X
Lanny hadn’t taken Rosemary’s advice, and neither had she; they had fallen too much in love, and would suffer, in spite of all resolves. There was nothing he could do about it; she preferred her social position, and the future of her children in the Empire, to what she got from him, and so she had taken herself out of his life. He didn’t want to make it harder for her, so he telegraphed that he understood her position and wished her and Bertie all good luck in their new career. Everything would be done to help the governess and children get off promptly, and Beauty and Marceline joined in sending regards. A message that could do no harm in the hands of any blackmailer.
Man’s extremity being God’s opportunity, this might have been a time for Lanny to turn to his mother and her new husband, who was now available at all hours. But it happened that Lanny had just been reading an article about Chopin, who had been proud and passionate, and had been spurned in love and brought to despair. Lanny went down to his studio and played all the eighteen Chopin nocturnes, one after another, and imagined that Rosemary was in the room and sorrowing with him. He played other Chopin pieces, not forgetting the very somber funeral march. In the course of days and nights he played ballades and polonaises and mazurkas, fiery and tempestuous, yet freighted with a burden of bitter pain; he played etudes which were studies in emotionality even more than in piano technique. Before he got through he had played some two hundred compositions and got a fine lot of exercise, a workout both physical and spiritual. After it he was ready for some new kind of life.
There came a telephone call from a patient, hard-working young Socialist Raoul Palma, who was in need of help, and Lanny decided on the spur of the moment that this was the fellow who understood what was wrong with the world and what to do about it. While Lanny had been playing around, tied to the apron-strings of a shining lady of fashion, his friends the workers had been having a devil’s own time with the rising cost of living, wages lagging behind, and no certainty and very little hope of their lives. Lanny decided that he had been an idler, a parasite, deserving the worst that any rabid agitator could charge against him. To the young Spaniard’s delight he announced that he was ready to teach a class in the night school, and one in the Sunday school. He would tell the workers of the Riviera and their children about the great war which was already growing dim in the world’s memory; he would try to explain to them the forces which had caused it, and what they could do by their collective efforts to prevent another such calamity from breaking upon their lives.
Naturally, this interfered somewhat with Beauty Budd’s honeymoon and her initiation into the contemplative life. She was greatly upset about it, but knew better than to make a frontal assault upon her son. In his distrait state of mind he might go off to Paris and get mixed up with Jesse and his dreadful crowd—for Beauty had managed to get into her head the distinction between Red and Pink, and which was worse. It was just before Christmas, and she wrote to Nina, begging her and Rick to come immediately after New Year’s, so that Lanny might have somebody to tell his troubles to. Also she wrote to Emily, telling her what had happened, and asking about her plans. Now was the time to put an end to this business of Lanny’s living with other men’s wives and raising other men’s children! Out of the kindness of her heart Emily had forgiven the playboy’s rejection of her last effort; she wrote that she was coming, and that Irma Barnes also was coming, and what would Beauty say to her as a possible daughter-in-law?
What Beauty would say would have taken a whole mail-pouch to carry it. She started saying it viva voce, first to Sophie and then to Margy, who arrived to occupy the “cottage” as soon as Rosemary’s children had been sent to England. These three knew that they had to move with caution, owing to Lanny’s peculiar Pink attitude; the moment he heard that anyone had a great deal of money he began finding fault with that person and shying away from him or her. So there must not be the faintest hint that anybody was thinking that he might fall in love with Irma Barnes, or even that he might meet her; he must just begin hearing about her charms, about the sensation she had made in New York, about her interest in intellectual things—in short, everything except that she was the legally established possessor of twenty-three million dollars in her own right!
XI
J. Paramount Barnes had been a public utilities magnate, or, as they were now being called, a “tycoon,” and had had a dizzying career in the “pyramiding” of companies. Robbie had explained this process to his son in his half-cynical, half-respectful way. There were men who controlled the investing of insurance company funds, and of industrial concerns which kept hundreds of millions of dollars in “reserves.” Those who handled such funds were, of course, favorites of the big banks, and could borrow unlimited amounts of money which nowadays came pouring into Wall Street from all the rest of the banks of the United States. Using such borrowing power, these men would get options upon the stocks of utility concerns controlling the light and power of cities and states, and would organize a great “holding company” to own these enterprises. The top concern would be controlled by three “voting shares,” having a par value of one dollar each; which meant that the colossal enterprise would rest permanently in the capable hands of J. Paramount Barnes, his personal secretary, and one of his office clerks. The concern would proceed to issue several hundred million dollars in common shares, give part of them to Mr. J. Paramount Barnes for his services, and sell the rest to the public. In their present mood millions of the plain people all over the country would rush to buy the shares of any concern about which they read in the papers, and they would start bidding up the price on the exchange so that everybody would be rich and continuing to grow richer every day.
