History of a Pleasure Seeker (16 page)

Piet raised his head and listened. The ringing strings made a sound like the small talk of ghosts. Egbert knocked again, requesting entry to an invisible universe. It seemed to Piet he caught snatches of waltzes and gavottes and the fast movements of concerti, and that these were all that remained of the people who had played them; who had once been as vigorous as he was and were now dead and forgotten.

Quite abruptly, the young man understood that he would one day lie in the earth and be eaten by wild things. So would the child who stood before him, looking so brave. Piet had met Death early, when it snatched his mother from him; but until this moment he had felt removed from it, as though extinction awaited other people.

“What does this whispering mean?” he asked.

And Egbert told him.

A
s his son’s demons were growing weaker, Maarten’s were threatening to overwhelm him. He kept this fact secret, especially from his wife, and to the outside world presented a façade of implacable calm that was exhausting to maintain. He dismissed the most important men Mr. Dermont had hired, engaged new builders, watched over them closely, and summoned from Lucerne the maître d’hôtel of his establishment there who took the training of the staff in hand.

A spirit of terrified industry took hold of the site at the bottom of the Central Park, but each small triumph was succeeded by a greater disaster. Ten days before the scheduled opening a fire destroyed a third of the kitchen. Forty-eight hours later, a cistern in the maids’ bedrooms on the top floor exploded, leaving seventeen rooms uninhabitable.

Maarten cabled to Amsterdam for money. He promised favorable terms and deposited $500,000 in the vaults of the Knickerbocker Trust Company, from which he hoped to elicit a further million dollars in credit. His own deposits were sufficient to keep the project afloat while the trust company deliberated, but he would soon need more. He kept on doggedly, determined to win; but though he spent eighteen hours of every day at work, the end of September found him facing a brutal choice: to open as planned, while there were workmen in the building, or delay the project until they had finished.

He decided to open, against all precedent. At once the New York Stock Exchange, which had lost a quarter of its value since the commencement of his hotel, dipped further. He was alerted to this by a screeching newspaper boy, and as he read the headlines he understood that God was willing to break thousands in order to chastise him.

He walked through the Plaza’s lobby and stood beneath the stained-glass ceiling of its Palm Court, thinking of Babylon’s fate. The light outside was fierce and cold and fairies of colored light flitted across the furniture, which smelled of new upholstery and glue. It was a splendid room, but its opulence demanded the presence of patrons with money. If these did not come in their hundreds he would be ruined.

He sat with this thought for some time. Then he went to find his wife. She was in the sitting room of their suite at the Metropole, surrounded by boxes from which Agneta Hemels was removing shoes and cuffs and scarves and gowns, each more ravishing than the next. Finding no way to articulate her dissatisfactions, Jacobina had punished her husband by spending a provocatively large sum of money. She had bought presents for herself and the children and a painting for her aunt at Baden-Baden. As Maarten entered, Agneta was removing from tissue paper a pair of ankle boots in dark blue leather, fastened with nine pink pearls and lined in scarlet. The sight made him angry, then sad. “If you please, Miss Hemels,” he muttered, and when the maid had curtsied and left he said, “I have annoyed you on this trip, my dear.”

“Not at all.”

“I am sorry for it. It was not my intention to displease you.”

“Why ever should I be displeased?”

“I have absolutely no idea, and I cannot make amends until you tell me.”

Jacobina put down the sapphire choker she had taken, on approval, for Constance and looked at her husband. She was very fond of him and in the past he had been an attentive recipient of her few, pathetic secrets. It appalled her to possess a secret she could not share with him. But the recollection of Piet Barol prohibited truthfulness, and instead of saying “You never touch me,” which was what she wanted to say, she smiled and said, “I’m just anxious, darling. I want the hotel to be a success, as you deserve. I promise to be more cheerful.”

In this way, neither husband nor wife communicated anything of substance. All Jacobina did to show Maarten she was sorry for a crime to which she would never confess was exert herself at the Plaza’s opening and ensure by the deft bestowing of an empty suite that the first name in the visitors’ register was “Vanderbilt.”

P
iet Barol did not insult Egbert Vermeulen-Sickerts by telling him that the Shadowers were not real. To the child they were very real indeed, and that was the only useful truth. He addressed him on the subject, therefore, as one general to another on the eve of a great battle.

