Buch lesen: «The Wall Street Girl»

CHAPTER I
DON RECEIVES A JOLT

Before beginning to read the interesting document in front of him, Jonas Barton, senior member of Barton & Saltonstall, paused to clean his glasses rather carefully, in order to gain sufficient time to study for a moment the tall, good-looking young man who waited indifferently on the other side of the desk. He had not seen his late client’s son since the latter had entered college–a black-haired, black-eyed lad of seventeen, impulsive in manner and speech. The intervening four years had tempered him a good deal. Yet, the Pendleton characteristics were all there–the square jaw, the rather large, firm mouth, the thin nose, the keen eyes. They were all there, but each a trifle subdued: the square jaw not quite so square as the father’s, the mouth not quite so large, the nose so sharp, or the eyes so keen. On the other hand, there was a certain fineness that the father had lacked.

In height Don fairly matched his father’s six feet, although he still lacked the Pendleton breadth of shoulder.

The son was lean, and his cigarette–a dilettante variation of honest tobacco-smoking that had always been a source of irritation to his father–did not look at all out of place between his long, thin fingers; in fact, nothing else would have seemed quite suitable. Barton was also forced to admit to himself that the young man, in some miraculous way, managed to triumph over his rather curious choice of raiment, based presumably on current styles. In and of themselves the garments were not beautiful. From Barton’s point of view, Don’s straw hat was too large and too high in the crown. His black-and-white check suit was too conspicuous and cut close to the figure in too feminine a fashion. His lavender socks, which matched a lavender tie, went well enough with the light stick he carried; but, in Barton’s opinion, a young man of twenty-two had no business to carry a light stick. By no stretch of the imagination could one picture the elder Pendleton in such garb, even in his jauntiest days. And yet, as worn by Don, it seemed as if he could not very well have worn anything else. Even the mourning-band about his left arm, instead of adding a somber touch, afforded an effective bit of contrast. This, however, was no fault of his. That mourning has artistic possibilities is a happy fact that has brought gentle solace to many a widow.

On the whole, Barton could not escape the deduction that the son reflected the present rather than the past. Try as he might, it was difficult for him to connect this young man with Grandfather Pendleton, shipbuilder of New Bedford, or with the father who in his youth commanded the Nancy R. But that was by no means his duty–as Don faintly suggested when he uncrossed his knees and hitched forward impatiently.

“Your father’s will is dated three years ago last June,” began Barton.

“At the end of my freshman year,” Don observed.

Jonas Barton adjusted his spectacles and began to read. He read slowly and very distinctly, as if anxious to give full value to each syllable:

“New York City, borough of Manhattan, State of New York. I, Donald Joshua Pendleton, being of sound mind and–”

Donald Pendleton, Jr., waved an objection with his cigarette.

“Can’t you cut out all the legal stuff and just give me the gist of it? There’s no doubt about father having been of sound mind and so forth.”

“It is customary–” began the attorney.

“Well, we’ll break the custom,” Don cut in sharply.

Barton glanced up. It might have been his late client speaking; it gave him a start.

“As you wish,” he assented. “Perhaps, however, I may be allowed to observe that in many ways your father’s will is peculiar.”

“It wouldn’t be father’s will if it wasn’t peculiar,” declared Don.

Barton pushed the papers away from him.

“Briefly, then,” he said, “your father leaves his entire estate to you–in trust.”

Don leaned forward, his stick grasped in his gloved hands.

“I don’t get that last.”

“In trust,” repeated Barton with emphasis. “He has honored our firm with the commission of serving as a board of trustees for carrying out the terms of the will.”

“You mean to fix my allowance?”

“To carry out the terms of the will, which are as follows: namely, to turn over to you, but without power of conveyance, the paternal domicile on West Sixtieth Street with all its contents.”

Don frowned.

“Paternal domicile–I can translate that all right. I suppose you mean the house. But what’s that line ‘without power of conveyance’?”

“It means that you are at liberty to occupy the premises, but that you are to have no power to sell, to rent, or to dispose of the property in any way whatsoever.”

Don appeared puzzled.

“That’s a bit queer. What do you suppose Dad thought I wanted of a place that size to live in?”

“I think your father was a man of considerable sentiment.”

“Eh?”

