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Ralstons

<h2>CHAPTER IV.</h2> In itself, Robert Lauderdale’s will was a very fair one. It provided, as has been seen, that each of the living members of the family in the direct line should have an equal income, while insuring the important condition that the money should remain in the hands of the Lauderdales and Ralstons as long as possible, since the income paid to the four elder members, Alexander Lauderdale Senior, Alexander Junior, the latter’s wife and Mrs. Ralston, John’s mother, should revert at the deaths of each to the three younger heirs, John Ralston, Katharine, and Charlotte Slayback, and afterwards to the children of each. This result seemed just and, on the whole, to be desired. Robert Lauderdale had devoted much thought to the subject, and had seen no other way of acting fairly and at the same time of providing as far as possible against the subdivision and disappearance of the great fortune he had amassed. The will was to constitute three separate trusts, one for each of the direct legatees and their children, at whose death the trusts would expire, and the property be further divided amongst the succeeding generations in each line. The old millionaire was a very enlightened man, and had honestly endeavoured during his lifetime to understand the conditions and obligations to which the possessors of very large fortunes should submit. Looking at the matter from this point of view, he had come to regard the accumulation and dissipation of wealth as a succession of natural phenomena, somewhat analogous to those of evaporation and rain, beneficial when gradual, destructive when sudden. As water is drawn up in the form of vapour, in invisible atoms, gradually to accumulate in the form of clouds, which, moving under natural conditions, are borne towards those regions where moisture is most needed, to descend gently and be lost in showers that give earth life, until the sky above is clear again, and all the fields below are green with growing things—so, thought Robert Lauderdale, should wealth follow a reasonable and beneficial course of constant distribution and redistribution, to promote which was a moral obligation upon those through whose hands it passed. He was not sure that it was in any way his duty to leave vast sums for charities, nor to hasten the subdivision of the property in any violent way; for he knew well enough that sudden divisions generally mean the forcible depression of values, in which case wealth, of which the income being spent regularly should find its way to the points where it is most needed, must, on the contrary, become dormant until values are restored, if indeed they ever are restored altogether. If he had been the father of one or more children, there is no knowing how he might have acted. If there had been in the whole family one man whom he sincerely trusted to act wisely, he might have left him the bulk of the fortune, giving each of the others a sum which would have been large compared with what they had of their own, but wholly insignificant by the side of the main property. But no such selection was possible. His brother was a very old man, wholly unfitted for the purpose. His brother’s son was a miser, and a dull one at that, in Robert’s estimation. John Ralston was not to be thought of for a moment. Hamilton Bright would have answered the conditions, but he was far removed in relationship, being a descendant of Robert Lauderdale’s uncle through a female line. Nevertheless, Robert Lauderdale hesitated. It was perhaps natural that Alexander Junior should believe that he was the proper person for his uncle to select as the principal heir. He was the only son of the eldest of the family. He was a man of stainless reputation, occupying a position of high importance and trust. No one could have denied that he was scrupulous in business matters to a degree rare even amongst the most honourable men of his own city. He was comparatively young, being only fifty years old, and he might live a quarter of a century to administer and hold together the Lauderdale estate, for his health was magnificent and his strength of iron. He had thought it all over daily for so many years, that he could see no possible reason why he should not be the principal heir. In arguing the case, he told himself that his uncle was not capricious, that he would certainly not leave his fortune to Hamilton Bright, who was the only other sensible man of business in the whole connection, and that it was generally in the nature of very rich men to wish to know that their wealth was to be kept together after they were dead. No one could possibly do that better than Alexander Lauderdale Junior. Nevertheless, he felt conscious that his uncle disliked him personally, and in moments of depression, when he had taken too little exercise and his liver was torpid, the certainty of this caused him much uneasiness. There was no apparent reason for it, and it suggested to his self-satisfied nature the idea that some caprice entered, after all, into the nature of his uncle. On such occasions he rarely failed to instruct Mrs. Lauderdale to ask uncle Robert to dinner, and to be particularly careful that the fish should be perfect. Uncle Robert was fond of fish and a quiet family party. Katharine was his favourite, but he liked Mrs. Lauderdale, and his brother, the old philanthropist, was congenial to him, though the two took very different views of humanity and the public good. Alexander Senior’s dream was to get possession of all Robert’s millions and distribute them within a week amongst a