House of All Nations (5 page)

‘Not hollow for Jules or us: it represents hollowness,' said Alphendéry with a touch of sorrow.

Léon started. ‘How?'

Alphendéry said, ‘You know the lines of Shelley?

There stands the Tower of Famine. It is built

Upon some prison-homes, whose dwellers rave

For bread, and blood and gold: Pain, linked to Guilt,

Agitates the light flame of their hours,

Until its vital oil is spent or spilt.

There stands the pile, a tower amid the towers

And sacred domes; each marble-ribbèd roof,

The brazen-gated temples, and the bowers

Of solitary wealth—'

Alphendéry's resonant and variable voice gave the lines full beauty. Léon had swung round slowly to face him and come close to him, like a freighter swinging at its mooring in a harbor. Léon's face had softened and his eyes had misted.

‘The tower of famine: for the people, you mean? Is that what he meant? A poet. My boy, if I don't see the people win, I'll go to my—I'll see the end of my life, unhappy. I don't care if they expropriate me. I used to be a poor boy and stand in the snow waiting for a plate of charity soup. I don't like that to go on.'

Alphendéry bit his lip, nodded his head, his eyes shining meanwhile. After a moment, Léon said, ‘So they're all society butterflies, eh? And Bertillon's a bit of a playboy, I hear. Doesn't he give a cup for racing, or something? Does he spend money?'

‘Jules is as full of ideas as a hive of bees. He goeth along like a dancer.'

‘A dancing hive? And honey? Honey on thorns, eh?' He laughed, his eyes showered merriment. ‘Alphéry—Alphendéry—you're an inspiration to me. You ought to come and see me up in Amsterdam soon. I'd like to ask you about my investments. If you—can give me—you can advise me, perhaps. I've got Argentine bonds—you'll tell me. Not now. I've got fifty thousand sterling in South American bonds.'

‘Sell them,' said Alphendéry promptly.

‘You're a bear?'

‘I'm a bear on everything. So is Jules,' said Alphendéry. ‘That's our opinion on the world.'

Léon patted him on the arm with finality. ‘I think you're right, my boy: by James, if I don't think you're right. Well, come up and see me. We'll work together.' He looked at Alphendéry's forehead seriously again, stuck on his hat, and strutted valiantly out. He jumped into a taxi, stuck a cigar into his mouth, and gave an address. Closing the door, he peered into the obscurity of the twilight entrance to the bank, and waved gaily to Alphendéry.

Aristide Raccamond came up with an air of portent to the straddling Alphendéry and said, ‘I just saw the agent for the Baron Koffer. If you will talk to him and give him some views on the market I think I'll be able to swing the account: at least, he's promised to make a deposit here of bonds and gold.'

‘What good is that? You mean, as collateral?'

‘No, no: just to give us prestige. We would have to give a receipt for the numbers of the bonds and the gold: but if we give him the accommodation of our vaults here, he might swing us some of his business later on. We ought to give him a small commission.'

‘For what? Is he going to give us stock-exchange orders? Is he keeping a drawing account here? No. It's not business. I mean, we'll accept the gold and bonds if he wants, for the sake of the prestige and of having the Baron's man about, but no commission unless he gives commission business. That's flat.'

Aristide frowned. At the same moment, Jules Bertillon appeared on the gallery above, walking from his own room towards the staircase and casting an eye over the bank and its human contents as he did so. When he got downstairs, Aristide Raccamond was sitting at the desk which lay between the staircase and the front door. Alphendéry was standing near the front door observing the transactions at the tellers' windows.

Jules Bertillon stood still at the desk and looked at Aristide Raccamond, who raised his eyes and said, ‘You see, Mr. Bertillon, I am here.'

‘How did you get here?' said Jules without anger. ‘I told you I didn't want you working for me.'

Alphendéry, observing the conversation, approached.

‘Ask Mr. Alphendéry and Mr. William Bertillon, your brother,' said Raccamond, most seriously, neither impudence nor triumph showing in his great solemn face, only a great sense of personal dignity and worth.

