CHAPTER XXIITHE COUNCIL FIRE
Mrs. Wells’“books” were not arranged to facilitate the work of an auditor, but her correspondence was of considerable help. With the aid of Jerry’s notes and the letters Richard was able to get his clues. At occasional intervals Mitchell Lear’s brief notes would come along, each such invariable good sense that Richard began to have a liking for the man before he had seen him. Evidently Lear had been consulted before each disastrous transaction, and his advice was always to refrain from doing what events proved should have not been done. His terse opinions were worded with almost humorous sameness: “As I advised you in our talk on Wednesday, you will do well not to dispose of the orchards” or “not to try out experiments in grape spraying,” and so on. Mr. Lear was evidently a friend and a man of sound judgment; and in compensation for his long failure to have his advice followed he was a good man to consult now.
Mitchell Lear was engaged in bowing a client out of the office when Richard appeared.
“It is the sort of case I never touch,” Mr. Lear was saying. There was a note of firm indignation in his voice, which his nervous, eager client seemed to miss.
“But your reputation at the bar would help us so——”
“My reputation at the bar is not for sale!” Mr. Lear interrupted ominously. “I am busy. Good-day, sir.”
“But if you could only see your way——”
“Good-day, sir!”
Some of the indignation still lingered in Mr. Lear’s keen eyes as he confronted Richard. The lawyer had the judicial rather than the legal face, and at this moment it was that of the righteous judge in the act of sentencing a deserving criminal.
“I am Mr. Richard,” he held out a hand.
“Yes, I know,” Mr. Lear took the hand firmly. “You are staying with the Wells’ at ‘Red Jacket.’ There was a note of the fact in the local papers,” he added by way of explanation. “Sit down. Excuse me if I seemed ruffled. That little rat was just about to—well, we won’t talk about it.”
His face remained stern as he looked expectantly towards Richard.
“You are Mrs. Wells’ lawyer, I believe,” Richard began.
The penetrating gaze of the lawyer was somewhat disconcerting; but at Richard’s question the immovable features relaxed into the most genial of smiles and the eyes broke into abrupt laughter.
“Not that I know it,” Mr. Lear chuckled. “I am simply her good friend. As such I give advice free. She always comes to me when she wants help in a bit of wrongdoing.”
The words seemed out of character with the man who had just dismissed a client who, no doubt, had been suggesting a shady legal partnership; but the face shone with delight in the paradoxical situation.
“When Mrs. Wells wishes to do something which she knows is quite unwise,” Mr. Lear explained, “somethingwhich her conscience tells her she should never do, she comes to me to get her will strengthened. She knows beforehand that I will decide against her and give her advice which she doesn’t want to take, but without opposition she is weak and vacillating. I am the man she selects to arouse her combativeness. The more clearly I prove the folly of her proposed undertaking the stronger grows her resolution to undertake it. She usually comes into my office in a mood of guilty indecision, but she always goes out righteously obstinate and determined to do exactly the opposite of everything I suggest.”
Richard knew that she would act exactly in that way, and he told Mr. Lear so; he told him also of the change that had come over her and the reason for it; and, as well, of Jerry’s assumption of command. Then he sorted out the papers and the notes on the correspondence. There was a name here and there of a note-holder, a generous note-holder it seemed, who seemed to take the non-payment of interest as a sort of lark.
Mr. Lear knew him; he was a distant relative of the Wells’—Uncle John they called him, although he was no uncle—and a man whose name should be Great-heart. But Mr. Lear did not know of the shocking financial state of “Red Jacket.” The smile left his face as he ran down the summary which Richard had prepared. Uncle John was generous, but it was not likely that he would be willing to underwrite so large a deficit, especially as the present income from the estate showed no chance of catching up with the expenses.
“She has too many negroes,” Mr. Lear pointed out. “They eat up all the profits. She will not get rid of them; but, at least, she ought to employ them properly.”
“How could she do that?” Richard asked.
“Buy back the orchards she sold Hoskins,” he answered promptly. “Hoskins will sell, at a profit, of course. Then she should get Holloday’s orchards and Fennill’s and go into the business on a big scale. I shouldn’t advise more grape land, although I would most strongly suggest letting George Alexander manage the sprays in his own way; she interferes with absolutely original theories—all wrong, of course—and she drags off his negroes to fool with her gardens.”
