Adelle was not really unresponsive to the judge"s kindness. She liked the polite old gentleman,--old to fourteen because of the grizzled mustache,--and was for her deeply impressed by her visits to the probate judge"s chambers. It was the first real event in her pale life, that and her uncle"s funeral, which seemed closely related. They made the date from which she could reckon herself a person. What impressed her more than the austere dignity of the judge"s private rooms, with their prints of famous personages, lined bookcases, and rich furniture, was Judge Orcutt himself. He was the first gentleman she had ever met in any real sense of the word. And Judge Orcutt was very much of a gentleman in almost every sense of the word. He came from an old Puritan family, as American families are reckoned, which had had its worthies for a young man to respect, and its traditions, not of wealth but of culture and breeding, kindly humanity, and an interest in life and letters.
Something of this aristocratic inheritance could be felt in his manners by the two women who were not of his social cla.s.s and who were treated with an even greater consideration than if they had been. Adelle liked also his sober gray suit with the very white linen and black tie, which he wore like a man who cares more for the cleanliness and propriety of his person than for fashion. All this and the modulated tones of his cultivated voice had made a lively impression upon the dumb little girl.
She would have done anything in the world to please the judge, even defying her aunt if that had been necessary. And she had always stood in a healthy awe of her vigorous, outspoken aunt.
The first occasion when Adelle had an opinion all her own and announced it publicly and unasked was due to the judge. Of course the question of guardianship was much discussed in their very limited circle. Joseph Lovejoy, the manager of Pike"s Livery at the corner of Church Street,--the Pike whose son Addie Clark had disdained,--was the oldest and most important of the "roomers." Mr. Lovejoy was of the opinion that trust companies were risky inventions that might some day disappear in smoke. He advised the perplexed widow to "hire a smart lawyer" to look out for her business interests. What did an old probate judge know about real estate? This was the occasion on which Adelle made her one contribution: she thought that "Judge Orcutt must be wiser than any lawyer because he was a judge." A silly answer as the liveryman said, yet surprising to her aunt. And she added--"He"s a gentleman, too,"
though how the little girl discovered it is inexplicable.
The news of the prospective importance of Clark"s Field had quickly spread through Church Street and the Square, where the widow"s credit much improved. Something really seemed about to happen of consequence to the old Field and the modest remnants of the Clark family. Emissaries from the routed speculators came to see the widow. It dribbled down from the magnates of the local bank, the River National, by way of the cashier to the chief clerk, that the widow Clark might easily get herself into trouble and lose her property if she took everybody"s advice. It should be said that the River National Bank disliked these rich upstart trust companies; also that the capitalists who had laid envious eyes on the Field were a.s.sociated with the local bank, which expected to derive profit from this deal,-the largest that Alton had ever known even during the boom years at the turn of the century.
What wonder, then, that the widow Clark, who was a sensible enough woman in the matter of roomers and household management and knew a b.u.m from a modest paying laboring man as well as any one in the profession, was perplexed in the present situation as to the course of true wisdom?
Incredible as it may seem, it was Adelle who during this time of doubt gave her aunt strength to resist much bad advice. Her influence was, as might be expected, merely negative. For after that single deliverance of opinion she made no comment on all the discussion and advice. She seemed to consider the question settled already: it was this tacit method of treating the guardianship as an accomplished fact that really influenced her troubled aunt. When a certain point of household routine came up between them, Adelle observed that, as they should not be at home on Thursday morning, the thing would have to go over till the following day. Thursday was the day of their appointment with the probate judge.
Mrs. Clark, of course, had not forgotten this important fact, but not having yet made up her distracted mind she had purposely ignored the appointment to see what her niece would say. Thus Adelle quietly settled the point: they were to keep the appointment with the judge. Another faint occasion of displaying will came to her, so faint that it would seem hardly worth mentioning except that a faithful historian must present every possible manifestation of character on the part of this colorless heroine.
It occurred when they saw the judge on Thursday. The probate judge, who was busy with another case on their arrival, did not invite them into his private room as on former occasions, but merely shoved across his bench a card on which he had written a name and an address.
"It"s all arranged," he said to Mrs. Clark. "Just go over to the Washington Trust Company and ask for Mr. Gardiner. He will take care of you," and he smiled pleasantly in dismissal.
The widow was much put out by this summary way of dealing, for she had intended to pour out to the judge her doubts, though she probably knew that in the end she should follow his advice. She hesitated in the corridor of the court-house, saying something about not being in any hurry to go to the Washington Trust Company. She had not fully made up her mind, etc. But Adelle, as if she had not heard her aunt"s objections, set off down the street in the direction of the trust company"s handsome building. Her aunt followed her. The matter was thus settled.
