I
There was an air of calm and reserved opulence about the Weightman
mansion that spoke not of money squandered, but of wealth prudently
applied. Standing on a corner of the Avenue no longer fashionable for
residence, it looked upon the swelling tide of business with an
expression of complacency and half-disdain.
The house was not beautiful. There was nothing in its straight front
of chocolate-coloured stone, its heavy cornices, its broad, staring
windows of plate glass, its carved and bronze-bedecked mahogany doors
at the top of the wide stoop, to charm the eye or fascinate the
imagination. But it was eminently respectable, and in its way
imposing. It seemed to say that the glittering shops of the jewellers,
the milliners, the confectioners, the florists, the picture-dealers,
the furriers, the makers of rare and costly antiquities, retail
traders in the luxuries of life, were beneath the notice of a house
that had its foundations in the high finance, and was built literally
and figuratively in the shadow of St. Petronius' Church.
At the same time there was something self-pleased and congratulatory
in the way in which the mansion held its own amid the changing
neighbourhood. It almost seemed to be lifted up a little, among the
tall buildings near at hand, as if it felt the rising value of the
land on which it stood.
John Weightman was like the house into which he had built himself
thirty years ago, and in which his ideals and ambitions were
incrusted. He was a self-made man. But in making himself he had chosen
a highly esteemed pattern and worked according to the approved rules.
There was nothing irregular, questionable, flamboyant about him. He
was solid, correct, and justly successful.
His minor tastes, of course, had been carefully kept up to date. At
the proper time, pictures by the Barbizon masters, old English plate
and portraits, bronzes by Barye and marbles by Rodin, Persian carpets
and Chinese porcelains, had been introduced to the mansion. It
contained a Louis Quinze reception-room, an Empire drawing-room, a
Jacobean dining-room, and various apartments dimly reminiscent of the
styles of furniture affected by deceased monarchs. That the hallways
were too short for the historic perspective did not make much
difference. American decorative art is _capable de tout_, it absorbs
all periods. Of each period Mr. Weightman wished to have something of
the best. He understood its value, present as a certificate, and
prospective as an investment.
It was only in the architecture of his town house that he remained
conservative, immovable, one might almost say Early-Victorian-Christian.
His country house at Dulwich-on-the-Sound was a palace of the Italian
Renaissance. But in town he adhered to an architecture which had moral
associations, the Nineteenth-Century-Brownstone epoch. It was a symbol of
his social position, his religious doctrine, and even, in a way, of his
business creed.
"A man of fixed principles," he would say, "should express them in the
looks of his house. New York changes its domestic architecture too
rapidly. It is like divorce. It is not dignified. I don't like it.
Extravagance and fickleness are advertised in most of these new
houses. I wish to be known for different qualities. Dignity and
prudence are the things that people trust. Every one knows that I can
afford to live in the house that suits me. It is a guarantee to the
public. It inspires confidence. It helps my influence. There is a text
in the Bible about 'a house that hath foundations.' That is the proper
kind of a mansion for a solid man."
Harold Weightman had often listened to his father discoursing in this
fashion on the fundamental principles of life, and always with a
divided mind. He admired immensely his father's talents and the
single-minded energy with which he improved them. But in the paternal
philosophy there was something that disquieted and oppressed the young
man, and made him gasp inwardly for fresh air and free action.
At times, during his college course and his years at the law school,
he had yielded to this impulse and broken away--now toward
extravagance and dissipation, and then, when the reaction came,
toward a romantic devotion to work among the poor. He had felt his
father's disapproval for both of these forms of imprudence; but it was
never expressed in a harsh or violent way, always with a certain
tolerant patience, such as one might show for the mistakes and
vagaries of the very young. John Weightman was not hasty, impulsive,
inconsiderate, even toward his own children. With them, as with the
rest of the world, he felt that he had a reputation to maintain, a
theory to vindicate. He could afford to give them time to see that he
was absolutely right.
One of his favourite Scripture quotations was, "Wait on the Lord." He
had applied it to real estate and to people, with profitable results.
But to human persons the sensation of being waited for is not always
agreeable. Sometimes, especially with the young, it produces a vague
restlessness, a dumb resentment, which is increased by the fact that
one can hardly explain or justify it. Of this John Weightman was not
conscious. It lay beyond his horizon. He did not take it into account
in the plan of life which he made for himself and for his family as
the sharers and inheritors of his success.
"Father plays us," said Harold, in a moment of irritation, to his
mother, "like pieces in a game of chess."
