“What about your designs on me, Ben?”
“Oh, well, I guess whoever writes my epitaph will have to say, 'He never did anything for nothing.' At the least I shall expect to be your lawyer. My designs are no more sinister than that.”
Stephen laughed. He rather liked him for his candour. He felt that the best of Wade was his candour.
In spite of the social obligations with which he sometimes accused Wade, in the character of friend and mentor, with having loaded him up, he was oftener at the Nortons than at any other house in town.
It was Elinor who drew him thither; she had attracted him from the hour of their first meeting. There were times when he thought, when indeed he was quite sure, she liked him. There were also other times when he was equally sure she did not.
He even went so far as to suspect Wade in some degree with being responsible for the vicissitudes he suffered at her hands. He was quite sure she liked Wade; and Wade's relation with her, as well as with her father and mother, was that of a close and valued friend. He wondered if he had not a right to demand an explanation of Wade. He did not want to appear absurd, but if she was in any way bound to him, he felt that he should know it. He made elaborate plans to trap Ben into some sort of a confession on this point, but Wade, expert in evasions, was never trapped. When he avoided Wade and stole off to the Nortons by himself, he invariably found him there; sometimes playing cards with the banker, but more often with Elinor at the piano. Stephen rather despised men who sang, and the sound of Wade's clear tenor voice filled him with disgust.
“I haven't seen Wade in two days,” he told Elinor one night. “Do you know what's become of him?”
“He is out of town.”
“He's terribly energetic,” said Stephen.
“Don't you think he has done remarkably well, Stephen, for so young a man, and one who has had no help?” she asked.
“I can't quite agree to that. It seems to me that every one does help him; and those who don't, he uses whether they want to be used or not. Take your father, for instance, you can hardly deny that he has done what he could to push Wade; and even Uncle Jake seems inclined to go out of his way to advance his interests.” Stephen was not in a frame of mind to admire Wade.
“I think you overstate the importance of what others have done for him; his own people have never been able to help him at all, and now he is doing what he can for them; he is going to educate his brothers.”
“Well, he should be glad of the chance; I hope he don't make capital of that!”
“Evidently it hasn't made capital, as you call it, with you, Stephen. I didn't know you could be so ungenerous.”
“It isn't that, Elinor, but I am sure you never say the good things of me you find to say of him.”
“Perhaps you don't give me the occasion to.”
“Don't give you the occasion! I am just waiting to hear you launch out in commendation of me!”
“I don't mean—”
“You don't mean what?” he asked.
“I have no right to criticise you,” she said.
“I like that!” he laughed. “So I am a fit subject for criticism? Well, I want to be criticised. Come—it's a duty! Through neglect of the proper functions of criticism there is no telling how far wrong I may go. At home my uncle and Gibbs never say anything; affection must dull the sight terribly. I am sure you look at it differently, you are not blind to my imperfections.”
“Are you blind to mine?”
“You haven't any, Elinor. Beyond your unwillingness to point out to me where I fail, they are undiscoverable.”
“I am afraid you are not very serious, Stephen.”
“I am sure that if I had your opinion of me I should be serious enough. I can read whole volumes of adverse criticism in your eyes.”
“Do you really want me to tell you what I think?”
“I do indeed. I have always desired enlightenment on that one momentous subject, you will never know the speculation it has provoked me to.”
“But I have no right to judge you.”
“That is what we always say, but we judge just the same.”
“I wish you would take an interest in things, then, Stephen, in real things.”
“What are the real things that need my attention?”
“What are you going to do with your life?”
“My dear Elinor, I expect it will be what my life does with me.”
“I hate to see you drift so aimlessly.”
“You'd equip me with a purpose, a purpose such as Wade has—to use all his friends?”
“That is very unjust.”
“I'll grant that; well, yes, I am drifting, very much so.”
“I blame you for that attitude. Are you going to compel nothing, are you always going to drift?”
“And so you think I should display more activity; but what about, my dear Elinor? Point out the direction in which duty lies.”
“But I cannot direct you, you must see for yourself.”
“I wish you would direct me.”
She frowned and blushed slightly at this.
“I'd willingly resign all my independence to you, Elinor.”
“This is nonsense, Stephen,” she said quickly.
