A Poor Wise Man - Mary Roberts Rinehart (good e books to read .txt) 📗

new. She saw only a dozen or so elderly gentlemen, immaculate and prosperous, peering through their glasses after a world which had passed them by.

They were very grave that night. The situation was serious. The talk turned inevitably to the approaching strike, and from that to a possible attempt on the part of the radical element toward violence. The older men pooh-poohed that, but the younger ones were uncertain. Isolated riotings, yes. But a coordinated attempt against the city, no. Labour was greedy, but it was law-abiding. Ah, but it was being fired by incendiary literature. Then what were the police doing? They were doing everything. They were doing nothing. The governor was secretly a radical. Nonsense. The governor was saying little, but was waiting and watching. A general strike was only another word for revolution. No. It would be attempted, perhaps, but only to demonstrate the solidarity of labor.

After a time Lily made a discovery. She found that even into that carefully selected gathering had crept a surprising spirit, based on the necessity for concession; a few men who shared her father’s convictions, and went even further. One or two, even, who, cautiously for fear of old Anthony’s ears, voiced a belief that before long invested money would be given a fixed return, all surplus profits to be divided among the workers, the owners and the government.

“What about the lean years?” some one asked.

The government’s share of all business was to form a contingent fund for such emergencies, it seemed.

Lily listened attentively. Was it because they feared that if they did not voluntarily divide their profits they would be taken from them? Enough for all, and to none too much. Was that what they feared? Or was it a sense of justice, belated but real?

She remembered something Jim Doyle had said:

“Labor has learned its weakness alone, its strength united. But capital has not learned that lesson. It will not take a loss for a principle. It will not unite. It is suspicious and jealous, so it fights its individual battles alone, and loses in the end.”

But then to offset that there was something Willy Cameron had said one day, frying doughnuts for her with one hand, and waving the fork about with the other.

“Don’t forget this, oh representative of the plutocracy,” he had said. “Capital has its side, and a darned good one, too. It’s got a sense of responsibility to the country, which labor may have individually but hasn’t got collectively.”

These men at the table were grave, burdened with responsibility. Her father. Even her grandfather. It was no longer a question of profit. It was a question of keeping the country going. They were like men forced to travel, and breasting a strong head wind. There were some there who would turn, in time, and travel with the gale. But there were others like her grandfather, obstinate and secretly frightened, who would refuse. Who would, to change the figure, sit like misers over their treasure, an eye on the window of life for thieves.

She went upstairs, perplexed and thoughtful. Some time later she heard the family ascending, the click of her mother’s high heels on the polished wood of the staircase, her father’s sturdy tread, and a moment or two later her grandfather’s slow, rather weary step. Suddenly she felt sorry for him, for his age, for his false gods of power and pride, for the disappointment she was to him. She flung open her door impulsively and confronted him.

“I just wanted to say good-night, grandfather,” she said breathlessly. “And that I am sorry.”

“Sorry for what?”

“Sorry - ” she hesitated. “Because we see things so differently.”

Lily was almost certain that she caught a flash of tenderness in his eyes, and certainly his voice had softened.

“You looked very pretty to-night,” he said. But he passed on, and she had again the sense of rebuff with which he met all her small overtures at that time. However, he turned at the foot of the upper flight.

“I would like to talk to you, Lily. Will you come upstairs?”

She had been summoned before to those mysterious upper rooms of his, where entrance was always by request, and generally such requests presaged trouble. But she followed him light-heartedly enough then. His rare compliment had pleased and touched her.

The lamp beside his high-backed, almost throne-like chair was lighted, and in the dressing-room beyond his valet was moving about, preparing for the night. Anthony dismissed the man, and sat down under the lamp.

“You heard the discussion downstairs, to-night, Lily. Personally I anticipate no trouble, but if there is any it may be directed at this house.” He smiled grimly. “I cannot rely on my personal popularity to protect me, I fear. Your mother obstinately refuses to leave your father, but I have decided to send you to your grand-aunt Caroline.”

