Lansing Treadwell, after an hour on the piazza with his aunt and uncle,
followed the latter into the study and, taking the broad leather chair,
faced Markham across the flat desk with candid, friendly eyes. Levi
sat, as he always did when in that room, in his revolving chair; the
leather one was reserved for visitors.
"Well, Lansing," he began, sternly endeavouring to obscure the hope,
pride, and affection that were welling up in his heart as he looked at
the boy; "you're through preparatory; have qualified for college and,
after this year, are ready for your career!"
"I've done pretty well, Uncle Levi. I stand third in my class and I'm
the youngest."
"How old are you?"
"Seventeen."
"You'll be eighteen when you enter college? That's too young."
"I'm older than my years," Lansing gave a boastful laugh, then did a
bungling thing. "Won't you smoke, Uncle Levi?" and he passed a
handsome silver case forward; "it's a great tie between--well, chums!"
"I've lived over sixty years without the need of that tie," Markham
returned stiffly; "I do not think I'll take it up now. I'm not much of
a preacher, but at your age, Lansing, I'd advise the collection of good
tastes and habits; let the doubtful luxuries await the years of
discretion."
Lansing pocketed his silver case and gave an embarrassed laugh. Levi
went back to his former line of argument.
"It's Cornell and the beggarly allowance," thought Lansing, but it was
no such thing.
"You are too young to go to college, Lans; too immature to really put
yourself to any final test. Your assumption of dignity proves this
more than anything else. Of course I do not know how much or how
little you know of the past, but it is necessary, from now on, that you
and I should understand each other perfectly. I was very"--Levi
struggled for composure--"very fond of your mother."
"Yes, uncle."
"And I did not want her to marry your father. I feared he would not
make her happy--he did not!"
The crisp facts came out with force but with no malignity, and Lansing
Hertford dropped his eyes as he replied:
"Aunt Olive has told me they were very uncongenial." A flush rose to
the young fellow's face. A pride, not altogether unworthy, rang in the
words and for the first time Markham detected a resemblance to the
father in the close-shut lips.
"I do not wish to say anything against your father that is avoidable,
but for your own safety and my own protection I realize that you and I
must be quite open with each other."
"Yes, uncle."
"Your mother died more of a broken heart than of anything else."
The boy set his jaw.
"I know father loved life and took it as it came," he said.
A brief silence rested between the two, then Markham went on:
"Naturally you inherit from both your parents. To a certain extent,
certainly, a man, under God, is master of his life and I want to give
you the best possible choice that lies in my power, not only for your
own sake and mine, but for your mother's and--yes! your father's!"
"Thank you, Uncle Levi."
And now the boy's eyes were raised once more. They swept the room,
Markham's face, and then travelled to the broad acres in rich
cultivation as far as one could see.
"You have had too much pleasure and luxury, Lans; things have come too
easily. You have never been brought face to face with a longing, and
been made to understand that sacrifice, on your part, was necessary to
obtain it. Unless you have felt so, you are in no position to find
yourself, as you put it."
Again the vital silence.
"How do you know whether you want a college education or not? How do
you know you are worthy of this great privilege? You may not even be
fitted for it by nature."
Had Markham asked if his nephew knew whether he would ever want to eat
a meal again, the boy could not have been more surprised. College, to
him and his set, was as natural a sequence as dessert after the courses
preceding it. For the life of him Lansing could not prevent a stare.
His aunt had left him utterly unprepared for this.
"Now this is my proposition:" Markham had his elbows on his desk, his
chin resting on the points of his clasped hands; "I will take you into
the mills on exactly the same terms as I would any other young
fellow--except that you will share my home--until you learn the
rudiments of the business and discover whether you have any business
sense or not. By the time you have mastered that and experienced some
bodily labour, you will be in a position where you can choose, to some
degree, your career. Should you, then, wish to enter college, I will
permit you to select one, and I will see you through. It is my firm
belief that between a preparatory school and college there should be a
space of time, except in particular cases, for looking backward and
forward--a breathing time; a time for relaxation and the acquiring of
fixed aims. College should not be passed out to a boy as a plum or a
luxury--it's too grave a matter for that. All my life I have deplored
the lack of it--but I had to live and suffer before I realized its
importance."
With all his honesty Lansing Hertford was trying at this critical time
to get his uncle's point of view. Of one thing alone was he sure--he
was, he believed, so far ahead of his uncle in his knowledge of life
that the old gentleman seemed but a blurred speck on the social
horizon. No longer could he be looked to as a safe adviser. Why, left
to himself, the man might sacrifice the family name and prestige! He
did not even understand the decent conventions due his own standing in
the community! Suddenly Lansing Hertford felt old and anxious as
though upon him, instead of Levi, rested the responsibility of the
future. He tried to frame a reply that might enlighten and not insult,
but it was difficult. At last he spoke.
