V
When he arrived in Paris he took the precaution to telephone Marie, who said she would rather come to the city to meet him. He named the hotel, and she came to his suite. She would never fail to be happy when she entered his presence. However, he saw that she was paler and thinner than when he had seen her last, and he had a pang of remorse. He had been cruel to her, he had hurt her more deeply than he could ever realize.
She said: “No, dear; you did nothing that you could help. It is fate that has put a hand between us. The gods are jealous, and they won’t let such happiness as ours endure too long.”
She didn’t want to talk about the “scandal,” the unhappiness of her family and her husband’s; she knew that was all nonsense to him, and would be a bore. She said: “I am yours whenever you ask for me; but I can’t travel with you any more. You must realize that.”
“I realize it if you say so, dear. You don’t want me to come to the chateau?”
“I don’t think it fair to the boys, Lanny. They are bound to know about it.”
“They have probably known for years. Why not be sensible and have it out with them?”
“I can’t do it, Lanny. They are Denis’s sons, and he has a right to say. After all, it is his home; and he has been very patient and tolerant.”
It seemed to Lanny that nothing in the world could be more silly. Here were these big gangling fellows—Denis, fils, was now eighteen and Charlot seventeen; they were nearly as tall as Lanny, and their school companions had without doubt told them all there was to know about sex, and perhaps had taken them to those places which Paris has provided for youth to try experiments. But they were being brought up as good Catholic boys, and must believe that what they did was wicked; also that their mother was pure and good, and never did anything like that.
There was no use arguing about it. Marie settled the matter when she said that the home was not hers but her husband’s. Lanny would have this hotel suite, and she would come there whenever he invited her. But their love would have to be “clandestine.” Marie didn’t want to meet any of Lanny’s friends, because that would remind them—and her—of the fact that she was the woman who had been named in the newspapers as his traveling-companion. Anyhow, she didn’t care for his friends, because they talked politics of the wrong kind, and she was an embarrassment, a wet blanket on the conversation. The only exception she made was Zoltan Kertezsi; he wasn’t interested in politics, and he was discreet, a kind friend to Marie as well as a useful influence for her lover.
All right; Lanny would adjust himself to this new life. It had been pleasant sitting in the garden at the chateau reading a book; it would be equally pleasant sitting in the chairs in the Bois, at the price of a few sous which you paid to an old woman collector. There were any number of sidewalk cafes where you could find all the good things to eat that your fancy might suggest. There were theaters, concerts, and no end of pictures; Lanny could go on studying prices and carrying on his business correspondence. He could have a piano in his rooms, and get a fresh supply of music—yes, Paris could be delightful in summer.
Marie would stay with him two or three days, and then go home and stay with the boys. While the cat was away, the mouse would play—that is, the Lanny mouse would go off on a debauch of politics. He would pay a call on Longuet or Blum, and perhaps hear one of them make a speech. He would call on his Red uncle, whose “free” domestic arrangement was turning out successfully. He would meet Albert Rhys Williams, just back from Russia—the Soviet Union, they preferred to have you call it—with truly marvelous tales about progress in that vast land; they were actually managing to drill some oil wells without any help from Robbie Budd or Henri Deterding or Basil Zaharoff! Lanny would have lunch or dinner with George Slocombe or John Gunther, just returned from one of the capitals of Europe, and hear the latest developments in the world-wide struggle for oil and steel. Doing these things gave Lanny a tremendous sense of adventure; he would get quite drunk on dangerous thoughts—and when he had slept it off he would phone to his beloved and she would come to his arms again. She would guess that he had been misconducting himself, but she would ask him no questions and he would tell her no lies.
VI
Poincaré was out, and there was a new Premier of France, named Herriot. He was a “radical,” a word which had its special meaning in that land. It didn’t mean an enemy of the property system, as in the States; Uncle Jesse said it meant that France was no longer governed by the Comite des Forges, but by whatever miscellaneous capitalists had chosen to buy the politicians. Of course you couldn’t take Uncle Jesse literally; he was just trying to find the worst things to say about the capitalist system. But Robbie Budd would come along and say practically the same things, and it was harder to disbelieve them both.
Anyhow, Herriot was a peace man; he wanted to get out of the Ruhr, and he wanted some way to make sure that Germany would pay her debts and stay disarmed as she had promised. He went over to London with his staff, and they had a series of discussions with the Ramsay MacDonald outfit; the statesmen were hurrying back and forth between London and Paris and Berlin, and it was in the air that big things were being planned. Rick wrote about it, and had high hopes of results. For the first time since the war there were statesmen thinking about the welfare of Europe as a whole; for the first time there was a prospect of real reconstruction for the tormented Continent. Once there was assurance of peace, it would be possible to think about a gradual evolution from the system of private industry to one in which the public welfare would be the end and goal. Rick wrote an article to this effect, and it sounded quite “radical,” in the American, not the French, sense. Lanny thought it would please his Red uncle; but, alas, it appeared that no one could please that uncle except the uncle himself. When he read the article he said: “The tiger will agree to have his teeth extracted, one every year, and the extracting will be done by the lambs.”