number of asylums and charitable institutions which he patronized. He should then feel that he had done a good work and that his benevolent instincts had been satisfied. He sometimes sat in his study in a cloud of smoke—for he smoked execrable tobacco perpetually—and tried to persuade himself that ‘brother Bob’ might perhaps after all leave him the whole fortune. There would be great joy among the idiots on that day, thought old Alexander, as the two-cent ‘Virginia cheroot’ dropped from his hand, and he fell asleep in his well-worn armchair. And then came dreams of unbounded charity, of unlimited improvement and education of the poor and deficient. The greatest men of the age should be employed to devote their lives to the happiness of the poor little blind boys, and of the little girls born deaf, and of the vacantly staring blear-eyed youths whom nature had made carelessly, and whom God had sent into the world, perhaps, as a means of grace to those more richly endowed. For old Alexander was charitable to every one—even to the Supreme Being, whose motives he ventured to judge. He was incapable of an unkind thought, and in the heaven of his old fancy he would have founded an asylum for reformed devils and would not have hesitated to beg a subscription of Satan himself, being quite ready to believe that the Prince of Hell might have his good moments. He would have prayed cheerfully for ‘the puir deil.’ There is no limit to the charity of such over-kind hearts. Nothing seems to them so bad but that, by gentleness and persuasion, it may at last be made good. He knew, of course, for Robert had told him, that he was not to have the millions even during the few remaining years of his life, and he bore his brother no malice for the decision. Robert promised him that he should have plenty of money for his poor people, but did not hesitate to say that if he had the whole property he would pauperize half the city of New York in six months. “You’d give every newsboy and messenger boy in the city a roast turkey for dinner every day,” laughed Robert. “If I thought it might improve the condition of poor boys, I certainly should,” answered the philanthropist, gravely. “I’m fond of roast turkey myself—with cranberry sauce and chestnuts inside. Why shouldn’t the poor little fellows have it, too, if every one had enough money?” “If there were enough money to go round, creation would be turned into a kitchen for a week, and into a hospital for six months afterwards,” observed Robert Lauderdale. “Fortunately, money’s scarcer than greediness.” And on the whole, there was much wisdom in this plain view, which to Robert himself presented a clear picture of the condition of mankind in general in regard to money and its distribution. It would not have been natural if even the least money-loving members of the family had not often speculated, each in his or her own way, about the chances of receiving something very considerable when old Robert died. He had been generous to them all, according to his lights, but he had not considered that any of them were objects of charity. The true conditions of his brother’s household life had been carefully concealed from him, until Katharine had, almost accidentally, given him an insight into her father’s family methods, so to say. Nevertheless, he had long known that Alexander Junior must have much more money than he was commonly thought to possess, and his mode of living, as compared with his fortune, proved conclusively that he hoarded what he had. He must have known that a large share of the estate must ultimately come to him, and he could assuredly have had no doubts as to its solidity, since it consisted entirely in land and houses. What was he hoarding his income for? That was the question which naturally suggested itself to Robert, and the only answer he could find, and the one which accorded perfectly with his own knowledge of his nephew’s character, was that Alexander was a miser. As the certainty solidified in the rich man’s mind, he became more and more determined that Alexander Junior should know nothing of the dispositions of the will. And he had rigidly kept his own counsel until that day when he had confided in Katharine. When he was well again, or, at all events, so far recovered as to feel sure that he might live some time longer, he regretted what he had done. Weakened by illness, he had acted on impulse in making a young girl the repository of his secret intentions. Moreover, he had not intended to part with the right to change them whenever he should see fit, and the problem of the distribution of wealth continued to absorb his attention. He had great faith in Katharine, but, after all, she was not a man, as he told himself repeatedly. She might be expected to confide in John Ralston, who might, on some unfortunate day, drink a glass of wine too much and reveal the facts of the case. He would have been even more disturbed than he was, had he known that Alexander Junior suspected his daughter of knowing the truth. Robert Lauderdale had certainly not made her life easier for her by what he had done. During several days her father from time to time repeated his questions. “I hope that you are in an altered frame of mind, Katharine,” he said. “This perpetual obstinacy on the part of my child is very painful to me.” “I might say something of the same kind,” Katharine answered. “It’s painful—as you choose to call it—to me, to be questioned again and again about a thing I won’t speak of. Why will you do it? You seem to think that I hold my tongue out of sheer eccentricity, just to annoy you. Is that what you