Auld Jeremiah/Chapter 3

Mr. Archibald Wishart Loveday received his uncle's invitation to luncheon with surprise and a considerable amount of pleasure. It was a long time since old Jeremiah had so honored him, and it seemed to Archie to augur well for the future. He knew that his uncle most thoroughly disapproved of him, but what he never so much as faintly suspected was that the crabbed old multimillionaire secretly liked him and enjoyed his company.

More than this, Archie was convinced that his picture deal had quite blasted any lingering possibility of his figuring by any chance in his uncle's will. What disposition the old man might make of his enormous fortune Archie had not the faintest idea, but rather expected that, outside of a few small legacies, the bulk of it would go to distant relatives in Scotland whom the old man had never seen, and therefore had no particular reason to despise.

There might also, for all Archie knew, be friends in the old country whom Jeremiah had esteemed in his youth before his nature had become warped and soured by the struggle for financial supremacy. The young man had heard it said by the millionaire's more intimate associates that as he aged his heart and mind were turning more and more to the land of his birth, and that the feebleness following a stroke of paralysis was all that had prevented his return to bonny Scotland, there to finish his declining years.

Had Archie been less sorely pressed for money, he would never have ventured to victimize the old man in the matter of his works of art, for while there is life there is hope, and of course it lay within the bounds of human possibility that Jeremiah might relent at the eleventh hour and throw a contemptuous bone to the only child of his only sister; and Archie, who was no fool where his own interests were not at stake, was of the belief that if there was any one thing that would rouse his uncle's bitter resentment it would be the fact of getting beaten in a commercial deal. But Archie had been in desperate straits for cash; his credit was utterly ruined, and his pride prevented any further appeal to friends or family.

By a queer streak of perversity which was not unmixed with a certain ironic humor, Archie, in showing his pictures to the old man, had picked out of the whole collection the very worst, both in execution and morale. As a matter of fact, the young man was really an artist of fair ability, his best and favorite work confining itself to landscapes and nature studies, which did not, however, include the nude. But his work, like that of so many other painters, just lacked the touch that might lift it above mediocrity and render it marketable; and, being a poor salesman of his own wares, Archie had never sold a picture. He said that his Scotch conscience would not permit.

The unfortunate part of the present business was that Archie had in his collection some really meritable things, among them being two or three large canvases painted about Dornoch, whither he had once wandered out of curiosity to see the old home of his mother's family. The place itself had charmed him, and lent itself readily to his genre of work, but the people he quickly came to detest.

Had he got to know them better, they might have come to inspire him with liking and admiration, for Archie's nature was one that speedily developed friendships. Unfortunately one or two encounters with individuals of that peculiar surliness which provincial Scotland is so able to produce occurred in the early part of Archie's visit, for if his nature was warm, so was his temper; and Archie left the place thoroughly abominating its local inhabitants.

The men he considered as sodden masses of envy, hatred, and all uncharitableness; the women, when elderly, bitter, shrewish, and avaricious; and when young, blowsy, coarse, and lacking in grace. This latter viewpoint was further enhanced by an inspection of the mob of feminine jute operatives who work in the big factories of Dundee.

Now, if Archie had considered his own interests sufficiently to have shown his homesick old uncle the really honest and attractive work that he had done in and about Dornoch, it is possible that the old man, who knew really nothing of painting, would have found much therein to touch and gratify him, for Archie's work, though faulty in technique, was of a pleasing and decided quality. His marines, for instance, were such as one might see hanging over the desk of the superintendent of a towing company, illustrative, and true to detail. He affected to despise realism, but was, as a matter of fact, an unconscious realist. And old Jeremiah would have found in the pictures just the details that would have appealed to him, and would no doubt have considered the works as of much more pronounced merit than most European masterpieces.

However, the trick was done; and Archie, having thus deliberately spited his own interests, was, as has been said, considerably surprised at his luncheon invitation. Jeremiah had made no mention of a third person, and Archie therefore concluded that the old man must be bored or lonely, and wanted somebody to amuse or quarrel with him.

