It may easily be imagined that the veteran's untimely death at the Grand
Army Reunion caused more uneasiness in certain other quarters than it
did in the Church Street house, where John's going had its mitigations.
The lawyers who had arranged the purchase of the Clark interest in the
great Field did not really fear that their plans for the cheap capture
of the property would ultimately miscarry. But John's death must cause
further delay, which might possibly be improved by other interested
speculators. And so the legal representatives of the capitalists
concerned in the "deal" constituted themselves at once friends and
advisers of the widow. They assured her that a mere formality must be
satisfied before she could actually touch her husband's estate, and
promised to attend to the legal matters without expense to her, it being
understood, of course, that whenever the law allowed she should carry
out her husband's agreement to sell the Clark interest in the Field.
They even went so far as to offer further small advances to the widow if
she found herself in immediate need. But this the widow resolutely
refused. She was becoming a little suspicious of so much thoughtful
kindliness from these lawyers, whom after the prejudice of her sort she
was wont to regard as human harpies. She had her widow's pension and her
roomers, and her expenses would be considerably lessened by the death of
the incompetent veteran, who would no longer be begging money for his
"reunions."
There was, of course, Adelle. Her uncle had been her legal guardian and
as such had intended to sell her interest in the Field for a pittance.
The lawyers assumed that her aunt would be appointed by the probate
court to the empty honor of guardianship. Otherwise they regarded her,
as everybody always did, as entirely negligible. And she so regarded
herself. The lawyers were prompt in having the guardianship question
brought up in the probate court for settlement first. It was introduced
there as a motion early in the fall term of court, the papers being
presented to the judge by the junior member of the distinguished firm of
B---- lawyers, Bright, Seagrove, and Bright. Any other judge, probably,
would have scribbled his initials then and there upon the printed
application for guardianship,--the affair being in charge of such
eminent counsel,--and there must have been an end altogether to Adelle's
expectations and of this story. That was what the lawyers naturally
expected. But this judge, after a hasty glance or two at the
application, took the matter under advisement.
"Of course the old boy had to sleep upon it!" young Bright reported to
the senior members of the firm. The lawyers of B---- were accustomed to
make fun of Judge Orcutt or grumble about his ways of doing things. He
was certainly different from the ordinary run of probate judges or of
all judges for that matter. The smart law firms that had dealings with
him professed to consider him a poor lawyer, but everybody knows that
eminent lawyers usually have a poor opinion of the ability of judges.
They reason that if the judges had their ability, they would not be
poorly paid judges, but holding out their baskets for the fat fruit
falling abundantly from the corporation trees.
It should be said that the law was not Judge Orcutt's first love:
probably was not his supreme mistress at any time. Perhaps for that very
reason he made a better probate judge--a more human judge--than any of
the smart lawyers could have made. The little gray-haired judge was a
poet, and not an unpublished poet. I will not stop to pass judgment on
those thin volumes of verse, elegantly printed and bound, that from time
to time appeared in the welter of modern literature with the judge's
name. The judge was fonder of them, no doubt, and perhaps prouder of
them than Bright, Seagrove, and Bright are of their large retainers. And
I believe that the published volumes of verse, and the unprinted ones
within his heart and brain, made Judge Orcutt an altogether sounder
judge than if he had mused in his idle hours upon the law or upon
corporation fees. He was one of those rare judges, who even after twenty
years of forms--motions and pleas and precedents--could never wholly
forget the individual human being behind the legal form.
And so in this trivial matter of appointing a guardian for a poor girl,
the probate judge could not ignore Adelle in the mass of legal verbiage
through which such things are done. Who was this Adelle Clark? and what
sort of person was this aunt who seemed willing and anxious to assume
the legal and moral guardianship of the minor? An aunt by marriage only,
wasn't it? Yes, by marriage he assured himself after consulting again
the stiff paper form that the lawyers had properly filled out; and he
gave one of those funny little quirks to his eye which he did when not
wholly satisfied with a "proposition" presented to him. And here was the
characteristic difference between Judge Orcutt and any other probate
judge. He speculated--maybe for only the better part of ten seconds--but
he speculated upon the entity of the small human being that had fallen
within the bounds of his court. Was it really for this little girl's
best good to let this aunt by marriage take charge of her? Did any
hocus-pocus contriving, with which he had become only too familiar, lie
beneath this innocent application?
