Dragon's Teeth

by Sinclair, Upton;

  II

  Living under the feudal system, Irma had found herself impressed by the idea of being exclusive; but here she was back in the easy-going world which was much less trouble and much more fun. All sorts of people wanted to know her, and how was she to find out who they were or what they wanted? It might be an expert thief, trying to find out what jewels she wore and where she kept them; it might be a blackmailer on the watch for something he could put to use; there was a good chance of its being a cardsharp, for swarms of them preyed upon the passengers of ocean liners. Irma and a New York acquaintance played against a couple of ladies with manners and costumes beyond criticism; quite probably the pair had some means of signaling other than the bids which were a part of the game and which everybody studied and argued about. They proposed a dollar a point for stakes, and Irma didn’t mind; she didn’t mind especially when she found that her side was a couple of thousand dollars in the hole at the end of an afternoon. Her partner broke down and wept, saying she didn’t have the money, so Irma paid for both, and didn’t like it when Lanny insisted that all three women were probably in cahoots.

  Also there was the question of liquor. The young people were drinking all the time, and how they managed to carry it was a problem. Lanny said: “Why not choose some friends who know something to talk about?” But those were older persons, and Irma could only listen. Presently along would come some of her own set and carry her off to a gaily decorated bar; or they would order drinks while they were playing shuffleboard on deck. Lanny could no longer say: “You have the health of our baby to think of.” He was put in the unpleasant position of the sober man at a feast; he was a wet blanket, a sorehead, a grouch. Irma didn’t say these things, but others said them behind her back, and looked them; you had either to play the game or antagonize people. Lanny decided that he would be glad when his wife was under the sheltering wing of Fanny Barnes, who had the right to scold her daughter and exercised it.

  Among the conveniences on board this movable city was a broker’s office where you could get quotations and gamble in your favorite stocks; also a daily newspaper which reported what was happening in Wall Street and the rest of the world. Shortly before the vessel reached New York it was learned that the troubles in Vienna had come to a climax; there was a failure of the Creditanstalt, biggest bank in the city. Next day the panic was spreading to Germany. Lanny heard people say: “All right. It’s time they had some troubles.” But others understood that if Germany couldn’t pay reparations, Britain and France would soon be unable to pay their debts to the United States. These financial difficulties traveled like waves of sound; they met some obstruction and came rolling back. The world had become a vast sounding-board, filled with clashing echoes hurled this way and that. Impossible to guess what was coming next!

  III

  The Statue of Liberty stood, erect and dignified, holding her torch immovable; in bright sunlight she appeared quite sober. Lanny wondered: was she “on the wagon,” or did she, like so many of his acquaintances in café society, never get drunk until night? It was still the time of Prohibition, and you couldn’t buy anything on the ship after she had passed the three-mile limit; but everybody knew that as soon as you stepped ashore you could get whatever you wanted.

  Fanny Barnes, accompanied by her brother Horace, was waiting on the pier for the first sight of the most precious of all babies. When gangplanks were lowered and the family procession came down, she took the soft warm bundle in her arms, and Lanny saw the first tears he had ever seen in what he had thought were hard, worldly eyes. She refused to put the bundle down, but carried it off to the waiting car and sat there, breaking every rule which Miss Severne had laid down for the hygienic and psychological protection of infants. Lanny saw the Englishwoman watching with disapproval; he feared that a first-class row was pending, for the head nurse had explained many times that she was a professional person and considered that her services were superfluous if her advice was disregarded.

  They left Feathers to attend to the customs formalities and to bring Irma’s maid and the nursemaid and the bags in another car. The family drove away in state, with Miss Severne in front with the chauffeur, so that she wouldn’t be so aware of a grandmother coddling and cuddling a fourteen-month-old child, poking a finger at her and talking nonsense. That went on all the way across Fourteenth Street, and through the slums of New York’s East Side, over a great bridge, and on the new speedway. Lanny recognized what a serious action he had committed in keeping the precious creature in Europe—and what a fight he was going to have to get her back there!

