Between Two Worlds (The Lanny Budd Novels) Page 7

  Robbie pointed out that a certain Greek trader by the name of Basil Zaharoff had just been made Knight Commander of the Bath in England, a high honor rarely extended to aliens; Zaharoff controlled Vickers, the great munitions industry of Britain, and had saved the Empire at a net profit which people said was a quarter of a billion dollars—though Robbie Budd considered the figure exaggerated. Zaharoff was a friend of Lloyd George, and was reported to be one of his financial backers, which was only natural, considering how much money a politician had to have and how much governmental backing an international financier had to have. Zaharoff’s hatred of the Turks was one passion of his life that he didn’t have to hide.

  “So,” said Robbie, “you can see why British troops have been put ashore in Constantinople, and why French troops had to follow, even though the French government is supporting the Turks behind the scenes. Added to this is the fact that Constantinople until eighteen months ago was a German city, and German agents have been left behind there, to make all the trouble they can for both British and French. Naturally that would include a revolution by young Turkish patriots.”

  Robbie said this much and then stopped, realizing that he was in the presence of an agent whom the Germans had left behind in Paris. Kurt made no comment; of all persons in this room, he had had the best practice in keeping his thoughts to himself. But Lanny could imagine those thoughts without trouble, for only a couple of days earlier Kurt had received a letter from the comptroller-general of Schloss Stubendorf and had read passages to his friend. There, too, the British and French troops had found it necessary to intervene—not in Stubendorf itself, but in districts near by, known as “plebiscitary,” whose inhabitants were going to have the right to decide whether they wished to be German or Polish. A bitter campaign of propaganda was going on, and a fanatical Polish patriot was organizing the young Poles to intimidate the Germans and try to drive them out before the voting took place. At any rate, that was the way Kurt’s father described the events. Lanny remembered the name of Korfanty, which he was to hear frequently during the next year or two.

  IX

  When a fellow hasn’t seen his father for eight or nine months and can’t be sure when he will see him again, he naturally wants to make the most of his opportunity; so Lanny was pleased next morning when Robbie said: “I have some business to attend to that will interest you. Would you like to drive me?”

  “Would I!” said the youth. He knew it was important because Robbie didn’t say anything about it in the presence of the others. What Beauty didn’t know she wouldn’t tell!

  When the car had passed the gates and headed toward the village, Lanny said: “Which way?” The father answered: “To Monty,” and the son got a thrill.

  “One guess!” he laughed. “Zaharoff?”

  “You win,” was the reply.

  As a method of education, Robbie had made it a practice to tell his son about his affairs. Always he would say gravely that nobody else was to know about the matter, and never in his life had the boy let anything slip. He must be especially careful now, the father warned, since one of his pals was a budding journalist and the other a German.

  Robbie revealed that he had taken the munitions king of Europe into his “New England-Arabian Oil Company.” The old Greek devil had learned about it—he learned about everything in his various lines—and had sent for the American and made a proposal which it seemed the part of discretion to accept. “We’re in British mandated territory, and we can’t expect to operate without their protection; so we have to give a slice to some British insiders.”

  “Who sups with the devil must have a long spoon,” quoted the youth, sagely.

  “We have measured the spoon,” smiled the father. “He has a twenty-five percent interest.”

  “But mayn’t he buy up some of the other stockholders?”

  “I have the pledges of our American investors, and I think they’ll stick. More than thirty percent are Budds.”

  Robbie told about the oil business as it was carried on in southern Arabia, a wild and desolate land, the home of fanatical tribesmen, mostly nomads. You paid one chieftan for a concession, but you couldn’t know what day he might be driven out. However, they had made a strike, and the cleanup would be rapid. Robbie portrayed khaki-clad young American engineers and leather-skinned drillers from Texas, sweating on a sun-scorched coast lined with sand and rocks, and living in a stockade with a watch tower and machine guns mounted on the walls. “Would you like to see it?” asked the father, and Lanny said: “Some time when you go.”