Richard was taking rapid notes.
“Will you get an option on Hoskins’ apples for us,” he looked up eagerly, “and on Fennill’s and the other fellow’s, too?”
“I am no real-estate operator,” Mitchell Lear assumed his most judicial expression.
How proud everyone was in Yates county, Richard thought; but he said genially, “But as a friend——”
“Oh!” Lear laughed at the touch. “That is different. As a friend I would get an option on the Lake-side cemetery!”
“Good!” cried Richard. “And can you get those notes from—Uncle John, I believe you said; I mean if we raise the money?... As a friend!”
“As a friend,” Lear entered into the scheme, “I will try to get the notes without the interest! Uncle John ought to be glad to get the principal! But how are you going to find all that money?”
“May I use your telephone?” Richard asked politely, as if he merely intended to talk to “Red Jacket.”
“That’s what it is for,” said Mr. Lear. He was engaged seriously in checking off the accounts, but he raised his head in astonishment when he heard Richard ask for the name of one of the best known banking houses in New York city.
“I want Mr. Davis Clarkson,” Richard told the operator. “No; no one else will do.... What? Oh! You can’t get them right away? When? In about ten minutes.... Oh!... I am to do what? Hang what? Oh, yes; I see. I am to hang up the receiver until you get Mr. Clarkson for me.... Yes.... I understand. Thank you very much—very much indeed.”
“I hope you don’t intend to hold a very long conversation with Mr. Clarkson,” Mr. Lear remarked grimly. “I forget whether it is one dollar or two dollars a minute to talk to New York. But I’m relieved to find you didn’t open up Chicago or Denver!”
“Clarkson will pay,” Richard assured him. “Clarkson has heaps of money.”
“You are not very used to the long-distance telephone,” the lawyer remarked shrewdly.
“No,” Richard admitted. “I have rarely talked on any telephone. No; I don’t believe I ever tried before to talk over any great distance. How did you know that?”
Mr. Lear laughed.
“Never mind,” he said. “You do it very daintily, and you talk to the operator as if she were about to do you a personal favour. There goes the bell. That means you, I judge. Politeness pays; you’ve opened up New York city in record time.”
“Is that you, Dave?” Richard applied himself eagerly.... “Sure it is! The very same! I’ve been at Penn Yan, New York. Put it down. Yes. Red Jacket, Penn Yan. Can you take a vacation and come up?... Well, listen and you’ll change your mind, for I’ve changed mine.... Yes.... That’s it. I’vecome over, just as you said I would; and now I want money.... About a hundred and fifty thousand.... Can’t you bring it along with you?... Very well; any way you choose. I’m buying vineyards and apple orchards up here.... Yes; great spec.... Millions in it.... And wait!” He glanced at his notes. “Look up Noble, French and Company, and buy the mortgage to ‘Red Jacket.’... Mrs. Emma Wells.... Yates county.... Well, that will do, only I’d much rather have you by me to see that everything is O.K.... Wait.... Make that cheque out to Mitchell Lear.... Certified? Oh, all right, if that’s the proper way to do it.... No; I’d prefer to have it made out to Mitchell Lear.” He spelled the name carefully. “He’ll give me what I want. Yes, Mitchell Lear, Penn Yan, New York.... Yes, a hundred and fifty thousand will be quite enough, thank you, Dave.... Good-bye, old Dave!”
Richard turned quietly to the astonished lawyer. “Did you catch the conversation with Clarkson? He’s going to send you a cheque, certified cheque, for $150,000. I don’t want to be known in this, so I’ll draw on you when I want funds. You see we just have to fix up the Wells’ business, and what’s the use of having money if you can’t have some fun with it! I bet you are enjoying the prospect almost as much as I am. But we’ve got to do this with great cunning and delicacy; you know how proud everybody is in these parts!”
Lear was not only struck in a heap by the nonchalant attitude of the young man towards this rather large sum of money, but he was correspondingly elevated at the splendid trust imposed in him. It was startling to have a stranger exhibit such faith. Further evidence of that stranger’s faith was forthcoming.Mr. Richard Richard laid off his incognito and he made clear his desires in settling up the troubles of the Wells estate; all of which Mr. Mitchell Lear was to perform as legal adviser, real-estate operator and friend, but shrouded, of course, in deepest secrecy.
