“This, I suppose, goes back to the time when your husband and his brother owned the old mill,” he said at last. “It is a list of credits they had given. Am I right? I see there is written here at the bottom of the page, 'In Benson's hands for collection.'.rdquo; He glanced at her, and now his expression was one of curiosity, he wondered if she had discovered anything here.
She seemed to understand this unspoken question, for she said, “I want you to examine all the papers, Mr. Wade.”
He put the first aside, and picked up another. It proved to be a list of the share-holders in the Benson and California Mining and Trading Company, with the number of shares each investor had taken, set down opposite his name. He glanced through this hastily, for he knew that it could have no bearing on the present situation, since the tragic failure of that enterprise had in the very nature of things cancelled all obligations.
There were other papers dealing with this luckless venture; accounts covering the expenses of the party from the time it left Benson until it reached Fort Laramie. When he put the last of these aside, only two papers were left. One of these proved to be a brief memorandum of the personal indebtedness of the Landray brothers.
Again Wade looked at Mrs. Landray. But her face told him nothing, and he turned his attention to the last paper on the table.
It gave briefly a description of the various properties owned by the Landrays. This he put aside with the others.
“What's wrong, Mrs. Landray?” he said, after a momentary silence.
“Did you see in that first paper—” He found it while she spoke, “—where something has been crossed out?”
“Yes, here, an item of twenty-five hundred dollars. What is it, 'Deferred payments on the—' what? I can't make it out.”
“On the distillery,” said Virginia.
“Oh, yes, that's it! 'Due from Levi Tucker—'”
“And now in the very last paper you looked at, my husband mentions two thousand acres in Belmont County.”
Wade nodded.
Virginia leaned toward him in her eagerness.
“Do you suppose there could be any mistake about that, Mr. Wade?”
“How do you mean, Mrs. Landray?”
“I mean, could he have written two thousand when he meant only one thousand.”
Wade shook his head.
“Why, no, why should you suppose that? The memorandum shows careful preparation, to my thinking. But I don't at all understand your question—two thousand, when he meant one—what has become of the land anyhow? Who owns it now?”
“I don't know—I sold it to Mr. Stark, Asa Stark's son, but I only sold him one thousand acres. Mr. Benson arranged the sale.”
“You sold a thousand acres,” Wade repeated. “What became of the other thousand acres?”
“I don't know, that is what I want you to discover for me.”
“But I don't understand at all about this land.”
“You see, Mr. Wade, my husband and his brother accepted a thousand acres of land from Mr. Tucker, it was part of a large tract which he owned in Belmont County.”
“Oh, in trade for the distillery—I see.”
“No, it was in part payment for the distillery. I supposed at the time my husband went West, that there was still twenty-five hundred dollars due him from Mr. Tucker—you see that is the sum he crossed out—but afterward, Mr. Benson said not. He said Mr. Tucker had finished paying for the distillery; and my impression was that the money was taken West for investment.”
“So,” said Wade. “Mr. Tucker owned several thousand acres in Belmont County, and of this tract he traded one thousand acres for the distillery, leaving twenty-five hundred dollars unpaid?”
“Yes, as I remember it, that is how it was,” said Virginia.
“Do you know what the valuation of the property was?”
“Five thousand dollars.”
“Then,” said Wade, with a ring of triumph in his tone, “if Mr. Tucker had subsequently turned over another thousand acres to clear himself, it would tally with the list, wouldn't it? And you sold this land?”
“I sold a thousand acres.”
“You sold a thousand acres to a man by the name of Stark. What was the consideration?”
“Five thousand dollars.”
“Was it cash?”
“Yes.”
“But are you sure, Mrs. Landray, that you only sold a thousand acres?”
“That is all I intended to sell; indeed I did not know that there was more than that to sell.”
“But you saw the deed?”
“Yes.”
“You had it in your hand?”
“I don't know, I don't remember that part, I think Mr. Benson read it to me.”
“But who was present?”
“A notary, I think, and perhaps Jane, and Mr. Benson.”
“And you didn't see this man Stark at all?”
“No.”
“But his name appeared?”
“Yes.”
Wade whistled softly under his breath. Perhaps it was a generous impulse that prompted him to ask.
“Don't you think we'd better ask Mr. Benson to explain this transaction?”
