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34
Young Lochinvar
I
THE tall and stately Mrs. Emily Chattersworth was going shopping, and called at her friend Beauty's hotel rather early in the morning. "Such a strange thing has happened, my dear," said she. "Do you remember that young Swiss musician, M. Dalcroze?"
"Yes, very well," said Beauty, catching her breath.
"I had a visit last night from two officials of the Sыretй. It seems that they are looking for him."
"What in the world for, Emily?"
"They wouldn't tell me directly, but I could guess from the questions they asked. They think he's a German agent."
"Oh, my God!" exclaimed Beauty. Almost impossible to conceal the surge of her emotion. "How horrible, Emily!"
"Can you imagine it? He seemed to me such a refined and gentle person."
"What did they ask you, Emily?"
"Everything, to the remotest detail. They wanted to know how I met him and I gave them the letter he had written me. They wanted a description of him, height and weight and so on, which it's so difficult to remember. They wanted a list of the persons he had been introduced to at my home; they were much disturbed because I couldn't remember them all. You know how many persons I entertain - and I don't keep records."
"Did you give them my name?" asked Beauty, quickly.
"I'm happy to say I realized in time how that might point the ringer at the Crillon."
"Oh, thank you, Emily - thank you! Lanny's whole future might depend on it!" Beauty got herself together, and then rattled on: "Such an incredible idea, Emily! Do you really suppose it can be true?" A woman doesn't spend many years in fashionable society without learning how to conceal her emotions, or at any rate to give them a turn in a new direction.
"I don't know what to think, Beauty. What could a German be trying to do now? Blow up the Peace Conference with a bomb?"
"Didn't you tell me that M. Dalcroze talked a great deal about the evils of the blockade?"
"Yes; but it's no crime to do that, is it?"
"It would be for a German, I suppose. The French would probably shoot him for it."
"Oh, how sick I am of this business of killing people! I hear there were several hundred killed and wounded in those May Day riots. The papers don't give us the truth about anything any more!" The kind Mrs. Emily, whose hair had turned snow-white under the stress of war, went on to philosophize about the psychology of the French. They were suffering from shellshock. It was to be hoped that when this treaty was signed they would settle down and become their normal selves. "If they have the League of Nations to protect them - and surely it can't be possible that the American Congress will reject such a great and beneficent plan!"
Beauty controlled her trembling and added a few reflections, derived at second hand from Lanny's professors. After a decent interval she said: "You haven't any idea what's become of that young man?"
"Not a word from him since he left my house that night. I thought it very strange."
"I'll ask Lanny about him," suggested the mother. "He knows many musical people, and might find him. Do you suppose he's related to Jaques-Dalcroze?"
"I asked him that. He told me no."
"Well, I'll see if Lanny can find him."
"But why, Beauty? Isn't it better not to know, under the circumstances?"
"Then you wouldn't want to give him up?" inquired the devious one.
"Surely not - unless I knew he had committed some serious crime. The war is over, so far as I am concerned, and I've not the least interest in getting anybody shot. Let the Sыretй find him if they can."
"Are you satisfied that they believed your story, Emily?"
"It hadn't occurred to me that they wouldn't," was the great lady's reply. She was a most dignified person, and did not have to assume this role. "Apparently they knew all about me, and they talked as if they were gentlemen. They are high officials, I am sure."
"Of course they'd find out how to approach you, Emily. But they probably don't tell anybody all they know, and they might take it for granted that you wouldn't either."
"What on earth are you driving at, Beauty?"
"Well, Lanny keeps telling me how the French are always calling the Crillon staff 'pro-German'; and if there should be German agents in Paris trying to make propaganda on behalf of lifting the blockade, wouldn't it please the French to be able to tie them up with us?"
"What a witch you are!" exclaimed her friend. "You look so innocent and trusting and then you talk like a Sherlock Holmes!"
"Well, Lanny told me the other day that since I have no money I have to develop brains."
"I wonder what Lanny is thinking about me!" reflected the salonniиre; and in their laughter Lanny's mother found a chance to hide the nervous tension under which she was laboring.
II
Beauty declined to have lunch with her friend, saying that she wasn't feeling well and wouldn't dress. As soon as the visitor had departed, she called the Crillon, and said: "Come at once, Lanny. Tell the professor your mother is ill."
