Chapter 17

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_ CHAPTER XVII

Wade went through the unnecessary form of "giving notice" a day or two after his old master was laid to rest. On the day that Templeton Thorpe went to the hospital he abandoned an almost lifelong habit of cocking his head in an attitude of listening, and went about the house with the corners of his mouth drooping instead of maintaining their everlasting twist upward in the set smile of humility.

He had been there for thirty years and more, and now he was no longer needed. He would have to get out. He had saved a little money,—not much, but enough to start a small business of some sort,—and he was complaining bitterly to himself of the fate that deprived him of Mr. Thorpe's advice just when it was imperative that he should know what enterprise would be the safest for him to undertake. It nettled him to think that he had failed to take advantage of his opportunities while this shrewd, capable old man was alive and in a position to set him on the right path to prosperity. He should have had the sense to look forward to this very day.

For thirty years he had gone on believing that he knew so much more than Mr. Thorpe that Mr. Thorpe couldn't possibly get along without him, and now he was brought up sharply against the discovery that he couldn't get along without Mr. Thorpe. For thirty years he had done only the things that Mr. Thorpe wanted him to do, instructed him to do, or even drove him to do. Suddenly he found himself with absolutely nothing to do, or at any rate with no one to tell him what to do, and instead of a free and independent agent, with no one to order him about, he wasn't anything,—he wasn't anything at all. This was not what he had been looking forward to with such complacency and confidence. He was like a lost soul. No one to tell him what to do! No one to valet! No one to call him a blundering idiot! No one to despise except himself! And he had waited thirty years for the day to come when he could be his own man, with the power to tell every one to go to the devil—and to do so himself if he saw fit. He hardly recognised himself when he looked in the mirror. Was that scared, bleak, wobegone face a reflection? Was he really like that?

He was filled with a bitter rage against Mr. Thorpe. How he hated him for dying like this and leaving him with nothing to do after all these years of faithful service. And how shocked he was, and frightened, to discover himself wanting to pause outside his master's door with his head cocked to hear the voice that would never shout out to him again.

He knew to a penny just how much he had in the Savings Banks about town,—a trifle over twelve thousand dollars, the hoardings of thirty years. He had gone on being a valet all these years without a single thought of being anything else, and yet he had always looked forward to the day when he could go into some nice, genteel little business for himself,—when he could step out of service and enjoy life to the full. But how was he to go about stepping out of service and into a nice, genteel little business without Mr. Thorpe to tell him what to do? Here was he, sixty-five years old, without a purpose in life. Beginning life at sixty-five!

Of course, young Mrs. Thorpe would have no use for a valet. No doubt she would marry again,—Wade had his notions!—but he couldn't think of subjecting himself to the incompetency of a new master, even though his old place were held open for him. He would not be able to adjust himself to another master,—or to put it in his own words, it would be impossible to adjust another master to himself. Young Master Braden might give him something to do for the sake of old times, but then again Mrs. Thorpe would have to be taken into consideration. Wade hadn't the slightest doubt that she would one day "marry into the family again." As a matter of fact, he believed in his soul that there was an understanding between the young people. There were moments when he squinted his eyes and cringed a little. He would have given a great deal to be able to put certain thoughts out of his mind.

And then there was another reason for not wanting to enter the service of Dr. Braden Thorpe. Suppose he were to become critically ill. Would he, in that event, feel at liberty to call in an outside doctor to take charge of his case? Would it not be natural for Dr. Braden to attend him? And suppose that Dr. Braden were to conclude that he couldn't get well!

He gave notice to Murray, the butler. He hated to do this, for he despised Murray. The butler would not have to go. He too had been with Mr. Thorpe for more than a quarter of a century, and death had not robbed him of a situation. What manner of justice was it that permitted Murray to go on being useful while he had to go out into the world and become a burden to himself?

"Murray informs me, Wade, that you have given notice," said Anne, looking up as he shuffled into an attitude before her. "He says that you have saved quite a lot of money and are therefore independent. I am happy to hear that you are in a position to spend the remainder of your life in ease and—why, what is the matter, Wade?"

He was very pale, and swayed slightly. "If you please, madam, Murray is mistaken," he mumbled. An idea was forming in his unhappy brain. "I—I am leaving because I realise that you no longer have any use for my services, and not because I am—er—well off, as the saying is. I shall try to get another place." His mind was clear now. The idea was completely formed. "Of course, it will be no easy matter to find a place at my age, but,—well, a man must live, you know." He straightened up a bit, as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

She was puzzled. "But you have money, Wade. You have worked hard. You have earned a good rest. Why should you go on slaving for other people?"

