Katharine said nothing, not knowing what to say. During what seemed to
her a long time, old Lauderdale lay quite still. Then he seemed to rouse
himself, and as he turned his head he coughed painfully.
“I want you to know how I’ve left the money,” he said abruptly, when he
had recovered his breath.
“Do you think I ought to know?” asked Katharine, in some surprise.
“Yes--I don’t know whether you ought--no. But I want you to know. I’ve
confidence in your judgment, my dear.”
“Oh, uncle Robert! As though your own were not a thousand times better!”
“In matters of business it may be. But this is quite another thing. You
see, there are a good many who ought to have a share, and a good many
who expect some of it, whether they have any claim or not. I want to
know if you think I’ve acted fairly by everybody. Will you tell me,
quite honestly? Nobody else would--except Katharine Ralston, perhaps.”
“But I don’t want to be made the judge of your actions, dear uncle
Robert!” protested Katharine.
“Well--make a sacrifice, then, and do something you don’t like,”
answered the old man, gruffly.
It would have pleased Doctor Routh to see how soon his temper rose at
the merest sign of opposition.
“Well--tell me, then,” said Katharine, reluctantly.
“It’s a simple will,” began the old man, and then he paused, as though
reflecting upon it. “Well--you see,” he continued, presently, “I argued
in this way. I said to myself that the money ought either to go back to
its original source--I’ve thought a great deal about that, too, and I’ve
made sketches of wills leaving everything to the poor, in a big trust--I
suppose every rich man has made rough sketches of queer wills at one
time or another.” He paused a moment and seemed to be thinking. “Yes,”
he resumed, presently, “either it should go back to the people, or else
it ought to go amongst the Lauderdales, as directly as possible. Now
there’s my brother, first--your grandfather. He’s older than I am, but
he’s careless and foolish about money. He’d give it all away--better
leave something to his asylums and things, and give him an income but no
capital. He doesn’t want anything for himself--he’s a good man, and I
wish I were like him. Then there’s your father, next, and Katharine
Ralston--my nephew and niece. They don’t want a lot of money, either, do
they?”
Katharine’s eyes expressed a little astonishment in spite of herself,
and the old man saw it. He hesitated a while, coughed, cleared his
throat, and then seemed to make up his mind.
“It’s been my opinion for a long time,” he said, slowly, “that your
father has a good deal of his own.”
“Papa!” exclaimed Katharine. “Why--he always says he’s so poor! You
don’t know how economical he is, and makes us be. I’m sure he can’t be
rich.”
“Rich--h’m--that’s a relative expression nowadays. He’s not rich,
compared with me--but he has enough, he has quite enough.”
“Oh--enough--yes,” answered the young girl. “The house is comfortable,
and we have plenty to eat.” She laughed a little. “But as for clothes,
you know--well, if my mother didn’t sell her miniatures, I don’t know
exactly what she and I should do--nor what Charlotte would have done,
before she was married.”
Robert Lauderdale looked at her intently for several seconds.
“Do you mean to say,” he asked, at length, “that when your dear mother
sells her little paintings, it’s to get money for her and you to dress
on?”
“Yes--of course. What did you think?”
“I thought it was for her small charities,” he answered, bending his
rough brows with an expression of mingled pain and anger. “It seemed to
me a good thing that she should have that interest. If I’d known that
your father kept you all so close--”
“But I really think he’s poor, uncle Robert.”
“Poor! Nonsense! He’s got a million, anyway. I know it. Don’t look at me
like that--as though you didn’t believe me. I tell you, I know it. I
don’t know how much more he has, but he’s got that.”
He moved restlessly on his side, with more energy than he had yet shown,
for he was growing angry.
“There’s some money in the drawer of that little table,” he said,
pointing with his hand, which trembled a little. “It’s open--just get
what there is and bring it here, will you?”
Katharine rose.
“I don’t want any money, if you mean to give it to me,” she said, as she
crossed the room.
She brought him a roll of bills.
“Count it,” he said.
She counted carefully, turning back the crisp green notes over her
delicate fingers. It was new money.
“There are three hundred and fifty dollars,” she said. “At least, I
think I’ve counted right.”
