House of All Nations (3 page)

‘Mrs. Weyman—good friend,' said Léon, ‘from Hollywood.'

Marianne took a fancy to Mrs. Weyman while Léon was introducing her. She appeared to be as clever as Marianne herself; physically she was her antithesis.

Léon left. In about a quarter of an hour, he joined them at the table, with a wink at Méline and a smile as big as an oyster in each eye. His mind was elsewhere. He cheerfully threw an observation into the conversation, ‘Alfonso XIII will fly if he loses, eh? It would be pretty cowardly, eh? You expect a man with Alfonso's salary to show more manhood. But he won't. They sent a bull into the arena and found it was a cow.' He laughed, looked round the table, blooming and nodding, like a great peony.

Raccamond was a little more talkative than usual, from the wine and the presence of ‘personalities' and money. ‘When the bull doesn't fight, they say, Go home, cow!' He laughed under his breath. ‘You know,' he looked at the American, ‘that is the worst thing you can say to a bull.' His voice became confidential, almost as if they talked about sexual matters. ‘And the worst thing you can say to a man is to call him a
femmelette
, puny woman: did you know that?'

The restaurant manager came near at this moment and, seeing his client Aristide fat, prosperous, and conversational, he bowed his old head to him, ‘How do you like the sole? Is it good today? I believe so.' Aristide resented this familiarity, was furious at being interrupted in this rare imaginative vein, and scolded, without looking up, ‘Wait till I've tasted it: then perhaps I'll have something to say.' The manager moved away with bitterness. Méline threw him a posy of smiles on the way.

Léon was intensely impatient, hardly listening even to what Mrs. Weyman had to say. His ideas had reached a certain heat so that sitting down, eating, thinking, reading the menu, even the appearance of light streaming on palms, even the sound of water splashing and the orchestra playing, were impediments to his will. He wanted to be gesticulating, calling attention to himself in a very grand manner. When they made remarks to him, he drew them into his eyes thickly, with a somber look; his eyes snapped away from them, he drew himself up and looked at them all from under his monumental lids as if they were enemies who would insult him in another minute: but he was ready for them.

‘Have you been to the zoo in London?' said Mrs. Weyman in passing.

‘Eh, eh? Animals? What is there in animals? Do you like animals?' he said desperately to Aristide, thrusting his Adam's apple across his plate. Animals were, God knew, quite another thing from himself and his affairs. ‘No animals!' He looked round and perceived the waiter serving fish at a side table. He snapped his fingers, ‘Hey, cigars!' He stuck a large cigar in his mouth and rolled his head around the restaurant, Jovelike. ‘Hey,
allumettes
!' he called. The waiter, ruffled, took no notice. ‘Hey, hey' (snapping his fingers) ‘—I don't think much of this restaurant,' said Léon to Méline. ‘Not as good as the Criterium in Antwerp and this—in Paris—not as good as the—you know, you know the—' He snapped his fingers at Aristide. Aristide cravenly replied, ‘Rôtisserie Ardennaise in Brussels?'

‘No, no Ardennaise! No!' He looked furiously at Aristide as if he had committed the most stupid mistake. ‘No—hey! Hey!
Allumettes
!'

‘Rocher de Cancale,' said Méline, flirting with Mrs. Weyman the while.

Léon noted this and muted his pipe for a moment. ‘That's it: Rocher de Cancale: not so good! Much better! No taste!' He forgot his manners and looked round impatiently.

Marianne said sagely, ‘I think they have finer flavors here.'

Léon thundered, ‘No!
Allumettes
!' The head waiter was now quite near, side on, endeavoring to make up his mind to obey, trying to hide his chagrin.

Méline brought the scene to an end by saying sweetly to the waiter, ‘Would you kindly bring some matches for Mr. Léon?'

Léon rumbled, ‘Very bad service here—no good, like the other—bad—' When the cigar began to run through his veins, he melted somewhat and began to take notice of Mrs. Weyman, leaving Marianne to her own devices. He patted Mrs. Weyman's silky arm and issued an ukase: ‘Paul, Aristide, Paul—Marianne, what do you
say? Tonight we'll make whoopee.' He blushed and smiled like a small
boy, ‘I mean fun, by that.' He patted Mrs. Weyman's hand, ‘I feel like making whoopee, we'll rejoice. We've got—' he hesitated,
looking at Marianne, ‘—beautiful—' he swallowed with embarrassment
and cheered up again ‘—beautiful woman, Aristide, you must come, make Marianne come, no excuses, you haven't got an engagement, have you? Put it off! Put it off! Méline!'