“Sentiment,” Barton repeated. “It was there you were born, and there your mother died.”

“Yes, that’s all correct; but–well, go on.”

“The rest of the document, if you insist upon a digest, consists principally of directions to the trustees. Briefly, it provides that we invest the remainder of the property in safe bonds and apply the interest to meet taxes on the aforesaid paternal domicile, to retain and pay the wages of the necessary servants, to furnish fuel and water, and to maintain the house in proper repair.”

“Well, go on.”

“In case of your demise–”

“You may skip my demise; I’m not especially interested in that.”

“Then I think we have covered all the more important provisions,” Barton concluded.

“All?” exclaimed Don. “What do you think I’m going to live on?”

Here was the clash for which Barton had been waiting. His face hardened, and he shoved back his chair a little.

“I am not able to find any provision in the will relating to that,” he answered.

“Eh? But what the deuce–”

For a moment Don stared open-mouthed at the lawyer. Then he reached in his pocket for his cigarettes, selected one with some deliberation, and tapped an end upon the case.

“You said Dad had considerable sentiment,” he observed. “It strikes me he has shown more humor than sentiment.”

Barton was still aggressive. To tell the truth, he expected some suggestion as to the possibility of breaking the will; but if ever he had drawn a paper all snug and tight, it was the one in question.

“Damme,” Pendleton, Sr., had said. “Damme, Barton, if the lad is able to break the will, I’ll rise in my grave and haunt you the rest of your days.”

If the boy wished to test the issue, Barton was ready for him. But the boy’s thoughts seemed to be on other things.

“I suppose,” mused Pendleton, Jr., “I suppose it was that freshman scrape that worried him.”

“I was not informed of that,” replied Barton.

“It made good reading,” the young man confided. “But, honest, it was not so bad as the papers made it out. Dad was a good sport about it, anyhow. He cleared it up and let me go on.”

“If you will allow me to advance an opinion,–a strictly personal opinion,–it is that Mr. Pendleton devised the entire will with nothing else but your welfare in mind. He had a good deal of pride, and desired above all things to have you retain the family home. If I remember correctly, he said you were the last lineal descendant.”

Don nodded pleasantly.

“The last. Kind of looks as if he wanted me to remain the last.”

“On the contrary,” ventured Barton, “I think he hoped you might marry and–”

“Marry?” broke in Don. “Did you say marry?”

“I even understood, from a conversation with your father just before his death, that you–er–were even then engaged. Am I mistaken?”

“No; that’s true enough. But say–look here.”

The young man reached in his pocket and brought forth a handful of crumpled bills and loose change. He counted it carefully.

“Twelve dollars and sixty-three cents,” he announced. “What do you think Frances Stuyvesant will say to that?”

Barton refrained from advancing an opinion.

“What do you think Morton H. Stuyvesant will say?” demanded Don.

No point of law being involved in the query, Jonas Barton still refrained.

“What do you think Mrs. Morton H. Stuyvesant will say, and all the uncles and aunties and nephews and nieces?”

“Not being their authorized representative, I am not prepared to answer,” Barton replied. “However, I think I can tell you what your father would do under these circumstances.”

“What?” inquired Don.

“He would place all the facts in the case before the girl, then before her father, and learn just what they had to say.”

“Wrong. He wouldn’t go beyond the girl,” answered Don.

He replaced the change in his pocket.

“Ah,” he sighed–“them were the happy days.”

“If I remember correctly,” continued Jonas Barton thoughtfully, “twelve dollars and sixty-three cents was fully as much as your father possessed when he asked your mother to marry him. That was just after he lost his ship off Hatteras.”

“Yes, them were the happy days,” nodded Don. “But, at that, Dad had his nerve with him.”

“He did,” answered Barton. “He had his nerve with him always.”

CHAPTER II
IT BECOMES NECESSARY TO EAT

In spite of the continued efforts of idealists to belittle it, there is scarcely a fact of human experience capable of more universal substantiation than that in order to live it is necessary to eat. The corollary is equally true: in order to eat it is necessary to pay.

Yet until now Pendleton had been in a position to ignore, if not to refute, the latter statement. There was probably no detail of his daily existence calling for less thought or effort than this matter of dining. Opportunities were provided on every hand,–at the houses of his friends, at his club, at innumerable cafés and hotels,–and all that he was asked to contribute was an appetite.