"My dear," said that lady, whose faith in her husband was religious,
"you ought not to speak so impatiently. At least he wins the game. He
is one of the most respected men in New York. And he is very generous,
too."
"I wish he would be more generous in letting us be ourselves," said
the young man. "He always has something in view for us and expects to
move us up to it."
"But isn't it always for our benefit?" replied his mother. "Look what
a position we have. No one can say there is any taint on our money.
There are no rumours about your father. He has kept the laws of God
and of man. He has never made any mistakes."
Harold got up from his chair and poked the fire. Then he came back to
the ample, well-gowned, firm-looking lady, and sat beside her on the
sofa. He took her hand gently and looked at the two rings--a thin band
of gold, and a small solitaire diamond--which kept their place on her
third finger in modest dignity, as if not shamed, but rather
justified, by the splendour of the emerald which glittered beside
them.
"Mother," he said, "you have a wonderful hand, and father made no
mistake when he won you. But are you sure he has always been so
inerrant?"
"Harold," she exclaimed, a little stiffly, "what do you mean? His life
is an open book."
"Oh," he answered, "I don't mean anything bad, mother dear. I know the
governor's life is an open book--a ledger, if you like, kept in the
best book-keeping hand, and always ready for inspection--every page
correct, and showing a handsome balance. But isn't it a mistake not to
allow us to make our own mistakes, to learn for ourselves, to live our
own lives? Must we be always working for 'the balance,' in one thing
or another? I want to be myself,--to get outside of this everlasting,
profitable 'plan,'--to let myself go, and lose myself for a while at
least,--to do the things that I want to do, just because I want to do
them."
"My boy," said his mother, anxiously, "you are not going to do
anything wrong or foolish? You know the falsehood of that old proverb
about wild oats."
He threw back his head and laughed. "Yes, mother," he answered, "I
know it well enough. But in California, you know, the wild oats are
one of the most valuable crops. They grow all over the hillsides and
keep the cattle and the horses alive. But that wasn't what I meant--to
sow wild oats. Say to pick wild flowers, if you like, or even to chase
wild geese--to do something that seems good to me just for its own
sake, not for the sake of wages of one kind or another. I feel like a
hired man, in the service of this magnificent mansion--say in training
for father's place as major-domo. I'd like to get out some way, to
feel free--perhaps to do something for others."
The young man's voice hesitated a little. "Yes, it sounds like cant, I
know, but sometimes I feel as if I'd like to do some good in the
world, if father only wouldn't insist upon God's putting it into the
ledger."
His mother moved uneasily, and a slight look of bewilderment came into
her face.
"Isn't that almost irreverent?" she asked. "Surely the righteous must
have their reward. And your father is good. See how much he gives to
all the established charities, how many things he has founded. He's
always thinking of others, and planning for them. And surely, for us
he does everything. How well he has planned this trip to Europe for me
and the girls--the court-presentation at Berlin, the season on the
Riviera, the visits in England with the Plumptons and the
Halverstones. He says Lord Halverstone has the finest old house in
Sussex, pure Elizabethan, and all the old customs are kept up,
too--family prayers every morning for all the domestics. By-the-way,
you know his son Bertie, I believe."
Harold smiled a little to himself as he answered: "Yes, I fished at
Catalina Island last June with the Honorable Ethelbert; he's rather a
decent chap, in spite of his in-growing mind. But you?--mother, you
are simply magnificent! You are father's masterpiece." The young man
leaned over to kiss her, and went up to the Riding Club for his
afternoon canter in the Park.
So it came to pass, early in December, that Mrs. Weightman and her two
daughters sailed for Europe, on their serious pleasure trip, even as
it had been written in the book of Providence; and John Weightman, who
had made the entry, was left to pass the rest of the winter with his
son and heir in the brownstone mansion.
They were comfortable enough. The machinery of the massive
establishment ran as smoothly as a great electric dynamo. They were
busy enough, too. John Weightman's plans and enterprises were
complicated, though his principle of action was always simple--to get
good value for every expenditure and effort. The banking-house of
which he was the brain, the will, the absolutely controlling hand, was
so admirably organised that the details of its direction took but
little time. But the scores of other interests that radiated from it
and were dependent upon it,--or perhaps it would be more accurate to
say, that contributed to its solidity and success,--the many
investments, industrial, political, benevolent, reformatory,
ecclesiastical, that had made the name of Weightman well known and
potent in city, church, and state, demanded much attention and careful
steering, in order that each might produce the desired result. There
were board meetings of corporations and hospitals, conferences in Wall
Street and at Albany, consultations and committee meetings in the
brownstone mansion.