“Near enough. Make a note of it, my dear. There are pencil and paper on
the table. There--just write down the figure. Now put the money into
your pocket, and go and spend it on some trifle.”
“I’d rather not,” answered Katharine, hesitating.
She had never had so much money in her hand in her whole life, though
she was the grand-niece of Robert the Rich.
“Do as I tell you!” cried the old man, almost fiercely, and in a much
stronger voice than he had been able to find hitherto.
Katharine obeyed, seeing that he was really losing his temper.
“You may as well spend it on toys as leave it to the servants,” he said.
“They’d have stolen it as soon as I was dead. Not that I mean to die,
though. Not till I’ve settled one or two things like this. I feel
stronger.”
“I’m so glad!” exclaimed Katharine.
“So am I,” growled the sick man. “You’ve saved my life.”
“I?”
“Yes, child. Go and tell Routh that I said so. Upon my word!” he
grumbled, half audibly. “Selling her poor little miniatures to buy
clothes for herself and her children--my nieces--that’s just a little
too much, you know--can’t see how I could die decently--well--without
telling him what I think about it. Katharine,” he said, more loudly,
addressing her, “it amounts to this. I’ve left a few charities, and I’ve
left the Miners a little something to make them comfortable, and I’ve
given a million to the Brights--Hamilton and Hester and their
mother--and I’ve left the rest to you three young ones--you and
Charlotte and Jack Ralston. That ought to make about twenty-five
millions for each of you. I want to know if you think I’ve done right?”
Katharine’s hands dropped by her side. For the first time in her life
she was literally struck dumb.
“That doesn’t mean,” continued the old man, watching her keenly, as the
light came back to his eyes, “that doesn’t mean that I give you all that
money, just as I gave you that roll of bills just now. It’s all tied up
in trusts, just as far as the law would allow me to do it. You couldn’t
take it and throw it into the street, nor speculate, nor buy a railway,
nor do anything of the kind. You and Charlotte will have to pay half
your income to your father and mother while they live, and you’ll have
to leave it to your children--at least, Charlotte must, and I hope you
will, my dear. And Jack must give half of his income to his mother. You
see, as there are three parents, that will make it exactly equal. And
all three of you have to pay something to make up an income for your
grandfather. So it will still be equally shared. I like you best, my
dear, but I couldn’t show any favouritism in my will. The end of it will
be that you will each have something less than half the income of
twenty-five millions to spend. That’s better than selling miniatures to
buy clothes, anyway. Isn’t it, now?”
He laughed hoarsely and then coughed.
“Go home, child,” he said, presently. “I’ve talked too much. Stop,
though. What I’ve told you is not to be repeated on any account. I
wanted to know what you thought of the right and wrong of the thing--but
I’ve taken your breath away. Go home and think about it. Come and see me
day after to-morrow--there, I shouldn’t have said that an hour ago--give
me a little of that beef tea, please, my dear. I’m hungry--and I’d
rather have it from your hand than from Mrs. Deems’s. Thank you.”
He drank eagerly, and she took the cup from him and set it down again.
“She’s a good creature, the nurse,” he said. “A very good creature--a
sort of holy scarecrow. I shan’t need her much longer.”
“You really do seem better,” said Katharine, wondering how she could
ever have believed that he was dying.
“I’m going to get well this time. I told Routh this morning that I
wasn’t going to die. You’ve saved my life. There’s nothing like rage for
the action of the heart, I believe. I shall be out next week.”
He began to cough again.
“Go home--go home,” he managed to say, between the short spasms. “I’m
talking too much.”
Katharine bent down and kissed his forehead quickly, looked at him
affectionately and left the room, for she saw that what he said was
true. She closed the door softly and found her way to the stairs. She
was in haste to get out into the air and to be alone, for she wished, if
possible, to realize the stupendous possibilities of life which the last
few minutes had brought into her range of mental vision. It was not a
light thing to have been told that she was one day to be among the
richest of her very rich acquaintances, after having been brought up in
such a penurious fashion.
In the hall she came suddenly upon her father and mother, who were
parleying with the butler.