think? If so, you’re very much mistaken.” “It’s the only possible explanation of your undutiful conduct. I repeat that I’m very much pained by your behaviour.” “Look here, papa!” cried Katharine, turning upon him suddenly. “Don’t drag in the question of duty. It’s one’s duty to keep a secret when one’s heard it—whether one wanted to hear it or not. There’s no reason in the world why I should repeat to you what uncle Robert told me—any more than why I should go and tell Charlotte, or Hester Crowdie, or anybody else.” “Katharine!” exclaimed Alexander Junior, sternly, “you are very impertinent.” “Because I tell you what I think my duty is? I’m sorry you should think so. And besides, since you seem so very anxious that I should betray a secret, I’m afraid that it wouldn’t be very safe with you.” Alexander Junior did not wince under the cut. He was firmly persuaded that he was in the right. “If you were not a grown-up woman, I should send you to your room,” he said, coldly. “Yes, I realize the advantage of being grown up,” answered Katharine, with contempt. “But I shall not tolerate this conduct any longer,” continued Alexander Junior. “I will not be defied by my own daughter.” “Charlotte defied you for twenty years,” replied Katharine, “and she’s not half as strong as I am. And I never defied you, and I don’t now. That’s not the way I should put it. I’m not so dramatic, and as long as I won’t,—why, I won’t, that’s all,—and there’s no need of calling it defiance, nor by any other big name.” Alexander was a cold man, and it was not likely that he should lose his temper again as he had when he had walked home with her from Robert Lauderdale’s. He began to recognize that in the matter of imposing his will forcibly, he had met his match. He had generally succeeded in dominating those with whom he came into close relations in life, but his hard and freezing exterior had contributed more to the effect than his intellectual gifts. Finding that his personality failed to produce the usual result, he temporized, for he was not good at sharp answers. “There’s no denying the fact,” he said, “that uncle Robert has told you about his will. Can you deny that?” The latter question is a terrible weapon, and is the favourite one of dull persons when dealing with truthful ones, because it is so easily used and so effective. Katharine was familiar with it, and knew that her father had few others, and none so strong. She met it in the approved fashion, which is as good as any, though none are satisfactory. “That’s an absurd question,” she answered. “You’ve made up your mind beforehand, and nothing I could say would make you change it. If I denied that uncle Robert had told me anything about his will, you wouldn’t believe me.” “Certainly not!” replied Alexander, falling into the trap like a school-boy. “Then it’s clear that nothing I can say can make you change your mind—in other words, that you’re prejudiced,” said Katharine, in cool triumph. “And as that’s undeniable, from your own words, I don’t see that it’s of the slightest use to ask me questions.” Her father bit his clean-shaven upper lip and frowned severely. “I don’t know where you get such sophistries from!” he answered, in impotent arrogance. “Unless it’s that Mr. Griggs who teaches you,” he added, taking a new line of aggression. “Why do you say ‘that’ Mr. Griggs, as though he were an adventurer or a fool?” enquired Katharine, arching her black brows. “Because I suspect him of being both,” answered Alexander Junior, jumping at the suggestion with an affectation of keenness. Katharine laughed. “That’s too absurd, papa! You’d have said just the same thing if I’d said ‘murderer’ and ‘thief.’ You know as well as I do that Mr. Griggs is a distinguished man,—I didn’t say that he was a great genius,—who has got where he is by hard work and good work. He’s no more of an adventurer than you are.” “I’ve heard strange stories of his youth, which I shall certainly not repeat to you,” answered Alexander, snapping his lips in the fine consciousness of his own really unimpeachable virtue. One proverb, at least, is true, amidst many high-sounding, conventional lies. Virtue is emphatically its own reward. The scorn of those who possess it for those who do not, proves the fact beyond all doubt. “I’m not going to discuss Mr. Griggs, and I don’t want to hear about his youth,” answered Katharine. “You’ve taken an unreasonable dislike for him, and there’s no necessity for your meeting any oftener than you please.” “Fortunately, no—there’s no necessity. I should be sorry to associate with such men, and I regret very much that you should choose your friends amongst them. Since you’ve announced your intention of defying me and disregarding all my wishes, we’ll say no more about that for the present. Perhaps I shall find means to bring you to reason which will surprise you. In the meantime, I consider that you are acting very unwisely in refusing to communicate what you know about the will.” “Possibly—but I’m willing to abide by my mistake,” answered Katharine, calmly. “It is of course certain,” continued her father, “that a very large sum of money will come to us when my uncle Robert dies—some day. Let us hope that it may be long before that happens.” “By all means, let’s hope so,” observed Katharine. “Don’t interrupt me, Katharine. You can at least show me the common courtesy of listening to what I say, whatever position you may choose to take up against me. As I was saying, a great deal of money will come to some of us. We do not know exactly how much it will be, though I’ve no doubt that you’re acquainted with all the details. But