Paul Méline excused himself. Léon frowned for a moment, bit his cigar at the unperturbed Méline. He began clapping and looking round. ‘The bill! The bill!' A flustered and irate waiter arrived with the bill. He planked down some notes, got up before the women were ready, helped Mrs. Weyman brusquely with her furs and marshaled them all out, like some sultan, decent fellow, who has taken his wives and flatterers to a restaurant for a mild birthday. The women tried to keep each other in countenance. Outside, Léon dropped behind and asked Méline, ‘Did you see him, eh? Achitophelous? He's in there with Henrietta, his daughter. Pretty girl. Wonder what he's here for? You know what he's doing here? Have you seen him?'

Méline looked through the curtained glass which separated the lounge from the fountain court. ‘No. Henrietta? She must be nineteen. She's a raving beauty, isn't she ? He must have difficulty keeping her at home at night.'

They both peered like conspirators through the curtain. ‘Maybe he's come down to fix up a wedding,' said Léon. ‘I heard he was after Rhys of Rotterdam's boy. But where's the mother? Are they on good terms still? My, what a beauty! Let's get rid of the girls for half an hour and go in, see what he's up to.' ‘Mrs. Weyman?' said Méline. Léon laughed uneasily and looked inquisitively at Méline. ‘I'm looking for romance, you know.' Méline knew then that Léon really believed in the business Mrs. Weyman had proposed to him. Léon saw his twinkle and clouded a little, ‘I don't know if I ought to go in there when he's with his daughter. What's his game?'

Méline said without malice, ‘I thought you and he weren't friends since the diamond deal.'

Léon looked at him directly, divining how much he knew, ‘Never mind, never mind!' he finished vaguely. He went to the desk to ask if Mr. and Mlle. Achitophelous were staying in the hotel. They were. Much pleased, he came back towards the women with Méline.

‘Got to run,' apologized Méline.

‘Are you going to Bertillon's?' asked Henri Léon with sudden suspicion.

‘I might run in. I'll have a look at what the market is doing. See you soon.' Méline went off, cheerful in the thought that Léon would spend the entire afternoon wondering what he was doing in the Bertillon Bank and what his game was in Paris.

Léon looked through the glass again at Henrietta Achitophelous. She was a Southern beauty of Assyrian cast, with a long pronounced nose and jaw of perfect mold attached to a small rounded skull, low forehead, brilliant sensual eyes, brows like plumes, a bisque face framed entirely in small black curls. Her shoulders, upper arms, and bust swelled from the slender parts as if formed by the gust of some longing potter. Léon was overcome for a moment by a fragrant intoxicating cloud, peculiar to him when he saw a passionate female beauty. Achitophelous, his great friend and enemy, was dining discreetly in a corner of the farther court. He could see him accidentally between the players in the orchestra, but the cold light from the glass roof fell straight on Henrietta's face.

Marianne had tried for several years to contact Hollywood through the actors and American moneyed men going and coming in Paris in the stock-exchange houses and in the Parisian theatrical world. While Léon was still footling round the lobby as if he had affairs with invisible beings there, Marianne bent to Mrs. Weyman. ‘Do you like Paris, Madame?'

Mrs. Weyman tossed off a laugh. ‘Oh, I come here every so often: I knew Paris as a young girl. I like it in a way. I have roots everywhere. Or none.'

Her eyes glittered towards Aristide. ‘Are you interested in getting foreign accounts, say in the U.S.A., for your bank? I have many friends among novelists, Hollywood artists, and the planetary rich!' She laughed a head laugh. ‘They've got the big money of today. I can put you in touch certainly with some of them. Paris attracts them. You can do me services. I'd like to meet the head of your bank: I hear he's the white-haired boy of society here.' She leaned forward nervously, vibrating with the thought of business.

Aristide was intent: they wandered hand in hand through a desert of stock-exchange conversation. Aristide and Marianne exchanged glances which said, ‘This is a valuable friend: we'll make up to her.'

They all at once saw Léon dialing numbers out of the tiny memorandum book in which he kept the names of women, houses, and streets. He came out slapping the book into his vest pocket with a satisfied air and approached with a rapid military stagger. He grasped Mrs. Weyman's arm. ‘You've got a beautiful figure, Margaret.'

