THE day after her funeral Mr. Oliphant brought home a copy of her will
and read it to his wife and their sons and daughter-in-law in the
library. He read slowly, while his four auditors sat in a silence broken
only once, though the document was a long one. The single interruption
was a vocal sound from Dan when the bequest to himself was mentioned, an
exclamation the import of which was not determinable by the others.
But before the reading Mr. Oliphant made some introductory remarks as he
wiped his glasses: The estate appeared to be “somewhat larger than
anticipated,” he said, as Mrs. Savage’s boxes in the bank’s deposit
vaults contained securities she had never mentioned;—she had always
been “very reticent in such matters.” The value of her possessions might
be “estimated roughly at probably upward of eight hundred thousand
dollars, in addition to her house and a small amount of other real
estate.” Then he took up the typewritten sheets of the will.
Mrs. Savage had always been known in the town as “pretty close”; for her
early youth was of the “old-settler” days when people who failed to be
thrifty might also fail to keep themselves alive; and something of this
quality had the air of striving to survive her in the posthumous
expression of her wishes. She had left one hundred and thirty-five
dollars to each of her three elderly servants; and seven hundred and
fifty dollars to every “established charitable institution of worth and
merit” in the city, the “worth and merit” to be determined by her
executors, those two discreet men of substance, Mr. George Rowe and Mr.
John P. Johns.
Mr. Oliphant’s throat seemed to trouble him when he came to the next
clause, for he read it huskily, the papers trembling slightly in his
hand. The paragraph concerned Mrs. Savage’s “dearly and well-beloved
grandson, Daniel Oliphant” and carefully explained her reasons for
making what might seem an unfair division of her property.
Inasmuch as my said grandson, Daniel, has not seen fit to avail
himself of the sound advice of those more experienced, and in
particular has acted directly contrary to my own counsel for his
well-being, both in the conduct of his business and in other
affairs, wherein I have endeavoured to assist him and offer him
guidance, and although I intend this clause in no manner to
reflect upon or in any way impugn his probity and honour, which
have always been above reproach, I am compelled to draw the
conclusion that he has not shown that discretion in the
management of his affairs which would convince me that in his
hands any large sum or parcel of my estate might not soon be
dispersed and disappear without profit to himself. Therefore,
out of regard to his welfare, as well as to my own peace of
mind, and as a token only of the sincere affection I bear him, I
devise and bequeath to my said grandson, Daniel Oliphant, to be
paid to him in cash by my executors out of the sum remaining on
deposit to my credit at the First National Bank of this city
after my funeral expenses and other just debts and the above
mentioned bequests shall have been paid, the sum of thirty-five
hundred dollars.
It was then that the indeterminable vocal sound came from the corner
where Dan sat—a sound not unlike a slight, irrepressible gasp, though
not distinctly that; nor was the nature of the emotion producing it
indicated by the sound itself. No one looked at Dan, and his father
hastily went on with the reading.
To Mrs. Oliphant her mother had left the income to be derived from
“securities to the value of two hundred and twenty-five thousand
dollars, these securities to be held in trust for her.” Mrs. Oliphant
was to have the income from them during her life, but she could not sell
them or give them away, though she was left at liberty to bequeath them
to whom she pleased. And the rest of the estate, much the greater part
of it, was left without condition—and also without defining him as
“dearly and well-beloved”—to her grandson, Harlan, the residuary
legatee.
“Good Lord!” Harlan said loudly, and, without further explanation of his
feelings, sat staring blankly at the wall opposite him.
Wiping her eyes, Mrs. Oliphant looked at Dan; and her husband also
turned in that direction.
“Dan, old fellow,” he began, in a distressed voice, “you mustn’t
think——”
But Lena interrupted him. She jumped up from her chair, and her cheeks
and temples were alive with a colour that outdid all the extraneous
tinting her grandmother-in-law had so hated. “This is aimed at _me_!”
she cried. “I understand perfectly the real meaning of that precious
document! Heaven knows why, but she must have disliked me before Dan
ever brought me here! She showed spite at her first sight of me, and
tried to hurt me, and did hurt me. And now she cuts us off with nothing
and gives it all to Harlan just to show she thought that all I care
about is money—yes, and to prove she can still injure me and insult me
even after she’s dead!”
But here the hot little voice was choked with anger and tears;—she ran
to the door. “What _are_ such people?” she sobbed, stopping there for a
moment, and addressing to the upper air of the room this inquiry of
passionate wonderment. “Oh, my heavens! What _are_ these people I’ve got
to spend my life among?”