“Here’s Miss Katharine, sir,” said the servant, and he immediately fell
back, glad to avoid further discussion with such a very obstinate person
as Alexander Junior.
“Why, Katharine!” exclaimed Mrs. Lauderdale, in surprise. “Do you mean
to say you’re here?”
“Yes--didn’t you know? Doctor Routh sent me up in his carriage. He met
me on the steps just as he was going in to see you. Didn’t he tell you?”
“No--how very extraordinary!”
Mrs. Lauderdale’s face assumed a grave expression not untinged with
displeasure.
“This is very strange,” said her husband. “And Leek has just been
telling us that uncle Robert could see no one.”
“I beg pardon, sir,” said the butler, coming forward respectfully.
“There were orders that when Miss Katharine came, Mr. Lauderdale was not
to be disturbed.”
“Yes,” answered Alexander Junior, coldly. “I understand. Come,
Emma--come, Katharine--we shall be late for luncheon.”
“It isn’t half-past twelve yet,” observed Katharine, glancing at the
great old clock, which at that moment gave ‘warning’ of the coming chime
for the half-hour.
“It’s of no consequence what time it is,” said her father, more coldly
than ever. “Come!”
They went out together, and the door closed behind them. Alexander
Lauderdale stood still upon the pavement and faced his daughter, with a
peculiarly hard look in his eyes.
“What does this all mean, Katharine?” he enquired, severely. “Your
mother and I desire some explanation.”
“There’s nothing to explain,” answered the young girl. “Uncle Robert
wanted to see me, and Doctor Routh told me so, and was kind enough to
send me up in his carriage. I was coming away when I met you. There’s
nothing to explain.”
Alexander Junior very nearly lost his temper. He could not recollect
having done so since he had refused to accept John Ralston as his
son-in-law, nearly eighteen months ago. But his steely grey eyes began
to gleam now, and his clear, pale skin grew paler. It was evident that
his mind was working rapidly in a direction which Katharine could not
understand.
“I wish to know what he said to you,” he replied.
“Why do you want to know?” asked Katharine, unwisely, for she herself
was agitated.
“I have a right to know,” answered her father, peremptorily.
It was unlike him to go to such lengths of insistence at once, and even
Mrs. Lauderdale was surprised, and glanced at him somewhat timidly.
“Shall we walk on?” she suggested. “I’m cold--there’s a chilly wind from
the corner.”
They began to move, Alexander Junior walking between them, with
Katharine on his left. She did not reply to his last speech at once, and
his anger rose.
“When I speak to you, Katharine, I expect to be answered,” he said.
“Yes,” replied Katharine, coolly. “I was thinking of what I should say.”
She had been taken unawares, and found it hard to decide how to act. She
thought he was angry because he suspected her of trying to influence the
old millionaire to do something which might facilitate her marriage with
John Ralston, little guessing that in the eyes of the church and the law
she was married already. So far as revealing anything about the
dispositions of her great-uncle’s will might be concerned, she had not
the slightest intention of saying anything about it, nor of even hinting
that he had spoken of it. She was capable of quite as much obstinacy as
her father, and she was far more intelligent; but she disliked a quarrel
of any sort, and yet, placed as she was, she could not see how to avoid
one, if he continued to insist. Mrs. Lauderdale saw that trouble was
imminent, and tried to come to the rescue.
“How did he seem to be, dear?” she enquired, speaking across her
husband. “Doctor Routh was not very encouraging.”
“He is better--really better, I’m sure,” answered Katharine, seizing the
opportunity of turning the conversation. “When I first went in, he
looked dreadfully ill. His eyes are quite sunken and his cheeks are
positively hollow. But gradually, as we talked, he revived, and when I
left him he really seemed quite cheerful.”
She paused, not seeing how she could go on talking about the old
gentleman’s appearance much longer. She hoped her mother would ask
another question, but her father interposed again, with senseless and
almost brutal persistence.
“I’m glad to hear that he is better,” he said. “But I’m still waiting
for an answer to my question. What was the nature of the conversation
between you, Katharine? I insist upon knowing.”
“Really, papa,” answered the young girl, looking up to him with eyes
almost as hard as his own, “I don’t see why you should be so determined
to know.”