“Why should we ask him?”
“He might be able to explain the circumstances. As the matter stands now it doesn't look altogether creditable; and when you had sold this thousand acres, that seemed to end matters so far as you owning land in Belmont County was concerned—Mr. Stark didn't appear with offers for more land?”
“Apparently I had sold all there was to sell,” said Virginia.
“Did you want to sell the land? Had you asked Mr. Benson to find a purchaser?”
“No, I don't know how he found Mr. Stark, or how Mr. Stark knew I had the land, I never heard Mr. Benson say.”
“But he advised you to sell the land?”
“Oh, yes, he said it was producing nothing, which was quite true; and that it was of little or no value, but that Mr. Stark seemed to think he could do something with it, at least he was willing to take it off my hands.”
“As a great favour, I suppose,” said Wade, smiling faintly. “What's become of Stark?”
“He's dead.”
“Then there is only Mr. Benson who might have the facts we want to know, Mrs. Landray. What is your theory?”
“I think at the very last, just before they started West, Mr. Tucker must have induced my husband and his brother to accept more land in payment for the distillery.”
“And the deeds were left in Mr. Benson's hands, that was probably the way of it, Mrs. Landray; so Mr. Benson knows all that we should know.”
“But must we go to Mr. Benson?”
“Don't you wish me to speak to him?”
“I don't,” said Virginia quietly.
“Then it would be easy enough to go across to Belmont County and look into the records. I suppose you never saw the original deeds; they were among the papers your husband left with Mr. Benson.”
“I suppose so.”
“What do you want me to do, Mrs. Landray?”
“Can you go to Belmont County?”
“Most assuredly, if you wish it. Perhaps that is the best plan—there's no dodging the records in the case, you know.”
While Wade was entirely friendly to Benson, he was more of a lawyer than a friend, and the case had certain romantic interest for him; spectacular possibilities on which his mind fed subtly, fascinated. Then there was the lapse of time, the curious way in which it had all worked out, the idea of being opposed to Benson in litigation that would shake the town to its centre, the splendid publicity.
All these phases of the possible case he saw, charmed and inspired him; and he swore softly under his breath as he strode back to the office.
“I'll make a case, if there's a hair to hang on!”
But his first act in the making of this case was to light a disreputable cob pipe which was reserved for times of great mental activity; then he locked his door, and committed the facts Virginia had given him to writing, but the form of this writing was a letter to Clara Norton. He finished his letter by asking her to preserve the formidable missive he had produced; for he said, “I shall never be able to state what I see quite so clearly to anyone else. I shall write you from Belmont County the first thing. I know you will hope with me that my theorizing is not all moonshine, and that I'll come on the substance of fraud, for this will mean so much to us both;” and then Mr. Wade blew a cloud of smoke with smiling tender lips, and reduced to a single paragraph the wealth of sentiment he suddenly felt stirring within his soul.
He left town that night, and without seeing Stephen; for he feared that he might let slip something of their discovery. Of one thing he felt quite certain; Stephen, if it came to taking sides, would cast his fortunes with Benson. He could not think that he would be so blind to his own ultimate interests as to do otherwise.
He was absent from Benson just two days. The morning of the third he returned, and though the hour was early, he went at once to Virginia.
“Well?” she asked, after they had shaken hands. He was smiling, and from that smile she argued ill for Benson.
“It looks ugly, Mrs. Landray. I knew you'd want to know what I'd found the minute I got back, so I came here from the train, just stopping to leave my satchel at the office. Yes”—he was slowly drawing off his gloves now—“yes, it looks bad for Benson. I wouldn't care to stand where he stands. I accomplished more than I set out to. Stark must have been the merest dummy in the transaction; the real purchaser never saw him. As in your own case, he had his dealings entirely with Mr. Benson.”
“I should never have thought he could have been so false!” cried Virginia.
“You can never tell until a man's tempted,” said Wade placidly.
“But the land,” said Virginia. “The number of acres?”