“Aunt Caroline! She doesn’t care for me, grandfather. She never has.”

“That is hardly pertinent, is it? The situation is this: She intends to open the Newport house early in June, and at my request she will bring you out there. Next fall we will do something here; I haven’t decided just what.”

There was a sudden wild surge of revolt in Lily. She hated Newport. Grand-aunt Caroline was a terrible person. She was like Anthony, domineering and cruel, and with even less control over her tongue.

“I need not point out the advantages of the plan,” said Anthony suavely. “There may be trouble here, although I doubt it. But in any event you will have to come out, and this seems an excellent way.

“Is it a good thing to spend a lot of money now, grandfather, when there is so much discontent?”

Old Anthony had a small jagged vein down the center of his forehead, and in anger or his rare excitements it stood out like a scar. Lily saw it now, but his voice was quiet enough.

“I consider it vitally important to the country to continue its social life as before the war.”

“You mean, to show we are not frightened?”

“Frightened! Good God, nobody’s frightened. It will take more than a handful of demagogues to upset this government. Which brings me to a subject you insist on reopening, by your conduct. I have reason to believe that you are still going to that man’s house.”

He never called Doyle by name if he could avoid it.

“I have been there several times.

“After you were forbidden?”

His tone roused every particle of antagonism in her. She flushed.

“Perhaps because I was forbidden,” she said, slowly. “Hasn’t it occurred to you that I may consider your attitude very unjust?”

If she looked for an outburst from him it did not come. He stood for a moment, deep in thought.

“You understand that this Doyle once tried to assassinate me?”

“I know that he tried to beat you, grandfather. I am sorry, but that was long ago. And there was a reason for it, wasn’t there?”

“I see,” he said, slowly. “What you are conveying to me, not too delicately, is that you have definitely allied yourself with my enemies. That, here in my own house, you intend to defy me. That, regardless of my wishes or commands, while eating my food, you purpose to traffic with a man who has sworn to get me, sooner or later. Am I correct?”

“I have only said that I see no reason why I should not visit Aunt Elinor.”

“And that you intend to. Do I understand also that you refuse to go to Newport?”

“I daresay I shall have to go, if you send me. I don’t want to go.

“Very well. I am glad we have had this little talk. It makes my own course quite plain. Good-night.”

He opened the door for her and she went out and down the stairs. She felt very calm, and as though something irrevocable had happened. With her anger at her grandfather there was mixed a sort of pity for him, because she knew that nothing he could do would change the fundamental situation. Even if he locked her up, and that was possible, he would know that he had not really changed things, or her. She felt surprisingly strong. All these years that she had feared him, and yet when it came to a direct issue, he was helpless! What had he but his wicked tongue, and what did that matter to deaf ears?

She found her maid gone, and Mademoiselle waiting to help her undress. Mademoiselle often did that. It made her feel still essential in Lily’s life.

“A long seance!” she said. “Your mother told me to-night. It is Newport?”

“He wants me to go. Unhook me, Mademoiselle, and then run off and go to bed. You ought not to wait up like this.”

“Newport!” said Mademoiselle, deftly slipping off the white and silver that was Lily’s gown. “It will be wonderful, dear. And you will be a great success. You are very beautiful.”

“I am not going to Newport, Mademoiselle.”

Mademoiselle broke into rapid expostulation, in French. Every girl wanted to make her debut at Newport. Here it was all industry, money, dirt. Men who slaved in offices daily. At Newport was gathered the real leisure class of America, those who knew how to play, who lived. But Lily, taking off her birthday pearls before the mirror of her dressing table, only shook her head.

“I’m not going,” she said. “I might as well tell you, for you’ll hear about it later. I have quarreled with him, very badly. I think he intends to lock me up.”

“C’est impossible!” cried Mademoiselle.

But a glance at Lily’s set face in the mirror told her it was true.

She went away very soon, sadly troubled. There were bad times coming. The old peaceful quiet days were gone, for age and obstinacy had met youth and the arrogance of youth, and it was to be battle.