In the end Léon succeeded in bundling them out of the hotel into a taxi, which sailed off, headed for the Scribe Bar, leaving him unexpectedly standing on the mat. He turned quickly into the hotel. The manager at the desk, watching him, frowned. Léon had sent four girls up to his rooms in twenty-four hours. And on an all-in rate: not even a market tip to the manager.

After Mrs. Weyman left them at the Scribe, Aristide had his notebook in his hand, ‘Hotel Westminster. I'm to have lunch with Mrs. Weyman tomorrow. It looks like business.' He gave Marianne a marital glance, full-bodied with meaning. Marianne said in a lower tone, ‘Well, I saw Mme. Quiero.'

Aristide frowned a query. She leaned forward. ‘You know, the handwriting expert that Mme. Bertillon uses? She said your handwriting shows you have a difficult temperament but this will be a lucky year for you.'

‘Lucky in money?'

‘Lucky in money, advances, and favors from friends. She said a blond man (that's Bertillon evidently) will make your fortune this year and a dark-faced man next.' She hesitated.

‘Well?'

‘She said you run in cycles—always the same, beginning to end. She said what you're afraid of will come about.'

‘Did she mean war? Perhaps it means the officers of reserve will be called up. Did she use the crystal, too? I don't believe in them unless they can do that. Did you ask her about stocks and currencies? Did you ask her about the pound and the dollar? I suppose nothing on that—they're worthless for exact figures—' He drooped. ‘Who knows if they're not just police agents? They don't seem to know much else.'

Marianne recited, ‘What is secret will be found out within the twelvemonth.'

Irritably Aristide knocked on the cab window saying, ‘Can I sell or buy the market tomorrow on information like that?'

Marianne smiled a little, her self-reliant conceited smile. ‘She said you would lose old friends and make new enemies.'

‘You pay the taxi,' said Aristide. ‘I have no change.'

‘Neither have I: I'm just going in to cash a check.'

Raccamond paid, giving twenty-five centimes for a tip. The chauffeur looked up at the bronze doors of the bank, standing inwards. On each leaf shone Mercury's staff, in bronze. The chauffeur spat.

* * *

Scene Two: A Check Technique

O
n one side of the doorway was a brass plate with the name
Banque Mercure
and on the other side, facing it, the name
Bertillon
&
Cie. s.a.

A woman went into the bank before Aristide. He plunged forward, bowed: ‘Good day, Princesse.' She smiled cozily, went in chatting. Raccamond followed doggedly. Marianne restrained him in the square entrance and murmured, ‘Who is it? Tell me please, Aristide.'

‘Princess Delisle-Delbe,' he whispered. ‘I've taken over her account. Let me go, Marianne: I must go.'

He unhanded himself and fled after the Napoleonic Princesse, a young widow with a large estate who put plenty of money into the American and English markets. He intercepted her before Urbain Voulou, the elephantine, smiling blond chief customers' man of the bank, had reached her. The three stood together a little while, until Aristide with his dark atmosphere of earnest insistence drew her eyes away from the smile of Voulou; and Voulou, saying, with good sad simplicity, ‘Things don't look too good, Princesse: I think things are going down, Princesse,' withdrew.

Aristide went on as if Voulou had never been there, ‘The figures for the first two months of 1931 show a decline in trade: an increase in tariffs is sure. Mr. Alphendéry, our technician, you know, thinks you should sell about half of your long position in U.S. Steel and Air Liquide. He says he calculates Air Liquide will lose eventually about one-third of its value. There are queer rumors from the U.S.A. The banking situation is bad. We recommend selling short rather than buying.'

The Princesse, settling the pretty little black hat on her black hair, said, ‘Is that Mr. Bertillon's opinion? I think Mr. Jules Bertillon is a genius in markets. Is he in?'

‘Not yet, Madame. Yes, I believe that is his opinion. He and Mr. Alphendéry are generally of the same opinion.'

‘I just want to sell a foreign check,' smiled the Princesse, dismissing him. ‘Will you see if Mr. Bertillon is in?'

‘The telephone, Mr. Raccamond,' said Jacques Manray, the stock-exchange clerk, respectfully.

On the telephone. Aristide heard, ‘Aristide! Are you and Marianne coming out with me tonight? Sure? All right. I'll be round. H'm. I put off the business dinner. Is—is Bertillon there now? I'm coming round.'