Bonbright was in his own home again--in the house that had been his
father's, and that was now his. He stood in the room that had been his
since babyhood. He had not thought to stand there again, nor did he
know that the room and the house were his own. He had come from the
shops but a half hour before; had come from that room where his father
lay across his desk, one arm outstretched, the other shielding his
face. There had been no time to think then; no time to realize. ...
What thought had come to him was one of wonder that the death of his
father could mean so little to him. Shock he felt, but not grief. He
had not loved his father. Yet a father is a vital thing in a son's
life. Bonbright felt this. He knew that the departing of a father
should stand as one of the milestones of life, marking a great change.
It marked no change for him. Everything would go on as it had
gone--even on the material side. It was inevitable that he should
remember his father's threat to disinherit him. Now the thing had
come--and it made little difference, for Bonbright had laid out his
life along lines of his own.... His father would be carried to the
grave, would disappear from the scene--that was all.
He saw that the things were done which had to be done, and went home to
his mother, dreading the meeting. He need not have dreaded it, for she
met him with no signs of grief. If she felt grief she hid it well. She
was calm, stately, grave--but her eyes were not red with weeping nor
was her face drawn with woe. He wondered if his father meant as little
to his father's wife as it did to his father's son. It seemed so. There
had been no affectionate passage between Bonbright and his mother. She
had not unbent to him. He had hardly expected her to, though he had
been prepared to respond....
Now he was in his room with time to think--and there was strangely
little to think of. He had covered the ground already. His father was
dead. When Bonbright uttered that sentence he had covered the episode
completely. That was it--it was an EPISODE.
A servant came to the door.
"Mr. Richmond wishes to speak with you on the phone, Mr. Bonbright,"
the man said, and Bonbright walked to the instrument. Richmond had been
his father's counsel for many years.
"Bonbright?" asked Mr. Richmond.
"Yes."
"I have just had the news. I am shocked. It is a terrible thing."
"Yes," said Bonbright.
"I will come up at once--if you can see me. The death of a man like
your father entails certain consequences which cannot be considered too
soon. May I come?"
"If you think it is necessary," said Bonbright.
"It is necessary," said Mr. Richmond.
In twenty minutes Richmond was announced and Bonbright went to meet him
in the library. Richmond extended his hand with the appropriate bearing
for such an occasion. His handshake was a perfect thing, studied,
rehearsed, just as all his life was studied and rehearsed. He had in
stock a manner and a handshake and a demeanor which could be instantly
taken off the shelf and used for any situation which might arise.
Richmond was a ready man, an able man. On the whole, he was a good man,
as men go, but cut and dried.
"Your father was a notable man," he declared. "He will be missed."
Bonbright bowed.
"There will be a great deal for you to look after," said the lawyer,
"so I will be brief. The mass of detail can wait--until
after--er--until you have more leisure."
"I think, Mr. Richmond, it is my mother you wish to see, not myself. I
thought you would understand my position. I am surprised that you do
not, since you have been so close to my father.... My father and I did
not agree on matters which both of us considered vital. There were
differences which could not be abridged. So I am here merely as his
son, not as his successor in any way."
"I don't understand."
"My father," said Bonbright, with a trace of impatience, "disowned me,
and--disinherited, I believe, is the word--disinherited me."
"Oh no! No!... Indeed no! You are laboring under a misapprehension. ...
You are mistaken. I am glad to be able to relieve your mind on that
point. Nothing of the sort was done. I am in a position to know. ... I
will admit your father discussed such action, but the matter went no
farther. Perhaps it was his intention to do as you say, but he put it
off.... He seemed to have a prejudice against making a will. As a
matter of fact, he died intestate..."
"You mean--"
"I mean that your father's wealth--and it was considerable, sir--will
be disposed of according to the statutes of Descent and Distribution.
In other words, having failed to dispose of his property by testament,
the law directs its disposition. With the exception of certain dower
rights the whole vests in yourself."