Such was the Wall Street game, with which Robbie had been in conflict over a long period of years. Robbie himself was really producing things, and when he issued stock it represented real value in equipment, land, and so on; he sold the shares to people in Newcastle and elsewhere who trusted his name, and when the’ Wall Street slickers came and wanted to work their rackets with his company, Robbie would tell them to go to the devil. What they would do was to go to the stockholders and buy some of them out, and then the crooks would show up at a stockholders’ meeting of the company and try to get control. They would prepare an elaborate campaign, hiring shrewd lawyers and publicity men, and framing a set of false charges to bewilder and confuse investors, most of whom didn’t know about the business and were ready to run and sell their shares at the least rumor of something wrong.
J. Paramount Barnes had begun life as a broker’s messenger boy, and had learned all the tricks and invented many new ones. He had organized a utilities holding company, and had been so successful that he had repeated the stunt again and again, until he had a holding company for holding companies, a colossal pyramid with himself sitting on the top, and so many subsidiaries and investment trusts and stock-issuing and dividend-receiving devices that it was to be doubted if any human brain knew the whole of that tangle of complications.
And then one day J. Paramount Barnes suffered a heart attack and dropped dead in his office. It was discovered that he had left a comfortable income to his wife, a small one to his son who lived in Hawaii and was rumored to be “no good,” and had left the bulk of his fortune in trust for his only daughter Irma. How much it amounted to made a guessing contest for the newspapers of the metropolis; the conservative ones said fifty million dollars and the yellow ones said two hundred million or more. It transpired that the “tycoon” had got rid of his holdings in his own companies and had put most of his money into bank stocks and other gilt-edged securities. After the lawyers had been paid, and the commissions, and the state and federal inheritance taxes, and the back income taxes which were in dispute with the government, Irma Barnes, just about to emerge from finishing-school, had a net fortune of twenty-three millions, and, at the rate which the investments were earning, would have something over two million dollars to spend or invest each year.
This favori
te of fortune was good to look at, and had been taught how to dress and to walk and to talk; so she became a headliner in the newspapers, and what the gossip columnists called “the toast of New York.” It meant that a train of suitors attended her; whenever she entered a restaurant everybody turned to stare at her, in the night clubs the spotlight was turned upon her and the band played a song which had been composed in her honor. Pictures made her features familiar to the great public, and what she wore set the styles for shop-girls as well as debutantes from Portland, Maine, to Portland, Oregon.
And now Irma Barnes was coming to spend the winter on the Riviera! Forthwith the promotion agencies of half a dozen towns began cabling to New York and pulling wires to get her. Her social secretary, her publicity man, her business manager were besieged by representatives of noblemen who had palaces to rent, of hotels which wished to lodge her in the royal suite, of automobile manufacturers offering to put a fleet of cars at her disposal. The French newspapers took up her story, so typically American, and the smart people of the Coast of Pleasure speculated about her for hours on end.
XII
In her letter Emily Chattersworth explained, among other details, that the maternal grandmother of this matrimonial prize had belonged to one of the old New York families, and had been at school with Emily; she had been a guest at Les Forêts on various occasions. So now it had been arranged that Irma was to visit Sept Chênes for a week or two, until she had a chance to look about and judge where and how she wished to live. If during that period a fastidious young art expert saw fit to call and pay his respects, he would have the inside track over the other suitors. If his sense of dignity forbade him to do so, perhaps he might condescend to be at home when Emily brought the young lady to call upon his mother.
Having read all this more than once, Beauty retired to her boudoir to pray, in the fashion which her new husband had taught her. “O Lord, grant that Irma Barnes may fall in love with Lanny!” But then a sudden fear smote her, a doubt whether this might be considered a proper subject for a petition to the Most High; whether, in fact, the desire might not be an unworthy one, what Mr. Dingle had taught her to think of as “worldly.” She began to argue, saying: “No, no, God! I want Lanny to have children! I want him to have the happiness of true love, as you have given it to me!”
“Couldn’t he just as well marry a poor girl?” inquired the voice inside.
Bewilderment seized the soul of the lovely blond mother. Was that really the voice of God, or was it just her own frail mortality, or the notions which Lanny had helped to fix in her head? She cried: “Please God, don’t be unreasonable! This girl is all right, and the fact that she has money surely ought not to bar her from having a good husband such as Lanny would make. Think what sort of man she might get here on the Riviera! Young as she is, and ignorant of the world!”
The voice said: “My daughter, it is the money you are thinking about, not the girl.”
So then Beauty became rebellious—just as had happened in the case of Lucifer, aeons ago. She exclaimed: “My God, that is ridiculous! I never agreed to give up everything. If Lanny has money, he can help people in all sorts of ways, and Lanny would know how to do it much better than any of these idlers.”
The voice replied, sternly: “Be careful, Mrs. Dingle!” It had taken to calling her that when it wanted to humiliate her. Now the tears came into her eyes, and she was in a state of confusion. The “Way of Perfection” was far less simple for a worldling like Beauty Budd than it had been for the naturally pure St. Theresa in medieval Spain.