It was not until he had exhausted his twelve dollars and sixty-three cents that Don was in any position to change his point of view. But that was very soon. After leaving the office of Barton & Saltonstall at eleven, he took a taxi to the Harvard Club, which immediately cut down his capital to ten dollars and thirteen cents. Here he met friends, Higgins and Watson and Cabot of his class, and soon he had disposed of another dollar. They then persuaded him to walk part way downtown with them. On his return, he passed a florist’s, and, remembering that Frances was going that afternoon to a thé dansant, did the decent thing and sent up a dozen roses, which cost him five dollars. Shortly after this he passed a confectioner’s, and of course had to stop for a box of Frances’s favorite bonbons, which cost him another dollar.

Not that he considered the expense in the least. As long as he was able to reach in his pocket and produce a bill of sufficient value to cover the immediate investment, that was enough. But it is surprising how brief a while ten dollars will suffice in a leisurely stroll on Fifth Avenue. Within a block of the confectionery store two cravats that took his fancy and a box of cigarettes called for his last bill, and actually left him with nothing but a few odd pieces of silver. Even this did not impress him as significant, because, as it happened, his wants were for the moment fully satisfied.

It was a clear October day, and, quite unconscious of the distance, Don continued up the Avenue to Sixtieth Street–to the house where he was born. In the last ten years he had been away a good deal from that house,–four years at Groton, four at Harvard,–but, even so, the house had always remained in the background of his consciousness as a fixed point.

Nora opened the door for him, as she had for twenty years.

“Are you to be here for dinner, sir?” she inquired.

“No, Nora,” he answered; “I shall dine out to-night.”

Nora appeared uneasy.

“The cook, sir, has received a letter–a very queer sort of letter, sir–from a lawyer gentleman.”

“Eh?”

“He said she was to keep two accounts, sir: one for the servants’ table and one for the house.”

“Oh, that’s probably from old Barton.”

“Barton–yes, sir, that was the name. Shall I bring you the letter, sir?”

“Don’t bother, Nora. It’s all right. He’s my new bookkeeper.”

“Very well, sir. Then you’ll give orders for what you want?”

“Yes, Nora.”

In the library an open fire was burning brightly on the hearth, as always it had been kept burning for his father. With his hands behind his back, he stood before it and gazed around the big room. It seemed curiously empty with the old man gone. The machinery of the house as adjusted by him still continued to run on smoothly. And yet, where at certain hours he should have been, he was not. It was uncanny.

It was a little after one; Don determined to change his clothes and stroll downtown for luncheon–possibly at Sherry’s. He was always sure there of running across some one he knew.

He went to his room and dressed with some care, and then walked down to Forty-fourth Street. Before deciding to enter the dining-room, however, he stood at the entrance a moment to see if there was any one there he recognized. Jimmy Harndon saw him and rose at once.

“Hello, Jimmy,” Don greeted him.

“Hello, Don. You came in the nick of time. Lend me ten, will you?”

“Sure,” answered Don.

He sought his bill-book. It was empty. For a moment he was confused.

“Oh, never mind,” said Jimmy, perceiving his embarrassment. “I’ll ’phone Dad to send it up by messenger. Bit of fool carelessness on my part. You’ll excuse me?”

Harndon hurried off to the telephone.

Don stared at his empty pocket-book, at the head waiter, who still stood at the door expectantly, and then replaced the empty wallet in his pocket. There was no use waiting here any longer. He could not dine, if he wished. Never before in his life had he been confronted by such a situation. Once or twice he had been in Harndon’s predicament, but that had meant no more to him than it meant to Harndon–nothing but a temporary embarrassment. The difference now was that Harndon could still telephone his father and that he could not. Here was a significant distinction; it was something he must think over.

Don went on to the Harvard Club. He passed two or three men he knew in the lobby, but shook his head at their invitation to join them. He took a seat by himself before an open fire in a far corner of the lounge. Then he took out his bill-book again, and examined it with some care, in the hope that a bill might have slipped in among his cards. The search was without result. Automatically his father’s telephone number suggested itself, but that number now was utterly without meaning. A new tenant already occupied those offices–a tenant who undoubtedly would report to the police a modest request to forward to the Harvard Club by messenger a hundred dollars.