For a share in all this business and its adjuncts John Weightman had
his son in training in one of the famous law firms of the city; for he
held that banking itself is a simple affair, the only real
difficulties of finance are on its legal side. Meantime he wished the
young man to meet and know the men with whom he would have to deal
when he became a partner in the house. So a couple of dinners were
given in the mansion during December, after which the father called
his son's attention to the fact that over a hundred million dollars
had sat around the board.
But on Christmas Eve father and son were dining together without
guests, and their talk across the broad table, glittering with silver
and cut glass, and softly lit by shaded candles, was intimate, though
a little slow at times. The elder man was in rather a rare mood, more
expansive and confidential than usual; and, when the coffee was
brought in and they were left alone, he talked more freely of his
personal plans and hopes than he had ever done before.
"I feel very grateful to-night," said he, at last; "it must be
something in the air of Christmas that gives me this feeling of
thankfulness for the many mercies that have been bestowed upon me. All
the principles by which I have tried to guide my life have been
justified. I have never made the value of this salted almond by
anything that the courts would not uphold, at least in the long run,
and yet--or wouldn't it be truer to say and therefore?--my affairs
have been wonderfully prospered. There's a great deal in that text
'Honesty is the best'--but no, that's not from the Bible, after all,
is it? Wait a moment; there is something of that kind, I know."
"May I light a cigar, father," said Harold, turning away to hide a
smile, "while you are remembering the text?"
"Yes, certainly," answered the elder man, rather shortly; "you know I
don't dislike the smell. But it is a wasteful, useless habit, and
therefore I have never practised it. Nothing useless is worth while,
that's my motto--nothing that does not bring a reward. Oh, now I
recall the text, 'Verily I say unto you, they have their reward.' I
shall ask Doctor Snodgrass to preach a sermon on that verse some day."
"Using you as an illustration?"
"Well, not exactly that; but I could give him some good material from
my own experience to prove the truth of Scripture. I can honestly say
that there is not one of my charities that has not brought me in a
good return, either in the increase of influence, the building up of
credit, or the association with substantial people. Of course you have
to be careful how you give, in order to secure the best results--no
indiscriminate giving--no pennies in beggars' hats! It has been one of
my principles always to use the same kind of judgment in charities
that I use in my other affairs, and they have not disappointed me."
"Even the check that you put in the plate when you take the offertory
up the aisle on Sunday morning?"
"Certainly; though there the influence is less direct; and I must
confess that I have my doubts in regard to the collection for Foreign
Missions. That always seems to me romantic and wasteful. You never
hear from it in any definite way. They say the missionaries have done
a good deal to open the way for trade; perhaps--but they have also
gotten us into commercial and political difficulties. Yet I give to
them--a little--it is a matter of conscience with me to identify
myself with all the enterprises of the Church; it is the mainstay of
social order and a prosperous civilisation. But the best forms of
benevolence are the well-established, organised ones here at home,
where people can see them and know what they are doing."
"You mean the ones that have a local habitation and a name."
"Yes; they offer by far the safest return, though of course there is
something gained by contributing to general funds. A public man can't
afford to be without public spirit. But on the whole I prefer a
building, or an endowment. There is a mutual advantage to a good name
and a good institution in their connection in the public mind. It
helps them both. Remember that, my boy. Of course at the beginning you
will have to practise it in a small way; later, you will have larger
opportunities. But try to put your gifts where they can be identified
and do good all around. You'll see the wisdom of it in the long run."
"I can see it already, sir, and the way you describe it looks
amazingly wise and prudent. In other words, we must cast our bread on
the waters in large loaves, carried by sound ships marked with the
owner's name, so that the return freight will be sure to come back to
us."
The father laughed, but his eyes were frowning a little as if he
suspected something irreverent under the respectful reply.
"You put it humourously, but there's sense in what you say. Why not?
God rules the sea; but He expects us to follow the laws of navigation
and commerce. Why not take good care of your bread, even when you give
it away?"
"It's not for me to say why not--and yet I can think of cases--" The
young man hesitated for a moment. His half-finished cigar had gone
out. He rose and tossed it into the fire, in front of which he
remained standing--a slender, eager, restless young figure, with a
touch of hunger in the fine face, strangely like and unlike the
father, at whom he looked with half-wistful curiosity.
"The fact is, sir," he continued, "there is such a case in my mind
now. So I thought of speaking to you about it to-night. You remember
Tom Rollins, the Junior who was so good to me when I entered college?"
The father nodded. He remembered very well indeed the annoying
incidents of his son's first escapade, and how Rollins had stood by
him and helped to avoid a public disgrace, and how a close friendship
had grown between the two boys, so different in their fortunes.
