MRS. WHITNEY NEGOTIATES
The Rangers' neighbors saw the visits of Hargrave and Torrey. Immediately
a rumor of a bequest to Tecumseh was racing through the town and up the
Bluffs and through the fashionable suburb. It arrived at Point Helen, the
seat of the Whitneys, within an hour after Torrey left Ranger. It had
accumulated confirmatory detail by that time--the bequest was large; was
very large; was half his fortune--and the rest of the estate was to go to
the college should Arthur and Adelaide die childless.
Mrs. Whitney lost no time. At half-past four she was seated in the same
chair in which Hargrave and Torrey had sat. It was not difficult to bring
up the subject of the two marriages, which were doubly to unite the
houses and fortunes of Ranger and Whitney--the marriages of Arthur and
Janet, of Ross and Adelaide. "And, of course," said Mrs. Whitney, "we all
want the young people started right. I don't believe children ought to
feel dependent on their parents. It seems to me that puts filial and
parental love on a very low plane. Don't you think so?"
"Yes," said Hiram.
"The young people ought to feel that their financial position is secure.
And, as you and Ellen and Charles and I have lived for our children, have
toiled to raise them above the sordid cares and anxieties of life, we
ought to complete our work now and make them--happy."
Hiram did not speak, though she gave him ample time.
"So," pursued Mrs. Whitney, "I thought I wouldn't put off any longer
talking about what Charles and I have had in mind some months. Ross and
Janet will soon be here, and I know all four of the children are anxious
to have the engagements formally completed."
"Completed?" said Hiram.
"Yes," reaffirmed Matilda. "Of course they can't be completed until we
parents have done our share. You and Ellen want to know that Arthur and
Adelaide won't be at the mercy of any reverse in business Charles might
have--or of any caprice which might influence him in making his will. And
Charles and I want to feel the same way as to our Ross and Janet."
"Yes," said Hiram. "I see." A smile of stern irony roused his features
from their repose into an expressiveness that made Mrs. Whitney
exceedingly uncomfortable--but the more resolute.
"Charles is willing to be liberal both in immediate settlement and in
binding himself in the matter of his will," she went on. "He often says,
'I don't want my children to be impatient for me to die. I want to make
'em feel they're getting, if anything, more because I'm alive.'"
A long pause, then Hiram said: "That's one way of looking at it."
"That's _your_ way," said Matilda, as if the matter were settled. And
she smiled her softest and sweetest. But Hiram saw only the glitter in
her cold brown eyes, a glitter as hard as the sheen of her
henna-stained hair.
"No," said he emphatically, "that's _not_ my way. That's the broad and
easy way that leads to destruction. Ellen and I," he went on, his
excitement showing only in his lapses into dialect, "we hain't worked
all our lives so that our children'll be shiftless idlers, settin'
'round, polishin' their fingernails, and thinkin' up foolishness and
breedin' fools."
Matilda had always known that Hiram and Ellen were hopelessly vulgar; but
she had thought they cherished a secret admiration for the "higher
things" beyond their reach, and were resolved that their son should be a
gentleman and their daughter a lady. She found in Hiram's energetic
bitterness nothing to cause her to change her view. "He simply wants to
hold on to his property to the last, and play the tyrant," she said to
herself. "All people of property naturally feel that way." And she held
steadily to her programme. "Well, Hiram," she proceeded tranquilly, "if
those marriages are to take place, Charles and I will expect you to meet
us halfway."
"If Ross and my Delia and Arthur and your Jane are fond of each other,
let 'em marry as you and Charles, as Ellen and I married. I ain't buyin'
your son, nor sellin' my daughter. That's my last word, Tillie."
On impulse, he pressed the electric button in the wall behind him.
When the new upstairs girl came, he said: "Tell the children I want
to see 'em."
Arthur and Adelaide presently came, flushed with the exercise of the
tennis the girl had interrupted.
"Mrs. Whitney, here," said Hiram, "tells me her children won't marry
without settlements, as it's called. And I've been tellin' her that my
son and daughter ain't buyin' and sellin'."
Mrs. Whitney hid her fury. "Your father has a quaint way of expressing
himself," she said, laughing elegantly. "I've simply been trying to
persuade him to do as much toward securing the future of you two as Mr.
Whitney is willing to do. Don't be absurd, Hiram. You know better than to
talk that way."
Hiram looked steadily at her. "You've been travelin' about, 'Tilda,"
he said, "gettin' together a lot of newfangled notions. Ellen and I
and our children stick to the old way." And he looked at Arthur, then
at Adelaide.
Their faces gave him a twinge at the heart. "Speak up!" he said. "Do you
or do you not stick to the old way?"
"I can't talk about it, father," was Adelaide's evasive answer, her face
scarlet and her eyes down.
"And you, sir?" said Hiram to his son.
"You'll have to excuse me, sir," replied Arthur coldly.
