Mr. Crewe's Career
CHAPTER XVI
THE "BOOK OF ARGUMENTS" IS OPENED
The Honourable Hilary Vane returned that day from Fairview in no very equable
frame of mind. It is not for us to be present at the Councils on the Palatine
when the "Book of Arguments" is opened, and those fitting the occasion are
chosen and sent out to the faithful who own printing-presses and free passes.
The Honourable Hilary Vane bore away from the residence of his emperor a great
many memoranda in an envelope, and he must have sighed as he drove through the
leafy roads for Mr. Hamilton Tooting, with his fertile mind and active body. A
year ago, and Mr. Tooting would have seized these memoranda of majesty, and
covered their margins with new suggestions: Mr. Tooting, on occasions, had even
made additions to the "Book of Arguments" itself—additions which had been used
in New York and other States with telling effect against Mr. Crewes there. Mr.
Tooting knew by heart the time of going to press of every country newspaper
which had passes (in exchange for advertising!). It was two o'clock when the
Honourable Hilary reached his office, and by three all the edicts would have
gone forth, and the grape-shot and canister would have been on their way to
demolish the arrogance of this petty Lord of Leith..
"Tooting's a dangerous man, Vane. You oughtn't to have let him go," Mr. Flint
had said. "I don't care a snap of my finger for the other fellow."
How Mr. Tooting's ears would have burned, and how his blood would have sung
with pride to have heard himself called dangerous by the president of the
Northeastern!
He who, during all the valuable years of his services, had never had a sign
that that potentate was cognizant of his humble existence.
The Honourable Brush Bascom, as we know, was a clever man; and although it
had never been given him to improve on the "Book of Arguments," he had ideas of
his own. On reading Mr. Crewe's defiance that morning, he had, with
characteristic promptitude and a desire to be useful, taken the first train out
of Putnam for Ripton, to range himself by the side of the Honourable Hilary in
the hour of need. The Feudal System anticipates, and Mr. Bascom did not wait for
a telegram.
On the arrival of the chief counsel from Fairview other captains had put in
an appearance, but Mr. Bascom alone was summoned, by a nod, into the private
office. What passed between them seems too sacred to write about. The Honourable
Hilary would take one of the slips from the packet and give it to Mr. Bascom.
"If that were recommended, editorially, to the Hull Mercury, it might serve
to clear away certain misconceptions in that section.
"Certain," Mr. Bascom would reply.
"It has been thought wise," the Honourable Hilary continued, "to send an
annual to the Groveton News. Roberts, his name is. Suppose you recommend to Mr.
Roberts that an editorial on this subject would be timely."
Slip number two. Mr. Bascom marks it 'Roberts.' Subject: "What would the
State do without the Railroad?"
"And Grenville, being a Prohibition centre, you might get this worked up for
the Advertiser there."
Mr. Bascom's agate eyes are full of light as he takes slip number three.
Subject: "Mr. Humphrey Crewe has the best-stocked wine cellar in the State, and
champagne every night for dinner." Slip number four, taken direct from the
second chapter of the "Book of Arguments": "Mr. Crewe is a reformer because he
has been disappointed in his inordinate ambitions," etc. Slip number five: "Mr.
Crewe is a summer resident, with a house in New York," etc., etc.
Slip number six, "Book of Arguments," paragraph, chapter: "Humphrey Crewe,
Defamer of our State." Assigned, among others, to the Ripton Record.
"Paul Pardriff went up to Leith to-day," said Mr. Bascom.
"Go to see him," replied the Honourable Hilary. "I've been thinking for some
time that the advertising in the Ripton Record deserves an additional annual."
Mr. Bascom, having been despatched on this business, and having voluntarily
assumed control of the Empire Bureau of Publication, the chief counsel
transacted other necessary legal business with State Senator Billings and other
gentlemen who were waiting. At three o'clock word was sent in that Mr. Austen
Vane was outside, and wished to speak with his father as soon as the latter was
at leisure. Whereupon the Honourable Hilary shooed out the minor clients, leaned
back in his chair, and commanded that his son be admitted.
"Judge," said Austen, as he closed the door behind him, "I don't want to
bother you."
The Honourable Hilary regarded his son for a moment fixedly out of his little
eyes.
"Humph" he said.
Austen looked down at his father. The Honourable Hilary's expression was not
one which would have aroused, in the ordinary man who beheld him, a feeling of
sympathy or compassion: it was the impenetrable look with which he had faced his
opponents for many years. But Austen felt compassion.
"Perhaps I'd better come in another time—when you are less busy," he
suggested.