“The memorandum was correct in every particular; no matter what you thought at the time, you actually transferred two thousand acres to Stark. But,” he took a turn about the room, “the best is yet to come! I found Southerland, the man who owns the land. I went on to Wheeling to see him, and he was perfectly willing to talk. He tells me he paid—fifty thousand dollars for the land! The various transfers touching the final disposition of the property all fall within the space of less than two weeks, and according to Southerland's story, Benson must have had his offer before he presented the fake offer from Stark; indeed, he was on there, and in Southerland's company visited the land; this grew out of Southerland's having been here—I suppose you never knew that?”
“No.” A hard look had come into Virginia's face. She grasped only the big salient fact of Benson's utter treachery; for the manouvres which led up to it, and which so impressed Wade, she cared nothing; they did not interest her now that Benson's dishonesty seemed clear. She was thinking of what Stephen Landray's life had been in Kansas, for Gibbs had long since told her the whole story of his failure there; and she hated Benson for his lonely death. If that money had come to her, he might have been saved.
“I wish you would tell me what you want me to do, Mrs. Lan-dray,” said Wade.
“I shall sue Mr. Benson,” said Virginia.
Wade nodded eagerly.
“Of course, you can't let the matter slip; it wouldn't be just to yourself.”
“Or to Stephen,” added Virginia.
Wade gave her a blank stare at this.
“I am getting to be an old woman, Mr. Wade; for myself I no longer care; whatever I do will be for that poor boy's sake—for Stephen's sake.” She gazed sombrely at Wade, and he hid a smile; to characterize Stephen as that poor boy, struck him as being very funny, a touch of humour of which he had not suspected her capable.
“Yes, Mrs. Landray?” he prompted, for she was gazing abstractedly from the window.
“I must see Stephen. I have told him nothing yet,” she said.
“But this does not necessarily affect him,” he urged at a hazard.
She turned impatiently.
“You do not understand me, Mr. Wade, this is not a personal matter in the way you see it. He is a Landray, and it is the Landray fortune that has been scattered, and it becomes his duty as a Landray to see that justice is done. No doubt he has a certain affection for Mr. Benson, but how can he trust him in the future when he learns how false he has been in the past? He is wholly dependent on his whims.”
“Those are points you will have to make clear, Mrs. Landray; and frankly, I would make them very clear.”
“You are willing to undertake the suit?” said Virginia, suddenly changing the subject, for his doubt of Stephen offended her.
“I, Mrs. Landray?” he cried. “I'd consider it a most tremendous compliment to be retained in the case; it would be the making of me; but I don't know that you would be doing right in leaving it all to me. Mr. Benson will probably employ only the most eminent talent; he can't afford to do less.”
But Virginia put this aside.
“You will continue to be my lawyer, Mr. Wade.”
“I shall do my best for you, Mrs. Landray,” he said warmly.
“What did you mean by what you just said about Stephen, Mr. Wade?”
“Well, you know he'll be involved; he can't remain friendly to you and Mr. Benson, too.”
“He will go with his family.”
“But he is doubly related,” urged Wade. “And if he casts his lot with you he will be giving up a good deal for very little—I mean what Mr. Benson may do for him.”
“How do we know that Mr. Benson will do anything for him?” demanded Virginia bitterly. “He was once just as fond of his father apparently. And he is doing all he can to ruin the boy, he is without ambition or purpose, a dependent.”
“He's a pretty nice fellow, you must admit that,” said Wade generously.
“But he is dependent on Mr. Benson; he is in Mr. Benson's hands, who may do much or little for him, as the whim takes him.”
“Well, of course, that's so, but certainly Mr. Benson displays the greatest affection for him,” said Wade. He wanted Stephen left out of it, for he felt that if they counted on his active partisanship, nothing would come of it, a contingency he was determined should not arise if he could possibly prevent it.
“Individually, I no longer care,” said Virginia. “My own needs are few. I shall probably always have enough for my simple way of life, and unless Stephen is in full sympathy with me, I shall not care to do anything.”
Wade gasped.
“I think we ought to look at it from his standpoint.”
“What is his standpoint?”