Alphendéry began to explain with hurried, light accents, ‘You see, Mr. Bertillon, this man was brought in to us by the Comte de Guipatin and by Légaré. The Comte de Guipatin vouched for his moneymaking ability. He has a list of clients. After you threw him out, Raccamond came to William and said, ‘I'm out of a job due to the failure of Claude Brothers: why don't you give me a chance? I don't ask any salary. If you'll take me on for six months without any salary, or any claim from me afterwards, I'll work for you for nothing for six months and show you I can bring money into the bank.”

‘I said that,' said Raccamond.

‘You had no right to do that: neither had William,' said Jules acidly. ‘Michel, send Constant to London about sterling. Come upstairs, will you? And tell William I want to see him.'

Jules went lingeringly about amongst his clients, smiling and inclining his head to several of them. Their heads turned after him, smooth as gold, sweet as diamonds, supple and secret as a rope of emeralds. He glided between the pillars, passed through his own board room almost without being seen, and went upstairs to his own great room by a hidden staircase, without passing along the upstairs gallery.

Raccamond detained Alphendéry. ‘I am afraid Mr. Bertillon does not like the arrangement. Will you plead my case? Will you ask him to speak to the Comte de Guipatin? The Comte de Guipatin will explain to Mr. Bertillon that I know a great many society figures, distinguished people—I know the artistic people and the racing folk of Paris. It would be very rash to get rid of me. I like Mr. Bertillon and I want to be with him. I like this type of bank. I could go to a big bank but what would it profit me? My own way would be more difficult to make. Then those distinguished people do their big business with the big banks, but with a small personal bank they do their small personal business. And that is the most profitable. It can be made exceptionally profitable. You see, there is even smaller, entirely intimate business which I can do for them, in my own person, and so they begin to grow on me, I on them, I mean, and thus I can draw them in to your bank. Surely Mr. Bertillon will reconsider the case, if he sees this. I can be of infinite service to him … '

Alphendéry patted his arm, smiled into his face, said obligingly, ‘Surely, surely, Aristide, don't you worry. I'll put it to Mr. Bertillon as well as you do yourself, and I can do it better, for I am not you: I am a friend. I hope you think of me as a friend, Aristide. I believe in you, Aristide. I believe in you. You seem really to have excellent connections. Don't worry. I'll do all that can be humanly done.'

‘The Comte de Guipatin,' said Aristide with the same rigmarole sobriety, ‘will vouch for me. He saw how I organized Claude Brothers.'

‘I think, if you'll take a little bit of advice, Aristide, that we'd better leave out Claude Brothers. Philippe and Estèphe Claude were—are—intimate friends of Mr. Bertillon—' Aristide frowned formidably. Alphendéry rattled on, with the bells of benevolence in his tones, ‘Not your fault they went bankrupt: Oh, we all heard the rumors long before. But businessmen, especially bankers, are superstitious.'

Aristide raised foggy, absorbed eyes to Alphendéry.

‘Yes, yes. Thank you.'

Alphendéry ran upstairs and found William already there, tall, blond, lazy, plump, staid, leaning against the bookcase and talking in a low tone to his youngest brother, Jules. Jules raised his voice crankily, ‘Who told you to let that hard-luck into my bank? I don't want him, do you hear? He must go. I don't want guys who work for nothing. I don't like them: it sounds unnatural and I think it's funny. What is he so anxious to clamp himself onto me for? He's got to go. I won't have him. He's bad luck. He was with Philippe Claude and he went bankrupt. I don't want the odor of bankruptcy round this place. Send him away.'

‘Now, Jules, Jean de Guipatin—'

‘I don't care what Jean de Guipatin thinks. He doesn't know a bank draft from a fly in the ointment. He's twenty-five and this Raccamond is a man of forty. Jean's a nice fellow but he's a gilded youth. Anybody could take him in.'

Alphendéry interposed, ‘Jules, he's got really imposing clients. He's a remarkable fellow, I think. Overpompous, very Germanic for a Frenchman, unusual temperament, but he knows a lot of rich society folk: he knows the Comtesse de Voigrand.'

‘I know the Comtesse de Voigrand,' shrilled Jules: ‘I don't need this hard-luck monkey to introduce me to her. Why, Jean de Guipatin knows her as well as his own mother: you're crazy. I won't have this Raccamond and that's all. He smells wrong. I don't like that type. I know the type I can't do with. That's all. Now tell him to get out. And stay out.'