"Who said I was busy?" inquired the Honourable Hilary.
Austen smiled a little sadly. One would have thought, by that smile, that the
son was the older and wiser of the two.
"I didn't mean to cast any reflection on your habitual industry, Judge," he
said.
"Humph!" exclaimed Mr. Vane. "I've got more to do than sit in the window and
read poetry, if that's what you mean."
"You never learned how to enjoy life, did you, Judge?" he said. "I don't
believe you ever really had a good time. Own up."
"I've had sterner things to think about. I've had 'to earn my living—and give
you a good time."
"I appreciate it," said Austen.
"Humph! Sometimes I think you don't show it a great deal," the Honourable
Hilary answered.
"I show it as far as I can, Judge," said his son. "I can't help the way I was
made."
"I try to take account of that," said the Honourable Hilary.
Austen laughed.
"I'll drop in to-morrow morning," he said.
But the Honourable Hilary pointed to a chair on the other side of the desk.
"Sit down. To-day's as good as to-morrow," he remarked, with sententious
significance, characteristically throwing the burden of explanation on the
visitor.
Austen found the opening unexpectedly difficult. He felt that this was a
crisis in their relations, and that it had come at an unfortunate hour.
"Judge," he said, trying to control the feeling that threatened to creep into
his voice, "we have jogged along for some years pretty peaceably, and I hope you
won't misunderstand what I'm going to say."
The Honourable Hilary grunted.
"It was at your request that I went into the law. I have learned to like that
profession. I have stuck to it as well as my wandering, Bohemian nature will
permit, and while I do not expect you necessarily to feel any pride in such
progress as I have made, I have hoped—that you might feel an interest."
The Honourable Hilary grunted again.
"I suppose I am by nature a free-lance," Austen continued. "You were good
enough to acknowledge the force of my argument when I told you it would be best
for me to strike out for myself. And I suppose it was inevitable, such being the
case, and you the chief counsel for the Northeastern Railroads, that I should at
some time or another be called upon to bring suits against your client. It would
have been better, perhaps, if I had not started to practise in this State. I did
so from what I believe was a desire common to both of us to—to live together."
The Honourable Hilary reached for his Honey Dew, but he did not speak.
"To live together," Austen repeated. "I want to say that, if I had gone away,
I believe I should always have regretted the fact." He paused, and took from his
pocket a slip of paper. "I made up my mind from the start that I would always be
frank with you. In spite of my desire to amass riches, there are some suits
against the Northeastern which I have—somewhat quixotically—refused. Here is a
section of the act which permitted the consolidation of the Northeastern
Railroads. You are no doubt aware of its existence."
The Honourable Hilary took the slip of paper in his hand and stared at it.
"The rates for fares and freights existing at the time of the passage of this
act shall mot be increased on the roads leased or united under it." What his
sensations were when he read it no man might have read in his face, but his hand
trembled a little, and along silence ensued before he gave it back to his son
with the simple comment:—"Well?"
"I do not wish to be understood to ask your legal opinion, although you
probably know that lumber rates have been steadily raised, and if a suit under
that section were successful the Gaylord Lumber Company could recover a very
large sum of money from the Northeastern Railroads," said Austen. "Having
discovered the section, I believe it to be my duty to call it to the attention
of the Gaylords. What I wish to know is, whether my taking the case would cause
you any personal inconvenience or distress? If so, I will refuse it."
"No," answered the Honourable Hilary, "it won't. Bring suit. Much use it'll
be. Do you expect they can recover under that section?"
"I think it is worth trying," said Austen.
"Why didn't somebody try it before?" asked the Honourable Hilary.
"See here, Judge, I wish you'd let me out of an argument about it. Suit is
going to be brought, whether I bring it or another man. If you would prefer for
any reason that I shouldn't bring it—I won't. I'd much rather resign as counsel
for the Gaylords—and I am prepared to do so."
"Bring suit," answered the Honourable Hilary, quickly, "bring suit by all
means. And now's your time. This seems to be a popular season for attacking the
property which is the foundation of the State's prosperity." ("Book of
Arguments," chapter 3.)
In spite of himself, Austen smiled again. Long habit had accustomed Hilary
Vane to put business considerations before family ties; and this habit had been
the secret of his particular success. And now, rather than admit by the least
sign the importance of his son's discovery of the statute (which he had had in
mind for many years, and to which he had more than once, by the way, called Mr.
Flint's attention), the Honourable Hilary deliberately belittled the matter as
part and parcel of the political tactics against the Northeastern.