"Alas," said Wade, resuming the patient smile that had been missing for days and cocking his head a little, "it is not for me to rest. Murray does not know everything. My savings are small. He does not know the uses to which I have been obliged to—I beg pardon, madam, you cannot, of course, be interested in my poor affairs." He was very humble.

"But Mr. Thorpe always spoke of you as an exceedingly thrifty man. I am sure that he believed you to be comfortably fixed for life, Wade."

"Quite so," agreed Wade. "And I should have been had it been possible to lay by with all these unmentioned obligations crowding upon me, year in, year out."

"Your family? I did not know that there was any one dependent upon you."

"I have never spoken of my affairs, ma'am," said Wade. "It is not for a servant to trouble his employer with—ahem! You understand, I am sure."

"Perfectly. I am sorry."

"So I thought I would give notice at once, madam, so that I might be on the lookout as soon as possible for a new place. You see, I shall soon be too old to apply for a place, whilst if I manage to secure one in time I may be allowed to stay on in spite of my age."

"Have you anything in view?"

"Nothing, madam. I am quite at a loss where to—"

"Take all the time you like, Wade," she said, genuinely sorry for the man. She never had liked him. He was the one man in all the world who might have pitied her for the mistake she had made, and he had steeled his heart against her. She knew that he felt nothing but scorn for her, and yet she was sorry for him. This was new proof to her that she had misjudged her own heart. It was a softer thing than she had supposed. "Stay on here until you find something satisfactory. Mr. Thorpe would have wished you to stay. You were a very faithful friend to him, Wade. He set great store by you."

"Thank you, madam. You are very kind. Of course, I shall strive to make myself useful while I remain. I dare say Murray can find something for me to do. Temporarily, at least, I might undertake the duties of the furnace man and handy-man about the house. He is leaving to-morrow, I hear. If you will be so good as to tell Murray that I am to take O'Toole's place,—temporarily, of course,—I shall be very grateful. It will give me time to collect my thoughts, ma'am."

"It will not be necessary, Wade, for you to take on O'Toole's work. I am not asking you to perform hard, manual labor. You must not feel that my—"

"Pardon me, madam," interrupted he; "I very much prefer to do some sort of regular work, if I may be permitted."

She smiled. "You will find Murray a hard task-master, I am afraid."

He took a long breath, as of relief—or could it have been pleasure? "I quite understand that, madam. He is a martinet. Still, I shall not mind." The same thought was in the mind of each: he was accustomed to serving a hard task-master. "If you don't mind, I shall take O'Toole's place until you find some one else. To-morrow I shall move my belongings from the room upstairs to O'Toole's room off the furnace-room. Thank—"

"No!" she exclaimed. "You are not to do that. Keep your old room, Wade. I—I cannot allow you to go down there. Mr. Thorpe would never forgive me if he knew that—" He lifted his eyes at the sudden pause and saw that she was very white. Was she too afraid of ghosts?

"It's very good of you," he said after a moment. "I shall do as you wish in everything, and I shall let you know the instant I find another place." He cleared his throat. "I fear, madam, that in the confusion of the past few days I have failed to express to you my sympathy. I assure you the oversight was not—"

She was looking straight into his eyes. "Thank you, Wade," she interrupted coldly. "Your own grief would be sufficient excuse, if any were necessary. If you will send Murray to me I will tell him that you have withdrawn your notice and will stay on in O'Toole's place. It will not be necessary for him to engage another furnace-man at present."

"No, ma'am," said Wade, and then added without a trace of irony in his voice: "At any rate not until cold weather sets in."

And so it was that this man solved the greatest problem that had ever confronted him. He went down into the cellars to take orders from the man he hated, from the man who would snarl at him and curse him and humiliate him to the bitter end, and all because he knew that he could not begin life over again. He wanted to be ordered about, he wanted to be snarled at by an overbearing task-master. It simplified everything. He would never be called upon to think for himself. Thorpe or Murray, what mattered which of them was in command? It was all the same to him. His dignity passed, away with the passing of his career as a "Man," and he rejoiced in the belief that he had successfully evaded the responsibilities that threatened him up to the moment he entered the presence of the mistress of the house. He was no longer without a purpose in life. He would not have to go out and be independent.