Hiram winced before Mrs. Whitney's triumphant glance. He leaned forward
and, looking at his daughter, said: "Del, would you marry a man who
wouldn't take you unless you brought him a fortune?"
"No, father," Adelaide answered. She was meeting his gaze now. "But, at
the same time, I'd rather not be dependent on my husband."
"Do you think your mother is dependent on me?"
"That's different," said Adelaide, after a pause.
"How?" asked Hiram.
Adelaide did not answer, could not answer. To answer honestly would be
to confess that which had been troubling her greatly of late--the
feeling that there was something profoundly unsatisfactory in the
relations between Ross and herself; that what he was giving her was
different not only in degree but even in kind from what she wanted, or
ought to want, from what she was trying to give him, or thought she
ought to try to give him.
"And you, Arthur?" asked Hiram in the same solemn, appealing tone.
"I should not ask Janet to marry me unless I was sure I could support her
in the manner to which she is accustomed," said Arthur. "I certainly
shouldn't wish to be dependent upon her."
"Then, your notion of marrying is that people get married for a
living, for luxury. I suppose you'd expect her to leave you if you
lost your money?"
"That's different," said Arthur, restraining the impulse to reason with
his illogical father whose antiquated sentimentalism was as unfitted to
the new conditions of American life as were his ideas about work.
"You see, Hiram," said Mrs. Whitney, good-humoredly, "your children
outvote you."
The master workman brought his fist down on the arm of his chair--not a
gesture of violence, but of dignity and power. "I don't stand for the
notion that marriage is living in luxury and lolling in carriages and
showing off before strangers. I told you what my last word was, Matilda."
Mrs. Whitney debated with herself full half a minute before she
spoke. In a tone that betrayed her all but departed hope of changing
him, she said: "It is a great shock to me to have you even pretend to
be so heartless--to talk of breaking these young people's hearts--just
for a notion."
"It's better to break their hearts before marriage," replied Hiram, "than
to let them break their lives, and their hearts, too, on such marriages.
The girl that wants my son only if he has money to enable her to make a
fool of herself, ain't fit to be a wife--and a mother. As for Del and
Ross--The man that looks at what a woman _has_ will never look at what
she _is_--and my daughter's well rid of him."
A painful silence, then Mrs. Whitney rose. "If I hadn't suspected, Hiram,
that you intended to cheat your children out of their rights in order to
get a reputation as a philanthropist, I'd not have brought this matter up
at this time. I see my instincts didn't mislead me. But I don't give up
hope. I've known you too many years, Hiram Ranger, not to know that your
heart is in the right place. And, after you think it over, you will give
up this wicked--yes, wicked--plan old Doctor Hargrave has taken advantage
of your sickness to wheedle you into."
Hiram, his face and hands like yellow wax, made no answer. Arthur and
Adelaide followed Mrs. Whitney from the room. "Thank you, Mrs. Whitney,"
said Arthur, gratefully, when they were out of his father's hearing. "I
don't know what has come over him of late. He has gone back to his
childhood and under the spell of the ideas that seemed, and no doubt
were, right then. I believe you have set him to thinking. He's the best
father in the world when he is well and can see things clearly."
Mrs. Whitney was not so sanguine, but she concealed it. She appreciated
what was troubling Hiram. While she encouraged her own son, her Ross, to
be a "gentleman," she had enough of the American left to see the flaws in
that new ideal of hers--when looking at another woman's son. And the
superciliousness which delighted her in Ross, irritated her in Arthur;
for, in him, it seemed a sneering reflection upon the humble and
toilsome beginnings of Charles and herself. She believed--not without
reason--that, under Ross's glossy veneer of gentleman, there was a shrewd
and calculating nature; it, she thought, would not permit the gentleman
to make mess of those matters, which, coarse and sordid though they were,
still must be looked after sharply if the gentleman was to be kept going.
But she was, not unnaturally, completely taken in by Arthur's similar
game, the more easily as Arthur put into it an intensity of energy which
Ross had not. She therefore thought Arthur as unpractical as he so
fashionably professed, thought he accepted without reservation "our
set's" pretenses of aristocracy for appearance's sake. "Of course, your
father'll come round," she said, friendly but not cordial. "All that's
necessary is that you and Adelaide use a little tact."
And she was in her victoria and away, a very grand-looking lady, indeed,
with two in spick and span summer livery on the box, with her exquisite
white and gold sunshade, a huge sapphire in the end of the handle, a
string of diamonds worth a small fortune round her neck, a gold bag,
studded with diamonds, in her lap, and her superb figure clad in a
close-fitting white cloth dress. In the gates she swept past Torrey and
his two clerks accompanying him as witnesses. She understood; her face
was anything but an index to her thoughts as she bowed and smiled
graciously in response to the old judge's salutation.
* * * * *
Torrey read the will to Hiram slowly, pausing after each paragraph for
sign of approval or criticism. But Hiram gave no more indication of his
thought, by word or expression or motion, than if he had been a seated
statue. The reading came to an end, but neither man spoke. The choir of
birds, assembled in the great trees round the house, flooded the room
with their evening melody. At last, Hiram said: "Please move that table
in front of me."