"Yes," he said, "I remember him. He was a promising young man. Has he
succeeded?"
"Not exactly--that is, not yet. His business has been going rather
badly. He has a wife and little baby, you know. And now he has broken
down,--something wrong with his lungs. The doctor says his only chance
is a year or eighteen months in Colorado. I wish we could help him."
"How much would it cost?"
"Three or four thousand, perhaps, as a loan."
"Does the doctor say he will get well?"
"A fighting chance--the doctor says."
The face of the older man changed subtly. Not a line was altered, but
it seemed to have a different substance, as if it were carved out of
some firm imperishable stuff.
"A fighting chance," he said, "may do for a speculation, but it is not
a good investment. You owe something to young Rollins. Your grateful
feeling does you credit. But don't overwork it. Send him three or four
hundred, if you like. You'll never hear from it again, except in the
letter of thanks. But for Heaven's sake don't be sentimental.
Religion is not a matter of sentiment; it's a matter of principle."
The face of the younger man changed now. But instead of becoming fixed
and graven, it seemed to melt into life. His nostrils quivered with
quick breath, his lips were curled.
"Principle!" he said. "You mean principal--and interest too. Well,
sir, you know best whether that is religion or not. But if it is,
count me out, please. Tom saved me from going to the devil, six years
ago; and I'll be damned if I don't help him to the best of my ability
now."
John Weightman looked at his son steadily. "Harold," he said at last,
"you know I dislike violent language, and it never has any influence
with me. If I could honestly approve of this proposition of yours, I'd
let you have the money; but I can't; it's extravagant and useless. But
you have your Christmas check for a thousand dollars coming to you
to-morrow. You can use it as you please. I never interfere with your
private affairs."
"Thank you," said Harold. "Thank you very much! But there's another
private affair. I want to get away from this life, this town, this
house. It stifles me. You refused last summer when I asked you to let
me go up to Grenfell's Mission on the Labrador. I could go now, at
least as far as the Newfoundland Station. Have you changed your mind?"
"Not at all. I think it is an exceedingly foolish enterprise. It would
interrupt the career that I have marked out for you."
"Well, then, here's a cheaper proposition. Algy Vanderhoof wants me to
join him on his yacht with--well, with a little party--to cruise in
the West Indies. Would you prefer that?"
"Certainly not! The Vanderhoof set is wild and godless--I do not wish
to see you keeping company with fools who walk in the broad and easy
way that leads to perdition."
"It is rather a hard choice," said the young man, with a short laugh,
turning toward the door. "According to you there's very little
difference--a fool's paradise or a fool's hell! Well, it's one or the
other for me, and I'll toss up for it to-night: heads, I lose; tails,
the devil wins. Anyway, I'm sick of this, and I'm out of it."
"Harold," said the older man (and there was a slight tremor in his
voice), "don't let us quarrel on Christmas Eve. All I want is to
persuade you to think seriously of the duties and responsibilities to
which God has called you. Don't speak lightly of heaven and hell.
Remember, there is another life."
The young man came back and laid his hand upon his father's shoulder.
"Father," he said, "I want to remember it. I try to believe in it. But
somehow or other, in this house, it all seems unreal to me. No doubt
all you say is perfectly right and wise. I don't venture to argue
against it, but I can't feel it--that's all. If I'm to have a soul,
either to lose or to save, I must really live. Just now neither the
present nor the future means anything to me. But surely we won't
quarrel. I'm very grateful to you, and we'll part friends. Good-night,
sir."
The father held out his hand in silence. The heavy portiere dropped
noiselessly behind the son, and he went up the wide, curving stairway
to his own room.
Meantime John Weightman sat in his carved chair in the Jacobean
dining-room. He felt strangely old and dull. The portraits of
beautiful women by Lawrence and Reynolds and Raeburn, which had often
seemed like real company to him, looked remote and uninteresting. He
fancied something cold and almost unfriendly in their expression, as
if they were staring through him or beyond him. They cared nothing for
his principles, his hopes, his disappointments, his successes; they
belonged to another world, in which he had no place. At this he felt a
vague resentment, a sense of discomfort that he could not have defined
or explained. He was used to being considered, respected, appreciated
at his full value in every region, even in that of his own dreams.
