A Poor Wise Man by Mary Roberts Rinehart (popular books of all time TXT) 📖

to handle him, an income tax law that sent him to his lawyers with new protests almost daily! A man was no longer master even in his own home. His employees would not work for him, his family disobeyed him, his government held him up and shook him. In the good old days -

“I’m going out,” he said, as he rose from the table. “Grace, that chef is worse than the last. You’d better send him off.”

“I can’t get any one else. I have tried for weeks. There are no servants anywhere.”

“Try New York.”

“I have tried - it is useless.”

No cooks, either. No servants. Even Anthony recognized that, with the exception of Grayson, the servants in his house were vaguely hostile to the family. They gave grudging service, worked short hours, and, the only class of labor to which the high cost of food was a negligible matter, demanded wages he considered immoral.

“I don’t know what the world’s coming to,” he snarled. “Well, I’m off. Thank God, there are still clubs for a man to go to.”

“I want to have a talk with you, father.”

“I don’t want to talk.”

“You needn’t. I want you to listen, and I want Grace to hear, too.”

In the end he went unwillingly into the library, and when Grayson had brought liqueurs and coffee and had gone, Howard drew the card from his pocket.

“I met young Denslow to-day,” he said. “He came in to see me. As a matter of fact, I signed a card he had brought along, and I brought one for you, sir. Shall I read it?”

“You evidently intend to.”

Howard read the card slowly. Its very simplicity was impressive, as impressive as it had been when Willy Cameron scrawled the words on the back of an old envelope. Anthony listened.

“Just what does that mean?”

“That the men behind this movement believe that there is going to be a general strike, with an endeavor to turn it into a revolution. Perhaps only local, but these things have a tendency to spread. Denslow had some literature which referred to an attempt to take over the city. They have other information, too, all pointing the same way.”

“Strikers?”

“Foreign strikers, with the worst of the native born. Their plans are fairly comprehensive; they mean to dynamite the water works, shut down the gas and electric plants, and cut off all food supplies. Then when they have starved and terrorized us into submission, we’ll accept their terms.”

“What terms?”

“Well, the rule of the mob, I suppose. They intend to take over the banks, for one thing.”

“I don’t believe it. It’s incredible.”

“They meant to do it in Seattle.”

“And didn’t. Don’t forget that.”

“They may have learned some things from Seattle,” Howard said quietly.

“We have the state troops.”

“What about a half dozen similar movements in the state at the same time? Or rioting in other places, carefully planned to draw the troops and constabulary away?”

In the end old Anthony was impressed, if not entirely convinced. But he had no faith in the plain people, and said so. “They’ll see property destroyed and never lift a hand,” he said. “Didn’t I stand by in Pittsburgh during the railroad riots, and watch them smile while the yards burned? Because the railroads meant capital to them, and they hate capital.”

“Precisely,” said Howard, “but after twenty-four hours they were fighting like demons to restore law and order. It is” - he fingered the card - “to save that twenty-four hours that this organization is being formed. It is secret. Did I tell you that? And the idea originated with the young man you spoke about as supporting Hendricks - you met him here once, a friend of Lily’s. His name is Cameron - William Wallace Cameron.”

Old Anthony remained silent, but the small jagged vein on his forehead swelled with anger. After a time:

“I suppose Doyle is behind this?” he asked. “It sounds like him.”

“That is the supposition. But they have nothing on him yet; he is too shrewd for that. And that leads to something else. Lily cannot continue to stay there.”

“I didn’t send her there.”

“Actually, no. In effect - but we needn’t go into that now. The situation is very serious. I can imagine that nothing could fit better into his plans than to have her there. She gives him a cachet of respectability. Do you want that?”

“She is probably one of them now. God knows how much of his rotten doctrine she has absorbed.”

Howard flushed, but he kept his temper.

“His theories, possibly. His practice, no. She certainly has no idea … it has come to this, father. She must have a home somewhere, and if it cannot be here, Grace and I must make one for her elsewhere.”

Probably Anthony Cardew had never respected Howard more than at that moment, or liked him less.

“Both you and Grace are free to make a home where you please.”

“We prefer it here, but you must see yourself that things cannot go on as they are. We have waited for you to see that, all three of us, and now this new situation makes it imperative to take some action.”

“I won’t have that fellow Akers coming here.”

“He would hardly come, under the circumstances. Besides, her friendship with him is only a part of her revolt. If she comes home it will be with the understanding that she does not see him again.”

“Revolt?” said old Anthony, raising his eyebrows.

“That is what it actually was. She found her liberty interfered with, and she staged her own small rebellion. It was very human, I think.”