The London conference decided to refer the whole complex of problems to the League of Nations. Everybody had come to realize that the individual nations couldn’t handle these matters, and the Entente Cordiale couldn’t stand the strain of trying. Let all the nations agree to respect one another’s territory, let all unite to punish any transgressor. The fifth meeting of the League Assembly was to take place in September, and Rick was going there to report developments. As soon as he heard this, Lanny began remembering what a pleasant time he and Marie had had in Geneva three years ago. Why couldn’t they do it again? Alas for that dreadful, irretrievable thing called a “scandal”! Marie couldn’t enjoy being in Geneva; she wasn’t even sure that she could return to Bienvenu; not even under the chaperonage of Lanny’s mother could the pair of besmirched lovers be made respectable again. Lanny tried to argue about it, but it did no good; he was butting his head against the social code of France.
VII
Every now and then the pair of lovers would have another threshing out of their problems. Marie kept fearing that she was neglecting her boys—even though the boys themselves preferred to be away from home with their boy companions. Also, she was well aware that Beauty didn’t want her at Bienvenu. Beauty had been an angel, but in her heart she must hate the interloper. A devoted mother desired to find a proper wife for her son; and Marie, also a mother of sons, felt that Beauty was right, and even went so far as to say to Lanny that if her love for him were deep enough and strong enough, she would renounce him and help to find a proper wife for him.
The playboy never let himself be annoyed by the determination of all the ladies of his acquaintance to see him permanently paired off. He took it as a compliment, and amused himself exploring their ideas about his requirements. What did Marie think would be the proper sort of life-partner for him? She answered that it had become clear to her that Lanny would never be satisfied with a wife who wasn’t interested in public questions, and who wouldn’t travel with him to conferences and agree with what he thought about them.
“But I never can agree with mysel
f!” objected the young social philosopher. “Don’t you think I ought to make up my own mind before I make up my wife’s?”
“I think I know pretty well what you believe,” persisted the other. She wouldn’t tell him what it was, because that might turn into an argument. “I think it’s Englishwomen who take the sort of attitude that appeals to you.”
“Well, I might go back to Rosemary,” he said. He had told her all about that early love affair. But now Rosemary was the Countess of Sandhaven, and had three children—one worse than Marie!
She wouldn’t let him turn it off with jokes. It was a real problem, which sooner or later they would have to face. If she had been a selfish woman she would have taken what she could get and let matters ride; but she was good—and that was why Lanny loved her, so the complication grew, and the more they struggled in the net the more they entangled themselves.
“What you are proposing is that I marry a Pink girl,” said the wanton trifler. “I have met some of them, and they have indicated that they are willing.”
He went into details. Recently he had attended a Socialist reunion, and had been introduced to the daughter of one of the speakers. “She isn’t a bold new woman, as you might expect from a Pink, but a very simple old-fashioned girl, and I got the impression that she thought I was a romantic personality—on account of what happened in Italy, you know. It might be that she could easily be won. Do you think that would appeal to Beauty?”
Marie couldn’t be sure whether he was spoofing or not, but she saw that he was determined to have her return to Bienvenu, whereas she wanted to stay with her aunt. Of course Beauty would have the last word to say about it, and Lanny had asked her to invite Marie, and Beauty hadn’t yet done so. Now, smiling to himself, the rascal decided that he would use this old-fashioned Pink girl to settle the matter. He wrote his mother a long and quite serious letter about her, and of course threw Beauty into a panic. She was clinging to the hope that this stage of her son’s development was a form of intellectual measles, which he would soon get over. But if he married into the Red movement, that would fix him forever; the designing creature would get him deeper into her toils—Beauty couldn’t have said exactly what “toils” were, but they sounded terrible, and even a forty-year-old amie would be better. The anxious mother wrote Marie that she was the best influence Lanny had ever had in his life, and please to come and be their guest during the coming winter.
VIII
Marie wouldn’t drive with Lanny to Geneva, but urged him to go by himself, and he decided to do so. He stopped off at the Château Les Forêts overnight and had a long talk with his wise friend Mrs. Emily, one of those talks which always left him clearer in his mind as to every subject they discussed. The chatelaine had many friends but few intimates; she said that she understood human nature too well, and it made one rather lonely. This woman of too great wealth presented to the world an aspect of proud serenity, but in the deeps of her heart she craved affection, and for the many years that she had known Lanny Budd she had watched him with maternal tenderness. She had never revealed this, other than by being always glad to see him and doing him any favor that she could. With the deftness of a woman of several worlds she would guide the conversation so as to bring into it anything that she thought he ought to know.
Either through Beauty or through Lanny himself she had shared the secrets of his love affairs, and had no fault to find with them. She thought that Lanny’s present amie was doing him no harm, but much good. She had told Beauty that, and had something to do with the peace which had prevailed in the singular menage on the Cap d’Antibes. She considered it much better for Lanny to earn money than to marry it; she could recall few cases where the latter process had done a man any good—and especially a young man. Many had wanted to marry Emily Chattersworth’s money, but she hadn’t thought it would do them any good!