“You always put me off with that!” he said. “You know it's not nonsense! You know I am serious. Help me make something of myself—shall I tell you all this involves?” he reached out, but she avoided his hand. He drew back ruefully. There was a moment's silence, then he said:
“There's one thing I'd like to know, Elinor, it's about Wade. May I ask you?”
“About Ben, what about Ben?” she asked.
“Do you care for him?” he demanded eagerly.
“Yes, very much, but not as you have evidently been silly enough to suppose. How could you, Stephen! It is Clara he is interested in. You are not usually so dull.”
“Clara?”
“They are waiting until Ben can make a living. She is very young. I don't suppose mother would be willing she should marry even if Ben's practice was as large now as he seems to think it will be in two or three years.”
“Well, I think Ben might have told me that!” cried Stephen.
“I wonder he didn't,” said Elinor.
“Elinor, let me tell you—”
“Don't tell me anything, Stephen, I don't want to hear it!” she said determinedly, the colour coming into her face.
“Why not?”
“You are not in a position—” again she came to an abrupt stop. “To marry—you would say? Why not, Elinor?”
“Why, Stephen, what have you to offer a woman?”
“As much as any man—my love,” he said stoutly.
“A girl might accept that, and might not care to share the position you accept, of dependence;” but when she had spoken, she caught her breath with a little gasp of dismay. She had said not more than she felt, but much more than she felt she had any right to say. “I mean, Stephen, that while you may be satisfied with your relation with Mr. Benson, it might not be so satisfactory to the girl you marry; she would not wish to feel dependent.”
“She needn't, I don't feel dependent.”
“I wish you did Stephen; it would be the saving of you.”
“Thank you,” he laughed shortly, for he was taking a sense of hurt from her words.
“I wish you were not so devoid of ambition.”
“How do you know I am?” he asked. “And frankly, I don't feel my dependence, as you call it. Uncle Jake has never intimated that he felt it either; so why should I worry? None of you like my uncle; Aunt Virginia don't, I am aware of that; but I do appreciate his goodness to me, I try to repay it as best I can, in the way most satisfactory to him. I've told him I ought to be doing something. I know that; but I suppose there's no hurry; he don't seem to think so, anyhow.”
“But you can't be free on that basis, Stephen. Don't you see, if you displeased him—don't you see he will always control you?”
“Well, what of it? He is not unjust. He is the most absolutely fair minded man I ever knew, and kindness itself. Look how he tolerates old General Gibbs! But my aunt's prejudiced against him, and you reflect her feeling in the matter.”
“Aunt Virginia never says anything about Mr. Benson! I don't believe I ever heard her mention his name ten times in my life!”
“No, but she gives one more to think about by reason of what she leaves unsaid, than by what she says. I've known from the first that she didn't like him, and I tell you candidly, I think her attitude all wrong, and most unkind. She's making it so I can't go there with any degree of comfort; I'm always conscious of her feeling of hostility. I fancy she would like to see me break with Uncle Jake, but you know I never shall do that, he's been too good to me!”
“He has done nothing Aunt Virginia would not have done gladly if she could!”
“I am not making any comparisons,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “But this is not what we were speaking of a moment ago, Elinor.”
“I told you what I felt, and what I thought.”
“That my position of dependence was wholly displeasing to you. I've tried to make you see that I do not regard it as a position of dependence.”
“Not for yourself, perhaps, you are the best judge of that; but for another—I should feel that it was, and almost any girl would do the same. How could it be otherwise, Stephen?”
“You'll certainly provoke me to activity of some sort, Elinor; but heaven only knows how disastrous the results may be! I'll study law, and get Ben to take me into his office! How would Wade and Lan-dray look on a large gilt sign?”
“You are not serious.”
“Not in the sense that you are, but I began life seriously enough. The first year at school I thought I'd die of home-sickness. I was the most utterly wretched boy in the world; and then I adjusted myself to the situation. I decided, what was the use! I learned to take things as they were.”
“Don't you think it was needlessly hard of Mr. Benson to keep you away from Aunt Virginia?”
“How can you say he did that! It was circumstances that kept me away, that was all.”
“But during your vacations?”