“Well, it's generally understood that he will inherit largely from Mr. Benson, and Mr. Benson is probably worth a million at least, no one knows how much. If we ask him to side with us, we will be asking him to give up his really great expectations for little or nothing. Of course, even if he sided with Mr. Benson, Benson might trick him, might leave him with nothing after leading him to expect great things.” And he left this shrewd suspicion to do its work with her.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
HE was unaware of it, but none the less Stephen was on trial with Benson. The lawyer had neither the wish nor purpose to influence him in any particular, he seemed quite willing that the young fellow should develop in his own way and after his own fashion; and if it were a good fashion it would be well with him; if it were not a good fashion, it would not be so well with him. Yet no matter what Stephen did or failed to do for himself, within certain limits which were already clearly defined in his own mind, Benson intended to right in him the wrong he had done Virginia Landray. The least he would do would be to provide adequately for his future. So he settled down to watch Stephen drift; a thing Stephen was ready enough to do, for he was finding existence very pleasant in the little Ohio town; certain of its aspects rather amused him, but on the whole it was not lacking in culture and dignity, while the concerns of life were carried on with considerable zeal. He was regarded locally as Benson's heir; a thing he, too, believed when it occurred to him to speculate on the future.
In time the lawyer came to have a real and deep affection for the young fellow; he became more and more dependent as the weeks slipped by. He had not understood before how empty his life was; and as his affection for Stephen grew, he became less critical of him, until he finally ceased to watch him from any such impulse. But Gibbs was not so well satisfied with the situation. He, too, felt a fatherly interest in the young fellow. He was familiar with Benson's prejudices, and was conscious that if Stephen had been any one else the lawyer would have heartily disapproved of him. Gibbs wondered how long it would be until Benson reverted to his normal standards. He hoped there would be no disappointments in store for Stephen. One day alone with Benson in the office, he took occasion to say:
“Jake, what's Stephen going to do with himself? He ain't going around with his hands in his pockets all his life, is he?”
“Why shouldn't he, if he wants to, and if I want him to?” retorted Benson sharply.
“Well, you're rather down on idleness as a general thing, Jake; mighty little of it's entered into your experience.”
Personally, Gibbs had no illusions about industry, he considered it a fine thing, so long as it paid.
“The Bensons have always worked hard enough,” said the lawyer.
“That's not so true of the Landrays, he favours the Landrays,” and Gibbs chuckled.
“He is half Benson. Why shouldn't we enjoy now? I am glad enough to see some one who is gracefully idle; who seems to be able to do nothing without getting into mischief and making a mess of it.
“Well, he seems to have an infinite capacity in that direction. I've never heard him complain of not having an occupation. It ain't a thing he misses much, I should say,” said Gibbs.
If Gibbs could not rid himself of the conviction that Stephen should be thinking of his future, Virginia was very strongly of this same opinion, too. She had no faith in Benson, and his indifference in the case of Stephen she felt was fraught with disastrous possibilities for the latter. His strength and vigour, his very manhood would be sapped by his condition of dependence. From her, this feeling spread to Mrs. Walsh, and Harriett, and Elinor, and even to Mark Norton, who partook in some measure of all their prejudices, for he found that incessant reiteration sooner or later fastened them upon him.
Stephen's lack of all ambition was a blow to Elinor. She had more than liked him from the first, but Ben Wade had always been held up to her by Clara, as a shining example of what a young man should be; and Clara's convictions, which were always advanced with singular steadiness, never failed to impress her. If Wade was all Clara said, and she hoped Clara was not mistaken, surely Stephen's lack of all apparent ambition was anything but praiseworthy. She would have liked to rouse him, to have pointed out to him, that a young man who had leisure for afternoon calls, was in the nature of an innovation in Benson. She did not doubt that when she returned home this was one of the first things Clara would do, for Clara was the soul of uncompromising candour.
Of Ben Wade Stephen saw much. Wade's attitude was that of a lifelong friend who was resuming a merely interrupted intimacy, and in this light Stephen came to look upon him and to accept him. Wade possessed a wide popularity, but the liking in which he was held extended to no other member of his family. Wade himself did not appear to notice this, certainly he did not resent it. This struck Stephen as odd, and it was one of the things he admired his friend the less for. Another thing he was not slow to observe, was that he was very welcome at the Norton's; but he admitted that Ben could hardly be blamed for having made the most of his opportunities, whether professional or social.
Ben was also his aunt's lawyer, and it was from him that he came to know something of his aunt's affairs; that the sale of what had once been farm-land about the cottage, was her only source of revenue.
“She'll be in a bad way when she gets to the end of that,” said Wade rather indifferently.
“You mean she has nothing beyond, no investments, no income?” Stephen asked.
