and whether he really has a scheme. What are you going to do about Mouradzian?’

  ‘I’ll sound him.’

  Jacques went out to lunch with Mouradzian in an Armenian restaurant near the Rue Chauchat.

  ‘Mr. Raccamond has gone away to the Côte d’Argent for his health.’

  ‘It’s a good thing,’ said Mouradzian. ‘There are some men who can’t stand our business. They should be in—selling pictures or rugs. Raccamond and his wife have a certain understanding of—esthetics, perhaps—they should be in that business. They only make trouble for themselves and others here.’

  ‘You know he made some trouble just now for Mr. Bertillon?’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘He told me you were working in with him.’

  ‘On what business?’ asked Mouradzian hotly.

  ‘On this business; getting the positions of the clients reinstated.’

  ‘Certainly not, most certainly not. He is ridiculous,’ Mouradzian said angrily. ‘He wants that? Where will we be? Bertillon would lose money hand over fist. Now he makes money. Listen to me, Mr. Manray: I have been in business forty years and my family five hundred years. Do schoolteachers, do young girls, go into business? No, only men, and only cunning men. The laws are made by men to trap some: others are more cunning. The point is: don’t give your adversary a chance to catch you. The law is your adversary. Not because law is wrong, but because law is only made by your adversaries to catch you. Law is not for the people; law is not for right, or purity or charity: law is made by cunning fellows to trap cunning fellows, and it’s a game, therefore, to know and to get the better of. The law is made by Mr. de Wendel and Mr. Rothschild so that they won’t have any competition and we’ve got to get the better of them.

  ‘He howls about law! What a hyena; what a dingo! Your Frenchmen of that breed are such hypocrites! He is a radical, too. Of course, they talk liberty, equality, and they tread on as many as they can, oust as many as they can, sell, kill, outsell, betray, rob, and cheat. And what is the result? When they have an adversary, Mr. Manray, instead of fighting back like a cat or a snake, they are caught in their own ritual. They don’t say, “I’m beaten because I’m a fool,” but, “I’m beaten because the other side is ungodly.” That’s cowardly, Mr. Manray. In the East, we don’t think like that. We think straight. We are honorable men. I would not even eat with this Raccamond again. Do you know what he would do? He would take the bread and butter out of e
veryone’s mouth, Mr. Bertillon’s and Mr. Manray’s and everyone’s and put it all in his own. That is what he is. No, I am not with him. I will never make a scandal or such an outcry. He should be ashamed. Everyone ought to laugh at him. He tried to rob a client from me. I have no illusions about Mr. Raccamond. Ah! Ah!’

  The next night it was Marianne that telephoned Jacques Manray. ‘Try them out, see how they feel: get my husband’s team together, Campoverde, even Voulou, although he’s soft. Find out if they’d move with my husband, but say nothing definite, you know.’

  ‘I don’t know what I’m to do, Mrs. Raccamond. What is your husband going to do when he comes back?’

  ‘Confidentially’ (she uttered it like a battle cry though), ‘he will become general manager; he is taking over control of the London office and all the foreign accounts. He is making a thorough examination of the bank’s files and accounts and if he is satisfied, he will stay there and reorganize, and if he is not satisfied, he will withdraw his accounts and those who go with him will have his protection in the Crédit. Or he may organize a bank of his own through Carrière: Carrière is proposing to found a private bank. You know what Carrière is worth.’ Jacques was dumb. ‘You are working with us, Mr. Manray?’

  ‘But—Mr. Bertillon, Mr. William—’

  ‘We have them, Manray: they must work in with us, or without us; but we have the power …’

  Jacques let her ring off without saying another word. He was dumbfounded. Who was deceiving him? He had allowed himself to promise his co-operation to both sides and in his timidity he was glad of it. There was ‘something rotten’ in Raccamond, yet sick and hysterical, he had been able to gain this power at a single interview.

  The Raccamonds rang him for four evenings and in the end he was obliged to take Campoverde and others to the counter of some near coffee bar and ask, ‘Has Raccamond been talking to you lately? What do you think of him? Do you think he’s sound?’ Farther than this he would not go, and his results were negative. By the fifth day Marianne was suspicious and discontented. Thereafter, he heard nothing. He worried for a day and then went on with his work in the old way.

  The brothers Bertillon were almost invisible—they spent hours with Jean de Guipatin and with strange persons not seen before. This looked like new business, indeed. At the same time, several large new accounts had been opened in the bank by persons of financial or social consequence, and the employees who had suffered some moments of anguish in the past year began to look cheerful again and think that the trouble was over. Business ran more smoothly. The ‘boys,’ the commission men and the clients, got their information from the usual financial journals, but markets were ‘looking better,’ shares were going up in price, and some of them were only too glad to think that even inflation might help the country and even a fascist Putsch in Germany might help the Germans out of their marasmus. Alphendéry, with his perpetual song of ruin and the ‘decay of the system,’ was not there. Even Jacques began to think the bank was more wholesome without this theorem!

  Richard Plowman walked round the bank a good deal alone, but he courageously tried to keep everyone in a jolly mood by inquiring after their rheumatisms and children and by saying gaily, ‘Cheer up, the worst is yet to come, as Alphendéry would say’—sure sign that the old man thought all trouble was over. Jacques knew that old Plowman had a considerable part of his fortune in the bank and that he had never made a move to withdraw it. He had been sixty years in banking. He had seen the world. Was it likely that he would go about so peaceably if things were wrong up above?