Then she ran through the hall and up the stairs, sobbing more and more
uncontrollably, and audible below until the vigorous action of her
splendidly constructed bedroom door produced a sonorous climax, followed
by instantaneous silence. Dan had risen, apparently intending to follow
her, but he paused as his father spoke to him.
“I believe I wouldn’t, if I were you, Dan.”
“Wouldn’t what, sir?”
“I think I’d just let her alone to have it out with herself. I’ve
noticed it seems to work better, she gets herself in hand sooner that
way.”
“Yes, sir,” Dan said, and moved to depart.
“Wait just a minute. I think your mother has something she wants to say
to you.” Mrs. Oliphant, who was holding her handkerchief to her eyes,
had made a slight gesture, which her husband thus interpreted, and Dan
turned back quickly and stood before her.
“What is it, mother?”
She caught his hand and held it, speaking brokenly:
“You—you mustn’t think——Mother loved you—she _did_! She—she left it
so that _I_ could always—always take care of you, if you—if you needed
it. She didn’t mean anything unkind to you.”
Mr. Oliphant supplemented this. “I believe your mother’s entirely right,
Dan. The division may seem unfair, but I’m strongly of the opinion there
was no intention to be unkind or to—or to hurt you!”
“‘_Hurt_ me!’” Dan exclaimed loudly. His face was aglow and his eyes
were shining. “Hurt me? Why, she didn’t leave _you_ anything, sir, and
you’re not hurt. And just look what she’s done for me! Why, even you and
mother had begun to think I couldn’t hold on to Ornaby this time, but
grandma’s left me not only enough to tide me over, but to go _ahead_
with! I’m goin’ to set out the stakes for that automobile factory
to-morrow!”
He turned again toward the door as he spoke; and his father again
mistook his intention. “Dan, I—I really wouldn’t go up to talk to Lena
just now. If we all just let her alone when she’s in one of
these—ah—that is, I’ve noticed if we keep away——”
“Yes, so have I,” Dan agreed heartily. “That’s not where I’m headed for,
sir.”
His mother had retained his hand in spite of his movement to go, and now
she tried to draw him nearer her. “Stay with us, dear,” she pleaded.
“You’re so plucky, you poor boy, but I know it _has_ hurt you. I know
you want to get outdoors and walk and walk and grieve to yourself, but
if you’d stay with your father and me——”
“I can’t,” he said, and detached his hand from hers though she still
sought to keep it. “I _got_ to go, mother.”
“But where?” she begged. “Where do you want to go at such a time as
this, dear?”
“Where?” he cried triumphantly. “Why, to see those executors and get
that money! I’m goin’ to make George Rowe and old John P. Johns agree to
advance it to me the first thing to-morrow morning. Grandma’s saved
Ornaby for me, God bless her!”
He waved an exultant hand over his head and departed at a long and rapid
stride, leaving his father and mother to stare at one another with
pathetic inquiry; but after a moment or two of this Mr. Oliphant laughed
vaguely, sighed, shook his head, and said: “Why, he _means_ it!”
“You don’t think he’s just covering up what he feels? Pretending——”
“Pretending? No!” her husband returned. “All your mother’s will means to
him is that he can go on with his Addition!”
“But he can’t. Thirty-five hundred dollars won’t——”
“No, not long,” Mr. Oliphant admitted. “But it looks like a million to
him to-day, because it pulls him around this particular corner. Of
course in a little while there’ll be another corner that he _can’t_ get
pulled around, but he doesn’t see that one now. All he’s thinking
about——”
“But he expects to begin a _factory_!” she exclaimed. “I haven’t a doubt
he’ll try to.”
“Neither have I; and that’ll bring the corner he can’t turn just so much
nearer.”
“It seems so pitiful,” the mother lamented. “I’ll help him all I can.
There’s the income of what she’s given me——”
“It won’t go very far,” Oliphant informed her, ruefully amused. “Not
with the kind of plans Dan’ll be making now that he’s got hold of
thirty-five hundred dollars!”
“Well, but then,” she said brightly, yet with a little timidity, “you
see, there’s Harlan. Harlan could——” She hesitated; and both of them
turned, though not confidently, toward their younger son who still
continued to sit motionless in his chair, in the bay window, staring at
the opposite wall. He seemed unaware that they were looking at him,
until his mother addressed him directly. “Harlan, you _would_, wouldn’t
you?”
He merged from his deep interior of thought like a man blinking in the
sun after exploring a cavern. “What?”
“I said, wouldn’t you——”
“Oh, yes,” he interrupted. “Yes, I heard what you said, though I was
thinking of something else. I wonder if either of you understand just
what grandma was up to.”
