Part 16 (1/2)

However, he felt that his father's death had sobered him as nothing else, not even Ida's suicide, had done. The time was come at length for him to take life seriously. He would settle down now to work at his art.

He would go to Paris as his father had wished, and devote himself earnestly to painting. Yes, the time was come for him to steady himself, and give over the vicious life into which he had been drifting.

But it was not long before Vandover had become accustomed to his father's death, and had again rearranged himself to suit the new environment which it had occasioned. He wondered at himself because of the quickness with which he had recovered from this grief, just as before he had marvelled at the ease with which he had forgotten Ida's death. Could it be true, then, that nothing affected him very deeply?

Was his nature shallow?

However, he was wrong in this respect; his nature was not shallow. It had merely become deteriorated.

Two days after his father's death Vandover went into the Old Gentleman's room to get a certain high-backed chair which had been moved there from his own room during the confusion of the funeral, and which, pending the arrival of the trestles, had been used to support the coffin.

As he was carrying it back his eye fell upon a little heap of objects carefully set down upon the bureau. They were the contents of the Old Gentleman's pockets that the undertaker had removed when the body was dressed for burial.

Vandover turned them over, sadly interested in them. There was the watch, some old business letters and envelopes covered with memoranda, his fountain-pen, a couple of cigars, a bank-book, a small amount of change, his pen-knife, and one or two tablets of chewing-gum.

Vandover thrust the pen and the knife into his own pocket. The bank-book, letters, and change he laid away in his father's desk, but the cigars and the tablets of gum, together with the crumpled pocket-handkerchief that he found on another part of the dressing-case, he put into the Old Gentleman's hat, which he had hidden on the top shelf of his clothes closet. The watch he hung upon a little bra.s.s thermometer that always stood on his centre table. He even wound up the watch with the resolve never to let it run down so long as he should live.

The keys, however, disturbed him, and he kept changing them from one hand to the other, looking at them very thoughtfully. They suggested to him the inquiry as to whether or no his father had made a will, and how much money he, Vandover, could now command. One of the keys was a long bra.s.s key. Vandover knew that this unlocked a little iron box that from time out of mind had been screwed upon the lower shelf of the clothes closet in his father's room. It was in this box that the Old Gentleman kept his ready money and a few important papers.

For a long time Vandover stood undecided, changing the keys about from one hand to the other, hesitating before opening this iron box; he could not tell why. By and by, however, he went softly into his father's room, and into the clothes closet near the head of the bed. Holding the key toward the lock, he paused listening; it was impossible to rid his mind of the idea that he was doing something criminal. He shook himself, smiling at the fancy, a.s.suring himself of the honesty of the thing, yet opening the box stealthily, holding the key firmly in order that it might not spring back with a loud click, looking over his shoulder the while and breathing short through his nose.

The first thing that he saw inside was a loaded revolver, the sudden view of which sent a little qualm through the pit of his stomach. He took it out gingerly, holding it at arm's length, throwing open the cylinder and spilling out the cartridges on the bed, very careful to let none of them fall on the floor lest they should explode.

Next he drew out the familiar little canvas sack. In it were twenty-dollar gold-pieces, the coin that used to be ”Good for the Ma.s.ses.” Behind that was about thirty dollars in two rolls, and last of all in an old, oblong tin cracker-box a great bundle of papers. A list of these papers was pasted on one end of the box. They comprised deeds, t.i.tles, insurance policies, tax receipts, mortgages, and all the papers relating to the property. Besides these there was the will.

He took out this box, laying it on the shelf beside him. He was closing the small iron safe again very quietly when all at once, before he could think of what he was doing, he ran his hand into the mouth of the canvas sack, furtively, slyly, s.n.a.t.c.hed one of the heavy round coins, and thrust it into his vest pocket, looking all about him, listening intently, saying to himself with a nervous laugh, ”Well, isn't it mine anyway?”

In spite of himself he could not help feeling a joy in the possession of this money as if of some treasure-trove dug up on an abandoned sh.o.r.e. He even began to plan vaguely how he should spend it.

However, he could not bring himself to open any of the papers, but sent them instead to a lawyer, whom he knew his father had often consulted. A few days later he received a typewritten letter asking him to call at his earliest convenience.

It was at his residence and not at his office that Vandover saw the lawyer, as the latter was not well at the time and kept to his bed.

However, he was not so sick but that his doctor allowed him to transact at least some of his business. Vandover found him in his room, a huge apartment, one side entirely taken up by book-shelves filled with works of fiction. The walls were covered with rough stone-blue paper, forming an admirable background to small plaster casts of a.s.syrian _bas-reliefs_ and large photogravures of Renaissance portraits.

Underneath an enormous baize-covered table in the centre of the room were green cloth bags filled apparently with books, padlocked tin chests, and green pasteboard deed-boxes. The lawyer was sitting up in bed, wearing his dressing-gown and occasionally drinking hot water from a gla.s.s. He was a thin, small man, middle-aged, with a very round head and a small pointed beard.

”How do you do, Mr. Vandover?” he said, very pleasantly as Vandover pa.s.sed by the servant holding open the door and came in.

”How do you do, Mr. Field?” answered Vandover, shaking his hand. ”Well, I'm sorry to see you like this.”

”Yes,” answered the lawyer, ”I'm--I have trouble with my digestion sometimes, more annoying than dangerous, I suppose. Take a chair, won't you? You can find a place for your hat and coat right on the table there. Well,” he added, settling back on the pillows and looking at Vandover pleasantly, ”I think you've grown thinner since the last time I saw you, haven't you?”

”Yes,” answered Vandover grimly, ”I guess I have.”

”Yes, yes, I suppose so, of course,” responded the lawyer with a vague air of apology and sympathy. ”You have had a trying time of it lately, taking it by and large. I was _very_ painfully shocked to hear of your father's death. I had met him at lunch hardly a week before; he was a far heartier man than I was. Eat? You should have seen--splendid appet.i.te. He spoke at length of you, I remember; told me you expected to go abroad soon to study painting; in fact, I believe he was to go to Paris with you. It was very sad and very sudden. But you know we've all been expecting--been fearing--that for some time.”

They both were silent for a moment, the lawyer looking absently at the foot-board of the bed, nodding his head slowly from time to time, repeating, ”Yes, sir--yes, sir.” Suddenly he exclaimed, ”Well--now, let's see.” He cleared his throat, coming back to himself again, and continued in a very businesslike and systematic tone:

”I have looked over your father's papers, Mr. Vandover, as you requested me to, and I have taken the liberty of sending for you to let you know exactly how you stand.”

”That's the idea, sir,” said Vandover, very attentive, drawing up his chair.