He was beginning to feel hungry–much hungrier than he would have felt with a pocket full of money. Of course his credit at the club was good. He could have gone into the dining-room and ordered what he wished. But credit took on a new meaning. Until now it had been nothing but a trifling convenience, because at the end of the month he had only to forward his bill to his father. But that could not be done any longer.

He could also have gone to any one of a dozen men of his acquaintance and borrowed from five to fifty dollars. But it was one thing to borrow as he had in the past, and another to borrow in his present circumstances. He had no right to borrow. The whole basis of his credit was gone.

The situation was, on the face of it, so absurd that the longer he thought it over the more convinced he became that Barton had made some mistake. He decided to telephone Barton.

It was with a sense of relief that Don found the name of Barton & Saltonstall still in the telephone-book. It would not have surprised him greatly if that too had disappeared. It was with a still greater sense of relief that he finally heard Barton’s voice.

“Look here,” he began. “It seems to me there must be some misunderstanding somewhere. Do you realize that I’m stony broke?”

“Why, no,” answered Barton. “I thought you showed me the matter of thirteen dollars or so.”

“I did; but that’s gone, and all I have now is the matter of thirteen cents or so.”

“I’m sorry,” answered Barton. “If a small loan would be of any temporary advantage–”

“Hang it!” cut in Don. “You don’t think I’m trying to borrow, do you?”

“I beg your pardon. Perhaps you will tell me, then, just what you do wish.”

“I must eat, mustn’t I?”

“I consider that a fair presumption.”

“Then what the deuce!”

Don evidently expected this ejaculation to be accepted as a full and conclusive statement. But, as far as Barton was concerned, it was not. “Yes?” he queried.

“I say, what the deuce?”

“I don’t understand.”

“What am I going to do?”

“Oh, I see. You mean, I take it, what must you do in order to provide yourself with funds.”

“Exactly,” growled Don.

“Of course, the usual method is to work,” suggested Barton.

“Eh?”

“To find a position with some firm which, in return for your services, is willing to pay you a certain fixed sum weekly or monthly. I offer you the suggestion for what it is worth. You can think it over.”

“Think it over!” exclaimed Don. “How long do you think I can think on thirteen cents?”

“If you authorize me to act for you, I have no doubt something can be arranged.”

“You seem to hold all the cards.”

“I am merely obeying your father’s commands,” Barton hastened to assure him. “Now, can you give me any idea what you have in mind?”

“I’ll do anything except sell books,” Don answered promptly.

“Very well,” concluded Barton. “I’ll advise you by mail as soon as anything develops.”

“Thanks.”

“In the mean while, if you will accept a loan–”

“Thanks again,” answered Don; “but I’ll go hungry first.” He hung up the receiver and went back to the lounge.

CHAPTER III
THE QUEEN WAS IN THE PARLOR

Stuyvesant was proud of his daughter–proud of her beauty, proud of her ability to dress, proud of her ability to spend money. She gave him about the only excuse he now had for continuing to hold his seat on the Stock Exchange. The girl was tall and dark and slender, and had an instinct for clothes that permitted her to follow the vagaries of fashion to their extremes with the assurance of a Parisienne, plus a certain Stuyvesant daring that was American. At dinner that night she wore, for Don’s benefit, a new French gown that made even him catch his breath. It was beautiful, but without her it would not have been beautiful. Undoubtedly its designer took that into account when he designed the gown.

The dinner was in every way a success, and a credit to the Stuyvesant chef–who, however, it must be said, seldom had the advantage of catering to a guest that had not lunched. Stuyvesant was in a good humor, Mrs. Stuyvesant pleasantly negative as usual, and Frances radiant. Early in the evening Stuyvesant went off to his club for a game of bridge, and Mrs. Stuyvesant excused herself to write notes.

“I met Reggie Howland at the tea this afternoon,” said Frances. “He was very nice to me.”

“Why shouldn’t he be?” inquired Don.

“I rather thought you would come. Really, when one goes to all the bother of allowing one’s self to be engaged, the least one expects is a certain amount of attention from one’s fiancée.”

She was standing by the piano, and he went to her side and took her hand–the hand wearing the solitaire that had been his mother’s.