Probably at this point the poet judge would have dismissed the matter
from speculation and signed the papers as he usually did, very much,
after all, like any other judge, with an additional sigh because he
could never really discover all the necessary facts. But another
observation held his pen. The paper had been brought to him by young
Bright, of Bright, Seagrove, and Bright--a notable firm of lawyers, but
not one famous for their charitable practice. Why should Bright,
Seagrove, and Bright interest themselves in procuring the guardianship
of a poor girl? Ah, it is to be feared that this is where the eminent
counsel "fell down" badly, as young Bright said. They should have sent
an office boy with the papers or let the aunt go there alone to see the
judge! For Judge Orcutt, after another moment of frowning meditation,
threw the document into that basket which contained papers for further
consideration. Had the girl expectations of property? He would inquire,
at least have the girl and her aunt into his court and get a good look
at them before performing his routine function of initialing the legal
form. Poet that he was, he prided himself much on his powers of
penetration into human motives, when he had his subject before him....
For this reason Adelle and her aunt were notified that they should
appear before His Honor. The lawyers told Mrs. Clark that the visit to
the probate court was a mere formality,--meant nothing at all. But under
their breaths they cursed Judge Orcutt for a meddlesome old nuisance,
which would not have worried him. Adelle and her aunt, got up in their
best mourning, accordingly appeared before the probate judge, who at the
moment was hearing a case of non-support. So they waited in the dim,
empty courtroom, while the judge, ignoring their presence, went on with
the question of whether John Thums could pay his wife three dollars a
week or only two-fifty. At last he settled it at three dollars and
beckoned to Mrs. Clark and the little girl to come forward and
courteously inquired their business. Ignoring the officious young
lawyer, who was there and tried to shuffle the matter through, Judge
Orcutt asked both Adelle and her aunt all sorts of questions that did
not always seem to the point. He appeared to be curious about the family
history. Mr. Bright fumed. However, it was all going well enough until
Mrs. John blurted out something about the girl's share of the money that
was coming to them. At the word "money" the judge pricked up his ears.
In his court certainly money was the root of much evil as well as of
pain. What money? Was the little girl an heiress? From the blundering
lips of honest Mrs. Clark the story tumbled out, under the judge's
expert questioning, exactly as it was. At the conclusion, with one
significant scowl at the uncomfortable Mr. Bright, the judge gathered to
himself all the papers, saying that he should give the matter further
consideration and disappeared into his private chamber. The two Clarks
returned to Alton much mystified.
Young Mr. Bright remarked to his superiors, on his return to the office,
that he thought "there will be the devil to pay!" And there was. Of this
the little girl and her aunt knew nothing except that another legal
difficulty had been discovered and that the lawyers did not seem as
genial and happy as they had before. Thus a week slipped past, and then
they were again summoned to the probate court and taken into the judge's
private chamber behind the courtroom.
V
A good deal had happened in a quiet way during these seven days that had
much influence upon the fate of Clark's Field and of Adelle Clark. Up to
this time Judge Orcutt had never heard of Clark's Field or of the
Clarks. He lived on the other side of B----, in the country, and was not
much of a gossip. But he had ways of finding out about what was going on
when he wanted to. A word lightly cast forth at the club table where he
always lunched, and he could get a clue to almost anything of current
interest. And that noon, after he had first seen Mrs. Clark and her
niece, my friend Edsall happened to be at the judge's table. Orcutt
asked him what he knew about the Clark property in Alton. Edsall
happened to know almost all of importance that has been told here and
more. He knew of the movement on foot to develop the property, so long
held in idleness, but he did not know who were the persons interested.