"Uncle Levi, I cannot see what such effort and success as yours amount
to if they do not place the next generation higher. What you say you
have deplored in your own life should prove to you what I ought to
have. Your experience counts for so much, you know. I expect to work,
and work hard--I always have worked hard. I'm two years ahead of most
fellows of my age. But I want to start from where you and my Aunt
Olive leave off, I want to mingle with my kind--I am all but qualified
to enter Yale--I could not go--back!"
"Your kind! Go back!" Levi's eyes flashed under his shaggy brows.
"What is your kind? Have you ever mingled with those above or below
you? And as to going back--is it degrading to place yourself in a
position from which you can accept or decline a great opportunity
intelligently? I was forced to learn my lesson in a hard school; you
can still learn the lesson even with the limitations of luxury. Your
'kind' is good, bad, and indifferent, and there are other kinds. I see
you before me, young and hopeful--but ignorant and blind. I want to
open every avenue to you that leads to successful manhood. You are
losing nothing by my plan; you are gaining much." Something very
pleading rang in Markham's voice, but Lansing was deaf to it.
"Uncle Levi--I cannot! I'd be a disappointment to you if I tried.
I've got to go on with the fellows. I'd lose more than you know if I
broke away now and--and buried myself in the mill, and then tried later
to pick up. You've never been through what I have--the break would be
the end of me! You'd know it when it was too late. I mean to try to
be the best of my kind, indeed I do--but the fellow I am is the result
of my training and it means everything to me."
What Levi Markham saw before him now was the son of Lansing
Hertford--all resemblance to the mother was gone. Baffled and defeated
by a something invincible and beyond his understanding, the old man
faced the calmness of the young fellow in the chair across the desk.
When he spoke he addressed a Hertford only.
"You have heard my proposition, Lansing; I mean to stand by it; unless
you can accept my terms I shall change my will."
Could Markham only have understood he would have known that it was the
pride of his race, not the Hertfords', that spurred Lansing to retort
angrily:
"I did not know I was being bought. I thought you were doing it for
what you believed was my good!"
"And so I am!" The incongruity of thus arguing with a boy of seventeen
did not strike Markham. It was man to man, with the influence of Olive
Treadwell in the reckoning!
"Give me my college first, Uncle Levi, and consider the business
afterward."
"I have worked this thing out, Lansing. I am not likely to change my
mind."
And just then Sandy Morley passed by the window with his dog at his
heels.
"Who is that?" asked Lans indifferently, and a blind impulse spoke
through Markham.
"The boy who will accept the offer I make if you decline it!"
Lansing Hertford got upon his feet. All the forced affection and
respect he had been trained to observe dropped from him. His uncle
seemed a coarse, hard stranger, the surroundings distasteful. A
certain mental homesickness for all the pleasant luxury and environment
of his Aunt Olive's life overcame him. He spoke boyishly.
"I think I will return to Boston to-night, Uncle Levi. There's a train
at seven. I couldn't eat dinner feeling as I do. Good-bye, I'm going
to walk to the station. Will you be good enough to send my traps up
to-morrow. Bid Aunt Tilda good-bye, please."
He put out his hand frankly and was gone before Markham realized the
situation.
"It was not Lans you were fighting," Matilda sagely remarked later when
her brother explained matters to her, "it was his dead father, and
Olive Treadwell. You just better write to the boy, I guess, and get
him to finish out his visit and reconsider. I tell you flat-footed,
Levi, there ain't much give to you when you've worked yourself up, and
I must say I like the lad all the better for the way he stood up for
his kin. They are his kin, and good or bad, that Treadwell woman has
won his affection when we couldn't. And to throw that--that strange
boy at his head in that fashion! It wasn't worthy of you, Levi! It
was downright shallow and you prating always of justice and sane
reasoning!"
What might have happened when Markham had digested his sister's
practical remarks was never to be known, for Olive Treadwell, in blind
fury, and what she considered righteous indignation, prevented.
Weak and unbalanced, but with a deep-seated belief in her social
superiority and worldly knowledge, she sent a letter, by special
delivery, to Bretherton, that left Levi incapable of response:
I suppose you have taken this method of degrading my dead brother and
me. That one of your humble origin can estimate the impression upon
another of such an offer as you made to my nephew is quite beyond
expectation. The Hertfords have always been gentlemen and ladies and
_you_ would send the last of the race, by the power of your vulgar
money, to work among common labourers in order to break his spirit and
pride! You are too blind, apparently, to appreciate the honour my
brother paid your sister by marrying her. His personal shortcomings
could not possibly outweigh the position that he gained for her when
she took his name. Through all these years I have suppressed my
feeling as to the matter because I have felt that you and I, working
together, might place the son of your sister and my brother in a
position that would reflect credit upon us both; but since you have
failed to recognize your opportunity and, in sordid revenge, have
sought to degrade him, I assume _all_ responsibility in the future. I
am, comparatively, a poor woman, but hereafter _Lansing Treadwell_ and
I will share and share alike. I shall endeavour, to the best that is
in me, to prove to him that it is such men as you who hold the world
back! Men who over-estimate money and undervalue blood and social
position are not to be envied or trusted.