“It seems to be plain enough,” his father said. “She’d always been a
pretty sharp business woman; she was convinced that your grandfather’s
success was mainly due to her advice, and I expect it was,
myself—anyhow a good deal of it—so she thought Dan ought to’ve
listened to her when she opposed his putting what your grandfather left
him and all he could borrow besides into this real-estate venture. I’m
afraid she felt rather bitter when he went ahead with it in spite of all
she said against it. So it seems pretty clear that she thought if she
left him anything substantial it would all be thrown away on a scheme
she thinks is bound to fail—she couldn’t imagine the city’s ever
growing out that far—and she didn’t want her money wasted. So she left
it to you. I don’t see anything particularly enigmatic about it,
Harlan.”
“No,” Harlan agreed, though his dry smile was evidence that he withheld
his true thought on the matter; “I suppose not. At least, there’s
nothing enigmatic about it to me.” He was obviously not elated over his
good fortune; and his mother saw fit to commend him for this.
“I think—I think it’s so sweet of you, dear,” she said timidly;—“I
mean especially while Dan was here—your not showing any pleasure in
having so much come to you. I think it’s noble, Harlan.”
“You do?” he asked, and he laughed briefly without any merriment.
“Perhaps I’d better explain what I believe grandma really meant. She
never liked me, and she always adored Dan. It’s curious, too, because
Dan’s disposition is like grandfather’s, and she certainly never seemed
to think much of grandfather! Well, she did hate Dan’s throwing his
money away on a wild scheme that can’t possibly do anything in the end
but leave him bankrupt; and she certainly understood him—she knew no
matter how much he could lay his hands on, he’d pour it all in after the
rest—and it’s true she didn’t want her money wasted that way, and knew
I wouldn’t let it be wasted at all, if she left it to me; but that
wasn’t what she really had in mind. Lord, no!”
“Wasn’t it?” his father inquired gravely. “I don’t see anything else.”
Harlan laughed again with the same dry brevity. “She always hoped Dan
would marry Martha Shelby—and she kept on hoping it, even after he
married Lena.”
“Harlan!” his mother protested. “You oughtn’t to speak like that! Why,
mother couldn’t any more have thought of such a thing, when Dan was
already married——”
“She died hoping it,” Harlan insisted. “I tell you——”
Mr. Oliphant interrupted. “That seems to me about as far-fetched an idea
as I’ve often heard, Harlan.”
“Does it, sir? Didn’t you ever hear grandmother express her opinion of
Lena?”
“Somewhat frequently.”
“Did you ever hear her mention her conviction that Lena was entirely
mercenary and married Dan because she thought he was rich?”
“She talked that way sometimes—yes.”
“And didn’t Lena just show us she thinks that’s what the will means,
herself?”
“Possibly,” Mr. Oliphant admitted. “But that doesn’t prove——”
“You might just read over that document of grandma’s again,” Harlan
suggested. “She appears to leave me everything and Dan nothing, but
gives mother a very comfortable living income, and she knew mother will
take care of him when he needs it. What’s most significant, she provides
that mother can leave the principal to any one she pleases. Don’t you
suppose grandma knew it will naturally come to Dan eventually? She’s
really taken care of him, and at the same time made it appear that he’s
cut off with this thirty-five hundred dollars that’ll last him about a
minute. She did it because she hoped Lena would leave him and get a
divorce.”
“No, no!” Mrs. Oliphant cried out. “Mother wouldn’t have had such a
wicked thought. She had the strictest ideas about morality I ever——”
“Yes, she did,” Harlan agreed. “Yet that’s just what she planned. You
may not see it, but it’s as plain to me as if she had written it in her
will. And there’s something more than that in it, too.”
“What is it?” Mr. Oliphant inquired skeptically. “What is the something
more that’s hidden from every eye but yours?”
Harlan reddened and failed to reply at once;—then he said with a
reluctant humour: “I’m afraid she’s played it rather low down on me,
sir.”
“What!” Mr. Oliphant stared at him. “You call leaving you five or six
hundred thousand dollars playing it rather low down?”
“You’d say it’s a fantastic view, would you, sir?”
“Yes, I believe I should—considerably!”
“Maybe so,” Harlan said. “Yet there seems some ground for it. Grandma
knew—that is, I mean she thought—she thought that I had certain hopes
about Martha myself, and she told me pretty plainly I’d better keep out
of the way. Well, she’s put me in a fine light before Martha, hasn’t
she? Here’s Dan, all his life supposed to be the favourite, with great
expectations, and now he’s cut off with a shilling, and I get it all! In
the eyes of a sympathetic woman who’s always liked him best anyhow,
isn’t he the suffering hero, and don’t I play the rôle of the brother
that undermined him and supplanted him?”
