_ CHAPTER XX. I Twice Explain the Condition of the Trescott Estate
Nothing had remained unchanged in Lattimore, and our old offices in the First National Bank edifice had long since been vacated by us. The very building had been demolished, and another and many-storied structure stood in its place. Now we were in the big Grain Belt Trust Company's building, the ground-floor of which was shared between the Trust Company and the general offices of the Lattimore and Great Western. In one corner, and next to the private room of President Elkins, was the office of Barslow & Elkins, where I commanded. Into which entered Mrs. Trescott and her daughter one day, soon after Mr. Lattimore had been given his instructions concerning the offer of our syndicate to pay the debts of their estate and take over its properties.
"Josie and I have called," said the widow, "to talk with you about the estate matters. Mr. Lattimore came to see us last night and--told us."
She seemed a little agitated, but in nowise so much cast down as might be expected of one who, considering herself rich, learns that she is poor. She had in her manner that mixture of dignity and constraint which marks the bearing of people whose relations with their friends have been affected by some great grief. A calamity not only changes our own feelings, but it makes us uncertain as to what our friends expect of us.
"What we wish explained," said Josie, "is just how it comes that our property must be deeded away."
"I can see," said I, "that that is a matter which demands investigation on your part. Your request is a natural and a proper one."
"It is not that," said she, evidently objecting to the word investigation; "we are not so very much surprised, and we have no doubt as to the necessity of doing it. But we want to know as much as possible about it before we act."
"Quite right," said I. "Mr. Elkins is in the next office; let us call him in. He sees and can explain these things as clearly as any one."
Jim came in response to a summons by one of his clerks. He shook hands gravely with my visitors.
"We are told," said Mrs. Trescott, "that our debts are a good deal more than we can pay--that we really have nothing."
"Not quite that," said Jim; "the law gives to the widow the home and the life insurance. That is a good deal more than nothing."
"As to whether we can keep that," said Josie, "we are not discussing now; but there are some other things we should like cleared up."
"We don't understand Mr. Cornish's offer to take the property and pay the debts," said Mrs. Trescott.
Jim's glance sought mine in a momentary and questioning astonishment; then he calmly returned the widow's look. Josie's eyes were turned toward the carpet, and a slight blush tinged her cheeks.
"Ah," said Jim, "yes; Mr. Cornish's offer. How did you learn of it?"
"I got my understanding of it from Mr. Lattimore," said Mrs. Trescott, "and told Josie about it."
"Before we consent to carry out this plan," said Josie, "we ... I want to know all about the motives and considerations back of it. I want to know whether it is based on purely business considerations, or on some fancied obligation ... or ... or ... on merely friendly sentiments."
"As to motives," said Mr. Elkins, "if the purely business requirements of the situation fully account for the proposition, we may waive the discussion of motives, can't we, Josie?"
"I imagine," said Mrs. Trescott, finding that Jim's question remained unanswered, "that none of us will claim to be able to judge Mr. Cornish's motives."
"Certainly not," acquiesced Mr. Elkins. "None of us."
"This is not what we came to ask about," said Josie. "Please tell us whether our house and the insurance money would be mamma's if this plan were not adopted--if the courts went on and settled the estate in the usual way?"
"Yes," said I, "the law gives her that, and justly. For the creditors knew all about the law when they took those bonds. So you need have no qualms of conscience on that."
"As none of it belongs to me," said Josie, "I shall leave all that to mamma. I avoid the necessity of settling it by ceasing to be 'the richest heiress in this part of the West'--one of the uses of adversity. But to proceed. Mamma says that there is a corporation, or something, forming to pay our debts and take our property, and that it will take a hundred thousand dollars more to pay the debts than the estate is worth. I must understand why this corporation should do this. I can see that it will save pa's good name in the business world, and save us from public bankruptcy; but ought we to be saved these things at such a cost? And can we permit--a corporation--or any one, to do this for us?"
Mr. Elkins nodded to me to speak.
"My dear," said I, "it's another illustration of the truth that no man liveth unto himself alone--"
She shrank, as if she feared some fresh hurt was about to be touched, and I saw that it was the second part of the text the anticipation of which gave her pain. Quotation is sometimes ill for a green wound.
"The fact is," I went on, "that things in Lattimore are not in condition to bear a shock--general money conditions, I mean, you know."
"I know," she said, nodding assent; "I can see that."
"Your father did a very large business for a time," I continued; "and when he sold lands he took some cash in payment, and for the balance notes of the various purchasers, secured by mortgages on the properties. Many of these persons are mere adventurers, who bought on speculation, and when their first notes came due failed to pay. Now if you had these notes, you could hold them, or foreclose the mortgages, and, beyond being disappointed in getting the money, no harm would be done."