Sears caused by differences of opinion are soon healed; words count for
nothing, and it is the soul that attracts or repels. Mr. Vane was not
analytical, he had been through a harassing day, and he was unaware that it was
not Austen's opposition, but Austen's smile, which set the torch to his anger.
Once, shortly after his marriage, when he had come home in wrath after a
protracted quarrel with Mr. Tredway over the orthodoxy of the new minister, in
the middle of his indignant recital of Mr. Tredway's unwarranted attitude, Sarah
Austen had smiled. The smile had had in it, to be sure, nothing of conscious
superiority, but it had been utterly inexplicable to Hilary Vane. He had known
for the first time what it was to feel murder in the heart, and if he had not
rushed out of the room, he was sure he would have strangled her. After all, the
Hilary Vanes of this world cannot reasonably be expected to perceive the humour
in their endeavours.
Now the son's smile seemed the reincarnation of the mother's. That smile was
in itself a refutation of motive on Austen's part which no words could have made
more emphatic; it had in it (unconsciously, too) compassion for and
understanding of the Honourable Hilary's mood and limitations. Out of the corner
of his mental vision—without grasping it—the Honourable Hilary perceived this
vaguely. It was the smile in which a parent privately indulges when a child
kicks his toy locomotive because its mechanism is broken. It was the smile of
one who, unforgetful of the scheme of the firmament and the spinning planets,
will not be moved to anger by him who sees but the four sides of a pit.
Hilary Vane grew red around the eyes—a danger signal of the old days.
"Take the suit," he said. "If you don't, I'll make it known all over the
State that you started it. I'll tell Mr. Flint to-morrow. Take it, do you hear
me? You ask me if I have any pride in you. I answer, yes. I'd like to see what
you can do. I've done what I could for you, and now I wash my hands of you.
Go,—ruin yourself if you want to. You've always been headed that way, and
there's no use trying to stop you. You don't seem to have any notion of decency
or order, or any idea of the principle on which this government was based.
Attack property destroy it. So much the better for you and your kind. Join the
Humphrey Crewes—you belong with 'em. Give those of us who stand for order and
decency as much trouble as you can. Brand us as rascals trying to enrich
ourselves with politics, and proclaim yourselves saints nobly striving to get
back the rights of the people. If you don't bring that suit, I tell you I'll
give you the credit for it—and I mean what I say."
Austen got to his feet. His own expression, curiously enough, had not changed
to one of anger. His face had set, but his eyes held the look that seemed still
to express compassion, and what he felt was a sorrow that went to the depths of
his nature. What he had so long feared—what he knew they had both feared—had
come at last.
"Good-by, Judge," he said.
Hilary Vane stared at him dumbly. His anger had not cooled, his eyes still
flamed, but he suddenly found himself bereft of speech. Austen put his hand on
his father's shoulder, and looked down silently into his face. But Hilary was
stiff as in a rigour, expressionless save for the defiant red in his eye.
"I don't think you meant all that, Judge, and I don't intend to hold it
against you."
Still Hilary stared, his lips in the tight line which was the emblem of his
character, his body rigid. He saw his son turn and walk to the door, and turn
again with his handle on the knob, and Hilary did not move. The door closed, and
still he sat there, motionless, expressionless.
Austen was hailed by those in the outer office, but he walked through them as
though the place were empty. Rumours sprang up behind him of which he was
unconscious; the long-expected quarrel had come; Austen had joined the motley
ranks of the rebels under Mr. Crewe. Only the office boy, Jimmy Towle,
interrupted the jokes that were flying by repeating, with dogged vehemence, "I
tell you it ain't so. Austen kicked Ham downstairs. Ned Johnson saw him." Nor
was it on account of this particular deed that Austen was a hero in Jimmy's
eyes.
Austen, finding himself in the square, looked at his watch. It was four
o'clock. He made his way under the maples to the house in Hanover Street, halted
for a moment contemplatively before the familiar classic pillars of its porch,
took a key from his pocket, and (unprecedented action!) entered by the front
door. Climbing to the attic, he found two valises—one of which he had brought
back from Pepper County—and took them to his own room. They held, with a little
crowding, most of his possessions, including a photograph of Sarah Austen, which
he left on the bureau to the last. Once or twice he paused in his packing to
gaze at the face, striving to fathom the fleeting quality of her glance which
the photograph had so strangely caught. In that glance nature had stamped her
enigma—for Sarah Austen was a child of nature. Hers was the gentle look of wild
things—but it was more; it was the understanding of—the unwritten law of
creation, the law by which the flowers grow, and wither; the law by which the
animal springs upon its prey, and, unerring, seeks its mate; the law of the song
of the waters, and the song of the morning stars; the law that permits evil and
pain and dumb, incomprehensible suffering; the law that floods at sunset the
mountain lands with colour and the soul with light; and the law that rends the
branches in the blue storm. Of what avail was anger against it, or the puny rage
of man? Hilary Vane, not recognizing it, had spent his force upon it, like a
hawk against a mountain wall, but Austen looked at his mother's face and
understood. In it was not the wisdom of creeds and cities, but the unworldly
wisdom which comprehends and condones.