  Plenty of news to talk about: family affairs, business affairs, and all their friends who had got married, or died, or been born. Presently Uncle Horace Vandringham was telling Lanny about stocks. They were down again—very bad news from Germany, and rumors that the trouble might spread to Britain. The one-time market manipulator gave it as his opinion that prices had just about reached bottom; the very same words that Robbie Budd had said: “Look where steel is now!” Uncle Horace had written Irma, begging her to put up a little money, so that he might get back into the game; he would go fifty-fifty with her—it was a crime to waste the expert knowledge which he had spent a lifetime in acquiring. Irma had said no, and had told her husband that she would continue to say it and not let herself be bothered with importunities.

  IV

  Life at Shore Acres was taken up where it had been left off. The question of Baby Frances was settled quickly, for the head nurse came to Irma, who had employed her; she didn’t say that Irma had been raised wrong, or that grandmothers were passées, but simply that modern science had made new discoveries and that she had been trained to put them into practice. Irma couldn’t dream of losing that most conscientious of persons, so she laid down the law to her mother, who took it with surprising meekness. Likewise, Uncle Horace made only the feeblest of tentatives in the direction of Wall Street. Lanny perceived that they had had family consultations; the haughty Fanny was going to be the ideal mother-in-law, her brother was going to make himself agreeable at all costs, and everybody in the house was to do the same—in the hope that a prince consort might be persuaded to settle down in his palace and enjoy that state of life to which it had pleased God to call him.

  All that Lanny and his royal spouse had to do was to be happy, and they had the most expensive toys in the world to play with. The estate had been created for that purpose, and thousands of skilled workers had applied their labor and hundreds of technicians had applied their brains to its perfection. If the young couple wanted to ride there were horses, if they wanted to drive there were cars, if they wanted to go out on the water there were sailboats and launches. There were two swimming-pools, one indoors and one out, besides the whole Atlantic Ocean. There were servants to wait upon them and clean up after them; there were pensioners and courtiers to flatter and entertain them. The world had been so contrived that it was extremely difficult for the pair to do any sort of useful thing.

  Playmates came in swarms: boys and girls of Irma’s set who were “lousy with money”—their own phrase. Irma had romped and danced with them from childhood, and now they were in their twenties, but lived and felt and thought as if still in their teens. The depression had hit many of them, and a few had had to drop out, but most were still keeping up the pace. They drove fast cars, and thought nothing of dining in one place and dancing fifty miles away; they would come racing home at dawn—one of them would be assigned to drive and would make it a point of honor not to get drunk. The boys had been to college and the girls to finishing-schools, where they had acquired fashionable manners, but no ideas that troubled them. Their conversation was that of a secret society: they had their own slang and private jokes, so that if you didn’t “belong,” you had to ask what they were talking about.

  It was evident to all that Irma had picked up an odd fish, but they were willing enough to adopt him; all he had to do was to take them as they were, do what they did, and not try to force any idea
s upon them. He found it interesting for a while; the country was at its springtime best, the estates of Long Island were elaborate and some of them elegant, and anybody who is young and healthy enjoys tennis and swimming and eating good food. But Lanny would pick up the newspaper and read about troubles all over the world; he would go into the swarming city where millions had no chance to play and not even enough to eat; he would look at the apple-sellers, and the breadlines of haggard, fear-driven men—many with clothes still retaining traces of decency. Millions wandering over the land seeking in vain for work; families being driven from their farms because they couldn’t pay the taxes. Lanny wasn’t content to read the regular newspapers, but had to seek out the Pink and Red ones, and then tell his wealthy friends what he had found there. Not many would believe him, and not one had any idea what to do about it.