“It’s of no consequence why I wish to know. It should be sufficient for
you to understand my wishes. I expect you to obey me at once and to give
a clear account of what took place. Do you understand me?”
“Perfectly--oh, yes!”
It was evident from Katharine’s tone that she did not intend to satisfy
him. Her mother thought that she might have excused herself instead of
refusing so abruptly. She might have even given a harmless sketch of an
imaginary conversation. But that was not her way, as she would have
said.
Alexander’s anger increased with every moment, in a way by no means
normal with him. He said nothing for a few moments, but walked stiffly
on, biting his clean-shaven upper lip with his bright teeth. He felt
himself helpless, which made the position worse.
“So uncle Robert is really better,” said Mrs. Lauderdale, pacifically
inclined.
“I think so,” answered Katharine, mechanically.
“I’m very glad. Aren’t you glad, Alexander, my dear?” she asked, turning
to her husband.
“Of course. What a foolish question!”
Mrs. Lauderdale felt that under the circumstances it had certainly been
a very foolish question, and she relapsed into silence. She was, on the
whole, a very good woman, and was sincere in saying that she was glad of
the old man’s recovery. This was not inconsistent with her recent haste
to inform her husband of the supposed danger. It had seemed quite
natural to her to think of going instantly to old Robert Lauderdale’s
bedside, if there were any possibility of his dying. She knew, also, far
better than Katharine had known, what an immense sum was to be divided
at his death, and considering the life she had led under her husband’s
economic rule, she might be pardoned if, even being strongly attached to
the old gentleman, she was a little agitated at the thought of the
changes imminent in her own existence. There is a point at which
humanity must be forgiven for being human. In the memorable struggle for
the great Lauderdale fortune, which divided the tribe against itself,
it must not be forgotten that Mrs. Lauderdale was sincerely fond of the
man who had accumulated the wealth, though she afterwards took a
distinct side in the affairs, and showed herself as eager as many others
to obtain as much as possible for her husband and her children.
Meanwhile, in spite of her, the opening skirmish continued sharply.
After walking nearly the length of a block in silence, Alexander Junior
once more turned his head in the direction of his daughter.
“Am I to understand, Katharine, that you definitely refuse to speak?” he
enquired, sternly.
“If you mean that I should tell you in detail all that uncle Robert and
I said to each other this morning,--yes. I refuse.”
“Do you know that you are disobedient and undutiful?”
“It isn’t necessary to discuss that. I’m not a child any longer.”
“Very well. We shall see.”
And they continued to walk in silence. Alexander was fond of walking and
of all sorts of exercise, when it did not interfere with the rigid
punctuality of his business habits. He had been a very strong man in his
youth.
This was the beginning of hostilities, and the events hitherto described
took place in the month of April.
Robert Lauderdale’s instinct had not deceived him, in prompting him to
say that he was not going to die when he seemed most ill. He rallied
quickly, and within a fortnight of the day on which he had sent for
Katharine, he was able to be driven in the Park, in the noon sunshine.
He was changed, and had grown suddenly much thinner, but most of his
friends thought that at his age this was no bad sign.
Ever since that crisis there had been a coldness between Katharine and
her father. She felt that he was watching her perpetually, looking,
perhaps, for an opportunity of making her feel his displeasure, and
assuredly trying to find out what she knew. The subject was not
mentioned, and Alexander Junior seemed to have accepted his defeat more
calmly than might have been expected; but Katharine knew his character
well enough to be sure that the humiliation rankled, and that the
obstinate determination to find out the secret was as constantly present
as ever.
Katharine’s life became more and more difficult and complicated, and she
seemed to become more powerless every day, when she tried to see some
way of simplifying it. She found herself, indeed, in a very
extraordinary position, and one which requires a little elucidation for
all those who are not acquainted with her previous history.
In the first place, she had been secretly married to her second cousin
John Ralston, nearly five months before the beginning of this story.