“Nothing that I know of. She's been selling off lots for the past ten years whenever she needed money; luckily she hasn't needed much.”
Wade's explanation was off hand enough, and Stephen was rather offended by it. He had all along been sensible of a certain callousness on the part of his friend, which Wade with all his shrewdness either could not hide, or else did not know existed. He wondered if this was not one of the results of those hard knocks he had probably received.
“I had an idea, I don't know where or how I got it, that Uncle Jake was my aunt's lawyer,” said Stephen.
“Used to be,” said Wade, jabbing the blade of his pen-knife into the arm of his chair. They were seated in his office, where Landray, in his idleness and lack of all occupation spent much of his time, since Wade, too, was cursed with a larger amount of leisure than was wholly satisfactory to him.
“He's a mighty interesting man—Mr. Benson, I mean—no matter who you are or what you are, sooner or later you're made to feel his importance. If you are a poor man, the time is certain to come when you'll house yourself in one of his tenements, with the privilege of handing over the rent each month to old Gibbs; if you are in business, it's pretty certain he can help or hinder your schemes. There is just one thing! Don't lock horns with him; those who do, go away crippled. He's a potent influence in the life here, Steve; perhaps we don't analyse or realize it, but he stands for the power that money gives; he is the first and last expression of that power to most of us.”
“But he's very simple and kindly,” suggested Stephen.
“I don't know, with so much to say in the affairs of his neighbours, he'd hardly dare to be autocratic; but he's a great lawyer, for a country lawyer, he's really a big man; there's no gainsaying that.” Wade spoke with enthusiasm. “When he takes a case now, he picks and chooses; his fighting days are over, and he is on the winning side or else out of it. He's always been most kind to me; first and last he's thrown quite a little practice my way.”
“You're an energetic fellow, Wade, and deserve to get on. They can't say enough about you at the Nortons.”
“They're mighty good to me there,” said Wade heartily. “You know, my people not being rich or important here has made a difference. There were those who were disposed to patronize me. I mighty soon let 'em know I wouldn't stand for that, but from the first, Mr. Norton and his family just let me know they were plain friendly.”
“Is Clara interesting?” asked Stephen insinuatingly. Clara he had not yet met.
Ben shot him a shrewd glance out of the corners of his eyes, then he centred his attention on the knife with which he was still jabbing the arm of the chair.
“Well, yes,” he said hesitatingly.
“Pretty?”
“Yes;” and the yes came slowly from between slightly smiling lips.
“She's younger than Elinor?”
“Yes—two years—you'll like her, Landray.” A slight but perceptible enthusiasm was betraying itself in his manner. This aggravated Stephen. Why should Wade want him to like Clara, and why shouldn't he?
“They're both nice girls,” said Wade.
Landray looked out of the window and said nothing. Wade now saw fit to change the subject.
“I heard from Reddy the other day—oh, yes, I told you.”
“I liked Reddy,” said Stephen.
“One would have thought that he'd have made fine practice for a lawyer,” said Wade, “but nothing of the sort has happened. The spirit of prophesy has gone wide of the mark in his case; he is so successful, in a moneyed sense I mean, that he's hardly gotten over the surprise of it. He can't repress a latent enthusiasm at the thought that he's Riley Crittendon, with several thousand head of choice beef cattle all his own. Perhaps I found him depressing because he's gotten ahead so quick.”
“But you'll find perhaps that your point of view will change with a little of the same kind of luck, Ben,” said Stephen.
Wade shook his head.
“No, I don't know that it will. I've always expected to succeed; I've been impatient that I should be kept out of my own; but by the same token, I won't feel any special enthusiasm when I come into it.”
When Wade had told him, as he had, that much as he despised society, still from motives that always bore upon professional gains, he found it well worth his while to keep in and do the right thing, Stephen was inclined to jeer. Then he made the discovery that he was curiously involved with Wade; and realized that in assuming the burden of his social destinies as he had done, that thrifty fellow was still doing only the right thing, and with an eye single to his future; that somehow he was to be made contributary to his success present and to come, and that it was something more than mere affection that had prompted him to claim an intimacy on the score of their boyish friendship.
“Every one wants to meet you, Steve,” he had once said.
“Why?” Stephen had asked.