First he ascertained the enemies’ methods and territory. He observed Egbert crossing the entrance hall floor and inquired what the punishment was for seven missteps. When he learned of the ice-cold baths he almost cried. He saw to it that a warm one was run for Egbert every morning and evening and that at other times the cistern in his private bathroom was drained and inoperable. This innovation produced a gradual but unmistakable improvement. So did jovial admiration. When he told the boy he looked braver and stronger every day, Egbert began to feel brave and strong. It was his first encounter with these emotions and he enjoyed it wildly. He began to dare other audacities for the pleasure of recounting them to his tutor, who listened with absolute attention.

For the first time a genuine affection blossomed between them, nourished by a sincere unity of purpose. On the seventeenth day of joint operations Egbert did not accept the first number announced to him and crossed his aunt’s entrance hall floor in 70 steps rather than 821. In celebration of this triumph Piet asked Mrs. de Leeuw to make one of her excellent apple cakes. They shared it while conducting an optimistic review of their progress.

Egbert sat on the midnight-blue sofa in his great-aunt’s drawing room, his feet on the cushions and crumbs on his lap. Piet had never sworn in his presence and did so now to reinforce their comrade bond. “We’re ready for a stand against these bastards, Egbert. We must defy them.” He offered the child his hand. “If I lead, will you follow?”

T
wo weeks later, Agneta Hemels gave way to the temptations that had besieged her since her first sight of New York. Standing on the
Lusitania
’s deck as she steamed into the harbor, the city’s glinting towers had struck her like a land in a fairy tale. The chaos of porters and automobiles on the quay had given this paradise an earthly dimension. But in the seething swirls of humanity she had glimpsed a treasure that cozy little Amsterdam could never offer: anonymity.

Agneta had spent her life in the company of people who knew her. She had never strayed three streets beyond her home without encountering an acquaintance, and this had required her to spend thirty-two years on guard.

She was a private woman, with a dread of gossip. New York’s utter indifference excited her as much as it frustrated Maarten. As Jacobina’s maid she had traveled extensively through Europe and seen much to admire; but nothing—not Versailles nor the Coliseum, not even the soaring cathedral at Köln—had inspired the rush of love New York did.

She had accompanied her mistress on shopping trips that left her wide eyed with wonder. Crossing town in a hansom cab as the avenues swung out to left and right, she had been unable to contain her enthusiasm or understand Jacobina’s lack of it. The joylessness with which Mevrouw Vermeulen-Sickerts acquired expensive clothes and trinkets disgusted her. It seemed grossly unfair to Agneta that a woman so free from financial constraint should derive so little pleasure from it, and this thought began to undermine her ability to refrain from judging her betters.

From her little room on the top floor of the Metropole, Agneta stared out over the city’s lush park and sparkling rooftops, her heart aflame. She was allowed an afternoon off once a fortnight. Though the first of these was delirious, her second solitary promenade was spoiled by her simple Dutch clothes, which did not at all complement the triumphant splendor of the city.

It was on her return from this unsatisfactory expedition that Agneta was beset by the most seductive temptation of her life. As she put away Jacobina’s latest purchases and added them to the inventory of her clothes, the desire to wear one of them, and to wander down Fifth Avenue like a fine lady, took hold of her. It became imperative when she removed from a box an afternoon gown of peacock-blue satin with a jacket trimmed in ermine. She held it up to the glass. She was not as tall as Jacobina, but she knew that in the closet was a pair of very high-heeled shoes that would solve this problem. She went to the door and locked it, though she knew her mistress was at a fitting. It was four o’clock in the afternoon. She was not on duty again until six. Might she not …?

She did.

She took off her own dress and hung it in the wardrobe. Then she sat at the dressing table and arranged her hair. When that was done to her satisfaction she put on the peacock-blue satin, which did wonders for her eyes. Bravely she stepped into the high-heeled shoes and contemplated herself in the mirror. The transformation was dazzling. She went to the safe and removed Jacobina’s jewel box. From this she took the sapphire choker that had been bought for Constance and a pair of pearl earrings.

Agneta was at heart a modest woman, but the city’s immodesty had infected her. Now she laughed to see how magnificent she looked. She left the Vermeulen-Sickerts’ suite and entered the elevator. Although the operator saw her every day he did not recognize her and bowed. Two gentlemen entered the lift and bowed also.

“May I order a carriage for you, miss?” asked the doorman, as though he could think of no greater honor.