John Ralston had faults which could not be concealed. It had been said
with some truth that he drank and occasionally played high; that he was
a failure, as far as any worldly success was concerned, was evident
enough, although he was now making what seemed to be a determined effort
at regular work. He was certainly not a particularly good young man. His
father, the admiral, who had been dead some years, had been a brave
sailor and distinguished in the service, but there were many stories of
his wild doings, so that those who trace all character to heredity may
find an excuse for John’s evil tendencies in his father’s temperament.
Be this as it may, he had undoubtedly been exceedingly ‘lively,’ as his
distant cousin and best friend, Hamilton Bright, expressed it.
But he had his good points. He was honourable to a fault. He loved
Katharine with a single-hearted devotion very rare in so young a
man,--for he was only five and twenty years of age,--and for her sake
had been making a desperate attempt to master his worse instincts. He
could be said to have succeeded in that, at least, since he had made his
good resolutions. Whether he could keep them for the rest of his life
was another matter.
Katharine’s father, however, put no faith in him, and never would.
Moreover, John was a poor man, a consideration which had great weight.
No one could suspect that his great uncle intended to leave him a large
share of the fortune, and it was very generally believed that they had
quarrelled and that John Ralston was to be cut off with nothing. This
opinion was partly due to the fact that John kept away from Robert
Lauderdale’s house more than the rest of the family, because he dreaded
the idea of being counted among the hangers on of the tribe. But
Alexander Lauderdale could not forbid him the house, because he was a
relation, but altogether refused to hear of a marriage with Katharine.
He hoped to make for her a match as good as her sister’s, if not better.
The scene with John had been almost violent, but the young lovers had
contrived to see each other with the freedom afforded by society to near
relatives.
Almost a year had passed in this way, and there had seemed to be no
prospect of a solution, when Katharine had taken the law into her own
hands, being at that time nineteen years old. She had persuaded John
that if he would marry her secretly, she could at once prevail on old
Robert Lauderdale to find him some occupation in the West. After much
hesitation John Ralston had consented, on condition that uncle Robert
should be told immediately. The pair were secretly married by a
clergyman whom John persuaded to perform the ceremony, and an hour
later Katharine had told the old gentleman her secret. He at once
offered to make her and John independent--for the honour of the family;
but John had stipulated that he was to receive nothing of the nature of
money. That would have been like begging with a loaded pistol. What he
wanted was a position in which he might do some sort of work, and
receive an equivalent sufficient to support himself and his wife. Robert
Lauderdale at once proved to his grand-niece that such a scheme was
wholly impracticable. John could do nothing which could earn him a
dollar a day. Katharine had to own at last that he was right. He said
that if John would work steadily in an office in New York, even for a
year, it would be easy to push him rapidly into success.
The compromise was accepted as the only way out of the difficulty. The
secret marriage remained a secret, and a mere accomplished formality.
John continued to live with his mother as though he were a bachelor;
Katharine stayed under her father’s roof as Miss Lauderdale. John
returned to Beman Brothers, and was now working there, as has been said
more than once. Katharine had to bear all the difficulties of a totally
false position in society. These had been the results of the secret
marriage, so far as actual consequences in fact were concerned. Morally
speaking, there could be no question but that John Ralston, at least,
had profited enormously by the sense of honourable responsibility
Katharine had forced upon him. He had made one of those supreme efforts
of which natures nervous by temperament, melancholy, and sometimes
susceptible of exaltation, are often capable. The almost divine dignity
which his mother had taught him to attribute to the code of honour stood
him in good stead. He saw by the light which guides heroes, things not
heroic in themselves to be done, but brave at least, and they were easy
to him, because, for Katharine’s sake, he would have done much more.
So far as Katharine was concerned, the effect upon her was different. It
might even be questioned whether it were a good effect. She was helpless
to do anything which could improve her position, and the result was a
feeling of hostility against her surroundings. The whole fabric of
society seemed to her to rest upon a doubtful foundation, since two
young people so eminently fitted for each other could be forced by it
into such a situation.
They were of equal standing in every way; she had even lately learned
that their prospects of fortune, which were little short of colossal,
were precisely the same. They loved each other. They were married by
church and law. Yet between John’s code of honour, on the one hand, and
Alexander Lauderdale’s determined opposition, on the other, they dared
not so much as own that they were husband and wife, lest some enormous
social scandal should ensue. They had but one alternative--to leave New
York together, which meant starvation, or else to accept Robert
Lauderdale’s help in the form of money, which John was too proud to do.