His packing finished, with one last glance at the room Austen went downstairs
with his valises and laid them on the doorstep. Then he went to the stable and
harnessed Pepper, putting into the buggy his stable blanket and halter and
currycomb, and, driving around to the front of the house, hitched the horse at
the stone post, and packed the valises in the back of the buggy. After that he
walked slowly to the back of the house and looked in at the kitchen window.
Euphrasia, her thin arms bare to the elbow, was bending over a wash-tub. He
spoke her name, and as she lifted her head a light came into her face which
seemed to make her young again. She dried her hands hastily on her apron as she
drew towards him. He sprang through the window, and patted her on the back—his
usual salutation. And as she raised her eyes to his (those ordinarily sharp eyes
of Euphrasia's), they shone with an admiration she had accorded to no other
human being since he had come into the world. Terms of endearment she had,
characteristically, never used, she threw her soul into the sounding of his
name.
"Off to the hills, Austen? I saw you a-harnessing of Pepper."
"Phrasie," he said, still patting her, "I'm going to the country for a
while."
"To the country?" she repeated.
"To stay on a farm for a sort of vacation."
Her face brightened.
"Goin' to take a real vacation, be you?"
He laughed.
"Oh, I don't have to work very hard, Phrasie. You know I get out a good deal.
I just thought—I just thought I'd like to—sleep in the country—for a while."
"Well," answered Euphrasia, "I guess if you've took the notion, you've got to
go. It was that way with your mother before you. I've seen her leave the house
on a bright Sabbath half an hour before meetin' to be gone the whole day, and
Hilary and all the ministers in town couldn't stop her."
"I'll drop in once in a while to see you, Phrasie. I'll be at Jabe Jenney's."
"Jabe's is not more than three or four miles from Flint's place," Euphrasia
remarked.
"I've thought of that," said Austen.
"You'd thought of it!"
Austen coloured.
"The distance is nothing," he said quickly, "with Pepper."
"And you'll come and see me?" asked Euphrasia.
"If you'll do something for me," he said.
"I always do what you want, Austen. You know I'm not able to refuse you."
He laid his hands on her shoulders.
"You'll promise?" he asked.
"I'll promise," said Euphrasia, solemnly.
He was silent for a moment, looking down at her.
"I want you to promise to stay here and take care of the Judge."
Fright crept into her eyes, but his own were smiling, reassuring.
"Take care of him!" she cried, the very mention of Hilary raising the pitch
of her voice. "I guess I'll have to. Haven't I took care of him nigh on forty
years, and small thanks and recompense I get for it except when you're here.
I've wore out my life takin' care of him" (more gently). "What do you mean by
makin' me promise such a thing, Austen?"
"Well," said Austen, slowly, "the Judge is worried now. Things are not going
as smoothly with him as usual."
"Money?" demanded Euphrasia. "He ain't lost money, has he?"
A light began to dance in Austen's eyes in spite of the weight within him.
"Now, Phrasie," he said, lifting her chin a little, "you know you don't care
any more about money than I do."
"Lord help me," she exclaimed, "Lord help me if I didn't! And as long as you
don't care for it, and no sense can be knocked into your head about it, I hope
you'll marry somebody that does know the value of it. If Hilary was to lose what
he has now, before it comes rightly to you, he'd ought to be put in jail."
Austen laughed, and shook his head.
"Phrasie, the Lord did you a grave injustice when he didn't make you a man,
but I suppose he'll give you a recompense hereafter. No, I believe I am safe in
saying that the Judge's securities are still secure. Not that I really know—or
care—" (shakes of the head from Euphrasia). "Poor old Judge! Worse things than
finance are troubling him now."
"Not a woman!" cried Euphrasia, horror-stricken at the very thought. "He
hasn't took it into his head after all these years—"
"No," said Austen, laughing, "no, no. It's not quite as bad as that, but it's
pretty bad."
"In Heaven's name, what is it?" she demanded. "Reformers," said Austen.
"Reformers?" she repeated. "What might they be?"