  The youth understood quite well that his father was trying to make the oil business sound romantic. Robbie Budd could not give up hope for the response he used to get in years past, when an eager lad had drunk in every word about the selling of machine guns and had leaped at every chance to believe that he was helping. But now, alas, Lanny’s mind had suffered a sea-change; it was full of ideas about oil as a cause of war. When he learned that his father had let Zaharoff in “on the ground floor” so that he might have a British gunboat lying in the little bay near his oil wells, Lanny wasn’t surprised, and didn’t blame anybody, but just preferred to stay at Juan and play the piano.

  “You are happy in what you are doing?” asked the father, later in their drive.

  “Really I am, Robbie. You’ve no idea how many fine books there are in that library. It seems every time I open one I get a new view of life. I hope you don’t think I’m wasting my time.”

  “Not at all. You know what you want, and if you’re getting it, all right.”

  “I want you to understand I’m not going to live on you the rest of my life, Robbie. I’ll find some way to put to use what I’ve learned.”

  “Forget it,” was the reply, “So long as I have money, you’re welcome to a share.” Robbie said it and meant it, but Lanny knew that it involved giving up a long-cherished dream that these two might work together and that the son would take over what the father was building.

  X

  Eighteen months hadn’t been time enough to replace all the motor-vehicles of France, and the Route Nationale had less traffic than they remembered in old days. They sped past famous vistas of hills and valleys, blue sea and rocky shore, and came to Monte Carlo on its high promontory. Zaharoff was still staying at the hotel where a small boy had been able to steal his correspondence; he had a large suite there, suitable to his station as Grand Officer of the Légion d’Honneur and Knight Commander of the Bath. Robbie said he owned the hotel and was a heavy stockholder in the gambling casino at “Monty,” well known to be one of the gold mines of Europe.

  The munitions king looked paler and even more tired than when Lanny had seen him last, in his palace on the Avenue Hoche in Paris. That had been a social occasion, but this was a business one, and the gentle duquesa and her two daughters did not put in an appearance. Robbie had come with a portfolio of documents, to give information and get advice from a one-time fireman of Constantinople who had entrusted a couple of million dollars to his care.

  No manners could have been more polite than Zaharoff’s, no voice more soft and persuasive; yet it seemed to the youth that there was a subtle change in the relationship of the two men: his father was now the subordinate and the other the master. Perhaps this was just because Lanny remembered so vividly the occasions when the Levantine trader had suggested the idea that Vickers might buy out Budd’s, and Robbie had answered suavely that Budd’s might prefer to consider buying out Vickers. Time had passed, and Zaharoff’s judgment had been vindicated; Robbie’s wonderful dream of the world’s greatest munitions industry up the Newcastle River seemed dead forever. Budd’s was having to abandon that field to a great extent, while Vickers—it was having one hell of a time, as Robbie said and as the old man admitted, but Britain and France were going to keep their munitions industries, both under the control of this big-bodied Greek with the hawk’s nose, the white imperial that bobbed while he talked, and the steely-blue eyes that never smiled even when
the lips pretended to.

  Lanny had nothing to do but listen while his father produced documents and explained them. If Lanny ever wanted to drill a couple of dozen oil wells he would know what it cost; also he would understand that Arab sheiks, so romantic on the motion-picture screen, were rapacious and incendiary in their attitude toward petroleum companies. Zaharoff knew that he was dealing with a capable businessman, and what he had to say was put in the form of suggestions. He revealed his distrust of all Moslem peoples, so entirely lacking in modern business sense and in respect for vested capital. With that frankness which had always surprised Robbie Budd’s son, he discussed the attempted revolution in Constantinople, the scene of his youthful struggles. He defended the right of the Greek peoples to recover the lands taken long ago by the Turks, and said that he was insisting that the Allies should put the Turks out of Europe for good and all. Once more Lanny sat behind the scenes of the world puppet-show and saw where the strings led and who pulled them.