Torrey put the table before him, laid the will upon it ready for
the signing.
Hiram took a pen; Torrey went to the door and brought in the two clerks
waiting in the hall. The three men stood watching while Hiram's eyes
slowly read each word of the will. He dipped the pen and, with a hand
that trembled in spite of all his obvious efforts to steady it, wrote his
name on the line to which Torrey silently pointed. The clerks signed as
witnesses.
"Thank you," said Hiram. "You had better take it with you, judge."
"Very well," said Torrey, tears in his eyes, a quaver in his voice.
A few seconds and Hiram was alone staring down at the surface of the
table, where he could still see and read the will. His conscience told
him he had "put his house in order"; but he felt as if he had set fire to
it with his family locked within, and was watching it and them burn to
ashes, was hearing their death cries and their curses upon him.
* * * * *
The two young people, chilled by Mrs. Whitney's manner, flawless though
it was, apparently, had watched with sinking hearts the disappearance of
her glittering chariot and her glistening steeds. Then they had gone into
the garden before Torrey and the clerks arrived. And they sat there
thinking each his own kind of melancholy thoughts.
"What did she mean by that remark about Doctor Hargrave?" asked Arthur,
after some minutes of this heavy silence.
"I don't know," said Adelaide.
"We must get mother to go at father," Arthur continued.
Adelaide made no answer.
Arthur looked at her irritably. "What are you thinking about, Del?"
he demanded.
"I don't like Mrs. Whitney. Do you?"
"Oh, she's a good enough imitation of the real thing," said Arthur. "You
can't expect a lady in the first generation."
Adelaide's color slowly mounted. "You don't mean that," said she.
He frowned and retorted angrily: "There's a great deal of truth that
we don't like. Why do you always get mad at me for saying what we
both think?"
"I admit it's foolish and wrong of me," said she; "but I can't help it.
And if I get half-angry with you, I get wholly angry with myself for
being contemptible enough to think those things. Don't you get angry at
yourself for thinking them?"
Arthur laughed mirthlessly--an admission.
"We and father can't both be right," she pursued. "I suppose we're both
partly right and partly wrong--that's usually the way it is. But I can't
make up my mind just where he begins to be wrong."
"Why not admit he's right through and through, and be done with it?"
cried Arthur impatiently. "Why not tell him so, and square yourself
with him?"
Adelaide, too hurt to venture speech, turned away. She lingered a while
in the library; on her way down the hall to ascend to her own room she
looked in at her father. There he sat so still that but for the regular
rise and fall of his chest she would have thought him dead. "He's
asleep," she murmured, the tears standing in her eyes and raining in her
heart. Her mother she could judge impartially; her mother's disregard of
the changes which had come to assume so much importance in her own and
Arthur's lives often made her wince. But the same disregard in a man did
not offend her; it had the reverse effect. It seemed to her, to the woman
in her, the fitting roughness of the colossal statue. "That's a _man_!"
she now said to herself proudly, as she gazed at him.
His eyes opened and fixed upon her in a look so agonized, that she
leaned, faint, against the door jamb. "What is it, father?" she gasped.
He did not answer--did not move--sat rigidly on, with that expression
unchanging, as if it had been fixed there by the sculptor who had made
the statue. She tried to go to him, but at the very thought she was
overwhelmed by such fear as she had not had since she, a child, lay in
her little bed in the dark, too terrified by the phantoms that beset her
to cry out or to move. "Father! What is it?" she repeated, then wheeled
and fled along the hall crying: "Mother! Mother!"
Ellen came hurrying down the stairs.
"It's father!" cried Adelaide.
Together they went into the back parlor. He was still motionless, with
that same frozen yet fiery expression. They went to him, tried to lift
him. Ellen dropped the lifeless arm, turned to her daughter. And Adelaide
saw into her mother's inmost heart, saw the tragic lift of one of those
tremendous emotions, which, by their very coming into a human soul, give
it the majesty and the mystery of the divine.
"Telephone for Dr. Schulze," she commanded; then, as Adelaide sped, she
said tenderly to her husband: "Where is the pain? What can I do?"
But he did not answer. And if he could have answered, what could she have
done? The pain was in his heart, was the burning agony of remorse for
having done that which he still believed to be right, that which he now
thought he would give his soul's salvation for the chance to undo. For,
as the paralysis began to lock his body fast in its vise, the awful
thought had for the first time come to him: "When my children know what I
have done they will _hate_ me! They will hate me all their lives."
Dr. Schulze examined him. "Somewhat sooner than I expected," he muttered.
"How long will it last?" said Ellen.
"Some time--several weeks--months--perhaps." He would let her learn
gradually that the paralysis would not relax its grip until it had borne
him into the eternal prison and had handed him over to the jailer who
makes no deliveries.