  Nobody seemed to have such ideas. The ruling classes of the various nations watched the breakdown of their economy like spectators in the neighborhood of a volcano, seeing fiery lava pour out of the crater and dense clouds of ashes roll down the slopes, engulfing vineyards and fields and cottages. So it had been when the younger Pliny had stood near Mt. Vesuvius some nineteen hundred years back, and had written to the historian Tacitus about his experience:

  “I looked behind me; gross darkness pressed upon our rear, and came rolling over the land after us like a torrent. We had scarce sat down, when darkness overspread us, not like that of a moonless or cloudy night, but of a room when it is shut up, and the lamp put out. You could hear the shrieks of women, the crying of children, and the shouts of men; some were seeking their children, others their parents, others their wives or husbands, and only distinguishing them by their voices; one lamenting his own fate, another that of his family; some praying to die, from the very fear of dying; many lifting their hands to the gods; but the great part imagining that there were no gods left anywhere, and that the last and eternal night was come upon the world.”

  V

  By way of the automobile ferry from Long Island to New London, Connecticut, Lanny drove his wife to his father’s home, and they spent a week with the family. The town of Newcastle had been hard hit by the depression: the arms plant was shut down entirely; the hardware and elevator and other plants were running only three days a week. The workers were living on their savings if they had any; they were mortgaging their homes, and losing their cars and radio sets because they couldn’t meet installment payments. There were a couple of thousand families entirely destitute, and most of them were Budd workers, so it was a strain upon the consciences and pocketbooks of all members of the ruling family. Esther was working harder than even during the World War; she was chairman of the finance committee of the town’s soup kitchens and children’s aid, and went about among the women’s clubs and churches telling harrowing stories and making the women weep, so that private charity might not break down entirely.

  That was a crucial issue, as her husband told her. If America was forced to adopt the British system of the dole, it would be the end of individual initiative and private enterprise. Robbie seemed to his son like the anchor-man of a tug-of-war team, his heels dug into the ground, his teeth set, the veins standing out purple in his forehead with the effort he was making to keep his country from moving the wrong way. Robbie had been down to Washington to see President Hoover, his hero and the captain of his team. The Great Engineer was literally besieged; all the forces of disorder and destruction—so he considered them and so did Robbie—were trying to pry him from his stand that the budget must be balanced, the value of the dollar maintained, and business allowed to “come back” in due and regular course.

  The cities and the counties, nearing the end of their resources, were clamoring for Federal aid; the returned soldiers had organized to demand a bonus for the services they had rendered overseas while the business men at home were filling their pocketbooks. So the agitators charged, frothing at the mouth, and they had forced their bill through Congress over the President’s veto. Poor Herbert went on making speeches about the American system of “rugged individualism”; it was heartening to him to have a solid business man, one who had been an oil man like himself, come in and tell him that he was saving civilization.

  Esther, of course, had to believe her husband; she told all the club ladies and church ladies that they were saving civilization, and they put in their dimes or their dollars, and gathered together and knitted sweaters or cooked and served hot soup. But every slump in Wall Street threw more men out of work in Newcastle, and the ladies were at their wit’s end. When Irma wrote a check for five thousand dollars for the children, tears of gratitude ran down the cheeks of Lanny’s stepmother. He had given her great sorrow in years past, but now his credit rating was triple-A. Even his Pinkness had been made respectable by the crimson hues of Bess, concerning whom the mother inquired with deepest anxiety.

  The Newcastle Country Club was giving a costume dance for charity. You paid twenty-five dollars for a ticket, and if you weren’t there you were nobody. Irma and Lanny had to drive to a near-by city, since everybody who knew how to sew in Newcastle was already at work on costumes. But it was all right, for that city likewise had its smokeless factory chimneys. Several women worked day and night, and as a result the visiting pair appeared as a very grand Beatrice and Benedick in red-and-purple velvet with gold linings. A delightful occasion, and when it was over, Irma and Lanny presented the costumes to the country club’s dramatics committee, for Irma said that if you folded them and carried them in the car they’d be full of creases and not fit to use again.