I admit that you can’t possibly appreciate how important it is for us all to know how this great fortune is to be disposed of, and who has been selected as the administrator. The happiness of many persons, the safety of the fortune itself, depend upon these things being known in time.” “I don’t see what they can have to do with the safety of the fortune. Houses don’t run away. I’ve often heard you say that uncle Robert has everything in houses. I suppose one person will get one house and another will get another.” “I’m not here to explain the principle of business to you,” said Alexander. “Those are things you can’t understand. The death of a man of such immense wealth necessarily affects public affairs and the market, even if his fortune is largely in real estate. It is a security to the world at large to feel that a proper person has succeeded in the management of the estate.” “I suppose that uncle Robert understands that, too,” observed Katharine. “In a way, of course—yes, in a certain way he must, I’ve no doubt. But these great men never seem to realize what will happen when they die.” “You speak of uncle Robert’s death as though you expected to hear of it this evening. He’s almost quite well.” Again Alexander Junior bit his lip. He had, perhaps, never before been so conscious that when his personality failed to produce the effect he desired, his intelligence had no chance of accomplishing anything unaided. “This is intolerable!” he exclaimed, with profound disgust. “Since you can be neither decently civil nor in any way reasonable, I shall leave you to think over your conduct.” This is a threat which rarely inspires terror in the offender. Katharine did not wish to go too far, and received the announcement in silence, sincerely hoping that he would really go away and leave her to herself. Such scenes occurred almost every day, and she was weary of them,—not more so, perhaps, than Alexander was of perpetual defeat. She could not understand why he was so persistent, for it seemed to her that she showed him plainly enough how determined she was to keep silence. His reproof did not affect her in the least, for she knew she was right. She wondered, indeed, from time to time, that a man so undoubtedly upright as he was should so press her to betray a confidence, when he had all his life preached to her about the value of reticence and discretion, and she rightly attributed his conduct to his excessive anxiety for the money, overriding even his rigid principles. She had often admired him, merely for that very rigidity, which appealed to her as being masculine and strong. She despised him the more when she had discovered that the only motive able to bend the stiff back of his scrupulous theory and practice was the love of money, pure and simple. She did not believe that he would have so derogated to save her life. The very arrogance of his manner showed how far he knew himself to be from his own ideal. He was trying to carry it through as a matter of right. Katharine longed to confide in John Ralston. He was not so free as he had been in his idle days, a few months earlier. Having accepted a position, he was determined to do his best, and he stayed down town every day as long as there was the least possibility of finding anything which he could do in the bank. Not long after the last-recorded interview with Katharine, Alexander Junior, being down town, had some reason to speak of a matter of business with the senior partner in Beman Brothers’, and entered the bank early in the afternoon. It was a vast establishment on the ground floor, a few steps above the level of the street. Being a place where there was much going and coming and active work, the office had not the air of icily polished perfection which characterized the inner fane of the Trust Company. The counters and seats were dark, and rubbed smooth with use, like the floor; the doors were worn with constant handling, but moved easily and noiselessly on their hinges. The brass gratings and rails were bright with long years of daily leathering. Everything was large, strong, and workmanlike, as a big engine, which is well kept but gets very little rest. There was the low, breathing, softly shuffling sound in the air, which is heard where many are busy and no one speaks a superfluous word. Alexander Lauderdale passed through the great outer office and caught sight of John Ralston, bending over some writing at a small desk by himself. Ralston was at that time between five and six and twenty years of age, a wiry, lean young man, with a dark face. There was more restlessness than strength in the expression, perhaps, but there was no lack of energy, a quality which, when it does not find vent in a congenial activity, is apt to produce a look of discontent. Possibly, too, there might be a dash of Indian blood in the Ralston family. There was certainly none in the Lauderdales. John’s bright brown eyes were turned upon his work, as Alexander passed near him, but glanced up quickly a moment later and saw him. A look of contempt darkened the young man’s features like a shadow, and was instantly gone again. The two men had not exchanged half a dozen words in eighteen months. The brown eyes went back to the page, and the sinewy, nervous hand went on writing, and the straight, smooth hair on the top of Ralston’s head, as he bent over the desk, became again the most prominent object, for its extreme blackness, in that part of the office. Alexander Junior was ushered into the elder Mr. Beman’s private room, by a grave young man in a jacket with gilt buttons. The name of Lauderdale was a passport