Toward the end of the second week Templeton Thorpe's will was read by Judge Hollenback in the presence of "the family." There had been some delay on account of Braden Thorpe's absence from the city. No one knew where he had gone, nor was he ever to explain his sudden departure immediately after the funeral. He simply disappeared from his hotel, without so much as a bag or a change of linen in his possession, so far as one could know. At the end of ten days he returned as suddenly and as casually as he had gone away, but very much improved in appearance. The strange pallor had left his cheeks and his eyes had lost the heavy, tired expression.

At first he flatly refused to go down for the reading of the will. He was not a beneficiary under the new instrument and he could see no reason for his attendance. Anne alone understood. The old vow not to enter the house while she was its mistress,—that was the reason. He was now in a position to revive that vow and to order his actions accordingly.

She drooped a little at the thought of it. From time to time she caught herself wishing that she could devise some means of punishing him, only to berate herself afterward for the selfishness that inspired the thought.

Still, why shouldn't he come there now? She was the same now that she was before her marriage took place,—a year older, that was all, but no less desirable. That was the one thing she could not understand in him. She could understand his disgust, his scorn, his rage, but she could not see how it was possible for him to hold out against the qualities that had made him love her so deeply before she gave him cause to hate her.

As for the operation that had resulted in the death of her husband, Anne had but one way of looking at it. Braden had been forced to operate against his will, against his best judgment. He was to be pitied. His grandfather had failed in his attempt to corrupt the souls of others in his desire for peace, and there remained but the one cowardly alternative: the appeal to this man who loved him. In his extremity, he had put upon Braden the task of performing a miracle, knowing full well that its accomplishment was impossible, that failure was as inevitable as death itself.

The thought never entered her mind that in persuading Braden to perform this strange act of mercy her husband may have been moved by the sole desire to put the final touch to the barrier he had wrought between them. The fact that Braden was responsible for his death had no sinister meaning for her. It was the same as if he had operated upon a total stranger with a like result and with perhaps identical motives.

She kept on saying to herself that she had given up hope of ever regaining the love she had lost. She tried to remember just when she had ceased to hope. Was it before or after that last conversation took place in the library? Hope may have died, but he was alive and she was alive. Then how could love be dead?

It was Simmy Dodge who prevailed upon Braden to be present at the reading of the will. Simmy was the sort of man who goes about, in the goodness of his heart, adjusting matters for other people. He constituted himself in this instance, however, as the legal adviser of his old friend and companion, and that gave him a certain amount of authority.

"And what's more," he said in arguing with the obdurate Braden, "we'll probably have to smash the will, if, as you say, you have been cut off without a nickel. You—"

"But I don't want to smash it," protested Braden.

"And why not?" demanded Simmy, in surprise. "You are his only blood relation, aren't you? Why the deuce should he leave everything away from you? Of course we'll make a fight for it. I've never heard of a more outrageous piece of—"

"You don't understand, Simmy," Braden interrupted, suddenly realising that his position would be a difficult one to explain, even to this good and loyal friend. "We'll drop the matter for the present, at any rate."

"But why should Mr. Thorpe have done this rotten, inconceivable thing to you, Brady?" demanded Dodge. "Good Lord, that will won't stand a minute in a court of—"

"It will stand so far as I'm concerned," said Braden sharply, and Simmy blinked his eyes in bewilderment.

"You wouldn't be fighting Anne, you know," he ventured after a moment, assuming that Braden's attitude was due to reluctance in that direction. "She is provided for outside the will, she tells me."

"Are you her attorney, Simmy?"

"Yes. That is, the firm represents her, and I'm one of the firm."

"I don't see how you can represent both of us, old chap."

"That's just what I'm trying to get into your head. I couldn't represent you if there was to be a fight with Anne. But we can fight these idiotic charities, can't we?"

"No," said Braden flatly. "My grandfather's will is to stand just as it is, Simmy. I shall not contest for a cent. And so, if you please, there's no reason for my going down there to listen to the reading of the thing. I know pretty well what the document says. I was in Mr. Thorpe's confidence. For your own edification, Simmy, I'll merely say that I have already had my share of the estate, and I'm satisfied."

"Still, in common decency, you ought to go down and listen to the reading of the will. Judge Hollenback says he will put the thing off until you are present, so you might as well go first as last. Be reasonable, Brady. I know how you feel toward Anne. I can appreciate your unwillingness to go to her house after what happened a year ago. Judge Hollenback declares that his letter of instruction from Mr. Thorpe makes it obligatory for him to read the document in the presence of his widow and his grandson, and in the library of his late home. Otherwise, the thing could have been done in Hollenback's offices."