"I understand," said Josie. "I knew something of this before."
"But if we haven't the notes," inquired her mother, "where are they?"
"Well," I went on, "you know how we have all handled these matters here. Mr. Trescott did as we all did: he negotiated them. The Grain Belt Trust Company placed them for him, and his are the only securities it has handled except those of our syndicate. He took them to the Trust Company and signed them on the back, and thus promised to pay them if the first signer failed. Then the trust company attached its guaranty to them, and they were resold all over the East, wherever people had money to put out at interest."
"I see," said Josie; "we have already had the money on these notes."
"Yes," said I, "and now we find that a great many of these notes, which are being sent on for payment, will not be paid. Your father's estate is not able to pay them, and our trust company must either take them up or fail. If it fails, everyone will think that values in Lattimore are unstable and fictitious, and so many people will try to sell out that we shall have a smashing of values, and possibly a panic. Prices will drop, so that none of our mortgages will be good for their face. Thousands of people will be broken, the city will be ruined, and there will be hard and distressful times, both here and where our paper is held. But if we can keep things as they are until we can do some large things we have in view, we are not afraid of anything serious happening. So we form this new corporation, and have it advance the funds on the notes, so as not to weaken the trust company--and because we can't afford to do it otherwise--and we know you would not permit it anyhow; and we ask you to give to the new corporation all the property which the creditors could reach, which will be held, and sold as opportunity offers, so as to make the loss as small as possible. But we must keep off this panic to save ourselves."
"I must think about this," said Josie. "I don't see any way out of it; but to have one's affairs so wrapped up in such a great tangle that one loses control of them seems wrong, somehow. And so far as I am concerned, I think I should prefer to turn everything over to the creditors--house and all--than to have even so good friends as yourself take on such a load for us. It seems as if we were saying to you, 'Pay our debts or we'll ruin you!' I must think about it."
"You understand it now?" said Jim.
"Yes, in a way."
"Let me come over this evening," said he, "and I think I can remove this feeling from your mind. And by the way, the new corporation is not going to have the ranch out on the Cheyenne Range. The syndicate says it isn't worth anything. And I'm going to take it. I still believe in the headwaters of Bitter Creek as an art country."
"Thank you," said she vaguely.
Somehow, the explanation of the estate affairs seemed to hurt her. Her color was still high, but her eyes were suffused, her voice grew choked at times, and she showed the distress of her recent trials, in something like a loss of self-control. Her pretty head and slender figure, the flexile white hands clasped together in nervous strain to discuss these so vital matters, and, more than all, the departure from her habitual cool and self-possessed manner, was touching, and appealed powerfully to Jim. He walked up to her, as she stood ready to leave, and laid his hand lightly on her arm.
"The way Barslow puts these property matters," said he, "you are called upon to think that all arrangements have been made upon a cold cash basis; and, actually, that's the fact. But you mustn't either of you think that in dealing with you we have forgotten that you are dear to us--friends. We should have had to act in the same way if you had been enemies, perhaps, but if there had been any way in which our--regard could have shown itself, that way would have been followed."
"Yes," said Mrs. Trescott, "we understand that. Mr. Lattimore said almost the same thing, and we know that in what he did Mr. Cornish--"
"We must go now, mamma," said Josie. "Thank you both very much. It won't do any harm for me to take a day or so for considering this in all its phases; but I know now what I shall do. The thought of the distress that might come to people here and elsewhere as a result of these mistakes here is a new one, and a little big for me, at first."
Jim sat by the desk, after they went away, folding insurance blotters and savagely tearing them in pieces.
"I wish to God," said he, "that I could throw my hand into the deck and quit!"
"What's the matter?" said I.
"Oh--nothing," he returned. "Only, look at the situation. She comes in, filled with the idea that it was Cornish who proposed this plan, and that he did it for her sake. I couldn't very well say, like a boy, ''Twasn't Cornish; 'twas me!', could I? And in showing her the purely mercenary character of the deal, I'm put in the position of backcapping Cornish, and she goes away with that impression! Oh, Al, what's the good of being able to convince and control every one else, if you are always further off than Kamschatka with the only one for whose feelings you really care?"
"I don't think it struck her in that way at all," said I. "She could see how it was, and did, whatever her mother may think. But what possessed Lattimore to tell Mrs. Trescott that Cornish story?"
"Oh, Lattimore never said anything like that!" he returned disgustedly. "He told her that it was proposed by a friend, or one of the syndicate, or something like that; and they are so saturated with the Cornish idea up there lately, that they filled up the blank out of their own minds. Another mighty encouraging symptom, isn't it?"