in any place of business in the city. “By the way,” he said, after exchanging a few words about the matter which had brought him there, “you’ve taken back that young cousin of ours, Jack Ralston. How’s the fellow getting on?” “Ralston? Oh, yes—Mr. Lauderdale wanted him to try again—yes—well, he’s doing pretty well, I’m told. But they tell me he can’t do anything, though he wants to. Praiseworthy, though, very praiseworthy, to try and work, when he’s sure to have plenty of money one of these days. I like the boy myself,” added Mr. Beman, with slightly increasing interest. “He’s got some good in him, somewhere, I’ll be bound.” “Does he keep pretty steady?” enquired Alexander Junior. “You knew he drank, I suppose?” “Drinks!” exclaimed Mr. Beman, rather incredulously. “Nonsense—don’t believe it.” Mr. Beman hated society, and spent many of his leisure hours in a club chiefly frequented by old gentlemen. “Oh, no! It’s quite true, I assure you. I thought you knew, or I wouldn’t have mentioned it—being a relation. I hope he won’t make a fool of himself, now that he’s with you. Good morning.” “Good morning, my dear Lauderdale,” answered the banker, cordially shaking hands. Alexander left the bank and returned to his own office, questioning himself by the way concerning the right and wrong side of what he had just done, in undermining whatever confidence Mr. Beman might have in John Ralston. By dint of moral exertion, he succeeded in inducing his Scotch business instinct to admit that it was fair to warn an old friend if the habits of a young man he had lately taken into employment were not exactly what they should be. He resolutely closed his eyes to the fact that he had waited several days, until something had required that he should see the banker, in order to ask the careless question, and that, during all that time, Katharine’s obstinacy had rankled in his brooding temper like an unreturned blow. He did not wish to think, either, that he had perpetrated a small act of indirect vengeance. He was very intent upon being conscientious—it would not do even to remember that any under-thoughts had floated through his brain beneath the current which he desired to see. It was easy enough to forget it all, by merely allowing his mind to turn again to the question of his uncle’s millions. That subject had a fascination which never palled. If he is to be excused at all for this and many other things which he subsequently did, his excuse must be stated now, or never. Let this one fact be remembered, for the sake of his humanity. He had spent the best years of his life in the inner office of a great Trust Company. That alone explains many things. Having originally been in moderate circumstances, he had been brought into daily contact for a long period with the process of hoarding money. He had seen how sums, originally insignificant, doubled and trebled themselves, and grew to fair dimensions by the simplest of all means,—by being kept locked up. He had not been by nature grasping, nor covetous of the goods of others in any inordinate degree, but he had that inborn craving for the actual money itself, for seeing it and touching it, and knowing where it is, which makes one small boy ask his father for a penny ‘to put by the side of the other,’ while his brother spends his mite on a sugar-plum, eats it, and runs off to play. Day by day, month by month, year by year, he had seen that putting of one penny by the side of the other going on under his eyes and personal supervision. It had been his duty to see that the pennies stayed where they were put. It is not strange that, with his temperament, he should have done for himself what he did for others. And with the doing of it came the habit of secrecy, which belongs to the miser’s passion, the instinctive denial of the possession, the mechanical and constantly recurring avowal of an imaginary poverty. All that came as surely as the dream of countless gold, to be counted forever and ever, with the absolute certainty of never reaching the end, and as the nightmare of the empty safe, more real and terrible than the live horror of the waking man who comes home and finds that the wife he loves has left him. He knew that hideous scene by heart. It visited him sometimes with no apparent cause. He knew how in the night—he always dreamed that it happened at night—he went to his own box in the Safe Deposit Vault, his own familiar box, as in reality he went regularly twice in every week. He felt the thrill of secret, heart-warming anticipation as he came near to it. His heart began to beat as it always did then, and only then, giving him a queer, breathless sensation which he loved, and that peculiar thirsty dryness in the throat. He turned the key, he pressed the spring, and out it came against his greedy, trembling hand—empty. At that point he awoke, clutching at the thin, tough chain by which the real key hung about his neck. His worst fear for years had been to dream that dream—his highest pleasure had been to go, after dreaming it, and find it false, the drawer full, all safe, the good United States Bonds filed away in dockets of a hundred thousand dollars each, untouched and unfingered. He knew the fascination, the dumb horror, the soul-uplifting delight of a great passion, of one which is said to be the last and greatest, if not the worst, that plays the devil’s music on the wrung heartstrings of men. That is his only excuse for what he did. Dares humanity allege its humanity in extenuation of its humanity? <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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