"Well," answered Austen, "you might call them a new kind of caterpillar—only
they feed on corporations instead of trees."
Euphrasia shook her head vigorously.
"Go 'long," she exclaimed. "When you talk like that I never can follow you,
Austen. If Hilary has any worries, I guess he brought 'em on himself. I never
knew him to fail."
"Ambitious and designing persons are making trouble for his railroad."
"Well, I never took much stock in that railroad," said Euphrasia, with
emphasis. "I never was on it but an engine gave out, and the cars was jammed,
and it wasn't less than an hour late. And then they're eternally smashin' folks
or runnin' 'em down. You served 'em right when you made 'em pay that Meader man
six thousand dollars, and I told Hilary so." She paused, and stared at Austen
fixedly as a thought came into her head. "You ain't leavin' him because of this
trouble, are you, Austen?"
"Phrasie," he said, "I—I don't want to quarrel with him now. I think it would
be easy to quarrel with him."
"You mean him quarrel with you," returned Euphrasia. "I'd like to see him! If
he did, it wouldn't take me long to pack up and leave."
"That's just it. I don't want that to happen. And I've had a longing to go
out and pay a little visit to Jabe up in the hills, and drive his colts for him.
You see," he said, "I've got a kind of affection for the Judge."
Euphrasia looked at him, and her lips trembled.
"He don't deserve it," she declared, "but I suppose he's your father."
"He can't get out of that," said Austen.
"I'd like to see him try it," said Euphrasia. "Come in soon, Austen," she
whispered, "come in soon."
She stood on the lawn and watched him as he drove away, and he waved good-by
to her over the hood of the buggy. When he was out of sight she lifted her head,
gave her eyes a vigorous brush with her checked apron, and went back to her
washing.
It was not until Euphrasia had supper on the table that Hilary Vane came
home, and she glanced at him sharply as he took his usual seat. It is a curious
fact that it is possible for two persons to live together for more than a third
of a century, and at the end of that time understand each other little better
than at the beginning. The sole bond between Euphrasia and Hilary was that of
Sarah Austen and her son. Euphrasia never knew when Hilary was tired, or when he
was cold, or hungry, or cross, although she provided for all these emergencies.
Her service to him was unflagging, but he had never been under the slightest
delusion that it was not an inheritance from his wife. There must have been some
affection between Mr. Vane and his housekeeper, hidden away in the strong boxes
of both but up to the present this was only a theory—not quite as probable as
that about the inhabitants of Mars.
He ate his supper to-night with his usual appetite, which had always been
sparing; and he would have eaten the same amount if the Northeastern Railroads
had been going into the hands of a receiver the next day. Often he did not
exchange a word with Euphrasia between home-coming and bed-going, and this was
apparently to be one of these occasions. After supper he went, as usual, to sit
on the steps of his porch, and to cut his piece of Honey Dew, which never varied
a milligram. Nine o'clock struck, and Euphrasia, who had shut up the back of the
house, was on her way to bed with her lamp in her hand, when she came face to
face with him in the narrow passageway.
"Where's Austen?" he asked.
Euphrasia halted. The lamp shook, but she raised it to the level of his eyes.
"Don't you know?" she demanded.
"No," he said, with unparalleled humility.
She put down the lamp on the little table that stood beside her.
"He didn't tell you he was a-goin'?"
"No," said Hilary.
"Then how did you know he wasn't just buggy-ridin'?" she said.
Hilary Vane was mute.
"You've be'n to his room!" she exclaimed. "You've seen his things are gone!"
He confessed it by his silence. Then, with amazing swiftness and vigour for
one of her age, Euphrasia seized him by the arms and shook him.
"What have you done to him?" she cried; "what have you done to him? You sent
him off. You've never understood him—you've never behaved like a father to him.
You ain't worthy to have him." She flung herself away and stood facing Hilary at
a little distance. "What a fool I was! What a fool! I might have known it, and I
promised him."
"Promised him?" Hilary repeated. The shaking, the vehemence and anger, of
Euphrasia seemed to have had no effect whatever on the main trend of his
thoughts.
"Where has he gone?"
"You can find out for yourself," she retorted bitterly. "I wish on your
account it was to China. He came here this afternoon, as gentle as ever, and
packed up his things, and said he was goin' away because you was worried.
Worried!" she exclaimed scornfully. "His worry and his trouble don't count—but
yours. And he made me promise to stay with you. If it wasn't for him," she
cried, picking up the lamp, "I'd leave you this very night."
She swept past him, and up the narrow stairway to her bedroom.