House of All Nations by Christina Stead Read Free Book Online Page A

and he went bankrupt. I don’t want the odor of bankruptcy round this place. Send him away.’
    â€˜Now, Jules, Jean de Guipatin—’
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜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—’
    â€˜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—’
    â€˜And I’m right: it’s instinct,’ pouted Jules.
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜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?’
    â€˜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.