  VI

  Not much fun visiting a factory town in times like these. But it was the Budd town, and in prosperous days everybody had been cordial to the young couple and their friends, even the Jewish ones. So now it was necessary to stay, and give sympathy and a little help, and have receptions held in their honor, and shake hands and chat with innumerable Budds—not even Lanny could remember them all, and had to “bone up” as if it were for a college examination. Also they played golf and tennis at the country club, and swam and went sailing in delightful June weather. The countryside put on a show of wild roses, and all nature told them not to worry too much, that life was going on.

  Also they had to pay a visit to the president of Budd Gunmakers. The old man had told Lanny that he would probably never see him again; but here he was, still holding on, still running the company by telephone. His hands shook so that it was painful to watch; his cheeks hung in flaps so that he seemed to have twice as much yellow skin as was needed to cover his shrinking form; but he was the same grim Puritan, and still questioned Lanny to make sure he had not forgotten his Bible texts. He had heard about Baby Frances, of course, and said he had carried out his promise to put her in his will, though he didn’t know if he really had any property any more, or if Budd stocks would be worth the paper. He pinned the pair down on whether they were going to have another try for a son, and Irma told him they were leaving it to the Lord; this wasn’t so, but Lanny didn’t contradict her, and afterward she said it would have been a shame to worry that old man so close to the grave.

  Everybody knew that he couldn’t hold on much longer, and there was an underground war going on for control of the company; a painful struggle between Robbie and his oldest brother Lawford, that silent, morose man who was in charge of production, and whom Lanny and Irma saw only when they attended the First Congregational Church. The old grandfather had not said whom he wished to have succeed him, and of course nobody liked to ask him. For some time Lawford had been seeking out the directors and presenting his side of the case, which involved telling them of the blunders which Robbie had committed—or what Lawford considered blunders. Naturally, this made it necessary for Robbie to defend himself, and it was an ugly situation. Robbie thought he had the whip hand so far. His father had renewed his contract as European sales representative for another five years, so if Lawford got the presidency they’d have to pay a pretty price to buy Robbie out.

/>   VII

  The business situation in Germany went from bad to worse. Robbie received a letter from Johannes, saying that it looked like the end of everything. Foreign loans were no more, and Germany couldn’t go on without them. Johannes was taking more money out of the country, and asking Robbie’s help in investing it. Robbie told his son in strict confidence—not even Irma was allowed to know—that President Hoover had prepared a declaration of a moratorium on international debts; he was still hesitating about this grave step; would it help or would it cause more alarm? The French, who had not been consulted, would probably be furious.

  The declaration was issued soon after the young couple had returned to Shore Acres, and the French were furious, but the Germans were not much helped. In the middle of July the great Danat Bank failed in Berlin, and there was terror such as Lanny had witnessed in New York. Chancellor Brüning went to Paris to beg for help, and Premier Laval refused it; France was now the strongest European power financially, and was sitting on her heap of gold, lending it only for the arming of Poland and her other eastern allies—which were blackmailing her without mercy. Britain had made the mistake of trying to buttress German finances, and now her own were shaky as a result. “We’re not that sort of fools,” wrote young Denis de Bruyne to Lanny, who replied: “If you let the German Republic fall and you get Hitler, will that help you?” Young Denis did not reply.

  Such were the problems faced by the statesmen while two darlings of fortune were having fun all over the northeastern states. Invitations would come, and they would order their bags packed, step into their car in the morning, drive several hours or perhaps all day, and step out onto an estate in Bar Harbor or Newport, the Berkshires or the Ramapo Hills, the Adirondacks or the Thousand Islands. Wherever it was, there would be a palace—even though it was called a “cottage” or a “camp.” The way you knew a “camp” was that it was built of “slabs,” and you wore sport clothes and didn’t dress for dinner; but the meal would be just as elaborate, for nobody stayed anywhere without sending a staff of servants ahead and having all modern conveniences, including a dependable bootlegger. Radios and phonographs provided music for dancing, and if you didn’t have the right number for games, you called people on the long-distance telephone and they motored a hundred miles or more, and when they arrived they bragged about their speed. Once more Lanny thought of the English poet Clough, and his song attributed to the devil in one of his many incarnations: “How pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho! How pleasant it is to have money!”