He could find out. He did so, and within the week he had given the
probate judge the outline of as pretty a story of cheap knavishness as
the judge had come across for years.
"No one can say what the property is worth now," Edsall reported, "but
it must be millions."
"Millions!" the judge growled. "And they're trying to get it from an old
woman and a girl for twenty-five thousand dollars."
"A plain steal," the real estate man remarked.
"Sculduggery--I smelt it!" laughed the judge.
One of the first results of this was that Mr. Osmond Bright, senior
member of Bright, Seagrove, and Bright, was invited to call upon Judge
Orcutt in his chambers, and there received probably the worst lecture
this eminent corporation lawyer ever took from any man. He blustered, of
course, and defended his clients on the ground that they were taking a
great risk with the title, which was unsound, etc., etc. The poet judge
dealt him a savage look and curtly advised him to withdraw at once from
the position of counsel to the men involved in this shady transaction;
at least never to appear in his court in the guardianship case. (It may
be said here that the firm did withdraw from the case, as there was, in
their words, "nothing doing." But not much was accomplished, for another
equally eminent and unscrupulous firm of lawyers was employed the next
day and went to work in a more devious manner to get hold of the Field.)
Next the judge devoted half an hour to meditation over the fate of
Adelle Clark, more time than any one in her whole career hitherto had
given to consideration of her. It was clear enough to him that Mrs. John
Clark, honest woman though she appeared to be, could not cope with the
situation that must present itself. Nor, of course, could the girl. The
nefarious agreement to sell out all the Clark equity in the Field which
John Clark had executed prior to his departure for the Grand Army
Reunion, and which Judge Orcutt had forced the elder Bright to produce,
was evidence enough that the little girl needed some strong defender if
she were not to be fleeced utterly of her property. For she was heir now
to nearly three fourths of what the Clark estate might bring, and her
aunt to the remaining portion--so said the law. But who could be found,
modern knight, honest and disinterested and able enough to take upon his
shoulders the difficult defense of the girl's rights?
Judge Orcutt had not been greatly impressed by the appearance of the
girl. She was nearly fourteen now, and seemed to the discriminating
taste of the judge to be a quite ordinary young girl with a rather
common aunt. Nevertheless that must not enter into the question: she had
her rights just as much as if she had been all that his poet's heart
might desire a young girl to be! Rights--a curious term over which the
judge often stumbled. Had she any more real right to the property than
the sharks who were trying to steal it from her? Who had any right to
this abandoned field that for fifty years had been waiting for an absent
heir to announce himself? Did it really belong to the Public? When he
got thus far in his speculation, the judge always pulled himself up with
a start. That wasn't his business. He was bound to administer the
antiquated and curious system of laws concerning the bequest of property
with a serious sense of their sacredness whether he felt it or not. They
seemed to be an essential part of the crazy structure of society that
must not be questioned, least of all by a probate judge! If men had
devised these unreal rules and absurd regulations, probably there was
some divine necessity for them beyond his human insight. Judge Orcutt
never got farther than this point in his speculations. With a sigh he
dropped the Clark case, and the next morning sent for the two women to
appear in his court.
It did not take him long this time to discover that they were singularly
without good friends or advisers. They had no known relatives, no one
who could be expected to take a friendly interest in their affairs and
trusted to manage the business wisely. In earlier days Judge Orcutt
would have tried to find, in such a case, some able and scrupulous young
lawyer to perform the necessary function, somebody like himself who
would have a chivalrous regard for the defenseless condition of the two
women. Either that breed of lawyers had run out, or the judge was
becoming less confiding. For latterly, since the introduction of trust
companies, he had more than once put such cases in charge of these
impersonal agents. Trust companies were specially designed to meet two
pressing human wants,--permanence and honesty. They might not always be
efficient, for they were under such strict legal supervision that they
must always take the timid course, and they charged highly for their
services. But they could not very well be dishonest, nor die! They would
go on forever, at least as long as there was the institution of private
property and an intricate code of laws to safeguard it. Thus the judge
argued to himself again in considering the plight of these Clarks, and
decided to use the Washington Trust Company of B----, whose officers he
knew....