“Will you conspire with me?” Richard asked.
“Will I?” echoed Mitchell Lear. “You won’t find a more willing conspirator in twenty counties.”
“Remember,” Richard told him, “this is strictly business. You are to get your proper fees and all that sort of thing.”
“Young man,” the elder man rose and fastened him with his steel-grey eyes. “Young man, go to the devil!”
“But at least the telephone call——”
“Young man,” Mitchell Lear grew eloquent, “go to the devil!”
“Well,” said Richard as he wrung his hand in parting, “I’ll get even.”
The young man went down Main Street with a springy step. His life had suddenly flopped over, like a turtle, as he had said, and he was as eager to follow up the new experience as the said turtle to try out his unused legs. Sam Fybush’s neat tailoring establishment caught his eye; he went in and had himself measured for clothes, giving Mitchell Lear’s name as reference; and he walked in Hopkin’s jewellery store and began buying an assortment of rings, but stopped when he realized that his funds would not arrive for a day or two. He never before had such a flurry to spend; he was like a child with birthday money. “Lord!” he thought, “I’d be dangerous to let loose in Tiffany’s just now!”
To Richard Richard there was nothing inconsistentin his sudden consuming desire to take up his inheritance. So long as one was honest with his desires nothing could be inconsistent to this young man. One might as well be disturbed over an eclipse of the moon. The law of his individual life was operating without flaw, he assured himself; and he was glad that he had never tried to impose artificially upon the perfect mechanism. Yesterday he was a communist; to-day he was a champion of property. Very well; and to-morrow he might be a Buddhist—it was all in the hands of the gods.
For that reason, perhaps, or for reasons deeper than he knew, he felt only the slightest undercurrent of disappointment over his failure in the conquest of Jerry. It would come out all right, was the burden of his faith. He would wait and try, in this as in other high matters, to accept cheerfully the predestined course of things.
The week slipped by more smoothly than either Richard or Jerry had expected. Richard was busy with his new interest, the financial rehabilitation of “Red Jacket,” and Jerry threw herself into the arrangement of a lawn dinner-party which should signalize, as she thought, her farewell to Jerusalem township. With characteristic singleness of mind she could launch all the preparations without a thought as to what she should do after the curtain had been rung down. In many respects she was true to the traditions of her family: they had always lived in the immediate present. It is interesting to note that difference between Massachusetts and Virginia, even more noticeable if one contrasts Maine and Georgia: the North has looked ever towards the future, while the South has lived. The one has grown thrifty and has paid the penalty of prosperity,while the other has paid many times over the penalty of unpreparedness.
Mitchell Lear was Northern in his sense of future values. He had a long head, as we say, meaning that he did not deceive himself as to the eventual outcome of things; and, as well, that he knew the game of bargaining. Hoskins sold eagerly; he had bought the Wells’ apple land because it was offered at a low figure; his main object was to sell at a profit. Fennill and Holloday sold because they were in need of cash, and because they had no knowledge of the real value of orchards properly cared for. To this lot was added a valuable tract of young trees not yet bearing which a wealthy summer visitor had started in the frenzy of a sudden interest and which he had grown tired of with equal suddenness.
On the day before the first yacht race—it took three wins to achieve the Lake cup—Richard sought Jerry out to present her with a summary of operations.
He explained that a friend of his in New York, Davis Clarkson, had bought in the mortgage and the notes and was willing to give unlimited time. In addition his friend had lent money for the purchase of apple lands in order that the estate might employ all the negroes and offer some chance for a return. These lands were held in Clarkson’s name and not charged against the estate at all—not very business-like, but friendship will do wonders at times. Richard was not so clear in his explanations, but his summary was understandable.
“The sinking fund, you see,” he explained, “will pay off the whole indebtedness in much less than twenty years, because every year the interest will grow less. And we have nearly $8,000 a year above all expenses—to provide for accidents and pin-money! Mitchell Lear says that George Alexander and young Bolivar should be given four times their present wages and put absolutely in charge of the orchards and the grapes. Those two men know fruit by instinct, but even at that you ought to be willing to pay out about two thousand a year for expert advice on soils and spray mixture. We’re calculating, you see, on getting every cent out of those lands.”
Jerry studied the report for a long time. She wassearching for some act of charity, the tiniest morsel of which would have meant repudiation of the whole scheme.