“It was very Cardew,” said old Anthony, and smiled faintly. He had, to tell the truth, developed a grudging admiration for his granddaughter in the past two months. He saw in her many of his own qualities, good and bad. And, more than he cared to own, he had missed her and the young life she had brought into the quiet house. Most important of all, she was the last of the Cardews. Although his capitulation when it came was curt, he was happier than he had been for weeks.

“Bring her home,” he said, “but tell her about Akers. If she says that is off, I’ll forget the rest.”

On her way to her room that night Grace Cardew encountered Mademoiselle, a pale, unhappy Mademoiselle, who seemed to spend her time mostly in Lily’s empty rooms or wandering about corridors. Whenever the three members of the family were together she would retire to her own quarters, and there feverishly with her rosary would pray for a softening of hearts. She did not comprehend these Americans, who were so kind to those beneath them and so hard to each other.

“I wanted to see you, Mademoiselle,” Grace said, not very steadily. “I have good news for you.”

Mademoiselle began to tremble. “She is coming? Lily is coming?”

“Yes. Will you have some fresh flowers put in her rooms in the morning?”

Suddenly Mademoiselle forgot her years of repression, and flinging her arms around Grace’s neck she kissed her. Grace held her for a moment, patting her shoulder gently.

“We must try to make her very happy, Mademoiselle. I think things will be different now.”

Mademoiselle stood back and wiped her eyes.

“But she must be different, too,” she said. “She is sweet and good, but she is strong of will, too. The will to do, to achieve, that is one thing, and very good. But the will to go. one’s own way, that is another.”

“The young are always headstrong, Mademoiselle.”

But, alone later on, her rosary on her knee, Mademoiselle wondered. If youth were the indictment against Lily, was she not still young? It took years, or suffering, or sometimes both, to break the will of youth and chasten its spirit. God grant Lily might not have suffering.

It was Grace’s plan to say nothing to Lily, but to go for her herself, and thus save her the humiliation of coming back alone. All morning housemaids were busy in Lily’s rooms. Rugs were shaken, floors waxed and rubbed, the silver frames and vases in her sitting room polished to refulgence. And all morning Mademoiselle scolded and ran suspicious fingers into corners, and arranged and re-arranged great boxes of flowers.

Long before the time she had ordered the car Grace was downstairs, dressed for the street, and clad in cool shining silk, was pacing the shaded hall. There was a vague air of expectation about the old house. In a room off the pantry the second man was polishing the buttons of his livery, using a pasteboard card with a hole in it to save the fabric beneath. Grayson pottered about in the drawing room, alert for the parlor maid’s sins of omission.

The telephone in the library rang, and Grayson answered it, while Grace stood in the doorway.

“A message from Miss Lily,” he said. “Mrs. Doyle has telephoned that Miss Lily is on her way here.”

Grace was vaguely disappointed. She had wanted to go to Lily with her good news, to bring her home bag and baggage, to lead her into the house and to say, in effect, that this was home, her home. She had felt that they, and not Lily, should take the first step.

She went upstairs, and taking off her hat, smoothed her soft dark hair. She did not want Lily to see how she had worried; she eyed herself carefully for lines. Then she went down, to more waiting, and for the first time, to a little doubt.

Yet when Lily came all was as it should have been. There was no doubt about her close embrace of her mother, her happiness at seeing her. She did not remove her gloves, however, and after she had put Grace in a chair and perched herself on the arm of it, there was a little pause. Each was preparing to tell something, each hesitated. Because Grace’s task was the easier it was she who spoke first.

“I was about to start over when you telephoned, dear,” she said. “I - we want you to come home to us again.”

There was a queer, strained silence.

“Who wants me?” Lily asked, unsteadily.

“All of us. Your grandfather, too. He expects to find you here to-night. I can explain to your Aunt Elinor over the telephone, and we can send for your clothes.”

Suddenly Lily got up and walked the length of the room. When she came back her eyes were filled with tears, and her left hand was bare.

“It nearly kills me to hurt you,” she said, “but - what about this?”

She held out her hand.

Grace seemed frozen in her chair. At the sight of her mother’s face Lily flung herself on her knees beside the chair.

“Mother, mother,” she said, “you must know how I love you. Love you both. Don’t look like that. I can’t bear it.”

Grace turned away her face.

“You don’t love us. You can’t. Not if you are going to marry that man.”

“Mother,” Lily begged, desperately, “let me come home. Let me bring him here. I’ll wait, if you’ll only do that. He is different; I know all that you want to say about his past. He has never had a real chance in all his life. He won’t belong at first, but - he’s a man, mother, a strong man. And it’s awfully important. He can do so much, if he only will. And he says he will, if I marry him.”

“I don’t understand you,” Grace said coldly. “What can a man like that do, but wreck all our lives?”

Resentment was rising fast in Lily, but she kept it down. “I’ll tell you about that later,” she said, and