And though John would have been quite ready to starve alone, he had no
intention of subjecting Katharine to any such ordeal. He blamed himself
most bitterly for having accepted the secret marriage at all, but since
the thing was done, he meant to do his share and bear his burden
manfully and honourably. It was all he could do to atone for his
weakness in having yielded, and for the trouble he had caused Katharine.
But she had no such active part as he. He must work, for he had chosen
that salvation for his self-respect, and it was her portion to wait
until he could win his independence on his own merits, since he would
not be indebted for it to any one. The waiting is often harder to bear
than the working. Katharine grew impatient of the conventions in the
midst of which she lived, and found fault with the system of all modern
society.
She was strangely repelled, too, by the attentions of the young men she
met daily, and danced with, and sat beside at dinner. They had amused
her until the last winter. She was not one of those girls who either
feign indifference to amusement, or really feel it, and so long as she
had been free to enjoy herself without any secondary thoughts about the
meaning of enjoyment, she had found the world a pleasant place. Now,
however, she was for the first time made conscious that several of the
young fellows who surrounded her at parties really wished to marry her.
The genuine and pure-hearted convictions concerning the inviolable
sanctity of marriage, which are peculiarly strong in American young
girls, asserted themselves with Katharine at every moment. Being the
lawfully wedded wife of John Ralston, it seemed an outrage that young
Van De Water, for instance, should seek occasion to assure her of his
devotion. Yet, since he, like the rest, knew nothing of the truth, she
could not blame him if he had chanced to fall in love with her. She
could only refuse to listen to him and discourage his advances, feeling
all the while a most unreasonable and yet womanly desire to hand him
over to her husband’s tender mercies, together with a firm faith that
John was not only able, but would also be quite disposed, to slay the
offender forthwith.
This seems to prove that woman is naturally good, and that harm can only
reach her by slow stages. And it is a curious reflection that generally
in the world good, when it comes, comes quickly and evil slowly. Great
purifying religions have arisen and washed whole nations clean, almost
in one man’s lifetime, whereas it has always required generations of
luxury and vice to undermine the solidity of any strong people. A first
sin is rarely more than an episode, too often exaggerated by those who
would direct the conscience, and who leave the offenders to the terrible
danger of discovering such exaggerations later, and then of setting down
all wrong-doing as insignificant because the first was made to appear
greater than it was.
Katharine hated the falseness of her position, and the perpetual
irritation to which she was exposed unsettled the balance of her girlish
convictions as they had emerged from the process of education,
ready-made, honest, and somewhat conventional. The disturbance awakened
abnormal activity in her mind, and she fell into the habit of
questioning and discussing almost every accepted article of creeds
social and spiritual.
Hence her liking for the society of Paul Griggs, whose experience was a
fact, but whose convictions were a mystery not easily fathomed.
Alexander Lauderdale especially detested the man for his easy way of
accepting anybody’s religious beliefs, as though the form of religion
were of no importance whatever, while perpetually thrusting forward the
humanity of mankind as the principal point of interest in life. But when
he was alone with Katharine, or with some kindred spirit, Griggs
sometimes talked of other things.
The day on which Katharine, returning from Robert Lauderdale’s house,
refused to answer her father’s questions was an important one in her
history and in the lives of many closely connected with her; and this
has seemed the best place for offering an explanation of such preceding
events as bear directly upon all that followed. Here, therefore, ends
the prologue to the story which is to tell of the lives of John Ralston
and his wife, commonly known as Miss Lauderdale, during the great battle
for the Lauderdale fortune. It has been a long prologue, and, as is
usually the case in such tiresome preliminary pieces, the majority of
the actors in the real play have not yet appeared, and the few who have
come before the curtain crave as yet indulgence rather than applause.
They have shown their faces and have explained the general nature of
what is to be represented, and they retire as gracefully as they can,
under rather difficult circumstances, to reappear in such actions and
situations as should explain themselves.