“That means,” she spoke at last, “that we keep ‘Red Jacket,’ and make the attempt to pay off the debt against it?”
“Exactly.”
“I thought of that many times,” she remarked quietly, as if she were trying to hold back some pent-up emotion, “but the best figures I could make showed income always less than out-go. And I could not dismiss the negroes, not ... not after ... not after I had seen what we....”
She could not put it into words. There are some things which the spirit rebels against saying aloud.
“But the new orchard lands!” Richard broke in. “They do the trick. Everything depends upon getting use out of the labour you have.”
“Wait.” She pondered over the figures before her, seeking some sign of philanthropy.
“What does your friend Clarkson get out of it?” she asked.
“He’s a banker; don’t you see? He is protected by interest on loans. And he holds the mortgage and the title to the new lands. Oh, it’s absolutely business, every bit of it.”
So it seemed, but she was still suspicious.
“You give only $15,000 for land which almost pays for itself in one year. How can that be done?” she asked.
“You’ve struck the one flaw in the statement,” he laughed. “I’ve just put things in round figures and, of course, everything is not there. It will take several years to get the full income out of that land, but whenit does come it will be greater even than the figure we give—that figure is just an average over a number of years. Oh! I know my lesson well; Mitchell Lear is a fine teacher!”
She was not satisfied.
“Why, then,” she asked, “doesn’t this Clarkson man work the land himself and not let us have all this profit? It looks to me like a gift.”
“It is,” said Richard.
“What!” she bristled.
“It is an outright gift of Mitchell Lear’s wise brain. You might ask why Lear doesn’t take the thing up as a personal speculation. The reason is that he is a lawyer by natural selection. He is a genius at making money, too; he told me a dozen ways to turn over cash right in this neighbourhood, but he’s a lawyer first, last and all the time. Or you might ask why Fennill and Holloday and Hoskins don’t go into the apple business properly. The answer is simple, they couldn’t if they wanted to; they haven’t the brains, Lear says. He says that some of those fellows haven’t brains enough to raise dandelions! No; you’ve got to take off your hat to Mitchell Lear. He’s as loyal to this family as George Alexander.”
“I would not accept a cent as a gift,” said Jerry firmly, “but I would take much in the name of loyalty.”
To cover any possible misunderstanding of her last remark she asked quickly, “Suppose the income does not reach your expectations?”
“It’s a risk,” he admitted, “like all living. But I am trusting Mitchell Lear on those figures. He knows what is being done by careful grape and apple farmers hereabouts—the most scientific fellows—and he knowswhat ‘Red Jacket’ used to get before the spray experiment began, and he claims that he has made no over-statements. The biggest asset ‘Red Jacket’ has, he says, is its loyal labour, and the fortunate possession among the negroes of a half-dozen men like George Alexander and Bolivar, who have an uncanny knowledge of all this new tree and vine lore; and a still more uncanny knowledge of how to make those negroes work! It looks to me like good business,” he examined the sheet proudly; “and you haven’t said a word about my magnificent financial engineering.”
She reached forward and patted him on the arm.
“It is magnificent!” she said. “Wonderful! I thought you were an impractical dreamer, and here you present me with a magician’s wand.... I did not realize—no, I really did not—what ‘Red Jacket’ meant to me.... And it is fortunate that I didn’t. I felt so cold and ... benumbed, because of the whole ugly business that I believe I should have walked out of that door and down the path without a tear, without even once looking back at old ‘Tshoti’ and ‘Da’ and ‘Waga.’... You are a very wonderful, practical man, Richard-my-dear, but ... I liked you just as well as poet.”
“Aye,” he said, “there’s the rub. ‘Just as well!’ Do you remember Mark Twain’s statement that he could speak seven languages ‘equally well’?... But, forgive me. I am not going to bother you again.”
She looked straight at him, her head bent slightly and her eyes glancing up through half-closed lids. It was a mask of a face she presented, absolutely poised, with all expression removed save a flirting gleam about the eyes and the faintest suggestion of a smile on the lips. The steady gaze was too much for him; somehowit shamed him and made the blood slowly rise to his face. His ear-tips had begun to burn when he arose abruptly and asked:
“Will you do me a favour for all my hard work?”