Having read this aloud to Matilda, Levi dropped the closely written
sheet to the floor.
"She's got the courage of her convictions," Matilda snapped.
"And an old grudge," Markham returned.
"Well, I will say this for her," Matilda added; "she's upset her kettle
of fish and Lans', too."
"So it seems! So it seems!"
Levi was looking at a flaming maple tree outside and thinking of his
dead sister.
It was the evening of the day of the letter that Sandy Morley, sitting
rigidly in the chair that Lansing Hertford had lounged in, listened to
as much of an outline of his future as Levi Markham felt he could
comprehend.
"And remember," Markham warned at the end, "I want you to learn how
_little_ a hundred dollars is as well as how big! One is as important
as the other."
"Yes, sir," Sandy returned with a vague wonder, for he had yet to learn
to think in dollars.
"Can you"--Markham considerately paused before putting the next
question--"do you feel able to tell me a little more about yourself
than I already know? I should like to feel that you trust me."
Sandy was stronger and better for his days in Bretherton and, never
having had any great consideration shown him, he looked upon Levi
Markham as a veritable God especially upraised for his guidance and
protection.
"I want to tell you!" he said in a low, tense voice. Leaning forward
until his arms touched the opposite side of the desk, his thin,
sensitive face was nearly on a level with Markham's.
"It's--this--er--way."
The shade at the broad window behind Sandy had not been lowered, and a
very magnificent black night riddled with stars stood like a shield
against which the boyish form and pale face rested. There was a
crumbling fire on the hearth, and the lamp on the table was turned low.
Markham, listening to the slow, earnest voice, became hypnotized by its
quality and pure purpose. He felt the dreariness and hopelessness of
the hard childhood, and the hate that Mary Morley had aroused seemed to
the listener to be the first vivifying happening. He never took his
eyes from Sandy's face from first to last. The years of labour,
self-sacrifice and fixed purpose stirred him strangely, and the touch
of spirit introduced into the boy's voice when he approached the end
found an echo in Markham's heart.
"I'm going to learn and then go back and help them-all who can't help
themselves," Sandy explained, "for _I_ know, sir. No one what does not
know, could ever do it! Us-all fears strangers. I'm going to get
them-all safe some day, sir. I'm going to have a right, big place to
gather them in and teach them. No Hertford curse is going to kill what
has called me!"
So abstracted had Levi been, so distant in thought from the Bretherton
study, and his own inward trouble, that this name, falling from Sandy's
lips, shocked him beyond measure.
"What--did--you--say?" he gasped; "what name did you say?"
"Hertford, sir."
"What do you know of the Hertfords?" It was all Markham could do to
hold his emotions in abeyance.
Sandy told his father's story, all but that which related to the
Waldens, and the listener hung on every word.
"And so, sir, don't you see, I must be what they-all, my kith and kin,
couldn't be? I've got to use my chance for them as well as for me."
"It's a big proposition, boy!" Levi relaxed.
"Yes, sir." The young face was tired and worn.
"Well, then, listen"--a strange light shone in Markham's eyes--"if you
prove yourself able to tackle this job, by God, I'll back you! You and
I will redeem that old Hollow of yours--you with my money! We'll get
Smith Crothers by the throat and throttle him; we'll clean up the Speak
Easies and cut more windows in the cabins. Where did you get the
notion, son, that with more light and air there would be less
damnation?"
"I've lived in the cabins, sir."
"Well, we'll cut all the windows you want and have the school
and"--Markham was quivering--"we'll see if the Morleys can't rise up in
the land of their fathers and stamp the Hertfords under foot!"
"Yes, sir!" And then Sandy gave one of his rare, rich laughs.
From that day the preparations began. A school in the mountains of New
Hampshire was selected, and Sandy fitted out with everything necessary
and proper.
Markham was noted for a sense of propriety. He kept his mills and
lands in good condition because he was wise and sane; he housed his
employees decently for the same reason, and he insisted upon their
coöperation. He never let his taxes lapse, nor his money lie fallow.
He had, hidden in a drawer of his desk, a valuable diamond ring that he
took out in secret moments to enjoy. Occasionally the jewels were sent
to Boston and put on the wheel because the artistic soul of Levi
Markham demanded that through no carelessness of his should their
lustre become dimmed. For much the same reasons Sandy Morley was
entered upon his career in a manner befitting the hope that was in
Markham for him.
The day Sandy was sent from Bretherton, Olive Treadwell and her adopted
son, Lansing Treadwell, sailed for a year's stay in Europe, and Levi
and Matilda Markham grimly agreed to leave things as they were.
"There's no use stirring up pudding past a certain point," Matilda
said. "If you do it's apt to go heavy."
"And it's the part of wisdom to watch a rising batch of bread," Levi
returned humorously. "When you can't get pudding--or when the pudding
fails--look to bread and make the best of it!"