Adelle had also felt disappointed at their brief interview; not bitterly disappointed because she never felt bitterly about anything, but consciously sorry to have missed the expected conference in the judge"s private chamber. She might never see him again! As a matter of fact, although the probate court necessarily had much to do with her fate in the settlement of the involved estate, it was not for seven years that she had another chance of seeing the judge in chambers, and that, as we shall discover, was on a very different occasion. Whether during all these years Adelle ever thought much about the judge, n.o.body knows, but Judge Orcutt often had occasion to recollect the pale, badly dressed little girl who had no manners, when he signed orders and approved papers _in re Adelle Clark, minor_.
VII
The Washington Trust Company had grown in power to the envy of its conservative rivals ever since its organization, and was now one of the richest reservoirs of capital in the city. Recently it had moved into its new home in the banking quarter of the city,--the most expensive, commodious, and richly ornamented bank premises in B----. The Washington Trust Company was managed by "the younger crowd," and one way in which the new blood manifested itself was by the erection of this handsome granite building with its ornate bronze and marble appointments. The officers felt that theirs was a new kind of business, largely involving women, invalids, and dependents of rich habits, and for these a display of magnificence was "good business."
When Adelle and her aunt paused inside the ma.s.sive bronze doors of the Trust Building and looked about them in bewilderment across the immense surface of polished marble floor, it probably did not occur to either of them that a new page in the book of destiny had been turned for them.
Yet even in Adelle"s small, silent brain there must have penetrated a consciousness of the place,--the home as it were of her new guardian,--and such a magnificent home that it inspired at once both timidity and pride. The two women wandered about the banking floor for some minutes, peering through the various grilles at the busy clerks, observing the careless profusion of notes, gold, and doc.u.ments of value that seemed piled on every desk, as if to indicate ostentatiously the immensity of the property interests confided to the company"s care. At last, after they had been rebuffed by several busy clerks, a uniformed attendant found them and inquired their business. The widow handed to him the card she had received from the probate judge, and the usher at once led them to an elegant little private elevator that shot them upwards through the floors of the bank to the upper story. Here, in a small, heavily rugged room behind a broad mahogany table, they met Mr.
John Gardiner, then the "trust officer" of the Washington Trust Company.
He was a heavy, serious-minded, bald man of middle age, and Adelle at once made up her mind that she liked him far less than the judge. The trust officer did not rise on their entrance as the judge always had risen; merely nodded to them, motioned to some chairs against the wall, and continued writing on a memorandum pad. Both the widow and Adelle felt that they were not of much importance to the Washington Trust Company, which was precisely what the trust company liked to have its clients feel.
"Well," Mr. Gardiner said at last, clearing his voice, "so you are Mrs.
John Clark and Miss Adelle Clark?"
Of course he knew the fact, but some sort of introduction must be made.
Mrs. Clark, who was sitting hostilely on the edge of her chair, hugging to herself a little black bag, nodded her head guardedly in response.
"I presume you have come to see me about the guardianship matter," the trust officer continued. Then he fussed for some moments among the papers on his desk as if he were hunting for something, which he at last found. He seized the paper with relief, and took another furtive look at his visitors from under his gold gla.s.ses as if to make sure that no mistake had been made and began again:--
"At the request of Judge Orcutt,"--he p.r.o.nounced the probate judge"s name with unction and emphasis,--"we have looked into the matter of the Clark estate, and we have found, what I suppose you are already aware of, that your husband"s estate is extremely involved and with it this little girl"s interest in the property," For the first time he turned his big bald head in Adelle"s direction, and finding there apparently nothing to hold his attention, ignored her completely thereafter, and confined himself exclusively to the widow.