It would depend; she was also business-like and did not make impossible promises. But he did not want much; he asked merely for the key to “Grandfather’s Room” where the relics of Chief Red Jacket were kept.
She would do more than give him the key; she would personally conduct him.
“But it must be done with ancient ceremonies,” she detained him a moment at the door. “Wait here until I give you the sign. Enter not,” she raised her hand in mock seriousness, “enter not, paleface, until you are summoned to the council!”
She went off, presumably for the key, while he waited before the door of “Grandfather’s Room.” Many minutes slipped by but he was not conscious of them; his mind was elsewhere. Suddenly the door opened from within and an Indian maiden stood before him.
“Welcome, paleface,” she said.
The paleface took one step within the big room, and looked about him with the keenest curiosity. He was gazing on an Indian village. There were wigwams, birch cabins, totem poles, and a score of Indian figures carved rudely out of wood. The latter were posed about in characteristic attitudes: making arrows, grinding corn on rounded stones, pounding at skins. There were squaws carrying babies and, far off among the rushes, a set of warriors in full regalia were sweeping forward in a war canoe. In the centre of the room the sachems squatted about a council fire.
She took him from group to group, showed him thebeads, the belts, wampum; the hides, the arrows and the primitive knives and weapons, the pottery and a-hundred-and-one other things. About the wall were scores of documents, framed evidently in more modern times and protected by glass. These were descriptions in Great-grandfather Wells’ hand—he had the spirit of an antiquary—descriptions of this and that native occupation, but, more important, many transcripts at first hand of the sayings of the famous Seneca orator, “Red Jacket.”
“Jove!” Richard cried. “This is more important than grapes and apples!”
He did not specify what exactly was more important than grapes and apples, but she knew that he meant “Red Jacket” and its treasures made by generations of right living. Here were memories and traditions that could not be bought in the market, nor could they be moved about or transplanted. Deep family roots were here, and he knew that some of the fine flower of that family would fade and wither were it forced to seek other ground.
“Of course it is,” she replied in thorough understanding.
“And I’m more glad than ever that I bought up ‘Red Jacket’ for you. You couldn’t have walked out, woman, and left all this!”
He waved his hand about excitedly.
She caught only the latter part of his speech.
“I know I couldn’t,” she replied.
“Wasn’t it wonderful,” he turned to her, “that just at this moment in your life the Great Spirit should have sent me to you?”
“I believe He sent you,” she told him gravely.
Her low tone thrilled him. He bent over eagerly.
“Thank God I have money!” he half whispered. “Millions of it! Millions of it to spend on you! To buy you a thousand Big Houses, if you want them. You knew all along, didn’t you?”
He reached out a nervous hand and lightly touched her.
“Knew what?”
She asked the question, but she was conscious only of the electric nearness of the man.
“Hasn’t Walter told you? He had my card. I thought he had told. When——”
“Yes,” she said quietly. “But you are not——”
“I am,” he smiled grimly. “Does it make me less repulsive?”
“But that name! It—it can’t he. He is——”
“My father is dead, yes. We had the same name.” In rapid sentences he sketched his history. As he talked she moved a step away from him and stood rigid.
“And you bought up ‘Red Jacket’ and presented it to me?” she asked, her face aflame.
He nodded, totally unprepared for the outburst that followed.
“Oh, how could you? How could you?” she cried. “I can’t take it!” She stamped her foot. With every energetic protestation the three royal plumes in her head-dress quivered in sympathetic response. “Iwon’ttake it!” Her anger grew. “Why did you keep this from me? Why didn’t you tell me before who you were?” In bitter speeches she upbraided him for his calm, smiling, superior secrecy.
He tried to explain that the secrecy was largely her own doing, but she would not have it that way. He had been playing with her, having his premeditatedjoke and then in the end had offered—alms! Very well! Very well! Tears were raining down her cheek, her speech was almost hysteric. Very well! She would leave as she had planned; but not until she got good and ready. “Red Jacket” was her home until she left it for good. “Oh! Richard Richard!” she exclaimed bitterly as she brushed past him, “this was a low trick to play on me!”
The door was slammed in his face or he might have followed her; and as it locked of itself in some mysterious manner he was compelled to tread his way back among the silent Indians and through a series of adjacent rooms to the main hall.
Once more an Indian council fire had broken up in a declaration of war!