In the end Braden agreed to be present.

When Judge Hollenback smoothed out the far from voluminous looking document, readjusted his nose glasses and cleared his throat preparatory to reading, the following persons were seated in the big, fire-lit library: Anne Thorpe, the widow; Braden Thorpe, the grandson; Mrs. Tresslyn, George Tresslyn, Simmy Dodge, Murray, and Wade, the furnace-man. The two Tresslyns were there by Anne's request. Late in the day she was overcome by the thought of sitting there alone while Braden was being dispossessed of all that rightfully belonged to him. She had not intended to ask her mother to come down for the reading. Somehow she had felt that Mrs. Tresslyn's presence would indicate the consummation of a project that had something ignoble about it. She knew that her mother could experience no other sensation than that of curiosity in listening to the will. Her interest in the affairs of Templeton Thorpe ended with the signing of the ante-nuptial contract, supplemented of course by the event which satisfactorily terminated the agreement inside of a twelve-month. But Anne, practically alone in the world as she now found herself to be, was suddenly aware of a great sense of depression. She wanted her mother. She wanted some one near who would not look at her with scornful, bitter eyes.

George's presence is to be quickly explained. He had spent the better part of the week with Anne, sleeping in the house at her behest. For a week she had braved it out alone. Then came the sudden surrender to dread, terror, loneliness. The shadows in the halls were grim; the sounds in the night were sinister, the stillness that followed them creepy; the servants were things that stalked her, and she was afraid—mortally afraid in this home that was not hers. She had made up her mind to go away for a long time just as soon as everything was settled.

As for the furnace-man, Judge Hollenback had summoned him on his arrival at the house. So readily had Wade adapted himself to his new duties that he now felt extremely uncomfortable and ill-at-ease in a room that had been like home to him for thirty years. He seemed to feel that this was no place for the furnace-man, notwithstanding the scouring and polishing process that temporarily had restored him to a more exalted office,—for once more he was the smug, impeccable valet.

Braden was the last to arrive. He timed his arrival so that there could be no possibility of an informal encounter with Anne. She came forward and shook hands with him, simply, unaffectedly.

"You have been away," she said, looking straight into his eyes. He was conscious of a feeling of relief. He had been living in some dread of what he might detect in her eyes. But it was a serene, frank expression that he found in them, not a question.

"Yes," he said. "I was tired," he added after a moment.

She hesitated. Then: "I have not seen you, Braden, since—since the twenty- first. You have not given me the opportunity to tell you that I know you did all that any one could possibly do for Mr. Thorpe. Thank you for undertaking the impossible. I am sorry—oh, so sorry,—that you were made to suffer. I want you to remember too that it was with my sanction that you made the hopeless effort."

He turned cold. The others had heard every word. She had spoken without reserve, without the slightest indication of nervousness or compunction. The very thing that he feared had come to pass. She had put herself definitely on record. He glanced quickly about, searching the faces of the other occupants of the room. His gaze fell upon Wade, and rested for a second or two. Something told him that Wade's gaze would shift,—and it did.

"I did everything, Anne. Thank you for believing in me." That was all. No word of sympathy, no mawkish mumbling of regret, no allusion to his own loss. He looked again into her eyes, this time in quest of the motive that urged her to make this unnecessary declaration. Was there a deeper significance to be attached to her readiness to assume responsibility? He looked for the light in her eye that would convince him that she was taking this stand because of the love she felt for him. He was immeasurably relieved to find no secret message there. She had not stooped to that, and he was gratified. Her eyes were clouded with concern for him, that was all. He was ashamed of himself for the thought,—and afterwards he wondered why he should have been ashamed. After all, it was only right that she should be sorry for him. He deserved that much from her.

An awkward silence ensued. Simmy Dodge coughed nervously, and then Braden advanced to greet Mrs. Tresslyn. She did not rise. Her gloved hand was extended and he took it without hesitation.

"It is good to see you again, Braden," she said, with the bland, perfunctory parting of the lips that stands for a smile with women of her class. He meant nothing to her now.

"Thanks," he said, and moved on to George, who regarded him with some intensity for a moment and then gripped his hand heartily. "How are you, George?"

"Fine! First stage of regeneration, you know. I'm glad to see you, Brady."

There was such warmth in the repressed tones that Thorpe's hand clasp tightened. Tresslyn was still a friend. His interest quickened into a keen examination of the young man who had pronounced himself in the first stage of regeneration, whatever that may have signified to one of George's type. He was startled by the haggard, sick look in the young fellow's face. George must have read the other's expression, for he said: "I'm all right,—just a little run down. That's natural, I suppose."