  Suddenly Jacques received a letter from London, in Raccamond’s handwriting:

  Dear Jacques,

  I am vindicated and everything is now in my hands. I have got the London books which dovetail into the Brussels books I showed you. I am completely master of the situation. Be ready for me on Friday. I am completing the survey here and will return immediately. My subordinate here, Mr. Bomba, is with me up to the hilt, and I am sure we can count on general loyalty, especially when the facts are revealed. I am now able to reveal all, and you will have my confidence. In the meantime, line the rest of the men up, separately and sound them on the Bertillons. Tell them nothing! Say nothing to the Bertillons! If they knew what I had they might close the bank overnight. This is most important. I have terrible news, but through it I see a way to save the bank, take it out of the wrong hands, and make our own fortunes. Say nothing, but keep your eyes open and have a report ready for me when I come on Friday.

  Aristide Raccamond

  P.S. Have confidence: London is with us to a man and I find that Alphendéry, who was in a very real manner the inspirer of evil, has gone home to visit his mother. I see in this a dismissal.

  Jacques became miserable with doubt. After a morning of wrestling with himself, he walked upstairs to Jules’s room and without a word put the letter open on his desk. Jules started up. ‘Newchurch lied to me! Jacques, I want you to manage things here for me for a few days: I must go to London.’

  Jacques smiled. ‘I’m so glad: I think that’s the best, Mr. Bertillon. Calm him down, Mr. Bertillon. He’s a funny sort of fellow.’

  ‘I may not see Raccamond,’ Jules said quietly. ‘If he comes here while I’m away, play him, see these books, and get them if you can. If I can I’ll have Raccamond arrested before he leaves England, for theft. It’s possible I’ll miss him. Ask my brother William to come in.’ He looked at Jacques, smiled ravishingly. ‘Thanks, Jacques. Hold the fort for me.’

  ‘Has he got anything serious?’ asked Jacques.

  ‘No, no; but he’s a fool and he can do us a lot of damage with his bawling. Get my brother, will you?’

  William and Jules Bertillon left for London by the afternoon plane. Richard Plowman, still smiling and constant, perambulated round the bank during their absence. Daniel Cambo came in bronzed from his trip to Morocco, with tales of the ouled-naïl and of complaisant officials. Mouradzian uneasily trotted round the bank, asking about Alphendéry and Bertillon, and young Prince Campoverde, tall, quiet, slow, and ambitious, went about his business … He had heard some rumors of further trouble for the bank, and he hoped to get a partnership out of Jules. A bank of this nature was just what he wanted to start out in life. Born during the war, he had never known anything but political excitement, trouble, and wild changes of state forms. He tranquilly perceived his chance in a shaky bank and his proper partner in Jules, another postwar pirate. Campoverde was a daredevil flier, and he and Jules had had an equal number of serious accidents on the roads. Campoverde was already forming his ‘team’ for the partnership, with Jean de Guipatin, the Marquis de Chabot-Alpargatos, the son of Mouradzian, and other brilliant young fellows round the bank, full of postwar elegance, political freakery, ingrained cynicism, and derring-do. He was the one who had introduced the ‘aviation plan’ to Jules just now. It was being whispered about the bank.

  * * *

  Scene Ninety-one: The Faithful

  Jules and William Bertillon returned from London by plane on Thursday afternoon. While they were away, Claire-Josèphe had taken a trip to Lausanne to see her boys and had brought the four children home with her ‘because they were homesick.’ The brothers went straight to the bank when they arrived and found Richard Plowman there, in a new panama hat and a light gray suit, telling Jacques Manray about different kinds of sea anemones he had cultivated at home. Richard flushed with pleasure to see the brothers, ran to meet them with outstretched hands like an uncle, gave news of Claire-Josèphe and the boys, asked after Jules’s latest motor injury, informed them that Jean de Guipatin had broken a collar bone again at polo, and asked William if he had seen the doctor about his low blood pressure. The children and Claire were expecting Plowman for lunch. ‘I’m going to look for a school near Paris for the children, Claire doesn’t like them so far away and—’ he smiled apologetically, ‘it’ll be something for me to do in the week ends: take
them out.’

  He was following the boys up for a cozy chat, when Jules said, ‘Oh, please excuse us, Richard, we have to count in some gold that was just deposited with us by the Comtesse Campo-Formio this morning. Manray didn’t want to send it to the safe deposit till we counted it. You don’t mind?’

  ‘No, no, Jules, of course not.’ He was very disappointed, wanted to know the latest news from London, whether Mrs. Fairfax still remembered him, whether Frank Durban had been to the Mayfair yet, whether they had got his herbal treatment for the liver. ‘I never see you boys now: business is booming, what!’ He smiled cheerily, covering his disappointment, not to rebuke them. ‘An old man like me has nothing to do but sit round in an armchair and wonder why the brisk young fellows are too busy for him. I remember when old fellows used to sit round my outer office, smoking cigars and chatting, nice old johnnies who couldn’t tear themselves away from India, couldn’t go home to Cheltenham and vote for the latest tory candidate. I thought they were taking it pretty easy, too! I’ve had my day. I’m not grumbling. I’ll just run along and see the next generation.’

  ‘Hope I die before I’m fifty at the most,’ said Jules. ‘I can’t stand the aged. Never had a minute’s sympathy with them in my whole life. The first day I catch myself thinking about easy chairs, I’m going to take a first-class Fokker and loop the loop: end of a first-class Fokker …’

  ‘Don’t worry about that yet,’ murmured William. ‘Just what’s this idea of showing your gold to Raccamond?’

  ‘I’m going to show him what we’ve got in Amsterdam, and what we’ve got in Paris, and then I’ll take it out the very next day. We’ve taken the gold out of London where the big ass thinks he’s going to sit in grandeur. They’ll never think it’s in Oslo because I told Bomba that Dannevig was incompetent and also broke, and I’m liquidating the Oslo office. They’re so anxious to fleece me they believe anything I say if it suits their game.’

  ‘Jules, we’re finished, I feel it in my bones.’