The youth had no trouble in guessing what that meant. He made the necessary excuses and reached the hotel as quickly as a taxi could bring him. He found his mother weeping uncontrolledly, and he guessed the worst, and was both relieved and puzzled when he learned that the Sыretй hadn't yet got hold of Kurt, so far as Beauty knew. "Certainly they didn't have him last night," he argued. "And he may be out of the country after all."
"I just know he isn't, Lanny! Something tells me!" Beauty sobbed on; her son hadn't seen her in such a state of distress since the days when she was struggling with Marcel, first to keep him alive, and then to keep him from plunging back into the furnace of war.
Suddenly she looked up, and the youth saw a frightened look in her eyes. "Lanny, I must tell you the truth! You must manage to forgive me!"
"What do you mean, Beauty?"
"Kurt and I are lovers."
Those were the most startling words that Lanny Budd had heard spoken up to that moment of his life. His jaw fell, and all he could think of to say was: "For God's sake!"
"I know you'll be shocked," the mother rushed on. "But I've been so lonely, so distraite since Marcel died. I've tried to tell myself that my baby was enough, but it isn't so, Lanny. I'm just not made to live alone."
"I know, Beauty "
"And Kurt is in the same state. He's lost his wife and baby, he's lost his war, and his home - the Poles are going to have it, and he says he'll never go back to be ruled by them. Don't you see how it is with us?"
"Yes, dear, of course "
"And did you think that Kurt and I could be shut up here in three rooms, and not talk about our hearts, or think about consoling each other?"
"No, I must admit - "
"Oh, Lanny, you were such a darling about Marcel - now you must manage to be it again! Kurt is the best friend you have, or he will be if you'll let him. I know what you think - everybody will say it - that I'm old enough to be his mother; but you've always said that Kurt was older than his years, and you know that I'm much too young for mine. Kurt is twenty-two, and I'm only just thirty-seven - that's the honest truth, dear, I don't have to fib about it."
Lanny couldn't keep from laughing, seeing this good sou! desperately defending herself against all the gossips she had ever known. And taking a year or so from her own age and adding it to Kurt's!
"It's all right, dear. I was a little taken aback at first."
"You don't have to feel that you've lost either your mother or your friend, Lanny. We will both be to you just what we were before, if you will forgive us and let us."
"Yes, Beauty, of course."
"You mustn't think that Kurt seduced me, Lanny!"
The youth discovered himself laughing even more heartily. "Bless your dear heart! I'd be a lot more apt to think that you seduced Kurt!"
"Don't make fun of me, Lanny - it's deadly serious to both of us. You must understand what a gap there's been in my life ever since your father left me - or since I made him leave me. You'll never know what it cost me."
"I've tried to guess it many times," said the youth, and put his arm about her. "Cheer up, old dear, it's perfectly all right. Come to think of it, it's a brilliant idea, and I'm ashamed of my stupidity that I didn't think of it. Are you two going to marry?"
"Oh, that would be ridiculous, Lanny! What would people say? I'd be robbing the cradle!"
"Does Kurt want to marry you?"
"He thinks it's a matter of honor. He thinks you'll expect it. But tell him that's out of the question. Some day soon I'll be an old woman, and then I'd be ashamed of myself, to be a drag on his life. But I can make him happy now, Lanny. He's been coming here nearly every day, and we've both been embarrassed to tell you."
"Well, I don't think this was a very good time for you to turn into a prude," said the youth, severely. "But anyhow, that's done, and the question is how we're going to get you two sinners out of the country."
III
Beauty was like a person in a nightmare in which one is possessed by an agonizing sense of helplessness. She had no way to reach Kurt; he had given no address; he was under pledge, so he told her. He would come again - but when? And would he find police agents waiting for him in the hotel? Lanny must go downstairs and see if any suspicious-looking men were sitting in the lobby. Of course there are often men sitting in hotel lobbies, and how are you to say whether they look suspicious? Are police agents chosen because they look like police agents, or because they don't?
Beauty had to have help; and who was there but her son? She was terrified at the thought of involving him. Not on account of the Crillon - she didn't care a sou for them, she said, let them look out for themselves! But if the police were to take Lanny with Kurt? If he were to be punished for her guilty love - so she persisted in regarding it, being a woman who had been brought up respectably, a preacher's daughter, knowing the better even while she followed the worse!