After explaining all this in simple terms to Mrs. Clark, he proposed to
her that her niece's interest in the Clark estate should be placed in
the hands of the trust company rather than hers, if they would accept
such an involved guardianship as Adelle Clark's promised to be.
"You know, my good woman," he said in conclusion, "you must be careful
in this matter." (The judge's manner towards "ordinary people" was
aristocratically condescending, and he considered the rooming-house
keeper very ordinary.) "Of course, you understand that I--that this
court--has no control whatever over your acts. You can if you like carry
out your husband's intention and convey to these parties all your
interest in his estate. But I cannot permit you to jeopardize the
interests of this minor, who is a ward of my court, by conveying her
share of the estate to them on any such terms as they propose."
"I'm sure," Mrs. John Clark mumbled in an aggrieved tone, "I had no idea
of doing any harm to the girl."
"No, of course not, my good woman. But you don't understand. As I have
told you, it looks as if there might be some money, considerable money,
coming to you and to her from this land when the title is straightened
out, and you don't want to do anything foolish now."
"I s'pose not," Mrs. Clark assented, somewhat dubiously. The "good
woman" had heard of this bonanza to come from Clark's Field when the
title was made right for so many years that she was humanly anxious to
touch a tangible profit at once. But she knew only too well that her
husband was a poor business man and probably the judge was right in
telling her not to sell the Field yet. The probate judge seemed to take
a good deal of interest in them for a gentleman of his importance. So
she listened respectfully to what he went on to say.
"You can do whatever you like, as I said. But if you should decide to
dispose of your husband's estate as he intended, your niece's
representative might be forced to oppose you, which would add another
bad complication to the legal troubles of Clark's Field, and necessarily
defer the time when either of you could sell the land or derive an
adequate return from it."
He paused after this polite threat, to let the idea sink in.
"I'm sure she and me don't want to fight," Mrs. Clark quickly replied
with a touch of humor, and the first expression that the judge had seen
upon the little girl's mute face appeared. A smile touched her lips,
flickered and went out. She sat stiffly beside her aunt in the judge's
great leather chair,--a pale, badly dressed little mouse of a girl, who
did not seem to understand the conversation.
"Well, then, I take it you will be guided in your actions about your
estate by the advice of your niece's guardian, whom I shall appoint."
He explained to them what a trust company was, and said that he hoped to
get the Washington Trust Company to undertake the guardianship of the
little girl. Then he dismissed them, appointing another meeting a week
hence when they were to return for final settlement of the matter. So
they left the judge's chambers. The girl neither dropped a curtesy, as
the judge would have thought suitable, nor gave him another smile, nor
even opened her lips. She faded out of his chambers after her black aunt
like a pale winter shadow.
The judge thought she showed a deplorable lack of breeding. He was
conscious that he had probably saved a fortune for the girl by all the
pains he was taking in this matter and felt that at least common
politeness was his due. But one was never paid for these things except
by a sense of duty generously performed. What was duty? And off the
judge went into another thorny speculation that would have made Bright,
Seagrove, and Bright laugh, and they were not inclined to laugh either
at or with Judge Orcutt these days. For in the words of the junior
member, this old maid of a probate judge had cut them out of the fattest
little piece of graft the office had seen in a twelvemonth! If judges
had been elective in the good old Commonwealth of M----, Judge Orcutt's
chances of reelection would have been slim, for Bright, Seagrove, and
Bright had strange underground connections with the politicians then
governing the city. Perhaps the poet in the judge would have rejoiced at
such a misadventure and profited thereby. As it was, whenever Bright,
Seagrove, and Bright had business in the probate court, which was not
often, they got other lawyers to represent them. Even "eminent counsel"
shrink from appearing before a judge who knows their real character.