“That’s nonsense,” his father said a little irritably. “You don’t
suppose your grandmother deliberately——”
“I don’t suppose she meant unkindly by me,” Harlan interrupted.
“Naturally I don’t suppose my grandmother made me her residuary legatee
for the purpose of injuring me. Probably she thought I’d be consoled by
what she was leaving me.”
“Oh, Harlan!” his mother cried reproachfully.
But Harlan only smiled at her faintly and did not defend himself.
“So Lena will leave Dan now, will she?” Mr. Oliphant inquired, with
satire. “And then Dan will proceed in freedom to carry out the rest of
this programme?”
“No, sir; not at all.”
“But haven’t you just been saying——”
“I’ve been saying what I see in the will,” Harlan explained. “I’ve been
saying what grandma hoped, and I think she was pretty shrewd, but I
believe that her dislike of Lena led her into an error. I haven’t the
remotest idea that Lena will leave her husband.”
“I see!” Mr. Oliphant returned sharply. “You mean you haven’t any
fantastic ideas yourself, Harlan; it’s only your grandmother who had
them, though she’s just left you a fortune!”
His tone was hard; and Harlan, looking at him gravely, pointed out a
significance in the hardness. “There it is, sir. Already I’m a little
more unpopular with you than usual, because you can’t help sympathizing
with Dan and feeling that I’ve got his share as well as my own. Don’t
you think other people may feel the same way?”
For a moment Mr. Oliphant looked slightly disconcerted by this bit of
analysis, but, recovering himself, “Not necessarily,” he replied. “I’m
not criticizing you because of your inheritance, but because it doesn’t
seem fair in you to impute all this surreptitious planning to a person
who’s shown such generosity to you. You don’t seem to realize——”
“Oh, but I do,” Harlan interrupted. “Mother spoke of my not seeming
elated and praised me for it. I don’t deserve her praise. You see, if I
don’t feel much elated just at first it’s because to my mind the whole
thing is another example of how much better grandma liked Dan and how
much better other people are going to go on liking him. Naturally, I’m
glad to have the money; I know she meant well by me, and I appreciate
it. I appreciate another thing, too. One of the reasons she left it to
me was that she knew I put what I had from grandfather into the safest
type of municipal bonds. She knew that I’d understand the value of
whatever she left me. She knew I’d take care of it.”
He put a slight but sharp and dry emphasis upon the final words, “She
knew I’d take care of it,” so that there was a hint of warning in them;
and he added, making this note more definite: “She was right about that,
because I _will_ take care of it.”
Upon that, he struck both arms of his chair decisively with the palms of
his hands, and, as a continuation of this action, rose and turned to the
window, his back to his parents. They glanced nervously at each other,
each knowing that the other had the same hope and the same doubt; the
glance they exchanged meaning, “_You_ speak to him about it!” Mr.
Oliphant yielded and coughed uncomfortably as a prelude, but his wife
impulsively decided to begin the task for him.
“Harlan, dear,” she said, “your father and I both know you’ve always
acted conscientiously in everything you’ve ever done; and of course what
mother’s given you ought to be regarded as a sacred trust. You’re right
to say you’ll take care if it, but we feel—I mean your father and I
feel——” She faltered, and appealed to her husband: “You _do_ feel that
perhaps—perhaps under the circumstances—perhaps——”
“Yes,” Mr. Oliphant said as she came to a helpless stop;—“I think under
the circumstances Harlan might—might properly see fit to——” But here
he, too, hesitated and seemed unable to continue.
Their son, however, understood them perfectly, and turned sharply to
face them. “Of course I knew you’d ask it,” he said, and an old
bitterness, long held down within him, came to the surface. “I knew you
wanted me to let Dan have even that twenty-five thousand dollars
grandfather left me. You really wanted me to let him throw it away along
with his own, though you never spoke out and asked me to do it. Martha
Shelby did, though. _She_ spoke out plainly enough! The fact that
grandfather gave it to me never entered her head. She only thought I was
miserly for not putting it into Dan’s hands to be squandered. That’s
what she thought, and I’ve understood all along that my mother and my
father had a great deal the same feeling.”
“No, no,” his mother protested, for the bitterness in his voice had
increased as he spoke. “We never reproached you, dear.”
“No, not in words maybe.”
“No, not in any way,” she said. “It was right of you to take care of it,
and you’d be right now to take care of what you’ll have. Your father and
I only mean that now you have so _much_——”
“Now that I have so _much_,” Harlan echoed, “I ought to throw away part
of it, even though grandma’s trusted me to save it from just this very
wastage and to take care of every bit of it?”