He paused and cleared his throat as if he expected some defense of the Clark estate from the widow. But she said nothing. To tell the truth, she didn"t like the trust officer"s manner. As she said afterwards to Mr. Lovejoy, he seemed to be "throwing it into her," trying to impress her with her own unimportance and the goodness of the Washington Trust Company in concerning itself with her soiled linen. "As if he were doing me a big favor," she grumbled. That was in fact exactly the idea that Mr. Gardiner had of the whole affair. If it had been left to him, as he had told the president of the trust company, he would not have the Washington Trust Company mix itself up in such a dubious "proposition"
as the Clark estate was likely to prove. He was of the "old school" of banking,--a relic of earlier days,--and did not approve of the company"s accepting any but the most solid trusts that involved merely the trouble of cutting four per cent coupons in their management. But his superior officers had listened favorably to the request of the probate judge, wishing always to "keep in close touch" with the judge of the court where they had so much business, and also having a somewhat farther vision than the trust officer, as will be seen. A recommendation by the probate judge was to the Washington Trust Company in the nature of a royal invitation, not to be considered on purely selfish grounds; and besides, they already scented rich pickings in the litigious situation of Clark"s Fields. They would be stupid if they had to content themselves with their usual one per cent commission on income. The a.s.sistant to the president of the trust company, a lively young banker of the "new school," Mr. Ashly Crane, who had been asked to examine into the situation of the Clark estate, had recognized its manifold possibilities and had recommended favorable action. In the event it proved that the "new school" was right: the Washington Trust Company lost nothing by its disinterested act. (It never did lose anything by its acts of charity, and that is why it has prospered so abundantly.)
"I do not know what the trust company will be able to do with the property," the cautious Mr. Gardiner continued. "We have not yet completed our examination: our attorneys are at present considering certain legal points. But one thing is pretty certain," he hastened to add with emphasis. "You must look for no income from the estate for the present,--probably not for a term of years."
This made little impression upon the women. It meant nothing at all to Adelle, and the widow had become so accustomed to disappointments about the Clark property that she did not move a muscle at the announcement, though she inwardly might regret the twenty-five thousand dollars which had been promised her husband by the other crowd. That would mean a good deal more to her business than two or three times the amount after a "term of years." She was getting on, and the rooming business needed capital badly. However, she had determined to do nothing detrimental to the interests of her husband"s niece, as the probate judge had told her she might if she listened to the seduction of immediate cash. And fortunately the bank officer did not ask for money to pay taxes and interest on the mortgages, which had been the bugbear of her married life. This was the next point touched upon by the trust officer.
"I presume that you are not in a financial position to advance anything towards the expenses of the estate, which for the present may be heavy?"
He gave the widow another furtive look under his gla.s.ses, as if to detect what money she had on her person.
Mrs. Clark shook her head vigorously: that she would not do--go on pouring money into the bottomless pit of Clark"s Field! Of course the trust company had considered this point and made up its mind already to advance the estate the necessary funds up to a safe amount, which would become another lien on the little girl"s income from her mother"s inheritance, should there be any.
This matter disposed of, the trust officer asked searching questions about the Clark genealogy, which the widow answered quite fully, for it was a subject on which her sister-in-law Addie had educated her so completely that she knew everything there was to know except the exact whereabouts of Edward S. or his heirs. Mr. Gardiner was specially interested in Edward S., who had disappeared fifty years ago, and asked Mrs. Clark to send him immediately all family letters bearing on Edward.
It was apparent that the trust company meant to go after Edward and his heirs and either discover them if it were humanly possible or establish the fact that they could safely be ignored. And they were in a much better position, with their numerous connections and correspondents, to prosecute such a search successfully than any one else who had tried it.
Mr. Gardiner, however, expressed himself doubtfully of their success.
"We shall do our best," he said, "and let you know from time to time of the progress we are making."
And after exacting a few more signatures from the widow, who by this time had become adept in signing "Ellen Trigg Clark," the trust officer nodded to his visitors in dismissal.
It would be difficult to say what Adelle was thinking about during this interview. She sat perfectly still as she always did: one of her minor virtues as a child was that she could sit for hours without wriggling or saying a word. She did not even stare about her at the lofty room with its colored gla.s.s windows and shiny mahogany furniture as any other young person might. She gazed just above the bald crown of the trust officer"s head and seemed more nearly absorbed in Nirvana than a young American ever becomes. But there is little doubt that the long interview in the still, high room of the bank building did make an impression upon the trust company"s ward.
She trailed after her aunt down the marble stairs, for the trust officer did not trouble himself about their exit from his office as he did with solid clients who had going estates, and the widow was too timid to summon the bronze car from its hole in the wall. They pa.s.sed through the great banking room on the main floor, where, because of the largeness and the decorum of this sanctuary of property, a crowd of patrons seemed to make no disturbance. Adelle sat in reverie all the way out to Alton in the street-car and did not wake up until they turned from the Square into the dingy side street. Then she said, apropos of nothing,--
"It"s a pretty place."
"What place?" snapped the widow, who realized that a whole working day had been lost "for nothing," and the roomers" beds were still to make.
"That trust place," Adelle explained.
"Um," her aunt responded enigmatically, as one who would say that "pretty is as pretty does."