“Well, uncle,” said Archie, as he entered, “you are looking more cheerful to-day.”

This was so manifestly untrue as to verge on impudence, for Jeremiah's face wore such an expression as had made more than one big financier quail in his boots. He glanced up as his nephew spoke, and at the same moment the young man discovered that the table was set for three.

“Hello!” said he. “Who is the third place for?”

“'Tis set for another fool,” snapped the old man. “A young lady from Dornoch who had need of help—like all the folk that come here.”

Archie's face fell. Jeremiah noticed it, and his look of rancor was intensified.

“Ye need have no fear,” said he, in his harsh, sneering voice. “She has telephoned that she cannot come. The silly fool she is stoppin' with is ailin', or some such twassle. Sit ye down; y'are late, as usual.”

Archie, whose appetite nothing could daunt, obeyed with cheerful alacrity, when, at a sign from his uncle, the luncheon was served. As the last of many little clams was slipping down his throat, old Jeremiah, who had been regarding him enviously, observed:

“Ye have the digestion of an ostrich—now, have ye not? 'Tis a good thing for ye. No doubt your food will not be of the best hereafter.”

“No doubt, uncle. But probably my appetite will be even better, if such a thing is possible.”

“And have ye paid your debts?”

“Some of 'em. About a thousand dollars' worth. It was such a shock to the dealers that I rather hesitate about paying the rest. Don't want to be the cause of heart disease.”

“And have ye found a job?”

“I'm thinking of going on the stage.”

“H'm! Low comedy, belike.”

“No; the ten-cent-admittance kind that runs up and down Fifth Avenue. That's the only way left for me to collect anything from my friends.”

“Augh! Must ye always be actin' the idiot?”

“'Fraid so, uncle. Idiots are born, not made. You see, I was born under the Foolish Star, just as you were born under Saturn.” And a high tide of excellent Amontillado flooded the many little clams.

The conversation proceeded somewhat in this way while Archie was being fed, for Jeremiah was on a strict diet that might have proved interesting to cows and chickens. But as the young man's excellent meal reached its conclusion, the old man's sneering irony became less bitter, precisely as if it were he, and not Archie, who had made a satisfying and delicious repast. In fact, while the coffee was being served, his tone became so agreeable that Archie grew suspicious. He was beginning to wonder if his uncle was going to ask him to cancel the picture deal with what money still remained to him, when old Jeremiah asked suavely:

“Ye have made a good meal, lad?”

“Never better, uncle. It's a pity that your chef's talents should waste their fragrance on the desert air. I'll come again, if you like.”

“Archie, man,” said Jeremiah impressively, “ye may have many such if ye will listen to your dyin' old uncle. I am minded to leave you—twenty—million—dollars.”

Archie stared, and the fifty-cent cigar—for Jeremiah was no miser in his own household—dropped from his nerveless fingers.

“Uncle Jerry,” he cried, stooping to recover it, “don't jolt a man like that. Start with twenty thousand, and work up.”

“Twenty million, I said, Archie—and twenty millions it shall be. But a condition goes with it.”

“I'll stop, uncle.”

“Stop what?”

“Anything. All of 'em.”

“Ye need stop nothin', lad. What I want is for you to begin. I have found a wife for ye.”

Archie stared wildly at his uncle. Jeremiah's eyes would have made a three-carat diamond look like a piece of putty.

“A wife!” cried Archie, and glanced instinctively toward the door. “Good Lord, uncle, I don't want a wife!”

“Ye may not want one, but ye need one.”

“No, I don't, uncle. Honestly. Anybody that knows me will tell you the same. Look here, uncle, what do you know about it, anyhow? You never had one.”

“No. If I had, I would not be botherin' my head about yours, Look ye now—do you need twenty million dollars?”

“Not with a wife stirred up in it,” said Archie decidedly. “Who is she?”

“She is a Dornoch lass, the granddaughter of an old friend.”

Archie shuddered, and spilled some cognac into his glass.