“No, no; it isn’t that,” Mrs. Oliphant said; and with pathetically naïve
artfulness she changed the basis of her appeal. “But you know, dear, you
were just telling us how much Martha had wanted you to help Dan—she’s
always been such a devoted friend of his—and you said that after she
hears about mother’s bequest to you, she may take it as a kind of
supplanting your brother, and it would be harder than ever for you to
make her fond of you; so don’t you see—don’t you see what a splendid
effect it would have on her now, when you’ve got so much, dear, and
could spare it—don’t you see, if you’d—if you’d——”
“Yes, I see,” Harlan said grimly. “You think Martha might even admire me
enough to marry me, if I’d say to Dan: ‘Here! I won’t accept all this
that should have been yours. Here’s half of it.’”
“Oh, no,” she cried, “I didn’t mean half of it; I only meant you
might——”
“No,” Harlan said; “not _any_, mother—not a dime! I won’t impress
Martha with a pose. I don’t want her or anybody else to like me because
of a pose.”
“Would it be a pose,” Mr. Oliphant asked gravely, “to help your
brother?”
“Wouldn’t it?” Harlan returned as gravely. “Isn’t it a pose to do
something that isn’t natural to you, simply to make a woman admire you?
I’d call that a pose, myself, though you may have another definition of
the word. I’m not caring to get admiration that way, sir.”
“All right,” his father said, nodding, as the fragile edifice of Mrs.
Oliphant’s gentle cunning was thus dispersed upon the air. “I should say
you had the right spirit there. But why need it be an attitude? Wouldn’t
you really _like_ to help Dan out a little, Harlan?”
Harlan sighed. “Not in a failure, sir. First and last he’s had a pretty
long chance to prove what he could do with his Addition, and he’s no
nearer succeeding to-day than he was when he began. Instead, he’s lost
all his money and all his time. All he’s done was to spoil a farm.”
“But if he had some really substantial assistance, it’s not absolutely
impossible he might——”
“No, sir,” Harlan said definitely; “I don’t believe in it, and I’ll
never do it. I didn’t want to supplant him. I didn’t ask for what
grandma’s done for me; I never did one thing to get it, or for the
purpose of making her like me; and, as a matter of fact, she didn’t do
it because she liked me. But she did know I’d take care of it, and I’m
going to prove she was right about that, anyhow. I won’t throw any of it
away on an attitude to make Martha Shelby think well of me. Of course
she’ll be all the surer she’s right about me, now that I don’t do
anything for him, though I have so _much_!” He picked up the copy of
Mrs. Savage’s will from the table where his father had left it, and,
sitting down again, prepared to look over it; but, as he placed in
position the eye-glasses already necessary to him when he read, he sent
a sidelong glance toward his parents, a glance in which there was the
bitterness of an ancient pain. “I wouldn’t even throw any of it away to
make my father and mother like me a little better, either,” he said.
Mrs. Oliphant cried out reproachfully: “Oh, Harlan!” and she would have
said more; but her husband shook his head at her, and she was silent.
Harlan finished his reading, set the manuscript down upon the table, and
went away without speaking again, so that his parents were left to
themselves and a thoughtful, somewhat melancholy silence.
Mrs. Oliphant broke it diffidently. “You don’t think mother ever dreamed
that——”
“That he might help Dan? No; not with the Addition. Harlan’s right when
he says that’s just what she trusted him not to do.”
“I didn’t mean that,” Mrs. Oliphant explained. “I mean—you know what he
said about mother’s hoping—I mean his saying he thought mother had
those wild ideas about Lena’s going away and—and Martha Shelby——”
“No,” her husband said. “No; I don’t think so. It seems unlikely. I
don’t think your mother would have——”
“No,” Mrs. Oliphant assented thoughtfully. “I can’t believe she would.
Of course there isn’t any way of being sure—now.”
“No; but it’s probably just Harlan’s imagination. He’s sensitive, and
that always means imaginative, too. I don’t think we need to dwell on
it.”
“I suppose not. Especially as she _couldn’t_ have meant anything like
that. You don’t think she _could_, do you, dear?”
“No, no; I don’t think so,” he answered. “We’d better be worrying over
other matters, I suspect.”
“You mean about getting Harlan to help Dan out?”
“Yes.”
“Of course I can do something,” she said. “I’ll help all I can with the
income mother’s given me; we’ve always managed to live very comfortably
without it. But Harlan—why, I almost believe Dan could make a success
of the Addition, if Harlan would do something substantial about it. Yes;
we ought to be able to think of _some_ way to get him to do it.”