It had not appeared to her as a place of beauty. But to Adelle, who had seen nothing more ornate than the Everitt Grade School of Alton, the Second Congregational Church, and the new City Hall, the interior of the Washington Trust Company, with its bronze and marble and windows that shed soft violet lights on the white floors, awakened an unknown appet.i.te for richness and splendor, color and size. That was what she had been thinking about without realizing it while the trust officer talked to her aunt. She called this barbaric profusion of rich materials "pretty," and felt, very faintly, a personal happiness in being connected with it in some slight manner.
VIII
If the excursions to the probate court and the trust company had roused expectations of change in their condition, they were to be disappointed.
From that afternoon when they turned into Church Street on their return from the Washington Trust Company, the monotony and drudgery of their former life settled down on them with an even greater insistence. The dusty ROOMS FOR RENT sign was tucked into the front window with its usual regularity, for do what she could, Mrs. Clark could not attain that pinnacle of the landlady"s aspirations, a houseful of permanent roomers. The young men were inconstant, the middle-aged liable to matrimony, the old to death, and all to penury or change of occupation and residence. So the old fight went on as before during all the twenty-three years of the widow Clark"s married life,--a fight to exist in a dusty, worn, and shabby fashion, with a file of roomers tramping out the stair carpet, spotting the furniture, and using up the linen. To be sure, two great drains upon income no longer troubled her,--Clark"s Field and the Veteran. With these enc.u.mbrances removed she could make ends meet.
After a few weeks she forgot her doubts about the wisdom of following Judge Orcutt"s advice and placing her interest in the estate together with her niece"s in care of the trust company. The manager of the livery-stable, who was the nearest thing to permanency the house knew, shook his head over her folly in trusting a trust company, but the speculators and their lawyers let her severely alone, knowing that they had been outwitted and flitting to other schemes. The Square seemed to accept the fresh eclipse of the Clark estate after its false appearance of coming to a crisis. And the character of the Square was fast changing with all else these busy years. It was no longer a neighborhood center of gossip. There were new faces--and many foreign ones--in the rows of shops. The neighborhood was deteriorating, or evolving, as you happened to look at it.
The Washington Trust Company seemed to have quite forgotten the existence of the Clark women except for the occasional appearance in the mail of an oblong letter addressed in type to Mrs. Ellen Trigg Clark, which bore in its upper left-hand corner a neat vignette of the trust building. Adelle studied these envelopes carefully, not to say tenderly, with something of the emotion that the trust company"s home had roused in her the only time she had been within its doors. The vignette, which represented a considerable Grecian temple, she thought "pretty," and the neat, substantial-looking envelope suggested a rich importance to the communication within that also pleased the girl. She knew that it had to do with her remotely. Yet there was never anything thrilling in these communications from the trust company. They were signed by Mr. Gardiner and curtly informed Mrs. Clark of certain meaningless facts or more often curtly inquired for information,--"Awaiting your kind reply,"
etc., or merely requested politely another example of the widow"s signature. They were models of brief, impersonal, business communications. If Adelle had ever had any experience of personal relationship she might have resented these perfunctory epistles from her legal guardian, but for all she knew that was the way all people treated one another. Evidently her legal guardian had no desire for any closer personal contact with its ward, and she waited, not so much patiently as pensively, for it to demonstrate a more lively interest in her existence....
Meanwhile there was debate in the Church Street house about a matter that more closely touched the young girl. She had graduated from the Everitt School the preceding June and would naturally be going on now into the high school with her better conditioned schoolmates. But she herself, though not averse to school, had suggested that she should stay at home and help her aunt in the house or find a place in one of the shops in the Square where she might earn a little money. Mrs. Clark, who has been described as a realist, might have favored this practical plan, had it not been that Adelle was a Clark--all that was left of them, in fact. The widow had lived so long under the shadow of the Clark expectations that she could not easily escape from their control now that she was alone. A Trigg, of course, under similar circ.u.mstances would have gone into a shop at once, but a Clark ought to have a better education in deference to her expectations. The heiress of Clark"s Field must never conclude her education with the grades.... So finally it was decided that Adelle should enter the high school for a year, at any rate, and to that end a new school dress of sober blue serge was provided, made by Adelle with her aunt"s a.s.sistance.
These days Adelle rose at an early hour to do the chamber work while her aunt got breakfast, then changed her dress, looked hurriedly over her lessons, gobbled her breakfast, and with her books and a tin lunch-box strapped together set forth to walk the mile and a half to the high school in order to save car-fare. There she performed her daily tasks in a perfunctory, dead manner, not uncommon. Once an exasperated teacher had demanded testily,--
"Miss Clark, don"t you ever think?"
The timid child had answered seriously,--