“No, thank you. I prefer to walk.” And Agneta swept past him to find that the crowds on Fifth Avenue parted for her and every gentleman among them doffed his hat.

T
hat same afternoon, October 21st, an unforeseen catastrophe occurred that provided Maarten with conclusive proof of God’s directed wrath. He had an appointment with the chairman of the Knickerbocker Trust Company and had spent the morning honing what he intended to be a brilliant performance. If he could obtain a further million dollars in America, he felt confident of making up any further shortfall with European capital and thus prevailing against the odds. He was aware, however, that nothing repels credit like desperation; and because he was desperate he had taken the step of ordering a cocktail at luncheon.

He emerged from his cab ten minutes early, feeling cavalier. He was disconcerted to find a line outside the company’s offices and annoyed when the doorman refused to let him step past it.

“But I have an appointment with Mr. Barney.”

“Mr. Barney is seeing no one today.”

Over this individual’s shoulder, Maarten could see into the green marble banking room. It took him a moment to decode the chaos at the tellers’ windows. Every person in the long line was withdrawing money, apparently as much as they could. The doorman pushed him roughly aside, and when Maarten said, “I will report this insolence to Mr. Barney himself!” the man shrugged and said, “Mr. Barney’s resigned. Join the line like everyone else.”

To be treated in this peremptory fashion reminded Maarten of slights he had endured in his youth and overcome. Seeing that nothing more was to be gained by complaining, he joined the line, noting with alarm that among the ranks of messenger boys were persons of quality, evidently unwilling to rely on subordinates to retrieve their funds for them. From a lady in green serge and fox fur he learned that Mr. Barney had been implicated in a failed attempt to corner the stock of the United Copper Company; that this had exposed a web of risky commitments between the banks he had an interest in; and that it was rumored the Knickerbocker Trust Company did not have sufficient reserves to honor the claims of its depositors.

“But, madam,” said Maarten. “No bank has sufficient reserves to satisfy all its depositors at once. If everybody would simply calm down …”

But it seemed that no one was prepared to calm down. As 34th Street filled with anxious clients, the panic of the crowd began to take hold of Maarten too. Not only did he require a further million dollars in credit; the $500,000 he had raised in Amsterdam was in the trust company’s vaults and its loss would precipitate a crisis he might not survive.

The Knickerbocker closed its immense bronze doors promptly at five o’clock, while there remained dozens of people ahead of Maarten in the queue. Were it not for the lady in fox fur he might have abandoned his stoicism and begun to shout, as others were doing. Instead he said good-bye calmly and walked through eddying crowds to his hotel. From the newspapers he learned that J. P. Morgan had gathered the city’s leading financiers in his library to find a way of preventing a full-scale run on the banks; also that the National Bank of Commerce had refused to clear the Knickerbocker’s checks.

It annoyed Maarten profoundly to be a nonentity in this tangled city. In Amsterdam he would have been in Morgan’s library, taking decisions. In New York he was just another fellow in a fix.

He found his wife having hysterics in front of the hotel’s manager. A sapphire choker was missing and her pearl earrings. (She had not yet discovered the loss of the peacock-blue dress.) “My maid never forgets to lock the safe. It must have been forced,” she was shouting, her voice high and distracted.

The Metropole’s manager was used to defending his staff from the accusations of absent-minded patrons. He pointed out most respectfully that no violence had been done to the safe. “Could you, perhaps, have taken the jewels off elsewhere, madam?” he asked gently, and when Jacobina insisted that she had not, and that her maid would have found them if she had, he put on his gravest face and said: “Is your own servant wholly to be trusted?”

“Of course,” snapped Jacobina.

B
ut she was wrong.

Agneta Hemels had lived her life scrupulously. She had cared for her parents, both now dead, and worked very hard to pay her older brother’s gambling debts. She had never stolen anything in her life. But as she stepped daintily down Fifth Avenue in Jacobina’s gown and Constance’s jewels, she found the experience addictively delightful.

She went into a shop and was fussed over by the attendants. It was a jeweler’s, and she asked to see several diamond bracelets. For a happy fifteen minutes she behaved as if she might buy one. No one had ever bowed and scraped before Agneta Hemels, nor told her that wrists as graceful as hers deserved the best. She pretended to consider an emerald ring, but in fact she was weighing another possibility that had opened before her, as glittering as the stone on her finger.