“I was generally under a tutor then, for I don't mind telling you I was not especially brilliant; it took a lot of pushing to get me through, and my tutors led a dog's life of it trying to cram me with wisdom my mental stomach would reject. I fancy the scholarship of the Landrays was never their strong point.”
“You must have been very lonely all those years.”
“I was; and do you wonder that I feel for Uncle Jake as I do, that I resent any slighting thought of him? Why, he was the only one who ever came to see me!”
“But you must not be unjust to Aunt Virginia.” She was feeling a great pity for Virginia. If Ben's mission proved fruitful, Stephen would hold to his faith in Benson; gratitude and self-interest alike would sway him. “You know we are all devoted to Aunt Virginia here, and the least criticism of her—”
“Have I criticised her? You can't admire her more than I do. I only wish she and Uncle Jake hit it off better, I feel somehow placed between them, she makes me feel her dislike of him; I'm hurt by it!”
They were silent again, and then he said:
“You don't answer me, Elinor, I don't know how you feel toward me.”
“You must wait, something may happen.”
“But nothing can possibly happen to change my feeling for you.”
“You don't know, you may be wiser in a day or so; no, you must wait and see! I have no right to tell you, I have no right to even hint at anything—there! you must not ask me to explain—I can't!”
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
WADE watched Stephen furtively out of the corner of his eye. To his practical mind, partisanship had its price. Self-interest had always been the paramount consideration with him, and he believed it would be so with Stephen. He had urged Virginia to act independently, but to this she would not hear; so he had brought Stephen to her.
“I wish, Mr. Wade,” it was Virginia who spoke. “I wish you would tell Stephen what it is we have discovered, I think you can make it clearer to him than I can.”
Stephen turned to Wade in mute surprise. He had not understood why his aunt had sent for him.
“Certainly, if you wish it, Mrs. Landray.” Stephen had the uneasy feeling that something not entirely pleasant was about to happen. Wade began by telling briefly of the papers Reddy had sent.
“Now, Steve,” he said, “there was just one curious fact that the examination of these papers revealed. Among the properties described was a certain tract of land. Mrs. Landray knew about this land, that her husband and your grandfather had accepted it from a man by the name of Levi Tucker in part payment for property in the town here. Your aunt knew of this first transaction; but her husband's memorandum shows that there must have been a subsequent transfer by Tucker. The first transaction was for a thousand acres, the second was for the same acreage. This land your aunt accepted in the division of the estate when your grandmother married a second time. She supposed she was getting a thousand acres, the records show that she actually received two thousand acres. This land she held for a number of years, but finally at Mr. Benson's instigation, sold it. That is, to the best of her knowledge she sold a thousand acres. The records tell quite another story. She deeded away two thousand and some odd acres.”
At first Stephen had hardly comprehended the drift of Ben's explanation. Now he wheeled on him with quick anger.
“What do you mean to insinuate, Wade!” he demanded.
“Hold on, Steve—” began Wade steadily.
“Don't Steve me!” cried the younger man hotly. “We are not friends after this.”
“That may be as it may be,” said Wade grimly, the colour creeping into his sallow cheeks; “but you will have to hear me out, Lan-dray. Not because it concerns me in the least, but because it is a matter that vitally concerns your aunt. I didn't suppose you'd like to hear what I'm going to say. In your place, I shouldn't.”
Stephen told Wade curtly to go on; he avoided looking in Virginia's direction. He wished to spare her the knowledge of the bitterness of his feeling toward her. But Wade's level voice broke the painful silence, he had carefully marshalled his facts, for while he believed he knew just the stand Stephen would take, for the sake of the case itself he wished to make the points very clear to him; then if he desired to break violently with his aunt, so much the better, she would have a double motive for wishing to go on with the suit.
He held Stephen with his eyes as he piled up the evidence against Benson, and Landray's face went red and white by turns, for as he warmed to his task, Wade's arraignment of the old lawyer became more and more incisive and vicious. He dwelt almost passionately on Virginia's trust and confidence in Benson, and then he told of the sale of the land, of the pittance she had received for it, and of Benson's subsequent transaction with Southerland.
“And I've copies of the records, Steve, properly attested by the County Clerk, you can compare the dates.” He took the papers from his pocket, and tossed them on the table. Hardly knowing why he did it, Stephen took them up with shaking hands.