“What does she look like?” he asked, fascinated by the very horror of the idea

“She is none so bad. No doubt she has the normal number of teeth and eyes and arms and the like. You must e'en judge for yoursel'. I will not say, though, that she is very punctilious about the keepin' of engagements, as she was to have been here to-day. When I got her message on the telephone, I was minded to call the whole thing off.”

“I would, uncle,” said Archie earnestly. “A person who fails to keep an engagment [sic] is not a person to be depended upon. With all my faults, I never fail to keep an engagement”

“Especially when there is good eatin' and drinkin' at the other end.”

“In any case. Life for me would be a dreary desert with a person who was careless about keeping engagements. The only time I ever failed in this way myself was once when I didn't show up. I'd call it off, uncle; really I would. And if you like we'll compromise for ten millions—without the wife.”

“'Tis no matter for jokin', Archie,” said the old man; and nobody looking at his face could doubt that he meant it. “I am in earnest about this. At least, ye will have a look at the lassie?”

Archie groaned in spirit. A Dornoch lass! His mind, with its characteristic perversity, flitted to the least attractive type, to him, of all the Scotch girls that he had seen. He pictured a strapping, red-faced wench, with aggressive gums, uncouth speech, chapped of skin, with thick wrists and ankles, and a swagger of obtrusive hips as she walked.

He looked at his uncle. Jeremiah's face suggested a steel trap with a highly active intelligence. Archie was seized with panic.

“Does she know about this, uncle?” he asked helplessly.

“She does.”

“And what does she say?

“What would any girl with a grain of sense be apt to say? And it is sense ye need in a wife, Archie, havin' none of your own to transmit to your bairns. I'll consider it if the gentleman pleases me,” says she, or words to that effect.”

“If the gentleman pleases me!” repeated Archie, fascinated with horror. He could seem to see her as she said it, stolid, yet with a flattered peasant vanity. “Did she say 'gentleman,' uncle?”

“She did—knowin' nothin' of you and your habits. I tell ye, man, the girl has sense. It is in her family. There was nothin' of the fool in her old grandfather, who was an iron worker of Dornoch, and later of Inverness.”

“And did you import her to mate with me?” asked Archie, a flush beginning to creep up into his lean, handsome face.

“I did not. I would not serve any girl so ill, least of all an honest Dornoch lass. One would think ye were a crown prince to hear you talk. She came to seek her fortune, teachin' or the like, and I saw at once she would be the ideal wife for you. I wish to do somethin' for the girl, and I do not like to break the bulk of the fortune I have made, but I will not leave it to a man I know would squander it before ever I was cold. As you know, I have no love for your Cousin David, and so I have chosen you to be my heir on the condition I have stated. Such a girl as this would make a man of ye, Archie. You will see her, will ye not?”

Archie shook his head despondently.

“What's the use, uncle? It would only be to hurt her feelings. You can't expect to mate a man as if he were a blooded horse.”

“And is that your last word?” asked Jeremiah, in a voice of ominous calm.

“'Fraid it is, uncle. If she didn't know about the arrangement, I wouldn't mind seeing her, but I'm hanged if I will under the circumstances.”

“And the twenty million dollars?”

Archie's hot blood began to mount. “Hang it all, uncle,” said he, and there was a ring of impatience in his voice, “I'm not a man to be sold into slavery! I could have married for money plenty of times if I'd wanted to—and could yet. More than that, I could marry a girl of my own class, of whom I might be proud. What's the use of marrying the daughter of some Highland blacksmith”

Jeremiah turned upon him a livid face. “Stop where y'are, sir!” said he harshly. “And who are you, then, to be holdin' yoursel' so high? The beggared son of a clothes dealer, and the grandson of auld Archibald Wishart, who passed his days knittin' stockings while watchin' his bit flock o' sheep on the moors! So y'are too good for the daughter of auld Donald Graeme, the honest ironmaster? Verra weel!” In his excitement, Jeremiah sometimes lapsed into the broad Scotch of his youth. “Verra weel, sir. Go, then—to the de'il, for aught I care—and let me see your smirkin' face nae mair! Ye'll think different when ye find yersel' in rags, and naught but a crust to put in your name. Go, sir!

And Archie went.