  He learned that the strings reached even to that far-off land of liberty which he had been taught to consider his own. The munitions king wanted to know about the prospects of the election of a Republican president of the United States; he knew the names of the prominent aspirants, and listened attentively while Robbie described their personalities and connections. When Zaharoff heard that the Budd clan expected to have a voice in selecting a dependable man, he remarked: “You will be needing funds and may call on me for my share.” Robbie hadn’t expected that, and said so, whereupon the master of Europe replied: “When I invest my money in an American company, I become an American, don’t I?” It was a remark that Lanny would never forget.

  4

  A Young Man’s Fancy

  I

  Robbie sailed for home by way of Marseille, and Lanny motored him to the steamer, so they had a chance for another heart-to-heart talk. Robbie wanted to know what his son was doing about the problem which was the torment of great numbers of men—a woman. Lanny said he was getting along all right; there were so many interesting things in the world, and he was holding to the suggestion of the idealistic young master at St. Thomas’s Academy, that it was wiser to live a celibate life until he had met the woman who was to be his permanent mate. Robbie agreed that that was all right if you could do it. Lanny revealed that he sometimes found himself with shivers running over him at the thought of a woman, but he would look at those who offered themselves openly in public places on the Riviera and decide that he wouldn’t be satisfied with them; then he would come home and play sweet sentimental music on the piano until he had tears in his eyes, and after that he would feel all right. Father and son laughed together.

  Robbie had been discussing this also with Lanny’s mother, and he talked a little about her attitude. To Beauty social life now presented itself as a conspiracy of mothers and daughters to trap her too eligible darling. Everywhere he went were simpering misses making eyes at him, and hawk-eyed, hawk-faced old women watching from the sidelines. Beauty knew, for she had heard them plotting against other victims. Budding females were trained for the marriage market, they were dressed for it, they learned to walk and talk and dance and flirt for it. In the presence of their highly developed arts the unhappy male creature was as helpless as a moth in a candle-flame. “You’re going to have a hard time finding one who will please Beauty,” said Robbie, with a smile; “but all the same, don’t fail to have her advice, because that’s her department.”

  “What I want,” said Lanny, “is to learn something worth while, and meet some woman who is interested in the same things.”

  “It can happen,” said Robbie. “But most of the time what the woman is thinking about is making you think she’s interested. And if you’re fooled it can play the devil with your life.”

  “I know,” said the youth; “I’ve been keeping my eyes open.” He didn’t feel as young as his years.

  “I don’t mean for you to worry,” added Robbie. “When the time comes, ask yourself what you really want and if you’re getting it.”

  There the matter rested. Lanny saw his father on board the steamer, and gave him messages for the many Budds, and hugged him hard, and then stood on the quay and watched the steamer warped out into the harbor. Waving to the receding figure on the deck he thought: What a wonderful world, what a blessed state, when one can see one’s father off on a comfortable sea-hotel, and know that neither in the Mediterranean nor in the outside ocean will there be any submarines watching for a chance to send it to the bottom!

  II

  Three months had passed since Beauty and Kurt had returned from Spain, and nobody had manifested the least suspicion of or hostility toward a Swiss music-teacher; so gradually peace settled in the woman’s heart, and there began the burgeoning of new impulses toward her fellow-creatures. What was the use of being beautiful unless once in a while you allowed others to enjoy the sight? What was the use of having a handsome, eager, and eligible son if you kept him shut up in a garden? Afraid of fire as Beauty was, it appeared that she had to play with it.