“There is some mistake,” he said, but his voice was strange even to himself.
“I think not, Steve,” said Wade smoothly. “Can you point it out?”
Virginia said nothing. She was watching Stephen's face, but his eyes were turned resolutely from her, he would not meet her glance, and her heart sank. Did it mean, that right or wrong, he would cast his lot with Benson!
“I want to look over these papers myself,” said Stephen gruffly, and he spread them out on the table before him. “No, I don't want your help;” for Wade had made as if to draw up a chair.
Rebuffed, Ben withdrew to the window. The young fellow would have a bad quarter of an hour while he mastered the facts contained in those papers, and he was conscious of a sense of placid satisfaction at the thought. Stephen pored over the papers with burning eyes; their legal phrasing obscured their real significance at first, but in the end he was able to grasp the facts that Wade wanted him to grasp, the number of acres, and the dates of the various transfers.
“Well?” he said, glancing up, and turning toward Wade.
“Your aunt supposed she was selling one thousand acres. Am I right, Mrs. Landray?”
“Yes,” said Virginia, but her eyes dwelt yearningly on her nephew, though he still avoided her gaze.
“She received five thousand dollars for the land. Mr. Benson was more fortunate. He received fifty thousand dollars for it. Look at the dates, you will see that not two weeks elapsed between the two transactions.”
“But here, what about this man Stark?” asked Stephen, catching at a straw.
“Stark was merely used as a decoy, your aunt never saw him. That his name appears only makes the evidence of premeditated fraud the stronger.”
Stephen winced at the word.
“You saw the original—” he was at a loss for the right word.
“The original entries, yes.” Wade's voice was hard and emotionless, but it rang with a triumph he could not wholly repress or deny himself.
“And you are sure that they correspond in every particular—the dates I mean—with those given in the copies?” asked Stephen.
“Those copies are correct in every particular,” said Wade shortly.
“Well, what does it mean!”
“It means, Steve, that Mr. Benson tricked your aunt out of forty-five thousand dollars by a most inartistic swindle. It means also, that he bargained for a thousand acres, and took two.”
“I don't believe it!” cried the young man hoarsely. “There is some mistake, it is impossible!”
0445
“Not unless dates and figures lie, Steve.”
“Have you seen Uncle Jake?”
“Not yet, there is plenty of time for that,” and Wade smiled evilly.
“He can probably explain the whole thing away.”
“Will you go to him for an explanation?” demanded Wade eagerly. He would have liked that, it would probably finish Stephen with the old lawyer, and force him to side with his aunt.
“I? What do you take me for?” exclaimed Stephen, and his face was white. “Do you think I'd so grossly insult him, do you suppose for one minute I could doubt him—I, of all people, when he has conferred nothing but benefits on me all my life long!”
“According to my figures there is still something due you in the shape of cash,” said Wade coldly. “Your father's interest in that thousand acres.”
“Well, what does that amount to?”
“Very little, I grant you, Landray, but your aunt is not related to Mr. Benson as you are; she does not feel under any special obligations to him, she considers that she has been defrauded out of a large sum of money by him. That, you must admit, is a serious matter to her; a matter she can't well ignore.”
“And what are you going to do?” asked Stephen in a dry-throated whisper.
“If Mrs. Landray will take my advice, she will sue Mr. Benson.”
Stephen looked helplessly from one to the other.
“You are all wrong!” he burst out almost entreatingly. “I'd stake my life on it! You'll find you have no case; but think of the humiliation to him, the opportunity for mean-souled envy to smirch a great reputation!”
Wade shrugged his shoulders.
“He'll have a chance to clear his reputation in the courts, he'll come out spotless if he is spotless.”
“Go to him first!” urged Stephen. “Ask him to look over these papers with you. Why, probably a word from him will explain the whole thing, and make it clear as day.”
“Will you do that, Landray?” then he turned to Virginia. “You are quite willing he should discuss this question with Mr. Benson?”
“Yes.”
But Stephen drew back from this.
“I've told you it is impossible for me to bring it to his notice.”