Here was something to think of. Here was a new and astounding set of
circumstances to which he must adapt himself.... He experienced no leap
of exultation. The news left him cold. Queerly, his thoughts in that
moment were of Ruth and of her great plan.
"If she had waited..." he thought.
No, he was glad she had not waited. He did not want her that way.... It
was not her he wanted, but her love. He thought bitterly that he would
willingly exchange all that had become his for that one possession. He
could have anything--everything--he wanted now but that....
"I am glad to be able to give you such news," said Mr. Richmond.
"I was thinking of something else," said Bonbright.
Richmond looked at the young man obliquely. He had heard that Bonbright
was queer. This rumor seemed not without foundation. Richmond could not
comprehend how a young man could think of anything else when he had
just learned that he was several tunes a millionaire.
"Sit down," said Bonbright. "This, of course, makes a difference."
Richmond seated himself, and drew documents from his green bag. For
half an hour he discussed the legal aspects of the situation and
explained to Bonbright what steps must be taken at once.
"I think that is all that will be necessary to-day," he said, finally.
"Very well.... There is no reason why affairs may not go on for a
couple of days as they are--as if father were alive?"
"No, I see no reason why they should not."
"Very well, then.... Will you see to it? The--the funeral will be on
Saturday. Monday I shall be in the office."
"I hope you will call upon me for any assistance or advice you find
necessary.... Or for any service of whatsoever nature.... Good
afternoon.... Will you convey my sympathy to Mrs. Foote?"
The rest of that day, and of the days that followed it, Bonbright was
trying to find the answer to the question, What does this mean to me?
and to its companion question, What shall I do with it?
One paper Richmond had left in Bonbright's hands, as Richmond's
predecessors had left it in the hands of preceding Bonbright Footes. It
was a copy of the will of the first Bonbright Foote, and the basic law,
a sort of Salic law, a family pragmatic sanction for his descendants,
through time and eternity. It laid upon his descendants the weight of
his will with respect to the conduct of the business of Bonbright
Foote, Incorporated. Five generations had followed it faithfully,
deviating only as new conditions made deviation necessary. It was all
there, all set forth minutely. Bonbright could visualize that first of
his line from the reading of it--and he could visualize his father. His
father was the sort of man that will would create.... He considered
himself. He was not off that piece....
His father had tried to press him in the family mold, and he remembered
those unbearable days. Now, from his remote grave the first Bonbright
Foote reached out with the same mold and laid his hands on the hope of
the line.... Bonbright read the words many times. His was the choice to
obey or to disobey, to remain an individual, distinct and separate from
all other individuals since the world began, or to become the sixth
reincarnation of Bonbright Foote I.... The day following his father's
burial he chose, not rashly in haste, nor without studied reason. To
others the decision might not have seemed momentous; to Bonbright it
was epoch-marking. It did mark an epoch in the history of the Foote
family. It was the Family's French Revolution. It was Martin Luther
throwing his inkpot at the devil--and overturning the ages.
Bonbright's decision required physical expression. Most human decisions
require physical expression to give them effect. He had a feeling as
though six disembodied Bonbright Footes stood about in an agony of
anxiety, watching to see what he would do as he took the emblematical
paper in his hands. He tore it very slowly, tore it again and again
into ribbons and into squares, and let them flutter into his
wastebasket.... If others had been present to assert that they heard a
groan he would not have denied it, for the ancestors were very real to
him then... their presence was a definite fact.
"There..." he said. The king was dead. Long live the king!
It was after that he had his talk with his mother. Perhaps he was
abrupt, but he dreaded that talk. Perhaps his diplomacy was faulty or
lacking. Perhaps he made mistakes and failed to rise to the
requirements of the conditions and of his relationship with her. He did
his best.
"Mother," he said, "we must talk things over."
She sat silently, waiting for him to speak.
"Whatever you wish," he said, "I shall do... if I can."
"There is a qualification?" she said.
"Suppose you tell me what you want done," he said.
"I want you to come to your senses and realize your position," she
said, coldly. "I want you to get rid of that woman and, after a decent
interval, marry some suitable girl...."