Not more than a day or two after this, and after the news of the "purchase" of the Trescott estate was being whispered about, my telephone rang, just before my time for leaving the office, and, on answering, I found that Antonia was at the other end of the wire.
"Is this Mr. Barslow?" said she. "How do you do? Alice is with us this afternoon, and she and mamma have given me authority to bring you home to dinner with us. Do you surrender?"
"Always," said I, "at such a summons."
"Then I'll come for you in ten minutes, if you'll wait for me. It's ever so good of you."
From her way of finishing the conversation, I knew she was coming to the office. So I waited in pleasurable anticipation of her coming, thinking of the perversity of the scheme of things which turned the eyes of both Jim and Cornish to Josie, while this girl coming to fetch me yearned so strongly toward one of them that her sorrow--borne lightly and cheerfully as it was--was an open secret. When she came she made her way past the clerks in the first room and into my private den. Not until the door closed behind her, and we were alone, did I see that she was not in her usual spirits. Then I saw that unmistakable quiver in her lips, so like a smile, so far from mirth, which my acquaintance with the girl, so sensitive and free from secretiveness, had made me familiar with.
"I want to know about some things," said she, "that papa hints about in a blind sort of a way, but doesn't tell clearly. Is it true that Josie and her mother are poor?"
"That is something which ought not to be known yet," said I, "but it is true."
"Oh," said she tearfully, "I am so sorry, so sorry!"
"Antonia," said I, as she hastily brushed her eyes, "these tears do your kind heart credit!"
"Oh, don't, don't talk to me like that!" she exclaimed passionately. "My kind heart! Why, sometimes I hate her; and I would be glad if she was out of the world! Don't look like that at me! And don't pretend to be surprised, or say you don't understand me. I think every one understands me, and has for a long time. I think everybody on the street says, after I pass, 'Poor Antonia!' I
must talk to somebody! And I'd rather talk to you because, even though you are a man and can't possibly know how I feel, you understand
him better than any one else I know--and
you love him too!"
I started to say something, but the situation did not lend itself to words. Neither could I pat her on the shoulders, or press her hand, as I might have done with a man. Pale and beautiful, her jaunty hat a little awry, her blonde ringlets in some disorder, she sat unapproachable in her grief.
"You look at me," said she, with a little gasping laugh, "as if I were a drowning girl, and you chained to the bank. If you haven't pitied me in the past, Albert, don't pity me now; for the mere saying openly to some human being that I love him seems almost to make me happy!"
I lamely murmured some inanity, of which she took not the slightest notice.
"Is it true," she asked, "that Mr. Elkins is to pay their debts, and that they are to be--married?"
"No," said I, glad, for some reason which is not very clear, to find something to deny. "Nothing of the sort, I assure you."
And again, this time something wearily, for it was the second time over it in so short a time, I explained the disposition of the Trescott estate.
"But he urged it?" she said. "He insisted upon it?"
"Yes."
She arose, buttoned her jacket about her, and stood quietly as if to test her mastery of herself, once or twice moving as if to speak, but stopping short, with a long, quivering sigh. I longed to take her in my arms and comfort her; for, in a way, she attracted me strongly.
"Mr. Barslow," said she at last, "I have no apology to make to you; for you are my friend. And I have no feeling toward Mr. Elkins of which, in my secret heart, and so long as he knows nothing of it, I am not proud. To know him ... and love him may be death ... but it is honor!... I am sorry Josie is poor, because it is a hard thing for her; but more because I know he will be drawn to her in a stronger way by her poverty. Shake hands with me, Albert, and be jolly, I'm jollier, away down deep, than I've been for a long, long time; and I thank you for that!"
We shook hands warmly, like comrades, and passed down to her carriage together. At dinner she was vivacious as ever; but I was downcast. So much so that Mrs. Hinckley devoted herself to me, cheering me with a dissertation on "Sex in Mind." I asked myself if the atmosphere in which she had been reared had not in some degree contributed to the attitude of Antonia toward the expression to me of her regard for Jim.
So the Trescott estate matter was arranged. In a few days the boom was strengthened by newspaper stories of the purchase, by heavy financial interests, of the entire list of assets in the hands of the administrator.
"This immense deal," said the
Herald, "is new proof of the desirability of Lattimore property. The Acme Investment Company, which will handle the properties, has bought for investment, and will hold for increased prices. It may be taken as certain that in no other city in the country could so large and varied a list of holdings be so quickly and advantageously realized upon."
This was cheering--to the masses. But to us it was like praise for the high color of a fever patient. Even while the rehabilitated Giddings thus lifted his voice in paeans of rejoicing, the lurid signals of danger appeared in our sky. _