Beauty felt the need of counsel, but was determined not to take the problem to her husband. Was she afraid of what he might tell her? After all, he had had little experience in the grand monde, and one might be justified in distrusting his judgment. Beauty knew that, whatever she did, he would not interfere, for he never tried to impose himself, even morally; he was content to go on living his inner life, trusting that it would have its effect upon others in time. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven!
32
In That Fierce Light
I
Rick and Nina showed up in due course, very curious to see what sort of man it was who had managed to crash the gates of Beauty’s heart. Lanny in his letters had put the best possible face upon the affair, and Rick and Nina, as guests, would do the same. In the privacy of their chamber Rick said there was one thing you could say for Mr. Dingle, he didn’t try to force his ideas upon you; too bad the same couldn’t be said for his wife! It was going to be a bit trying, but of course they would have to be polite. Nina said she hoped none of the children would fall sick, because Beauty was obviously hoping for a chance for Mr. Dingle to display his powers.
The young couple told Lanny the details of the Rosemary affair, and Nina delivered the messages which had been entrusted to her. Poor Bertie had got himself into a frightful mess; he had paid the blackmailer a good part of the money he had got out of his family art treasures. He wasn’t a bad fellow, but weak, and a woman could twist him around her finger. An odd aspect of life in the diplomatic service—the head of the Foreign Office had come to the manor and had put it up to Rosemary: a scandal in London could be pardoned, but the prestige of the Empire couldn’t stand one abroad, therefore Bertie’s future depended upon his wife’s willingness to go with him and stick by him. It amounted to getting married all over again; “forsaking all others, cleave to him only.” But this time it wasn’t a formula that you said in church, it was a gentleman’s agreement, and you had to mean it!
Rick was now thirty-one, and was recognized as one of the younger writers with a future. He was working on a new book, not just a compilation of articles, but a carefully thought-out discussion of the world as it stood at the beginning of the year 1929. It was his thesis that the improvement of communications, especially the airplane, had reduced the size of the world so that there was no longer room for separate nations with their separate sovereignties. When airplanes loaded with high explosives could appear over the capital of a nation without warning, that nation wasn’t safe; since it had to arm against the same sort of attack, the other nations were no safer. Agreements such as the Kellogg pact, which had just been signed with a great fanfare, meant nothing; each nation was an agency for its big-scale businessmen, competing for markets and resources, and the coming of war didn’t depend upon signatures and gold seals on pieces of vellum, it depended upon some dissatisfied group of exploiters wanting more than they had, and seeing a chance to strike and get it.
Lanny had decided that Rick was the sanest thinker he knew, and he longed for the completion of this book so that he might give copies to various persons with whom he had arguments. Lanny couldn’t pretend to foresee what was coming, but he had got fixed in his mind the proposition that there would never be peace in the world so long as the sources of wealth were left to be scrambled for and seized by the biggest and strongest. Lanny’s young life had been dominated by one great war, and now he saw another in preparation, and who was going to stop it? Surely not those futile old gentlemen whom he had followed about Europe and watched in action at one conference after another. Ten years had passed, and they hadn’t yet succeeded in fixing the amount of German reparations!
Young people in each nation were making up their minds that the only force in modern society that might avert another catastrophe was the exploited workers, organizing themselves for resistance to the ever-increasing pressure of capitalist greed. Rick was calling for an international government based on a Socialist economic system. That had to come, he insisted, and the only question was how was it to come? There were only two ways; revolution on the Russian model, or action by democratic consent to abolish autocracy from industry, as the British and Americans had long ago abolished it from their political affairs. The trouble was that you put off gradual changes until there was a crisis, and then it was too late. Rick said it was later now than anybody realized.
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br /> The two young men would discuss those questions in abstract, theoretical terms, and then Lanny would go to his class in the workers’ school and be confronted with them in concrete, personal terms: Socialists versus Communists! There was hardly a question of strategy or tactics in the workers’ struggle that didn’t end up in that. If you urged obedience to law, the Communists would point out the lawlessness of the capitalists. If you talked about acquiring possession of the means of production by democratic methods, the Communists would say: “By electing politicians?” They would point to the career of one statesman after another; Briand, for example, had been chosen as a Socialist, and after he got power the railway workers struck, and he mobilized the troops and made them run the railways. Now he was a “radical,” French style, which meant that he signed peace pacts, but took no step to interfere with the stranglehold of big business and finance on the people’s means of life.
II
Emily Chattersworth came and opened Sept Chênes, and naturally one of the first things she wanted to do was to come over and inspect Beauty Budd’s newest acquisition. Beauty was a friend, but also she was a phenomenon of nature, and the idea of her having got religion was nearly as entertaining as her having been shut up in a hotel suite with a German secret agent. Emily had done considerable reading in her life, and she knew that the idea of the immanence of God hadn’t been invented in the state of Iowa; but it was undoubtedly “new thought” so far as Beauty was concerned, and what had it done to her? Lanny, who had learned to talk to this old friend with frankness, assured her that she would be disappointed in the result; like many other kinds of respectability, it was rather humdrum.
Between Two Worlds Page 72