“You’re right,” he nodded; “but I was all tied up with business this afternoon.”

She raised her dark brows a trifle.

“Business?”

“Lots of it,” he nodded. “Come over here and sit down; I want to tell you about it.”

He led her to a chair before the open fire. He himself continued to stand with his back to the flames. He was not serious. The situation struck him now as even funnier than it had in Barton’s office. He had in his pocket just thirteen cents, and yet here he was in Stuyvesant’s house, engaged to Stuyvesant’s daughter.

“It seems,” he began–“it seems that Dad would have his little joke before he died.”

“Yes?” she responded indifferently. She was bored by business of any sort.

“I had a talk to-day with Barton–his lawyer. Queer old codger, Barton. Seems he’s been made my guardian. Dad left him to me in his will. He left me Barton, the house, and twelve dollars and sixty-three cents.”

“Yes, Don.”

She did not quite understand why he was going into details. They did not seem to concern her, even as his fiancée.

“Of that patrimony I now have thirteen cents left,” Don continued. “See, here it is.”

He removed from his pocket two nickels and three coppers.

“It doesn’t look like much, does it?”

“Oh, Don,” she laughed, “do be serious!”

“I am serious,” he assured her. “I’ve been serious ever since I went to Sherry’s for lunch, and found I did not have enough for even a club sandwich.”

“But, Don!” she gasped.

“It’s a fact. I had to leave.”

“Then where did you lunch?”

“I didn’t lunch.”

“You mean you did not have enough change to buy something to eat?”

“I had thirteen cents. You can’t buy anything with that, can you?”

“I–I don’t know.”

Suddenly she remembered how, once on her way home from Chicago, she lost her purse and did not have sufficient change left even to wire her father to meet her. She was forced to walk from the station to the house. The experience had always been like a nightmare to her. She rose and stood before him.

“But, Don–what are you going to do?”

“I telephoned Barton, and he suggested I take some sort of position with a business house. He’s going to find something for me. I’m not worrying about that; but what I want to know is what I ought to do about you.”

“I don’t understand, Don.”

“I mean about our engagement.”

She looked puzzled.

“I’m afraid I’m very stupid.”

“We can’t be married on thirteen cents, can we?”

“But we needn’t be married until you have more, need we?”

“That’s so. And you’re willing to wait?”

“You know I’ve told you I didn’t wish to be married before spring, anyway. I think it’s much pleasanter staying just as we are.”

“We can’t be engaged all our lives,” he protested.

“We can be engaged as long as we wish, can’t we?”

“I want to marry you as soon as I can.”

Her eyes brightened and she placed a soft hand upon his arm.

“That’s nice of you, Don,” she said. “But you don’t know what a frightfully expensive burden I’ll be as a wife.”

“If I earned, to start with, say fifty dollars a week–would you marry me on that?”

“If I did, what would we live on?” she inquired.

“Well, I have the house. That’s provided for–all except the table.”

“But if I spent the fifty dollars for a new hat, then what would we have left for provisions?”

“You mustn’t spend it all on a new hat,” he warned.

“Then, there are gowns and–oh, lots of things you don’t know anything about.”

“Couldn’t you get along with a little less?”

She thought a moment.

“I don’t see how,” she decided. “I never get anything I don’t want.”

“That’s something,” he nodded approvingly. “Then you think I must earn more than fifty a week?”

“I only know that Dad gives me an allowance of ten thousand a year, and there’s never anything left,” she answered.

“Ten thousand a year!” he exclaimed.

“Everything is so expensive to-day, Don. All this talk sounds frightfully vulgar, but–there’s no use pretending, is there?”

“Not a bit,” he answered. “If ten thousand a year is what you need, ten thousand a year is what I must earn.”

“I don’t believe it’s very hard, because Dad does it so easily,” she declared.

“I’ll get it,” he nodded confidently. “And, now that it’s all settled, let’s forget it. Come over to the piano and sing for me.”

He sat down before the keys and played her accompaniments, selecting his own songs. They ran through some of the latest opera successes, and then swung off to the simpler and older things. It was after “Annie Laurie” that he rose and looked deep into her eyes.

“I’ll get it for you,” he said soberly.

“Oh, Don!” she whispered. “Sometimes nothing seems important but just you.”