Somebody must stay in the room, to be there when Kurt came, to warn him and hide him until night. Then they must get him out of Paris, and the safest way seemed to be by car. Beauty would go out and buy one, hers having been commandeered in the spring of the previous year. She supposed it would now be possible to get one if you had the price. Gasoline was still rationed, but that too could be arranged with money. She had only a little in the bank, she always did; but Lanny had a supply, and could draw on his father's account in an emergency. He offered to go out and attend to these matters; but the mother's terror took a leap - the police might trace all this, and Lanny would be guilty of helping a spy! No, let him wait here; she would run the errands.
Where would they go, he asked, and when she didn't know, he suggested Spain. If you went to Switzerland you were traveling toward Germany, and the authorities would be on the alert; but Spain was a neutral country, a Latin country, and a natural place for a rich American lady to be motoring with a lover. Or had it better be a chauffeur? They discussed the problem. A lover would appeal to Latin gallantry, but probably a chauffeur in uniform would be passed by the guard at the border with fewer questions.
Beauty had no passport, that evil device having been invented during the war, and she hadn't been out of France all that time. She would have to apply for one, and have a little picture made. She decided she would go back to the name of Budd, a powerful name, and foreign, more suitable to a tourist. Kurt doubtless had a passport, forged or genuine; if it was under the name of Dalcroze, it would have to be changed. No use to discuss that until he came.
In the meantime Beauty's heart would be in her mouth every moment. Oh, why, why did the life of men have to be an affair of danger, of obsessing and incessant terror?
Lanny promised to wait in the room, and positively not to leave it unless the hotel burned down. If a German officer were to arrive, what should be done with him? Hide him in the boudoir? Or send him out to walk in the parks? Lanny argued for the former. What chance was there of the Sыretй connecting Kurt with them? But Beauty was ready with an answer. Emily had named the other guests at that musicale. The agents would interview them, and ask the same questions they had asked Emily; surely some of them would remember Beauty! Perhaps already the police had her name and were on the way to question her! If her son were in the room, that would be all right; but Kurt must go out into the Pare Monceau, take a book, sit on a bench, and look like a poet; watch the rich children playing, and flirt with the bonnes like a Frenchman. "All right, all right," said Lanny.
IV
He wrote his mother a check, and while she dressed they discussed makes of cars, probable prices, and routes to Spain; also the possibilities of Kurt's evading the police or soldiers at the border, by paying a guide and climbing through the mountain passes. It would be the Basque country, which Beauty had traveled in happier days; but no day ever so happy as that one, if she lived to see it, when she and her new lover would be free in Spain. Again Lanny remembered his anthology. Young Lochinvar had come out of the east this time, and the steeds that would follow were swifter than any hero of Sir Walter Scott could ever have dreamed: sixty miles per hour on the roads and a hundred and fifty through the air-to say nothing of messages that traveled round the earth in the seventh part of a second.
Beauty telephoned; she was making progress; was there any news? Lanny said no, and she hung up. Another hour, and she tried again; more progress, but still no news. So it went through the longest of days. She came back late and reported she had a car safely stored in a garage. All the formalities had been attended to; she had paid, five francs here, ten francs there, and petty functionaries had hastened to oblige her. She had a passport in the name of Mabel Budd. That had been arranged through an influential friend to whom she had explained that she didn't want to be a widow any more; he had smiled, and offered to relieve her of the handicap forever. Many matters could be arranged in France if you were a beautiful woman and able to have clothes which did you justice.
She had had the passport visaed for Spain, and had bought a map. With her to the hotel came a man carrying a large package containing a uniform for a tall chauffeur. They stowed it under the bed, where perhaps the Sыretй Gйnйrale would overlook it. That completed everything that Beauty and her son could think of; all that was needed now was a chauffeur to put inside the uniform.
Lanny, having done his part, must return to the Crillon and forget this dangerous business. If anyone questioned him, he was to say that he knew nothing about it whatever. The mother sat at the escritoire and wrote a note on hotel stationery: "Dear Lanny: I have gone away on a short trip; will wire you soon. Have a chance to sell some of Marcel's paintings. Adieu." That would be his alibi in case he should be questioned. When she got into Spain, she would wire him. If she or Kurt got into trouble, he must go to Emily Chattersworth and make a confession of the whole affair and beg for her help with the French authorities. Beauty kissed him many times, and told him he was a darling - no news to him.
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