"I was discussing your affairs, mother, not mine. We will not refer to
my wife."
"All I want," she said, "is what I am entitled to as your father's
widow."
"This house, of course," he said. "You will want to stay here. I want
you to stay here."
"And you?"
"I prefer to live as I am."
"You mean you do not care to come back here?"
"Yes."
"You must. I insist upon it. You have caused scandal enough now....
People would talk."
"Mother, we might as well understand each other at once. I am not
Bonbright Foote VII. Let that be clear. I am Bonbright Foote. I am
myself, an individual. The old way of doing things is gone.... Perhaps
you have heard of the family law--the first Bonbright's will. ... I
have just torn it up."
She compressed her lips and regarded him with hostility. Then she
shrugged her shoulders.
"I suppose I must make the best of it. I realize I am powerless." She
realized it fully in that moment; realized that her son was a man, a
man with force and a will, and that it would be hopeless to try to
bring him to submit to her influence. "There is nothing for us to
discuss. I shall ask for what I need...."
"Very well," he said, not coldly, not sharply, but sorrowfully. There
was no need to try to approach nearer to his mother. She did not desire
it. In her the motherly instinct did not appear. She had never given
birth to a son; what she had done was to provide her husband with an
heir, and, that being done, she was finished with the affair. ...
He went from his mother to his own room, where he sat down at his desk
and wrote a brief letter to his wife. It was not so difficult to
compose as the other one had been, but it was equally succinct, equally
barren of emotion. Yet he was not barren of emotion as he wrote it.
MY DEAR RUTH [he said],-My father is dead. This makes a very material
change in my financial condition, and the weekly sum I have been
sending you becomes inadequate. Hereafter a suitable check will be
mailed you each week until the year expires. At that time I shall make
a settlement upon you which will be perfectly satisfactory. In the
meantime, should you require anything, you have but to notify me, or,
if you prefer, notify Mr. Manley Richmond, who will attend to it
immediately.
This letter he mailed himself.... Not many days later it was returned
to him with "Not Found" stamped upon it in red ink. Bonbright fancied
there must be some error, so he sent it again by messenger. The boy
returned to report that the apartment was vacant and that no one could
furnish the present address of the lady who had occupied it. Bonbright
sent to Ruth's mother, who could only inform him that Ruth had gone
away, she did not know where, and such goings-on she never saw, and why
she should be asked to bear more than she had borne was a mystery..--
There was but one conclusion for Bonbright. Ruth had been too impatient
to wait for the year to expire and had gone away with Dulac....
Hilda could have corrected that belief, but he did not see Hilda, had
not seen her, for his new duties and new problems and responsibilities
occupied him many more hours a day than any labor union or legislature
would have permitted an employee to be required to work. His hours of
labor did not stop with the eighth nor with the tenth.... There were
days when they began with daylight and continued almost to daylight
again.
Ruth had gone with Dulac.... She was hidden away. Not even Hilda
Lightener knew where she was, but Hilda knew why she had gone.... There
is an instinct in most animals and some humans which compels them to
hide away when they suffer wounds. Hilda knew Ruth had crept away
because she had suffered the hardest to bear of all wounds--and
crushing of hope....
She had gone the morning after Bonbright's father died, leaving no word
but that she was going, and she had not gone far. It is simple to lose
oneself in a city. One may merely move to the next ward and be lost to
one's friends. Only chance will cause a meeting, and Ruth was
determined to guard against that chance.
She found a cheap, decent boarding house, among laboring people; she
found a new position... that was all. She had to live; to continue was
required of her, but it must be among strangers. She could face
existence where there were no pitying eyes; where there was none to
remind her of her husband.... She hid away with her love, and coddled
it and held it up for herself to see. She lived for it. It was her
life.... Even at her darkest moment she was glad she loved. She devoted
herself wholly to that love which had been discovered just too
late--which was not the wise nor the healthful thing to do, as any
physician could have informed her.