Presently he rang for the butler, telling him to close the house and
not to sit up, and walked with lagging steps into the long library,
where the shaded lamps were burning. His eye fell upon the low shelves
full of costly books, but he had no desire to open them. Even the
carefully chosen pictures that hung above them seemed to have lost
their attraction. He paused for a moment before an idyll of Corot--a
dance of nymphs around some forgotten altar in a vaporous glade--and
looked at it curiously. There was something rapturous and serene about
the picture, a breath of spring-time in the misty trees, a harmony of
joy in the dancing figures, that wakened in him a feeling of half
pleasure and half envy. It represented something that he had never
known in his calculated, orderly life. He was dimly mistrustful of it.
"It is certainly very beautiful," he thought, "but it is distinctly
pagan; that altar is built to some heathen god. It does not fit into
the scheme of a Christian life. I doubt whether it is consistent with
the tone of my house. I will sell it this winter. It will bring three
or four times what I paid for it. That was a good purchase, a very
good bargain."
He dropped into the revolving chair before his big library table. It
was covered with pamphlets and reports of the various enterprises in
which he was interested. There was a pile of newspaper clippings in
which his name was mentioned with praise for his sustaining power as a
pillar of finance, for his judicious benevolence, for his support of
wise and prudent reform movements, for his discretion in making
permanent public gifts--"the Weightman Charities," one very
complaisant editor called them, as if they deserved classification as
a distinct species.
He turned the papers over listlessly. There was a description and a
picture of the "Weightman Wing of the Hospital for Cripples," of which
he was president; and an article on the new professor in the
"Weightman Chair of Political Jurisprudence" in Jackson University, of
which he was a trustee; and an illustrated account of the opening of
the "Weightman Grammar-School" at Dulwich-on-the-Sound, where he had
his legal residence for purposes of taxation.
This last was perhaps the most carefully planned of all the Weightman
Charities. He desired to win the confidence and support of his rural
neighbours. It had pleased him much when the local newspaper had
spoken of him as an ideal citizen and the logical candidate for the
Governorship of the State; but upon the whole it seemed to him wiser
to keep out of active politics. It would be easier and better to put
Harold into the running, to have him sent to the Legislature from the
Dulwich district, then to the national House, then to the Senate. Why
not? The Weightman interests were large enough to need a direct
representative and guardian at Washington.
But to-night all these plans came back to him with dust upon them.
They were dry and crumbling like forsaken habitations. The son upon
whom his complacent ambition had rested had turned his back upon the
mansion of his father's hopes. The break might not be final; and in
any event there would be much to live for; the fortunes of the family
would be secure. But the zest of it all would be gone if John
Weightman had to give up the assurance of perpetuating his name and
his principles in his son. It was a bitter disappointment, and he felt
that he had not deserved it.
He rose from the chair and paced the room with leaden feet. For the
first time in his life his age was visibly upon him. His head was
heavy and hot, and the thoughts that rolled in it were confused and
depressing. Could it be that he had made a mistake in the principles
of his existence? There was no argument in what Harold had said, it
was almost childish, and yet it had shaken the elder man more deeply
than he cared to show. It held a silent attack which touched him more
than open criticism.
Suppose the end of his life were nearer than he thought--the end must
come sometime--what if it were now? Had he not founded his house upon
a rock? Had he not kept the Commandments? Was he not, "touching the
law, blameless"? And beyond this, even if there were some faults in
his character--and all men are sinners--yet he surely believed in the
saving doctrines of religion--the forgiveness of sins, the
resurrection of the body, the life everlasting. Yes, that was the true
source of comfort, after all. He would read a bit in the Bible, as he
did every night, and go to bed and to sleep.
He went back to his chair at the library table. A strange weight of
weariness rested upon him, but he opened the book at a familiar place,
and his eyes fell upon the verse at the bottom of the page.
"_Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth._"
That had been the text of the sermon a few weeks before. Sleepily,
heavily, he tried to fix his mind upon it and recall it. What was it
that Doctor Snodgrass had said? Ah, yes--that it was a mistake to
pause here in reading the verse. We must read on without a pause--_Lay
not up treasures upon earth where moth and rust do corrupt and where
thieves break through and steal_--that was the true doctrine. We may
have treasures upon earth, but they must not be put into unsafe
places, but into safe places. A most comforting doctrine! He had
always followed it. Moths and rust and thieves had done no harm to his
investments.
John Weightman's drooping eyes turned to the next verse, at the top of
the second column.
"_But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven._"
Now what had the Doctor said about that? How was it to be
understood--in what sense--treasures--in heaven?
The book seemed to float away from him. The light vanished. He
wondered dimly if this could be Death, coming so suddenly, so quietly,
so irresistibly. He struggled for a moment to hold himself up, and
then sank slowly forward upon the table. His head rested upon his
folded hands. He slipped into the unknown.