  The Duchesse de Meuse-Montigny was giving a very grand garden-party; and since Beauty’s costumes were all hopelessly out of date she went in to Nice and had M. Claire fit her with something worthy of the occasion. Lanny was supplied with a light worsted suit of that spring’s cut. Kurt couldn’t go to parties, of course, and didn’t want to—he was working on a Spanish suite for strings. So there was Lanny on a smooth green lawn with a Japanese peach tree for a background, and all around him predatory creatures flaunting costumes bright with freshly discovered hydrocarbon dyes, and cheeks and hair with the same; smiling coyly or wantonly, and doing their best to say something original and brilliant to please a youth reputed aloof and unattainable. It was just after a devastating war, when young males were scarce and young females ravenous. Inside the white marble palace a colored band was thumping, and Lanny would take the would-be brides in his arms one by one, sampling their charms symbolically, and Beauty would watch out of the corner of her eye and ask questions about the one in pink organdy or the one in white tulle with yellow shoulder-bows, and seldom be satisfied with what she learned.

  What did she expect? Well, obviously, any woman who aspired to marry Lanny Budd had to be beautiful. How could he endure to have her about the house otherwise? She had to be rich—not just comfortably, but something super and solid, no fly-by-night fortune based on speculation. There were heiresses all over the place, and why not cultivate them? Lanny had told Beauty of Tennyson’s Northern Farmer, and she endorsed his formula: “Doänt thou marry fur munny, but goä wheer munny is!” Also, it would be safer if the chosen one belonged to an established family, and could prove it by Debrett. Finally, she would have to be clever, almost a bluestocking, otherwise how could she keep from boring Lanny? Even his own mother couldn’t do that!

  To find all this in one package was no easy matter; Beauty had been to many social affairs, and had inspected the best that Paris and London and the Riviera had to offer, but she was still looking. Her friend Emily was in the conspiracy, and at this garden-party the pair inspected new candidates and discussed them sotto voce. The daughter of the California shipping magnate was overgrown and flavorless, like the fruit of her native state. The French girl was real Saint-Germain, but looked anemic; moreover, the family estate was mortgaged. The one whose father was a cabinet minister used her eyes like a screen actress and, anyhow, French politicians were mostly riffraff. The English girl doubtless had more sense and better breeding than any of them, but look at that gawky figure! The inevitable Russian princess, escaped from the Bolsheviks—her title sounded so impressive, but it meant merely a country squire’s daughter in Russia, and even if she had once been rich she probably had nothing now except the jewels she had been able to hide in her garters or the heels of her shoes. Also, she might be promiscuous.

  Such were a mother’s thoughts at a garden-party; but meanwhile Lanny was having a very good time. He loved to dance, and if delicately gowned
and perfumed young things were available for the purpose, he would take them in his arms, and carry home memories which would last him many a day. He would try to set these thrills to music like Kurt, or put them into verses like Rick, and when he wasn’t satisfied with his own attempts, he would turn to the masters. A thé dansant, a flower show, or a dinner dance would lend wings to the music of Chopin and illuminate the pages of Shelley. The sunlight clasped the earth and the moonbeams kissed the sea, and all these kissings were worth something to Lanny, even though they kissed not him.

  III

  A large white yacht slid into the harbor of Cannes. Its flag showed that the owner was aboard, and presently it showed that he was not. His name was Jeremiah Wagstaffe and he was a Philadelphia banker who had been involved in the scandal with Emily’s husband, but since he had operated through dummies, he hadn’t had to move to France. His fortune was of the third generation, and in America you can build a tremendous tower of pride in that time. Mr. Wagstaffe’s tower was his wife, who held herself like a drill sergeant and looked at the rest of mankind through a lorgnette.

  They were just completing a Mediterranean cruise, and with them was their niece, Miss Nellie Wagstaffe. She was a year older than Lanny, which wasn’t so good, but she was an orphan and had a large fortune in her own right. She had pale blue eyes and lovely white skin, a quiet manner, a mild disposition—just the thing that a rather talkative and confident young man might prefer. She didn’t carry her money with her and sit on top of it as her aunt did. Emily Chattersworth phoned over to Bienvenu and told Beauty that these old friends were to be at Sept Chênes for lunch, and that Lanny should come alone, since romance blossoms better in the absence of mothers. Lanny guessed what it was about—it had happened before.