"He has a dreadful cold," said Anne, who had overheard. "I can't get him to do anything for it."

"Don't you worry about me, Anne," said George stoutly.

"Just the same, you should take care of yourself," said Braden. "Pneumonia gets after you big fellows, you know. How are you, Wade? Poor old Wade, you must miss my grandfather terribly. You knew him before I was born. It seems an age, now that I think of it in that way."

"Thirty-three years, sir," said Wade. "Nearly ten years longer than Murray, Mr. Braden, It does seem an age."

The will was not a lengthy document. The reading took no more than three minutes, and for another full minute after its conclusion, not a person in the room uttered a word. A sort of stupefaction held them all in its grip,—that is, all except the old lawyer who was putting away his glasses and waiting for the outburst that was sure to follow.

In the first place, Mr. Thorpe remembered Anne. After declaring that she had been satisfactorily provided for in a previous document, known to her as a contract, he bequeathed to her the house in which she had lived for a single year with him. All of its contents went with this bequest. To Josiah Wade he left the sum of twenty-five thousand dollars, to Edward Murray ten thousand dollars, and to each of the remaining servants in his household a sum equal to half of their earnings while in his service. There were bequests to his lawyer, his doctor and his secretary, besides substantial gifts to persons who could not by any chance have expected anything from this grim old man,—such as the friendly doorman at his favourite club, and the man who had been delivering newspapers to him for a score of years or more, and the old negro bootblack who had attended him at the Brevoort in the days before the Italian monopoly set in, and the two working-girls who supported the invalid widow of a man who had gone to prison and died there after having robbed the Thorpe estate of a great many thousands of dollars while acting as a confidential and trusted agent.

Then came the astounding disposition of the fortune that had accumulated in the time of Templeton Thorpe. There were no bequests outright to charity, contrary to all expectations. The listeners were prepared to hear of huge gifts to certain institutions and societies known to have been favoured by the testator. Various hospitals were looked upon as sure to receive splendid endowments, and specific colleges devoted to the advancement of medical and surgical science were also regarded as inevitable beneficiaries. It was all cut and dried, so far as Judge Hollenback's auditors were concerned,—that is to say, prior to the reading of the will. True, the old lawyer had declared in the beginning, that the present will was drawn and signed on the afternoon of the day before the death of Mr. Thorpe, and that a previous instrument to which a codicil had been affixed was destroyed in the presence of two witnesses. The instrument witnessed by Wade and Murray was the one that had been destroyed. This should have aroused uneasiness in the mind of Braden Thorpe, if no one else, but he was slow to recognise the significance of the change in his grandfather's designs.

With his customary terseness, Templeton Thorpe declared himself to be hopelessly ill but of sound mind at the moment of drawing his last will and testament, and suffering beyond all human endurance. His condition at that moment, and for weeks beforehand, was such that death offered the only panacea. He had come to appreciate the curse of a life prolonged beyond reason. Therefore, in full possession of all his faculties and being now irrevocably converted to the principles of mercy advocated by his beloved grandson, Braden Lanier Thorpe, he placed the residue of his estate in trust, naming the aforesaid Braden Lanier Thorpe as sole trustee, without bond, the entire amount to be utilised and expended by him in the promotion of his noble and humane propaganda in relation to the fate of the hopelessly afflicted among those creatures fashioned after the image of God. The trust was to expire with the death of the said Braden Lanier Thorpe, when all funds remaining unused for the purposes herein set forth were to go without restriction to the heirs of the said trustee, either by bequest or administration.

In so many words, the testator rested in his grandson full power and authority to use these funds, amounting to nearly six million dollars, as he saw fit in the effort to obtain for the human sufferer the same mercy that is extended to the beast of the field, and to make final disposition of the estate in his own will. Realising the present hopelessness of an attempt to secure legislation of this character, he suggested that first of all it would be imperative to prepare the way to such an end by creating in the minds of all the peoples of the world a state of common sense that could successfully combat and overcome love, sentimentality and cowardice! For these three, he pointed out, were the common enemy of reason. "And in compensation for the discharge of such duties as may come under the requirements of this trusteeship, the aforesaid Braden Lanier Thorpe shall receive the fees ordinarily allotted by law and, in addition, the salary of twenty-five thousand dollars per annum, until the terms of this instrument are fully carried out."

Anne Tresslyn Thorpe was named as executrix of the will. _

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