National Avenue - Booth Tarkington (the little red hen ebook TXT) 📗

always hoped Dan would marry Martha Shelby⁠—and she kept on hoping it, even after he married Lena.”

“Harlan!” his mother protested. “You oughtn’t to speak like that! Why, mother couldn’t any more have thought of such a thing, when Dan was already married⁠—”

“She died hoping it,” Harlan insisted. “I tell you⁠—”

Mr. Oliphant interrupted. “That seems to me about as farfetched an idea as I’ve often heard, Harlan.”

“Does it, sir? Didn’t you ever hear grandmother express her opinion of Lena?”

“Somewhat frequently.”

“Did you ever hear her mention her conviction that Lena was entirely mercenary and married Dan because she thought he was rich?”

“She talked that way sometimes⁠—yes.”

“And didn’t Lena just show us she thinks that’s what the will means, herself?”

“Possibly,” Mr. Oliphant admitted. “But that doesn’t prove⁠—”

“You might just read over that document of grandma’s again,” Harlan suggested. “She appears to leave me everything and Dan nothing, but gives mother a very comfortable living income, and she knew mother will take care of him when he needs it. What’s most significant, she provides that mother can leave the principal to anyone she pleases. Don’t you suppose grandma knew it will naturally come to Dan eventually? She’s really taken care of him, and at the same time made it appear that he’s cut off with this thirty-five hundred dollars that’ll last him about a minute. She did it because she hoped Lena would leave him and get a divorce.”

“No, no!” Mrs. Oliphant cried out. “Mother wouldn’t have had such a wicked thought. She had the strictest ideas about morality I ever⁠—”

“Yes, she did,” Harlan agreed. “Yet that’s just what she planned. You may not see it, but it’s as plain to me as if she had written it in her will. And there’s something more than that in it, too.”

“What is it?” Mr. Oliphant inquired skeptically. “What is the something more that’s hidden from every eye but yours?”

Harlan reddened and failed to reply at once;⁠—then he said with a reluctant humour: “I’m afraid she’s played it rather low down on me, sir.”

“What!” Mr. Oliphant stared at him. “You call leaving you five or six hundred thousand dollars playing it rather low down?”

“You’d say it’s a fantastic view, would you, sir?”

“Yes, I believe I should⁠—considerably!”

“Maybe so,” Harlan said. “Yet there seems some ground for it. Grandma knew⁠—that is, I mean she thought⁠—she thought that I had certain hopes about Martha myself, and she told me pretty plainly I’d better keep out of the way. Well, she’s put me in a fine light before Martha, hasn’t she? Here’s Dan, all his life supposed to be the favourite, with great expectations, and now he’s cut off with a shilling, and I get it all! In the eyes of a sympathetic woman who’s always liked him best anyhow, isn’t he the suffering hero, and don’t I play the role of the brother that undermined him and supplanted him?”

“That’s nonsense,” his father said a little irritably. “You don’t suppose your grandmother deliberately⁠—”

“I don’t suppose she meant unkindly by me,” Harlan interrupted. “Naturally I don’t suppose my grandmother made me her residuary legatee for the purpose of injuring me. Probably she thought I’d be consoled by what she was leaving me.”

“Oh, Harlan!” his mother cried reproachfully.

But Harlan only smiled at her faintly and did not defend himself.

“So Lena will leave Dan now, will she?” Mr. Oliphant inquired, with satire. “And then Dan will proceed in freedom to carry out the rest of this programme?”

“No, sir; not at all.”

“But haven’t you just been saying⁠—”

“I’ve been saying what I see in the will,” Harlan explained. “I’ve been saying what grandma hoped, and I think she was pretty shrewd, but I believe that her dislike of Lena led her into an error. I haven’t the remotest idea that Lena will leave her husband.”

“I see!” Mr. Oliphant returned sharply. “You mean you haven’t any fantastic ideas yourself, Harlan; it’s only your grandmother who had them, though she’s just left you a fortune!”

His tone was hard; and Harlan, looking at him gravely, pointed out a significance in the hardness. “There it is, sir. Already I’m a little more unpopular with you than usual, because you can’t help sympathizing with Dan and feeling that I’ve got his share as well as my own. Don’t you think other people may feel the same way?”

For a moment Mr. Oliphant looked slightly disconcerted by this bit of analysis, but, recovering himself, “Not necessarily,” he replied. “I’m not criticizing you because of your inheritance, but because it doesn’t seem fair in you to impute all this surreptitious planning to a person who’s shown such generosity to you. You don’t seem to realize⁠—”

“Oh, but I do,” Harlan interrupted. “Mother spoke of my not seeming elated and praised me for it. I don’t deserve her praise. You see, if I don’t feel much elated just at first it’s because to my mind the whole thing is another example of how much better grandma liked Dan and how much better other people are going to go on liking him. Naturally, I’m glad to have the money; I know she meant well by me, and I appreciate it. I appreciate another thing, too. One of the reasons she left it to me was that she knew I put what I had from grandfather into the safest type of municipal bonds. She knew that I’d understand the value of whatever she left me. She knew I’d take care of it.”

He put a slight but sharp and dry emphasis upon the final words, “She knew I’d take care of it,” so that there was a hint of warning in them; and he added, making this note more definite: “She was right about that, because I will take care of it.”

Upon that, he struck both arms of his chair decisively with the palms of his hands, and, as a continuation of this action, rose and turned to the window, his back to his parents. They glanced nervously at each other, each knowing that the other had the same hope and the same doubt; the glance