“I mean in the most delicate way you can, not formally as a direct charge reflecting on his honesty. Look here, Stephen, it's only fair to yourself that you should hear from his own lips what he has to say. There is no haste, you'd better think it over, I don't doubt that you can bring the thing to his notice with less offence than another.”
“But if Stephen feels as he does,” began Virginia. She did not like the manner in which Wade was forcing the matter upon him.
“No, no, Aunt Virginia, it's right enough. If you are in doubt on these points, they should be made plain to you. I am sure Uncle Jake will be ready and anxious to explain, for his own sake as well as yours.”
But Virginia was not so sure of this; her conception of Benson's character being quite different from Stephen's. The Benson she had known and liked and trusted had died long ago, and in his place stood a hard, tyrannical man, a man she confessed she did not know, but feared. He had sacrificed Stephen Landray; and he had taken from her Stephen Landray's son. She owned to the bitterest feeling toward him, she wanted to see him despoiled and published to the world for what he was. She had no mercy for him. He had done the Landrays a monstrous evil, and it was right that he should suffer. Her code was simple and severe.
She put no faith in those possible benefits that might come to Stephen if he remained friendly with him. She did not believe for one moment that Benson had ever, or even now expected to do for Stephen in any large way. At best the benefits he conferred smacked of charity and gifts, the boy's character was being destroyed by his indulgence. But if they could only recover this money, it would give him a start in life of which he need not be shamed, for it was the Landray money, and time and circumstance had wonderfully increased it.
The loss of Stephen's affection and respect she believed would be but a slight matter to Benson; certainly the boy's father had loved him once, and he had quickly parted with him, and apparently without even a passing regret; it would be the same with this Stephen. As for the disgrace, the shame of exposure, she knew the world too well to suppose that the world's manifestation of scorn would ever touch Benson; the tangible evidence of his power and riches were too apparent for that; whatever men might feel in secret, they would not falter in the external show of respect; they would still need and desire his help and countenance in their affairs. She did not even believe that Benson himself would suffer. That he could have done this thing, argued to her an utter and astonishing depravity. She remembered that at the very time when he had bought the land, he had not ceased to declare his love for her. She flushed hotly at the recollection. If she could only make Stephen understand his duty as she saw his duty, all would be well with him. There would again be a Landray fortune, the family would again step into its old place of importance in the community, and the young fellow before her would be the same sort of a man his grandfather and her husband had been. She thought with bitterness of his father, and his pathetic failures; and her eyes filled with tears.
But Wade wished to arrive at some definite conclusion. If suit was to be brought, he wanted to know it soon.
“See here, Landray,” he said, “you can't decide at once; the matter can rest for a day or so, if Mrs. Landray is willing, while you make up your mind.”
Stephen glanced at Virginia. He was incapable of feeling any very great sympathy for her just then, but he wanted to spare Benson if he could. The mere suspicion they had been seeking to implant in his mind seemed as insulting as it was untenable. That there was any foundation for it, except what might have arisen out of the loss of some papers or through some stupid blunder, was too absurd for him to even entertain. He did not doubt Benson's ability to fully vindicate himself. Now he grudgingly admitted that he might furnish such an opportunity with less offence than another, certainly he did not want Wade to go to him. Wade was too assertive, too sure of his ground, too sure of Benson's trickery. Mentally he sought to frame the question with all the delicacy, the vagueness, he could wish. He quitted his chair by the table.
“I'll let you know in a day or two, whether or not I can tell Uncle Jake of this, Aunt Virginia.” He ignored Wade. He was willing to think that the lawyer might be solely responsible for the situation.
“Wait,” said Wade, “I am going your way, if you will have it.” He was determined not to be snubbed or affronted, and as soon as they were out of the house he said kindly and with an air of good-natured remonstrance that Stephen could not well resist. “Look here, Steve, you can't act this way with me. I won't have it. You've got to be reasonable. I've been your friend, and I'm bound to remain your friend. I'm your aunt's lawyer though, and she's got a right to expect me to take an interest in her concerns. If she hasn't me, whom has she? Not you, certainly; and you must just bear this in mind, it's an important matter to her, for if there's, any chance of getting thirty or forty thousand dollars out of Benson, she can't afford to let it pass, particularly as the money's hers. Don't you see this?”