‘Listen, Jules,' said Alphendéry, persuasively, idiotically rash, simply because of the promise made to Raccamond, downstairs at the desk: ‘I don't like Raccamond, neither does William. No one likes him, but he knows how to smoodge, and flatter and lick boots: he says himself, in so many words, that he does private services for these ginks—and you and I can well imagine what he means by that. Well, you know how you get these rotten corrupt rich people: by serving their vices. He does that. What else can he mean? And if he's on the inside of the bedroom and bathroom secrets, as he says he is, then he's really got money up his sleeve and he can shake it out into your pocket.'

‘What's he so anxious to get in here for, though?' Jules worried. ‘I don't like people to suck onto me: it makes me feel ill and I suspect it. I don't like the chap, I tell you. I wish someone round here would do what I want done.'

‘Look, Jules,' continued Alphendéry, still fanatically faithful to Raccamond, ‘what harm can he do you? If you don't like him, throw him out after three months: but give him three months. It's not his fault Claude Brothers went into liquidation. Nobody knows why they did. The liquidators, in their usual way, will be liquidating from here till the time their sons graduate and their daughters marry leading barristers. No one knows anything about it. There's no reason for supposing Raccamond did. If we're going to guillotine everyone who's ever been near a bankruptcy—'

‘I would,' Jules said, but petulantly. Alphendéry saw that he could not be bothered objecting any more at that time. ‘Let me answer for Raccamond, and William here,' said Alphendéry, ‘and if you've still got the voodoo blues—because you're frightfully superstitious, Jules—'

‘And I'm right: it's instinct,' pouted Jules.

‘All right,' Alphendéry laughed, ‘if you've still got the superstition blues after you've given him three months' trial, then sack him … But I want to tell you one thing I found out today: he's a sort of unofficial flunky of Dr. Jacques Carrière.'

‘What!' Jules rose in his chair. ‘Throw him out. I don't want that bounder's flunkies round me. I hate Carrière.'

Alphendéry laughed. ‘Don't you see, you big sap, that Aristide is probably on the outs with Carrière and he'll be willing to sell out Carrière's games for a small consideration?'

‘I don't give a damn what are Carrière's games. I know what mine are. That's enough. I don't try to figure out anyone else's games. It's all I can do to guess my own. No more Raccamond. Tell him he's got the sack—the invisible sack, since he's not employed. But you tell him, Alphendéry. Go on.'

Alphendéry's face looked blank. He had overplayed his hand. He was quite crushed by the thought of having to go back to Raccamond to tell him his embassy had failed.

Going out, William said, ‘With Jules, you should never give too many reasons. I know him of old.'

‘You're right,' said Michel humbly, ‘that's true of all wilful men.'

William went down and found Raccamond talking earnestly to one of the rich charitable ladies of the sixteenth arrondissement.

‘Isn't she a friend of Mme. Citroën?' said William, very low.

‘I've heard that. But lots of people are.'

‘Doesn't matter: we'd be mad to kick out that fellow. What do we care about his morals? I'm going to let it ride, for a few days at any rate. Tell Jules I couldn't find him. Let him tell him himself. I know Jules. He won't. We've got a man to buy tickets for the bouts for clients: I don't see why we can't have a man who knows the prices at the House of All Nations!'

‘If we didn't have any toilets, our clients would leave us, too,' said Alphendéry.

* * *

Scene Three: Blind, Instinctive Love

H
enrietta Achitophelous, flushed and at the brightest hour of her dazzling young beauty, threw herself back rebelliously into one of Bertillon's great green armchairs. In this posture she was completely hidden from view, unless one stood in front of her. Achitophelous, handsome in the beak-nose style, yellow, with deep sunk eyes and thick eyebrows, completely bald, fifty, sat in a straight armchair, leaning forward on his elbows, his plump yellow hands clasped. The nails were finely pared and shone. He seemed to chuckle sardonically.

‘And then, what does she do?' he inquired of Jules Bertillon, who smiled at the young girl. ‘What does she do? She goes round spreading the most frightful scandal about the schoolmistresses—a little boy is not half so dirty.'

Henrietta exploded. ‘I couldn't stand their rotten old school and I wanted them to expel me. There was no other way. Of course, I could have said I was pregnant, but they would have made a doctor come and find out.'