Lanny told about his misadventure in Italy. Emily didn’t think that men could change the world’s economic system, which arose out of the excessive greed in their hearts; but that was an old-fashioned idea, perhaps, and she didn’t urge it. She recognized it as something natural that a generous-minded young man should try to combat injustice; but she warned him as to the sad discovery he would make, that many of the people who pretended to be combating it were merely seeking advancement for themselves; they would use you all they could, and when they got power they would have no use for their old ideals or for those who had helped them to rise.
Lanny said: “I have observed that. Its name is Mussolini.”
“I am sorry to say its name is legion,” replied the other.
She talked about Isadora, who had gone to Russia with such high hopes three years ago. Doubtless she had expected too much; she always did. Russia was a place of starvation and dreadful suffering; a little handful of fanatics were finding that they had tried too much. “I don’t know whether they are’ idealists or devils,” said the châtelaine; “probably they are half and half.”
Lanny cited what his Uncle Jesse kept insisting, that they were rebuilding the country out of their own flesh and blood; they were industrializing a modern state out of its own resources, the first time that had ever been done in history. All the other states had done it with foreign loans.
“That may be true,” admitted the other. “But you can’t expect that those who have money to lend will lend it for the abolishing of money-lending.”
“Uncle Jesse calls that the class struggle,” said Lanny, smiling. “He would say that you are a good economic determinist.” Emily had never met Beauty’s Red brother, but had heard about him; she was content to get her information second hand.
Anyhow, Isadora was having a hard time. She had danced and talked revolution, and had had thrilling receptions, but she had been unable to get what she needed for a school. She had fallen under the spell of a mad Russian poet who was trying to see how quickly he could drink himself to death. Just recently she had divorced him, and the government had arrested him for “hooliganism.”
Emily showed Lanny some distracted, scrawling letters from the unhappy dancer. She wanted money, of course; she always had, and would so long as she lived. Emily had sent her a little, which ought to go a long way in Russia. “You are lucky,” she said to a susceptible youth, “that you didn’t get yourself involved. I suppose that is one of the things you owe to Marie.”
IX
The Assembly of the League of Nations was the greatest international event that Lanny had witnessed since the Paris Peace Conference. Here were the diplomats of some fifty nations, many of them stirred by the belief that now, at last, they were going to do something for the peace of the world. Here were journalists, many with the idea that something big was going to happen and they were going to write the story of their lives. Here were the propagandists, the people with ideas, who chose this gathering as a pulpit from which to address the world. Here were the people with wrongs to be righted, lured by vain hopes. Here were observers, curiosity-seekers, tourists who preferred to look at live statesmen rather than at statues of dead ones. The old city of watchmakers and money-changers was crowded, and Lanny, the young prince with a private car, took his English friend to a hotel farther down the lake, and would drive him in every day to do his interviewing and drive him back again to write his stories. Lanny liked to sit in at interviews, and nothing pleased him more than to pay for the dinner of a diplomat.
The correspondents here were the “old bunch,” whom the pair had met year after year. San Remo, Spa, London, Paris, Brussels, Cannes, Genoa, Rapallo, Lausanne—it was like trying to remember the kings of England, which Rick had learned, or the presidents of the United States, which Lanny had never learned. These writing men remembered where they had been, and the statesmen they had interviewed, even the good things they had eaten; they would recall this or that event, what So-and-so had said, how Somebody had got drunk, the girl that Some Other had got mixed up with. Lanny found that his adventure in Rome had turned him into a personality; he ha
d made the headlines, and was no longer a playboy. Men didn’t have to agree with his ideas, they might tell him he was a “D.F.” to imagine he could buck the Fascists, but all the same he had ideas and had stood up for them, so they respected him.
The young fellow, for his part, never tired of listening to men who traveled all over the world and had new stories every time you ran into them. He took a naive attitude toward their wisdom; absorbed it gladly, and was puzzled when the wisdom of the next contradicted that of the former. Rick was tremendously impressed by Ramsay MacDonald; he was writing for a clientele to whom the Prime Minister of Labor was the banner-bearer of a new, revivifying force in British political life. Lanny accepted Rick’s idea as a matter of course, and found it confusing to meet a correspondent for one of the Tory papers, and hear him declare that he had known Ramsay most of his life, and that there was as much substance to him as to a child’s red balloon; Ramsay used fine phrases which he had no idea of relating to reality—his test for them was that they brought applause from the working-class audiences he had spent his life addressing.
The statesmen were working over a thing which was to be called the “Geneva Protocol.” The real initiator of it was France, and its purpose was to enable her to back out of the Ruhr without too great admission of failure. Robbie wrote to his son that Marianne had got hold of a bull by the tail, a trying position for a lady; she wanted guarantees that the bull wouldn’t turn around too quickly when she let go. According to the Protocol all the nations would agree to apply “sanctions” against any nation which attacked a neighbor; it was another effort to remedy the condition of which Clemenceau had complained, those twenty million too many Germans in Europe. The old Tiger, by the way, was still alive, in a little den he had made for himself on the Vendée coast; every now and then some journalist would travel there just for the fun of hearing him snarl at the statesmen who were throwing away the hard-won safety of la belle France.
Between Two Worlds (The Lanny Budd Novels) Page 47
